Orders of the Day

Hon. S. Robinson: I call response to the Speech from the Throne.

Throne Speech Debate

(continued)

D. Routley: It is indeed my pleasure to rise to second the motion that “We, His Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in session assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech which Your Honour has addressed to us at the opening of the present session.”

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

It is my pleasure indeed to speak in this House, and it always is. It’s an honour to second this motion. It’s the first time I’ve done this in the 18 years that I’ve been here, and I’m very thankful for that honour. I’m very thankful to Her Honour for delivering this speech and giving the acknowledgments that she did — and her particular acknowledgment to the Indigenous peoples that we represent.

In my case, I’d like to acknowledge that the constituency I represent encompasses the traditional territories of the Cowichan, the Penelakut, the Halalt, the Snuneymuxw, the Stz’uminus and the Lyackson First Nations. It is indeed an honour and always a privilege to operate in their territory, to live and build a life, as all my constituents do.

I’d also like to thank my sweetheart, Leanne, for her endearing support and her enduring support.

[1:35 p.m.]

We all know the challenges that we face in this job. They’re not always just in terms of time. It’s a stressful place to exist. We do hope for better things for our constituents, but I think our constituents hope for a better tone from their leadership. I think this House endeavours to deliver that, and I will do that myself today.

I’d also like to give special thanks to the member for Langford–Juan de Fuca for his service as the Premier of British Columbia. My friend — if I may, John Horgan — has been a long and deep influence in my life. His friendship has been so important to me. Watching him take on the role of Premier and become so enduringly attached to the people of the province, to my constituents, was something remarkable to witness.

I look forward to the same sort of experience with the new Premier, and I thank him for his appointment of myself in the Parliamentary Secretary for Forests role to continue that important work. With thanks, I acknowledge that.

The throne speech is about hope. It’s about vision. It’s about what the plan might be. It’s about new realities, and there are so many new realities that we face since the pandemic. The challenges in the world that we live in are also so great and so enormous.

I think of my constituents and the services they give to each other — the dedication of constituents that we represent — to our communities. I think of some of those who have been recognized this past year from my constituency — or indeed, some who have passed.

One of those people who has been recognized is Nanaimo singer Lauren Spencer-Smith, who was recently nominated twice for Juno Awards.

Douglas White III, who is the former chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation and is now an adviser in the Premier’s office, for his excellent work with the First Nations Justice Council.

I’d like to recognize Carlow Rush from Cowichan and Jacksun Fryer from Nanaimo. They together make up Funkanometry, a dance duo who were semi-finalists in America’s Got Talent. If anybody wants to see some amazing movement, you just have to google Funkanometry.

I’d like to thank my friend Joel Alan Canfield and his partner, Melissa Griswold, who every day traverse the streets of Nanaimo, encouraging not only good ambassa­dorship but good citizenship as they pick up and clean up the city, an effort that is completely generated and directed by themselves.

I’d like to honour Mayor Al Siebring, who retired this year and did not run in the past election. He and I have very different views politically, but I have an enormous sense of respect for Al. He was always dedicated to his constituents. He represented his council without fail, in the tone and way that he needed to as a leader. He was a wonderful person to work with. I love Al, and I’ll miss him dearly, as he has moved back to Alberta to be closer to family.

I’d like to recognize Larry Mattin, the director of instruction for Cowichan school district. He was a finalist in the Premier’s Award for Excellence in Education. Larry is someone who was an excellent teacher and a leader, particularly working with kids who were struggling, when I became a school trustee. You can imagine how long ago that was, since this is my 18th year in this House.

Then sadly, I’d like to recognize my dear friend Maureen Young, who was a regional director in Nanaimo, who passed away this year. Maureen had a grace and a beauty that was unparalleled in the world, let alone in politics. She was so modest and so honest and generous to her community, from a multigenerational family from South Wellington, a coal-mining family. She was a real leader by example and an absolutely wonderful person — a great loss to the community.

[1:40 p.m.]

I’d like to recognize Craig Evans, an activist in food security who is struggling with health now at this time, and to let him know that my love goes out to him, The community appreciates so deeply the contributions that he has made for many years.

I’d like to recognize Sandra Zuccolini-Larocque and Mike Larocque who, together with several other people, pioneered and championed the restoration of the Morden Colliery Historic Park, which is an important recognition of the history of Vancouver Island, both its difficult colonial history and its important place in the labour history of the province, and its contextual foundation stone of what it is to be a mid-islander.

I’d like to thank the other mayors that I have the pleasure of working with: Mayor Aaron Stone of Ladysmith, Mayor Rob Douglas of North Cowichan, Mayor Leonard Krog of Nanaimo. They all know how I feel about them. I have great respect for each one of them.

We have different roles. As MLAs, we represent our community. We seek to bring benefit. We seek to represent challenges in this House. Then, in our caucuses, we have different roles. In government, in opposition, we have different roles.

Particularly mine, in the government, is as Parliamentary Secretary for Forests. The Premier has appointed me to that role and asked me to chair the Forestry Worker Supports and Community Resiliency Council, which is taking, essentially, $85 million worth of programming and shaping it — helping, we hope — in ways that will make it more relevant, efficient and have a greater positive effect in our communities throughout the province.

As we know, the challenges in different communities, even when it comes to the same issue, are quite different. Whether the community is close to retraining opportunities and colleges or universities, or whether they’re remote and depend on each other more than institutions, we have to make sure that our impact in all of those communities is seeking an equitable outcome for the constituents we all represent.

I think, really, we were asked, in question period, some questions. One of them contained a statement. The statement was that doing things over and over and expecting change is illogical. It was the Leader of the Opposition who supposed that, and I agree with him. I agree with him. That is why this government is not doing things the way they were done before. That is why, when it comes to housing, we are not letting development run amok without any check, without any effort to have outcomes for those who are more vulnerable match, in any remote way, the outcomes for those who have wealth. Those are the important things that we know our constituents need us to pay attention to.

The Leader of the Opposition also suggested that government just get out of the way. I think there are moments when government certainly can find a way to allow things to happen as they might. But I believe that most of our constituents expect government to be a partner, to collaborate with community, to collaborate with them in reaching the best outcomes possible. It would be naive and, in fact, reckless for us to consider that this place has no effective role in our economy, our society and our communities.

Just look at the purchasing power of government. Just look at the annual activity of every function of government and how that has such a deep impact — how it is, in fact, something that this province must and should lever to the advantage of the people that we represent. It’s only through collaboration and it’s only through a government being involved in people’s lives in a way that suits their needs that those things can happen. I think the last thing that people would want government to adopt as a general philosophy would be simply vacating the stage — exit stage right.

We’ve had that. We’ve had that. Not doing things the same, doing them differently, means no more tax cuts paid by service cuts. No more tax cuts for the wealthy paid by service cuts to the rest of us. That’s what it means to be active. That’s what it means to do things differently.

[1:45 p.m.]

It means that we give credit where credit is due. It means that we recognize that the incredible performance of the British Columbia economy, the recovery in our schools, the recovery in institutions is not because of government. It is because of the people of B.C., empowered by a government that, in fact, is their backstop and, in fact, is supporting what communities want, desire and demand. That, I think, is doing things differently than what we’ve become used to in this province.

Doing things differently is an authentic commitment to reconciliation, and I’m not making a partisan stab at a difference there. I acknowledge previous Premier Campbell’s efforts at reconciliation. I think that was the best aspect of that previous government. We are continuing that and trying to build on that in ways that have been described here, supporting housing in First Nations communities, the delegation of child and family protection to service agencies in Indigenous communities — so many efforts — and Indigenous leadership in forestry policy planning and development, and implementation.

There are so many examples of how reconciliation continues to be the north star of our government, but also, I think, the purpose of this province, the central purpose, is to correct what has happened and build on the partnership that stands before us.

I look to the Cowichan First Nation. When I was elected — and that’s a long time ago, so the ages might have changed a bit — 70 percent of Cowichan First Nations were under 25 years old. There’s this enormous capacity that’s in these communities that is just waiting for a partnership that is truly ready to empower this development, and that’s exciting. It means that this province is on the cusp of a new time, not a past time, not rooted in the past but centered on what is the indelible and unavoidable future of this province.

The future of this province lies through reconciliation. The future access to the land lies through reconciliation. The future access to work and economy in this province lies through reconciliation. Most importantly, our future commitment to justice, equity and peace lies through reconciliation, and I commend all British Columbians who have collectively embraced that value and principle as the guiding energy of our province right now. With that as our engine, we cannot avoid but be successful as a province.

I’m encouraged as I look around the constituency I represent. I see efforts to build a new reality. When I grew up in the Cowichan Valley, practically every day we could smell the pulp mill in Crofton some 20 kilometres away. I know the industry has so much more it needs to do to become, in any true way, sustainable, but so much has been done since those days.

Now I don’t think I’ve smelled the pulp mill in at least 15 years. When I was elected, the now Catalyst pulp mill was bragging that they were somewhere around 70 percent less water-use-intensive than they had been in the past. Now that’s above 90 percent. The scrubbing of the emissions has come to the point where they’re taking machines built in 1957 and bringing them to today’s standards in terms of their footprint.

Yes, there’s so much more to do, and there is a legacy that we have to deal with. There are polluted beaches with shellfish that can’t be harvested by neighbouring First Nations. There are scars on the landscape from land use decisions that were poorly thought-out or really not considered in any way, certainly not in terms of their cumulative impact.

[1:50 p.m.]

We have to point and give credit where credit is due — credit to ourselves as a province for the commitments we’ve made to change the way we do business, the way we govern ourselves, the way we work together. This province is leading this country in so many ways, and those are the ways that match up with the principles of the people that, I believe, I represent. I feel very, very confident about that and very reassured.

I’m also looking to the throne speech. One of the first sentences noted “your government’s plans to tackle big challenges and build a stronger, more secure future for everyone who calls this beautiful province home.”

We live in divisive times. We live in times where, surely…. Some of our neighbours are pointing to other neighbours and saying, “Well, it’s their fault,” pointing to people who were their neighbours but now struggle and live on the street and calling it their fault.

These are not the paths to solution. This province, in order to dig ourselves out of those challenges, will need to exercise the greatest depth of empathy we can all muster to support each other through these crises that challenge our hospitals, our legal systems, our housing. All of these things can only be solved if we work in collaboration with one another, as the Premier so often points out.

I turn now to point out some of the things that have been done in my own constituency over the past year or several years.

Right now that same Crofton mill is undergoing some intensive renovations so that they will, after they’re complete, use less fibre, use less natural gas to heat their boilers, thereby reducing their emissions and reducing their demand on the fibre base of our forests. They will turn to cardboard recycling as a source of fibre, combined with their own pulp and some wood fibre from the industry by-products, to create food packaging and other forms of recyclable packaging.

This is an answer to demand. This is done in collaboration. This is done in response to demands by our very constituents, who say: “We don’t want to use single-use plastic. We want a solution.” This is a way for us to rebuild the social contract for the industry in this province but also answer some of the demands that the world is placing on us and that we must rise to.

I can point to investments in my constituency in housing. We have, Nanaimo to the Cowichan Valley, 1,500 units of affordable housing and at least 260 more that are in the planning stages. In Nanaimo, there have been 1,317 units of new affordable housing for seniors, families and people experiencing homelessness. This has been an enormous addition to our communities, and it has had a big impact. In the Cowichan Valley, there have been 233 units of affordable and supportive housing built.

In Nanaimo, over $50 million has been invested in improving health care services. That includes major electrical upgrades to Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, new MRI equipment, a new intensive care unit for Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, a new urgent care clinic for Nanaimo, a new nurse practitioner clinic, a new and upgraded heart health clinic and a new wellness and recovery centre. This is all in Nanaimo. In Cowichan, we’ve invested over $10 million into improving health care services.

When it comes to homelessness and street disorder, the challenges that our communities face…. This is a very hot topic, obviously.

When I first became an MLA, I was the Housing critic. I remember thinking about the homelessness problem. We had a growing issue in the Cowichan Valley.

[1:55 p.m.]

The essential answer was to encourage our community to be empathetic and to see how many of us, indeed, are just a few paycheques away from homelessness ourselves, or a head injury away or the loss of a relationship or any number of reasons people end up on the street. It was by encouraging constituents to see that these are our neighbours, these are our brothers, these are our sisters, these are the people we love that we were able to address the problem, I think, before it became entrenched. Thankfully, at that time, there was a little less blaming of the people who were on the sidewalks.

I encourage every British Columbian and every person that I represent to reach deeply into themselves to find the most empathetic response they can to people who struggle.

I had an experience at the Legislature here in 2006, where a gentlemen collapsed on the ground. He was obviously struggling. He was homeless, bearded and not clean. He required CPR. He survived but, a week later, died.

I heard from that man’s family afterwards. I actually received a picture of him with his niece. He was in a Montreal Canadiens sweater, and he was clean shaven. He was an IT professional making a six-figure salary. He was essentially the surrogate father to his niece. Well, not surrogate. He was the uncle who was there. But then he wasn’t there. It was because of the loss of a relationship. He had a tragedy in his life. He ended up separated from his family, sitting on the curb outside this building, and they didn’t know where he was.

When I pulled his shirt open, he had tattoos of Looney Tunes figures on his chest, like Tweety Bird and Sylvester the cat, all of them. It really struck me, the innocence or gentleness of that, and then to find out that he had been separated from his family. He was loved, but he was sitting on the curb, dirty and unshaven and lost.

I encourage everyone to see that in every case, with people who struggle in our communities, there’s a story. It usually is a story of trauma, of loss, of some kind of challenge that has broken someone’s capacity. Not to point a finger and not to say that that person is a problem. That person has a problem, but they are not a problem. They are a citizen of British Columbia, and they deserve every respect that this chamber could possibly offer them, perhaps more than any British Columbian.

I believe that the efforts that our government is making to support people, to invest in people, to show people that when they stand up, there’s someone standing beside them and ready to walk forward with them in collaboration…. That’s the spirit of the government that I feel I’m representing.

I also think, and this is not part of my notes, that we’ve had so much division when it comes to the management of our resources and our land base and how we deal with the challenges of the industries that operate on our land base versus other values. The best examples have been those of collaboration.

[2:00 p.m.]

Again, to echo the Premier’s constant reminder to all of us in our caucus, the path forward is through collaboration and consensus-building. It’s unfortunate that we’ve come to the place we have, but I think that the policies that we’re attempting to implement, led by First Nations in this province, will, in the end, rebuild a sense amongst British Columbians — one that I’ve had all my life — who felt that this province was so graced with so many incredible assets and they have been poorly managed. The fish, the air, the land, the water, the trees….

Complex rules of international trade and various policies have grown around all of these entangled issues, and to make fundamental or substantive change becomes an incredibly complex and difficult thing to manage. It takes creative policy-making.

I look towards bills that this government passed that restored the ability of the Forests Minister to act in the public interest. That seems an obvious requirement, yet it required legislation in order to achieve that and in order to restore that so that, indeed, the management of tree farm licences and the exchange of those could be done with the public interest being a component of that decision. That’s a really important shift.

I look to my own constituency for the fundamental issues of reconciliation and Indigenous relations. I know that there have been two historic agreements with the Snuneymuxw, including the transfer of 3,000 hectares of Crown land. We also recently signed an agreement with Cowichan First Nations, which includes Cowichan Tribes, Halalt First Nation, Lyackson First Nation, Penelakut Tribe and Snuneymuxw First Nation. These are agreements that are empowering those communities to work in partnership with others in the region to establish economy, services and relationships. Those are what are the foundations of a strong and healthy community.

In forests just in my own constituency, this government has invested $23 million to help transition mills and the pulp and paper industry, as I indicated before. That’s the Crofton project that I spoke of.

The government has invested over $10 million to expand protected parks in our community. They funded close to $3 million in watershed and wetlands restoration projects in the constituency I represent. The government has provided $3 million to expand composting facilities in the Nanaimo region. The government has provided $1.4 million for restoration work at the Morden Colliery Historic Provincial Park I mentioned in my credit to my friends from Nanaimo, Sandra Zuccolini-Larocque and Mike Larocque.

In education since forming government, this government, in Nanaimo–North Cowichan alone, has invested over $150 million in our schools. That includes $31 million in maintenance, upgrades and classroom expansions; $34.7 million in seismic upgrades; $79.9 million for the new Cowichan high school, which is well underway and looks to be a fantastic building; $10.9 million in COVID and restart funding. Five new accessible playgrounds have been built in Nanaimo–North Cowichan. Three new electric school busses. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

In child care alone in Nanaimo–North Cowichan, we’ve invested $35 million so that families have access to affordable, quality child care when they need it. This has put over $15 million back into the pockets of Nanaimo–North Cowichan parents. That’s through reduced fees and benefits.

Since forming government, we’ve funded the creation of 681 new licensed care spaces in Nanaimo–North Cowichan. We now have 695 universal child care spaces in Nanaimo–North Cowichan, meaning families are paying $10 a day or less for those spots. And all parents in the constituency just received at least a $550 subsidy for each child in child care.

[2:05 p.m.]

These are life-changing changes for parents, for families. In combination with the single-largest middle-class tax break in the history of this province, which got rid of the MSP premium, those are changes that are in the order of $20,000 for some of the families I represent.

When we’d go to these child care space openings, there were parents in tears. Some absolutely couldn’t even believe how much this was going to impact their lives, how many things their children would be experiencing that they would not otherwise be able to experience.

In post-secondary education, we’ve invested over $124 million into Vancouver Island University. That has doubled the amount of student housing on campus. That has replaced the health and science centre. It has expanded the Nanaimo automotive and trades complex. It has increased seats for health care training and mental health care training, and it has added 1,400 new seats for on-demand trades.

Now, these are changes that dwarf anything, with respect, that was done in the 16 years of the previous government in the region that I represent. It is simply an enormous investment in the people of the mid-Island region.

As I started this speech, I said that credit needs to go where credit is due — that is, to the people of B.C. I know that these investments…. Once the people of my own constituency and this province fully embrace and engage in these opportunities, these will answer so much of the demands of our economy and our society at the present time. The skilled labour shortage, health care workers shortage — these are the important elements that the Premier has targeted right out of the gate.

I think it goes to really frame and characterize exactly the nature of this government, and that is one of collaboration, partnership and working in conjunction with communities. It is an overwhelming focus on getting things done that people need to see done in their communities.

Even the challenges of COVID. How were the challenges of COVID addressed? Well, yes, by funding, but not without thought. It wasn’t simply: “We’ll give a tax break to someone and hope that they jump in there and do something.” These were targeted investments.

In the case of Nanaimo–North Cowichan, you can look across the water from Nanaimo…. You could practically swim across the water to Gabriola Island, where you have at least…. I’m not sure if this is a current statistic or one that goes back a few years, because I go back a few years. It was the community with the most professional artists. It’s called the isle of the arts.

What did the government invest in on Gabriola in order to recover from the effects of COVID? Well, in large measure, in the arts. Individual artists received funding. Arts groups received funding. Theatre groups received funding. They are still operating and thriving today because of those investments.

I know that throne speeches are promises. Throne speeches are in a context. The context includes the past, but the promises are going forward. In about a week’s time, we will hear about a budget that will detail how those promises will be met. I do know that the constituents I represent have so far seen a government that is committed to them, is committed to change, is real and committed to investing in the people of the province of British Columbia to build equity in the province of British Columbia.

[2:10 p.m.]

This is something that should be assumed by everyone, but it needs to be stated, and I state it here: this government is one that’s committed to collaboration, partnership, community-building, equity, fairness, inclusion and a sustainable future for all of us.

This throne speech, the detail, lays out the path forward. I’m excited to be on that path, with my colleagues on the government side and my colleagues on the opposition side, as we work together in the interests of our constituents and in the interests — as the throne speech pointed out — of everyone who calls this beautiful province home.

E. Sturko: Well, today I rise in response to yesterday’s throne speech. The throne speech introduces the government’s direction and goals. It outlines how it will work to achieve them, and it speaks to the government’s good intentions, but British Columbians deserve more than good intentions. They need results. This government has now made six consecutive throne speeches filled with commitments to fix health care, affordability, public safety, housing and the deadly opioid crisis, yet British Columbians are still waiting for results.

Regardless of the fanfare, the tradition or the pageantry, speeches and announcements are nothing more than hollow words, without positive results. It’s the results that matter; outcomes matter. What outcomes are those that this government has achieved? After two terms of this government, six throne speeches and billions in announcements, British Columbia is more unaffordable than ever, especially when it comes to finding a place to live.

An RBC report released earlier this year says that Vancouver is “setting a new…record” and that “owning a home has never been so unaffordable anywhere in Canada ever.” In 2021, a homebuyer needed to earn $200,000 to afford a Vancouver home, but with our current Premier at the helm, the qualifying income shot up to $268,000 by the end of 2022, three times B.C.’s median household income. This is the highest affordability barrier in the country and represents a 34 percent increase in a single year. The RBC report clearly shows that despite the NDP’s many promises, affordability in B.C. is only getting worse.

It’s not just homeowners who are facing skyrocketing costs. Renters all across B.C. are paying thousands of dollars more in rent every single day while waiting for the NDP to finally deliver on their promise of affordability.

Despite all the NDP’s promises of affordability, rents are up: in Surrey, up $225 a month, or $2,700 a year; Maple Ridge, $222 a month, or up $2,664 a year. The list goes on: Courtenay up $271 a month; Campbell River, $234 a month; and Kamloops, $205 per month, $2,460 per year.

The NDP has spent years patting themselves on the back, while taking no real action on housing affordability. The Premier twice promised voters a $400 annual renters rebate, first in 2017 and again in 2020, but it’s still nowhere to be found. Today that same rebate wouldn’t even cover the massive rent hikes we’ve seen under this government.

In January of this year, accounting firm MNP Ltd. released a report which reported that two in five B.C. respondents said they were $200 or less away from insolvency; 15 percent said that they were using their credit cards to pay their bills, the report found. I see nothing in the throne speech that makes me think that things will get more affordable under this government.

In her interview with Global News British Columbia, Linda Paul, a senior vice-president and licensed insolvency trustee with MNP, said: “A lot of British Columbians are living paycheque to paycheque today, and I think it’s just a result of the cost of living going up so high.”

[2:15 p.m.]

British Columbians are finding it difficult to cope with the high costs of housing, of food, of fuel and even of the basic necessities. We know that young people are disproportionately affected. It was particularly disappointing that the throne speech failed to lay out a plan with a commitment to relieve the growing financial pressures that young people face. Particularly as this government acknowledges the labour shortage in our province, it’s time that they stand up to address the concerns of struggling post-secondary students and finally do something to help them.

British Columbians are continuing to fight for their well-being, their health. In some cases, they’re fighting for their very lives, trying to cope also with a health care system in our province that’s failing. Every single part of our health care system is in crisis — one in five people in our province still unable to secure a family doctor, one million people waiting currently to see a specialist.

Last year B.C. had the worst walk-in clinic wait times in the entire country. We’ve managed to somehow claw our way to being second-worst in the country this year, going from an average of 58 to 79 minutes average wait time in 2022. Before you celebrate, keep in mind that these numbers represent a 92 percent increase since 2019.

Hundreds of thousands of people are unable to get timely imaging, and radiologists are warning of a possible tsunami of cancer cases. Our hospitals are in chaos. ERs are repeatedly closed all across the province. Urgent and primary care centres are chronically understaffed. People are dying in hospital waiting rooms. They’re dying, waiting for ambulances. Health care workers, who are doing their best to care for British Columbians, are suffering from stress, fatigue and PTSD under the tremendous pressure that’s compounded by the delays and inaction of this government.

It has been heart-wrenching for me, as a brand-new member of the Legislative Assembly, to have both patients and health care workers come to my constituency office, desperate for help. Again, there was nothing in this throne speech that leads me to believe that we’ll see any improvements any time soon.

It’s not only the health of British Columbians that has been put at risk by this government’s inaction over the past five years, but also our safety. People are feeling less safe, in communities throughout the province, as rates of violent crime increase. This government is failing in their fundamental duty to ensure that communities are safe for our residents. The combination of random attacks, social disorder and the Premier’s catch-and-release program for prolific offenders has resulted in unprecedented fear and anxiety, in virtually every community in the province.

Despite months of pleas and submissions regarding chronic offenders wreaking havoc across the province, hundreds of people victimized in random violent attacks, this government failed to take any direct action for months. Instead, they dismissed the concerns of victims. They dismissed the concerns of the police and mayors across British Columbia. The former Attorney General dismissed the problem as “anecdotal rhetoric” and characterized random-stranger attacks as a fact of life, insisting, as they did many times in yesterday’s throne speech, that the problem is the fault of someone else. In this case, the finger pointed at the federal government.

In March of 2022, the critic for the Attorney General gave a draft directive to the now Premier to be given to the B.C. Prosecution Service. It was to seek stricter bail conditions for chronic repeat offenders. However, not only was this suggestion not implemented, but the government insisted it couldn’t be done, that it was not lawful.

Lo and behold, nine months later the Premier did exactly that. He issued a directive to the B.C. Prosecution Service, and now — with no acknowledgment of the suffering caused by the Premier’s delays on that directive — the government chooses to pat itself on the back, as that directive, which was once illegal and couldn’t be done, made its way into yesterday’s throne speech.

It’s not the first time that this government has made a quick about-turn to save face politically. In the fall session, this government was asked why they didn’t fund psychiatric nurses in Burnaby and other jurisdictions that wanted to create or enhance police and mental health outreach teams to better serve people experiencing a mental health crisis. This government made it clear that those programs weren’t a priority.

[2:20 p.m.]

Understanding the value that these teams have, the city of Vancouver decided it would go ahead and pay for its own psychiatric nurses, and understanding the value of a photo op, the Premier and his team were in Vancouver at the press conference this last weekend, touting the value of police and mental health outreach teams and taking credit for the city’s plan.

Let’s be clear. Even though they’re sitting on billions of dollars in surplus, this government is making Vancouver’s taxpayers foot the bill in the form of a $2.8 million grant to Vancouver Coastal Health. In the throne speech, this government repeatedly stated that they’re in your corner, but this latest example in Vancouver just goes to show that when British Columbians want results, in order to move beyond announcements, they have to take matters into their own hands.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment about the throne speech is what is missing. As the critic for mental health, addiction and recovery, I was looking forward to hearing about the government’s plan to accelerate B.C.’s response to the illicit drug toxicity crisis, as was specifically stated in the minister’s mandate letter.

The coroner’s latest report confirmed once again the enormously tragic impact that the overdose crisis is having on thousands in B.C., as 2,272 lives were lost to a toxic drug overdose in 2022, bringing the loss of life in our province to more than 11,000 people since the public health emergency was declared.

In the last two years, the number of young people under the age of 19 who died from drug overdoses has doubled, showing that the status quo is not working. Almost a year has passed since the B.C. Coroners Service death review panel report was published, which outlined the urgency of this crisis in our province and included a 30/60/90-day action plan. To this day, the NDP government has ignored the urgent timetable and has failed to take meaningful steps to address serious gaps in the system of care.

On January 31 of this year, B.C.’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said: “There are people who are dying while they’re waiting for treatment and recovery services.” They’re dying waiting for this government to help them.

COVID-19 was mentioned a lot in yesterday’s speech. Indeed, the pandemic had a big impact on all of us. When the COVID-19 public health emergency was declared, the government moved quickly, with a sense of urgency, to save lives.

I have to ask: where is the urgency in this government’s response to the toxic drug crisis, to the public health emergency that was declared seven years ago? Where’s the substance use system-of-care framework? Where is the framework to increase the access to safer supply? There was no mention of further increases to access to complex care and no new promises for children or youth mental health.

People suffering from addiction must be able to immediately access the services they need when they need them. While an average of six people die of a toxic drug overdose in B.C. every day, this government is failing to deliver the resources needed to save lives.

When confronted with the reality of their failure to address drug toxicity deaths, this government will point to what they call a historic investment in funding — $500 million. That’s a significant sum, but remember that this is a government that was prepared to spend $1 billion on an upgrade to the Royal B.C. Museum that no one was asking for, while thousands of British Columbians were pleading for help for their friends and their loved ones suffering from addiction and mental health issues.

The throne speech also failed to mention anything about the shift to the decriminalization of the personal possession of illicit drugs in British Columbia. Nothing about the implementation. Nothing about the monitoring or anything else related to decriminalization.

Just one week ago the pilot project to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of opioids, cocaine, meth­amphetamine and MDMA for personal use came into effect, and there has still been a conspicuous lack of clarity from this government on what steps it’s taking to increase supports for those suffering.

[2:25 p.m.]

Again, where is the substance use system-of-care framework? Where is the framework to increase access to safer supply?

The agreement to move forward with a pilot project to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA for personal use came with several conditions from the federal government that this province has not met — ensuring the readiness and capacity of health and social systems, expanding the capacity of accessible treatment.

The letter of requirements also says that this government was to meet the unique needs of people living in rural communities. Yet daily MLAs like the MLA for Prince George–Valemount are hearing from families that are desperate and at their wit’s end because of no treatment and no services.

Over 40 years, successive B.C. governments closed a rightly criticized institutional approach to mental health without ensuring adequate systems of support were available for former patients in communities. This process began under the Social Credit Party, and it wasn’t halted during the next decade of NDP government. Finally, the process did continue into the previous Liberal government.

As the Leader of the Opposition has said, it’s never the wrong time to do the right thing. However, this government did not learn from the mistakes it made during its last tenure in power. It’s not taking advantage of its opportunity to do the right thing now.

This government was also required to conduct greater engagement with key stakeholders and Indigenous partners to increase public education and communications. It’s clear that this government’s lack of proper public and stakeholder engagement has left many communities feeling like, once again, they have to take matters into their own hands, as we saw in the community of Campbell River, where they passed a bylaw to give bylaw officers enforcement tools to address open drug use in public areas.

Harm reduction efforts like decriminalization only form part of a comprehensive approach that’s needed to help put an end to this crisis that continues to take six lives a day. I’m disappointed because I heard so little in yesterday’s throne speech on implementation, funding of recovery and treatment programs. Unfortunately, the government is continuing down the same path it’s been on for two terms, six throne speeches and nearly six years in government — doubling down on the same strategies, looking for new outcomes.

We can’t continue to take the same failed approach repeatedly and expect different results. More of the same is simply unacceptable.

I noted a common theme in yesterday’s throne speech. It was blame. This government loves to point fingers. After nearly six years in power, they’re still trying to pin their shortcomings on the previous government. When they can’t do that, they blame cheaters. When will this government look inward and take responsibility for its lack of results, for its failed promises, for the terrible outcomes that they are responsible for?

Of course, every government inherits the legacy of the one before it, but true leadership is measured by the ability of the new government to take responsibility for the outcomes that they generate and for the care, safety and comfort they provide for those they govern. It’s well past time for this government to take responsibility. Unfortunately, the government is continuing down the same path it has been on for two terms, six throne speeches, nearly six years in government — doubling down on those same strategies and looking for new outcomes. It’s simply unacceptable.

Before concluding my remarks, I’m going to take a moment to thank my team. Thank you to my legislative assistant, Luella Barnetson, and my constituency assistants, Samantha Schaap and Gail Miller, for their outstanding work to support me in my work as an MLA.

Thank you to my beautiful family — Melissa, Henry, Marin and Bill — and to my friends and colleagues.

To the residents of Surrey South, I thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to represent you and to serve you and our beautiful province.

[2:30 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: It is certainly a pleasure to rise in this House and respond to the throne speech. It was interesting to hear the member opposite.

I will counter some of what she said, given that I don’t agree with, I would say, most of what she said.

I will start my remarks as she ended her remarks, by thanking the people who helped to get us here, certainly my constituents. Also, I think we all know in this place how our families sacrifice for all of us to be here. So I do want to thank my husband, Dan; my kids, Aaron and Leya; their partners, Kyle and Omar; for just putting up with Mom being away a lot and Mom being busy a lot and Mom not being able to attend things a lot because of the nature of this work.

I also want to thank my CAs, Iti Kalsi and Natasa Arezina. They keep, I’ll say, the home fires burning in our constituency offices, dealing with the concerns of constituents and making sure that there’s a presence when we cannot be present, that they are representing us. They do a fabulous job, helping people navigate the system of that is government.

Here I want to thank some staff members as well: my chief of staff, Eric Peters; my MA, Josipa Stojkovic; my EA, Kaitlyn Gorman; and the two lovely women, my AC and my AA, who just keep me fed and watered and coffee’d up or tea’d up or whatever it is that I need.

My calendar is well managed by Christine White and Lori Larson, and I really am truly grateful for all of their support. In fact, Madam Chair, you might appreciate this. There are times when they make my husband look really bad, and he needs to remind me that he is not part of my ministerial supportive team, and I have to get my own coffee or tea.

So with that, I want to speak to the throne speech more specifically. Really, this is about a speech that speaks to how government has been listening to people as the world continues to evolve and change, and the experiences that we’ve all had — certainly, I’ve had. It’s coming on nine years since I started here in this place.

The world has changed incredibly. It’s not the same world it was nine years ago. It has evolved. I will say that certainly, these past two years, in the COVID context, things have really turned upside down in ways that none of us in this chamber could ever have predicted.

Seeing that we have found our way through, working across the aisle, working with all orders of government, working with the private sector, the not-for-profit sector, we have come through something that none of us could have anticipated. Our responsiveness and our commitments to our community, to the five million British Columbians that we represent, I think, speaks volumes to who their representatives are. I think that British Columbians can be proud of all of us here in this chamber for how we pull together.

We don’t always agree on the same things, on how to go, on which way to go around particular issues. But I will say that we do have, right now, a sense of uncertainty. We had uncertainty during COVID, during the height of the pandemic. I acknowledge that COVID is still here. We are responding to it differently, but it is still here. There are other issues that are still here. There is a drug crisis. Housing affordability. Cost of living. There are challenges, for sure, that British Columbians are dealing with and that we are seeing not just here in British Columbia.

I think we need to remember that. It’s not unique to British Columbia that we have cost-of-living challenges or that we have a toxic drug crisis. This is happening everywhere. It is a global issue. That requires that we stay focused on the task at hand and recognize that government has people’s backs. We’ve had people’s backs since we formed government. We’ve had people’s backs as we navigated through COVID, and we certainly continue to have people’s backs.

The issues that this throne speech addresses are about paying attention to the needs of British Columbians. That’s reducing costs, growing a health care workforce, building more homes for people, supports to cities and regions that are experiencing the impacts of growth as well as the impacts of climate change, making our communities safer. All of this, all of this, is in partnership with First Nations.

[2:35 p.m.]

I think it’s important to remind everybody around helping British Columbians address increasing costs and affordability in general. We’ve been doing that since we formed government nearly six years ago. The biggest tax cut in B.C.’s history: getting rid of the MSP. I know the members don’t like when we remind them that we did that, but that was the biggest tax cut. Addressing car insurance. Hundreds of dollars every year, saved by British Columbians, because we fixed what was a dumpster fire.

Child care savings. I have, in my community, a lovely young woman named Kate, who is just coming off of her mat leave with her second baby. When she heard that she was going to save well over $550 a month, she was reduced to tears. She just couldn’t believe it. She actually had to call home to her mom and say: “Is this true?” It was her mom who actually told me the story, because she couldn’t believe what that was going to mean for her in terms of their affordability and being able to pay the bills.

Again, this is about making sure that people can afford to feed their families and have a good quality of life. That’s the work that we’re doing and that we’re going to continue to do, because we know that before-and after-school care is also a burden for families, and there’s going to be more coming on that file as well.

I know that the members opposite like to say: “Well, that’s not yours. That’s from the federal government.” Yes, part of that is from the federal government, because that’s what it means to work in partnership. We’re all about partnership, believing that….

Interjection.

Hon. S. Robinson: The member might scoff across the way, but that was a lot of hard work between two orders of government to deliver for people here, and we did and we are. It’s making a difference, and that’s what matters. That’s what we’re going to keep doing, because that’s how you take care of people — through partnership.

I want to move along to the housing file. I was Minister of Housing, which feels like a million years ago but really was only three years ago. The COVID years were like a decade, I think. But I’m really proud of what we heard in this throne speech about some of the next steps on the housing file. Continuing to deliver on our $7 billion, ten-year plan that we started a few years ago is this $500 million rental protection fund and work around transit hubs that needs to happen.

I’m going to speak to the transit hubs first. It’s always made me crazy to see low density around transit hubs in Metro Vancouver. It’s made me crazy. How is it that any government has permitted any other order of government to not densify around transit hubs? There should be thousands of people living in those areas, walking to the transit that’s going to take them to wherever it is that they need to go. I think about Commercial and Broadway, for example, and it’s like the beginnings of our transit system, and there hasn’t been that kind of density that we need, that we should have.

We’re doing the work. Our government is doing the work to make sure that we are delivering housing around those transit hubs. That’s the work that needed to happen. I’m really proud of the work that the Minister of Transportation is doing to make that happen for all of us.

The other thing that is coming: more homes for middle-income families. Around the permitting…. Actually, before I get on to the permitting strategy, let me go back to the $500 million rental protection fund, because Jill Atkey said something that I thought was really helpful. Jill Atkey is the CEO of the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association. They’ve been tremendous partners and tremendous advocates and allies in our work around the housing file.

This is what Jill Atkey had to say about this fund. She said: “The province of B.C. is leading the way in addressing a critical gap in housing policy: the erosion of affordability in the private rental market. With this investment into the rental protection fund, non-profits will be able to purchase existing rental homes and lock in their affordability forever” — forever — “providing much needed relief for existing residents and the generations that follow.”

This is what forward-thinking governments do. They plan not just for today, but for tomorrow, for generations, making sure that we can protect our housing stock. The affordable housing stock that we need absolutely today, but we’re going to need it for generations. People come to this province because it’s a fabulous place.

[2:40 p.m.]

We need to make sure that there’s affordable housing for the people who call B.C. home so that they can age in place, so they can care for their families. It means that we need to protect this rental housing stock. That’s taking action.

Another piece on the housing file is the permitting strategy for housing, making sure that we have a system for moving that system quickly. Because the system, of course — I’m sure Madam Chair is familiar — can get bogged down, so we need to move more quickly on that system.

This is what Rick Ilich had to say. He is the CEO of Townline Homes. This is what he had to say on the new permitting strategy for housing. He said: “The province’s permitting solutions strategy is a step in the right direction and will have benefits throughout the province. Today’s announcement is proof that our provincial government is showing leadership by looking inward at their own structure and policy. I hope our civic politicians find inspiration in that.” We know that there’s work to be done around addressing that.

I do think it’s important to acknowledge how we got here. Well, I do believe it was the Leader of the Opposition…. When he made severe cuts to government, they got rid of all their planning people and their permitting people — 25 percent cuts — and decimated our ability to move these through quickly. Well, we’re fixing that. Just as we fixed ICBC, we’re fixing that too. There’s certainly more to do around that, and we’re really eager to get to work on that.

I want to talk a little bit more about what we’ve done to date on housing and what more we do need to do. We committed to deliver 114,000 homes over ten years. To date, we have 20,000 plus just from the spec tax alone, another 30,000 plus either open or underway. We have this $500 million rental protection fund to preserve existing stock.

As well, we’re making sure that we are building housing on and off reserve with Indigenous partners. We continue to be the only province that builds on reserve. I really want to invite the other provinces to join us in that and certainly invite the federal government to do more in that realm as well.

I also want to highlight how we’re doing on student housing, because I think that’s really critical. I do have the file responsible for post-secondary education. We committed five years ago that we would build 8,000 homes for students over ten years. We’re five years in. We already have 7,700. We have accelerated that program, and we have students who are moving in on campus, finding affordable places to live.

What’s more, we’re getting them out of the private rental market. That opens up 7,700 homes in the private sector for those who are not students. That is a significant amount of housing, and that makes a significant difference to those who want to live on campus and have a campus experience.

In my role as Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, I’ve been touring and engaging with students over the last few weeks. They have said that student housing is making a difference, but they’ve also said that the access grant, $4,000 a year, the first grant for students in 15 years, is making a difference. They are saying: “You are helping me pay for the things I need to pay for in order to get skilled up so that I can properly participate in the workforce.” That makes a difference. We also have zero-cost textbooks. That has saved students about $31 million a year.

I want to say, just in terms of the grant — the first one in 15 years, the access grant — 55,000 students have been making use of that grant, making their lives easier. We’ve also eliminated tuition fees for former youth in care, including trades training. That’s 1,600 students who have benefited from that.

I have to say, making adult basic education and English language learning free again…. It used to be free. I remember being on that side and learning that the folks on this side of the House we’re going to start charging people for it. I remember just about losing my mind about it. Who does that?

[2:45 p.m.]

Who does that to people who are trying to better themselves, get their grade 12 education, get the language skills that help them to participate in the economy? “We’re now going to charge you for that.” Well, I have to say, that is free under our government, under our leadership, under our recognition about what people need in order to participate. That’s 60,000 people who have been benefiting from that — 60,000 people. That makes a difference.

As we move forward, we need to recognize that there continue to be challenges, for sure. No one is saying that we’re done. There are new global economic challenges, for sure. We continue to be an economic leader here in Canada. Our unemployment rate is one of the lowest in Canada, at 4.2 percent. It’s just about an all-time low. We gained 63,000 jobs last year, driven by full-time jobs, private sector and self-employed jobs and women’s employment.

Why women’s employment? Because there’s child care. Child care allows women to participate in the workforce, and it’s child care that is being delivered in every corner of this province. It’s affordable child care, and that makes such a huge difference.

We have 121,000 more people that are working today in British Columbia than before the pandemic. Since 2017, we have led the country in small business job growth, because British Columbia is a place where people want to be. We have one of the strongest private sector job recovery rates in the country. We have just over 60,000 more people working in the private sector than before the pandemic, and in 2021, we had the highest real GDP growth of all major provinces, at 6.2 percent.

We have the highest credit rating amongst all provinces in Canada. A New Democrat government. Go figure. Who knew? We also supported people through the pandemic so that our economy could bounce back quickly, and now is not the time to pull back. Now is the time to continue investing in people and to address the challenges that lay ahead.

One of the number one challenges that I’ve been hearing — and I’d been hearing it while I was B.C.’s Minister of Finance — is that we need people in the labour force. We need more people in the labour force. We have people coming here. It’s the highest in 60 years in terms of migration and immigration. Expanding training and breaking down barriers is absolutely critical, because we need everybody working, and we need everybody skilled up so that they can do the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow.

We have 30,000 new training seats since 2017. That’s about preparing people to participate in the economy. We have a new trades and tech campus at BCIT for 12,000 students. We have 2,900 new tech seats and 1,150 new early childhood education seats, because we know that that’s what’s going to drive the economy. It’s people.

It’s people being skilled up. It’s people being able to re-skill, get additional skills and have the opportunity to have reduced barriers. That gives them the access they need in order to take care of their families — a good job, a meaningful job, one that allows them to have a full life, a good job that pays the bills and gives them a future and gives them a career and something they can be proud of.

You may have heard recently that the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade and the B.C. Chamber of Commerce have been identifying, as well, the labour gap and the challenge that they’re seeing. We’ve been seeing this as a government for quite some time, and I’m very proud that the Premier has asked me to take on this file, given how critical it is to our economy.

There’s more than training people up that’s critical to our economy, and it’s why we have high-speed Internet for everyone by 2027. I remember how well we all pivoted to electronic engagement and what that meant — and what that meant, really, for people from remote and isolated communities in rural British Columbia, what it meant for Indigenous communities. It opens up doors in ways that I don’t think five years ago any of us could have anticipated. So accelerating that program….

I see the Minister of Citizens’ Services is here with a big grin because she’s busy working, delivering on that, making sure that we can get high-speed Internet to every community, because that’s what it means to respond to the needs of a labour force. That’s what it means to be able to access school. That’s what it means to be able to access education. That’s what it means to be able to access the world. We’re accelerating that, because we know how important that is.

[2:50 p.m.]

As well, it’s reducing child care fees. That helps people get into the labour force. It helps that young woman, Kate, go back to her job, knowing that her children are well cared for and that she could go to her job every day, knowing that paying for child care isn’t going to break her bank. She doesn’t have to think about: “Is it worth it? With what I’m getting paid and what I’m paying for child care, it might not be worth it.”

We’re also expanding employment opportunities to as many people as we can, using as many tools as we can. Now, I want to say, I think it’s important we recognize that one of the areas where we are challenged with employment is health care. I want to spend a little bit of time talking about what we’re doing to address some of the health care challenges. We all know that it’s important that health care be there for people when they need it. I can’t imagine anyone in this chamber thinking that that wasn’t the case. We need more doctors. We know that.

Members opposite have known that as well. That’s why they did A GP for Me. They recognized that. It wasn’t very successful. I appreciate that they tried something. It didn’t work. That’s why we’re continuing to build on that. That’s why we’re continuing to make sure that we have the doctors, the nurses, the lab techs. It’s why we’ve invested in 602 nursing training seats. That’s why we’re breaking down barriers for internationally trained doctors and nurses. They’re here; they’re trained. We need to make sure that we can get them into the workforce. There is more to come on that.

We are prioritizing health and child care workers through the provincial nominee program and calling on Ottawa to increase the number of people who come here for that program. We know how critical that is. That’s why we continue to engage with a post-secondary institution. That’s why we’re going to be building a second medical school at SFU. That’s why we’ve already started funding it, to make sure that they get the business case. That’s why we already have people in place building out the curriculum, because we are committed to training more health care professionals.

Just last week, I had the opportunity at Camosun to announce a new program, where students are getting trained in sonography, the CT folks. Sorry, not CT.

Interjection.

Hon. S. Robinson: The ultrasound folks. Thank you. Remember, you know, they have the wand.

It’s a new model. There’s a clinic now at Camosun where the public can come and students, under supervision, can do the scans. They’re working, learning and serving all at the same time. That’s creative and innovative, and we have tremendous partners in all of our 25 post-secondary institutions.

I want to finish off some of my remarks on a little bit more of a personal tone around how important it is that we have a health care system that works for us. In the throne speech, there was talk about, as our population increases, the need for cancer care. This is what the throne speech said:

“As our population increases and ages, there is a growing demand for all health services and, in particular, for cancer care. Close to 90 people every day” — every day — “are diagnosed with cancer in British Columbia, and that number will only increase.

“After a cancer diagnosis, nobody should be stuck waiting for treatment they urgently need. That’s why your government will continue its work to build our health care workforce and fight cancer with new investments to enhance access to screening and early detection, diagnostic imaging and treatments.”

Members of this House might know that I’m a cancer survivor. I was diagnosed in 2006 with a rare gastrointes­tinal stromal tumor. It’s a rare kind of cancer. It’s the same one that Tamara Taggart has — and another friend of mine, Tanya Louis. They’re my GISTer sisters. What we have is a GIST, and we get together to celebrate the fact that we’re still here. We were diagnosed at a young age.

I know that there are other members of this House…. The members for West Vancouver–Capilano, Richmond-​Queensborough, Langford–Juan de Fuca, Port Moody–​Coquitlam and Burnaby North are all cancer survivors.

A year and a half ago I had the privilege of going to see my oncologist, who said: “You can go off your medication. I don’t think you have cancer after 15 years.” Needless to say — I’m sure the Speaker can appreciate — there were tears all around and tremendous gratitude.

[2:55 p.m.]

This last January 27 I went for my scan, and I got the unfortunate news that cancer is back. It’s heartbreaking. I’m fine. I’m back on my chemotherapy and disappointed. It’s hard to tell my dad and my children that their mother has cancer again.

I’m using my throne speech to talk about how great a system we have, because I got to go to Royal Columbian Hospital thinking I was fine, knowing I was fine, and six days later have the system tell me: “You’re back in the system, and we will take care of you.” I have every confidence that that system will be there for me, as it will be there for every British Columbian who gets a cancer diagnosis.

So I want to urge all members of the House — this is my own plug — to join me on the Tour de Cure. I’ve been doing it for what feels like 15 years. It’s not that long, but maybe 12 years. If you’re not going to join me on the cure, you’re all going to donate to my ride. I am here because the research that the B.C. Cancer Foundation does and the research the B.C. Cancer Agency does is to discover more treatments.

The treatment I am on is a first-line treatment. There are now five other treatments, if this one doesn’t work, which have been discovered in the last 15 years. I am confident I will be fine, but we need to do more research. I’m counting on all of you: tourdecure.ca, put in my name and contribute to my ride.

Those of you who are interested in riding, let me know. We have a fun team. We’re called Team Way Hey Hey! because we ride for an “Ordinary Day,” which is a song from Great Big Sea, my favourite band. I want to invite you all to join me. There is no partisanship on the ride. You are all welcome to join me.

M. de Jong: We’ll all pedal in the same direction on this.

Hon. S. Robinson: We will all pedal in the same direction, and I might even pull you along if you like. You know, I’m not a big windbreak, but….

M. de Jong: Well, I am.

Hon. S. Robinson: Then you’re in front.

With that, I just want to finish off my remarks by saying that some people might want to start talking about what my future looks like here in this place. I am not going anywhere.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. I’m sure we’ll be reminded many times where the dollars go and how best to donate.

K. Kirkpatrick: It’s my honour to rise in the House today and respond to the Speech from the Throne. The throne is meant to lay out the goals and the priorities of government and ensure that British Columbia are confident that their government is working in their best interests. I do look forward to sharing my thoughts.

I would like to pause for a moment and just thank — and my best wishes to — the Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills.

Coming into this House and sharing that is difficult, but it’s so important for other people to hear. Your commitment to continuing and staying is very inspirational. I will go on, and I will donate. I wish you….

Interjection.

K. Kirkpatrick: Well, I’m not that that healthy or enthusiastic, but best of luck and thank you for sharing that with the House.

I would like to acknowledge the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ peoples, the Songhees and the Esquimalt Nations, upon whose territories we gather here today.

I would also like to thank the Lieutenant-Governor for the role she plays in our parliamentary democracy, which is a very important kind of democracy that we are so very lucky to have here in Canada and in British Columbia. I do acknowledge, with sympathy, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II this past year and do extend my best wishes for Charles III as he begins his reign and as the head of a parliamentary democracy.

[3:00 p.m.]

I’m honoured to represent the beautiful riding of West Vancouver–Capilano.

It is located on the traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

My riding stretches across the district of West Vancouver and the district of North Vancouver. Unlike some of my colleagues here who take ten hours to drive from one side of their riding to the other, it takes me ten minutes, and I actually go in and out of another riding on my way there. It is an absolutely beautiful place to be from, and I’m just so very honoured to represent it.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my constituency assistant, who is watching and absolutely hates when I recognize her. Tracy Dobell is just wonderful. Her experience and enthusiasm have made my transition to my role as an MLA that much easier. She is unrelenting when we’ve got an issue with a constituent. She just does such great work. She always knows who to call. She makes me look good, and I thank her for that.

It goes without saying, but I will say it. I would also like to thank my legislative assistant, Wendy King. She is also invaluable in helping me navigate my time here in the Legislature and making sure I am where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I also thank all the great stakeholder groups that I have met and that have supported me these last two years, initially as the shadow minister for MCFD and then, more recently, as the shadow minister for Housing and Child Care. I’ve had a lot of community support.

Finally, in terms of thanks, my appreciation to my family. All MLAs in this House spend an inordinate amount of time away from home, and our families have to pick up a lot of the responsibilities in our absence. So I do thank my family and my mom, because I know you are watching today.

Turning to the Speech from the Throne. These are extraordinary times that we’re in. We have multiple and overlapping crises that continue to worsen under this government. We have a health care crisis, a mental health and addictions crisis and an affordability crisis.

Now, I feel like I can just repeat everything that my hon. colleague from Surrey South has said, but I will say much of it in my own words here.

What I heard in the Speech from the Throne is that this government wants us to judge them by how much money they spend rather than by what those results are. Touting government’s ability to spend more money than previous governments or more money than the previous year doesn’t actually demonstrate the delivery of solutions and outcomes. It only demonstrates the ability to spend taxpayers’ money, where British Columbians want to actually see results.

Now I want to talk about the word “vision” for a moment. This throne speech, reading the media and looking at Twitter after the throne speech yesterday, has been described as “oddly dour and uneventful” and “hit snooze.”

I want to talk about vision. Vision is the ability to make people see what the future is and to be excited about what the future is. Any time you take a leadership course, any time you want to inspire people and connect with people, you have to set a vision. It’s not a shopping list of things that need to be done that we already know need to be done. It’s: where are we going to be, as British Columbians, in five years from now, in ten years from now?

I want to be inspired as a British Columbian. I do not see vision. I do not get excited by this throne speech, and I didn’t see vision and get excited by last year’s throne speech. We’re not filling out a shopping list. We should be innovative and trying to show the future to British Columbians, and that future should be bright.

Government is supposed to deliver for people, and this NDP government is failing on every count. There is nothing in this Speech from the Throne that gives me reason to believe any differently. This NDP government has given us the Pathway to Hope document, but we can’t plan a whole system on hope. That pathway needs to lead somewhere better.

[3:05 p.m.]

There has been a 26 percent increase in illicit drug fatalities this year over 2020, about seven deaths per day, as recorded in November and December. Youth workers, police, emergency room workers, parents are having to do multiple naloxone resuscitations, often on the same person on the same day. The work that the front-line staff are doing themselves…. They are suffering from PTSD and mental health because they’re on the front lines of what is really a war.

What happens with mental health and addictions in this province? Where do people go? We have created in British Columbia, under this government, a two-tier mental health system: those who can pay and those who cannot. The wait times for public recovery beds are so long that it is, in essence, the same as not having any recovery beds at all.

Now, I’m proud to be part of the B.C. Liberals, who introduced a relentless commitment to treatment and recovery last week, with a roadmap that shows how to get there. The NDP hasn’t been able to criticize it because they know it’s the right thing to do. Instead, the NDP government reaches back in time to all of the shortcomings of the previous government. They’re blaming all of their shortcomings on that, but they have had six years to put their own policies and plans in place.

It’s time to look at their own record. They should look forward to setting real goals and real ideas that will help British Columbians. It is actually embarrassing to the point of being a government for six years and still having to yell “squirrel” and point the other way when they’re being asked to be held to account for the six years of policies that have failed British Columbians.

I’m also proud of the B.C. Liberal government’s record on mental health and addictions. So $100 million was immediately deployed when the B.C. Liberal government declared a public health emergency in 2016. They established the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, added hundreds of additional treatment beds, mass distribution of naloxone and substitution therapies such as Suboxone and set up the Foundry network for youth, which the current government touts as being a model of support for young people in crisis.

And $2.2 billion annually was spent on mental health and addiction services under our government. We invested in the 105-bed Red Fish Healing Centre for severely addicted and mentally ill patients at the Riverview lands.

Five hundred additional treatment and intervention substance use beds were opened through B.C. This was in addition to 12,000 community mental health beds and nearly 2,800 community substance use beds. The number of adult community mental health beds increased 148 percent, with 7,334 additional new beds.

When the current government talks about the patchwork and what they inherited, it is simply not borne by facts.

Ideas evolve over time to adjust to the current realities of life. For decades, governments have made decisions based on the reality of what was happening at the time. Successive governments have made both good and bad decisions and good and bad policies, and it sometimes takes hindsight to know which is which.

A B.C. Liberal government would be prepared to recognize the good and the bad and to make solid and strategic plans for today’s mental health and addictions landscape. That’s what leadership is. It’s not doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a new result. It’s taking responsibility for decisions that were made in the past, and it’s making the right decisions to move forward for today.

In yesterday’s throne speech, this government said: “That’s why your government will build on historic investments in saving lives with future expansion of treatment and recovery services so more people can access care.” Well, I’d like to know where these NDP historic investments have gone. Wherever it is, it’s not working. And let’s not forget again. This is a two-term government.

Opioid deaths in British Columbia were the highest ever recorded in the first nine months of 2022. This is unacceptable.

We’ll also talk about…. This is going to make its way on B.C. out of context or whatever it is. Thank you very much. I’m so excited that I’m crying.

[3:10 p.m.]

When we think about health care and what this government has done with health care…. In the paper today, my own North Shore was reported as being the worst in terms of wait times in medical clinics there, the worst in British Columbia, the worst in Canada.

We’ve talked before with the B.C. Radiological Society. My friend across the way…. We know how important it is to have quick access, timely access, to MRIs and CT scans and diagnostics so that people can have their cancer treatments get started. They can have whatever other surgeries they need in order to be able to increase the quality of their life.

But the B. C. Radiological Society said that because of the unacceptable wait-lists for diagnostics in British Columbia, we are going to expect, in this next year, to have a tsunami of cancer diagnoses, and that’s just not acceptable.

We know that under this government, one in five British Columbians does not have a doctor. If you don’t have a doctor, you’re going to the clinics. If the wait times are too long and you can’t have access there, you can’t get referrals to specialists. The whole system gets gummed up, and it’s very stressful for people, and it can result in bad health outcomes.

Let’s talk about affordability and housing and the commitments made in the throne speech. Under this two-term NDP government, a flurry of taxes and housing policies have been introduced, and we’re hearing that there will be more of the same in this throne speech. Have these worked? Well, let’s look at some of the results.

To start with, while the Premier was Minister of Housing, he made a commitment to build 114,000 affordable housing units. It was a commitment to build 114,000 affordable housing units, not convert other things to housing units. In six years, only 10 percent of those units have been completed, and let me quote from the throne speech: “And your government started making urgently needed investments in affordable housing of every kind.”

Well, I have to ask: how urgent can these investments be, based on 10 percent of the original promise of 114,000 units six years ago actually being met? That doesn’t sound particularly urgent to me. British Columbia is the most expensive place for a renter in the country, according to new federal data. B.C. renters are simply worse off under the NDP, now paying an average of $4,332 more every year for their rent since the NDP came in.

Vancouver, of course, we all know has the least affordable rental markets in the country, and Victoria and Kelowna are now ranked No. 3 and No. 4. The vacancy rate is still at one of the lowest levels ever, historically, at 1.3 percent for the province.

Average provincial rents — and these are for purpose-built rentals — have risen $361 a month under this NDP government. A recent report shows clearly that despite the NDP’s many promises, B.C. not only has the least affordable housing market in the country, by far, but that it’s getting worse under this Premier, day by day.

RBC economists say that Vancouver is “setting a new grim record,” as owning a home has never been less affordable. It would require 96 percent of the median income of a British Columbian to afford the average home in Vancouver. This is the worst rate in the country.

If you look at a reason to be doubtful of the promises in the throne speech, look no further than that $400 renters rebate promised by this NDP government for two consecutive elections, and it still has not been delivered by government. The former Minister of Housing, in question period, said: “It’s coming.” Yes, when we asked about that $400 rebate: “Oh, it’s coming; there’s going to be an announcement.” But crickets — nothing has happened there. So they have truly failed to make renters a priority.

This past November, the government introduced an amendment to the Strata Property Act, removing rental restrictions across the board. Now, government was a bit unclear. They weren’t really sure how many rental units that was actually going to release into the market, but they thought it sounded like a good idea. The lack of consultation with the community was shocking, but let me give you a taste of what is only the beginning of the damage that this policy has done.

[3:15 p.m.]

In the first eight weeks since that legislation was introduced, over 160 stratas have applied to change their status to 55 plus, which is their right to do.

The Minister of Housing, at the time, said he did not think that that was going to be a big issue and that most stratas would not do that. Well, we have a lot of stratas doing that.

What does this mean? It means that 160 strata buildings in British Columbia…. Young people, families, young professionals — they not only can’t rent in those buildings anymore, they can’t buy in those buildings anymore. So this ill-conceived policy has actually caused a lot more damage than it has good. If you look at even, you know…. Maybe there are 50 units in those 260 stratas. That’s taking 8,000 units out of the market for families and young people. So despite all their promises to the contrary in throne speech after throne speech after throne speech, housing affordability has worsened under this NDP government.

Here are some additional quotes from yesterday’s speech. When speaking about safety and housing for British Columbians, the blame game continues. In fact, we heard this in question period today. When the opposition asked government a very fair and serious question, the minister wouldn’t answer the question, so the House Leader stood up and threw mud.

Now, here’s the quote: “It’s the product of more than a decade of cuts to supports and services in B.C. and chronic underinvestment in housing.” Again, this is the blame game. Does government realize that they’ve actually been government for six years of the last decade?

“It’s a consequence of changes to federal laws and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. It’s the product of a toxic drug supply that hurts even more people than it kills….” Well, I’d say it’s all the product of bad policies and outcomes from this government and that they should stop blaming.

Does it sound familiar? A throne speech meant to provide a roadmap for British Columbians is actually full of excuses and blame rather than taking responsibility for government’s own shortcomings.

Now, we know families desperately need child care. After almost six years, this Premier and the NDP have not been able to deliver on their commitment, over two elections, to implement a truly universal $10-a-day child care plan, with many parents having still had to pay the full fees for the last several years, four or five years, while some parents were receiving $10-a-day child care.

Most offensive is that this government had the money, and they weren’t able to get it out the door and actually had to return money to the federal government that could have gone into the pockets of parents who are dealing with high inflation and costs. But no, they were not able to get it out to those parents, and still today many people don’t have $10-a-day child care.

If you look at how this government has managed the rollout of the $10-a-day child care, they have looked at the child care providers, really, as the villains for fees in this province. So rather than actually using the federal funds to give true reductions to those child care providers, they actually imposed all kinds of caps and fee freezes and things on these child care providers to the point where they are able to be reimbursed by government less than it actually costs them to run the child care centre. No wonder you’ve got child care providers leaving.

We just heard about, in Kelowna, parents upset. They have a child care provider. They got a $550 discount, a reduction, 50 percent off, and they’re now being charged $700 a month on top of their child care, in additional fees, so that child care providers can pay their extra hours and can pay for food and can pay for their rent and all of the other things that this government doesn’t understand organizations actually have to pay.

The NDP says that nearly 200,000 spaces are needed to meet child care demands for families, but the NDP have only added 10,500 net new spaces. Think about those numbers — pretty significant.

Results are what matter. The Premier is more focused on flashy announcements: going out to child care centres, setting up the podium and making an announcement for all the spaces that will be there. But I’ll tell you, $10-a-day child care is, I would say, irrelevant if there’s no child care. Parents would rather have child care than no child care that was only $10 a day. So there are a lot of issues that are happening with the rollout of this program.

[3:20 p.m.]

In November 2022, a report by ECEBC, Evaluation of Early Care and Learning Recruitment and Retention Strategy, also found that 45 percent of child care providers that there are, are having more trouble. They’re losing more staff than they can actually hire, and this is forcing additional child care centres to close, or to close for one or two days a week. That’s very, very difficult for parents to manage.

I’ve long been an advocate for a national daycare program, a universal daycare program, and I’m very happy that the federal government stepped in, but I am really disappointed with how this program has been rolled out in British Columbia. What it’s doing — I guess, unintentionally — is creating a two-tier child care system. So here we’ve got a two-tier mental health system. Now we’re going to have a two-tier child care system.

When child care providers can no longer afford to participate in these government programs…. Incidentally, some of those child care providers have still not been paid by government in order to offset the reduced fees they’re charging the parents. This is just a real issue in trying to figure out how to get money out the door. It’s going to be a two-tier system, where providers are just going to be so frustrated. They’re going to put their hands up and step out of the system, so parents will pay because they don’t have child care. They’re going to pay full fees again to work with those child care providers.

Why hasn’t this government figured this out yet? There has to be a situation that’s efficient, where money gets out to support both parents and child care providers, and it’s done collaboratively and it’s done in consultation with both parents and child care providers.

I’m going to tell you all the child care good things that the B.C. Liberals did, but I’m running out of time and space here. We did create, on average, 3,330 spaces per year, and 22,000 families already paid less than $10 a day because of government subsidies under the previous government. In the last election, there was a true and real commitment to universal $10-a-day child care, funded by a $1.1 billion investment that would be in place now today.

For the past 20 years, B.C. had a system for supporting families with children with autism that was seen as progressive through the rest of Canada. We’d been asking government to build on this system to provide these supports to other children — children with FASD, Down syndrome, dyslexia and other neurodiverse needs. Curious that yesterday’s throne speech made no reference to children with support needs at all. Actually, the word “child” was twice in the throne speech, but shockingly, the word “youth” was not even in the throne speech. It didn’t reference youth anywhere.

With respect to the autism funding last year, following widespread backlash, the Premier, in December 2022, reversed the autism funding clawback and committed to working collaboratively with all partners. But as it turns out, the chaos has not stopped, as providers who were not part of this NDP’s new pilot projects, and four communities, have been put in challenging situations, as we witnessed recently with Starbright Children’s Development Centre in Kelowna. It was only after outcries from families that MCFD scrambled last weekend to extend the funding, but it remains an inadequate and short-term commitment.

Now we can only imagine what is happening to non-profits in the other three regions with these pilot sites. Heaven help us, what is going to happen to all these long serving, fabulous non-profits that have been helping children and CDCs and communities across British Columbia for years if the NDP decides it’s going to roll out these FCCs in all parts of British Columbia.

The MCFD did not anticipate the destruction that these hubs were going to cause in community until it actually happened in Kelowna, and I’m hoping that with the commitment — although not in the throne speech — to children and youth with special needs, that this will be done more effectively and efficiently and collaboratively than it’s been done so far.

[3:25 p.m.]

This NDP never truly engaged with families with children with autism. They’re certainly not engaging with all of the parents of all of these neurodiverse youth right now, who are now in the same place that we were a year ago, being concerned and not understanding what’s going to happen to their child.

I heard no commitments to support youth in care and youth aging out of care. The process of aging out is in crisis. There are many things that were left out of this throne speech.

What I heard in this throne speech was more of the same platitudes and promises that I’ve been hearing for the last six years. In fact, I could have just read my response to last year’s throne speech, because it’s wash, rinse, repeat with this government. It’s the same thing.

Where is the vision? Where is the excitement of the potential of what this wonderful province could actually be? Where are the clear commitments to what will come in the next budget? What is the plan to get things done?

There needs to be a plan. There has to be metrics, performance measures, attached to it so we can know, as British Columbians, if our government is doing a good job. I want to know if my government is doing a good job, and heaven help us if the government doesn’t want to know it’s doing a good job.

The Speech from the Throne was nothing if not light, and a restatement of all of the issues that British Columbians already know are problems. At the most critical juncture facing this province in generations, we were given nothing to hang our hats on. We were given the same old, same old. In a crisis, you need leadership that can point the way and help people see that there will be a better tomorrow.

I love this province. I was not born here. I came for the promise and the vision of life that British Columbia could help me build. I want us all to be successful and healthy, and that all starts with decisions that are made in this building.

What I heard yesterday does not meet the needs of what British Columbians need now. It’s full of more promises and rhetoric and especially blame. British Columbians deserve so much better than what they’re getting. It’s another year of unkept commitments and broken promises from this NDP government. It did sound like a setup, though, for a bonanza giveaway budget on the 28th of February.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Speech from the Throne. It is an absolute honour to be part of the process of holding government to account.

K. Paddon: It is an honour to rise and speak to the Speech from the Throne. I appreciate hearing what others have been saying, whether I was watching earlier or just now, and it has definitely inspired me. I’ll be speaking not only to the Speech from the Throne, but to the responses to the Speech from the Throne, because I feel like there’s a lot that needs to be canvassed here. So I’m going to try to fit it all in.

So that I don’t miss it, I do want to take just a moment and speak about the riding of Chilliwack-Kent, which I have the very distinct honour of representing. For those who are not sure, it covers everything: Cultus Lake; the Sardis side of Chilliwack, most of it; Agassiz, which is the district of Kent; Harrison Hot Springs; Harrison Mills; Popkum and everything in between.

It’s a really diverse riding, so I have the distinct pleasure of hearing from a diverse group of constituents, rural as well as those who would consider themselves definitely not rural. Maybe they don’t know how to define it, but it’s not rural. We have an amazing hospital, Chilliwack General Hospital. We have several clinics. We have hard-working doctors. We have some amazing schools — the University of the Fraser Valley.

There was a lot I heard in this throne speech that I’m excited to canvass with constituents, with folks back in Chilliwack-Kent. But I think the best thing I heard, the overwhelming feeling that I have received, that I had, from the throne speech was that it acknowledged what British Columbians already know. The previous speaker mentioned there were no surprises. British Columbians already knew everything that was spoken about in the throne speech. Good, because that’s what is important to British Columbians. That is what is on their minds right now. I know that in Chilliwack-Kent, that’s what I’m hearing from people.

[3:30 p.m.]

I thought it good that there were no huge surprises, because we need to be doing the work. Our government needs to be doing the work on the things that are most important to British Columbians. So that’s what we heard in the throne speech.

I want to take just a minute, because I was a little bit taken aback by some of the comments made about how it wasn’t an exciting throne speech. I understand the intent was not…. You know, this is not entertainment. We know that. This is the important work and action that our government is committed to getting done — so not entertainment.

It has to be a reflection of what is most important and what is needed by British Columbians, what we’re hearing every day in our offices, from our neighbours, from our friends. It wasn’t, as I think the comment was, a laundry list, but it was a list. There’s a lot of need right now.

One of the things that makes me so confident when I speak with people, one of the things that makes it so easy to hear the good and the bad, the struggle and the celebration, is that this government is unafraid of the challenges, to tackle them.

We understand things are harder than ever right now for people. We understand that we need to help people with costs, and the throne speech addressed that. We understand how critical it is to tackle the enormous issue of the housing crisis, the enormous, heartbreaking issue around toxic drugs and the opioid crisis. We understand how important it is to make our communities safer, because these are communities that we live in and that we love.

I don’t think any member of this House, no matter where their seat is, doesn’t love their community. This is big work; this is hard work. We do it because we love our communities. We’re fighting climate change and building an economy that works for everyone, an economy that doesn’t leave anybody out. We know that there have been dramatic changes. In our partnerships with Indigenous peoples, we’re making sure that we are doing the work and taking the next steps in reconciliation and that things are not being overlooked, things aren’t being left out.

This is a list. Within that list, there were other lists. There are a lot of different actions that are required, and the throne speech took the time to be more specific. Was it exciting? Did it blow people’s socks off?

I read the same Twitter that everybody else did. I saw the articles. I followed the thread, because we all do. I didn’t read the comments. That was the first piece of advice I got after winning this seat, and I try to follow it.

I saw that some people’s opinion was that it was underwhelming. I understand that we might, as human beings, want things to be exciting, because things are hard. They are hard, and the throne speech was serious because there is serious business to get down to.

One of the things that helps me in this job…. It has helped me in previous roles. Previously, Mr. Speaker — I don’t know if you know this — I was a community advo­cate. I had the distinct benefit, pleasure and privilege of working with self-advocates and individuals with intellectual disabilities. I also had the distinct honour of supporting victims of crime. So part of my role there was actually being there on the worst day of people’s lives. It was not an easy role.

The other part of my job was incredibly rewarding, because I was able to teach, learn from and support people in accessing community and accessing the things they need. A very key part of both of those roles was trying to explain and teach complexity in a way that could be taken in, in bite-size pieces of information.

This actually helped me as a parent as well. I’m also now a parent of teenagers. I became a parent 17 years and 11 months ago, so I’m almost the parent of one adult. It was a while ago and things were very hard.

[3:35 p.m.]

I’ve also learned how to break it down for my kids. They’re asking questions now, because one is approaching voting age. The other one is maybe a little bit jealous that they’re not at this point yet, but they’re prepping. They’re making decisions about their future, and part of those decisions are where they are going to live and what the priorities are of the leaders that they’re watching. Those might be official leaders that are elected or appointed, or maybe unofficial leaders in their peer groups, but leaders, nonetheless.

One of the hardest things, before I took this position and since, has been explaining why the adults are saying the things that they’re saying, why we can stand in a room where two people will say opposite things. One will say it’s great, and one will say it’s not. That’s a hard thing to teach young kids.

When I talk about our work here, I understand that there are different perspectives because there are different ideas. It’s like I said a minute ago. I don’t doubt, regardless of any of the comments made so far about the speech or to be made, that everybody here wants to take care of their communities. It’s what that looks like, what that needs to look like — and those differences. I think that the throne speech — in particular because it was specific, maybe not exciting — really speaks to the multifaceted way that we have to address the things that are most critical to British Columbians right now.

One example that was given was around the uncertainty…. We know economists are predicting a global slowdown, so what are we doing? How are we going to be — this was a line from the throne speech I really liked — “stable, secure, stronger and more sustainable”? How are we going to achieve that? Well, we’re not going to achieve that by cutting critical core services. We’re not going to do that by doing something exciting that might have made a nice headline yesterday, rather than it not being exciting, in some people’s view. What we’re talking about here is the real work, the hard work, that our government has committed to.

That is a continuation, in many cases, of the work that we’ve already done: when we talk about things like health care; when we talk about bringing people back so they receive good pay — mostly women — so they know what they can count on, so they know they’re valued as much as they are; when we talk about making sure we have a pathway so people who have training to be health care practitioners in our system have a pathway to get there quicker, because they want to work in health care in British Columbia; when we talk about the investments we’re making in primary care centres; when we talk about a new model for paying family doctors; when we talk about all of the things we’ve learned during COVID, all of the things we’ve learned even since we’ve last called the people to have their voices heard about who sits in this room.

We have learned so much about how things can be done. We’ve learned so much about what’s possible. I think, at least when I listen to my constituents, the priorities, even since then, have changed so much. Every time this government learns more from the people about what’s happening in real time, it’s reflected in the work that we’re doing.

There are changes, but we’re not reinventing anything. British Columbians, of course, are telling us that they need help with costs, that housing is an issue, that we need to strengthen public health care, that we need to make our communities safer. They’re telling us that climate change is important, that reconciliation is important. These are not new themes, because these continue to be the values and the things that are important to the British Columbians who elected us and who put us here.

The fact that our government continues to be focused on these things, albeit with additional consultation and with the directions and investments and new ideas — which might be different, not necessarily — should not be a surprise. I’m sorry that it’s not exciting. It’s exciting to me. It’s exciting to me because the work is continuing. I feel very privileged to be part of continuing work.

[3:40 p.m.]

There is mention in here about additional ways where we’re going to be addressing, for example, gender equity. I became a mother during a time where…. I don’t even know. I was too busy being a brand-new mother, having just created a human, I suppose, to read. I was not reading the news. I was not watching question period. There was no conversation about child care. There just wasn’t any. I made very significant choices about my career.

In this throne speech, when we talk about continuing the work, when we talk about acknowledging how far we’ve come while also saying we still have so much further to go…. What would be more exciting, if we pretended like we were there? This is not a quick fix. It was not a quick cause.

For example, child care. I’m not going to say “16 long years” in any other way than to say it took hundreds of years. It took human history, depending on your culture, to get us to the position where…. I don’t now, but ideally, my daughter, with the work we’re doing right now, should she choose to be a parent, and my son, should they choose to be a parent, will not have to choose between taking care of their child or working. This is the work we’re continuing. I think that’s exciting. That’s a different choice than I had.

I am incredibly privileged and will recognize that right now, because I had people around me who could support. But it was still a choice, and there was still sacrifice. So continuing the work on the topics that British Columbians tell us are important to them and are critical to them — that is exciting. I don’t know. I can say it in a different tone that sounds more exciting, but the work itself is what’s happening.

I also want to acknowledge that it’s important to understand the tone. We are not celebrating that we have vanquished COVID, that we have vanquished any issues around climate change. There’s no celebration about what’s happening on our streets. For myself in Chilliwack-Kent, the opioid crisis is often quite hidden. It’s happening in basements and dens, when people get home from work, alone, while their families might be sleeping down the hall. There’s no excitement there. There’s a lot of work to do. It’s happening when youth are struggling. It’s happening when the stigma around it is a barrier.

That’s where we’re doing the work: reduce the stigma, get the information out, all of the pillars, all of the facets that we can attack this together. Nobody needs more fear. Nobody needs to be told that this thing that we have heard and learned from our community and those who have lived experience, these things that our Premier is committed to, that he’s taking action on immediately — nobody needs to hear that “You know what? That probably, maybe, in my opinion, wouldn’t work.”

That’s not helpful to this fight. It will not get us to that place where we can look back and say: “Okay. We’re going to be okay.” So many people have been lost. I’m sorry it’s not exciting, but there’s a lot of work that’s been done. There are lives that have been saved, but there’s so much work left to do. This acknowledges that.

We’re seeing increased activity around climate. In Chilliwack-Kent…. I know we talked about, in the Fraser Valley, the floods and the heartbreak and the loss and all of the work and the incredible community that rallied and took care of each other. The pictures, even thinking about them, give me chills.

In Chilliwack-Kent, a large part of that was actually land movement rather than the flooding, where the hillsides or the land moved in such a way that it challenged or compromised or even devastated. We know near Seabird Island, in the district of Kent, there was a landslide that trapped people overnight. The military had to come in with helicopters and pluck them off the roofs of their cars.

[3:45 p.m.]

I know that in the Chilliwack River Valley, there was land movement. In Columbia Valley, there was land movement. In district of Kent, there was land movement. Near Harrison Hot Springs, there was land movement. It’s changed people’s lives.

That was a climate — you know, an atmospheric river.

We talk about these things becoming more frequent. We can’t celebrate that either, which that would have been exciting, but we can acknowledge the work that has been done so far and the continued commitment to something that is a long-term problem, which is exactly what the throne speech did.

Helping people with costs. We did. It was listed in the throne speech, some of the ways we’ve helped people with costs. Because of my connection and community, because of the range of people I have the honour of having in my life to keep me aware and informed of a variety of things from a variety of perspectives and because I’ve been really, really lucky to have a lot of different kinds of people in my life, I’ve seen people who have done great who are now struggling but who, up until now — they were going to the grocery store recently — were okay. They weren’t necessarily worried if they could make it. That has changed.

We know that we’re helping people with these costs. We’re helping families. We’re helping seniors. On my social media, for example, whenever I post about something to do with costs, what I get is a question: “Well, what about…?” You know, I might say: “Here’s something for families. Families will receive this, and 85 percent of British Columbians will benefit.” Then I hear: “I see. What about seniors?”

Well, one of the really fantastic things…. We talk about helping people with costs in the throne speech, but there’s already been a lot of work done. We have a webpage that shows people what they qualify for, what might be available for them, all about eligibility if it wasn’t automatically deposited into their bank account, because a lot of that happened.

But we need to continue. You don’t solve it with one time, with one solution. This wasn’t an issue with keeping money in people’s pockets for one day. This is a commitment from our government, from our Premier, to take action, to continue taking action to help people with the cost of living, with affordability, keeping money in their pockets in a continuous way so that tomorrow, next month is less of a worry than yesterday.

When we talk about the housing crisis, I hear a lot about how things aren’t solved yet, and that makes sense, because if it was solved, we wouldn’t be talking about the housing crisis. We would be talking about something else. The work being done as more and more people, as record numbers of people, actually — they’re British Columbians now — come to British Columbia…. They come to British Columbia because it is an amazing place to live, because it does have supports for people, because there are opportunities here.

Our unemployment rate shows you how much opportunity there is here. As we build more, as we build our public health care system, as we build our roads, as we build our transportation, as we have committed to and invested in infrastructure, there are jobs here, family-supporting jobs.

So as we have more and more British Columbians that will make our province just that much stronger, it is critical — and I feel like the throne speech addresses it — to understand that we may be moving into…. Like I said, economists are predicting a global slowdown, so we need to make sure that we don’t have short-term thinking. That is what this throne speech is outlining. Exciting? Exciting enough for Twitter to say, “Wow, that was exciting”? No. But it’s because it’s long-term issues and long-term thinking.

[3:50 p.m.]

We can make a list of things that the throne speech doesn’t include, and I’m sure that will happen. The things it does include talk about how we build a stronger tomorrow. It’s not a victory lap, because there are still things that we need to be working on that are very significant. They’re changing, I think, our identity.

I was talking to somebody the other day, and they said to me: “I don’t know how to talk to people in person anymore.” They were having a disagreement — probably no more serious than a regular disagreement. It was about politics. It was actually, I think, around COVID and housing, which was an interesting combination.

They said: “I don’t know how to talk to people in person anymore because it’s been so long since I’ve had to.” They described how they were in a group situation. People were talking over each other, and it was just too much. They said: “I was never like that before. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how to get used to it again.” Things have changed. Who they are when they show up in the world has changed, and what that world looks like has changed.

This throne speech acknowledges that where we were five years ago, six years ago, is different than where we are today. Our world has changed. I am actually hearing from human beings that they don’t know how to speak to other human beings sometimes anymore. I think that that’s kind of valid. I watched the kids go back to school, and I saw how that social situation had changed.

The thing I hope doesn’t change and the thing that is really required, if we truly want to have the best ideas and the best work as we continue the actions necessary to address these important issues that British Columbians have told us are top of mind…. We will need ideas to come together. We will need to be able to speak to each other in person or directly. We will need to understand how to socialize.

I think that there have been a lot of inputs into our society that are outside of our control. They impact the issues that we even addressed in the throne speech. I think that there are issues from other jurisdictions politically that trickle in. I think that there are attitudes or permissions that trickle in.

I think that one of the worst things that’s trickled in, one of the worst things…. It won’t interrupt our government getting this work done for British Columbians, but it’s not going to make it easier. It’s this fear. Not the fear that comes with the issues but the fear that comes with the “what if?” extrapolated 15 times down the road and then followed up by: “That will never work.”

This throne speech may not be exciting, but what it was, was a demonstration, an outline, I suppose, of how we will continue the work and the goal. The goal is what is important here. The goal is stable, secure, stronger and more sustainable. That is a big goal.

I’ve canvassed a little bit. There are a lot of topics that we can address, but the goal is the same in all those topics. When it comes to helping people with costs, it’s stable, secure, stronger, sustainable. When it comes to tackling the housing crisis, regardless of income bracket, regardless of age, it’s stable, secure, stronger, sustainable. When it comes to strengthening our public health care system…. When we know that it is not outside of conversations happening around this country, sometimes around this neighbourhood, about privatization…. What we need in our public health care is stable, secure, stronger and sustainable.

[3:55 p.m.]

Making our communities safer. This throne speech did outline actions not only that have been taken but that would be stable, secure, stronger, sustainable.

Fighting climate change and building an economy that includes everyone and that supports the vision of where we need to be. Stable, secure, stronger and sustainable.

In our partnerships with Indigenous peoples, I was so…. I can’t talk about this morning. Stable, secure, stronger and more sustainable. In my last two minutes, I’m just going to highlight a couple of things in Chilliwack-Kent around this last point, this partnerships with Indigenous people.

I was honoured to be part of a celebration with the Tzeachten First Nation in Chilliwack-Kent. This government partnered to build 23 homes on reserve with the Tzeachten First Nation. What that meant, according to the Chief…. People are coming home, and these communities are able to, again, have multiple generations, all of that support.

I’ve also, to this last point, in my last minute and 33 seconds, been able to celebrate with the Sts’ailes First Nation. There was an amazing and historic agreement made. The goals and the vision of that community are inspiring. I can’t wait. There are going to be more celebrations with them. In that community as well, people are coming home. That’s how it was described to me by Chief Leon. People are coming home. That’s fantastic.

With one minute left…. What the throne speech does address is exactly the things that British Columbians have been telling us, and that’s why it’s not a surprise, nor should it be. What it’s talking about is how we are going to continue addressing those issues that are most important, how our government and our Premier are going to continue taking action with the goal of stable, secure, stronger and sustainable.

E. Ross: As always, it’s an honour to get up and speak on behalf of Skeena in response to the throne speech of 2023.

I just want to say hi to two people that I know for sure are watching: my wife, Tracey Ross, back in Kitimat, and Glenn Martin.

To the millions of others that are watching all across B.C., hello.

Since 2017….

Interjections.

E. Ross: That’s my own party heckling me.

Since 2017, I’ve listened to vague statements in the House regarding reconciliation and undefined UNDRIP legislation. Over five years, the only thing I’ve really noticed that has changed is that the B.C. NDP government now makes the rules, and Aboriginals have to follow these rules.

That’s a complete change from what happened in 2004 when the Haida court case came down and said the honour of the Crown matters. The Crown has to go above and beyond to address Aboriginal rights and title. It wasn’t meant to give government control over First Nations’ futures. It wasn’t meant to do that. The Haida court case also solidified the idea that there’s an economic component to rights and title that has to be addressed.

That is why we saw so much success in B.C. from 2004 to 2017. Whether we’re talking about forestry, mining or LNG, so much success. In fact, a lot of these projects were projects that were brought to this Legislature by First Nations themselves, including LNG Canada, including Chevron’s KLNG project and including Cedar LNG, which is a project from the Haisla Nation.

There was something that was mentioned, a term in the throne speech made by the Premier, along the lines of “following the rules.” Well, as Haisla chief councillor from 2011 to 2017, I refused to follow the rules.

[4:00 p.m.]

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I believe economic reconciliation would make B.C. stronger. I also have seen how economic development could help resolve poverty, unemployment, suicide, children going into government care — the same issues that I lived with as a young person and that I still live with today. Yet I find all those issues that we talked about at my Chief and council table from 2003 to 2017 are the same issues we’re talking about here in the B.C. Legislature — substance abuse, homelessness, the economy. We’re talking about the same issues.

The result of not following rules on behalf of my people, the Haisla people, brought LNG Canada to B.C. — the largest private investment in Canadian history — and proved my point of resolving so many social issues. The jobs that came with forestry and with mining also helped not only my people, the Haisla people, but many First Nations all across British Columbia, and non-First Nations. It was the idea of inclusion that made it all possible.

It’s surprising to me now that we’re hearing members of government get up and talk about economies, but they’re really talking about economies based on government jobs. That’s not an economy, because without an economy, your only device to bring in revenues is taxes. We’ve seen the taxes come in from this NDP government — 20 in total, increased and new taxes. Well, if you keep shutting down the economy, the only thing you’re going to have left is taxes. You can’t get blood from a stone.

After seeing all the positive results of the work, not only from my First Nation but from non–First Nations — the community of Kitimat, the community of Terrace and all those other communities that needed an economic development plan and supported forestry, mining and LNG — it was gratifying to see so many people across B.C. get uplifted — a generation of people, whether you’re Aboriginal or not.

My only regret was that previous Haisla leaders were not around to see the incredible accomplishments we achieved, just because we refused to follow the rules. It put us and many other First Nations in a position where we could address our own issues on our own terms, because we were not dependent on government revenues. That’s what the Indian Act is. It’s dependent on government revenues. That’s why so many First Nation leaders are trying to get out from underneath the Indian Act.

“Those who follow the rules,” was said by the Premier on the throne speech, but nothing was said about a political government that makes the rules and knows full well that these rules are unfair or even discriminatory. The definition of “discrimination” is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex or disability. In terms of economic reconciliation, the NDP are exercising a very unfair balance of power by legislating unfair rules.

The Indian Act was unfair, but at the time it was okay because that’s the rule. It was legislation. Everybody now­adays knows that the Indian Act was an unfair piece of legislation that still exists today. In fact, the only reason that my band got away from the Indian Act is because we ignored the Indian Act. It was irrelevant.

Now we’ve come full circle. We have a government that is making an unlevel playing field, not just for Aboriginals, but for non-Aboriginals as well. This is not what a government is supposed to do. A government is supposed to look out for all the people in British Columbia, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike. It’s not supposed to create unfair legislation, especially if it borders on discrimination.

Jon Coleman was in the Legislature yesterday, listening to the throne speech. Jon Coleman is a Cowichan Tribes member who was told, as a private contractor, that he cannot work on the construction of the Cowichan Hospital unless he plays by the NDP’s rules — meaning he has to join one of the NDP’s hand-picked unions.

[4:05 p.m.]

You’ve seen the headlines. He was the one that was blocking the construction at the Cowichan Hospital, an Aboriginal not being allowed to work on a publicly funded project in Cowichan. How is this funny, especially when you’re talking about all the flair and all the pomp and circumstance around UNDRIP and how you bring Aboriginal leaders in here to actually start our proceedings with prayers?

Yet you exclude Cowichan Tribes. You exclude Jon Coleman’s company from working on a taxpayer-funded project. Twenty hand-picked unions he has to join.

Interjection.

E. Ross: I can bring Jon Coleman here.

Deputy Speaker: I remind the member to speak through the Chair.

E. Ross: Madam Chair, I can bring Jon Coleman here, and the Cowichan Tribes, to actually hear their side of the story and how they’re being excluded from an economy under UNDRIP, under a specific piece of legislation that was characterized as a community benefits agreement. Well, last time I checked, First Nations are part of communities as well.

In fact, First Nations, in bringing economic development to B.C., hated the idea of exclusion. It was rumoured that as chief councillor, I was going to exclude all non–First Nations from work on LNG projects and forestry in my region. Well, we know, as Aboriginals, what it’s like to be excluded. There is no way we’d consider that because in our minds, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Jon Coleman, who is being excluded from working on a publicly funded hospital project, is starting to realize that he’s not just fighting against Aboriginal exclusion. He is fighting for 85 percent of B.C’s workforce who are non-union. He’s fighting for all those who work and play in Cowichan territory, Aboriginal or not.

So 100 percent of the workforce pays taxes, but only 15 percent are allowed to work on taxpayer-funded projects. How is that fair? How is that inclusive? This actually goes against all the speeches I’ve heard on reconciliation in this House. In fact, I’ll take you back to the first time I heard the term “reconciliation.” It was in the Haida court case. The judge said we’d better learn how to reconcile because, let’s face it, none of us are going anywhere.

To this day, I still believe that reconciliation is meant to bring people back together and not to divide us, not to exclude, whether you’re First Nation or non–First Nation, because a divided society is not a society I want to live in. First Nations don’t want to live in a divided society, and here we have legislation that’s meant to divide us, that’s meant to exclude.

I can’t believe I’m having to say this in the Legislature of B.C., in Canada, where we celebrate freedoms, where we celebrate inclusion and diversity.

There was nobody in Jon’s corner. There was nobody in the Cowichan Tribes’ corner trying to advocate for a fair answer to his exclusion and the Cowichan Tribes’ exclusion. But I’m in his corner. The Leader of the Official Opposition is in his corner.

If nobody is in our corner, what was the point of including Aboriginal rights and title in the Constitution of Canada in 1982? What was the point of all those court cases that defined rights and title, that defined the honour of the Crown, that actually opened up the door to economic development for First Nations? What was the point of all that if we allow this to continue?

[4:10 p.m.]

Unions are valuable. They stand up for the worker. They make work environments safer. They fight for fair wages. I don’t think anybody in this House would ever speak up against the union, but not at the expense of Aboriginals. Not at the expense of non–union members. Why the favouritism?

In fact, as chief councillor, one of the things I didn’t want was anything coming from the government that gave me a leg up on the competition. I wanted it to come from the private sector, even though it was government’s duty to address rights and title, because at the end of the day, I felt it would make B.C. stronger as a whole.

Let’s take another First Nation — Gitga’at, Hartley Bay. If you don’t know where Gitga’at is, they’re an isolated community down a channel. There are no roads in. You can’t get a ferry. You’ve got to get in by boat or by plane.

They’ve got a clean energy project that’s been stuck in regulatory limbo. The United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples means nothing to them. It means nothing. What’s worse, from the B.C. government, is the goalposts keep changing. Every time they accomplish what the B.C. government tells them to do, they’re told to do something else.

All they want is a clean energy project. That’s all they want. In fact, they’re actually depending on the B.C. government’s decision so they can access federal government funding. The federal government wants to fund their project, but they can’t because B.C. can’t get its act together.

I think just looking at a vague, broad, general statement on UNDRIP should clear it up, especially when you’re thinking about all the bullets that the Gitga’at has tried to propose to the B.C. government on why their project should go ahead. I quote from the Gitga’at: “Our project meets all the same high-level goals we all share: safety; security — food, water and energy; energy sovereignty and planetary stewardship; vigilant focus and care of our watershed, and us not burning 500,000 diesel litres annually; reducing GHGs; increasing health; economic opportunities for many; and above all, coho production, salmon.”

The Haisla Nation are waiting for an answer from the B.C. government on whether or not their project, Cedar LNG, can go ahead. Now, Cedar LNG is an offshoot of the LNG Canada pipeline, and guess what. I was chief councillor when we put that together. I know where the regulatory hurdles are. I know where it is. They should have had an answer on Haisla Cedar LNG last year. They’re still waiting for it. What’s the holdup?

If you’re going to approve 28 billion cubic tonnes of LNG for LNG Canada, what’s the problem with Haisla Cedar’s $3 billion project, where you’re only talking about ten kilometres of pipeline and no permanent terminal facilities? There’s very little impact. What’s the holdup?

This is not fair. There’s an unequal balance of power here. This B.C. government is holding all the power at the expense of First Nations. First Nations, to quote a book that was written by one of my band members, are going back to being beggars in our own house, begging for an approval for LNG, begging for an approval for a clean energy project, begging to be part of hospital construction.

Kitselas. I came here last year asking, on behalf of Kitselas, to approve an order-in-council for a geothermal project because they didn’t want to spend another $1 million that they already expended. Where are all those lofty UNDRIP principles? Why are you making First Nations beg and grovel when you’ve got UNDRIP?

Now, I understand UNDRIP is a vague, general document, full of platitudes and rhetoric. I understand that. But having that at the bottom of all the other legislation is not fair, especially when you talk about how UNDRIP was supposed to be aligned with all the laws of B.C. Shouldn’t UNDRIP be at the top, especially when you’re talking about projects that benefit all of British Columbia?

Last week the Leader of the Official Opposition unveiled a plan to deal with mental health and addictions. Many First Nations have been advocating for this type of idea for years, for decades, long before fentanyl came along, long before crystal meth came along.

[4:15 p.m.]

Back in our day, our focus was alcohol. There were some of us where a job opportunity just wasn’t enough to get us away from substance abuse, myself included. I’m a 22-years recovering alcoholic. I’m lucky, because a lot of my friends and family didn’t get away from alcohol, and a lot of my friends and family are now dying from overdoses. The chief councillor of Kitsumkalum was scratching his head, saying: “How come we’re decriminalizing drugs when my people are dying from overdoses?” I’ve got to hold my hands up and say: “I don’t know.”

You talk about the consultation on some of this stuff. I don’t remember a debate in this Legislature about decriminalization. I don’t remember any campaign across B.C. talking about decriminalization. It was an agreement between this government and the federal government. I would have loved to see that information before it happened so I could take it back to Skeena, so I could take it back to all those First Nations and say: “This is what’s coming down the pike. You better get ready.”

In terms of the frustration that First Nations are feeling and how they’re starting to feel that they have been sold a bill of goods with UNDRIP, it’s no surprise that First Nations are now talking about taking the role of regulatory authorities away from B.C. and the federal government and just doing it on their own. I mean, UNDRIP suggested that that’s a possibility anyway.

The coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship are now saying that the rights holders and the stewards of their lands, waters and elements will be recognized as sovereign governing authorities for their traditional territories. They also go on to say that they, too, rely on wild salmon. They also advocate against those various projects and other industrial operations that are damaging wild salmon habitat in First Nations territories.

They also talk about if non–rights holder nations want to set a precedent that allows First Nations to impact decisions on other nations’ territories, when will it start and where will it end? This is part and play, because the government has picked sides, picking winners and losers.

Where will the provincial government stand on this? It’s the provincial government that issues the tenure on the terrestrial side of things for fish farms. There is growing unrest, and this was all built on the high expectations that were given to First Nations when you introduced UNDRIP. You should have told First Nations you had no intention of fulfilling those goals.

Recently in Skeena, the riding I represent, a group of First Nation leaders cooperated to put together a plan for a treatment centre in Terrace. Mind you, everything that they talked about in terms of their goals fit perfectly with what the Leader of the Opposition announced just a few days ago. It was a comprehensive plan.

Unfortunately, these leaders asked the B.C. government for a partnership, and what did the B.C. NDP government tell them? They told them to go ask the First Nations Health Authority instead. The First Nations Health Authority has got no money. They’re basically an offshoot of an Indian Act funding agreement. That’s what they are. In fact, they’ve had no capital spending money for the last 20 years.

To tell a group of leaders that want to help with the addiction crisis that we’re facing in B.C. to go someplace else while at the same time talking about a surplus in B.C. is insulting. It actually contradicts everything you talked about in terms of partnerships with First Nations. It contravenes the UNDRIP act.

[4:20 p.m.]

We heard a lot about the cost of living, and the B.C. government failed to mention that they are part of the reason of why the cost of living is making B.C.’ers struggle. There are many British Columbians today that are $200 away from becoming insolvent. They’re not going to be able to pay their bills. They’re not going to be able to put food on the table.

The creation of new taxes and highering taxes in B.C. over the last five years has a part to play in it. I know a lot of people have got something to say about that, but the only thing I suggest is to at least stop the bleeding. No more new taxes. Don’t higher any more taxes. I think B.C. has been taxed enough.

In fact, the NDP government was asked to consider giving British Columbians a break at the gas pump, which they refused to do. This helps because gas and diesel actually help transport our goods and services. You raise the cost of gas and diesel, the costs of goods and services go up.

In many speeches I’ve heard here today, it was with great pride that the NDP government talked about how they’re going to stop giving taxes to corporations, yet the biggest tax break in B.C. history was given to LNG Canada by the NDP government. Estimates are at $6 billion — the largest tax break in B.C. history. No PST. The NDP government actually capped the carbon tax for LNG Canada at 30 bucks a tonne, whereas the regular citizens are going to see their carbon tax go up to $170 a tonne. But LNG Canada will be capped. There will be no LNG tax.

I mean, you talk about the resources that have brought revenue to the B.C. government in the past year or so. You’re talking about forestry, LNG, mining — $3.5 billion. You’re talking about a surplus that the government now has. Well, a lot of that surplus came from revenues that came from the resource industry.

So it’s very noble to say you’re not going to give any more tax breaks, but you already have. In fact, the only question now is whether or not LNG Canada will build phase 2 of their operations without electricity, meaning they will use gas. They will burn gas to power up their turbines. I just hope that if they are approved, Cedar LNG for Haisla are given tax breaks comparable to LNG Canada. I hope Nisg̱a’a LNG gets tax breaks similar to what the NDP gave to LNG Canada.

Thirty minutes goes by quite fast.

As the resource sector gets shut down and there are vague statements made about LNG, there is no talk about where all these displaced workers are going to go or where these displaced families are going to go.

Now, it’s probably easy for a worker who loses a job in Chilliwack and just goes next door to, say, Abbotsford and gets a job that has a similar pay rate. It’s not so easy for rural communities — communities on Vancouver Island, communities in northern B.C., communities back out in the east of B.C. It’s not that easy, especially when you’re talking about communities that only thrive on one or two economies. Most of these communities are thriving on forestry.

Mills — lumber mills, pulp mills, reman mills — are shutting down all across B.C. When a family packs up to leave and they can’t go and get an LNG job or forestry job elsewhere, where are they going to go? I can tell you they’re not going to go to work in a coffee stand. They’re going to go to Alberta. They’re going to go to the United States. This is not right. We shouldn’t be actually making conditions so hard that families have to leave B.C. That’s not right.

In the throne speech, there was one line that talked about forestry. This is the line, and I’ll quote the Premier. “It is working with the forest sector to ensure a sustainable industry going forward to retool mills and manufacture value-added products, including those that replace plastics made from fossil fuels.” No mention of the 29 mills that have been shut down in B.C. since 2019.

[4:25 p.m.]

That represents thousands of workers, and if you multiply that by three or four, because that’s how big families are in B.C., you get tens of thousands. If you multiply that by the businesses that actually live off these foundational mills, the number becomes staggering.

You won’t say anything about Cedar LNG. You won’t say anything about phase 2 of LNG Canada. You said nothing when Chevron left, with their $30 billion investment, and you won’t say anything about the mills shutting down in Alberni, Houston, Castlegar, Fort St. John, Chetwynd, Prince George, Radium, Ladysmith, Duke Point, Chemainus, Cowichan. Some of these are on here twice.

Skeena is on this list. The mill in Terrace, Skeena Sawmills, is now on this list. Why? Because there’s no supply. The NDP have taken away the lumber supply, and they also contribute to the cost of logging. No mention of this in the throne speech.

Crofton, and these are all definite and indefinite clo­sures. Mackenzie, Williams Lake, Fraser Lake, Quesnel. No mention of how many people this represents that will be affected in a negative manner. I know the NDP are going to blame the outlook on a global recession. That’s going to be their line going in, but they will not mention any of their own policies, going forward, that actually made this happen.

In fact, the NDP said, when they were opposition, a mill would not shut down under their watch, the previous Premier. Well, he was right, because 29 have shut down since 2019. Not just one, 29. I feel for the workers. I feel for the families.

I’ve got a lot more to say, but I’ve got 30 seconds left. I just want to say, in closing, a friend of mine just passed away from cancer. I just got notice. He was a good friend. His mother and dad were really good to me.

To the family of Ron Lechner, my condolences on behalf of the B.C. Liberals and, ultimately, this House. I’m so sorry for your loss.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

Recognizing the member for Richmond-Queensborough. [Applause.]

A. Singh: Loving those claps. Haven’t heard them in a while.

Very, very honoured and pleased to be back here in these hallowed halls. Like for many of you, it’s nice to be back in the constituency, but there’s something about this building. There’s just something about this.

The throne speech and the direction of the government, the way that it opened up. We are at a time where we’ve faced unprecedented challenges for the last few years, and we’re looking at greater challenges.

Not only economic challenges but climate change. Global inflation. It’s been squeezing household budgets. We see and hear every day that food prices are going up, housing prices are going up. First question period today — mental health and addiction seemed to be the topic of choice today. People working harder than they’ve ever worked before, but still not being able to afford the things that they want. So some unprecedented challenges that are ahead of us.

What we saw outlined in the throne speech was a plan to deal with those challenges, that recognized that these are challenging times and that there can be a lot of uncertainty that these challenges provide. Not only for us. I mean, we have to recognize, really, that this is…. There’s some solace in that, actually, that we have to recognize that we are not alone here, that this is a global challenge. Inflation is a global thing. Gas prices from last year are a global thing.

[4:30 p.m.]

The Ukrainian war is happening a couple of thousand miles away, but it has effects on our economy here. Yesterday and the day before there was a massive earthquake in southern Türkiye and Syria. You’ll see economic effects and real people effects of that here.

This government has shown, in the last few years, that it looks at these challenges realistically and faces these challenges and comes up with policies — real policies, real people policies — that are focused on people, focused on regular, everyday British Columbians. How do we help regular, everyday British Columbians? One of the ways we’ve done that in the last few years, and my friend was talking about taxes, is taking away the regressive taxes that were around for so long, like MSP and tolls across the bridges.

Again, going back to the real time, the real threats and challenges that we face, in many ways, we don’t have much control over those. We don’t have control over international trade. We don’t have control over wars that Mr. Putin wants to start or climate emergencies and disasters that happen elsewhere in the world or how COVID is affecting our supply chain and how China hasn’t been able to recover, really, for the last few years — how those things affect us. We have no control over that.

What we do have control over is the policies we state over here, the policies that we implement here, and how we take care of our people, how we take care of regular, everyday British Columbians. That’s why, over the next year — just like the government has been doing since it got elected in 2017 — this government will keep on working hard with people across the province, across this country and across the world to make sure British Columbia comes out better than it went in, to make sure we are as insulated from the forces that will bring things down from the outside.

You know, these challenges that we face are not only economic and climate challenges, but there are also the threats to democracy. There are the threats to civility. We see that. We see how politics has changed over the last few years. We see how things driven by a regressive agenda in the south have bled over into our politics, and we have to remain ever vigilant against that. We have to remain ever vigilant against allowing those forces to really control how we think and how we do things in British Columbia.

One of the other things we do have to change is that these seats are far too big for this area, and they make it hard.

Again, going back to those regressive forces, we really have to be ever vigilant against that — against forces, against the sort of American-style public political action committees that exist there and that we saw, in the last few months and years, bleed over into our province and try and affect politics in our province. Before this pandemic hit in 2020, this government had two or three years of real policy change, a few years to really, really tackle those things that affected people most, tackle those issues that people cared about most.

Unfortunately, the pandemic hit, and that really did set us back. We had to change gears and focus on that, of course, necessarily. We all — everybody in this Legislature, both sides and the Third Party — worked together to make sure that British Columbia came out of that. We’re still not fully out of it, but that we travelled through that with the best possible results not only in Canada but North America, and some of the best results in the world.

We had to respond to not only the health crisis but also the economic crisis that came along with that, to make sure that people were able to still feed themselves, that they were able to still work, to help small businesses keep afloat during that time. You saw all of the spending, not loans but grants that were given to small businesses to keep them afloat, because at the very heart of this government’s policy is people, right? At the very heart of this government’s policy is the well-being of everyday people, making sure that everybody in this province is carried forward together.

[4:35 p.m.]

Again, our government has always kept people at the centre, and that has resulted in an economic growth that allows us to deliver more and that allows economic opportunity for everybody in this province. Our child care policies, for example. Investing in child care meant that B.C. led Canada in women being able to return to work.

Our management of the pandemic meant that we were insulated from the greater economic impact that many other provinces saw. We continued with, also, the help of the federal government, some of the highest supports in Canada — made sure that businesses stayed afloat during that time period, during that very, very hard time period.

Now we’re slowly coming out of it, and we’re seeing the after-effects and inflation coming in. Over the next little while, it’s going to be a hard time, and government has to keep on being responsive. This is not a time for government to shrink back and slow down. It’s a time for government to remain active and to remain active in sponsoring and supporting those businesses that need it at this time. It’s a time for us to actually come together and spend the resources that we need. It’s not a time for austerity. It’s a time to spend the resources that we need so we keep our British Columbians afloat at this time.

It’s a time to continue with the responsible management of our natural resources. Over the last few years, you’ve seen our award-winning CleanBC program, award-winning climate initiatives working together with responsible management of our natural resources. You’ve seen that we’ve set new records with revenues from that area, putting money back in the pockets of regular, everyday people.

British Columbians have gained from what we’ve done with the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, the reforms that have happened there, putting that Crown corporation back on solid financial footing and providing people with some of the lowest rates in Canada, instead of losing billions of dollars, and at the same time, returning money right into their pockets.

Our unemployment rates have been near record lows throughout all of this time, with more people working before the pandemic and more job opportunities. That’s all the while with thousands of people, record numbers of people, moving to British Columbia, not only internally from within Canada but from overseas as well.

Talking about overseas, we’re a province that thrives on export and international relationships. We recognize that. We recognize that we rely on those relationships. In the throne speech, you heard that this government is going to expand on that, is going to look to our strengths, look to the diversity within our caucus, within our government, and continue to develop on those international relationships that we already have and create more relationships. We reduced costs for families. We’ve helped businesses attract the talent they need.

Health care has been and will be one of the biggest things to talk about over the next few years. The strain that health care has had over the last few years, especially with the pandemic, has been unprecedented. But we’ve grown our health care workforce, cut wait times for surgeries, given more people access to a family doctor. There’s still a lot more work to do, and we recognize that.

These limitations and these deficits did not come about in the last year, two years, three years or even five years. They’ve been in the making for some time. Previous governments — not just the previous government; I mean previous governments; I’m talking back many, many years — did not make the necessary investments that needed to be made. We recognized that, and we’ve pushed forward, right?

In my constituency of Richmond, we have a hospital that was sitting decrepit for years, for decades. I think it’s 60 years old now. Finally, we will be getting a new hospital in Richmond.

The thing with a careful, considerate, tempered approach is that sometimes it takes a little bit of time to see the effects of that. You will see the effect of that. Climate change is a clear example of that.

[4:40 p.m.]

This is an issue that has been around for a long time. I came into this realm of advocacy, actually, through that lens of activism, of environmental activism. I may not look as old as people…. I’m 54 now. Back in the ’80s, I was talking about global warming and environmental degradation. Talking is not the right verb or adjective, actually. I was screaming about it back in those days, as you do as a young person. No one was listening to us then. Now it’s apparent that climate change is here upon us and that we have to do something about it, but fighting climate change and growing a cleaner economy is going to take time.

We’re doing that through innovation, partnerships, stronger export relationships and our EV structure. These choices that we’re making will pay off not only immediately, but will pay off substantially over the long term. We’ll continue to make the choice to invest in these things.

Again, you’ll see that there’s a lot of chatter out there that inflation is coming and times are going to be hard and that we should respond to the downturn by pulling back, reducing services, cutting things, and making people pay more out of their pockets. That’s absolutely the wrong approach.

When things are going to a downturn, austerity is not the way. It’s been proven and shown that it does not work, that you have to invest in those services, that government has to step up and use its collective power to push the economy forward, and that’s what we’re going to do here. There’s too much at stake right now to pull back on supports for people. Pulling back on the supports has real life consequences for people.

People are only just now finding their way out of this pandemic. We can’t afford short-term thinking. We have to think in the long term, in decades. We have to. Just the way that we deal with climate change, just the way that we deal with these things…. We have to we have to think of the long term, of decades. We’re not thinking in election cycles. We’re thinking of life cycles of people.

In a chaotic world, as the Premier said, B.C. is doing things differently, making B.C. a more stable, secure, stronger and more sustainable place to live. We’re investing in today to build a stronger tomorrow. We’ll continue to make those choices that put people first — put British Columbians first — with a new budget that’s going to come out at the end of this month. You’ll see, when it does come out, that incredibly smart investments are forecast in that. Those are investments that we’re going to be making in the next year to build for a stronger tomorrow — not just for a stronger few months down the line, but for years down the line.

These are investments that will pay off. These are policies that will pay off for years to come. Had previous governments thought about these investments and made these investments, perhaps we would not have been in the dire situation in terms of health, in terms of mental health and addictions, that we are now.

We’re going to make record new investments to improve public health care and deliver more housing for middle-class families. That’s something that has been missing. We’re going to ensure that we build hospitals, schools, child care centers, roads and public transit that makes us stronger. We’ll introduce new measures to address the cost of living, especially for those that are the most vulnerable.

We, as a human species, bond together. My undergrad was in anthropology, a long, long time ago. One of the concepts that really came out of that is, as one of the least athletic species in the natural world, our ability to take care of each other, our ability to take care of each other at our most vulnerable moments. It’s what made us strong, what allowed us to build these things.

I can’t remember the name of the anthropologist who said this, but someone had asked them: “What is the mark of a civilization? When did we become civilized?” I think her answer was something…. I’m horribly misquoting, but it’s sort of in that realm. Her answer was: when they found a bone that had been set together and held. What that showed was that unlike in the animal world, where an animal that is injured may be left behind by the pack, we didn’t do that.

[4:45 p.m.]

Our ancestors took care of this person, put their leg back together, bonded their bones and took care of them, even though the easier thing would have been to leave them behind. Our government is going to do the same thing. We pride ourselves on taking care of those who are the most vulnerable.

We’ve also made a concerted effort to help train for jobs for the future while helping businesses find the talent that they need to grow now. Looking at the incredible pool of talent that we already have here in British Columbia, from all over the world, credentials that are not recognized….

We have a new minister of state who sits two over from me whose job it is just to look at that, to look at all of the resources, all of the economic resources we already have, all of the brain resources we already have in British Columbia and how we can better utilize that skill, that amazing skill set that already exists.

One of the biggest sources of anxiety for all British Columbians, all of us alike, is really the rising cost of living. It’s something that you just can’t ignore, and it’s something that we can’t be insulated from. We live in a global economy. You know, our food sources come from all over the world, right? We rely a lot on the U.S. We rely a lot on our partners in the U.S. and Mexico.

B.C. is an incredibly desirable place to live, but that desirability also makes it a really, really expensive one. Global inflation, the effects of the pandemic, food security — these are all things that, during the time of the pandemic, really came to light. We really have to look at how we can secure food here locally, how we can take significant steps not only to put money back in the pockets of people and help them with that, but how we can insulate ourselves against future crises.

In terms of helping families every day, as much as $410 for a family of four went to British Columbians last month. The B.C. Affordability Credit landed in bank accounts at the start of the new year to help 85 percent of British Columbians with increased costs. Car insurance rates have been frozen for another two years, and a $100 credit was reduced for everyone’s hydro bill.

Child care costs. In December of 2022 I was at the announcement in Richmond at the Jewish Day School, where the Prime Minister and the Premier came together and announced another reduction, savings of as much as $550 per family per month for each child, over $6,000 a year in additional savings for many families. I mean, that’s life-changing.

At that announcement, we heard from an incredibly smart woman who…. I think she was an engineer, actually, who hadn’t been able to go to work because of the barrier that child care was for her. It was heartwarming to hear her talk about how this extra $550 a month is now going to allow her not only to take care of her children, not only to get rid of that anxiety, but also to get back to work. So here’s another person, an engineer, who we’ve gained in our workforce from that — life-changing for her and for many parents.

Reducing ICBC rates by an average of $490 a year. Ending bridge tolls. I’ve spoken about it before. My cousins lived in Surrey. They both worked in Burnaby and worked at different times. One worked in the hospital; one worked in a printing press. Thousands of dollars saved every year with not having that toll on the bridge that they had to pay every day.

These are all the reasons why this government will keep on working to help people with new measures targeted to those who need it most, including people with lower incomes and families with children.

Extending those child care benefits, those child care savings. We have those for children who are kindergarten age and are extending those later on to parents with school-age kids.

One of the hallmarks of this government has been fairness in the economy. When we came into government, our minimum wage was one of the lowest. Over the last five years, B.C.’s minimum wage has gone from that, from one of the lowest in Canada, to the highest among the provinces.

[4:50 p.m.]

The workers’ right to a union, to negotiate for better wages and for better working conditions — that’s been protected. That was not a protection before.

B.C. became the first province last year with five days of paid sick leave, so workers don’t need to choose between going to work sick and putting food on the table. This is right in the middle of a pandemic where you’re being told: “If you’re sick, stay at home.” But what’s the choice you make? If you stay at home, you don’t make enough money to make ends meet. So a really substantial step there.

In the spring session, government will continue to put the people that play by the rules, put honest people first. I’m really, really pleased about this, that we’ll be introducing new pay transparency legislation — pay transparency legislation that has been looked at and has been thought about carefully, a critical tool to shine light on the gender pay gap that we all know exists and move closer to equal pay for equal work.

Also, we’ve been doing this for the last few years, but we’ll continue to go after organized criminals, rich tax evaders, corrupt officials from around the world who mistakenly think, and have thought for many years, that they can hide in B.C. at the expense of hard-working people.

There’s a real tie-in, when we talk about mental health and addictions, between that — between organized crime and the fentanyl and toxic drug overdose crisis that we have here. I hate calling it the overdose crisis — the toxic drug crisis that we have here in British Columbia. Those things go hand in hand.

Oh, my favourite subject at these things — Al Capone. I mean, there are so many examples that we can see in the past. Alcohol is made illegal. You’ve got gambling, and the Mafia exist at that time. You know, this is exactly what has happened over here as well. You have the fentanyl crisis. The toxic drug crisis is intimately tied to organized crime and money laundering in British Columbia, and you have to tackle that part of it, because if you don’t tackle the money-making part of it, those things will never go away.

We’re going to continue to send a strong message by seizing homes and profits, again hitting them where…. They do this for profit. So let’s hit them where it will hurt them the most, in their pockets, and use these proceeds to support British Columbians who want strong, safe and secure communities.

Housing. For British Columbians, the biggest expense by far, I think for many of us here, is our housing costs, whether renting or paying for a mortgage, the stability and security provided by…. And it’s just gotten worse with inflation, with the rising interest rates, with the Bank of Canada trying to control things in a way that doesn’t really help regular people. You’re going to see a lot of pain in the next few years. So the biggest expense is getting greater.

The stability and security provided by an affordable home is also key to building a good life here in British Columbia. It has been for a very, very long time. It’s sort of been the apex of life in North America.

I grew up in a place where we didn’t really own homes. We rented. But here in Canada especially, and in North America, that is sort of seen as a centre to having a good, decent life, and finding a decent place to call home is incredibly challenging right now for many people.

For too long, the housing market has worked very well for speculators, for people that want to make a quick dollar on the housing market and on people’s desperation. It’s worked really well for investors, who’ve used the housing crisis to make excessive profits by purchasing homes and flipping them for a higher price.

It’s worked really, incredibly well for real estate investment trusts and other investors that look at housing not as a home but just another commodity to be traded. That’s just unfortunate and wrong. All that has done is drive up the cost of homes — these are people’s homes — drive up the cost of housing and put it out of reach for many, many people.

In its first 5½ years, what this government has done is take important action to deliver homes that the people needed. Again, speculation being one of those things, it cracked down on speculation with the speculation and vacancy tax.

[4:55 p.m.]

With that tax and the declarations, this helped turn 20,000 empty condominiums into rental homes for people in Metro Vancouver alone. That’s 20,000 empty homes. That’s 20,000 more families that have homes in Metro Vancouver alone.

It helped keep housing prices and rental prices lower than what they would have been. They’ve increased anyway, because we’re a very attractive location to be. We had — what? — over 100,000 people. Every year, year after year, more people come to British Columbia. So the strain on our housing market and on our services has grown year over year, every year. Without these things, without the things that the government has done, the stress on housing prices would have been far greater.

We also started making urgently needed investments in affordable housing of every kind after decades of neglect, not only by previous provincial governments, but also with the federal government. We’ve slowly started seeing the results of these efforts. Again, we’re not thinking of election cycles. We’re thinking of long term. We’re thinking of the people who brought us here. We’re thinking of long-term commitments and long-term results, right?

We’re starting to see the results of some of this slowly, some of these efforts. Construction of rental housing for people was up 10 percent last year, the highest ever on record and seven times what it was a decade ago. Despite that improvement, we’re facing new housing challenges coming out of the pandemic, the interest rates. But again, the population growth — 100,000 people almost, every year, moving to this province.

Loss of existing buildings and an overall lack of supply that can’t meet the needs of our growing population. That’s why our government has recently removed unfair strata restrictions, so empty condos that wouldn’t be able to be rented out before can now be rented out for people. We’ve invested $500 million, half a billion dollars, in the new rental protection fund, a fund that will safeguard renters against evictions or rent hikes by the big investment companies, the real estate investment trusts that want to buy affordable rental housing and make money through exploitation and eviction.

We’re working with municipalities to set ambitious targets to deliver more housing where it’s needed the most and breaking down permanent barriers that are preventing new homes from being built quickly. You hear, again and again, that that’s one of the barriers. We know that, we understand that, and we’re looking to solve that.

You’ll see in the months ahead that we’ll make major new investments to increase housing services near public transit hubs around the province, keeping in mind that we want to keep our GHG emissions the lowest. Public transit is a core of not only our housing strategy, but also our overall strategy as well. We’ll also launch a refreshed housing strategy. You’ll see in the fall session, after working with local governments, that new laws will be introduced to turn that strategy into new affordable homes, more homes for middle-class families instead of profits for speculators, taking care of regular people.

I see that my time is up.

P. Milobar: I’m happy to rise and take my place in the debate around the throne speech. Certainly, this throne speech has been a very interesting one in what it doesn’t say and the marketing wrapped around it with this government.

We’ve heard varying degrees. We heard the member for Chilliwack-Kent very clearly agree that it was boring, that it was dull. It wasn’t very visionary, essentially, is what she was agreeing with. Yet we’ve heard others…. Frankly, the last speaker was probably more of a forward-looking speech than the actual throne speech was, which is saying something, considering how many hundreds of people probably worked on the throne speech over the last month.

The reason I say it’s a contradictory exercise of marketing here is because it started off with the government being refreshingly forthright with the public that health care is a mess; that the addiction and mental health challenges in B.C. are a mess like we’ve never seen before; that crime is out of control and a mess; that housing, both to purchase and to rent, is at record levels, and it’s a mess; that the housing plan by government is a complete mess; and that there are strong economic headwinds coming, and people should not expect to have the type of surprise surplus in this coming budget in three weeks.

[5:00 p.m.]

Then you fast-forward in the speech just a few pages, and all of a sudden, everything is going to be record levels. Record levels of support like we’ve never seen across all of those same areas. Now, this government has had six years in those areas. For six years, we’ve heard about their record levels, and for six years, every one of those areas has gotten worse.

I have a news flash. When they talk about the previous government, it’s them. They’re well into their second term. These were their plans that have been failing over the last six years.

The opioid crisis like we’re just seeing right now was just beginning. It was just beginning when there was a change in government. It has essentially been 100 percent under the timeline of their watch that we have had the opioid crisis. Our former Health Minister actually won a national award for his handling of the opioid crisis in the early days and how B.C. handled it and how our government handled it.

It’s this government that has presided over the mayhem that has ensued: the loss of life at record levels — the ever-climbing loss of life. Six people–plus a day in British Columbia. The lack of treatment. The lack of accessible treatment. The lack of the ability for people to get into treatment without having to put a second mortgage on their house. The lack of parents being able to have access for treatment for their children that are struggling to try to get into treatment and being told: “Come back in eight weeks.”

We all know what happens over that next eight weeks when that 15-year-old finally had a moment, who was agreeing with their parents or their grandparents that they would go to treatment. I’ve toured in Kamloops with the police and other agencies around the…. It was gut-wrenching. My daughters were both a little bit older when I took the tour, but gut-wrenching as a father of two young women to be shown by the RCMP just what happens in Kamloops, and the locations it happens and the ages of the girls. They get forced into prostitution and other things to supply their habit.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I had parents tour with me, on that same day, pleading that they could have access for their daughters so they could get them in proper treatment — long-term treatment, meaningful treatment — and the numbers of times that their daughters were willing to go and they were told there was no treatment available. That timeline is under this government’s watch, because that’s all happened while I’ve been an MLA, and other than 18 days when I was in government before the change of power, I’ve only been an opposition MLA.

Things have not gotten better. The throne speech acknowledged that things are the worst they’ve ever been. So when you hear that spin later on about record levels of this and that and everything else, it’s totally on brand for this government, because for six years it’s been announcement after announcement after announcement with failure to deliver any type of meaningful result.

They don’t just go back 16 years to try to blame. We’re now talking 22 years ago for some of this stuff that they’re talking about — decisions that a government in 2001 would have made. They like to try to freeze time as if no proceeding governments after that would have ever changed what they were doing based on what was going on with the economy of the province.

[5:05 p.m.]

They like to be very selective, this government. They’re trying to freeze things in a block of time as if nothing would have ever changed and no decisions would have ever been made differently. That’s troubling because despite all the rhetoric that we hear from this government — and we heard from a former minister who led off throne speech debate today, praising all the great work — well, here’s what we’ve been getting, January 16, from people that supply care under his former ministry’s watch:

“B.C. is in crisis and nobody seems to be concerned about what is happening. People are going without services and losing support. Very vulnerable individuals with developmental disabilities are ending up on the streets.

“The ministry office is not listening to concerns, and just sending people back to community is not addressing what is happening. The NDP is not looking out for all the citizens of the province, and the most vulnerable are being left behind, particularly if you have a disability.”

Those aren’t my words. That’s from an agency that would prefer not to be named because they’re fearful of retribution. How sad is that? Yet we have a government that likes to try to wrap themselves as if they’re the only people that possibly could understand or care. But the outcomes tell a much different story. We heard speakers on the other side talk about health care, talk about access to health care, how they’re speeding things up. Newsflash: they’re not speeding things up.

Once again, it’s very telling. When a government stops talking about things that they’ve been beating their chest about for the last four years and then magically stop talking about it, it’s probably a failed program. Let’s look at health care. B.C. has four of the ten worst cities in Canada for walk-in clinic wait times. What was supposed to cure the walk-in clinic wait times under this government’s watch? Does anyone remember? It was UPCCs — oopsies, for short.

It becomes clear why, after four years of repeatedly talking about UPCCs as if they were the magical solution to health care, the Minister of Health doesn’t want to talk about them anymore. As soon as people started to ask to quantify how many people actually access them, how many resources are going into them, how short-staffed they are, how many walk-in clinics have closed in the jurisdictions that these have been opened in, as soon as the minister has to be held accountable to that, we don’t hear about UPCCs anymore. Maybe the Premier’s new health adviser/unofficial health minister, Penny Ballem, can start providing us some actual numbers on that.

In Kamloops, after ours opened, within a few short years, Kamloops has no more walk-in clinics. None. They’ve all closed. And although two out of every ten British Columbians don’t have a family doctor, in Kamloops, four out of ten don’t. And we were the first ones. We were a year or two ahead of all these other ones opening up. So I’ve got news for all the communities that have these. Look at Kamloops and see what’s coming your way.

As doctors age out, as walk-in clinics close out, as health authorities try to poach doctors and other health professionals into the UPCCs, without any capacity to the system, they actually put through less people in a day with more staff tied up to it than a walk-in clinic would. It’s actually reduced people’s access to health care. So a grand announcement, zero deliverable.

[5:10 p.m.]

Things are getting worse. Our cancer care is plummeting in this province. These are all outside agencies that are rating this. This isn’t the opposition coming up with something. When we talk about just coming up with something and flinging it out there and hoping it sticks, I really do hope…. The Premier, the new House Leader, the last speaker and others, over the last week, have repeatedly said “some” are talking about cuts to services, and we don’t believe in that. They will never say who the “some” is.

Now, I’ve been around both municipal and provincial government long enough to know that when people don’t want to quantify things, there’s a reason. If they could point to someone on this side that has ever said that, they’d be using that name. But they can’t, so they’re going to say “some.” It’s just like when a politician says, “I’ve been getting tons of phone calls,” and you ask them to quantify what tons is, and you find out it’s one or two.

I really hope the Premier or the House Leader or someone on that side will start to tell us who this “some” is that’s saying that we should start cutting services for people, because — especially — the duty of accurate information coming out of a government to not scare people at a time when they’re actually vulnerable, like they are in our current economy, is incredibly important.

Let’s look at housing. Worst outcomes we’ve ever seen in housing right now. About 8 percent, 9 percent, of the ten-year housing plan has actually got people living in them. It was this government’s ten-year plan. I’m going to love to see who they’re going to try to blame for that, because in the throne speech, they finally acknowledge it’s a disaster, and lo and behold, they’re only halfway into it. They’re getting rid of it, but they won’t tell us in the throne speech what they’re replacing it with. Oh no, that’s going to take until at least the fall.

You have a Premier that was the Housing Minister for two years. Really? There is no idea as to what the plan should be already? None? “We just know it’s failing so badly that we have to replace it, but you’re going to have to wait another six months for us to do anything to actually deal with it.” That’s the government’s response? It’s absolutely untenable when you see the political games being played by this Premier and this government on how they’re delaying announcements for his own political gain.

We saw that as he was trying to make sure he kept people out of the leadership race. Legislation held back, then brought to this chamber, after cancelling a week of debate to rush it through. Public safety matters delayed, waiting until he was sworn in as Premier, so people could keep getting attacked at the rate of four-plus people a day, randomly, just on the streets of Vancouver alone. That’s the level this Premier will go to, it appears, for political announcements.

He says he wants to get on with the job once again. Lofty announcement. “Let’s get on with the job. I really want to get going on my 100 days of action.” Let’s look at the actual result: political gamesmanship and delay that puts people at risk — literally, physically at risk. But that’s okay. We have SROs with record levels of fires in Vancouver right now, but we can’t see a new housing plan for another six months. We have one SRO that doesn’t even have an elevator working for months on end, and the minister just says: “Well, I’m kind of aware of it.”

Let’s remember this is all in the backdrop…. Trying to rebuild the new direction of this government…. This is on a backdrop of 5½ years of the previous Premier continually bragging about how it was all cabinet decisions on things government was doing. Well, last I checked, our current Premier was at that cabinet — a pretty high-ranking role as Attorney General, a pretty high-ranking role as Housing Minister for a couple of years, as well, simultaneously. None of these things could have been done, apparently.

[5:15 p.m.]

He couldn’t convince his cabinet colleagues on the direction they needed to take on housing or on public safety, but he sure as heck could convince them all not to dare have the temerity to run for leadership against him to seek the Premier’s seat.

It does make you wonder: where was all this over the last six years? Where was the acknowledgment that rents are continually growing at record levels? People who are fully employed are at zero dollars in their banks at the end of the month, are starting to live off their credit cards and are ever-increasingly getting closer and closer to homelessness, even though they’re fully employed, but no acknowledgment from this government. No, instead they’re going to talk about record levels.

Let’s look, with the time I have, at some of the other areas in this throne speech. No discussion at all about forestry, while mills are closing everywhere. In fact, I believe there was a mill closed on the day of the throne speech — another 150 people out of work.

This is a government that walked away from the softwood file. If this Premier wants to correct the mistakes of the former Premier, maybe that would be a good place to start. It was this government that said that they were going to go to Washington and solve the softwood deal on day one. All that happened is they went to Washington and got a nice big donation cheque, before they changed the fundraising laws, and came back. That was it.

Then they gave up control at the national table on forestry to other provinces. How has that worked out for us now, six years later? Maybe while the Premier is out east…. It’s good that he’s out there. I believe first ministers should meet. Maybe, just maybe, we could try to reclaim a little bit of that space back at the national forestry table to try to get some closure to the softwood deal, to try to get some certainty into our jurisdiction.

Every single operator of it has said we are the most restrictive and most expensive jurisdiction in North America to conduct forestry businesses in. That’s why you’re seeing those same companies leave and then go to another jurisdiction and invest their capital there. They don’t have certainty. They’ve had nothing on the file. They’ve had no leadership from this government for six years. All they’ve had is last-minute policy decisions thrown out there.

They had two major pieces of forestry legislation brought forward that once again were dropped on this House with no notice. In fact, we had two of them being debated simultaneously, both with closure looming over them. The minister couldn’t even be in both chambers at the same time, for obvious reasons. That’s how the forestry industry has been treated by this government. That’s how all the communities that are with forestry have been treated by this government. That’s how all the mills in Surrey and along the Fraser River have been treated by this government.

When people drive along Highway 17, where do they think all that wood comes from that’s getting processed? It’s coming from the Interior and on the Island. The government wants to talk about value-add. That’s the value-add area. Guess what happens if they don’t have wood fibre, wood to process. They’re going to close too. The Lower Mainland is very much tied to the forest industry. Thousands upon thousands of jobs are tied to it. That’s how this government has treated them with this throne speech.

Another reason why this throne speech has been so disappointing…. There was a very rare opportunity for this government — very rare. I’m going to take a couple of minutes on that. We have this surprise surplus because of an undercalculation of taxes that are due from the federal government. That’s standard practice — it’s about a 21-month lag, regardless of who is government — but it came in much higher than we expected, both on personal income tax and corporate income tax.

[5:20 p.m.]

Make no mistake about it. The surplus is built on massive excess taxation. The Premier has been very clear that instead of following the law, which is that any surplus would be put against our debt…. He doesn’t want to see it go against debt. He’s not going to break any laws. He’s just going to make sure it’s all spent before March 31. He’s been very clear about that.

That has nothing to do with the upcoming budget on February 28. That budget is for next fiscal, starting April 1. The surplus has to be accounted for now. If those billions of dollars are going to be going out, they need to be going out now. Do we have any idea from this throne speech where those dollars are going to wind up and even a hint of whether or not it will be to ongoing programming or one-time hits? It’s only one-time money. The Premier has also been very clear about that, and I agree with him on that.

This throne speech had so much potential. It was a golden opportunity for a government to have the Lieutenant-Governor spend 40 minutes talking about the billions of dollars they were going to spend over the next — what? — 45 days. But no. Instead, we got, as the member for Chilliwack-Kent agreed, boring.

That’s the worry. This government has a track record of big announcements, big spending and no result to show for it. So when you try to start spending the types of dollars they’re talking about in the next 45 days, the track record would say it’s not going to be very effectively done. The track record would say it’s going to be a bit of a train wreck.

It’s all going to be done on the fly and at the whim, likely, of the Premier. All the power has been consolidated in the Premier’s office with him and his new cabinet of advisers, who will then go out and tell the cabinet ministers what their job actually is, or not, at least four of them. I guess the other ones might have a little bit of autonomy. We’ll see.

That’s the problem. It’s no way to govern. At a time with inflation the way it is…. At a time when 46 percent of the people are saying they simply can’t make it work anymore, when 28 percent of those are women saying the same thing, it’s a problem.

The lack of detail in this throne speech is a problem. You can’t say, “Watch our record spend in the next budget,” two sentences after warning everyone that the next budget is going to be pretty lean. The two don’t match up. You can’t have this surplus that we’re talking about in the next budget. The law doesn’t allow for it. So that’s a problem.

When you look at, again, very little support for the tourism industry….

Where is, just out of curiosity, in this throne speech, any mention whatsoever of the renters rebate? Maybe I’ll just take a couple of minutes on that with the time I have left, Mr. Chair.

Let’s see. The now Premier was the Housing Minister. We asked right before the last budget when we could expect it. He said they were working on it, and we should see something soon. That was before the last budget, a year ago. His words, not mine.

Now he’s the Premier. We have a throne speech. Nothing. It was promised in 2017 in an election. It was promised in 2020 in the election. It was promised by the then Housing Minister and now Premier a year ago. It was actually fully costed for the previous Premier in 2018, with a 2019 implementation.

[5:25 p.m.]

Maybe that’s why the former Premier wasn’t so happy that the Premier’s office could be subject to FOI. That’s how we got that document: FOI. It was going to be income-tested, and they had a dollar figure to implement it, $163 million based on income-tested.

All of that language, actually, was in the former Finance Minister’s mandate letter. It went through two budgets with that in the mandate letter. No renters rebate. No mention of it in the throne speech.

To me, the throne speech is about as much, if not more so, what wasn’t in it, about why the government wasn’t able to actually lay out a plan for how the next 45 days were going to roll out their surplus dollars that they have and that the Premier has acknowledged will be spent. Instead, we got dull and dour.

There’s also a concern, with the housing side of this, in terms of the vagueness of the change in plan.

We talked about the UPCCs, how that was supposed to be the magic solution for health care and how the minister walked away from talking about that.

When was the last time we heard anyone in this government brag about their 30-point housing plan? It’s obviously been internally recognized by government, for quite some time, that their housing plan is a complete train wreck. It’s a disaster.

The now Premier was the Housing Minister for the last two years leading up to this. I guess we have to go and consult with the Premier’s housing adviser, who’s on a…. You know, it actually lines up. They’re on a six-month contract, and we’re told that we won’t have the new housing plan for six months.

It will be interesting for this House to discover if it’s actually the minister of the Crown tasked with creating this housing plan or if it’s an actual adviser that’s not accountable to this chamber and that does not stand here and answer questions. Well, after today, not so much answer questions as bluster, wandering out in the wilderness, but at least is on the floor of this chamber, at least would actually be standing there in estimates, in this chamber, answering questions. We won’t know whether or not it’s that adviser that’s actually developing this housing plan or whether or not it’s the minister.

Across the board, it’s a poor way to govern. Across the board, we’re not getting the results that people need, that people require, that people deserve based on the level of their tax dollars going into all of these programs. They’re not an unlimited well of tax dollars.

The government needs to start recognizing that. The government needs to start delivering tangible, meaningful results for the public of British Columbia. They have nothing more to give this government, and this government needs to start giving back to them with the same type of effort they’re putting in right now just trying to pay their bills in their households on a daily basis.

Thank you for this time, Mr. Speaker.

H. Yao: I would like to start, first of all, by acknowledging that we’re on the traditional, unceded territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people, specifically the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations. I want to thank them for allowing us to live, work and play on their ancestral land.

I definitely want to make sure we start responding to the throne speech in a good way.

I’ll take a moment to thank the Richmond South Centre constituents for sending me here to represent them, to really reflect many of the challenges we’re facing, to really bring their voices and to connect with our different ministries and different levels of government and to support our community as we grow together.

Today I want to take a moment to speak about our throne speech. I think one of the things that I do sincerely appreciate about this throne speech…. It comes with a very humble voice to talk about….

[5:30 p.m.]

We, as British Columbians, are facing different challenges — facing challenges at a different level when it comes to housing, affordability, inflation, health care. Our government is stepping up and making sure we are doing our best to take care of that. We do need to consider how we can build a stronger B.C. together. We need to build a stronger future.

I understand, also, prior to my time, that our government had worked hard with various levels of community to support British Columbians. Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit in 2020 and set everything back. Our government swiftly responded to find a way to support British Columbians, to find a way to support small and medium-sized businesses to ensure that we opened and closed on the scientific and proper guidance of Dr. Bonnie Henry, to ensure that we allowed our British Columbia to be ready to open in a gradual, appropriate and well-paced manner that allowed the economy to thrive.

Putting people at the centre of our government is a choice that has resulted in economic growth, and we are here to deliver more.

One of the first things I do want to take a moment to almost brag a bit about is how we fixed ICBC. We restructured our public insurer to put ICBC back on solid financial footing and turned ICBC to one of the lowest rates in Canada. Instead of losing billions of dollars, we’re helping British Columbians save money with ICBC.

Our unemployment rate has also been nearly a record low, with more people working than before the pandemic and more job opportunities coming ahead. All of this has led to a multi-billion-dollar surplus this year. However, we do need to anticipate potential economic challenges ahead of us. We can work and build a stable, secure, stronger and more sustainable future together.

How do we help people with different costs, according to the throne speech? The new B.C. Affordability Credit landed in bank accounts at the start of the new year to help 85 percent of British Columbians with increased costs. As much as $410 for a family of four went to British Columbians last month. The basic car insurance rate has been frozen for another two years — and $100 credit is reducing everybody’s hydro bill.

In December 2022, child care costs were reduced again, this time by as much as $550 more a month for each child, or over $6,000 a year in additional savings. As a father of two, I cannot express how deeply grateful I am that we are helping our families to make life more affordable, because families are facing different challenges. We are even able to say that the living wage by hour has been reduced due to our investment in child care.

We also reduced ICBC rates by an average of $490 a year, and we ended tolls in the Lower Mainland. We eliminated medical premiums, which represents the largest middle-class tax cut in a generation.

This fall, the significant child care savings our government is delivering will continue beyond the kindergarten age and will be extended to parents with school age….

One of the interesting things I do want to take a moment to also express is for one of our previous MLAs who used to sit here, who helped to advocate for the introduction of pay transparency legislation. It is a critical tool to shine a light on the gender pay gap and, more closely, to equal pay for equal work.

Our government is also determined to go after organized crime, rich tax evaders and corrupt officials from around the world, who mistakenly they think that they can hide in B.C. at the expense of hard-working people. Our government is going to send a strong message by seizing their homes and profits.

Of course, we also need to understand that British Columbians are facing housing challenges. For far too long, the housing market has worked well for speculators, and it worked very well for investors who used the housing crisis to make excessive profits by purchasing homes and flipping them at higher prices. All of this has driven up the cost of housing and put it out of reach of many average British Columbians.

Our government will take strong actions to address the issue. We will crack down on speculation, and we will continue to support the speculation and vacancy tax, which has already helped, turning 20,000 empty condos into rental homes for people in the Metro Vancouver area alone.

[5:35 p.m.]

Helping to keep housing prices and rents lower is one of the priorities for our government. We understand that British Columbians are still struggling right now, and we understand that we need to have greater urgency for investment to increase our affordable housing of every kind. For example, the construction of rental housing for people was up 10 percent last year. This was the highest on record, and is seven times what it was a decade ago.

Our government also addressed unfair strata restrictions on empty condos. I do want to take a little bit longer in talking about this. With my office, I did a consultation with constituents to talk about how the restrictions removal helps. Surprisingly, one of the interesting topics that was brought up is that in our community, there were, unfortunately, quite a few empty units. We are also addressing rental units that had been illegally rented out, despite the restrictions on a strata.

Some of our strata unit owners were actually encouraged to know that once the restriction was removed, they are better able to target and explore what kinds of illegal rental of units are happening, to ensure that we actually increase our rental support and to ensure that rentals are being done properly and legally.

We will also be investing $500 million in a new rental protection fund. We’ll also be working with municipalities to set ambitious targets to deliver more housing where it is needed most. In the fall session, after working with local governments, homebuilders and communities, new laws will be introduced to turn that strategy into new, affordable homes. We will continue to support British Columbians.

I know the previous speaker mentioned something about UPCCs. I do want to take a moment to share some personal experience with UPCCs as well. So I’m going to be talking about health care, which was also part of our throne speech.

As a father of two — one toddler, one infant — I actually had two different opportunities to visit a UPCC, once when one of my children was having an eye infection. The other one was during a fever. For both, I was able to walk into a UPCC, with a reasonable amount of wait time, get the service needed and walk out.

At that time, we didn’t see a doctor. We saw a nurse practitioner, who has sufficient learning and education to provide sufficient guidance for us. One of the nurse practitioners taught us that even though, as young parents, we might be anxious when we see our children with symptoms, not every eye infection needs to be addressed. She still provided a prescription so that we could actually provide antibiotics for my child’s eye.

Of course, when we’re dealing with fevers, the other nurse practitioner reminded us, to a certain degree, we don’t need to be worried about rushing the child into medical services. She provided us with a printout that walked us through everything. This was all done by nurse practitioners.

The timing was reasonable. My family and I had to bring both kids to wait in a UPCC. I think anybody with young children can understand that kids in a waiting room are difficult to manage. We were very thankful that timely service was being provided. We didn’t face any difficulty in being able to get the service we needed, just like everyone else who was waiting in that room too.

I wanted to take a moment to also talk about our government’s continued desire to invest in hospitals. We’re investing in a new medical school at SFU and expanding the medical school at UBC. We are trying our best to continuously work in different ways, with a multi-pronged approach, to deal with a complex issue.

I understand that when we’re dealing with something challenging and overwhelming, it is easy for us to look at the challenge and difficulty and to hope for one silver-bullet solution. British Columbians understand that health care is a complex issue. Health care requires long-term investment, and health care requires dedication and services to train the British Columbians of today to be ready for tomorrow.

That is the reason why I’m so glad that we’re investing in infrastructure with capital spending on hospitals around British Columbia. We have increased, with a medical school at SFU, to ensure that we can generate our next generation of doctors, and we’re expanding the medical school at UBC. These are important steps as we move forward. Of course, that’s not it.

[5:40 p.m.]

We’ll continue our action to actually allow internationally trained doctors, nurses and health care workers in hospitals to quickly transition into the profession. That’s one thing I continuously say at every speech I can make: that investing in British Columbians is one of the most important priorities for our government. British Columbians are our most important resource.

I’ll echo some of my colleague’s earlier comments too. We have bright, intelligent, dedicated immigrants who are coming to our province, who demonstrate our province’s previous success by voting with their feet, by voting with bringing their families here, wanting to live here and to raise their families. It’s our job, and our government’s continuous effort, to ensure that we maximize their potential so that they can serve, live and play in British Columbia, our beautiful province, in a way that we can all prosper together.

That’s why we’re so glad that 2,000 internationally educated nurses are now being fast-tracked in the health care system right now. Of course, health care is also one of the biggest challenges that our provincial government is facing at this point. We’re trying to find a different way, going different ways to address the issue. But we also need a stronger partner. That’s why I’m so glad our Premier, in our effort to set up a historical agreement with our federal government….

We are working together to increase a proper partnership and proper collaboration so we can bring the proper resources to support British Columbians and to help British Columbia’s health care system invest in them completely, comprehensively and properly. This is great news. We need to continue to work on that.

The pandemic has not officially left us yet, at this point. We are facing a lot of global pressure from the pandemic, including inflation, right now. Our province is working well with our business sector, with our counterparts, with communities to ensure that we’re taking care of British Columbians.

As our population increases and ages, there’s a growing demand for all health care services, particularly in cancer care. Close to 90 people every day are diagnosed with cancer in B.C., and unfortunately, the number will only increase. That’s why we need to continue to work and build upon our health care system, fight cancer and find a way to invest in diagnostic imaging, early detection and treatments.

Now I’d like to take a moment to talk about safer communities. I think everyone who has a family, who has an elder in the family, who has extended family, all share one similar passion, which I mentioned earlier today in my statement. British Columbians want a safe place to raise their families, but communities in B.C. and across North America are seeing our streets changing for the worse. Obviously, this did not happen overnight. It is a product of a decade of cuts of supports and services in B.C. and chronic underinvestment in housing. It is a consequence of changes in federal laws, subsequent Supreme Court decisions.

Unfortunately, it’s also a product of a toxic drug supply that hurts even more people than it kills, leaving many families struggling, people with serious brain injuries and, of course, many lives prematurely lost. None of this happened overnight. Our government sympathizes with the families and all British Columbians. That’s why it’s important for us to work together.

There’s no one solution. It will take collaboration between police, prosecutors, mental health experts, community service providers and our government to work continuously to support British Columbians.

We also need to talk a little bit more about law — repeat offenders. Our legislation will be introduced to crack down on gangs and, obviously, money laundering. As part of the safer communities action plan, our government is implementing a new response team to track, arrest and jail repeat offenders as well. These teams are made up of police, dedicated prosecutors and probation officers. It is investing to ensure that the RCMP can operate at its full capacity to keep people safe, particularly in the rural areas of British Columbia.

[5:45 p.m.]

Again, I want to re-emphasize one of the challenges we face as British Columbians, which is a very positive and welcoming challenge. People are moving here in record-high numbers. People are voting with their feet, because our government is taking in British Columbians, and we have a healthy, inclusive community. But that also means that we, as a province, need to be ready for an incoming new wave of different community members and immigrants, to ensure we are ready to take care of them. I’m glad our throne speech addresses that issue.

B.C. will have record investment to support local governments in responding to the growth that we are seeing in different communities and making sure our communities are stronger and more liveable for families. We’ll continue to fund enrolment in classrooms, recruitment of new teachers and building new schools in fast-growing parts of the province.

Progress will continue on the Broadway subway project in Vancouver and the Surrey-to-Langley SkyTrain, the first rapid transit project south of the Fraser River in 30 years.

Our government will, of course, continue to support inclusivity and combat against hate. We will have a new anti-racism action plan that will be launched for K-to-12 students to ensure schools are welcoming for everyone.

There’s one specific point of the throne speech I want to further emphasize. It’s the legislation that will also be introduced this session to address the malicious, exploitative, non-consensual sharing of intimate images. There’s a reason why I specifically want to talk about this legislation. As an MLA, I have come across quite a few different cases, and one of the most heartbreaking cases I’ve ever addressed was a Chinese-Canadian woman who walked into my office and was sharing with me her frustrating heartbreak of her relationship. She was wondering what kinds of issues she should be addressing.

I think one of the comments she actually brought up was that her husband threw dishes at her. With her anticipation, the dishes missed her, therefore she did not see that as violence. That scared me for a moment. And then at the same time, too, because they were still living together at that time, she noticed her husband would sneak around with a camera, taking pictures of her while she was sleeping. She was extremely uncomfortable with that, and she asked what kind of support could be done about it.

All the stories being shared remind us that there is so much work that needs to be done. We need to protect people. People should have the right to be safe, to feel comfortable, to thrive in their home, yet we are still facing different forms of domestic abuse, domestic violence and disrespect of one another in a way that’s unacceptable in our community.

As this is cross-aisle, we will speak to all female legislators. We understand many of them have faced different challenges in the past, and I want to express my sympathy and support for the hardships that have been faced. We thank you for your courage. But I do want to emphasize the importance that we must ensure that this legislation is strengthened and delivered so we can protect British Columbians, so they may feel safe again in their home.

I also want to take a moment to talk about reconciliation. I think one of the important things that I’ve actually noticed, of course, for the last few years is our MLAs’ and our elected officials’ continuous dedication to land acknowledgments through community events.

One other thing that I want to say — I’m very reassured; I want to say it’s heartwarming — is that something…. Different community groups who might struggle, who might have a little bit of limited understanding of truth and reconciliation, are now becoming curious and asking questions because they might not have a full awareness of what’s offered out there and what kinds of challenges have been experienced.

The Indigenous community, in Canadian history, went through a bloody, hateful, discriminative history that cannot be compared to any other form of racism. Even though I experience different forms of racism, I want to express my sincere and deepest sympathy to the Indigenous community. We’ll work with them as our government worked with them through truth and reconciliation. We need to continuously foster this understanding, foster this awareness and foster this partnership. I was very excited when we were hearing about different ways our government is finding to work in a government-to-government relationship.

[5:50 p.m.]

Truth and reconciliation is a complex issue. I want to re-emphasize that, having seen so many comments talking about points here and there as though truth and reconciliation can be resolved with the snap of a finger. It take years of dedication. It takes continuous advocacy.

It takes unwavering determination for all of government, on both sides of the aisle, to work together to continuously share our land acknowledgments, to continuously work with the community members and to continue to educate ourselves, as I, too, am still trying to learn the truth and reconciliation every step of my life. I, too, have to admit that I don’t understand not even close to enough about truth and reconciliation.

I want to welcome all my colleagues, whenever we go out into the community, to please share your land acknowledgment to demonstrate your support of truth and reconciliation and to support the community that has faced one of the most bloody histories in our Canadian history.

I also want to take a moment to talk about our economy, especially when it comes to the environment. As I mentioned earlier today, it’s one of the biggest things that truly bothers me and, of course, my constituents — food security and water security. We need to find a way to make sure that…. We need to work with farmers, ranchers and producers to ensure a sustainable local food system while creating opportunities that boost the economy and strengthen food security.

I think the pandemic taught us a very clear lesson. International trade is good for growth and prosperity, but we also must understand that when we face different kinds of international challenges, it puts barriers on our ability to thrive. It puts barriers on our ability to have food security and water security. We need to find ways to continue to promote innovation that will increase efficiency in food production, using new technologies and investments such as the B.C. Centre for Agritech Innovation in the Fraser Valley.

We also need to continue to focus on our Asia-Pacific gateway and on the United States, as our family and cultural ties are connected with various countries and form an economic dependency with one another. I’m glad, in our throne speech, that we are planning to expand our trade relationships and create new opportunities for people and B.C. businesses. Our government will make trade missions to emerging markets a priority.

I think one of the very important lessons we also must understand is to look at different challenges we’re facing through the climate change that we’re experiencing today. Our world is changing, and that’s a reality of life. The fact that previous to us, our community, including myself too…. We have not done enough investment to protect our environment, to ensure that we’re doing our best to support our community, support our climate change to ensure that we do not face the currently experienced climate emergencies such as the heat domes, forest fires, drought, flood.

Most are an example of what those years of neglect can add up to, and unfortunately, we also need other steps. When we are dealing with years of neglect, it doesn’t take the same amount of time to fix the situation. It takes more effort. It takes more comprehensive determination and resource spending to ensure that we can match and support to minimize the damage and to reverse.

I think it’s a very strong paradigm for us to look at. It is important for us to continue investing in health care and education in British Columbia and in our climate change actions to ensure that we can continuously slow down some of the difficulties and ensure that we will have a brighter future for all British Columbians.

That’s why I’m so proud of our groundbreaking CleanBC Roadmap to 2030, the plan to put us on reaching net zero, as well as being a leader and inclusive of economic growth. B.C. eliminated the largest subsidy for oil and gas companies to give British Columbians a fair return and allow us to reinvest into our priorities. Over the next couple of months, our government will act with increased urgency to make B.C. meet its ambitious climate action plan.

We’ll also see our government accelerate our work to protect more of B.C.’s old-growth forest, in partnership with First Nations rights holders, in the months to come. We will also work with our First Nations communities and stakeholders to protect our watershed, our clean water sources, now and for future generations.

[5:55 p.m.]

We will continuously invest in B. C. so we may become an international leader in future-proofing our infrastructure to make it more climate resilient. It is why a Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness was created.

I want to bring it back to this. I’m going to echo both sides of my colleagues. British Columbians are facing challenges. We cannot deny that fact. Our government is working hard with our community partners to continue taking on different challenges. We have to start investing. We have to support different services to ensure mental health, health care, education, housing affordability, rising costs of child care can continue to be a priority for us, continue to be a priority for our government as we continue to find a way to support British Columbians.

Of course, we cannot ignore one of the most important things: British Columbia is becoming a more inclusive province day after day, and we need to continue to invest in our effort to fight against hate, fight against historical wrong. That’s why I’m also glad that this summer we’ll have the grand opening of a Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver’s Chinatown, in the historical Wing Sang building.

We are in this together. As a British Columbian and as MLA for Richmond South Centre, I just want to say I am so glad to be here, to join friends from both sides of the aisle to work together in partnership, in collaboration and goodwill as we continue to find ways to ensure we are supporting British Columbians yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Hon. S. Malcolmson: I’m honoured to be standing in the House to speak to the speech from the throne, representing both my community of Nanaimo, where I’m elected, Snuneymuxw First Nations territory, and to speak to the intersection of the vision of this government, the vision articulated in the throne speech and some of the work that’s happening within the Social Development and Poverty Reduction Ministry.

I’m very much grateful, notwithstanding the fact that we live in such a beautiful province in a land of such abundance in, right now, a time where we’ve got record unemployment, a strong economy. Given what we see around the world — whether it’s natural disasters or acts of war — this is a peaceful, beautiful, comfortable place to live. Notwithstanding that, there are a lot of people still that have been left behind.

I appreciated the words of the Lieutenant-Governor and the tone articulated in that to always be cautious. This is what New Democrats do and always have front of mind — those who have been left behind and those for whom we need to work harder.

The range of action that was described by the Lieutenant-Governor in laying out the roadmap and the work that we have ahead of us, starting first of all with helping people with the costs that are ahead of them…. We are absolutely aware that notwithstanding a significant investment and significant support to help people get ahead, to have people be able to live a dignified life, to be able to fully engage in the economy and the communities, not struggling day to day with having enough money, without having the safety and the shelter that they need and deserve — there is still more work for us to do.

I’m going to run through some of the actions that we have taken. All of this, always, though, within the frame of: there is more for us to do. As the throne speech indicated, we are determined to do it.

Since the beginning of this government in 2017, poverty reduction has been a focus. We have made historic investments to lift people out of poverty. We have legislated poverty reduction. British Columbia, I believe, was the only place in Canada without a poverty reduction strategy. That is something that we committed to change and something that we have done, and we table regular reports in this Legislature.

[6:00 p.m.]

We’ve increased, since 2017, assistance rates by 50 percent. That includes the largest ever increase to assistance rates, just this April two years ago, April 2021. Also in 2021, we doubled the seniors supplement. That was the first increase in the history of the benefit. That supported over 80,000 low-income seniors.

Just this last year, we restored the minimum shelter allowance. That’s a benefit that had been cut by the previous government. We will continue to expand supports to lift more people out of poverty, because even with all these new supports, with the rise of global inflation, this has hit people hard, and in particular, low-income people particularly hard.

The poverty reduction actions that we have taken already were shown in 2021 to have reduced the overall poverty rate by 52 percent and reduced the child poverty rate by 71 percent. That is counted as 104,000 children having been lifted out of poverty, more than 100,000 fewer living in poverty. That we had to take that action says a lot about how much work had been undone. This is absolutely changing people’s lives.

That said, though, certainly much of that progress has been overcome by the impacts of the global pandemic, and, particularly, the cost of food. So across government, in almost every ministry, we’re determined to connect more people with more support and, particularly, connect them with food and access to food, because the number one concern that I’m hearing from my constituents is about terrible increases in the cost of just getting healthy food on the table.

More broadly, helping people with the cost of living, for all British Columbians, and particularly low-income British Columbians…. They’ve been able to benefit from the maximum boost to the climate action tax credit and the B.C. family benefit. For a family with two kids, the affordability credits in October and January totalled up to $410 — again, more in people’s pockets. We’ve been supporting families in need with access to school lunch programs and helping out with school supplies. Very grateful to the parent advisory committees and the school boards that have made particular commitments and partnered with government in these areas.

People saw a $100 credit on their hydro bills in December when the cost of heating and power was particularly intense because it was so cold. Low-income seniors are benefiting from the B.C. affordability credit of up to $164 per adult — and more. We hear, particularly, about — and this was highlighted in the throne speech — cost of living and the intersection of impacts on housing.

We have, since the beginning of this government — led initially by our first Finance Minister, Carole James — gotten tough on speculators, taking a number of measures in order to be able to unlock some of the rental properties that weren’t on the market and now are available. And across the whole continuum, whether it’s supportive housing to lift people out of homelessness, decampment efforts, moving people off the streets and into hotels, whether it’s building a whole range of affordable housing in combination with multiple partners….

I know in my own community, the United Church, which has donated land on Brechin Road, completely knocked down their old church, rebuilt a beautiful, tiny, little corner of a church, and the rest of the building is a mix — some market, but largely affordable, housing, all built with a passive housing design. So the design of the building means that 80 percent less energy is needed to power and to heat the homes, which is another affordability benefit for the tenants. That’s one example of a partnership that B.C. Housing funded together with them.

We’ve also built housing in Nanaimo, again supported by our government’s commitment to affordable housing and unprecedented investments, and partnered with Vancouver Island Mental Health Society. Again, another example of our government partnering with an experienced front-line organization that provides the kind of housing that is completely tailored to their clients and the people that they know who need this the best.

[6:05 p.m.]

My friend across the aisle in Parksville-Qualicum…. I’m just on where he and I share part of Nanaimo. Seniors housing projects are going up right now — again, an unprecedented amount of building.

Then, as we just hear so often from our constituents, who would even know that there have been over 600 new affordable housing units opened in our community? They have been snapped up so quickly, we have to build more. We have another 1,000 projects, either under construction or in development, underway just in our community — 1,000 units.

Still with the throne speech, the commitment to accelerate, to remove barriers to construction of affordable housing, to bring more partners in and to work with those local governments that are good partners…. We’ll expedite zoning approvals, we’ll pre-zone property, we’ll dedicate land, and we’ll make sure that inspections happen immediately, because we know that even weeks delay in moving people into new housing can be a matter of great threat to their personal security if we don’t get them housed.

Again, across so many ministries in our government, the work that we have been doing together to break the cycle of poverty and to get people into dignified, affordable, safe housing….

We’ve extended supports for youth aging out of care. Now the age is 27. That makes a huge difference. Again, we heard this was a direct pathway to homelessness. All the cuts of the old government to, particularly, the foster care system have meant that we have thousands of young people that didn’t grow up with an ordinary kind of family structure. They don’t know how to live.

The late Katherine McParland and other youth advocates and homelessness advocates have said that former failings in our foster care system have been a direct pathway to homelessness. We have stopped that pathway. We’ve put up that barrier, so now young people get supports that they need up to age 27.

Quite recently, just this fall, the rolling out of the $600-a-month rental supplement that youth formerly in care can apply for…. We are providing rent supplements to 3,000 people to help them access housing. We’ve increased through my ministry, and my colleague from Sunshine Coast as minister increased, earning exemptions for those on assistance. This supports people to keep their full assistance payment while also doing supplemental work.

We are the first Canadian province to implement rent banks, so people who get in a jam can access interest-free loans for tenants in crisis to help them keep their housing. Our new rental protection fund just announced in the last month will protect existing rental homes from being bought up by speculators.

We’re going to have more to say in the coming months about next steps to build even more non-market housing for people. Together, across multiple ministries in our government, we’ll continue to work to break that cycle of poverty and ensure that everybody has a safe and comfortable place to call home.

Much has been said…. I know my colleague from Richmond, in his comments about the health care system…. I won’t repeat that, but absolutely, I would say that after the cost of food, the second thing that we’re hearing in our constituency offices and from the people that we represent is that they need to get access to family doctors. This has been a crisis growing for years and years in British Columbia and across the country. We know that the Premiers and provincial and territorial Health Ministers are working on this just right this week in Ottawa.

I’m particularly encouraged to see, in the Lieutenant-Governor’s delivery of the Speech from the Throne, reiteration of the commitment to expanded cancer care. That’s something that we know is also going to benefit Nanaimo, something that has been a call that I continue to hear, and I’m very honoured to represent that work. We also know that in order to accommodate cancer care, we need to continue to build out our health care system right in the city. That is work that I’m very grateful to get the very best advice on from people on the front line in Nanaimo and that I’m honoured to continue to represent.

Mental health and substance use continued expansion is also echoed in the throne speech, also a commitment of this government since 2017. We’re the first place in Canada to establish a Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions for the express purpose of building out that system of care that was not in place.

[6:10 p.m.]

If we had not had a global pandemic and unprecedented pressure on our health care system, we would be further ahead, and we would have a less toxic drug supply. Deeply, we have to be encouraged by the drop in the loss of life in 2019 that was directly attributed to the expansion of treatment, harm reduction, expansion of naloxone training. We went from one supervised consumption site in British Columbia in 2017…. Now we have 42, and 14 of those are supervised inhalation consumption sites, directly linked towards saving lives and an entry point for access to detox and treatment.

In my own community in Nanaimo, the opening of sobering and assessment beds, ten of them. Already, in the first month of use, at 83 percent capacity. People can come in under the influence of substances. They have a safe place where they’re medically supervised, where they can sleep at night, and in the morning, they have conversations about whether they would like to stay another night, because the day after tomorrow, there’s a bed open for you in detox.

It is an example of that connection to the continuum of care that we are working hard to build. We absolutely have more to do, but there are many of these intersections where the health care system and overdose prevention and harm reduction intersects directly with treatment. We are able to have those conversations, often supported by peers. Very grateful — in this case, both the Canadian Mental Health Association in Nanaimo and the Vancouver Island Mental Health Society partnering together with Island Health, with the funding from the Mental Health and Addictions Ministry — to be able to bring those partnerships together.

It means we are able to keep nurses and doctors, particularly those that are specialized in addiction medicine. They are able to focus on what only they can do. Peer navigators and peer workers with that lived experience often build that trust and relationship for people that have become understandably alienated from the traditional health care system. They’re able to create those relationships and help people with systems navigation. We’re very grateful for their work and highly reliant on them.

Another category in the throne speech that hits very close to home for my community is the continued commitment and the priority that the Premier has put on making communities safer. New actions are committed and recommitted to, to get violent offenders off the streets. New laws to crack down on gangs and money laundering. New response teams to track and arrest and jail violent repeat offenders. The B.C. Prosecution Service has been directed to strengthen their bail policy. All of those work together to be able to respond to, again, a crisis in the bail system — unintended consequences of federal legislation changes.

In my own community, undoubtedly because we host one of British Columbia’s ten correctional centres…. So, what can we do together when people are incarcerated in provincial corrections systems? We have a captive audience — literally, a captive audience. What can we do to connect them with primary health care, with addictions treatment, with mental health supports, and what can we do to block off another one of those pathways to homelessness that was identified in the work, actually, that we did together in the previous Premier’s working group on homelessness, mental health and addiction?

The Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, partnering with the Public Safety Ministry, last year expanded to, now, all ten correctional centres, what are called community transition teams. We doubled the number of teams, we doubled the size of each team and we tripled the length of time that people that were previously incarcerated get access to these supports after they’re discharged. As it was described to me, a client of a community transition team in Surrey….

The day that he entered the prison, he started to have coaching and develop a discharge plan. That meant he was able to identify: “What are my education goals? What are my sobriety goals? Where are the possibilities for me to be housed? What’s my work plan when I leave?” The day that he left prison…. This is particularly important in the provincial corrections system, because we don’t always have control of…. The length of terms is inevitably shorter than the federal system.

[6:15 p.m.]

It may be that a judge makes a decision to discharge somebody without a lot of planning. The correctional staff don’t have control of that, so they have to put the plans in place early. This particular man described to me…. He was met upon discharge by a community transition team worker. He was driven directly to the Phoenix Society, where he entered an addiction treatment home. He didn’t say: “Maybe I’ll go tomorrow.” He drove him right there.

His navigator — he had access to him just for one month, but during that time he would check in, make sure that he was going to AA meetings. He helped move him into his new apartment. He had an absolute friend on the outside that wasn’t from his old community. This has already shown to prevent recidivism. Now that we’ve doubled the number of teams and tripled the length of stay, it’s making a significant impact on people’s lives.

In Nanaimo, we have groups that are doing this work in a particularly powerful way, and this is undoubtedly going to change lives.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, I imagine you’ll give me a clue when you want me to wrap things up. I’m going to keep going then, thank you. It’s good to see you in the chair.

Another area of the throne speech that resonates very much with people in my community where I serve: fighting climate change. This is not just the accelerated and clear need for British Columbia to meet its legislated emission reduction targets, but also the work to better prepare us for the consequences of the existing climate change that we already have.

Very encouraged to see a new ministry created so that emergency response and climate change readiness gets focused attention, particularly by such a talented minister who is an engineer and also a very fierce climate change advocate.

But the skills readiness, also, for young people to train for these jobs for the future, and the innovation and tech work that is in demand across the globe, but we know British Columbia can show the way in a particularly compelling way.

The commitment to protect 30 percent of British Columbia’s land and water by the year 2030 is something that has been long called for by environmental and conservation and conservancy organizations. Very glad to see that commitment anchored in the throne speech and something that is such a hallmark of our province and our personal identity with this land. Very encouraged to see that and very honoured to be part of a government that is part of that implementation.

I will end with a final and anchoring theme throughout the throne speech of reconciliation and partnership with Indigenous people. None of this work happens without the implementation of our government’s commitments under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. One of those commitments of calls to action, which was enacted today, the recognition of September 30 as Orange Shirt Day and one that will be commemorated in the same way that we commemorate November 11, Remembrance Day.

The commitments under the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous people, the DRIPA legislation enacted here, so everything that I’ve just described, all of this, is interwoven with partnership with Indigenous people.

I want to end with another commitment of government. Just before COVID, the global pandemic, was declared, I think, really, the very last public event that I was at, again in Nanaimo, I was invited by friends in Snuneymuxw — actually my friend, the former Snuneymuxw Chief Doug White III, Kwul’a’sul’tun, who is now an adviser to the Premier. He, together with the former Attorney General and the present Minister of Public Safety, were signing the First Nations justice strategy, and I was so honoured to be called as a witness there.

[6:20 p.m.]

It was a small gathering, but something that brings together everything that our provincial government can do to reduce the over-incarceration of Indigenous people, to reduce the terrible overrepresentation of Indigenous women in domestic violence and in ongoing tragedies like the Highway of Tears.

One of the tools within that First Nations justice strategy is called First Nations justice access centres. This past summer I got to visit one of them in Prince George. This is a place that brings me back to our public safety commitments and our commitment to doing things in a different way together.

In a First Nations justice access centre, an Indigenous client who’s going to be called before a judge for sentencing…. He may be sentenced by the judge to prison, but if he goes through the First Nations justice access centre, he can bring before the judge that person’s commitment to how they would change themselves differently or what they want to be sentenced to instead: an addiction treatment plan, a counselling plan, an intention to be reunited with children that they may have had taken from them and in foster care, their housing plan.

This is a way that the advocates and navigators and First Nations justice access centres, like in Prince George…. In the throne speech, we committed to expanding more of them across the province, a way that the intersection of social services, addiction treatment, things that people often call for and say: “Why don’t you say that people have to be treated involuntarily…?”

That is not what this is. It’s the individual saying: “I will commit to that addiction treatment plan.” If you fall away from that plan, you end up back before the judge and then may be sentenced to a prison sentence instead. It’s a very good model for us, I think, for some of the intractable problems that we’re grappling with outside the Indigenous people.

Again, because of this relationship we are solidifying at a government-to-government level, we have the opportunity to learn from these Indigenous practices. I really hope some of the most vulnerable people that are causing some real challenges in our community when they are violent on our streets…. We can work together with them in a different way.

All that said, Mr. Speaker, I’m in support of the Speech from the Throne and grateful for the opportunity to speak.

Hon. S. Malcolmson moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:22 p.m.