Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call continued second reading of Bill 8.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 8 — REAL ESTATE SERVICES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

P. Milobar: It’s disappointing. It looks like we’ll have Bill 8 and Bill 7 for the government to filibuster for two days now, with no new legislation being introduced today.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I’m just going to pick up on my comments on Bill 8. This is a government that has billed itself as 100 days of action, a Premier that couldn’t wait to get started. In fact, we had to see somewhat of a jerry-rigged leadership race, as he just needed to get going and get on with the work for the people of this province.

Here we are on day 95, three weeks into the legislative session — a shortened legislative session, at this government’s hand — and we have dealt with nothing but housekeeping amendment bills. Frankly, that’s what Bill 8 is.

In a normal year, with a government with a full legislative slate on their docket, this would have been part of the miscellaneous statutes amendment bill, which was Bill 3. That was passed last week. That was the day, just to refresh people’s memories, when the ministers responsible for various sections of that bill couldn’t be bothered to be in this House to answer questions around that bill.

Now, the Minister of Environment was, and I appreciate that he was here doing his job on the sections of that miscellaneous statutes bill. But there were a great many other ministers that were affected by that bill that weren’t in the chamber. As a result, the bill just went through.

[1:35 p.m.]

We’re going to hear today that the opposition does not oppose this bill. The speaker previous made it sound as if there was some pre-emptive debate going to need to be happening to try to convince and strong-arm the opposition to agree with this bill. We fully support this bill. We recognize this bill for what it is, a housekeeping bill.

I’ll be our only speaker to this bill. Unfortunately, what we’re going to hear today is more and more filibustering on Bill 8 instead of substantive types of things that are actually on the order paper. They’re all private members’ bills, but the government could call those.

For the viewers at home, I know the previous Speaker gave a lot of latitude to people on the floor on this bill, so I thought maybe I’d just take a minute to fill people in on the process of what got us here today, as we discuss Bill 8. Again, Bill 8 is literally a two-sentence bill — two sentences.

Now, typically on a Thursday, the government likes to introduce legislation when they have a full chamber because they like to be proud of where they’re headed with a piece of legislation. So that would normally happen on a Thursday at ten in the morning. This bill wasn’t introduced then because, apparently, at ten in the morning on Thursday, it wasn’t ready yet.

Instead, on Thursday, at one o’clock, right after lunch, is when it was introduced, when the government became aware that they weren’t going to be able to filibuster their own bill — that being a bill around the statutory holiday on September 30. And they would’ve had nothing for us to come back to this chamber to work on today.

So at 10 a.m., a miscellaneous bill wasn’t even ready to be introduced to this chamber. At one o’clock, it’s introduced, and now today we’re going to hear from member after member after member, probably for several hours, about how critically important this bill is.

This bill changes one person on the board of the real estate services board, one person. It switches out a government rep for someone on the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association. That’s it. The function of the association will be the same. The funding source of the association will be the same. In fact, they will have more latitude, more freedom away from government, to make decisions on how they would like to spend their money on what projects they would like to do.

We don’t take issue with any of that. We don’t take issue with the good works they do. In fact, I do believe my good colleague sitting behind me was the previous chair, the CEO, of this exact organization. So to suggest that this side would have any concerns over this bill is laughable in the extreme.

This is day 95 of the Premier’s 100 days of action. We had Bill 2, which was a bill around a statutory holiday that everyone acknowledges is part of reconciliation, part of UNDRIP that this House unanimously supported, that the federal government had already supported, that other provinces had already supported. Yet somehow we were getting admonished by the other side that we weren’t spending hour after hour after hour talking about a bill that we all supported on a concept everyone understands, that being a statutory holiday and the significance of that day.

That was one bill. That was the second bill introduced, actually. Then we had the miscellaneous statutes bill. That was the bill the government ministers couldn’t be bothered to show up for to actually answer questions on. Yet we’re admonished by this side that we’re the ones not trying to do our job and take it seriously.

Then we had Bill 4, the pension fund, which closed a loophole on legislation that this government messed up three years previously. We didn’t object to that bill. It was basically a housekeeping bill taking care of a piece of legislation that had an obvious flaw in it, based on a court ruling. We didn’t oppose that.

Then there was the Municipal Affairs bill. Once again, that was about as long as this bill. There were no issues with that bill whatsoever. That’s what gets us here today.

Oh, wait. I’m sorry. There was Bill 5. The government, when they introduced it, made it sound like it was a housekeeping bill as well. But in fact, they were going to dictate to their government lawyers what union they could or couldn’t belong to, and they have now been forced to withdraw that bill from legislative debate because they messed it up so badly.

So that’s why we’re on Bill 8. Again, for those watching at home who probably didn’t catch the first part or for those in the gallery, I’m going to read verbatim Bill 8, because I have 20 minutes left, and I bet you I won’t even be down to the 19-minute mark when I’m done.

[1:40 p.m.]

“His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as follows:

“1 Section 91 (1) (e) of the Real Estate Services Act, S.B.C. 2004, c. 42, is repealed and the following substituted:

“(e) one member appointed by the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association.

“2 Section 93 is amended

“(a) in subsection (1) by striking out ‘, and’ at the end of paragraph (a) and by repealing paragraph (b), and

“(b) by repealing subsection (2).

“Commencement

“3 This Act comes into force on the date of Royal Assent or March 31, 2023, whichever is earlier.”

That was only 36 seconds, word for word. It took 36 seconds to read that bill in its entirety in this chamber, and we are going to be subjected to hours of irrelevant, off-topic, so-called debate in this chamber today by members like the previous member to me. He literally just read from the website, it appeared, of project after project after project that the Real Estate Board has supported over the years that has absolutely nothing to do with this bill. This bill is about the makeup of switching out one member for another.

As for the dire implications, as the Minister of AVED is trying to make it sound like and the previous speaker was trying to make it sound like, let’s be honest: there are not going to be any dire consequences. This association has been operating fine for decades. It’s still operating fine. It will keep doing the great work it does. It’ll keep distributing money for great projects on a wide range of issues around this province.

So we don’t take issue with the bill. We take issue with the farce that this government is making of this chamber, the incompetence. And yes, it’s incompetence. There’s no other word for it.

This bill, in normal days, would have either been part of Bill 3, the misc stats bill, or it would have had the minister speak…. It’s shocking she even spoke for 12 minutes. Usually on a bill like this, the minister would have spoken for about three. The opposition would have got up. We would’ve spoken for a few minutes. We would have said, pre-emptively, a couple of questions we might have for committee stage, and the bill would have moved on.

Now, my colleague from Abbotsford tried that with Bill 3. He told the government exactly what he was going to ask, which ministers we’d have questions for, what those questions were even going to be. And the government’s response to that at committee stage was…. Other than the Minister of Environment, their other ministers chose to not show up for work, couldn’t be found in this building somewhere. Apparently, it’s difficult to track them down, despite how many staff are watching on TV, not just in this building but around the province.

It’s incompetence. The member for Burnaby North might want to draw a different parallel to that word, but plain and simple, that’s what it is.

We don’t take issue with the changing out of a government member, appointed member, to be a member now of the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association. But let’s not try to oversell this if you’re the government, for the next 3½ or four hours, or whatever it’s going to be, trying to make the public think that the opposition isn’t doing their job because we’re not going to put up speaker after speaker after speaker to speak to this kind of to drivel of legislation. The public deserves better.

How many tens of thousands of dollars did it cost to send all of us here this week? Just let that sink in, if you’re sitting at home right now. And the best we have today procedurally are Bill 8 and Bill 7, which is also a misc stats bill. It’s housekeeping, actually, by the minister’s own words, to “address minor legislative, interpretive and technical issues.” — the minister’s words, not mine. That’s the next bill after this one.

[1:45 p.m.]

Here’s the thing for the people at home as well. We have Bill 8 today, maybe Bill 7 today, hopefully, which means the government tomorrow…. When we sit until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, the only two pieces of legislation they have to work on tomorrow, as well, because they didn’t introduce anything today, are Bill 7 and Bill 8. If that’s not the height of incompetence, I don’t know what is.

I don’t give the new Government House Leader a pass because he’s new. He’s been in this chamber long enough. He was a staffer in these buildings. His staff are the same staff the previous House Leader had advising him. The Premier was the Attorney General in this House for 5½ years. Surely he knows how this place is supposed to work.

In fact, the Premier used to be the head of LRC, which vets through and makes sure the legislation is ready to go. Do you know who the new head of LRC is? Well, I know that the chair is over in the corner. The current House Leader is the head of LRC. So he doesn’t get a pass because he’s new. We’re three weeks in.

Maybe a case could be made at the end of last week for still getting a pass. How the heck do you go through a long weekend after the debacle of Tuesday, where we all rose at one o’clock or 1:30? So we rise at 1:30 on a Thursday. We don’t get back here until Tuesday because of the long weekend, and the government still has no other legislation to bring forward?

At the start of this session, we were told there’d be 25 bills of consequence. This is Bill 8 — they have all been housekeeping — on day 95, the Premier, a man of action.

Madam Speaker, that’s about as much time as I’m going to take on this bill. We do look forward to committee stage. We will have a couple of clarifying questions for the minister, as we always do, because we do take our jobs seriously.

I guess the one last point I’ll put out, to the public more so: if there’s any doubt, as you’re listening to the ridiculous debate you will undoubtedly hear today…. I use the word “debate” loosely. We call it debate in this House. Anyone watching at home is going to view these as speeches, because that’s really what they are.

Usually if a bill comes forward and the government feels that it’s even remotely consequential, the opposition gets a briefing. I was the Environment critic for several years. The Environment Minister always made sure I had a briefing. Even on a housekeeping bill like this, I would have had a briefing. We actually reached out to the government for a briefing on Thursday afternoon — radio silence.

Now, fundamentally, that’s not a huge problem, because this is just a housekeeping bill. You can read, literally, the two sentences over 36 seconds, and you can pretty much figure out what’s going to be accomplished. Every step that the government has taken with this bill says that it’s a housekeeping bill. It is meant to just do a quick, slight change to a board. Nothing, fundamentally, of the operation of that board is going to change.

Instead of the government acknowledging that today, get ready, folks at home. You’re going to be subjected to hour after hour of the most ridiculous statements you’re going to hear, because this government doesn’t have their act together.

Boy, I sure look forward to Bill 7 coming forward. That has all of 15 clauses in it, also with no briefing.

H. Yao: If you don’t mind, I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

H. Yao: Thank you, everyone, for the enthusiasm. I do want to take a moment to introduce Richmond Secondary School’s grade 10 social studies class, right now up in the gallery, including their teacher, Cindy Ho.

I just want to say thank you, guys, so much for coming. We do a lot of really important, great work in this chamber, and we hope all you guys can watch it, enjoying every moment of it. As I mentioned earlier, it can be a bit dry. I thank you so much for taking the time in visiting Victoria.

Please, everybody, join me in welcoming this lovely class of grade 10 students.

Debate Continued

Hon. G. Heyman: Hon. Chair, I regret the fact…. Oh, I see the member for Kamloops–North Thompson is still in the House. I note with interest….

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Who’s in the House and out of the House is not appropriately stated.

Hon. G. Heyman: I apologize and withdraw.

[1:50 p.m.]

Hon. Chair, I note, with interest, that the member for Kamloops–North Thompson spent much time following this morning’s debate, in which…. The member was very quick to criticize the member for Coquitlam–Burke Moun­tain for supposedly straying from Bill 7 when in fact…. I will hope to demonstrate, in a few moments, exactly why the statements of the member for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain were absolutely relevant to Bill 7 and, in fact, are at the heart of why Bill 7 is important.

Deputy Speaker: I’d remind the minister we’re on Bill 8.

Hon. G. Heyman: Bill 8. Thank you for the correction.

I note that the member who spoke previously to me spent much of his time speaking about things that had nothing whatsoever to do with Bill 8 but, in the course of those comments, referred to Bill 8 as “drivel,” referred to statements in support of Bill 8 as “ridiculous.” Those are both quotes. I find that regrettable and disrespectful.

It’s disrespectful because the purpose of Bill 8 is to recognize and to put in place a mechanism to allow the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. to continue to do some very important work that it could not do without this amendment. That is the work to do with watershed restoration and health, which the member for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain was referencing.

It is not appropriate to describe the words in a bill, how­ever short, which are going to recognize and support the important work of the Real Estate Foundation — important work that supported First Nations, that supported young Indigenous people in reconnecting with the land, their culture and their traditions, which I will speak to in a little bit as well — as “drivel” or statements that we are going to make in support of that as “ridiculous.” It’s just simply not true.

We now have a Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. Prior to that, responsibility for much of water rested with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.

It was in my capacity, as the then minister, that we conceptualized and introduced the healthy watersheds initiative. In order to do that and to fund it, we needed a reliable third party that could take the important funding that went to watershed rehabilitation and work to ensure watershed health and all of the social, environmental and economic benefits that come with that. That partner was not solely the Real Estate Foundation but primarily the Real Estate Foundation.

The work the Real Estate Foundation did, the relationships it established, the accountability it had for its work with government, the thoroughness with which it undertook a range of projects and worked with a number of local watershed coalitions and Indigenous partners was simply remarkable.

They were ready to hit the ground running with the money that was provided. They did hit the ground running, and I want to talk about that in a few minutes, notwithstanding the fact that the member for Kamloops–​North Thompson thinks to speak of such things is, in some way, ridiculous.

I would submit that the communities, the volunteers, the watershed coalitions, the Indigenous nations, the First Nations and Indigenous youth who are part of the healthy watersheds initiative would not find the words ridiculous or the work of the Real Estate Foundation ridiculous or support for the work of the Real Estate Foundation, in this House, to be ridiculous or drivel. It simply isn’t.

Let me just point to one thing that the Real Estate Foundation did, beyond the actual watershed projects, that I found remarkable.

[1:55 p.m.]

The Real Estate Foundation, working with its partners, did and provided to government an analysis of the success and the engagement of a whole range of projects which they had sponsored and initiated, and put in place governance structures for, with the funding that was provided for that purpose by government. They were the only organization with whom we worked that really did this successfully, which is not to criticize the other organizations. We didn’t ask for it to be done. They did it on their own.

What they did was an analysis that showed that the projects that have the highest level of involvement and collaboration with First Nations and Indigenous youth were the most successful. I’m not surprised by that. We shouldn’t be surprised by that, but it is extremely useful information to have. It means a lot.

What this bill, Bill 8, does is ensure…. When we can make the change that we, as government, saw was needed to address the issue that was raised….

The Real Estate Foundation, as its current governance structure dictated, must be considered as part of the government reporting entity and, therefore, could no longer be the recipient or the administrator of funds to support the healthy watersheds initiative or potentially a range of other initiatives that the Real Estate Foundation might take on in their tremendous work in many communities around British Columbia — not just with water but with many, many other projects that have great, positive community benefits and impacts.

What this bill does is allow the relationship between the government of British Columbia and the Real Estate Foundation to continue, with the Real Estate Foundation being a trusted partner that can be responsible for projects with funding provided by the government of British Columbia. That’s important. They have demonstrated their competence, their commitment, their absolute understanding of the need to be respectful of and to work with First Nations, to give opportunities to Indigenous youth.

These things cannot be overstated. To talk about these things is not ridiculous. It’s not drivel. It is at the heart of government seeking partnerships and relationships to do work that is needed in communities throughout British Columbia on behalf of the people of British Columbia.

That is what this bill does. It allows us more tools and more opportunity to work with a trusted partner, through making the changes contained in Bill 8, to do work that matters for the people of British Columbia. I know the opposition is not interested in hearing about the projects, but I think the people of British Columbia are.

We went through a very difficult period of time with COVID-19, especially the first months. People lost jobs. People were scared. People were isolated.

It provided an opportunity, in looking at the people who suffered the most from the economic impacts and job losses, young people not that much older than the students who are with us in the House today, Indigenous youth — we’re trying to fix that with economic reconciliation — who have traditionally and chronically not had the employment opportunities of others, to give them a chance to do useful work, to make a living, to feel connected to the land, to make a difference in their communities.

I am going to talk about a couple of examples that took place in the healthy watersheds initiative and which Bill 8 will allow to continue under the exemplary guidance, implementation, responsiveness and accountability of the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia.

The Kwikwetlem First Nation trained four full-time resource guardians to enforce conservation regulations. They restored environmentally compromised sites. They monitored development activities to protect archaeological, environmental and cultural assets with ten jobs. One project.

[2:00 p.m.]

The Sunshine Coast regional district, under the regional watershed management planning umbrella, worked with the shíshálh Nation and the Squamish Nation and their community members, as well as other local governments, to develop a regional watershed management plan that would outline the actions needed to protect watersheds within the region.

The Kwakiutl First Nation is addressing large-scale active erosion in the Dła̱xsiwè River by designing and implementing fish habitat restoration measures. These measures will help to stabilize the channel and restore salmon-spawning rearing areas in the lower river and estuary. It did create eight jobs and provided on-the-job training.

The Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance, in partnership with the Carrier Sekani First Nations, de­veloped, implemented and managed, and are continuing to do so, a First Nations–staffed water monitoring and data management system. Once operational, the system will be used to centralize, analyze and share up-to-date water monitoring data collected on the Endako River to support informed decision-making — 18 jobs.

I know that the members opposite don’t want to hear about these projects. They think it’s a waste of time. They may think the words are ridiculous. They may think the legislation that is before the House, Bill 8, that will allow the Real Estate Foundation to continue to do this work in partnership with our government and with the people of British Columbia in the interest of communities, in the interests of First Nations around the province, in the interests of watersheds that are so critical to us….

They may think that is drivel. I do not. I do not believe the people of British Columbia think it’s drivel. I do not think the Real Estate Foundation thinks it’s drivel. The Real Estate Foundation is eager to do this kind of work and the other kinds of work the Real Estate Foundation has done for years.

Our people, British Columbians, through our government, need trusted, responsible, accountable partners that can oversee important, broad-based clusters of projects like the healthy watersheds initiative. We should all be proud of that in this House.

I’m surprised that the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, who has identified himself as the only opposition speaker to this bill, couldn’t even take two minutes, two minutes of his speech, to say a single good word about the work of the Real Estate Foundation, the importance of the work that the Real Estate Foundation did with the healthy watersheds initiative in supporting reconciliation.

It astounds me, and the members opposite can say that we are simply running the clock on Bill 8, but it’s not true. It is important that British Columbians know the difference that is made by organizations like the Real Estate Foundation, the difference it makes in the lives of Indigenous youth.

I had the opportunity to tour several sites where watershed initiative projects took place, in my capacity as then minister responsible, and I remember the enthusiasm of the local volunteer watershed coalitions, who talked about how they had dreamed of the opportunity to do the work they were doing that would restore waterfowl habitat, that would clear out invasive species, that would protect rearing grounds and channels used by fish, that would support healthy fisheries in the future.

They also talked about how a healthy watershed…. Some of the work they did actually provided escape routes for water that might otherwise flood, that in fact did flood throughout the Fraser Valley, that caused devastation when we had atmospheric rivers throughout the Fraser Valley.

[2:05 p.m.]

The work of the healthy watersheds initiative, supported by the Real Estate Foundation, has made a difference. It will make a difference. We can count on it making a difference, because it’s work that needs to be done. I’m sure the members opposite would not expect us to return to the days where government did everything, government managed everything, government hired everyone. What we need is respected and trusted partners to do this work.

The other thing I remember from my visit and my conversations with some of the workers on the healthy watersheds initiative projects…. Again, this is attributable in large part to the Real Estate Foundation making a point of establishing good relations, respectful relations, with First Nations, actively seeking workers who are Indigenous youth.

I talked to some of those youth. They talked about what it meant to them to do that work. They talked about going back to their communities and talking to Elders about the work they were doing and hearing the stories of what the watersheds had been like before they had been subjected to various forms of development that harmed them, and what it meant to restore those, what it meant to the culture of those First Nations — the traditions, the stories that are attached to the values that healthy watersheds support.

They were very clear. It was incredibly meaningful to them. It was meaningful to them because it put them back in touch with their culture, their Elders and their communities. In a number of cases, I spoke to young people who were going to take their experience working on the ground — hard work, in some ways repetitive work but very close to the ground — and turn that experience into a motivation to seek higher education in biology or in other sciences that could bring them back to their communities to help plan that kind of work, to help design that kind of work and to help ensure that kind of work would be done on behalf of not just First Nations communities but communities around B.C.

The Real Estate Foundation is not the only organization in British Columbia that does this kind of work or is a trusted partner. I don’t mean to imply that. But when we had the kind of experience that we had, the accountability that we saw with the Real Estate Foundation, the analysis they did without being asked, to demonstrate how effective engagement with Indigenous people was in ensuring that the projects accomplished the goals they were meant to accomplish….

I think anything we can do with Bill 8 to give recognition to the work of the foundation and continue that valued relationship based on the experience they already have in running healthy watershed initiative programs at a time when we are working with First Nations, with communities and with people around the province to try to take long-term permanent action to protect watersheds through the watershed security strategy and fund…. They are an important partner. We need to empower them to continue to be an important partner.

That’s what Bill 8 is about. That’s what speaking to Bill 8 is about. Speaking to Bill 8 is about respecting the Real Estate Foundation’s work, respecting what they did for British Columbian communities, respecting the engagement they had with Indigenous peoples, respecting the Indigenous youth and others who participated in the program and helped rehabilitate important watersheds around British Columbia. That’s what Bill 8 is about.

It’s really that simple. That’s why sometimes all it takes is a bill with a very few number of words to accomplish a lot of good throughout British Columbia. And I’m proud to stand here today to speak in favour of Bill 8, in favour of the Real Estate Foundation, in favour of the work that the foundation has done. I know that my colleagues on this side of the House share that pride and also want to shine a spotlight on that good work.

[2:10 p.m.]

Question of Privilege
(Reservation of Right)

P. Milobar: I’d just like to rise and reserve my right to a point of privilege.

Deputy Speaker: Before we go on, the Chair has given considerable leeway to the first two speakers this afternoon. I would like to remind people in the House that under Standing Order 40(3): “No Member shall be irrele­vant in debate.” I would like members to keep that in mind as we debate Bill 8 and be aware that I will be watching for relevance.

At that, I will recognize the Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation.

Debate Continued

Hon. B. Bailey: It’s my privilege to stand and speak in support of Bill 8, the Real Estate Services Amendment Act, which removes the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. from the government reporting entity in order to better deliver on their mandate. This has been operated at arm’s length of government until 2016, when changes to the foundation’s governance model brought it into the government reporting entity. Bill 8 is correcting that. Following review and consultation, it was determined that there was really no rationale to keep it in the entity. It would be far more effective were it removed.

As my colleagues have highlighted, the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. is a key player in helping our prov­ince work towards building a sustainable and inclusive economy, objectives that are extremely relevant to my ministry. This bill will help better position the Real Estate Foundation to deliver on its mandate and continue its important work and restore its arm-length relationship to government.

Under the government reporting entity, they were limited in regards to government supports that they could garner — federally, for example. Bill 8 corrects for this. It allows them to be a trusted partner in delivering important programming to the people of British Columbia, so it is worth rising and speaking in support of this bill.

I, too, would like to highlight some of the great work that the REFBC does to help people and the environment of our province. They work hard with numerous organizations throughout our province to protect our economy and our environment. Bill 8 is a way of ensuring that this work can continue and, in fact, accelerate. They’ve awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations to help protect and restore watersheds, as has been previously discussed.

I do also want to just draw attention to this particular aspect of their work, again, which is going to be supported by the changes in Bill 8. They work with the Black and Indigenous Design Collective. This is really interesting work. The Black and Indigenous Design Collective — they’ve worked to build a mentorship program to help support young people from the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh First Nations pursue post-secondary education and career opportunities in urban design and planning.

I’m particularly excited about this work of the Real Estate Foundation, because I’ve seen some of it playing out in my community of Vancouver–False Creek. When we have people from different backgrounds contributing to design and to what a city looks like and how a city operates…. It’s very important to have these different perspec­tives. Indigenous and Black youth having the opportunity to train as city planners and to train as designers and to have that kind of impact — that’s really important work that the Real Estate Foundation has supported.

I spent this weekend at the winter arts festival. Great examples there of Indigenous collaboration. Many people probably saw B.C. Place lit up with Debra Sparrow’s beautiful digital weaving. That’s an example. There were many other examples.

If a person were to go to Canada Place, they could look at a beautiful Indigenous painting on the wall of Canada Place and unlock aspects of it with their phone and have an AR experience, allowing them to walk into the art and see how the Indigenous creators have utilized different aspects of that painting to tell their stories. I think this is very important work, and we’re really excited about the opportunity to have further collaborations with the Real Estate Foundation in order to do this incredibly important work.

[2:15 p.m.]

Not only does it have an impact in places like in my riding, but the work that this organization is doing, particularly in regards to the Black and Indigenous Design Collective, really aligns so strongly with UNDRIP, which we all, together, passed here in this House and recognize the importance of.

So many, many alignments not only with UNDRIP but also with our StrongerBC economic plan, supporting sustainability that works for everyone — again, work that is very much aligned with the Real Estate Foundation and supported by Bill 8.

The Real Estate Foundation awarded over $1 million this past fall alone to 18 organizations who are working on applied research, public education, policy and law reform, advancing sustainable, equitable and socially just land use and real estate, with a view to upholding Indigenous rights and title and racial equity and justice.

A couple of further examples of this work, which, again, is supported by the changes we’re making in Bill 8, which removes the Real Estate Foundation from the government reporting entity. Some of the work that’s happening at BCIT, the B.C. Institute of Technology…. They’re working with local governments to measure their carbon footprints and review the ecoCity footprint tool. I spent a little bit of time playing with this tool myself. It’s a very, very interesting and powerful tool, and it aligns with the climate equity goals.

The ecoCity footprint tool enables cities to understand and to lighten their ecological and carbon footprints. It does this by illuminating how much energy and resources, energy and materials, are being used and how much land and sea area are required to produce the goods and services that are being consumed within any given community on a given year. That’s pretty profound work, and I think that the opportunity to drive forward further funding opportunities for this foundation that’s clearly doing such important work is relevant and important for us to speak to.

Again, Bill 8 provides the Real Estate Foundation the opportunity to seek additional funding to continue this important work. Our government has partnered with the Real Estate Foundation in the past to implement the healthy watersheds initiative. I know many have spoken about this, so I won’t spend too much time on it, Madam Chair, as per your request.

It’s a program supporting reconciliation and environmental stewardship. The funding of $20 million, along with an additional $30 million in 2022, is helping to protect and restore key areas throughout the province. It has also created good and sustainable local jobs for First Nations and community in B.C., and this is really a profoundly important goal. We know, historically, that the First Nations communities in British Columbia haven’t always had the same access to opportunities, and it’s a very important correction that our government is very devoted to making. These are some of the examples that this organization will be able to continue with, thanks to the changes that are being made in this bill, in Bill 8.

With that, I will complete and take my seat.

H. Yao: I, again, apologize, asking the chamber to entertain my request for leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

H. Yao: I want to take a moment to, again, recognize Richmond Secondary School’s grade 10 social studies class, led by Adil Khan. I just want to take a moment to welcome them to our lovely chamber. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to really visit us and watch how democracy works.

I’m asking the whole House and everybody in here to please put your hands together and welcome the group.

Debate Continued

J. Sims: It’s really a pleasure for me today to rise in this House and speak on the Real Estate Services Amendment Act.

Before I get to that, I do want to say how it’s always a delight for me when we get visitors in these hallowed chambers. But my absolute delight always happens when we get young people visiting from our schools, because I know, as part of their curriculum, they are learning about us, their civic responsibilities, but also about civic government and the different levels of government.

[2:20 p.m.]

Welcome to this House. It isn’t always this empty. You missed question period today, but I’m sure you will go home and watch it. I’m hoping the students from Richmond will have a wonderful visit here at the Legislature today.

I’ve heard a lot of concern about the amount of debate on this bill. What I will say is this bill only started to be debated this morning after question period. So for me, this is just the beginning of a debate. When we get elected back in our ridings, we get elected so that we can come here and speak to legislation, either for or against, and therefore provide input to the minister and for everybody else in this House.

Madam Speaker, you will agree with me that when we debate legislation, and we are debating Bill 8 today, we learn so much from other speakers. I know today my eyes were opened by my colleague who spoke earlier this morning. My colleague from Coquitlam–Burke Mountain brought his passion for the fisheries, for the oceans, for the watershed and related that to Bill 8, and I learned a lot from that.

Just now, listening to the Minister for Jobs and Economic Development, she actually looked at this bill from the angle of her own ministry. With that, she gave me the opportunity of looking at that legislation with a different lens than I had looked at it previously. With that, my understanding of the legislation and the impact it has and of this organization, the Real Estate Foundation, has grown, and I think that’s a good thing. So I think debate is very, very important.

But I will agree with a previous colleague when he sort of said there is no debate. Well, since I have been elected to this House, since 2017, I can say I have only ever heard speech, speech, speech, speech. So that format has not changed. As many of you know, I came from the House of Commons in my previous life where there was actually debate happening, where you actually had a chance to respond to somebody speaking on an issue and vice versa. There was backwards and forwards.

So I do agree with my colleague there that often what we hear in this House is the opposition and those in government and the backbenchers, everybody, getting up to put forward their perspectives, and that’s what we’re doing on this bill. Nothing has been changed for this bill. It’s just the common practice of this place.

I have sat in this House, and I have sat in the House of Commons as well. Sometimes when debating, a few words can take days and days because those words are significant. I know from having negotiated many, many collective agreements that a comma in the wrong place, a period in the wrong place, a capitalization and starting a new paragraph can change the intent when it comes to interpretation.

I think when we pass legislation in this House it be­hooves…. It’s our outright responsibility to make sure that the legislation is crafted in such a way to avoid that kind of confusion in the future and ending up in all kinds of places. But also, it behooves us as elected members, when we are debating in this House, to give every piece of legislation the serious attention it deserves.

[2:25 p.m.]

I don’t ever articulate it this way, but when I don’t agree with what somebody is saying, I would never call that drivel in this House. What I would call it is a different perspective. When you have different perspectives, and I know things get emotional, it behooves us to remain respectful and to use our words properly.

We have young people who sit here and who are here to learn about our democracy. They’re going to learn the importance of the Real Estate Services Amendment Act from many of us today.

First of all, up to 2016, this piece of legislation was not a reporting entity. It was not a reporting entity. In other words, it wasn’t working under the same kinds of obligations, nor did government have the final say.

I know that might not have been the practice. But when you read the words, the legislation prior — and that’s why this amendment was there — gave government the kind of control the government didn’t want and the foundation didn’t see helping it in its work.

What we’re going back to…. This is not like going back to the future. This is like going back to prior to 2016. This bill will now read the way it did before 2016.

What it will save the Real Estate Foundation…. It actually will give them the leeway to do a lot of their work in a far more proactive manner than they have right now. For example, the changes that were made in 2016 and then perpetuated in 2021 — I’m not pointing the finger at either side of the House; I’m saying that’s the way it happened — actually made it difficult for the foundation to administer grants or to receive grants.

A foundation, as we know, relies on the generation of revenue in different ways. One of those is the interest they’re earning from the deposits that are made. I won’t go into that in too much detail. The second is by attracting grants because people like the work that they are doing.

This piece of legislation will now make it easier and help the foundation to overcome the challenges they had in dealing with and administering those government grants. I think that’s a good thing. I think the young people sitting up there will agree with me that it is a good thing when a foundation can start receiving grants and can start doing more projects that will help to protect whether it’s our watersheds, our waterways or many other things.

Madam Speaker, you will agree with me. I know my grandchildren and my children are far more knowledgable and far more committed, at times, to saving our planet. They realize the importance of things like watersheds, of our fisheries and of our landscape.

There are other organizations, as we know, that are sort of sister organizations to this foundation. Those are the Law Foundation of B.C. and the Notary Foundation of B.C. And you know what? They’re not reporting entities.

All we’re doing is we’re bringing some…. We’re doing some streamlining. That’s what this will do. That streamlining will take place.

This legislation didn’t just fall out of the sky. There was a consultation. There was a review. I know I’ve had a couple of people talk to me about it. I didn’t know about it at the time, what this legislation meant. They think it’s a good thing.

Today, when I look at the amazing work that the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. does, I’m in awe. I just have a list of a few of their projects. I’m not going to stand here and read every one of those projects into the record, though I will say that I would like to highlight some.

[2:30 p.m.]

Once again, it relates back to Bill 8. Bill 8 is changing the reporting requirements. Because it’s doing that, it is now going to allow the foundation to receive grants and do more of the good work that they are already doing. As I went through this — and I know that my colleagues have read out some of these, so I’m not going to — I was taken aback by the diversity of the projects funded by this amazing organization. That now has had a few useless, I would say…. A newly added…. It only happened in 2016 that they were shackled in some way. Those shackles are being removed.

Let’s call it what it is. This is allowing a foundation to go out and do its good work without unnecessary and unwarranted interference from government. Even though it was there on a technicality, on paper it is still the government who have the final say. They don’t have to come to government for approval. Though, of course, they do have to work within a framework that exists for foundations.

I looked at the grant that was given to the Chilako River demonstration project. The Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance was the lead. This is what it did. Now, the Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance is actually implementing a riparian and floodplain ecosystem restoration project on the Chilako River.

You know what, Madam Speaker? For some, that might just appear — poof! — drivel. Useless. But I have spent a lot of time kayaking down different rivers or walking along different rivers or swimming in different rivers. I don’t think there is anybody in this room today, in 2023, that would disagree how important it is for us to protect our floodplain ecosystem.

That grant is going to make a huge, huge difference not just for now but for future generations. How does it link back to “why Bill 8?” Because Bill 8 is now going to allow the foundation to receive more grants. The more grants that come, guess what happens? Then, more work gets done. That work, if it is anything like this, is absolutely amazing work that we need to see happening. As I said earlier, we need to be taking a look at that more and more. I have always been of the view that governments do lots of great work, but it’s our foundations, it’s the volunteers and it’s the NGOs right around this province and across many sectors that do absolutely stellar work to augment the work we do from here.

I just want to say that it is a privilege to serve as an elected official in this province or anywhere, I would say. We are some of the luckiest people on the planet that we live in a democratic society. Right now, when we look around the world and see what is happening to women and to minorities, I think it brings up a whole new respect for our democratic structures. I’m proud to be an elected official right here in B.C., where we are taking the time to discuss legislation that is going to enable a foundation to do more work in order to save our planet — more work so that we and our children can have a more, I would say, predictable future.

[2:35 p.m.]

We should never take that lightly. Legislation and the debating of it is not an inconvenience. It’s not about: “How much time does it take?” I think, and I’ve always believed this, on any piece of legislation, every single member in this House should have the right to stand up and speak. I will always, always value the times that I get to get up and speak, and not only speak for myself but speak for the constituents in Surrey-Panorama and, I would say, many others as well.

Some people would say this is a very unusual piece of legislation. Governments usually like to control things. That’s the theory that many people have out there. So why is it that this government is actually willing to give up that control by passing this legislation?

This foundation is an established foundation that has been working at odds with other foundations very similar to it, has had to adhere to a whole new set of rules. They don’t have to do that anymore because of Bill 8. Because of Bill 8, our government is also showing that it’s not about control. It’s about doing the work.

We have been in this House…. I believe this is the third week — though, I’m often reminded, as a teacher, when you first started your summer break, you kept thinking: “Oh my god. I’ve got all this time.” And when you were back at school, on the second day, you felt: “Have I been away? Has there ever been a break?” In many ways, being at this House is like that, because we all get so busy.

We have been back at this House for a very short time, and we’ve seen quite a bit of legislation passed through this House already. That has happened because we’re all, both sides of the House, committed to our democratic structures and are committed to democratic debate.

I’m not a person who believes that anybody should be forced to stand up and speak on any legislation. But if you want to speak on legislation, then I believe you should take the opportunity, and you should not have that taken away from you.

It has been with delight that I stood here today, and I’ve been speaking on this legislation. I see that the young people have gone. I’m sure when they get back, they will try to analyze what all these heads sitting in this room were trying to debate. But I’m hoping they left here — I’m almost glad they were not here during question period; it was never my favourite to bring students to — thinking: “We have elected people on both sides of the House who are taking the time to debate important legislation.” In this case, as we know, it’s Bill 8.

There is one more project that I wanted to draw attention to today, because as I was going through these notes, it really struck my fancy. It may not be a huge project, but it’s the one that the young people, if they were in this room, would really, really relate to. They would really relate to it. That is the capacity-building project for water leaders through learning and development.

The lead organization, of course, was the B.C. freshwater initiative, or MakeWay, and the grant amount was almost half a million dollars. This initiative, a project of MakeWay, provides tailored training, peer learning — this is like gold to a teacher’s ears, right? — and coaching support to Indigenous and non-Indigenous water leaders in communities that are leading on innovative approaches to watershed management, governance and security.

[2:40 p.m.]

This project supports ten jobs. To me, what I love about this project is it’s about getting people ready to carry on this work, giving them the training they need to do the work to protect our waterways and to create water leaders for the future.

This relates back to Bill 8, again, because this is the work that the foundation does, and that foundation is now going to have the ability to bring in more grants, to give out more grants and to increase this work. I’m certainly hoping, if they’re listening to this scintillating debate in this House today, that the foundation will really focus in on training youth — our future generations, our future leaders — to take the lead on a lot of this work. For those of us with children and grandchildren, we all know how much we can learn from them.

As I was saying earlier, I met my colleague from Coquitlam–Burke Mountain first in 2011. He has been a passionate advocate, activist, for the protection of our waters, our fisheries. When he speaks about our watersheds and the protection of our watersheds and the protection of our species, it comes from his core. What he explained to me — I talked to him about it, because I knew his passion — is that Bill 8 will now allow the foundation to do more of that kind of work. And that, to me, is absolutely amazing that we as elected officials in this House are playing a role whereby a foundation can expand its work in a huge way but also is doing the good work to protect our Mother Earth.

I don’t think anybody on either side of the House would disagree with me how the fight for our planet, the fight for our waterways, the fight against climate change, the fight against the heat domes we’ve had — all of those things don’t happen in isolation. They are interconnected.

So the protection of our waterways plays an absolutely critical role when we talk about the atmospheric floods we experienced or the heat dome that we had. So if we look at Mother Earth as a whole, this foundation is playing a critical role in addressing some of that work, though I’m sure our minister and all the ministers and government are working very, very hard to make sure that we’re doing that work as well.

I could speak for a lot longer on this legislation, because I have many stories to tell from the students in my class­room when I used to teach them about government and how important it is for government to be able to discuss, to debate and to hear from each other. My appeal to every one of my colleagues is, as we take part in debate in this House, let us give each other the respect to hear what we say, not to sort of imply other things. I believe we can do so much better for the people of British Columbia when we work together.

Just as we’re talking about Bill 8 right now, you will also notice…. You know, Madam Speaker, in this House, it’s very difficult to isolate things into little silos. When I think about Bill 8 and how we are all in agreement about the changes that are here, I experienced that same magic in this House when we faced one of the worst pandemics that I could ever imagine in my lifetime. We all came together, and a lot of the politics disappeared out of our discourse, because it was the right thing to do.

[2:45 p.m.]

Back to Bill 8, Madame Speaker. I could see you sort of thinking it’s getting into COVID, but really, the relationship sits, because that’s when we did work together. We were in agreement. We stood in this House and spoke.

I would invite my colleagues who are comfortable speaking to get up and speak and say what you like on this legislation. I know the opposition supports the legislation, so please stand up. Stand up and tell us what it is you like about this, what these changes mean. From that, I might learn something, just as I learned something from the Minister of Jobs and Economic Development. I learned things from almost every member who spoke in this House.

This is not about one side having all the answers or having all the speeches. One of the other things, as I said previously, is I absolutely believe in the right of elected people to get up and speak on legislation that is being debated. If you as a member of this Legislature decide you do not want to speak on this legislation — Madam Speaker, back to Bill 8 — then I will say that is your right not to speak on Bill 8, but it is not your right to stop me or anybody else from speaking on Bill 8, and that is what I am saying.

Interjection.

J. Sims: For my colleague, I have spoken for a lot longer than until 6:30 on one piece of legislation, and you can actually google that and listen to it if you have the stomach.

Getting back to this Bill 8 again, I want to say that this piece of legislation may be small in the number of words that are being changed, but it is significant. As I was saying….

I don’t know if you were in the room. I’ve got a colleague who keeps saying it’s one clause. I’ve sat at tables where one comma in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So words matter, where they are matters, and it’s because of that, that this bill matters.

This bill is here to remove the Real Estate Foundation from being a reporting entity, to remove the invisible so-called shackles that are on the foundation. It removes their lack of ability. It enables them to take grants and administer grants and do more things that they need to do. And it does all of that with just a phrase.

So if you look at it as just a phrase, yes, it’s a phrase, but few words have shifted the international political scene. And what I’m saying is this piece of legislation…. It is few words, but they’re significant words, and the public that’s out there deserves to have discussion and debate so that they understand what we are debating, what legislation we are dealing with and what it means.

If we in this House look at Bill 8 and say that we all agree and nobody speaks to it, that is disrespectful to the millions of British Columbians, and it’s disrespectful to democracy. Even when we agree on issues, we stand up and we give our perspectives. Sometimes there’s overlap, but sometimes we may be voting for a bill for different reasons than the others. But the public has an absolute right to hear debate.

With that, Madam Speaker, I am going to say I wholeheartedly support this legislation and invite my colleagues to stand up and give their perspective.

H. Yao: Again, I’m seeking leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

H. Yao: Thank you, everyone. Today I want, again, to take a moment to welcome another class here from Richmond Secondary School, a grade 10 social studies class, led by Candis Keirn, bringing her class, watching us and how democracy works.

[2:50 p.m.]

As our previous speaker mentioned very clearly, we’re here as elected officials to represent our constituents, and we want them to hear where their elected officials stand on different positions.

I will take a moment to welcome you guys to witness history in the making. Remember, every decision made in this chamber matters to every British Columbian.

Please, I want every member here to welcome this grade 10 social studies class.

Debate Continued

Hon. S. Robinson: I have to tell you how thrilled I am. I want to thank the member for Richmond South Centre for introducing folks from my alma mater, from Richmond High. Go Colts.

I am thrilled that you are here because one of you could, at some point, be here. I never anticipated, when I was a Richmond High student, back in the old building — the one that got taken down — that I would be standing in this chamber years later. So any one of you could be here. I want to thank you and welcome you to the people’s House.

I rise not only to congratulate the Richmond Colts, who are in the House, but I want to speak to Bill 8, the Real Estate Services Amendment Act. I want to appreciate the member for Surrey-Panorama, who talked about removing shackles and what that means with this particular bill.

Removing the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, which was established in the mid-’80s, from the government reporting entity…. This bill allows them more freedom, and it gives them an opportunity to deliver more of what they do.

I think we need to acknowledge and understand what it is that the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia does. I am assuming that the members of this House might know, but I am sure that the Richmond Colts, who are in the House, probably don’t know and most people who are watching from home don’t know. So it is relevant for us to explain what it is that this particular bill does.

Now, the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia operated at arm’s length from government until 2016. Then there were changes made to their governance model that brought it into the government reporting entity. In the subsequent time, with consultation and with discussion, we learned that it really didn’t make sense to have it as part of the reporting entity and that they would have more freedom and more flexibility outside the entity.

We are now changing the legislation. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re changing the legislation. That gives them more flexibility. It allows them to work a little bit more like the Northern Development Initiative Trust or the Fraser Basin Council or the Law Foundation. These are other organizations in our province that have the freedom to receive grants, receive resources, to do good works on citizens’ behalf that can be focused.

The Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia is a philanthropic organization, which means that they take donations and they write grants. Their goal is to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use right across British Columbia. So understanding that they help protect the land…. These are how the real estate industry uses resources and gives back.

I was talking with my colleague here, the Minister of Transportation. We were talking about the ways in which realtors and the real estate industry support communities, right? I am sure that in all of our communities and, perhaps, in Richmond, there are, perhaps, ball teams or hockey teams that are supported by realtors. They do the Coldest Night of the Year, lots of them. They participate in many meaningful ways.

Here’s another way in which, as a body, they come together to help take care of our communities. They do some really outstanding work. That’s why it’s important that with Bill 8, we give them as much freedom as possible — as my colleague from Panorama said, removing the shackles. I really like that way of thinking about what we’re doing here with Bill 8. It’s giving them the freedom they need to deliver on all of our behalf.

Now, I do think that in recognizing what the Real Estate Foundation does, it’s important that we help each other understand. The other thing that I heard from the member for Surrey-Panorama…. She was talking about learning from each of her colleagues, about the ways in which we understand this important piece of legislation.

[2:55 p.m.]

With my lens, in understanding how important this piece of legislation is, it really is about how we’re training up youth. As the Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, my emphasis in my ministry and my responsibility is making sure the young people we have in this gallery, the Richmond Colts who are here with us — that they are ready when they go into post-secondary education, because 80 percent of all the jobs going forward will need some sort of post-secondary education, and that we are helping prepare them for the jobs of the future.

I want to say that by passing Bill 8 and giving the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia the freedom to do its work and hire young people to help heal the land in ways that they’ve been doing, it helps me deliver on my mandate. It helps government deliver on our mandate. It helps these young people who are here witnessing this find opportunities to try new things, to try new skills, to learn how to heal the land.

It’s all because we here in this chamber are taking the time to make sure that the Real Estate Foundation can deliver on its mandate. That is good for the people who are in the gallery, and it’s good for people right around British Columbia. That’s why I’m very proud to stand on my feet and talk about the ways in which the Real Estate Foundation continues to make a difference in our communities.

I do have a story in my own relationship with the Real Estate Foundation. I got to know them really well as an organization when we were in what I would say were the throes of COVID. I remember meeting in my colleague’s office as we were trying to figure out, through COVID, when people were losing their jobs, when we had industries….

Restaurants were closing up, and we were really worried about young people in particular, and First Nations as well, where people weren’t working. We were trying to figure out how we get people working. How do we make sure that they can do things that we need done in British Columbia, where we can help people pay their bills but also teach them new skills as well as form new relationships and work outside? Remember, we were pretty anxious about working inside.

The healthy watersheds initiative, which was a project of the Real Estate Foundation…. They presented it to us. Their initiative is about restoring rivers and streams, protecting salmon habitat, managing water flows, collecting data, watershed mapping and sustainability planning. These were all the things that they were very interested in.

As I talked about how Bill 8 will free up the Real Estate Foundation to do its important work, I really came to respect how they were talking about doing these things that are so integral to protecting our land. They also wanted to hire and train local young people. That was their focus.

We have young people here in our chamber today. I want them to know, and I want everyone at home to know, that the Real Estate Foundation, through its healthy watershed initiatives…. This was a key area. They wanted to protect and restore critical freshwater ecosystems. They wanted to help communities adapt to climate change.

Now again, we know that climate change is here. We’ve seen it with heat domes and with flooding like we’ve never seen before and forest fires in Madam Chair’s own community. So doing that work is absolutely critical, and the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. absolutely gets it. They understand what needs to happen.

Freeing them up to do more of this important work is good for everybody. It’s good for everybody because it also creates jobs. It protects our drinking water and strengthens our relationships with First Nations and with Indigenous-led organizations as they partner to­gether with all of the above to deliver for all of us. That’s why this bill is here before us.

How can we get the most out of this incredibly important organization that has been shackled by a piece of legislation that was written in 2016? It is really important that people at home and in the gallery understand what it is that we’re trying to do here.

I do want to acknowledge that one of the projects that they did in in my community was with the Kwikwetlem First Nation, on whose territory I call my home. It’s where I have raised my children, and I am grateful for the wonderful stewardship that they have for those lands.

[3:00 p.m.]

I want to say, as the folks from Richmond leave: safe travels home. Enjoy the rest of your visit here. Say hi to my alma mater, will you, please?

Where I make my home now, ten people got experience. Ten people learned about conservation regulations, learned how to restore environmentally compromised sites, learned how to monitor development activities to protect archaeological, environmental and cultural assets. That is a real gift to all of us.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Their traditional territory stretches all the way to the north arm of the Fraser. For me and for everyone in their territory, it means…. Protecting that watershed and having the Real Estate Foundation involved in that, recognizing that realtors, who help sell homes and help us buy homes, are contributing to the land use — that’s responsible stewardship. This bill before us….

Welcome, Mr. Chair. Welcome to the chair.

That, to me, is so critical in understanding why Bill 8 is so important.

I was curious about some of the other projects. I want to say…. When we were putting together how to give young people work that would heal the land, it was in the middle of COVID. We wanted people to be outdoors. It felt safer, and it was safer.

There were 60 pre-identified projects that the B.C. Real Estate Foundation, in their collaboration with the healthy watersheds initiative, was able to identify. They were able to just roll with it. They were able to get people working within days of receiving their $27 million in stimulus funding, which our government delivered.

To me, having the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia available as a partner to government and available in a way that they have the most flexibility is what we want. Passing this legislation is….

I’ve heard that members all support it. They say that. We haven’t heard from all members, but that’s okay.

I think understanding, from the various aspects…. It’s really critical for British Columbians to understand why we need to do what it is that we need to do. When I took a look at some of these…. I was actually blown away with some of these projects. The quality is so significant.

There’s one with the Islands Trust, working with First Nations and other community groups to develop and implement a freshwater sustainability strategy to guide resource allocation for freshwater projects. We know that fresh water, on Saltspring Island, is an issue. It’s a signi­ficant issue. So they had a project, which supports 31 jobs, that includes restoration work in protected areas on Salt­spring Island and programming for Indigenous youth.

I think about what we would call the triple-word score, in terms of how the Real Estate Foundation, when it has as much flexibility as we can give it…. We have removed the shackles, as my colleague from Panorama describes. By removing their shackles, they have this flexibility and fluidity, pun intended, to do this work. They can bring in youth, who we know need experience. They can work with Indigenous communities, where we are committed to economic reconciliation, where we can heal the land. We can make sure that we are becoming more climate-resilient.

All of these things are really very critical. That’s why I completely support this legislation.

I also want to talk about the foodlands corridor restoration pilot project. This was led by the Rivershed Society of British Columbia. They’re piloting the development of a foodland corridor that restores sustainable food systems to the Fraser watershed. It’s implemented in partnership with local First Nations, farmers and ranchers. Again, this is another example of the triple-word score, as we call it.

[3:05 p.m.]

We also heard, during the flooding, about food resili­ence and supply chain challenges. When you have an organization like the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia and their ability to adapt and respond when there are issues…. Unshackling them so that they can respond allows them to work to their fullest.

This piece of legislation that is before us gives them maximum flexibility. It allows them to do these sorts of projects where we’re talking about food security. This is good for British Columbia. That’s another example of why Bill 8 is so important to government and why it’s so important to all British Columbians.

Now, there are a couple of projects in Squamish that I want to speak to. The Squamish River Watershed Society is leading two different projects. One is in partnership with the Squamish Nation and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

I want to speak about how having the Real Estate Foun­dation of British Columbia unshackled and able to work in partnership and get grants from government…. Taking them out of the reporting entity gives them maximum flexibility to respond. It allows them to form these partnerships — if they weren’t shackled — that they might not be able to form. So unshackling them with this legislation, passing this legislation, allows them to form these sorts of relationships.

Again, fascinating that in this particular project, the watershed society, the partnership with the Squamish Nation as well as Fisheries and Oceans Canada…. What they’re doing is restoring spawning grounds in the upper Elaho River. It involves removing additional obstructions at previously cleared sites, implementing innovative monitoring techniques, assessing impact. Five jobs are connected to this one.

When I think about passing Bill 8…. Removing this organization from the reporting entity allows them to have access to grants that they previously couldn’t receive. It allows them to, again, continue to deliver not just for youth, not just for training, not just in partnership with First Nations, not just for healing the land but also for working with the federal government, right? So again, pulling everybody together.

The other one is also really interesting. That’s about restoring fish passage and access over 300 hectares of habitat in the Squamish Estuary. This one supports 26 jobs, and that’s meaningful work.

If I could speak to meaningful work for just a moment, about how having a partner in the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, how this amendment in Bill 8 frees them up to be a partner in a completely different way and what it means to be able to provide these jobs that are meaningful jobs, to be able to sit back and say: “I did that.”

I’m thinking about young people. They were just here in the chamber. To know that after 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 30 weeks of being outside, of healing the land, you get to take your gloves off, take off your rubber boots and point to changing an estuary.

In fact, I had an opportunity to go see one of these projects last summer. I was out in Langley and talked with the people who had jobs through the healthy watersheds initiative and what it meant to them. Some of them were choosing careers based on their experience of working in the watershed.

Think of that. Here we have the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia. They’re an independent, philanthropic organization. Their goal is to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use across British Columbia. They work throughout British Columbia. They have been a reporting entity because the legislation changed back in 2016. As a result, they don’t have the kind of flexibility to maximize what they’re able to do. We have this important piece of legislation before us to allow them to maximize all the things that they can do.

[3:10 p.m.]

Part of them maximizing is giving young people the opportunity to get in the muck, to learn from experts, to learn from those biologists, to learn about what it means to do that work, to feel good about it. Then they say: “You know what? I think I see a career for myself around sustainability, around biology, around being a forestry technician, around working with the Streamkeepers in my community, because I think that’s really valuable.”

I think that’s something we can all be proud of. I think investing in these sorts of projects gives people real-life examples — hands-on, so to speak, but it’s feet-in, hands-on — in understanding what it means to deliver. I think changing this legislation that we have before us, in Bill 8, gives more young people the opportunity for real-life examples of what it means to do meaningful work that changes the future for the better.

There’s one more project that I want to talk about that I think is absolutely fascinating, the Cowichan River. Cowichan Tribes is a lead organization, and they’re performing extensive work to rehabilitate the Cowichan and Koksilah rivers. They’re focusing on sediment management and habitat rehabilitation.

The work involves removing 90,000 square metres of sediment across six sites, repairing the hatchery and old Southside Dikes, excavating and reactivating side channels, monitoring of sites for flood and drought management. Again, we know what happens with climate change and the risk of flooding, and the impacts. It supports 41 jobs, and it’s an integral part of Cowichan Tribes’ five-year river management plan.

I want to speak for a moment about reconciliation. Again, it’s more than triple-word score. I’ve talked about triple-word score, and we know what that means when we say triple-word score, but it’s more than that. It’s reconciliation in action. I want to acknowledge the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia and their commitment to reconciliation. Bill 8 really serves as a way to help the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia do more reconciliation as well.

This project that I mentioned with the Cowichan Tribes, that’s really about working in collaboration, side by side, with Cowichan Tribes to heal the land, to heal their soul, to heal the spirit. My hat’s off to the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia and their healthy watersheds initiative because that’s what this really is about. That’s what Bill 8 is about. It’s about recognizing a fabulous foundation in our midst, a fabulous organization that just delivers so much.

I would say, really before…. They’ve been around a long time, but it wasn’t until COVID, when they came to us, as government, and said: “Listen. We’ve got 60 projects ready to go.” We needed to move on a dime because we wanted to keep people working and delivering on behalf of the people of British Columbia. The Real Estate Foundation really rose to the task. They said, “We can do this,” and they have delivered. Passing Bill 8, making sure that they are unshackled to be their best selves, is absolutely critical, I think, to maximizing what we have as a treasure here.

Again, I think about some of the other jobs just around the province, the other work that they have been able to deliver. I want to mention the B.C. Investment Agriculture Foundation. They’re working with farmers, First Nations across the province to protect and preserve critical riparian habitats on agricultural land. The Farmland Advantage program helps farmers identify natural values of their land and provides the tools needed to conserve them. It’s 48 jobs.

I think about the future. I think about job security. I think about youth going into agriculture. Here’s this opportunity to learn more about what’s possible. Again, we should be thanking the B.C. Real Estate Foundation and their work for helping to deliver this program. Think about what more they can do with the passing of Bill 8 and how much more we’re going to get from this organization.

[3:15 p.m.]

I’m in awe of their work. There are a couple more that I want to read into the record, because I think they’re really fabulous opportunities.

This one is with the B.C. Wildlife Federation. They’re developing a Wetlands Workforce — this is in collaboration with First Nations and conservation organizations — to restore, to stabilize and to monitor B.C.’s wetlands. We know how critical they are to the environment and that we need to improve the wetland inventories, management and decision-making. This project is going to support over 100 jobs, and it will provide training for workers in wetlands ecosystem enhancement protocol and wetland inventory.

To me, that’s what Bill 8 is about. It’s about making sure that this organization, which can deliver these kinds of projects, can deliver these kinds of projects for us. They are ready. They are ready to do it.

By passing Bill 8, by unshackling them, by taking them out of the government reporting entity, they will be able to do so much more. That to me is what this is about. It’s about making the best that we can of an existing treasure. It’s going from gold to platinum, giving them the freedom to do what it is that we need them to do.

There are many more projects, like I said. There are 60 of them that were pre-identified a number of years ago, $27 million in stimulus funding during COVID, and they have been delivering on these projects.

I want to urge everybody to take a look at the healthy watersheds initiative. It is available online. They have testimonials from young people who have learned so much from the partners, learned so much from First Nations, learned so much from the experts who are delivering these programs.

Again, Bill 8, the Real Estate Services Amendment Act. By passing this bill, we’ll be able to provide the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia the absolute ability to do even more. That’s what this is about, because good things should be celebrated. Getting folks to do more of what they do best is really what our government is about.

I look forward to hearing what more I can learn from other speakers on this bill.

A. Singh: Thank you to the minister and to my friend from Surrey-Panorama, who spoke earlier. I like that, the “unshackling.” She spoke of the importance of explaining what we do here.

That really is sort of at the core of what we do here. It’s not only making legislation but being able to explain it to our constituents — especially the importance of explaining why we’re doing this, especially on bills that we agree with, on things that we want to pass, initiatives that we want to support and process through.

What Bill 8 does: it’s a really simple bill. I’ll go to it again, because I think as legislators, one of our roles — for the thousands of people who are watching this right now on CPAC, or whatever it’s called — is to explain legislation, to explain how this place works, and then to explain how that has an impact on the outside world. Because it does. Everything we do has an immense impact on British Columbians, on their lives, and more specific pieces of legislation will have specific impacts on a person’s life.

My friend the minister spoke about all the jobs that are created through just this one healthy watersheds initiative — life-changing for some people, right? What Bill 8, the Real Estate Services Amendment Act, does is that it unshackles, as has been spoken before, the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. from having to report to the government entity, in order to better deliver on its actual mandate.

You know, it’s not unusual. The foundation has been around since 1985, and was not a government reporting entity until some changes in 2016, when changes to the foundation’s governance model brought it into being a government reporting entity.

[3:20 p.m.]

Following review and consultation with stakeholders, it’s been determined that that probably was not the best move. Maybe it was the best move for that time period, but it’s better to leave the foundation as an arm’s-length entity. That’s what, again, Bill 8 does.

It’s really simple, three sections. The first section repeals…. In the original act, the Minister of Finance would have a board member that was appointed to the board of the Real Estate Foundation. What section 1 does is repeal that, and it appoints one member from the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association. That’s really important as well. I’ll come back to that, why that’s important. Then just some minor housekeeping things. Again, this act will come into force when it achieves royal assent on March 31, 2023, or earlier.

Taking out the board member that’s put in by the Minister of Finance and substituting that with the board member that’s put in by the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association…. The British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association is an incredibly important foundation here in British Columbia. What it is, is an association of non-profit housing that promotes affordable housing. Again, a very important mandate for our government here and very important for the work that we’re doing.

Affordable housing and housing has been an issue that will remain with us for some time. What this does is place a really important stakeholder onto that Real Estate Foundation board. What that will do is aid the foundation in better delivering on its mandate, which I fully support.

What is the Real Estate Foundation? It’s a philanthropic organization formulated under the Real Estate Services Act. As I said, it wasn’t always part of the government reporting entity. It was brought in a few years ago. It has been operational for a couple of decades. It’s established. It has been operating at arm’s length for all of those years and doing some incredible work.

What happened when the foundation was brought in and made a government reporting entity? Well, there were a few different things that happened. One of the biggest ones: it made it more difficult for it to receive and administer government grants. That may not have been the initial purpose, but what it did was, essentially, as my friend has said, shackle what the organization could do. It shackled and prevented the organization from getting some of the grants that would help it fulfil its mandate.

Generally, an organization should only be taken into the arms of a government reporting entity if there is a compelling public interest to do so or a compelling policy reason for the government to have some control over it. There really is none. In fact, the opposite is true. The foundation works better as an arm’s-length foundation.

The administration has some tests that it uses, that it applies to whether an organization should be a government reporting organization. Is it in the public’s interest to do so? Should the government have some control over it? The Real Estate Foundation didn’t pass those tests, so it makes complete sense for Bill 8 to be here and for the Real Estate Foundation to be unshackled from the government, as it is.

Really, the foundation receives very little funding from the government, and it doesn’t deliver programs and services directly connected to the government. It’s a philanthropic organization, so it has its own separate purpose, and it has its own separate…. The real estate community funds it separately from the government. Again, it does receive some government funding, but very little, so the government has really, ideally, very limited interest in controlling the foundation’s operations and finances, apart from how a small amount of the public funds are distributed for the purpose of that grant.

[3:25 p.m.]

That can happen anyway, because whenever a grant is distributed or the government gives out a grant or an organization gives out a grant, there are conditions at­tached to that. You can attach conditions to that, and that’s essentially…. You don’t need to have the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia essentially acting as an arm of government to be able to do that. Funds can be disbursed to it, and it can administer those funds and disperse those funds based on the pre-conceived conditions that are there.

It’s also inconsistent with the government’s approach on oversight of other organizations that look very similar to the Real Estate Foundation of B.C., organizations like the Law Foundation of British Columbia and the Notary Foundation of British Columbia, which share a very similar structure and whose revenue is also derived from interest earned on deposits held by financial institutions.

Just to explain to the, again, hopefully thousands of people out there listening on television, for example, when a lawyer’s client or a notary public’s client comes in and retains a lawyer, they give them money. That money goes into a trust account. What generally happens, unless it’s really, really large sums of money, is that that money goes into what’s called a pooled trust account.

Whenever you hold money…. Sometimes that money will be in there for months. Sometimes it’ll be dispersed out right away, but normally it’ll be in there for months and months, sometimes years. There’s interest that a bank will pay on that. But because it’s a pooled trust account, you don’t just have the money of one client. You have the money of hundreds of different clients, possibly.

How do you separate that out and give it back to the clients? What happens with pooled trust accounts, and the interest, is that that interest is given, in the case of lawyers, to the Law Foundation to be used for philanthropic purposes, to do things like advance access to justice. Same with the Notary Foundation.

It’s very similar with real estate. Real estate agents have pooled trust accounts where…. For example, if you buy a condominium, you might put $50,000 or $10,000 down as a deposit on that. Until the whole transaction is complete, that money sits there in that bank account. For the time that that money sits there in that bank account, it gains interest. It gains money. That interest is given to the Real Estate Foundation. That’s where the bulk of the money that the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. gets comes from, and it disperses that.

The Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia does some incredible work, so the Real Estate Foundation should also be eligible for government grants to do things. We’ve spoken about the healthy watersheds initiative. That’s a phenomenal example of one of the initiatives where the foundation is perfectly situated to do that kind of work and where it should receive that funding.

I’ll come back to the non-profit housing example in a bit. Again, they’ll be on the board, and hopefully we will see, in the next couple of years, in the next few years, some phenomenal ideas coming from the non-profit housing board. I think part of their organization also deals with the Co-operative Housing Association of B.C. I may have gotten the name of that organization wrong, but organizations that really deal with housing, deal with affordable housing and advocate and push for that.

I see a lot of positives coming with the replacement of the board member from the Ministry of Finance with a board member from the non-profit housing sector. I think that’ll be not only good for the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia but good for British Columbians in general. Housing and affordable housing remain one of the most difficult issues of our time, as we all know. We talk about it a lot here.

Again, one of the examples of government money that the foundation did get and was able to disperse in an incredible manner was $27 million of stimulus funding during the pandemic, during COVID. It was part of our British Columbia economic recovery plan.

[3:30 p.m.]

Our government provided $27 million in stimulus funding, as my friends have spoken of before, for more than 60 pre-identified projects, in communities across the province, to deal with watersheds and deal with the health of watersheds and really progress and move that forward. This is called the healthy watersheds initiative.

If anyone wants to go and have a look at what it actually is, you can go onto the website: healthywatersheds.ca. There’s a whole explanation there. You can also see the investments that are made, the projects that are there. You can also go onto refbc.ca/impactinvesting to see the list of different projects that the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia has invested in.

These are all basically…. The healthy watersheds initiative was basically grants that were given to support project teams working to restore rivers and streams to protect salmon habitat, to manage water flow, to collect data, conduct tests on the water to conduct a watershed mapping and to aid with sustainability planning. Through these projects, many teams were hired. Local workers were trained who had been affected….

Deputy Speaker: Just reminding that we are, of course, on Bill 8, so always bring your remarks…. We’re talking about Bill 8.

A. Singh: Yes, absolutely.

What Bill 8 does is it allows the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia to do more initiatives like that, to be able to apply for more government grants like the healthy watersheds initiative. Again, what being part of a government entity and being part of…. Having to be a government reporting entity, the foundation wasn’t able to apply for many, many grants.

So this is some of the incredible work that the foundation was able to do even though it was still a reporting entity. By unshackling it, not only will it be able to do work like this, like work under the healthy watersheds initiative, but it will also be able to do…. Again, with the Non-Profit Housing Association of British Columbia being part of the board members, I anticipate — and I think I’ll be right on this — that we’ll see a lot more work being done in the housing sector.

What the watershed initiative did is it protected and restored critical freshwater ecosystems to help communities adapt to climate change, create jobs, protect our drinking water, strengthen relationships with First Nations and Indigenous-led organizations. As you know, everything that we do in this government, we have an eye to reconciliation and an eye to how it affects our First Nations. What this does…. The way that the foundation was able to get this money and disperse it really is a testament to that.

Again, there were over 60 organizations that were funded and helped by the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia. One of them was the project to maintain and reclaim ecosystems at Burgoyne Bay Provincial Park. I was there a few weeks ago in my role as parliamentary secretary. I got the chance to visit Saltspring to take Dave the dog on a walk through Burgoyne Bay Provincial Park.

There the foundation dispersed $160,000 to the Stqeeye’ Learning Society to blend traditional stewardship knowledge and historical data to reclaim and maintain ecosystems around Burgoyne Bay Provincial Park. There is an Indigenous name for this. I do not want to mispronounce it, so I’m not going to do that.

The project is going to be engaging and educating community members, particularly Indigenous youth. This project will apply traditional law, knowledge, look at the cultural practices that honour the interconnectedness of ecosystems. This project supports eight jobs, $160,000 to support eight jobs.

[3:35 p.m.]

Again, by unshackling the foundation from government oversight, from being part of a government reporting entity, the foundation will be able to apply for many more grants that assist in this sort of work. There are so many organizations and so many…. I’m going to read through a few of those.

For example, almost half a million dollars, $453,000, were given to the B.C. freshwater initiative, the MakeWay Foundation. This is for building water leaders through learning and development. This is part of the B.C. freshwater legacy initiative, and it’s a project of MakeWay. It provides tailor-made training, peer learning and coaching support to Indigenous and non-Indigenous water leaders in communities all over British Columbia that are leading on innovative approaches to dealing with watershed management, watershed governance and security.

Again, as we saw the impact of the heat dome, the atmospheric rivers and just climate change in general, British Columbia’s pressured watersheds are going to be a place that we have to really recognize how precious they are. We have to learn how to steward them into the future.

This project itself will support ten jobs and will also enable sharing, learning between different organizations in different regions. People working in different regions, people working in different organizations will be able to share their knowledge and their systems of how to protect watersheds and how to make good decisions.

This is incredible work. Again, this is part of government funding. But the Real Estate Foundation, the majority of its funding comes from that interest that comes from its pooled trust accounts.

The foundation also already does a phenomenal amount of work, good philanthropic work, but what the bill does, again, and I’ll repeat those words again, is it “unshackles” the foundation and allows them to apply for more government funding that really just aids and helps it in doing better work and more of this incredible work.

They’ve been able to administer the healthy watersheds initiative in an incredible way. I mean, I can’t even imagine the administration that goes into the 60 different organizations that have gotten this funding.

Another great project, the Glen Urquhart Creek riparian stream course and wetland habitat restoration. This is led by the Comox Valley Project Watershed Society. It’s a small amount of money, $50,000, right? But that $50,000 will support 12 jobs that involve installing in-stream habitat features, reconnecting catchments to the wetlands and removing invasive species. The Comox Valley Project Watershed Society is doing this in partnership with Ducks Unlimited, a conservation organization, and the K’ómoks First Nation.

Another grant, $180,000 for the Ahousaht First Nation, which is restoring Anderson Creek watershed to revitalize spawning habitat for chum salmon, really important to the nation itself and to protect the community’s drinking water, right?

We often hear about communities that don’t have access to drinking water the same way that other communities do. Helping watersheds and really looking at…. Water is a scarce resource, and it’s going to be one of those things that our society is going to be faced with more and more.

What Bill 8 does is, again, it unshackles. My friend from Surrey-Panorama, again, spoke about the importance of explaining why sometimes these bills are so small, or an order-in-council or something is so small, that it seems meaningless. You know: “Why are we talking about it?” Well, the importance of talking about this is to show how, by removing it as a government reporting entity, by doing this, by that unshackling of it, it’s able to do more of the good work that it already has done.

Remember, this is with money that is a very small, tiny portion of what the Real Estate Foundation actually has from the rest of it — amazing work done at a very critical time, during the pandemic, done with a small amount of grants.

[3:40 p.m.]

I saw this. Working with the Koksilah watershed sustainability planning with the Cowichan Tribes — half a million dollars, again — and working with “community partners to gather data and scope options for a water sustainability plan for the Koksilah River watershed.” You know that there have been some problems there in recent years. Summer flows have been exceptionally low at times when demand for water — domestic demand, agricultural demand and industrial uses — is the greatest.

What this project does is it includes technical work and analysis to support sustainable long-term land and water management so the water flows can be restored for fish and water users. This project, again, supports 12 jobs.

In the Comox Valley, the Comox Valley Project Watershed Society, $700,000 for restoration — again, unshackling from government oversight so that it can apply for more grants so that it can do more good work like this. The Comox Valley Watershed Project Society, in partnership with the K’ómoks First Nation and the city of Courtenay, is dismantling and restoring the Kus-kus-sum former sawmill site on the Courtenay River to its native estuary, salt marsh and riverside forest, taking an area that has been impacted by human activity and restoring it.

Restoration of this site will benefit at least nine fish species, 145 bird species and 281 plant species. Just the first phase of this project will support 40 jobs.

I can only imagine the expansive scope of the work that the foundation can do, not only with its own funds but with funds that it previously wasn’t able to apply to or get, grants that it wasn’t able to get from the government because it was a government-reporting entity.

More amazing work: $435,000 to the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation. It’s on its resource stewardship program. This is in the Lower Mainland. It’s hiring and training four full-time resource guardians who will enforce conservation regulations, restore environmentally compromised sites, sites that have had impact, and monitor development activities to protect our archaeological, environmental and cultural assets. It’s ten sustainable jobs in that organization in that area.

What government does…. Government actions always are about a choice, and here we were faced with a choice of do we leave this organization that doesn’t really need money from the government…? Do we leave this organization shackled and unable to apply for these government grants? Or do we unshackle it and let it apply for these grants that can work symbiotically with other work that it’s already doing? Because the Real Estate Foundation already does an enormous amount of amazing philanthropic work in British Columbia.

What Bill 8 does is it allows it to further that work and to compound all of the good work that it’s doing by getting government grants and doing work that our government is in line with. We know that climate change is upon us. We know that we need to protect our watersheds. We know that we need more affordable housing. And hence this is where the new board member…. Again, we haven’t seen what will happen, but I have great faith and I’m excited to see the direction that the foundation will take with that.

Just going back to the watershed initiative — something we have concrete evidence on how the foundation was able to use government grants. Again, Bill 8 will unshackle it so it can get more government grants.

Small one: $40,000 for the Alberni-Clayoquot regional district. The regional district was replacing a pedestrian bridge and replacing abutments on the log trail at Platzer Creek. This project supports nine jobs, and it addresses erosion and safety. In addition to addressing erosion and safety, it’ll also improve water flow in a critical salmon-bearing stream.

[3:45 p.m.]

Fresh water has always been an issue, especially on our Gulf Islands. Part of the watershed initiative: $245,000 to the Islands Trust to work with First Nations and community groups to develop and implement a freshwater sustainability strategy to guide resource allocation for freshwater projects.

This project will support up to 31 jobs. It also includes restoration work in protected areas on Saltspring Island and programming for Indigenous youth. Not only are jobs being provided, not only do these grants help in actually addressing an immediate issue, but you’re training people. You’re training the future leaders. You’re training people to work in the jobs of the future — climate-related jobs.

Again, really important…. One of the things we saw during the pandemic was food scarcity, and food security has really come to the forefront. Another example — $820,000 given to the Rivershed Society of B.C. This is part of the foodlands corridor restoration pilot project. What the Rivershed Society of B.C. is doing is piloting the development of a foodland corridor that restores sustainable food systems throughout the Fraser watershed — really, really important to be able to do that, especially with what we’re seeing with drought down south, where the majority of our food comes from.

This project is being implemented in partnership with local First Nations, farmers and ranchers — just another example of what this incredible organization can do with government grants. Again, what Bill 8 does is it unshackles this organization so that the organization is able to apply to a more diverse number and types of grants to do the amazing philanthropic work that it already does. We’re just adding to that.

I won’t say much more about this, except that I’m in full support of Bill 8.

D. Routley: It’s with pleasure that I get to rise today to speak in support of Bill 8, the Real Estate Services Amendment Act.

It’s with pleasure because of the many points that have been raised by other speakers. I want to embellish on some of those and bring them around to a local context for the constituency that I represent. But it’s in that context that this bill is most important to my own experience, in that Bill 8 supports an organization that is partnering with First Nations in the region that I work in to restore habitat around the Cowichan and Koksilah rivers.

Anything that can make more impactful the work that’s being done there is a huge plus, and Bill 8 is that. Bill 8, in fact, augments the work that’s already been done. To describe what’s happening in the Cowichan Valley is to describe a collaboration between the First Nations who are traditional caretakers of these watersheds and the other communities that have grown around those watersheds, depend on those watersheds, including their industry.

Anything that happens in this House that impacts that environment is an important issue to me, and Bill 8 does. Bill 8, in fact, unshackles one of the partners in that equation and allows them to do greater work and have greater impact. So that’s very important.

The Cowichan River is a heritage river, one of, I think, only five or seven in the province. It has a wonderful history. Elders in Cowichan will tell you about piloting their canoes, barely touching the water over top of the salmon that were running in the river.

[3:50 p.m.]

Of course, that’s much reduced now, and one of the elements of the work that’s being done that’s supported by the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. in the Cowichan watershed, and therefore empowered by this bill, Bill 8, is to cooperatively manage flows that are directly and severely impacted by climate change. There is a weir on Cowichan Lake, which stores water in the lake and then adds to the flow in the river during low-flow periods. Those low-flow periods happen to coincide with periods of time when the salmon are making their way up the river.

It comes to the point, almost annually, where members of these groups, supported by this work, supported by this bill, will in fact take pails and salmon fry that are stranded by low flows in, essentially, puddles in the gravel deposits of the river and walk them upstream to put them further up on their journey towards their spawning grounds.

This is really dire in its consequence for the salmon runs of the Cowichan Valley, of the Cowichan River. The work that’s being done, partially through this, is to, in one case, remove huge gravel deposits that prevent the flow of water at those crucial times.

I’m sure you’re not familiar, Mr. Speaker, but the Cowichan Valley basin is, in fact, below sea level. So there’s a lot of time in the year where there’s a reverse flow, and that causes flooding. This kind of work is crucially important to the entire valley — to the agricultural base of the valley, to the fish that I’ve mentioned, to First Nations and their right to carry out their traditional gathering on the river, to all the communities, but also to the Catalyst pulp mill.

When I was first elected in 2005, the Catalyst pulp mill was very proud of the fact that they were using about 70 percent less water than they had in the past to produce almost twice as much product. Well, now they’re down to less than 10 percent, more than a 90 percent reduction in demand on the river. Not only have they achieved that amazing achievement, but they’ve also done it while they have worked in cooperation, collaboration, with the First Nations in the area, with the local communities and with the Department of Fisheries to manage the weir in the favour of the fish and the river and to put at risk their own ability to operate, in favour of the habitat.

This is a multi-pronged effort that involves every local government, all First Nations, all people in the community, farmers, all working together to support the Cowichan River. Every little thing they do is important. Every bucket of fry that they carry up that river is important to the river and to the people.

Anything that happens in this House that helps those partnerships and empowers those partnerships, like Bill 8, is important to me. I feel an obligation to stand up here and remind members of that and inform members. Although we might think that making the ability of an organization like the real estate federation of British Columbia more capable of accepting funds and then directing those funds to these kinds of projects…. It’s something we need to support in this House. That’s why I support Bill 8.

Interjection.

D. Routley: I’m sure the bill will get called. I’m glad it wasn’t before I had a chance to stand up and speak, because to the people of Cowichan, this is a really important issue.

My partner’s family are realtors. They owned a real estate business. They sat on the Real Estate Board of British Columbia. They’ve been members and active in this organization. They’re proud of the work they do, and they feel connected.

I feel as though we’ve gotten to a point where reconciliation is a north star of government in British Columbia. It is also the business and the focus of our entire province. Every single one of us, no matter what our role is in the province, has an important…. It’s important that we all accept that reconciliation is our job.

[3:55 p.m.]

I look at these partnerships, and I look at the titles of some — the real estate federation of B.C. and their website, impact investing. This is the definition of “impact investing.” This is taking relatively small investments by government and donations by people and turning them into massive impacts for the environment and for community and for reconciliation. This bill helps maximize impact, maximize the impact of these investments, maximize the impact of these partnerships. Bill 8 is something that helps empower that.

The Real Estate Foundation of B.C. was a government reporting body, and that prevented it from certain activities or ability to action certain partnerships. That, to me, is something that should be changed, because it is through these partnerships that we realize our goals as communities, as people, as a province. Again, Bill 8 goes a long way to supporting that.

The great work that has been done by the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. through their work with community and the healthy watersheds initiative, in particular, is so important. It, again, is an illustration of collaboration and using challenges to meet the goals that we have — accepting challenges that face us and even vex us as we try to move forward as communities and turning those into strengths. I believe that every good entrepreneur needs to live by the motto that every bump needs to be a boost. You have to turn every challenge into what fuels you.

The challenge of climate change and the challenge of reconciliation are fueling partnerships throughout our province, throughout our communities. With foundations that otherwise…. We might not traditionally have expected that we would see reconciliation values and climate change values present themselves through organizations like the Real Estate Foundation, but they are. If Bill 8 does anything to help empower that building of partnership, those collaborations, then Bill 8 needs to be supported.

The Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia is a philanthropic organization. It works to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use across B.C. I have to say that as a relative of a number of realtors, I can look to so many of their organization’s efforts and see that same commitment to local community, local economy and even to reconciliation.

They look to us to take every measure possible to empower that effort, and Bill 8 is an empowering piece of legislation. It was a partnership with the provincial government during COVID that had the Real Estate Foundation step up with the healthy watersheds initiative and take $27 million of funding and turn that into real benefit for people. That partnership took workers who were impacted by COVID-19 restrictions and empowered those people to do the work of restoring these watersheds.

Not only are they then empowering these partnerships in that work, but they’re exposing people to work that they probably had never done before. I would not be jumping too far ahead of myself here to speculate that there will be some of those people who have found new paths, new career paths, new interests and new commitments within themselves to these very important issues.

Again, if Bill 8 can help empower that kind of realization, then Bill 8 certainly needs to be supported. Bill 8 will support initiatives like the healthy watersheds initiative, which of course is an economic stimulus program in its inception, in that it’s using the efforts and labour of workers who have been impacted by COVID restrictions. But it goes much further than that. It takes what was a temporary challenge and converts it into a permanent benefit for our communities.

[4:00 p.m.]

Any measure that we can take…. I don’t care whether it’s holding the keys for somebody who’s doing a little job on the river or standing in this House, supporting a bill that empowers those partnerships. Every little piece matters, and this bill is a piece of that.

As I look through the healthy watersheds initiative grants, I see that they support project teams that restore rivers like the Cowichan, like the Koksilah. They protect salmon habitat, manage water flows, collect data and conduct watershed mapping and sustainability planning.

It’s surprising that in a maritime province, with so much history of salmon being a foundational species in our province, so little is really known about salmon habitat and the challenges that salmon face. It’s only in recent years that there have been these efforts. But again, whether it’s people carrying salmon fry in a pail from a puddle in an all-too-dry Cowichan River up to further their journey to their spawning grounds, or Bill 8 empowering these partnerships, all of these things matter.

All of these things come together, just like every person who carries a pail, every person who works in the Cowichan Watershed Board, all the different organizations that contribute. Every little thing they do is important. Cleanup days on the river are important, and Bill 8 will go a long way to helping propel those kinds of partnerships even further than they’ve gone already.

This work in Cowichan will restore critical ecosystems that have been challenged by increased residential development, increased industrial demand and, of course, the biggest effect, the climate change effects that we face.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

This bill will help empower relationships that add resilience to our community through climate change adaptation. Bill 8 helps empower partnerships that are resonant with the values of British Columbians, who believe in reconciliation, who want to see community-led efforts to support all of those values and those goals. This is reconciliation in action.

But in order to do that work, we need many different forms of support. The support of the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. is integral and important to that work. So empowering it, facilitating it, improving its ability to make those partnerships work is a good thing for the communities that I represent.

I looked at some of the projects, and I’ll just mention a few that have local relevance in the mid-Island region. Up in the Alberni-Clayoquot regional district — which is neighbour to the Nanaimo regional district, part of the area that I have the honour of representing — there’s a grant amount of $40,000. The Alberni-Clayoquot regional district, with that money, is replacing a pedestrian bridge and repairing abutments on Log Train Trail at Platzer Creek. Now, this project supports nine jobs. It addresses erosion and safety. It will improve the water flow in another critical salmon-bearing stream, and it will improve tourism values.

I look at how Bill 8 is, in fact, helping empower a partnership with the Islands Trust freshwater sustainability strategy. That’s a grant amount of $245,000, which will employ up to 31 people. It will include restoration work in protected areas on Saltspring Island, which, of course, is nearby the constituency I represent and is part of the Islands Trust. There are several Islands Trust islands jurisdiction in the constituency I represent. Those would be Thetis, Gabriola, Mudge, De Courcy, Texada.

[4:05 p.m.]

Then you can look towards the Islands Trusts and the good work they’ve done and see that they are empowered, in fact, by so many different service agreements with different organizations, the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. now being one of them. If we can help empower that work with Bill 8, then we should help empower that work with Bill 8.

I look to the Clayoquot Sound watershed recovery initiative, which is in the central Island area and, again, has an integral reconciliation value — in that the Central Westcoast Forestry Society is working with Hesquiaht, Ahou­saht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations to restore critical salmon populations in Clayoquot Sound by reconstructing a rearing habitat. These are really important local projects that have a provincial scope in the end, both in reconciliation and in habitat restoration, and they depend on a number of different sources of both energy and funding.

If there’s one aspect of that that we can help empower, just one little piece, it is to make more effective partnerships and — as the Real Estate Foundation names its program — impact investments, to increase the impact of that investment. That is a good thing, and we need to support that.

I look to the city of Port Alberni — a grant amount of $195,000, which will support 15 jobs in decommissioning its wastewater treatment lagoon and restoring the area as a natural tidal marsh. Well, that’s a permanent benefit that has regional consequences, and it requires collaboration and partnership. Those things don’t happen by themselves; they happen when they’re empowered. Bill 8 empowers that kind of partnership.

Then I’d look to Glen Urquhart Creek, a riparian stream course and wetland habitat restoration. That’s in the Comox Valley. It’s a little further out of the mid-Island, but it’s at the tip of the region, a $50,000 grant that will support 12 jobs. The Ahousaht First Nation is being supported in the Anderson Creek restoration, which will support nine jobs. That’s another project of great benefit to the local environment, economy and to reconciliation.

Finally, I’d look towards the place I began talking about at the beginning: the Cowichan and Koksilah rivers. Those rivers are so immensely challenged by climate change and the demands of development. It is really inspiring to attend events that are hosted by Elders, celebrating just the smallest improvement.

There’s a tiny stream that connects the Koksilah and Cowichan rivers. It’s a seasonal stream, but it was in a culvert. It was gone, for all intents and purposes. School children, the community and industry organizations all partnered to release that creek back into its natural state. It was really impactful to go there.

I grew up on the Cowichan River. I grew up tubing on the river, and I grew up next to the Cowichan Tribes reservation. Many of my friends were there at that event. Even having been brought up in that environment, I was absolutely struck by the importance of that tiny…. It was, in effect, a ditch in a culvert. The restoration of that gives the ability for those two rivers to reach a level of natural balance that hasn’t been present for generations.

It’s a small piece, just like empowering partnerships and making them more impactful. It’s a small piece of the puzzle, but they’re all important pieces. They’re all important pieces. It’s not for any one of us to determine whether or not a measure like that is important. I’d say that characterizing this bill as unimportant does that in a very unfortunate way.

[4:10 p.m.]

I look at the Cowichan River, and Bill 8 will empower a partnership between the Real Estate Foundation of B.C., through their healthy watersheds initiative, and Cowichan Tribes. The grant amount there is $2.3 million — extensive work to rehabilitate the Cowichan and Koksilah rivers by focusing on sediment management and habitat rehabilitation.

The work involves removing 90,000 cubic metres of gravel. What’s happened over the years in Cowichan is that the river is a fairly short run, but it runs through the Cowichan Valley into the Duncan area where, if you’re familiar with the area, driving through — we call them the flats, north of town, where you’ll see farmers fields.

Those are, in fact, below sea level, so we often have reverse flows flooding into the valley, so management of that sediment is not only important to the fish and to the habitat of the river, but it’s important to agriculture in the valley. It’s important to the community safety as we manage increased flooding risk brought on by the same climate change that is challenging the flow of the rivers.

That’s extensive work that’s multifaceted, multi-lay­ered and involves multiple partners, multiple partnerships. Each one of those partnerships needs support in order to have effect and to be efficient. This bill, in fact, achieves that. I cannot see how that is not an important thing to anyone.

That project is part of a five-year plan, and it will support 41 jobs directed at restoring habitat in the constituency and the area that I represent and be yet another solid investment in meaningful reconciliation partnership that is not simply based on healing the past.

It’s based on a focus for the future, a future where we are collaborating with each other, where we’re working in partnership with First Nations, where all of the elements and arms of government are doing everything they can in order to support that kind of work. So making an accomplished organization like the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. more effective, allowing greater partnerships to develop and different opportunities to be seized — those are all very important.

The final project I’ll point to would be the Koksilah watershed water sustainability planning. This is an important piece, because as the focus has been on the Cowichan River — quite rightly, because it has such large salmon runs and it is so challenged by climate change — it might be easy to not really appreciate how important the linked status and well-being of the two rivers are, the two valleys that come together and the two rivers that I call home, the two rivers that I’ve spent days and days on tubing as a kid and fishing with my grandfather and learning about our neighbours.

Any work that’s done to enhance that aspect of the place that I come from is important to me. I see that this bill helps empower those relationships, unshackles them.

Now, the projects that I’ve mentioned — they’re a few, but they employ 114 people in total, and they help us achieve enormous goals. They’re little bits. They’re another pail of salmon fry being carried by hand up the river by people who care enough to do that. They need our support, so whatever we can do to streamline those partnerships, to give them a firmer and stronger foundation and just to even express in this House our support, our absolute and complete endorsement of that effort, is very important to the people of the Cowichan Valley.

With that, I’ll once again express my support for this bill, Bill 8, and my hope that the members in the House — it appears that we will all be supporting this together — have an opportunity to share with us why this is important to them and why it’s important to their constituencies.

[4:15 p.m.]

As I look through the list, just about every region of this province is touched by the work between the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. and various community partners. It’s with that and a positive sense of wanting to contribute to making those partnerships better that I express my firm support for Bill 8. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to it.

B. D’Eith: I rise today to speak in favour of Bill 8, the Real Estate Services Amendment Act. As with a number of acts, if you read them, on the face of it, it’s a deletion or repeal of certain sections. I think it’s helpful sometimes to look at the explanatory notes, so I’m going to just go through these so that we can set a context before I start into my actual comments in regard to it.

In the first clause, the idea is that it “empowers the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association to appoint one member of the board of governors of the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, and removes from the membership of that board the Minister of Finance or an individual appointed by that minister.”

Clause 2 “removes the power of the Minister of Finance to issue to the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia written directions to undertake and carry out projects and activities that the minister designates as being in the public interest.”

Now, on the face of it, those might seem like small changes, but they’re big. What that does is really release the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia from reporting as a government entity.

Let me take a step back in regard to Bill 8 and just look at what the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia is. In order to understand how important this bill is, it’s important to understand what the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia is. The foundation is a philanthropic organization working to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use across British Columbia. This is really important as we delve into this.

If you go to look at the website for the Real Estate Foun­dation of British Columbia, they list a number of things. One is the mission, and I think it’s important to look at the mission and the vision to understand this in the context of Bill 8. The foundation funds projects, builds relationships and shares knowledge to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use and real estate practices across British Columbia. The vision is “a healthy environment that supports thriving, resilient, livable communities from one generation to the next.”

To unpack that a little bit, this is a broad mandate that really looks at a just use of land around the province. It looks at reconciliation. It looks at making sure that our province thrives in terms of waterways, in terms of so many things.

In 1985, the government of British Columbia, in co­operation with the real estate industry, enacted legislation to establish the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia. In 1988, the foundation began to make grants to support projects led by non-profit organizations, so in other words, relationship building, which was part of their mandate.

One of the ways that they do this is…. Within British Columbia, the real estate brokers can hold deposits in a pooled trust account until a sale closes. When held in trust, deposits will generate some interest. Under the Real Estate Services Act, the foundation receives this interest and pays fees associated with these accounts. In turn, the foundation uses these funds to support projects that benefit communities across British Columbia.

The foundation then invests a portion of this revenue. In the long term, the investment portfolios have guaranteed a longevity in the grant programs. In the short term, the investment income helps to offset their operating income. That is part of what the foundation does.

In order to align what I said earlier in regard to their mandate and their vision, their values, their investment criteria are very important. They direct funding that has a social and environmental benefit, so that’s really important.

[4:20 p.m.]

Now, to get back to Bill 8, in addition to those investments and what is a very important part of the foundation, the government of British Columbia has funded many projects that align with the foundation’s mandate, and Bill 8 will actually help to allow the government to participate in other ways, by changing the designation.

Why is this important? Well, the government funds a number of projects through the foundation. One of them is the healthy watersheds initiative. Another is the impact investments, and the other one is research and collaboration. This change, in Bill 8, will allow for more opportunities to do more, which is really important.

The watersheds initiative is an economic stimulus program that creates jobs in British Columbia by investing in watershed conversion and restoration projects. As part of the government’s B.C. economic recovery plan, the B.C. NDP government provided $27 million in stimulus funding for more than 60 pre-identified projects in communities across the province, and the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia administers these through their healthy watersheds initiative. Again, Bill 8 should allow the foundation to do more by being unshackled from what I’ll talk about later, which is the designation that they already have.

Now, these grants support projects that restore rivers and streams, protect salmon habitat, manage water flows, collect data, and conduct watershed mapping and sustainability planning. Through these, project teams were able to hire local workers and also — really importantly, during the pandemic — able to employ folks in work that was able to be done during the pandemic when a lot of folks weren’t able to work. That was really important work.

The investment also protected and restored critical ecosystems and helped communities adapt to climate change, creating jobs, protecting drinking water, strengthening relationships with First Nations and Indigenous-led organizations. The work that the foundation is doing is part of the overall work that the government is doing in terms of reconciliation, in protecting water and in salmon restoration.

To give a couple of examples of why Bill 8 is so important, I’ll just give a few examples of some of the projects that the foundation has funded, just to give an idea about what more…. I mean, they’re doing this work already, but Bill 8 should allow the foundation to do even more work.

One of them is the foodlands corridor restoration pilot project, and the lead organization was the Rivershed Society of B.C. The grant was $820,000.

Before I talk about this project, as well, just so you know, hon. Speaker, the number of all of these funds ranged from a few thousand dollars all the way up to millions of dollars, depending on the size of the organization.

This particular grant was $820,000, and the Rivershed Society of British Columbia piloted development of a foodlands corridor that restores sustainable food systems throughout the Fraser watershed. This project is being implemented in partnership with local First Nations, farmers and ranchers, which is really important — that everyone is working together for these important things.

Another project — the type of project that Bill 8 will support, once it goes through — is the Lower Agassiz Slough. The district of Kent got $700,000, and the district of Kent is replacing a culvert on the Lower Agassiz Slough to open up the waterway for fish passage. A new fish-friendly floodgate will make valuable habitat accessible to overwintering juvenile salmon and other fish species, and it will employ 14 people.

This is important, as we’ve seen all over the province, in salmon restoration, that we have to have waterways that are clear to allow salmon to run, to spawn, to go out and have their four-year cycles, and come back home and spawn again. These are really important, and some of the floodgates need to be fish-friendly. This type of work is so critical. This is not in my riding but very close to my riding and very important to the region that I live and work in.

[4:25 p.m.]

Another example, and one of the big ones, is the Wetlands Workforce by B.C. Wildlife Federation. This is over $5 million, and this is the B.C. Wildlife Federation collaborating with First Nations and conservation organizations to restore, stabilize and monitor B.C.’s wetlands. These activities will improve wetland inventories management and decision-making. This will actually support over 100 jobs and will provide training to workers in wetland ecosystem enhancement protocol and wetland inventory.

I remember the nearly four years and 12 reports that I did as Chair with the Finance Committee. We heard a lot about wetlands, especially all over northern B.C., in the Interior and all over British Columbia. I think this work is critical. I think it’s important that we look at our rural and remote areas, areas where there are Indigenous populations, to make sure that we’re doing what we can to make sure that we protect our wetlands.

The whole point of this, in Bill 8, is that the foundation — for many, many years, when it was incorporated and then ran forward — was an arm’s-length organization until 2016, when changes were made to the foundation’s governance model that brought it into what’s called a government reporting entity. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Following review and consultation, it has been deter­mined that there’s no rationale to keep this foundation as a reporting entity, and it would actually be more effective for the organization, for the partners and for the government to remove it. That’s what Bill 8 does. It removes the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia as a government reporting entity, in order to better deliver on its mandate.

What is a government reporting entity, and why is this important? Well, a government reporting entity is what the comptroller general views as deemed to be part of the annual budget. When we have our estimates, when we have public accounts, all of those things that happen at the end of every fiscal year and all of the parts of the government that are deemed to report to the government have to be part of that. It’s a big deal; it’s a big obligation.

What happens is it brings it under the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act. So the definition of a “government reporting entity” is “(a) the government….”

Interjection.

B. D’Eith: I know it’s scintillating, Member.

“(a) the government as reported through the consolidated revenue fund, (b) government corporations other than those that are government corporations solely by reason of being under an Act agents of the government, and (c) education and health care sector organizations, and includes” — this is important — “(d) each of the corporations or organizations that, under generally accepted accounting principles, is considered to be controlled by a government organization, and (e) corporations and organizations that are included within the government reporting entity….”

And it goes on.

What’s very important here in looking at this definition is that if the government controls an interest in the organization through, for example, board seats, then their spending, their debt and their revenue has to go into the government books.

That’s really, really important, because — for those who may be listening — a non-profit society or foundation normally is considered arm’s-length. Their boards are distinct, and they can operate as distinct from government. Now, with the board seats, what happened is that the foundation, then, became one of these entities. That puts a huge onus on them, and it means that there’s a lot of things that the foundation can’t do.

Legislative changes related to the real estate industry, as I said, resulted in organizational changes to the foundation. Our government is undoing the board seat changes so that they’ll no longer have a controlling interest. It will, therefore, fall outside of this government reporting entity, which is so important.

[4:30 p.m.]

I looked through the Budget Transparency and Ac­countability Act, and the obligations under public accounts are very onerous and very different than what a regular foundation or a non-profit would have to do — pages of them, hon. Speaker. I won’t bore you with those details, but rest assured that there’s a lot that has to be done if you are a government reporting entity.

While the foundation certainly administers significant government funds, it also administers, as I mentioned earlier, the brokerage pooled interest-generating programs. So it’s not just dealing with government funds; it’s got its own stable and significant form of revenue that it uses. Moving the organization back to an arm’s-length organization makes sense for the foundation. It makes sense for the foundation’s partners, for First Nations and for the government.

Now, another practical reason why it’s desirous to be an arm’s-length status for any organization is the ability to receive year-end funding from the government. If an entity is a reporting entity, then all funding has to be spent within a fiscal year. If you’re an arm’s-length organization, you could receive funding during that fiscal year but spend it after that fiscal year, which gives more flexibility. When you’re dealing with projects, as the examples I gave, a lot of these can take a long time. This would allow the foundation the flexibility it needs to be able to get funding in and then to be able to disburse those funds.

Once the changes are made, it’s going to allow the foundation to do more of the types of projects that I talked about earlier. To give some more ideas of that, there are the fish-friendly flows of the Cheakamus Generating Station by the Squamish River Watershed Society. As I said earlier, they’re not all giant grants, but they can often make a huge impact. In this case, it’s a $10,000 grant, but the Squamish River Watershed Society was able to conduct water-flow monitoring to ensure that the communities, fisheries, First Nations and other regional decision-makers were able to have access to data that’s appropriate for a minimum flow of upcoming water to use in their plan for their watershed.

This type of work is really important. It’s not always about the quantum; it’s often about just having enough money to do what they need to do. In this case, that $10,000 went a long way, and it also created three jobs.

Another example of this is in Willow Creek, near Terrace, the riparian restoration work by SkeenaWild Conservation Trust. This is $125,000. SkeenaWild Conservation Trust is restoring spawning and rearing habitat for salmon and other fish species. By breaching beaver dams that are inhabiting fish passage and water flow, this work will restore ecological integrity and hydrological function to the system, and this project will employ nine people.

Back to Bill 8 and why this is important. This type of funding will allow the foundation to not only do the work they’re doing, but actually to grow that work and to have that flexibility that they need to move forward.

Another example of that is the KFN resource stewardship program. This is in cooperation with the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation. It’s hiring and training four full-time resource guardians who will enforce conservation regulations, restore environmentally compromised sites and monitor development activities to protect archaeological, environmental and cultural assets. This will employ ten people, which is wonderful. Bill 8 will allow the type of work that we’ve seen for so long with the foundation to continue and to thrive.

There is another part of Bill 8, and I think it’s worth mentioning. I’ll reread it to remind members. Clause 1 “empowers the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association to appoint one member of the board of governors of the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia.”

[4:35 p.m.]

That’s important, because the Non-Profit Housing Association can really add a lot to the foundation and to where it’s going. I think it’s important to spend a moment to just look at the Non-Profit Housing Association to understand the importance in that sector and what the association is doing. What they’re doing is raising the capacity of the sector, supporting housing providers and establishing networks across B.C. that will help fuel a future in which every individual and family has a safe place to call home.

The impact has a number of themes. Again, I’m referring to their reports in regards to what the Non-Profit Housing Association does, but it’s really important to know why it’s important, under this bill, that the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association is able to be part of the foundation. One is dealing with policy, is being able to do research and advocacy that influences policy. They do that work. The non-profit housing providers do that work to make sure that as legislators, the foundation knows what’s going on.

Professional development. They do a number of works in regards to professional development for board members and leaders and staff, which is really important, so that they can understand the knowledge around housing, around rentals, around new and innovative development projects and expanding affordable housing in communities across British Columbia.

Another really important part of this Non-Profit Housing Association is that it provides a network for educational opportunities. It’s really important to connect folks, so they actually travel around British Columbia and do regional education networking and trade shows. They call them RENT events, which is an acronym that makes sense for once. Together with the Housing Central partners, they have the Housing Central Conference, and that’s actually Canada’s premiere event for the community housing sector.

They also do a lot to save the sector millions of dollars by providing products and services that organizations need, which is important, very important. They have a very big energy-efficient program that helps the non-profit housing sector go green. This will help fit into the CleanBC program. I can’t emphasize how important this is as we move forward, to implement green retrofits, using less energy in housing so we can not only reap the cost savings as members of our community but also help the environment.

I wanted to close by saying Bill 8 is a very important act for the foundation and for our community. The foundation, by being more flexible and not having to be tied as a government reporting entity, will be able to sort of work in an unfettered capacity to be able to do more, things like being able to access year-end funding, which is really important.

As I mentioned, the year-end funding is funding that has flexibility in the hands of a foundation or non-profit, that doesn’t have to be spent in that fiscal year. Many projects actually do work that way. They need that flexibility, so I anticipate that Bill 8 will actually allow the foundation to do that very important work, to do more in terms of habitat restoration, in terms of working on our wetlands, in terms of reconciliation with First Nations.

All of that work is so vitally important, and I see that the foundation will be able to operate in an, as I mentioned, unfettered capacity much more so than when they were a government entity. The government entities, if you think about it, have to report through the public accounts process, which is very onerous.

[4:40 p.m.]

As I mentioned earlier, the ability of the foundation to be able to act simply as a foundation without having to be brought into being considered as a government reporting entity, will allow it, actually, to be able to function in a much more typical way.

If you look at foundations across the province and you see how foundations normally work…. They normally aren’t part of the government and do have that flexibility. It allows them to do the things they need to do, which is so, so important, in terms of the ability of a foundation to do the type of work that the Real Estate Foundation does.

With that, I will take my seat, and I will allow another member to speak.

E. Ross: We are here, I think, debating Bill 8, the Real Estate Services Amendment Act, 2023, as put forward by the hon. Minister of Finance.

Last Thursday we debated a similar bill, which was the truth and reconciliation bill — Bill 2, I believe. We weren’t debating the virtues of the truth and reconciliation act or the day being declared a stat holiday. We were just wasting time. That’s all we were doing.

For the public, especially Skeena, who I proudly represent, I try to do the best job I can in understanding the complicated bills that normally come through this Legislature. But this session, we’re debating basically nothing. We’ve got nothing to debate. In fact, Bill 8, which we’re talking about here, I can read in its entirety, and it will not take me half an hour. We’re listening to government debate this one by one, and they’re each taking up half an hour to debate this bill.

This bill, by the sounds of it, solves reconciliation. It solves environmental issues. It solves financial issues. It solves everything that British Columbians are facing today. I mean, I’m surprised that Bill 8 doesn’t solve the crime issue that’s facing British Columbians or that it’s not solving the cost of living that people are facing right now.

For those at home wondering how your tax dollars are spent and what 87 MLAs are doing here right now, in Victoria…. This is Bill 8. The explanatory note for clause 1, the Real Estate Services Act, section 91, is: “empowers the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association to appoint one member of the board of governors of the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia.”

Interjection.

E. Ross: Agreed. Let’s vote on that.

And: “removes from the membership of that board the Minister of Finance or an individual appointed by that minister.”

Done. Stamp of approval.

Clause 2, Real Estate Services Act, section 93, “removes the power of the Minister of Finance to issue to the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia written directions to undertake and carry out projects and activities that the minister designates as being in the public interest.”

Woo hoo. British Columbians have been waiting for this for years. It’s finally in a bill.

Now, those are just the explanatory notes. That’s all that is. The real meat of this bill is on page 2, and there are only two pages. The first page is a cover page. There are two clauses that explain the second page, which is three clauses.

[4:45 p.m.]

This is the clause: “His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the province of British Columbia, enacts as follows.”

Number 1: “Section 91 (1) (e) of the Real Estate Services Act, S.B.C. 2004, c. 42, is repealed and the following substituted.” This is the real language: “one member appointed by the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association.” That is groundbreaking. British Columbians will be glad about that.

Number 2: “Section 93 is amended (a) in subsection (1) by striking out ‘, and’ at the end of paragraph (a) and by repealing paragraph (b), and (b) by repealing subsection (2).”

I’m sure nobody is going to disagree with that. I’m sure we’re not going to call a vote. Nobody is going to call a division. We don’t need to call 87 MLAs in here for that.

The third clause in this bill is commencement. “This Act comes into force on the date of Royal Assent or March 31, 2023, whichever is earlier.” That is at the bottom of every single bill. So really, we’re just talking about two sections, about the word “and.” That’s what we’re talking about.

I mean, the one real significant clause is an amendment that says: “one member appointed by the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association.” That’s got a bit of substance to it. I agree.

Interjection.

E. Ross: We all agree.

The British Columbia taxpayer, the B.C. Liberal, the official opposition agree with this technical bill. We agree with it. There’s really nothing here to debate. But every single government MLA is going to get up and use half an hour to speak on this bill. It’s time-killing.

Now, when I come down to Victoria, I live on the taxpayers’ coin: my air flights, my apartment. If I get stuck, I’ve got to pay a hotel. I pay taxis. I pay rental cars. I take this job seriously. I do not like to waste taxpayers’ dollars.

We’ve done this one time already, when they were wasting time for the truth and reconciliation bill, which everybody agreed on. The government debated it using their backbenchers and trying to fill in the day. When they were exposed for filibustering, they shut down the House. We all went home early on Thursday. We’ve got nothing to debate.

You’ve got a unanimous vote waiting on this side of the House. The people of British Columbia expect more from 87 MLAs who were elected to do the people’s work. The people, the taxpayers, expect more from us — not this.

We’re ready for a vote. Let’s call a vote, again. Let’s get to the issues that British Columbians are asking, begging and demanding us to talk about. Let’s get to those debates.

I’ve got to apologize to Skeena, to the people who elected me to come down here. I don’t know what to say about this. I don’t know how to explain this to you and to tell you that this is taking up the entire day of today’s debate in the B.C. Legislature. I don’t know how to say that this is justified — you spending your tax dollars to send me down here to sit here and listen to this.

Nobody is opposing this, again.

H. Yao: I appreciate the opportunity to speak on Bill 8.

I do want to start by having a conversation. I’ve been hearing a lot of the opposition talk about…. There’s really no point to having a discussion. We are ready to go and vote.

This is talking about a bill, the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia. One of the board of directors, who used to be appointed by the Minister of Finance, is being removed. Do we not understand the governing structure and how it impacts the society?

Interjection.

H. Yao: Seriously? You laugh about that. I’m surprised you’re still laughing about it.

We are elected officials here. We’re working. We’re talking about the governing structure of the Real Estate Foun­dation of British Columbia.

Interjection.

H. Yao: May I continue? Thank you. I appreciate that, Hon. Speaker.

[4:50 p.m.]

We are talking about this bill. Of course, every constituent and every British Columbian has a different opinion about every bill we put together.

As the Richmond South Centre Riding Association representative, I do believe I have a right to represent my riding, to speak about it. Thank you.

I think what….

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: The member has the floor.

H. Yao: We understand the importance of language. We understand the importance of governing.

The reason why I want to speak about Bill 8 is…. I’ve seen a lot of the great work that has been done by the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, how they deal with watersheds, and I want to speak a bit about that. This is something I’m passionate about, and my constituents have a right to know I’m passionate about it.

We are facing climate change as we’re moving forward, and we’re finding different challenges as we’re moving forward. One of the things we have to understand…. One of the biggest threats for our society in the future is the fact that we have food security and water security issues. We’ll be facing climate emergencies.

We’re talking about the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia.

Interjection.

H. Yao: I’m not sure. Am I speaking? Should I give the opportunity for the member for Skeena to continue his speech?

Deputy Speaker: The member has the floor.

H. Yao: One of the things we are looking at is the governing structure of the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia. It is no longer part of the government reporting entity. Why is this important? We are talking about the leadership, within the organization, of the board of directors, which is reducing the shackles of government influence. We’re talking about working together, and we’re allowing a non-profit to be moving forward.

We actually need to understand what we’re voting for and the complexity behind it. This is the way of a government saying that we trust working with the community members. We want to give faith in our community members and allow us to minimize our interruption when they’re working on great, important bills and the distribution of funding to support watershed activity in our community. Watersheds play a vital role in the biodiversity of a community.

We, as a government, cannot pretend we are experts. We must allow our community members to have the opportunity to discuss with experts in working through these different processes.

When we’re talking about a watershed…. It’s not just providing a function as a way to actually create bio­diversity; it also supports our government’s ability to fight against different forms of floods and to minimize flood damage and flood impact in our community. We’re also talking about potential food security, as we will be facing different challenges from drought to flood.

We’re talking about a foundation that’s actually looking at the funding and distributing and supporting watershed services in the community. We must understand and ask ourselves continuously how we can ensure, through our action, through the structure of our governing system, that we show support and a willingness to collaborate with the community.

I think, by looking at Bill 8…. One reason why I’m standing…. My speech might be short, but I do want to make sure my constituents in Richmond South Centre know their representative does care about this and their representative does care about watersheds.

We’re talking about the importance of preventative work to protect our future generation when we face different kinds of climate challenges. We have food, we have water, and we have biodiversity all, potentially, being at risk. We must work with our community members as we move and step forward.

Hon. Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity for me to speak.

I just want to welcome and encourage everybody in this chamber to truly, as the member for Skeena mentioned earlier, allow your constituents to know your thinking process for every bill, to understand how we can actually support and be supported as we move forward. We have to be responsible to our constituents. We have to share and debate and speak.

People are talking about it, making different speeches. If I remember correctly, I think one of the members opposite actually used to be a CEO for the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia. I welcome her to share her expertise. I would love to learn more from her. It is something that she probably has seen from a different perspective, how this government has impacts that I do not comprehend. I’m looking forward to the opportunity.

I also want to talk about the rapport with different non-profit sectors when dealing with the foundation, how government interaction and engagement have to be addressed.

If this is something that we agree so well on, really, on both sides of the aisle, why wasn’t it until today that we are actually addressing this bill? Why wasn’t this bill addressed years ago?

[4:55 p.m.]

I want us to take this opportunity to really have a conversation around this. How can we support Bill 8 and really talk about the importance of its governing structure? How can we talk about the watershed and…?

My apologies. Anyway, I will end my speech pretty quickly. I just want to encourage all members to really step up and really share their perspective.

We are here, being paid by taxpayers’ money, to really show a voice. We’re here to be a voice. If we choose not to be a voice, what good are we, other than just being a paper-pusher? We need to be here to support constituents as we move forward.

Thank you, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak.

R. Russell: I appreciate the opportunity to rise and to speak in favour of Bill 8.

I appreciate, also, a reiteration of…. At the core, clearly, we’re discussing the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. and the impacts that Bill 8 will have on that organization and the effective governance of that organization. So I think it’s important to reiterate the mission of that organization, which is to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use across B.C. That has enormous implications, obviously, for many of us, especially, I would say, in rural communities, where we have a lot of land and fewer people.

In response to the comments from the member for Skeena, I just wanted to add what…. Part of this conversation has been…. Why are we spending so much time talking about a piece of legislation that is so brief? The minister for the environment and climate made a comment earlier about the impact that relatively few words can have and the fact…. Certainly, to me, it seems oversimplified to interpret the importance and the impact of a piece of legislation based on the length that it is.

In addition to the member for Skeena and his reading into the record of the bill itself, I would like to read out the explanatory notes, which are not lengthy but explain what the impact of those relatively minor and potentially semantic-sounding changes are.

Clause 1, from section 91 of the Real Estate Services Act…. The explanatory notes identify that this “empowers the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association to appoint one member of the board of governors of the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia,” as identified, and “removes from the membership of that board the Minister of Finance or an individual appointed by that minister.” That, again, comes back to part of the important governance implications of these changes, albeit very brief in terms of the number of words.

Clause 2, referencing section 93, “removes the power of the Minister of Finance to issue to the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia written directions to undertake and carry out projects and activities that the minister designates as being in the public interest.”

Given earlier comments from the opposition about this being legislative dribble, I think that’s important to highlight. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding about the impact of these relatively minor wording changes in terms of how this organization is going to be able to deliver upon their mandate, which, as you’ve heard, and I will repeat, is the reason why we are standing and speaking in favour of this bill today.

Prior to my time here, I was in local government. I think we all recognize some of the challenges local governments have in terms of resourcing some of this land-based work that they care about and that their communities care about. At the same time, certainly, working with Indigenous Nations…. They struggle, at times, with finding the resourcing, whether that’s human or financial, to support the work that they wish to do, coming back again to that mandate for the foundation, in terms of their work to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use across B.C.

[5:00 p.m.]

For me, when I was in the local government role, it was very clear how important watersheds were to our community members. We didn’t have a good forum, a good venue or a good tool to be able to have those conversations in a meaningful way. So we created a watershed governance table, through local government, that included….

Included at that table, of course, we had the non-profits that were engaged in this space. We had the local government representatives. We had some of the economic development organizations. Also, I think it’s important to note, we had the farmers. We had the mining sector. We had the forestry sector.

All of those players that had a significant impact on the watershed or a significant stake in the future of that watershed were in those conversations, to be able to help identify what values that community was advocating for in the place of their watershed.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Coming back to Bill 8, one of the challenges that we faced in that conversation was the resourcing for the Indigenous nations to be able to participate fully in that process. Frankly, that was an enormous challenge, for us as well as for the nations, to be able to say that there was a meaningful dialogue taking place. They did not have the capacity, at that point, to be able to join that conversation fully.

In that situation, it was the Real Estate Foundation that came forward to be able to help support what, I would say, is meaningful engagement in a process to solicit and gather community input. Coming back to this notion of advancing sustainable, equitable and socially just land use, this is the kind of opportunity, I would say, that this governance structure is able to support. Bill 8 provides more opportunity to provide more flexibility in that process for the Real Estate Foundation to deliver on its mandate.

That entity, that watershed table, what we call the watershed authority, had enormous impact. It also had an enormous impact, and it incredibly increased value, by having good engagement from participants like the Osoyoos Indian Band, which would not have been able to allocate that energy to that process without support through an entity like the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. That opportunity to bring together those diverse opinions was important to the outcome of that process.

We have a lot of examples. We’ve heard, from a number of speakers, about those kinds of opportunities. Again relevant to the conversation here, it’s all about providing the flexibility. Bill 8 provides more of that flexibility, through that entity, to be able to support these important aspects of watershed stewardship, which we’ve certainly heard lots about, as well as much more.

I would also say, back to the local government lens, that one of the concerns that local government has brought forward, for years before my time here, is around more flexibility in funding tools that they can use to be able to deliver their mandates. In that space, they had a report called Strong Fiscal Futures. Really, I would say, one of the key takeaways of Strong Fiscal Futures for local governments is to be able to say: “We need more opportunity to have flexible funding tools.” Bill 8 is part of that process.

Back to those explanatory notes. It provides that flexibility to be an entity that can operate — as the member for Surrey-Panorama put it earlier, and which I appreciate — without the shackles of government intervention. I certainly think that in many, many rural communities, we see a desire for that: to be able to have more autonomy, more independence.

It’s the same, clearly, with Indigenous nations. This bill helps us move further down that path to be able to enable and empower those organizations to do the work that they want to do, in a way that is unfettered by government intervention and restrictions on how and what they are allowed to do.

[5:05 p.m.]

Another example I want to speak about — I’ve spoken about watersheds; I’ve spoken about municipal affairs — would be the space of Indigenous agriculture.

I have had the privilege to get to know Jacob Beaton of Tea Creek Farm through some of my work for this place and for British Columbians. Jacob is one of the founders of Tea Creek Farm. He speaks at length about the challenges of Indigenous agriculture having the financial support to do the work that is important for them in their communities, in their spaces, whatever those might be. He has some phenomenal numbers about how challenging it is for them to resource the work that they do.

Bill 8, again, by providing more of that flexibility to the Real Estate Foundation, provides more opportunity for entities like Tea Creek or other Indigenous agricultural operators or food sovereignty enterprises to be able to enter into that space in a way that is less encumbered by government direction and more flexible in terms of the implementation path they wish to go down.

Tea Creek has done a remarkable job, I would say, with very little resources. The Real Estate Foundation of B.C. just this last year announced that they were the winner of one of the awards granted to organizations like that.

I liked Jacob’s comment, in that case, in talking about that award, where he says: “We’re mainly growing people.” That is, again, an interesting comment weaving back to the value of flexibility in a funding model, a governance structure, such as Bill 8. It provides an entity like that with more opportunity to do the social work that they need to do and that’s tied to the land-based enterprise and endeavours.

Finally, I would mention one other kind of theme that I think Bill 8 helps enable for us in our communities. Clearly, over the last handful of years, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in the number of climate-related disasters that we have faced as a province. So much of that is based on how we work on the land, how we live on the land, how we play on the land.

There’s also an aspect of this flexibility, which Bill 8 provides to the Real Estate Foundation, that has impacts on a pretty fascinating initiative. Another one of the grant recipients last year was the Natural Assets Initiative, which, again, for those of you that have experience in local government, has been around for a while. They’re really working in that space of understanding: how do we support communities to reduce the future risk of disasters by really digging into more ecologically aware and sensitive investments in the land?

This structure, again, by the allowance to be more flexible and to be excluded as a government reporting entity, gives the Real Estate Foundation the opportunity to more directly support that kind of enterprise in our communities, which we know is so important to how we’re going to navigate forward, given the reality of the climate crisis that we are within.

With that, I think that captures the points I most wanted to speak to, and I will leave it at that.

Hon. N. Cullen: I was looking forward to participating in this debate for a number of different reasons, particularly because this is one of the changes and pieces of legislation that the ministry I now represent has advocated for, for some time.

Also, to pick up on my colleague’s comments, a number of the initiatives that the Real Estate Foundation has funded over the last number of years take place in the northwest — in particular in Stikine, in the region that I represent.

[5:10 p.m.]

The issues that Bill 8 seeks to address and redress with respect to the Real Estate Foundation’s structure are something that a number of my constituents have talked about and have sought changes for — to increase the flexibility and their ability to seek some funding.

I represent, as you know, Stikine, what I would argue is …. I don’t have to argue this. It’s the largest riding in all of the constituencies represented here in the Legislature. What I do argue is that it’s also the most beautiful and vast. It begins in the northwest sort of centre of our province, in Smithers and Telkwa, in that region, goes all the way through the corridor, up through Wet’suwet’en-Gitxsan territory, north past Stewart and northwest all the way to the Yukon-Alaska border.

Many of the conservation initiatives that have been taken on by our government have been localized in some of this vast region. I just got off some phone calls with a number of First Nations leaders across the North about some further work that we’re doing. Bill 8 and the conservation framework that government uses is an important part of this conversation.

We’ve had legislation in this House that has been very, very large in the number of pages, the number of clauses. At times the opposition has concerned themselves and complained, in fact, about the size of certain bills being too big. Other bills, this one being a good example, are quite compact, yet their impacts are not by the number of pages that a bill may or may not be — Bill 8 is very small — their impacts are in what they might mean out in the real world beyond this place and its hallowed halls.

Bill 8 in its measurement of changing the nature of how this foundation is structured would be one thing if it only affected that foundation in and of itself. But why we’re taking the time in the Legislature to talk about this is because of its impact beyond, what impact the foundation has as a mechanism, frankly, for government or other entities to then have real conservation and, in many cases, reconciliation and economic impacts on the land.

I’m glad we’re having the debate. I was listening earlier. Some in the opposition were complaining about the bill and why we are debating it and then argued the bill’s effect in the exact opposite of what it actually does in terms of it becoming a government reporting entity. I was confused when hearing some folks on the other side say, “All this bill does is make this a government reporting entity,” when, in fact, it does the opposite.

I think some members present…. I can’t account for their presence or not — as you know, Mr. Speaker — by our House rules. But I listened with some consternation that the opposition had, in fact, recounted the bill in the opposite effect.

Interjections.

Hon. N. Cullen: I understand the opposition want to participate. I know there have been a number of opportunities which they could have taken that they did not.

We have seen times where the opposition nominally say they agree with a piece of legislation, then, when one seeks to enact it, they don’t.

The importance of what this bill does, which is the importance of the debate following us today, is that…. This is a good example, I think, of an idea that was started, in this case, some decades ago. The Real Estate Foundation was set up in the mid-’80s, existed under one structure for most of its time, and then towards the very end of the previous government’s tenure was switched over in terms of the composition, back in 2016, making it a government reporting entity.

That structure has its pros and cons, I suppose. One of the pros is that it gave government a great deal of influence as to who sits on the board, which allows the government to appoint a number of directors, have much more involvement on the day-to-day workings of the foundation. That can be good if the government is needing to actually be much more directive in terms of a foundation — in this case, the Real Estate Foundation board.

To be fair, I think most British Columbians would have a relatively low awareness — and this is not a criticism, more an observation — of what the Real Estate Foundation does and exists and how it raises its own money. Bill 8 doesn’t change any of that. I think that’s an important piece for those that have dealt with the foundation before.

[5:15 p.m.]

Their funding comes from, what I’d say is, a somewhat novel idea of the transfer…. When a home is being sold or an apartment or any type of property is being sold and there’s money held in escrow for a period of time until the sale completes, there is a certain amount of interest that is derived from that. Now where should that go? A very novel and, I think, important idea was: why not put that towards some conservation initiatives?

I don’t know this to speak definitively, but it seems to me that’s a tacit and important acknowledgment of the impacts of real estate development broadly — that oftentimes, when we’re seeking to build more homes, which we are in British Columbia, we naturally have an impact on watersheds. We have an impact on the environment because we’re typically, unless we’re densifying within a city or a highly urbanized area, then encroaching into the natural environment more and more. Realtors, through various ways, have been strong advocates of conservation methods, which is good.

When the government changed this format over in 2016, it had certain impacts. We were still, when the New Democrats formed government, seeing the Real Estate Foundation as a very solid and significant partner, a consistent way for public moneys to be put through a foundation. We’ve had significant amounts of money flow through the foundation, I think, without serious concerns, although there were some raised in terms of the structure and the government’s control over the money once it left the door if the Real Estate Foundation remained a government reporting entity, a GRE. That, had the money essentially been…. Is it now off the books or is it still under government control?

As you’ll know, there are lots of different ways that government can fund an initiative — conservation or building a hospital. One of the ways…. Particularly, so-called year-end funding is allocated to groups all across B.C. Consistently every year — this happens through every government and every administration — there is sometimes, not always, in all cases, money at the end of the year. That is true this year as well. Government seeks to move the money out the door in reliable ways so that it can do the good work that we’re hoping for, be it on social justice, be it on conservation, be it on reconciliation.

Knowing that you can move that with entities that then have good reporting, internal reporting. Bill 8 seeks to make sure that the Real Estate Foundation maintains both of those things. There will be, I would argue, less government control over the way the foundation is administered. Yet we are still confident that with less appointing processes, as described in Bill 8….

There’s one small change that allows us to make sure that there is a strengthening, particularly of First Nations participation, in how the foundation operates. That’s addressed in Bill 8 — to allow, with some encouragement that we’ll see, that the representation and the appointment from one particular group has a tendency and gives consideration to the significance of having partnerships within First Nations communities on the board.

The reason this is important, and the Real Estate Foundation has identified this in their own strategic planning, is that when dealing with the issues of conservation…. This came up quite explicitly recently at two global conferences, the COP 15 in Montreal and then the recent IMPAC5 conference on marine protected areas that happened in Vancouver. The face of conservation today is very different than it was five, certainly ten or 15 or 25 years ago.

The notions of combining efforts around conservation and reconciliation are now intertwined. Whether it’s the marine protected areas that we were able to announce with First Nations just a couple of weeks ago or the efforts that the province is going to make — and succeed at, I hope, as Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship — towards protecting 25 percent of our territory by the year 2025 and 30 percent by 2030, it’s integrating more and more deeply with First Nations.

Bill 8, in allowing the Real Estate Foundation to have more of an arm’s-length approach, from our experiences will enable more of that reconciliation to take place, because under this model that we’re proposing under this bill, it allows the rights and title holders to take the lead on the conservation question.

Interjection.

Hon. N. Cullen: The opposition, again, could have all sorts of opportunities to talk about what they are….

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members.

The minister has the floor.

[5:20 p.m.]

Hon. N. Cullen: I’m glad that they’re as excited about this bill as we are, Mr. Speaker, and what it enables.

The ability of First Nations to lead in the conversation when it comes to conservation, the ability of First Nations to have a centre place….

Again, for those that weren’t listening to the beginning of my comments, I just came from a number of calls, before coming into the House this afternoon, with First Nations leaders across the North, talking about this exact topic, about the ability to have philanthropic organizations like the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia have….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, let’s just take a deep breath. Let’s let the minister have the floor.

Members. Members, if the members have a point of order they want to raise, they have that ability. Let’s let the minister finish his remarks.

Hon. N. Cullen: The conversations I just came from with a number of First Nations leaders across B.C., particularly in the North…. I was talking about the current state of conservation and conservation thinking, which has evolved, I would say, somewhat significantly since this House passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

There are a number of philanthropic interests — including the Real Estate Foundation, which is addressed in Bill 8 — that have conservation efforts right across British Columbia. In the past, those conversations, I would argue, were too often led by philanthropic organizations, conservation groups, so-called ENGOs that would only implicate First Nations after the fact, if at all, in some cases.

Certainly, if you look back through the problematic history, I would argue, of the creation of some of the parks within Canada, and B.C. as well, certainly the United States, there was not only a disregard of rights and title; there was sometimes the forceful removal of people from areas that government or philanthropic agencies sought to put into conservation.

What we are doing by removing the B.C. government’s control over the Real Estate Foundation — or lessening the control, I think would be fair — is to look at the success that they’ve had so far. The healthy watersheds initiative is one that has been noted in these debates. Just in the last three years, north of, I believe, $60 million or so in funding that has gone through, from the public taxpayer through the Real Estate Foundation, is allowing First Nations to take their rightful place in the conversation when it comes to the issue of healthy watersheds.

Within my ministry, we have a watershed strategy and a watershed security fund that we’re looking to stand up. Integral in even designing the fund, before we even start to talk about the strategy, is that the government-to-government relations are the first conversation that we have — to talk to First Nations rights and title holders about the scale and scope of watershed efforts.

We hope and I believe it is a reasonable expectation that by changing the reporting the Real Estate Foundation does, which is what Bill 8 does, it will enable more of that partnership to take place. In allowing more independence yet relying on partnerships like this through the philanthropic agencies, through the non-profits to exist as partners with the B.C. government and the people we represent, the people of B.C. — and in this case, often through the moneys that we’re able to make available — we know the plans that come forward have more durability, if I could put it that way, than civil servants sitting in Victoria designing what conservation initiatives should happen.

What we’ve relied upon in the past…. I think this is true. We’ve spoken, and we have citations that I can give from partnerships that have evolved over time, with the Real Estate Foundation, local communities, local First Nations and other interest groups, over time, that have been quite successful in the partnership. I think we all should, and can, celebrate that.

We have also heard from some of those working partnerships that what would enable even more success, more funding, not just public funding but private sector funding, was if the Real Estate Foundation was set in such a way that it was more arm’s length from government, that it allowed more credibility on what I would say is both ends of the conversation.

Other potential funders have talked to us about that. If the Real Estate Foundation was more arm’s length from the government, this would be helpful — less appointments from the government in terms of their board, which was, again, something that was changed in 2016 prior to us taking office.

[5:25 p.m.]

I don’t raise that as any great spectre of…. I think it was…. Perhaps this is a lesson of unintended conse­quences. By making the Real Estate Foundation a government reporting agency, it had some benefits. I’m not going to decry that. We had them as good partners and consider them good partners for the work that we want to do. Again, I have citations from local groups, non-profits and certainly First Nations leaders who have done good work and exercised good work through the Real Estate Foundation.

There was a downside effect, which is if it’s seen as and is a government reporting agency, almost an arm of the government, it has some negative consequences as well: less assurance that the Real Estate Foundation could operate more independently, could make decisions and was acting within their own independence from their board as is directed. We’ve assigned more seats that would give more independence, I believe, in a better way, to the Real Estate Foundation through Bill 8. That’s what we’re attempting to do.

So I’m not…. I’ll leave that out. But to be clear as to who they are — because I don’t think I was able to say that at the beginning; I got off to a different way — the Real Estate Foundation, for those who don’t know, is a philanthropic organization working to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use across British Columbia.

The reason I was looking forward to participating in this debate is that the structure of the ministry that I now have the privilege to represent is very much in line with what that mission statement says, except for the philanthropic part — that the Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship has within the DNA of this ministry…. It was built, as you may know, Mr. Speaker, in pretty significant consultation, as a ministry, with all of the groups that I’ve talked about here today that are affected by the Real Estate Foundation. The Real Estate Foundation and other philanthropic groups were also consulted.

In the coming to this piece of legislation, we thought it was very important to make sure that this was something that the partners that the Real Estate Foundation works with were in favour of this. Again, this is sort of…. Not sure if this is the correct term, but upstream and downstream — the communities affected, the rights and title holders affected by conservation initiatives that this group has been a partner with us on, as well as further upstream, I suppose, if I’m using that analogy, of those that were looking to contribute more to the Real Estate Foundation.

It is my sincere hope that if Bill 8 becomes law and passes, the Real Estate Foundation’s organization, the system of reporting changes, become more arm’s-length from government and that we maintain our relationship with the Real Estate Foundation. I think that’s my hope and my expression.

There were some comments earlier: was this some sort of a critique of the work that they’ve done? Not at all. This was feedback that the government had received over the last little while, and that going forward, in fact, we would be enabling more of what I hope is shared by all members of this House and British Columbians, which is our ability to raise more money, because conservation, be it terrestrial or marine, is not always cheap.

We have inherited a desperate lack of land-use planning, almost an allergic reaction, from previous governments, about the notion of watershed-level planning, of thinking about a territory completely.

The notion that the previous government didn’t abandon land-use planning writ large across the B.C. terrain would be contrary to what I heard from….

Interjections.

Hon. N. Cullen: It’s so tempting, Mr. Speaker, to engage in the debate.

What we saw through the 2000s and 2010s from the leadership of the previous government was to move away from land-use level planning, was to move to more a transactional nature. There were some exceptions because of leadership at the local level….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members.

Hon. N. Cullen: I don’t interrupt you.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member for Skeena. Member for Skeena, the minister has the floor.

Hon. N. Cullen: The respect that I wish to show in this place, Mr. Speaker, is that when someone’s talking, I try to listen.

[5:30 p.m.]

What I was just saying was that the ideology of the previous government from Victoria was to disregard land use–level planning. The exception was shown by local, in some cases, First Nations to disregard the general trend that the previous government showed, to disregard landscape-level planning. The exception was shown by local, in some cases, First Nations to disregard the general trend that the previous government showed, to disregard landscape-level planning.

What we have moved forward with is rights- and title-based, through the declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. This goes to the notion of organizations like the Real Estate Foundation’s ability to….

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Please, Minister, if you’ll just take your seat.

Hon. N. Cullen: Absolutely.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I will acknowledge you, and then you can proceed.

Member for Kamloops–North Thompson.

Point of Order

P. Milobar: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As a minister of the Crown, this minister has repeatedly referred to this as if this bill, Bill 8, will create a space at the foundation for First Nations. It very clearly is for the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association. I would ask that the Chair direct the minister to actually speak to the actual bill and the premise of the bill, not add things in that absolutely do not exist in a two-sentence bill.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I can address the point of order in terms of relevance.

Of course, all members are reminded to make sure their comments relate to the legislation or to the proposed bill we are addressing. Thank you.

Debate Continued

Hon. N. Cullen: I thank my friend across the way for the question of relevance.

I apologize to the House for engaging, which I think took me fundamentally off track with respect to the speech that I was giving and intending to give. It’s always tempting in this place to have what may pass as dialogue but oftentimes isn’t. The member for Skeena was trying to make some points about, I believe — I don’t know if the record or Hansard picks this up — other issues with respect to the Haisla Nation, and I attempted to engage and clarify what I was saying.

In terms of the Real Estate Foundation and the board, the member properly points out that we have assigned a new seat through a new way, through a non-profit housing initiative. One of the abilities government has in making a change like this is to give assistance and direction in what our intent is.

We have talked to the Real Estate Foundation extensively about their work and how they go about it. One of the initiatives, in terms of making it more arm’s-length, which is what Bill 8 does, is their ability to incorporate more diverse and, increasingly, voices that are interested in and have expertise on First Nations rights and title specifically.

We know across the philanthropic sector — not just the Real Estate Foundation but more broadly — of those that are seeking to do conservation in British Columbia, that meaningful participation and inclusion of rights and title holders is the only path forward. I don’t think that’s a controversial thing to say. It’s very much implicated in us making the Real Estate Foundation more arm’s-length from government in their ability to appoint more directors.

On their initiatives in terms of working with us, I can say this: the opposition is looking for explicit lines in the bill that are directive this way, but I have explicitly spoken to many in the philanthropic sector and will continue to, in very clear terms. Efforts to advance conservation, which the Real Estate Foundation has strived to do — I read their mission statement earlier, which remains unaffected by Bill 8, of course — is inherently tied to notions of respect for rights and title and for reconciliation.

I don’t know of any watershed projects; there may be some. If opposition members wanted to raise concerns, then this would be the space and the time to do so. The investments that we’ve made through the Real Estate Foundation over the last number of years, which have been significant, have had a direction from the government to provide local economic opportunity and also advance efforts of reconciliation wherever possible, which is in most cases, almost all cases.

The success from that model proves itself and proves more success, hence the origins in the design of giving the Real Estate Foundation more independence, which Bill 8 does. It no longer requires them to be a government reporting entity, to allow them that independence and, perhaps, as I’ve said before, raise more money and advance their reconciliation efforts right across the board.

The fact that this triggers some sort of reaction, I can’t attest to. Perhaps the member for Skeena and I can talk about it offline. That’s probably a better place to talk about all the success that the Haisla Nation has had before, during and since his time in leadership there. I’m happy to do so.

I thank the Speaker and the House for the time and the opportunity to speak to the bill today. I wish all of us understanding and patience in our deliberations here in this House, as we always do.

[5:35 p.m.]

M. Dykeman: It is wonderful to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill 8. This is a very important bill, which amends the Real Estate Services Act to remove the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia from the government reporting entity to ensure that it’s better positioned to deliver on its mandate.

The Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia was established in 1985 and operated at an arm’s length from government for many years. For those that are not familiar with the foundation, the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. is a philanthropic organization working to advance sustainable, equitable and socially just land use across British Columbia. But there were changes made in 2016 to the foundation’s governance model. It resulted in it being brought into the government reporting entity.

Now, these controls removing them do not pose any accountability risk to government. They do address several organizational issues which stem from the government reporting entity status that they had, including funding and programming issues. The work that they do is really important. There were problems with having the government reporting entity status in delivering many of their mandates.

By removing these reporting entities to better deliver on their mandate — since they did operate at arm’s length until 2016, when the changes brought them into a government reporting entity — there was a review and consultation. It was determined that there really wasn’t any rationale to keeping it in the entity and that it would be more effective if it was removed.

I have to say that any time I get a chance to stand up and speak about the important work that non-profits and foundations do, it’s very exciting, because amazing things happen when you have non-profits working. With their nimbleness and ability to deliver programming, it really does make a difference in our community.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-Profits, this is an example that I really find to be a wonderful example of the work that non-profits can do when they’re empowered to be able to do so.

One example that’s really close to my home in Langley East, which I wanted to highlight as to why these changes with Bill 8 were so important, is Bertrand Creek, which is a very interesting parcel of land. It extends from Aldergrove and moves southerly down. They received a grant, which was administered through this entity, for $69,828. It really made a massive difference for our community.

What made the difference is that Bertrand Creek flows south through Aldergrove into the township of Langley. There’s a cross-border tributary of the Nooksack River. It actually drains approximately 113 square kilometres of land and is divided by the Canada-U.S. border. It was something that was very important to be addressed. It was really fantastic that, through the programming that’s offered through this organization, this type of work was able to take place.

Now, what is even more interesting about this area in Bertrand Creek was that there was a small population of spawning resident fish, including coho salmon. It’s one of the very few watersheds in the world that actually supports populations of the Salish sucker and Nooksack dace, both on the endangered species list. This creek is really an important landmark in the community.

That’s why I was really thrilled to see this bill come forward, because it gave me an opportunity to highlight how these small changes really do affect our community on the ground and how these abilities to work with non-profits to put money out into the community make a difference, even though the foundation receives a little funding directly from the government and it does not deliver programs and services directly connected.

[5:40 p.m.]

The foundation wasn’t actually created to address a market failure or regulate an area of the private sector, so that’s why there wasn’t any rationale to keep the foundation as a government reporting entity. But what they have done, which is so important to ensure that the bill reflected the important work that they do and remove the Real Estate Foundation as a government reporting entity, was to allow them to deliver on the mandate that they have done so well in delivering, which is administering important grant programs like the ones that make the Bertrand Creek Watershed possible.

I wanted to also talk a little bit more about this healthy watersheds initiative and why these changes were so important to it. Communities like mine in Langley East have very robust agricultural communities, and two of the programs that were administered through recently were $600,000 with the Farmland Advantage program, which worked with the B.C. Investment Agriculture Foundation, working with farmers and First Nations across the prov­ince to protect and preserve critical riparian habitats on agricultural land.

This Farmland Advantage program helps farmers iden­tify natural values on their land and provides tools needed to conserve them, and the project supports up to 48 jobs. As I was saying, with Bill 8, without these changes, programs like this wouldn’t be possible. There were obstacles to the foundation being able to deliver on its mandate.

Another example of working with farmers through their programming, the fantastic range of things that they offer, was $180,000 with the Fraser Basin Council, which was the Horsefly River riparian and salmon habitat restoration.

The Fraser Basin Council collaborates with farmers and ranchers to restore critical salmon and trout habitat along Horsefly River. The project activities include installing riparian and livestock fencing, stabilizing banks, constructing channels and planting native species in riparian zones. And that project supported 13 jobs. Those types of programs, in having the ability to actually deliver without the restriction of being a government reporting entity, are so vital.

Just going back to the program that I was talking about earlier with the Bertrand Creek, what was really great about the group environmental farm plan is that it actually worked with a group of farmers to implement a joint farm plan which helped farmers increase efficiency and profitability by implementing more sustainable farming practices and created and supported four jobs. That was a very important project to support because of the complexities of cross-border.

Quickly going back to just where we started, when we were talking about this foundation, as I mentioned, the foundation, being a philanthropic organization, continued under the Real Estate Services Act and has not always been part of a government reporting entity, and it was changes in governance that were made to the real estate sector as a whole in 2016 and again in 2021 where the foundation was brought into this government reporting entity. That resulted in several challenges for the foundation, including making it difficult for it to receive or administer government grants.

When an organization should be included in a government reporting entity is if there was a compelling public interest or policy reason for government to have control over it. So with that guidance, those tests did not apply to the foundation, for sure.

Back to the healthy watersheds initiative. It’s one that I really want to just take a few more minutes to highlight, because it’s such a fantastic example of the important work that has been able to be done by this foundation and why these changes needed to be made.

When the province partnered with the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. and Watersheds B.C., they partnered with them to administer $27 million in grants to non-profit groups, First Nations and local governments working on a variety of projects to conserve and restore watersheds and wetlands through the province.

[5:45 p.m.]

Those restoration projects also support reconciliation with First Nations communities and partnerships across levels of government and non-governmental organizations, which is really a priority — that water and watersheds are respected and valued. It’s part of our overall watershed strategy.

As I was mentioning earlier, with the Bertrand Creek, this was an opportunity to protect the watersheds while working directly and supporting farmers, which is a really unique thing about supporting an overall organization like this to administer grants, work with non-profits on the ground to improve local watersheds. It’s something that I’m thrilled to see was one of the benefits of this program and making these changes. Making these amendments allows the Real Estate Foundation to continue to deliver on their mandate.

Just quickly, in wrapping up, because I know I have another colleague here who definitely wants to also speak about the impact of this organization and the changes with Bill 8. I just wanted to highlight, very quickly, the foodlands corridor restoration pilot project, which is another example of the importance of making these changes so that this organization could continue with their mandate.

The Rivershed Society of British Columbia piloted the development of a foodland corridor, restoring sustainable food systems throughout the Fraser watershed. This project is implemented in partnership with local First Nations, farmers and ranchers.

These projects are ones that I really wanted to highlight, especially ones that were part of my community of Langley East. And it’s to show the important work that’s been done by partnering with the Real Estate Foundation, the benefits of non-profits, the work that they do and why it’s important that bills reflect and that these changes are made quickly so that organizations like the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia can continue the good work that they do to be able to deliver on their mandate. We celebrate the work that they do and the fact that these changes will allow them to continue and remove obstacles.

With that, hon. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I will take my seat.

N. Simons: It’s a pleasure. Every time we have an opportunity to speak to legislation, I’m reminded of the trust put in us by those who’ve elected us and those we represent.

Through the 17 or 18 years, whatever it is, since I’ve been here, I’ve heard many speeches on bills that were extremely contentious. I’ve heard many speeches on bills on which we all agreed. I’ve heard speeches about legislation that met some of the check boxes but not all of them, minor bills, major bills, miscellaneous bills.

Here we have before us a bill that may be only a short bill, but it is one that has an impact on British Columbians in numerous ways. It is one that is important in that it corrects a policy that no longer seems to be relevant, with respect to its inclusion as a government reporting agency.

I understand that having an opportunity to speak to a bill gives us an opportunity to say why a bill is important to us, why it’s important to our constituents. I think that having the privilege of doing so sometimes just requires that we say what it is about this legislation that we consider important and why we, as elected members, decide to explain the reasons for which we consider the bill important.

[5:50 p.m.]

I do expect members from other perspectives to question why we’re discussing Bill 8 in detail, but we are. That is the role of legislators. It may not seem like a debate, because it’s going back and forth, or forth and forth, as the case may be. But it is, nonetheless, our responsibility to speak to legislation and to speak about its benefits to the people that we serve.

I’ve heard really interesting stories from colleagues in this House about how important the Real Estate Foundation is to British Columbians, how important it is that its governance structure is one that reflects its importance and that its governance structure is appropriate for it to be able to continue to do the work that it does.

I’m conscious of the fact that there are members from the opposition who think that since we all agree, we should just get on with the next thing, but sometimes in this place, legislation that’s tabled is worthy of discussion and worthy of its values being extolled.

Quite frankly, I sat in opposition for many years, more years than some of you have been here, and I’ve seen governments set the agenda every single day. Oftentimes we find cooperation; oftentimes we find consensus. But at the end of the day, the bills for debate are government bills, as is Bill 8.

It might have been a mistake to have included the Real Estate Foundation as a government reporting entity. If it was a mistake, then we’re correcting that mistake. If it was intentional, in order to increase government’s control over an otherwise independent body, then we’re fixing that. That would have been a mistake as well. Either way you look at it, the governance structure for the Real Estate Foundation is being amended.

It’s being amended, I think, to the delight of the B.C. Real Estate Foundation, to those who contribute to the foundation and to those who benefit from the foundation’s careful and considerate review of funding applications that it receives. When an organization is more able to focus on what it’s best at, then we all benefit.

Let’s not make any mistake about it: being a government reporting entity is a significant burden. It’s one that many organizations take on willingly and without question because of their relationship to government. But in cases such as this, when we see an organization that was erroneously or inappropriately included in that category as a government reporting entity, then it’s important that we correct that and that we allow the foundation to focus on more important priorities, priorities that don’t include all the responsibilities that reporting entities normally do.

I can tell you that I congratulate the Real Estate Foundation for their advocacy and for their persistence in ensuring that government sees the benefit of their recommendations and sees the benefit of restoring the independence that the foundation previously had. As Mr. Speaker knows, it was established in 1985, and it soon thereafter began providing grants to eligible recipients in a number of areas. All, I think, were reflections of the priorities of British Columbians as it relates to the environment, housing, social issues and a number of other areas of impact.

[5:55 p.m.]

The foundation itself, as has been mentioned, is a philanthropic organization. Its mandate and its mission I think are ones that we all agree are laudable.

It’s overseen by a board of governors. I’m looking at the previous website. It says: “…with members appointed by the Real Estate Association, the Real Estate Institute of B.C., the Union of B.C. Municipalities and the Minister of Finance.”

Well, that’s going to change, because the Minister of Finance, as we know, will no longer be appointing members. If you read, it empowers the British Columbia…. Let me just start over. “Removes from the membership of the board the Minister of Finance or an individual appointed by that member,” as stated in Bill 8.

Interjection.

N. Simons: Sorry, was that you, Mr. Speaker?

Deputy Speaker: Please continue.

N. Simons: The three sections essentially cover the entire purpose of this bill. It might be of interest to the members here who are listening intently to this exciting — I don’t know — speech.

Interjection.

N. Simons: Exciting, yeah? Thank you, Member.

In the previous legislation, section 91 read, “The board of governors of the foundation consists of the following individuals,” and it lists “(a) one member appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council; (b) one member appointed by the British Columbia Real Estate Association; (c) one member appointed by the Real Estate Institute of British Columbia; (d) one member, not licensed under this Act, appointed by the minister; (d.1) one or 2 members, appointed in accordance with the regulations, if any;” and then: “(e) the minister or another member appointed by the minister.”

That section (e) has been removed. It has been removed in order to ensure that the strength of the foundation can continue and continue as not a government reporting entity.

The other section that changed was section 93. Section 93, as it says here, “removes the power of the Minister of Finance to issue to the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia written directions to undertake and carry out projects and activities that the minister designates as being in the public interest.”

Essentially, what the previous legislation allowed government to do was basically dictate the direction of this independent foundation. Being dictated to by the government meant that the organization itself would be almost part of government and thus a reporting entity. This is an important amendment to section 93. Section 93 previously read that “on written directions of the minister,” the Real Estate Foundation — I’m just paraphrasing — would be required “to undertake and carry out projects and activities that the minister designates as being in the public interest.”

The other section that was removed is section 93(2): “in giving directions…the minister may impose conditions, but must not require an expenditure for the projects and activities of more than 50% of the foundation’s annual net revenue as this revenue is determined in accordance with the regulations.”

Ultimately, what we’ve come up with…. Obviously, to the satisfaction of the Real Estate Foundation, we have removed those membership requirements, replaced them with a different appointing body and thus satisfied two important goals. I would like to point out that the new powers to appoint a member of the governors of the Real Estate Foundation is the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association, a well-established, over 30 years old, agency that has had a significant impact on public policy as it relates to real estate in this province and, in fact, nationally.

[6:00 p.m.]

The B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association referred to in clause 1 will now become the body that is able to appoint a member of the board and, perhaps in that regard, be able to carry the voice of the Non-Profit Housing Association to greater effect by being part of the foundation’s determining body, the body that determines where funds go — funds from the people of British Columbia, by the way. They’ll be part of the decision-making process, and they will reflect a particular perspective of the non-profit housing sector in the determination of grant funding.

I think that that’s an important addition. I think we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of that particular organization having a voice in how the funds of British Columbians are spent.

For those who may not know, when real estate transactions take place, the funds go into a fund. They’re pooled. The interest on these funds becomes the revenue of the Real Estate Foundation. Every year they award grants that have a significant community impact in so many different ways.

Just to make it clear, government reporting entities are many. There are many reporting entities and none which look close to doing what the Real Estate Foundation does. So I just want to provide you, Mr. Speaker, with a list of some of the reporting entities, and you’ll be able to determine why it is that the Real Estate Foundation does not, in fact, belong in this category of organizations.

In the health sector, reporting entities include the Canadian Blood Services, all the health authorities, hospitals. In the education sector, it’s the universities, colleges: Selkirk College; Simon Fraser, my alma mater. In the natural resources and economic development sector: the Forest Enhancement Society, Innovate B.C., InBC Investment Corp., the B.C. Pavilion Corp.

In the transportation sector, the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, B.C. Transit. In the social service sector: Community Living B.C., a Crown corporation.

It’s quite clear the B.C. Real Estate Foundation doesn’t belong on this list of government reporting entities: Legal Services Society, B.C. Games Society, the Assessment Authority, Community Social Services Employers Association, B.C. Hydro and Power Authority, Liquor Distribution Branch. All the Crown corporations are included in a list of government reporting entities. So there was an effort, and a successful effort for the most part, in ensuring that generally accepted accounting principles are incorporated into how decisions are made about which organizations are reporting entities.

Usually, the main criteria are: are they government? Are they part of government? Are they directed by government? Do they take their orders from government? The B.C. Real Estate Foundation doesn’t and shouldn’t. I think it’s important we recognize that by legislating an arm’s-length perspective, an arm’s-length relationship, we are saying how that is an important part of how the foundation distributes funding.

[6:05 p.m.]

I’m quite pleased this is taking place. I think it’s something that has been asked for, for a while. I’d like to just reiterate how important it is that the Real Estate Foundation can continue to provide the necessary funding for many organizations to do, really, what is critical work for local governments, for First Nations, for organizations and associations in our communities that are striving to improve, in some cases, the environment and, in some cases, the housing situation all across the province.

This is a foundation that receives its funds from people who live in all parts of the province. I think that the list of beneficiaries of that funding reflects the fact that this is a provincewide organization and one that provides benefits to all parts of this province.

If I may, Mr. Speaker, in speaking to the importance of the Real Estate Foundation, its strength and its resilience, and the importance of this bill to ensure that that continues…. They have worked very closely with groups and organizations in this province that have seen the need to ensure that we do what we can, in all ways that we can, to protect our natural environment and, in particular, watersheds.

I think all members of this House know that on the Sunshine Coast, we’ve had discussions about our watershed because of the fact that every summer, it seems now, we are required to conserve water, with greater urgency, because of drought conditions.

The work of the Real Estate Foundation, which is being strengthened by this bill, will be able to be continued.

The Sunshine Coast regional district, the shíshálh Nation and the Squamish Nation have been working together, with funding from the Real Estate Foundation, in order to ensure that we know all we need to know about the water resources on the Sunshine Coast, all we need to know about how to protect that source.

I would also point out that it’s not just the Sunshine Coast regional district that received funding from the B.C. Real Estate Foundation. The town of Gibsons is also evaluating the conditions and potential risks to the natural assets that exist within the Gibsons Aquifer recharge area and the Gibsons Aquifer watershed, in fact.

There’s a list of projects that the Real Estate Foundation has funded over the past few years. This, in particular, I think, speaks to the importance of organizations like this to operate unfettered from unnecessary regulations that have been imposed by the previous government.

It’s interesting to note…. Really, the fundamental change that is occurring with this is that the foundation will not be belaboured by unnecessary requirements, administrative requirements, financial reporting requirements, which one would expect from Crown corporations and other large organizations.

The Real Estate Foundation is different. The Real Estate Foundation should be operating without concern about the whims of a particular government and the control of a particular government. It should better reflect the needs of community and the priorities of community. Their impact is great. I think that the important changes that are being permitted by this legislation are necessary and are welcomed by the Real Estate Foundation.

The Non-Profit Housing Association will be permitted, by this legislation, to select a member of the board of the foundation. I think we can say how important it is for that organization. It’s an organization that provides B.C. residents and organizations professional development opportunities. It provides programs to members that help housing providers operate more efficiently. It puts on industry-leading events that foster the kind of collaboration that we need to see in our community housing sector.

[6:10 p.m.]

I don’t think anyone in this House would argue about the importance of ensuring that policies around housing are targeted well, are executed well. We all recognize that organizations that do the kind of research necessary to inform public policy are organizations that we want having influence in other parts of our society.

The B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association also publishes research into affordable housing, into homelessness, and it has a perspective, as well, that reflects the needs of different-sized communities, different locations of communities and the demographics of communities. This is something that clearly will benefit…. Their voice will be a benefit to the organization that administers funding for priority programming.

The B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association has made a number of important contributions to the housing sector in British Columbia. It’s delivered energy-saving projects, including building condition assessments, which are necessary in order to identify where the strengths and weaknesses of buildings are. It’s conducted hundreds of energy audits and helped create a number of capital plans.

It’s connected to non-profit housing providers by providing rebates or incentives to help save money on retrofit projects. All of us in this chamber have talked about the many, many ways that we need to work on in order to ensure that we reach the targets — our environmental and housing targets — in this province.

I should note the time, Mr. Speaker. Is it appropriate at this time, or do we have another speaker?

Deputy Speaker: You still have time. The member can continue.

N. Simons: Thank you. I was getting mixed signals. It’s like if I was on second base. I would have stolen third. But I wasn’t on second base, so I didn’t quite know what the signals were. I’m happy to continue my words on this bill.

I do know the CEO of the Real Estate Foundation, Mark Gifford, is an SFU alumnus and someone who worked in the area of…. He worked for Kiwassa Neighbourhood House. I have great respect for him. I think that the work they do and that his board does has really benefited so many communities, not just in terms of the projects they’ve promoted but of the jobs they’ve helped to create.

I’m happy to proudly support Bill 8, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak about it.

Hon. J. Whiteside: It’s an honour to rise in the House to speak in favour of Bill 8 and have an opportunity to just talk about some of the connections of the work of the Real Estate Foundation — the connections that they have, indeed, to my urban riding of New Westminster.

We know that the important steps that this bill takes with respect to altering the governance arrangement for the foundation by removing the Real Estate Foundation as a government reporting entity, changing the appointing body, are important steps that have been called on for some time to provide the Real Estate Foundation with more room to manoeuvre in space where they do just an exceptional job.

Really, since starting in 1985 as a result of work between the government of B.C. and the real estate industry, which, through legislation, created the foundation…. Soon after that, they began important work supporting not-for-profits by making grants to support important work led by not-for-profits both in land and water restoration, as well as, of course, with respect to the real estate profession itself.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested by the Real Estate Foundation since 1988 in hundreds of different kinds of projects having to do with important environmental and social impacts.

[6:15 p.m.]

I think it’s really a great example of leveraging an activity that’s related to property purchases and pooling the resources from those resources in order to have a really big impact. It is indeed the impact that I want to speak a little bit about.

But first, in terms of how the Real Estate Foundation conducts its work. They have an ESG screen on not only their investment portfolio, the resources that they collect through the sale of property in British Columbia, but also an ESG screen on the kinds of projects that they fund. Within that, they have, indeed, a profound commitment to reconciliation.

That is really reflected in their strategic plan, which commits to working together with people and communities across B.C. in ways that advance sustainable, equitable and socially just relationships with the land and with real estate. I think there is probably no finer example in these times of the kind of frame and perspective that we need on these important issues.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Most of their grants, indeed, have to do with the built environment, with fresh water, with food and lands. It could be active transportation or indeed the healthy watersheds initiative. I know there’s been much lauding of this important work through the healthy watersheds initiative over the course of this debate. What I think is so important about this particular initiative of the Real Estate Foundation is not only, of course, the terrifically important land and water reclamation that happens but the actual fact that this is an economic driver.

If you look through the list of some of the projects that have been supported through the healthy watersheds initiative, it is very evident that not only is there a significant support for Indigenous organizations, for First Nations organizations who are engaged with the important work of healing the land, of healing watersheds, reclaiming watersheds for salmon restoration, but we see terrific economic impact in this work. Whether it’s a grant to the Kwikwetlem for $435,000 to hire and train four full-time resource guardians involved in conservation regulation, restoring environmentally compromised sites, monitoring development activities…. That project alone created ten jobs.

There’s also the very significant investment, as part of the B.C. economic recovery plan, that we made of $27 million in stimulus funding for more than 60 projects that had already been identified across the province, that the Real Estate Foundation was able, on the ground, to hire people and mount and get going in the midst of the COVID pandemic, to really help with our economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is the importance of those relationships, those partnerships on the ground, that are so important and that are such a remarkable example of the work that the Real Estate Foundation does.

It could be the $250,000 grant to the Kwakiutl First Nation to address large-scale, active erosion in the Clux­ewe River by designing and implementing fish habitat restoration measures. Those measures will help stabilize the channel and restore salmon spawning rearing areas in the lower river and estuary.

Really, there is example after example after example. Why am I so interested in salmon restoration and salmon habitat? Well, because I live on the Fraser River. My constituency goes all along the Fraser River. I’ve heard, in fact, from my constituents and from organizations who advocate for the health and well-being of our river about the importance of salmon restoration along even urban areas of the river.

It is, of course, the longest river in British Columbia. It flows for 1,375 kilometres, from Black Rock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains all the way down through Prince George, across the plains and down into the Lower Mainland.

[6:20 p.m.]

When it gets down to my neck of the woods, there are competing interests. There is the importance of salmon, the importance of the transportation and the industrial purposes that the river is put to. It’s why all of the watershed restoration work that the Real Estate Foundation does is so important in helping to ensure that we have healthy watersheds and healthy rivers leading into the river.

Finally I just want to note as well the importance of the Real Estate Foundation in pulling together and really recognizing champions all across the province of the work that’s done in land and water reclamation. I had the honour of attending the Land Awards Gala in in my constituency in New Westminster last year, where there were so many awards given out in recognition of fundamentally important work that people have done in the interests of land and water reclamation that, without the Real Estate Foundation, wouldn’t have happened.

Wayne McCrory from the Valhalla Society. Taylor Wale from the Gitxsan Watershed Authority. One award that I was particularly moved by, I think because of the timing of it, was in the category of land use and conservation. The Tŝilhqot’in Wildlife Management Project won because of their incredible work expanding Indigenous fire practices across B.C.

This is an example of the kind of work that is supported by the Real Estate Foundation, with a revitalized new approach in terms of the governance and in terms of the issues around it no longer being required to be a government reporting entity in light of the fact it receives very little funding from government. The foundation is, in fact, exempt at the moment even from developing service plans pursuant to the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act. There is little real reason to continue to have it as a government reporting entity. I’m very excited about the opportunities that this change will provide to really important work that they do.

Finally, just to say, I think my colleague mentioned the important work of Mark Gifford, the CEO of the Real Estate Foundation, as well as Tara Marsden and, really, the whole crew of staff and board members there. I’m just noting that really, right now, we must maintain sight of the urgency and the central role of watershed security funding across all ministries’ mandates, particularly those addressing climate, UNDRIP, jobs, health, food security, salmon, biodiversity and economic future. I want to thank the Real Estate Foundation very much for their work. I look forward to their ongoing work.

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

Hon. J. Whiteside moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Malcolmson moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:23 p.m.