Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call continued reading of Bill 8, second reading of Bill 8, Real Estate Services Amendment Act, 2023.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 8 — REAL ESTATE SERVICES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

Hon. J. Whiteside: When we left off debate on Bill 8 yesterday, I was just concluding my comments with respect to the benefits of the prime objective of Bill 8, with respect to the Real Estate Foundation. This is to ensure that it can operate fulsomely, that we are removing it from the restrictions of being a government reporting entity and changing the governance structure to more appropriately respond to the opportunities for the incredible work that is done by the foundation.

To finish off, I’m wanting to again connect this work to the importance of my community of New Westminster, to the work that my constituents are involved in and concerned with, particularly when it comes to the work around the watershed initiative run by the Real Estate Foundation, the connection to the Fraser River, to salmon habitat and my deep gratitude to the work of the Real Estate Foundation in this regard.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

With that, I will again express my support for the bill and leave my comments there.

Hon. K. Conroy: Seeing as there’s no further discussion on this debate, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 8, Real Estate Services Amendment Act, 2023, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. H. Bains: I call second reading, Bill 7.

BILL 7 — LAND OWNER TRANSPARENCY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Hon. K. Conroy: I move that Bill 7 be read a second time now.

The purpose of the proposed amendments to the Land Owner Transparency Act is to address legislative, interpretive and administrative issues that have risen since the legislation came into force. The Land Owner Transparency Act is a first-of-its-kind legislation in Canada. The legislation was introduced and passed in 2019, and implementation began in November of 2020.

[3:35 p.m.]

The legislation created the land owner transparency registry, a publicly searchable database of information about beneficial ownership of land in British Columbia. Beneficial land owners are people who own or control land indirectly, such as through a corporation, partnership or trust.

The registry is intended to end the hidden ownership of land in B.C. This registry is one of the ways the province began working to end the hidden ownership of land and to address money laundering in B.C. and is part of other substantial actions the government has undertaken and is currently considering in its commitment to combat money laundering in the province.

The implementation of the legislation and the registry delivered on the government’s commitment in the 30-point plan for housing affordability to end the hidden ownership of land. Implementation of the registry has been a success. Hundreds of thousands of transparency records have been filed with the registry.

For years, people were able to obscure property ownership in a variety of ways, using shell companies, trusts and partnerships. This obscuring of ownership made it easier to launder money and evade taxes. The Expert Panel on Money Laundering in B.C. Real Estate noted, in its report, that improving beneficial ownership transparency is “the single most important measure that can be taken to combat money laundering.”

The Land Owner Transparency Act, since it came into force in November of 2020, has made B.C. a leader with respect to beneficial ownership transparency. B.C. is the first jurisdiction in Canada to implement a registry for the beneficial ownership of land and is one of a few similar registries in the world. In fact, at a recent meeting of all federal, provincial and territorial Finance Ministers held in Toronto, we talked about this very act and the importance of it. Other members at the meeting wanted to know the relevance of it. They are considering similar acts across the country because of the importance of what we are doing.

We’ve seen, in the past, the concerns that can arise when the ownership of land is not transparent. In 2016, Transparency International Canada released a report that showed nearly one-third of the 100 most valuable residential properties in greater Vancouver were owned by shell companies.

These concerns about hidden ownership were further raised in other reports and data leaks, things like the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. These examples highlighted Canada’s reputation as an attractive place for setting up anonymous companies and hidden wealth.

Under the Land Owner Transparency Act, all new purchasers of land are required to submit a transparency declaration indicating whether or not they are a reporting body. This means that since the legislation came into force, all relevant corporations, trustees and partners have been required to identify themselves on the declaration and file a transparency report whenever there is a transfer of land in the province.

We also require reporting bodies to submit new transparency reports when there is a change in interest holders. This can occur even when there is no change to the legal title of the property. It may occur, for example, when a shareholder sells their shares to another individual.

Not only have we seen improved transparency with all new property transactions since the legislation came into force, but in November of last year, we passed the deadline for pre-existing owners to file transparency information. Under the legislation, all relevant corporations, trustees and partners that owned land in B.C. before the legislation came into force were required to submit a transparency report identifying beneficial owners.

We have received thousands of reports from corporations, trustees and partners that purchased property in the past, providing information about individual beneficial owners and giving us a much clearer picture of land ownership in British Columbia. We are proud to be the first jurisdiction in Canada to implement this type of registry.

This legislation addresses interpretive and administrative concerns with the legislation encountered by staff and members of the public since the registry was developed. This is part of the process with new legislation, and this is especially critical for legislation that is breaking new ground and addressing a complex issue like beneficial ownership.

[3:40 p.m.]

As I already mentioned, the land owner transparency registry is one of the first in the world. We have created a publicly accessible registry that provides high-level information about beneficial owners similar to the type of information that is publicly available through a search of the land title office.

Prior to the Land Owner Transparency Act coming into force, a person could search the land title office and find information about an individual who directly owns property but would find no information about an individual who purchased a property through a corporation, trustee or partner in a partnership.

We have also allowed access to detailed information by law enforcement, tax authorities and certain regulators for certain purposes. This information can help those authorities crack down on tax evasion and identify tax fraud and money laundering.

These amendments to the Land Owner Transparency Act are about continuing to improve this legislation to ensure it’s doing what it’s intended to do in the most efficient way. The proposed amendments make changes to the legislation to improve data quality, reduce administrative burden under the act and clarify the province’s position on a number of legislative interpretive questions that have been raised by various stakeholders and about certain provisions in the act.

The amendments that I’m proposing today will do several things. First, the amendments will clarify the filing requirements when a reporting body is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustee of a relevant trust. This is necessary because currently the act does not contemplate a reporting body that is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustee of a relevant trust. This has led to confusion amongst reporting bodies regarding the information they’re required to include in a transparency report.

Moving forward, when completing a transparency report, the proposed amendments will require that when a reporting body is both a trustee of a relevant trust and a partner in a relevant partnership, the reporting body should file as a partner in a relevant partnership if the land is partnership property. This proposed change will provide clarity and certainty to reporting bodies and will improve administrative efficiency of the system.

Secondly, the amendments will create the ability to submit a corrected transparency declaration, a document identifying whether a transferee is a reporting body under the act. This amendment is needed because, at times, human error has resulted in incorrect information being included in a transparency record. Unfortunately, the legislation does not currently allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration, even if the information contained in the original is incorrect.

An example of where this can occur is when a wrong parcel identifier is included in a transparency report, which can happen from time to time, or a transferee is designated as a non-reporting body when that is not the case, because currently the legislation does not allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration. This incorrect information is registered in the registry and not updated. If the proposed amendments are passed, a transferee may file a new transparency declaration to correct information contained in a transparency declaration previously filed.

Thirdly, the amendments will also ensure that the certification requirements capture entities that are neither individuals nor corporations. The act sets out provisions for certifying transparency declarations and reports. These requirements are set out in the act because under the act, to confirm the truthfulness of a filing, an individual with knowledge of the matters contained in the report must certify the information.

Unfortunately, the way the legislation is currently drafted, it does not contemplate certifications by entities that are not considered corporations under the act, such as a corporation sole. Instead, as drafted, the act only contemplates a transferee who is an individual, corporation or limited liability company. So the amendments will ensure that the certification provisions apply to all types of entities that will be completing transparency records.

[3:45 p.m.]

Fourth, these amendments will remove the requirement to indicate on a transparency report the date on which an individual ceased to be an interest holder. An interest holder is a beneficial owner who meets the thresholds under the act requiring them to be reported to the registry. Currently, the legislation only requires information about current interest holders in the transparency report. This means there is no need to indicate the date that a person ceased to be an interest holder, as there is always a requirement to update the transparency report when interest holders have changed.

Fifth, the amendments will remove the requirement for a trustee of a relevant trust to file a transparency report if all interest holders are registered on title. Where an interest in land is registered in the names of all beneficial owners, submitting a transparency declaration does not increase land transparency, as all beneficial owners are already publicly identified.

If there are no hidden owners, then it is not necessary to identify them in a transparency report to achieve the intended policy outcome of the act. The proposed amendments remove the requirement to file a transparency report in these specific circumstances, reducing the administrative burden on property owners.

Sixth, the amendments will update schedule 1 of the act, which sets out corporations and limited liability companies excluded from the definition of a “relevant corporation” to more closely reflect language in the Business Corporations Regulation. Under the Business Corporations Act, qualifying companies must maintain a transparency register with similar information that is contained in a transparency report under the LOTA.

Section 47 of the Business Corporations Regulation, under the Business Corporations Act, sets out exclusions from the requirement to maintain a transparency registry for private companies. Schedule 1 of the LOTA sets out similar entities that are excluded from the definition of a “relevant corporation” and therefore not required to file a transparency report. This proposed change ensures consistency across the two acts.

Lastly, Madam Speaker, the amendments allow the surveyor of taxes to submit a transparency declaration to the registry on behalf of a transferee. This change helps ensure that basic information about a property and a transferee are captured when a property that was forfeited to the province is returned to the former owner, once all outstanding taxes have been paid.

As I mentioned, these proposed amendments don’t change the underlying policy of the act. These amendments will ensure that the registry continues to operate effectively and efficiently in support of better land transparency in British Columbia. These amendments will improve the efficiency of operational and administrative processes occurring under the act, reduce confusion amongst filers and protect the quality of data being sent to and stored in the registry.

I’d also like to note that improving data quality and the administration of the act, as Bill 7 proposes, doesn’t uniquely affect the Indigenous rights described in the UN declaration. By introducing this bill, we will improve the administration of the Land Owner Transparency Act and registry and continue our commitment to end hidden ownership of land in British Columbia.

I think this is part of our work to help end money laundering in our province, and I truly believe that that is something that every member of this House wants to end. It was a key recommendation from the report, and I hope that members will see the beneficial nature of the amendments to this act and that they will get up and speak to it. I believe that everyone in this House has concerns about money laundering. I mean, we passed bills ensuring that we can stop this, and I believe that members will want to talk about this and talk about the effects.

I know when I was talking…. When the money laun­der­ing had come up, it was on the news. I just happened to have…. I’m going to try to add some levity to the process. I had some of my grandchildren staying with me, and the news was on. We were making dinner and talking, and one of them asked me: “Why do people want to wash their money, Granny?”

I had to explain to them that it had nothing to do with washing their money, but it actually was people that were hiding what they were doing with their money. They were doing it in inappropriate ways, and they were doing inappropriate things with that money.

[3:50 p.m.]

The story came on about the bags of money getting taken into casinos in hockey bags. They, of course, didn’t understand that either, because from their perspective, the only good use for a hockey bag is to carry your hockey equipment to play hockey. It’s just interesting, the perspective.

We have to continue to ensure that we have legislation in place that is going to stop money laundering in this province. Not only will the Land Owner Transparency Act do that, but the amendments to this act will ensure that we will stop money laundering in this province and ensure that the people that are using property to hide money will no longer be able to do that. This bill will do that. The amendments to this bill will do that.

Part of when you pass legislation, as you work through it and it comes into…. You recognize that there are additions to the bill that need to be made, amendments that need to be made. That is exactly what we’re doing: to ensure that we can continue to end money laundering in this province, which I think is really critical. I would hope that every member of the House would feel that it is just as critical as we do.

P. Milobar: I’m happy to take my place to speak to Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023. When I heard the minister introduce this bill in the House a few days ago, her words of introduction were, “The purpose of this bill is to amend the Land Owner Transparency Act to address minor legislative, interpretive and technical issues that have arisen since the legislation came into force.”

I thought it was pretty clear that this would be a relatively quick second reading debate, so that we could actually get into the meat of the bill in committee stage, where the real work starts to happen, in terms of better understanding what this bill actually means and the impacts it may have.

That said, given what we’ve seen happening with Bill 8 and the filibustering there, I’d just like to inform the Deputy Speaker that I will be our designated speaker for this bill. I would hate for the government to think that the opposition does not read through the bills.

A few things I’ll just start off with. This is coupled with the minister’s introduction comments when she introduced this bill for the first time into this House, which would have been the first time that opposition saw this. For people viewing at home, the opposition does not see bills ahead of time. It’s very rare. Sometimes we might get an embargoed copy of something that’s very large and significant in nature. Generally speaking, for all legislation, when we see it, it is the first time the public sees it, as well as opposition.

Typical practice would be that government would then provide a briefing, for the opposition, on that bill so that we could better understand and be better able to provide comments at second reading, at this stage, where you’ll often hear people talk for 20 minutes or 30 minutes on a particular bill. By then, the critic and others in our caucus would have been briefed. We could inform the rest of our caucus of some of the finer points on a bill and be able to move forward with our comments, based around that understanding.

Now, as typical with government, if the bill is deemed to be minor, even within the government, a lot of times those briefings don’t happen. That’s understandable, because the bill is seen to be somewhat housekeeping, as the minister said, addressing “minor legislative, interpretive and technical issues.” That briefing wouldn’t necessarily be offered.

Despite this being introduced on a Thursday after lunch, which is highly unusual…. Usually it would have been introduced on the Thursday morning, when the chamber was full and the government could bask in the glory of their 57 members clapping for the bill being introduced and moving forward to this stage. Instead, it was introduced at one o’clock, after lunch on a Thursday, just before we adjourned four hours early for the week because we’d run out of business to work on in this place.

We reached out and asked for a briefing, not just on this bill but also on Bill 8. They were introduced at the same time, back to back. That was on Thursday, heading into the long weekend. Friday was not the holiday, however. No briefing was provided.

The briefings these days are typically over Zoom, so although I was already travelling back to Kamloops, I could have easily accommodated a Zoom meeting briefing. In fact, I’ve often taken Zoom meetings on the side of the highway in a parking lot, with a Wi-Fi hotspot and my laptop. You’re still able to conduct the business that you need to as an elected official.

[3:55 p.m.]

When you couple the minister’s introductory words last Thursday with the fact that there was no briefing, all through a long weekend, to get us to, essentially, the only two bills we’re going to talk about this week, apparently — Bill 7 and Bill 8 — it makes one, by the government’s own actions, just realize how much housekeeping this bill actually is.

Now, I can put the minister’s mind at ease. The original legislation — we, as the opposition, supported it. It passed in this House without opposition. The concern, though, that we have is that we’re going to see yet another afternoon taken up with debate after debate, of the government side of the House talking to a bill where the opposition actually doesn’t take issue with the concept of it.

What we need, as opposition, is to get it to committee stage, which can only happen once this phase of the bill has ended. Why that’s important is that the longer this drags on — just like Bill 8 yesterday, which has dragged on to the point that we can’t have committee stage on that bill today, despite many, many questions we have on it — that’s when we start being compressed for time. It’s because we will not have the time afforded to us — as other legislation, hopefully, finally gets to the floor of this chamber — to properly question Bill 7.

“Now, why is that important?” you might ask at home. Well, this is a bill that is amending errors and omissions in a piece of legislation that was brought forward in 2019. This is a bill trying to correct errors in that legislation.

One could argue that if we weren’t so rushed at the committee stage, where we can question, where we can better understand the clauses and where we can try to find…. Sometimes it’s just cut-and-paste errors from the drafting service, where there were different drafts of the bill as it was getting worked through various processes, and one clause got left in accidentally that shouldn’t have been. That’s where we find those.

We don’t find that by the government trying to run the clock yet again, today, on a bill that their own minister says is addressing minor legislative, interpretive, technical issues from a flawed piece of legislation they introduced in 2019. In fact, most of these housekeeping bills we’ve dealt with this session are correcting errors in this government’s previous legislation that they brought forward.

That’s why committee stage is so critical. That’s why debate at second reading for the sake of debate at second reading is actually running out a clock on the opposition being able to properly do their job and properly scrutinize legislation.

Time and again we have been able to find minor errors in legislation that the ministers, more often than not, acknowledge and correct. That legislation moves forward. That is what has us on Bill 7 today. This is not the bold action on tackling housing that the Premier promised in his sham of a leadership race. This is a minor amendment, according to the minister’s own words.

Now, the minister, in her second reading response, mentioned the 30-point plan, that this is a part of the government’s vaunted 30 point housing plan. Well, I’d point out to the government that their vaunted 30-point housing plan in their most recent throne speech from just a week ago, when it got voted on Thursday — or on Wednesday, I guess, it was voted on…. That housing plan is no more.

The throne speech made it clear that it’s being completely redone and that in six months’ time, the new behind-the-scenes adviser/housing minister is working on the new plan to inform the Premier, who used to be the Housing Minister, what a housing plan should look like, and advise the existing Housing Minister on what a housing plan should look like. That’s going to take six months.

To tie this bill to that 30-point housing plan — which by every measure has failed, including by the government’s own measure and acknowledgment in the throne speech — raised some eyebrows. Again, I’ll point out that we fundamentally don’t take issue with this bill. We voted for the first incarnation of the legislation. We will have many, many questions at committee stage.

[4:00 p.m.]

Despite what the government will say about even Bill 8 and us not putting up speakers…. That’s because we’re trying to get to committee stage. We’ve got a lot of questions at committee stage. We can understand the concept of a two-sentence bill, but we don’t know the technical answers to the two-sentence bill until we get to committee stage. There could be a lot of questions, and there are a lot of questions, based on the government speeches.

Bill 7 is adding a new definition to contemplate the transferees and the surveyor of taxes, enabling the surveyor of taxes to file transparency declarations on behalf of the transferee. It enables corrections to be refiled subsequent to errors in the original declaration. It requires transparency reports in relation to the declarations enabled by clause 4, the surveyor of taxes, and for the corrections submitted to the database.

In the case of rural areas, the surveyor of taxes files the declaration, while the transferee, the true owner, files a transparency report.

It “extends the requirement to certify the correctness of information in a transparency declaration or transparency report to entities other than corporations and limited liability companies as defined in section 1 of the Act.”

It states that partial ownership of a corporation by an Indigenous nation does not exempt that corporation from the Land Owner Transparency Act. Only wholly owned Indigenous corporations are now exempt from the definition of relevant corporation. The exclusion of independent schools is limited to the operator of the school and not the owner of the land in the case that the two are different.

That pretty much summarizes it all. I know it sounds fairly confusing when you layer it all together on all those various clauses.

My point is…. That’s why committee stage, when I can stand here…. The minister is in this chamber with me, as the due process is, and the minister has all their staff with them advising them on what the answers are, the people that helped draft the legislation. There are other staff back in the offices that can advise, as well, to provide those answers, for clarity and for certainty’s sake, for the public to understand what is being done here. That is the important part of this bill, a bill like this.

This is not a politicized bill. This is an amendment bill to a bill that everyone already agreed upon in this chamber. So everyone has already agreed on the broad concept. This is correcting an error because the committee stage last time didn’t catch it. I would hazard a guess that, probably, it was a rushed process to try to get to some other legislation.

In a week where we apparently have an abundance of time, with next to nothing to debate of consequence, based on the minister’s own words in her introduction of these two bills that we have in front of us…. We’re once again staring down the barrel of an afternoon of non-stop filibustering by this government instead of having a minister answering legitimate, thought-out questions, on behalf of the public, in committee stage on legislation.

No legislation was introduced today. Just for those at home, that means the same is going to happen tomorrow. That is what we’re dealing with, as opposition, when we hear Bill 7.

Now, it’s quite remarkable, actually. If you actually listen very closely to the 14 minutes or so that the minister spoke to Bill 7…. I’ve already been for 13. She talked about the past. She talked about the past and the history of the legislation that this is amending. A past and a history of the legislation that we all agreed with.

[4:05 p.m.]

Is it the highest and best use of this chamber, and for public information, to continually go on and on and on for the next several hours — we’re here till seven o’clock tonight — about something everyone has already agreed on or to hear some few brief comments from people about the actual amendment, which is the bill, not the history — the bill is actually the amendment to a piece of legislation — and get on with committee stage? Sadly, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

We do have quite a few questions on the practicality of how this will work in the real world, how this will work for people trying to access the land transparency registry and act in these circumstances. That’s what the public needs to understand about this bill. How will it actually impact them in their daily lives? What do these clauses mean to them in their various scenarios of ownership of parcels of land or not?

My family has had a place at Shuswap Lake since before I was born. The way that string of places has been structured, from 60 years ago, was subject to this. Will this change that or not?

It’s those types of questions that real people in British Columbia need real answers for. They don’t need to hear government MLA after government MLA singing the praises of their own government for the next three hours simply because they have no other legislative work to do.

We could have moved on. We could have moved on to committee stage of either of these bills by today and actually invested that same amount of time in thoroughly scrutinizing, for the public, on their behalf, the implications of legislation.

Why is that important? As I mentioned, the original legislation was flawed, which has created Bill 7. It was flawed to the point…. In fact, the implementation of that original legislation was actually delayed. It was delayed until the end of November 2022 because this government failed to properly implement it in the first place, even though it was passed in 2019. You bet we have a lot of questions about the bill, but second reading is not the place for those questions to be asked or answered.

As we heard yesterday…. And believe me. When I get to Bill 8, committee stage…. The complete non-factual information that the government members were talking about on that bill has created a whole lot of questions the minister is going to have to answer now. The confusion her own government members have made of a bill, trying to oversell it and pretend it’s more than it is…. It’s going to lead to a ton of questions now because of their own filibustering.

Instead of just dealing with legislation straight up and — here’s a thought — actually bringing forward legislation for us to work on, we’re going to see them filibuster Bill 7.

Now, it’s day 96 of the Premier’s 100 days of action. By the time we get back to this place, we’ll be at day 100. Not one meaningful piece of legislation will have been tabled in this chamber. When I say “not one meaningful,” I’m not talking about Bill 2, when we were talking about the national day of recognition. That was fully understood, fully supported. The premise was fully supported. The importance of that day was fully understood.

That was an impactful piece of legislation, but it did not drag things on in this place, actually. That one moved through and around in a reasonable amount of time, in terms of people speaking to it. A few questions at committee stage for better understanding. The reason it only needed a few questions, until the government started asking themselves questions, was because people understand what a statutory holiday means. They understand the mechanics of that within labour law.

There were a couple of questions around the day itself and the importance of the day itself, but that didn’t need the government to filibuster it. We could have moved on to other government work, but there wasn’t any.

[4:10 p.m.]

With Bill 7, the government members are queuing up to try to oversell a bill that…. Again, the minister, in her introduction to this chamber at one o’clock last Thursday, said: “The purpose of this bill is to amend the Land Owner Transparency Act to address minor legislative, interpretive and technical issues that have arisen since the legislation came into force.” In other words, errors of this government’s legislation that they have discovered, even after the delay of implementation to 2022.

To the people at home, let’s not be fooled. The Land Owner Transparency Act absolutely is an important act. Bill 7 is a housekeeping bill to correct the errors in their original legislation from 2019. That’s what it is, by the minister’s own words — minor issues within that original bill.

Now, I’m sure, if I was a government member, I would be somewhat embarrassed that I’m being shoehorned in to have to come to filibuster yet again — likely to filibuster tomorrow, since there’s no other legislation to work on in this place — but that’s where we are right now. That’s the state of function in this place. Despite the government telling us earlier it was going to be continuing on with Bill 8, Bill 7 got called.

No big deal. I was ready. I have my notes here. I was ready to go. This side of the House comes prepared. Unlike Bill 3, the misc stats bill, where we couldn’t even find ministers over the course of an hour and a half to show up to answer a few basic questions, this House was ready for Bill 7, regardless of when it got called.

I truly do hope that the government moves on from this ridiculous sham of what they call debate of serious bills, because when those bills get introduced by their ministers, they’re certainly not being called that.

Let’s move on with these bills. Let’s move on to committee stage and actually let the public truly understand, at a granular level, what these clauses mean on bills that everyone in this place supports. There’s no arm-twisting needed by government. There’s no need to tell us that we should be supporting this. We do. We supported it when it first came forward.

Here we are, four years after the first implementation of a bill, correcting it. It’s a shame that we are now going to be subjected — well, three hours and 45 minutes; I guess I’ve done my part — to this bill.

I really do implore the government to stop with the charade, get on with the business of this House on behalf of the people, work with our House Leader to see about expediting Bill 7 and Bill 8 to committee stage today. I’m ready to go. Surely the staff that drafted the legislation are ready to go, to answer questions and let the minister know what the answers are.

Imagine how much more productive a use of time that would be, if this chamber actually started to provide detailed information to the public. Frankly, after what I heard yesterday on a two-clause bill, a two-sentence bill, of how badly this government misread their own legislation, I shudder to think what filibustering for three hours on a 16-clause bill that’s very technical is going to produce. The most basic of concepts yesterday got totally fumbled. That will become clear in committee stage, whenever we happen to get to that.

Who knows. At this rate, maybe we’ll be dealing with these two bills and get closure invoked by the time we get to the end of session on May 11, at the rate this government has been going.

[4:15 p.m.]

Again, no briefing — requested, not provided, on a Thursday — until Tuesday, because remember, we didn’t start sitting on Monday. Thursday afternoon, all day Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday — five days and no briefing provided.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

When do no briefings get provided? When they’re minor amendments. That’s exactly what this minister introduced this bill as, and that’s exactly how we’re viewing it.

We supported the original legislation. We support these amendments. But we’ve got a heck of a lot of questions, and we can only get to those if we stop with the filibustering and get on to committee stage of this bill and Bill 8.

Mr. Speaker: May I ask the member to adjourn the debate? Then we will continue afterwards.

P. Milobar: I shall reserve my place and adjourn debate.

P. Milobar moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Standing Order 35
(Speaker's Ruling)

REQUEST TO DEBATE A MATTER OF
URGENT PUBLIC IMPORTANCE —
STATUS OF HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, the Chair has reviewed the application made under Standing Order 35 by the official opposition House Leader for the adjournment of the House to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance, being the challenges in British Columbia’s health care system. The Chair appreciates the official opposition House Leader’s advance notice to the Chair, in accordance with practice recommendation 8, to raise this matter.

Members will know that the requirements of Standing Order 35 are rigid. The process of raising a matter under Standing Order 35 is prescribed in great detail within the standing order provisions and in Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia, fifth edition. It’s the duty of the Chair to determine whether this high threshold under Standing Order 35 has been met.

As noted in Parliamentary Practice In British Columbia, fifth edition, at page 121, reflecting a decision of Speaker Reid, the Chair must be guided by two factors. The first is to review the matter raised to determine whether other opportunities to debate the matter are available to the House. The second is to assess whether new, sudden or unexpected events require the House to suspend all other business for a genuine emergency debate on the matter.

Reflecting on these criteria, it is the ruling of the Chair that the threshold for an urgent debate under Standing Order 35 has not been met. The Chair is aware that there appeared to be discontent in the House when the Chair reminded the official opposition House Leader that his statement needed to be brief and when an opportunity was not provided to hear from other members on the application.

The Chair is, and must be, guided by standing order provisions put in place by this House. In this regard, Standing Order 35 requires the member making an application to rise and state the matter briefly. It thereafter requires the member to hand their written statement to the Speaker and for the Chair to thereafter render a decision. The standing order does not provide for debate or other interjections. The Chair acted appropriately and in accordance with the standing order.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call continued debate on Bill 7.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 7 — LAND OWNER TRANSPARENCY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

P. Milobar: Mr. Chair, thank you for that ruling. Certainly, we always have the highest respect for the Chair and the Chair’s rulings and appreciate the quick turnaround time for that.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I think what it does highlight, though, is the lack of legislation that we have to deal with in this chamber. When Bill 7 is in front of us today, somewhat surprisingly — we were told it was going to be Bill 8, but that’s fine — and that’s all we have left, that’s a shame. And it’s a shame, frankly, that our House Leader felt he had to try a bit of a Hail Mary to try to see if we could not get something of substance to debate today in this chamber.

[4:20 p.m.]

Now, of course, again, we fully recognize the Chair’s decision. We do not take issue with that at all. We’re not challenging the Chair in the least, but I think it just highlights the frustration that not just the opposition but the broader public is feeling when bills like Bill 7 and Bill 8 are brought forward and nothing else.

We tried our best to try to highlight and bring forward something of consequence to discuss today. I think I’ve laid out very clearly to the public just why exactly, essentially based on the minister’s own words, this bill is considered a minor housekeeping bill, has lots of technical questions at committee stage.

It had our support when the original piece of legislation was brought forward. It has our support now as an amendment, but the real time we need to spend on this bill is actually at committee stage, actually finding out what all the clauses truly mean and if there were any other errors that have been created based on these amendments.

It’s disappointing the government wants to invest the time of this House into filibustering and not diving into the more granular detail of this bill, but rest assured that when it gets to committee stage, we will still do our job on behalf of the residents of British Columbia and make sure that we ask the questions that need to be asked on behalf of the taxpayers of British Columbia.

J. Sims: Once again, it is a pleasure to be able to rise in this House and speak to the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023.

It’s always a pleasure and a privilege that…. I think every one of us must keep pinching ourselves every now and then that the citizens of British Columbia endow us with…. They elect us so that we can come here. We can debate business in the House, look at bills and make sure that they are serving the people of British Columbia.

Yesterday, as you know, I had the pleasure of standing up and speaking on an important bill that actually removed the shackles from a philanthropic foundation that would allow them to do their work. And today I’m so delighted to be able to speak to this piece of legislation.

Since we’ve been elected and have sat in this House, it has been so amazing to be part of a government that has had so many firsts. Today we heard a number of them being listed by an outgoing member, a dear colleague of mine. When I think of the work that this House has done, it has really, really been amazing.

But today I don’t think we can talk about this particular piece of legislation and the amendments here without giving some credit — I would say lots of credit — to our Premier who, in his previous role, took on something that was very, very important to the people of British Columbia, and that was the money-laundering issue. And yes, this piece of legislation is directly related to that.

Every one of us can remember watching TV during that period, and what we watched were bagfuls of money going into the casinos and money laundering taking place, which we know had a huge impact on the people of British Columbia. It had an impact, and I’m not just saying it. The inquiry that was made directly linked it to the spiralling prices of homes.

I don’t know about you, Madam Speaker, but I graduated a long time ago from a university in England, and the year I graduated, I was able to buy a house. Coming from a working-class family, that house was bought based on my teacher’s salary that I was going to be making and my husband’s teacher’s salary, who had started to teach a year ahead of me.

[4:25 p.m.]

But as a result of what happened in British Columbia, the house prices spiked unimaginably during that time that this money laundering was going on, and it had a huge impact on people’s day-to-day lives, and we cannot ignore that.

To me, a lot of the things that have happened…. And what’s very, very clear to me in this legislation is that the Land Owner Transparency Act was something that was absolutely identified by the Expert Panel on Real Estate as a way to end hidden ownership as the single most important measure to battle money laundering.

It’s very, very difficult to talk about this without talking about what brought us to this spot, what brought this legislation and now the amendment into effect. And, as I was saying, we watched an impact not only on real estate, but I would say there are many other types of ownership that it has impacted as well.

It was very difficult during that time — as we’re here, debating Bill 7 — to try to explain that to my children, both adults, and to my grandchildren, who were teenagers at the time, as to why that kind of thing could happen right here in British Columbia. I can remember my son saying to me: “Surely, that can’t be here.” I had to tell him that, sadly, it is right here in British Columbia, and not only that, it is happening in our own backyard, right here in the Lower Mainland.

As we look at that and the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, it also behooves us now to have that kind of transparency, because what’s very, very important is not only to know who owns this now but also who owned it previously, who had their name removed a month before or a week before. All of those things become very, very important.

The registry has been a huge success, as we heard the minister speak earlier. And I do want to thank the minister for bringing forward these amendments as well. But there are still some deficiencies. As you know, the drafters, when they’re drafting legislation, it goes through the legislative review committee, and I’ve had the pleasure to sit on that for a number of years. You try to look at all of the…. You really actually try to go through it with a very fine-tooth comb to make sure that you have closed off any so-called technical issues or loopholes.

But as you can imagine, we’re not always successful. And this isn’t the first bill that’s had to come back for amendment, because when you put legislation into practice, that’s when you find out where some of the changes need to be made. That is exactly what is being done here.

With all due respect to my colleague who spoke before me, I have never, ever believed that debating legislation in the House, debating it, is filibustering. I’m the first speaker from the government side, after the minister, to shine the light on a piece of legislation that is being amended — a piece of legislation people in British Columbia care very, very deeply about. That money laundering, those duffle bags full of money…. I don’t know if it was dollars or tens or fives or hundreds. I don’t know that, but I cannot imagine they were ones. I can imagine they were bigger notes than that. All of that being laundered through the casino system of the day was a shocker.

It really takes you back to that if you want to go after those who do wrong, those who do crime, those who take part in illegal activities, then you need legislation in place so you can look at their assets. That’s what this legislation allows us to do — to take a look at the assets, because people should be able to justify and explain how they gained those assets.

[4:30 p.m.]

It’s not now, but it was very, very easy before we became government for those who wanted to cheat the system, who wanted to take their ill-gained moneys and make them so-called clean, to be doing it and therefore impacting the cost of housing and many other things. But if we are really to go after those who do crime, if we cannot track where that money is and actually start examining some of those issues, then we are really at a disadvantage — a huge, huge disadvantage.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

These amendments are based on feedback from stakeholders. Those are the people who have been working with this, and they feel that this will improve and streamline the administration of the legislation and protect data quality. Data is very, very important. I have worked in a situation where some governments, not the current one, have been allergic to data and science-based, informed decision-making, and I’m very proud of the fact that we have a government that absolutely has faith in data and making informed decisions on evidence, rather than just going with a gut feeling. We have that here.

As I was saying earlier, the Premier in his previous role was actually able to tackle a very serious threat to our province, which was the money laundering, which the previous government, quite honestly, failed to do. I don’t think anybody in British Columbia would deny that failure. It was such a failure that for night after night, week after week, we were seeing those images right on television.

The Cullen commission, which was set up, once again, relating back to the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act because it came out of that, actually concluded that the previous government’s role in money laundering…. I’m going to take a quote from that: “What was lacking prior to 2018 was not the identification of an appropriate policy response but rather the will, on the part of both government and industry, to take the kind of decisive action necessary to effectively respond to this problem.”

Along comes an NDP government that not only has the courage and the moral commitment to take on this issue but, once again, at the public’s demand, there was a commission set up and then implementing the recommendations of that commission. Out of that, of course, as we know, came the land transparency act, which through its operation, we have found out, had some technical issues. Those are the ones that we are addressing today.

We can tell that there was a real lack of will from the government of the day. You know, it wasn’t just one. It wasn’t just two. There were many people sitting across the way who were in cabinet at the time. Absolutely, the current leader of the Official Opposition also happened to be in government for many of those years, not for the total amount but for many.

The Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, once again, as I said, is a foundational piece to start tracking the assets and also taking a look at every person who owns them, so that people can’t hide behind numbered companies. You do have to have the names there.

[4:35 p.m.]

Also, you can’t just flip your property this month, four months, flip it into somebody else’s name until you get it all done.

Let’s take a look at some of the technical amendments that are going to be addressed in this. One, it actually does clarify the filing requirements when a reporting body is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustee of a relevant trust. Sounds very, very technical. Yes, it is, but often we cannot assume that just because there is a trust here, that the property and the ownership of it is severed. This will make it very, very clear.

It also allows people…. I’m surprised this got away with us. Once you’ve filed in the current legislation, there is no way to correct your filing. You cannot refile, so to speak, which means that once you catch up, “Well, okay; there was a change here. I forgot to capture it here,” then you’re left with something you’ve already filed, which could be inaccurate. What this new amendment does, the technical amendment, is it will now allow people to resubmit, either due to human error or because once they were reviewing it, they thought: “Oh my god. That isn’t so. Things changed back then, so I didn’t capture all of that.”

That is very, very important. As you know, in my previous life, I did have a critic role for immigration and all of those. Even there, I was surprised that people who had hit the wrong key, and you could tell the wrong key, their files were turned down because the information was wrong. They had no way of correcting it at the time.

Once again, I think when we have legislation and there is human error…. Nowadays with technology, I don’t know about you, but I certainly know that there are times that I think I’m typing one letter with this finger, and I’ve actually typed a different letter. If that gets submitted, that is the wrong information. This is a very important amendment because of that.

Sometimes we think…. I know that my colleague, and I really do have a lot of time for this colleague sitting on this side, is finding this amusing. Let me tell you that I have seen so many people who have submitted a form to different levels of government with an error in it and are then stuck for months and months trying to get it corrected. This one absolutely makes sense. If there is a human error and something is not right that people have, themselves, the right to fill out a piece of paper and make a resubmission.

I think my colleagues across the way will agree that that is a good thing, and they would never want to stand in the way of that. I know that there’s a lot of excitement in this room.

Currently the legislation only requires information about current interest holders on the transparency report — only the current. Well as you can imagine, if you are dealing with illicit funds, if you are trying to do money laundering, if you are trying to clean up your money that you have gained through ill deeds, then how easy it would be just to fill out a form and say, “Currently these are the owners,” and not mention that a month ago or three weeks ago or three months ago somebody else was a material owner of that.

This kind of a gap actually would allow a mockery of this system. It would give those who would do wrong and those who want to hide their ill-gained loot a way to do it that actually gives them a free pass.

[4:40 p.m.]

I think this particular amendment is very good, because there is going to be more transparency. Right on there, when the report comes out now, will be: “When did this person become a partner or part owner, and when did this other person cease to be a partner?”

We heard many stories on…. Well, I heard many of them on television and certainly on radio at that time, when people told us horrific stories of people who maybe were only making $30,000 a year having multi-million-dollar homes. Yet when a search was done, what you found on there was the name of the person who was making $30,000 to $40,000 a year.

We know that unless you’ve won the lotto or you’ve had a family member who has left you that piece of property, it is just not possible. As you know, Mr. Speaker, in today’s market, even if you’re making $100,000 a year, you hardly qualify, in the Lower Mainland, for a mortgage for a condo, never mind a townhouse or a house.

All of this transparency, once again, will help to guide us but also help us to track the money and the land ownership. There is a huge link to that. Also, in the technical amendments, there are many other points which I’m sure we will go through during committee stage, and all of that will be done. The minister was very good at going through a lot of those herself.

At this stage, I do want to talk a little bit more about why this legislation was so necessary. I don’t know. I’ve heard the Leader of the Opposition say, for example, that he wasn’t even in government at the time. I absolutely agree, by the way. He was not in government at the time that our Premier took on money laundering, addressed it head-on, put legislation in place and put oversight in place.

He wasn’t here then, but let me tell you. He was here for at least half of the years that the money laundering had spiked — and what we had seen going on at the casino. I’m not going to get into giving all of that, because it is irrelevant here right now. What is relevant here right now is it behooves the government, any government, to step forward and take steps to protect the public interests of British Columbians.

It’s in the interests of the public, of British Columbians, that the Land Transparency Act, with these amendments, will ensure that the people of British Columbia will have more confidence that their government is taking steps to protect them from money laundering illicit funds and the perpetuation of crime dollars being used and dumped into the market.

During that time, we actually were kind of a laughing farce in the rest of the world. I never, ever thought I would see a headline that would say “British Columbia, the Money Laundering Centre of the World,” that kind of thing — absolutely unacceptable. I’m really happy to be part of a government that had the courage to take that on and will continue to address those issues.

This bill…. The registry, as we said, is a growing registry, but I don’t think this is the end of it. I think there are more things that have to be done. But one thing I do know is that the people of British Columbia are looking very, very carefully at all governments, our government, and saying: “Are you doing your very best to protect us?” Governments can only do so much. We can pass laws. We can have policies. It’s in the implementation of those.

[4:45 p.m.]

I am so happy that our Premier, in his previous role, also put oversight into many of these institutions, to make sure that what we saw on television did not…. We are not haunted by repetition of those same actions, with bags full of money being taken in or out of those institutions.

We want to make sure that land ownership is in the hands of people who have earned the money, who have worked very, very hard, and that the hard-working people of British Columbia are not pushed so far out of the housing market. That is our goal.

When I look at it, some of the basic needs, I don’t think housing is a luxury. Housing is a right. It’s a necessity, just as much as food is, and we all know that. So it behooves us, then, to make sure that we take actions to make sure that illegal activity and the proceeds from illegal activities do not play havoc with our economy, because when it does that, then legislation like this becomes really, really necessary.

Getting back to this, as I was saying earlier, it was an absolute pleasure to stand up and speak yesterday in this House. It is again a pleasure to stand up and speak and support the very important technical amendments that will give us more information, more transparency over land ownership and also give the people the ability to submit a corrected form if they have made an error.

More than that, as an elected official serving in this House, serving my beautiful riding of Surrey-Panorama and the good people there, I want to be able to go back to my riding and say that I stood up in the House and spoke on this important legislation, because, I can tell you, they care. They care when illicit money and illicit gains are impacting their way of life, their ability to buy a house, and they see other impacts of those illicit activities as well.

With that in mind, once again thanking the amazing people of Surrey-Panorama and thanking them for voting and sending me here and then me having the ability to speak in this House but also to take what goes on in this House back into my riding…. It’s not a one-way street. We bring what goes on in our riding to this House, and from this House, we take what we do here and the impact it has on people back into our ridings. I’m looking forward to being back in my riding this weekend for a fun-filled roster of activities and meeting my constituents.

D. Routley: Thanks to the previous speaker.

I rise to speak in support of Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023. As the previous speaker indicated, it’s always an honour to speak in the House, whether it’s a small amendment, technical as it might be to a bill, or the original piece of legislation. It’s always an important function of MLAs to stand and speak in the House.

We heard from one of the opposition members who identified himself as the designated speaker, therefore having two hours to speak. He took half an hour of that time to talk about why we are here, why we are not rushing to third reading and why we are spending time on second reading.

For the satisfaction of the member, I’ll provide an answer, but also to educate the constituents of mine who might watch this. The reason that we’re talking about this bill in second reading is the why of the bill. Second reading is where we establish the reason — the general intent of the bill. That’s what we’re here to talk about.

[4:50 p.m.]

The member for Kamloops–North Thompson, who iden­tified himself as the opposition speaker, referred to this as being insignificant. While the minister herself referred to the technical nature of the amendments, it’s certainly never insignificant when we’re addressing one of the principal issues in this province, that being, today, the issue of money laundering.

If we look back in the not-too-distant past, our province became the notorious…. It gained the notorious nickname, in the money-laundering world, of “the B.C. model.” In fact, in criminology courses and in universities, the B.C. model was referred to when describing the set of money-laundering opportunities that had existed in this province before our government.

It was just as with political donations, where we were called the wild, wild west. We were the wild, wild west when it came to money laundering, and for the benefit of the member, Bill 7 further solidifies protections against the effects in our economy and our society of money laundering.

I think the effects in the economy are obvious, as we look at inflation, and we hope that the speculation in the real estate market won’t further inflation. We look to the past of money laundering and understand that, in fact, money laundering through real estate did inflate values in British Columbia. So it’s obviously very important from an economic point of view.

It’s also important from a number of other points of view, one of them being that this money laundering was, in large part, the profits of the illicit drug trade and fentanyl profits that were derived in this province and laundered through the casinos, through the real estate and through exotic cars in this province.

Bill 7 was an attempt to tighten up and provide more transparency when it came to real estate transactions for the benefit of innocent British Columbians who might be taken advantage of by less-than-honest players in the market but also to protect our economy and, in fact, address what was an outlet for the profits of illegal activities like drug sales, fentanyl profits, in this province.

I’m glad to see that the opposition is intent on moving legislation forward. We’ll see how long that lasts later in the session, but they cannot simply skip past second reading. Second reading of Bill 7 is particularly important because it’s particularly important that we talk about the past.

The member for Kamloops–North Thompson re­peat­edly insisted that we shouldn’t talk about the past. Well, in fact, the past is where this original legislation that Bill 7 addresses was derived. The need, and the answer, was to provide transparency in the real estate market, and the original legislation went a long way to providing that assurance to participants in the market but also British Columbians who are watching real estate become such an inflated market in this province and being concerned about the causes of that. Clearly, one of the causes was money laundering.

As the minister said, this doesn’t change the underlying objectives or intent of the original legislation. It makes it more effective, and that is through a few technical changes. But as the minister said, it doesn’t change the underlying objective.

What was the underlying objective? The underlying objective is to ensure that when real estate transactions are filed, the partners in that, the owners in that, whether they be a trustee, a partnership or corporation….

[4:55 p.m.]

There’s a transparency there that ensures British Columbians that their markets are healthy and not polluted by this sort of illegal activity and not, in fact, supporting what we’ve all come to know as a massive crisis in this province. That being the scourge of fentanyl and the deaths resulting from the opiate crisis in this province.

I think it’s really important that we look back at the past and consider why we are here. We are here, in fact, to talk about the opposition’s role in that.

The opposition leader has said that he wasn’t in government at the time. That statement is, in fact, simply not true. The Cullen commission noted in their timeline that the emergence, in 2008, of money laundering in the gaming industry persisted as a significant issue for the next decade, until 2018, all a time when the opposition leader was integral to decisions that were made around casinos, real estate markets and other forms of money laundering — or, rather, decisions that weren’t made.

Bill 7 is another step in closing the door on that kind of activity. Yes, when the bill was introduced, it was new. There was no legislation protecting us from this type of money laundering. As it was implemented, it became obvious that there were still opportunities to hide and not disclose the ownership of properties. That, in fact, would defeat the purpose of the original legislation.

Bill 7 is a direct tie back to the original legislation. It is closing loopholes that were being used to avoid the kind of transparency that British Columbians have expected from our government and have always expected from their government but, in a very unfortunate way, were not able to expect up until this government took power.

The member for Abbotsford West directed the B.C. lottery commission, saying that they, in fact, hadn’t gone far enough. The B.C. lottery commission did immediately…. In fact, he did not insist that they cease accepting highly suspicious cash, which had become commonplace in the industry. It is clear, in emails between the member and the B.C. lottery commission, that the B.C. lottery commission was going to continue to accept, in substantial quantities, cash that was suspicious over the next three years after that time.

Bill 7 is yet another step in closing those doors and stopping those actions from being taken. The actions taken at the time, the Cullen commission noted, were not commensurate with the gravity of the crisis that was facing the lottery industry, the real estate industry, other money-laundering opportunities in the province. The original act took strides to ensure that accountability and transparency, but there were gaps. Again, that’s where Bill 7 comes in.

Bill 7 really is reaching back and satisfying the original intent of the legislation, which was, of course, caused…. The need for that legislation was caused by a complete lack of control over money laundering in this province. So it’s not possible to discuss Bill 7 without referring back to the original legislation.

Bill 7 is effective because it takes the experience gained by the province in implementing the original legislation and then takes it that extra few steps further to close loopholes. Again, that’s important to every one of us.

[5:00 p.m.]

Just as an indication, when the opposition leader was the Minister of Finance, in 2011 and 2012, B.C. lottery commission CEO Michael Graydon sent emails to his staff indicating that government was pressuring the commission to increase revenue. He said: “It is imperative that your division comes in with these numbers or better.” That means keep the revenue flowing.

Again quoting: “As I have said before, Victoria is not keen to pay incentive if budgets are not met.” In fact, they were incenting people to increase the flow when it came to the lottery commission. They were failing to take action to close the door on real estate transactions by ensuring transparency. Those are big things.

The original legislation that Bill 7 amends, in fact, did incredible improvement on transparency and accountability within the real estate industry. But there was still work to do — still work to close the door on shell companies operating and not disclosing; still work to do where the previous ownership was not clear; and still work to do where parties involved in a transaction had mistakenly submitted information that was incorrect or later became incorrect. But they had no way to amend that.

Bill 7 creates that ability and that opportunity to submit a corrected transparency declaration. That’s a document identifying whether a transferee is a reporting body under the act. If someone didn’t believe that they were a reporting body but, in fact, might review their declaration and realize that they ought to have identified themselves as a reporting body, this provides them the opportunity to do the right thing and amend their declaration. That is an important step to take wherever a government might be applying a potentially punitive measure or a regulation on a behaviour within a marketplace.

I think it’s imperative to offer opportunities for correction and opportunities for people to play within the rules when they find themselves outside the lines a bit for whatever reason. At times, human error resulted in incorrect information being included in a transparency record, but the legislation, as it stands today, before Bill 7, does not allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration.

This is an important step to take to show the industry that we’re supporting honest players and that we’re offering every opportunity for people involved in transactions to qualify and to operate within the scope of the legislation. In fact, it’s increasing the protection that a mistake might cause a penalty…. I do believe that that’s a very, very important element. It needs to be well explained and well understood by the marketplaces.

When we examine how money laundering developed in the province, it wasn’t as though there were neon signs advertising that this is where you do it and this is how you do it. It became known. It becomes known because information becomes common understanding among people who would like to take advantage of illegal opportunities.

How do you get the message out to those very same players that B.C. is not a place that welcomes that kind of behaviour? Well you do it with the original legislation. You do it by repeatedly coming back, tightening that up, making it work better, acknowledging that it was a problem, seeing where the problems exist after the original legislation is introduced and then adapting and amending that. Making sure that people understand that the intent of the amendment, as minor as it might be or as a small a number as they might be…. The reason for those amendments is as important as the reason of the original legislation.

[5:05 p.m.]

The original legislation was to provide transparency and accountability and to, in fact, clean up the marketplace in B.C. It did that. But it also sent a message internationally that the B.C. model now is kaput. The expectation of criminal organizations that they could come to this province, that previous governments had allowed a gangster’s paradise of money laundering to develop, just isn’t the case anymore.

They come to British Columbia, and they’re welcome to come and invest in British Columbia. We welcome people to come and participate in our province, in our society, in our economy, but only if they are people and entities that are prepared to play by the rules. This is a rules-based society that does not tolerate illegal activity when it sees it. At least that’s the way it is now. At least that’s the way it has been since the original legislation that Bill 7 amends.

Bill 7 is an important message not only to the players in the real estate market inside British Columbia, but even as an international message that we are diligent in British Columbia. That we are watching, and we are adapting, and we are improving our legislation at all times to accommodate whatever schemes might be entertained by international criminal organizations that had, in the past, enjoyed a relative freedom to launder their ill-gotten gains through B.C. casinos and in the B.C. real estate market.

You know, with many family members who are in the real estate industry…. My partner’s family owned a real estate company and several are realtors. It was hurtful to them. My father-in-law and my brother-in-law are really old-school quality service realtors who…. This sounds like an advertisement for them as realtors.

I’m so impressed by their commitment to integrity and to service, and it hurt them. They felt smeared by the way our real estate market was polluted by this kind of ill-gotten money and how the previous government’s lack of action allowed that to develop and prosper in British Columbia so that we, in fact, became infamous but well-noted by criminal organizations around the world as a place to easily and safely launder ill-gotten gain.

Now this government has sent a message, since its inception, that that is not the case. That British Columbia does not welcome money laundering. Our real estate market has integrity, and, thereby, my brother-in-law, my father-in-law and what they do has integrity. Bill 7 is important to them. It’s important to them on a personal level, but it’s important, as I say, as a message to the world that we are always watching the effectiveness of our legislation. Taking steps, like Bill 7 does, to constantly tailor legislation and adapt legislation to the developing schemes that people might have to evade this kind of accountability.

I think it’s very important to always — for a government, particularly in British Columbia with that past that the opposition doesn’t want to talk about — be seen to be being diligent and on guard against any type of scheme that would again provide opportunity to launder money from activities such as the sale of fentanyl and the terrible suffering that has caused in our province.

[5:10 p.m.]

Every single step we can take, whether it’s just ensuring that people can operate within the tightness of legislation controlling money laundering with this confidence that if they make mistake, there is an avenue to report that mistake through the amendments in this act…. It is important so that those entities that are operating believing that they might not be a reporting body under the act and, in fact, may be, if they are, they ought to not only begin reporting but go back and amend reports that they might have made in the past.

That’s an important message to people operating in the industry who are honest and operate with integrity but feel, perhaps, that there’s a risk they could fall into not complying with the act quite unintentionally.

The legislation as currently drafted just does not contemplate this, so the amendments ensure that the certification provisions apply to all types of entities that will be completing these records and leaves really no doubt.

Also, I’m sure that once it’s implemented, there will be mechanisms and avenues for people to ensure that they are, in fact, complying with the legislation. The definitions and the regulations that flow from this piece of legislation will further clarify for people just exactly how they need to behave to remain in compliance.

Bill 7 also removes the requirement to indicate on a transparency report the date on which an individual ceased to be an interest holder. That requirement was found to be unnecessary, so not only does Bill 7 implement measures that will further tighten the controls over money laundering, but it actually also reduces the requirement of reporting where it was found to be unnecessary. That was because there is always a requirement to update the transparency report when interest holders have changed, so it’s not required to indicate the date on which an individual ceased to be an interest holder.

It removes the requirement for a trustee of a relevant trust to file a transparency report if all interest holders are registered on title. That’s because if there are no hidden owners, then it’s not necessary to identify them in a transparency report.

It’s pretty clear that this bill, Bill 7, goes a long way to closing loopholes that were existing that could have allowed the type of money laundering that happened under the previous government to once again occur but also offers a simple mechanism to amend reports where a report has unintentionally been filed incorrectly. That is an important step to reduce the uncertainty that people might have around their requirements under the act.

This ensures consistency across two acts. It allows the surveyor of taxes to submit a transparency declaration to the registry on behalf of a transferee as well. This change helps ensure that basic information about a property and transferee are captured when a property that was forfeited to the province is returned to the former owner once all outstanding taxes have been paid.

In that sense, the government plays by its own rules by also allowing the surveyor of taxes to provide a transparency report and ensure that the basic information around the property and the transferee are captured in that type of a transaction.

Our government is acting here because the B.C. Liberal government failed to stop money laundering as it emerged as a threat to our province. It was a significant threat to our economy and to our society. It’s a galling fact that the money that was made and profited off the lives lost to an opiate overdose crisis in this province were, in fact, being laundered through the mechanisms of our economy quite legally because there were no controls.

[5:15 p.m.]

We introduced a whole suite of controls and discouragement against that kind of behaviour, and we continue to be vigilant in adapting to any new scheme or any opportunity that exists in legislation, whatever legislation that might be, to continue that kind of activity within our marketplaces.

So it’s important. It’s important for us to stand here and explain to people in second reading why this act is necessary, what the ideas are behind the act but also the technical merit and the mechanisms that the act is affecting.

I’m standing in support of Bill 7. I’m looking forward to the extensive third reading debate that the member for Kamloops–North Thompson promised. I understand why second reading might not be something that might appeal to members of the former government, but it is important for us to examine the past and why these pieces of legislation were necessary in the first place and why they need to continue to be amended, adapted, updated and improved in order to achieve their original purpose.

It’s with that that I’ll take my seat. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in second reading debate on Bill 7, the act before us today. I’ll cede the floor to the next speaker.

Again, we had a wild, wild west of political fundraising. We had what amounted to a gangster’s paradise in money laundering in this province. That all came to an end with the election of this government, and it came to an end through a number of different measures legislatively. This is an improvement on that. Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023, goes another step further in ensuring that our markets have integrity and that British Columbia is no longer known as the place to go for the B.C. model of money laundering, because those days are over.

Hon. J. Brar: It’s always a real honour to stand up in this House and speak on behalf of the people of Surrey-Fleetwood on important issues that matter to people. Today I would like to speak to Bill 7.

I would like to start by acknowledging the territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, and thank them for sharing these lands in peace and friendship.

I will come back to the Bill 7 debate in a couple of minutes, but first, my heartfelt thanks to the people of Surrey-Fleetwood for the rare opportunity to serve them as a member of the Legislative Assembly of this beautiful province and putting their faith in me.

I’m here in this House because of the people of Surrey-Fleetwood. Special thanks to my staff members: Prab Sandhu and Priyanka Mehta at my Surrey-Fleetwood constituency office, and Jocelyn Fan, Ryan Chew and Gurjeevan Singh in my Victoria office. They are exceptional people, and they have exceptional commitment to serve the people of British Columbia and help me in delivering my duty as an MLA and as the Minister of State for Trade.

Last but not least, thanks from the bottom of my heart to the love of my life, my friend and my adviser, my beautiful wife, Rajwant Brar, and to my daughter Noor and my son Fateh for their love and unconditional support to me during my political journey in service of the people of this province.

[5:20 p.m.]

Coming back to Bill 7, Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023, it amends the Land Owner Transparency Act to address minor but very important changes that have come to light since the legislation came into force. This legislation overall is the first of its kind in Canada. It was created to help end the hidden ownership of land in B.C.

This is a normal process. We introduce a piece of legislation in this House, no matter which government is in power, and it becomes the law. It goes out, and it is implemented. Subsequently, we find either there are gaps or we need to amend the law in the light of new realities — for example, reconciliation. Right now we are amending a lot of existing laws because of reconciliation. Or climate change, for example. We are amending a lot of laws because of the climate change realities. This is a normal process, bringing back the act for amendments, that happens in this House.

This was, particularly, the first of its kind in Canada. The purpose of this was to basically help end the hidden ownership of land in B.C. The act created the land owner transparency registry. That’s what it did. It’s a publicly searchable registry of information about the beneficial ownership of land in B.C. So now anybody can go and see which piece of land is owned by whom. You can get that information about any property anywhere in the province of British Columbia. It was not available before this act came into existence.

It came into existence because of the work done by various experts and a lot of stakeholders. The expert panel on real estate identified ending hidden ownership as the single most important measure to battle money laundering. Similarly, the Cullen commission also highlighted that the people interested in money laundering may be interested in jurisdictions where it is easier to hide beneficial ownership. That’s very clear. The criminals know which is probably the softest jurisdiction where they can play their game. Clearly, the legislation was created in this province to help end the hidden ownership of land in B.C.

I just want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that as a son of a farmer from completely the other side, from the province of Punjab…. It was very, very hard for me to believe, when I came to this country, that you can own a piece of property, or somebody can own a piece of property, without attaching your name to the property. That was a very, very surprising thing to me.

In the land where I was born, I could never see a piece of property that did not have any name attached to it. Every property had a name attached to it. That was the system there. But when I came here, I saw that people can actually be part of a property but not show their name. That was what I saw for about the last 20 years.

That was not a good policy. We saw, at the end, that that policy was not good for the people of British Columbia. Hidden ownership is a problem. It did cause a lot of problems for the people of British Columbia. Money laundering became the norm in the housing industry, the drug industry and other sectors of the economy.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, one of the reasons housing costs went up significantly in B.C. was nothing else but money laundering.

Interjection.

[5:25 p.m.]

Hon. J. Brar: It was. I’ve been here, in this province, now for about 30 years, and I’ve watched the housing market. Housing prices went up in B.C. at roughly the same speed as the salaries of the people went up. It went almost the same level.

When money laundering became part of the housing market, the housing market went up way faster than people’s salaries. It became out of reach for anybody. Many, many people were not able to buy a house anymore. We all know that owning a house is a dream of everyone. It’s a dream of a newcomer to this country. It’s a dream of our new generation, moving forward. It was a dream that was achievable before money laundering hit housing prices. Not anymore. It became beyond the reach of many, many people.

That’s why our government passed this new law, which was the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act. That was the purpose. We took action to make sure there is no hidden ownership anymore in the province of British Columbia. The act, as I said before, was the first bill of its kind in Canada. It was passed to help stop money laundering in B.C.

Let me talk about some of the amendments that are part of this bill. Bill 7 specifically clarifies the filing requirements when a reporting body is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustee of the relevant trust. Bill 7 also creates the ability to submit a corrected transparency declaration, a document identifying whether a transferee is a reporting body under the act. At the time, human error resulted in incorrect information being included in a transparency record.

The legislation does not currently allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration. So there was no room to correct the information under the original act. We are amending to provide people the opportunity…. When it happens or as it happens, they can come back and submit a report to collect the information. That will be possible under the new amendment, as we move forward, after the second reading to third reading.

Bill 7 also ensures that the certification requirement captures entities that are neither individuals nor corporations. The way the legislation is currently drafted, it does contemplate certifications by entities that are not considered corporations under the act, such as a corporation sole. The amendments will ensure that the certification provisions apply to all types of entities that will be completing a transparency record. That will also change, moving forward.

This act will also remove the requirement to indicate, on a transparency report, the date on which an individual ceased to be an interest holder. That was not available under the current and existing legislation. Currently the legislation only requires information about current interest holders in the transparency report. This means there is no need to indicate the date that the person ceased to be an interest holder, as there is always a requirement to update the transparency report when the interest holders have changed.

[5:30 p.m.]

Next, Bill 7 removes the requirement of a trustee of a relevant trust to file a transparency report if all interest holders are registered on the title. So if there’s no hidden owner, then it is not necessary to identify them in a transparency report. This will change that as well.

Bill 7 also updates schedule 1 of the act, which sets out corporations and limited liability companies excluded from the definition of a relevant corporation, to more closely reflect the language in the Business Corporations Act regulation. This proposed change ensures consistency across the two acts. So that was also very important.

These may be said as minor changes, but these are very important changes to improve the legislation, to give the legislation teeth, to have more transparency and more, better information and to collect more, better data. I want to say I heard the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, who spoke on behalf of the opposition. He had two hours, but he spoke, I think, less than 30 minutes. It’s a choice.

I just want to say to the people watching this debate that Bill 7 has been introduced in this House, and there are three stages of this bill. The first stage is what we call the first reading. The minister comes into this House just before question period. The minister introduces the first reading of the bill. It may take about two to three minutes. It’s a very short, brief summary of the bill. Nobody can respond to it. That’s the first reading.

Then the second reading comes. Under the second reading, every member of this House — the government side, the opposition side — can stand up in this House and speak for half an hour to Bill 7 so that they can provide their input, their perspective, their critique of the bill. That’s the discussion. Debate takes place at second reading.

What’s happening today…. I just want to tell the people who are watching this debate that we are debating second reading of this Bill 7, which is a very important bill. It’s about what we call the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act. The opposition members…. Only one member spoke, and nobody else is now speaking to this bill anymore, which means we will not get their perspective, which means we will not be able to get their feedback into this process. Only the government-side members are speaking and will continue to speak about this bill.

Once this is over, then we go to third reading. Third reading will be a clause-by-clause debate, where the members of the opposition have a choice. They can ask the minister responsible questions about this bill clause by clause, starting with the first page and going to the end, the last page, about everything. They can question, and the minister will respond to them. Once all the questions are responded to, that debate will end there. That’s what is happening here today. I just wanted to say it to the people.

Coming back to the discussion, the key in this bill was to stop money laundering. Our government is acting because the old government failed to stop money laundering as it emerged as a threat to this province.

Here’s what the Cullen commission collected about the previous government’s role in money laundering. “What was lacking prior to 2018 was not the identification of an appropriate policy response but, rather, the will, on the part of both government and industry, to take the kind of decisive action necessary to effectively respond to the problem,” page 15.

[5:35 p.m.]

The Cullen report also states, “Despite having recognized by 2015 that there was a need to refuse at least some suspicious cash, BCLC continued to accept it in substantial quantities over the next three years,” page 703. As I said before, the introduction of Bill 7 is actually to give us some tools to stop money laundering.

The report continues to say that a lack of will was exhibited by members opposite. In addition to the member for Abbotsford West, nine members of the opposition served in the cabinet that did not have the will to act on making changes to stop money laundering. That’s what this says.

We are taking action so that we can stop money laundering, because housing, as we all know, is very, very important to the people of British Columbia. Housing remains the number one issue, as we speak, at this point in time, for the people of British Columbia.

I also want to point out that the Leader of the Opposition, when he was forced to apologize for his government’s role in allowing money laundering to happen, said he wasn’t in the government at the time. That statement was simply false. Here is the timeline that the commission provided for gaming. Following in 2008, money laundering in the gaming industry persisted as a significant issue for the next decade, until 2018 — end quote, page 680. It says that despite his comments otherwise, the Leader of the Opposition was in government for five of the ten years when money laundering ramped up in the province of British Columbia.

This is very, very important, of course, for the members of this House and for the people of British Columbia to know, that as the money laundering was going on, there was absolutely no action taken by the previous government. Even after they were provided with clear data information, there was a complete refusal to take any action at that time.

But we are taking action, and this bill is part of that action moving forward. Today we are doing the amendment so that we can actually give better tools to people to stop money laundering and improve the situation.

This is second debate. I fully support Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023, moving forward. And I look forward, of course, to third reading, after second reading debate is complete, and seeing the response from the opposition.

I would like to conclude. Mr. Speaker, thanks to you for the opportunity for me. I fully support Bill 7.

B. Anderson: I’m delighted to be able to rise in this House and speak in support of Bill 7, which is the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023.

I really appreciated my colleagues’ comments, particularly around money laundering. We know that the amendments to the Land Owner Transparency Act are going to address minor but really important legislative, interpretive and technical issues that have arisen since the legislation came into force.

This legislation overall is the first of its kind in Canada and was created to help end hidden land ownership in B.C. What we’re going to be able to do is…. Now we’ll know who actually owns that land, and people won’t be able to hide their ownership. We’ll know that if somebody who is claiming that they’re making…. Maybe they’re a student, for example, but they have multi-million dollars in property holdings. We need to know where that money came from. That’s critically important.

[5:40 p.m.]

The expert panel on real estate identified ending hidden ownership as the single most important measure to battle money laundering. With Bill 7, which is the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, we are doing exactly what the expert panel on real estate identified as the single most important measure to battle money laundering.

The Cullen commission also highlighted that money launderers may be attracted to jurisdictions where it’s easier to hide beneficial ownership, so we want to make sure that we are not, or no longer, a jurisdiction where it’s easy to hide beneficial ownership. Through the amendments in this act, which is Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Act, we’re helping to address that.

Over the past two years, hundreds of thousands of transparency records have been collected in the registry that is administered by the Land Title and Survey Authority. Implementation of the legislation and the registry has been a success, but of course, this is an opportunity that we needed to amend the Land Owner Transparency Act. This is the important work that we are doing today.

It’s important to build on the success that we’ve had over these last two years. These amendments to the act respond to the feedback received from stakeholders since the legislation came into force and will improve and streamline the administration of the legislation and protect data quality, which I know is very important to my constituents.

Just to ensure that everyone is clear about what these technical changes are, it’s going to clarify the filing requirements when a reporting body is both a partner in a relative partnership and the trustee of a relevant trust. This is going to create the ability to submit a corrected transparency declaration, a document identifying whether a transferee is a reporting body under the act.

At times, human error has resulted in incorrect information being included in a transparency record, and the legislation does not currently allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration. With the changes to Bill 7, which is the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023, we’re going to ensure that you can update a transparency declaration, which is really important.

We are going to ensure that certification requirements capture entities that are neither individuals nor corporations. The way the legislation is currently drafted, it does not contemplate certifications by entities that are not considered corporations under the act, such as a corporation sole. The amendments will ensure that the certification provision applies to all types of entities that will be completing transparency records. This is critically important.

We are removing the requirement to indicate, on a transparency report, the date on which an individual ceased to be an interest holder. Currently, the legislation only requires information about current interest holders in the transparency report. This means there is no need to indicate the date that a person ceased to be an interest holder, as there is always a requirement to update the transparency report when interest holders have changed.

With Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, we are removing the requirements for a trustee of a relevant trust to file a transparency report if all interest holders are registered on title. If there are no hidden owners, then it is not necessary to identify them in a transparency report.

Updates to schedule 1 of the act, which sets out corporations and limited liability companies excluded from the definition of relevant corporation…. This more closely reflects the language in the Business Corporations Act regulation.

[5:45 p.m.]

Thank you to my colleagues for their encouragement. I just really appreciate that encouragement. It’s very touching, as I’m thrilled to be, again, speaking on Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, 2023.

With some of these technical changes, this allows the Surveyor of Taxes to submit a transparency declaration to the registry on behalf of a transferee. This change helps to ensure that basic information about a property and a transferee are captured when a property that was forfeited to the province is returned to the former owner, once all outstanding taxes have been paid.

This is, obviously, really important in terms of those technical changes, so I’m just going to clarify that again. It allows the Surveyor of Taxes to submit a transparency declaration to the registry on behalf of a transferee. Again, this change will ensure that basic information about a property and a transferee are captured when a property that was forfeited to the province of British Columbia is returned to the former owner, once all outstanding taxes have been paid.

Again, on Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, we know that this has been hugely successful, but it’s important that we update it so that we are able to make sure that it’s a more fulsome bill. We know that this bill has been really key in preventing money laundering from happening.

Our government is acting because the B.C. Liberal government failed to stop money laundering as it emerged as a threat to our province. We know that the Cullen commission concluded, about the previous government’s role in money laundering…. What was lacking prior to 2018 was not the identification of an appropriate policy response; rather, the will, on the part of both government and industry, to take on the kind of divisive action necessary to effectively respond to the problem.

We know that the B.C. Liberal governments did indeed know that money laundering was a problem, but they simply failed to act. We know that this is very problematic for us in British Columbia. The BCLC failed to go far enough. The Liberal government failed to go far enough, in that it did not require that the BCLC immediately cease accepting the highly suspicious cash that had become commonplace in the industry.

In the September 2015 briefing, the minister was presented with examples of directives that would achieve this objective. This is the work that our government is doing within Bill 7, which is the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act.

Despite having recognized, by 2015, that there was a need to refuse at least some suspicious cash in B.C. — you’d think that there would be a need to refuse all suspicious cash in B.C. — the BCLC continued to accept it, in substantial quantities, over the next three years, which was very problematic.

The actions taken at the time and in the years that followed were not commensurate with the gravity of the crisis facing the industry. The inadequacy of these actions permitted money laundering to persist at unacceptable levels in the gaming industry for more than two additional years. You can imagine the impact that that had on our province.

When we look at this bill, what we have done and what our government has done, through Bill 7, with the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, we now know that this legislation was the first of its kind in Canada. It was created to help end hidden land ownership in British Columbia and also so that property would not be used in money laundering.

[5:50 p.m.]

I know the Cullen commission didn’t directly state that the money laundering and hiding had caused the prices of property to increase in the province, but when we look around, we know that housing is unaffordable for many people. I know that many people in my generation are concerned that they won’t be able to afford to purchase their home. I wonder, because of the money laundering that was allowed to persist in this province for so long, if that did have an impact on driving up property prices and what that is going to mean for my generation but also younger generations than myself.

I think it’s really important, with Bill 7, with the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, that we are trying to tackle this really critical issue. We’re also going to…. This will help stop money laundering.

With that, Mr. Speaker….

Oh, I see that one of my colleagues was really enjoying that. So thank you very much. It’s always nice when we have members on both sides of the House using their encouragement. I even see little chuckles. It’s always nice at this time of day.

Thank you so much, Speaker. It is a tremendous opportunity to speak on Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act.

With that, I will take my seat. Thank you very much.

R. Russell: I am pleased to be able to stand in the House and, frankly, speak about the amount of work that is necessary to really take a hard stance and to eliminate money laundering, as best we can, out of our system.

It’s my pleasure to stand and speak to Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act.

I did spend some time in the world of credit unions, a financial institution, and really learned a lot, in that process, about the challenges that this poses for British Columbians. In that time, before I came to this place, I earned an enormous amount of respect for the Attorney General at the time, now the Premier, and the aggressive stance that he was willing to take in terms of tackling a real, complex issue that has no simple answers but that we know is incredibly important.

Bill 7, the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, is one more step in that process to take that aggressive position and to help address the money-laundering challenges in the province.

I think it is important to reiterate, as has been noted by some of my colleagues, that the expert panel on real estate identified ending hidden ownership as the single most important measure in this process of tackling money laundering. This amendment, which we have coming forward now, is positioned to help address that in a number of ways. I’m proud, frankly, that it is on the table for discussion, and I’m happy to speak in favour of it.

It deals with the closure of some of the loopholes that currently exist, such as certification requirements that capture entities that are neither individuals nor corporations. This is, I would say, an opportunity…. The current legislation didn’t address certifications by entities that are not considered either. This helps clarify that, meaning that there’s one less loophole for people to take advantage of in our province.

Likewise, it updates some of those requirements around reporting when interest holders have changed. This is something…. There was not a requirement in the past for those individuals to report when they ceased being an interest holder. So this makes for more clarity and better attention on whoever is the beneficial owner and makes sure that we don’t lose track of that.

[5:55 p.m.]

At the same time, there are certain elements of this amendment that are targeted at reducing some of the bureaucratic challenges involved. For example, there is…. This act suggests that we should not have a requirement for a trustee to file a transparency report if all the owners are already registered on the title. A great example of where that information is already there. There’s no need to ask, another time, for them to do that.

I will also read, because I think it is a good way to set the stage for the value of this bill, a quote from the Cullen commission, which is: “What was lacking prior to 2018 was not the identification of appropriate policy response but, rather, the will, on the part of both government and industry, to take on the kind of decisive action necessary to effectively respond to the problem.”

This is an enormous problem. This is the opportunity to help take one more step in the process to help address that. Again, I applaud our Premier for initially, right out of the gate, taking an aggressive stance in terms of addressing this issue.

I would quote again from the Cullen commission report, where the actions taken “were not commensurate with the gravity of the crisis facing the industry. This inadequacy of these actions permitted money laundering to persist at unacceptable levels in the gaming industry for more than two additional years.” This is the kind of action that we are taking today to help address this.

I will quote from the Premier in terms of his perspective on the release of the report, where he said: “The findings of this commission validate the concerns of many British Columbians. They were right to be worried and demand action on money laundering.” This is one more step in that process.

I will quote again from the Premier: “I believe these recommendations will help transform the meaning of the ‘Vancouver model’ from a description of unchecked dirty money moving through our casinos to a model of government responding forcefully to the threat of money laundering. I look forward to working on those reforms with my colleagues both inside and outside government for all British Columbians.”

I will conclude there simply by reiterating how important I think it is for us to take that forceful approach to dealing with money laundering and how much I’m in favour of this bill, which helps take us one more step in that direction.

Hon. M. Farnworth: It’s a pleasure to rise and to speak to this particular piece of legislation. It’s interesting — the response that it has had in terms of questions about why we are talking about this particular bill when it’s described by the opposition as a minor legislative interpretive amendment. In fact, it is an interpretive amendment, a technical amendment.

What’s interesting, and I think this is important in terms of some of the criticisms that the opposition has said, is that technical amendments are just that — very important. How many times have we watched people complain that they go through a court case, and someone gets off and they go: “They got off on a technicality. It was a technicality that got them off”?

I’m sure it may be a small piece of legislation, not particularly extensive compared to other bills that we debate, but it is fixing technicalities. It’s a technical amendment, and it ensures that the legislation functions the way that it is supposed to do. I think it’s important that we acknowledge that. It’s important that members do get up and speak about that.

As much as I enjoy listening to the member from Kamloops…. He was the designated speaker and was going to speak for two hours, and I said: “I want to hear more.” I also know this — that the number of constituents in my riding…. I’m sure that the member and his constituents in Kamloops will read every word that he has said and will listen with great interest to his comments.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I want to make sure that the people in my riding get to hear the comments that I want to make on this particular piece of legislation. I think that that’s the right and privilege of all of us in this House — to speak directly to our constituents, to be able to talk to them about the matters, regardless of whether it is at second reading or third reading, and particularly, I would say, at second reading.

[6:00 p.m.]

As is the practice in this Legislature — as in many legislatures; there are slight variations around that — the committee stage is often the time for the opposition to be able to explore in greater detail, on a clause-by-clause basis, the legislation and to ask questions, as is the opposition’s role to do, of the minister in terms of how a bill will work on that clause-by-clause basis.

The time available for government members to be able to do that is often extremely limited to perhaps an intervention or maybe a question on a particular bill if it relates to them. But generally speaking, that is a time for opposition members, or, certainly, that is the practice in this House.

That being said, second reading is an opportunity to stand up and speak to why a particular bill matters, be it short or be it long, and to outline to constituents the importance. As has been said by many colleagues, including colleagues on the other side, this bill will amend previous legislation — the Land Owner Transparency Act — and it will make some technical amendments. This legislation was important, because it was the first of its kind in Canada. It helped to create an end to hidden ownership of land in the province of British Columbia.

That’s important, because we have seen significant rise in the values of land. There’s been a lot of concern around money laundering. The Cullen commission that was set up investigated all of those things. Out of that came the Land Owner Transparency Act. It created the land owner transparency registry, which is, hon. Speaker — and nice to see you in the chair — a publicly searchable registry of information about the beneficial ownership of land. That’s important.

It’s that word, “beneficial.” As in: “Who’s really benefiting from this particular piece of property?” Who is it? Is it someone resident in B.C. or perhaps a resident in Alberta or a resident overseas? In this province in particular, land, particularly as it pertains to housing or to agriculture, is something that is under pressure. We live in a province of incredible, varied terrain. Rugged mountains. Much of it is not…. It has challenges if you are to be able to build on it or even to try and farm on it.

That which we have, people take very seriously. There’s a lot of passion in this province around the agricultural land reserve, for example. There’s a lot of concern about the ability to afford a home, for example. Land is a key component of that. I’m not going to talk about them today, but there are many initiatives in terms of dealing with that.

But one of the things that has people concerned is a sense that we need to know what’s happening with the land that we have that is available for development, that is available for farming and that is available for residential development or industrial development or commercial development. Who owns it? Who is benefiting from any changes that may be made to it?

This, as I said, came about from the Cullen commission and the revelations that emerged around money laundering. We heard the stories and saw the videos of the thousands and thousands of dollars in $20 bills in hockey bags going into a casino. People were rightly outraged by that. They were absolutely outraged by that. Out of that came the Cullen commission.

The Cullen commission said that ending the hidden ownership of land is the single most important measure to battle money laundering. That’s why it’s critically important that when we have before us a bill, even if it is classed as a minor bill or a technical amendment, those keywords, particularly when you’re dealing with the potential for criminal elements in terms of money laundering, work exactly the way they’re supposed to, even if it’s a minor correction or even if it’s something that the opposition says: “Well, it’s insignificant. We support it, and we need to get onto the committee stage.”

As I said before, particularly in matters of law, words matter. They mean something. We have all seen court case after court case after court case where decisions are made on the wording that is used in place, the words that are there.

[6:05 p.m.]

If they didn’t matter, and if they didn’t mean something, then why are they there? They are there to convey a meaning to a judge. They are there to convey a meaning to lawyers, to the public, in terms of what is meant by a statute that has been passed by this Legislature, or the federal parliament, for example, or another provincial legislature.

That’s why it’s critically important, and that’s why I don’t accept the criticism from the opposition that we really should not be speaking to second reading on this. I have been here a few years, and in fact, if I think back to just the fall session, I notice that many in the opposition….

I see a couple of them smiling over there. In fact, the member smiling, I think, gave a really good speech one day on a particular piece of legislation that was going speaker after speaker. We were going: “Well, I didn’t think they thought this was that controversial, but there’s a lot of speaking on it.” At that time, members go: “You know what? It’s important that members get up on second reading and let their constituents know what’s going on and what they’re thinking about.”

I don’t disagree with that. I don’t disagree with that at all, whether it’s government members getting up to speak on second reading or whether it’s opposition members getting up to speak on second reading on a bill that they feel strongly about. That is the right and privilege of every member in this place, as I said a few moments ago, and it’s something we really need to remind ourselves. There are 5½ million people in this province, and there are only 87 of us in this place. It is only those 87 who get to speak on a piece of legislation, who get to vote on a piece of legislation. That’s a remarkable privilege that all of us, I think….

I know that members do not take it for granted, that they understand the importance of being able to exercise the privileges and rights and responsibilities that come within this place. I know that over the course of the next several weeks, we will be debating much legislation. We will be dealing with the budget, which comes down soon, which hopefully — which I know — will have a lot of great news for British Columbians. I trust and I expect support from the opposition. I’m one who always believes that hope springs eternal.

But we are speaking to Bill 7, and I’m mindful of that. As I’ve said, there are technical changes to this particular bill. So I just want to outline some of the other areas where this particular piece of legislation addresses some of the issues that were identified and why it’s important that those changes be made.

It clarifies the filing requirements when a reporting body is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustee of a relevant trust. Again, that’s an important detail that we need to make sure is dealt with properly. It creates the ability to submit a corrected transparency declaration, a document identifying whether a transferee is a reporting body under the act. Again, an important…. It may seem inconsequential, but the fact is that it does have consequences, and it’s important that that is recognized. After all, you want to make sure whether someone who’s transferring is, in fact, a reporting body under the legislation.

Of course, it will ensure that certification requirements are going to capture entities that are neither individuals nor corporations, making sure that it captures as much as possible and fulfils the recommendations of the Cullen commission, which I think everyone in this House recognizes as a particularly landmark report in the annals of the history of this province.

[6:10 p.m.]

That resulted in significant legislation that I think helps to put an end to the dark blot on our international reputation when it came to money laundering and the terminology of the Vancouver model, which I know all of us were absolutely appalled by, were just shocked that it was able to take hold here in our province, but our government made changes to ensure that it is rooted out and that it is elimi­nated.

Other interesting changes the legislation will address. It currently only requires information about current interest holders in the transparency report. This means there is no need to indicate the date that a person ceased to be an interest holder, as there is always a requirement to update the transparency report when interest holders have changed.

It will remove the requirement for a trustee of a relevant trust to file a transparency report if all interest holders are registered on title. If there are no hidden owners, then it’s not necessary to identify them in a transparency report. Again, we’re ensuring that the legislation works the way that it is intended.

I know that I have heard some very thoughtful speeches in this chamber about the need for this. I know my colleagues, all of us, have taken this particular bill very seriously. I know that at committee stage, the opposition has indicated that they will have questions, and that is their right to do. I fully expect that they will do that.

I also know that this is a bill that’s dealing with money laundering through the technical amendments that I have talked about, but I want to assure the House that the government is not just resting with the introduction of this bill. There will be additional legislation that will follow that will help deal with the issues that have been identified in the Cullen commission, not just in terms of money laundering but also around organized crime, for example.

The throne speech the Lieutenant-Governor delivered mentioned and talked about the need for legislation regarding unexplained wealth orders. Again, that is a significant initiative being undertaken by our government to ensure that we are doing everything we can in terms of dealing with organized crime. I look forward to being able to bring that legislation to this House this session for debate and passage.

I mention that because I know that sometimes, when we are debating a bill — in this case, Bill 7 — there may be some concern by the opposition, perhaps, with this as a bill. They have they have criticized a little bit in terms of speaking to it. I’m glad to hear that they support it, but I just want to assure the opposition that this is not — I repeat, this is not — the end of our efforts to deal with some of the challenges that we face in this province from organized crime.

There will be more legislation, which I will look forward to the second reading debate. I look forward to support from both sides of the House. I look forward to the committee stage that I know will take place that will ensure that we are on top of issues identified in the Cullen commission as it related to money laundering and organized crime and, at the same time, the public’s very legitimate concern about what was taking place in our province.

I could go on at length. Sadly, I am not the designated speaker.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Hon. Member, I appreciate the fact that you would like to hear more, but I also recognize that time is a valuable commodity and that we sit today until seven, maybe five to seven. I think everyone has been good, and if we got out of here at five to…. You know, ten to seven is not bad.

[6:15 p.m.]

On Wednesdays at seven o’clock, you start to get a little hungry. I know I am. To talk for two hours would be a little bit much. I do know that there are other members in this chamber, I know, who would like to rise and to speak to this particular piece of legislation.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I wonder if that from the Minister of Labour is indicating that he would love to get up and enter the debate.

With that, hon. Speaker, I want to thank you for chairing. I want to thank my colleagues for not heckling or interrupting, and for the opposition for paying such rapt attention to my remarks. With that, I know this is an important piece of legislation that all of us are going to support. With that, I will take my seat.

Hon. H. Bains: It always is a pleasure, every time you get the opportunity to stand in this House and talk about policies, the debates on bills and the legislation that helps British Columbians who sent us here. People before us came here and they did their job, and now it’s us in this House. There is important work that needs to be done, and I am so privileged. I think very few British Columbians in history get this privilege to stand up here and speak on important matters that matter to British Columbians.

With that, I want to stand here, and right off the bat I want to say that I’m standing here to support Bill 7. I’ll tell you why. First of all, the Land Owner Transparency Act was the first of its kind in Canada. The legislation was introduced in 2019, and the implementation began in November 2020. The legislation created the land owner transparency registry, a publicly searchable database of information about beneficial ownership of land in British Columbia.

That’s important. The wording of that. It’s about beneficial ownership of land in British Columbia. It’s about the information about the true owners behind land. I want to go back to what is the need. Where this came from. Why do we need to do this?

We all heard and we know the money laundering problem that existed for a long period of time in British Columbia. The Cullen commission was appointed to look into this very, very troubling exercise that was happening before our eyes. It was even promoted — if you recall, the Vancouver model — that this would be a place to come and launder your money and continue on with crime, and the proceeds of crimes can be cleaned here in British Columbia with ease. Hardly any repercussions.

Here is exactly what was recommended. A corporate beneficial ownership registry is essential to address money laundering risks in the corporate sector. That’s what we were told. That’s why we were acting. It goes on to say that corporate and other legal arrangements play an important and legitimate role in the Canadian economy. There are, however, well-known money laundering risks associated with these arrangements. The risks stem principally from the anonymity corporate and other legal arrangements can provide.

[6:20 p.m.]

Criminals can obscure their identity by hiding behind a company, or perhaps using a few different companies to distance themselves from certain transactions and funds. Law enforcement efforts are often frustrated when corporate arrangements may make it impossible to determine beneficial ownership. This is particularly so where offenders have complex, multi-layered ownership and control structure to shield their identity.

It was clearly identified that we need to act in this particular area, to bring in legislation that will identify the true owners behind the land and property. That’s why recommendation 28 was: “I recommend that the province amend the definition of ‘interest in land’ in the Land Owner Transparency Act to include mortgages, in order to ensure that the beneficial owners of a charge cannot obscure their ownership.”

Then land owner transparency. Recommendations No. 33 and 34 talk about: “I recommend that the province remove, by way of amendment to the Land Owner Transparency Act and/or its regulations, the fee requirement for law enforcement and regulators with an anti-money-laundering mandate who wish to access the land owner transparency registry.”

Clearly, it was identified that the government must act in this particular area. That’s what the bill did. The original bill was passed in 2019, and implementation began in November of 2020.

We have seen, in the past, the concerns that can arise from the ownership of land that is not transparent. In 2016, Transparency International Canada released a report that showed nearly one-third of the 100 most valuable residential properties in greater Vancouver were owned by shell companies.

These concerns about hidden ownership were further raised in other reports and data leaks, things like the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. These examples highlighted Canada’s reputation as an attractive place for setting up anonymous companies and hiding wealth.

It has its consequences. Not only is there criminal activity, which you’re hiding behind shell companies and hiding money that is illegally obtained or earned. But what happens to that money? We all pay for it.

We talk about unaffordable housing prices in the Lower Mainland and in Canada. A lot of that money went into real estate. A lot of those real estate transactions were for cash. As a result, as the demand continues, the housing prices continue to be out of ordinary British Columbians’ reach.

That’s why I’m happy that the opposition is supportive. But if you look back into the history, the pleas were ignored. The issues were brought to the then government’s attention. The government, time and again, knew what was happening. It was brought to their attention, and they didn’t do much, or not enough.

We are here now. Bill 7 does what should have been done and could have been done a number of years ago.

Under the Land Owner Transparency Act, all new purchasers of land are required now to submit a transparency declaration indicating whether or not they are a reporting body. This means that since the legislation came into force, all relevant corporations, trustees and partners have been required to identify themselves on the declaration and file a transparency report whenever there is a transfer of land in the province.

[6:25 p.m.]

Bill 7 amends the transparency act to address the legislative interpretation and technical issues that have arisen since the legislation came into force. As I said, this legislation, overall, is the first of its kind in Canada and was created to help end the hidden ownership of land in B.C.

The Land Owner Transparency Act created the land owner transparency registry, a publicly searchable registry of information about the beneficial ownership of land in B.C. It does a number of things, and I’ll talk about those in a minute.

There are a number of technical changes in this amendment act. It clarifies the filing requirement when a reporting body is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustees of a relevant trust.

Also, Bill 7 creates the ability to submit a corrected transparency declaration, a document identifying whether a transferee is a reporting body under the act. At times, human error has resulted in incorrect information being included in a transparency record. The legislation does not currently allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration. So we’re fixing that with Bill 7.

Also, it removes the requirement to indicate on a transparency report the date on which an individual ceases to be an interest holder. Currently the legislation only requires information about current interest holders in the transparency report. This means there’s no need to indicate the date that a person ceased to be an interest holder, as there is always a requirement to update the transparency report when interest holders have changed.

There were a few flaws or a few areas that needed improvement. I will get into each one of them in a minute.

Further, it removes the requirement for a trustee of a relevant trust to file a transparency report if all interest holders are registered on the title. If there are no hidden owners, then it is not necessary to identify them in a transparency report.

It updates schedule 1 of the act, which sets out corporations and limited liability companies excluded from the definition of a relevant corporation, to more closely reflect language in the Business Corporations Act regulation.

It also allows the surveyor of taxes to submit the transparency declaration to the registry on behalf of a transferee. This change helps ensure that basic information about a property and transferee are captured when a property that was forfeited to the province is returned to the former owner once all outstanding taxes have been paid.

There are five or six different areas of this amendment act, which touched on, that need to be updated. First, the amendment will clarify the filing requirement when a reporting body is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustee of a relevant trust. This is necessary because currently the act does not contemplate a reporting body that is both a partner in a relevant partnership and the trustee of a relevant trust.

Second, the amendment will create the ability to submit a corrected transparency declaration, a document identifying whether a transferee is a reporting body under the act. This amendment is needed because, at times, human error, as I said earlier, has resulted in incorrect information being included in a transparency record. Unfortunately, the legislation does not currently allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration, even if the information contained in the original is incorrect.

An example of where this can occur is when a wrong parcel identifier is included in a transparency report, which can happen from time to time, we are advised, or a transferee is designated as a non-reporting body when that is not the case.

[6:30 p.m.]

Currently the legislation does not allow a reporting body to file an updated transparency declaration. So this incorrect information is registered in the registry and not updated. I think that’s another area that needs to be fixed.

Third, the amendment will also ensure that the certification requirements capture entities that are neither individuals nor corporations. It’s important. The act sets out provisions for certifying transparency declarations and reports. These requirements are set out in the act because, under the act, to confirm the truthfulness of a filing, an individual with knowledge of the matters contained in the report must certify the important information. But again, the way the legislation is currently drafted, it does not contemplate certifications by entities that are not considered corporations under the act. This Bill 7 fixes that as well.

The next area of Bill 7 touched on — that needs to be fixed, is being fixed here — is that these amendments will remove the requirement to indicate on a transparency report the date on which an individual ceased to be an interest holder. An interest holder is a beneficial owner who meets the threshold under the act, requiring them to be reported to the registry. Currently, the legislation only requires information about current interest holders in the transparency report.

So you can see the complexity behind what the land transparency act was trying to deal with. As it was being implemented, during the implementation period, a number of these areas were brought to the attention and it came to the surface that they need to be addressed so that we could tighten the land registry transparency.

As I said before, it has wide-ranging implications on all British Columbians if the issue wasn’t dealt with. I’m so happy that the minister of the day, in 2019, brought the land transparency act to address many of the issues that were raised, but since that time, there are areas that need to be fixed. It was identified that we must act on, and that’s why here we are talking about it again.

Then, again, there’s another part of this that needs to be addressed. There’s an amendment in here that will remove the requirement for a trustee of a relevant trust to file a transparency report if all interest holders are registered on title. Where an interest in land is registered in the names of all beneficial owners, submitting a transparency declaration does not increase land transparency, as all beneficial owners are already publicly identified. So if there are no hidden owners, then it is not necessary to identify them.

I think there are a number of areas that we touched on. I could say also, as it was identified by the Cullen commission and other reports, you know, as they tried to address the Vancouver model, it was an embarrassment for all of us. It was an embarrassment for the government of the day. It was an embarrassment that we, in a first-world country, were promoted as a Vancouver model. People from around the world could come in and clean their dirty money without much implications.

I think what lacked prior to 2018, prior to that bill that we talked about earlier, was not the identification of an appropriate policy response, but rather, many times, the lack of will of the government and the industry to take on the kind of decisive action necessary to effectively respond to the problem.

[6:35 p.m.]

That’s what was identified in Cullen’s report. The minister failed to go far enough. The government failed to go far enough in that it did not require the BCLC to immediately cease accepting the highly suspicious cash that had become commonplace in the industry.

He went on to say: “I note that at the September 2015 briefing, the minister was presented with example directives that would have achieved this objective.” So it is, again, the need, the will and the desire. It was lacking. I mean, the need was there, but the will and desire were lacking to fix this. It was also brought up that they must continue to meet the revenue expectations. That was the driving force behind the lack of desire, behind the lack of will.

If we go on to look into what the commission talked about, I think it is alarming that we as government, whether it’s here today or whether it was a few years ago…. When that kind of activity is brought to your attention, as it was identified time and again during the inquiry, and not enough or no steps were taken or it wasn’t taken seriously, I think that actually adds to the problem.

We’re trying to not only fix the Vancouver model, but we’re also looking at how we deal with the impact that it has left on society’s inability to own homes, especially for our young British Columbians.

I have lots to say, including what the response has been to this by a number of members of this House in the past, including the Opposition Leader, again not taking responsibility. This was something that they could have and must have dealt with, and they failed to do that. And here we are now dealing with it after it has caused so much damage in society and to our reputation, and the embarrassment that we have faced all around the world.

I know time is running out. I know there are some other people here who are in the lineup who wish to speak. With that, I will take my place. I want to say thank you for the opportunity.

A. Singh: I rise in support of the Land Owner Transparency Amendment Act, but I’m going to reference what my friend the Minister of Labour and the Solicitor General talked about earlier, and that really is the importance of speaking to legislation, of explaining it to our constituents and to the general public out there.

I can’t remember which…. I think it was the Minister of Labour who said there are 87 of us here, out of millions of British Columbians, and we get the privilege of standing up here and not only making and passing this legislation but being able to explain it.

As a private member, this, again, is one of the only opportunities we get to look through and give our contribution and our viewpoint on this legislation. I just disagree with our friends on the other side. I think it’s very, very important to speak to every piece of legislation that comes through, because having practised law for 21 years, I saw the actual practical effect of legislation. It has an actual practical effect on people’s lives.

[6:40 p.m.]

As the Solicitor General said, technical bills are really important because when legislation is passed, despite all of the good work that the drafters…. And we have incredible drafters here. Despite all of the good work that they do, there are things that they can’t anticipate and that come up afterwards. That housecleaning has to be done. Again, it’s our responsibility to be able to stand here and explain to the public why this housecleaning is being done, what the purpose is of these amendments, what they actually affect.

As speakers before have spoken, really, the crux and the problem that the original act, the registry, was trying to deal with was money laundering. Money laundering is tied in intimately with our opioid crisis, with gangs, with violence in British Columbia, and we’ve seen that in history, through and through.

Everybody has seen these movies, and everybody romanticizes or sees these movies of Las Vegas. Bugsy Siegel, the founder of Murder, Inc., was a bootlegger, a gangster who took advantage of the illegality of alcohol and went on to make lots of money in that illegal market, much like our gangs and drug dealers have with our opioid crisis and have made money with the toxic drug supply. But that money has to go somewhere. So what did Bugsy and Meyer Lansky do? They used legitimate banks and corporations to launder that money, founded the casino, the Flamingo, and on and on went their criminal enterprises.

Very, very important to deal with money laundering, to deal with it because, really, criminal enterprises…. They have one purpose. Their purpose isn’t to peddle drugs or do crime for the purpose of doing crime itself. Their one purpose is to make money and to make money illegally. That money has to go somewhere, and that’s where money laundering comes in. That’s why it’s really important to be able to nip that money laundering and nip those mechanisms in the bud.

That’s what the Land Owner Transparency Act did, and that’s what these proposed amendments do to further strengthen our actions against money laundering. These are minor legislative and interpretive changes and amendments to technical issues that have arisen, again, since the legislation came into force. Like I said, we have phenomenal drafters here at the Legislature that draft legislation that’s drafted in simple words.

I recall looking at cases from decades ago — actually, not even that long ago — where legislation was quite convoluted. You couldn’t…. As a lawyer, you would have to sit down for an hour just to try and figure out what a two-sentence section meant. I’m glad that we’ve changed and we’ve gone away from that. There also used to be Latin thrown into those sentences as well. God help you if you don’t know any Latin, trying to interpret that.

These issues arose since the legislation was passed, and all this does is it acts to correct those interpretive and technical issues. As my friends have spoken before, the act itself, the Land Transparency Act…. Again, it has been emphasized, but I want to re-emphasize how important this piece of legislation was.

Members have spoken before on how money laundering had become such a big issue in British Columbia that we were talked about. Our province was talked about in newspapers all around the world, big stories on it — kind of an embarrassment. So this is one of the many suites of tools that we have, that our government has brought in to attack money laundering and to be able to deal with money laundering.

It’s the first of its kind of legislation in Canada. It created what’s called the land owner transparency registry, and members have spoken of it before, a publicly searchable database of information about beneficial land ownership.

[6:45 p.m.]

Again, why do we want or need to know who owns the land? Well, our experience here in British Columbia was that money laundering, money from illegal activities, was mainly being laundered…. A lot of it was being laundered through the real estate market. That created not just the ill itself of creating a mechanism for laundering money, but it created many other things. You’ve got the predators peddling a toxic drug supply, making money off that, laundering that money in our casinos and in other places and then, also, buying property with cash, pumping up the price of property.

What do we have today? We have a housing crisis. We have a market that’s unaffordable for most people, and all of these things added to that. So very important to look at that.

One of the ways people try to avoid taxes, people try to avoid showing who the beneficial owners are, showing where the money comes from, is through corporations or investment trusts. You can buy a property by not actually buying the property itself. You buy the shares of the corporation that owns the property.

Before this legislation was passed, the beneficial owners of the actual property itself would not be known. Mr. X, Y and Z or Ms. X, Y and Z would have bought the shares using laundered money and then purchased the property itself. It would go on and on.

What the registry does is unfold that. It uncovers that. Now you have to show who the beneficial owners are, whether it be a corporation, a hidden trust, a bare trust, a real estate investment trust. Generally, through the searchable database, you’ll be able to see who actually owns that. What that does is allow the public safety officials to look at patterns, to see if there are patterns and to identify individuals or corporations or businesses that are involved in money laundering and that are involved in illegal activities.

What we’ve seen, since this legislation came into force, is that the registry has been a complete success. Hundreds of thousands of transparency records have been filed with the registry. Hundreds of thousands. I pause. I think about that. I think about all the hundreds of thousands of transactions that happened before the registry was there, where money laundering could have been, where, had those been looked at, public safety officials could have seen the pattern and could have prevented something.

Again, I want to step back and examine what that actually means. What that means is we’ve been in an opiate crisis for years. What that means is that had those been identified at that point, we may not have been in this crisis. We may have been able to deal with the crisis in a much better way.

Again, drug peddlers do not peddle drugs for the sake of peddling the drug itself. They do it because of the profit. They have to put that profit somewhere, and illegal money is not easy to hide. Money laundering is the way to do it.

I see Mr. Speaker is here.

Mr. Speaker, noting the hour, I reserve my place and move adjournment of the debate.

Interjection.

A. Singh: Oh, keep talking? Okay, until he is in the seat. There we go.

Now I’ve lost my place.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Interjection.

A. Singh: A one-minute summary.

Again, this is part of the new…. I’ll go into this tomorrow, because I’m going to reserve my space in a few seconds. This is part of our legislative effort, part of our suite of legislation, to deal with money laundering. What that does really…. It not only deals with money laundering itself, with the profit itself, but it deals with deeper issues like the toxic drug supply, like the housing crisis.

A. Singh moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:50 p.m.