PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); S. Chant in the chair.

The committee met at 2:39 p.m.

The Chair: Good afternoon, Members. I call the Committee of Supply, Section A, to order.

We are now meeting today to consider the estimates of the Ministry of Transportation and transit.

I now recognize the minister to move the vote.

On Vote 45: ministry operations, $1,020,919,000.

[2:40 p.m.]

The Chair: Minister, do you have any opening remarks?

Hon. R. Fleming: I have some brief remarks just about some of the major areas of business in terms of major projects that the ministry is currently involved in. These will be the subject of estimates past but undoubtedly the critic and his colleagues will have a wide range of interest in terms of very specific things that our ministry is doing in communities and regions around the province. I’ll touch on the highlights.

I recognize that it’s a privilege to begin this set of estimates on the traditional territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ speaking people, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

I’ll first introduce some folks who’ll be with me here over the next few days, as I understand: Kaye Krishna to my right, deputy minister; Heather Hill, assistant deputy minister; Reg Bawa, ADM; Kevin Volk; and Jodi Dong here will be assisting me. There are a number of others who’ll be helping assist me in answering questions from the official opposition.

I just want to talk very briefly about the ministry’s fiscal plan and the goals that have been set out and how we aim to achieve them.

Budget 2023 is large. There is $11.5 billion in strategic public infrastructure investments in every part of the province over the next three years. This helps support a resilient economic recovery by putting people to work, by strengthening our trade corridors. With federal funding and contributions from other partners, this extends to $13 billion of investments over the same period, the next three years, to help people with employment, improvements to community and keep the economy moving as we build back stronger.

We recognize the need to integrate these investments with our road networks and transit systems, with long-term economic, environmental and social goals.

Some features in this year’s budget plan that are significantly enhanced include the effort and resources for transit-oriented development, which will help support government’s overall goal for promoting tens of thousands of more units of affordable housing, the expansion of public transit, as well as being able to meet the population growth that is anticipated for the province between now and 2025 and the years beyond.

And 2023 will see the finalization of the clean transportation action plan, which is a plan of this ministry to contribute towards the CleanBC goals to tackle climate change. We are expanding active transportation networks across the province with new programs, hoping to leverage federal dollars in active transportation, and I think it represents about an eightfold increase in funding available from just a couple of years ago for active transportation infrastructure.

We’re rebuilding public infrastructure that people depend on. We have some very aged bridges and structures in the province that are being replaced as we speak, that are part of this capital plan. Ensuring safe and reliable road infrastructure is also critically important, as well as promoting transit-friendly options, getting more people onto public transit and supporting the recovery, which I would note is already the strongest in North America, with TransLink being the largest metropolitan transit system in North America to have recovered the most riders, and B.C. Transit also to have recovered the most riders for a public transit entity of its size on the continent.

We’re supporting coastal and inland ferry services. We’re strengthening the economy through capital projects with a strong focus on the supply chain movement. Of course, we have a number of major projects that are currently underway, including the Broadway subway project, which is a six-kilometre extension of the Millennium Line that will go into the west part of Vancouver to Arbutus and will also promote more housing choices, support the second-busiest jobs corridor in the province and perhaps become, on opening day or in a short period of time thereafter, one of the busiest subway corridors in North America.

Surrey-Langley SkyTrain is moving ahead. This is the first rapid transit expansion in 30 years. It will help take cars off the road. It will help us, again, meet CleanBC targets. It will also shape growth that we know is coming to busy, fast-growing communities like Surrey and both the township and city of Langley. It’s going to provide a lot of job opportunities, as well, in those communities, and major construction is expected to begin next year.

The Pattullo Bridge is moving ahead and is scheduled for completion next year, in 2024. So a modern, wider-lane bridge to replace the 90-year-old structure is coming good.

[2:45 p.m.]

I want to briefly mention the Highway 99 tunnel program to replace the 1959 George Massey Tunnel. The new Steveston interchange is under construction right now. This supports better connections for people living south of the Fraser. It will be toll-free. It’s an eight-lane project to replace the four-lane project. The environmental assessment process is formally underway.

Construction began in July for the five-lane Steveston interchange in Richmond, and the new interchange is scheduled for completion in 2025 and will provide significantly better connections to communities and, as well, for transit users and active transportation users.

Moving out of metropolitan Vancouver and looking at…. I just want to highlight the Kicking Horse Canyon. I know we’ll get there in some detail. Our commitment around four-laning Highway 1 has bitten off one of the more difficult sections, to four-lane there, with cantilevered bridge structures near the Alberta border. This is nearing completion. The route has reopened ahead of schedule last fall, with traffic flowing on the future eastbound lanes. We’re continuing to work on the westbound lanes. It included a total of four new bridges and nine new viaducts, and it’s expected to be completed this winter, 2023-2024.

I’ll mention briefly highway reinstatement, because I imagine the critic will want to talk about what is recent memory around the atmospheric rivers and the damage that was done on Highway 1 through the Fraser Valley and the Coquihalla Highway 5, as well as up into both Highway 8 and Highway 1 in the Fraser Canyon. The permanent rebuild of these roads to a new climate-resilient standard is proceeding very well. It will continue for the rest of 2023, and we will of course have updates on construction progress as we go and continue to do so.

In conclusion, over the next several years, these projects are making a big contribution to our economy, keeping people employed. Thousands of good-paying jobs are tied to this infrastructure investment. These are essential modernizations of our transportation system. They support government creating more housing choices, more affordable housing choices, while reducing emissions to our atmosphere.

The current fiscal plan demonstrates government’s ongoing commitment to investing in transit and the expansion of transit to meet the needs of people across B.C., in communities large and small. We’re hoping to transform the way people get around in our communities by becoming a climate-smart jurisdiction. The investment that we made in previous years, and that we will build upon in this budget, continues to move us forward in a number of key ways.

I’ll leave it at that and thank you for the time. And I turn the questions over to the critic.

The Chair: I now recognize the member for Surrey–White Rock.

Would you like to make any opening remarks?

T. Halford: Sure, I’ll begin with some opening remarks. I want to thank the minister, and I also want to thank the minister’s staff for taking the time to go through this estimates process.

The minister is correct. There’s a lot to be canvassed in this area. I think when we look at where I come from…. I come from the riding of Surrey–White Rock. I live in Surrey, and transportation is a necessity. I actually live in a neighbourhood that has grown to over 3,000 people now in this area — a lot of new Canadians, a lot of young families.

Surprisingly, though, we don’t have access to public transit where we are. You actually have to go down…. If you’re on 176 between 0 or Fourth Avenue, you have to walk down 8 Avenue, all the way down. You have to cross Highway 99. Then you have to cross King George Highway until you can get to the nearest bus stop. That’s an area that’s been growing for six years. Six years, and there’s no transit there right at a border crossing. Those are young families. Those are new Canadians — a lot of people, a lot of students down there that have absolutely no access to transit.

The minister briefly touched on the tunnel replacement. It’s a replacement for a bridge that we should all be enjoying right now, a bridge that would have been open by now. But our government chose to take $100 million and put that aside and go for a replacement tunnel that has no environmental assessment approval from either the province or the federal government. So we’ll canvass that extensively going forward here.

I apologize to the minister if he did mention it, but when we talk about TransLink, which we’re going to talk about in a second, I didn’t hear the minister once talk about safety. That is a bit of a shock to me, given that we’ve all been talking about safety in our transit system for quite a while now, but definitely in the last couple of days.

[2:50 p.m.]

With that, that will be how I want to start these estimates off, specifically going into TransLink — TransLink operating dollars, but overall safety protocols that exist within TransLink.

I guess the first question that I’ll ask the minister is: does the minister currently find TransLink to have adequate safety measures in place?

Hon. R. Fleming: To the question, I imagine there will be some follow-ups. I do want to say — because I had an opportunity to be with the chief executive officer of TransLink last week, as well as a number of Metro Vancouver mayors who are the governors of the system and determine operational decisions, including staffing levels and those sorts of things — that it was very clear that all levels of government are here to support one another.

What we are seeing, in terms of violence on our transit system, is not unique to British Columbia or to Metro Vancouver. The member just needs to look at news clippings from Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal. There is something going on in society that is connected to, perhaps, mental health and addictions and other issues that are related to street crime. We’re talking about this now in a transit setting.

I have talked to representatives of unions that represent transit operators. They have a number of suggestions for all levels of government to, again, work together on this. We worked with some national transit unions in the past.

I know the Minister of Public Safety in British Columbia was key in persuading, along with unions representing transit workers, Minister Ralph Goodale in making amendments to laws that relate to the criminal code in Ottawa that make it an aggravating condition at sentencing for judges to consider for criminals that assault transit operators. That was done before the pandemic. So we’ve been talking about this issue for a number of years.

I know that the CEO told me that there are some things that the union has approached him about recently, including the proper installation of security barriers for transit operators on buses. Only about two-thirds, maybe 70 percent of them, have them. There was a massive supply chain pinch on plexiglass during the pandemic because every workplace setting started implementing barriers. He’s committed to making sure that the approximately 30 percent of transit buses in the region have those installed as expeditiously as possible.

So I’m happy to hear about those sorts of things, as well as…. We have to socialize some of the safety initiatives that we’ve implemented better recently. Some of this is around informing the public that every rider, every transit user that has a cell phone, seeing a dangerous situation to themselves or to another passenger or to a transit operator, can text 877-777 and describe their location, what the incident is and get police assistance.

TransLink, by the way, is the only public transportation authority in the country that has its own dedicated police force, with 184 sworn officers. The CEO has explained recently he expects to hire 24 additional safety officers for the TransLink system and also intends to coordinate with the RCMP, the New Westminster police and every municipal police force, the city of Vancouver as well, that is part of the SkyTrain and bus system in Metro Vancouver.

I’m pleased to hear that, that enforcement resources for municipal police departments are now targeting and using data-driven incidents around reported incidents of violence to look at how they can have a more visible uniformed presence to make the travelling public safer.

We’re going to continue to work on a number of safety initiatives. Almost all the buses, for example, in the TransLink system now have CCTV cameras. They exist on all SkyTrain platforms. Every SkyTrain car has a silent emergency yellow strip that can be used by a passenger if they’re feeling unsafe.

Tragically, police did not arrive in time to save the life of a young man last week in Surrey, and the province mourns for that family. It’s unimaginable, as a father, to try and put myself in the shoes of those parents.

[2:55 p.m.]

Police have arrived at the scene, in some cases within minutes, and been able to save lives as well. The West Vancouver incident where a suspect is now in custody could have led to a fatal beating given the violence of that incident, and police arrived in time to be able to help the victim and take into custody the assailant, who is now being held in prison and will be arraigned on charges.

Safety is something that is, as I say, a national discussion. It’s a discussion around the world, quite frankly. We know that in the U.K., the London transit authorities are also looking at a number of initiatives that either we’ve adopted…. We’re looking at some of their public information campaigns. I think the public needs to be vigilant and to look out for one another. We need to have good, uniform presence, build upon some of the safety features that we have in our system that other systems don’t have, and also address this on a society-wide basis.

I know the member has been the critic for Mental Health and Addictions, so he knows that transit is a setting in the community, a public space where violence can occur. It’s certainly not the only one, and it’s attached to something that is going to take the effort of all levels of government, all professionals involved in public safety. That’s quite a wide array when you include the mental health system and when you include the health care system, but we’re committed, certainly at this ministry, to help TransLink, who operates one of the largest and most sophisticated transportation companies in Canada, with anything that they would like to approach us on.

That includes, by the way, the $1.3 billion that the province of B.C. has invested in TransLink operations. The member knows that typically the province of B.C. doesn’t provide operating dollars for TransLink, but we wanted to make sure that the TransLink system was supported; that there were no layoffs, including of safety personnel on the system; that there were no route cuts, no service reductions; that our system would remain robust during a state of medical emergency and emerge from the pandemic stronger. We have evidence of that. The ridership is one critical piece of evidence that people have come back to the transit system.

We also know that society, countries like ours and provinces like ours have some social problems that can manifest themselves in a transit environment, and we have to be willing to work with all of our partners so that safety is our first and foremost concern.

T. Halford: Thank you to the minister for his answer here.

I’m looking at newspaper clippings from Vancouver and Surrey, and what I’m seeing is that people are feeling unsafe on transit. My kids — I’ve got a 14-year-old and a 13-year-old, two boys — use public transit. It’s been a pretty trying day in my house for the last few weeks, as we live in Surrey. You take on the tragedy that unfolded, and there are no words to describe it. There are no words to describe it to your child that uses public transportation.

I will ask the minister again, maybe in a more direct way. TransLink specifically…. Does this minister find that the safety protocols, the safety measures, the staffing when it comes to safety, whether it’s transit officers, community officers…? Is that currently adequate to service the system?

Hon. R. Fleming: There is a process under the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, and the member may want to take his question there, that actually determines whether there is adequate strength of a police force, including on the Skytrain system. It’s a very thorough, methodical means of determining whether there is adequate sworn force to protect the public.

[3:00 p.m.]

What I was trying to say in my admittedly long answer before is that we have had discussions with unions, with management, with members of the public that are frequent transit users and part of advocacy groups about safety on the public transit system and Skytrain, especially in light of a number of high-profile, extremely disturbing incidents recently, including fatalities.

It’s working with unions on physical safety barriers. It’s working with the public on educating them about what kind of safety controls they already have at their fingertips, on their phone or in the environment in which they’re travelling, on safety or whether they’re in a TransLink station and being aware of emergency telephones that are installed on platforms and in the infrastructure of the SkyTrain system and the transit exchanges.

I also think it’s about supporting some of TransLink’s plans to hire additional safety officers. They’ll make the operational decisions about how they’re deployed. The Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General undoubtedly will be playing a key role. I know he’s talked to the chief superintendent of the Transit Police force, as well as other chiefs of police, about strategies to deploy a uniformed presence and increase them at areas that are deemed at higher risk of violent incidents, based on data analytics and things that they’re using to make that determination.

We’ll be here to support TransLink in whatever way we can. I know that the mayors around the table are aware that the recent $479 million that governments have provided them is available for making their system safer, expanding routes, protecting services and delivering public transit on a daily basis.

They’re proud of — and rightly so — a system that now carries 400,000 passengers a day. That’s how many boardings they have, 2.8 million a month — and projected to have 32 million boardings in the coming year. They know that our investment has helped them recover faster than other transit systems. The CEO has said that they’re taking a very hard look at violence on the transit system to see what additional things they can do.

I expect they’ll not hesitate at all to continue to work with the province on any partnerships or new initiatives that we can take in addition to the ones that have been physically installed, the new technology that exists, and maybe some of the public campaigns that encourage riders to look out for one another and use technology to defuse incidents before they become violent.

T. Halford: A simple question to the minister. Is this minister responsible for TransLink?

Hon. R. Fleming: This minister, or anyone else appointed to this position, is responsible for funding the province’s share of capital projects — that’s about 40 percent; it used to be 33, but our government has changed that — and is also responsible for an element of and a small minority of appointments to the board of governors.

I think the government is responsible — if not in legislation, then in practicality — with making sure that TransLink is well supported in everything it does. Yes, it does not reach in and direct employees or the executive management team of TransLink. They are independent.

Their employer is the board of directors that is appointed, and the member will know well under what circumstances the legislation rejuvenates and replenishes the board there. They are, of course, responsible to the Metro Mayors Council, which produces all the key visionary documents around the ten-year plan.

So the day-to-day operational basis, on the corporate strategic planning, is not in our ministry, but I would say that we have endeavoured to — and in fact, do — work very collaboratively with TransLink.

T. Halford: Thank you to the minister for the answer there.

When we talk about the responsibility of TransLink and about who in government is responsible for TransLink, is it not this Minister of Transportation’s responsibility to have some input when it comes to safety measures — meeting safety measures, safety guidelines, ensuring that riders are safe when they use public transportation?

[3:05 p.m.]

Specifically, I’m referring to TransLink. Is that under this minister’s jurisdiction? In that answer, I think I heard no.

Hon. R. Fleming: Let me maybe help the member, if I can, by just looking at the governance role.

The province of B.C. is responsible for the legislation that created the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Act. That has been amended a number of times. I think the last time it was significantly amended was in about 2012.

We, the province, are responsible for the environmental, transportation and economic objectives that TransLink must consider when it develops its regional transportation strategy. We contribute funding, as I outlined already, for major capital projects, and we have the ability to appoint up to two members to the board of directors. So a minority of the board.

The Mayors Council on Regional Transportation has authority over the key management, operational and financial affairs of TransLink. That is very clearly outlined in the legislation. The Mayors Council uses a weighted voting system that is based on population. They meet monthly, and the CEO and the key executive members report to them and to the board.

On a day-to-day operational basis, the police force, which I’ve described, reports to the executive management team and, ultimately, to political representatives at a local government level.

Now, if his question is whether the province is concerned…. Do we work collaboratively on all issues around safety? I’ll give him a recent example. Did we work with TransLink on finding a way to avoid the kinds of cuts to the transit system that we’re seeing in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, where there are steep service cuts, and come up with a financial package that would avoid all of that? Yes, of course we did. We worked very collaboratively and very closely with TransLink in that regard.

Again, the employer and the board of directors and the authority they have is very clearly outlined in legislation. We are committed, as I’ve said and the Public Safety Minister has said, to being part of what is now a national dialogue on public transit safety and to building on a number of the initiatives that the province has funded, on the capital side, and worked on, on the police operational side, through the Public Safety Minister.

T. Halford: What I’m hearing from this minister is that transit safety, specifically on TransLink, is not under the purview of this minister. Is that correct? The minister is nodding that that’s correct.

Interjection.

T. Halford: That’s the question.

Hon. R. Fleming: What I’ve been trying to suggest to the member is that transit safety, and public safety in general, is everybody’s responsibility, writ large, all levels of government — the federal government, the provincial government, the local government.

The transportation authority, in this case, is a regional creation, a regional entity that’s governed by its own act and is responsible to mayors and puts in place a budget and operational plan for transit safety. It has our full support.

In terms of how things are deployed and operational decisions…. They do that within the management team, and the oversight is provided by mayors who fund that system through gas taxes, property taxes, those sorts of things.

[3:10 p.m.]

What we’ve been very clear about is that we fully support the enhancement of public safety. We’ve done so with capital investments that make new bus fleet, retrofitting of SkyTrain cars, use of technology, coordination of policing services through the Public Safety Minister. That is very much our business, in collaboration with TransLink.

I would note, also, that the specific budget for TransLink for the Transit Police service, in their budget, will increase by 14 percent in 2023. Clearly, they’re making use of investments. This budget year is significant. The provincial dollars coming out of the pandemic and into TransLink are a significant source of revenue to keep them from having to cut services and ration TransLink across the board.

A 14 percent increase into the TransLink police budget. Certainly the province has a hand, through its new funding mechanisms, in supporting that as well.

T. Halford: The minister did an announcement a few weeks back.

I’m going to go back to safety in a second.

I think it was $479 million that was given to TransLink. Prior to that announcement, during that announcement or shortly after that announcement, did the minister have any conversations with TransLink in terms of…? Should a percentage of the $479 million be dedicated to enhancing safety measures, specifically, at TransLink?

Hon. R. Fleming: In terms of the province’s new-found role, thanks to the pandemic and thanks to our decisions to make sure that our transportation authorities, including B.C. Transit, did not crater and wither when ridership fell during the health restrictions that were in place….

We made a decision to do that twice and, now, a third time. The third time was a significant amount of money. It’s the $479 million. It was for operational support that TransLink needed to recover without making cuts. I’ve certainly had discussions with the CEO about ideas that he has and that we share in terms of public safety, about increasing patrols, about installing barriers, about some of the public service campaigns that are going to be needed to promote the riding public being an active part of helping keep our public transit system safe.

[3:15 p.m.]

The $479 million, as I’ve said — I think this will be the third time — does support new funding initiatives internally in the TransLink administrative budget, like the 14 percent increase this year, 2023, for the Transit Police.

T. Halford: The minister references a conversation he had with the TransLink CEO. Is he able to provide any context on…? When he talks about the barriers, he talks about campaign ads, other safety initiatives…. I’m asking this with respect. Are those conversations, or are they actual directives? I guess they can’t be directives, but are there measurables there? Are there date targets on when those will be up and running, or is that just counsel that the minister is giving to the CEO of TransLink?

Hon. R. Fleming: What I would say to the member is that my conversations with both political colleagues, I would call them — who are mayors of systems and sit around the table, or members of council who are appointed to be representatives of TransLink — as well as the executive management team, talk about a lot of aspects of the system.

We’ve certainly been talking about public safety and how important both the perception and the reality of safety in the transit system have been for attracting ridership for a good number of years. That’s why there have been a number of innovations and investments in transit safety over many years. Those will continue.

It’s why there’s a dedicated Transit Police force that I will remind the member of again, because he may wish to work with a colleague to attend a different set of estimates with the Public Safety Minister. It’s why there is that direct reporting relationship between his ministry and the chief superintendent of the Transit Police. There is a governance and ministry relationship with the Transit Police as a provincial police force, regional police force.

[3:20 p.m.]

We’re certainly interested in working with and receiving data from TransLink. They have been tracking crime and violence on the TransLink system for a long period of time. They recently released some comparisons between 2021 — which, of course, was a pandemic year — and 2022, which concluded December 31, not too long ago. It measured a 21 percent decline in crime rates per 100,000 passengers, which seems surprising.

That has to be weighted against, though, the recovery of a lot of riders over that year as well. The rates of crime around property, too, have been measured. So data doesn’t tell the full story, and we recognize that, but data does inform some of the strategies that we want to promote public safety. That’s, I think, why TransLink is in the midst of hiring 24 more officers.

In terms of the blend of funding that TransLink currently needs, enjoys and worked with us on securing, provincial money will certainly be used to invest towards both the 14 percent current expansion in Transit Police and the hiring of new officers. But we’ll continue to meet and discuss safety during the regular course of our business, both at the staff level and amongst elected officials at the local government level and the provincial level, because it’s all of our business.

We will continue to advocate for it federally as well. I know that the Public Safety Minister has been quite vocal and has been working very closely with Ottawa to change a number of things in the criminal justice system that are part of a significant investment in safer communities around B.C. That includes public spaces like the transit system.

T. Halford: Just in reference to the 24 officers that the minister just highlighted would be hired, can the minister define the roles of those 24 officers?

Hon. R. Fleming: Again, I would remind the member that in terms of talking about policing and policing authority, it’s best directed at the Public Safety and Solicitor General ministry. But I can say a couple of comments.

[3:25 p.m.]

There have been additional Transit Police roles defined and implemented in 2020. There was the targeted mobile enforcement team. In 2021, there was a crime suppression team, which is deployed in hot spots where Transit Police are seeing an increased amount of criminal activity. The community safety officer program, which began hiring this year, is part of a team-based approach that assists police work that is conducted within the SkyTrain and bus system that TransLink administers.

T. Halford: Late last week we saw the CEO of TransLink come out and speak about the 24 community safety officers that are being hired. So I guess my question to the minister would be fairly straightforward. The 24 community safety officers that are to be hired and deployed…. When was that announcement first made? The second part of that question would be: when will those officers be deployed? And the third part of the question is: under what budget does that fall?

Hon. R. Fleming: I apologize for the delay. I had to use this sophisticated tool known as Google.

This was announced December 8, 2022, and deployed in the current year. Half of the hiring has occurred. The other half will happen in the months to come. It is funded out of TransLink’s operations budget, which, for the past three years, has included a significant amount of provincial funding and will also include significant amounts of funding for this current fiscal year — in fact, until 2025.

T. Halford: Okay, so here’s where I think there’s a bit of a disconnect, right? When we talk about safety on TransLink, we’ve had the minister stand up probably half a dozen times in these estimates to say: “On the policing, on that structure or on safety, take those questions to the Solicitor General.”

The minister has just said that that falls under Trans­Link’s budget, which falls under, unless I’m incorrect and reading the wrong budget, the Minister of Transportation’s budget. So that’s under the purview of these estimates, which this….

[3:30 p.m.]

The minister shakes his head and says no. He can answer me when I’m done, but I…. There must be a disconnect there.

I think the more important part is that we see an announcement after a young man was brutally killed, and it’s a reannouncement: an announcement made on — the minister is correct — December 8, of 24 community safety officers to be deployed, the announcement then said, by the end of the calendar year of 2023.

Given everything that we’ve seen over the last…. Not even the last few weeks — the last few days, the last few months, for the last year. Whether it’s opposition, whether it’s transit riders, whether it’s the head of Unifor, which I’ll read out in a second, or the Surrey Board of Trade, which this minister has spoken at…. Last May they called for increased safety measures for women using transit. We’ve heard of women being sexually assaulted at a SkyTrain station. Those are all public comments.

Some of these comments have been directed directly to the minister. Unifor western regional director Gavin McGarrigle stated: “I’ve personally talked with the Minister of Transportation about the need to see increased Transit Police on those buses, and saying that we can’t afford it is like saying we have to put buses on the road without tires.” That is a quote from Unifor.

When I asked the minister at the beginning of estimates to talk about his role, his jurisdiction, in terms of making sure that TransLink is operating in a safe way for its riders, we hear from the minister that when it comes to policing or other safety measures, you should go down the hall, when it’s appropriate, and canvass the Public Safety Minister. But the minister does have responsibility to ensure public safety on transit, whether it’s B.C. Transit or TransLink.

We’ve seen that members — union members, Surrey Board of Trade — have advocated directly to the minister on these issues. Unifor was November. Surrey Board of Trade was last May. I asked the minister directly if he felt that the safety measures within TransLink were adequate. He didn’t answer that. I think the public, turning on the news every night, would say: “No. They’re not.”

Does this minister think that hiring 24 more community safety officers, to be hired and deployed by the end of this calendar year, is adequate to ensure the safety of our citizens when they ride TransLink?

Hon. R. Fleming: I said quite a few questions ago that the determination for adequate force to protect public safety of any municipal police force is a process that the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General administers. That includes the Transit Police.

We did not reannounce something from December 8 last week when I was in Surrey. The CEO was asked for a comment about some of the initiatives that they’re taking within TransLink, of which he is the chief executive officer, and he gave an update on the hiring of community safety officers that are now working on the transit system, and that there will be more.

There is no line item in the budget that forms the set of estimates that we’re discussing here today for TransLink operations. There isn’t one. So no, I am not responsible for that.

The money I’ve talked about that the province has invested in TransLink and B.C. Transit…. Well, for B.C. Transit, there is an ongoing operational relationship. But for TransLink, it has been part of a recovery strategy from the pandemic, which has disrupted and caused a lot of chaos in transit systems around the world, quite frankly. So this is about smoothing and stabilizing the transit system.

[3:35 p.m.]

We are working — and I think all of the questions that have been asked, I’ve tried to answer in this way — as a provincial government through various ministries, some with direct responsibility on the policing side, and in this ministry, with people who work in the public transit system, to continue to promote public safety initiatives, some of which we did during the pandemic, some of which are hard technological installations, some of which are human resources to create more uniform presence. The TransLink CEO elaborated on some of those strategies last week.

We have had a number of meetings with trade unions that represent transit operators about how we can continue to promote public safety. I know that the CEO has reached out as the chief operating officer to the union about a number of their day-to-day operational concerns in their workplace and will continue to work collaboratively in that regard.

We’ve got to do a whole bunch of things in society. We’ve got to continue to build on the investments and the strategies on the public transit system to promote safety and any gaps that are identified and things that we could or should be doing.

This government will continue to work with policing. If it’s through a formal police function, it will be through the Public Safety and Solicitor General Ministry. If it’s through our work with elected representatives in TransLink, those will come up in meetings that we have on a very routine basis with them about our shared interest in public transit.

T. Halford: I thank the minister for that answer.

We talk about transit police, right? I think recent reports have indicated that there’s 184 sworn officers that patrol, I would say, an 1,800 square kilometre system. Out of those 184 officers, does the minister think, given the strain on the system right now, that that is adequate? The second question I have is: out of that 184, how many are actually available for active duty?

Hon. R. Fleming: These are good questions, but they’re questions I can’t answer. They would best be directed to the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General who would have the benefit of deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers who work with police chiefs and work with independent officers that assess police strength and with the Justice Institute and others on other officer training and deployment decisions. They’re not the responsibility of my ministry. I think the member still has an opportunity, if I’m correct, on the schedule of estimates to speak to the Solicitor General about that.

T. Halford: I guess I’m a rookie MLA, so I’ll plead a little bit of ignorance. Is the budget of these officers…? Let’s just take the 184 that I’ve just referenced. Does that budget operate under the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General?

Hon. R. Fleming: No, it doesn’t. It operates maybe closer to home for the member, like the Delta police budget operates under the city of Delta. In this case, a municipal independent transit authority, albeit with relationships to the province, including its creation 25 years ago in 1998, creates, develops and implements the budget for all of its employees, including the 184 sworn officers that are part of its police department.

[3:40 p.m.]

T. Halford: I’m going to come back to safety with another member here probably in fairly short order.

When we talk about the $479 million that was given to TransLink, the Premier stated in a reference when giving money to the municipalities: “The downside of spending that money on operational costs instead of capital costs is that those operational costs are going to show up again next year.” That’s the end of the quote from the Premier.

Can the minister explain how the one-time, year’s funding to TransLink will stem its operational cost issues from showing up again next year?

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: A couple of things. It’s not a one-year fund; it’s until 2025. It certainly is helping TransLink get back to the kind of balance that they had for years, decades prior to the pandemic, when revenues and operating expenses were roughly balanced year after year. There was stability in the system, and the pandemic threw that all into a tailspin.

That’s not unique — as I’ve said before, and I’ll say again — to Metro Vancouver. It happened in every country that had similarly based public health restrictions and travel restrictions put in place and the mass adoption of work-from-home practices, virtual meetings and all those sorts of things.

The bet this government made — we lobbied the federal government to be a funding partner in 2020 — was that if we wished to actually say transit was an essential service, but were not providing the same level of service, it would hardly be fair to people trying to get to medical appointments or to all of those essential workers that needed to show up physically, to be in their workplace — of which there were hundreds of thousands, ranging from tow truck drivers to convenience store workers, grocery clerks, banking employees, you name it. There was a wide list of essential employees, and many of them required public transit to get around.

Anyway, I’m just going back to the dire days at the outset of the pandemic and then the recovery. Admittedly, the federal government was asked but was not there this year to continue to help fund a longer recovery. I remain confident, based on the evidence I’ve seen, that B.C.’s investments — matched as they were for a period of time by the federal government, and which are ongoing investments to 2025 — have had a very positive outcome, because TransLink is at an 85 percent ridership recovery.

As many TransLink executive members and mayors have said, it’s not just getting back to 100 percent of where we were in 2019; it might be a different 100 percent. We’ve got to attract new riders. We’ve got to deploy new services, which we did with a rapid bus announcement last week in Surrey and other improvements to get to 100 and 110 percent of where we were in 2019, acknowledging that it may look different.

That’s essentially what we’re doing with this temporary operational funding, which was never contemplated in the act that created TransLink, for a regionally autonomous transit authority. That’s how we’ve evolved in managing the pandemic, so that we’re first in class. We have a lot to be proud of in British Columbia, both on the B.C. Transit side and TransLink, in terms of recovering riders.

I’ve met with my colleagues in other provinces. Many of them are struggling to get to 65 and 70 percent. Many of them are making very painful cuts because their province is no longer investing in operational recovery above and beyond, which our province is doing.

I think investment that we’re making in this current iteration — which was used with year-end funding, so it’s actually from the last fiscal year — and that will go forward to 2025, is going to pay a number of very healthy dividends, not only for the economy, getting people to and from work and the mobility and economic benefits that it brings, but for the environment and to complement some of the infrastructure investments that we’re making, including right now, between Broadway subway and the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain, a net 28 percent increase in the built track environment of SkyTrain.

While we’re recovering, we have active, new, significant capital expansions to try and attract more riders and shift the way that people get around in this region to a more sustainable means of travel.

T. Halford: Thank you to the minister for his answer there.

When the CEO of TransLink made the remarks about a shortfall of funding…. I think it was February. We’re all aware of the $479 million that was given by the province to TransLink to, no pun intended, bridge some of the gaps that they were experiencing, but in terms of “long-term funding” — those are the words that the CEO used — a long-term funding solution is required.

[3:50 p.m.]

The $479 million is a lot of money, but in terms of the projects that are being announced, we know that that’s not there. This is about almost triaging and trying to maintain what is currently there now. As to a long-term funding solution that is needed for TransLink — and that has been advocated by the mayors, by the CEO, by the riders — how does this minister see that long-term funding solution being accomplished?

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you for the question; I think it’s a good one. I think one of the most significant sources of revenue is ridership. Recovering ridership and farebox revenues brings the company back to balance between its operating expenses and its revenues.

Not to make a correction, but I would just go back to the preamble of that question and say that the capital investments we’re making — which indeed are much more significant than the operating recovery money that we’re granting — come from a different part of the budget and are for hard infrastructure that is going to create brand-new transit lines.

I talked about the Broadway subway. I talked about Surrey-Langley SkyTrain. I talked about our 40 percent contribution to the Surrey BRT system that was put into place last week. Those are hard-asset costs to develop new additions to the TransLink physical network, the system.

On the operating side, we are trying to gradually get TransLink back to balance. I think a lot of people assumed, maybe, that as the health restrictions were lifted and as time went by in the pandemic, everything would come back to normal. That hasn’t happened just yet. We’ve had to be patient with it and make additional investments.

Other governments have decided, for their own reasons — and I obviously can’t speak for them — that they’re done with the recovery funding, and they have halted it. It has led to significant cuts to public transit routes and schedules in other cities outside of this province. We chose a different path, and we used resources that were available, through year-end funding and a very significant surplus in the province of B.C., to give that extra investment stability through to 2025, to let the company get back to balance.

T. Halford: When it comes to options that TransLink reviews to meet some of their funding targets or funding requirements, does the minister have any input on those requirements? Specifically, when the announcement was made regarding the TransLink funding, the Premier was asked, twice, about mobility pricing. Each time the Premier refused to answer.

When we look at some of the options that TransLink has, can this minister define if mobility pricing is within that scope?

Hon. R. Fleming: The answer is no. I think a lot of people aren’t even sure what mobility pricing is, but what I take the definition to mean is some kind of fee paid by people, presumably using personal vehicles, to get around — a fee to use a bridge, for example. So there, mobility pricing is tolls, and our government has gotten rid of tolls.

I’m sure the member appreciates that tolls were taken off the Port Mann Bridge. Can you imagine people struggling with affordability costs — and, maybe, employment uncertainty during the height of the pandemic, as to whether their jobs would be there; jobs have disappeared, and they went onto federal emergency programs to replace income — if they’d had to pay thousands of dollars a year in tolls? So no, we’re not going back to that.

[3:55 p.m.]

I think the Premier probably would have preferred if the question had said, “Are you bringing back tolls,” which this government has answered, on a number of occasions, myself included: “No, we’re not bringing back tolls on the Golden Ears. We’re not bringing back tolls on the Massey crossing that’s proposed. We’re not bringing it back on the Port Mann Bridge.”

So mobility pricing, as we’ve said, to TransLink…. I detect there is a very similar alignment amongst the political leaders around the table at TransLink, from my discussions with them. There’s no interest there either.

T. Halford: It was a little bit shocking that the Premier was asked twice at a news conference to rule out mobility pricing. His quote is: “We’re certainly prepared to look at all options.” That does not line up with what the minister has just stated in this room.

To add to that angst is that there was a report commissioned under former NDP MLA Joy MacPhail that studied mobility pricing. When you look at the shortfall that is coming within TransLink and the gaps that do exist, I think that people are concerned, and it is troubling. So when we look at ways that TransLink has to make up the gap and that the CEO outlined in terms of long-term funding that needs….

We saw it in the Premier’s words, in terms of…. Doing this one-time operational cost does not work. Because the next year, or the year after, you’ve got to do it again. And how is that sustainable? So I guess my question to the minister is this: in terms of funding TransLink, to execute the projects that are necessary, is that model sustainable?

Hon. R. Fleming: So just to deal with the report that the member referenced that involved former Minister Joy MacPhail, that was commissioned by the Metro Vancouver Mayors Council, not the province of B.C. So, difficult for me to comment beyond that, because it’s not at my fingertips. But it certainly wasn’t funded by the province. It wasn’t our initiative.

[4:00 p.m.]

What we’re seeing in terms of the province’s operational support dollars to TransLink is that they’re working. They’re helping the system recover ridership. They’re helping the system recover its most significant source of revenue, which is transit users making frequent trips to go about their business: going to work, visiting family, going to entertainment events and things that have come back into being, attending gatherings of all types that were prohibited under the health restrictions that were in place, really, not that long ago, and it’s coming back stronger each and every year.

So it’s not a one-off. If you want to go back to the genesis of when we started supporting TransLink and B.C. Transit at the height of the pandemic, that was 2020. And we’ve got funding in place now until 2025. We have seen transit fare recovery, now that they’re up to 85 percent, and hope to get beyond that. Well, I think they added $145 million of additional transit fares between 2021 and 2022 because, obviously, more people were returning to work, universities would have come back, and school attendance was no longer virtual — all those sorts of things. So that recovery is ongoing.

What would have happened — and the member probably heard the chair of the Metro Mayors Council and, perhaps, the CEO and perhaps even read some interesting opinion pieces that were in the Globe and Mail and other national discussions that are happening — is this concept of the death spiral. If you try and manage your way out of transit revenue shortfalls by making cuts to routes and service and layoffs of, you know, in the case of TransLink with 5,000 employees, let’s say hundreds and hundreds of staff and you have less service on the road and it becomes less reliable and less frequent, then you have an even harder time attracting riders, let alone retaining the ones you have.

They call it the transit death spiral. I think it’s a fairly dramatic but accurate description of the dynamic that you can get yourself in by trying to cut your way towards recovery. We chose the opposite path, which was to invest our way towards recovery, and we’ve done it very patiently, beginning in 2020. The announcement we made in March before the year-end of this year gave certainty to our partners in TransLink that the province would step up and be there right alongside them in the amount that they requested. And that will take us through to 2025.

By the way, they did ask for half of that from the federal government, and they were declined on that. So we wouldn’t have been out of the woods if the province hadn’t additionally stepped up. And I think the member, as is his prerogative, can read out all kinds of quotes about anxious mayors looking down the road.

But I think it’s fair to say that no matter what political stripe they were from in the region — or no political stripe, as the case may be — all of them were universally relieved and thankful that the province in fact did that, and they’re fully aware that their counterparts, the mayors of other jurisdictions and metropolitan regions in the rest of Canada, had no such reprieve from their province.

The Chair: Members, I will now call a five-minute recess. I have 4:03 on my phone. If you could be back….

Interjections.

The Chair: Okay, ten it is. I have 4:03 on my phone. If you could please be back by 4:13 ready to work again.

The committee recessed from 4:03 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.

[S. Chant in the chair.]

The Chair: I call the Committee of Supply, Section A, back. We are currently considering the budget estimates of the Ministry of Transportation and Transit.

C. Oakes: First, I want to recognize the staff of the Ministry of Transportation and all of the team for the work that has been done on the Cariboo Road recovery project. It’s close to $1 billion, a significant investment. I know that that has been a strong partnership with the federal government. It has been a lot of work, and we know it’s going to continue to be a lot of work over a number of years.

I have two specific questions. One of the things that we’ve certainly learned or realized after extreme climate events in communities is the incredible importance it is to work closely with the community and to develop strong relationships with communities, because they’re the ones in so many examples in our riding that have been on the land, in the areas, for multiple generations.

With that, it is incredibly important to recognize that when constituents are bringing issues forward, we find a way or a pathway to move to resolve on the areas. I’m wondering: for service area 18, what was the maintenance contract that was renewed? I believe it’s a ten-year contract that was renewed. What was the new contract amount in service 18’s contract? And how does that compare to the previous ten-year contract?

[4:20 p.m. - 4:25 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. I appreciate her patience. We’re going to try and get her some precise information, but it might take a little bit of time. I will commit, if I get it later this afternoon, to read it into the record, provide it to the critic or send it to her if it comes in after the House is adjourned this evening.

What I can say is that the most significant change in Emcon’s contract in service area 18 came in 2019, when we moved from round 5 of the contract to round 6. What drove the change in the value of the contract was that the requirements in the contract were significantly increased.

On things like removing compact snow and ice after a major weather system had passed through, the old requirement was to get back to bare travel lanes within 48 hours. The new agreement, starting in 2019, was to do so within 24 hours — so twice as quickly.

There was a requirement for Emcon — and other contractors, by the way, throughout the province — to increase weather-event patrol frequency. Where there might be stranded motorists, the old standard was that a patrol had to be at least every four hours. That was reduced to every 1.5 hours.

These are all things that require more personnel and, therefore, more cost. The use of weather prediction technology was also more extensively built into the round 6 contracts. The pre-weather-event patrol frequency was reduced from 24 hours to every four hours, in anticipation of a weather system coming in. The old standard around black ice–prone locations was to restore traction within 120 minutes. That was reduced to 60 minutes.

[J. Sims in the chair.]

Again, more staff, different chemical treatments, to melt that. A new requirement to use social media to alert the member’s constituents and others living in different parts of the province, which had not been required. The abrasive maximum particle size was reduced as well — a more expensive abrasive requirement. I will get the member up-to-date figures.

When round 6 came into being, taking account of all these changes and new higher requirements to fulfil, the agreement jumped up to $14.2 million annually. I will try and get a number for the current year and for the previous year — which was part of her question — so for 2022 and for this budget.

All of those, in terms of the ten-year contract, are adjusted annually. There’s a price adjustment built into the contract. Where labour rates increase, where fuel costs increase, the costs of stockpiling and procuring materials — those are all things that are allowable increases. It’s somewhere north of $14.2 million, over the last four years. I’ll endeavour to get a precise number.

[4:30 p.m.]

C. Oakes: I know this is more of a specific type of question, building upon that. If it’s easier to get the information after or at a later date, that’s completely fine.

One of the critical lessons we have learned, and it’s important that we learn lessons, is the challenges that we have around ditching and culverts, making sure that the culverts are cleaned out. We’re heading into freshet right now, and that’s always the most challenging time of year for us in our ridings.

I know that there’s a specific culvert fund through the Ministry of Transportation. I am wondering what the dollar amount is in the culvert fund and what the allocated dollar amount in that fund is coming to our service area. Maybe if I could get both service area 18 and service area 17, those are the two Cariboo areas. Like I said, if you need to get back to me on that….

Again, if there’s been a change in how we do ditching culverts, because we’ve had a lot of concerns that have been raised by constituents…. If there’s something that’s changed in the maintenance contract around that, it would be helpful for me to let constituents know. What is the increase in the culvert budget through the Ministry of Transportation, and how much of the culvert budget is allocated to both service area 18 and service area 17?

[4:35 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: I think, first of all, I’ll commit to doing a more detailed briefing, if we can’t get answers to you in a timely way.

There are many elements of road maintenance and road construction in her constituency and across the Cariboo that will be of interest. So I’ll make a commitment to do that, regardless of what we can get through in the estimates process.

What I have, in terms of some of the work around ditching in 2022, is…. About 290 kilometres of work were done in the Cariboo. Similar numbers are projected for 2023. We use a risk assessment and patrols to look at any risk of failures or areas that need specific cleanup and upgrading.

It’s a significant amount of money, as well, that’s being put into side-road investment just in general. There are some new programs in this budget, which are also being enhanced, that would deal with things like culvert and ditching and preparing for extreme weather events like the freshets, which were extraordinarily large, and some of the precipitation events in the member’s riding.

The climate adaptation program, which is recent and did not exist previously, added to the side-road funding. I can tell her that in the service plan of this budget there’s about $589 million worth of side-road and climate adaptation investment, which is good. It’s a fairly big lift on where we were, say, a decade ago. That’s not including, I should say, the DFAA, disaster financial assistance, where we’re doing wholesale road reconstruction on a number of projects that the member is very familiar with.

I’ll leave it there. Just use that service plan number, and try and extrapolate further details that are regional-specific in areas 17 and 18. And culverts.

[4:40 p.m.]

J. Tegart: Maybe before I start on my questions…. I just want to acknowledge the incredible work done by the ministry. Everyone is familiar with Fraser-Nicola and the impact of the atmospheric river and the floods and the landslides. The amount of work that has been done is really appreciated by people in my riding.

I wonder if the minister could give us some timelines for Highway 1. Right now we’re experiencing significant delays on Highway 1 as we go through the Jackass Mountain single lane. People are very concerned about timelines for when that might no longer be necessary. We appreciate the work but would like to know that there is a window or a light at the end of the tunnel, which we have many of.

[4:45 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question and, first of all, her kind words for the ministry and her constituency office working really closely with the ministry and, obviously, fielding a lot of questions from your constituents since, really, November 2021, when the highway was severed in six places and the scale of destruction was significant and vast.

The first priority that we’re working on, in conjunction with a number of sites to be restored, is the one she asked about at Falls Creek. Design is being prepared. We’re using a contractor model where we design with the roadbuilders as we go.

We’re entering a construction season that is expected to begin in May, so next month. We will of course be informing the travelling public and residents in the corridor about what that looks like. The anticipated schedule for restoration of two lanes is late winter or spring of next year, so maybe about a year’s time from now. That does, unfortunately, mean that pilot cars will still be necessary for that section.

We’re looking at the Nicomen to Falls travel as about an hour and 20 right now. When that’s restored, at least 20 minutes will be saved by getting back what we had in terms of capacity. A lot of other work to do that’s complicated. The Nicomen bridge, the temporary bridge, and the removal of the existing damaged bridge and then the replacement in the existing bridge location is the sort of plan of attack, if you will, on how to manage that.

Another site that perhaps she was going to ask about, but I’ll see if I pre-empt it here, is Tank Hill. Right now the at-grade crossing with CP Rail is causing an inconvenience for people using the highway. The plan is to replace that with an overpass, a sort of viaduct structure. We’ll provide her with timelines about that proceeding as well.

J. Tegart: Thank you to the minister.

I’m wondering if perhaps I could get a bit of an update on the Coquihalla and Highway 3 also, in regards to the timelines and back to what was or better.

[4:50 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: I am receiving an updated update from people working directly on restoring the highways that the member asked about. Kevin Richter, associate deputy minister, has worked tirelessly since the atmospheric rivers. Jennifer Fraser, who has been an incredible lead manager on restoring Highways 1 and 8, is with us as well to give me some information to provide to the member.

Highway 5, Coquihalla, is performing really well and has been for some time. As the member knows, it’s four lanes continuous. We’re using temporary bridge structures to restore the four lanes. The speed limit has been reduced because it’s a construction area. But in terms of the pre-disaster travel time, it’s probably about ten minutes longer from Hope to Merritt at this point in time. It’s a remarkable feat.

Many people tell us they don’t even notice that they’re in a construction site, because the temporary bridges are built to a pretty high specification and feel like part of a normal highway.

All of the Highway 5 reconstruction is to a new climate resilience standard — with new, expanded bridge structures at Bottletop and Juliet and Jessica bridges, with flood­plain protections underneath and significant ar­mour­ing around them — will be completed by Christmas this year.

Highway 3, which took a bit of a battering as a trucking route while the Coquihalla was being restored, was totally resurfaced last year. Its drivability is very high now and, I would say, in much better shape than it was before the disaster. I know that people going to Manning Park and all the way down to Osoyoos have been very pleasantly surprised with the resurfacing work that’s been done there. That’s completed for now, other than the patching and other resurfacing that is planned as part of our regular operation.

Highway 8, a very busy fall construction period coming up. Obviously, it’s also pretty drivable. We had a very tough winter in terms of the amount of precipitation. November was brutal, as the member knows. December and January threatened to be quite brutal and then tapered off a bit. But getting to Spences Bridge now is possible. The work that’s been done there is incredible in terms of what existed before, which was pretty much pavement over clay and dust — literally wagon trails. Now it’s constructed with the proper roadbed, with protection from the river, armouring.

A fantastic partnership and story, which I won’t get into but I know the member knows well, with First Nations communities living on that route. Significant employment, as well, and rebuilding the access to their communities. We’re also working with telecoms to make sure that quality of life, safety, cellular coverage and all those things are going to be part of the rebuilt highway.

[4:55 p.m.]

J. Tegart: Thank you to the minister for those updates.

Just on Highway 8, not only did we see the wildfire and the atmospheric river; we also saw landslides and significant landslides in October. I think it was October 23. We have significant dates in our minds, right?

I have a number of people along Highway 8 who were affected by the landslides. Now we have been working tirelessly to try and find them some support, and I know that just recently we’ve seen some through the Ministry of Agriculture. I’m wondering if the minister could share with me the work that was done after the landslide on Highway 8. Where did the funding for that came from? Did it come through DFA, or was it a partnership with the feds? Just wondering if the minister could share that information with me.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question.

I remember visiting her community that had experienced the landslides. I know how shocking it was, given that it happened in the same place that slide activity emerged from the atmospheric rivers, and it was very distressing. And again, to the previous answer where I was talking about how important cellular coverage was, that was again exposed as an area of anxiety for people who live along that corridor and it speaks to our commitment to build back better.

In terms of the source of funding, her specific question, so far, 100 percent is from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Actually, I should say there was a partnership with the Ministry of Forests. The slope stability, grass seeding and the things that are trying to improve the soil conditions to take root and make this not a slide risk area was provided by that ministry.

I don’t have numbers on federal government contributions. These take time. There’s always a lag based on their assessment around suitability for that. The atmospheric river one would, of course, be a longer claim, and we’ll expect to receive some money, possibly receive some reimbursements. Now there are different thresholds and there are different recovery rates from the federal government, but it would be hard for me to comment just now on what that looks like.

[5:00 p.m.]

J. Tegart: Thank you to the minister for that answer.

This is just a last comment. Keep in mind that was the third event for those people. To have gone through the wildfire, displaced their cattle; finally got the cattle home; went through the atmospheric river, stayed behind to feed animals; and then to have a landslide and not be eligible for funding has just about broken the camel’s back.

So we will continue to advocate and ask that every ministry keep those people in mind as they look at funding for the destruction that has happened based on the wildfire taking all the trees and the rain taking all the sand and soil. Who’s at the end of it? Our ranchers.

I would ask the minister that, as you look for solutions, both for the roads but also for the people who live on those roads, you keep our people in mind. And again, just a thank you to everyone.

Hon. R. Fleming: I know it was a very impassioned comment from the member about her constituents, but I’ll treat it as a question. We’re very much keeping people in mind who’ve endured so much, whose livelihoods are related to agriculture and ranching, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities there.

Another source of employment that we wanted to help with restoring the highway as quickly as we could is a company, Aspen Planers, which had significant detours and insecure milling schedules due to the loss of the highway. Therefore the restoration of the highway has been helping economic recovery in every way, and we’re going to continue to work there.

Again, I just want to say that the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure staff who are on the ground each and every day and our contractors have done an amazing job working with Indigenous communities and leaders to communicate exactly what we’re going to do, to engage young people in trades-training opportunity, to involve those communities in rebuilding the highways that were lost and to build back better according to new climate-resilient construction standards.

We expect that those skills will create careers for a lifetime for Aboriginal youth and others that may not have had such opportunities. So from a bad thing, a climate-related disaster, we’re hoping to create secure jobs and skills that are transferable to working all across this great province.

A. Olsen: Thank you for this opportunity to engage on Transportation estimates.

I just want to start with the rapid bus plans for the capital regional district — or the capital region here, I’ll just say. I guess the route 95, the Blink RapidBus, opened — good news — ahead of schedule. I believe it was ahead of schedule. It was phase 1 of a three-phase plan. As I understood it, the three phases of rapid bus were not necessarily…. They could happen concurrently, I guess. They could be worked on all at the same time.

So with the province and B.C. Transit recently announcing the completion and the opening of the West Shore to downtown line 14 months ahead of the three-year plan, along with three other important pieces to the Mackenzie and the peninsula lines now completed, what’s the province’s plan to implement the Mackenzie and the peninsula rapid bus lines?

[5:05 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: I appreciate the member’s interest in this. We’ve endeavoured to, hopefully, keep him up to date on all the improvements happening in his constituency. We were delighted that some of the components of rapid bus service out to the peninsula have been completed or are about to begin construction. Mt. Newton, which connects a number of communities and gives queue-jumper access and is improving transit reliability and overall transit time at a congested intersection, was done ahead of schedule and for less than we anticipated in terms of the budget. That’s good news.

We just announced today — hopefully, it came over his news feed — that the Keating Cross Road flyover will begin construction. A contract award has been made. It will begin construction shortly. That will allow new capacity on the highway to…. I mean, it’s important in and of itself as a safety improvement because the member knows probably better than anyone in this room that that’s a site of ICBC crash statistics that needed to be addressed.

[5:10 p.m.]

The safety improvements getting onto Keating Cross Road without crossing over oncoming lanes is a good project, but it will also give us capacity and width on the highway to do bus-on-shoulder. That will become part of the rapid bus network. Sayward queue-jumpers are contemplated as well.

We’re putting all the parts together and, I think, the operational service planning. There will be an update about that later this year, perhaps after the summer. That’s what we’re anticipating from B.C. Transit. The same with McKenzie rapid bus. So there have been improvements to the transit exchange at UVic.

We are planning significant improvements in a new transit exchange at Uptown. B.C. Transit acquired land there some years ago. We seek to develop it. We’ll also have more to say about its status as a transit-oriented development project that we think is ideal, to combine it with affordable housing investments.

Let me go back to Blink, which was brought in more than a year ahead of time to the West Shore. Just like Highway 17, we added pieces: from Fisgard in Chinatown to Douglas at Bay, and then from Bay to Uptown and then Uptown through McKenzie.

We still have some things to do that would give bus priority access to the entire length out there. It’s now envisioned as more infrastructure improvements going to Six Mile. Within the area of improvement, already there is one pinch point, which is the Burnside Bridges, and we’re doing engineering and design work right now to see if they can be widened, because you go from three lanes down to two, and then back to a bus priority lane. That will help everyone, including people using private vehicles that are stuck in congestion.

Then beyond McKenzie towards the West Shore, looking at more bus-on-shoulder to, again, improve the speed at which transit gets from the fast-growing area of the West Shore to downtown. We’ve already saved, I think, about 20 minutes per trip on the improvements we made, which is quite significant, and we hope to save even more time.

A. Olsen: Thank you for the progress report. With everything seeming to be ahead of schedule and the investments rolling out in fairly close succession, these do appear to be priorities of this provincial government., I think, for that, the people of the region are grateful.

Is the entire project ahead by a year, or is it just certain pieces of it? Is the entire thing ahead by a year, or is it just that you were able to get the piece done to the West Shore, and the other pieces are continuing along as they have been planned?

Hon. R. Fleming: The service from the West Shore to downtown under this new branded Blink service, with all the technology that’s coming in — time to stop, the frequency there, the service expansion, if you will — is more than a year ahead.

[5:15 p.m.]

So I think about 15 months. We had expected it to be introduced some time in 2024, and we launched it last week. Like I said, though, we are continuing to do some of the highway alignment improvements, including the Burnside bridges and the bus-on-shoulders. So the service is launched, and we contemplate more infrastructure improvements that support the service that is now operating.

I would also just note that one of the things that’s allowing us to support a number of capital projects in the B.C. Transit system in communities around B.C. is the current budget before us, which is really ramping up from where we were in terms of investment just a few years ago. This service plan will include $1.2 billion, over the next three years, in B.C. Transit — not TransLink — capital improvements. It’s about a four- or 4½-fold increase from where we were just five or six years ago.

More projects, larger projects and new types of service, like bus rapid transit, are some of the things that are supported by this enhanced investment.

A. Olsen: I appreciate the minister offering me a good segue to major projects, because one of the major pieces that remains that is going to be needed for an effective rapid bus system, and one that I think we’ve known for a long time on the Saanich Peninsula, is Beacon Avenue and Highway 17 in Sidney.

Certainly, I’ve had lots of conversations with Mayor Cliff McNeil-Smith, from Sidney. There were some decisions that were made around the placement of their public safety building that I think impacted the bigger discussion about what to do with Beacon and the Highway 17 interchange.

I’m not assuming that any, or many, conversations have been had with the town of Sidney, but what’s the plan for the Beacon Avenue interchange, or the Beacon Avenue traffic light, as it is right now, with respect to the rapid bus and just overall planning and traffic movements on the Saanich Peninsula, in that community?

Hon. R. Fleming: Beacon Avenue intersection. There is some planning work going on, in conjunction with Victoria International Airport. That may inform some things that we contemplate doing later, but it’s early stages of planning right now.

A. Olsen: Major project, short answer. I’m just going to leave it at that, I think, and just let it evolve. I recognize that there’s a lot that the town of Sidney…. I’m assuming that they’re not going to be left out of this, but I just thought that I’d leave that.

[5:20 p.m.]

As I see the projects happening along the Saanich Peninsula, it was getting closer and closer to Beacon, and I realize that that’s potentially a big piece of infrastructure and traffic flows.

Another segue, to the airport. The minister mentioned the airport. Going back to transit and access, we’re still seeing passengers, people that are hoping to get to or from the airport, dragging their luggage along because the bus connectivity at Victoria International Airport…. It’s our capital city, a major city in British Columbia, and the connectivity of B.C. Transit is not what the users of the airport need. I’m just wondering if the minister can provide some comment on whether or not we can see that service increased in the coming years.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question.

There’s a lot of interest in intermodal transportation service, from one form of transportation to another. The member is undoubtedly aware of some of the B.C. Transit express service that services B.C. Ferries, by way of an example. I think there is a lot of interest and potential to do the same at YYJ. Right now the airport site is not supportive of public transit, but I think there’s an interest to look at those sorts of things.

B.C. Transit has a budget that supports a good level of service, and they’re making improvements to how we get around this region. I don’t have an answer for him today about what access to the airport might look like with public transit, but I share his view that we could certainly get a lot closer and perhaps service the airport for departures and arrivals but also the large industrial parks and other job centre areas that are around what’s a pretty fast-growing area in his constituency.

A. Olsen: Would it be correct to call it a hub-and-spoke that, basically, a rapid bus would provide? You’ve got the main spine, where you’d get regular bus service, and then maybe have neighbourhood bus services collecting people and bringing them to that rapid bus.

[5:25 p.m.]

I imagine that all of those neighbourhoods surrounding Highway 17 could be well served by that, and the airport would be one of them. I can’t imagine there being another airport with this amount of traffic that comes through it and that is so underserved by transit.

This might be a difficult question to ask, and I respect that. Is the sticking point the airport authority, or is the sticking point B.C. Transit? Why is it that for so many years, this site has been so difficult to serve with B.C. Transit?

Hon. R. Fleming: To the member, I appreciate his question, because this has been a service gap for a long, long time. I think one of the reasons…. The McTavish exchange — which has really good station infrastructure that’s covered and dry — will be integrated into rapid bus down the peninsula, but it also provides an opportunity to have a pretty short and frequent service to the airport.

I do know that the airport, like a lot of different travel modes, really got hammered in the pandemic. The number of daily flights in and out of YYJ was severely impacted. They’re not back to what they were, but they have recovered considerably.

I would expect some of the mayors around the table at the transit commission, working with the executive team at B.C. Transit, to renew some of the periodic discussions they’ve had about how they can fix that service gap.

A. Olsen: Excellent. I’m just going to shift gears here, Minister, and ask a few questions about the road infrastructure on the southern Gulf Islands.

I’m not sure if the minister needs….

Hon. R. Fleming: We’re getting another part of the answer from the last question, I think.

A. Olsen: Okay. While the minister does that, I think that it’s important just to acknowledge the people that my office works with on a regular basis: Michael Pearson, Shawn Haley, and the whole team that serves the southern Vancouver Island region, which includes the southern Gulf Islands.

[5:30 p.m.]

Transportation tends to be one of the higher-volume sources of email correspondence into my office, for a variety of reasons that we’ve talked about over the years here, in budget estimates with yourself and with the former Minister of Transportation.

I want to just frame this. We have an incredible service provided by the Ministry of Transportation: to be able to pass these along and to get answers back. That has a great deal to do with the people that are working in the region. I just wanted to acknowledge that.

That said, we have road quality that’s deteriorating on the southern Gulf Islands. I’ve been raising it now every year since I was elected in 2017. The maintenance budgets and the budgets to rebuild those roads are just not there. In some cases, the road rights-of-way aren’t there. There are incredible challenges.

I’m wondering if, maybe, the minister can highlight what the plan might be to maintain or to fix those deteriorating roads, many of which have very low volumes but which we hear about on a regular basis.

[5:35 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: To the member, I know we have talked about a road that’s very important to him and his constituents from Fulford to Ganges. The work that’s happening there right now is moving utilities and acquiring property to be able to do a proper job on that road and address some of the concerns that people have had there. One thing that has come to our attention in the ministry is that there are drainage issues that are maybe more significant than we anticipated. It has delayed things on getting towards a project that has construction activity on it.

What we’re endeavouring to do is to tender late this year once the project definition is completed and begin paving next year. That’s obviously one of the more important road networks on that largest of the Gulf Islands.

Also, on Saltspring this year, we have, I think, completed engineering work now and are getting ready to proceed later this year on the atmospheric river repairs to Blackburn Lake.

A. Olsen: There are seemingly an endless number of questions that I could ask about this, because there are a lot of specific issues. There’s the road surface quality. There’s the centre line and fog line that perpetually doesn’t seem to have enough budget in order to maintain it. There was some piloting that happened that the quality didn’t last as long as perhaps it was…. So now the plan or the schedule is kind of shot. Then, as well, there’s culverts — the culverting aspects of it, undersized culverts, that I think the atmospheric river exposed.

I’ll just say, because I want to ask, at least…. I think we’re just about getting to the end of the time here. I just want to ask a question about ferries so that I don’t leave that. I’ll just ask this final question about this.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with respect to the expectations of what the citizens and constituents expect the roads to be. There seems to be an expectation of urban roads in these rural communities. I think that I’m interested in continuing the conversation with the ministry about, perhaps, some of the other road treatments that might be available on roads for the southern Gulf Islands, recognizing that they are rural roads, that the cost of asphalt and repaving these roads is going to be very, very expensive and that the amount of vehicle traffic that’s on many of these roads is quite low, Fulford-Ganges being the exception. I think that that’s a very well travelled road.

I just wanted to leave that with the minister, because I think that there is an opportunity for us to have a kind of open dialogue with the residents on the southern Gulf Islands, to say: how can we get good quality roads but that they not necessarily meet the urban construction standards that you’re used to, having just moved from a community or whatever? I’ve started that conversation a variety of times. I’d be very interested to continue it, because I think that it would help manage a lot of the expectations that people have, and not in a bad way but just in an open way.

This is what we can do. This is what we can maintain. Here’s the reality, and how do we match that. That’s a statement. You can answer the question, or I can move on to B.C. Ferries.

Interjection.

A. Olsen: Okay. Thank you.

One of the things that happened in the latest ferries commissioner’s report was cutting back of the capital budgets for B.C. Ferries. This is concerning both from keeping our ferries up to date and the program and the progress that’s been made to reduce the number of classes of ferries, which was the program that was there, but as well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the Fulford ferry terminal and the safety issue there in Fulford with respect to….

[5:40 p.m.]

At least a few ferries every day, the traffic spills out into the neighbourhood and really blocks the ability for people to get in and out and first responders to get in and out, if that’s necessary.

Just I think trying to get from the minister’s perspective what impact the Ferry Commissioner’s recommendations and the cutting back of the capital budgets are going to have on and what role does the ministry play in ensuring that situations like the Fulford terminal get resolved while also managing the fiscal reality of the B.C. Ferries network.

Hon. R. Fleming: Let me just go back briefly to Saltspring Island because I meant to when I was talking about Blackburn Lake and then the member quite rightly talked about what’s the appropriate infrastructure in many locations that are now prone to flooding with the changing weather and all those sorts of things.

[5:45 p.m.]

That is actually one of the delays that is still being figured out on the design. Do we go with an enlarged culvert, or is a bridge structure going to be required? We’ll keep the member informed about that. But it is new thinking around how you manage water and significant precipitation all at once — atmospheric rivers, those sorts of things — so that what happened last time is protected, going forward.

The line painting is not a Saanich–Gulf Islands issue, I can assure the member. What I would say is that new national regulations that took oil out of paint for the environmental benefits, however many years ago that was, created our ministry’s interest in providing new lower-impact paint.

They don’t wear as well. That’s quite clear. But the ministry, working with road maintenance contractors, is trying to get continually better on the quality of the paint. So there’s technology and paint-mixing observations and chemistry at work that will make a more resilient paint. How we’ve responded is to do line painting more frequently, because in some cases, especially where there are lots of abrasives and salts and things like that being used on the roads, we’re lucky if they last an entire year.

Going to capital and the commissioner’s report, I would say two things to the member. One is that the preliminary report for the next performance term that was released on March 31 is still open for public comment by members of the Legislature and their constituents until June, I believe. Let me get the precise date. I will put it into the record when I have the precise date.

This is going to be a very large capital plan for B.C. Ferries, in part because of the age of the vessels, and there’s just kind of a lump in the capital, in the fleet, in B.C. Ferries that is coming due, despite some really impressive simplifications and streamlining and new vessels that have entered into service. There’s also the deferral that happened during the pandemic. In response to financial uncertainties, the company made very deliberate decisions to not expose itself to new debt and borrowing with an unknown ability to repay it coming out of the pandemic.

So this will partially address that. As the commissioner herself noted, the $5.2 billion 12-year capital plan proposed by B.C. Ferries is the most ambitious in the company’s history. Her preliminary examination of that was to determine — and this, of course, can be revised by her — that about $330 million of that could be further deferred or avoided altogether.

In percentage terms on $5.2 billion, it’s a very modest adjustment. I don’t have the details about which projects would be changed, reduced in scope or avoided. But I can, again, commit to the member to see if any of that affects Fulford or any other areas that might be of concern to him.

I think it’s fair to say, even at this preliminary stage of the commissioner’s work, that we’re going to have a very robust, large, ambitious capital plan likely to be approved. September 30 will be the final ruling around the price cap for performance term 6, which includes the embedded capital plan with that. The province doesn’t fund capital directly in this new independent model. But obviously, we support their operations, which are critical to their revenues and their retained earnings and other things that do support their capital investments.

A. Olsen: The corporate structure. Over the past five or six years, there have been a number of changes with respect to B.C. Ferries, legislative changes to ensure that the corporation was considering the public interest. We saw recent changes at the head of the organization in terms of management and then, as well, with respect to the funds that were given to the corporation at the end of the last fiscal year to help with keeping the cost down for ferry users.

[5:50 p.m.]

It’s pretty clear that this provincial government is taking a different approach than the previous provincial government. However, the governance structure of the ferries remains the same. Does the relationship between the Ferries and the provincial government remain essentially the same, or is it changing as well? Recognizing there are still the structures in place…. The act remains essentially the same. But what does the relationship look like between the province and this pseudo-corporate, or whatever it’s called…?

Interjection.

A. Olsen: Independent, yes.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member. I think he has the last question of the day.

What I would say in general is that while the model and its governance broadly stay the same, there are supports that we’ve put in place for the shareholder, which is the Ferry Authority, which has a relationship with the Ferry Services board, which works with the executive team on the operations of the company.

We have advanced, since 2017, since the government changed, a different vision for Ferries. The member correctly notes public interest being put into the Coastal Ferry Act, a definition that that is, in fact, the purpose, as opposed to revenues and other types of activity, running a transportation company. The public interest is the purpose of having what is one of the world’s most impressive, if not the most, and the largest, most sophisticated ferry network you can find.

We have established, I think, a much better, good working relationship with B.C. Ferries over the last number of years. Our government said very clearly that we want to reduce fares on smaller routes, which had become unaffordable. We negotiated and worked on a 15 percent route-cost reduction for those ferry-dependent communities. We wanted to bring back the seniors’ discount for free travel Monday to Thursday. We worked with the company to reimpose that.

We worked very closely with the company through the pandemic, when they faced some of the challenges we talked about that relate to TransLink and B.C. Transit and other transportation companies, where their revenues fell down and they had new requirements around the state of emergency. The relationship is good.

The governance model is not significantly changed, but I think the 2019 public interest amendment to the Coastal Ferry Act was really important. Don’t forget, this act has been amended about eight or ten times since 2003. The original act said it must make money on every single route, which meant probably a 300 percent fare increase to some of the member’s smaller communities and abandoning the old model, which said the major routes should cross-subsidize some of the smaller routes. We’ve gone back to that and sought to promote affordability for all ferry users, whether it’s tourism, commercial drivers, people going back from the Mainland and Vancouver Island or whether it’s on the smaller routes.

With that, I move that the committee rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:55 p.m.