Orders of the Day

Hon. S. Malcolmson: In this chamber, I call continued second reading of Bill 32, Provincial Symbols and Honours Amendment Act, 2023.

In the Douglas Fir committee room, I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 27, Money Judgement Enforcement Act.

[1:05 p.m.]

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 32 — PROVINCIAL SYMBOLS AND
HONOURS AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

R. Leonard: In resuming my contributions to the debate at second reading of Bill 32, I’d like to talk about the purpose of an official fossil.

First and foremost, it recognizes that fossils are an important heritage resource, and it conveys it to the whole, wide world. Why? Fossils have great scientific and educational value. But there’s so much more.

Deb Griffiths’s words about its contribution to B.C.’s identity are quite poignant as a symbol of B.C.’s expansive fossil-storied landscapes and regions. That’s the kind of picture you should have in your mind when you think about fossils.

Looking at the contest. Who knew we were a fossil-rich province, rivalling the well-known Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta? Here in B.C., we have many places of fossil discovery, as we’ve heard this morning, that match the diverse landscape of B.C. today.

An official fossil contributes to community identity, as well as pride and wellness, economic development, with the draw of knowledge tourism and the pursuit of scientific knowledge and education. I’d like to share the story of the elasmosaur to enliven those values. It’s an example of what fossils bring. Thanks again to Deb Griffiths from the Courtenay and District Museum and Paleontology Centre for much of the information and helping me to marshal my thoughts.

Mike Trask and his daughter Heather were walking along the Puntledge River on a fossil expedition and came upon this incredible discovery of the elasmosaur. That’s the kind of thing that everyday people can do. I did it with my kids. It was a real adventure, finding fossils and taking them down to the museum to see if they had any value.

Mike went on a journey of three very critical steps, steps that would, in Deb’s words, continue to broaden and shape B.C.’s storyline of natural and cultural history.

Firstly, he recorded the site, and he took samples. Then he delivered them to the Courtenay Museum. Lastly, he firmly expressed a preference for those fossils to remain in the community where they were discovered.

As has been mentioned by members from the opposite side, there’s collaboration with scientists from across Canada, within communities. It happened immediately with the elasmosaur because they recognized this important discovery. Later, around the world, other scientists have been very involved in making more discoveries about this elasmosaur as they study it further.

I’d like to mention a few notable folks who were instrumental. The late Dr. Rolf Ludvigsen, who was living on Denman at the time, happily close to the discovery; Dr. Betsy Nicholls, from the Royal Tyrrell Museum; Dr. Richard Hebda from the Royal B.C. Museum.

I’d also like to recognize the citizen scientists or amateur paleontologists, volunteers who work along the scientists. That work, that collaboration, led to the formation of the B.C. Paleontological Alliance. It also meant that there was work with the heritage branch, first through FLNRORD, and now through Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport.

I’d like to especially acknowledge Elizabeth Dion, who was there all along the way, and other folks at the fossil management office. That is what led to the public vote for B.C.’s official fossil. I’d also like to note that our local staff were trained at the RBCM.

[1:10 p.m.]

Let’s go back to science and education. The contributions to science that came from this discovery have contributed to the growing body of knowledge worldwide. It’s contributed to the growing body of knowledge worldwide.

I’d also like to talk about education, and the marriage with science, because it’s an inspiration when you go out and find a fossil and you get to be part of that scientific discovery.

Pat Trask has been the curator and leader in these fossil tours, where kids go out to the riverbeds and get to do their own little digs. Well, I shouldn’t call them digs. They get to explore the world of paleontology, because what we have are these concretions, these rocks that they can split open. What Pat says to these kids is: “When you find something, your eyes are the first eyes to see this creature that was living millions of years ago, the last time that anybody saw them.”

Kids are just in awe of that, and it really inspires them to continue on into different pursuits, like STEAM. It’s also an opportunity to inspire them to choose careers in paleontology, become educators in paleontology. We have a need to increase those positions, to keep it alive and to keep it growing.

Within our world, in the Courtenay Museum, they do school tours. Schools come from all over. They come locally, but they also come from Indigenous schools on the west coast and up in the north Island. We’ve had schools coming from as far away as Peace River, Alberta. It’s something that is growing. It’s rippling out. The information is getting out there, and they’re eager to come and learn.

Having an official fossil is also an opportunity to promote wellness. These are outdoor activities that you do with your family, with your friends. It’s a learning experience. They help develop deeper appreciation of a sense of time and place. It’s done with family. It’s done with friends. Diverse people gather together. It’s an opportunity for a community to grow.

Around economic development…. We’re talking about knowledge tourism. It’s married to education, and that’s one of the big advantages of having fossils remain in their community. At the Courtenay Museum, because of the elasmosaur, just in the fiscal year from ’21-22 to ’22-23, donations…. Our museums are free. They are by donation entry. The donations are up 12.72 percent. Fossil tour revenues over that same time are increased 41.51 percent. There are more fossil tours on Vancouver Island than the whole rest of Canada, and they very much overshadow tours in the U.S. and around the rest of the world by more than tenfold.

I want to acknowledge the support of the Kelowna Museum’s curator, Dan Bruce, and the late Ursula Surtees, who was the executive director there. They really taught the Courtenay Museum staff to value that regional context by keeping the fossil at the local museum, and keeping the fossil there led to a huge amount of community support to showcase the discovery.

[1:15 p.m.]

At the time of the discovery, the paleontology section was a little house, but I’d want to call it a shack. It was just a one-room building. It was very old and falling down. Suddenly you had this amazing, amazing discovery, this marine reptile that was 12 metres long and the first of its kind ever found west of the Rockies.

What happened was we had Community Futures, Mark Crane, help to buy the old post office across the street and renovate it for the purpose of being able to showcase the elasmosaur. Rotary clubs got involved. One year was spent fundraising so that they could create an education area, a gallery in the museum that’s used for educational purposes, right in the midst of where the fossil lives.

They’ve got grants for exhibitions. They got acknowledgment from all parties that represented the area provincially, including the late Stan Hagen, who got the provincial heritage site designation for Mike’s discovery. The city got involved to support them. The late Randy Wiwchar was a great supporter of the museum and all of the comings and goings of the downtown to make it a really vibrant tourist destination.

It really speaks to the community pride and the opportunities for economic development. Beyond the scientific collaboration that I talked about earlier, the Courtenay Museum is working with other communities with fossils, like Tumbler Ridge, and really getting into the meat of how to grow regional museums when your fossils are kept onsite.

Of course, economically, there are spinoffs for local businesses that can benefit from that tourism that’s coming from all over the world. Families come on those knowledge tourism tours just to see the elasmosaur. There’s merchandising I’ve seen on the shelves — toys, books. There’s a book about Mike and Heather’s discovery. There’s art. There’s even coffee, and it’s all fossil inspired.

I was, just yesterday, meeting with some of the K’ómoks First Nation who came for another event. As we were walking the halls, I was saying how Deb Griffiths had been pondering whether or not some of the mythical creatures that K’ómoks First Nation have shared with us for many ages were maybe inspired by the elasmosaur, and they agreed that there’s been that talk. We’re talking about millions of years, and they were the first people that may have been able to find the fossils.

Talking about tourism, my dream is that we’re going to rival the Jurassic Park film and have an underwater marine reptile adventure film. I think if we get this passed, I’ll see what I can do to have stars made out of some of the MLAs.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the most pertinent reason for having an official fossil, and that is that it will support the fossil framework that the minister mentioned earlier. It draws attention to how fossils are treated as the heritage resource that they are.

What does that mean? First of all, it’s not finders keepers. Fossils are owned by the Crown. They can’t be sold or exported out of B.C. without authorization. Collectors can, if they find small amounts of common and abundant fossils, as long as they’re not scientifically significant. Vertebrates must be reported to either the local museum, the Royal B.C. Museum or the B.C. fossil management office.

As I said earlier, no digging. You can’t be getting fossils through excavation. It’s only surface collection. So what should you do? You should take a photo, if you can, mark the location, and be sure to report it. Why is that? It’s because you could be part of valuable information with your discovery, and you don’t want to lose it.

[1:20 p.m.]

I’ll just conclude now by reminding members that we are a fossil-rich province in many corners. We have an opportunity to capitalize on building scientific knowledge, expanding growing communities and community well-being and pride in every corner.

I want to acknowledge the focus and passion of our local paleo citizen scientists and the driving force of our regional museum people, people like Deb Griffiths. My fervent hope is that this House will unanimously pass Bill 32 and with the elasmosaur as B.C.’s official fossil, provide the certain legacy of B.C.’s discoverers of this unique elasmosaur in their lifetimes.

Thanks to Mike and Heather Trask — Heather passed away in January — and Mike’s twin, Pat Trask, for all the time that they have given us and all the opportunities for discovery that await us.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the question is second reading of Bill 32.

Motion approved.

Hon. J. Osborne: I move that Bill 32 be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 32, Provincial Symbols and Honours Amendment Act, 2023, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. J. Osborne: I call continued second reading of Bill 31.

BILL 31 — EMERGENCY AND DISASTER
MANAGEMENT ACT

(continued)

E. Ross: Bill 31, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act — for the millions watching at home, this bill repeals and replaces, basically, the Emergency Program Act. It’s quite the bill. It’s 121 pages, 208 sections. It’s been quite some time before this bill has been amended, and it’s quite timely given the disasters we’ve been seeing in B.C. for the last five years or so and the significance and the scale of those disasters.

There’s a lot in this bill that actually brings me back to my previous job as chief and council of the Haisla Nation. It’s not my first time reviewing an emergency plan in partnership with B.C. In fact, in 2015, my band took it upon ourselves to reach out to the B.C. government at the time, in 2014-2015, to develop a comprehensive emergency plan that aligned with B.C.’s plan at the time.

It was quite the job. We had to go over every single chapter, every single section, every single clause, even to the point where we actually were trying to resolve what would happen in case of an unmanageable bird flu. Can you imagine that? Bird flu. It was quite a stressful exercise for our band members as well as our chief and council. We put a lot of effort into it. We had resources within the provincial government that we reached out to, and they helped us navigate through the bill. We tried as much as possible to incorporate what B.C.’s emergency plan could do for us, and vice versa.

[1:25 p.m.]

By the time we approved our emergency bill, for lack of a better word, we had a binder that was probably twice the size of the bill we’re looking at today. We thought we’d done a lot of good work. But in our first two instances of emergencies, we found out quite quickly it wasn’t manageable. We hadn’t considered that we did not have the resources to carry out an emergency plan. We didn’t have the money to carry out an emergency plan. Even though the communication system was in place, we’d never really thought about an incident command centre in relation to Canada and B.C.

We even came to understand exactly what a state of emergency meant. The first time that we actually came across this was a snowstorm in our village that wiped out the road, wiped out the power lines, broke electricity lines, and we were basically isolated for over a week.

I was in Vancouver at the time. I had a heck of a time trying to get from Vancouver to Terrace and then, from the Terrace airport, trying to get a ride from Terrace to Kitimat and then trying to find a ride from Kitimat to my village of Kitamaat Village. And it wasn’t necessarily planes, trains and automobiles. It was planes, dirty rental cars and snowmobiles. And hiking. That’s how I got home.

When I got home, the media had taken up a position that they heard from band members that we were in a state of emergency. And when I got there, I realized we are not in a state of emergency. We’re inconvenienced, yes; we’re stressed, yes; we’re confused, yes. But we are not in a state of emergency.

In fact, everything that we had done up to then anticipated the new day and age my people were living in, because a lot of us didn’t have wood stoves anymore, so there was the issue of heat. And a lot of us had not only just one fridge and one freezer, but some of us had two freezers to freeze our traditional foods.

The chief and council of the day did have the foresight to actually turn our gymnasium into an emergency centre. And what we had forgotten was that we had outfitted our gymnasium with a backup diesel generator that kicked in. As soon as the B.C. Hydro grid went down, our gymnasium kicked in. That provided heat, it provided electricity and it even provided Internet.

So piece by piece, we had to put this in place to kind of establish a level of safety and well-being with our members. By the time I got back, I asked for the binder to be present, and we started to try to follow the rules.

Basically, the emergency plan talked about regional resources, provincial resources, national resources. So when I was talking to representatives from B.C. on the phone line, including B.C. Hydro, and talking with our counterparts in the city of Kitimat, I asked the question in saying: “How is it that you’re supposed to come out and help us when you can’t even help yourself? You’re in just as dire a situation as we are.”

There is a level of triage that has to happen no matter who you are, what your demographic is. There has to be a level of triage on behalf of the provincial government, on behalf of municipal government, on behalf of First Nations, on behalf of the country. There has to be a triage. You can’t go down to every single community and deal with some of the issues they’re trying to deal with because we’ve got to open up highways. We’ve got to re-establish hydro grids. And that could be across different towns, across different regions.

There weren’t really enough resources in our region to cover off every single municipality and First Nation. It was a realization that, painfully, I found out when I looked at the last few updates from B.C., in terms of when we could get help, to find out we were at the bottom of the list. And quite frankly, I would have probably made the same decision if I was government. You have to open up the airports, the main highways and the roads that are arteries to critical services like hospitals, ambulances, police.

[1:30 p.m.]

Yes, it is a hardship. But it did go back to the idea of what we had always talked about as a community, in saying: “We have to be independent. We have to be self-determining.” So we actually pieced together what we already had in place, and we actually got through it.

Contrary to the popular reports at the time, I did not evacuate my village at first chance. I did not evacuate them. By the way, I wanted to be proactive, because the highway was going to be opened up through one lane because B.C. Hydro was trying to repair the line from Kitimat to my village.

I saw how slow-going it was. With no rules, no policies, no insurance, I ordered my public works guys to get on their machines and start opening up the road from our side, and we met them halfway. Once that one lane was opened, I then advised people. I went door to door and told people: “If you want to get out, you’ve got a two-hour window, and then we’re going to close it down again because B.C. Hydro has got to get that line up and running, and we’ve got to get two lanes going.” I did not evacuate the village.

There were a number of people that wanted to stay because they were having a good time in our gymnasium, camping out, sleeping on the gym floor. They loved the Internet, and there was no real place to go anyway. Our region of the province was shut down, but it taught me a lot about emergency preparedness, being proactive and trying to align with a provincial emergency plan and a federal emergency plan.

You’ve got to understand the realities of an emergency situation. Yes, it was distressing that our band did not have electricity. In fact, a lot of our band members lost their food storage. That was stressful in itself.

There were a number of our people that were medically compromised, and we didn’t know about that. The only reason we found out is because I ordered my workers and my volunteers to go door to door and knock on every single door in my community, which has over 250 houses — to actually bang on the door until they found out whether or not somebody is in there.

We found out that a few people couldn’t move because of medical conditions. That created our database within our community to talk about how we need to know who can’t get out in an emergency situation so that we can bring the resources to them. We also had to establish on our own, without the B.C. emergency plan, a communication program that paid for helicopter services to get people out in medical emergencies. We paid for that out of our own pockets.

Also, if it went any further, we had to establish a way to get groceries into our community, and any other supplies that we needed. We were starting to work with the local private sector, namely Rio Tinto Alcan, to say: “I can see your plant right across from my village. If we can get over there by boat, could we use your dock? Could we use your equipment, your cars, your trucks, go load up on groceries and come back to our village?” That’s not easy. It’s not easy to do that.

There were a number of things that we learned through that situation. At the end of the day, when I sat back and analyzed it, there were two things I realized. A complicated, technical emergency plan for a community like mine does not work. It has to be understandable, and it also has to be achievable.

For a lot of things that you’re talking about in emergency plans, you’re talking about levels of government that have the capacity to understand something like this. Some of it you’ve got to cross-reference. You’ve got to cross-reference different sections, and you’ve got to understand the roles of different ministry levels to understand what exactly government is doing in different situations.

It’s very hard for a First Nation to do this when they’ve got so many different things on their plate. Many chief councillors deal with education, health, public works, economies, rights and title, court cases. Their plates are already full.

[1:35 p.m.]

I’m looking forward to the plan on how the B.C. government intends to work with First Nations. With 203 bands in B.C., will it be a one-size-fits-all? Or will there be recognition of some of the deficiencies that a band might have, like my band had?

Quite frankly, we weren’t so bad. We were prepared. We did scrap the emergency plan that we had developed in alignment with the B.C. plan. We created our own based on our own capabilities, our own capacity and our own lessons, even to the point where we started to figure out…. We’ve got to have, probably, a landing craft for marine services. We’ve got to have skidoos.

The way I got home from Kitimat to my village…. The road was closed. I intended to hike the seven miles in waist-deep snow, but the Kitimat Snowmobile Club volunteered to take me down there.

That’s how I got a firsthand look at the damage, which was quite extensive. Hydro poles were snapped in half; the poles were hanging over the road. There were trees all across the road as well.

We got halfway over. There were a number of trees across the highway, and we couldn’t go any further by skidoo. They wanted to turn back, and I said: “Okay, turn back. I’m going to keep hiking. I’m going to hike down to the shore, and I’m going to walk along the shore. It’s where I grew up. I’ve hunted; I fish. I know this area. I’m going to walk back. I’ve got to get back.”

We ended up going back. We found a handsaw, and we cut the trees so that the skidoos could get through.

I still appreciate the Kitimat Snowmobile Club for their extra effort. In fact, we brought them into our gymnasium afterwards, and we fed them.

There were so many things that I learned then. I really thought…. If we’re going to do this, especially as a rural community, we’ve got to develop a plan that looks after us, first and foremost. It’s got to be realistic. Then we can start coordinating with B.C. — unless I’m wrong, and B.C. is going to take the same approach, where they have to prioritize what’s got to be done in an emergency situation for the benefit of all British Columbians.

You can’t really single out small communities at the outset of an emergency, unless it’s pretty specific like, say, a community is going to get burned down, or it’s going to get flooded out, or in this case, like a snowstorm.

I want to say…. I was probably not a priority, as the Haisla band, but we were lucky that we had money from LNG development. We had money from the forest agreement that we signed with the B.C. government at the time, in 2006. We had partnerships with corporations. So we had the resources to get through that period, but we also had resources to build a real emergency plan.

Ultimately, there were some things that I took from the B.C. emergency plan and that I incorporated into our new one, which I kept in. I truly believe that whether you’re in the midst of an emergency or you’re trying to evacuate people, the leader has got to stay in the community regardless. I’ve done that, whether it be tsunami disasters or snowstorms. That’s something I took from the B.C. government’s lead. I knew that ministers had to be in charge when emergency situations were called.

It was quite the experience. The emergency plan that we put in is still in place today.

My second experience with an emergency plan was a couple of years ago. I was touring B.C. I was campaigning for a certain initiative. I got invited down to Monte Lake and Logan Lake. It was quite the experience. I knew there were forest fires happening. They were ravaging communities. It was destroying buildings and infrastructure, but I didn’t know what to expect.

I had already heard the Solicitor General criticize the number of people that stayed behind when they were told to evacuate. I’d also heard the Solicitor General criticize them for putting firefighters’ lives in danger.

[1:40 p.m.]

At the time, I agreed, but I did keep an open mind. I did go down there and talk to them, and I found out that these people were very capable, smart people, very resourceful people. There were old-timers that had spent a lifetime, either as ranchers or loggers, fighting fires. They had equipment. When they saw a spot fire, they’d pull out their excavator. They’d bulldoze, and they would put out the fire.

When I went along the lake, all I saw were private citizens with tanker trucks and water pumps and hoses running up the mountain. They were relentless in their firefighting — relentless because they had something to lose. I don’t know of anybody in B.C. that is not proud of their community and would do anything they could to protect their homes and their communities.

Look at what these citizens are saying specifically, Rob Cote, who lost his house, by the way — he understood the danger. He understood he couldn’t stay and save it because of the inferno, so he left. He had the sense to leave his house to the fire. That was heartbreaking. But he stayed behind to help his neighbours.

He invited the then Public Safety Minister to their region to see what they were experiencing. All these people wanted was a partnership with B.C. That’s all they wanted. Representatives of B.C. fire were in the area. They were already there.

Rob Cote invited the minister and said: “I will pay his ticket. I will pay his meals. But come and see what we went through as a community.” He really felt abandoned, and they were angry.

By the way, I wasn’t spared any of that anger either. I thought I was going down there, basically, to listen to their side of the story, but I got some of the anger as well. I couldn’t blame them for it.

The question was: “Why are we not being considered as part of the firefighting plan when we have the expertise and the resources? We have the history.” I understand liability, but we can resolve that through training. We can resolve it through a database of people with equipment, who are listed in a certain area, who can actually help B.C. They could be the front-line fire spotters and responders, especially if it’s just a spot fire.

There are so many people telling me that a ten-foot-square forest fire…. It started in grasslands. They put it out, and they were admonished for it. But the people, not just the Aboriginals but the non-Aboriginals as well, knew more about that area than anybody else did. They could talk about where the fire was going to spread, where it was going to go up a mountain because of prevailing winds, where the wind switched in the afternoon and died down in the evening. I didn’t know that.

Local expertise is not just restricted to Aboriginals. If you come to my territory, and you talk about my fire prevention techniques, I’ve got none to give you. We’re on the west coast of B.C. We don’t get the same kinds of forest fires as down south of B.C.

We don’t have prescribed burns in my culture. Like any other disaster, in the old days, we just moved away from it. The floodwaters came up; we moved up. The floodwaters went down; we moved down. Forest fires came around; we just left. So I can’t give you any experience. I don’t think any of my band members can give you any of that experience.

I did learn an incredible amount from the people of Monte Lake and Logan Lake and Merritt. The people in Merritt went through a flooding situation. When I went there, I saw all the private sector groups. I saw all the church groups. All mobilizing and going to Merritt to help them out, to rebuild their lives, bringing in food, clothes. I saw all of that. The big question was: “Where is B.C.?” I don’t know.

Everywhere I went, as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, I took the heat too. I didn’t distinguish this side of the House, that side of the House. I just agreed: “Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

[1:45 p.m.]

As an MLA working in Terrace…. The experience I got from forest fire evacuations was another angry incident. Tahltan members, from their region up in northern B.C., were evacuated and came to Terrace. They were told to go to Terrace, B.C., but there was nothing there waiting for them. They came to my office, very angrily asking why we weren’t prepared for them. I didn’t even know that they had been evacuated. I didn’t know that Terrace was a location for them to come to.

We ended up jumping on our phones. We started phoning up all the local leaders, the gymnasiums and the schools. We phoned up everybody. “Can you house some people?” “Yes, we can.” The networks started working. People started getting into hotels. They started sleeping in gymnasiums. But we had to answer the questions: “How are we going to feed them? How are we going to clothe them? Where are they going to be?”

Looking at the Ombudsman’s report and seeing the firsthand accounts of what people went through across B.C., they had the same complaints. I wouldn’t say it’s timely. Yeah. Maybe after 20 or 25 years, we do have to reconsider the actions that we take in terms of emergencies or disasters. But will it work?

What you’re talking about is preventative. We’re talking about actions to actually fight fires preventatively, to prevent floods. You can’t do anything about the snow. You can’t do anything about that.

Also, in terms of the aftermath, in terms of the care of people…. If you say you’re going to look after them and you develop a program to look after people when they’re evacuated, then you’ve got to live up to that. That’s what people expect. That’s what they’ve been told.

In the Ombudsman’s report, people were quoted.

“People were staying in their cars for days, waiting for ESS to find accommodations.”

“After having to register in three different towns and being turned away and our paperwork forgotten about, we were stuck in a car for almost 20 hours and told to be prepared to sleep in it.”

“As a person with a registered disability that affects mobility, it was very painful and draining to stand in long lineups and wait for hours to register at an ESS that has limited seating and no seating for the outside lineups and no parking, which requires walking a distance.” That is heartbreaking.

“My husband had severe dementia and Alzheimer’s and did not cope well with all the changes and uncertainty. He was frail, and it was hard for him to stand in line.” I can identify with that.

“I had to sleep on the floor for a month with a newborn baby because I couldn’t afford to buy a bed to sleep on at a family member’s house.”

A First Nations’ perspective. “Staying in a dorm brought back memories of residential school, because the doors were locked after 11.” Oof.

“One participant described caring for a family member with a badly injured foot, who was using a walker. She described being denied supports for accommodation because she had a trailer her family could live in. She told us….” I’m assuming this is an ESS representative. “A small travel trailer is not equipped to handle a walker.”

“I have two children with mental health problems, and it was very difficult for us to stay in two rooms in a hotel. We are a family of seven. My autistic son needed more space, but it was not available.”

This is quite the issue. I get it. We’ve got to do better. We do have to do better in the initial stages and in the middle stages. As I’ve heard many times before in this House, it’s about people. That can’t just be a slogan. We’ve got endless accounts of people that were made to feel worse, even though there was a program that was developed to help ease their suffering.

[1:50 p.m.]

Now, there are resources that have to be directed to this, of course, but it’s got to be resources that are achievable. We’ve already seen communities like Terrace, and Kitimat and even Nisg̱a’a, at a moment’s notice, open their doors and house people that need it and feed them.

If that’s what the government is thinking about in terms of partnership, then you can go one step further. Think about the people that know how to deal with emergencies because they’ve been doing it for years.

Ranchers. One of the most surprising things I heard from ranchers is that they knew how to fight fires. But they knew they couldn’t evacuate 200 head of cattle. For them to be told that they should evacuate their cattle…. “How can we? They’re eating up in the summer grasses land up on the mountain. How can we collect them all, bring them down? Then how do we find semi-trucks to load them on? Then where would we bring them, and who pays for it?”

These are real issues by real people living out there. What happened to them? They got criticized. They had already given up on the idea that they would lose their livelihood by losing all their cattle, but they couldn’t stand the idea of losing their farmhouse, their residential house, the house that their grandmother lived in, the house that their grandfather built, and they were just told: “You’re being reckless.”

They weren’t reckless. These were good, hard-working people, and they were trying to save what was most important to them. All they wanted was a partnership with B.C., an alliance. “We can work together. We know the region. We have the history. B.C., you have the resources. We can do this.” If this is the full intention of Bill 31….

By the way, if it is the full intention, we’ve got to see it. You can’t leave the majority of this up to regulation. That is not fair. If this actually ends up adding more questions to people, whether it be front-line workers or whether it be farmers, ranchers or people in our communities, this is not fair.

If it’s going to be done, let’s make sure it’s achievable and it achieves some of the things that we’ve seen in the last six years here in B.C., including lessening the risk to firefighters with new technology that’s out there. That’s being employed all around the world, even being supplied by companies here in B.C. But we refuse to acknowledge them or utilize their services for whatever reason.

R. Russell: It’s really my pleasure to stand and speak in support of this bill, Bill 31. This is something….

We’re not allowed to have props in the House, but if I were allowed to have a prop here, it would be from five, six years ago now, I guess — the napkin, or not quite a napkin, that in the aftermath or the midst of a major flood in my own community, my own home, as well as many adjacent communities, I was tasked with…. As we’ve heard from a number of other speakers, I was tasked with leading the policy work for response and recovery as the then chair of the regional district.

The napkin I would have brought in is the brainstorming that I was doing with my team to try to identify: how we do build a recovery team? How do we build a model of recovery through disaster that makes sense for the local community?

At that point, there was no playbook. There was no guidance. There was no legislative framework for what that looks like in terms of: how do we navigate this in a way that makes sense for our community? The fact that I am here today…. I will read a couple of sections that I am enormously pleased to see in a bill in front of this House.

[1:55 p.m.]

For example, section 98, clause 1: “Subject to this section, a local authority may, by emergency instrument, make a declaration of a local recovery period.” That very simple sentence means an enormous amount for communities that are trying to figure out how to navigate this.

This piece of legislation enables our communities on the ground to be able to take actions that help their communities and deliver that support in a meaningful, more efficient — cost-efficient and human resource–efficient — way and do the things that we know we need to do for those communities.

Sections like 103, coordination of response and recovery efforts: “For the purpose of responding to or recovering from an emergency in an area within a local authority’s jurisdiction, the local authority must coordinate actions in the area, or, if another person is responsible for coordinating particular actions in the area, assist the other person in coordinating actions in the area, may, for the purposes of paragraph (a), give directions to members of the local authority’s emergency management organization, and may give advice and assistance to any person.”

These are the kinds of sections within this bill that I think are enormously important to change the landscape of how we navigate disasters in this province. We have been relying on a very outdated model of emergency management. Many of the challenges, the frustrations, that, so far, I have heard from the opposition, don’t necessarily pertain to the bill per se. They pertain to how we navigate disasters.

This bill is designed to do exactly that in terms of enabling more of that control by local communities, making mandates more explicit for who has to do what and supporting collaboration and cooperation among very different entities on the ground.

These are the sorts of things that are…. From somebody who lived through this and went through the process of trying to figure out how to build a system that worked, I recognize that these have an enormous potential impact on the future of our emergency and disaster management in this province. Indeed, if it were not for this bill….

I will read the explanatory note for the record, because I like it:

“This bill repeals and replaces the Emergency Program Act. The purposes of this bill are as follows: to account for all four phases of emergency management, which are mitigation, preparation, response and recovery; to streamline and clarify the powers and duties of the minister, provincial emergency management organization, ministries, public sector agencies and local authorities; to facilitate agreements, consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples with respect to emergency management; to clarify the roles of critical infrastructure owners; to incorporate into legislation lessons learned in recent years in response to floods, wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic; and to modernize and improve consistency of language in the legislation.”

I would add a final point. which is to reduce the risk of disasters in our province.

That summary of this legislation, to me, captures the heart of why we are doing this. Indeed, if it were not for these challenges and the potential for legislation like this, I would not be in this House today. I came here with a commitment to build better models for the province for many things. This is certainly one of those pieces of legislation which I have been waiting for, for a long time.

Well before I came into this place, I was on the consultation end of the table, working with the provincial government in 2018, 2019 on the flood and wildfire committee, trying to navigate what this looks like. We’ve all heard and we’ve all experienced many of the challenges that have beset the province. Aside from the pandemic, the many disastrous wildfires and floods, heat domes and cold spells that we’ve had in the last few years…. We have learned a great deal. These are incorporated into the learning that has informed this document.

[2:00 p.m.]

Even in the recent cabinet shuffle, the Premier’s dedication to recognizing the importance of this, I think, in terms of creating a new Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, is a signal to the fact that we recognize here…. We recognize that emergency management is not a militaristic operational problem alone. It is a challenge to reduce the risk of disasters.

It is not simply a challenge to respond well to those disasters. We know those are challenges. We deal with those looking and working with partners from around the continent — in the United States, in Canada — as well as around the world. This kind of change, this kind of shift in terms of sentiment is important to be able to recognize what it is that we are doing with the work that we need to do for emergency management.

That, again, comes back to that notion of reducing the risk of disasters, which is a core principle of the Sendai framework that we have heard referenced here a number of times, which was a commitment that this government, prior to myself being here, made some years ago. This is now part of the manifestation of what that looks like.

That framework from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction is important, again, in terms of the principles that it provides to guiding the development of pieces of legislation such as this, and pieces of regulation that, as we have heard over the last two days, are also important to align. It provides high-level outcomes such as “the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries.” That’s the outcome.

The goal is to: “Prevent new and reduce existing disaster risk through the implementation of integrated and inclusive economic, structural, legal, social, health, cultural, educational, environmental, technological, political and institutional measures that prevent and reduce hazard exposure and vulnerability to disaster, increase preparedness for response and recovery and thus strengthen resilience.”

The guiding principles — there are many. I will read four that I think are particularly relevant to this piece of legislation.

“Empowerment of local authorities and communities through resources, incentives and decision-making responsibilities as appropriate.” Much to the previous speaker, the member for Skeena, talking about the challenges of navigating this for a nation, for a community, and determining how to incorporate more of that local input into the process….

Guiding principles such as “decision-making to be inclusive and risk-informed while using a multi-hazard approach.” It’s the kind of request we’ve heard over and over again from the emergency management community — to adopt a more holistic, multi-hazard approach to how we navigate disasters.

Principles such as “coherence of disaster risk reduction and sustainable development policies, plans, practices and mechanisms across different sectors.”

Finally, “Build back better” for preventing the creation of and reducing existing disaster risk.

These are the elements of a piece of legislation like this that are particularly important, again, to how we navigate forward in a world where we know the frequency and intensities of these disasters is increasing and is causing more and more damage.

One of those principles that we have heard referred to — again, that those clauses that I read reference — is recognizing that, as opposed to the historic model of being heavily, heavily focused on response….

[2:05 p.m.]

It’s a shift to recognizing that if our intention, if our goals are, as I just described, to reduce the risk of disasters for all of us, then it means we need to shift that mindset and embrace the notions of recovery and preparedness and mitigation on the same footing as we navigate response. So as somebody had said yesterday, this, for example, will help allow us to be “spending at the right end of the problem,” in my mind.

We know, from many different studies, the fact that investing a dollar now on some of the prevention and mitigation and doing a good job of what our communities know they need will save us $7 to $10 in the future. So this is not just an exercise in spending more; it is also an exercise in saving a great deal more in terms of economic returns, economic damages that we avoid, as well as the social and environmental damages.

As some of you know, 2023 appears to be the most expensive insured event in B.C. history. So if we can get ahead a little bit and be able to reduce some of those impacts — be able to secure and save more homes, for example — we can actually save money in the process.

Again, I read out a couple of sections of the bill earlier. Those are examples, to me, of how that recognition of response and recovery, and expanding powers for all levels of government between response and recovery, matters. That notion that we are able to provide to communities, provide to nations, more authority to engage actively in those spaces will do us all good in the long run.

One of the factors that was mentioned earlier by a couple of opposition speakers, as well, is the challenges in terms of response, especially when it comes to coordination among different entities that are navigating that process together.

Explicit in this legislation, even though we haven’t heard that referenced much from the opposition, the bill itself…. Explicitly in this legislation are the structures that are needed for us to be able to create collectives of different response organizations, to be able to create information-sharing pathways that make sense for different agencies, to be able to create the structures and the frameworks for effective collaboration to respond effectively for the people that we are trying to serve.

Those kinds of collaborative and cooperative elements in a piece of legislation — from my experience, at least — are difficult to frame when the goal is to create flexibility, to create an agile framework that can support very different frameworks in very different contexts across the province in terms of who has capacity, who has knowledge to deliver on those. So those kinds of opportunities mean that we will, again, be in a place where we have a more effective framework for managing disasters.

Section 22, for example: “The minister may, by order, require 2 or more local authorities…to establish a multijurisdictional emergency management organization…or a local authority…to join a multijurisdictional emergency management organization.” These kinds of opportunities to be able to say: “We need to collaborate if we expect to do this well.” And that kind of regional emergency management planning…. For those of us that have lived in that space, we are painfully aware sometimes of the importance of that.

I have the opportunity to work with the community, the village of Lytton, for example, on their recovery. The challenges of jurisdictional boundaries around the village, for example, and the supports that are available within that line versus outside of that line are something we heard almost immediately in terms of how we navigate what this recovery looks like from a village perspective versus an electoral area perspective.

[2:10 p.m.]

Similarly, after the atmospheric river events a couple of years ago, communities like Princeton spooled up their emergency management teams very effectively. Communities that were outside of that municipal boundary were supported by the good faith of that community and their emergency management organization but were under different jurisdictional control and administration. That causes issues. It causes challenges in being able to deliver effective supports at an economy of scale that makes sense and makes sure that where you live does not impact the quality of service that you can receive. So I’m very pleased to see elements such as that collaboration and cooperation in a broad sense woven throughout this legislation.

My colleague the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin yesterday, I think, had a lot of good to say about this bill. One of his comments, which I appreciate and find somewhat intriguing, is that he said British Columbians are owed this legislation. I’m not sure I would choose quite the same words, but I certainly recognize that we are in desperate need of this legislation. As that member spoke to, it has taken us a long time to get to this point.

We have had a number of challenges provincially, which I would say: it’s not that they have slowed down the creation of the legislation. They have taught us a great deal more about how to make sure this piece of legislation will be effective at delivering what we need it to deliver.

I’ll shift gears a little bit for those of us that engage actively with local government. We had our UBCM meetings. We had the opportunity to connect with local governments from across this province a couple of weeks ago. One of those conversations which I had the opportunity to have, which I appreciated…. Well, a number of those conversations were about this potential legislation, about this bill.

One of the comments, one of the questions that I heard upon somebody commenting to me about the notion or the concern around provincial government downloading — which I take offence to, given I came from local government and was actively lobbying to see legislation like this. Recognizing another part of that Sendai framework, we know that emergency management is a shared responsibility.

It is a shared responsibility from the individuals, from homeowners, from individual residents, through local community organizations, through local governments. It is a shared responsibility among regional organizations, provincial governments, federal government and nations. It is a reality; we have to work together in order to make this work.

We know it’s going to be harder. It is going to be harder. It is going to be more work for all of us. The question that this councillor from Lake Country, I believe it was, asked me is: what more is the province doing? We’re asking clearly for local governments to be able to deliver regional planning, for example. We’re asking local governments to engage with their Indigenous territory. We are asking a lot, and the question was: what is government doing?

Well, we’re doing the same. The obligations on all levels from changes that would be brought about by a piece of legislation like this mean that there will be more work for us. There will be more work for us because we don’t want to see the challenges that we’ve had in terms of effective response, recovery, preparedness, and mitigation for disasters.

This is part of the work where we’ve heard, I would say, from the opposition a lot of comments around the regulation, around not so much the legislation but: what about the regulation? Is there too much of the direction here that is relying on regulation?

[2:15 p.m.]

Well, also, much of what we’ve heard, again, as the member for Skeena mentioned just now, was we need flexibility. We need to be able to do this in a way that works well in local communities. We need to do that where the provincial government is supporting those communities doing what they need to do without overly restrictive legislation forcing us into places that make it difficult for us to accomplish what we want to accomplish.

The idea that the regulation here and the engagement on that regulation is open…. Much of that regulation is already open. A number of the pieces that have been mentioned in terms of ESS and DFA regulation will be open until the end of the year to be able to give people the opportunity to feed back on how we make sure that system works well and how we make sure that regulation can be agile enough and flexible enough to support the local models that we want to see supported.

I agree with much of what the commentary has been from the Opposition. I would disagree with the challenge that more of that ought to be encapsulated in legislation as opposed to regulation. I think that is an opportunity that is provided to us.

I scribbled down a quote from FEMA, which is the U.S. federal emergency management organization, from about 12 years ago when I was listening earlier here to a comment about local input into effective emergency management. That quote, which I like, is “recognition that government at all levels cannot manage disasters alone means that communities need the opportunity to draw on their full potential to operate effectively. Empowering local action requires allowing members of communities to lead — not follow — in identifying priorities, organizing support, implementing programs, and evaluating outcomes.”

This has been a challenge, historically, with our legislation. This bill would enable us to do a better job of just that — collaboration among organizations, among individuals, and support for local input and communities to lead in identifying their priorities, in organizing their support, implementing their programs and evaluating their outcomes.

With that, I will acknowledge…. Again, as I said when I opened, I am here because of emergency management. If it were not for that, I would not be in this place. The work that we did on the ground for our community — again, we’ve heard other members speak to their own experiences — is most certainly not an individual effort.

At the risk of inevitably forgetting some names, I would like to acknowledge the people that were part of the group that I tapped. Some of these were the people that I tapped to be able to say: “We had a flood. We were active in response. We knew how to do response well. We did not know what recovery looked like. We got approvals from the province at that point to spend a great deal of money on developing a plan.”

My board approved that plan. We were about to go forward with what would have been a very large ticket item to be able to navigate, and something didn’t feel right. I and some colleagues went back to the drawing board and said this is not going to lead us back to that principle of the Sendai framework that I mentioned in terms of building back better for preventing the creation of or reducing existing disaster risk. It wasn’t going to do that for us.

[2:20 p.m.]

At that point, I went out into community and met with the leaders of different parts of our community. I met with leaders in the social services side of things, leaders in economic development and community development, and leaders in environmental management and our watershed authority, which was what it was called at that time, and sat down with them.

I asked them. I said: “Are you interested in helping lead this process? We do not know what it’s going to look like. I do not know how we’re going to pay you. We do not have any terms of reference. I do know that it’s going to take a long, long time. I do know that it’s going to be very hard. I do know that you are going to put your own social capital in your home on the line to deliver effective recovery, and it may or may not work, and we may fail.”

A lot of those people stepped forward to say, yes, that they would do that. They did so, frankly, unpaid for quite a while, because we had no structure to support recovery. We had no legislative framework for us to actually deliver this thing that we knew we needed to deliver.

So my hands up to them for what they did. I will run through the names, and again, I just wrote them down, so I will apologize in advance for whomever I have forgotten. In no particular order: Graham Watt, Darren Pratt, Jennifer Wetmore, Jess Mace, Mike Tollis, Mark Andison, Chris Marsh, Paul Edmonds, Gina Burroughs, Dan Derby, David Reid. I think that’s all of them.

Those are the people that really worked through this with me and put a lot on the line for their community. This legislation will make their work in the future much, much easier.

With that, thank you very much. Just before I close, it’s my dad’s birthday. I miss him.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

Leader of the Third Party.

S. Furstenau: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Nice to see you in the chair.

I just want to follow on the comments from my colleague, who really, I think, put into a clear perspective that at the essence of it, emergency management, emergency preparedness, emergency responses are a human endeavour. It is humans, it is people, who are facing these emergencies, but it’s also people who rise to the challenge of emergencies over and over again in communities.

I’ve reflected on this for a long time, decades really, about what short emergencies bring out in us, and they bring out the best. I mean, when there’s a fire in a community, when there is a flood or a disaster, you see the outpouring of generosity and support and care and kindness. It is extraordinary, and it speaks, I fully believe, to who we are as humans. We are connected to each other. We are connected to the world around us, and we will act in that way, given the opportunity, almost, of showing that true self of who we are.

[2:25 p.m.]

Long emergencies are a lot tougher. Long emergencies erode that basic drive that we have, because they are relentless, and they keep coming. We are in a long emergency, and this last summer should convince us of that, if nothing else: the worst wildfire season in Canadian history, the most amount of hectares burned, the devastation to communities across B.C.

On top of that, droughts. Farmers not being able to water their crops. Tens of thousands of fish dying in rivers because they’re too dry and too warm. We are in the midst of an ever-evolving and ever-increasing long emergency.

One of the things I make a point of saying to my children is that this isn’t normal. Don’t accept this as normal. I really reject this idea of any kind of new normal, as if we just accept that things are going to be like this now — that our summers are going to be smoke-filled, and our fish are going to die, and our rivers are going to run dry, and then we’re going to have floods in the aftermath of that. I cannot accept that we just say to our children and our grandchildren that this is a new normal.

How terrible of us to say that. It’s not normal. It’s not what the summers were like when we were young. We used to take road trips all over B.C. We never had to drive away from a wildfire, which I have now had to do twice on our family road trips. We’ve never had to consider not being able to go because of evacuation orders or because of ongoing disasters.

I think it’s really important for us to locate ourselves in the time and the moment we’re in, as we talk about Bill 31, the environmental management act. We see climate disasters becoming more frequent and more severe, and we hear that this is only the beginning. Each year might be the best year that we have for the future. I think it’s really important, again, to humanize this — the fear, the terror, the uncertainty that people experience.

People being forced to evacuate their homes, to leave their communities — the trauma, the loss of livelihood, the impacts to mental health, the loss of photographs, family mementos. It’s impossible to even consider the cost of those losses, the impacts of disaster to farmers, to tourism, to forestry workers, to our health.

I appreciated the minister’s second reading speech and how she recognized the impacts of disasters and the toll that a changing climate has on communities, mostly rural communities and First Nations. It’s clear we can’t afford to continue with the status quo when it comes to emergency management in this province.

We can recognize the huge need for an updated approach to emergency and disaster management and the continuous record-breaking weather events we’ve experienced in recent years: the heat dome, the atmospheric river, wildfires and the loss of towns like Lytton and in this summer, communities in West Kelowna.

As meteorologist Armel Castellan warned us at UBCM: “This is a mild version of what we can expect in the future.” That’s why I’m supportive of Bill 31. We’re long past due for modernized emergency management legislation, as the last piece of legislation was updated in 1993.

I commend this government’s commitment to co-develop this legislation with First Nations. I am interested to see how the province will recognize Indigenous governing bodies as outlined in this legislation. We’ve seen their inability to recognize the authority of hereditary leadership in Wet’suwet’en territories, for example.

[2:30 p.m.]

From what I understand, the legislation requires local governments to seek agreements with Indigenous governing bodies and the province to seek the same agreements. Will First Nations be compensated for this work? How is this House supposed to have confidence that the government will properly support and compensate First Nations and local governments for all the work they are now required to do?

I think we need to discuss and understand the implications of such a serious ask. Climate change crises have a disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities. Indigenous people across B.C. are about four times more likely to experience an evacuation than non-Indigenous people, and Indigenous people living on reserves across Canada are 18 times more likely to be displaced, according to the federal government.

Rural and remote communities disproportionately experience social, economic, cultural and health impacts from climate change, compared with urban centres, according to a report by the federal government. The government recognizes that this legislation will have a major impact on local governments and First Nations, yet it is unclear how they will be impacted, and I have serious concerns and questions about this.

There have been a lot of reports and recommendations when it comes to emergency preparedness and emergency management in this province. This government’s track record on learning from previous natural disasters and emergencies hasn’t been great. I truly hope this government has heeded the calls of the Abbott-Chapman report, the Firestorm 2003 report and other reports, including the 2014 atmospheric river report. The government failed to act on recommendations from the 2003 fires to reduce risks in places where wildlands border cities.

I look forward to committee stage to better understand how Bill 31 provides the supports necessary to do this important work. From what I understand the funds and investments for this work will come from the budget, not this legislation or the regulations.

George Abbott and Maureen Chapman wrote: “It is imperative that we move to a multi-year multi-pronged approach to community safety, one that involves concerted, proactive investment before emergencies happen. The experience of 2017 demonstrated the consequences of ignoring the growing gap between spending in the areas of response versus planning, preparedness, prevention and mitigation.” The $1 billion price tag so far for fighting fires this summer is an example of that.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

“If we are to limit the vulnerability of our homes, our properties and our communities to such extreme weather events and the new normal” — that’s not my quote; that’s Maureen Chapman’s — “the time to reinvest is now.”

George Abbott and Maureen Chapman were interviewed last month about this year’s wildfire season.

Maureen Chapman shared: “It’s absolutely devastating. I’d thought, working on that report in 2018, that more would have been done to have prevented it being so bad this year. I mean, it’s just unprecedented, and I’m very frustrated.”

George Abbott stated: “Just putting out the fires and getting through to September and October when they all go out and we forget about them is not good enough anymore. I think we need to be thinking about addressing risks of fire and flood in all seasons of the year.”

The Ombudsperson’s recent report also raises flags for me. This week B.C. Ombudsperson Jay Chalke released a report on the 2021 wildfire season that found that the province’s emergency support programs were inadequately funded, difficult to access and poorly communicated.

I can imagine, Madam Speaker, that this very much rings true for you and your experiences in your communities.

Given how many reports and expert feedback the province has received over the years, these findings are worrying.

[2:35 p.m.]

How can the House be confident that Bill 31 meaningfully addresses these shortfalls? At committee stage, it will be important to better understand how provincial communication and alerts during emergencies have been improved and what the plan is for continual improvement in this long emergency that we are in.

Experts know what needs to be done. Survivors of climate disasters know what needs to be done. We need to stop planting monocultures. We need to stop clearcut logging above watersheds. But will these much-needed changes help to reduce the risk? We have siloed and fragmented so many of our systems, and we are seeing the impacts of this.

The drought right now in the Cowichan Valley has resulted in thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of fish dying in the river this year. Pumps have been running over the weir in Lake Cowichan to keep the river on life support. At 38 days, those pumps have to be turned off, at which point, if we haven’t had rain, the life support for that river is off.

We also have to talk about the whole watershed, the fact that the watershed can’t contain the water when it does fall. Yes, we need a higher weir in Lake Cowichan. We also need a watershed that can do its job. Nature can do a job better than any human engineering can, but we have taken away that capacity of nature to do the job it needs to do.

If we are not talking about clearcut logging and the impacts of that when it comes to flooding and when it comes to drought, then we are not talking about the reality of the emergency that we are in.

It seems that this government doesn’t want to talk about the holistic thinking that’s really needed to protect communities from disasters, including stopping developing more fossil fuel infrastructure. How much will the province be investing? How is this determined? How will this investment be distributed? How will forestry practices be changed? From what I understand, this is absent from this bill.

We have to stop pretending that things aren’t connected. We have to stop thinking we can solve one thing at a time.

Communities are at the centre of the disaster response. “Every single person that could helped someone,” recalls Michele Feist, who escaped a burning Lytton.

The province needs to empower and support local communities, First Nations, the people who are on the ground in their communities and most impacted by these disasters and emergencies. How does this bill achieve this? How are we funding this? In this era of increasing polarization and division, is the minister confident that Bill 31 will bring communities closer together, or is there a chance that it will further divide communities?

I’ve thought a lot about emergency preparedness and the way that we often approach it in a pretty technocratic way. We put in legislation and policies and alert systems, but we don’t recognize — and this is what I started my comments about — that in emergencies what we need are people. People need to have the capacity, the empowerment, the understanding, the knowledge, the access to information, the ability to communicate quickly amongst each other. People need to be at the heart and the core of emergency preparedness.

There are communities that are doing this. They’re creating neighbourhoods that are deeply connected, with what I would call neighbourhood captains.

[2:40 p.m.]

The Philippines has brought in an entire neighbourhood captains program, realizing that when an emergency hits, the people you need the very most aren’t people in a call centre in a city or in a government building somewhere or even in a government building in your location. The people you need the very most when an emergency hits are your neighbours. That’s what we need to focus on.

How are we using resources and imagining emergency preparedness as something that is building and strengthening social fabric in every neighbourhood in B.C., in every community in B.C.? That’s connecting neighborhoods across communities. That’s recognizing we have to make this a human endeavour — not a technocratic one, a human one — because in emergencies, like in the atmospheric river, it was humans, it was people, who came out, filled sandbags and rose to that moment.

In this forever emergency, if we’re building neighborhoods that are deeply socially resilient, connected, where we know who our neighbourhood captain is when disaster strikes, where that neighbourhood captain is going to be communicating with their 30 households and making sure that everybody has all the most pertinent information as quickly as possible, then now we’re starting to make emergency preparedness into something that creates a deep resilience in our communities.

I don’t know if this legislation has a lot of humans in it. I think in governments we kind of work around that, but that is the essence of what we have to build in this long emergency. It’s that deep connection.

I understand that there’s much contained within Bill 31 that addresses the overlap between local governments, Indigenous governing bodies and other actors. How does Bill 31 address this overlap within the province? How will the Ministries of Forests; Energy, Mines; Water, Land and Resource Stewardship work together efficiently and effectively?

Time and time again, we see jurisdictional confusion between ministries, agencies and regulators. I think we have to ask the question of how we can be confident that Bill 31 moves to remedy the fragmentation and silos that are ever-present across government ministries and that have proved to do serious harm.

Finally, I’m just going talk about slow rollouts. In this forever emergency that we’re in, disasters are coming more frequently. They are more serious and intense, and they are not slow; they’re fast. We know that it’s going to take years to see change on the ground. The minister acknowledged that how the legislation will play out on the ground won’t be answered in debate and that it will come through the development of regulations, policies and partnerships.

The Minister of Emergency Management noted: “There will be a lot of work that has to be done through the development of regulations and policies and interpreting how this legislation actually plays out on the ground in our communities.” Engagement sessions are still open on the regulations until December 31.

I guess my question would be: how can members of this House be assured that this bill is as comprehensive and thorough as possible? It’s clear that climate emergencies will only get worse in the coming years, and we need to be setting our children and grandchildren up with effective policies but also, again, with resilient, connected neighbourhoods and communities to meet these challenges. That will be something I’ll be looking forward to canvassing — or my colleague, one of us — in the committee stage of this bill.

With that, I thank you.

[2:45 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: The member for North Coast.

J. Rice: I appreciate your acknowledging me to speak and allowing me a few minutes here to speak on this important piece of legislation, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act. This is something that I’m really passionate about, as you know, Madam Speaker, in your role as MLA. We have historically worked together, dealing with many emergencies and catastrophic events throughout British Columbia.

In my previous role as Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Preparedness, which I held between 2017 and early this year, I learned a tremendous amount. Some of the things that I was sort of gobsmacked about was the fact that when we saw imminent danger happening — a flood coming, for example — our own legislation in government, which we know hasn’t been updated since the 1990s, prevented us from actually mitigating any of this imminent danger from occurring. Our own rules forbade us to do so.

However, as soon as the s-h-i-t hit the fan, we would deploy every resource possible, regardless of what the financial implications were. It really taught me that, wow, we’re really focusing on the one pillar of emergency management, and there are four: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. I also learned, speaking of floods, the catastrophic floods that impacted Grand Forks and area through 2017 and ’18, that we really didn’t have a lot of supports or even levers within our own legislation or regulations to actually help a community recover after a catastrophe had occurred.

This legislation, I think, is really forward-thinking and progressive. I recognize that apparently, the type of legislation being put forth here is unprecedented in Canada. It’s a 200-page document…. We’re now focusing on the future, we’re focusing on the four pillars of emergency management, and it’s not just about responding. I think this is fantastic news.

I hear from members opposite, “What took so long,” etc., but I just want to tell a story. When I was appointed parliamentary secretary in 2017…. I think we were sworn in on a Tuesday. On Wednesday I was given the binder that you need to learn your portfolio, and then I was told: “You and the Premier, the Forests Minister and the Public Safety Minister — you’re all going to wildfire communities on Thursday.”

I had read the first page of that binder, trying to take it all in and learn what I had to learn about this portfolio, and then the summer was so incredibly busy. In 2017, it was the worst wildfire season on record. I spent a lot of time in communities — rural, mostly — and learning on the ground, firsthand, the impacts of these major fires that we were experiencing.

I think it was not until late fall where I actually read the rest of the binder. It was a good thing that I learned this way on the ground, because government documents are so full of acronyms, and I wouldn’t have ever understood that binder had I not been on the ground being with people throughout the province.

The last briefing that I had requested — I put it off to the last because I said: “This is never going to happen; this the zombie apocalypse stuff” — was the briefing on pandemics. I don’t think I got the pandemic briefing before it hit. Nonetheless, we’d had these types of incidents that have really made us rethink.

Then going right into COVID, the legislation, amongst a whole whack of legislation, was all put on hold as we dealt with this pandemic and, of course, the other types of disasters that we’d experienced, like fires, floods and atmospheric rivers, etc.

[2:50 p.m.]

I am sorry that it’s taken so long. I don’t know if I want to even say sorry because I don’t want to own that. But I actually understand why it’s delayed. Most importantly, I think, because we experienced these disasters and new things like a pandemic, it has further enhanced this legislation. It is the knowledge…. The lessons learned have really contributed to making this more robust in what it needs to be.

This week, when this was introduced, I think, is a really good, celebratory time. The fact that the new ministry includes the words “climate change,” I think, is realistic for today’s day and age. Where before, we had the EPA, the Emergency Program Act, we didn’t include that. We didn’t talk about forward thinking. We didn’t talk about preparedness.

My kudos to the public service that has worked on this legislation over the last few years. They’ve done a phenomenal job. They’ve worked really hard. I want to just say that they did this off the sides of their desks during all kinds of incidents. You can plan and have your…. You can set your agenda, your goals for the year, but then when something terrible happens, your future planning gets put to the side because you are dealing with imminent danger.

The fact that we have been able to get through this, the fact that we actually have a much more robust ministry to do both…. We need to do both simultaneously. We absolutely need to respond, but we also need to do the future planning. That’s what’s happening for the first time ever, as far as I know, in this province in regards to emergencies.

Kudos to us for actually getting there, but particularly I want to say kudos to the public service. I got to work with so many phenomenal people since 2017 — working hard, really passionate, really caring. I got to work with people who were deployed from other ministries — from Housing, from Social Development, from Tourism — who took a type of secondment to actually help us deal with emergencies.

I’m standing here today to say that I’m just really proud to support this legislation. I can’t wait to vote on it. I know that many people in the communities, whether it’s local governments, individual citizens, the firefighters I spoke to, wildfire and even our local firefighters in communities, emergency management personnel, the CAOs that became emergency operation centre incident commanders…. I’ve talked to so many of them over the years, and they were really excited and looking forward to having modernized legislation.

I didn’t fully understand that when I was first appointed to the role. It sounded so boring and policy-wonkish. But then my experience throughout the years has really taught me how critical this is, how important it is for us to modernize. I’m really happy to stand up here and say this is great news. I can’t wait to support the bill.

T. Shypitka: Thank you to the House for this piece of legislation, this act, this bill that’s in front of us right now, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act, because it’s needed, and I mean that sincerely.

First of all, I just want to…. A couple of quick thanks before I get into this. I want to thank the riding of Kootenay East. I know that every MLA will share it with their own associated ridings, but I just want to say thanks to the riding of Kootenay East for a couple of things. For one, just the resilience they showed this year during the fire season. We had a couple that hit home pretty hard, impacted a lot of folks, took some structures — thankfully, no loss of life — but really up-ended how we live and play in the Kootenays. We all have some stories.

I want to thank also, firstly, the Ktunaxa Nation, that is part of Kootenay East, and the community of ʔaq̓am, which is the community that resides close to Cranbrook, just outside of Cranbrook. They were impacted pretty severely. They were the ones that lost some structures.

[2:55 p.m.]

The folks, the resiliency of the Ktunaxa Nation and ʔaq̓am community have to be commended for their efforts. Also, with the coordination that they brought to the regional district, to other fire agencies, B.C. Wildfire Service and other agencies to get that communication, the coordination that is needed for good recovery and good resilience. So hats off to Ktunaxa First Nation and ʔaq̓am community.

Joe Pierre — he’s an old friend of mine. He’s the Chief of ʔaq̓am, and he runs a pretty good show at the ʔaq̓am community, so thanks to Joe and his crew.

Thanks to the firefighters, all the other agencies — emergency management B.C., wildfire service of B.C.

I also want to just give a quick thanks to the Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Climate Change, who did reach out. The phone call means a lot. I know she did the best in her capacity to make that communication. You know, it doesn’t always solve the problem, but it does rest you assured that somebody is at least watching and actually cares. So I want to give her some credit. “Always give credit where credit is due,” my mom always used to tell me, so we’ll do that here right now.

This bill, Bill 31, Emergency Disaster and Management Act, as I said, is a long time coming. It’s a bill that repeals and replaces the Emergency Program Act, which hasn’t been updated for quite some time. I believe the act came in 1993, so it’d be 30 years this year. We’ve seen a lot of changes, I would dare say, in the last 30 years on climate change, on how our forest practices are and how they’ve related, perhaps, to some of the devastation we’ve seen. We heard the Leader of the Third Party, the Green Party, talk about monocultures and forest practices, and I think that definitely needs to be examined, for sure.

I’m happy to see this update — this modernization, I guess you’d call it — of this bill come forward, and I’m looking forward to committee stage to really dive deep into what it actually means and to get inside to the actual skeletal being of this bill.

I also want to say that there’s also a positive with part 3. It’s a new inclusion into the act that we didn’t see before, and they’re agreements with Indigenous governing bodies. That’s a welcome addition. It respects, obviously, self-determination through the use of Indigenous governing bodies as defined in DRIPA and the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

It’s good because First Nations have a lot to say. They’ve been managers of this land base for quite some time, and they’ve got a thing or two on knowledge and culture that can bring a lot to the conversation on how we do things better. I’ll get to that a little bit later on.

There are a few concerns. We’ll get into the committee stage on how this will impact local governing bodies on reporting what that impact would be financially on them. Will they need some assistance in doing that? What would the capacity buildout be to support them, to ensure that this act is as effective as it possibly can be? So we’ll be watching on that.

I mentioned compensation. But the other thing….

I think it was the member for Boundary-Similkameen who said something a little while ago — that he’s been waiting a long time. I think the quote was “waiting for this for a long time.” Quite honestly, we all have. We’ve all been waiting a long time.

Back in 2017, I believe, B.C. United had a rollout of some legislation. I think it was 400-and-some-odd clauses long. It was quite detailed, and it was exactly what we’re talking about right now. That was in 2017.

We want to do it right. There’s no question about it. We’ve had consultation. We’ve done a lot of things already, but it seems like we’re really kicking this down the road a little farther than it should have gone. And 2017 was quite some time ago, but there’s been a lot of devastation since then.

[3:00 p.m.]

Let’s maybe take a quick look at what we’ve seen in the last six years.

In 2017, we had 1,353 fires, which burned 1.2 million hectares, and $649 million in costs to fight those fires.

In 2018, there were 2,117 fires, which burned 1.3 million hectares, at a cost of $615 million.

In 2019, it went down a little bit, thankfully, but still 825 fires at a cost of 21,000 hectares burned and $182 million.

Now, 2020 saw 670 fires and 14,000 hectares burned at $193 million in cost.

In 2021, unfortunately, 1,647 fires and 869,000 hectares burned at a cost of $718 million.

In 2022, once again, another record. So 1,801 fires and 135,000 hectares burned at a cost of $411 million.

Of course, this year, unfortunately, the granddaddy of them all, 2,217 fires and 2.5 million hectares burned at a cost of $770 million. That is growing and projected to be close to $1 billion this year. So $966 million, I believe, is the fact. I’m seeing some nods.

If you add it all up, that’s, since 2017, 10.6 million hectares burned. That’s 106,000 square kilometres at a cost of $3.5 billion. That’s just in firefighting costs. That’s not the tens of billions that it will cost government in other factors, replacement and….

Two years ago we saw the fire in Lytton. A whole town completely wiped off the map. Unfortunately, no resolution for that town. People are not back in their homes.

You can see the severe impact that wildfires and floods have and how important the minister’s file is on emergency management preparedness. Just to put it into a scale of things…. When I say 10.6 million hectares, or 106,000 square kilometres, people don’t realize what that actually is in the scale of British Columbia.

British Columbia is about one million hectares big. So 106,000 square kilometres — I looked it up. The East and West Kootenays are 86,000 square kilometres, and the Okanagan is just slightly more than 20,000 square kilometres. Coincidentally enough, the fires that we’ve seen in the last seven years would have entirely wiped out the East and West Kootenays and the Okanagan. Almost exactly. That’s a pretty large chunk of the land base.

For those people on the Lower Mainland, what that would mean is…. The fires in the last six years would have wiped out the Lower Mainland 20 times over.

Would legislation in 2017 have prevented these fires? No, not entirely. I still think the statistics…. Roughly, in the last ten years, about 60 percent of fires are caused by lightning; 40 percent are human-caused. That does go back and forth, over the 50 percent line, from year to year. On a ten-year average, I believe it’s 60 percent, 59 point something, for lightning and 40 percent for human-caused.

That said, those lightning strikes, those remote strikes for wildfires, can be managed. They can be proactively managed with our fire practices. We talked about traditional knowledge. Prescribed burns. I’m a big fan. I’m a big advocate for wildlife habitat and ecosystem restoration and prescribed burning. It’s traditional knowledge that First Nations have had for thousands and thousands of years.

It does many things. I wrote a bunch of them down. I’ll see if I can find them. There are more than I actually thought.

[3:05 p.m.]

It does many things. Obviously, it manages the buildup of biofuel, the fuel that’s on the ground. In our efforts to prevent forest fires over the last 100 years, some of the monocultures and some of our forest managing practices, what we’ve done is…. We’ve created a tinder box of sorts.

Our fuel loads in the back country are two to three feet high in some cases. When those fires do happen…. We’re going to see more and more of them from lightning strikes or other means. Those fires burn very hot and very deep, not like they would have hundreds of years ago, when we would let fires just run wild. Of course, with urbanization, we can’t. We don’t have those strategies anymore. We have to look after the communities that are close by.

There was a study, actually, done by the Rocky Mountain Trench Society in my area probably 20 years ago now. What they found was a tree about 600 years old. When they examined the tree rings, they could decipher how many fire events happened in that 600 years. The average fire was anywhere from seven to 15 years. It would run through. Because there was a replenishment, a regrowth, a removal of the fuel on the floor, these fires would burn very quickly and very fast. They would scar the trees, but they would never kill the trees.

The prescribed burning, with First Nations, removes that buildup of biofuel. It also manages regeneration. So new foliage would grow. It manages pests and infestations. It opens and maintains trails and pathways. This is all a First Nation rationale for why they did their own cultural burning. It created grazing land for prey and, eventually, for horses. They would do the grazing for horses. This burning would help with that.

It would rejuvenate forage. They found that when new forage would be grown after a fire, next spring and the years after that, the plant life would have a higher protein and mineral content, which would be healthier for prey. So for elk, moose, deer. Of course, that extra protein and mineralization would also provide better milk from cows to their calves and would create more prey for them, in turn, to hunt.

They would clear land for agricultural use and also stimulate productivity for berries, stimulate the growth of medicinal plants, produce materials for basketry. It would produce the materials they would need to make baskets and other things like that and also create fuel breaks around camps and villages.

That’s what we’re seeing right now with some of our fire mitigation efforts across the province. I know in our community of Cranbrook…. Our council and our regional district have done an excellent job at fire mitigation by doing some of these prescribed burns around our community, thinning the forests and providing that fire break for the next eventuality.

The FireSmart program has been really well received. I want to thank the government for initiating FireSmart and making sure we’ve got the resources for those communities to prevent fire in their areas.

I’ll look to the minister for, maybe, a nod. Maybe she knows. I believe the community of Grasmere is one of the first communities in the province to be totally, 100 percent, fire smart. Maybe not. Maybe she knows. I don’t know. That’s what was reported to me, and I was really happy. Whether the first or not, I guess, is a sidebar, but I was really proud of the community in the efforts they took.

The Triangle Women’s Institute was a big driver of that. It’s a great institution they have down there in Grasmere. They took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and they got their community fire smart.

[3:10 p.m.]

That’s reducing any kinds of fuel sources, whether it’s making sure there are no empty gas cans around your homes, making sure you’re cleaning up your backyards, making sure there’s not lots of dead growth there and maybe thinning some trees here and there. It’s a great program, and everybody should be commended on seeing that program extended and more supported. We need more communities around the province to take part.

I should say Newgate as well. Newgate was part of that. Baynes Lake. I don’t want to forget any communities now; I’ll get in trouble. If you’ve ever been to the Kootenays, and if you ever want to have a good time, you go to Baynes Lake for their breakfasts and their muffins. The folks in Baynes Lake put on a pretty good spread, so I don’t want to jeopardize that.

But we did have a plan. We did have a plan in 2017, as I said. For whatever reason, we are here where we are today and talking about legislation. But we’re also looking at more consultation. And then, of course, there will be a five-year review. That might be a little long. We’ll have to examine that in committee stage, on the review process — if five years is a good target. Maybe we should be a little bit…. Maybe take the data in a little quicker so that we can adjust.

We know, as I’ve just recited here not too long ago, what can happen in five years. Five years is an eternity when you are in a bit of a crisis, as we’re seeing right now. So it could be money well spent to make sure that we have the resources and data and information so we can do that review a little quicker.

As I said, we did have a plan. We’re here where we are today. I’m happy to say B.C. United did put out a wildfire reform. They did come out with a couple of key points that I thought were really good. The first one is to create a modern, full-time firefighting service. This will be accomplished with a significant investment in more front-line personnel, a much larger provincial fleet of aircraft and cutting-edge fire suppression systems and technology.

If I can expand on that a little bit. I know, in 2018, we had some pretty severe fires in the Cranbrook–Elk Valley area. The community of Moyie was impacted quite a bit. I believe it was the Lumberton fire or the Sunrise fire. Anyways, it was devastating, and it basically evacuated the whole community of Moyie.

At the one end of Moyie Lake, there’s an RV park there that houses well over 300 people. They were evacuated. The thing was, in that little community, in the summertime, there was an ex–fire chief from Alberta along with three or four other acting firefighters that were there. They also secured a fire pump truck just for emergencies.

They were well trained in emergency management, and they wanted to save their community. Embers were flying, as you can imagine. RVs are parked fairly close together. There was a real threat that that whole community could have gone up in a instant puff of smoke.

Unfortunately, like we saw in West Kelowna this year, the orders were: “If you leave, you can’t come back.” Now, I can understand. You have to get some policing on this because everybody is a armchair quarterback, so to speak, sometimes. But these folks were clearly not.

At that time, I said: “Well, there should be some kind of a process that proactively registers….” I believe there’s one now, but it’s very unclear on how it’s activated. What I’m getting at is the professionals. It’s not just retired fire chiefs and firemen. We’ve got a whole industry that’s waiting out there right now.

The mining code says that any mining operation, for example, has to have proper suppression, proper emergency preparedness, skills training, and they have to be there ready to fight a fire. Logging, forestry, has the same kind of thing. So these folks are available resources that could have boots on the ground when fire strikes and there wasn’t….

[3:15 p.m.]

I think it was in 2018 as well. There was a fire up in the Columbia Valley, right next to a mine site. They had all the fire suppression equipment there, but they were to leave immediately. They could have helped. Maybe we should be clearer on how we can pre-register these resources. Make sure they’re qualified, make sure they’re trained. But these folks are right there when the fire happens. They’re literally miles away. They could be there in a second.

I have to say, in the Grasmere area, we’re right along the U.S. border. It’s literally a five- or ten-minute drive. I can’t tell you how many times there’s been fire in Canada, just north of the U.S. border, where the U.S. fire service is there way faster than the Canadian side. I’m not knocking any of the Canadian resources. I’m just wondering if we can coordinate that as well. It looks like it’s already there.

I’ll do a little piece for my dad, because he used to say: “We used to have watch towers, and you’d have somebody sitting on a watch tower.” Some of those watch towers I hike to now, and they’re just beautiful vistas, but it was effective. So part of this create “a modern, full-time firefighting service” identifies that in fleets of aircraft, cutting-edge fire suppression systems and technology. They’re here. They’re ready. So let’s implement that.

The second piece is: “Use B.C. contractors early and broadly.” I think that’s kind of what I spoke to. B.C. contractors possess local knowledge and offer the best opportunity for the fastest suppression response possible. In the off-season, we will develop an exhaustive inventory of all qualified and available contractors in B.C. — so that includes industry, whoever it is — and eliminate unnecessary red tape barriers to the rapid deployment without compromising safety.

I think that’s what we’re going to be getting to in this bill. If not, we’ll be asking for it, perhaps, in committee stage.

Number 3: trust, engage and support First Nations and local knowledge. We will train and supply local volunteer fire response teams by ensuring they have the supplies and water resources cached in rural and remote areas to enhance initial response times. We will also address issues relating to liability insurance, certifications and standardized training for these teams.

Once again, local knowledge, First Nations — their part, in section 3, and this is absolutely critical. We need to use that information, need to use that knowledge.

Number 4: aggressively adapt forestry management practices. This is, perhaps, probably one of the more complicated issues that we have, but we will ensure a much greater emphasis on removing forest fuel via selective harvesting of timber, whether damaged by beetle infestations or previous fires via expedited approvals, regulatory changes and financial incentives.

Once again, a little bit easier said than done. We have to look out for our import duty tax and our competitive…. How we harvest our timber — that it’s in accordance with the United States, on the import duty tax and things like that. But it definitely is something we need to address.

I’m going to give, also, a shout-out I forgot at the beginning. Well, actually, first of all, I’ll go to some recommendations. That was part of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government, Services, and I’ll go to some of the recommendations. I thought I had it marked. There it is.

So the Comox regional district expressed concern that government’s approach of providing emergency management funding to local governments through grants restricts their capacity to plan for disaster response and consult with Indigenous partners. The regional district of East Kootenay — that’s where I’m from — discussed the increased need for emergency management due to floods and fires. Both regional districts recommend increasing emergency management funding for local governments.

I think one of those recommendations…. I think it’s recommendation No. 138 out of 166 recommendations. Recommendation 138 says: “Provide $6.75 million in base funding to regional districts for emergency management.”

[3:20 p.m.]

Now, I hope, through all these conversations, and through the Minister of Finance, we can get there. All these regional districts…. I think there are — help me out — 22, 26 regional districts in the province.

Has anybody got…? Come on. The Chair of the committee is here.

I can’t remember, but I think there are, say, roughly 24 regional districts. This is money well spent that bolsters the resources that they need in order to coordinate response times and coordinate emergency responses in their areas. I was really happy that the committee put that recommendation forward. We heard from a lot, and I think that one was super important.

I’ll speak a little bit to the member for Delta South. “The B.C. Dairy Association emphasized that prioritizing flood mitigation infrastructure investment is necessary for the stability of the agricultural industry. Also related to flooding, the Emergency Planning Secretariat expressed concern that some of the recovery work after the 2021 flood is repeating the same mistakes that were made initially, such as putting dikes back in their original positions. The organization recommended providing funding to support subregional and regional floodplain tables and for First Nation participation.”

So food security, obviously, is super important. When we get to emergency response, a lot of that emergency response is getting food to people that have been cut off from food supplies.

We have a real opportunity in British Columbia to coordinate with those local food providers, get that food out so that people that are off cut from supply chains when we see floods wipe out highways and bridges and stuff like that — that that food gets in. I’m sure the member for Delta South will maybe speak to that a little bit later, as he is the expert.

I just wanted to point out…. I’ve only got a minute left.

Once again, David Wilks…. He’s the mayor of Sparwood. This is what he said when I asked: “Have you got anything to say about emergency preparedness?” They had the Ladner Creek fire, which is right on his doorstep, and the whole town of Sparwood was on edge for weeks.

“We need to improve communications in the first 24 hours of the fire. I was flying on the seat of my pants, as I couldn’t get any accurate information. I know it’s tough, but you have a community that’s watching a fire on their doorsteps. We really need an aggressive forest management plan. We need to be proactive rather than reactive. We have so much timber that could be harvested in a responsible manner before it burns.

“As I said to the press this summer, we can either have a responsible forest management plan, or we can let Mother Nature take care of it.”

I think that sums it up pretty good, and I think that’s what I was getting at with prescribed burns. A lot of people feel uncomfortable. A lot of people say: “Well, it’s putting pollutants up in the air.” For sure. But what’s the result if you don’t manage it properly? You have catastrophic wildfires that take out communities, that add to the GHG emissions if you want to look at it that way. But more importantly, it threatens people and their lives.

With that, I’ll take my place. I’ve got 12 seconds left.

M. Starchuk: Before I provide my remarks, I just want to take the time to reflect on the six people…. Their lives were tragically taken during this last wildfire season.

I had the — maybe “privilege” is not the correct word — opportunity to be in Barriere as a structural firefighter in 2003. I often say that as a structural firefighter, I would much rather be in a 60-year-old wood-frame apartment building with half a tank of air on my back than ever go back to a forest fire — ever.

I have never been more scared in my entire life than those days spent in Strawberry Hill outside of Barriere. It’s also nice to be able to say that not one of those homes perished during my watch. I’m pretty proud of that fact that’s there.

[3:25 p.m.]

I also want to take the time to thank the member for Kootenay East, as the Deputy Chair on Finance, and pointing out those things that were there. They were important for the Finance Committee to hear. Not putting words into his mouth, but it was a no-brainer to put it as recommendations in that report that was there.

I want to address a couple of things that are inside of here, but, more importantly, to start off with thanks to the minister responsible for enduring this last summer in more than one way. I cannot imagine, in any way, shape or form, having to roll over in your sleep, pick up a phone and continue on while I was pregnant.

Thank you very much, Minister, for the effort that you’ve put forward.

I also want to make sure that it’s clear, after my experiences in 2003…. The Filmon report came out, and it identified some very critical things that were there. It wasn’t until 2018 that another report came out to talk about those things. Rather than talk about the delays and what took place…. I’m happy to say that we have a FireSmart program, which is in the province, as a result of that. It just took a little while to get to where we are.

The other thing I want to mention is having that experience of being in the forest when a fire is candling and it is running. It doesn’t matter what kind of fire suppression that you have. You will not stop Mother Nature.

We’ve heard innuendos and guesses. I mean, Howie Meeker made a career of second-guessing whether or not the puck should have been passed or shot, for an entire lifetime.

I will never doubt the fact that what our people were doing in the forests were the best things that they could do at that time. We can be second-guessing. We can be Monday morning quarterbacks. I have complete and total faith that those people that face that danger and that peril on a typical day did the best things that were for all of us.

We’ve heard about fuel management. It is a real thing. When we take a look at the FireSmart program…. I always think about Logan Lake and how they survived the fires from a couple of years ago. That is a classic example of fuel mitigation, if you will, where they took the time to peel back the forest, to remove the duff from the forest floor, to make that area that’s there….

It’s not like other areas of the province where you can turn on a sprinkler and just walk away. Some of these areas are on well water. You turn on a sprinkler and walk away, and the sprinkler is stopped in an hour. We have to take all of those things into consideration.

The thing I want to talk about the most is this task force. We’ve heard it from subject-matter experts for quite some time. When I take a look at it…. They’re talking about preparedness. They’re talking about mitigation. They’re talking about response and recovery. I think those are the key pillars when we think about what this task force can do.

I have a personal story that I want to share. One of those people that’s on the task force is the executive director for FNESS, who’s Wayne Schnitzler. Wayne is a person that I’ve known for a very long time. I can’t really give you the amount of years because that will be suggestive as to what my age is.

Wayne and I started off as volunteer firefighters in the city of Surrey. He left — he was smarter than I was — to get out of there and to go to West Kelowna to become the fire chief. Now he’s the executive director for FNESS. Wayne has seen the opportunities that are there for the nations to protect their reserves and to protect their lands with their own people that are there.

We often see firefighters coming from other parts of the globe and other parts of the country to help protect some of our stands of forest. We all know that those First Nations that come from that area know their land the best, and they have the biggest amount of interest that’s invested into it. I’m not saying that a person that comes from Australia doesn’t care as much as that person that’s there. But the person that’s standing there with that training….

That is training that FNESS has given to the First Nations people themselves, provided them with the expertise and the tools that are there so that they can actually make a stand when they know it’s appropriate to do so. Not only do they make a stand in the sense of when a fire appears, but they’ve been given the skills, knowledge and ability to mitigate what’s on their properties — to clear the duff from the edges, to remove some of the forested areas that are there, to do the things that they need to do to prepare themselves for when and if that takes place.

[3:30 p.m.]

We heard that the majority of the fire strikes start from lightning. We can’t control that part of it, but what we can control is the part about how we can prevent and the part about how we can protect at the same time.

I want to make sure that it’s really clear that this task force includes all the people that are the subject-matter experts on the field as well as in the office.

Wayne will probably crucify me for saying this, and the minister may as well, but in his words: “We have enough engineers. We need people that have command-strength, foot-strength powers.” We need the person that operates our EOCs to understand the incident command system, so that we are protecting those very people that are in the forest and that are protecting us. I’m glad to say that when you take a look at the list of people that are being invited to the table, I’m very impressed with those people that have the structural and wildland firefighting techniques.

The last thing I want to leave you with is the issues around ESS that have been addressed inside of here as well. They have an onerous job. They are dealing with people on the worst day of their lives. They are dealing with people that want an answer an hour before they got there. I know that Amazon tells me on a regular basis that I need to buy something before I buy it, but this is something that is completely different.

The people that are working at the ESS have been there for, in some cases, a very long time. The switch to technology, as I will admit to — you know, removing this piece of paper — is not the easiest thing to do. To remove all of the paper and move itself over to an electronic format sometimes is not what’s inside of somebody’s comfort zone. Let’s never forget that the comfort zone of these people…. They’re volunteers, they’re well-trained volunteers, and they’re there for all the right reasons.

I can’t express in the biggest words, other than what I’ve said today — and I’ll make it brief — that I am so happy that there is a task force that’s assigned inside of here. So many times we’ve heard, inside of the House, you know, that this is going to happen, and we need to have this happen, or whatever it is, but I think we’re predisposing what may need to happen.

Let’s let the subject-matter experts get in that room. Let’s let them tell their stories of what has taken place over the last number of years. Let’s tell the success stories, let’s talk about the failures, and let’s talk about how to improve this. But it’s only going to happen when this moves itself forward.

I love the time frame that’s inside of it. I don’t believe anything ever happens too quickly, but in this case here, I think it’s going to bring solitude, peace and quiet to those people that are on the front lines and that are serving us in the world of wildfire, flood and other mitigation efforts.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Peace River North.

D. Davies: Hon. Speaker, I thought the member was going to go a few more minutes. He kind of caught me off guard there a little bit.

First of all, I stand here with the great pleasure of representing the folks of Peace River North. Obviously, in Peace River North and throughout the Peace region, we’ve seen our fair share of disasters — of course, the fires. I believe we started off early in the year. I think it was in the first week of May that we had our first two big forest fires. Those were the Red Creek and the Stoddart Creek forest fires that started, which are just a very short distance out of Fort St. John — in fact, triggering an evacuation alert for the city of Fort St. John and area.

It is certainly close to home, literally and figuratively, when we’re talking about Bill 31 and the Emergency Disaster Management Act, which is a fairly good-sized bill. I will talk a lot more over the next few minutes about the legislation.

Like others who have gone before me, I do want to take the time to thank the many people…. I think my colleague from Kootenay East talked about his residents and the resiliency, and I certainly think that we could probably lay that over a lot of people.

[3:35 p.m.]

I know there are folks of Fort St. John or of the region that have been evacuated. This has happened not once, not twice but three or four times over the years that people have been facing these challenges. Or just the general worry of when…. It was really interesting this summer when the city was put on alert. There’s a level of anxiety that hits every single person, and you can feel it. You can actually feel that anxiety that runs through a community. That’s on an alert. I’ve never myself been on an order before, but I can only imagine the stress that must cause people when they’re certainly facing an order, and again, to a little lesser extent, the alert.

The resiliency, I think, is definitely something I also do want to address. I recognize the folks of my region, the Peace region, and throughout the province. To all the firefighters, whether they’re working for B.C. Wildfire, contracted to B.C. Wildfire…. Gratitude to the countries that supply firefighters to British Columbia, to the municipalities and regional districts that so freely send a truck and a crew across the province to help residents or fellow British Columbians, wherever that might be.

Mayors and councillors, regional district people that are under an incredible amount of stress when they’re signing off on these orders — they’re signing off on working late hours. Deciding: are we putting our community on alert? Are we putting our community onto an order? Making sure that their ESSs are all up and operating. So the incredible level of stress that it puts on our local governments as well. I would certainly be remiss if we didn’t give pause to — as, again, that has been mentioned numerous times — the six firefighters that perished this summer.

As has been mentioned, this bill replaces the Emergency Program Act, which I believe any significant changes…. I think it was 1993 when it was done.

I’m sorry. I do need to add…. I see the minister here. I know we’re not supposed to call out people in the chamber, but I do want to thank the minister, who did reach out a number of times. As a constituent MLA, obviously we have people calling, people engaging us. We have people concerned, whether they’re landowners or people that own companies that are in the area. It does value a lot when the minister checks in. Even just to check in: “How are things going?” What’s important for me — and I got to thank my CAs, who are also kind of that front line and receiving those phone calls — when we can actually say we are in touch, and we’re trying to work. Not everything is going to go perfect, and we know that, but that connection is certainly appreciated.

So thank you for that.

I was just looking at where we’re at today. Here we are, the early first week of October, and there’s a news story on our local news station that the Donnie Creek fire, which is the biggest fire in British Columbia, is moving now towards 700,000 hectares that are burned. A significant area is still, today, burning out of control. I don’t think out of control…. The Stoddart Creek fire is still burning, and they’re expecting those fires to burn until next summer. They will burn right through the winter. The incredible impact that these fires have on, obviously, the landscape and the environment….

People down here in the Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island, throughout British Columbia are feeling the effects of these disasters, whether it be the smoke in the air and the challenges that we have with the environment around us or when we’re looking at floods and the impact that they have on food chain, supply, transportation and all those challenges that we face.

[3:40 p.m.]

It is important to recognize that disasters look different across the province. I was talking to my colleague here from Delta South. Not a lot of disasters in Delta South. But Kootenay East — we’ve got fires in Kootenay East. In fact, I was visiting my colleague’s riding here this summer, and elk…. It’s a disaster. You know, 100,000 elk are devastating crops and impacting ranchers so negatively. Then you move up into the Interior. You’ve got the flooding, and you’ve got the forest fires. So disasters do look a lot different, and many of us face these disasters every year.

One of my first disasters that I had was early on in my…. I think it was 2018. We had the Old Fort slide, a community that’s right on the edge of Fort St. John, down in the Peace River Valley. The valley slid and cut off that small community. There was no transportation in or out. They couldn’t get food. People were trapped down there. The only way that they were getting it out was either helicopter or using river boats. Again, that was really close to home. I think the Old Fort is approximately seven kilometres from Fort St. John.

These disasters look different across the province, but I think this bill needs to be looking at: how do we manage these better? I think this is something that…. My colleague before me spoke and talked…. Nothing happens fast. Nothing’s going to happen in a hurry. But, my goodness, we need to get on this, because this has been talked about. You know, this isn’t a new idea. This isn’t a new concept.

The previous government, the B.C. Liberal government, was talking about this. Early on in the mandate of the present government, it’s been talking about this. There have been reports. There have been challenges, and we are still now just getting to where a piece of legislation is hitting the table which has implementation timelines two years out. I don’t think that’s quick enough. That’s two more years of disasters where people are still going to be wondering how we’re moving on.

In many cases, this legislation leaves a lot open to regulation, to decisions that are going to be made around the cabinet table — basically, a lot of enabling pieces in this legislation, which I don’t think is the best way to go forward on this. But there are some things that we need to be looking at. There are good things in this, but there are things that also need to be improved.

I’m going to mention…. My colleague from Skeena was talking earlier about the engagement piece and the First Nations, including Indigenous communities, and having that voice in this piece of legislation and bringing forward better ways to manage our force, for instance, talking about the force. This is, I think, a really good thing, and I think we should have been doing this for a long time — including more of that local experience. I know that’s one thing I heard over and over again this summer: “Nobody’s listening to us.”

I can talk to the experience with the Red Creek fire. You know, Red Creek is a small community just north of Fort St. John where the fire was. Well, they were actually on evacuation order. The firefighters move in there. Again, these firefighters are coming from all over the province. They don’t know the ground in and around, in this instance, Fort St. John, but you could lay this over — whether you’re talking the Kootenays or wherever.

They’re showing up, fighting a fire, and they’re not using that local expertise, that local experience, which is so critical and needs to happen. That is something that we need to be leaning on more and more — making sure that we’re including those local voices.

Some of the stuff that we heard this summer is…. This is a very simple example. They were going to bulldoze a path, a right-of-way, a clearcut where they could help fight the fire. But the local residents were talking about: “No, there’s a road. There’s a pipeline right-of-way that’s just a little bit beyond that.”

[3:45 p.m.]

It’s the very simple things like that that can save, at the end, people’s lives, possibly. It certainly saves money. It certainly saves time. And it certainly, hopefully, gets that fire out sooner or makes a positive impact on that fire.

So having that local engagement with local people that live there on the ground, our First Nations, the Indigenous communities, which in my riding…. We had a number of them that were on evacuation alert and orders this summer. Anyway, it is something where I think there is some good movement in regards to making sure that those voices are included in this legislation.

One of the things we’ve seen that Bill 31 does is the burdens that could be placed on local governments, that are placed on how things are delivered by the municipalities. Again, I started off my talk about how they’re already facing a lot of challenges, whether you’re organizing the ESS, they’re providing equipment for other fires around the province or just the matter of organizing what their emergency alerts or orders look like.

That is one thing that we are looking forward to obviously getting into during committee stage. I’m sure there will be lots of questions. It’s not a small bill, but I’m sure there will be lots of questions around that.

We’ve seen that our…. This summer certainly being one of the worst summers for fires, we’ve seen how stretched our local governments are already. By potentially adding more responsibility and more issues that they’re going to be having to deal with is certainly a big concern that we hear and that we are going to be…. I’ll guarantee that when we start going back to our communities over the next week, we’ll probably be hearing that exact same thing.

I did talk about…. This bill is not…. Yes, we’re debating this bill today, but this has been something that has been already delayed. We’ve already seen a delay of this coming forward. Again, we talked about this when the previous government started to bring in changes and recommendations. Even our own colleague from Kamloops, introducing private members’ legislation around streamlining processes….

One that’s interesting is the disaster financial assistance, which is a huge challenge. If you’ve talked to anybody who has ever tried to go through DFA and get a claim…. I would not want to wish that on my worst enemy because it is cumbersome. We still have people, even today…. I started off talking about the slide in Old Fort back in 2018. Still, people today are trying to get answers for what they can do.

This summer, up in the Fort Nelson area, the fire wiped out Big Nine Outfitters. It’s a guide-outfitter company, and they’re still trying to get information on what they’re going to be getting for compensation. What does that look like? Even answers of just how it happened. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did.

So trying to get that information out from the people that should be providing these answers adds an unnecessary burden, an unnecessary stress on someone who’s already facing an unbelievable amount of stress, especially when they’ve lost a big chunk of their livelihood like their business.

I think that is one thing that we hear over and over again, and I don’t think it matters on what the disaster is. It’s that communication piece. Communications from, in this case, how even we as MLAs were having information. It took a little while for us to get that information when we’re trying to find stuff for our residents or trying to get the answers for our residents.

There was always the challenge of what needs to get out to the people. Municipalities were struggling to try and get information that they were trying to get out to people.

[3:50 p.m.]

Hopefully, this is something that we can track or talk a bit more, further on during committee stage. Hopefully, something that this bill will improve on is that communication to local governments, communication to all the people that are involved with the fire, including the residents, who are the ones that are going to be really facing the stresses of these fires.

I guess I look at the track record of the government and — I know we’ve said this lots of times — the results, and that’s what worries me. You know, I’m hopeful that we can dive into a lot of information during committee stage. But it worries me that this bill isn’t going to hit everything that we need to be seen, as far as delivering what’s best for British Columbians and the results that British Columbians I think are going to expect.

We’ve seen, in fact, just recently…. The Ombudsperson’s report from 2021 has highlighted issues around the government’s response to disasters. That’s two years ago now. And now we’ve got another two years before anything happens. People need to see results right now. People expect to see the government working for them right now.

As we see the…. Hopefully, next year isn’t as bad, but if we look at the trends…. I mean, forest fires are getting worse in the summer. We see more flooding happening across the province. So we are seeing more of these happening. We need to make sure that we figure out a way to make things better.

I know my colleague talked about prescribed burns, and I certainly am a big fan of prescribed burns. I know a lot of the First Nation communities around my region are talking about that. I work with one of my constituents, Sonja Leverkus. She lives in Fort Nelson. Since I got elected, she’s been on me about prescribed burns and why the government doesn’t do more of them as an avenue forward to manage our forests and to clean up our forests, which, again, is something that we really need to do.

I’m skipping all over my notes here.

One of the things that I want to highlight here a little bit…. With this bill, Bill 31, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act, we do want to be a willing partner. We’ve brought forward a private member’s motion for the government to consider.

We’ve just recently come out with our own B.C. United wildfire plan. It does touch on…. There are some overlaps in here. We’re looking at modernized firefighting services, leveraging that local expertise — and this is what we brought out a month ago — empowering local response teams, swift support for evacuees. And boy, this summer we had….

We have a list of quotes here. I’m not going to read the quotes — I’ll save that, maybe, for my colleagues — but we’ve got five pages of quotes from people that were let down at ESS centres. At a moment of probably some of the worst times of their life, they felt that their backs were being turned on them, because they could not get the services.

The stories of people sleeping in their cars for three days before they could get services — some people, after three or four or five days, just completely turned away and go try and fend for themselves at family or wherever. So we definitely need to improve that support for evacuees.

Our fifth point was forest management and prevention, which I just talked about, around keeping our forests clean, looking at how we manage our forests better to prevent these fires, to prevent slides and other disasters that we’re seeing.

[3:55 p.m.]

I think, as we move forward, and we get into the committee stage where we can go clause by clause and start looking at each of these pieces, I’m looking forward to going back to my riding, taking this information, talking to the people that were impacted by this, whether it be my local government — again, this summer we had a ton of people that were impacted by wildfires up in the Peace region — having those discussions, bringing all that information back and having a meaningful debate with the minister and the ministry staff about: is this the best way forward? What improvements can be made?

At the end of the day, what we’re all doing here is to serve British Columbians better. I think that if we can keep that in our forefront, we’ll be better off.

In closing, I do look forward to that committee stage. I’ll certainly be having my own questions and such that I’ll be collecting throughout this week.

With that, I’ll take my place.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for allowing me to take this time today to speak on behalf of the wonderful constituents of Kelowna.

This bill is definitely one that hits home. This new emergency management legislation that’s been brought forward is something that is desperately needed. This bill seeks to repeal and replace the existing Emergency Program Act, which really hasn’t seen any significant revisions in quite some time.

This last summer and the summer before that and two summers before that, we have witnessed the increasing severity of our wildfire seasons and a rise in the climate-related disasters. It’s clear that we need a refreshed approach to our emergency management in our province.

To say that this was a difficult summer in the Okanagan would be just an understatement. We were cast again into a fiery chaos, and there are a lot of emotions that swirl. I watched from my patio as the fire came down over the mountain on the west side, and I watched it as it jumped the lake and came onto the east. I experienced the chaos that ensued.

I have to give a big shout-out to our fire departments led by Jason Brolund, Travis Whiting, Darren Lee and Paul Zydowicz — they were truly remarkable; and the B.C. Wildfire Service as well. They were just absolutely extraordinary, bringing firefighters from literally all around the world together in one united dance.

All of the mayors and Chiefs were at that table. The regional district, under the leadership of chair Loyal Wooldridge and CAO Sally Ginter, was nothing less than extraordinary. I watched in real time those relationships forged throughout years — and decades, in some cases — really ignite in a way that was positive and that allowed the fire to come to a close as quickly as it did.

Were there mistakes made? Yes, absolutely. But they couldn’t eclipse all the good that was done. Most of the mistakes and most of the difficulties were on the front-facing aspects of the chaos — how people were treated when they were evacuated and when they were out of their homes. There was panic. There was confusion, sadness, unsettled feelings and difficulty in being displaced. It was incredibly hard on our mental health, and we struggled.

While the smoke and flames are now smouldering and clearing, my attention is going to how we cared for the people in our area during this time. Don’t get me wrong. The volunteers were extraordinary, truly phenomenal, in their dedication of 24-7 and one of the truly celebrated and positive aspects of our community coming together. I could name some of the agencies that stepped forward. The Salvation Army, Red Cross, United Way, Mamas for Mamas, the food banks and all of those that were serving at the emergency support service centre at the Royal LePage arena as well as Prospera Place were nothing less than phenomenal.

[4:00 p.m.]

But they were completely hampered in their efforts by ineffectual computer systems, unclear guidelines and regulations and a lack of support from provincial authorities. They were running to Best Buy to buy computers because they simply did not have enough.

In emails, phone calls and messages that ensued, I had the opportunity to hear many of the stories of our fellow residents who were evacuated. They grappled with the bureaucratic processes trying to secure reimbursements. Their pleas and frustrations echo the sentiments of a community feeling left behind by the very system supposed to aid them. Further, it was disheartening to learn that some residents never even made it through the queue, left standing in the lurch when assistance was most crucial. There were tens of thousands of residents displaced, and not all received support.

I went to the ESS at Royal LePage centre to see the process firsthand, and the stories became even more tangible. Many evacuees I spoke with were there on their third and fourth visit, having driven or having to hitch a ride all the way from Kelowna each time. Imagine the stress of revisiting the same place, coming back into the fire area no less, seeking help and having to go back time and time again without any resolution.

The repeated visits were a testament to a support system that had really faltered under the pressure of the system. While the flames were fierce, the aftermath reveals the clear inefficiencies and failures of the support system implemented by the NDP government. As one of the local MLAs, I have advocated for our constituents, believing that there must be a mistake in their understanding. It was only after this advocacy work by myself as well as the MLA for Kelowna–Lake Country and MLA for Kelowna West that we actually have seen some significant adaptations that have been given and some accommodations that have been given by the minister.

The minister’s suggestion that the ESS scheme payments were for those with immediate financial constraints was such cold comfort for many struggling with reimbursement. There was no definition of need. It was some subjective issue that was dealt with on an ad hoc basis. There was no promise of help.

If you didn’t make it through the queue, you didn’t get help. If you had a car to sleep in, well, that might be defined as not needing help. If you could couch surf, if you could separate your family into three groups of different homes, well, does that mean that you didn’t need one of the open hotel rooms in Kelowna? It was very, very confusing for the vast majority of our constituents, and it was unnecessary at best.

The wait times were days long to even figure out the answer to the question of whether or not you qualified for need. The root issue seemed to be failing software and an inefficient support system. This was confirmed by the B.C. Ombudsperson in their most recent report on the ESS system. “All too often…people who are disproportionately impacted by extreme weather” faced unfair barriers in accessing the emergency supports they needed, “including Indigenous people, people with disabilities, lower-income households, older people and children, and people with physical and mental health needs.”

We saw that firsthand in our area, as they were constructing, on the airplane mid-flight…. The queue system that had been invented was now colourful, and every person was given a colour. You could check on the website to see when your colour had come up. But while I was at the ESS, a gentleman with the correct colour of the day was told to come back in a few hours because the queue was just simply too long. He had come not once but twice in the very same day, on the day that he was appointed to come, desperate for answers.

I’m so grateful for the local leadership of the ESS that kept trying to optimize the system and work with the bureaucracy to optimize it, as well as the tireless volunteers that worked in impossible conditions with inadequate tools and systems.

The Ombudsperson addressed some of this as well saying: “The complexity of large scale and compounding disasters is exceeding the current design and capacity of the ESS program. The province must strengthen support for community-led ESS teams, including through ensuring timely and efficient surge support, integrating professional mental health care and creating a reliable communication hub for evacuees.”

Although the McDougall Creek fire presented an unprecedented challenge, the reactionary stance of the NDP government was evident. The minister mentioned ongoing enhancements. It really begs the question: weren’t these systems robust to begin with?

[4:05 p.m.]

You see, the Ombudsperson’s report was actually from two years ago, but my experience was just from this summer, which means we haven’t learned anything in the last two years. This isn’t the first big disaster to happen in B.C. in five years.

I hardly need to remind you, hon. Speaker, of the fire that burned Lytton to the ground, the floods that swept through the Fraser, Nicola and Similkameen Valleys and washed out the Coquihalla.

I’m getting emotional because this summer we actually toured these areas and saw firsthand the devastation and heard the emotion of those that felt left behind.

In some of the speeches that I’ve been listening to over the course of the last two days, I’ve heard the mention of this celebratory 90-day recovery period. Well, that is cold comfort to those that are waiting more than two years for answers and for restoration.

If any province should be dialled in on emergency management, it should be B.C. We should be effective at it. But now the story is that I have people that have lost their homes in the McDougall fire that look at me and have said: “Please don’t let us become another Lytton.”

So when I read Bill 31, I was eager to see how this would be an answer for those people, how I could give those assurances to say: “No, things are going to be different, and here’s why.” But I am perplexed, because I cannot see the different ideology and the different virtuous statements that I’ve heard from some of the NDP speeches. I can’t find it in this bill.

This NDP government promised this bill in 2020. It’s three years later and three fire seasons later, three flood seasons later. In 2017, when we were on the other side of this House, we actually had a bill ready to go that covered all of the aspects included in this bill but also covered the DFA issues, as well as the ESS. The beginning of my speech covered a lot of the ESS issues. I haven’t even started on the DFA issues yet. But this bill does not bring an answer or a resolve to any of those issues that were mentioned.

In February of this year, recognizing the devastating impacts of the 2021 wildfires and hoping to avoid a repeat tragedy, we reintroduced a private member’s bill aimed at overhauling B.C.’s disaster financial assistance program, the DFA. We emphasized the pressing concerns regarding the DFA and the need to address new challenges to better protect our communities and to restore our communities.

Our bill called on the government to take measures such as streamlining the DFA claim process, defining affordability criteria, expanding DFA scope, extending application deadlines and developing a grant program for homeowners in high-risk areas. But regrettably, the NDP has ignored and disregarded not one but both of these bills, leading to even more significant issues with disaster assistance delivery during this summer and in 2021.

Bill 31 demonstrates that the government has not learned from past lessons. It lacks meaningful changes to disaster financial assistance. It provides vague explanations where clarity is needed. It fails to solve the problems that have persisted for years under two terms of this NDP government.

As elected officials, it’s our duty to ensure that changes are beneficial, bridging gaps in service and supporting people through times of emergency and disaster. The people of British Columbia deserve more than just another delayed and bureaucratic government response. It’s doubtful that this bill, in its current form, will sufficiently assist those that were let down by the emergency services during this year’s fire season.

Time is not on our side. One of the most disappointing aspects of this legislation is its failure to provide clear solutions for the significant issues related to disaster financial assistance and compensation.

[4:10 p.m.]

Given the findings that I just mentioned of the Ombudsperson report released on October 3 regarding the 2021 disaster response and the complaints from those in need of assistance, it’s alarming that addressing these concerns was not a priority for this government. The DFA program saw a surge in applications following the 2021 atmospheric river, and the report noted limited public information about the appeals process and decision-making.

Many individuals were unaware of the program or found themselves ineligible, while only a small percentage cited insurance coverage as a reason for not applying. The report’s recommendations include support for community-led ESS, accessible reception centres, support for long-term displacement, Indigenous self-determination in emergency management, improved communication about DFA, streamlined application processing and a reassessment of insurance availability in B.C. in light of climate change impacts.

The NDP government has assured us that all of these will be implemented. So why not in this bill? We have the latest report from the Ombudsperson to consider. The latest Ombudsperson’s investigation focused on the delivery of two financial programs, and neither of those is in this bill. This report highlighted unclear communication, unreasonable delays, inflexibility in support delivery and a lack of consideration for the unique needs of Indigenous evacuees, elderly individuals and those with disabilities.

Well this is a major concern for people in various regions, including the Shuswap, Kelowna, Williams Lake, West Kelowna, Lytton. Across B.C., people depend on the government for relief and support after a disaster. And the Ombudsperson investigation clearly revealed that the government has struggled to effectively provide support to British Columbians in need.

Shockingly, the report indicates that the same problems in delivering disaster assistance in 2021 still persist today and have worsened over time. This NDP government has not learned from past mistakes, and this is a grave concern. The report highlighted unclear communication, unreasonable delays, inflexibility in support delivery and a lack of consideration for the unique needs of those that are most desperate.

After years of delayed action, it’s unacceptable for this government to make those affected by disasters wait even longer for proper support. And while it’s encouraging to see this government acknowledge issues with their disaster response approach, this legislation falls short in addressing these issues.

I will talk about a highlight, however. Because on a positive note, we welcome the inclusion of part 3 of this legislation, which pertains to agreements with Indigenous governing bodies. And I witnessed in our community over this last summer the absolute seamless integration of the decision table in which all of our Chiefs and mayors and regional district leaders were at that table, making decisions and being conduits of communication, culture and community during the time of need.

The changes respect self-determination by involving Indigenous governing bodies as defined in DRIPA, and recognizing the Indigenous peoples’ rights in emergency management, along with significant Indigenous stewardship and knowledge. It’s so important for all of those aspects, but also in how we manage the fire. This is a change that is desperately needed, and we need to emphasize and acknowledge the Indigenous knowledge and experience of those within our communities.

Unfortunately, not only has this bill already been delayed by three years or six years since it was originally promised by this government. But now British Columbians will have to wait another two full years for it to be fully implemented and its benefits to be seen. The government’s website indicates a phased implementation of this legislation beginning in late 2023 and through 2025, which is two years away. This NDP government may have good intentions, but it appears to struggle with effective execution. British Columbians cannot afford to wait another two years for meaningful and lasting results. We don’t have time.

To conclude, this legislation falls short of addressing the significant issues related to disaster management and financial assistance. B.C. United has proposed a comprehensive plan to overhaul wildfire management and disaster response, including measures for modernized firefighting services, local expertise utilization, empowering local response teams, swift support for evacuees, and forest management and prevention. We’re committed to advancing made-in-B.C. technological solutions, increasing prevention spending and modernizing the disaster financial assistance program.

[4:15 p.m.]

The time for a bold new approach to protect our communities, environment and economy is now, and we cannot afford to wait any longer. There’s no doubt that we need change. The last seasons of disaster have been relentless on our communities. Fire seasons of 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023 have been devastating.

Many of our concerns with Bill 31 will be raised during our discussion in this second reading debate, while others will be explored more extensively during the committee stage.

This was not my first time going through this crisis situation. My first time was in 2003, and I can tell you that in a 24-hour-period, over 30,000 evacuees were processed using Beryl Itani’s clipboard with a list of those that were evacuated and the evacuees showing their drivers’ licences proving their addresses. Literally, in 24 hours, we had processed 30,000 with food vouchers, hotel vouchers and getting people the critical need at the time that they needed it.

This bill does not do that. This bill is layering layer upon layer of more bureaucracy, more time and less of a result.

I look forward to hearing what the minister has to say when asked questions in committee, and I thank you for this time to honour the people of our community and the crisis and the trauma that they went through this summer and to honour their experience and to tell their stories in this space and time.

M. Bernier: I’m enjoying taking my place on Bill 31 here. I think it’s important to just reflect on some of the things that we’ve heard in the House already today from both sides of the House: a lot of emotional stories on the impacts that we’ve seen over the years in the province of British Columbia when we’re dealing with disasters.

Some are large in scope, as we’ve seen this year, with the government talking about an unprecedented fire season. Sometimes disasters can be small in nature, in the grand scheme of things, and maybe only affect one or two people, but they should still be treated with the same sense of urgency when we’re talking about the impacts to communities, to citizens, to people in our province.

I think, for me…. When we’re talking about disaster management, yes, we’ve said — and you’ve heard us talk from this side of this House — that it’s…. Sometimes we say it’s a long time coming. As we’ve heard, it’s been 30 years — 30 years this year, I’m told — since the original act. So, obviously, there’s no argument that we’re at a time where it needs to be modernized. It needs to be re-evaluated to ensure that the act and the policies are reflective of what our communities and citizens need in a time of a disaster.

I think it’s also important, though, when you go before this…. Government’s role is to do everything possible to try to mitigate disasters to start with. I mean, obviously, we hope things never happen, and it’s important to have policies in place for when or if disasters do happen.

Again, it’s also important, as a government, that we look at what some of the impacts are. What are some of the disasters that we are seeing time and time again? How can we look at policies to try to mitigate, protect communities, protect our citizens? Hopefully, at the end of the day, Bill 31, the management act that we have, although it’s an important piece to make sure we have as a government — that it’s something that actually does not have to get pulled out, in a perfect world, very often.

[4:20 p.m.]

Obviously, I know that that’s not completely realistic, but I also know that there are opportunities that government has at their disposal through planning, whether it’s forestry, whether it’s around our flood mitigation, to try to get to a place, as we’ve seen over the last couple of years, if nothing else, slow down some of the impacts that’ll happen to our communities.

Now, we heard today, as I said, a lot of emotional commentary from both sides of the House. Disasters are not politically motivated, nor are they understanding of who represents a certain riding. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, because we saw that whether it’s Boundary-Similkameen, whether it’s in the Cariboo, whether it’s in the Okanagan, whether it’s up north, this is a provincial issue, and we need to address it that way.

Through those emotional commentaries today, I think one of the common threads that I also want to add my voice to is thanking the people on the ground, the people of British Columbia. Regardless of what policies we do down here in Victoria, at the end of the day it really comes down to the people in these communities who are doing everything they can to protect, support and help their neighbours when there is a dire situation.

I, like many others, have lived through that, through multiple years. Whether it’s the flood in 2016 in my region, or whether it has been forest fires over the last couple of years, I’ve lived through this. Through that, I’ve also seen where some of the struggles and the challenges are, where some of the gaps are that government needs to address. Whether it’s through the disaster financial assistance or whether it’s just through the communication, we should be, and can be, doing a lot better.

I was hoping that this bill would have covered off a lot of that, but we have seen some of the gaps. I will say that we will have an opportunity, during committee stage, to address some of those — to try to find out, from the government, why, after all these years of originally promising something three or four years ago, it has taken so long to get here; why, after an Ombudsman’s report and all of the community cry and outreach of what needs to be in this bill, it’s not in there. We want to find out why disaster financial assistance….

Especially when we had a private member’s bill brought forward from one of our colleagues on this side of the House, with well-intentioned objectives to try to get government to consider, this would have been a perfect opportunity to have those brought forward and addressed as well. Again, this is not about politics; this is about doing the right thing for the people of British Columbia. I think that’s why we’re going to have to ask those tough questions.

With that, there are times that things do work well or there are good intentions. As my colleague from Peace River North and a few others have mentioned, I, too, will thank the Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness for her outreach when we had forest fires devastating my region, where communities were having to be evacuated.

Did I get all the answers I wanted? No, but in all fairness, I will thank the minister and her staff. I believe his name is Mitch — I hope I don’t get that wrong — on the minister’s staff, who personally called as well, with good intentions of trying to hear what the issues are and trying to help. As I say, did we always get the answers we wanted? No, but I believe everybody was well intentioned to try to do the right thing to help people.

Through those dialogues and through that commentary, that’s where I was hoping we would have learned from where some of those gaps were, and it could have been brought forward in this bill — which I don’t see.

Let me give a couple of examples. We have had the largest fire — I stand to be corrected, but I believe it’s the largest fire — in provincial history up in the Peace region this year. I wish I could say it’s out, but it’s still burning. The Donnie Creek fire and the Stoddart Creek fire were some of the first fires to start this year. They are still burning. We are being told that they are actually anticipated to survive the snowfall in the winter and still be burning next year.

[4:25 p.m.]

That forces us to ask a lot of questions of why. Is it because it’s way up there, so that it’s out of sight, out of mind for Victoria? I sure hope not. But that’s the commentary that we hear from people in our region, especially when those fires first started — where we have oil and gas companies, farmers, ranchers with equipment. We have mass water opportunities with the oil and gas sector and even some local companies.

I know my colleague from Peace River North and I had constant communications with a lot of industry. They say: “We have equipment. We can motivate our staff, get on the ground and do what we can to put firebreaks in place, to use mass water to try to extinguish some of these, to protect some of our ranching and farmers, some of their livestock, their fencing, to look at some of our guide-outfitters, who have lost everything, to look at the impact it has had on the land base.”

When I say that, we have to always remember our wildlife. The impacts we’ve seen in our region, with these massive fires, to the ungulate population and others…. We have to think of this. We have to look at what we can do as a government.

I understand there are some times where we say: “Look, it’s in the best interest, for whatever reason. We’re going to let this one burn.” Government will try to come up with their reasons or excuses for that. But we’ve been unable to get good, clear answers for why we’re not using local talent, local expertise, local volunteers and people who are willing to get out on the ground to protect themselves, their neighbours, their homes, which are their life, in some cases, especially for ranchers, who might lose their livestock, which is their life.

There’s no surprise why some people refuse to leave, even after they’re being told: “You have to.” The heart-wrenching stories that we hear in our offices of people that say: “If I’m going to lose everything, I’m going down with a fight. I’m not just walking away from my house, from my farm, from my community. If that means I’m putting myself at risk, so be it.”

Obviously, we don’t want to support that. We want to make sure we’re doing what we can to help these people. But I can completely understand where they’re coming from and why they feel abandoned.

Now, when these disasters happen, to my point about the volunteers and people stepping up…. I want to thank all of those, just like we all will and have.

I looked at when Tumbler Ridge, earlier this year, as well…. The entire community had to be evacuated. Thankfully, the winds shifted after about a week, after the fires looked like they were going to encompass the community. The fear that people were having, that they were going to lose everything — you know, I can only imagine, and some people in this chamber have lived through this.

The fear that those people were going through, thinking that they were losing everything and just looking for any sense of hope that somebody was watching out for them, that government was going to do everything possible. If it wasn’t for our local first responders only, in this case, who were doing everything they can, and by the good grace of the wind change, Tumbler Ridge…. We’ve heard this analogy used by a few others today, but everything in my office was: “Tumbler Ridge is going to be the next Lytton.”

We’ve seen how government has abandoned Lytton and how those people feel like they are not being supported and, after a couple of years, are still in that same situation of not having a home to go to. If that’s the legacy that we want to talk about in here, that in a disaster situation people are on their own and they feel abandoned, that is not what we should be doing.

We should be doing everything we can, not just through a disaster management act like we have in front of us but through the subsequent actions, policy and directives that come from government to make sure, in a situation like that, that people get the support they need and do not feel abandoned.

[4:30 p.m.]

The local volunteers, of course, who set up these emergency centres, do everything they can, even though we hear the stories of people who feel like they didn’t get the service they wanted, or they didn’t get the answer they wanted. At the end of the day, I always try to remind people: “These are your community volunteers and members who are also stepping up to do the very best they can in the same dire situation.” You have people who are looking at losing their homes and who are also volunteering to try to give comfort to other people in the community.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Some of the gaps we noticed through what I experienced this spring with Tumbler Ridge. The community of Tumbler Ridge had very, very short notice, because this fire started, and it was very aggressive. With very limited notice, they were told to get out. Nobody was told: “Get out, take this road, and go to this centre.” That information came out eventually. Right?

In the heat of the moment, what do people do? They grab their family, a few treasured items and, if they’re lucky, their pets. They get out and try to make sure they’re safe. That’s what we ask them to do. How hard is it for us to explain it to these people? “Oh, by the way, thank you for evacuating and making sure you were safe. That’s what we wanted — obviously, your safety is paramount — but because you went to the wrong community to ask for help, we’re not going to give it to you.”

I had a situation where somebody went to Chetwynd originally. Because that was the closest route for them to drive, they drove to Chetwynd. Thank goodness some volunteers stepped up in Chetwynd and tried to have a little emergency centre set up to try to share information and register people for the best supports they could.

We had people who went to Chetwynd, but they were told: “There are no rooms. You need to go to Dawson Creek.” So then they went to Dawson Creek, and they went to the emergency centre in Dawson Creek to register, and they said: “Sorry. You registered in Chetwynd. We can’t help you.” Because it’s a paper system, there’s no way of verifying, through an electronic system, whether you’ve already received anything or not. So you get nothing, unless you go back to Chetwynd where you registered.

Now, imagine that. Somebody has just fled their home, drove over an hour to the closest community, then drove another hour and a bit to the next community to try to find a hotel or a place to stay, only to be told: “We can’t give you supports. Because you checked in at the other community, you have to go back there.” We had numerous examples that made provincial and, I believe, even national media.

The closest community for Tumbler Ridge is actually right across into Alberta, into Grande Prairie. What were those people told? Because they went to Grande Prairie and tried to register by phone to try to get assistance, they were told: “Sorry. You’re out of province. We can’t help you.”

Those people said: “But I’m from Tumbler Ridge. I’m from British Columbia. I pay my taxes there. I was told to flee to safety. The only road that I was able to get out takes me to Grande Prairie. Why would I not stay here when I found a hotel and a place to stay? I’m just looking for some temporary support.”

Every single one of them was told no. If they wanted support, they had to leave their hotel or, in some cases, where they were able to park their camper or trailer in a Walmart parking lot or what have you. They were told that if they wanted support from the provincial government, they had to drive back to British Columbia.

Now, this needs to be fixed. We’re seeing a lot of the same issues in our health care system, and now we’re seeing it in a disaster situation, when people are just looking for any bit of assistance that they can get.

I went down to the emergency centre, and I did what I hope most politicians do. You go in; you say thank you and then get the heck out of there, because we want to make sure that we’re not a distraction. The trained people on the ground are the ones doing the work. They do the best they can. It’s important that we’re there, by a phone call if needed, to add whatever supports, but I’ve learned, over my 20 years in politics, that sometimes it’s best not to be there. You can, sometimes, with all good intentions, which I think all of us have, be in the way, because we’re not the experts. Let them do their job, and I thank them for doing that.

[4:35 p.m.]

Now, when we talk about some of the disasters that we have in the province of British Columbia — we’ve talked about fires; I mentioned floods — we also have to remember droughts. We have heat domes. We have lots of different things that can happen and that are considered disasters. As I said at the very onset, some of them are grand in scale and some of them small, but we also have to make sure that we’re taking those seriously.

I mentioned the floods that I had in my riding in 2016. If I remember correctly, around 265 bridges and roads were washed out. Communities were stranded. People were flooded out of their homes.

The supports did the best they could. In communities, again, volunteers came out and did what they could, but once again, we found, as we went through that, where some of the gaps were. Some of those were shared, I believe, with the Ombudsperson’s report on making sure that we’re dealing with these. A lot of this stuff, again, didn’t make it into this bill, for some interesting reason.

I want to reflect on one story from one family that I had in my riding in 2016, ’17 and ’18. I say those three years because their discussions, their communications — frankly, I’ll say, their fight — with government transcended over many years and never got resolved. A creek overflowed, the provincial highway infrastructure failed, and now these people, with a small acreage, have all of this provincial infrastructure in their front yard.

I wish I was exaggerating. I got to go see this family in their desperate time, to try to look at what we could do to help them. They had about 400 metres of a washed-out highway that turned into about a 12-foot-deep slurry of provincial infrastructure that made its way and landed on this person’s small five-acre chunk of land. It buried half their house, wiping out….

I should say their house was only three years old, so you can appreciate. This is a young couple with a young couple of kids. This is their life, and it’s devastated. The response they got from government was what we hear time and time again: “Sorry, really feel bad for you. Act of God.” Yes, it was provincial infrastructure that failed, and we see it all over — we saw it through a lot of the floods last year as well — but we need to have a better way when it comes to communicating. I’m not suggesting that the province ante up every single time.

Obviously, sometimes we need to look at it case by case, but we also have to remember that these are people’s lives. They need to be treated with respect and with dignity. That often seems to be lost. We need to do better, I think, collectively to help these people when things like this happen.

Now, when we look at when these disasters happen, one of the things we’ll talk about in committee stage — again, it’s not prescribed in a very definitive way in this bill — is local expertise.

One of the things a lot of people in rural British Columbia especially will talk about is the fact that Victoria makes a cookie-cutter approach policy, thinking it’s going to positively affect or impact everybody across the province in the same way. That’s not true. We all know that. It can’t happen that way.

We need to make sure that our policies are fluid, that our bills reflect the diversity of our province and the fact that the impacts in a tragic situation can sometimes be different. The needs in the communities can be different, and the needs of the individuals impacted can be different.

[4:40 p.m.]

A case in point, again, this year. We had the floods a couple of years ago. Then we had the fire this year. The impact it’s had on our agriculture sector in my region is huge. Now you’ve got the drought on top of that, which, frankly, is another natural disaster. You have ranchers being forced to sell their cattle because of the drought. I’ve got ranchers contacting me that are saying they lost all of their livestock fencing in the fire, and they can’t get help with that. In a lot of cases, insurance doesn’t cover it.

I do have to say, on this one, with all due respect to the Minister of Agriculture…. To come to my region in a situation of a drought disaster and tell the ranchers and the farmers, in my community, that the support they’re going to get is, next year, advice on how to plant drought-resistant crops…. My god, that was a slap in the face. You’ve got people losing everything, people having to sell off their entire livestock, selling off pairs that they will never be able to rebuild in their cattle. A lot to do with the drought.

I will say. Livestock prices are great. In a perfect world, when they were able to keep their livestock and sell them and expand their herd…. That’s what businesses would be doing, and that would be great. But because of the drought and having to sell off their livestock, and then being told, at the same time that they’re losing everything, “Don’t worry. Next year just plant drought-resistant hay….”

Well, I think, hon. Speaker, you can imagine how that went over at a time, which I’m talking about, when we need to be more respectful and understanding of the plight of people in situations of disasters where they could be losing everything.

That brings me, again, to local expertise and knowledge. Now, I know government has announced an emergency management task force. How that’s going to look — not exactly sure. But I’ll tell you. One of the things I’m hearing — and I know other colleagues on this side of the House are hearing it, which means, I hope and assume, government is hearing it — is that regional perspective.

If we’re going to be talking about an emergency management task force, especially after droughts, floods and fires…. What are we doing to get information from the diversity of communities around the province? Maybe from our cattlemen and ranchers. Maybe from our guide-outfitters and hunters. Maybe from our regional districts and First Nations. The list goes on.

We cannot have a couple of bureaucrats or a couple of, possibly, well-intentioned people. A small group from the Lower Mainland on a task force, with all due respect, will not understand what it means for a rancher to lose everything because of a drought year. We need the expertise or the advice or the stories, if nothing else, of those people. They need to be told so people understand the impacts, when there is a disaster, that it has on people.

That’s what this is about. It’s about people. This isn’t about hundreds of pages of words in an act, and that’s all it is. This is about: what are we doing to ensure that we are protecting people? Hopefully, we don’t have disasters. In the worst-case scenarios, when we do have them, the government is ready to support people.

This bill is a lot of words. It’s going to be interesting, when we talk to the minister, to see what’s actually in these words that will substantively help people in case of a disaster. We talked about disaster financial assistance. We talked about supports on the ground, the regional diversity. I don’t see a lot of that in the bill.

Like always, in all fairness to the NDP government…. Like a lot of the bills that come forward, it’s always: “Trust us. There will be regulation. We’ll bring it up at a later date.” It’s well intentioned, but that’s not what people are looking for. People are looking for answers now. Actually, they were looking for them years ago.

[4:45 p.m.]

If nothing else, we have a bill in front of us that is modernizing. As I said at the very beginning — and I’ll finish with this — it’s important that we’re modernizing and keeping up with some of the issues.

We also have to learn. We have to learn from the experiences. When we see what has happened in West Kelowna, in northeast British Columbia, in the Cariboo, in the Fraser Valley…. Again, this is all over the province — different issues, unique circumstances in each place. So we can’t have a cookie-cutter approach on how we’re going to deal with them.

I know the colleague before me, from Kelowna — and I believe I have another colleague from Kelowna that might speak to this — can share those exact on-the-ground situations where families and people felt left out and let down by government.

I will end by saying…. I think we’ve got a huge opportunity, from government, that has been missed here.

It’s one thing to stand up and say: “Look at us. We’re modernizing a bill.” But that’s only part of it. If you’re not going to be modernizing it to a place where it’s actually reflective of what the situations are now, where it’s actually going to give the supports, where it’s actually going to help people, then it’s just words on paper. Words on paper are not going to make people feel safe or feel like they’re protected, in the time of need, when a disaster strikes.

With that, I know we look forward to asking some very prescriptive questions during committee stage. We have a shadow minister from the Cariboo who I know is very passionate on this, who spoke very well yesterday and who is ready to talk to the minister about this issue, as well as some of my other colleagues. I look forward to the rest and some more of the commentary throughout the day.

J. Sturdy: I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill 31, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act.

This bill, as I think we all know by now, repeals and replaces the Emergency Program Act, which is in need of some significant revisions. It has been some time since this act was looked at, although I do recall that there was some work done back in 2017 to replace this. That was not acted on by this government, unfortunately. So we’re six or seven years later now looking at it.

I have to say. I am glad that we’ve finally seen government take some notice. However, there are ongoing and significant issues associated with this legislation, both in terms of the pressure it puts on communities and on property owners as well as — I think it’s fair to say, and I think I’ll touch on it a little bit later — some of the other issues that are significant problems facing this province, which this legislation doesn’t address.

There certainly is a need for clarity on the disaster and emergency management response. I’m not convinced that this bill provides that clarity.

Colleagues from both sides of the House have stories to tell and have described regional and local challenges. Certainly, the Sea to Sky is no different.

I live in what we often describe as a very dynamic place. It has a plethora of hazards. I’ll talk about some of them and how they may be impacted by this legislation or not. To start with, at a high level, at a significant level, which has not just regional but provincial implications…. In West Vancouver–Sea to Sky, we have the pleasure of having three volcanoes reside in our region. That certainly requires that we pay attention.

[4:50 p.m.]

One of them, Mount Cayley, they describe as an eroded but potentially active — you never not like that term “potentially active” — stratovolcano, which I was going to actually look up, but I didn’t have the chance. I’m not quite sure what a stratovolcano is, but it doesn’t sound very good — and potentially active.

Then, of course, there’s Mount Garibaldi. I will take, with the indulgence of the Speaker, just a sec to mention that Mount Garibaldi is actually currently under a request for a name change from the Squamish Nation, a name change to Nch’ḵay̓”. There’s an application into the B.C. geographical names office to change the name.

It’s interesting what that means. What does that name actually mean? Well, what I’m led to understand is that it means “dirty place,” or “grimy one” is another interpretation of it. That’s as a result of debris flow and of mudslides and the fact that the Cheekye River, which originates on Mount Garibaldi, is often just a muddy, torrential mess. It has…. I’ll talk a little bit about it later.

The oral history of Nch’ḵay̓”…. It played a central role in the survival of the Squamish people. Many of you who have been through Squamish will have seen that peak, and it’s just a magnificent peak that rises above Squamish to the north.

According to the Squamish people, during the great flood, the waters rose to such an extent that only Nch’ḵay̓” and several other, taller mountains remained above the water. The Squamish people tethered their canoes to the top of Nch’ḵay̓”, using rope made from cedar trees, until the water receded.

Well, I’ll tell you, that is a heck of a flood. Nch’ḵay̓” or Mount Garibaldi is 8,800 feet above sea level. That’s quite a flood. So obviously, there’s a long history of flooding in oral history and real history. I shouldn’t say that — not real history, but practical history and written history over the last 100, 150 years in the whole region around flooding.

There’s also, associated with Mount Garibaldi, what they call the Barrier. Now, the Barrier is a volcanic plug of Garibaldi Lake, which is some 800 feet deep. Why that’s interesting, and why that’s a concern, is because it actually caused the relocation of a community in 1981. There was a community of Garibaldi around the Rubble Creek area, along the Sea to Sky Highway. It was deemed such a risk that catastrophic failure of the Barrier would have pretty much washed away that community completely.

Still, to this day, it has consequences to the whole corridor in that…. That water is about, I believe, two hours away. In the case of a catastrophic failure of the Barrier, that 800 feet of water in Garibaldi Lake ends up going down the Cheakamus River to the Squamish River and into Squamish. So it would have consequences for Squamish, quite clearly.

What does it say that…? Should the Barrier completely collapse, Garibaldi Lake would be entirely released, and downstream damage in the Cheakamus and Squamish Rivers would be considerable, including major damage to the town of Squamish and, possibly, an impact wave on the waters of Howe Sound that would reach Vancouver Island.

This is obviously a significant event. Interestingly, though, it’s described as a physically unmitigable hazard. So good luck, I guess, is what it comes down to.

Hopefully, as is referenced in Bill 31, the minister may require a mitigation plan of the local authority. It does raise some interesting questions.

[4:55 p.m.]

In the event of a failure of the Barrier, for example — or, goodness forbid, a reactivation of Mount Garibaldi’s volcanic activity — is that a local emergency? Whose emergency is it? Who calls that emergency?

It does raise, also, the issue of hazards arising out of Crown land but impacting a local authority. It certainly provides an imminent threat to Squamish and anybody travelling in the corridor, but also some of the other consequences around a place like Whistler, where there may well be 60,000 people in that community who could be cut off with no access to access to transport or food or services or, potentially, electricity because there are transmission lines through that corridor which could well be impacted.

Sorry. Back to volcanoes. The other one that’s of significant interest and certainly of significant activity is Mount Meager. The Líl̓wat name is Q̓welq̓welústen, and there’s a bunch of…. The interesting thing is that the name is interpreted to mean “cooked face place,” which I think gives you some sort of sense of what type of activity is historical in that area around Mount Meager.

It’s one of the northernmost volcanoes of the Cascade Arc, ranging from northern California through Oregon, Washington and up to British Columbia, covered by a big glacier or several glaciers. When one looks at it, it doesn’t look volcanic, particularly when you’re looking at it from a distance, because there’s so much snow and ice on it. But this is a quote: “It’s one of two Canadian volcanoes that meet the criteria for a ‘very high’ threat, according to Natural Resources Canada.” Mount Garibaldi is the other.

It is, as I say, quite a dynamic place. But the fumaroles are active. There are people up on the glaciers studying right now. This is where we have…. There are big holes in the glacier that are issuing hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous gas. Again, these are the type of emergencies that I hope we never do see but certainly could be catastrophic, and not just locally, but regionally, provincially and even of national significance.

As I say, if Mount Meager was to become active, the whole region, including both Vancouver…. Vancouver will have very serious issues to contend with, but what other areas of the region have issues? Well, debris flows are something that are pretty common in West Vancouver–Sea to Sky, fortunately, mostly in remote areas. But the effects are….

There are many communities that are in the corridor that are affected. The Cheekye Fan, which is in an area that encompasses part of Brackendale, in the northern part of Squamish, is subject to a debris flow off of Brohm Ridge, which is part of Garibaldi.

The reason I mentioned it is that, again, it comes from Crown land adjacent to a provincial park. Interestingly, mitigation is in the works. So what does that mitigation look like? It looks like a debris catchment structure. Sounds simple. Not quite so simple. It catches debris and lets water through. That’s what the intention is.

The only reason that it’s being actioned is because there is very significant development potential below it. This is on, again, what’s described as the Cheekye Fan, which is Brackendale north. But the cost of this debris flow structure is, at a minimum, $25 million, and I’m hearing up to $50 million. Well, that’s not something that would typically be accessible to most communities.

[5:00 p.m.]

Now, in the case of Squamish, it is being actioned through the district of Squamish, and only because of the tremendous development potential in the area. Most local authorities will never have an opportunity to action something like that. It’s just not in the budget. Unfortunately, there’s an indication this is what is going to be required — that in order to put mitigation in place, much of the resource will need to come from the local community. Places that don’t have tremendous development potential are not going to have access to those resources. They’ll be high and dry or wet and buried depending on what you’re looking at, but certainly with little help and little hope.

Catiline Creek is another interesting example on Lillooet Lake. It’s 170 lots. It’s been in place, been there for probably 30, 40 years. There’s a pretty significant debris flow potential in that drainage as well. Now, that one is interesting — and maybe this is a way to look at this going forward — in that the province did an assessment of the risk. It was determined that something had to happen there. No building permits were to be issued. After the assessment was done, there was an area where there are houses but they’re no longer allowed to be lived in.

Fortunately, this community has good community leadership. It’s outside an incorporated area, and these community members got together and convinced local government and regional district to borrow some money to try and find partnerships with the province and with the federal government in order to create a mitigation resolution, which is ultimately about a $9 million or $10 million project. Again, not possible without some additional assistance. The locals have borrowed the bulk of the money and are still waiting for the federal government to come on board. Hopefully that will happen.

When we look at the four phases of emergency management, as described in Bill 31, mitigation, preparation, response and recovery, hopefully with mitigation, we don’t have to get to response and recovery, but it’s almost inevitable. We’re still, in the case of the Lillooet Lake Estates, in phase 1. People continue to live with uncertainty. I know I hear from them virtually every time we get any significant rain event, lying in their beds listening to the rain on the roof and wondering: what is the mountain doing up above them? It’s a difficult and challenging place to be.

I have experienced it now. I live in the Pemberton Valley as well. While we don’t have the same type of debris flow issues there where we live, we certainly have flooding issues, and listening to the rain on a metal roof can be disconcerting, I’ll tell you, at times.

I want to go back for a second to Mount Meagre, because Mount Meagre in 2010 had the biggest rock avalanche in recorded Canadian history, 50 million cubic metres, plus or minus. That went down into Capricorn Creek and then spread out into the Lillooet River, blocked the river for a period of hours, maybe 24 hours. It blocked the whole river, so it backed both rivers up. It failed in a sort of defile as opposed to a catastrophic, so it wasn’t a big rush of water coming out of there, which could have been devastating. It just sort of meted itself out over hours. Again, the whole valley was evacuated, or it was on an evacuation order.

[5:05 p.m.]

That was a very difficult time for the community. Why I mention it specifically: it speaks to some of the flooding issues that we see. It’s not unique to the Pemberton Valley, but in this case, we see somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 cubic metres of sediments as a result of the Meager rock avalanche ending up in the Lillooet River. Well, what does that do? It has created a debris slug or a sediment slug. So it slowly is moving and transporting sediments the 50 or 70 kilometres down the river into the more populated areas of the valley.

Well, what does that mean? What it means, ultimately, is those sediments end up settling out downriver in the channel, in the river, and slowly the bottom of the river is coming up. Diking structures on the edge of the river or just the natural banks are essentially getting lower and lower and lower. We’re expecting that…. The geomorphologists are telling us that for the next 30 years, give or take, assuming no other debris flow comes down, we’ll be dealing with this decreasing carrying capacity of the river.

In this area, we have multiple rivers coming into the valley. The Green River comes from Whistler. The Birkenhead comes from, well, the Birkenhead valley. The Ryan River comes into the Lillooet, and it all comes together, essentially, in the same place.

Again, the reason I mention this is that there is not good data associated with these highly unique drainages. So we have cases where the…. In the case of the flooding in the fall of 2021, that was the type of activity that…. That rainfall event could well have shifted a little bit north. But you could see how it was the Fraser Valley and the Coquihalla that got hit. A little bit north and it would have been more into the Harrison area, into the Garibaldi, into the Sea to Sky.

We look at the weather, the various…. The rivers are all unique, and all add, hydrometrically, in a different way to the potential for flooding. So this is, again, one of these things that we need to think about when it comes to local response, when it comes to calling into state of emergencies. We need better forecasting for each of these drainages and a better understanding of how flooding happens, where the water is coming from and how we manage it. When do we call an emergency, or when do we call an evacuation order? We just don’t know. I think there’s certainly need for better data all through these regions, especially on the coast.

Whose job is it to do that though? Whose job is it to supply that data? The river forecast centre does the modelling, but they only…. You know, garbage in, garbage out. They can only do as good a job as the data that they have. I think that there’s lots of evidence that we don’t have enough data to do a good job at modelling and better understand what’s going on.

Again, not really dealt with in this bill, other than that there is, potentially, a requirement for the local authority to understand what’s going on, to have a mitigation plan and to have a response plan. But without good data, it’s hard to have good plans.

In the case of the Pemberton Valley, we have a local authority, a local expert in the way of the Pemberton Valley dyking district — 60 years’ worth of experience and history, managing the single-biggest diking network in the province. Unfortunately, the province is in the process of trying to eliminate the Pemberton Valley dyking district. It’s making it an orphan, and it’s disenfranchising it. I’ve got some examples of that.

[5:10 p.m.]

Generally speaking, what’s happening is that improvement districts are being eliminated throughout the province. Oftentimes, it makes sense. Small little water systems should be incorporated into bigger ones. I get that. But in the case of the Pemberton Valley dyking district, we have a situation where we have 60 years’ worth of experience that is supposed to be folded into something else, and nobody can really quite suggest what that is.

The circumstances are that the diking district is, as I say, about 45 kilometres of dikes, mostly in the regional district. Ninety percent of the taxation, though, comes from the village of Pemberton, so neither entity is well situated to manage it. Both organizations are pretty much at capacity, and to add the burden of a diking district and diking issues to those local governments doesn’t make sense for either one. Plus both of them have also said they’re not really keen on having it.

What’s going on right now is that the province has ensured, and it is emphasized in the definitions of Bill 31, that a local authority is essentially a local government or First Nation. Improvement districts are not identified as, defined as, local authorities. So despite the fact that the Pemberton Valley dyking district’s letters patent require them to perform in-stream works, require them to do channel restorations, require them to clear, for example, culverts during floods….

We’ve had situations where we have what we call a slushy, which is where snow comes down a river and essentially blocks culverts, backs up and floods communities. None of these things is the diking district allowed to do anymore, and they’re not eligible for funds. Bill 31 simply reinforces that, and it is something that is, I think, really counterproductive.

I think we lose all sorts of capacity, and there needs to be some way of resolving this to the best result of the communities of the region — that being Mount Currie, the Lil’wat Nation, the village of Pemberton and the Squamish-Lillooet regional district. As I say, they all have capacity issues, and I think everybody is in support of maintaining this entity. But according to Bill 31, that’s certainly not going to be happening.

There are many…. The potential to burden the local authority with additional reporting, with additional requirements to prepare and maintain risk assessments I think, in many ways, is unrealistic — certainly unrealistic for local governments that are already at capacity with limited resources. Going forward, this legislation can’t just impose more requirements on local government but also needs to resource those local governments.

Certainly, there have been many concerns around this bill from many of my colleagues on both sides. I know we’ll explore many of the issues in greater detail when we get to committee stage. Some of the parts of this bill are certainly welcome, including the recognition of Indigenous governing bodies and their part in solutions.

Again, going back to the Pemberton Valley, this valley has a history where local people took initiative and built dikes and a whole diking structure. Then, over time, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act came into place in the ’40s and the ’50s, and they did more work in the ’60s and then ARDSA in the ’70s and ’80s. But ultimately, it ended. It ended upstream of Mount Currie.

[5:15 p.m.]

Water has been contained to the place where you get to the First Nation, and then it’s not contained anymore. So there’s essentially a transference of risk downstream. It is something…. It’s important we do recognize First Nations in the challenges that have been created or are certainly to come, going forward.

If I might just for a second talk about the future, about the standards that are being created, about perfection getting in the way of progress, about the imposition of standards that are unrealistic.

Again, in the Pemberton Valley and equally true in the Squamish Valley, we have to plan for a one-in-500-year seismic event and a one-in-200-year flood. That means, in the case of the Pemberton Valley, the cost of doing these structures has gone from about $1 million a kilometre to $10 million a kilometre for high consequence dikes.

It’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. There are no resources there to make that happen. Then when you layer on the requirement that statutory rights-of-way need to be in place for any provincial contribution to be considered, many of these dikes are on private property and there’s no ability, short of expropriation, to get those rights-of-way.

So again, these create challenges that are almost insurmountable, and then we add on top of this the idea that this bill brings requirements in place that are going to be very, very difficult for local government to meet.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

In short, this bill is a necessary update. Although it does download onto local government and local authorities, we can’t forget that it’s really about the people on the ground that are actually the ones that are responding to these events, and they’re responding within the confines of what is required by this bill and by other pieces of legislation.

With that, I’ll take my place, and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to this bill.

Mr. Speaker: Noting the hour, Member, you can adjourn the debate.

J. Sturdy: Noting the hour, I move adjournment of debate.

J. Sturdy moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Personal Statements

APOLOGY FOR COMMENTS
MADE IN THE HOUSE

J. Rice: Earlier today I inadvertently used…. I spelled out a word that was subsequently unparliamentary language. I wanted to just take the opportunity to sincerely apologize to you, to the House and the Chair in the seat for using unparliamentary language.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Committee of the Whole (Section A), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. K. Conroy moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday, October 16.

The House adjourned at 5:18 p.m.