Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 50 on the order paper.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 50 — MEMBERSHIP CHANGE TO
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move that Motion 50 with respect to membership on the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills standing in my name on the order paper:

[That Fin Donnelly replace Adam Walker as a member of the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 51 on the order paper.

MOTION 51 — MEMBERSHIP CHANGES TO
FINANCE COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move that Motion 51 with respect to membership on the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services standing in my name on the order paper:

[That Nicholas Simons replace Adam Walker, and that Coralee Oakes be added as a member of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 52 on the order paper.

MOTION 52 — MEMBERSHIP CHANGE TO
CROWN CORPORATIONS COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move that Motion 52 with respect to membership on the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations standing in my name on the order paper:

[That Nicholas Simons replace Adam Walker as a member of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 53 on the order paper.

MOTION 53 — MEMBERSHIP CHANGE TO
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move that Motion 53 with respect to membership on Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts standing in my name on the order paper:

[That Renee Merrifield be added as a member of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call second reading of Bill 31, Emergency and Disaster Management Act.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 27, Money Judgment Enforcement Act.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 31 — EMERGENCY AND DISASTER
MANAGEMENT ACT

(continued)

B. Stewart: It’s an honour to stand up on a very important particular topic — the Emergency and Disaster Management Act that was tabled in this House on October 4.

I think that one of the things that, in my time as being both an MLA as well as having been through many crises in the province but, more importantly, back to 2003, when we really saw some of the challenges that were faced by communities such as Kelowna in terms of the damage caused by a wildfire that was allowed to burn and the cause of what that meant to our community — 350-plus homes, 35,000 people evacuated, the loss of the Kettle Valley trestles….

It was a devastating impact. Thank goodness we were able to divert and not have more of the Kelowna area damaged.

[3:00 p.m.]

In my time, as I mentioned, since 2009, there’s almost not a year that’s gone by where I have not seen the impact of fires. I know that fire has been in British Columbia for as long as I’ve lived here. But I do think the situation is that when it comes to dealing with something that is as important as emergency management and the disasters that are caused by not only wildfires….

The fact is that they’re even talking on the radio or TV today about another atmospheric river. Well, let’s hope that it’s not the same as it was a couple of years ago and we’re faced with the flooding and the damage that occurred in November of 2021.

It’s no question. This year speaks for itself. The evidence shows, and it will continue to play out, that this is not only one of the worst wildfire seasons that we’ve had in our lives, in the history of British Columbia, but it’ll also be one of the most expensive.

I think that what people are looking for in this particular change or legislation is the fact that the government has their backs. Where are they going with this particular piece of legislation? What do they want to do with it?

It does actually address some very good things that I think a lot of people and communities are interested in — the fact that First Nations are being respected and asked for their help and part of it. But the solution doesn’t end there.

The solution is in every local government, whether it’s the 160-plus municipalities, 27 regional districts and all of the people that work in those communities. They’re counting on leadership from the province. Sadly, I think that this particular piece of legislation….

We as the former government, in 2017, recognized that there needed to be updates in this. The problem is that the magnitude and the ferocity and the intensity that these disasters and emergencies are happening at require us to work at a faster pace, with more diligence, and recognize that the system that we had in place some 30 years ago isn’t keeping up with the changes.

There is a huge amount of changes that have to occur on the landscape. We’re not going to get it done in the next 12 months. We’re probably not going to get it done in the next decade or even two. However, we need to come up with solutions that are going to help make these things change and happen.

I had the unfortunate experience, as did many of my colleagues that are in the area — including yourself, Madam Chair — where we had a fire called the White Rock Lake fire come through. I think that for most people…. When it started out, it was a modest fire. There were people from Tolko, I believe, that were actually there when it was told: “Stand down. Don’t do anything.” I’m thinking: “Well, that doesn’t solve the solution.” We have a reality that it burned through….

We’d already had the fire in Lytton, for starters, which…. Having been there this summer, I can assure you that for any of you that haven’t visited Lytton, it’s frightening. It’s scary to think that here a community could be completely razed in a matter of a couple of hours and burned to the ground. It now stands completely vacant, with a few structures that somehow, remarkably, survived. The fact that we have so many people that want to rebuild…. They want to re-establish themselves. There are barriers in the way of dealing with these things.

In my own community this year, we lost almost 350 structures, a number…. The magnitude of dollars will be far in excess of what happened in the 2003 wildfire, 20 years earlier, almost to the day. But the situation is that we’re not…. Our planning and response to this has to be much more dramatic and direct in terms of what it is that we’re trying to do and accomplish with this.

What I do see in this is that…. There are suggestions in this particular piece of legislation that it’s going to put an increased amount of responsibility on not only the communities but the property owners, the people that have infrastructure — a rancher that happens to have a dam up in the hills or maybe an irrigation pipe or something like that.

[3:05 p.m.]

What if you’re…? It’s so easy to be impacted by this. The fact is that you now have to take precautions.

I always remember when I first got elected. We had a dam failure in Testalinden Creek, outside of Oliver.

It is important that we do get these things right, but the fact that the legislation has been now introduced some six years after the government was elected, and the fact that it was already prepared…. It’s obviously been updated. The thing about this is that it says that today, we’re going to actually start the consultation now. I’m thinking: “Well, what about the last six years?” Actually, almost seven years; maybe it is seven. What happened to the consultation?

The bottom line is that sometimes governments do want to do things differently. But the reality is we need to learn from those consultations where we can make changes on the landscape that are going to really make the difference, not only fireproof but make certain that we approach these things properly. I think that when it comes to this particular act, probably the biggest benefit of Bill 31 is the fact that it is more inclusive, but it does layer on a lot of added costs.

Now, I want to just tell you from my own community’s experience this past year…. I cautioned the ministry and the minister prior to us departing here in May of this year about the fact that there were serious concerns on my part, having been through, probably, almost a dozen wildfire interactions in Kelowna West since getting elected in 2009. We’ve had thousands of people evacuated, and we’ve been able to deal with them in a manner that was….

It wasn’t a great system. It didn’t have the checks and balances that government loves to have. They want to make certain that all the boxes are ticked before we give you a hotel room or give you a meal voucher. Sometimes the space is inappropriate, but they download that onto the local government. They make it the responsibility of the local EOC and the ESS to deliver on these things, but the rules come from Emergency Management and Climate Readiness.

This bill is dealing with some of those accountabilities, but the bottom line is that the failure in this particular disaster this year was the fact that they had a new software system that was not only mandatory, but it was required that if you were going to get any provisions from the government, you would end up getting through this process.

Now, of course, I happened to be there not just once; many times. We saw that in the first evening, there were about 60 people that were evacuated under an order. It grew to 100. The next day it was at 10,700 plus. We were not prepared — none of the systems that we had in place.

We had this silly accountability issue overriding the fact that we had seniors sleeping in their cars because we didn’t have the right rule book to get things out there. And the fact that people slept in their cars, seniors….

I remember shepherding an 85-year-old lady over to the gentleman that was running the ESS, and I said: “Mel, can we do something for this lady to get her out of her car, etc.?” We were fortunate. Mel was very helpful in those particular regards, but the system that was imposed by the government, which is rightfully so….

We want to be accountable, but the situation is that the system was not flexible enough. It wasn’t dynamic enough. It didn’t really work in the benefit of British Columbians, let alone the fact that…. Not the firefighting and all of those types of things. We’re just talking about these people that are evacuated. Where are they going to go to?

The next thing that happens is we have a state of emergency by the Premier. The next day after that, we have an order to evacuate or get out of the hotels: “Don’t come to the area.” This is one of how many fires in the region? But that’s what happened across British Columbia.

I can show you documentation that I’ve received from the tourist industry, not just in the Okanagan but across British Columbia. The impacts of taking such a sweeping kind of action like that — not thoughtful. The fact is that it didn’t have any of the elasticity that needs to be there to make these things work.

[3:10 p.m.]

I know that there are an awful lot of questions that still have to be answered in terms of this. It is a huge bill. I mean, I think that it’s somewhere around 120 pages long, and it’s 205 sections long. It’s going to take some time to get through that.

The reality is we do want to get it right. We know the consultation is ongoing, but the situation is that we have to be alive to these things. We have to make certain that we’re moving ahead, and we have to make certain we’re moving ahead in terms of being a team.

I say that meaning we can’t have the provincial government and the local governments being at odds with one another, not having the supports, not having the clarity and the flexibility that they need to have when it comes to being able to make adjustments in a program. We did make the adjustments, but it took days and days and calls and the minister and I working on that. That’s because we were inflexible. We didn’t realize we didn’t have a way to pivot and change to make something work that wasn’t working, on a temporary basis.

Just last night was the end of the fact that…. The emergency management had allowed for people that were evacuated for the first seven days and did not get processed with hotels and rooms…. By midnight last night, they had to make their claim to EMBC or EMCR. They had to do that so that they could essentially get reimbursed for a lot of the out-of-pocket costs. The problem was the system that we had adopted and it’s inflexibility and the fact that the authority didn’t lie with the local people to make any of those changes to get on, and swiftly move to, a paper-based system.

They did do that, but it was painful, and it shouldn’t be that way. We should be looking for solutions in the long term. I’m glad that this is being brought forward. However, I do think that the consultation has been something that could have easily been started. I know that in 2017, there were a lot of fires in the North and the Cariboo, places like that, and there was some compensation given under disaster financial assistance. I’m not exactly certain how it was distributed, but it was….

I thought that that was a learning moment, where we kind of thought: “You know what? We’ve got to do things differently.” Well, it didn’t happen, and we had fires again, as I mentioned, in 2021. But we had many other ones in between. The reality is that we’re processing and putting people through these, I would say, atrocious processes that aren’t functioning. They’re not making things work.

I really think that these changes in this particular act need to come forward in a swift manner. I realize that some of these will be the part of government regulations, etc., but the reality is that we need to accept that we’re not doing a good enough job. We need to do better. We’re on the same team. These are British Columbians. We’ve got to look out for them.

I mentioned, on a positive note, that we welcome the inclusion of part 3 of the legislation, specifically concerning agreements with Indigenous governing bodies. These changes respect self-determination and the use of Indigenous governing bodies as defined in DRIPA and recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples in relation to emergency management.

Now, how many times did we hear that we didn’t talk to locals? I mentioned the White Rock Lake fire. I have firsthand knowledge of people that were in my riding. They came in, and B.C. Wildfire Service said: “We don’t want any local help. There are no roads up there.”

I drove those roads. There were all sorts of roads up there. There were access points they didn’t use because they didn’t have that local knowledge, yet I had dozens of people that lived in this area. Some of them had small sawmills. Their homes. They lost their livelihoods because of the fact that what happened was they were ignored.

The fact is that members from the OKIB, just north of us, Byron Louis, the Chief…. They could have told all the B.C. wildfire people that this is the route to get to Beau Park Road and help protect and put the proper fireguards in place. I guess, by ignoring it, what ended up happening is that it came down. A couple of nights later, we had a fire that came down and descended into Killiney Beach and Estamont and burned 85 structures. As well, my colleague to the north, in the Shuswap…. Lots of structures lost there and Fraser-Nicola. It’s just the type of thing….

[3:15 p.m.]

I know that in Kamloops–South Thompson, they also had structures in and around Monte Lake. It’s the type of stuff where that fire became so big, it was almost unbelievable. But mind you, this year in the Peace River, I know that we’ve seen fires that nobody could imagine could be that big.

The member for Peace River North and I were talking today. We were wishing that atmospheric river was heading northeast, but it hasn’t arrived, he tells me.

One of the things about some of the obligations being presented or suggested in Bill 31 is that it may place an undue burden on infrastructure workers that would apply to privately and publicly owned networks, facilities, assets. We need to make certain how they’re better protected, how they’re supported.

It’s not good enough to have somebody that’s responsible for a private water system not have the resources and support to be able to make certain that that’s protected. I don’t think it was contemplated, when a private operator built a water system for a subdivision, that they were going to have to become firefighters and make certain that the pump houses and reservoirs and pipelines and things like that — that critical infrastructure — are protected.

We’re fortunate in Kelowna West that that was a priority. Our new water treatment facility that we have…. It’s not online yet, but we’ve invested, as taxpayers of British Columbia and federally, almost $90 million in that treatment plant. It’s not operational yet, and it was protected, but it burnt right to the side of the reservoir and the facilities that are supposed to treat that. That’s only the start of this.

We’ve got to look around. We’re only one neighbourhood in amongst tens of thousands in British Columbia. This particular act has got to do more, and it’s got to be swifter.

One of the things that I mentioned about the issues we had in Kelowna West during this particular wildfire system…. I think that one of the things that needs to be able to happen in legislation is somehow we can make it so that practical, commonsense solutions can be adopted early on. There are people that know these things. They understand, but they’re held back because of the rule book. We need to bring out that playbook, and we need to make certain we get things done in a timely manner.

I don’t want to dwell on the fact that the fire…. On Tuesday, we had a briefing, as MLAs, with disaster financial assistance, B.C. Wildfire, the weather forecast centre. They were predicting those high winds that took that fire from being two hectares to where it is today, and it’s a massive wildfire that jumped across Okanagan Lake and went into Kelowna–Lake Country.

I don’t know if there are other examples of that, although now that I’ve seen it happen, I’m not certain that it’s that impossible — that it can’t skip and jump miles ahead. I do think that that’s one of the things that we need to be alive to. Our disasters that we’re having — an earlier and more aggressive response could help mitigate that.

I want to talk about the people that lost those 340-plus homes in Kelowna West this year, and the ones lost up in the Shuswap. There was a similar number, up around 200 or whatever. A lot of these people, and I found that out in the White Rock Lake fire, were in areas where people say: “Oh, you can buy insurance.” Well, you know what? That’s not necessarily true. But we do allow them to build. We allow them to have cabins on lakes on leases and stuff like that, because of the fact they say that you can buy insurance. It might cost you more than the cabin is worth. What are we doing to…?

It’s now changing, because what’s happening is that noose, if you want to call it, around those properties is getting tighter and tighter and smaller. So people that want to buy insurance, want to protect themselves, are literally financially forced out of the equation, and it can’t help. What are we doing about that? We don’t want to have to go to the federal government and say: “Listen, we need disaster financial assistance.”

What we’re looking for is a system that encourages and helps support the fact that people can carry the proper amount of insurance to make certain that they’re taken care of. But with rising housing prices….

[3:20 p.m.]

I can’t help but think about a story I saw on Global last night about somebody that was in the Sumas Flats. With the atmospheric river, the house went from being a couple of million dollars in value down to zero because of the fact that there are landslides and all sorts of other things. We can’t take people’s entire life savings and extinguish it, because we are not prepared to do that.

We have to come up with a system. I would hope that Bill 31, although I don’t see it in there…. I want to make certain that we get to the point where people are incentivized by this bill, Bill 31, and that we’re making it so that people can find the means to be able to get the insurance coverage or protection.

In the case of what we’ve had in the last few years, we have to do more than just give them ESS help. That’s not enough. The fact is that we are talking not ten houses or 50; we’re talking hundreds. Literally, this year in the province I don’t know what the total number is. The reality is that these people are not going to be able to recover. What we’re saying is: “You know what? You should have known better.”

The bottom line is that there are four points in here. I’m just trying to find those points about Bill 31. Resiliency, or making certain that we deal with the situations where we take preparations — we have been doing that with FireSmart.

At UBCM, I had the opportunity to talk to the contractors that fireproofed a lot of the area up in Kelowna West. There were individual pockets where they couldn’t do the work. They were told that those were private lands, not Crown lands. It wasn’t an area where you could…. They were essentially private lands, and we allowed those forested areas to not be attended to.

I’m sorry, but that’s just not the way it has got to work. We have to fireproof communities. We have to do a job so that we can make certain that they are protected. When we do go to fight, we’ve got to make certain that we fight with the ferocity that it’s going to take to contain and protect communities.

Then we have to make certain, if we have losses, that we have the right structural programs. Then we have to make certain we’ve got resiliency, so that these people can get back on their feet and don’t get wiped out. That’s what’s happening with the situation: disasters and wildfires that are only too numerous to talk about.

I’m sitting here looking at the fact that this consultation is taking place right now, but it’s expected to go for another couple of years, as Bill 31 points out. What about next year? It’s just around the corner. We’re in October. What are we doing to prepare for it?

I know there’s talk about more people full-time and things like that. We have to make some dramatic changes. If we don’t get it right, let’s fix it later on, but we’ve got to work on the principle that what we’re trying to do is make as informed a decision as we can today, with the idea that while this review is going on, we’re going to do better. We’re going to come back. We’re going to do the public consultation, which I’m sure this year will be extensive.

You know, these things are never easy, but the reality is that we have to make significant, informed, thoughtful decisions about how we’re going to protect British Columbians in the coming season as we move ahead.

We did talk about some of the things in disaster financial assistance. There was a private member’s bill introduced in February of last year by my colleague from Kamloops–South Thompson. It talks about the DFA program, and I think that the situation is…. We already knew that the DFA program wasn’t working for people that have ranches. I remember seeing the footage up in Monte Creek, where people were out there with tankers. Essentially, they became the firefighters, and they weren’t going to let a barn be lost, or whatever.

That’s kind of part of the problem. They’re in a place where they can’t necessarily have the protection that we have in communities like where I live. I can buy insurance, but the reality is what about the ones that are in the remote or fringe areas? They’re all over British Columbia. They’re not just in Kelowna West. I think these people deserve to have some certainty.

We need to find a program and make changes in Bill 31 to try and improve on what it is that we’re trying to accomplish. It’s going to cost some money, but the reality is: look at how much the forest fire fighting has cost us this year. It is already known that it’s the worst on record. It’s expensive. It’s not easy to deal with this, but we’ve got to deal with it.

[3:25 p.m.]

Maybe there’s some things that we should be doing differently in terms of forestry. I know that in my community, there’s a First Nation community forest and they want to expand and grow. They have principled approaches which will deal with old growth and things like that. There are all sorts of places where we could be doing work and flipping a switch — instead of saying, “Don’t log. Don’t do this,” making it so that communities can have that extra protection.

We talk about thinning. When I was on the mid-term timber supply committee, the Minister of Labour was on that same one. This is ancient history. He and I were out there, and we heard about selective logging up in Quesnel or the Cariboo region, etc. The reality is that it was being done, and it was being advocated. It’s not about taking everything; it’s about being practical. What are the best forest practices that we need?

It changes by region — the Cariboo, the Okanagan or the Interior, the rainforest out around Lumby, the Monashees and stuff like that. We need a different approach in all these areas. We’ve got to make certain that we protect these communities from disasters, that we have the trees still growing in the ground. In my community, I’ve got — I don’t know — 15,000 hectares that have burned. When the snow and rains come down and things like that, there are going to be problems. There’s going to be flooding, with people not being able to get back into their homes.

It’s my hope that with the discussion, we can move to a place where we can help accommodate and make certain that for future property damage, etc.… It’s not going to, maybe, cover all the costs, but it’s going to give you a hand up — the idea that we’re going to make it so that we can help people get restarted on what they’re trying to do.

I do think that the federal government, which is a big part of disaster financial assistance, needs to change some of the processes. I realize it’s a national program, but Canada is not the same all over. There are differences in and amongst different areas. Part of Bill 31 is addressing the disaster financial assistance program. It needs to be addressed in a manner so that it’s accessible and easy to access.

I heard this from people that are farming out in the Sumas Prairie. They had terrible difficulties in trying to establish what it was that…. I mean, there was denial. “You didn’t have this,” or “It wasn’t worth that,” or whatever. That’s just not the way it has got to work.

Farmers already have a tough enough time. We heard it this year on the Finance Committee. They can’t afford the hay because the cost of the hay is so expensive, the fact that the trucking is so expensive. There is no hay. We had drought conditions and stuff like that.

The reality is that the disaster financial assistance program, for those people that were impacted, like in Sumas Prairie, needs to make certain that it’s adaptable. That was not expected. I know that there are changes that probably have to occur there, the flood protection issues. What are we doing to get these people back up?

Farming is a bit of a rare breed. It’s not like everybody coming out of school is thinking: “Oh, I want to be a farmer.” They want to make certain that they have something that they can make a living at, so their parents tell them to go to university. Now we’re telling them to go and get a trade. What about farming?

I think the reality is that we need to send the right message to ranchers and farmers that we do care about what they’re doing and make certain that this is not going to be the end of what their opportunity is to provide for British Columbians.

I’m glad to see this morning that Kwantlen college is busy working on year-round berry production, just so that we’re not kind of a seasonal kind of thing.

I see that my time is up.

A. Olsen: Thank you for this opportunity to speak to Bill 31, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act, here at second reading.

It’s important, I think, just to acknowledge the social disruption, the disruption on people and communities that occurred this summer as we experienced the biggest fire season — it used to be called summer — in the history of the province. That would be enough, except for the fact that we’ve experienced out of the last five years…. I think four years of the last five top that list.

[3:30 p.m.]

We’re seeing the disruption and the impact on people’s lives happening more frequently, and we’re seeing that impact happen to a level that we’ve not experienced before in our province. As someone who’s been around this place for a little while now, when those disruptions happen, we and the members here feel those disruptions in a fairly unique way. We hear those stories from our constituents and the experiences that they have firsthand.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

We are not on the front line of fires or, during the atmospheric rivers, of floods. We’re on the front lines of the work that we do with our constituents to understand the impact that these disasters are having on people and on their communities. It’s our job to articulate that impact to the government, to the minister, to those delivering the services to, in this case, the wildfire response. It can get pretty tough to be representing communities that are under emergency orders or that are experiencing this level of disruption.

I think it’s important, first, to acknowledge all of the British Columbians across our province that have gone through the experience of intense smoke, intense fire, that have lost their property, that have lost their livelihoods, that have lost all of those important things that people accumulate and that have special memories, good feelings that are in those items. It’s important to recognize and acknowledge the impact that this past summer has had on many, many hundreds, thousands of British Columbians.

It’s, I think, important to acknowledge our colleagues here who represent communities that have faced that disruption. There’s this perception that when this Legislature adjourns for the summer, that the MLAs go on the barbecue tour. While that might happen to some extent, I think it’s important to recognize that when MLAs leave this place, when we adjourn, we have a whole other part of the work that we do.

I could not imagine it — I was sitting as one of those privileged MLAs from Vancouver Island; thankfully, we were left untouched from the fire disasters that we saw this summer — to be thinking of my colleagues who were right in the middle of it and whose communities were being impacted, and the representation that they did on behalf of their constituents.

So I acknowledge them as well, and acknowledge the work of the minister, who communicated and who was very much put to work this entire summer season, being the voice and the face of the government’s response in some very, very technically challenging areas of the province and under an incredible amount of pressure, to be able to deliver the best outcomes on behalf of British Columbians.

In those situations, we’re always going to be able to identify mixed results. Part of the work that we do here is to be able to bring that information back to the minister and to the ministry and hope that the response, from a policy perspective, is that we’re improving our policy, improving our systems, improving our infrastructure, improving our response. At those moments, the partisan differences in this place melt away, and we truly become colleagues operating in the same House to protect the greater house of British Columbia, the people of British Columbia, as best we can.

I appreciate the vulnerability, the honesty and the forthrightness with which the Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness did her work this summer. So I raise my hands to her for being that this summer and being there for British Columbians this summer.

[3:35 p.m.]

Bill 31 repeals and replaces the Emergency Program Act, EPA. It was last updated in 1993, a long time ago, and much has changed since then, including the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve seen unprecedented floods, wildfires, heat domes. The latter, at least, we didn’t even know existed. We didn’t know about atmospheric rivers before the first atmospheric river; we didn’t know about heat domes.

Part of the framing of it…. We didn’t know it, I guess, in that language. We knew that they existed, but British Columbians didn’t really understand the impact that those have on communities and on people. We’ve been introduced to those concepts and to the severity, that when it gets oppressively hot for a long period of time, that’s a heat dome.

This legislation was promised a couple of years ago, and I know that it’s been worked on by government over that time. It’s not an easy change. These changes are not easy to make. It’s all-encompassing, and the government needs to be very thorough when constructing the new Emergency and Disaster Management Act, this Bill 31 that we’re going to be debating over the coming weeks. We’re debating it here in second reading, but where we really start to understand the bill will be in committee stage.

For this particular bill, we continue to see the government using enabling legislation, and a lot of the details are left out of the actual legislation that’s in front of us. So the best chance that we have, as opposition members, to understand the bill in front of us and what the intentions of the minister and of the ministry are on the forthcoming regulations comes at the committee stage, where we have an opportunity to ask questions.

Our staff have prepared a large number of questions for us to try to get to a deeper understanding of some of the ideas that are expressed in this legislation, in Bill 31 here — of how they work, how they are implemented, how they are executed on the ground, how British Columbians are informed about the changes, and how British Columbians understand their role going forward.

This summer, some of the more challenging aspects of the current framework were British Columbians wanting to be there in support, British Columbians wanting to be a part of the solution, and an ever-evolving culture that we have that excludes people. In some cases, it is for good reason, but in other cases it left me curious as to why community members could not be involved in the protection of their communities.

Bill 31 incorporates lessons learned from recent disasters, the Abbott-Chapman report of 2018, and it implements the Sendai framework and the declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. It recognizes the self-governing authority of First Nations when it comes to preparing for and responding to natural disasters, by creating individual agreements between the province and First Nations to coordinate the jurisdictional authority on emergency management, including prevention, response and recovery.

It’s important to acknowledge that this bill accounts for all four phases of emergency management. I just outlined them: mitigation, preparation, response and recovery. That comes from the Sendai framework, and it streamlines and clarifies the powers and duties of the minister, the provincial emergency management organization, ministries, public sector agencies and local authorities.

It broadens the definition of “emergency” to include security threats — for example; terrorism; transmissible diseases — something that we’ve become quite familiar with over the last few years; and environmental toxins.

It also expands the definition, to be updated to include the impacts to cultural sites. We’ve seen this summer and the previous summers, whether it be by flood or by fire, the devastating impact that those have on sacred sites for Indigenous people right across the province.

[3:40 p.m.]

Part of this program that is being put forward here in this bill is the new responsibility for communities to create thorough risk assessments.

Now, there’s some of this that happens. I don’t want to suggest that there are no risk assessments that are going on in our communities, but I think it is important to understand that responsibility is changing and that there is a responsibility for the local, provincial and Indigenous governments to develop these plans and to coordinate the efforts of these plans on the ground locally and in an agreement locally and that the role of climate change will also need to be a consideration in these risk assessments and an important evolution of it.

The risk assessments must, among other things, identify all hazards and evaluate the degree or risk related to each hazard, as well as the potential consequences on a variety of different interests — people, animals, places and others who might be disproportionately impacted by disasters and emergencies.

Emergency response plans will be there to address the four phases of the emergency management — preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery — and will be based on the completed risk assessments. There will also be a requirement for business continuity plans to ensure that the business of local government can continue to function and that those services that British Columbians need from their local governments can continue to be delivered during that time of emergency.

There’s also a new and emergent aspect of this that didn’t exist before, and that is the involvement of local Indigenous governing bodies and Indigenous people within this consultation and cooperation that is consistent with the declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

This is one of those areas where I am going to have many questions, I think, because I think that it’s important to acknowledge that while there is consent required from some First Nations, there is only a level of consultation and cooperation or a “consideration,” which is a word that frustrates me to no end because it means that all of the work can be done, and the minister can dispense their duty by considering and then moving on.

We have a great deal of effort, a great deal of energy invested and expended on Indigenous governing bodies coming to the table with their information, coming to the table with their recommendations, coming to the table with their interests and their rights. And the minister or the ministry or some statutory decision–maker considers them and then goes right along with whatever it is that the government had already decided.

We live in a changing world, and I think that it’s important that our laws and our legislation reflect that changing world that we’re living in. As I said, it’s been since 1993 that a major renovation has been done to this legislation.

Rather than going into too much detail here on each of the areas of questions that I’m going to be asking, I think it is important for us to leave as much time as possible for that at committee stage because what is written in the law here that we’re looking at in front of us isn’t necessarily exactly how it’s going to play out on the ground.

I think part of the challenge that we’ve had as we’ve analyzed this bill is understanding and being able to see how it takes shape on the landscape; how it changes the relationship between the provincial government, local governments and First Nations; where the money is coming from in order to do this?

[3:45 p.m.]

How much of the ministry powers are retained, and how much of those powers become municipal responsibilities that are then unfunded, like we see this institution do willingly for local governments? How much of the responsibility or the power that the minister has turns into a responsibility for First Nations, Indigenous governing bodies, to be volunteering and donating their time to the provincial government in the development of their plans, in the development of all that work, only to maybe not be even adopted, for it to be considered, and then for everybody to move on as if it never happened?

So it’s important that we understand exactly how those relationships evolve, how those relationships play out on the ground. It’s important, I think, for local governments to understand, as they’re going to be responsible for implementing a lot of the emergency disaster management. How much are they going to have to shoulder of the cost and the expenses of this important work?

How often are the risk assessments? How often are the business continuity plans, the comprehensive management plans going to be updated and reviewed? What’s that process? How does…? Doing it once — that’s fine. But as I just said, times change. Things on the ground evolve. Nature evolves. How often are those going to have to be done?

I think the response from the minister about why it is that so much of this was brought forward, yet so much of it is going to be left to regulation…. So much of it is going to be left outside this legislative process. Yet another situation where the government says: “Just trust us. We will. Just trust us. We will.”

I’d love to get to a point where, when the government says, “Just trust us. We will,” I could say: “Absolutely. No problem.” But unfortunately, I’m not there right now. I haven’t arrived at that spot.

I feel that when we are taking a framework that has existed since 1993, and we’re replacing it…. Now, this is not an amending bill. This is replacing the system that we have. I think that the government replacing it owes it to British Columbians to put the details. I think that’s where the committee stage of this bill is going to be so important, where the minister has the opportunity to provide clarity.

If the minister can’t provide the specific clarity about the exact regulation, then hopefully the minister will come prepared to be able to provide a broad sketch, an understanding of where the direction is, what we can expect to see. The more detail that we have, the better. The more detail we have, the easier it will be for British Columbians to understand what their responsibilities are in the success of this.

Finally, I think it’s important to recognize that when we take a look at this bill, it’s difficult to understand what role fire departments…. Some of the specific, really important service delivery operators — what role do they play in this at this stage? I understand that, partly, it’s going to be developed from risk assessments. It’s going to be developed by these continuity plans. But the reality is that I think people are going to look at this legislation and say: where do we fit in this? Where does nature fit in this? Where does our relationship with nature fit?

We heard this summer about the way we are harvesting trees — harvesting our forests, for an example — and how we are replanting those landscapes and making sure the landscapes that are being planted are fire-resistant. How are the different ministries within government coordinating? How is the Minister of Forests involved in this? How is the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship involved in this? Does the Minister of Indigenous Relations have any responsibilities in this?

I think there needs to be clarity found within the roles and the policies that other ministries are drafting about landscape management plans, about biodiversity plans that the ministry of walrus, as we call it — the work that they’re doing. I think that some of that clarity…. I’m hoping that the minister comes to that committee stage debate prepared to elevate it.

[3:50 p.m.]

With that, I just want to acknowledge that there is a tremendous amount of work that’s been done to get the bill here, to this stage. I really hope that as we get out towards the end of this autumn session that British Columbians are able to look at the legislation that we have. I feel pretty certain that this bill is going to pass at the end of the session. I just have a feeling that it’s going to be supported.

What I hope is that when that bill is supported, the people that are watching this and the people that are paying attention are able to say we have a more fulsome understanding of what it is: the law that is going to be guiding emergency and disaster management in our province, how it’s going to look and how it’s going to be. Right now, we’re really feeling we’re challenged to be able to clearly identify some key areas of this that the government has known about since 2003 and that they have known about since the Abbott-Chapman report in 2018.

We see elements of it. We see elements of the relationship with Indigenous governing bodies that I think we like. However, I think the detail is still lacking, and we’re hoping that that starts to crystallize and becomes more available for British Columbians going forward.

With that, I appreciate this opportunity to speak to this bill, and I’ll take my seat.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.

S. Bond: I appreciate the opportunity, and I appreciate the remarks of my colleague and friend the House Leader for the Third Party.

I want to begin by recognizing how important it is that revisions take place and that we are responding to a changing situation not just in British Columbia but, in fact, globally. We know the act needs to be revised. In fact, in this case, we have a full rewrite of the bill, and that calls for us to do our homework.

I’m going to get to some of the comments and concerns that I have in just a moment, but I really want to begin by thanking the men and women who worked tirelessly during this past summer and in previous emergencies to keep people and properties safe. They did that at their own risk. Many were from British Columbia, but others came from around the world and other jurisdictions across this country to help us in these devastating times.

I was doing an errand in my community in Prince George during the height of the wildfire season. Many of you who were paying attention would know that Prince George fire district — or VanJam, a specific part of that district — was extraordinarily hard hit this summer. I ran into a member of the Australian team that was stationed in the VanJam fire region, and I thanked him and said: “I am so grateful that you are here.”

His response to me is one that I will never forget, because he said to me: “I am here and we are here because you helped us when we needed it, and now it’s our turn.” So we had fire personnel from across this country, from South Africa and from Australia who stepped up and literally were here to help us.

All of us were devastated with the toll this summer. It was immense. We actually lost lives. The risk is very real, and it is tragic at times. So to all of those who work so hard on our behalf, we are deeply grateful.

I also want to recognize the minister for her efforts this summer to be inclusive. We were given the opportunity to participate in regular briefing calls, and those calls increased in frequency dependent on the circumstances we were facing. She also personally reached out to many of us during those terrifying and difficult days when our communities were impacted.

I simply want to say this. That is exactly what should happen during emergencies and disasters — and on other significant issues, I might add. I hope that it continues, because during those periods of time and during a crisis, I can assure you that my constituents aren’t trying to sort out what political party people belong to. They want all hands on deck. They want a collaborative and a coordinated approach.

One of the things that I know I discussed with the minister and appreciated her thoughtfulness about this was how frustrating it was to have multiple calls taking place during a crisis and knowing that there were certain levels of government involved and: “No, this group is calling and that group is calling….”

[3:55 p.m.]

All I know is this. As their Member of the Legislative Assembly, I’m getting phone calls about how best to help my constituents.

I think we should set aside those partisan differences at times like that. Whether it’s a regional district or a city council, whether it’s an MLA or an MP, for heaven’s sakes, it is time for us all to be at that table. All of us have one goal in mind, and that is to keep people and property safe. So I think we need to….

One of the things that I think about when I read legislation and Bill 31…. When you look at the beginning of a bill, it usually has explanatory notes. The explanatory note in this bill, even though it’s…. I think it’s 121 pages long. It does talk about the things that are important in this bill.

The thing that sticks out to me, and I’m going to refer to it several times, is: it should incorporate lessons learned. We have to ask ourselves: does this bill reflect the lessons we’ve learned, not just this past summer but, in fact, in ongoing and increasingly frequent, weather-related particularly, crises in our province?

I also want to give a special shout-out to the public servants that supported the briefing calls, even on the days that were very, very challenging. They were professional, they were helpful, and they provided much-needed feedback and follow-up.

I remember one call in particular. Probably a few hours before, a young female firefighter had lost her life. Those public servants were visibly shaken on our briefing call, but they were there because they had a job to do. That included making sure we had a better understanding of what was happening. They didn’t get to take the day off or to grieve. They had to be there to support their colleagues.

I simply want to recognize how touched and emotional we all were that day by the public servants. I know the minister will share those remarks with them.

The last time this legislation was actually updated was in 1993, three decades ago. Lots has changed. The Minister of Public Safety and I were just trying to figure out whether (a) we were in this place or (b) how old we were at that period in time.

It is a significant bill: 121 pages and 108 sections. Just as my colleague from the Green Party pointed out, it warrants thorough debate in this Legislature. Quite literally, lives could depend on the framework and the law that’s being discussed here today. Communities depend on us, as well, to get this right.

I’m certainly hopeful that it won’t meet the fate other critical bills have. I was in the middle of debating one of them, and we faced closure. I am certainly hoping that is not going to happen with this bill.

I also want to provide some context. I do this not to be inflammatory but to be factual.

Time is of the essence when we talk about crises and wildfires and all of the issues we’re facing. This isn’t the first attempt at revisions. In fact, in 2017, legislation was ready to go. It was intended to be introduced in the fall of 2017. But here we are, six years later, and we’re finally getting a bill. That said, a new act was supposed to be tabled in the fall of 2020. Now, three years later, we finally have a bill in front of the Legislature.

What makes that delay even more concerning is the fact that there are still consultations underway while the law is being debated in the Legislature. To echo the comments of my colleague, what that means is that many of those critical details will be determined by regulation, not by legislation.

That may not mean a lot to people sitting at home and thinking: “Well, why does that make a difference?” It makes a difference because it is then not available for public scrutiny and debate in the Legislature. Those discussions…. Regulation is created after a law is passed.

We are, obviously, concerned. The last act stood in place for three decades. One could imagine we might want to get this right.

I want to reflect on the fact that we have also…. Often people point out that the job of opposition is to be opposition. Our job does involve scrutiny and being critical.

[4:00 p.m.]

We also brought important suggestions to this table. In fact, my colleague the member for Kamloops–South Thompson reintroduced a private member’s bill, and it related to the topic we are discussing in the Legislature today. It was about the process involved in dealing with disaster financial assistance.

That bill was reintroduced in February. There were some good and important ideas in that bill. How do we streamline and simplify DFA? Defining an affordability metric. Looking at expanding the scope of disaster financial assistance so we could deal with things like micro-pockets in our province, where no insurance coverage is available for a given disaster event. It suggested extending the applications deadline and many other important ideas that need to be considered if the process is intended to better meet the needs of British Columbians who are facing devastating financial circumstances.

The bill was introduced to try and avoid the devastating impacts of the 2021 wildfires. What happened? That bill suffered the fate of most private member’s bills in this Legislature and was simply left on the order paper. It is time. Those are the kinds of changes we need to be thinking about as well — critical bills, private member’s bills, brought to the forefront for the sole purpose of improving outcomes for British Columbians.

I did say I wanted to focus a little bit on one of the clauses in the explanatory note. Let me just read that into the record. The note for this bill includes the following: “to incorporate into legislation lessons learned in recent years in responding to floods, wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic.” I would agree that that’s exactly what we should be doing. But my question is: what are the lessons we’ve learned, and have they been addressed in this legislation?

Let me begin by reflecting on an event in British Columbia that doesn’t seem to be captured in the explanatory note. I will certainly look forward to more clarity about what does constitute an emergency or a disaster. Because by any measure, the heat dome that took the lives of more than 600 mostly frail, elderly British Columbians qualifies. The heat dome is referred to as the western heat dome, because it was the deadliest weather event in Canada to date. It was continuously referred to as a disaster.

Extreme heat is the leading cause of illness and death from weather-related hazards in Canada. It is expected that the frequency, severity and duration of extreme heat events will continue to increase. So does this legislation capture the lessons learned about the lack of communication, overwhelmed emergency response systems and the need for increased preparation and response, as also referenced in the explanatory note?

The coroner’s report related to that heat dome instance lays out a series of recommendations and outlines significant gaps. I’ll quote from the coroner’s work. “Focusing on prevention opportunities, adaptation strategies, and longer-term risk mitigation initiatives is necessary if future mass casualty incidents due to natural disaster and extreme heat events are to be avoided. In addition to personal risk mitigation, policy and planning related to the built environment and demographic changes are key.”

The report is a litany of gaps. People didn’t know. They didn’t understand, and more than 600 British Columbians died. If that’s not an emergency or disaster, I don’t know what is. What we want to see is the connection between this legislation and the closing of the gaps that led to what is known as the worst, deadliest weather event in Canada to date.

Whatever the cause of an emergency or disaster, there need to be clearly outlined responsibilities and roles. In this case, how does the bill deal with the overlap with health-related issues? It explicitly notes the COVID-19 pandemic. I will look forward to an explanation of whether other weather-related disasters or emergencies like the heat dome fit and what lessons have been learned.

[4:05 p.m.]

What lessons have we learned about the impacts of wildfire on air quality? While we obviously recognize that keeping people and property safe is a priority, key decisions about how we manage wildfires in this province have other consequences.

As we speak, there are still many active fires in our province. With the weather changing, we will, hopefully, see that number continue to diminish. But for many, many days, because of the decision of how to deploy resources and how we tackle wildfires in this province, many residents where I live and in northern B.C. faced the worst air quality in the world for not one day but day after day after day. Fires continued to burn or smoulder, with wind carrying smoke and ash to our communities day after day.

When decisions are made about deploying support and resources to out-of-control fires, there are consequences in regions of our province that are serious and ongoing. That continues today, as we meet in this Legislature.

What lessons have we learned about the impacts of air quality based on deployment and firefighting tactics? One of the most important things this legislation should be dealing with is dealing with the programs that support people in the aftermath of disasters and emergencies in our province.

From my perspective, the village of Lytton stands as a visual reminder of why we need to do things better. Two full years after their community was burnt to the ground, trauma and uncertainty still exist for those residents. And while this piece of legislation won’t fix that, this legislative framework needs to clearly outline what needs to change to ensure that people receive the help and support they need in a timely, effective way.

The same is true for people who this summer experienced unbelievable challenges with disaster financial assistance — basic relief programs. I noted earlier that this year our House Leader reintroduced a private member’s bill that specifically related to the changes that are needed to ensure people get the relief they need after facing personal loss as a result of a disaster or an emergency in our province.

We are not the only people that are concerned. In fact, on October 3, the Ombudsperson released a report that outlined significant concerns about the relief programs currently in place. That work was based on the 2021 wildfire season.

What lessons did we learn?

We have some pretty basic questions that deserve answers in the public domain, not after-the-fact in regulation. Surely the government must have known about the work of the Ombudsperson. Why are there such superficial references to support programs in this legislation?

Let’s hear the words of the Ombudsperson. In the release that the Ombudsperson made, “the B.C. Ombudsperson finds emergency support programs are outdated, under-resourced, inaccessible for vulnerable evacuees, poorly communicated and calls on the government to take urgent action to better support people who are increasingly being displaced from their homes for long periods by extreme weather events.”

It goes on to say things that the Ombudsperson found — unclear and confusing communication about the programs. One would think this legislation needs to clearly outline who does what, when and how these programs are operated — not after the fact in regulation. That’s a discussion we should be having in the Legislature.

He goes on to say that “unreasonable delays in providing support, a lack of flexibility in how supports are delivered, a process that does not take into account the distinct needs of Indigenous evacuees as well as elderly people and people with physical and cognitive disabilities. We have an under-resourced system in place that isn’t meeting the needs of people, many of whom are in the most significant crisis they have ever experienced.”

I would suggest that those are some pretty clear directions about what needs to happen with support programs in our province. The legislation has a superficial reference to them but nothing that lays out specific details about what British Columbians expect, should they, heaven forbid, ever find themselves in this position.

All you have to do is take a few minutes to just read the comments from people who were impacted.

[4:10 p.m.]

“I walked out of the reception centre in tears because they were cold and uncaring.”

This is another quote. Each one of these is separate: “No matter where we went, the hours for support were too short, the lineups were too long.”

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

Another person: “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.” And there are pages of those comments.

We all know now what the gaps are, and we now need to fix them, to close the gaps. It was 2021, 2023, and we know that there will be increasing severity and frequency of events that will impact British Columbians in negative ways. So our questions: how does the government plan to respond to the significant gaps? How is that captured or reflected in this legislation?

One of the stated goals of the legislation is to incorporate lessons learned, but there are certainly a lot of unanswered questions about whether or not those lessons were actually learned. Were the concerns heard, and are they reflected in the legislation that will provide the legal response for future events?

One thing we can be sure of is that emergencies and disasters are going to continue in our province. British Columbians deserve to know that when those times come, their government has their back — that there is a plan, that it is well coordinated, that it is understood and communicated and, most of all, that it is deliverable.

Before I end my remarks, I want to reflect on the constituency that I represent, Prince George–Valemount. It includes the Robson Valley region, obviously the city of Prince George. Some communities…. People who don’t know that part of British Columbia may have no idea what happened to small communities like that. It is our job to bring those stories to this Legislature and speak and be their voice.

McBride has been hit by floods, mudslides. If you can imagine, a mudslide came down a hill and destroyed people’s homes while they were in it. Erosion at the Doré River continues as we speak, and when I last visited with residents, their property is disappearing before their very eyes as Mother Nature changes the course of the Doré River.

It was in May, the beginning of May, that a wildfire started near McBride, the Teare Creek wildfire. There is an absolutely phenomenal photograph, and I would urge members to take a look at it. It’s beautiful, but it was described as “beauty and the beast,” because it showed Mother Nature in action, what we’re facing in British Columbia and around the world.

In the sky that night, the northern lights were spectacular, and they are often where I live. That was above the mountain. Below the mountain, the mountain was on fire. It showed the beauty of the northern lights and the beast that wildfire is in our communities.

People were terrified as the fire came down that mountain. Do you know what happened to us? We thought it was managed. Thank goodness for local firefighters, volunteers, experienced people who understand the landscape. I am so relieved to hear we’re going to talk about how to utilize those British Columbians as we face these situations in the future. Trained of course, experienced — but they know their communities better than anyone else.

Then the winds came. They started out to be much less than they ended up. The gusts were 60 to 70K. Let me tell you, as the wind increased, so did the fear that we were going to lose homes and, potentially, lives. The questions started to come: “Where’s the air response? Where is our help?”

So again, I’m grateful to the minister, who had me contact ministries directly so that I could speak to deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers to say: “Air power is on the way. Resources are there. These are the crews that we have.” That was in May, in northern British Columbia.

[4:15 p.m.]

As we speak, we are experiencing…. We may have slightly come down, but our fire region is in a level 5 drought. We know what that means for next year. So does this law matter? You bet it does, because we have to start modernizing and getting it right.

I just want to give a shout out. People in small communities are so resilient and hard-working, and they step up. One of the things that’s a good thing about when we face an emergency or a disaster is the very best comes out in people as well. They’re generous. They step up. They support one another.

Well, I want to recognize area H regional district representative Danielle Allen, the regional district of Fraser–Fort George, and a champion who is related to Tête Jaune, Garry Wallace, because they’ve come up with a really innovative program. I’d really appreciate the minister taking a look at it, in terms of thinking about how we do things differently.

They created a program, with funding from the regional district and other ways, that if a person completed a FireSmart home assessment in a targeted area, they were provided with a sprinkler system to help protect their property. It’s an amazingly innovative way to get people to take the training, deal with FireSmart in their property, and then they are given a sprinkler system. Well, let me tell you that Tijan, for example, was targeted. Eighty-four sprinkler systems were distributed after people completed the online FireSmart home assessment.

Community buildings are protected as well. Dunster, McBride and Valemount, rural areas, were also given the opportunity to participate in that process. It just speaks to the fact that people want to help. We absolutely understand where there are times that that may not be possible. But more importantly, we need to learn, to listen, to learn those lessons and be willing to look at innovation and change.

I want to just say that I am very appreciative of the work that has been done. We continue to have concerns about the degree of detail that will be finalized in regulation. It is so important that we have the opportunity to participate in a process where those of us in many regions of this province dealt with constituents, dealt with fear, trauma, uncertainty, summer after summer after summer.

We know we need to be better prepared, and we want this legislation to reflect not just what’s happening today but be forward-looking as well. How can we look at models around the world? Did the legislation contemplate models that are in existence in other parts of the world, in terms of how things are managed?

I just want to end with this comment. It is as we have gone through this experience numerous times in my part of the province, in different ways…. Our city welcomed 10,000 evacuees one wildfire season. I was astounded by the resilience and the kindness and generosity that the people in Prince George showed to 10,000 additional people, offers of homes and places to keep their animals and trailers and food. Whatever we needed, people were willing to stand up and help.

We have to do our part too. We have to make sure there are clear lines of command, that there is a clear understanding of who is responsible for what and when. Most importantly, we have to stop creating the artificial barriers that are so often layered up in these events. Multiple phone calls going on. People talking to small groups, bigger groups. It’s a time for all of us, during these circumstances, to be given the information we need to better support our constituents and, most importantly, to put the safety of people and property ahead of any sort of partisan politics.

I look forward to the ongoing debate, Mr. Speaker. I thank you very much for the time to speak in the Legislature. Certainly, we’ll have a number of questions specifically related to the response in my part of the province, so thank you for the time today. I appreciate it.

B. Banman: It is indeed a pleasure to stand up and speak to this bill.

I want to start off by actually thanking the minister. When I was the shadow minister of this ministry, she sincerely came to my office and said to me: “How can we work together?”

[4:20 p.m.]

I gave the minister some suggestions with regards to how, during an emergency, the worst thing is the not knowing, and to have the MLAs of the opposition parties be part of the solution.

She listened to that, and I want to thank her for that. I think that the communication was helpful. She actually organized to have…. Sometimes three times a week, there were briefing sessions going on for MLAs throughout the entire province so that they actually knew what was going on and could then convey that to their constituents who were phoning them. I want to sincerely thank her for that.

Now, this particular bill, as you’ve heard, is long overdue. I believe 1993 was the last time it was looked at. The four major phases of it are mitigation, preparation, response and recovery. My riding, as many of you know, had catastrophic floods, and I will get to the impact of that in a moment. But my constituents know all too well what happens when disaster strikes. Sadly, they are not alone. As we have heard, there are sections throughout the province….

Our province is very, very diverse, as are the types of perils that can happen. We’ve had floods, as you’ve heard. We’ve had fires. We live on a fault line of earthquakes. We live on a coast that is subjected to tsunamis, or avalanches from the mountains that we live in.

We pretty much have almost every kind of peril imaginable. But when we get into the bill…. The general language of this bill…. The NDP seems to be taking clues from international organizations, which is okay as an overall framework, but British Columbia is unique. The people are unique. The perils they face are unique.

As such, we need to make sure that we’re not just copying and pasting what’s going on in other areas, that we actually have grassroots British Columbians that are involved in not only what happens when it goes wrong, but what they think we can do to prevent some of these perils — wildfires in particular, and freshets, in particular — the floods.

I believe the vital missing piece, which is also the most difficult piece, is to ensure that the voices of British Columbians are heard, and that we’re not just checking off boxes. Yes, we’ve consulted. Yes, we’ve consulted. That we actually have meaningful consultation is very difficult to do. But this is too important to take a shortcut on that important, vital part of the legislation. It is worth the time and effort, because it will ensure that we get a made-in-B.C. solution for problems that are unique to British Columbia.

Now, as I said, in my riding, I know all too well the damage and trauma that is caused to the families who have to suffer firsthand through a natural disaster. The writing was on the wall for many, many years. As I said to the minister, not only are the Nooksack and the Chilliwack River or the Vedder River — the Chilliwack turns into the Vedder, for those who are not familiar with the landscape — a problem, but the Fraser River itself is a huge problem. Nothing has been done for decades to really address some of the serious challenges that exist.

[4:25 p.m.]

The dikes are woefully inadequate at the moment. The problem is that if you put the preparation or the mitigation onto the backs of cities or local governments, they can’t afford it. The entire budget of the city of Abbotsford is between $300 million and $400 million — the entire budget. To do some of the repairs….

For instance, I do believe that the city of Abbotsford put in a request for $1.6 billion to help prevent the Nooksack flooding again and mitigate those waters, assuming that those waters will come across the border, because it’s downhill. Water does not respect international borders. It takes the path of least resistance, and it will go downhill. It happened in 1990. It happened two years ago. It will happen again.

To think that a city could come up with $1.6 billion is just out of their scope. I understand that even the province will have trouble coming up with $1.6 billion for one area, so this ministry has to, then, talk with the federal government as well, and it’s a very difficult challenge. I can appreciate that challenge. However, if we shortchange the consultation part, this ministry won’t know what to go to the federal government and actually ask for. It’s a missing link.

We can’t just copy and paste what others do without meaningful consultation with the actual grassroots. Unless those voices are heard loudly and clearly by this government, any legislation that comes before this House will be woefully inadequate. Need I say, it will be a disaster, because it won’t actually do what we want it to do. This is to not only prevent the problems from happening, if possible — and in many cases, they are — but what we will do once the disaster strikes.

We saw with the wildfires in West Kelowna how unprepared we were for that, and then the most important part is that response and the recovery. I still have people in that riding that, two years later, are falling through cracks.

In one particular instance, there was one family that has a house. It’s in Arnold. I know that the minister knows where that is. Their home was assessed by B.C. Assessment at $19,000. Now, I don’t know what kind of home people think is only worth $19,000. When they take a look at it there — and I have some checks in — it appears as if that assessment had never been redone for decades.

So here’s a group. They had flood insurance, but their insurance only covered $50,000, I believe it was, or $55,000 — in around there somewhere. Then, when they go to the disaster fund, they say: “Oh, well, your house is only worth $19,000. You got 50-some-odd thousand. You were grossly overpaid. You get zip.”

They appealed it, and it’s still at zip. Now, we’re seeing if we can’t figure out if there’s a problem with the assessment, to try and get that readjusted. It is an example, one of many, where people fall through the cracks. We have to ensure that this legislation looks after that.

One of the things we need to do…. I watched when the floods came, and here’s the sad thing. I know I’ve mentioned this to the minister. I watch during the disaster, and this happens every single time there’s a disaster. People rush in, put themselves at peril, and community helps community.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Neighbours help neighbours. When it comes to helping them recover and pull out drywall and wet, soggy insulation, in this case, neighbours help neighbours. What happens when government arrives? Is it as if that’s the weak link?

Madam Speaker, you know all too well that for Lytton, that’s exactly the case, where the bureaucracy is getting in the way of actually helping people rebuild. We have got to do better than that.

[4:30 p.m.]

The problem I see is, while using a framework that’s provided by people who live tens of thousands of miles away can be a good starting tool, failing to consult those at home, failing to sit down with people of Lytton and say, “What went right, and what went wrong,” to sit down with the Fraser Valley — those that have been involved in the wildfires, those who have been involved in the West Kelowna fires, where they’ve lost everything….

Failing to talk to those people to say: “What did we do right, and how do we improve on it? What did we mess up, what do we really have to fix, and where are the absolute huge holes in the safety net that’s supposed to be there for you…?”

In my area, there were people that were offered flood insurance and turned it down because it was tens of thousands of dollars to get the flood insurance. Is that considered to be reasonable? They turned down what was unaffordable only to then be told: “Well, you know, you were offered insurance, but you said no, so now you get nothing. You were offered crop insurance.” That doesn’t work, by the way, for many farmers, depending on the crops. “You turned it down, so now you get nothing.” There are huge holes that this legislation needs to address and needs to make sure that we tighten up.

As I said, we’ve had floods, fires. We live on a fault line. We have earthquakes. We have all of these things that are going on. We have wildfires still going on now. Would it not make sense, as a thought, to open up the areas around those wildfires, which are going to be consumed by fire? Does it not make common sense that the Ministry of Forests should open up and change where we harvest the wood, to create a firebreak around those, that we should move rapidly and quickly? They’re going to go up in flames anyway.

Then, after the flames have come through, there is approximately a year and a half that that wood is still harvestable, where we can go in…. Not only that. The companies have said: “We’ll put our existing cuts on hold. Let us in there, and we’ll help replant on the way out.” Is that not better for the environment? Does that not stabilize the land? Does that not allow new growth in the land? Or do we just let what are record burns sit there and take decades and decades to recover naturally?

In cases where there are problems, as we are now in, it would make sense to allow logging companies to go in there and create that fire cut to contain the damage. It’s common sense. We have to ensure that when we do legislation, common sense is part of it. What’s going on now is that when you talk to the farmers in my riding, they say that common sense has gone out the window. It’s like: “How do we get to a no?” versus “How can we get to a yes to help you?”

That’s not what we’re supposed to be. That’s not what government is supposed to do. We’re not here to say no. We’re here to say: “How can we help you? In your worst, darkest day when you have lost everything, what can we do to help you get back up on your feet?” Many of these people don’t expect to get put whole and actually make money on this. They just want enough that they can actually start to rebuild and regain their lives again and rebuild their communities that they love so much, no matter what that peril may be.

[4:35 p.m.]

Sadly, my community has seen more than its fair share of disaster, and sadly, last year was one of the worst fire seasons we’ve ever seen. I would hope that as we go through this legislation, the minister takes the same attitude she did when she came to me and said: “How can we help and listen loud and clear to British Columbians, to the grassroots British Columbians who lived through this?”

It is great that we are doing Indigenous consultation, because much of that knowledge can be helpful when it comes to controlling a wildfire, especially in the prevention of some of the fires, because they used to do burnings that were controlled.

When the wildfire services come in, they need to listen to the locals that plead with them and say: “Please, for crying out loud, do not start a fire now because the winds come up at four o’clock and change direction.” Those voices need to be heard.

When we have people on the ground that want to go in and save their communities and have the equipment, the knowledge and the know-how, we need to do consultation now, ahead of time, so that they’re not seen as the enemy or a problem and seen as the solution that they desperately know….

We have ranchers. We have local people. We have logging companies that have all this equipment and can help us. But because we’ve failed in what, I hope, this legislation talks about, which is in preparation and response…. This is why consultation is important, and it’s why, if we actually truly listen to those that live in these areas, I think we will be much better prepared. That is the intent. It’s that old saying that an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure. It’s common sense.

I would hope that in this particular legislation, as we debate this, we actually are truly respecting that consultation part in each of these four areas. What local knowledge can we use to mitigate, to prevent? What can we do that government can play to help pay, to prepare?

We saw what happened when we were overwhelmed in Kelowna with thousands of people looking for a place to stay. Would it not have made common sense…? “Go book your hotel wherever you are. We’ll deal with it later. By the way, you’re entitled to $200 a night” — or whatever it may be. Would that not have made more sense, rather than make people who are worried that their homes are burning stand in lineups, where they were inadequately prepared for the thousands of people that were there, who were already traumatized?

Would it not have made more sense that we actually broadcast what you’re entitled to? Then have a checklist afterwards, where: “Yes, you were evacuated. Where’s your address?”

You had to go, “Absolutely, you qualify. You qualify for some of these disaster relief funds,” rather than make them stand like cattle in a lineup for hours on end, for people that are totally unprepared to be able to deal with that volume.

When it comes to the response, it makes sense to talk to those in the local areas and have teams set up of volunteers, of professionals. How can we all hit the deck? It’s one thing in a fire, but what do we do if it’s an earthquake? Look at the massive destruction across the world that earthquakes cause, and there are many, many individuals at that time that could help.

Then, of course, probably the most vital part is the actual recovery — to ensure that the safety net is there, that government is not the weak link, which it clearly was in my community.

[4:40 p.m.]

I watched thousands of meals being flown daily to people that were trapped. I watched caring individuals come by and help remove soaking wet, mouldy drywall and insulation and help people strip their homes so they could begin the recovery stage.

I saw people say: “I’ve got a place where you can stay. I don’t care that you’re a stranger. I have a room and food and warmth for you. What do you need? I have clothes. I have shelter.” It was heartwarming. It was humbling to watch.

Then, to find out…. The absolute train off the tracks was when government showed up and said: “Hi, I’m here to help you.” It absolutely sends a shiver down some people’s spines because they’ve lived through the fact that it wasn’t really helpful much at all.

This legislation needs to change that last part, where government can be helpful, way more helpful than it currently is. Good legislation, by listening and consulting properly, will get us to that point. That should be the overall, arching goal of any legislation, but especially when it comes to disaster.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for allowing me to say a few words.

C. Oakes: I think, for many MLAs in this Legislature, what has become all too common are those days that become seared in our memories and the memories of our communities. For the Cariboo, August 11, 2017, is certainly a date that we will all remember.

It’s important that this legislation is being brought forward. It’s important that we work, all of us, in this Legislature to ensure that the people, our communities, British Columbians have the supports necessary when a disaster impacts their community.

Cariboo constituents have been deeply impacted by wildfires, followed by the devastating aftershocks, if you will, of the very real and devastating impacts in communities. So how we modernize, how we make the necessary changes to respond to these emergencies is very important to all of our communities.

I want to take a moment, if I may, to provide some feedback to the government. I certainly, as many members of this House have done in the past, have had the opportunity to extensively engage with government on the experiences that many of us have had over the years — our constituents — and how we can make the necessary changes to ensure that our communities are successful when you look at mitigation, response and recovery.

Following the devastation of the 2017-2018 wildfires in Cariboo North, one of the things that was critically important is that we all came together and spent a considerable amount of time to reflect and to look at those lessons that were important, at what we learned throughout the entire process. A team of experts from universities came forward. We had a think tank. We engaged with Indigenous communities, ranchers, local governments. We put extensive work together in putting a roadmap forward on how we should be addressing emergencies in our communities.

I was really proud of that work. I think it was very critical to, at least, our region, starting to think about how we process and move things forward. What was disappointing, however, is that, following the 2017-18 wildfire season, followed by the government putting forward a think tank to look at how we find those lessons and how we address these issues, that think tank and that report got buried.

[4:45 p.m.]

Those lessons learned got buried. That information that was critical to ensuring that no other British Columbian had to face the experiences that we did in the Cariboo — that report was buried.

I want to talk a little bit about that today. And I’m going to be pulling some pieces out of an FOI report that is critically important, that I think should be in this Legislature, because it does tie into what we are trying to achieve in effectively modernizing this legislation, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act.

Again, we had an exposure bill that was tabled years ago. Unfortunately, you know, the government failed to bring that bill forward in a timely fashion, and the results have had a significant impact on people across this province.

Look at this last year. Look at the people of Lytton. Think of all those communities — rural, remote, Indigenous — that are still waiting for supports. I have people who were impacted in 2017 that are still waiting for recovery supports.

Bill 31 is a different bill. While there are pieces of the legislation I am hopeful will address a small part of the challenges that we certainly identified through the extensive process and think tanks that were set up following 2017-18, I don’t think it is comprehensive enough in the fact that the very real challenges and lessons learned in the past is…. What this legislation appears to be bringing forward is something that’s far more bureaucratic, more red tape — that legislation that will create more complications, challenges and delays on the ground, that will have a negative result in supporting people on the ground.

So let me explain, if I may. From this past wildfire season in the Cariboo…. I bring the experiences forward because, again, this is about, how do we all learn those very valuable lessons so we don’t continue to repeat them?

We have talked in this House, many members have, of the critical importance of having local people on the ground. Having trained professionals, skilled professionals that have access to equipment and know the area is critically important, including both our Indigenous populations but also our ranchers, our loggers, our contractors, our placer miners, people that work in the outback, our guide-outfitters, our trappers. It’s all critically important that that experience that they have out in the outback is incorporated into how we address wildfires or any emergency.

This past year — under new regulations that were brought in, I guess, in this last year — we have found new, onerous and bureaucratic processes that have local people turned away from working on wildfires. So local contractors in my area who currently work with the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Forests — they actively work with other ministries in government, so they’re good enough to build roads, build bridges, to work on the ground supporting other ministries — were not able to actually work for B.C. Wildfire.

One of the excuses, or one of the nuanced paperwork that has come in, is about an e-file, while this increased red tape means for somebody that…. One of the individual contractors that came into my office said: “Well, look. We filed the paperwork. They lost it. So we’ve re-filed it.” It took three weeks. When you’re in the middle of a wildfire season and you need that contractor out on the ground at that immediate moment, waiting three weeks for a paper box to be checked, an e-file tax to be checked, is ridiculous.

I don’t think this legislation is going to solve that immediate challenge our contractors are facing. And look, we have highly skilled individuals in our communities that, again, work closely with other ministries that have been kept away from working with B.C. Wildfire. So hopefully, this legislation…. As we go into the ability to go through each of the sections, hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to look at that.

[4:50 p.m.]

Another contractor shared the fact that it took almost three days to gather up all the necessary new paperwork that was required. Again, work with other ministries — work with the Ministry of Forests, work with forest companies. They’re trained. They’ve got their WorkSafe. They have all of their required pieces, but they’re not able to actually work with the paperwork for B.C. Wildfire.

We’ve got to get that right. It’s not rocket science. Why do we wait till two weeks before a wildfire season to make sure that we have that necessary paperwork in place?

I hope, again, that this legislation provides the opportunity to have a more streamlined ability to get contractors up and running in the winter months so that we’re prepared. These disasters are going to happen again.

In 2017 and ’18, all that work that we put in…. If any of the things that we had identified were actually implemented, it would certainly have helped communities in the Shuswap, in Kamloops, in Monte Creek and in all of the other areas that were impacted following the disaster that we experienced.

Again, we continue to be on this roller-coaster ride. We talk about how we’re going to improve things. We consult. We bring ideas forward. We talk about legislation. Then we go back out. We consult. Then we continue to see the exact same or worsening results, which we’ve certainly seen.

This also doesn’t address how we respond to disasters. This past year, when we talk about the preparation…. Look, we were running around for pumps and hoses in our community. We don’t have the necessary water trucks.

When government says: “Look, we have all of the resources necessary to respond to these emergencies….” Well, in our rural remote communities, we don’t. And we’re not prioritized. We understand that. We don’t have the interface communities that the other larger populated areas…. But it continues to be an ongoing challenge that we have in our communities, finding ways….

I am pleased that the government is looking at how we support local volunteer groups to make sure that they’re able to be trained and that they have the proper gear and water tenders to help support efforts of addressing disasters in communities. I think it’s critically important. Experience on the ground is really important.

I wanted to bring up, though, what I’ve heard back from our volunteer fire departments, our brigades, these volunteer groups that, really, exist in unincorporated areas. This is where we’ve seen these massive expanses of these large wildfires in the province. All volunteer-based.

We are so grateful. Let me say on record how grateful we are for all of the volunteers, for all of the front-line responders, whether you are a volunteer fire department, search and rescue. There’s a long list. In each of the communities, it’s a little bit different. You step up, and you put significant hours in.

I talked to the chief of the Kersley volunteer fire department just a few weeks ago. One of the things that he said is that there’s this new onerous level of paperwork that volunteer chiefs are now required to fill in. It’s really pushing away volunteers across the province, critical volunteers that we need. Again, he said that it’s almost like a full-time job now. This volunteer fire chief has to fill out paperwork in order to check all the boxes that have now been required.

We need to do things smartly. I am worried that this legislation is going to create another level of bureaucracy that just makes things far more difficult for people on the ground to do the work that is necessary.

I also wanted to take a moment to talk about how we’re fighting these fires. It’s critically important. I don’t think it gets enough attention, and I think it’s important I elevate the conversation and raise it here in this Legislature.

I think a lot of people have the experience of seeing what a wildfire looks like in an interface community. You see a community like Kelowna or in the Shuswap, where it’s an interface, large populations, and what a wildfire looks…. There’s lots of media attention on that.

[4:55 p.m.]

What really goes unreported…. I think people feel absolutely abandoned in our rural remote and Indigenous communities. We have these massive wildfires, and because they’re not interface and because they do not directly impact people’s property immediately, the fires burn. They let them burn, and they don’t prioritize the resources onto those fires.

I can share with you what it means to have almost your entire back country burn. We’ve seen it. Look at the Plateau fire. At the time, the Plateau fire was the largest fire in B.C.’s history. That’s our livelihood.

If I could deliver a message to government and to the MLAs who are looking at improving upon, modernizing how we address emergencies, I want to share with you that when you let the back country of British Columbia burn, it takes away our economic ability. It impacts our wildlife. It has an impact on our livelihood, and it has very real impacts on people who live out in those areas. Those people feel abandoned.

I hope that this legislation that is before this House helps the people in our remote rural communities feel that their voices will be heard and that there is a place for them, a place in this province where they won’t be forgotten.

Let’s talk about what happens to people and communities after an emergency goes through their community. Look, it’s still fresh in people’s minds what we saw — the horrific image that we saw of the people who’ve been impacted this last summer by wildfires. We’ve seen it by the floods in the Fraser Valley. We’ve seen it in Lytton. We’ve seen it year after year. There have been a lot of impacts on people and community.

One of the things I can share with you, the members of this House — hopefully, this legislation will address it — is that for our communities, you can’t get insurance. In rural remote communities, resort wilderness areas that have had wildfires…. It limits your ability to even access insurance companies. They just won’t insure. If you can happen to find an insurer, the cost is so prohibitive that you’re just not able to do it. Then that impacts your ability to get mortgages, and the banks aren’t included in this conversation.

It is critical that the government has these conversations with the banks. I can tell you, when it takes three, four years to work through disaster financial assistance to get the necessary support, and the banks are looking at foreclosing your business or your property, whether it’s a ranch or whether it’s a resort property….

We’ve had those experiences. It is pretty challenging to have a constituent in your office who saw the loss of their business due to an emergency like a fire or a flood, only then to have the trauma of what it means as they try to rebuild, just to have every single step that they take be retraumatizing. I hope this bill will address that.

What are some of the lessons, as well, that we can learn? Well, one of the challenges that we have in our Indigenous communities…. I think that one of the areas there that is a gap is that we do not recognize, often, that a lot of our Indigenous people live in our urban areas. I know people will laugh when I…. Our urban areas — Quesnel, Williams Lake.

I’ve got 41 small communities and Indigenous communities that are surrounding, in the Cariboo, a very large population, but they’re very small communities. A lot of the people find, in the Indigenous communities, that they’ve moved into the urban settings, and there isn’t a lot of support for what happens to First Nations living in urban communities. That is something, the gaps…. I hope that this piece of legislation addresses that.

[5:00 p.m.]

Another issue is of course the lack of connectivity. As a government, we’re driving to modernize everything to be online. Whether it’s an emergency you have in your community, they put everything out via…. “Oh, we’ll email it to you. Get on this email report.”

Well, 60 percent of our rural, remote communities don’t have access to basic connectivity. I have areas in my riding that don’t even have landlines, so it’s all satellite phones. Look, cell phones ten minutes out of any town off of Highway 97 — you just don’t have connectivity.

So when we’re talking about modernizing this legislation, we really need to do it with the lens of understanding that there isn’t equity of connectivity across this province and that we need to make sure that, again, for people in remote, rural, Indigenous communities, there is a way that we’re communicating with them to keep them safe. I think that that’s critically important.

I do want to share this one story. Dave Gilbert, a rancher in my community — homesteaded in the ’30s with his family — was deeply impacted this summer. He’s been impacted a number of times.

Here he has fire 100 metres from his property. He comes in, and he’s pretty calm. He goes: “Look, we’ve been through this before, so we’re going to help.” I said: “You know, Dave, the government said that they’re going to help our ranchers. So let’s try and call this line. Let’s see what happens when we call this line.”

They said: “We have all these….” I think he had 120 cow-calf operations out on range. We’re trying to figure out how we move cattle and livestock. That’s the experience of MLAs and folks living in rural, remote areas. It’s how do we help our constituents and sometimes get access to some different supports that maybe the urban areas don’t experience.

Well, first of all, he was directed to go online for emergency management support. Well, he doesn’t have broadband, so we brought him into our office, and we tried to make the calls. But there was this long gap. We finally get somebody on for assistance. Like I said, it’s fire on his doorstep. They were going to give him a fan to cool his cows in a barn. Boy, sitting in my office for that one, again, just demonstrated the disconnect.

So the more that we are able to have local people as a part of the solution to how we respond and help support people, the better. Look, nobody wants to be in those embarrassing situations. I don’t…. I want to make sure that our people are supported and helped. But sometimes, I think, there is a strong disconnect of what it looks like in rural, remote British Columbia. Hopefully, this legislation reflects on that and moves forward on that.

At the beginning of my comments, I talked about: what are some of the lessons that we’ve learned? This bill does talk about: what are the steps? I think it’s really important. I applaud the bill for saying that we do need to do a review every five years. That’s critically important, because things are moving fast in this whole climate emergency space. I think it’s critically important.

I want to take a few moments, because I don’t think I have done that in this Legislature, because again, it was a report that had to be FOI’d. I’m going to read some of the elements of the report, because I think it’s critically important. It’s British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Post-wildfire Hydrologic Risk Assessment: West Road (Blackwater) River and Narcosli Creek Watersheds. The final report was May of 2018.

I’m doing this because part of this bill talks about the needs for local governments to do risk assessments. The reason why I’m reading this out is because this bill requires local governments to do the risk assessments. So I would like to spend a moment on what the province’s responsibility is around risk assessments. When they do the risk assessments and government doesn’t change any of their operations, where is the accountability there?

Again, this report was done following the 2017-18 wildfires. It starts with the hydrophobic soils, an opportunity to review soil conditions to determine the presence and extent of water-repellent soils. Pre-fibre forest disturbance. The study…. Watersheds have a long history of disturbance from forest pests. Historical wildfires. Timber harvesting. It talks about what they came up with on that.

[5:05 p.m.]

Overall, the West Road, Blackwater River and Narcosli watersheds had pre-fire ECA estimates to be around 32.8 percent and 40.9 percent respectively.

Then it talks about, throughout this report, what the new challenge will be on the watersheds. It talks about the forest-related fire disturbance, the impact of the 2017 wildfires on the ECAs within the study watershed values.

It talks specifically about the Euchiniko River basin, the Narcosli Creek watershed, the Snaking River sub-basin and the Kluskus Creek basin in watershed units where large areas of moderate or high-severity burns affected mature forests. It talked about the impact on the Aneko Creek sub-basin, the Clisbako River, the Nazko River basin and the Tautri Creek sub-basin and the impacts on that.

You should note that if you go on to the B.C. Wildfires of Note from this year, what has been identified in this report is what we are seeing in these wildfires of note — so what was assessed back in this report in 2017 and what you need to be looking out for and prepare for. Guess what, folks? Government had the risk assessment done in 2017, 2018, but didn’t take the necessary steps that identified in this report we needed to do, so we wouldn’t be in the exact same position this year and have the significant impacts.

Four, post-fire flood hazards. Well, all watershed units in this study…. Watersheds have accumulated levels of forest cover disturbance that suggests their hydrologic regimes may be changed relative to pre-disturbance baselines.

The following seven units are of particular concern, given the high levels to very high levels of fire-related impact: West Road (Blackwater) River, which is the West Fraser Road, which just was a road that cost $104 billion of taxpayer dollars because of the impact on that road; Nazko River, significant impacts on roads out in that area; the Clisbako River; Tautri Creek; Aneko Creek; Baezaeko River; and Coglistiko River. In each of the above-noted watershed units, there’s a very high likelihood that hydrology at the stand and watershed levels have been negatively impacted by the 2017 wildfires.

Then it goes into the spring 2018 freshet. It talks significantly about what we needed to prepare for in 2018, for the freshet season and the impact that all of these wildfires would have on our community. And guess what? In 2018, 150 roads were damaged in the Cariboo North riding, 200 the next year. We are close to $1 billion, just in Cariboo North, in road damage.

What the report talks about are some of the mitigation pieces that can be done to ensure that in areas…. There are assessment pieces through this whole report that talk about each of the areas, what needs to be done. You need to look at what kind of maintenance, road maintenance, what kind of culvert upgrades, if you need to make sure you’re doing your ditching. All of these pieces that contribute to making sure that you don’t have the significant damage as an impact on these major wildfire events are critically important.

It talks about elements at risk, fire-related riparian disturbances, post-fire sediment yield potential, post-fire channel response potential, overall post-fire hydrological, 2018 flood potential.

Well, I can also tell you, we had a lot of landslides. We had people that have now had to move out of their homes. No disaster financial assistance. I know that the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin talked about that this week, about the fact that people who have been impacted by landslides — they have to move out of their home. And guess what? They’re now also responsible for cleaning up their property. So not only do they lose their entire life savings in their home; they’re now on the hook to make sure that property is demolished and taken away.

Update burn severity, future ECA modelling. There’s modelling in this. It talks about floodplain mapping, review channel stability, riparian disturbances, potential soil erodibility, hydrometric monitoring. It talks about a lot more erosion pieces, and then we go into rainstorms.

[5:10 p.m.]

It talks to…. In addition to the potential snowmelt-driven flooding in the spring, summer and fall, rainstorms have the potential to trigger flooding in the downstream of burned areas. Look, didn’t we have some issues in the Fraser Canyon? When you start looking at the landslide….

So all of the risk mitigation that was all identified…. Look, government has them. Government has all these reports. I say: “First, release all of the reports.” If we’re going to modernize emergency disaster management in British Columbia, you know what would be the first thing? It’s to release the reports.

Let us look at the findings on what happened in previous disasters in British Columbia. Let us look at what the experts in the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Water…. All of these people have come forward to say: “Look, these are the issues that we’re going to have in the province.”

You want to make a difference in the province of British Columbia around emergency management, disaster management, recovery mitigation? Release the report.

This is a government that is so secretive. They want to hide everything. “Look. We’re going to go out. We’re going to consult. We’re going to make sure we have all of these groups, and then we hide the data. We hide the information that would prevent this from ever happening to another community member in this province.”

Yeah, I get frustrated. I see the impacts. It’s not just about rebuilding homes and communities, and that is so tragic. It is the Cariboo, at this point, being at $1 billion in rebuild because we didn’t listen to what the report said in 2017 and 2018.

This legislation doesn’t cover that. It needs to. I’m calling on the government to release all of the data that actually helps make a difference in emergency management in British Columbia.

N. Letnick: Thank you to my colleagues for speaking so eloquently and passionately on this very important bill, Bill 31.

I would like to take my place and rise figuratively through Zoom to continue the debate on the bill. The bill repeals and replaces the Emergency Program Act, which has not seen significant revisions in an extended period of time.

Through the other MLAs, I’ve heard a lot of hope: a lot of hope that we will learn from previous mistakes, that we will try to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes, going forward; a lot of hope that the regulations — which, of course, are yet to be drafted or at least yet to become public — will help accomplish what we’re all hoping for.

That is fewer emergencies, those that we can prevent — fewer fires, fewer floods, fewer landslides, etc., and a better way of addressing these emergencies, especially for people who are working for us to continue to battle these emergencies and stay safe, and, of course, the citizens of our constituencies and our province as a whole, as they are impacted, mostly negatively, by the outcomes of these emergencies.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of Bill 31, at least the nuts and bolts that are available to us without the regulations being available, I’d like to recognize a few groups of people who we’ve had experience with over the course of the summer and years.

First of all, of course, are the firefighters, both the professional and the volunteer, paid, on-call firefighters, the forestry firefighters, as well as those from other parts of the province and around the world that would come into our different communities and help out.

I know other members have discussed their time meeting with them. I met a group of firefighters from Vancouver Island here in Kelowna. I was heading over to Canadian Tire — they’ll owe me for that plug — to buy something. I was there at the beginning of the day just before they opened, and there was a group of firefighters there from Comox.

First of all, I thanked them for coming and helping out. Then I said: “What are you doing here at Canadian Tire?” They said they were waiting for the store to open so they could buy some tents. That’s when I found out, much to my surprise, that we didn’t provide them with the equipment. They had to come and buy their own tents, as they were being moved into a new location where tenting was required.

[5:15 p.m.]

I posted that little note on my social media. I’ve been, as many of you know, in elected public service for 24 years, going on 25, and of all my posts — there are quite few — that post garnered the most attention, tens of thousands of views and reach. That’s because of the issue. The issue is so close to home, not only because it’s people helping from away but, of course, people here who are suffering with the emergency. In this case, there was fire.

I just want to, again, thank all the firefighters, whether they’re from local or from away, for protecting us and helping us this year and in all the years that we’ve had to experience these emergencies.

I remember 2003. Some of you might remember it as well. It was a major fire season around the province, and it hit Kelowna pretty bad. We had a fire started near Rattlesnake Island — on the mainland, so to speak. With the wind, in time, it blew its way to destroying quite a number of homes — over 230 homes, I believe — up in the Upper Mission and areas there. We had people living in our home who were asked to move out of their homes. Luckily, their home was safe, but that’s not the case all the time.

We learned some lessons from that. We learned how to process people quickly. We were using volunteers. We provided them with the vouchers they required, and they went on. Of course, those that lost their homes had the usual challenging time, and my heart goes out to them, but they were able to get the services. That continued for other fires that I had the experience of being an MLA and a volunteer person at the emergency centres, registering people.

I’m not too sure what happened this past summer, but many of my colleagues have already discussed how difficult it was at ESS for people to get the help they needed in a timely way.

Hope is, again, what I heard through many of the other speeches. I’m not too sure if the regulations will make it any better or any clearer, but that’s exactly what we should be hoping for in this legislation and the work that comes out of this legislation so that people who we represent, when they are in the situation, whether it’s a flood or a fire or a landslide or a heat dome or any other kind of emergency, can get the services they require in a timely manner and in a fair manner.

Try to automate that as much as possible, especially if we have large evacuations for those areas that do have access to the Internet and other ways. For many of my colleagues who represent parts of the province that don’t have access to the Internet, we’d make sure that they have quick and timely services as well.

In addition to the firefighters, we also need to thank our protective services team — people like RCMP officers in particular, in our location here, who did a great job supporting our community and making sure that areas that should be closed off, were closed off; people who should be evacuated, have evacuated; protecting people’s property and lives when their homes and neighbourhoods were absent of them and their neighbours. Protective services doesn’t always get the credit it deserves, and I just want to pass my thanks for my constituents to them for doing another great job.

The other group of people that this bill is meant to help, of course, are people who were actually forced to leave their homes and, in particular, those who lost their homes. I just can’t imagine how devastating it must be for people who lose their homes in an emergency. Like many of my colleagues, I’ve had friends who lost their homes in several fires — this one and the 2003 fire as well — and flooding emergencies, as someone who lost their home, and others.

It’s not an easy thing rebuilding your life through this process, and anything we can do as a government…. I mean government as a whole, not just the people who are in cabinet. But anything we can do, all members of the House, to make sure that this legislation, Bill 31, does help people, whether they’ve lost their homes or had home damage or have been asked to evacuate….

[5:20 p.m.]

Anything we can do to make sure that they get the timely service they deserve is something I hope we will see through Bill 31, through committee stage, as we ask the detailed questions, and I hope will come out of this.

The opposition has provided some suggestions as to what we would do if we were in government, and should I have time later on, I will try to highlight some of those. For the moment, I’ll just continue focusing on the government’s proposed bill in front of us.

The other group of people I want to highlight that need to be considered when you’re looking at Bill 31 are those people who have lost their jobs and businesses through these emergencies. In so many emergencies, you hear about the heroism of our protective services team, firefighters and others. You hear about the sadness of people who have lost their homes. In a lot of cases, that’s because the media likes to lead with these kinds of stories. They touch our hearts. That’s what usually sells newspapers, as the saying goes.

What we don’t hear a lot about are people who have lost their jobs when their businesses have gone up in smoke, literally, or their communities have been devastated by floods or other disasters. They’ve lost their jobs. In the job market today, even though it’s tight, it’s still very stressful to try to get a new, a different job in your field, or if not in your field, then to go through retraining to go into another field.

If your community has been wiped out, like Lytton…. Heaven knows. People ask me about Lytton: “What’s taking so long?” And I don’t have an answer for them. I really don’t. I don’t know whether the government has abandoned Lytton. It’s been over two years. Are we not going to rebuild? It would be nice to know what is actually happening there. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I haven’t done enough research on Lytton, but I just seem to…. Two years plus. It’s just devastating. I would hate to see that happen to any community, Lytton included, or any other community going forward.

People who’ve lost their businesses, not only in Lytton, of course, but through all these challenges…. Some have insurance. That’s great to a point, but it’s still very stressful. What can we collectively do as a society to help these businesses and help the people who have lost their jobs as well?

Now, when we talk about businesses, it’s not only those that have lost their businesses per se. It’s also those that are impacted by the fires and their business relies on tourism, for example. If your business relies on tourism and you have to deal with smoke all the time, sooner or later you’re going to get a reputation that maybe it’s not a good place to go during the summer, which is usually the peak season for B.C. tourist destination places, unless, of course, you’re a ski hill.

We have to really be cognizant of the impact that smoke and all these other challenges have on businesses, not only those that have actually had to close their businesses but also those that are limping through the emergencies and hoping to come out on the other side and be viable. Again, I hope that the government pays close attention to the business needs of our community.

The other group, I guess — and in particular, one person — I’d like to thank is the government civil servants who, throughout the last emergencies and others before them, have been very helpful, very helpful in having regular briefing sessions so that we can get our questions answered as quickly as possible.

Of course, that is a function of the minister herself, who called out personally to me and my colleagues, not only her but other ministers, and made sure that we knew the government was there if we needed any assistance as MLAs and if our offices needed any assistance. That was greatly appreciated, both the ministers reaching out and also the staff having regular updates and answering questions.

[5:25 p.m.]

Are we through? Is that the end of it? Obviously not. As climate change continues to impact our province and our world, we are likely going to see more forest fires. We’ll likely see more floods caused by atmospheric rivers, heat domes, landslides, etc. We have to make sure that we continue to learn by the evidence of previous experiences and also plan for the future, knowing the likelihood is pretty much 100 percent that we will see more of these disasters and that they’ll increase in frequency and severity because of the climate changing the way it is.

I would say that it’s something members of our caucus have been calling for, for some time, even to the point of a private member’s bill done by our House Leader. I’m glad that the government has brought in this legislation. I would argue it’s taken a long time to get here. At least, now, it’s here, and we can concern ourselves with the bill. Of course, we’ll do that, especially during committee stage, when we can get into the meat, the details, of the bill.

I would also ask the government to answer questions on the regulations, or their vision of the regulations, and not just say, “that’s under regulation,” and then try to avoid answering the questions. The minister has been very good, up to now, in providing answers. I understand she may or may not be able to do the leading of the government through the regulations and the committee stage on the bill. Fair enough. Whoever it will be, I hope they take that spirit in mind and provide our caucus with the answers we require that are clear through this.

It is so, so important. Many parts of our province have not experienced forest fires or flooding or having a mountainside clear through the highways and destroy the highways and some people’s homes and people in those homes, as has happened here in the Okanagan, unfortunately. For a big part of the province, a majority of the province, it’s still very rural. We as MLAs, on both sides of the House, have large tracts of that rural part of B.C., and we need to know what exactly the government has in mind with this bill.

Now, this bill has been, as I said, delayed for a few years and was promised by government in 2020. Now it looks like we’ll have to wait another couple of years for it to be implemented. That’s unfortunate. If the matter is made worse, because we look at the government…. The previous government, in the fall of 2017, had a disaster management plan already drafted and was ready to introduce the bill in the fall of 2017 — the B.C. Liberal government — should it have been elected. But we all know the history there.

More than six years later, what we see in front of us — at least, it would appear that way at second reading — is that this is a less comprehensive version of a similar legislation, which, of course, is unthinkable, since the crisis has only continued to worsen. So unless there’s going to be a lot of detail that we’re going to be hearing about in regulation, I’m saddened by what’s in this bill. I would have preferred to have more meat in the bill and less only to regulation.

Now, I understand that the purpose of regulation gives us, as a government, some flexibility that things can change quicker. But then, of course, you avoid the public scrutiny that would happen behind closed doors.

My hope is that most of that will be disclosed during the committee stage so that the people of B.C. will have a good idea as to what exactly is meant by the legislation. Does it go far enough in addressing the issues? If it doesn’t go far enough, then what else can we do to make it even better, especially if we’re going to be reviewing it every five years?

It’s also my understanding that coinciding with the introduction of the legislation, the government has set up a task force with representatives from local government. The question I got from one of my local mayors is: given the economic importance of the Okanagan, the economic importance of agriculture, and the impact that these disasters have had on the Okanagan and agriculture, why isn’t anyone on the committee from the Okanagan, from municipal government?

[5:30 p.m.]

Why isn’t the mayor of Kelowna, for example, not on this task force, or the mayor of Lake Country, or the mayor of West Kelowna — three mayors that have been directly impacted — or the mayor of Vernon and others? Why isn’t local government in the Okanagan represented on this task force? You’d think that if the big part of the vision by government is to download a lot of the work to local government, and the cost, you would have them at the table.

The same thing applies to agriculture. I didn’t see anybody from the Okanagan. Again, broadly speaking, from British Columbia, are there enough people with agricultural experience on here? They are so impacted by these disasters. So if it’s not too late, and it never is too late, I hope the minister will reflect on that.

I understand that some of the local government people have written a letter to the minister, and I hope she takes it to heart and makes some changes there so that they can be better represented on this task force.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Now, the Ombudsperson report of 2021 identified a whole bunch of important areas that the government could look at to maybe avoid some of the problems that we saw in 2023. Since I don’t have a lot of time, 11 minutes left, what I’d like to do is save that if I have time later. Some of my colleagues have already covered some of those particular areas. If I have time, I’ll come back to it.

In particular, what I wanted to do is read into the record some of the letters that I received over the course of this year’s fire, rather than telling you what I think I saw at the ESS and how challenging it was for my constituents to get the services that they required. Again, as compared to prior emergencies, where it seemed to flow a lot better, I think the best way to do it is just to read some of these letters into the record.

The first one starts by saying: “I would like to start off by saying I have so much gratitude for the firefighters, police officers and emergency service workers and volunteers during the wildfire. My family and I were evacuated August 18 to 21 in Lake Country. I had tried to access ESS in West Kelowna.”

For those of you who didn’t know, people in Lake Country — which is, with our traffic, about 40 minutes away on a good day to West Kelowna — were asked to go to West Kelowna and get their ESS registration.

It continues to say:

“I got a call card, No. 56, on Sunday, August 20. This put me in the queue to receive the ESS support. Due to the long wait times, I made four trips from Lake Country to West Kelowna between Sunday and Wednesday — four trips.

“Finally, on Wednesday, August 22, after four hours of waiting today, I spoke to an ESS worker and was told because I was no longer on order, there would be zero compensation for the days evacuated and all the expenses incurred. I find this” — this is the letter writer — “completely unacceptable.

“There were others who were in this situation and should be compensated as well. We had to buy food, lodging, clothes and more! Anyone on evacuation order currently or who have been put on evacuation order and then removed should receive support. It’s completely disheartening to be told as a result of a long wait time, through no fault of our own, we cannot be helped or given the financial aid that others still on evacuation order are receiving.

“Please help make changes so that we can receive the ESS support needed.”

That’s one of the letters. I totally agree with this letter writer. How can you tell someone that you’ve been, basically, telling to come back and come back, and they’ve been out of their home for a few days, and when they finally come back, then you tell them — not you, particularly, but government tells them: “Sorry. You don’t need our help, obviously. You were able to pay for your hotels on your own credit card. Therefore, we’re not going to pay you back”?

It’s ridiculous. Somebody there might be tapping out their credit card, and at some point, they’ll have to pay it back. So this is completely unnecessary and wrong-headed.

[5:35 p.m.]

I believe the minister agrees that it is wrong-headed. Through this process, we will find out on the record in the House by our questions. Hopefully, people like this constituent, if ever they have a similar situation, won’t be in a similar situation.

Here’s another letter, just maybe to make sure we understand that it’s not just one person. The letter goes to say: “My family have been recent evacuees due to the wildfire. We live in Wilden.” Wilden is part of Kelowna.

“Like many, we had to find alternate accommodation, incurring expenses for food, lodging and transportation. We attended the triage station in West Kelowna on Monday, August 21, and were given a red card and told to watch the website for when we could present ourselves for an interview.

“Our evacuation order was lifted Thursday night. Our red card was called up on Friday. Many folks we knew….”

So you understand that? Their evacuation order was lifted. They did not have to evacuate as of Thursday night. They went from Monday to Thursday on their own dime, and on Friday, they were asked to come back for an interview.

“Many folks we knew had attended in the days before and received financial support for both hotel and meals. By virtue of timing, when our red card was called, we were denied any support for expenses already incurred as we were back in our home. We were evacuated like the others, and in many cases, longer, but due to the processing time required, through no fault of our own, we were denied similar benefits.

“This is not equitable treatment, and I trust you will remedy this situation in short order. I look forward to your response.”

Another letter.

“I was an evacuee with the Clifton Road North area fire that occurred on August 17, 2023, that caused our family to be evacuated with no notice, as the fire was burning across the road from our house. I’m asking you to please help me understand why, after seven days of being evacuated, I was still not able to get assessed by an ESS worker in West Kelowna.”

After seven days, still not able to get assessed.

“We had driven to West Kelowna three times only to learn: ‘Not today. Come back tomorrow.’ Travelling to West Kelowna was a challenge when I did not have my vehicle. I took the steps required to have the assessment, and after seven days, I was still in the caller queue. I understand that thousands of people were displaced, but this does not seem to be responsive to people’s needs in the moment when you have been evacuated with no notice or belongings.

“On August 24, the evacuation order was rescinded to evacuate alert, and my family was able to return to our home. Having said that, I was not eligible for ESS when the order was rescinded. I believed the ESS program was a service to provide persons with their basic needs in time of crisis, but this was definitely not my experience. Perhaps the centre should have been set up in Kelowna for the Kelowna–Lake Country families displaced.

“I would appreciate your response. Thank you.”

Now, that’s the end of that letter. Yes, it is also puzzling why we only had one evacuation centre, in West Kelowna. In previous fires, even though they were small fires, we would have evacuation centres in different parts of the Okanagan, closer to home.

Four minutes left. Well, I have another letter. I think I will read that letter. I’m almost finished.

“Good day, Mr. Letnick.”

Sorry, I can’t use names.

“Good day, MLA,

“I hope this email finds you and yours safe and well.

“First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the incredible efforts of all of those involved in fighting the wildfires in West Kelowna, Kelowna and Lake Country. While devastating to many, the outcome likely was destined to be far worse were it not for the amazing work of so many teams coming together.

“We were evacuated late August 17, near 11 p.m. We were fortunate that we were able to find shelter with friends, who opened up their spare basement bedroom to me and my family, including our dog.

“After the first couple of days in complete shock, we initiated the ESS registration process online and felt a responsibility to go to work on Monday the 21st, as we both work for Interior Health. I knew that all hands on deck would be needed. After all, we were safe. We had housing and could feasibly attend work.

“I am in a manager role at Kelowna General Hospital, and after spending countless hours reaching out to support our site during the fire, I was quite physically and emotionally exhausted by the end of each day. This included calling staff on alert or evacuation orders; distributing food to staff impacted by the fires; supporting all efforts to transition patients to home, including extraordinary repatriation planes.

[5:40 p.m.]

“I attended the ESS site on Monday evening, the 21st, but the line was so long. I was exhausted from work. Knowing that I at least had shelter, I made the decision to go to my temporary home and try again another day.

“On Thursday, I returned to the ESS. On the same evening, the evacuation orders were lifted, and I was told because they had been lifted, I would no longer be eligible for any assistance. I returned home and again to work later.

“I’m writing to share my extreme disappointment in being told that because I was able to sufficiently look after myself, I was no longer considered to be needing support. Our family did manage by using our credit cards and savings for food, clothing and incidentals.

“It is equally disappointing to know that exhausting my energy to attend my scheduled shifts at KGH to ultimately support others has contributed to me no longer being eligible for support myself.

“I’m respectfully suggesting that there should be another mechanism by which to support those that were evacuated. My family initiated the online registration, and surely there are records showing that we reside in the evacuation zone as well as no records of receiving any assistance to date. While yes, the impact of these fires could have been far greater, there is a financial burden carried by many families in addition to mine that should be supported by the B.C. government.

“Again, I’m appreciative of the efforts by so many to save our homes. But I’m left feeling saddened that we are deemed not worthy of any assistance since we returned to our home.

“Thank you for your role in the wildfire management, and thank you for reading this message.”

I’ll end my comments there. Again, as I said, the Om­budsperson’s report identified a number of areas back in 2021 that, if they were acted upon, would have probably avoided most of these letters that I just read and all the hardship and heartache that many of my constituents experienced during this last fire.

I really, sincerely hope that the minister considers adding a local Okanagan municipal government representative or representatives and agriculture representatives to the steering committee. That would be much welcomed and appreciated.

Also, I know this might be stretching the ability of government, but have a look at the B.C. United plan for addressing wildfires in the future. Take the best ideas, by all means, because there is a better way to tackle these forest fires and all these emergencies than what we’re doing right now.

With that, I rest.

G. Kyllo: It gives me great pride to stand in the House today to speak on Bill 31, the Emergency and Disaster Management Act.

It’s a long time coming — over 30 years, is my understanding, since this act went under a significant review. I’m challenged to find that the bill now, after six years of NDP government, is finally being tabled in this House. We’ve seen extreme disasters, climate-related disasters around the province — everything from wildfires, flooding — yet here we are in 2023, 6½ years into the current government’s mandate, before this bill comes forward.

It’s also my understanding that prior to the 2017 election, legislators actually had a significant portion of this act ready to go. Draft legislation was in place, and it was the intention of the previous B.C. Liberal government to table legislation in the fall of 2017.

I certainly appreciate when new government comes to power. I’m sure that they wanted to take the time to review it to ensure that it reflected, maybe, the values and the needs that the current government at the time deemed necessary.

That was in 2017, and we never saw legislation introduced in 2018. No legislation introduced in 2019, 2020. Then ’21 was one of the worst wildfire seasons we’ve had in recent history. The White Rock Lake fire, as an example, destroyed hundreds of homes, displaced a countless amount of wildlife, loss of fibre and timber and all of those negative consequences. The smoke drove the tourism sector largely out of the interior of the province.

Even in 2021, there still was no legislation tabled. Again, not in 2022. Here we are, in 2023, finally seeing legislation being tabled.

[5:45 p.m.]

I applaud and I’m grateful that the legislation is finally coming. But I can’t think how many people were negatively impacted and how many people’s homes were lost, or what lives could have been prevented from being lost, had this government moved forward with the legislation six years ago, or even five years ago, or four years ago.

Glad to see it coming forward. The legislation leaves a lot to regulation. This is a common pattern of this current government, where there’s little detail in the legislation. The majority of the details is left for the bureaucrats, with government to determine through regulation. So there’s limited information that is actually available in the legislation for us to debate upon. I certainly appreciate that during committee stage, our critic will have an opportunity to provide additional questions, looking for some additional clarity from government. But the legislation as tabled does not necessarily include the amount of detail I think British Columbians would like to see.

For those listening at home, one of the challenges when government leaves a lot of the details to regulation is that those regulations will be undertaken and determined by government without the scrutiny of this chamber.

I appreciate how a government may deem to want to move forward with the legislation and then give themselves the ability around the cabinet table to change the regulation and make further changes, but the challenge is that when those changes do come forward, it will not be in the people’s House and there will not be an opportunity for opposition members to actually raise questions, or for the general public, largely, to have an opportunity to raise questions with respect to some of those changes that are forthcoming.

Now, it is certainly not, as the official opposition, that we have not brought forward some very thoughtful private members’ bills to address some of the items that I believe that the Emergency and Disaster Management Act is intended to address. There are two private members’ bills that were brought forward by members of the official opposition, B.C. United, and those were ignored. So I think it’s also worthy for folks at home to think about a government that chooses to ignore any private members’ bills that are coming from opposition members.

Government certainly likes to talk about collaboration or the fact that nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. Yet, as members of the official opposition, when we bring forward very thoughtful private members’ bills — I believe about 46 and counting, I think, over the last six years — not one has ever been brought forward for debate in this Legislature. So although the government might have lots to say around collaboration, we certainly don’t see it here in this chamber. And that’s unfortunate.

Now, the wildfires that we have had in recent years — both the White Rock Lake fire in 2021 really stands to mind, as well as this current wildfire season — had significant negative impacts on life and habitat across the province.

The loss of fibre…. We already have a failing forestry sector that’s really struggling with the lack of fibre, and for those forest companies that have a reduced cut tenure available to them, to see literally millions of hectares of fibre burn up is extremely troubling.

The loss of habitat for…. The impact on wildlife…. My colleague for Prince George–Mackenzie had shared that when a wildfire rolls through, even if some of the wildlife has the opportunity of getting out of the area, it pushes them into the territory of other animals. So mammals like fisher and marten, when other animals come into their territory, they’ll literally fight to the death. So fires have a significant impact even on our wildlife populations.

The loss of recreational values…. Beautiful B.C. is known around the globe, and as my colleague for Kelowna–Lake Country shared, it’s not just the negative impact on the landscape that has happened, but during these wildfire seasons, the smoke-filled skies are driving tourism traffic out of B.C. to other jurisdictions.

[5:50 p.m.]

My community of Shuswap was really negatively impacted this past season by the Bush Creek East fire impacting communities in North Shuswap. I’ll get into a little bit more detail on it, but the amount of smoke and the state of emergency that was actually applied kept visitors away. If I talk to tourism operators within the Shuswap region, whether it be moteliers, rental companies or golf courses, the traffic absolutely dropped off to almost nothing in the middle of August.

So these fires do have a significant impact, not just on the health and fabric of our communities but also on businesses. Many individuals that rely on that summer employment in order to get them through the winter were negatively impacted obviously by many of these wildfires.

Impact on infrastructure — B.C. Hydro facilities. And as we know, post-wildfire, we also have ongoing challenges with geotechnical concerns, on increased flooding and landslides. So any opportunity we have as a province to quickly and immediately address these wildfires when they initially erupt is incredibly important.

Why I honestly believe that is so incredibly important is that if we look at the White Rock Lake fire in 2021 in the Westwold community, when that fire initially erupted, there were logging contractors working in the area, and they had equipment on that fire within the first four hours.

They felt confident they had the ability to put a guard around and to actually protect and contain that fire, but B.C. Wildfire Service directed them to stand down. They were going to monitor it for 48 hours.

Look what happened. They lost that opportunity to take quick action on that fire, and 40 hours later, that fire was out of control, and it devastated Okanagan Indian Band on the western shore of Okanagan Lake. They had huge losses. My colleague from West Kelowna lost a significant number of structures in the most northern portion of his riding.

Let alone just the smoke. This is where we have a look at…. The Minister of Health should be really taking notice of the impact on these smoke-filled skies and the negative impact that has on health.

My stepfather Knud Thomsen, who sadly passed away just a year and a half ago, had COPD. During COVID, he was isolated into his home. He and my mom were very careful and very cautious, worried about COVID and basically isolated themselves from the family.

Then we got through COVID, and we got into 2021, and he was thankful that finally he’s going to be able to get outdoors and spend some time on the Shuswap Lake. Well, the smoke was so severe, he was confined indoors. His last summer wasn’t out enjoying the beauty of our natural surroundings around the Shuswap area. He was confined to his home on account of the smoke.

There are many aspects of the wildfires that have such a negative impact on our lives here in British Columbia. The effort and the necessity of government to quickly respond and take control of these fires is incredibly important. I remember in 2021 when the Solicitor General at the time responsible for emergency preparedness made a statement on the news, indicating that government was utilizing all available resources to combat this significant wildfire service season in 2021.

Well, respectfully, that was only a half-truth. What the minister was referring to was the fact that government was utilizing all of the resources that currently existed within the B.C. Wildfire Service. But we know that there are many resources and services available, whether it’s logging contractors, road builders, individuals that are involved with mass water. There are tons of services available, both in B.C. and across western Canada, and those resources were not pulled into play until very, very late in the 2021 wildfire season.

[5:55 p.m.]

We have a government that seems either overly cautious or unwilling to make those big bold steps to tackle these fires and to put them out when they first erupt within British Columbia.

This is similar to what played out this current season. The wildfire that negatively impacted the North Shuswap started in early July. Largely, the B.C. Wildfire Service was only monitoring that fire. There was not a lot of heavy action or efforts undertaken to actually put that fire out. But by mid August, things changed. They changed incredibly quickly, and 170 structures were lost in the North Shuswap.

I heard my colleague from Kelowna–Lake Country indicate…. I believe over 230 homes were lost from a different fire in Kelowna.

In the North Shuswap, it’s not just the structures that were lost. It’s not just a house. It’s people’s homes.

Kúkpi7 James Tomma with the Little Shuswap Lake Band…. They lost 31 homes on their reserve in the North Shuswap. He and his two brothers had to run for their lives down to the Little Shuswap River. They had to hide and take refuge under a bridge until individuals could actually come and rescue them and take them to safety.

The fire came in so quickly, with embers moving far ahead with the gusty winds, that even the B.C. Wildfire Service had to dismantle and abandon their 300-band encampment on Friday afternoon and leave the area.

Chief Tomma shared with me that it wasn’t just his family home and his mother’s home and his brother’s home. Within those homes were archaeological artifacts and photographs, some of the only photographs they had of family members.

As we see these wildfires putting more and more pressure on communities around the province, we need to ensure that government uses all available resources, not just those resources that exist within the B.C. Wildfire Service but all hands on deck, and to make sure that local contractors and all of the tools that are available to government are deployed in order to put these fires out early.

We talk about climate change and GHG emissions. In 2016, all resources in British Columbia, save and except for the forest sector, contributed about 60 million tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere. In 2021, the wildfires alone, just the wildfires, were 300 percent that number, 190 million tonnes.

Think about it. All resources in British Columbia, the transportation sector, oil and gas — 60 million tonnes. In 2021, 190 million tonnes are estimated to have gone into the atmosphere just from the wildfires alone. If that alone is not a reason for government to take quick and prompt action to put these fires out, I don’t know what is.

Now, as we look to the North Shuswap…. I’m incredibly proud of the efforts of the local community, the volunteer fire departments and even those that were working on the ground with the B.C. Wildfire Service. Those folks take their jobs extremely seriously. I’m very happy to report that there was no loss of lives or no reported injuries, which I’m aware of, in the North Shuswap.

One of the challenges that was presented to the community is…. When the back burn that the B.C. Wildfire Service lit on Thursday, along the power line, went terribly bad…. The fires and the wind changed direction, and the fires were pushed into the community. B.C. Wildfire Service left the community on Friday afternoon and did not receive authorization to return to the community until Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. Volunteer fire departments were also told to leave the area, taking a lot of the fire equipment with them.

[6:00 p.m.]

I certainly don’t second-guess either the B.C. Wildfire Service or those responsible for their fire departments, their volunteer firemen and firewomen, to actually leave the area. But what was left was only a few community members that resided behind, within the community, to protect their homes, their livelihoods in the community that they care so deeply about. Had there been the resources needed to properly protect the community, I certainly believe that many of those community members would have left the North Shuswap.

In the absence of any B.C. Wildfire Service personnel and in the absence of any active structural volunteer firefighters, what were community members to do? They could have taken heed of the evacuation order and they could have left, or they could, as many did, stay behind to protect their homes and their businesses and their livelihoods.

Context is importan, and I’ve shared this in a number of news media interviews. The North Shuswap…. The folks, the men and women that live in the North Shuswap — they’re a hardy bunch. They’re loggers. They’re road­builders. These folks have four-wheel drive trucks. They’ve got quads. They’ve got chainsaws in their garages. Because the North Shuswap is all along Shuswap Lake, many of them have their own boats and other alternative means of egress.

I’ve been scrutinized or criticized for taking a stance and supporting those individuals that did stay behind. I certainly would not encourage anybody to stay behind if they feel that they’re going to put anyone at risk.

In the North Shuswap, if I just can mention a few individuals. Dean Acton — his family has had Captain’s Village Marina for decades. He and his two boys, along with six friends, stayed behind, and they weren’t actively engaged with the wildfire.

Dean’s got, I believe, about $40 million in boats under his care. These are his customers’ boats as well as inventory that he has for his marina. He and his two sons and six other individuals, they stayed behind and they were running water trucks and water pumps and they were just basically watering everything, keeping all of the grounds on his property wet and saturated.

As these embers came in, they were putting out spot fires. They never lost a single structure or a single boat, and nobody was injured, but they protected and saved their marina. I was speaking to Dean recently, and I said: “Dean, had you taken heed of the order and had you and your sons and your friends left the area, what is your estimation on what would have happened?” He said: “Greg, honestly, we would have lost everything.”

It’s not just the loss of structure, but it’s the loss of employment. Dean and his family are huge contributors to the local community, provide huge employment in the North Shuswap. Because of the efforts of Dean and his boys and his friends, they were able to save their marina.

There are two other large RV parks in the North Shuswap providing recreational opportunities for folks from all across British Columbia, many from the Kamloops area. Those two parks alone — over $40 million in assets.

Again, without the work of other local residents, largely Craig Spooner and his crew and the Bischoff family…. They did a yeoman’s work running around with gravel trucks with big water tanks in the back and water pumps. Again, folks, there was no B.C. Wildfire Service personnel there and zero volunteer firefighters in the area from Friday afternoon through until Saturday afternoon. These folks that stayed behind. They did a huge amount of work to protect and save their community.

When we talk about 171 structures being lost in the North Shuswap, that number would be magnified by 300 or 400 percent had some of those locals not stayed behind.

[6:05 p.m.]

I’m happy to see, and I certainly was happy to hear both B.C. Wildfire Service in the days following the impact on Scotch Creek and Celista in the North Shuswap….

Even B.C. Wildfire Service recognized the value that some of the local contractors were able to provide, and they took initiative to try and on-board them, taking heed of the value of the local knowledge, their knowledge of the road networks in and around their community and the skill sets of many of the locals that were used, you know, obviously in those early days and then, throughout the mop-up of the fire, to put out hot spots.

I’m happy to see that the legislation references local and Indigenous knowledge. The Neskonlith First Nation, who also are within that North Shuswap area, had reached out to me a number of weeks before the fire engulfed and consumed many of the properties in the North Shuswap, to indicate that they had 50 trained firefighters. These are Indigenous individuals, 50 trained firefighters. They were waiting to get deployed, and they were frustrated because these men and women are sitting there, fully trained, wanting to do the work to help British Columbia and to tackle some of these wildfires, but they weren’t being called up.

The MLA for Kamloops–South Thompson and myself — we made a number of calls, and within days, ten of them were dispatched but not to the local community. They were dispatched down to Osoyoos. Meanwhile, the other 40 individuals were still sitting there waiting to go. So I wonder why it is that we have trained firefighters, Indigenous firefighters that have local knowledge and they’re fully certified, why they were left to stand on the sidelines while we have firefighters coming in from Australia and all points south.

I know it’s extremely concerning to some of the First Nations leaders in the area, especially when we saw the devastation that negatively impacted Little Shuswap Lake Band. Communities rely on government to provide that protection. It’s not local government or the Columbia-Shuswap regional district’s responsibility for maintaining or for fighting wildfires. That’s the province’s responsibility.

When government fails to have the necessary resources or fails to initiate a state of emergency early on enough so that those resources can be called to action, and it negatively impacts communities like Scotch Creek and Celista and Lee Creek and Turtle Valley and the surrounding area and Squilax, and we see 171 structures destroyed in the North Shuswap…. My friend, Kúkpi7 Tomma, loses 31 homes, and his community is devastated. The habitat in and around the Shuswap is devastated and probably won’t be back to normal for 30, 40 years.

How can they not look to government and say: “Why didn’t you do more? You could have.” We heard the minister responsible for emergency preparedness continue to repeat the same words to British Columbians: “It’s not necessary. We don’t need to call a state of emergency. Everything’s okay.” Well, everything was not okay. Government was late to take action, late to deploy the necessary resources. I think that government needs to really do a big rethink about how long it is taking them to action some of these fires.

There’s a gentleman in the North Shuswap, a gentleman that I did not always see eye-to-eye with on many political fronts, Jim Cooperman, an environmentalist. He’s written a number of books on the environment and habitat, and he’s very concerned about what’s happening in and around the Shuswap.

[6:10 p.m.]

When it comes to this fire that negatively impacted the North Shuswap and the back burn that was ignited by B.C. Wildfire Service, he’s undertaken a ton of work to document all of the different information that was at B.C. Wildfire Service’s disposal, the information they shared with the local community, and has reached out to the Forest Practices Board, looking for an independent review on some of those actions.

It’s certainly the view of many in the North Shuswap that it was the back burn that backfired, the back burn that went terribly wrong, that caused the largest amount of devastation to their communities. So government has an opportunity to do some navel gazing, to do their own investigations, to really learn what happened and why and to find out why it is that B.C. Wildfire Service are not actioning these fires as quickly as they possibly could.

I have no quarrel with those individuals that are working on the ground. They’re dedicated individuals. They do a yeoman’s work. But it’s the leadership within B.C. Wildfire Service that I’m very concerned about, this whole idea of: “We’re just going to monitor. We’re going to watch it and then see what happens.”

Again, as I shared earlier, the White Rock Lake fire…. Logging contractors were on that fire within four hours and felt confident they could have ringed it and contained it. But B.C. Wildfire Service said: “No. Stand down. We’re going to monitor it.” Look at the devastation that came from it.

I do hope that this government utilizes this opportunity with this legislation to make sure that they’re taking the efforts to protect the health and safety and welfare of British Columbians and using every tool at their disposal to action these fires quickly and not to wait until homes are engulfed, lives are put at risk and businesses are put at risk.

We also need a government that’s going to take action and not allow what happened to Lytton. In Lytton, two years post-fire, not a single, single-family residence is under construction — two years. How is that possible? The residents of the North Shuswap are looking to me, saying: “MLA, I hope that’s not going to happen to us here in the North Shuswap.”

Geotechnical assessments have to be undertaken. Archaeological assessments may need to be undertaken. We don’t know that yet. The government has still not been clear. For many of these homes that are fronting rivers, lakes and streams, riparian area assessments are going to have to be completed. Health permits are going to have to be obtained from Interior Health for putting in septic systems.

We don’t know, and residents in North Shuswap don’t know, what that is going to look like. All of that work, all those reports — none of that is covered by insurance.

With that, I’ll take my seat.

M. Lee: I rise to join all of my colleagues here in the official opposition to speak on Bill 31, hearing, as we just did, from the member for Shuswap about the challenges in his region that he represents, to landowners, to community members, to First Nations, Indigenous peoples, and, of course, the terrible example of Lytton, in terms of the recovery there — the member, also, for Fraser-Nicola.

I have the opportunity to speak to this bill as, also, the shadow minister for Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. I know that structurally, this bill will be…. It’s been commented. I’d like to use my time to give some notice to the minister responsible for this bill, as well as the team around her, as we get to committee stage. Just like my colleague the House Leader for the Third Party said in his comments, I hope we do have sufficient time at committee stage to go through this bill in detail.

Just like the member for Prince George–Valemount knows with the health professions bill, I hope that there isn’t that kind of management by the government and their House Leader in terms of time allocation and cut off of review.

[6:15 p.m.]

The reason for that is that this bill, for example, from my understanding, since we’ve seen the implementation of UNDRIP, under the DRIPA act, in this House, and the DRIPA action plan…. Now we are with the DRIPA bill itself, and the act, for four years. This bill is, arguably, the first land-based bill that is attempting to implement the commitments made under UNDRIP as interpreted by this government.

Structurally, as we look at the importance of emergency management, including for wildfires and floods and other transmissible diseases, these challenges that our province has faced…. That we ensure that a structure works, is workable with local authorities and for First Nations, with government…. That it doesn’t merely add more regulation and more administrative burden to all of the bodies that might need to be involved — the ones that need to respond quickly to an emergency, of course….

We know that as we look at the work of other ministries, like the minister responsible for Water, Land and Resource Stewardship…. I’ve heard, in many gatherings for First Nation leaders, the minister speak about his current updates on land management plans and use, planning tables, both regional and around the province.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The recognition, of course, for the support of the tremendous biodiversity that we need to continue to sustain in our province with Indigenous communities and First Nations….

That, of course, does introduce the interaction behind this bill, as we look at the involvement set out around consultation, joint decision-making, coordination agreements with First Nations. We need to understand the interaction of this framework around emergency and disaster management with First Nations versus all the other, parallel efforts that this government is taking to understand how we do, collectively, land management planning with First Nations.

Of course, in the case of an emergency, that brings everything to the forefront.

So let me just say, by way of notice to the minister and her team, that I would like to use this as an opportunity to understand and get an update from the government in terms of how it’s utilizing the term “Indigenous governing body.” We know, in this Bill 31, throughout the bill, in the operative sections — including part 3, “Agreements with Indigenous governing bodies” as per the title….

When the member for Abbotsford West and myself had five days of committee review with the former Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, we did go over what an Indigenous governing body means from the purpose of this government. So I would like to review with this minister what that means in this context. We can, again, reconfirm the government’s interpretation of the term “Indigenous peoples,” as set out under DRIPA.

The importance of this is this: for those First Nations and Indigenous communities that don’t fit within that definition, how would this new emergency and disaster management framework apply to them? What opportunities will they have to participate in the management of their lands? That will be a question.

When we look, for example, at the conversation around Indigenous peoples, I know…. I take note of the minister’s second reading speech, where she stated that “Indigenous” includes Métis and Inuit peoples, as we know. But she went on to say that First Nations are the only Indigenous peoples with land-based rights recognized here in B.C.

[6:20 p.m.]

I do know that the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation recently had to retract his letter that he provided to Métis Nation B.C. where he recognized the importance of cooperation and collaboration with Métis Nation B.C., recognized their status and the work that needs to be done government to government. The minister, two weeks after that, retracted his letter.

I understand why the minister says that First Nations are the Indigenous peoples with land-based rights here recognized in British Columbia. My understanding in talking to Métis people, other than…. Kelly Lake is the one area of the province where there is, at least from Métis people’s perspective, some land-based rights that they would assert. But I’m not trying to get into that issue here, about Kelly Lake.

All I’m saying is…. I’m just giving another example. When we talk about Indigenous governing bodies, is there a qualifier that the minister is suggesting that means Indigenous governing bodies with land-based rights, and if that’s the case, where do Métis people fit within a concern around emergency and disaster management? I know, of course, that when we talk about emergencies, we’re concerned about the land. But Métis peoples have an interest, of course, as Indigenous peoples on these lands. I don’t mean from a title and rights perspective. I mean in an emergency management situation.

That’s just another example as to understanding the work that’s being contemplated with Indigenous governing bodies when they’re considering the risk assessments and emergency management plans that are to be developed or revised, adjusted, during emergencies.

As we turn to the section dealing with multi-jurisdictional emergency management organizations, section 21 of this bill, the lead-in says: “A multijurisdictional emergency management organization may be established, in accordance with the regulations….” This is part of the concern that we see with this framework, which is that a lot of this bill, the actual details, are left to regulations.

We’ve seen this, of course, time and time again from this government. We know they’ve been working on this review for many, many years, and they bring forward a bill in this fall session with a lack of details. So that does force us, as members of this House, to review in detail exactly what is contemplated by these provisions.

For example, in this provision, it says that a multi-jurisdictional emergency management organization may be established, if there are any regulations, “by 2 or more of the following: (a) a local authority; (b) the government; (c) an Indigenous governing body.” As the minister presents herself for committee review, we need to have a good understanding as to what is exactly contemplated here.

Is it contemplated, for example, that government and a local authority can enter into a multi-jurisdictional emergency management organization without the involvement of an Indigenous governing body on their lands? Is it contemplated that the government and an Indigenous governing body can enter into a multi-jurisdictional emergency management organization without a local authority? Or is it contemplated that an Indigenous governing body and the government can enter into a multi-jurisdictional emergency management organization without government?

This does raise another concern, which has been expressed by other members of our official opposition caucus. With this framework change, what is the resource allocation that is going to occur here? We know that with the Ombudsperson’s report and other position papers — policy papers provided by the Assembly of First Nations, for example, the First Nations leadership summit, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs — there is concern about capacity building. So what is the capacity that’s provided to this multi-jurisdictional emergency management organization if government is not involved?

[6:25 p.m.]

These are just examples of the types of considerations as we find all levels of government working at the municipal level, local government authorities, regional districts, the provincial government, Indigenous governing bodies as defined under DRIPA by this government.

As we look at these definitions and how they are utilized, we see that the minister may by order also require that two or more local authorities can establish a multi-jurisdictional emergency management organization, or a local authority can be ordered to join a multi-jurisdictional emergency management organization.

Somewhere in here, there is a reference and other sources of questions relating to Indigenous governing bodies. What if there’s another Indigenous governing body who has an overlapping claim on land and title or jurisdiction? Where is the element to involve and ensure that that Indigenous governing body has a right and an opportunity to participate in this emergency management organization?

I appreciate the intent — as commented by most members, if not all, that I’ve heard speaking to Bill 31 — of the recognition of the importance of involving First Nations in collaboration. But how it’s being done structurally in a bill of this nature, with the amount of detail that’s required….

I will not have the time today, but I will continue my comments tomorrow, if the bill is presented again, as to how it’s worked through in terms of all of the agreements that are provided for under part 3 of Bill 31.

Mr. Speaker, if you indicate this is a good time for me to reserve my place and move adjournment of the debate.

M. Lee moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

Hon. M. Dean moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:27 p.m.