Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call continued second reading for Bill 39, Zero-Emission Vehicles Act.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole for Bill 29, Environmental Management Amendment Act.

In the third House, Committee C, I call Committee of the Whole for Bill 31, Emergency and Disaster Management Act.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 39 — ZERO-EMISSION VEHICLES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

D. Davies: I’d say it gives me pleasure to continue, but it’s actually a displeasure to continue this debate on Bill 39.

I’m getting the aws from the government side.

I briefly made my introductory comments yesterday on our opposition to this bill, which is zero-emission vehicles, Bill 39, 2024. It builds on the 2019 bill, Bill 28, zero emissions, which was absolutely silly at the time, but this has become more silly.

I introduced a few pieces talking about the diversity of our province and how this bill would work down here in Victoria or on the Lower Mainland. But it does not work because of the diverse weather conditions, environment, demographics, geographics of our province.

Right now in fact, up in Fort St. John, we’re already at below-zero temperatures. It’s not going to get any warmer between now and May. I know the member for Stikine also has winters, not as cold as we have up in the Peace country.

I talked briefly about information right from Tesla, infor­mation from an American automobile study that talks about a near 50 or over 50 percent reduction in battery and distance travelled when the temperature goes below six degrees. Well, that’s T-shirt weather, certainly, in February.

We are locking in here, probably over the next couple of weeks, at minus-20-degree temperatures in the Interior and in the North. Those temperatures are going to be lasting right through, literally, until April.

We also talked briefly about the distances travelled. I have a constituency office in Fort Nelson, 500 kilometres away from my residence in Fort St. John. When it’s minus 20, 30 or 40, the range on an electric vehicle is only going to be 250 kilometres. The infrastructure is nowhere near…. Quite frankly, I’m not sure how it’s going to be what is needed.

A gentleman who is north of Fort Nelson, Urs, owns the Northern Rockies Lodge. He has a level 1 charging station at the Northern Rockies Lodge, which is 2½ hours north of Fort Nelson, being run by a diesel generator, I might add, because he’s off grid. They have to produce all of their own electricity with diesel generators.

It’s absolute silliness, this cookie-cutter piece of legislation, where one rule, across the board, is somehow acceptable when it isn’t. There need to be exceptions made. We need to be looking at the province as the diverse province that it is.

[1:40 p.m.]

I left off my remarks yesterday talking about the resource sector, whether we’re talking, which is really big up in my area…. The natural gas sector is huge. Everybody in that sector requires a pickup. You need a pickup to access remote lease locations. You need a pickup when you’re working on building pipelines to connect facilities into the main line.

You know what? These are not close to any civilization. They are in the middle of nowhere. In my early days, I worked in the oil and gas industry. We would drive straight north of town, which is not up the Alaska Highway, for 2½ hours. There are zero communities. There are no communities, so unless you’ve got one heck of a long extension cord….

I just do not foresee how mandating that every single British Columbian must have an electric vehicle by 2035, 90 percent by 2030…. That’s only seven years from now. It’s just not reasonable.

We heard some of my colleagues earlier talk about how this is going to impact people’s pocketbooks. These vehi­cles are expensive.

The supply chain, which was talked about by my colleague from the Kootenays — right now there’s a critical shortage of EVs. If you’re going to be pushing this forward…. I don’t even know how it’s going to actually happen.

I talked about oil and gas. Forestry is a very similar sector up in…. Well, it’s everywhere in the province of British Columbia. I’ll bet you’d be hard pressed to find anything, any vehicle that is probably…. Well, tons of half-ton pickups, tons of three-quarter-ton pickups. Those are the most common pickups that you’re seeing in all industry. They’re a lot cheaper than a one ton. As soon as you go to a one-ton pickup, you’re looking at $130,000.

This legislation, Bill 38, now captures, with the weights that are put in the bill, three-quarter-ton pickups and less. So everything three-quarter ton and under…. You will not be able to purchase in the province of British Columbia in a few short years.

It is shortsighted. It is a silly piece of legislation that is going to have catastrophic negative impacts, quite frankly, on all of British Columbia.

I talked a little bit about the resource sector. This is going to have a huge impact on farmers up in my region, for almost the same reasons as it does the other industries that I just talked about.

I was up visiting, with my colleague from Delta South. We were up north visiting some ranchers this summer. Of course, it was a horrible summer, with the droughts and such.

Every farm and ranch out there…. They’ve all got half-ton pickups and three-quarter-ton pickups. They’re hauling around equipment or pulling their trailers for moving cattle and such. The backbone of any farming industry is to make sure that they have these pickups.

I cannot even fathom an electric farm vehicle operating in minus 30 conditions outside of the Lower Mainland. It is absolutely going to be catastrophic for the farming community across the province. Having electric pickups is even going to be a challenge, I believe, if you’re going into the Fraser Valley, for many of these farms.

My colleague from the Kootenays called desperation legislation on a couple of other pieces of legislation. I think that’s what it is.

This government has failed to meet the direction of their climate targets. “You know what? Let’s just do this knee-jerk response here and get this going.” Unfortunately, I think it is really…. Well, not I think. This piece of legislation really, really will have huge negative consequences on the economy of British Columbia, again on the afford­ability issue, impacting British Columbians the most in their pocketbook.

[1:45 p.m.]

This is what worries me, certainly, about people in my region and my colleague from Peace River South’s region. This is going to have a horrible, horrible impact.

I could talk for a lot longer, but I think I’ve made my piece. There’s no way we can support this legislation. It’s something that is going to be catastrophic for the resource sector, it’s going to be catastrophic for farmers, and it’s going to be catastrophic for the average British Columbian.

Deputy Speaker: Leader of the Fourth Party.

I don’t see him online. I did get an indication that he wished to speak to this at this point.

Minister, would you like to close debate?

Hon. J. Osborne: I’ll simply thank all the colleagues here in the House for their comments and look forward to further discussion over committee.

Deputy Speaker: With that, shall second reading pass?

Division has been called.

[1:50 p.m. - 1:55 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: Members, the question is second reading of Bill 39, Zero-Emission Vehicles Amendment Act, 2023.

Second reading of Bill 39 approved on the following division:

YEAS — 50
Alexis	Anderson	Babchuk
Bains	Beare	Begg
Brar	Chandra Herbert	Chant
Chen	Chow	Conroy
Coulter	Cullen	Dean
D’Eith	Dix	Donnelly
Dykeman	Elmore	Farnworth
Fleming	Furstenau	Glumac
Heyman	Kahlon	Kang
Leonard	Ma	Malcolmson
Mercier	Osborne	Paddon
Parmar	Phillip	Popham
Ralston	Rankin	Rice
Routledge	Routley	Russell
Sandhu	Simons	Sims
A. Singh	R. Singh	Starchuk
Whiteside		Yao
NAYS — 24
Ashton	Banman	Bernier
Bond	Davies	de Jong
Doerkson	Halford	Kyllo
Lee	Letnick	Merrifield
Milobar	Morris	Oakes
Paton	Ross	Rustad
Shypitka	Stewart	Stone
Sturdy	Sturko	Wat

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

Bill 39, Zero-Emission Vehicles Amendment Act, 2023, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

[2:00 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call second reading, Bill 41, forest act.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

BILL 41 — FORESTS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Hon. B. Ralston: I move that Bill 41 be read a second time now, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2023.

This bill fulfils, in part, commitments made in the June 2021 Modernizing Forest Policy intentions paper to transform the forest sector by implementing new tools to strengthen the social contract and enhance stewardship and sustainability.

Wildfire Act amendments will give prescribed fire legal standing in B.C.’s forest management toolkit, enabling government to expand work with First Nations and other partners on cultural and prescribed burns when requested. These amendments will allow for a more concerted effort in the advancement in prescribed burns as a wildfire mitigation practice.

Fire is obviously a natural process in many B.C. ecosystems, and First Nations have a long history of using fire as a stewardship tool. Using prescribed fire in cooler weather can reduce the risk of more severe wildfires in hotter seasons. Reintegrating cultural and prescribed fire into the Wildfire Act allows us to increase these actions to decrease the risks of wildfire, using First Nations knowledge to benefit and protect everyone.

Forest Act amendments provide greater discretion in the issuance of cutting and road permits. This will enhance the government’s ability to be an effective steward to manage our forests in a sustainable manner for generations to come.

Under the proposed amendments, decision-makers must consider stewardship, cultural heritage resources and public health and safety. They may request additional information related to the issuance of permits and during the term of the permits. They may impose conditions on permits, and they may, of course, refuse a permit. This new discretionary authority will enhance First Nations ability to address First Nations concerns raised during the permit consultation and review process.

The proposed amendments to the act will reposition government as the land manager, reasserting the public interest in forest management and equipping land managers with appropriate tools to exercise discretion in decision-making.

Forest and Range Practices Act amendments will provide new tools for compliance and enforcement. This will strengthen protection of public and First Nations values and interests by ensuring that there are consequences for noncompliance and appropriate tools to encourage voluntary compliance from participants and thereby deter noncompliance.

Strong, transparent compliance and enforcement is critical to protecting the forests, the province’s forest resources and ecosystems, conserving fibre supply and maintaining the public’s confidence in government stewardship of B.C.’s forest resources, and further reflects government’s commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

[2:05 p.m.]

Amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act will introduce needed compliance and enforcement tools by adding new administrative remedies and accountability measures to ensure that public resources are effectively managed and to increase understanding of the significant impact of noncompliance upon our public resources.

Often, contraventions result in losses and damages to Crown resources and property, and there are no means to recompense the public. Damages to Crown land resources and property can be significant, impacting ministry and government objectives and resulting in unexpected costs to the people of B.C. These amendments will enable the minister, as part of the administrative remedies process, to assess and require the payment of damages where a contravention of the acts directly or indirectly harms or destroys Crown resources.

Under the proposed remedial cost recovery provisions, if, for example, a contravention results in a landslide that destroyed a government investment on the land base, such as the restoration of a riparian area, the costs of the investment could be recouped from the contravener. Reparations orders for damage, for harm to environmental, cultural, recreation and resource values, add significant new consequences where contravention harms a Crown resource. This will help to ensure that contraveners are accountable for losses to important values such as biodiversity, protected wild habitats and old growth trees.

For example, if an old growth stand is unlawfully harvested, in addition to administrative penalties, which are to deter illegal actions and to remove any economic gain, reparation order authority will enable an additional amount to reflect the irreplaceable harm to resources and government objectives to which the old growth stand contributed. While these losses cannot be easily determined, regulations will prescribe amounts according to the nature of the resource harmed and the area impacted.

Finally, in addition, some minor legislative improvements will remove spent or other provisions that are no longer relevant to make the Forest Act, the Forest & Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act more efficient and accessible.

If I might conclude, overall, the amendments will build on government’s efforts to reassert the public interest in our forests by supporting government as the provincial land manager and as a leader in forest stewardship that can work in partnership with First Nations to establish clear landscape-level direction, mitigate conflict and facilitate local solutions.

These changes will demonstrate the government’s long-term vision for stewardship, economic well-being and its continued commitment to reconciliation.

Hon. J. Osborne: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. J. Osborne: I notice in the gallery today that we’re joined by Chief Michael Recalma from the Qualicum First Nation and his wife, Sharon. I want to say hello and welcome them to this place. The chief and I met in the summer of 1991, when I was a summer student working at the Big Qualicum hatchery. It’s a delight to see them today.

Please, everybody, make them welcome.

Debate Continued

M. Bernier: I want to thank the minister, as I’m speaking to Bill 41 — second reading here — as it’s brought forward. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. The minister highlighted, obviously, some of the changes that are being considered and brought forward by the ministry.

Maybe I’ll start, with all sincerity, by commending the minister on the approach on this one. By that, I mean that it’s been quite uncommon for this government to put forward a bill after consultation. Looking at what they’ve done around the province, usually it’s the other way around. They put a bill forward and then say: “After we pass it, we’re going to consult.” In this actual situation, I know — as the minister highlighted after the 2021 paper — that there have been consultations taking place that have led to some of these changes.

This is also right after we’ve had the largest forest fire season in the history of the province of British Columbia. Some of the challenges we’ve seen on the landscape, some of the impacts to our ecosystem, not just around forestry but, of course, the forest fires and what’s taken place….

[2:10 p.m.]

When we look at the amendment, it’s a 188-section bill. It’s quite large, understandably. Some of it is consequential to previous changes being made in the acts. But we’ll get into a lot of the meat and potatoes, I guess, on this in committee stage.

I do want to make a couple of quick comments. I won’t speak in too much depth, because again, we’ll get into some of the issues at committee stage, and also my colleague from Prince George–Mackenzie I know will speak to this after me and is very passionate and knowledgable, as well, on this sector.

I think it’s important to recognize that forestry is in an unprecedented situation right now in the province of British Columbia — the impacts on our ecosystem, again, as I mentioned, but also the impacts to our communities, to the jobs. We know that forestry is an important industry in the province of British Columbia. The minister and I agree on this. It’s an industry that’s basically one of the founding industries of this province, but they are under immense pressure and challenges right now.

I think everybody would also agree, because of that, that we cannot keep doing business as usual, that we have to be looking at biodiversity on the landscape. I know my colleague will talk to that in greater length, as he always does.

When we’re looking at amendments in the Forest Act, Forest and Range Practices Act, the Wildlife Act, I appreciate that some of these changes, I will say, on the face, look like they’re important. But again, the devil is always in the details, which we’ll get to later on in committee stage.

I think the minister will acknowledge that sometimes I will immediately be supportive where I believe there are good changes, but also skeptical, because of the way this government has rolled out some of their bills — I’ll talk about the impacts in my riding specifically — without due diligence, without consultation. The impacts it has had on our communities, whether it’s been around wildlife, the caribou issue, the reduction in the moose hunt, which I would argue is not science-based, the back-country closures that we’ve seen through the ministry without any kind of socioeconomic impact study done, a lot of it is political and knee-jerk.

Of course, people in my region…. When this bill was introduced just yesterday, their first reaction was skepticism, because they’ve lost faith in this government’s approach on a lot of this. But I do have to remind them that in some cases…. This bill might be one of them, where there are meaningful steps being taken that could be appropriate. We’ll discuss that as well and as we go through committee stage, as I mentioned. I never shy away from the fact that if government is putting something forward that’s valuable, I’ll support it. I think we should all be doing that.

Again, there are parts of this that I’ll have some very important questions on as we go forward. One of them that I think the minister knows that I will get into is my concern about…. Any time there are changes — and as the minister even talks about — administratively, the first thing I ask is: what’s the red tape involved? Is this going to create more uncertainty in the forestry sector?

As I’ve mentioned all along, in any industry…. This bill talks about permitting. But one of my biggest concerns…. I would far rather get a no quickly and move forward than government delaying permits for a year or two years or three years and creating that uncertainty. That is where the criticism comes in.

So if the minister is going to be able to speak to this in committee stage and say the approach is actually to expedite a permit process, knowing full well that it’s not always a yes, that sometimes it’s a no…. But we need to get to a process, a place, where we can start giving more certainty to a sector that is struggling.

I’m always worried about extra costs, downloading and red tape that will be created any time we make changes to a piece of legislation that talks about administrative, more bureaucracy. The minister will be able to quantify that or correct that, again, when we have the opportunity to dive into it further in committee stage.

[2:15 p.m.]

With that, I won’t spend too much time other than to say I appreciate the conversations that we’re going to have when the time comes at committee stage. Again, on face value, some of the changes that I see in this look appropriate, but of course I want to make sure that we quantify those changes as we get into that discussion.

I appreciate the time that I’ve had today to speak in second reading. Thank you very much.

M. Morris: I’m going to just spend a little bit of time speaking on Bill 41. It’s an area that holds a lot of interest for me. I live in the Prince George timber supply area, which is the largest timber supply area in British Columbia. It takes up about 40 percent of B.C.’s softwood production, or has up until this point, for sure, anyways.

I like what I see. I’ll come back to a couple of particular areas in this bill as I move forward over the next few minutes here. But how did we ever get to this stage? That was one of the things I looked at, and I’ve always been bewildered as to how and when we ended up having this myopic vision of a forest as being nothing more than a mere 2-by-4 or pulpwood.

I did a lot of research into this. I looked back, and I traced it all the way back to 1945 to the royal commission report that was published in 1945. The commissioner said in that report that British Columbia should adopt…. He recommended to the government of the day that British Columbia should adopt the sustainable yield strategy. At that time, in 1945…. And of course, the royal commission had taken place a couple of years before that, so this was the culmination of all the information that he got at that particular time.

The input was based on the forest sector in the ’20s and ’30s, leading up to this particular point in time. And when the commissioner recommended a sustainable yield strategy, their vision was that British Columbia had so much wood and so much forest that we would be able to harvest forests forever in a sustainable way. Rotations were 120-year rotations in the Interior of the province — a little bit less than that down in the southern part of British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, but 120 years.

So when the commissioner made this recommendation, he also said: “Just a minute. I also identified that there are other values in the forest — the wildlife, the riparian areas, the water and the impact that a forest has on this. But I don’t think I need to take that into consideration in my defining what sustainable yield is.” At that time, he was speaking from a paradigm of British Columbia just covered in mature primary forests and we would never be able to cut it down fast enough to jeopardize that primary forest. It would be in existence all the time.

Well, as we rolled through 1945, and there was another royal commission in ’55 that focused more on the administrative parts of forestry, nothing was ever mentioned about these other values of a forest until the 1975 royal commission. They did reference the fact that we’re harvesting all this mature timber, and one of these days that mature timber will be gone. The advantage we have had in the B.C. forest sector up until that period of time will be gone. There was a brief mention of wildlife. There was a brief mention of other uses on the land base other than forestry at that particular time.

We carried on, and we carried on without any regard for wildlife, riparian areas or any of these other values on a forest until the first timber supply review that took place in the late 1990s.

I harken back to a presentation that the chief forester of the day made to the faculty of forestry at UBC where he said that, up until the late 1990s, nobody ever talked about the riparian areas and wildlife values and all the other values on the land, and everything was considered or calculated on one rotation of forests only at that particular time.

The chief forester was Larry Pedersen. There was another little bit in his presentation to the faculty that caught my attention, and that was where he speaks to the fact that the environmental group of the day, in the early ’70s, was looking at the fact that…. Their recommendations were that B.C. would have an annual allowable cut of around 30 million cubic metres of wood per year. Larry Pedersen was suggesting that a more feasible amount of wood during that period of time would be about 60 million cubic metres of wood per year.

[2:20 p.m.]

Industry at the time suggested that no, we should be looking at 80 million to 90 million to 100 million cubic metres of wood harvested every year in British Columbia, and it looks like they won out because that’s exactly what we went up to. But what that did is it eliminated the amount of primary forest that we have.

We started clearcutting in the 1960s in British Columbia. Up to that point in time, we were doing selective harvest only. Any tree greater than 12 inches would fall, and anything smaller than that would stand. That was working quite well from the early days up until the mid-1960s.

Once we started that clearcut process, we have been clearcutting from that day forward, to now. When we clearcut, we eliminate all the tree cavities that are home to 81 species of wildlife that den or nest in these tree cavities in British Columbia. That 81 factor is something I pulled from a B.C. government website.

Particularly in today’s world, where we have these feller-bunchers that can go and cut a phenomenal amount of wood in a very short period of time, the operators don’t look up. They don’t look for stick nests. They don’t look for the tree cavities. They just cut everything down in their path, and it’s gone forever.

What we have, basically, done over that period of time is we’ve harvested probably…. We’ve clearcut 20 million hectares of forested area in British Columbia — 20 million hectares. That’s a lot of land. That’s a lot of habitat that is missing.

I throw this question out now, but I’ve thrown it out in many of the presentations that I’ve made around the province: what happens to the wildlife that reside, that live, in that area that’s going to be logged? What happens to the raptors — the goshawks, the eagles, the owls — the marten, the fisher and all the animals that live in that area?

Everybody, when I generally make a comment like that, will look at me, and they expect an answer from me. The answer is this: they die. They either die in the logging process itself — the 81 species that are hiding in a tree cavity or under the roots of a tree and that get crushed in the logging process itself.

If they’re lucky enough to escape, they could escape into an adjacent area of forest that has adequate habitat to keep them, but all animals on the land base are territorial. They will fight to the death to protect their particular area from another one of the same species coming in.

That’s their food source. That’s their home. It can only sustain so much life within that area. There’s a fight to the death, so there is no net increase of wildlife. They don’t all move into the adjacent primary forest habitat, because it won’t sustain them. Many of them die.

The ones that run to the other side of the area that has been logged…. That has already been clearcut and has not yet provided regrowth that would sustain any habitat. That takes 80 to 100 years, in the interior of the province, to grow back. They die of starvation or exposure.

So our wildlife population in British Columbia has been decimated. It has probably dropped by 50 to 80 percent across the province. In many areas, the marten population, which is the Canadian sable, has disappeared. The fisher has disappeared. Goshawks have disappeared. Grey owls have disappeared. Great horned owls have disappeared.

Over the last seven or eight years, maybe a little bit longer than that, I’ve put on a lot of miles driving through the Prince George timber supply area, parts of the Mackenzie timber supply area, the Quesnel, 100 Mile and Lakes District timber supply areas. I’ve been looking at the retention areas, the areas that have been left behind by logging, and I’ve been focused on a few things.

One of the things I was looking at was the stick nests that might have been left behind in logging. Under section 34 of the Wildlife Act, you can’t cut down, you can’t dispose of, a stick nest at any given time. It’s protected, because the stick nests are what the owls…. The owls will chase the eagles and the hawks out of those nests and take them over themselves to raise their young.

I’ve been looking for stick nests, and I haven’t found one single stick nest in any of the retention areas that I’ve seen in those timber supply areas. I’ve put on 10,000 or 15,000 kilometres specifically driving into them. If I can’t see the area with the set of binoculars that I carry, I walk into it. That’s a problem for me.

[2:25 p.m.]

I haven’t seen the tree cavities that are so important for those 81 species of wildlife. Where are they? They’re logged. They’re cut down. There is the odd time where a forest company will leave a wildlife tree, as they call it. They will leave this big cottonwood with a tree cavity, perhaps, in it. The tree cavities are usually 20, 30, 40 feet up in these trees. The tree needs to be at least 80 to 100 years old before it is big enough to have a tree cavity.

They will leave this solitary tree in the middle of a large clearcut that no animal will ever consider going to because it’s open around there. There’s no habitat for it, for protection. There’s no food source for it, in that particular area there. All this has been happening year over year.

I started researching this when the former Premier, Christy Clark, asked me to do a wildlife habitat review across the province. Those are the things I was looking at. Then I became quite concerned when I saw the level of clearcutting that had taken place across the province, not only at the loss of wildlife habitat that we see, which has led to the 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 percent decline in wildlife populations — in some areas, probably 100 percent has been extirpated — but about the loss of tree cover.

I first came across a hydrological study done in the southern Interior of the province by a UBC professor and a hydrologist from the Kootenays. They said: “Hmm, I think we’ve been using the wrong science to determine the impact of the loss of forest cover on the land base.”

Their research indicated that the loss of the tree cover leads to accelerated snow melt in snow-dominated regions, which most of British Columbia is, particularly on the south-facing slopes. With no tree cover or very little tree cover — we get massive amounts of snow falling in British Columbia, like we do, thank goodness — the spring freshet comes, and the sun melts the snow in a very quick and rapid fashion that causes flooding.

That flooding starts in the upper reaches of every watershed in British Columbia. By the time it reaches the Fraser Basin, it starts building up. That has led to…. The science that I’ve read over the last five or six years is making a connection between the loss of forest cover and the massive floods that we have. The science — there have been some recent studies out this year, as well, that indicate that.

It goes a step further. With the loss of the tree cover and the rapid melting of the snow that we have, once that snow is gone and once those creek beds have dried out, the sun continues to shine in the summertime and the watersheds dry out. There’s no moisture retained in the watersheds themselves, which leads to a higher wildfire risk in just about every watershed that we have across the province, which is concerning.

I think it would behoove any government or any forest company not to ignore that science. It has been developing over the last 15 years or so. There’s a liability attached to it, if you do ignore that science. From what I’ve read and some things that are occurring today, I think that this connection has been made. We see loss of life because of the fires, because of flooding. We see billions of dollars in damage, and we know what’s causing that.

I think that this bill is timely, and I do like pieces of it, particularly under part 3.1 of the bill itself, on issuing cutting permits and some things that the minister will be taking into consideration in approving those cutting permits.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

This is critical to British Columbia: recognizing the entirety of a forest — not just the value of a tree for 2-by-4s and pulpwood but the entire forest for its biodiversity, the entire forest not only for wildlife values but also for the hydrological values and maintaining that hydrological integrity of the watersheds that we have and reducing the risk of fires at the end of the day. There are a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration here.

I talk about the fires, which are a worry when we see 2.8 million hectares of forests burned in British Columbia. I watch on the news, and I do some research on where these fires are. A lot of them have taken place in secondary growth. They’ve taken place in managed forests that have replaced the primary forests that were in place.

[2:30 p.m.]

The rule is…. British Columbia went through a number of transitions in forest management and sustainable forestry. We started planting the lodgepole pine as the tree of choice, because it grew faster than all the other trees that we had tried. We still plant some spruce and fir species as well. But lodgepole pine, in the interior of the province, was a species of choice.

An area I’m familiar with…. Everybody probably knows I’ve been a trapper in British Columbia for 50 years. The area that I’ve been trapping for the last 50 years has been predominantly spruce and balsam. Balsam is a fir species. There’s been a moist interior area of the province, and it’s been replanted with pine. The primary forests that I’ve been used to — and my baseline stems from over 50 years ago, when I was first getting into trapping and hunting and fishing and whatnot — was a forest populated with mature trees that had about 300 stems per hectare, 400 stems per hectare.

They cut all those trees down, and industry says that we are planting three trees for every one that we cut. I questioned that. I said: “Is that a good thing to do?” When you look at it…. We’re getting industry planting 1,500 stems per hectare, on average, in a lot of these clearcuts that are produced. Then we look at the natural regen, trees that might start growing up in these same areas. I walk into them, and I’ll show people. We’ll walk into this regen area of freshly planted pine that might be ten, 15, 20, 30 years old, and the understorey is missing. There’s no understorey in these plantations.

It’s probably six inches deep of dried pine needles and dried pinecones, and there’s nothing else. There are no broadleaf plants in there, because we use glyphosate to kill it prior to replanting all those trees. That makes it impossible to do any prescribed burning.

I see sections in this bill where they talk about cultural burning and First Nations input into that. That might have worked in a world prior to clearcutting, where we had regulated burning and where we practised cultural burning, where it generated the understorey and the biodiversity and provided the animals for harvest and the fur-bearers for harvest and was beneficial for everything on the land base, including the blueberries and the huckleberries and the mushrooms and plants like that.

But as we have mowed down and cut down the 20 million hectares of primary forest in British Columbia and replanted it with dense populations of monoculture conifers, we have eliminated that option for us. There is no way that we can control a fire in these monocultural plantations. They will take off. They’re planted so densely, they are so dry, that it’s impossible to do that.

We need to integrate and bring back the mixed forests that we had, with a good population of deciduous growth in there — the aspen, the cottonwood, the birch and all those kinds of plants that help the ground retain moisture in those particular areas.

I see that opportunity is going to exist. I go back, on this particular section that I talked about under this bill, where it talks about issuance of a cutting permit.

Under section 52.03, it says: “Without limiting the minister’s discretion under subsection (1) to consider other matters, in deciding whether to issue a cutting permit, the minister must consider the impact that timber harvesting under the cutting permit, and road construction in relation to the cutting permit, would have on (a) the management and conservation of forest resources” — outstanding, I’m really glad to see that in there — “(b) cultural heritage resources, (c) public health and safety, and (d) prescribed matters.”

When I look at public health and safety, this is what I look at when I sit and I watch the news with every other member of this House, watching the massive floods that take place as a result of the atmospheric rivers that come through, that end up flooding our highways and cutting off access to parts of British Columbia. That’s a public safety issue.

This latest science, this hydrological science from the UBC faculty of forestry hydrology department…. Prof. Younes Alila has done a lot of work in this particular area, with other hydrologists in the province as well. He’s linked that. They have linked that situation where the loss of forest cover has contributed to these mass flood events that we see in the province.

[2:35 p.m.]

I think this is something that the minister will obviously be taking into consideration. There are other sections in here as well, where industry has to go to the experts and say: “What about these things here? What about this work the UBC faculty of forestry has done that says this? Is this right? How do we risk that out?”

That is a determination that the forest industry has used for as long as I can remember. I’ve liaised with the licensees up in my particular area for the last 30, 40 years over cutting permits and operational plans and whatnot that they have there. I was always thwarted by their response. I would say: “What about the fact that we’ve killed off all the goshawks in the area? What about the fact that we don’t have any moose left? What about the fact that we don’t have any marten left?” And their response now, when I go to them, is: “Well, legislatively, we can do it. So there’s nothing stopping us because the legislation allows us to do it.”

So now when I see this coming into place, this is a tool that myself and other tenure holders on the land can say: “Okay, well, what about this? How are you going to address these particular issues here?”

Companies have taken me to task before, and they say: “Well, how do you know that we’ve lost all this wildlife in the province?” I say: “Well, number one, where are they going to eat and live if we’ve destroyed 20 million hectares of their habitat?”

When I look at moose, which is a predominant species throughout the province — was, at one particular time…. I looked at all the data on moose harvesting in the province, and moose are reliant on our forests, on a mixed forest. In 1997, we harvested roughly about 14,000 moose in the province of British Columbia. In 2021, we harvested just under 4,000 moose in British Columbia, despite the fact that we are now selling four times more harvest licences for moose than we did in 1997.

When I look at the fur returns for the trappers across the province here…. The fur returns have plummeted. At one particular point in time, we used to see…. The fur depot in Prince George would bring $2 million to $4 million worth of raw fur through the Prince George fur depot every year. Today that number has dwindled down to a few hundred thousand dollars at best, just because the wildlife isn’t there. The species are no longer there, available for us to use.

When we look at a forest…. And this may be the start of a change, but when we look at the forest, we need to understand all the values of a forest. We need to understand that it’s more than a mere two-by-four or pulpwood. Jobs are important, and jobs have been important all along. But when I look at the fact that the GDP for forestry in British Columbia will be less than 1 percent, probably, this year, maybe next year…. It was 1.8 percent in 2020. It was around 4 percent in 1997. So it has dropped significantly from that period of time.

Employment levels have dropped from well over 100,000 to maybe 20,000 across British Columbia directly involved with the forest sector. So when we look at this and look at the fact that we are out of harvestable trees across the province, this may be the time to make those adjustments so that we have the least impact on those types of things that we see.

There’s another study that I looked at, and it was a collective of literature that international scientists from around the world looked at to determine the impact of primary force on continental weather, on regional weather patterns and whatnot. The study indicated that the coastal rainforest that many continents have is responsible and directly related to the amount of rainfall that you get internally within the continent.

So the weather patterns coming into British Columbia and passing through and over the coastal rainforest that we have in British Columbia are directly responsible for the amount of precipitation they get in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. So it’s got wide-reaching impacts.

The other value, though, that we have, when we talk about climate change in British Columbia and rising temperatures…. What are the evapotranspirational values of a forest? Those need to be taken into consideration, and I hope that will be part and parcel of what this bill addresses here.

[2:40 p.m.]

A large mature tree will take up 250, 350 litres of water in a day, and then it transpires — that water — during the evening hours. It evaporates, and it forms the clouds and forms rainfall, but it also keeps that primary forest cool. You can walk from your front lawn into a forested area that’s completely covered, and you can feel a difference on a hot day. Well, that’s what these forests do. They regulate that temperature range.

There was a report, which came out in 1986, done by the fish and wildlife branch. They looked at the impact and the densities of the martin population. Of course, as a fur-bearer…. I was interested in that.

They determined that clearcut logging not only eliminated the habitat for that particular species. It also raised the temperature on the ground so that the pelted animals, the animals that have fur, could no longer survive in that particular area. The temperature on the ground was hotter than they would normally tolerate. They kept going into the deeper and denser parts of the forests we have. So that was a significant impact for those particular animals.

There was also a research study done by Dr. Jeff Werner out of Prince George — he works for government, a wildlife ecologist — that has determined that the amount of protein available for ungulates in the feed they have in a clearcut is insignificant to support them. The research has indicated that the further away you get from the edge of a forest into the middle of a clearcut, the less protein value is in the feed they use. They could virtually starve to death with a full belly of their normal food — the poplar and the alder and the birch and the other food they eat there.

All of these have implications that have never been properly considered in the development of operational plans for forestry. They need to be taken into consideration for those operational plans. The total value of a forest is not just a two-by-four and a job; the total value of a forest needs to take into consideration all these other factors in order to make it work properly.

This is the era…. We have been two or three generations of politicians that have supported the sustainable yield strategy since 1945. This is the time to change. If we want to have mature or primary forests that mitigate climate change, that mitigate floods, that mitigate wildfires, that help us use natural means to mitigate all of those factors so we’re not re-engineering our highways and our cities and our towns, we need to look at the complete forest and all the values that the complete forest will provide to the people of British Columbia for generations and centuries to come, if we change how we do that today.

We need to do that today. When you look at the fact…. There’s a lot of discussion around old-growth logging. If you cut down these 300- and 400- and 500- and 600-year-old trees, they are gone for 300 and 400 and 500 and 600 years. People will say: “Well, walk away from it. It’s gone now. Now what do we do?”

Now is the time to retain what we have and to look at a new way of doing business. Have everybody sit down at the table, follow the legislation and entertain all of the values on the land to ensure that all the factors are considered, moving forward.

I’m going to have a closer look through this bill. It’s got some interesting things in it. I’m sure that during the committee stage, when we pop the hood open on this, we will put the minister to the test and fully task him with trying to provide the answers for that. I like what I see so far in this bill.

Thanks very much for the time.

Deputy Speaker: Nanaimo–North Cowichan, please.

D. Routley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A pleasure to see you in the chair there.

Thank you to the previous speaker, the member for Prince George–Mackenzie. I think many of the experiences he has, as a longtime fur-trapper, and his awareness of the state of being in the forests of B.C. are helpful to this place.

[2:45 p.m.]

I’d like to be helpful to him by agreeing with him and also assuring him that much of what we are doing is founded, at its core principle, on exactly what the member has just spoken about. It’s about increasing the appreciation for the full spectrum of values of the landscape and planning in a way that’s sustainable not only for the yield of the forest, in terms of products, but also in terms of tourism values, in terms of cultural values, in terms of biodiversity and all the other values that the member mentioned. I very much appreciate him doing that.

I also think that the industry of forestry has been plagued for decades with a lack of certainty. People from the industry will call for that. At the same time, communities have felt disengaged from the planning and utilization of their own land bases. Those are also the values that we, as a government, are seeking to introduce into this new vision of forestry that is founded on landscape planning and that does take into consideration all the values that I mentioned and the member previous mentioned.

My own history is more on the forest industry side. My first job, in high school, was cleaning out log barges. I later went on to work as a chokerman, setting chokers. That’s putting a cable around a tree that has been cut down. Then it’s dragged to a landing, where it’s loaded onto trucks.

A lot of the jobs that I did in those days no longer exist. Imagine that. The industry has innovated and moved on so much.

I later became a tree planter. There are hundreds of thousands of trees in the province that, at my age, are only within two decades of being harvestable.

I have an appreciation, personally and as a British Columbian…. I really, really cherish the role of our forest industry and how it has served communities over many, many decades.

We need to innovate. We need to advance our management and understanding of the forests in a way that is sustainable on all the levels that we’ve been talking about here. In doing that, we will create durable plans that will stand the test of the various interests that are expressed around forests, from environmental interests to cultural interests to economic interests.

This will rebuild a social licence in the communities. It will empower communities. It will empower a partnership with First Nations that should lead to a state of forest management that’s much beyond what we’ve experienced in the past.

How did we get here? Well, the member detailed how planning without that appreciation for the many values and levels of values in the forests has put us in this place.

The best time to make change is yesterday. The next best time for change is today. Today we’re bringing forward change that will help empower those bigger goals.

There’s probably nothing in this province that will get a more positive head nod test than telling people that we need to do better in the management of our forests. By saying “do better,” I mean get more jobs, more value per cubic metre cut, preserve the ancient forests, and expand our appreciation for the values of the forest on all those other levels.

These are really important issues to British Columbians. Their sense is that we need to do more value-added, another core goal of our government, another core goal of management that will be empowered by these changes.

Community values will be better expressed through the landscape planning process. First Nations partnerships can be engaged and empowered and actioned through these landscape planning tables. These changes will help the minister manage that transition.

[2:50 p.m.]

When we look at the role of cultural fire in the mitigation of wildfire…. This is many centuries of knowledge being applied to a very modern problem in a very modern context. Cultural fire, and fire itself, has been a natural element of the management of forests but without the role of our forest management being fully engaged in that process.

First Nations have long understood the role of cultural fire. It’s going to be to the benefit of the health of the forest and the health of communities that we capture that knowledge and protect communities at the same time.

My own stepson spent the summer fighting wildfires. He’s going to go back next year and do the same. We worried about him. We also were more acutely aware of how much fire damage there is in our forests every year, this being a record year.

We have to plan ahead for that. We lost hundreds, even thousands, of structures this summer and in summers past through wildfires. It will be in the interests of all communities, in the interface with the forests of British Columbia, to have this more advanced but also more culturally deeply understood method of managing fire in the province.

The bill will empower the minister to consider values when approving roads and cutting permits. If there are concerns in a community or there are concerns in a First Nation, the minister can, then, approve or disapprove a permit based on those concerns. Of course, in the past, if all the boxes were ticked when the permit application went in, the minister, in fact, had no power not to approve that permit, even though there might have been other values — cultural values, community values, First Nations values — in competition with that decision. So this will be an important step.

As I talk to British Columbians about this very element of this bill, by and large, they’re surprised that the minister hasn’t had that ability all the way along. This will, in fact, give the minister a discretion that most British Columbians expect that the minister should and, in fact, does have.

Then, when we look at the…. When I’ve toured forest areas, I’ve seen such things as, up in the north Island, five giant cedar old-growth trees that had been stolen, effectively, fallen during the night. There were batteries from headlamps all scattered around. Then the perpetrators of that theft were coming back repeatedly to take sections of that tree away as cutblocks for shakes or shingles.

It’s in the interests of all of us that we see greater enforcement of the regulations and rules when it comes to the management of the forest land base. Again, another thing that most British Columbians, when I talk to them, expect already should be there. I think this will satisfy something that British Columbians feel as though they should be able to take for granted.

The new administration tools that are offered by this bill create, also, accountability measures that aren’t currently available or present. We will see penalties administered that take into consideration more than the simple timber value of the trees that were cut that shouldn’t have been cut. It will take into account all the other values that the member for Prince George–Mackenzie and myself and the minister have already described, those values of community, First Nations and environmental considerations.

We cannot manage and make these plans and changes if we aren’t able to enforce or at least encourage compliance. This bill will do both of those things. So as I look around, I’m really encouraged.

When we discussed DRIPA and UNDRIP in the past, we were reminded by Premier John Horgan that there would be a gap between introducing and materializing the benefits, just as with forest transition. There’s a gap between introducing transitions and seeing them materialized in the market and successfully implemented.

[2:55 p.m.]

We want to see British Columbians be able to give a positive head nod to that test of whether or not we’re managing their forests in the way that they expect us to.

I look to the north Island. The member for North Island is inspirational in the way that she has worked with the industry, the community she represents, the various stakeholders, First Nations and concerned environmentalists in her constituency to build partnerships, to build consensus around the path forward. And the path forward is not continued litigation. The path forward is not a singular view of what our forests represent. The path forward is partnership with First Nations. It’s the full value of the forest for its many, many values and characteristics.

I look up to the north Island, and I see inspired leadership and inspired partnership coming from that leadership with Western Forest Products and their new agreement, 34 percent interest to the First Nations in that region for about a $35 million investment on their part. Together with Western Forest Products, they’re entering a limited partnership.

The Tlowitsis, the We Wai Kai, the Wei Wai Kum and the K’ómoks Nations are all partnering with communities, with the companies in the industry and with this government — this whole House, apparently, in this case — to introduce transitions and changes in their communities on the land base that are in the interests of all British Columbians, every single one of us.

I’m very proud of the forest industry, as a former forest worker. All of us know it needed to change. Often people would say: “It needs to change. Just don’t change anything.” But it takes courage to step forward and make those changes. I commend the minister and the government for having the courage to step up to the table and make the changes, build those partnerships and relationships, take the time necessary to do this right.

The future of our province, in my opinion, in so many ways, the levels described by the member for Prince George–​Mackenzie, depends on us getting this right. That gap between introducing the beginning of a new vision for something and the materialization, the proving of the theory…. Well, we’re finally getting to that place with agreements like the one I’ve described between Western Forest Products and those nations, with the steps taken by the government towards landscape planning, the building of new relationships with First Nations, a new relationship with the land base. This is all in the deep, long interest of all of our children.

With that, I thank you for the opportunity to stand and speak.

M. Lee: I rise to join my colleagues with the B.C. United caucus to speak on Bill 41, Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2023. We’ve heard from the shadow minister responsible, the member for Peace River South. I also want to take this opportunity to recognize, as well, the remarks from our colleague the member for Prince George–Mackenzie.

As a leader in his community in British Columbia, the member for Prince George–Mackenzie once again demonstrated to this House…. He certainly has been such an important person to add to the dialogue around the stewardship of forests, the renewable industry that it is, the recognition of the importance of biodiversity, the partnership with First Nations.

[3:00 p.m.]

His remarks here on second reading once again reminded us of the importance of that longer-term view. His voice is so important for our province. I was certainly pleased to hear him speak again to this bill and use the opportunity to reflect on the history of the forest industry in our province, certainly over the many decades, including before the 1970s and after. That’s a very important perspective to keep in mind.

When I hear the Minister of Forests speak in this House, both on first reading and on second reading…. On first reading, the Minister of Forests referred to specifically, and highlighted, the changes to the Wildfire Act amendments which would enable government to, in the words of the minister, aid First Nations and other partners with cultural and prescribed burns that are not prohibited by law when requested.

Certainly, in the context of the government’s release in tabling this bill and in the minister’s second reading speech, we heard further from the minister about the importance of the recognition of the use by First Nations, having, over generations, the long history of using fire as a stewardship tool and certainly one that can reduce the risk of more severe wildfires and hotter seasons. There is recognition that is shared for those traditional uses.

This bill, the 60 pages that it is, has one section. Well, two clauses.

I must say, I am very challenged by the government’s continued management of the House. Right now my colleague the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin continues in what is, I think, the ninth day of committee stage on Bill 31, Emergency and Disaster Management. I have been with my colleague most days on committee but not now, because I’m in this House reviewing another bill that is important to speak to, as I will take the opportunity to speak to the next bill, Bill 40, in respect of the changes to the School Act.

There are a number of initiatives, of course, this government is moving forward with that affect and are in partnership with First Nations and Indigenous peoples. Just like we’ve said in this House that it’s hard on the Third Party and the Fourth Party to be in three places at once with only two members, it’s also hard for a shadow minister critic like myself to be in multiple places. This has been a continued challenge that I’ve seen with the way this government has managed their House.

Given the complexity of Bill 31 that we’re still working through, I find it particularly challenging not to be with my member, the shadow minister for Emergency Management.

Having said that, when I hear the Minister of Forests speak about this bill, it’s one section of this 169-clause bill that he’s speaking to. Now, in hearing other members of government speak to this bill…. And in the tail end of the minister’s second reading speech, I hear the minister talk about land use planning.

Certainly, I’ve heard from his colleague the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship in gatherings of First Nation leaders of our province, like the Assembly of First Nations, that there is important work being done to understand how, collectively, we can work with First Nations to better manage land use in our province.

[3:05 p.m.]

I didn’t hear more specifics from the Minister of Forests in his second reading speech about how that’s being done here in this bill. I look forward to joining the member for Peace River South, if I’m not debating another bill at the same time in another House in committee, to review the sections of Bill 41 that speak to this.

I’ve heard the reference to values. When I look at part 3.1 of this bill under “Cutting Permits,” I see the words, under “Issuance of cutting permit,” that the minister’s discretion whether to issue a cutting permit authorizing the holder to exercise harvesting rights is subject to the consideration by the minister under his or her discretion to consider the impact of the timber harvesting, under the cutting permit and the road construction, that it would have on cultural heritage resources.

Just like I asked the Minister of Emergency Management under Bill 31, when we talk about heritage values, sites and objects of heritage value…. Those are the words reflected in Bill 31. Does that draw in the Heritage Conservation Act?

This Bill 41…. As I hear the minister and a few other members of government speak to this, I want to understand further what values are being imported into this bill that relate to First Nations and Indigenous peoples. As we’ve seen in the debate in this House, even with Lytton, an understanding, a recognition — certainly, with the Lytton First Nation — of what Lytton was built on in terms of an ancient village….

We need to ensure that government does not continue to pit and use First Nation interests as a shield. We need to understand the balance that is trying to be accomplished here under this Bill 41.

We’ve seen the government’s old-growth deferral policies with First Nations, including on Vancouver Island and in the Interior of our province, who say to the government: “Well, thank you very much for your policy on old-growth deferral, but we’ve been managing our forests, our lands, for generations. We will tell you, government, how we will work to continue to manage those forests.”

They’re an important resource not just to the province but to that nation. That nation, of course, has relationships with local mills, where Indigenous peoples are being employed in those mills, having jobs in the forest sector. So through all of the matrix that is presented in Bill 41, we need to continue to ensure that First Nations have the opportunity to be involved in how the lands that we share with First Nations in our province are being managed.

Certainly, I recognize the important announcement recently, a second announcement with Western Forest Products. This follows the first announcement back in 2020, where the Huu-ay-aht First Nation purchased a controlling interest in TFL 44, on western Vancouver Island, in the Port Alberni region. That was an important first example of partnership, at least with Western Forest Products, as it continues to build the necessary relationships and partnerships with First Nations for the benefit of those peoples.

But just like we saw with Huu-ay-aht, in their forestry operations, we’ve seen other interests come in to dictate and tell First Nations how they should be or should not be managing their forests.

[3:10 p.m.]

I know that, as we see a shift with even more and greater resources to the new Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, we’ll want to understand, in the context of Bill 41 coming forward, how this government is managing those partnerships and enabling First Nations to continue to be involved in the management of our land base together with First Nations? I think, in understanding that, we want to focus on the provisions within this bill, if I’m not caught in a different House.

I’ll just use this as an opportunity to get some points in for consideration, as I usually like to do on second reading, to at least give the minister and the team around him in this case the opportunity to understand the types of provisions I would want to focus on.

Again, without going back to the very start, part 3.1, “Cutting Permits,” clause 52. I’ve spoken to the reference to cultural heritage resources. If we look into the aspects around clause 57, it refers to the rights being held under an agreement held by a First Nation or its representative. We’re talking now about suspension under section 76 of the act. It makes reference to the term “First Nation.” I know, in the bill that next follows in this chamber, Bill 40, in terms of the amendments to the School Act, there are definitions of First Nation in that bill.

I’d like to understand from the minister how First Nation is defined for the purpose of these amendments, because as we saw with the emergency management and disaster recovery bill, there is no definition of First Nation in that bill, to my recollection. The bill focuses on Indigenous governing bodies. So here we have a government focused on different definitions, different gateways, entry points as to how these pieces of legislation, apply to an Indigenous governing body which, again, in the course of Bill 31, does not recognize Métis Nation B.C.

Here we are talking about a land-based bill. I won’t get into the Métis Nation, Métis people’s consideration here, at least not in second reading, but I would say that at least when we talk about the use of the term “First Nation,” how was that interpreted by this government, a lack of a definition as is being defined under the School Amendment Act? That is something, certainly, I’ll get into under Bill 40 as well.

As we look at, again, clause 67, it does pick up, in terms of refusal to issue authorizations under “applicant,” a reference to First Nation again. But coming back to how government may assist with fire under the Wildfire Act from the minister, as we look at the….

This is a fairly broad provision that refers to lighting, fuelling, or using a fire for any purpose, including, without limitation, a purpose identified by an Indigenous people. So there we have the term “Indigenous people” being drawn into this bill for the purpose of these specific amendments proposed under Bill 41 to the Wildfire Act. That definition of Indigenous peoples comes from DRIPA. That’s what’s referred to in the lead into clause 168 of this Bill 41. Why is that? Who is actually giving this direction? Who is actually identifying this purpose?

[3:15 p.m.]

I appreciate , as was referred to in the press release, that there likely has been an indication, given the nature of the quotes coming from, for example, Lennard Joe, the CEO of the First Nations Forestry Council, that there has likely been some meaningful consultation at least with the First Nations Forestry Council. As we typically would be doing, we’ll be understanding from the minister the nature and the scope of the consultation with First Nations rights and title holders, other Indigenous governing bodies, as this government has defined under DRIPA, as to this bill.

I would certainly expect to understand from the minister why and how Indigenous people will be identifying the purpose for which fire can be utilized and why that is not, for example, a reference to Indigenous governing body. How will that work? Are the Indigenous peoples of a particular First Nation going to take a vote? Are they going to sign a document? How will they provide their direction or consent or their input?

I would also say the minister, in his second reading speech, referred to Indigenous knowledge. I do not see that term utilized in this clause. Indigenous knowledge has a specific meaning to it, at least as I’ve seen in other pieces of legislation that this government has brought forward. Indigenous knowledge certainly is something that is, in many cases, confidential to the nation involved.

But I do think, in terms of understanding for the perspective of the surrounding communities and others that are involved, to the extent that we’re talking about orderly prescribed uses of prescribed burnings, the understanding of the local community will be important. This level of transparency will be important to understand how this is being utilized in the way that is being contemplated under Bill 41.

The one thing I would say is…. When we refer to the importance of the partnership, and there are continued references by members of this government to UNDRIP…. We know, and we’ve seen, in the decision rendered by the courts on the Mineral Tenure Act, which is now being…. A notice of appeal has been filed by the Gitxaala First Nation. The government’s own position has been, as submitted to the lower courts…. And the courts agreed that UNDRIP is illustrative, that there’s no specific article there that would give the right to a First Nation to have a declaration that the Mineral Tenure Act, in that case, is unconstitutional.

I know, as this government continues to pick and choose between articles of UNDRIP, that we need to appreciate, though, even as an illustrative tool, as the government has put forward in that court application and as the courts have agreed with them, that as we’re recognizing UNDRIP for what it is, we need to recognize that there are also articles in UNDRIP that pertain to economic livelihood rights.

We recognize the importance of free, prior and informed consent and the importance of self-governance rights for First Nations, apart from all the other rights that are articulated in UNDRIP. I know that when we look through the lens of UNDRIP at the importance of partnership with First Nations, I seldom hear from this government any recognition of the economic livelihood rights of First Nations in our province that are spelled out in UNDRIP.

I hope, as the government, through this Minister of Forests, puts forward amendments to the various statutes relating to the forest sector and forest industry, including with First Nations, that we will find a clearer path as to how we can support and work in partnership with First Nations to ensure they can continue to have very renewable access, in partnership with companies like Western Forest Products, to the forests that will obviously be beneficial to all peoples, including Indigenous peoples.

[3:20 p.m.]

M. Babchuk: I’m happy to stand today and show support for Bill 41 and thank the minister very much for bringing it to the floor.

It’ll be no surprise to anyone in this chamber that my riding of North Island has relied on forestry as one of its main economic drivers for many years. Although some people have referred to us as forest-dependent communities, we generally like to think of ourselves as forest-fortunate communities. Whether it’s because of the natural beauty of our forests, the tourism opportunities, the biodiversity that we find in the North Island, the historical and Indigenous routes or even the resource extraction, the forests of North Island are part of our identity.

I know that many in the North Island are struggling right now with the transition. We have truck loggers and contractors and a secondary industry. I just want to thank the minister for coming up and actually meeting with a few of our secondary industries, Carl Sweet and his friends from Inland Kenworth, so that he can understand the challenges that are going on there.

Of course, I’ve heard from all of those that we have problems accessing fibre, and of course, we have heard the challenges around permitting. But you know, I’m very proud to be part of a government that has listened to those calls when I’ve walked into those offices. We’re now seeing 30 percent reduction in those cutting permits, as we move forward into new processes. I’m very proud to be part of a government that is listening to all of the sectors in the forest industry.

One of the bigger pieces…. I heard this very much from the member that just spoke, the member for Vancouver-Langara, around our First Nations communities and the cultural and prescribed burns. Those cultural burns have been used as a tool by Indigenous communities since time immemorial and have been effective for a variety of many different reasons. Our recognitions of cultural practices in this piece of legislation strengthen our commitment to DRIPA and recognize the values of traditional knowledge in our forest practices.

You know, in the North Island, we have some great examples of Indigenous collaboration. The first one I want to talk about is the collaboration between the ‘Namgis First Nation, Western Forest Products and our government, who are currently one of the first, if not the first, moving forward with the forest landscape planning.

I had the pleasure of being briefed on that and the new way that we are looking at forestry in the North Island and the collaboration that’s going to happen with communities as everybody moves forward in our new way of doing business. That draft plan I’m hoping to see soon. I’m very, very confident that that is going to include Indigenous knowledge as well as local community knowledge in that.

One of the other ones we’ve heard about already today, from my colleague from Nanaimo–North Cowichan, who said some lovely words about me — thank you very much, Member; I much appreciate that — was that landmark agreement that supports First Nations participation in forestry. That was in collaboration with the Wei Wai Kum, Wei Wai Kai, Tlowitsis and K’ómoks First Nations.

I just want to give a shout-out to Chief Smith, Chief Ronnie Chickite, Chief Roberts and Chief Ken Price, who have all been instrumental in the north end of Vancouver Island in making these agreements come together.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Dallas Smith, who is the president of the Nanwakolas Council, who is bringing a lot of these great initiatives to fruition.

I just want to quote him. In one of his statements that he made not too long ago, just in response to where in the North Island Indigenous communities are with our practices: “For too long, the very people who are the reason there were healthy, abundant forests here prior to colonialism, were excluded from participating in their continued sustainable management and the ability to benefit from them. Today we celebrate a significant step forward on a pathway to sustainable, effective resource management of our forests for the benefit of future generations.”

[3:25 p.m.]

There’s a very, very real recognition that they are involved in the collaborative pieces in the north end of Vancouver Island. I was very happy to see the Premier talk about the rising tides that lift all boats when we collaborate for the benefit of society as a whole. That’s exactly what we’re doing.

The second one that I want to point out…. I’m just going to talk about the true North Island, because I am told by a lot of my constituents from Sayward north that the North Island actually doesn’t start until Woss. So we’ll talk about the true North Island and one of the initiatives up there that didn’t come out of a piece of legislation; it came out of their own community initiatives.

That’s the North Island community forest that was originally formed with the three communities up there — of Port Alice, Port McNeill and Port Hardy — which started to understand the value of Indigenous participation and their knowledge within that community forest and now has expanded to five partners as they have now equal shares with the Quatsino First Nation and the Kwakiutl First Nation. I have to tell you, the proceeds from that community for us are game-changers in those in those communities. They’re also reflecting the values we’ve seen in time immemorial from those Indigenous partners.

I’m very proud of the work that’s being done there. I just have to put in a bit of a plug because that community forest is one of our smallest community forests in the province but incorporates some of the largest land mass. So if the minister is listening there, that’s my plug for the day.

The other issue I would really like to discuss is the ability for these new agreements that are happening through the Nanwakolas Council. The Nanwakolas Council also includes the Mamalilikulla, the Da’naxada’xw, the Wei Wai Kai, the Wei Wai Kum, the Tlowitsis and the K’ómoks, once again headed up by Dallas Smith.

They just signed a fantastic agreement with North Island College that recognizes the guardian programs, which are popping up everywhere, that are taking a look at stewardship of not only our forests but also our oceans. These types of programs that are being funded through the provincial government, $1.1 million through the Indigenous training skills education program, are instrumental in making sure that these programs move forward.

When I hear members across the across the hall there talk about Indigenous communities being left behind, I don’t see that on the north end of Vancouver Island. I see integration into all of these communities, integration into our new planning processes, integration into any of the economic benefits and the economic livelihoods that we’re seeing throughout.

This piece of legislation that we’re seeing now that includes the cultural and prescribed burning just gives us that…. I guess it’s an enthusiasm that we are starting to move forward and that we are going to come out of this transition and be healthier for it because we’ve all been working together.

I also would like to speak just a little bit to the compliance and enforcement. As my colleague from Nanai­mo–​North Cowichan spoke about…. He talked about these trees that we had the ability to see. We went on a tour with forestry staff, and, actually, they took us right off the highway, right off the highway on Rupert Main in between Port Hardy and Port McNeill, not 200 feet down where we found a 400- to 500-year-old beautiful western red cedar that had been fallen at night with pit lamps.

Like you said, you could see the batteries from the pit lamps all over the place. So you knew exactly what had happened. That tree was almost three metres in diameter and was also inside of a riparian zone. So I’m really happy to see the new compliance and enforcement pieces coming out of this legislation.

It’s becoming very blatant. Before, we used to have legal logging go into the back area of a forest and come out and report that there had been illegal activity in there, and we hadn’t seen it. But now these guys are cutting 200 feet off of the main highway. It’s getting pretty blatant, and the repercussions of it were just the cost of doing business.

[3:30 p.m.]

Now, with this new piece of legislation and the minister’s ability to take a look and add the value and extra costs to what that is, I’m hoping that it will make a quantifiable significance to the way these people are trying to do business.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I don’t have too long of a speech here. I want to thank the minister for bringing this legislation. I want to thank the member for Prince George–Mackenzie for all his comments today. I really value some of the historical pieces.

I also want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for Forests for all his collaboration in the north end of Vancouver Island and for coming to do the tours to look at the challenges that we have, and the minister, for spending so much time making sure that our issues are looked at. I certainly want to thank him for bringing this piece of legislation, so that we can look at how we move forward and come out of this transition in a better, more collaborative way.

R. Russell: I appreciate the opportunity to not rise but sit in my seat here and speak in favour of Bill 41 and these amendments.

Many of the previous speakers have acknowledged how fundamental forestry is for our province in being, really, the fabric of many of our rural communities, particularly, and also, even if potentially a little less visible to some, also for those urban centres that have been built on a tradition of forestry and how we have navigated that over the years, as I think, in an interesting and somewhat challenging position.

I think it was last week that the Premier was with us at an event with the B.C. Nurses Union. He shared an analogy which I think fitting for today as well, and this bill: if you’re a nurse and come on shift, you end up being responsible for the well-being of a suite of patients.

You don’t necessarily know what has occurred or transpired for them in time prior, but that is less important than simply getting to work and making sure that you are doing the best you can to take care of them. The challenge is that sometimes, depending on those previous decisions of the care team before you, you have, potentially, a sick patient. It’s your responsibility to take care of them and help get them better, regardless of where they are.

Again, as a number of the speakers from both sides of the aisle, frankly, have said already, part of the challenge with forestry in B.C. is that we have a system that has put us in a place that really does need a hard review and revision to how we are doing forestry.

Recently, I guess a couple of years ago, the government released an intentions paper on how we have to go about modernizing our forest industry. That intentions paper highlighted a number of different elements of what we need to put a lot of attention to in figuring out how we navigate this in a good way and move us forward to make sure that our industry is sustainable in the long term and helps sustain jobs for generations to come.

There is a notion, particularly in polarized conversations or polarized circles, that this is a conversation around natural resources and natural resource jobs versus environmental protection. For many of us that are out on the ground in rural communities that are forestry-dependent communities in a very visible way, I think there is a much deeper recognition of the fact that this is not an either-or conversation.

[3:35 p.m.]

It is a question of how we make sure that we have those good jobs in our rural communities and in our urban centres that are tied directly to industries, such as forestry, for generations to come, so that we are not taking advantage of our phenomenal natural assets and eroding future opportunity and future value in the process of doing that.

That intentions paper identified three elements of that future vision for a thriving forestry sector in the future: (1) increasing participation with the forest sector, (2) enhancing stewardship and sustainability, and (3) strengthening the social contract that forestry has across our province and beyond.

This bill that we have in front of us today helps move us forward on a number of those pieces in different ways, obviously. You’ve heard details already from a number of the speakers about how this is going to do that, specifically around amendments to the Wildfire Act which will aid First Nations and other partners with fires that are not prohibited by law, when that’s requested.

The Forest Act amendments will provide some discretion in the issuance of cutting and road permits, which will help enhance government’s ability to support conservation and stewardship and to address First Nations’ concerns in forestry activities, and there are some added compliance and enforcement tools within the Forest and Range Practices Act.

We have heard some good examples from my colleagues the members for North Island and Nanaimo–​North Cowichan about the stealing of high-value and precious trees. Enabling additional compliance and enforcement tools will help strengthen protection of Indigenous values and interests by ensuring that there are some significant consequences for non-compliance and that there are appropriate tools to encourage voluntary compliance by participants and to avoid or deter non-compliance.

There was some interesting conversation this morning, as well, around the opportunities, I would say — I guess it was in question period this morning — with our CleanBC vision. The part of that conversation that I find particularly interesting, frankly, is what gets lost in a lot of this dialogue: what is out there? What is the potential for the future of B.C. when we go down this path of a cleaner future economy and focus more on sustainable natural resource development?

In rural communities particularly, I think that opportunity is enormous. It provides us, if we can do it properly, with a bit of a win-win in environmental protection and natural resource employment, those values that we hold there.

I will quote from a Business in Vancouver article. It reads:

“For starters, it fails to account for the benefits that await a British Columbia that embraces the inevitable energy transition. One estimate is that clean energy jobs in B.C. increase from 83,100 in 2025 to 400,800 by 2050 under a net-zero scenario, in a Clean Energy Canada analysis. The Mining Association of B.C., meanwhile, believes the sector will add more than $10 billion in economic impact for just those critical mineral mines that are reaching final investment decisions in the next 18 months.”

Those are the sorts of opportunities that I feel we don’t spend enough time talking about here in this House when we’re looking at these kinds of opportunities to modernize, for example, our forestry sector in a way that will support all of us in our communities across B.C., with a brighter future for all.

[3:40 p.m.]

I will add also that the member for Prince George–​Mackenzie…. I appreciate one of his comments that…. I don’t have the quote specifically verbatim here, but essentially, he made a comment about the fact that the total value of the forest isn’t just a 2 by 4 or a job. I very much appreciate that. And I feel like, again, in many of our rural places, there is that recognition of how much value we derive from the forests around us, both in terms of, as he put it, two-by-fours and jobs but also so much more, in terms of wildlife, clearly near and dear to him, as well as many other things.

In my community, for example, people are very painfully aware of the relationship between how we manage our forest landscapes and disasters, for example, in terms of flood mitigation or easing some of the peaky flows in our watersheds, based on relationships with how our lands are managed and how our forests are managed across that landscape.

Likewise, he made a comment about how, after two or three generations of management for maximum sustainable yield principles, we’ve…. From two or three generations of politicians, we know that now is the time to change. And my colleague from Nanaimo–North Cowichan I think also put it well when he commented on the fact that while the best time to fix our problems — again not verbatim — was yesterday, the second-best time is today, obviously. So I feel like we have an alignment in terms of the clarity around the need and the will and the importance of coming together to manage our natural resources in a better way, moving forward.

This bill, these amendments to the Wildfire Act and the Forest Act and FRPA, I think help provide us one more opportunity to move in that direction and to move us into a place where we can start to take one more step towards healthier and more sustainable forest management going forward; that brings First Nations into the conversation and into the decision-making process in a very real way in one more opportunity to do that; that, at the end of the day again, will ideally help both benefit our environmental management and recognize ecosystem values at the heart of how we’re managing our forests, recognize the value of sustained employment out of the forests.

That is, of course, central to how we’re making these decisions, but it’s central to this decision-making on a time frame that is more than a year or two. We want to make sure that our children in our communities have the opportunity to have those good jobs in the forest sector in a future generation or beyond and that our forests are being managed from a perspective of recognizing the many values that we derive and receive from our forests and not just, as the member for Prince George–Mackenzie said, the 2 by 4s and a job, not just the product and the employment but things like a healthy environment, meaning healthier disaster risk reduction and more that we receive and appreciate from our forests.

With that, I will take my seat with, again, a statement in broad support of Bill 41.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister wishes to close debate.

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. B. Ralston: Thank you. I want to thank all my colleagues on both sides of the House who have spoken here this afternoon. I particularly want to acknowledge the MLA for Nanaimo–North Cowichan, who spoke, bringing his own personal experience and his extensive commitment to forestry and the forest industry in British Columbia to bear in the comments that he made in this chamber.

I believe the provisions contained within the Forests Statutes Amendment Act will go a good way towards improving how the forest economy is managed today and into the future. As we all know, forests are essential to a healthy environment and provide good jobs to tens of thousands of British Columbians. That’s why we’re taking action to improve how we steward our natural resources, to better protect the province’s forests and ecosystems, to conserve fibre supply and to expand our use of prescribed fire to reduce the risk of future wildfires.

I look forward to further debate, as we’ve heard, in committee stage. With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Hon. B. Ralston: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 41, Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2023, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. L. Popham: I call second reading of Bill 40.

BILL 40 — SCHOOL AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Hon. R. Singh: I move that the bill be read a second time now.

This bill makes a number of amendments to the School Act, the act that governs public schools in British Columbia. This bill responds to government commitments relating to Indigenous reconciliation set out in the Declaration Act action plan and the B.C. tripartite education agreement.

The commitments pertain to local education agreements, school choice and Indigenous education councils. These changes requested by First Nations have been co-developed with the First Nations Education steering committee and in consultation with B.C. First Nations, including treaty First Nations.

The changes in this bill are intended to begin to address the systemic barriers faced by on-reserve students, to support all Indigenous learners within the province and to improve public education overall. These important steps along the path of reconciliation respect First Nations authority and decision-making over the education of their children.

The changes in this bill are important because they require boards of education to involve local First Nations and Indigenous people in making decisions about the education programs and services provided to Indigenous children. An important step in reconciliation, this bill will provide mechanisms for boards of education to have respectful and effective relationships with First Nations. This will help improve the educational experience and outcomes of all students in the public school system.

There are three policy pieces to the bill: the First Nations schools of choice, the model local education agreements and Indigenous education councils.

The First Nations schools-of-choice provisions in the bill allow a First Nation to designate which school their students who live on reserve, self-governing lands or treaty lands are entitled to attend. First Nations will determine which schools their students will attend through their own internal processes and will be required to notify the board of education by a prescribed date.

First Nations students who live on reserve or on treaty lands will have priority to attend the public school designated by their First Nation. If a First Nation has students that ordinarily reside on reserve, treaty lands or self-governing lands and are boarded outside of their community to attend public school, the First Nation may designate a school within the district where those students are boarded.

This is an optional choice for First Nations. The intent is to support self-governance rights and improve educational outcomes for First Nations students by allowing First Nations to select the schools that will best meet the needs of their children.

[3:50 p.m.]

Other agreements between schools, First Nations or parents and guardians of First Nations students respecting school choice are not affected by this amendment. First Nations parents and guardians will still have the option to attend the regular catchment school if they do not want to attend the school chosen by the nation.

The second area of change has to do with the local education agreements. Local education agreements are key mechanisms for accountability and effective working relationships, where boards of education and First Nations or treaty First Nations work together to support students. Local education agreements govern the purchase of educational services by First Nations from boards and set out processes for information-sharing, collaboration and decision-making.

It is important that a First Nation can have a local education agreement if they want one. This bill will ensure that First Nations and treaty First Nations will have the option to apply a model local education agreement with the board of education where their students who live on reserve or on treaty land attend public school. If a First Nation or treaty First Nation chooses to apply the model local education agreement, it becomes a contract between the First Nation and the board of education.

Local education agreements are intended to establish a foundation for a positive relationship between a First Nation and a board of education to support improved education, improved student attendance outcomes and engage on broader issues.

The third policy area this bill implements is Indigenous education councils. Indigenous education councils are intended to ensure that boards of education meaningfully engage with First Nations, treaty First Nations and Indigenous communities and that Indigenous people have input into decisions affecting Indigenous students.

The bill requires all boards of education to establish an Indigenous education council for their school district. Indigenous education councils will be independent and are not committees of the board. The Indigenous education council should respect the traditional protocols, laws and customs of First Nations on their land in support of a distinctions-based approach. This bill sets out that local First Nations on an Indigenous education council will advise boards of education on the district languages, cultures, customs traditions, practices or history, with priority to those First Nations in whose traditional territory the board operates.

Indigenous education councils will review and approve spending plans and reports on grants targeted for Indigenous students. The Indigenous education council will also advise on the spending of other grants in relation to Indigenous students. This will ensure the funds are spent to support Indigenous students at the direction of Indigenous representatives.

The changes in this bill have been developed in collaboration with First Nations and treaty First Nations. The changes will provide for more effective relations between boards of education and First Nations, and they will also support better outcomes for First Nations students and all Indigenous students attending public school.

M. Lee: I rise on behalf of my colleague the member for Surrey South, as well as the official opposition, to speak to Bill 40, the School Amendment Act, 2023. As we’ve heard from the minister, both in her first reading speech and second reading speech, the bill that’s put forward by the government is being done to propose amendments to the School Act to meet some of the commitments of the government, the Ministry of Education and this minister under the DRIPA action plan, as well as the B.C. tripartite education agreement.

We know that we’ll have the opportunity, as indicated in the initial news release by the government when this bill was tabled…. There’s been significant partnership and discussion with FNESC, the First Nations Education Steering Committee, as we’ve seen with Chief Tyrone McNeil as president — the work that’s been done with FNESC.

[3:55 p.m.]

I must say that for many of the larger umbrella organizations like FNESC, I’ve had the opportunity, over my time as the shadow minister responsible for Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, to meet with a number of the leadership teams, beyond the relationship-building that we do here in our opposition caucus with local MLAs and other critics with First Nation leaders.

Certainly with Tyrone McNeil, I had the opportunity to meet with him at the national AFN meeting that was held in Vancouver some time ago. That was in the context about learning and supporting important initiatives around language revitalization for Indigenous peoples, including federal and provincial support for those initiatives. Certainly, I look forward to continuing to have that opportunity to speak with Chief McNeil and FNESC, to look for those opportunities.

I know that there’s always been a focus for some of these bodies in terms of the direct government-to-government relationship. But I hope that organizations like FNESC recognize the role that we play in this House, in this chamber, in terms of the opportunities to review and discuss bills that the government tables, even with First Nation leadership under non-disclosure agreements and the significant buildup that it has, that we do have a role to play here. Certainly, I know that I have benefited from the opportunities to have that level of dialogue in exchange.

I will say that the member for Surrey South and myself had the benefit…. Thank you to the minister for arranging a briefing, providing an overview for this bill and also some helpful companion documents, including a helpful chart to enumerate the specific action items under the DRIPA action plan that are addressed by this Bill 40.

Now we know, of course, the Ministry of Education, under the minister’s leadership, has addressed other specific action items. But the action items that this bill speaks to, as we will review at the committee stage, include the co-development, an approach to deliver on the B.C. tripartite education agreement commitment that pertains specifically to legislation requiring local education agreements, LEAs, with First Nations.

I will note that that specific action item, I will acknowledge, does speak to, specifically, First Nations.

Another example of a specific action item…. I’m not trying to be comprehensive or fulsome in this reference, but just to give another example item. Item 4.3 of the DRIPA action plan refers to the co-development and implementation of a framework for the involvement of Indigenous education councils in school district financial planning and reporting. That also is something that this Bill 40 goes to.

I will say that in the context of looking at the specific action items that are identified under the DRIPA action plan, that only action item 4.19 refers to Indigenous peoples beyond B.C.’s First Nations. There’s specific reference to Métis and Inuit peoples. That is in the context of 4.19 as a commitment to “inclusive, universal child care system, work in collaboration with B.C. First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples to implement a distinctions-based approach to support and move forward jurisdiction over child care for First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples who want and need it in B.C.”

That does raise, just at the outset of speaking to this bill, that we will explore at committee stage, beyond the usual questions relating to consultation and involvement and scope relating to FNESC and other First Nations rights and title holders, others that have already existing arrangements or involvements with local boards of education in our province.

[4:00 p.m.]

We’ve certainly seen examples. For example, Chief Russell Chipps has been a trustee, in the Langford area, on a local school board. I know of other examples where we have that level of integration, where we have First Nation leaders being involved directly in the education of our children in this province.

What’s missing from this bill and is, by design…. This is something I would like to speak to the minister about. This is my way of highlighting to the minister the kinds of topics and areas that we will explore at the committee level. Why Métis peoples, Inuit and even, for those who recognize the voice and the representation of urban Indigenous peoples…. We’ve seen, just like under Bill 31….

That is really where I should be right now, in the other committee chamber, as I’ve said on the previous bill to this one, Bill 41. I am missing that committee discussion on Bill 31, but I hope to join that shortly.

It just, again, demonstrates the challenge of this government when they bring forward bills in multiple Houses, in three different Houses. It puts, not only for the members of the Third Party and the Fourth Party, with only two members of their caucus…. Putting aside why they should have official party status in the first place, with only two members, it does put the challenge on how difficult it is to ensure that we’re properly doing our roles.

Again, I seldom see members of the Third Party and the Fourth Party in those committee discussions. This is part of the reason why they’re being divided. Roles for critics like myself…. As we see legislation that’s brought forward that affects Indigenous peoples in our province, like Bill 40 does…. It’s hard to be in two places or three places at once.

Having said that, again, for the record, and voicing my concerns about the way this government continues to fail to manage the business of the House so that we can properly review these bills as they present themselves….

I will say this. We’ve seen, in the letters between this government, the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, a change in position in a matter of a couple of weeks.

On May 12, the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, on behalf of this government, sent a letter that recognized Métis Nation B.C. as the representative government of Métis peoples in British Columbia and looked forward to continuing to strengthen that government-to-government relationship.

Two weeks later we saw a letter that reversed the government’s position — so much so, as I’ve spoken to in Bill 31…. The government had the view that MNBC does not have the status or authority as an Indigenous governing body within the meaning of the Declaration Act, DRIPA.

I raise this as a point of reference because I fail to see anything in Bill 40 that provides any opportunity for Métis peoples, either through Métis Nation B.C. or Métis peoples themselves directly, to be involved in the education of their children.

I know, having met with members of the cabinet, including from the Kootenays…. Certainly the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke has deep relationships with some of those members in cabinet who have done longtime work to help ensure that the Métis children of our province are getting access to the type of culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive education that they need for their peoples.

This School Act amendment specifically defines First Nation. It doesn’t even refer to Indigenous peoples. It’s specifically excluding other Indigenous peoples in this bill, which includes Métis people.

Now, I will say that is an area…. We will certainly want to explore, at the committee stage, as to why that is.

[4:05 p.m.]

I know we’ve seen repeatedly from this government specific actions and legislation where this government…. For example, last year, a year ago, we were debating another significant bill that implements another part of the DRIPA action plan, which is enabling Indigenous nations, First Nations and Métis peoples to take back….

I take that back. There is no Métis child definition, of course, in that Indigenous self-government bill when it comes to care for children. That’s what I spent some days discussing with the current Minister of Children and Family Development. As important as that bill was, it excluded a definition for Métis children.

We’ve seen, with the Emergency Management Act, the exclusion of Métis Nation B.C. as an Indigenous governing body. Now we see under this bill, a third bill, Bill 40, the exclusion of Métis peoples from the definition. It doesn’t apply.

What we’re talking about is, certainly, wanting to understand, from this minister, how Métis Nation B.C. or urban Indigenous organizations were consulted in the development of this legislation, in view of the high population of Métis and urban Indigenous children in the public K-to-12 system of our province.

Certainly, when it comes to urban educational councils…. They are given broad powers to advise on programs and policies and to approve funding.

At committee stage, also, we will want to ensure that we have a clear understanding, from this minister, as to how all Indigenous children in the public K-to-12 system are provided with culturally safe education, with targeted funding for the needs of Métis and urban Indigenous children as well.

We will also want to know, from this minister, the composition of these Indigenous education councils and how they will be set up to ensure that the voting rights recognize the distinctions-based approach that this government takes to the recognition of Indigenous peoples in our province.

I know that when we look at the Indigenous governing councils or the Indigenous education councils…. We’ll want to see what terms of reference and scope these councils will have. We know that it was mandatory for each school district to have an Indigenous education council, but we’ll want to be specific on the kind of mandate and scope of authorities and voting structure and composition of these councils.

Certainly, when we look at another of the three elements of this bill, around providing First Nations parents, having parental choice…. There’s a recognition, in this bill to amend the School Act, of the importance of parental choice.

We certainly recognize, here in the official opposition caucus, the importance of choice. Whether it’s the recognition of independent schools, faith-based schools, home-based education, we need to have those alternatives.

Those First Nations students who are living on reserve or on treaty lands will have the opportunity to have that designation and that level of choice in the School Act. That, again, is going to be an area that we’ll want to explore, at the committee level, in terms of the nature and the scope and the limits around that choice and how that will work for First Nation parents.

[4:10 p.m.]

In terms of the third element of this bill…. The local education agreement, certainly, is part of the larger understanding of the commitments that this government has made, under the DRIPA action plan, to understand how the government continues to work with First Nations, and the importance of the work that’s necessary, in order to have an education system framework that provides for that local input from First Nations.

That is a model, certainly, that we want to see. Identify the rights and the authorities of First Nations and local First Nations, treaty or otherwise, to be involved in those local education agreements.

That provides a basic overview of the basic points I would like to raise at the committee stage — again, if I’m not caught up in a different House on a different bill.

I will say…. As we look at the funding requirements to provide the comprehensive equitable education programs and services to Indigenous students that are contemplated under, for example, division 2.01, “Indigenous Education Councils,” the funding fiscal relationship with First Nations continues to be a key item in the DRIPA action plan.

We’ve heard from this government their attempts to rebalance some of that fiscal relationship. We’ve seen that with gaming revenues. We’ve seen that with a discussion paper that was released and commented on just before last year’s All Chiefs meeting with First Nation leaders. We are on the eve of those meetings, as they start tomorrow evening in Vancouver and continue this week, on Thursday and Friday.

We know that in the area of forestry…. There was a discussion paper around some of that sharing, that revenue model. I would hope that the Minister of Forests and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, as the latter has made available to my colleague the member for Kamloops–North Thompson….

We’ve had the opportunity to review some of the work in terms of the fiscal framework. We would expect that with the relationship around education, there will be a more meaningful discussion. We’ll expect an update from this minister about the financial framework discussion with First Nations, as well, when it comes to the education of Indigenous children.

With that, I look forward to the committee review. I know that the member for Surrey South, as the shadow minister responsible for education, will look forward to that discussion as well.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

Seeing no further speakers, minister to close the debate.

Hon. R. Singh: I would really like to thank the member for Vancouver-Langara for his comments. I’m looking forward to having more discussion on this bill at the committee stage.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 40, School Amendment Act, 2023, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. L. Popham: I call committee on Bill 34.

Deputy Speaker: We will take a short recess while we await all the parties we need to do that work.

Thanks, Members.

The House recessed at 4:14 p.m.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 34 — RESTRICTING PUBLIC
CONSUMPTION OF
ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES ACT

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 34; S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.

The committee met at 4:19 p.m.

On clause 5 (continued).

The Chair: All right, Members. I call the committee to order on Bill 34. We finished last time on clause 5.

E. Sturko: Hon. Chair, sorry, could you refresh me? Did we pass clause 5?

The Chair: We have not passed clause 5 yet.

E. Sturko: I have no further questions on clause 5.

[4:20 p.m.]

A. Olsen: Hold on. I have some questions on clause 5.

The Chair: Okay. With the will of the House, if it’s okay, we will pretend that vote didn’t happen. We’ll go back to the House Leader of the Third Party on clause 5.

A. Olsen: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. Sorry. I was just notified that this bill has now been moved into this House. So just trying to get caught up here.

I’m wanting to get a sense, from the minister, with respect to clause 5…. I’m just wondering if he could provide a rationale, again, on why this bill is necessary.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I covered that yesterday.

The Chair: Is there a further question?

A. Olsen: Yeah, certainly, there is. I’m wondering. I understand that the minister covered it yesterday. I didn’t have an opportunity to ask these questions. I’m wanting to engage the minister on this, get as much information as I can from him.

What I’m wondering is how it is, specifically to this clause, that this bill offers anything that is different than what’s already on the website around decriminalization.

Hon. M. Farnworth: This bill is not about decriminalization. It’s about public drug use, and it’s about expanding on the exemption that’s there to public places such as bus stops, for example, and doorways to businesses’ buildings.

A. Olsen: No, I understand that. I mean, it does…. It is related to decriminalization. That’s what this initiative is about.

I’m just wondering how it is different than what is already outlined with…. The information that’s on the website shows that actually the way that this was constructed, the way that the exemption was constructed, already excluded many of those locations that are now outlined in this bill.

I’m just wondering why it is that this act is necessary, considering many of those locations are already identified.

Hon. M. Farnworth: This legislation deals with public drug use. It’s a broader group of places than is dealt with under the exemption.

A. Olsen: I think it’s important to acknowledge that when the province of British Columbia sought the exemption from the federal government, the exemption was not broad. It was limited. The information is already on the website that provides some clarity as to where it is the exemption is not applicable. The challenge is that this government is now moving a new law which articulates something that is already agreed to.

[4:25 p.m.]

Despite the minister’s assertion that there is a broader definition in this law, in this legislation, the reality is that all of the locations that are identified — I believe, anyways — could be read into the exemption and the exemption letter that they sought from the federal government. Is the minister suggesting that this bill is broader than what is on the website?

Hon. M. Farnworth: This is a new bill, and as I said, it broadens the exemption. Sorry, not broadens. It doesn’t broaden the exemption. It broadens the places where public drug use cannot take place.

Once it is passed and brought into force, then the current website would be updated.

A. Olsen: I guess the problem that I have with the approach that this government is taking on this is that by putting this into law now, basically, what they’ve done is they’ve recriminalized the decriminalized. They’ve essentially responded to a public narrative, scrambling to find a solution, when in reality it was already part of the exemption. Now by creating this in law, rather than by leaving it just as in the exemption, by creating….

We take a look at clause 5, with the ability to arrest without warrants and all of those…. There’s now this complex layering of public policy that is unnecessary, because the discretion already exists within the exemption.

The Chair: Was there a question, Member?

A. Olsen: Yeah, there was a question. I’m looking for the minister to provide an explanation as to why it is that we now have a law in front of us when the express….

Okay, here. We have a law in front of us when the expressed desire of this government — in fact, the victory laps this government was taking around this initiative of decriminalization, an initiative that was supported by our public health officer, an initiative that’s supported by our chief coroner…. Advocates and expert stakeholders have been suggesting that this is part of a harm reduction initiative.

Now what’s happening is that because the rest of the harm reduction initiatives were not followed through, this government is now forced — or feels forced, anyways — to be creating a law which recriminalizes the people that they were expressly trying to decriminalize, and in this section here, creating a scenario where people can be arrested without warrant for something that they’re able to….

Does the minister believe that he’s clarifying the situation here, or doesn’t he agree that he’s making this situation unnecessarily more complex?

[4:30 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. I know it was canvassed extensively yesterday, but I will repeat this for the member.

The exemption was about possession. This bill is about public use. It’s about not only the areas in the exemption but expanding where public use cannot take place in areas that have been identified and responding to local concerns in communities all over the province, in particular, around where families and kids gather and transportation points — that’s why bus stops are there — where it is deemed that it is not appropriate for public drug use. That’s what this bill is about. It’s not about criminalizing people. It’s about responding to public and local community concerns.

Clause 5 approved.

On clause 6.

E. Sturko: In this clause, how would the minister describe reasonable grounds?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. It would be if the police officer saw the person using drugs, asked them to stop and to move on, and they failed to do so.

E. Sturko: I appreciate the answer. Under this legislation, will the officer have to find the individual committing? Do they have to be actively committing the act of consumption, or can this be…? For example, it’s quite likely that there will be someone using in the park — a family, a parent. They will witness drug consumption, and they will call the police. Based on that person’s witness testimony, will that form reasonable grounds for the police to take action, or must they find committing?

[4:35 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the member’s question. I think, at this time, that question would probably be best addressed when we go back to sections 3 and 4.

E. Sturko: I’ll save that and then the little subsequent one, I think, that might exist also under that.

Still in clause 6, under sub (2), how would a police officer be expected to confirm if a drug is dispensed to the person in accordance with the prescription? Would they take the prescribed drugs for a period of time and then later return them? So if the person, for example, is found with prescription drugs that are not in a prescription container, how will this determination be made whether or not the person is carrying a prescription or whether these are illicitly sourced drugs?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. So as we’ve talked in previous things, police do have discretion. I’ll give an example. If a drug, for example, was not in a prescription package, then police can seize that.

E. Sturko: Thank you for the answer.

Will that be clarified, or could it be clarified, then so that individuals…? I mean, I guess under the CDSA, if it’s not in their prescription packaging, it could be seized. But with the prevalence of things like Dilaudid on the street, the D8s, if police come across a person who’s got a quantity of Dilaudid on them, or dillies, they would be able to just then seize those. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Farnworth: If it was not in a prescription package, hon. Member, the answer would be yes.

The Chair: Member for Saanich North and the Islands.

It looks like there may be a technical issue.

Okay. House Leader, Third Party.

A. Olsen: Sorry about that. I didn’t know that the member from Surrey was finished yet.

Just a question with respect to the continued carcerality and punishment in relation to substance use. I’m just wondering what the minister’s thoughts are on….

[4:40 p.m.]

You know, the officers seize these substances, presumably forcing these people who use drugs to then go and find the funds to make additional purchases, increasing the demand of substances from dealers and, therefore, their reliance on criminal organizations.

How does the minister fit that with the goal of this government to advance, for the next three years, the pilot on decriminalization?

Hon. M. Farnworth: That’s exactly what we were thinking about when the bill was designed. That’s why seizure is only done if the individual refuses or doesn’t comply with the request to move on from where they are.

A. Olsen: Move on to where?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The bill makes it clear. They have to leave the place where they are using, which is covered by the bill, to another location.

A. Olsen: Just any other location? I guess this is, in essence, the problem with this bill, right? Where are they to go? The minister said yesterday several times that they are to go to safe consumption sites. If those aren’t available, presumably…. Is the minister suggesting that the police will just move them along to the back alleys of commercial or residential neighbourhoods?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Well, we did discuss this at length yesterday. The member’s comments show that he’s clearly aware of the discussion that has taken place.

As I said, one of the key things is overdose prevention sites. Other areas, other services that are available…. Depending on the nature of the community, it’s not just bricks-and-mortar overdose sites. It could be a mobile overdose prevention site or other locations that would be appropriate, as opposed to the places covered by this legislation where public drug use would be inappropriate.

Clause 6 approved.

On clause 7.

E. Sturko: Under this clause, who would qualify as analysts, and what are the qualifications for those analysts?

[4:45 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. So it could be the CDSA lab that is in Ottawa, but we would be working with police and Health Canada to determine the most effective and efficient way to do testing.

E. Sturko: I appreciate the response. So to whom would the analyst be issuing a certificate of analysis? Would that analysis certificate be attached to any of the records or kept as evidence with the investigating officers?

Hon. M. Farnworth: It would come back to the police and then be forwarded on to the prosecution.

A. Olsen: It seems like all of these resources that are going to be expended here would be far better expended in creating access to the safe consumption sites that these folks need in order to deal with this entire situation.

A question with respect to some classes of drugs here, especially…. Heroin and other opiates have been shown to contain benzodiazepines — benzo dope, as it is commonly referred to. These drugs are not named in this. So if a seized substance is tested and contains a substance that is not exempt under the decriminalization pilot project, like benzodiazepine, what will the impact be?

Hon. M. Farnworth: So if the seized substance was not on the list covered by the exemption, then it would not be, likely, a prosecution under this act.

A. Olsen: It would not likely be a prosecution under the act? Sorry. It would not likely be, or it would be.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Would not.

A. Olsen: So the person will not be….

Thank you. Sorry. This is challenging and not my preference.

[4:50 p.m.]

The person would not be punished for possessing a substance that was poisoned by the toxic drug supply.

Hon. M. Farnworth: This act is not about possession. It’s about use.

A. Olsen: No, I understand that. However, in this clause, a substance has been removed from an individual, and it has been sent to this administrative process of testing, as is outlined in 7(1), (2) and (3). When it’s tested, it’s found that there was benzodiazepine in it, which is not a drug that has been exempted under the letter of exemption that the provincial government received from the federal government. At that point, presumably, the person is now carrying a drug that is not part of the exemption.

We’re just wondering what happens to those people. I understand that this is not about possession; it’s about consumption. However, in the act of consumption, an officer has removed the drugs and has now gone to get them tested. What happens when a drug is found, laced with something that the individual may not have necessarily known was in it?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I think it’s important, and I appreciate the question.

First, as I’ve stated a number of times, this act is very much about public use. It’s not about possession. It’s about a tool that’s to get people to move on.

It contains this clause, but it’s anticipated that this clause will be the rare exception as opposed to the rule. It’s the way that police have indicated to us that they want to be able to exercise the legislation: to be able to get people to move on. It’s not about criminalizing people.

If something is seized and then taken and analyzed, and it comes back that amongst the things it contains is something that’s not on the exemption, it’s still not likely that this section would be used to make a prosecution.

A. Olsen: Can the minister, then, explain what the point is of this clause?

Hon. M. Farnworth: From the beginning, this legislation has been constructed very much about, as I’ve said, not criminalizing people but about getting people to move on — a tool to allow police to do that. At the time when this comes into effect, as we’ve said, we expect that most people will move on. If they don’t and refuse, that’s when police can seize, at which point you need to have an offence to do that. That’s what this does.

[4:55 p.m.]

As I said, the expectation is that this will rarely be needed. But if it were to be, as you have raised, talked about in terms of the seized substance, to take a test, that’s how a prosecution, potentially, could move forward. That’s why this section is in the bill.

A. Olsen: Have the minister and the ministry done an analysis of the cost of analyzing drugs that have been seized, the cost per file?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. I’ll make the following points. As I’ve said, this is expected to be the exception, as opposed to the rule. The cost is negligible. whether it would be under this act or under the CDSA, the reality is that that’s not really where prosecutions are going to take place. This is here because it is required in terms of the offence — if an offence is committed, with an arrest and a seizure, to be able to do that.

That’s why this clause is here. I expect it to be very much the exception, as opposed to the rule. Police view it as very much the exception, as opposed to the rule, and the whole purpose of this act is to be able to get people to move to a location that is not inappropriate.

A. Olsen: A location that’s not inappropriate, or to an appropriate location. We’ve been trying to determine where the appropriate location is if there are no safe consumption sites available to people, which is the vast majority of the geography of this province. There’s apparently no appropriate place for people to go.

I know the minister is likely getting frustrated that I continue to return to this. However, the cost is not negligible, because among the police officers that I’ve talked to, the last thing they want to be doing is work that doesn’t end anywhere.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

That’s essentially what this bill does. It puts a burden on front-line workers, bylaw enforcement officers and police — because there isn’t an appropriate place for those people to go to safely consume the drugs, the substances they are addicted to. So we’re just cycling here, because the reality is that we’ve got all of these clauses. If a substance is seized and is sent for analysis but goes nowhere, what’s the point of all of this?

[5:00 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question and the comments by the member. But I think what’s important is to…. The purpose of this bill is to move people along. It’s a tool. That’s what it’s about. That’s what police have asked for. That’s what communities, local governments, have asked for. It’s not about criminalizing people. This deals with an exception that, as I said, is not expected to be the rule.

The other point I think is important, because it came up yesterday in our discussions, is there’s a significant amount of work and government resources and effort going to expanding and working with communities to ensure that we have services in place, that we have overdose prevention sites in place, that we have a variety of ways of doing that.

As I said yesterday, we’ve gone from two to 46, and we continue to expand and work with local government to do just that. Those things are ongoing and will continue to be ongoing as we build out what we know is required in communities right across the province.

A. Olsen: That’s fine. I guess the question remains, though — again, we keep coming back to this: where do bylaw enforcement or RCMP officers tell an individual to go that is acceptable, in the eyes of the minister, in a place like Sidney, for example, where there are no safe consumption sites nearby?

We’ve got this law now in place and the bylaw, and police have apparently asked for this as a tool. Where does the minister suggest or where is he instructing the bylaw and police officers to send those folks, to connect this back to this clause, to ensure that they don’t have to seize, arrest without a warrant, the previous clause, and create what is basically a case that will not be prosecuted because the prosecution simply will not take this forward? Again, it’s work that’s going to be done by the front-line people instead of the work that should be done by the ministry in providing the services that are provided.

In the vast majority of the communities, where do these front-line workers encourage people to move on to? Even though the minister says that we canvassed this in great detail, there has yet to be a clear answer as to the definition of an acceptable place. We see a list of unacceptable places, but there is no clear definition.

Again, I’ll use the example of the woman that provided the comment when I was on the air talking about this on CKNW. Back alleys in residential neighbourhoods aren’t in the clauses of the bill that we’re going to be debating sooner than later.

I think that that becomes a problem for this. Where do the bylaw and front-line police officers suggest people go in communities that I represent that have no safe consumption facilities whatsoever — no other harm-reduction facilities, no apparent acceptable places for people to go to basically not die?

[5:05 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. It was canvassed extensively yesterday, but I’ll repeat what I had said. That is, first off, it will vary from community to community. It’s literally…. If there’s a place anywhere that’s not covered by what’s spelled out in the legislation….

As I said a moment ago, we are continually expanding the services that are available for individuals. That is going to continue, and it will vary from community to community.

It’s not about bylaw officers. This has nothing to do with bylaw officers. This is police. I think that’s an important distinction that also needs to be made.

Police know their community. They know where an appropriate place is in their community outside the places that are inappropriate that are laid out in this legislation.

Clause 7 approved.

On clause 8.

E. Sturko: Can the minister clarify why section 5 of the Offence Act doesn’t apply?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question. This is a standard provision that occurs in many acts, and it’s here in this case because it’s subsection (1) that sets out where the offence will be.

Clause 8 approved.

On clause 9.

E. Sturko: In clause 9, this clause allows for a broad regulation-making power. Why does the government believe this is necessary? Are there other areas of concern that the government feels they might need to take action on? If so, haven’t we learned already, for the past nine months, that guardrails should be put in place before something becomes a problem and not after?

What other potential regulatory changes does the minister anticipate coming?

Hon. M. Farnworth: We believe we’ve covered all the appropriate places that have been raised where communities have raised concern in the act. But this is a pretty standard clause, in terms of legislation, to be able to deal with situations that may arise in the future.

E. Sturko: I appreciate the response.

Under subclause (9)(2)(c), can the minister please provide an example of a person who the government may regulate as exempt from all or part of section 3? I know that we did not have a discussion yet on section 3, but what kind of a person would become exempt, in the future, from section 3?

[5:10 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I thank the member for the question. This section is intended to be able to deal with certain limited circumstances or limited exemptions that may occur with particularly vulnerable individuals.

E. Sturko: Thank you for that response. Can you be more specific, though? I would find it unusual that we would exempt a person from illegal, unlawful or unregulated activity in this area. Depending on the person, who that person individually would be, they might be exempt from having to comply with this new legislation.

Can you give me a more specific example of how that would apply?

[5:15 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member.

First off, this is standard language that often goes into legislation. A more specific example for the member might be if there was a mobile overdose prevention site that was going to a particular location. That may be something that, potentially, could require an exemption.

E. Sturko: Thank you for that response.

Is placing harm reduction services in playgrounds something this government is considering?

Hon. M. Farnworth: No.

E. Sturko: The previous answer indicated that, potentially, this exemption exists to allow for that type of thing to take place.

Is the minister able to give me an example of a form of consumption of an illegal substance that may become exempt or that would be under consideration for exemption under all or part of section 3?

Hon. M. Farnworth: No. We’re not considering the kind of exemption that the member is talking about.

E. Sturko: I appreciate the answer.

In clause 9, “Power to make regulations,” under subparagraph (2)(c), it has all those potential exemptions, things that would affect the person: “(ii) an illegal substance; (iii) a form of consumption of an illegal substance; (iv) a thing; (v) a place; (vi) an area within a specified distance of a thing or place.”

Then under subparas (3) (a) and (b), it has, also, that a regulation may provide limits or conditions on the exemption and circumstances in which the exemption applies.

All of this may be standard language. But this bill deals really specifically with wanting to deter a certain behaviour in places where families and children would be present. Under what circumstances would these types of regulations be put in place that may alter how the application of this legislation takes place?

[5:20 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question. As I’ve said a number of times, the focus of this bill is about public use and where it is inappropriate. There is language in here that is standard. I think it reflects that there may be times government needs to bring in place a regulation.

But it is certainly not the intention in any way, shape or form, of this government to be doing things in places that we have deemed to be inappropriate, such as bus stops, playgrounds, splash parks and the very things that we have been discussing over the last day and a half.

E. Sturko: Thank you for the response.

If this legislation didn’t exist and only the exemption was removed from the new prescribed areas — parks, playgrounds, splash pads — then it would just default to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which is much more strict, much more potential for being much harsher than police would have to be, even though they have discretion, fully, to move people on, really, and just say: “Please go, or you could be charged under the CDSA.” It happens all the time. But this brings, I guess, a message, really, from the government to law enforcement officers about the way in which they want them to perform their duties.

Having this power to make these regulations and having it so explicitly laid out, though, I have some concern that…. We had just removing the exemption from these new areas in the agreement between the feds and our province, which would mean that there is no exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in these new areas. That goes along now with school grounds and airports and the other parts that were part of the exempt areas — or the not-exempt areas, doublespeak — as of January 31.

Defaulting, then, without this legislation would just be the CDSA or maybe people that are causing disturbance by being intoxicated in a public place, different avenues that police could use to address those issues.

The new legislation that’s brought in encourages a form of action where no arrest is made, as long as the person is compliant with the direction to leave the area. Is having this subsection, though, clause 9 (2) and (3) and all their paras that are in there…?

It really…. I want to emphasize, I guess, and make this statement on record that I would not want to see what is already a very humane way, I think, in which this government is seeking to treat people, not to try to arrest — although I do have some safety concerns with that, which we talked about yesterday — but leaving in the power to even further take away ability of law enforcement officers to deal with individuals who may be causing a disturbance or interfering with people’s enjoyment of a park or playground or splash pad.

I heard the Solicitor General say that is not the intention, but the tool is there to all of a sudden: “Okay, well, the exempt people are anyone with an addiction. Now anyone with an addiction is free to go there.” They’d be exempt if that was something that was chosen to do. “Okay, well, illegal substances…. Well, I mean, technically people are addicted, and they want to be able to consume illegal….”

There are many, many ways in which this language, although it’s standard, can weaken the ability for law enforcement officers to do the intent of this legislation, which is to move people to areas that are not inappropriate, if I understand how the minister wants to frame it.

[5:25 p.m.]

What is the intention of having it laid out so specifically with “illegal substance,” “form of consumption”? It really does paint a picture that in regulations, this government intends to further alter the parameters with which the law enforcement community would be carrying out their business.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. I just want to make these points.

First, in terms of the drafting of the bill, the legislative drafters do a very meticulous, particular job to make sure that the legislation is able to and covers the range of things. That’s why I said this is about being standard.

The second point is…. We’ve worked with police in the development of this bill and the sections within this bill. In terms of the development of regulations, we would be working with police and policing agencies on what appropriate regulations are.

I also just want to add that we’re not going to introduce a bill that we then want to, all of a sudden, now say, “Oh, we want to claw back what we put in,” which is what police have asked for, to be able to deal with the issues that we have been discussing. It very much is something — the regulations — that, as I said, we would be working with police on.

A. Olsen: This is really sort of a mind-numbing exercise, frankly. There are so many layers of this, and I think the member for Surrey South has identified yet another layer. So many double negatives and some double positives. It is creating a mess of a very messy situation.

One thing that this bill does do is it makes it very clear for anybody who’s paying attention and for the advocates who are working with people who are homeless and who are impoverished and the most marginalized, most vulnerable people in our society…. It has given them the opportunity to notify folks that they’re going to have to find somewhere more appropriate — that’s the best that we’ve got, just not where they are — to use drugs, these illicit substances.

So the bill debate that’s happening here has provided a considerable amount of public attention that the rules are changing, and the minister takes refuge in the fact that there are these powers to make regulations clauses in these bills as a matter of due course, within the work that we do in the Legislature.

I think that there needs to be some recognition from the minister that just as people are now going to be asked to move to the darkness, these regulations can change in the darkness and without the amount of debate and attention that’s necessary. It was admitted…. It was noted yesterday that there’s not going to be any extensive public advertisement or notification of folks. They’re just going to have to understand that the rules have changed. They’re just going to have to be paying attention to this debate.

From the minister’s perspective, what’s the process of changing the regulations and notifying and making those changes, whatever they might be? They’re literally as undefined as that. They could be anything. What is the notification and public awareness campaign that the ministry is going to undertake, should the minister decide, through the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, to make regulation changes?

[5:30 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I thank the member for the question.

In part, as we talked about yesterday, the development of regulations involves depending on…. It’s not just one ministry but a number of ministries, particularly in areas such as this — Mental Health and Addictions, for example; my ministry. It’s working with either the organizations or the individuals who are the advocacy organizations, police agencies, whoever is going to be impacted by a regulation or a change of rules, if you like, or a change in the way things are done — however the regulation is intended to change something.

That communication is ongoing. That communication is in place. Then, when a regulation is promulgated and adopted and put into place through the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, then communication occurs within the affected ministry to the affected organizations about what those changes are. They’re able to communicate with the people that they serve.

That’s how these things happen, not just with this but within government in general, whenever regulatory practices are changed.

A. Olsen: Just one more question, and then I’m going to turn this over to my colleague, who, I believe, might be around.

With respect to 9(2)(c), can the minister explain why it’s necessary to be so definitive? I think back to the member from Surrey’s question around…. You’ve got this exemption, and now there’s an exemption for an exemption, and any of these can change. Can we not have a clause 9 here for the power to make regulations that just ends at 9(2)(b) and doesn’t have (c) as a power given to the minister to just kind of unilaterally change any aspect of this bill, frankly?

[5:35 p.m.]

I think that 1 and 2 and 3, if you remove (c), should give the minister significant powers. But (c) here seems to go quite far and basically allows the minister to take this bill and entirely reformat it, basically, once it’s passed, giving the Legislature no opportunity to have any of these debates, to have any of these discussions, to understand what the rationale is behind it, to have the minister explain his rationale or a future minister explain their rationale.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. I think one of the things we want to ensure is that, in terms of the drafting of the bill, it’s able to do what we expect it to do. Legislative drafters, as I said, are very particular. That’s why in cases when it particularly comes to the ability to do regulatory changes, the wording is very, very specific — to be able to take into account things that may arise that you have not anticipated and that you have the ability to deal with. That’s why it is phrased the way that it is.

As I said earlier, the purpose of this bill is not to criminalize people. It is a tool to deal with situations that arise in local communities. It’s a tool that the police have asked for, and it has been constructed and drafted in that way. I’ve made it clear that regulatory change is something that occurs in discussion with those who would be impacted by a regulatory change. That’s the right approach, and that’s what this section is all about.

S. Furstenau: Just to pick up on where the minister was at right now, he’s indicating that this piece of legislation is a tool, but he has yet to really clearly articulate how that tool can be effective if there’s no indication as to where the police would be indicating people should be going.

I guess my question is: is the minister anticipating that there will be legal challenges to this legislation given that it lacks clear information about what the expectation is for circumstances where people are being told that this is an inappropriate location? We have yet to hear specifically, beyond a safe consumption site, which doesn’t exist in most communities, what an appropriate location is.

[5:40 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. I’d say this about this legislation — in fact, any legislation, having been around here a long time. Any legislation can be subject to a legal challenge. That’s not unusual. It happens.

The point for why this legislation is here I’ve gone into, with the member, in considerable detail yesterday. I think the fundamental issue is…. We are trying to achieve a balance. We believe the legislation does that. If there is a legal challenge, then….That is something that happens in our system of government. Laws that are passed by the Legislature can be challenged.

S. Furstenau: Again, I still feel a lack of clarity. I know that this has been canvassed greatly, for the last couple of days, by three of us. But a real lack of clarity on the purpose of this legislation in the context of an ongoing, absolutely devastating health emergency.

For example, if there is a person, who uses drugs, who has been on a wait-list for months, maybe years, to access a recovery space…. What provisions could be expected from this legislation that would ensure that person’s safety in the circumstances that they are being moved from what the minister describes as an inappropriate space?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member. I’d just say this. It’s very similar to what we were talking about yesterday.

This legislation is dealing with public use. What the member is talking about, in terms of all the other things, is work that’s already ongoing within other ministries. That’s part and parcel of, as I said, the investments that are taking place by government — $1 billion in this year’s budget — to expand the treatment facilities, expand the housing options, expand the support services, which we know are required and which are ongoing, taking the form of overdose prevention sites, for example, and complex care, if needed. All of those things.

[5:45 p.m.]

That work is ongoing and is going to continue. It’s working with local government. It’s working with health authorities to identify where those services are needed and getting those services in place. This is not a…. This is it, and then nothing else happens.

This is what I believe to be and what government believes to be a balanced approach in terms of dealing with this, at the same time recognizing that there’s a whole amount of other work that needs to be done and is, in fact, being done to provide much of what the member is talking about, particularly as it relates to health and addiction services.

The other issues related to that, whether it be poverty, for example…. All of those things are part and parcel of the work that this government has underway.

S. Furstenau: I guess my last question on this clause is: does the minister think that he and his government got the timing right on this?

We have thousands upon thousands of unhoused people in British Columbia. We don’t have the infrastructure, which he just talked about, to address this emergency the way that it needs to be addressed. This legislation, essentially, adds a level of stigma and criminalization to what has been widely recognized in this House as a health crisis.

Hon. M. Farnworth: As I’ve said, I appreciate the question from the member.

I think it comes back to, as I’ve said and I talked about yesterday…. I’ll use the term “balanced approach.” It is recognizing that there is a significant health issue that we are dealing with, on a range of fronts, through a range of ministries, and, at the same time, recognizing that there are also community concerns that we are wanting to address.

That’s what this bill is about. It does not take away from the other work that is ongoing and the investments that are ongoing to deal with a crisis that we know has impacted too many lives in too many communities across our province.

Clause 9 approved.

On clause 10.

S. Furstenau: I have a proposed amendment to clause 10.

The Chair: Please move the amendment.

S. Furstenau: I move that Bill 34, intituled Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act, be amended as followed.

[10 The Lieutenant Governor in Council may repeal this Act by regulationThe provisions of this Act expire automatically on the day on which the exemption order expires or is revoked.]

The Chair: Leader of the Third Party, the amendment is in order. You may speak to it now, if you wish.

On the amendment.

S. Furstenau: This amendment is proposed…. This legislation, which the minister has brought forward, is related to the exemptions that were granted under the decriminalization project here in British Columbia, the exemptions granted by the federal government.

The reason that I am proposing this amendment is…. If the decriminalization pilot project expires or is revoked, this legislation, which is in response to what the minister has said are concerns that have arisen from that, must follow suit. Keeping this legislation in effect beyond the decriminalization would further criminalize people who use drugs in a way that they were not criminalized prior to the decriminalization pilot.

[5:50 p.m.]

The Chair: Any member of the House may speak to the amendment, if a member wishes.

E. Sturko: I’m just reviewing this.

I thank the Leader of the Third Party for bringing this amendment forward. However, I actually don’t agree that the provisions of the act should expire automatically. I think regardless of whether or not the decriminalization pilot is discontinued or expires…. Families have made it clear that they don’t want drug use in parks and playgrounds.

I think that this legislation, as drafted, actually provides a change in approach, I would say, from just defaulting back to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. If this legislation is passed and then the exemption expires…. It will just have everything go back to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act without the provisions that are set out in this legislation for police to simply ask people to move on from that place.

I actually feel that it criminalizes them less than it would without this, if I’m making any sense. What I’m trying to say is…. Bill 34 should stay, even after the exemption between the federal government and the province expires, to allow police that continued ability to move people on instead of defaulting to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The Chair: Any further speakers to the amendment?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the amendment, but I can’t support the amendment for the following reason. The bill, as it’s constructed, actually deals with what the member is talking about.

There’s another aspect that needs to be considered. That is a technical one, which is why it’s worded the way that it is. If there was, for example, a gap between the expiration…. It may be a technical reason why it has expired. It was meant to be renewed. You would then have to introduce a whole new piece of legislation.

That’s why this section is worded the way it is, and that’s why we would be opposing the amendment.

The Chair: Seeing no further speakers, the Leader of the Third Party may speak, if she wishes, to close debate on the amendment. No? Okay.

Amendment negatived.

[5:55 p.m.]

S. Furstenau: I really like clause 10, so I have another proposed amendment on this clause.

I move that Bill 34, intituled Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act, be amended as follows: by adding new clause 10.1, as shown:

[CLAUSE 10.1, by adding new clause 10.1 as shown:

Review

10.1 (1) No later than one year after the day on which this Act comes into force, the minister must cause a review of this Act and its administration and operation to be conducted.

(2) The minister must submit a copy of the report on the review to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly who must, on receiving the report, table the report in the Legislative Assembly as soon as possible.

(3) If there is no Speaker of the Legislative Assembly,

(a) the minister must submit a copy of the report on the review to the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and

(b) the Clerk must provide the report to the Speaker as soon as possible after the Speaker’s election.]

The Chair: I am to advise that the amendment is in order, if you want to speak to it.

On the amendment.

S. Furstenau: The reason our caucus is proposing this amendment and this addition, clause 10.1, “Review,” is so that there is a reporting to the public via the Legislative Assembly on the impacts and effects of this legislation and to determine whether what the minister and his government are hoping to achieve from this legislation are the outcomes that we are actually seeing.

I think this is, given the discussion that’s happened in the debate at this committee stage and the public interest of how we are dealing with this ongoing health emergency that is killing six people every day in this province…. At the very least, the public should be able to expect that the minister reports out to the House whether or not this legislation is achieving the results that he is hoping it achieves or if it is actually achieving outcomes that were not anticipated or that are, in fact, causing more harm in communities.

It may be that this is an opportunity for the minister and his government to demonstrate that this legislation is indeed achieving the outcomes that he wanted to do with it.

The Chair: Are there any speakers?

[6:00 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the amendment from the member and why she has raised it, but I will not be supporting it.

I’ll frame it in this way. The questions that have been raised during the discussion around this bill and, in fact, indeed, in the House in question period and outside this House, to me say that everything around this is being very closely watched and monitored in terms of its impact, in terms of programs, in terms of other ministries, whether it’s Mental Health and Addictions, whether it’s Health and my ministry.

My expectation is information. We will be communicating the questions we’re being asked, not just over the course of the year but even longer than that, as the different programs and initiatives that government has get underway. Therefore, there is not the need for this particular amendment. I appreciate the member putting it forward, though.

S. Furstenau: I’ll just make one more case for this amendment, in that in canvassing questions about this legislation, I asked the minister yesterday about data and evidence that’s informing this legislation. He indicated that that was not the driving force, that this was about what he’s hearing and what people are wanting to see.

I’d argue that, as legislators and policy-makers, we should be striving to be using the best evidence, to be informed by data and outcomes, to be asking the question always: is the legislation that’s being passed in here achieving the goals stated by the government, the goals of this House of the Legislative Assembly?

In this case, we are dealing with legislation that will have the greatest impact on the most marginalized people in our province, people that don’t often get much of a voice in terms of systems that have impacted and harmed them. We heard over and over again in the Health Committee from people who are using substances in this province or dealing with substance use and addiction and the root of that tracing back to trauma.

For so many people, that trauma was at the hands of a government system, whether it was Ministry of Children and Families, whether it was the justice system or policing, whether it was the health care system or mental health. We don’t have a mental health system, but experiences while receiving psychiatric care…. People in this province have been and are harmed by systems that exist in public institutions, public systems.

When there is a piece of legislation like this that many, many people have raised concerns about…. In particular, I’ll point to the concerns that I raised yesterday from the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

This legislation will have an impact disproportionately on Indigenous people, because Indigenous people are disproportionately represented in the homeless population, disproportionately represented in the justice system, disproportionately impacted by the Ministry of Children and Family system, disproportionally impacted by racism, systemic racism in the health care system. This will be another piece of legislation that will be disproportionately felt by Indigenous people and by marginalized people in this province.

As we’ve been debating and discussing all along, the solution to the problem that everybody agrees on, the problem of public drug use, the problem of communities feeling uncomfortable with seeing public drug use…. The solution exists to that problem, and that is safe consumption sites.

[6:05 p.m.]

That is supportive housing sites like the Village in Duncan. That is support that currently doesn’t exist for thousands upon thousands of people in this province. I think that, at the very least, this government could commit to providing this Legislative Assembly with a review of the impacts of this legislation, given that the people who are impacted are indeed people who have been marginalized again and again by government institutions and government systems.

The Chair: Seeing no further speakers, we will close the debate on the proposed amendment to clause 10.1.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 10 approved.

On clause 11.

E. Sturko: I’ll just read. The government website on tobacco- and vapour-free places states:

“You may live in a community/municipality that has greater restrictions on outdoor smoke/vapour product use. Some communities in B.C. ban use of tobacco and vapour products on hospitality patios, have buffer zones that are larger than six metres or ban use of these products on outdoor spaces such as beaches or playgrounds. If your community has such a bylaw, that bylaw takes precedence over the provincial requirement. Whichever requirement is more restrictive is the requirement you must follow.”

Question to the minister: for bylaws that have already been adopted, do they take precedence over the provincial requirement?

Hon. M. Farnworth: If there’s an existing bylaw, that bylaw is already in place. This section ensures that consultation must take place in accordance with this act for bylaws being proposed.

E. Sturko: I might have misunderstood. Could you just repeat or clarify for me? If the bylaw has already been adopted, it takes precedence over the new legislation?

Hon. M. Farnworth: It’s not a question of precedence. Both laws do apply.

Clause 11 approved.

On clause 12.

E. Sturko: I think that you did answer this yesterday, but can you just confirm that the anticipated timeline for the bill to come into force is December?

Hon. M. Farnworth: That is correct.

Clause 12 approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:10 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Reporting of Bills

BILL 29 — ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Bill 29, Environmental Management Amendment Act, 2023, reported complete with amendments.

Mr. Speaker: When shall the bill be considered as reported?

Hon. K. Conroy: Now, with leave.

Leave granted.

Hon. K. Conroy: I call third reading of the bill.

Third Reading of Bills

BILL 29 — ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Bill 29, Environmental Management Amendment Act, 2023, read a third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker: The House will be in recess for ten minutes.

The House recessed from 6:13 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

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

Hon. K. Conroy moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:16 p.m.