Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 57 on the order paper.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 57 — APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL
COMMITTEE TO APPOINT AN INFORMATION
AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONER

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move:

[That a Special Committee to Appoint an Information and Privacy Commissioner be appointed to select and unanimously recommend to the Legislative Assembly the appointment of an individual as Information and Privacy Commissioner, pursuant to section 37 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 165).

That the Special Committee have all the powers of a Select Standing Committee and in addition be empowered to:

a. appoint of its number one or more subcommittees and to refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Special Committee and to delegate to the subcommittees all or any of its powers except the power to report directly to the House;

b. sit during a period in which the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and during any sitting of the House;

c. adjourn from place to place as may be convenient; and,

d. retain personnel as required to assist the Special Committee.

That the Special Committee report to the House as soon as possible, and that during a period of adjournment, the Special Committee deposit its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, or in the next following Session, as the case may be, the Chair present all reports to the House.

That the Special Committee be composed of the following Members: Garry Begg (Convener), Michele Babchuk, Dan Davies, Renee Merrifield, Adam Olsen and Mike Starchuk.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call continued second reading of Bill 46, Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Act.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole for Bill 41, Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

In the third House, committee room C, I call Committee of the Whole for Bill 39, Zero Emission Vehicle Act.

[1:05 p.m.]

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 46 — HOUSING STATUTES
(DEVELOPMENT FINANCING)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

N. Letnick: Continuing where we left off just before lunch…. Let’s see how much time I have: 23 minutes. Okay, we’ll see what we can do with 23 minutes.

I talked a little bit about Bill 46 in general, and I won’t repeat everything I said there. I want to transition now to what can we do, with Bill 46 in the background, to actually promote the development of affordable housing by reducing costs.

In the first place, I mentioned at the end of my speech before lunch, was the land. Land is the foundation upon which housing is built. I was describing how a landowner, if they want to build affordable housing, for instance, with a for-profit or a non-profit developer, would transfer the land ownership to the developer, even if it’s for a dollar. At that time, the land developer would have to pay property transfer tax.

Then the land developer goes and builds entry-level housing for young people, first-time home buyers. If they qualify under the threshold, which is currently around $500,000, they would be exempt of the property transfer tax on that transfer, but they would not be exempt from the property transfer tax that went from the original landowner to the developer. They would have to pay that because developers don’t swallow costs; they pass on the costs. So we need to fix that.

The government needs to look at situations where land is transferred over and eventually ends up in the hands purchased by entry-level buyers. We have to get rid of that property transfer tax if we really mean business when it comes to helping first-time buyers.

The second piece to that is the threshold hasn’t changed in years. What can you get these days for $500,000 or thereabouts? Not much, which is why we’re trying so hard in this House to try to build more housing. We need to look at that threshold, and I would suggest a couple of things. One is: to make housing more affordable, increase the threshold. That’s one. The other one is to get rid of the threshold. When you’re looking at Bill 46 and it talks about different charges, here’s one charge that we can actually get rid of for first-time home buyers: that threshold on the property transfer tax exemption. I would ask government to look at that as well.

They can put it in Bill 46, or they can bring it in, in a misc stats amendment act for Finance. But it needs to come in somewhere to make sure that we’re really focusing on first-time buyers, because the key is that the land costs need to come in as low as possible so we can build housing.

It’s not going to be swallowed up by developers. That’s a misnomer. Developers are making their profit, whatever it is, 10, 15 percent. If the cost of the complete project is less, they’ll make smaller profit. They don’t increase — usually, in a good market — the cost of the project just to pocket the money. It’s really important that we make sure that these costs are as low as possible.

The other piece, of course, is after you have the land, you have the construction. Now, here we come right away with the DCCs and the ACCs. These costs either get passed on to the developer….

In other words, the project will pass that on to the purchasers or the renters. The renters, in terms of higher rent costs, if the development costs are higher…. Or in terms of buyers, they’ll have to pay the ACCs and the DCCs as well. Either they pay it or the community at large pays it in terms of their property tax, or you have the larger government — the province or the feds, in some cases — help with that.

I would suggest that when you’re looking at these particular charges under Bill 46, is there a way for the charges to be clearly made less or eliminated when it comes to certain rental properties or first-time homebuyers? I’ll discuss that in the bill itself in just a moment in a specific clause.

[1:10 p.m.]

The other piece after that is carrots or sticks. We have a lot of sticks in this bill. A lot of charges. Where are the carrots? Where are the incentives for developers to actually build good housing at an affordable price, both in rental and in entry-level housing? I’ll talk about that as well as we go through each particular clause.

Having said that, moving on to the first clause I want to talk about. It’s 570.1, when it talks about amenities. Now, these are the amenities the legislation proposes that the charges could be charged on or for: community youth centres, recreation or athletic facilities, a library, a daycare facility and a public square. It “…does not include a facility or feature within a class of facilities or features that are prescribed by regulation not to be amenities.”

The problem here is you’re trying to address the growth in a community and, at the same time, address people who are just trying to move out, maybe from rental, and get their first home. If they are doing that, are they really incurring a larger charge to the local municipality? Is it costing them more if my son or daughter, in this case, is moving out of my home and moving into their own home? Are they really looking at increasing the cost to the system, to the municipal government, to provide the services?

If they were using the swimming pool before, they’re using it now. But if they’re moving into a brand-new home, they’re going to have to pay extra fees for something that has already been covered while they were living in my home, for example, right?

It makes it really difficult for first-time buyers — or for people who are trying to rent, to get a rent that’s affordable — if we are going to pass all these charges on to them. I would really ask the government to look at these amenity charges and if they should be charged across the board or if there are some particular instances — we’ll come to that in a minute — where they could be waived or relaxed.

So 570.2 talks about the amenity charges that “may be imposed under subsection (1) for the purpose of providing funds to assist the local government to pay the capital costs of providing, constructing, altering or expanding amenities to benefit, directly or indirectly,” a development. Well, we really need to define what “indirectly” means.

I certainly hope, through the committee stage, we get that. I can be building a pool in Kelowna, for example, and if all the other people around — Lake Country, West Kelowna — don’t have pools, they will come to Kelowna to use the pool. It’s only being financed by the people in Kelowna but used outside of that.

That happens in municipalities all around the province and, I would say, all around the world, where you have a situation where the hub gets to provide the services that are helping people on the outside. Therefore, you have an inequity of who’s paying the taxes and who’s getting the services. So I would ask the government to look at that in the bill.

The next clause in the bill is subsection 570.4(5). It says: “An amenity cost charge is not payable in relation to a development for any class of affordable housing prescribed by regulation.”

Now, typically, both provincial and federal governments have defined — and you will know this fairly well, Mr. Speaker — affordable as 30 percent of income. I don’t know of anybody, anymore, who pays 30 percent of income. Rents are so high across the country and, of course, here in British Columbia, and the cost of housing is so high that 30 percent of income doesn’t get you into a home. So I would ask the government, when they’re looking at defining what affordable means, to have a serious look at affordable housing.

Now, affordable housing could be something that’s defined as non-profit housing, for example, or at least included as part of the definition under affordable housing. So affordable housing, 30 percent of income — maybe 35 or 40, or something more realistic than 30 percent of income. Or it could also be some non-profit housing that’s being supplied.

I would say that not only because of my experience in the delivery of non-profit housing. I’ve received many, many calls from local groups, from church groups or other organizations that have land. They want to know, “What can we do with this land? How can we provide housing and still maintain our use?” — the church or the community club or whatever it is.

I would really ask the government to look at, when they talk about a class of housing as affordable, to expand that to include these kinds of organizations that are trying to address the lack of affordable housing.

[1:15 p.m.]

At the end of the day, when somebody buys a home that they’re providing, 30 percent of income might not cut it, right? So if they’re offering a unit at cost — at their cost, whatever that is — then that should be accepted as affordable.

Yes, it won’t be affordable to everyone. I recognize that. But it will be affordable to a section of the market. Therefore, that means that section of the market will be able to get out of the rental units. They’ll get into the first-time-buyer units, which will free up rental units for other people.

I would just ask the government, when they’re defining that, if they’re doing it by regulation, to really look carefully, as the class of affordable housing is more than 30 percent. Like I said, it includes other classes as well.

My next question, or suggestion, is under 570.6. I’ll read it. I really want to drive home this one as well. It says in here: “In this section, ‘eligible development’ means a development that is eligible in accordance with an applicable bylaw or regulation under this section as being for one or both of the following categories.” Here are the categories: (a) not-for-profit rental housing, including supportive housing, or (b) for-profit affordable rental housing.

Well, where is the first-time homebuyer? If we really want to help families get into their first home, we need to include a (c) in here and say not-for-profit, entry-level ownership housing. Not only will that drive developers to build these kinds of units….

Again, to repeat, as I said before, I get calls all the time from different organizations wanting to build this kind of project. They don’t want to get into the rental business because of things we’ve discussed in other sessions about the landlord tenancy act. I won’t get into the RTB here. They don’t want to get into the rentals, but they want to provide a first-time buyer with an entry-level home at cost. We’re not helping them here. We’re not exempting them from the charges.

I would really ask the government to look at that. Maybe, as I said to begin with, before lunch….

The government is not going to support an amendment from us, from me, at least not usually, but they can bring in their own amendments. They’ve done that. They say frequently: “We want the best ideas, and when we get good ideas, we’ll deliver on those ideas with amendments.” Well, I’m asking the government to do that exact thing right here.

Look at this clause and everything else in the bill. When you’ve got (a) not-for-profit rental housing and (b) for-profit affordable rental housing, then there should be a (c) in here. Have not-for-profit ownership housing or, at least, for-profit affordable ownership housing or a mix of that. You really have to look at that in here. There’s a lot of land that could be built for entry-level, affordable ownership housing that we are going to be penalizing because they don’t fall under these two categories.

One more. It says in here, 570.6 again, this time subclause (6): “The minister may make regulations in relation to subsection (3) (a) establishing, (b) restricting, or (c) establishing criteria for determining what constitutes an eligible development or a class of eligible development for the purposes of one or more categories of eligible development described in subsection (1).”

I would prefer, and I think it’s stronger, if the minister actually brings an amendment to include what I talked about under the previous clause, subsection (1)(a) and (b), and adds something there. However, if the minister thinks it would be wiser to put in regulations, then at least put it in the regulations. But bring the regulations out as soon as possible.

We know the legislation is going to pass. The government has a majority. But bring it out as soon as possible, because what we’re hearing now, on the street, is…. A lot of developers are throwing up their hands and saying: “There’s too much change going on. There’s too much risk. We don’t know what’s happening with properties.”

They can do (a), they can do (b), or they can do (c). Why would I build (a)? If I just wait a few months, then maybe I could do (c), which is double the density or twice the height or whatever, that kind of thing. Who, in their right mind, is going to go and continue with these projects right now? We really need to get the regulations out as fast as possible and, of course, as correct as possible to make sure that we can get the building community back into building again.

The last clause I want to talk about, before I describe a specific project that I’ve been working on — hopefully, it will help the government in delivering on all of our goal to deliver affordable housing — is 570.91. It’s more of a question than anything else. Maybe the minister, in his response at second reading, or, at least, through committee stage, when he talks about it….

[1:20 p.m.]

Subsection (1) says: “In this section, ‘in-stream’ and ‘precursor application’ have the same meaning as in section 568 (1).” My question to the minister is: do projects have to be in-stream as far as development goes, or can you take it all the way back and have conversations with a planning department? Is that in-stream?

If a developer is having a conversation with a planning department, is that good enough to be grandfathered? At the point where they’ve submitted a rezoning application, which happens first, is that the in-stream part? Is that good enough, or do they have to submit a building permit to be in-stream? Developers are going to want to know where exactly the line in the sand is, so that they can make sure that they’re not going to be subject to the new law or that they will be subject to the new law. Again, certainty is really important in all of this.

Here’s the specific project. As I’ve said before in this House, I am involved in a not-for-profit housing society. When I was in Banff, we built over 200 homes, entry-level houses for first-time homebuyers. We sold them at 75 percent of market; that’s 25 percent below market. The way you do that is quite simple. You don’t charge anything for the land, and there’s no developer’s profit, because we’re a not-for-profit. Between no land cost and no developer’s profit, we’re roughly able to bring in the product at about 25 percent below market.

The costs are the costs. The concrete is going to cost the same; lumber is going to cost the same. The plumbers, the electricians, all the other costs are the costs. Usually non-profits don’t get away with paying a lot less for the cost of construction than the for-profits do. What we can do is leverage the philanthropy of some organizations, like those churches and other organizations that have land, or even private landowners that want to give back to the community. We can do that by agreeing to a long-term lease.

We call this program the lease-to-own program. Instead of the rent-to-own program, it’s a lease-to-own program. The way it works is that someone will come and work with us. They’ll provide us the land. We’ll tell them that they’ll get their money for the land down the road. “Down the road” is when the house turns over a second time.

The first-time homebuyer buys in, doesn’t pay anything for the land, and doesn’t pay any developer’s profit. They get in at roughly 25 percent below market. When they sell their unit — five, ten or 20 years later, whatever it is — then they sell it at full market value. They have to, because the land partner at some point wants their money — unless, of course, they are a philanthropist and they don’t want their money. That’s fine, but that’s a small portion of the community.

If we want to make this really sustainable and used by many, many people and organizations, they have to see the opportunity of recovering their costs — right? — and getting their money out of it.

So a developer would say, “Okay, I have a 100-unit project. For 25 of these units, I’m going to give you a long-term lease,” similar to what UBC or some First Nations would do. “I’ll give you a long-term lease, a 99-year lease.” They give them a long-term lease, and the first-time buyer doesn’t pay anything for the land — other than that right now they pay property transfer tax, unfortunately. Hopefully, that gets fixed. When they sell, the next buyer pays full market value.

The organization, in our case, for example, then gives the land partner their percentage, whatever their percentage was at the original time. Let’s say their percentage of the total market value is 20 percent. Then they’ll get 20 percent down the road. If the value of the land has appreciated over those years, they’ll get more money. If the market has crashed, well, then they’ll get less money. They take some risk.

The advantage to them is that they get to defer their capital gains. Instead of getting all the capital gain all in year one, when they sell the property, they now smooth it out over many years. They claim the capital gain income in the year that they get their money. Over time, that will help them, of course, lower their marginal tax rate. So there’s a benefit to that.

That’s why Bill 46 is contrary to making sure that those benefits are there to encourage developers. We have to make sure that Bill 46 works to encourage developers to participate in things like this, where we can get first-time buyers into homes. Then, hopefully, over time, they build equity in themselves. By building equity in themselves, they can then use that money to buy a market house.

[1:25 p.m.]

I would ask the government to really seriously look at using carrots instead of sticks as they look to expand housing affordability in British Columbia.

Now, some might say: “With this lease-to-own program, are you choosing winners and losers?” The way we’d designed it — again, in Bill 46, I’d hope they’d work the same way — was similar to what B.C. Housing has, as far as criteria, income thresholds, what defines a first-time buyer, and whatnot. I would say that this kind of approach — the carrot approach, versus the stick approach — is far more beneficial to get developers on side.

Instead of telling them they have to pay all these dollars and then pass those costs on to first-time buyers and renters, if we can come up with a system like what I’ve described to you, where it gives them an incentive to actually provide housing at cost to first-time buyers, it’ll make quite a difference. You just have to look to municipal governments now, as far as rental goes.

Kelowna has increased the amount of rental stock tremendously over the last few years because of the incentives they provided developers on the rental stock. They keep providing these — up to now, of course, because all the rules are changing, and everybody is backing off for a while, until the dust settles. A lot of rental units have been put forward, because of the carrots available to developers to build those rental units, but not a lot of ownership homes for first-time buyers, because the carrots aren’t there, right?

We have to make sure, if we want to get people out of the rental homes into their own homes, that we provide some form of transition to there. As you know, it goes from supportive housing all the way to entry-level first-time-buyer homes. That’s the continuum that we always look at.

The reports that come out from B.C. Housing don’t stop at rental. They go to the first-time buyer; they go to those who are entry-level. But what are we doing there? Bill 46 is going to hurt that, unless we change it. Bill 46 will not help get people — first-time homebuyers, our sons and daughters — into their homes, ownership homes, unless we change it. It’ll make it harder.

I really am hoping for the goodwill of the minister to look at these ideas and incorporate them into his own amendments if he wants — or with the Finance Minister on the property transfer tax issue — and bring them in as early as possible. Bring in the regulations as early as possible, so that we can get some certainty out there.

Projects like the one I’m talking to you about, and the ones that are out there waiting for certainty, by all these developers, whether they’re for-profit or non-for-profit, will be moving forward, because we all need the housing.

In conclusion, I would just say that Bill 46 needs some tweaking, some changes, for it to be supportable. I hope that the minister sees fit to do so.

Deputy Speaker: I understand there is a committee here, but if the member is able to adjourn debate, we will come back to him.

N. Letnick: I move that we adjourn debate.

Motion approved.

[1:30 p.m. - 1:40 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 39 — ZERO-EMISSION VEHICLES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Bill 39, Zero-Emission Vehicles Amendment Act, 2023, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed on the following division:

Hon. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call continued second reading of Bill 46, Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Act.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 41, Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

In the third House, committee room C, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 43, enforcement of money judgment act.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

[1:45 p.m.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 46 — HOUSING STATUTES
(DEVELOPMENT FINANCING)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

T. Halford: It’s a great opportunity here to speak to Bill 46.

I think we’ve talked extensively about the dire need for housing in this province, affordable housing. That’s no different in my riding of Surrey–White Rock. I think we’ve talked, I know on this side of the House, on the challenges that have arisen with this bill in terms of added costs.

We talk about the opportunities for first-time homebuyers, and I think we also need to ensure that we are…. The previous speaker brought up an issue that actually kind of reminded me of a situation in my riding. It’s called Harmony House, and it’s developed by Unity. It’s a not-for-profit, and it speaks to some of the challenges that we’ve seen in terms of project delays, whether they’re at the provincial level or, in that case, the municipal level and how that can layer on to a substantial increased cost.

The good people at Unity — this is a project that has been absolutely supported across party lines — put forward to the city of Surrey an application a number of years ago for a project that was built for multi-use. It was targeting adults with intellectual disabilities, but it was encompassing all of community, right?

It was a situation where some of these adults were able to live independently with support and to ensure that they were able to remain in the community that they grew up in. It was voted down at the municipal level, I think, about two and half years ago. It was successfully passed last November. But the added cost in that time was substantial, in terms of concrete, available material, labour. It was sizable.

I want to thank my colleague from Kelowna–Lake Country for bringing that to our attention, because that is paramount to some of the things that we’re talking about.

I worry with this bill. We canvassed this today in question period, and we canvassed the issue in terms of tax increases. When it comes to housing, I think that people do, or they’re starting to, understand that when it comes to the affordability issue, taxation plays a very, very large role in that.

When we look at…. The fact is that we talked about the amenity cost charges on some of these in the building codes. We talk about the fact that, as it stands, Vancouver, obviously, is the most expensive city in Canada when it comes to taxes and fees on new homes. The figure we’re looking at right now is $644,000.

I think that experts would find that this legislation could make that substantially worse. We’ve talked about the fact that we have 29 new or increased taxes. This legislation is now making it 30. We talk about the importance of making housing affordable. But in order to do that, you have to burden the cost, whether it’s the developer, the labourer or the homebuyer.

We aren’t seeing that here. We’re seeing layer and layer of taxes put on. We need to ensure that when we are looking at this legislation, and we are talking about the challenges…. We’ll look at the DCCs.

[1:50 p.m.]

When you look at the development cost charges, and you look at…. In this legislation, any new home built next to provincial highways or interchanges could face a new tax. I think that’s something that, unfortunately, the public finds out about until it’s too late, right?

We talk about the massive amount of taxes that are blocking new houses being built. We talk about that. You know, there’s also a provision to include policing costs in DCC, in this legislation. I think that’s something that has been, obviously, canvassed in this House, at least in my riding of Surrey–White Rock, on the challenges that we faced on that transition.

We look at the fact that when we’re talking about affordable housing — I think we’ve used the line before — you need to make it affordable. Does this legislation do that? I think we’ve outlined some areas in which it hasn’t.

We talk about the fact that when we’re looking at a new development, when we’re talking about my area of Surrey–White Rock, we have housing that’s coming online. In some of the older buildings, whether they were constructed in the ’60s or ’70s, they have residents in there that have sometimes been in there for 40 or 50 years, right? That’s something that we’re dealing with almost on a daily basis in White Rock, specifically, when it comes to making sure that people have housing after there’s a demoviction.

Part of the challenge is that we’re seeing that rent has doubled to almost, in Vancouver, $3,000 a month. If you’re looking for a townhouse, it’s up 33 percent, to $1 million. A single-family home is now approaching $2 million. You’ve got to look, and we’ll canvass this extensively at committee: is this legislation making it better, or is it making it worse?

When we’re talking about increased taxation, I think people would argue that that’s probably not going to remedy the situation we currently find ourselves in. When we talk about adding new charges, whether it’s at the land level, the construction level, the labour level or the purchase level, I think we see that that is going to be a burden that is owned by everybody.

I think that part of the challenge is that you can’t tax your way out of an affordability crisis. You can’t tax your way out of a housing crisis. We see the challenges, specifically with the ACC costs. This bill is codifying a new taxation power on housing projects at the local level, all in addition to expanding the development cost charges.

At some point, you know, the well is dry. I think right now we’re seeing it. When it comes to the costs, whether it’s in rental or home ownership, I can say that in Metro Vancouver the well is pretty dry in terms of affordability, in terms of people being able to afford to at least come up with a down payment.

As the previous speaker spoke, I think that there are some significant issues in this legislation. I know that my colleague from the Green Party will be speaking in a second, but I do find a lot of challenges. Like I said before: taxation out of an affordability crisis, out of a housing crisis, is not the most optimal way to go.

With that, I will take my seat, and I will look forward to the comments from my colleague.

A. Olsen: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 46, the Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Amendment Act. This is one of five pieces of legislation that are currently in the mix here in this fall 2023 session and that have to do with changing housing policy in this province.

[1:55 p.m.]

As I spoke to earlier this week, Bill 44, was the second directly housing-related bill. The first one was supported by our caucus. Finally, regulations on short-term vacation rentals — definitely a long time in coming. Bill 44 is about substantively changing the zoning laws.

I spoke at great lengths, possibly the greatest length that I’ve spoken to any bill, on that, sharing my experience first as a municipal councillor who had to deal with the impacts of decisions that were made in this chamber on the well-being of our communities and on the ability of local government officials to be able to support the people that live in our communities, to be able to generate enough revenue and to be able to maintain and upkeep infrastructure and other services that are much needed in the community.

It’s been no secret that this province has not provided local governments the financing mechanisms that they need and the funding mechanisms that they need to be able to capture an appropriate amount of revenue to be able to keep the infrastructure up to date.

I remember when I first got elected in Central Saanich. I sat down with the finance director, talking about the strategy that was required by the provincial government at the time to start to an accounting practice of all of the bits and pieces that make our communities work, all the things that nobody thinks about. The fire hydrants, for an example, have a price that you have to pay in order to have a fire hydrant.

From the moment that’s installed, that’s the piece of infrastructure that’s above the ground that everybody can see, and there’s a whole bunch of infrastructure that’s below it that people can’t see. Then that infrastructure is attached to high-pressure pipes that are maintained by a different level or type of government. They have to maintain those. Then if you follow that back to the reservoir, there has to be a sufficient amount of capacity in the reservoir to have the type of water that’s needed in order to be able to suppress fires in our province.

All of that needs to be able to be funded somehow. All of that needs to be able to be paid for. All of that pressure that’s in that pipe, the wear and tear that comes from age…. It needs to be replaced at some point.

For the longest time in this province, we just kind of treated it like: “Well, we were able to afford it when we first built the fire hydrant. We’re going to be able to afford to replace the fire hydrant in the future.” It’s not that just one fire hydrant needs to be replaced; it’s entire neighborhoods, usually developed around the same time — all of that infrastructure aging at the same pace.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Take a look at a fire hydrant. I could have probably spent a little bit more time to get the actual price of a fire hydrant but, say, a few thousand dollars to do it. Accumulate that across a municipality like Central Saanich. It’s a large number. Take it over a much greater region, like the capital region. Then of course, just fire hydrants alone become a very large cost — on who?

I think this is probably one of the reasons why I disagree that we view these development costs and these development financing mechanisms as a tax. It’s just the cost of servicing the infrastructure that we’re building. It has to be captured somewhere if it’s not captured in the development process. If the provincial government….

All brands, all types of all political parties, everyone, all the different brands that have represented in here — nobody in this building wants to extend adequate amount of resources to local governments through increasing their taxation power, shifting some of the taxation that the provincial government collects towards local governments.

I proposed in my speech earlier this week shifting some of the revenue that’s generated through the property transfer tax to the Indigenous nations whose land was never surrendered or ceded. I thought that might be a good way to recognize the fact that since 1875, when that packet of documents got handed over, called the Indian land question in this province…. Still a question. Still not answered over vast swaths of land here in the province.

[2:00 p.m.]

Perhaps if the Minister of Finance has an issue with transferring some of that wealth that’s generated at the sale of property, the transfer from one owner to another — there’s some wealth that’s captured in the process — or has a problem with transferring that to the First Nations people, maybe they could transfer some of it to the municipal governments, where, then, that would offset the cost. So maybe it’s not a development cost charge. It’s a property transfer charge. Call it a tax. Call it whatever you want.

The reality of it is that that infrastructure needs to be paid for somewhere. If it’s not paid for, if there are no fire hydrants — if there are zero fire hydrants, if there are zero pipes, if there are zero fire trucks — then it will be captured in insurance. The homeowner who’s built their nice new home will be paying an astronomical insurance rate to make up for it. Those of us that have been in local government know this is a reality.

Another conversation that I had when I was in the district of Central Saanich was that our fire hall was too far away from a large number of residents. They weren’t able to meet the 12-minute response time. A volunteer fire department. Great value. Awesome crew. Consistently been an awesome crew of community volunteers in our community for years. Central Saanich volunteer fire department, North Saanich volunteer fire department, department, Sidney Volunteer Fire Department. All of the outer Gulf Islands. Salt Spring Island, Pender, Mayne, Galiano, Saturna.

I think I got them all. I better make sure I’ve got them all. If not, I’ll mention them in my next speech. All have got great volunteer fire departments, right? If it takes too long for those fire departments to get to that home that’s on fire, then that homeowner is going to be paying an inflated insurance rate.

The reality is that the system that we’re living under…. This was the premise of the speech that I gave earlier this week. The economic system that we’re living under is producing these results. The fact that we can come in here, and I can hear debate after debate after debate in here, pretending like something else is possible under the system that we’ve got…. Just a little tweak here, a little tweak there, and we’re going to get an entirely different result. It has my mind swirling.

I just don’t understand how we can come in here, speech after speech after speech, and think that somehow the infrastructure that it needs to support the hundreds of thousands of people that Bill 44 is going to accommodate in this province…. Somehow the infrastructure that’s going to support those houses, those homes, is going to magically appear.

Somehow all of that infrastructure that hasn’t been replaced, that is at the end of its life, is going to magically be suitable for more density. Somehow none of the planning that is done by our local governments, none of the planning that considered this change that we’re debating in Bill 44, is going to somehow suddenly be able to accommodate…. The infrastructure under the ground is going to be able to accommodate the new density that’s going to be put on top of it.

Somehow magically, just out of nowhere, the reservoir in the Sooke Hills is going to be able to produce the amount of water, the volume of water that’s needed in order to be able to support the people. So when the fire trucks do get there in eight minutes, and they plug that hose into that fire hydrant, it’s working, and the water starts to pump. It doesn’t just run dry at the end because of the reservoir up at the top of the hill.

Where’s that money coming from? How is that money being generated? Magic. From a lot of what I’ve heard in these debates — magic. That’s how it’s going to be. You can’t capture it here. You can’t capture it there. If you capture it over there, you call it a tax. You make it this boogeyman. It becomes this bad thing. But everybody, when their house is on fire, 100 percent of people in this province, wants to know that fire department is going to be there, that when they plug it into that fire hydrant, that hose fills with water and covers that house.

[2:05 p.m.]

Magic isn’t going to get water into that hose. What’s going to get water into that hose is good planning, a solid fiscal framework that’s going to be able to generate enough revenue to be able to keep that infrastructure up to speed, an understandable and knowable number of people and a growth pattern that’s going to be sustainable and manageable.

That’s what the whole idea of regional growth strategies — regional sustainability strategies, as it was starting to be called in the capital regional district…. Official community plans. All of those pieces are pieces that are designed in order to ensure that the development that is planned is going to be able to be supported by the infrastructure. Pipes in the ground, asphalt on top of the ground, power lines above ground, or underground in some communities — magic is not going to pay for that.

When the minister tabled Bill 44, there was this ripple through the local elected officials in this province — a ripple. You could hear them: “How are we going to pay for a 300, 400, 600 percent increase in some neighbourhoods? How are we going to pay for the infrastructure in the ground?” So they come out, and they say: “This is not right. You cannot do this to the zoning and not have a solution for the infrastructure.”

The minister runs around, meets with local government people, lets them know it’s going to be all right. And in a couple of days, we get Bill 46 on the table — the answer, 21 pages. A surprise to only everybody in B.C. except for the minister that this bill was hot on its heels.

What was the point of that two-day gap? What was the point of destabilizing this conversation further? Fun? Was it fun for the minister to have to answer to all the mayors going: “How are we going to pay for the thing that you’ve known for decades that we can’t pay for?”

Communities on the Sunshine Coast running out of water. Communities on western Vancouver Island running out of water. Come to Tofino; come see the Pacific Rim national park. Come and view the beautiful, rugged west coast of B.C., but bring your own water.

For decades, we’ve known that these communities…. The community infrastructure has not met the demand already that’s on it. The infrastructure that we have in the ground is aging and coming to an end.

In 2010, I was a municipal councillor. I walked through this in my discussion on Bill 44. I was introduced to the primary challenge that local governments face, and that is a provincial government and a federal government that simply have neglected to give them the financing tools that they need in order to be able to maintain the infrastructure that is expected of them.

Reports came out. Well-known, experienced mayors and councillors sitting around the table trying to come up, in 2010 and 2011, with a new fiscal framework. Hundreds of local government officials around the table agreeing that what we need is something different than the conditional grant framework.

The development cost charges. Municipalities already have a way to be able to generate revenue off of the cost of development, and it was generated from a point in time during the rezoning and subdivision process.

But when a huge amount of densification happens, with Bill 44, the provincial government recognizes that it needs to create a different point in the process for revenue to be able to be generated.

[2:10 p.m.]

That’s why I find it so disappointing that this part of the process, despite what I think about what the government’s doing on land that there still are questions over that they’re not answering, that they’re not prepared to answer…. Stand up and sit down all the time here when it comes to reconciliation.

A few times every year we do ministerial statements about reconciliation. Good ideas are given to the ministers to be able to address that and to be able to reconcile the land question in this province.

I mentioned that I’ve seen the map before the lines were drawn on it. Who started drawing the lines? This place started drawing the lines. Who asked? Nobody.

It’s disappointing, no matter what you feel about Bill 44, when a bill comes out, Bill 46, to try to accommodate the increased costs that are going to be associated with densifying neighbourhoods that were never planned to have four people for every one…. It leaves me wondering how it is that we’re going to pay for those things.

Bill 46 is a part of it. It’s a part of it, but it’s only the future part of it. It’s going to replace some infrastructure, for sure. Absolutely. It’s going to replace the part of the infrastructure that’s directly under the houses.

As I talked about, there’s a whole continuum of infrastructure that is needed in order to maintain everything up to the door. This bill doesn’t fully answer that question. It gives a mechanism. No clue as to whether or not what is going to be generated in this bill is going to be anywhere near what municipalities have.

The former B.C. Liberal government under Gordon Campbell had no interest in providing a new fiscal framework for local governments. He said so much at the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities when I asked him that question back in 2009. The Leader of the Official Opposition at the time, Carole James…. I asked her the same question.

This granting system is broken. The provincial government making decisions about whether or not a local government has pleaded long enough for the money that’s needed in order to fix a sewer pump….

I didn’t even give the whole picture. What happens when you flush the toilet? What happens in a neighbourhood when you flush the toilet and it doesn’t go away? It just backs up onto the floor. We’ve got sewer pumps. We’ve got undersized pipes from a past generation underneath all of these houses.

Bill 46 is supposed to magically solve all those problems, but it won’t. Everybody that has been around this problem in this country, not just in this province but in this country, agrees that the infrastructure deficit in this province…. The infrastructure deficit in this country is not $100 million. It’s not $200 million. It’s billions and billions of dollars. It’s the result of lost time. It’s the result of an assumption that the system that we have is going to magically solve itself.

This mechanism isn’t good enough. The building communities fund is about 120 years too short, if you’re going to put $1 billion a year on the table. The $51 million announced at the last UBCM to placate local governments that were already feeling the pressure of the infrastructure deficit in this province is a nod in the direction of the problem. It doesn’t solve the problem.

[2:15 p.m.]

Anybody who represents a community in this province that has dikes in it knows we are in significant problems in this province, right? If the only infrastructure between your community and the river is a dike that was built in this province, then you know. When spring freshet happens in this province, you’re just crossing your fingers. You’re just hoping.

We’ve got report after report after report: orphan dams, orphan dikes. Nobody wants to take credit for them. Nobody wants to take ownership of them. Nobody wants to take responsibility for them because of the humongous liability that they represent.

This is what we get from this government. We get: “Don’t worry. We’re going to get you everything you need in order to put three, four or six times more people in those neighbourhoods, Merritt. Those neighbourhoods that were just covered in water, Abbotsford? Don’t worry. We’re going to get you everything you need to put more people in there. We’re going to give you a bill that looks like we’re going to give you mechanisms to be able to fund them.” Except the big-money projects are not being touched by this.

How long did it take in this city, in Victoria, to get a sewage treatment facility? Hmm. It took years, decades, to get a sewage treatment facility.

We’ve got communities in this province that have ancient technology, if you can call it that, for sewer pipes. Stormwater and sewer. Same ditch with a cover over it, right?

We just look the other way. We just prefer to pretend like that’s not going to be a problem for us. If we’re going to force these municipalities of over 5,000 people to put three, four, six more people…. We might be able to articulate in the media that we’re solving one problem, but we are creating a host of other problems.

We’ve faced intense drought in this province for a few years now. Probably one of the single biggest investments that all of our communities should be making in this province is increasing their water supply, increasing their ability to capture water. One of the biggest projects that the provincial government should be working on is how it is that they can supplement drinking water, grey-water and black-water recovery systems.

Communities that I represent on the Southern Gulf Islands have been pleading with this government. “Please organize this. Please don’t make us talk to five different ministries to figure out whether or not this is Island Health or the Ministry of Health.”

No organization on this. Rainwater capture? You can do it for your own personal houses. Multifamily? You can’t do it.

You’d think…. Okay. We’re going to be having a situation where…. We’re going to take a single-family home. We’re going to turn it into a fourplex or a three-plex. We’ve got a drought that has been just lingering over top of our province here for the last few years. No answer.

I’m just going to end with this. We have a situation that’s happening in this House, in this Legislative Assembly, right now where the housing affordability crisis is being responded to with five distinct, separate acts of legislation.

[2:20 p.m.]

At one point, next week maybe or the week after next, when we come back here, we will have, very likely, three different Houses: this chamber; the Douglas Fir Room; and the teeny tiny House, as we call it, upstairs, where nobody can go, by the way, the least best place to be debating legislation. No members of the public are welcome there.

We’re going to have three different Houses debating housing legislation at the same time. We’re going to have a misc statutes bill talking about the residential tenancy branch, we’re going to have a misc statutes bill talking about how it is this government can clean up the encampments more easily, and we’re going to be talking about either Bill 44, Bill 46 or Bill 47.

The rationale we were given for that is it’s easier for the public to think about five things than it is for the public to think about the one thing. Why did this government not put Bill 44, 45, 46 and the two misc statutes bills in the same bill and give British Columbians a comprehensive response to a housing affordability crisis that people need resolved? How did a government think it would be better for the public, better for the media and better for the legislators to have this fragmented response that is nonsensical? How did they think that was going to be better for everybody?

The only people that that benefits are the people on that side of the House, because there is no way for us to take what’s happening in Bill 44, what happened in Bill 45, what’s going on in Bill 46, what’s going on in Bill 47, what’s going on in the two misc statutes and amendments bills and have a debate about it, because those debates are fragmented across this House.

It makes our job as legislators, it makes the media’s job as part of the accountability mechanism of this House, and it makes the job of British Columbians that much more difficult. Not just that much more difficult — that much more difficult, times five. A real approach to solving a housing affordability crisis would be to put a single document, as large as it would be…. It would be very large.

The housing policy changes represented in these bills are substantive. You know what? Some are laudable, some are questionable, and some are outright unsupportable. The reality here is that this government has undertaken a process for the people of British Columbia to understand what is happening on housing affordability — on their property values and to them as renters — and they’ve made it impossible.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

With that, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. I look forward to the various committee stages of all the housing bills that we’ve got in front of us, and I’ll take my seat.

A. Olsen moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 43 — MONEY JUDGMENT ENFORCEMENT
CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS AND
TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS ACT

Bill 43, Money Judgment Enforcement Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call continued second reading of Bill 46, Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Act.

In Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 41, Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

In the third House, committee room C, I call Committee of the Whole for Bill 42, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3).

[2:25 p.m.]

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 46 — HOUSING STATUTES
(DEVELOPMENT FINANCING)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

L. Doerkson: I want to pick up on a few points that my friend from Saanich North and the Islands was referring to. I certainly have concerns, as well, with respect to a number of the bills that have been presented this week, including Bill 46 — which, of course, I’m here to speak about and add my comments on.

I do agree that there’s no question that the taxpayers of this province fund the bills. The member for Saanich North and the Islands was talking about fire departments and fire apparatus — which, of course, taxpayers pay for. The problem is that so many communities now, in many respects, are going it on their own.

What I mean by that is…. I’ve talked many times about the little fire department that could at Greeny Lake. This is the problem: we have made things so unaffordable in this province that it’s becoming a real challenge. Not just bills like Bill 46 but other bills and other bureaucracy are causing problems.

There are now, to the member’s point earlier, fire departments and different groups that would serve us as British Columbians, certainly in Cariboo-Chilcotin, and that simply have no funding at all. They have been faced with the challenge of creating their own source of funding, creating their own way forward. The member mentioned that if we don’t provide infrastructure for this, then it’s going to be the insurance companies that ultimately enjoy, for instance, profit or whatever to close that gap. I can appreciate that that’s exactly right.

In the case of Greeny Lake, they have had to fundraise hundreds of thousands of dollars, literally, to replace fire trucks that time out because of legislation. It’s frustrating. When you look at the fire truck that they are about to replace, it’s half a million dollars to replace a fire truck that is virtually brand-new. I mean, it has been to a number of fires, of course, but it has been mostly used in other circumstances — parades and other things.

The only way that that community is being served by the province — or sorry, is not being served, rather, by the province…. They used to be able to attract gaming grants and different things that would help them, but that has gone by the wayside. This community has had to go out on their own, through 50-50 raffles. Just imagine the challenge of trying to raise half a million dollars, an apple pie at a time.

These are volunteers in their community that have been able to fund this fire department through running their own campground, through a mechanism that they offer, voluntarily, to residents: the opportunity to pay a couple of hundred dollars to be a part of this fire service.

I agree with the member that bills like this need to serve the residents. We do have an infrastructure out there that is extremely challenged, but I do question a number of things. My hat is off to Greeny Lake. They have done an absolutely amazing job of trying to fill that gap that has been created at different levels of our government apparatus. They’re doing it on their own.

With reference to the challenge around infrastructure, we often talk about — I’ll get to some of those numbers — the notion that this might be the most massive housing tax increase that we’ve ever seen. I’ll get to some of the costs in Vancouver, referring to $644,000 now being an average cost around these types of items.

[2:30 p.m.]

Let’s put that in perspective in rural B.C., where we are challenged daily. What I mean by that is that a community like Tatla, for instance, in the West Chilcotin, is struggling right now to raise $100,000 to pay for a water source in their community. So I absolutely agree that we have many areas of our province that are really struggling because that tax flow is not making it back.

In rural British Columbia, the challenges are many. We are not, by the way, at all immune to what is happening with respect to the affordability crisis in our province. It is affecting everyone. I cannot believe the price of homes throughout the rural areas of this province, including Cariboo-Chilcotin and Williams Lake. I frankly don’t see how bills like 46 are going to help that.

Now, I can appreciate what the intention is here, but I really question the timing around it. I question the need for it, and I worry about the loss of the local authority and their right and their ability to be able to manage this on their own. If they are going to offer up these new charges and new items….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: I would ask members, if they’re having a private conversation, to maybe take it outside so that the speaker is not distracted. Thank you.

L. Doerkson: Well, thank you, Chair. I appreciate that.

I do want to explain that so many communities are being incredibly challenged. Of course, where I was getting to was…. The affordability crisis is definitely on everybody’s mind, and I just don’t see what is coming forward in bills like 46 and other bills. There’s been a lot of conversation this week about how things have changed for the small business person, or the senior who is trying to gain a little bit of an extra edge on the affordability crisis by renting out a basement, and all of those challenges that we’re seeing.

It just seems to me that at every corner, we seem to be adding more pressure to what is already a pressurized system, with this being the 30th new tax added in the last couple of years. It’s a significant one. Bill 46 is not kind when it comes to the additional charges. I do want to speak a little bit and try to connect it, because I think a lot of the conversation in this place is often referring to what’s happening in the cities in our province. But the bureaucracy around just land development itself has become very frustrating in rural British Columbia as well.

I can give you a case in point in a small community in the South Cariboo. It’s a beautiful town called Lone Butte. For those people that don’t know of it, they should definitely visit and have a hamburger at the Sweet Ash Bistro. It is an amazing, amazing restaurant. I did say “ash,” by the way, Madam Speaker.

I do want to talk a little bit about a ten-lot subdivision. That was a ten-lot subdivision, and years ago, it was converted to one lot. All the pins are there. All the documentation is there. We have the plot plans. We have everything to make that a ten-lot subdivision. These are not small lots. They’re one-acre lots. So it really is as simple as saying, “Look, we’re ready to go,” and we could have ten homes. In a housing crisis, we could have those ten homes up.

The simple fact and the simple reality is that by the time the studies are done for different things that they have to do, and there are a number of different things that they will have to go through, the owner of that property has simply said: “I’m going to sell it as one ten-acre lot.” That owner was in a position to, certainly, build the ten homes. We could’ve had those by the fall of this year, had we been able to move that subdivision forward.

[2:35 p.m.]

I think that’s the frustration. There is an opportunity to do so much good. But there has been such a challenge put before not just developers…. As I said, we’ve got people that are trying to deal with the affordability crisis in different ways. They’re trying their level best to perhaps rent out a suite, and we seem to continue to add challenges in different bills that we’ve got before the House right now. I just think it’s shocking that we continue to do that.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a toll on new building, and I am very concerned with the impact that Bill 46 may have or could have on developments.

The other thing…. I just tried to point that out with this little community of Lone Butte. That subdivision has ground to a halt under the pressure of bureaucracy in British Columbia. I can guarantee you that it’s not the only one. It’s certainly not the only one in Cariboo-Chilcotin, but I’d be shocked if it was the only one throughout the province. I think that many people are simply saying: “I’m not going to go ahead with this. The challenges are too great. The cost is too much. Will I be able to recover that investment?”

I know that often, when we talk in this place, we refer to big businesses. But I can assure you that the effect that this could have is not just on large companies, large developers. Rather, Bill 46 will also affect the small developer, and, I dare say, they might outnumber some of those large developers and large folks.

We talked about that under Bill 44 and other bills, with respect to the senior citizen that is just merely trying to deal with affordability in their own way. I spoke about a woman who has rented out her basement and is trying to simply make ends meet with that extra income. Frankly, the challenges that have been put before her are enough to derail her. I can guarantee you that she will not be renting her basement suite going forward because of rules and bureaucracy and the fact that she is not being helped or supported by any level of government, frankly.

That is the same thing that I think we’re going to encounter with the host of bills that we’ve seen this week and, particularly, Bill 46.

I think that instead of increasing taxes, certainly, there should be a bit of an obligation on the part of the government to consider some support. I mean, I talk about Tatla. We’ve been trying to get this well, which is a mere $100,000. We’re talking about increased cost to communities that will obviously be passed along to developers and taxpayers, etc. But we’re talking about a mere $100,000, and we’re having challenges getting that funded, right?

I think it is very important to understand that the challenges before our communities are great. I just don’t see us getting through this on our own. I think that we need to find ways to encourage development in our province. We are at an all-time unbelievable cost for housing in the province. As I stated before, it’s simply not just the cities. You’re talking four or five, a half-million dollars now for a home in the Cariboo as well. Those are definitely challenges I don’t know that we would have predicted a few years ago, but the challenge is very, very large before us now.

I do just want to add a couple more comments on Bill 46. Of course, it goes without saying, and we’ve talked about that all afternoon, that housing affordability is on everybody’s minds. I can suggest that it’s on the minds of a university student that’s certainly trying to find homes.

[2:40 p.m.]

I do have friends and also family who live in the Lower Mainland. The struggle that they’re seeing with the cost of a condominium now as much as a $1 million, with a small one-bedroom apartment in the area of as much as $3,000…. I’ve actually heard of one friend who was renting for almost $3,700.

Of course, they have looked at different ways to subsidize that rent by renting out a room — different challenges that they’re trying to get past. But it’s certainly on everybody’s mind. There’s no question about that.

I guess, going back to Bill 46 and the timing of it, we are without question at the most unaffordable time, certainly in my lifetime. I’ve never seen anything like it. My first house that I purchased was $52,000. Now, I can appreciate that things have changed in our province. When I purchased that house, my mortgage was at 14¾ percent, and it was doable because the house was $52,000. But even now, at 6 and 7 percent, people are struggling because those homes, even in rural B.C., are half a million dollars, and I’m frightened to think of the cost in some of the cities.

I just think that with the challenges we’ve seen around rentals and Airbnbs and everything else that we’re seeing happen this week, those challenges are going to get worse under some of this legislation.

I do know that with respect to 46, I’ve already heard from a number of people that have very significant concerns about how this is going to affect their communities and their towns.

I do just want to talk a little bit about that, because there’s been a lot of confusion around where these things are going to happen, where these items will happen, how they’ll happen. I think the member before me spoke about the notion that this was zoned for multi-family, or there was a mass development sort of contemplated for that. And now the government of the province has introduced a notion that you might only build four on that property, so that changes the whole equation.

Those zoning regulations and those options have been presented by local governments, and now there’s a certain amount of overreach that’s happening from this place to those governments, as though we’ve got the solution here. I’m telling you right now that the local governments that I’ve had conversation with certainly don’t feel that that’s the case. They’re very frustrated with this.

I think it’s a little out of touch, frankly, with what’s happening out there. I can appreciate that the challenges might be somewhat different between the city and rural B.C. But as I said, even in Williams Lake, there’s an attempt to try to densify that population, believe it or not. There is an attempt on the ground there.

But the problem, of course, is funding coming back to those communities to be in a position to be able to properly serve those developments. We have had a few that have gone forward, but there have definitely been challenges under the ground where that infrastructure lies.

I think there is definitely a need for British Columbia, if they’re going to see their way through to this with plans like Bill 46, for that to be taken into consideration.

I do want to just chat a little bit about…. As far as the affordability crisis is concerned, there is no question…. We have had, up until this legislation, 29 new taxes in this province; this is number 30. Frankly, I’m surprised that we’re paying tax on things like Netflix and fizzy drinks and even one of my personal favourites — I call it the black book tax — and that’s, of course, the tax that you may not have even paid on a vehicle, but you’re going to be charged for it anyhow on the value of the vehicle.

[2:45 p.m.]

I just think that the timing of this, when we are seeing rents doubled in Vancouver to $3,000, when we’re seeing a 33 percent increase to $1 million…. Single-family homes are now approaching $2 million, and we want to add to that burden by doing things like Bill 46.

I’m very concerned that this is going to have a horrendous effect on our housing market. I guess I’ll just close by suggesting that we really need to reconsider what we’re doing on the housing market.

I want to go back to that subdivision for just a moment. I just outlined to you about Lone Butte. That gentleman had a plan to build ten houses. I cannot stress this enough. It’s not just the city that is struggling under this housing crisis. That gentleman had a plan to build ten houses. He had the wherewithal to build those ten houses. He had the ability to build those ten houses but absolutely chose not to.

He chose not to, not because he didn’t want to, not because he wasn’t interested in making some money. I mean, that’s not a crime in this province, or it shouldn’t be. He chose not to build those homes because of bureaucracy, because of the challenges that he saw going forward with respect to that.

I have, myself, been a landlord, and I have, myself, been a tenant. I can appreciate that either may have its benefit. But at the end of the day, we are all paying so much for housing. I don’t think that bills like 46 or 44 or any of the bills this week are going to affect that in a good way. I am very concerned about that because at the end of the day, it’s not just a housing crisis.

As the member for Saanich North and the Islands mentioned, we have a crisis when it comes to our infrastructure in many communities too. Tatla is absolutely living proof of that that. They are trying to raise money there to replace a water source. I can’t imagine a more important part of your infrastructure than that. But I just do not see how these development costs…. How is this going to solve the issues of affordability? I certainly don’t see how it’s going to solve the issues around us with respect to our infrastructure.

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few comments on Bill 46, and I thank you very much for the time today, Madam Chair.

R. Merrifield: I have a friend who is an economist. In one of our lunch meetings, he looked at me and said: “Renee, it’s a fundamental tenet of any economy that whatever you tax costs more.” Lately our leader has been almost echoing somewhat of a similar sentiment by saying: “If you want to make housing more affordable, you have to lower costs.”

I’m standing up on this bill because we have a housing issue. Yes, I am so privileged to represent the constituents in my Kelowna-Mission riding. But today I’m standing up for all British Columbians provincewide because we have a housing affordability crisis.

It’s our duty in this assembly to combat rising costs and strive for a province where choice between essentials and a home is not a dilemma faced by our constituents. Regrettably, the track record of this NDP government over the past seven years demonstrates a consistent shortfall in delivering affordable housing solutions.

[2:50 p.m.]

In fact, I would actually go so far as to say that the housing crisis that we find ourselves currently in is solely the responsibility of this NDP government. Why do I say this? Well, we currently have the highest housing prices in North America, the highest rents in Canada. And why? Well, because of legislation just like this, because this government, in the first five years of their majority, chose to layer costs and taxes onto new developments, onto current resales, trying to quell demand.

Quell demand. That was their response to seeing escalating housing costs. It failed. And because the NDP failed at supplying the necessary subsidized housing builds, they instead started buying up anything that was affordable and ghettoizing them. I would challenge anyone in this House to go and walk through the SROs that were purchased on the Downtown Eastside and ask yourself if you would live in this space.

I had the privilege of meeting with a group of medical students who had committed their summer to serving the communities inside of the SROs on the east side of Vancouver. With tears in their eyes, they talked about the squalor that people were living in. They called it inhumane.

This is an utter failure, and instead of providing safe subsidized housing, this NDP government has created warehouses for people to barely subsist. And when this NDP government finally decided to actually wake up and focus on supply, now they’ve thrown a grenade into the middle of planning processes, throwing city staff, councils and mayors into utter chaos.

This legislation, Bill 46, before us today, rather than rectifying these shortcomings, threatens to exacerbate the situation. I recall meeting with the former Minister of Housing, who is now the minister of higher education, begging her to consider DCCs. Begging her to say…. And as a layperson in the business sector, to say and plead — to say that it will absolutely, unequivocally increase costs on housing.

And the introduction of amenity cost charges, the ACCs under this bill, represents an unprecedented escalation in housing taxation within our province. As a member of the official opposition, it is our responsibility to scrutinize and challenge these government actions, particularly on matters as crucial as providing homes. Homes for British Columbians.

This legislation appears completely disconnected from the realities of our citizens’ needs. The ACCs, along with the broadening of development cost charges, or DCCs, signal an increase in the financial burden on housing, a burden inevitably shouldered by first-time homebuyers and renters through heightened market prices.

Vancouver already holds the dubious title of the most expensive city for new home taxes and fees in Canada, with each home bearing an average cost of $644,000 of fees and taxes. Ask yourself…. Do the math. How much does someone have to earn to qualify for a mortgage on those fees and taxes? Not on the 2-by-4s and roofing, just on the fees and taxes. It’s $172,319.

[2:55 p.m.]

That’s $172,000 to afford the taxes and fees. And this government’s answer to that is to increase taxes and fees. That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.

This bill threatens to aggravate an already dire situation, making it the 30th tax increment by this current NDP government. Despite all the taxes, $20 billion more every single year that this government is extracting from British Columbians, despite, for five years, promising to build 114,000…. Now, this new…. It’s going to be 140,000. Neither of these numbers do I even believe remotely. Why? Because we have the highest rents and the most unaffordable housing market in North America.

Compare ourselves. Look to our neighbours, any of our neighbours. What are they doing differently? What have they achieved that we haven’t? Does a 2-by-4 cost more in Saskatchewan or Manitoba? Does it cost less in Manitoba or Saskatchewan? News flash: it doesn’t.

What does cost more are the taxes and fees in British Columbia. Our caucus has made appeals to the Premier to intervene against Metro Vancouver’s proposed tripling of DCCs, which would add significant costs to housing. Why? Because this is on top of the municipalities’ DCCs.

Such governmental actions reveal a perplexing strategy. How can increasing the cost burden on housing translate to affordability for our citizens? News flash: if you want to make something more affordable, you have to lower the costs. True affordability requires cost reductions, not enhancements, and this bill piles on expenses that deter the construction of new homes.

Rather than levying more taxes, our province should be initiating infrastructure and investments and catalyzing new home development. Is it possible? Absolutely.

Look at what Seattle did in 2018. In one year, with some very revolutionary innovation, they went from 2,000 housing starts to 18,000 housing starts — all because of very simple processes that expedited new development and that lowered the cost of new development. Seattle recognized a desperate need for housing. Do you know who doesn’t have the highest costs of housing in North America? The United States. Do you know whose housing costs are lower than British Columbia’s? Washington state.

This bill is actually reintroducing tolls, not on our vehicles but on our homes. It’s a severe misstep, because additional taxation on homes that are near provincial highways and adding potential policing cost inclusions in DCCs is a clandestine strategy, perhaps. Perhaps they’re trying to finance other initiatives at the expense of new homeowners.

It would seem that the inclusion of policing costs within DCCs introduces a concerning and covert financial manoeuvre. This backdoor provision raises serious questions about the government’s transparency and its methods of funding public services. It seems to hint at a clandestine plan to finance the Surrey police transition by imposing a levy on every new home constructed.

[3:00 p.m.]

Mark my words. These measures, contained within this bill, will not only further inflate housing prices but also represent an alarming shift in policy-making — a shift that sees essential public services being funded through indirect taxation on housing, rather than through property taxes. This is not only unconventional but also deeply unfair to potential homeowners, who are already grappling with soaring prices. I hope we ask the question: where else is this being done?

The cost of policing is exorbitant in our province because of the Premier’s lax catch-and-release policy. It is now the largest line item on most municipalities’ budgets. In fact, it represents 45 to 55 percent on any municipality’s budget. Putting this cost burden onto housing will absolutely increase the cost of housing, not lower it.

If the safety and security of our communities are a priority, which I would argue they are, then the funding for such fundamental services should not be bundled into the cost of someone’s home. This is a cost that hits at the very heart of affordability and accessibility of housing in our province. It’s a cost that many of our young families, first-time buyers and average residents simply cannot afford.

But wait, shouldn’t development pay its own way? Shouldn’t the new residents of a community pay for the increased costs? Absolutely. But this is a far cry from paying their own way. This will obliterate the costs of housing because it’s not just going to affect the cost of new housing but all housing.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

But wait, you might say. Isn’t a DCC on new housing only? Yes, but when a jurisdiction increases costs on new housing, all housing receives an indirect equity bump.

A project has four phases. Two of those phases are subject to one DCC. By the time the next two phases come in, there’s a new increased cost. Let’s call it $10,000 for those new ones. Those new ones pay for it. The old ones don’t. The new ones are at a higher cost than the old ones because that is a flow-through line to the consumer.

What happens to the first two phases’ appraisals? What happens to what they’re able to resell for? It goes up. There is an absolute, indirect equity bump and escalation of resale pricing when new fees and DCCs are introduced.

It’s something that we simply have not understood here in B.C. We complain about the high cost of housing. We complain about all of the housing needs that we have, yet we haven’t figured out that the more costs we put onto new housing, the higher that everyone can resell for. It’s no wonder that our youth, our young professionals, our young homebuyers, first-timers, can’t get into housing. We have simply — I’ll even say indirectly — as an unintended consequence, made housing so expensive.

Our province deserves better. We deserve lawmakers who actually understand the housing market and instead of playing checkers, actually start to play chess. Ones who don’t understand how increasing the costs of development and of housing will increase the costs of that house — to every homebuyer, to every purpose-built rental building, to every renter — simply should not be.

[3:05 p.m.]

It’s an attempt to obscure the costs of our communities, what they actually cost, what policing costs, what affordable housing costs. If this government could have actually done a better job with the imploding B.C. Housing or with actually getting into power and starting to deal with supply, then we wouldn’t have these measures necessary.

British Columbians should not have to subsidize essential services through hidden charges in their quest to own a home or their desire to rent an apartment close to their university or close to their work. This backdoor approach to public funding is neither sustainable nor justifiable, and it must be addressed with utmost urgency and transparency, because British Columbians are in desperate need of relief from the staggering costs imposed by this current government taking $20 billion in taxes, taking $644,000 in DCCs and ACCs.

Taking money, however it is taken, is only taken from one place, and that is from the bank account of a British Columbian. That is the only source. There is one taxpayer. There is one fee payer. There is one ratepayer. There is one consumer. They are all one and the same.

Adding another financial barrier to home construction is not only counterintuitive, but if this government is truly serious about providing housing to those that desperately need it in our province, then this bill is also counterproductive to that shared objective of increasing housing availability and attainability.

I’m so refreshed to be in the B.C. United caucus, where we have candid conversations, deliberate conversations, invigorating conversations and exciting conversations of how we are going to lower the price of housing. How, when we are in government, we will actually make it work for British Columbians — that they will be able to see their dreams realized.

It’s hard to sit on this side of the House and see moves like this latest one, which is just consistent with the pattern that we’ve observed from the NDP. Lofty rhetoric. Big, big ideas followed by substantial tax hikes, escalating costs of living and negligible alleviation. A pittance for the people of British Columbia.

The track record is clear, and there is scant reason to believe that these added costs will yield the promised outcomes for our province. This bill is like taking a band-aid and trying to address the 1,000 cuts on a bleeding housing industry. If you want to make something more affordable, you have to make it less expensive.

G. Kyllo: It does give me a great amount of pride to rise in the House today and speak to Bill 46, the Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Amendment Act, 2023. It is definitely worthy to note that I believe this is the fifth housing bill that we have actually seen just in this legislative session.

[3:10 p.m.]

This is, I believe, a very strong admission that this government has yet to get their housing plan right. In 2017, I recall a very lofty goal and some big promises by the members opposite, by the NDP, about improving housing affordability for British Columbians. Big, lofty goal: building 114,000 homes over ten years. Building — that was the commitment that this government made to British Columbians in their profestations to B.C. residents to earn their trust.

Of course, it’s worthy to note that the NDP did not win the election in 2017. They won 41 of 87 seats. The then B.C. Liberal Party won 43 seats, two seats more than the current government. However, through a confidence and supply agreement and some dealings, the NDP were able to convince the Green Party to support them and allow them to form government.

I like to explain it as: it’s like the silver and bronze medallists teaming up to throw the gold medallists off the podium. But that is exactly what happened. I do believe that the Green Party have many reservations that their choice to side with the NDP back in 2017 did not achieve the results that they were looking for.

Back specifically to this bill and the promises that this government made to British Columbians as part of that election platform: “Trust us. We’ve got a plan to provide and reduce housing costs in British Columbia.” What an utter failure that has been.

Legislation after legislation after legislation, and here we are, 6½ years into the NDP’s term in office. Just in this session alone, five different pieces of legislation tinkering with various aspects of housing policy, which is a clear admission that they have yet to get it right. They have failed miserably.

Of that big, lofty goal of 114,000 homes, delivering just barely over 16,000 homes. Just think about that. “We’re going to build 114,000 homes in ten years.” And 6½ years in, only 16,000 actually completed. Utter failure by this government.

As we’ve seen, housing costs in British Columbia continue to soar. Not just the highest housing prices in Canada — no, that’s not good enough. They had to strive to get housing up to the highest in North America. It’s utterly unbelievable that a government could fail this miserably on their housing plan.

We only have to look at the increased homeless populations that are springing up all around the province. Some communities’ homeless populations…. I believe Merritt grew by like 400 percent. If this government actually had a plan and was actually achieving their goal of reducing housing affordability, increasing housing supply, we wouldn’t see these record numbers of individuals in our communities.

As my colleague who spoke before me indicated, this idea of SRO, single-room occupancy — buying old hotels and motels and putting in individuals that have very complex needs, with drug addiction, mental health disorders, warehousing them in these small complexes — is absolutely the wrong thing for this government to have been undertaking. It hasn’t, certainly, helped with reducing the homeless populations. But it has drastically reduced the opportunity for those individuals to actually get on a path to get themselves off of drugs, and it’s destroyed public safety in many of our communities around the province.

I think that kind of sets the context on why we’re here and why this government is continuing to flounder with little pieces of legislation that seem to get drabbled in here and there. One bill creates unintended consequences, so they’ve got to come and bring in another piece of legislation to try and fix the mess caused by the other piece of legislation. There is no well-thought-out plan.

[3:15 p.m.]

It is not like this government, who sat in opposition benches for 16 years and had lots of advice to members about how they were going to solve all of British Columbia’s problems…. Sixteen years to plan, and when they went to execute, absolute failure. Just have to look at the number of different pieces of legislation they brought forward to try and monkey and manoeuvre and manipulate the numbers they’ve been presenting to British Columbians.

Because their goal of building 114,000 homes is such an absolute failure, they had to try and find other ways of counting towards trying to achieve that goal. Let’s put in a speculation tax, hoping that that might actually free up some rental units. I’m sure it probably did in some parts of the province. Well, let’s count those numbers towards our lofty goal. Those aren’t homes that were built under this government. That was manipulation of the way they’re going to start counting.

We’ve seen a new piece of legislation recently passed in this Legislature on Airbnb. I’m quite certain that it will only be a matter of weeks before all those 575 communications staff that work in government communications and provincial engagement, in the Premier’s office, will be busy working and manipulating the numbers to try and come up with some kind of an estimation on how many homes that might actually free up and put back in the rental market. And guess what. They’ll count that towards their lofty goal.

I shared in my remarks yesterday of a project in Salmon Arm, a housing development that was underway — fully zoned, fully permitted, building permits in place and under construction. It was supposed to be for market housing, for the general public to purchase. But government decided to dangle a little carrot in front of the developer, find a way that they could take advantage of some funding mechanisms so that government could then call all of those housing units part of the construction that they had undertaken.

Well, this government had nothing to do with the construction of that housing. It was already underway. Because they provided some funding, certainly, it might have reduced the cost on some of those houses, for sure, that may have gone out to the general public. But the government counted those towards their housing count.

The most recent numbers we’re now hearing government touting about…. They’ve moved away from their big, lofty promise of 114,000 homes because they failed so miserably on that. “Well, let’s come up with a new target.” So now the new target is 130,000 homes over the next ten years. There’s no more conversation, even, about the old target. “Well, let’s throw that away. We failed so miserably. Hopefully we can move on. Let’s ignore that conversation.”

Now it’s 130,000. “Trust us. Just trust us. We failed this province miserably, but hey, we got a new goal.” Those 130,000 homes that government is indicating that they’re now going to be responsible for in the next ten years fall miserably short of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which has indicated that for B.C. to be on track to even meet the needs and demand, there’s a requirement for 600,000 homes — 600,000 by the year 2030. CMHC says B.C. needs to build 600,000 homes in seven years, and the NDP’s big goal is 130,000 in ten.

We know that in 6½ years, they could hardly get 16,000 units completed. If that is not a failure, I do not know what is. How British Columbians could in any way, shape or form have any confidence that what this government is saying might actually come to fruition is beyond me.

Now, Bill 46, with respect to development financing, is not going to make homes less expensive. There are lots of conversations about improving affordability, but I think, as many of my colleagues have spoken about, that to make homes more affordable, we need to find ways to make them less expensive.

There are many tools the government has at their disposal to help reduce the cost of housing. Lumber and plywood — we saw some huge spikes during COVID. A sheet of plywood went from, like, 34 bucks a sheet for ¾-inch tongue-and-groove to a lofty $108 in a short amount of time.

It’s interesting. Their former Premier, Premier John Horgan — I remember him making a comment, when he was leader of the then NDP party, saying that no mills would ever close under his watch, when it came to a mill that was closing down in Merritt.

[3:20 p.m.]

The NDP, in opposition, made the bold claim that mills in B.C. would never be shut down under their watch. Well, what have we seen? What efforts has this government undertaken to try and help resolve the softwood lumber tariff?

Deputy Speaker: Can the Member help the Chair find the connection to the bill? We’re widely ranging off course. If we can bring it back on course, I’d appreciate it.

G. Kyllo: Absolutely, I appreciate that.

This is really about affordability. There are certain specific efforts undertaken with this piece of legislation which will not improve housing affordability but will add additional costs on. I think it is important to note that there are things that government could be doing or could have done in past years to help reduce the cost of construction materials.

How about actually making an effort in trying to resolve the softwood lumber tariff dispute? Once resolved, I would guarantee — I bet most economists would agree — that once that tariff is off, we would see a significant reduction in the cost of lumber and plywood here in British Columbia. Absolute failure. We don’t even hear about that anymore. Boy, their former Premier, John Horgan, was going to be down to Washington, D.C., and he was going to solve the softwood lumber problem. Well, 6½ years in, we don’t even hear them talking about that anymore.

As we look to development cost charges…. I had a short stint on council in the district of Sicamous for about a year and a half before I was fortunate enough to win the respect and support of members in Shuswap and become their representative here in Victoria. DCCs are one of the few ways that municipalities have to try and get cost recovery on much of the infrastructure that’s needed to grow their community and to upgrade different services.

For a municipal government, clearly, one of their only sources of revenue is property tax. That’s really their only source of revenue. They don’t have, really, any other taxing authorities of any great significance. Any changes with respect to this legislation, which might increase the opportunity, through either development cost charges or community amenity charges, I’m sure, will be welcome news to local governments.

The piece that’s really important to note is: how is this going to make housing less expensive? Any increase in DCCs will only prove to increase the cost of housing. Any increase in amenity cost charges will increase the cost of construction. All of those costs will be bundled up and presented to the consumer in the form of an increased price.

This piece of legislation, part of the government’s lofty housing plan, although an important piece, will not do anything to reduce the cost of housing. This piece of legislation will only increase the cost of housing in communities throughout British Columbia.

Vancouver is already the most expensive city in Canada for both taxes and fees on new homes: estimated costs of $644,000 to build a single-family home — just think about that — just for taxes and fees. Most people can’t even afford a mortgage on a $644,000 home, and $644,000 wouldn’t even cover all the taxes, fees and levies associated with a home in downtown Vancouver.

If that isn’t outrageous enough, the current government, the NDP government decided, “Hey, what a wonderful idea. Let’s allow Vancouver to triple those fees,” adding another $25,000 on the cost of a single-family home in Vancouver. I’m sure the bureaucrats in Vancouver are quite happy with that. Anybody that’s looking to find an opportunity for buying a home must be thinking: “That’s another $25,000 that I can’t afford.”

[3:25 p.m.]

This is now the 30th new or increased tax introduced by the current government. It is part of a blizzard of new taxes that have utterly failed to make housing more affordable. For any young families out there that have yet to enter the housing market, they’ve given up hope.

We heard that the average cost of a townhome in the Lower Mainland is $950,000. I’ve got some stats just to share with those that might be listening. A $950,000 home will require a $190,000 down payment, unless folks seek to pay additional costs of insurance through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., which would provide the opportunity for a reduced down payment. But most lenders would require a $190,000 down payment.

Now, I don’t know how many young families that have just, maybe, entered the workforce still have student loans and other things that they’re trying to pay off — maybe a young family, a new kid on the way. How are you going to save $190,000? I don’t think there are many members here, without outside income, who would be able to save $190,000 in ten years. Somehow that is what the new normal is under the NDP: to obtain new housing for a new couple, trying to find $190,000. It is absolutely unattainable for the majority of young families in British Columbia.

To make matters worse, not only do you need to come up with $190,000 for your down payment portion, but in order to be eligible for that mortgage, you’d have to have a family income of $205,000 a year. It’s an absolute impossibility for a single-income family where, maybe, mom has chosen to stay home and look after their children — which, I would say, is probably the most important job you could ever have on the planet.

What could you ever do that could be more important than raising your family, spending time with your children, making sure that they’re going to be good people, good members of society?

Housing costs have absolutely soared under this NDP government. They’ve basically told young families: “If you ever had the dream and desire of staying home and having a single-income family, forget it. Impossible.” The number of individuals that make over $205,000 a year in B.C.? I don’t know the stat, but I’d be guessing that it’s a very small number of those that are actually working in B.C.

Not only is it nearly impossible to even think of being approved for a mortgage for a townhouse in British Columbia; the only way you could even have any hope of attaining that is if mom and dad both decide — or mom and mom, or dad and dad: “You know what? We’ve both got to work, and we’re going to have to rely on somebody else to raise our kids, because there’s no hope, no ability for us to even think of home ownership in this province as a single-income family.”

This bill specifically brings back tolls to pay for highways. Now, I was really surprised when I saw this in this piece of legislation. Again, I’m quite sure that municipal bureaucrats and municipal leaders will think that this is a good initiative. If they want to have a look at the opportunity for how they’re going to fund, maybe, a new connection to a major route or highway, they’ll have the ability of raising some funds in order to help cover that.

It used to be that when the province made significant improvements in communities…. The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, although their primary objective is just for the safe movement of goods and people through our province, also have an obligation to help improve connectivity to communities.

[3:30 p.m.]

We have seen project after project scaled back, accesses to major routes reduced and diminished. Because of this government’s failure to be able to deliver good, solid, well-thought-out highway construction projects that include improvements to connections to the community….

We see government saying: “Well, let’s not do that anymore. Let’s find a way…. I know communities are going to be upset if they can’t get that extra on-ramp or off-ramp into a community. Let’s give them a funding mechanism so they can go and put more tax burden on the backs of other developments in their community.” Then government is off the hook.

I’ll give an example. The Highway 1 construction project through Chase was initially designed and laid out with four different accesses into the community. Chase is on Highway 1. It’s in my colleague from Kamloops–South Thompson’s riding.

Well, this government decided: “When we contract out these projects, you can’t just belong to any trade union.” I certainly thought that in this province, there was the opportunity for workers, under a charter, to choose the right to associate. Many workers have chosen to associate with a specific union for one reason or another. There are many progressive unions.

We saw in this House, just a few short days ago, members of the Christian Labour Association of Canada, representing 60,000 workers across B.C. They currently have 5,500 workers working on Trans Mountain, 1,200 workers on Site C and another 800 workers just finishing up on Coastal GasLink. This is an organization that represents a ton of workers. Those workers were respected and provided with the choice to choose which union to represent them.

What we have seen with the current government is that those unions are not good enough. If you want to work on any horizontal construction projects — Pattullo Bridge, Highway 1 expansion project — your union is not good enough. You’ve got to quit them. You have to turn around and join — guess what — one of the 19 handpicked friendly unions of the NDP.

Deputy Speaker: If the member could focus his discussion on this bill.

G. Kyllo: Absolutely, hon. Chair. I appreciate your advice.

This is where it comes down. A specific reference in this bill is to provide the ability and the opportunity for municipalities to now include — it’s right here — accesses onto highway interchanges to provincial highways.

An opportunity. This bill provides the opportunity for the communities now to raise taxes, in the form of increasing housing prices, in order to offset and cover the costs of initiatives that used to be undertaken by the province, with support, in many instances, from the federal government.

Back to the Chase to Hoffman’s Bluff highway expansion project. This government chose to restrict the opportunity for workers, limiting it to only 15 percent of the available construction workers in this province, forcing workers, in a discriminatory manner, to disregard their union of choice and have to join one of the 19 NDP-friendly unions under the building trades. It drove up costs. Costs went through the roof. What do we see in Chase to Hoffman’s Bluff? They had to reduce the number of off-ramps.

I guess this is, maybe, how this government decides, when they cannot fulfil their obligations to community members…. Well, rather than do what’s right and actually provide those necessary interchanges to improve connectivity between communities and to our major routes….

“No, we’ll just cut that out of the project. We know we’ve got to pay a whole bunch of premiums through these community ripoff agreements to our friends. Then let’s be good guys, and let’s open up a new way for municipalities to increase taxes, to add costs to the price of housing.” That’s their solution.

[3:35 p.m.]

A similar issue happened in my community of Salmon Arm, the Salmon Arm highway construction project. This, actually, was a great project. It included not only a new bridge over the Salmon River. It was a 6.1 kilometre four-laning project. It improved accesses at both ends of the city. New service roads. Infrastructure upgrades.

It was designed and laid out as an amazing project. But three years behind schedule, under this government, and $20 million over budget. And guess what. They only delivered half the project — $20 million more for half the project — and the interchanges that were promised at the western entrance to Salmon Arm still haven’t been built.

Maybe this is the solution to government’s failure on highway infrastructure, with their costly community ripoff agreements. This may be saying to municipalities: “Hey, look. We might be doing some blacktop on Highway 1. If you want to have any reasonable connections to your community, you’re going to have to figure it out and pay for it on your own. We’ll provide the tax tool to allow you to do that so you can continue to jack up housing prices, making houses yet less affordable in our communities.”

This is missing the mark in a big, big way. There are many different aspects of the housing file that are under government’s direct control. There are many tools that government has that could be employed to reduce the cost of housing. Adjustments to taxation, which may be on building materials and supplies or labour. How about the opportunity for just having good governance and ensuring that the different measures that are under this government’s control are done in a timely fashion?

I shared yesterday that there were three different builders and homeowners in Salmon Arm that got hold of me. They were really concerned. These three particular homes were going to be built within close proximity to a couple of creeks and one river. They are required, by statute, to actually create a riparian area assessment, which was undertaken by a qualified environmental professional, with a stamp on it.

It used to be the case that a QEP report was completed and submitted to the local building department. As long as the QEP report was there and it was stamped, it meant that QEP had liability should there be anything in that report that caused any environmental damage or concern. But the building departments could move forward.

This government decided that’s not good enough. “We have to create a whole new department to review all these QEP reports.”

You know what’s interesting, hon. Chair? I did have a conversation with the Environment Minister earlier this year. Guess who is reviewing those qualified environmental professionals’ reports. Well, they’re not even QEPs.

Imagine having an engineering report completed by an engineer, stamped, sealed, their B-1s, their B-2s, and then submitting it to the local planning department and having somebody that doesn’t even have the qualifications of an engineer review it and second-guess the contents of that report. That’s exactly what’s happening under this government’s watch.

When it comes to the timely issuance of permits…. These folks were losing their minds. The QEPs…. They started to look at…. They presented all their information to the local building department. The building department says: “Yeah, we’re all ready to go. We’re ready to issue a building permit. We just need to hear back from government.”

You know what they got when they submitted and loaded up their riparian area reports on the government’s website? They got an automatic response. “We’ve been overwhelmed with applications. It’s an eight-month backlog. We’ll get back to you in eight months.” Not even that we’ll have an answer for you in eight months. The email that went out said that they were going to take eight months just to review those riparian area assessments.

It’s no wonder we are seeing increased costs, increased delays and red tape. We know that the longer a project might sit before getting approval…. The interest clock just keeps ticking. Drag that project out. Prices are going up. The developer is not going to suddenly reduce any potential margin on that project just because it takes longer. All those costs just get passed right on to the backs of the consumer.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. This is really an admission of the NDP’s failure on housing in this province.

[3:40 p.m.]

P. Milobar: As I rise to speak to Bill 47, I have a quote here. “No tax policy is going to put a roof over someone’s head.” Let me repeat that. “No tax policy is going to put a roof over someone’s head.” That was the Premier declaring this on January 13, 2022. Yet here we stand today, talking about Bill 46.

I apologize. When I stood up, I said: “I stand to speak to Bill 47.” That’s the next housing bill. I got confused because we just finished the misc stats bill, with 79 clauses on housing, in the little chamber. That was going on at the same time as this debate. I think there was a Bill 42 or Bill 44. It’s actually getting confusing how many bills we have in the last couple of weeks of this session that are suddenly dealing with housing.

Why that’s important is because in the quote the Premier came up with on January 13, 2022, he promised action by this time last year on a lot of these same issues. He actually said they would be coming forward in October of 2022. So this government’s response to the housing crisis has continually been to delay and distract and point fingers and not actually take action and miss their own deadlines.

It’s important because if you look at the timelines of Bill 46, and if you look at the timelines of implementation of the other bills that have been brought forward, they all magically won’t actually really be starting to take effect until after the next provincial election in October of next year. Wasn’t that convenient timing for the Premier? Isn’t that convenient timing for the Premier that the fundamental pieces of Bill 46 and other housing bills won’t actually take effect until after the election next year?

If he had actually stuck to the timeline he committed to in January of 2022, and we’d been dealing with these bills last year, people would be seeing, right now, what the true cost impacts of a bill like Bill 46 will actually do to housing. They would have had a year’s time to judge this government on their horrific track record on housing and just how flawed these multiple pieces of legislation are.

Again, for political expediency, it was more important to put everything on hold for literally a year in the middle of a housing crisis in British Columbia than to bring forward these initiatives a year ago, as promised by this Premier. He was actually the Housing Minister at the time, when he said that, but it got put on hold so that he could run in the farce of the leadership race at the expense of everyone else in British Columbia.

That’s the British Columbia that this Premier is presiding over and how he chooses to conduct business, the people’s business, at any cost, to any homeowner, at any time, as long as it suits his political narrative and his political need.

Of course, the mayors are more receptive to Bill 46 than they were to Bill 44. Bill 46 gives them a glimmer of hope that they can actually close the infrastructure gap that they see growing in their cities because this government has not properly partnered with municipalities for the last seven years on infrastructure programs. They came up with $1 billion at the end of the year, $1 billion for the whole province. They talk about the $1 billion because that’s a very large number.

[3:45 p.m.]

But when you talk about $15 million to the city of Kamloops, it doesn’t go very far when you’re talking about pipes and pavement and recreation centres and fire halls and police stations. It doesn’t pay for much. City council is looking at a new police station. It’s costing somewhere to be $80 or $90 million and it might only have a ten- or 11-year lifespan before it’s full again.

Back when there actually was infrastructure money from senior levels of government, we were able to get $23 million for a water treatment plant. We were able to get $15 million for our sewage treatment plant a few years later. Those types of programs haven’t existed under this government. No wonder the mayors around this province were thrilled when they heard that $1 billion was being distributed on a per capita basis. They’d been starved for six years previous.

So when you look at Bill 46, which will enable municipalities…. If you talk to the building community, they’re not really fans of development cost charges. They grudgingly understand them — needing. But it’s a long process of give and take, of discussion between the city and the development community — any city, if it’s being done properly.

A development cost charge bylaw is a very complicated bylaw. I should know.

Mr. Speaker, I’m actually your designated speaker. I forgot to mention that at the beginning, as I got into the complexities of DCCs.

Deputy Speaker: Designated speaker. Thank you.

P. Milobar: This is a very important piece, and this is the sole focus of Bill 46. Development cost charges, to the average person, get very complicated very quickly. They do to a lot of councils, especially if they’re new, as we have across this province. They do with the building community if it hasn’t been well laid out in partnership with their city and their planning department and their council.

For the public, if you’re looking to do a development, the city takes a look at that development, and they say: “Okay, we’re going to add 10,000 housing units. When we add those 10,000 housing units, we’re going to need to upgrade a certain amount of our water system. We’re going to need to upgrade a certain road. We need to add a park — those types of things.”

They come up with a calculation, and they say: “Okay, well, we were going to rebuild that road anyway, in ten years, and we don’t need to expand it till ten years from now.” So it’s reasonable that the existing residents pay for 50 percent of that roadwork and the sewer and water work that needs to happen. Most cities line it all up at the same time now, even though it’s three different funds the money comes out of, because you don’t want to be digging up and replacing pipe after pipe after pipe and repaving each time.

So they look at that, and they say: “Okay, the existing homeowner should pay about 50 percent through taxes and water charges and sewer levies. But on the new development, all those 10,000 units, they need to pay the other 50 percent.” You calculate how much money that’s going to take, you divide it by those 10,000 units of growth that you’re expecting, and you come up with a charge per housing unit.

You can do it by square footage. You anticipate how much square footage you’re going to build for residential and commercial and industrial. You can do it by type of housing, be it a condo or a lane house or a single-family dwelling. But it gets to be a very complicated calculation. You then send that all off, after you pass the bylaw, back to the province and you hope for a quick turnaround. Usually it takes the better part of a year to get it from the province.

Bill 46 is proposing that all the communities are going to be able to do this en masse and all at the same time to update and flood the system provincially, where we’re already seeing massive delays across the border as it relates to housing. It’s important to municipalities, because until the province actually signs off on what that new charge calculation is, you have to charge, by law, the old rate. You don’t get to charge the new rate.

So a large portion of those 10,000 units we were counting on…. If there’s suddenly a bit of a rush, you could lose 1,000. You could lose 10 percent of those, waiting for the province to sign off. What Bill 46 is proposing to do is add to those calculations, which is why all the cities are going to want to quickly start doing recalculations.

[3:50 p.m.]

Now, in the city council’s case, it’s kind of a rolling discussion you have with developers, and it gets updated about every two years. But there are ongoing discussions, and there are typically a couple of city councillors or the mayor and a councillor at the table — the planning department, homebuilding representatives. It’s a back and forth, and it’s a give-and-take discussion.

That’s going to start up again across this province with Bill 46. Then they’re all going to drop them at the feet of the provincial government, as they have to do by law, and hope for a quick answer — “Yes, you can start charging these new fees and charges” — except the government is likely going to take a year and a half to two years to get back to you. More delay to housing, more uncertainty to housing and more uncertainty for people that are trying to build, people that are hoping to buy and people that are just trying to make decisions on what they should do with their piece of land or not.

It’s going to be the same planning department people that are dealing with this piece of legislation that have been told in Bill 44 they have to deal with a whole bunch of zoning changes at the exact same time and get those submitted to the province.

While they’re doing those two things at once, oh, by the way, those same people have to start and continue to deal with local applications for building permits and variances and all manner of application, even down to if you want to have a six-foot fence where you’re only allowed a five-foot fence. It goes through the same people. People could be waiting an extra year just to be told whether or not they can put their fence in or not.

That’s the real-world implication of these bills, which have all been designed to take effect after the next election. It has all been wrapped up in Bill 46 to make it look like it’s being very proactive. Make no mistake about it. Development cost charges, when you look at the expanded scope that they’re allowed to have, and codifying community amenity charges that don’t actually exist in a lot of cities, but now they’ll have the green light to…. That’s a tax policy that’s going to add to the cost of housing.

In January of 2022, as the Housing Minister, the Premier said that no tax policy is going to put a roof over someone’s head. That’s exactly what Bill 46 is. It’s clause after clause of tax policy that’s not going to put a roof over anyone’s head.

When you look at what’s being expanded to development cost charges and when I touched on police, the reality is that in a municipal budget, police and fire…. When you look at your property tax bill at home, police and fire account for about 40 percent of what you’re being taxed for in a municipality, in almost any municipality of any size. Firefighters all get paid about the same across the province. They all get staffed at about the same ratios to population. Police detachments are all about the same.

I guess one could argue Surrey is going to be the outlier here, because there’s a bit of a problem going on there. While that gets straightened out with what their cost structure is going to look like….

If you take Surrey out of the equation, for the rest of the province it’s about 40 percent of your overall tax bill. It’s not a cost recovery piece. You don’t charge people when you send firefighters out or police out. You might have a false alarm charge — 100 bucks here and there. It’s not like a swimming pool or a hockey rink, where you hope to get maybe 50 cents back with people paying admission fees and ice rental charges and field rental charges.

Under Bill 46, fire halls, police stations, those types of pieces of infrastructure, will be able to be added to the bill. Now, there is an argument to be had back and forth. Did you really need another fire hall, if not for expanded growth? I can understand that as an argument.

[3:55 p.m.]

But to try to cloak Bill 46 as another step to providing affordable housing when it’s actually going to add thousands more to the development cost charge across this province just simply isn’t factual. Bill 46 is a bill about tax policy to add on to the cost of building a house or an apartment or a condo, whatever term you want to use, be it for rent, purpose-built rental or resale. It’s going to add costs, and it’s going to add delay.

Now, if you look at the community amenity agreement piece of Bill 46…. Community amenity agreements came by way of cities starting to negotiate during the rezoning process, ahead of the rezoning process, with developers and saying: “Well, maybe we could support that tower going in, but we would need you to pay a couple million dollars towards a park we want to develop.” Why? I’m not entirely sure, because parks can be part of development cost charges.

Cities started to come up with this whole list of other community amenities that they wanted done in exchange for the rezoning. I agree that the concept was flawed and that it created almost a feeling for the community going to a public hearing. No wonder that in some cities, the community thinks the public hearing is never going their way.

They’re walking into a process that a developer who’s been in negotiations with the local government, sometimes for years, hammering out a cheque that will cross the desk to pay for these community amenities as soon as they get rezoned…. And it’s literally in the millions of dollars most times — several millions of dollars.

Bill 46 is actually going to make that a permanent fixture for all municipalities. Not many actually have community amenity agreements, only a few right now. This opens the door for every municipality to look at it, and if you’re a mayor or a councillor, I can’t say I’d fault you. You’re going to look at provincial legislation. You’re going to be able to blame the province. The province will turn around and blame the feds, I guess.

You’re going to look at it, and you’re going to say: “We’re strapped for cash. We’ve got to try to pay for things. Oh, look. The province has enabled us to start charging for community amenity agreements. Why don’t we start charging a few extra thousand dollars a unit for that?”

In Vancouver, it will be significantly higher. Surrey will be higher, Burnaby, other cities. It’ll be in that few-thousand-dollar range. It’s all relative though. It’s just going to add more costs to the already hundreds of thousands of dollars, and yes, it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars a door that get charged before someone has even started to build. Add in the costs of delay — under today’s interest rates, especially — which all will have to get added on to that eventual cost of the unit.

All of these bills are serving the purpose of delaying even more building happening, and it will happen at a higher cost of government charges and interest rates to lenders.

I said it yesterday on the other housing bill, and I’ll say it again today on this bill. My colleague from Shuswap referenced it as well. Builders can’t lose money every time they build a house, or they’re not building houses for much longer. I know this government likes to characterize that as profiteering. We view it as…. It’s a business that’s able to actually build another house the next day for another family if they’re able to sell it for a profit.

The problem is that when you add extra costs because of interest rates, when you add extra costs because of development cost charges, when you add extra costs because of community amenity agreements, which will all increase under Bill 46, it’s the end-user that will wind up paying it.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

[4:00 p.m.]

If you’re purchasing the house, you’re going to pay more. If you want to rent the finished product, you’re going to pay more, because your rent has to cover that cost as well, just as your rent covers property taxes.

I’ve never understood the concept when people say that renters don’t pay property tax. They absolutely do. They pay in the form of their rent. They pay their landlord the rent, the landlord gets the property tax bill, and that factors into how much gets charged for rent. So do the construction costs and the interest costs of the unit that you’re renting. If it’s a used building that your new landlord bought, it’s still the purchase price and the interest charge that goes into your rent, as well as the property taxes.

What Bill 46 is going to do is to slow down housing starts in this province for the next two years as building departments grind to a halt, trying to deal with the impacts of Bill 46. I don’t know a mayor and council out there that are not going to want to know immediately how to implement community amenity charges as fast as possible and how to look at things like the development cost charge bylaw and try to get that accelerated quickly so that they can capture in fire, police and others.

Again, I don’t fault them. I was the mayor of Kamloops for nine years. I would be doing the exact same thing if this legislation came forward to me as a mayor. But it’s not very responsible for us, as legislators, to stand here and try to pretend that this is going to do anything other than add costs to housing and delay the housing. It just simply is.

The government has not fully explained, with 46, with 44, with 47 upcoming, exactly how already stretched-thin planning departments — which are already struggling to keep up with the pace of permits coming in — are going to manage to do all the extra work that these bills are requiring them to do, for implementation.

They all say: “Well, we’ve got $51 million to help with the transition cost.” Well, $51 million, spread out over the 85 communities that these bills generally touch, is a drop in the bucket for all the extra charge and costs that are going to be incurred by these communities to try to meet these timelines in their planning departments.

Then the most basic question to the government would be: where are all these extra planners going to be coming from? The private sector does not exactly have a plethora of extra land use planners that aren’t already running flat out and busy. Communities already have staffing issues in their planning departments, across the board.

What exactly does $51 million accomplish if there’s no one you can meaningfully get in, in all 85 communities? The really big communities might be okay, because they might just outbid for staff, but that just gets some staff to deal with this stuff, who will still, literally, take a year and a half to work through the process in a municipal government, in a municipal operation.

That takes us back to why the Premier, when he was the Housing Minister, would have promised, in January of 2022, that we would see legislation like this in October of 2022, and why we’re now waiting until the end of session in 2023 to deal with legislation that really won’t be taking effect until well after the next provincial election.

The Premier just seems to always have these very convenient timelines with almost everything that gets brought forward where any actual, tangible result that might happen, or negative result that might happen, from the glossy marketing that they come up with, always seems to be coming just after the next election. It’s such a stroke of luck for the Premier. It really is.

[4:05 p.m.]

I have to remember, if I ever go to a casino, to try to go with him. He’s a very lucky man. I mean, he was able to sell his condo at the Juliet just before the speculation tax came in. He was able to market it as an Airbnb-friendly building before the Airbnb legislation came in. He’s able to make all sorts of promises about housing that won’t take effect till after the next election. I mean, he’s just such a lucky guy.

Right now in Vancouver alone, there are multiple reports and documents that show it’s upwards of $600,000 per unit on condo-style apartment living just in fees and charges to government before you break ground. Somehow Bill 46, which is going to add to those fees and charges, is supposed to deliver affordability.

It’s nonsensical in the extreme that something like this is supposed to provide that affordability, when it very clearly is literally page after page after page of the guidebook for municipalities on how to add extra charges on new builds. It’s interesting, because they call it Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Amendment Act. Well, it’s actually not helping finance any actual development in terms of housing.

It’s actually adding costs to the housing part of that statement. It’s helping municipalities with the cost of their civic infrastructure that they need to deal with. But it’s very clearly not helping development with their financing around housing.

Again, this government has been very good. They’ve shown time and again that they are very good at how they frame a narrative and a piece of legislation or a document to look like it’s doing one thing but does the exact opposite — kind of like the piece on sheltering, in the miscellaneous statutes. It’s actually going to make it much harder to deal with encampments, but the government is making it sound like this will make things much easier. That’ll be another download to municipalities in costs as well.

No wonder the government is looking at a way with Bill 46 to help municipalities try to recapture a bit of cost, because legislation after legislation in here has actually been a downloading to municipalities on their responsibilities and what they’re expected to have for costs. Again, no tax policy is going to put a roof over someone’s head.

The Premier, then Housing Minister, a year and a half ago…. After a year and a half of pondering, with a whole year of that being a delay from when it was first promised to come forward…. I know that the current minister will say: “Well, we had a change of roles, and I had to take over, and we needed to….”

Well, the only problem with that is he took over for the person that became the Premier, and the staff and the work that should have been started back in January of 2022 should have been well underway when that changeover happened. By October last year, when it was promised to come forward, it should’ve come forward.

If housing is truly such a crisis, it should’ve come forward. We see that across the board with this government. They declare something a crisis, and they take very little actual action.

[4:10 p.m.]

They repeatedly declare opioids as a crisis, with no real action or meaningful change to the access to recovery and treatment, despite after seven years and taking their first action of creating an actual minister that has staff under them but not an actual funding envelope to properly fund things like treatment and recovery.

They say they’re taking action on housing, yet in 2022, when the Premier was the Housing Minister, January of 2022, that action was supposed to be in front of this House a year ago. Here it is now, lumped together with multiple other housing bills.

Probably not a secret that the House Leader for the Green Party and myself don’t always agree on everything, but I sure agree with him when he said earlier that it’s pretty convenient for the government to have five or six different housing bills all layered at slightly different times. A miscellaneous statutes bill actually had 79 clauses worth of housing in it. That’s enough to be a bill of its own, when you consider, a lot of times, we deal with one-page bills in this House.

Again, very fortunate for the Premier. Very lucky for the Premier that these bills all came in separately in a bit of a mishmash with whipsawing of mayors and councils, where one bill they are not really happy about, the next bill they’re happy about, then they’re not happy, and then they are happy. No wonder. We’ll get into that when we deal with the bill around sheltering, which is buried in a miscellaneous statutes bill again.

It’s almost like this government doesn’t want us to actually have a clear, straight picture of the true impacts that all these housing changes are intended to do, because they’re actually not intended to accomplish a lot other than to add costs and add delay and further frustration. I’m not really sure why the government felt that a bill that is completely designed to add costs through tax policy…. You can say a development cost charge is a charge, not a tax, and you can say a community amenity agreement is an agreement, not a tax.

Well, other than, maybe, the name on the front of the cheque, I think the developer’s banker wants to know what the actual cost is going to be per unit for your development to deliver housing for British Columbians. They’re not going to say: “Oh, no, just ignore the development cost charges, and don’t put that in your calculation. Don’t put the community amenity agreement in your calculation. Just tell us what the provincial sales tax is, because we only want to know about taxes.”

No, in the real world, in the business world, this is a tax. It’s got a different name to it, but it’s a tax. It will be collected by a municipality, but it’s a tax. It’s going to require provincial sign-off once the municipality goes through all of those very complicated calculations, and they are very complicated calculations. But we already know there’s a massive backlog in the provincial government, despite hiring 120-plus-thousand public sector employees, to deal with permits of all types, including dealing with ones to deal with municipalities. It’s no fault of staff. It’s the fault of this government.

That, fundamentally, is why I have a hard time trusting anything in Bill 46, because I’ve lived that experience at the municipally elected level, as many in this chamber on both sides of this House have, and I know what the end result is going to be. It will be delays. It will be a slowdown of existing permitting processes. It will be overworked and burnt-out planning departments. It’ll be a logjam at the provincial level, waiting for paperwork to be sent back to municipalities with sign-offs. If those sign-offs get a rush job to them, there will be errors missed — honest errors but errors, nonetheless.

[4:15 p.m.]

You know what’s going to happen when all of that happens? This government will wind up pointing the finger back at the municipalities, like they have done for seven years leading up to these bills, or they’ll start to blame the federal government for not being a good enough partner, like they’ve done for seven years.

When the federal government bails them out on child care, they don’t even acknowledge the federal government. It’s actually federal money providing the child care program in B.C. right now. They don’t acknowledge that at all. That’s all their work.

But if they’re getting taken to task for crime on the streets, it’s the federal government’s fault. They get taken to task for expensive housing — most expensive housing in Canada is in B.C. — so that’s the federal government’s and municipal governments’ fault. So we’re going to bring in some legislation to slow down municipalities even more.

You get deemed the most unaffordable jurisdiction in Canada month after month. Well, it’s expensive everywhere, they say. Not as expensive as it is in British Columbia. Last I checked, British Columbians wanted the British Columbia government to be fighting for British Columbians.

When the federal government says, “Well, you know what? If you have home heating oil, maybe you don’t have to pay carbon tax,” which predominantly benefits the Maritimes, you see other provinces say: “No, we want to be treated the same.”

When you see a Manitoba Premier, who’s an NDPer, say, “We want to be treated the same,” when you see an Alberta NDP opposition leader say, “We want to be treated the same as the rest of Canada,” you would hope that this government would stand up against the federal government and say: “Yeah, we want to be treated the same in B.C. as well.”

But no, no. We won’t stand up and fight for British Columbians for that, to try to provide some affordability. We’re going to ram through legislation that’s going to actually make housing slower and less affordable for people.

The good news is that, as I said, this stuff won’t actually take real effect until after the next election. I know every one of my caucus colleagues are going to do everything we can possibly do to make sure we’re standing on that side — not pointing the finger back at municipalities, but actually enacting things and working with municipalities to actually truly address what’s going on in housing in their communities and around the province.

We’ll be sure to point the fingers back at exactly who’s to blame for the last seven and eight years. Municipalities have their hands tied when it comes to tax revenue generation. They collect about eight cents of every tax dollar you pay in Canada. That’s it. The rest goes to the provincial and federal government because they have all sorts of taxes.

In fact, this government now…. This codifying and putting community amenity charges in as law will be the 30th new tax or tax increase since they’ve taken office. Fourteen of those taxes tie into housing.

Let’s think about that. In the last seven years, this government has increased or added 14 new taxes into the housing cycle, while blaming the federal government and the municipal governments for not taking action on affordable housing. While blaming developers and landlords for being profiteers and speculators, they have added 14 new and increased taxes on housing, with Bill 46.

It was lucky 13 just before that. I, personally, think 13 is a lucky number. I was born on Friday the 13th, so it doesn’t freak me out. But for some people, not so much. My friend from Peace River North, though — he’s the 14th, so he has a different view of the 13th, I’m sure.

The point being you can’t keep layering taxes. The irony of the Premier’s statement of January 13, 2022, that no tax policy is going to put a roof on someone’s head…. This government had already put on 13 taxes and increased 13 taxes in one form or another on housing at that point.

In the last year and a half, has this government taken any steps to remove any of those 13 taxes? No. Have they reduced any of those 13 taxes? No.

[4:20 p.m.]

Their answer? Come out with Bill 46 to add another tax. Make it No. 14 on list. Make it an even 30 taxes. The fact is that this is a government that continues to add taxation and costs and bureaucracy and delays at their own level and that has not taken any meaningful action on any of that in seven years. It’s shameful to see this.

Now, I was saying how, of course, municipalities would like this because they’re starved for money. They’re starved for money because this government has not had a meaningful infrastructure program in seven years. Bill 46 isn’t the way of going about getting that infrastructure built.

I do look forward to committee stage on Bill 46. Again, I’m sure we’ll hear a lot of, “I can’t answer that,” from the minister. We’ll see. We’ll give it our best attempts. We really are having a hard time understanding how you can go into planning departments, with Bills 46 and 44 and a couple of other bills on housing, and say, “These all must be done in the next several months,” and think that’s not going to slow down the workflow on what existing building applications they are trying to deal with.

How can you not see that’s going to put a strain and more pressure on housing prices as less new housing stock comes on the market? I won’t add more costs because of the delay and the carrying charges that go with those delays and the uncertainty these bills are all creating. People say: “Well, I better just wait. I don’t want to get started till I find out.”

When you add it all together, with the 14 new and increased taxes on housing this government has introduced, it’s no wonder we have the highest housing prices in Canada and the highest rents in Canada. And there’s no end in sight and no relief in sight. Certainly, the government doesn’t even want you to see what these actions will do to the housing market, because they all take effect after the next provincial election.

I thank you for the time, Madam Chair. I look forward to committee stage on Bill 46.

Hon. K. Conroy: Seeing no further speakers, I move second reading of the bill.

Deputy Speaker: Members, you’ve heard the motion.

Division has been called.

[4:25 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: Members, the question is second reading of Bill 46, Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Amendment Act, 2023.

Second reading of Bill 46 approved on the following division:

[4:35 p.m.]

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

Bill 46, Housing Statutes (Development Financing) 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. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call second reading of Bill 47, Housing Statutes (Transit-Oriented Areas) Amendment Act.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 41, Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

In the Birch Room, I call Bill 42, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

BILL 47 — HOUSING STATUTES
(TRANSIT-ORIENTED AREAS)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

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

Today we have proposed changes that will help address the current housing crisis by ensuring we’re building greater housing supply and supporting livable communities near transit, SkyTrain stations and other busy transit centres.

Our government has made significant investments in our transit systems to deliver faster and better service — service that British Columbians rely on to get to work, to get to school, to reach amenities and participate in their community. This bill means we are planning for housing around these centres and getting the right kinds of homes built in the right locations.

Transit-oriented development, or TOD as it’s commonly known, is a land use planning concept focused on creating pedestrian-friendly communities that have the right mix of residential and commercial uses centred around transit hubs.

This is not a new idea. Many jurisdictions around North America, from Portland, Oregon to Arlington, Virginia, have embraced this concept of building TOD communities. In fact, there are many examples of TOD communities here in B.C., such as Marine Gateway in Vancouver, Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver and Surrey Centre. These TOD communities are walkable and accessible. They provide a range of housing options for residents.

However, in some communities throughout British Columbia, restrictive zoning and delays in development approvals continue to slow down the delivery of homes. That’s why we’re making the changes to transit-oriented development in this legislation. This bill will make important amendments to the Local Government Act and the Vancouver Charter. It will require local governments to designate transit-oriented areas, or TOD areas, in communities where there is fast and frequent transit.

[4:40 p.m.]

Once a TOD area is designated by a local government, those areas will be subject to certain requirements. For example, local governments cannot reject residential zoning applications that meet our minimum height and floor area ratio levels. This will provide planners and builders with more certainty around how much housing supply must be around transit hubs.

Density levels will be based on the type of transit, whether it is SkyTrain or bus exchange, and proximity to these stations.

To support local governments with this implementation, a provincial policy manual will be provided, based on best practice planning practices when making land use decisions in TOD areas.

Finally, this bill will require local governments to remove restrictive parking minimums in TOD areas and allow parking for residential units to be determined by need and demand and on a project-to-project basis.

In recognition of how urgent the housing crisis is, these requirements will come into effect right away for areas already designated by local governments for transit-oriented growth. While local governments undertake this process of designating permanent TOD area bylaws, these changes are another key component of a broader suite of legislation being made to our land use planning system to address the housing crisis and to ensure that the right housing is built in the right locations.

With that, I look forward to hearing comments from colleagues in this chamber.

K. Kirkpatrick: I wish the minister was more long-winded sometimes. He caught me off guard there.

Thank you for the opportunity to rise in the House today and speak to Bill 47.

There has just been a flurry of legislation coming to this House in the last two weeks related to housing. I’m going to just mirror some of the comments from a previous speaker on Bill 46, the MLA from Saanich North and the Islands.

It is so confusing and challenging to be able to give proper due diligence and attention to pieces of legislation when they’re coming in bits and pieces, when we’re trying to debate in multiple Houses at the same time. We have limited ability to be able to be moving back and forth between committee stage, and then you’re getting called on second reading on another housing bill.

There’s no reason that I and others I have spoken to can understand, why this bill was not part of Bill 44. Why wasn’t Bill 44, 46, 47…? They’re all amending the same housing statute. They’re all connected to each other. Even the ability to go through committee stage on this bill, with the other bills…. We’re going to be referring back and forth, particularly between 44 and 47, which are both really targeted on the zoning process.

I will wonder, as we go through this, if there’s going to be overlap, if there’s going to be conflict. I think conflict between legislation can happen once we start pulling things apart and producing too many bits and pieces of things.

I would like it noted that this has been difficult to keep up and really give due diligence to all of this different legislation.

I’m surprised that we haven’t heard more from the other side of the House on all of this legislation. I’m hoping, on this legislation, we’re going to hear from the other side of the House, because my understanding was that…. This big buildup to this legislation was that this is going to be the big thing coming from government in this sitting — some big, amazing housing bill. It’s going to be the be-all and end-all of bringing affordable housing to British Columbia.

Yet we have heard almost nothing from the other side of the House talking about how fabulous this legislation should be, how it’s going to change British Columbia, how it’s going to solve the housing crisis that has become consistently worse and worse in the last seven years.

[4:45 p.m.]

With respect to Bill 47, we on this side of the House have been saying consistently, over and over, that transit-oriented communities are the way to go. So I’m glad that the NDP government has now begun to listen to this side of the House in terms of how we should be responsibly developing communities.

When we looked at Bill 44, what we saw was what could be, and what we anticipate would be, a move towards urban sprawl, speculation, large impacts in communities because of a lack of infrastructure and a ton of confusion — lots and lots of confusion.

What we’re seeing in Bill 47 is really talking more about what we do see as the future of good, healthy communities. We wonder whether this government will be able to accomplish this, because, so far, the track record has not been strong. So our main concern with respect to this legislation is: will government be able to actually do it?

Now, when I was with the Real Estate Foundation of B.C…. And I know that everyone on the other side of the House is a fan of the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. I think I heard almost every member on the other side of the House stand up and talk about the amazing work that they do with water sustainability and watersheds. They’re absolutely correct. That is the case.

But when I was with the Real Estate Foundation, we did a lot of funding for research around transit-oriented communities. This was ten years ago. We knew that that was an area of research and a proven way to build good communities that are effective and get people out of their cars. We can have green space, and we’re close to amenities. So it makes sense.

This bill creates transit-oriented development areas by regulation, with minimum density and height requirements, within a prescribed distance of a bus exchange or SkyTrain station. Again, our caucus certainly supports the idea of increased housing development around transit hubs and arterial corridors — density where it is needed most.

I will say that I have never spoken to more mayors and councillors and CAOs in British Columbia than I have in the last few days. I am hearing — again, on this — confusion. What will the impact be to their communities? A question I heard today, which hadn’t occurred to me and perhaps not to government…. We have fire trucks that will only go up to the fourth floor. But now we’re going to be building up to the sixth floor. So there are a lot of things that need to be considered.

I hope and must believe that this government will understand that each community is different. One-size-fits-all, particularly when we’re talking about high, high density, can’t be applied the same to all communities. I’m a big proponent that we don’t need to have a parking stall for every condominium unit. I think people need to be able to…. We can start to reduce the cost of housing by not having all of that requirement for parking. But we need to have some parking.

I think about accessibility issues. I saw something in here about even the inability to have off-street delivery space. I don’t know what the words were, but it was where your truck’s going to back up and drop things off or where you’re going to park and let somebody out. We really need to see what this looks like once we start to dig down into the specifics.

Once again, we’ve got a piece of legislation here that is a bare frame. We need to fill in the specifics when we look at the regulations. Again, the devil is in the details, and we don’t have a lot of details here. So in a time where urban planning is crucial, concentrating housing options near this essential transportation completely aligns with our vision for a more accessible and sustainable future.

[4:50 p.m.]

One of the challenges is that when we talked about Bill 44 the other day….

[The bells were rung.]

I shall pause for a moment. They always wait till I’m speaking.

We asked the minister, or have had the conversation with the minister, about transportation infrastructure. We’ve got a housing bill now coming out. I asked the other day: is this planning being done with the Ministry of Education? Is it being done with the Ministry of Health? We need to make sure that when we are increasing density in certain places, we’re making sure that we’ve got hospitals and that we don’t have 400 portables and a hospital with a portable for pediatric emergency. How can we be quadrupling populations in areas where we already don’t have services?

The big, big piece of that is also transportation. How is this planning being done alongside, hand-in-hand with, transportation planning and our five-year or ten-year transit plans? If we are going to be concentrating development in these areas, we should have a bigger vision of how we’re connecting communities, how we are creating communities and access to amenities. But this, again, is a standalone document, and I don’t hear that there’s any big, bold vision in terms of creating more transportation infrastructure. This government has not been good, as we know, on transportation infrastructure.

It’s something this side of the House is very proud of, our ability to actually get projects built and get people from place A to B. I was very excited. One of my favourite things the Leader of the Opposition was responsible for was the Canada Line. That’s a significant piece of transportation infrastructure.

If you go down to the foot of Cambie now and Southwest Marine Drive, you’ve got what we’re talking about here, which is an incredible increase in density, a lot of towers there, and it really is based on the Canada Line as the basis for the ability to actually have the community support that kind of density.

The vision is not just that we’re going to build density around transportation hubs. Where the heck are those transportation hubs? Why aren’t we working more quickly? Why isn’t this government working more quickly on helping people get around so that we don’t have to have urban sprawl?

If somebody does want to live in a community that’s further outside of Vancouver and Coquitlam and out in the valley, let’s make sure we’ve got real transportation options for them so we can actually increase density in those areas without people having to drive, because we can create communities and hubs and amenities and schools and hospitals and all of those other things that go along with it.

We do express our support for the key principles within Bill 47 but with a discerning eye in terms of how this is going to be executed and how government is intending to work with municipalities on making sure that this fits their community. Municipalities are hearing loud and clear that we need density. I don’t think anybody, certainly no mayor or council I’ve spoken to, disagrees with that.

[4:55 p.m.]

Many of these communities are doing a lot of work right now in order to be able to get this work done, working with communities to ensure that this kind of densification makes sense — and the density in 44 and the financing in 46 to make sure that communities have the capacity to do this. This is another capacity issue. Now you’re going to have significant increase in density in certain areas — which, again, we support — but then what is government going to be doing for these communities in order to be able to support the infrastructure?

We know there’s a commitment to the electrification of British Columbia, but we know we don’t have the electricity to do what we want to do. That should be a lesson learned for us. How are we then going to come into communities and very quickly and rapidly increase density if we’re not very quickly and rapidly increasing the support we’ve got for infrastructure? It just doesn’t make sense.

I’ve travelled quite a bit in Europe and the States and have always been impressed by most major cities and their transportation infrastructure and how density really is, around those areas. In Manhattan and different places, and a lot of places in Europe, that really is the best way to create community. It doesn’t necessarily have to be large highrises. There are different ways that we can look at creating that density that is going to be respectful to a community.

Certainly, seeing this government finally understanding that you can’t have urban sprawl…. You actually have to create amenities, and transportation is the hub. You can’t build housing without building transportation. I know — and I have a few colleagues in the House that know this — that in terms of living on the North Shore, it has been a consistent struggle to increase density. One of the key issues has been traffic studies that show that there is just not enough capacity in terms of our roads.

It would be really nice if the North Shore had a fixed link, maybe some rapid transit over there, a new bridge. Some things would be very helpful. Then we would be able to have a much easier time creating density around those places. Lower Lonsdale is actually a really good example of what I believe we’re talking about in this legislation. You’ve got a SeaBus. You’ve got a key connector there in terms of transit, and a beautiful community has grown up around that, with great amenities and mixed ages, mixed incomes.

Certainly, that’s the kind of thing I can imagine as what we want our future communities to look like. But I’m not sure that this government has that level of vision, as opposed to just kind of a headline. “We want transit-oriented communities.” Well, that’s great, but what does that mean, and how are you going to do it, and how are you going to make sure it’s done right? Are there examples that this government has looked at?

I can ask that on a lot of this legislation. Has this government gone places and said: “Here’s a community where they do a really good job. So let’s take that, let’s come back to British Columbia, and let’s see. Let’s apply that here”? If it’s homegrown, and you’re making it up as you go, and you don’t really have experience in building and creating communities…. I don’t believe that this government does have that experience. If you’re not looking at the big picture and a strategic way of doing this, it’s not going to work very well.

Interjection.

K. Kirkpatrick: They did go to Geneva, and I believe that Geneva may have, probably, transit-oriented communities.

As I said, a significant portion of this bill is deferring to regulation, just like the other bills were deferring the important things. Setbacks and all of this, which really form the feel and basis of our community, are being pushed down the road to be in regulation, which will not be in front of this House.

[5:00 p.m.]

I said earlier I’ve never spoken to so many mayors, councillors and CAOs, ever. The confusion…. There needs to be more conversation with these different communities about how this is going to fit for them and how you bring them alongside and how you bring the community alongside.

Again, the principles of what we’re doing here are solid. B.C. United and our leader have talked about transit-oriented communities for as long as we’ve been talking about building houses and building communities. But you have to bring these municipalities alongside. You have to know how high the fire trucks can go and all of these other things that are going to be really specific and unique to a community.

As elected officials responsible for our constituents’ best interests, it’s imperative that we take the time as the official opposition to do our job and look at the intricacies of this bill during the committee stage. All parties in this House that have the honour of sitting here should participate in these debates, should stand up and talk about legislation, should come into the committee stage and ask questions about legislation and try and bring up ideas and thoughts that actually can make legislation better.

We’re proud, as the official opposition, that we take that role very seriously, and that is what we’re doing here. We must ensure the regulatory framework aligns with the principles we endorse and, more importantly, that they serve the greater good of all our communities here in British Columbia. So this is an idea that we can support, but we do have questions about the ability for this government to be able to implement it, because when it comes down to it, after seven years and two elections, the NDP have failed repeatedly to build more homes.

As a result, this Premier and the NDP…. B.C. has the worst housing affordability in…. Does that say North America? Oh, it used to be Canada. Now it says North America. Wow, okay.

Rent in Vancouver costs over $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. In Surrey, people looking to buy a townhouse have found that units that were once $300,000 ten years ago are now $900,000. To counter skyrocketing prices, our province needs more of everything — more townhomes, condos, apartment rentals, co-ops — what’s happened to all the co-ops? — and non-market rentals. We need a variety of everything. We need to be able to commit to different and mixed types of housing.

We don’t want unchecked growth that sprawls across the community. It’s important to concentrate this growth along these transit and arterial corridors, which is what this legislation is proposing to do. Ensuring we have this density is going to mean that areas don’t require buying a car. People are going to have options to cycle, have plenty of transit options. This is why it is critical to be able to build in these areas so that we can have truly livable, good communities.

We will continue to scrutinize this legislation to make sure we’re comfortable that it does what it intends to do. We will speak on behalf of a number of communities and leaders who have contacted us to talk about what some of their concerns are. And we look forward to the ability to have those questions of the minister and the minister’s staff.

I’m excited that later this year, we, the official opposition, B.C. United, will unveil a real plan for housing, one that places a premium on green urban density, steering away from pitfalls of unmanaged sprawl. Our commitment is clear: a comprehensive plan that caters to the diverse needs of British Columbians, not a one-size-fits-all.

It’s done hand in hand with municipalities to make sure communities are properly reflected and that there is the ability of the infrastructure to support density and development but that the province, government, would be there to support and make sure that those things were in place.

[5:05 p.m.]

The policies we plan to bring forward will spur the private sector and the not-for-profit sector to build what we need and focus on sustainable growth. With urban density at its core and a comprehensive approach, B.C. United and this side of the House will present a vision that goes beyond political rhetoric.

If I was cynical, which I am not, I would look at all of this flurry of legislation and I would think that government is trying to put forward the idea that more is being done than is being done. As I said, and as members before me have said, the need to have all of these separate bills and legislations in front of the House when they’re all amending the same housing statute or the Local Government Act has just simply complicated things. It would be much easier and much more clear to the public, to municipalities.

When things aren’t clear, what happens is that it stagnates. Everything slows down. I truly believe that as we move into this next year, we’re going to see a drop in housing starts because of the confusion and the paralysis that we’re seeing. This happened with the Housing Supply Act. There was an announcement that: “There’s going to be this upzoning, but we’re not going to tell you what the upzoning is.” So then people stopped building because they were waiting to find out what the upzoning was going to be. We’re seeing a little bit of that right now as well.

It’s concerning. When things are not provided, presented with clarity, with specifics, with expectations, it’s very difficult for municipalities, developers, non-profits to be able to deliver when they’re not sure what the deliverables are, when they’re not sure what the playing field is, what the boundaries are.

It is important that we have more information up front and that this is managed well. I’m again hearing from municipalities saying: “We do not have the capacity to make all of these changes, and we’ve got to have things done by June. We just don’t have the capacity.”

What’s going to happen to property values? What’s going to happen to property values right now, the day this legislation came out, close to transit hubs? What is government doing to manage that right now? We don’t want to make the challenges worse, not better. As this side of the House says, the only way that you are actually going to reduce the cost of housing is to reduce how expensive it is to actually build housing.

We need to make sure that we don’t continue down this pathway of additional costs, which seems to be the tool that this government has in adding additional costs and DCCs. It’s a flurry of new regulations, new approaches to housing.

We need to make sure that it’s done strategically and that we are doing it with communities hand in hand, that we are not overburdening the capacity of communities. I was going to say of smaller communities but certainly of all sizes of communities.

I’m hearing from people who just paid $200,000 to finish an OCP project, and now they’re back to the drawing board with having to do something new and different in order to be able to adhere to Bill 44 and what the requirements are there.

I will say that this side of the House absolutely is committed to transit-oriented development. We’ve been talking about it for years. It is foundational to good development and good communities.

We look forward to the ability to ask questions during committee stage. I thank you for the time, and I shall take my seat.

Hon. D. Coulter: What a pleasure to be able to speak in front of you again.

I first would like to state, just off the top, that I wholeheartedly support this bill, and I thank the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Transportation for putting this legislation forward. It is amazingly important.

[5:10 p.m.]

I’m glad to hear that the opposition agrees with transit-oriented development, and I’m looking forward to them voting for this bill, although I think I may have had a bit of a Rip Van Winkle moment, because I’ve never heard them talk about TOD before in my life. It’s possible they have been, and I’ve just missed it, but I don’t know.

I’m also interested in seeing their bold housing plan and just how they’re going to couch helping out developers, speculators and the top 2 percent within their plan. I think it will be quite interesting.

I’d like to point out, too, to the member opposite…. She was talking about allowing local governments to build the infrastructure that they need in order to increase their housing supply. That was contained in the last bill that we just had division on, and that they voted against.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Hon. D. Coulter: Thank you, Madam Speaker. You didn’t have to. I was off to a great start anyway, but thank you very much.

Yes. I am very confused. The opposition keeps saying they want housing, but they’re voting against housing bills yesterday and today. This is part of the Homes for People action plan. It is a bold plan. It is a lot of action.

I get that it might be dizzying for the opposition. We are in a housing crisis, and we need to be able to build housing. We need to be able to build housing near transit so that people can get to work, take their kids to soccer games, what have you.

We’ve seen in some municipalities, okay, quite a large amount of housing near transit stations, and that housing is quite expensive. This is going to make the housing more affordable, because people deserve to be able to use transit. That’s why this bill is so important.

We build billions of dollars worth of transit, particularly the SkyTrain, but also with regular services, bus rapid transit, large transit exchanges, and we spend so much money on these things. We need to increase density. We need to increase housing. One hundred thousand people moved here in 2021.

We really need to move on these housing pieces. I really wish that the opposition was with us. I think the Minister of Finance has pointed out several times that they’ve opposed the speculation and vacancy tax, which brought thousands of new units onto the market.

Just maybe a quote from the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to the speculation tax, he said on a radio show or video show or some interview, CBC Early Edition, in 2018. He was asked about if he was just talking about the school tax, and he said:

“No, not just the school tax, but just this speculation tax for owning second properties. So when you’re someone from Toronto, a professor in Toronto, that buys a condominium in Vancouver, visits it in the summer and is looking to retire here and is very excited about that prospect, now we’re saying: ‘Oh, okay — well, since you’re doing that, we’re now going to punish you for making that investment even though you pay all Canadian income taxes, etc. We’re going to punish you for buying that property.’

“Or for example, for the development business, you buy a piece of land, and you want to build rental housing in Vancouver. Well, guess what. The speculation tax is going to apply.”

Of course it is. It’s freed up thousands of homes on the market, and it’s part of our overall housing plan.

We are in a crisis, and we really need to move on housing. This bill in particular…. I’m quite excited about it as minister for Infrastructure and Transit — that we are going to be building more density around transit. We have some amazing opportunities with the Surrey to Langley SkyTrain project. If you went along its route, we’ve announced the station locations.

[5:15 p.m.]

If you go along its route, and you see where the station locations are situated, it’s an amazing opportunity to be able to build more housing and have it near transit.

It’s very important for our 2030 climate action plan as well. We need to give people the options of being able to use different modes of transit and get out of their car. If they don’t or aren’t able to live near a transit hub of some sort, they’re never going to…. They’ll need their cars, because they won’t be close enough to transit for it to make sense for them to use it.

I think members will remember last fall when we passed a piece of legislation that allowed the Ministry of Transportation to buy land within 800 metres of a transit hub. This is just another piece to that, which I’m quite excited about.

Madam Speaker, I’m going to respect my colleague’s time. I’m not going to talk for a half hour just to do it. I really appreciated the comments from the member for Kelowna-Mission yesterday when she talked about ridiculous tomfoolery, so I won’t be talking for 30 minutes. I’m not going to try and talk the clock out — I’m just saying.

What I will say is that I really wish the opposition would talk the talk. All their criticism of our housing legislation falls away. It doesn’t come up to muster, and it feels like, to me, it’s just opposition for opposition’s sake. I can’t wait to see their housing plan and how they are going to help out big developers and speculators.

D. Davies: I appreciate the Minister of State for Infrastructure and Transit. I would almost say I’m designated speaker just to appease his last comment, but I won’t. I’ll leave that for someone else to do.

But I will tell you, I feel like I’m in the Groundhog Day movie here — you know, the plethora of housing bills that have been sprinkled amongst this Legislature in just the last couple of weeks. I feel like, and I’m sure some of my colleagues, especially our shadow minister for Housing…. She probably feels like she’s drinking from the firehose the last few days here.

With that being said, knowing the…. And my colleague from North Vancouver has done an amazing job at managing all these bills coming in.

The developers out there also feel like they’re drinking from the firehose when it comes to these regulations, these changes, the legislation. As I mentioned just a couple of hours ago in Bill…. I’m losing track of them; I think it was 47. Forty-six, actually; this is 47. Bill 46. I talked about scaring off these developers, doing nothing really to solve the housing crisis.

Why there are five or six, and who knows how many more to come, bills on housing…. First and foremost, why they couldn’t have been amalgamated into one bill, because they’re all really amending the same bill. But it’s caused, and I’m sure will cause, great confusion moving forward.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I mentioned yesterday on the other bill that I spoke to that I suspect there will be a number of miscellaneous statutes bills come in as they look back and try and correct all these little pieces that didn’t line up, that probably would have been a lot better if it was one.

[5:20 p.m.]

We need the private sector to be building houses. When we see these pieces of legislation come out just constantly, it does not do anything to build that confidence in our developers, in our construction industry.

As my colleagues before me have said…. I really do want to point out the Minister of State for Infrastructure. I was going to say…. In the last few bills, there has hardly been anybody from the government benches speaking to their own bills, which I found quite surprising. I said “hardly.” There have been a couple. On a couple of the bills, though, there has been nobody.

These housing bills…. Housing generally is, you might say, a flagship of the NDP. I would suspect that everybody would be standing up to support their own legislation and speaking to the legislation.

Bill 47, the transit-oriented development bill, which is before us, is, obviously…. We do agree with many pieces in there, like my colleague mentioned before. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition, for at least the last 18 months, has been talking about a lot of similar stuff, which has been in this bill, around densifying around transit areas, transit hubs. So we have been calling on this for quite some time now, and the housing supply.

Our concern, along with probably all British Columbians, goes back to what I’ve said in this House numerous times, over and over again. It’s the ability for this government to deliver the results. We are not seeing the results. We do not see the results from this government. That is why we are hesitant, really, to support any of this. The ability for the NDP to deliver has not been there.

With that being said, I’d like to reserve my spot for when we return, I guess. I’ll adjourn debate.

D. Davies moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 41 — FORESTS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Bill 41, Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2023, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

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 10 a.m., November 20.

The House adjourned at 5:23 p.m.