Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call continued second reading on Bill 47, Housing Statutes (Transit-Oriented Areas) Act.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 44, Housing Statutes (Residential Development) Act.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

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

(continued)

D. Davies: Continuing the debate on Bill 47, again, I don’t have incredible, lengthy remarks to give.

I know that we had spoken the last time I was in the House in regards to not only supporting the idea. We had actually…. Our Leader of the Opposition and other members have mentioned this exact idea of densifying around transit hubs and making sure that we’re able to provide the housing that we need in our province.

One thing that has been mentioned over and over again is…. I think we’re now at six pieces of legislation that have come out in just a short number of weeks regarding housing. We see this theme of not getting anything done, results that matter. We’ve seen from this government…. Well, we haven’t seen results, and that has been part of the problem.

[3:15 p.m.]

Part of our concern about Bill 47 is the…. Are they going to have the ability to deliver any of these results that they’re talking about in this piece of legislation?

I think British Columbians have more or less given up hope on this government delivering housing. We’ve seen the worst housing crisis ever in history unfolding right now before our eyes. This is a government that has seven years as government, two terms, and they have yet to really be able to deliver on any of their housing goals.

We’ve seen rents, again, explode to $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. Homes are well over $1 million. We’re not talking a fancy home but a hardly anything home in the Lower Mainland and even more in the city of Vancouver. It’s just one thing after another, on the record of this government, when it comes to housing or the lack of any record on housing.

It’s not that we are opposed to the idea of these transit-oriented developments in the density areas. There are many questions that we need to ask. The first one is: can they do it? Sadly, I don’t…. We haven’t seen any evidence of the ability to do anything lately. The other one is: do we have the infrastructure in regards to rail or that ability to even provide and to get to this point of where we’re going to be densifying housing around transit?

Of course, our job is, though…. We’re only in second reading. We do, certainly, look forward to moving into committee, where we can, obviously, dig a little deeper and ask the harder questions to actually see if there is any merit on the ability for this government to deliver on Bill 47.

Again, the end of the day is…. We are in this crisis. This crisis has been getting worse and worse over the last seven years. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this government has any real plan to fix this.

It is our job to scrutinize this piece of legislation and to ask the questions. In fact, later on here, this year or early next year, we do plan, the B.C. United, to announce a plan of ours that will, in fact, deliver results, a real plan that is going to work toward getting people housed.

We all need to be looking at…. As a former city councillor, one thing we talked about, even in smaller communities like Fort St. John, is that urban sprawl and what that looks like and making sure that we recognized it and that we were smart about how we do or don’t do the urban sprawl.

It is costly to municipalities. We need to make sure, again, that there are enough checks and balances in place — it is a comprehensive plan by the government that does have achievables in it, and it has some goals laid out in it — before we can move forward in supporting this. I do look forward, again, to a number of these questions that we will be asking during our committee stage.

I do want to commend our Housing critic for the incredible work that she has done on stickhandling these five or six pieces of legislation that have come out in just a short little time.

With that being said, just concluding my remarks from the previous day, I do look forward to continue in this debate before…. I will turn it over to my colleague.

J. Sturdy: To follow on with the remarks from my colleague here…. It is disappointing to be talking about this really important set of issues around housing in such a disjointed way.

[3:20 p.m.]

Bills 44, 46, 47, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act…. It just seems very disjointed, and it’s difficult to speak comprehensively when we’ve got different bills with overlapping issues and, potentially, conflict between the bills. It’s difficult to give this legislation the diligence it deserves.

It’s also full of reliance, as has been pointed out many times now, on handbooks and regulations that are nowhere to be seen, that are to be delivered at some point in the future. It’s certainly notable for its lack of detail. It’s little more than a framework because, as usual, this government really relies on an enabling type of legislation without the meat on the bones and the details to be sorted out later.

We all understand that the devil is in the details. So while it’s not unexpected, it’s in fact typical of this government. It’s disappointing, and it really doesn’t give us the confidence that the details will get this legislation to a place that serves communities.

The fact that government has been signalling for over a year that housing was going to be the signature piece in this government’s agenda, the fact that it’s put together in such a disjointed way, the fact that it’s messy, that it’s haphazard, that it’s without details, that it’s fundamentally undemocratic, and it’s typically NDP…. It’s big government knows best, and local government is clearly not capable, according to this government.

At a high level, our caucus certainly supports transit-oriented communities. We’ve supported building housing that British Columbia needs. In fact, we’ve been calling for an increasing housing supply for years now. Glad to see that government is finally coming to the party on supply, because what we’ve really seen over the last number of years are restrictions and limits and taxes, which have been the order of the day. It’s all been all stick, no carrot — all taxes, time delays, permitting roadblocks, restrictions, limitations, constraints, criticism and little to no progress.

It’s certainly never been more unaffordable to live in this province. Housing has never been more expensive. Rents have never been more expensive — people living in their cars, people living multiple people in a room. In Whistler, for example — $1,500 for a room with multiple beds. In fact, we’ve gone so far backwards that there are stories out there of people with multiple beds in a room and people sleeping in shifts. This is 19th-century stuff.

I think it’s also worth mentioning, in terms of supporting local government and supporting communities, especially some of these smaller communities, that there has been no support for employee housing in Whistler for the last eight years. The last contribution to affordable housing or employee-restricted housing in Whistler was from the B.C. United, the B.C. Liberal government in 2016. So this government is really all talk and little action, certainly no action in the Sea to Sky.

Whistler has, for a long time, been a place where the policy on housing its workforce…. It has had a policy of housing its own workforce in the community for the last 30 years or so, and 70 percent was the goal to have people who worked in the community to live in the community, and they have actually exceeded expectations, mostly through forms of density bonusing, which is interesting in that it looks like that opportunity is also going to vanish due to the mismatch of legislation that we have before the House today.

Squamish and housing in Whistler Housing Authority rely on this type of funding opportunity to build employee-restricted or affordable housing, and both communities are concerned that this long history of success will end.

Bill 47 certainly could be embraced by these communities and other communities around the province with the creation of transit-oriented development areas, minimum heights, minimum densities. It’s what most communities want and have been trying to achieve, certainly in Whistler, increasingly in Squamish and even in Pemberton. If you haven’t been to Pemberton recently, if you haven’t been there in, say, a decade, you pull into town, and it’s mostly three-and four-storey buildings, which it wasn’t in the past.

People are trying to do the right thing, but all of these, mind you, are all being built by the private sector without provincial investments. These private sector developers are building these purpose-built rentals that government and government members have spent years condemning as speculators.

Without these speculators, we wouldn’t have had any investment in housing. So developers — bad, according to the government. Government — good. Private sector jobs and businesses — bad. Public sector jobs and debt — good, according to this government.

[3:25 p.m.]

Back to Pemberton, we’re getting lots of comments about not recognizing the place. The same is true for Squamish. Visit downtown, if you haven’t been in Squamish recently, and see what this community has accomplished. But it has created unintended consequences.

This is something that Bill 47 could well exacerbate — that single-family zoning that has been changed, through OCP designations, to higher-density housing — resulting in hugely inflated B.C. Assessment property values, because it’s being based on highest and best use under the OCP. Traditionally, it has been highest and best use under zoning, so something has changed there. Long-time resi­dents are seeing, because these assessments are so much higher in areas that have been OCP-designated as higher density, huge increases in property taxes because their assessed values have gone up so much.

This is also creating speculation. It’s becoming unaffordable for these long-time residents, and they are, in effect, being forced to sell out. There needs to be some sort of protection against huge property tax increases that are a result of B.C. Assessment evaluating on OCP designations rather than on actual zoning circumstances, and this seems a relatively new phenomenon.

It’s nice to see government, as I mentioned, coming on side to understand that supply is, certainly, one of the keys, one of the main drivers, for affordability. However, talk has been cheap and, in fact, meaningless in some respects. This government truly hasn’t performed. We could talk about a number of different examples, not the least of which was the favoured renters rebate that went on for years — for 2017, ’18, ’19, ’20, ’21 and ’22.

Finally, they couldn’t resist any more, and in 2023 they put forward a bit of a joke, actually: a tax credit that goes to zero after $80K of family income. It’s a $400 tax credit. When we look at the Vancouver rental for a one-bedroom topping out at $3,000 a month, that tax credit is worth four days of rent. It’s a tax credit that you can get once, next in 2024. It’s pretty much underwhelming.

Of course, we can always…. Everybody talks about the 114,000 units of affordable housing, over ten years. We’re — what? — 15 percent of the way there, after seven years. At 2,400 units a year, it certainly doesn’t engender any kind of confidence in this government’s ability to advance things here.

What we need, really, are 70,000 units a year in this province, just to keep up with internal growth and immigration plans. The best year ever was 42,000 units, mostly built by the NDP-hated private sector investors. However, the government’s contribution to the inventory has been nothing less than paltry and, naturally again, doesn’t instil much confidence. Who can blame the opposition or the public for a lack of confidence in where this government is going?

Well, potentially, there’s value in this legislation. The opportunity to densify around transit makes sense, al­though we certainly don’t know the details. As is typical, as I mentioned, it’s enabling legislation. It allows cabinet to develop the details and rules around it, behind the veil of cabinet secrecy, without legislative input and marginalizing this House — which is sort of what it’s doing today, in some respects.

I feel like I’m under pressure to get my message out — chop, chop, chop right now. Otherwise, I could end up, essentially, just forcing everybody to stay here tonight. You know, you feel pressure as an MLA. You want to have the opportunity to say your piece, but it feels like you’re pressured not to.

It’s more of just marginalizing the House, although I will say as well that maybe the NDP back bench is fine with all this. At the end of the day, they’ve had very little to say about any of this legislation. I think we’ve only seen a couple of government backbenchers bother to speak about this stuff.

To speak to the legislation: as disjointed as it is, it doesn’t seem to be able to generate much interest from government members. No details to attach to Bill 47, along with other housing bills, as in most pieces of legislation. It’s really not surprising. It is, after all, the most secretive government in Canada.

[3:30 p.m.]

Bill 47 prescribes, in legislation, no room for discussion, no room for debate. “Don’t worry; we know best,” I guess, is what it comes down to: “Big government knows better than this Legislature.”

Obviously, our concern is simply: will this government be able to do what they want, as has been exemplified over the last seven years in office? There’s a lack of credibility or willingness to provide results to British Columbians, especially when it comes to creating enough homes in the province. Metrics, results and delivery have not been government’s strong point. Naturally, we remain deeply concerned about their ability to get results, and we see the importance of housing targets and density in the right areas.

This bill creates transit-oriented-development areas by regulation with minimum density and height requirements within a prescribed distance of a bus exchange or a SkyTrain station. But what are the minimums? What is the density? What are the heights? What are the prescribed distances? All yet to be determined, and not the business of the House, according to this minister.

Our B.C. United caucus supports the idea of increased housing development around transit hubs and arterial corridors and density where it is needed most. Community planning is critical, concentrating housing near essential transportation lines, with our vision for a more accessible and sustainable future. We’ve made commitments to this going back years, and it’s a relief that government is catching up. Better late than never.

However, transit is the key to Bill 47. It’s worth pointing out, for most communities in this province, this government has been absolutely absent on transit.

The Sea to Sky has been trying to implement a regional transit plan since 2018 with no help whatsoever from government. In fact, it would not be disingenuous to say that the NDP has not supported, or one could go so far as to say the NDP has opposed, the regional transit network for the Sea to Sky.

Local government and Squamish and Líl̓wat First Nation developed an MOU for regional transit in the Sea to Sky, agreed on the governance model, based it on a 25-year Sea to Sky transit future plan developed with B.C. Transit and with the RMOW, the village of Pemberton and the district of Squamish, the Squamish Nation and the Líl̓wat Nation. Everyone was on side. Oh, and the Squamish-Lillooet regional district, of course.

Everyone was on side, but you need a willing partner, and this government has been anything but. The Minister of Transportation, in current or various iterations, was not supportive of the proposal, and the government had absolutely no suggestion, no proposal and has offered no hope.

Some talk of a trial for the past year was discussed, but nothing has materialized. There was a reassessment of demand, but the reassessment of demand was carried out during COVID and the Sea to Sky transit strike, so it seemed like a bit of a waste of time. I’m not sure that the data that was generated from that was of any value.

However, the regional transit system as proposed by communities and First Nations would connect the Líl̓wat First Nation in Mount Currie to Pemberton, to the resort municipality of Whistler, Pinecrest-Black Tusk, through to Squamish, Britannia Beach, Furry Creek, Porteau Cove, Lions Bay, Seascapes, Horseshoe Bay and into the Trans­Link system.

This is a system that this bill is theoretically about — transit-oriented communities. Recognizing that the Sea to Sky is a community, I venture to say the whole of which is greater than the sum of its parts…. However, it’s important that we connect the communities in the corridor with Metro Vancouver because in many ways, as I said, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

When you look at a place like Squamish, which is the epicentre of the Sea to Sky in many ways, it’s where you find definitive health care. That’s where the Squamish hospital is. That’s where long-term care is provided. That’s where the biggest commercial centre is. However, as they say, if it’s anything other than owning a car, you can’t get there from here, at least not by transit.

This B.C. government hasn’t supported the development of a comprehensive regional transit system or given First Nations or the local government the tools to develop one. It seems a bit of a no-brainer to connect the Sea to Sky to TransLink and Vancouver because, after all, the Sea to Sky has just one road, essentially a two-lane highway — albeit a great highway, but the capacity is limited.

[3:35 p.m.]

Growth takes place, and we’ve seen the growth: Squamish growing 22 percent over the last census period; Whistler growing 18 percent; Pemby, 34 percent. Britannia is under redevelopment right now. The old townsite has been reconfigured. There’s a commercial centre there.

There are thousands and thousands of more people moving into the Sea to Sky, and there is no transit system. This government has not supported it with the necessary funding to B.C. Transit and the tools to local government. This is not unique to the Sea to Sky. This is happening all across the province. Communities all across the province are suffering from the same fate. There’s a real irony here that we’re talking about density along transit corridors and an NDP government that hasn’t demonstrated any commitment or increasing support for transit.

Arguably, we’ve gone backwards on transit funding over the years with inflation. In fact, Whistler and Squamish are both sitting on budgets with additional money designated for transit, for enhancing their internal systems. But again, no willing partner from the provincial government and B.C. Transit. So they can’t even enhance their transit services in the internal systems. What we’re going to see is that money is going to be reallocated.

Whistler and Squamish are both talking right now about an 8 percent or 9 percent tax increase. Hopefully that’ll come down. But when we look at it, there are so many priorities. Look at the emergency management plans and what has been delegated to local government to deal with. All of these things are going to cost more and more money. There’s less money around and no partners for transit. At the end of the day, there are so many obligations.

I have to mention one other piece, actually, before I wind up here. That is that there’s an expectation that OCPs will be updated by the end of next year. That’s a cost to local government. There’s a cost and a need to do community engagement, and it’s just so incredibly unrealistic.

When we look at Whistler’s last OCP, it was from 1993. It was updated and approved in 2013. So what’s that, 20 years? But then it was challenged by First Nations. They went to court over it. It was finally approved in 2020, after 30 years. That’s without DRIPA to think about.

So to think that this government wants transitional language for OCPs next year and updating by the end of next year and zoning bylaws for the following year is completely unrealistic. More resources are needed, more infrastructure upgrades; certainly more contributions or more thoughts on how transits are going to work.

I’ll mention one other thing. When we look at transit-oriented communities, we look at the minimum parking requirements or the lack of minimum parking requirements. It’s great for Victoria. It’s great for Vancouver, for the most part. But if you live in snow country, it’s not so great. There are already enormous pressures on parking, mostly in communities with significant winters, anyway. You only have parking on half the roads half the time anyway.

So the idea that we are not going to be needing any more parking is pretty unrealistic. While I know parking will go to clean energy vehicles over time, the idea that we are going to continue to grow the province the way it’s been growing and have fewer vehicles or less vehicle traffic is just completely unrealistic.

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

S. Furstenau: I rise to speak to Bill 47, Housing Statutes (Transit-Oriented Areas) Amendment Act, 2023.

The proposed legislation is aimed at encouraging communities to build housing in areas that it is calling transit hubs. To achieve this, it is encouraging local governments to bring in transit-oriented developments in their official community plans, so TODs, transit-oriented developments, and OCPs, official community plans.

For those local governments that don’t currently have TODs, Bill 47 requires municipalities to designate these areas. For those that have existing transit-oriented-development areas, those will take effect right away.

[3:40 p.m.]

Local governments will have until the end of June to establish transit-oriented-development areas by bylaw. If they don’t do that, the provincial government can step in.

I support communities that are more vibrant, more resilient, with easy access to transit and amenities.

Just listening to my colleague from West Vancouver–Sea to Sky talking about snowy areas and the need for parking…. I spent my childhood and part of my young adulthood in a very snowy city — Edmonton, Alberta — without a car and relied very heavily on transit to get around. I learned how to wrap up my skin so that I would not suffer from frostbite or exposure walking through those snowy streets.

It is entirely possible in cities with effective transit to get around without vehicles. We should be really orienting ourselves towards creating the ability and the choice for people to have to get around with transit regardless of where they live in this province.

We often hear the shorthand for these vibrant, connected, resilient communities with easy access to transit and amenities being described as 15-minute cities, the idea that you could walk or cycle anywhere within your community within 15 minutes and have access to all the amenities that you need — your work, your recreation, your services, parks.

When you think about the sort of global destinations that people like to travel to, often where they like to travel are to cities and regions that are highly walkable, that have large parts of their cities that don’t have access to vehicles, that are very transit-heavy.

For example, there’s Copenhagen in Denmark. Several decades ago, Copenhagen decided to close off the entire core of its city to vehicles. When I was there — it’s been a while now, maybe 20 years ago, 15 years ago — it was such a delightful city to spend time in because you could…. I had my young son with me at the time. We could ride our bikes feeling very safe. There was transit accessible everywhere. You were part of this very vibrant community of people that gathered all times of the day and really enjoyed that outside life that is offered when there aren’t vehicles whizzing by at every moment.

Barcelona has an extensive part of the town that is non-accessible to vehicles. Sevilla, Seville, in Spain as well. Just extraordinary. The whole centre of town is only for pedestrians. These are places that people like to travel to, because it’s great to be a part of that feeling of being in a community where you’re not constantly having to dodge cars whizzing past you — that you’re part of the human community and that pure joy that comes from just being able to interact with people on the street.

We know from research and studies that talking to strangers is good for our mental health, for example. When we have communities that are designed with lots of public spaces and lots of capacity for us to interact with each other, when we’re riding on the bus or waiting at a bus stop or walking down a street with no traffic on it, we get to enjoy the benefits of those interactions. We should absolutely be orienting our efforts towards creating more and more communities that have this kind of resiliency and vibrancy right at the centre of them.

This is also a significant part of our efforts to combat climate change, which is a part of the debate in this House right now. I think that when we look at how we respond to climate change, we have to ask ourselves: where are humans in our climate change plan, and where is nature in our climate change plan?

Those two things are largely lacking from the current plan we have in B.C. But creating the conditions where people don’t have to rely on vehicles to get to the amenities that they need, where they can walk to school, where they can walk to work or cycle…. These create the conditions for all of us to be able to reduce our emissions individually but, more importantly, collectively.

[3:45 p.m.]

To suggest to people you just have to find a way to not use your vehicle, but without having access to available, accessible, affordable, reliable transit, or without having access to the kind of cycling infrastructure that we see in Victoria, it’s very hard for people to make that decision to not use their vehicle. So this is the way to create the collective impacts that we want by making sure that people, individually, can make those choices.

North America has been the poster child in design that favours cars and highways. I have a stepsister who lives in California. We went and visited her a few years ago. It’s quite astonishing to see a state that really only has infrastructure for vehicles. We really had no choice but to use a vehicle when we were there. The highways of highways in California are something that I think all of us should look at and think: “We do not want that.” That is the wrong direction, a kind of centrality of the car.

I had an artist friend who once said: “If aliens were to look down on North America, they would be pretty certain that the cars were the beings that the humans were serving.” We got the cars to where they wanted to go, put them safely into nice little shelters at night, washed them and filled them up with fuel. We take very good care of those. But we actually want to create communities and, ideally, a province and a future where cars are not at the centre of everything we do.

Real estate has historically given homeowners great long-term returns that they’ve been able to pass down to future generations. This is one of the reasons Canadians still believe it’s one of the best investments they could make. However, I think much of the debate that’s happening in all of the Houses, at the moment, in this Legislature is around whether a home is more than just a commodity. Is it more than just an investment?

I think most of us agree that a home is something much greater than a commodity or an investment. We have to ask ourselves: how are we responding to the situation we’re in now, where the affordability of that home, of that dwelling, has become out of reach for far too many people?

If we want to make strides towards sustainable long-term affordability and livability, we really must use existing land more pragmatically. We must create cities, towns and neighbourhoods that offer a mix of housing types, with a vision for a quality of life and equity in access to that quality of life at the forefront.

I am in favour of the transit-oriented development that is intended in Bill 47, yet I have some questions about this legislation and how it will roll out and affect local governments.

Cities such as Helsinki, as another example, have captured the spirit of the 15-minute framework and even surpassed it by ensuring that each neighbourhood has a balance of market housing, mixed-income housing and non-market subsidized housing.

This last piece is what is largely being ignored in our conversations in B.C. and Canada when it comes to the housing affordability crisis. It is a housing affordability crisis. Unless we have non-market housing as a significant part of our housing mix, we are going to find ourselves in this perpetual cycle of the housing affordability crisis.

The mix offers residents access to a culturally, socially and economically diverse and vibrant community where small businesses and people thrive. This is what we could have across B.C., but unfortunately, there is not much that we see in Bill 47 that supports this vision.

The Minister of Transportation said he has earmarked $400 million to acquire land around future SkyTrain terminals and transit hubs. That will give the government first crack at developing affordable housing in those key locations, rather than leaving it to private speculators to build expensive condos.

[3:50 p.m.]

The province’s track record on delivering affordable housing is not very good. Market rents are hitting record highs in Canada, with Vancouver leading the way. An average one-bedroom in August in Vancouver went for over $3,000 a month. Non-market housing, as offered by non-profits and public agencies, is in greater need than ever before. The lack of investment for decades, particularly from the federal government starting in the 1990s, has really created a massive, massive deficit of non-market, truly affordable housing.

From what I understand, the province is still trying to figure out how to approach building affordable housing near transit. They’re working with B.C. Housing on how that gets programmed, and they’ve committed up to 10,000 units but haven’t advanced anything, and there is no concrete plan that British Columbians can look at, or a timeline.

How will British Columbians be assured that government will deliver this non-market housing? How much will this government continue to rely on the private sector to build what they call affordable housing, and which hasn’t been delivered?

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report last month that demonstrates how governments should focus less on fruitless incentives to the private sector and more on direct spending on non-market affordable housing.

B.C. does indeed need more housing inventory, but the solution is not just about boosting supply. We need purposeful inventory, the right type of housing in the right areas with access to the right mix of transportation and, most importantly, with livability at the core. That should be prioritized in all communities across the province but especially in smaller markets that are on the cusp of very fast growth.

There are human costs to the kind of sprawl that we see in North America. A recent study by TomTom revealed that Canadians spent approximately 144 hours in rush hour traffic across the country in 2022. Despite suburbia offering pockets of affordability and promising improved livability, this perceived appeal quickly becomes diluted with commute times.

There are also environmental impacts on the wrong kinds of development. Over 7 percent of the original wetlands in the lower Fraser Valley and parts of Vancouver Island have disappeared, and an 85 percent wetland loss has been reported in the South Okanagan due to urban sprawl.

Right now approximately 10 percent of Canada’s housing market is at risk of a one-in-100-year flood event that has been classified as essentially uninsurable. That number will only increase as we continue to build homes in floodplains and if we don’t fix our diversified infrastructure, said Kathryn Bakos, director of climate finance and science at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation.

Other questions that we have with this legislation are: how will these changes be received by local governments? How are municipalities being supported to do all the heavy lifting that Bills 44, 46 and 47 require? And how will the government ensure their numerous policy manuals for these pieces of housing legislation are accessible and that they truly support the work of local governments in updating their bylaws and OCPs — and as they communicate these changes to developers and the public and countless other impacted stakeholders? How does the government feel about downloading so much responsibility onto already significantly overburdened local governments?

It’s unclear to me how Bill 44 and the removal of public hearings for development that fit within a community’s OCP applies to this bill. While I support reforming the public hearing process, I worry that people across B.C. will feel increasingly left out and increasingly less trusting. Push-back against the ideas, for example, of 15-minute cities happens when residents are not included in conversations about the future and are relying on information being provided to them by sources that are not necessarily reliable because they are not getting reliable information from their public institutions and their governments.

[3:55 p.m.]

If people can’t see themselves in this future, that creates an environment of distrust, and what people fear about these ideas is that they are not part of the planning processes. What we are seeing with the legislation that is in front of this House right now is a potential acceleration of that feeling of dislocation, being left out of processes, being left out of planning and, unfortunately, an increase in distrust, which is the opposite direction we need to go right now as a province and as a democracy.

We are supportive of building housing near transit. However, we are also concerned about transit infrastructure in this province. I have been asking for years to have better transit between Cowichan Valley and the capital regional district, where tens of thousands of vehicles go over the Malahat highway every single day, with very limited access to transit — only a handful of buses going south in the morning, a handful of buses going north in the evening, and each way costing $10 for a trip.

This is neither accessible nor affordable transit, and it does nothing to solve the congestion that we see growing every single week on the Trans-Canada Highway coming over the Malahat and into the capital regional district.

Mayor Brad West, the chair of the Mayors Council, stated: “The fact is you can’t have transit-oriented development without transit, and TransLink’s current system is unable to keep up with the growing public demand for services across this region.”

A similar call for funding was echoed at the local level by Anita Huberman, CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade. She said: “These regulations will help guide local governments in making responsible urban development decisions that prioritize transit access and minimize environmental impacts. We urge the B.C. government to ensure there is adequate funding for enhanced transit services in Surrey.”

We believe we need the government and the province to rapidly increase public transit services across this province. I think all of us hear from constituents in every part of this province about the lack of access to public transit, particularly for an aging population who have to travel in rural and remote areas to access health care. When they don’t have access to public transit, it makes that travel extremely difficult for people.

The province has absolutely fallen behind on transit infrastructure. I looked at a map not that long ago of the Greyhound service that used to exist in British Columbia in the 1970s and 1980s. You could get anywhere on a Greyhound. I often did. I moved here when I was 20, and to get back to Alberta for Christmas holidays, I would take a Greyhound. It was a reliable and affordable form of transportation that existed that no longer exists in this province.

As we saw in the British reality travel program not that long ago, there was quite a bit of shock and surprise from people visiting Vancouver Island to discover you actually pretty much can’t get around this island or get up this island using public transit, because it doesn’t exist. To think that we are here in 2023 and the options available to people for public transit in between our communities are low to none, it’s a pretty shocking state of affairs.

Last year we were in the Interior, having a little family break, and my son asked Google the different ways to get back from Kelowna to Vancouver. Google let him know that he could cycle more quickly than he could get there by transit in January. We have a problem. We have a transit deficit problem in this province.

The TransLink Mayors Council, the group tasked with overseeing TransLink’s strategic direction…. When we think of the Lower Mainland, there is transit available, but even there, there is a deficit. The group tasked with overseeing TransLink’s strategic direction and priorities have created a ten-year plan that would cost $20 billion. However, TransLink faces a long-term funding problem. Research shows that B.C. is a hotbed for profit-driven displacement.

[4:00 p.m.]

In a report for the balanced supply of housing project at UBC, Silas Xwerub and Craig Jones show that British Columbia has significantly higher rates of evictions than the rest of the country and that 85 percent of the province’s evictions are no-fault evictions. The report attributes the prevalence of these evictions to pressures around profit-driven displacement, where the financial incentives of selling a property or raising rents lead landlords to evict tenants from their homes despite these tenants paying rent and respecting the property.

An interim report from First United’s B.C. eviction-mapping project also confirms the prevalence of these forms of profit-driven displacement. This report further notes the disproportionate effects of this kind of displacement on Indigenous, racialized and disabled members of the community, a significant portion of whom are evicted into homelessness.

There is no resolution to the housing affordability crisis that does not involve putting an end to profit-driven displacement. To hold otherwise risks perpetuating injustices rather than remedying them. To genuinely address the problem of a profit-driven displacement, we should engage with what Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò refers to as constructive politics, which would move beyond performative consultation or tokenistic representation in housing politics.

Constructive housing politics would aim to share deci­sion-​making power with those who lack adequate housing, including those who have been displaced or who are at risk of displacement, and to strive together to alleviate housing insecurity and deprivation in concrete and meaningful ways.

Much of what will unfold in this legislation, as has become more and more common in this House, will come in regulation, including the definition of “exchange.” There remain a lot of questions about how this bill will work in conversation with Bills 44 and 46.

As has been raised several times, the number of housing bills currently being debated simultaneously in this House makes it very difficult for the members of the Legislative Assembly as well as the public to get a full and complete picture on what’s happening or the intention of what this government wants to have happen from all of these pieces of legislation.

With that, I will end my comments and move over to the next chamber to find out what’s happening there.

R. Merrifield: Well, today I stand here as a representative of my constituents in Kelowna-Mission, having had the fortune of having them elect me as their representative. But I also stand here as a voice for the next generation.

As I’ve mentioned many times in this House, I have five children — two stepchildren and three of my own — ages 21 through 27. I truly believe that that next generation is the future of our beautiful province of British Columbia. I can tell you that around dinners, in their conversations, their dreams are dying. They talk more about leaving our beautiful province of B.C. than they do of staying and building a future.

We’re really at a pivotal moment in time, and as we address Bill 47, a bill that has the potential to reshape our communities and our lives, I would hope it’s with that seriousness that we approach this.

Earlier today I heard the Housing Minister laud himself for fixing housing. Bills 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 — these bills aren’t fixing housing. I don’t even know if these bills will fix housing.

[4:05 p.m.]

I can tell you is that what has happened is that in the first 6½ years of this government’s tenure as a majority, they created and flamed a housing crisis. Their first acts were to quell demand, viciously quell demand by increasing costs and taxes — 13 of them on housing specifically. It was only in the last two years that we heard the Housing Minister, who is now the Premier, actually talk about supply. Supply is what is needed.

This is a housing chaos, these bills. Regulations won’t be done until June at the very earliest on any of them, and then cities are going to have time frames in which to react. So what gets prioritized: 47, with the transit orientation, or 44? What happens when an assembly is being attempted and, all of a sudden, somebody wants to build a three-plex on their particular lot, damaging the future of density right next to a transit hub? Does 47 kick in? Does it have to meet a minimum, or is 44 more applicable in that particular situation? I don’t know. Nobody knows.

For too long, the dream of affordable housing has been just that. It’s a dream under this government. The B.C. United caucus has been tirelessly championing this cause, because every British Columbian deserves a place to call home. I used to say that I, as a developer in the private sector, tried to build, desperately, affordable and attainable housing for people.

We actually had a formula that would figure out what the average income was and then build specifically to that average income. If we could not do that successfully, we wouldn’t tackle the project, because then we weren’t building for the people that actually lived, worked and played in that community.

You know who has been building over the course of the last seven years? Developers. And you know why? CMHC. Our Premier and Housing Minister stand up and try and claim that 26,000 number of purpose-built rentals. The only reason that those have been built is because of CMHC housing funding under the federal government.

This government did nothing for the first five years of their majority and now is trying to play desperate catch-up by turning our housing crisis with the least affordable housing in North America and the worst rents, highest rents in all of Canada, into housing chaos in the last 12 months of their rule.

I hope, I really hope, that this next generation gets on their feet on voting day and actually votes to restore their dreams, because I don’t trust this NDP government and their track record on housing to take us anywhere but more into the chaos that we have already endured. Bill 47 does nothing more than track the utter failure of housing policy under this government.

The NDP have consistently underdelivered on the housing promises made. The 114,000 in ten years — remember that one? Where did it go? Nowhere. Now it’s 140,000 from somewhere. I can’t really figure out where it’s from. It’s not creating new housing; it’s not starting new units.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

It’s time for change, for action and for results, not just missed opportunities, unfulfilled commitments and promises and a lack of understanding of the supply and demand which has created our housing crisis. Really, it’s our next generation that’s going to pay the price.

[4:10 p.m.]

Is there a glimmer of hope with Bill 47? Yes. Why? It’s actually something that the B.C. United have been talking about relentlessly for at least the last three years that I’ve sat in this chair. Focusing on developing housing in strategic areas of transit is definitely a step in the right direction. On this side of the House, we believe in building communities that are vibrant, accessible and sustainable — communities where our youth can thrive.

The concept of transit-oriented development areas is awesome. It’s not revolutionary. I just listened to the Leader of the Third Party talk about all of the cities across the world that we could have used as examples over the last seven years. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We can follow best practices that we can find all over this world.

It’s more than just buildings. I’ve already critiqued the fact that this government doesn’t know how to build buildings. It doesn’t know how to stimulate the economy through building of housing. It doesn’t know how to provide…. As we heard from my colleague from the Sea to Sky, we know that they don’t know how to build enough housing for the workers that our companies desperately need.

It’s also about building transit. We have been chronically starving our transit. I know I’ve been advocating for more transit within my community. I’ve sat at meetings with the minister in estimates, asking questions about how we could get more transit. Right now from my riding, it takes two hours to take a bus to the university. Do you know what university students are going to do? Drive.

Yes, transit-oriented development areas are awesome. This is about talking about bringing life, energy and accessibility to the places that we live. This is about ensuring that those investments that government makes are married and put together with the density necessary to really create that vibrancy, where we integrate housing and transportation and where our neighbourhoods come to life.

What’s going to happen when Bill 47 is implemented? Well, right now, we have planning staff that don’t know what to do. For applications that come in, what do they make them subject to? We’re not sure. Do we set them to the minimums that have been determined? Do we allow them to move forward, as per the current OCP? Planning staff don’t know what to do.

Councils don’t know what to do. The council debate is: “Well, what happens when the provincial legislation comes to fruition? Does anyone know what the regulations are going to be?” They don’t know.

Now we’re talking about OCPs. Kelowna just adopted its OCP this current year. They’re going to go back to the drawing board and redo an entire OCP process with the transportation plans and all the new laws that have come into being? This is going to take huge amounts of time, millions of dollars per municipality, and all the while, they don’t even have the funding for transit.

Could this have a long-term effect positively? Who knows? I don’t trust this NDP government to implement anything well. If implemented positively, we know that transit-oriented development can reduce congestion, shor­ten commute times and foster those vibrant communities, but we don’t have that confidence.

While we can support the bill’s fundamental principles, perhaps, we have to scrutinize its broader implications, especially because this is left with so much to regulation. As representatives of our constituents, it’s our duty to meticulously review the bill’s details in the committee stage, but I don’t know.

[4:15 p.m.]

We’ve got so many bills running and so many different committees, I’m not even sure how we’re going to get through them all in the next seven days of sitting. What I do know is that we need to do something, because the soaring housing costs in cities like Vancouver, Surrey and Kelowna exemplify the urgent need for a diverse range of housing options.

We don’t only need concrete and steel towers sitting next to transit. We don’t just need six-storey wood-frames. We need a variety of housing options. It’s the only way that we can actually provide for all of the complex needs of our communities. We’ve been advocating for growth concentrated along transit and arterial corridors, trying to avoid unmanaged sprawl and promote livability, but this NDP government is actually encouraging sprawl, by mandating four units for every single-family lot.

In my community, single-family lots aren’t in the core areas; single-family lots are on the outskirts. Those are in the far-reaching suburbs of Kelowna; those are on the hillside communities. How is that going to be managed now against trying to provide for density along transit corridors?

News flash: it’s chaos. We, as a caucus, remain committed to ensuring that this legislation will fulfil its intended purpose, but we will introduce a comprehensive plan focused on green urban density, offering sustainable solutions to housing that avoid the pitfalls of unchecked sprawl.

Our plan is not going to be mere rhetoric, like the NDP’s. It’s going to actually create sustainable, livable spaces for today and for the future. In our forthcoming policies, we’re going to stimulate both the private and the non-profit sectors towards sustainable growth, focusing on urban density. With a comprehensive approach at our core, our vision is going to extend to more than just political talk.

A. B.C. United government would actually have tangible results. In conclusion, while I can look and support the general principles of Bill 47, I do so with a critical eye and a demand for action.

I don’t want to just talk about change; I want to make it happen. In B.C. United, we’re here for the long haul, ready to pave the way for a brighter and more sustainable future for British Columbia. I want to build a legacy for my children or my grandchildren and for generations to come. I want to restore their dreams and give them a reason to stay in B.C.

M. Lee: I rise to speak in support of Bill 47.

I know that it has been recognized, even by our Premier and members on the other side, that we recognize the importance of building housing, so much so that the Leader of the Official Opposition, when he was the Minister of Transportation with the former Premier Gordon Campbell, saw the need, of course, to build transportation infrastructure.

The Canada Line, which runs right through my riding of Vancouver-Langara, from 2010 and 2011 has now seen the vision of what is contemplated here under the importance of transit-oriented development. I can tell you that I’ve been advocating since 2017 for the continued build up of the Canada Line because, as the population grew, in and on the Cambie corridor, we saw the importance of adding additional stations at 33rd and Cambie and at 57th and Cambie.

[4:20 p.m.]

This is the need that citizens and residents in South Vancouver have been calling on this government to support, but we’ve seen nothing but silence for seven years. We’ve seen a continued inequity, as identified by the South Vancouver Neighbourhood House and a study by Simon Fraser University, that South Vancouver continues to suffer from a lack of transportation infrastructure, transit infrastructure, in South Vancouver.

There are residents in South Vancouver who rely more on public transit than anywhere else in the city of Vancouver, and 32 percent of residents in South Vancouver get to work every day on public transit.

I know, just as this bill contemplates, that even for a bus exchange, a bus exchange that’s located, for example, at Marine Drive…. The Marine Drive station at the foot of the Canada Line is a bus loop. I know that I hear from residents at my community chat in Marpole, when I knock on doors in Marpole and across South Vancouver, that even a few blocks away from that bus exchange, the bus is full, because it loads up.

It’s the future of what we’re talking about when we’re talking about transit-oriented development. It’s the reason why, at Marine Gateway, at the foot of Cambie Street and Marine Drive, there are at least six construction cranes right now. We’ve seen five towers built over the course of time because of the Canada Line, the investment that the Leader of the Official Opposition led in getting that transportation infrastructure built.

But we’ve also seen a real lack of bus service. TransLink has continued to be quite challenged to provide the necessary bus service along 41st Avenue, along 49th Avenue and north-south on Main Street and Fraser Street. These are examples of these transit-oriented streets where we need to ensure more frequency of bus service.

Again, as I talk to bus drivers who live in my riding, long-time transit workers that have to bypass many bus stops…. By the time you go from Marine Drive on Fraser Street or Main Street, you’re having to bypass, going north, residents waiting, students, elderly people, people waiting to get to work, at bus stops on 57th, 59th, 49th, 41st. This is the challenge.

When we talk about the importance of transit-oriented development, we need a government that understands that it’s all connected. It’s interconnected. Transit is interconnected with housing, of course, but it’s also interconnected with other forms of transit, like bus service — bus service that’s needed on 57th Avenue.

I’ve been advocating for a long time now that TransLink needs to consider additional bus service on 57th Avenue. Why is that? It’s because under this government…. When I first became elected in 2017 in Vancouver-Langara, I understood from residents and seniors that they were very concerned about the plans to shut down the only community health centre in all of South Vancouver, which is located at Knight and 49th Avenue.

That plan is still in place, because there’s a consolidation, as the Minister of Health knows…. I was at the announcement the minister made when he opened the new Pearson care centre on the Pearson Dogwood lands. This is, again, situated at 57th and Cambie on the Canada Line. But residents don’t have an opportunity and a way to get to that consolidated service at 57th and Cambie.

South Vancouver, with the rising population — again, based on the transit lines that were built, the Canada Line — doesn’t have the kind of community health supports that other parts of Vancouver have. This goes to the neighbourhood inequity that we see and the lack of community infrastructure that is in place in South Vancouver.

[4:25 p.m.]

Another example that I’ve seen under this government is…. They came forward, under the former Minister of Education, to have a seismic replacement school at Eric Hamber Secondary School at 33rd and Oak. We know that this was a seismic replacement school that reduced the size of extracurricular space by 19 percent, eliminated the auditorium.

Parents and families and students and alumni of Eric Hamber Secondary, myself and the member for Vancouver-Fairview across the aisle, the Minister of Environment — we worked together to support the expansion of that school, at least to put the auditorium in place.

The Ministry of Education and the Vancouver school board did find the additional $7 million to put the auditorium back into the school plan. That school is now almost under completion at this point.

But as we see the continued development opportunities for housing, MST lands, on Heather Lands, the former RCMP headquarters at 33rd and Cambie; as we see the continued build of a second town centre for Vancouver at Oakridge, 41st and Cambie; as we see the additional builds at 57th and Cambie, on the Canada Line, and the need for that Canada Line station; we see a government and a Ministry of Education that continue to understand and recognize, by their estimates, that the student population of Vancouver is going to grow by 10,000 students by 2030.

Yet under this current Minister of Education, she is allowing the Vancouver school board to continue to operate with a forecast that goes the opposite direction, a 5,000 student decrease.

Deputy Speaker: Could the member help the Chair understand the connection to the legislation?

M. Lee: Mr. Speaker, we’re talking about building transit-oriented development. What I’m pointing out is that these are all connected — the importance of building schools that meet the needs of a rising population around transit.

We have seen, for seven years, no capital funding going into South Vancouver or Vancouver, into the Vancouver school board. We’ve seen the Vancouver school board having to make tough choices: to subdivide land at Graham Bruce Elementary, for example; to close schools, Queen Elizabeth Annex in the Leader of the Official Opposition’s riding, in Vancouver-Quilchena; in my riding of Vancouver-Langara, the Ideal Mini School to be consolidated with Churchill Secondary School. We recognize, of course, with Laurier Elementary School, that there were 30 students that were on the wait-list to get into a school place, and that’s what’s happened in that building.

The fact of the matter is that we should be planning with the city of Vancouver for growth. If this government is going to come forward to recognize the importance of transit-oriented development…. Again, this is what the former government has done for years, to build additional transit. As we continue to build that out for communities, including in South Vancouver, we need to ensure that we’re building the right level of education and health care supports that go along with it.

We know that it’s been a challenge. It’s been a challenge for this government to recognize that where we need to have…. With the highest housing costs and rental charges that we’re seeing in South Vancouver, we’re seeing that level of lack of planning.

We need to ensure, with municipalities, that we’re working with the city of Vancouver to ensure that we are actually building the kind of infrastructure to support increased housing, including rental, around the Oakridge site. We know that that right mix of housing, the missing middle that we’ve seen under the former mayor of Vancouver, back in the day — actually two mayors ago, in 2016-2017 — needs to be addressed, including along the Cambie corridor, with the right mix of housing.

That suggests, of course, that there will be families coming with that housing, the rental housing, as well. We want to ensure that those families that want to continue to build a future in South Vancouver have the opportunity to do that in the areas of density that are being created around transit sites. I know, in talking, even, with builders of housing around 41st and Cambie, that when this bill came out…. Now, instead of building condos and townhouses, they’re looking at building greater density.

[4:30 p.m.]

This is exactly what this bill is looking to accomplish. But the challenge is that without the right level of community infrastructure in South Vancouver — in Sunset, in Marpole, in Langara and Oakridge — we’re seeing a challenge.

There’s a disconnect in terms of how this provincial government needs to be working with the city of Vancouver to ensure that we’re planning healthy, sustainable and safe communities around Oakridge and the Canada Line. I know, as we look at how we can alleviate the congestion as we continue to build more housing on the Cambie corridor, Granville Street, Oak Street, that even something as important as community safety, road safety….

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I continue to talk to constituents between Granville and Oak, around 70th in South Vancouver. Cars, of course, that speed down Oak Street or Granville Street to get to the Oak Street Bridge, the Arthur Laing Bridge, to get through Richmond or are going to work the other way are bypassing those major streets and going through the side streets.

That’s the reason why we have to ensure that — even our roadways and how we plan our roadways — we take the pressure off these roadways through improved transit. I know that many constituents and residents in Marpole are heartbroken in many ways. We know the importance of a second bus depot for TransLink, for the electric buses that are going to come to service Vancouver residents.

But the fact of the matter is that South Vancouver continues to eat and bear the burden of that development with a second bus barn. It’s on the site where there was a commitment by the former city of Vancouver government to build green space, a park that was promised with the increased density in Marpole. This is just yet another example of a failed promise to those people in Marpole.

I know that I’m grateful to the mayor of Vancouver and city council for agreeing to an amendment that was put forward, that I’ve been seeking with other residents in the community to consider, at least at a minimum, that when we’re talking about community amenities and recognition of our green space and the Fraser River, there be a walking path considered in partnership with the Musqueam peoples. That is an initiative that is going forward, we hope in progress, to be made.

Going back to the importance of side streets, we see four-way stops and children and elderly people that are crossing their side streets. It has a major impact on the safety of those children. I can speak from experience, on a personal note, when my daughter recently was hit at a four-way stop when she was driving her vehicle. It was a person who was making his way to work, rushing to work. He ran through a four-way-stop sign.

We have the same kinds of situations in South Vancouver. The kinds of pressure as we build up density in South Vancouver is a concern for me. So I hope that as the government comes forward with this particular bill, we look to ensure that we don’t do things in a piecemeal fashion, that we ensure that we continue to build healthy, safe and sustainable communities, including in South Vancouver.

P. Milobar: I take my place in Bill 47 debate. I just want to maybe add a few comments as we close out the bill. It’s really around what we’ve seen — or what we haven’t seen, actually — happen in terms of action around housing over the last seven years the NDP have been government.

Bill 47. We certainly endorse the concept of intensive densification in and around transit hubs and transit corridors. In fact, it’s something our leader has long advocated for, even when he was the Transportation Minister. It was building the type of high-speed infrastructure that you would need to see the types of development, as we just heard from my colleague, in areas around Vancouver, on the Canada Line and certainly what we’re seeing happen now that the Evergreen Line is built.

Both lines, I do believe, the NDP were opposed to at the time of them being announced and being constructed and funded. But at least they have now realized that high-speed transit is an important part of the overall growth and densification of communities. It’s taken them a while. It would have been nice if they had actually felt that way for the seven years that they’ve been government so far, so we could have actually seen something substantively built by this point, under their watch. But better late than never, I guess.

[4:35 p.m.]

The biggest problem and the biggest concerns that we have as an opposition around this bill…. Again, it’s not the premise of the bill. It’s not the concept of densification. This is yet another housing bill where…. Its substantive detail is being left to regulation after the fact, with no clear or real timeline on what the government intends to have in place and how quickly and, then, how quickly communities will have to enact those changes.

When you look at the fact that there’s going to have to be a tie-in to official community plans…. We heard my colleague from Kelowna talking about that as well.

There are already one or two other pieces of housing legislation that have come forward that have shifted back to local planning departments around official community plans and reworking those and getting those back in and submitted to the province so everyone knows what’s being contemplated in those communities. More importantly, official community plans, to be updated properly and effectively, actually require a great deal of community input, which will take another year or two.

Really, I guess, our underlying concern is…. This very much does feel like a government who, after seven years of failing miserably on the housing file, of seeing the highest rents in Canada, of seeing the highest housing prices in Canada, of seeing their own housing programs fail miserably….

There was just a report out of Kamloops, where I’m from, today. Over the last couple of years, this government has bought several buildings for $30 million. Only 80 of the 200-plus units available in those existing buildings, which needed renovations, actually have people in them. That has been over the last couple of years.

With a track record like that from this government and the lack of action around housing, it’s easy to see why we, in opposition, see these bills and Bill 47, in particular, as a way to rush through and to appear to be taking action, yet again, on housing. Yet everything we have seen the appearance of action on housing over the last seven years by this government has not actually resulted in any meaningful improvement in the housing situation for the residents of British Columbia. In fact, it has done the exact opposite. By every measure, everything they have touched on housing has failed.

The attitude of this government…. “Here’s some legislation. Just trust us. We’ll deal with it in regulation after the fact.” Frankly, they have not built that level of trust in communities to have that. That’s why you will see local governments quietly grumbling — they’re worried about retribution from this government — about a lot of these pieces of legislation. Bill 47, with some of the unknowns….

I’m from a municipal council background. A great many people in this chamber are from a municipal government background. I don’t think I would be able to find a council around that really is fundamentally opposed to densification in and around planned-out transit corridors and transit hubs.

The fact that we can’t have even more detail in this bill than is there is troubling, especially when you layer it with other bills like Bill 44, Bill 45, Bill 46, I believe it is, and now Bill 47. I can’t keep track of all the bills that they’ve rushed in on housing.

In fact, we’re debating a different housing bill right now. Bill 44 is in a different chamber, as we’re closing out debate on this housing bill to soon have debate on a different bill, Bill 45, which also has a whole bunch of housing clauses in that bill, just to add to the layer of how ridiculous this legislative schedule has turned into. I say that….

When you consider…. We’re debating Bill 47, on housing, while the Housing Minister is dealing with Bill 44. I guess we could give the Housing Minister the benefit of the doubt for the scheduling of how these bills have all hit with housing, except for the fact that the Housing Minister is actually the Government House Leader and is also in charge of the legislative program. He has the final sign-off on the bills and how they’re going to come forward to this chamber.

Instead of actually properly doling out housing bills so we could be dealing with one housing bill at a time, we’re now faced with everything at the end of the session being housing, multiple bills at multiple times. In fact, even the motion that caused the controversy earlier today…. If you look at Bill 47, how that ties into that….

[4:40 p.m.]

Finishing second reading debate on Bill 47 today and finishing second reading debate on Bill 45 today…. You cannot have the ability to have both of those bills in committee stage at the same time. They both have significant impacts on housing. So rushing them through and demanding they both end tonight actually doesn’t really do anything for the scheduling for the Housing Minister/Government House Leader moving forward.

It was very performative of him, but it doesn’t actually do anything for the scheduling moving forward, unless he’s planning on debating two bills literally at the same time at committee stage, when questions are being asked about substantive areas of the bill.

It’s that type of ham-fistedness of these bills that is causing the opposition a little bit of worry and the public worry and municipal councils worry. It’s not the concept of Bill 47, about ensuring that there is a minimum higher level of densification than we may have seen in the past on these major transportation corridors that require significant public dollars of investment into those areas.

So we look forward to committee stage. We really do hope that, unlike some of these other housing bills, the answers are not a repeated, “I can’t answer that; it’s being left to regulation,” but that we can actually get some depth of actual answer out of the Housing Minister.

With that, I will take my place in the debate.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the question is second reading of Bill 47.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 47, Housing Statutes (Transit-Oriented Areas) 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. N. Sharma: I call second reading of Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 4). I move that the bill now be read a second time.

BILL 45 — MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 4), 2023

Hon. N. Sharma: Part 1 of this bill amends the Community Charter and Vancouver Charter by adding a description of a reasonably available shelter for the purpose of informing local governments and the courts of the context of injunctions to remove homeless encampments.

Local governments have increasingly turned to the courts to resolve homeless encampments. These amendments will provide the courts and local governments with criteria to consider regarding the important question of where those sheltering would go if displaced from an encampment.

Encampments may offer people temporary refuge, but they are not a safe and suitable form of permanent housing. The description of shelter in this bill is a minimum standard met by all provincially funded shelters and is exceeded, in most cases, as many have a range of health, social and cultural supports. Shelter provided through the range of supportive, subsidized and other housing developed through the Belonging in B.C. homelessness plan and the Homes for People housing strategy would also meet and exceed the standard established in this legislation.

Part 2 of this bill provides necessary amendments to the Professional Governance Act, which sets the general parameters for professional governance in British Columbia, including the establishment of the office of the superintendent of professional governance.

These amendments have been primarily driven by the operational experience of the office of the superintendent of professional governance in relation to the provisions that provide for the assessment and designation of new professions.

The amendments will address two issues. Firstly, they clarify the process for consideration of new professions to be designated under the Professional Governance Act. Secondly, they clarify the process for establishing or continuing a corporation under the Professional Governance Act or assigning responsibility for regulating a new profession to an existing regulator.

These proposed amendments reflect the government’s commitment to transparency and administrative efficiency, ensuring a pathway for new professions to come under a modern governance framework that protects the public interest.

Part 3 of the bill amends the Insurance Corporation Act to remove outdated and unnecessary processes and language to make the Insurance Corporation Act of British Columbia’s legal frame more consistent with those of other major Crown corporations.

Part 3 also makes a consequential amendment to the Insurance (Vehicle) Act for consistency.

Part 4 proposes amendments that would amend the Water User Communities Act and the Drainage, Ditch and Dike Act to allow electronic meetings to continue to take place. The amendments are needed to ensure that entities under these statutes can continue to conduct business via electronic meetings following the December 31, 2022, expiry of the electronic attendance at statutory meetings COVID-19 order.

[4:45 p.m.]

The proposed amendments would make it clear that entities under the WCA and the DDDA are permitted to meet, vote and conduct other statutory business electronically, consistent with other legislation overseen by the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.

The amendments also update notice requirements to provide clarity and transportation around how people may participate in electronic meetings. These amendments will mean that entities that meet under these statutes will be permitted to meet electronically, consistent with the practices of most other statutory bodies.

M. de Jong: Thanks to the Attorney for her remarks.

The standard practice, generally, with respect to these miscellaneous statute amendment acts, as we’ve done several times in this session, is to make some perfunctory remarks and then send the bill into committee for more detailed analysis. The opposition has facilitated that.

On occasions when we’ve done that, though, I think I’ve made the point that occasionally, provisions may be inserted into one of these bills that attract the attention and the concern of the opposition to the extent where the opposition may feel compelled to take steps that register more clearly and earlier the opposition’s concern and/or opposition to the bill and particular provisions of the bill. I think, in fairness, we have arrived at one of those moments, and I’ll take advantage of my time here to highlight to the House where those concerns lie.

The other thing I generally do with these bills is to signal through the Attorney to her colleagues where there may be some questions, and I think there will be some questions on the section of the bill dealing with post-secondary education, future skills and professional governance provisions, which are clauses 3 through 15. There may or may not be a question — I think there will be — on the public safety side, those provisions dealing with the Insurance Corp. and some exploratory questions on the Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship section dealing with the Drainage Ditch and Dike Act.

My time will be focused on the first two sections of the bill, dealing with the Community Charter and the Vancouver Charter. They do cause the opposition and, perhaps more importantly, communities around the province a fair measure of concern. We are going to endeavour to register that concern and explore further, ultimately at committee stage, with the government the rationale behind proceeding in this way.

Let me say this at the outset. The notion that people need and must have a roof over their heads is fundamental, and not just any roof — a safe place. I remember in 2017, and a few years before that, I was at the opening of Hearthstone Place in my community of Abbotsford, and a few years before that, the Christine Lamb housing and shelter, also in another part of my community.

I remember thinking then how lucky folks like me tend to take for granted the idea of going home to a home and being able to tuck myself in at night, secure in the knowledge that I’m in a safe place. It’s never really been an issue. I think we sort of take that for granted until we realize that for a growing number of people, that’s not necessarily the case. That was certainly brought home to me at those times.

[4:50 p.m.]

I mention those two. They are two of the many that I attended and that I remember, as much because it impacted me but also to discount this notion that we sometimes hear around here from the folks on the other side that nothing was done to address issues of homelessness during the time that my colleagues and I served in government. There is ample, ample evidence to the contrary. I’ve mentioned just two that remain and continue to have a profoundly positive impact in my community of Abbotsford.

The inclusion of the two clauses in this bill, clauses 1 and 2, I’m going to suggest represents an admission of failure on a colossal scale. That the government would feel it necessary to limit a community’s opportunity to seek injunctive relief to address this growing proliferation of tent cities is hardly something that the government should be celebrating. They should, in fact, be hanging their heads in shame that it would be necessary to take this step.

In the last 20 years, just under 20 years, we have all heard, and we see on a regular basis, reports of homelessness counts. I’m going to take a minute to put on the record where we’re at and why I believe the inclusion of these clauses represents such a dramatic admission of failure. I’ll take the period starting in 2017. It’s about a five-year period, 2017 to 2023.

According to the homelessness counts, the same methodology that has been employed since, apparently, 2005, in Burnaby, homelessness increased by 203 percent. In Delta, over the same period of time, 2017 to 2023, homelessness increased by 132 percent; in Richmond, by 131 percent; in Surrey, by 76 percent; in the North Shore, by 68 percent; New Westminster, by 53 percent; Tri-Cities, by 37 percent; Langley, by 14 percent; greater Victoria, by 22 percent; Cranbrook, by 300 percent. Homelessness has increased in that five-year period by 300 percent.

In Fort St. John, 67 percent; Merritt, 509 percent. Homelessness in the city of Merritt has increased between 2018 and 2023 by 509 percent. In Parksville-Qualicum, 145 percent; Penticton, 54 percent; Prince Rupert, 106 percent; Smithers, 97 percent; Terrace, 46 percent; Williams Lake, 79 percent.

That’s data that is collected every year. Same methodology. It hasn’t changed since 2005.

The government’s response to that and the growing proliferation of tent cities and all that that has implied appears in Bill 45 in the first two clauses.

[4:55 p.m.]

It’s the government pointing the finger yet again and saying to communities and local governments, who are on the front lines of keeping their communities safe: “If you decide that you don’t like what’s going on in these tent cities….” And let’s be clear. Some terrible things are going on there. Some incredibly dangerous, bad things are taking place.

But the government has now said, in the bill sponsored by the Attorney General, that if you want to go to court and make an application to address that, to protect the safety of your community and address some of the criminal behaviour that is taking place, we’re going to significantly limit your ability to do that by tying it to something that we, ultimately, as a provincial government, have responsibility for, and that is the availability of shelter beds.

We’re going to point the finger…. We, the provincial government, NDP government, is going to point the finger at communities, and we’re going to say you can’t bring that application unless you can call evidence about something that you’re not actually responsible for — that we, the provincial government, are responsible for. And, in virtually all of…. Well, I think in all of the communities I’ve mentioned, we know today that the provincial government has failed to ensure that there are sufficient shelter beds available to house that growing proliferation of homelessness.

Now, think about that. How much sense does that make? No, the government, I can anticipate…. At some point, I guess we’ll hear from the Housing Minister. I will be shocked not to hear from him in second reading on this bill. But I expect when we do, assuming we do, he will say something to the effect of what he has said in the past, which is: “Well, you know, the courts have made these rulings, and all we’re trying to do is codify what the courts have said.”

But that’s not correct. Yes, the courts have provided some guidance around when they believe an injunctive relief should be granted, and they have provided an interpretation of how the charter protects the right of an individual without a home to be on public property in certain limited circumstances. The courts have not said, in my view, that communities should be limited from protecting the safety of their towns and their citizens by bringing an application for an injunction, yet that is what the government purports to do in clauses 1 and 2 of the bill before the House.

If these provisions pass, even in circumstances where a community believes there are serious safety concerns at play, they will be precluded from successfully bringing an application for injunctive relief. Ironically, in bringing that application, they will be dependent, in the evidence that they will be obliged to call, on information that they have to get from the provincial government, which has been notoriously slow and uncooperative in providing that information.

Imagine a community whose taxpayers are now trying to address, through their council, an issue. We had the issue in Abbotsford. I can go around the House and point to members who have had similar concerns. I’ll come to one here in a few moments that even the government felt obliged to take action on.

[5:00 p.m.]

So a community decides enough is enough. The criminal activity, the criminal drug activity and the criminal activity perpetrated against women in some of these locations has to stop, and we’re going to bring an application.

Well, in order to do that, they require information from the government that, first of all, the government has been notoriously unreliable in providing. Ultimately, they need to be able to demonstrate through that information that the provincial government has provided sufficient shelter beds. They don’t have any control over that. It is a remarkable exercise in finger-pointing, along the lines of what we have seen time and time again from the government.

It wasn’t that long ago when the government finally decided…. I guess at the beginning of the year, they were feeling the heat. The NDP government evicted the encampments along East Hastings Street in Vancouver. The provincial government did that. Ironically, they would be in violation of their own law. They would be in violation of their own provisions, and the arguments were all the same.

The arguments were around public safety. Those were arguments that the provincial government thought they could deploy in support of closing down an encampment. But those same arguments won’t be available to communities across British Columbia, because of the provisions that the Attorney General has introduced in this miscellaneous bill and her colleagues have brought to the House.

It’s not fair. It’s also bad policy. It will do nothing to increase or positively influence the attitude people have right now about the state of public safety in this province.

All of this is taking place against the backdrop that I’ve just referred to, which is dramatically increased levels of homelessness across British Columbia, a completely inadequate response from the provincial government and now, in a further attempt to camouflage that colossal failure, further finger-pointing to limit the ability communities will have to address the results of the provincial government’s failures.

We’re not supportive. Yes, there will be tremendous, extensive questioning of the government, of the minister, for what has provoked and what the implications of these provisions in the legislation are. We think they are egregious enough, quite frankly, to justify not supporting the bill in second reading. We’ll register that concern and that opposition, because of the magnitude of the failure this represents insofar as a topic of public policy that this government insists is a priority, but the evidence just mounts for how dismally they have failed to achieve anything amounting to positive results.

I think I have probably made it clear where the majority of the attention is going to be focused by the opposition, with respect to the provisions of Bill 45. There will be, as I mentioned, some additional questions in a few of the other areas, but the government won’t be surprised to know we take seriously the concerns that communities across B.C. have been articulating about what the implications of these two clauses will be for their ability to keep their communities safe. And we will be articulating our opposition at every instance, including the second reading of this bill.

[5:05 p.m.]

P. Milobar: I take my place on Bill 45, and you’ll probably find a recurring theme from the official opposition around a lot of these pieces of legislation that purport to be helping housing, that purport to be making it…. As the Minister of Housing said when Bill 45 was introduced, this will make things easier for municipalities to deal with encampments.

The reality is, if you actually read the bill, that it does the exact opposite of that. As my colleague just pointed out, the simple fact that the government would have been in contravention of their own law when they got rid of the encampment in Vancouver not too long ago is all you really need to know — that this does not make things easier to deal with encampments. So to say that those statements made by the Housing Minister when this bill was introduced were disingenuous is probably the politest way I could phrase it.

There are lots of municipalities that wouldn’t necessarily read that heavily into a piece of legislation when it first gets introduced, let alone if they hear the minister saying, “Oh, trust me; this will make things easier for you,” to deal with one of the most difficult things mayors and councils have to deal with in their communities, which is trying to do the right thing for the homeless population and get them into safe and warm housing, sheltering, while at the same time fielding numerous phone calls from business associations, from residents, from residents’ groups about the ever-growing encampment situation they have. Be it on riverbanks, be it in parks — you name it — it’s an ever-growing problem.

When you look at city after city after city, they do not have the capacity nor the taxing authority, frankly, to be building these shelters and staffing these shelters and paying for these shelters. The property tax system was not designed for that. The property tax system is designed to help municipalities pay for the basics that municipalities need to provide for their residents.

The transfer of wealth, the taxation to create transfer of wealth and programs around that…. That’s what the senior levels of government do with their taxation. That’s what they do provincially, and that’s what they do federally, and that’s where those responsibilities lie.

For every tax dollar you pay, municipalities collect about eight cents of that dollar. The other 92 cents are collected by the federal and provincial governments to provide services like sheltering and emergency sheltering. Unfortunately, with this bill….

And again, buried in a miscellaneous stats bill — something as critically important as the discussion around how to deal with homeless encampments in this province. Not a standalone bill, just as we saw with the previous miscellaneous stats bill that had 79 sections out of the 120 that were actually dealing with housing — not having that as a standalone bill, not having this issue as a standalone bill. We’ll bury it in something called miscellaneous stats to try to downplay the impact to municipalities. Then we’ll have the Housing Minister go out and say: “Don’t worry, municipalities; this will actually make life easier for you.”

It won’t. Municipalities are already paying for shelters when they shouldn’t be — $350,000, $700,000. Pick the city. Pick the location. They’re shouldering more and more and more of the costs, because this government, over the last seven years, has totally failed to provide adequate sheltering space in communities. Every year it’s a mad scramble. This government is surprised that, come November, it gets cold in B.C.

[5:10 p.m.]

So they look to the communities, and they say: “Well, it’s your fault. You didn’t tell us where we have a location to put one. You haven’t found a city facility for us to use. You haven’t done what you need to do, municipality.” Then they drag their feet with a service provider in that community, nickel-and-dime them to death, wondering why they can’t operate properly, for enough hours for enough months of the year.

They turn around with Bill 45 and say: “Oh, trust us. It’ll make things easier.” Well, it won’t make things easier, because unless the municipality steps up and spends even more money to create a shelter space, when this government knows there is already a lack of shelter spaces, this legislation actually doubles down on the concept that you can’t get rid of the encampment if there’s no place to move people. Again, this government would have been in contravention of this exact legislation had they enacted it sooner.

My colleague had referenced some of the homeless stats, and I think it’s important that we keep in mind that all of these time frames of these homeless statistics are under the watch of this government.

In Metro Vancouver from 2017 to 2023, it has increased by 34 percent. That’s all the time frame of this government. Burnaby, 203 percent, all under the watch of this government. Delta, 132 percent — same thing, all under this government’s watch. Richmond, 131 percent. Kamloops, from 2021 to 2023, is up 51 percent in those two years. The government can’t even blame COVID on that. Those are post-COVID numbers.

The government likes to say: “Well, homelessness went up during COVID.” Okay. Let’s say it did. How do you explain the numbers from 2021 to 2023 going up by another 51 percent?

The list goes on and on: Cranbrook, 300 percent; Fort St. John, 67 percent; Merritt, 509 percent — all under this government’s watch. The vast majority of those communities I just mentioned all deal with extreme cold weather — Smithers, 97 percent; Terrace, 46 percent; Williams Lake, 79 percent. All have a shortage of provincial government shelter space.

It’s reprehensible that this government would turn around and say this bill is actually going to make things easier for municipalities to deal with homeless encampments. It categorically won’t. They should at least be upfront with municipalities about the constant downloading they’re putting on them and the cost pressures that will show through on people’s property tax bills.

From one item to another. This is the latest example. It’s, frankly, offensive that this government would try to spin a piece of legislation like this as good news for municipalities. It’s certainly not good news for the homeless population, which has exploded under this government’s watch.

This government has a habit of not liking when the facts don’t align with their rhetoric. But the simple reality with housing is that as we have seen a steady increase of rents in this province, under this government’s watch, which has now led to the most expensive rents in Canada, under this government’s watch, we’ve had an explosion of homelessness under this government’s watch.

Jeez. I wonder if there’s a connection there. I wonder if there’s a correlation of people not being able to afford rent in British Columbia and becoming homeless.

But when you bring that up to the government, they shrug and say: “Oh no, everything’s wonderful in B.C. You know, people are struggling a little.” But inflation is a good-news story, according to the Finance Minister. “We’re helping people,” the government says. But they don’t actually scratch the surface and see the ramification of the data that shows that B.C. has the highest rents in Canada and is the most unaffordable province in Canada, not just in rents but on everything.

[5:15 p.m.]

What’s the ramification? Well, that’s why we’re dealing with Bill 45 — because of the explosion of homelessness in B.C., which is the other side of those stats. This government has had seven years to address it, and they’ve done nothing that has worked.

The numbers don’t lie. These aren’t B.C. United’s homeless numbers. These are from homeless counts that take place across the province by the same people that were doing them before, the same organizations, the same way of collecting data, and they align lockstep with the ever-increasing rents and housing affordability and general lack of affordability in this province, from the explosion of food bank usage to, now, homelessness.

For this government to say they’re finally serious about housing after seven years of one failed policy after the other…. The best we get is a cavalcade of bits and pieces of legislation that all somewhat overlap but can’t all be collated into one bill. They’ve all got to be separate pieces of legislation, so you can follow the bouncing ball around.

Then they bury something as critical as what’s going on with the homeless population in B.C. They don’t want to be proud of that. So they bury it in a miscellaneous stats bill. They don’t want to actually have an open and honest conversation with the public about the explosion of homelessness under their watch at the same time that rents have become the most expensive in Canada. There are undoubtedly some homeless that have lost their homes that were owners. But I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority are likely renters.

We look forward to committee stage, and I’ll say it again. We certainly hope that it’s not just a non-stop litany of: “Well, we’ll deal with that in regulation.” But there’s simply not a good enough explanation coming out of this government right now to explain away the fact that we have the most expensive rents in Canada and an ever-exploding homeless population that they are now putting totally at the feet of municipalities to have to deal with and trying to walk away from it under the guise of doing something that will make it easier for municipalities.

It’s not right. They need to be more forthcoming with the municipalities and the general public, actually take some responsibility for once, after their seven years of failed governance of this province, stop trying to point the finger elsewhere, look in the mirror, and realize that it’s their policies that are creating this mess.

S. Furstenau: Following on the comments from the member from Kamloops north, I think it is a really important conversation that we need to be having about the clauses in Bill 45, miscellaneous statutes, that are specifically around definitions around encampments.

I have very specific concerns about the first two clauses of Bill 45. The proposed additions to the Vancouver Charter and Community Charter are troubling. At first glance, these clauses appear to be clarifying definitions for the courts — the definition that describes a typical shelter space. However, the definition provided describes less than the bare minimum for shelter. It fails to recognize the accessibility of shelters and the barriers that people face in accessing these types of spaces.

These clauses create a definition for what constitutes reasonably available shelter: “For the purposes of enforcing … a bylaw against a person who is sheltering at an encampment while homeless.” The definition does not accommodate nuance nor accessibility, yet if passed would be the de jure definition used in court decisions around decampment injunctions. This is concerning, as justices would no longer be able to use the wealth of precedents, nor nuanced judgment, when deciding if an injunction should be granted to a city.

[5:20 p.m.]

Years of court cases, supported by countless hours of personal testimony and affidavits, have created a definition of “reasonably accessible shelter” that is used in the courts. Yet this definition proposed by the B.C. government, proposed by the B.C. NDP, would scrap this precedent to make it easier for municipalities to get granted injunctions for decampments. Lawyers, advocates, law professors and community members are worried about the impacts this legislation will have on unhoused and precariously housed residents.

In a Vancouver Sun article published last week, Lori Culbert and Dan Fumano wrote about the housing affordability crisis and explained that even high-income earners are at risk of eviction: “Regardless of incomes, the fallout from many of these evictions is horrendous. First United data shows 45 percent of Indigenous tenants could not immediately find a new home after being evicted, and that was also true for a quarter of non-Indigenous people. Some said they were forced to live in cars, trucks or trailers, sometimes with family members, including children, seniors and people with disabilities.”

All of us, in our communities and our constituencies, are hearing the stories of people who are losing housing. People of every age, of every background in this province are being evicted from housing, and the data shows that 25 percent of non-Indigenous and 45 percent of Indigenous people cannot find housing when that happens. This is a catastrophe.

Instead of investing in building immediately available non-market housing, this government is passing legislation that will make it easier to decamp people from the shelters that they find. It’s astonishing.

In our ridings across the province, streets are lined with RVs, camper vans, cars that serve as people’s homes. Many of these people would be classified as precariously housed. There was a UVIC student who could not find affordable housing, yet the university would not allow students like him to park overnight on campus.

Many people in this province are just steps away, moments away, from being unhoused. That may be one tow, one fine away from losing their home — the vehicle that they are living in — or being deprived of their already eroded sense of security. Enforcement of bylaws amounts to a large amount of public funds being used against marginalized people, Indigenous, Black, people of colour, queer and trans people, those with mental health challenges, those living with addictions and people with disabilities, all of whom are more likely to experience housing insecurity.

Six years ago in Cowichan, there were zero adults with developmental disabilities who were homeless in our region. Today there are 11 adults with developmental disabilities and with nowhere to live — 11, where there used to be zero.

Overlapping histories of trauma and violence compound the fears and risks that people experience when they are unhoused. Unmet health care needs, the housing affordability crisis, the drug poisoning crisis, unresolved trauma and the extraordinary cost of living have compounded and accelerated housing insecurity in this province.

In the 2023 homeless count in greater Vancouver, almost 5,000 people were identified as experiencing homelessness — a 32 percent increase from 2020. Of these 4,821 people, 33 percent identified as Indigenous. Over two-thirds of Indigenous respondents had lived in or had generational experience of residential schools.

[5:25 p.m.]

Indigenous people are disproportionately represented among unhoused populations. Many are homeless on their own lands and faced with punitive measures: street sweeps, injunctions, decampments. In April of this year, we saw the devastating impacts of street sweeps. Community members, advocates and lawyers have described the Hastings decampment in the spring as violent and dehumanizing. Belongings were scrapped and destroyed. People were displaced with nowhere to go, and many returned to the streets but without tents or any form of shelter.

The cascading effects of displacement are immense. Displacements result in the loss of belongings and survival equipment. They cause a further fracturing of trust in government. Although available shelter spaces were cited during this decampment, the reality is these spaces did not exist, and the spaces that were available were among some of the most unsafe SROs in the area.

Amidst a plethora of intersecting crises — the housing affordability crisis, toxic drug crisis, climate crisis — the government has a responsibility to care for all citizens. Despite this obligation, we’ve seen a heartbreaking pattern of displacement, death and ongoing violation of basic human rights. This government has failed to meet people’s most basic needs.

It’s not the fault of the people. It’s the failure of their government, its policy choices and its investment choices. It is not natural or inevitable to have homeless people in our society. Our governments for decades have made policy choices and have made investment choices that have got us to exactly here. Time and time again they have chosen to allow people to suffer from their poor policy decisions.

The definition of “reasonably available” shelter space is insufficient and inadequate. It fails to recognize the reasons why people may choose to shelter on the street. People have expressed time and time again why they feel unsafe in particular shelter spaces. People often have to leave their belongings and survival equipment in exchange for a night in a shelter. Women experience violence at high rates in shelter spaces and have little to no control as to whom they have to sleep next to.

The definition of “reasonably available” shelter space does not account for nuanced factors. The personal barriers someone may face in accessing a designated shelter space include shelters with restriction to a single sex. People with intimate partners are forced to split with their partners if the shelter spaces cannot accommodate couples. Even same-sex couples experience this split in shelter spaces.

Shelters with restrictions on pets. People with pets or companion animals would be unable to be accommodated in these spaces. I’ve seen this in the Cowichan Valley. Individuals were forced to make the difficult decision of living outside because of the lack of available pet-friendly shelter spaces.

Shelters with adequate, available storage space. Everyone who shelters outdoors has belongings, including supplies to provide basic protection from the elements — tents, sleeping bags, warm clothing. All shelters have restrictions on the amount of personal items someone can bring in with them. Many have a maximum of a backpack. Where are their personal belongings supposed to be stored?

The need for daytime shelter. If people have lost their belongings to enter an overnight shelter, they would be left with no survival equipment during the day. Many shelters kick people out in the morning and provide no guarantee for those people to have a space to stay again in the evening.

Accessibility of the shelter. Many shelters are not accessible for people with physical disabilities. People have cited the loss of their mobility devices or the inability to stay in a shelter due to stairs, narrow doorways or other dimensions of physical accessibility.

[5:30 p.m.]

Shelters with substance use prohibitions and curfews. These restrictions pose barriers for people with addictions. If they’re unable to use substances indoors and go elsewhere to consume, they may not be admitted back in the shelter.

On the other side, many people with a history of substance use have expressed that they do not want to be in a “wet shelter.” They do not want to be surrounded by other people using substances and therefore require access to a dry shelter.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

One-strike policies. Many people living on the street have complex, overlapping mental health issues or have experienced trauma. These people would inevitably be labelled as having behavioural problems in shelter spaces. Someone may experience an episode that gets them kicked out or banned from returning to shelter spaces. If someone is banned, then they would have no real access to reasonably available shelter space.

Shelters with crowded, congregate sleeping and doors without locks are not suitable for people who have gone through trauma. The courts have heard from survivors of domestic abuse and residential school survivors. They share that they can’t sleep in many shelters because the spaces replicate the conditions in which they’d experienced traumatizing events.

Institutional barriers include governments, cities and social service agencies purport to provide up-to-date information on shelter availability, which is frequently inaccurate. People working for encampment residents have tried to sue these websites. They have found the information to be totally inaccurate. Websites may advertise bed availability. The advocate will call and be informed that the shelter has no space. The information is highly unreliable, yet governments have gone to court with this information. Relying on data that is not accurate is not a good way to make public policy.

This bill mentions nothing about the Indigenous and colonial context. The courts have just begun to recognize these in court injunctions. The ongoing colonial violence and dispossession of land and homes, combined with personal and community violence and trauma, have contributed to the large portion of Indigenous and racialized people experiencing homelessness.

All of these factors have constitutional implications. It has been proven throughout case law that residents of encampments have constitutional rights which need to be taken into account when judges decide on decampment injunctions. As a premise, it’s condescending, dehumanizing and, frankly, absurd to suggest that people need a court order to force them to move into a shelter. If it is, in fact, accessible and meets their needs, they will move there. No one wants to sleep on the street.

The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to housing stated: “While encampments are not a solution to homelessness, it is critical that governments uphold the basic human rights and dignity of encampment residents while they wait for adequate, affordable housing solutions that meet their needs. The principles outlined in this protocol are based in international human rights law and the recognition that encampment residents are rights holders and experts in their own lives.”

Encampment residents are human beings, and encampment residents deserve dignity. This definition of “shelter” sets a lower standard than what the courts have.

In March of this year, the Ministry of Housing released a report addressing the housing conditions in the Downtown Eastside. In Supporting the Downtown Eastside: Provincial Partnership Plan Working Document, the ministry states:

“We learned from the Vancouver decampments of Oppenheimer Park in 2020 and Strathcona Park in 2021 how best practices resulted in transitions to stable housing for the majority of those sheltering and real-time wraparound health and social supports available throughout the process.

[5:35 p.m.]

“There is acknowledgment that some people may not transition to indoor options or may be challenged to sustain housing due to health, mental health or substance use issues, or individual barriers or circumstances. As such, there is a need to ensure that parks or other outdoor shelter options where shelter is permitted overnight are known to people who are experiencing homelessness, in alignment with Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

We cannot just keep pushing people out of sight. We cannot continue to strip people of autonomy and dignity and the right to safety. Why is the bar set so low with this definition of shelter?

In The Regional Municipality of Waterloo v. Persons Unknown and to be Ascertained, in the Ontario Supreme Court, Justice M.J. Valente states:

“It is simply not a matter of counting the number of spaces. To be of any real value to the homeless population, the space must meet their diverse needs, or in other words, the spaces must be truly accessible. If the available spaces are impractical for homeless individuals, either because the shelters do not accommodate couples, are unable to provide required services, impose rules that cannot be followed due to addictions, or cannot accommodate mental or physical disability, they are not low barrier and accessible to the individuals they are meant to serve.

“Although not binding on me, I adopt and follow the decisions of the British Columbia Supreme Court in Shantz, Prince George (City) v. Stewart, 2021…and Bamberger, all of which hold that in order for the shelter spaces to be truly available, they must in fact be low barrier or accessible to accommodate the homeless population.”

We received the following statement from a law advo­cate:

“The government is trying to legislate over several years of court decisions to set a much lower standard of when people can be subject to an injunction merely because they are homeless. Again, an injunction means arrest, jail and loss of all of their possessions.

“In doing so, they are ignoring the very well-established evidence that our broken shelter system is not accessible for people for a wide variety of reasons, that people are forced to live in parks because shelters are (a) almost always full and (b) not accessible to and don’t meet the needs of certain people, for many clear reasons that the courts have recognized and understood.

“It is not clear why the government hasn’t read these cases or taken them into account, but the public needs to understand that there is very clear evidence that this law is going to lead to people losing their homes, health, dignity and even lives.”

This law is going to contribute to people losing their homes, health, dignity and even their lives. We need to create solutions, not continually try to push the problems that are a result of decades of government policy and a lack of investment in affordable housing out of sight. The failure is not of the people who don’t have a place to live. The failure is of multiple governments choosing these outcomes.

We are not here by accident. We do not get out of here by making laws that punish people who are suffering because they’re homeless or because they are using drugs, but this is an astonishing session of the Legislature, because that is the legislation that is being pushed through this House right now. We are punishing the most marginalized people in our province. We have a government that is saying: “We would like you to get out of sight, please. We don’t want to see you anymore. Make yourselves more invisible.” That is the legislation that is being passed in this House.

[5:40 p.m.]

There are solutions. We have the Village project in Duncan, a herculean effort of the mayor of Duncan and of the Cowichan Housing society continually having to go right to the brink with B.C. Housing to get funding to continue to house dozens of people successfully, with dignity, with health care, with community, with belonging — all of the things that people need to be well. Yet it has been nothing but resistance from the government.

For $1 million, you can create 40 housing units for people. For $1 million a year, those people can have the services they need to be well. Those are policy choices. Those are investments that this government could choose to make everywhere, in every community in B.C. It’s less to house 40 people than to leave them homeless, but the choices keep being made.

There are so many housing bills up for debate this week. I want to draw attention to the juxtaposition. This government has put forward plans for creating housing in the long term yet continues to push unhoused people further to the margins.

In the case of Bamberger v. Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, Justice Kirchner determined: “Available shelter must mean the genuine ability to access the space. A shelter’s suitability must take into account an individual’s specific needs.” In this legislation, shelter is one size fits all. There’s no reference to beds or sleep but simply the ability to stay overnight. This is not what I had anticipated from this government.

In one House, there’s a bill that is helping people who already have enormous wealth see significant increases to their wealth. You’re a homeowner in British Columbia. With Bill 44, you’re going to see a massive increase to the value of your property and your wealth. In another House, here we are, figuring out how to make homeless people less of a problem.

This does not solve the crisis that we are in. This does not give the dignity that every human being in this province deserves to have. This does not meet the basic human right for people to have a place to live.

We are an outlier as a nation allowing for this kind of outcome, allowing for thousands and thousands upon thousands of people to have to live without shelter. It is a complete failure. We should be ashamed, and we should be treating it like the emergency that it is.

I’d like to see a government that is committed to ensuring that everybody in this province has access to housing, not that we change the definition of what “shelter” is so that we can more easily move them along so we don’t have to see them.

With that, hon. Speaker, thank you.

Hon. S. Robinson: I listened carefully as the previous members were speaking to this bill. I do want to share just a few comments, in particular.

Certainly, the previous member suggested that government wasn’t doing anything on housing. In fact, what has us so busy right now in the House is that we are doing so much heavy lifting on addressing the housing crisis that isn’t just impacting people here in British Columbia. It’s pretty much all over North America. It’s certainly all over Canada. We are investing billions in housing.

I agree with the previous member. People deserve to have housing that meets their needs, where their homes are. It’s why, as a government, we’re building housing on reserve. It’s why we’ve opened up thousands of units of supportive housing for those who are precariously housed or who have experienced homelessness. This is just another piece, in this bill, that we are doing.

[5:45 p.m.]

We know that people in communities right across British Columbia are struggling, seeing increased homelessness. This is as a result of affordability for housing, the affordability crisis, a toxic drug crisis and, certainly, COVID-19. We really saw the tables turn as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While, through B.C. Housing, the province is funding 5,000 shelter spaces in 50 communities throughout British Columbia, including permanent spaces, temporary spaces, extreme weather response shelters, there continues to be encampments in a number of communities.

Again, I just want to highlight that, as a government, we recognize the pressures that this puts on people, and we want to make sure that we have the ability to get people to safe places. Encampments are not safe for the people that are sheltering in them. It’s not a long-term solution, and we have seen municipalities right across this province really struggle with encampments.

The lack of standard for suitable shelter…. It hurts people. It hurts the people who have been decamped, because local governments move in, not sure what to do, so it hurts the people that are being decamped, and what’s worse is it creates barriers to resolving the encampment. It doesn’t work for anyone, frankly.

That’s why, with this miscellaneous stats bill, we’re amending the Community Charter and the Vancouver Charter to provide a common understanding of what is meant by reasonably available alternative shelter that meets a person’s basic needs when local governments are enforcing bylaws to remove people from an encampment through an injunction application. It just makes sure that we’re all speaking the same language.

We recognize the importance of ensuring actions relating to people sheltering in encampments take into consideration whether alternative shelter is reasonably available. These amendments are intended to inform local governments, their response to encampments. They assist with the analysis of injunction applications by the courts. It is part of government’s provincewide approach to end the cycle of homelessness by providing pathways to supports and homes for people.

We know that shelters aren’t homes. We know that. That’s why we are building thousands and thousands of affordable homes throughout this province in partnership with local governments; with the not-for-profit sector; with Indigenous communities; with the federal government, in many cases.

We know that everybody needs to come together to build proper housing. But we also know that there continues to be those folks who are being left behind, who can’t find shelter. We are investing in shelter spaces, and still we find that there are people where shelters aren’t meeting their needs, and they wind up in encampments.

So this legislation will establish that reasonably available alternative shelter is a staffed place, where a person is offered a place to stay overnight with access to a bathroom, shower and a meal, because we know that helps make a difference in people’s lives.

Providing people who are removed from an encampment with reasonably available alternative shelter is preferable to simply displacing them to other areas, because that is what we have been seeing. We know that when this happens, people may shelter on their own or in new encampments, and that isn’t helpful.

Our goal is to set a pathway out of the cycle of encampments that allows people to come indoors, get access to supports and services and on a better path, a path that leads towards stable housing. This path is growing stronger because of the province’s investments through the belonging in B.C. homelessness plan and the Homes for People housing strategy to build supportive housing, subsidized housing, provide rent supplements and build permanent housing solutions.

Our focus continues to be on opening more shelter spaces and housing because we know that’s what people need. This one piece of legislation that is here before this chamber…. It will not resolve the challenges we’re facing. We know that. That’s why we’re debating other bills around the housing crisis.

[5:50 p.m.]

But our hope is that this definition that is here in this miscellaneous statutes bill will provide clarity and guidance to municipalities who are seeking injunctions to enforce bylaws while ensuring that people can access a place to stay that provides for their basic needs.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister.

Seeing no further speakers, does the minister wish to close debate?

Hon. N. Sharma: With that, I move second reading.

Deputy Speaker: The question is second reading of Bill 45.

Division has been called.

[5:55 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: Members, the question is second reading of Bill 45, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 4), 2023.

Second reading of Bill 45 approved on the following division:

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

Bill 45, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 4), 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.

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

Hon. R. Kahlon: In this chamber, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 44, Housing Statutes (Residential Development) Amendment Act.

[6:05 p.m.]

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 44 — HOUSING STATUTES
(RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 44; S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.

The committee met at 6:07 p.m.

On clause 1 (continued).

A. Olsen: We were just asking prior to the adjournment about housing solutions for Salt Spring Island in the context of the solutions that the minister is proposing here with Bill 44 and the other bills, one that’s passed and two that are yet to come. There are some questions about the applicability on Salt Spring in solving what is a pretty dire workforce housing scenario for a variety of reasons.

The locally elected officials have requested inclusion or at least a study of the impact of the speculation and vacancy tax. There has been no action on that. I recognize it’s a different ministry, but we’ve been making the request. It’s yet another example of requests that have not been acted on.

Salt Spring Solutions, as an example, provided inte­grated housing solutions for Salt Spring Island to the ministers that are responsible.

Just from the information that we’ve shared with respect to Salt Spring Island, how does the minister see that island and that community fitting in with the housing policy that has been laid out here as the solve for the housing affordability crisis in British Columbia?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thanks to the member for the question. I did get the letter. I know the member knows that the speculation and vacancy tax is within the Ministry of Finance.

I did get the letter. I do believe, I recall, when I read it, when it arrived, the ask was for further research to be done to see what the impacts would be, not for it to be coming in but for further research to be done.

I appreciate that, and I have connected with my staff and connected with the Ministry of Finance staff about what that investigation or looking into might look like. I do appreciate the member raising that.

[6:10 p.m.]

I’ve already shared with the member in previous questions around why Salt Spring is not included in this piece of legislation. The one thing I was going to add, that we never talked about, was the challenge around water, as well, the pressure because of water. That’s another reason why it was more of a challenge.

The member did raise with me and we had a good conversation about challenges related to smaller communities, in particular Salt Spring, about workforce and the ability to build housing and all the pieces that are involved in that.

I’ve certainly had some conversations with B.C. Housing and other staff around what creative ways we can work with the smaller communities that perhaps have the challenges. That’s a direct response from the conversation the member and I had.

We’re exploring what unique solutions we may be able to provide to communities. We even had a conversation with the rental protection fund folks, although it’s outside of government. But I did suggest to them that they look at different forms of rental protection for smaller communities, given that there may not be units ten or above.

What creative solutions can we find for those types of communities? They did show interest in exploring what that would look like.

A. Olsen: Thank you to the minister.

I think we had a long discussion earlier this afternoon about supply and demand. I commit to the minister I’m not going to revisit those conversations. I think we did a good enough job, or we did a job on them, anyway.

With respect to the southern Gulf Islands, the supply of housing might actually be there, especially for workforce housing. One of the ideas that I’ve pitched to the ministry is some flexibility within finding ways to take large houses with multiple bedrooms, multiple bathrooms, multiple taps already — all the fixtures have been approved, and everything has been approved at the current scale and scope of that house — and turning it into a multifamily environment. Working with the local governments to turn buildings that already exist….

We talked about the potential of taking a building out and putting multiple buildings in. What about these very large structures that can be repurposed into….? It could be a non-profit housing society that runs it. It could be a co-housing, a co-living scenario. But there are no programs in place, currently, that support communities that have these restrictions, whether it be the Islands Trust, as the minister mentioned, or other variety of restrictions that don’t allow for the community to be able to solve its own problems without some sort of support from the provincial government.

Is the minister supportive of investigating…? He just indicated he is, but I want to make sure that we have a willing partner on the government side to explore initiatives that B.C. Housing would look at and say: “Well, we don’t do that. That’s not what we do.”

The in-the-box programs don’t work for the community. I’ve had so many meetings with so many providers, with so many government bureaucrats, with so many B.C. Housing people. We just continue to go around and around and around.

What we need is solutions. What the people who are leading that community need is solutions.

Will the minister work with us on those unique solutions, as he’s already indicated, that I just wanted to get on the record here today?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I can share with the member that I’ve already asked B.C. Housing to consider what this legislation — small-scale, multi-unit — looks like when not-for-profits are looking to advance projects, and in particular, in smaller communities, because they are not going to have a high-rise in that community.

[6:15 p.m.]

So how do we find ways for that support to be done? I already highlighted the rental protection fund. I raised that piece with them — again, direct pieces from the conversation the member and I had.

How can we find different ways to support communities? Now, I can’t commit that it’s going to become a wholesale reform, just because it requires a lot of work for the process, to process applications, and sometimes it’s economies of scale. Having just four units…. It takes a lot of work to get four units. But that being said, in some communities, we’re going to have to think outside the box to get the housing there, and those are conversations that have already happened.

A. Olsen: Four units in a community like Galiano, or four units in a community like Mayne, is the difference between them having an early childhood educator and a teacher in the community or not having an early childhood educator and a teacher, whereas with that scale and scope in Victoria or Vancouver, we’re not even considering it.

I’m going to ask one final question here in these questions — I might have some more later — just around the secondary suite and accessory dwellings. It’s kind of a double-barrelled question for the minister on this.

The first question is: with respect to secondary suites and accessory dwellings in a community like Salt Spring, for an example, that part of this bill is not currently available to the community, as I understand it. So even the most basic form of secondary suites and accessory dwelling units are not available.

Then the second piece is for neighbourhoods that have covenants on them as part of the building scheme. There’s a covenant that says that no secondary suites are allowed in the development, going right to the very beginning of it. There are a couple of those neighbourhoods in my riding, for example, that disallow secondary suites.

We asked this question of the ministry while the bill was being developed. I’m wondering how the government is treating those neighbourhoods that have covenants on them that disallow secondary suites and whether or not this legislation wipes those away and allows those neighbourhoods to have secondary suites and accessory dwelling units.

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member is correct that the secondary suites changes are not…. Again, it doesn’t impact Salt Spring Island.

I appreciate the member’s question on covenants. We have identified that that is a challenge in some communities. We’re investigating about ways to address that, but that’s not reflected in this legislation to date.

A. Walker: I’m being told I’ve got five minutes. I know we’ll carry this on tomorrow.

Just as a first, overarching question: what are the goals of this legislation? What objectives are there from this legislation?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The staff were handing me paper, and I said: “I think I should be able to do this one.”

I think a couple of things: to have housing that’s more attainable for young families, speed up processes, create abilities for housing to be built and improved in a much quicker way and get more from the land where housing has already been built, where infrastructure already exists.

We know that it’s more cost-effective to, perhaps, allow three or four units in an area that already has the infrastructure than it is to build three or four units where you have a greenfield, and then you’re trying to build housing where it doesn’t exist.

A. Walker: There are certainly challenges, and I’ll get to that later, where the density exceeds the infrastructural capacity of neighbourhoods. It then can actually create a more expensive environment than even using a greenfield site. But I’ll get to that later.

For people who live in Qualicum Beach, Parksville…. I know the minister knows my community well. For people who live in a single-family neighbourhood — sort of in the suburbs, so to speak — what would a single-family-home owner…? What would this mean for them? What can they expect to see in their communities?

[6:20 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Well, homes that are within the area…. A community within, let’s say, an urban containment area or urban boundary area could see, if a home were to come down, possibly three or four units within that structure being built.

Again, we’re not saying it has to be. We’re saying that it could be. Of course, it’ll depend on what market interests there are. In some communities, there’ll be an interest for that. In some communities that are a little further away, there might not be interest for that. What we’re doing here is legalizing housing. We’re allowing for it to be built in a faster way, with a full understanding that in some cases, in some areas, it just may not.

A. Walker: Certainly, in a community like that of Parksville-Qualicum, that pressure is there. As the density is allowed, we will certainly see pressure — we don’t have a lot of vacant lots — on some older homes to be removed. The minister is saying that people could expect to see three or four units built on a single-family lot next to existing homes.

When could people in communities like mine expect to see these types of changes taking place?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Local governments will have to have their zoning bylaws amended by June 30, 2024. Some communities may have it done earlier. Some may require a little bit more time, but that’s our expectation: that time frame.

Then if a home is to be developed, that’s where the opportunity comes. Again, we don’t expect a rush from every home being torn down because people want to build three or four units. Many homes are still newer, in good condition, and they may not want to. But where there was a redevelopment being considered, we expect whoever owns that parcel of land to consider their options.

A. Walker: Local governments are expected to have their zoning and bylaws amended, I think he said, by June 30, 2024. Is there any compensation or any funding to be made available to local governments to ensure that that process can happen in a timely way?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Yes, we will be providing $51 million to local governments to do that work. We recently sent a letter to local governments with the formula that we’ll be using for what dollars go to communities.

Again, when the site standards document comes out in a few weeks, with regulations, it’ll be very detailed. Our expectation will be that many local governments will just adopt the document as it has been created. We have brought in a lot of planners with lots of experience to put that document together. That makes it easier for communities to adopt it as is if they choose to do so.

A. Walker: As these bylaws come into effect by the end of June 2024, people who live in these single-family neighbourhoods could start to expect to see homes under construction right away after that point. Is that clear?

Hon. R. Kahlon: That may be the case, but it certainly hasn’t been what has happened in all jurisdictions where this has happened.

It’s called gentle density because it’s gentle. It happens over time; it doesn’t happen immediately. I shared earlier — perhaps the member wasn’t there — that Portland has a population of around 700,000 people. They’ve seen about 200 of these units over the first two years, which is not a huge number. It really depends on market forces. It depends on demand.

I shared the story of a family that decided to turn their home into four units so all the kids could live on the same parcel of land with the parents. I know for a fact that some young people are looking to go, four couples, together on a home, to build four units and co-live, to live together on that same parcel of land.

It really depends, but it certainly won’t be a rush over­night. It is something that will happen more gradually in communities.

A. Walker: Certainly, in a community like mine, the pressure is there. I anticipate that there will be developers that’ll be getting all over this.

[6:25 p.m.]

The idea of intergenerational households — I personally think that’s a fantastic idea. I mentioned it to my father, who’s a lawyer. He also says it’s a great idea. He can see a lot of future business opportunities for lawyers as things change in people’s family circumstances.

It’s a very innovative way of financing new home construction. I think that’s useful. For people who live in single-family homes right now, what input would they have, as far as the development of new homes beside them?

Hon. R. Kahlon: With this legislation, it becomes a right. Of course, people and communities will have a say in their community planning. They’ll have a say, because part of the legislation is standardizing housing needs reports and requiring the community plans to be updated every five years.

Communities will have a say in that, but if you’re hoping to have a say for anyone in the neighbourhood who’s building a home, that particular piece won’t be there, because people now will be able to decide whether they want to build a single-family home or whether they want to build up to four units — as long as they’re following the setbacks, heights, parking and all those things that come with it.

I move that the committee on Bill 44 report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:26 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. R. Kahlon moved adjournment of the House.

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

The House adjourned at 6:27 p.m.