Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 10 on the order paper.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 10 — APPOINTMENT OF
SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW
PASSENGER DIRECTED VEHICLES

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 10 to appoint a special committee to review passenger-directed vehicles, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper.

[That a Special Committee to Review Passenger Directed Vehicles be appointed pursuant to section 42.1 of the Passenger Transportation Act (S.B.C. 2004, c. 39) to review passenger directed vehicle services and transportation network companies administered under the Act. This includes, but is not limited to, a review of the following:

1. whether the provision of licences under the Act that include passenger directed vehicle authorizations or transportation network services authorizations promotes an adequate supply of passenger directed vehicles, including accessible passenger directed vehicles, and passenger and driver safety;

2. the effectiveness of the test set out in section 28 (1) in promoting adequate supply and passenger and driver safety;

3. whether the Act promotes employment in the passenger directed vehicle services and transportation network services industries;

4. impacts on public transportation, traffic congestion and the environment attributable to the administration under this Act of passenger directed vehicle services and transportation network services; and,

5. whether the Act promotes passenger directed vehicle services, including transportation network services, in small, rural or remote communities.

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

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

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

c. conduct consultations by any means the Special Committee considers appropriate;

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

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

That any information and materials previously under consideration by the Special Committee appointed by order of the Legislative Assembly on May 11, 2023, for the same purpose be referred to the Special Committee.

That the Special Committee report to the House by May 10, 2024, and that during a period of adjournment, the Special Committee deposit its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, or in the next following Session, as the case may be, the Chair present all reports to the House.

That the Special Committee be composed of the following Members: Mable Elmore (Convener), Shirley Bond, Kelly Greene, Janet Routledge, Doug Routley and Jordan Sturdy.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 11 on the order paper.

MOTION 11 — POWERS AND ROLE OF
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 11, which outlines the terms of reference for the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts, of which notice have been given in my name on the order paper.

[That all reports of the Auditor General of British Columbia transmitted to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly be deemed referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. For greater certainty, the following exceptions are provided:

a. the report referred to in section 22 of the Auditor General Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 2) shall be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services; and,

b. reports of the Auditor General respecting the Legislative Assembly prepared under the provisions of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee Act (R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 258) shall be referred to the Legislative Assembly Management Committee.

That the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts be the Committee referred to in sections 10, 13 and 14 of the Auditor General Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 2).

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon the Select Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts be empowered to:

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

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

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

d. retain personnel as required to assist the Committee.

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

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 12 on the order paper.

MOTION 12 — APPOINTMENT OF
SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO APPOINT AN
INFORMATION AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONER

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 12, to appoint a special committee to appoint an Information and Privacy Commissioner, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That any information and materials previously under consideration by the Special Committee appointed by order of the Legislative Assembly on November 9, 2023, for the same purpose be referred to the Special Committee.

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

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

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call motion 13 on the order paper.

MOTION 13 — APPOINTMENT OF
SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO APPOINT
A HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 13 to appoint a special committee to appoint a Human Rights Commissioner, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper.

[That a Special Committee to Appoint a Human Rights Commissioner be appointed to select and unanimously recommend to the Legislative Assembly the appointment of an individual as Human Rights Commissioner for the province of British Columbia, pursuant to section 47.01 of the Human Rights Code (R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 210).

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

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

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

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

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

That any information and materials previously under consideration by the Special Committee appointed by order of the Legislative Assembly on November 29, 2023, for the same purpose be referred to the Special Committee.

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

That the Special Committee be composed of the following Members: Joan Phillip (Convener), Brittny Anderson, Norm Letnick, Ravi Parmar and Teresa Wat.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 14 on the order paper.

MOTION 14 — POWERS AND ROLE OF
FINANCE COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 14, which outlines the terms of reference for the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, of which notice has been given on my name on the order paper.

[That the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services be empowered to:

1. In conjunction with general oversight of the following statutory officers, namely, the:

 i. Auditor General;

 ii. Chief Electoral Officer;

 iii. Conflict of Interest Commissioner;

 iv. Human Rights Commissioner;

 v. Information and Privacy Commissioner;

 vi. Merit Commissioner;

 vii. Ombudsperson;

 viii. Police Complaint Commissioner; and,

 ix. Representative for Children and Youth;

a. consider and make recommendations on the annual reports, rolling three-year service plans, and budgets of the aforementioned statutory offices, including with respect to the effective and efficient administration of each office;

b. inquire into and make recommendations with respect to other matters brought to the Committee’s attention by any of the aforementioned statutory officers; and,

c. consider and make decisions, on behalf of the Legislative Assembly, regarding the terms and conditions of employment of any of the aforementioned statutory officers arising as a request of an officeholder during their term of appointment.

That the Committee be designated as the Committee referred to in sections 6, 7, 19, 20, 21 and 23 of the Auditor General Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 2) and that the report in section 22 of the Auditor General Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 2) be referred to the Committee.

That the Committee be designated as the Committee referred to in sections 47.02 and 47.03 of the Human Rights Code (R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 210).

That the Committee be designated as the Committee referred to in section 3 of the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act (S.B.C. 2000, c. 23).

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon the Select Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services be empowered to:

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

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

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

d. retain personnel as required to assist the Committee.

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

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 15 on the order paper.

MOTION 15 — POWERS AND ROLE OF
AGRICULTURE, FISH AND FOOD COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 15, which outlines the terms of reference for the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fish and Food, of which notice is given in my name on the order paper.

[That the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fish and Food be empowered to examine carbon sequestration and related technology in British Columbia’s agricultural sector and make recommendations with respect to:

1. Opportunities to increase carbon content in agricultural soils in British Columbia.

2. Supports for British Columbia’s agricultural technology sector as they relate to carbon sequestration.

3. Supports and incentives for encouraging the use of made-in-B.C. agricultural technology innovations to enhance carbon sequestration.

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon Select Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fish and Food be empowered to:

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

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

c. conduct consultations by any means the Committee considers appropriate;

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

e. retain personnel as required to assist the Committee.

That any information and materials received by the Committee during the 4th Session of the 42nd Parliament for the same purpose be referred to the Committee.

That the Committee report to the House by April 11, 2024, and that during a period of adjournment, the Committee deposit its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, or in the next following Session, as the case may be, the Chair present all reports to the House.]

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 16 on the order paper.

MOTION 16 — POWERS AND ROLE OF
CHILDREN AND YOUTH COMMITTEE

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 16, which outlines the terms of reference for the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper.

[That the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth be empowered to foster greater awareness and understanding among legislators and the public of the B.C. child welfare system, including the specific needs of Indigenous children, youth, families and communities, and in particular to:

1. Receive and review the annual service plan from the Representative for Children and Youth (the “Representative”) that includes a statement of goals and identifies specific objectives and performance measures that will be required to exercise the powers and perform the functions and duties of the Representative during the fiscal year;

2. Be the Committee to which the Representative reports, at least annually;

3. Refer to the Representative for investigation the critical injury or death of a child;

4. Receive and consider all reports and plans transmitted by the Representative to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly; and,

5. Undertake, pursuant to section 30 (1) of the Representative for Children and Youth Act (S.B.C. 2006, c. 29), a comprehensive review of the Act or portions of the Act at least once every five years, but by no later than April 1, 2027, to determine whether the functions of the Representative described in section 6 are still required to ensure that the needs of children and young adults as defined in that section are met.

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon Select Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth be empowered to:

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

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

c. conduct consultations by any means the Committee considers appropriate;

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

e. retain personnel as required to assist the Committee.

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

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call the budget debate in this main chamber.

[2:35 p.m.]

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Budget Debate

(continued)

P. Milobar: I’m happy to rise, and I’ll try to be succinct in the hour and a half I have left to talk about the provincial budget. Oh, an hour and 34, even better. There you go.

But in all seriousness, as we worked through the weekend and dug into the budget a little bit more…. Maybe I’ll give a quick overview for people at home. The official opposition does not see the budget ahead of time. What happens on budget day is we go into what they call a budget lockup, a few of us, in a separate conference room. There is no provincial staff there to give us a technical briefing, no ministers’ staff.

We’re really left on our own. They hand us the documents, and three hours later, we’re in this place giving speeches on the complexities of the budget that has taken months and literally hundreds of people to put together for the various ministries and the Minister of Finance. And that’s not a knock on the government. That’s how it has always been done. So that’s not a partisan-type statement. It’s just, really, a process statement.

Normally, the budget would be introduced on a Tuesday, and we would’ve had to do the quick turnaround for Wednesday, as well, to have our comments dialed in as to what the budget does or doesn’t contain and dig into further detail. In this case, because it was on a Thursday, it has afforded us the opportunity, actually, to spend the weekend as an opposition to look through it.

As I was digging into the book, there are certain things that kind of popped out that I wouldn’t have, at first glance, seen as I was doing a quick-scan readthrough of literally a hundred-page-plus document — and the same with my staff. But as a result, I think there are several things that I do want to touch on today that I didn’t necessarily get to on Thursday and a few that will interconnect to things that I said on Thursday. So some will be a little bit of a repeat, I guess.

Really, I want to start off and just maybe shine a highlight on the concerns we have overall about the sheer level of spending and sheer level of deficit and debt that this budget creates. But put that with a backdrop of the process this government has used to roll this budget out in an election year, of all things.

I touched on it at the end on Thursday around the cancer centre in Kamloops. That is one project that over the hours after my first initial response and then the following days, we started to get reaction from government and other communities about — what wasn’t in the budget that they were led to believe would be in the budget. Frankly, it was the response from government that was shocking, when you consider it’s on a backdrop of a $89 billion spending budget.

The cancer centre in Kamloops. It was promised in the 2020 election. It was supposed to be open in October of this year. That’s a four-year construction window from start to finish that was promised by a government that was in office that ought to have known what timelines were when they made that promise in an election campaign.

Fast-forward to this spring, so the spring of 2023. The Minister of Health comes to Kamloops, and he says: “Oh, the cancer centre is back on track, with an opening date of 2027.” That’s still a four-year window.

So what this government said, despite an election promise…. For something as critical as much-needed cancer care — at a time that we’re sending cancer patients down to Bellingham for treatment in a for-profit, private cancer clinic — the political will and expediency to move that cancer project along in Kamloops was not there until the spring of 2023, because, by their own admission, it’s still a four-year start-to-finish construction cycle to get people in.

At that same announcement, the minister announced that it was in the business case stage of planning, and that would be out in the fall. Well, fall arrives, and the excuse is: “It’s a little delayed; it’ll be out by New Year’s.” That’s delayed, so then we’re in mid-February.

[2:40 p.m.]

Two weeks before the budget gets announced, the minister comes back to Kamloops and assures everyone in Kamloops that the project is going ahead, that it’ll be $359 million and it’s in the budget and it’s proceeding, but now it will be a 2028 time frame for the doors to be open, to be receiving patients.

Now, myself, my colleague from Kamloops–South Thompson and many other local politicians all expressed some doubt around the timeline and all said, “We’ll give the government the benefit of the doubt, but you better be sure we will be checking that budget in two weeks to make sure it’s actually in the budget,” that $359 million is in the budget for this cancer centre and a 2028 completion date is in the budget.

It’s bad enough that it’s now four years delayed for when we’ll see patients getting critical cancer treatments in Kamloops instead of, potentially, down in Bellingham. But that was a commitment. And all of these timelines and all of these commitments were made by the government. The government chose the dates, the government chose the deadlines, and the government has missed every single one of those.

So imagine my shock, the member for Kamloops–South Thompson’s shock, local elected shock, hospital foundation shock, when the cancer centre wasn’t in the budget. It’s not in there.

Mad scramble. Health Minister shaking his head when I’m saying that in the budget speech, that I don’t know what I’m talking about. Health Minister leaves; must have had staff look at the budget. They realize, oh, it’s not actually in the budget.

Guess what else wasn’t in there. Nanaimo cancer centre promised on all the same timelines as Kamloops. Same broken promises as Kamloops. One has an NDP cabinet minister in it, in Nanaimo. Didn’t seem to matter.

Then we look. Oh, Surrey Memorial Hospital — its tower that was supposed to be in this budget isn’t in there either. NDP cabinet ministers are in Surrey; that didn’t seem to matter. The list goes on and on. The Olympic Village school, which was promised by the Minister of Jobs and Innovation, her riding, was supposed to be in this budget. No money.

Then the excuses start. The initial excuse from the Ministry of Health was: “Don’t worry. In just a few short months, there’ll be the first-quarter update, and the project, the cancer centre in Kamloops, will be in that first-quarter update.” Now, to the average person, that probably sounds like a pretty reasonable thing — first-quarter update, must take a fairly quick turnaround — except the first quarter doesn’t actually start until April 1, first of all.

Then you’ve got to wait the three months to get through the quarter. And typically, first-quarter updates in B.C. do not actually get dropped until the second week of September. So that few short months is actually seven months — best case scenario that we would actually see the money for the cancer centre in the budget. And it was chalked up to a printer error.

Then Nanaimo hears about this, and they start to ask questions, and rightfully so. And oh, a printing error for them. They’ll see it in the first-quarter update. We’re assuming the Olympic Village school, the tower at Surrey Memorial Hospital and other projects were all printing errors, apparently, according to this government. Because we can’t get clarification on some of those other projects.

So let’s walk through why that’s a problem. It’s a problem because in an election year, when you have an October election, there’s a provision in the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act that says the provincial government does not have to provide a first-quarter update. Isn’t that convenient? Oh, and by the way, the September 15 date that the first-quarter update is supposed to be released this year is right when the writ period is supposed to be, which means we’d be actually in a physical election, which means the government can’t be making those types of announcements. Oopsy.

So now Kamloops, Nanaimo, Surrey, Vancouver, all these ridings — and the scary part is that this level of budgetary incompetence doesn’t seem to have a political stripe that follows it, because they’re B.C. United and NDP ridings — are all supposed to believe: “Just trust us; after the next election, the money is actually, physically in the budget.”

[2:45 p.m.]

“We can’t actually point you to a document that proves it. And we know we’ve broken promises now for 4½ years, but just trust us. It’s in there.”

Now, why this is particularly problematic in Kamloops’s case, and should be a warning to all other communities, is that back when Mr. Harcourt was the Premier, guess what election promise he made to Kamloops. Vote for the NDP, and you’ll have a cancer centre. Guess what happened as soon as the election was over. No cancer centre for Kamloops; one for Kelowna.

I don’t begrudge Kelowna having a cancer centre at all. It was the broken election promise, the broken contract with the public that happened. They actually did elect NDP members at that time. It has been a long time since, for good reason.

We are literally back to the same spot. People will say: “Well, you had 16 years when you were in government. Why didn’t you build a cancer centre then?” Well, that’s not really how these health centres are built. We had five linear accelerators, which is the equipment for the treatment, built in Kelowna at the time. They have a certain amount of life to them. Over that time frame, over the last 20-plus years, they’ve hit end-of-life. They need to be replaced.

That’s what spurred on the commitment in 2020 in the first place, by both myself and the member for Kamloops–South Thompson, in the election, which two days later the NDP chose to match.

It’s significant, because that’s how you should responsibly keep expanding health services. Over those years, two of the five linear accelerators’ time was being used up by people in Kamloops and the surrounding areas. They were having to drive two-plus hours to get treatment several times a week. The people in Kelowna agreed. The people in Kamloops agreed. Everyone agreed that the best course of action for better health outcomes and better access to service and to meet the growing demands of cancer care for a growing population…. Now was the time to create the cancer centre in Kamloops.

The NDP agreed. They’ve just slow-walked it. And now we’re supposed to just believe: “Just trust us.”

Despite a Health Minister standing up in Kamloops two weeks before the budget drops to assure everyone it was in the budget, two weeks later, it literally was not. And the problem with that was, our understanding is, the budget book was already at the printer a week before the Health Minister stood up to say that in Kamloops.

If that’s how we’re supposed to see this government overseeing health care expenditures of critical capital projects, like hospital towers and cancer centres, not knowing what each other is doing on a $32 billion budget, which is part of the $89 billion budget, no wonder our health care is in such a mess. It just simply is not a way to run a province or a health care system. Then that skepticism of what else is being hidden in this budget, or been announced but not funded in this budget, starts to rise up.

As you dig into health care a bit further, and mental health and addictions…. Again, this government likes to applaud themselves for having a Mental Health and Addictions Minister, except all the money funnels through the health care system and the Health Minister. The actual mental health and addictions budget is quite small.

When you start to dig into that, and you go: “Okay, there’s the backdrop of what we’re getting told about cancer care and hospital towers. What else are we being told, or not told, as it relates to mental health and addictions from basically the same minister and ministry?”

Well, in the throne speech on Tuesday last week, the government was talking about 3,600 treatment spaces for mental health and addictions — 3,600 on Tuesday. On Thursday, in the budget, there are 2,200.

No more for next year. No more for the following year. It’s a three-year fiscal plan, and all of the language around those 2,200 treatment and recovery spaces is for ongoing and continuing. That’s the language in the budget book.

It doesn’t talk about expansion. It doesn’t show us where those other 1,400 treatment beds are going to be. It doesn’t show us what year they’re coming. Over the next three years, there does not appear to be any added spending coming in to create them.

[2:50 p.m.]

That’s a problem. That’s a problem when last year we had 2,500 people die from opioids.

The government in the space of two days, on two separate government documents, are touting completely different numbers that aren’t just kind of out of whack, that aren’t just a bit of a rounding error. I could see if it was 3,500 or 3,600 in the throne speech and 3,500 or 3,600 in the budget, even though they’re critical life-and-death beds and spaces. You could at least understand maybe there was just a slight typo. But that’s not what it is.

The budget, the actual document that would pay for any delusions of grandeur that were in the throne speech, actually doesn’t have the money in it to do what the throne speech said they were going to do. Flat out, it doesn’t have it for the next three years. The throne speech is supposed to be a one-year document. The budget is a three-year document.

How is anyone supposed to trust anything that this government says over the next seven or eight months leading up to the election, as it relates to what their priorities of spending are in this budget, when on the most critical, literal life-and-death issues, they can’t actually be straight-up with the public.

It’s reprehensible in the extreme — 2,200 treatment beds following 2,500 deaths. One would think they would want more treatment and recovery beds than people are dying in a year. But that’s not the case with this government in this budget. This budget strictly allows for more mayhem to continue, more families to struggle with loved ones that are gripped by addiction with no reasonable access to try to get treatment.

How does continuing along with the same system of treatment and recovery that exists today, that’s delivering 2,500 overdose deaths…? That’s not even covering off all the non-fatal overdose situations that are burning out our first responders and the cost of that to them and their families and the public. How does just doing more of the same accomplish anything?

We heard it from the Finance Minister in question period that they’re spending more money. Oh, wonderful. So they’re spending more of all of our tax dollars to do all of the same programs and somehow magically think they’re going to get a better outcome. That’s all this government has done, time and again, the whole time they’ve been in government. They spend more money. They make an announcement. They pat themselves on the back, and they say: “There. We fixed the problem. It will get better now.”

Well, in 2018-2019, they were spending $54 billion, the first full year that they were government. This year it’s going to be $89 billion, a 75 percent increase in spending. Can anyone out there — anyone? — say between 2018-19 and ’23-24, ’24-25, anything has gotten better, that health care has improved?

Now, the Minister of Health might want to think that health care has improved because people can actually have access to get down to Bellingham for cancer treatments, but I would suggest that’s not actually an improvement. We have gone from the best cancer treatment and outcomes in the country, back in that timeframe when they started in government, to the worst. That’s the measure.

When someone’s loved one gets a cancer diagnosis, they actually don’t care how much money is in the cancer budget, in the health care budget. They just want treatment. They want access, and they want treatment. It’s not about how big the budget is.

Can I get a diagnosis on time? Not in B.C. Once it’s diagnosed, do I have access to treatment in the time that I’m supposed to have to meet the standard? Not in B.C. Can I get down to Bellingham for treatment? Well, possibly, but even that, this government has…. Only they could figure out how on something as critical as cancer care, it would only have 25 percent uptake on the spaces they’re trying to contract down in the States for people to get down there for treatment.

[2:55 p.m.]

Can I access treatment close to home for a better health outcome so I’m not sitting in a car for two hours pre- and post-treatments? Well, not if you live within an hour of Kamloops or Nanaimo, because they’ve broken a promise for the last four years.

But don’t worry. They’re spending more money. That must be better. So minister after minister — and again, we heard it today — stands up in this place and says: “Some people say we need to cut.” We challenge, and I will challenge them again. Give us a name. Give us a name of anyone on this side that has been out there saying that we are going to make cuts to health care, that we’re going to make cuts to education. Just name one B.C. United member. You can’t. So instead, it’s this kind of ministerial drive-by, saying “some people.”

The fact that this government can’t get a better result, despite increasing spending by 75 percent, is a problem. And then it’s like: where are they spending this? Again, the more you dig into this…. They’re absolutely spending more in health care for much worse results than we were ever getting. So I would suggest it’s not an efficient use of tax dollars.

We know in education that our standardized results, our numeracy and literacy and those benchmarks, were falling behind the rest of the country now. It’s not a recipe for success when we’re letting our young people not achieve their full potential in school. Maybe that’s why the government wanted to get away from report cards with letter grades, because they don’t want to know how the kids are actually doing in school.

Again, they will tout that they’re spending more money, and if you look at raw dollars in the education budget, they absolutely are from 2018-19 till now. One would hope, with a 75 percent increase in spending, they are. But let’s just look at what percentage of the overall provincial budget was being spent on education, shall we? So 25.3 percent in 2017-2018 — the last year B.C. United, then B.C. Liberals, were in government — went to education, 25.3.

Now, the government, I know, doesn’t like this when I do this, because they would have to actually explain why, but I’m reading from their budget book. These aren’t my numbers. These are their numbers. Percent of operating expenses, page 150, Education — and again, 2017-18 is in their own chart — 25.3 percent. This year it’s 21.8 percent. It’s dropped.

Now, for the first couple years, I’ll give former Finance Minister James a bit of credit. She kept it in the 25s. Then it started to drop, and it really started to drop once our current Premier became Premier. Huh. Interesting.

A lot of discussion about crime and safety on our streets, the Premier’s catch-and-release system, all the disorder that it brings. So we know they’re failing miserably on mental health and addictions to try to give people access to recovery and treatment options who are suffering from mental health and addictions issues, who need a safe place to try to get better, to heal.

We know a lot of the crime and disorder on our streets, for one reason or another, has direct links to mental health and addictions, especially on the repeat, over and over, and random-type attacks, be it physical on a person or just random repeat vandalism on small businesses. They are making people and community think twice about operating their small businesses in downtown cores across this province and are putting neighbourhoods in peril because they feel they have to protect their own streets, which they should not be doing. No good outcome comes from that.

[3:00 p.m.]

You just have to look at a case in Kamloops to see that. So one would think, in that backdrop, if they haven’t put extra money into mental health and addictions on a percentage basis — because again, in raw dollars, they’re putting in more; it doesn’t mean they’re getting a better result — one would hope that the protection of persons and property would see an increase.

Well, let’s see. So 2017-2018, again on page 150, 3.7 percent of the budget, and 3.6, 3.6…. It actually went up. So 4.1, 4.3 — that was ’21 to ’23. And then guess what happened? A new Premier came on the scene. Oh, it drops back down to 3.4, so lower than 2017-2018. And this year it drops down to 2.9 and stays under 3 percent of the budget.

Now, that’s important because, just as with anything, wages for protection of persons and property and inputs to that type of a thing would be increasing just as they are anywhere else. This is actually below the inflation rate. Forget collective agreement. This is just below any inflation rate out there, especially in B.C.

That’s why it’s important. That’s why, taking a bit of time to dig into how the complexities of the budget interconnect with each other, you start to see that what the government’s press releases say does not match up with the reality of the budget. They can’t deliver what they’re promising if they don’t actually have the programs and the dollars for the programs that they say. Simply announcing more money does not solve a problem. We have seen that for seven years now.

We have close to $100 billion worth of private sector investment winding up this year. We have the Site C dam, not that this government will tell us how much it costs. Again in question period, the minister was great talking about hydro bills. I notice that they don’t account for Site C in this year’s budget, conveniently, before an election. So we’ll find out what Site C costs after the election and what it will do to your hydro rates after the election. Very convenient for government.

Remember in June of 2017, when this government took over the reins of power, former minister Mungall stood up in this House and acknowledged that on June 30, 2017, Site C was on time and on budget. Then they took over government. It’s in Hansard. It’s based on fact — the Minister of Energy at the time’s own words. June 30, 2017, under the B.C. Liberals, now B.C. United, Site C was on time and on budget.

We have no idea what it costs now. We have no idea what it will do to our rates. We’re supposed to believe this government is also going to deliver, between now and 2030, in six short years now, enough energy to keep up with an energy transition and spend $36 billion with a plan that no one has seen publicly.

Why that’s important is that we have the Site C dam winding up. We have Canada LNGs winding up, up North — the biggest private sector investment in Canadian history. We have the Trans Mountain pipeline winding up. That’s the pipeline this government fought with every tool in its toolbox and caused delay after delay, and now we saw the prices spike for construction, to the point that the federal government had to step in and backstop it. So now, I guess, we’re all paying for it as taxpayers as well.

What other project did they fight and fight against and delay for a year, and now it’s way over budget and delayed by several…? Oh, right. Site C. Great track record.

The reason those three projects have wound up close to $100 billion is partly because this government’s delaying tactics have created that environment. The problem is that that $100 billion, which was churning away all through COVID, lots of jobs…. I’ve heard that Site C right now, currently, has around 3,600 people employed at it. In a few short months, it’ll be down to 400. By this time next year, it will be at 40. That’s a massive economic hit to the province of British Columbia.

[3:05 p.m.]

Has this government taken the last seven years to figure out how to get more economic development like that going in our province and more projects of that scope and scale going? No. They cut independent power projects that were Indigenous partnerships primarily. And now they’ve tried, three or four years later, to scramble and say: “Oh, well, actually, need those to meet our power demands.” That’s about it.

Now, none of those, obviously, would have been at the scope and the scale of these dollars. But the problem is those three projects, in the last 7½ years, have not had anything under development that’s even close to being permitted, a final investment decision on its way. So not only do we not have three projects to replace that; we don’t even have one.

So what has the government’s response been to natural resources and economic development that flows with it? Well, again, on page 50, their own budget book: 6.5 percent used to go into economic development and natural resources. That was operating expense. It has hovered around that for a while. Then it blipped up into the 7s. Obviously, a bit of a scramble within government, going: “Oh boy. Everything’s going to wind up. We’d better do something about it.”

Then guess what happened? The new Premier came on the scene, and it went from 7.8 to 6.5. This year it’s down to 5, and then 4.7, and then 4.5. Does that sound like a government that’s serious about natural resources and economic development?

They obviously felt they needed to put more into it, and something internally has changed, where they have decided that that 6½ to 7 percent range of expenses of the provincial budget is just too much money for natural resources and economic development, so we’re going to slash it down to 4½. How does that spur on an economy? How does that help close the gap of what we have as a $22 billion operating deficit?

We can argue about the debt. I’ll get into that in a little while, about the 164 percent increase in debt in the next three years. But we have a $22 billion operating hole in our budget that was essentially at zero when this government took the reins of power. That’s where we’ve gotten in just a couple of years. The government actually did reasonably hold the line based on the legacy that they inherited of surplus budgets and some semblance of spending restraint.

As we started to see the results get worse in ’18 and ’19 and ’20 and ’21, the government’s response has been to just throw more money at the exact same problem, $54 billion to $59 billion to $61 billion to $69 billion to $78 billion to $89 billion. We’re spending $30 billion more than we did in COVID.

Let that sink in. At a time when government should have been, and all governments were, pouring money in…. And we all acknowledged at that time frame that governments were pouring money into the economy because then no one has COVID. We’ve actually increased spending by $30 billion over that.

That’s the problem. But we’re going to cut it in areas that would actually generate revenues to help the government with their $22 billion deficit of operating. We’re not going to go out of our way on natural resources and economic development.

Is it any wonder when you dig into the budget book and you see that they’re expecting exports from B.C. to plummet over the next couple of years? How does that help our economy? How does that help the jobs numbers?

[3:10 p.m.]

Which takes me back to my original point. When you hear the government say, “Well, we might just issue an addendum to have the cancer centre shown,” you can start to see how interconnected all of these data points are. It’s not as simple as saying: “We’ll just inject them, put a little asterisk and put something on a website, and that should be good enough.”

Now, I would love to see this minister and this Premier stand in this House and promise, on the record, that there will be a first quarterly update on the books of this budget sometime between mid-August and mid-September. They would actually be willing to go to an election and, within days of that election, let people actually see the true numbers, in a quarterly update, of what they’re projecting will be happening in this budget.

There is no way that this Premier would be brave enough to do that. I challenge him to do it. I really hope he does it.

Any time they’ve needed to move things around or change the rules around budgeting, they’ve done it. The fact that it’s already built into the Budget Transparency Act, around a writ period and when you have to provide a quarterly update or not, screams loud and clear.

When the Ministry of Health says, in a few short months, there will be a quarterly update…. “We’ll update the projects — the Surrey Hospital tower, the couple of cancer centres and such — that aren’t in the budget.” I can appreciate that. That’s the Ministry of Health staff saying that. They wouldn’t be, nor should they be, totally ingrained in all of the minutiae of what happens in the Ministry of Finance.

I haven’t heard the Ministry of Finance say there’s going to be an update in a few short months. I haven’t heard the Ministry of Finance say: “Oh, it was a printing error, and we’ll issue an addendum in the next week.” I haven’t heard any of that from the people who actually generate the book we’re all debating here.

We’ll wait and see what happens. We think there’s going to be another broken promise.

Again, if you look at the areas that matter to people right now and you dig into the numbers just slightly in this budget, you see just how much fluff there is and no substance to what they’re saying.

When we look at housing, BC Builds…. BC Builds is a renaming of what they called the HousingHub, which, as you’ve heard, flubbed. So what have they done? They’ve renamed it.

Just like when they first got in, they had their 30-point action plan for housing. When was the last time you heard that? I shockingly heard it this morning from a government member. I’m amazed. Somebody, obviously, hadn’t updated their speaking notes and realized that they’d walked away from the 30-point housing plan, which was supposedly going to deliver 114,000 units, probably because they know…. When you actually, really, do evaluate that, they’re at 16,000 units in 7½ years, out of 114,000 promised.

Then came the HousingHub. That was the new 30-point housing plan. It was the HousingHub a couple of years ago. Well, that has failed miserably. So what did the government do? They repackaged it just before the budget. They called it BC Builds. Oh, guess what they did. They put a bit more money in it. That will solve it. That will solve the problem.

They just put a little more money into the exact same program that has gotten zero results for the last seven years. We will just magically see more housing built, better results. All under the premise, by the way, that this is going to provide affordable housing for people.

They did update BC Builds in one way. They said: “You know what? Housing has gotten so unaffordable in B.C. and so unattainable for people in B.C. When we build government housing, we’re going to create a rent subsidy for people.” Not to be confused with the renters rebate they promised in the 2017 election, the 2020 election, finally rolled out last year.

Oh, just wait. You still have to file your income taxes, as we stand here now, wait for the federal government to process the income tax return, then find out whether or not you qualify for some, or all, of the $400 that was promised back in 2017. Not much bureaucratic red tape to access that at all. But I digress.

[3:15 p.m.]

We go back to BC Builds. The government stands up and says: “Housing has gotten so unaffordable in B.C. under our watch. We need to subsidize rents for people.” They realized that they need to subsidize rents in British Columbia because the rents are so expensive for people who have a household income of $190,000.

The NDP’s definition of fighting for the little guy has sure changed over the years. They’ve acknowledged that their housing policy has led to such an expensive housing environment that people that earn $190,000 a year require government help to pay rent. If that doesn’t strike you as something fundamentally broken in the housing system, I don’t know what does.

Then you dig into the budget, and you say: “Well, what are some of the real costs to housing, especially creating new housing?” B.C. United came out a week or two before the budget and said: “We should be removing PST on all new home construction.” On all of the inputs, all of the 2-by-4s and drywall, all of that, remove the PST. Make building the house a little less expensive, which means the rents are a little less expensive, or the sale price is a little less expensive.

Government didn’t do that. In fact, when you dig into, again, their own budget book, and you go to page 31 to see what they’re projecting with PST…. Now, I should say that this is what they’re projecting on PST on a backdrop of other areas of their budget book, saying that housing starts are going to be static or dropping over the next few years. This next stat, from their own budget book, has nothing to do with more units coming onto the system, because in fact there are going to be less units, based on their own budget book.

What are they projecting to collect from provincial sales tax on new construction? Well, they’re slating for it to go up by 4.4 percent next year — or this fiscal, I guess, coming up. Housing starts are supposed to stay static or go down, but they’re expecting to collect even more money in PST off the construction. Well, the only way that works is if your cost per square foot to build has increased.

That means they’re actually budgeting, and the revenues require…. The cost of 2-by-4s and drywall, wire and everything else that goes into the construction of a home that currently has PST charged on it, rental or for-sale home — they need it to go up. They’re not changing the PST rate. They’re charging the same amount of PST, percentage-wise.

The only way it goes up by 4.4 percent is if the amount a builder has to spend per unit increases. And you think: “Well, maybe that’s a one-time blip.” No. It’s 6.9 percent next year, 7.8 percent the following year. Even in retail sales, they’re expecting more revenue. So between residential investment and retail sales, one of those two has to capture the building envelope.

Digging into the budget, it becomes very clear that despite the government holding press release after press release, talking about how they’re driving down the cost of housing, their fiscal plan actually requires the construction cost of housing to increase, or they’ll have a revenue problem in their budget.

It does not exactly sound like a government that is being quite as forthright with the public about BC Builds and what may or may not be accomplished as the public might expect. That’s the critical part about looking at the overall budget, stitching it all together and finding the discrepancies of language within the budget.

[3:20 p.m.]

The minister, during question period, was talking about our debt-servicing costs. She says: “Well, don’t worry about debt. Our interest rate is only 3.2 cents per dollar of debt.” Well, sadly, that’s last year’s budget the minister is talking about, not the budget that we’re debating here today.

The debt, under the current bond rating that we have, is literally scheduled to go up by 164 percent over the next three years. It took 150 years for us to get to $40 billion or $50 billion worth of debt in this province. It took the NDP government six to double that. It’s going to take them three to go from that $100 billion to $165 billion.

In about an eight-year period, nine-year period, they will have added over $100 billion to our debt. They will have tripled it — more than tripled it — from when they took office.

Can anyone say they’re getting better results? All that debt. A lot of it they save for capital. Can the people of Kamloops point to this budget and see the cancer centre that’s been promised to them now year after year after year? No. Can the people of Nanaimo? Can the residents of Surrey point to the Surrey Memorial Hospital tower in this? How about the Olympic Village school? It’s not in here.

In fact, if you go through the list of schools, there’s only one. Again, I’m wandering off a little bit, so I’ll come back to that.

The minister talked about our interest bite at 3.2 cents per dollar. Well, in this year’s budget, that actually jumps to 3.8, which is a fairly significant jump, actually. Then it jumps up to 4.6, another very significant jump, and then it jumps up to 5.4. That’s based on the current bond rating that we have. Most people are expecting us to have a bond rating downgrade, which means it will cost us more. This means all of those numbers will go up.

Now, we won’t find that out, what it’s going to actually go up, because there’s no way they’re going to tell us until after the election. So it’s a budget built on: “Just trust us. We’ll tell you everything in November. Just vote for us in October. We’ll tell you all the bad news in October.”

But here’s the piece. People at home might say: “Well, that’s not such a big deal. Four or five cents a dollar for debt.” We get all these big shiny things, to coin a phrase from the Energy Minister.

Let’s look at what that does on the per capita for debt per resident in British Columbia. Again, these are adjusted for population growth.

For the year that’s just finishing up, debt per capita is at $13,000 per person. Now, it was $8,500 when this government took office. It’s currently at $13,000. The budget we’re debating jumps to $15,500. Then it jumps to just about $19,000. Then it goes to $21,500 per person, which does account, also, for population growth.

It’s not like it’s $21,500 and you can say: “Oh well, we’re expecting population growth, so it’ll actually come down.” This has already taken that potential growth into account. So $8,500 for every man, woman and child when they took office. The end of this budget book, if they have their way….

Again, it doesn’t mean that after the election, they can’t make it even worse with the new budget next year. They’re proud to stand and say: “Yeah, we’re going to cost everyone $21,500 per capita as your share of debt.”

[3:25 p.m.]

Imagine being a person, a family, having a kid over the next year or two and going: “Wow, we get to have a baby, and it’ll be born with $21,500 worth of provincial debt to its name. We’ll have no child care that we can access so we can get back into the workforce in a timely fashion. But my child will have a nice debt to their name. That’s a pretty good thing.”

I don’t think you’d find many people out there saying that, but if you talk to the government, that’s what they’re going to tell you. They’re going to say: “Oh, that’s okay.”

When you look at child care, there’s a big problem with it by every measure. In fact, B.C. has been cited, although the first one to sign on to the federal child care program, as providing the worst results — the least accountable, worst access, playing games with contracts with providers all over this province.

There are a couple of streams of funding with child care. It gets very confusing very quickly. I just met with them. The member for Kamloops–South Thompson was with me. We met with child care providers in Kamloops. They get capped out at the government rate of $1,355 a month for a child if they want the $900 subsidy to knock that down to $455 for a household per child.

Then they look at other centres that are literally renegotiating and negotiating new contracts, where they’re over $1,900 and still getting the $900 subsidy. They’re saying: “We’re losing our staff to these centres because they can afford to pay more.” These other centres are justifying it because they have more expensive lease costs or because of their lease costs. They won’t let the other centres do any adjustments to them.

What you get is a shell game of child care happening where you get staff moving around — no continuity that way, a lot of stress on the operators, a lot of stress on the families involved. Because of staffing ratios, you start losing some spaces in some areas. You gain them in other areas, but those ones are actually more expensive for the household.

Oh, and then there’s this other great workaround the government has come up with. They allow new operators to say: “No, no. That $900, that applies for five hours a day worth of care, so we’re charging you $1,355 less the $900 the government will give us for five hours worth of care a month.” But for the extra three hours that most people actually are at work for, there’s a $500 or $600 premium for that. The government signs off on these contracts. What a convenient workaround.

Here’s another one. If you signed on and were providing a meal program, recognizing there’s a cost for that, not only do you have to adjust all of your rates accordingly; you can’t actually add the meals now after the fact. But if you’re brand new, you can. You can charge for five hours, surcharge for the extra three and charge for meals.

That’s what this government has created for a mess of child care in this province, and people don’t know what to make of it. Every child care centre in Kamloops has a 100-plus waiting list. Every one.

In my own family, my wife stopped working to provide child care for our two granddaughters — part-time for one, five days a week for the other — because there wasn’t one-to-three child care available. We don’t know what will happen for three-to-five.

It’s real. It’s impacting people’s lives in a very real way. This government tries to tout the great job they’re doing, and they fail to recognize all the federal money that’s actually providing the child care spaces in the first place. They try to pretend it’s all them.

They sure don’t have a problem trying to take credit for things the federal government might send them money for when they want to, and they sure don’t mind pointing the finger back at the federal government when it’s very clearly the provincial government that’s messing up on things.

[3:30 p.m.]

What does the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. say about the budget? “Surprising for its lack of provincial investment.”

Paul Kershaw of Generation Squeeze was disappointed by the NDP’s reallocation of funds earmarked in 2020 with federal funding. Almost 85 percent of the new funding is from the federal government, and 92 percent of recent funding growth has been federal.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Now I get the other side might get confused sometimes because they’ve got how many former MPs over there? They probably think they’re still in Ottawa. But it’s not provincial money. And they’re failing miserably even trying to transfer the federal money.

Early Childhood Educators of B.C. have described the child care system as “extremely fragile.” They point to a “child care crisis” in the province. Again, the backdrop of a government that goes around repeatedly talking about how much money they spend on a program, not wanting to hear from the people trying to deliver the program, saying how much of a mess they’ve made of all these programs.

They’ve made a mess of child care. They’ve made a mess of mental health and addictions. They’ve made a mess of health care. They’ve made a mess of housing, natural resources and economic development. The list goes on and on and on. And then it’s about transparency.

This is an interesting one for me because I’m old enough to remember the 2010 Olympics. I’m old enough to remember just how much that side lit their hair on fire about the 2020 Olympics, certain ministers excluded. But I know….

I think we can all remember. They opposed the Canada Line being built for it. They opposed the Sea to Sky Highway improvements, safety improvements on that corridor. They were opposed to the Olympics. They were opposed to the Richmond Oval. They were opposed to the convention centre, but I seem to have gone to a lot of government things at the convention centre from this government as well, so they seem to like using the convention centre. They just didn’t want it built.

They opposed B.C. Place renovation and roof expansion. Funny, because I’ll get to that in a minute. They opposed a whole lot that was attached to the Olympics: the fact it was a big international organization, possible Olympic corruption, all of that.

Then you get to page 26 on the budget. And 26 on the budget is table 1.3, expenses by ministry and program agency. Now, the last few years, we’ve had contingencies, the what-if fund, just a little bit of extra money, and that’s important to have. Last year, ending in a couple of months here, we’ve got the pandemic recovery contingencies of $1 billion. I think it makes sense. It was scaling down. We weren’t sure what the pandemic was still going to unfold. Away you go.

So then you look, and you go, okay, well, in this year they have nothing for the pandemic recovery and, strangely, they have this other contingency fund that’s just blank for this year. But then for the next two years it’s got $1 billion and then $2 billion. The title of it is, just got to find the title here, priority spending initiatives and caseload pressures.

It makes one think, okay, they must be putting away money in case things like child care needs a quick injection or child welfare cases spike, unfortunate as it would be, and they have the money in there ready to go, or things around Pharmacare really spike and they need extra money for those types of cases, those types of caseloads that we all get in our offices and we all try to solve for people, that have very real implications to the real world.

[3:35 p.m.]

You think, in the backdrop of that, that’s what it would mean. But that’s all the description that’s there.

Remember what I said about the Olympics, because then you go to page 61. There’s a little more detail, a little more insight into what priority spending initiatives and caseload pressures actually means.

I will read the whole bullet from it because there’s only the one bullet on the page, and it’s attached to table 1.13, budgeting prudence funding in the contingencies vote. It says:

“The Budget 2024 expense forecast includes a contingencies voted appropriation of $3.9 billion in ’24-25, $3 billion in ’25-26 and $3.7 billion in ’26-27. This includes $3 billion in future years for priority spending initiatives and caseload pressures. The contingency’s allocation also funds programs or initiatives with uncertain costs, such as the upcoming FIFA World Cup matches in 2026 where plans and costs are still being developed and refined with partners.”

Now, I get that would qualify as a special initiative. It doesn’t say anything about the other side. It doesn’t say anything about caseload pressures and give a few examples of what this government thinks a caseload pressure is. So the only thing I am led to believe in this budget that this government has provided contingencies for is FIFA.

So let’s look at FIFA. What will it utilize? Well, it will utilize the Canada Line coming in from the airport, certainly, for all the people flying in. Pretty sure that side voted against that being built.

It will undoubtedly use the convention centre. Pretty sure that side voted against that. It’s undoubtedly using B.C. Place. In fact, B.C. Place is the reason that Vancouver got seven games, including a semifinal. It’s because of the stadium. You know, that stadium that was renovated and modernized and updated for the 2010 Olympics? That stadium that that side voted against, with all their forethought of trying to keep building for a province.

Let’s park all that for a minute and the sheer hypocrisy of that, because at the same time that that was happening, they were actually opposing Site C anyway. So we all know they flip-flop when it suits them, to no end.

LNG, I think, they were opposing by about then as well. They’ve always been opposed to…. Well no. They were in favour of TMX, that’s right, and then it was the middle of the 2013 election when, on the shores of the Thompson River in Kamloops, they decided they were opposed to TMX. That’s right, sorry. That one changed midway through, so that one’s a little harder to keep track of where they stood on it.

Let’s just be honest with people. If the government wants to tout that there’s FIFA coming…. And I’m thrilled FIFA’s coming; I want to be clear about that. I also supported the Olympics coming.

If the government wants to just be honest with people about where they’re spending money, just tell us. They put $3 billion aside for what-ifs with FIFA. Not $3 billion put aside for what-ifs for cancer care. Not $3 billion put aside for what-ifs for addictions and treatment and recovery and all the social disorder that comes with it. Not $3 billion put aside for what-ifs around reconciliation. Not $3 billion put aside for what-ifs around education or $3 billion put aside for what-ifs around what might happen with international students and the hit to universities.

This is a government that is apparently so proud of FIFA that they buried it in the end of a sentence on page 61 with a passing reference for $3 billion. And let’s be clear: those are extra dollars, because we would need them to tell us what they’re actually spending before they need the $3 billion. It’s important to note this, because at a time of record deficits and debt….

Last year when the government was projecting a $4.3 billion deficit, they had $5.5 billion in contingencies. You could argue that as long as they don’t spend the contingencies, they actually won’t go into a deficit.

This year, $7.9 billion deficit and only $3.9 billion in contingencies, which means they have every expectation that they will be in a deficit. And in fact, they have every expectation it will get worse when you look at how they’ve been very optimistic, shall we say, with their projections on growth.

Then next year it gets even worse. General contingencies are only $1.7 billion and FIFA contingencies is $1 billion.

[3:40 p.m.]

Then in year 3, it actually gets worse, if you can believe that. General contingencies drop even further to $1.6 billion, and FIFA goes up to $2 billion. Talk about not having your priorities straight as a government. As you’re bleeding red ink all over the place, your number one priority in contingencies seems to be protecting FIFA over cancer care or over education, or over mental health and addictions.

That side has the temerity to point over here and say: “Some people say we should make cuts.” Seriously? That’s the best that that side can offer up, is “some people,” without actually attributing it, ever, to anyone, in a budget where their contingencies, fully, over the next three years…. One-third of their contingencies are slated for FIFA, and they might actually have control over those other two-thirds, because at least those are political and government decisions.

Something tells me that in the contracts with FIFA, it’s not optional. So why don’t you just tell us you’ve got to spend an extra $3 billion on FIFA, and we’ll call it a day?

If it’s not all for FIFA, why is there no description? Why is there no reference, for an example, of what a special caseload would be, an increased caseload? What is a caseload? It’s all over this. Every ministry has caseloads. We’ve never seen that used for a contingency, ever, that I’m aware of. The only description we have for that is FIFA, buried on page 61 in a passing reference.

I guess the government can say, technically, they talked about it. In the real world, they didn’t, and they haven’t. I really hope they will. And I look forward to the members of government standing up and espousing the values of why one-third of contingencies over the next three years needs to go to FIFA and not mental health and addictions.

It would be quite interesting to see if they actually would do that. I don’t think anyone here thinks they will. And if they do, well, I guess…. Normally, in B.C., you’d say: “Well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” But here they don’t like to build bridges, so we’d have to say there’s a tunnel to sell them, I guess.

Then we look at digging further in the budget again, and we talk about how you build the economy to actually support a future budget, to support the spending in government, without just continually dipping into the same pockets over and over and over again and creating a $22 billion operating deficit.

So you start looking into the budget a bit further, and on pages 34 and 35, it makes sense why there’s concern around government transfers dropping over the next few years for B.C. Not because the programs for the federal government are changing; it’s because B.C.’s share of the national population has been budgeted to drop by this government. Page 35, the chart’s right there. B.C.’s share of national population — drop, drop, drop. Not huge, granted.

And then you think to yourself: “Well, how is that possible with so much immigration coming in?” Then you go: “Oh, but that’s because for 15 straight months, we’ve had a drop of interprovincial migration.” What that means…. This is on page 100, for those following at home. I know you all have your virtual budget books rolling along. This is on page 100. Again, government’s own charts.

[3:45 p.m.]

Housing starts, dropping. Residential sales, in millions, actually going up. Again, they’re actually expecting home sales to increase even though housing starts are going down and residential sales value is going up higher than residential unit sales. It doesn’t sound like a government budgeting for a drop in the housing prices any time soon, despite what they say, and this continues on over the years.

To give you an idea, they’re expecting, this year, residential sales, in millions, to go up 12.7 percent but the number of sales to only go up 10 percent; a 10 percent sale increase, in millions, the following year, only a 7 percent increase in actual sales — 7.7 in value, 4.9 in number of units. Year after year they’re actually budgeting for the cost of housing to increase.

It’s built into their assumptions of their revenues. Is it any wonder that young people in our province and newer immigrants to our province are leaving? Right below that table I just read that from are the labour market indi­cators for British Columbia — net migration, interprovincial, negative 6.8. It’s negative 8.7 in ’23, negative 6.8 in ’24, negative 4.3 in ’25. Fifteen straight months we’ve had neg­ative migration, and that is directly in the government’s language in this book as well.

Young people don’t have hope. Look at…. If you’re a 25- to 40-year-old in B.C. right now, you’re being told by the government: “If you make $190,000 a year, the rent is still so expensive we’ll actually subsidize it for you.” You need to save 37 years for a down payment if you actually want to own a house, on average.

You have declining numeracy and literacy levels within our public elementary school system. Post-secondary education has skyrocketing costs over the next few years. I can’t tell you how much power is going to cost you over the next little while as we spike prices. But don’t worry; we’ve got a nice shiny announcement where you get eight bucks a month for the next few months out of us because we overcharged you last year. It goes on and on and on.

That’s the backdrop of a young person trying to decide if they want to live in B.C. And oh, by the way, we’re going to tell you we’re going to get housing less expensive, but we’re actually budgeting for it to increase. In fact, our budget requires it to increase not just in construction price but in sale price as well. We need to tap the taxes twice on that.

Oh, and we’ll give you a slight break on first-time-homebuyers tax if you can actually get in and save up that down payment, because you can’t put it on a mortgage, the property transfer tax. You need that cash as well.

If you’re trying to start a family right now but you need access to IVF, you’re going to have to wait another 12 months. So we’ll just add that stress to your relationship, because out of a $32 billion budget in health care, we can’t find $34 million to fund it this year — for IVF — even though all sides of the House agree it’s a good program. And because we don’t have that special caseload money until next year, we can’t even fund it out of that $3 billion that’s earmarked for FIFA.

Even if you are fortunate enough to not need IVF or fortunate enough to be able to afford IVF, we’ve got news for you. There’s no child care for you. You guys will have to figure that one out on your own as well.

That’s the backdrop that this government has created for 25- to 40-year-olds. I’m generalizing a little, I acknowledge. But that’s generally the range. So you look at all that, and then you get to page 100, where there are 15 months straight of net negative interprovincial migration. Again, in the budget book earlier on, it specifically says “to Alberta.” The government’s own budget book is acknowledging all of this.

[3:50 p.m.]

So what do we do as B.C. United? Even without the benefit of all this, because we’ve actually been talking to so-called regular people, which this government scoffed at today in question period…. Apparently, regular people don’t buy gas at the pump on a daily basis, heat their homes, wonder why they’re paying carbon tax that costs more than the gas and a wide range of other taxation issues. Despite what this government says, they’re struggling at heating their homes, to make ends meet. But this government says: “Don’t worry. It’s all fine.” It’s not fine.

So we launch out, and we say: “You know what?” Very clearly, it’s just our first phase of housing announcements. But our leader, in B.C. United…. We stand up, and we say: “Fine. Here are some things we would do differently as it relates to the budget, as it relates to taxation, as it relates to trying to get people that hope again, if you’re between 25 and 40.”

I don’t know where this government thinks the age demographic is for our paramedics and firefighters and nurses and doctors and construction workers and everyone else for our economy to go, but it’s pretty hard to build a future economy without 25- and 40-year-olds, especially if they’re taking their kids with them who would be in the elementary school system. Don’t forget that they’re not getting letter grades in that system, which cheeses off a lot of parents now too.

Anyway, we launch, and we say: “Okay, what can we do? What can we do to help people actually access and unlock their own money without needing to fill out forms, without needing to file a tax return, without hearing that you’re going to get $400 and then finding out you’re really going to get $198.58 spread over four easy installments every quarter?”

How about we just let people keep some of their own money, instead of this in-and-out transaction that keeps happening with this government? The in-and-out transaction is great for the bureaucracy. Not so great for the homeowner. Not so efficient. So we said: “You know what? We’ll remove 14½ cents a litre of fuel tax at the pump.” B.C. United has been clear about that for a couple of years now, actually.

This government’s scoffs at that. They try to say: “Well, Alberta did it, and prices went up.” Yes, Alberta did it, and prices went up 20 cents. In the same time frame this government references, prices went up 40 cents in B.C. Funny that they never mentioned that part of it.

Prices just went up, as we stand here, this week. Taxes didn’t change. Why did the prices go up, if the government thinks the only way taxes go up for gas is because of taxes? Most taxes don’t go up until April 1.

Anyway, 14½ cents a litre at the pump, immediate, to do what Saskatchewan did in response to the federal government saying: “We will remove carbon tax, exempt carbon tax on home-heating oil.” Saskatchewan said: “No, no, no. We’re going to be treated the same as everywhere else in Canada. If there’s a carve out for home-heating oil, there’s a carve out for all home heating, and we’re going to remove the carbon tax on all home heating.” We did the same in our promise and commitment to British Columbians. The irony is that home-heating oil burns much dirtier than natural gas.

Immediate: don’t need a bunch of forms. This means, as the one bill I saw the other day, when you have a $53 charge for gas, a $189 bill in total based on their averaging, they would have saved $77 in carbon tax that month. This government wants to talk about $8 a month for B.C. Hydro when they know full well they’re going to have to jack up the rates next year for Site C. So that would appeal to 25…. Well, it would appeal to everybody. And the 25 to 40 suddenly go: “Okay, there are a few more dollars.”

What else you got? Well, the PST on home construction. Removing that would actually help the cost of construction, unlike this budget that requires the costs of construction to increase for them to be able to meet their revenues. We said: “You know what? You shouldn’t have to wait 37 years to save up a downpayment for a home.”

[3:55 p.m.]

So we brought out the rent-to-own program — again, literally laughed at today by members on this side. It’s not being laughed at outside of these walls. I can tell the government that much.

People and families actually see hope again. They see that a B.C. United rent-to-own program will provide those 25- to 40-year-olds a pathway to be able to save a down payment for their home in three years or less, a reasonable timeline to save up for your home.

You still have to pre-qualify for your own mortgage. You then have to make your own mortgage payments. But we know, unlike what this government wants to say, that there’s a vast number of people in that 25- to 40-year-old age group that could afford the mortgage payment. They just can’t afford the down payment.

Knowing that, we also said: “You know what you need to do with the property transfer tax, then, for first-time home buyers?” It’s one thing if you have the down payment but, again, you can’t put the tax on a mortgage. That’s cash in hand.

We said that it has to be a meaningful change to the property transfer tax. So we capped. We said that on the first million, you don’t pay property transfer tax. That would save people $18,000 of cash they don’t need to come up with for their first home while they’re saving, in three years or less, for the down payment on their first home. That’s literally laughed at by members in this chamber from the government.

That’s shocking. You weren’t laughing at us. You weren’t laughing at B.C. United. You were laughing at every 25- to 40-year-old out there that would actually like to stay in B.C. and actually raise their family and have their career in B.C. Your opinions all seem to be that they’re never going to own a home, that it’s laughable to think that they could even aspire to that. That is going to be the fundamental difference, moving forward, as we talk about this budget.

We’ll roll out our child care plan in the coming weeks and months. News for the government: we’re not government. The onus is on you guys, in this budget, to have actually done something for child care, and you haven’t.

Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair, Member.

P. Milobar: The onus is for the government, in this budget, to provide for mental health and addictions, and you haven’t. To provide for improvements to health care that would actually see something get better, not worse, for once. You haven’t.

The government hasn’t provided to make housing more affordable. In fact, they’ve budgeted every which way they possibly can for it to get worse, while telling us it’s going to get better. Their percentage that the government is putting into education has dropped in this budget.

This government wants to talk about making housing affordable. I haven’t seen anything in here for help for municipalities — and, by extension, people that build housing — to get water and sewer and roads to where the housing is supposed to be built. How does that work? How are you supposed to load up densification in all these areas when you don’t have adequate water, sewer and roads to them?

This government’s response is: “Just build it.” Well, who do they think is going to have to pay for it all? The person buying the unit. How does that make it less expensive? How does that make a purpose-built rental less expensive? That is why this is a culmination of seven-and-a-half years of a government demonstrating they don’t actually understand how to get results. It’s strictly about: how much money can we spend? That’s a horrible way to govern.

I look at the taxation that’s coming in. I look at the spending that’s going out, the amount that this government wastes on a regular basis, with ever-worsening results. It’s not good enough. I could get it if you were getting these results with a deep austerity plan. That would actually be understandable. You’re not. You have more taxation and more spending happening than we’ve ever seen in the province’s history.

[4:00 p.m.]

It’s not us saying you have the worst results; it’s outside agencies. It’s interesting how the Finance Minister will pick and choose when it’s a global recession and global pressures or national pressures, and it’s the same everywhere. Everyone’s having troubles. And the odd time that they get some pat on the back for something they did, suddenly they’re leaders in the country. What happened to aspiring to be leaders in the country on everything?

Why did this government stop caring about being number one for cancer care and access to cancer care in this province? When did it become okay for this government to accept being last, to shrug and say: “Well, that’s the new normal”? It’s not for lack of money. We know if we’re building cancer centres, its a lack of political will. Then they fall back on the chestnut of: “Well, you know, it’s hard to get health care workers, all over Canada.” Yeah, it is. Nowhere else in Canada is as bad as us, though.

I fully expect the other provinces are pointing to B.C. and saying: “Oh, it could always be worse. We could be B.C., folks. I know our health care system needs work, but look what’s happening in B.C.”

Look what’s happening in education. Look what’s happening in crime and safety. Look at how some of those are dropping, in the percentage of spend, by this government. That’s the shocking part. For crime and safety and economic development, they’re actually hoping for a better result by cutting spending on it, and they’re the ones saying that we’re the ones talking about cuts. Really?

They should go and look at our Safer B.C. plan, which will address a lot of the chaos going on in our streets, if you want to compare. They’re cutting spending in that area. We’re hearing from people, loud and clear, that they don’t feel safe in their community, and we have a plan to deal with that.

You have the opioid crisis that’s spiking out of control and a government that’s flip-flopping all over the place, with decriminalization and drugs in the parks or not in the parks. The Green Party has been very clear on where they stand on all this stuff. I think we’ve been pretty clear, over the last year, on where we stand on all this stuff. You know who hasn’t been clear? The government.

What do we get in the budget? Well, you’ve got a throne speech with 3,600 treatment spaces, but you’ve got a budget that’s only going to pay for 2,200. That’s supposed to be good enough. Especially when it’s at the same level as last year and the year before, it’s not good enough. I’ve got news for the government.

The list goes on and on and on. This government is all about the press release, the big, shiny object. Did the Energy Minister and the Premier’s office honestly think that $8 a month on B.C. Hydro, after overcharging us $8 a month last year, was this big, shiny object that was going to endear them to the public, when people don’t have access to child care, a doctor, a surgeon or cancer care?

This budget very clearly lays out just how disjointed this government has become, how arrogant they have become, how out of touch they have become with what is happening. The sad thing is that, based on the spending in the polling area of government, we know it’s not because they haven’t been warned. We know this government is out polling on these issues, non-stop, yet this is the best they could come up with.

A litany of quotes, from groups all over the province, on this budget: capital spending, natural resources — you name it. There are issues all over the place with this budget. I don’t understand how a government could have this poor of an $89 billion spend.

[4:05 p.m.]

This government is spending $10 billion more than last year, with all the same programs, somehow thinking that that’s going to get them a better result. I’m going to read, just in my last five minutes here, what many organizations are saying about the fiscal mismanagement in this budget.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Minister Conroy, a failing grade for B.C.’s budget. They called it a “burning dumpster fire of a budget.” They also added: “Government spending is exploding while our economy stagnates.”

The Vancouver Board of Trade, the province’s fiscal outlet, said: “B.C. has traditionally been a leader in Canada for growth, but we now find ourselves right near the back of the pack for growth this year and next. We are in an environment of low growth, high costs, stagnant incomes and historic growth in our population.”

Federation of Independent Business. They worry about the long-term impact of this budget on our economy, saying: “The budget forecasts an additional $13 billion in spending, coupled with a $7.9 billion deficit this year…. This rampant spending and debt are a setback for businesses, British Columbians and our economic environment for the foreseeable future.”

Dr. Schell, a finance professor at VIU, said of the budget: “We’re so worried about inflation. Inflation happens at the global and national level. It also happens at our local level. In our case, a lot of that inflationary pressure funnels into housing pricing. By increasing government spending at this time like this, we’re not actually improving on the affordability problem that they really need to begin working on.”

The list goes on and on. Again, these are quotes comparing us with the rest of the country.

It’s shocking. It’s sad, actually, to have a government that doesn’t seem to want to aspire to be a national leader. Where are the accountability and the results-driven focus that are needed by a government to drag cancer care along, to drag health care along, education, housing, affordability? How is it that other jurisdictions are able to be under the national average for inflation, on a regular basis, and we’re regularly over the national average?

All we get out of this government is a shrug and a budget that spends even more money. It’s disappointing that our safe haven of contingencies in this budget appears to be almost exclusively reserved for FIFA. I’d ask the government members to maybe reflect upon comments and statements, either publicly or personally, they were making about the Olympics and all the projects with the Olympics, the Olympic organization in general, the concept around the Olympics, and ask themselves if that’s why they’re hiding the contingencies.

Again, I fully support FIFA, but I am not afraid. I wouldn’t be hiding it on page 61, if I were fortunate enough to be in government. I would just tell you that we have to spend some money on FIFA. Not this government. To tag it in on a contingency line, the same as with other caseload pressures — well, “shifty” is one word that comes to mind.

They already have the games. We know they’re coming. We should just be forthright with the public that there’s a reason there’s no more money in this budget for mental health and addictions, for health care and for education: “We couldn’t take extra affordability measures, simply because we wanted to hide some spending here and there.”

I do look forward to the printing errors being corrected, supposedly, on cancer centres, hospitals and all those good things. It certainly doesn’t instil a level of confidence, for me, in this overall budget process if a government can have an oopsie and say: “We totally forgot to make sure that cancer centres were in the budget. Our bad. But trust us; the money is there.”

[4:10 p.m.]

It would be bad enough if it was some other type of project, but for it to be cancer centres…. Seriously? And the best response you get is that it’s a printing error. That’s shameful. Absolutely shameful.

I think I’ve probably used up all of my time, and I thank you for this opportunity to go into a little more detail on some of the fine points of the contradictions and hypocrisy that are within Budget 2024. I do look forward to hearing the responses from people.

S. Furstenau: I rise to respond to Budget 2024.

I looked back on my budget response from last year, in which I was reflecting on the way that our budgeting processes have a tendency in B.C. to be quite ahistorical. Every budget comes out, and we shall not speak of the last budget or the budget before that or the budget before that. It’s like we start new every time.

Once again this budget, which is “Taking action for you,” moves on from “Stronger B.C.” from last year. But last year I reflected back on the 2022 promises that were the highlights of the budget. Those 2022 promises included 15 First Nations primary care centres. I think I and a lot of British Columbians would really like to know: have we seen those First Nations primary care centres be built? Are they operational? How many? How many people are they serving?

The budgets in 2022 and 2023 both promised complex care housing. It would be really great for British Columbians in the 2024 budget to get a report out. “This is how many units have been built. This is how many people are now housed after this now being the third year that we’re promising complex care housing.”

Stable funding to 50 community-based sexual assault response organizations, 2022. I really think it would be great information for us to have. Which are those organizations? How’s the stable funding going? How many people are being served?

Last year’s budget promises included investments across the continuum of care for prevention, harm reduction, safe supply, withdrawal management, treatment and recovery. We get more promises this year about investments for mental health and addictions. We don’t really find out specifically how much those investments paid off last year.

Last year we were promised thousands of supportive housing units with integrated health, social, cultural, community and housing stability supports. Again, I’d be curious to know if we have those thousands of supportive housing units.

Rapid response for regions responding to substantive encampments, including $44 million to help people access temporary modular units. The mayor of Duncan, Michelle Staples, along with Cowichan Housing Association, has worked so hard over and over again to get funding for the Village site in Duncan, which is housing dozens of people successfully. But the effort to get that funding has been herculean. Yet there was $44 million promised in last year’s budget, $1 million in funding per year to keep the Village site.

I’m delighted that it’s there. It shouldn’t have been as hard as it was for the mayor of Duncan. Always up to the line, always wondering if that funding is going to come through.

Thankfully, Campbell River and Kelowna are replicating this very successful model. Local governments are seeing what’s working when it comes to supportive housing, modular housing, finding housing for people, getting them what they need.

[4:15 p.m.]

Last year we were promised financial supports for people on income and disability assistance. We saw a small increase to the shelter rate. Nothing this year for people on disability assistance, people who are living in dire poverty in this province.

This year we have an $89 billion budget. Indeed, as the Finance critic for the opposition has pointed out, the largest budget in B.C.’s history — $89 billion. I added up all the budgets since the NDP have been in government. We’re closing in on half a trillion dollars. About $450 billion has been budgeted since the NDP have been in government.

So $89 billion. And what are the highlights? I’m talking about the highlights that the government wants us to focus on, at the front of their budget.

A $100 rebate on hydro. The EHT exemption for small businesses raised to $1 million. This is good. It provides some relief for small businesses. We’ve been advocating for this. And $198 million for three years for BC Builds, in a housing emergency. One year of IVF funding for families, or one treatment of IVF funding, starting in 2025. Oh, and $13.2 billion for electrical generation transmission and distribution.

These are the highlights. This is what government put at the front of the budget book of an $89 billion budget. I fully believe that government should be investing in the province, in people, in the future. But with an $89 billion budget, if these are the highlights, I don’t know what we’re going to accomplish.

I was talking with the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands a couple of months ago about the idea of seven generations. He was explaining to me that when you think about seven generations, it’s not seven generations ahead. That’s not the thinking. It’s look three generations back. What have we learned? And then look three generations forward. What do we owe? What do we learn from our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents? And how do we take that and apply it so we don’t keep making the same mistakes for our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren?

Really, budgeting…. That should be the essence of budgeting. We’re looking back. How did we spend money in the past? What did that money accomplish? Did it achieve the things that we wanted to achieve? Then we look forward, and we ask: where do we want to be in three generations from now? And how do we spend money right now to get us to that place, three generations from now, so that our great-grandchildren benefit from the money that we’re spending and, indeed, the debt that we’re incurring right now?

I don’t see the through line. The member for Saanich North and the Islands and I have talked about this. Where is the through line? Where’s the line that looks back? Where’s the line that looks forward? Where’s the line that says this is a government that has an idea about where we want to be in three generations from now?

I have an idea. I have a lot of ideas. I sure would like to see greater food and water security in the future than we have now. We are in pretty dire drought conditions. We have been for a long time. In 2015, when I was an area director, we got the news from staff at the Cowichan Valley regional district that some of our water systems were on the brink of failure. It was May of 2015. It was May, nine years ago. We have been in a long and sustained drought.

[4:20 p.m.]

We only are starting to see an indication from this government that they are paying attention to the realities of the implications of that long and sustained drought, that we may not have the water we need to keep rivers flowing, to keep fish and habitat alive, to keep water coming out of taps in a lot of regions of this province.

In three generations from now, I’d like to see us have moved past a 20th-century economy that roots us in dirty fossil fuel exports. We are going in the wrong direction in this budget. We have turned back to the 20th century in this budget. We are doubling down on the exports of dirty fossil fuels, on more fracking, on more methane releasing. When the International Energy Agency says that the world needs to rein in methane, B.C. says: “Hold my beer.”

It’s 2024, and we’re going all in on LNG. Our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will not only have a hotter world, thanks, in part, to us. But the resources that we are giving to these industries: water — enormous amounts of water used for fracking, contaminated forever; and energy.

We’re going to have a Site C dam. Maybe flood the Peace River Valley, although maybe not, because the drought conditions are too severe. But the energy from that Site C dam is for cheap electricity to the LNG industry. There’s the through line.

Oh, but our rates are going to go up. It’s quite astonishing. Don’t worry. Industrial electricity rates — they’re going to get a break. They’re also going to get a break on carbon pricing. Literally the biggest polluters in our province are going to get a break on carbon taxes.

While B.C. United makes the case that we should be giving people a break on carbon tax, they are silent on the breaks that the oil and gas industry are going to get — 50 percent of their emissions not taxed. The biggest polluters, not taxed.

The revenues that should go to B.C. for the cost of this industry to all of us are not flowing. So when we can’t fund the services that this government claims to be so committed to, part of that is because major multinational oil and gas companies are getting huge breaks.

Let’s name them, the five companies that own LNG Canada. Shell, what were their profits last year — $38 billion. PETRONAS, $613 million. Mitsubishi, $1 billion. KOGAS, $2.9 billion. PetroChina, $8.1 billion — profits. But we’re giving these companies a break, not just on their carbon taxes. We’re giving them a break on electricity rates that the rest of us are going to pay for, because our hydro rates are going to go up when Site C comes online.

That’s the through line that I can find in this budget. Not a budget that says it’s the 21st century, that it’s 2024. We have zombie fires burning year-round in northeast B.C. We have Alberta starting its wildfire season in the middle of February. We had the hottest year on record in 2023. The oceans, right now, are warmer than they’ve ever been. And we’re going to double down on methane. That’s the vision of this majority government.

[4:25 p.m.]

This is what they think is the future we should be spending money on in this province, the future we should be handing off to our children and grandchildren and their children. We’ve learned nothing, looking back three generations or seven generations.

Being a boom-and-bust company town, resource-extracting place has not actually served the long-term well-being of the people of B.C. It sure has served the long-term well-being of giant corporations. But we need a government that says: “We’re here for the people of B.C. We’re here to create a future where our great-grandchildren aren’t going to look back on us and say: ‘I can’t forgive them. They did not invest in my future. They invested in the future of Shell and Petronas and Mitsubishi and KOGAS and PetroChina. Their futures are looking bright and rosy, thanks to B.C.’”

But the kids who are suffering because our air quality is so poor in the summer times now — because our summer is no longer summer; it’s wildfire season — what do they have in this budget? What’s there for them?

Trans-Canada pipeline. I just have to say…. My colleagues in B.C. United keep wanting to talk about Trans-Canada pipeline, $35 billion for a pipeline to transport diluted bitumen from the tar sands to Burnaby. Imagine what a federal government could have done with $35 billion of investment. Extraordinary things. Absolutely transformative.

But nope. We’re going to take a pipeline off the hands of a company that’s looking in the future and saying: “This thing is not going to make us money.” Then we’re going to pour billions and billions of dollars into it after the hottest year on record. Disappointing, to say the least. So $475 billion. That’s what we’ve spent since this government came into power.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

A quick segue over to housing. This government is talking a lot about housing for people. Since 1999, for 23 years, between 1999 and 2022, 39 percent of acquisitions of rental housing units have been by real estate investment trusts. Thirty-nine percent have been bought by what are called REITs. This is called financialized housing. Those REITs have one goal: to extract profit from that housing and deliver that profit to their shareholders. That’s Vancouver. Since 1999, 39 percent of rental housing acquisitions have been by REITs. In Surrey, it’s 59 percent.

REITs have been buying up rental housing in this province for over 20 years. We have seen a steady increase, a catastrophic increase in the cost of housing, especially the cost of rental housing.

Last year we proposed that this government consider the risk of REITs moving into the single-family-housing market. We proposed an amendment to their Bill 44. We proposed that this government take proactive steps to ensure that all of this housing that they’re promising is going to be built magically by the market, not be open to real estate investment trusts, to be treated as a financialized commodity. They rejected the amendment.

[4:30 p.m.]

Within a week, a new story came out. Jeff Bezos has a single-family-housing REIT that he has started. He is in the single-family-housing market. There is a possible future in this province where a person could be working for Amazon, for Jeff Bezos, and living in a house owned by Jeff Bezos’s real estate investment trust. I want to consider what the implications of that are for people’s sense of security. When your boss is also the person that owns your house, how secure does that feel?

What this government has chosen to do is to take very little action, no action really — we’ve been asking about it since 2018 — against REITs, against the deepening financialization of housing in this province, against housing being treated like a commodity and not for a place for people to live. They love to use the line “housing for people,” yet we see little action on that.

But in the budget, it’s fascinating to see that social housing, which is an antidote to the conditions we’re seeing, particularly for renters, housing that is not part of the housing market, housing that is not going to be subject to financialization, housing that is indexed to people’s income so it’s affordable…. The investments in social housing go slightly up this year and then down for the next two years.

So in the crisis that we face in this province where tens of thousands of people can’t afford housing at all, and hundreds of thousands are at risk of losing housing because they’re spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, we have a government that is going to reduce the investments in social housing. They’re going to choose not to ensure that we’re creating enough non-market housing and not-for-profit housing to ensure that people in B.C. have a place to live. Every person in B.C. should have a place to live.

A few other things that we identified as we were looking through the numbers of the budget on Thursday….

I’m not going to be the designated speaker today. I will leave that to my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands. I know. I see the disappointment in my colleagues. I will be wrapping up within eight minutes.

Health care. I had hoped to see an acknowledgment that team-based care in community health centres is a solution that we need in every community in B.C. I had hoped to also see an investment for something we have been calling for since 2020, which is to include psychologists under MSP, to include six visits with a psychologist for preventative mental health care. It’s much, much less expensive to prevent and to provide services to people before they’re in a health care crisis.

I was quite taken aback to see the budgeted amount per child in the child welfare system. Currently, this year, it’s $134,000. It’s going up in the 2024 budget. But the three-year projection is to have the cost per child who is in care to be $197,000 per year. There’s an explanatory note in the budget that indicates that the reason why there’s an anticipated $60,000 increase per child in care is that government anticipates rising costs of private service providers, group homes.

[4:35 p.m.]

We have had absolutely devastating outcomes for children in group homes in this province. We have had reports from the Representative for Children and Youth. We have had national news stories about the way in which these private, for-profit group homes are not meeting the needs of children, the most marginalized and vulnerable children in our province. Yet we have a government that’s ready to increase funding to these services by $60,000 a year.

Imagine if we took those funds and actually invested them into communities and created the conditions for children and families to be well, supported the families that they need to, provided the services so that families can tend to their children, provide the counselling and supports, all the things.

No. We’re anticipating thousands of children being in care and spending $197,000 per child per year.

Schools. It’s a status quo. Yes, operational funding goes up because the expectation is that there’s going to be an increase in enrolment in schools, but this is in a public education system that has been starving for decades. Just this morning on The Current: the looming and growing crisis of a lack of teachers across this country. We’re going to be in the same place with teachers that we are with nurses right now — not enough.

We’re not looking at the horizon. We’re not saying: “How do we avoid that crisis? How do we not end up in that place?” No indication of a historic investment in education, which is critical to building a healthier, more prosperous society — critical.

For people with disabilities, I can only imagine that this budget felt like an absolute turning of the back on them. Not only no increase to the funding for people with disabilities but no recognition of the way in which the system continues to make life more difficult for people with disabilities, for people on income assistance, traps them in poverty.

No indication that the recommendations from the task force on basic income are being incorporated, are being recognized, that we are leaving people abandoned in poverty in this province. For people with disabilities, there was nothing in this budget to say: “We see you, and we don’t want you to continue to suffer in the dire straits of poverty that you are living in.”

It is interesting to note one trend, ministry operations: Citizens’ Services, $25 million in additional funding for ministry operations; Finance, $80 million in additional funding for ministry operations; Municipal Affairs, $20 million increase in municipal operations. There is a lot of money going inside ministry operations, yet we aren’t ensuring that the money is resulting in the services getting to people who need them.

This comes back to where I was last year, still in the same place. We need to measure well-being. We need to look at how this money is being spent. And is it getting us the results that we should expect from an $89 billion budget? Are people going to be better? Is their well-being going to be better a year from now because of $89 billion? Is it better today because of the $80 billion from last year or the $71 billion from the year before?

[4:40 p.m.]

If we do not measure how this money is actually resulting in either the improvement or not of well-being writ large in this province, we will continue to spend money and have no idea of what outcomes it’s getting. That is not responsible governance, and I would hope for better.

B. Banman: I rise today to point out, first, that the 2024 budget represents a clear departure from the B.C. New Democratic Party as British Columbians once knew it. B.C.’s 2024 budget makes one thing crystal-clear. This is no longer John Horgan’s B.C. NDP. The NDP Premier of British Columbia, the current one, is spending more than ever before to get even less for working people.

There will be no surpluses, no money set aside for a rainy day under this NDP Premier. This B.C. NDP will spend at a record speed and pile up a historic debt. The Premier and his friends on the other side of the House are taking B.C., from a province that ended the 2022-2023 fiscal year with a surplus, to one where families and future generations are asked now to shoulder the burden of the highest-ever deficit and total debt in the history of British Columbia.

Under this NDP, B.C.’s total debt will increase by over $61 billion in just three short years. That means that every child born this year, every person in British Columbia, will have nearly $11,000 of debt per British Columbian. That works out to more than $40,000 per family of four, yet families are being asked to spend so much more and have been given so much less in return.

This budget will provide British Columbians with no relief at the grocery store checkout and no meaningful relief when rent is due. Once again, under this NDP, hard-working, everyday people are being asked to pay more and expect less.

How does the NDP budget address education of the next generation of British Columbians — our future doctors, our future lawyers, our future workers in all kinds of different segments? Public universities and colleges can now be confident that they can charge young people more and more, as the maximum student loan amounts are doubled. Young people can now rack up record amounts of debt while pursuing their education in this NDP’s B.C.

I know a thing or two about this. When I got my education, there was no room for me, in my field, to take my education in Canada. I ended up going to the United States. Coincidentally, that was the time that the United States increased the amount that students could borrow. My tuition started at $1,500 a quarter, and it was close to $5,000 a quarter by the time I left. There was a direct correlation to what universities could charge versus the amount of money that the students had.

This money that’s put aside is well-meaning. It’s for students that are struggling to pay rent, struggling to buy groceries. We have food banks at universities now. But did this government implement a freeze on what universities could charge, so that they, like landlords, could only raise their rates by inflation?

[4:45 p.m.]

If you’re a student at home, brace yourself, because you will graduate thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in debt. When you are in debt with your student loans, thanks to the generosity of this budget, not only will you have to pay back the deficit one day — that will be on their shoulders — but try and buy that car of your dreams or try and buy that home or that first condo.

When you are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, you will be forced, most likely, to seek government rentals. The government will become your landlord. The government will become your keeper, and you will be in debt to the government.

It is a poisoned carrot, and it is not one that holds our educational institutions to the task as well. They have become addicted to foreign students, the revenue that those foreign students come in with. My heart goes out to those foreign students, some of them.

This will not end well for our youth. What is this NDP’s solution about the abuse of illegal drugs or decriminalizing? Well, there is funding in this budget for 49 overdose sites at $1 million a pop, which means more funding for new drug sites to bring yet more drugs, crime and chaos to a B.C. community where you and your family live.

What about housing? Our province is faced with record demand for housing, even as more and more British Columbians are fleeing to Alberta, and we’ve all heard of people who are retiring and leaving the country, because they can’t afford to live here on a fixed budget.

One of the signature policies of Budget ’24 appears to be “the flipping tax.” Okay. I understand. I understand that the objection of the flipping tax was to discourage a true flip, where little or nothing is done to improve the property. I assume that the intent of the flipping tax is both to put a break on housing inflation and keep housing available to supply demand, but let’s drill this down just a little bit. What are the likely consequences of the flipping tax for the housing market?

The 20 percent tax on a residence sold within a year of purchase will reduce supply. For owners who have already purchased with the intention to flip, well, I’ll tell you what. I know a lot of people that I know that’ll hang on to that, that have a house currently. They’ll just hold on for a year, and then sell — until the property tax no longer applies, until that flipping tax no longer applies.

It also seems likely to me that home renovators will be withdrawn from the market altogether, and I’ll get into who’s exempt from that in a minute. The home-renovation-for-resale market contributes to increasing the supply of housing availability in the real estate market. When home renovators buy a property to flip, they will look at ways to maximize value before putting it up for resale. Maximizing value frequently means increasing the housing capacity of a property.

Now, Abbotsford was one of the first to do this. Let me explain the particular problem with this and what’s omitted. One of the greatest things that Abbotsford did to increase the supply of rental income was to legalize so-called basement suites — the little mortgage helpers, as some people would call it. It was one of the single big things that they did. In addition to that, it helped single parents get into school catchment basins that they otherwise would not have been able to get their children to go to. It was a great balancing act.

The question here is: if a developer buys a piece of property and puts in a basement suite — which can happen well within a year; it doesn’t take much time at all — they will now be subject to this flipping tax, if they take an older home in some of the more affluent areas.

[4:50 p.m.]

Take Shaughnessy as an example, where there are some large homes — some of these have already been done — where they take a home that is thousands of square feet and then turn it into either rentals or condos, which can happen in well under a year. They, too, will be subject to this 20 percent tax. Do you know who’s going to pay that? The renter or the purchaser of those properties.

This will hurt supply; it won’t help it. It will hurt it in a big way. It’s coming from the very government that said: “Hey, you know what? Let’s have a sixplex on the end of every cul-de-sac.” On one hand they’ve said, “Hey, this is a great idea to take homes and increase the supply and divide them up into smaller bits, so people have a place to live,” yet if you actually do that, there’s going to be a 20 percent tax.

Now, the various exemptions set out in the budget documents include: separation and divorce — I think we can all agree with that; death — if you buy a place and you die, and it’s sold and that happens within a year; disability and illness; work relocation; job loss; the change of a household; personal safety; or insolvency.

The vital part that’s missing is what about the people that are actually going to increase the housing supply in the existing housing that we do have? It is a huge error, and the devil is always in the details. I would encourage this government to fix that particular missing point. I don’t think it was intended, but if you don’t get it right to begin with, there are unforeseen consequences.

None of those exemptions that I mentioned and that are actually in this budget is designed to increase capacity prior to resale. The flipping tax will merely squelch and limit the housing supply, even as more demand for housing continues to ramp up. It sends a loud message to anyone that wants to reno a home to increase the amount of people that can live in that home: “Get out of Dodge and find another province to go invest your money in because it ain’t welcome here in British Columbia.”

It’s a huge error in judgment, and it is typical of this NDP government, thinking that anyone that wants to use their sweat equity is somehow a profiteer or evil. Now, far from increasing supply and reducing inflation in the housing market, the flipping tax seems likely to reduce supply and contribute further to prices for housing, because the supply will dry up and get even worse.

One further thing that this NDP budget seems to maintain is a strategic silence about what will affect every family, business and working person very quickly and directly. It sometimes seems that memes write themselves: as of April Fools’ Day, this government will increase the carbon tax charge by $15, up to $80 per tonne of emissions of carbon dioxide.

As a result of this very poor April Fools’ joke, the carbon tax on gasoline will rise about 20 cents per litre, on diesel fuel the carbon tax will rise to about 23 cents per litre, and the carbon tax on natural gas will bump up to nearly 18 cents per cubic metre.

If this Premier really wanted to help hard-working British Columbians, here’s an idea. If the NDP Premier really wanted to do that — wanted to help families, seniors, working people and businesses that are struggling to keep their doors open, a real, immediate tax relief — he could announce a carbon tax holiday today in this budget. Yet they chose not to.

It would be one thing if we were ready and had the capacity for electricity, but we don’t. Currently, according to the government of British Columbia, about 20 percent of all British Columbians’ energy requirements are supplied by electricity.

[4:55 p.m.]

I think we can all agree that electricity is a much cleaner way to go. B.C. Hydro generates about 69,000 gigawatt hours to supply that demand. The remaining 80 percent of our energy is supplied from hydrocarbon fuels, natural gases, propane, fuel oil, gasoline and diesel. To replace that energy source from hydrocarbons with electricity would require that B.C. Hydro find as much as 345,000 gigawatts of generating capacity — 345,000, yet we only produce approximately 70,000 now.

If B.C. Hydro hopes to bring the Site C hydroelectric dam onto the Peace River to completion and online soon — costing, at last report, some $16 billion to do so — this will add only 5,100 gigawatt hours, bringing B.C. Hydro’s electrical generation capacity up to just…. Well, let’s be generous and call it 75,000 gigawatts. Even with Site C, we are nowhere near the capacity to be able to go there.

Now is not the time to penalize hard-working British Columbians with a carbon tax, when they’ve got no alternative. They are stuck utilizing what they currently have, because we do not have the capacity. I don’t see anywhere that this budget addresses that huge shortfall.

To sum it up, in this NDP Premier’s British Columbia, groceries cost more. I was talking to a constituent; prior to the pandemic, they ordered groceries, and it was $92. They ordered them online and had them delivered. Just as a test, they ordered the exact same order, and it was $300 about two weeks ago. Groceries clearly cost more. Everyone sees it.

Education is going to cost more. Housing costs more. The carbon tax, even when you cannot get away from it, is going to cost more, and overdose drug sites may be coming to your neighbourhood. I will remind this government that every time they do this, more and more people die every day from overdose. What we’re doing is not working. We have to have treatment. I see little of that.

To be clear, this is the result, and the NDP are not solely to blame for this. This has been a joint effort for the last 32 years, of 16 years of the NDP and 16 years of the B.C. Liberal/United governments.

In October of this year, there will be an election in British Columbia. People will decide the future of our great province. Prior to the election, the B.C. Conservatives will continue to stand up for B.C. families, children and seniors, and fight this autocratic, top-down-heavy, socialistic NDP government tooth and nail. We will put forward a plan to get B.C.’s future back. Our children deserve it. We have to restore hope again, because it’s fading quickly.

It is time for hard-working British Columbians to have opportunity again. It is time for young people to see a future in British Columbia. It is time for seniors with fixed incomes to have confidence that this means it will meet their cost of living and they don’t have to think about moving out of the country in order to barely survive. It is time for families to see their way clear to an affordable lifestyle and a quality of life.

[5:00 p.m.]

It is time for British Columbians to be reassured that they will not be facing more month than they have money to pay for the necessities of life, let alone any of the luxuries. This NDP Premier’s vision of managed decline in respect of British Columbia’s social, cultural and economic prospects must be repealed and replaced — full stop. The cost to our future is just too high.

R. Parmar: It’s a pleasure to rise in this House and speak to Budget 2024. I wasn’t planning on speaking this afternoon, but after hearing the nonsense from the member across the way, the House Leader for the Conservative Party, I thought it would be helpful to bring some facts and some relevancy to the issues that matter to the people of British Columbia.

Again, what we’ve seen time and time again from the BCUP, from the B.C. Conservative Party is misinformation. Anything they can do to divide British Columbians has been their focus since day one. I’m going to be touching on that throughout the next 30 minutes or so as I speak to Budget 2024.

I first want to begin by just acknowledging my thanks to the Minister of Finance. It is no easy task putting a budget together. It requires a lot of staff time. It requires a lot of the minister’s time. It requires a lot of engagement. So I just want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance and her entire team for the herculean effort that they’ve undertaken over the last number of months, probably since the last budget was introduced last year, to hear from British Columbians.

I know that all of us, in the debates that we have, are reflected in that budget, all the conversations that we have on the ground. I had an opportunity on Thursday afternoon. A constituent walked in just after the budget had been released. The House adjourned, and I raced back to Langford as quickly as I could because I had a busy afternoon and evening with events.

I happened to get back to the community office and had a person come by to talk about the budget — I happened to be there — and ask for a copy of the budget as well. In a very brief conversation, because she acknowledged that she had some homework to do…. She had to read the budget, had to listen to the speech of the minister and acknowledged that in the brief commentary that she saw on her local radio station and what she saw online, this budget really seemed to be about lifting people up.

It was about making the necessary investments in people at a time when people are struggling in so many ways. I often think of that very brief conversation we had in the lobby of my community office, and I agree with her. This budget, the budget that the minister and her team have put forward, that our government has put forward, is about lifting British Columbians up at a time when British Columbians are struggling.

It counters an approach that we’ve seen time and time again, whether it’s here in British Columbia or other provinces across this country, of governments. When things get tough, they cut. They don’t cut the top 2 percent. They don’t impact their donors. They don’t impact the people that they rely on. They cut on the middle-income earners, the low-income earners: British Columbians who are struggling.

That’s certainly what the BCUP would do if they sat on this side of the House. We sure know that’s what the Conservatives would do if they sat on this side of the House. We just listened to the speeches from the member opposite who acknowledged that all throughout the 20 minutes that he stood up.

I’m proud of Budget 2024 and what it does. It starts with investments in people. It starts with helping people with everyday costs. It’s about making sure that we continue to make British Columbia a great place to raise a family, that we continue to make sure that British Columbia is a place where everyone can thrive and succeed. It’s tough to do that with global inflation that has made life more and more expensive for so many people.

But we know, with the efforts we’ve taken in the past number of years since 2017 when we formed government, that whether it’s investing in child care, investing in the building of more homes, investing in school meal programs, investing in growing our public education and post-secondary education system, that Budget 2024 builds on all of that work.

[5:05 p.m.]

It continues to ensure that in tough times, like the ones we are in, we are making investments in people because the people of British Columbia are our competitive advantage.

One thing that was highlighted very clearly and very early on in the Minister of Finance’s speech was the B.C. family benefit.

I remember well, less than a year ago…. I had just been elected as the member for Langford–Juan de Fuca. I can’t remember if I had been sworn in yet. I had an opportunity to stand with the Minister of Children and Family Development at an announcement to talk about the expansion of the B.C. family benefit. I remember, at that announcement, hearing from two parents.

We had Charla Huber, who is someone who lives in my region, an incredible person. She serves, I believe, to this day, as the president of the Victoria police board, a longtime reporter for the Goldstream Gazette as well as someone who shares her struggles and challenges growing up in poverty and now supporting her young child. I shared, with her, what an investment like the B.C. family benefit would mean to her growing up and supporting her family.

We also had an opportunity to hear from Ashley MacDonald, who has a little one. She talked about what the B.C. family benefit means for her family, whether it means making sure that her young son, who is the beacon of her hope, what she works hard to support each and every day, gets access to the things that he needs. That B.C. family benefit is so critical to supporting young families. I often have so many conversations with people in Langford–Juan de Fuca about that.

That’s what’s great about Budget 2024. Families will see a 25 percent increase to their monthly B.C. family benefit, with $248 million for a one-year B.C. family benefit bonus starting this July. A family of four would receive up to $2,850 per year and, with the bonus, will now receive as much as $3,500. A single parent with one child would receive up to $2,250 but now, with the investments that we’ve made in Budget 2024, will receive closer to $2,700 per year.

On average, as the minister had shared, families will receive close to $500 more per year. Again, the B.C. family benefit is just one of the tools that we’re using to support over 66,000 more families, 25 percent more families, who will now have access to this benefit, totalling 340,000 families during the 12-month period.

That wasn’t it. We also heard the minister talk about the important investments in people and giving people a break on their electricity bill, thanks to a one-time, year-long B.C. electricity affordability credit. As the minister shared, households will save an average of $100 on their bills over the course of the year, depending on their power usage.

We saw…. Certainly, I know that the Minister of Jobs and others in government have heard from the business community.

Interjection.

R. Parmar: It’s true. You can nod your head as many times as you want. It’s good news for people in your community. I’d suggest you go knock on some doors and talk to people about it.

Commercial industrial customers — I think the member across represents a lot of them — will also receive up to 4.6 percent of their electricity consumption in savings. The average small business will save $400 over the course of the year. That’s good news for businesses across the province. Again, people and businesses will see the credit on each monthly bill starting in April 2024.

I also want to talk a bit about the climate action tax credit and the payments for this year. I’ve been talking a lot about the climate action tax credit in my community. Again, it’s one of the topics that the members opposite like to misinform and bring up quite often in this place and in communities.

I had an opportunity to talk to media in the member for…. It’s not Columbia River–Revelstoke. The member across the way, Kootenay East.

Thank you to the member for Kootenay East for bailing me out.

[5:10 p.m.]

I had an opportunity to talk to the media about the hypocrisy of the climate action tax credit that the members across the way brought in and how as soon as the Conservatives changed their tune on it we saw the BCUP, out of fear of losing votes in those communities, change their principles, change their stance on that. That’s what happened. That’s what we saw on this side of the House.

Let’s set the record straight — that 100 percent of the revenue from the carbon tax increase will be directed to the climate action tax credit. That’s the fact. We can certainly acknowledge that the members on the other side of the House will say other things, but that is the fact. One hundred percent of revenue from the carbon tax increase will be directed to the climate action tax credit.

Let’s talk about what that means for British Columbians. It means that a family of four that received $890 last year will receive over $1,000. An individual that received $447 last year will receive over $500, starting in July of later this year. The number of people receiving the credit increases annually will reach a goal of 80 percent of British Columbian households by 2030. Again, the majority of British Columbians are projected to receive more through this enhanced credit than they pay in the carbon tax by 2030. Those are the facts.

I also want to talk a bit about the supports that we’ve provided to businesses. We certainly saw the Leader of the Opposition get a little bit confused about this. There was a lot in this budget, so I don’t fault him for the misfortune of his comments subsequent to the Minister of Finance’s remarks. Budget 2024 answers the calls from growing businesses that have been talking about this for a number of years.

I want to commend and thank the Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation, who I had an opportunity to just chat with briefly as we were heading into this House to hear the minister speak, to thank her for her advocacy on this issue. I know that as someone who used to work for her not too long ago as her chief of staff, this is something we heard from businesses time and time again.

Budget 2024 answered that call from growing businesses, with doubling the exemption threshold of the employer’s health tax from $500,000 to $1 million. With this change alone, 90 percent of businesses will be exempt from the tax, estimated to save them over $100 million a year. Again, that’s beginning in 2024. That is a real, important change and, I think, just acknowledges the fact that here you have a government that listens, unlike the approach that the members on the other side took.

When the Leader of the Opposition was the Minister of Finance, he had committed to lowering the small business tax when he was planning his budget and preparing his budget, and then ultimately released his budget. Businesses who had been preparing for it and had been told to expect this in the budget were shocked to see that the small business tax had not been cut. They were quite upset by it, and I wish I had some quotes from me at the time to remind the members opposite of that change.

Nevertheless, in 2018, when we introduced our first budget as a government, our Minister of Finance at the time, Carole James, brought the tax down. And here we are building on that important work, showing the small businesses in our communities across the province.

Again, I think of the businesses in the communities that I have the honour of representing. The hubs, the businesses that provide so much to their communities and that are often…. Whether you think of little coffee shops that become the little legislatures of communities where people from all different walks of life come to debate politics and discuss what’s going on in the community, when you think of the good restaurants we have in our communities, the local bike shop, you name it — those are all businesses that employ local people. They invest in our communities.

I think back to the time when I was participating in youth soccer programs and how whenever I would go to a local business in my community to ask them to sponsor me, without a doubt, it was always a yes. Maybe if they actually saw me play soccer, they might have said no. But nevertheless, they were very kind to me and, I know, to so many people across British Columbia.

I think it’s important to acknowledge, as has Bridgitte Anderson, the CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade: “Our number one ask was seeing some relief on the EHTs. We are pleased to see that and also pleased to see the additional relief when it comes to electricity credit.” That, again, is from an influential person that I know the minister speaks to regularly that represents a lot of voices, in the Lower Mainland and across the province, from the business community.

[5:15 p.m.]

I know that it wasn’t just Bridgitte who had shared her thoughts on that. Fiona Famulak, the president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, had also said: “I’m also grateful that the government has invested in the essential infrastructure — housing, health care, etc. Even though those are social issues, they have a direct line back to businesses.”

I’m sure there are many other individuals. I’m looking forward to joining the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin in having some conversations with our local chambers in our region, to talk about the impact that that change will have on businesses in our community.

I want to transition to the generational issue, the issue that the Premier has made his top priority: delivering more homes for people, and faster. The Premier and our government and the Minister of Housing have acknowledged, in previous sessions and even this year, with significant announcements, that we all want people in British Columbia to work hard and afford to find a decent home in a community they love.

Again, I have many conversations with people in Langford–Juan de Fuca about the importance of building more affordable homes so people can live, grow, play and age in their communities.

We’ve done a number of things in the buildup to Budget 2024. We’re reining in the out-of-control short-term rental market. We’re expanding the speculation and vacancy tax — a tax, I might add, that the Leader of the Opposition would get rid of if he sat on this side of the House.

We’ve fixed the restrictive and outdated zoning rules, and I know that there’s work ongoing in communities across the province. I’ll say it again, since it has created a little bit of entertainment: the Leader of the Opposition has made it very clear that he doesn’t support the speculation and vacancy tax. And I think I speak for many British Columbians in knowing that if he sat on this side of the House, he would get rid of it. It’s been pretty clear in the comments. I’d point out many of those comments to the members opposite.

That’s not all. We’ve also turned more land, in areas near transit hubs, into homes for people, with our transit-oriented development legislation. We legalized secondary suites in communities all across the province. We’ve cut down wait times at the residential tenancy branch and also taken a number of steps to support renters in Budget 2024. We’ve spoken about providing an annual $400 renters tax credit, as well as ensuring that we’re continuing to make more affordable housing investments, which I’ll certainly touch on.

We instituted a new tax in Budget 2024, a new measure. That’s the B.C. home-flipping tax — which, again, the members opposite don’t seem to be in favour of. I don’t understand why.

Interjections.

R. Parmar: I look forward to the members opposite making it very, very clear where they stand on the B.C. home-flipping tax.

Interjection.

R. Parmar: Well, I look forward to the member opposite making it very clear, when he stands in this House, where they stand on the B.C. home-flipping tax. I read press releases, I listen to the members opposite, and I’ve certainly seen the comments made by the Leader of the Opposition with regard to his perspective on the B.C. home-flipping tax. If that’s the case, I look forward to their support with the budget as well.

Again, I’m just going to touch on….

Interjection.

R. Parmar: That’s a leap? Okay. Well, I look forward to the members opposite standing in this house and reiterating it so that it’s crystal-clear that the BCUP supports the B.C. home-flipping tax. I will look forward to the members opposite standing up and making it crystal-clear that they do so.

Again, Budget 2024 introduces this new flipping tax effective January 1, 2025. This will be a tax on the profit made from selling a residential home within two years of buying it. It has specific exemptions in place. The number of people that have reached out to me, in my community alone, to share their support on this has been overwhelming.

I look forward to having more conversations. I think the stories that we’ll hear from British Columbians around why they believe in this tax and why they believe it is now important, more than ever, to ensure that we’re reining in our housing sector and making sure that we’re putting the emphasis back on people and taking speculators out of our housing market.

[5:20 p.m.]

I also want to touch on BC Builds. Budget 2024 reinforces the Homes for People plan, with $198 million, nearly $200 million, in new funding for BC Builds.

There has been a lot of discussion in the last number of weeks about the importance of BC Builds, about how you have this new plan and this new initiative that is going to create thousands of homes for middle-income earners all across British Columbia. The Premier has rolled it out. We have already, I think, got four projects underway. I know that the one closest to my constituency is in Cowichan.

I know in conversations that I have had with the mayor of Langford and community leaders, there is a lot of excitement around BC Builds and the need to build more middle-income housing. Langford has its own affordability home ownership–type program, and they’re looking to see how they might be able to work with BC Builds, not only to ensure that they’re preserving land for the program but also from a costing perspective.

It’s going to be a great program working with local governments, landowners, homebuilders and developers and all types of home operators to move projects. Again, I think this is a key piece: from concept, from the early planning stages, to construction within 12 to 18 months. That is critical to its success. I want to commend the Premier and the Minister of Housing for successfully rolling it out — and the four projects, and many more to come.

I like to think — I talked a bit about this during the throne speech — that BC Builds must be pretty good if the federal government…. Within a week of releasing it, the Prime Minister came over and said: “I’m going to spend $2 billion and back it up.”

Not only did he do that, not only did he come here and validate this initiative, but he has made it very clear to provinces across Canada that the Premier is taking the lead on housing, has done an incredible job, and that other provinces that are facing the same issues that we are should look at initiatives like BC Builds as well. They should look at the number of housing legislation changes we’ve made.

You just have to look at social media to see people from Ontario, Alberta and so many other provinces talk about how important it has been for them to see the changes in British Columbia and use that as a way to be able to lobby their respective Premiers and ministers in government on those changes.

One other piece that I will just touch on, with regards to housing, is the recommitment that Budget 2024 saw. We know that our government has made the building of more housing a number one priority. That includes affordable housing for low-income earners.

I had an opportunity to tour Our Place just a couple of weeks ago and talk to the CEO there, the executive director, about the important investments that our government has made in previous budgets and how he and so many other non-profit providers and social services providers want to work with government to build more affordable housing.

In Langford–Juan de Fuca alone, we’ve built over 1,000 units of affordable housing since 2017. You don’t even want to know the number from 2001 to 2016, because it’s a couple of hundred over a period of 16 long years. It’s embarrassing. Very little investment happened in Langford–Juan de Fuca.

The critic for the official opposition on Finance, across the way, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, made it very clear in the last session, when I spoke about the important investments that are being made in Langford–Juan de Fuca, that he didn’t expect those investments to continue, because the Premier is no longer from Langford–Juan de Fuca, and how there were too many investments being made in Langford–Juan de Fuca.

Unfortunately, as I acknowledged at the time, the BCUP’s candidate is going to have to wear those comments, because they made it very clear that if they form government, if they elect an MLA from their side from Langford-Highlands or Juan de Fuca–Malahat, those constituencies are not going to get investments. That’s unfortunate, but again, it’s not a surprise, because we’ve seen, over 16 long years in those communities, very little investment.

I got my career started in politics lobbying this government. It was George Abbott at the time — nice guy. He was someone I certainly kept a relationship with afterwards.

[5:25 p.m.]

I started my connection with government lobbying them to replace two aging, decrepit high schools in my community. The high schools were so bad that when the floors would rip up, they wouldn’t replace the floors. They would put duct tape on the floors. Duct tape was their way of fixing problems. We’re taking a different approach.

I want to just touch on health care in the time that I have left, as well as, maybe, a bit around building a stronger and cleaner economy, depending if I can get to that. The time certainly goes by very quickly.

Again, when we talk about the importance of housing in attracting more workers here to British Columbia, more health care workers in particular, we also need to make sure that we continue to make investments in health care. Just in the last nine months, and we heard this again reiterated in question period, 700-plus net new doctors in British Columbia.

I have certainly had conversations, for example with the West Shore primary care society, about how some of those new doctors, the 700 that the Minister of Health has spoken to, are in communities that I have the luxury of representing as well.

As we deal with the challenges of a growing and aging population, we know that we need to step up our efforts to ensure that we are training more doctors, are training more nurses.

I had an opportunity to tour the Justice Institute of B.C. headquarters in New Westminster and learn about the new programming they’re going to be offering in Langford, when a new post-secondary institution opens up in a few months’ time, and how they are going to be training paramedics. It’s a type of paramedic — I can’t remember the exact title off the top of my head but an advanced paramedic — that essentially has a level of scope just above a registered nurse and just under a nurse practitioner.

In the conversations I had with those trainees that were training to be advanced paramedics, as well as the instructors, I talked about the important investments that our government can make in growing these types of programs and using them as tools to keep people away from emergency departments and, again, tying them back to primary care and providing them the services they need in their homes.

Budget 2024 provides more than $2 billion in more support for people to access the health services they deserve and they need. That includes primary and acute care. That includes long-term care.

I know that Budget 2024 reinforces our government’s commitment to building 300 long-term care beds in the West Shore, in the Royal Bay neighbourhood. That’s going to be benefiting the West Shore region. That is something that the people in the West Shore and the Sooke region have been advocating on for years. They want their loved ones to be able to age in care in their community. I can’t wait until construction begins on that.

Again, speaking of construction, Budget 2024, from a capital perspective, invests over $13 billion over the next three years for the construction of long-term-care facilities, acute care and cancer care facilities as well. That is the largest capital infrastructure related to health care in British Columbia’s history. I think it’s something that we, certainly on this side of the House, are very proud of and acknowledge that more work needs to be done on.

I had an opportunity to drive by the Cowichan Hospital just a few weeks ago and see the excitement from folks that I was having conversations with in that area — what that new hospital will mean for their community.

I want to touch on a number of other initiatives. Maybe I’ll just touch on education.

Since 2017, we’ve seen, in the Sooke school district, the largest expansion of seats in the Sooke school district’s history. It saw very little investment under the 16 long years that the BCUP were in power, in the Sooke school district. Close to 3,000 new seats, over a quarter-billion dollar investment in new schools. I know that Budget 2024 reinforces that commitment, and we’ll be seeing more investments in the Sooke school district and other growing school districts across the province.

I don’t think I’m going to get much time, Madam Speaker. Twenty minutes or 30 minutes or however long we have goes by very quickly. I’ll just maybe conclude with some overarching comments in the last minute and half that I have about Budget 2024.

It just reiterates that Budget 2024 is about building a stronger B.C. It’s about building a stronger economy that works better for people. Again, that’s the focus of this government and this side of the House, each and every day, in the work that we do. It’s about acknowledging that our competitive advantage is British Columbians.

[5:30 p.m.]

When we’re investing in education, in child care and health care, in K-to-12 education and post-secondary education, in all of the services that British Columbians rely on, it’s about investing in the people of British Columbia, because they are our competitive advantage.

In this budget, it’s about lifting people up at a time of need. That’s what Budget 2024 is about. Unlike the members opposite, who introduced a number of budgets…. Thank goodness the Conservatives have never introduced a budget in my lifetime, because I wouldn’t want to see what a budget under their tenure would look like.

But their budgets are focused on cutting services. I’ve seen that in the schools that I’ve gone to. I went through a school system under the B.C. Liberals, BCUP, and it was not a fun time. Thankfully, with Budget 2024, we won’t have to deal with the continued cuts. We’re going to continue to ensure that we’re lifting people up each and every day. That’s the job of government, to do that each and every day.

K. Kirkpatrick: I am pleased to have the opportunity to stand up today and speak to the provincial Budget 2024.

I am concerned as a British Columbian and certainly as a parent that I’m seeing a void of responsible management and that this kind of budgeting, the budgeting we’ve seen from this NDP government before and the budget that we’ve got before us today, is going to hurt our province and is going to hurt our children.

Now, I hear this narrative, and I’ve just heard it again, that we have a choice. We either manage our budget efficiently, or we cut all our services. What I don’t understand is why we can’t be responsible with British Columbians’ taxpayer dollars and at the same time be able to invest in a world-class health care system, in social services and supports and in mental health and addiction.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

What’s going to happen when we start to have these giant deficits? We’re looking at — what? — four years from now, a $164 billion taxpayer-funded debt. We are not going to be able to afford to do the things that we need to do to support British Columbians and to provide services to people.

So it’s a bit backwards when we say: “Well, let’s just spend all this money and because of that, if the other side of the House….” “They would just cut everything, because they want to be responsible.” Well, those two things are not connected.

I look at government — or good government, anyways — as like a credit union. A credit union is financially conservative on one side. They’ve got to make sure that they manage their members’ funds appropriately, that the deposits are managed appropriately. But the reason they do that is so that they can take that money and they can invest that money on the other side, which is so that they can invest it in the community. They can support good projects.

That’s how government should work. We should manage our finances on one side, that we don’t cripple ourselves with debt, so that we can then invest in a stronger, better British Columbia on the other side of the balance sheet.

Budget 2024 is a fitting summary of the last seven years of this NDP government — government spending more and delivering less than ever before. It strikes me every time for the last almost four years…. Standing in here and listening to this government talk about historical investments and things, about how much money they spent. They’ve spent more money than any government ever has before.

I think about, gee, when I was managing an organization, my non-profit organization. I had a board, and I had to go and report to my board. Every year we’d go through the financials and make sure that our budgets were good. My board didn’t want me to say: “You know what, board? I have spent more money this year than any CEO prior to this, than any board prior to this. We have spent more money.”

That’s not what they would ask me. They would say: “What are the outputs that we’ve got? What are the results that we’ve got for this organization? Have we served more people? Are they happier?” KPI. “Have we served and supported more people? Have we provided more services? Has the well-being of the people that we support in this organization improved? Let’s look at the numbers so we can track that. Let’s look at some qualitative numbers. Let’s look at some quantitative numbers.”

[5:35 p.m.]

But I’ll tell you, if I went in and said, “Well, I’m not going to tell you all the things we’ve done” — or that I have no information because we don’t track it; I don’t track any data — “but we have spent more money than we have ever spent before,” well, that would be a short-lived job that I would have had there. We can’t fire….

Well, we can fire our government, can’t we? We can fire our government. Yeah, they get a raise, on that side, when they do that.

All the rhetoric that has accompanied it this past year under this Premier is amounting to nothing. There’s been no tangible, positive change for everyday British Columbians.

This is my fourth response to a budget. It’s my last — well, for now. You’re not going to get rid of me that easy. But each year, I have been struck by a lack of vision and a lack of strategy.

Lots of announcements, lots of different programs. We saw this in the last session with all of the housing legislation that was announced. There was so much happening, but it wasn’t woven together. It wasn’t strategic. It was that some of these things are competing with each other. This government really does lack kind of that big vision for British Columbians in a strategic way to move us forward.

Instead of building a strong future of B.C., we’ve been left with a litany of NDP failures. I mean, we know this. Housing is so expensive, no one can afford it. Our taxes are so high. Our wallets are empty. Health care is so mismanaged that British Columbians have lost trust that it’s going to be there when we need it.

My mom is 97 years old, and she was quite sick. We were calling the doctor and saying: “Well, can she come in for an appointment?” It’s a little bit of mobility issues because of her age. The doctor said, “Well, I don’t have time” — or the doctor’s assistant. “Just call 911, and take her to the hospital. But take her to the hospital in an ambulance. Don’t take her on your own, because the only way you’re going to get someone to see her is if you take her in an ambulance.”

That’s what our health care system has come to today, and we wonder why there’s such pressure on the health care system and why it takes ambulances so long to come, if they come at all. It’s because that’s the only way you’re going to get to see somebody when you get into emergency.

Streets are so unsafe, small businesses are closing under the weight of unending threats and intimidation. An overdose crisis that we have is so bad. It’s the leading cause of death of people under the age of 59.

Our life expectancy is going down. For the first time ever, our life expectancy is going down because we have got so many people dying every single day. These are young people and these are older people, every single day, but we’re not seeing supports from this government that are actually working and helping British Columbians. If they were working, that number would be going down.

So what happened to child care under this government and how government should make it easier for British Columbians to have affordable and accessible child care? This has been promised for over seven years. In 2017, British Columbians believed this government. They believed this government when it said it was going to have $10-a-day universal child care. All you parents, you’re going to have $10-a-day child care.

Less than 10 percent of the spaces in British Columbia are $10-a-day child care spaces. In this government’s budget, they have reduced how much they are contributing to child care. They are completely relying on the federal government to fund child care.

There might be a federal election at some point too, and we do need to make sure that we are safe in our ability to promise a program and deliver a program. The only way we can do that is by British Columbians stepping up and funding and financing that program itself.

Regardless of the money, this government has utterly failed to deliver on their child care promises, and they have left thousands of families struggling. There is a massive gap between what the NDP promises and the on-the-ground reality.

[5:40 p.m.]

The number of young children in child care has decreased — I want you to think about the word “decreased” — over 10,000 spaces since 2019. This is a government that every year comes back and says: “We’re opening more spaces, we’re creating more opportunities, we’re getting more kids into child care, and we’re making it more affordable.” Well, the numbers don’t lie. That is not what is happening. It is not the experience that British Columbians are having.

I’d like to read something from page 5 of the Speech from the Throne. What does it say here? This message is woven through everything I hear from this government: “…further proof that increasing wages and reducing child care bills is good for families and good for business. Take Reut, a young mom in Richmond with three kids. Thanks to your government’s latest fee reduction, she’s saving $1,000 a month and has been able to return to work as an engineer.”

Well, that’s very interesting because I was up in Terrace, and I met with a group of parents. We had a round table, and we invited the community. A lot of people came to this. I was told about one woman who had to quit her job as a paramedic because there was no child care for her, and about another, a doctor, who was saying that she was considering leaving British Columbia, as a doctor, because she did not have child care.

It’s bad enough in the Lower Mainland, but when you start going into some of these smaller communities and northern communities, it’s a desert for child care. How can this government say, in every single one of its speeches, every time somebody is in the media, every time I hear the Finance Minister: “We have given so much. We have provided affordable child care to families in British Columbia”? You always quote one person who has managed to win the lottery and get the $10-a-day child care and how that has changed their life.

Well, there are a lot of people who have not had their life changed by daycare, by child care, and we have to worry about and support those people. It has been utterly mismanaged and so unfair for the 90 percent of the parents who don’t have access to $10-a-day child care. I saw nothing in this budget to make the $10-a-day child care program a reality. And it’s not just me that saw this glaring omission. We’ve heard from other people here today.

Just a couple quotes from ECEBC, the Early Childhood Educators of B.C.… They are very connected to what’s going on. They have been working very hard to advocate for their members. What have they said? “Seventy-five percent of children in B.C. still don’t have access to licensed child care. Of the child care spaces we do have in B.C., only 14,000, or 10 percent of them, are $10-a-day child care sites, and they are life-changing for families.”

“We are surprised government is not increasing provincial investments to more quickly expand the success of the $10-a-day child care” — this is Sharon Gregson, who is the spokesperson for the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. — “especially as government has acknowledged that child care progress does result in significantly more women in the workforce.” Clearly, investments in child care bring strong economic returns, and early childhood educators are still waiting for the long-promised fair provincial wage grid, while the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector continues.

This wage grid. This government all the time says: “Well, British Columbia was the first province to sign on to the early childhood framework with the federal government for the $10-a-day child care. The first province to sign on.” Congratulations to be the first province to sign on, and now the last province to bring in the wage grid, which was actually part of the requirement of the agreement with the federal government.

How can that be? First in, and now at the end of the pack. It doesn’t make sense. The only thing I can imagine is that it is incompetence. It is the inability to actually implement things and implement something that was promised and promised.

Does Budget 2024 give people any reason to believe that this government is going to be able to change course and actually implement everything they say? Well, I think that’s a resounding no.

[5:45 p.m.]

There is more of this rhetoric, the out-of-control spending and no tangible results for everyday people. The word “rhetoric” comes up a lot when we’re talking. I guess it comes up a lot in government in general. In talking about announcements being made and developments in policies and news releases from this government, there is a lot of rhetoric.

When I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about today, one of the things that drives me crazy are the announcements after announcements. I’ll go back, and I’ll look, and something’s a re-announcement of something that was announced before. It’s kind of hard to keep up on what’s a real announcement and what’s an old announcement. I know people do this all the time, so I went to ChatGPT and I said: “Can you write me something about when a government makes announcements but doesn’t follow through?”

This was so good. “We have witnessed a barrage of announcements from this government, each heralding change in progress yet, sadly, the reality paints a different picture. The art of making announcements seems to have overshadowed the art of implementation. It’s disheartening to see a government that thrives on rhetoric rather than action. Citizens are left disillusioned as promises made with great fanfare fade into the background, unfulfilled and forgotten. The time has come for accountability and a commitment to follow through on commitments made to the public.”

Now, this part, I think, is really relevant: “A government’s credibility is not built on the volume of announcements it makes but on the concrete actions taken to improve the lives of its citizens.” Does that make sense? Take notes, okay.

Well, we don’t see bold direction, and certainly not bold direction as proposed by our B.C. United caucus, where we have real plans to fix things, real plans to fix the issues facing British Columbians today, a plan to make life more affordable by eliminating everyday costs for British Columbians.

We want to make investments, bring back investments in our province’s world-class health care system, or what was a world-class health care system, and to focus on keeping British Columbians safe. These are key pieces, things that we’re hearing from British Columbians in terms of what’s important to them.

Budget 2024 follows in the footsteps of its recent predecessors, a monument to the beloved NDP tradition of throwing more money at a problem rather than addressing the root problems, the causes of those problems. If lack of money were the real issue, we would expect results to be improving as the spending increases, but, in B.C., we continue to observe the opposite.

Of course, adequately funding government programs and services is essential, but if things are getting worse, wouldn’t it be fair to stop and think about it? Maybe we’re not doing this the right way. Maybe when we’re looking at mental health and addictions and we still have seven people dying every day, maybe we’re not doing it the right way.

When we’re looking at child care…. Again, that’s part of my file, child care. It’s not working. We’re not delivering. The government is not delivering on these promises. Step back and say: “Hey, maybe we’re not doing this the right way. We should try something different, not just double down.”

Double down on health care? We have Canada’s longest waiting list. By 9:45 this morning, there were clinics that already said: “Don’t even bother coming in; we’re already full for the day.” Doubling down, when that is the evidence that shows us that this out-of-control spending is not making things any better.

This budget leaves British Columbia with a staggering, never-before-seen $8 billion deficit. Now, we start throwing these numbers around. At what point in time did $8 billion stop seeming like a big number? We’re talking about billions of dollars, $8 billion. That works out to….

Well, when we had this speech, I think we calculated that at $500 million every time we turned a page in this document. That’s just horrifying. Not only is this the largest deficit in our province’s history; it’s a series of largest consecutive deficits we’ve ever seen.

[5:50 p.m.]

In the seven years since this NDP government came in, they have increased the province’s debt from $8,500 for every British Columbian to $22,000. That’s more than a 150 percent increase. If you are having a baby in British Columbia in a few years, that baby is going to be born owing $22,000 of taxpayer-funded debt in British Columbia. Is that what we want for our children? Is that how we’re going to give that young person a good future, a good life, good health care, good education, good nutritious food?

Why is this such a problem, particularly at a time when people need more support than ever? Because out-of-control spending increases inflation. It increases inflation. You’re throwing $1 billion or $8 billion, whatever’s going to happen at the end of the year, into the economy. You’re actually fueling the inflation that government is trying to manage right now.

It’s making things even less expensive…. Skyrocketing prices are going to get even higher, and they’re going to be hurting the people that this budget actually claims to be helping and supporting. I mean, their own documents are fully based on the assumption that costs are going to increase.

I do find it ironic, sad, that this government has housing programs coming in that are meant to reduce the cost of housing, yet they are relying on housing prices to go up so that they can fund their budget. There’s something wrong here in terms of what is trying to be accomplished and the reality. This government itself is already saying in this budget document that housing prices are not going to go down, that its policies are not going to have the impact that they say they’re going to have.

Affordability is an issue on the minds of all British Columbians. Budget 2024 confirms that government is aware of the scale of this issue, but they’re not capable of doing anything to solve it. Nearly all affordability measures presented in this budget are time-limited, lasting for only one year. So it sounds good. Funny, we’ve got ten months, nine months, to an election. We’re going to make a one-time promise to you.

Perhaps it’s the NDP…. I won’t say trying to buy votes, but certainly encouraging people, just like with the $10-a-day child care promise in 2017, something that never materialized…. But we can promise it ten months prior to an election, because there’s nothing that British Columbians can do about it afterwards. What they’re not telling you is that they are increasing taxes at the same time, basically clawing back more money while leaving tax rates higher going forward. Their affordability measures are nothing more than a shell game, moving money around and rebranding it as relief.

B.C. United has a different approach. Rather than increasing costs for regular people, we want to reduce them. That’s why B.C. United has put forward tangible solutions to leave more money in people’s wallets, where it belongs. B.C. United has promised a suite of affordability measures, which are going to include cutting provincial fuel taxes, making gas more affordable — and goods and services along with it.

Now, we talk about the cost of our food and produce in a store. Part of the input costs that go into that food are getting that food to us. If we cannot give a tax break on gasoline costs to manage gasoline costs, it does impact how much we’re actually paying in the grocery store for that food. So the measure alone in cutting fuel taxes could save British Columbians $30 every time they fill their vehicle with gas.

[5:55 p.m.]

Now, I’m really lucky. I’ve got a four-year-old electric vehicle, so I don’t go to the gas station. But I know that there are a lot of…. I’ll just use an example. A woman down in my building, just down from me, a single mom, has got to go drop off her kids at daycare in the morning. She’s lucky. She has daycare. Then she’s got to go to work.

She’s not making a conscious decision of I’m going to drive today and spend money on gas. That is something that she has no choice about. We need to look at how much things are costing. Compare them to Alberta. It’s time that we start to give regular people a break.

We’d also remove the PST on used vehicles, giving a break to those people who need it most. We’ve committed to removing the carbon tax from home heating as well. As for on-farm use, lowering costs for farmers and helping people put more food on their tables. That’s important. We’ve got people who are really cold right now because they can’t afford to actually turn up the heat in their home.

Meanwhile, in Budget 2024, the government’s increasing taxes for people, increasing the carbon tax. A flipping tax on homes, a flipping tax that their budget documents highlight will be harmful to women. It actually says this in the budget, that this is going to have a disproportionate impact on women.

Just as the member across the way was saying that B.C. United didn’t support the flipping tax…. I would just like, on the record, that B.C. United has been asking for a flipping tax since 2018. It’s how the flipping tax is built. It’s what’s in the cake that is important. But certainly this party has been supporting a flipping tax. I take offence when the other side of the House tells us what we do and we don’t support when they are clearly incorrect.

But it’s not just food and transportation that are weighing heavy on British Columbians. The cost of housing, as we know — we talk about it in this house so frequently — is taking up a larger and larger portion of people’s paycheques. For seven years now, the people of British Columbia have been waiting for that affordable housing that they’ve been promised, only to find their rents have gone up continually. Their options are more limited, and the possibility of ever owning a home is even farther away.

The budget confirms that we are seeing young people leave our province at an alarming rate. We’re losing our children, our families, our talent to other provinces because it is just simply too expensive to live here.

How do the members opposite claim this lack of results to themselves? Well, if they were on the right track, we’d see improvement by now. But affordability continues to get worse.

What would we do as B.C. United? Establish a new rent-to-own program to unlock home ownership for young people, and not just young people, but for British Columbians who simply cannot afford to save up their money for a down payment. Eliminate the property purchase tax for up to $1 million to help buyers save an additional $18,000 and make it more affordable to purchase a home, in comparison to the NDP’s relief, which will only save $8,000.

B.C. United will use empty public lands to build affordable rental housing by offering non-profits and market home builders 99-year leases on unused public land at $1 per year. We know it’s the cost of the real estate, the cost of the property and what’s under the building that is the biggest contributor to the cost of homes in British Columbia. Additionally, we’ll eliminate the PST on residential construction to build more homes, ensuring that fewer costs are passed on to consumers.

Promises are not good enough from this government. B.C. United will actually deliver results, will actually be able to deliver and get results, not just promise and talk about them.

There are so many things to talk about. I’m just managing my time here.

Where do we start? Is it health care? There’s so much left.

One thing I will mention, because I was happy to see it…. But the way that we saw it certainly could have been improved. We’ve been asking for at least three years to have IVF included in the budget, at least one cycle to be covered by government. So we have seen that, and that’s a great thing.

As a woman who almost wasn’t a mom, it was a part of my life that was very expensive to manage and struggle through in order to be able to pay for it. I can certainly see this as giving hope to a lot of families. But why do we have to put this off for another year? We’re saying we’re going to do it. Let’s just do it.

[6:00 p.m.]

What do we need — a billing number? Let’s just do it and get it done. I was profoundly disappointed to see zero dollars in the budget for that this year.

Medical schools. All kinds of things that were out of the budget. We’re presuming many of them were probably just late to the print cutoff or the print deadline. We may be hearing about things coming from government that…. They’re in the budget. They just didn’t actually get into the document.

Public safety, a huge issue.

I’ll go to my conclusion since I only have about 40 seconds left. I always have much more than I…. I start talking about things that get me passionate — and child care, and housing. There’s just so much to talk about.

We need a safer province. We need a more affordable province. We need to get it together and get that $10-a-day child care out there. It should not be this difficult. Let’s get homes built for people.

B.C. United has a plan. B.C. United can commit to getting these things done. I am simply not going to believe any more of the promises that this government makes when we can see, year after year, they are not coming through and providing what they say they are going to be. Promises are broken.

Hon. B. Bailey: It’s a pleasure to get the opportunity to respond to Budget 2024. I want to begin by first really thanking the folks who worked so diligently on this budget, our Minister of Finance and her team. It’s an enormous lift to create a budget, and I really appreciate the efforts.

I want to talk a little bit about our overall economy and some of the inputs that are in this very important budget.

B.C.’s economy continues to function well. Despite the fact that there are major global headwinds that have been coming our way, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada, at 5.4 percent, which is below the national unemployment rate. Our growth from 2017 to 2023 has been 14.4 percent. We have 70,000 new jobs in 2023. By contrast, that’s four times the amount of when the Leader of the Opposition was Minister of Finance. We have the highest credit rating of all provinces.

But it doesn’t change the simple fact that with inflation and interest rates and supply chain challenges and labour shortages worldwide and changing business models that happened during the pandemic and haven’t changed back, there are impacts on people’s wallets, everyday people, and on businesses, especially small businesses.

I can tell you, as the person who represents Vancouver–False Creek, there are so many small businesses who’ve really been feeling these impacts. I’ve been hearing from many of them, all kinds of small businesses — small businesses, flower shops and local grocers and the restaurant sector. It’s been a really tough time.

The federal government, during the pandemic, provided CEBA loans for many of these businesses. Businesses were hungry to find a way to make it through the pandemic and accepted the maximum loans that they could, not, of course, expecting that on the other side of the pandemic, they would be struck with these really difficult challenges — again, supply chain, interest rates, inflation — so they found themselves in quite an incredible pinch.

Our government didn’t provide loans, we provided grants. We provided significant grants, more than $500 million worth of grants during the pandemic to support 33,000 small businesses, and it helped. But we know that businesses needed more. I’m just so grateful to see that we’ve been able to increase the EHT threshold from $500,000 for an annual payroll to now $1 million, and between the $1 million mark and the $1.5 million payroll, it’s a graduated, stepped increase.

Boy, have I been hearing from businesses about how much that means to them and how absolutely important it is to them in order to be able to continue contributing to our economy. We cannot underestimate how big a contribution this is. Small businesses are 90 percent of B.C. businesses, and their contribution is about a third of our GDP overall.

[6:05 p.m.]

It’s also not just the numbers. These are businesses that really are…. When I think about where I live, I walk to my local grocer, farm-to-table. I buy my flowers at the store across the street. There’s a little dog-walking business that helps me out with my dog Murphy. These are exactly the kinds of businesses that are going to really benefit from this change in our taxation.

It’s not an easy change to make. It’s difficult to increase taxes at a time when we know that we’re going to be in a deficit budget. I particularly want to thank Finance for making that decision. They, like I — like, I think, everyone in these chambers — really value our small business sector.

It’s so important to see that change. The change doesn’t just help the grocers and the restaurants and the florists and other small businesses like that. It’s also a very meaningful change to help our thriving start-up community. When our entrepreneurs start a small business, it’s often right at the beginning that is just so challenging.

I know for myself, my first business…. It took us, I think, two years before we grew to having over 30 employees. All of that time, we, as founders, took reduced salaries so that we could afford to pay our team. We scrimped and scraped in every possible way.

I know how meaningful this is for folks in the tech sector but also in any other start-up experience. This just gives them a little bit more breathing room as they start to build their companies.

British Columbia is a great place to build your company. We’ve seen some really extraordinary things happening. We’ve got an ecosystem that is really filling out the way that we want it to.

We’re seeing things like InBC, our $500 million strategic investment fund to help businesses grow and to scale, now making direct investments into companies. I’ll share a couple of stories about InBC investments of late.

For example, into a company, in the middle of the province, that uses robotics to farm mushrooms, a company called 4AG. It’s a really exciting investment that InBC has made. This is a company that is now poised to be the leading robotic mushroom harvester in the world. It’s such an interesting niche. It’s a really smart application of robotics and of AI, and it’s right from the middle of our province.

I recently visited a really interesting company that InBC has invested in called Clarius. Clarius is a med tech company, so medical technology. I’ve told this story quite a few times, because I really love what they’re doing. It’s exactly the kind of solution we’re looking for, where they solve a problem here in British Columbia and then sell it everywhere in the world.

The problem that they’re solving for is ultrasounds. When you live remotely, rural and remote communities, to get an ultrasound…. For me, living in Yaletown, if I need to get an ultrasound, it’s quite accessible. But that’s different if you live where I grew up, on a Gulf Island, for example, or elsewhere in the province where it’s tougher to get.

They’re on these big carts, and they’re cumbersome. You have to go to a health care facility. There’s an ultrasound technician, and there’s a radiologist who reads the ultrasound. Then it gets sent back to your doctor, and eventually, you get the results. It doesn’t need to be that cumbersome.

What Clarius has done is they’ve developed a hand-held ultrasound. It’s about this big, kind of the size of a cell phone. You can use the ultrasound. It connects directly…. The feed goes to the physician or the medical provider’s cell phone. So they get the images right away. If it’s not a complex situation that needs to be read by a radiologist, the physician has the information they need right in their hand and immediately.

It’s also AI-enabled, which is interesting. Even someone like me, who has no medical training, was able to use it on a volunteer’s knee to identify where a particular tendon was torn. The use of AI changed the colour, as that tendon was identified, in order to guide the practitioner. So very, very inventive technology, something we’re really proud of and seeing our ecosystem work the way it should.

This change, in raising the EHT threshold, is part of that story. It’s part of that whole ecosystem, from start-up all the way to build, like Clarius, who now is selling, in 57 countries, this B.C. technology.

[6:10 p.m.]

Importantly, this technology can be helpful for people living, for example, in First Nations communities. Maybe a person who is experiencing a pregnancy might not have to fly out somewhere outside of their community, perhaps even all by themselves, to have to go to a hospital to get an ultrasound. What a better opportunity this provides.

The EHT is not only for small businesses like restaurants, that we think of. But also, I really see it as part of our technology ecosystem and how we help grow companies here in British Columbia.

There are so many things in this budget that are about supporting people. This really is the focus of this budget. This is a budget that is designed to take some of the pressure off people, with the expenses that they are feeling, the rising costs that are happening in so many different ways.

So 340,000 families will receive a 25 percent bonus on their monthly family benefit in 2024. That is really significant, 340,000 families. There’s also a one-time B.C. electricity affordability credit that will help reduce electricity bills for people and for businesses. There’s a property-flipping tax to further crack down on speculators that are driving up the cost of housing. There’s support for our aging population, investing in health care, including our ten-year cancer plan and increasing the health care workforce.

Providing supports, also, to improve the lives of seniors and to enable them to live safely in their own homes longer. This is absolutely so key. I think of my grandmother living down here on Dallas Road in Victoria and being able to stay in her home until she was 96 years old.

I have an image of her with her towel across her arm, in her bathing suit, trudging across Dallas Road. She wouldn’t wait to see if cars stopped. She said: “Good luck to them if they want to hit me. I’m going.” Across the road, in for a swim and back up. I think that was a big part of why she lived so long, but it also was the supports that she had from folks who came in to help her out in her home.

I think so many seniors want to age in their home with dignity and be able to live the lives that they want, so it’s exciting to see that there are more supports there.

Another really exciting investment in this year’s budget that I’m so proud that we made is an investment to cover the first round of in vitro fertilization for folks that are looking to have a child. This is a really big deal for so many families.

Having a child shouldn’t be denied to somebody because of who they choose to love or whether they’re a single parent or any other factor. In my view, I really think this is an equality measure. I’ve certainly heard from many people in the queer community who are just so happy that we’ve made this announcement in this budget and that it’s coming soon. Very, very important.

This budget has a lot of capital funding, which also is absolutely key. There’s $43 billion for schools, for post-secondary facilities, for housing, for health care facilities, for roads and other infrastructure over the next three years — $43 billion. That’s a very significant investment. And yes, to folks in my constituency who are watching, the Olympic Village school is coming. We’ll have an announcement in a matter of weeks. Not months; weeks.

We are also funding more teachers and support staff. This includes special ed teachers, teacher-psychologists and counsellors, along with many other supports within the schools.

I just want to stop, though, on the teacher-psychologists and counsellors. We know that young people are facing higher levels of anxiety and trepidation, that there are challenges that young people face that certainly sound much more challenging than when I was a child, for example. Having these supports brought back into our schools is so, so key.

I lived through the era of cuts to schools and fights with teachers and taking them to court. Folks on the other side of this House have a lot to answer for in terms of what happened in our school system, and we are building it back up. Having these supports back is absolutely key to the well-being of our young people.

There’s significant new funding to help B.C. mitigate in climate emergencies. It’s an unfortunate reality that we need this funding, but we do. It’s going to work on reducing flooding impacts, bolstering resources for evacuees, improving wildfire prevention and response and improving resiliency.

[6:15 p.m.]

There’s continued support through CleanBC to help transition to a low-carbon economy, providing more rebates on heat pumps to households with low and middle incomes.

I will share that I recently put a heat pump into my house. I have a house in Victoria, although I live in Vancouver, and that house is a 1956 bungalow that had an oil tank. I went through the process of applying for a rebate for my heat pump and taking the oil tank out and putting a heat pump in.

I’ve rented this out to a tenant, and they’re very, very happy with the results. Not only is it far less expensive, but it is keeping the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter and doing so in a much cheaper way. In my retirement, I know I’ll be taking advantage of that fabulous heat pump.

We’ve got advances in the new critical mineral strategy, which is a huge opportunity for British Columbia. This is a really, really key economic driver for us.

I want to quote Mark Carney who, of course, as most people will know, is the past governor of the Bank of Canada and then on to the UK in a similar role. He has done a lot of work internationally and is a leading economist. Carney says: “The new economic superpowers will be the places in the world who create clean energy, develop leading-edge green technologies.”

Those are the new superpowers. Unlike the other side, this is how we see ourselves in the future. This is where we’re going, and our critical mineral strategy is part of this. It creates tremendous opportunity for us. We’ve got 16 potential projects that could generate as much as $800 billion, in the future, in wages and in taxes.

I want to talk also about all of the investments that we’re making into the housing sector. These investments are really designed to provide lasting solutions. I’ve heard the Housing Minister say, on a number of occasions, that none of these on their own are silver bullets. That’s not what these are. But taken together, these are a suite of responses to ensure that people can find homes. Not that investors can find revenue, but that people can find homes.

That’s what’s so important about our B.C. home-flipping tax. We’re taking further action on speculators that drive up the cost of home prices. You’ve seen us already take action on actors like Airbnb and VRBO. That was based on the research that came out of Montreal, showing that had increased the rental rates where I live by 30 percent.

I know that folks are struggling to find rentals that they can afford. It’s so, so, so important that we take these responses. The Airbnb response is one, the home-flipping tax another.

Also, we’ve moved to make the first-time-homebuyers program work for more people, making it available to homes priced from $835,000, up from $500,000, saving $8,000 on the property transfer tax and bringing people closer to the dream of owning a home.

We’re encouraging more rental construction by giving property tax exemptions to builders who open purpose-built rental buildings, and increasing the threshold of newly built home exemption to $1.1 million to incentivize new home-building.

Of course, BC Builds, which is a new program to leverage underused land, faster development, low-interest construction and grants to increase housing options for middle-income people and families. This program has incredible potential to help us solve the challenges that we face in regards to people being able to find appropriate housing.

You know, the housing challenge is a challenge for so many people. It’s also a business challenge. We used to think of things like daycare and housing and health care as being, sort of, social programs, things that really are in a different category than when you talk about business. I think during COVID…. Certainly, in the aftermath, we understand that is not the case.

Child care investments are investments into our economy. We know that they’ve helped thousands of women re-enter the workforce. So, too, is housing.

[6:20 p.m.]

Housing is such an important input into our economic future, to make sure that people can find the housing they need, that workers can live close to where they work or have access to reliable transit. That’s an important part of our housing strategy as well.

BC Builds is really focused on increasing the amount of housing for middle-income people and families, and it’s going to have a huge impact on what construction numbers are in the future and for people being able to find the housing that they need.

The investment is $950 million, with new funding in 2024. And the Ministry of Housing is collaborating closely with B.C. Housing and other stakeholders to carefully determine the supports for each project with active engagement and support from local governments.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Talking a little bit more about the flipping tax, the question that I’ve heard folks ask is: how many homes are flipped annually in B.C.? Is this a big problem? Is it just a sort of rare occasion? An estimate of 7 percent of residential house sales were resold within two years for a profit between 2020 and 2022, and 7 percent is a significant chunk of our housing sector.

It’s important to note also that the flipping tax is not designed to penalize people. It’s not designed to penalize folks who are moving to a different location because their family is growing, for example, or because of divorce or death or any of the other very legitimate reasons that someone’s plan might change. This is designed, instead, to focus on people who see flipping as a way to make a quick buck, and that’s not what we want.

We also have property transfer tax exemptions in this budget. It’s increasing the threshold of…. The newly built home exemption, and extending the purpose-built rental exemption to 2030, is going to encourage more construction. And the first-time-homeowners grant, which I mentioned already, or some of the initiatives we’re making in the housing sector.

This budget is also addressing one of the other really core issues that people are facing. We’ve talked a bit about housing, the challenge in housing. We’ve talked about some of the challenges for small businesses. We’ve talked about some of the opportunities that exist in the mining sector and contributions to a low-carbon economy. It’s also important to talk about health care.

Many British Columbians have contacted us with information about changes they hope to see in health care. We all know that health care was deeply impacted during COVID, deeply impacted by lack of investment and selling off of services. And there’s $2 billion towards health services, an additional $2 billion in this budget. It’s really about taking action to strengthen health care so people can get the health that they need when they need it.

We know that communities are growing. B.C. is an attractive place for people to live. There are jobs here. There’s a good quality of life here. There is opportunity here. When folks move to British Columbia, as they did in big numbers in the last little while — 150,000 new British Columbians, who are most welcome — the challenge is they don’t bring their housing and their doctors with them. So we have to be able to ensure that we’re providing health care.

In this budget, there’s a focus on strengthening cancer prevention and screening services. There’s a focus on recruiting, training and supporting thousands of new staff entering our health care sector. And there’s support to seniors to live at home longer, as I mentioned previously.

Also, of course, our in vitro fertilization program, which we’re really happy about…. There’s $3 billion over the three-year capital plan for hospitals, new long-term-care facilities and more acute cancer care facilities. We know we’ve announced cancer care facilities coming into both Kelowna and to my hometown of Nanaimo. Cancer care centres are also on the way for Surrey, Burnaby and, as I mentioned, Nanaimo and Kamloops.

There’s a question about what the budget is going to do to help with wait lists, because we know that folks are waiting to access primary care doctors, although there are great, great strides that have been made there in the last year. There’s over $2 billion in additional health care funding, some of which is really designed to address these wait-list challenges. A lot of focus is on training for both doctors and nurses, as well as retention, to ensure that we’re reducing these wait lists.

[6:25 p.m.]

The B.C. electricity affordability tax credits start in April, and B.C. households will see about a hundred dollars in savings over the year. The expansion of B.C. family benefits will support 70 percent of families in British Columbia.

Noting the hour, I move that we adjourn the debate.

Hon. B. Bailey moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Question of Privilege

S. Furstenau: I rise on a point a personal privilege. Today during question period the Minister of Housing made the comment: “Every single measure that we’ve brought forward to try and address this challenge to get more housing built near transit, to get more housing built close to communities, has been opposed by the member across the way.”

While I recognize that there is a significant amount of leeway in what we can say in the chamber, particularly during question period, the minister’s comments on our voting record were factually untrue.

I request that he withdraw his comments and that he be mindful about his assertions on other members’ voting records and ensure that he is speaking accurately.

Hon. B. Ralston moved adjournment of the House.

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

The House adjourned at 6:26 p.m.