Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call continued debate on the budget in this main House.

Budget Debate

(continued)

A. Olsen: I’m continuing with my response to the budget and salting a little of my response to the Speech from the Throne in here, since we were given very limited opportunity to respond to that. Continuing here on the housing theme, with respect to BC Builds, the Premier’s flagship housing program, we’ve waited more than a year for a throne speech.

[R. Leonard in the chair.]

It notes the government’s plans to “leverage government-owned, public and underutilized land, grant money and low-cost financing to bring down construction costs and make more middle-class housing projects viable.” Continuing with the quote: “These homes will also be built faster, with more efficient provincial and local government approvals.” The government wants us to “think of homes connected to schools or on top of community centres and libraries” and “homes on underused land next to hospitals or empty parking lots transformed into homes for working and middle-class families.”

When I heard the BC Builds announcement, I could not help but think of the April 2018 announcement that the former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville, launched. BC Builds is not a new program. It has much of the same rhetoric that the former program, the HousingHub, had.

In fact, on the HousingHub website, it says the program is “established to seek innovative partnerships with local housing organizations, community land trusts, Indigenous groups, faith-based groups, charities, the development community, financial institutions and other industries to create affordable rental housing and home ownership options for middle-income British Columbians.” That was written in 2018.

Continuing: “The core goal of the HousingHub is to increase the supply of affordable housing for middle-income earners. This is achieved by identifying and advancing innovative approaches to building affordable homes via new construction or redevelopment of existing sites.”

[2:55 p.m.]

Continuing: “In April 2021, the Province announced that the HousingHub now has access to a dedicated $2 billion in financing to put towards construction of thousands of new homes for middle-income families. This additional financing enables B.C. Housing to work with developers and community groups to take on even more projects, resulting in additional new affordable rental homes being developed and more home ownership options for middle-income households.”

There are a couple of key differences between B.C. Builds and the HousingHub. The HousingHub was targeted at actual middle-income British Columbians. Those earning a median income, which is $55,000 in this province, could actually qualify for the HousingHub, because it was targeted for households earning between $50,000 and $100,000.

B.C. Builds instead targets the 75th percentile. Not middle income, but the bracket above middle-income British Columbians. So the not-so-middle income British Columbians: households earning between $85,000 and $191,000. Basically, this amounts…. The Minister of Housing was very reluctant to actually address my question head on. He decided to take a walk through the garden path on other Green Party policies.

But this amounts to true middle-income British Columbians subsidizing upper-income British Columbians. That’s the result of the changes in the HousingHub, which has now been rebranded and recycled as B.C. Builds.

It was pointed out to me on social media that this is household income, not individual income. This is somehow supposed to make me feel better about this program. The stark reality is that this B.C. NDP government is saying to single British Columbians, “You should shack up or be left behind,” because the median income, as I’ve mentioned already, in this province is $55,000. So middle-income British Columbians don’t qualify for this government’s housing program targeted to so-called middle-income British Columbians.

Another key difference between the HousingHub and B.C. Builds is that Justin Trudeau dropped in just before the budget to give another $2 billion to the program, and the B.C. NDP added about $900 million in Budget 2024 to the original $2 billion. B.C. Builds is running with about $5 billion. This is a much improved financial situation for this new version of the old program, because the old program only had $2 billion worth of investment.

But how many housing units were actually produced by the old HousingHub? Well, 3,823 housing units are available for British Columbians today. There are another 2,331 in approval stage. So 6,154 homes provided in five years by this program. It is just a shadow of what the government, in their announcement rhetoric, was hoping to achieve back in 2018. Yet somehow they felt that it was a good idea to just repackage this program, float it out as the new flagship housing program that we’ve all been waiting 18 months for, and British Columbians wouldn’t notice.

CMHC has said we need 600,000 new housing units in order to get back to early 2000s affordability, if you’re just going to use that basic economic theory. But if we look at the B.C. Housing project on Drake Road on Salt Spring, for example, that project has languished since it was announced in January 2022. We still don’t have the supported housing project that was promised two years ago.

Additionally, when I think of housing above libraries, I am reminded about how the B.C. NDP has consistently failed to deliver proper funding for libraries in this province. I remember back…. Actually, starting much further back, I was a former trustee on the Greater Victoria Public Library board back when I was a councillor in the district of Central Saanich, starting in 2008.

[3:00 p.m.]

At that time, we were asking the former B.C. Liberal government if they would invest more per capita in libraries. They were reluctant. Even as the government changed from the big bad B.C. Liberals to now the B.C. NDP, the same philosophy has been adopted by the current B.C. NDP government, no more interested in providing stable, reliable annual increases to funding to libraries.

A one-time shot last spring — I recognize that — supported those libraries. One time was not an increase in the actual overall funding. It was just a single one-time hit for libraries.

Now, when I was an MLA, I remember back to 2019 at the Union of B.C. Municipalities, a campaign by local government officials to get more funding for libraries. I remember meeting with Central Saanich councillor Zeb King and the former Minister of Education, supporting the councillor’s advocacy for more sustainable library funding.

His advocacy, the advocacy of library trustees across the province, was ignored by the B.C. NDP government. No interest in keeping the funding of libraries sustainable. So in order to build housing above libraries, we need libraries and a government that does more than just one-time funding, pretending like they’ve solved a systemic problem, because they’ve not.

Now, let’s turn our attention to how this B.C. NDP government has increased residential pressures on municipal services in supporting local government to upgrade and build a new infrastructure. In the throne speech they note last year’s last-minute $1 billion growing communities fund. We have a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure deficit in British Columbia.

Any one of my colleagues who spent any time in local government knows that this has been one of the primary challenges faced by our local government colleagues, when they faced the former B.C. Liberal government and now the current B.C. NDP government. They just basically get a government staring blankly back at them, as they have been in this project of seeking a new fiscal relationship with the province.

The reality, of course, is that the province likes cutting those ribbons too much, so having a tight control over that fiscal relationship allows for the victory laps to be run around this building, rather than just freeing the funds up that are necessary in order for communities to be able to do the important work that they need to do in order to support the massive densification that this government pushed through last fall.

Local governments are being forced to compete with each other for limited conditional and other grant programs from the federal and provincial governments. Now, there’s no doubt that the people of Salt Spring Island are grateful for the investment in water infrastructure on St. Mary Lake, $10 million in Budget 2024. But communities need a reliable, consistent fiscal framework that does not require them to outlast, outwit and outplay their neighbours in order to get needed infrastructure built or upgraded in their communities.

The idea that the growing communities fund is good enough is actually offensive to local governments. No doubt our communities were grateful for the funds, and they expressed that gratitude to the government. No doubt the provincial government proved they were able to deliver a mostly equitable funding mechanism in very quick turnaround, as they did with the budgeting process last spring.

I say “mostly equitable” because, of course, anybody that represents communities that have electoral areas in regional districts…. I have Salt Spring, the southern Gulf Islands — that’s Gary Holman, Paul Brent — and their colleague in Juan de Fuca…. If other MLAs have electoral areas in their regional districts, then they know that it really was not equitable for people living in rural communities in electoral areas, because that money was not given equitably.

A British Columbian is not a British Columbian. If you live in a municipality, you get one amount of funding. If you live in an electoral area, you get a different amount of funding, a much lower amount. The electoral area directors were left to compete with their municipal partners, who outvote them on the regional districts mostly.

[3:05 p.m.]

Specifically, in the capital regional district, that example is the case. They get outvoted.

I’ve talked to electoral area directors from the Okanagan. I’ve talked to electoral area directors from other parts of Vancouver Island. They expressed the same level of dismay about the inequity that was treated them with the growing communities fund.

Then, in the throne speech, the B.C. NDP government uses three new hockey rinks in Langley as the example of infrastructure that they’re investing in. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like hockey. There have been articles written about the type of hockey team that I support. There is no doubt that I’ve worked in hockey. I understand the value of sport and recreation in our communities.

I’m obviously tempering anybody who’s on social media and wants to say: “Well, the member doesn’t like hockey.” That’s not the case. But to use hockey rinks as an example of infrastructure that’s being built by funds supported by this government is problematic. Why? Because there is infrastructure that is being neglected by these funding programs that is desperately needed in communities.

In light of the fact that the B.C. NDP just unilaterally upzoned neighbourhoods across the province, increasing demand on water, sewer and road infrastructure, offering a one-shot, $1 billion program when a ten-year, $10 billion program would still be insufficient is absurdity.

When it comes to the health care crisis, because all of these are tied together, we again encounter a minister whose definition of success is spending more money rather than getting better results. The Health Minister’s budget has increased from about $18 billion when he took office in 2017 to $36 billion this year.

What are his results? What are the results? A steady flow of people in my constituency office with tragic stories of how they’ve been let down by the health care system. So many constituents without a family doctor or access to a walk-in clinic, without a diagnosis until it’s far too late. Advanced disease because of the state of disrepair our health care system is in.

On the Saanich Peninsula, our emergency room remains closed in the evenings indefinitely. It started out just last summer that they’re just going to have the summer, that they’re seeking staff. Yet Island Health continues to struggle, the system poorly staffed, and our emergency room is closed now in the evenings indefinitely.

There are tragic stories that have affected families from across my riding. Opting for MAiD, medical assistance in dying, when community health should have been there to support them at earlier stages in their disease. Primary care centres seem to be no further advanced than when the Minister of Health proposed them six years ago. Urgent and primary care centres turning primary care over to health authorities seems to have been abandoned.

Creeping for-profit health care under this so-called social democratic government is an absolute head-scratcher. If the minister wants to bring in a multi-tier health care system led by Telus, then he shouldn’t hide it. Bring it to the floor. Let’s debate it. But don’t sneak it in. And then please don’t pretend it’s not happening.

Meanwhile, the story the B.C. NDP are telling themselves about the billions they have spent in mental health and addictions is completely devoid from the reality that families are facing in my riding. Billions of dollars have been spent, yet when community groups with grassroots programs of people with lived experience ask the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to help them support their programs, the minister can’t seem to get the money, because the Health Minister controls it.

We see unhoused people released from hospital with no care plan left to languish in pain at the bus stop.

[3:10 p.m.]

We see families whose loved ones have died by suicide shortly after they were released from the psychiatric emergency services at the Royal Jubilee Hospital, their families entirely left out of their care, left to wonder how they can change a system that sees no fault in the way that they operate.

These are heartbreaking and tragic stories that are completely opposite to the story government tells of their programs. There are no treatment or recovery options close to where people need it, or, if there are, they are grossly inadequate. The government has entirely lost control of the narrative about harm and stigma reduction. Their weak and empty defence of safe supply and decriminalization has only deepened the stigma of the most vulnerable people in our society.

The B.C. NDP have longed to be an environmental party. However, their plans to ramp up fossil fuel extraction, grow the nascent liquefied natural gas industry, is a huge contradiction that they cannot explain. They brag about an LNG industry that they castigated when brought forward by the former B.C. Liberal government, when they were in opposition. Shame on the B.C. NDP members for sitting back while the fossil fuel industry pumps propaganda into our ears about so-called clean gas.

I toured the northeast last summer, and I saw the farmland cut into pieces by pipelines, frac sites, tailings ponds, freshwater storage ponds on fertile land with pumps pumping fresh water out of creeks and rivers. We’re in a drought, a climate emergency.

I hear the Site C reservoir is not being filled not because of denning bears, although that’s a good enough reason in itself, but because of a lack of water. Perhaps I’ll hear from B.C. Hydro that my fears are ill-founded. Perhaps their silence will tell me all I need to know about that project.

Member after member after member of the B.C. NDP stood in this House and berated the climate change-denying B.C. Liberals — that was it: climate change-denying B.C. Liberals — for trying to build a gas export industry in British Columbia. Some of those members did not run again in 2020. Some of those members sit here and pretend like they didn’t say those words about LNG, about the LNG industry, as the B.C. NDP government excuses, ignores and creates space for a new era of climate denialism.

I saw how that region in the northeast is gripped by LNG. I hear how the next phase of the major infrastructure projects being built by the B.C. Hydro ratepayers, subsidizing transmission lines to divert clean electricity from British Columbians, who are going to pay for it, to frackers, so they can make some specious claim about their even greener, even cleaner LNG industry. It’s a special kind of pollution of the mind, and the B.C. NDP has allowed this industry to troll us with misinformation and disinformation.

Meanwhile, their pipes leak harmful methane everywhere. They flare massive amounts of gas to relieve pressure, with no price paid. Yet we’re going to electrify their frac sites and cooling turbines. So Moe Sihota, a lobbyist for Woodfibre LNG and B.C. NDP spokesperson, can go on the radio and argue with me that the LNG industry is clean and doing us some favours.

At the same time, I have to hear him trot out falsities about CleanBC being some sort of award-winning program when, in reality, it was just the industry fund, the very narrow part of the program, that won awards. Yet it won’t stop him from rolling out Andrew Weaver’s name, who supports CleanBC — of course he does — and somehow equate his support for CleanBC as a support for the LNG industry. Nothing could have been further from the truth. LNG drove Andrew into a fury.

The B.C. NDP hypocrisy on LNG and Site C are remarkable. They spent as much time hating on Site C as they did on LNG, yet, when Site C comes online, the electricity will be funnelled to industry, and the $20 billion cost will be saddled on the B.C. Hydro ratepayer. It’s going to make your $100 rebate in Budget 2024 look like spare change.

As I’ve already established, the B.C. NDP have lost their social democratic credentials. And these environmental decisions demonstrate why the B.C. NDP is no longer an enviro-democratic organization either.

[3:15 p.m.]

In Budget 2024, they failed to make any substantive investments in the commitment to protect 30 percent of the land by 2030. They failed to deliver for the watershed security fund. No funding for old growth protection, and no new funding for the nature agreement or biodiversity and ecosystem health frameworks that we have been long awaiting.

Seriously, we have an $89 billion budget with tiny investments in the environment — shameful. Apparently, this is a government that is concerned about the environment and climate change, but frankly, it’s an embarrassment.

After British Columbia faced record wildfires last season, we see the B.C. NDP investing $175 million in operating and capital funding over the next three years to support additional wildfire response, recovery and infrastructure resources. We blow through that budget the first month into the season.

They invested in the Barrowtown pump station in the Fraser Valley, but nothing for Merritt. Again, we see a lack of integrated thinking, as we have this orphan flood control infrastructure that is undersized, with no plan for upgrading and no plan to protect threatened communities.

The completion of the Cowichan weir and the $10 million to improve the St. Mary Lake on Salt Spring are welcome investments. However, the $359 million invested in response to climate emergencies, CleanBC, advancing the clean economy, safer access to First Nations communities and critical transportation networks and community infrastructure in 2024-25 is a fraction of what is needed.

In fact, the $359 million that is earmarked for those four programs is 0.4 percent of our $89 billion budget. That will show British Columbians where the environment is on the priorities of this B.C. NDP government.

Reflecting on our $89 billion budget, one would think it would include some remarkable investments in mass transit. Nope, even though our housing growth requires transit. Metro mayors are warning TransLink is in serious financial trouble. B.C. Transit needs new buses, more buses, more mechanics. We need a serious investment in bus rapid transit, light rail, high-speed rail, intercity buses connecting all British Columbians. What did we get? Nothing. No visionary plan. Just silence.

When it comes to active transportation, Budget 2024 offers $25 million. I have been working for four years with the Salt Spring community to improve the Fulford-Ganges Road with active transportation, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. That project alone would cost $25 million, maybe more. The minister visited the island, saw the need and cannot be happy with the level of investment in active transportation in an $89 billion budget.

That is the context of how ridiculous this investment in active transportation actually is. It could be eaten up by a single project. The needs across the province to improve our active transportation are great. Especially in an election budget, these are the kinds of announcements that communities love. They improve the quality of life, safety and increase health and well-being.

The NDP have missed the mark so entirely on these points in Budget 2024, why would I be surprised they missed the mark on this as well? It’s disappointing.

That is just active transportation and mass transit. When I look at the levels of the deterioration of our provincial highways in general, an issue I have been raising for years….

An issue for all my colleagues across the province is the deterioration of our provincial roads. The Minister of Transportation knows it is a problem. We all raise it with him every year, in budget estimates. We’ve been raising it with him for years. As the Finance Minister never gives the Transportation Minister a big enough budget to have any impact, the roads continue to deteriorate, and it becomes a losing situation year over year over year.

It’s not just the lack of ability to support communities that identify their priorities — like Salt Spring, which wants to upgrade their main road with active transportation — it’s the actual basic safety of all road users that is a growing concern.

The lack of centre lines and fog lines is a perpetual issue in my constituency office. South Island transportation office knows all too well about it.

[3:20 p.m.]

Centre and fog lines deteriorate much quicker than the budget allows them to be refreshed. On dark Gulf Island nights like on Galiano — well, frankly, on all the Gulf Islands: Mayne, Saturna, the Penders, Salt Spring — with an aging population, bright lines are necessary.

In this case, I don’t think it’s a matter of the Transportation Minister’s staff being neglectful. I just think it’s a matter of the Minister of Finance not putting enough resources into a long-standing, well-known problem. But it is a matter of safety, and these are our provincial highways, our provincial roads. We are liable for them. So despite the discomfort it causes our budget, we have to take care of it. The Transportation Minister has to take care of it.

When transit is the tool that unlocks most of the density that the Housing Minister is bragging about to British Columbians, how is it that the Finance Minister has so little in this budget for mass transit?

I’m not talking about a SkyTrain station or a few kilometres of SkyTrain lines south of the Fraser or partway out to the University of British Columbia, but a dramatic decade-long infrastructure program that connects British Columbia like we’ve never been connected, a visionary piece that says to the person living in Smithers: “You don’t have a car and you can’t afford to fly, but don’t worry. We have a robust intercity bus system, and you can go anywhere in this province.”

Comfortable coaches that move people from places they are to places they want to be. A future-looking piece, a strategy that outlines high-speed rail connecting Vancouver with the Fraser Valley, with plans to connect to the Okanagan and beyond.

It’s not just the roads and the rapid transit, but it’s also the water that British Columbians need to be connected on. We’ve heard or personally experienced the challenges that B.C. Ferries has been going through. We know the B.C. NDP government has been slowly taking more and more control of the corporation without much more and more of the accountability, leaving it with the senior staff at B.C. Ferries. However, the investments made last year are welcome. Clearly, we have issues with both the equipment and human resources at B.C. Ferries.

The ferries are critical for the current and future socioeconomic well-being of our province. They’re our marine highways and marine transit systems, connecting coastal communities and economies to the rest of British Columbia and Canada.

I raise my hands to Nicolas Jimenez for his openness and candour regarding the challenges the ferry system faces. It appears we have a few vessels that are having significant mechanical issues. Those Coastal class vessels keep breaking and disrupting service.

In addition, the people at B.C. Ferries, the terminal and vessel staff, have done an excellent job under extreme pressure, often with the cameras on, in delivering the best service they can, and I raise my hands to them.

We, the provincial government, changed the corporate structure that turned this necessary transportation system into a profit-focused corporation from a service-focused corporation, and unfortunately, it has them chasing the wrong values. So we’ve had staff languishing in casual roles, stripped the training capacity, basically carving out the ability of the corporation to train the mariners that we need. As a result, we have the B.C. Ferries corporate communications telling customers and British Columbians that the reason there’s no service for them is because of a lack of global mariners.

We are competing with the global shipping industry. There it is, right? The lack of vision and strategic thinking that comes from this House. With this corporate model focused on profit rather than service, we actually have lost both profits and service.

British Columbia will always be a coastal jurisdiction. We will always need a marine transportation network. What are we doing competing with the global market? Why are we not the leading jurisdiction in providing mariners to the global market? We have highlighted the career path for our youth. We have a robust training and post-secondary system, and B.C. Ferries is the place that everyone can get their start, work while getting an education, and either choose to stay or choose to go and work somewhere else.

[3:25 p.m.]

Why have we limited our thinking to the ferries as being a marine highway instead of making it a necessary part of our marine transportation network, supplementing big vessels with water taxis, potentially operated by local First Nations, connecting coastal villages with the bigger network, all part of the same system, all funded and subsidized by the broader network? Why do we insist on continuing to play small ball here in British Columbia?

This lack of vision in transportation exposes what I was discussing earlier with respect to our lack of systems thinking and planning. We have, on one hand, the Housing Minister creating policy that housing density is driven by transportation planning, and then apparently the government forgot to integrate transportation planning. It’s absurd, really.

This is the systems thinking that we lack — the thinking that looks at the transportation needs of our province today and into the future and paints an exciting picture of multimodal transportation that connects the communities that this government plans for massively increasing the density in. How did this government miss this? Well, we always miss it. Somehow, in our community planning and zoning, the transportation for people that’s inextricably linked is missed by government. They’re parts of two different ministries that apparently don’t coordinate much.

To the Housing Minister: you want to increase the population of all our neighbourhoods by two, three, four, six or 100 times? Then you better talk to the Finance Minister to let the Transportation Minister know that they need to be thoughtfully planning for all transportation networks that support a much larger population.

Perhaps someone over there should talk with the Emergency Management Minister about how the mass densification on the North Shore that’s happened over the last number of years is working for the commuter. Perhaps they should talk with her constituents who need to desperately get to an emergency room at rush hour, sitting in gridlock for hours because the communities densified, and the provincial and local planners thought people would be transported around the region by magic.

While you’re at it, perhaps someone should call my colleague from Sea to Sky country before he retires and have a chat about the intercity bus system that he and others have been talking about to see if that can be integrated in some way.

The result of density is traffic. The result of traffic on transportation networks that are not built to the capacity that they need to be is gridlock. The result of gridlock is pollution, not just unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions.

By the way, did the Transportation Minister talk with the Environment Minister to discuss the challenging emissions increases that congestion creates by the Housing Minister’s density plans? How are we accounting for those increased GHGs? We’re not likely accounting for them, right?

The other type of pollution that nobody over there is likely thinking about is wasted time — people idling in their cars, wasting time, listening to podcasts, festering in frustration and anger. How much time is wasted because we have a government that does not integrate obviously connected systems? Nobody is counting, because nobody wants to know, I guess. It’s a depressingly large number, I bet. Wouldn’t that time be better spent with their family, at recreation centres, literally anywhere but languishing in the cockpit of their car?

What is exposed here is the lack of systems thinking of our government, governing by announcement. The Housing Minister rolls out his inspiring and hopeful vision of cheap houses for everyone, and time will show that his plan is rhetorically amazing but lacking the thing people need: affordability. Transportation is left answering the question about why we can’t afford basic safety measures for provincial highways, like centre lines and fog lines; why communities that prioritize active transportation face frustrating bureaucratic roadblocks; and why, if you’re on the Coldwater Indian Band and you don’t have a car, you can’t get to Merritt or Vancouver.

[3:30 p.m.]

When I walked into this chamber yesterday, I got to hear the Environment Minister, the minister responsible for fighting climate change, celebrating the $25 million investment in active transportation like it was a generational investment in mode-shifting.

Seriously, what is this government spending $89 billion on? The amount of waste and rhetoric pouring from the members of this B.C. NDP government polluting the airspace in this place, attempting to provide a smokescreen for this budget…. Are those emissions being counted against CleanBC as well? Do we have sectoral targets for the rhetoric and propaganda generated out of this room? Well, we should.

There’s an issue that I cannot leave on the table here. It’s too important, and that’s that the Public Safety Minister needs to be held accountable for the complete fumble of police reform in this province.

In April 2022, the special committee on police reform, the committee that the minister tasked with a comprehensive review of policing, tabled an excellent report. Our recommendations were integrated. They recognized the interconnectedness of public health, public well-being and public safety. We provided a suite of recommendations that were linked, not 11 separate recommendations to be randomly applied but a package with a timeline and a plan for police reform.

Even though the committee was created at a time when some in our society were calling for defunding the police, we produced a report that recognized the need for public safety services.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

We acknowledged the need for more control over training, independent civilian oversight, tiered policing from community policing to special tactical units, addressing systemic racism in response to sexual assaults, better support for trauma for our first responders, the need to support police response with mental health professionals on calls related to mental health, a more integrated 911 service, an all-party committee to assist the ministry with implementing a transition from the RCMP to a provincial police service and to implement our recommendations.

There was all-party consensus on the recommendations, a rare moment in this place — all-party consensus. Well, the Public Safety Minister couldn’t have that, could he?

This place is so ill-prepared to deal with agreement. He immediately ignored our report, and instead of maintaining the all-party consensus, instead of keeping an all-party committee like we recommended that could assist in keeping the politicians on the same page from all the different political parties here, he did the opposite of our recommendations. He made police reform secret.

The key issue we uncovered early in that review process was that public confidence in our police is critical and necessary. Where this confidence breaks down, it’s not good for the public, and it’s definitely not good for the police. So the Public Safety Minister went to work undermining his own process. He mismanaged the Surrey policing file by allowing it to turn into a political nightmare. Instead of stepping in early to demonstrate leadership, he was dragged in when it was already too late.

But more than that, he ignored the recommendation the committee made to keep an all-party committee together to ensure that the police reform process that is going to take a decade, the need to keep political support over multiple parliaments and potentially multiple governments…. We cannot afford policy lurch on this file.

The Public Safety Minister apparently knew better than the recommendations that we drafted, knew better than the work that we did in investigating this issue. He decided in his wisdom that the public confidence was best captured and maintained by a secret, internal ministry process, one he’s holding quite close to his chest. He decided that the recommendations of our committee were best ignored.

Just a couple weeks back, we learned that his police reform process has been stalled because First Nations have paused discussions. Why? Because the minister is ignoring the recommendations of his own committee.

[3:35 p.m.]

In Budget 2024, the Finance Minister rewarded this Public Safety Minister with an increased budget. It’s now about $1.2 billion for policing in this province. Yet his police reform process is languishing. He has consistently made decisions that do not instil greater public confidence that this government understands the challenges facing public safety and policing, and little confidence that they’re delivering police reform in a cost-effective and collaborative way.

In the theme of collaboration, here again we see an example where the siloed ministries are impediments to us addressing holistic problems. The committee recommended the Mental Health and Addictions Minister complete a review of the Mental Health Act. That’s what we heard from many of our witnesses. The Mental Health Act needed a complete review, yet we have crickets over there.

It’s inexplicable to me that this Public Safety Minister is allowed to continue to fumble this file and there be no accountability for the fact that he was given a good report, a comprehensive report, an intentionally integrated report and, instead of taking the advice of his own policing leadership, the advice of the people he taxed with looking at the issue, he just went off on his own and has, frankly, wasted two years.

We’ve heard on both sides of this House the discussion of the merits of this $89 billion budget. On one side, the government has been praising their effort and celebrating the most expensive budget in British Columbia history, a budget that is expensive but fails British Columbians on so many fronts.

They left a multi-billion-dollar contingency for the Premier to use as his election promise slush fund over the next few months. We learned today in question period it won’t be for FIFA. Still don’t know what it’s going to be used for, but nonetheless, we know one thing it won’t be used for. Leaving this slush fund is either an unethical act or an illegal act, but it turns our budget-making process into a mockery.

What this speech has done is provide a clear indication that this government, like governments before, has failed to address the multilevel, multidimensional, interconnected, integrated challenges with the complexity and strategic thoughtfulness that we need at this moment.

We do not approach these systems as systems. They’re one-off announcements, kind of like political candy, intended to placate the sweet tooth but, in the end, so disappointing after the sugar crash. So as we confront the reality that we face today, the reality that our political, social and economic theories and ideologies are grounded in some kind of magical thinking, grounded in a perverse thinking that our finite world can produce infinite growth….

Indeed, even back in 1970, when the Club of Rome met to discuss the world problematique I talked of at the beginning of this speech…. They proposed to Jay Forrester to bring his systems-thinking approach that assisted corporations through industrial dynamics — the modelling he was creating with a new computer code language that could produce a map of the world system.

Jay Forrester is the first person to introduce industrial dynamics, urban dynamics, to map out system dynamics. This was back in 1970. His work illustrated how positive feedback loops and negative feedback loops interconnect all things, and when there is an input in one, there’s a reaction in the opposite.

Yet here we are today, pretending like we have some kind of magic inoculation and that we’re immune to the issues that confronted our society and our planet in 1972, the findings of the world study — reality. The reality is that at that time, population was doubling every 33 years, and the consumption of natural resources doubling every 20 years — the first time in the history of our planet that we had that rate of exponential growth.

[3:40 p.m.]

Politicians of all stripes have since wrapped themselves in this fantasy, a fantasy that this finite world that we live in is infinite; this fantasy that the concept of infinite growth is a political tool used by politicians unprepared and unwilling to face their electorate, unwilling and unprepared to face their constituents with the reality that our finite world cannot possibly produce infinite growth in perpetuity; that somehow it will not catch up on us; that the positive and negative feedback loops will suddenly shift, so our generation will be the first to be emancipated from the tyranny so as not to impact us in our moment of power.

Despite our desire to think magically, we know that this is a tragedy that this government continues to deliver meaningless rhetoric instead of systems thinking. It’s unfortunate that instead of looking at the systems dynamics that Jay Forrester and his team at MIT so skillfully illustrated 50 years ago, painting a dire picture that if we were to continue the rates of consumption that we were going at in 1972, we would be exactly where we are at today.

In 2024, we have a so-called social democratic party leading this province that has fully embraced the infinite growth model. They have accepted a delusional reality that growth continues exponentially and unabated. Of course, this is not a real reality. It’s an illusion, a simulation based on an infinite growth model that just simply doesn’t work.

Study after study after study has shown that when you do not pay attention or pay respect to the positive and negative feedback loops of our interconnected world that we live in, it breaks down. We know in our hearts that we live in a finite world. This B.C. NDP government has done little to respect our planetary limits — the limits in our province, the limits of our ability to support exponential population growth. This is evidenced by the erosion of the social fabric that British Columbians expect, the social fabric that’s stretched thin and is breaking down.

When will we turn and face the reality before us? When will we speak honestly to the people of British Columbia to let them know that the finite world has limitations and we are thinking and managing them collectively and strategically? When will the housing supply lobby, the Housing Minister that scoffs at systems thinking, advancing a narrow, pre-1970s thinking that we can just have infinite growth…?

The deception has grasped the imagination of politicians and decision-makers, and we have been tricked to not consider the positive and negative impact loops of our decisions. Indeed, the current high cost of housing is a result of not paying respect to positive and negative feedback loops. For example, not providing enough housing over the last 30 years increases the cost of housing and is entirely a potential outcome.

However, deploying the same kind of thinking, the same kind of infinite growth thinking, the same kind of non-systems thinking, non-planning thinking that got us into the problem in the first place is not a successful strategy. It’s not a successful way to approach the problem.

Scoffing at me and others when we suggest that we need to instead deploy systems thinking in our response, that we need to ensure that, inextricably linked to our decisions on housing, we are seriously considering the five key elements of the original 1972 model — populations, food, industrialization, natural resources and pollution — and how they are connected and interrelated with services like education, health, transportation, technology and investment…. It’s important. Indeed, it’s critical.

The dangerous and immature thinking that we can just increase housing supply and our quality of life and cost of living problems will go away needs heavy and constant pushback. We need to demand that our decision-makers don’t fall into the easy trap of simple thinking, and that they do not try to solve problems we face with the same kind of basic, disconnected and, frankly, elementary thinking that created it.

[3:45 p.m.]

So as we are looking forward to the election, as I started this speech, and British Columbians are tasked with selecting who will lead us into those five remaining decades of the 100-year time frame laid out in The Limits to Growth, we need to be asking ourselves: who is in it for themselves, and who is in it for British Columbians?

Who is prepared to face the difficulties with honesty, transparency and accountability that we need to bring people together at a time when systems that we’ve relied on falter? Who is prepared to step away from the political, economic, social ideologies that are driven by an unrealistic cult of infinite growth to recognize that it has failed us and driven us toward a precipice and that we stand here with very few tools and resources that we need to shift our operating system? Frankly, at this moment, we need a brand-new operating system.

I don’t believe that any one of the political parties, entities in this chamber, are well equipped to do it on our own. We’ve learned to speak to our base. We’ve been rewarded for it. However, outside of that, we falter. What we need is an election result this year that removes the political burden from any one member or that hands a majority to any one political party in this House and, rather, distributes it to all members of this House.

If the systems we are trying to fix are interconnected and integrated, then we in this House are going to need to take our individual approaches, our political, social and economic theories and ideologies, and link them and integrate them. We need to become interconnected. Despite our differences of opinion, we are not enemies. We just have different opinions.

We are called on at this moment to work together in a way that our competitive political system is not designed to deliver. We are called to work together in a way that a majority government is not threatened. As we have seen over the past four years, that is not a skill mastered by this current government. However, what we have witnessed over the past few months is a desperate attempt by partisans to drive wedges in order to show distinction between us for our own selfish political pursuits.

No doubt I will be criticized for my criticisms. “There he is, standing here, calling out the NDP time and time again. Then he has the audacity to call for us to come together and work together.”

Our system, as it is designed, the responsibilities of the government and the critic roles as they’re currently laid out…. I have a job as a critic. That’s my job: to critique the government. This government, another government. That’s my job. We always need the role of the critic. They create a functional and healthy democracy. Healthy coalitions, even. Complaining about critique, even sharp critique, is exposing an unnecessary fragility that in and of itself tells the public about the style of leadership. Democracy is not supposed to be done in darkness.

Even before the 2020 election, when I was a part of the confidence and supply agreement with the B.C. NDP, we worked collaboratively in partnership, and I also worked as a critic. That’s the sign of a healthy democracy. This province cannot afford another majority government of any brand. What we need is a good decade or so of minority governments. Force the people in this chamber to work together, to collaborate, to integrate our social, political and economic theories and ideologies.

There is a word in SENĆOŦEN, JSIṈET. It means “to raise or grow up a child.” I see the infantile nature of this democracy, the power dynamics and the behaviours and desperate need for raising up, for growing up, for maturation. Majority governments will tell you they are stable, but autocrats can also bring stability for a time. That does not mean that they are the best suited to govern the people or make the decisions that are in the best interests of their people.

Majority governments, after a time, begin acting like the mob, threatening people with fearmongering and, worse yet, punishment for not falling into line. How many community and organization leaders have been told to fall into line with the B.C. NDP government, either directly or indirectly?

[3:50 p.m.]

We may be suspicious that the collapse predicted by the world model way back in 1972 will not materialize. It’s just a computer model. However, over the first 50 years, that computer model has been remarkably accurate, and it’s in our interest to find a way to work together to ensure that the next 50 years is not so accurate.

The authors of The Limits to Growth note that the best time to get started was in 1972. The second best time is right now. If we work together to “alter these growth trends and establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable for the future, the state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize their individual human potential.”

J. Routledge: I’m honoured to take my place to speak to Budget 2024.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered in this legislative chamber on the unceded traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən people, also known as the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations. I thank them for welcoming us with such grace and generosity.

I also thank the Minister of Finance and her team, who worked so hard to create this budget. I think it’s a realistic budget for these times that balances, on the one hand, a recognition of the unprecedented challenges our society has been facing in the past few years, with, on the other hand, a profound faith in our collective future.

It’s a budget that recognizes that we haven’t all been affected equally by the pandemic, global inflation, wildfires, heat domes and flooding. It recognizes that some of our neighbours have fared far worse, through no fault of their own. It recognizes that we don’t all have the same capacity to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

It’s a budget that recognizes that many people continue to need support to get back on their feet and move forward. They need the support of government and of their community.

It’s also a budget that recognizes that the crisis didn’t start with the pandemic or record-breaking wildfire seasons or supply chains severed by floods and extreme weather. The foundations of the current crisis were laid decades ago by a political philosophy of individualism, a philosophy that favours the rich, that creates such obscene income disparity that the 100 highest-paid Canadian CEOs are now earning 243 times more than the average worker. To put it another way, in the first hour of the first working day of the year, Canada’s highest-paid CEOs will have already made what it takes an average worker an entire year to earn.

This is a political philosophy that favours the rich while treating the rest of us as cheap or free labour, if not expendable. This is a political philosophy that would have us all compete with each other for ownership and control of valuable but scarce resources. It’s a philosophy that deliberately kept most of the population vulnerable and desperate through unregulation and deregulation, by denying and removing supports, by diminishing and ridiculing the role of government, by cutting public services, privatizing public services, eliminating public services.

This philosophy led to political decisions, even here in British Columbia, that weakened our health care system and undermined our public education system. It created massive backlogs in the agencies, commissions and tribunals where vulnerable people should be able to seek justice and redress. It pitted people against each other and forced us all to fend for ourselves.

[3:55 p.m.]

I’ve listened with disappointment as so many members opposite have referred to Budget 2024 as mortgaging our children’s future, when, instead, it was their budgets of the past, their policies, their laws of the past that put our children’s future in jeopardy.

This budget, Budget 2024, seeks to continue the work of undoing the damage done by decades of dogmatic faith in the market to make our big decisions for us. This budget seeks to take back for the people what was taken from them. This budget is an investment in the future.

While the previous government were committed adherents to the free enterprise ideology — and apparently still are, according to what so many of them have been saying in response to this budget — in fairness, the problem is bigger than them. Neo-liberalism has dominated the world stage and narrowed options for decades. It’s just too bad that so many members opposite are stuck in 20th-century outdated thinking.

This budget, as were our previous ones, is a budget for the future, for the 21st century. It’s a budget that deliberately puts people first, that restores faith in our ability and willingness to take care of each other and reaffirms the role of government in doing so. It takes on the big challenges people are facing today by helping with everyday costs, delivering more homes faster, strengthening health care and services and building a stronger, cleaner economy in which everyone can expect to thrive.

Some of the opposition would have you believe that our budget is reckless, that we are spending money frivolously. Tell that to the struggling families who will see a 25 percent increase in their monthly B.C. family benefits. Tell that to all the families and businesses that will get a break on their electricity bills. Tell that to the thousands of people whose housing costs will stabilize because we are introducing a flipping tax to crack down on speculators and because we are expanding our first-time-homebuyers program.

Tell that to all the people who will receive an increase to their climate action tax credit. Tell that to the small and medium-sized businesses that will now be exempt from the employer health tax.

B.C.’s population is growing faster than ever before, and we are feeling the pressure of the crowded schools and longer wait-lists and wait times in Burnaby, where I live and serve. Budget 2024 brings relief in the form of significant capital investment, like the $39.3 million to build a new Brentwood Park Elementary School with child care spaces and a neighbourhood learning centre, and the $22.5 million for an addition to Kitchener Elementary School that will accommodate 375 new students.

This is in addition to the more than $2 billion redevelopment of Burnaby Hospital that includes a cancer centre, two new patient towers, more operating rooms and a larger emergency room.

Budget 2024 signals a fundamental shift away from the dog-eat-dog economics of the past towards a caring economy. The challenges that are tearing apart our communities today, here and around the world, did not develop overnight. We have so much more to do to restore faith in each other, for British Columbians to regain the confidence that we have each other’s backs.

Budget 2024 is a good foundation. It’s not a budget that withholds. It’s not a budget that’s stingy. It does not give in to our fears. It builds on hope. It’s encouraged by the strong economy that has been developed in the last few years.

The B.C. economy continues to function well, has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada. Last year we created 70,000 new jobs. We have the highest credit rating of all provinces. Faith in British Columbians to use their talents, their courage and their initiative is built on our budget foundations, so it helps us work together.

[4:00 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: Excuse me. I think the minister would like to do an introduction. Is that okay with you? If that’s okay.

J. Routledge: I’ll just wrap it up here and turn it over to you.

Deputy Speaker: Is leave granted?

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. R. Fleming: I am advised and I’m very impressed that we have 25 folks with us, 22 of whom are grade 10 and 11 students from Alberta, from the STEM Innovation Academy High School, who are here with us today.

A big welcome to British Columbia and, indeed, to British Columbia’s Legislative Assembly. We’re thrilled you’re here. Enjoy your afternoon.

Debate Continued

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Burnaby North, and I do apologize for the interruption.

J. Routledge: Thank you, Speaker. Really, I was about to wrap it up.

I will wrap it up by also welcoming you here, welcoming you to the B.C. economy and our vision for the future, which will be a future for you. So take your chances. The future will look good, given where we’re going with things.

G. Kyllo: It certainly gives me a great amount of pride to rise in the House today and speak to Budget 2024. I’m kind of surprised, actually, with the lack of good news that was provided in this year’s budget, and it appears that even members of the governing party are finding a hard time to fill more than 9½ minutes with a response to the budget.

I am very proud to stand today, and I just want to take an opportunity just to give a few thank-yous. First of all, to my lovely wife, Georgina, my wife of 36 years, who is an incredibly patient woman. And to my four amazing daughters and sons-in-law and ten grandkids for supporting me in this journey.

Also, it goes without saying, our constituency assistants that do such an amazing job back home. Holly Cowan had 16 years’ tenure as an assistant prior to my being elected back in 2013. Holly is fantastic. We spend a lot of time together. On occasion, I remind her that she bosses me around like a wife, and she’s quick to remind me that I don’t listen like a husband.

Holly has been absolutely fantastic. She’s the face of the office. She’s well known in the community. She cares deeply about our constituents, as do I. She’s also supported by Bonnie Gavin, who was a former assistant from up in the Cariboo-Chilcotin area, who has relocated down to the Salmon Arm area and assists us in the office. I just wanted to get those thank-yous on the record.

Now, for the hard-working men and women of the Shuswap, I am incredibly proud to represent you. It’ll be 11 years this coming May, and I just want to thank all of you for the trust you’ve provided me and the confidence you’ve instilled in me to be your representative here in Victoria.

This year’s budget is unprecedented, but for all the wrong reasons: a $5.9 billion deficit in this year. And context, I think, is important. We only have to go back to 2017, when the current government, with the assistance and support of the Green Party, formed government. There was a $2.7 billion surplus in this province. In just a few short years, we are going down a very, very dark path. A $5.9 billion deficit is forecast for this current fiscal ending March 31, and a $7.9 billion deficit next year.

[4:05 p.m.]

In the next three years, this government is forecasting a $22 billion deficit. Now, if we include this year’s $5.9 billion deficit, that’s an extra $5,500 in debt for every man, woman and child in this province. Just think about that: an extra $5,500 in debt that this government is putting on the backs of future generations, our kids and our grandkids.

What are we getting for that? Well, they’ll sprinkle maybe a few shekels back to the electorate in an election year. But we don’t have any large construction projects that are actually being delivered for the benefit of British Columbia.

Highway construction projects are stalled out, doubling in budget, behind schedule. I just look in my own riding of Salmon Arm–Shuswap. The Salmon Arm west highway construction project was originally pegged as a 6.1-kilometre project and about $163 million. That announcement was done in the fall of 2016. I was very proud to make that announcement. Not only was the project delivered three years behind schedule, but this government found a way of spending an additional $20 million on the project but only delivering half of it — so $20 million more for half the project. Now, that’s not good value.

We are spending more money under this government and getting increasingly worse results. If they didn’t mess up our horizontal construction, they’re now adding the same community ripoff agreement process also to vertical construction projects, like the Cowichan District Hospital. Initially pegged between $500 million and $600 million — guess what, folks — it’s now estimated to be $1.45 billion. Somehow this government has found an extra $800 million to build what I believe is the most expensive hospital ever built in North America, at $7 million a bed.

They can find an extra $800 million for Cowichan in order to support their union-only hire contract. Yet the Shuswap Lake General Hospital, which is eight years older than the Cowichan Hospital…. We can’t shake any dollars out, even for the planning of a much-needed expansion.

It’s a government that certainly talks about collaboration and working to represent all British Columbians. The Minister of Health, last year in the estimates process, on April 26, committed to me to have a meeting to talk about the needs of Shuswap Lake General. Eight emails later, three in-person conversations with the minister, and I continue to be gaslighted. That is not a government that cares and listens.

Lookit, it’s not me. I’m representing the hard-working men and women of the Shuswap, yet this government and this minister have no respect. And the arrogance is front and centre in this budget. The $22 billion — who’s paying that back? That debt is going to be saddled on the backs of our kids and our grandkids.

The job growth that this government touts about has been in the public service: 140,000 new bureaucrats have been added to the public payroll in the last six years, costing taxpayers $17.4 billion a year. What do we have to show for it? Our health care sector is in shambles. Don’t take my word for it. You only have to talk to the nurses or to the family practitioners with increasing caseload pressure.

The mental disorder claims for the health care services sector are up 500 percent under this administration. Now, I appreciate that we went through a pandemic, and that put a lot of pressure on the system. But we’ve been out of the pandemic for two years. But guess what. The rates of mental disorder claims are continuing to rise.

[4:10 p.m.]

I’ll be interested to get an update from the minister this year during estimates. But last year the minister indicated and confirmed with me that mental disorder claims five years ago were $39 million, and they’ve grown to $197 million a year.

Toxic work environment. Unfilled nursing positions. I believe that as of today there are 3,300 unfilled nursing positions in the province of B.C. What kind of an impact is that having? We’re hearing stories of British Columbians literally dying, waiting for care. Folks that are seeking cancer care are being shipped to the United States for care.

I have a hard time understanding this. On one hand, government wants to shut down — taking tax dollars to cause grief — private clinics that are providing services in B.C. WorkSafeBC, of course, has the ability to pay for private care, but government, on one hand, is trying to shut down the private providers because it all has to be public, yet they’re sending B.C. tax dollars and down to Washington state, to private clinics, so that B.C. residents can get care.

Now, hey, lookit, if you’re living in Vancouver, it’s maybe a couple of hours’ drive across the border. It’s certainly not convenient for them, but maybe it’s possible. What if you’re living in Fort St. John or in Fort Nelson, and you’re instructed to go down to Washington state to get your cancer care treatment?

Just think about this. These are people that are scared for their life. They’re finally getting the opportunity to get that hope, the cancer treatment they’ve been waiting for, but there are all kinds of side effects. When you’re going through treatment like that, it is catastrophic. People want to be next to their family and their loved ones. How does this heartless government decide that they’re going to solve the problem? “Well, we’ll put you on a bus or a plane, we’ll ship you down to Washington state, and you can hang out down there for your three, four or six weeks of treatment.” It’s disgusting.

As we look back to the budget, not only is this evidence of a tax-and-spend government, but it took nearly 150 years in this province for the total capital debt load of this province to hit $50 billion. Just think about that: through all consecutive previous governments, all the borrowing, all of the bills and infrastructure that has been built for the benefit of British Columbians, it took 150 years to get to $50 billion.

Man, that’s no small challenge for the NDP because they built it up to over $100 billion. They’ve doubled the provincial capital debt in the last six years — doubled it. Guess what, folks. It’s on its way to $150 billion by the end of this current budget, in the next three years.

What do we have to show for it? We have delayed construction projects on Highway 1. We still have more two-lane infrastructure on the Trans-Canada Highway in British Columbia than in the rest of Canada combined. You would think, with an extra $100 billion in capital spend and an extra $27 billion of additional debt that this government is now going into, that there might have been an opportunity to actually have some big, major projects built in this province, but they are not happening.

We’ve got increased taxation. Carbon tax in 2017 was 30 bucks a tonne. Today it’s $65, it’s on its way to $80, and it’s going to triple by 2030. I was talking to a constituent just last week — I’ll take his word for it; he’s an honest man — looking at his gas bill. He said: “MLA, my gas charge is $45; the carbon tax is $72.” The carbon tax is more than his gas bill, and that carbon tax is going to triple under the tax increases that are set out in this budget.

[4:15 p.m.]

Let’s fast-forward. Say we’re in 2030, you’re paying 45 bucks for your gas, and you’re going to give this government 210 bucks for carbon tax. Wow. When we talk about real relief, opportunities for actually removing the carbon tax from home heating bills, that’ll have a direct impact, but that’s not the way this government operates. They want to tax the heck out of you. Then they’ll give you a few crumbs back, and you should be happy.

The member opposite indicated that there’s going to be a 25 percent increase in the climate action tax credit. Well, wow, isn’t that nice? You’re going to take hundreds of dollars out of my pocket, you’re going to give me back a few shekels, and people should be happy with that — let alone all the administrative burden that’s associated with it.

British Columbians should be absolutely fearful of the direction that we’re going in. I remember what it was like in the 1990s when B.C.’s economy, under the former NDP government, went from number one under Social Credit to last. The economic stature of B.C.: for the first time in the history of our province, we were a have-not province.

We’re rich in resources and people, but with the wrong government, with the wrong focus, they’ll drive you into the ground. That happened in the 1990s. We went from the best employment record in Canada to the worst. It only took a decade or so for the NDP’s mounting debt, increasing red tape and high taxation for capital to flee. We experienced the devastating impacts of going from the best-performing economy in Canada to the bottom of the barrel, from having the best record for employment, to having the highest unemployment rate in the country.

Had it not been for the 140,000 new public servants that this government has hired, our unemployment rate would be through the roof. They’re using future generations’ wealth and spending it now to try and make things look like they’re rosy. Well, folks, it’s not rosy. Businesses are struggling. Increasing crime. Increasing insurance rates.

Government’s own numbers in the budget show, as far as the economic picture, that it’s not what this government is making it out to be. Exports declined 13.3 percent in 2023; exports to the United States were down 17.6 percent. Now, that’s our single largest trading partner. Natural gas exports were down 34 percent. Softwood lumber was down 40 percent.

What are the policies that these members are bringing forward, that government is bringing forward, that are actually going to help grow the economy? It’s not happening.

In the manufacturing sector, manufacturing shipments were down 6.7 percent. I was speaking about natural gas. Natural gas prices are still, I think, reasonable. My constituent indicated $45 in natural gas. Meanwhile, his carbon tax was $72. Guess what’s going to happen to natural gas. The budget is indicating, in their budget book, that natural gas prices, the inlet prices…. They’re anticipating $1.26 in ’24-25, going up to $1.75 in ’25-26 and, in ’26-27, going to $1.96.

Now, that’s just the inlet price for natural gas. It’s forecast, in the government’s own budget document, to go up 55 percent, but if that is not a big enough caution and concern for residents that are going to try and heat their homes, the carbon tax is going to be going up 300 percent in the next six years.

[4:20 p.m.]

Hang on, folks. Affordability? The government talks about affordability, and tackling it. They’re adding to it. They’re creating it. When you borrow money, you’re inflating the economy. You’re adding to the inflation.

I’ll tell you what. A B.C. United government has put real-world solutions on the table. Eliminating provincial taxes on gas, saving motorists 14 cents a litre at the pump. That can happen immediately. It will probably even reduce some administration and some red tape. But no, this government would sooner charge the heck out of you and then flip you a few shekels back, with their climate action tax credit, and just hope that you’re going to be deceived by that and not see it for what it really is.

Now, for members that are listening from home…. They may not recall a term called the fudge-it budget. If you were to google “fudge-it budget,” that is actually associated with the current government, with the New Democratic Party. This is something else that happened in the 1990s: they cooked the books.

They overprojected revenues ahead of a provincial election with the hope that nobody would notice. Well, guess what. They got caught. And who paid the price? Well, they certainly got punished at the polls. I think I can recall, in 2021, when the NDP lost 77 of 79 seats. Just think about that.

In 2017, we did not have enough seats to form government, but we won the election. We won 43 of 87 seats. We were one seat short of forming a majority. Of course, that was the year that the Green Party made a terrible decision and decided to support the NDP, and we had the confidence and supply agreement. But we won that election.

But in 2021, not only did the NDP lose; they got blown out of the water. They lost 77 of 79 seats. Now, is that a public spanking, if I’ve ever seen one?

And this government has not learned any lessons. Increasing debt, adding to increasing inflation, bloating the government system, increasing red tape, and nothing is getting done. Logging tenure permits are not getting issued.

The community of Salmon Arm…. This is a progressive community of 25,000. I’ve got a lot of respect for Salmon Arm and for their mayor, Alan Harrison, and his council. The Salmon Arm waterfront park…. They’ve been waiting for a lease for renewal from this government for three years and counting. I have it under good counsel from a senior bureaucrat that the amount of administration time to actually issue a waterfront tenure renewal permit is eight hours. Eight hours of work.

Now, you’d think, out of those 140,000 new employees, that they could have maybe found eight hours to actually process a lease renewal for the great city of Salmon Arm. But no — still waiting. Three years and counting. How can that be justified?

A city of 25,000 people, a mayor and council that are looking out for the best interests of their community…. They get this much disrespect from this government. Just imagine how much respect an individual property owner might have if a mayor and council representing 25,000 people are afforded this little respect and that amount of disrespect by this government — having to wait three years for the equivalent of eight hours of administration time to actually issue a lease. How is that justified? And what do we hear? Crickets.

We’ve seen a similar response to the employment standards branch. Government, fair enough, have the opportunity to actually move forward with different policy initiatives, none of which I typically support.

[4:25 p.m.]

That’s fine. We can be different. But they made structural changes which have increased significantly the number of complaints that are going to employment standards branch. Now, the caseload pressure in the employment standards branch….

Typically in 2017, cases were looked after within two months. There was what was called a two-month backlog. Well, what’s happened to that backlog under this government? It’s grown to over two years. If you’re an employee….

Now, maybe I should back up. If you’re a unionized worker, you will get certainly a lot different experience with this current government. But if you’re non-union, if you’re a private sector employee…. A large majority of workers in British Columbia work in the private sector. And they’re actually governed, and the law that actually pertains to their employment is under the Employment Standards Act, which is administered by the employment standards branch.

If an employer fails to pay you overtime, maybe has failed to pay you severance pay that you feel you’re due, your opportunity to try and have justice is to reach out to the employment standards branch. Now, it certainly wasn’t perfect when we were in government, but you would be put in touch with an advisor within two months. That was the backlog. That was the maximum amount of time it took for an actual adjudicator to be working on your file. But under this government, it’s two years.

Just think about the individual that needs that severance cheque so they can maybe put food on the table or they can potentially cover their rent. You look to this government for help, and you call the employment standards branch, and you get an automatic reply email that says: “We’ll call you in two years.” Two years. If that’s not offensive, I don’t know what is.

The members opposite talk lots about supporting workers. But we aren’t seeing that result. I had an opportunity to respond to the minimum wage rate increase yesterday. I actually stated I was happy to see the minimum wage rate go up. But the bigger problem is that it’s failing to keep up. Affordability is diminishing, even for individuals that are going to be experiencing a 3.9 percent wage increase in the minimum wage on June 1, because of all of the other huge burden of taxes that this government is putting on.

Groceries are up. Fuel is up. Home heating is up. A big chunk and a big reason is because this government has their hand in your pocket, taking an ever-increasing amount of tax dollars. I could go on at great length. There are so many things that people should be concerned about.

The availability of housing. What was the number that this government announced? It was 118,000 units of housing. I think, at last count, they’ve delivered 16,400 units of housing in seven years. That program is an utter failure. Well, let’s just dust that one off. We’ll hope people in the electorate forgot about that big promise and that big failure to deliver, and let’s come up with a new strategy. It’s like: “Squirrel. Look over here.”

British Columbians aren’t seeing it. I’m telling you: at home, people are concerned. I don’t know anybody that actually can honestly say that their quality of life in British Columbia has improved under this current government. Crime is at an all-time high. The drug crisis, more and more people are dying; 2,500 individuals died last year alone — seven a day.

[R. Leonard in the chair.]

The NDP’s solution? Let’s decriminalize the possession of cocaine, fentanyl and heroin. It’s obscene.

[4:30 p.m.]

An 18-year-old…. The liquor law in British Columbia is 19. It’s been that way as long as I can remember. I certainly was anxiously awaiting that date when I was in my teens. But it’s 19. So if kids are out on the streets under the age of 19 and the RCMP come around, if the kids are being rowdy or maybe making some noise and they have alcohol, the RCMP can confiscate that alcohol. They can lay a charge, a “minor in possession” charge. They can certainly contact their parents. There are consequences.

Under this government…. Even though the current law says that you can’t have a beer under the age of 19, this government has decided: “Hey, you can carry around 2½ grams of cocaine, fentanyl or heroin. That’s okay.” That is offensive.

I don’t know how the government can somehow justify that kids at the age of 18 can’t have a beer or a bottle of wine, because that’ll be taken away and they can get a charge, but if they want to use cocaine, heroin or fentanyl, that’s all right, because we’ve done a deal with the feds in Ottawa, and it’s going to be okay for three years.

The crisis is out of control. A First Nations community on Vancouver Island lost six youth in two months. This is a band of 500 members. That’s 1.2 percent of the population. That would be like 60,000 British Columbians dying in two months. Mainstream media didn’t even pick up the story. There was scant coverage on Vancouver Island.

I don’t care where you look. Life in B.C. is not rosy, as the NDP would like you to think, and it’s not going to be fixed with all these election promises and a bloating deficit.

With that, I’ll take my chair.

The Speaker: Recognizing the Minister of Children and Family Development.

Hon. G. Lore: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Nice to see you in the chair.

I’m really grateful today to have an opportunity to speak to this budget, as the MLA for Victoria–Beacon Hill but also as the Minister of Children and Family Development.

It’s hard to start a speech on the budget — or a chance to speak about any of the work of government — without thinking about the families that my ministry serves on a daily basis and the challenges that face them and their communities. As a government, our focus is, and must be, on taking action today, to build stronger opportunities for those children and their families, tomorrow and every day into the future. This means strengthening our public health care system; taking steps to build affordable, attainable housing that addresses the crisis for those who are unhoused or precariously housed; and helping people with everyday costs.

I’ve had the opportunity, often, to speak with my constituents about these issues. Housing, I know, is an issue that faces our communities around the province. I also know that it’s particularly acute here in my community.

Just earlier today I was talking with some folks about new interim housing that is coming, additional spaces that are coming to my community — 30 spaces that are safe and secure. These are not permanent homes. They’re not the permanent homes that people need, but they are really important, safe, secure spaces where people have the services and supports that they need. There are far too many people in my community living on the sidewalk on the 900 block of Pandora, and other forms of homelessness that are less visible in my community.

We are building and investing in so much supportive housing in my community. Up the street from my community office, new housing opened just a couple of weeks ago, where people who were previously in interim, makeshift shelters, which are important, then found their permanent homes, still with services and supports around them.

[4:35 p.m.]

Across the street from my constituency office, new supportive housing for youth opened up, probably three or four months ago now. We know that former youth in care are disproportionately likely to experience homelessness and that when youth experience homelessness early, they experience it for longer, more often and in more acute ways.

There are other supportive housing buildings going up in my community, including on Balmoral, and folks need us to act now. For me, this is the kind of example of the work our government is doing, the work that is being invested in through this budget, building those permanent homes with services and supports for people and making sure that we’re opening spaces for those interim homes — meals, skills training, access to harm reduction. This is all just happening in my small community.

Of course, the challenges that our communities face, from housing to the toxic drug crisis and the impact of the climate crisis, on communities and on our finances, are significant. These are the challenges that we need to stand up to. We need to make sure we are investing in services for people to access during these challenging times. So often, whether it’s the toxic drug crisis or the impact of the climate crisis, it is the most vulnerable families, children and youth who are impacted first, most often and most significantly.

I’ve spent my first few weeks as Minister of Children and Family Development with many organizations and individuals, our partners in this work, including community and social sector partners, advocates and Indigenous leaders, including the First Nations Leadership Council. What I’ve heard and felt is a sense of urgency.

We’ve got a lot of work to do together, work that is essential that we do together. It is through our partnerships, through connecting, through the learning from each other that we will be best able to meet the needs of children and youth in our province, whether that’s building a system of support for children and youth with support needs, who need us to get it right, or whether that’s continuing to expand supports for young adults transitioning from care to adulthood.

I need to stop there for just a second to really draw attention to that. For far too long, youth in care were at such high risk of falling off a cliff at 19. We know it has been a superhighway to homelessness, high rates of mental and physical health challenges, and so much more. Our obligation, our responsibility to the children and youth that come into our care, is so significant.

The investments that have been made to open up opportunities to former youth in care of all ages to access post-secondary is transformational. I worry that that’s an overused word and doesn’t capture the true impact of opening up and providing opportunities for ensuring that youth can invest in themselves, can get the education they need and can get the skills to build a fulfilling life — one with financial security, one where they’re able to contribute to their community as well. Well beyond that are obligations around dental benefits and support with rental supplements.

Again, when children and youth come in our care, how we need to support them as they turn 19 and transition into adulthood, I think, are some of the most significant investments we have made as government.

[4:40 p.m.]

It’s about the right thing to do. It’s about what is owed to these children and youth, and it is an investment in what we don’t need to see later, in homelessness and the health challenges that go with it. I just need to draw attention to that.

Of course, much of the work that’s happening in my ministry is also about driving forward the work that was enabled through B.C.’s historic legislation to uphold Indigenous jurisdiction over child welfare and continues to address and reduce the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in government care. Since 2017, my ministry has received year-over-year increases for the services and supports that the most vulnerable children, youth and families in our province need.

This year, my ministry’s budget is seeing a near 11 percent increase of $209 million, bringing our total ministry budget to more than $2 billion, investments that go directly to supporting B.C.’s children, youth and families — demonstrating how our government believes in, invests in and knows the importance of supporting the most vulnerable people in our community.

Budget 2024 allows my ministry to continue expanding services that more than 12,000 children and youth in various care arrangements rely on. It helps us get more children and youth the supports that they need, and as I said, it provides new ways for us to help youth as they transition into adulthood. We know that children and youth experience better outcomes when they are safe and cared for by family and when they remain connected to their community and culture.

We’ve been working hard to change and transform the child welfare system, and we’re seeing the lowest number of children and youth in care in 30 years and the lowest number of Indigenous children and youth in care in over 20 years. Budget 2024 continues to support this ongoing transformation, with nearly $130 million in additional funding for children’s safety, for family supports and for children in care services, things like an additional $38 million, nearly $40 million, going to child protection support.

This is about providing home, care, connection and love for children unable to live safely at home, through extended family or community member living arrangements. This is about supporting the people who do this work on the front line. The front-line work in my ministry is essential, whether it’s staff who are providing care for children and youth with support needs — the services they need to live full, healthy lives and to thrive — or whether it’s those doing the work on the front line for child protection.

Budget 2024 also includes 72 new child welfare and oversight staff, increasing the number of Roots workers from 14 to 25. These are staff that directly support Indigenous children with culture and community connections. These increases will improve child protection, accountability and oversight. We know that safety is essential, and we must be doing everything in our power to keep kids as safe as possible. It also means better connections to community, to culture and to extended family.

We also know that there are children and youth in our communities with a wide variety of support needs and who have not been well served within existing supports and services. We are engaged in this work — again, with our partners, service providers and parents — because we know that we must get this right for communities and for kids, so that they have what they need to thrive.

As a former academic and researcher, I know the importance of research. I’m a believer in research, the study of jurisdictions and best practices. As a mom, I know that it is truly about firsthand day-to-day experiences — the experiences and knowledge of parents, caregivers, service providers, support workers, advocates and self-advocates. This is work that we are doing together.

[4:45 p.m.]

An additional $61.3 million to my ministry through Budget 2024 supports 2,500 more families of children or youth with autism, through individualized funding. It continues to support the work being done at four pilot family connections centres.

I had the opportunity to visit Kelowna and had a chance to talk to staff, to talk to the service providers who are providing speech language pathology, behaviour interventions or mental health supports. I heard stories of children being able to start returning to school and of the weight lifted off families through being able to access supports, especially behaviour intervention supports.

These are services that are not behind a diagnosis, that are available when you walk into the centre in Kelowna. The change there for families is essential. Again, this budget allows us, also, to support, through the wages and through more staff, the people on the front lines who are doing this work, whether directly through MCFD or with our community partners.

Budget 2024 also contains funds to continue our engagement process, including First Nations–led engagement and conversations led by, as I said, the experts, those leaders in the disability community.

Funding for an additional 90 professionals over three years allows us to strengthen foundational programs. We know the importance of early intervention through infant development. These additional people are so important to getting those early supports. As children enter school, we need to be, and we are, in this budget, investing in increased school-age therapies in communities across the province. Families who previously had no access or limited access may now be able to receive services in their community.

Another thing I think is really important here — which I heard just this week, in connecting with my ministerial advisory committee — is the importance of respite, the importance of rest for families, whether those are parents or grandparents, caregivers who are providing care to children and youth with support needs, and their need for rest.

This budget and our investments are expanding respite for families through both added funds and an expansion of services across the province so that families are better able to access the rest that they need. There’s a lot of work still to do here, but we know — I know as a mom, and I heard it from my minister’s advisory council this week — that for those who are providing care to their children and youth with support needs, that respite is so important.

I’m going to return, through these investments in Budget 2024, to the supports I raised for youth transitioning into adulthood. In March 2022, our government announced an investment of $35 million, over three years, to enhance these programs and to better support youth as they transition into adulthood.

These services were given a name by youth: SAJE, standing for strengthening abilities and journeys of empowerment. SAJE supports are targeting some of the most vulnerable people, giving opportunities for full lives, opportunities to thrive and to pursue post-secondary, opportunities for accessing mental health and the secure housing that people need.

I’m committed to taking this work further, to expanding this program and reducing the barriers that exist to accessing these supports, because they’re so important. These are supports based not on what we thought youth need but on what youth themselves told us is important as they transition from care into adulthood. Budget 2024 helps us realize this commitment, and it provides an additional $11.2 million for SAJE supports and services.

[4:50 p.m.]

It will introduce an unconditional income supplement of up to $1,250 for eligible young adults from 19 to 20. This is about ensuring that these young adults have the best opportunity as they move into adulthood.

This investment will help us expand eligibility for post-19 supports and services — again, work I’m committed to driving forward. These investments will support the work on our phased implementation of SAJE navigators and guides so that there are people who can support young people to access these services, to identify and set up and achieve life goals so that they have what they need to succeed, to thrive, to build the life that they want.

Part of this work is a $600-a-month rent supplement that is available for some youth who were in care. This can help them afford their rents. And 50 percent of the rental supplements in each intake are made available to Indigenous young adults who, we know, experience a greater rate of vulnerability and risk of homelessness.

Other services that young adults can access through SAJE that are made possible through investments in this budget are about increasing the annual dental care limit from $700 to $1,000 and expanding eye health coverage.

Mental health is so important. This program will mean $1,500 per year to youth to access and receive counselling services of their choice. This includes cultural support, a counsellor that works with the youth and that is of their choice. Those benefits are $1,500 per year. These benefits to youth extend to just before their 27th birthday.

Life skills training and cultural connections provide eligible youth with up to $11,000 to pursue their goals. Again, this is about the strength and the resilience of youth and making sure that we are giving them the opportunities, the tools and the support they need to thrive.

Our Youth Advisory Council members have been absolutely instrumental in informing these services. This is a group of dedicated current or former youth in care who are behind creating these services to improve the lives of children and youth and families in B.C. I want to take a moment to thank them for their contribution.

Some of these youth and young adults won’t access these. They are fighting for…. They have been advocating for the youth that come after them. They’ve shared their experience, their expertise, to make sure that the youth that come after them have access to the services and supports that they need.

You’ve heard it from my colleagues, and it’s worth repeating here in my ministry. Reconciliation is a core priority for government. It’s a top priority for my ministry. There is such important work happening. I’m committed to working in partnership with rights and title holders, with Indigenous partners, to transform our systems, to address overrepresentation of Indigenous children and youth and to keep families connected, to keep Indigenous children and youth connected to culture and community.

We know that youth and children experience better outcomes when they’re cared for by family, by extended family, by community, than by government. In November 2022, Bill 38, the Indigenous Self-Government in Child and Family Services Amendment Act, was passed into law with unanimous consent from all parties. This legislation, frankly, reflects long-overdue reform.

[4:55 p.m.]

It is about removing barriers of Indigenous governing bodies to exercise their inherent rights to jurisdiction over child welfare, over their children and families, and aligning B.C.’s legislation on children and families with the Declaration Act.

We’re actively engaged in discussions with First Nations, with Indigenous governing bodies, to move forward toward jurisdiction, including co-developing a funding model as committed to in the DRIPA action plan. Splatsin was the first, First Nation in B.C. to sign a tripartite coordination agreement in March of last year. It supports Splatsin’s ongoing exercise of jurisdiction and delivery of child and family services pursuant to their 1980 bylaw.

As of February and as part of implementing the federal act, six Indigenous governing bodies in B.C. are engaged in collaborative discussions with the province and Canada to exercise jurisdiction. This is such important work.

My commitment is to continue to focus on driving this work forward through legislation, through our collaboration that can keep children within their families, communities and cultures. Part of this is expediting the work to hire an Indigenous child welfare director, a position long advocated for by Indigenous partners and, clearly, the importance of which was communicated to me through First Nations leadership.

I shared a bit, off the start, about some of the challenges that we know our communities are continuing to navigate and why we must show up in this budget, show up as government to support people in our community who need it.

We know that youth mental health worsened considerably over the last few years, in part, due to the global pandemic. As a parent, I have seen this. It is something I have navigated.

In 2022-23, my ministry served 28,000 children and youth through community-based mental health services. It is so important for young people and their families to be able to reach out for the help they need. Ninety-three child and youth mental health intake clinics in B.C. help children, youth and their families access urgently needed assistance.

I know the Foundries have been part of this. This is a collaborative work. I thank the Minister for Mental Health and Addictions for her leadership here on expansion. In my community of Victoria, I have visited, recently, the new Foundry location. We are talking about wraparound health, mental health services, supports, access to skills training, relationships and community, harm reduction — you name it — in this beautiful space downtown that now fits the services that children and youth need.

I talked to the teams there, and it is hard to overstate the need for those services in the youth that they care for and the impact that it’s having. We must continue this collaborative work, as demonstrated by the Foundries, and also integrated school-based teams who are providing support for children and youth in schools — that opportunity for that connection and in-reach through the school community. Again, a collaboration between Education and Child Care, Mental Health and Addictions and my ministry.

It is through these partnerships that we can begin to address the increasing risk of substance use among some youth, and child and youth mental health practitioners in my ministry are and will be core members of these integrated child and youth teams providing services in school districts and in community.

[5:00 p.m.]

I think my time is coming to an end. I’ll leave it there, except to say that this is a time where we must show up for the people in our community who need it, where we must be investing in health care, in housing, in mental health supports, in affordability measures, in child care and, in my ministry, by investing in services and supports for children and youth with support needs, expanding that access, and the work we need to do around accountability, safety and oversight, connection to community and culture so that all children in B.C. have the opportunity to live in safety, to have belonging and connection and to be loved.

T. Halford: I’m very thankful for the opportunity to respond to Budget 2024.

Before I do that, I’m hoping that the House will allow me just one brief moment to give a special shout out to a friend of mine, Sean Beddows, who I’ve known for a long, long time. Sean is actually in Calgary right now to partake in the national games with the Special Olympics in cross-country skiing.

Sean is a renowned Special Olympian athlete. He is an absolute star in our community. He is a volunteer everywhere he goes, whether it’s the church or the local Surrey Eagles hockey team. He’s an absolutely tremendous athlete. But above all of that, he’s just a fantastic human being. We are very lucky and blessed to have Sean in our community. So Sean, good luck in Calgary. We’ll be pulling for you. Make sure you bring gold home.

All right, on to the budget. I don’t think it’ll be a surprise to my colleagues in the House that it was a little underwhelming, but it was pretty expensive. I think that’s something that a lot of British Columbians are trying to grasp with. When you’re on the doorsteps, or you’re in the grocery stores, you’re in the heart of the community, where people are really facing their struggles right now. They reference the budget, and they’re not really saying….

I have had nobody in the last week or so come to me and say one element of the budget that they’re actually excited about, not one. They haven’t said: “Well, I can’t believe they’re doing this. This is going to make my life much easier.” Not one. I’ve had many people come to me and say: “A $7.9 billion deficit. Are you serious?”

They’re saying: “I can’t tell you where my money’s going. It’s my money. I’m worried about my kids. I’m worried about my grandkids.” We’ve talked a lot about youth. They’re going to be the ones that are saddled with this.

Budgets in my house were always a big deal. I had a grandmother — I called her Mudgie — Beverley. She was very fiscally responsible, and she ensured that all grandkids and kids were fiscally responsible.

She had a little office in her house, up on the second floor, in Surrey. Once in a while she would call you in, and she would say: “Okay. We’re going to sit down, and we’re going to do your budget.” I called them “Budgets with Bev.” You’d go in there, and my grandma would sit down, and we’d go through. We would do a budget. That was important, because it was my first lesson of fiscal responsibility.

I knew that my backstop growing up was my parents, but a lot of kids don’t have that backstop. A lot of parents right now are struggling mightily when it comes to maintaining their own budgets. They have to. We expect municipalities to balance their budgets. We expect school boards to balance their budgets. We expect First Nations, in terms of their elected bands, to balance their budgets.

What is now not expected is financial responsibility when it comes to the province of B.C., and I think that that’s fairly staggering. We’ll talk about those numbers in a second.

I come from a riding where I’m blessed with a lot of seniors.

[5:05 p.m.]

I think that it’s always somewhat humorous, but somewhat problematic, when I tell people I represent the riding of Surrey–White Rock. They say: “Well, the beautiful homes that you have on the bluff, on Ocean Park Road or Marine Drive….” You look up, and you see these fantastic homes. They’re beautiful. You go down to Crescent Beach. The heritage homes that are down there are beautiful, and they’re expensive. They are very, very expensive.

But that doesn’t encompass my entire riding. In my riding, especially when you get up into the heart of White Rock, around White Rock city centre, there are a number, if not an overwhelming number, of seniors on very fixed incomes.

I’ve told the story. I’ll tell it again, because I’m dealing with this again today. We have a situation where we have seniors in my riding that are on, like I said, very fixed incomes. But they are renting, right? They are on rental incomes, and what is happening is they are scared because there is nowhere for them to go.

There has been, in one case, an area where they have been without heat for two years. Two years they went without heat. For a month and a half, they’ve gone without hot water. When they finally contacted my office, they said: “Can you come over here? Can you take a look? Can you help?” I said: “Why didn’t you call me two years ago and tell me about this?”

You know what they said? “We were scared. We were scared that we were going to get evicted. We knew that if we did, there’s nowhere in this community for us to go. There’s nowhere. We knew that if we said anything, we would be in a situation where, in some cases, we were very confident we’d be out on the streets.”

In one case, there was a lady, and she had burn marks up her arm. That was because she was actually trying to bathe herself. She would boil water. She’d use a sponge, and she scalded herself. I had a 92-year-old lady that was heating her house, her little unit there, with her oven.

Part of the challenge is that a lot of these people could not even afford to go to Home Depot or RONA or Canadian Tire and purchase an individual heater because they didn’t have that flexibility in their budget. That’s a pretty sad, sad statement there.

We look at it, and never before have we been spending more and getting less than what we are right now with this budget. I think part of the issue is…. Well, I know what the issue is. When you say to British Columbians, “We are now in a $7.9 billion deficit,” I think the expectation is that life is going to get better. Life should be better right now.

But if you ask British Columbians…. In the last seven years, where has life gotten better for them? Where? Has it gotten better in health care? Absolutely not. I’ll talk about health care in a second, but there is no way that we can say health care has improved. In fact, we spent quite a bit of time on it today. Our outcomes have never been worse. Our wait times have never been worse. One in five British Columbians without a family doctor. ER wait times. ER closures. They’re staggering.

In my riding, we had to fight tooth and nail to make sure the maternity ward stayed open. In my riding, we had the Health Minister come up to Peace Arch Hospital about three weeks ago to open up the mental health clinic there, a clinic that was fundraised by primarily….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, excuse me.

Members, if you can keep your conversations down a little lower. Thank you.

T. Halford: Money was raised by the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation. I think the challenge on that one was…. The minister came. He opened it up: press conference, cameras, made a nice speech. I was recognized. I was thankful for that.

[5:10 p.m.]

For two years — two years — that mental health facility in Peace Arch Hospital sat empty because they couldn’t staff it. Imagine that. Built, primarily focused…. A lot of it actually came from the firefighters associations of Surrey and White Rock. They fundraised for this mental health facility in Peace Arch Hospital.

Six months ago, if somebody was having a traumatic episode where they needed vital mental health support, they were taken in and walked past this state-of-the-art mental health facility, because it was closed, and they’d go right into emergency. How does that make sense? You built it, but you can’t staff it. If you don’t think that’s frustrating to the residents of Surrey-White Rock…. It’s beyond frustrating. We see this time and time again. The same thing happened with the maternity ward.

When we’re talking about…. The minister gets up and says: “We’re making our investments here; we’re making them there.” I think part of what the minister is missing, with all due respect, is the on-the-ground frustration that people are feeling. The people that work at Peace Arch Hospital, Surrey Memorial Hospital, Langley, or any health care worker here, are doing their best. There’s never any doubt or debate about that.

When the minister gets up and rattles off the facts, as he tends to do, I think the frustration is that, in reality, people are feeling they’re getting the worst service and worst outcomes they’ve ever gotten in this province when it comes to health care. That is beyond frustrating. It’s not the doctors, and it’s not the nurses, because they’re doing their best, they’re tired, they’re overworked, and they’re just as frustrated.

That’s part of the challenge that we’re seeing here, and we’re seeing it in other areas too. You know, this is a government that has campaigned…. I mentioned the two or three signature areas that they’ve campaigned on, right? Respect for renters, which I’ll talk a little bit more about. They talked about affordability. They talked about portables in Surrey.

We’ve doubled the amount of portables in Surrey we have now — doubled them. How can you overpromise and underdeliver and miss that badly? You didn’t even reduce them. You doubled them.

If you were working for an organization and it was time for your performance review and you came in there and they said, “Okay, well, you know what? Our signature line was that we were going to reduce all the portables. How did we do on that one, Gary? How did we do on the portable reduction?” “Well, sir, you know what? Listen, yeah, about that. We doubled them,” Gary would be fired, right? I don’t think Gary would do very well. I think that’s part of the disconnect that this government seems to have.

It’s the same thing on the renters rebate. They campaigned twice on it. Those seniors that I was talking about — the seniors that were struggling to afford their rent, to decide whether they were getting their rent or their groceries or able to fulfil their pharmacy prescriptions — could have used that renters rebate seven years ago when it was promised to them.

Now they’ve got to fill out the paperwork, they’ve got to submit the paperwork, and they’ve got to see if they qualify. It’s a lot. You know what? These people are struggling, and they’re stressed. They’re at their brink. That’s what I see in my office when people come in. They’re not coming in to say, “Hey, do you mind if we have a cup of coffee and we can talk about the Canucks?” or whatever it is. No, they’re coming in because they are broken, they’re tired, and they’re frustrated. Some of them are really angry, and I get it.

We get it every day, and bless our constituency assistants, all 87 offices. Whether we admit it or not, I know they’re all getting it. It’s hard work every day, in every single office, because they’re on the front lines.

[5:15 p.m.]

While we’re here, they’re getting the phone calls saying: “I don’t have a family doctor, and I’m scared. I’ve just been diagnosed with cancer. Now I’m being told I got to go to Bellingham. I don’t know how that’s going to work out. I’ve got kids. I don’t know….” They’re scared.

“I can’t access $10-a-day daycare, and I can’t afford it, so now I’ve got to make a decision on if I’m going to get back in the workforce or not. I’m scared.”

“My son or daughter can’t access treatment, but they’re ready to go. They want to go into recovery right now. I can’t afford it. No bed is available. I’m scared.”

All those stories come into every single one of our offices. They do. We can rattle off facts and figures of the budget, but I’ll tell you, in the seven years, right now in this moment, things have never been worse.

Transportation-wise, you look at B.C. Ferries, the subsidies that we’ve given to B.C. Ferries. The fact is that we’ve given hundreds of millions of dollars to B.C. Ferries, and we can’t even get an executive to return a media call when the ferries break down. They can’t even maintain the boats. The ferries are supposed to be dependable.

A lot of us take the ferries, and they’re not reliable right now. It’s not the people on the ground. Just like it’s not the doctors and the nurses. it’s not the ferry workers. It’s not the person at the ticket booth, who’s getting the abuse because you’ve got a minister and you’ve got an executive with B.C. Ferries that can’t figure things out. They’re getting the brunt of it. The people on the ships are getting the brunt of it.

I go back to it: how have things gotten better? Education. We’ve got great, fantastic teachers. We talked about portables. We talked about…. The fact is that we’re not building the schools. We’re talking about it, but we’re not doing it.

Transportation. You look at the budget and what’s allocated for the Massey crossing, whenever they get to that. It’s not there. How does that work? There should be a bridge that we’d be able to drive across right now. Not there. That bridge was designed to have rapid transit that could possibly come into South Surrey. Not there. I look at the neighbourhood….

One of the neighbourhoods is in my colleague’s riding of Surrey South. It’s called Douglas-Summerfield. I’ve mentioned this to the minister many times, and for whatever reason, he just doesn’t acknowledge or pay any attention. It’s at 176 and 8th. It’s a lot of…. I don’t know; probably a couple of thousand people live down there. It’s right at the U.S. border.

For you to get access to public transit, you’d have to walk six kilometres along 8 Avenue, and you’d have to cross Highway 99, which you really can’t do if you’re a pedestrian. Then you’ve got to cross King George Highway, and there’s a bus there that comes three times a day. That is your access to public transit. Seven years.

You know, when we talk about the issues of affordability, we talk about…. I hear from a lot of parents that are saying: “We’re trying to kind of fake it until we can make it, especially for our kids.”

I grew up, and I thought I had a great childhood, but I will tell you this. I did not know how hard my parents worked, until I was a young adult, because then they were honest with me. Then I learned all the sacrifices that they’d made for me to play hockey, for my sister to be able to go into dance, for my brother to go into baseball.

I saw the sacrifice, and then I learned after when my dad said to me: “Yeah, you know what? I had to pick up a couple extra shifts. Mom had to work Saturdays.” That’s why my mom wasn’t there on Saturdays. I didn’t even think about that stuff growing up. It just happened.

[5:20 p.m.]

Now when I get older, I see the sacrifices that my parents were making — and I know, because my friends are making them — but it’s even worse than that, because now they’ve got to ask their parents to help make those sacrifices, too. It’s the bank of mom and dad that we’re seeing right now.

Now when I get older, I actually see the sacrifices that my parents were making — and I know, because my friends are making them — but it’s even worse than that, because now they’ve got to ask their parents to help make those sacrifices too. It’s the bank of mom and dad that we’re seeing right now.

I’ll tell you this: it’s politics, but it’s also personal, because people are struggling. I’m saying this with all sincerity: is there anything that has gotten better, in the last few years, for people? Whether it’s public health, transportation, affordability, housing or health care, nobody here can say yes. You can’t. If you can, you’re fooling yourself, and you’re fooling your constituents. That’s not right.

It is bad. In White Rock, we had a shooting, 100 rounds of ammunition, 12:30 at night, half a block away from an elementary school, 100 yards away from a daycare. It happened at 12:30 at night. I’m not saying it happened during the daylight hours, but 100 rounds of ammunition with a semi-automatic weapon.

I’m sure that a lot of people have seen the footage of that, and it is beyond scary. How are we addressing that? Where are we getting up in the budget, talking about the things that we’re doing when it comes to law and order? I don’t hear anybody talking about that, on the other side. Maybe they will, but I’m not hearing it.

When you look at it, the hard part is…. I’ll say it again. People are scared. They’re scared when it comes to the health care system. Can they rely on it? They know they can rely on the doctors and the nurses that are there. They know they can rely on them, but can they rely on the system that exists right now? If I go to Peace Arch Hospital, how long am I going to have to wait?

For my friends from Merritt, is the hospital going to be open? When it comes to transportation, if I’ve got to go and get a medical appointment in Vancouver, from Victoria, can I rely on the ferry to get me there? Honestly, probably: maybe; maybe not. I think that’s part of the biggest challenge that we have here. When we’re honest with ourselves, it’s not working.

When people say, “We’re spending $7.9 billion,” that’s almost making it worse, because they’re going to say: “Okay, but tell me. Show me how this is going to help me today, because I’m desperate. I need the help today. What are you doing for me today?”

When they come in the office, they don’t want us to say: “Well, you know, in three or four years, with the investments that we’re making right now, your housing is going to be affordable, and wait times are going to be down.”

“No, I need you to help me today, because I’m homeless,” or “My wife has just been diagnosed with cancer,” or “My child needs to enter recovery.”

I think that’s the disconnect from reality that we’re seeing every day with this government. That’s where the frustration is. I know the intentions are good; I get that, but there’s such a disconnect right now from what’s going on, on the ground. That is the hard part, right?

You know, I hear the slogan, and it’s like I hear it again and again. In every government and opposition, everybody has their slogan. When we say, “We have your back,” or “We’re going to have your back,” or whatever it is, it doesn’t feel like that. Like I said, what do you have their back on right now? What is this government actually backing people up on right now? In this budget, a $100 rebate — $8, or whatever it is, a month, or less than eight bucks a month. I can’t sell that in my riding.

Wait times at the ICU at Peace Arch Hospital. A lot of it is held together with duct tape right now, right? They don’t feel like you’ve got their back. Diversions are happening every day, from the maternity ward, over to Langley, to Surrey Memorial, to Royal Columbian. They don’t feel like this government has their back. They can’t access treatment and don’t feel like you’ve got their back.

[5:25 p.m.]

Seniors are getting evicted from houses, from apartments that they’ve held for 30 years. They don’t feel like this government has their back.

That’s the disconnect that we see every day. The doubling of portables. I don’t feel like you’ve got my kids’ back. The lack of infrastructure that we’ve seen built in this province. In Surrey, where’s the money for the Taylor Bridge? There’s no money for the Taylor Bridge. This government doesn’t have their back.

But we’ve known about this. How do you say: “We’ve got your back”? You don’t. Just be upfront about it, right?

That’s the thing: $10-a-day daycare. I hardly know anybody that’s got access to $10-a-day daycare. You think they’ve got their back?

We see the challenges that small businesses are facing every single day in this province. The layering on of costs and costs and costs. I’m not feeling like this government has their back.

I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom here. I do tend to be optimistic, but I tell you, man, if this was a budget with Bev, it would be a failing grade, and I would be…. She would not be happy.

I think that British Columbians expect and deserve a lot more than what they’re getting today. If this is a government that has shown they’ve run out of ideas this quickly, with the Premier not even a year into his mandate, I think that’s even more cause for concern.

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak today, and with that, I will take my seat.

Hon. P. Alexis: Today I want to acknowledge that I’m speaking to you from the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən people, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

It is my honour and privilege to rise and respond to Budget 2024, which supports our government’s priorities for the year ahead and our plans to build a stronger, more secure future for British Columbians.

Our people are our strength, and Budget 2024 highlights the conscious choice our government makes every day to focus on putting people first. Our job is to connect with British Columbians, to listen to what people are telling us and to collaborate with them.

I’m passionate about helping people and supporting my community. It fills me with excitement and hope that I’m part of a government that understands the important role we play in shaping our communities and society.

British Columbians, in all walks of life, are feeling the impacts of global inflation. They’re seeing the serious, and often devastating, impacts of climate change. They need to know they aren’t alone. As we move forward, we are continuing to support people in all corners of the province and make investments in a stronger future.

I’m particularly excited, in my role as Minister of Agriculture and Food, to talk about how our government is helping to create opportunities for the hard-working people in our agriculture and food sectors. Food is essential for our well-being, but it also connects us. I can tell you, as a child of Greek parents, food was the centre of life. And that’s why we’re passionate about ensuring people have enough food and that it’s affordable, and we know where it comes from.

Budget 2024 reflects another record high for the ministry, as our government continues to invest in the people who provide us with healthy, delicious local food that feeds our families and communities.

[5:30 p.m.]

With a budget that has increased over $50 million from a decade ago, we are backing up our commitment to support farmers, ranchers and seafood producers, and to strengthen food security for all British Columbians.

Agriculture, along with seafood and food and beverage processing, is one of the biggest economic drivers in the province. Total sales are over $20 billion, with growth in all areas and over 73,000 people employed. Yet there is significant potential for us to expand production and processing so we can increase job opportunities, grow the economy and feed more people.

On the processing side, we introduced a $20 million food processing growth fund last year that’s having tremendous results. Local businesses are getting support to purchase new equipment and technology, improve infrastructure, expand production and train their workforce. I had the pleasure of visiting T-Brothers in Coquitlam, who specialize in kimchi, and they gave me a wonderful tour of their facility, which included new machinery that will help them double their production.

We’re also working closely with Indigenous people on agricultural initiatives identified by them to support their interests in economic development, food sovereignty and community building. I was in Kamloops in August to announce the $30 million Indigenous food sovereignty fund, which is supporting projects that build capacity and put more control of how food is grown and distributed into the hands of Indigenous communities.

We held the announcement in the parking lot of the Sweláps Market, which has since opened last fall. I promised that I would get back up once they were up and running, and I will do that. It was wonderful to meet with Kúkpi7 Rosanne Casimir and other members of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and see the type of innovation and community-focused thinking that this funding can support.

When we work together, whether it be with other levels of government or Indigenous communities, the tech industry, post-secondary institutions, or with our farmers, producers and processors, there’s so much potential for B.C.’s agriculture and food sector to sustainably feed people both at home and globally. Our commitment is to continue to foster this success and grow the sector even more.

But to do this, we have to rise to the challenges brought on by our changing climate. One of my main priorities is ensuring that our farmers and producers are prepared for these climate-related weather challenges, both now and into the future. Flooding, wildfires, drought, extreme heat and extreme cold have all impacted the production, availability and delivery of food in the past couple of years. That’s why building a more resilient food system is a priority for this government.

On top of our record budget, we also made an historic investment in B.C. agriculture last year that is continuing to fund programs that will provide an increased, stable supply of affordable local food throughout the province. At the same time, these programs are designed to help B.C. farmers become more prepared, more productive and more profitable.

We introduced programs that remove old crops and replace them with new, heartier varieties that are more suitable to the climate of a specific region; programs that ensure that you have the tools and resources to be prepared for future emergency situations; and programs that help you prepare for extreme weather, such as helping with costs to flood-proof or fireproof your operations.

[5:35 p.m.]

We also know access to water is crucial for food production and ensuring that we have a sustainable and resilient local food system. That’s why we introduced a $20 million agricultural water infrastructure program that we are now expanding significantly through Budget 2024.

This will go towards helping our agricultural communities adapt to climate change impacts like the increased threat of drought that we know we’ll be facing again this summer, in all likelihood, and grow more food by supporting farms with new and improved water storage and water supply infrastructure.

As the climate continues to change, it’s not only drought that will become more frequent, but we could very well see more frequent and intense flooding to B.C.’s biggest agricultural growing region. This prompted, of course, the $20 million Fraser Valley flood mitigation program. This program was designed specifically to increase B.C.’s food security by supporting flood resiliency projects on individual farms as well as larger-scale community projects that focus on the overall ecosystem health.

To strengthen collaboration in preparing for and mitigating future risks, the program also incorporates community partnerships between Fraser Valley farmers, Indigenous government and municipal governments, and the federal government. We will continue to introduce and strengthen programs and funding in places like these that will proactively help prepare for future climate impacts.

Above all, we will remain steadfast in supporting all growers, farmers and farm businesses to do what they do best, which is produce safe, high-quality, B.C. food for everyone to enjoy.

While I’m keenly focused on my role as minister, I am always available for the people in my riding of Abbotsford-Mission. And our government continues to make significant investments that are having a positive impact on people.

I just mentioned the work being done to make the Fraser Valley more resilient to flooding. On top of that, a critical piece of infrastructure, the Barrowtown pump station in Abbotsford, will receive significant flood resilience upgrades.

The station was originally designed to pump water out of the low-lying prairie lands of the Sumas Canal into the greater Fraser River. It was nearly overwhelmed during the atmospheric river in 2021 but, thankfully, held out the floodwaters. I was proud to stand with Premier Eby, Semá:th First Nation councillor Ganzeveld and Minister Mah to assure locals that the province will take care of the community to help ensure the safety of the people of B.C. and B.C.’s vital farmland.

As of February 14, 180 million has been committed to the city of Abbotsford and its residents to assist with flood recovery and resilience. Our government’s commitment to supporting growing communities is crystal-clear. I hear about it all the time, and I see it with my own eyes in the region I love to call home. That’s why I think it’s important just to highlight a few critical capital investments in the once forgotten Fraser Valley communities I’m so fortunate to now represent.

Last year Abbotsford families gained 360 new seats due to additions at two elementary schools, Margaret Stenersen and Auguston Traditional. Thanks to the $23.2 million from the province, 180 new seats were added at Auguston Traditional, which helped alleviate enrolment pressure and allowed space for child care. At Margaret Stenersen, two purpose-built child care classrooms were built to provide care for children under four.

Significant investments were also made in student housing at the University of the Fraser Valley. The new housing will increase on-campus accommodation for students, from 200 to 598 beds, and add common areas. This was an $87.8 million investment that just had its official groundbreaking in February.

[5:40 p.m.]

Finally, as the commuters in Abbotsford and Mission know far too well, Highway 1 can often be a frustrating part of the daily commute. We hope to see the bulk of the frustration in the rearview mirror, pardon the pun, in the near future, thanks to the province investing $2.3 billion to design and construct a 13-kilometre highway between Abbotsford and Langley.

Improvements that will reduce congestion include HOV lanes in both directions, new truck parking and a mobility hub at the 264th interchange. In addition to alleviating commuter frustrations, the project will create an estimated 9,600 direct and 5,900 indirect jobs — another game-changer for the Fraser Valley, courtesy of our government, a government that is putting people at the centre of every decision we make.

There are countless other improvements that I haven’t mentioned, but I want to say that this budget continues the important work of delivering real results for people, and I’m very proud to support it.

M. Bernier: It’s a privilege and an honour, as always, to be able to stand up in this Legislature and speak on behalf of our constituents that elect us to be here and represent them. I think that’s an important segue, really, talking about when we’re looking at the budget that we have this year and really talking about how we as legislators have a role to play.

As the opposition, we have a role to play to hold government accountable and, of course, to really look at what’s taking place that impacts the people in the province of British Columbia. Maybe I’ll start…. There are a lot of places that I could probably go with this and a few things I do want to cover off.

being an election year, I’ll say I was quite surprised, first of all, that the first two weeks of session that we typically have we didn’t have. Typically, we would be having a couple of weeks of debating a throne speech. I thought, because of the delay, that we would have this amazing election throne speech from the government. But that basically has fallen flat. On top of that, we were given all of — what? — two hours to debate it.

Then on the heels of that, now we have a budget. I thought: “Okay, it’s an election year. Let’s look at what this government is going to be doing.” Again, I listened to some of the commentary from people before me in the B.C. United caucus who have been really succinct on some of the points of what’s missing in this budget. But also, what’s actually in the budget can be pretty scary to consider.

Let’s just go down memory lane for a minute, if I could. You know, I’m not looking for the Jeopardy music and Alex Trebek to support what I’m about to say, but it makes me feel like a Jeopardy question.

I’ll say: what do the following things have in common? There will be 114,000 houses built to fix the housing crisis. All portables will be gone in Surrey by 2020. We’re going to have universal $10-a-day child care. We’re going to have a $400 renters rebate. No mills will shut down in the province of British Columbia. Cell bills will be reduced to help with affordability for people. We are going to stop Site C. We’re going to make sure LNG doesn’t happen in the province of British Columbia.

Well, I’ll tell you what those all have in common — election promises. And none of them were delivered on by this government. These are all things that…. I expected to see a whole other narrative of promises that this government would come out with that people can hold them accountable for. But as the colleague that spoke before me from Surrey said, seven years ago there was a change in government.

I’m waiting for the applause there from the NDP. They probably won’t, because that change in government was based on a lot of the promises that I just highlighted: “Don’t worry. You put us in government, and we will fix or solve these issues.”

Exactly the opposite has happened. Nobody is better off. All of the issues that I just highlighted never came to fruition. In fact, in many cases, they’ve gotten worse. Zero portables by 2020. We now have double-decker portables going in.

[5:45 p.m.]

Our colleagues, I guess, from the B.C. Conservative Party…. Their idea is just to have double-decker desks in all the classes to solve that.

Really, it comes down to the fact that this present government — and I thought I’d see it in the budget here — seems like they still want to be in opposition, because almost every time we hear them stand up in this House and talk, they don’t say, “Look what we’ve done,” because that’s pretty hard to do when they haven’t done much. So it’s always: “Look at what the other guys did.” It’s always them trying to go down memory lane.

News flash: the NDP have been in government for seven years. We’re now going into the second or third election, whatever it will be. I’m sure we’ll hear a whole suite of promises from this Premier that are going to come out again. I just remind the public to look back at the last couple of elections. Has your life gotten better? Did the government deliver on any of those promises?

The answer is pretty apparent, because on almost every issue we talk about, and when we’re looking through this budget, and in almost every ministry right now, when you look at the narrative, not from us but from the public and from the media, the word “crisis” comes out on almost every topic. If we’re talking about health care, it’s a crisis. If we’re talking about crime on the streets, it’s a crisis. If we’re talking about housing, it’s a crisis. Affordability? A crisis. Almost every time you turn on the TV or hear…. Transportation? A crisis. The list could go on and on. For almost every ministry right now, it’s a crisis.

I was looking at this budget, thinking: “What is this government planning to try to fix these issues that for the last seven years, they’ve been unable to do?” Well, the first thing I did was I opened up and I looked in the budget documents, as I usually do, because I want to look at: how have things changed?

Quickly, on one of the very first pages, we talk about revenue to government — taxation revenue to government. I think this is an important one to highlight before I get into specifics on some of the ministries and how it affects people in my region. But this does affect everybody in Peace River South but, frankly, everybody in the province.

Did people know that just five years ago, this government was collecting under $28 billion in taxation revenue. Just five years ago — $28 billion. When I opened up the documents today again, and I was reading through that, guess where we’re at? Fifty billion dollars are coming in, in taxation revenue. In five years, this government has almost doubled the revenue that they’re getting in taxation.

What’s scary about that is that that’s not coming from personal income tax. That’s fairly flat. They’ll try to say it’s because we didn’t raise it, but that’s also because it’s flat in so many ways in this province when it comes to personal income tax and what people are getting. Employers health tax, corporate tax, fuel tax, carbon tax, tobacco tax, property tax, transfer tax — everything is going up.

This government…. It seems like their whole thought process is: “How do we tax our way to affordability?” Well, back to my commentary of everything being in a crisis, you can’t. When people are struggling on our streets right now in almost every avenue to pay their bills, this government’s response is: “Let’s just increase taxes on everything.”

Then I thought, “Well, okay, maybe they’re increasing taxes. But don’t worry. Revenues are going to be going up, especially in the resource sector,” which used to be one of the highest areas that this province used to be able to tout as revenue sources, when we used to talk about revenue coming in from oil and gas, forestry and mining — all of those staple industries that actually built this province.

As I’ve said before in speeches, when you walk right out these doors and look in the rotunda, what are the paintings depicted in the rotunda? It’s the resource sector: agriculture, fisheries, everything. So I was hopeful this government would at least acknowledge the fact those industries that built this province helped build hospitals, schools, infrastructure and our roadways.

[5:50 p.m.]

Unfortunately, right underneath the taxation revenues in this government’s budget, what does it do? Well, last year, their forecast revenues in estimates was $5 billion that they thought they were generating in revenue. This is down. That’s down again, as it has been almost every year under this NDP government. Revenues continue to drop in the resource sector.

Wouldn’t you know it? In their forecasts for the ’24-25 budget, once again, this government’s thought process is: how do we just budget and manage a decline in our resource sector, an impact on most of rural British Columbia of $1.6 billion — which this government is budgeting in the estimates, from $4.7 billion last year down to $3.1 billion this year — that they’re expecting to be lost in revenue coming in.

Natural gas is a huge one. Last year in the estimates, they expected to get over $2 billion in revenue. This year, $750 million. Forestry is down by hundreds of millions. Other resource sectors are down by hundreds of millions of dollars, instead of this government recognizing that we need more revenue, more certainty, more jobs, and more opportunities.

I will remind people that this is not just rural British Columbia. Ridings like mine can live and die, some of our communities, based on the resource sector. That’s not just our communities, though. I think anybody who represents the Lower Mainland, which is the good majority of the NDP, is south of Hope. They need to remember that…. Who do they think pays for what they want, too? When you want that bridge…. Oh, sorry. They cancelled that. That tunnel in Richmond — where do you think the money comes from for a lot of that?

Well, it used to come from rural British Columbia, from the resource sector. That’s not happening anymore. That’s unfortunate and appalling. It leads me to wonder what the ulterior motives are on all this.

I’m not going to buy into all the conspiracy theories that some people say — they are conspiracy theories, anyway — on how we just get rid of rural British Columbia and move everybody to the Lower Mainland. But I’ll tell you that it’s one hit after another, under this government, against rural B.C. The lack of attention and support that this government gives for the people who have helped build this province is appalling.

Now, I’ll get into some of the real specifics of how it’s hurting in my riding — which again, can be transposed into almost every riding in rural British Columbia, and probably right across British Columbia, for that matter. It’s the lack of understanding, I would say, that this government has of places like the Peace region.

I look at the Transportation budget. My colleague before me mentioned the Taylor Bridge, and I need to go to that. About ten or 15 years ago, the talk was about the Taylor Bridge. We looked at it at the time, and we said: “Okay, this has about ten or 15 years’ worth of life in it.” Studies were supposedly going to start taking place. Consultation would take place. “But don’t worry. We need to replace this bridge.” The NDP even agreed to that. It’s not in the budget.

Thankfully, the leader of our party has agreed that if we win the next election, that’ll be one of the most promised things that we will deliver on — fixing something and replacing the Taylor Bridge. It’s not just the Taylor Bridge. In the last seven years, I’m hard-pressed to find any capital funding that’s new in the Peace region, in transportation.

[5:55 p.m.]

Almost every year under our government, we used to see another four-laning on the Alaska Highway, another passing lane built because of safety concerns — where people, unfortunately, were tragically losing their lives because of the state of the highway.

Bridges replaced, as I’m saying: nada. The only projects that actually were done under this NDP government were the ones that were already approved, finalized and being finished — those that had started under our government.

I should give kudos where kudos is earned. We announced in 2016 that we were replacing a bridge that was an issue in Dawson Creek. We brought it through Treasury Board, and it was approved to replace that bridge in Dawson Creek. Where I’ll give kudos to this government — it was already approved; it was already in the capital plan: they didn’t take it out, and that bridge was actually replaced on 8th Street in Dawson Creek.

I will give the NDP credit for at least not cancelling a project, like they’ve done down south on a bridge replacement. They actually let that bridge continue to be built in Dawson Creek.

On our roadways, though, we are seeing non-stop…. I’m not home, obviously, today to hear about the fact that it’s minus 35, I’m told, and snowing again. Our roads are in a horrible state. I get emails every single day — I know all my colleagues in rural British Columbia get these — about the state of our roads.

This commentary is not to go after our road maintenance company. I actually feel bad for the road maintenance contractors. They’ve signed a contract with this government that saw declines in what they had to do and in the money that they were getting. I try to remind people in my riding that, unfortunate as it is, our companies are doing what they can. They’re struggling to find staff, too.

I get that, but when I talk to the Ministry of Transportation and say, “What the heck is going on with our roads? How many people does it take to die before we’re going to change the contract to do something?” the response I get back from the Ministry of Transportation is, typically: “Well, they’re meeting contractual obligations.”

That is not the answer that we should be given. We should be looking at how we improve those contracts to make people’s lives safer, not going back to the contract. If the contracts have to change, then guess what. We need to change. If that means more money needs to go into keeping people safe on our highways, then more money should be going in. That’s not in this budget. That’s something we definitely need to address.

You know, I look at one of the next issues that’s really facing people in our community. It’s around taxation. We know that under this government there have been 32 new or increased taxes. Is it more than that now? It’s probably more than that.

The NDP has never seen a tax that they don’t want to impose. I don’t want to give them any ideas, maybe, of other areas they could tax people, because I know they’d do it, but this is hitting people in the pocketbook. Because it’s doing that, it’s attributed to the affordability crisis that we’re faced with.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

This is why one of the best things that we can do in a place like the Peace region, specifically, especially on a day, as I said, like today, that’s minus 35, is to get rid of the carbon tax on home heating. That makes a difference.

For this government to say: “Don’t worry. If you make under a certain amount, you’ll get a little bit of money back in carbon tax rebates….” Some people will talk about that. I’ll tell you that that’s cold comfort — I almost hate to use that analogy when it’s minus 35 — to the people who are stuck paying massive home heating bills right now. A huge part of that is the carbon tax.

I know I’m not allowed to use props, Madam Speaker, so as far as you’re concerned, it’s a blank piece of paper.

I’m looking at an exact bill here, a natural gas bill from somebody who sent it to me just the other day, a friend of mine who owns a very modest, little mini-mall with half a dozen small businesses that are rightfully struggling in this affordability crisis.

[6:00 p.m.]

I wish I was exaggerating. I really do. This is why we’re calling for removing the carbon tax from home heating. His last bill: $3,330.11, over $3,000 in carbon tax alone. So an $8,000 bill and $3,300 of it was carbon tax. Something that this government not only doesn’t want to listen to our pleas around affordability to help these people…. When we’re saying, “Let’s get rid of carbon tax,” what does this NDP government do? “We’re not going to get rid of it. Let’s look at raising it again. Let’s triple it. We’re going to put it up to $160 a tonne, rather than looking at freezing it at $10.”

Yes. I know some people say: “But the B.C. Liberals brought it in.” I acknowledge that. We brought it in. It was, I think, originally — what? — $10 a tonne, revenue-neutral and brought back in to really try to work at incentivizing mostly businesses — which worked, by the way. A lot of businesses really looked at their policies and their initiatives to help save the environment. We saw less flaring. We saw more innovation created. The idea was to freeze that and make it revenue-neutral.

Now this government wants to go from where it started, at $10, up to $160. The federal government — who knows? There’s a reason why we’re calling on it now, to get rid of the carbon tax. It’s not what it was. It’s not what it was designed to do. This government is no longer making it revenue-neutral. In fact, they throw it into general revenue. And it’s obvious, because every time we talk about getting rid of it, they quickly try to tout: “Oh, the carbon tax rebates.”

But not the Minister of Finance. She’ll say: “Oh, what are you going to cut? You’re going to get rid of doctors or nurses or whatever?” She herself has highlighted that they’ve now taken the carbon tax into general revenue, because they don’t know how to manage their own budget, so they’ve had to do that.

Once again, this could have immediate savings and help for the people in my riding if we got rid of that carbon tax off of home heating. I know we can’t get rid of it completely, like everybody wants. It’s federal jurisdiction that would be imposed now if we try to do that. But if the federal government changes their mind or if a different federal government comes in and gets rid of the carbon tax, we need to do the same here in British Columbia. We promise to do that if we are successful in the next election. The NDP, of course, will just try to triple it.

I’ve also mentioned that just a short ten-minute drive from my house into Alberta…. Just a couple of days ago — actually, in Grand Prairie, if I went that route; it’s a little further drive — it was 99.9 cents a litre for gasoline in Alberta. A dollar a litre. Last time I looked outside here, we’re still getting close to $2 again. We’re calling on removing the provincial portion of the sales tax, the taxes off of gasoline, to help not only just people, but this would help businesses.

This would help our agriculture sector — the people who are trying, again, to build this province, feed this province. What does this government do? Ignores all the pleas. Nothing in this budget is going to give hope that we will look at that serious issue again, rather than just focusing on declining revenues in our budget.

“But don’t worry,” this government says. “We have a printing press down in the basement. We’re just going to create about $8 billion of fake money downstairs and go into deficits. Don’t worry. You don’t even have to worry about your kids paying it back, because we’re going to be going into so much debt, it’ll be your grandkids that’ll be stuck trying to figure out how to pay this back.”

I talked about the promises that have not been delivered seven years ago, which reminds me that seven years ago we used to balance the budgets and actually paid off the operating deficits that were created — when? Yeah, I know they hate to hear it. But in the 1990s, when the NDP were in government, the thought back then was: “Let’s grow the size of government. Let’s just create deficits. Let’s just borrow more money that we can’t ever afford to pay back.”

[6:05 p.m.]

It took us, in government, I acknowledge, over a decade of hard work, of trying to not only balance the budget but to try to pay that back so that we weren’t penalizing our grandkids and future generations. No surprise. At least for the government in the ’90s, it took them ten years to rack up about a $12 billion deficit, I think it was. We’re going to be over $20 billion, or whatever the math is now, after this government, in just seven years, not to mention doubling the debt on the capital side.

Look, it’s not just about the money. Like many people, especially on the conservative side like myself, I worry about the fiscal responsibility of government and not burdening my grandchildren with debt that will affect their futures and their lives. I would argue that it’s our job, as legislators, to not only look out for today but to look out for tomorrow. That’s not the mindset of the NDP. They’re not worried about tomorrow. They’re not worried about the next generation. They say they are, but it doesn’t show, not only in their policies but in what they’re putting forward.

Again, it’s about making sure that we’re being responsible with those dollars. So back to my point, if we were borrowing money because we’re in a crisis situation…. I would argue that it’s mostly the making of this government. If they could point to it and say: “Look, we need to borrow this money, because this is how people’s lives are getting better and have gotten better….” But they can’t. That’s the struggle that I have with this budget.

We’re years out now, thankfully, from what this government continues to talk about, which was COVID, and they still try to use that as an excuse. If they want to talk about how great this province is, why do they also, in the same breath, turn around…? “But we don’t have any money because of COVID,” yet everybody supposedly is doing better, which they’re not.

I go back to how I started my speech here. Every single issue that we talk about is in crisis. I know I don’t have much time left, but a couple that I do want to highlight before I run out of time — because I promised some people I would do this, especially in the Chetwynd area — is the fact that we were just notified, once again, of this government’s concept and idea: “Let’s borrow money, but let’s look at how we just downsize everything at the same time.”

They’ve now announced, I’m told, that they want to remove the initial attack base for firefighting out of Chetwynd and move it — yes, I know I’m getting the look from some of my colleagues, Hudson’s Hope and Chetwynd, small communities — on the heels, again, of what we just had that this government talked about, the worst forest fire season in history. We still have forest fires happening in my region, as we speak. In fact, last week we had a forest fire in Chetwynd that got out of control. And what was the notification that we just got?

I don’t know when this happened, because I wasn’t told about it, but I just saw it on Facebook. Some very concerned people in Chetwynd brought it to my attention — thank you very much, by the way that the initial attack base and the people who work in Chetwynd to be first responders are moving. Now, if there’s some logic to that, I’d like to know.

I know we have a base in Dawson Creek, but that’s an hour away. This government’s concept, and we’re seeing this around, is yes, we might go into another bad firefighting season, because we’re in a drought situation. I pity our agriculture sector. I won’t have time to get into that, in this speech, about what they’re looking at this year if we don’t start getting some moisture. But I’m calling on the government and the Minister of Forests to also look at that, and I’ll bring it up in estimates as well, of why that is taking place.

I also heard the Minister of Health, even today, talking about doctors and nurses. Well, I’ll tell you what. That’s cold comfort to other places like Chetwynd, Tumbler Ridge, Dawson Creek. We’re at Williams Lake; thank you to them. It’s everywhere in rural B.C. Every time I look at a news release, on social media, from Northern Health, it’s, “We regret to inform you that the Chetwynd Hospital is on diversion” — yet again, due to lack of staff.

[6:10 p.m.]

I want to thank the nurses and doctors that we do have in our region for the work they do. I know how stressed out they are, the extra hours they’re working, the anguish that they’re going through. The last thing they want to do is see a hospital going on diversion or somebody losing the opportunity to have a surgery or lineups in the emergency.

So maybe every time we bring concerns forward about how we need help in these small rural hospitals, instead of the government standing up and saying: “Look how great we are; we support health care….” That’s not happening on the ground, and we deserve better for that.

When I look at this budget, I was really hard-pressed to find anything in there that is substantive that I could point to, to the people in my region, to say: “You know what? At least there’s something in here that’s going to make your lives better.” I don’t see that.

All I’m afraid of now for this year, going into an election year, is we’re going to have this government once again…. And we all do it. I get that. The difference is, when we were in government, we actually had results. We actually delivered. We actually built stuff. We actually grew this province. We’re going to see more promises that won’t be delivered.

On that, I’ll take my place, and I look forward to the rest of the comments around the failures in this budget.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Richmond South Centre.

H. Yao: Thank you, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on Budget 2024.

I do want to start by, obviously, acknowledging that we are on the traditional, unceded territory of the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. I want to take this opportunity to express the importance of that, that we are able to function and work on unceded and traditional territory.

For me, to start I would like to talk about…. B.C. is, obviously, a great place to live. People want to put their roots down here. People want to have their family. Currently, right now we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada, and we’re leading in growing jobs and wages for working people.

I realize my colleagues from across the aisle are continuously talking about fiscal responsibility. I do want to dive in a bit more in that area, to maybe talk a bit more about the budget too.

One other thing I do want to emphasize — I’m from Richmond, so I understand Richmond a bit better than other jurisdictions — is that I know for 16 years, we didn’t have any conversation that was meaningful towards Richmond Hospital. We had a need for hospital expansion for many, many years. Obviously, we’re going to be talking about infrastructure. We need to invest into it. But the later we delay it…. As we look at currently high interest rates, inflation, a slower-growing global economy, all these are culminating in costs of construction today far more expensive than before.

One has to ask: if we truly want to be fiscally responsible, what is the best way for us to be responsible to British Columbia? I believe the best way to look at it is to understand we don’t simply have an economy that’s measured by money. We also have British Columbians’ health. We also have British Columbians’ potential through education. We also have to look at British Columbians’ livelihood and mental wellness. We also have to look at the environmental benefit. We also have to look at different ways of preparing our economy for a future economy.

I know the previous speaker talked about the resource sector, and we thank them for building B.C. up to today, and we want to continue to support every step of the way. But as a British Columbian, as MLA for Richmond South Centre, we also need to look at and ask ourselves: what kind of future economy do we want to see?

Do we want to continue to build upon our resource sector, or are we looking for a way to diversify, to be part of a specific economy? We have to look at, maybe, life sciences, where we need to see greater growth. Maybe we need to look at renewable energy, which needs greater growth.

A lot of individuals across the aisle will talk about: “Unless there’s a crisis, why would you go into economic deficit?” I will argue that if you speak to anybody from the business sector, for business to grow, you need to invest. You need to ask yourself: what is the best way to invest so we have a greater future growth potential? Finding ways to help us grow a stronger economy for the future and at the same time reduce potential future costs.

Now I’m going back to my initial point that I brought up earlier about Richmond Hospital.

[6:15 p.m.]

The fact that Richmond Hospital is now under construction, under our government, is reassuring. But just imagine how great it would be if a hospital was built ten years ago, 15 years ago. Being able to avoid the current inflation rate, being able to avoid the current interest rate, being able to avoid the current low global economic growth, how much cheaper that would have been back then.

If we ask ourselves who truly has increased the deficit, I believe it’s the negligence from before, the lack of investment….

Interjection.

H. Yao: Sorry? My apology….

Deputy Speaker: I would remind members who has the floor.

H. Yao: Thank you.

All I’m going to say is the negligence that went before — the lack of investment in our economy, in our health care, in our education — led to our position of today. There’s a way we can talk about the economy, and I understand, maybe, I touched on some sore point people didn’t want to talk about, but I’m going to keep on going anyway.

Think about if we had Surrey’s second medical school done before even seven years ago, before even ten years ago, what kind of strength we would have to address the current health care crisis.

As we understand right now, we’re lacking doctors. We’re lacking nurses. We’re lacking human resource support, because doctors and nurses…. You cannot just simply throw money and hope to solve a problem. They take time to invest. They’re British Columbians. They need time to grow. They need time to be ready and fit into our economic strategy and support British Columbia’s overall well-being.

When I hear people talking about how we’re dealing with the health care crisis, which was brought up by the previous speaker, I would emphasize that if we had invested earlier, such as in the current UPCC in Richmond, which I’ve used multiple times, I think economically we would be in a better shape today. We’d be in better shape not to simply address financially but health care-wise, also, different ways to deal with people’s well-being and livelihood and the quality of life.

I do want to emphasize that our government is playing catch-up. We’re playing catch-up in a difficult situation.

Yes, people still talk about how COVID-19 was a year ago. Why are we still blaming COVID-19? Well, COVID-19 was a global pandemic. It placed our British Columbia economy, with the rest of the global economy, under such an extensive pressure that we had to somehow keep British Columbia’s economy afloat, strong, so that we could come out stronger, better and ready to move forward.

But that takes investment. That takes vision. That takes effort to help us carry through a difficult time, where the global economy was almost to a halt, where we had limited social interaction.

Since we’re talking about COVID-19 and we’re talking about how it’s impacting our budget, I would also love to talk about mental health. I want to thank Dr. Bonnie Henry for having the insight to bring students back to schools when we were dealing with COVID. Because we realized how, by isolating students, we might have the initial benefit of keeping students away from being sick, physically, but we also placed them under psychologically greater pressure that could manifest itself later on.

We all understand when it comes to mental health, early intervention and prevention is the best way for us to limit the cost to society. But when we have service cuts around those areas, it makes it hard for us to really ask ourselves how we can have a strong economy. We are just pushing the expense further back, with a hidden interest rate of human costs that are dealing with British Columbians when it comes to individual potential, mental wellness, family interruptions and different kinds of challenges.

But I digress. I do apologize. Let me bring it back to the budget conversation again.

Our government is continuously working with the current economic recovery in British Columbia. We are growing the economy as one of the fastest in the larger provinces. But we also need to emphasize there’s so much more work that needs to be done. We are not fully recovered. The world is still facing a global economic slowdown, and we need continuously to look for ways to help make people’s lives more affordable.

If there is anything that we learned from the last few years, it’s that British Columbia will prosper far better when British Columbians all prosper together.

The choice we have made in our budget focuses primarily on helping people through this tough time, by building B.C. on strong foundations, so people can have a good life here for themselves and their families.

[6:20 p.m.]

Of course, as we are talking about helping people set roots in B.C.… We must also understand that we need to look for ways to help people find a home.

The previous speaker was talking about the housing crisis. I think that the challenge we should be talking about…. We have a home crisis. We need to help British Columbians have a chance to have a home. I’m so glad that the government is introducing the B.C. home-flipping tax to tackle the speculation that’s driving up home prices.

As an MLA myself…. I, too, am struggling with paying my own mortgage with my family. We are also dealing with difficult housing costs that are putting a lot of stress on my family as well.

We need to really understand. We continue working together. We need to work, through a multi-pronged approach, to address housing costs. That includes the home-flipping tax, the speculation and vacancy tax, making the first-time-homebuyer program work for more people by raising the expectation from $500,000 to $835,000. We’re encouraging more rental construction by giving property tax exemptions to builders who open purpose-built rental buildings.

B.C. Builds is putting another $950 million investment, for B.C., for us to continue looking for ways to build and create homes for British Columbians.

We understand many might think, maybe, the flipping tax will create a bit of stress, but the goal behind it is making sure that whoever purchases a home will not simply sell the home for profit within two years but actually treat the housing unit they purchased as a home. Only an estimate of 7 percent of residential home sales were resold within two years between 2020 and 2022.

Of course, many people will understand. An individual has different challenges. Our government understands British Columbians face different challenges. That’s why there are exemptions, exemptions for life circumstances like divorce, death, illness, relocation for work or job losses. Builders who are adding housing supply will qualify for an exemption as well.

What we are really trying to do is say…. We’re looking for a way to build a home for British Columbians. We understand people deserve to have a home. Of course, we all understand the purchase of a home can be the most expensive investment a person makes throughout their life.

We’re also tackling health care. As I mentioned earlier, Richmond Hospital is under construction right now. People in Richmond are grateful that the government is moving forward to ensure we are building the hospital needed and ready for the future. Again, another example of how today’s investment helps pave the way for a better tomorrow for British Columbians and more reduced costs and expenses for tomorrow.

Richmond also has incorporated a UPCC, a service that I used multiple times to help my family when we were going after hours or on weekends. We understand emergency might not be the best route. Another way for us to add into our health care system.

Of course, communities are growing. Richmond is one of the healthiest communities in Canada. That’s why we need more doctors and nurses trained to build into it.

We also realize that more people are retiring. That’s why we’re recruiting, training and supporting thousands of new staff, strengthening our cancer prevention and screening services, supporting seniors to live at home longer through more investment in home care and community care services, launching a new publicly funded in vitro fertilization program. So $3 billion in our three-year capital plan for hospitals, new long-term-care facilities and more acute and cancer care facilities throughout the province.

Again, back to the original theme. We’re investing in British Columbia, catching up on the deficit that was left to us, to ensure that we’re preparing our children, our future generations, for a future not simply measured by money but measured by health care, education. Our desire to maximize the potential, the mental wellness and the overall livelihood and quality of life. That’s how we’re going to actually ensure…. When we invest in British Columbians, that’s how we’re going to make it happen.

Of course, there’s one thing I do want to emphasize, which was proven again and again. The later we push this expense onwards, the more expensive it will be for future generations.

[6:25 p.m.]

We also talked about cancer care, $270 million over three years. As a person who survived two different types of lymphomas, I have to say how grateful I am to hear of any kind of investment in cancer care.

I remember. In the past few months, I also helped Richmond open up a Richmond cancer care centre, along with my Minister of Health. It was such a relief to think about what it does for individuals.

If the hon. Speaker doesn’t mind me entertaining a bit, I would love to share a personal story. As a cancer survivor…. Due to my body’s condition, I was doing chemo. One of the most unfortunate side effects of chemo is…. It makes my body extremely fragile and vulnerable to a reaction due to interruptions. The simple fact…. When I’m riding in a car, a little bump, a bad turn, a little bit of a quick stop can make me want to throw up right on the spot.

When I was dealing with my cancer, I had to travel from Richmond all the way to the B.C. Cancer Agency in downtown Vancouver. The fact that we had to go through all kinds of turns, all kinds of bumps, which to an average British Columbian, to average individuals, might mean nothing…. To me, it could feel like just a major jab, a stab into my stomach.

When I look at $270 million, over three years, in cancer treatment by building cancer centres in local areas such as Surrey, Burnaby and other different municipalities, it reminds me that my children, their children and somebody else’s children will have a better opportunity, better result and better care and higher quality care when they are dealing with chemo and radiation. Their body will be able to handle it better, and they will be nearby their loved ones when they need to be comforted.

I cannot overemphasize how great it feels to know that some of the individuals who are struggling with cancer and, potentially, a terminal illness, depending on what their stage is…. Their family and loved ones are around, to be there to support them and love them. That’s why I’m so excited to hear and read about this cancer treatment, $270 million additionally to our cancer action plan.

I also want to talk about IVF. So $68 million to develop this program that allows people to have one round of IVF every year. I will say that I’m privileged. My wife and I didn’t struggle. We had our kids the way we intended, and they brought the greatest joy to our life. The simple fact that I have two lovely kids…

It hurts me, the fact that I’m here working — I’m working hard for British Columbia — but they are home in Richmond, waiting for me to go home. The fact that I’ve been able to think about going home to embrace them, to hold them, to remind myself why I’m working so hard today and to know…. Every colleague of mine, on both sides of the aisle, is working so hard. We have had children and grandkids. I think about some family that might be struggling to have this opportunity, to be blessed.

I’m so glad our government is stepping up and providing an accessible way to offer IVF, to be available to families once a year, to help them, to give them a try, to give them a sense of hope, to give them a sense that they could have a family of their choice. For that, I just want to say…. I’m truly grateful to our Minister of Finance for placing that as one of the greatest emphasis.

I’m actually going to talk a bit more about mental health and mental wellness. I’m so glad that we’re increasing our funding to support mental wellness and mental health. We have a road to recovery model of care, with $250 million to sustain the new and existing addiction treatments and recovery programs.

I don’t think I need to remind everybody of the challenge we have faced in Richmond recently. We have a lot of individuals who are seeking support in health care, mental and physical, and, potentially, addiction support so they can go through the difficult time with proper professional guidance.

We also know that not every service is suitable for every community. So it’s important for us to really work with professionals and doctors and to ask: “How can we support the community in the best way?”

But always emphasizing back to square one. The more we can invest early…. The more we can actually catch up and allow people who need help to receive help, to have services and be able to overcome the stigma and the discrimination associated with their condition, the earlier we can actually help individuals out.

I often will mention, as I mentioned earlier, too, the fact…. We have to talk about our capital investment, our capital planning, the $43.3 billion for health, education and transportation.

[6:30 p.m.]

Back to square one, as I mentioned earlier, we often talk about the later we invest, the less we’re getting dividends out of our investments when it comes to capital investments.

I’m going back to square one again, as I mentioned. Surrey medical school, Richmond Hospital. It’s all a great reminder that if it was built earlier, it would better equip our community to handle the current health challenges that we’re facing today.

COVID-19. As much as it’s not something that we want to see, and it caused devastation for many families in British Columbians, it also gave us a wake-up call of how fragile our health care system has gotten to, how much we need to start investing in our health and mental health, especially in infrastructures.

Budget 2024 continues government’s commitment towards addressing critical infrastructure upgrades and new infrastructure to prepare for the future need of our population growth, and $43.3 million will be invested or continue to be delivered in infrastructure in health, education and transportation that people in British Columbia rely upon.

The investment obviously will provide an immediate, direct and indirect, 185,000 jobs for the next three years. We will continue looking for ways to ensure that whatever we invest in our community, it will pay a dividend back to society and improve the quality of life of British Columbians.

We understand there are obviously a lot of conversations around the table. We’re talking about how the debt-to-GDP ratio is the lowest in the country, and we’re doing our best to support British Columbians, and we’ll invest early — today.

I want to say thank you, Bebe, a former colleague, for talking about the importance of reducing the deficit. But I also want to emphasize there are other deficits to be addressed, and our government is doing our best to ensure we are looking after and tackling many challenges.

One of the things we also want to emphasize is…. If we look at the environmental response to emergencies, such as mentioned by the previous speaker…. Drought, flood, heat dome, forest fire — all those are environmental challenges. Because we have years, decades of poor choices that led to our global climate change today, we now have to play catch-up to find a way to help our society to adjust their behaviours in a way that we can address some of our challenges coming our way and potentially in the future.

Again, it is a perfect example of how our past failures or negligence led to today’s cost increases, through inflation, global economic slowdown and, of course, the much-needed investment that could be avoided if we placed greater emphasis on protecting our natural environment and now have a stronger strategy for climate action.

That’s why I’m so proud of the government placing such a strong emphasis on CleanBC investments as well. But even with all this investment put into it, B.C. still has the highest GDP growth from 2017 to 2022, 14.4 percent, of our large provinces.

We continue to talk about finding ways for child care to allow parents who have kids, who want to be part of the workforce, to have a choice to be part of the labour force, pursue their academic future or find a way to fulfil their career direction.

Then, personally, as I mentioned earlier, I’m also a father to two children, and I personally benefit greatly from a cost reduction from a child care investment by our government. The fact that I’m able to come here to work and my kids can be cared for by a professionally trained child care service provider is essential.

Every time I bring my kids to the daycare, I have a conversation with early childhood educators, and they tell me how grateful they are that they finally have a government who is looking at early childhood educators not simply as just a worker or some kind of babysitter but as educators and people who look after the greatest asset and resources and our most precious resources of our future generation.

The simple fact that we have a wage top-up to support that and actually continue to invest in child care to allow families to have access to child care…. We understand that many critics say we haven’t reached universal $10-a-day child care. But our government is making major strides forward to ensure that families, even today, without the $10 a day, still can find a way to have costs reduced for a child care service provider.

[6:35 p.m.]

I know I’m able to afford it, with the dual income in my family. My wife is able to work now as my two kids are both going to daycare, and I’m enjoying the service greatly.

When I think about my own living circumstances, which are shared commonly among many other individuals in Richmond, through this proper child care service provision, we’re able to allow people to return to the workforce, strengthen our economy and build a brighter future for all and allow individuals to maximize their potential.

My speech has always been consistent when it comes to budget and anything else. It’s that in order for B.C. to truly prosper, British Columbians must be able to prosper together. And for British Columbians to prosper, we must find a way to allow British Columbians to tap into their potential in a way that they believe that they can contribute best to our province.

That’s why I’m so excited that different ministries continue looking for ways for increasing seats for our advanced education, finding ways to allow individuals to contribute and participate in health care service provision, allowing a child care service provider to have a proper wage top-up to ensure that they can provide a high-quality service and compensate in a way that they deserve.

That’s the reason why I’m so excited to be part of this government that continues delivering investment for British Columbians, understanding that through environment, through economy, through British Columbians, through health care, through education, we will continuously empower British Columbians to have a brighter and more affordable future.

As we continue, I want to emphasize that good business practice has always talked about in difficult times, invest so that we can diversify and progress forward. And I see that our government through Budget 2024 is doing good investment and continuously emphasizes the simple fact to everyone.

We understand what is our best natural resource. That’s British Columbians. And by investing in British Columbians on multi-fronts, such as health care, education, child care and mental health, health, environmental protection, housing, we continue building a brighter future for all British Columbians so they can continuously raise their family and invest here.

I mentioned earlier, too, that we also invest in life science, renewable energy and continue looking for ways to have a stronger, clean energy future. As we continue to protect our past economy, we’re also looking for a way to strive forward to diversify our future economy that can give British Columbians options over their choices.

Maybe it might be hydrogen that will be the talk of our future. It might be simply that we’re talking about different uses for solar energy or maybe wind energy. Maybe we’ll find a new way to actually convert water from the ocean to river water or find a way to combat against drought or store excess floodwater into different kinds of aqueducts so we can protect British Columbians’ future interests.

But all those require a government understanding that it is the British Columbians that will help us give us the future that we need, give us the future that we can pay for direction, for a better, stronger economy for future generations to come.

So my conclusion — if you don’t mind, hon. Speaker — is that we understand that a lot of things need to be done. And in order for British Columbia to truly have a fiscally responsible future, we should be investing early, investing strong and investing directly in British Columbians.

That way we can reduce unnecessary costs for the future and prepare British Columbia and British Columbians to take on unforeseeable challenges that could come due to climate change, economic downturn or other unforeseeable difficulties that we have to work together to overcome.

Hon. M. Dean: It’s a real honour to stand here in chambers as the Minister of State for Child Care and the MLA for Esquimalt-Metchosin and be able to talk to the budget that has been tabled by our government.

I go by she/her pronouns.

I would like to express my deep gratitude and appreciation for the traditional territory that we’re all honoured to be doing our work on, that of the lək̓ʷəŋən people, now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. It’s very, very important to me, because as the MLA for Esquimalt-Metchosin, I represent Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

[6:40 p.m.]

I also represent Sc’ianew Nation, which is west of Metchosin, at the west end of my constituency. And I’m very grateful to be living here and doing my work here as well.

I really want to thank people in my constituency. My community is really diverse, and I really love it, from the east end to the west end. I really appreciate living in a community who have elected me and asked me to represent them here in the Legislature as well.

I’d like to say a big thank-you to my constituency assistants. They keep the work going in the community. They are the conduit, the service between government services and programs and people in my community who need help with those connections and with accessing those services as well — so Heidi Reid, Jared Butcher, Lawrence Herzog and Caleb Isaac.

I’m so inspired, as I travel through and travel around my constituency, to see the changes that have been happening there since 2017, since our government started to invest in people and in supports and in services.

Prior to being elected in 2017, I’d been delivering services. I was responsible for an agency delivering services for over ten years across the community. I had lived through and experienced and observed the impacts of cuts after cuts after cuts, seeing the population boom and explode in my community, seeing the level of need really climb very high and feeling really frustrated and full of despair to be unable to meet that need, meet that demand and deliver services to people where and when they needed them.

Now I can look around my community. We have two new urgent primary care centres that are available to my community. One is in Esquimalt. The other one is just a hop and a skip over the boundary between Colwood and Langford, but it’s still part of the West Shore.

We also have a community health centre. The community health centre is actually a partnership and collaborative service delivery with Pacific Centre Family Services. There’s a real range of different services available at the centre for wellbeing on Goldstream Avenue.

What that does is it really maximizes collaboration, it reduces stigma, and it means that people in my community are much more able to get seamless care, depending on what their need is, what the initial presenting symptom might be. The professionals there are able to make sure that they access any of that whole suite of services that’s available through that organisation. That’s actually been serving the community for well over 50 years now.

I’m really seeing some great investments in my community and hearing from people in my community that they have hope, that they feel that they have access to services, that they have supports, that our community is being invested in. It’s valued. It’s seen as a really important community on south Vancouver Island.

We have a long-term-care facility that’s going to be built in the new Royal Bay community.

We have an extension being built for Royal Roads University. Royal Roads University is about a third of Colwood. If you actually look on a map, it has so much acreage. It’s a beautiful building, beautiful piece of land that has Esquimalt Lagoon and overlooks the ocean as well.

There’s a collaborative effort among colleges and universities on south Island to come together to support West Shore students, especially students from school district 62, Sooke school district, who have a significant disadvantage with regard to making that transition from graduating high school and then entering post-secondary institutions. The travel barrier for so many of the young people from SD62 to get to the University of Victoria actually means that they’re disproportionately underrepresented in post-secondary institutions.

By building a facility and bringing other partners into the West Shore…. This facility is being built in Langford, but it’s in the West Shore right on an amazing transit hub area as well.

[6:45 p.m.]

That means that students in my community are much more likely to attend a post-secondary institution, be able to fulfil their potential, be able to thrive. We know we need a workforce that will have post-secondary education, and it’s really important that the kids from my community are able to access that.

We’ve had quite a lot of affordable and supported housing being built in my community as well. I’ve seen some really great homes that have been built, designed, for example, especially for somebody who needs to use a wheelchair.

At one of the places we went to, there was a mom and a daughter looking there. They were going to be moving in soon. The daughter kind of called out to the mom and said: “Hey, Mom, when you’re in your bathroom, I can shout to you from my bathroom over here.” They were just so excited about this opportunity of moving into affordable, stable, secure housing in the community where they have roots and connections and family and friends as well.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

I’m watching the building go up of the Royal B.C. Museum archives and collection building. That’s going to be a really beautiful building. It’s going to be a real jewel out in Royal Bay in Colwood and in the West Shore, a provincial resource that’s going to provide interactivity for British Columbians and visitors, to be able to explore the archives and the collections of the museum.

We also put an extension on Royal Bay high school. So Royal Bay high school now is the largest high school on all of Vancouver Island. It’s in such a stunning location. There’s so much natural light, borrowed landscape. It overlooks the ocean. The students that I talk to tell me that the culture there and the sense of comfort that they have there is really, really strong. The student community feels really valued, and they just really love the school. They’re very, very proud of their high school as well.

It is a real honour to be the Minister of State for Child Care. We’ve known for far too long that child care is really, really difficult to find and super expensive as well. I have friends who are still paying down debt because they paid for child care. They wanted to continue with their career, for example, and continue their own dreams of how they wanted to be able to bring up their family.

Across Esquimalt-Metchosin, I’ve been hearing for many years that families have to commute for child care and then commute to work. For those who aren’t familiar, the Esquimalt-Metchosin community is pretty much what’s called the Colwood crawl. It’s pretty much the congestion in greater Victoria.

Imagine the stress of being a parent, and you’re commuting to child care and then commuting to work. You’re not going to a child care that’s either close to your work or close to your home or close to your other kid’s school. You’re going out of your way somewhere else.

The stress of being a worker and commuting back from wherever you’re working, never knowing how long it might take you…. You’re never knowing if you’re actually going to get to the child care on time or in time. Then having such a long commute at the end of the day as well is really stressful for families.

Child care had become a luxury. We know that child care that’s affordable, that’s good quality, that’s inclusive is actually a necessity. We know that that supports families. It supports parents getting back into the economy, making contributions to the economy. We know that it supports better outcomes for children.

It’s early learning. It creates those wonderful bonds and relationships in family that then, in turn, also mean that back at home, there’s a routine and there are those really positive and strong relationships.

Noting the hour, hon. Speaker, I reserve my right to continue speaking, and I move adjournment of the debate.

Hon. M. Dean moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Dean moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:50 p.m.