Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: I call Motion 18 on the order paper.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 18 — COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
AND COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
TO SIT IN THREE SECTIONS

Hon. R. Kahlon: I move Motion 18, standing in my name on the order paper, establishing that concurrent proceedings of the House for the session happen.

[That, for the remainder of the current Session:

GENERAL

1. Certain proceedings of the House may be undertaken in three sections, designated Section A, Section B, and Section C, to be subject to the rules that follow.

2. Section A and Section C sit in such committee room as may be designated from time to time, and Section B sit in the Legislative Chamber.

3. Section A and Section C be authorized to examine all Estimates, and for all purposes be deemed to be the Committee of Supply, and that the Standing Orders relating to the consideration of Estimates in the Committee of Supply and to Committees of the Whole House be applicable to such proceedings, save and except that, during proceedings in Committee of Supply, a Minister may defer to a Deputy Minister to permit such Deputy to reply to a question put to the Minister.

4. Section A be authorized to consider bills at committee stage after second reading thereof, and for all purposes be deemed to be a Committee of the Whole House, and that the Standing Orders relating to the consideration of bills in a Committee of the Whole House be applicable to such proceedings.

5. Section A and Section B be authorized to examine all Estimates and any public bill appearing on the Orders of the Day at committee stage, which may be considered in the order determined by the Government House Leader in accordance with Standing Order 27 (2).

6. Section C be authorized to examine all Estimates, which may be considered in the order determined by the Government House Leader in accordance with Standing Order 27 (2).

7. Estimates or bills previously referred to a designated Section may at any time be subsequently referred to another designated Section, as determined by the Government House Leader in accordance with Standing Order 27 (2).

COMPOSITION

8. The Deputy Chair of the Committee of the Whole or their designate preside in Section A and Section C.

9. Section A consist of 14 Members, not including the Chair, being eight Members of the Government Caucus, three Members of the Official Opposition Caucus, one Member of the Third Party Caucus, one Member of the Fourth Party Caucus, and one Independent Member.

10. Section C consist of 12 Members, not including the Chair, being seven Members of the Government Caucus, three Members of the Official Opposition Caucus, one Member of the Third Party Caucus, and one Member of the Fourth Party Caucus.

11. The Members of Section A be: the Minister whose Estimates are under examination or who is in charge of the bill under consideration and Hon. Lisa Beare, Garry Begg, Bob D’Eith, Hon. Ravi Kahlon, Ravi Parmar, Selina Robinson, Hon. Niki Sharma, Dan Ashton, Trevor Halford, Elenore Sturko, Sonia Furstenau, John Rustad and Adam Walker.

12. The Members of Section C be: the Minister whose Estimates are under examination and Michele Babchuk, Hon. Adrian Dix, Hon. Mike Farnworth, Hon. Rob Fleming, Hon. Bruce Ralston, Hon. Rachna Singh, Norm Letnick, Coralee Oakes, Tom Shypitka, Adam Olsen and Bruce Banman.

13. Substitutions for Members of Section A and Section C be permitted with the consent of the Member’s Caucus Whip, where applicable, or otherwise with the consent of the Member.

14. Section B be composed of all Members of the House.

DIVISIONS

15. When a division is requested in Section A, the division bells shall be rung four times and the division shall proceed in accordance with Standing Order 16, as amended by Sessional Order adopted on February 20, 2024.

16. When a division is requested in Section B, the division bells shall be rung three times, at which time proceedings in Section A and Section C shall be suspended, and the division shall proceed in accordance with Standing Order 16, as amended by Sessional Order adopted on February 20, 2024.

17. When a division is requested in Section C, the division bells shall be rung five times and the division shall proceed in accordance with Standing Order 16, as amended by Sessional Order adopted on February 20, 2024.

18. If a division is underway in Section A or Section C at the time that a division is requested in Section B, the division in Section B be suspended until the completion of the division in Section A or Section C.

REPORTING AND COMPLETION

19. At 15 minutes prior to the ordinary time fixed for adjournment of the House, the Chair of Section A and Section C shall report to the House.

20. If a report from Section A or Section C includes the last Vote in a particular Ministry Estimate, after such report has been made to the House, Members of the Government Caucus shall have a maximum of six minutes cumulatively, Members of the Official Opposition Caucus shall have a maximum of four minutes cumulatively, Members of the Third Party Caucus shall have a maximum of two minutes cumulatively, Members of the Fourth Party Caucus shall have a maximum of two minutes cumulatively, and Independent Members shall have a maximum of one minute cumulatively to summarize the Committee debate on that Ministry’s Estimates. Such summaries shall be in the following order:

a. Independent Members;

b. Fourth Party Caucus;

c. Third Party Caucus;

d. Official Opposition Caucus; and,

e. Government Caucus.]

Motion approved.

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

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Budget Debate

(continued)

M. de Jong: Thanks for the opportunity to engage in the debate.

This is, I think, by my calculation, the seventh full budget that the NDP government has introduced. As I was thinking about whether or not to make remarks, it occurred to me that over the course of the last seven years, I haven’t always spoken to the budget. There are a few reasons for that. I wouldn’t want to leave the impression that it’s because I was wholeheartedly in support of the budgetary direction being charted by the government.

I will say that in some of those budgets, there were provisions that I thought were supportable, worthy of positive commentary. For example, I have no hesitation observing that in 2020-2021, in the midst of the COVID crisis, providing a measure of supports to people, to business, was a worthwhile endeavour. I will have a little bit more to say about that and its relation to the budget before us today.

[2:30 p.m.]

I should say, as well, and some members recall, for better or for worse, I had the opportunity to present five budgets to this Assembly. Those budgets, like the one before us today, represent the expression of the government’s collective will. I think that’s important to recognize that it is the government’s budget.

The Finance Minister, to be sure, is…. We have a former Finance Minister in the Assembly today. The Finance Minister is probably in a better position than anyone, save and except for the Premier, to influence the direction of the budget. But it is an expression of the government’s will that is, I presume, the case today. It was certainly the case in the time that I was presenting the budget.

I was also cognizant of the fact that, at a certain point, people decided that the privilege of governing should pass from the party that I was, and remain a member of, to another party. That happened, that transfer took place, one could say, electorally a little bit indecisively in 2017 and then more decisively in the election that followed. I thought, over that period, as a new minister and a new government were acting on their mandate and presenting their budgets, that it wasn’t necessarily helpful to have the old guy come along with the tales of what had happened or should have happened and critiquing from that perspective.

There are two reasons that I’ve chosen to engage and participate in the discussion and debate around this particular budget. One is fairly personal. I’m leaving. It’ll be my last chance. I’m drawing applause from across the aisle. It’s my final opportunity, so I decided that I would put on my budget suit, and there’s a little bit of vanity involved in that because it is the suit that I put on 12 years ago, the first time I presented a budget. I’m a little bit…. The belt is a little tighter, but I’m still in the suit.

There’s a second reason, and clearly, a more serious reason than that in my last opportunity to reflect on the budget, and that’s because I am troubled by some of the revisionist history that some are attempting to write about how we have arrived at the state we are in. And look, in making that observation, I will confess to at least one bias, and, probably throughout my presentation, a few. I am troubled by the budgetary direction being charted by the government, particularly as it reveals itself in this budget. I will try to expand on that a little bit later in my presentation.

One of the things I have repeatedly heard, and I have listened, as always, to the presentations from members of the House and members of the government in defending their budget…. The rationale that is consistently being relied upon by members of the government, in particular, is that their approach derives from the need to address years of budgetary cuts inflicted and imposed by the previous government, particularly in the area of health care.

We hear that repeatedly, over and over. That’s the myth that is being referred to. That the NDP government inherited a health care system that had endured years of cutbacks. I feel obliged to, at least, put on the record what those years of cutbacks actually look like.

[2:35 p.m.]

The government I was a part of, in introducing its first budget in ’01-02, set the health care budget at $10.5 billion. That represented a $1.1 billion increase over the year previous. The next year it went from $10.5 billion to $10.9 billion. The year after that, it went to $11.2 billion. Then it went to $11.5 billion. Then it went to $12.4 billion. Then it went to $13.2 billion. Then it went to $14.2 billion. Then it went to $15 billion. Then, in ’09-10, it went from $15 billion to $15.5 billion. Then it went to $16.1 billion.

Then in ’11 and ’12, and I have a specific interest in this because I was the Health Minister at the time, it went from $16.1 billion to $17 billion.

Then in the following year, it went to $17.5 billion. In ’13-14, it went from $17.5 billion to $17.9 billion, then to $18.4 billion, then to $19 billion, then to $19.7 billion.

I’m interested in those years because I was the guy delivering the budget that these numbers derive from. In 2017-18, the budget for health care increased a further $940 million to $20.6 billion. Over the course of the life of that budget, the budget for health care doubled.

Members of this chamber get elected here to criticize the choices that were made and how those funds were expended, what the results were. But to stand here and take their lead from the Health Minister, who, when confronted by very negative results that are being achieved in health care, merely replies by pointing to what he terms and describes as the cuts of the previous administration, is fundamentally inaccurate. It is developing a myth and reinforcing a myth that bears no relationship to reality.

Now I want to contrast that with a situation that is unfolding right now, and that is people who require treatments in health care to prevent them from going blind. We have heard a little bit about that in this assembly.

I have a letter that I have received over the weekend from a constituent: “My mom is an 88-year-old Abbotsford resident who has received sight-saving eye injections for diabetic retinopathy for over ten years, completely covered by MSP.” That service is now in jeopardy. The Health Minister says: “No, no. That is not so.” The retinal specialists that perform that service have been advised that the budget for reimbursement of those services is being cut by 32 percent. That is a budget cut.

The Minister of Health and this government are, in something as fundamental as preserving people’s eyesight, embarking on precisely the kind of behaviour they falsely accuse others of having undertaken, and that is to cut the budget.

A senior requiring this service…. And full disclosure: my mom is one of them. She’s one of the 25,000 British Columbians whose eyesight is preserved because of this program. We know what the cost will be, and we know what the cost will be for my constituents, some of whom need these injections and treatments every two months, sometimes more frequently. That’s an $1,800 cost.

[2:40 p.m.]

Let’s just be clear about what has precipitated this. It is a decision by the Ministry of Health to reduce the budget for reimbursing this service by 32 percent.

I am hopeful that sanity will prevail and a resolution can be found to this because surely everyone in this chamber understands how fundamentally important it is to ensure that people have the treatment they need to preserve their eyesight — and that putting a price tag of $1,800 or $2,000 a year on that, in this day and age, is simply wrong.

But the clock is ticking, and a solution needs to be found in the next three weeks. We, in the opposition, will be watching to ensure that a solution is found.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the fiscal path we are on. I listened, as I always do, to the budget presentation by the Finance Minister. I do know this: preparation of budgets is a lot of work. The member from Coquitlam understands that too.

We argue in here about the decisions that are made and the priorities that are set, but the physical task of putting together a budget for an operation as big as government is very, very challenging. It’s very time-consuming, and it takes, between the officials, from the minister on down…. My quarrel is not, in any way, to disparage the work or the effort that has been undertaken.

As I listen to the words…. I must confess, I always think budgets are about people, they are about governments giving expression to their priorities, but there is also a part of the budget, and you can criticize me for saying this, that is about disclosing the bottom line.

It is that moment when the people, the citizens, are entitled to look to government and know in clear, unambiguous terms where we sit. Now, everyone does this differently. When I was delivering five budgets, I always began the budget presentation with a paragraph that said: “Here’s where we are.” Pointing to the pages of the budgetary documents, it says: “Here’s what the government believes it’s going to take in this year, in terms of revenue, and here’s what the government is going to spend, and here’s the difference.”

Now back in the day, my day, the difference appeared on the surplus side, but sometimes those surpluses were really thin and sometimes people didn’t believe them. Fair enough. That credibility, if there is to be credibility, builds over time.

In this budget, which is historic for some of the wrong reasons in my view, I waited for the Finance Minister in this government to at least — at the conclusion of doing what Finance Ministers generally do, and that is highlighting what they believe are the positive features of the government, the areas where they intend to spend money, the areas where they intend to assign priority — to say to people: “Yes, we believe this is all good, but you need to know that, in seeking to achieve these objectives, your government is going to spend $8 billion more than you’re sending it.”

The Finance Minister never did that. I don’t know why that is so. Was it because she didn’t want British Columbians to know? She just came from the media lockup, and clearly the media knew and therefore the public knows. Or maybe she’s not comfortable with conveying that in a way that would allow people to better understand the significance of it.

I understand, as I sort of reflect back somewhat nostalgically, that people have a view of the previous government’s approach, the government that I was a member of, to budgeting. I understand that they think I, as Finance Minister, was frugal. Some people think too frugal.

[2:45 p.m.]

We didn’t overspend government revenues. We did pay down the debt. We paid down the debt to the point where the new government, in 2017-18, was able to celebrate and did celebrate the total elimination of the operating debt. They purported to be proud and pleased with that. I certainly was, because it was a reflection of some hard work by British Columbians over the previous five or six years.

I guess if I’m being honest, as I’m trying to be, I have to make this confession at this late stage in my career here, and that is that I was taught and I conducted myself, and the government I was part of conducted itself, around the principle that when times are generally good, you better be preparing for the rainy day. Because they’re not always going to be good. That’s not necessarily a reflection on things that happened within B.C., but other things can happen that impact on us. And boy, did they ever happen in 2020.

We just had an exchange here in the House about the government’s response and when that happened. You will get no quarrel from me about how circumstances required and justified government stepping in. But the NDP government of 2020 was able to step in because the fiscal conditions of the province of British Columbia were stronger than any other province in Canada and probably any other jurisdiction in North America.

I’m proud of that, but I’m troubled that any notion of that seems to have been abandoned. All of us in this chamber, even the youngest members, are able to look back and know that tough times arrive. We don’t have to go back to the depression of the 1930s. We can, some of us, remember the inflationary recession of the 1970s. And 1980 to ’83 was devastating in this province in terms of what happened to interest rates and the economic impact of that.

We had a made-in-B.C. recession in the 1990s. I won’t dwell on that. We had a world recession that hit when I was in government in 2008. Of course, we’ve had COVID. I believe that this budget, from that perspective, is irresponsibly reckless because it leaves British Columbians exposed to the next one.

We can be naive and believe that there isn’t going to be another one of those events, but there’s going to be. There is going to be an economic event that takes place on a global basis that British Columbians will require help or be looking to their government to help protect them, and the government won’t be in a position to offer that help.

This budget, in my view…. I’ve used that word “reckless” in that sort of macro way, but it’s also reckless in terms of how it’s put together. I’m glad I’m not the only former Finance Minister in the room, because the other one from Coquitlam could — I won’t call on her to do this — in her mind, may be able to verify some of the things I’m saying.

There is something called an Economic Forecast Council. I’m not going to go through the history. Most people know that it emerged out of a circumstance in the 1990s that caused the government of the day a lot of distress. It did a disservice to British Columbia. Anyway, we have an Economic Forecast Council that governments, since that time, came to rely upon for providing advice, unbiased, nonpartisan advice, around questions of economic growth.

[2:50 p.m.]

The member from Coquitlam met with them. I met with them. They come in — it’s usually in December, sometime just before Christmas — and they give their reports. The people in the treasury branch and the Finance Ministry take that information. They usually average it out. Certainly, in the five budgets I did, and I think the couple that the member from Coquitlam did, out of an abundance of caution, you take a 0.1 or 0.2, and you budget on that basis. So you’ve got a little bit of a cushion, in case all these so-called experts are overly optimistic.

The government today has decided that’s not warranted. In fact, they haven’t just accepted the number. They’ve gone beyond accepting the number, and they have plugged in an even more optimistic number. They have said to those experts, who, by the way, are not always completely right: “We’re going to gamble that the economy does better than you think it will.” Which means these numbers that we’re debating in this budget — there’s a better chance that they will be worse than that they’ll be better, in my view at least.

The other thing the government has done, which, quite frankly, I was shocked about, is to present a budget that included no forecast allowance. Now, people say: “What does that mean?” It means that the process of budgeting is so complicated, and you’re trying to predict all kinds of: “What’s the price of gas going to be? What’s the price of lumber going to be? What are the caseloads going to be?” There are all of these features that go into pulling together a budget for an operation as complex as the B.C. government for a province as diverse as British Columbia is.

The tried-and-true way to acknowledge that, probably, despite all of the talent that exists within the ministry and the treasury branch, stuff is going to happen and we’re not going to get it completely right…. The way to address that risk is to say: “But let’s build in a cushion.” And it is a cushion. It is a cushion that says: “If the price of gas turns out to be a little lower than we predicted, we’ve got that cushion.”

Sometimes there’s good news. Sometimes the price of lumber goes up higher, and sometimes it’s a wash, but it generally isn’t. So in presenting a budget that has the largest operational deficit in the history of the province, the government, the Finance Minister, the Premier decided to forgo the inclusion of a forecast allowance.

Again, all that does is increase dramatically the risk that the $8 billion figure we’re talking about will be significantly higher. Again, not good news. Not good news. Government says, I think, “Well, don’t worry; times are good,” which, of course, I find counterintuitive, because if times are good, then maybe we should be strengthening our fiscal position in terms of reducing some of our debt levels.

Well, I’m not sure times are as good as the government is suggesting, because when you go into the budget — and the budget is a complex document — you discover from the government’s own numbers that population is flowing out of B.C., not in. Our share of the national population is shrinking, not growing, and that’s been the case for the last five quarters.

If you go to page 79 of the budget, it tells us that private sector employment is declining, not growing, in B.C. One that I haven’t heard a lot of commentary about, our still most important industry and export industry: forestry. The harvest levels over the course of this fiscal plan are going to reduce from what they are now at 47 million cubic metres to 32 million cubic metres.

I remember when those levels were up in the ’80s. The economic impact that is going to have on communities like Merritt — well, communities right across British Columbia, Madam Chair — is going to be dramatic.

[2:55 p.m.]

Look, I’ll say it, in the time available: we’re headed for a credit downgrade. The cost of borrowing money is going up.

I say that…. You know, debt-to-GDP, debt-to-rev­enue…. When I was Finance Minister, those bond-rating agencies said: “If you go over 95 percent, we’re downgrading you.” This budget takes us from the 90s to 151 percent. And it doesn’t stop there. It’s not like at the end of the three-year fiscal plan, suddenly it draws back up. That’s a trend line, and you can credibly and easily say that, given the chance, five years out, our debt-to-revenue number will be closer to 200 percent.

So when members of the government, as they have been doing during the course of debate, fire across at the opposition and say, not surprisingly: “Well, what would you cut?” I say to myself: “Well, actually, before that will ever become an issue for us, the question is: what are you going to cut?”

Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars more are going to be spent servicing the debt, and that is all money that will be unavailable for programming. You can’t budget on good intentions, and when you do, you get into serious problems.

I don’t think the people in the chamber, including my colleagues on the other side, on the government side…. I don’t believe that they are selfish people. I don’t believe that. They’re engaged in public service, as are people on this side.

When I say that I think the budget is a selfish document, I mean it’s a politically selfish document. The members of the government who have contributed to the decisions, in my view, that have given birth to this budget understand that ultimately this is going to create a mess. But they also understand they’re probably not going to be around to clean it up, and that’s why I think it’s selfish.

It’s fun to spend money and really fun to spend someone else’s money. But when you spend it at the rate this budget purports to do, I believe, the government is exposing British Columbians today and in the future to some very, very challenging circumstances. Any cursory review of history tells us that that next catastrophic event is headed our way, and unlike in 2020, we will not be in a position to weather that. We will not be in a position to offer the kind of support that all members of the House, on both sides, would like us to offer.

For that reason, for all of the good intentions that the government points to, I am not supportive of the budget or the direction it charts for the future.

Hon. J. Brar: I would like to say thanks to the member for Abbotsford West for his comments, last comments on the budget speech. I wish him well and success for his future endeavours. Good luck.

I am really pleased to stand up in this House today to speak in favour of Budget 2024.

I would like to start by acknowledging the territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations, and to thank them for sharing these lands in peace and friendship.

[3:00 p.m.]

On the budget. People are facing challenges. It’s a difficult time. People are facing challenges: high interest rates, global inflation and a slower global economy have impacted the day-to-day lives of the people of British Columbia. This is a time to take actions, real actions, to support the people of British Columbia.

I feel very proud to support this budget, because it takes on the big challenges that people are facing today, by helping with everyday costs, delivering more homes faster, strengthening health care and other services, and building a stronger, cleaner economy for the people of British Columbia. We are taking actions to support the people of British Columbia with everyday costs, by investing in health care and other services and delivering more homes faster than ever before.

This is our approach, the approach of the members of the government of the day, but there are others who have a completely different approach. That’s fine; in a democracy, it’s okay. They have a completely different approach to the budget. They say we should respond to these challenges by leaving people to fend for themselves and by making deep cuts, really deep cuts, in the name of reducing the deficit.

In other words, they say, “Don’t worry about providing any relief to people for the cost of living. Make deep cuts to health care, education and other services,” in the name of reducing the deficit. This is their approach. People cannot afford that approach. People can’t afford cuts to services at this time. It would weaken the public services that we all rely on and drive up costs for people, with added fees, fares and tolls. It would leave people at risk to those who take unfair advantage, like wealthy speculators.

This is a time to stand up with the people of British Columbia. We are the best positioned to do that, and let me tell you why. British Columbia is an economic leader in the country. Under the B.C. NDP government, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. There was a job creation comment there by the previous member. Last year, we created 74,000 new jobs, including 40,000 private sector jobs.

Let me tell you more. Last year’s job creation is four times higher than when the BCUP leader was the Finance Minister. In 2012, under his leadership, only 17,700 total jobs were created.

[3:05 p.m.]

B.C.’s GDP growth since 2017 is the highest among all large provinces. Our exports of goods increased by 30 percent from 2017 to 2023, putting us in a strong place to weather today’s slower global economy. Housing starts last year were at a record high. B.C. has recorded the highest average hourly wages in the country. Women’s employment grew by over 100,000 between 2017 and 2023, a strong indicator that our child care program is working.

Clearly, B.C. is an economic leader in the country under the B.C. NDP government. We are building an economy that works better for people by tackling the big challenges we are facing right now. That’s why I support this budget. It takes on the big challenges people are facing today, by helping with everyday costs, delivering more homes, strengthening health care and other services, and building a stronger, cleaner economy for the people of British Columbia, an economy that benefits all British Columbians — not the select few, as had been the case under the previous administration.

This budget takes actions to help people with everyday costs. B.C. is a great place to live, but global inflation has made life more expensive for people. The B.C. government is helping people with everyday costs, including delivering more homes, reducing the cost of child care, providing more meals and snacks in schools, and boosting skills training, so that people can access good-paying jobs. Budget 2024 builds on this foundation by keeping more money in people’s pockets during tough times. More families with children will get more help with costs.

Let me tell you the program. Families will see a 25 percent increase to their monthly B.C. family benefit, starting in July 2024. A family of four would receive up to $2,850 per year and, with this bonus, will now receive as much as $3,563. A single parent with one child would receive up to $2,250 and will now receive as much as $2,688. On average, families will receive $445 more. More families will benefit. Approximately 66,000 more families will receive the benefit and the bonus this year. A total of 340,000 families will benefit during the 12-month period.

People in British Columbia will get a break on their electricity bill, thanks to a one-time B.C. electricity affordability credit. Households will save an average of $100 on their bill over the course of the year, and the average small business will save $400 over the course of the year. People and businesses will see the credit on each monthly bill, starting in April 2024.

Similarly, individuals and families will also see an increase to their quarterly climate action tax credit payment this year. If a family of four received $890 last year, they will now receive $1,005, and an individual that received $447 last year will now receive $504, starting in July 2024.

[3:10 p.m.]

Budget 2024 answers calls from growing businesses by doubling the exemption threshold of the employer health tax from half a million dollars to a $1 million payroll. With this change, 90 percent of businesses will be exempt from the tax, estimated to save them more than $100 million a year.

Similarly, starting in 2024, as people file their 2023 income taxes, renters will see up to $400 come back to them through the B.C. renter’s tax credit. Our government continues to take actions to lower people’s net taxes and costs, including through tax credits and benefits, building on the elimination of taxes like the MSP premium, elimination of tolls on bridges and reducing costs on ICBC premiums.

I support this budget because this budget will deliver more homes for people faster than ever. People want a decent home they can afford in a community they love. With inflation and day-to-day cost-of-living pressures, finding affordable housing is challenging for too many people.

The good news is that the B.C. government is leading the country in finding solutions to the housing crisis by fixing outdated zoning rules, turning more land and areas near transit hubs into homes for people, making sure secondary suites can be built in every community in B.C., cutting down long wait times at the residential tenancy branch and protecting renters by capping rent increases well below inflation, providing an annual $400 renter’s tax credit.

Budget 2024 introduces the new B.C. home-flipping tax, effective January 1, 2025, to discourage speculators from driving up prices. This will be a tax on the profit made from selling a residential property within two years of buying it, with specific exemptionsof life circumstances such as divorce, death, illness and relocation of work, among others. Revenue from the tax will go directly to building more affordable homes for the people of British Columbia.

For many, buying a home, as we all know, is the largest purchase they will ever make, and property prices are making it harder. Every little bit helps. Budget 2024 aims to give people the financial boost they need to bring buying a home within reach, including increases to the threshold for the first-time-homebuyers program so it reflects today’s market.

Qualifying first-time buyers can benefit when they purchase a home worth up to $835,000, with the first half a million dollars completely exempt from the property transfer tax. This could mean as much as $8,000 in savings.

I support this budget because we are taking action to strengthen health care — I know there were comments about health care — so you and your family can get the care you need when needed. People want public health care they can count on.

With the population growing and aging and a large segment of doctors and nurses retiring in the next decade, more people are needed to fill those jobs and help meet the demands of the health care system.

[3:15 p.m.]

Budget 2024 provides more than $2 billion to support people’s access to the full range of health services, including primary and acute care, long-term care, assisted living, home care, mental health, and recruitment and retention of nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals.

This budget makes a historic capital investment of $13 billion over the next three years. That will support the construction of long-term care, acute care and cancer care facilities. And yes, we are building a state-of-the-art, new second hospital in Surrey. The new hospital and B.C. cancer centre in Surrey will provide care closer to home for hundreds of thousands of people. It will also be one of the first hospitals in Canada to achieve zero on-site carbon emissions.

The province has committed more than $2.8 billion to this project, expected to be completed in 2027. Let me tell you, Madam Speaker, people of Surrey will never forget that the previous administration sold the land for the second new hospital in Surrey. People will always remember that because we could have built this hospital a long time ago.

Schools had historic enrolment growth in 2023, with 13,000 more students. Budget 2024 invests $968 million for more staff in the classrooms and to support this growth. Through this funding, students will also be better supported, with $255 million for the classroom enhancement fund, to hire more teachers, including special education teachers, teacher-psychologists and counsellors. A record $4.2 billion is dedicated to build, renovate and seismically upgrade schools and playgrounds over the next three years as part of the provincial capital plan.

Let me put on the record, since 2017, we in Surrey have approved approximately $750 million for a capital project in the city of Surrey to build schools, to create more than 12,400 new student spaces. That is equivalent to about 500 classrooms and about 17 new elementary schools. This is more than double what was provided, in the 15 years prior to our government coming into power, by the previous administration. That was $375 million only. They also built only one school during their last term, and that is also a record.

The province is also investing more than $15.5 billion from the capital plan over the next three years to deliver the transit and transportation infrastructure to keep people and goods moving at this point in time. The priority projects include Highway 1 project, through the Fraser Valley and from Kamloops to the Alberta border, major infrastructure projects like the Fraser River tunnel project, the Pattullo Bridge, the transit projects like the Broadway subway and the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain.

[3:20 p.m.]

The good news for the people of Surrey is that the advance work is underway on the Surrey-Langley Sky­Train project. That will reduce vehicle traffic and spur development along the corridor. The province has committed almost $2.5 billion of the $4 billion project, which is expected to be completed in 2028.

I support this budget because we are taking actions by making historic investment to sustain and expand provincial infrastructure. Taxpayer-supported capital spending over the fiscal plan is forecast at nearly $43.3 billion, to sustain and expand provincial infrastructure such as schools, post-secondary facilities, housing, health care facilities and transportation projects, including highway improvements, landslide cleanup and prevention, and bridge repairs. Through the province’s capital plan, these projects will create 185,000 new jobs, directly or indirectly, during the next three years.

Lastly, I’m always very excited to speak about Surrey. I want to speak about Surrey because I’ve been elected from the city of Surrey five times. I want to say thanks to the people of Surrey for giving me the opportunity for that.

I also hear members from the other side talk a lot about Surrey since they became the new opposition. Let me tell you, Madam Speaker, what they did in 16 years, and compare that with what we have been able to do during the last seven short years. They refused to replace the old, unsafe Pattullo Bridge. It’s their record. They were there for 16 years. Well, we are building a new Pattullo Bridge as we speak. They refused to build the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain, and we are building the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain as we speak.

They rejected the proposal of building a new medical school in Surrey. That proposal was rejected by them, but we are building the new medical school in Surrey as we speak. This is the most painful thing, the next one: they sold the land that had been purchased for the new second hospital in Surrey. We are building a new state-of-the-art second hospital in Surrey.

The record is very clear on what we have done and what they have done in 16 years.

I would like to conclude by saying that I fully support this budget. This budget takes actions to support the people of British Columbia.

B. Stewart: It’s an honour, as always, to rise in this House and just talk about what the future looks like. It’s always interesting. I know that after the remarks of the member for Abbotsford West, the two former Finance Ministers were having a little kibitz here and talking about what it’s like to look in that crystal ball. That is the tough thing that, I think, everybody faces, whether they’re the Finance Minister, a member of executive council or in opposition, looking at things.

I can’t help but think about the recent passing of the former Prime Minister and looking at some of the challenges that were put in front of him and his cabinet of the day.

[3:25 p.m.]

When I first started working, I certainly was making a small wage. I worked in my teens, probably for about $1 an hour, which didn’t seem like it was unfair at the time. Later on, I got my first job after graduating, at a mere $500 a month. However, there was a little caveat when I got hired. They said: “By the way, there are wage and price controls that the federal government has imposed on all employers, and the maximum increase you can expect in the next 12 months is 10 percent.” I thought: “Well, 10 percent. Okay. That sounds like a fairly reasonable number.”

Anyway, there were a lot of financial pressures. Interest rates were hovering around 10¼ percent for a first mortgage; second mortgages were probably around 11½. I worked for a company that lent money at much higher rates than that. We had to make certain that people qualified and that we had all the right ratios and things like that. Inflation was a real threat, and it didn’t end there. Inflation continued until I’d left the banking industry. Of course, the mortgages we were lending, prior to me leaving in 1979, were at a reasonable rate.

It wasn’t too long after that when first mortgage rates went up to over 22 percent. That’s when the former Prime Minister came in. Think about that: how formidable that is. I know friends at the time that had good-paying jobs — professionals, school teachers and people like that — and that had bought in a reasonable era, where mortgage money had been 10 or 11 percent. All of a sudden, their mortgages were at 18 or 19 percent, and they couldn’t afford it. How quickly that happened.

What got out of line? That crystal ball, which I’m sure the people back in the ’70s had, was completely blown up. It led not to the rule book, which was the wage- and price-control model, where everything had rules and we were telling employers what would work and whatever. The solution was about getting the economy working again.

How did we do that? Some things that were brought in…. I think it was about 1986 when the GST came in. I know that people were confused by it, didn’t know what it was and — having lived the dream on this side of the House of trying to bring in the harmonized sales tax in 2009-10 — a lot of people didn’t understand.

I wouldn’t say that we got it right. Based on knowing a few Finance Ministers since I’ve been in this House — mind you, this will probably be my last speech on the budget as well, unless they want us to do it a second time — I have to say that it’s one of those things that was really good economic policy: to have a value-added tax to things.

Look at the cost of building a home today, where the provincial sales tax is put onto every single item that is built into that, whether it’s the materials and some of the labour or everything else. There is no way of passing that on so that the end-user is the one that finally pays, so that the bill helps to keep the costs lower. I think that’s one of the things that the GST did bring us, federally.

I can remember, in the business that I started, trying to understand the manufacturer’s sales tax. What a complicated tax system. It was based on certain factors of what were inputs, and we would prepay this to the federal government. Thank goodness we were able to get rid of that and make it into a simpler method of collecting tax.

It was one tax. We understood what it was, and it was rated on a volume basis, so that it was simple, all the way across the board. I think there are great intentions in this budget document. There’s great language about what we’re going to do, but when it comes to that, it’s a case of: really, what are we looking at? What are the results like? How are we doing in terms of affordability? Where are those inflationary pressures that government is facing?

[3:30 p.m.]

I think government thinks that it’s not a party to this. However, government makes rules that increase the cost of doing business.

Some of that includes, just in terms of operating, as we’ve seen with employers…. Although there has been a change, which I would say is a welcome change, to raising the threshold from $500,000 to $1 million…. However, there is a caveat on that. There is a doubling on that $1 million to $1.5 million — employer health tax. Those are all costs that have to be passed on.

I can tell you that we never used to have labour shortages here. We employed and welcomed people that were semi-retired or whatever that wanted to work on our farms. Of course that’s diminished over time as the population has gone down, and we’ve had to bring in people. We’ve had to supply housing. We have made a point of accommodating about three dozen people in the province.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Some of the things that you may not realize, besides the fact that not only…. When we make the decision to bring those people into the province of British Columbia, we have to make certain that their health care is covered. We also have to make certain that their transportation is covered and that their housing is covered.

There is a small amount that is able to be charged back for the accommodation, but I can tell you, based on what we all know, that the cost of housing is not any less for the people that we house. We’ve bought houses. We’ve renovated. We’ve put in trailers and things like that. It’s a complicated thing for employers that aren’t in the business of building housing to not only build and maintain but to make certain of that.

There is not the perceived savings by having foreign workers that basically arrive here, and all of the costs that we would pay a British Columbian or Canadian to do the job are then with the added cost of the external health care, let alone the fact that we pay employer health tax on those same individuals. So they actually are a more expensive option. We would welcome the idea that we had more people in British Columbia that were able to take on those jobs. We do continue to need that.

We actually are actively working with the college, UBC Okanagan, in terms of developing people that have the skill sets that not only can look at the way that we’re doing things but think about the future and how we may be able to bring some level of automation. I think you know that farming is fairly labour-intensive. But we do look for those savings, because we are in a competitive world.

When I think about those interest rates that I was talking about…. In 1981, interest rates in Canada were over 22 percent. I don’t know how many people here can imagine that. I was relatively young. I know that in I think it was 1989 and I got a mortgage, and it was at 12¾ percent. I thought: “Oh my goodness.” I had to start my business. I had started that.

Today we’re looking at a mortgage rate of around 7 percent, and a lot of people are in a situation where they can’t seem to afford what it is that we’re providing them — the houses, whether they’re starting a business, etc.

The risks get much greater as rates go up. I think that that’s an important part of when I look at the cost of government. What’s happening in this budget?

I mean, I can remember getting elected in 2009, and it was right after the ’08 financial crisis. I don’t know how many people here were really impacted by that. But I can certainly remember coming into government. We were getting ready to host the world at the Olympics. We’ve got a small surplus in ’09-10. I think it was about $70 million, but then the next forecast was like $2 billion in deficit. I just knew what that debt was likely to bring. It certainly wasn’t at today’s interest rates. It was at higher rates than what we’re experiencing today.

So here we are. We’re looking at this current budget, which, on top of the spending that’s been going on, is forecast to have an almost $8 billion deficit just for the one year alone. I guess I wonder what’s brought us to that point and how we can think of that as being a sound way to manage our economy when we’re trying to grow an economy. We need to grow it. If we grow the economy, we get the taxes that are there.

[3:35 p.m.]

I was just interested yesterday when the Premier from Alberta and her Finance Minister were talking about their budget. I was a bit surprised by how much $1 of increase in gasoline…. The revenues that flow to Alberta…. It seems like such a small amount, but $1 per barrel, I think, is the number that they were talking about.

At the end of the day, when I was working in Alberta in the ’70s, there was the Heritage Trust Fund, and it was unprecedented in terms of what they were doing. The rainy-day fund that the member for Abbotsford West was talking about…. And it’s enviable.

We look at places in Scandinavia. I think it might be Norway that has a large sovereign wealth fund. We have some in the Middle East. I’m not saying that it’s only countries that have oil, and I know that we need to pivot and change and move away from the things that oil is causing in the environment and things like that. I, myself, as a farmer, know that probably better than most.

I do think that the products, the things that we have here in British Columbia…. The fact that we have forest products, which are, I mean, something that we can count on to regrow, provided that they’re replanted and managed and all of those things…. I had a chance to look at some numbers just in the last couple of days about the decline in terms of forest products, and I’m a little bit surprised by that.

Exports. I know that the member who spoke just prior to me, the Minister of State for Trade, was talking about…. Exports are up 30 percent, he said, since 2017. Well, it’s looking, from some of the information I have been given, that exports were down in 2023 by 13.3 percent, a 17.6 decline exports to the U.S., 34 percent in natural gas exports and 39.9 percent in softwood lumber.

I spent a good portion of the time that I was serving in Asia making certain that we were a trading province. That’s how our economy is built. We are a resource-based economy. It’s not necessarily….

We don’t have to be ashamed of it. We should be proud of the fact that we have some of the highest and maybe the highest environmental standards in the world when it comes to processing, whether it’s in the mining sector or the forestry sector. But the only reason that we would be having these declines is the fact that we’re starting to lose our competitive edge. We can’t afford that.

We have all of these communities that are reliant on the fact that we do value-added lumber. I know, even today, that there are meetings taking place between the forest producers that are basically being asked to reallocate some of their allocation of forest or fibre to value-added producers. I realize that that’s tough for them. They’re all looking for that.

I think that as a province, the province has a responsibility to make certain that the fibre supply is growing, not declining, not in diminishment. We have things like mountain pine beetle and other things that have come along, forest fires from last year. We cannot afford that. That’s not a sustainable economy for British Columbia.

As much as we’re spending all this money on forest fire fighting, we need to be putting those resources back into making certain that not only the obligation of replanting where something’s cut…. But we’ve got to make certain where things have been burnt…. Our community that I live in and represent, Kelowna West, just had the single most expensive wildfire in Canadian history. It’s unbelievable. How did that happen? What is it that we didn’t do?

I know that there’s a task force that’s been assigned by the Premier. But the situation is that our natural resources certainly come from a renewable one, like fibre, which is a great resource, carbon sequestering and all of those types of things. We certainly have a large amount of agriculture, which doesn’t benefit from wildfires. But I can tell you that it certainly is something that we’ve grown to be extremely proud of. I know…. Having been the Minister of Agriculture, I’ve watched it mature.

I can’t help but…. I’m so surprised when I see British Columbia product in California and places like that. It just goes to show that companies like Windset and other ones that are in the Lower Mainland are really focused in on how to be competitive and do the things.

[3:40 p.m.]

For the most part, they would be carbon-neutral, if you look at the absorption of CO₂ from the products that they are producing.

I do think about the economy in general when it comes to what we have to attend to. We have got to make certain that we are making these things happen. When I talk about putting the rule book away, I think about what it is. What does it take to build something? Why are the costs skyrocketing for housing? Is it just land? Is it municipal regulations? Is it provincial regulations or obligations that we’re putting on? What can we do to make it so that it’s simple and get projects?

One of the things that I think is consistent, in the last number of years, is that there have been a lot of announcements about projects. Take the Pattullo Bridge. It’s under construction right now. I don’t know the completion date. I see it’s in the budget here.

I’d like to think, because when it was started…. I realize it could be complicated by all sorts of factors and stuff like that, but I think that time is money. When you have a project like that, what we really need to strive for is making certain that these projects have timelines. I realize that that’s not always possible. We’ve had interruptions from COVID and other things like that. But the real costs of doing business, etc., are, a lot of times, by — I wouldn’t say being complicit — not establishing clear, thoughtful timelines as to how it’s going to be.

The obligation shouldn’t be on government. Why should government be the responsible one building? It’s fine for the taxpayers to pay for some of these things, whether it’s the Pattullo, the Deas Island replacement highway project, the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain, but we’re not in the construction business, nor should we be doing that.

We have people and companies that have built all sorts of things. Look at the Port Mann replacement. That was a huge project, and it was expensive, over $2 billion. The situation is that it was not uncomplicated, but I can assure the members of British Columbia that the fact is that that was a thoughtful project that was on a list of things that we needed to do.

What about the rest of the things, the rest of the projects out past whatever the street number is, out towards Langley? Regretfully, I don’t drive down here very often anymore because once I get to about Hope, or outside of Chilliwack, I’m usually in gridlock.

I think that the people that live there, have businesses there, have been encouraged to invest there and set up, whether it’s agriculture…. I know Molson built that huge brewing plant in Chilliwack. All the things that are there…. There’s a massive amount of product that’s there that needs transportation.

I think that these projects need timelines. I know that even when I was in the government side, we kept talking about four-laning Kamloops to the Alberta border. I still see it on the list of things to do. I do want to see it done, and I realize that it’s probably got to be amortized over many decades to deal with the projects.

I’ll look forward to when the Kicking Horse is finally done. That’s probably a project that we should all drive out and make certain that we’re there for. But I do think that timeliness of projects….

We talk about the hospitals and stuff like that, getting projects. Now, I happened to be around…. As a matter of fact, I was the minister that sold that piece of property in Surrey. Why did we sell it? It was deemed that it was not the right location for the hospital, and it was then deemed to be surplus.

It wasn’t Surrey; don’t get me wrong. I know from where the existing Surrey…. Surrey is a huge community. It’s massive. But finding the right location, making certain that Surrey Memorial gets all the services that it needs to have to make it a state-of-the-art hospital like VGH or St. Paul’s — it needs that. It’s growing. It’s going to be the largest community in British Columbia, in a very short timeline.

I do think that we have got to make certain that we have got these hospitals up and running, functioning with the different services. I know that there are lots of pressures. We hear it from the Minister of Health. We hear from the former member that was the Minister of Health and Finance Minister about the incremental lifts in the budget in health care.

[3:45 p.m.]

They were not insignificant. We are not talking tens of millions or hundreds of millions. They were billions of dollars, year after year. I think his number was…. When he started in 2001, the budget was around $10 billion. Well, that was after ten years of the government that’s in place today having the reins or whatever.

I honestly don’t recollect that there were the issues with health care in 2001 as they are today — about the staff and all the things that we’re looking at. I know it’s costly, but we’re talking about a budget that is up almost 50 percent from where it was seven years ago. Or it’s 40 percent, let’s say. It’s still a staggering amount of money.

What the public is expecting are results in a timely manner, whether it’s cancer care…. What do we have to do? We’ve got to put a timeline and frame in the fact that we cannot be sitting around and talking about this with just press releases and communications — that we’re going to do better and stuff like that. We actually have to deliver on those results. That’s what the taxpayers are expecting. They expect us to be able to make that happen in a timely manner. If we take on too many things, we can’t manage it.

What are our priorities? I realize that we’ve got lots of pressures in other areas. I can’t help but think about the issues around public safety, the mental health issues and stuff like that. We’ve got big things to deal with on that. We talk about a facility that’s on the Riverview lands, etc., but it’s a small part of the solution. The solution is going to have to be much larger than that, based on the amount of people that that are facing that.

It was governments from 40 years ago that closed the doors on Riverview. I think that everybody that would have made that decision, probably even Bill Vander Zalm, who I think might have been the Premier at the time…. Was it a good decision? I don’t think so. I think of the idea that they didn’t build a solution for how to deal with those people. It’s fine to have astigmatism towards, kind of, “Well, you shouldn’t be treating people that way,” but some people need treatment that is different.

Now what we’re doing is…. They’re occupying whole floors. I know in Kelowna General Hospital, we’ve got a whole floor occupied by people that are struggling with those things, and that’s not where they should be.

I think that the people that know how to deliver those results, know that they need a proper treatment facility that’s benevolent, kind, has the right services and not to be scrutinized from the standpoint that people are being kept…. They’re really being kept from harming themselves or other people, and I think that’s the way we need to look at it. It’s not a detention. It’s not meant to be a prison.

Anyway, I do think that there are a lot of things that I…. You know, the aspirations in this budget document are aspirational. Will they be delivered? Based on what I’ve just kind of talked to you about, I don’t think that the aspirations are going to be achieved. I think that it’s important that delivery is equally as important, and in order to get inflation under control, government has to stop adding to that.

I think that where that is, is that…. We just had Bill 2 brought in. It’s automatically going to make the cost of living be built into minimum wage. I’m not certain that’s a very good idea long-term. What happens when inflation actually is beaten, or it becomes deflation? What happens then? Do we have a negative? That would be considered to be unconscionable, wouldn’t it? We’re going to cut your wages back because we’re in a deflation. Who says it can’t happen? It can happen. It has happened before, and the reality is economists will tell you that.

I think that the thing about it is, as much as it’s a pain to have to go back and adjust and look at these things or whatever, having it so that it’s compounding — employer health tax, those other taxes that we’ve got…. We’ve got 32 new and increased taxes. I still think that some of these things are driving up that inflationary pressure that we’re all talking about.

I mentioned employer health tax, but what about the other things, like just on home buildings? I talked about the PST. Wouldn’t it make a lot of sense to have something like a value-added? I know that you probably won’t go there, but a value-added tax or eliminate the PST on new builds so that we can get product into the marketplace.

[3:50 p.m.]

I realize we’ve got to have enough staff to build and the tradespeople and stuff like that. It seems to me that even if we did relief for a period of time, it’s going to cost government something, but we’re going to get the houses that we’re talking about.

We keep talking about the deficiency in accommodation. We need to do something different. It has to be bold. It has to open it up. We know that that’s one of the pressures in terms of housing.

If there’s a fear that it’s going to be taken advantage of by the development community, well, there has to be a way to make certain that we can drive the costs down — elimination of red tape, timeliness of approvals — and that’s both provincial and municipal. What does it take to rezone?

The government has already taken bold steps in terms of what the Housing Minister introduced in the fall session about being able to upzone property and stuff like that. Maybe what we need in terms of….

What’s not in here is the support for the extra people that municipalities need to deal with to be able to accommodate that. How do they bring that through the planning department? How do they make it so that it makes sense? And the engineers that have to look at the infrastructure or whatever. There needs to be some support for the municipalities to be able to fast-track that, to get the result that the government is looking for.

I think that when it comes to other costs in here that we could consider taking out, maybe DCCs, community amenity contributions — even in Vancouver here, property tax. I realize we took the health tax off local municipal taxes here back when the former Premier was in government. It was eliminated, and in favour, there was a TransLink tax that was put in to offset hospitals. But in our part of the world, in British Columbia, we pay 40 percent of all hospital projects and costs. That’s part of the deal that’s outside of the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley.

I think there are a lot of ways that things could be done to incentivize to get the results we want. We want to make certain that housing is more affordable. We want to make certain that municipalities are able to be supported to deal with the issues of public safety. On the health side, I’ve mentioned the fact that we need to get some of the people that need different treatment into properly built and appropriate locations.

One of the words of caution that I know the member for Abbotsford West talked about…. Where’s the rainy-day fund? You know, when things were good, did we put any money away? Have we got those resources so that, barring another outbreak of something like COVID…? We want to have some resources so that we can draw on that.

I know the numbers that were cited by the Minister of State for Trade. He was talking about the low unemployment, but that can change quickly, all of a sudden. It already is changing because of the fact that it’s not that easy to actually afford to be in the marketplace here.

I hope that the government will consider taking some steps to help implement the idea of actually getting to the result that I think everybody really wants on both sides of this House, but we need results.

Interjections.

Hon. M. Rankin: Thank you for the enthusiasm of my colleagues. I’m sure the enthusiasm is directed not at myself but at the budget, which I’m going to speak of with the same enthusiasm that they have just indicated they share.

I’m speaking from the perspective of a member of one of our southern Vancouver Island ridings, Oak Bay–Gordon Head. I have the pleasure of representing the municipality of Oak Bay but also a slice of Victoria and a little bit of Saanich; namely, the Gordon Head district. I’m going to bring that perspective to my remarks today.

This is a budget for challenging times, no question about it. I think my colleagues across the way have made that clear.

I just want to, at the outset, salute my colleague from Kelowna West, thank him for his service in this place and thank him for pointing out something with which I’m 100 percent in agreement: namely, this cannot be simply aspirational. It has to be about implementation. It has to be about results, and I agree.

[3:55 p.m.]

But like any budget, it’s a prediction of what we hope will occur, based on past performance. I think there are some things here that I would like to stress. I want to, if I may, just provide an outline of what I would like to do. I’d like to draw upon some of the things going on, exciting things going on, in our Oak Bay–Gordon Head riding.

I’d like to talk at sort of a provincewide level about some of the issues of affordability, housing, health and environment — focus on those. But since I’m also the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, I would like to talk about some of the things that I think this budget would do to make things better for Indigenous people and to stimulate the reconciliation that British Columbians are seeking.

I, like many of my colleagues across the way, am not in love with deficits or debt. In fact, our government, since 2017, brought in four of six budgets that were balanced. COVID came along. It has undone a lot of things, and 2020 was a very disturbing time in the lives of many people.

The result of that uncertainty is the need to take some strong action going forward. Everything from housing to mental health to the drug addiction crisis that has been augmented after the pandemic — all of these things require a different approach. It’s not like we want to create a deficit or a debt. It’s because we think it’s the prudent thing to do.

I represent many seniors, not one of whom has said to me: “You know, I think you should not spend money on seniors care or education or housing.” I talk to students who say, “This is tough times for us. We need you to take some dramatic action to get back on track,” hopefully so that we can get to a place, as we’ve been through the majority of the budgets in this NDP administration, where it’s balanced and the debt is not increased.

But we don’t live in easy times. We live in difficult times. The member for Abbotsford West pointed that out. He talked about, almost in Keynesian terms, the need, when times are tough, to spend, but when times are good, not to spend. I’m caricaturing that, but that’s Keynesian economics 101. I agree with him. He’s entirely right.

I thank him for his service, as he has indicated he’s no longer going to be serving here in the future, and I appreciate all he’s done. But I just want to say that that, I think, is exactly the reason why we can’t always have balanced budgets. We need to think about our children, our seniors, all of our community when times are as challenging as they are right now.

So we’re not going to make deep cuts to services. My friends would have us believe — the member for Abbotsford West, with his description of the increases of the budget for the Ministry of Health — that somehow they were immune from cuts, that somehow cuts didn’t occur when they were in government.

Well, I’m sure you would agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that that’s not the case. Bill 29 represented an enormous cut to our health services. And so many other things were cut during the time when they were in office — school budgets, hospital budgets.

I know that past performance is no guarantee of future results. I think that’s what they say. So I’m not here to project that they would do that again if ever they had the opportunity to serve on this side of the House. Not only were there cuts made, but I don’t think my friends across the way would disagree that they hiked MSP rates and ICBC rates. I think that’s common between us. Maybe I’m wrong.

Because people are struggling with high interest rates and inflation, we need to take some dramatic actions. As I say, people in my riding — I think they’re sensible people — realize that this is not the time to make those cuts that people depend on.

We don’t want to cancel our school breakfast programs. We don’t want to make cuts to hospitals, schools or seniors care, because people depend on that in these difficult times. We’re not ashamed of taking decisions that would stand by those people. We have their backs during this difficult time. That is why we’re doing what we are doing.

[4:00 p.m.]

In addition to that, I was very proud…. My colleague the Minister of Labour, who is here in the House with us today, did something that I frankly think was something we should have done a long time ago: namely, tie the rate of minimum-wage increase to the level of inflation. So no one has to stand around and say: “Oh, you shouldn’t have raised the minimum wage to this or that.” It’s going to be locked into inflation. And I think that’s a very prudent thing, for which I congratulate the minister.

We would go, on June 1, to $17.40 an hour, which would represent a 3.9 percent increase in the minimum wage. This is exactly what the B.C. average rate of inflation has been. So I commend my colleague for bringing forth a very sensible reform, a reform that I think will help so many people at the lower socioeconomic status in our communities. That’s something that we can be proud of.

I think we have so many things that need to be done in terms of capital expenditures. For example, there’s a record $43 billion in capital expenditures in this budget. It sounds like a lot of money, but building schools and roads and hospitals and bridges and infrastructure is expensive in these difficult times.

Can we afford it? Our economy is one of the most diverse economies in North America. We are not dependent on one industry. It’s true that our debt-to-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the country. We are third in the country. I think it’s Saskatchewan and Alberta. With record prices in oil and gas, it shouldn’t surprise us that they would have an easier time, given commodity prices now going in the opposite direction. But we are third, and we should be very proud of that.

We have a very low unemployment rate. But the most important strength — and it’s almost a cliché to say it, but I’ll say it anyway — is our people. We have a very educated workforce. The new economy is going to be about post-secondary education. That’s why we’re spending so much on that.

The high-tech jobs. In my community…. I frankly didn’t believe this when I was elected as a Member of Parliament. I did a study on it and tried to get to the bottom of it. I thought that in our community, the biggest employer would be the government, or maybe the University of Victoria, which is in my riding. You know what it is? It’s high tech. It’s startups. It’s young people with entrepreneurial zeal going out and starting businesses that often have gone to global proportions.

I’m very, very proud of the fact that the incubator…. That economy that exists in Victoria, up in Saanich and northern Saanich but right in Oak Bay–Gordon Head — that’s where the employment is. We’re creating the skills. We’re ensuring that we have skilled workers to take us to a better place. We’re spending, with no apologies, at the University of Victoria.

Let me give you just one example of what I’m talking about. It didn’t make the budget as a talking point, but I can tell you that we have an expansion of the engineering and computer science building for 500 new students. Again, all high-tech workers of the future. We’re putting $96½ million of the $150 million into that expansion, because that is our future. We’ve also done some other things I’ll come to at the University of Victoria that I think deserve attention as well.

British Columbia is attracting more people. It’s true. Our colleagues across the way pointed out that there’s been a couple of thousand, maybe a few thousand, less people coming from other parts of the country in the last couple of years, which is a little different. But 100,000 people have moved to British Columbia in the last year.

As Premier Horgan used to frequently say, they didn’t bring a doctor, and they didn’t bring a house. We’re having to accommodate for that growth in our communities. We see it everywhere. Bold action is required, and bold action is being taken.

I’m very proud of the fact that unlike south of the border, we have an openness. We welcome immigrants from all over the world to our shores, because they bring strength, they bring diversity, and they bring enthusiasm. I’m so proud that we continue, as a country, to welcome them.

Immigration is a federal matter. We have to, I think, have greater control over how we deal with the implications of them choosing British Columbia as a great place to live. I’m thinking of things like housing and the like.

That fundamental point about the increase in population has to be taken into account. A lot of what’s driving this is demographics, and people are getting their hands around that now in a way that we all should be talking about. But the metrics are strong.

[4:05 p.m.]

Third-lowest GDP in the country. One of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, 5.4 percent below the national average. We’ve gained over 70,000 jobs since this time last year, including some of the strongest private sector and self-employment growth in the country.

Housing starts were at a record high, a record number of rental homes last year, which is a leading indicator of that activity. I’ve mentioned our hourly wages, the highest average hourly wages in the country. From 2017 to 2023, our exports increased by 30 percent, putting us in a strong place to weather today’s slower global economy.

These are things British Columbians should be proud of. They’re indicative of what I said earlier, the diversity of our economy. But something else. From 2017 to 2023, women’s employment grew by over 100,000 as well. I think these are extraordinarily important things to focus on. I’m very proud of those as well.

It’s an expensive time to live. We were criticized when the Premier wrote to the Bank of Canada governor and talked about interest rates, even though that organization had been seeking input on that very topic. It’s not our responsibility, I acknowledge. The interest rates are set by the Bank of Canada rate, which is beyond British Columbia’s control. I agree with that as well. Nevertheless, that’s hugely important to housing starts and to the economy. My friend from Kelowna West pointed that out very forcefully.

So we’ve got to do something about affordability. We’ve done a suite of things, just in terms of context, over the years. People know that when our government was formed in 2017, the average cost of child care was $53. Today it’s $18. We’ve helped renters with a $400-a-year renter tax credit. Free transit for kids under 12. We’ve slashed ICBC rates by an average of $500 per driver. We’ve ended MSP premiums, the largest middle-class tax cut in a generation.

We’ve eliminated bridge tolls on the Golden Ears and Port Mann and made prescription birth control free. These are things that make a difference in real people’s lives. There’s much more to do. I remember very vividly when the Premier was sworn in as leader, in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory. The first thing he did was announce a $100 affordability credit for B.C. Hydro electricity, and then a new credit will start in April, as well, another $100.

Incremental payments to assist with affordability in things we can control. We cannot control interest rates, much as we would like to, but we can control things that are within our provincial jurisdiction. Expanding the B.C. family benefit by adding a one-year bonus that’ll support 70 percent of families in B.C. That means 340,000 will receive that benefit, 66,000 more families than last year, in that case.

We have a number of things that I’m proud of in terms of carbon tax. The rebates on carbon tax will cover most people. A family of four received $890 last year. This year they’ll get $1,005 in the climate action tax credit.

Most people in my riding want action on climate change. Most people in my riding are very afraid of the implications of global climate change, and they think we should be doing our part. We are going to continue to do that part — things like the CleanBC plan, our expansion of electrical power across the province and our commitment to the carbon tax, despite opposition moving away from something they were instrumental in creating and for which they deserve praise. Now they appear to be taking a different direction.

In any event, we’re trying to do things to promote a switch to a cleaner energy, with heat pump rebates and electric-vehicle-charging station infrastructure being expanded to the tune of $30 million.

We have the highest zero-emission vehicles per capita in Canada in my riding. I’m not sure I can swear an affidavit to this effect, but I have read in the press that we have the highest per-capita zero-emission electric vehicles in all of Canada, certainly all of B.C. and all of Canada.

[4:10 p.m.]

That gives you some idea of the kind of riding that I represent and why I think our staying the course on the CleanBC plan and carbon tax and the other things…. So long as people are not left behind. Hence, the rebate of which I have spoken and how much that means to real people on the ground.

Noting the hour, I have a few things I wanted to make sure I talked about in the housing context. I mentioned the University of Victoria, and I will mention it again because I am very proud of this. The facts are that just in the last while, two new student housing buildings, representing the largest capital project in the history of the University of Victoria, have been created. I visited them. They are extraordinarily beautiful, LEED certified and the like. They represent 621 new beds, plus 162 replacement beds.

That’s great for the students there, but it’s also great for the rest of our community, where people are struggling to find rental accommodation. If we can find housing at the University of Victoria, then we might be able to free up space in the communities around us, in Fernwood, in Oaklands and in Oak Bay. That’s what’s going on.

But 100,000 people moved to British Columbia. People love Victoria. It’s rated by Globe and Mail research as the best place to live, the most livable community in Canada. No wonder people are attracted to coming here, and no wonder there’s a housing crisis, and no wonder this government is taking dramatic action to address it. But it starts right at my riding with those 783 beds at the University Victoria, which I think is really significant.

The other thing that we’ve done, of course, is we’ve worked on BC Builds with $198 million of new funding. One of the key things of that is using government-owned public and underused land and lower government borrowing costs so we can offer low-cost financing to bring down the construction costs.

What does that mean? It means that maybe even transit-oriented development would occur at the university. The university is anxious for that because we’ve got a very large bus hub there and, perhaps, that’s something that they would get behind. They’ve talked to me about it, and their enthusiasm for being part of the solution is something I really, really appreciate.

Talking of capital construction projects, I should say that something else that’s gone on at the university is worthy of our attention. We’ve created the national centre for Indigenous laws, adjacent to the faculty of law, where I taught for 13 years. An additional 100 students from all over the country will come to get Canada’s first Indigenous law degree available.

Our government is contributing $13 million of the $40.6 million dollars of that project. This is an enormous achievement. This is the first such institution in the history of Canada. And this is going on right at the University of Victoria. I’m very proud of the work that they’re doing, with our government contributing through capital expenditure to that important initiative.

BC Builds is an example of where we use government land, and everybody I talk to sees the common sense of that. Land is one of the key components, of course, of building anything. The cost of land, the scarcity of land — they say they’re not making any more of it. Imagine if that Crown land or government-owned land or municipal-owned land could somehow be made available for construction. It’s really a no-brainer, and we’re taking that on in spades with BC Builds right now. I’m very, very proud of that.

The other things I wanted to just mention are the initiatives on health that are being taken in this budget. There’s a total of $8 billion, over three years, to strengthen our health care and capital investments of $13 billion, over the next three years, to support the construction of long-term care, acute care and cancer care facilities.

Every senior in my riding — and we have a number in Oak Bay, for sure, who are concerned about this — is supportive of Better at Home, the program that allows for community-based services to support them doing day-to-day tasks so they can age in place, not have to go to a home. No one wants to go to them if they can get some assistance during their daily activities, being provided by professionals, nurses, occupational therapists and the like.

[4:15 p.m.]

That is why I’m so proud of the fact that $227 million has been put into this budget precisely for those purposes and another $127 million for community-based services such as the Better at Home programs. I think that is something we should really celebrate.

I had an opportunity to visit Luther Court, which is at the corner of Cedar Hill and Cedar Hill Cross Road. It is a community health centre. It also is a long-term-care and assisted living facility. I confess I’d never been there. I’m kind of embarrassed to say I just never had the opportunity.

I was absolutely amazed at the people who were there, the doctors who were providing services in the community, the integration of those services. They have a proposal to expand those services that is before government now. It is an amazing facility, and I salute them all for that. It is making a huge difference.

Many of the doctors in my community are of a certain age, my age, and they’re retiring, and we want to replace them. I know you’ve heard from our Health Minister how the changes in the way in which we remunerate doctors is making such a difference in drawing so many people back into the profession. I think that’s going to make a difference in Oak Bay as well, but it has been a challenge. I salute Luther Court for being there and making a difference on that.

I mentioned CleanBC and the like, and I mentioned the carbon tax. I’m not going to say much more about that just because of time. But what I would like to focus on is the final part of what I said I would discuss — namely, the implications of this budget for Indigenous people.

Our government has done…. It continues to work really hard on a new fiscal framework to recognize the reality that Indigenous governments need steady, dependable funding no less than other governments do. That is the purpose of this. We’ve doubled, in some cases more than that, the forest revenue-sharing component. Many First Nations are engaged in the forest economy, and that has made an enormous difference.

The extent to which we can create a new fiscal framework has been really one of the preoccupations of my ministry over the last year. I believe putting them on a solid footing is something that will help everyone in these difficult times.

We’ve provided over a third of a billion dollars for gaming revenue-sharing, 7 percent of net gaming revenue, which every one of our 202 First Nations has taken advantage of.

In the last year, we created something called the Declaration Act engagement fund, $200 million, to allow First Nations to have the capacity to engage in some of the things contemplated in that ambitious action plan under the Declaration Act, for which I’m responsible and for which I’m very proud — a plan that’s co-developed with First Nations. This is some funding so they have the ability to engage in a very meaningful way.

This budget adds a new wrinkle entirely. It’s something that I believe the opposition has properly been calling for. It’s something I learned about from the province of Alberta and then Saskatchewan and now Ontario. It seems to be something that, across the province, is catching on. It’s indeed what one hopes the federal budget coming out next month will also address — namely, equity financing.

So what this budget has done is support the First Nations and the B.C. business sector through partnerships and in the development of a provincial First Nations equity financing framework. Initially, an inaugural balance of $10 million would be put into that, but eventually over time, we expect and First Nations expect that if government can provide loan guarantees for development, that will lift everyone up.

Again, I know the federal government is contemplating this. Other provinces have done it. British Columbia has stepped up to the plate with that additional assistance, as well, in this budget.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the fact that there is something in the northwest of this province — which has a large Indigenous population, as you know, Mr. Speaker — $250 million over five years, as called upon by the Northwest Benefits Alliance. That, of course, will help not only the infrastructure development in the non-Indigenous communities — Terrace, Smithers, Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii and those communities — and also the Indigenous communities, where a large part of the percentage of the population there, of course, are Indigenous.

[4:20 p.m.]

I’d just like to say, in conclusion, it’s been a real honour to address this budget. I think it’s something that the people of Oak Bay–Gordon Head have largely been supportive of in the communications that I have had with them.

It’s a recognition that this is the time to take bold steps in order to ensure that we are creating the conditions for the next generation to thrive and to look after those that are less fortunate on the economic spectrum, and seniors and the like, who need help now during this difficult period. I thank you for your attention.

E. Ross: It’s an honour to get up for what will be my last budget speech in the Legislature.

It’s been an interesting seven years. It’s an amazing time to be here, especially given where I come from. I come from Kitamaat Village, a small reserve on the west coast of British Columbia, where I still live today.

Really, if you look at my life and you look at the decisions that I made over my lifetime, I really shouldn’t be here. I should be in prison, or I should be on the streets of Vancouver, Prince George or Terrace, or maybe even deceased — just based on my lifestyle.

This goes for a lot of First Nations all across B.C. and Canada. It’s well known that it’s been called Canada’s shame in terms of where First Nations find themselves on the economic scale.

In 2004, that all changed. In 1982, section 35 recognized rights and title as existing. Unfortunately, they didn’t define it, and so for 40 years, First Nations have been taking the federal government and provincial government to court that decided a number of principles that defined rights and title. The biggest court case that actually affected my band was the Haida court case in 2004. Then, to a greater extent, Tsilhqotʼin hired the principles that were found within the Haida court case.

Probably the biggest single recognition that the court made about rights and title was that the Crown had to act honourably. Gladstone made some principles. Mikisew Cree made some principles. Delgamuukw made some principles. The one single point that turned things around for my band and many bands from Prince George to Kitimat and some down-channel was the idea that the honour of the Crown mattered.

Why this matters is because in the budget speech I heard a number of comments relating to First Nations. There was something on every single page, and also talking about the economy and talking about permits and talking about mining and talking about forestry.

The previous speaker just got through mentioning the forest and range agreement. That was created by the B.C. Liberals. That was the first time that First Nations had gotten engaged in the economy, not only with revenue-sharing, but also with a volume of wood to harvest in their own right.

That was the start of my band actually making money outside the Indian Act. It was an amazing time, but little did we know that was just the tip of the iceberg for my band. Because then we took off on mining, and then we took off with LNG and acquiring land — some land to be converted to reserve, not for economic development purposes but to ensure that we had a place to build residential units for our future.

We did acquire land, and we did keep it in fee simple status. We did agree with the idea that paying taxes is not a bad thing when you’re talking about land, especially when you’re doing business with corporations.

So when we were talking about permits and mining and forestry and LNG and environment, that’s where I got my start: environment.

[4:25 p.m.]

Contrary to popular opinion, I actually opposed resource development based on the degradation of my territory for the last 60 years — forestry, aluminum smelter, pulp and paper smelter, even the actions of the local municipality damming up salmon creeks and backfilling salmon creeks and filling in salmon spawning grounds and destroying the eulachon run in the Kitimat River.

But the more I read into what was really going on in terms of society, in terms of the 20th century and 21st century, the more I learned that the narrative that I had followed for so long was actually part of the reason my band was stuck in poverty.

In fact, a lot of what I learned that I use here in the Legislature on a daily basis was from my eight years as an elected councillor and six years as a chief councillor, especially governance. Governance is not mandatory reading for a council, but when you’re talking about self-determination and self-governance, I felt it was up to me to learn more what governance actually meant.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Under the Indian Act, governance is serious business. If you bring in a deficit of 11 percent under the Indian Act, Ottawa punishes you. They withhold money, or they put you on a freeze list. So First Nations don’t have a choice, and if you don’t abide by the rules of Ottawa, they come in and shut you down and take over. They kick the council home, and they kick all the staff home. The only two people they keep are the health manager and the social development manager. That’s the Indian Act.

But here’s the kicker. If you overperform, if you provide a surplus with Indian Act money, Ottawa punishes you. You can’t win. So is it any wonder First Nations have been trying to find money outside of the Indian Act while trying to resolve poverty?

Then we come here to the Legislature, and there’s really no mention of the $8 billion deficit that this NDP government has incurred or will incur, no real mention of the debt — $165 billion. And at the last count, there’s $4.1 billion going toward interest payments alone. That is huge.

When I go home and talk to my family, I tell them about it. Imagine it being your credit card, and you took no account — just spending, spending, spending — and you racked up $100,000 on your credit card, but your take-home pay is only a thousand bucks a week. There’s no way to sustain it. At some point, somebody is going to have to pay that bill. That’s a principle of governance, fiscal responsibility, that nobody seems to be talking about. Somebody is going to have to pay this bill, especially when you consider that the big-ticket items that have kept B.C. afloat for the last ten years are coming to an end.

Site C, the over-budget, federally bought project, is coming to an end. Sorry. That’s Trans Mountain. Site C is the over-budget project by the NDP government that’s coming to an end. Trans Mountain is coming to an end as well. LNG Canada is coming to an end. Those revenues will not be there for the future. There’s no economic plan apart from government-subsidized programs, which the taxpayer will have to pay for.

When we’re talking about permits, First Nations reconciliation and basically the society, is it any wonder that the land management amendments that were proposed just this past month were actually opposed not only by certain groups but the citizens of B.C.? Nobody understood what it was about.

Now, in terms of the comments that were made, in terms of how people were feeling in terms of their anxiety, members of this House have called the comments despicable and dog-whistle politics.

[4:30 p.m.]

Well, I made those comments as well, and I am well versed in Aboriginal rights and title case law. What I found was a very secretive land management proposal that was causing division in our society. I’m sure the NDP government got emails asking: “What are these land management amendments? What does this mean to my private property? What does this mean to my business?” Because on this side of the House, we got lots.

No? Nobody got those emails? I guess it was just the opposition. Okay.

Anyway, we have an example of a land management agreement in B.C. It’s called the Blueberry agreement, and it was basically put in place by the B.C. NDP government to basically reconcile a court decision on cumulative impacts for Blueberry First Nation. In partnership with the debate that we had here in terms of UNDRIP, this NDP government swore up and down that UNDRIP would not include a veto. In the Blueberry agreement, when we talked about it, the NDP government said that there would be no veto. They played with the word “consent.”

But in the court case Haida, it clearly states: “You’ve got to do your best to obtain consent. But there is no veto.” So we took the word of government to say: “Don’t worry about it. There will be no veto.” Well, guess who disagrees? First Nations disagree.

Doig River and Halfway River are taking the B.C. government to court, not only for taking away their territorial rights to their territory but also for imposing a veto on Doig River and Halfway River’s territory. I’m sure the outrage will come now, and we’ll hear words like “despicable” and “dog-whistle politics,” but it should be aimed at the NDP government for doing this. This is highly dishonourable.

The Haida court case said: “Above all, you’ve got to act honourable as a government, as the Crown.” What Doig and Halfway River have said in their claim is that the B.C. government misrepresented what was in the Blueberry agreement and made them, under pressure, sign a letter of agreement, which basically gave away their rights to their territory. That is despicable.

They also claim that the B.C. NDP government withheld information. They didn’t give all the information to Doig and Halfway River so Doig and Halfway River could make an informed decision. They also claim in their petition to the court that the B.C. NDP misrepresented the Blueberry agreement. If that is not the definition of despicable, when you read the Haida court case and you read section 35 of the constitution and you read the Chilcotin court case, I don’t know what is.

There are different words for misrepresented. There are different words for omissions. To pressure Doig and Halfway River into signing a letter of agreement, knowing full well that you were giving their rights away to Blueberry, dishonours the Crown.

The sad thing about this is that everybody at that table, when you deal with rights and title, has to act honourably and meaningfully engage with each other. Doig and Halfway River trusted the B.C. government. But they made their issues known the whole time. They did not want to give up their territory. They did not want any First Nation to have a veto in their territory, and the B.C. NDP government swore up and down that it wouldn’t happen.

[4:35 p.m.]

I can’t believe the NDP government has taken us back 20 years. This is the whole reason why we went to court over 40 years, to get rid of this colonialist-type treatment of First Nations people, and we did it.

From 2004 to 2017, there was peace in the woods, because of the forest and range group, because of LNG, because of mining. Everybody at that table was working along together to achieve one goal. Everybody succeeds, First Nations and non–First Nations alike. And the B.C. government? You collect the rewards in terms of the revenues and the taxes flowing to your coffers.

To treat Doig and Halfway River like this, knowing that it breaches rights and title case law, is highly despicable. You should be ashamed. For the First Nations out there that I’m going to warn about the land management amendment, this is going to happen to you. By the way, there is no way that I would allow the government to take the benefits that flow from my territory and give it to my neighbouring First Nation, even in an overlap situation, which is one of the biggest reasons why we can’t sign treaties in B.C. There’s too much overlap.

The B.C. government, the B.C. NDP government, according to the Doig and Halfway River claim, took atmospheric benefits from Doig and Halfway Rivers territory and gave it to Blueberry. If you don’t know what that means, that’s carbon credits. How many First Nations in here would say: “Yes, I’m okay with government taking away my territory and giving it to another First Nation”? How many of you could say that? How many of you go back to your people and say it’s okay? If you can’t do that to your own First Nation, why did you do this to Doig and Halfway River, especially since we had a big debate on UNDRIP here?

Every time we have some type of event — we open up this place — there are First Nation singers and dancers and drummers and prayers. Yet the B.C. NDP government did this, the most despicable act that I have ever seen in the last 20 years.

The veto. We heard in UNDRIP debates that there was no veto. We heard in the Blueberry agreement there’s no veto. Well, Halfway River and Doig say: “Yes, there is a veto.” Why do they know that? Because Doig and Halfway River are counting on the permits, so they can go logging their territory, so they can get gas out of the ground and into the pipeline and export it to Asia. But they can’t do it. Why? Because the B.C. NDP gave a veto to the Blueberry over the Doig and Halfway River’s territory.

Economic reconciliation is tied to the permits that Doig and Halfway River are counting on. But they can’t do anything about it. If you don’t believe me, read the petition. Doig and Halfway River both separately filed petitions with the courts. It’s all there. I hope the outrage that we saw over the last couple of weeks in terms of the land management act comes back up in terms of how this government treated Doig and Halfway River, because I was shocked.

In terms of First Nations, because that’s all I hear in this place for the last seven years, we didn’t hear too much about detox facilities in relation to First Nations, specifically the First Nations health alliance in Terrace, who put together a well-thought-out budget to acquire a piece of property and start to deliver addictions treatments for natives and non-natives alike in the northwest, including Prince Rupert. They got rejected by this government.

Even though this government talked about UNDRIP, partnership with First Nations, drug crisis, death crisis, the representatives of that group came to this Legislature, and they actually met in the Hall of Honour with all the ministers, who loved this idea, and they got rejected again.

[4:40 p.m.]

Well, it’s not in the 2024 budget. We know the option for Terrace and Prince Rupert and Kitimat is to travel seven hours to Prince George for the nearest detox facility, on a highway that’s pretty sketchy during the winter. If you’re lucky to get in, you’ve got six months that you’ve got to wait. No mention of this in the budget, after all that talk about UNDRIP and partnerships.

We know it’s a solution. We know it’s a solution that has been put forward by First Nations. Yet it got rejected. I think this is the third time it got rejected. How can it be a crisis if this government is not willing to work with First Nations on something that First Nations are well acquainted with: addictions, whether it be alcohol or drugs?

One of the reasons I started my speech in saying I shouldn’t be here is because I was an alcoholic, and I dabbled in drugs at a very young age. I quit when I got to the level of acid. How many of you have had substance abuse problems with mushrooms, marijuana and acid? Put up your hand. Oh yeah. The other native, of course.

From what riding? What’s your riding? Vancouver–​Mount Pleasant.

It’s just a fact of life with First Nations. But I was born on reserve. When I got into council, our big issue was trying to deal with alcoholism, and we didn’t do a good job. Other nations did. They set up treatment facilities. They actually banned alcohol from their villages. We set up a bunch of programs, but none of them really worked, especially for a guy like me. I’m not going to listen to anybody. I’m just going to do whatever I want, even if it impacts me negatively.

But the one thing that did work wasn’t our programs, wasn’t our funding. It was bringing in a full onslaught of jobs, training and economic activity through forestry, to begin with, and mining a little bit more. But LNG really took us to the next level. In fact, if you come to my community, we no longer have house parties. This is not because of a hotline that we developed. It’s not because of a program. It’s because economic activity for the next generation, for some reason, gave them a different path.

My heart goes out to Port Hardy, who just recently announced a state of emergency for 11 deaths in two months because of the drug crisis. Everybody has seen that news release, but what you don’t know is that Port Hardy, as much as possible, is trying to develop an economic base, as well, through forestry and fish farms. And they want to keep it.

A fish farm…. We already heard the rhetoric from both sides of the House. It’s killing off wild salmon. It feeds the world in terms of a cheaper alternative for protein. We all heard that. But nobody talks about the First Nations that support it for an economic base so they can give their kids a future. That is a shame. We cloud it with the rhetoric of politics and the ideology, but we don’t care about those kids in those First Nation communities that have no idea there’s a better future for them if only their politicians would pull their heads out of the ground.

Port Hardy is just one example. There are 203 bands in B.C. There are over 600 in Canada. They’re in the same boat. But we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the success from First Nations in Prince George to Kitimat and how they turned their lives around and how they turned their communities around. All we talk about is our politics.

[4:45 p.m.]

We talked a lot about…. I heard a lot of speeches in here about subsidies and the Oil and Gas Commission, the oil and gas industry getting subsidies. I wish Edison Motors would get a subsidy or a grant from this B.C. government.

They got rejected, but the B.C. government funded their American competitors. In fact, Edison wanted to stay in B.C. They got lured to the United States with free land and tax holidays. But they wanted to stay in B.C., so they’re relocating to Terrace, B.C. — my riding, which I’m grateful for. They’re doing it all on their own, no help from the B.C. government, but the B.C. government is willing to support electric car builders in the United States without supporting homegrown businesses here in B.C.

I heard a lot of comment about the mining industry being part of our economic fabric. Myself and the MLA for Kootenay East took a tour of all the mines up in northern B.C., twice. Billions of dollars locked up because you can’t get a permit for mining. You can’t get a permit to get natural gas out of ground, out of the Peace.

So we make a big announcement for a battery plant in Langley. There’s a big announcement up here by the MÁLEXEŁ First Nation. They’re going to develop a battery plant. But where are the minerals going to come from? Certainly not B.C. They can’t get permits.

How about Pacific Booker? Pacific Booker has been looking for a permit for the last seven years. They can’t get a permit to get minerals out of the ground that can feed a battery plant in Langley or Malahat. Where are our minerals going to come from — United States, another province, maybe overseas? I hope it doesn’t come from Africa when we’ve got the supply right here, and we’ve got high labour standards. We’ve got economic reconciliation that we’ve promised to address and make better.

Looks like I’m running out of time here. We’re talking a lot about electrified futures, knowing full well that we don’t have the supply of electricity to feed today’s needs, let alone tomorrow’s, based on the plans. We don’t have the infrastructure. So a $36 billion investment by the B.C. NDP to actually electrify our future, but that’s not including the $16 billion overrun budget for Site C. We won’t know the total bill until after the election.

The electrification bill is upwards of $50 million at least. In the meantime, we’ve got the Saik’uz First Nation v. Rio Tinto Alcan, as well as the B.C. government going to court over water levels on the Nechako River, and it’s directly linked to electricity.

How are we going to do this with the mess that’s been made out of First Nations issues, with vetoes, with UNDRIP, when nobody seems to understand what it is? All we know for sure of what UNDRIP is, is that it’s not legally enforceable. That’s what the NDP government argued in court, and they won.

The court agreed that UNDRIP is not legally enforceable. UNDRIP is only an interpretive aid, whatever that means. I think it’s an opportunist term to say, whenever it benefits the government: “We’ll use UNDRIP.” Yet the Gitxaała band went to court specifically to try to get their interests submitted into the application for mining tenures, and the B.C. government argued against them.

How do we do this? When we talk about energy security…. I wasn’t aware that when the Enbridge pipeline exploded outside Prince George, B.C. Hydro was within 24 to 48 hours of the grid collapsing, because everybody switched to electricity.

[4:50 p.m.]

How do we secure energy for our citizens when it’s that susceptible to a pipeline shutting down? Yet we deny Okanagan the ability to have natural gas as an energy source. We’re setting ourselves up for failure.

If you do achieve this, if you completely shut down other energy sources and you find out you can’t build the infrastructure, you can’t build the supply, you’re going to have to buy more electricity from the United States — dirty energy that’s generated by coal. It kind of defeats the purpose.

Madam Speaker, I’m not going to use my last 20 seconds, and I do thank you for the time.

Hon. H. Bains: It is always a privilege and an honour to have the ability to stand in this House, to speak about what is important to British Columbia, because very few people have the opportunity to do this.

Especially when you consider my background, where I come from and how the speeches were made in this House, in this chamber — disrespecting, denigrating people that look like me, in this House — to an ability to stand here and participate and make decisions that are impacting British Columbians every day, I feel so fortunate. I want to say thank you to all those who came before us and paved the way for us to be in the position that we are here today, especially myself.

I say this right at the outset: that B.C. is a great place to live, put down your roots, raise your family and work. There are so many good things going right now in British Columbia. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. We’re a leader in growing jobs and wages for working people. We have the highest average wage in the country. We have the highest minimum wage of all provinces in this country.

Having said that, while we are an economic leader, people are facing big challenges. They are struggling. High interest rates coming from Ottawa, global inflation and the slower global economy that we are facing are impacting people’s lives out there. They’re worried. Mortgages are coming to renew. They’re worried about the high interest rates, slowing economy. They’re worried about their jobs.

Some say that we should respond to these challenges by leaving people to fend for themselves and making deep cuts in the name of reducing the deficit that people can’t afford. That could be one of the choices, because government is all about choices.

When we formed government, our first four budgets were balanced budgets. Not only balanced budgets; there were healthy surpluses. Then COVID hit us. Not only here in British Columbia but globally, all governments faced those challenges. You heard stories of different governments taking different approaches. There were governments here in Canada making cuts to the services that people need in those even more difficult times.

We invested and strengthened those services here in British Columbia. Our economy during COVID was one of the strongest. We kept most of the economy running. You know how, Madam Speaker? It is working together. It is bringing people together. It is listening to their ideas and putting them and implementing them into practice.

That’s how we got through. Our front-line workers, those who were out there every day, risking their own health…. They were providing us services, producing product, building things for us.

[4:55 p.m.]

But that’s what a real economy involving people means. When you put people in the centre to develop your policies around, you hardly can go wrong.

The choices that we made in this budget will support people through these tough times as well. By working together, we can keep building B.C.’s strong foundation so people can build a good life here for themselves and for their families, building a stronger, cleaner economy that works better for people, better for all British Columbians, not just for the top few. Building a brighter future for people in our province, with more jobs and opportunities so everyone can build a good life, which is at the heart of every action we are taking.

We’ll talk about some of the outcomes as a result of that. We have working…. The economy is working. These ideas are working. B.C. added 74,000 jobs in 2023, and a lot of them, more than half of them, are in the private sector, despite the fact that we have the highest wages and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

The other thing is that we could have a strong economy. People want to come and work, but if they can’t afford to live here, don’t have an opportunity to have a place to live, then all of that is for naught. Everyone wants to find a home that they can afford and build a good life in the community that they love. So government is taking action to provide lasting solutions. And we are taking on wealthy speculators and investors so the housing market works better for people.

There is always time in the free market economy for speculators. Speculators are always looking at making money and quick bucks. But right now, when we have a shortage of homes, we have to take action, make sure that the homes are for living for people, raising their families, not to make profit out of them. That’s why we introduced B.C.’s home-flipping tax: to take further action on speculation that drives up home prices.

Making the first-time-homebuyer program work for more people by making it available to homes priced at up to $835,000, which is up from $500,000, saving up to about $8,000 on the property transfer tax. Encouraging more rental construction by giving property tax exemptions to buildings for the purpose of building rental buildings. Increasing the threshold of newly built home exemptions to $1.1 million, to incentivize more new home buildings.

The BC Builds program that was announced just recently: a new program to leverage underused land, faster development, low-interest construction financing and grants to increase housing options for middle-class people and their families.

Also, we must look at those who are struggling to help them with their rising costs. Global inflation is squeezing household budgets. We’re putting more money back into people’s pockets through new and expanded programs.

The B.C. electricity affordability credit, starting in April. B.C. households will see about a $100 saving over the year.

Expanding the B.C. family benefit and adding a one-year bonus that will support 70 percent of the families in B.C. And 340,000 families will receive the benefit, 66,000 more than last year. Raising both the income threshold by 25 percent and increasing the payment amount by 25 percent per child, which means if a family of four received $1,597 last year, they will receive $2,045 this year starting in July.

A new renter’s tax credit will reach 76 percent of renting households, putting an average of $374 back in the pockets of renters from July this year.

[5:00 p.m.]

Expanding safe and affordable $10-a-day child care through ChildCareBC, with over 33,000 new spaces funded since 2018. More than 63,000 families are saving up to nearly $900 per month, per child.

Just an individual story. One day I went home from the office in Surrey-Newton, and as I was parking my car, someone was calling me from behind. In our community, for people who are older than you, you would call them uncle or brother. This young man said: “Uncle, Uncle, can I speak to you?” I turned around, and I said: “Yes.” He said: “I want to say thank you. Two children, and with your recent announcement, I will be saving about $900 a month.” That’s real impact on real people. That’s what it means when we say that the government must be working for people.

We also must be looking at businesses. The employer health tax exemption threshold has been raised from $500,000 to $1 million, effective immediately, which means that 90 percent of the businesses will not pay employer health tax anymore.

There’s a whole host of initiatives that have been taken in this budget to help ordinary families. I can talk about a lot of stuff in this budget, but I want to come back to my area, south of the Fraser, especially Surrey. I may touch a bit on the debt and deficit, as we talked about in many speeches here. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the country, third lowest. As such, B.C. is an economic leader.

Let me turn to the area that I represent.

Madam Speaker, you have seen some demonstrations. People rally out there, and people talk about how Surrey is ignored. That was true. Surrey was ignored. But no more. No more. I will give you a list of initiatives that we have taken since we formed the government.

Before I do that, let me touch on the Leader of the Opposition. When I was driving one day, I turned the radio on, and he was on. He talked about…. “The B.C. NDP MLAs are nice people, but I know how to build. I have a history. I know how to build.” Then he went on, during their time.

I said: “Well, let’s dig a little bit, shall we?” He was talking about how we haven’t built in the first four or five years in government. So all the major projects…. And he knows well, if he says that he knows how to build, that the major projects take time and planning, if you want to do it properly, unlike when they built the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre.

The Minister of JEDI will know that when they started building the convention centre, the Auditor General’s report came in, and many in this House will remember that they started driving pylons in the water without even having a business plan in their hands. Guess what. That project was over 40 percent over budget and delayed many times.

Let me give you some timelines for some of the major projects that were being taken on at that time. Canada Line was one of the first ones. Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre was right there. They were both built in 2009. And they formed government 2001. That was their third term. Then you look at the others. Port Mann Bridge, 2012. That was at the end of third term. Look at Surrey Memorial Hospital tower, 2011, third term.

[5:05 p.m.]

Evergreen Line. It was so far delayed at one time that, many members will remember, people from the region started to call it the Nevergreen line. You may remember. And that was built in 2016. That was their fourth term.

South Fraser Perimeter Road. Take a look at any major project. The opposition leader knows that these projects take time. When you want to start planning and then build, it takes time. But he was trying to tell people that the B.C. NDP government hasn’t built any major project in the first three or four years. That’s why politicians lose respect in public. You can come up with the numbers, but we need to be honest with people that we are representing.

Madam Speaker, you know what? All of that resulted in…. Let me tell you a famous headline in the Vancouver Sun. That was the time when the Evergreen Line was finally opened. Again, the claim was made — on time, on budget — although it was their fourth term.

This was the headline. When you picked up a newspaper the next morning, what was the headline? “Another day, another bogus claim from the B.C. Liberals that a major project is on time and on budget.” It was none other than our dean in the gallery, Vaughn Palmer. That’s the kind of wrath you get when you are not upfront with people.

Now I’m coming back to Surrey. Absolutely, Surrey was ignored. Now, when you talk about the year-end money, the $1 billion that went to all municipalities, Surrey received $90 million. All my colleagues from Surrey — they campaigned. They advocated for it, because Surrey needs to pick up. Surrey needs to be rebuilt so that we can do a lot of catching up that we need to do.

Let’s talk about the public transportation.

In 2015, the Mayors Council at that time made a decision that the SkyTrain expansion should go along King George Highway all the way to Newton. That was a decision made by the Mayors Council. What happened? “Why is that line not there?” you will ask. Because the Premier of the day, Christy Clark, said, “No, no, no. I will want to conduct a referendum of people in the Lower Mainland if they wish to continue to expand public transportation along Surrey and other places” — according to the Mayors Council’s recommendations.

The second question was: if you vote in favour, then are you prepared to pay higher taxes? Guess what the result was. Resoundingly no. So no public transportation expansion, SkyTrain or otherwise, to Surrey. The last expansion to Surrey was — does somebody want to guess? — in 1994. King George station was opened in 1994 — 30 years ago.

Now, not only did we say we will build…. John Horgan at that time announced…. It was shared, when it came to funding, one-third, one-third, one-third — federal, provincial and TransLink. Horgan said: “Look, we need to show leadership. We are falling behind. We will convince the federal government to come up with 40 percent. We will come up with 40 percent so that the locals don’t have to carry the heavy load.” That’s the announcement we made, and that’s how we are funding those projects.

You know what? SkyTrain to Langley is being built now. It’s being built. But because of the decision made by then Premier Christy Clark, we are ten years behind. That line should have been working right now, operational along King George Highway, if she had not abdicated her responsibility as a government leader.

[5:10 p.m.]

Let me talk about some of the other…. K to 12. Capital funding. When we formed government in 2017, there were about 7,700 students in portables — 7,700. You know why? Between 2006 and 2010, when the official opposition leader was Minister of Finance, the Surrey Board of Trade was loud and clear to say that you have not approved a single dollar for capital expansion of schools in Surrey between 2006 and 2010. That’s the result: all the portables in there.

The population continued to grow. Students were going up by a 1,000 a year. Horgan said: “We will eliminate those portables because students deserve real classrooms.” Guess what. Since that time, since we formed government, we have built over 12,000 student seats, so all those 7,700 plus some.

All those portables would have been eliminated, except that growth was forecasted, and it didn’t come through. The forecasting done by the local government was about 1,000 students every year, but the last few years it has been like 3,000 students. Surrey is growing, and everyone knows that it’s growing. That’s why we are funding more for schools right now.

The Minister of Education is out there every day making new announcements. So $43 billion in this budget for capital expansions, a record amount. That’s called leadership. That’s called taking action. Let’s talk about 12,000 new seats. That’s the new seats, compared to zero capital dollars between 2006 and 2010.

Let’s talk about health care. I remember when I first ran in 2005, the member from Fleetwood, who was running in Panorama at that time, made a huge issue about a big lineup in Surrey Memorial emergency room, hours and hours of wait. Did they do anything? No. Finally, they had to admit that we need to expand. The Surrey Memorial tower, again, opened in 2011. Third term again. But at that time, they also announced, “Now that we have made the expansion, we don’t need a new hospital” and just went further and sold the land that was purchased many years earlier for that hospital.

Now we’re building a new hospital. That is leadership. Not only are new hospitals being built…. The Minister of Health every day stands up in here and reminds us of the improvements that we are making. Nine hundred new doctors have come on board to take new patients. Is it enough? Not enough. Of course more needs to be done.

Last year 6,300 new nurses have been hired. But the painful thing here when you sit here and listen to that side, here or outside, they talk about that as a big government.

I figure when they talk about big government, they’re talking about those 6,300 new nurses that have been hired to provide the vital health care services that people need, 900 new doctors that came on board, thousands of care aide workers and other health care workers that have been brought in. Because the population is growing and the need is there, we need to bring those people, those professionals in. And they call it a big government.

[5:15 p.m.]

You know what their answer to big government was? I may want to remind everybody here. With the stroke of a pen, no consultation with anybody, they went back on their word, in fact, that we will not rip up collective agreements. They had a mass layoff or termination of some of the lowest health care workers in the province, and 8,500-plus were let go overnight. That’s their solution to big government.

What happened to those men and women who were new Canadians, racialized women? I will tell you a story. I was at the Sikh temple on Westminster Highway in Richmond. I was invited to another event. There were five or six women who came to me, and they just surrounded on me and just kept on saying: “Thank you, thank you and thank you.”

I said: “What are you thanking me for?” They said: “We also have a thank-you event here, thank God, and having a prayer here for a government to bring our jobs back in-house.”

These are the women whose jobs were privatized at that time. There were a couple of them with tears in their eyes. They said: “Now we feel respected again, that our work is valued again. It wasn’t before.” That’s the difference between leadership. That’s the difference of a government working for real people.

There’s so much that still needs to be done. If I touch on my ministry, in the few minutes that I have: WCB changes for workers’ health and safety so injuries are prevented in the first place from occurring — strong preventative measures, followed by strong enforcement, by having more inspectors and enforcement officers hired by WCB. But if you are injured or become sick because of your workplace injury, you are treated with due respect and dignity when you’re having your claim go through the WCB. That is being done.

They talk about a smaller government. One of the actions, I would remind….

Bill 41, we fixed it. One of the actions is that if you were awarded a permanent disability due to your workplace injury, they indexed it to CPI minus 1. What does that mean? Someone who was awarded a $3,000 pension — when the changes were made, with the full CPI, they should have been at about $4,700. But because of CPI minus 1, they were getting about $3,900. It was $700, $800 a month they were falling behind and behind and behind.

That’s inhumane. That’s not being respectful to the working people who run our economy and not respectful for the employer as well. That’s one of those areas.

Time is running out. I had a lot to talk about: employment standards, minimum wages. Minimum wage, when we formed government, was one of the lowest in the country. You know why? For ten years, they froze the minimum wage — ten years — and it was a time when the top wage earners in B.C. received tax breaks.

Now, because of a gradual, predictable recommendation that came from the Fair Wages Commission, we have a minimum wage that is the highest of all provinces. Now we are tying the rate of inflation into the law.

The member from Kelowna earlier talked about Bill 2. What would happen if there’s a negative CPI or negative inflation or deflation? Wages will not go down. To clarify that area, wages will remain the same in that year.

The Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act was brought in, because for many years, these folks were brought in because we need them, but they were made to live in unhealthy conditions, their passports were taken away, they were threatened every day, could not complain to anybody. Now we are providing that protection, because our government’s position is that if you in British Columbia, regardless of your immigration status or what sector you work in, you must be protected with the basic and minimum standards, like all workers are.

[5:20 p.m.]

We’re working with the gig workers now to bring basic protection to ride-hail and food delivery workers. We passed the law. We passed the legislation. We’re developing regulations so that they have a minimum wage protected. They have transparency in how they are paid and what their deductions are, WCB coverage, a fair process for their deactivation or termination and paid-for expenses for them to do their business, which is to bring their own car, gasoline, car repairs and others.

That work is going on, and I’m hoping that that work will be completed by the spring so that those workers also can expect to have a basic minimum standard.

It is always an honour. My time is running out, I know. Eight seconds left.

I just want to say thank you again to the people of Surrey-Newton, to have your faith in me, have your confidence in me and keep on sending me here year after year. I really enjoy the work here.

R. Glumac: I’m honoured today to stand in the House and say a few words about the 2024 budget. This will be our final budget before the next election, and it’s a budget that directly tackles some of the biggest challenges that families in B.C. are facing today. That includes affordability, housing, health care and building a strong, clean economy.

These challenges that families are facing today are a direct result of the mismanagement and reckless cuts to services over 16 years of the B.C. Liberal government. Make no mistake. These challenges are made worse by global inflation. But the people that were there during that time…. You have to remember that immediately when they became government, they cut $4.4 billion from the budget. What’s the impact of that? We’re still feeling the effects of that today.

The same people that were there at that time making those cuts to services supporting families are the same people that claim they have the solutions to fix those problems. They’re on the other side of the House, the very same people.

Our budget that we put together is put together with a different philosophy than that. It’s a different philosophy than that previous government had at that time and that they have today. The primary philosophy is putting people first. We say to the people of British Columbia: “We’ve got your back. We’re here with you to tackle these challenges. We’re here to work with you to address the problems created by the previous government, and we’re doing it in a way that leads the country economically and financially.”

You have to remember that our debt-to-GDP ratio is the third-lowest in the country. We’re addressing these challenges, and we’re doing it in a fiscally responsible way. Our economy is leading the country as well.

Let’s say a few words about the economy. There are a few details that I think would be important to share, just in terms of where we are today economically. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country: 5.4 percent. That’s below the national average.

In the last year, we’ve gained over 70,000 jobs. That’s some of the strongest private sector job growth in the country and strong self-employment growth as well.

Between 2017 and 2022, we had the highest GDP growth among large provinces, at 14.4 percent.

[5:25 p.m.]

We recorded the highest average hourly wages in the country. That’s where we’re at right now.

From 2017 to 2023, our exports increased by 30 percent. From 2017 to 2023, women’s employment grew by over 100,000. We’re leading the country economically, and it’s because of the way we tackle these things.

The philosophy on the other side is to cut taxes for the top 2 percent and then willy-nilly cut services to try to balance the budget, cutting funding here, there and everywhere just to try to make those numbers work. Pull money from ICBC. Pull money from B.C. Hydro. Just try to make it work somehow. That’s their philosophy.

The problem with that is it affects people. It affects the people in British Columbia when you just cut services, you cut funding to health care and education and across-the-board mental health. Madam Speaker, just to give you an example of where things…. Let’s just look at what happened….

Well, before I get to that, actually, why don’t we talk about…? Why don’t we start with affordability? Why don’t we start with what we’re doing in this budget and kind of contrast a little bit to how things were done previously.

One of the biggest challenges people are facing is around affordability. And there are so many initiatives that our government has been undertaking to try to help with affordability, one of which is the B.C. family benefit.

In this budget, we’re including a $248 million one-year B.C. family benefit bonus starting in July. What does that mean for a family of four? Just to give you an example, a family of four would receive up to $2,850. Then with the bonus that we’re putting in this year on top of that, that would rise to as much as $3,563. That’s a family of four. On average, families — this is average — will receive $445 more with this budget.

There are approximately 66,000 more families who will receive the benefit and the bonus this year. That’s 340,000 families in this province that will benefit during the 12-month period. That’s the philosophy that we’re undertaking. We recognize the challenges that people are facing, and we want to address these challenges by working with families, working with people across the province.

If you contrast this to how families, how children, how young people were affected by the budget of the previous government…. Just as an example, they, in their time, cut $187 million from child protection and family development. They cut $34½ million from youth justice and youth services and youth and child mental health. They cut $15.6 million in childhood development and special needs services for kids, just trying to find little areas they could pull money out of the budget because they had to do that tax cut to the rich.

There are many other initiatives that we’re undertaking in this budget, one of which is the B.C. electricity affordability credit. That’s up to $100 on your B.C. Hydro bill that you’re going to get credited back.

[5:30 p.m.]

We’re also increasing the climate action tax credit. So 100 percent of that comes in from the carbon tax increase will be directed into the climate action tax credit. Again, looking at an example: a family of four received $890 last year and will receive $1,005 this year. The majority of people in British Columbia will receive more money back from this climate action tax credit than they’ll pay from carbon tax. Our goal is to reach 80 percent of households in B.C. by 2030 that would receive this credit.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Also in this budget is renters will see up to $400 come back through the B.C. renter’s tax credit. Also, I’m not even mentioning the funding that we’re providing for child care, something that was also cut by the previous government.

Just to look at an example of…. Apart from all of these additions in this budget, if you look at the overall, the net provincial tax that a family is paying…. Let’s take a family with a low income of $30,000 a year. In 2016, that family, when you add up all of the taxes they have to pay, would have had to pay a low tax of $177 back in 2016. Today they actually get a refund of $2,420, another way that we can help support families in British Columbia.

Even at the higher end of the income spectrum, families that are making $100,000…. In 2016, their net provincial tax was $7,473. Today it’s $4,630.

So all of this that we keep hearing from…. I mean, they say it a lot. It’s like: “All these taxes, all these taxes….” You can count up numbers of taxes, but the net tax that a family pays in this province is far lower today than it was under that previous government. Imagine that: that we can actually lower taxes and provide the services that families need in this province. That’s how you run a government.

Another area that I can talk about in this budget is housing. This budget introduces a home-flipping tax. This home-flipping tax will become effective in January. It will be a tax on the profit made from selling residential property within two years of buying it. It’s one of many initiatives that we’re undertaking to try to curb speculation and make sure that homes are for people, not for investment or for speculators.

I mean, this builds on…. We’re changing short-term rentals so that we can’t…. It takes away that incentive to buy property just to rent it out as an Airbnb. We want those properties to be lived in by families, by people.

We’re expanding the speculation tax. We’re capping rent increases below inflation, and we also put together a rental protection fund to help preserve housing that is older stock that, again, has been the target of investors that want to come in and buy up the property and redevelop it to much more expensive housing units than are there. We’re working to protect those units.

[5:35 p.m.]

Contrast this to what happened under the previous government. Now there’s a lot of talk about housing affordability, and it is a challenge. We have to remember that during the time of the B.C. Liberal leadership, the average price of a home went from less than $400,000 to more than $1.8 million in February of 2016. That’s an increase of over 350 percent.

What happened during that time was an incredible amount of speculation that came into the market. Housing prices in Vancouver rose 200 percent faster than New York and even more than most other cities. You have to remember that this is the time when Christy Clark went to China with at least three real estate firms to promote housing speculation in B.C. That’s why we’re dealing with this issue today.

Interjection.

R. Glumac: No, it’s because of speculation that was allowed to grow under the previous government.

Some of them are new. They don’t really know the history, I guess. But it is something that we are working to address, and it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge worldwide, but we’re taking it very seriously with our initiatives that we’re putting in place.

The next part that I’m going to talk about here is some of the initiatives to help with home ownership, some other initiatives in this budget, one of which is property transfer tax exemptions. We have a first-time-homebuyers program, and we are raising the amount of their…. For a home up to $835,000, the first $500,000 is completely exempt from property transfer tax. Our goal there is to try to help young families and new homeowners to get into the market. People purchasing newly constructed homes worth up to $1.1 million will also see lower costs through the newly built home exemption.

Of course, there’s also BC Builds. The Homes for People plan is getting $198 million in new funding for BC Builds. That’ll help create more middle-income housing for families and people. There are a number of other initiatives around housing, obviously, that are underway as well. This is a major part of our work as government to try to address the affordability crisis in housing.

The next area I want to talk about is health care and services. The budget provides over $8 billion over three years to strengthen health care, K-to-12 education, justice and public safety and to also help people who need care and support. The number of initiatives that we are undertaking in health care is not just in this budget. We’ve created a new contract for family doctors. We’re seeing a net new increase in family doctors — quite substantial, 900 new family doctors within the last year. Thousands of new nurses, with allowing some changes in international credentials helping there as well.

We’re also investing not just in the services, but in the capital investments as well. It’s $13 billion over the next three years to support construction of long-term care, acute care and cancer care facilities. We’re getting new cancer care facilities in Surrey, Burnaby, Nanaimo and Kamloops, just to name a few.

[5:40 p.m.]

We are adding $227 million for home health care services and $127 million for community-based services such as Better at Home, which supports seniors with day-to-day tasks.

We’re also funding a first round of in vitro fertilization. That’s going to be starting in April 2025.

We’re investing in mental health and addictions — $117 million to continue funding more than 2,200 community mental health and substance use treatment beds and more than 300 health authority and community care facilities, $49 million to support existing harm reduction initiatives at 49 overdose prevention sites, $39 million to fund peer assisted care teams and integrated mobile crisis response teams. Those were recommendations that came out of the Committee on Reforming the Police Act, which I was happy to be part of.

Before I get on to education, let’s look at how this compares to what they did. Well, there are so many things that they did. I think it was $360 million that they cut from the health care budget during the time that the Leader of the Opposition was Health Minister, but we are continuing to support the health care sector with our budget — and also the K-to-12 schools.

Last year was a big year. There are 13,000 more students that enrolled in schools in British Columbia. Our budget this year invests almost $1 billion for more staff in classrooms to support this growth in children entering into our school system. Students will also be supported with $225 million for the classroom enhancement fund to hire more teachers — including special education teachers, teacher-psychologists and counsellors; and $4.2 billion in capital investments to build, renovate and upgrade schools for seismic upgrades and for playgrounds over the next three years in this capital plan as well.

The previous government actually shut down 197 schools during their time in government. Now we’re struggling to bring these schools back.

This is another example of how we’re trying to address challenges that we’re facing today and that were created by the previous government. They cut $100 million from education in their 2012 budget, the year that the Leader of the Opposition was Finance Minister. What effect did that have on students from that point forward? Imagine the things that had to be cut from our children’s classrooms, just from the decision to eliminate $100 million from their budget. It affected people.

I’m trying to pace this out in a way that I can cover all these topics. Let me move on to our work to build a cleaner economy that supports people. It’s our work to strengthen our economy and to invest in climate action. Our CleanBC program is well known, and this budget supports our commitment to climate action with $318 million to continue to fund grant and rebate programs for clean transportation, energy-efficient buildings and communities, and support the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Now, there’s another $40 million for heat pump rebates for low- and middle-income families, $20 million for active transportation grants to communities, and $30 million to continue the implementation of our electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

[5:45 p.m.]

Climate change, obviously, is something that is going to get worse. It is a primary moral obligation of government to take action on climate change. Meanwhile, on the other side, there’s almost a competition to see who believes less in climate change, between the opposition party and the B.C. Conservatives, the Fourth Party. They’re trying to one-up each other in terms of their interest in outdoing each other in stepping back from commitments on taking action on climate change.

It’s ironic. The leader of the Fourth Party was kicked out of his caucus because he expressed views that questioned whether climate change was real, yet the Leader of the Opposition has publicly stated that in their caucus, it’s okay if you don’t believe that climate change is real, as long as you don’t talk about it publicly. That’s what the leader of the BCUP party is saying.

Our children are inheriting the world that we are leaving to them. For some reason, there’s a lack of interest and a lack of understanding, on the other side of the House, that we need to be taking action on climate change. They don’t seem to understand it. Meanwhile, we’re facing unprecedented flooding events from atmospheric rivers. The Nooksack River flooding that happened in 2021 cost over $1 billion. There’s a cost to that: the forest fires that are raging across the province nearly every summer now, with increasing frequency. There is a cost to climate change. We have the moral responsibility to take action.

We’re also investing in emergency management to help deal with these challenges. That’s in the budget as well — $405 million more, over four years, to bolster the province’s capacity to prepare for and respond to future climate emergencies. This includes $154 million in operating and $21 million in capital funding to support additional wildfire response, recovery and infrastructure resources following B.C.’s record wildfire season in this last year.

Anyway, I am honoured to be part of a government that puts people first. When we think about putting our budget together, we are doing it from the perspective that we understand the challenges that people are facing. We know how hard it can be, whether for families or for small businesses. We’re there for small businesses as well.

We want to have this economy be strong to support families and create jobs in a clean economy, and we’re doing that. The efforts that we’re putting in around CleanBC are paying off. We are becoming global leaders on the new clean economy of the future. I’m so proud to be part of a government that recognizes the importance of taking that action and investing in a new direction, investing in an economy of the future.

[5:50 p.m.]

We don’t have to go backwards. The government that was there before — we don’t have to go back to that. We can keep looking forward. We can keep looking ahead to a bright future. We can keep looking ahead to a future that is better for all British Columbians.

I’m very excited that we’ve had this opportunity, and I hope we have that opportunity to continue this good work.

Question of Privilege
(Reservation of Right)

T. Halford: I reserve my right to raise a question of privilege, specifically to the comments made by the member for Port Moody–Coquitlam. There were a number of issues there, specifically, some of the issues that he raised in terms of speculation and what I would view as pretty hurtful comments directed at a specific region in this world.

Debate Continued

J. Tegart: It is an honour to rise in the House today and deliver my response to Budget 2024. An $8 billion deficit — who would have ever imagined?

I had great hopes of support from this budget, considering the massive amount of spending the government is projecting and the incredible amount of debt that is being added on to the financial red ink that will have to be addressed by our children, grandchildren and, likely, great-grandchildren.

When you sit in the chair at the head of this House and you listen — you actually listen to the debate — I think that British Columbians are looking for a debate that is healthy, that is factual, that shares a vision, that shares concerns. I’m going to share some of the concerns that I have with this budget today.

Fraser-Nicola is a fairly large riding in land base but a very small riding in population. The boundaries begin north of 70 Mile, go south of Hope, over to Gold Bridge and Bralorne and east to Kamloops, take in Merritt, all the way down Highway 3 to the U.S. border — eight municipalities, three regional districts, four school districts, over 32 First Nations bands. All major highways coming out of the Metro Vancouver area drive through Fraser-Nicola.

Our major industries include forestry. I have a mill in Merritt that’s working two days a week because they can’t get permits put through by this government. We have mining. Again, permitting is a major issue. If we are hiring that many more government employees, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed by government in regards to permitting.

Agriculture that sees flooding and drought. Transportation. If you have driven the Fraser Canyon lately…. I have lots of time to stop while we fix the two years since the atmospheric river. Tourism is hurting in my riding, to name a few. My riding has been the epicentre of climate disasters, including multiple years of wildfires, flooding from both freshet and atmospheric rivers, landslides and drought.

Every aspect of the provincial budget impacts the people of my riding, who are resilient, determined and willing to do what it takes to help out neighbours and often strangers.

But I can tell you, hon. Speaker, my people are tired. They are disappointed, and they are looking for results from this budget and from this government.

Let’s talk about affordability. People in my riding are facing the very same challenges of affordability as everyone across the province. Housing and rent costs have skyrocketed, no matter where you live, and housing needs have not kept up with demand. Despite living in an area where many grow their own vegetables and fruit, where we have local farmers and ranchers who produce top-quality meat, grocery prices are unaffordable despite the promises of relief from government.

[5:55 p.m.]

In rural areas, we often have to drive long distances for services. The price of fuel at the gas pumps is unaffordable for so many people. The cost of heating your home has forced many to make choices that they never, ever imagined they would have to make.

This is not the British Columbia we were promised, but it is, unfortunately, the British Columbia we will continue to live with, given the lack of concrete action from this NDP government.

Tell me what actual actions will help my people survive and thrive the next year and the next three years. Nearly all the affordability measures presented in this budget are time-limited, lasting one year only. People are looking for a government that has a long-term vision to help people beyond the election year.

I know that B.C. United has had many discussions about how we can help people in this affordability crisis. How can we leave more money in people’s pockets, making life more affordable? Perhaps by cutting provincial fuel taxes, making gas more affordable. It would save 15 cents per litre.

Groceries have never been more expensive. B.C. United would remove the carbon tax on on-farm fuel use, reducing operational costs for farmers. In conjunction with the elimination of the provincial fuel tax, this will make groceries more affordable for everyone. Removing the carbon tax from home heating.

These savings could happen right now. They don’t involve a convoluted bureaucratic process of application. They just require a government that shows leadership and understanding of where British Columbians find themselves.

It’s not a shell game of increased taxes taken from one pocket and a promise of a little bit of a refund in the other pocket, but first you must apply, jump through the hoops, give up your first-born child, it feels like, sometimes, and the list goes on and on. We all know that there is one taxpayer, and our affordability crisis needs to recognize the need for immediate relief for so many in our society.

Let’s talk health care. The words that come to mind to describe our health care system today are chaos and crisis. Those are words used by the professionals working so hard within the system and by those who are trying to access the system. Doctors, nurses and health care professionals are protesting on the front lawns of this Legislature.

The people of Merritt and area have held many protests on the front lawn of their hospital to show support for their doctors and nurses and to register their concern and anger at the continuous announcements of ER closures from a system in chaos.

The community of Clinton has been asking for improved medical services for years. In 2017, Premier Horgan announced 24-7 ER services at the Ashcroft Hospital site, raising expectations that have never been fulfilled. The community of Lytton, burned to the ground 978 days ago, find themselves in consultation process for what kind of health services they would like brought back to the community. This after a multi-year fight to get what they had before the fire. What I hear from residents is they want what they had. Just get on with it.

Despite the endless announcements and promises by the health ministry, the system continues to crumble, and the people of B.C. are losing faith. At one time, B.C. was the best place in Canada to have cancer, because it was the quality of our professionals and the care given. Today people are dying on wait-lists, and we are sending patients to the U.S. You have to wonder who is leading this health care file.

Let’s talk disaster management. There are a lot of words spoken about climate change in this chamber and the impacts on the land base and on communities. We talk mitigation, planning, crisis management, recovery, the Sendai framework. It’s almost like a new language in itself.

[6:00 p.m.]

But I want to talk about people. Let’s talk about Josh who lives in Cache Creek. His house, along with two others, is located on the side of the Cache Creek, which…. During the floods of 2017, the small bridge was flooded, and our fire chief died on that bridge.

Josh has a young family. In fact, he tells me that he actually brought one of the babies home walking over a homemade walk bridge because he’s waiting for government and for recovery to help with the bridge. Six years later, that kid is going to school now, and they still don’t have a bridge. They don’t have fire protection. They can’t get insurance. And here we sit and wait and wait and wait.

Communities in areas throughout my riding are facing funding challenges when it comes to the cleanup process, the environmental impacts, the riparian rules and regulations. Is this addressed in Budget 2024?

The city of Merritt experienced devastating impacts from the 2021 atmospheric river in November. Their recovery and mitigation planning indicates a major investment needed by the provincial government in order to access the already committed federal dollars. Are those funds for Merritt in this budget? They’re going to lose the commitment from the federal government if this provincial government doesn’t step up. We can talk about mitigation forever. I can tell you that I’ve got some places where those mitigation talks could make a difference. Put some funds where the talk is.

I also want to talk about the village of Lytton. If this is an example of government action or inaction in emergency management, the government should hang its head in shame. As I listen closely to the responses to the 2024 budget from government members, I hear the words: “We’ve got your back. We are building an unprecedented number of houses, new schools, new health sites, new government services.” And I think about the village of Lytton.

Let me share the reality of living in Lytton, or wishing you could go home. Lytton residents have been out of their home for 978 days. Let me repeat that for you and give you a moment to think about it: 978 days. That’s 32 months and two weeks. That’s three Christmases not at home. Birthdays, anniversaries that have not been spent in your home community with your family.

Not one house has been built. Government has spent incredible amounts of money — to date, I understand it’s over $40 million — and not a house built. How can that be? How can anyone on the government side think that’s okay? And because no one’s in charge, you can’t hold anyone accountable. People have died waiting to go home.

The community rebuild is paralyzed by a lack of provincial government leadership. All the right words are said over and over again. But it is paralysis by analysis, bureaucracy gone amok, with no clear processes or accountabilities. I would just love for someone on that side of the House to stand up and say: “I’m going to take this on.”

Property owners are frustrated with the lack of information and clear processes. People are making decisions to sell their property due to no clear timelines on when this is going to end and someone take some responsibility.

Is there any help in this budget for the people of Lytton? Has government learned anything from their lack of leadership on this file? From their lack of results?

[6:05 p.m.]

From their lack of process? From their lack of accountability? From their very visible lack of commitment to get this community rebuilt?

Nine hundred and seventy-eight days ago you promised. Shame on you. To say I’m disappointed in Budget 2024 for the people of Fraser-Nicola is an understatement.

K. Paddon: I’m very pleased to stand, and I think I might get the last word of the day, and speak in favour of Budget 2024. We all know — everybody in this House knows — how incredibly difficult the last years have been.

One of the things I’m very grateful for is how generous my community is with sharing their individual experiences, their stories, with me so that I can carry them here in the work that we’re doing. I know that so many of us have the benefit of the generosity and the heart and the wisdom of the people that we serve when we carry their words and their experiences back here. It’s with those in mind that not only do we make decisions around policy and debate legislation, but we can reflect on Budget 2024.

I would be remiss if I dug into this huge amount of work that this budget represents without saying thank you to the people that make it possible. I know, hon. Speaker, you’re aware that I have the privilege of serving in the Ministry of Finance as the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity and, as such, get to go into that office and, during budget time, long before actual budget time, see the incredible work of the amazing team there.

It’s not only in the ministry office but all of that work that reflects the incredible commitment and dedication of the public service — and the consultations, all of the voices that went into contributing to what ought to be the priorities of our government, of this place, as we move forward with the last budget before the election in the fall.

Knowing how very, very difficult the last few years have been, choosing to invest in people, choosing to take care of people, choosing to stay together as best we could in the face of multiple emergencies, multiple crises, was the right choice. I can’t imagine…. Or I won’t imagine, I guess where we would be if we had made a different choice, to not be there for people. As hard, as difficult, as things are and have been, the options and the doors that we have ahead of us and that we see being worked on in Budget 2024 simply wouldn’t exist.

Those pathways simply wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the work that we’ve been doing taking care of people up until now. So with all of that in mind, when I think about the budget, I think about small businesses and about families. These are not the only things that I think about or that are involved in the budget, but I know I hear from our small business owners in Chilliwack-Kent, and as a mother and a daughter and a sister, I think about family a lot, so I know that I’m watching neighbours struggle.

What I am so very proud of with this government and with this budget is that despite how difficult things are, this budget is a reflection of values of investing in people. We as a province find ourselves economically in a better position because of those investments in people.

[6:10 p.m.]

We’re taking action to ease everyday costs for people. In the face of global inflation, our government has focused on easing the pressure of everyday costs for people so that people can build a good life here.

That is not to say that it’s easy. There is nothing in this budget that would suggest that we are not all collectively and together going through an incredibly difficult time. We hear the stories from our constituents. We hear the worries from people.

I’m very fortunate that I get the benefit of perspective in my home from two teenagers who definitely have a different outlook, maybe, than I do, have a very different outlook than most of my colleagues. It is humbling and refreshing when they ask questions that usually centre around why. Why does it matter? Why are they saying that? Why is there this disagreement? Then there’s what. What does it mean?

When it comes to the budget, that’s incredibly, incredibly important, because although we’ve heard conversations around what’s going to be hard, when we know things are hard right now…. That’s why we’re taking this action, because we hear concern and what-ifs and what-abouts.

While I want to honour the real experiences and the individual situations, I also find myself having to explain to my kids the current political climate that is colouring the analysis and the debate of this, our Budget 2024, this budget that focuses on taking care of people, and trying to frame it in a way that leaves it open for discussion or opinion or differences, having to explain to my teenagers who…. One will be voting in the next election and the other very soon after that.

What I see in the debate, in the rhetoric, in the comments to the media, in the mistakes made in the opposition’s analysis in front of the media is that we seem to have voices, two loudest voices…. One voice is racing to the fringes and the extremes of shock and rage farming, and the other voice can’t decide what to be mad about in order to stay relevant and so, instead, is mad at everything. That is the conversation about the budget and why people are saying what in these debates.

Now, I’ve had questions from my constituents. I’m going to hop around a little bit, because I am aware of my time, and I want to make sure I get different pieces in here.

My colleagues have been very generous in canvassing so many elements of the budget, but the number one question I get from my constituents is: “Okay, what does it mean here? Can you tell us what we’ve seen invested here, what’s coming, what we’re going to be seeing over the next few months?”

I am so very excited. This is not in any of my notes because it was just announced today. But Chilliwack, after years of advocacy, has been selected as a site for a Foundry centre. In my community, I have amazing advocates and incredibly powerful, loud voices who are so great at rallying support. This is a huge win for not only our community but for the youth in our community, for the future of our community. So I’m just very excited about that and definitely have to mention it.

I want to talk about things that…. I think a word I heard — I’m not sure which day it was; in the last few days of debate — was around practical. What tangible…? I’m paraphrasing. But what can we see? What can we touch? What can we feel from this budget for Chilliwack and Chilliwack-Kent?

Hon. Speaker, as I’m sure you can imagine, like so many of our ridings, both of the Chilliwack ridings are inextricably linked. So some of these cross barriers or encompass the entire region.

[6:15 p.m.]

Budget 2024. When we’re looking at capital investment, we’re looking at what people are going to be able to see around Chilliwack-Kent and Chilliwack. At Sardis Secondary — I graduated from Sardis Secondary; go Falcons — there’s a two-story addition. This will create 400 new spaces for students, and renovating the gym at the school, bringing the capacity to 1,600.

We’re investing $40.1 million in this climate-friendly mass timber project. We’re going to see a new east side elementary.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

This is going to be 500 students in kindergarten to grade 5. This is after we’ve already seen investments like the expansion of G.W. Graham, with 250 new student spaces; an addition provided for Vedder Elementary with 240 new spaces; Imagine High arts and technology; Stitó:s Elementary. There have been so many investments.

When we talk about housing, we’re talking about programs, or investments, like Paramount housing. Every time I drive by downtown Chilliwack and see the Paramount housing, it’s incredibly exciting.

We talk about housing that we developed in partnership with Ch’íyáqtel First Nation. That was amazing. We talk about things like the wellness centre, which is an incredible testament to Chilliwack, and a new way of doing things, and has required our government to be nimble and responsive.

B.C. is an incredible place to live, and arguably Chilliwack-Kent is definitely among the best. We have so much opportunity. And while we are an economic leader, we know that people are facing big challenges. I’m so grateful to the constituents who come into my office to share their experience.

We’re taking action to make things a little bit easier. I know that I’ve only got a few minutes, so I won’t take too much longer, but I just want to highlight the high points for anyone who might be watching and confused, as I was saying, about why we’re hearing certain voices sharing certain messages. Here are some pieces of information that will be useful to families and individuals.

The B.C. family benefit bonus. For one year, we are adding up to $450 more a year for families and helping 25 percent more families. There is the B.C. electricity affordability credit, saving families an average of $100 over the next year on their power bills. The first-time-homeowners program is now available on homes up to $835,000, saving up to $8,000 on property transfer tax. A flipping tax because homes are for families.

Employer health tax. This is a big one, and I’ve heard so much positive feedback around this, cutting small business taxes by raising the employment health tax exemption threshold from $500,000 to $1 million. And the climate action tax credit, increasing it so if a family of four received $890 last year, they’ll receive $1,005 this year.

There are so many things to canvass. I would definitely encourage people in Chilliwack and Chilliwack-Kent to reach out to your MLA if you’re wondering how this budget impacts you, specifically your family, your situation, whether you’re a senior, a small business, somebody who’s just starting out or if you have a family still at home.

If you have any questions about why you’re hearing certain rhetoric, it is an election year, but make sure that you reach out to your MLA. Question the messages that you’re hearing. And there are absolutely resources available.

I am in full support of Budget 2024. It acknowledges where we are without cutting services in order to try to make things look like they work. We understand very clearly what happens and how long it takes to clean up the mess of cutting services and hurting people to try to make things look good on the surface, and we’ve made a different choice. We will not turn our backs on people.

The Speaker: Noting the hour, Member, you can move adjournment of debate.

K. Paddon moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. B. Bailey moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:20 p.m.