The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers and reflections: Hon. Bowinn Ma.

Introductions by Members

Hon. Ravi Parmar: It’s always a pleasure to be able to rise in the House and talk about the sports capital of the world, the city of Langford.

May 19 — a big day. Tickets are going out soon. Starlight Stadium is the place to be. The B.C. Lions are playing a preseason game in Langford. I’m really excited, because I don’t have to drive to Victoria. It was fun to be in Victoria for the game last time, but it’s always nice when it’s in your backyard.

It was great to have George Chayka, senior vice-president of business, and Jamie Taras, director of community partnership, to have lunch with the Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Mining and myself.

Anyone who’s in town on the 19th, come on out to Langford to cheer on the Lions.

[1:35 p.m.]

Elenore Sturko: I see a couple of familiar faces up in the gallery. It’s the mayor of Surrey, Her Worship, Mayor Brenda Locke, and her chief of staff, Christy Warrick. Very nice to see you here in Victoria, advocating for our city of Surrey.

Will the House please join me in making them both feel very welcome?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: It’s a real honour today to introduce members of the United Steelworkers union who are in attendance with us here today and who will be on the precinct for a couple of days.

United Steelworkers is the largest private sector union in North America, with more than 225,000 members across Canada. I really want to thank them for joining us today. I want to thank their members for all of the work that they do across resource sectors and service sectors. They are important partners in our fight against the tariffs.

We’re joined by Phil Ducharme, Adam Connell, Todd Shultis, Tyler Fitzpatrick, Mary Jackson, Michael Phillips, Ross Brown, Brian O’Rourke, Rod Park, Chris Walker, Ron McKenzie, Jason Cox, Al Bieksa, Aman Chumber, Tamara Marshall, Veronica Tanner, Jeff Mather, Gord Haine, Keith Carson, Frank Roseger, Scott Lunny, Mike Duhra, Dean Lott, Cindy Lee, Debra Burton, Sean Ball, Jayson Little, Julia McKay, Ed Kent, Brad Thompson, Jeff Bromley and Brett Barden.

Would the House please join me in making them very welcome?

Hon. Randene Neill: I am so delighted at the opportunity today to welcome someone whose work we in the government and my ministry value so much. Mike Meneer, the president and CEO of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, is gracing our halls and our gallery this afternoon.

As we all know, as British Columbians, salmon is in our blood, in our ecosystems, our economy, and the way of life for people of all backgrounds. It was actually Mike who told me that my own riding, Powell River–Sunshine Coast, is actually home to all five salmon species in B.C.

I would ask the House to join me in welcoming Mike Meneer to our provincial Legislature.

Linda Hepner: I would like to recognize in the House today my best friend and husband, and luckily they’re the same person, Alan MacMillan, who has retired from the director of student services of Emily Carr University in order to occasionally pick up my dry cleaning.

Please welcome him to the House this afternoon.

Kristina Loewen: Today it’s my pleasure to welcome somebody who helped on my campaign door-knocking, and I really appreciated his expertise, having served door-knocking in other areas. Today I have Brendon Lumgair here from Kelowna Centre. As well, he has brought his parents, Barry and Darlene, and they’re from Beacon Hill.

Please join me in welcoming them today.

Hon. Christine Boyle: Joining us in the gallery today are Jeff McCarthy and Alexis Carpenter, two remarkable constituents from Vancouver–Little Mountain, who have chosen Victoria as their holiday destination in lieu of Seattle. Jeff and Alexis, now retired and semi-retired, enjoyed long careers in the biotech industry, where they’ve made significant impact through their distinguished careers in British Columbia. Jeff focused in both biotech as well as wood and paper products research and Alexis in chemistry manufacturing and controls.

I would ask that the House make them welcome.

Hon. Garry Begg: It’s always nice to welcome old friends back to this House, and I’m able to do that today. My former assistant in the Whip’s office, Raj Virk, is here today, and I would like the House to make her really welcome.

The Speaker: Member for Kamloops–North Thompson. No? Surrey-Panorama.

[1:40 p.m.]

Bryan Tepper: We’ll get that right soon.

I rise today to express how pleased I am that Prince George resident Jasper Sunshine, a popular YouTuber best known as mistersunshinebaby, is with us today. Please make this Canadian patriot and independent commentator feel most welcome.

Hon. Bowinn Ma: [A language other than English was spoken] is just one of several ways to wish somebody a very happy Nowruz, the Persian New Year.

For those of us who were in the Hall of Honour today, you will know that a wonderful celebration of Nowruz was put on by several members of the community who have now joined us in the gallery. I would like to introduce each of them by name.

We have Kamy Amir Teymourian — you’re welcome to stand as you’re recognized — Arash Kamancheh; Arisa Fakharzadeh; Arnika Sadeghiannejad; Mehrdad Majidi; Melody Teymourian; Mona Rajabi; Mosi Gharbaghi; Narin Naghdi; Ramin Bahrami; Soheila Ebrahimi; and the artistic director of AMED Dance Academy, who put all of the displays and the entire event together under the support of Mr. Speaker of course, Pooneh Alazadi.

Would the House please join me in making them feel very welcome.

Trevor Halford: I’m always privileged and honoured when I have guests and friends that are joining me today. Somewhere here in this House are — and there they are right there — Ian and Janice Routledge. I’m proud to call them constituents, and I’m proud to call them friends.

I ask that the House make them welcome today.

Hon. Josie Osborne: I have two introductions to make today.

First of all, I’m really pleased to rise to welcome Jason Jackson, the provincial president of the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., and Warren Leeder, who is their Health and Wellness director.

As members know, the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., CUPE 873, is the union that represents ambulance paramedics and emergency dispatchers working across the province for B.C. emergency health services. This is no easy task, given the growth that this organization has undergone since 2017 thanks to investments by our government. The total number of paramedics has increased from 3,700 to 5,100 today — almost 1,700 more full-time and permanent paramedics that are helping to keep people safe during medical emergencies. We are so grateful for their service.

Would the House please help me make them feel very welcome today.

For my second introduction today, it is my pleasure to introduce four representatives who are joining us from the B.C. Lung Foundation. They are president and CEO Christopher Lam, senior manager Kira Rowsell, board chair Tom DeSorcy and board member Mike Ellis.

The B.C. Lung Foundation and the Ministry of Health have a long-standing and very successful partnership in caring for the respiratory health of all British Columbians. The profound impact of programs like QuitNow and their extensive work done on youth vaping are highlights that we’re going to continue to explore and improve as we all work together to improve lung health for British Columbians for generations to come.

Would the House please help me make them feel very welcome as well.

Teresa Wat: I would like to, on behalf of our official opposition party leader and our whole caucus, welcome the Iranian delegation for coming to this Legislature today to celebrate Nowruz with all of us.

Thank you to the Premier and Minister of Infrastructure and the Green Party leader for also attending and speaking at the celebration.

Nowruz Mobarak.

Hon. George Chow: Joining us today in the gallery are two very important members of the Citizens’ Services team: Vivian Thomas, our communication director; and communication manager, Jennifer Fernandes.

[1:45 p.m.]

They’re with us today to mark a very significant milestone. After 36 years of public service and 25 years in B.C. government communication, Vivian is retiring this Friday. Vivian spent 19 years in communications in the Ministry of Forests, four years with Social Development and Poverty Reduction and capped her career in the past two years in the best ministry: Citizens’ Services. I’d like to thank Vivian for writing my speeches — they were perfect — and her hard work.

Please join me in wishing her the very best in her new chapter of life.

Bruce Banman: This House has heard me talk about my grandchildren more than once. Today it is my favourite granddaughter’s birthday — I have one granddaughter — the marine biologist, who I love deeply, who makes me proud every day. In honour of her, I wore my Donald Duck socks that she gave me for Christmas.

Would this House please give very warm birthday wishes to Kenadee Maxwell.

Kiel Giddens: Following the Minister of Labour, I also want to welcome to the gallery all of the members of the United Steelworkers who are here today. I was actually formerly a steelworker myself, so I know the contributions that they make to communities large and small across the province.

Will the House please give them another round of applause today in the House.

Susie Chant: Members on both sides of the House took part in a great event last night: the B.C. Care Awards. We’ve got a number of guests here from that group, including the award winners from the B.C. Care Providers.

The board president, Marc Kinna, is here. The president and CEO — some of you may know this name — Terry Lake, is here. And it’s great to have him. He and his team did a great job of putting together a wonderful event last night. Cathy Szmaus, Lara Croll, Andrea Mameri, Jamie Lozano, Tiffany Trownson — all here.

And the award winners such as Dina Alvarado, Lisa Bysterveld, Avril McLeod, Lisa Dawson, Maureen McIntosh, Nancy Webb and Nitin Jain are all here.

I wish that everybody will make the people from the B.C. Care Providers welcome, congratulate the winners of the B.C. Care Awards and thank them so much for the service that they do for our province.

Dallas Brodie: Last night at the B.C. Care Awards ceremony, a constituent of mine in Vancouver-Quilchena, Maureen McIntosh, was presented with the 2024 Ed Helfrich Long-Service Excellence Award. Maureen, who has joined us here today, is president of The Care Group, senior living and care. For four decades, she has been a champion of quality care for seniors.

Please join me with a congratulatory welcome for Maureen McIntosh.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: I, too, would like to welcome my spouse. My husband, Bijan Sanii, is here on the precinct. He was here to support me yesterday in delivering my first budget.

But I want to point out that Bijan, in addition to being a wonderful supportive spouse, has been a leader in our technology sector in British Columbia for more than 40 years, has built six businesses and today is leaving here to go to the Lieutenant Governor’s mansion to receive his King Charles III’s Coronation Medal— so very well deserved.

I’m so proud of you, my love.

Please join me in congratulating Bijan Sanii.

Donegal Wilson: I will follow Minister Neill’s welcome to Mike Meneer and his staff from the Pacific Salmon Foundation. They are here today on the precinct and presented to our caucus this morning and gave us a great presentation on the state of salmon in B.C. We look forward to working with them on improving salmon stocks in B.C.

Harwinder Sandhu: Today my son, Avishaan, turns nine. It’s his birthday today. Of course, like many moms, I’m so proud. He’s kind, caring, loving and such a brilliant little guy.

[1:50 p.m.]

Besides being my French tutor, he’s also my fill-in CA. He knows politics so well. Last week adults were confused about party leaders, and he said the Leader of the Opposition’s name so eloquently, correcting them on who the leader is for the opposition. I thought I don’t talk politics that much, but….

Avishaan is used to me being away for his birthdays, whether I was working in health care or now as a second-term MLA. But this time he expressed his feelings. He was so sad that I’ll be gone again. So I did promise him that all members of this House — across the aisle and the government caucus — will wish him a very happy birthday.

Would the House please join me to wish my son a very happy birthday today.

Members’ Statements

War in Ukraine and
Support for Ukrainians

Susie Chant: I would like to acknowledge that I’m speaking on the lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən people, specifically the Songhees and SXIMEȽEȽ.

I live and work in North Vancouver–Seymour, home to the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and the səlilwətaɬ Nations.

On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin unleashed an unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It shattered peace and stability, violating international law. Three years of fighting, destruction, sacrifice and loss. Bombs and tanks aimed to break Ukraine. They have only strengthened Ukraine’s resolve. The people have demonstrated resilience, strength and courage while defending their country, their land and their independence, fighting for democracy and peace. They continue to need our support.

In my riding of North Vancouver–Seymour, we have citizens who support Ukraine in remarkable ways.

On Monday, when I spoke of the district of North Vancouver firefighters, I didn’t realize that their service extends internationally to those in need. Last October CJ Summers and Ryan Svendsen partnered with Firefighter Aid Ukraine and travelled to Ukraine to teach over 60 students rope rescue training in abandoned buildings, on mountains, scaling cliffs and performing high lines. The fire department fundraised to cover the costs of new harnesses, rigging mechanisms, ropes and other safety gear for Ukraine’s emergency services, with an additional $10,000 raised through the Firefighters Charitable Society.

And 84-year-old Margaret Davies knitted 200 toques for the UHelp Ukraine Society, which sends supplies to civilians. Margaret spent World War II between her parents’ café and a bomb shelter in England. She was six. Food was scarce. Her parents shared what they had with the neighbours. After armistice, they received a gift of Canadian apples, a kindness she has never forgotten.

From North Vancouver–Seymour, from British Columbia and from Canada: we support you, and we are all hoping for the lasting peace that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Ukraine, you are not alone. We stand with Ukraine today, tomorrow and always. Slava Ukrayini.

Harry Greenwood

Lynne Block: Where can you swim in a sparkling ocean in the morning and ski at the top of a mountain in the evening? Where do you find grateful immigrants like me from all over the world, appreciative of new opportunities and democratic freedoms? Where is there a strong culture of volunteerism, of service and of doing the right thing? Where? In my beautiful riding of West Vancouver–Capilano.

One person who epitomizes service, volunteering and doing the right thing is a long-time resident of my riding, Harry Greenwood. Born in Scotland, Harry, at 17 years old, joined the navy to fight in World War II. After surviving D-Day and the horrors of war, Harry wanted new opportunities, and so, like my parents, my sister and I, he emigrated to Canada.

Here on the north shore, Harry has made an indelible impression, serving, mentoring and volunteering, being named super trustee by the West Vancouver Memorial Library, Citizen of the Year by the West Vancouver Chamber of Commerce and honoured by the Royal Canadian Legion, as well as the recipient of the Legion of Honour medal from the French government in 2014.

[1:55 p.m.]

Today I am recognizing and thanking Harry Greenwood for his incredible contributions and service during his lifetime.

On April 18, Harry Greenwood turns 100 years old. But make no mistake. Harry’s memory is still razor-sharp, with Harry being able to regale you with many stories, including that of his first day of school when he was 4½ years old — I’ve heard it.

On behalf of everyone here, I thank him from the bottom of my heart for all that he has contributed in his lifetime. I wish Harry Greenwood, on behalf of us all, a very happy 100th birthday.

Castlegar Community Services

Steve Morissette: Throughout British Columbia, we all have organizations that are critical to coordinating and providing services to our communities.

Castlegar Community Services is one of these. I’d like to highlight them today. This organization provides a multitude of services throughout the area, led by Executive Director Reidun Rosi and a volunteer board of directors.

Currently, they operate 17 active programs, some of which are the Better at Home program for seniors, run by a couple of tireless workers, Sandi McCreight and Michelle Postnikoff; the Castlegar youth action network, which has been stewarded by Zoe Mackay for years; the affordable housing project, working with the Castlegar city council for a new shelter for the unhoused this year — this while Deb McIntosh and team do a great job in challenging circumstances to manage the current winter shelter, helping as many vulnerable people as possible; police-based victim services with Kayla Ferguson, servicing people that have suffered trauma or crime; Safe Home for Domestic Violence with Camela Cowan; sexual abuse intervention counselling for children, with Martine Oosting.

They also manage a valuable West Kootenay volunteer driver program. This program provides daytime, Monday through Friday, volunteer driver service throughout most of the West Kootenay area for essential non-emergency appointments.

We also have women’s outreach and support run by Nicole Maskerine. This program provides multiple services for women, from housing searches, referrals to community services, transportation and access to safe homes and transition houses. This is a snapshot of a few of their programs, run by committed individuals who put their heart and soul into helping our communities.

Thank you, Castlegar Community Services. You are awesome.

Alice Maitland

Sharon Hartwell: I rise today to remember a remarkable leader from the Bulkley Valley–Stikine riding, Alice Maitland, the longest-serving mayor in our province. Alice passed away at the age of 91 after dedicating over 42 years of service to the village of Hazelton.

Alice’s journey in local politics began in 1956 when she played a pivotal role in mapping out property locations for the village’s official recognition as a municipality. In those early days, the northwest was still developing, and it was visionaries like Alice and her family who laid the foundation for the communities we know today.

I had the privilege of working alongside Alice for 20 years, first as councillor, then as mayor. Alice was passionate, not just about Hazelton but about all of northern British Columbia. She fought tirelessly for her community and the surrounding region, always advocating for what was best for the people that she served. She was a leader and a mentor to many, and her legacy is especially significant for women in politics.

Alice’s daughter Julie has now taken up her mother’s mantle, serving as the current mayor of Hazelton. I have no doubt that she will continue her mother’s legacy with the same dedication and passion.

Alice and I also worked on key initiatives like the trades program at the Hazelton college, helping train First Nations youth for jobs in industries like mining and forestry. Through our work, we secured funding from both government and industry, ensuring future opportunities for young people in the region.

Hazelton, known as the totem pole capital of the world, is home to many cultural and historical landmarks, such as the Ksan Historical Village and the Hagwilget Bridge. These are just some of the many legacies Alice helped build.

[2:00 p.m.]

Alice was a champion for rural communities, and her contributions will continue to shape the future of this region. She leaves behind a lasting legacy of service, leadership and love for the community she called home. May we honour her memory by continuing the work she began.

Fraser Street and Work of
South Hill Business Association

Mable Elmore: In the face of global uncertainties, the importance of protecting our local economies by shopping and buying locally has never been greater. In my riding in Vancouver-Kensington, growing and building resilience for community-based and independent businesses has been part of the community’s history and DNA. Today 100 businesses are thriving on the stretch of Fraser Street from East 41st Avenue to East 50th Avenue, in what is the most culturally diverse shopping district in the city of Vancouver.

Based on one historical account, Fraser Street is one of Vancouver’s oldest roads, which began as a muddy wagon path in 1875 in the South Hill neighbourhood of what was then the municipality of South Vancouver. Linking two former First Nations trails that we now call Kingsway and Southwest Marine Drive, Fraser Street grew to become the business district of South Hill. In 1929, the municipality of South Vancouver amalgamated with Vancouver to form the Vancouver city we now know, and South Hill came to be known then as the Sunset neighbourhood.

I wish to commend the South Hill Business Association for the great work it’s doing to help local establishments to flourish and serve members of the community. Doing business as Sunset on Fraser, to reflect the rich history of the neighbourhood, the business association has created one of the most eye-catching streets in Vancouver, offering a dynamic shopping experience through artwork and banners, and organizing local community events. They’ll be co-hosting the Lapu-Lapu Day block party next month. Everyone’s invited for that.

In the area, shopping and dining go together. The Sunset on Fraser offers an extraordinary range of whatever you could find for your palate, including culinary choices from Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, South Asian, Mexican and more.

I want to extend kudos to Rob Nijjar, the hard-working executive director of the South Hill Business Association, their executive members, all the volunteers and the participating businesses, the whole team, for making sure that our neighbourhood businesses remain strong and continue to grow.

Remembrance of RCMP
Officer Deaths in Mayerthorpe

Bryan Tepper: We all get busy in our lives and forget important events, and it just happened to me today. I haven’t been looking at social media very much. I opened it, and I saw a post from a friend of mine, Lee Johnson, about our police.

I appreciate allowing this last-minute change.

I want to read directly from his post on Facebook:

“RCMP Const. Leo Johnston was probably already shot, bleeding and on his back dying, his colleagues falling around him, as James Roszko sprayed the steel shed they were in with gunfire. But the 32-year-old ace marksman from Lac La Biche, Alberta, still managed to draw his gun, aim at Roszko and fire.

“Outside court, RCMP Supt. Brian Simpson said, ‘Regardless of the outcome, Johnston set an example.’

“‘The warrior spirit, fighting to the end, trying to save himself, trying to save his fellow officers and doing what he could under extreme circumstances,’ said Simpson, who was representing the Alberta RCMP at the hearing.”

That just speaks a lot about the character of the individuals who were there that day, and I think it speaks a lot about the individuals that enter the career of policing. We have many of us in this House.

I would just like to make sure we take a moment to remember Const. Leo Johnston and prayers for all of the people who died that day and their families.

Ministerial Statements

Response to U.S. Tariffs

Hon. David Eby: We face today in Canada and in British Columbia an economic crisis that is unprecedented in our lifetime. The President of the United States is imposing unfair and unjustified tariffs on B.C. and Canadian imports. He’s tearing up a trade agreement that he himself negotiated during his first term. He’s declaring economic war on a friendly neighbour. It is a betrayal of the worst kind.

[2:05 p.m.]

The U.S. President is causing turmoil here in Canada, at home and around the world. One day he says that the tariffs are imposed for a particular reason; the next day, a different reason. The government of Canada responds to his concerns, and then a new pretext is delivered by the President. They make demands; they change the demands; there are new demands. The one consistent demand is that there’ll be no tariffs, as long as Canada becomes the 51st state. It will never be the 51st state.

The White House continues to move the goalposts. This is no way to conduct business, let alone to negotiate with a friend and a neighbour.

The behaviour by the White House is chaotic in looks and in how it feels here. That’s the point. It is a crude negotiating tactic being used as a club to try to create fear and mistrust among Canadians. It’s designed to break our resolve, but we will never break. I rise to reassure British Columbians, in this chamber, that we remain steadfast. We will do anything necessary to protect British Columbian families and the jobs they depend on.

It’s important to be clear about the moment that we face. For generations, our two nations have been friends and trading partners. We share links of love and family and commerce. When there’s an emergency facing America, we step up. We go and fight the wildfires. On 9/11, we supported Americans who were stranded. Americans have always done the same for us.

We’ve strengthened the bond between our two countries over generations. In fact, in our province, at the biggest border crossing, there’s a monument called the Peace Arch. It separates the cities of Blaine, Washington and Surrey, British Columbia. Within that monument, there are two ceremonial iron gates. The inscription reads: “May these gates never be closed.”

The monument celebrates 100 years of peace between our nations, and we’ve had another 111 years since then. Have any two nations in history ever had such a fruitful and prosperous relationship as Canada and the United States? Yet now we have a friend behaving as a foe and, sadly, in this we are not alone. Nearly every country in the world is being threatened by this American President.

There can be no doubt about the intent of the tariffs. They are intended to weaken us as a nation. It is a precarious moment, and we have to make decisions with great care. The stakes are too high. We’ll be guided by our values, we’ll work hard, we’ll respect our neighbours, we’ll be faithful and truthful friends, and our word will be our bond.

We will extend the hand of friendship to everyone in the world who seeks freedom and peace. This is how to protect British Columbian businesses and families: by sticking to the values that have served us so well, so far.

We have taken the time we’ve had since the President’s first tweet to prepare for this moment. We are ready; we are responding. We’re responding to this unprecedented attack with record investments in infrastructure and by accelerating projects across the province, because the most important support that government can give to families right now is a good-paying job.

We’re doing this work hand in hand with business, labour and Indigenous leadership. We’re removing international trade barriers…. Pardon me. We’re working on that, too.

We’re removing internal trade barriers within our own province and in partnership with provinces and territories across Canada — a long-overdue move. We’re ramping up the Buy B.C. campaign, so that British Columbians can choose to support B.C. businesses and farmers.

We’re working with a Team Canada approach to deliver the message to Americans that this hurts American families as much as it hurts Canadians, with higher prices, less employment and less prosperity on both sides of the border. We’ve removed alcohol produced in Republican states from the shelves of our B.C. Liquor Stores, pulling Florida rum, Texas vodka, Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky bourbon from our shelves to show the President’s allies about the integrated nature of our relationship.

[2:10 p.m.]

We do this not because we’re malicious but because we refuse to surrender. When it comes to what we buy as a government, we’re ensuring that we buy Canadian first, as are our schools, our health authorities and Crown corporations.

We’re going to continue to diversify our trading partners around the world so that we never again are beholden to the actions of one person in the White House.

Let’s remind members that this trade agreement that the President has ripped up is the trade agreement that he negotiated. He said there’ll be no tariffs if Canada becomes the 51st state. This is not an invitation to negotiate. That is a threat.

We will not be shaken by these threats. Canada will remain a sovereign nation. We’ll address this issue with Canadian solutions, the Canadian way. Canadians are as united today as we have ever been. We fought wars in the ‘40s. We celebrated our centennial in the ‘60s with a new flag. We celebrate hockey victories.

Canadians are not quick to anger. We don’t seek strife. We see it in our founding document. It gives the parliament power to “make laws for peace, order and good government.” Not very dramatic stuff but core to the Canadian personality and identity. We will not be dictated to. We will not be intimidated by bullies.

Everybody in this place knows how fortunate we are to live in British Columbia, blessed by geography, blessed with resources, blessed by our most important resource, the people who call this place home and make it what it is.

We will come through this together because we are stronger together. We’ll protect the services that people rely on. We’ll have a stronger, even more diversified economy in the future. And we will prevail. We will endure what comes next because all of us know what we’ve built together is worth preserving.

Last weekend Canadian comedian Mike Myers was on Saturday Night Live. He wore a T-shirt that said “Canada is not for sale,” and he mouthed the words to the cameras, “elbows up.” For those of you who may not be hockey fans, elbows up means the other team is trying to take advantage. If they come at you, they’re going to feel it.

As Canadians, we have a reputation for politeness. We’re polite, sometimes to a fault, but it is a grave mistake to see that politeness as weakness. We will always be the true north, strong and free, with our elbows up.

John Rustad: I wish I wasn’t giving a statement today. Clearly, the tariffs, the impact that will have on the people in British Columbia is wrong. It is something that we need to push back on.

We need to stand and protect people in British Columbia. We need to protect people in Canada. We are Canadians. We are British Columbians.

I can say this, and I will echo the words of the Premier: the 51st state is not on. I will not and I know our caucus will never accept the idea of being the 51st state of the United States.

There are hard days ahead of us; there’s no question. Unfortunately, we’re in a very vulnerable position. We’ve had somebody who has smacked us across the head, and unfortunately, our hands have been tied behind our back, because we have been left vulnerable.

It is unfortunate that we are in this situation, because Canada and British Columbia have all the strength that we could ever want. Canada is the tenth-largest economy in the world — tenth largest. It is a powerhouse. It has the potential to be a powerhouse, but it has been held back.

British Columbia is incredibly vulnerable. We need to do everything we can to stop this vulnerability, to make sure that we look after our people in British Columbia and, as part of Canada, to make sure that we are there for all Canadians. But we have been held back.

[2:15 p.m.]

In the last couple of years, between 20 and 30 percent of the electricity we consume comes from the United States. That’s a vulnerability that we should not have. That’s a vulnerability and a failure of government and government policies.

Close to half the food we consume comes from the United States. We’re vulnerable. We need to be doubling our food production. We need to be doing everything we can to support our local farmers, driving down those cost structures, so that we can look after our own people and not be vulnerable.

Business confidence in this province has plummeted. We need to have an environment that is welcoming for investment so that we can see the innovation, so that we can see the good job creations.

Our refining capacity in this province is laughable. Less than 40 percent of the energy we consume from refined products comes from our own province. Most of that comes from south of the border, especially when it comes to aviation fuel.

We are tied with the Americans, and we trusted the Americans as our trading partners, for good reason. But at the same time, we continually undermined our own province, our own people, with these vulnerabilities, to the place now where we have a change south of the border and now we know who has been swimming without a bathing suit.

We have sent patients to the Americans for care because our own system can’t handle it. What would happen if they stopped? We accept money from environmental organizations south of the border that get involved in stopping our projects in British Columbia. How is this acceptable? Why have steps not been taken to stop that, so that we make our own decisions here in British Columbia for British Columbians?

These tariffs are wrong, just as our forestry and the duties that have been on our forestry for the last eight years are wrong. We entered into a free trade agreement with the Americans in good faith. We entered into that agreement knowing that free trade can strengthen both countries and give us the ability to be able to grow, to be able to prosper and to make sure that people have that hope and dream for a future.

The free trade agreement, obviously, is being disrupted. Hopefully, we get to a place where we can remove those tariffs and get back to the idea of trade. But in the meantime, we need to be taking every step we can to strengthen British Columbia. The Premier has said it. He said we need to do anything necessary to make sure that we look after our own people.

Well, here are some ideas. The Canada-wide free trade agreement — talked about that. It’s something that was first proposed back in 1992, and successive governments have failed to do anything. Time we implement that.

We need to understand that we have a fiscal emergency. We introduced a budget yesterday with an $11 billion deficit, leaving ourselves vulnerable, not having the flexibility to be able to do things. We need to get our spending under control. We need to be able to make sure that we can invest into our economy and get things happening.

We need to deal with our port security. We need to deal with fentanyl. We need to deal with these issues that we have for the protection of our own people. Not to mention, even though we may not have a good neighbour at the moment south of the border, it’s the right thing to do for everyone in Canada and in North America.

We should be looking at everything that is blocking projects from going forward in this province and removing those barriers. We should not be putting in place these 2030 strategies and everything else that is restricting our economy. We need to remove these things. We need to get our minds open.

We need to get LNG happening. We need to drive down the costs for our forest sector. We need to reopen trade offices. We need to do so much to make sure that British Columbians are going to be looked after by British Columbians, taking advantage of our resources to provide the quality of life that’s needed. As the Premier says: anything that is necessary. These steps are necessary.

[2:20 p.m.]

We need to stop with this partisan stuff. We need to stop with the woke nonsense. We need to get on with looking after people in this province and opening up our economy in British Columbia.

We need to take steps such as making sure that jobs in British Columbia and the unions that work in British Columbia are British Columbian. In community benefits agreements, there are 19 unions that are headquartered in the United States — 19 of those unions — and Canadian companies and Canadian unions are being blocked from working on projects.

Enough. Let’s start putting Canada first. Let’s put British Columbians first. Let’s make sure that everything we do is about supporting our economy here in British Columbia. I’ll join the Premier in doing anything that we can to support this.

I understand when the Premier says: “If it were easy, it would already be done.” It is not easy. There are tough decisions that need to be made. There are important decisions that need to be made. Who knows how long this will go on for? It’s not a matter of stopping to drink alcohol. It’s a matter of fundamentally restructuring what we do in British Columbia and in Canada, how we support ourselves as a nation, how we build ourselves as a nation, how we make sure that we take our rightful place in the economy of the world, taking advantage of our resources. That is what we need to do.

What we need to do is make sure we fulfil our God-given right for something better for the people in British Columbia, and that’s what the Conservatives will stand for. We will stand against Trump. We will stand against the tariffs. We will make sure that we do everything we can to fight for British Columbians so that they can have the hope and prosperity that is deserved to them in this great province.

Rob Botterell: Thank you to the Premier and my fellow speaker from the opposition for their comments.

Yesterday was a tough day for British Columbia. What had been our closest ally and trade partner proved itself to be untrustworthy, disruptive and economically illiterate. For British Columbians, and indeed, people across this entire continent, the coming days, months and years will be filled with uncertainty, with policy decisions impacting lives and livelihoods communicated via social media at all hours of the day.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the mental health impacts of this uncertainty. Waking up each day and immediately turning on the news, waiting to see what announcements have been made and how they will shape our lives and livelihood, is a stress that no one needs. I hope that everyone has the support networks in place to deal with this and can access any formal supports that they need.

As provincial politicians, we have a limited ability to shape international trade, but what we do have the ability to do is to help shape our own province. Protecting B.C. workers and livelihoods as we transition away from reliance on trade with the United States must be a priority. We must ensure that our response protects people but does not undo the important work to build a clean, green economy to prevent and mitigate the worst of the climate crisis or undo the progress that we have made on reconciliation.

We must ensure that we look after each other. The coming months will impact people, their livelihoods, their finances and their cross-border relationships. As political leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure that the supports that people need are there when they need them. We must use this crisis to forge a future that is resilient, fair and environmentally sound.

[2:25 p.m.]

Oral Questions

Government Policies on Carbon Tax
and Interprovincial Trade

John Rustad: This government has failed to deliver a plan for B.C.’s future. The NDP delivered a budget which, quite frankly, is just devastating for the people in this province. It’s hard to imagine people struggling today with affordability are now going to be facing a 20 percent increase in the carbon tax on April 1 — a 20 percent increase. That’s not just for the individuals struggling; that’s for all businesses. This government hikes taxes. They’re wasting money and they’re leaving British Columbians with nothing but debt.

To the Premier, will this government halt the 20 percent increase on the carbon tax? I know they won’t eliminate it, because they don’t have the courage for that. Will they at least halt this carbon tax increase so that we can give the people in the province the break that they need?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: As the member opposite knows, the federal government introduced a national carbon tax in 2019 and sets the carbon tax rate. We’ve said it before: if Ottawa removes their requirement for the carbon tax, we will remove carbon tax on British Columbians while ensuring that big polluters pay.

The member forgets to mention, of course, that this is a federally required government carbon tax and the money that comes in from the carbon tax is in fact dispersed, all of it, to British Columbians.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh.

The Leader of the Official Opposition, supplemental.

John Rustad: That shows the backbone that this government does not have in taking the right steps to protect British Columbians and put money in their pocket, just like their promise for a $1,000 rebate immediately for people in this province that are struggling to put food on the table and that it would be permanent in the budget to have that kind of a tax relief. Yet they refuse to stand up on things like carbon tax.

Let me maybe ask this question, then, of the Premier. You’ve introduced…. You’ve accepted the idea of a carbon tax on thermal coal coming from the U.S. You’ve dealt with the carbon tax problem on biodiesel so that we can protect the jobs up in the North. You say you’re going to do that.

Will this Premier today call the bill that I just introduced, the Free Trade and Mobility Within Canada Act, to make sure that we bring down our barriers in this province with other provinces so that we get free trade happening in this country?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: The member opposite knows that part of our response to these unjustified tariffs is to work diligently on bringing down the barriers between our provinces. The Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation has been doing this work. We’ve already identified two things that…. We’re moving our exemptions.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members. Members, let the minister answer.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: We’re going to continue this important work because we have the opportunity to grow our economy, not only in looking at diversifying trade to the east but diversifying trade to the west, and that work is going on.

The Speaker: Leader of the Official Opposition, second supplemental.

Access to Cancer Care Services
in U.S. Facilities

John Rustad: Well, call me a little underwhelmed given the fact that Nova Scotia brought this bill in. It’s the same bill. It’s a simple reciprocal bill to bring down barriers if other provinces do. It’s the right thing to do for British Columbia.

Let me ask another simple question. If this trade war accelerates and the Americans stop taking our patients, what is this government’s plan for dealing with the health care crisis that we have, for making sure that our cancer patients are going to be able to receive care if they can’t be sent south of the border?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: I appreciate the question from the member opposite, because he allows me the opportunity to again reiterate the importance of protecting services for British Columbians, which is what our budget does. We are continuing to move forward to….

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, members.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: We are continuing to support health care in British Columbia. We are attaching more people than ever to primary care doctors — 600 people a day.

Interjections.

[2:30 p.m.]

The Speaker: Members, you are wasting your own time.

The minister will conclude.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: This budget protects health care for British Columbians. It adds $4.6 billion over the fiscal plan to continue to grow our health care system. These are things like building the hospitals that people need in places like Terrace, which just opened last month.

We will continue to support British Columbians to make sure that they have access to health care when they need it and where they need it, not selling off hospital lands, as the member opposite did.

Fraser Valley Transportation
Infrastructure Projects

Bruce Banman: You know, this government has failed to deliver on critical infrastructure projects either on time or on budget again and again.

Highway 1 is B.C.’s number one highway, and it’s the most important trade corridor in the Fraser Valley, if not in British Columbia. In spite of a budget and talking about it in the budget, this government announced zero new dollars to upgrade Highway 1.

This Premier is inept at getting things built. Current infrastructure projects are $15 billion over budget and way past their deadlines.

Can this Premier please explain to truckers and the public why he has failed to build anything on time or on budget?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: This budget commits more capital than ever before. Fifteen billion dollars each year over the fiscal plan is more than $45 billion for capital projects.

It’s about building British Columbia. This budget is so focused on that, and creating 180,000 jobs while we do it. This critical infrastructure is important to the truckers that were mentioned opposite.

We know that having investments in infrastructure, in bridges and in highways is crucial not only to getting people where they need to go but to keeping our supply chain moving. It’s important to businesses as well.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Budget Priorities and
Support for Agriculture

Bruce Banman: You know, in spite of all the flowery words, this government has failed to cultivate our agricultural industry. In 2024, we saw over 7,000 farmworkers lose their jobs, and then the NDP cut the Agriculture Ministry by $86 million in this budget.

We Conservatives promised to double agriculture production, but this Premier wants to cut ag production in half. The Premier talks a big game about the importance of food security, but that’s all it is, is talk.

What is his solution to cut the Agriculture budget? And how can the Agriculture Minister justify cuts to her budget at such a crucial time, when we are threatened with U.S.A. tariffs?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: It seems appropriate that this member is asking about agriculture. He can’t resist shoveling manure.

Let me be very, very clear.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members. Shhh.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Member, let me be very, very clear. Let’s see if you can take this in. There is no cut to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food budget. Not true. Not true.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, Members.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Oh, believe me, I know the budget.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Shhh, Member.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: There was close to $100 million the prior year that had been accessed by the people in Agriculture, which was available to them because of challenges that they had due to climate change. That would be available to them again should they need it.

[2:35 p.m.]

That is not a $100 million cut to agriculture. In fact, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food budget is increased in this budget from $130 million to $143 million. May I also add that the 2024-25 forecast includes an additional one-time amount of $99 million for insurance claims, should they be needed?

Budget Provisions for
Environmental Assessment
and Consultation Processes

Rob Botterell: In response to tariff threats, this government has promised a wave of new mines, fossil fuel infrastructure and clean energy projects, all with faster review processes.

The government is assuring British Columbians that accelerated environmental assessment processes will be just as rigorous, that Indigenous rights will be respected and the public will be engaged. Yet the budget for the Ministry of Environment and Parks decreased from $225 million last year to $221 million per year, and the budget of the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship increases very slightly from $219 million to $221 million. Where are the resources for these accelerated approvals?

My question is to the Premier. How does his government plan to deliver both rigorous assessments for this massive increase in projects and, at the same time, accelerated process with a decreased budget?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Thank you to the colleague opposite for the question.

I will provide a bit of a correction, if I may, which is that the budget for the Ministry of Environment saw an increase of $4 million over last year’s budget, hon. Member.

I will share with the member opposite that while it is true that we’re very focused on accelerating projects that can help us grow our GDP during this time of significant economic threat, we will continue to prioritize the environment and working closely with Indigenous partners. It’s so integral. It’s absolutely integral, Member.

I do want to share with you that there have been a number of validator quotes that have come in, in regard to this budget. Perhaps I could share with you that Alexa Young from New Economy Canada, the vice-president there, says that today’s budget stays the course with its focus on delivering the services British Columbians rely on, while also reaffirming earlier commitments to getting things built, including an important focus on critical mines, clean energy projects and electricity transmission infrastructure.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Budget Provisions for
Conservation Goals

Rob Botterell: The Premier of this province made a solemn commitment to future generations to protect 30 percent of land and water by 2030. We are currently at only 19 percent. We still have a long way to go. Yet there doesn’t appear to be any funding in this year’s budget to increase the amount of conserved lands in B.C.

The same is true for the long-promised biodiversity and ecosystem health framework. It’s absent from this budget.

This seems to be a pattern for this government. The promises are made, but where’s the funding to secure them? We are still in the midst of a climate and biodiversity crisis. We cannot rely on contingency funds to secure a livable future.

My question is to the Premier. Where in Budget 2025 is there adequate funding to support the province’s stated goals on conservation?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Our work on climate action remains core, and we’re absolutely devoted to building a sustainable future together. Protecting our environment is essential for supporting healthy communities, ensuring a prosperous economy and protecting against climate change.

About 18.5 million hectares of protected and conserved areas in B.C. have already been protected, which is nearly 20 percent of B.C.’s total land area.

[2:40 p.m.]

The Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship has a clear mandate to protect 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030, and we’re going to keep doing that work together.

Involuntary Care for
Mental Health and Addiction Issues

Claire Rattée: This government has failed to address B.C.’s overdose crisis. They made no mention — none — of fentanyl, no mention of opioids, not a single mention of overdoses in their budget that was presented yesterday. If you don’t believe me, go do a word search of this budget right now. Not one word.

Not only did this government not fund any new treatment and recovery beds, but they announced no plan for involuntary care. On October 29, this Premier said that he was committed to bringing in involuntary care.

Why has this government abandoned its promise to bring in involuntary care for those in need?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: This budget is very much focused on protecting the health of British Columbians and continuing the important work in regards to mental health. There’s $500 million put forward in that work.

I want the member opposite to know that there is money that is moving forward already in the system to continue to expand vital treatment centres and treatment care. We’ll continue to expand the work that we’re doing with Foundry centres, the work on Road to Recovery and beyond. It’s vital work, and we’re continuing that work.

I do want to also share a quote with the member opposite. The quote is from Jonny Morris, who’s the CEO of the Mental Health Association: “Grateful to see that language to sustain and support services. We often see in situations like this that we see some of the first services to go are mental health and addiction services. So we’re reassured to see this commitment.”

The Speaker: Member for Skeena, supplemental.

Budget Provisions for
Addiction Treatment and Recovery

Claire Rattée: With all due respect — I believe it’s page 7 of the budget, if memory serves — it says right in there that that $500 million is going towards continuing to support existing beds. There’s no mention of new beds in there.

This government has failed to plan a way out of the mess that they have created. But don’t bother asking them about their plan to fight the overdose crisis either. It’s simple. It’s not to talk about it. No mention in the budget.

After nine budgets, why does this Premier continue to let people die in the street instead of fund treatment and recovery?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: I’m happy to talk about it, because we do continue these investments. As I’ve said, in previous budgets…. For example, $1 billion in 2023 was earmarked for mental health. We are growing out this program. We are growing it out.

For example, when we first started this work, there was one Foundry. Now there are 15, in addition to an online Foundry available for people where there isn’t a Foundry in their community. And there are more coming. This is very, very important work, and we’ll continue to do it.

Government Action on Repeat
Offenders and Crime in Communities

Elenore Sturko: Last night a VPD officer on patrol in the Downtown Eastside was slashed with a weapon several times and injured. Only last week an officer in Surrey was attacked by a suspect who choked them and tried to take their gun.

Both suspects have a history of violence. The man who choked the officer in Surrey was the subject of a release order when he performed that attack.

Police leaders in Vancouver have told me that, on average, one of their officers is injured by a violent suspect every three days. We need justice reform to protect communities and the police who serve them.

When will the Premier take public safety seriously and lock dangerous people up?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Thank you to the member opposite.

To speak about what exists for public safety measures inside of our budget, which, may I point out, is a lot…. One of the most important things you’ll find in the budget is a commitment to expand the training available for new police officers through the Justice Institute of British Columbia.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh. Member. Member.

[2:45 p.m.]

Hon. Brenda Bailey: To the member opposite, we do agree. Police are doing their job, and we need more of them to continue that important work.

We’ll also be introducing a pilot program that will be helpful to small businesses, and something that I think is deeply important, which is assisting with the challenge of small crimes that add up for small businesses and make it difficult for them to continue their work. That is going to be focused on shoplifting and vandalism.

The member opposite might also be interested in knowing that we’re moving forward with secure care. Secure care is so important. There are many different experiences that people on the street have. There are a small number of people who really need to be in secure care. We are moving forward with that. We have two secure care facilities that will be opening this spring, and there is more money in the budget for this work to continue.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Illicit Drug Trade Activities and
Funding for Enforcement Response

Elenore Sturko: The Premier’s taxpayer-funded safe supply is fuelling the fentanyl trade, and it’s enriching drug traffickers. His decriminalization experiment handcuffed the police. It took away their enforcement powers for 15 months.

So it should be no surprise that a recent Criminal Intelligence Service Canada report said gangs and cartels that make fentanyl operate mostly in British Columbia and Ontario. We’re tied for being the worst in manufacturing deadly fentanyl. This is not the kind of buy-B.C. campaign that our province should be known for.

With a fentanyl crisis that is killing six people every day in our province, why didn’t the Premier announce any new funding specifically tied to fighting fentanyl production and trafficking in the 2025 budget?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: In addition to the public safety items that I mentioned previously when speaking, Budget 2025 provides $67 million to improve community safety, increasing funding for coordinated response teams through the repeat violent offending intervention initiative and special investigation and targeted enforcement.

These are very important tools. The way that they work is they bring together probation officers, police officers, and they make sure that there is a coordinated effort to ensure that people who have this behaviour are either getting the support that they need or are in jail.

Budget Priorities and
Premier’s Office Funding

Trevor Halford: In the spirit of never letting a crisis go by without taking advantage of it, the Premier did just that. How did he do it? He doubled his budget. What does that mean? That means double the spin doctors. It means double the comms officers. It means double everything in the Premier’s office.

How did he do it? He did it at the expense of his own ministers. So reducing the budgets in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Environment…. By the way, if you go to page 22 in the book, you clearly see a reduction of $4 million in the Ministry of Environment’s operating budget. That’s right there in the book if the minister finds the time to look through it.

With that, how does this Premier justify those cuts at the expense of bloating his own personal office?

Interjection.

The Speaker: Member.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: As the member opposite knows, we have put in a hiring freeze. The way that it works is we make exemptions for filling vacancies that are either core services or deeply required for that work to move forward. There are some vacancies that we are not filling, and there are some vacancies that we are.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members. Member for Abbotsford South.

Please continue.

Minister will continue.

[2:50 p.m.]

Hon. Brenda Bailey: The truth of the matter is, leading up to the election, there were a number of people in GCPE who stepped back from that work. We knew that that shop was not going to be as busy. This is actually good news because it saves us money. But those roles have to be filled. It’s important work.

In regards to the Premier’s office, since the election, we’ve had a number of staff changes. Some people have left, and others have moved into positions to support government priorities.

You will see in this budget that the public service line, the FTE increase, is going to be zero. It’s going to be zero.

The Speaker: Member from White Rock, supplemental.

Trevor Halford: In this question period, we are giving a new definition to NDP math. I can for the life of me not understand how the Minister of Finance and the Premier can say that they’re not increasing. The Premier has doubled his own budget at the expense of his various ministers.

We talk about the fact…. We talk about people in the Premier’s office. The first thing this Premier did after the election is give a $300,000 severance package to his top adviser.

Again, the Minister of Finance stands in this House and says: “No cuts.” If she checks her own budget on page 22, you see a $4 million cut to the Ministry of Environment.

Again, we have seen the Premier’s office double. How does the Premier justify these cuts and the expansion of his own personal office?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: It is not true that there is a cut to the Ministry of Environment.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: There have been changes made to that ministry in dividing it. I’m happy to meet with the member opposite and walk them through those changes. There is no cut to the Ministry of Environment.

But I do have to point out how unbelievably rich this line of questioning is, coming from a team of people who are double-dipping, double-dipping people sitting on this team, getting paid twice by taxpayers. Twice.

Peter Milobar: The Finance Minister just said that there will be no new hires in this year’s budget. Can the minister confirm, then, that the budget book that says they are going from 520,000 public-service-compensated members to 593,000 public-service-compensated members in this year’s budget is on hold, and those 73,000 hires are no longer happening?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: The FTE growth over this fiscal plan will be zero. There will be people who come and people who go, but this FTE growth over the fiscal plan in our public service will be zero.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Peter Milobar: Let’s be clear. This government said they were only going to hire 500 people last year. Then they hired 2,000 and said, “Now we’re going to freeze it,” and now they’re telling us they’re going to freeze that. That’s one component.

Directly below that in the budget, it says public-service-compensated employees are going from 520,000 to 593,000 in this year. Those are still paid for by taxpayers as well. I don’t think the average person would consider that to be a hiring freeze. I don’t know. That’s just me, perhaps.

Let’s look at some other reviews of this budget. The B.C. chamber says it doesn’t deliver. BCBC, missed opportunity. BCTF says, well, it’s met contractual obligations. The Pembina Institute, missed opportunity. AME: “Does not provide additional resourcing to support permitting or consultation with First Nations.” And COFI, who has been under attack for softwood for eight years with no action from this government, says it’s disappointed about lack of forestry support.

Now, the minister goes on about support for DigiBC, which is wonderful. They’ve been lobbying this government since 2018. They’ve never actually got that in. They’ve never been able to get to that 25 percent tax credit. Since 2018, this government has refused to do that.

You know what has changed? The person lobbying for DigiBC in 2018 is the now Minister of Finance.

So could the Minister of Finance tell us why the only people…

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh.

[2:55 p.m.]

Peter Milobar: …out there that seem to get preference for tax relief in this budget — not the forest sector, not mining, certainly not small business — is the agency she used to lobby for, yet it was rejected by this government until she became the Finance Minister?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Member.

Members. Members.

[The Speaker rose.]

The Speaker: Members, come to order. Members, that’s enough. Come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Member.

Government House Leader.

[The Speaker resumed their seat.]

Hon. Mike Farnworth: Thank you, hon. Speaker.

Today our Finance Minister has been answering questions on a budget that’s designed to get us through the tariffs, the most grave threat…

Interjection.

The Speaker: Member.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: …that this province faces. The Premier gave a statement on the importance of our province being ready and prepared.

The Leader of the Opposition got up and said some words about standing up for Canada. Well, it’s important that we all stand up for Canada. I’m a firm believer that when you wear the hat, you support the team. And so when we hear from a Leader of the Opposition….

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh. Members.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: I won’t address all the issues I have with the opposition when it comes to those on his side who want to wear a MAGA hat, but I do have a question for the Leader of the Opposition. Does he think it’s appropriate…?

Interjection.

The Speaker: Member.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: Does he think it’s appropriate that a member of his caucus stands up in this House today and introduces someone known as mistersunshinebaby, seated in the gallery?

Interjection.

The Speaker: Member.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: I’ll tell you what it has to do…. Yesterday the person introduced by this caucus posted a video that said, “The fat pig Doug Ford in Ontario is ready to cut off the power, and Liberals are cheering him on. This is quite literally, by definition, an act of war.”

Does the Leader of the Opposition think it’s appropriate for a member of his caucus to introduce somebody like that when tariffs are the greatest issue we face?

The Speaker: Thank you, Members. Please take your seats. Members, take your seats.

[End of question period.]

Interjection.

The Speaker: Member, question period is over.

Member, you can continue this discussion outside in the hall if you want. Okay?

Orders of the Day

Hon. Mike Farnworth: I call continued debate on the budget.

Budget Debate
(continued)

Peter Milobar: Wow. I did not think that a question asking the minister why one preferred agency got a tax break and no one else did would have struck such a nerve in question period, but apparently it did. Apparently it did. It makes one wonder what else is hidden in this budget.

The minister had every opportunity to answer. This is a very straightforward question actually. It is unfortunate, as I say. I mean it was a very straightforward question to the minister about the budget that we are talking about over the next week and a half as to decision-making for tax breaks in this budget.

The reality is the Minister of Finance, in 2018, was the executive director of DigiBC. It’s well documented. She doesn’t hide it. It’s actually on the government website. People know she was there. People know she made presentations to the Finance Committee for budget input in 2018, heading into the 2019 budget. It’s all factual.

[3:00 p.m.]

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

In fact, DigiBC actually has a press release talking about her presentation, singing her praises. And so they should. That was her job at the time. I don’t begrudge any of that.

But the reality is the government was not going to make…. In fact, the actual presentation was to increase the B.C. interactive digital media tax credit from 17½ percent to 25 percent. In this year’s budget, the digital tax credits go from 17½ percent to 25 percent. In this year’s budget, the exact change to the tax credit happens as the then executive director, now Minister of Finance, pitched to the government back in 2018.

Unfortunately, that was nowhere near an answer. I don’t know what the Minister of Transportation, the House Leader, was going on about or that it had anything to do with that question whatsoever, but it certainly must have struck a nerve. When you’re in politics, it makes you wonder why.

Now, as best as I can ascertain, based on this budget, that tax break has now been made permanent in this budget. It’ll be effective on September 1 this year and moving forward. In fact, it’s a low dollar-value tax break. Next year it’s only $5 million for the whole year. I’m not quite sure why we got the reaction out of government we did for something as basic as that.

COFI, the Council of Forest Industries, has their convention is at the beginning of April. They’ve said they’re disappointed in the lack of forestry support in this budget. They’ve been subjected to eight years of punitive softwood lumber tariffs — or duties, whatever you want to call it. I believe there’s around $10 billion now sitting in a reserve fund that they’ve had to pay into. I think they deserve…. When you look at that scale, why are there no supports in this budget, which they’ve been lobbying for, for eight years?

While the government rebuffed requests from DigiBC for the same length of time, to change their tax structure to get that up to a 25 percent tax credit, now the one person that lobbied the government in 2018 directly is in charge of the finances of British Columbia. Magically the first course of action, in a budget that’s supposed to be tightening belts and sharpening our pencils, is to give that agency their wish and get to a 25 percent tax break.

Those are the simple facts. The question was asked in good faith, just to clear it up for everybody to understand. The minister could have dealt with it very quickly. Instead we got the diatribe from the Minister of Finance about totally irrelevant things, and we won’t know.

Rest assured that I will follow up on this in budget estimates if the minister doesn’t want to actually give a very straightforward answer, which not just the residents of British Columbia but certainly the various business groups in British Columbia would be curious about. It shines a light into how this budget was created, and it shines a light into the decision-making process of this government around these types of decisions on tax credits, especially against the backdrop of a tariff war.

There’s nothing in this budget for a tariff war, so these groups want to know. Perhaps it would be good for them to know whom they could hire as an executive director now, who might want to run for the NDP in the future and become an MLA. Who knows? Maybe then their wish comes true. Is that how this government operates? Only they can answer that question. I don’t know.

That’s fundamentally the problem with this government. They hide everything in secrecy. They deflect. They try to make things seem better than they are. This whole budget is an attempt to make things seem better than they are. The only people that have given this budget, in any sense, a passing grade is the mutual admiration society that sits on the other side of this House.

[3:05 p.m.]

If you look at the coverage from the budget lockup, of the groups that were there being clipped, I couldn’t find one that was singing the praises of this. As close as we got was, really, the BCTF saying: “Well, at least they are meeting their contractual obligations.”

That’s a far cry from the Premier’s election promise of one teacher assistant in every classroom from K to 3 — another broken campaign promise for kids that need that support and that the Premier broke the promise to.

It’s gut-wrenching for the parents that have a child that needs that extra support in a classroom, but it truly impacts that child directly, and not just for K to 3. That will carry on with that child through the rest of their school years if they don’t get the right supports at the earlier ages.

It also has a ripple effect to all the other kids, especially because they’re that young, on how to navigate their own school day in a classroom where a child needs that extra support and help. It’s a very real-world impact, at a very small-classroom level, that impacts a whole neighbourhood’s worth of kids for years to come.

It makes the need for increased bullying initiatives even harder…. That’s what starts to spiral out of that situation, as well, when the right supports aren’t in the classroom, with kids struggling to figure out how to deal with things on both sides. That’s the implication when this Premier and this Finance Minister shrug and refuse to answer proper, legitimate questions in this House about failed campaign promises not being in this budget.

It’s a disservice to the public that the Premier and the Finance Minister can never seem to get themselves off that moral high ground they like to stand on whenever someone from the B.C. Conservatives dares ask a question challenging the promises and commitments in their own budget, where they’re not in. Instead of answering the question straight up — it was asked straight up — we get bizarre rants and raves, in total evasion of the question.

It’s not good enough. The Premier doesn’t get to wrap himself in the Canadian and B.C. flags, invoke all sorts of Second World War imagery about the tariff fight we’re in, and then — when faced with a legitimate question, perhaps uncomfortable for him because it’s about his own broken promises — try to be evasive and play games with the question and the answer. The public rightfully deserves better.

As people were leaving after question period and moving around, I heard some fairly prominent ministers telling me I’m nothing but hot air. I guess it’s because I like to speak for a little while in this place, maybe because they felt very uncomfortable as I was pointing things out in the budget yesterday after they’d been patting each other on the back, as people were leaving a budget lockup saying the exact opposite about their budget.

Even the unions that are waiting to get a negotiated contract with this government had a pretty tepid response about this budget yesterday. The best they could say was: “Well, thankfully, we didn’t have all our members laid off.”

Despite what the government wants to keep trying to say about this side of the House, we’re not advocating for massive cuts in health care. We’re not saying that those schools that desperately need teachers assistants should have a cut in staffing. What we’re saying is that we need a government that’s willing to tell us what benchmark it’s shooting for.

What is the deliverable you’re trying to achieve as you run an $11 billion deficit? If it’s health care, how does that relate to a better health care system, or not? In 2017, health care used to be $18 billion, and now it’s $35 billion. Who says health care is any better now than it was in 2017? It had issues in 2017 — no one disputes that at all — but nowhere near what we have now.

[3:10 p.m.]

When the government and the ministers accuse us of having hot air or frivolous questions, or of being non-serious, that’s just deflection. That’s because this government doesn’t want to actually be held accountable for their failures.

You know, it’s interesting. The Premier at the start of his speech today rightfully pointed out how the President is saying this is such a horrible trade deal, and the irony is that it’s the President that demanded this new trade deal and signed the new trade deal.

I would suggest the Premier reflect on those words and look in the mirror the next time he stands in this place or his minister stands in this place and they try blaming a former government for the problems that we’re faced today. Because I got news for them. They are the former government, and they were the former government before that. This is their third term.

The fact that we have cancer patients still needing to go to Bellingham — because under their watch, we went from the best cancer care in the country to the worst — is 100 percent on them. We had issues in health care in 2017; cancer care wasn’t one of them. It is now.

They like to go on about how we say…. They’re trying to say that the B.C. Conservatives are saying that we want to have people pay for health care. We’ve never said that. The only people that say that are the NDP about us.

We do say you shouldn’t need to have your Canadian passport to access cancer care. We shouldn’t need to be able to make sure you have proper federal ID documentation — you and your loved one, both — to be able to cross the border to get down to Bellingham to go through cancer treatments because they can’t get things built fast enough or properly or run properly in British Columbia.

You know, the only other time in B.C.’s history we’ve had to send patients to the United States into a for-profit private hospital system under contract was the last time the NDP were in government. So as much as the NDP wants to say that’s the system we want — which is not the system B.C. Conservatives want — that is quite literally the system this government is operating.

They are contracting with U.S. private hospitals to provide cancer care. I agree that we need to get those people that cancer care. They should not be languishing waiting. So this isn’t about that. This isn’t about making sure people get that access. This is about the hypocrisy when they try to fling that at us, when they’re trying to defend an indefensible budget — a budget that the Finance Minister says is about sharpening our pencils and tightening our belts and a hiring freeze.

The belt was so tight in the Ministry of Finance yesterday, on budget day, the cabinet had enough time to sign two more cabinet orders, giving promotions to two more people in the Ministry of Finance communication department, on budget day, complete with raises. Tightening our belts, sharpening our pencil…. Apparently they’re sharpening their pencil to sign orders-in-councils to hire political staff.

Let’s look at a few of these other things that the government doesn’t really like to talk about in their budget when we want to talk about prioritization of spending.

Another $109 million for FIFA. I think everyone agrees FIFA is going to be a great event. Would be sure nice if the government for once would just come clean with what the total cost is going to be of FIFA, instead of these constant little announcements of a $100 million there and $50 million there. So now we’ve got another $109 million in the provincial budget for FIFA.

They talk in this budget about how they’re accelerating housing. Well, let’s take a closer look at that. When you look in the charts and the descriptions on projects already underway over $50 million: B.C. Housing, four projects are all delayed. Four projects that are all well over $50 million, they’re all in the hundreds of millions of dollars. So significant buildings, quite a few units, all delayed because, you know, this government has an urgency to get people into the housing they need. That’s why their housing projects are all delayed.

[3:15 p.m.]

This government says there’s an urgency to get the skills trades going, training for students in universities. We need to build capacity. Well, let’s see. Three school projects and a couple of university projects delayed. Good to know they’ve got urgency on that file as well.

The best one of all, and it kind of is a twofer, is actually student housing. That’s delayed too. I wasn’t sure how to mark that down. Is it five housing, not four, delayed? Four schooling, not three, delayed? I thought: “Well, no. Actually, it needs its own separate category because it’s for our students, who need proper housing, as well, to get a proper education at the university.” That’s gone.

This government made great fanfare — I believe it was one or two budgets ago — about how there was no longer in their effort to help green up B.C., help drive down emissions, help make EV transportation more affordable for the average British Columbian. “We’re removing the sales tax, PST, on used EVs.” That was a couple of budgets ago.

I know, because I said: “Well, if you’re going to do that, maybe we could use the exact same language” — and I brought a private member’s bill in a few times — “and have the same tax break apply to a used car that’s a gas combustion used car.” What it is, is if it’s under a $20,000 vehicle, you don’t pay PST on a used vehicle with over 6,000 kilometres. It was the exact same language the government used for the exemption for the electric vehicles.

Government refused to call the bill. Government didn’t want to talk about it. “No, no, no. We can’t do that for people trying to get by and buy a safe, reliable, cheap car to get to work or school unless they want to spend a few extra bucks and buy an EV.” That was the government’s mindset, because it was all about greening up the economy, all about greening up B.C. Therefore, it was appropriate to waive the PST on a used EV.

Once again, somewhat ironically, in the year that they’re clinging to power with a deal with the Green Party, guess what. You now have to pay PST on a used electric vehicle. So I guess they needed that $48 million, probably to pay for the extra political staff the Premier keeps hiring. I’m not sure. But that’s the problem.

This budget is a complex document. The minister’s absolutely right about that. It’s all about trade-offs. It’s $1 million here, $1 million there, $1 million here, $1 million there. With those last two hires in promotions and communications signed off on, on budget day, our running tally shows that that’s pushing, now, $4½ million of promotions and new hires signed off by the cabinet and by the Finance Minister, 21 of which are in the Finance Ministry, of the 38, for promotions and new hires. So $4½ million after they announced a hiring freeze.

The minister said very clearly, when it was brought up in question period, that political staff are exempt from the hiring freeze. They’re considered core to government operations. There’s no way they could do more with less in the political offices if they didn’t have a few more advisers, if they didn’t have a few more communications staff, a few more strategists. After all, you know, how can you possibly solve the softwood lumber deal if you don’t have a few more extra people working in communications?

I don’t think people that work in the forest industry give two hoots how many people work in the communications department in government. They want their softwood deal solved. I think when you start layering in…. We have to keep in mind, when I’m talking about communications, this is just the GCPE and the political staff communications. I’m not even talking about the health authorities, the universities, the school boards, various ministries that have internal.... It’s a massive machine. It comes at a time….

[3:20 p.m.]

It’s very interesting. I was going back and forth, actually, with a reporter this morning about this. They said: “Wow. You start looking at those pays. That’s more than any newsroom pays for a lot of these positions.” I said: “Yeah.”

You know, it was an actual text string, back and forth. I said: “Yeah, I was thinking about this last night too — that at a time where newsrooms aren’t even sure if they’re going to survive, a time when newsrooms have less staff than they’ve ever had before, expected to do more work…. What do they do? They actually adapt. They come up with newer programs and software and tools to help them get their product out the door. They’ve adapted their workplace to make it happen.

It doesn’t mean it’s been seamless. It doesn’t mean it’s easy on the staff. They’ve had some gut-wrenching decisions where colleagues have to move on in their careers or go find something else. But it’s been happening over and over again.

The only realm in the communication sphere that seems to be growing exponentially — unchecked — to deal with those same newsrooms, is government communications in B.C. Again, if the government, if the Premier, if the minister are actually sincere about addressing true non-core areas, given the light….

You go to the government website. There are not that many news releases that are on that website. I get you need people that actually know how to write and have proper grammar and sentence structure and all of that. I’m certainly not one of those people. I’m not even going to try to pretend otherwise. I rely on my communications person to help me with that.

And before everyone at home goes: “Aha, he’s got a communications person.” You know how the opposition functions? I have a communications person that I share with four other MLAs. That’s our staffing level. I have an assistant in Victoria that I share with four other MLAs. I have a research person that I share with five other critics.

The research person that I share with five other critics…. When we get the budget estimates, it’ll be myself and all our…. Just saying me, but all of our critics will be in the same boat. We’ll be standing in our chair just like this, talking about the budget with our respective ministries. The minister will be in their chair. The minister will have three or four staff on site so we can get proper and full answers, and that’s great. The minister will have several people in a back room, depending which chamber we’re in, watching, ready to come in and assist if there’s a more technical question. Then, depending on the ministry, you’ll have a whole whack of senior management around the province watching on TV live, texting some of those staff as well.

Myself or our critics will be standing here by ourselves. And this isn’t meant to be a pity party. We’ll have a researcher that may or may not be occupied — because remember, they’ve got five to six of us that they’re helping at any given time, as well as other duties — to basically fact-check, to know whether or not we should be pushing a little bit more on that answer, because it really was kind of an evasive answer. And God forbid the government ever be evasive with answers. They certainly were in question period today.

So that’s what we’re up against, and we accept that. But does the government really, when they’re talking about belt-tightening and pencil-sharpening, expect the public to think that they need that level of resources on a regular basis, essentially to push back against valid questions that critics, by way of the public, have about their ministry?

Because at its core, that’s all we’re doing. We’re simply conveying back what we’re hearing in our communities. We’re conveying back what we’re hearing from stakeholders. We’re conveying back what we have formulated in our own minds with all of those inputs overlaid.

But the government seems to always take great offence to that process. They do it in question period. They do it in budget estimates. They’ll get evasive in bill debate. And when we get to committee stage on a bill, it’ll be much like estimates. It’ll be the same thing. We’ll be standing in our chair, and the minister will be over there with several staff, lots of other staff watching, backfilling, providing answers — spin — as we try to question a bill, clause by clause, with valid concerns about what’s in that bill.

[3:25 p.m.]

It’s interesting, with how bad our health care system is these days, that the minister and the Premier…. They must have done some polling on this, and probably with some of the staff they’ve hired, because they like to do a lot of internal government polling as well. They spend a lot of money doing that, a lot on an election year. I tell you. You watch. That budget goes up every election year. Not that they’re polling for election purposes. No, no, no. That would never happen. But it just magically always seems that every fourth year, the budget spikes.

Anyways, health care is a mess. The Premier, the Finance Minister, leading up to the budget, they’re going to sharpen their pencils, they’re going to tighten their belts, but they’re not going after core services. They’re going to go after things like administration in health care. I think we all agree we don’t have a doctor or a nurse to spare, so we can’t be cutting there, obviously. So they’re going to go after administration. And believe me, I agree 100 percent there’s a lot of waste in health care administration, leading to other waste and leading to duplication and everything else. There are a lot of efficiencies to be found on the administrative side, absolutely.

But don’t you find it strange, if you’re viewing at home right now, that the government feels that it needs some belt-tightening and pencil-sharpening, but political staff in the Premier’s office and the Minister of Finance’s office and in all of government can just keep expanding at will and be exempt from any type of belt-tightening and pencil-sharpening?

Doesn’t that seem strange in the face of a tariff war, in the face of record deficits, despite tariffs actually not being taken into account for that budget that has record deficits? Don’t you find it strange that that’s the government’s priority around how they’re going to try to get things under control?

I thought you were supposed to lead by example. I’ve always thought you should be showing the rest of the government operation how a government can operate effectively for the public and deliver the services within a certain fiscal envelope by actually demonstrating that you’re willing to have a change to how you work and how that happens. Not this government. This government, as they do with everything, is willing to point the finger everywhere else.

The government spending is out of control? It’s health care administration’s fault. They seem to forget that they’ve been in charge of overseeing health care administration for the last seven years. Spending is out of control? It’s this other ministry’s fault. Well, they’ve been in charge of that other ministry for the last 7½ years. Political staff spending is out of control. Severances are out of control for political staff. And what do they do? They don’t take responsibility for it. They try to blame the opposition for raising the question. They hope that the question will just disappear, that the public won’t be outraged about the lack of direction setting a budget.

So when the Finance Minister says, “We’re on a path to balanced budgets,” and you look at this balanced budget that says $11 billion this year, $10 billion next year, $9 billion the following year as a deficit, I have a hard time believing that’s a path to balanced budgets. And I’ll tell you why. This time last year the government was telling us that this year’s deficit was going to be $7.8 billion. By the time we got here, it was $10.9 billion. So I don’t believe the $10 billion for next year, and I certainly don’t believe the $9 billion for the following year — not at the rate that they’re sharpening their pencils and tightening their belts. It’s all lip service.

We have a situation right now with a tariff threat, and no one knows exactly where it’s going to go. Frankly, B.C. can’t control, directly, what the president will or won’t do. I’m not sure anyone in the world can. Maybe Mr. Musk, I don’t know. But I also don’t know what his thought process is on all this stuff. So we will have to adapt and adjust, absolutely, as a province and as a country as things down in the States happen.

[3:30 p.m.]

But given that our internal trade barriers between provinces create a 23 percent tariff equivalent to the B.C. economy…. Why, at a bare minimum, if the government was willing to show us modelling on what the impacts of the U.S. tariff threat is…?

I congratulate and thank the minister for updating that. They are still scary numbers — better than the first model but still need to be taken very seriously, absolutely.

Why hasn’t the government modelled and shown us the positive side of getting rid of the internal trade barriers? Why won’t they model to build the political will within B.C., within the population, to tear down the trade barriers between provinces?

They might say: “Okay, we’ve modelled the bad news from the United States. Here’s what would happen if we just trade between provinces, properly. This is the good that would be had by our B.C. economy.”

Why won’t the government do that? If they’ve done that, why won’t they just release it? If they haven’t done it, why not? What are they negotiating?

The minister says today that we’re making progress on two items. There are a lot more than two items that we need to solve with trade barrier issues between our provinces.

Nova Scotia signed off on it. They just said: “We’re done. We will accept and agree with mutual recognition of all provinces — full stop.” Our leader has introduced a private member’s bill that’s sitting on the floor right now, modelled on Nova Scotia. We could pass that within a day or two in this place and we would actually be trying to shore up B.C. against the tariff threat.

And if the tariff threat actually doesn’t materialize for any length of time, imagine that. We’d actually have an economy firing on all cylinders and going a long way to getting rid of our record deficits. That seems to be a bad outcome for this government. They’d rather work on one item at a time.

It simply defies logic when you look at this budget, when you look at the sheer hemorrhaging of dollars. We have a $10 billion structural operational deficit in this budget. There’s a lot that needs to happen to get rid of that.

I know the government always tries to portray that we’re saying cut, cut, cut. We’re not. We’re saying be efficient, reallocate, get better outcomes, especially on the economic files, because that will spur on more growth, more dollars. Don’t sit back idly and watch 7,300 agricultural workers lose their job. Increase supports to agriculture in a meaningful, sustained way to get it going so we can actually not be reliant on the United States for half of our produce and food.

That’s why, when we announced that in our platform about doubling food production in B.C.…. That’s what that came from. We announced “Get rid of interprovincial trade barriers” in our platform, in the election, before all this happened down in the States.

When the government says we don’t bring anything to the table, with that tirade that the Transportation Minister tried lobbing out there to deflect at the end of question period, it’s simply not true. We’ve been delivering real and tangible ways to deal with the threat of tariffs, to improve the economy of B.C., all while making it very clear that we do not want to undermine health care, we do not want to undermine education services in this province. But the way we’re going is simply not sustainable.

If you cannot even close to balance a budget with what the government tries to say is one of the strongest economies in Canada, what exactly are you expecting to happen, then, to our budget if tariffs take full effect for any sustained period?

[3:35 p.m.]

This is a government that inherited surpluses — balanced budgets and surpluses. In fact, through Carole James as Finance Minister, they were still balancing the budget and staying in surplus. I never thought I’d see that, but it was repeated years of an NDP cabinet minister, the Finance Minister, delivering balanced budgets and surpluses. That record is very clear.

Boy, did the world change in B.C. when the current Premier took office. You just have to look at the trajectory of spending in this province and the trajectory of our deficits — all under this Premier’s watch and, one would argue, his direction.

There have always been question marks about how much autonomy the Finance Minister really has in budgets versus the Premier’s office. No one will ever really know. I’m sure they have NDAs when they’re signing their cheques for $350,000 severances, so we’ll probably never find that out.

Overall, that’s the problem with the budget. I could start diving into specific line items on a much more granular basis, but really, I’ve always felt the critic’s role is to set that higher overview of why this is such a problematic budget.

We have business confidence collapsing in this province leading up to this budget. Every business group has been disappointed.

You know, it was funny. I got asked yesterday in the media scrum after the budget…. Again, I’m in my own lockup with a few staff and a couple of MLA colleagues. We’re not with the minister and the media and the stakeholders. We’re on a kind of information blackout, if you will, so I don’t know what they’re all saying to the media, especially as I’m coming straight to here and they can’t talk to the media till the minister is standing up. So all of that was unknown to me.

What I found interesting was that I was asked at the media scrum immediately after my speech yesterday: “What letter grade would you give this budget?” Well, my first response was: “I thought we got rid of letter grades in B.C.”

The second response was — I know it’s going to sound, because I’m opposition…. But I’d give it a D. It’s uninspiring. There’s no great reach. There’s no inspiration for “what if” — tariff impact. There are just tons of missed opportunities everywhere.

Then I was watching a recap last night of the various newscasts and that’s where you start seeing the interviews of the people that were in the lockup in the other convention centre. It was interesting because they had a whiteboard there and almost all of them were giving it a C-minus.

So I wasn’t really that far off, and usually, I’m supposed to be the hardest grader of the bunch. You had business groups, non-profits, pretty much everyone giving it a C-minus. That’s not a very good start to a four-year term that the government hopes to cling to.

No plan for the U.S. tariffs in this budget. We covered that off yesterday. Again, you’ve just got to go back to the second-quarter update. Government was projecting 1.9 percent growth for this coming year. Government was already projecting an $8 billion….

Here’s the thing. I’ll get into the weeds. I’ve got time. In last year’s budget, government projected an $8 billion deficit for this current fiscal year and an, essentially, $8 billion deficit for this fiscal year that we’re talking about in this budget.

You go to the six-month check-in point, the September 30 document that I keep referencing, the second-quarter update…. Government is now up to a $9.4 billion deficit, but the growth was actually a little bit ahead of what they had projected. Despite better-than-expected growth in the economy, the deficit went from $8 billion to $9½ billion. This is the scary part. It doesn’t seem to matter if we have an economy that outperforms the budget document. The budget document will still outperform it when it comes to deficits.

In that same document, when they were downgrading the growth for this coming year at 1.9 percent…. I say downgrading because last year’s budget document forecast 2.3 percent growth for this coming year.

[3:40 p.m.]

I recognize it gets a little confusing here in all that bounce around. Essentially, their growth was higher yet their deficit was higher at the six-month check-in. At the same time, their projection for this coming year was that growth was going to be slower than what they were first projecting.

I was telling anyone that would listen, even then, that there’s no way it’s going to be an $8 billion deficit. It’s got to be at least $10 billion because their growth projections are lower.

Then you get to this budget document. It’s $11 billion, and their growth projection is 0.1 percent lower than what they said it would be in September.

All of that happened long before the tariffs.

This should not be a surprise to the government. It certainly shouldn’t have been a surprise to the Premier when he was making election promises, when he was telling people they’d all have teachers assistants for all their kids, when he was telling seniors that they’d have free bus passes.

It’s interesting…. They were taking cheap shots the other day about bus passes, in this place that no one even remembers, which wasn’t really even a clawback of bus passes. But it’s how the NDP wanted to convey it to the public, and they did good marketing.

That was in opposition. They were actually better communicators when they had fewer staff. I would just give them that tidbit of advice.

Interjection.

Peter Milobar: Yeah.

But in this case, they actually promised seniors of British Columbia — who disproportionately vote, I would point out — they’d get a $1,000 grocery rebate if they still had decent pension incomes.

But even if they didn’t have a decent pension income, the ones that really need it the most would get free transit service. That’s not in this. Where’s the shingles vaccine promised to the seniors? That’s not in this. It’s astounding to me….

All those promises were made with the exact same fiscal backdrop that this budget was created on. Quite literally. If you go to the projections of where they were talking about natural gas and lumber, and you look at what they were projecting February of last year and then March of this year and how those numbers swing and sway…. They always do that. All of those projections are in the realm of what they would normally have, and they were on September 30 too.

Talk about a game of three-card monte this government was playing, this premier was playing in the election, with people in terms of: “Follow the election promise. Follow the election promise. What cup is it under? What cup is it under? Oh, sorry. I guess you get nothing.”

Fundamentally, I can understand why people feel disappointed and feel like they were misled by election promises.

Housing starts — again, this government is praising themselves for their housing starts and their acumen around housing. Housing starts are at about the same level as they were in 2017, despite the fact that we’ve added 700,000 more people to the province.

No plan whatsoever in this for trade, for economic growth. In fact, our exports were down 3 percent. Once again, before tariffs.

Higher taxes across the board — well, sorry, not higher taxes for DigiBC. They got that tax break. Higher taxes for everyone else though. What a stroke of luck that was for them that they got their tax break in though. That’s good news.

Higher costs. We’re facing a tariff threat. Apparently — and I haven’t tracked this down; I just had a colleague tell me — Manitoba has frozen carbon tax. Last I checked, that’s an NDP government, unless there’s been a Manitoba election in the last little while. Huh. Go figure.

And you know, I talked about Carole James a few minutes ago. The other interesting part about Carole James was…. I’m old enough to remember when she brought in the COVID budget.

You know what that government did as a way to help people with costs, basically admitting that carbon tax was a cost to households? They froze the carbon tax for one year during COVID. They froze the carbon tax increase during COVID and still had a much lower deficit than we have.

We’re still providing…. Some would argue, were you not providing health services during COVID? Because I think they were. They still managed to do that without an $11 billion deficit.

[3:45 p.m.]

The government once before has acknowledged that in times of financial crisis, a hike to the carbon tax might not be the best idea. And the funny thing is, that was a $5 hike. That’s when they were going from $30 to $50 because of the deal they cut with the Greens the first time. That’s what then Minister Heyman assured me, as the Environment critic, that they would never ever, ever go to a $100 carbon tax. Never. It will never happen.

Well, April 1 it goes up another $15, three times the hike in the carbon tax that Carole James froze during COVID, recognizing that it would be an increased cost to people. People can google it. I can remember her having a press conference and talking about the measures they were going to do in that COVID budget to try to keep people with a little bit more money in their pockets — $5, which is 1.1 cents a litre. She saw that as significant enough to freeze it.

April 1 this government is adding an extra 3.3 cents to every litre of gas. People should check their Fortis bills. Home heating right now is higher than ever before, all because of the carbon tax they’re currently paying, not because of the cost of gas. They’re paying much more in carbon tax than they actually pay for the gas on the bill.

This government won’t even stand up to the federal government and say, “We’re removing it on home heating,” like the special deal that was cut by the federal government for Atlantic Canada on home heating oil — which is, I will point out, a much more polluting oil to heat your home with than natural gas.

But the reality of actually doing tangible things to help people in their daily budgets so they can manage their own budget, versus hope that the government may follow through on a campaign promise and maybe distribute a cheque to you sometime in the future, that’s lost on this government. They’d much rather just control your household money and slowly dole it back to you when they think it’s appropriate.

Government is making a big deal about the $110 for ICBC. I agree. It’s great. People are getting money back for ICBC. It’s too bad they charged us too much for the first year or the second draw or the third draw or now this fifth time. How about they just structurally fix the finances of ICBC and let us keep more of our money on the front end?

I’d love to know if there was a briefing memo heading into this budget that said: “If you’re looking for a big shiny announcement in the budget, give them $110 of ICBC.” Last time it was: “If you want a big shiny announcement, give them $100 in B.C. Hydro. Give them $8 a month off of their hydro bill, and they’ll love you forever”. Nice big shiny announcement.

Government downplayed it. “Oh, that’s ridiculous. Those were just some notes that were accidentally left off to the side.” Then lo and behold, the budget came out, and there was a $100 credit for B.C. Hydro.

B.C. Hydro — this government still won’t tell us what the final cost is, even though the turbines are starting to turn. It’s still booked at $16 billion, if anyone believes that. I find that hard to believe. But remember. Site C when it first was announced was going to be $6 billion. The NDP said it would be the ruin of our rate structures. People would never be able to afford B.C. Hydro again with Site C at a $6 billion build.

Site C is now on the books at $16 billion under this government’s management, and they won’t tell us what it’s going to do to the rate structure. So $16 billion does have to come from somewhere, and last I checked, we’re the only people that pay into B.C. Hydro.

It’s interesting because then Minister Michelle Mungall, as the Environment Minister, in July, shortly after this government took office in 2017, made it very clear during budget estimates. Site C as of June 30, 2017, was on time and on budget. When the keys to government were handed over to the NDP, Site C was on time, on budget at $6 billion and it was going to be the ruin of our B.C. Hydro rates, according to the NDP, at $6 billion.

[3:50 p.m.]

Here we are, over a year late getting it online, $16 billion and climbing, and the government doesn’t have the decency to tell you what it’s going to do to your hydro rates or what the full cost of B.C. Hydro is in this budget book. Talk about lack of transparency.

But they’ll stand up and bluster about somebody else’s, that’s not even a member of our caucus — social media pages to try to deflect away from their lack of performance.

The housing and the corporate income tax…. Corporate income taxes drop by 25 percent in B.C. in this budget. If that doesn’t spell headwinds, I’m not sure…. I understand the calculation of it. I fully understand it’s partly a recalibration of a reconciliation with the federal government of filings and appeals and things of that nature. But the outlook’s not any better for the next year and the year after. It’s not at 25 percent yet, but it’s definitely not in a positive category whatsoever.

The overdose crisis…. Six people a day die in this province. Six people. You do a word search in the budget, despite the fact six people are dying, there’s nothing in there. The word opioid doesn’t show up in the budget. Fentanyl does not show up in the budget. Involuntary care does not show up in the budget.

The program the minister was alluding to at $500 million…. My colleague was right. The only thing she had a slight error on…. And I totally understand that, because I do it from time to time, too, with page numbers as you’re trying to…. Because again we’re a lean…. Well, I’m not so lean, but the team is a lean team of people trying to do our best for the residents of British Columbia. It was page 9, not page 7. So she was pretty darn close. You just flip one page, and it’s right there. She was in the right category because page 7 starts the overdose response.

Five hundred million dollars for continuing and sustaining, not $500 million for more, not $500 million for expanded; $500 million for sustaining. You know why they need $500 million for sustaining? Because they can’t keep anything to budget. What they need is $500 million more to try to provide the same services they’re currently providing, which they acknowledge are not good enough.

That, I think, summarizes this budget best of all, sadly. Because this budget is rife with: “We’ve put money here, we’ve put money there, for this program, that program, the other program.” They’ve put more money in all these programs with no extra capacity being created. That’s why it’s not sustainable. They won’t tell us what an actual benchmark is to measure because, God forbid, we actually hold the government to account and say: “You’re not meeting your targets.”

I’m not sure of any entity out there that would be spending $90 billion and not have some form of a benchmark they’re shooting for. What exactly is it? Now I get you’re not looking for return on investment in the traditional sense of a corporation. I’ve always said: governments aren’t business. Governments should not be run like a business, but governments should be run business-like. They should actually have targets. They should have deliverables. They should hold people accountable in the ministries.

[3:55 p.m.]

Front-line staff, management, everybody should be held accountable. But everyone needs to know, in fairness to them, what’s the target they’re actually striving for. No one knows. Even yesterday when the minister was talking about the plan to get the balanced budget…. “Well, I can’t really talk about the work we’re undertaking as we’re taking the work to try to get to the work, but we’ll know when we get the work done and then we’ll tell you about the work.” I’m paraphrasing, obviously, and embellishing a little, but that was essentially the gist of it. That’s not an answer.

When we hear “sharpen our pencils” and “belt-tightening” and the best they come up is possibly $300 million on a $90 billion budget, it doesn’t really sound like a lot of belt-tightening, considering spending is up $3 billion this year. Only the NDP would say they’re sharpening their pencils and increase spending.

If you’re going to find true and real and meaningful systemic efficiencies and change — efficiencies doesn’t mean cuts to service — $300 million on a $90 million budget is not getting you there. An $11 billion deficit does not drive the change that you need to have in your system.

When the minister stands up and says there will be no hiring this year, yet we have 73,000 more employees going to be paid for by the taxpayers of British Columbia in this budget, that is the minister reading directly from one line item and choosing to ignore a completely different line item that the taxpayers still pay for.

Those 73,000 people, rightfully so, are not going to work for free. They need to be paid. What’s scary is you would think a government with this big of a political spin doctor office would have already broken down and no one in opposition would hone in on that because that number was 320,000 when they first took office. It’s now 593 and almost doubling.

Has health care gotten better with that number? Has education gotten better with that? Numeracy rates are down, reading rates are down in elementary schools. In high schools, graduation rates are starting to falter. Overdoses are up. People feel less safe on their streets than ever before. Catch-and-release is like we’ve never seen before. Correctional facilities that used to be full are running at 40 percent. Business confidence is at an all-time low. Debt to GDP is up. Debt is up. Deficit is up. Spending is up. Results are horrible. Housing costs are up. Housing projects are delayed.

I have a housing project in my riding. It’s called Cherry Avenue apartments.

I’m good. I’ve still got some time. Hopefully people at home are sitting by a fireplace, because this is going to be a nice chat.

Cherry Avenue apartments. That was bought, and the then Minister of Housing — it’s the same Minister of Housing — paid three times the assessed value for that property. It was a vacant 42-apartment building that was built probably in the 60s. It had a fire a couple years earlier, had sat vacant while the landlord — I’ll use that term generously — was trying to decide what he wanted to do. He hadn’t done any repairs. One can only assume there was some form of an insurance payout or waiting for an insurance payout.

The government comes in and insists — even though it had sat in Kamloops for a couple of years, no one wanting to buy it — that they had to snap it up, and that’s why they paid three times the assessed value. They drove up property values in that whole neighbourhood when they did that. One of the last few more affordable areas of Kamloops. They drove up all the property values around there while they did it.

The minister assured me in this place twice — this is how long this project’s been going on, two separate occasions of budget estimates, 2023 and 2024; this was the spring of 2023 it was purchased — all due diligence had been done. In fact, the government was paying the landlord to do the repairs that he hadn’t done for the previous two years as part of the deal. Because that always is going to work out well, we pointed out to them, but they insisted.

It was all built into the price. Due diligence was done. It’s well worth the three times assessed value plus the premium we’re paying for the repairs. Jump forward a whole year….

Oh, and people were supposed to be living in it by fall of 2023. So this is spring of 2023. People living in it by fall of 2023. Well, people aren’t living in it by fall of 2023.

[4:00 p.m.]

B.C. Housing, despite the fact a different motel they had bought four blocks away a couple years earlier and let that building freeze up over winter to the point they had to do massive repairs, delay people living in it for a year and a half…. I think one building actually had to be torn down because of the water damage.

Lo and behold, B.C. Housing let this building freeze up too, four blocks away. Apparently, they didn’t learn the first time. Maybe they thought four blocks away was a different climate. I’m not sure. Even if that was the case, it was on a bit of a hill compared to the other one, about 50 feet higher in the air than the other one. So they would have thought…. Maybe the altitude would have clued them in that it would get chillier there. I’m not sure.

Anyway, no one’s living in it, frozen pipes, way more damage inside now. Lo and behold, the landlord, shockingly, hadn’t done any repairs that they were supposed to do. B.C. Housing then says: “Oh, it’s okay. We withheld the $250,000 or $400,000.” It’s 42 units, so $10,000 a unit for fire damage repairs. That’ll get a lot done in a building that didn’t have enough power to actually power air conditioners in Kamloops.

So that’s a great, humane way to have people live in very small apartments with small windows and not have proper airflow or air conditioning — all known by the people in the community, which is why this building had never been sold. But B.C. Housing insisted to pay three times the assessed value to get it.

I had said to the minister at the time: “Look, if part of the reason you overpaid is that it’s such a big property, why don’t you just tear it down and build the new building while no one is living in there?” Then you’re not having to displace anyone once you repair it, and you can move however…. Just build 100 units. Build 150 units, and then you can move people into those 150 units and tear down the next really old motel you bought that needs to be replaced, without displacing people.

Leapfrog — hey, great opportunity. What do I know? “No, no. We’re going to get the repairs done. We’ll have people in it.” They were supposed to be in last fall. Well, they’re not.

Three times the assessed value. That was about $12½ million at three times the assessed value. We’re now hearing reports that the original half a million dollars’ worth of repairs is now going to be $4.2 million. There may be people living in it this fall, three years after they were supposed to be, and we’re not actually confident about that.

The contracting company doing the work now is very reputable and top-notch. This really has nothing to do with them or the agency that’s supposed to be running the housing. This has everything to do with the government’s rush to overpay for things and not deliver.

That’s just one example of one project where they overpaid and have under-delivered. This budget book is full of that. As I said, we have four B.C. housing projects on here that are all delayed. Most are over budget as well — over budget, underperforming. So no wonder this government doesn’t want to actually be held to any tangible, measurable matrix on anything.

Want to talk emissions? You want to talk emissions in this budget? Emissions aren’t dropping. We’ve had CleanBC for years. Emissions aren’t dropping. And every time you point that out to the government…. “The federal government screwed up on the calculations. There’s a time lag on the calculations. There was this error in the calculations. We’re calculating things differently.”

Well, I guess if you want to keep calculating things differently, you can always get yourself to a better number. Lord help us if you actually just stayed to a consistent way of calculating emissions for the environment.

But it’s all performative. I don’t know that the climate actually cares about their performance. They’re the ones insisting, so let’s drive down emissions. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right. Let’s actually drive them down.

Another glaring hole in this budget, speaking of emissions…. And the EV tax has been removed and now added to start taxing people.

The interesting thing with emissions and carbon tax is…. What this government doesn’t want to talk about is the fact that sometime this year we’re having a federal election. It might be in three weeks. It could be in four months. But somewhere we’re having a federal election. We have to. We have to have one by fall.

Everybody has said they’re getting rid of, at a minimum, the consumer carbon tax. Nothing is built in this budget to actually remove the carbon tax. Not only that; there’s no mention of the possibility of removing carbon tax.

[4:05 p.m.]

What is the government’s plan to remove the carbon tax? Now, the minister today made it very clear if the federal government removes it, then they’ve said they’ll remove it. When?

Does everyone have to keep paying carbon tax at that enhanced, increased rate for an extra nine months before we get to another budget next year? What is the government’s plan? What’s the government’s plan for the $3 billion of revenue that comes in from carbon tax? In this budget, they’re insisting that the extra money that’s coming in this year, the extra $672 million, is going right back out the door to people.

Are they going to remove the low-income subsidies when they remove the carbon tax? Or are they just removing the revenue and keeping the spending going? I think that’s a valid question people would like to know an answer to. Surely the minister must have done some modeling on that or thinking about that. It has to happen in the next few days or months, one way or the other.

Then they say something else very interesting: “We’re going to put it back on the polluters.” Well, we currently have a pricing system for large emitters that essentially says: “You need to have an emission profile that we agree with. As long as you’re under that emission profile, you don’t pay carbon tax.” And, in fact, if you’re way below that emission profile, you can actually sell carbon credits to others.

We have a lot in our industry right now, trade-exposed industry. We’ve got a lot of focus on trade lately, trade-focused industry, trade-exposed, competing with the United States that doesn’t have a carbon tax. Under our current rules, they don’t, as long as they meet emission profiles.

What is the minister saying when they say that they’re going to put it all on polluters? Are they saying that that $3 billion that they’re not currently putting on big industry suddenly goes onto big industry and they have to make up the difference?

Will those in big industry that meet the emission profile still be exempt from paying carbon tax, so the $3 billion will be heaped upon an even smaller group of industry that just happens to be slightly over the threshold?

Even if they are, under the current rules, you just buy carbon credits somewhere else in the world, and you can get yourself under the cap and avoid paying carbon tax. To that, at the time, the minister — not this minister, a different minister previously — said: “Why would anyone do that?” I said: “Well, I don’t know. If you can buy a $4 carbon credit to save $110 in carbon, wouldn’t you do that?”

It seems like a pretty good return to me. I’m not an accountant by trade, but that just seems like pretty easy financial planning if you’re a big corporation.

No detail on that. None. They just use language that sounds good, I guess, in their caucus room but doesn’t provide any certainty to industry that doesn’t even know what their future holds with tariffs. Will they be subject to a tariff as well as a punitive carbon tax while they’re trying to compete in a jurisdiction that has no carbon tax? I think that’s a valid question that needs to be answered for the broader business community.

If you run a restaurant and you’re currently paying carbon tax to run all of your equipment, are you considered a big polluter or are you considered a consumer? It doesn’t seem like that hard of a question to be answered by government at this stage.

We’ve been talking about this for months. It came up before the election even. Yet no mention of it in the budget. No acknowledgment that this creates a massive problem for government, moving forward.

They’ll say: “Well, what are you going to do? What would you do?” Well, I’ve got news for the NDP. Because of a tight election and 22 votes, I actually don’t have to do that for four years. You do. You asked for the keys to the treasury. You asked for control of tax policy. You asked for the ability to deal with things in a time of crisis.

The public, by way of 22 votes, said: “Okay, we’ll give you a shot.” This is on your shoulders to not only solve the issues but actually provide the answers in advance so people can plan.

[4:10 p.m.]

We are already the least-competitive jurisdiction in North America to attract investment. Not having clarity on the government’s plans around carbon tax doesn’t help.

These are significant decisions these companies are going to be making. We have a pulp mill in Kamloops. We have a sawmill in Kamloops, some other industry. This happens in any larger operation if they have multiple pulp mills, multiple sawmills within their company, so it’s not unique to any one company. But if you have a board, and most of these do…. I’m not sure if the government actually gets how this works when you’re trying to attract capital into a region, right?

You’re going to have one mill pitching to their board why they should get the capital that year. Then you have another mill in North Carolina, and you have a mill in Quebec. You have a mill down in Florida, and you have one maybe over in Europe. One by one they go to the board of directors, and they say: “We know you only have a $100 million to spend on capital this year, but I need $50 million of it in my plant.” The other guy says: “I need $70 million.” And the other ones say….

You know what they do? They look at return on investment. They look at risk. They look at return on investment. They look at stability of the jurisdiction they’re operating in. They look at stability of rules and laws and regulations. They look at all of that, and the board weighs every proposal against each other internally. So when we say you’re competing with North Carolina, you are at the board table level, because they know what the tax laws and the rules in North Carolina are as well.

They need certainty, and they need risk avoidance. Capital hates risk, but they also need competitive tax structures. Without those, you’re never going to get them. They will look at the workforce, obviously, but usually what I’m talking about are upgrades, and usually environmental upgrades to get more modern equipment into a plant. But if you’re not competitive, you don’t win out at that board table.

What it does is it actually puts our industry in jeopardy over the long term, because the longer that keeps going on, the more antiquated that mill gets. Then the replacement becomes a full replacement, and good luck with that in this day and age.

That’s the backdrop that this budget has failed to address, because there is nothing in there. As I say, the business groups have all given it a C- or worse. Small businesses said there’s nothing in it for them. The public has said there’s nothing in it for them. The best you can get is that it’s status quo.

I don’t know how Nova Scotia was able to provide $1,000-plus to households in their most recent budget for tax breaks, but they did. I don’t know how Nova Scotia was able to provide various tax breaks to small- and medium-sized businesses, but they did. New Brunswick was out of the gate with tariff response immediately. You would have thought it was February 1 all over again with the Premier’s response yesterday. He had over a month to come up with something new with this supposed all-star committee of cabinet members. Nothing. Nothing new. Nothing in the budget.

As I pointed out yesterday, if they needed a little more time to actually have a budget reflect the tariff threat, they should have just come to this chamber and told us that and said: “You know what? We’re in our legal right.” They don’t even have to change a law. They literally just have to give a notice to the Legislature and the public that they’re postponing the budget for a few weeks, because this government had already changed the law to allow them to do that.

First, it was supposed to be the fourth week in March. Then they moved it to April 30. They’ve already introduced a budget once in this place that came out on April 20, almost three weeks after the start of the fiscal year. They come forward. They tell us they’re going to delay. They present their interim supply bill, just like they’ve already done.

[4:15 p.m.]

We approve the interim supply bill to keep the doors of government open and running. We meet and talk about the budget end of March, beginning of April. They could have put in all sorts of tariff measures. They didn’t want to do that, because they’re relying on the federal government to provide tariff relief for British Columbians.

Let’s think about that for a minute. They’re relying on the federal government. They don’t know what tariff relief will be coming from the federal government or not. We don’t know who the Prime Minister will be in a week — not even a week — by March 9.

We don’t know when a federal election will be called. Sometime between now and October. We don’t know, obviously, who’s going to win that election, whether it’ll be a majority or minority. We don’t know, as a result of that, what their final policies are going to be around tariff relief flowing back to provinces and how substantive.

The government’s response to an immediate tariff threat, when we’re debating a budget where we could actually be doing something to have real-time help for British Columbians and businesses in British Columbia, is to fob it off on the federal government where, if we’re lucky — even if it’s a snap election, because it’s a 38-day election federally — we’ll have some sense of what the actual new government is going to be doing four to five months from now. That’s this government taking action for tariffs.

If you want to pull booze off the shelves, pull booze off the shelves. But if it’s got an American flag on it, and that’s why you’re doing it, pull it. There are all sorts of wineries from California that are actually owned by people whose headquarters are in the so-called red states. If we’re in a tariff war against a country, it’s a country.

Last I checked, no Republicans or Democrats get to vote for anyone in this chamber. Why are we worrying about offending the sensibilities of a Democrat or a Republican? We should be worried about protecting British Columbians. Half measures, performative, hollow words, no measurables — that’s all this budget is.

It’s interesting. In my speech yesterday, I closed out saying it’s one giant missed opportunity. I noticed when I was pulling up quotes there were a couple of other groups that actually said the same thing. There’s no way they would have heard what I was saying when they made that quote. There’s no way I saw their quote when I was making my comment. It’s just what was resonating as people were at it. It truly is a bunch of missed opportunities.

I don’t quite know how this government, when you read through the supplement to the estimates, when you read through the estimates, when you read through the budget book and when you read through the hollow words of the speech, actually, reasonably, thinks the average British Columbian sees any relief for themselves in this budget, let alone in the backdrop of tariffs.

This is a government that has very obviously run out of ideas, which is scary, because they’re — what? — five months into their term. This is a government that obviously doesn’t know how to truly deliver for the British Columbia public. They don’t know how to deliver for small businesses. They sure as heck don’t know how to deliver cancer care without a passport.

They don’t know how to deliver health care in a timely fashion. I mean, we listed off…. Here’s the response from this government. We list off a day’s worth of ER closures. Within the few days after that question period, there were multiple more ER closures around this province, many in the same hospitals. No action taken. Three years of non-stop hospital closures.

I look at that, and I think: “There’s got to be a way.” If you’re sending everyone to Royal Inland Hospital…. Use Merritt as an example. Again, we’re not supposed to be solving these problems. But I guess since they’re government and we’re opposition for a little while, and I want people to actually get health care when they need it, I’ll give the government a suggestion. They’re free to use it.

How about you sit down with the nurses, and you have one nurse designated every shift that says that they’ll travel to Merritt if Merritt is short a nursing shift. Pay them a premium if you have to, to be that designated person — 24 hours a day.

[4:20 p.m.]

Kamloops Royal Inland Hospital is open 24 hours a day, because the larger hospital usually can withstand one more nurse being away. Merritt can’t, and as a result, they close, which puts pressure on Kamloops anyways.

Couldn’t you do that with one of your hospitalists, as well? Have people in the larger centres getting a slight bump of pay to travel on no notice, to basically go to the nearest regional hospital that’s closed or going to be closing, that they know will, in a few hours time, be closed because of a lack of one doctor or one nurse. It’s been three and a half years. Government hasn’t done that, hasn’t even attempted it.

Do it as a pilot. It’s pretty easy to track. When Merritt closes, they send everyone to Royal Inland Hospital or Kelowna General, so you have two hospitals to choose from, from Merritt, to backfill.

If Clearwater closes, they send everyone to Kamloops. If 100 Mile House closes…. I shouldn’t be saying if but when, because these all have closed. When 100 Mile House closes, they send them all to Kamloops. When Lillooet closes, they send them all to Kamloops.

How about this? Instead of asking people that are sick and injured and needing emergent care to drive two hours, and multiple people doing that, we send one nurse the other way for two hours, and keep an ER open. Or we send one doctor the other way for two hours and keep the ER open.

How about instead of Kamloops doctors having to go to Kelowna to do surgeries on all their Kamloops patients for the day, and all of those patients needing to have an overnight stay and family come and stay for a day or two and everything else…?

Here’s a crazy thought. Since we have a whole bunch of brand-new operating rooms in Kamloops, how about we have the one missing technician we need to be able to perform those surgeries in Kamloops actually drive from Kamloops to Kelowna for the day and not inconvenience all those patients?

Or when we send a full day’s worth of people from Kamloops to Salmon Arm for imaging, to tie up their imaging machine for the full day, so they can drive, especially this time of year, on what can be a dangerous stretch of highway…. A full day’s worth of imaging patients. How about we send the tech to Kamloops?

We can say the same for Prince George. We can say the same for Kelowna, Cranbrook. There are ways we could minimize the impact to the public and the cost to the system if this government was willing to actually take charge. That would actually provide efficiencies, which means a cost savings without cuts.

But all this government seems to think is…. As soon as you say efficiency, they think cut, cut, cut. Well, they haven’t cut. They haven’t cut for eight years, and we now have an unsustainable budget, and we cannot withstand a tariff war. Yet other provinces that were in better financial shape were able to follow through on their campaign promises to people and give them tax breaks, give the businesses tax breaks and actually still be responding to tariff threats. But not this government.

We’ve lost count. I’m hard pressed at this point…. It would be much faster if the government, one of their members, could stand up and say any substantive thing in this budget that they followed through on as a campaign promise, other than the digital tax credit. We’ll let the Finance Minister cover that one off herself. They’re simply not there.

Again, to be really clear to our friends in the digital arts community, we’re not saying you shouldn’t have had support. We’re simply asking why other agencies didn’t see the same support, why other sectors of our economy who asked for similar type of help were ignored, just like you were ignored from 2018 till now. Just like you were ignored when the Finance Minister used to do the lobbying on your behalf to ask for that tax cut, until now. Just like the softwood industry has been feeling, the lumber industry has been feeling — being ignored by this government for eight years.

[4:25 p.m.]

I remember John Horgan famously saying after the 2017 election that he was going straight to Washington, and he was going to straighten out the softwood lumber deal. He went straight to Washington and came back with a cheque for $260,000 from some donors, and there was nothing else….

Interjections.

Peter Milobar: I’m sorry. Are we not supposed to talk about what happened in the past?

Interjections.

Peter Milobar: I’m talking about the softwood lumber deal that the Minister of Finance should actually be dealing with and isn’t.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members.

The member for Kamloops Centre has the floor.

Peter Milobar: Thank you. I’m not sure how you talk about a softwood lumber deal that hasn’t been solved since 2017 and talk about the actions of the NDP and the people that were making commitments on behalf of the NDP and the people of B.C. and how they were going to solve it….

I have nothing but respect for the late Premier Horgan, but I don’t know how I talk about that issue without mentioning his name, because he was the one that said he was going to negotiate a solution to it. Instead, B.C. gave up their seat at the head of the softwood lumber negotiating table to the Maritimes. And we never have been back. They’ve had eight years to get back to that.

The Minister of Forests can be agitated all he likes. The people in the lumber industry, the people with closed mills, are wondering when the heck the softwood lumber deal is going to be solved by this government, as they’ve promised for eight years.

I guess I can see why the government is a little on edge these days. They announced a budget yesterday that has been met with a yawn. They were hoping to duck and weave behind tariffs, and that has been very much seen to be what it is with this budget — that it is not a tariff budget whatsoever.

It’s a budget that highlights the fiscal mismanagement of this government, that highlights their lack of progress on any substantive area of our everyday life, that highlights that they have no plan for the future, coming years.

They have no plan for carbon tax and the impacts that will have on next year’s budget and what it will mean for individuals who are receiving the low-income tax subsidy that’s paid for by that carbon tax or the businesses or the industry that relies on grants from CleanBC that are funded by carbon tax or what they’re going to do with the remainder of the carbon tax that gets dumped into general revenue. No answers for that.

They’ve made a big deal over the years that carbon tax pays for transit. Should transit expect a cut next year? Because they already didn’t follow through on free transit for seniors this year. Does that mean next year with no carbon tax that transit can expect a cut?

They’ve spent the six years that they’ve been dealing with the carbon tax, with CleanBC, insisting that it’s paying for bike lanes and transit. What’s this government’s plan with that? No more bike lanes? No more transit? TransLink’s got a pretty big issue; they might want to know. Lord knows their taxpayers can’t afford any more on their property taxes after the debacle of the sewage plant.

How’s the government going to deal with that? It’s great that they’re extending SkyTrains. Wonderful. Everyone’s in agreement with that. It’s too bad they’re way over budget on them, because they could have actually gotten more built for the same amount of money.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

I wonder how many schools along that SkyTrain line within Surrey and Langley they could have actually built with the hundreds of millions of dollars of cost overruns.

Again, that’s the fundamental problem with this budget. It’s doing less with more money. You should be doing more with less money. You should be able to actually build a SkyTrain station and a school.

When they have cost overruns on the Trans-Canada Highway outside of Kamloops, that cost overrun is the equivalent of the capital ask for the school district for the next six years — for a scaled-back highways project.

[4:30 p.m.]

Here’s a wild and crazy thought from the B.C. Conservatives: how about you actually build a highway on time and on budget and take that same amount of money that you’re currently putting on the cost overrun and actually build schools in that same area that you’re building…? Because we need schools everywhere.

This is a government that promised no more portables in Surrey in four years. That was in 2017. Portables have doubled. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about that. Hopefully, it’s okay with the Minister of Forests that I talk about that.

They make campaign promises in Richmond and don’t deliver on them. Except they do; they just break the promise when they say there won’t be a housing project and then turn around right after the election and say that actually, there is going to be a housing project. Then they admonish our side for our leader letting people speak their minds, but they make sure that their MLA is not allowed to speak for the residents of Richmond. That’s the style of government that we have delivering this budget.

Interjections.

Peter Milobar: I can see and hear that they’re obviously getting agitated by their past actions, or lack of action, being highlighted in this budget. It’s always interesting to hear the pearls of wisdom that come from the Forests Minister.

I look forward to the day he stands up in this House and says that he has solved the softwood lumber deal and that there are no more mill closures under the NDP watch, as opposed to the 17, 18, 19 — I’m losing count — mills that have closed under their watch.

Interjections.

Peter Milobar: Yeah. Yeah.

I look forward to this government richly embracing LNG and the expansion of LNG while they’re in partnership with the Green Party to try to get our economy growing. I look forward to that in their budget speeches when they try to explain to us why they have no plan to balance the budget.

I look forward to the Minister of Forests telling us how exactly he’s going to protect the forest industry, which says there’s nothing in this budget to help them and protect them through their tariff troubles, as he tries to tell them that this is all about tariffs in this budget. I look forward to the Forests Minister trying to defend that record.

Interjection.

Peter Milobar: Yeah.

It’s going to be a very interesting debate in this House, Madam Speaker. One thing is certain in this chamber, just like at the end of question period: when the government gets agitated, when the government doesn’t want to answer, they sure perk up in a hurry. Then everyone starts to try to deflect and find ways to find fault with what’s being said, who’s saying it, who’s at fault. It’s quite interesting.

They’ve been government for 7½ years. This is their track record financially, with failures in housing, infrastructure, schools, hospitals, health care, cancer care, the opioid crisis, public safety, the cost of housing; the lack of a grocery rebate, the lack of free transit for seniors and the lack of teachers assistants, which were promised in this last election. This is their track record that they can stand up and be accountable for.

I know they’re probably very proud of it. I would suggest that most of British Columbians are shaking their heads in disbelief at an $11 billion deficit. Things are still getting worse in all those sectors, not better.

I don’t know how much money they need to make themselves feel better at night, thinking they’re actually making a difference in the province, but one thing is certain: there is no way the taxpayers of British Columbia can afford them. In fact, the only thing cheap about this budget is in the words the government keeps talking about it.

Rob Botterell: I will be the designated speaker for the Third Party caucus on this item.

[4:35 p.m.]

Congratulations to Minister Bailey for delivering her first budget as Finance Minister. Our thanks to her and her whole team for the work they’ve clearly done to deliver this document. The minister herself has described this budget as the most consequential time in B.C. in generations. I think she’s right, although our reasons for thinking so may differ.

Budget 2025 comes at a time of unparalleled uncertainty. The U.S. President has unleashed a trade war that threatens business across the province and indeed across the continent. The uncertainty that this budget was written under is clear from the variable projections, only some of which include the tariffs which came into force yesterday.

I might pause here to touch on something the opposition Finance critic mentioned, where he said that we really need to look back to promises made in the last election and that we need to find follow through on those promises. My response, as the House Leader on behalf of the Green caucus, is: we need to look forward. We need to reset.

As the Green caucus, we’ll have some views on what that reset should be, but in these very uncertain times, it is not possible to do everything we might want to do. We have to really focus on what’s necessary in a highly uncertain environment.

In my comments today, I’ll touch on what we, as the Green caucus, as the Third Party, see. There isn’t only the challenge of tariffs; there’s also the challenge of accelerating climate change, which remains an existential threat to our lives. Although the Conservative opposition would put it on the never-never plan to address: “We’ll get to it when we can get to it.”

Well, that’s not where we’re at. Inequality also continues to tear at our social fabric. Poverty and homelessness remain a scourge that affects far too many of our people, in one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world, and progress on Indigenous reconciliation, despite unwavering Conservative opposition to UNDRIP, is promising but far from complete.

Being world leaders in the fight against climate change, environmental protection, Indigenous reconciliation, tackling inequality, and fully supporting those most vulnerable to unemployment and poverty…. That’s not part of the problem; that is the solution. A zero-carbon economy is the future, and B.C. can be a spectator or an active, engaged participant.

Completing Indigenous reconciliation will create the certainty needed for Indigenous people across B.C. to take their rightful place at the centre of our future together. Protecting the environment of this special province will be our legacy for future generations. Eliminating unemployment and poverty will not only be a visible demonstration of dignity and compassion; it will reduce demands on our overstretched health and social support systems.

That’s why we were disappointed to see a budget that doesn’t fully acknowledge or address these overlapping crises. Nor does it show the imagination that we were looking for and that will be required to find our way out. The budget is aptly titled “Standing Strong for B.C.,” but should it be “Standing Still”?

However we describe the budget, at best, in the face of a trade war and a threat of annexation, this budget provides all of us one last opportunity to do the work and make the systemic changes we should have made years ago. People may be surprised to hear about the concerns we have with this budget. We have, as you’ll be aware, agreed in principle to support the government on confidence and supply, through the cooperation and responsible government agreement.

Yes, we are delighted to see the 2025 deliverables that we negotiated with the NDP appearing in this budget: funding for supportive housing through expansion of the village model, which will provide wraparound supports and long-term and transitional housing, keeping more people safe and warm; 7,500 units of non-market affordable housing; mental health support for more British Columbians; bringing public transit to more communities, starting with the Sea to Sky corridor; and working to permanently protect Fairy Creek.

[4:40 p.m.]

These and other CARGA initiatives, to be delivered this year, are going to make a big, immediate difference for many people. However, in other key areas for completion in 2025, the hard work is just beginning.

We’re partnering with the government to develop and implement action plans in the areas of forests. Nobody’s standing aside and saying it isn’t a massive issue we need to deal with. We’re going to do the heavy lifting.

Primary health care, including how to fund expansion of community health centres. Social assistance and disability rates. Reviewing CleanBC to develop a real plan for addressing the accelerating climate crisis. Democratic renewal to avoid the worst effects of the first-past-the-post two-party system we see playing out south of the border.

The actions and recommendations coming out of this work will require access to the $4 billion contingency in this year’s budget and will have significant budget implications for fiscal ‘26-27, because we need to invest in the future.

In a time when this government could be pulling back support for people in the name of the bottom line, it is committed to maintaining the essential funding needed for British Columbians to survive this unparalleled tariff and annexation crisis we face. We’re grateful to see continued support for health care, social and disability assistance, families and youth in the child welfare system.

We’re not looking to see a budget that is cut on the backs of those most vulnerable in our society, so we applaud the government for taking these interim measures. But in this moment, we need commitments that move beyond mere survival. People in B.C. deserve the support they need to prosper.

Health care. The budget offers increased spending on health care, including for the delivery of primary care, Medical Service Plan, PharmaCare coverage and continued support for mental health care services. We hope that these increased funds will have the desired impact of improving access and delivery of health care in the province.

Despite a substantial financial investment in health spending over the past several years, people in B.C. continue to be faced with challenges and immense barriers to receiving the excellent health care they need and deserve. We are grateful to see additional funding to support B.C.’s primary care strategy.

We know that there are gaps in the system, and far too many people are falling through. We look forward to seeing the Ministry of Health’s analysis of primary care in B.C., the recommendations of which should be implemented to ensure people across the province have equitable and timely access to the health services they need and deserve.

We’re also glad to see continued investment in mental health and substance use care, noting that the government uses the terms “evidence-informed” and “evidence-based.” We hope this will include a regulation of treatment services and a comprehensive, evidence-based, person-centred review of the long-outdated Mental Health Act.

We are glad to see an increase in funding for the income, disability and supplementary assistance program. However, this is largely seen simply to address increased demand for assistance programs rather than raise the base rates for assistance, of which changes are long overdue. Persons with disability assistance and income assistance must at least meet the poverty line and be indexed to inflation. Minimal increases to assistance rates are not sufficient to ensure people in B.C. are adequately supported.

In other areas, the government appears to have misunderstood or even forgotten the commitments they’ve made. An example mentioned earlier today is the lack of a biodiversity and ecosystem health framework.

Speaking of alarming, the government has budgeted just $125 million for emergency disaster relief amid wildfires, floods and a series of earthquakes which sure seem to be ongoing. Proper planning for emergency disaster response…. Not proper planning is irresponsible.

Do we really need any further proof that climate change is real and cannot be relegated to the “we’ll get to that later” stack, as the Conservatives would recommend? In fact, the government also seems determined to make emergencies more common by going all-in on fracked methane, which is now projected to grow as a share of government revenue.

[4:45 p.m.]

It will surprise no one that the natural gas royalties revenue line is the most irregular of the government’s revenue sources, showing once again that we cannot afford to tie our economy to the whims of international oil and gas markets.

I raise these issues not out of a sense of despair but out of a sense of frustration. The government can and should be able to steer a course through these crises. We know that the minister has a background in innovation and technology. It certainly came up in the speech yesterday. Where it didn’t come up, though, was in spending on innovation.

The references to innovation within this fiscal plan are used in conjunction with the name of the Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation Ministry and a project at Vancouver Community College. Without disparaging either one, I would ask the government why this is. Why are they not investing in an innovative, clean, green future?

The overlapping crises — political, climate, social — show that we need to do things differently. We need a paradigm shift, and that will allow British Columbia to succeed over the next 100 years. We should have a seven-generation approach here, yet in a $95 billion budget, the amount set aside for innovation is in the millions.

I’m not alone in my belief that investment in innovation is foundational to our future. Dan Breznitz — the Munk chair of innovation studies at the University of Toronto, a world-renowned expert in this area — summed up the benefits of innovation this way: “Our highly educated workforce, if it can be matched with an export-oriented, highly productive and innovative business sector that is leading the world and engaging with knowledge and investing in the newest equipment and technology, should be the best foundation for sustained prosperity.”

We’re really concerned that the threat of tariffs is being used to cement industrial practices from the past into our future. Our environmental protections, our hard-fought progress on reconciliation cannot be forsaken for boom-and-bust resource extraction. We need to innovate.

What would we have liked to see in this budget? How would we make sure that we set a new course? As I said, after a reset, we actually chart a new course that addresses all of the crises, interlocking issues, that I’ve talked about. We recommend that there should be a $2 billion innovation fund to support innovation in all sectors of the economy, for all sizes of business and in all regions across the province. We need to invest to create a 21st-century economy.

We would have liked to see acknowledgment that our economy should be in service to our people, not the other way around. The economic headwinds that are coming our way, they’re here. Low economic growth and the potential of a recession, a lack of confidence and challenges with investment, inflation projections that are all over the map need all of us to work together to meet them head-on.

Far too many people in British Columbia live below the poverty line — over 500,000 — kept that way by a system that spends more keeping people in poverty than lifting them out of it. Although we’re glad to see continued investment in disability and social assistance supports, we would like to see a commitment to raising these rates above the poverty line in this session.

We would have liked to have seen investment in energy that we need to power our province, not fracked methane. Solar. And investment in food producers that keep our people powered up. That’s important too — critical.

We would have liked acknowledgment of the impact that these overlapping crises are having on mental health and for the government to do everything it can to support early intervention and prevention for anyone who needs support.

I know my colleagues on this side of the House are concerned about the debt, and so are we. But we are more concerned about the long-term negative impacts that not investing in innovation, in our people, in our environment and in our infrastructure will have.

[4:50 p.m.]

We’re more concerned about bringing fairness back to B.C. by growing revenue and improving tax fairness. We’re more concerned about people having access to the services that they rely on and will need even more as we face these crises over the next year.

Yes, the provincial debt has increased significantly; however, now is not the time to balance the budget. Now is the time to make the best possible use of our fiscal capacity to make the systemic changes needed to build a 21st-century economy and thereby build the revenue streams necessary to retire the debt.

Perhaps the best illustration of the need for innovation and courageous action is forestry. Yesterday’s tariff announcement included devastating news for the forest sector, duties and tariffs piled on top of each other, with more to come, potentially rising from 14 percent on Monday to 39 percent today to over 50 percent in August.

And it gets worse. There were duty-exempt products like veneer and plywood. Now, under the tariff, they will receive a 25 percent rate for the first time in their history. This will drive up lumber prices across the board, and because stumpage includes a lumber price index, it will kill timberland producers due to unsustainable rising stumpage rates. First Nations tenure holders will bear the brunt of this, as they don’t cover that impact in mills.

This will effectively shut harvest down if the government doesn’t do something to change stumpage immediately. We’re committed to working with the government to make sure that the changes happen that are needed to protect the forest sector and to clear the way forward for innovation — and a forest sector that respects the old-growth review, respects Indigenous interests and creates the long-term prosperity that communities and workers across this province deserve.

We’ve done the heavy lifting to know what actions are needed on old growth and ecosystem-based forage. We’ve done the heavy lifting to know what actions are needed to support Indigenous reconciliation. What we need now is action on the policy, regulatory and economic framework to spur on innovation, diversification away from the U.S., innovation and diversification that does not reward forest companies who pick up and move to the U.S.

We’re looking forward, over this year, to working with the NDP government to make those changes happen. CARGA establishes a clear path forward. The need for a paradigm shift is clear. We will be voting for the budget this year on the understanding that the government will work and continue to work collaboratively and urgently to deliver on the 2025 promises set out in CARGA and do the necessary work in 2025 so the 2026-27 budget can be entitled “Delivering a 21st-Century Economy: Putting People and the Environment First.”

Hon. Ravi Parmar: It’s a pleasure to be able to rise in this House and to follow the member across the way — what eloquence, what leadership. It’s the type of leadership we need in this House.

It’s an honour to be able to stand and provide my response on behalf of the people of Langford-Highlands to Budget 2025.

I just want to begin…. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for John Horgan. When members opposite use his name and try to attack him, that pisses me off. That pisses off the people of Langford-Highlands as well.

To the members opposite who think they can just throw his name left, right and centre and try to degrade John Horgan, good luck, because not only will I but the people of Langford-Highlands will stand up and face that again. One of the most popular MLAs this Legislature has ever elected, one of the hardest-working Premiers we’ve ever had. Shame on the members on the other side.

[4:55 p.m.]

Budget 2025. We face big challenges, and there are two options that we have: we can be like the members opposite and roll over, or we can fight — fight for British Columbians, fight every single day. That’s what we are doing on this side of the House every single day.

Budget 2025 is unique. It was created under the most uncertain times that our province has seen, where we have one of our kindest trading partners, a partner that we’ve had for generations, who has put us in a really difficult position, who has instituted a trade war. Again, on this side of the House, we’re going to fight for British Columbians and that’s what this budget is all about. It’s about defending British Columbians against the impacts of U.S. tariffs.

I think it’s important to remember the impacts that these tariffs are having. I’m going to spend some time talking about Budget 2025 in relation to the impact and our response. I’m going to spend some time talking about the investments we’re making in Langford-Highlands.

I’m also going to spend some time talking about the Ministry of Forests and what we’re doing to make sure, as we are facing one of the most challenging times — the Ministry of Forests and, I would add, forest-dependent communities — in a lifetime, that we talk a bit about how we can work together to be able to accomplish the challenges ahead.

I’m going to end with talking about the opportunities and challenges we have before us but also talk about the options that British Columbians have before them as well.

British Columbia has a really diversified economy. We’re a subnational government, but we’ve done a lot of work on this side of the House to make sure that we’re not reliant on the United States to the extent other provinces are. It’s important for all members to know that our share of goods and exports to the U.S. dropped to 52.8 percent in 2024, compared to 65.8 percent in 2000.

That’s work that we’ve been doing on this side of the House through our trade and investment teams, through opening offices and through having people in those key markets. B.C. has expanded its trade relationships in key Asian markets. We’ve expanded our trade relationships in Europe. I know that because I’ve been on some of those trade missions. I know the important work that we’ve done, and I know how important it is to be able to have people in those communities fighting for our interests each and every day.

But we face challenges, without a doubt. British Columbians are facing them right now. It’s challenging for us as a subnational government but, I would argue, as a country to be able to deal with the lunatic down south, who just changes his mind each and every day. I understand that he’s lifted 25 percent tariffs off of auto, but we know how devastating it is to forestry and, in particular, the impact of softwood lumber tariffs and duties. I’m going to touch on that as well.

What I’m proud of is our Minister of Finance — someone who comes from the business community, someone who has run businesses herself, who served as a CEO of major tech companies — who has come forward with one piece in mind and that is protecting British Columbians through this and making sure that we are the most prepared we can be and have presented ourselves with as many possible impacts as we have, because these are going to be tough times ahead. That’s why it’s so important that we fight for our interests.

We know that with the impacts, the challenges, of these tariffs, as we touched on in the Budget 2025 speech, we could see by 2029 a $43 billion cumulative decrease to the real GDP. That is significant. And 45,000 fewer jobs by 2029, unemployment rising, a decline in corporate profits, a decline in government’s revenue. These are big challenges that we face. It’s so important that we acknowledge that it’s before us.

We’re not alone. It’s not just British Columbia facing these challenges. It’s other provinces. It’s our country. As we continue to learn more about what the President is saying, it looks like it’s going to be other countries as well. We’re going to have to band together.

It’s why it’s so important that we continue leading the way on eliminating interprovincial trade barriers, which British Columbia has done over the last three Ministers of Jobs. I’ve had the opportunity to be at the front row of that because I’ve worked for the last two Ministers of Jobs, and I know how hard they worked on these projects.

[5:00 p.m.]

Our focus on this side of the House is going to be our three-component strategy — that is, strengthening British Columbia’s economy each and every day, making sure that we’re expediting projects, supporting industry, supporting workers, supporting rural communities.

We’re going to diversify trade markets for products, so British Columbia is less reliant on the United States for its market and customers. We’re going to be responding to U.S. tariffs with tough counteractions, and we’re going to do a lot more outreach to American decision-makers as well. I had an opportunity to be able to go down to Sacramento, and I’ll certainly touch on that as well.

Again, there’s a number of things in Budget 2025 that speak to that.

Our commitment to Buy B.C. — I think this should be something we’re all proud of. In response to these devastating tariffs, what have British Columbians and what have Canadians done? They went and bought B.C. They’re supporting Canada. They’re not supporting American companies. They’re not buying international products from the United States. They’re supporting local.

I think of, in my community of Langford-Highlands, the amount of buy-B.C. logos I see, buy-Canada logos I see, the flags flying high and proud in our communities. It’s so important that we acknowledge that British Columbians have done what we expected they would do — and that is fight. It’s why it’s so important that we fight on their behalf.

But again, we have to acknowledge that we’re going to face big challenges, and Budget 2025 speaks to that: the impact on the forest sector, the impact on every sector of our economy. I know I’m thinking each and every day about the impacts on small businesses in my community of Langford-Highlands, thinking about the impact on rural communities that I’ve visited over the course of the last three months since I took on this role of B.C.’s Minister of Forests.

I’m thinking about the businesses that I visited in Fraser Lake, Fort St. James, Vanderhoof, Prince George, Quesnel, Williams Lake — so many communities that I know are struggling right now and don’t know what the future unfolds. We’re going to be working hard on their behalf each and every day.

Budget 2025 continues to ensure that we are making record investments in health care, making sure that at the end of the day, we’re strengthening health care and all the services people rely on. That’s over $7.7 billion invested over three years to support health care, education and social services.

We often talk about the challenges in health care, and there’s no shortage of challenges. The Minister of Health speaks to them, in this House and outside of this House, all the time. We’ve got a labour shortage in health care. We have to train more doctors and nurses. But we are making progress, making progress in communities all over the place.

I’m doing work with my local government and with community partners like the South Island Primary Care Society, where we’re finding internationally trained doctors and bringing them to British Columbia. After the disastrous records of the Conservative government in the U.K., we saw a flood of doctors from the U.K. coming to Canada, coming to British Columbia, and many of them are actually practising in Langford. That’s something to be proud of.

We’re also not just focused on the operations. We’re also making sure that the capital is there to be able to support staff, be able to support communities. It is important for us to remember as we face these challenges that on this side of the House, even though we didn’t necessarily represent those communities that the members opposite represent, we made investments.

It was this government that invested in a new hospital in Terrace, this government replacing the hospital in Terrace. The mayor of Terrace, just a few weeks ago when I was in his community, took me for a little bit of a drive, showed me the old hospital, showed me the new one and recognized the former Minister of Health and the new Minister of Health and the incredible work that we have done on this side of the House, the incredible work that John Horgan did and the current Premier have done in making sure that we’re making those investments.

In addition to Terrace, we’re also building a new hospital in Surrey; new facilities in Surrey; new long-term care facilities in Chilliwack, Kelowna, Squamish, including the West Shore in Colwood. We’re building a new 300 bed, long-term care home in Colwood to serve the West Shore. Right now we only have 50 beds.

We desperately advocated year after year. When the B.C. Liberals were here, we got nothing from them. It took an NDP government, to get in, to make the investments that we need in our communities.

We talk about mental health and addiction supports. We’ve invested record dollars. It’s clear we have to do more. We have to invest more dollars. But again, let’s not forget that when the Leader of the Opposition was part of bringing forward budgets under the B.C. Liberals — you could call them the B.C. Conservatives, B.C. Liberals, B.C. United, same thing — they cut money from health care, and they cut money from mental health and addiction to the tune of $300 million in one year.

[5:05 p.m.]

Let’s also not forget that when those guys were in charge and they sat on this side of the House and they introduced budgets, they also fired health care workers — 10,000 health care workers. How ridiculous is that? B.C. Liberals, B.C. Conservatives, B.C. United — it doesn’t matter what you call them, that’s their record. They fired health care workers.

What did we do? We hired those health care workers back.

That means something to me because two of those workers were my parents. When those guys were in charge, they fired health care workers. They fired my parents. In particular, for my dad, who was a health care worker…. Here’s something that it would be important for the members opposite to remember. When he lost his job, he got a call back a couple of weeks later. His wages were cut in half. No benefits, no supports. That’s how they treat working people.

We don’t treat working people that way. Again, it’s important to remember that the Leader of the Opposition has a past in this House. We are going to use every opportunity we have to remind all of his new colleagues and the ones that were there for some of it as a staffer that that Leader of the Opposition has a record. He’s not a new fresh face in this House by any means.

I want to talk about….

Interjections.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: I will talk about my record.

Let’s talk about education. Let’s talk about the fact that the….

Interjections.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: I’m from Langford, Member across the way, so I’m going to talk about Langford….

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Let’s talk about Langford. I hope the member opposite gets an opportunity to be able to speak about education in his community, but I’m going to talk about education in my community.

The reason I’m standing here is because of John Horgan, but one of the reasons I became interested in politics was when those guys sat on this side of the House and wouldn’t replace my aging, decrepit high school. Do you know what we did at our high school? When the floors ripped up, we put duct tape on the floors. That’s their response. That’s their response.

What have we done over the last seven, eight years since we’ve been forming government and we’ve sat on this side of the House? The largest expansion of public education in the Sooke school district’s history, more land purchases to build new schools, more schools. Right now in September, we are opening SĆIȺNEW̱ SṮEȽIṮḴEȽ, a 500-seat elementary school to serve south Langford.

We just opened up….

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: I’m talking about Langford, dude. I’m talking about Langford. You stand up and talk about Surrey. I’m going to talk about Langford. That’s my community.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Stop wasting my time.

Deputy Speaker: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, Members.

Interjections.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Stop wasting my time. Ridiculous.

Deputy Speaker: Hold on. Hold on, Members.

You’ve got the floor, through the Chair. Thank you.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: So $4.6 billion over the next three years is going to go to building new schools, renovating. That’s something we’re proud of on this side of the House.

Post-secondary education — we have fought hard in Langford to ensure that the students that graduate from our community, the next generation, have post-secondary options closer to home. It’s this government that made an investment, first of its kind, the West Shore post-secondary campus — $108 million. That campus is opening this year. That’s something we’re proud of, the first of its kind. UVic, Camosun College, Royal Roads, the Justice Institute and the Sooke school district all in the same building. Those are the investments we’re making in Budget 2025.

I want to thank the leadership that my colleague the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation has shown in the short time that she’s been in this portfolio. Budget 2025 invests $45 million in new funding over three years for the First Peoples Cultural Council, nearly doubling the province’s past annual investments. Those are the type of investments that apparently they don’t support on the other side of the House. These are investments to Elders and First Nations women, to expert speakers, to ensure that we’re stewarding the language for these First Nations communities.

Again, it doesn’t surprise me in terms of what we hear from the members across the way. They don’t support UNDRIP. They have members in their caucus that just say absolutely terrible things about First Nations communities. Shame on them.

We’re going to continue supporting First Nations language preservation and revitalization in our budget.

Children, child care. What was the B.C. Conservative, B.C. Liberal, B.C. United plan for child care? Absolutely nothing. No plan. What have we done? We have led one of the largest social programs in a generation, in our province. Child care in every single community. People in Langford-Highlands have saved over $30 million in investments in child care. We are opening up child care centres in every community, in every province.

If those guys, God forbid, were sitting in this House, they would cancel the program. They would follow the leadership of Pierre Poilievre and the federal Conservative Party and cancel all the good work we’ve done on child care. Not on our watch.

[5:10 p.m.]

We need to work together on ensuring that we’re diversifying our economy, encouraging innovation and investment. It’s why in Budget 2025 we’ve invested $30 million over the next three years in the integrated marketplace initiative to connect tech companies with commercial partners.

I had a chance to work on this project when I worked in the Ministry of Jobs. I want to give a particular shout-out to Gerri Sinclair, who’s the former innovation commissioner and who really, I think, should be given a lot of credit for what the integrated marketplace initiative is today. These are the types of investments that we need to make time and time again. We need to ensure that British Columbia has a vibrant tech and innovation hub with global offices all over the place in communities all across this province.

I’m proud of the tech and innovation that is happening in Victoria and Langford. Plexxis made a $40 million investment in Langford. They built a building. They moved from Ontario to Langford, and it’s because of the work that we’ve been doing on this side of the House, ensuring that we have that piece in place.

Transportation. This side of the House knows all too well the challenges we face with our transportation systems. But let’s remember that it was the members on this side of the House, it was our strong NDP government, that made the necessary investments in transportation. We launched the 95 Blink RapidBus in successive budgets. Budget 2025 continues to support that, making sure that people can get where they need to go. I take advantage of the 95 bus. It’s Budget 2025 that ensures that we continue to make investments in bus lanes along Highway 1.

When we were last here, when those guys were on this side of the House, they wouldn’t even take meetings with local governments. They wouldn’t take meetings with constituents. It’s this side of the House that’s making investments, like nearly $100 million in Highway 1 and Old Island Highway, making sure that we have continuous bus lanes from Langford through Colwood, all the way into town. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of those in the days and weeks ahead.

In a few weeks, we’re going to be opening up a new handyDART centre in View Royal. Again, this side of the House made these investments. It should have happened a long time ago, but they didn’t. It should have happened a long time ago, but they didn’t.

Record housing investments. Again, the organizations in my community….

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: The member opposite can talk all he wants. I’m going to talk about the investments in my community through Budget 2025, because I’m proud of them.

Now, 50 new safe and secure homes for women. The first investment in the West Shore in decades. That is something we’re proud of: women’s therapeutic recovery beds. The former Minister of Mental Health and Addictions will know this project, because when she was the minister, she funded 20 beds here in View Royal. Those beds are operating now because of the work that we’ve done on this side of the House.

We’re going to continue investing in housing. It’s the number one issue I heard on the doorstep during the last election, and I’m proud of the steps that our Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs and our entire government is taking on these sorts of issues.

In the time that I have left, I want to spend some time talking about forestry. We have faced so many challenges with forestry. When I took on this role of Minister of Forests, I made it very clear that I have three commitments to British Columbians. I want to restore confidence in this sector. I want to stand up for workers and families and forest-dependent communities each and every day. I want to honour the commitments that we have been doing since we formed government, ensuring that we’re continuing the work on the declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, biodiversity and protecting old growth.

That’s the conversation I hear on the ground in communities all across the province. I’ve spent more time in communities talking to mayors than many of the MLAs across the way, in particular the Leader of the Opposition. I think I’ve spent more time in his constituency these last few months than he has.

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Don’t trust me, Member. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask the local mayors in the Leader of the Opposition’s constituency. Do you know…?

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Well maybe I will, Member. But I love Langford.

Do you know when the last time the Leader of the Opposition met with the mayor and council of Fraser Lake? Any guesses, anyone?

2016.

It’s 2025. Come on, man. Like, what is going on? But 2016 is the last time the Leader of the Opposition showed any care to his community.

In Budget 2025, we’re going to continue standing up for the forest sector. We’re going to continue standing up for the forest sector each and every day in the response to the softwood lumber duties and tariffs. It’s why we’re calling on the federal government to do everything in their power to ensure supports and programs are in place.

[5:15 p.m.]

We’ve always stood up for the forest sector on this side. The members opposite can groan all they want. The members opposite watched our forest sector lose 45,000 jobs from 2001 to 2017. They have nothing to talk about when it comes to the forest sector. They watched communities devastate….

Here’s the thing, we have faced challenges in our forest sector these last few years. We have spent the last few years supporting our forest sector.

But here’s the difference: from 2001 to 2017, when those guys were on this side of the House, zero supports for the forest sector when mills closed. On this side of the House….

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: You know what, the member from North Island does a lot of talking. She should go talk to her First Nations. Have the decency and respect to go and talk to the Nations in your community. Because I have, and you haven’t. What an embarrassment. Member opposite is an embarrassment. She doesn’t talk to her local constituents at all. I do.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Hold on, hold on. Members.

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Go talk to your Nations. Have you met with your Nations yet? No. Go talk to the First Nations in your community.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Have a seat. Have a seat, Minister.

Okay, continue.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: I’ve got a lot to say in only a short amount of time. So I don’t appreciate the heckling from the members opposite.

I want to talk about our response. We’re going to continue standing up for the forest sector. We’re going to continue speeding up permitting. That has been a big priority for me ever since I became the Minister of Forests. It’s why we launched a review of B.C. Timber Sales. Budget 2025 continues our support for the forest sector by doing a review of B.C. Timber Sales. That’s why we’ve made it such a top priority that we’re going to get the work done within six months.

We’ve got experts leading the way, an expert task force with the likes of George Abbott, a former minister who served on this side of the House and then wrote a book about it, talking about the treacherous cuts that those guys made when they sat on this side of the House.

We have Lenny Joe from the First Nations Forestry Council with Brian Frenkel, who happens to be the constituent for the Leader of the Opposition. I encourage the Leader of the Opposition to reach out to Brian Frenkel. He knows a lot about forestry and could give the Leader of the Opposition some good advice on forestry.

But I want it to be known very clear that on this side of the House, we’re going to stand up for our forest sector each and every day. It’s why we spent time down south and why I spent time engaging….

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: What a joke. What a joke. The Leader of the Opposition…. This is how cold the Leader of the Opposition is: a mill in his community shuts down, and what does the Leader of the Opposition do? Sets up a podium and delivers some remarks about forestry.

But do you know what he doesn’t do? He doesn’t call the mayor and council in his community that have been devastated by those issues. When’s the last time the Leader of the Opposition talked to the Mayor and Council of Vanderhoof? When is the last time? When did the Leader of the Opposition talk to the people in his community?

Deputy Speaker: On budget. Remarks to the budget. Thank you.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: I was talking about the preparations for Budget 2025 in the community of Fort St. James, I was at the local Subway, talking to constituents. I asked the constituents there: “Oh, do you know much about your MLA? “Do you know what they said? You guys will want to hear this: “We don’t see Pierre Poilievre very much. “The Leader of the Opposition can ride on his coattails all he wants. It’s not going to last long.

Again, on this side of the House, we’re going to continue standing up for our forest sector. It’s important to remember that in Budget 2025, we continue to make investments ensuring that we’re getting permitting moving faster, that we’re getting projects moving forward.

But again, on softwood lumber, let’s remember the approach that the Leader of the Opposition took when he was at the cabinet table. When Christy Clark was the Premier and served in this House, she made a strategic decision on behalf of her government not to negotiate with Obama and to negotiate with Trump. Let’s remember that the deal, the softwood lumber deal, ended in 2015. And do you remember who was at the cabinet table during that time? The Leader of the Opposition.

We have done more on softwood these last few years…. We have done more on softwood in just the last month than the Leader of the Opposition has done in his entire career. So I’m sorry, the Leader of the Opposition, the Conservatives, are the last people that I would take any advice and guidance from on softwood lumber.

They watched 45,000 jobs walk across. They brought forward appurtenancy policies. They have done so much damage to our forest sector that we continue to try to rebuild. I am committed, as I learned from the First Nations communities, as I learned from the communities that I call home, the Sc’ianew, the T’Sou-ke, and the paaʔčiidʔatx̣, that we need to think seven generations ahead.

[5:20 p.m.]

I’m working hard each and every day with the incredible team that I have in the Forest Service to make sure that we are building for the forest sector for the next hundred years. That’s the commitment we have on this side of the House. The members opposite can sulk all they want. They have…

Interjections.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Well, I talk to COFI, to the member opposite. Does he? Clearly not, because the Leader of the Opposition doesn’t spend much time…. They don’t mention forestry much in question period. It’s peculiar. Because they are afraid of their record — 45,000 jobs lost when those guys sat on this side of the House.

But let’s just end it. I’ve got four minutes. I’m sure the members opposite will have an opportunity to be able to speak and provide their perspectives as well.

Let’s talk about what options we have. We have Budget 2025 before us. We’re going to spend the next several days debating and discussing Budget 2025. We’re going to have an opportunity through the estimates process, where all of my colleagues that are ministers are going to have an opportunity to be able to engage in dialogue with our colleagues across the way.

I met with my critic just last week. I sent him a letter the day that he was appointed the critic because I recognize that he brings a lot to the forestry file. I think there are things that we can work on together, and I appreciated the time that he has. I’ll always make time for him, because I’m interested in his points of view for his community and his perspectives on forestry across the province.

But let’s be very clear. We got a couple of options before us. We can support this budget. We can stand up for British Columbians. We can fight for British Columbians. Or we can roll over — that’s the approach that the member opposite from Kamloops Centre talked about for two hours.

Interjections.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: The members opposite can go on and on.

When we talk about Budget 2025, we should talk about the people we’re trying to serve. I received an email from a gentleman….

Interjections.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Can I talk about the people I receive emails from? They just go on and on and on. Goodness gracious.

I received an email. I want to quote this person.

“I’m an attendee at the 22nd annual B.C. Resource Forum and wanted to thank you for your presentation yesterday. I’ll be honest here. I was entirely disillusioned and profoundly upset by the three Conservative politicians that preceded you and their blame rhetoric on sitting governments. They took very complex issues and simply blamed other men, which, in my opinion, is the most juvenile approach to discussion.

“Then you stood up to speak, and it was so refreshing and reassuring to have a politician that speaks to the work being done, to the true challenges to be faced, that is doing the best they can for the common good. “

I would say to the members opposite: work harder. Work harder. What a shame. And if you can’t….

The member across the way said very clearly in his speech, for two hours, that it’s not his job to provide suggestions. Well, then quit. Get lost. We’ll elect someone else from Kamloops Centre to stand up for his constituents.

I will fight for the hard-working men and women that work in forestry each and every day. Each and every day. Whether I come from forestry or not, I will work my butt off for the residents that are represented by the members across the way, because that’s my job.

I’m going to stand up for forestry. I’m going to stand up for the people of Langford-Highlands. That’s what we do on this side of the House. We stand up for British Columbia. We stand up for British Columbians.

That’s the choice that we have: we stand up for British Columbians, we fight for British Columbians. Or you do what the members opposite do, and that is invite weird people into this House, into the chambers, who attack our country, who attack Ukraine.

That’s the opportunity that British Columbians are going to have over the course of the next number of days: to hear the speeches from the members opposite and from us. On this side of the House, we’re going to stand up for British Columbians each and every day. Other sides, they’re going to roll over. That’s why we’re on this side of the House, and they’re not.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Richmond-Bridgeport.

Teresa Wat: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before I begin, I’d like to congratulate you on being the first racial minority woman to take on such a prestigious position. Congratulations.

Before I start, I just want to respond to the forestry minister for bragging on and on in the last half an hour about how great this NDP government has done for British Columbia every single day.

Wait. Wait. Don’t applaud first.

It’s in your budget, page 71. Your budget said that last year British Columbia lost 5,030 people, mostly to Alberta. So I’m asking….

[5:25 p.m.]

Hey, don’t go away, Forestry Minister. If you are saying that you have done such a great job and you are working for British Columbia every day, how come, for the first time ever, British Columbians are leaving our beautiful province? Please answer this question.

And then, the budget itself anticipated that in 2025, 14,600 people will be leaving this province. Shame on this side of the government. If you’ve done such a great job, how come British Columbians are leaving? One in every three British Columbians are seriously considering leaving this province, and one in two young people are also planning to leave this province. Answer this question.

It is my honour and privilege to stand in this people’s House to represent the constituents of my beautiful riding of Richmond-Bridgeport in response to the 2025 Budget. This budget has totally failed the people of Richmond and the people of British Columbia.

After listening to the budget speech by the Finance Minister yesterday afternoon and then after going through the budget documents last night, I simply cannot fall asleep, as I’m so, so worried about my daughter, my son-in-law and my three grandchildren. I doubt my daughter Tin, her husband Terry and their three amazing kids, my three lovely grandchildren — I call them triple-A: Andre, Ashton and Abigail— would ever come back, at least in the next four years.

God forbid if this NDP government continues to govern our province. I don’t know how much down we will be going down. I woke up this morning with a pounding headache, as I’m so worried about my own daughter, my three grandchildren. I’m also worried about each and every one of British Columbians.

I must confess, I’m not an economist, but I used to be a CEO of a multicultural radio station. I know, as the number one person for a corporation, when you see that your corporation is running an operating deficit or a debt, the CEO has the responsibility to come up with a financial plan on how to get back in order.

I don’t know whether the Premier has been a CEO of any corporation or not. That, I don’t know. But being the Premier of the whole province, looking at the historical deficit and debt that British Columbia has, he should have a financial plan telling us how we are going to eliminate the deficit and the debt. No. There’s nothing there.

Virtually all the media commentaries, editorials, plus the business community, expressed extreme disappointment at this Budget 2025. Look at the Times Colonist editorial. It was quite damning. The very first paragraph said: “The provincial budget unveiled Tuesday is the financial equivalent of pouring gasoline on a house fire. “What will the result be? Pouring gasoline on a house fire.

The last paragraph of the Times Colonist editorial said: “As it is, Budget 2025 is the equivalent of whistling past the graveyard. “My goodness. This is not what the opposition party says. This is the Times Colonist editorial. Look at it, please.

A seasoned journalist, Rob Shaw, said in his commentary…. Let me quote him: “Despite a month to prepare, the B.C. budget contains no programs to respond to Trump, support small businesses or offer financial relief to people who might lose their jobs, not even the hint of an idea of what the province might be considering, much to the concern of the province’s business community. “

[5:30 p.m.]

No wonder I could not fall asleep last night and woke up with a terrible headache.

Now let’s hear the business community. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce…. Let me quote them: “Today’s budget is sobering for both business and British Columbians. It does not deliver the economic incentives, tax changes, programs or policy shifts required to kick-start our economy and which we have been advocating for since before the last election. “

The B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the largest and most broad-based business organization in the province, represents 36,000 businesses of every size and from every sector and region of the province. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce is uniquely positioned to know what’s on B.C.’s mind.

Allow me to tell you the way that this government continues to harm the people of my community in Richmond and how this budget will not bring them any relief. First, I want to discuss a matter that has been affecting our community for far too long: the temporary modular housing project on Alderbridge. Too bad the only NDP MLA, the minister, is not around to hear this, from the city of Richmond.

This initiative was meant to be a solution to housing issues. Unfortunately, it has instead become a glaring example of this government’s failure to properly manage and address the needs of the most vulnerable citizens, as well as the public safety of our entire neighbourhood.

Let me start by acknowledging the original intention behind this project: providing temporary housing for those who are experiencing homelessness. On paper, this sounds like a reasonable and compassionate solution. However, the reality of this program has been far from what was promised.

The truth is that this government has dropped the ball yet again and failed to deliver a responsible, sustainable plan for the people of this community. What we are witnessing today on Alderbridge is not a success story but a breeding ground for crime and drug problems, a general breakdown of public safety. Richmond’s crime has been worsening. The crime count in 2022 was 1,145. In 2023 it more than doubled, to 2,406, just in one year. Even though it dipped slightly last year, these crimes are still a huge concern for the neighbourhood.

This NDP government’s lack of oversight, their inability to properly support these facilities and their failure to integrate these units into the fabric of our community have led to increased criminal activity, which is putting the safety of residents at risk. It is no secret that crime rates in the area have risen sharply since the arrival of the temporary modular housing units. The increase in theft, property crime and, most disturbingly, violent crime is undeniable.

These criminal activities are not just isolated incidents. They are symptomatic of a larger issue: this NDP government’s refusal to provide adequate resources, police support and social services to manage the challenges these units present. This is a direct result of this NDP government’s failure to take a holistic approach to the problem. Budget 2025 provides no direction that things will get any better. There’s no hope. They have been more focused on the political optics of ticking boxes on the housing initiative than on providing the necessary support systems to ensure these people get the help they need.

[5:35 p.m.]

The modular units, with little to no monitoring or wraparound services, have created a situation where those living there are left without proper support, and the community at large is left to bear the consequences. This NDP government has failed to address the underlying issues of addiction and mental health that many individuals face. Instead of providing adequate care and services, they have allowed the situation to fester, exacerbating the drug problems in the neighbourhood.

Drug trafficking, overdoses and public substance abuse have become commonplace in the vicinity of the temporary modular housing, yet this NDP government remains silent. Their empty rhetoric about providing solutions has only made the problems worse. Moreover, the lack of collaboration with local law enforcement and community organizations has made it impossible to create a safe environment for everyone.

We have seen a dramatic increase in the strain on our police officers, stretched thin as they try to maintain law and order, with the government offering little to no meaningful support. Rather than empowering our police to do their jobs effectively, this NDP government has failed to provide them with the necessary tools and resources.

The president of the Lotus strata council, Clifton Jang — just in the neighbourhood of this temporary housing — told me that since 2019 he has been removing people taking drugs, from his condo and from other condos, because police take too long.

The 911 service says that drug use, even on their property, is not 911 and asks them to call the non-emergency number. A non-emergency call can take up to one hour or more to get through. Then residents have to wait for the officer to show up. During this time, these people can do a lot of damage to property or, potentially, to people.

Strata council president Clifton Jang said he has no choice but to remove these people himself. He told me that when they call 911 for drug deals, they often do not show up fast enough, as drug deals take no time at all. When police have arrived, it’s a catch-and-release issue, or the Crown does not approve the charges.

This is for my constituent. He wrote me pages and pages of email and talked to me about how challenging the neighbourhood is. Let me quote some of it, where he, and other residents living next to this Alderbridge temporary modular housing, talked about his challenges.

“RCMP officers have advised me on multiple occasions not to remove these people from our property because they are guests of the temporary modular housing and come from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and they all carry knives. In other words, they continually tell me not to engage them, because they are dangerous. “

Another quote, from Clifton: “The Alderbridge modular home continues to degrade our neighbourhood, mirroring Chinatown’s demise. We continue to have residents of the modular home, and their friends, using drugs on our private properties and in the park. “

Let us be clear. This is not a matter of not-in-my-backyard politics; this is about basic public safety. We all want to help the homeless, but we cannot do so at the expense of our families, our businesses and the very fabric of our community. This NDP government’s lack of foresight and planning has put everyone, both the homeless individuals and the residents of this community, in a terrible position.

[5:40 p.m.]

The temporary modular housing was meant to be a solution, but instead it has exacerbated the crisis. They have failed to deliver on their promises, and instead of supporting these vulnerable individuals with the care they need, they have created a toxic environment that only fuels the very problems it was supposed to solve.

Enough is enough. It is time for this NDP government to take responsibility. We need a real plan, one that addresses the root causes of homelessness, crime and addiction — a plan that includes comprehensive mental health services, addiction treatment and recovery programs, proper supervision of the housing units and support of the local community.

This is not about turning our backs on those in need. It is about ensuring that the most vulnerable receive the proper care and support in a manner that also ensures the safety of our neighbourhoods. We cannot sacrifice public safety in the name of political expediency.

This NDP government must step up and make real investments in our community. They must stop making excuses and start acting. We deserve better. The people living in these units deserve better. It is time for accountability, and it’s time for real change.

Now I would also like to discuss a matter of paramount importance to the community: the expansion of Richmond Hospital. The project, initially announced in July 2020 with a budget of $861 million and a completion target of 2024, has faced significant setbacks. As of June 2024, the projected cost has skyrocketed to more than double, to $1.959 billion, with completion now anticipated in late 2029, due to delayed action caused by, again, this NDP government. These developments have understandably raised concern about the project’s management, transparency and implications for our community’s health care needs.

The timely completion of the Richmond Hospital expansion is crucial for several reasons. Richmond’s population is both growing and aging, leading to increased demand for medical services. Delays in the hospital’s expansion directly impact our ability to provide adequate care, resulting in longer wait times and potential declines in patient outcomes.

Prolonged construction projects often lead to escalating costs due to inflation and changing market conditions. Completing the project on time can help mitigate this financial risk and ensure that allocated funds are used efficiently. Adhering to promised timelines reinforces public confidence in governmental and institutional commitments. Repeated delays can erode trust and lead to public skepticism regarding future projects.

Adequate funding is essential to ensure the success of the Richmond Hospital expansion. Proper funding is necessary to meet modern health care standards, including state-of-the-art medical equipment, advanced technologies and facilities designed to withstand environmental challenges such as earthquakes and floods.

A well-funded modern hospital serves as a beacon for top medical professionals. Investing in our health care infrastructure ensures that we can attract and retain skilled practitioners dedicated to serving our community.

While initial investment may be substantial, cutting corners can lead to higher maintenance costs and the need for future overhauls. Proper funding ensures the longevity and sustainability of the hospital’s facility. This NDP government must be transparent and accountable. Transparency plays a vital role in the successful completion of the hospital expansion.

[5:45 p.m.]

When a community is kept informed, individuals are most likely to contribute positively, whether through feedback, advocacy or financial support. Transparency transforms a government project into a community endeavour. Considering this consideration, it is imperative that this NDP government must establish and adhere to a realistic and achievable timeline with clear milestones and regular public updates.

While the budget has increased, it is crucial to ensure that these funds are managed prudently, with a focus on delivering a facility that meets current and future health care demands. Just remember that the expansion of Richmond Hospital is more than a construction project; it is a vital investment in the health and well-being of our community. By prioritizing timely completion, ensuring adequate funding and embracing transparency, we can overcome current challenges and pave the way for a health care facility that serves the needs of Richmond residents for generations to come.

Now I also want to raise an important infrastructure issue that’s been a point of concern for many years: the replacement of the Massey Tunnel. As we all know, this project has been delayed time and time again, and the costs have escalated beyond the initial projection by this NDP government. These delays and budget overruns not only affect the local community, but they also have a significant impact on commuters, businesses and the broader regional economy.

The Massey Tunnel replacement was first identified as a necessary project years ago. Our region has seen tremendous growth, and the need for improved transportation infrastructure has become more pressing with each passing year. Yet, despite this clear need, progress on the project has been much slower than anticipated. It will be another long, hot summer for drivers trapped in never-ending gridlock at one of the most congested traffic points in B.C., with the much-needed replacement for the George Massey Tunnel still more than five years away from completion due to this NDP government’s decision to scrap the replacement bridge project in 2017.

Enough is enough. Lower Mainland commuters are fed up with this NDP government constantly saying progress is being made on the Massey replacement project as they continue to sit stuck in ever-worsening gridlock. If this NDP government had not cancelled the project, people would already have been using this new bridge crossing for more than two years. It’s time to get people moving.

According to a 2017 government fact sheet, every year drivers spend more than a million hours delayed and idling in Massey Tunnel gridlock. My constituents are fed up and they are looking for results instead of the self-congratulatory spin we continue to hear from the Premier and this NDP government.

I am also calling on this government to address a critical funding gap in the community gaming grant program. Despite years of advocacy from non-profit organizations like the B.C. Association for Charitable Gaming, the most recent ministerial mandate letter fails to commit to increasing funding for the program.

Community gaming grants are the lifeblood of over 29,000 non-profit organizations across the province. This grant supports essential services in arts, culture, sports, social services and public safety. Yet the funding has remained stagnant since 2010, while inflation has steadily eroded its value. This is unacceptable, especially given the growing demands placed on our non-profits by population growth and post-pandemic recovery.

[5:50 p.m.]

This NDP government has missed an opportunity to reinvest increased gaming revenue, particularly from single-sport betting, into the community gaming grant program. Where did the additional money go? Did the government just put it all in general revenue when it should have gone to supporting a sector that contributes to the vibrancy and health of communities throughout the province?

The Premier makes it a higher priority to find money for all his MLAs, raises for partisan staff and a huge severance for his chief of staff. In doing so, he stifles B.C.’s charitable sector. This is shameful.

In a letter to the former minister of Municipal Affairs, the BCACG highlighted that inflation-adjusted funding should be increased to $193.7 million annually, up from the current $140 million. This adjustment would reflect the significant economic pressures faced by non-profits. These non-profit contributions to the provincial economy are estimated at $6.7 billion annually.

I have so much that I want to talk about, but I see that I’m running out of time. Maybe I should talk about trade.

Trade is the foundation of B.C.’s economic prosperity, yet the government continues to diminish its importance. In 2013, when I was a Minister of International Trade, B.C. had 13 trade offices strategically placed across Asia, offices that helped businesses access new markets, secure investments and create jobs here at home. Those offices delivered real results: $450 million in export deals, $1.4 billion in investments and over 4,600 jobs created.

But in 2019, the NDP government made a reckless decision. They shut down all 13 offices with no consultation, no explanation and no plan to replace them. The result? A weakened trade presence in Asia, B.C. businesses losing critical market assets and the government scrambling years later to correct its mistake. In 2023 and 2024, they quietly began reopening trade offices in the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, an admission that their 2019 decision was a costly blunder.

Now let’s look at how the government is prioritising trade in this budget. The 2025 trade budget has increased by a mere $317,000, a pittance for an economy reliant on export. Meanwhile, the Premier’s office has received a $1 million boost, three times the increase of the entire trade ministry. What message does that send to our businesses that the Premier’s political operations matter more than defending B.C. industry against tariffs and trade barriers?

This NDP government has consistently put politics over economic stability. Instead of protecting busy jobs, they dismantled a proven trade strategy. Instead of defending our industry, they are allocating more money to their own offices than to trade development. This is not leadership. This is failure.

Budget 2025 proves that this government has its priorities backwards. While B.C. businesses struggle with tariffs, trade barriers and market uncertainty, the Premier is funding his office at three times the rate of the entire trade ministry. While the tourism and arts sector needs real investment, the government is handing millions to Crown corporations while grassroots programs are ignored. This government must answer for this misplaced priority.

B.C. deserves a budget that invests in our future, not one that serves political self-interest. B.C. can and must do better.

Hon. Bowinn Ma: I am overwhelmed by the extraordinary interest of my colleagues in hearing my response to the budget. Thank you so much for joining us here today. Really grateful for the opportunity to be able to respond to B.C. Budget 2025.

[5:55 p.m.]

My gratitude to the Minister of Finance for her incredible work in producing a budget here in very difficult economic circumstances indeed.

It is, of course, a budget designed to protect the essentials and help us prepare for what’s next in the context of tariffs and further threats of escalation by the President of the United States.

Before I get into the main parts of my remarks, however, I do want to acknowledge and thank the people in my life who have enabled the ability for us to even deliver a budget here today. That includes not only the voters of my community of North Vancouver–Lonsdale but also my volunteers and support network — my family, my friends and so forth.

I think about my campaign team, Camille Mantilla, Stephen Tweedale and Mack McCorkindale, who worked so hard in our campaign last October, and the staff of my community office, Joshua Saville and Camille Mantilla, who work hard every single day. While I am here in Victoria doing the people’s work, they are also doing the people’s work, serving community members in a far more direct way than I am able to from here in Victoria. They work day in and day out helping some of the most vulnerable members of our community, community members who have been supported by our government’s budget and will continue to be supported through Budget 2025.

I also want to acknowledge my electoral district association’s executive, community members from all walks of life who have been diligent in supporting me, supporting our political party and supporting the work of our government that enables the delivery of budgets like the one we are here to debate: Carolyn Pena, Marliss Kluckar, Julia Balinski, Camille Mantilla, Steven Tweedale, Kathy McGrenera, Cameron Sullivan, Rhonda Spence, Jane Johnston, Nicole Seguin, Ben Pai, Dorsa Mohebat, Tom Adair, Shelley Luce, Mahdiyar Biazi, Hart Schorneck, Mack McCorkindale, Leilani Tummaneng, Shawn Alexander.

I am incredibly fortunate to have people who believe in me, believe in this work, who see the benefits of previous budgets tabled by this government, who put their faith in us to continue to deliver budgets in the best interests of the public.

I also want to acknowledge my minister’s office team: Melanie Sanderson, my chief of staff; Thomas Jin, ministerial adviser. We have Ellen Hiltz, ministerial adviser; Andrew Barrett, senior adviser; Sarah Gotto and Daryl Hong, administrative staff; Michelle Livaja, executive assistant. They support my work as Minister of Infrastructure.

We are a new ministry created at a time when the province is delivering the single largest capital infrastructure investment in the province’s history and, through that work, have enabled literally thousands of projects to be either complete or underway, 1,400 of which are just in the Ministry of Health alone. Absolutely incredible work of the public service across all government, many of which are now assembled in the Ministry of Infrastructure.

I mentioned my community previously. My community has benefited significantly from the efforts of our government from previous budgets, and those benefits will continue to be supported in Budget 2025. That is really no small feat, and I credit my community for enabling all of this work to happen.

I credit all of our communities, really, for sending us to this place to do the people’s work so that we can debate the budget and produce budgets. That includes the communities of the members of opposition because this place only works when government is held to account, when hard questions are asked. I’m thankful for everyone in this place, across both sides of the House, who have given up a significant portion of their lives and given up time with family and friends in order to serve their communities and the province in the best way possible, in their each own best way possible.

[6:00 p.m.]

My community is a community of renters. Not exclusively of renters, but approximately 50 percent of my community is renters, and that’s a very high percentage for British Columbia.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

Approximately 80 percent of community members in North Vancouver–Lonsdale, in particular the city of North Vancouver, live in multifamily homes — 80 percent. And so measures that support multifamily home owners and renters are incredibly important.

They struggle with a lot of the same challenges that many community members across British Columbia struggle with — cost of living, cost of housing, cost of child care. They worry about transportation, the ability to move around the community and in and out, off of the north shore.

They are a community that is decidedly working class but also includes a lot of small business owners. All of them are impacted by inflation, by fluctuations in the job market, by the cost of food, all of which are impacted by the threat of tariffs. I mean, we say the “threat of tariffs.” Tariffs are already upon us, aren’t they?

We all know that the President of the United States implemented tariffs as of midnight yesterday, but the truth is that the impact of those threats was already being felt by community members and small business owners in my community, here in Victoria and all over the province.

I spoke with a small business owner just a couple of weeks ago here in Victoria who described that business was already slowing down since Trump announced his intention to place tariffs on Canadian imports. That’s because it has created a chill on spending. Investors are hoarding cash. Individuals and family members are looking at their budgets and their job security and holding back on their spending. Oftentimes that means holding back on spending for small businesses.

At the same time, we’re also seeing a groundswell from community members who are actively seeking to support small businesses in our community and businesses that produce products that are made in B.C., that are made in Canada.

Budget 2025 acknowledges this threat, certainly, but I also want to acknowledge that as Canadians and as British Columbians, as the Premier said earlier, we’re big enough to stand on our own two feet. While this doesn’t happen on its own — it will take work from all of us — I do believe in the ability of British Columbians to pull through together.

After all, we know what it is to come together in difficult times. We came together during the pandemic. We came together during the atmospheric river event of 2021. We now come together against a former ally who has decided to turn its sights against us.

When I had the privilege of serving as Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, I had the privilege of leading the ministry’s response on behalf of British Columbians to several climate-related incidents. It started with the freezing rain and ice storm of 2022, the threat of which became apparent within days following my appointment in November of 2022.

That was followed by the deadliest avalanche season of 2023 — the deadliest avalanche season that B.C. had ever experienced in recorded history.

We had a record wildfire season that year as well. In 2023, nearly three million hectares of forest were burned down, and a state of provincial emergency had to be called in order to respond to that.

It also coincided with a record drought that led to farmers and ranchers in the Interior and the North selling off their herds far earlier than they ever would have, causing a collapse of what took generations of breeding to create. We saw the agricultural sector lose crops in ways that will require years to recover.

[6:05 p.m.]

We saw communities start to have to import water on an emergency basis in order to keep basic functions going. There were, following that, freshet floods in the spring of 2024, followed by yet another year of wildfires in 2024. The last emergency that I had the privilege of presiding over — our response to it, not causing it — was the Chilcotin landslide, of 2024 as well.

Through all of that, I saw how British Columbians pulled together, supported one another and helped one another through difficult times. That is also what Budget 2025 is about. It is a budget that focuses on protecting those critical services that people in British Columbia require. But it also prepares us to be able to respond to the impacts that we are only just starting to see of the tariffs that were implemented yesterday and of the threat of escalation of those tariffs.

They are, unfortunately, given the unpredictable nature…. If this is a strategy of the President of the United States, it is likely that we are going to be in this uncertain state for the duration of his term, and that is a scary thought. That is a really scary thought.

When I look at this budget, it’s apparent that it is not like previous budgets that we have delivered. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. It is really focused on ensuring that we’re protecting those essential services, those services that are usually at risk within most jurisdictions when an economic collapse — I don’t want to suggest we’re going to have an economic collapse — or when a serious threat to the economy is on the horizon.

We are bolstering resources to ensure that those services that already exist can continue, and we’re providing some boost in strategic areas in order to respond to the increasing demand for health care and respond to the increasing needs of K-to-12 students.

Where I’m particularly excited, though, is that this budget does still include a substantial and record-breaking capital infrastructure investment plan. In Budget 2025, capital spending on schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, hydroelectric projects and other infrastructure around the province is expected to total nearly $60 billion over the next three-year fiscal plan period. These investments are expected to directly and indirectly create 180,000 jobs over the next three years.

We saw, during the pandemic, when economies all over the world crashed into the floor, that British Columbia was largely able to weather that storm by supporting jobs through public investments. Although a lot of industries slowed right down, and a lot of jobs were compromised or outright lost, the construction sector actually kept things going. We were able to keep the construction sector going quite strongly because we continued our public investments on major projects.

This is similar to what I’m seeing now. Of the nearly $60 billion in infrastructure investments over the next three years, about $46 billion of that is through taxpayer-supported capital spending. So those are, largely, projects that are delivered by core government.

The other projects, which are self-supported, tend to be delivered by other Crown entities like B.C. Hydro. B.C. Hydro, Columbia Basin power projects are included in the self-supported category. The B.C. Rail company, ICBC, the B.C. Lottery Corp. and the Liquor Distribution Branch are also making capital infrastructure investments, and they are able to self-support those investments.

[6:10 p.m.]

The kind of taxpayer-supported projects that are supported by the $46 billion in infrastructure spending in this budget include projects like K-to-12 schools, projects delivered in partnership with the post-secondary institutions, health care infrastructure, hospitals, long-term-care homes, cancer centres.

It also includes projects delivered by B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, which is the financing authority that supports projects delivered by the Ministry of Transportation and Transit as well as TI Corp., Transportation Investment Corp. This includes B.C. Transit projects, a variety of social housing and government ministries, etc. That’s not the full list, but etc. fits into that $46 billion.

About $4.6 billion of these investments will be invested in K-to-12 schools across the province. That includes prefabricated school addition projects in 16 school districts.

The new Smith secondary school in Langley school district, the replacement of Mission Senior Secondary in the Mission school district, new Olympic Village elementary school in Vancouver school district, the replacement of the Pitt Meadows Secondary School in Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows school district, a replacement for Prince Rupert Middle School in the Prince Rupert school district, the George Pringle Secondary School in the Central Okanagan school district, the new Smith middle school in the Langley school district, the replacement of Montgomery Middle School in Coquitlam school district, the Fleetwood Park Secondary School in Surrey school district, Cameron Elementary School in the Burnaby school district, as well as a replacement of Hazel Trembath Elementary in Port Coquitlam, which was lost due to a fire.

I know that in my community of North Vancouver–Lonsdale, this budget allows our very critical Cloverley elementary school project to continue. That project broke ground within the last year and will provide hundreds of desperately needed seats for students of young families in North Vancouver.

Budget 2025 also includes $4.7 billion in capital spending over the next three years by post-secondary institutions throughout the province. We partner with post-secondary institutions to deliver post-secondary educational buildings as well as student housing. Nearly 11,000 student housing beds are complete and underway throughout the province already, with more to come.

Current investments in the post-secondary sector include the Centre for Clean Energy and Automotive Innovation at Vancouver Community College. The WestShore learning centre campus for Royal Roads University is a project that is being delivered in collaboration with Camosun College, the University of Victoria and the Justice Institute of British Columbia.

It includes the construction of a four-storey hybrid mass timber centre for food and wine tourism at Okanagan College, located at the Kelowna campus. I know that the team at Okanagan College is incredibly proud of this project and looking forward to how they’re going to be able to contribute to the health and vitality of the wine and tourism sector in the Okanagan.

The funding includes funding to support the new medical school at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus, and, in particular, $34 million for the interim space of the medical school while work is being done to do the construction in phases for that project.

In North Vancouver, my community…. Actually, this is in the riding of North Vancouver–Seymour, my colleague’s community. We are building a centre of childhood studies at Capilano University’s North Van campus and an early childhood education and child care centre at North Island College.

These are just a few of the many, many projects that are being delivered.

[6:15 p.m.]

On the health care front, as I noted, about 1,400 projects are underway within the health care sector, totalling about $15.5 billion over the next three years. But not all of those projects are big projects. A lot of them are relatively little projects, but still very important to the quality of care that can be delivered at these facilities.

However, some of the larger projects include a net new hospital, an integrated cancer centre in Surrey. That’s $2.9 billion being put towards that project.

Long-term-care facility redevelopment and replacement projects that are underway will provide nearly 2,300 beds built to modern-day standards for $2.3 billion. That’s also in our budget here.

The $15.5 billion includes $2 billion for the redevelopment of Richmond Hospital, as well as $1.8 billion for the Burnaby Hospital redevelopment, phase 2, and BC Cancer Centre project.

There are a lot more projects as well. In terms of large projects, it includes 30 hospital projects, 11 long-term-care homes, four cancer centres and much, much more.

Over the next three years of the fiscal plan, transportation investments are also prominently featured, totalling $15.5 billion. This includes funding to construct the eight-lane immersed tube tunnel, Fraser River tunnel, that will replace the George Massey Tunnel on Highway 99.

It includes funding to complete the Broadway subway project, which is well underway, a project that adds 5.7 kilometres of SkyTrain line and six stations to one of the highest-ridership lines in the province — or the highest-ridership line. I can probably find a more clear way to rephrase that.

Funding is also being put towards Highway 1 improvements between Mt Lehman Road and Highway 11, and Highway 1 between 264 Street and Mt. Lehman Road as well. There’s $1.2 billion to upgrade several sections of Highway 1 between Kamloops and Golden.

Oh, gosh. This list just keeps going on. Much, much more.

I know that members, if they are interested in more highlights from the budget documents, need only turn to the wonderfully produced and formatted documents that have been publicly released yesterday by the Minister of Finance.

I’d like to maybe, to close my remarks, comment a bit on…. Actually, maybe instead of that, I’ll speak to some of the other work that is being supported by B.C. Budget 2025, given the time.

A lot of the work that is being done by government right now will focus on accelerating projects, diversifying the economy and, as I’ve said many times before, protecting the essentials in the face of tariffs and this active trade war that we find ourselves in.

The Minister of Finance has noted that we are reviewing all government programs and spending to ensure that they are delivering what is needed for British Columbians, to ensure that we are being mindful of how taxpayer-supported investments are being spent and to ensure that we are supporting businesses, including tech companies, businesses that are involved in the film sector and private sector projects that provide clean energy and seek out critical minerals, as well.

It was noted by the Minister of Finance, too, that $800 million worth of cargo travels through B.C. ports daily. Many of those ports are in my community of North Vancouver, so I really want to acknowledge and thank all of the port businesses that have been, will continue to be and will probably become even more essential to British Columbia’s economy during this trade war.

[6:20 p.m.]

There is, of course, a lot that one can say about this budget. There will be many speakers after me who will say many things, some on the government side of the House, some on the opposition side of the House.

People who are listening, members of the public, will get two very different or maybe three or four different impressions of the B.C. budget. Some of the speeches will be very positive, many of the speeches will be very, very negative. I just want to acknowledge that, again, this is part of a healthy democracy. We have a government that works every day in order to support British Columbians through the delivery of government programs and His Majesty’s loyal opposition who exists to challenge government and ask hard questions.

I appreciate, again, the commitment and sacrifice that every member of this House makes, regardless of what side of the House you sit on, because the work that you do is so important to your communities. You sacrifice so much to be able to do this work for your communities and for the province. With that, I take my seat.

Ward Stamer: First off, I’d like to thank the member of the government for her words and her demeanor in this House in being respectful to our side. I would hope to be able to do the same to the government’s side. It’s unfortunate that our Forests Minister didn’t react that way when he had an opportunity to speak, but we can have that chat a little bit later.

This is new to me. I have not gone through a budget of this complexity before. I have barely had 24 hours to look through some of the numbers in this. I’m not as comfortable as the member from Kamloops Centre in being able to, not necessarily ad-lib, but use his experience to be able to go on for 30 minutes. I’ve been told that I can talk, so I’m going to give it my best shot.

Just a couple of things I want to put into perspective for people in the House. As our member from Kamloops Centre alluded to, the government really isn’t a business, and we shouldn’t really run it as a business. Well, unfortunately, I kind of disagree a little bit because, as a logging contractor, I believe we should be running this as a business — at least when you look at the fundamentals or the lack thereof.

When you think about it, we’ve got 93 members in this House that represent 5½ million people. So that’s basically a billion dollars per person in this House that we’re responsible for. Yet I don’t hear of anybody on the government side, other than looking for efficiencies, of really trying to get to the bottom of the issue. And the issue is that we’re going to have a $10.9 billion deficit projected this year. My gut feel is that it’s going to be more. And we’ll get into that a little bit later. But that $10.9 billion is a record. That is a record deficit.

The Finance Minister talked yesterday about how now is not the time to be balancing the books. It’s some time in the future. Well, when is that future? I mean this NDP government on the next three years is record deficits, and by their budget numbers, $10.9 this year, $10.2 the following year and $9.863 — how did they come to that number? — the following year.

Let’s just go back in time a little bit. In 2017, when the NDP came to power, our debt was $65.883 billion. In the next three years, they’re going to add another $75 billion to the totals that we already have. That $75 billion represents more than 153 years of Confederation before we even got to 2017. So in three years’ time, we’re going to add more debt than this province did in the first 153 years of our Confederation. How’s that for a number?

[6:25 p.m.]

Let’s look at a couple of other numbers. Let’s look at the debt ratio. Our debt ratio with our update of $133 billion in ‘24-25 is our total debt. The debt-to-GDP is 22.9 percent. When we get to ‘27-28, that’s going to balloon to $2.88 billion or probably more. And that’s up to 34.4 percent.

Now they talk about us to believe that we’re in line with our peers. I’m thinking that those peers mean other provinces in Confederation, in our country. My mother always told me not to worry about what other people are doing, that we should be worrying about what we are doing in British Columbia.

Let’s compare our peers. This Liberal federal government has been a disaster. Their debt-to-GDP has increased from 32.7 to 46.5, and the average provincial debt-to-GDP has gone from 20.3 to 29.7. So if we compare this matrix, our 22.9 compared to 29.7, we might think we’re actually looking pretty good. However, going from 22.9 to 34.4 in three years is totally unacceptable and unsustainable. There’s no way we can continue on this course. Not a chance.

I wanted to pull a little bit of information that I had at my disposal on a couple of things. This is from the Fraser Research Bulletin. What it says about that is:

“Interest payments are a major consequence of debt accumulation. Governments must make interest payments on their debt similar to households that must pay interest on borrowing related to mortgages, vehicles or credit card spending. Revenues directed towards interest payments mean that in the future there will be less money available for tax cuts or government programs such as health care, education and social services.”

I’m pretty sure that most of the economic community would agree with that statement.

The Finance Minister states: “We will flatten the debt-to-GDP gap in the near future.” That’s in the book. So let’s discuss what “near future” actually means.

“The phrase near future is used to describe or to refer to a period that is not too far into the future. It describes events that that are likely to occur soon. The phrase is commonly used to depict the time frame during which a change or event is anticipated to happen.

“Near-term trades or investments are typically held for short periods such as a few days. Swing trading: a few hours, a few weeks or a few months. No set time frame describes ‘near-term,’ as the time being referred to as being near-term will vary according to the individual or entity using the term. Near-term can be a few months, a few weeks, days, hours or minutes, depending on the context or the scenario in which it is used.”

It does not say years. It does not say years, regardless of the smug looks from the other side.

So let’s be realistic. This Finance Minister doesn’t have a plan to reduce our debt. This government believes to run this government and this province into the ground. I believe that their idea of Economics 101 is to charge up everything you can on a credit card, and then as soon as you do that, you go get another credit card.

That’s what they’ve shown us, time and time again. That’s how much they know about running this province. This government has had seven years to improve our economy. Instead, they’ve overspent, they’ve overhired and they’ve squandered our children’s future away.

Let’s look at our Ministry of Forests, which is my critic’s role. I have some questions regarding the budget numbers as well. We look at the estimate of costing in this ministry of $844 million previous year. That was what it was budgeted before, and it was actually 1.390 on revenues of $501 million. Or….

Interjection.

Ward Stamer: I’m sorry. Am I interrupting you, Minister Kahlon? Do I have the floor, or can you just continue to keep talking?

Deputy Speaker: Member, no names are used here.

We would turn the floor over to our member for Kamloops–North Thompson, please.

[6:30 p.m.]

Ward Stamer: Thank you very much for that. I’ll make sure that I do the same courtesy to you when you have the opportunity to speak in this House.

Let’s look at those numbers. For ‘25-26 the estimate is going to be up to $690 million, as their operating budget for the Ministry of Forests, on a revenue projection of $639 million. I’m not sure how they’re going to reach those revenue targets, because this government and the Premier, just a little while ago, specifically guaranteed 45 million cubic metres of fibre that would be available for our forest industry.

Yet on page 29 of the blue book, it says 30 million. Where is the discrepancy? They keep telling us that there’s going to be 45 million cubic metres of fibre available for our forest industry. Yet on page 25 — I’ve highlighted it — they’re only going to be giving us…. Crown harvest volume: 2024, 31 million; 2025, 30 million; 2026, 30 million; and 2027, 29 million.

Now, it wasn’t very long ago when we were up at 52 million cubic metres of harvesting. I’d like to know why the minister and the Premier guaranteed 45 million, yet in their budget they’re only putting 30 million. Which is it — 45 million or 30 million? We don’t know.

Another question: how is this government going to help our forest industry? We heard the minister earlier talking about how they’ve got their back. They’re doing everything they can. They’re working on it. So why is BCTS, which is supposed to be cutting 20 percent of the fibre in this province, still budgeting $240 million a year in that organization, when they only cut 12 percent of their total cut in ‘22-23? Of course we won’t have the numbers from last year until July. Why would they continue to budget the same amount of money, when they’re only doing half as much work?

When asked for explanations, their excuse is that they had developed timber in the new old-growth strategy. Obviously, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing in this government, because they don’t even know what’s going on. Also, there’s no documentation to prove that. We’ve heard lots of talk about pending tariffs; maybe we don’t know how for long they are, what they are, and that President Trump could be changing his mind like we change our ties. Let’s be clear: we had mills closing long before the tariff threat.

Let’s refer to page 29, if I may. This is what it says: “Forest revenue is expected to increase in 2025-26 due to assumed higher overall stumpage rates and increased logging tax revenue, partially offset by lower annual harvest volume. Forest revenue is expected to increase an average of 1.7 percent over the next two years, mainly due to higher overall assumed stumpage rates, reflecting an improved outlook for lumber prices.”

Total annual harvest volume will average 30 million cubic metres a year. I don’t know how they’re supposed to achieve those targets when we’ve got mills closing and people are getting put out of work.

We need a truly sustainable, resilient and renewable forest industry. If Sweden can sustainably do that, in their jurisdiction, at 100 million cubic metres, we in B.C. should be able to do at least 50 million. It wasn’t that long ago, only 2021, when we did 52 million. We should be able to do this year after year, generation after generation.

Let’s talk a little bit about infrastructure. After previously being a mayor, I know how important it is for our municipalities to invest in infrastructure, particularly if you have forward-thinking municipal leaders that want to get ahead of the curve, when we talk about improvements to water and sewer, upgrades to electrical distribution, roads — the whole gamut.

[6:35 p.m.]

I don’t see any new money in this budget in regard to challenges that our municipalities face. On one hand, we have a government that has decided that they’re just going to ram in everything they can, try to build housing everywhere they can.

We know the issues that we have in our housing crisis, but instead of sitting down with the municipalities, looking at their official community plans and working with the communities, what did they do? They came in there with a hammer and basically said: “You’ll do it, or we’re going to turn around and fine you guys.” Right? That’s what they said.

Where is the money for our municipalities and our towns to be able to help catch up to some of the things that this government has imposed upon them? The last time I looked, municipal leaders and municipal governments had to balance their books, something that this House has had a very hard time doing for a very long time. The last time this House had a balanced budget was before the NDP was in power.

The Forests Minister likes to try to insinuate that we had something to do with what happened before 2017, or for any matter that happened last year. I think it’s fairly disingenuous when he does that. I’d love to have that chance to spar with him, because all I heard out of his mouth was a bunch of mistruths. Let’s go back.

Interjection.

Ward Stamer: Yeah, seriously. I’m sure….

Let’s talk about the transportation investments.

Interjection.

Ward Stamer: I’m sorry? Well, at least…. Yeah, we won’t go into that when we start talking about responsibilities and what’s happened in the past, will we?

Let’s talk about transportation investments. In my riding, as a member alluded to earlier, with some of the new money or old money that they talked about, there are a couple of improvement projects that are coming up. They talked a little bit about some of the improvements on Highway 1.

Federal and provincial money in the last 20 years has been spent — $20 billion between Kamloops and Banff on Highway 1. In that same period of time, from Kamloops to Jasper is now up to $23 million. That’s just over 1 percent, yet our traffic counts can be the same on any given day as Highway 1. Where is the money that should be equitable in the North Thompson all the way up to Valemount and Jasper when all of the money is being spent on Highway 1?

We have substantial improvements that are already on the table and that are already engineered on Highway 5 North. There’s four-laning south of Barriere. There are widening projects along the whole route up to Valemount and beyond. We’ve got bridge upgrades. We’ve got a dire need of a Clearwater highway patrol, which is basically down to one member.

When are we going to get what’s necessary for Highway 5 to bring it up to an acceptable standard? When are we going to get those improvements that are necessary so that people can travel back and forth safely from our communities, instead of putting all the money on Highway 1?

I asked the former Transportation Minister for something as easy as mandatory dashcams, which were supported through a SILGA resolution. They were adopted unanimously at UBCM — a tool that would not only make our truck and commercial drivers more responsible but also slow the trucks down.

We’d also be able to have anecdotal evidence when we had a crash, instead of the RCMP always asking for us: “Does anybody have any dashcam footage?” We’re still waiting for that. We’re talking $100 per truck. It would be a very easy way of trying to make these trucks more responsible. Why can’t the Transportation Minister do something about it right now?

When we were talking a little bit about forestry. Sorry if I jump around a little bit. We talked about some of the numbers, and the minister was trying to say that we had lost all these jobs prior to the NDP’s coming into power.

[6:40 p.m.]

Let’s just go over some numbers. In 2021, the forest industry had 55,700 direct jobs. That was a GDP of $5.9 billion, which gave our government almost $2 billion in straight revenue. That doesn’t include all the other spinoff money, but that’s what the revenue was: almost $2 billion. That was based on 52 million cubic metres of wood that was cut. That was in 2021.

Let’s fast-forward up to 2024, which is only three years. Revenues went down 75 percent to $500 million. We only cut 32 million cubic metres. We had mills closing. We had towns on the brink of collapsing — in three years. Yet this government would lead us to believe that they’ve got all the tools in the toolbox in this budget to be able to help our forest industry. Well, I’ve gone through this document, and I haven’t found anything that is specific to the forest industry and how we’re going to be able to protect these jobs.

Regardless of whether we have tariffs or not, what else is this government going to do in this budget? You know, Canfor lost $560 million in 2024. That’s why it shut the two mills in Fort St. John and Vanderhoof. The entire industry bled red in 2024.

All the minister can mention is that he’s going to speed up the supply of fibre. I wish he would explain to us how he’s actually going to do that, because all we ever hear is: “We’re going to cut the bureaucracy. We’re going to cut the red tape. We’re going to get up there. We’re working on it, and we’re going to do all these things necessary that everyone’s asking for.”

Well, the biggest thing they’re asking for right now is certainty of supply. They need fibre to be able to run their mills. They need fibre to be able to run their value-added product facilities, and right now we are getting squeezed. Now we have impending tariffs.

What is this government doing about the stumpage system? What are we doing about the actual cost of our fibre? We’re the most expensive jurisdiction in North America. What changes is the Forests Minister coming up with? I haven’t heard any.

I’m acting in good faith. I brought some of the solutions forward to the minister when I chatted with him. We’re looking at a change in the actual way the stumpage is achieved. We’re looking at changing it to a value-added system where we utilize the whole tree. We’re looking at other ways of trying to utilize the fibre in our forests, particularly in the forests that have burnt, and not have to wait three, four, five years to actually start cutting some of those trees down.

Again, you want to look at our peers. They can start doing it in as little as a couple of weeks in Alberta. Here it takes years to do the same thing. Why is that? Why are we so far behind our peers?

I also wanted to talk a little bit about how important forestry has been to the economy of this province. You go to the rotunda and you have a look up and see the four pillars. There are four pillars that built this province. There was agriculture, fisheries, forestry and mining, and I don’t know of any of them that are making any money anymore. That’s how bad things are.

When we talk about forestry, there’s one group in here that is being underrepresented by the importance of a strong forest industry and that’s our First Nations. More First Nations rely directly on our forest industry than any other community in British Columbia, and because of the mismanagement that’s been occurring, they’re threatened just as much as we are.

Today we are discussing Budget 2025. Again, when we want to talk about going back in time, we’re going to be looking at some staggering numbers. I alluded to that before and earlier in my speech when we talked about the difference between what the debt was before the NDP came into power, what the debt is now and what it’s going to be. Yet we haven’t heard anything from the other side, any concrete ways for them to look at any cost savings, other than that they’re looking for efficiencies and possibly some of the discretionary travel in their ministries.

[6:45 p.m.]

To put it into perspective right now, if we put all our debt together, every person in British Columbia owes $17,147 today. In just three years, we’re going to have a 60 percent increase in that — a 60 percent increase. Yes, there will be some capital projects in there, but obviously not enough. Most of the money that’s going to be spent is in operating expenses. It is not in capital projects. It is in operating expenses.

We need improvements to our health care system, but we cannot afford to continue to do what we’re doing in the amount of money that we’re spending in our health care and the results that we’re receiving. This budget alone is going to cost every person in B.C. $6,300 just to pay the bills in our health care system this year alone. How is that sustainable? How are we going to be able to continue to do this with the poor outcomes that we’re receiving right now?

The amount of ER closures that we’ve seen in our communities — we know the hardship it’s putting onto those patients. We know how much difficulty there is for people in those areas to access health care. Now it’s coming to the Lower Mainland. Now they’re starting to realize that it’s not just the rural hospitals or the smaller hospitals that are having these issues; it’s the larger hospitals too. It’s a fundamental problem that we have in this province.

That is why when we had, in our election platform, an opportunity to change the funding model in our hospital system…. No, we weren’t looking at a two-tier system. That already exists. We talked about that earlier today, where you need a passport to access some of the care that should be available in this province, because you have to go out of our country — not go to another province; go out of our country.

We looked at opportunities where we could start changing the funding model so the more patients that hospitals see, the more money they will receive. No, we’re not talking about: “Oh, that’s not a broken arm. You don’t have to bother coming in here, and we’ll check you off as another name.” We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about efficiencies in the system.

There aren’t any efficiencies in the system. When you’ve got 45 vice-presidents in our health authorities and Alberta has — what? — six or seven, that just shows you how much bureaucracy we have in those ministries.

Looking at this budget — and hopefully I’m going to get another opportunity, going further, to be able to talk about it specifically in our estimates — our revenues are totally upside down. As I was alluding to at the beginning of my talk, we should be running this as a business, specifically on the fundamentals. Our revenues are totally upside down, as I mentioned.

Our largest revenue source right now is taxation. On an 82.9 percent forecast in our operating expenses, we’re going to have a $10.9 billion deficit. And 49.5 percent of our revenue is coming from taxation. Almost $18 billion is on the backs of hard-working British Columbians in income tax alone, and another $3 billion on carbon tax. I think I can speak for everybody on this side, and everyone else in British Columbia, that we are overtaxed and people are fed up with this government.

In closing, this isn’t a tariff budget. This budget does nothing but fail to address the fundamental mistakes this government continues to make over and over again. They’ve doubled our debt in seven years. Now, I don’t know how people are feeling back home, but if it was me personally and I doubled my debt in seven years, I wouldn’t feel very good about myself right now. Eventually we have to pay it back. Someone has to pay it back.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

In closing, I do not see a clear plan to get us to prosperity. There’s no clear plan to grow our economy. There’s no clear plan for our future, our children’s future, our families’ future and First Nations’ future.

Together we should be well positioned for any storms. Yes, the tariff threat is a storm, but this government hasn’t planned for any storms whatsoever. This is such a rich and abundant province, but through mismanagement, lack of accountability and lack of vision, we are much worse off than we should be. Again, this budget doesn’t do anything to fix that.

[6:50 p.m.]

Hon. Randene Neill: I’m so excited to talk about what we’re calling, this year, Standing Strong for B.C., our budget and fiscal plan 2025-2026 and 2027-2028. What it really means is that we’re stronger when we stand together, and we’re stronger when we work hard to fight against threats to our economy and to our province and to our prosperity.

I just wanted to start with a quick little personal story. I’ve only been the MLA for Powell River–Sunshine Coast for the past several months and Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship for a short time, as well.

Our community is strung along a highway called Highway 101. Last December, a pedestrian died late at night because a motorist didn’t see them. That person passed away. It wasn’t the motorist’s fault. They stopped, and they stayed on scene. But it was a tragedy for our little community of 44,000 people.

In that short time, the community rallied. Folks got together, and we said, “We need to make our highways safer,” because where that pedestrian died was a bus stop. He was waiting for a bus. To this government’s credit, we were able to get a crosswalk there with blinky lights — I don’t know what the proper term is — and they’re also reducing the speed limit from 80 kilometres an hour to 60 kilometres an hour.

This is a government that cares deeply about the safety of its citizens and acts quickly, regardless of the cost, because we know that some things, lives, are more important than other things.

I’m so proud to be able to talk about this budget, Standing Strong for B.C. But given the hour, the time, I’m wondering if maybe I could reserve my place and we could adjourn for the evening.

Hon. Randene Neill moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Adrian Dix moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The Speaker: This House stands adjourned until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:52 p.m.