The House met at 1:34 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers and reflections: Hon. Christine Boyle.

[1:35 p.m.]

Introductions by Members

The Speaker: Before we recognize members for introductions, I have a very special introduction to make.

Hon. Members, I’m pleased to welcome to our chamber a friend and a fellow presiding officer, the Hon. Nathan Cooper, Speaker of the Alberta Legislative Assembly. He was first elected in 2015 to represent the people of Old Didsbury–Three Hills, then elected Speaker in 2019 and re-elected in 2023.

Our new members may not know that our own Legislature’s cat, Macey Hansard, is related to Speaker Cooper’s own cat, Hansard. Unfortunately, he didn’t bring her here, so next time.

Members, would you please welcome Speaker Nathan Cooper from Alberta.

Hon. Diana Gibson: It’s my great pleasure to introduce here today on the floor the Hon. David Eggen and his partner, in the gallery, Somboon.

Hon. Eggen is MLA for northwest in Edmonton and the shadow minister for Advanced Education in the province of Alberta. He’s the longest-sitting MLA in the Alberta Legislature right now. He and I worked together in Alberta when he was the head of Friends of Medicare.

He’s an incredible advocate for things that we hold dear around health care, housing, anti-poverty and building a more just society. He has been an incredible inspiration to me as a leader.

Please welcome Hon. Mr. Eggen and Somboon.

Dana Lajeunesse: It’s an honour for me today to welcome a few of my former local government colleagues to the House.

We’re fortunate to have several members of the Union of B.C. Municipalities executive joining us. They are, in no particular order, Sarrah Storey, mayor of Fraser Lake; Sheila Boehm, city councillor from Williams Lake; Aimee Grice, councillor from the town of Oliver; Pete Fry, from the city of Vancouver; and last but not least, Gord Klassen, councillor from Fort St. John.

Please give these fine, dedicated folks a warm House welcome.

Hon. Josie Osborne: It’s my pleasure to introduce just 19 representatives from the B.C. Nurses Union who are joining us in the north gallery today. This includes vice-president Tristan Newby. I won’t read the other 18 names, but you are all so very welcome here.

B.C. has had the fastest growing nursing workforce of any major province since 2017. The B.C. Nurses Union represents over 48,000 professional nurses and allied health care workers, providing vital care in our hospitals, long-term care facilities and in our communities.

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

Ian Paton: I am so pleased to have my daughter Jamie Paton here today. She grew up on our farm in Delta.

Jamie did some great humanitarian work over the years. She has done Habitat for Humanity in Fiji, in Brazil and in Nicaragua and then taught school for two years in Japan. She is back home again, teaching school in Richmond — elementary school.

Mark Cantu, a young man from Texas, is her partner. He just got his PhD from SFU in environmental toxicology, whatever the heck that is.

Please make him feel welcome.

Hon. Brittny Anderson: It is my absolute pleasure today to welcome here executive members of the Union of B.C. Municipalities. The work that they do to represent communities across British Columbia is so, so important. I am delighted that they are going to be here today in the Hall of Honour from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m.

[1:40 p.m.]

Everyone in this House is welcome to please join them. It is led, of course, by President Trish Mandewo, but there are people from across British Columbia, local government representatives, that do absolutely incredible work.

Thank you. Can you please all welcome them to the House today.

Lorne Doerkson: I want to join with members that are welcoming people from across our province to represent UBCM, but I do want to single out one individual, and that’s Sheila Boehm, who is from Williams Lake.

She is the past president of NCLGA. She is the current director of UBCM. She is a city councillor in Williams Lake, but she is an amazing advocate for Cariboo-Chilcotin, and I’m proud to know her. I’m grateful for her work that she does all year round. So thank you very much, Sheila.

Make her very welcome here today.

Hon. Christine Boyle: I would like to introduce my two EAs, Tyler Trupp and Bella Devereaux, who are in the House, usually watching from an office while they’re working very hard. I am glad to have them here and want to acknowledge the important work that our staff all do in building relationships and advancing important work across this building and far beyond.

Will the House please join me in thanking and welcoming Tyler and Bella into this House.

Korky Neufeld: Two short introductions, if I could.

Would the 23 students from SFU please stand? I think they’re behind us in the back there. I had the privilege to briefly meet with 23 SFU political science core students. These students represent a diverse background of people from nations and cultures, and they have different passions for entering the deep waters of sometimes muddy politics.

Let us members who are sympathetic to that cause make them feel most welcome.

Also, I’m excited to be meeting this afternoon with the B.C. Federation of Students. I know they’re in the precinct.

Would all members please make them feel most welcome as well.

Hon. Randene Neill: In welcoming our local governments, I would like to add a couple of extra folks who are in the House today: the mayor of Peachland, Patrick Van Minsel, and Councillor Dave Collins. We had a really great meeting yesterday about the great work you’re doing on the watershed.

Please help me in giving them a warm welcome.

Bruce Banman: On the way here this morning, I had the pleasure of bumping into a huge number of members from the B.C. Nurses Union. In particular, I want to give a shout out to my local Abbotsford Lily.

I just hope they’re still here. They said they were going to be here all day. I just want to thank them for the hard work they do for us every single day.

Will this House please welcome them and give them the round of applause that they so richly deserve.

Hon. Bowinn Ma: As I look up into the gallery, I see my good friend, Kathanne Tarratt, a long-time activist and leader within the BCNU nurses union, really, truly a champion of nurses across the province.

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

Macklin McCall: I, as well, would like to welcome the mayor of Peachland, Mayor Patrick Van Minsel. Mayor Van Minsel is here to meet with ministers to discuss things that matter most to Peachland.

Will this House please join me in welcoming Mayor Van Minsel to the chamber.

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Today, April 2, is Autism Awareness and Acceptance Day. I know many members of this House are impacted and touched by autism.

My little guy was diagnosed with autism and epilepsy when he was four. I just want to give a shout out to the families who experience the joy, the challenges — the service providers. In my capacity as Minister of Children and Family Development, I understand firsthand, and I hope we all learn something about autism awareness and acceptance today.

Lynne Block: Nowruz, the Persian New Year, marks the arrival of spring and is celebrated by millions worldwide. It begins on the first day of Farvardin, around March 20, and symbolizes renewal, joy and family gatherings.

[1:45 p.m.]

The festivities last 13 days, ending with Sizdah Be-dar, a day spent outdoors to embrace nature and ward off bad luck. Families picnic and release sabzeh, sprouted greens, into water, symbolizing a fresh start for the year ahead.

To the 68,545 Iranians living in B.C., Happy Sizdah Be-dar.

Hon. Ravi Kahlon: I’ve got some amazing folks here today from the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs. I want to welcome Cassidy Harbottle, Melia Walker, Justin Bedi, Rashi Aggarwal, Shannon Oberholtzer, Carolyn Wilcher, Benjamin Gregory, Juliana Ko, Jake Plan, Yashar Ghajar and Anna Wren.

Please join me in welcoming them all into the chamber today.

Gavin Dew: I was pleased to hear Councillor Pete Fry acknowledged in the chamber. Pete and I started our relationship and our political careers at the same time, in 2016, by both being soundly defeated by the former Minister for Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, Melanie Mark.

We all got to know each other quite well during that time, and every time I see Pete or Melanie, I’m reminded of the importance of collegiality across party lines and the recognition that although this is an adversarial system, we are all unified in our desire to make things better for the people in our communities and in British Columbia.

Harwinder Sandhu: I would like to introduce our local great leaders who are here today: our local mayor of Vernon, Mayor Victor Cumming; mayor of Lumby, Mayor Kevin Acton; as well as Salmon Arm city councillor Louise Wallace, who I have the honour to work with together. I admire the work they do together for the betterment of communities.

Would the House please join me to extend our sincere gratitude and make them feel very welcome here.

Kiel Giddens: It’s great to see so many local government leaders in here, and particularly the UBCM executive.

Thank you for everything you do.

It’s great to see the North so well represented with leaders like Cori Ramsay from the city of Prince George, Gord Klassen from Fort St. John and my very good friend Sarrah Storey from the village of Fraser Lake.

Would the House please join in another welcome to all of them.

Mable Elmore: I’m really pleased to look up and see a good friend, Baljit Fajardo. She’s here with the B.C. Nurses Union and does terrific advocacy. But really, in Vancouver-Kensington, I want to recognize her for her leadership. She’s regarded as a community leader supporting young nurses, student nurses. She’s really someone who’s known for fostering and building efforts to bring the community together in Vancouver-Kensington.

I ask everybody to please give her a very warm welcome.

Rohini Arora: I’m just so excited to see the students from the SFU Political Science Student Union. The main building for SFU is in my riding, so I’m stoked. As a fellow poli-sci nerd, I can’t wait to connect with you folks later — quite soon, actually.

Please make them feel welcome.

Harwinder Sandhu: I want to make another very important introduction, and I want to add to the Minister of Health. On behalf of the MLA for North Vancouver–Seymour and myself, we would like to again welcome fierce advocates and the most caring people in this province, the delegation from the B.C. Nurses Union, who I admire so much and who I had the honour to work together with to strengthen and make our health care system better.

So would the House please join me again to thank them for everything they do and to make them feel very welcome.

Jordan Kealy: I just wanted to introduce to the House a fellow councillor from the energetic city of Fort St. John, Mr. Gord Klassen.

Also, when it comes to the UBCM, I know them familiarly. They’re friends of mine that I previously sat with as a regional director. So I just want to wish you welcome.

It’s great to see…. People may not actually appreciate the distance that people have to travel from the North when it comes to politics. It’s not always an easy feat.

So thank you very much, Gord.

[1:50 p.m.]

Jennifer Blatherwick: I would like to have the House make welcome President Trish Mandewo from UBCM, who is also a city councillor in Coquitlam, where I reside, and Councillor Craig Hodge, who are here in the building today. Both of them are incredibly dedicated public servants who serve with knowledge, compassion and a great deal of enthusiasm.

I would like to have you all join me in making them welcome.

Members’ Statements

Eva Hilborn and
Wonderful World of Books

Stephanie Higginson: Today is International Children’s Book Day, and that means that it is the perfect day to celebrate a wonderful person and a charity that she started in the riding of Ladysmith-Oceanside. Ninety-eight-year-old Qualicum Beach resident Eva Hilborn founded the Wonderful World of Books because she believes that reading to children builds lifelong language skills and a love for learning.

The retired Qualicum Beach school district teacher says the idea came to her in part after reading about Dolly Parton’s foundation, the Imagination Library, which gifted over 150 million books to children around the world. Eva decided to do the same thing on a smaller scale in her own home community and started the Wonderful World of Books in 2021.

The foundation started by delivering a book a month for free to families with children two and three years old living in Bowser, a community about 20 minutes north of her home of Qualicum Beach. Over the years, the age and delivery area slowly expanded, and now the Wonderful World of Books delivers free books to children from birth through to four years old.

Eva believes that by promoting early literacy through the 24 or more books that children have the opportunity to receive through her foundation, it will set them up to succeed in life. Her goal is for every child in her community to have their own library before they start school.

All the books are purchased locally, and the Wonderful World of Books is a registered Canadian charity with over 40 volunteer drivers who are mostly retired teachers.

Eva Hilborn is a fierce woman that I have had the honour to get to know as the local MLA. Eva and the volunteers that support the Wonderful World of Books are a living example of the famous Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it is often the only thing that ever has.”

To Eva, I say thank you for the incredible work of the Wonderful World of Books and the incredible lifelong impact it has on the children and families of the Oceanside area.

Autism Awareness and Acceptance

Elenore Sturko: Today we do recognize that it is World Autism Awareness and Acceptance Day, a global initiative to foster understanding, acceptance and inclusion for individuals on the autism spectrum.

Established by the United Nations in 2007, this day aims to shine a light on the unique strengths people with autism have and some of the challenges they may face, while raising awareness about neurodiversity. People on the autism spectrum differ from other neurotypical people, sometimes having differences in communication and social interaction but also having remarkable talents in areas like art, music or problem-solving.

This year’s theme emphasizes empowerment, ensuring people with autism have access to education, employment and opportunities to thrive.

Awareness isn’t just about knowledge; it’s about action. It’s about dismantling stereotypes, advocating for accommodations and listening. We’re extremely fortunate in British Columbia to have many advocacy groups, not-for-profit organizations and service providers, as well as many parents and families of people with autism in B.C. I am grateful that they have been fighting for services, fighting for funding and the rights of people with autism, particularly children.

I am grateful, and I would hate to think where we would be in this province without them. Especially, I am grateful for them standing their ground for individualized funding.

As British Columbians, we can build a province where sensory-friendly spaces, flexible systems and genuine respect are the norm, not the exception. So today, let’s commit to learning more, challenging our assumptions and supporting initiatives to uplift people with autism. World Autism Awareness and Acceptance Day isn’t just a date. It’s a call to create a more inclusive province.

[1:55 p.m.]

Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility
Professional Network Conference

Dana Lajeunesse: In my role as Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility, I had the incredible pleasure to speak last week at the Rick Hansen Foundation’s Accessibility Professional Network 2025 conference.

This event brings together some of the most inspiring minds and dedicated individuals, all united by a common goal to create a world without barriers. I found the energy and enthusiasm of all participants truly contagious. From the insightful discussions to the innovative ideas shared, it was abundantly clear that we’re moving in the right direction in terms of advancements in accessibility and inclusion. The commitment to making a difference was palpable, and it was encouraging to see so many people passionate about driving change.

March 21 marked the 40th anniversary of Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion Tour. Clearly, his efforts to raise global awareness about removing the stigma surrounding people living with disabilities continues to this day. The Rick Hansen Foundation remains a beacon of hope and progress, and being part of this conference reinforced my belief in the power of collective action. Together, we can break down barriers and build a more inclusive society.

I wish to once again thank the organizers, speakers and attendees for making this event a resounding success. Their dedication and hard work are truly commendable, and I’m confident that as a society, we will continue to collaborate, innovate and inspire each other as we move forward in our journey toward a more accessible world.

Moby Dick Fish and Chips

Trevor Halford: I rise today to pay respect to a White Rock institution that is now celebrating their 50th anniversary, as of yesterday. It’s Moby Dick fish and chips in White Rock.

I saw that. Yeah, a few fans in attendance today.

Moby Dick was actually started by Peter Mueller. He was born in Germany, later residing in Switzerland. He worked as a chef at a five-star seafood restaurant before eventually finding his forever home in Vancouver. He arrived in Vancouver in 1973 with just his car, which he had shipped over, and he explored the cities until he found White Rock. He worked as a chef at the cannery, but he realized his own dream was to open a restaurant on the White Rock waterfront.

It was his wife, Claudia, that told him and reminded him of his own goal to operate a restaurant by the time he turned 30. Encouraged by her faith and their shared dream, Peter set out to find the perfect location, which they did. They brainstormed, and it was a novel that Claudia was just finished reading, which was, obviously, Moby-Dick. They opened the restaurant on April 1, 1975.

Now, the first week, they made a choice, where they did not serve fish and chips, and they almost went bankrupt. So they quickly corrected. Not to their surprise, they were flooded by people, even as of today.

Peter operated this restaurant until 1999, when his wife, Claudia, passed away. He did not want to continue doing this. This was a partnership that they had done, and so he sold it. It is now in the hands of Sasha and Yuriy, who proudly operate the restaurant today.

So I invite anybody that wants to come down, please do. If you’re in White Rock, stop by Moby Dick and enjoy fish and chips on the beach.

411 Seniors Centre Society

Mable Elmore: The 411 Seniors Centre Society, established in 1977, has been a cornerstone in Vancouver’s seniors community. It’s an inclusive, versatile and dynamic drop-in space for older adults, and over the years, they’ve maintained a steadfast commitment to advocacy, support and community building. They offer essential services tailored to vulnerable seniors, including information referral, digital literacy, emergency response and preparedness and a variety of engaging recreational and social activities.

In spring 2023, the centre embarked on a new chapter by relocating from their location at 411 Dunsmuir Street to a vibrant neighbourhood at Fraser and 19th Avenue in Vancouver-Kensington. They’ve got a new seniors centre, including affordable seniors housing units, and are just a great addition to the neighbourhood.

[2:00 p.m.]

In 2023, Marion Leslie Pollack, the past president of 411, was honoured with the Seniors Leadership Award by the Simon Fraser University Gerontology Research Centre, recognizing her dedication to advocating for affordable housing and social justice for seniors. Marion has also felt that what 411 provides to seniors are essential services.

We know from the leadership and example of Seniors 411 that by improving health and well-being, seniors centres help older adults live more fulfilling lives. They do incredible programming, including a kitchen that provides over 5,000 subsidized meals to seniors every year. They have active membership of over 1,000 members. It’s just an incredibly dynamic organization.

They lead by example to really demonstrate to us that when seniors are engaged and supported, they’re less likely to require health interventions, they’re more likely to contribute to their communities, and seniors centres create a positive economic impact by reducing health care costs, supporting independent living, fostering social connections, enhancing local economies, and they’re just a great addition to our neighbourhood.

I ask everybody to please give a very round recognition to the great work of 411 Seniors Centre Society.

Royal Canadian Legion in Peachland

Macklin McCall: Today I arise to speak about the Royal Canadian Legion in Peachland. This institution is more than just a building; it’s a symbol of the sacrifices made by our veterans, both past and present. For decades, the legion has been a cornerstone of our community, providing a place where veterans, their families and the local community can come together in remembrance, support and solidarity.

The Royal Canadian Legion in Peachland has served as a home to our veterans. It is a space for them to gather, share stories and find comfort among those who understand their sacrifices. Each Remembrance Day, this community honours those who fought for the freedoms we cherish, standing at the cenotaph with pride and reverence. The legion has supported countless initiatives, ensuring that veterans and their families are never forgotten and that their contributions are always celebrated.

However, recently this valued institution and other local businesses fell victim to a senseless act of vandalism. Windows of the legion were egged, leaving behind not just a mess but a deep emotional wound. The president of the legion expressed the pain that this act has caused, saying it really hurts. This type of behaviour has no place in our community.

It is important that we come together and show respect for the institutions that support our veterans and our way of life. The men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces made great sacrifices to ensure that we have the freedoms we enjoy today. The least we can do is respect the places that honour them.

I ask all members of this House and all citizens of our province to stand with the Royal Canadian Legion and to reject acts of vandalism and disrespect. Let us ensure that our communities are places of support, dignity and respect — places that reflect the values we hold dear.

Oral Questions

The Speaker: Members, during question period, no electronic devices are to be used.

Government Response to Deaths of
Children and Youth in Care and
Action on Report Recommendations

Amelia Boultbee: On January 28, Chantelle Williams was released from hospital late at night while in the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. She was found unresponsive blocks from her group home and was later pronounced dead. She was found by a passer-by at 5 a.m.

Chantelle’s death is not an isolated incident. Last year 103 children died while receiving services from MCFD. In spite of this death toll, the government has only implemented nine of the 72 recommendations from the Representative for Children and Youth.

Chantelle’s family is here in the gallery. They have been trying for months to get communication and answers from this government about Chantelle’s death. It has been 64 days since Chantelle’s death.

My question is: how many more children have to die before this government implements the remaining 63 recommendations?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I first and foremost want to give my condolences to the family that is here today.

Your loss is devastating. I am sorry. Your family member mattered. She was important. And what has happened is unfair.

I have cleared my schedule this afternoon. I would like to meet with the family if they would like to meet with me.

[2:05 p.m.]

I have provided information to the members opposite about our Child, Family and Community Service Act. Under that act, as the Minister of Children and Family Development, I am not able to publicly share information that I obtain under that act. I understand that this is frustrating. When I was in opposition, it was frustrating for me.

What I can say is that, in general, in my ministry, any time a child dies, we review the circumstances around that death. We do a comprehensive review. We work with third parties from this Legislature, like the Representative for Children and Youth, like the Coroners Service, like the police. We work with those independent bodies to provide the information necessary. Wherever we can, we work with families.

I understand that it is a very difficult process. Throughout that process, my expectation is that we provide families with support, that we pay for funerals, that we provide food support and counselling support. This is an unimaginable circumstance for any family, and my heart goes out to the family today.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Amelia Boultbee: The report Don’t Look Away outlined the horrific death of a child in foster care and was released 258 days ago. Following that report, this government admitted that the system is broken and pledged to implement all nine of the recommendations in that report. This government stood in this House and made that commitment. And here we are, following the death of yet another child.

My question is: why has this government not implemented these recommendations, and when can the public and families expect action?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: We absolutely are implementing recommendations of the Representative for Children and Youth. I meet the Representative for Children and Youth regularly to talk about the progress that our ministry is making on those recommendations. I also have provided comprehensive information to the member opposite on her questions and will do so with any member in this House.

I hate talking about numbers. Every single child is a child that mattered. Their life was worth something, and it was important.

I do have to correct the member, because she continually talks about 103 children. I’ve provided her with the breakdown of that information. I have provided her with the information available. Of those children, 89 were receiving services. What that means is that a child who is with their parent, who might be receiving something like speech and language services or counselling services, is counted in how we report child deaths in this province. Of the number that the member mentioned, 14 children who were in government care passed away.

In each one of those situations, we do a review. We ensure that recommendations are followed up on. We take these deaths very seriously. I am committed to working every single day.

The member opposite also sits on our Select Standing Committee for Children and Youth with the Representative for Children and Youth and talks to that committee on the progress that we are making on those recommendations.

We are making significant progress. We have struck a deputy ministers project board. We are working across government on a comprehensive child and youth well-being plan and outcomes framework. I am committed to that work, and I am committed to doing better for children and youth in this province.

Scott McInnis: According to the last report from the Representative for Children and Youth, approximately 500 children go missing every year while in government care. No one was even looking for Chantelle Williams the night she died alone.

When will this government get serious about the safety of kids in its care and implement the 72 recommendations from the representative?

[2:10 p.m.]

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I can assure the members in this House that there is nothing more important to me than the safety and well-being of every single child in this province. I am a mom of a 19-year-old and a 15-year-old. Every day that I wake up in this role, I think about the safety and well-being of children.

We are implementing the recommendations that the Representative for Children and Youth has made. We also invested $321 million into the ministry budget this year, because we understand that these services are vital to ensuring that children and youth are safe. We have increased our direct workforce working alongside families by 20 percent. We have invested in services for young people who have aged out of care.

There is more work to be done. I am committed to doing that work. This government is committed to ensuring that vulnerable people in this province are kept safe. That is my commitment. I am willing to work with any member in this House on this issue. This is a non-partisan issue. The well-being of children and youth is my top priority.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Scott McInnis: Well, that sounds good, but the minister stands here and talks about money, action plans and working on it. Meanwhile, children are still vanishing from care.

Chantelle Williams was missing. Was anybody even looking for her? How many more children will B.C. lose before this government treats them like they actually matter?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Every child in this province matters. Every single day that I wake up in this role, every single day that I go to bed, I think about the children in this province. I think about the reports. I work diligently with the Representative for Children and Youth. I meet with families, with community members. I have worked in community. I have worked alongside families. I understand the frustration.

I understand that there is always more work to be done. I will wake up every day and put every effort and every molecule in my body that I have to ensure that we are doing better, that we are responding to recommendations that are made, that we are working in community, that we are ensuring that we have strong oversight, that we are continually doing better.

I will never, ever give up on doing the right thing for children and youth in this province. There is always better to be done. My commitment to the children, youth and families in this province, the service providers that provide crucial support and to the members opposite and every member in this House: that I will never stop that work.

Education Funding

Jeremy Valeriote: Education is the foundation of a healthy society and a functional democracy, but it has been deprioritized by consecutive governments in British Columbia. B.C. ranks ninth of the 10 provinces in per-pupil funding. Chronic underinvestment has left teachers unable to do their work effectively, undermining the opportunity for young students to get the education they deserve.

When schools are inadequately funded and students spend their education years in portables, a clear message is sent to our youth. “We are not sufficiently investing in you during the formative years of your life.” Despite persistent inequities, no B.C. government has adequately addressed these issues in over two decades.

To the Minister of Education: when will this government modernize operational funding for public kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools?

Hon. Lisa Beare: I want to thank the member for the question. We have a shared passion for public education.

I don’t know if the member knows, but I actually was a school board trustee, and that’s what brought me to my role here as an MLA, because I was passionate about improving the public education system.

I remember a little guy, Lucas, who came to present to us at the school board. Ten years old, his glasses, he came and sat in front of a table of a dozen adults to tell us what our budget meant for him at the time. This was in 2016.

Lucas told me about how he suffers from anxiety and other mental health issues and how he desperately needs a counsellor some days in school. One day he went to his teacher and said: “I’m not having a good day. I need to see my counsellor.” And the teacher looked at him and said: “I’m sorry, Lucas. It’s Tuesday. We don’t have your counsellor till Thursday. Can you just hold it in?”

That’s the day I decided to run for MLA. So I will work every day to ensure that we are improving our public education system for kids like Lucas.

[2:15 p.m.]

We have increased our funding year after year since we’ve formed government, and we will continue to do so. We will continue to make commitments around education, because we know how important this is for kids.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Jeremy Valeriote: The B.C. Federation of Students points out that this chronic investment is felt not only in K-to-12 education but also across post-secondary institutions.

Our priorities should clearly be with the students of today and the workforce of tomorrow. If we want to improve health care, build more housing, grow our economy and create strong communities, we have to start with world-class, affordable post-secondary education and skills training.

Public post-secondary institutions are in peril. Programs are being cut, faculty and staff laid off. The government started a funding review in 2022 that would have brought problems with the funding model to light and proposed solutions. When will you release the results of consultation and complete the post-secondary funding review?

Hon. Anne Kang: Thank you so much to the member across for this question. Post-secondary institutions are an economic driver in this very challenging time that we have here. I’m very proud of the 25 public post-secondary institutions we have in British Columbia, and we continue to support them in the best way that we can.

The unilateral decisions that the federal government has made with our international students have really crippled the way that we are funding our post-secondary institutions. I have been meeting with presidents, faculty, staff and students about the challenges that they are facing right now.

We are there for them. We are working with them hand in hand and making sure that any financial challenges are not crippling the programming that we are providing for them. We will continue to support them, and we will continue to make sure that we have high-quality education here for our post-secondary institutions.

Safety of Health Care Workers

Elenore Sturko: Last month a young nurse took her own life after being attacked twice on the job, one incident happening while she was alone. The Health Minister responded to questions from media by placing blame, saying her expectation is that the health authorities follow the rules for safety.

Front-line workers tell me that it’s chronic NDP staffing shortages that are placing nurses and other health care workers in danger on a regular basis. If the minister is looking for someone to blame, she need only look in the mirror.

When will the Premier and the Health Minister truly take the safety of front-line health care workers seriously?

Hon. Josie Osborne: We all know that hospitals and health care facilities are places where people go to seek help and support to feel better and that our nurses, who are truly health care heroes, are doing their very utmost and deserve a safe workplace to be.

Just this morning I had the opportunity to meet with front-line nurses and hear firsthand about experiences that they have had.

With respect to this nurse that the member opposite refers to, it is simply a devastating situation. I think every single person in this place, their hearts go out to her friends and her family. We have heard and seen that she was an important part of her community, giving so much, and this has got to have huge ripples across her workplace and across her community as well.

Violence has absolutely no place in the workplace, and that’s why we’ve taken steps, together with the B.C. Nurses Union and health authorities, to add security resources into hospitals. In establishing the relational security initiative program, we’ve made the commitment and have hired 320 of these relational security officers. We have over 750 of them placed in facilities across British Columbia.

We’re going to do more. We need to do more, more in terms of violence prevention and the curriculum and the training that people have access to, to make sure that patients, nurses and all health care workers are safe.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Elenore Sturko: The first time 33-year-old nurse Roseanne Wallace was attacked in the psychiatric unit where she worked, her shoulder injury required surgery. The response to that attack was to install a panic button.

[2:20 p.m.]

I am going to ask every member on that side of the chamber to imagine being a nurse. Imagine being choked, punched, kicked, attacked by a violent patient. Now imagine having to push a panic button because there aren’t enough staff to restrain that patient and there aren’t any security officers posted to that unit.

My question is: how many minutes do you think it’s acceptable to have to wait for help to arrive?

Hon. Josie Osborne: The member is correct in that we need more nurses on the floors here in British Columbia. That’s why we’re taking the actions that we are to build the nursing workforce across British Columbia. We’ve had the fastest-growing workforce across Canada here in B.C. since 2017. We’re only behind P.E.I.

We’ve added 1,500 more nurses in the last year alone. We’ve made commitments around a minimum nurse-to-patient ratio, which we know is making a big difference in places like Smithers — where nurses told me this morning that they’re beginning to meet those nurse-patient ratios. That’s making a real difference on the floor for nurses there, and we’ve got to keep doing that work.

That’s why we’re going to continue working in partnership with the Nurses Union. We’re going to continue to create better working conditions for nurses across British Columbia. They are big challenges, but it takes all of us in partnership, working together. We’re going to get this work done, because we know that nurses deserve better. We know that British Columbians deserve the health care when they need it and where they need it — and part of that, so much of that, is delivered by our nurses.

Government Response to Deaths of
Children and Youth in Care and
Action on Report Recommendations

Heather Maahs: More than 6,000 children have died or suffered critical injuries this past year on this government’s watch. We know that a disproportionate number of those incidents involved Indigenous children, which is, tragically, a repeating pattern.

How many more children will be put in harm’s way or die before this government implements all 72 recommendations?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: We are absolutely committed to implementing the recommendations of the Representative for Children and Youth. I meet regularly with the Representative for Children and Youth to discuss where we are at with those recommendations. Some of those recommendations have been implemented. They are immediate recommendations, like timelines that social workers visit youth who are in care. Those have been completed.

The Representative for Children and Youth also has made recommendations that are systemic and take longer to complete. Those recommendations are recommendations like a comprehensive child and youth well-being plan and outcomes framework, a whole-of-government approach to how we support families. When families interact with my ministry, they are at some of the most difficult times of their journey.

There are multiple things that we need to do to address those challenges. It’s very important work, it is work that I take incredibly seriously, and it is work that we are committed to. We are transforming our child welfare system — working with Indigenous communities, Indigenous governing bodies, on the resumption of jurisdiction of their children and families. This is very important work, and it’s work that we’re committed to.

Trevor Halford: After being released from the hospital to her group home, Chantelle Williams should have had support, and she should have had supervision. She clearly did not have either of those things. Instead, she was able to leave undetected, was then found unresponsive hours later and passed away.

This government stood in this House almost a year ago and committed to implement these critical, important recommendations. Today: nine out of 72. That’s not good enough. That is not good enough for the children of this province, and it wasn’t good enough for Chantelle. The family can’t even get basic answers on what happened when she left the hospital.

My question to this minister, my question to the Premier, is a very simple one: what are they waiting for to get these recommendations done, completed, to protect our children today?

[2:25 p.m.]

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Again, the safety and well-being of children is my number one priority. I am committed to working with the Representative for Children and Youth. We meet biweekly. I work with her closely on her recommendations.

I want to correct the member opposite. Of the 72 recommendations cited, 44 of them are directed at the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and 29 of those are complete or already in progress.

This is very important work. I’m happy to work with any of the members opposite on what we’re doing and providing more information to the members opposite on how we’re doing that work. Again, committed to working with the Representative of Children and Youth and her independent office from our government and thank the member for the question.

Child Death and Injury Cases
Related to Substance Use

Bruce Banman: Thirteen-year-old Brianna MacDonald died of an overdose in a homeless encampment in Abbotsford. She was just 13 — a life ahead of her.

Brianna struggled with mental illness and addiction, and after being bounced between the children's hospital, Surrey hospital, doctors, counsellors and therapists, Brianna wound up homeless in an encampment in Abbotsford. Her parents begged, pleaded for help, but the system, this NDP government system, ignored them.

Will the Premier stand in this House today, especially considering there is a family present who lost a loved one, and admit that under his government, under his leadership, that the B.C. NDP are failing the very children they swore to protect, or will he yet once again shamelessly leave it to one of his ministers to apologize and answer on his behalf?

Hon. Ravi Kahlon: My heart goes out to the family as well. When we hear of anyone being in an encampment, in any community in the province, we know how difficult of a situation that is. We know how it’s unsafe for the people that are living there, and it’s not really safe for the community at large.

I’ve been working closely with communities like Abbotsford to try to scale up supportive housing. I really hope we get to a place where we all in this House can stand up and speak about how important supportive housing is for our communities, because that’s the opportunity where you can get people indoors, you can get them the supports that they need. Having people sleeping in encampments and in parks and in tents…. You can’t get them the supports they need there. You need to give them shelter, you need to be able to provide the wraparound supports. supports.

That’s why we’ve been scaling up supportive housing in communities at record pace, because it’s not acceptable to have somebody living in an encampment. It’s not acceptable to have someone living in a tent.

So again, my heart goes out to the family. We’re going to continue the work to scale up supportive housing opportunities so that young people, seniors, anyone that needs a home, can go there and get a place and get all the supports that they need.

Reann Gasper: Children deserve to grow up in safe homes and safe communities, but under this NDP government, they aren’t. In my own riding, a five-year-old girl — yes, I said five — had to be rushed to the hospital after overdosing on fentanyl. What should have been a normal evening routine turned dire when she reportedly handled a jar of fentanyl.

What kind of province have we become when children aren’t safe in their own homes? How can the Premier claim to be protecting our children when they are being rushed to the hospital for fentanyl overdoses?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: What the member describes is horrific and awful and should never occur. As a mom, I am devastated by that story. I think we are all devastated by that in this Legislature.

We have a Child, Family and Community Services Act in this province that governs making sure that children are safe and protected.

[2:30 p.m.]

The member is right. Every child deserves to live in a safe home, in a loving home and in a healthy home. My expectation is that my ministry does everything possible to ensure that that occurs.

When there is a safety concern for a child, we are required by law, whether that be in a hospital, in a community, in a school, to provide that information. Any circumstance where a child is at risk, a social worker has the ability to investigate that situation, and then there’s a process that occurs out of that.

What the member describes is horrific, and I am appalled to hear of it.

Death of Indigenous Youth
in Government Care

Á’a:líya Warbus: What we’ve heard today in the House is a terrible string of events that’s happening to our most precious asset that we have in this province. That’s our children. Over and over and over again, this government has failed children in their care. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s infuriating that this government cannot do the job it’s committed to and that is to keep children in care safe.

There’s a family that made the long trip today from their community to come here. They’re sitting in the gallery, and they’re mourning the loss of their family member. This is fresh for them. Her brother is here. They were in the care system together. They were separated. I know he carries a heavy weight on his shoulders because of that separation, but they came here today so that they could be heard. They’ll never see their family member again.

I’m asking the Premier today to stand up and speak, not to me, not to the opposition but to the family of Chantelle Williams. Please tell them why their family member died in the cold alone, when she should have been safe and warm in the care of this government.

Hon. David Eby: I thank the Opposition House Leader for the question, and I thank the opposition for providing the family the opportunity to be heard here today.

The minister has outlined the frustrating legal constraints on us preventing us from talking about any particular case. But it doesn’t constrain me from saying to this family that this was a precious child. She shouldn’t have died.

Any time that a child dies in care, it is a failure. We need to learn all we can to prevent the deaths of any other children in care.

I can assure you, and I assure all British Columbians, that this death will be investigated independently and that you will get the answers that you need. There are not one but two independent offices set up, independent of us, independent of the minister, to get you the answers that you need and that you deserve.

I just want to underline that the minister has, in fact, cleared her schedule to meet with you, to talk with you one-on-one. I hope you take her up on that offer. Regardless, thank you for making the trek here. Thank you for having the courage to share this story. It’s important for all British Columbians to hear, and you have my assurance that we will get you the answers that you deserve.

[End of question period.]

Tabling Documents

The Speaker: I have the honour to table three reports from the registrar of lobbyists. The first one is Determination Decision 25-01, Atira Women’s Resource Society. The second one is 25-02, Arts Club of Vancouver Theatre Society. The third one is 25-03, Vancouver Humane Society.

[2:35 p.m.]

Petitions

Harwinder Sandhu: I want to present a petition signed by 479 people and organized by our community advocate Fraser Young, who I’ve been working closely with.

This petition is asking to extend B.C. Transit bus route 97 to include UBC route 90, which will help many commuters in the region.

Orders of the Day

Hon. Mike Farnworth: I call Motion 11 on the order paper, which has been standing in my name.

Government Motions on Notice

Motion 11 — Membership Change to
Public Accounts Committee

Hon. Mike Farnworth: I move Motion 11, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, regarding the membership of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. It has been shared with the Opposition House Leader and the Third Party House Leader.

[That Larry Neufeld replace Tara Armstrong as a member of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.]

The Speaker: Members, the question is the adoption of the motion.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: In this chamber, I call second reading on Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act.

In Section A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call estimates debate for the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness and after that the Ministry of Citizens’ Services.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 7 — 2025 Economic Stabilization
(Tariff Response) Act

Hon. David Eby: No, it’s not the usual course of business, but it is an honour to be here to speak to the Economic Stabilization Act.

Today is an important day for British Columbians and Canadians. We’re hearing the latest in a series of tariff announcements from the President of the United States.

Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, Premier, can you move second reading?

Hon. David Eby: Absolutely, Chair. I move second reading of the Economic Stabilization Act.

Today is an important day for British Columbians, for Canadians. We’re going to hear from the President the latest of a series of announcements in relation to tariffs that he plans to impose on countries other than the United States.

Now, it’s important to recognize that these tariffs will be devastating for families, for businesses on both sides of the border. We see already the impact on stock markets, the impact on consumer confidence, the impact on prices for families on both sides of the border. But the real impact will be on communities, on families feeling that economic insecurity, the threat of unemployment, the threat of losing a home after losing a job.

Right now people in B.C. are moving from anger and shock to determination, to resolve. You see the Canadian flags all over, people checking labels, buying Canadian, buying local, supporting local businesses. Businesses are working fast to build alliances, both nationally across the country as we move to remove barriers that prevent them from trading across the country, as well as internationally. In the face of this unprecedented threat, our government will do whatever it takes to protect British Columbians — protect our jobs, businesses, families and our communities.

Now, it’s clear that our work to date has been finding traction. We’re starting to see American senators and congresspeople on the Republican side speaking up about the impact of the President’s attacks on Canada, on tariffs, talking about the impact on their constituents.

They are raising concern in Alaska. A Republican state senator is moving a resolution against the President’s annexation threat to Canada. In D.C., we’ve seen Republican senators from Maine, Alaska and, yes, even Kentucky, begin to caution publicly about the impact of these tariffs. Our resolve and our swift opposition to these tariffs are having an impact, and we cannot let up now.

Here in B.C., we’re not waiting for the latest post on Truth Social. We’re taking action. This bill is part of that action. We’re taking action to strengthen our economy, to diversify our trading partners and to respond resolutely and firmly to the President’s threats.

Strengthening our economy at home is fast-tracking major projects to ensure that…. There are jobs, especially in rural parts of the province, that are going to be disproportionately impacted by the President’s threats and, ultimately, tariffs.

[2:40 p.m.]

We’re diversifying our trading partnerships internationally, and we will be accelerating the work to remove any barriers to trade with other provinces. It shouldn’t be any harder to trade with Nova Scotia than with Washington state.

A diverse coalition of leaders from business, labour and First Nations has joined the fight. We’re working together as a part of a coordinated committee, because they all know what we know here: we’re stronger working together.

Fewer than 100 days into the Trump presidency, we’ve faced escalating threats on our country’s own sovereignty and the border. Whether it is the threat to the border itself or threats to our water, what we are seeing is, in addition to that, direct threats to jobs, the threat to destroy our economy in order to force us into economic servitude to the United States.

That’s why we tabled this important piece of legislation — to make sure our province has all the tools we need to respond to this threat, to help us build a more resilient, tariff-proof economy here in British Columbia.

The President is moving fast. We have a responsibility to arm ourselves to move just as quickly to defend British Columbians. His threats do change one day to the next, one hour to the next, but one thing is certain. Our relationship with the United States is fundamentally changed. The scales have dropped from our eyes. We can never again be so exposed to the whims of one person in the White House.

This law will enable us to move quickly to break down trade barriers within Canada. It’s so important to businesses to be able to trade with other Canadians easily and quickly, without red tape, to strengthen our counter-measures until Trump’s threats are gone for good.

That includes measures to exclude U.S. companies from procurement. In other words, when people are at the grocery store, they’re buying Canadian. They’re buying B.C. Our government will be doing the same.

We’ve already started this work. B.C. Hydro has taken steps to exclude Tesla from rebate programs. We’ve removed American alcohol from our government liquor store shelves, and there’s more we may need to do. In these uncertain times, we may have to do things differently. We certainly have to act faster than ever before to protect British Columbians and secure our economy. This is a trade war. We didn’t ask for it, but we sure aren’t going to shrink from it. We must be ready for whatever gets thrown at us.

In times of great peril, we have to come together to protect the country and protect the values that we share. To do that, we have to be prepared to put aside differences, to listen and learn from people with diverse backgrounds and with unique perspectives.

I’d like to thank the members of this Legislature, the members of the business community, the Third Party in particular, for sharing feedback, for coordinating, for thoughtful conversations on the right path forward for this legislation.

With the feedback carefully considered from members of this House and outside this House, it’s my hope that we can pass this bill quickly, so we can deliver generational change on internal trade here in Canada and ensure we have everything we need to respond to this threat from a position of strength.

It’s not a fight we started. It’s not one we wanted. But we won’t back down. We’re going to keep our elbows up. We’re ready for today, and we’re ready for what will come tomorrow.

These tools will help us not only meet this moment but seize the opportunity that it presents to address some long-standing issues. We can build a brighter future for people in this province, a future of our own making, one that’s stronger and more prosperous than ever.

Peter Milobar: I rise to speak to Bill 7. I will be our designated speaker.

I would point out I wasn’t sure if I was going to be, because I thought we would see some amendments that repealed section 4, which is the most contentious part of this bill, yet despite press releases — nothing.

This Premier and this government seem to think that the appropriate response to a legislature is to issue decree by press release with no substance to ever back anything up.

It was February 28. It was Friday when this Premier held a press conference and said they were repealing section 4 of the bill that we are debating here today. Then he alluded to, “Well, maybe I’ll just amend it; well, maybe I’ll bring it back at a later time,” with no certainty. And you know what happened? All the groups that were opposed suddenly said: “Wow. Thank you. Thank you for getting rid of the section that gave us the most heartburn in this bill.”

[2:45 p.m.]

But it’s not removed. It’s not even amended. In fact, one would think, between Friday and Wednesday, for a bill that this government says is urgent — and the Premier just said he wants it passed quickly — they would have worked with the opposition. They keep talking about this Team Canada approach; they can’t even work within this chamber cooperatively.

So Friday press release…. All day Saturday, the only communication we get from the government late Saturday is that they want to rush through a carbon tax repeal bill on Monday. They don’t show us the bill ahead of time, but they tell us they want to rush that through on Monday.

They then grumble that we’re here till two o’clock in the morning on Monday dealing with the legislation that they insisted had to be dealt with on Monday. But they don’t provide us with any update on Bill 7 in terms of amendments that the Premier talked about on Friday.

Sunday comes — nothing from this government. Monday comes — we get the Standing Order 81 debate in this chamber Monday morning where the government insists for urgency’s sake they have to deal with the carbon tax bill on Monday. We wrapped that up at two in the morning, even though the government side is quite unhappy they had to stay late at their own making.

They still can’t actually explain to us where the missing $2 billion of revenue is going to come into this budget. Is it going to be more deficit? Is it going to be spending cuts? Is it going to be a combination? They can’t tell us, because they were in such a hurry to deal with the legislation, they couldn’t actually have a financial plan to match their legislation. Also, no update on Bill 7 for the opposition. No update on Tuesday for the opposition.

All we had to work on yesterday, because there’s no other legislation in this place to work on, despite the fact we’ve been here since February 18…. There’s a budget measures implementation bill with a few tax changes, predominantly for the film industry. That’s about it. That’s what we have left on the legislative docket.

We’re halfway through this session, facing a tariff war, and the best this government has for this legislature to work on is a bill that on Friday they said they were going to amend, but they still haven’t actually provided any of the amendments or what they’re going to do with this bill.

A budget measures implementation bill which essentially adjusts a few tax rates for a budget that no longer has any accuracy because it has a $3 billion revenue hole in it, and they haven’t made any adjustments on the expense side to tell us or the public whether or not that budget is even relative to the budget estimates that are going on right now.

So that takes us through to yesterday. Yesterday afternoon we find out Bill 7 is coming back today. The Premier stands in this place and says he wants it through fast. The Premier should know that it’s actually scheduled for second reading all day today, all day tomorrow. There are 41 of us in the B.C. Conservative caucus. We’re all going to be speaking. That’s 20½ hours.

I pointed that out on the carbon tax Standing Order 81 debate as well. And we actually worked with the government in terms of trying to move that along, that bill, and cut back our speaker list and dropped people on a moment’s notice from speaking for half an hour each to five minutes each, just so they could get their points out quickly on behalf of their constituents and we could move to committee stage, thinking we’d be wrapped up by 10:30, 11 o’clock that night.

Unfortunately, the Finance Minister refused to answer any questions relative to the bill and we found ourselves till 2 a.m. still with no actual answers, and that’s what the government wants us to treat Bill 7 like as well. Well, it’s not going to happen. Bill 7 is not a tax measure. Bill 7 is an authoritarian overreach by a Premier that wants to grant himself the powers of an emperor. It is beyond ridiculous.

I went on today knowing how this place works. So for the viewers at home, we have what’s called standing orders, the orders of the day. So you go in, and you can click online, and you can look up to see what the orders of the day of the next time that we’ll all meet in this place are, in advance.

[2:50 p.m.]

As a normal matter of practice, government has to amend their pieces of legislation from time to time when they realize there have been some errors — some formatting errors, some typographical errors, a dating error, all those types of things.

What they typically do, when they know they have to amend it ahead of time, is give this House notice of what those amendments are, and they put it on the orders of the day. In fact, there’s even a section, in Orders of the Day, that says “Proposed Amendments on Notice.”

Well, this is the most current copy, because we get a new, fresh copy every time we come and sit down in this place. It’s dated and timed for 1:30 today. An interesting thing: “Proposed Amendments on Notice” is blank.

I started checking, online today, at around 11 o’clock this morning. It was blank at 11 o’clock this morning; it was blank at 11:15 this morning, and so on and so on. Then I thought: “Well, you never know, with this government, how shifty they want to be or not.” So I did make sure. I’ve got a few screenshots, on my phone or my iPad, of checking, because those would have the date and time on them of when I was on the legislative website.

I have full confidence in the Clerks, but they can only post the information and update it as they get handed it by the government. I wanted to make sure we protected the Clerks if there were a last-minute update of amendments that we were expected to stand up and debate in this House, on something as significant as Bill 7 and the powers it contains, and we tried saying that we had literally one minute’s notice to start trying to debate it, that we had the receipts to back it up.

Well, fortunately for the Clerks and unfortunately for democracy in B.C., it’s still blank. It would have been preferable if we’d had one minute’s notice, because at least it would have meant that they were actually changing the legislation they purported to say they were going to change on Friday, February 28.

That is what we’re supposed, as a population, to put trust in — the actions, for a government, on section 4 of Bill 7, that would enable the Premier to override this Legislature, full stop, until 2027. In fact, that provision for a sunset clause, if it maintains itself in Bill 7, and clause 4 stays in Bill 7, as soon as it’s law, that’s a law on the books of B.C.

That means the provision to override all laws would kick in, and the sunset clause is irrelevant, because the government, by an order-in-council, by the Premier’s signature or a cabinet minister’s signature directed by the Premier’s office, could get rid of the sunset clause.

That’s how fraught with danger Bill 7 is, in its current form. Now, the Premier says “taking action” in his brief comments. Again, it’s very rare for our Premier to stand up and deliver second reading on a bill, let alone talk for five whole minutes. He provided the public of B.C. five minutes of his valuable time to share his valuable insights on Bill 7, without any amendments, or even actually referencing the overreach of section 4 in the bill.

Let’s look at the urgency this government has exhibited. We started sitting on February 18 in this place — February 18. The government talks about acting with urgency. There was little to no legislation brought forward until the budget on March 4.

There was one piece of legislation that dealt with mapping updates for B.C. Parks, which happens every single year as they get better mapping. That’s considered a housekeeping bill, because it comes up every single year as GIS mapping gets better for B.C. Parks. We had one two-clause bill to deal with the Conflict of Interest Commissioner hiring process.

[2:55 p.m.]

We had one bill; the last time this government actually consulted with anyone about it was in 2022. Yet they brought it forward, despite objections by everybody that it was going to impact, saying: “Could we have some time to understand the implications of this?”

It’s because it has a retroactive clause that means businesses that provided contracts to people two years ago could now find themselves having broken the law for the last two years, without even knowing the law was going to be changed two years in the future. If that sounds a little convoluted, it is, but the government exhibited no worry about retroactivity in legislation at that point.

We had a supply bill that came forward and that we just dealt with the other day, on Monday. Opposition told the government we would deal with that quickly, we would take about an hour, and we would make sure the doors of government stayed open on April 1 as we kept debating the full budget. We lived up to our word. We’ve lived up to our word all the way along on this.

We have a budget measures implementation bill which, like I said, has a few tax changes in it. That happens in every single budget: updating tax rates and things of that nature. I would point out in most years, it’s about an inch thick. This year it’s about a quarter-inch thick, and it’s predominantly to do with the film industry, so there are not a lot of changes going on there.

Then we had Bill 7, which is what we have today, and we had the carbon tax bill that they rushed through on Monday. Folks, that is all this government has brought forward to this Legislature since February 18. That’s it.

The Premier has the gall to stand up in this place and say they are acting with urgency. Bill 7 wasn’t even brought to this house till March 13. Then, conveniently for the Premier, everyone left here for two weeks because as of March 14, everyone had to go for two weeks. It was so urgent the Premier didn’t want to interrupt his holiday and call the Legislature back, even though it was within his power over that two weeks to come back here and work.

The B.C. Conservatives kept saying: “Call the Legislature back. Let’s deal with Bill 7.” The government didn’t want to. They didn’t want to interrupt their holidays for two weeks because it was important for them to have their holidays.

Fair enough. But then don’t stand here on the moral high ground, giving yourself a nosebleed because you’re so high up, saying that you’re the only ones trying to act with urgency in this place. The facts simply don’t match the rhetoric. You should never have government by press release, let alone in the middle of the tariff threat that we have.

On March 13, the bill gets introduced. The business groups that first came out and said they can support Bill 7, because they really had only had enough time to digest the first part, which deals with interprovincial trade barriers, then had enough time to actually dig into the bill and immediately backtracked, rightfully so, and said: “Hang on a second. We still believe in removing interprovincial trade barriers, but every other part of Bill 7 needs to go.”

Part 2 needs to go, around procurement, because it’s fraught with problems. Part 3, around trying to toll trucks between B.C. and Alaska, needs to go, because of the economic threat it will unleash on B.C., on top of the fact of the overreach around privacy, around the fact they could start tolling anyone, anywhere, at any time under that legislation, not just trucks from Alaska, and the fact that they would not only be able to collect private information, but they could disperse private information.

They don’t even refer to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act in that bill. In every other bill, when this government brings forward stuff that talks about collecting private data, they make sure they mention that it is subject to those provisions. They didn’t in this bill.

Part 4 would give unlimited power to the Premier, through his office, to pass whatever law he wants at any time he wants and simply give this place an update once every six months — not an update asking us our opinion, just an update telling us what they did over the last six months of the laws, including taxation law. That means that Monday debate on carbon tax wouldn’t have been needed; they could have unilaterally decided to cut out the $3 billion of tax revenue.

[3:00 p.m.]

We’ve been calling for the removal of carbon tax all along, so don’t get me wrong. We agree the carbon tax needed to go. In fact, we voted for that to go. We also were asking for, and the minister refused to give, any answers about what happens with the missing revenue on the other side of the ledger in the budget.

Does the deficit increase? That’s kind of an important part, because we just had two different credit agencies today give us a credit downgrade attached to our out-of-control record deficit. That was before the potential extra few billion dollars gets added to the deficit because of the carbon tax removal.

They were important questions, but the minister said “not relevant” — not relevant to the bill. “Why do you need to know what would happen to the taxation revenue and expenditures to support a bill or not?” Well, how can you support a bill if you don’t know the consequence of the bill?

Bill 7 removes the need for the government to even pretend to want to answer a question. In theory, we wouldn’t even have to sit here, because they could actually change the Budget Transparency Act that says they have to present a budget every year. They could just change that — stroke of a pen — if Bill 7 goes through.

There are provisions in there based on when this NDP were previously in government back in the 90s and they had their fudge-it budgets to protect people with transparency. The quarterly update needs to be presented by a certain date every year after the first quarter is done so the public knows what the state of our finances are.

Why that’s even more important is that when I was pressing the Minister of Finance to answer where the missing revenue would be made up for in the budget, the answer was “Don’t worry. You’ll see it in the first quarter updates.” Not if Bill 7 passes. They could remove the requirement to disclose the state of the finances in B.C. on a quarterly basis — stroke of a pen. And on and on and on it goes.

Why people should be worried is that the lack of trust exhibited by this Premier as it relates to Bill 7, as it relates to the carbon tax, Bill 8, is one where what gets said at a press conference never matches up with what gets delivered to this Legislature to work on. The Premier just said they’re fast-tracking projects for energy. So 4½ months ago, it was made clear that when the government first said they would be fast-tracking those projects, they needed to bring legislation to this House to deal with the energy regulator to be able to fast-track those projects.

I’ve listed off all the legislation that’s in front of this chamber to work on. Did anyone hear anything to do with the energy regulator? Well, they wouldn’t need it, because under Bill 7, they could just have a stroke of a pen. Aided by the Green Party, junior members of the partnership, they could wipe away anything to do with the energy regulator. How is that good governance?

Instead of doing the work and getting the legislation to us a month and a half ago so we could have actually already been fast-tracking these energy projects, they have spent the last four and a half months talking about speeding up projects without actually doing anything to speed up said projects. That’s the speed this government works at. That’s what this government considers efficiencies.

[3:05 p.m.]

Bill 7 — they’d be able to cloak all that. I mean, heck, when I asked about the carbon tax and said: “If we’re not collecting $3 billion and having to audit and having to track and make sure regulations are being followed on the carbon tax, $3 billion….” It’s a complicated way they collect it and have to audit. Surely there must be some savings within the bureaucracy. There must be fewer people needed in the auditing department. There must be fewer people needed in the collections and all of those areas.

The answer from the Minister of Finance was: “No, there’ll be no efficiencies there. They have other work they can still do.”

So then you ask again: “Well, where are we going to make this up? Will there be cuts?” “Well, wait for the first quarter update. We’re looking for efficiencies in government.”

Well, if you’re looking for efficiencies in government, one might suggest that if you had $3 billion worth of auditing and tax collection work for people and that no longer exists, maybe that’s a good place to start with finding efficiencies — off-limits to this government. And that’s the lack of transparency we’re supposed to trust with Bill 7 with the massive overreach of section 4.

Now, I have zero faith or trust in this government as it relates to Bill 7. Since I have the time, I want to make sure we get on the record our objections on some of the other sections before I come back to section 4. Because for all I know, this is the way the Premier likes to operate, and he’s hoping opposition will spend all our time talking about why section 4 is so horrible, because it is, and then they’ll come in at the eleventh hour and remove section 4, and then we’ll have to start all over again.

And they’ll probably hope that we’ll be fed up by that point, but no, you know procedurally, because it’s an amendment, at that point we would be able to all speak again for another half hour on those amendments. So they won’t get off the hook that easily.

We’re here till the end of May. We’re here for six and a half more weeks at a minimum. I say a minimum, and I’ll get into that later, but minimum six and a half more weeks. Bill 7 — the way it stands, we will still be debating Bill 7 in six and a half weeks. That I can guarantee.

It is simply unconscionable that a Premier could stand up in front of the provincial media on Friday, that his office, which got more of a budget lift than the whole Ministry of Environment did this year…. In fact, the Ministry of Environment got a cut in their budget, and the Premier’s office got an increase so they could hire more communications staff. In fact, the Finance Minister, when talking about austerity and hiring freezes, made it very clear that political communications staff were exempt and, in fact, could still even be hired, not just frozen or downsized but hired.

Let’s see. Friday the Premier holds a press conference saying and giving the illusion that section 4 of Bill 7 will be removed. He clarifies a little bit with some political doublespeak about bringing it back at a future time, wanting to rework it, wanting to make sure they actually do consult this time, because it’s very urgent. So him holding off till November, apparently, is okay; that’s what he’s saying later in the day on Friday.

Within all of those hundreds, and they are hundreds, of government communications staff, none of them caught that there might be a misunderstanding out there of what the government’s intentions were. There were no clarifications issued, official clarifications, to the media and the public.

Instead, everyone came to this place on Monday expecting that we would see amendments from the Attorney General on her bill about Bill 7. Then we thought, okay, it got lost in the business of carbon tax, and the Attorney General is holding up the amendments, so isn’t that wonderful that they tabled them. I’m not sure when she’s trying to tell me she tabled them, but she didn’t table them before we started the debate.

I will happily ask for a recess so we could have the amendments distributed so I don’t waste another hour and 35 minutes debating a bill that may or may not even be accurate. And this is the problem with this government that it’s saying they want.

So that’s great. We will get that amendment tabled, and we will literally have the expectation from the government to debate in detail what the amendments mean to the bill and the complexities of a bill that was supposed to give overarching power to the government.

[3:10 p.m.]

The government — despite the fact I launched into this 27 minutes ago, pretty clear that I’ve been talking about section 4 the whole time — decided to sit and let it play out for a good 30 minutes because the Premier couldn’t be bothered to introduce the amendments that he said on Friday he was going to do when he opened up the bill for debate, knowing full well the order of debate is: the NDP goes, then we go.

How did the Premier, who used to be an Attorney General of this province, actually think these amendments were going to be presented to this House in any time for the opposition to properly scrutinize them if he decided to kick off second reading, speak for five minutes, scurry out of here and leave it for his Attorney General to come back in?

Only because of a side comment do we know there’s even an amendment supposed to be coming, because it’s not on the order paper like it normally would be. In fact, this Attorney General has made many amendments on the order paper in advance for us to actually review.

In light of that, I would suggest it’s appropriate for this chamber not to have a five-minute recess. We shouldn’t be coming back here for at least a half an hour, so we can actually digest what this government is trying to do with Bill 7, to make sure they’re not trying to sneak something by the public, yet again, with a massive overreach of power.

So I will reserve my right to continue and ask to adjourn debate for the time being.

The Chair: Member, thanks for reserving your right.

I will have a brief five-minute recess to make a decision on what the member is asking. This committee will stand in recess as of now.

The House recessed from 3:11 p.m. to 3:40 p.m.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker: Members, we’re going to call this chamber back to order.

I just want to clear up the record. Before I called a recess, the member for Kamloops Centre inadvertently said the term “adjournment of debate.” I know exactly that he meant to call for a recess, which I did call for — a 20-minute recess to better understand some documents that have been tabled.

So we will continue debate on Bill 7.

Peter Milobar: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And yes, I will take full ownership of that slight procedural faux pas on my part, which, essentially, is very minor. I’ll say that because I really wish the government would actually take some ownership of this whole process.

The Premier likes to fling things out sometimes, talking about “clown car” this or “circus tent” that when he’s talking about other parties in this chamber. I can’t think of anything that resembles a circus more than what we’re seeing with Bill 7 in this government.

It is absolutely ridiculous that a piece of legislation that wants this type of all-encompassing power has been handled the way it has by a government and a Premier who literally, before I started speaking, was stood up and was talking about how they’re taking action and taking it seriously and everyone rowing in the same direction and we all have to work together.

So let’s recap where we’re at. I can appreciate that the amendments don’t actually get discussed and brought in until committee stage, but as I referenced several times in my first half hour, the government usually signals ahead of time that there will be amendments, especially when a Premier holds a press conference on a Friday saying there will be amendments.

You would think that between Friday and Wednesday, they could have actually got them on the order paper in time before we started so we could actually see, and the public could see, what those amendments were. But despite the Premier’s taking action, that wasn’t done.

Despite the Premier taking action and actually standing up to speak to second reading as the first speaker for the government, he didn’t want to take any ownership. He didn’t want to say: “By the way, opposition, there will be amendments. They should be distributed shortly. But don’t worry. We’ll deal with those at committee stages.” Everyone in this place knows what happened procedurally. No, he spoke for five minutes and scurried out of here. That’s the level of actions that we’re supposed to trust by this Premier and this government.

You know, the Premier made a big deal about how he cancelled his trip to Disneyland. Well, talk about Mickey Mouse.

Just for the viewing public at home to understand this, the opposition…. We will all be speaking to this bill as it stands, not as it’s amended, because that doesn’t happen until we get to committee stage. So we will be discussing a bill that the Premier has now finally indicated what exactly he thinks he will do with amendments.

Again, the government…. If they missed the timeframe to get it to the Clerk’s office, the amendments, to get it on the order paper of the day…. I have every confidence and I 100 percent believe this has absolutely nothing to do with the Clerk’s office whatsoever. This is 100 percent at the feet of the Premier and his office.

So despite the cutoff to get it on the orders of the day paperwork in advance of today, which I believe would have been yesterday…. They would had to have it in by the end of business yesterday. Fine. They missed that deadline.

Apparently, they don’t know how to get a hold of the opposition ahead of time to say: “We made a bit of an error; here are the amendments” — like they just did. So obviously they have that ability.

[3:45 p.m.]

“Here you go. Don’t worry, they will be on the order paper long before we’re finished second reading debate.” They didn’t do that either. They couldn’t be bothered to let a 41-person official opposition know what their plans were, as they talk about everyone rowing in the same direction and working together.

I don’t know how they handled the three independents. I’m going to guess the same fashion. Which leaves the two Greens, who have been in those same press conferences or quoted in the same time frame talking about how they were going to work, as part of their agreement with the government, on some amendments.

I can only assume that the government felt it was more important that a two-person party actually know what the amendments are ahead of time than 41. Yet the Premier stands here and lectures us about how we’re not trying to work with government.

We’ve had a private member’s bill on the table in this place for a month now, Free Trade and Mobility Within Canada Act. We’ve been trying to get the government to take care of interprovincial trade barriers for over a month, with a piece of legislation built on the legislation that Nova Scotia did, which is telling, because in the Premier’s five minutes that he came down from on high to share with us his thoughts about Bill 7, he referenced Nova Scotia.

One would think if he’s going to reference the same province that we designed a private member’s bill from, the Leader of the Official Opposition, and tabled in this place a month ago…. If we’re trying to take action and work urgently, and the one thing everyone agrees on is interprovincial trade barriers — the business groups, everyone — we could have dealt with interprovincial trade over the last month. But no, no. This Premier is going to take action.

He’ll stand in here, and he’ll point out that we’re not. We’re the ones impeding things, because we are trying to follow a proper legislative process about a bill that wants to override legislative processes. But we should just trust the Premier.

Well, I have zero trust. That trust has been completely wiped away. I do have respect for certain members on the other side of the floor. I take them at their word. I don’t take the Premier.

I have no faith that the amendments will actually be brought forward by the government. They’ll be on the order paper. It doesn’t mean the government wants to call them. It doesn’t mean that, as we are in committee stage, the government wants to.

But at the same time, again, in the spirit of working together and taking action and standing up for B.C. and all of Canada…. At the same time the Premier is saying that, he doesn’t reference that they want to bring in seven — seven — different amendments to Bill 7. That’s how flawed this bill is, by the government’s own admission.

As the official opposition, we’re saying: just remove the bill completely. They had to back down on, I think it was, Bill 12 last session, remove that. This government makes a habit of introducing legislation and having to walk it back.

Remove Bill 7 completely. Let’s debate the private member’s bill, Free Trade and Mobility Within Canada Act, that’s based on the Nova Scotia free trade legislation and get on with interprovincial trade barriers being removed in Canada.

That would actually be leadership within Canada, not a press conference by the Premier, puffing out his chest, resulting in very little action. It would actually result in something.

The Premier says he hopes this bill will pass quickly. So let’s take a look. We’ve got six and a half weeks to go. We have roughly 20 hours a week of debate time. That’s assuming we go till nine o’clock every night, because the government has already extended the hours, despite not having any legislation to work on.

[3:50 p.m.]

So in any given chamber, you have roughly 20 hours, at most, a week. We have about 120 hours left of debate time for Bill 7. Sounds like a lot.

There are 40 people in opposition, so there’s 20 hours gone just at second reading. I’m not sure how many the government is going to want to put up. Usually, when they say they want to pass something fast, they try not to put a bunch of speakers up so that it can move along, but we’ll see.

And then remember when I said: “But we’ll see if we’re not still debating this on May 29”? Because we still have all the budget estimates that we have to get through, scrutinize and question a budget that was presented on March 4 and, on Monday, fundamentally changed completely so that document we’re actually debating isn’t even an accurate financial document.

That’s the competency we’re dealing with in this session right now: a budget that has no financial accuracy on the backdrop of two debt downgrades today, Moody’s and S&P, and a Bill 7 that has been handled so ham-fistedly by this government, it is shocking, especially given that the Premier was the Attorney General of this province.

So that’s 40 hours. Then you get to committee stage. And that’s, again, assuming the Greens don’t speak, the independents don’t speak. Those five people are all within their rights in this Legislature to speak and take their full allotted times as well. I am just talking on behalf of the official opposition.

That is not even counting if there are any government members who are wanting to speak for any length of time. That’s their right to do it as well. If their backbenchers have some concerns about this, I would suggest that they should probably try to speak on this and what their concerns are. That is what they were actually elected to do: serve their constituents, not serve the Premier.

But we’re back to the 40 hours of opposition. Then you get to committee stage. Well, at committee stage, we’ll stand up, our Attorney General critic will stand up, and he’ll start asking questions all about part 1, definition for this part, and get explanations and all those. That actually takes quite a bit of time.

Then we’ll eventually get to whatever the government’s purporting to amend, if they still bring that amendment forward. And some of them, now that I’ve had a chance to take a quick glance, are pretty fundamental to the bill. They would change the bill dramatically if the government is true to their word.

Every time there’s an amendment, everyone can speak. Now I’m speaking for two hours, but only one of us can speak for two hours, and everyone else has a half-hour limit. But on an amendment, everyone can speak for 15 minutes. So again, for the official opposition, that’s ten hours per amendment, and seven amendments on the bill. It is that flawed that this government, before we even get to committee stage, has had to acknowledge that they need seven amendments.

We don’t know if the Greens are going to try any amendments from the floor and, frankly, we don’t know if the official opposition might want to amend some other remaining sections or introduce the same amendment the government is suggesting if the government refuses. But every time an amendment gets added, that’s another ten hours of debate, on top of all the others, and we have about 120 hours, at best, left.

So when the Premier says he wants it to move quickly and expects everyone to row in the same direction, and shame on anyone that doesn’t…. It would have been nice if he had worked with us, since Friday till now, ahead of time.

It would have been nice that instead of the government holding behind-closed-door meetings with the Green Party, purporting both of them to be defending democracy while they meet in secret, discussing what they want to do in secret, they might have asked for somebody from the B.C. Conservatives to sit in on those meetings and figure out what the heck we were doing in response, a joint response, to a trade war.

Those might have actually been some actions matching the words from the Premier. They didn’t do that. Okay, fair enough.

[3:55 p.m.]

Is the Premier’s office saying that the amendments were so last minute and agreed upon that they weren’t ready by end of business day yesterday to get them to the Clerk’s office? I would ask when they were drafted, but when I did that on Bill 8, about the carbon tax, the Minister of Finance said: “There’s no need to know when things get drafted around this place. In fact, it’s client-solicitor privilege. We can’t talk about that.” It’s a state secret, apparently, when this government even works on things, for a date.

We’ll undoubtedly ask that when we get to committee stage: just exactly when these amendments were signed off on. Based on the evasive answers that I got on Monday, on the bill that I was asking similar questions, who knows how long that could take to get a non-answer out of this government?

This is going to be the confusion for the public at home, because they’re going to hear us continually talking about section 4 and the dramatic overreach…. I referenced that at the beginning — that I didn’t want to lose sight of some of the other sections of this bill that we still have big problems with and that the broader community still has big problems with.

We’re going to continue to debate — I’m certainly going to continue to debate — with the full bill intact because, procedurally, we have no other choice. We’re not allowed to debate the amendments. We’re not allowed to really even talk about the amendments in any detail right now, because that’s not how this place is structured. And given how this government used Standing Order 81 to ram through a bill on Monday, one would think the government knows how the procedure in this place works.

So let’s see. On Friday, the Premier had a choice to make when he stood at a podium and said he was making massive changes to Bill 7. They could have come to this place on Monday and withdrawn Bill 7 and introduced a new bill that dealt with interprovincial trade. They could have introduced the seven amendments on Monday, so we could actually get a better understanding and the broader community could get a better understanding.

Remember, when they first introduced Bill 7, the initial response was lukewarm support, and then as the two-week holiday…. Actually, the Premier wished he had called the House back a little faster. But as people actually had a couple days to digest what the implications of Bill 7 really are, everyone started to stick their hand up and say: “This isn’t right. This is gross overreach.”

No other province in the country is doing this — none. Winston Churchill did not do this in Britain during World War II. That is how extreme Bill 7 is.

The Premier says it’s to respond to President Trump. Bill 7 gives the Premier more executive authorities than President Trump has. How does that make any sense? And to build the level of trust he expects, to have that much power, this is how he handles Bill 7 with this chamber.

Again, clause 1, section 1, part 1 — whatever we want to call it — deals with interprovincial trade barriers. Now, we fully support interprovincial trade barriers coming down. The problem with the government’s version of this is that there are still a lot of, essentially, asterisks of: “We want interprovincial trade except for…. We want interprovincial trade but the ability to override this. We want interprovincial trade barriers to be gone unless it’s in this situation.”

That’s why we don’t have this problem solved across the country, because that’s what every province does. That’s not leadership. That’s hoping that every other province will take the bait while B.C. doesn’t act in the same good faith as Nova Scotia did, saying: “We’re good. We’re going to wipe away interprovincial trade barriers if everyone else does it. They’ve got to wipe away them all.” Bill 7 doesn’t do that.

[4:00 p.m.]

You’ll hear conflicting interpretations from government, from business groups, from people that have a vested interest, frankly, in making sure things are opened up, and if they see that their industry or their situation is opened up in this bill, they will be okay with it.

If they feel that they’re still exposed and they’re not opening up, they might not be as happy with it. If they feel they might have an unfair competitor coming at them, they might want that safeguard that the government is giving themselves the ability, under regulation, to still put up.

There are fundamentally massive problems within the interprovincial trade barrier section of this bill, but it is a step in the right direction. I will give the government that. But a step is not leadership. Leadership, if you’re true to your word of getting rid of interprovincial trade barriers, is opening up B.C. to the rest of the country and challenging all the other provinces to get on board.

We are, rightfully so, very worried about the 25 percent tariff threat from the United States. I say “threat” because it looks like it’s on pause again today. That’s a good thing. But B.C. is running record deficits that have led to credit downgrades today. We need our economy firing in B.C. regardless of what’s happening down in the States.

Interprovincial trade barriers in B.C. create a 23 percent tariff-equivalent drag on our economy in B.C. So when the government says we have the most diversified trade partners in terms of international exports, they are right about that. A lot of that work was done for years with our trade offices in Asia, which this government then closed down in 2019. But those connections were made, and it did help diversify our B.C. economy.

Except with interprovincial trade, we are the second-worst exposed. In other words, the second most negative impact to a provincial economy from interprovincial trade barriers is to B.C. We are every bit protectionists in our province, to the detriment of our economy, as they are saying about what is happening down in the States with tariffs being levied. Yet the Premier, in Bill 7, wants the same power as that government, and somehow our economy is going to get firing, and that’s going to protect us.

Park the whole international tariff issue on hold and just look at interprovincial trade barriers. Record deficits — we need to get our economy going to try to get out of those record deficits. We know that a 25 percent tariff levied by the United States is about a $69 billion hit over the next three years to the province. One could reasonably assume that a 23 percent tariff-equivalent of interprovincial trade barriers being removed would have a similar positive impact to the B.C. economy.

Let’s assume, with good wishes and hopes, that we keep getting the American tariffs put on pause by the White House. We remove those interprovincial trade barriers, and our British Columbia economy starts to get moving again in a meaningful way. It starts to chip away at that structural deficit that this government has racked up.

Between 2007 and 2017, B.C. experienced seven straight credit upgrades. Our borrowing kept getting cheaper and cheaper on the international markets. Today we just received our fourth credit downgrade in a row by S&P.

I’ll tell you, under the NDP, it’s pretty standard that we get poorer. Those four credit downgrades have all happened while this Premier has been the Premier. From 2007 to 2017, we kept seeing our credit rating improve. In 2017, until this Premier took over under John Horgan, they stayed flat.

[4:05 p.m.]

This Premier has demonstrated, yet again, just another reason why he is most definitely not John Horgan. Four credit downgrades in a row under his watch as Premier — I believe that spans three of his Finance Ministers. Under this Premier’s watch, he has had three, if memory serves correctly. That’s the backdrop to why interprovincial trade barriers are so critically important to B.C., especially under this Premier, especially with what’s going on with our economy, our credit downgrades and our deficits.

Credit is going down. Deficits are going up. Debt-to-GDP is skyrocketing in B.C., way faster than the rest of the country. It doesn’t matter what the measurement is that you want on the economy of B.C. If it’s a negative measurement, it’s going up; if it’s a positive measurement, it’s going down under this Premier — not really a recipe for success.

We have a bill with seven and counting — hopefully it’s only the seven — amendments, which means the Premier got it completely wrong with this bill. Just remove the bill. This government has backtracked, so many times that I’ve lost count, on pieces of legislation over the eight years they’ve been government.

I mentioned the late Premier Horgan. When he knew he really messed it up with the museum, what did he do? He took ownership of it, and he cancelled it. He cancelled the billion-dollar boondoggle of the museum and took ownership of it. He didn’t dangle ministers out to take the heat. He took the heat. He owned the mistake.

Bill 7 is a mistake. A real leader in the Premier’s office would acknowledge that, remove it and bring forward meaningful and real interprovincial trade barrier legislation so we could deal with that. That’s what a real leader would do. A real leader wouldn’t come in here, speak for five minutes, not provide any depth or detail of anything, use language about everyone growing in the same direction and on the same team and, essentially, try bait-and-switch with the legislation. That’s not what real leaders do.

You get to section 2, part 2, procurement directives — again, fraught with issues and, conveniently for the Premier, dealing with procurement through press releases.

The Premier likes to go on about executive orders from the United States being a problem. Part 4 of this bill would confer more power to him than those executive orders. When he decides on February 20 or February 1 to talk about changing the procurement in B.C., he makes sure his photo op is him signing an executive order. Talk about FOMO.

On February 1, the Premier, again by press release…. This is urgent, folks, so I’m going to issue a press release saying that I’m directing government agencies to stop purchasing U.S. goods and services. Wonderful. Then he must have realized legislatively he’s opened them up to a whole lot of potential lawsuits and those purchasing agents are opened up to a whole lot of lawsuits by doing that. You know how I know that? Because then they had to bring it into Bill 7, but they don’t introduce Bill 7 till March 13.

So the Premier’s leadership to the government staffers out there and all these various agencies is: “Stop buying U.S. products and contracts. Trust me, it’ll be okay. Keep signing those contracts in contravention potentially of international trade law, and oh, by the way, on March 13, I’ll introduce a piece of legislation that if passed might indemnify you from that, from the previous month and a half.” Except we’re another half a month later, so now we’re two months since the Premier’s big press release about that and photo op signing an executive order.

[4:10 p.m.]

We’ve had public servants out there, with no legal protection, being told by the Premier what to do in regard to purchasing. It doesn’t sound like leadership to me. It sounds like he’s hanging a whole lot of people out to dry, depending on what happens with this legislation.

Then when you jump forward in Bill 7, you jump to — I believe it’s clause 29 — the repeal of the act. Let’s say the government actually does, for once, keep their word and repeal this. It’s interesting, because it repeals sections 6, 7 and 10. That’s all to do with procurement. So directives get repealed. Definitions get repealed. General powers get repealed.

In general powers, 10(2): “A directive issued on or before June 30, 2025 under this Part may be made retroactive to February 1…” — the same date the Premier had his press conference — “…or a later date and, if made retroactive, is deemed to have been issued on the specified date.”

Well that’s great, but that would disappear. That protection disappears May 28, 2027, according to Bill 7. They’re identified for the next two years. Does that continue on indefinitely on a contract they signed, especially between February 1 and whenever the heck this gets passed — potentially, the end of May?

You can’t govern by press release. That’s all this government has done. That’s what he has done in this trade war. One second he’s pulling liquor off the shelves; then it’s back on the shelf; then it’s back off the shelf — only from red states, though. Then two days later: “Oh no, you know what? Maybe we’ll do it for every state.”

Maybe the Premier realized that a lot of California wineries are actually owned by companies in red states. I don’t know. I don’t know why the Premier is worried about Democrats versus Republicans. Last I checked none of them can vote for him. If he’s worried about the protection of the British Columbia public, maybe worry about that instead of playing these games. That’s the procurement, where we have a procurement….

Sorry, it has been a bit of speaking this week for me — much to the delight of government, I know.

Then we get to part 3, “Tolls, Fees and Charges,” another one of these great brainchildren of the Premier that he flung out there. I can’t even remember when. It was right at the very beginning. There’s not a lot of support in the public for this. This is a piece of Bill 7 that essentially says the government is allowed to toll any road, at any time and any vehicle that they want, for any reason. By the way, they can collect personal information, for any reason, attached to the vehicle.

You know, it’s interesting. We’ve asked for years for the ability that if someone from Alberta gets a speeding ticket or a dangerous-driving ticket or puts people’s lives at risk on our highways, the government follow that ticket and go back after the person in Alberta. We have no ability to do that right now.

The government has refused to change that law, but we’re somehow supposed to believe that, under Bill 7, they’re going to magically start worrying about chasing down a truck driver that crossed the border into Alaska that they may or may never see again. They’re going to hunt that person down, but not the one that was driving recklessly, got tickets or helped cause accidents.

Again, collection and disclosure of personal information, clause 17: “(1) The minister charged with the administration of the Transportation Act may, directly or indirectly, collect personal information for the purposes of this Part. (2) The minister charged with the administration of the Transportation Act may disclose personal information for the purposes of this Part.”

Disclose to whom? Disclose when? Why? This is a clause that in most legislation — when the government talks about collecting data on people, personal information — there’s a whole bunch of other clauses, and they start to reference the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act.

[4:15 p.m.]

I’ll read the whole section again, and anyone watching, tell me if you hear “freedom of information” and “protection of information”: “(1) The minister charged with the administration of the Transportation Act may, directly or indirectly, collect personal information for the purposes of this Part. (2) The minister charged with the administration of the Transportation Act may disclose personal information for the purposes of this Part.”

So you think, well, it must be a different…. Certainly, it’s got to be a different clause that talks about protection of people’s private information. Nope. Sixteen has nothing: “rights and powers and advantages of minister.” Definitions. Coastal Ferry Act gets referenced.

No other acts gets referenced in a section where they’re talking about giving themselves the ability as a government to collect personal information at will, and not just on trucks crossing the border from the United States into Canada. This section allows the government tolls, fees and charges, the ability to do it on any road at any time for any reason to any person.

Again, it’s a massive overreach. Let’s see what the consequence of this brainchild of the Premier has been that he flung out there, obviously, without consulting with the Trucking Association or others.

It’s about a bit of a risk and reward. I’m all for putting up a fight when it comes to the tariff fight. I absolutely am. There’s also a risk and reward factor when you’re a population of five million going up against the largest economy in the world, when you are a subnational government going up against a national government. You have limited things you can do.

So what has been the Americans’ response? To immediately talk about not allowing cruise ships into Victoria and Vancouver, allowing them to circumvent having, by law currently, to come into port.

We’ll put a bit of a fee on a few thousand trucks. I believe it’s a couple thousand trucks a year they figure come through B.C. up to there, up to Alaska. And we will decimate our cruise ship industry forevermore, because once the Americans finally change that law, it’s done.

There’s the threat of retaliatory treatment of trucks coming out of Mexico with our produce to come up to British Columbia. Given that most people aren’t buying U.S. produce right now…. If you go to Walmart, if you go to Costco, if you go to Save-On, any of the stores, if it’s not B.C. produce, it’s Mexican produce or Chilean or pick your country down in Latin America. What happens then? Another massive risk.

I would suggest there are a few more trucks worth of produce that come up from Mexico in any given year than of equipment being shipped through Canada up to Alaska. Going to go on a limb on that one.

What other retaliatory measures could happen? Well, it wouldn’t take much. The president has shown a penchant for doing this with states, that if he can’t actually by executive order compel them to do one thing, he tells them if they do something else, he will withhold money…. If they don’t do what he wants, he’ll withhold money of projects that he can withhold from them. It doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t done it.

Our film industry could be dramatically exposed, depending on what they do or don’t do in the United States as a retaliatory measure, all because the Premier is desperate to look like Doug Ford. Except he won’t do anything about our energy because we need the energy from the States.

We need the aviation fuel from the States or YVR shuts down. That’s another risk. Thirty percent of our hydro comes from the States. We need that, and then we also need them to buy our excess at the other times of the day, otherwise your hydro rates will skyrocket. That’s a cold hard reality.

We won’t even get into the fact that most of it’s coal fire, and the Premier likes to wrap themself in the GHG emission flag about how clean our energy is when 30 percent comes from coal-fired plants outside of the province. Anyways, I digress. That’s another exposure.

The cold hard reality that the premier doesn’t want to face…. And this is why they can’t tell us what pieces of legislation specifically they would like to change to combat threats to tariffs in the here and the now.

[4:20 p.m.]

They’ll say: “Well, we’re not sure. We’re not sure.” It’s because provincial governments have very little autonomous power over international trade agreements that were negotiated by our federal government. Last I checked, we are a part of Confederation. We were a little late to the game, but we’re still part of it.

The U.S. government…. It’s why the softwood lumber dispute has been dragged on for eight years. It’s why there’s a national group of provinces dealing with softwood lumber, in conjunction with the national government, to try to get a deal down in the United States. Unfortunately, B.C. walked away from their seat at that table and turned it over to the Maritimes to chair, even though we have more to lose.

There has been an interprovincial trade committee, set up federally, whose sole purpose is to get rid of interprovincial trade barriers. It was set up in 2017, the same year this government took office. Its membership? The Trade Minister from every province and the federal government.

They have one agreement I can find that has any recent overlay at all. It was a pilot for interprovincial trade barriers related to trucking. Now, it was signed in September, and we were in a writ period, so I will give the government that. However, B.C. still hasn’t signed that agreement. We’re one of the only provinces that hasn’t, which is why it keeps getting called a pilot. Yukon has signed it; Alberta has signed it.

I would love someone from the provincial government to explain to me how people trying to get through on interprovincial trade barriers, trying to supply Whitehorse, Dawson City, Old Crow and all the mining and everything that goes on there, and they get supplied out of Edmonton, what good that agreement does when B.C. is not part of it. To drive from Edmonton to the Yukon, you’ve kind of got to go through B.C. It’s a beautiful drive; I’ve done it many times. I have family that lives up in the Yukon.

We’re not even 100 percent clear, on the tolls, fees and charges with the Alaska Highway agreement, if the Premier can legally even do it. It created a nice photo op and sound bite for the Premier but hasn’t resulted in any action. Again, if this is all about action, why are we standing here on April 2 talking about things that the Premier first started talking about back in January and February? We’re talking about them for the first time in this chamber.

The government says: “It’s urgent; it’s urgent. We need to do this; we need to do it urgently.” Well, they showed on Monday that whether the opposition likes it or not, they have procedural tools, within our standing orders, to get things done within a day.

Carbon tax got presented to this place at — what was it? — 10 a.m. By 2:30 that afternoon, we were debating it. By 1:30 in the morning, two o’clock in the morning, it had been given royal assent — a $3 billion item that will have long-lasting ramifications. It’s not just the $3 billion for this year; in the financial plan presented on March 4, it represents $10 billion, with a b — all dealt with in one day.

When COVID first hit, there was a $5 billion care package approved by this Legislature in an afternoon. Everyone was recalled on a moment’s notice. You know what happened then? This was with the late Premier Horgan at the reins.

What happened was that there was outreach between the government and the official opposition ahead of time to say: “This is what we need to do. Is there agreement?” There were discussions within the caucuses, there was an agreement, and in fact, because we weren’t sure how many people, we agreed, en masse, to waive quorum and how many people. I think we sent five people here, and the government sent seven or something like that, total.

[4:25 p.m.]

We were working together in those early days. That’s what actually working together for the betterment of everyone in B.C. looks like.

To this Premier, working together looks like standing up and lecturing us for five minutes, “It’s critical we all work together, and shame on you if you don’t. I’m not going to mention that I have amendments for my own bill” — which is a complete disaster.

“I’m not going to give the opposition a heads-up that those amendments actually even exist. We couldn’t be bothered to get them on the order paper,” which is normal operating procedure. “Despite that, we couldn’t be bothered to hit ‘send’ on an email between two House Leaders’ offices that communicate.”

I used to be a House Leader in this place, communicating probably a dozen times a day, especially staff-to-staff. A dozen times yesterday, probably a good half a dozen after the deadline came and went, they still were communicating about stuff.

This morning between, say, eight o’clock, when most people get to this building, and when we sat down here at 1:30: not enough time to send over the paperwork, which is going to be public anyways. It’s not a state secret. That’s the level of trust this Premier is expecting us to still have, on someone that is playing games with a bill that purports to be necessary, to the likes that we’ve never seen before.

Let’s remember that this all started back on the throne speech on February 18. Who can forget that gem of a throne speech that was rife with wartime imagery and language? What are the actions following that language and that bluster of the throne speech on February 18 — which, remember, was four months after the election when we finally got back here, almost to the day. That’s the urgency.

February 18: wartime imagery about the looming threat of tariffs. March 4: a budget that, although it talks about tariffs, actually isn’t designed to help support or help British Columbians with tariffs. March 13: we finally get Bill 7 presented to this House, before everyone leaves for two weeks — two weeks of the Premier refusing to back down or call the Legislature back to work on the bill.

March 28: the Premier is saying he is going to make wholesale changes to the bill. April 2, no changes presented to this Legislature till we’re well into second reading debate, despite the fact that the Premier led off second reading debate, which is actually very rare. In eight years in this place, I am hard-pressed to think of any time I’ve seen a Premier stand up and open debate on a bill.

That’s the urgency this government says they demand, the servitude they demand from the opposition. Otherwise, how dare we question anything this government might do, because they’re flawless. That’s why Bill 7, ironically enough…. Maybe it’s numbered this way because that’s how many amendments they need.

But they’re flawless, folks. Don’t worry. They’ve got it all under control. How dare the opposition question legislation when it comes forward? How dare we suggest maybe the government missed something? How dare we say that wording is ambiguous and doesn’t make sense or is contradictory? Surely, we’re just playing political games and grandstanding and trying to waste time. We don’t want things to actually progress in this province. We’re exposing B.C.

That’s all the language this government uses about us wanting to properly scrutinize a bill that contains, by their own admission, already, seven massive errors in it. We haven’t even asked questions about it yet. These are just the ones they want to admit to.

[4:30 p.m.]

The stubbornness of the Premier’s office knows no bounds. I give them that, especially when it comes to Bill 7. If there’s one thing they are good at, it is being stubborn and refusing to blink on Bill 7. Let’s remember. Even though the Premier has said he would make substantive changes to Bill 7, now that we got to peek behind the curtain, as it were, the changes are substantial if they actually get brought forward by government.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

But they’re so substantial and so numerous, only a stubborn Premier’s office would say: “We’re not going to repeal the bill. We’re just going to keep forging ahead.” Because hacking and whacking and cut and paste is a much better way to ensure strong legislation than just saying: “We got it wrong. We’re removing it, and we’re reintroducing a bill that’s much cleaner, easier to follow and actually would truly address interprovincial trade barriers instead of what we have.”

Bill 7 on interprovincial trade barriers, conveniently enough for the NDP, will still have a lot of protections in there, especially on the unionized world, which isn’t, in and of itself, a bad thing. This isn’t anti-union. People should have the right in their workplaces, I fully support, to decide as a collective if they would like to be represented by a union within that workplace — full stop. I’m not saying that shouldn’t happen at all.

The government should not be in the position, through legislation, if they’re trying to remove interprovincial trade barriers, to be selective of industries that they will or won’t protect based on unionization or non-unionization or type of work they do. If you’re removing interprovincial trade barriers, you remove interprovincial trade barriers. You let those workplaces and those workforces, in tandem with the companies they work for, figure out how to be the most competitive within Canada to move forward.

We see that all the time. We see that all the time when it’s open bidding on government projects. Tons of union shops win those contracts for best value for the public, and sometimes non-union shops win those contracts.

That’s how it should be, and that’s perfectly fine in my books. Like I say, those workplaces have a fundamental right. I don’t agree with getting rid of the secret ballot, obviously, but they have a fundamental right to organize, especially if they feel they have unsafe work conditions or an employer that’s not listening or working with them or anything like that. That’s not a problem at all.

Our family hotel…. There were three unionization attempts over the years. All three failed. Our staff didn’t want to join a union. Other hotels got unionized. They figured out how to work together, how to adapt. That’s fine. But we should not be, when we’re talking about getting rid of interprovincial trade barriers, having clauses that empower the cabinet to start making sweetheart deals and exemptions. That’s what causes a problem across the country every single time, and it may still.

But if the Premier actually wanted to be a leader, an actual leader on this, bring in true interprovincial trade barrier removal legislation and dare the other provinces to actually follow suit. Don’t be the excuse for the other provinces to put in their own barriers, as well, and count it a victory that three….

I think the minister, the other day, said they were close to agreement on two items of interprovincial trade — the committee, two — from a province that still hasn’t signed off on a trucking agreement that essentially the rest of the country has, even though we have the ports and the rail access.

The rest of the Canadian economy kind of relies on access to our ports, and a large portion of that product actually goes by way of truck. But we haven’t agreed on the trucking agreement that the rest of the country has agreed upon. But don’t worry, they’re close on two. They won’t tell us what two, but they’re close on two.

[4:35 p.m.]

But it’s critically important we agree to Bill 7, and how dare we ask questions about it. “We’ll come up with fixing our own mistakes. We’re government. We know best. We don’t want to listen to any expertise coming from the opposition.”

What’s the line the government likes to use? “I will not take lessons from that side of the House.” Well, maybe they could. They could certainly take some legislative drafting lessons from this side of the House, because I don’t think we would present a bill that has seven errors in it of such substantial….

We know for a fact that there are members on the other side that aren’t happy with Bill 7, as well, that they don’t agree with what the Premier is doing. You’re never going to hear that in this House. No, no. You’ll never hear that in this House. They have quickly…. That side has gone, like I say, from serving their constituents to serving the Premier’s office. The outrage they would have shown as a private citizen has quickly vanished with the title of parliamentary secretary or minister of state. Washed away.

The part 4, the powers, to frame up…. Again, I’m going to speak to this bill, because technically and legislatively we can’t speak to the amendments. Can’t do that for another 20-plus hours, once the opposition is done talking about the bill as it’s presented. If the government just withdrew Bill 7, introduced a new bill, we could all just debate that bill. That would actually speed things up for a Premier that says he wants things to move quickly. But we’re not going to walk away from our legislative duty in this chamber.

You know, the Premier and the Green Party kept talking about: “Well, we want to build in guardrails. We’re going to relook at Bill 7 and build in guardrails.” They don’t need to build in guardrails. As witnessed by what’s going to unfold in this chamber on Bill 7 over the next several weeks, likely, the 93 duly elected MLAs in this place are the guardrail. We are the guardrail. Whether you’re a government MLA or an opposition MLA, you’re supposed to be the guardrails in this place.

You’re not supposed to just sign off authority for two years that could be extended at the whim of the same person to a Premier’s office. If you’re doing that, you might as well just resign your seat, because you’re no good to your constituents that elected you to come here. They elected you to come here to put a critical eye on legislation.

Now, I get how it works. If you’re in government, you have to put that critical eye in a caucus room and advance your opinions and hope you can sway the opinion. That’s fair. I understand that. I’m not being overly critical in that regard. But it’s still a responsibility to do that.

It’s a responsibility for us to stand here and do this. If we had not done, and taken the actions we did on the two-week break, this Premier would have already passed a blank cheque for the next two years. There’s no way amendments would have come forward. There’s no way the Premier would have held a press conference on Friday making it seem like he’s learned from his errors of his ways two weeks earlier and as if he’s brand new to this place and doesn’t know how the public would react to such massive overreach of powers. There’s simply no way.

It’s not believable that he didn’t understand exactly what was being presented to this House with Bill 7. Yet when it was introduced and the Premier did media about it, sections of protection he was saying were in here, were not in here. There weren’t overrides in here. The characterization of reporting back to this place every six months made it sound for ratification.

[4:40 p.m.]

There is no ratification, yet the Premier, I believe, has three times talked about ratification clauses. They didn’t exist. Did the Premier not read the legislation that was going to give him all-powerful executive powers over British Columbia? Did a Premier who’s a former Attorney General read it and not understand the legal ramifications of Bill 7?

I’m not a lawyer. It took me about 15 minutes to read the bill, and I understood how egregious it was. Let’s assume the Premier didn’t have the 15 minutes to read it with his legal mind and eye on it. Did the Premier not have anyone advising him with legal background and knowledge? The people drafting it didn’t stick their hand up and say: “Does the Attorney General or the Premier know how powerful this clause is actually going to be in section 4?” Or did everyone just say: “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine. Just write whatever”?

Normally I’d say there’s no way that could have happened, but normally you wouldn’t have a bill come forward with seven amendments before we even started to debate it. Sorry, they didn’t come forward before we started to debate it. The government waited until after we started to debate it to make sure we understood they finally had put amendments in writing.

It’s interesting, you know. When a government of any political stripe really wants the public to know something, man, does that protected communications department kick into gear. They are everywhere. They’re all over social media, buying ad space on American-run platforms to promote their great government initiatives about how we should buy B.C.

They’re all over those same platforms extolling the virtues of Bill 7 and how if any elected official doesn’t agree with that, well, shame on you. You must be anti-Canadian, anti–British Columbian.

Yet February 28, on a Friday, the Premier stands in front of a podium, talks about making changes to a bill. No one knows what those changes are.

Interjection.

Peter Milobar: It was February 28 — or March 28. Sorry, yes. I said February. I rarely agree with the Minister of Energy, but in this case, I will. It was March 28. I appreciate that correction. I’ll own my mistakes. I just wish the Premier would.

So we’re there, February 28…. March 28. Jeez, I keep saying that. I don’t know why. Probably because things take so long with this government to move forward I just assumed it was a month earlier, but apparently it wasn’t.

On March 28, the Premier announces this. Dead silence from his communications department about what those amendments might be and what the changes would really look like. All we get is, actually, contradictory language from the Premier about total removal, amendment and maybe a reintroduction. No one in that communications department is empowered despite the fact he had $1 million added to his own office.

When I say $1 million added, I’m not talking to the whole government budget of communications; I’m talking just to the Premier’s direct office. So $1 million added when the Ministry of Environment saw a $4 million cut this year. Good to know the government is on an austerity track. Take money away from Environment to make sure the Premier has communications staff that, apparently, are not empowered to make sure that the public knows what the Premier is trying to do after a press release, for five days. It tells you how proud they are about the fact they have to make seven amendments to a bill.

Again, they’re not officially on the floor. They’ll officially be on the order paper tomorrow. It’ll be much easier for the public to read them then and see what is going on. The reason that’s important is because as Bill 7 is written, as we are debating Bill 7….

It was only after business associations, municipalities en masse, other elected officials like ourselves, academics, even people that are normally aligned with the NDP were saying it’s a dramatic overreach. There were one or two pundits that have really, really gone hard-core pumping the tires of the Premier’s office lately, so they were supportive.

[4:45 p.m.]

But even Geoff Meggs, the former chief of staff of the Premier’s office under John Horgan…. Again, there is a massive difference between how John Horgan ran a Premier’s office and how this Premier runs an office. Even he acknowledged, on his podcast, a lot of apprehension around this. I’m paraphrasing a little, but it was shocking when I heard it.

Former NDP Premier Ujjal Dosanjh came out against it. That was the level of push-back this was getting. It only got it because people had a bit of time to digest it and understand. You know what? They wound up coming to the same conclusion. They came to the same conclusion the opposition did on March 13, when we first raised alarm bells, because we were able to read it in the 15 minutes and see exactly what the Premier was trying to do. We were able to turn around and have a comment on it within that 15 minutes.

But the Premier only relented not because of opposition…. The Premier is used to the opposition saying what he’s doing doesn’t make a lot of sense, because that happens quite a bit. The opposition has been proven right more than wrong this session. I think of all the walk-backs they’ve done: carbon tax, safe supply, the safe air ambulance funding, the grocery rebate that has disappeared, the free transit for seniors that has disappeared.

Teachers assistants from K to 3 have disappeared. The low-income tax credit for carbon tax disappeared. There was the member from Courtenay-Comox. The child that needed life-saving medical care that the government was refusing to deal with. It goes on and on. Those have all been walk-backs by this government, whose initial response was either, “We’re doing it and promising it in an election,” or, “We’re never going to do that,” and then they finally did.

With Bill 7, why it’s critically important about that communications department being shuttered for the weekend…. Earlier this week, after the Premier’s press conference, I think a lot of those same people that voiced concerns about Bill 7 would have liked more than a one-sentence sound clip from the Premier as to what he intended to do with Bill 7 so that they could review it, and they could actually weigh in, in an informed way, on what is going on with Bill 7.

When I’ve reached out to those groups, they have still, not to the same level but pretty close…. As they have with part 4 they have with part 2 and part 3…. At a certain point, the government needs to ask itself if part 1 is reasonably tolerated by everybody, and the concept of it, at a bare minimum. Okay. Part 2, people still want removed. Part 3, all those same people want removed.

I’m going to ignore that, if I’m the Premier, but I’ll listen to all those exact same groups about part 4, because apparently they were right about part 4, but they weren’t right about parts 2 and 3 because the all-powerful Premier’s office is always right, except for when it comes to part 4. Oh, and we need to amend parts of 2, 3 and 5.

Just admit you got it wrong. Just ask yourself, if you’re the Premier: what would John Horgan do? He would admit he was wrong, because he did it. This Premier refuses to do that.

In a backdrop of tariffs being paused yet again today, and in a backdrop of two credit downgrades today…. Two different agencies. The one agency, four in a row, all under this Premier’s watch. The only credit downgrades that have actually happened while the NDP have been in government have been under this Premier’s watch.

With all of that in the backdrop, perhaps, with a one-seat majority, the Premier could take a half a step back and say: “I got this wrong.” There are warning signs all over the place for the Premier to take. He just has to say he got it wrong.

[4:50 p.m.]

Repeal Bill 7. Bring back a true interprovincial trade barrier removal act. Let’s get on with actually opening up B.C. to the rest of the country. We do have the best in tech. We do have the best in agriculture and innovation. We have the best in forestry. We have the best in mining. Life sciences. The list goes on and on. Our expertise with engineering firms, our expertise in the legal side of the world…. We shouldn’t be afraid to compete with other provinces in the country.

This is all predicated on being worried about having to compete with the United States on an unfair playing field, yet we’ve imposed our own unfair playing field internally within our own country. That’s what people are all in agreement about — to varying degrees with removal, I’ll grant you that. As I say, some groups want more barriers removed, some want a few left in place.

If that was all we were debating, I think people would understand that. Then it would come down to a bit more of an ideological philosophy as to how far we open up those provincial borders or not. That’s not what we’re debating, though. Because even that’s messed up in Bill 7.

The Premier just needs to take a step back, admit he got it wrong. The Greens have told him he got it wrong. We’ve told him he has got it wrong. His former political allies have told him he has got it wrong. Every business association has said they’ve got it wrong. Bill 7 is just wrong. There’s no other conclusion you can come to.

We know members in his own caucus think it was wrong, at least in the early days. I’m sure they’ve had some difficult conversations over the last little while. Just admit it’s wrong. Remove it. You did it with Bill 12.

Heck, you called an election over a bill you got wrong. Back in 2020, that was the whole premise for that election being called. The involuntary care bill. That was the excuse to break the agreement with the Greens and call an actual election. We’re not saying: “Call an election.” We’re saying: “Remove the bill and get it right.”

Except the Premier, in his bluster, decided to make this a confidence bill. We’re still not sure if that’s actually the case or not, because his words were fleeting at best in this chamber. Again, no transparency, no understanding of what the direction of this government is.

I could understand if it was a minister not directly related to the bill, if it was a minister that was not the Attorney General or not the Premier, not giving that level of detail. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the public…. And with a rare appearance by a Premier, any Premier, to speak at second reading and kick off a bill, and that he would have provided some modicum of understanding of where his thought process is on this bill and as to why he’s defending a flawed piece of legislation….

Again, it’s not the opposition calling it flawed. It’s quite literally everybody but the NDP caucus in the province. The media have all called it flawed. I’m hard-pressed to find anyone that is not elected under the colour orange who thinks this is a good idea.

We could have been debating, over the last couple of days, the legislative changes that we understand are needed for the Energy Regulator to actually fast-track the projects we keep hearing about getting fast-tracked. But we haven’t seen that legislation. We don’t know when it’s coming.

So the interesting thing is that the government says: “Well, we hope this gets fast approval.” Well, let’s pretend for a second, in some weird utopia, that the opposition played ball with this bill, and we said: “You know what, despite the fact it’s got seven fundamental flaws in it, we’re going to fast-track it like we did the carbon tax, and we’ll get it done today.”

[4:55 p.m.]

What would the government have left for us to work on? So when the government starts standing up and talking about us filibustering or wasting time…. What else exactly would the government have us work on? Because the only other bill on the order paper right now is the Budget Measures Implementation Act. And if the minister would actually answer a question directly, when it’s asked on the first attempt, I could be through that in about an hour and a half. Six weeks to go. That is all this government has to work on.

Mark my words. At some point, they will have people stand up. They get frustrated that we have the temerity to do our jobs and actually speak and use our elected privilege and right to stand up for half an hour and speak on any and every bill that we choose — and be frustrated and try to say that we’re unnecessarily delaying legislation and passage of a bill.

They won’t tell you that they have nothing else for us to work on anyways. That would require a government and a Premier that actually had a vision and a direction they want to take the province in. But they very clearly didn’t in the throne speech. All they had was war imagery with no actions to back it up until March 13, and then it was a flawed piece of action in Bill 7. No urgency, direction or vision in the budget, whatsoever, on March 4.

That’s what we’re in store for. I warn my colleagues that are new to this place, that is what you will hear as we start working through our speakers list and people start voicing what they’ve heard in their own communities. Because we started hearing that on Monday on the carbon tax bill.

The government forced us — even though they had nothing else to work on, and they could have retroactively dealt with the carbon tax — forced us to do it all in one day and then got frustrated that we were still here at 1:30, two o’clock in the morning trying to properly deal with the bill. Somehow that was an inconvenience to government members. I didn’t hear any grumbles from the opposition side.

Thank you all, colleagues, for that, for supporting me trying to do our job properly as an opposition.

We had members in here doing budget estimates at the same time. They would have liked to have gone home, but they were more than willing to stay here and do the work on behalf of the public without complaint.

It’s too bad the government doesn’t want to, when they’re the ones making the rules of when we sit here or don’t sit here. So they’ll get frustrated, trust me. They’ll get frustrated as we debate Bill 7. They’ll start to have the odd speaker come up and speak for a couple of minutes. They’ll start having their social media farm throw out things about filibustering and complaints. Now we don’t have the procedures. There are no Cory Bookers in this place, thankfully.

Interjection.

Peter Milobar: No, I said for time. The rules do not allow for 25 hours straight, and that’s a good thing.

But that is what will start to happen, mark my words. The government will start to feel frustrated. Why they will feel frustrated is that the one thing the Premier actually wants fast action on this bill is the faster it gets approved, the less chance there is people actually better understand just how messed up this bill is, and those same groups can once again voice their concerns to the Premier’s office and to all the MLAs on the government side and let them know just how messed up this bill is.

The removal of Bill 7 in its entirety is the cleanest way, the proper way and the only way we can ensure that this government will act in the best interests of British Columbians and not in the best interests of the Premier’s office. Because right now, Bill 7 is designed for the benefit of the Premier’s office.

[5:00 p.m.]

It is, by and large, performative to make it appear the Premier has more authority and autonomy over international trade negotiations than he actually has. It is a poorly worded and hidden way to be able to start bringing in road tolling for any length of time, in any manner, and collect that information in any way the government wants and distribute it to unknown people any way it wants. So if the government insists on proceeding down this road with Bill 7, the opposition likely will have to come in with other amendments. We can’t….

Even if we’re going to vote against a section, like the privacy collection, we may have to, hopefully, amend it in agreement with the government so that we actually protect people’s privacy and we have it tied to existing legislation that actually does that. Right now the way it words, it does not appear to do that.

It references the Transportation Act — and we’ll have to dive into the Transportation Act and see if the section of the act they’re referring to then refers to freedom of information and privacy protection. It very well may, but as it’s worded right now, they certainly don’t want to beat you over the head with the fact they’re going to actually protect your information.

Everything this Premier has done with Bill 7 has been secretive or by way of press release. It’s not good enough. British Columbians deserve better.

The business associations and organizations, whose members, predominantly small businesses, are literally lying awake at night, terrified of what’s coming their way or not, need to have certainty.

Bill 7 doesn’t provide any of that certainty at all to them, and the way it’s been handled shows a complete disrespect towards those people. I don’t know what else we should expect.

I guess it’s maybe too much for the opposition and the public to expect that the Premier’s office and the Premier would conduct themselves in a open and transparent way on something as critically serious as this, would actually bring things forward in a timely fashion, would actually provide the opposition the information we need to either support or to improve a piece of legislation like Bill 7 in a timely way, instead of the Premier taking every opportunity he can to try to make it sound like we’re being obstructionists.

Again, that’s what real leadership would have looked like with this. That’s not what we’ve gotten with Bill 7. What we’ve got with Bill 7 is a list of clauses and changes at some point in the future that will dramatically change the face of this.

I mean there are 30 clauses in Bill 7, one of which is the commencement clause. So let’s say there’s 29. Twenty-nine clauses, seven amendments — 20 percent of this bill the government has already admitted is a piece of junk. I’d use other language, but it wouldn’t be real parliamentary.

Twenty percent — it’s the old 20-80 rule, I guess, with the government. It’s supposed be 80-20, but they appear to think 20 percent failure is success.

If a bill has that many errors in it and the opposition hasn’t even taken their crack at it — the official opposition, sorry…. We don’t know what happened with the Greens over the last two weeks other than the odd news clip that says they were in secret negotiations with the government, because that’s the good Team B.C. approach: talk to two of 46 opposition members about what they want to do, from one political party.

“Rah, rah Team B.C.; Team Canada, elbows up,” the Premier said. I think his elbows were up to block the door, keep it shut so we couldn’t get in and give him our opinion. That’s the level of cooperation we’ve seen out of this Premier’s office on Bill 7. It’s not good enough. The business groups out there say it’s not good enough. The average citizen says it’s not good enough.

[5:05 p.m.]

I’ve never seen a bill like this where, quite honestly…. I was meeting with non-profit social agencies in Kamloops, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson and myself. And as the meeting wound down, they brought it up. They just brought it up. They said, “Oh, by the way, since we’ve got a few extra minutes, I just want to talk to you about one thing.”

And we said, “Oh, what’s that?” “Bill 7.” That was in the first week that we weren’t sitting in this place. Non-profits were reaching out to let us know how much of an overreach they thought it was. It’s interesting, because you’re not seeing any validators coming out for the Premier on Bill 7, unless it’s a cabinet minister. Talk about an echo chamber.

Again, I can get behind removing internal trade barriers between provinces. That’s why our leader brought in the private member’s bill that has been sitting there for a month and that the government has ignored. We can get behind concepts within this bill, as the official opposition, but those concepts are so fleeting, you’re better to remove the whole bill, if you’re the government, if you truly want a Team B.C.–Team Canada approach, and deal with that.

That would actually be the Team B.C.–Team Canada approach, which is removing interprovincial trade barriers. Those same people that are opposed to Bill 7, en masse, all agree that we need to get rid of interprovincial trade barriers, which is why the stubbornness of the Premier’s office is quite remarkable.

Interprovincial trade barriers in this bill have five clauses — five clauses on interprovincial trade in this bill. You have five clauses on interprovincial trade, you have seven clauses that need to be amended, and you have 29 clauses total.

If we can all agree on five clauses, or at least the concept of five clauses, how about we just have a bill with those five clauses? What a wild and crazy idea that would be — how we’d have meaningful back-and-forth dialogue about the five clauses on interprovincial trade barriers, the pros and the cons and the need to get a better understanding.

We might not still ultimately support it, but everyone would understand fully what it is they could or couldn’t do under interprovincial trade–barrier removals — how it would help small manufacturers, how it would help large manufacturers, and how it would help our brain set of engineers, lawyers and all that to go back and forth and to work much more easily.

There’s a hidden cost to interprovincial trade barriers that people don’t talk about: the cost of compliance, which is why you try to break down those interprovincial trade barriers. The compliance rules are usually what gets you. It’s not the safety aspect of the widget; it’s the compliance rules that wrap themselves all around it, that cause all the cost-pressure differences, and it’s why it makes it too hard to do it from province to province. It’s harder than shipping something down to Washington state.

While the Premier wants to focus everyone’s attention to the south of the border — I get the threat of tariffs, and we have to take that seriously — we ought to have been taking seriously the threat, within our own country, to our economy and the drag that interprovincial trade barriers have put on our own internal economy in Canada.

That’s the one thing everyone agrees needs to be removed immediately, and you never do let a good crisis go to waste. That crisis, the threat from the States, is the impetus to have the political capital and the political will to get rid of interprovincial trade barriers, and it’s being squandered by the Premier.

[5:10 p.m.]

We are going to wind up with a half-baked piece of Frankenstein-type legislation that’s been hacked and whacked up with a piece on interprovincial trade that is not sufficient, that is still too protectionist for B.C. It’ll be used as an excuse by different provinces for why they’re not going to get on board.

That’s not leadership. That’s not supercharging the B.C. economy. The government can talk about fast-tracking wind farms all they want. At the rate they’re moving, it’d be a lot faster to get rid of interprovincial trade barriers and crank up all the existing jobs we currently have in manufacturing. We’re losing our young people at record levels back to Alberta and Saskatchewan and other places. We need them to stay here. They need to stay here. And the way they stay here is if their employer is expanding and they can see a future for themselves. Pick an industry. Pick a profession. We need them all.

We can compete better against every province out there with our natural advantages. We just can. But the government has us tied with one hand behind our back. Bill 7 is not going to untie that hand. We’re still going to have a sluggish economy in B.C., with the backdrop of credit downgrades — four in a row under this Premier. I don’t know what it’s going to take to wake him up about how sluggish our economy is, how impactful that is to our own economy when we’re tying up that much money in debt repayment.

Let’s remember that downgrade comes before the government has accounted for another potentially $2 billion being added to the deficit because of the decision they wanted to force through on Monday on carbon tax, finding it reprehensible that the opposition would dare ask what’s going to happen to the $2 billion. Will it be put on the deficit, or will it be cuts? They wouldn’t answer that, just like they won’t answer questions about Bill 7 as it relates to interprovincial trade and the drag it has on our economy and why they’re still having some protectionist language in Bill 7’s interprovincial trade barrier removal.

Fundamentally, Bill 7 needs to be repealed. We need to have a proper piece of legislation brought in front of this place that deals with interprovincial trade barriers, and the Premier needs to start actually putting some action behind his words.

I bet you if it was worded properly and dealt only with interprovincial trade, just like we did with the carbon tax, we could probably move it along fairly quickly in this place. Then we’d at least have a piece of legislation to work on, because right now, Bill 7 is about all we’ve got left with six weeks to go.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I’m very pleased to stand up in support of the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act.

I just want to start by saying to the member for Kamloops Centre: I apologize for the time that it took to get the amendments over, and I can own that as a mistake. I know that we all have the amendments now that we tabled today.

British Columbia — in fact, the world — is facing a really unprecedented threat of unjustified tariffs and a President that has commented repeatedly about attacking the sovereignty of our country and thinking about us becoming the 51st state. What that’s done for our province and for our country is bring a lot of solidarity and a lot of standing up in pride for what we have in Canada, what we have in B.C. and what we can be so proud of protecting.

It has also built up a lot of solidarity for us to take actions that will help stabilize our economy here in Canada and in B.C. and strengthen B.C. businesses and lift interprovincial trade barriers that were getting in the way of us getting to markets.

[5:15 p.m.]

There’s something incredible about the level of solidarity that’s been coming at us, and I just want to spend a few minutes thanking the members of the trade and economic security task force. These are leaders in the business community, in labour, First Nations leaders, from across sectors, and they’re sitting down with us to coordinate what our response would be in B.C. to these unjustified tariffs and threat to our economy that we did not ask for but are certainly going to put up a good fight in the face of.

This piece of legislation that we have tabled through Bill 7 allows the government to have the tools it needs to respond. I’m going to go through the pieces of the legislation and what they will do to make sure that we can have a strong response in the face of these unjustified tariffs.

It allows us to quickly respond to an unprecedented threat of these unjustified tariffs. It will provide government with the tools to eliminate barriers in provincial trade, to direct public sector entities in relation to procurement and to impose tolls, fees and other charges on vehicles using B.C. infrastructure. What it will do is provide flexible regulation-making powers in the proposed legislation. They’re designed to help government act nimbly and provide a targeted response to protect B.C.’s interests and respond to incoming tariff and trade threats.

Today was another one of those days that was a shocking day for the world and for Canada and for B.C., where we all sat and waited to hear what the President of the United States was going to do that would inflict real harm to economies, to people, to their jobs, to industries across the world.

What we’re facing in B.C. and Canada are threats to our lumber industry, our steel and aluminum industry and potentially our dairy industry. We’ve stared down these threats as a government, and what we have all agreed to is that we need to stand by those workers, we need to stand by those businesses, and we need to stand by all of those threats in a clear way that makes sure that people know that we have the tools necessary to act quickly and to support them through these challenging times.

And that means looking at things that we’ve never actually looked at before — what tariff threats would do to our industry and how quickly the President is able to exact executive orders that would cause pain not only to our country but to countries across the world. It’s what the Premier has described, I think quite correctly, as economic warfare faced at the rest of the world.

This bill that is before the House right now gives us the tools necessary to respond. The part 1 would allow us to reduce or eliminate barriers to interprovincial trade. I’ve heard from almost every person that I’ve talked to since the tariff threat has come into place about how we need to be trading with each other, we need to be supporting each other, and we need to take a Team Canada approach. It’s the approach that we’re taking in B.C., and it’s exemplified in this legislation.

That Team Canada approach means we need to drop interprovincial trade barriers. We need to make sure that what is potentially billions of dollars of opening up to our economy, helping provinces trade with each other…. And it is urgent.

I would hope the members across the way would recognize that not only is this welcomed by all members of Canada, really — dropping interprovincial trade barriers — but it needs to happen quickly. We need to have the tools necessary as a government to step in when there are regulatory barriers that stop businesses from keeping their employees and finding a new market within Canada. We need to look very carefully at how to support every industry in opening up those markets and reducing those trade barriers. What we have in this bill is a very thoughtful approach to that, that also gives us the ability to act nimbly.

The member across the way mentioned the legislation in Nova Scotia and that there was one tabled similar to that. This bill helps us move way quicker than what’s going to happen in Nova Scotia. We are not going to wait for reciprocity. The idea that we would eliminate trade barriers, and they would only come into effect if another province reciprocates, is not part of the work we’re going to do here. We’ve set up a system in this bill and this part to act quickly.

If we know that there is a regulatory barrier that is preventing one of our businesses in our sector to being able to trade across to any province, we don’t have to wait for another province to reciprocate. We can reduce that barrier through the tools in this legislation.

We are able to also make sure that we are putting in place any appropriate exemptions that might be necessary in order to make sure that we are doing it in a way that maximizes the protection of workers, of businesses, of the economy, and does it in a way that’s very quick.

[5:20 p.m.]

This is urgently needed, and I would hope that it would get support from across this House as I know that it has support across B.C. and, in fact, across the country when it comes to reducing these barriers.

Part 1 of the bill will work hand in hand with other initiatives that are related to removing interprovincial trade barriers to trade that are being discussed under the framework of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement. It also provides the authority of the government to make exemptions for goods and services of regulation as necessary. It’s a necessary way to move forward.

I want to say our Minister of Jobs and Economic Development is hard at work at national tables right now, speaking about how we approach the dropping of interprovincial trade barriers. This work is happening in combination across government, and every minister is involved at the table to figure out how we do this.

This legislative tool will give us the ability to implement the dropping of those interprovincial trade barriers very quickly. The work is happening on all fronts, whether it’s through agreement…. We also know that it has to be legislative. It has to involve changes to our legislation for it to work.

An important thing is that the bill does not apply to regulated occupations that are already subject to the Labour Mobility Act, the provincial statute that implements B.C.’s obligations under chapter 7 of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement.

Improving interprovincial trade mobility continues to be a key priority for this government. On March 5, the Prime Minister and Premiers directed the Committee on Internal Trade to work with the Forum of Labour Market Ministers to provide a plan for Canada-wide credential recognition by June 1, 2025.

It’s part of the comprehensive work that we are doing as a government to respond to this very significant threat, to make sure that if you are somebody that’s been laid off in B.C. and needs to find a job, you’re able to go to another province and get a job quickly without a barrier in the way. And vice versa, so we can keep Canadians employed in our country, and we can face the threat head on. We are certainly a partner in the Team Canada approach when it comes to that.

Part 2 of the bill will provide clear and express authority for the Lieutenant Governor in Council to issue directives to government and to a broad range of public sector entities in relation to procurement. It also protects these entities through statutory immunity and indemnity provisions in relation to actions they take to comply with these directives.

Until June 30, 2025, cabinet will have the authority to issue directives that are retroactive to February 1, 2025. Cabinet may decide to use this retroactive power to include directives made before the bill came into force.

Unlocking procurement as a government is one of the really effective ways that we can support our economy locally and across Canada. It’s estimated that through unlocking our procurement policies, there would be potentially up to $600 million that’s directed back into our economy through that.

This is good news for B.C. companies. It’s good news for companies across Canada. What it means is that agencies in our government will be looking to support, through their procurement, B.C. and Canadian companies. We’ll be looking to support the economy in ways that we can do in a very powerful way as government, in the spending that we do, in the ways we procure, whether it’s through us or through Crown agencies that will be listed or noted in the act. We’ll get our economy moving in a way that we need. We know we need to move quickly on that. We know there’s a huge number of opportunities related to this.

I’ve heard, we’ve all heard, I think, also from the stakeholders that we’re regularly engaging with, about the opportunities that might exist and how that is something that they welcome. They welcome the opportunity to provide, whether it’s goods or services, to the B.C. government and their Crown agencies to support the economy locally.

I think it’s a really important step, and the way that we’re designing to do it in the bill is through procurement directives, which will set the procurement directives to each Crown agency. Each one will have the ability to look at what’s viable and what procurement processes are in place and how they can transform their procurement to support the local economy.

I think this is an amazing thing to unlock and a really strong statement to what we are doing as a government to support the local economy and take the Team Canada approach through our actual spending on government services.

[5:25 p.m.]

I would hope that it would be supported by people, every member of this House, as I think it will be very welcome to people as a response to the tariffs threat that we’re facing.

The next part of the bill, Part 3, creates mechanisms that are designed to allow government to impose a system of tolls, fees or other charges on vehicles using certain B.C. infrastructure, such as highways and coastal ferries. It will authorize the minister charged with the administration of the Transportation Act to enter into arrangements or agreements in relation to the system, including for the exchange of information, in order to administer any future system. If such a system is created and a person fails to pay the toll, fee or charge, that amount plus interest will be a debt due to the government.

Part of the Team Canada approach that we are participating in very strongly as a province is to ensure that each province approaches fighting back, approaches what they can do to fight back to the tariffs. This is a portion of the bill that we would hope we would never have to use, that we would never have to escalate, that we would never have to escalate in the context of invoking these tolls on commercial vehicles that would go from the States to Alaska.

What we know is that…. What the President has said is that there would be an escalation, potentially, of a trade war, and we know that our message has to be that we will fight back. We will stand up for B.C., and we will be part of that Team Canada approach that is pushing back with everything that we have. This is part of those measures, and the bill is designed to make sure that we are doing that very responsibly.

It gives the minister responsible the powers to make sure that, if we ever got to a situation where we needed to retaliate in an escalating way, the minister would be able to design that measure in a way that minimally impacted British Columbians, minimally impacted the goods and services we know we need to transport through B.C. and had maximum impact on sending a message to the United States.

The flexibility that’s built into the bill is part of us being responsible with how we have a strong stance but also respond in a way that would make sure that British Columbians are not harmed in any of those actions.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 focus on strengthening interprovincial trade and prioritizing Canadian goods and services and expanding B.C.’s economic capacity and increasing the resilience of our economy. The purpose of this bill is to face down the threat with the exact tools that we know we need to face down the threat. This is an economic threat, and what we need in response to that is an economic stabilization strategy. This bill, plus all the government actions that are taking place right now, gives us the ability to do that for British Columbians.

As the Premier recently announced, the government intends to separate part 4 of the proposed legislation by removing it from Bill 7. As the Premier also noted, we are listening to the feedback that we have heard from the trade and economic security task force, from the business community, from labour leaders and Indigenous leaders and from the B.C. Green Party. We’ll continue to evaluate options for the policy objectives expressed in part 4 to ensure that we are in the best position to respond to the actions of the United States and to stand up for British Columbians.

This is a sign that democracy is healthy and well in British Columbia. The Premier and myself and our government…. We know we need to have the solidarity to move forward during these difficult times, and we need to stand up for our democratic institutions.

We listened to people’s concerns about how we respond in a way that respects and upholds what we all believe in. Therefore, we announced that we would be stepping back from part 4 until and unless there are the appropriate guardrails where we can get the community to understand and everybody to understand what the guardrails are and how we might be able to move forward on that power.

What we’re facing in the States is an imbalance of power with the ability of the President to concentrate power through executive orders and Congress, the congressional process, not being effective to check that balance of executive orders. What we are facing and what countries across the world are facing is the ability of, really, one man to do something very quickly through executive order.

[5:30 p.m.]

We know we need to be nimble. We know we need to step forward to protect jobs when they’re at risk or to protect our economy or businesses when they’re at risk and to make sure that we have an appropriate response back. We’ll continue to work through that response.

I just want to give a thank-you too. In the last two weeks, I’ve been meeting with a lot of stakeholders. We’ve been receiving feedback about not only their hopes and what their ideas are for us to respond in an effective way but also how we could approach it through this bill.

I am grateful for all of that feedback, including feedback that we received from the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, which was helpful; and the Green Party of B.C., and the feedback that we were able to build into some of the amendments that were tabled here today; and the feedback that we got about how we approach interprovincial trade and how we approach, really, doing what could be a very significant thing for our economy.

We think about different examples of how these interprovincial trade barriers show up in communities and businesses, and I understand, from the many conversations we’ve been having, that there are opportunities missed because of these interprovincial trade barriers — opportunities for workers, for businesses, for our economy, for goods to be sold in different parts of the province. The opportunity that we have before us now, as we build up on the solidarity and respond in our Team Canada approach, is to change that. It’s to change that for people.

I know I’m committed, and our government is committed, to doing that in a way where we can bring those down as quickly as possible. I would hope that everybody would be supportive of those changes. None of us asked for the current attacks to our province and the country. None of us asked to be in this situation. We, as a government and as a people in this country, have been staring down threats that we didn’t even contemplate were possible. I think a little bit over two months ago the world has changed significantly.

We will never be the 51st state. We will never stop standing up for British Columbians, for their jobs, for their livelihoods, for the future of this province. We will use every tool that we can to do so, and we will do so in a way that responds fast to what we know is a threat that could keep coming. Even after the announcement today, it’s confusing. It’s chaotic. We don’t know exactly what it means fully. We hope that it’s a reprieve, but we don’t know for how long, and we don’t know for which industries, where there are musings of further tariffs to come.

I can commit and we can all commit to British Columbians that we will always stand up for them and will be on their side every step of the way. I really am hopeful that every member of this House will be supportive of this bill and the measures that we know will help us respond to this threat and help us move forward together.

Steve Kooner: I rise in the House not just as the MLA for Richmond-Queensborough but also as the official opposition critic for Attorney General, a role that demands diligence in protecting the rule of law, democratic process and constitutional integrity.

Today I must express my grave opposition to Bill 7, the so-called Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, a bill that, under the pretext of responding to U.S. tariffs, in its initial form, sought to upend our democratic order, trample constitutional principles and grant executive near-unlimited law-making power — without accountability to the people of British Columbia.

Now, it’s important to point out that some proposed amendments have been brought up to the official opposition. They were not tabled on the orders of the day today, but my understanding is that they will be debated at committee stage. But because they are not on the orders of today, I will respond in this debate as addressing the whole bill as it stands currently, Bill 7, with all of its parts.

[5:35 p.m.]

As this bill was initially introduced a few weeks ago, there was an uproar amongst the province. I do not agree with what the Attorney General said in terms of support for this bill. There are a lot of concerns across this province about this bill, and the media clearly raised those. The people of this province oppose this Bill 7, and British Columbians pushed back.

There was a particular focus on part 4 of this bill. What part 4 does is allow a regulation to change existing laws in this province. That regulation can be put forward by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Essentially, that process is that the executive council — the cabinet, the Premier — can formulate that regulation, and essentially, it’s rubber-stamped by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. So the executive branch in this province could essentially change law by bypassing this Legislature.

Now, it’s important to mention that all 93 members in this province were elected by the people of this province. So that is of utmost concern when a government’s executive branch puts forward legislation that would allow it to bypass the Legislature.

British Columbians pushed back, and under immense public pressure, the most dangerous section — part 4, as I just spoke about — was withdrawn. But let us be clear. It was not repealed. The Premier did not repeal part 4 of Bill 7. It was not abandoned. The Premier has made it known that he intends to bring these extraordinary powers back in the fall, according to media reports.

The Premier is hoping for a good dose of public amnesia after the summer, once school gets back, and he has every intention of bringing part 4 back. This should still be sounding alarm bells in this province. Bill 7, in its current form, is antidemocratic, draconian, authoritarian. It puts forward authoritarian measures that this Premier has attempted to impose on B.C.

Many column inches were written on the deplorable state of this bill. But even after Friday’s attempted climb-down, it’s clear that this Premier isn’t fooling anyone. Although part 4 was retracted — in the media, at least; it hasn’t been done here in this Legislature yet — there are great concerns about this.

There’s a columnist, well-respected, that wrote an opinion piece. He’s a well-respected member of the press in the gallery of the Legislative Assembly here, Vaughn Palmer. He posted an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun shortly after the Premier walked back part 4 in the media, just past Friday, March 28. I’d just like to read into the record what was written by Vaughn Palmer.

[5:40 p.m.]

“The Premier has pulled back on the most contentious part of Bill 7, two weeks after insisting its sweeping powers were essential to countering the threat of tariffs from the U.S. ‘I didn’t get the balance right,’” the former head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association told reporters on Friday. “My interest in being able to move quickly to respond to the threat that British Columbia is facing got the better of…. Certainly, my understanding that the safeguards that the people are calling for need to be there as well.”

The government will remove the fourth, or “emergency powers,” section of the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, introduced in the Legislature on March 13. That section would have given the NDP cabinet open-ended power to issue orders with a stroke of a pen, “supporting the economy of B.C. and Canada.”

The section would have also allowed New Democrats wide powers to “address challenges or anticipated challenges to B.C. arising from the actions of a foreign jurisdiction.”

The section included an override clause stating that in the event of a conflict, the new powers issued under Bill 7 would prevail over existing provincial laws and regulations. The only exceptions were that the clause could not be used to override the provincial environmental assessment process or requirements to consult First Nations on resource developments.

The surviving parts of Bill 7 empower the cabinet to issue orders to reduce interprovincial trade barriers, remove U.S. suppliers from government procurement contracts and impose tolls, fees and charges on trucks and other transportation moving through B.C.

Some override clauses remain, though none are as sweeping as the one now on the shelf, section 4. However, the Premier signalled in his intention to reintroduce section 4 as separate legislation at a later date. “We do need this authority, we do need the ability to respond, and we’ll work with those key stakeholders that we committed to work with at the beginning of this process to get it right and ensure that they’re comfortable with these provisions,” he said.

“If there is a chance for us to retool this and ensure that the safeguards are in place to make people feel comfortable, that there is democratic and legislative oversight of these incredibly important provisions, then we will do so.”

The Premier doubts that the government can complete the necessary consultations and produce a satisfactory redraft of section 4 before the legislature adjourns at the end of May. More likely, the revision would be ready for the fall session starting October 6.

When a reporter pointed out the apparent contradiction between the five-month delay and the Premier’s insistence that the need was “urgent,” the Premier struggled to make a consistent reply: “We need this urgently, but I recognize my own vulnerability to want to move very quickly to protect B.C. families and our economy, with the need to balance the legitimate concerns that have been raised by stakeholders.”

The Premier declined to name who’d influenced him to back off on Bill 7, with one exception. He did acknowledge Geoff Plant, who was Attorney General in the last B.C. Liberal government. Plant delivered a withering blast against the Premier’s government’s legislative overreach in an interview this week with Fran Yanor of the Northern Beat online news service.

The Premier made a display of contrition on Friday, saying: “As much as I would like to be perfect, I am not.” But he balked at acknowledging the misleading aspect of his own comments about a key aspect of the legislation.

In a March 13 news conference, the Premier said three times that any cabinet orders issued under Bill 7 would also have to be “ratified by the Legislature.”

[5:45 p.m.]

There is no specific ratification clause in the bill. Asked to account for the lapse, the Premier took refuge in a provision that any orders issued under Bill 7 would expire automatically in two years.

How does that amount to a ratification clause? Well, explained the Premier, if the cabinet wanted to extend the orders, then it would need to get the consent of the Legislature. It was another reminder that when it comes to telling it like it is, the Premier is no John Horgan.

Shortly after the Premier spoke Friday, the B.C. Greens announced they still have significant reservations of Bill 7. Quote: “In the past two weeks, the B.C. Greens fought to strengthen democratic safeguards in Bill 7, ensuring that transparency, accountability and proper checks and balances are in place.”

Said the member from Saanich North and the Islands: “This is in addition to Green amendments underway, such as shortening the sunset clause to one year, removal of the exemptions regime and narrowing of the delegation powers. We expect to see these amendments, amongst others, included before we can determine whether or not we will support this bill.”

On that basis alone, and the B.C. Conservatives restated their position as well, the legislation still faces a rough ride. Deservedly so. The Premier’s initial overreach, combined with his determination to try again with defending section 4, provides no basis for giving him the benefit of the doubt on bill.

To call this a scathing rebuke from one of B.C.’s foremost members of the legislative press gallery would be an understatement. This was a bloodletting, a structured takedown and a dismantling of every argument this Premier has tried to put over on the B.C. public for the last two weeks.

The media’s depiction of Bill 7, particularly part 4, highlights serious implications for British Columbians. Part 4 is an executive overreach. It goes against the principles of the rule of law. When British Columbians elect people to the Legislature, they expect laws and legislation to be debated and, after thorough debate, for them to be voted upon and then for those laws to become legislation. That’s how rule of law works in this province.

But with executive overreach, what would happen is essentially the cabinet could just change laws, existing laws, by decisions within the executive branch, by decisions within the cabinet. And that provides serious, serious concerns that are contrary to rule-of-law principles.

This legislation was brought forward by the Premier and the Attorney General. The Premier also served as Attorney General and was a lawyer for a very long time. He was also the head of the Civil Liberties Association of B.C. So for the Premier and Attorney General to bring forward this legislation is seriously concerning.

There are obvious concerns with part 4, and the concerns are essentially going to the premise that any law in this province can be changed, subject to a couple of exceptions, and laws can be changed through the cabinet. This is seriously problematic.

What’s the purpose of having 93 members in this House? What’s the purpose of having official opposition in the House if laws can just be changed through the cabinet?

[5:50 p.m.]

Now, my understanding is that some proposed amendments will be brought up at the committee stage, but we’re debating the bill as it stands today, because there were no amendments introduced today in second reading. The bill wasn’t removed entirely today, so we’re stuck here debating the entire bill as it exists, inclusive of part 4.

There are other problematic parts to Bill 7, as well, in addition to part 4. I’d like to go through those parts. The first part deals with interprovincial trade. I believe the government’s intentions behind that bill are sincere, and they’re good. Removing barriers to interprovincial trade is a good thing. We need to address the tariffs from the U.S., and if we effectively remove barriers on interprovincial trade, we can minimize impact on British Columbians from foreign tariffs. So that’s a good thing.

But even part 1 is a bit problematic, because there seem to be some exceptions put in the legislation as to how you can deal with part 1. Also, it doesn’t seem to go far enough. It deals with goods and services, but it does not deal with labour mobility.

The appropriate thing would have been if the government just took back the bill and brought back a better bill. There was a private member’s bill that was introduced in this House by the official opposition leader under M203 that also addresses interprovincial trade.

Since that bill is a stand-alone bill without any other problematic parts to it such as this bill that we’re dealing with…. There are problematic parts such as 2 and 3 and 4. That makes it problematic for part 1, because part 1 has to work with other parts because it’s part of one whole piece of legislation.

It would be easier to deal with a bill that spoke about interprovincial trade barriers and removing them. That would be the easiest and most efficient way of addressing interprovincial trade barriers and their removal.

There are significant problems with the other parts as well. Part 2 speaks about procurement directives. Now, the problem here is that the NDP government is trying to get more power over fiscal management by being able to deal with procurement directives.

This is being introduced at a time when we’re dealing with a $10.9 billion deficit. That deficit actually may go higher, because there seems to be a hole in the revenue due to recent legislation that was dealt with just prior to this one. There might be a revenue shortfall of a couple of billion dollars, so that deficit might actually get worse. The $10.9 billion deficit might get worse.

[5:55 p.m.]

If it gets worse, that’s problematic, because you have to look at the basis. How did we actually get here with a deficit as high as $10.9 billion? We’ve never seen that in B.C.’s history.

The way that we got here was through fiscal mismanagement. Under part 2, this government is asking for more freedom in terms of how they deal with fiscal management and how they deal with procurement directives that have direct implications on the fiscal situation in this province. With that, there are serious concerns around part 2.

In regard to part 3, part 3 talks about tolls, fees and charges. That’s problematic. We heard earlier from the Attorney General that the minister will get the discretion to put forward design for tolls if they’re needed, and the minister will try to minimize the effect on British Columbians. But the problem here is you’re giving unfettered discretion to the minister. British Columbians don’t know how those tolls will actually be implemented.

As the legislation is written right now, what can happen is tolls can be put on highways, on bridges, without looking at the effect that it will have on British Columbians. That’s particularly concerning. The legislation doesn’t talk about only putting tolls on transportation that involves foreign goods. There’s no distinction. So this is pretty alarming legislation.

The legislation in part 4 also talks about collection of data to enforce those tolls. There are privacy and data security issues around those provisions. In this day and age, we’re hearing a lot about data breaches. We’re hearing a lot about privacy breaches. This particular NDP government, before the last election, dealt with an issue back in the spring of 2024. There were some cyber attacks that may have affected certain sensitive information being accessed. There was a cyber attack on the IT systems within the provincial government back in the spring of 2024.

British Columbians have a reason to be concerned when the government’s talking about doing more data collection to enforce tolls. They have the right to be concerned. How is that data going to be managed when we’re seeing an influx of cyber attacks in recent years?

My riding in particular, my constituency in particular, would be gravely affected by tolls. My constituency has the George Massey Tunnel. My constituency has the Knight Street Bridge. My constituency has the Queensborough Bridge. My constituency has Highway 99. My constituency has Highway 91, which goes on to connect to the Alex Fraser Bridge on Annacis Island.

If there is no distinction on tolls and on data collection, this is particularly alarming. My constituents in Richmond-Queensborough have expressed concerns to me. How is this all going to play out? There don’t seem to be any restrictions on British Columbians being affected in this legislation.

[6:00 p.m.]

If the government’s intent was going to be to minimize impact on British Columbians, they could have easily worded it in this legislation. But they didn’t do that.

So in summary, part 3 of Bill 7 imposes unfair financial burdens through tolling, raises serious concerns about privacy and data security, while part 2 of Bill 7 presents major issues with fiscal accountability.

And part 4…. There are many, many concerns about part 4. The media has significantly raised it. The public has significantly raised it. And the Premier, in media reports, has talked about rolling part 4 back because the public has protested against this part 4.

People don’t want executive overreach in this province. They want laws to be made through the Legislature. They want laws to be debated in the Legislature. They want official opposition to debate laws. They want debates to happen like they’re happening right now. They want these debates to happen. That’s why they elect us.

Now, like I said earlier, part 1 of this Bill 7 does have good intent behind it, but it gets weighed down by the problematic parts to this bill. So an easier thing that could have been done was this Bill 7 could have been withdrawn by this government, and a new piece of legislation could have been brought forward to address interprovincial trade barriers, to remove those trade barriers. A better version of legislation to address that issue could have been brought forward. That legislation could be broader rather than having some exceptions to it.

Also, it could probably address labour mobility. We have issues in terms of people getting certified across the country. Allowing people to easily practise their professions here would help them out.

I urge the House to reject Bill 7 and instead support a new piece of legislation that addresses interprovincial trade barriers. That will help safeguard our province against the threat of U.S. tariffs.

Hon. Adrian Dix: It’s always an honour to rise in this Legislature. It’s an honour to rise in this Legislature to support the actions that, I think, have united Canadians and united British Columbians and united our communities, against what is, really, an unprecedented attack on our sovereignty by the U.S. government.

These are unusual times, and we have faced unusual times before. Members will know — and I’ll come back to this later — that I was Minister of Health in B.C. during the COVID-19 pandemic, where we put in place the provisions of a public health emergency.

[6:05 p.m.]

The actions that we took and the way that we took them — the people that we worked with — were dramatic at that time, including things as trivial as, perhaps, attendance at nightclubs and as serious as people getting vaccinated in a pandemic.

I think, if you reflect back on those times, the support that the actions of the government received — in all parts of the Legislature, I might add, but also ultimately in the courts by people who disagreed with those actions — reflected the nature of the government’s action in that case, which was yes, extraordinary and yes, necessary.

And in this case, we’re facing a similar break moment in history that I think will define us as a country and as a province and as a people. The most powerful country in the world — and the head of that country — with which we also share the longest undefended border in the world, is threatening our sovereignty. We need to act, and we need to act in response, and we need to act together.

It’s a breaking, I’d argue, of a long tradition of cooperation. People will remember in 1940 the joint action of Canada and the United States, our agreement at Ogdensburg — actions at the time when Canada was at war and the United States was not at war, the two countries coming together to protect North America.

They’ll remember the actions between Canada and the United States: B.C. was the lead jurisdiction in the negotiation of the Columbia River Treaty; the actions of Canada and the United States with respect to the Auto Pact in 1965; and the actions of Canada and the United States in the acid rain treaty in 1991, all of which have had significant benefits to both countries and to communities all over.

Not without challenges, especially if we speak of the Columbia River Treaty, not without significant challenges, but they were the actions of neighbours working together. People will remember in 1988 and again in 1993, because we’re in the midst of a federal general election right now…. They’ll remember a major debate in Canada in 1988 about the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and then again in 1993 about the NAFTA agreement at that time.

I was on one side of the debate and, as has happened sometimes in the world, my side lost. On one side, and the NDP was part of that side, but also the Liberal Party of Canada — people will remember this — we argued that the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement would integrate our economies too much. It would make us too vulnerable to American action. And on the other side, the Prime Minister at the time, Mr. Mulroney, argued that the treaty would have economic benefits.

Then again, in 1993, when Mexico was added to the agreement under the NAFTA, again the same dynamic: Conservatives on one side, Liberals and NDP on the other side. Liberals won the election and then implemented the NAFTA — that’s for another discussion for another time. But we had a similar debate about integration. But that set in motion a period of integration, but also benefit of free trade between our countries. That’s been in place and was renewed in the first administration of Mr. Trump in a new trade agreement, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, which is the subject of so much discussion now.

I’d argue that what’s happening now, unfortunately, is a permanent change in that. It’s a permanent change in the way some countries are engaging with the world and not just the United States, but other countries.

It’s a period where sovereignty of countries has not been respected in the case of Ukraine, where we’ve had wars between Azerbaijan and Armenia, where we’ve had wars between Ukraine and Russia, where we have wars in the Middle East. This is an unstable time, and we have leaders who are acting in a way not consistent with the way Canada and the United States is acting, and one of those leaders is President Trump.

[6:10 p.m.]

We should understand as a country that when changes of this type are made we are not going back to the way it was before. This is a permanent change in our relationship with the United States. It doesn’t mean we won’t still have a relationship. It doesn’t mean we don’t still have to work on that relationship. But it does say that as a country, when we are attacked in this way, we need to respond seriously and coherently and give ourselves the means to respond.

I have to say I have a lot of political differences with some of Canada’s leaders and Premiers, but since January 20, I’ve admired how many of Canada’s national and provincial leaders have approached this issue.

I think Prime Minister Trudeau did us proud in his initial responses, which were serious defence of Canada and Canadian sovereignty and Canadian business and Canadian life. I’ve never voted for Prime Minister Trudeau, but I can respect his actions.

Equally, Premier Ford of Ontario, a Conservative Premier, has acted in a determined way and in partnership with us in British Columbia. I have been proud of his actions.

Premier Legault of Quebec, a different political party, again working closely with other Canadian leaders — proud of his actions.

Premier Kinew, and of course our own Premier, who’s been a national leader in this debate — a national leader on the idea that Canada, whatever our differences are as a country, needs to respond to existential threats with determination. When people attack us with tariffs and other actions, we respond seriously and with determination.

Because in this world today, President Trump — but he’s not the only one; it could be President Putin we’re talking about, President Xi or others in this world — understands strength.

And we as a country, through these Team Canada actions, with people of all different political persuasions have responded with consistency and strength. That is the right way to act under these circumstances.

We’ve done that and we need to respond in the immediate to these actions and we are. This legislation speaks to our ability to do that quickly and thoughtfully.

We also, I think — we’ll come back to that — need to become stronger as a country. We cannot, it seems to me, afford some of the inconsistencies that come with Canadian federalism. Broadly, we need to break down barriers in our country. We need to act more strongly as a country. We need to stand up for ourselves, and we need to build a stronger Canada.

We need to diversify markets. We need to ensure that we have a greater energy supply. We need to work together as it’s relevant to…. We need to diminish interprovincial trade barriers. That is what the government and our Premier have led on this question nationally, and our Minister of Jobs has led on this issue nationally — has taken actions and led discussions to reduce interprovincial trade barriers so that there’s freer access to markets.

When people are denying you access to the main international market that we’re facing, we need to ensure and diminish other markets and, where necessary and possible, diminish differences between provinces so we can be stronger together. And we need to build ourselves.

We’ve heard from President Trump, for example, on the issue of electricity, the issue of clean power, that he’s taking action to stop it. As some people say…. As he has often said, “drill baby drill,” by which he means he’s opposed to the rapidly declining cost of renewable clean energy that benefits the planet.

Where do they lead in clean energy as a share of wind and solar renewables, as a share of energy resources? Well, Iowa, that’s where they lead in the United States. We have to, as a province, take similar actions. We have to see the signal above the noise. The signal is in the world, in private sector investment and in public sector investment.

[6:15 p.m.]

With our own B.C. Hydro, which gives us a huge advantage, we have to see and take actions to build our capacity, our energy, our domestic sovereignty over questions of energy. And we have to diversify those markets.

There’s a lot of debate and discussion in British Columbia, and has been, for example, about liquefied natural gas and about the project that’s gone forward. Members on the opposite side will know those discussions well. The first liquefied natural gas will leave Kitimat this summer for Asia. That’s diversifying our markets in important ways, because, as everyone knows, our largest export in terms of goods is natural gas with the United States. When people deny you access to your market, you need to respond by working more closely together.

I — and we’re proud to be doing this work — have been working with the province of Alberta on reducing differences on issues of both climate change, which is important for both of our jurisdictions, and with respect to especially our natural gas industry, but also linking our jurisdictions. Having a better, sometimes called improving…. Making policy changes and investment around the inter-tie between B.C. and Alberta.

It makes us both more secure and more sovereign if we do that. It doesn’t make sense to me that Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and Venezuela and other countries can work together for decades in OPEC, and we can’t work together better with other provinces. We need the means to do so as a province, it seems to me.

This is part of what we’re talking about here. In other words, addressing issues between Alberta and B.C. that have existed for a long time around the inter-tie and making it better for both jurisdictions, both markets, and creating greater energy sovereignty here in Canada, when our energy resources have been threatened by the American government.

I think, finally, I would say we need to work hard to bring people together in our province. We cannot, cannot, go cap in hand here. We’ve got to make our province stronger and better and more effective. We believe — and the world believes — we have to address climate change and build more clean energy. We better do it, and now is the time to lean in, to build stronger, to invest more, to make the decisions that will make us safer and better in the future on those questions.

It brings me back to the provisions of this legislation. What are we talking about here? Interprovincial trade barriers. Well, members of the opposition have referred to a bill they introduced in the House that parallels the Nova Scotia bill, which doesn’t include…. You have to wait for reciprocity in order to make changes. In other words, you have to wait a long time to make changes. This bill is better.

We need to take action on internal trade barriers, and this bill allows the government to do so, to reduce internal trade barriers at a time when our trade internationally is under threat with the most important jurisdiction to us. This first section of this bill does that, and I think is worthy of support. You want to put this bill up against the private member’s bill. It’s no competition. This is the bill you pass, seriously thought of.

On section 2 of the bill on the issue of procurement, I heard but did not fully understand the argument of the opposition against this bill. You know, I saw a poll recently that 74 percent of British Columbians, 74 percent, had taken action in their own procurement, usually at the grocery store, to buy B.C. and to buy Canadian.

I’ve done some work on the issue of Tidewater and protecting British Columbia and Canadian resources with respect to that important refinery of renewables.

We didn’t take action, by the way, just to protect British Columbia. We made it Canada, because I think right now when you’re taking action on an internal trade barrier, you shouldn’t add an internal trade barrier. So we’ve taken those steps and those actions.

On procurement in a general sense, Canadians and British Columbians are buying B.C. They’re going to the grocery store and buying B.C. They’re buying B.C. apples. I looked through, and I’m not buying the apples from Washington State. I’m not buying the Honeycrisps from Washington State. I’m buying the Galas from British Columbia right now. I see it in the grocery store: the British Columbia bins are empty, because British Columbians believe that we should support our industry right now and support Canadians right now. And they are doing that.

[6:20 p.m.]

That’s what section 2 does, because I don’t think it makes any sense for British Columbians to do that and not have British Columbia organizations and the government of British Columbia have the means to do that with respect to procurement. By the way, the United States, for generations, has been stopping Canadian products going into the United States using all kinds of techniques like that. We believe in Buy B.C.

B.C. Hydro, by the way, already only takes 5 percent of procurement from U.S. markets, usually essential things they can’t get anywhere else. I think B.C. Hydro, B.C. Lotteries and the government of British Columbia should do what people do at the grocery store, and buy B.C. Part 2 does just that. I am surprised to hear the opposition say they don’t agree with that, because I’m telling you overwhelmingly…. They may.

They have every right. People have a chance to look at the bill and vote on it at the end and to vote on the parts. I encourage them to vote in favour of those parts. Taking actions and being able to take actions on this legislation, to ensure that the procurement done by the government of British Columbia, its agencies and health authorities can be done in a more effective way, is a good idea. Surely, in these times, we should expect ourselves to do so.

Part 3 of the bill deals with issues of possible tolls from people, essentially, going through British Columbia from one U.S. jurisdiction, usually Washington state, and another U.S. jurisdiction, Alaska. This is an option that British Columbia has and can consider taking, should it be required. I don’t think anybody in British Columbia wants it to be required. Some of the highways that people travel along to go from Washington state to Alaska were built by us together, Canadians and Americans together.

Nobody wants to do that, but having the means to do that, in an international battle over trade, makes sense to me. Having the ability to do that makes sense to me. We’re not saying we’ll do that, but having that discussed and passed in the Legislature, giving us the means to do that, as this legislation does, makes sense to me.

As members will know, I think one of the exceptional things that the Premier has done in this time is to work with British Columbians, those that agree with him on all kinds of things and those that don’t agree with him. Yes, there’s a part 4 of this bill, and yes, we’re amending that and taking out its effect. That’s what democracy does sometimes. We are not stuck on these points because, in my view anyway, bringing people together is important. That has happened on that part of the bill.

So we have part 1, “Interprovincial Trade Barriers.” By a show of hands, who disagrees with that? Part 2, procurement, buying B.C., exactly what we’re asking everyone to do. Who disagrees with that?

Interjection.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, of course. The member says the devil is in the details. But surely our Crown corporations, our health authorities, our government should be buying B.C. and making it easier for them to do so. Having a debate in this Legislature you’re going to have…. I’m telling you what side I’m on. I’m for buying B.C. I’m for part 2.

Interjection.

Hon. Adrian Dix: And we did.

On the issues of agriculture and other questions in terms of food, the record is pretty straightforward. I know Agriculture estimates are over. I’m sure the Minister of Agriculture would love to give you a briefing on the actions that the health authorities have done. This gives us the means to do those things, and these are real struggles.

[6:25 p.m.]

The member talks about health authorities. I was Minister of Health in March of 2020. We at that time had a continuing purchase of PPE from the United States. It was our main source of PPE, of many important types of PPE, including N95-S and other masks in the system. We went through a period when, naturally, health care workers were afraid. We had images around the world. Health care workers were afraid.

We, at that time, together, faced the situation. They were using PPE more, and the PPE that we had bought and purchased in the United States was stopped at the border by President Trump’s government. He was in his first term. One, I think, would suspect that it wouldn’t have been any different under President Biden, under the same circumstances.

So we took action. We had eight to ten days of PPE left, and we took action. We didn’t run out. We were under a provincial emergency. We had to do steps to ensure our health care workers were safe, and we did them.

This emergency is profound for our province; it’s not a small thing. Look at any forest community; it’s not a small thing. I know people represent and talk about forest communities all the time. These tariffs, these actions, these — in many cases, illegal — actions against our workers and our companies require a response.

With respect to aluminum producers, an important part of our provincial economy, we have some diversity of markets, but it profoundly affects us. It hurts the United States, of course. It hurts us, too, and it hurts us dramatically. The instability caused by the constant changes — the President says something today, then he says something else the next day, and he says something else the next day — is problematic for investment.

So we need to take steps, it seems to me, to support our national market — this bill does it; to support procurement in British Columbia and take action, where required, against U.S. procurement — this bill does it; and to have the means at our disposal to respond, if necessary, on issues of transport between, for example, Washington state, other states and Alaska. It seems reasonable, under the circumstances, to have those means to be able to respond.

We are in a fight. In this world, with this American President, and in these circumstances, we need to have the means at our disposal to do just that. I am proud of Canadians; I am proud of British Columbians — proud of how we’ve come together, people of different views; proud of how we’ve taken action; proud of how people have said: “We’re not going down there.”

You can see the evidence every day in cross-border transit between communities such as Surrey and Delta and the United States, which used to be regular. We have members from Surrey here. They know it, and I know it. The people have decided they aren’t going down as they did previously, because they understand we’re in a fight — not one we asked for, but one we’ve got.

I have always admired the United States. Our relationship with the United States has been seen in many times, in many ways. It’s a positive reflection on who we are as people, Americans and Canadians, that we get along on both sides of borders. There’s a library — I think it’s in Vermont and Quebec — which is on both sides of the border and which people shared for generations.

I am proud of that relationship, of those connections, of the work that we do together, but there is something that has fundamentally changed. We’re not going to stop admiring Americans, our neighbours and our friends. We’re not going to stop admiring them. But in this time, we have to stand up for ourselves and stand up for Canada. This bill does that in important ways.

We’ve responded to public concerns by making changes in the bill that have been tabled in the House today. I encourage all members of the House to reflect on that, to reflect on the need to take action in these areas, to reflect on having the means to respond in unprecedented times.

Could you have imagined that an American President would talk about wiping out the border between Canada and the United States? Could you have imagined it?

[6:30 p.m.]

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

I know people have different views on different politicians at different times. But you know, when 9/11 happened, we all know how Canada responded. In times of difficulty, whether it’s fires in our jurisdiction, where we welcomed American firefighters, or their jurisdiction in Los Angeles, where they welcomed Canadians, we have a lot to be proud of. I think it’s important in these times that we hear each other and we listen to each other and we work together as much as possible. I commend this bill to the opposition.

Some members of the House — not many, but some — were here when I was Minister of Health. I was proud of the work I did with Norm Letnick, Shirley Bond, Sonia Furstenau and Andrew Wilkinson. Circumstances change, but we acted in a public emergency, a declared public emergency, in a way that made our province stronger and better and sure saved a lot of lives.

It meant that our kids went back to school sooner than almost anywhere else in North America, including all those extremely conservative jurisdictions that are having their own reflections on COVID-19. Their kids were out of school a long, long time. We did that because people showed courage and stood up for each other.

In this time, I encourage all members of the House to support Bill 7, to reflect on the fact that the government has listened to some critics of the bill, but to also reflect on the needs in this time of coming together on these important principles, of taking action to ensure that our union, our country, has a market from coast to coast to coast that every business can reach, that our province and our country give priority to buying our products at a time when access to the American market is being denied, and that we have the means to take action, not that we will take action, to protect our country as part of a Team Canada effort.

I encourage everyone to support Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, and to continue to work together and come together in these moments to build a stronger province, in a stronger country, more united than ever, because we’re going to need it.

Kiel Giddens: Thank you for the opportunity to speak. It has been a long week for all of us already, but here we are.

Today has been a hard day, a stressful day for Canadians. It has been a hard time in general in this country. Economic uncertainty isn’t just felt in the boardrooms of companies on the TSX. It’s felt at the kitchen tables of families trying to make financial decisions about their future. Do they know if they’re going to have a job the next day? Should they purchase a home? Can they afford to put their kids in T-ball this time?

As legislators, it’s our duty to address this uncertainty and try to help British Columbians during a time of crisis. We’ve been debating Bill 7 today, and we just heard from the Minister of Energy. This is a bill that the government decided to drop right before we left back to our ridings on a couple of weeks of break. It was cynical to drop that bomb and think that was a way to avoid scrutiny of this bill, and what a bomb it was.

The Minister of Energy, in the course of the debate, talked about how he admired other Premiers across this country. He listed off all the Premiers that have been working on this same file as part of Team Canada. Well, I can tell you that no other Premiers are trying to bring in a bill like Bill 7. B.C. is not admired in this country right now. No one is trying to achieve this level of power grab.

We also heard from the Minister of Energy about energy sovereignty, and Team Canada as part of that. This is the same member that brought the Kinder surprise and tried to…. In the 2013 election, we heard from him that he was going to surprise everyone and oppose Kinder Morgan like that. We also have members opposite who said that they would use every tool in the toolbox to stop that pipeline.

[6:35 p.m.]

Well, that is about energy sovereignty for Canada, where we can export and diversify our markets. That’s not Team Canada.

As I said, we were in our ridings for two weeks, and if the members opposite here in the chamber were listening, they would have heard that it’s become clear to many that the NDP are failing to meet the moment in this tariff crisis. It’s a moment that threatens the livelihoods of many British Columbians. These families I spoke of earlier have been struggling right now.

But what have we seen from this government as part of this legislative session so far? What have we seen from this so-called man-of-action Premier in this province? Well, we’ve had a meaningless motion on tariffs that was useless. We’ve had basically no consequential legislation in the session so far to speak of, besides the carbon tax bill we had to debate until the wee hours of the morning this week. We’ve had a budget that had nothing to do with tariffs besides using them as an excuse to cancel the thousand-dollar grocery rebate the election promised to British Columbians.

Let’s not forget the throne speech. Remember that nothingburger speech full of World War II rhetoric? They didn’t outline any plan whatsoever for a legislative agenda, despite being in unprecedented times where British Columbians were looking for answers.

Yes, we are indeed in unprecedented times. Look, I’m a millennial. I’m used to unprecedented times. Every few years, we’ve seemed to have them in my adult life. We’ve had 9/11, we’ve had a global financial crisis, a global pandemic that the previous speaker spoke of at length, and now we’re at the start of a trade war.

In unprecedented times, British Columbians need and deserve a government that will meet the moment and stand up for them. Bill 7 just doesn’t cut it. After four months since the election, we finally had a legislative session. After four weeks of sitting, this bill was cynically introduced by the Premier and Attorney General before a two-week break and only after the Government House Leader introduced a motion to have the House extend sitting hours.

So how much more cynical can you get? How much more contempt for this Legislature can you show? We just saw more of that today as amendments were brought at the very last minute. We had the Premier actually get up as the first speaker to this bill, and he didn’t speak about the amendments whatsoever. That’s disrespect for this House and all of the members in this House.

I don’t mind showing up late. I don’t mind the extended sittings. I don’t mind that we were up till two in the morning the other night doing the people’s work. But now we’re on these extended sitting hours during this session. It was all about, all along, trying to ram Bill 7 down the throats of British Columbians. So did they think that they could really dampen the public discourse on this bill by introducing it before the break? Well, they clearly didn’t. Believe me, it was good that the opposition was watching, and certainly the public discourse only increased in momentum over that time.

The real story is that the government has failed to meet the moment on tariffs. It was out of desperation that the Premier actually introduced Bill 7. It was introduced as an enabling act disguised as tariff response legislation. But in reality, it was really, as an enabling act, an unprecedented power grab that would grant the Premier near unchecked power, control to rewrite laws without debate, oversight or opposition into 2027.

No other government in Canada has even remotely attempted what the Premier has tried to do. A government proud of its plan and its agenda should be able to defend it to the public. And instead, this draconian Bill 7 legislation has no clear plan or rationale, while trying to give the Premier unlimited power through the Henry VIII clause to amend any legislation or regulation at any level under provincial jurisdiction.

But don’t take my word for it, the dean of the legislative press gallery, Vaughn Palmer, said: “In 41 years of covering B.C. governments, I’ve not seen a legislation as arbitrary and far-reaching this side of the federal War Measures Act.“

[6:40 p.m.]

We can’t let the NDP Premier get away with unlimited power with no accountability. This isn’t the way we do democracy in Canada. It was ironic that the Premier believed we should fight against Trump’s tariffs by trying to be more like him. I guess he wanted to sign his own ridiculous executive orders, for the photo ops.

To quote Leonid Sirota and Mark Mancini from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute: “The government is trying to take for itself far-reaching powers that smack of the arbitrariness and authoritarianism that characterize the Trump administration. That administration is a threat to Canada, but in fighting that threat, we should not become that which we abhor.”

It was an insult to the work you do in that chair, Mr. Speaker: the work to oversee this important place where the people’s business gets done. It was an insult to each and every member of this entire chamber.

Thank goodness the opposition was watching and immediately called this out. Thank goodness the press gallery was watching and immediately called this out. And thank you to the many organizations that voiced their opposition, like the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, the ICBA, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the B.C. chamber and legal societies like the Canadian Constitution Foundation and Charter Advocates Canada.

I’d like to think that some of the backbench MLAs, seated opposite, played a role, quietly, to challenge the Premier on this bill. At least, I hope they did, for their constituents’ sake.

I’m sure some of the members opposite took particular note of comments from former NDP Attorney General and a former Premier, Ujjal Dosanjh: “This is a fundamental, brutal assault on our constitution, on our way of governing ourselves, and is not warranted by anything I can imagine.”

What an indictment of this Premier’s bill. Mr. Dosanjh would never do this; neither would John Horgan; neither would Christy Clark; neither would Gordon Campbell — certainly not Bill Bennett, Dave Barrett, W.A.C. Bennett or any other Premier.

Only this Premier would attempt something like this, because it’s how he operated all along, like his brutal power grab to gain control of the NDP in the first place, like how he manipulated cabinet rivals to make it seem like he had more support than he actually did. Autocratic tendencies are the default, rather than a feature, with this Premier.

Now we’ve collectively forced him to walk back on section 4, we hope; but he claims he will attempt to retool this and bring it back. So we’ll be watching for that, obviously, and we hope that these amendments do indeed come forward.

British Columbians do deserve better than that. They deserve better than a Premier who decided he needed a dictatorship to deal with tariffs. Really, we need to continue to move forward with actual debate for the people and doing the people’s business here in this House, as it should be.

The opposition stands on the side of British Columbians, and we will never let British Columbia be subjected to the Premier’s dictatorship. We will protect the rights of British Columbians, day in and day out.

In the meantime, we also have the remaining sections of this bill to discuss. Here in this, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, we do need to respond forcefully to tariffs. I’ve said it before in this House, but I will reiterate, because it’s important. I fully disagree with President Trump and believe he’s making a serious mistake with tariffs.

The last time a serious tariff war happened was legislation debated and passed, over 1929 and 1930 in the United States, which precipitated a major trade war. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act extended the Great Depression for years and was a complete and utter disaster.

Where are we at now? Today was another stressful day for many Canadians. The U.S. now has tariffs on our aluminum sector, impacting Rio Tinto in Kitimat.

[6:45 p.m.]

Canada’s auto sector is severely targeted. Now more tariffs were announced today, not just for Canada but for other countries impacted by President Trump’s terrible decision-making on this as well.

This is bad for British Columbians, but we’ve got to remember that this is also going to be making Americans poorer. We need to actually remind Americans of that. We need to be using our relationships with border states like Washington and all of the great Pacific partnerships that we have down the west coast and many states that we have relationships with. We need to remind them to really speak out and understand what tariffs are. Because I don’t think a lot of people actually know the mechanism of tariffs and how they will impact people.

I’ll point out that where I represent in Prince George–Mackenzie, northern B.C. is hurt to a greater extent by tariffs. We rely on an export-driven economy. And the U.S. market is still absolutely critical for our forest products. Pressures have existed already in that sector for years now, since we haven’t had a softwood agreement since 2015. The industry has had to manage countervailing duties, and now we’re adding another layer of uncertainty for the forest sector.

We should be showing leadership within Canada to get things done, and that’s what British Columbians expect us to do in this House. We should show leadership for our resource sectors, for our small businesses, and we should actually be focused on making life more affordable for British Columbian families. The public wants us to do that work for them.

The government’s bill — will it actually help forestry? Will it help exporters in this province? Will it help small businesses who will be struggling to make ends meet in this tariff war? But more importantly, will it help the hard-working families when there’s too much month at the end of their paycheques? Let’s look at some of the sections.

I’m going to speak to part 1 first about interprovincial trade barriers. This is legitimately…. It’s been spoken about in this debate already. This is legitimately the consequential part of this bill, and it should be the focus because as legislators we need to get this right. I’m fully in support of making it easier to trade within Canada. We’re a country that is bound by confederation, so why is it that trade and labour mobility is so complicated between provinces?

There was a federal-provincial-territorial committee on internal trade struck in 2017, and, as far as I can tell, the government hasn’t moved that file forward to any extent. Really, we could actually be leading at that table and dealing with a history of red tape and barriers that make it difficult to not only work in other jurisdictions for skilled workers in this province but also for the goods and services passed between borders. We could be doing much better, and that’s where some of that work could have been done in earnest.

While B.C.’s Premier tries to use tariffs as an excuse for an autocratic and ideological power grab with Bill 7, there are provinces in Canada who are actually leading on a better path forward. It’s already been spoken about in this debate, but Nova Scotia has committed to reducing internal trade and labour mobility barriers through dedicated internal trade legislation, not burying it in a poison bill. It’s actually using it as dedicated internal trade legislation.

I do think British Columbia should follow Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston’s lead on this. It’s showing leadership within Canada and we’re seeing other provinces now take that up. New Brunswick has. I know Ontario is working towards that as well.

British Columbia should be really leading on that spirit of reciprocity because that is really what Nova Scotia’s bill is based on. It’s a long-term solution as well. This shouldn’t just be for this crisis. This should actually make this internal trade barriers removal permanent in this country. I think that would be good for Canada as a whole. As I said, Nova Scotia’s bill is all about reciprocity and making that permanent. Let’s get that done.

[6:50 p.m.]

Nova Scotia’s Act is called An Act Respecting Free Trade and Mobility Within Canada. I quote, just so it’s in the record: “The purpose of the act is to remove all barriers to trade in goods, services and investment between the provinces and territories of Canada.”

Let’s make that the focus of this bill that we’re talking about. The NDP’s bill just doesn’t do that. For one, the trade provisions sunset with the bill in 2027. There’s a real problem with that. Why aren’t they making these provisions permanent?

Next, the NDP’s version is too subject to political manipulation by the NDP. I think there are things that could be really strengthened, but it’s very arbitrary in nature. I think Nova Scotia’s bill is much more transparent.

Lastly, the bill explicitly states that the Labour Mobility Act will be exempt. This to me, as the Labour critic for our caucus, also makes no sense. We need more health care workers. We need more tradespeople in B.C. So we’re completely missing the mark on this, and I think it can be done much better.

There is another option, obviously, for this entire portion of the bill. You’ll recall — it’s been spoken about in the debate so far — that the Leader of the Opposition introduced private members’ Bill M203, the Free Trade and Mobility Within Canada Act. That bill was modeled, of course, off of Nova Scotia’s bill. True Team Canada would be actually aligning with the other provinces that I’ve already mentioned, not the NDP’s performative approach while they implement a political and ideological agenda in this bill.

The government has some options here. They could scrap Bill 7 entirely and call the member for Nechako Lakes’s bill or, if the government prefers, replace the entire part on interprovincial trade with the language from the member for Nechako Lakes, the Leader of the Opposition — what he proposed. That would strengthen this bill — certainly, the language in it. It would make it transparent, and it would help British Columbians.

This is a part of the bill that we absolutely have to get right. We can’t afford to have political manipulation from a government that, we’ve seen, can’t help themselves.

We’ve seen them do that before on, for example, community benefits agreements on public construction projects, where they exclude a majority of contractors and their workers from public projects with political manipulation, excluding the vast majority of workers from these projects and thereby also making projects more expensive for taxpayers.

I’ll add that they’ve done that by forcing only American-headquartered unions on these public projects. In the course of this debate, there’s actually an interest there. So we have to get this part of the bill right.

There was a new C.D. Howe report released yesterday. It’s called Eyes on the Prize: A Game Plan to Speed Up Removal of Internal Trade Barriers in Canada. I want to just read a portion from this new report, because it’s brand new.

It says: “Removing all obstacles to trade between provinces and territories that might be susceptible to policy intervention could increase the Canadian GDP by up to $200 billion annually, a 7.9 percent boost. The impact would be far-reaching, helping on a range of downstream issues that Canadians care about, like housing affordability, health care worker shortages, supply chain resilience, real wage growth, consumer choice, productivity and industrial competitiveness.” Those are all goals that we should be focused on in this bill. That’s why it’s so important for us to get this part of the bill right.

There was a fair bit on part 2 that was referenced by the previous speaker as well. Just on part 2, I’m going to quote the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, who had, really, a near perfect critique of this part of the bill. I quote the CFIB: “Part 2 allows the cabinet to issue arbitrary procurement directives while shielding officials from liability. This has the potential for the province to repeat the mistakes it made with community benefits agreements, which increase costs and delays for public projects.” Again, what I just spoke of, and the business community is already saying the same things.

[6:55 p.m.]

This government can’t be trusted with an arbitrary procurement directive. We’ve seen how they’ve manipulated procurement to reward friends and insiders while taxpayers are actually hosed. Community benefits agreements have given us less projects for more money while shutting out, as I said, the vast majority of workers. We can’t let that be a feature of procurement in this province.

Now, I’ll move on and talk about part 3 of the bill, regarding tolls, fees and charges. Again, I’m very concerned with the government’s choices. I think this needs some work here. These are definitely choices that the government has made with this section. I’m hoping to see a little bit more in the amendments, but I think we need to really focus on this section.

Again, the government leaves a lot of room for political manipulation, with zero guardrails. They’re trying to target U.S. citizens and truckers with this tolls, fees and charges section. But in doing so, the government is creating some real problems.

First of all, there is nothing in here that will prevent tolls from being charged on British Columbians. I’m concerned about that. It’s very arbitrary. There need to be guardrails that are built into this.

Perhaps, even more alarming, though, Members…. I want to draw all of your attention to section 17 on the collection and disclosure of personal information. The critic for Attorney General talked about this at length as well. The government is wanting to create some sort of a Big Brother state with this. Very, very concerning.

It actually suggests that the government could conceivably collect information on every single licence plate, what highway they’re travelling on, store that information and use it in road pricing, tolls and who knows what else.

How is it that the individual who supposedly led the B.C. Civil Liberties Association is the one introducing really challenging legislation like that, a part of the bill that really is an affront to people’s personal information and their civil liberties?

Overarching for these various parts of the bill is really the continued arbitrary nature. They have continued that pattern throughout the bill, of kind of autocratic language that’s also included in part 4, that I’ve already mentioned off the top.

Really, summing up our parts 2 and 3 of the bill, let’s hear from the Business Council of B.C. on parts 2 and 3, and I quote: “These broad powers raise concerns about transparency, oversight and the potential for unintended financial impacts on businesses, workers and consumers.” So this is an important part of the bill, as well, and I’m not the only one saying this. This is the Business Council of B.C., representing the largest employers in the entire province.

We’ve also heard from the CFIB, who are representing small businesses. They represent the vast majority of workers in this province.

It’s critical that we get these sections right. I want to see that in this bill, and I’m not currently seeing it. We need to make sure that we are making sure it’s accountable. This is an economic war, not a physical one, and the government should be paying attention to the businesses that employ British Columbians when they craft their legislation.

But really, as we’ve seen, a lack of consultation is the norm with this government, as we recently discovered in the course of Bill 4 debate as well. The NDP failed to even consult businesses on consumer protection legislation. We had concerns, and we support consumer protection. I think it was important.

As the Finance critic put in a hoist motion, we wanted to have that consultation that wasn’t done properly, to go back to the business community, and the NDP voted against that. So we’ve seen time and time again that even when they attempt to consult, it has not been a straightforward or a good process.

British Columbians remember the Land Act last year. I can also remember successive labour code reviews where employers were actually not looked at. They had submissions, but we know that, despite the report actually saying that some of the government’s proposals would be negative to employers, the government chose to ignore all that. The consultation hasn’t been done well. It has been a sham.

[7:00 p.m.]

Here we are today with a tariff threat in front of us, and Bill 7 doesn’t meet the moment that British Columbians expect of the people’s House here in British Columbia. So let’s rescind this bill. Let’s get it right. I’m asking the members opposite to listen to their constituents. Push back on a power-hungry Premier. Let’s do our jobs as legislators and get this bill right.

I think this is an opportunity to strengthen our economy here at home by fixing internal trade once and for all. We can actually have this, not just internal trade to 2027. Let’s make this permanent in Canada with a true Team Canada approach, modelled off the great leadership that Tim Houston in Nova Scotia actually showed us. That Premier has shown leadership within Canada.

Let’s get our resource sectors working again. In my riding, in Prince George–Mackenzie, a very resource-focused jurisdiction, we’ve got forestry, mining, oil and gas — you name it — agriculture. These sectors were already struggling, and now they’re going to be struggling even more with tariffs. These are export-driven sectors. We need to get this bill right to support those sectors because they represent families who need us. Let’s make sure that workers have the opportunities for good-paying jobs to provide for their families.

We can’t do that if we don’t get this bill right, if we don’t get the competitiveness conditions in this province right. We’ve just seen today another two credit downgrades in this province. All of that is actually hurting the macroeconomic situation in this province, and we need to get these conditions right.

I stand with the rest of the opposition to oppose tariffs. We need to fight back. We need to be strong in voicing our opposition and retaliation but strategic in how we do it.

I also stand in opposition to the NDP’s approach to running this province. Having two credit rating downgrades today…. We’ve already had two others previous to that. That’s not leadership. That’s actually putting our economic future at risk, when most of our financial future is off to paying debt.

So, Mr. Speaker, in wrapping up, I’m standing opposed to Bill 7, and I thank you for the time today.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you very much, Member.

Bill 7 has certainly created all kinds of passion in this room. There’s no question about that. I do want to encourage members to, of course, keep their remarks respectful of each other.

I know that, also, there is a very wide berth of conversation around this bill, and while we’ll obviously allow some freedom, we would like to learn more, in this chair, about Bill 7 today. Thank you very much, Members.

Recognizing the Minister of Housing.

Hon. Ravi Kahlon: Thank you, hon. Chair. I fully respect the statement you’ve made. So I will refrain from replying to some comments that have been made, and, on your advice, focus on the bill in hand.

I support the bill. I support Bill 7. I think it’s an important tool to be able to respond to the challenges we’re dealing with. I do want to start with a very simple comment, which is that I’m a proud Canadian. I think there are a lot of proud Canadians in this room. I’ve been really moved by how people across British Columbia, across Canada, have responded to the threats that we’ve seen.

I did not have it in my bingo card that we’d be having a discussion about whether we’re a 51st state or whether we’re going to be a sovereign state. I don’t think anybody did. I mean, we heard some of the rhetoric during the election. I think, like most Canadians and British Columbians, it started off as, “Oh, he’s joking. It’s a bad joke,” to “Maybe they’re serious,” to “What the heck is going on?”

I hear that from people. I’ve been talking to a lot of people in my community who are really, really concerned. Really concerned. I would say that the relationship with the United States, for us, is fundamentally changed.

[7:05 p.m.]

Our love for the people in the United States remains strong. If there was a disaster in the U.S., we would be there in a heartbeat. That’s who we are as Canadians, and that is not about to change. I do believe that a lot of Americans would be here in a heartbeat to help us.

But the threats, the actions, the tariffs, put us really, I would say, in a position that we never imagined we would be in with our strongest allies. We heard a lot from the Trump administration about building walls, building a wall with Mexico. I never imagined that they’d be building an economic wall around their country and keeping the world out. That is not what I ever imagined for a country that was seen as the land of hope, the land of economic opportunity. It just goes to the challenge that we’re dealing with now.

We heard a lot of things through this debate when we’re talking about Bill 7 and how we respond. We heard first that it was about fentanyl, and then just recently, there was a hearing where the cabinet was presenting to the intelligence officials. In that, they were discussing the biggest threats from fentanyl.

Canada was not mentioned at all. In fact, they were asking these folks: “Why isn’t Canada on this report? The President continues to say it’s because of fentanyl.” The person said, flat out, that the threat from Canada was nothing like China and other countries.

Then we heard that this was just an awful trade agreement that’s ripping off Americans. Well, this agreement was signed by the President himself. And certainly, he said it was the greatest deal that was ever agreed upon at that time.

Then we’ve heard water. They want access to our water. They believe that you can somehow turn a tap on and turn a tap off that will provide enough water to California to deal with fires, which is false.

Then we heard critical minerals. They want their critical minerals. It’s important that they have critical minerals.

I did joke yesterday, because sometimes in challenging times, a little bit of humor is all you need…. I did say to someone yesterday that I wish I had downloaded Signal so that maybe the U.S. officials would secretly add me to a group so I can get a sense of what they’re actually trying to do. But I don’t think my luck is good enough to be able to get into that type of thing.

When we discuss Bill 7, the discussion is in that context. We’re in a unique place in our history as Canadians, and we need to have all the tools available to respond. We’ve gone through each of the items, and I’ve heard from colleagues across the way. I hear from folks across the way that they don’t support section 4. That’s fine. No problem. As the Attorney General said, that section will be coming out so we can have further discussion on it.

But I really haven’t heard a clear reason why sections 1, 2 and 3 are not being supported. Yeah, I’ve heard Vaughn Palmer’s article being read back to us many, many times. It’s great that Vaughn Palmer has that opinion. But it’s important to hear the opinions of the members of this House. What are the opinions of members of this House?

Section 1, for example, talks about trade barriers. I’ve heard a mix of opinions. I’ve heard from people saying: “Yes, this should be part of the bill.” I’ve heard some people say: “No, it shouldn’t be. It should be something else.” And that’s great. That’s a good discussion to have.

The trade barriers piece is a very important piece, because we’ve heard from British Columbians, we’ve heard from Canadians, that this is the time to reduce barriers like we have never done in the history of our country.

I was Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery through the pandemic. I was on the trade file. I met with ministers that had similar portfolios from across the country to have this conversation around removing trade barriers. Consistently, it was us, Alberta and Saskatchewan agreeing on removing a lot of barriers. It was consistently Quebec and Ontario saying: “We’re not interested.”

This was not in one meeting, this was one FPT meeting after another. A lot of frustration by our Alberta colleague, by myself, by my Saskatchewan colleague. At some point, we were like: “Why don’t we just do this from the three provinces alone, get Manitoba involved?” Then finally, we’d make progress, and then somebody from Manitoba would say: “Well, we don’t want this.” Then somebody from Alberta would say: “We don’t want this.”

[7:10 p.m.]

So we’re in a unique time now where people understand that it’s going to be a bit of give-and-take, but we have to find ways to reduce barriers. This bill allows us to be able to move quickly.

The Minister of Energy highlighted the challenges with the bill that Nova Scotia brought forward. I think discussing with folks from industry…. I’ve met with folks from industry, from labour, from First Nations communities. They understand. They understand why this is here. They support this portion of it.

The second piece is procurement. Again, the Minister of Energy made, I think, very eloquent remarks about procurement. I do want to highlight the comment that he made around how people are responding. I, too, have seen this. I, too, have seen people lining up at grocery stores and looking for the Canadian items.

I was at Costco during the spring break with my family. Going to Costco, you know…. Being elected officials is an interesting experience because everybody wants to talk, and you don’t really get through Costco very quickly. So I was walking through, and, of course, people want to talk. They want to talk about these items. But the thing that struck me most was the amount of people that were picking up items and that were looking on the back to scroll to see where it was made.

That gave me a lot of pride, because it’s not easy sometimes to try to navigate the system to figure out what’s Canadian, what’s not made here. But people are doing that. We’re seeing that in the grocery stores.

I shared that I was just at this grocery store here, marketplace, and was going to buy some vegetables. The clerk…. I said: “Well, where’s the B.C. stuff?” They said: “We can’t stock it fast enough.” It is moving. They’re, in fact, moving their shelves to be able to create more space so they can bring more product in.

When we’re talking about responding to tariffs, why wouldn’t we want to have the ability as a government to be able to use procurement to purchase things locally, to purchase Canadian items, to be able to respond like Canadians are responding? They are taking…. They are sometimes purchasing things that are more expensive. They are sometimes going through and spending a lot of time making sure every item is Canadian. That is what people expect from us.

Members say that they’ve been hearing from constituents. People in my community are telling me that this is important, that we, as British Columbians and the government, should be trying to procure British Columbian items, Canadian items, because that’s what they’re doing.

If members in this place suggest that they’re not hearing that from people in their community, I’d be shocked. I’d be shocked to hear that. But of course, I do understand. I guess, not everybody is as passionate as I am, as many of us in this room are.

The third item is the item around goods moving from, say, Washington state to Oregon. This is an important tool for us to have. And it doesn’t mean when the legislation passes, it automatically kicks in. Surely, the members in this building know that. I’ve heard many comments from people saying: “When this happens, this will happen.” It doesn’t mean the moment the bill passes; it gives us the tool to be able to do that. It’s a measure to be able to put pressure on Alaska to make sure that they’re speaking up, and it’s working.

Just these last few days, a senator from Alaska has brought forward a bill saying something profound and simple the same time: “Canada has the right to be a sovereign nation. They’re strong partners, and we respect them.” That wouldn’t have happened if this bill wasn’t coming forward, if this discussion wasn’t happening.

I can tell you, from many family members that I have in the U.S.…. A lot of them weren’t paying attention to this. This was not on people’s radar. In order to do that, you have to put this thing on people’s radars. You have to get people’s attention.

I had family members, when President Trump first said that Canada should be the 51st state, they were teasing me. They were calling me and saying: “How’s the 51st state? How’s the 51st state?” They even thought it was a joke. They didn’t think it was real. Then, over time, they realized that maybe this isn’t a joke. They realized that this is getting too serious. It turned from that to: “We’re sorry. That’s not what we meant.”

When we see the Premier go on to major networks in the U.S., reminding Americans that we respect American people, that we love American people. We are willing to take our shirts off our back for our American friends. But we want to be respected. We deserve respect. We demand respect. The only way you can get their attention is by some form of agitation. This is a form of agitation.

[7:15 p.m.]

There are a lot of people in here, on both sides of the House, that have protested. Whether you think you’re protesting for good or bad, it doesn’t matter. People have protested in their own ways and understand that agitation is part of the protest. That is part of a democratic society. That is who we are, the ability for people to do that.

This gives us the ability to agitate. It gives us the ability to ensure that people in Alaska understand that we are intertwined together. We have to be connected together. I do want to thank the senator that brought this forward, and I do believe that motion is going to get passed, and it’s having an effect.

We need this ability, because I don’t know, from day to day, what the President is going to say. I don’t know, actually, from minute to minute. I’ve had days where I’ve heard three different things about what is going to get tariffed and what is not. How do you prepare for something like that? How do you respond to something like that? You respond by having the ability to respond.

If a decision is made yesterday and then a decision is made today and a different decision is made tomorrow, we will need to be able to respond as quickly as possible. That’s what this bill does. All those three items I mentioned give us the ability. In the end, this is about responding to a foreign threat. It’s clear in the bill. When I hear members talking about, “Well, that could happen, that could happen,” none of it is connected to a foreign threat, and that’s what the bill says.

Fundamentally, we need to be able to respond in a way that supports our businesses and supports working people. That is the fundamental core of what this legislation is. Can we support businesses and workers in a nimble way? It is vitally important.

I’ll share, and I shared earlier, that I was the Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation through the pandemic. That was a tough time. Believe it or not, I used to have a lot more hair. That was a stressful period in my life. When the Premier asked me to chair this committee to work with my colleagues, all of that trauma came back real quick. Seeing some of the business leaders that are on the Premier’s task force, we all looked at each other with the same look — like, here we go again.

The difference is that COVID was more predictable than President Trump. I’m going to say that again. COVID was more predictable than President Trump. COVID we understood because it was science. We understood how it was going to act. We were able to be nimble and respond as quick as we could.

But with President Trump, we’re not able to because we don’t know, day to day. His own team around him doesn’t seem to know, day to day. When we hear from the President saying one thing, and we hear something different from his officials, it makes it next to impossible to be able to respond in real time. That’s why the ability of having these supports is vitally important.

While we’re talking about directly responding, I think it’s important to talk about what we need to do to strengthen as well. Bill 7 gives us the ability to respond, but it’s also, I think, vitally important that we are able to respond from what we’re dealing with now and ensure that we’re coming out of this much stronger than we’ve ever been. There are going to be significant impacts, but we have huge opportunities in British Columbia.

I hear from people in my community all the time about anxiety that comes with all of this discussion around tariffs and people’s employment. We’re seeing it in the home-building space. We’re seeing it right now. New units are not selling. People are nervous.

We had the B.C. Real Estate Association here a couple weeks ago. All the folks that are selling real estate were saying that whenever they go to a buyer to talk about buying, they say: “I’m not sure about my employment. I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I want to see what happens with tariffs before I make a decision.”

It’s having an impact already in our economy. Some people say, well, the tariffs could have been 25 percent, 30 percent. The tariffs that we have now are already having an impact. The constant moving of the Dow is having impacts already, right now. I worry for people who have pensions, who are retiring. They’re seniors, and they’re seeing the statement, going: “What’s going to happen to my future?”

I have a 14-year-old son. Last year on his birthday, we got him $100 worth of penny stock credit because I wanted him to learn about how markets work and why they work that way and how decisions are made. I figured by giving him the tools to have that experience, he’ll learn more about the markets and the economy than I could ever teach him.

He came to me last week and said: “Dad, my stocks are down $30. What is going on with these tariffs?” I was chuckling with him because then I had to walk him through what tariffs mean. How does it impact workers? How does it impact the stock market? What stocks are going up? What stocks are going down?

[7:20 p.m.]

It shows you that this is hitting 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds to seniors. Everybody is starting to pay attention to this.

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Kahlon: Yeah, actually, we did talk about that. We did talk about that. I’d mentioned to him about gold and whatis happening, and we started talking about mining: how important mining is to British Columbia and why we need to continue to expand mining opportunities in British Columbia.

The member from Langley is laughing. I’m not sure why, but I’ll leave it. I’ve got some strong comments about the member from Langley, but I’ll save it for another time.

Mining is vitally important. I’m a huge proponent of mining. We had a chance to discuss mining. We had discussed gold. We talked about critical minerals, germanium. We talked about how what is needed for the green transition is in British Columbia. We have huge opportunities. We have to find ways to make sure we seize this opportunity to be able to create good-paying jobs in British Columbia and also help with making sure that we can provide the important services that are desperately needed in our communities.

Of course, housing is impacted by this as well. I’ve been meeting with leaders in the housing space. Lots of concerns around where our supplies come from, discussions about: how do we procure things locally? How do we maybe produce more things locally?

How do we find other partners that can bring supplies in? The market is shifting, and people want a more resilient partner. They are afraid, as well, because who knows? Another announcement could come, and that could have huge impacts on us going forward. I think that’s an important piece to highlight.

Also, I think, one piece that I do want to raise is food. It is vitally important that we become more resilient and make sure that we’re not depending on the U.S. as we go forward, to make sure we’re able to produce and process more food locally.

When I was the Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery, I had the honour, actually, of travelling on a trade mission to Europe. We stopped in five countries. The first country we stopped in was the Netherlands. The whole purpose of going to the Netherlands was to look at their agritechnology systems that they’d put in place, and how they grow and produce so much food, on a small footprint, with minimal water, with minimal chemicals.

We, in fact, signed an agreement with the Netherlands government and British Columbia universities to share knowledge. The amazing thing from that is that we also created a centre of innovation here, Agritech Innovation.

I’ve got now in my community a couple of companies that are seeing direct benefits from that trade mission, because now they have officials coming from the Netherlands, here to see what we’re doing. We’re sharing knowledge with them. We have to do a lot more of that, because we have to address the core challenges Bill 7 has highlighted. How do we ensure that we can continue to grow food?

The second trip was to the U.K. We went with Teck. Teck had just opened up a brand-new office to be able to expand their footprint in Europe, to make sure that they can capture the moment for investments. Teck held a round table with investors to talk about why mining in B.C. is so important, how the partners in Europe can benefit from the cleanest products that are produced in the world, which are here in British Columbia. We were able to tour a whole host of different companies.

This is how forward-thinking Teck was. This was years ago. This was four years ago, but they realized that we have to expand. We have to go into different markets. I was really proud to be able to be there when their office opened and to help celebrate that. That is going to be vitally important for us as we move forward.

Prime Minister Carney, on his first week, went to Europe. I think that was a good move. You know, as the Minister of Energy said, “I didn’t vote for Prime Minister Trudeau,” but I appreciate his work of the last few months. It’s a challenging time to be able to do that work, and I did appreciate Prime Minister Carney, on his first trip, going to the European Union, because we have huge opportunities to be able to expand our partnerships and our relationships.

[7:25 p.m.]

The third place we were able to go to was Germany. Again, this was something that’s connected to our resiliency and why we’re doing the work around Bill 7. The opportunity in Germany was around life sciences.

How do we ensure that when our partners, our friends down south, are now moving away from science…? They’ve got a new person that’s heading it that doesn’t believe in some basic science principles. How do we make sure that we capture that opportunity to make sure that this should be the home of life sciences?

We are already the fastest growing sector. Life sciences in B.C. is the fastest growing in the entire country. We have huge opportunities as we go forward.

The opportunity with procurement in this bill gives us the ability to be nimble, because we don’t know what’s going to happen in a couple of days. We don’t know what’s going to happen in a few weeks. But when we hear from some people in the business community in particular…. I met with many of the leaders of the business community, and I was able to share my opinion with them as well.

This is not our government; this is governments everywhere. We often hear from people who say that sometimes government can’t move fast. We need government to move fast. In times of crisis, we need government to be able to move fast. This bill is a tool for us to be able to move fast, to be nimble, to be able to respond.

The very same people that are opposing the ability for us to have this, I suspect many of them will be the ones who come to us and say later: “Why weren’t you nimble? Why are you so slow? Why aren’t you moving fast enough?” This is a direct experience that I’ve had through the pandemic.

This is not blame. When people are struggling, their business is struggling, they might lose their livelihood, of course they’re going to feel anxiety. I had to deal with that through the entire pandemic when certain businesses were being shut down, and we needed to get supports to that. We had to change programs. I know how long it took: far too long. It’s possible that for some businesses it was way too long. The ability to have this legislation is just vitally important.

I’ve just got a couple more things, and I know my time is running out. I’ll just say this. The greatest asset that we have in British Columbia is not our critical minerals, not our forestry, not our mining. They’re all important. I love them. They’re important, but the greatest asset we have is our people. And how we’ve seen Canadians respond, it gives me hope. It gives me so much hope.

Yes, it’s a stressful time. Yes, it’s a challenging time, but we will come out of this stronger. I believe it. We will come out of this stronger as British Columbians. We will come stronger out of this as Canadians.

The lesson, I think, for me in this is: we can never be in this situation again. We can never be left in a position where we’re depending on one country in any form. We have to be able to do the things that are needed independently.

President Bush said this quote, famously, and I think he kind of butchered it. I might butcher it myself, but he said: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I think this is a moment for us to be able to reflect on the things we’re doing to ensure that we are sustainable in the future, that we can grow food, that we are capturing the moment for critical minerals, that we’re supporting the most valuable asset we have, which is our people.

I’ve heard some comments from members. I get it; it’s politics. One side says: “The people don’t trust you.” The other side says: “The people trust you.” I’ve been here seven years. It’s been the same debate, so I get it. But people understand that our government is one that will have their backs when times get tough. Through the pandemic, through other crises, worst floods in the history, fires in the history, it’s never easy, but we’ve been there. And we will be there for people as we go through this as well.

I support this bill. I appreciate the AG saying that section 4 will be coming out and we’re going to have further conversations. But surely everybody in this place could support the bill’s 1, 2 and 3. I haven’t heard a real argument, other than quotes from other stakeholders. But I do look forward to hearing that, because if it can make the bill better, then that’s what the value of this debate is about.

With that, I want to thank members for refraining from heckling. Thank you. I’ll pass it to the next speaker.

[7:30 p.m.]

Rob Botterell: I’ll be the designated speaker. I’m grateful to rise to speak to second reading of Bill 7.

In a democracy, the Legislative Assembly plays a critical role. It’s our job to look at laws and confirm and find that balance and ensure that there’s openness, accountability, transparency, legislative oversight, appropriate advisory and that the provisions are as narrow as necessary to achieve the intended outcome.

All of us, all of the people who have the privilege of sitting in this chamber, do so with a mandate to represent their constituents, to be the voice for their communities and to uphold the values of something we all cherish: representative democracy. This is what we can see slipping away south of the 49th parallel, and we are determined, as I’m sure every member of this Legislature is, to uphold the democratic process that we find so important.

I want to thank all of my constituents and many others around the province who have reached out to our office over the past few weeks. We share your concerns about this bill, something that we’ve been clear and vocal about with this government. Through the process of deliberation, good faith and no surprises, we’ve pressed for and now see some of the critical changes that are necessary for this bill.

In the amendments that have been brought forward, we note that requests made in relation to the first part of the act will be published as soon as practicable. We note that there has been clarification around government procurement entity. We note that in relation to directives related to procurement, they must be published as soon as practicable. This legislation needs to be open and transparent, and these changes will make that much more the case.

The delegation provisions have been narrowed, which is also a critical step because these are important and extensive powers, and the ability to delegate should be narrow. We see that part 4 will be removed from the act and, certainly, we won’t be supporting this act at third reading unless that happens.

I know there have been a lot of concerns raised through the day around part 4. Part 4 is out, and we’ll be voting when the time comes, if the overall bill has our support at third reading, to make sure it stays out.

Something that we pressed for — two years is far too long. Through discussions and collaboration with this government, we’re happy to see that the sunset clause has been reduced to one year. What that means is that in a year’s time, we will have a further open legislative process to look at if any of this is still needed and, if so, how it will be structured. I appreciate the government’s willingness to consider the feedback and involvement of the Green caucus.

Although we’ve seen some important changes, there are still serious concerns remaining which we will press and want to see addressed, through proposed amendments and assurances that we can rely on, through committee deliberations.

British Columbians are feeling a great deal of uncertainty. The unpredictable and haphazard nature of the current United States administration has created a climate of fear and instability in this province and across Canada. The U.S. President has thrown around a flurry of potential tariffs on Canadian goods ranging from 10 percent to 100 percent or perhaps no tariffs at all. The goalposts keep changing.

[7:35 p.m.]

Today was a bit of a reprieve, but who knows what’ll happen within 24 or 48 hours. We recognize and accept the need to respond to these threats. But the government’s response should not come at the expense of democratic process, oversight, accountability and public engagement.

We’ve seen how fast government can move with legislation. We saw it with the carbon tax bill being dealt with in a day. So we know that British Columbians, when they want us operating with our elbows up to fight annexation, to respond to tariffs…. We can move quickly through the Legislature.

If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together. Fundamentally, the work that we do over the next week or two, or however long it takes to build that understanding and consensus around this legislation — or at least ensure that everybody can respect the outcome — requires us to take the time.

We’ve seen what happens when chaotic, quick decisions are made, where the homework hasn’t been completed. There’s been a bit of a chaotic approach to Team Canada. We saw Ontario Premier Ford threatening to cut off energy and then backing off. We’ve heard threats of tolls on trucks and the Alaska governor threatening to change cruise ship routes.

You know, the Alaska Highway was a joint project, with B.C. and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers building the road and B.C. providing the land base within the province to have that happen. That was a time when we worked together. That’s what we all need to do on this team.

Now is not the time to speak in haste. There’s already one world leader doing that and flip-flopping on an almost daily basis. We don’t fight Trump with Trumpism. As legislators, our words, every MLA’s words in this Legislature, count. We need to take the time to ensure that those words are heard and carefully considered.

Disinformation and misinformation are rampant. Distrust in government and institutions continues to grow. At a time when some governments are seeking to concentrate power in the hands of a few, while the people they claim to support struggle with meeting their basic needs, we need to show what the path should be, which is taking the time. We respect the prerogative of this government to introduce this legislation, but we also respect the fact that the Legislature must have the time and take the time, which will be in committee, presumably, to do the homework.

Now more than ever, the people across this province want to be comfortable and assured that their concerns are being listened to. Yes, we have a task force, but how representative is that task force? Who are those that are not on the task force? We have the ability, through this Legislature and through the feedback we’re all receiving from constituents, to do the homework that hasn’t been done.

Although part 4 has been stood down, the remaining components of this legislation still grant cabinet extraordinary powers without requiring the engagement of the Legislature, at least for a year, and without clear indications of legislative oversight. All 93 of us who have been elected to the Legislature are here to represent our communities. We have a role to play in ensuring that policies and decisions are made in the interests of all British Columbians.

[7:40 p.m.]

We all, I believe, recognize the need for urgency. We may differ on the way in which to respond in these urgent times, what the best mechanism is. But I don’t think there’s anybody in the Legislature who would disagree with me that there is a time, and the time is now, to do our homework on this legislation and ensure that we have the time to consider all the potential implications.

When regulation and regulation-making power is used to bypass the Legislature, the rationale must be justified. So we will be speaking more to specific changes and specific assurances that we will need to see for this legislation to achieve the values that I set out at the outset of my remarks.

This bill is enabling legislation. It gives cabinet the ability to make regulations in relation to reducing trade barriers, procurement of goods and implementing relevant tolls, fees or charges. Nobody would disagree that those are vitally important responses in a trade war environment. But they also need to be established in a way that they can have broad-based support and they can be successful.

We’re grateful, as I mentioned earlier, to see the removal of part 4. That really started to feel a lot like the War Measures Act. But it’s out, so that’s good news.

When we look at the limitations and some of the limitations on how and why cabinet can make regulations, we really need to make sure that they’re going to accomplish the intent. When we hear that DRIPA will be respected and environmental assessment will be properly handled, we need to be sure.

We remain cautious about unchecked executive power, and we expect the government to give these amendments, and others that we bring forward, full and fair consideration and, where it’s appropriate, to provide clear assurances through committee.

I’m just going to briefly go through the parts of the bill.

Interprovincial trade barriers — we support removing interprovincial trade barriers. We should be and we are, to some extent, working across Canada to develop the approach to reducing trade barriers. We will want to hear a lot more about the case for being able to unilaterally reduce trade barriers without reciprocity from other provinces.

When you look at reducing trade barriers, we really need to be able to oversee and deal with unintended consequences. We’ll be looking to this part of the bill for a variety of changes and assurances to make sure that it’s not overbroad, that the public are well advised and well informed about each step that’s taken and that the approach that’s taken is truly nuanced.

We have ICBC, health care, education, food security. We have various aspects of our internal economy and our internal economic relationships and the social supports that require protection. So we’re going to need to see that balance.

We know that the Legislature is able to deal with legislation quickly if need be, and so we will be looking to make sure that this regulation-making power around trade barriers is set up to be exercised in a prudent way with legislative oversight.

[7:45 p.m.]

In terms of procurement directives, the main aspect of this legislation is liability and indemnification provisions to support a buy-B.C. approach, procurement where contracts may be ended before their term in order to respond effectively to the trade threats.

One of the aspects of this legislation that we’ve pressed for, and we think that it can be refined, is in the area of delegation. Delegation of these broad powers should be to senior management, senior officials. That’s absolutely vital.

We also want to make sure that the laws of general application, the conflict-of-interest guidelines, other provincial legislation, privacy protections are all in place to put some boundaries around the exercise of these powers. We’ll want to know and understand a lot more about the retroactive clauses in this bill and to look at how they can be used in the very narrowest circumstances.

In terms of tolls, fees and charges, where will those tolls, fees and charges be used? How will data…? This act has potential for extensive collection, use and disclosure of personal information. What role could the Information and Privacy Commissioner provide in providing that independent oversight or independent review?

In terms of the general provisions, they are also very important. What is missing in the general provisions, and something that we’ll want to seek and get significant assurances on, is around the legislative oversight. We are in an era where division seems to be growing, and we all have an obligation in this Legislature to find a way to work together on this trade threat.

We can have our differences, but at the end of the day, we need to create the structures that enable legislative oversight, oversight of the use of this act, in a way that gives us all confidence that the powers in this act will be used responsibly and will be used in a manner that is timely but allows for full and careful deliberation.

There are many, many different ways in which this can be accomplished. I’ll illustrate, with a few examples, some of the work that we believe and some of the additional checks and balances that could be provided either in this legislation or beside this legislation.

We could have, god forbid, weekly meetings of the leaders of the parties to be briefed on what’s happening, to be actively given an opportunity to offer their thoughts on some of the next steps. We could see a special committee of the Legislature receiving reports on progress and being kept in the loop on how this is working. That’s a form of legislative oversight.

That doesn’t have to be a legislative committee that pre-approves the decisions or reviews the decisions of cabinet beforehand, but certainly, as we go through the next year, having a special committee of the Legislature able to actually understand the rationale for decisions that have been made, to be fully informed…. That will give all of the parties a great deal of confidence in this very important work.

Those are only two examples, but in committee, and in the discussions, we’ll certainly want to explore those two and perhaps others.

[7:50 p.m.]

We also want to ensure that the task force that is advising the government has the breadth of membership to ensure that the very best advice is provided from all the different sectors. We have a diverse economy. We have diverse interests. That’s the strength of this province, and to have the ability to tap into that will make the decisions under this act that much better.

We’re facing an extraordinary threat, and we must all rise to the occasion with an extraordinary response. But we need to make sure that Bill 7 does not miss the mark in both its strength and its tactics. As it stands now, without the amendments and without the committee deliberations, it doesn’t get there yet. But we’re prepared to work to see if we can get it there.

You know, a long time ago I led the group that did B.C.’s freedom-of-information legislation, working for then Attorney General Colin Gabelmann. We weren’t afraid to make amendments. We made 36 amendments to that legislation. That wasn’t a signal of weakness or failure; that was a signal that we listened and we built on the input we received.

All British Columbians have stepped up in response to this threat. British Columbians have cancelled trips to the United States. They’re buying in B.C. They’re doing everything they can, and they’re looking for us to do our part to be able to respond effectively and nimbly to the challenges that we know have already come and will continue to come.

To be part of Team Canada, we need the tools. There’s no disagreement from the Green caucus about the importance of putting the tools in place. It’s all about the how. It’s all about the checks and balances. We’ve rolled up our sleeves over the better part of three weeks and spent a lot of time to look at this legislation and identify the types of changes that are needed either through amendments or clear assurances.

While we may have our differences — we do have our differences — we need to ensure that the Conservative opposition has the ability to challenge and understand the provisions of this legislation and to participate in the legislative process as fully as time allows. To do that, we’re looking to this government to take the time to respect the Legislature, to spend the time needed in committee to actually work through this legislation together.

We’re looking to the Conservative opposition, respectfully, to respond to that opportunity in a constructive, pragmatic way so that we can show British Columbians how we can all work together to get this legislation to the point where it can pass through the House and the work that we need to do can be focused on south of the border on whatever Trump’s next move is.

At the outset of these remarks, I pointed out that openness, transparency, accountability, legislative oversight are absolutely fundamental to any piece of legislation. This legislation is no different, and it’s even more important given the ability we will be giving cabinet to be nimble to have those types of provisions in place in a manner that does not risk the future support for the legislation.

[7:55 p.m.]

So the time is now to take that time, take as much time as we need, to really dig into the legislation. We have a clear picture of the types of amendments and assurances we would need to see, and we’ll be bringing those forward very clearly. Then we’ll be in a position to decide whether or not we’re going to support this legislation at third reading.

As I come back to it, I just want to emphasize that the outcome of this work we do is vital to British Columbians. We need to approach it in a spirit of thoroughness, of taking the time and really looking at every provision in this legislation, not from the perspective of “How can we torpedo this legislation?” but from the perspective of: “What will it take?” What would it take to put the additional guardrails and safeguards in place so that we can all support using this legislation to deal with the threat south of the border that becomes more real every day?

I was the designated speaker, but I’ve learned how to talk really fast, so I just want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to offer the Green caucus’ remarks at this stage of the legislative process.

Trevor Halford: I want to thank the speakers that were before me from each side of the House. I think it’s a good, healthy debate — with disagreement, but that is why we are here.

This piece of legislation…. It’s going to be no surprise that I believe it is absolutely flawed. I’ve said before in this House that there’s a saying that says: “Never let a crisis go by without taking advantage of it.” I think the Premier has done exactly that.

I think one of the challenges and frustrations, and I’m just going to assume it was a part of poor planning, was the fact that we’ve got…. I wasn’t handed the amendments for this. The Premier gets up, and he speaks on Bill 7 at second reading, and we don’t even have the amendments in front. Again, we’re going to have an opportunity to canvass this in third reading, but it would have been better if we could actually have had the bill in its totality and been able to have that conversation now.

We’ve heard various speakers on the government side reference section 4 and how that will be coming out. It’s not out. It should be out, but it’s not out. It’s not out because of poor execution. To be honest, that’s a challenge for this House, and it’s also a waste of time. The government will say this is very important legislation that’s before us. I agree. But, then, do it properly.

Let’s do it in a way where we have legislation that’s in front of us that we can actually debate. But now we’re going to have seven amendments that we’re going to have to be going through. We could have actually had that right now. We could be talking about that right now.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

I guess there are rules and regulations where I can talk about that, and I will, but I just think if the government is going to say this is one of the most critical pieces of legislation that they’ve ever put through in the history of their government, get it right. Just get it right the first time. They talk about, you know, that they want to hear one of us get up and say that we support this bill. We’re not going to say we support this bill, because we don’t.

I’ll tell you who else doesn’t. The people that showed up in my colleague’s riding of Penticton-Summerland. Over 80 people showed up at their town hall. We had town halls in Abbotsford, in Chilliwack. I’ve got a town hall in White Rock on Friday. Not one person has stopped me at the grocery store or Costco, as was referenced before, or wherever I am on the soccer field, football field, Surrey Eagles game, and said: “You really need to get behind Bill 7. Bill 7 is vitally important.”

[8:00 p.m.]

I haven’t had one person except during these speeches here tell me that I should be voting for Bill 7. Not one. I haven’t had one email come in to my office saying that I should be supporting Bill 7. Not one phone call. Not one sticky note. That’s a challenge.

Interjection.

Trevor Halford: What’s that? Well, I’m sure you’re going to do it in your remarks coming up. And that’s a good thing.

Interjection.

Trevor Halford: Yeah. I like notes.

But not one person has come up and said: “You need to get up, and you need to champion this bill.” I believe in interprovincial trade. I think that’s vitally important. I think we’ve had bills before us that have actually called for that time and time again in this House. We just haven’t allowed them to progress.

I’ve also heard the remark too, and I agree with it — I really agree with it — that we should never, ever be in this position again. That’s 100 percent accurate. But why are we in this position? Why are we in this position where we are now having a government that has found religion when it comes to the resource sector? It’s new. Haven’t seen that for a while. It’s welcomed. Is it genuine? I don’t know. We’ll have to see.

I can tell you, whether it was the Trans Mountain expansion…. There wasn’t support for that. Whether it was Site C…. There wasn’t support for that. There is now, I guess.

Interjection.

Trevor Halford: We can debate that.

LNG — it’s another one. Previous government got that one to the one-yard line, albeit this government put it in. It’s a good thing.

Interjection.

Trevor Halford: Go ahead. They should. Also, though, if you’re going to do that, you’ve got to clap for the fact that you also gave the biggest tax cut in the history of this province to the energy sector, which…

Interjection.

Trevor Halford: No. But if you’re going to clap, you’ve got to clap for that, too, right?

I think part of the challenge here is that there’s a bit of hypocrisy. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, but let’s see if there’s consistency. Let’s see when we talk about pipelines, if there’s consistency, if there’s support for projects like PRGT, if there’s other support for other pipelines that may come in or get proposed. I think there should be.

We’ve always been for the resource sector in this province. I think one of the biggest things that we’ve got to do is that we’ve got to, and it’s a challenge to the Energy Minister, increase the energy literacy where I call home, and probably where the minister calls home too.

Because it’s important. It’s important to us, it’s important to our neighbours, and it’s also vitally important to our neighbours across the border. Very important. We need to make sure that we are educated on how important that is.

It’s funny because I actually — well, it’s not that funny — live on the border. My house actually backs up onto the United States, right at Peace Arch Park.

Interjection.

Trevor Halford: What’s that? Front line.

It’s great, because you’ve got the monument there. On there, I think it reads: “These gates shall never close.” We all have friends, we have families, that live in the United States. I don’t think our relationship should ever be defined by politicians. That’s important nuance here. Americans are our friends. They are. We should never be defined by individual people. I believe that. I really do believe that.

I also believe, though, that we need to make sure that we are protecting what is ours. We need to do better than we have in the past in order to do that. We have an abundance of resources here. Whether it’s energy, whether it’s agriculture, whether it’s forestry, mining, we should be proud of all of it. Never shameful of it. Very, very proud. That’s jobs.

[8:05 p.m.]

You know what one of the biggest job creators in the city of Surrey is? Forestry. Forestry is a huge, huge job creator in the city of Surrey. Surrey is where all I call home. Not enough people know that in Surrey. But we should be proud and a champion of the forestry sector in Surrey. I know that many of us are. But we need to make sure people understand how important that sector is to getting our roads built, to getting our soccer fields built, to the jobs. It’s vitally important. Absolutely is.

The energy sector — vitally important.

It’s also an education. I did my two-minute statement today on Moby Dick fish and chips. If you go down there and eat, you’re guaranteed that you will see the bitumen going across all the way down to Cherry Point.

People tend to get very upset, whether it’s Trans Mountain or other pipelines and things like that. I don’t think rail is always the safest way to go when it comes to transporting our goods, environmentally. Or God forbid there’s a derailment. I don’t think enough people realize when they see our goods going across and what that means for our economy.

But it also means there’s opportunity. If we can keep those here, whether it’s oil, whether it’s the forestry. We need to do better. We need to better prepare ourselves for that, because they’re right: we never ever should have been in this position. But we are, and here we are.

It’s a challenge. I fundamentally believe that it’s never the wrong time to do the right thing. Again, this government has talked about section 4 of the bill, and that’s coming out. I want to remind all members of this House…. Different politicians have been lauded. They’ve been criticized. They’ve been applauded, which I think, in some degree, is very well-deserved. No other jurisdiction in this country is calling for the types of powers that are before this House today. They’re not. Amendment or not, they’re not.

I believe that there is a commitment here from the 93 people that have the great responsibility of representing their constituencies, that we have a duty to come here and scrutinize legislation just like we’re doing today. That’s important, and I don’t think that that tool should ever be taken away.

It looks like there was a second thought and a pumping of the brakes for that. That’d be good if that was actually a part of the legislation that we’re talking about right now. But it’s not, because the amendments weren’t tabled properly, and we’re here, doing this now. I guess we’ll have a chance to canvas all that at third reading, again, when we go through each amendment. But it would have been way easier if this bill was actually presented in its totality. That did not happen.

We have to be very careful, too, when we’re justifying pieces of legislation. We do. We have to be very responsible. This is a very unsettling time for a number of people in terms of job losses, future growth, economic challenges. But we need to be responsible with what we say. I’m going to reference the throne speech where the Premier talked about making comparisons to world war. Then shortly after, he compared a house getting foreclosed on to a house being bombed. So two very different things.

[8:10 p.m.]

I actually don’t think the Premier probably meant what he said, but they’re two very, very different things. And we need to be very, very careful with how we use our words. Now we are in a trade war. There’s no doubt about that at all, but we need to be very, very responsible with how we say it.

It’s also a time where we’ve got to reflect and look at some of the things we’re doing. Maybe we can be doing them better. We talked about procurement and different things, and I’m sure the government is looking at all that right now in terms of where those are coming from.

That work is ongoing, but let’s look at even CBAs. We’ve got some very horrific examples of extreme cost overruns. Are those community benefits agreements putting Canadian workers, British Columbian workers, Canadian unions first? Not all the time. They’re not; they’re definitely not. I can imagine that nobody foresaw us being in the situation we are in today, but we’re here, and things can change. You know, you go on your phone, you go on X or whatever it is, and you get updated.

Things are changing hourly across the border. That’s a scary, scary situation for the people that are signing the front of a paycheque. I also think, though, that when we’re looking for some of these unchecked balances of power that this government has called for, we need to make sure that we’re going in a way where we’re in here and able to debate proper legislation.

I think that was one of the biggest challenges with section 4: this fear that government was doing an overreach, and still is, and actually taking away the fundamental right to come in here, debate legislation and hold this government to account and be transparent.

We’ve had situation after situation, and we’re now finding out that we’re looking at a $14 billion deficit and credit downgrades. We were on track to do this well before President Trump was sworn in. We’ve had a government that has told us that the budget measures that they put in are solely based on responses to tariffs. That’s not accurate. Those are based on numbers prior to September 30, 2024. That’s what that budget is based on. The U.S. election hadn’t even started yet.

You know, we have to really evaluate where we are. I know that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing quoted Vaughn Palmer and said that I wasn’t dismissive…. But Mr. Palmer is somebody that has been in this institution for a long time. His quote was: “In 41 years of covering B.C. governments, I have not seen legislation as arbitrary and far-reaching this side of the federal War Measures Act.” That’s a pretty damning quote. I think it’s one that we’ve got to take stock in.

Also, we are here. You look at some of the other organizations that are coming out and speaking out against Bill 7. We’ve had the Vancouver Board of Trade, the CFIB, the ICBA, the B.C. chamber and numerous other organizations that have come out and said: “This is too far. This is not helpful.” I think that that’s part of the challenge that we’re grappling with.

[8:15 p.m.]

We’ve also had even a former NDP Premier come out and say that this is absolutely unnecessary: “It’s a power grab. It shouldn’t happen. It’s an abuse of power.” I think that’s a pretty sobering comment.

We have to figure out exactly what it is this government is trying to accomplish through this. Now, we’ve been very clear in our support for interprovincial trade. It’s important. Cutting red tape is important. It’s very important now. It was just as important before this president was sworn in.

It’s about opening up our own borders nationally and making sure that we can sell our B.C. goods, we can recruit workers, and we can open up our trade. We can support our spirit industry; our wine industry; our workers, who can move freely; our forestry industry.

I will not be supporting this bill. I think that’s fairly obvious from my comments, But I do look forward to actually seeing this bill in its entirety. I’m disappointed that didn’t happen. But I do look forward to the comments from the other speakers.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: It’s 8:15, and we are still going strong here.

What an honour to be able to rise in this House and be able to speak to Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act. Where to start? It’s been a long week. We’ve had a couple of long nights.

My dad is in India right now, and last night I stayed up a little bit longer just to be able to do a video call with him. He goes back to India almost every year. He comes from a very small, old, rural village. I always joke that when he goes back, he lives as if it was the 1950s. No TV, no air conditioning. This was his first trip that he got a cell phone. That was at the request of my mom, who wanted to know that he was okay, and he was able to FaceTime us.

The reason I mention that is that last night, I was reminded of the history of my family. My dad, again, comes from an old, rural village in India. At some point in his life, he made the decision to come here to Canada. But before that, he, like so many others, faced so many challenges.

My dad lost his dad, my grandpa, when he was a toddler. He was raised by a single mom, my grandmother. Six kids, all on her own — I just can’t imagine that — again, in an old farming village in the Punjab. The house that he goes back to and stays at looks exactly the same as it did when he grew up there as a kid.

But he made the choice, like so many other immigrants do, in wanting to build a better life for himself, build a better life for his family. He made the trip from India in the early ‘90s. My grandmother came along, and for the last 30-plus years, they have been proud Canadians. I wasn’t old enough to remember when they got their Canadian citizenship. My mom’s going for her citizenship this year, so I’m really looking forward to that. She’s been a permanent resident for 30 years, so I told her: “Mom, it’s time to get your citizenship so you can vote for me.”

When I think of this legislation, it really provides me an opportunity to go back and look at the history of my family. I think this whole experience with Donald Trump, tariffs, the threats to annex Canada, has reminded us all how proud we are to be Canadians, how proud we are to be British Columbians. I am so damn thankful that my parents made the decision to immigrate to Canada. I am so thankful they made the decision to call Langford their home.

[8:20 p.m.]

Whether it’s in this house as an MLA and as a minister…. I think of the forestry worker in Salmon Arm. I think of the miner up in the Kootenays. I think of the grocery store worker in Surrey. The list could go on and on. We all will fight each and every day — fight for Canada, fight for our future. And we will not let a menace, a President, put an end to Canada.

The answer is simple. We will never, and I mean never, be the 51st state. President Trump’s tariffs have impacted us all. I think of the auto sector, specifically in Ontario, that I think is reeling from the news today, the devastating impacts that that province is having.

I’m proud to be in this House. I’m proud to be able to stand up as the MLA for Langford-Highlands, as the Minister of Forests, and be able to speak to this legislation. Like I said in my budget speech a few weeks ago, I think in the times that we live in, we’ve got a couple of options. We can stand strong and stand up for British Columbians, or we can roll over. We’ve got two options: stand up for British Columbians or roll over.

Now, I’m proud to be able to stand in this House and speak to this important legislation. I think it’s a privilege to be able to rise in this House and speak to any type of legislation but in particular this one, as today has been a long day. It’s been a confusing day in many ways, not knowing exactly if the tariffs impact us.

I think if today is one thing, it’s a day that woke up the entire world. It’s not just Canada and Mexico anymore. It’s everyone. As the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs mentioned in the media, today the President built a wall around himself, and the entire world is now impacted by this.

I would have expected all members of this House to use this opportunity to come in here to talk about how they’re standing strong for Canadians and for British Columbians. But as I was sitting in my office not too long ago watching CHEK News, I had an opportunity to catch a bit of the speech from my colleague, the Minister of Energy. It was great. Ten out of ten, Minister.

But I flipped over to watch CHEK News for a little bit, and I was surprised to hear the Leader of the Opposition say this: “When I look at the announcement that Trump made in exempting Canada from the 10 percent tariff, I wonder why we’re in the Legislature today debating Bill 7.” He goes on later to say: “What is the purpose of doing that when we are not facing these tariffs?”

Interjection.

Hon. Ravi Parmar: Wow, indeed.

I don’t even know how you respond to that. I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been on social media. My phone just died, so let me know if there’s a post on Truth Social. But on this side of the House, the reason we bring forward legislation like this is we want to be ready. We want to stand strong for British Columbians. We don’t want to roll over like the members on the other side would if they sat on this side of the House.

So we will use every opportunity we have as the government of British Columbia, as MLAs on this side of the House, to stand up for British Columbians. That is what Bill 7 does. It gives us those tools.

The member opposite that spoke before me, Surrey–White Rock, talked about forestry. I agree with a lot of the things he said. I’m the Minister of Forests, but I’m also an MLA from southern Vancouver Island. Sometimes my constituents don’t have the same perspectives on forestry as maybe people from Prince George and elsewhere. But I love that I have this role to be able to bridge that divide and be able to talk about forestry in my community.

Langford used to be a forestry town. There used to be mills in Langford. People may not realize that. I think of Sooke, when I represented Sooke. The MLA for Juan de Fuca–Malahat, who actually comes from forestry himself, has the opportunity to talk about that.

[8:25 p.m.]

But we know that forestry is unique in this entire debacle. I talked about that earlier today. There are already duties that exist on our softwood lumber. Our softwood lumber agreement expired in 2015. Back then, when there were negotiations, the Premier at the time, Christy Clark, made the strategic decision to not negotiate with Barack Obama and instead negotiate with Donald Trump. That was the decision of the time.

We have, for some time — but I’m going to talk about my time — been standing up for the forest sector, in particular doing our best to make sure that the federal government knows that they need to make getting a softwood lumber agreement a top priority.

It’s why on my first official day as Minister of Forests, the first letter I sent was to the federal government asking them to use every tool in their toolbox to be able to get to the table to work with the U.S. Commerce Secretary, to work with the President’s administration, and that was Biden’s administration back then, to be able to see if we can make something happen. Within weeks of sending that letter, I was sitting across from Mary Ng and Jonathan Wilkinson having that conversation.

Weeks later, I appointed a softwood lumber advisory council. Past practice has been that the minister usually appoints a representative to be able to support him in discussions, but I wanted to have, at this stage of this challenge, a number of people around the table. I’ve got the likes of Dallas Smith, chief councillor of the Na̲nwak̲olas First Nations, a force to be reckoned with, a guy that spends a lot of time in Ottawa. I wanted him on my side fighting this good fight.

I’ve got a guy like Rick Doman, who used to be the CEO of Doman Forest Products. His dad, Herb Doman — many members of the House may know him; I didn’t get a chance to meet him — was a pioneer of the forest sector here in British Columbia. Doman Forest Products then became Western Forest Products. So glad that Rick, who doesn’t live in British Columbia right now but is so damn proud of this province, wanted to step up and serve British Columbians as well.

I’ve got Ric Slaco, who is a former executive with Interfor. I’ve got workers represented on the council. I’ve got the United Steelworkers, Scott Lunny, Gavin McGarrigle, Geoff Dawe from PPWC, so many people who wanted to represent their workers, their industry, this sector, represent British Columbia.

We have had so many incredible conversations these past number of weeks. We have talked about the work that we need to do to diversify. We’ve talked about the work that we need to do to continue to make the case to the Americans — and in particular to their President, but make the case to the Americans so they can make the case to their President — that they need our trees. Now, the President doesn’t seem to believe that, but he’s dead wrong.

We send billions of board feet of lumber from Canada, from British Columbia, to the United States. Fruitvale. I was talking to the member from the Kootenays, whose riding name has escaped me at the moment. I was talking to one of the operators of a mill in his community with him just a couple of weeks ago.

We are very reliant on the United States in forestry as a partner, as a customer of our products. It is so important that we continue our advocacy. It is why, within weeks of becoming Minister of Forests, I was down in California. I was down in California for a couple of reasons. First of all, when we had wildfires here in British Columbia — again, British Columbians know all too well the devastating impacts of wildfires — California, Cal Fire — they were there for us.

When Cal Fire was going through the devastating impacts of wildfires in southern California, in the city of Los Angeles — everyone remembers seeing the pictures and the videos, devastating scenes of this interface wildfire — they called B.C. Wildfire directly, because of the strong working relationship between B.C. Wildfire Service and Cal Fire.

When I got down there, I didn’t feel like I was talking to another organization from a different country. I felt like I was talking to friends. I think I was talking to partners, family. They understand what we went through. We understand what they went through. The chief there, Joe Tyler, said to me: “Whatever you need, Minister. If you guys have a rough season, just give us a call. We’ll be there.”

[8:30 p.m.]

We provided them so much support, and what was really unique…. We provided them an incident management team. We provided them the support of wildfire attackers, almost 40 people that went from across British Columbia down south.

What differed between B.C. Wildfire Service and other agencies from across the country, here in Canada and around the world — because the entire world showed up in California to help the Americans — was that the B.C. Wildfire Service was so interconnected. The relationships were already there and instead of being briefed and going through orientations, they were on the ground helping fight fires within minutes of arriving.

As the minister responsible for the B.C. Wildfire Service, that made me really proud of the relationship that already exists and the fact that I get a chance now to be able to strengthen that relationship, to be able to learn from the people of California.

The member across the way, in his speech, talked about how Americans are our friends, and we cannot judge one country based off of one individual. He’s absolutely right. We’ve got friends, we’ve got family down south, many of whom have written to us and talked about how devastated they have felt by the impacts of their president. Not just Democrats. Republicans as well.

When I was down in California, in Sacramento, I would always start the conversation with a little bit of a chuckle by saying: “We love California. We love your wine. We love the atmosphere.” Lots of different things. “We may not like your hockey teams, but we love California. We love you, but we have no interest in becoming the 51st state.”

I would always start that conversation off with a joke, and there would be a little bit of a chuckle, and then there would be the awkward silence after that chuckle. That awkward chuckle and then silence was because those folks were embarrassed. They were really embarrassed by the President. I remember meeting with the state senator and her just continuously apologizing, saying: “I’m really sorry. I’m really, really sorry for how the President is treating you.”

On softwood lumber and on forestry as a whole, whether it’s Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, or all the other initiatives that we are doing, whether launching a review of B.C. Timber Sales…. The steps we are taking to create certainty and predictability in fibre supply, the work that we are doing in community by community developing forest landscape planning tables, speeding up permitting and wildfire salvage permits…. The list goes on and on.

We’re standing strong for our forest sector. We have to do that now more than ever. Our forest sector has never been at a larger threat than the challenges it faces today.

Bill 7, this legislation, really does provide us an opportunity to be able to dive into, I would say, three key pieces of the legislation that have been talked about for some time — one in particular most recently, but the other two for quite some time.

The first part of the legislation talks about interprovincial trade barriers. This was a file that I had when I worked for the Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation during the pandemic. He talked a bit about this in his speech, that the pandemic was quite a time for all of us.

I often think about the work that the former Minister of Health did alongside Dr. Bonnie Henry in terms of protecting British Columbians, and that was tough work.

Little did I know that the work that I got a chance to participate in was not shutting down the economy, but opening it back up. And, boy, that was tough work. But it was an opportunity for us to be able to work with the entire business sector, with the communities all across the province to be able to do this important work. And we faced challenges, but we did it by working together.

One of the files that I had an opportunity to be able to work on was interprovincial trade. A lot of the conversations back then during the pandemic around interprovincial trade were marked by a very strong working relationship between my predecessor, former Premier John Horgan, and the former Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney. No one would have expected those two to get along, but they did.

I often remember the story of John telling me that…. I think he was still Premier, if I’m not mistaken. It was just in the last number of weeks since when he retired that Jason, former Premier Kenney, was coming to town and actually reached out and said: “Hey, do you want to grab a coffee? You may not want to be seen with me.” And John said: “No, man, come to the Legislature. I’d love to have you.”

[8:35 p.m.]

That relationship led to some really good work that happened amongst ministers responsible for trade, and as the Minister for Housing and Municipal Affairs talked about, made some really good progress at those tables over the course of the pandemic.

But it stalled. We didn’t get it across the finish line. But here is an opportunity for us to get this complicated file across the finish line, to be able to do the work that we need to do here in British Columbia to ensure that we are getting our goods all across this country.

There aren’t a lot of interprovincial barriers for forest products that exist today. I’m sure glad about that. But here is an opportunity, as we’re talking about interprovincial trade barriers, for me to be able to go to provinces like Manitoba that are seeing a lot of building happening right now — housing, schools, tons of infrastructure — and to say: “Do you know where the best mass timber is in the world? British Columbia.”

From the Kootenays. All across British Columbia. From Okanagan Falls. From Abbotsford. B.C. wood. Made-in-B.C. wood products, supporting housing construction, supporting our schools, our hospitals, our long-term care facilities all across Canada.

That’s the work of this legislation: eliminating the red tape, eliminating interprovincial trade barriers. This is incredible work. This is generational work. And I don’t know why anyone would be voting against that. I’m having a hard time understanding that. But that’s okay. We’ll move on. That’s the first part of the legislation.

The second part: procurement directives. Buying B.C. I’ve gone to my local grocery stores. I live by the Market on Millstream that has a lot of B.C. products. How incredible has it been to be able to go into stores and see people picking up something off a shelf, flipping it around and looking for the fine print, looking for a flag, and if they see an American flag on it, putting it back and looking for a B.C. product. Now, we can’t do that always, but it has been incredible to see British Columbians buying local.

My mom…. I love my mom. I can’t say my name, but she’s like: “Son, I go into the store, and I got a rhythm every couple of weeks. I know where exactly I want to go.” She never takes anyone with her. Even as a kid, she would never take us with her, because we’d be throwing random stuff at the door. But she goes aisle by aisle, and it’s programmed in her mind. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to Walmart.

If I go to Costco, I take her with me, because she has an ability to be able to make her way through Costco. Costco brings a lot of anxiety to me. I’m more anxious in Costco in Langford than I am in this place. But she has the ability to go in, and she told me that she’s never looked at products. She just knows what she needs to get.

And so she’s really nervous about this. She was just telling me this last week — because I’ve been out on travels, and I haven’t had a chance to see her much — that she knows exactly where to look. She loves the little Buy B.C. logo. She knows exactly what to do. And she even has the courage to ask some of the staff there at the stores: “Do you have any B.C.-based products of this item or that item?” And it’s just incredible.

If my mom can do that, all British Columbians can do that. And they have been, all across the province. I was in Salmon Arm, and I just happened to stop by a grocery store. I could see Canadian items on different products, the flags, the different graphics on there. British Columbians and Canadians don’t need us to tell them to buy local. They are buying local.

But what can we do as a government to step up, to redouble our efforts? Ensure that with every dollar we spend as a government — our crown agencies, our school districts, our hospital authorities, you name it — this massive operation that is the government of British Columbia, that we use our ability, our ability as a government, to be able to support and buy local.

I think of, again, forestry, the ability to ensure that when we are building modular expansions at school sites across the province, that we’re supporting operations like Kalesnikoff in the Kootenays, like Structurlam in OK Falls.

[8:40 p.m.]

I think of the opportunity for us to be able to support plywood operators like Richmond Ply in Richmond, which has made significant investments and have the opportunity to be able to support this entire province and country with plywood.

I toured my first plywood as minister a couple of weeks ago in Salmon Arm. I had an opportunity to go to Canoe Forest Products. Wow, was it an incredible experience. To know that that mill helped support the construction of 11,000 houses every year, predominantly across Canada, is incredible. I think that this legislation gives us the tools to ensure that we’re buying local, that we’re buying British Columbia, that we’re buying Canada.

The third part of the legislation, “Tolls, Fees and Charges,” speaks for itself. This gives us the tools to ensure that when a bully comes to the table, we don’t fight with one hand tied behind our back. It gives us the tools to be able to do that.

Now, we are going to have an opportunity, over the course of the next number of days, to continue debating this legislation. I look forward to hearing, whenever I have been given the opportunity, the members across the way speak about the importance of this legislation, whether they are voting for it or against it, and how they are standing strong for British Columbians and Canadians.

I hope they will understand why there are some concerns from the members on this side of the House, on whether they are truly standing up for British Columbians and Canadians. There is some genuine concern.

One of the members across the way, the member for Salmon Arm–Shuswap, in a now-deleted Facebook post on March 30 of 2025 — not 2024, not previous years; this year, just a couple of days ago — shared and promoted a graphic which depicts western Canada, including the majority of British Columbia, as “the Republic of Western Canada.” The graphic describes the western provinces as “the protectorate of the United States.”

Now, it’s just a graphic, but there are words to go with that graphic. The member for Salmon Arm–Shuswap said: “Confederation has not been fair to western provinces. Something needs to change.”

“Something needs to change” — what is that? What is it that the member is talking about? Is he talking about the President of the United States attacking our country, talking about annexing Canada and making Canada the 51st state? I hope the member across the way will take his place in this House, stand up and correct the record.

The Leader of the Opposition had an opportunity to condemn the member for Salmon Arm–Shuswap. The Leader of the Opposition said, when a reporter asked him the question, “I don’t really have a comment for that.”

The reporter followed up and said, “But, Leader of the Opposition, did the MLA not correctly read the room, considering the quasi-endorsement of Western separatism?”

What did the Leader of the Opposition have to say? I quote: “You’ll have to ask him about that.”

Now, I hope the member for Salmon Arm–Shuswap not only stands in this House, but goes and parks himself outside these chambers, in front of all those cameras, in front of all those hard-working reporters, and answers some questions. Whose side is he really on? Is he going to stand strong for British Columbians and Canadians? Is he going to stand up for British Columbians and Canadians, or is he going to roll over?

The Leader of the Opposition has an opportunity. The Premier did something that most Premiers don’t do, and that is to be the first speaker to this bill, to speak to Bill 7. Will the Leader of the Opposition stand up in this House and speak about Bill 7? Will he speak about what his plans are for standing up for British Columbians?

Who knows? We’ll leave it to the Leader of the Opposition. He’s got some time to figure it out. but I will say one thing: British Columbians and Canadians are united like they’ve never been before.

You see that out on the front steps of this Legislature, where people come here from all across the province, all across the world, and take pictures with that beautiful flag that is attached to this building. I see that on my lunch breaks when I walk out there. People are taking selfies.

There’s a sense of pride in our country. I think back just weeks ago, being in this Legislature, watching Canada win against the United States. Now, I’m a hockey fan, but that win meant so much more this time around.

[8:45 p.m.]

Members, we have an opportunity. Canadians, British Columbians have given us an opportunity as MLAs. They elect us in elections. Now this wasn’t a top issue during the election. This didn’t come up, because we didn’t have President Trump then. But it doesn’t matter. This is the issue of our time. This is the issue that British Columbians are talking about in every community that I visited, whether it’s Langford-Highlands, whether it’s Mackenzie, where I was on the weekend.

This is an opportunity for us to be able to make our position known very clear. Through this legislation, Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, we are once again on this side of the House, led by our Premier, who as the Minister of Energy has rightfully said, is leading the national conversation on standing up for Canada, standing up for British Columbians.

I hope the Leader of the Opposition and the members across the way stand strong for British Columbia and don’t roll over, because there are members on that side of the House that have made comments that are inappropriate, and they need to answer for that. They will have an opportunity to answer for that when they hit their communities.

But use this floor, use this opportunity, to let us know: whose side are you on? Are you on Team Canada? Are you on Team British Columbia? Or do you want to be the 51st state?

We know where we stand. We’re going to stand strong for British Columbians. We’re going to stand strong for Canadians. That’s why we’re going to support Bill 7, this legislation. We’re going to get it passed, and we’re going to fight for Canada. That’s what we do on this side of the House.

Harman Bhangu: It’s an honour to stand before this House today to discuss Bill 7, a piece of legislation that carries far-reaching consequences for the people of British Columbia. While the government may present this bill as a technical adjustment or a necessary step to modernize trade or infrastructure, the reality is that it represents yet another example of the government bypassing a democratic process, centralizing power and ignoring the voices of British Columbians.

Before we dive into the specifics, let us take a step back and consider what is at stake. This is not just about trade agreements or administrative changes; this is about the way our government operates, how decisions that affect millions of people are made. It is about trust, transparency, ensuring that British Columbians have a say in the policies that shape their daily lives.

A troubling pattern of governance. We have seen this pattern before, time and time again. This government has introduced sweeping changes without adequate consultation, debate or public input. Consider the changes to the Land Act proposed with little notice, rushed through without meaningful engagement and ultimately serving to consolidate power into the hands of government bureaucrats.

The same approach is now being applied to Bill 7. This bill, at its core, is about granting government unchecked authority. While the most controversial aspect, part 4, was walked back after public outcry, we must try and ask ourselves: why was such a provision included in the first place? The mere fact that this government attempted to pass a law allowing major trade policy decisions to be made behind closed-door speaks volumes about its priorities and its disregard for democratic oversight.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Even though part 4 was removed, it does not erase the government’s intent. The fact remains that they believe they could quietly push through provisions that would have had a profound impact on our province. This is not how a responsible democratic government should function. A government should be accountable to its people, transparent for its actions. While we engage in meaningful discussions before implementing significant policy changes, yet time and time again we see a pattern of dismissive governance.

The Speaker: Member, noting the hour.

Harman Bhangu: Noting the hour, I reserve my place to continue my remarks and move adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Nina Krieger: Committee of Supply, Section A, reports resolution and completion of the estimates of the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness and reports progress on the Ministry of Citizens’ Services and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Hon. Ravi Parmar moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The Speaker: This House stands adjourned until ten o’clock tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 8:50 p.m.