Hansard Blues
Legislative Assembly
Draft Report of Debates
The Honourable Raj Chouhan, Speaker
Draft Transcript - Terms of Use
The House met at 1:34 p.m.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Routine Business
Introductions by Members
Sheldon Clare: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
[1:35 p.m.]
It’s my pleasure today to introduce my Prince George constituency assistant Johnathan Raine, who’s down here this week. Johnathan, if you would stand and be recognized.
I hope everyone here will make Johnathan feel especially welcome.
Hon. Brittny Anderson: Today I rise to welcome representatives from the Canadian Propane Association, who are joining us here in the gallery. Propane is an essential part of British Columbia’s diverse and resilient energy system. From heating homes in remote and Indigenous communities to fuelling equipment on farms and job sites, propane supports reliable energy access across our province. It also plays a key part in barbecue season.
Joining us in the gallery today are Katie Kachur, Clint Hillman, Curtis Kitchen, Cale Runions, Courtney Seir-Todd, Sammy Malhi, Allan Murphy, Curtis Robinson, Willie Stephens, Devin O’Neal, Ryan Hudson, Nancy Borden, Bill Gourley, Richard Charbonneau, Alan Penner, Harry Singh, Tracy MacDonald and David Gulliver.
Will the House please make them feel very welcome and thank them for lunch.
Larry Neufeld: Apparently, I didn’t stand quickly enough, so I am going to echo the hon. member in thanking and recognizing the presence of the Canadian Propane Association. I won’t repeat the names, because we just heard them. But again, please, from this side of the House, help me make them feel welcome.
Hon. Adrian Dix: Today we’re welcoming guests from EDF Power Solutions, which is a major international renewable energy company. I want to welcome Cory Basil, who’s the regional senior vice-president for Canada and U.S. northeast, and David Thornton, the director of regulatory and legislative affairs.
Let the House make them welcome.
Brent Chapman: Yes, I am honoured to have some good friends join us here today. They are leaders in the Bangladeshi-Canadian community. They are strong proponents of Bangladesh-to-Canada and Canada-to-Bangladesh. A solid Conservative federal and provincial candidate, Syed Mohsin; also his wife, Razia Mohsin; and his mother-in-law, who joins us here today, Syeda Khan, from Orange County, New York.
Please make them feel welcome.
Dana Lajeunesse: It’s my pleasure today to introduce to the House some very good friends of mine from the South Island Prosperity Partnership, otherwise known as SIPP. Aaron Stone is the chief executive officer of South Island Prosperity Partnership, formerly mayor of Ladysmith. Dallas Gislason serves as the executive director of community economies.
Jason Goldsworthy is the executive director of the Centre for Ocean Applied Sustainable Technologies, or COAST, a SIPP initiative focused on the sustainable blue economy. Christina Clark is the inaugural executive director of the Indigenous prosperity centre, an Indigenous-led initiative under SIPP that supports self-directed economic development for First Nations.
Please give them all a warm House welcome.
Á’a:líya Warbus: It’s my pleasure to welcome today 50 grade 10 students from Sardis Secondary, which is in my riding of Chilliwack–Cultus Lake. They will be here with Principal Lynnet Schramm, their teacher Kevin Gambell and many chaperones that are going to be with them.
I just want to highlight that I went to Sardis Secondary. The programs, the teachers and the school are amazing. They have a great focus on agriculture and skilled trades and are home to the Sardis Falcons Football team.
I’d also like to take a quick opportunity to wish my son, Kymani Seymour…. He’s 15, and he goes to Sardis Secondary. He is the absolute light and treasure of my life. Everything in my life changed the day that he was born. Happy birthday, son. I love you.
[1:40 p.m.]
Tributes
Art Charbonneau
Hon. Mike Farnworth: I rise today with some sad news, and that is the passing of Art Charbonneau, who was the MLA for Kamloops from 1991 to 1996.
Art also served as the Minister of Transportation and Highways, as it was known then, as well as the Minister of Forests and of Education. I served with him in this House for five years. I always remember him as someone who stood up for Kamloops, was very thoughtful and had an amazing sense of humour.
I just want to give this news to the House and that we pass on our condolences to his family.
Introductions by Members
Darlene Rotchford: I made a challenge to a fellow member in this House on Friday — to my fellow colleague for Chilliwack North. I may have challenged her BCHL team to a friendly competition, which, you can see, I did not win.
I would like to congratulate the Chilliwack Chiefs on their next round in playoffs. Best of luck to you all.
Anna Kindy: I have the pleasure to introduce Dr. Rod Nugent. He’s a retired dentist and also the chair and on the board of directors of Strathcona Connected Coast Network Corporation.
And also Mr. David Leitch. He’s the chief administrative officer of the Strathcona Regional District. David has almost 30 years of local government experience in the field of engineering, administration, public works and utilities.
Together with City West, they are working to improve the north Island and coastal B.C. internet services.
Hon. Jodie Wickens: I have some very special guests in the Legislature today. Today in the Legislature I have, visiting, Dave Taylor, Louise Witt and Catherine Taylor. Louise and Catherine are both dedicated and hard-working social workers doing very important work in our communities. Dave is a retired pilot who spends part of his retirement volunteering and supporting families and organizations filling out their disability tax credit.
Fun fact: I came to the Legislature for the very first time of my entire life a little over 14, 15 years ago with Louise. We wore t-shirts, and we were advocating to MLAs at the time. It is a full circle moment for her to be visiting me, in the Legislature, as the Minister of Children and Family Development.
Would the House please join me in giving them a very warm welcome.
Heather Maahs: I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friend across the aisle for being such a wonderful sport and proposing this wonderful bet. The Victoria Grizzlies did a wonderful job. It was a good game, but yay, Chiefs.
George Anderson: I would like to take a moment to recognize Jim and Eva Manley, who are celebrating 66 years of marriage. They were married May 9, 1959, and I think it’s a testament to the love and the care that they have for one another to also build upon a great community here in Nanaimo.
I just would hope that the House would join me in congratulating Eva and Jim on such a remarkable milestone.
Rosalyn Bird: It’s my pleasure today to introduce Stefan Woloszyn, the CEO of City West, a full-service telecommunications and entertainment provider in Prince Rupert. City West has partnered with the city of Prince Rupert and the regional district to Connected Coast project, to bring high-speed internet accessibility to rural and remote communities along coastal B.C., Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island.
Can everybody in the House please make him feel welcome here and throughout the precinct today.
Jessie Sunner: It is not quite 66 years, but I would like to congratulate two very, very special people in my life who just yesterday celebrated 39 years of marriage: my parents. I want to thank them for all of their love, their support, for truly making me believe and know that I can do anything in this life and for setting such a great example of what a loving marriage looks like. Congratulations, parents.
[1:45 p.m.]
Will the House please join me in a warm welcome.
Jordan Kealy: I rise today to welcome the Canadian Propane Association as well and Katie Kachur, who is a good friend of mine that I have known for just about four years.
They are a fierce advocate for propane. Propane is an essential resource in so many different ways in our lives. Without them, in the North, we would be left out in the cold. For some, this is their only option for heat or energy. Propane is resilient, heating communities, fuelling farms, and it also puts the sizzle in my steak.
Please join me in recognizing their leadership and contributions to B.C.’s energy future. Welcome to the Legislature, and thank you very much for making sure I have propane for my barbecue, and the lunch you provided was wonderful.
Hon. Spencer Chandra Herbert: Well, I rise to share some good news for British Columbia, news I think we all could be very proud of.
Over this last week in Kamloops, it’s been the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships, and I can tell you this weekend our B.C. young women’s team, they placed silver. They won the silver medal, and I want to congratulate them and also congratulate the young men’s team for doing very well. Next year you’ll get them.
Go, team, go. Congratulations, B.C.
Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: Joining us today in the gallery is Mr. Kevan Shaw, a Nanaimo constituent of mine and president of the Victoria Crescent neighbourhood association.
Will the members please make him very welcome.
Speaker’s Statement
Removal of Legislature Cat
from Speaker’s Office
The Speaker: Members, about three weeks ago, a member catnapped our Macey, and Macey has still not returned home. Today I have appointed Rob Shaw as a commissioner to bring Macey back home — not a real cat, just Macey.
If the cat returns by the end of the day, I will make a generous donation to SPCA, so the catnapper is urged and encouraged to bring the cat back home.
Introduction and
First Reading of Bills
Bill M214 — Firefighters’ Health Act
Misty Van Popta presented a bill intituled Firefighters’ Health Act.
Misty Van Popta: I move that a bill entitled Firefighters’ Health Act, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and read a first time now.
I am so pleased to present the Firefighters’ Health Act to the House today. This bill is paramount to protecting the health of those who protect us on a daily basis.
It is noted that both the government and the opposition party committed to supporting firefighters during the fall 2024 campaign, and it is my hope here today and moving forward that we can work together to maintain our commitment to them. This is not a partisan issue.
This bill is inspired by two men in my community. I will go into their stories further, hopefully at second reading debates, but the crux of their stories is that they are both younger than me. While their chances of dying from cancer are two to four times higher than mine due to the very job they go to every day, they are not afforded early screening for colon cancer due to their age.
One man under the age of 50 has already had life-altering cancer, while the other, also under 50, has a family history of cancer, compounded to his occupational hazard of cancer. We all know a firefighter. Some are even family. You know one. You know one. You know one.
The topic of updating the list of presumptive cancers and the need for regular and early health screenings is not new to either this government nor the last government. It is time that we all here today stand and take ownership of making these important changes to the health outcomes of the over 13,000 men and women firefighters who protect this province.
[1:50 p.m.]
This bill is about updating the presumptive-cancers list and crafting a health plan strategy for firefighters, which would include earlier and regular screenings. This would be accomplished based on a collaborative approach with the BCPFFA, the Doctors of B.C. and the ministers in charge.
I want to thank my Local 4550 for inspiring this bill and to thank all the union locals that came to Victoria a few months ago and met with all of us. us. May you never have to do that again. May you know that everyone here supports and values your life always.
The Speaker: Members, the question is first reading of the bill.
Motion approved.
Misty Van Popta: I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
[1:55 p.m.]
The Speaker: Members, before we take the vote, I want to remind members that division is usually called at the first motion at the first reading, not on the administrative side of the bill. But today we will allow it.
Motion approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]
Hon. Jodie Wickens: I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Introductions by Members
Hon. Jodie Wickens: I see that joining us in the House now is a grade 10 class from Gleneagle Secondary. Really grateful that all of the students and teachers are here today.
I had a bit of a panic this morning when I was told that the Grade 10 social studies class was visiting us. I thought that maybe I forgot to fill out a permission form and texted my son and said, “Are you in the Legislature?” and he said: “No, that’s the other Grade 10 social studies class.”
I hope you all go back to Gleneagle and tell Ashton that his mom said hi. Please enjoy question period. I know my colleagues will all be on their best behaviour. Thank you for being here.
Members’ Statements
Ironworkers Memorial
Second Narrows Crossing
Amshen / Joan Phillip: Today I rise to talk about the collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge, June 17, 1958, while it was still under construction. While 79 workers plunged into the Burrard Inlet, it caused the deaths of 14 ironworkers, two engineers, a painter and, later, a commercial diver attempting a rescue.
[2:00 p.m.]
The accident remains the worst disaster in Vancouver’s history. A royal commission determined that a miscalculation in the design of the temporary structure played a significant role.
I was six years old at the time, driving down Third Avenue with my mother, when I looked over and I said: “Look, Mum, the bridge is falling.” And I didn’t realize it was really bad until she started swearing in two languages. By the time we got to Maplewood, emergency vehicles were flying by us. When we got home on Dollarton Highway, my mum and dad got into their 36-foot troller, gillnetter, and were fishing survivors out of the inlet.
It is now called the Iron Workers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing to honour the lives lost in that tragedy. Let us reaffirm our commitment to strong protections and a culture that values the health and safety of all workers. HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.
Ski Industry in
Columbia River–Revelstoke
Scott McInnis: Another wonderful ski season has come to an end in Columbia River–Revelstoke. I rise today to express my deepest gratitude to the incredible individuals who power the ski industry in the riding I am so lucky to represent. From lift operators, ski patrol, instructors, hospitality staff, maintenance crews and countless others behind the scenes, thank you. Your dedication, professionalism and hard work have formed the backbone of a world-class tourism economy that supports families, small business and entire communities across our region.
The riding I represent has the best ski resorts in the country, if not the world. Revelstoke Mountain Resort, Kicking Horse, Panorama, Fairmont and Kimberley Alpine Resort get knee-deep powder all year long that falls like sheets of paper from the sky; ask anyone who’s been there, and most certainly they’ll agree.
Our mountains are among the most iconic in the world, but it is the people, those who work long hours in all weather, who greet visitors with a smile, who keep our operations running smoothly and safely, that make the experience truly exceptional. Whether it’s grooming the slopes before sunrise or serving a warm meal or a cold beverage after a long day of skiing, your efforts do not go unnoticed.
I’d also like to thank those who work and support the back-country skiing experience as well. Cat- and heli-skiing operations provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shred powder like you’ve never seen before. These folks often work weekends without a break and weeks on end, not because they need the money, necessarily, but because they love the lifestyle and the camaraderie and, of course, the stoke, which this industry most certainly provides.
Tourism drives opportunity in Columbia River–Revelstoke, and the ski industry is at its heart. We simply couldn’t do it without you. Your work brings joy to visitors, pride to our communities and prosperity to our local economy. On behalf of my constituents and all British Columbians who benefit from your service, thank you for all you do.
Now go grab your mountain bike, your golf clubs and your fly-fishing gear. We’ll see you next year.
Value of Local Newspapers
George Anderson: Across British Columbia and Canada, printing presses, once loud with purpose, one by one are falling silent. Over the past 17 years, 529 local publications across Canada have shut down, and 76 percent of them have been community papers. With each closure, something greater disappears: the heartbeat of our communities.
When I was a kid, I had a paper route and ensured that those papers arrived before 7 a.m., even with the dogs chasing me and people being upset that they weren’t getting their papers on time. That being said, these presses printed the first photos of individuals and final farewells; they captured victories, losses, the ordinary moments of everyday life, holding space for the stories that shape who we are.
Many might say we can just read the news online, but printing presses have never been just about convenience; they’ve been about credibility and permanence. A printed page can’t be quietly edited. A printed page doesn’t vanish behind a paywall or algorithm. It stays: a public record of what we valued, debated and demonstrated who we were in that moment.
Behind those pages were journalists but also real people, collators, who were doing repetitive, labour-intensive work, stitching together the printed memories of our communities.
[2:05 p.m.]
When a printing press closes, it’s harder for small-town voices to be heard, which should concern all of us. Former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour once said, “The search for truth is becoming more elusive.” And when we lose the tools for truth — local news, public record, printed word — we risk blurring facts, erasing memories and silencing communities.
So to every collator, press worker and worker who kept those presses running, your labour mattered. You didn’t just assemble newspapers; you assembled the memories of our local communities and history. So as the presses may be falling silent, we cannot, because when a community loses the ability to tell its story, it risks losing its identity altogether.
Mike Morgan
Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: My father-in-law, Mike Morgan, turns 90 today. He was born in 1935, and a lot was happening that year.
May 25 Babe Ruth hit the last of his 714 home runs, in a Major League record which would stand until 1974. Ruth retired on June 2. The world’s first parking metre was installed in Oklahoma City on January 16. September 13 Howard Hughes set a new airspeed record of 354.4 miles per hour in his Hughes H-1 Racer plane. November 5 the Parker brothers began marketing their recently acquired real estate game as Monopoly.
The Kit Kat bar, initially Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp, was first launched in September 1935 in the U.K. Hoover dam was opened. Elvis Presley was born. The first canned beer by Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company. The number one song in 1935 was “Cheek to Cheek” by Fred Astaire.
When Michael was five years old, he was watching the Battle of Britain out his window. When he was nine years old, his parents would pack him up and move to Canada from England. They started in Nakusp, B.C., and they finally settled at the end of Mount Sicker Road in Chemainus.
He would marry Barb Williams at the age of 21 years old. They had two sons, Douglas and William.
One of his jobs in 1957 was a carpenter at the Crofton pulp mill. His shop is full of model airplanes that he built himself. He had a flyers club and people that came as far as Victoria and Nanaimo. You could find him out on the field on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Another previous job would be travelling around and running a karaoke. He attracted groupies that became known as Michael’s angels. You will still find him enjoying karaoke on Wednesday afternoon at the Eagles’ hall.
Happy birthday, Mike.
Men’s Shed Society
in Mackenzie
Kiel Giddens: I know that men’s sheds have been talked about here in this Legislature, but I think it’s important to talk about men’s mental health. Men are much less likely to seek help and often suffer alone.
So today I want to share some of the inspiring mission and achievements of the Mackenzie Men’s Shed Society. This is a growing movement in Mackenzie with 44 men and counting, with often more than 20 showing up at the weekly coffee chats. They get together and discuss the community, and they come up with new ways to support their neighbours.
This organization is dedicated to building camaraderie, sharing valuable skills and promoting overall well-being. They believe that by creating a welcoming space for a cup of coffee, to volunteer together, to foster connection and growth, they can empower each other to overcome challenges while giving back with their time and their talents.
The group has really been collaborative with local organizations, like their partnership with Mackenzie Community Services. Through their honey-do list, they assist seniors, individuals with special needs and those facing limited resources with minor home repairs, life-and-limb repairs, accessibility supports and much more, operating under the belief that everyone deserves support and deserves dignity.
I had the chance to tour their new shed workshop space recently, and it’s really coming together as a project hub in the community. The commitment of these men goes beyond just assisting. They also host workshops that enable community members to learn new skills and collaborate on various projects. One of their current teaching projects includes the building of wooden beds for youth, and the goal is to donate these to families and young individuals in need throughout Mackenzie.
[2:10 p.m.]
The men’s shed has really flourished recently, creating an inclusive environment where men can foster good mental health while combatting social isolation.
Thank you to president Lucky McDonough and to Tony Vander Warden and Stacy Wengo. I want to thank Knut Herzog for the recent tour and his community work. This guy is a power volunteer in Mackenzie, a proud retired public servant and one of the most kind people I’ve met. I think all of us can recognize the importance of giving back in our communities.
Harman Bhangu: I’d like to request to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Introductions by Members
Harman Bhangu: A constituent of mine, John Hof, has his twin granddaughters in the gallery today from Sardis Secondary in Chilliwack — Hannah and Olivia Ivany. Would the House make them feel very welcome.
Á’a:líya Warbus: I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Á’a:líya Warbus: I also just wanted to, now that the guests are here, have the House make Sardis Secondary and their teacher Kevin Gambell very welcome as they enter just in time for question period.
Lynne Block: I ask your permission to say my statement, please.
The Speaker: Tomorrow.
Lynne Block: Tomorrow?
The Speaker: Yeah, not today.
Lynne Block: Thank you.
Oral Questions
Government Response to
Antisemitism and Police
Investigation of Hate Crimes
John Rustad: Victoria-based hate preacher Younus Kathrada launched yet another antisemitic-laden tirade against the Jewish community last Friday — add this to the long list of Kathrada’s disgusting sermons, where he called Jews “evil and filthy.” On Friday, yet again, he violated section 318 of the Criminal Code. Enough is enough.
Can this Attorney General tell this House whether there is an active hate crime investigation underway?
Hon. David Eby: First of all, I want to stand with the Jewish community and recognize how disgusting and deplorable these comments were and this pattern of conduct from this individual. This kind of hateful speech has no place in our province. We have given police tools and support to ensure that hate crimes are investigated in our province — prosecutors with new hate crime policy. For people who are aware of conduct like this but reluctant for some reason to call police, please don’t hesitate.
We also have a racist incident hotline where people can report this. It assists the province in eliminating hate in our province. I’m glad that we can stand in this place against that kind of hate and all forms of hate and discrimination in our province and, certainly, support the police and the work that they need to do to investigate this and all incidents of hate.
The Speaker: Leader of the Official Opposition, supplemental.
John Rustad: I’m happy to hear the words from the Premier, although it has been 19 months of this carrying on, and it’s not the first time we have called for this action to be taken.
The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation sent a note and a letter to the Victoria chief of police, Del Manak, yesterday. In that letter, they requested that Chief Manak commence an investigation into the conduct of the hate preacher.
Unlike Charlotte Kates, which was never actioned by this government, despite the hate crimes that this person indicated, if the police recommend charges, can the Attorney General today confirm that they will actually act upon those charges?
Hon. Niki Sharma: We all need to be very concerned that the system is appropriately responding to hate speech and condemning it when necessary.
We’ve put resources into making sure that police officers can get the training that they need to learn how to investigate appropriately and respond to any hate crimes that are happening in this province. I expect the system to take this action very seriously. As the member knows, it’s not the Attorney General that approves charge assessments, but it’s my job to make sure the system is tooled up to do the work appropriately.
[2:15 p.m.]
That means a series of things that we’ve done — the Premier talked about it — to make sure the Crown prosecution service has a directive policy on antisemitism, to make sure that police have proper training to respond to hate crimes that are occurring in any of our communities and to make sure that the system is set up to respond to people for the victim supports that they need if they’ve experienced an incident of hate. That’s through the racist incident helpline.
I am always looking for ways that we can push on changing the Criminal Code to make sure that we are responding appropriately when hate crimes happen in this province, and it’s work that we always need to continue to do.
Access to Health Care Services
Ward Stamer: James Roland Mansell is a 68-year-old constituent of mine. His wife, who has just recently passed, found him a doctor shortly after moving from Abbotsford. Eight years ago, their doctor quit, citing the stress of running a doctor’s office.
What does this Health Minister have to say to James, who has utterly lost faith in our health care system, still waiting eight years for a doctor?
Hon. Josie Osborne: Thank you to the member for the question.
It is difficult to hear when somebody is having a hard time accessing a primary care provider, and we know there are far too many British Columbians in this place. We know that we are experiencing a global shortage of health care workers, and that includes physicians. That is why this government has put so much effort and investment into training and recruiting more nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors and health care workers to build out our primary care system. The primary care system is the backbone of our public universal health care system here.
To the member’s constituent…. I am certain that he has registered on the health connect registry and is awaiting. I want to assure him that we are doing everything that we can to connect him to a primary care provider and, in the meantime, that he has access to the health care that he needs.
The Speaker: Member, supplemental.
Ward Stamer: After 15 years of supporting James and Tracy, their doctor quit, leaving a community reeling. Even worse, James told me that health care in Kamloops has gotten so bad that his two grandchildren haven’t had a checkup in six years. Doing more of the same over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.
How is it acceptable that this government, after eight years in power, is allowing children and seniors to go without health care?
Hon. Josie Osborne: Doing more of the same wouldn’t work. That’s why this government has taken the action that it has, by taking the opportunity to open a brand-new medical school; expanding the seats at UBC; increasing the number of residency positions for family physicians; increasing the opportunities for family physicians to move; and incentivizing them to be in rural and remote communities out of the Lower Mainland, like where this member is from.
That’s why we’re continuing to take the action, and it is showing results. We’re finally starting to head in the right direction. We’re turning the corner. Since 2023, we have hired over 1,000 new family physicians. We’ve connected 675,000 people since 2018. This is work we’re going to continue to do. I know that the member’s constituent is waiting, and we are not going to stop until every single person in this province is attached to a primary care provider.
Affordable Housing Options and
Rental Housing Vacancy Control
Rob Botterell: Last week, the Minister of Housing lauded this government’s work on affordable housing. He said that housing is central. Housing is health care. I’m sure we all agree.
But gaps in B.C.’s services continue to let people fall through the cracks. Available spaces mean nothing if the units and services don’t meet people’s needs. Numerous barriers to shelter persist: minimal storage space, limits to cohabitation, no pets. Many people have a history of experiencing abuse or assault in shelter settings. Housing options that meet people’s unique needs, that don’t replicate trauma, must be readily available.
To the Minister of Housing: how are you providing housing options that actually meet people’s needs?
Hon. Ravi Kahlon: I thank the member for the question.
Housing is central. One of the core beliefs that we have on our side is trying to ensure that housing is available with the supports that each individual needs, their unique needs — making sure that those are met.
[2:20 p.m.]
The member speaks about different types of shelters. He surely knows that we have a whole host of different types of housing options available for individuals. We do fund storage spaces for individuals that need to store their valuable belongings. We do create units that have pet-friendly options. We do create options for people, if they’re in a relationship, to be able to be in those units. We have teams on the ground that are dedicated to this work, catering our supports for individuals.
If you see, for example, the work we did at Crab Park — close to 100 people, over 100 people there. It took almost a year for us to meet with every individual and ensure that they had housing that met every individual’s needs. We’re doing that work in Prince George; we’re doing that work in communities like Campbell River, Nanaimo, Abbotsford, and the list goes on. We know we have more work to do, but we are making some significant progress.
The Speaker: Member, supplemental.
Rob Botterell: This government has committed to expanding affordable housing. Last week, the Housing Minister committed to expanding rent supplements for young people so they can find housing that they can afford. All members of this House can agree that we need to create certainty so young people can stay in their communities.
Yet bad-faith evictions, renovictions and a profiteering rental market have created immense uncertainty, especially for young people, families and people with disabilities. Vacancy control is one tool this government hasn’t evaluated that could offer immediate relief.
To the Minister of Housing: it’s been seven years. Isn’t it time for you to reopen the Rental Housing Task Force to evaluate vacancy control?
Hon. Ravi Kahlon: There was a lot in that question. I will share this with the member. We have taken considerable steps to ensure that renters are protected and that decisions both for renters and landlords can be done in an expedited manner. We went from some of the longest wait times for hearings, before the Premier became Premier, to now the shortest time, because of the early investments the Premier made when he first became the Premier of British Columbia.
We have been taking steps to ensure that we reduce bad-faith evictions. A new digital web portal now ensures that people fill in basic information and verify that the information is valid, ensuring that anyone that’s caught has a steeper fine so they’re discouraged from doing this type of behaviour. And we’re seeing those numbers drop.
The member is talking about vacancy control. The member surely knows that we did have an all-party committee. His predecessor was on that committee. They advised government that vacancy control would not be a good option to proceed with. I appreciate the member may have a different opinion than his predecessor.
We have been ensuring that we can do everything we can to support renters, by increasing housing supply, by beefing up the rules to make sure that people are protected, and we’ll continue to do that work as we go forward.
Government Action on
Youth Mental Health and
Addiction Issues
Claire Rattée: An Indigenous youth in the riding of Kootenay Central, whose father reached out to me last week, needs help. She was turned away from Stepping Stones emergency shelter because of her age, and the next morning the staff there found her dead on the front steps. Dead, Mr. Speaker. She had to be revived with Narcan three times and is lucky to be alive.
This young woman’s case is a catastrophic failure across multiple ministries with numerous chances to intervene. Her father has pleaded for help from child and family services, from the Ministry of Health, from the local MLA, the member for Kootenay Central, but his pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
What will it take? Does this young woman have to die for this government to finally intervene with compassionate care?
Hon. Josie Osborne: Thank you to the member for the question. It is terrible to hear of a story like this. I think all of us, our hearts go out to the family and to people connected to an individual like this.
That’s why this government is taking every step that we can to connect people with the care that they need: for youth, providing more supports in schools; establishing Foundries, a safe space for youth to go to be able to connect with physical and mental health supports, substance use supports; continuing to build the housing and provide the wraparound supports for families in need.
[2:25 p.m.]
We’re not going to stop doing this work. We’re going to continue to do this in a place where everybody has the potential to live a thriving life and the life that they deserve to have.
The Speaker: Member, supplemental.
Claire Rattée: To say that you’re going to continue doing this work is completely unacceptable, because clearly what this government is doing has failed this young woman.
She just turned 18. She has a paralyzed leg, a brain growth and untreated neurological damage. Her father, a recovered addict himself, says that she has now lost all sense of agency. She has been begging for help since she was 14 years old. There were moments of hope, times she wanted treatment, but the system failed her every time.
She now sleeps in a tent in a drug camp. She has been repeatedly sexually assaulted over the last four years. If she doesn’t qualify for intervention, then who does? Why won’t this Premier bring forward compassionate care legislation to prevent tragedies like this?
Hon. Ravi Kahlon: I can’t speak specifically to this case and this individual, but I can say, hearing from the member, that it aligns with what we’ve been saying and what we’ve been hearing, which is that encampments are not safe. They’re not safe for individuals living in them. They’re not safe for the community at large.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Member.
Hon. Ravi Kahlon: The member says that she was turned away from an emergency weather shelter, which are usually operated by the local government. We provide the resources to them, so we can certainly find out what happened in that particular case. People don’t get turned away from shelter unless there was some issue, and we don’t know what those issues are. We can look into them.
But I can tell the member that what we know for a fact is that there’s a lack of housing options for people, in particular with special needs. Thanks to the work that my colleague, the MLA for that riding, and many not-for-profits…. We’ve actually been targeting, ramping up housing for those with special needs in particular.
I can share with the member that we’ve got a new 47-unit building that just opened up there at the Lakeside Place redevelopment, another at 620 Nelson Avenue in Nelson and another one at 535 West Houston Street in Nelson. All of those focus on people who have, in particular, special needs.
I can’t, again, speak to the specifics of what the member refers to because, again, the local governments operate the emergency weather spaces, but we certainly can make sure that the different ministries can follow up.
Á’a:líya Warbus: This individual’s story unfortunately gets worse. When she was 17 and turned away from the shelter, the technicality of her not being an adult ended up in the travesty that we heard from the member for Skeena. But as a youth, she was also harmed within the system. She was molested in an Interior Health facility by a male nurse, and he was later convicted. But despite repeatedly asking to not be placed under the care of male nurses due to the horrific traumas that she has endured, she was repeatedly put in the care of male nurses.
My question is this: why does this government continue to re-traumatize survivors like her instead of respecting their most basic safety requests?
Hon. Josie Osborne: The safety and health of our youth has to be our top priority, the top priority of every single person in this House. We cannot see youth and children suffering from mental health issues, from substance use issues and from being traumatized by care. That’s why this government takes this issue so incredibly seriously and will continue to work in our health care system, eliminating all forms of racism, working with health authorities and health care workers to build an integrated, culturally safe, trauma-informed system of care for youth just like this.
I want to express my commitment to the member asking the question to continue to do everything that I can to support people in situations like these and to continue to work with her and other members on the other side of the House in this incredibly important work.
[2:30 p.m.]
Justice System Staffing Shortages
Hon Chan: Speaking of justice denied, the NDP said they have graduated several classes of sheriffs and have fixed the court sheriff shortage. But in the trial after the death of Pastor Tom Cheung, his family informed this side of the House that one of the reasons why the sentencing was delayed was because of a B.C. chronic sheriff shortage.
How many more families will see delayed justice because this government cannot ensure adequate staffing in our justice system?
Hon. Niki Sharma: I want to start by saying how grateful I am for the work that sheriffs do every day in our court system. They truly are heroes of public safety and making sure that our court system runs smoothly.
We have made gigantic strides in our sheriffs, and we are very close. I’m really grateful for all the work that everybody has done to graduate more sheriffs. We’ve upped our classes, upped the numbers, and we’re very close to being at the full complement of sheriffs. We will continue to do that work to make sure that their much-needed services are in the courtroom so trials can keep going.
I’m very grateful for all the team in my office that have put that work in, for that progress that we’ve made.
Attack by Repeat Offender and
Action on Community Safety
Korky Neufeld: Well, here is the reality of Mother’s Day in British Columbia today. A mother was walking her baby in a stroller through downtown New Westminster when a man shoved her stroller and punched the mother in the face. Now, the assailant was a repeat offender. Sound familiar? This was a completely random, unprovoked attack in broad daylight, just crossing a crosswalk.
Through the Premier, what does it say about public safety in this province when even a mother can’t safely walk her child in a stroller down the street without being assaulted?
Hon. Garry Begg: Thank you to the member opposite for the question.
I said it before in this House, and I repeat. We all in this province want people to feel safe where they live, where they recreate and where they do their things.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Shhh.
Hon. Garry Begg: The incident that you refer to is unfortunate, and my heart goes out to the people involved. She deserves protection.
We have in this province a repeat violent offender program.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Member.
Hon. Garry Begg: It makes a difference so that people can get in control of their lives, unlike the member opposite.
For example, the Prince George ReVOII is a good example of what we’ve done on this side of the House by monitoring people who present a threat to the public. A former ReVOII client recently stopped by the custody centre in Prince George. They shared with the staff there how they’ve successfully completed addiction recovery and have now been able to reconnect with their family.
Our actions are starting to make a difference. That’s important, and it’s important that that continues.
Government Action on
Sexual Assault of Women
Reann Gasper: I’m sorry, but we’ve had eight years. These are real lives. These are victims.
In Abbotsford this April, a woman was walking alone in Mill Lake Park. She was lured into a conversation and sexually assaulted by a stranger. Later that month another woman was forced into a car and assaulted while waiting for a friend, again in broad daylight. And this week women were sexually assaulted on a B.C. Transit bus in Victoria, midday.
Why is the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity standing idly by while women are assaulted daily on this government’s watch?
Hon. Niki Sharma: Sexual assault and how it shows up, particularly in the lives of women, is an issue that I take very seriously as Attorney General of this province. That’s why I’ve asked Dr. Stanton to do a full review of our justice system to understand why it is that so many victims of this type of assault don’t come forward with this abuse. We’ve invested in front-line services for sexual assault centres across this province. We’ve made sure that our gender-based action plan is in place, and the parliamentary secretary is hard at work at that.
[2:35 p.m.]
On this side of the House, we want to make sure that we’re there for every woman that experiences sexual assault, no matter where they are, and that the resources are in place to do that. It’s something that I will continue to take very seriously, and I know we will on this side of the House.
Rosalyn Bird: Another review. I’m sure that the women in B.C. are very excited to hear about that.
Even when women come forward and charges are laid, justice may still slip away. In Duncan, a sexual assault case involving two women was tossed out, not because there wasn’t enough evidence but because of delays. Delays. The judge said it had run out of time under the Supreme Court’s 18-month ceiling.
How does this government expect survivors to trust a system when even a day in court is not guaranteed? How can this NDP government achieve their mandate of gender equity when women can’t even get justice?
Hon. Niki Sharma: The member raises a very serious issue, and that’s the Jordan stays and how Jordan stays are in our justice system. We have been making strides in B.C. to reduce the number of Jordan stays down to single digits. Compared to Ontario and other jurisdictions, it’s a low number, but one is too many.
I’m working with every level of our court system, and we’re focusing on figuring out how to make sure of the timelines, that when people come to court, they get access to a trial within the time limit set by this country. We’ll continue to do that work to bring down those numbers so we can reduce Jordan stays to zero.
Safety of Women and Support
and Justice for Victims of Crime
Teresa Wat: How can women, including myself, feel safe and secure when this government is just talking the talk and not walking the walk? Even when women report abuse, survive the justice system and ask for help, they still aren’t safe. In one case, a survivor’s confidential files were allegedly accessed by government employees without authorization, and her abuser may have learned what was in them.
How can this government claim to support victims when it can’t even protect their private information?
Hon. Niki Sharma: On this side of the House, we care about supporting victims of sexual assault. In fact, we care so much that we had to restore the funding that was cut by the opposition when they were in government — or some of them were in government and cut funding to 34 sexual….
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members. Members. Order.
Hon. Niki Sharma: I want to talk a little bit about what that meant for people. I used to work and volunteer at a centre that received women that had just been sexually assaulted. The front-line groups of people that are there to support those women through the whole system…. They cut funding to those centres, so over 30 had to shut down across this province — 30.
So I find it really hard to take when they’re saying they care about victims on that side. We restored that funding, and we’re going to continue to do that work.
Scott McInnis: Tatyanna Harrison, a 20-year-old Indigenous woman, was found dead, partially naked, on a yacht in Richmond in 2022. No clear cause of death, no rape kit, no explanation for how she got there. Her mother wasn’t told her body had been found until three months later. It has taken three years and an external forensic review just to get a coroner’s inquest.
How can this government claim to care when women must fight for years just to get justice for their daughter’s death?
Hon. Niki Sharma: It’s vitally important that our justice system, from the front-line, which is the RCMP officers, all the way to the court hearing, is equipped to deal with these very important cases of sexual assault, to make sure that women feel safe to report and to go through the justice system and that they get their day in court in a timely way.
[2:40 p.m.]
It’s something that I care so much about as Attorney General. Dr. Stanton is tasked with going around and speaking to all members of our justice system to make sure we can understand how to make every system there respond in the way that it should be responding. I’m going to be receiving that report in June, and I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and doing the work.
Government Response to
Community Health and Safety Issues
Elenore Sturko: We’ve heard so many examples here today of failures by this government, failures to protect the physical safety and the well-being of people across this province.
A young Indigenous woman left to overdose on the steps of a shelter. A family without access to a doctor for eight years. A mother punched in the face while pushing her stroller across the street. And yes, I did check the court services online. This is a repeat offender who had already done an assault causing bodily harm and assault P.O. less than a month previously.
Domestic violence victims having their privacy breached, possibly their safety compromised. Sex assault trials tossed because of delays caused by NDP deficiencies. Seniors without health care.
No matter what ministry, whether it’s Health, Housing or the Attorney General, NDP failures are placing people at risk.
How can this Premier assure British Columbians that they’ll be safe and that their well-being will be cared for when so many ministries are failing under his watch?
Hon. Niki Sharma: On this side of the House, we care about investing in people, investing in the programs that are going to show up to make a difference in people’s lives, to make it safer for women that are going through the justice system, to make it safer everywhere in our street.
When the Leader of the Opposition was in power, they cut programs to services. They cut victim services programs continually.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members. Members.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members. Enough.
Attorney General.
Hon. Niki Sharma: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We are going to stay focused on the investments that we know are making a difference. We’ve had a chance through this question period to talk about how those programs are making a difference.
Almost a full complement of sheriffs after decades of under-resourcing sheriffs. Reinvesting in sexual assault response centres across this province for victims of sexual assault. Making sure the ReVOII program is focused on repeat violent offenders in our system. Reducing Jordan stays compared to the rest of this country.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Member. Let the Attorney…. Member.
Hon. Niki Sharma: We’re going to keep on doing that work.
[End of question period.]
Tabling Documents
The Speaker: Hon. Members, I have the honour to table the Legislative Assembly Management Committee report, 2023-24.
Amna Shah: The Select Standing Committee on Private Bills and Private Members’ Bills reports Bill M204, intituled Perinatal and Postnatal Mental Health Strategy Act, complete with amendment.
The Speaker: The Perinatal and Postnatal Mental Health Strategy Act will proceed to report stage during the next private members’ time.
Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I have the honour to present the annual report of WorkSafeBC.
Orders of the Day
Hon. Mike Farnworth: In this House, I call continued second reading on Bill 14.
In the Douglas Fir Room, I call continued estimates for the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
In the Birch Room, House C, I call committee stage on Bill 11, to be followed by Bill 13.
[2:45 p.m.]
[Mable Elmore in the chair.]
Second Reading of Bills
Bill 14 — Renewable Energy Projects
(Streamlined Permitting) Act, 2025
(continued)
Deputy Speaker: I call the chamber to order.
Korky Neufeld: I was cut halfway in between on Thursday; we were so eager to get home. So I will continue with Bill 14, Streamlined Permitting.
While we should be finding ways to responsibly streamline permitting processes, we should never do it by cutting transparency. Decisions behind closed doors with no public scrutiny doesn’t build confidence. We shouldn’t do it by ignoring legislation and this Legislature — 93 MLAs were elected. We are accountable to the public, not the energy regulator. And it should never be done by silencing community voices, especially those of Indigenous nations whose rights are directly affected. Streamlining should never mean silencing.
This legislation fails the test of good governance. It hands sweeping authoritarian powers to cabinet, to the energy regulator, and it undermines safety. It threatens environmental and cultural protections, and it also opens the door to political interference in land use and conservation decisions.
The NDP may sell this as a way to get wind turbines in the ground, but let’s not be fooled. Bill 14 is not about building energy infrastructure. It’s actually about building political power, unchecked power, unbalanced power and unaccountable power. I urge this House to carefully study, review the implications of this bill and demand a real pathway forward, one that supports renewable energy without sacrificing our democratic institutions — and that is debate in this House — without removing environmental safeguards which have been put in place and without losing public trust.
I finished with clause 13 on Thursday, and I will now continue with clause 14, application of the Environmental Assessment Act. It carves out major projects from the EAA coverage, weakening the province’s commitment to environmental due diligence. This clause enables large-scale projects to proceed without cumulative impact assessments, ignoring broader ecological consequences.
Clause 15, the Agricultural Land Commission Act, allows industrial uses, subdivisions and exemptions on agricultural land without needing justification through a land use plan. This undermines the integrity of the ALR land protections.
Clauses 16 to 19, other statutes. Each clause successively limits the application of otherwise robust statutes such as the Safety Standards Act, the Wildlife Act, etc., creating a patchwork of carve-outs that erode consistent regulatory application.
Here it gets really interesting: clause 20, cabinet regulations. Again, it resembles Bill 7, 2.0. It provides cabinet near unfettered discretion to define the projects, to define the eligibility, to define fee regimes and to define streamlining levels; the ability to delegate to any public servant or agency, further centralizing control with minimal oversight mechanisms. You know, this is like putting lipstick on a pig; and the pig is still a pig. This is Bill 7 with lipstick on it.
[2:50 p.m.]
Clause 21, validation. Retroactive validation of past action undermines legal certainty and may shield improper regulatory conduct from challenge.
Clauses 22 and 23, transition provisions. Permitting cancellation of existing environmental assessment certificates without due process effectively voids already established environmental obligations. It’s like with a pen, you’re just cutting through what has been in place for years, these environmental obligations, replacing them with vague new conditions opens the door to less stringent and selectively enforced requirements.
Clause 24, the Agricultural Land Commission amendments. This embeds statutory preference for energy projects over agricultural protection. This potentially sets a dangerous precedent for prioritizing development over food security. This bill does nothing to protect farmers who put food on our tables.
Clauses 25 to 26, the delegation and facility definitions. Delegation to the B.C. Energy Regulator without oversight increases risk of inconsistent and unreviewable decisions. If they make a decision that impacts someone, there’s no opportunity for recourse. You need to accept it because we need just to trust them.
Clause 27, commencement, allows government to delay enactment indefinitely. You heard it right. It allows government to delay enactment indefinitely, which introduces uncertainty for stakeholders and project developers alike.
I guess the question needs to be asked: how will this attract long-term investment? Investors rely on certainty to put millions and billions and years and years of investment in our province.
Now I want to read from an article that was written this last Thursday, May 8, by Jacqueline Gelineau. Here it states:
“The B.C. Wildlife Federation is flagging major risks over the K2 wind energy project, a large-scale wind farm proposed for the Pennask Mountain area west of Peachland.
“The B.C. Wildlife Federation argues that the province’s approach neglects critical environmental safeguards. The K2 project site lies within the Pennask watershed, home to the world’s largest known run of wildlife trout, it stated in a media release. These trout have been the primary source for B.C.’s hatchery system since 1927, supporting the stocking of approximately 150 lakes across the province.
“The B.C. Wildlife Federation director highlighted the need for a thorough environmental review.” He said: “It is essential that test excavations and a full environmental review be conducted before this project breaks ground.” The same executive director referenced “a study commissioned by a local fish and game club, done in 2014, that warned of significant risks to the watershed’s habitat and trout populations due to potential metal leaching and acid rock drainage.”
Here it gets really interesting.
“The B.C. Wildlife Federation also points to a historical precedent. In the late 1980s, construction of Highway 97C, near the same area as the proposed wind farm, led to acid rock drainage and metal leaching, causing long-term environmental damage. The B.C. Ministry of Transportation was prosecuted under the Fisheries Act, and remediation efforts have cost taxpayers millions over the years.”
They push things through without proper process, and then it costs the taxpayer. It doesn’t cost the government; it costs the taxpayer.
“The ministry has since constructed a water treatment facility to treat the water that has been affected.”
How many millions of tax dollars will be spent because of ramming through projects? This is why we do not recklessly move ahead with projects without the process.
“Construction of the K2 wind energy project is slated to begin in 2028.”
End quoting from the article by Jacqueline Gelineau, May 8.
You see, ramming through projects without proper consultation and process can cost the taxpayer, similar to the way Highway 97 construction cost the taxpayer millions.
This bill represents a significant centralization of authority. Here’s the problem. They dress it up with wind turbines. Actually, it is bill 7, 2.0 — extensive regulatory carve-outs, a reduction of environmental, agriculture and public oversight protections.
[2:55 p.m.]
While streamlining may support project efficiency, the extent of deregulation risks undermining sustainability goals, public trust and long-term environmental stewardship.
This side of the House looks forward to the committee stage, where we’ll be asking this government to clarify the intent behind this bill.
I want British Columbians to know something. Your B.C. Conservative MLAs have consistently requested commonsense amendments to the government bills over the last month and a half, amendments that would protect your rights, only to have every one of them voted down. But they’re on record, and we will bring them back up.
We look forward to the committee stage, where we will dig deeper into this bill, uncovering the intention of this bill, talking about the glaring errors of this bill and talking about the overreach in this bill. We’ll get answers for the public, because that’s our job.
Introductions by Members
Deputy Speaker: Before we go to our next speaker, we have students from Sardis Secondary School here. I want to welcome teacher Kevin Gambell and folks from the school, on behalf of your MLA, the MLA from Chilliwack–Cultus Lake. We’re here debating Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects Act.
I ask everybody in the House to please give them a very warm welcome here.
All right. We’re continuing with our debate and discussion. I recognize the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.
Debate Continued
Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and welcome to the students.
For me, in the work that brought me to this place, this is pulling on a lot of threads. On graduating university, for five years, I worked for an organization called Energy Probe.
It was a time of enormous expansion of the electrical system in Ontario — 16 new nuclear plants, 15 new coal plants, natural gas and a lot of new hydro dams, almost universally opposed by First Nations — still with no permanent waste disposal system for nuclear power, let alone that at that time the cost of megaprojects was skyrocketing electricity prices.
These were all-hands-on-deck stop projects, and a lot of it was so that we could make room for the kind of renewable energy projects that I now have the great honour of being part of on a team in government that is building.
Following that work, I spent 12 years working in local government, where, my goodness, we went through the minutiae of local government zoning, of land use plans, line by line, piece by piece. I had, honestly, community members saying: “Look, we just want to build the youth centre. Why can’t we just do that work? We have the intention, we have the donation, we have the land, and we certainly have the need. Let’s just get the work done.”
Let me say, just so briefly, at the moment that we are in, where we have had a lot of really big power projects, many that we did not initiate ourselves but that a whole bunch of people in the province were working on — the Kinder Morgan TMX pipeline, for example. We’ve got skilled people ready to do work with those federal projects finished.
We have got a lot of ambition, a lot of imperative, a lot of need to build the solar, to build the transmission lines, to move clean electricity in British Columbia. Knowing British Columbia’s deep reserves of clean hydro dam storage, it’s perfect twinning with our ambition around building more wind power, which is already happening across British Columbia.
The call for power has been so extremely successful, almost all of it with some kind of Indigenous partnership. This is an imperative for our government, to see First Nations not just agreeing with projects but also actively involved in their construction and design, because they’ll feel the most local impacts, and then also being investors and beneficiaries.
[3:00 p.m.]
Let me say, just so briefly, before I pass it back to the minister, that the imperative for us is not just to sign the contracts, to have the ambition and the vision to build up renewable energy and clean power in British Columbia; it’s also to get the work done.
We have got enough familiarity with the impacts of wind, solar and transmission line projects that we’re confident about the ability to keep…. Notwithstanding the work that we’ve already done to streamline permitting and authorization systems to get faster, more efficient permitting, driving towards better outcomes. We know that that outcome can be either a yes or a no, but the slow maybe is, I understand, extremely frustrating for energy power developers.
With this legislation, Bill 14, we’re making progress towards permitting more quickly, but absolutely maintaining environmental standards and doing the systemic overhaul to fix some of the really complex regulatory processes that have slowed the actual construction and realization of some of our ambition around renewable and electrical energy.
We have been reviewing permitting processes to make sure that we’re getting high-priority projects such as housing, hospitals and connectivity permitted faster by eliminating duplicative processes, focusing resources and seeking solutions. This particular legislation, focusing on wind and solar projects in the near term, will enable our existing B.C. Energy Regulator to oversee those projects, to cluster within one decision-making body, the one-window approach that will accelerate permitting of those critical renewable energy projects.
Hydro, big dam projects are excluded. We’ve also heard widely that oil and gas are not part of this either. We’re really focused on the kind of projects that we can foresee the impacts. Wind power, the impacts are very well understood.
Acceleration of the process doesn’t necessarily mean project approval, but streamlining, getting a timely decision to either a yes or a no, is what we’re hearing very much from British Columbians that we need to get.
Environmental protection and collaboration with Indigenous People remain fundamental to every decision that we make as a government and rigorous permitting that will include socio-economic impacts, including the construction impacts — what happens with communities when construction is underway, let alone operation.
This is a time — big picture — that we are needing to generate revenue within the province, needing to employ people within the province, and especially to have that imperative around self-sufficiency, internal resource reliability, given the great pressures and the threats from the American president. This is a time for us to declare, as we have been over the last seven years and in this fall’s election campaign…. British Columbians know what our intentions are around climate action, around energy self-sufficiency.
With Bill 14, this is our way to get the decisions reached at quickly and then to get the construction in place as quickly as we can so that British Columbians can get the benefit of this work.
With that, Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity. I’ll end my time.
Linda Hepner: I rise today in opposition to this bill, a bill that would fundamentally weaken our democratic oversight and community input by allowing a single-step approval process for renewable energy projects, particularly wind energy projects, and implementing a process that allows the government regulator to change the Energy Resource Activities Act.
Let me be clear on what that does. That allows the regulator to change their own regulations without approval from the Legislature. On the face of it, that may sound expeditious. Or, on the side of reality, it just puts the cat among the pigeons.
[3:05 p.m.]
Let me be clear. I am not opposed to renewable energy. I support a responsible transition to a cleaner, more sustainable energy future. But I cannot support a process that prioritizes speed over scrutiny and blanket approvals over balanced local decision-making.
This bill focuses primarily on wind farms. It strips away the vital layers of consultation and review that ensure these projects are not only environmentally sound but also socially responsible, economically justified and locally supported. The purported holy grail of clean energy, wind farms, despite their benefits, are not impact-free. They alter landscapes. They affect local ecosystems. They raise concerns about noise, land use and even human health in some communities.
Yet under this bill, such concerns would be swept aside with a single signature. That is not good governance. That is expediency masquerading as progress.
Let’s talk about the environmental impacts that are too often ignored with wind farms. The more well-known impact is that the wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands of birds and bats every year, many of them protected or migratory species. These projects disrupt local habitats and fragment ecosystems, especially in rural or sensitive areas.
However, there are lesser-known impacts. Beneath every turbine lies a massive concrete foundation, sometimes up to 60 feet deep, made up, often, with up to 1,000 tonnes of concrete and steel. These are permanent scars on the land, and the turbines themselves contain hundreds of gallons of petroleum-based lubricants — that’s right, fossil fuel — which must be replaced regularly. And then when these machines reach the end of their life — which I understand to be around 20-25 years — their blades, made of non-recyclable composite materials, are sent to landfills, where they remain forever.
So yes, wind energy reduces emissions at the point of generation, but let’s not pretend these projects are environmentally invisible or impact-free.
Notwithstanding those comments, worse still is the policy overreach built into this bill. In the name of streamlining, cabinet is now empowered to approve new projects at its sole discretion. No hearings, no local impact, no environmental review, just a rubber stamp from the top down. No government should be charged with the omnipotent power of picking winners and losers in the energy arena.
They’re calling it streamlined. Let’s be honest. It’s a power grab. It’s a dangerous precedent when a few ministers can override community opposition, sidestep scrutiny and impose infrastructure without meaningful consent. This isn’t efficiency. It’s erosion: erosion of regulatory consistency, erosion of local democracy and erosion of public trust.
This government would never allow fossil fuel projects to move forward with such little oversight. They have vehemently opposed that in the past. So why should wind energy be treated differently? Because, I think, this government is relying on the public’s blindness about any environmental impacts regarding wind farms in the hope that they can tick off the box for speed on energy advancement, a plan that could have been advanced some eight years ago. Now, when we are facing a real energy shortfall, the caped crusader arrives as if it’s a brand new phenomenon.
In Surrey, we have been asking for a stronger power grid in Campbell Heights for years. In fact, I met just recently with businesses there, and the problem has now grown. A local food services business looking to expand in Campbell Heights, with more than 500 jobs, cannot be accommodated. That’s not good planning or any exercise of economic priority.
[3:10 p.m.]
There’s an old saying: “The arsonist doesn’t deserve applause for showing up with a bucket of water.” Yet that is exactly what this government is asking for. For years this government has piled regulation upon regulation and treated every economic activity as something to be micromanaged from the top down, imposing complex permitting systems, procedural delays, bureaucratic bottlenecks. Infrastructure has stalled, and investment has fled.
Now, miraculously, they say they’ve seen the light. They’re calling it efficiency, streamlining, even common sense. But let’s be clear. This is not the product of vision. It’s the product of failure, a failure they now want to repackage as reform. They created a problem, let it fester and now expect congratulations for cleaning up the mess they made.
Yet their idea of streamlining isn’t consistent or fair. It’s selective. They haven’t proposed comprehensive reform to remove burdens across the board. They’ve simply chosen a few pet sectors, like wind energy, to fast-track. Instead of fixing the system, they’re playing favourites. That’s not responsible governance. That’s convenience disguised as principle.
Let me ask you this. Where was this sudden clarity when energy producers were strangled with compliance rules and outright disdain for many years? This government has had every chance to listen. It chose control over collaboration, and it chose delay over delivery. Now, under pressure and failing public trust, they want to flip the script.
We welcome any government that is finally willing to reduce red tape, but you cannot forget the years of damage caused by the very policies they now quietly abandon. We won’t allow them to trade one form of overreach for another, pushing through large-scale projects without oversight simply because the reality of their previous position has had to shift, out of pure necessity.
True reform means accountability. It means consistency. It means applying that same fair, transparent rule to everyone. What this government is doing is not reform. It’s rebranding, and the public knows the difference. So no, they don’t get to call themselves heroes for walking away from a fire they helped ignite. And they certainly don’t get to centralize more power in the name of fixing a broken process they designed.
We need real regulatory reform, not selective deregulation. We need leadership, not damage control, and we need to stop pretending that political convenience is the same as political courage.
The urgency of energy action does not now give us licence to abandon that good governance. We must reject the false choice between clean energy and democratic accountability. We can and must do both. This bill, in its current form, undermines local voices, bypasses environmental oversight and concentrates far too much power in the hands of a few. It dresses up central control as efficiency and calls it progress. But progress built on exclusion, overreach and unchecked authority is not progress at all. It’s regression.
Let’s support renewable energy the right way — transparently, responsibly and with the people, not against them. This bill in its current form is a Trojan Horse. It rides in on the promise of sustainability, but once passed, it delivers deregulation by fiat.
It hands sweeping unprecedented authority to cabinet and to the B.C. Energy Regulator — authority to change rules without legislative oversight, authority to override heritage protections, authority to scrap environmental assessments, authority to cancel angling and trapping permits, and all of it done behind closed doors with no input from the people who will actually live with these projects in their community.
[3:15 p.m.]
Let’s review definitions. The bill defines renewable resources to include wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, biogas and ocean-based energy. Here’s the catch. Cabinet can expand that list by regulation. That means the scope of the legislation is not fixed; it’s fluid. It can grow at any time without returning to this House, without any public debate. What does that mean in practice? It means this bill may start with wind projects, but it won’t end there. In fact, the government has already signalled its intention to use it for the North Coast transmission line and any other project that it deems convenient.
The Environmental Assessment Act is explicitly disapplied to these projects. That’s not an oversight. It’s not an error. It’s a choice. We are talking about removing environmental review for industrial-scale infrastructure across vast swathes of British Columbia. Wind farms, transmission lines and beyond. No assessment. No studies. No accountability. Just go.
Clause 2 of the bill designates the nine wind farms and the North Coast transmission line as streamlined projects and gives cabinet the power to designate any other prescribed renewable project the same status in the future. That may sound harmless, in fact even inviting in some cases, but in practice it allows cabinet to bypass consultation, to fast-track projects and exempt entire developments from any democratic review, all by regulation.
It’s important to understand what “streamlined” actually means here. It means exempt from public inquiry. It means stripped of obligations under the Environmental Assessment Act, the Agricultural Land Commission Act, the Heritage Conservation Act and the Safety Standards Act. And perhaps most alarming of all, it allows the regulator to amend the very act that governs its own activities. That’s right, under this bill, the B.C. Energy Regulator can unilaterally change the Energy Resource Activities Act without seeking approval from this Legislature.
We are not just delegating authority here, we are abandoning it. And levels 2 and 3, streamlining under Bill 14, remove key sections of the Energy Resource Activities Act, sections governing environmental protection, sections that define how long permits last, sections that deal with abandoned or orphaned sites, sections that define who owns what, sections that let the public request investigations. Gone.
It doesn’t stop there. The regulator can suspend Safety Standards Act for certain projects. Yes, the same Safety Standards Act meant to protect workers, ecosystems and communities. It can suspend or cancel hunting, trapping and angling permits — think about that — without notice or process. The regulator could suspend traditional land use rights that have existed in some communities for generations. Why? To make room for a project the community had no say in, no environmental review of and no recourse against.
Clause 15 allows renewable energy projects to proceed on agricultural land reserves, including exemptions from the soil and fill restrictions that protect our farmland. Again, this may sound technical — in fact, it does sound technical — but the implications are real. Our most fertile and protected agricultural lands are now open to being carved up by cabinet order. The irony is rich. The NDP spent years telling us that they were the protectors of the ALR, and now with one stroke of the pen, they’ve turned those same protections into Swiss cheese.
[3:20 p.m.]
The bill also allows for the creation of a new orphan fund for renewable projects, similar to the fund that exists for orphan oil and gas wells. But here’s the problem: it offers no structure, no rules, no limitations on liability — just a blank cheque. And who pays for it? That’s also left open.
The regulator can impose fees, levies and taxes, even retroactively to 2024. Imagine that your company followed every rule in good faith, and suddenly you’re handed a retroactive tax bill. Is that the kind of business climate we want in B.C.?
Bill 14 uses renewable energy as a shield to hide a deeper agenda: centralized control, deregulation by stealth and the erosion of public accountability. We owe it to our communities, our workers and our future to call this bill what it truly is. It is not a clean energy plan but a dangerous blueprint for regulatory overreach.
As I continue my remarks on Bill 14, I want to focus a little bit about what this legislation means at the ground level for residents, for municipalities, for businesses and for anyone who believes in transparent governance. This bill doesn’t just weaken our laws; it undermines our process.
Let’s be clear about what happens when you remove environmental assessments, public consultations, ministerial accountability for major energy infrastructure decisions. You silence communities, you silence landowners, you silence those that have a right to speak, and you replace democratic oversight with unilateral discretion.
Streamlining — let’s unpack that term. The government claims it means cutting red tape. But what they really mean is that it’s cutting the public out of the process. Under clause 2, the government can designate any future project as streamlined at any time. This is not a one-time list of nine wind farms and a transmission line. It’s an open-ended pipeline — no pun intended — for unreviewed, unconsulted projects to move forward without regard to who they may impact.
Let’s think about that from the perspective of a local government — a mayor, a town council, a community that suddenly finds a 100-metre wind turbine project or a high-voltage transmission corridor being fast-tracked through their agricultural zone beside a residential development. Under Bill 14, that community has no official say. There is no environmental assessment, no public hearing, no requirements to consider the cumulative impact on wildlife, infrastructure or water system. That is not how you build public trust. That is how you destroy it.
Clauses 4, 7 and 10 allow the energy regulator to not only administer the act but to delegate its functions even further, down to individual employees or outside contractors. So not only does cabinet get to make decisions behind closed doors, but now the regulator gets to offload key decisions to people who may or may not be public officials at all.
What’s next? Letting consultants sign permits? Letting project proponents police themselves? This is not administrative efficiency. This is a system designed to avoid responsibility, a system built to shield decision-makers from scrutiny when something goes wrong. And let’s be clear. Something will go wrong, because when you remove environmental reviews, when you ignore land use policies and exempt projects from safety regulations, the risk cannot help but multiply.
[3:25 p.m.]
Now I want to spend a moment on clause 12. This provision allows the government to impose levies, effectively new taxes retroactively, which I spoke of earlier. Let that sink in. The Legislature is being asked to give the regulator the power to bill project developers the past costs they had no knowledge of, based on rules they didn’t even know existed at the time, and those fees don’t need to be approved by the full House. They can be set by regulation or sub-delegation.
How is that fair? How does that promote investment certainty? What kind of a message does that send to renewable energy investors looking to do business in British Columbia? Let me tell you. It says: “We’ll change the rules after the fact, and you’ll pay the price.” This is a surefire way to drive investment out of the province, especially when there are jurisdictions across Canada and around the world offering better regulatory certainty, lower permitting risks and higher levels of public support.
Then we come to clause 13, perhaps the most constitutionally concerning clause in the entire bill. It allows cabinet to make regulations modifying the Energy Resource Activities Act itself — not just how it’s administered but how it legally applies to projects.
I don’t want to sugar-coat this. We’re saying for the first time that the executive branch can change the application of a provincial statute without bringing a bill before this Legislature. We are saying that cabinet can override sections of a statute or even disapply them entirely by regulation.
That is not how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work. Statutes are written by legislators — not regulators. Accountability must run through this House — not around it. This is executive overreach, plain and simple.
If it’s allowed here, who’s to say it won’t be used again or on other statutes, in other sectors, on other projects? Today it’s energy. Tomorrow it could be housing, health or education. We are setting a precedent that undermines the foundation of legislative oversight and authority.
If you’re a rancher, a farmer or a guide-outfitter who relies on stable access to land, then this bill makes your life more uncertain too. If you’re a rural resident who fought for years to preserve a wetland or a wildlife corridor, you’ve just been erased from the conversation. This is not progress. This is regression dressed up in renewable clothing.
Let me close by saying that the NDP government wants to say this bill is about renewable energy, but at its core, it’s about cutting people out of the decision-making process. It is not consistent with the principles of sustainable development or reconciliation. If we allow it to pass in this form, we are not only undermining environmental protection. We are undermining the very legitimacy of the Legislature.
Let’s confront what I see as a double standard in this bill. If an oil and gas company asked to build a pipeline through ALR land without an environmental assessment, every NDP MLA in this chamber would be on their feet in outrage. But under this bill, a transmission corridor for a wind farm can run through farmland, disrupt wildlife, impact heritage sites and override local zoning — all with the stroke of a pen.
Suddenly, that’s good. We’re supposed to cheer. That’s not environmentalism. That’s ideology masquerading as energy policy. We must hold all energy projects to the same standard. Renewable does not mean invisible. Green doesn’t mean good by default.
As I bring my remarks to a close, I want to return to where I began — not with the technical flaws of this bill, though there are many, as I see it, but with its deeper implications for how we govern.
[3:30 p.m.]
Bill 14 is not just a bad piece of legislation; it’s a betrayal of the very principles that should guide public decision-making in this province. The NDP will tell us this bill is about renewable energy, about climate action, about seizing the future. But I would challenge every member in the chamber to ask: “At what cost?”
The cost here is high. We are being asked to hand over unchecked authority to cabinet; to allow the B.C. Energy Regulator to rewrite its own rule book; to exempt major projects from environmental review, land use restrictions and Indigenous consultation; to validate retroactive decisions that would never stand up to scrutiny in real time.
This is not bold vision. This is legislative cowardice behind green branding. We lose transparency. We lose accountability. We lose the confidence of communities that have worked hard to protect this environment, the economy and their rights.
Worst of all, we lose credibility. When we say we believe in clean energy projects but push them forward with the same heavy-handed tactic we would never accept from other energy suppliers, we send a message: process only matters when it is now politically convenient. We undermine the very environmental movement that you claim to support.
The transition to renewable energy has got to be rooted in respect for communities, for the rule of law and for science. Bill 14 turns renewable energy into a simple blank cheque. It tells the public: “Trust us. We know what’s best.” It tells municipalities: “You’re no longer needed.” It tells First Nations: “We’ll call you when the bulldozers arrive.” And it tells this Legislature: “Don’t worry. We got this.”
This is not good government. This is executive fiat. If we allow it to pass unchallenged, unamended, unchecked, we will have no one to blame but ourselves when the public turns and says: “Why were we never consulted?” British Columbians deserve better than this.
What could we be doing instead? We could modernize the environmental assessment process to be more efficient without eliminating it entirely. We could develop a true regional planning framework for renewable projects, ensuring that development aligns with local needs and ecological capacity. We could invest in grid reliability where it’s actually needed, like Campbell Heights, the Kootenays or north Vancouver Island. We could build participation with Indigenous communities into energy development from day one, not as an afterthought. We could make renewable energy a source of pride, not division.
But that takes work. And most of all, it actually takes humility — the humility to admit that fast isn’t always fair and progress isn’t always streamlined.
History tells us what happens when governments overreach, when they ignore process in the name of speed, when they cut corners and call it courage. We end up with legal challenges, with environmental damage, with projects stalled by public backlash, not advanced by public support. We’ve seen it with Site C. We’ve seen it with Coastal GasLink. We’ve seen countless megaprojects rushed through without proper process, only to be mired in controversy for years.
Do we really need to repeat those mistakes, or can we not learn from them?
Brennan Day: I rise today to speak against Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act, a piece of legislation that, on the surface, claims to promote renewable energy development but, underneath, reveals a troubling pattern of centralized control, legislative overreach and democratic erosion. It’s simply Bill 7 in steel toes and a vizi-vest.
[3:35 p.m.]
On the topic of PPE, the members opposite probably want to stick on their hearing protection now.
This government wants British Columbians to believe that Bill 14 is about progress, about clean energy and about the future. Let’s not be fooled by the branding and title. This bill isn’t about wind turbines and transmission lines. It’s about consolidating power in the Premier’s office a second time this session and slapping a green label on it to make it go down a little bit easier.
After eight years of saying no to development in this province, they are trying desperately to rebrand themselves as the party of yes. But they can’t decide whether they’re wearing work boots or Birkenstocks.
The NDP is the party of no. Site C? No. LNG Canada? No. LNG Canada 2? No. Trans Mountain? No. Only after being pushed and prodded did we get these at all — not because of the NDP but despite them. These are projects that, despite government opposition, managed to keep our anemic provincial economy breathing — barely.
Now the same folks who wanted to cancel or delay everything that moved a few short years or months ago are trying to rebrand themselves as champions of investment in the province of British Columbia. As our former speaker referred to, it’s the arsonist with the garden hose showing up with a bucket when the fire is already started.
This is not a miraculous pivot by this government. It’s a power grab by the Premier’s office. Bill 14 hands sweeping authority to cabinet to designate projects as streamlined — translation: exempt from environmental assessments, Indigenous input, local government input, safety standards and, in some cases, basic logic. This isn’t streamlining. It’s scorched earth administration. It is a Humvee with a Green Party sticker slapped on the back, and it’s almost as subtle.
But the good news: just like a Humvee in the parking lot, this bill is extremely hard to ignore. This bill divides projects into three tiers of streamlining. Think of it as a pyramid scheme for regulatory exemptions. The higher up the ladder, the fewer rules you follow and the less likely it is anyone gets to ask why.
If you’re thinking that surely there must be some oversight baked in, allow me to introduce the B.C. Energy Regulator, formerly a neutral referee, now fully deputized as Rule Writer-in-Chief. Under this legislation, the regulator can rewrite the Energy Resource Activities Act, because apparently, the Legislature is now just a suggestion box. That includes all the members outside of the Premier’s office.
Now they can waive safety standards — as if industrial accidents are just, maybe, character-building moments — unilaterally decide what is not heritage land, cancel hunting, trapping and angling permits on a whim and impose taxes and levies retroactively — which, last I checked, was frowned upon in most democracies.
If you’re wondering whether this bill comes with a sense of proportion, it doesn’t. But it does come with a staggering sense of entitlement. The Legislature exists for one very specific reason: to prevent this exact kind of legislative overreach, to ensure that the rule of law isn’t written behind closed doors by whoever holds the pen in the Premier’s office.
Yet here we are, debating a bill that essentially puts an entire class of industrial activity on an express train to cabinet approval. Journalist Rob Shaw said it best: “Bill 7 in a safety vest.” Just a small cabal of decision-makers in the engine room, hands on the throttle, are going to wave at democracy as they speed past.
Given the red tape and stagnation this government has become famous for, this should be a step in the right direction. But in typical fashion, the NDP is going to try and maintain control and try to pick winners and losers as they flail to meet even the most basic emissions targets and struggle to explain exactly how we get to net zero in this province.
[3:40 p.m.]
This government has perfected announcements. Hordes of communications people in the background prove that. But they always come up short on a real plan to actually get us there.
The definition of renewable resources in this bill is elastic. It includes solar, geothermal, wind and biomass — all good things, especially here on Vancouver Island, where we desperately need to look for sources of more renewable power. But it also leaves the door wide open for cabinet to add anything else they like by regulation — not by legislation, but by regulation.
Today it’s nine wind farms and a transmission line. Tomorrow? Who knows? Maybe we should streamline the definition of streamlining while we’re at it. At least then we’d all be playing by the same rules. From the same rule book.
Here’s what’s not a joke: this bill takes a chainsaw to local government authority and throws meaningful Indigenous consultation straight into the biomass generator. The Union of B.C. Municipalities, not exactly a radical group or typically offside with this government, has sounded the alarm, loudly, about this overreach. They’ve said this bill strips communities of the ability to determine what happens on their own land, from zoning and land use to public safety and environmental risk. These are the same municipalities that already have to fight tooth and nail for infrastructure funding and housing support. Now they won’t even be part of the conversation about major projects in their own backyard. That is quite the pivot.
I’ll take a bit of a detour here because I’ve observed something that this government seems to be struggling to recognize. With an $11 billion deficit, they’ve seemingly run out of carrots to hand out to municipalities that toe the line and meet cabinet targets. So now they’re relying solely on the stick.
Bill 14 is just that. It is all stick and no carrot. We ask municipalities to manage wildfire response on the front lines, the homelessness that plagues our communities, emergency services, health care, infrastructure and climate adaptation. But when it comes to massive energy infrastructure in their backyard, the message from this cabinet is clear: the Premier knows best.
Joining UBCM is the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. They’ve raised an equally damning critique of this legislation. This bill enables the B.C. Energy Regulator, not the First Nations whose territory is affected, to decide what is or isn’t a site of cultural or spiritual significance. One person appointed, no consultation required. That’s not reconciliation; that’s regression. That’s 19th century colonial governance with a Green Party sticker slapped on top of it for cover. Have you really no shame?
To put it charitably, the government’s environmental values since the election have been extremely flexible, perhaps, maybe, since 2021 leadership, when they elected a Premier offside with the will of the party.
We say we want to honour Indigenous rights, but this legislation strips away input from nations before the first shovel hits the dirt. This government constantly tells us, “Nothing about us without us” — until it gets inconvenient.
We need to work through permitting challenges and delays, along with our First Nations partners, not in spite of them. Is there work to do on restoring investment stability in British Columbia around this issue? One hundred percent. Both sides can agree that that work needs to happen. But this is not the way to have that conversation. All stick, no carrot. All pomp, no plan.
Let’s review what we’re actually doing here. No requirement for environmental assessments, because fast is more important than responsible. ALR protections? Gone. Farmland is now just future space for solar panels instead of sweet potatoes. Safety standards? “We’ll see.” Heritage and cultural protections? Left to the discretion of a regulator. Community input? “Meh, we don’t need that either.” Legislative oversight? Not by this government. God forbid somebody points out the flaws in this bill: “How inconvenient.”
[3:45 p.m.]
It’s a Green Party bumper sticker on a Humvee. But don’t worry. It’s all fine, because it’s “green.” Apparently, that word now means whatever cabinet wants it to mean, whenever they need it to mean something. Great job with the new communications department hires. They are certainly earning their keep with the flip-flopping principles of this government. They are certainly earning their paycheque, trying to figure out what exactly the position of this government is from day to day.
What exactly is the point of having a legislative process, of gathering in this chamber, debating, amending and voting if the government can simply rewrite the rules after the fact with the stroke of a regulatory pen?
We’re going to talk a little bit about clause 13. This clause grants cabinet the power to amend, disapply or reapply entire sections of the Energy Resource Activities Act retroactively, if they so feel. That isn’t legislation. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure book where every ending is being ghostwritten by the Premier.
And clause 21? That one takes it even further. It validates any regulatory action taken since April 1, weeks before this bill was even introduced to this House.
So let me get this straight. They’ve already acted like this bill was law, and now they want us to rubber-stamp it after the fact to apply retroactively. I know this government is fond of invoking the Wayback Machine when it suits their messaging. We heard it earlier today in question period. They love a good stroll down memory lane when they can spin it in their favour. It all lands flatter these days, since they are the previous government. And they are asking us to trust them to fix their mistakes.
I don’t trust them. But using retroactivity to cover their own backsides for regulatory overreach they didn’t have the authority for in the first place? That’s not nostalgia. That’s legislative fraud dressed up as efficiency, wearing a Green Party bumper sticker. Is this law, or is it improv theatre? I truly would like to know; most days I cannot tell.
I ask with all sincerity: is this what democracy looks like in British Columbia? Decisions made behind closed doors, authority concentrated in cabinet, this House and this Legislature neglected as a ceremonial afterthought, brought in only to retroactively justify whatever the Premier has already decided.
British Columbians deserve a lot better than that. They deserve a renewable energy policy that is transparent, accountable and rooted, truly rooted, in local and Indigenous consultation, not a pipeline of politically favoured projects rammed through by insiders, exempt from scrutiny, competition or even basic logic.
If this government truly believes in renewable energy, and I genuinely hope they do, then build the public trust to match. Let the projects stand on their own merit. Let the communities be heard. Let the public actually see the process, not just the press release after the fact. Not just the bumper sticker slogan. When you exempt projects from scrutiny, you don’t speed up progress. You speed up skepticism, and I am certainly skeptical.
When you concentrate every meaningful decision in one office, you don’t just remove accountability. You also centralize blame. So yes, at least we’ll know exactly who to blame when this bill delivers exactly the fallout we’re warning about today. This is not hidden. The stakeholders have been very vocal about their opposition to this bill. We on this side are speaking up for those stakeholders, hoping somebody over there doesn’t have their hearing protection in today.
Let’s be honest. We’ve seen this movie before. The government pushes through legislation without meaningful consultation, and then when the backlash hits, when the unintended consequences of failed consultation start piling up, they feign surprise, blame the feds or the President or, frankly, whoever is convenient, and spend a fortune trying to spin their way out of it. Bill 14 will be no different.
[3:50 p.m.]
When all else fails, no problem. Just give the bloated government comms team another budget bump, hire a few more well-connected advisers and start work on a fresh distraction for next week’s news cycle.
As a British Columbian and a student of political science, the practice and the theory of politics could not be further apart in this province. This bill is yet another symptom of a broken system. While they’re managing optics, it’s the people on the ground, the farmers, the local councils, First Nations and small business owners who are going to ultimately pay the price for this bill.
I think some members may know of the wind turbine on Hornby Island, if you’ve ever been to Ford’s Cove. It’s the perfect example of green policy in action in an area where we have division — Hornby Island, an extremely progressive region. I have many friends from there. I love the area, love visiting Tribune Bay, an absolute gem in the Gulf Islands. It took them eight years, on Hornby Island of all places, to get a privately built quarter-million-dollar wind turbine active at Ford’s Cove, to meet the regulatory requirements, because there was opposition. There were other considerations.
This legislation would absolutely sidestep those considerations for expediency and not safety. When we marginalize the very people that this House is meant to represent, we do more than sideline their voices; we make a mockery of this chamber.
I won’t stand here and pretend every regulation we have is perfect. We’ve tied the hands and feet of economic development in British Columbia in red tape for way too long. We need to unwind ineffective and economically damaging regulation and overreach. Lord knows we’ve got red tape in places we didn’t even know we had places.
B.C. has a serious efficiency problem, but the answer isn’t to light the whole framework on fire, call it streamlining and hope the flames distract everybody from the actual problems — unless, of course, arson is now being considered a renewable resource, unless that’s the new renewable resource this government is pushing.
Burning public trust for fuel seems to be, certainly, in demand. That’s easy. This government is pretty happy to run around with a can of gas and figure out how to put the fire out later. How about we try and avoid lighting it in the first place?
There are certainly amendments to this bill that could be made by this government to fix the problems of their poor consultation in advance. I often hear members praising the Nordic model, the cradle-to-grave social safety net of Scandinavian countries. It’s become something of a touchstone for this government. What’s consistently left out of that conversation is how those countries actually afford it. Bill 14 attempts to start to square that circle.
Norway, Denmark and Sweden didn’t build world-class public services by accident. They built them by establishing a clear and honest social contract — that responsible resource development is not a threat to progress but a way to fund it. They understood that you can’t have a robust public sector without a thriving private one. They didn’t shy away from developing those natural resources. They embraced it, regulated it properly and used the revenue to build social infrastructure that works for everyone.
We should be doing the same here in British Columbia and across this country, but this bill doesn’t come close to doing that. It avoids the hard work of reforming the regulatory maze that is a massive problem in this province. It ducks the tough conversations about normalizing responsible resource development across all sectors, not just the ones the Premier’s office finds politically convenient at the moment.
Instead, this bill gives the illusion of action, a handful of handpicked projects pushed forward under the guise of climate policy, while the government waves a green flag in one hand and buries its economic failures with the other.
We need to do better, not just for the economy but for the integrity of our democratic institutions and for the long-term sustainability of the public services that British Columbians count on and that rely on resource revenue.
[3:55 p.m.]
This bill doesn’t strengthen democracy; it simply bypasses it. This bill doesn’t improve the permitting process. It eliminates the process altogether for the politically favoured few. It doesn’t lift the burden of red tape across the board, which desperately needs to happen in this province. It shifts decision-making into back rooms, into cabinet meetings and into corridors, where public scrutiny has no access and where accountability has no seat at the table.
Let’s not forget what else this bill does. I’ll just remind everybody. It neuters the Environmental Assessment Act. It strips decision-making away from municipalities. It empowers unelected regulators to impose fees and levies retroactively. It allows the Premier’s office to decide, alone, which projects matter and which ones don’t. This is pay-for-access politics at its absolute worst.
It gives the regulator the ability to override protections for cultural heritage, agricultural land and even basic safety standards if it feels fit. It hands the government the power to act first and legislate later, then retroactively validate it through clauses like clause 21.
[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]
Through it all, it completely skirts meaningful consultation with the very people this is going to affect the most — not the downtown Vancouver people, not the downtown Victoria people, but local communities in rural B.C. and Indigenous communities across this province, who will end up eating the sandwich of this government’s failure. That isn’t how you build trust with rural British Columbia. That’s not how you demonstrate leadership. That isn’t even how you govern in a functioning democracy.
Bill 14 is not good for democracy in British Columbia. It’s not good for municipal autonomy in British Columbia. It is not good for reconciliation in British Columbia. It’s not good governance, and it’s not a good bill.
This bill won’t bring regulatory certainty; it does bring more regulatory manipulation. It does not create fairness in our system; it institutionalizes favouritism in B.C.’s energy industry. It does not support investment; it creates confusion and distrust, the very things that investors and capital fear most and the thing that they most bring to my attention when they look to invest in this province.
While the Premier’s office may see this as getting things done, what they’re really doing is cutting corners and cutting out the very people who are supposed to have a say. I urge all members here in this House to vote against Bill 14, because this bill isn’t about streamlining; it’s about strong-arming. This bill isn’t about green energy; it’s about greenwashed authority. It is a bumper sticker on a Humvee.
Once you accept this kind of overreach in the name of convenience, you normalize a style of governance that treats the rule of law as a suggestion and this Legislature as a formality. If the shoe were on the other foot, I ask the members that are here and paying attention, would you support this bill?
We can do better. I know the other side of the House can do much, much better. The people of British Columbia — every community, every First Nation and every citizen who expects transparency and fairness from their government — deserve nothing less.
Lynne Block: Well, we are here today to discuss a piece of legislation before us, Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act. Its stated purpose, as you can gather from the title, is to provide for the regulation of renewable energy projects by the British Columbia Energy Regulator at different levels and to accelerate the approval process through streamlining. This is achieved, supposedly, by modifying or disapplying the application of the Energy Resource Activities Act and other statutes in relation to these projects.
[4:00 p.m.]
While the goal of accelerating approvals might sound appealing on the surface, the method employed by this bill has drawn significant criticism, and rightly so. It is seen as a form of fast-tracking that bypasses democratic checks and balances, consolidates power with the regulator, and reduces public and local government oversight.
What are some of the key mechanisms within this bill that lead to these concerns? First, and perhaps most fundamentally, the bill dictates that the Environmental Assessment Act simply does not apply in relation to specific, streamlined projects. This is alarming, especially if you’re an environmentalist or a person of the Green Party. This includes projects like the selected wind energy projects, the North Coast transmission line project and certain prescribed wind energy or related electric transmission line projects.
For existing wind projects that become level 3 and are prescribed, any existing environmental assessment certificate is outright cancelled. The conditions from that cancelled certificate are then merely deemed conditions under a permit issued under the primary act. This wholesale bypassing of the standard environmental assessment process is significantly watering down environmental protection and oversight. This is egregious.
Beyond the Environmental Assessment Act, the bill also provides for the disapplication of crucial provisions from the primary act, the Energy Resource Activities Act, for level 2 and level 3 streamlined projects. Subject to regulations, entire sections and divisions of this act, which are normally intended to provide oversight and accountability for energy resource activities, simply will not apply. Again, egregious.
Consider what this means in practice. For level 2 projects, the general permit requirement itself may not apply. Provisions related to permit expiry or obligations upon cancellation also may not apply. Specifically, for both level 2 and level 3 streamlined projects, subject to regulations, several key provisions of the primary act generally do not apply.
Which ones are they? They’re 7(2), 10, 55 and 59. Division 2.1, expanded responsibility of Part 3, does not apply — specifically, 7(2)(f), 10(c), 56, 60 and 91. What about Part 3.1, regarding dormant sites? Doesn’t apply — specifically, 7(2)(g), 10(d), 56, 60, and 91. And Part 4, regarding orphan sites, again does not apply. What specifically? 7(2)(h), 10(e), 57, 60 and 91.
These specific parts and divisions of the primary act are typically the established mechanisms that ensure responsibility for the cleanup and the reclamation of abandoned sites. Their non-application for level 2 and 3 projects means that the standard framework for addressing dormant or orphaned sites and enforcing expanded responsibility for sites is bypassed.
Why is that? What are the consequences when there is no responsibility for cleanup? What are the consequences when there is no responsibility for the sites and reclamation of abandoned ones?
While the Lieutenant Governor in Council has the power to make regulations, including potentially applying Part 4, regarding orphan sites, or establishing a fund similar to the fund for orphan sites under the primary act, specifically 13(1)(c), 20(3), 64 and 75, the default position for level 2 and 3 projects as stated in this bill is the non-application of these critical provisions, again specifically 7(2), 10, 55, 59, and 91.
[4:05 p.m.]
This disapplication creates a significant gap in future accountability for the potential environmental impacts and the required cleanup and reclamation of sites associated with these streamlined projects. The NDP claim that they care about the environment, but how can they say this when this bill completely negates this?
In addition, the disapplication of the public request for investigation provision under the Energy Resource Act for level 2 and level 3 streamlined projects under this bill has significant implications for public consultation, people’s voices and accountability. Specifically, for both level 2 and level 3 streamlined projects, division 3.1, “Public Requests for Investigation,” of part 5 of the primary act generally does not apply, subject to — what regulations? — 13(k), 16(f), 57(k), 60(f) and 91.
This provision is part of the standard framework within the Energy Resource Activities Act. Its non-application is cited as an example of how the bill could be seen as reducing oversight and accountability by bypassing existing rules for energy resource activities.
In practice, the non-application of this provision means that a specific formal avenue for public voices and oversight regarding the activities of these streamlined projects is removed. Within the typical regulatory structure governed by the primary act, the public request for investigation mechanism would presumably allow members of the public to formally request that the regulator investigate potential non-compliance or other issues related to energy resource activities.
By removing this mechanism for level 2 and 3 streamlined projects, the bill directly limits the ability of the public to initiate such formal inquiries. Again, this is egregious. This contributes significantly to the concerns raised by critics that the bill’s streamlining processes lead to reduced public and local government — that includes municipalities and landowners — oversight and involvement.
The ability of the public to request investigations is a form of accountability, allowing external stakeholders to trigger regulatory action when they perceive issues. When this ability is removed, the accountability framework shifts, relying more solely on the regulators’ internal processes or other, potentially less accessible, avenues for raising concerns.
Furthermore, this reduction in formal public input mechanisms, alongside the disapplication of other provisions related to environmental protection and site cleanup accountability, fuels the broader criticism that Bill 14 involves bypassing democratic checks and balancing and involves consolidating power in the regulator. Established statutory processes, often including mechanisms for public input and investigation, are bypassed, reducing layers of review and transparency.
This also touches upon concerns regarding the province’s commitments to the alignment of laws with UNDRIP, which is relevant given that streamlining processes could impact consultation with Indigenous peoples.
Therefore, the removal of the public request for investigation mechanism is a tangible example of how the streamlining under Bill 14 can reduce the formal avenues available for the public — including directly affected residents, landowners and farmers — to engage with and ensure accountability from large energy projects. There is no avenue for the public, no framework for the public, no ability for any public member to be able to voice concerns or issues. Or should I say “no public oversight”? Or should I say “unhealthy” or “non-democratic” processes?
[4:10 p.m.]
In essence, the removal of the public request for investigation provision means that part of the public’s potential role in holding project proponents accountable through formal, regulatory process is diminished for these specific, streamlined projects, leading to concerns about the overall level of public oversight and the health of democratic processes in relation to these projects.
For level 2 prescribed projects, even sections concerning environmental protection and management under the primary act may not apply. The disapplication of the public request for investigation provision for level 2 and level 3 streamlined projects under Bill 14 has significant implications for local residents, landowners and farmers, affecting their ability to participate in consultation, have their voices heard and ensure accountability.
Specifically, for both level 2 and level 3 streamlined projects, division 3.1 of part 5 of the primary act generally does not apply. Subject to these regulations, within the standard regulatory framework established by the primary act, this provision typically allows members of the public to formally request that the regulator conduct an investigation into potential non-compliance or other issues related to energy resource activities. By explicitly stating that this provision does not apply for these projects, Bill 14 removes a direct and formal avenue for public voices and oversight regarding the activities of these specific projects.
For people, like I say, who live in the vicinity of these projects, such as local residents, such as local landowners, such as local farmers, this disapplication is particularly significant. These individuals are often the most directly impacted by the construction and operation of large infrastructure projects, like transmission lines and wind farms, which can affect their land, environment, quality of life, way of life and property values.
Under the standard Energy Resource Activities Act framework, the public request for investigation could serve as a mechanism for these affected parties to formally trigger a regulatory review if they observe activities they believe are non-compliant or harmful to the environment; for example, environmental damage, safety concerns or impact on their specific land use. Again, the removal of this mechanism means they lose the specific legal tool to initiate a formal investigation, potentially making it harder for them to raise concerns and ensure that the project proponent and the regulator are held accountable for adhering to regulations.
This limitation on the ability to formally initiate investigations contributes to the broader concerns that Bill 14’s streamlining processes lead to reduced public and local government oversight and involvement. The ability to request an investigation is a key component of that accountability, allowing external stakeholders to prompt action from the regulator. Its removal means that accountability relies more heavily on the regulator’s proactive monitoring, if there is some, and enforcement, again, if there is some, or on other less formal or direct means for the public to voice their concerns. This can feel like their voices are diminished within the regulatory process compared to standard projects.
Furthermore, this issue is compounded by the disapplication of other key provisions, such as those related to environmental protection and site cleanup. That means expanded responsibility, dormant sites, orphan sites. The non-application of these cleanup provisions also directly impacts local communities and landowners, as it creates a significant gap in future accountability for the costs and responsibilities of cleaning up abandoned sites, potentially leaving the public or future generations to bear the burden. Similarly, the disapplication of standard environmental protection requirements for level 2 projects means that local residents lose the assurance that these projects will be subject to the usual environmental safeguards under the primary act.
[4:15 p.m.]
For the North Coast transmission line project, identified as a level 2 streamlined project, the potential to bypass established agricultural land protections and processes is a consequence stemming from how the bill modifies the application of the Agricultural Land Commission Act.
Subject to regulations, the bill allows the regulator to permit non-farm use, soil or fill use, or subdivision of land within the Agricultural Land Reserve for a streamlined project. Critically, specific sections of the Agricultural Land Commission Act that would normally govern these uses and subdivisions do not apply in relation to land use or subdivision permitted under this bill or its regulations. This mechanism allows the project to potentially bypass established agricultural land protections and processes.
Further centralizing authority, the bill allows for the delegation of powers under acts like the Heritage Conservation Act and the Wildlife Act to the regulator. This means the regulator could exercise powers that would otherwise fall under the purview of the ministries, the ministers or officials responsible for those acts, potentially altering how these important pieces of legislation are applied to streamlined projects.
Compounding these concerns about process, the bill includes a validation provision. This section retroactively deems valid all actions taken by the board, commissioner, regulator or their staff between April 1, 2024 and the act’s commencement date, provided those actions would have been valid under the new act. This validates actions taken before the legal framework for streamline permitting was officially in place. Egregious. This is unacceptable and undemocratic.
Criticism of this bill is focused on the approval process established for these projects. The concern is that by bypassing standard environmental assessments and reducing other regulatory checks, the bill creates a system where the potential for negative environmental outcomes is increased due to a lack of stringent review and oversight. The major criticism is directed at the method of approval and regulation, not an assertion that the projects themselves lack environmental merit. It is the method of approval and regulation.
However, there are environmental concerns with each of these projects. One of these specific projects explicitly subjected to this streamlined process under Bill 14 is the North Coast transmission line project. This project involves upgrading and operating existing lines and constructing new lines from around Prince George to around Terrace. It is designated as a level 2 streamlined project. This project raises specific concerns regarding fast-tracking, environmental oversight and process bypassing.
One of the most significant points of this project is that the Environmental Assessment Act does not apply. I’ll repeat that. The Environmental Assessment Act does not apply in relation to the North Coast transmission line project. This is seen by critics as bypassing the standard environmental assessment process and watering down environmental protection and oversight.
As a level 2 streamlined project, numerous provisions of the primary act, the Energy Resource Activity Act, do not apply in relation to the North Coast transmission line project. This includes provisions intended for oversight and accountability for energy resource activities, specific provisions related to environmental responsibility and public process that do not apply and which raise huge concerns.
What are they? Provisions addressing expanded responsibility, specifically division 2.1 of part 3. They do not apply. Provisions addressing dormant sites, part 3.1. They do not apply. Provisions addressing orphan sites, part 4, specifically. They do not apply.
[4:20 p.m.]
This is most concerning because orphan site provisions typically address responsibility for reclaiming abandoned sites. While regulations could potentially establish a similar fund for orphan sites, the default under this bill for these projects is non-application of these critical provisions. This creates a potential gap in future accountability for cleanup and reclamation.
The North Coast transmission line project does not provide the right for the public to initiate investigations through public requests for investigation, ignoring a public avenue for oversight and investigation related to this project’s activities, and sections concerning environmental protection and management under this act, as well as the general permit required, itself, do not apply. Egregious.
This bill modifies how the Agricultural Land Commission Act applies to streamlined projects, including, potentially, the North Coast transmission line project, if it involves land in the agricultural land reserve. Subject to regulations, the regulator may permit non-farm use, soil or field use, or subdivision of land within the agricultural land reserve.
Importantly, specific sections of the ALC Act that would normally govern these uses and subdivisions do not apply in relation to land use or subdivision permitted under this bill or its regulations. This allows the project to, potentially, bypass established agricultural land protections and processes.
To make matters worse, the bill allows for the delegation of powers under acts like the Heritage Conservation Act and the Wildlife Act. They leave it to the regulator. This means the regulator could exercise powers that would otherwise fall under the purview of the ministers or officials responsible for those acts. While not explicitly stating environmental flaws, this centralization of authority could potentially alter how these acts, which relate to heritage and wildlife protection, are applied to streamlined projects, compared to how they would be applied by the original managing bodies.
The streamlined processes established by Bill 14, including those applied to the North Coast transmission line project, raise concerns about whether the province is upholding its commitments regarding the alignment of laws with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. This is relevant, given the potential for these streamlined processes to impact consultation.
These points collectively illustrate how the bill’s approach to streamlining, as applied to the North Coast transmission line project, is achieved through disapplying fundamental environmental and regulatory laws and reducing public and local government oversight and involvement, which critics view as problematic fast-tracking.
What about prescribed streamlined projects? This category can include any renewable energy project prescribed by regulation, like the prescribed electric transmission line, projects related to the North Coast transmission line, as well as the prescribed wind energy projects.
It was in December 2024 that B.C. approved nine new wind energy projects without requiring environmental reviews, raising concerns about the potential oversight of ecological and social impacts. For prescribed wind projects under section 14, the Environmental Assessment Act does not apply. For level 2 and 3 prescribed projects, many of the same provisions of the Energy Resource Activities Act do not apply, subject to regulations raising similar concerns about responsibility and oversight.
What are the concerns with the selected wind energy projects, the nine wind energy projects selected by B.C. Hydro in 2024 call for power? For these projects, the Environmental Assessment Act, again, does not apply. If they become level 3 streamlined projects and are prescribed, any existing environmental assessment certificates are cancelled. Again, egregious.
What are some of the negative environmental impacts? One such negative environmental impact is wildlife disruption. Wind turbines can pose risks to birds and bats, particularly migratory species. Proper siting and monitoring are essential to mitigate these impacts. But because of the so-called streamlining process advocated in this bill, there would not be the much-needed oversight, consultation and collaboration to ensure that proper siting and monitoring would take place.
[4:25 p.m.]
Then there is habitat fragmentation caused by the construction of wind farms, including access roads, transmission lines, which can lead to habitat fragmentation, affecting local ecosystems. With this bill, such vital and necessary planning and coordination is not a priority. The only priority for this bill is speed. It’s only been eight years, so why the hurry now?
What about social and community concerns? There are visual and noise impacts. Wind turbines can alter the visual landscape, leading to opposition from local communities who value natural vistas. Noise pollution is another issue with wind turbines. The operation of turbines generates noise, which some residents find disruptive, potentially affecting quality of life. And once again, without adequate consultation with Indigenous and local communities, it could lead to tensions and concerns over land rights and cultural impacts.
While branded as a path to streamline permitting, Bill 14 achieves this by disapplying or modifying fundamental, environmental land use and regulatory laws. The significant concern raised that this approach, applied to these specific projects, constitutes fast-tracking that weakens critical oversight and protection mechanisms, ultimately centralizing power with the regulator and reducing public and local government involvement.
While these projects may contribute to B.C.’s renewable energy goals, it’s crucial to address the challenges and issues associated with each through comprehensive planning, community engagement and robust, I say robust, environmental assessments to ensure sustainable and equitable development.
To do all of this, we need to ensure that this streamlining bill is not the template for future energy development in our province, especially when there is blatant disregard and disapplication of crucial provisions from the primary act, the Energy Resource Activities Act, as well as the Environmental Assessment Act.
Whether you are an environmentalist or not, this is not the issue. It is the disapplication and the disregard of important and critical best practice legislation that is at the core of our concerns. This bill is an attack on our democratic processes. Therefore, I am not supporting Bill 14.
Scott McInnis: It’s my pleasure today to speak against Bill 14.
I’m here really for one reason only, and that’s to represent the people of Columbia River–Revelstoke. Earlier today, there was a very important release, and I want to share a couple of quotes from that release. I live in Kimberley, which is on the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa people. I have to say, the Ktunaxa are a very easygoing people, and it takes a lot to fire them up.
Today, we did have a release from ʔaq̓am, known as the St. Mary’s Band, one of the communities of the Ktunaxa. I’m just going to read a couple of quotes here, if I may. “ʔaq̓am chief and council are deeply disappointed and alarmed by the announcement of British Columbia’s recently introduced Bill 14 and 15 and demand the immediate withdrawal of these bills.”
My second quote: “Bills 14 and 15 were developed with no meaningful consultation with First Nations.”
I quote again: “A trust model does not work, and the province needs to implement its interim approach with respect to this proposed legislation to ensure it aligns with UNDRIP as per its legal commitments.”
I’m going to take a little bit of a different approach because, as I said, my first and foremost priority here is to represent the wonderful people of Columbia River–Revelstoke, and I’m going to look at a couple of specific sections of this bill which are concerning to the people I’m here to represent.
[4:30 p.m.]
I’m not here just to speak today to this piece of legislation but to voice the growing concern and unease of many British Columbians, particularly those in Columbia River–Revelstoke, folks who see this bill, Bill 14, as a shift in how this government treats land, people and power.
At first glance, Bill 14 appears to be about renewable energy. We can all agree renewable energy is extremely important. It’s the path forward. But it’s this process we’re going through which people are extremely alarmed about. This cause finds widespread support across our province — renewable energy. Beneath that promise lies something far more troubling: a legislative structure that concentrates authority, sidelines local voices and undermines some of the very values we claim to hold dear. Nowhere is this more apparent specifically than in clause 18, which I’m going to address.
This clause grants the B.C. Energy Regulator the authority to suspend or cancel permits issued under the Wildlife Act. That includes and is not limited to hunting licences, trapping permits and angling authorizations — activities that, in regions like mine, are far more than recreational pastimes. They’re are part of our identity. They’re about putting food on the table for our local residents. They are expressions of culture, heritage and, as I mentioned, a key part of our identity. They’re how families in the Columbia Valley have lived for generations, all people in the Columbia Valley.
In Revelstoke, Golden and throughout the Columbia River Basin, hunting and fishing are embedded in the rhythms of daily life. They’re how we teach our children responsibility and respect for the animals, for the land and for each other. It’s how elders pass on lessons that go far beyond the mechanics of a hunt or the placement of a trapline. These are acts of stewardship, part of an unbroken chain of knowledge that ties people to a place and in a way no government office or urban policy ever could.
There’s a growing divide in the riding which I represent. People are becoming increasingly concerned and aware, and there’s a general feeling that on the eastern corner of this province, this government no longer represents them.
Let me be clear. For many families, especially in more remote parts of my riding, this isn’t an aesthetic or lifestyle choice. It’s an economic necessity. Groceries, obviously, as we’ve canvassed before, are very expensive. Fuel is expensive. Access to affordable, healthy food is already strained. Wild game and fish are essential to household food security, particularly in the off-season when jobs are scarce and incomes are stretched thin.
Clause 18 is very concerning for the people of Columbia River–Revelstoke. A freezer full of wild meat can mean the difference for many families, especially seniors who are still able to hunt. This is the difference between resilience and hardship.
Our communities are very intertwined. People share their wild game. This clause 18 really puts that in jeopardy in Bill 14.
When legislation proposes to hand over the authority to cancel that access, to revoke it without notice, without consultation, without even requiring justification, we’re not talking about a technical change in policy. We’re talking about a potential rupture in the social and cultural fabric of entire communities.
It would mean a government-appointed regulator, likely based in the Lower Mainland or Victoria, who could decide unilaterally that a local family’s right to hunt or fish no longer aligns with the province’s priorities for energy development. That is an alarming concentration of power, particularly when exercised over something so vital, so intimate as access to the land.
[4:35 p.m.]
What’s more, the Wildlife Act already contains provisions for ecological protection. If a species is at risk, if a population needs time to recover, the minister has the authority, guided by science and process, to impose closures or limitations. That framework already exists, and it includes transparency, public rationale at times and time-bound decisions. So we must ask: why bypass it?
Why allow an energy regulator whose primary mandate is approving projects, not managing ecosystems, to suddenly hold the power to cancel hunting or fishing permits, potentially? It raises a troubling possibility that when faced with a conflict between a project and a community, the solution could be to remove people — not through consultation, not through compromise.
This is not theoretical. Consider the mountain valleys east of Revelstoke or the Kinbasket reservoir corridor, areas rich in biodiversity but also heavily targeted for transmission corridors and, potentially, wind exploration. What happens when those development ambitions intersect with long-standing hunting routes or traplines? If clause 18 were to stand, we already know the answer. The human presence will be the first thing to go.
In a region that has already borne the burden of past energy policy, from the flooding of farmlands and habitat under the Columbia River treaty to the displacement of small communities and disruption of ecosystems, we cannot afford to repeat history under potentially a greener name. Bill 14 allows an unelected regulatory body to revoke those permits as it sees fit. There’s no requirement for consultation, no expectation of public notice and no built-in appeal process. The regulator is not even asked to provide evidence or rationale for its decision. That is a radical departure from the principles of fairness and accountability.
In places like the upper Arrow Lakes, where families have hunted moose for generations, or around Trout Lake, where small trapping operations continue to steward animal populations, the threat of being arbitrarily removed from the land is not theoretical. It’s real, under Bill 14. It cuts to the heart of who we are, and it gets worse.
Bill 14 gives the regulator the power to determine whether a renewable energy project is subject to environmental assessment. It determines whether safety standards apply. It determines whether traditional land use will stand in the way of industrial expansion. If there’s a conflict between a wind project and a wildlife corridor, or between a transmission line and a community’s back country, there is now a legal mechanism to remove the human element — no mitigation, no redesign, just revocation of access by fiat.
I really want to talk about wind energy for a second. Perhaps we can canvass this more in the committee stage. As I understand it, a lot of this infrastructure is not made in B.C. or in Canada. It comes from somewhere else. That is not responsible environmental policy. That is not planning. This is overregulation.
This approach is not limited to non-Indigenous communities. Across the province, and especially in regions like mine, First Nations have exercised hunting and trapping rights for millennia. These rights are not discretionary. They are constitutionally protected under section 35 of the Constitution Act.
There’s a lot of ambiguity around what’s happening with Bill 14 in relation to rights and title. If permits are suspended on traditional territories without consent or consultation, this government would be in violation of its own legal obligation.
[4:40 p.m.]
More than that, it will be sending a message that at times under its choosing, reconciliation can be optional when it’s inconvenient and that Indigenous stewardship can be overridden when development is the goal.
Then there is clause 20, the clause that ties all others together and reveals the underlying philosophy of this legislation. Clause 20 hands sweeping authority to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, cabinet, to make regulations on nearly every fundamental aspect of the act. Cabinet can define what qualifies as renewable, decide which projects are streamlined, exempt them from environmental assessments and even override the protections of the Agricultural Land Commission.
It doesn’t stop here. The pattern continues with clause 15. This provision allows the province to authorize non-farm uses on lands protected under the agricultural land reserve, including subdivisions and exemptions of soil conservation, so long as they are deemed related to renewable energy development.
At first glance, the rationale may seem practical. Good agricultural lands in this province are few and far between. Renewable energy infrastructure — solar arrays, substations, wind installations — often requires flat, open terrain, and the government wants to ensure that agricultural zoning doesn’t stand in the way of that progress. This is British Columbia. We don’t have an abundance of flat, open terrain.
When you step out of the policy brief and into the land itself, particularly in a region like mine, we have the Purcell mountain range to the west and the Rockies to the east. The Columbia River trench is very narrow. There’s not a lot of room for renewable energy projects here.
This picture becomes far more complicated. In places like the Columbia wetlands, ALR land isn’t just flat and accessible. They’re ecologically significant, agriculturally productive and culturally important. They’re home to local food systems, critical wildlife habitat and traditional Indigenous harvesting grounds.
Once again, this clause contains no requirement to consult with First Nations whose unceded territories intersect with these landscapes. There is no legal obligation to assess how traditional land use, food sovereignty or cultural heritage will be impacted. There is no cumulative impact assessment. Each project can be assessed in isolation, as though it exists in a vacuum.
We know better. One transmission line leads to another. One access road opens away for more. Slowly, acre by acre, the integrity of the land can be eroded, not just by a single decision but by the absence of a bigger picture.
It is a piecemeal approach to land management in a region already carrying the weight of past industrial compromise. As I said before, the Columbia River treaty has been a net benefit for my region, but it hasn’t come without its growing pains. In the Columbia Basin, we still live with the legacy of the Columbia River treaty. We remember what it meant to be told that agricultural land would be flooded, homes relocated, and ecosystems submerged, in the name of hydroelectric power.
The voices of those who lived on that land, settler and Indigenous alike, were at times ignored until the damage was already done. To see history repeat itself under the banner of clean energy is not just ironic; it’s painful. We support renewable energy. We understand its importance, but we also understand what it means when the means to that end are imposed, not shared.
This brings us to clause 20, the clause that pulls the thread on the entire fabric of Bill 14. Again, the Lieutenant Governor in Council is to make regulations on every foundational element of this act. Clause 20 permits these decisions to be delegated, passed down to a single minister, a regulator or even a civil servant.
[4:45 p.m.]
In other words, decisions that could alter the legal, environmental and cultural landscape of entire regions, like Columbia River–Revelstoke, could be made by someone who may never have set foot there.
There’s no requirement to consult the public, no duty to inform the Legislature, no obligation to consider Indigenous input, no mechanism to account for local concern or cumulative impacts. It is government by regulation, executive discretion without democratic accountability. For communities like the ones I represent, where land use decisions are not abstract policy but lived experience, the consequences are very real.
These extraordinary powers don’t need to be exercised by cabinet directly. They can be delegated — again, the B.C. Energy Regulator. That means decisions with provincewide environmental, cultural and economic implications could be made without ever being debated in this House. That’s very concerning to all of us here on this side of the House.
In places like Golden and Edgewater, citizens are deeply involved in land stewardship. Local governments, community groups and Indigenous leaders have been working to balance environmental protection with economic development, sometimes under tough circumstances. Bill 14 makes this a challenge. This bill tells them that their work, their voices and their knowledge can be set aside with the stroke of a pen.
Across Columbia River–Revelstoke, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents are working to heal the past. There are efforts underway to restore ecosystems, co-manage the land and plan a sustainable energy future together, one that reflects shared values and mutual respect. It’s a cooperative approach, something that Bill 14 is sorely lacking.
British Columbians want a clean energy future. We want to reduce emissions. We want to invest in renewables. We want to build infrastructure that reflects both economic opportunity and environmental care, but we will not get there by concentrating power, as in Bill 14, in just a few hands. We will not get there by excluding communities, by sidelining debate, overriding rights or ignoring the lessons of our past.
Bill 14, as it stands, reflects a vision of energy development that prizes speed over consultation, efficiency over equity, and regulation over representation. That is not a future that my constituents can support.
Deputy Speaker: A reminder to both sides of this House for silence on their electronic devices.
Kristina Loewen: Today I rise to speak to Bill 14, a piece of legislation that claims to streamline the approval process for energy projects in B.C. Let me begin by stating clearly that we agree with the intention. We agree that energy projects — whether transmission lines, generating infrastructure or other essential systems — are taking far too long to get off the ground in this province.
We hear it from industry, from local communities and from everyday British Columbians: the current process is too slow, too fragmented and too costly. Developers are stuck navigating a maze of ministries, timelines stretch on for years, and good projects, projects that would benefit our economy and energy reliability, are often stalled or abandoned because the permitting process has become a burden. That needs to change.
British Columbia should be a place where investment is welcomed, where jobs are created and where critical infrastructure can be built without getting lost in a bureaucratic dead end. That’s something this side of the House has consistently advocated for.
To the extent that Bill 14 attempts to address that, we support that direction, but what concerns us, and what should concern every member in this chamber, is not what this bill claims to do but how it goes about doing it. This bill doesn’t just cut red tape; it cuts out the role of the Legislature.
[4:50 p.m.]
It gives the cabinet the power to designate projects without public input, to waive oversight mechanisms and to hand broad regulatory authority to unelected officials. It allows the B.C. Energy Regulator to rewrite the rules that govern its own actions, without ever coming back to this House for debate, approval or accountability. It even allows for retroactive decisions, including the power to impose levies or fees on proponents for actions taken months ago, before this legislation even existed. That is a dangerous precedent. When government begins to bypass public scrutiny in the name of efficiency, what we end up with is neither fast nor fair. We get concentrated power, unstable rules and a system that serves neither developers nor the public.
While the government is positioning this bill as a breakthrough for energy permitting, I see something else: a deeply concerning expansion of executive authority, with few safeguards and almost no accountability. That’s what I’ll be addressing in greater detail today, because we can do better. We can support faster project approvals without sacrificing the role of this Legislature and the trust of the people that we serve.
Before I get into the more troubling aspects of this legislation, I want to take a moment to acknowledge where we do find common ground, because there are parts of this bill that reflect priorities that we’ve been calling for in this House for some time.
Let’s start with something that’s been long overdue: a single-window approach to permitting. For years, project proponents, whether they’re working on energy transmission lines, regional generation projects or emerging technologies have faced a confusing, time-consuming approval process that spans multiple ministries and regulatory bodies. This isn’t just inefficient; it’s a barrier to investment.
Too many good projects have died on the vine, not because they were flawed but because the system around them was too slow, too convoluted or too uncertain to navigate. So the move towards consolidating permitting under a more unified framework is welcome. If done properly, with proper oversight and transparency, it can absolutely help get important energy infrastructure moving again.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: we want to see energy projects move forward in B.C. We support responsible development. We support investment, and we support jobs. We support building the infrastructure that will allow our province to meet its growing energy demands, not five or ten years from now, but today. We understand that B.C. cannot remain competitive or reliable if we keep sending investors the message that “maybe someday” is the best we can offer.
We have heard time and time again from project developers that they don’t just want speed; they want clarity, certainty and consistency. They want to know what the rules are. They want to know the timelines. They want to know that if they meet the requirements, they will get a fair hearing and a fair shot. That’s not a partisan issue. That’s just good governance. For far too long, we haven’t had it.
Yes, the Conservative caucus supports the core goal of making energy permitting in this process faster, more efficient and more navigable. We support changes that reduce unnecessary delays and duplication. We support making the B.C. Energy Regulator more responsive and better resourced to handle modern project timelines.
But we also support something else, something that this bill unfortunately starts to cast aside, and that’s accountability. If we want to build a system that works for British Columbians, one that earns their trust, attracts investment and gets shovels in the ground, then we have to ensure that the reforms we make are rooted in transparency, in legislative oversight and in public confidence. That’s the balance this government could have struck with Bill 14, and that’s the balance we’ll be fighting to restore through debate and proposed amendments.
As I outlined just moments ago, there are aspects of Bill 14 that are worth supporting, ideas that could help streamline the path forward for energy development in our province. But this is where the agreement ends. While the government presents this bill as a commonsense update to reduce duplication and delay, the legislation itself goes much farther — too far.
[4:55 p.m.]
What Bill 14 actually does beneath the headlines and press releases is hand-sweeping, unchecked authority to the cabinet and to the B.C. Energy Regulator.
Let’s start with what I believe is the most egregious overstep. This bill gives cabinet the power to fundamentally change how energy projects are reviewed and approved without ever coming back to this Legislature. Under this bill, the Lieutenant Governor in Council can declare by regulation what constitutes a streamlined project. That means they can add, remove or redefine projects behind closed doors, without debate, without input and without any obligation to explain those decisions publicly. It doesn’t stop there.
The bill goes on to grant cabinet the power to exempt entire projects from the environmental assessment process — again, not by legislation, but by regulation. Not only are the criteria unclear; they are entirely discretionary. If cabinet says a project is exempt, then it’s exempt — full stop. No hearings, no public submissions, no independent evaluation.
Now, that might be acceptable if this was limited to a narrow, clearly defined set of projects, but it’s not. This bill leaves the door wide open for any project to be added later and for all the usual safeguards to be switched off. That should concern every member in this House, not just those on this side.
It gets worse. Bill 14 also allows the B.C. Energy Regulator to change, suspend or even eliminate parts of the very act that governs its activities, the Energy Resource Activities Act, again, without legislative input. Let’s pause on that for a moment. We are literally giving a regulator the power to rewrite its own rulebook. No vote, no accountability, no transparency. If that wasn’t alarming enough, the bill also gives the regulator the authority to impose fees and levies retroactively, all the way back to April 1, 2024.
Let me be clear. We’re not talking about future costs or predictable fee schedules that proponents can plan for. We are talking about rules that haven’t been debated yet, costs that haven’t been disclosed and obligations that could be applied months after the fact. What business, what developer, what investor would feel confident operating in a jurisdiction where rules can be changed retroactively and arbitrarily?
This is not regulatory reform. This is legal instability. We have to call it what it is: a profound shift in how decisions are made in this province. We are witnessing the slow erosion of democratic process, replaced by a growing reliance on regulation, ministerial direction and executive orders. It’s a pattern we’ve seen before with Bill 7, Bill 15 and now, again, with Bill 14.
Let’s not kid ourselves. This is not about getting projects built faster. This is about government getting out of the way, not for the sake of the public but for the sake of consolidating control.
British Columbians are not opposed to efficiency; they are opposed to being shut out of decisions that affect their future. As members of this Legislature, regardless of party, we should be concerned whenever government attempts to sidestep the very institution we were elected to uphold. We are not here to rubber-stamp cabinet decisions. We are not here to hand over our authority to regulators.
We are here to represent the people, the people of our ridings, and to ensure that when laws are made, they are made here with transparency, debate and accountability. That is the role of this House, and that is the line that Bill 14 crosses, not just in one place but throughout the entire framework of this legislation.
I’ll be addressing even more of these powers in detail, including the ability to suspend established rules around safety standards, environmental oversight and public rights of appeal. But for now, let me just say this. Streamlining is not a licence to override democracy. We cannot — we must not — let efficiency become a Trojan Horse for unchecked executive power.
One of the most frustrating challenges we hear from project proponents, whether they’re in energy infrastructure or construction, is not simply the amount of regulation they face. It’s the uncertainty of it all. Uncertainty about timelines, uncertainty about requirements, uncertainty about what rules apply or whether those rules will change midstream.
[5:00 p.m.]
I want to be clear. Bill 14 does not solve that problem; it deepens it. While this bill is being sold as a way to bring clarity and speed to energy permitting in B.C., what it actually introduces is a whole new level of unpredictability, and it does so in some deeply troubling ways.
Let’s begin with retroactivity. Clause 12 of this bill allows the B.C. Energy Regulator or individuals it delegates authority to, to impose fees, levies or other financial obligations retroactively to April 1, 2024. Now, think about that. We’re telling project developers that decisions they made in good faith based on rules as they existed at the time could be revisited and re-costed under a completely different regime — a regime that wasn’t even law when they acted.
What’s worse, there’s no requirement that these retroactive levies be reasonable, predictable or appealable. They’re simply imposed after the fact, and project proponents are expected to comply. This is a dangerous precedent.
How do you attract investment into this province when businesses can’t rely on the rules staying consistent for even a matter of months — when a project that was fully permitted in March could be hit with unexpected fees by July, not because anything changed on the ground but because government rewrote the terms after the fact? This isn’t just poor planning. It’s a signal to every potential investor that B.C.’s regulatory system is unstable, unreliable and subject to political whim.
Unfortunately, this bill doesn’t stop at retroactive costs. It also gives cabinet and the B.C. Energy Regulator the power to designate, redefine or remove entire classes of projects from existing oversight at will. Under clause 20, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by regulation, decide what qualifies as a renewable resource, whether a project is subject to environmental assessment or not, whether a particular project is eligible for streamlining and what level of streamlining it receives and whether certain safety or reporting requirements should apply.
Now, this may sound procedural — just background policy stuff — but let’s not miss the point. These are decisions that used to be predictable, debated and codified in law. Under Bill 14, they are turned into moving targets, subject to change at any time by regulation with no guarantee of public consultation or advance notice. That is the exact opposite of regulatory certainty.
Let me put it another way. This bill trades transparency for flexibility in the most one-sided way possible. Government gets the flexibility. Developers get the uncertainty. And for British Columbians? They’re left in the dark.
Consider this. A project could begin its development process under one framework based on publicly available criteria with a reasonable understanding of its obligations. Then partway through, or even after completion, cabinet could issue a regulation that reclassifies the project, imposes new costs or removes protections that were previously in place.
What message does that send? It tells investors that the goal posts can and will be moved. It tells communities that their input can be erased. It tells regulators that they’re no longer implementing law. They’re rewriting it on the fly.
I would argue that all of this does more harm to energy development in this province than the red tape this government claims to be cutting. Because at the end of the day, developers don’t just want speed. They want stability. They want to know that once a rule is established, once a permit is issued, once a plan is approved, it will hold — not indefinitely, not without accountability, but with the basic fairness that says: “We stand by the rules we gave you when we started.”
Bill 14 throws that principle out the window. It replaces a flawed system — yes, one that needs reform — with a discretionary system governed by regulation and open to sudden change.
That makes it harder, not easier, to build the kind of long-term energy infrastructure this province needs, because serious investors don’t chase political unpredictability. They look for jurisdictions where the rules are clear, the process is fair and the decisions are consistent. That’s what we should be aiming for. Instead, we are left with legislation that undercuts the very certainty it claims to deliver.
[5:05 p.m.]
While the Premier and his ministers may be congratulating themselves on this so-called streamlining, I urge every member in this chamber to look closer and to ask the question: are we making it easier to build or easier for government to change the rules whenever it wants?
In a democracy, when government seeks to expand its power, there is always one critical question that must be asked. Who is watching? Who is checking those decisions? Who is holding that authority to account? Who is ensuring that the public, the people who sent us here, have a voice in how that power is used? Unfortunately, Bill 14 doesn’t just concentrate authority in cabinet and the regulator. It also eliminates nearly every meaningful mechanism for public oversight.
Let me start with one of the most alarming features of this legislation. Clause 14 explicitly removes the application of the Environmental Assessment Act from a broad range of projects, including the nine designated wind energy projects, the North Coast transmission line and, critically, any additional projects cabinet chooses to add by regulation. This is not a temporary exemption. It’s not a narrowly-scoped exemption. This is a structural change, a long-term bypass of a process that exists to protect the public interest.
Environmental assessments are not just about ecology; they are about transparency. They require a project to be reviewed holistically, to undergo technical analysis and to include public consultation. They ensure communities can ask questions, raise concerns and have a formal role in decision-making. By removing this requirement, Bill 14 is not just speeding things up; it’s cutting the public out. We should all be clear-eyed about what that means: fewer voices at the table, less access to information and zero obligation for the government to explain its decisions.
Now, the government may argue that these exemptions are only for low-impact or strategic projects, but let’s be honest. Those terms are never defined in the bill. There are no thresholds, no specific criteria, no requirement for impact measurement. Cabinet decides, and the rest of us are expected to accept it.
But it’s not just the environmental process that gets gutted. Bill 14 also gives the B.C. Energy Regulator the ability to delegate core functions to unnamed officials, private contractors or government employees with no oversight from this Legislature and no clear reporting obligations to the public.
Think about that. We’re talking about a body that can impose retroactive fees, suspend or rewrite regulatory obligations and now delegate those powers to others without needing to disclose who is making the decisions or how they are being made. Where is the transparency in that? Where is the basic accountability?
Under normal democratic practice, when government exercises authority, there are checks and balances. There are public hearings, published reports, standing committees and appeal mechanisms. But in Bill 14, there are none of these. Instead, it explicitly removes them.
Even under the Wildlife Act, Safety Standards Act and Heritage Conservation Act, we see the same pattern repeated. Government decides by regulation whether these protections apply or whether they don’t. That’s not how good governance works. The people of this province have every right to expect that major decisions, especially those with broad environmental, cultural or community implications, will be made with them, not around them. Yet time and again, this bill says the opposite. It says: “We’ll let you know when it’s done.”
That approach is not just wrong. It’s corrosive. It breaks down trust between citizens and government. It makes communities more skeptical, not less. And it fuels the very resistance and delay this bill claims it will avoid. Because when people feel excluded from the process, they push back, they organize and they challenge. They often do so not because they’re against development but because they were never brought in at the start. It’s ironic, really. By trying to avoid public involvement, the government may well end up creating more conflict, not less.
We’ve seen this pattern before. We’ve seen it in Bill 7, where the cabinet sought sweeping powers to override local governments. We see it in Bill 15, which bypasses democratic controls in the name of speeding up infrastructure. And now with Bill 14, we’re seeing it again, this time with the added danger of regulatory and financial discretion being placed in the hands of unelected officials.
[5:10 p.m.]
The pattern is clear. This government is slowly but steadily rewriting the role of this Legislature, reducing it, bypassing it and, in some cases, outright ignoring it. I ask my colleagues on all sides of this House: is that a direction we’re truly comfortable with?
Regardless of how any one of us feels about a specific energy project, we should all feel uneasy about how this bill was written. We are not here to be spectators to cabinet rule. We are here to be legislators, to scrutinize, to debate and to represent our constituents in the full light of day. That’s what public accountability is and what it’s all about — not just following the rules but making sure the people who are affected by those rules can see how they were made. That is the trust we were elected to uphold. With Bill 14, that trust is being undermined.
We’ve now spent a great deal of time going through what’s in this legislation and, just as importantly, what’s not. We’ve seen a bill that claims to streamline energy development but instead centralizes authority, removes oversight and silences public input. We’ve seen a government that tells British Columbians they’re making the system faster when, in reality, they’re just making it harder to challenge, harder to question and harder to see.
We’ve seen a troubling pattern, one that has unfolded across multiple pieces of legislation, where legislative power is being shifted behind closed doors into the hands of cabinet, regulators and appointed officials with virtually no checks, no balances and no guarantees.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can absolutely achieve the goal of faster project approvals. We can reduce red tape. We can provide clarity for investors. We can still do all of that without sacrificing the principles that define good governance. So what should happen instead?
First, and most critically, we must restore the role of this Legislature. There is simply no justification for giving cabinet the authority to rewrite the rules of energy regulation by decree. The powers to redefine project eligibility impose retroactive levies, exempt assessments and modify safety or environmental protections. Those powers must be subject to debate, to scrutiny and to vote in this House.
If the government believes a project warrants special treatment, then let them make that case publicly. Let them bring that case here, where every MLA can review it, question it and speak to the people that they represent. That is how democracy works. That is how trust is earned.
Second, this bill must include firm guardrails on retroactive authority. It is one thing to charge fees or impose conditions on future developments. That’s expected. That’s reasonable. But to reach back in time and penalize project proponents under rules that didn’t even exist when decisions were made? That is unfair, and it is unprofessional.
Let me say this plainly. Retroactivity is not a tool for responsible government. It’s a warning sign — a warning that the government does not value certainty, that it does not respect its own legislative timelines, that it will change the terms of engagement after the fact and expect businesses to bear the cost without recourse. That’s not how you encourage investment. That’s how you scare it away.
If this bill is to proceed, it must include clear limits on what can be applied retroactively and include a requirement on any new levies, fees or regulatory changes and how they are communicated in advance and applied prospectively, not punitively.
Third, this bill must reinstate mechanisms for public input and accountability. This means ensuring that key oversight processes like the environmental assessment, the public request for investigation mechanisms under the Energy Resource Activities Act and community consultations are not simply waived by regulation.
British Columbians have a right to know what’s happening in their backyards. They have a right to ask questions. They have a right to understand how decisions are being made and by whom. This government — any government — has a duty to respect those rights. When we involve communities in the process, we allow for dialogue instead of dictation, and we build stronger projects and stronger public support for those projects.
Fourth, we need transparency in delegation. Bill 14 allows the B.C. Energy Regulator to delegate core authorities to individuals or groups with no clarity on who those people are, what their qualifications are or what criteria they’ll use to make decisions. If we’re going to allow delegation of regulatory powers, then that process must be fully transparent and subject to reporting requirements.
[5:15 p.m.]
British Columbians deserve to know who’s making decisions that affect them and how those decisions are being monitored. We can’t afford to create a shadow system of energy permitting, one that operates outside of public view without recourse or oversight.
Finally, I want to speak briefly to the broader tone of this legislation and this government’s approach in recent months. We are now seeing bill after bill that appear to be less about solving real problems and more about concentrating control. Bill 7 tried to give this cabinet the power to override local governments. Bill 15 will let them bypass legislative approvals for infrastructure. Bill 14 hands them the keys to energy regulation while closing the door to transparency, accountability and the public interest.
This is not just a policy trend. It’s a governance shift, one that every member of this House, regardless of party, should view with serious concern. If we allow this shift to continue unchallenged, we risk turning the Legislature into little more than a ceremonial venue, a place where decisions are announced, not debated. Let me say directly: that is not why I ran for office. That is not why any of us are here.
We are here to represent, to question and to challenge, to give voice to the people who entrusted us with their vote and their future. That means insisting on laws that are debated in the open, applied fairly and built to last.
I will close with this. The Conservative caucus stands ready to support the streamlining of energy approvals in this province. We want to see projects move forward. We want to see B.C. grow, invest and lead. But we will not support a process that strips away oversight, silences the public and gives unelected officials the power to rewrite our laws behind the scenes.
There is a better path forward, one that respects both the need for efficiency and the need for accountability. Until this government is willing to take that path, until they’re willing to amend this legislation to reflect the values of democratic governance, we must oppose this bill as it’s written.
When the stakes are this high, when the powers are this broad and when the consequences are this far-reaching, we cannot afford to get it wrong. We owe British Columbians better than that.
Deputy Speaker: Member, could I ask that you adjourn debate just for a moment? We’ve got one of the other Houses that needs to report.
Kristina Loewen: I’d like to adjourn debate.
Kristina Loewen moved adjournment of debate.
Motion approved.
Reporting of Bills
Bill 11 — Employment Standards
Amendment Act, 2025
Nina Krieger: Section C reports Bill 11 complete without amendment.
Deputy Speaker: When shall the bill be read a third time?
Hon. Adrian Dix: Now, hon. Speaker.
Third Reading of Bills
Bill 11 — Employment Standards
Amendment Act, 2025
Deputy Speaker: Members, the question is third reading of Bill 11.
A division has been called.
[5:20 p.m. - 5:25 p.m.]
[The Speaker in the chair.]
The Speaker: Members, the motion before the House is the third reading of Bill 11, intituled Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2025.
[5:30 p.m.]
Motion approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]
The Speaker: Bill 11, Employment Standards Amendment Act, has been read a third time and has passed.
Hon. Mike Farnworth: In this chamber, I call continued debate, second reading, Bill 14.
In the Douglas Fir Room, Section A, the estimates for the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
In the Birch Room, Section C, committee stage, Bill 13.
[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]
Second Reading of Bills
Bill 14 — Renewable Energy Projects
(Streamlined Permitting) Act, 2025
(continued)
Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Members. We’ll bring the House back to order now.
Harman Bhangu: Today I rise not only to speak to Bill 14, the so-called Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act, but to stand on behalf of countless British Columbians who believe that environmental progress must go hand in hand with democratic integrity. This NDP government has framed this bill as a forward-looking reform, an effort to modernize, to reduce red tape, to accelerate the green energy transition. They see it as a step towards climate leadership, a necessary pivot, a pragmatic fix. They’ve called it a streamlining measure, a red-tape cutter, a fast track for progress.
But let’s not confuse slogans with substance. The reality is far less noble and far more dangerous. Bill 14 is not about efficiency; it’s about control. It grants sweeping and unprecedented authority to provincial cabinet, powers that can override existing rules, skip environmental review and bypass meaningful consultation both with Indigenous nations and with local communities. All of this is justified under the guise of urgency and streamlining.
Let me be clear: we all understand the need for renewable energy. We all want to see a cleaner, more sustainable British Columbia. That’s not up for debate. But what is up for debate is how we get there. And this bill takes us in the wrong direction. This bill does not build trust; it breaks it. It does not modernize governance; it centralizes it. And it does not strengthen the environmental protection; it weakens it.
Let’s unpack this bill and its implications, because buried within the technical language is a significant and dangerous shift in how major decisions will be made in this province.
One, the cabinet override. At the heart of Bill 14 is a provision that allows cabinet to declare any renewable energy project as a prescribed undertaking. Once that declaration is made, the rules change — not some of them; all of them. Environmental assessments? Waived. Permitting reviews? Optional. Public consultation? Skipped. Local bylaws? Overridden. Indigenous consultation obligations? Severely diluted or avoided entirely. This is not a tweak or a minor adjustment. This is a blank check for the cabinet to approve projects with near-total discretion.
[5:35 p.m.]
While the government insists this is about accelerating renewables, the mechanisms being created here are not limited. They are not confined to emergencies. They are broad. They are open-ended powers that will become baked into the norm of decision-making. Today it’s solar, wind. Tomorrow it could be highways, mines or ports. The scope is broad, and the cabinet wants it to be. This bill effectively turns the provincial cabinet into a one-stop shop of green-lighting major infrastructure — no independent review, no third-party assessment, no grassroots input, just a rubber stamp from the top.
Two, the red tape is an essential safeguard. The government has tried to sell this bill with one of its oldest tricks in the playbook, by demonizing red tape. They say British Columbia is burdened with bureaucracy, that the regulations are obstacles, that consultations are a delay tactic, that transparency is inefficient. But let’s be honest. Not all red tape is bad. Much of what this government calls red tape is in fact critical oversight.
These are rules that exist to ensure transparency in large-scale developments; protect delicate ecosystems and endangered species; enforce consultation with Indigenous Peoples, as required under section 35 of the constitution; and give local residents a voice in decisions that affect their water, land and way of life. These aren’t nuisances. They’re democratic protections.
What this government sees as barriers, I see as protection — protection against abuse, mismanagement, irreversible environmental damage. When you cut corners in the name of speed, you don’t just fast-track progress. You fast-track mistakes.
Three, a pattern of centralization. This bill is not an isolated incident. It fits into a larger, troubled trend we’ve observed over the past several years, a pattern where this NDP government consolidates power at the top while eroding the voices of those on the ground.
We saw it in housing, where provincial legislation gave the minister sweeping authority to override local zoning rules and development processes. In many communities, residents and councils were blindsided by the mandates they had no opportunity to shape. The message was clear. Your local context is secondary to provincial objectives.
We saw it in education, where the autonomy of school boards was dismissed, diminished. Local trustees, people elected by parents and community members, found themselves cut out of key decisions. Curriculum changes, funding allocations and policy shifts were dictated from Victoria with little consultation.
And now, in the realm of renewable energy, we’re watching the same blueprint unfold. Decisions that should involve collaboration, consensus and careful scrutiny are instead being pushed through with a top-down model. This is not how you build trust. This is how you build resentment, especially in rural areas already skeptical of centralized governance.
What we are witnessing is not leadership. It’s overreach. It’s a government that seems more comfortable ruling by fiat than fostering open, democratic dialogue. That should alarm us all.
Four, trust is a fragile thing. Public trust is not something governments are entitled to. It’s something they must earn. And it is a gift that can be broken with a single misstep. Once broken, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to restore. Trust, once lost, doesn’t just fade away. It fractures, erodes and takes years, even decades, to rebuild — if it can be rebuilt at all.
Trust isn’t built on good intentions alone. It is built through actions that are transparent, accountable and participatory. When people see decisions being made behind closed doors, without consultation, without genuine dialogue, they feel abandoned. They feel sidelined.
[5:40 p.m.]
That is when they begin to disengage.
What we’re dealing with here is not just a permitting issue; it’s a democratic issue. This is about the very foundation of governance and relationship between the governing and the governed.
The moment people feel that they are no longer part of the process, when they feel that their voices do not matter, they begin to withdraw. They stop showing up to public consultation. They stop participating in civic processes. They stop believing that their opinion can make a difference. That is the real danger here. When people disengage from our democratic process, the legitimacy of the government itself begins to erode. The consequences are far-reaching.
We see it already in communities where people are no longer involved in consultations. Believing that outcomes are already decided by a distant, centralized government, we see it in municipalities where local leaders feel powerless in the face of provincial mandates. We see it in Indigenous communities, where consultation becomes nothing more than a token gesture and afterthought rather than meaningful partnership.
What happens when trust erodes? It leads to a climate of cynicism. It breeds suspicion and conspiracy. It erodes the social fabric. People start questioning the motives of their elected leaders. They become skeptical of every new policy, every new proposal and every new initiative. Eventually, that mistrust manifests in unrest, in protests, in litigation. We have seen it before. It’s the price we pay when the people feel unheard and unrepresented.
Ultimately, the irony is this. The very changes this government claims to fast-tracking, whether in energy, housing, or health, will slow to a crawl when people stop believing that they have a voice in the process. You don’t accelerate change by bulldozing those who have questions. You accelerate resistance. You invite further division and opposition. The true cost of this bill is not just in legal shortcuts or regulatory simplification. It is in the trust that will be lost. And that is something no government can afford to sacrifice.
Five, real solutions ignored. Now let me ask the obvious. If the permitting process is truly too slow, why hasn’t this government taken the necessary steps to fix it? Why hasn’t there been a significant investment in the staffing or permitting agencies? These agencies are responsible for ensuring that projects are reviewed thoroughly and responsibly, yet we’ve seen a chronic shortage of personnel, leading to delays, backlogs.
Where is the funding to hire more experts to expedite these reviews without sacrificing quality or accountability? Where is the investment in digital upgrades and improved coordination systems that could streamline communication between agencies, reduce redundant paperwork and make the permitting process more effective for all involved? We live in a digital age where technology can be leveraged to make processes faster and more transparent, yet there is no effort to modernize the system to keep pace with the demands of a growing and evolving industry.
Where is the training for environmental analysts who must evaluate the potential impacts of these projects on the ecosystem, wildlife and local communities? They need ongoing education and resources to adapt to new challenges, technologies and environmental considerations.
Where are the resources for Indigenous liaison offices to ensure that the rights and concerns of Indigenous communities are not only heard but fully respected? The government has promised reconciliation, but where is the concrete support for those offices to carry out their mandate effectively?
And where is the capacity building for local governments? They’re the ones who know their communities the best and should have the support they need to engage in decision-making processes. Yet we see municipalities struggling to meet the demands of complex projects with limited resources.
[5:45 p.m.]
None of these critical steps are being addressed in this bill. Why? Because this government is not actually interested in strengthening and improving the existing system. What this bill represents is an attempt to bypass the very checks and balances that are there to protect us all. By taking away the power of local authorities and independent agencies, this government is not cutting red tape; it’s dismantling the safeguards that keep our environment, our communities and our democracy intact. That’s not streamlining. That’s surrendering to convenience.
It is about removing obstacles, yes, but not to achieve progress. Instead, it’s about avoiding accountability, reducing scrutiny and cutting the brakes because you don’t want to fix the engine. By ignoring real solutions, this government is choosing the easier path. The path: expediency and the cost of long-term trust, transparency and good governance.
Six, renewable energy deserves better. Let’s also talk about the irony in this all. Renewable energy is often presented as more than just an energy source. It’s held up as a moral imperative. We are told that it’s the path to a cleaner, more ethical and sustainable future. For many British Columbians, that vision resonates deeply.
But there is the contradiction: while we preach the values of clean energy, the bill proposes to launch those very projects through a dirty process, one that sidesteps scrutiny, silences communities and undermines trust. If renewable energy is truly the future, shouldn’t we hold it to the highest standards? Shouldn’t solar, wind, hydro and geothermal projects reflect our best values, not our worst habits? Shouldn’t they be the models of integrity, transparency and collaboration?
We cannot afford to undermine the credibility of the renewable sector by linking it to executive overreach. That will only undercut public buy-in and fuel opposition, especially in regions where trust is already fragile. Clean energy must mean more than clean emissions; it must mean clean governance.
Seven, the dangerous precedent set. Finally, let me issue a warning. Once you grant extraordinary authority, once you normalize the bypassing of oversight, it is extremely difficult to put that genie back in the bottle. What starts as an expectation now becomes the new norm. This bill sets a precedent that when things are politically inconvenient, due process can be suspended. Today it’s for renewables. Tomorrow it could be used for resource extraction, infrastructure expansion or land expropriation.
We must not build the future on shortcuts. We must not sacrifice democracy at the altar of expedience. In closing, we must choose better. British Columbians want action on climate. They want renewable energy. They want clean air, sustainable jobs and a better future for their children. But they also want and deserve good governance. They want leadership that respects the rule of law, strengthens our institutions and brings people along through dialogue and transparency.
Bill 14 is not that. It is not bold climate action. It is not democratic innovation. It is not reconciliation in practice. It is a retreat from accountability, a concentration of power and a slap in the face of those who believe process and participation matter.
[5:50 p.m.]
We can do better, and we must do better. Let us not confuse urgency with recklessness. Let us not mistake control for competence. Let us not trade our democratic values for speed. Once we lose public trust, once we give up the checks and balances that protect us, it’s not just the environment at risk. It’s the very foundation of our province’s democracy.
I will be voting against Bill 14. I urge my colleagues to do the same. Let’s build a future that is not only green but just, inclusive and governed with integrity.
Bryan Tepper: I rise today to speak against Bill 14, the so-called Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act. Let me start by saying that I’m all for renewable energy. Wind farms, solar panels, geothermal: let’s bring it on. Who doesn’t want clean energy powering our homes, businesses and maybe even the odd electric skateboard zipping down Government Street?
But here’s the thing. This bill isn’t just about making it easier to build a few wind turbines. It’s a Trojan Horse stuffed to the brim with unchecked power, sneaky exemptions and a whole lot of “Trust us; we’ve got this” from the NDP government. Spoiler alert: I don’t trust them, and neither should you.
Let’s unpack this. Bill 14 is being sold as a shiny new tool to streamline approvals for nine wind farms and the North Coast transmission line. Streamlining sounds great, right? Cutting red tape, getting projects moving, creating jobs: sign me up. But when you dig into the fine print, you realize this isn’t just about trimming bureaucratic fat, the very fat this NDP government put in place. It’s about giving the NDP and the B.C. Energy Regulator a blank cheque to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with barely a nod to the Legislature or the people we represent.
The government claims this bill simplifies the approval process for renewable energy projects. Currently, developers must navigate multiple ministries to get the green light. Fair enough. Nobody loves a bureaucratic maze. Or wait. I thought the NDP might have, because they’re the government that built that maze.
Instead of creating a clear, transparent process, Bill 14 hands the keys to the kingdom to the B.C. Energy Regulator and the NDP cabinet. They get to decide what counts as a renewable resource project — wind, solar, biomass, biogas, geothermal, you name it — and if they want to add something new to the list, no problem. An order in council, a quick scribble behind closed doors and — poof! — it’s included. No debate, no oversight, no pesky elected officials asking questions.
Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist, but this kind of unchecked power makes me nervous. The bill allows the regulator to write its own rules under the Energy Resource Activities Act. That’s right. The regulator gets to regulate itself. It’s like letting the fox guard the henhouse, except the fox also gets to redesign the henhouse, cancel the security cameras and declare itself vegan for good measure. This isn’t streamlining. It’s a power grab dressed up in green wrapping paper.
Let’s talk about the exemptions to this bill, because they’re a doozy. Bill 14 lets certain projects, starting with those nine wind farms and the transmission line, skip the Environmental Assessment Act entirely — no environmental review, no public consultation, no accountability. The government says they’ll fix this later with changes to the Environmental Assessment Act, but they can’t tell us when. “Trust us,” they say. “It’s coming.”
[5:55 p.m.]
I’ve heard better promises from my son when he swears he’ll clean his room later. I think he might be watching and not cleaning his room right now, as he’s supposed to be.
It gets worse. The bill lets the regulator decide whether a piece of land qualifies as heritage under the Heritage Conservation Act. That’s right. One person, handpicked by the regulator, gets to say: “Now, that culturally significant site — not significant enough.” No appeal. No oversight. Just a single person with a clipboard and a god complex. This isn’t just bad policy. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Then there’s the agricultural land reserve. Bill 14 allows renewable energy projects to carve up ALR land, subdivide it and bypass rules about soil and fill use. Our farmland is precious. It feeds our communities, supports our farmers and keeps our province resilient. But this bill treats it like a blank canvas for wind turbines and transmission lines. I can just imagine the pitch. Why grow food when you can grow power lines?
Here’s the kicker. For the highest level of streamlined projects, level 3, the bill waives the Safety Standards Act. That’s right. Safety standards, those pesky rules that keep workers and communities safe, can be tossed out the window.
I don’t know about you, but when I think of renewable energy, I’d like to know the wind turbine isn’t going to topple over because someone decided safety was optional. We’ve seen what happens when corners are cut. We’ve mourned workplace accidents, grieved preventable tragedies. We had a member speak of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge just today. Why would we gamble with safety for the sake of expediency?
Now, let’s talk about the bill’s more authoritarian flourishes. Bill 14 gives the B.C. Energy Regulator the power to cancel hunting, angling and trapping permits on a whim. No explanation needed. No appeal process. Just a snap of the fingers, and your permit is gone.
I can picture it now. You’re out in the woods, ready to cast your line, and a regulator official rolls up in a golf cart and shouts: “Sorry, Bob, your fishing trip has been vetoed by the wind farm.” It’s absurd, but it’s also deeply troubling. These activities aren’t just hobbies. They’re part of a way of life in British Columbia. They sustain families, connect us to our land and deserve better than arbitrary cancellation.
Then there’s the retroactive power grab. Clause 12 allows the regulator to impose fees and levies, essentially taxes, on projects dating back to 2024. That’s right. They can reach into the past and slap a bill on someone’s desk for a project that’s already underway. It’s like getting a parking ticket for a car you parked perfectly last year.
This retroactive taxation isn’t just unfair. It’s a deterrent to investment. The NDP claims they want to attract renewable energy projects. But who is going to invest in B.C. when the rules can change after the game has already started?
The bill also creates a separate orphan fund for renewable energy projects, distinct from the existing orphan well fund. On the surface, this sounds responsible; set aside money to clean up abandoned projects. But here’s the catch. There’s no clarity on how this fund will be managed, who pays into it or how it’s enforced. It’s like promising to save for a rainy day but forgetting where you put the piggy bank.
[6:00 p.m.]
Without transparency and accountability, this fund risks becoming a slush fund for the regulator to dip into whenever it feels like it.
I want to take a moment to reflect on what’s at stake here. British Columbia is blessed with breathtaking landscapes, vibrant communities and a rich cultural heritage. We have responsibilities to protect these treasures for future generations. Bill 14 puts that legacy at risk.
By bypassing environmental assessments, sidelining safety standards and undermining our agricultural land, this bill prioritizes short-term gains over long-term stewardship. We’ve seen the cost of hasty decisions before — eroded trust, damaged ecosystems, fractured communities. We cannot afford to repeat those mistakes.
This bill also erodes the democratic process. By handing sweeping powers to the B.C. Energy Regulator and the NDP cabinet, it sidelines this Legislature and the people we serve.
We are the voice of British Columbians. We debate. We scrutinize. We hold the government to account. But Bill 14 says: “Don’t worry. We’ll handle it.” That’s not just an insult to us. It’s an insult to every voter who sent us here.
Let’s talk about the NDP’s track record for a moment. For years, they’ve piled on regulations, making it harder and more expensive to get projects off the ground. They’ve scared off investment, leaving B.C. lagging behind in renewable energy development.
Now they’re suddenly champions of streamlining? Forgive me if I’m skeptical. This isn’t a road-to-Damascus moment. It’s a political pivot.
Bill 14 is their attempt to have it both ways. Look green while consolidating power. They claim it’s about nine wind farms and a transmission line. But the bill’s scope is far broader. Any project can be added later; no questions asked. It’s like ordering a coffee and getting a five-course meal you didn’t ask for, except the meal comes with a side of authoritarianism.
We can do better. We can streamline renewable energy projects without sacrificing oversight, safety or democracy.
Interjection.
Bryan Tepper: I am glad the minister agrees.
We can attract investment without retroactive taxes or arbitrary permit cancellations. We can protect our environment, our farmland and our heritage while building a clean energy future.
But Bill 14 isn’t the answer. It’s a shortcut that takes us down a dangerous road. I urge this House to reject Bill 14 and send it back to the drawing board. Let’s work together, across party lines, to craft legislation that truly serves British Columbians, legislation with clear rules, robust oversight and respect for the land and the people we represent.
[6:05 p.m.]
We have a chance to get this right, to build a renewable energy sector that’s sustainable, accountable and inclusive. Let’s not squander it on a bill that puts power in the hands of a few at the expense of many.
In closing, I ask my colleagues to think about the legacy we want to leave. Do we want to be remembered as the Legislature that rubber-stamped a power grab disguised as progress? Or do we want to be the ones who stood up for democracy, for accountability, for the future of our province? I know which side I’m on.
We need to fix the bureaucratic maze that has been created. This is the House in which we can do that. We don’t need ultimate power placed in the hands of a regulator.
I’m voting against Bill 14, and I urge every member of this House to do the same.
Anna Kindy: Cutting red tape and fast-tracking and streamlining — it all sounds great, doesn’t it? You might think so, but this government managed to debase those concepts and instead just repackage their continued desire for authoritarian power, in the form of the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act.
This legislation gives all the authority to the government and the energy regulator, including the changing of rules that govern the regulator, and all without the approval of the Legislature for those changes. The government claims that with this legislation they are simply advancing nine wind farms and transmission lines, but in reality, they are giving themselves unlimited power over any project they choose.
The Renewable Energy Projects Act is the government’s attempt to appear like they’re streamlining wind farms in B.C., but the clauses of this legislation dig much deeper than that. Allow me to illustrate.
In my riding of North Island and in many more rural ridings in general, hunting and fishing are part of people’s everyday lives, of subsistence, recreation and a huge part of their livelihoods. This has been that way for many, many generations. If implemented, Bill 14 could put detrimental restrictions on hunting and fishing in B.C. The government would be enabled to cancel guide-outfitting, hunting, angling and trapping permits as it sees fit.
I echo the concerns of my colleague the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin, who has been voicing that, under Bill 14, unelected bureaucrats will be empowered to indefinitely suspend or cancel guide-outfitters, hunting, angling and other Wildlife Act licences, without hearings, without appeal, without compensation.
[6:10 p.m.]
British Columbia guide-outfitters, hunters, anglers and others need protection against government overreach. Thousands of jobs in family-owned businesses across B.C. depend on these licences. Now they are facing a climate of uncertainty. Jobs, businesses and communities as a whole are now at risk, and the British Columbians who work in these professions are stewards of the land.
When we speak of guide-outfitting, we are talking about a $160 million-per-year industry, which sustains 2,000 jobs and attracts 5,000 visitors annually. I wonder, is there any limit on the number of guide-outfitter, hunting or angling licences that can be permanently cancelled without a hearing under this bill? This sounds very familiar, with this government and this minister.
Does the ministry have an estimate of how many licences or permits may need to be suspended or cancelled to implement and move forward just the main projects, like transmission lines, in this bill? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how many people become losers as the government picks their winners and losers.
This government announced many months ago that they would be approving nine wind farms, and those wind farms would bypass environmental impact assessments because they are economically important. After years — I repeat, years — of driving investments out of British Columbia, out of my riding of North Island, this government now seems to have realized what we’ve known all along: encouraging investments creates jobs, builds communities and benefits everyone in this province.
Their realization comes after years of heaping on regulation after regulation, complicating people’s lives, making it nearly impossible and prohibitively expensive for many projects to get off the ground. I will repeat the words of the member for Richmond Centre. This bill is not so much about streamlining as being a rush job, a last-minute attempt to expedite projects, only after realizing it’s far too late, that we are on the verge of an energy shortfall.
To me, this seems to be a trend with this government. They avoid issues and are idle until the moment they decide to do something, as an emergency — an emergency like the tariffs. Then they use their cooked-up urgency to try to quickly push through their agenda. The agenda is simple: it’s to gain more power so that they don’t have to debate legislation among all 93 elected officials in this House.
This is called a democracy. They want to erase the voices of some of the members in this House, thus erasing the voices of those who elected each member. Each of those 93 elected officials represents voters of British Columbia.
As a refresher, the location of these recently announced wind farms are as follows: there’s one in Merritt, one in Kelowna, one near Campbell River, two near Logan Lake and four in the North and the Peace. We saw B.C.’s cattle ranchers and guide-outfitters link arms with environmentalists in urging the province to reconsider the environmental impact assessment exemptions for new wind farms.
[6:15 p.m.]
Something we haven’t seen very often is cattle ranchers and eco-activists alike and many other British Columbians warning about unforeseen impacts to wildlife, land and water from these wind farms. As my colleague the member for Delta South said: “What do cattle know that this Premier doesn’t?”
This is because cows are spooked by wind turbines, whether it’s the sound, the vibrations or what have you. Let’s imagine you have a grazing lease where you have a cattle operation. If the government decides to build a wind farm where your cattle graze, you’re out of business with a snap of some fingers. There’s no recourse for you. This government has decided.
If this government wanted to reform the environmental assessment process to make it more efficient, then that would be a different story, but this is not about reform. This is straight up about removing oversight, and it really displays a lack of care for wildlife, water systems and land. It displays a lack of care for people — cattle ranchers, guide-outfitters and all those making their living from the land with small family-sized operations.
I really want to emphasize that it’s in rural and northern B.C. that the brunt of these decisions will be felt. When we’re talking about wide-open spaces where fishermen fish, hunters hunt and ranchers ranch, we’re not talking about urban zones. However, this bill sets a troubling precedent with far-reaching consequences for every British Columbian. Many people in cities fish and hunt. This model of governing, unfortunately, could become a blueprint for future governance. Again, we live in a democracy.
With regard to ALR land, it is currently very difficult to remove land from this designation, but suddenly, the government is singing a very different tune. The ALR land, which is connected to food security, will become vulnerable under this bill. This bill allows the regulator to single-handedly make changes to the agricultural land reserve.
The agricultural land reserve, our ALR, exists to protect lands that feed us. It was established to safeguard food security, not as a convenient location for energy infrastructure. But Bill 14 opens the door for renewable projects to be sited on protected farmland, without any clear requirement for local consultation or even a full evaluation of how food production could be impacted.
That land isn’t just empty space waiting for a wind turbine or a solar panel. It’s where families have farmed for generations. Once the land is gone, we don’t get it back. That’s a legacy we cannot afford to lose in the name of expedience.
Something very important to me is heritage land. Under this bill, the energy regulator will be enabled to single-handedly decide what land is heritage and what land is not. Yes, this means heritage designation that was previously given can be taken away.
[6:20 p.m.]
When you think of heritage land, you think of it as something long-lasting, something meaningful for future generations to enjoy, not something that can be given or taken away on a whim because a government, at one point in time, decided they wanted to boost their image by building one more wind farm. We don’t even know yet to what extent this legislation will be impacting culturally significant Indigenous lands.
I also want to register my concern about how Bill 14 will change the role of the energy regulator. This bill will allow the regulator to change its own regulations as it sees fit, once again, without any approval from the Legislature. Let me remind this government that we live in a democracy. This legislation also enables the regulator to introduce fees and levies and costs that can be implemented retroactively. All of this is being done with little oversight, little accountability and insufficient reporting requirement.
It all, once again, sounds very familiar to me with this government.
This is also being done with little regard for safety. This bill creates three levels of streamlining of renewable energy projects and removes the application of the safety act when it comes to a level 3 streamlined project. What does that mean? Little regard for safety.
British Columbians support renewables, but they also expect transparency and fairness. This bill overrides environmental assessments, safety standards and local decision-making, handing sweeping powers — and I repeat, sweeping powers — to a government with little oversight. As my colleague, the member for Surrey–White Rock, said so succinctly: “It’s not streamlining; it’s steam rolling.”
No one should have the authority to — and I’ll use this term as I’m watching the member in front of me — flippantly bypass environmental laws, waive safety rules or cancel livelihoods without accountability. In my riding, these are multi-generational livelihoods. But this bill does exactly that, and it leaves the door wide open to political favouritism and corruption. When you have no oversight, it leads to corruption.
My constituents roundly rejected Bill 7. Many came to my office and talked to me about this government overreach. Like me, they repeated: “Why is this government doing this? We live in a democracy.”
[6:25 p.m.]
I must voice my opposition to Bill 14, which is simply the same power grab rewritten to apply to energy. Let me remind this House about the Bill 7 debacle and why I am comparing Bill 14 to part 4 of Bill 7, which so many of my constituents could not believe that a democracy in British Columbia could try to pass such a bill.
It was just in March that the Premier had to very publicly backtrack on Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization Act, after he got called out by former Premiers, policy professionals, professional organizations, the entire opposition and tens of thousands of B.C. residents for trying to grant himself and his cabinet two years of total power. The Premier tried to pass this legislation so that he wouldn’t need to run anything further by the Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Deputy Speaker: Member, just to remind you that we are discussing Bill 14. I appreciate the history, but if we could get back to Bill 14, it would be appreciated.
Anna Kindy: Bill 14 has very many similarities. It is autocratic, dictatorial and undemocratic. At the heart of Bill 14 is a dangerous philosophy that centralization is the path to progress; that a small group of insiders can make better decisions than the people who actually live off the land and know the land; that democracy is too slow, too messy and too burdensome to deal with when you’re in a hurry to score political points and play political games.
There is a right way to approve energy projects. It involves listening. It involves balancing priorities. It involves rules that are consistent, processes that are fair and decisions that can withstand public scrutiny. This bill fails on every one of those counts, and it doesn’t empower communities. It empowers cabinet at the expense of everyone else. British Columbians know when something is rammed through. They know when words like “streamlining” are just a mask for stripping away protections and shutting down debate.
I have to ask: did municipal councils even cross the mind of this government when they wrote this bill? How do municipal councils factor in here? Where are their decision-making powers? Let’s call this what it is: a grab for power dressed up as progress.
Like many who have spoken before me, I support renewable energy. I believe it has an essential role to play in a province’s future. But support for renewables should not mean endorsing an unchecked expansion of government authority, and that’s what Bill 14 represents.
[6:30 p.m.]
We’re not debating here whether renewables are important. What we are debating is how we get there, and Bill 14 is the wrong way. It is not democratic. I want to see British Columbia succeed. I want to see energy projects move forward. I want to see investments come to this province, bringing innovations, good jobs and a brighter future for our children, but this is not the way to do it.
In summary, I don’t support this bill, not because I’m opposed to clean energy, not because I don’t want faster approvals, but because I believe deeply and sincerely and unshakably that the people of the North Island and the people of this province deserve better. They deserve a voice in a democracy.
Claire Rattée: I appreciate the opportunity today to rise and speak to Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act.
While this bill is presented as a step forward in modernizing and streamlining renewable energy development in British Columbia, what we have before us is not simply a bill about wind farms or clean energy. This is a sweeping piece of legislation that fundamentally alters how energy projects are approved, regulated and monitored in this province. It raises serious questions about accountability, transparency, regulatory overreach and democratic oversight.
We all support the development of renewable energy. We support reducing red tape where it makes sense. We support investments that bring economic opportunity, environmental sustainability and energy resilience to our communities. But we cannot support a Trojan Horse that delivers authoritarian powers under the guise of climate action.
Make no mistake. This bill may carry the language of climate urgency, but what it delivers is political convenience. It grants cabinet and the B.C. Energy Regulator sweeping discretion to decide what counts as renewable, who gets fast-tracked and which laws apply or don’t. It does this without returning to this Legislature for debate, without clear criteria and without safeguards for the public or the land.
The government claims that this is about clean energy, but when you strip away the branding, what you see is a deliberate move to centralize power. When that power comes at the cost of community voices, environmental review, Indigenous consultation and local autonomy, it’s not progress. It’s a step backward.
British Columbians want more clean energy, but they also want it built with care, consultation and consent. They want to know that their rivers, their traplines, their farmland and their heritage are protected. They want a say in what gets built in their backyards. This bill cuts them out of the process, and that should concern every one of us in this House.
Let’s start with the basic premise of this bill. British Columbia’s energy sector has long faced regulatory gridlock, requiring project proponents to navigate a tangled web of ministries and approval processes. This has discouraged investment and driven clean energy developers out of our province. The government now acknowledges that reality after years of making the situation worse through overregulation and policy uncertainty.
For years, developers have faced a gauntlet of conflicting requirements, unclear timelines and inconsistent rules between ministries. Projects stall not because communities oppose them but because the system itself is disjointed and dysfunctional. Multiple permitting bodies, contradictory mandates and bureaucratic backlogs have slowed down even the most straightforward proposals.
I know about this better than most, because my community that I represent has dealt with this time and again. We’ve seen a number of different energy projects proposed and fail in my region because of the difficulty of dealing with government and dealing with all of these systems. We’ve also seen some that have come to fruition, but it has taken years beyond what it should have if this process had actually been properly streamlined.
[6:35 p.m.]
Now the very government that contributed to this gridlock is using it as justification to sidestep oversight altogether. Instead of fixing the system through meaningful reform, Bill 14 throws the rule book out. This isn’t about solving the root problem. It’s about sweeping it under the rug and giving cabinet a blank cheque to push through what they want, when they want.
If the government was serious about addressing regulatory delays, it would have brought forward focused reforms, targeted timelines or a streamlined, interministerial framework. Instead, we’re being asked to accept a bill that replaces complexity not with clarity but with unchecked authority, which seems to be the norm with this government.
Is streamlining necessary? Absolutely. But streamlining should not mean sidelining oversight. It should not mean giving one regulator unilateral power to rewrite the rules, to cancel permits, to override heritage protections and to change land designations, all without returning to this House for approval.
Streamlining should mean improving efficiency, not dismantling transparency. It should mean making processes faster, not less fair. British Columbians deserve a system that is responsive and coordinated but not one that places absolute discretion in the hands of a few, behind closed doors and without recourse. We should never accept streamlining as code for bypassing democratic checks. A faster process is only worth it if it still respects the public interest and community voices that we are all here to protect.
Bill 14 creates a centralized permitting regime that may, at first glance, appear efficient. But in reality, it transfers unchecked authority to the B.C. Energy Regulator and to cabinet, bypassing the democratic institutions that are supposed to protect the public interest. This isn’t coordination. It’s consolidation. One regulator will now control everything and do so with minimal public input or oversight. What once required debate, evidence and community involvement can now be rewritten through regulation.
This centralization doesn’t just streamline processes. It steamrolls local governments, Indigenous voices and the checks and balances that keep decision-making grounded in public accountability. What this bill sets up is a system where the rules can be changed on the fly without legislative debate and where major decisions about land, water, heritage and safety are made unilaterally by bureaucrats that are empowered by cabinet.
A truly modern regulatory system would still involve transparency, independent review and democratic safeguards. But this bill goes in the opposite direction, closing doors instead of opening them, shrinking the space for public participation and pushing power further away from the communities that are most affected.
The government is touting this bill as a way to advance nine wind farms and the North Coast transmission line. However, the legislation goes far beyond that. Clause 2 allows cabinet to designate any prescribed renewable project as streamlined by regulation. There is no requirement to return to this Legislature to debate what projects are added in the future.
The definition of renewable resource in clause 1 is expansive — biomass, biogas, geothermal, solar, wind, ocean and even any other resource that cabinet chooses to include. This is not narrow legislation. It is broad and ambiguous. Because cabinet alone defines what qualifies as renewable, there is nothing in this bill stopping them from including questionable projects under the guise of green energy.
British Columbians deserve clarity, not ambiguity. They deserve to know exactly what’s being authorized, why, how the decision was made and with what level of scrutiny.
This means any energy project, except for those involving a hydro dam — for now — can be fast-tracked with limited oversight. All cabinet has to do is file an order in council. The scope is potentially unlimited.
But let’s understand what fast-tracking really means in this context. It means cutting out local voices, skipping environmental review and concentrating decision-making. It means taking massive projects that could fundamentally alter ecosystems, agricultural land and entire regions and rushing them through without the usual checks and balances that exist to protect the public interest.
[6:40 p.m.]
Fast-tracking shouldn’t mean removing every guardrail that protects communities from harm. It should not mean eliminating obligations to consult or listen to those who will be most affected. It certainly shouldn’t mean replacing transparent legislative oversight.
We should make attempts to cut bureaucratic red tape, but it must be done right. We must be careful because fast-tracking, when rushed and done incorrectly, silences voices and sacrifices transparency, all in the name of expediency.
Perhaps the most alarming element of this bill is the way it guts the environmental assessment process. Clause 14 disapplies the Environmental Assessment Act for selected wind energy projects, the North Coast transmission line and any other project that cabinet designates. This means no comprehensive public review, no analysis of cumulative impacts, no duty to consult affected communities in a meaningful way. The government has said changes to the Environmental Assessment Act will come later to cover wind but has provided no timeline. Meanwhile, projects are exempted now.
This is not responsible governance. It is rule by regulation. This legislation demonstrates that this government believes it is best to move forward first and figure out oversight later, which means projects can be built with minimal scrutiny while the legal and environmental standards are left undefined. That, to me, is a reckless way to govern and a dangerous precedent to set for future projects, renewable or otherwise.
We know what happens when corners are cut. It starts small — a regulation skipped here, a consultation delayed there — but the consequences accumulate fast. Projects move ahead without proper safeguards, communities are left in the dark, and when something goes wrong, no one can be held accountable.
The cost isn’t just environmental degradation. It’s the erosion of public trust — trust in government, in consultation processes and in the integrity of our institutions. That trust is hard-earned and easily lost. Once you abandon transparent decision-making, you can’t just snap it back into place.
It is often the public who pays the price, and more importantly, it is the vulnerable communities that pay the highest price. Cutting corners doesn’t just leave ecosystems vulnerable. It leaves governments vulnerable, too, because when people no longer believe that their voices matter, when they see decisions made behind closed doors with no recourse or explanation, they disengage, and that can threaten democracy.
If this government truly believes in responsible renewable energy development, then it should lead with consultation and oversight, not gut them as a precondition for progress. Streamlining should mean making things more efficient, not making them less accountable.
Bill 14 goes even further still. It overrides key safeguards in multiple pieces of legislation. Clause 15 weakens protections under the Agricultural Land Commission Act, allowing non-farm use and subdivision of ALR land. This means farmland meant to protect long-term food security can be reclassified and built over for industrial projects with no community consultation or agricultural review. There is no assurance that this land will be restored, preserved or compensated for if a project fails. This is particularly concerning for my riding, where we struggle immensely with food security challenges. The potential implications of this could be massive.
Clause 16 grants the regulator discretion over heritage designations, including cultural sites significant to First Nations. The regulator even gets to pick the person who decides whether land has heritage value. This, again, is very important for my riding. We have a very large Indigenous population, and I know that the people in my riding don’t want to see legislation like this passed because they know what this could potentially mean for them.
Clause 17 removes the application of the Safety Standards Act for certain projects. That means that critical safety protections for workers, engineers and emergency responders can be removed entirely.
Clause 18 allows the regulator to suspend or cancel hunting, trapping and angling permits at its discretion. These activities are not just recreational. They’re cultural traditions and economic lifelines in rural B.C.
[6:45 p.m.]
There are also no guarantees of hearing, notice period or appeal process if your permit is revoked. Again, the implications that this can have for my riding are very significant. A lot of people in my riding rely on fishing, on trapping and on hunting as a way to feed their families. These are not small administrative tweaks. These are fundamental shifts in how we balance industrial development with safety, food security and cultural preservation.
Bill 14 allows the B.C. Energy Regulator to change key sections of its own governing legislation, the Energy Resource Activities Act, without approval from this House. Clauses 13, 20 and 25 give cabinet and the regulator sweeping powers to amend, disapply or apply parts of the act as they see fit. This includes retroactive levies and fees, suspension of safety and environmental requirements, cancellation of hunting and fishing permits and redefining what qualifies as a streamlined project or a renewable resource.
In addition, clause 21 validates any actions taken by the regulator since April 1, 2024, even though this bill is not yet law. This is an incredibly dangerous precedent that undermines the rule of law. This is retroactive immunity. It means that the regulator can take actions outside the current legal framework, and this legislation will cover their tracks after the fact. This is not just bad policy. It’s an affront to legislative accountability and the principle that no one is above the law.
The bill establishes three levels of streamlined permitting. Level 1 projects are granted the fewest exemptions but still bypass multiple steps. Level 2 and level 3 projects receive far greater leeway, exempting them from large portions of the Energy Resource Activities Act.
For level 2, even basic requirements like permit expiration rules, ownership verification, reporting obligations, dormant site monitoring and environmental protections are removed. Level 3 is even more concerning. It exempts projects from public requests for investigation and further reduces transparency. These streamlined tracks do not just cut red tape. They sever public accountability entirely.
Despite claims of reconciliation, this legislation empowers the regulator to decide whether a project is exempt from heritage or environmental laws, with no requirement to engage Indigenous communities unless it is convenient. This raises serious questions about consent, consultation and respect for Indigenous rights and title.
Rural communities, often the host sites for these projects, may find themselves cut out of decision-making altogether. With no requirement for local consultation or community benefits agreements, the people most affected by these projects may have no voice in how they unfold.
My community has been in this situation many times before, where a project is proposed, and the residents, as the people most affected by it, have had the opportunity to make their voices heard on whether the benefits outweigh the potentially negative impacts. We have seen the results. Some projects, such as LNG Canada, have received overwhelming support and community buy-in, while others, such as Enbridge northern gateway, received a clear and resounding no.
These processes are instrumental in encouraging public engagement and consultation and ensuring that the people living in the affected communities can see more positive impacts rather than negative ones. It also encourages faith amongst British Columbians in our fair and democratic system. But this bill achieves the opposite.
Bill 14 sets a dangerous precedent by undermining the very mechanisms that allow rural communities to participate in decisions that directly affect their land, livelihoods and futures.
[6:50 p.m.]
There’s no commitment in this bill to local jobs, local hiring or even revenue sharing with rural municipalities; no requirement for impact assessments that consider how a new transmission corridor could affect hunting grounds, traplines or traditional gathering areas; no plan for how to handle conflicts when Crown land is reallocated for energy infrastructure without community approval.
This bill creates a two-tiered system where urban voices still benefit from organized planning and accountability while rural voices are overridden by distant decisions made in Victoria. The message it sends is that rural concerns are expendable, collateral damage in the race to check off political priorities. We know better than that in the North. We know that you can build projects with strong public support when you include the public in the process. We also know the harm that’s caused when people are cut out completely.
As for the environment, Bill 14 opens the door to development without any guarantee of ecological protection or restoration, especially if orphaned sites are left behind with no enforceable obligations on project proponents. One positive aspect of this legislation is the creation of a separate orphan fund for renewable energy projects. This recognizes that not all projects succeed and that cleanup costs should not fall to taxpayers.
However, Bill 14 does not specify how much must be contributed, when contributions are required or how the fund will be managed. It enables the regulator to issue certificates requiring payment but offers no guarantees of sufficiency or transparency. Without strict financial rules and public reporting, this provision risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive.
To further illustrate the dangers of this bill, let me walk through just a few of the most troubling clauses. Clause 13 allows cabinet to override sections of the Energy Resource Activities Act, effectively letting them rewrite the rules on a whim. Clause 18 gives the regulator authority to cancel hunting and trapping permits with no clear standards or appeal process.
Clause 21 validates any potentially unlawful actions already taken by the regulator since April 1, 2024. Clause 23 allows the government to cancel existing environmental assessment certificates and deem those projects fully approved with no conditions. This is retroactive deregulation. It is policy by fiat, not by democratic debate.
Let me be clear. If the government had brought forward a narrowly tailored bill to streamline permitting for a few key projects while retaining environmental safeguards and legislative oversight, I would have supported it. We need clean energy, we need investment, and we need to move fast. But this bill is not just about speed; it is about control. It consolidates power in cabinet and a single regulator. It undermines this Legislature and cuts out the very communities that we are supposed to represent.
British Columbia deserves better. We can build renewable energy responsibly. We can streamline without steamrolling. We cannot let the urgency of climate action be used as a justification to dismantle democratic accountability. We have a duty to build a sustainable energy future, but we also have a duty to uphold the integrity of our laws, protect our environment and respect Indigenous rights. Bill 14 fails on too many of these fronts.
Representing a rural riding like Skeena means carrying the voices of communities that are often overlooked, communities where people rely directly on the land for their livelihoods, food, culture and identity. In the North, we don’t have the luxury of abstraction. We see and feel the impacts of industrial development in our backyards, in our rivers, on our traplines and on the forests that sustain us.
Bill 14 poses a unique and serious threat to regions like mine because it strips away the very checks and balances designed to protect rural communities. It allows projects to move forward without proper environmental assessments, without meaningful consultation and without respecting heritage or agricultural land protections. That means decisions about massive wind farms, transmission corridors or other developments could be made behind closed doors, without any input from the people who will live with the consequences.
When a regulator can cancel hunting permits, override cultural protections or subdivide farmland with no accountability, it’s rural communities that pay the price. Our way of life isn’t a line item in a policy document. It’s something real, something fragile and something that deserves to be protected, not sacrificed in the name of expediency.
[6:55 p.m.]
The hypocrisy of this government’s approach to energy development is both glaring and troubling. When in opposition, the NDP vehemently opposed LNG projects, yet upon forming government, they reversed their stance, not only approving LNG projects but also attempting to claim credit for initiatives they had previously fought against.
Obviously, I am grateful for this change in attitude, but it presents a puzzling realization. If the NDP can change their minds so frequently about which energy projects they do or don’t support, what does this bill mean for British Columbians? This pattern of opposition followed by appropriation raises serious questions about their consistency and reliability. Now with Bill 14, they seek to grant themselves unchecked authority to approve projects at their discretion without the safeguards of environmental assessments or public consultation.
Given their history of shifting positions, how can British Columbians trust that future decisions will be made in the public’s best interest rather than for political expediency? This legislation doesn’t just streamline processes; it streamlines power into the hands of a government whose track record on energy policy is anything but steady.
We vehemently support industry in this province. We want to see more projects built, more jobs created and more investment flowing into our communities, especially in rural and northern B.C. We’ve seen how responsible development, like LNG Canada, can bring real opportunity when it’s done right, when it’s guided by clear rules, meaningful consultation and respect for the land and the people.
Bill 14 misses the mark entirely. Instead of fixing the broken permitting system with transparency and accountability, it concentrates power in the hands of cabinet and a single regulator. It sidesteps environmental oversight and opens the door to decisions that could be made without public input or community buy-in.
Fast-tracking development shouldn’t mean bulldozing safeguards. We can build more in B.C., but we have to do it the right way. I urge this House to reject this overreaching legislation and send it back for a full, public and transparent process.
British Columbians deserve clean energy, but they also deserve clean government. We all want to see more projects built. We want to see jobs created and red tape slashed. But none of that can come at the expense of public trust, local democracy or meaningful oversight. Streamlining cannot be used as a smokescreen for centralizing power.
This bill, in its current form, does not reflect the values of fairness, transparency or respect for communities in B.C. It reflects a government that has grown too comfortable with bypassing scrutiny, too comfortable making massive decisions behind closed doors.
We cannot allow urgency, whether economic or environmental, to become an excuse for encroaching closer to authoritarianism tendencies. British Columbians deserve to have a voice in what gets built in their backyards. They deserve to know that their safety, their land, their culture and their laws won’t be cast aside.
Gavin Dew: The notional purpose of Bill 14 is to streamline approvals for energy projects in B.C. That purpose is a laudable goal, and I agree with that goal. Why? Because on this side of the House, we are the party of “yes” and because it takes too damn long to get to yes in Canada.
We seem to be in a crisis of indecision, the land of the slow, maybe, where we lack conditions for investment. We don’t get stuff done as fast as we could. That is creating serious challenges in terms of investment in this province and in this country because delay and indecision drive up costs.
People don’t build things for fun in business. They don’t build them for political ribbon cutting. They don’t build them for the side benefits. They don’t build them for photo ops for politicians. They build them because they serve a commercial function and because the numbers pencil, because the project works. Too often risk, delay and uncertainty make those numbers not work, or they make those numbers harder to make work.
[7:00 p.m.]
At the end of the day, it comes down to return on investment and risk-adjusted return. That is the cold, hard, brutal reality of making investment decisions. Indecision, delay, the inability to get decisions and Kafkaesque bureaucracy — where we never know quite what the basis for a decision is going to be — are all things that deter investment in this country and in this province.
Too often we make things take too long and be too high-risk and then we subsidize them back to life. To quote Ronald Reagan: “If it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; and if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with major projects both in my academic research and in my applied business life. I can say that in Canada we tend to conflate safety and risk. We imagine that because we don’t typically have armed militias, we don’t typically have kleptocratic regimes, that we are a low-risk jurisdiction. No, we’re a safe jurisdiction.
We’re actually quite a high-risk jurisdiction in many instances because we have arbitrary changes to the nature of the very processes that drive the way that we do or do not get to yes — because you can suddenly have a new, nine-month process imposed midstream in the middle of a project process, because the conditions you’re expected to meet can arbitrarily change and because there can be new, informal demands that are required of you in order to get to yes.
We have a problem in B.C. and in Canada when it comes to actually building things — a real problem. Yes, I support the streamlining of major projects. Our party certainly supports the importance of getting major projects to yes, and there are parts of Bill 14 that reflect priorities that are overdue, like a simplified single-window approach to permitting.
For far too long, project proponents all over B.C. and all over this country, at all different levels of government in trying to build all different things, have faced a confusing array of overlapping processes requiring a lot of lawyers, a lot of permitting specialists, and a lot of costs that in some instances are not directly contributing to the safety or effectiveness of the project.
That doesn’t mean we should have no regulation, it means we should have smart regulation. It means we should have well-designed, well-constructed processes that are clear, that are predictable and that are forward-looking. Uncertainty and changes increase costs on major projects that have significant capital backing, that have significant regulated tolling outcomes, things of that nature, but that kind of complexity can kill smaller projects in their infancy before they even begin.
We have challenges; we have problems. We have a system that isn’t just inefficient; it’s a barrier to investment. Far too many good projects have died on the vine not because they were inherently flawed and not because they didn’t make commercial sense but because the system built around them was too slow, too convoluted or too uncertain to navigate. It created conditions where either investors could not make them pencil or investors simply were not willing to wade through an ocean of complexity and red tape to get to yes.
The move toward consolidating permitting under a more unified framework is a good thing. It’s a good conversation to be happening. If done properly, with proper oversight, proper transparency and a desire to make a long-term, functional process, it can absolutely help to get important energy infrastructure, as well as other major projects, moving again.
The problem is that this bill doesn’t do that. This bill picks winners and losers. This bill hands arbitrary power to government in an effort to paper over its own years of failure and years of anemic economic growth that it has presided over, contributed to and created.
[7:05 p.m.]
The reality is that this bill has been brought forward in the height of hypocrisy. This government has decided in recent months that it wants to be the party of yes, the party of trade diversification, the party of major projects, the party of the resource sector. Now, I may be new to this House, but I’ve been around this province long enough to know how wildly hypocritical that is. Picking and choosing winners and losers and then arbitrarily deciding whether and how to enforce rules is not how government should operate.
Let’s cast our mind back to how this government has in fact operated on a subject that has raised its head again in this House in recent days, a project that this government picked not as a winner but as a loser: the Trans Mountain expansion project. It was primarily a federally regulated project, but this government decided to use every tool in its provincial toolkit to obstruct that project, because of its arbitrary political direction.
On the basis of ideological, partisan preference, of polling and of a snap decision, in the middle of an election, this government, both in opposition and in government, picked a loser. It used its arbitrary power to obstruct that project that it had decided it knew better on.
Now, the Minister of Energy has in recent days tried to shrug off the years his party spent going out of its way, pushing the very boundaries of its powers, legal and democratic, and using every tool in the toolkit to oppose the Trans Mountain expansion project. It’s a project where he now stands in this House, shrugs and says, “Hey, we got to make the most of it, now that it’s built” — a project he can’t remember the capital cost of.
It’s a project that he now wants us to shrug and say that this government has completely changed its position and has gone from being avowed opponents of this project to being totally on board with dredging Burrard Inlet to allow fully loaded Aframax tankers to get Canadian oil from Westridge marine terminal at the terminus of that pipeline to international markets, to diversify us away from a monopsony with the American market.
Political direction changes, the moment changes, and this government arbitrarily changes what it’s for and what it’s against. It wants to have the arbitrary power to do that in a way that creates tremendous uncertainty for anybody operating in this marketplace.
Now, I know that story of what happened with this government on Trans Mountain well, because I worked on it for three years. We saw delay after delay, obstruction after obstruction from this government and their allies, who had decided, on a political basis, that they were against a project and that the process as it was supposed to work wasn’t good enough for them, because they had picked a loser.
The people of Canada and the people of British Columbia paid for their political preference, expressed through their arbitrary weaponization of the toolkit available to them in order to stop something they were politically opposed to. That’s not right.
What did that cost us as Canadians? Let me tell you. This is important, because it speaks to the arbitrary powers in this bill and to how, if used improperly, they can have tremendous consequences, because government picks a winner or a loser on the basis of arbitrary political preference or of friends of government rather than on an appropriate, rigorous and predictable process.
If we look at that project, a study conducted by the Canadian Energy Research Institute in 2020 looked at the actual cost for the Trans Mountain expansion project and the Coastal GasLink pipeline and found that the estimated capital expenditure as a result of a one-year regulatory delay is $344 million for a natural gas pipeline and $812 million for a crude oil pipeline. That same project found that pipeline projects take, on average, 13 months longer in the U.S. than Canada.
[7:10 p.m.]
Again, going back to the arbitrary use of power by government on the basis of its political preference, Trans Mountain was delayed by at least three years by regulatory and judicial delays driven by this government and its allies. That is literally billions of dollars in added cost because of the arbitrary utilization of power by a government driven by ideology.
If you look at the bottom line on that project, which I think is a very good example here, the original Trans Mountain pipeline was built in 1953. It took 18 months. It cost $93 million. That’s $1 billion in today’s dollars. By the time this government and their arbitrary power — the kind of arbitrary power they want to claim for themselves with this bill — were done with it, along with other factors, it took ten years, and it cost $34 billion.
It wasn’t just the initial capital cost that was significant; it was the fact that that capital cost will be expressed in perpetuity, in tolls on that pipeline asset that are based on capital cost. Forevermore, shippers moving Canadian oil through that pipeline will pay three, four times as much as they otherwise would have because this government drove up the cost through their arbitrary use of their powers to obstruct a project.
The years in which it wasn’t built also led to opportunity costs in which Canada was not able to tighten the spread between West Texas Intermediate and west coast select. We could go on about that forever and ever, but let’s not. The bottom line is this: when this government, or any government, decides that it knows best and that it should exercise arbitrary power, we should be very wary.
What worries us on this side of the House is not what this bill claims to do but how it goes about doing it — not its intent. This government is always all about intent, but when you ask them about effect, they shut down quickly. They don’t want to talk about what a bill actually might do with its unintended, or fully intended, consequences.
This bill doesn’t just cut the red tape; it cuts out the Legislature and the appropriate oversight. It gives sweeping, unchecked authority to the cabinet and to the B.C. Energy Regulator. It gives cabinet the power to fundamentally change how energy projects are reviewed and approved without ever coming back to this House. It gives government the power to pick winners and losers on an arbitrary basis.
It leaves open the possibility of real or perceived influence peddling and cash-for-access. Who decides, and who influences the people who decide? We have appropriate, rigorous, arm’s-length regulatory structures in this province, in this country and in democracies for a reason. They are intended to be safeguards against the arbitrary use of power by governments to prioritize politics, to prioritize friends and insiders, and to prioritize ideology over economic fundamentals.
While this government is positioning this bill as some breakthrough for energy permitting, what I see is a deeply concerning and precedent-setting expansion of executive authority with almost no accountability, not enough safeguards and, frankly, not enough trust by the public in this government to grant that kind of a blank-cheque authority to do whatever they think is right.
Under Bill 14, cabinet can declare, by regulation, what constitutes a streamlined project. They can define, add, remove, decide exactly what that means, however they want, behind closed doors. If cabinet says it’s exempt, it’s exempt. What happens when the Premier wakes up one day, reads a book on something and decides: “Hey, that’s exempt now”? There you go. It doesn’t come back to this Legislature. No public hearings, no public submissions, no independent evaluation — arbitrary power.
[7:15 p.m.]
When this Premier decides he’s done being Premier, there’s a leadership race, it has the character of the last leadership race that the NDP had, and there are all of a sudden dramatic new potential directions in where this province could go, based on who wins that next NDP leadership race — whenever it comes, whether it’s this fall, a year from now or two years from now, or whoever that is — they inherit those unchecked powers. They inherit the ability to decide what constitutes a streamlined project. They inherit the ability to exercise unchecked power with little oversight. That’s not right.
Fundamentally, who will influence those decisions about the application of unchecked and unaccountable power by this government? What factors will guide them? Will it be politics, timing, location, labour model? Will it matter whether it’s in a swing riding, whether it’s conveniently timed, relative to an election, or if the proponent voluntarily agrees to a labour model that is the ideological preference of this government?
Who knows? We won’t know. It’ll come down to the political flavors of the moment, not long-term economic fundamentals. That’s very worrisome because this creates a black box, within which cabinet can arbitrarily decide what constitutes a priority project. Instead of fixing the broken conditions for investment in this province, this government, instead, is trying to bypass them for their chosen political priorities. Whether those priorities are partisan, ideological, transactional or whatever they are, those are going to bypass process. Everything else can wait.
This is a government that thinks it can legislate prosperity instead of trying to legislate opportunity by creating stable, predictable, forward-looking conditions for investment in which a wide range of different project applicants can look at this province and say: “I see what I have to do in order to build something here.”
Today the signal this government is sending is: “What you have to do in order to build a project here is you have to curry favour with this government. You have to hire the right people. You have to know the right people. You have to make sure you frame your project in such a way that this government will deem it to be a priority.”
Do we fundamentally believe that communications staff in the Premier’s office have a better understanding of what constitutes an economically viable or economically significant project for this province than companies, project proponents, individuals trying to move forward projects on the basis of sound economics and sound decision analysis? That’s very worrisome.
Picking winners and losers doesn’t encourage a funnel of new projects. When proponents know that it’s arbitrary government decisions and not stable, predictable conditions for them that will affect their ability to move forward, they have to make decisions very differently.
Companies that want to be able to understand the basis for decision-making are going to think twice about this province because they’re going to know that these arbitrary powers belong to this government today, but when there’s a change of government, will those priorities still be the priorities? Will my project still be in the same process? Or does it depend? If there’s a change in the leadership of the government, if there’s a change in government, do I actually know what I’m signing up for?
That’s why we don’t have these kinds of arbitrary decision-making powers vested in the political heart of governments, as this government is trying to do.
One of the most frustrating challenges we constantly hear from project proponents, whether they’re in construction, infrastructure or energy, is not just the amount of regulation they face. It’s the uncertainty. Bill 14 does not solve that problem; it deepens it. It creates a situation in which the uncertainty of regulation is exacerbated by the political uncertainty of if, when, how and on what basis this government will make arbitrary decisions that can make a project viable or not viable.
This bill is being sold as a way of bringing clarity and speed, when it really just adds a whole additional level of unpredictability, in some very troubling ways. That includes retroactivity.
[7:20 p.m.]
Clause 12 of the bill allows the B.C. Energy Regulator, or individuals it delegates authority to, to impose fees, levies or other financial obligations retroactively. So you’re mid-streaming a project, and your fundamental project economics are changing because the regulator decides to impose arbitrary retroactive fees. Is that because government has decided they don’t like your project? Is that because the rules have changed? Again, more unpredictability.
Capital thrives on stability, predictability, being able to look forward and to know what’s ahead. How do you attract investment into this province when businesses can’t rely on the rules staying consistent? You don’t.
This bill is not just poor planning. It’s a signal to every potential investor that B.C.’s regulatory system is unstable, unreliable and subject to political whim. That’s in a tricky swing riding. Subject to: “Nah, we don’t like those guys.” Subject to: “They’re not really playing ball.” Subject to the implicit expectation that there’s a quid pro quo and that the right hiring will happen, the right consultants will be on the project, the right photo ops will be delivered and the right political messages will be framed around a project.
That’s not how capital investment and major projects are supposed to work in any jurisdiction, and it sure as heck is not how it should work here.
The kinds of decisions that are outlined under clause 20 include what qualifies as a renewable resource, whether that gets changed, whether a project is subject to environmental assessment or not, whether a project is eligible for streamlining and what level of streamlining it receives, and whether safety or reporting requirements should apply. These are really, really important things, and they’re decisions that used to be predictable, debated and codified in law. Under Bill 14, they’re all turning into moving targets, and that is the exact opposite of regulatory certainty.
Let’s put this a different way. This bill trades transparency for flexibility — flexibility for government, flexibility to politicize, flexibility for arbitrary decisions to be traded transactionally by well-connected NDP insiders.
I don’t mean to suggest anything nefarious has happened. What I mean is that the risk of even the slightest perception that currying political favour or hiring the right consultant, hiring the right lobbyist means that you’ll be at the front of the line…. That is a dangerous, dangerous situation for this government to create, with the potential for immense consequences not only on the political front, the legal front, the investability front…. It’s a very, very dangerous situation to be floated out there, but that’s exactly what this bill does. It creates the possibility. It creates the concern that the goalposts might move.
Well, how do you move the goalposts? How do the goalposts get moved on you? There will be endless speculation as to how different projects were brought to the front of the line. That is not healthy for creating a sound, competitive, well-regulated, stable, predictable market in which you want people to explore, advance and invest in major projects.
Oversight is a huge issue here. Who watches the superpowered watchers created under this bill, the NDP-appointed authorities? Who makes sure that none of that arbitrary decision-making is happening in a way that is untoward or inappropriate? What are the consequences if, in fact, there is politicization of the process?
Big void in terms of those elements. In fact, it appears as if this bill is pushing in the opposite direction, removing accountability rather than adding accountability. That’s very problematic in terms of the signal that it sends.
This bill eliminates nearly every meaningful mechanism for public oversight. It chooses a broad range of projects, applies a wide exemption, takes away all that oversight and does so on a basis that is not transparent, that is not accountable.
[7:25 p.m.]
Under normal democratic process, when governments exercise authority, there are checks and balances. There are public hearings. There are published reports, standing committees and appeal mechanisms. Bill 14 offers none of those. Instead, it removes them and gives power on an arbitrary basis to government.
We’ve seen this movie before. We saw it with Bill 4, the consumer protection act, where government was uninterested in actually hearing from business. It wanted to talk a big game about what it was doing, but it actually ignored completely the input that it received from small businesses affected by the unintended consequences of the bill. We’ve seen it with Bill 7, which was a massive power grab. We’ve seen it with parts of Bill 15. Now with Bill 14, we’re seeing it with the added danger of regulatory and financial discretion being placed in the hands of unelected officials.
This government is eroding democracy, eroding oversight, eroding transparency and asserting itself as the ultimate arbitrary authority. On this side of the House, we did not seek office and we were not elected to be spectators. In the name of good intentions and getting stuff done, this bill erodes basic democracy. It centralizes authority, removes oversight and silences public input. That’s not okay.
Our Conservative caucus stands ready to support moving major projects forward faster in this province. We want to see investment move ahead. We want to see B.C. grow, invest and lead. We are a party of yes.
We need to get stuff done again in this province, but there is a better way than what is being put forward in this bill. We can get stuff done without compromising democracy. We need to actually fix things in long-term, structural ways, not just spray paint over the cracks, not just make arbitrary declarations in order to solve a problem of our own making, like this government has done.
Eight years in, they’ve decided they want to be for economic development. Eight years in, they’ve decided they want to get stuff done. Now they want arbitrary power to bypass their own broken processes. That’s not how this is supposed to work.
Let’s get things done again in this province, but let’s do it the right way — a way that works for the long term and a way that works for the people of British Columbia.
Reann Gasper: Oh, here we are. Let us call this bill what it truly is: not a clean energy initiative but a sweeping administrative restructuring of how power is held and exercised in this province. Bill 14 proposes to consolidate decision-making authority for renewable energy projects — projects that span hundreds of millions of dollars, entire geographic regions and decades of environmental and economic consequence — into the hands of a single regulator with virtually no direct oversight from this Legislature.
For the public — to understand this bill, there is a clause…. Clause 13 explicitly empowers cabinet to modify, apply or disapply portions of the Energy Resource Activities Act without returning to this House. This is not an administrative detail. This is a structural shift in how British Columbia governs itself.
Clause 21 goes further. It retroactively deems any action taken by the B.C. Energy Regulator since April 1, 2024, to have to be lawful, even if those actions had no legal footing at the time. Let me be plain. This bill doesn’t just set a precedent; it rewrites the past.
[7:30 p.m.]
Why does this matter? Because when we allow this government to legalize decisions after the fact, we are not practising transparent governance. We are authorizing power without accountability. We are telling the people of British Columbia that what happens behind closed doors can be made right, not by process, not by ethics, not by standards, but by rewriting the rules after the play is over.
To every British Columbian watching — imagine you were issued a fine or you had your land impacted by a regulator acting without legal authority, and then you were told later: “We passed a bill. It’s legal now.” Would you call that justice, or would you call that a breach of trust?
This House must never become a rubber stamp for retroactive authority. We are the safeguard, the final checkpoint. If we relinquish that role, who holds the pen when the next set of powers is granted, and who stops it?
The members opposite will argue that this is about efficiency and that streamlining is necessary to build urgently needed infrastructure. But efficiency without boundaries is not innovation. Streamlining does not require bypassing democracy. You can’t fast-track climate goals by slow-walking accountability. This bill’s structure not only weakens our checks and balances; it erodes them.
If the government insists on calling this a renewable energy bill, then let the public see clearly. What is being renewed here is not just our power grid. It is the power structure itself, and not in the people’s favour. Can I ask: how can any member of this House look their constituents in the eyes and tell them that a vote for Bill 14 is a vote for fairness?
What this bill proposes is not renewable energy oversight. It is renewable authority, authority that renews itself without input, without review and without consent. Without consent, it is not the hallmark of a free and democratic society.
We are not just lawmakers; we are stewards. When it comes to the stewardship of British Columbia’s natural environment, the stakes could not be higher. Clause 14 of Bill 14 removes the application of the Environmental Assessment Act for nine selected wind energy projects, the North Coast transmission line and, critically, any future project that cabinet prescribes by regulation. This includes transmission infrastructure and renewable energy developments tied to wind, solar, ocean, geothermal and more.
In short, virtually any major energy project in British Columbia, save those involving a dam, can be exempt from environmental oversight with the stroke of a pen. This should stop us cold, because the environmental assessment process is not an inconvenience; it is a cornerstone. It is the due diligence we owe to the land, to wildlife, to the communities whose health, safety and cultural heritage depend on more than promises. It is the space where concerns can be raised, data can be tested and consequences can be anticipated, not just discovered after the fact.
Ask any British Columbian, from the Kootenays to Kitimat, whether they think less transparency is what this province needs right now. Ask them if they want fewer checks on projects that cut through their forests, cross their rivers and alter the view from their windows and the future of their watersheds. They will tell you that environmental oversight is not red tape; it is red flags, and this government is rolling them up.
We are told that these projects are low-impact and that assessments will be addressed later under a reformed environmental assessment act. But where is that reform? Where is the framework that replaces what we are eliminating? It’s not in this bill, it’s not on the table, and it’s certainly not before us in this House today.
[7:35 p.m.]
What are we being asked to do? We’re being asked to approve permanent exemptions with the promise of temporary solutions. We’re being asked to green-light the removal of one of the most important accountability mechanisms in our province’s toolbox, on the basis of urgency.
This province knows too well what happens when we move too fast and consult too little. We have lived the consequences of projects that didn’t fully account for landslides, habitat destruction, groundwater loss, Indigenous title and local health effects. The bill doesn’t account for these, because it refuses to ask the questions.
If this is what streamlining looks like, what else are we willing to overlook? For the residents of British Columbia, this matters more than they might realize. When they lose the right to a public environmental assessment, they lose their right to have a say in what happens on their doorstep. They lose the ability to ask: “What will this do to our farmland, to our fisheries?” They lose the power to ask, “Why?” and that is the beginning of losing the power to say no.
This government tells us that this is about unlocking clean energy, but there’s nothing clean about silencing the public. There’s nothing clean about building without consent. There’s nothing clean about cutting down trees you claim to protect so that you can install the infrastructure you refuse to regulate. If you think that sounds harsh, then read the bill. The harshness isn’t in my tone. It’s in the text.
Again I ask: how can we call this a climate solution if the cost is the environment itself? If this bill passes unchallenged, we are not just setting a precedent for renewable energy. We are setting a precedent for renewable evasion — evasion of oversight, evasion of transparency, evasion of responsibility — and British Columbians deserve better than that.
There are some things in this province that, once lost, cannot be recovered, and farmland is one of them. Clause 15 of Bill 14 allows the B.C. Energy Regulator to authorize non-farm use and subdivision of land within the agricultural land reserve — land that was set aside by visionary leaders to ensure that British Columbians would always have access to local food, local farming and local sovereignty over the soil we depend on.
Under this bill, the regulator, an appointed body, not an elected one, may permit industrial energy projects to take precedence over food production. Clause 24 of this same legislation goes so far as to amend the Agricultural Land Commission Act itself, stripping its authority away from any project designated under Bill 14.
Let’s be clear. This is not streamlining. This is land reclassification through the back door. This cabinet, through regulation, is deciding that farmland can be carved up without full public oversight.
Why does this matter? Once farmland is reclassified and industrialized, it’s rare if it ever returns to its original use. If you pave it, wire it, and fragment it, you don’t just lose an acreage; you lose generations of agricultural future.
[7:40 p.m.]
British Columbians are already watching the cost of groceries skyrocket. They are already watching local farmers struggle to survive. Now, under Bill 14, they are being asked to protect agricultural land to power projects that they had no meaningful say in, for returns that they may never directly see, and under a system that can change the rules at any time.
We are told these impacts are minimal, but if they are so minimal, why is the government writing legislation to override the ALC entirely? Why amend the law if the effect is negligible?
This isn’t about whether renewable energy is important. It is, but so is food security, so is responsible land use and so is the fundamental belief that some lands should be protected from political convenience, no matter how green the excuse.
This bill asks us to weigh wind turbines against wheat fields. In doing so, it sets a precedent that farmland is optional, that food can be sacrificed for infrastructure, that energy trumps agriculture every time. I reject that logic, because the people of British Columbia know climate policy that ignores food policy is not sustainable. It is shortsighted. It is a temporary fix dressed as a long-term solution.
More than that, it sends the wrong message to the next generation of farmers, our sons and our daughters who are asking to stay on the land, to build their lives in rural B.C., to feed our cities, while climate volatility grows. What are we telling them when we say this land is protected unless we decide otherwise?
I ask the members opposite, without accusation but with full seriousness, is this ambiguity by design? Are we leaving the language open so we don’t have to be accountable for what we take?
Make no mistake, this bill does not just allow development on farmland; it pre-clears it. It tells developers they don’t need to worry about the Agricultural Land Commission standing in their way because government already has their back. That’s not just a shift in process; it’s a shift in values. I believe this House and this province is still capable of better than that.
There are threads in the fabric of British Columbia that run deeper than roads, power lines or politics; threads that carry the stories of this land, its culture, its ancestors, its truth. These threads are protected, in part, by the Heritage Conservation Act — until now. Clause 16 of Bill 14 rewrites that act not to clarify it and not to improve it but to transfer authority.
Specifically, it allows the minister responsible to delegate heritage powers to the B.C. Energy Regulator. Once delegated, the regulator may authorize any of its own staff to decide whether something qualifies as heritage. Not a historian, not a cultural leader, not an Indigenous elder, no — an employee of the energy regulator, appointed, internal, lacking independence. This is not a technical adjustment. It is a profound degradation of what we protect and how we protect it and who gets to decide.
Why does this matter to British Columbians? Because our history, our true history, is not something that can be rubber-stamped. It can’t be appraised by project managers under time constraints. It most certainly cannot be delegated to entities whose mandate is to improve, expedite and streamline energy infrastructure.
[7:45 p.m.]
This clause removes a layer of independent assessment, of accountability, of cultural-informed judgment, and for the people of British Columbia, especially our Indigenous communities, this is not hypothetical.
You know what it feels like to have sacred sites paved, burial grounds ignored and traditional territories reclassified as development zones. You know what it’s like to be consulted after the plans are drawn and the equipment is staged and the timeline is set.
This bill puts the decision of whether something is heritage, whether it’s sacred, whether it’s worth preserving into the hands of those tasked with getting projects approved quickly. This is a conflict of interest enshrined in legislation. We are told again and again this is about streamlining, but streamlining heritage protections is not efficiency. It’s saying in legal language: “We’ll protect what we choose to see, and the rest can be cleared.”
Let me be very clear to the members opposite. I’m not suggesting bad intent. I’m not suggesting wilful disrespect. But I am highlighting what the law allows. If a law allows harm through inaction, through omission, through unchecked authority, then we are complicit if we let it pass.
This is not a rejection of renewable energy. It is a demand that we build the future without bulldozing the past.
[Mable Elmore in the chair.]
We cannot afford to get this wrong. Once a sacred site is disturbed, it cannot be restored. Once a history is ignored, it cannot speak for itself.
If we as legislators are willing to give up the independence of heritage protection in the name of administrative convenience, then I ask you: what does that say about the value we place on truth, on reconciliation and on legacy? If the story of our land is written by those who build on it and not those who live on it, then we haven’t just lost the plot, we’ve rewritten it. The future generations will wonder why we stood in silence.
There is a reason we have laws that govern safety, standards and the stewardship of wildlife. These are not ceremonial laws. They are structural; quiet, perhaps, but essential. Yet within the machinery of Bill 14, entire sections of protective legislation are quietly switched off.
Clause 17 treats the Safety Standards Act as optional when it comes to level 3 streamlined projects. Projects, by definition, are prescribed at the discretion of cabinet. The law is rewritten as though a renewable energy facility does not need the same safety and scrutiny as other energy infrastructure. The implication is not argued; it is assumed.
Clause 18 goes further, allowing the minister responsible for the Wildlife Act to delegate broad powers to the B.C. Energy Regulator. Those powers include the authority to issue, suspend or cancel permits relating to hunting, angling, trapping and even bonding requirements for environmental responsibility. This is not an administrative note. This is a shift in balance between resource development and the natural world we are charged with protecting.
Not so long ago British Columbians were reassured that no corner of policy would override conservation. We were told that clean energy would be pursued with integrity, that progress would not mean compromising core protections.
[7:50 p.m.]
This legislation edges us towards a different reality, a reality where safety is conditional; where wildlife protections are granted or withheld, not through a public process but through private delegation; and where regulated zones and responsible access are no longer governed through long-standing legislation but through a process that is not subject to appeal.
I feel like I’m just talking on the same thing.
In saying it, when I think of leadership, you cannot lead without hearing the entire picture. The opposite of leadership in this moment, what’s coming to me, is dictatorship, a one-sided process. Even the words on the paper, everything that I’m talking about, about process, about due diligence, about making sure we consult and the changes in this bill that offer no consultation to the different sectors that will be greatly affected — I cannot help but think that is not leadership.
Madam Speaker, I feel like, to get my point across, I keep saying the same thing. You can understand, and I hope the public understands.
So many people that may see this may not take the time to read an entire bill. The wording may get confusing, and they won’t go clause by clause to understand: what is this actually saying? But the ones on this side of the House who have gone through this bill have picked out the clauses that seem so detrimental to good governance.
I hope the members opposite can actually vote in a way that says, “We want to be the leaders you voted for,” when it comes to governing the people with integrity, when it comes to governing the people without making something feel so dictatorial.
When people elected this government, there was an element of building on trust. They were expecting certain things to happen, because certain things were promised. Like I just read, there were things promised, “Oh, this is not going to change,” and we have a bill before us that’s changing literally everything that was promised to the people of British Columbia. I don’t know how, in good conscience, you could vote for this. You’re going to lose the people’s trust.
The residents of British Columbia are not just asking for clean energy. They are asking for clarity, for confidence, for a government that doesn’t force them to choose between progress and participation. If this House passes Bill 14 as it stands, we are telling them that their say is secondary, that decisions affecting their land, their water, their safety and their future can be made by regulation, exemption and delegation and that accountability is negotiable when the project is big enough.
[7:55 p.m.]
Clean energy deserves clean government. A clean government demands more speed. It demands scrutiny, it demands structure, and it demands laws that can be trusted not just to deliver outcomes but to reflect the values we promised when we ran for office in the first place.
Today we can choose to stand for something deeper than efficiency. We can stand for balance. We can stand for transparency. We can stand for the long view, for the idea that how we build matters as much as what we build.
Heather Maahs: Today I rise in this House, not only as an MLA but as a voice for the community I serve — people who believe in fairness, accountability and a future built on democratic integrity — to speak against Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act.
Bill 14 may seem like a measure to achieve progress on clean energy, but it is far more troubling. It is a dangerous expansion of unchecked power, buried in technical language and bureaucratic authority. Here we are thinking that Bill 7 would be put to rest; instead, this bill builds on the same troubling foundation that Bill 7 laid.
British Columbians support renewable energy and responsible management of the province’s resources, and this bill seemingly carries that forward. However, it grants unprecedented power to this government, again without accountability or any proper oversight. We can’t seem to catch a break over here.
This bill hands sweeping power to the B.C. Energy Regulator and essentially gives the ability to override environmental assessments, to remove safety standards that have been previously put in place for very good reason and to silence the voices of our constituents who have elected us into this Legislature. It’s almost like cutting the power and then expecting praise for lighting a candle.
This government frames the proposal as a focus on nine wind farms and a transmission line, but when we dig into the details, that claim falls short. There are no firm limits, and this gives cabinet the authority to tack on more projects at will without having to bring them back to the House for debate. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any accountability here. These additions would most definitely carry real consequences for our local governments and communities and for the broader economy.
This isn’t actually about efficiency; it’s about exclusion, by removing vital decisions from public oversight and shifting them into closed-door meetings that are constrained to their small circle. Giving cabinet the power to eliminate key safeguards that are put in specifically to protect people doesn’t make sense.
The dangers don’t end there. Even basic safety protocols under the Safety Standards Act could be brushed aside. Now the government is no longer required to demonstrate the safety of these projects and doesn’t have to justify their actions, period, to those who may be affected.
It is now incredibly clear what this government strategy has become: expanding authority and reducing accountability. That most definitely sets off alarm bells, and the consequences on actual British Columbians are just as serious. Not only does this type of approach, as demonstrated in Bill 14, undermine trust in our government, but it also sets a dangerous precedent, going forward, for how much power the government can concentrate and get away with.
[8:00 p.m.]
We, as opposition, believe strongly in the values of transparency, fairness and accountability in governance. Unfortunately, this bill disregards all three. I will specify concerns about the implications of this bill.
Bill 14 isn’t just a matter of administrative housekeeping. Instead, it poses a direct threat to employment, small enterprise and regional economies, especially in rural parts of British Columbia. All the concerns that have been raised by guide-outfitters, hunters and anglers are valid and urgent. And they’re right. This bill hands sweeping authority to unelected bureaucrats, allowing them to revoke or suspend licences at will, without notice, without hearings or any semblance of due process.
In addition, these licences are far more than regulatory documents. They implicitly represent generations of work. They implicitly represent vital incomes for families, economic lifelines for many rural communities. Picture a family-run guiding operation that has hosted visitors for decades, contributing to both the local economy and sustainable wildlife stewardship. Under this bill, their livelihood could vanish overnight — no warning, no justification, no compensation and no recourse.
The legislation does not include any binding provision to ensure financial compensation when a licence is suspended indefinitely. That means hard-working British Columbians could be left with nothing but losses, whether it be financial, personal or cultural. This isn’t some hypothetical scenario. Rather, it is a real and immediate risk, exacerbated by Bill 14, to businesses and communities that have built their way of life around these permits.
Here’s the kicker. Under the bill, the power to dismantle all of that rests with individuals who face no requirement to answer to those affected or provide any justification or explanation at all. The government may talk about improving efficiency, but in reality, it’s not as clear as it seems. There is a complete lack of boundaries, oversight and protections.
This bill has been introduced with implications on licence holders all across the province, who don’t just face uncertainty, as a result, but are exposed to unchecked administrative decisions with no recourse. That is why, as opposition, we are demanding for meaningful changes to Bill 15, changes that allow for clear criterion guidelines, enforceable rights to hearings and appeals and some sort of guaranteed compensation for those who have had their licences unfairly suspended or revoked.
An increase in power cannot be done without an increase in accountability. Bypassing democratic norms isn’t what our constituents deserve.
Let’s be clear. The implications of this bill don’t stop at rural communities. It sets a dangerous precedent that could always be replicated in the future, which would then affect every British Columbian.
We cannot allow for unchecked authority to become a model for future governance. This type of leadership only works to undermine public confidence and discourage future investment. This is simply a step backwards for democratic governance, and we are determined to speak up against it on this side of the House.
In fact, British Columbians expect more from their government. The values I mentioned earlier of fairness, transparency and accountability aren’t just words to throw around rhetorically. They represent pillars of democratic governance, and as it stands, Bill 14 puts it all at risk.
[8:05 p.m.]
To take a closer look at the troubling details of Bill 14 — because the real issue lies beneath the surface — at first glance, one of the most glaring issues is the potential harm this bill poses to our agricultural land, ALR. This bill allows projects to bypass the usual protective measures on ALR land, which has been carefully preserved for food security and agriculture sustainability. What once stood as a safeguard for farmland can now be repurposed, yet again, with minimal oversight, all under the guise of progress again.
In Chilliwack North, this is a very big deal and reality, and it’s very serious.
If we actually take a moment to consider the implications, we uncover the fact that this isn’t about a routine administrative change. It’s actually about dismantling the protections for some of British Columbians’ most vital agricultural land.
Those who best know how to manage and preserve these lands, including local farmers and local councils, are most affected. Instead of input that is thoughtful and driven by leaders in the community — who are elected by the community, with experience — bureaucratic decisions that no one asked for now have all the decisions and authority.
Moreover, Bill 14 opens the door to potentially ignoring essential environmental safeguards. Regulations designed to prevent spills or protect communities from hazardous materials — take, for example, oil or toxic chemicals — could be waived without justification. Again, this type of scenario isn’t hypothetical. It’s a real potential consequence that has now been allowed due to the vague and sweeping language of this bill, giving unrestrained authority with no clear criteria or transparency.
Another concern is how this bill also poses serious threats to our cultural and historical heritage. The legislation allows regulators to override established protections for heritage sites, including those that hold deep significance for Indigenous communities and different sites that hold historical significance.
Yet again, we see the fact that the decision-maker in these scenarios isn’t some democratically accountable figure but, instead, is an appointee of the same regulator who has been given these sweeping powers. How is this not a fundamental erosion of what we commit to safeguarding — cultural, historical legacies found at heritage sites?
Our position has always been clear. We have constantly advocated for governance that strikes a fair balance between fostering economic growth and protecting our communities and environmental stewardship. Unfortunately, Bill 14 completely misses that mark. This isn’t just about simplifying processes. It’s about dismantling vital safeguards and accountability, leaving British Columbians vulnerable to decisions made in the dark.
This bill does more than just tweak regulations. It actually fundamentally changes how we approach decisions on land use, environmental protection, the preservation of cultural heritage and economic activity in our province. It does so without meaningful public input, transparency or proper oversight. British Columbians simply deserve better. They don’t deserve this repackaging of Bill 7. They expect fairness, transparency and actual consultation, not this Bill 14.
Here’s another concerning aspect of Bill 14 — the extensive power it grants unelected regulators to impose fees and levies with little oversight and almost no accountability, another cause for concern for us.
In particular, section 22(2) allows the B.C. Energy Regulator commissioner to issue certificates that mandate projects’ proponents to pay unspecified — unspecified — sums. Alarmingly, this bill places no limits on the size of these levies, nor does it provide any clear guidelines for determining the amounts. Again, more unchecked authority, this time to unelected officials.
[8:10 p.m.]
This lack of transparency sets the perfect stage for arbitrary decision-making, which again is concerning. Hypothetically speaking, two similar renewable energy projects could, under this bill, be charged vastly different fees without any explanation or standardized criteria.
Now, given that scenario, how can we expect our businesses or investors to feel secure in such an uncertain environment? Without clear boundaries or regulations, we risk creating a system prone to inconsistency, unfairness and the potential abuse of power.
Another troubling element that has now been introduced by this bill is the granting of retroactive powers. This government is seeking the ability to validate actions and decisions made before the bill was even debated or discussed, let alone passed. Retroactive validation directly goes against the values of fairness and good governance, and it’s oddly unusual as well. It goes even further to disrupt an already complex regulatory framework and introduces uncertainty, undermining confidence for investors — which, in turn, undermines our province’s economic stability as well.
Another hypothetical scenario to consider. If there was a business that had always followed the rules, complied with all the regulations, investing with certainty, they could now be at risk of changed rules after the fact, new levies or altered requirements now destabilizing the business. That’s what Bill 14 has the power to do. Yes, it does.
This government can stand up and rhetorically suggest that that would never happen, but with the vague language and sweeping powers granted, there is always a risk when making decisions on legislation. Those risks need to be addressed and considered.
The issue is that the door has been left open for these types of scenarios to occur. That’s the danger in Bill 14. These scenarios are not only unjust but massively destabilizing to businesses trying to make long-term decisions for themselves. This bill now sends a very clear and very discouraging message to those considering long-term investments and expansions in our province.
Beyond just economic consequences, this bill further erodes the democratic authority of our local governments. Bodies such as municipal councils and regional districts, those which interact closest to their own communities, could now find themselves in situations that render them powerless to oppose or even influence projects that this government deems streamlined.
Decisions that were once made with input from local residents are now increasingly centralized, stripping everyday British Columbians of a voice in the decisions that directly affect them. We’ve seen this clearly. City councils are not allowed to have public participation or comment on changes made in their own community and their own backyards.
Another specific section in Bill 14 that grants cabinet sweeping powers to amend primary legislation through regulations is section 13(1)(b). This section allows cabinet to modify provisions of the primary act for streamlined projects. Disturbingly, these changes could be delegated to any B.C. government employee, or even the regulator itself, allowing them to rewrite the laws governing their own operations. This essentially makes the regulator both the banker who deals the cards and the player, with the ability to change the rules mid-hand.
We must ask ourselves this question, then: are we comfortable handing over such far-reaching legislative power to unelected officials? Are we prepared to accept a system where bureaucrats can alter the framework without scrutiny or oversight from this elected Legislature? This is completely unacceptable, in my opinion.
Provisions like these in Bill 14 show a troubling concentration of power, free from democratic oversight and accountability. British Columbians deserve transparency, fairness and a decision-making process that is clear and open, not one based on opaque actions and unchecked discretion.
[8:15 p.m.]
Again, as lawmakers it is our duty to challenge such overreaches of power and ensure that the rights and interests of our citizens are protected. When decisions are made in back rooms, and local communities are left out of the conversation, it’s no surprise that public faith in government starts to crumble. People don’t want symbolic gestures after the fact. They want a real seat at the table when the decisions that shape their futures are being made. Bill 14 shuts that door.
British Columbians aren’t opposed to development. They support clear, effective regulation when it’s done right, but speeding things up by cutting out fairness, transparency and local government isn’t reform; it’s recklessness. You can’t call it progress if it leaves people behind and shuts them out. This legislation doesn’t just tweak the rules; it undermines trust, dismisses the voices of those on the ground, and opens the door to retroactive decisions that create chaos instead of clarity.
British Columbians expect better. They expect leadership that respects process, protects rights and earns trust. Bill 14, as it stands, misses the mark by a wide margin. Efficiency should never come at the expense of accountability, yet that’s exactly what this bill proposes. We’ve learned time and time again that when too much authority is placed in too few hands, the result isn’t streamlined governance. It’s confusion, inefficiency and sometimes even misconduct. Decisions made out of public view rarely prioritize the people they’re meant to serve.
Here’s another concerning aspect of this legislation. Under Bill 15, safety is treated as optional, as core protection under the Safety Standards Act can be waived for certain projects. This means critical safeguards meant to protect workers and emergency personnel could simply be ignored. The government hasn’t explained why these standards should be compromised or why people’s safety should be treated as negotiable. No project, no matter how urgent, justifies exposing lives to unnecessary risks.
The bill also threatens to roll back environmental oversight. Environmental assessments are not bureaucratic speed bumps; they are foundational to sustainable development. Stripping them away removes one of the few tools we have to weigh long-term impact on biodiversity and ecosystems before the damage is done, and costly cleanups are left for future generations.
Worse still, Bill 14 centralizes control in a way that shuts out the very people who will feel its consequences. It gives unelected administrators the power to suspend or cancel permits without due process or accountability. For small businesses, this kind of arbitrary authority creates deep uncertainty. How can anyone plan for the future if the rules can change without warning and without recourse?
This legislation does more than speed things up. It reshapes who gets a say, who gets prioritized and how much scrutiny decisions receive. It strips local governments of influence, weakens safety and environmental protections, and concentrates decision-making power away from elected representatives and the public. British Columbians expect more than efficiency for efficiency’s sake. They expect thoughtful, transparent leadership that values safety, fairness and long-term planning. This bill falls far short of that standard.
We should not allow haste to replace responsibility or openness to be sacrificed in the name of convenience. Our constituents deserve laws built to protect them, not to bypass them. At the heart of Bill 14 lies a quiet but deeply dangerous proposition: that government decision-making doesn’t need to be consistent, transparent or accountable.
[8:20 p.m.]
Under this bill, the rules surrounding project approvals, fees and exemptions are so loosely defined that they can be twisted to favour some, while disadvantaging others, with no clear justification required. The channels this bill opens for political favouritism and potential corruption are very concerning for this reason.
How can two projects of the same size and scope be treated entirely differently not because of merit or public interest but because of who’s backing them and who’s lobbying for them? That simply isn’t efficiency. Instead, it’s a prime example of opportunism. It paves the way for favouritism, opens the door to backroom influence and invites political interference where fairness should rule.
In this vague and unbalanced framework, well-connected developers or corporations with the right political allies could find themselves breezing through approvals while their competitors are stuck navigating red tape, delays and unexpected costs. This is how trust erodes, when outcomes begin to look less like policy and more like politics.
There are no guardrails in this legislation to ensure that decisions are based on clear standards or even made public, no requirement for fairness in how levies are imposed, no obligation to explain why one project is fast-tracked while another is stalled. It raises a troubling question: who really benefits from this system?
Bill 14 also grants the government the ability to sidestep environmental safeguards and retroactively revise regulatory conditions. That kind of power exercised without public visibility or legislative oversight doesn’t just weaken accountability; it invites favouritism and overreaches of authority. How are communities expected to have confidence in environmental protections when they can be changed behind closed doors?
Let’s not pretend this concern is hypothetical. British Columbians have seen the revolving door between government and lobbying firms. They’ve watched major donors get access and attention that ordinarily citizens never receive. In this context, the sweeping powers granted by Bill 14 are not just problematic; they’re dangerous.
If the government wants to assure the public that this bill won’t be used for political convenience, then it should welcome full transparency. Publish who meets with whom. Disclose why certain projects are prioritized. Set clear public criteria for decisions. But none of that is in legislation.
Without clear boundaries, without consistent rules, without meaningful oversight, we are inviting a governance model where influence matters more than integrity. British Columbians deserve a system where all players are treated fairly; where outcomes are based on facts, not favouritism; and where decisions that shape our communities are made in daylight, not in the shadows of political convenience. Bill 14, as written, fails the test, and we cannot let it pass unchecked.
To conclude, after examining the full scope of what Bill 14 entails, it has become too clear that this legislation really poses a serious risk to the integrity of our governance and, as a result, the well-being of British Columbians. While it may claim to streamline processes and encourage renewable energy, the devil is in the details. Details show that there are vague provisions, unchecked powers and an overall lack of accountability, which accumulates to make it a very dangerous precedent for future governments to be modelled after.
This bill strips away transparency, bypasses public oversight and accountability and grants unprecedented authority to unelected bureaucrats, without clear criteria or any justification. It opens up these processes to be tainted by political favouritism, where decisions are ultimately influenced by connections rather than merit, where key safeguards, which are there to protect public safety, the environment and local communities, can be waived at will.
[8:25 p.m.]
The key point is that British Columbians deserve better than this. They expect a government that respects the democratic process, that listens to their concerns, that ensures fairness in all decisions affecting their lives. This bill, as it stands, does the opposite. It erodes trust, undermines local input and concentrates power in the hands of a few, with no checks or balances.
Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Kamloops Centre and noting the hour.
Peter Milobar: Don’t we have to go right until half-past? I’m just checking.
The Speaker: Noting the hour, so we have to have another vote at 8:30.
Peter Milobar: Oh, okay. Sorry. I wasn’t sure if the vote had to happen at 8:30, or if we note the hour ahead of that.
I will reserve my right and, noting the hour, adjourn debate.
Peter Milobar moved adjournment of debate.
Motion approved.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Jessie Sunner: Committee of Supply, Section A, reports progress on the estimates of the Ministry of Children and Family Development and asks leave to sit again.
Leave granted.
George Anderson: Section C reports progress on Bill 13 and requests leave to sit again.
Leave granted.
Reports from Committees
Bill M202 — Eligibility to Hold
Public Office Act
(continued)
The Speaker: Members, earlier today, during private members’ time, a division was requested that Bill M202 intituled Eligibility to Hold Public Office Act be concurred in at report stage. Pursuant to Standing Order 25, the deferred division will take place now.
[8:30 p.m. - 8:35 p.m.]
Members, the question before the House is that Bill M202, intituled Eligibility to Hold Public Office Act, be concurred at report stage.
[8:40 p.m.]
Motion approved on the following division:
YEAS — 46 | ||
G. Anderson | Blatherwick | Elmore |
Sunner | Toporowski | B. Anderson |
Neill | Osborne | Brar |
Davidson | Kahlon | Parmar |
Gibson | Beare | Chandra Herbert |
Wickens | Kang | Morissette |
Sandhu | Krieger | Chant |
Lajeunesse | Choi | Rotchford |
Higginson | Routledge | Popham |
Dix | Sharma | Farnworth |
Eby | Bailey | Begg |
Greene | Whiteside | Boyle |
Ma | Yung | Malcolmson |
Chow | Glumac | Arora |
Shah | Phillip | Dhir |
Lore | ||
NAYS — 42 | ||
Sturko | Kindy | Milobar |
Warbus | Rustad | Banman |
Wat | Kooner | Halford |
Hartwell | L. Neufeld | Dew |
Gasper | Day | Block |
Bhangu | Paton | Boultbee |
Chan | Toor | Hepner |
Giddens | Rattée | Davis |
McInnis | Bird | Luck |
Stamer | Maahs | Tepper |
Mok | Wilson | Clare |
Williams | Loewen | Dhaliwal |
Doerkson | Chapman | McCall |
Valeriote | Botterell | Kealy |
Hon. Mike Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 8:41 p.m.