Contents

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. Lisa Beare: In this House, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 29, the Child, Family and Community Service Amendment Act.

In the Douglas Fir Room, Committee of the Whole, Bill 24, Vaping Product Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act.

In Section C, the Birch Room, Committee of the Whole, Bill 30, Employment Standards Amendment Act.

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. In this House, first it is continued second reading on Bill 32, the Mental Health Amendment Act. My apologies.

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 32 — Mental Health
Amendment Act (No. 2), 2025
(continued)

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Members. We are continuing debate on Bill 32, the Mental Health Amendment Act (No. 2), 2025.

Claire Rattée: I hope that you will indulge me. I had to get cut off earlier for lunch, so I’m just going to go back one paragraph so that I don’t confuse myself here.

If the deemed consent provision is removed, the Mental Health Act contains no framework for how treatment decisions are to be made for involuntary patients who refuse care. In that situation, the system defaults back to the general law of consent in British Columbia, the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act.

That act says that every adult is presumed capable unless proven otherwise, that a capable patient has the right to refuse treatment and that the only time treatment can proceed without consent is in a narrowly defined emergency or through a substitute decision-maker if the patient is incapable. That sounds reasonable in theory, but it does not reflect the clinical reality of the people who are most often certified under the Mental Health Act.

[1:35 p.m.]

Many involuntary patients are not incapable in the narrow legal sense. They can understand information. They can repeat back risks and benefits. They can explain side effects. But they cannot appreciate the consequences of refusing treatment because of a condition called anosognosia, the lack of awareness of one’s own illness.

When we talk about consent and capacity in the context of severe psychiatric illness, we must recognize that British Columbia’s existing legal framework was never designed to address the realities of conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder with psychosis, psychotic depression or the increasingly common toxic-drug-related brain injuries we are seeing today.

Capacity law in the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act sets out a narrow test: whether someone can understand information and appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision. That test may work when someone is deciding whether to have a surgery or a medical procedure, but it does not capture the fragmented, inconsistent and often fluctuating insight that characterizes many severe psychiatric disorders.

People can often articulate information clearly while being completely unable to appreciate its personal relevance, because their illness prevents them from recognizing the illness itself. That is the clinical reality of anosognosia, and it is a reality our laws have not even attempted to describe, let alone regulate.

It is not denial; it is a symptom of severe mental illness. It affects a significant percentage of people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder with psychosis and psychotic depression. It also affects people with traumatic and toxic-drug-related brain injuries as well as people with Alzheimer’s and dementia and things of that nature — a population that is now growing rapidly in British Columbia.

When someone has this they genuinely believe that there is nothing wrong with them. They may insist that their hallucinations are real, that their paranoid beliefs are justified or that their family is conspiring against them. They may also, once stabilized, appear articulate, logical and coherent, which leads clinicians to find them capable under the general legal test, but because they lack insight, they will often refuse further treatment.

This produces the tragic cycle that we all recognize. The person deteriorates, becomes a danger to themselves or to others, is detained, receives treatment over objection, begins to recover, becomes capable in the legal sense, refuses continued treatment, is discharged, stops medication and relapses, overdoses or returns to the hospital in a worse state. Families are left grieving. Communities are left unsafe. And the individual’s brain injury deepens each time.

Without clear statutory guidance on how capacity should be assessed specifically for psychiatric decisions, clinicians are forced to make extremely high-stakes judgments in a legal vacuum. Some may interpret capacity broadly and conclude a patient is capable simply because they can repeat information back to them. Others may take a more nuanced approach, incorporating insight, history, pattern of illness and risk.

In rural and northern communities, including mine, where psychiatric coverage is limited, these assessments may be made by clinicians meeting the patient for the very first time, under pressure in a chaotic emergency department or, worse yet and commonly the case, virtually rather than in person.

None of this inconsistency is the fault of the clinicians. It is the direct result of a legislative framework that has failed to define what capacity should mean in the context of severe psychiatric illness. The outcome is a system where two patients with the same conditions may have completely different rights, outcomes and protections, depending on who assesses them that day.

What’s particularly troubling is that not only is the situation that I just described very common in northern rural B.C., where we’re looking at the lack of access to psychiatrists, but…. Very recently, the Health Minister and I were touring a facility in my riding where we were told that it’s better for the patients that they can’t see a psychiatrist in person and just virtually. That bothers me greatly.

I don’t think that you can replace face-to-face interaction with a health care provider with virtual. I understand that we have to fill gaps, but it’s quite alarming that we’re now making excuses for why we can’t actually allow patients to be seen in person. And I think, specifically when it comes to psychiatric assessments, being able to diagnose somebody in person is incredibly important.

[1:40 p.m.]

If the government removes deemed consent without establishing a modernized capacity framework, these inconsistencies will only deepen. Many severely unwell patients, especially those with anosognosia, will be deemed capable in a legal sense and therefore allowed to refuse all treatment, even when their lives are at risk, or others’ lives.

Others may be labelled incapable based on subjective judgment. Families may suddenly become responsible for treatment decisions that they are unprepared to make, in situations that are emotionally fraught and medically complex. And clinicians will be put in the impossible position of guessing whether treating someone without clear statutory authority could expose them to complaints or litigation. This does not create safety or clarity. It creates uncertainty and potential harm.

The government may argue that substitute decision-makers can simply fill the gap when a patient is found incapable, but that assumption overlooks the very real complications. Substitute decision-making only works when there are clear statutory rules guiding it.

At present, British Columbia has no legislative process detailing when a family member can authorize or refuse psychiatric medication on behalf of a loved one. There is no oversight mechanism to ensure that the substitute decision-maker is acting according to the patient’s values, best interests or stated wishes. There is no tribunal process to resolve disputes between clinicians and families when opinions differ, and there are no safeguards to protect patients from family conflict, coercion, estrangement or even well-meaning but harmful decisions made in moments of crisis.

It’s because this piece of legislation doesn’t actually replace anything. It’s looking to remove a section without providing any kinds of guidelines or framework.

If we’re going to go to a situation where, essentially, we’re going to be relying, for the most part, on these substitute decision-makers that are primarily going to be family or close loved ones, why is there no framework here about how that person is determined, which person it’s going to be in the family, safeguards to ensure that they’re not going to abuse that family member?

It’s impossible for a clinician to know every single time what the family history is or how this patient has interacted with that person in the past. So we’re going into very dangerous territory by doing this without any kinds of clear frameworks.

These risks are not theoretical. Families across the province are already stretched to their breaking point, caring for loved ones with severe and persistent mental illness, substance use disorders or brain injuries. Many are exhausted, traumatized and desperate. Asking them to shoulder legal responsibility for forced psychiatric interventions without clear guidance, support or safeguards is unfair to them and unsafe for patients. There are also situations where estranged or abusive relatives attempt to insert themselves into care decisions.

Without a legislated framework, the system risks enabling further harm rather than preventing it. And again, that’s not to say that I don’t want to see more family involvement in care decisions, because I think that’s important. But what we do need are guidelines, because not everybody is going to act in the best interest of people in their family.

A modern mental health law must recognize these complexities. It must define capacity in a way that reflects psychiatric reality, including impaired insight. It must set out a clear and consistent process for involving substitute decision-makers, backed by safeguards, oversight and the ability to challenge decisions. It must ensure that clinicians, patients and families all understand their roles, rights and responsibilities.

Removing deemed consent without addressing any of these issues does not modernize the system. It destabilizes it. It leaves clinicians without guidance, families without support and patients without the protections that they deserve.

This issue is even more concerning when we consider youth. Young people experience mental illness and substance use disorders differently from adults. Their insight fluctuates more rapidly. Their decision-making capacity is more vulnerable to peer influence, trauma and developmental factors. Yet British Columbia has no youth-specific involuntary treatment framework, no capacity-based youth model and no clear legal standard for when parents can override a youth’s refusal of psychiatric treatment.

This is a really big issue that has been consistently seen. I get tons of casework to my office about this because there is no ability for a parent to intervene in those decisions, even when the child may have other disorders, not just psychiatric disorders, that impact their ability to make these decisions. But the parents aren’t allowed to intervene.

The government once recognized this gap when they introduced Bill 22 in 2020, which would have allowed involuntary stabilization for youth after an overdose. They paused that bill due to a lack of consultation, promised to come back with something better, then abandoned the issue entirely.

[1:45 p.m.]

This is alarming, because it’s similar to what we are seeing right now with no consultation and a bill being brought forward. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Now, in the middle of the most severe youth overdose crisis in Canadian history, they bring forward a bill that could make it even harder to treat high-risk youth who lack insight into their condition.

One of the most serious consequences of removing deemed consent without replacing it is that we risk creating a system that detains people without actually treating them. This is not only medically irresponsible but also ethically indefensible.

Detention under the Mental Health Act is supposed to have a therapeutic purpose. It is justified because treatment is necessary to prevent serious deterioration or harm. If clinicians are legally unable to provide that treatment, then the detention itself becomes punitive rather than therapeutic, something this government has said multiple times that they don’t want to do. It becomes confinement for the sake of confinement. That is the opposite of what involuntary care is supposed to achieve.

Imagine a person in acute psychosis — paranoid, terrified, disorganized, unable to recognize their own needs. Imagine telling that person: “We can hold you here against your will, but we cannot give you the treatment that would actually help you become well.” That is not compassionate care, that is not trauma-informed care, and it is certainly not recovery-oriented care. It is a failure of the system and a violation of the principles that this government claims to uphold.

If this bill proceeds without a replacement framework, that is exactly the situation British Columbia will be placing clinicians and patients into. If Bill 32 passes without a replacement framework, that cycle will become more entrenched, not less. Clinicians will still be able to detain a person, but without the deemed consent provision, they will likely be unable to treat them, unless they go through the formal process of declaring them incapable and locating a substitute decision-maker.

Because the legal test for incapacity is narrow, many people with anosognosia will be labelled capable. That will mean that the very group of people who most desperately need stabilizing treatment, the people with the least insight into their conditions and the highest risk of fatal outcomes, will be the ones who are now allowed to refuse care.

This is not a hypothetical concern. The government itself has acknowledged that drug-related brain injuries are now a widespread and growing problem. The Premier has spoken publicly on multiple occasions about people overdosing twice in a day, being revived in emergency and being sent back out onto the street to overdose a third time. He called it bizarre. He spoke about the need for involuntary care in those situations.

The government then appointed a chief scientific adviser, Dr. Daniel Vigo, who confirmed that involuntary care for this population could be delivered under the Mental Health Act, and that’s under the existing Mental Health Act. This was eight months ago that he said that. So again, I can’t help but wonder why this is being couched as a necessary part of being able to move forward on involuntary care. Why are we not listening to the expert here?

What really concerns me about this is that when I had a briefing on this bill with the government staff about it, I asked about how much consultation had been done about bringing this piece of legislation forward. I was told that Dr. Vigo — now, bear in mind Dr. Vigo is the one that said that these changes were not necessary — has done consultation with psychiatrists. But the staff admitted to me that no consultation beyond that has been done on bringing forward this piece of legislation.

Again, I am concerned that this is just about shielding the government because of this Charter challenge. I understand the desire to do that, but don’t couch it as being something that’s necessary to bring forward involuntary care when the wording itself makes it seem as though it’s actively working against that goal.

Despite recognizing this, the government has made almost no progress in actually implementing involuntary care. So I must ask: how does it make sense to talk about using the Mental Health Act as a tool for involuntary care in the toxic drug crisis while, at the same time, removing the very legal mechanism that allows you to treat people whose illness stops them from recognizing that they are ill?

For years, experts, advocates, families and clinicians have been calling for expanded psychiatric beds, expanded long-term treatment capacity and vastly more community supports. The government has ignored those calls.

We still have emergency departments functioning as psychiatric wards. We still have people admitted to medical surgical floors because there is nowhere else to place them. We still have hundreds of people discharged prematurely due to bed shortages. We still have Indigenous communities with no psychiatric services at all. We still have youth waiting months or years for a psychiatric consultation.

[1:50 p.m.]

A modern mental health law cannot function if there are no psychiatrists to assess people, no beds to stabilize them and no community teams to support them after discharge. That infrastructure does not exist, and this bill does absolutely nothing to fix that.

Even the scarce detox and treatment beds that do exist outside of the Red Fish Healing Centre are not designed for stabilizing long-term psychiatric or cognitive impairment caused by toxic drug exposure. They are not designed for the people cycling repeatedly through acute psychosis with no insight. They are not designed for people who need weeks or months of structured in-patient care to regain stability.

Another glaring problem with this bill is that it assumes the province has the capacity to operationalize a modern consent system when it simply does not.

Capacity-based legislation only works when the entire system is built around accurate, timely and consistent capacity assessments. That means having trained psychiatric staff available around the clock. It means having clinicians who are capable of assessing acute psychosis, disorganized thinking, brain injury or impaired insight in a reliable and standardized way. It means having specialized in-patient units ready to receive patients when capacity is lost and treatment is necessary. None of those conditions exist today in British Columbia.

Another serious issue is that lack of capacity exposes clinicians to enormous legal and professional risk. Under this bill, a nurse or doctor who decides a severely unwell patient is incapable could be accused of violating their rights. Meanwhile, a clinician who decides they are capable could be blamed when that patient deteriorates, harms themselves or harms someone else.

These decisions cannot be left to guesswork, but that is exactly what will happen without the resources needed to make proper assessments. We are setting clinicians up for failure, and the government knows it. Giving them liability protection does not solve the problem. It merely shifts the risk. A modern system would give clinicians the tools that they need, not leave them to improvise in a crisis.

The government also refuses to acknowledge that modernizing mental health law requires capacity not just to assess and treat but to follow up. People with severe psychiatric illness need continuity of care. They need intensive case management, assertive outreach, structured housing supports and long-term stabilization.

British Columbia does not have those systems in place. People are discharged with no follow-up, no plan, no appointment and no support. We know what happens next: relapse, psychosis, overdose, hospitalization, sometimes death. A rights-based framework without a care-based infrastructure is an illusion.

One of the most overlooked problems with this bill is that it deepens the inequality between rural and urban care. In Vancouver or Victoria, a patient refusing medication under a capacity-based system might at least be seen quickly by a psychiatrist. In the North, that same patient could wait days or longer for an assessment. In some cases, the assessment might not happen at all.

The law will be the same across the province, but the outcomes will not be. The regions with the least capacity will see the worst results. People in rural and northern communities, my communities, will be left without timely assessments, without timely treatment and without the protections a modernized framework is supposed to provide. This is not equity. It is regionally entrenched injustice.

In northern communities, including Skeena, we often have limited or no access to psychiatrists on site. We have emergency departments that are overwhelmed, rotations that are inconsistent and designated psychiatric beds that are insufficient.

This government has known for years that psychiatric capacity is dangerously low, yet they have not meaningfully increased staffing, expanded in-patient facilities or developed community-based psychiatric services for communities. Instead, they now introduce a bill that will remove the only legal tool that clinicians currently have to provide timely treatment in high-risk situations, and they’re not providing anything to replace it with.

The government is legislating as though we have a fully staffed, modern psychiatric infrastructure. We do not. We are nowhere close, and the consequences of pretending otherwise will be borne by the most vulnerable people in the system.

The irony is almost unbelievable. The government is trying to legislate a capacity-based model while refusing to invest in capacity. It is like trying to build a skyscraper on a foundation of sand. The structure looks neat on paper, but it collapses as soon as it is used.

[1:55 p.m.]

If the government truly believed in a capacity-based approach, the first step would be investment in psychiatric beds, in detox beds, in long-term treatment, in community outreach, in northern services, in forensic stabilization and in specialized brain injury units. Instead, they are moving backward. They are making it harder to treat people, not easier. They are making it harder to intervene in a crisis, not easier.

It must be said plainly. This government has known for years that British Columbia’s mental health system does not have the capacity to meet even basic needs.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

Claire Rattée: I was told that I had two hours.

Deputy Speaker: Oh, you are the designated speaker?

Claire Rattée: Yes, I will be the designated speaker.

Every coroner’s report, every Auditor General review, every Ombudsperson report….

Deputy Speaker: Member, I hate to interrupt. I just need to recognize our Minister of Education and Child Care.

Hon. Lisa Beare: Excellent, thank you.

Sorry, we were waiting till you were done there.

I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. Lisa Beare: In the gallery, we have 40 people from Lift Auto Group, which has 67 locations, including one here in Victoria, and is headquartered out of Kelowna. They do collision repairs all across the province.

Will the House please make them feel very welcome.

Deputy Speaker: Indeed, welcome to everybody in the chamber today.

Debate Continued

Claire Rattée: It must be said plainly. This government has known for years that British Columbia’s mental health system does not have the capacity to meet even basic needs. Every coroner’s report, every Auditor General review, every Ombudsperson report, every expert panel, every clinician, every grieving family has said the same thing.

We do not have enough psychiatric capacity. We do not have enough treatment beds. We do not have enough staff. We do not have enough support for people after discharge. Despite knowing all of this, the government brings forward a bill that assumes the system is fully functional. It is not, and their failure to act is costing lives.

What makes this bill even more alarming is the glaring contradiction between the government’s public messaging and their legislative actions. This Premier has repeatedly stated that involuntary care must be available for people who overdose multiple times a day. He has stated publicly that allowing someone to be revived in the morning, only to die in the evening, is unacceptable.

The government’s own chief scientific adviser has stated unequivocally that repeated overdoses cause profound brain injury, that insight is impaired and that involuntary care is sometimes necessary as an act of compassion, yet at the very moment when the government should be strengthening the legal framework to support those interventions, they are dismantling the only statutory mechanism that currently allows treatment in these high-risk situations.

This raises a serious question. Was the government ever actually committed to involuntary care, or were those statements simply made to respond to public outrage? When a government’s words and actions contradict each other this dramatically, British Columbians notice. They have every right to question whether this bill reflects sound policy or political self-preservation in the face of a Charter challenge.

In April of this year, following a mass casualty event at a public festival that involved a person with untreated mental illness, the government announced a review of the Mental Health Act. They held press conferences. They talked about modernization. They talked about protecting the public. They talked about building a better system. But since then, we have seen absolutely no evidence of that review. There has been no consultation paper, no terms of reference, no interim findings, no public engagement, no outreach to families, no evidence that the review has progressed at all.

What is particularly troubling is that instead of bringing forward a comprehensive reform package informed by that review, the government is now moving this small, reactive bill in the final days of the sitting. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this bill is not about modernizing mental health law or improving care. It is about legal positioning. It is about the looming Charter case. It is about shielding the government and health authorities from liability, without doing the work of building a functioning, compassionate and accountable system.

Again, I have to ask: why are we rushing through a narrow, technical change to one of the most controversial sections of the act before that review is complete? Why are we legislating to manage a court case, instead of legislating to fix a broken system? It feels premature, it feels backward, and it raises real questions about what the government’s true agenda is here.

I want to acknowledge that the bill does contain provisions to protect clinicians from liability when they provide treatment authorized by the director. I understand why many nurses, doctors and allied health workers welcome that protection. They are working on the front lines of an extraordinarily complex and underresourced system, and they deserve support, but legal immunity for clinicians does not fix the underlying problem.

[2:00 p.m.]

They still will not have a clear statutory framework to guide their decisions when an involuntary patient refuses care. They will still be forced to navigate a patchwork of internal health authority policies, ad hoc capacity assessments and unclear legal obligations.

Patients, especially those with anosognosia or toxic-drug-related brain injury, will receive inconsistent and insufficient care. British Columbians deserve better than this. They deserve a government that does the difficult work of drafting a modern capacity-based mental health law that recognizes autonomy where possible, protects the right to be well where necessary and builds in robust safeguards, oversight and accountability.

They deserve a system where families are part of the process, where rural and northern realities are recognized, where Indigenous communities are engaged with respect and where clinicians are properly supported. They deserve more than a two-clause amendment introduced at the last minute because the government is anxious about its position in court.

In principle, I support modernizing the Mental Health Act. I support strengthening rights and creating a fair, transparent consent framework. But I cannot support a bill that removes a major legal mechanism while offering nothing in its place.

Doing so risks worsening outcomes for the people who need the most help. It risks creating a situation where we detain people without treating them, a scenario that is unethical, unsafe and inhumane. And it risks further eroding public confidence at a time when the system is already under immense strain.

What is most troubling is the government’s refusal to grapple with the full context. This bill is being introduced in a province that has the highest overdose death rate in Canadian history, the highest rate of drug-induced brain injury ever recorded, a collapsing psychiatric system, chronic staffing shortages, emergency departments functioning as psychiatric stabilization units, long-term-care needs that are completely unmet and no coherent strategy for involuntary treatment, despite promising it repeatedly.

This bill does not exist in a vacuum. It exists inside a system that is fundamentally broken. And instead of fixing the system, the government is removing one of the only tools that it has.

Rights matter. But that includes the right to be well. We can move towards a modern capacity-based model that respects autonomy whenever possible, explicitly recognizes situations where illness destroys insight, provides strong safeguards and still allows clinicians to act in a transparent and accountable way when doing nothing would mean death or serious harm.

If the government were serious about modernizing the Mental Health Act, this bill would not be two clauses long. At minimum, it would include a statutory definition of “capacity” tailored to psychiatric decision-making. It would require regular documented capacity assessments. It would establish a clear process for authorizing treatment in cases where a patient is capable but at extreme risk due to impaired insight, patterned overdose or severe psychosis.

It would strengthen rights advice and legal advocacy. It would create oversight mechanisms — whether through the review board, an independent tribunal or another body — so that treatment decisions could be challenged fairly. It would provide a structured role for families, with clear limits, safeguards and accountability. And it would be accompanied by a commitment to increased psychiatric capacity, community care options and stabilizing treatment facilities across the province. None of that appears in this bill.

British Columbia cannot build a rights-based mental health framework on a system that is structurally incapable of delivering the most basic psychiatric care. The government knows that psychiatry vacancies remain unfilled across Northern Health, Interior Health and Vancouver Island. They know that some communities have no permanent psychiatrists at all.

They know that emergency departments are so overwhelmed that psychiatric consults are often delayed for days or done virtually by providers who have never met the patient in person. They know that burnout among clinicians is at an all-time high.

Yet they still bring forward a bill that hinges entirely on the assumption that clinicians have the time, training and capacity to carry out nuanced legal assessments in the middle of a collapsing system. That is not modernization; it is magical thinking.

British Columbians do not need a bill that protects the government from liability. They need a bill that protects people from dying. They need a mental health law that recognizes modern clinical realities, that balances autonomy with safety, that supports clinicians in making the right decisions and that gives families a framework that they can trust.

Instead, they are being offered a last-minute, legally driven amendment that does nothing to improve care, nothing to expand access to treatment and nothing to address the devastating gaps that this government has acknowledged for years but failed to act upon.

[2:05 p.m.]

British Columbians deserve leadership, not legal manoeuvring. They deserve a government willing to confront the hardest issues in mental health and addiction with honesty, courage and a genuine commitment to saving lives. This bill falls far short of that standard, and the people of British Columbia deserve far better.

I want to take a little bit of time now to talk about some of the timeline here and why I have a lot of concerns about the way that this bill is being brought forward. I’ve touched on them already, but just to put it in perspective.

We know that eight months ago Dr. Daniel Vigo, who is the expert on these matters, the expert that we were told we needed to have…. This government needed to have him hired on so that he could give advice. He said eight months ago that for us to enact involuntary care, we did not need to make any changes to the Mental Health Act whatsoever. He’s supposed to be the authority on this, he’s supposed to be the expert, and now, for some reason, we’re going against his advice.

We know that back after the Lapu-Lapu Day tragedy, the Premier stood up and announced that we were going to get a review of the Mental Health Act, something that many people have been calling for, for a very long time. That was announced, and I’ve heard crickets ever since.

Now we’ve got this bill coming forward. We haven’t done a review. We haven’t done consultation, as I mentioned. Ministry staff told me as much yesterday, that no consultation has been done on this. So all I have left to assume is that this is just about shielding the government from the results of this Charter case.

Again, I understand why they may want to do that. I understand that there is some concern there. I’m certainly not against us providing more protections to health care workers. I don’t want them to be facing liability for doing the right thing and making the right medical choices. That’s important. They need to feel confident that they can make those medical choices.

But the fact still remains that this government agreed that we needed involuntary treatment. I’ve pored over this document and tried to find any other way to interpret it other than the fact that it is now going to be more difficult for us to be able to implement involuntary treatment in this province. That concerns me greatly.

I’ve spoken about it in this House before. I’m somebody that has lived experience with this. I went to treatment. I was a drug addict for a number of years, and I went to treatment. I got psychiatric help as well. I did suffer from psychosis. I have been through that pattern. I understand this very keenly. I have the lived experience on it, and that’s why I advocate for it. That is also why I know, as somebody with lived experience, as somebody that was a youth when I was struggling, that involuntary treatment would have saved me.

Obviously, I’m still alive. I’m still here today. I made it through, but I did a lot of really irreparable harm to my body and my health during that time. I was a young person. Obviously, I regret it now. I wish I hadn’t done that, but I did.

My parents cared about me immensely. They wanted to do everything they could to try and save me, but there wasn’t any mechanism for them to do so. I have the clarity now that I need, as an adult, to be able to look back, and I recognize that despite my parents being excellent parents and caring about me a lot, I wanted them to pay attention to me. I felt like they didn’t pay attention.

If they would have forced me into treatment, if they had had a mechanism when I was 16 or 17 years old, I guarantee you it would have worked. I know it won’t work for everybody, but I can look back, and I can see that now. I know it would have worked. It would have saved me. I went through a lot of things that I shouldn’t have gone through as a young child, as a teenager, that I wish, obviously, I didn’t have to go through.

We need involuntary treatment in this province. We can’t continue to wait. There has to be a mechanism. There are a lot of lives that could potentially be saved if we found a way to do that.

Unfortunately, I am now going to spend the time to try and figure out some amendments that I can bring forward to this piece of legislation that will allow us to enact that. I’m hoping that I can do a good job of it, because I do not have a legal background, nor do I have a medical background. I’m hoping that I can figure out a way to do that in a way that both sides of the House can agree on so that we can actually start enacting that framework.

But the government still needs to take on the responsibility of building out that capacity to allow us to be able to take on that challenge. What concerns me is, again, that this is a government that insisted we had to hire this special expert in Dr. Vigo. We had to have him. He was the expert on this matter. He would be able to figure out what we needed to do to be able to solve the problems that we’re facing right now. And we’re actively going against advice that was given to us from him.

There hasn’t been consultation done on this. Again, I am not a legal expert, nor do I have a health care background.

[2:10 p.m.]

I have concerns about the fact that this is now legislation that is likely going to get changed. That’s why I will bring forward the amendments, because I know that the government has more votes than the opposition and that this will move. I’m hoping that the amendments will be ones that the government can agree to, to try and make this a bit safer and to ensure that it’s actually going to achieve the outcome that we want it to.

This is really work that should be being done by people like Dr. Vigo. I thought that’s why we were spending tax dollars on having him consult. I have a lot of concern over the fact that this is actively going against what he originally had said that we needed to do.

I do not think that this bill is actually going to do anything for the intended purpose of strengthening involuntary treatment care. I think that it is definitely going to help shield the government from any potential legal battles that they might have with this Charter challenge, but it doesn’t do anything to improve access to care in this province. That concerns me. This is being brought forward as a health care bill, but it’s feeling like it’s more of a legal bill.

I don’t know where it came from that the government got the recommendation for removing deemed consent and not replacing it with anything else, but I have concerns around that. Was there any consultation done with other provinces? Again, we are the only province left in Canada that still has these provisions.

Yes, our Mental Health Act is incredibly outdated. I’m not saying that I’m against looking at updating it and making some improvements, but if there wasn’t consultation being done, if we didn’t consult with other provinces that have gone through this — learn best practices, understand what works and what doesn’t — that this feels incredibly premature.

The problem is that once you remove something like that, you can’t just bring it back. There needs to be some kind of structure, some kind of framework that is brought in, in place of that to ensure that we are actually going to have a system that is going to be functioning that can help to treat people that are suffering.

Again, if anybody listening to this hasn’t experienced either themselves dealing with significant psychiatric illness or having someone in their family that struggles with it…. I think probably most have experienced that at some point, being around somebody that does struggle like that.

If you haven’t, it’s very difficult to understand just how common it is for someone if they finally get diagnosed and they finally get the help that they need. They finally get treatment. They finally get medications, and they start to feel better…. It doesn’t take very long for them to start to think: “I’m better now. I don’t need the medication anymore. I don’t need the treatment anymore. I’m feeling great.”

At that point, by any kind of legal capacity test, they would be considered capable of making that decision for themselves. They would be considered capable of determining whether or not they need to continue with treatment or if they can discontinue the treatment and be fine. The problem is I’d think that the clinicians would know that as well. They’d be very cognizant of that. They would recognize this is a person that has struggled with severe psychiatric illness for a long time.

Once the medications wear off, they’ll be right back where they started, and they’ll have no legal recourse to stop them from getting off of those medications. That’s incredibly concerning. I don’t think that the average British Columbian recognizes — although they may now because of things that have happened recently — just how many people are living in community under the Mental Health Act that are mandated to get medications, usually by an injection, every couple of weeks.

I’m not saying this to disparage those people, because I think it’s incredibly important that they have this opportunity so that they can feel well, so that they can live a normal life. But if they have the ability, whenever they feel like it, to just get off their medications because they’re feeling well at that moment, we could see things like what happened at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival again.

We could see more tragedies, and I don’t feel like we’ve worked in any kind of safeguards here to ensure that that doesn’t happen again. Psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia don’t go away. There’s no cure for that. You can medicate it, and that’s about all you can do. You can treat, but there’s no way to completely stop it from coming back. If we don’t have some kind of a safeguard in place to make sure that doesn’t happen, I’m worried that we’re going to make this system worse, not better.

Another piece of that is definitely people that suffer from delusions, people that are living on the street. It’s a very common situation that you’ll come across with people that are unhoused that are struggling with substance use. It’s really common that they will also have some kind of a psychiatric condition. Typically people will self-medicate in those situations, and they’ll end up on the street.

I spend a lot of time doing outreach work with people in those situations. I would say you get to know somebody fairly well. You can have a conversation with that person one day and they seem fairly coherent and capable of making decisions for themselves, and the next day they’re not. This is not something that’s just going to be the exact same every day.

[2:15 p.m.]

Again, if that person presents to a psychiatrist and they’re having a particularly lucid moment, a lucid day where everything seems fine and they don’t feel like they’re going to need any more help, they could then be released and end up doing more damage to themselves.

Another part of this is that when psychiatric patients aren’t getting properly treated, again, like I said, they tend to turn to self-medicating. It’s incredibly difficult dealing with psychiatric illness. For the person that’s experiencing it, for what it does to your mind, it’s incredibly difficult.

As somebody that has experienced this and has experienced using illegal substances to try and self-medicate it, it’s a very simple trap to fall into. You don’t feel well. Something doesn’t feel right. You feel like your brain doesn’t function like everybody else’s, so you find a way to self-medicate and to deal with it another way.

We know what happens. We know what the outcomes are there. You either end up overdosing and dying or overdosing and ending up with a permanent acquired brain injury. And that brain injury gets worse every single time that you overdose.

Again, this is not something that is treatable. It’s not something that’s reversible, but it is preventable. That’s where I get frustrated that this government isn’t doing something more to prevent that from happening, to build out the capacity that we need to be able to treat people early on, to be able to ensure that they don’t end up in a place with an acquired brain injury.

I mentioned it to the Health Minister very recently when she visited my riding — about the need for us to be able to take a look at this epidemic that we have now of people with acquired brain injuries as a result of repeated overdoses. Why are we not looking at legislation that brings forward better education for people, on what repeated overdoses can do to you — can do to your brain?

Many people think that naloxone exists now, and it’s okay because you can be revived and there won’t be any real consequences, but there are. Every single overdose means that you aren’t getting oxygen to your brain, and you are ending up with a brain injury. You keep repeating that over and over again, and unfortunately, you end up with people that have lost all function and ability to care for themselves.

Even further to that, why don’t we have any kind of a facility for people that are in that position, to be able to give them some dignity and some care? Why are we okay with just leaving them on the street?

I don’t know how to fix all of these problems, because it doesn’t seem like the government wants to fix many of them, but I am hoping that we can at least work across the aisle on this piece of legislation in committee stage and make some amendments that need to be made to ensure that it’s going to actually work for British Columbians, that it’s going to address the problems that it needs to address. Hopefully, it can address the problems that government is seeing right now and the potential of this Charter challenge at the same time.

I’m willing to work across the aisle and try and make sure that that happens, but what I’m not willing to do is risk that we move forward on a piece of legislation that may handicap us later from being able to implement involuntary care properly. I’m not willing to do that. I will do everything in my power to ensure that doesn’t happen, because involuntary treatment is absolutely necessary at this point. We cannot wait any longer.

When I began my speech, I did mention that at this point, without bringing forward legislation in this session that allows for involuntary treatment, we will likely lose another 450 British Columbians by the time we show up here again for another session to potentially be able to bring forward that legislation.

It’s 450 people that will most likely die in this province if we don’t make sure that we do something now to prevent that from happening; to give our health care system the tools it needs to be able to treat people when they’re dealing with those concurrent disorders; to be able to ensure that even when they don’t want that treatment, if we can tell that it is in their best interest, that they will have no standard of living, no dignity if we don’t or that they may potentially die, we can then implement that care.

That is compassionate. That is important. It’s not something that we can continue to ignore any longer, so I really hope that both sides of the House are willing to work on that in committee stage and work on some amendments to be able to make this legislation something that we can support. But at this point in time, I cannot support handicapping ourselves and not allowing ourselves to move forward on involuntary care.

[2:20 p.m.]

Jeremy Valeriote: I just want to start by appreciating the member for Skeena relaying personal lived experience, recounting it, and how important that is in this discussion.

Thank you.

I’m pleased to rise to speak to Bill 32. I’m still getting up to speed when it comes to being an effective critic for health and mental health in this Legislature, but I am inheriting an immense amount of work and expertise on this file from my predecessors Sonia Furstenau, Adam Olsen and the many caucus staff that have supported elected Greens.

For years, the B.C. Green caucus has been calling on this government to reform the outdated and archaic Mental Health Act. My colleagues have worked closely with health professionals, people with lived and living experience and disability, justice and human rights advocates to gain a comprehensive understanding of mental health legislation in B.C. We’ve seen countless reports detailing the inadequacy of the current mental health regime and all the ways it must be reformed to meet basic standards of human rights and dignity.

This legislation hasn’t been substantially updated in almost 30 years, and it contains much of the same wording from when it was first devised in 1964. After more than 60 years of tinkering around the edges, I was expecting to stand to celebrate the long-awaited overhaul of the Mental Health Act. Instead, I’m standing to speak to a minor shuffle of two clauses. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement.

B.C.’s Mental Health Act, last substantially updated in 1998, still authorizes coercive health measures and is out of step with modern evidence-based understandings of mental health and illness. It’s time for the act to be overhauled and oriented toward creating the conditions for all people to be well, informed by those who are or have been directly impacted by this legislation.

It is somewhat suspect that this government is making minor changes to an outdated piece of legislation for the sole purpose of defending itself in a Charter challenge. I’ll dive deeper into these concerns throughout this debate, on which I will be the designated speaker.

In 2016, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and two individuals challenged the constitutionality of B.C.’s mental health legislation. The plaintiffs argue that B.C.’s Mental Health Act violates sections 7 and 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

For the record, these sections read:

Section 7: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof, except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

Section 15(1): “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

Although the two individuals dropped out of the case, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities continued the Charter challenge.

In 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously determined this case did pass the test to be considered in the public interest. The legal case, known as the British Columbia Mental Health Act Charter challenge, began earlier this year, on May 29. The final arguments took place between October 28 and November 6.

The Council of Canadians with Disabilities, which I’ll refer to as CCD from here on, argued that they are not seeking to eliminate involuntary treatment nor change who can be detained or how long or the legal criteria for admissions. With this Charter challenge, they’re seeking to ensure that when psychiatric treatment is forced, it is done so with dignity, oversight and involvement of the patient’s trusted supporters.

As many experts and advocates have so astutely identified, we do not have to choose between public safety and individual rights. We can have both.

That starts with creating a Mental Health Act that wasn’t drafted during the same time when residential schools were operating, whose non-consensual medical experiments continue to harm Indigenous survivors today; during a time when involuntary sterilization against people who were declared mentally defective was common practice; and when being queer was determined to be a mental disorder. We can do so much better than a 60-year-old piece of legislation that has barely been updated in the past 30 years.

[2:25 p.m.]

Anne Levesque, co-chair of the disability justice litigation initiative of the CCD, writes:

“Waiting for the courts to force change wastes precious time and public resources that could be better spent on designing a new Charter-compliant mental health system in collaboration with experts, service providers, families and people with lived experiences.

“Meanwhile, substantial public funds are being spent on government lawyers to fight a legal battle defending a regime that is clearly unconstitutional and fails both patients and public safety. That money would be far better spent consulting with experts, families and people with lived experiences and developing legislation that upholds constitutional rights and keeps communities safe.

“The time for delay is over. The B.C. government must act now to rewrite the Mental Health Act in order to protect the public and respect Charter rights.”

The piece of this legislation that has faced particular scrutiny in this trial is the very section that is being repackaged in these proposed changes.

The heading for section 31 reads: “Deemed consent to treatment and request for a second opinion.” Subsection (1) reads: “If a patient is detained in a designated facility under section 22, 28, 29, 30 or 42 or is released on leave or is transferred to an approved home under section 37 or 38, treatment authorized by the director is deemed to be given with the consent of the patient.”

The government says that section 31(1) was added in 1980 in response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision. This court decision found that involuntary treatment could be constituted as battery. This section was added to protect health workers from being liable in a tort of battery.

Let me read into the record a guidance document prepared by and for the government of Canada in 1981, titled “Legal Aid for Mental Patients”:

“Civil commitment must be seen as an extreme form of state intervention, representing as it does the deprivation of our most fundamental rights, and particularly the right of autonomy over physical self.

“Given the loss of liberty, privacy and self-determination and the dramatic consequences of hospitalization, it is not surprising that many have begun to ask basic questions about involuntary commitment. When is it justified, and how best can one achieve a balance between freedom and protection of the individual and society?

“The difficulties in psychiatric assessment and diagnosis are not surprising. Mental illness is a complex phenomenon which cuts across medical, normative, cultural and ethical considerations. This, then, is not a criticism of psychiatry or psychiatrists, only a further indication of the need to deal with the inevitable ambiguities in all mental health legislation and to protect the individual from the uncertainties in the consequential diagnostic process.

“In short, unsure diagnosis can be successively qualified and modified in an ongoing voluntary treatment relationship, but it must be subject to close scrutiny and challenge when it is the basis for committal.”

As I highlight in these quotes from 1981, this country has recognized the complexities that arise from involuntary treatment. Why, then, I wonder, has it taken the B.C. government so long to address the outstanding concerns of its outdated Mental Health Act? And why is this B.C. NDP government only just now tinkering around the edges?

When asked to provide commentary on this government’s review of the Mental Health Act, the Premier said this:

“Our reluctance to enter into this modernization of the act before the trial was complete is we’re going to get a judgment from the court, and it’s going to tell us about the direction to go in terms of being compliant with rights. Also, it presents a risk to our trial and to the case to suddenly change the law in the middle of the case, but I think the moment that we’re now in requires that we move ahead regardless and accept that risk.”

So why, I ask again, are these changes coming before the court case has concluded? We’ve heard two justifications from this government. They’ve argued that they need to provide certain protections from liability for health care workers, particularly in a tort of battery when providing involuntary treatment. The second justification is that health care workers are afraid of providing treatment to involuntary patients because protection from liability is unclear in the existing legislation. Some argue that provincial health authorities are, therefore, not forcibly treating enough people.

I’ll say this. We aren’t aware of any health care worker groups that have said they are concerned about liability when delivering treatment involuntarily under the Mental Health Act. This government says that they’re seeking to enhance the protection of liability for health care workers while also saying that this protection from liability is baked into the existing legislation and that these amendments don’t actually change the function of the act.

I come back to my initial questions. Why this, and why right now?

The intent of section 31(1) doesn’t matter. We must face reality and be honest about the ways deemed consent has caused harm. This clause was added in the 1980s. Why hasn’t this changed since then?

[2:30 p.m.]

As identified by the Office of the Ombudsperson, more people are being involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act than ever before. Each year in B.C., the Mental Health Act is used 30,000 times to involuntarily detain individuals experiencing mental health and/or substance use challenges. This number is over double what it was ten years ago. I’ll add that the 20,000 people this involves amount to about half a percent of B.C.’s population. That’s one in 200 people.

The Ombudsperson’s first report in 2019, called Committed to Change: Protecting the Rights of Involuntary Patients Under the Mental Health Act, found a striking lack of compliance with the legal documentation required on involuntary admissions under the Mental Health Act. “A detailed analysis of mandatory admission forms found that across the province, all of the required forms were completed in only 28 percent of involuntary patient admissions.”

In the 2022 Committed to Change report update, the Ombudsperson wrote: “We are encouraged by the fact that government and the health authorities have made substantial progress in developing auditing systems to increase oversight and accountability for form completion and to improve training for staff and physicians since Committed to Change was issued. As this report highlights, however, there is significant work ahead to ensure that the systemic issues we identified in those areas in our report, particularly related to independent rights advice, are fully addressed.”

We must recognize that being involuntarily detained and forcibly treated can be an extremely traumatizing experience. Many people say they fear being detained again, so they will avoid seeking help from health professionals.

We continue to see the horror stories coming out of each report that analyzes the system of involuntary treatment in B.C. People have been forcibly injected with medication and sedatives, physically restrained and given electroconvulsive therapy. These experiences have created a culture of avoidant care, meaning that if there is a risk of harmful apprehension, people are less likely to seek care in the system. This applies to the police, health and mental health systems.

I’ll read some of the concerns about the current Mental Health Act, as identified by Health Justice.

“The Mental Health Act authorizes detaining hospitals and facilities to ‘discipline’ patients. This means that patients can be solitarily confined in seclusion rooms, mechanically restrained with straps that tie them to their beds or otherwise punished during their time in hospital. There are no limits on when, how, why or how long someone can be disciplined, and no review process.

“The Mental Health Act removes health care consent rights for involuntary patients. All involuntary patients can be administered any form of psychiatric treatment the facility chooses, without consent from the patient or their families or personal supporters who know them best.

“Finally, the Mental Health Act fails to address many important aspects of daily living conditions that could support recovery. There are no patient rights to access phones or computers, to receive visitors, to protections during clothing removal or to grounds passes to get exercise or fresh air. The result is that many involuntary patients experience unnecessary trauma, isolation and alienation from the health care system.”

Yesterday an article was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal titled “Involuntary Treatment for Substance Use: Application of Kass’s Ethical Framework to Alberta’s Compassionate Intervention Act.”

In the concluding sentences, the authors write: “Resourcing evidence-based, community-led voluntary services would likely yield better substance use and mental health outcomes than involuntary care. Instead of instituting ethically fraught interventions with weak evidentiary support, Alberta and other provinces should strengthen and evaluate a full spectrum of patient-centred, evidence-based services, including supportive housing and community resources for patients who already require care under the existing Mental Health Act or are seeking trusted care on their own terms.”

I’ve heard this time and time again. Many involuntary admissions are people who sought voluntarily care days, months or even years before being admitted but were unable to get connected with the right care at the right time. To me, this speaks to a fundamental flaw with our health system and something this government has a particularly difficult time reckoning with.

The least restrictive care is also the least costly, both in terms of financial costs and societal costs. Yet here we are debating the merits of minor changes to an outdated act instead of talking about the systemic reforms that must happen to improve the well-being, health and safety of our entire province. A mental health legislation framework can protect both human rights and public safety. It’s not one or the other. But this government continues to operate as if it were 1981.

[2:35 p.m.]

In our current system, involuntary treatment can play a role in a comprehensive mental health system, but it must be used responsibly, with proper supports after discharge. Alongside this, we urgently need a strong, preventative approach and substantial investment in mental health services.

When people are involuntarily admitted and treated in B.C., they are often discharged from hospital with little continuing support. They may be discharged into conditions that are not appropriate for full and ongoing recovery or care. This government fails to identify an involuntary treatment regime that ensures that people have safe housing when they’re discharged or ongoing counselling and mental health supports.

People will not magically get better after being detained for a few weeks or months. Mental health and substance use management are long processes. We’ve already heard about the dangerous impacts of involuntary treatment without long-term-care plans. People will be released with no safe place to go. For people with substance use issues, the rate of relapse, sometimes fatal relapse, is incredibly high.

Housing, nutrition, community-based counselling and mental health care are all fundamental to creating the conditions to be well and thrive.

In their position paper titled Involuntary Care: Criminalization by Another Name, Pivot Legal Society writes:

“Rather than supporting expanded involuntary or carceral treatment, we endorse supports and services that directly meet people’s material needs, built on a framework of consent, capacity, cultural safety and peer leadership.

“We call on all levels of government to invest in robust access to voluntary treatment options, including primary care, detox, treatment programs, publicly funded counselling services, residential mental health services, harm reduction programming, safe supply, family programming, culturally affirming options, and treatment modalities that reflect the intersecting identities of all those who seek and/or desire mental health and substance use support and care.”

As I voice my criticism for this government’s reactionary approach toward mental health reform, I will identify all the things that must be done to build a system of mental health care that truly meets the moment we’re in.

Firstly, as mentioned, we need a comprehensive overhaul of the Mental Health Act to bring it in line with human rights. B.C.’s Mental Health Act has been criticized for non-compliance with the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities by the special rapporteur, following an inspection of Canada, who found that: “The Mental Health Act of British Columbia contains very broad criteria for involuntary admissions and, once detained, a person can be forcibly treated without their free and informed consent, including forced medication and electroconvulsive therapy.”

This legislation provides little to no oversight or accountability. Where does liability then lie if and when harms occur? Experts and advocates have been calling on this government to create an independent office of the mental health advocate that would provide individual and systemic advocacy aimed at improving mental health care systems in B.C. If there’s no process for addressing concerns, systemic reform will never happen.

We also need to improve the emergency response system. Far too often, police are the first to respond to people experiencing a mental health or substance use–related crisis. Experts, advocates, people with lived and living experience and those working on the front lines have stated that police are not an appropriate response to mental health crises.

Crisis Centre of B.C. has called for an equally strong investment in prevention, crisis response, post-discharge supports and the dignity and autonomy of people in distress.

Our priorities for emergency mental health response include: (1) integrating mental health as a fourth option in 911; (2) increasing crisis line funding to enhance capacity to manage diverted 911 calls and create consistent protocols for 911 operators, emergency responders and mobile crisis teams to ensure coordinated and effective mental health crisis responses; (3) expand the PACT, peer assisted care team — now rebranded as CRCL, crisis response, community led — that has been highly effective in three communities; partner with local organizations to introduce these teams in more communities and extend the service hours of existing teams.

Gaps in the mental health system can result in very poor outcomes for those who are not being served. There’s currently a glaring gap between the pediatric and adult mental health system. Our priorities include addressing the abrupt transition between pediatric and adult mental health care by ensuring seamless and effective connections to support services at all stages of life.

There should be psychologists, counsellors and social workers in every school, based on a per-student ratio. All students should have access to mental health professionals in their learning environments. Voluntary trauma-informed mental health services must be available and accessible when people seek help. Currently it can take months or years to get connected with the mental health care people need.

[2:40 p.m.]

The public system is failing to deliver the level of services needed, and many people seek support in the private system. The private system is unregulated and extremely expensive. For those who don’t have the funds, they need to seek private care. People are simply not able to access any level of mental health support. This can escalate and create conditions of crisis.

The Charter challenge has been proceeding since 2016, and the government could have introduced these amendments at any time. Why is it choosing now to make these changes? It appears the Attorney General and the Minister of Health know that they will lose this case as it currently stands and are seeking to make a Hail Mary.

More than 20 years ago the Supreme Court of Canada found that the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment is fundamental to a person’s dignity and autonomy. The right is equally important in the context of treatment for mental illness.

The CCD stated in 2022 that the B.C. government could simply stop its campaign to preserve B.C.’s outdated and unconstitutional forced psychiatric treatment laws and instead get to work building a mental health system that provides top-notch health care without trampling people’s rights.

B.C. is an outlier in Canada. It’s the only province where people detained under mental health laws are automatically deemed to consent to any treatment authorized by the facility, regardless of their wishes or capacity, with no right to name a substitute decision-maker, no ability to appeal a treatment decision, no independent oversight. Treatment is often imposed through isolation, physical restraint or security force.

In summary, the Third Party caucus is concerned that this is a small-scale reaction to a long-standing court case that overshadows the need for systemic reform, including better access to voluntary treatment and improving mental-health-oriented emergency response. We will be closely involved with scrutinizing this bill through the committee stage if it passes second reading.

Elenore Sturko: I’m pleased to be able to rise to speak to Bill 32, Mental Health Amendment Act (No. 2), 2025.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this over the last 24 hours, and I’ve been thinking about my reasons why I came from my policing career to become a politician and to represent my community. The number one reason was because I wanted to see change in the way that we treat people with mental illness in B.C.

As a police officer, I had a lot of experience apprehending people under the Mental Health Act, intervening with families in crisis, and there’s a lot of work to do. I would say that the biggest piece of the puzzle that’s missing is just a lack of services.

Knowing how much of my own personal life, even, I have put aside to try to advocate for more for British Columbians, and seeing this bill come forward, Bill 32, and what it’s missing for British Columbians, is one of the biggest disappointments that I’ve had since coming to this place. It really does not even get to the core of what I think are the most fundamental issues regarding our mental health crisis that we have in British Columbia.

Before I get into more of my speech, there is something that I want to address that was said by my colleague from the Third Party. He characterized using chemical restraints and using seclusion as a punishment. While it could be viewed, perhaps, by some as a punishment, in reality, these are treatments that are sometimes medically necessary.

For example, if a person is in psychosis and violent and actively trying to harm other people, harming health care workers, harming themselves actively, trying to hurt other patients or inmates in the forensic system, sometimes, though they might seem harsh, these are required treatments that are engaged to protect people from violent and harmful behaviour on themselves or others, even homicidal behaviour.

While I can understand that for some British Columbians, some of the procedures and means of care that get used to help restrain or to help isolate people in an extreme crisis where violence and danger are a reality…. These are the realities of what sometimes has to happen.

[2:45 p.m.]

We need to be careful, as people in this place. To characterize these types of sometimes, in exigent circumstances, required treatments as somehow being a punishment or something that we need to never do…. Unfortunately and sadly, there are sometimes circumstances that we have to use things like that to keep others and keep people within our system safe.

Like my colleagues, I do have concerns about Bill 32 appearing to just be a response to the Charter challenge that has been launched, particularly with respect to section 31 of the Mental Health Act, the section which speaks to deemed consent. I just find that the timing is incredibly suspect.

Of all the things that we could do to modernize this act, why, coincidentally, is it this particular section that this government is looking at when it happens to also be the subject of a Charter challenge, a court challenge? As many of my colleagues in here have already pointed out, it seems like the government is on the losing end, at this point, of that court challenge.

I also have questions, to be honest, about the section 16 amendments that are being proposed, and I wonder if these are related to other recent lawsuits.

Even when I was the critic for Mental Health and Addictions from 2022 until 2024, I can’t think of any circumstances where anyone had come to me — a health care worker, a doctor or someone in the health care system, or a family — that talked to me about taking civil action, launching a lawsuit against the health authority or a specific health care worker with respect to treatments that were given in good faith, to a loved one or to themselves, under the Mental Health Act.

Coincidentally, recently there were two civil suits, notices of civil claim launched in B.C. Supreme Court, one being in relation to the Lapu-Lapu tragedy, and the other being in relation to a young man that died on the grounds of a hospital in Vancouver. He was apprehended and certified under the Mental Health Act, was receiving treatment, died on a bench and wasn’t found for several days.

He was considered to be AWOL, and this person had actually died. Although staff had said that they had been searching for this individual and security had been searching for them, they never found them on the grounds of their own hospital — someone in the care of the government. We’re supposed to be looking after people like this who are vulnerable.

I will be really looking to the government to confirm that the aim of this bill is to inoculate community care teams and the province from civil liability for claims related to forced treatment or involuntary care for people with comorbid mental health and substance issues that represent dangers to themselves and to the public and not to inoculate the government, specifically the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, for any civil liability arising out of the Lapu-Lapu festival tragedy.

The allegation is that VCHA knew or ought to have known that defendant motorist Kai-Ji Adam Lo represented an imminent danger to himself and to the public, and that he should have been committed to involuntary care at the time of the Lapu-Lapu festival tragedy.

It wouldn’t surprise me. That’s the thing. It wouldn’t surprise me, with this government, if that were the intent, but it’s hard to know, because this bill is so incredibly flimsy. Given the scope of the challenge that we have in this province, to see two sections…. One of them is a complete repeal of deemed consent, and there are lots to consider with deemed consent.

I think that the conversation and the debate, as it continues talking about looking at ways to get consent from individuals under the Mental Health Act, to have them participate with consent in their treatments, is a good debate to have, but what will the impact be of repealing that? Are there going to be consequences? For example, will this delay care?

We have the Red Fish Healing Centre in the Lower Mainland. It services all of British Columbia for people with complex mental health and addictions concurrently, and there’s at least a three-month waiting list to get in there.

[2:50 p.m.]

We have people who are certified and are receiving care at places like Red Fish or any other hospital. If they don’t consent, or, let’s say, they don’t have the cognitive ability — if they have been assessed, and they can’t make that decision — and someone who is their substitute decision-maker does not consent to the treatment, will it prolong the period of time that they’re going to be kept in the hospital for? They don’t have the support, in terms of medication or a treatment plan, that they need to then be discharged. Will it make the wait longer?

Like my colleagues, I’m really concerned, to be honest, also about the fact that we have a repeal of section 31, deemed consent, but I don’t see anything else inside, in terms of a framework within the Mental Health Act.

If we default then to the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act and we look at the exception to getting consent from an adult…. The exception under section 12(1) of the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act is: “A health care provider may provide health care to an adult without the adult’s consent if it is necessary to provide health care without delay in order to preserve the adult’s life, to prevent serious physical or mental harm or to alleviate severe pain.”

Sub (b) is: “the adult is apparently impaired by drugs or alcohol or is unconscious or semi-conscious for any reason or is, in the health care provider’s opinion, otherwise incapable of giving or refusing consent.” Perhaps this is something that should be added to the Mental Health Act. Why is it left out? Why are we leaving these gaps?

Since 2017, this government has been in power and has had the power. As my colleague from the Third Party pointed out, this Charter challenge has been going on since 2016. There was plenty of time in nearly a decade to have found more language to put into section 31.

What happens, then, if the substitute decision-maker refuses the treatment plan for a person? Under the Mental Health Act, will they be able to go and apply for a court application to get a court order to give court-mandated treatment to someone? What if that person is posing a risk to public safety? Will this delay care?

There’s just not enough in this bill that tells us what’s next, which is why I have such a hard time believing that this isn’t simply a reaction to a court case the government is losing. Otherwise, you would have more details here. This is far too important for our province not to have something more.

Apart from the glaring omission, I would say, of not having a framework in place in the Mental Health Act, even to specifically talk about the other parts of other legislation that would then apply after the deemed consent would be repealed from our Mental Health Act, is a complete lack of a plan….

What’s the plan for British Columbia? This is a government that’s overseen the deadliest overdose crisis in the history of not just British Columbia, of Canada. We have so many people with acquired brain injuries. We have people with concurrent disorders languishing on the street. We have an absolutely out-of-control crisis with people with untreated illnesses, mental illnesses, on the streets, unhoused.

And this is the bill. Since 2017, this is what they have been working on. They should be ashamed. This government should be ashamed of itself.

Deputy Speaker: Sorry to interrupt, Member.

Peter Milobar: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Peter Milobar: Thank you to the member. I was waiting for a pause, so that worked out well there.

Thank you for that.

[2:55 p.m.]

We have a group here from the Abbotsford Christian School and their teacher, Lindsay McGrail. It’s 20 grade 11s and four grade 12s.

We’re currently debating a bill in front of the Legislature that would make some changes to our Mental Health Act and access to care or how health workers provide that care or not. Hopefully, you find this interesting and you hear various speeches, depending on how long you are here.

Will the House please make them welcome.

Deputy Speaker: Glad to have you join us, class.

Now we are turning back to Surrey-Cloverdale.

Debate Continued

Elenore Sturko: Welcome to the schools that are coming in here to learn about our Mental Health Act today.

So many things have happened just in the last three years that I think have been absolutely horrific for British Columbians. So many of the most significant and devastating tragedies that have ever happened in the history of our province have happened under the watch of this government and have a nexus to untreated mental illness and a lack of community services to support people who are in contact with our Mental Health Act.

I’m going to read through a few of the significant ones that have happened, because I think that in terms of this bill and highlighting just what a complete missed opportunity that this bill really represents, I want to read these into the record. These are examples of mental health system failures leading to violent acts in British Columbia from 2020 to 2025.

Unprovoked attack, September 2024, downtown Vancouver. A young man, 34 years old, from White Rock randomly assaulted two strangers. He fatally attacked a 70-year-old man near West Georgia and Hamilton streets, severed the hand of another victim, which was later reattached. He attacked that person near Richards and Dunsmuir streets. The suspect had a long history of mental illness, substance use disorders and over 60 police interactions for mental health crises in Metro Vancouver.

The system failures were that despite a September 2023 assault conviction that this individual had, he was released with quite light probation conditions and minimal oversights. Experts who gave their opinion on this cited chronic issues like long wait-lists for psychiatric treatment, a lack of early diagnosis programs, inadequate mental health services in jails and unheeded government review recommendations for better housing and community care following the Riverview Hospital closure.

Of course, this year, April 2025 in Vancouver, a 30-year-old man drove into large crowds at the Lapu-Lapu festival, killing 11 people, including a five-year-old child, and injured more than two dozen others. The perpetrator of this, the accused person, was profoundly ill with severe mental health issues and a history of more than 50 police contacts related to crises.

Hours before the attack, the family member contacted the psychiatric ward about his deteriorating condition. Police had interacted with him the day prior. No immediate intervention occurred. Despite the province’s recent launch of ten involuntary treatment beds and other announcements, this case highlighted the lack of mandatory care pathways for severe cases, leaving families and police powerless to enforce treatment.

April 2025 in the Coal Harbour area of Vancouver, a man brutally attacked a female tourist from Toronto, causing a broken nose, black eyes, cuts and severe bruising to her face in a random stranger attack. This individual was agitated, off his medications, and he had had a severe mental health crisis the previous year. He had been arrested two days earlier. This individual had been arrested and despite the family’s pleas for hospitalization, he was granted bail and then later diverted to a hospital rather than jail.

Chinatown festival stabbings. This was just a conviction that happened where a 66-year-old stabbed three people at the Light Up Chinatown festival. Festival-goers were injured in random attacks. This individual had schizophrenia. He was told by God to commit these acts, previously found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder for the fatal stabbing of his 16-year-old daughter. He had been on an unescorted day pass.

[3:00 p.m.]

We know from the recent B.C. Review Board annual report that the review board talks about the lack of adequate supports under the forensic system where this individual was a part of.

After the Lapu-Lapu tragedy, the Premier stood on the steps of this place. The first thing he did was order a review into the bollards to find out if we have enough security at events like festivals. We’re in a province that did the Olympics. We have FIFA coming. And the first course of action is to find out how to do security. Are you kidding me?

You know how to do security. What you don’t apparently know how to do is fix the mental health system. And Bill 32 isn’t fixing it, after nearly a decade. It’s outrageous.

Instead of looking so narrowly at the Mental Health Act, which…. There’s no doubt. As my colleagues have brought up, there are historic issues with even the context in different times of the Mental Health Act, involuntary treatment. There are many things that we could modernize and look at here. But it’s not just the Mental Health Act. It’s the system that supports the Mental Health Act.

With Bill 32, as my colleague from Skeena had pointed out, we’re talking about repealing deemed consent, allowing for doing assessments of people’s ability to make decisions or allowing a substitute decision-maker to be brought in, perhaps having to go to a tribunal or to the courts to seek a court order to treat people — all of which is not actually defined now, after section 31 of the Mental Health Act is repealed — but no context in terms of even how this is going to enhance the supports that people need.

The government has not committed to a fulsome review of the mental health care system. They don’t have a plan that we can look to, that we can point to. This is a government that loves plans as a way of showing that they’re doing something.

They put out these plans, and they love to have a press conference. They have one for sexual violence. Very good. These are good plans. They have ones for addressing post-secondary. They have lots of different kinds of plans that you can point to but none for this. One of the most significant issues that our province is currently facing and there is no plan.

In their news release, where they were announcing Bill 32, they gave themselves credit for the number of beds that they have built over the last almost decade, since 2017. It’s less than 100 beds a year.

Interjection.

Elenore Sturko: Pardon me?

She said she started from scratch, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: Members, if we could focus on our Bill 32 this afternoon.

Elenore Sturko: Well, I wouldn’t expect a government that’s failing this spectacularly at mental health to heckle me while I’m giving a speech on their failures in mental health.

I just read from a bunch of examples of how this government’s failure has killed British Columbians. Are you kidding me? You’ve got to be kidding me. And to be heckled when you’re trying to point out the fact that this government, since 2017, has developed no plan….

I get it. You don’t agree with the way that the previous government implemented and designed Red Fish Healing Centre, that started Foundry, which you took over as a government. Thank goodness for the previous government, because then you didn’t really start from scratch, did you? You had a foundation on which you could build something. But instead, you’ve been without a plan. And Bill 32 is not a plan.

There have been so many opportunities, so many reports, B.C. Review Board annual reports pointing to worsening outcomes, worsening numbers of beds, supports for people with mental illness.

[3:05 p.m.]

What is missing from Bill 32 is a whole lot. And I do not believe that this is anything more than a response to litigation, as a means of trying to skirt their own responsibility to the community, to the public.

I’m going to conclude my statements on Bill 32 for now, but I will participate in the committee stage if it passes second reading.

I would expect the government to do better. If you counted the speeches that were given in here, not just for bills — private members’ bills, two-minute statements, five-minute statements, mental health debates — this has been one of the most significantly spoken about issues in the entire province. The fact that what the government introduces after nearly a decade in power is repealing one section and one amendment is a disgrace.

Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: Let me first say, as clearly as possible, in response to comments from both the member for Skeena and the member for Surrey-Cloverdale — and I appreciate greatly the voices that both of those members bring to this debate and to this chamber; it is important — these amendments are unrelated entirely to the tragic events at the Lapu-Lapu festival in April. This is about protecting health care workers and supporting them while they provide the crucial front-line care to vulnerable populations.

I’ll also say…. I’m so glad we’ve got so many people in the chamber listening to this really important debate. I’m going to talk for a little bit. But just in case you’re going to leave soon, this is an amendment that is about protecting a service that we already have in the face of a court case. This is not the review of the Mental Health Act. That work is entirely ahead of us.

This is the smallest amendment, because it’s the amendment that we need right now, in this time, providing some needed clarity in the operation of the Mental Health Act, confirming that doctors and nurses and others cannot be sued for doing their jobs in good faith and with reasonable care and, honestly, making sure that we keep the tool that we have right now, before we then do the work that is already underway of reviewing the Mental Health Act and working together.

We can’t predict what the courts will decide, but in the meantime, we are doing everything we can right now to protect involuntary care in the province so that people who require it can continue to receive treatment under the Mental Health Act and, also, so that the brave and dedicated people who provide this essential care are not put in jeopardy for doing so.

That’s the part of my speech that is just really trying to correct the record. I’ll now speak in more detail to this very limited amendment, not the last amendment to the Mental Health Act that this government will be bringing.

Big picture: when adults and young people are in crisis, we want them to be met with compassion and care. That’s why we have been working to build up a comprehensive system of mental health and substance use care. It is described in the plan that was adopted in 2019, Pathway to Hope, and we’ve been building it out — child and youth mental health care, harm reduction, addiction treatment, recovery services.

Some of the pieces, many of them, are voluntary — the early psychosis intervention that we stood up, the Foundry centres, the integrated child and youth mental health teams that break the silos between the health authority and the school district and MCFD and community service providers. All of these are meeting people where they are and really recognizing that if we invest early in young people’s mental health, we can set them up for a lifetime of more success.

[3:10 p.m.]

Bed-based treatment and recovery beds. Red Fish Healing Centre has been mentioned a couple of times in this debate, a 105-bed site that has a lot of voluntary treatment. It does have some involuntary beds and floors as well. But it finally broke the logjam between a health system that said concurrent….

Interjections.

Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: Well, I opened it when I was the minister, and I was so glad to see it open in 2021.

Deputy Speaker: Let’s stay focused on 32, folks.

Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: Yeah.

Road to Recovery. First Nations addiction treatment centres in my own riding, both the Orca Lelum Youth Treatment Centre…. It’s actually in the riding of my colleague. I believe it’s my colleague Nanaimo-Lantzville, in his riding. And the Tsow-Tun Le Lum addiction treatment centre, which is in the riding of my colleague from Cowichan Valley, both state-of-the-art, brand-new addiction treatment centres.

Assertive community treatment teams that operate 24-7 in a bunch of communities, including mine in Nanaimo, Gabriola Island. Mobile integrated crisis response programs, pairing police along with mental health professionals to respond to mental health–related crisis calls.

All of these voluntary supports have been really important to build up. They continue to open, and we continue to find new ways to tackle some of the really wicked problems that are in front of us.

Those are all voluntary supports, but when someone is so unwell that they can’t make decisions about their own safety and their own health care, we have a responsibility to step in with compassion and with care. When used correctly and consistently, the Mental Health Act ensures people suffering from severe mental disorders get the timely care and protection that they need, even if they are unable to seek it themselves.

I have a quote from a patient who received involuntary care. Initials are E.W.

“My experience with involuntary treatment provides a huge sense of relief, and it’s the only reason I’m able to function, knowing that if I fall down, something’s there to catch me. I won’t agree with it at the time, because I’m in a different state of reality, but it catches me before I make a decision I can’t come back from, like using hard drugs, committing suicide or harming someone else. I just have confidence that professionals who’ve worked their whole lives are there to fix my brain, or at least stabilize it, so I can pick up the pieces again.”

That’s why involuntary care is necessary and important.

The Mental Health Act states that a patient can only be involuntarily admitted if all of the following four criteria are in place: the person suffers from mental disorder that seriously impairs their ability to react appropriately to their environment or to associate with others; the person requires psychiatric treatment in or through a designated facility; third, the person requires care, supervision and control, in or through a designated facility, to prevent their substantial mental or physical deterioration or for their own protection or the protection of others; and finally, the person is not suitable as a voluntary patient.

Physicians and nurse practitioners apply their clinical assessment to determine the appropriateness of involuntary admission. The vast majority of people with mental health conditions are effectively treated on an out-patient basis, but the Mental Health Act ensures access to care in situations where the person is unable to seek care themselves due to a state of severe mental impairment.

Right now Mental Health Act admissions occur at 75 designated facilities, including 37 hospitals that are designated as psychiatric units; 13 hospitals that are observation units, which allow shorter-term admissions; and 25 provincial mental health facilities. Those are in-patient facilities. And as I mentioned earlier, some of these beds are at Red Fish.

There are more than….

[The bells were rung.]

Deputy Speaker: Just pause for a moment, Minister.

Sorry for that interruption, Minister.

[3:15 p.m.]

Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was listing the Mental Health Act admission locations, 75 different designated facilities. There are more than 2,000 mental health beds across the province, and 17,000 individuals were admitted involuntarily last year, some of them admitted repeatedly, so some of the numbers you see are higher than 17,000, but those are individual pieces.

I read these numbers out hoping that my friend Nanaimo mayor Leonard Krog is listening in, because as we have had debates over the years about whether there are facilities and whether we need to build additional facilities, I will often remind the mayor that we do have, notwithstanding the closure of Riverview…. This, admittedly, was done very poorly, so far as not having in place the kind of community care and the more decentralized facilities that had been committed to at that time.

Notwithstanding that failure, there are right now many, many people that are held against their will within our existing medical system. In addition, there are 18 involuntary care beds at Alouette Homes in Maple Ridge and ten beds at Surrey Pretrial Services Centre that opened in the spring of 2025. These are both under the trial we’re doing around secure care.

Work is also underway to open an additional 100 involuntary care beds in Surrey and Prince George facilities. We’re also building more than 400 acute care mental health beds at new and expanded hospitals throughout the province. Whenever you see a new hospital opening, we have psychiatric facilities built into them. They will be available to people as these hospital projects are completed.

One recent example is the new Seven Sisters facility in Terrace, with five new mental health and substance use beds, replacing an old, outdated facility.

I’m going to read another quote, this time from a parent whose daughter received involuntary treatment. She said: “My daughter would likely be dead or in prison if she had not been treated in a timely manner when hospitalized for threatening and bizarre behaviour when in psychosis from schizophrenia. We are grateful that the Premier is amending the B.C. Mental Health Act to affirm treatment of involuntary patients upon hospitalization. Treatment stabilizes and enables someone with a serious mental illness to regain judgment and begin to heal.”

That’s Shirley Chan, the past president of Pathways Serious Mental Illness Society.

So for all these reasons, I support Bill 32 and its amendments to section 31(1) of the Mental Health Act to replace the dated language of the existing section with very clear language that exists in other health laws in the province that say that health care workers are protected when they are delivering this involuntary care in our province.

We are in court right now defending the involuntary care provisions of the Mental Health Act. We think it’s important that these provisions exist and that they remain. We think it gives people an opportunity to rebuild their lives after facing catastrophic mental health challenges. It’s important that this tool remains, and we’re in court making these arguments right now.

This change we’re introducing in the Legislature doesn’t make that court challenge irrelevant. It doesn’t have an impact on whether or not the court is able to grapple with this really important question about what limits are on involuntary care or treatment.

I recognize, for the reason that the House Leader of the Green Party outlined, that involuntary treatment and the conditions which patients experience inside the health care system are not uncontroversial. It’s vital that care be delivered in the most dignified and careful and human rights–based framework. It’s important that the courts are grappling with this question of involuntary care or treatment.

This amendment in Bill 32 just provides health care workers with the certainty that regardless of the outcome of that court case, those workers will be protected in delivering care. We need to be very clear that regardless of the outcome of the court case, health care workers will be protected in the work that they do.

The outcome of this provision passing is that it protects the health care workers involved in delivering involuntary care so that they know with certainty that they’re protected in the work that they do and that frankly, for families and for patients, the tool is protected.

[3:20 p.m.]

That’s why this is such a short bill, because it’s very narrow.

We are updating the language to reflect other health laws in this province that say very clearly that the health care workers who administer this care under these other sections of the act are protected from being sued.

It doesn’t talk about patients having deemed to have consented. If this amendment passes, it just states that the law is standing behind these health care workers who deliver this care and that they are protected from being sued.

We know involuntary health care is essential, and we know that it saves lives. If Bill 32 passes, then the amendments will reduce confusion that has emerged about the authority within the act to authorize involuntary treatment and to better protect health care workers providing involuntary mental health care to patients. We want health care workers to be able to focus on providing quality care to their patients. These amendments won’t have an impact on the way that health care is provided under the act.

This is status quo, carrying on, while we do the other work of reviewing the Mental Health Act and bringing in the amendments that other members opposite have described. Together these changes will help clarify and protect the purpose of the act, which is to provide treatment to people who require it.

This is not the first time that we’ve amended the Mental Health Act recently in this Legislature. You’ll remember that during the spring 2022 legislative session, we introduced legislation to amend the Mental Health Act so that people involuntarily admitted under the act could access support from an independent rights adviser.

You’ll remember that those changes were introduced by the Attorney General, because the Mental Health Act’s responsibility is split between multiple ministers. I certainly experienced this when I was Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. The rights-based part of the legislation sits with the Attorney General, and it was the AG that brought that forward.

That was embraced by the Legislature, and it moved forward, and we now have an independent rights adviser who talks with patients at the point of their involuntary admission about what their rights are and lets them know that they have the ability to get a second opinion, for example.

And no, this legislation is not part of the Mental Health Act review that is underway. That is work that we are committed to doing. This is just another small step along the way, as was the spring 2022 legislative change.

I’m now going to leave the mechanics of the health worker protection provisions of Bill 32 and just speak for a couple of minutes about some of the associated work that is also supporting people on their journey towards full mental health. These are commitments and actions that have been identified in the poverty reduction strategy that I am responsible for, where, with inputs from tens of thousands of people across British Columbia, we developed a vision of British Columbia where people find meaningful and rewarding work, employment services and other tools and supports that can help them out of poverty.

These are relevant in a number of ways. We’ve been integrating employment services into bed-based addiction treatment so that people, while they’re…. They have this built into their counselling programs. People get jobs and connections that they need to build a better life, and when they exit the residential bed-based treatment, they already have a new set of responsibilities, a new set of friends and some more connection and a purpose in community.

My ministry granted, in 2023, $5 million to the B.C. Canadian Mental Health Association, and it is using that to pilot this program that I’ve described, integrating employment services with addiction treatment, in recovery centres in five different communities — for example, Nanaimo. We just have been really encouraged to see how many people are exiting treatment with a plan, with a job and with supports in order to be able to retain that job.

[3:25 p.m.]

In another area, we’ve been working with the National Institute of Disability Management and Research, NIDMAR, to help people recovering from a physical injury or mental health challenge to safely return to work. We don’t want people to end up on disability assistance and not have the supports to lift them back up to a place that they can return to their jobs.

We’ve had really encouraging outcomes already, showing that early health care and ergonomic and job coaching interventions can mean that British Columbians with disabilities, including mental health disabilities, can continue to thrive in the workforce. Again, that connection of employment is a real protector against mental illness.

We’ve also been so encouraged to have been able to adopt a provincial peer-support training curriculum, created by Here4Peers, to integrate the valuable contributions of peer workers and to help people with mental health recover. We’ve also developed together another British Columbia first, an employer’s guide to supporting and engaging peer workers.

We’ve also been co-developing and facilitating Indigenous-led programs and support for Elders, so that people get the care that they need in their own home communities, supported and surrounded by cultural teachings, again as a way to buffer against mental illness.

Finally, through our work with Community Living B.C., which is the provincial Crown that provides community inclusion supports for adults with developmental disabilities, we’ve been creating new housing options for Community Living B.C. participants who have particularly complex needs.

Grosvenor House in Surrey is a place that five Indigenous men with mental health and substance use challenges and behavioural challenges, who had been caught in a cycle of homelessness, are able to get supports. We’re very grateful to the health authority for being one of the partners on that.

We have construction starting next year in Prince George, a ten-unit complex care housing, the first of its kind — a cooperation between B.C. Housing, Northern Health and Community Living B.C. — for adults with developmental disabilities who have mental health challenges.

I will close by saying the combination of poverty reduction and employment supports for vulnerable people that I described at the end of my speech; the standing up of new, voluntary mental health treatment supports that I described at the beginning of my speech; and then, at the middle part, the substantial facilities that we have to house people within the medical system when, because of their mental health challenges or psychosis in the moment, they are not able to make good decisions about their own health care….

I offer, again, my support for Bill 32 and its amendment to protect the ability of mental health workers to be able to administer involuntary mental health care, knowing how essential it is in certain situations to save lives and ensure that people get the treatment that they need.

Anna Kindy: I’m here to add my two cents on the Mental Health Amendment Act, 2025. Listening to the other speakers and hearing that this is the first bill brought by this government since they’ve been in power for eight years….

When I look at what’s happening on the ground…. I’m going to bring that perspective a little bit, the context of what’s on the ground, because it’s sometimes easy to make amendments, and they sometimes sound good on paper, but when you intend to actually implement them, what does it mean on the ground? Before even knowing what it means, you have to understand the context of what’s happening on the ground.

I’ve been practising for a long time. Part of my practice was addiction and, obviously, the dual diagnosis of addiction and mental health…. Often people have that dual diagnosis. I’ve also been a GP, trying to help people navigate who have mental health issues.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

So the context is that sometimes making amendments is meaningless, when you hear the other side mentioning the number of beds opened and the number of programs they’ve started or are implementing, when what I’m seeing on the ground is a worsening condition.

[3:30 p.m.]

If you look at talking about the safety issue of our cities…. People from around the world travel. They come to Vancouver, and they’re shocked when they walk down East Hastings, and they fear for their safety. That’s real. That has changed. That was not there 15 years ago to the extent that it is now, and it’s worsening.

Obviously, there’s a safety issue, and part of the safety issue is because people doing illicit substances get to be brain-injured, and drug use can cause psychosis and precipitate schizophrenia as well. So we’re dealing with a real epidemic of overdoses and mental health issues.

If you’re looking at the access to mental health beds, if we’re talking about a patient coming into the emergency department in terms of the safety of the front lines…. Basically, section 31 removes a provision that deems patients to have consented to treatment if the director has authorized treatment.

My concern with this is when other provinces…. There’s a Charter claim against the province regarding that statement. The other provinces don’t have the same legislation, but they do have other legislation that allows certification or treatment without consent in an emergency department. So if we’re concerned about safety, what is the backdrop of what’s going to happen if we remove that?

If a patient…. I mean, you can’t chemically sedate a patient unless they’re certified. If you need their consent, well, they’re not going to give you their consent if they’re in active psychosis, so what options do you have then? Is it physical restraint? Is it putting a patient in what I call a padded room? That is what happens, right? If a patient cannot give consent, where will they end up?

The issue, as well, is that you have to play the tape of what our psychiatric world is like now. Even if you are, at some point, certified, it’s difficult to chemically sedate a person to the point that you want to sedate them sometimes.

If they’re in a padded room — I’ve mentioned that before in this House — that means that they need to, hopefully, move into a psychiatric bed. But the issue is that there are no psychiatric beds. They’re very hard to come by. Patients can stay in the emergency department for days and weeks in what I would call inhumane conditions.

I’m kind of wondering where we’re going in all of health care, including psychiatric care, when we can’t access the basics of a hospital bed. I think we need to address that context to start off with. That’s throughout the province.

In the north Island, we don’t have a psychiatrist. When you’re rural, good luck ever getting into triage from your own hospital into a psychiatric bed. It’s very difficult. Then it leaves the safety portion for the health care workers having to deal with…. Also, the inhumane conditions of some of these patients — what they have to go through. So the context is real.

It was a little bit disappointing, as well, when one of our members here was talking about…. She views it from more of a legal aspect, having been an RCMP officer. She’s talking about real deaths of people.

I mean, we do have to show some compassion here. It’s one thing having legislation, but we also need to have compassion for what’s happening on the ground and what people go through when somebody has died. I think we need to be respectful of that, and I’m just going to reiterate that.

[3:35 p.m.]

Coming back to clause 2, of removing the provision that deems patients to have consented to treatment if the director has authorized treatment, again, other provinces without deemed consent legislation can treat patients with medication in the ER under their respective mental health acts.

Do we have that here? Do we have a backup? Because if we’re going to be removing that, we need a backup. I’m a little bit worried about just having this section without having a backup in an urgent situation. I think it needs to be looked at seriously, because that is an issue.

I also want to say that in medicine, it’s always a balancing act, because you have to balance the right of the patients as well as medicating or treating the patient and keeping the health care workers safe. We have to also remember that as health care workers, we’re not perfect, and we do make mistakes — all of us. As a health care worker, I’m liable for my mistakes, because I’m not perfect. That’s why we all get insurance. We know that, potentially, at some point, a mistake will be made.

I find it a little bit concerning, clause 1, which extends liability protection of providers of authorized professional services, care and treatment. Is there a mechanism for liability if you do wrong? Because we have to look at the reality on the ground.

Most times it’s very rare that it can happen, but sometimes something can be done to the detriment of the patient, even in the psychiatric world. It happens. As a GP, I can prescribe the wrong medication, and a patient gets harm from it. As a surgeon, I can make a mistake while I operate, and I’m liable. I need a bit of clarification there, personally, as to what this means — the extension of liability protection to providers of authorized professional services, care and treatment. It seems very broad.

This is where you start thinking about Lapu-Lapu. Was this a response to Lapu-Lapu? Was this a response to…?

I have to go and be honest here. It’s not the first time I’ve heard in this House about the government being liable or the health authorities being liable. That should be the least of the concerns. It should be the patient’s safety, patients being able to get timely care, patient safety and front-line safety. But we seem to be more worried about liability. I think that’s maybe a dangerous precedent to set if that’s what this clause is saying.

I just think that should be discussed, because like I said, we have to balance the needs of, obviously, the medical community as well as the needs of the patients. I think this clause 1 seems to favour one side over the other.

Again, being on the front line…. We’ve all heard about mistakes being done in the medical field. It happens. You hear about the doctor being sued. It happens. Again, this is why we have insurance for that. In terms of liability, is it liability for health authorities? Is this what the concern is? Do people one day…? I’m not a lawyer. One day, people, if a mistake was done….

Sometimes I think the way lawyers proceed, they sue everybody, as far as I know. They sue the nurse present, the doctor present, the hospital and maybe the health authority. Maybe this is what this is about. Is this about protecting the health authorities? We have to look at if that’s the intent of that clause. I think, again, it’s a dangerous precedent.

[3:40 p.m.]

We need to look at, again, the balance of keeping patients safe. Health care should be patient-centred. It’s about outcomes for patients. That’s what we should look at, outcomes. How do we improve outcomes here? How do we improve the safety of the patient, the safety of the community?

I think those two clauses, as far as I see it, don’t improve the situation at all on the ground — especially clause 2, not having a backup to removing a provision that deems patients to have consented to treatment if the director has authorized treatment. I’m a bit concerned about that, about the thoughts. I think that needs to be discussed again.

We go back to how to keep the community safe, and part of how to keep the community safe, if we’re dealing with psychiatric issues, is access to timely care. Right now we don’t have that. There are numerous stories we can talk about.

A previous MLA talked about, actually, a physician whose son was certified in hospital and left on a day pass or left for a smoke and was called AWOL, and he was found four days later on hospital grounds. Is that patient-centred? Are we thinking about the patients? Is anybody liable in this case where somebody doesn’t even bother to look around the hospital grounds to find a young man’s body that was there for four days?

I came across a story recently. A very reputable forensic psychiatrist contacted this family and told them that their son is one of the worst cases he’s ever seen. This young fellow is certified but at this point stable because he’s compliant with his medications. He would be called stable, but he has this sort of explosive way of reacting to things. His forensic psychiatrist is saying that he worries for the safety of the community.

Because this young man has also addiction issues, there are not very many places that can accept people with dual diagnosis. There’s the diagnosis of psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia and also the diagnosis of substance use disorder. There’s Red Fish right now. One place, Red Fish. The wait time for this patient to get into Red Fish — again, he’s been identified as “one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen” — is three months to get into care.

We’re failing in provision of the basic psychiatric care. It snowballs from there. We can do as many legislations as we want. We put two clauses, but on the ground, will that change anything? No. It protects the providers, maybe, from liability.

There’s a case in front of the court regarding a Charter for consent. Is that the reason this is happening? If that’s the case it’s, again, not a solution to what is happening on the ground.

I feel that we need to continually bring forth and shine the light as to how difficult the situation has become. The overdose crisis is continuing. We’re not dealing with, I would call it, the epidemic of brain-injured people that we’re dealing with.

Unfortunately, to prevent…. This is all about prevention, if we can, because the numbers will keep growing. We need to prevent the growth of this. One of the ways to prevent it is by educating our youth. One of the stats that I came up with was…. They were kind of interesting stats, actually. As stated here, for whoever watches Leg TV — all four people, maybe, today….

[3:45 p.m.]

If you vape…. Let’s start it this way. Kids are vaping. They don’t smoke so much, but they’re vaping. One of the substances they tend to vape is cannabis. There’s a bit of an epidemic of cannabis vaping in our schools. And cannabis…. In three years’ time, if you vape cannabis, you have 240 times the rate of schizophrenia to the general population. So 240 times. Think of that number. Schizophrenia. What does it lead to? Well, many schizophrenics are not violent — we have to remember that — but it does lead to potential for violence. Why are we not addressing this?

There was a bill that came forward, a vaping bill, but they removed cannabis. I’m not sure if they’re going to put it back in, but I think we need to look at the situation globally. How do we fix this? It’s not band-aids here and band-aids there, reactive bills that are truly meaningless and maybe sometimes make things a little bit worse if they’re not thought through.

Legalizing cannabis without education has not been thought through, because now we’re seeing the epidemic in the youth of psychosis and schizophrenia, of psychotic disorders related to cannabis use. Which leads to what — to hospitalization, which leads to certification, which potentially leads to the violence we see in our streets.

It’s all linked, so we have to start from the beginning and walk through where the system needs to be changed. Like I said, it has to be done globally and not this mandated solution. Again, unfortunately, we’re in a bit of a fiscal mess, but many things don’t cost money.

Beds will cost money, obviously, more hospital beds that we need desperately. I think one way of doing that is maybe streamlining the bureaucracy in health care more than it has been so that we can actually target resources more towards the front line. But there are things that don’t cost a lot of money.

Part of that is educating our kids about the dangers of illicit substances, and even legal substances now, and what they can lead to.

What does certification mean? Doctors don’t certify lightly, but I haven’t seen in my own experience that it’s been difficult to certify patients. It’s the patients that are not certified that can be dangerous. That’s the issue here, and this bill can make this worse.

Also, we need to balance patients’ rights. I truly believe that. As much as we try to do the right thing in medicine, sometimes we don’t. We can harm patients, and they can be harmed for life by what we do. It’s called iatrogenic harm. If you look at statistics of overall deaths, iatrogenic is quite high up there. It’s not done purposefully, but it does happen.

We need to be vigilant to make sure that we’re not part of that as well. When you remove liability…. As much as I would like to think that all health care providers are excellent, they’re like politicians or like plumbers. Some are better than others. We need to have protection for patients.

[3:50 p.m.]

I think removing liability might lead to more certification or more quickly to certify patients. Is that a good thing or not? I think that needs to be discussed. I think there’s a balance.

Are we at that point where we’re doing the right thing? I don’t think so. I think it needs to be discussed, and I think we need to also listen to patient advocates that have gone through the system, to make sure that they have a voice in this chamber.

Any legislation has unintended consequences, and we need to make sure we address all those. Again, clause 2, the unintended consequences to me are that in an emergency situation, that’s when you need to be able to act quickly, and we’re not enabling that. This is, I think, a safety issue for health care providers, without that backup.

In summary, I’d like to say that, overall, the whole Mental Health Act needs to be reviewed. I think this is a bill that is more geared towards protecting the government, and I don’t think it addresses the issues that we’re seeing on the front line.

Jordan Kealy: I rise today to speak to this bill, and I must begin by pointing out what every British Columbian already sees. This government has a very convenient relationship with timing.

I’m just going to start with a statistic. According to CMHA Lower Mainland, by the time we reach 40 years old, half of us have or will develop a mental health problem. That’s almost one million people, and 84,000 children a year are diagnosed with a mental illness.

There are three main triggers for mental health issues: substance abuse, alcohol and stress. Well, I can tell you our lives nowadays are very stressful. We see it in many different forms.

It’s convenient that in times like today, one of those items is substance abuse. I’ve asked previously in this House whether or not the Premier would remove the federal drug exemption that has allowed illicit drugs to pour onto our streets and into communities all over our province. These are the precursors that can affect and influence mental health all over our province, for British Columbians. But when I have asked that question, I get no response.

When it comes to the main fixes, what we see with the Mental Health Act is what has been brought up by my colleagues, one that has just spoken and one from a fellow colleague that’s an independent. I love her passion and how dedicated she is about the subject. We’re not seeing the fix to the main issue. Instead, the fix that we see is to the liability for the government, because they’re broke. They don’t want to be sued and prosecuted.

Every time they find themselves backed into a corner, every time a scandal surfaces, every time the public starts asking the hard questions, suddenly the minister appears with a brand new bill, waving it like a shiny distraction and hoping nobody looks too closely at what’s actually inside it. And here we are again.

Bill 32 isn’t about improving mental health care. It isn’t about beds, reducing wait times or giving families in crisis real support. No, it’s about protecting the system from accountability.

[3:55 p.m.]

Let’s be honest and call it what it is, a liability shield dropped into this Legislature at the exact moment when the ministry’s failures are piling up so high that the public can’t ignore them anymore.

Clause 1 of this bill extends liability protection for authorized professional services, care and treatment. It sounds harmless on paper until you realize what it actually means. It means the government is trying to protect the system from responsibility before it ever protects the patients trapped inside it.

This amendment doesn’t strengthen rights. It doesn’t offer safeguards. It doesn’t add oversight. It doesn’t address the revolving door of mental health–related detention, release, crisis, repeat. But somehow at this moment, at this precise moment when British Columbians are losing faith in this government’s ability to handle anything, the minister has decided that liability protection is their urgent priority.

Imagine that. This government refuses to protect nurses from burnout, refuses to protect communities from violence, refuses to protect families trying to access care, but they have no problem rushing in here to protect themselves.

Then we have clause 2, which quietly removes a long-standing provision that deemed patients to have consented to treatment under certain conditions if authorized by the director. At first glance, this looks like a step forward. But again, look at the timing.

This government has spent years ignoring mental health in crisis and families begging for help; years ignoring police, paramedics and front-line workers who say the system is collapsing; years refusing to acknowledge the failures of involuntary care, the lack of follow-up services and the dangers released into communities when patients are discharged without supports. Now, suddenly, they are worried about consent.

No, this is not about compassion. This is about optics. This government is changing the law just enough to appear responsive but not enough to fix anything. The NDP’s trademark: legislative theatre, paper solutions to the real problem. British Columbians aren’t fooled anymore.

If this government were serious about improving mental health outcomes, we would see real investments into long-term care, not liability protections; we would see mandatory follow-up and community supports, not new legal cover for the director; and we would see transparency audits and accountability, not rushed last-minute amendments dropped quietly into the House when public attention is elsewhere.

The people of this province deserve a government that acts because it’s right, not because it’s politically convenient. They deserve a mental health system built on responsibility, not one protected by legal shields. They deserve reforms driven by patient care and not driven by the political survival of a minister or Premier. Bill 32 is not reform. It is reputation management. British Columbians deserve better.

I will be voting no to this bill because the only thing it does is take away British Columbians’ right for civil recourse if they are treated wrongly by the system.

I will always choose what is best for British Columbians and not a government that encourages a federal drug exemption that fuels this crisis.

Peter Milobar: I rise to speak to Bill 32, Mental Health Amendment Act, 2025.

It’s interesting, “2025,” because the government keeps characterizing this as their first attempt at the mental health amendments in their eight, nine years of government. But it’s not their first attempt. That’s why it leaves me with a lot of skepticism and worry about this bill.

[4:00 p.m.]

Their first failed attempt was on June 23, 2020, in this House, when the Mental Health Amendment Act, Bill 22, was introduced. It failed because then-Premier Horgan decided to pull the bill and trigger a general election a year early, simply because he wasn’t sure if he could actually pass the bill that was deemed to be flawed, to have not had proper consultation, to have not talked with Indigenous communities about how this would impact them and the care for their kids. It was around involuntary care for youth, but involuntary care nonetheless.

Now, at that time, the seats in this House were 42 for the opposition. The official opposition had 42 seats. The government actually only had 41 seats. They were propped up by three seats of the Greens, which had morphed into two and one with an independent at that time, and a Speaker that was independent.

Not dissimilar to the vote makeup…. Although on the technicality side of how a vote would advance in this place or not, the Speaker wouldn’t have broken a tie at that point. He would have just tied the vote, and he wouldn’t have even voted.

My point being, that was the government’s first crack at trying to do something meaningful to the Mental Health Act, and in their almost nine years in government now, this is their second attempt. Two clauses that do nothing more than try to shield the government from outstanding legal cases that are out there right now, as I see it.

Nothing meaningful in the five-plus years from when Premier Horgan pulled Bill 22, with the promise that after the election there would be more consultation and a new version would be brought forward to this House for proper access to involuntary care. So 5½ years ago now that was said. That commitment was made two general elections ago.

This is the best the government has. And the government has the audacity, government members, to heckle and try to take victory laps for things that they have or haven’t done in the 8½ years that they’ve been government today. They’re facing criticism for a bill, a bill I would point out….

Now, there’s plenty of time to deal with the bill, so I don’t want to give the impression that this is overly rushed by the government, but let’s be clear. We have what’s essentially six sitting days left in this session. No mention of this brought forward in the pre-session interviews that ministers and House Leaders have about what they expect for a legislative framework of bills to be brought forward in this chamber.

In fact, when we heard Bill 32 was coming, we had assumed that the government was going to actually do something they should have done at the beginning of this session and bring forward the EV repeal mandate that they’ve now said they’re going to repeal. But we’re not going to see that until well into next year when car dealers are already paying penalties for something that’s going to be repealed anyways. Instead, Bill 32 is this ham-fisted attempt to look like they are significantly advancing involuntary care provisions.

Now, I want to be clear. I fully support involuntary care in this province. I think it needs to be dramatically expanded. I think it needs to be done aggressively. I think health care professionals providing that involuntary care, those that work with the population that is headed towards that or is already at that state, need protections. But we do question whether this bill actually will properly protect those health care workers and professionals or just simply protect the government.

It doesn’t seem…. You would think, given the years it took to bring forward Bill 22 in 2020, the commitment to have further discussion and community outreach around provisions around involuntary care, two general elections, a Premier that was heavily involved in the civil liberties side of the world as a lawyer before he became an elected official in this place….

[4:05 p.m.]

The best the government can come up with today for us to debate, with a few days left to go in session…. Again, more than enough time to properly debate this and properly scrutinize it in committee stage, but it certainly wasn’t on the radar. The best they can come up with is Bill 32.

The bill doesn’t create a replacement framework for treating people who refuse care. But they are likely profoundly unwell, given that people are thinking that they need involuntary care. They could have psychosis, toxic brain injury from drugs, severe bipolar disorder. This bill doesn’t deal with that. It doesn’t implement the involuntary care that the Premier, not Premier Horgan but this Premier, repeatedly promised, not just in an election but in his own leadership campaign, which was a questionable leadership campaign at best, I think we can all agree on.

That’s the underlying worry, I think, that the government is hearing and refusing to acknowledge, in fact, wanting to push back to speakers in this place that have had the audacity to point out their failed track record when it comes to things around mental health and access to mental health services. It’s one thing if the government is just using the spin they use….

At one point, one of the heckles was: “There was nothing in place when we took government. Nothing at all.” Then they have to grudgingly acknowledge that Red Fish that they are proud of was started under the former government, that Foundry was started under the former government.

When they talk about treatment beds and facilities and access to detox, they never want to talk about the ones they’ve closed at the same time as ones they’ve opened, so net new is nowhere near what we need for a system. They don’t want to talk about any of that. They want to throw the quick and easy heckles out of the NDP campaign book, but that doesn’t make it so in the real world outside of these walls.

People in communities are begging for proper involuntary care. When they heard that a late bill was being presented called Bill 32, they were expecting something substantive. People that are trying to provide these services, health care professionals, were expecting something substantive. Families with a loved one in crisis were expecting something substantive.

Why would they have been expecting that? Because the government has repeatedly promised that time and time again. The government called an actual general election a year early over this exact topic five years ago, and this is their response to that.

Now, it’s the government’s right to call early elections, even though it’s legislated as fixed election dates. They didn’t break any laws when they did that. But they, one would assume, were trying to send a signal to the public that they take involuntary care provisions and access to involuntary care provisions extremely seriously — seriously enough that they were willing to gamble government on a House that had 42 seats for opposition and 41 seats for government, being propped up by the Green Party.

Five years ago that’s what they said in this House and out of this House and on the election trail — that they took this issue so seriously. We have waited five years for the government to bring forward amendments to the Mental Health Act, and this is the best they have to show for it.

They should be ashamed of themselves, with the pure chaos we’ve been facing in our communities. The fact that the Premier committed to a review of the Mental Health Act after the deadly Lapu-Lapu tragedy…. This is the best the government has.

I don’t know how many more special advisers the Premier needs to hire to advise him on these types of things. I’ve lost count of how many they keep hiring, how many special commissions they have, how many extra reports they want to do. Bill 32 doesn’t cut it.

[4:10 p.m.]

It will be interesting when we get to committee stage, because this is critically important. For once, this bill actually comes into full force and effect at royal assent. That means either this Thursday or next Thursday, when the Lieutenant Governor comes here and does “doth assent” to the bill being passed, if it passes.

I’m waiting for the government, based on the speeches today, to have to come in and try to make this a confidence vote again. I’m sure they would love to have a 2.0 election over mental health issues. They had no problems pulling the trigger on that last time, five years ago.

This bill comes into effect on royal assent. Normally when we go to committee stage, the answer we get back from ministers on a wide range of very consequential, meaningful questions we ask is: “Well, that’s left for regulation later on. We haven’t figured that out yet. We still need to consult. We’ll wait for the regulations. You’ll have to wait for the regulations to answer that question. You just need to pass the legislation and trust us. The regulations will be okay. We haven’t worked that out. We need further consultation. We’ll have more consultation, and then we’ll tell you.”

They couldn’t even tell us what the fee for an FOI was going to be because that required more consultation. Magically, the document with the fee was signed 15 minutes after the bill became law. Apparently, it was a pretty fast consultation in this government’s mind.

They couldn’t tell us, on Bill 44, what the housing regulations were going to be because they had to work that through. They required more and more consultation on that. A week later, a 57-page policy booklet of regulations was dropped on every municipality to explain the new housing legislation regulations. But they wouldn’t answer it to us in committee stage because it was subject to regulations that hadn’t been worked out yet.

The good news is that this is all, in Bill 32, subject to royal assent. This means we expect, as an opposition…. The public expects full disclosure from this government on every question asked. Not deflection. Not: “You’ll have to wait till after the bill is passed for us to be able to talk about that.” Not: “Well, that’s subject to cabinet confidentiality.” Not: “Well, we can’t talk about that because it’s in front of the courts right now.”

That’s the irony of this. Bill 32 is going to affect an outstanding court case that’s been in front of the courts since 2016. You watch. The government’s going to start saying: “Well, we can’t talk about that. It’s before the courts. We can’t talk about that. It’s before the courts.” Tried and true lying from this government, because they’re in court a lot. They don’t win very often. My nickname for the Premier back when he was the Attorney General was “O-fer” because they never seemed to win anything.

Questions of a very serious nature on Bill 32. How will involuntary treatment work once deemed consent is removed? The public, health care professionals, families deserve an answer from that. They’re already in court, which this bill is trying to address. This means Bill 32 is going to get dragged into court too, if not on the existing court case, on a future court case.

For the viewers at home, why that’s important is that lawyers on both sides of any court action will pull the transcripts from our committee stage. They will pull the minister’s speeches — not opposition speeches, but the minister’s speeches — to find out what the government’s intent of a bill is and what the government’s intent around certain clauses was when laws are passed in this place.

That’s why it’s important that the government actually provides answers, and not vague, “You’ll have to wait for a regulation,” which, as I’ve covered off, in Bill 32 is not an excuse for them anymore.

How will involuntary treatment work once deemed consent is removed? How will capacity assessments now be required for every single involuntary patient?

What we’ve seen a lot of times is either the government has really well thought through a piece of legislation and the regulations that go with it but they don’t want to talk about the regulations until after the fact, or they actually haven’t thought it through. We’re sitting here two years later, and they still haven’t taken any action on a piece of legislation that they deemed was critically important at the time. Again, all those excuses are gone with Bill 32.

[4:15 p.m.]

What happens when a capable patient refuses antipsychotic medication? What framework replaces deemed consent for treating psychosis or concurrent disorders, brain injuries from overdoses or youth in crisis?

Remember Bill 22, back five years ago, triggered an election because it had to do with youth involuntary care provisions. How does Bill 32 deal with that? What framework is replacing that deemed consent for youth? Government has had five years to come up with an answer for that. Let’s hope they actually have it.

Why now? The government has stated…. Well, not only did they state five years ago that they were going to review the Mental Health Act and did nothing and had done nothing up to Lapu-Lapu of any significance. And then after Lapu-Lapu, it was politically convenient to re-engage a mental health review that we’ve heard scarce little out of, but it’s still apparently underway with yet again more outside advisers for the Premier.

Apparently, 400,000-plus public service workers can’t be trusted to provide the advice and expertise the government needs. They have to keep hiring outside advisers that have close ties to the Premier to advise them.

But why now? Why are these two clauses in Bill 32 here now, when that Mental Health Act review, which has been long coming, long-suffering waiting for it, literally, in people’s households all across this province…? Why now? Does this even do anything on the Premier’s commitment around expanded involuntary care, or does it simply maintain the status quo and try to get the government out of a legal quagmire they’re stuck in, in court, because of years of inaction?

The hope with Bill 32 was that it was going to be meaningful. The hope for Bill 32 was it was going to actually show a path forward. That’s why there was the urgency. That’s why it came in late. That’s why it came in several weeks after all the other legislation we were led to believe was brought forward in this place. Again, plenty of time to properly debate it. We’ve had a long back-and-forth here today already. There’ll be plenty of time for committee stage.

This isn’t about the typical manoeuvre that this government has done with three days left in the legislative calendar and dropping a major piece of legislation. So there’s hope yet for EV mandates to get repealed, I guess. But this government always makes more out of what they say a bill is than it actually is. And on Bill 32…. I can see it right now. I can see the NDP spin machine kicking into gear. “B.C. Conservatives say they’re for involuntary care, but they’re voting against it.”

This is not involuntary care. I want to be really clear about that.

I’m not sure how the Green Party is going to vote, but if they vote against it, it’ll be spun the same way for them because they got blamed for the last election. It wasn’t even a confidence vote.

That’s the interesting thing. Bill 22, five years ago, was not a confidence bill. The government could have brought it in. They could have maybe agreed to some amendments back and forth between the House. Again, 42-41, and three was the seat count. You know, they talk about working across the aisle, working together. They could have used that as the framework, could have actually accepted that maybe they have some flaws in it and needed some improvements, or it might have just failed altogether.

Government didn’t have to fall over it. It wasn’t a confidence vote. The only thing the Greens were tied to for that whole three years leading up to it was to support budgetary and throne speech confidence votes.

It was the NDP that decided to say this is such a critically important issue, we’re going to go to an election over it, and five years later, the sum total of that work is two clauses that shield them from a lawsuit. It doesn’t meaningfully show a pathway to expanded involuntary care in this province. In fact, it’s been pointed out that it flies in the face of the advice given by Dr. Vigo already, who says there actually don’t need to be changes to expand involuntary care to the act.

[4:20 p.m.]

It’s interesting when they do or don’t want to listen to their own handpicked experts. He is an expert. I don’t challenge his expertise whatsoever in this field. He has way more expertise than I do. I may or may not agree with some of his recommendations, but it’s not because I don’t think he’s got expertise or knowledge in this field.

Do we see any type of recommendations to improve the involuntary care act? Especially the back bench of the NDP government, I would ask them to just take a step back — all of them have been here at least a year now, some many more than that — and ask themselves about the time that they have had a meeting in their constituency office.

If you haven’t, (a) I find it really hard to believe, but (b) count yourself sadly, in a weird way, fortunate if you haven’t actually been asked to have that meeting. If you’ve just avoided having the meetings, well, that’s on you.

Recall back to the parents desperate for their teenager, looking for help and can’t get treatment, and them trying to get the teenager in, but every time the teenager gets asked, “Do you feel safe?” and they answer, “Yes,” the police, the social workers or the health care workers involved say: “There’s nothing more we can do. They’re 15 years old.”

Bill 32 doesn’t help that gut-wrenching situation of that family desperate to find that teenager help, that teenager that has their whole life ahead of them. If they get help then, they might stumble a little bit, but their odds are way, way better than for waiting till they’re my age and have 40 extra years of things built up in their life and their mental health and whatever other substances or anything else they might be using. They’re in full-blown crisis, for that family, for 40 extra years because this government failed to create any capacity.

Just ask yourself if you’ve actually had those meetings, and then ask yourself, if you’re a government member, if Bill 32 actually addresses that, if you will you be able to look that parent in the eye after this bill passes and say: “Don’t worry about it. We passed Bill 32. We should have access to involuntary treatment for you in the next week.”

You know the answer is that you can’t say that to them. You know the answer to the parent or the spouse coming in because a loved one got addicted after a workplace injury and either has a bit of a brain injury to go with it or an oxy addiction for pain treatment that they are now self-medicating on, and to have those moments where the family thinks that they might be able to try to force them into a facility.

They are adamant that they don’t have a problem and don’t want to go, but everyone knows that they actually need it, because they are spiralling and spiralling. Their next stop is to live as a middle-aged person on the Downtown Eastside streets. This government seems to think that’s okay, that’s a humane way for people to live, because they’ve done nothing about expanding the capacity for those people over the last 8½ years.

When that family comes in your office and starts asking about involuntary care options, look them in the eye and tell them that Bill 32 is actually going to solve that problem, that Bill 32 has addressed it, that it took you 8½ or nine years but that you finally got it fixed with Bill 32. You can’t. It is a complete moral failure.

This is a government — frankly, I’m amazed — that must be cauterized, because they don’t ever seem to get nosebleeds, standing on the moral high ground that they all like to preach down on us from, on a wide range of topics in this place. They’re going to stand up in this place and try to spin this that this side of the House doesn’t care, that this side of the House doesn’t want people to get treatment and that this side of the House is against involuntary care.

[4:25 p.m.]

Nothing can be farther from the truth. That won’t matter to the speeches they provide, because it’s all about making sure their narrative gets out there, to try to deflect away from the fact that after nine years, the best thing they can do to offer for mental health amendments is a two-clause bill, in Bill 32, that shields themselves from an existing court action.

Now, it may actually need to get done, but it could get done with a whole lot more meat as well. There are frameworks out there. There was literally legislation in front of this House that could have been brought back, with Bill 32 added into it, that would have addressed and talked about involuntary care.

Now to be clear, that bill back then, as memory serves, the opposition and the Greens were…. We had different reasons we were going to oppose it. So I’m not going to speak for the Greens. Those members aren’t even in this place anymore, so I’m certainly not going to speak on behalf of members that have switched out.

Fundamentally, I’d ask every member of the government, and I’ll end on this, that if you can honestly look those constituents that are desperate in the eyes…. Let’s face it. There are quite a few NDP ministers and backbenchers that represent some of the poorer neighbourhoods in this province, the Downtown Eastside in particular, where issues like this are prevalent, where the need for proper involuntary care access is incredibly high.

To those members, I say: “Look in the mirror, and ask yourself if Bill 32 is why you ran to help people in your constituency.” If you can look at those families in your constituency and say: “Well, Bill 32 — that’s great. We’ve got involuntary care taken care of….” You can’t, and you won’t. And if you do, shame on you for saying that. Be honest with them.

This government ideologically, actually, doesn’t agree with involuntary care. They’ve had nine years to actually make significant changes. They haven’t. They haven’t done anything of any significant consequence whatsoever, especially as it relates to legal frameworks.

Be honest with them about that, instead of trying to deflect away and trying to blame people in this chamber that actually have been standing up and speaking for involuntary care for years.

There’s a time to do what’s right for your constituents, not what’s right for your political leader. In this case, you’ve actually campaigned, this leader has actually campaigned around involuntary care before, sometimes not in favour and sometimes in favour, whichever way the political wind flows. It doesn’t matter about the human misery side of that equation, apparently.

Bill 32 is not good enough. Bill 32 is not supportable. Bill 32 has a ton of questions that I will almost guarantee will not be answered by this government in committee stage. And despite our best efforts, when we bring forward meaningful and thoughtful amendments, those will be rejected by this government.

It’s shameful. It shouldn’t be happening. And if it’s important enough to truly try to help people, let’s get this bill to a place that can at least provide a modicum of relief for people, moving forward, instead of this political theatre for a court case instead.

Thank you for this time.

Reann Gasper: We are debating a very short bill today. It’s not just a few lines on paper. The consequences of those lines could not be bigger.

[4:30 p.m.]

Bill 32, the Mental Health Amendment Act (No. 2), 2025, asks us to repeal the deemed consent provision that has governed involuntary psychiatric treatment in this province for decades. The government says this is modernization, that it’s about strengthening rights, that it’s just a cleanup, but everyone who works in this field — clinicians, families, legal experts, people with lived experience — knows the truth. This bill is incomplete, premature and dangerously out of sequence.

The reality is simple. Repealing deemed consent without providing a replacement framework does not modernize mental health law. It destabilizes it. It takes an already fragile system and removes the only tool clinicians currently have to treat people who are too unwell to recognize they are sick. The bill solves a legal problem for the government, not a clinical or public safety problem for British Columbians.

Today I want to offer a balanced speech to acknowledge the government’s intent, to acknowledge the real rights issues at stake, and to also show clearly why this bill, as drafted, will harm the people it claims to protect. I want to begin in good faith.

There are real concerns with B.C.’s existing deemed-consent model. We are the only province in Canada where involuntary admission automatically gives psychiatrists the legal right to treat a patient without assessing capacity or seeking actual consent. There is no mandatory capacity evaluation. There is no substitute decision-making structure. There is no statutory appeal process for treatment over objection. That is why the Ombudsperson, legal scholars, disability advocates and people with lived experience have raised concerns for years, and that is why section 31 is now under active Charter challenge.

So yes, there is a real rights conversation to be had. And yes, the government is right to be thinking about modernization. But modernization is not a slogan. Modernization is not repealing one clause in isolation. Modernization is not doing the bare minimum because a court case is underway. If we are going to change the foundation of mental health law, then we must build a new foundation at the same time. Bill 32 does not do that.

We cannot discuss this bill without grounding it in the reality of British Columbians, the reality British Columbians are living every day. Since the toxic drug emergency was declared in 2016, more than 16,000 people have died. A quarter-million overdose events, 100,000 individuals affected, fentanyl found in three-quarters of the deaths, a growing wave of toxic-drug-related brain injuries that experts now describe as the largest emerging epidemic in this province’s history.

Among nearly 13,000 youth overdose events, a single overdose gives a young person a 15 percent chance of another overdose in a year, a 7 percent chance of a diagnosed brain injury and a 2 percent chance of death. I feel like I am repeating a lot of what my colleagues have expressed in this chamber for the last, probably, 2½ hours.

[4:35 p.m.]

As I have looked at this, what I wanted to say and express…. I can’t help but try to understand why a bill would be put forward and not properly address every single layer in this crisis, when so many of our young people are dying and suffering.

We can see the consequences in our communities, especially in our Vancouver downtown core between 2016 to 2024. Robberies rose. Assaults rose. Arson, weapons offences rose, often linked to untreated mental illness, toxic-drug-related brain injuries.

Families are scared. Health workers are exhausted. Police and paramedics respond to the same people twice a day, sometimes three times, sometimes more. The public sees it, families live it, and clinicians endure it. And it is our responsibility in this House, if we are presenting a bill, that it is thought through and detailed in a way that actually answers the problems that we are facing, not trying to just cover up.

We are in the middle of a crisis. There is mental health illness and toxic drugs, homelessness and public disorder colliding. And the government brings forward a bill that removes the only existing legal mechanism for treating someone who is involuntarily detained because their illness prevents them from recognizing they are sick.

This is not modernization. This is backward, and I cannot help but get passionate about this. Sometimes it’s really sick that in the position that we hold, we do not do the work that is necessary and needed to actually come up with solutions that are detailed and take into consideration every member of society so the people that work in the system, the people that are affected by the system, the families….

This bill does two things. It repeals deemed consent, and it expands liability protection. That’s the entire bill. It repeals deemed consent, the section that currently allows clinicians to treat involuntary patients when they object, and it expands liability protection for clinicians when treatment is authorized by the director. That’s it. By removing deemed consent without providing a replacement framework, it leaves clinicians, families and patients in a dangerous grey zone.

The law today says a person can be detained involuntarily under sections 22 or 28 of the Mental Health Act. But the authority to treat them comes from section 31, the deemed-consent provision. If we repeal section 31, as this bill does, the entire system defaults to general health care consent law, the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act.

The act says that all adults are presumed capable. A capable patient has the right to refuse care. An incapable patient requires a substitute decision-maker, and forced treatment is only allowed in very limited emergencies.

On paper, that sounds rights-protecting, but in practice, it creates a crisis, because many people certified under the Mental Health Act, particularly those with psychosis, bipolar disorder, toxic-drug-related brain injuries, are not capable, in the narrow legal sense, even though they are profoundly unwell.

[4:40 p.m.]

They can repeat back risks and benefits, articulate information and appear coherent, yet have zero insight in their condition, as many of my colleagues have gone into detail about.

Under the general capacity test, these patients will often be found capable and, therefore, entitled to refuse all treatment, even when they are at high risk for serious harm or death, meaning that we could detain them but we could not treat them. This is the most dangerous implication of Bill 31.

Repealing deemed consent without replacing it leads directly to detention without treatment. Detention without treatment is medically irresponsible, ethically indefensible and legally questionable. It is the opposite of compassionate care, the opposite of trauma-informed care and the opposite of what involuntary care is supposed to achieve.

Imagine a person with acute psychosis, terrified, disoriented, unable to understand what is happening. They are detained because they present a serious risk. Because they can repeat back the information you tell them, they are found legally capable.

If they refuse medication, under this bill, clinicians have two options: detain them without providing treatment or try to initiate a capacity assessment and substitute decision-making process that is not designed for psychiatric care, unclear in the law and inconsistent across the province. It is without oversight standards; without appeal mechanisms; and, in many communities, not possible, due to the limited psychiatric coverage.

This is not patient-centred care, this is not rights-based care, and it is certainly not safe. Families know this.They’ve already lived this nightmare. Clinicians know it. They are terrified of being left out without authority. Communities know it. They see the people revolving through emergency rooms again and again. Repealing deemed consent without a replacement framework worsens the very outcomes the government claims this bill will fix.

This bill is particularly dangerous for our young people. There is no capacity-based youth model. There’s no clear ability for parents to override a youth’s referral of psychiatric treatment. There is no legal structure for stabilizing youth after an overdose. You heard from my colleague, firsthand, her lived experience, today in this place, of how if that did exist, how much of an impact and a life-changer that would have been.

In 2020, the government introduced Bill 22 to address this, but then they abandoned it. Now in the midst of the worst youth overdose crisis in Canadian history, the government brings forward a bill that makes it harder, not easier, to treat youth with impaired insight — the very people that should be at the top of the list when we think about solutions in this place. This is unacceptable. Yes, we will hold you accountable, and yes, we will keep speaking up. They matter, their lives matter, and their future matters.

[4:45 p.m.]

In rural and northern regions, the consequences are even sharper. Many hospitals do not have on-site psychiatrists. Our emergency departments are overwhelmed and oftentimes closed. In-patient psychiatric beds are scarce. Community supports are thin and non-existent, and now the government wants to remove the only mechanism that clinicians currently rely on to stabilize people quickly in a crisis. This is not modernization; it is abandonment. These contradictions are glaring.

The Premier has repeatedly said that involuntary care is needed for repeated overdoses. To revive in the morning and die in the evening is unacceptable. Toxic drug-related brain injuries impair insight. Involuntary stabilization is sometimes necessary. These are all things that he’s said. His chief scientific adviser said the Mental Health Act already allows involuntary care for these cases, yet this bill removes the only mechanism that makes that possible, with no replacement, no framework.

British Columbians have a right to ask: was the Premier even serious about expanding involuntary care, or is this bill simply about shielding the government from a Charter challenge? The timing tells its own story. An eight-month delay after the mass casualty event, no evidence of progress on the Mental Health Act review, no consultation paper, no public engagement, no terms of reference released, and this bill was introduced days after closing arguments in the Charter case.

The conclusion is hard to avoid. This is a bill about legal risk and not patient safety.

If the government were serious about modernization, the bill would include a statutory definition of capacity, tailored to psychiatric decision-making, including pattern of illness, history of relapse, fluctuating insight. It would include mandatory regular capacity assessments, conducted by trained professional, with clear standards. It would include a structured substitute decision-making framework with oversight and appeal mechanisms, rights advisers and safeguards for family involvement.

It would include a clear process for treatment over objection, which balances autonomy, wherever possible. There’s a list of solutions that it would include. I’m not sitting on that side, but come on. We just got this bill last night. It would include solutions. It would include transparent oversight and reporting. It would include a trauma-informed and culturally safe framework. It would include real investment into mental health capacity.

Let’s be clear about this bill. Let’s be clear about what it does accomplish. It protects the government in court. It protects health authorities from liability. It does not protect patients, families or clinicians. It does not increase access to care. It does not help people living with psychosis, toxic drug-related brain injury or severe bipolar disorder. It does not make communities safer. This is a wording fix; it is not a system fix. It’s legislation that moves risk off the government and onto families and clinicians and the most vulnerable people in the province.

[4:50 p.m.]

I want to be clear. I support strengthening rights. I support modernizing mental health law. I support ensuring that people have meaningful autonomy wherever possible.

Genuine rights mean more than the right to refuse care. It also includes the right to be well, the right to regain insight, the right to survive long enough to recover. A modern, balanced, compassionate system can and must do both: protect autonomy whenever possible and intervene when severe illness destroys insight. Rights and safety are not opposites; they are partners.

British Columbians deserve a government that does the hard work, the real modernization, the real consultation, the real system rebuild. They deserve a mental health law that recognizes and protects life, autonomy, clinicians and families with a clear, compassionate framework. Instead, they are being handed a bill that is rushed, incomplete, legally driven, clinically unsafe and fundamentally misaligned with the Premier’s own promises. This is not modernization. It is not leadership, and it is not how we protect the most vulnerable people in our province.

I cannot support a bill that removes a major legal mechanism and replaces it with….

[The bells were rung.]

I cannot support a bill that risks detaining people without treating them. I cannot support a bill that puts clinicians in legal jeopardy and families in impossible positions. I cannot support a bill that was drafted to solve a government problem rather than a system problem.

British Columbians deserve better, and we can do better.

Macklin McCall: I rise today to speak to the Mental Health Amendment Act, a bill that, while brief, has serious consequences for mental health care, clinician protection and public safety in British Columbia. This legislation removes the deemed consent clause from our Mental Health Act and adds liability protections for health care workers treating involuntary patients.

On its face, this bill looks technical, but the context behind it is anything but technical. It exposes a deeper truth about the state of mental health care in British Columbia and about how urgently this province needs meaningful reform.

British Columbians deserve clarity. This bill is not appearing because government is leading a reform effort. It is here because government is expecting to lose a Charter challenge in court. Section 31(1), the deemed consent clause, is being challenged as unconstitutional. If the court rules against the government, the section becomes invalid. When that happens, the liability protections for health care workers that rely on that section would collapse with it. This is critical.

A Charter ruling does not instantly erase a section from the statute the moment the judgment is released. Courts may declare a provision invalid immediately, or they may issue a suspended invalidity, giving government a set time, usually six to 18 months, to repair the defect. Because of that uncertainty, government is now rushing a thin, extremely narrow amendment to shield itself from the fallout of losing in court.

Let us be honest. This is a bill designed to mitigate legal risk to government, not to strengthen patients’ rights, not to expand care, not to protect the public and not to improve outcomes for people suffering from severe mental illness or addiction.

[4:55 p.m.]

The Charter guarantees every Canadian the right to life, liberty and security of the person.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I’ll ask the Minister of Health to close debate.

Hon. Josie Osborne: I want to start off by recognizing how serious this discussion has been. Conversations about mental illness and substance use disorder and about involuntary care are not easy. They raise real fears and real emotions, and we’ve heard some of that in the House today, both in people who are experiencing mental illness and their families, the people who love them and want to help them.

In carefully defined situations and with the legal safeguards that protect a person’s rights and dignity, involuntary care is a necessary and life-saving part of our mental health system. It is our firm belief that involuntary care is part of our mental health care system.

I want to review briefly what this bill is specifically focused on, what it’s actually proposing to change. That is that the overall wording of the act will be clarified so that it’s more explicit that its purpose is to provide treatment to people who are seriously ill and unable to seek help themselves, rather than a vague duty.

The section of the act that we’ve been discussing today, 31(1), was added to the act in 1981, well after the act was first introducing the scheme of involuntary care here in this province. It has for decades been intended to offer legal protection to health care workers treating people admitted involuntarily.

We are proposing to add a new liability protection provision under section 16 with clearer wording so that health care workers know that they’re legally protected when they provide care under the act. This will give people and families greater assurance that when involuntary care is used, it’s for the right reasons under the act and it’s not because of unclear wording. This clarification protects the existing system of mental health care, especially for those people with serious and very complex needs.

I also want to be clear that we continue to stay focused on building the system of voluntary care, although that’s not the subject of this particular piece of legislation, this bill.

We’ve heard from a number of members here today, and I want to take the opportunity to correct the record on some of what may be a misunderstanding.

First of all, several members have referred to this bill as being something that actually removes the ability to treat patients involuntarily, at least in many situations. This could not be farther from the truth. The reality is this legislation ensures that health care workers are able to continue to deliver involuntary care and are supported to do so with clear legislation that is backing them.

The member for Skeena expressed a concern that we don’t have legislation coming forward in this session that is going to allow us to approach involuntary treatment of concurrent mental health and drug disorders and that we would then be likely to lose another 450 people before we come back here in the spring to be able to legislate that. This is false.

The review of the Mental Health Act is independent, and it is going ahead. Dr. Vigo issued guidance this spring on how to use the Mental Health Act for adults. Similar guidance is coming for youth. No legislation is required for those guidance documents.

Several members referred to the opinion that Dr. Vigo offered about eight months ago that no changes were needed to the Mental Health Act to be able to begin with involuntary care for people suffering from concurrent disorders, substance use, acquired brain injury, severe mental illness and that perhaps that meant that we don’t need to make these changes if we want to see involuntary care move forward. Now, Dr. Vigo’s point is important because it confirms that this bill is not about expanding or restricting the ability to provide involuntary care. It remains exactly what it is today.

[5:00 p.m.]

Section 31(1), the deemed consent provision, is currently under constitutional challenge, as many members have spoken about today. If that section is struck down without a replacement, health care workers who provide essential psychiatric treatment under the director’s authorization in a mental health facility could lose the legal protections that they rely on. We do not want that to happen. It creates real risk for clinicians and patients.

Several members have asserted that if the deemed consent provision is removed, the Mental Health Act contains no framework for how treatment decisions are to be made for involuntary patients who refuse care.

This bill specifically addresses that risk by replacing outdated language with clear liability protection, consistent with other parts of the act and with standards in health law. It does not change who can be admitted, when involuntary care can be provided or how treatment decisions are made. It simply ensures that front-line staff can continue to provide care safely and confidently when acting in good faith. Section 8 of the Mental Health Act is the provision that allows for involuntary care.

It was also noted by a member, the member for Skeena, that “we must recognize that British Columbia’s existing legal framework was never designed to address the realities of conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder with psychosis, psychotic depression or the increasingly common toxic drug–related brain injuries we are seeing today.”

The amendments that we’re debating today are directly relevant to people living with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses. They do not change the criteria for involuntary admission or treatment, but they ensure that when care is provided under the Mental Health Act, clinicians have clear legal protection. That matters because these patients often require urgent intervention to prevent harm, and any uncertainty about liability could delay treatment at critical moments.

I want to point to the words of Hardeep Thind from the B.C. Schizophrenia Society, who said: “The B.C. Schizophrenia Society supports the province’s update to the Mental Health Act. These amendments demonstrate the government’s commitment to care for and support people living with a serious mental illness. These changes ensure that people who need treatment receive it, including those who are too ill to recognize and understand their condition and refuse treatment. Patients, family members, caregivers and health care staff all benefit from shorter hospital stays, reduced use of restraints and needless suffering.”

Let me close by saying that it is clear that this amendment is about ensuring that health care providers can make decisions in the best interests of their patients. As an example, back in 2021, the province announced the expansion of the early psychosis intervention program. We now have more than 50 locations where people can be assessed and get connected to care.

The province has funded the hiring of up to 100 specialists to provide this care and support young people and their families in the program. These are the workers who must be protected to deliver this vital care. They need to know that if they decide to support a young person, and if that person needs to be held and treated under the Mental Health Act, they are supported to do so in law.

This bill does not shield government from the court case. The amendment does not defeat or put an end to the constitutional claim that’s currently before the court.

This does not change or lower the standard for when someone can be admitted involuntarily under the act. It simply improves the clarity and legal protections. It is about making sure that everyone knows the rules, especially when someone is so unwell that they can’t make decisions for themselves. It reinforces the principle that involuntary treatment is used only in defined, serious circumstances and that health care workers can carry it out, knowing that they have protection.

As we move into committee stage, I invite members of the opposition to undertake the dialogue they will with me. But I invite them not to bring a wilful misunderstanding of the purpose of this act. It’s vitally important that we take this seriously, that we focus on what the three clauses of this amending bill would do.

With that, I move second reading.

[5:05 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: The question is second reading of Bill 32, intituled Mental Health Amendment Act (No. 2), 2025.

Division has been called.

[5:10 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.]

[The Speaker in the chair.]

The Speaker: Members, the question is second reading of Bill 32, intituled Mental Health Amendment Act (No. 2), 2025.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 46
Lore	G. Anderson	Blatherwick
Routledge	Chant	Toporowski
B. Anderson	Neill	Osborne
Brar	Krieger	Davidson
Parmar	Sunner	Beare
Chandra Herbert	Wickens	Kang
Sandhu	Begg	Higginson
Phillip	Lajeunesse	Choi
Rotchford	Elmore	Morissette
Popham	Dix	Sharma
Farnworth	Eby	Bailey
Kahlon	Greene	Whiteside
Boyle	Ma	Yung
Malcolmson	Gibson	Glumac
Arora	Shah	Chow
	Dhir
NAYS — 46
Wilson	Kindy	Milobar
Warbus	Rustad	Banman
Wat	Kooner	Halford
Hartwell	L. Neufeld	Van Popta
Dew	Clare	K. Neufeld
Valeriote	Botterell	Brodie
Armstrong	Bhangu	Paton
Gasper	Chan	Toor
Hepner	Giddens	Rattée
Davis	McInnis	Bird
McCall	Stamer	Day
Tepper	Mok	Chapman
Maahs	Kealy	Sturko
Boultbee	Williams	Loewen
Dhaliwal	Doerkson	Luck
	Block

The Speaker: Hon. Members, there being an equal number of votes for and against, the Chair must make a casting vote. Given parliamentary customs and in order to allow further debate, the Chair votes in favour of the motion for second reading of Bill 32, Mental Health Amendment Act (No. 2), 2025.

Hon. Josie Osborne: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: In this chamber, I call committee stage for Bill 29, Child, Family and Community Service Amendment Act.

[5:20 p.m.]

The House in Committee, Section B.

The committee met at 5:21 p.m.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

Committee of the Whole

Bill 29 — Child, Family and
Community Service
Amendment Act, 2025

The Chair: I’m just going to call a five-minute recess to allow us to set up, get established before we get into committee.

The committee recessed from 5:21 p.m. to 5:24 p.m.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

The Chair: All right, we will call the chamber back to order.

[5:25 p.m.]

We’re in committee stage for Bill 29, Child, Family and Community Service Amendment Act, 2025.

Does the minister want to give any opening remarks?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I want to start by thanking the members of the ministry team who support this vital work and are here with me today. We have Deputy Minister Keith Godin, Assistant Deputy Minister Emily Horton, director Renae Snell and executive director Alex Stevanovic. Really grateful for their support and work in my ministry.

I want to start by saying that the most important thing at the centre of all of our work is the safety and well-being of children and youth in our province. This legislation is about safety plans, which is one of the least intrusive measures available to help keep children and youth safe and supported. They are voluntary, short-term and collaborative agreements between parents and ministry staff that help mitigate safety concerns so that a child or youth can remain safely with their parent or a trusted adult.

These amendments bring greater transparency to the safety planning process and formalize important procedural safeguards for parents.

The amendments also make clear that the safety planning process provides the space to build or strengthen involvement with an Indigenous child’s community.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

I’m looking forward to everybody’s input and questions to see this important bill move through this committee process.

On clause 1.

Rosalyn Bird: I just had some opening remarks that I wanted to share.

Bill 29 seeks to formalize the use of safety plans with the Child, Family and Community Service Act. While the intent to keep children safe and supported within their families and communities is a passion we all share, the execution of this legislation raises some serious concerns.

This is a bill that grants broad discretionary powers to directors, allowing them to create, amend or terminate safety plans verbally, without written confirmation, court approval or external oversight. Families can find themselves under indefinite supervision without clear recourse and accountability. The absence of mandatory data transparency or a guarantee for parents, guardians or families to access legal support further weakens the safeguards that vulnerable families deserve.

Our responsibility as legislators is to ensure that in seeking to protect children, we do not erode the rights of parents, families or Indigenous communities. With that in mind, would the minister be willing to answer some questions regarding the history, rationale, consultation and the oversight regarding her bill before we move into the first clause?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: If it pertains to the bill, I am willing to answer any questions.

Rosalyn Bird: Unless there has been a change, I just want to make sure I understand. Safety plans currently are being implemented using the internal MCFD policy Child Protection Response Policies, chapter 3, specifically section 3.2, “Family development response,” and section 3.3, “Protection,” both most recently amended on the 18th and the 25th of September of this year.

Can the minister confirm that?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Yes, that’s correct.

[5:30 p.m.]

Rosalyn Bird: Thank you, Minister.

In chapter 3.2, the policy states that family development response is primarily a pathway for all screened-in children protection reports that meet the following criteria: circumstances do not involve severe physical abuse or severe neglect, and parents are able or willing to participate in a collaborative process and planning. If safety factors have been identified, it’s reasonable to believe that a parent will follow a safety plan or develop a safety plan collaboratively with a child/youth’s family.

Section 3.3 of the protection policy states that parents in these particular circumstances…. Protection advice and the family development response are for children that are in severe physical abuse or neglect situations. If parents are unable or unwilling to participate in collaborative assessment and planning, or if there’s an open case on a family and at least one child or youth is out of the home due to the protection purposes, the alternative to child protection investigation for responding to screened-in protection reports is to revert back to family development response.

I would appreciate the minister helping myself and those of the public that are watching tonight. How does the family development response process work? This may seem unrelated to Bill 29. However, for myself and for the public to understand the suggested legislative changes, we have to understand how safety plans are currently used. Can the minister confirm that the FDR process commences with a report regarding a child or youth at risk?

[5:35 p.m.]

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I think I’m going to allow a little bit of leeway because I’m not sure that I follow how the question is in relation to clause 1 of the bill. But I will do my best to answer the question.

Both safety planning and a family development process are least-intrusive measures to work with families when a concern comes in. If there’s a call that comes in, and there is a safety concern, a protection worker would look at a safety planning process while that concern is being assessed or investigated. If there’s a concern that comes in, and a protection worker deems that a family needs support, needs referrals to community programs or other types of support, there would be a family development process.

Rosalyn Bird: I just want to confirm. Before we even got to clause 1, I wanted to understand some of the background as to where this bill came from. I had a number of questions before even addressing clause 1. Is the minister open to that?

This is fairly significant legislation. It has massive impact on children and families across this province. I would like to examine it thoroughly and have a very good understanding of what it is that we’re trying to accomplish here in order to try and be supportive of it.

The Chair: Thank you, Member.

I’ll leave it to the minister to decide whether or not they would like to answer those questions prior to clause 1. I’m sure we’ll get through some of it in the bill, but I’ll leave that up to the minister to decide.

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I would afford some leeway. I mean, I think I can try and answer as many questions as possible.

I do want the member to consider that those questions might be answered further in the bill as well. As far as historical context or where the bill came from, we can also provide other briefings at other times.

Rosalyn Bird: I just want to go back to the FTR process for a second, because I want to make sure I am understanding it correctly so I understand the process that this bill is built around.

If I am correct, like you said, there is a complaint or concern that comes in. The family is contacted. There’s a home visit arranged. Household members are interviewed. There is a situation that’s assessed, as you said. You were talking about assessments or investigations. They try to determine how a family can be supported in keeping children and youth safe.

My understanding is that is currently set out, in the current regulation, on a 30-day time frame. Can the minister confirm that that is actually correct?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: What the member has stated is correct.

I do just want to point out that the legislation is about the safety planning process and safety plans. Questions in relation to how protection workers and the ministry do their broader work are not about safety plans.

Rosalyn Bird: I appreciate that. It helps with a couple of other things that I’m going to be asking about when we get into the bill.

Can the minister explain the difference between a family plan and a safety plan?

I know you don’t think the question is relevant, but it does, actually… It references because of a clause that I’m going to ask about later. There’s a specific piece in the legislation around this question.

[5:40 p.m.]

Hon. Jodie Wickens: A safety plan is a short-term voluntary agreement between the director and a parent to ensure a child’s immediate safety during an assessment or an investigation. In contrast, a family plan is a longer-term strategy created with the family to support the child’s ongoing safety and well-being. The family plan is used once an investigation or an assessment is complete and it has been determined that ongoing protection services are needed.

For the member’s information, when a report comes in, the report is screened, and there are a number of actions that a protection worker takes. First, they determine whether a child is Indigenous or not. Then they determine whether a child is in a life-threatening situation.

If it’s determined that it’s not life-threatening and that protection doesn’t need to happen right away, they assess the report that has come in. There’s either a protection response or there are other responses that are taken.

Rosalyn Bird: I still have questions before we get on to clause 1, Chair.

The Chair: Member, we’re on clause 1.

Rosalyn Bird: Okay. Can we continue with the background questions? They’re extremely important for me to understand why we’re moving this legislation forward.

The Chair: Member, I’ll say it again. The minister has said that she would have some leniency with respect to that. We’re in committee stage on clause 1.

Rosalyn Bird: Just for ease when we’re moving forward, if it suits the minister and it suits the Chair, and we’re discussing the bill moving in the next however many hours, are you okay if I just refer to chapter 3 instead of the entire long title?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I am.

Rosalyn Bird: Can the minister explain the necessity to put a piece of legislation forward for safety plans, rather than revising or updating the current regulation and procedures that MCFD is currently using in chapter 3?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Chapter 3 is policy. We do update policy to ensure there are things like consent and timelines. What this does is it enshrines those expectations in law. So the rights of parents are enshrined in law around the safety-planning process.

[5:45 p.m.]

Rosalyn Bird: Minister, can you help me understand or can you let myself and the public know how social workers, caseworkers, directors and parents will be made aware of the new legislation and how chapter 3 is actually going to be updated and amended in regards to that legislation?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Firstly, whenever we introduce legislation, we do a comprehensive engagement process with stakeholders, with the Representative for Children and Youth, with Indigenous communities. That happens prior to introducing legislation. Also, any time there are changes to legislation in MCFD, there is….

I mean, firstly, I would like to just express that this legislation is catching up to policy. You reference chapter 3. That policy exists. Having consent of parents, that exists. So like I said, we’re enshrining those rights in law.

When we strike laws, we also ensure that there is training for staff, that they have opportunity for that training. We have practice consultants who work alongside staff to ensure that there’s continuous quality assurance. We also post publicly on our website that everybody can access.

Rosalyn Bird: I appreciate that answer, Minister.

Can you explain? Is there a standard or a regulatory time frame for that policy to be updated once the legislation actually is enacted? It doesn’t state it in the transitionary part of the bill, so I’m just curious what that time frame looks like.

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Policy in MCFD is constantly evolving. It is continuously updated and communicated with staff.

I will say that any changes required in policy will happen as soon as possible after royal assent.

Rosalyn Bird: Thank you, Minister.

Can you provide a list or can you give me and the public some idea of who the stakeholders were that you engaged with? Were they care agencies? Were they parent groups? Were they actual families with MCFD experience? Who were the First Nations groups that you met with? Did you talk to the Association of Social Workers?

[5:50 p.m.]

Were any of these people or more groups consulted prior to determining the necessity for the actual legislation, not amendment to chapter 3?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I can give the member opposite a comprehensive list. I’ll do an amalgamated one right now.

There were a number of internal, external partners and Indigenous rights holders that we engaged with.

Internally directors of ministries like Education and Child Care, the Attorney General, Citizens’ Services.

Externally organizations like West Coast LEAF, the Representative for Children and Youth, and then some Indigenous partners include modern treaty Nations, Métis and others.

I can provide the member with a comprehensive list.

Rosalyn Bird: I’m actually familiar with some of the organizations, at least externally. I mean, yes, some people in the House, but definitely some of the ones that you mentioned externally.

Were they given a copy, like a draft copy, of the bill prior to this coming forward? What feedback did you actually get from some of those agencies? I would be curious if it was positive, it was negative, if they had asked you to make some changes.

There are some fairly large contradictions with the legislation and the actual regulation currently. I would just be curious what kind of feedback you got from some of those organizations.

The Chair: Just a reminder to bring those questions through the Chair.

Hon. Jodie Wickens: A reminder, again, I think asking questions about engagement on the bill is fair. I’m not sure how it’s in relation to clause 1. However, I will say that all of the groups that I mentioned that we engaged with were in favour of the bill.

Some comments include, from the Representative for Children and Youth…. They support maintaining the voluntary nature of safety plans and defining scope and rules more explicitly. There were engagements, also, with the Public Guardian and Trustee, and all of the feedback was in support of the bill.

Rosalyn Bird: How will the minister ensure the consistent use of safety plans across regions, given the current inequities and staffing shortages that are being reported and felt?

[5:55 p.m.]

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Safety plans, as I mentioned before, have been used across the province as an effective, least-disruptive tool. We are not anticipating a large increase in workload. There will be training on the bill. Safety planning, again, is already a part of our policy, and the legislation is largely formalizing best practices.

I believe that our direct service staff will benefit greatly from clarity in procedures and expectations and, again, that parents will greatly benefit from the procedural safeguards that are enshrined and established in law.

Rosalyn Bird: Will there be public reporting on safety plan agreement outcomes now that it is being legislated?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Our ministry does collect data currently on our use of safety plans. We publicly post data on child protection reports received, reports assessed as having safety concerns and situations that have eventually required a child to live outside of the home under the CFCSA agreements or court orders. This data clearly shows that upfront measures taken, including safety plans, are effective at addressing child safety concerns.

I would just also add that each and every single safety plan is incredibly unique and would be very different from each individual circumstance.

Rosalyn Bird: I appreciate that answer, and I hope so. Every family is different. Their complexities are different; their challenges are different. So that is a very important aspect of this process.

[The bells were rung.]

The Chair: Member, just pause for a moment while the bells….

Apologies. Carry on.

Rosalyn Bird: You didn’t ring the bells. It’s all good.

What independent oversight mechanisms will exist to review misuse, overuse or non-use of safety plans?

I understand the intent of the bill and that you want to enshrine parents’ rights and better protect children. But sometimes these things actually have a negative impact. It’s not intentional, but it does happen. I would be curious to know what steps the ministry is taking to look at that and to address it if it happens.

[6:00 p.m.]

Hon. Jodie Wickens: Firstly, it starts with that safety plans are also bound by the general provisions of the act, so all of the paramount considerations in the act are applicable to safety plans.

In addition to that, as safety plans are a part of a child protection assessment, it’s subject to all of the accountability measures that exist for child protection assessments, internal and external. There could be escalation to the team leader or the director of operations to external reviews — for example, by the Representative for Children and Youth.

Safety plans, as I have mentioned, are intended to be short-term measures that are often utilized while waiting for an assessment or a decision or, potentially, a court order. By incorporating safety plan provisions under part 3 of the CFCSA, the CFCSA administrative review and practice review processes will also be available to review in relation to safety plans. These sections allow parents and children involved in safety plans to request a review for MCFD to investigate whether the safety plan was carried out appropriately and require the review to be completed within 30 days, unless otherwise agreed.

As with the rights of parents under safety plans, the director is also legally required to make available information relating to reviews to parents and anyone else who may be entitled to request one. Statutory decisions made by a CFCSA director may also be subject to a judicial review.

Rosalyn Bird: I just want to ask one clarifying question. It sort of goes back to one I asked earlier. You’ve actually said it twice now, so I want to confirm.

Safety plans are in place during an assessment and investigation, and once that’s completed, then they move to a family plan.

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I want to let the member know this is actually in relation to clause 3, so we can come back to answering that question when we get to clause 3.

Rosalyn Bird: Thank you, Minister.

In practice, and I agree that safety plans are often presented as the least-intrusive alternative to apprehension, non-compliance can lead directly to removal. Legal commentary notes are available that the failure to comply with safety plans may result in the immediate removal of a child, underlining the coercive context.

While the CFCSA itself has not been ruled unconstitutional, serious concerns do arise when ministry decisions interfere with parental rights, procedural fairness, timely disclosure or evidence-based risk assessment, all of which may violate section 7 of the Charter. I would very much like to explore some of those concerns with the minister in regards to how these safety plans are going to be implemented and how parents’ rights under section 7 are going to be protected.

[6:05 p.m.]

Hon. Jodie Wickens: A couple of things in relation to that question.

First and foremost, safety planning is a part of a continuum of planning or actions that child protection workers must take. So each and every single…. We’ve discussed this earlier, that every single circumstance is very unique, and decisions must be made in those moments based on that uniqueness.

The actual act, the provisions of the act that are paramount…. There are a number of those things included — the safety and well-being of children, the rights of children. Also included is best interest of the child. So child protection workers make decisions based on those paramount parts of the Child, Family and Community Service Act.

With respect to rights, the amendments do assure that safety plans are voluntary. So safety plans…. The parties must understand the nature and the consequence of the agreement. The director must communicate with prospective parties in a manner appropriate to their abilities in an effort to help them understand the terms and conditions of the safety plan, including the right to withdraw from the safety plan.

Before entering into the agreement, the director must also inform parents that they can seek legal advice at any time. The director must make all reasonable efforts to confirm the agreement in writing. The written agreement must also include an acknowledgement that the parties may seek legal advice at any time.

The proposed legislation will make clear that parents and others who are parties to the safety plan may withdraw from the agreement within a set number of days described in the agreement. The agreement can be discontinued, or the terms of the conditions can be revisited if a party no longer agrees to them.

All directors carrying out safety planning will ensure parents are aware of the voluntary nature of the agreements and their legal rights to seek advice, as I mentioned. If parents cannot access that advice right away, they may do so at any time after agreeing to a safety plan and may withdraw or seek to renegotiate at any time if they no longer agree with the safety plan.

All of our directors are oriented to legislation and will be a component of ongoing mandatory training.

Rob Botterell: I was curious. I just want some clarification on where we are in committee. Are we on clause 1, or are we still getting to clause 1?

I have lots of questions on clause 3, so I’m wanting to understand when we’re going to get to clause 3.

[6:10 p.m.]

The Chair: Well, thank you, Member. I’m not sure when we’ll arrive at clause 3. We are on clause 1 right now, so that is where the focus is.

Rosalyn Bird: I just want to say I appreciate the words that the Leader of the Third Party stated. However, I have some serious concerns around this legislation, so these questions aren’t just being randomly asked.

They have some fairly significant ramifications if they do actually impact people’s rights and liberties. The Supreme Court of Canada has actually indicated that when the statute is interfering with core family relationships, procedural protections must be robust. That was JG, Supreme Court of Canada.

Safety plans are often restrictive where a parent may live, requiring parents to leave the house, restrictive who can contact a child. They often require supervision of parenting, drug testing, mandatory services, conditions of a child remaining. These measures constitute real deprivations of parental liberty and security of persons, similar in impact, if not in name, to supervision orders or temporary custody orders that would normally require court oversight.

What specific steps has the ministry taken to ensure that these rights, again, are protected and that they’re not effectively coerced away with a safety plan?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I believe I just answered this question.

Rosalyn Bird: I’d like to talk a little bit about voluntariness versus coercion.

Currently MCFD policy in Bill 29 emphasizes that safety plans are voluntary — I do understand that — with rights to legal advice and the right to withdraw.

However, in practice, currently, parents frequently report being told that refusal to sign a safety plan will result in immediate apprehension. The power imbalance, urgency and the fear of losing a child…. That consent may be informal but not truly voluntary, raising fundamental justice concerns. This mismatch between formal voluntariness and practical coercion creates Charter vulnerability, particularly if safety plans are used to achieve outcomes that would otherwise require evidence and judicial determination.

How does the minister reconcile the claim that safety plan agreements are voluntary with the reality that parents are told: “Sign, or we will apprehend a child”?

Hon. Jodie Wickens: This is not in relation to clause 1. This is better suited for clause 3. I’d ask the Chair to make a ruling about focusing on clause 1.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Minister.

We are on clause 1, and we definitely would like to focus on clause 1.

Rosalyn Bird: I would actually like to table an amendment for clause 1:

[CLAUSE 1, by adding the underlined text as shown:

“guardian” has the same meaning as in the Family Law Act;]

Would the minister like a copy of the amendment?

The Chair: Member, if you would provide it to the Clerk, we’ll take a quick recess of about five minutes so that we can circulate the amendment to all members.

The committee recessed from 6:14 p.m. to 6:18 p.m.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

The Chair: We will call this House back to order, where we have received an amendment from the member for Prince George–Valemount.

Member, would you like to take an opportunity to explain your amendment?

Then we will be reporting in the House, so we’ll come back to this at the next available opportunity.

On the amendment.

Rosalyn Bird: Thank you, Chair.

I would like to propose an amendment to clause 1 of Bill 29.

The proposed amendment seeks to define the term “guardian” in the act, and this relates to future proposed amendments that I intend to move, which will all include the term “guardian.”

As the legislation before this House makes changes to the Child, Family and Community Service Act, it references the role of guardian, but it does not define what a guardian is. I believe that this definition should be added, using the definition from the family act that this House has in previous sessions already set into law. This amendment should be supported by all its members.

The family act defines a guardian as meaning “as a guardian under section 39….”

Do you want me to read the entire definition? It’s up to the minister.

The Chair: I think that’s all right, Member.

Rosalyn Bird: Okay. The reason that I’m asking for this change is that when you go in under this current act, it refers you to the Family Law Act, which also refers you to the wills and estates act.

Within the wills and estates act, there is a separate definition for guardian that can apply to family plans. For myself, when I do my will and estate planning, the lawyer asks: “If both of you were to perish at the same time in a car accident, who would you like the guardian of your children to be?”

It is actually a fairly important definition in how it can apply to family plans and, actually, safety plans. So I would very much like the minister to consider adopting this amendment.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Member. We will have the minister respond at the next sitting of this committee.

Hon. Jodie Wickens: I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:20 p.m.

The House resumed at 6:21 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Lorne Doerkson: Committee for Bill 29 reports progress and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Section A reports progress on Bill 24 and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Reporting of Bills

Bill 30 — Employment Standards
(Serious Illness or Injury Leave)
Amendment Act, 2025

Susie Chant: Section C reports Bill 30 complete without amendment.

The Speaker: When shall the bill be read a third time?

Hon. Mike Farnworth: Now.

Third Reading of Bills

Bill 30 — Employment Standards
(Serious Illness or Injury Leave)
Amendment Act, 2025

The Speaker: Members, the question is third reading of Bill 30, Employment Standards (Serious Illness or Injury Leave) Amendment Act, 2025.

Motion approved.

The Speaker: Bill 30, Employment Standards (Serious Illness or Injury Leave) Amendment Act, has been read a third time and has passed.

Hon. Mike Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6:22 p.m.

Proceedings in the
Douglas Fir Room

The House in Committee, Section A.

The committee met at 1:35 p.m.

[Sunita Dhir in the chair.]

Committee of the Whole

Bill 24 — Vaping Product Damages
and Health Care Costs Recovery Act
(continued)

The Chair: Good afternoon, Members. I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 24, Vaping Product Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, to order.

On clause 1 (continued).

Brennan Day: I’m going to lead it off for my colleague here. I think she has a fairly lengthy series of questions around this.

I’ll just ask the question. Was there a specific reason that cannabis accessories were excluded in the definitions of this act?

Hon. Niki Sharma: The reason that cannabis wasn’t included, or those accessories, is because this legislation is about vaping.

Anna Kindy: This is about vaping, and I would assume that the government knows that kids vape now. They don’t smoke cannabis. They mostly vape cannabis. Is the government aware of that?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Although I understand that there are many ills in society that we want to make sure that children are protected from and why we have — for example, on cannabis — a system of regulations around that, the purpose of this bill is targeting vaping manufacturers, wholesalers and consultants for using what is similar to the tobacco playbook, with deceptive marketing approaches, to introduce a new generation of young people to nicotine addiction.

Anna Kindy: Again, the title of the bill is Vaping Product Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act. I’ll read the explanatory note again. “This bill provides to the government the opportunity to recoup some of the health care expenses it is required to incur as a result of health ills caused by vaping products.” I’m seeing an s. This is from the government.

Obviously, when the legislation was put through, cannabis seemed to be on it, and then it was moved out. Again to the government, why did they remove cannabis?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Just clarification on the question. Cannabis was never referred to in this bill, so I’m not sure what the member is referring to. Maybe I can get some clarity on that before I answer.

Anna Kindy: I’m just going to go back to the fact that this bill is about vaping and about products’ harm and health care recovery.

Does the government know about EVALI?

[1:40 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: Yes, we are aware of that. I think if we root this discussion in the contents of the definition section, it’ll help explain why definitions are drafted in a broad sense. That broad sense is found in the definition of “vaping product” and the definition of “specified device” and “specified substance.”

This is the kind of regime or framework that we will use to figure out where we’re applying this litigation that’s set up for that, but it’s intentionally broad to capture a range of things.

Anna Kindy: I would argue it’s the opposite. Rather than being broad, it’s very narrow in scope. It’s basically excluding many things, including unregulated and products other than nicotine.

So I would argue that what you’ve said is incorrect there. It’s actually very narrow, and that’s the issue that I have with this bill. If you look at definitions, there is a definition there for “excluded device,” if you look at your own bill. It has “cannabis accessory.” There’s also a definition of “excluded substances.” That’s in your own bill. That includes cannabis. That is part of the bill.

Now, can you tell me, if you have what EVALI is, and knowing that this….? Why would you exclude…? EVALI is vaping products with cannabis associated with lung injury.

[1:45 p.m.]

There are studies on it, multiple studies of youth impacted by lung injury. It’s called EVALI. There’s a specific term to that.

I’m surprised that…. If this is about health care recovery and its products, again — I have to clarify in my own mind — why would it exclude cannabis?

[1:50 p.m. - 1:55 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: Just to talk through it, this is a very complicated area to respond to because, unlike vaping, what we have both federally and provincially is a very complicated regulatory and enforcement regime related to cannabis. Those regimes that are in place set up tools for cannabis products that may be causing harm in different ways, and they set up ways to regulate or enforce related to cannabis.

That’s actually very complicated, and I’m happy to have a good discussion with the member, deeper, about that, the cannabis tools that we have for harms related to that, because that industry is in a different situation.

The role and purpose of this vaping…. As I mentioned before, it’s because of what we noticed as a tactic that tobacco companies, through the history that we’ve had with them…. In various ways, in our view, there are examples of deceptive practices where the turn has been to use those similar ways of marketing to get young people to vape at an increasing rate.

The nicotine addiction is the harm that we’ve worked on for so many years and our health care system has responded to for so many years — to try to combat, to try to push back and to try to change people’s behaviours. It’s been a significant toll on health care ministries across the country and the world.

What we’re targeting here through this vaping legislation is litigation that would be designed in a way to go after what we say, and would try to prove, is a deceptive practice that is turning the same tactics onto vaping, with that nicotine addiction.

Anna Kindy: Let me just start by saying that…. You talked yesterday about education. In terms of yesterday, there was a discussion on the targeting of use and the education portion that is important. Unfortunately, this House voted down the education portion of drug use in school because of potential stigma.

The harm that I’m seeing, as a physician, including two deaths in a local high school…. That’s in one year. Those are the real implications of drug use, regardless of if it’s illicit opioid or even licit stuff. Some of the harm was caused by what I would call not illicit, because it was prescribed and ended up in kids’ hands.

Now, coming back to the cannabis, it is part of the bill, and it was excluded. Just for, I think, education for everyone, including our viewership, if there is any, EVALI is electronic cigarette or vaping product use–associated lung injury. There’s actually a term for it because it’s common. Kids are actually not smoking cannabis; they’re vaping cannabis.

Part of the issue is that as much as we like to think things are regulated, most of the things that are purchased, and it’s not just youth, are through the unregulated market. The reason is that it’s much cheaper. So kids will gravitate towards the unregulated market, which again, this bill won’t address.

I just want to also go back to cannabis. These are real stats. The No. 1 reason people go to hospital for any substance use, legal or illegal…. We’re talking legal substances like alcohol, cannabis, nicotine — those are legal substances — and illegal substances, such as illicit drug use like fentanyl and methamphetamine, etc. The No. 1 cause that people go to a hospital for substance use is alcohol, and the No. 2 reason people go to the hospital for substance use is cannabis. It’s cannabis.

That means that the health care recovery costs, I imagine…. If the No. 2 reason people go to the hospital is cannabis, and it’s being vaped, and we’re talking about vaping products, I’m surprised at why it was excluded. I would imagine that the health care recovery costs, even if they were regulated, would be higher with cannabis than they would be with nicotine.

[2:00 p.m.]

The other concern I have, as well, is if we’re looking at harms…. I take this seriously, because I see it. If we look at the harm of nicotine…. Let’s say you vape nicotine. How many years before you get the harm? It’s not normally…. It can happen quickly. You know, there’s always….

My husband was talking about…. He’s a surgeon, and he had, just this last month, two kids come in with a hand injury from vaping products that exploded. These are illicit appliances that kids use, exploded in their hands. Sometimes it’s in your face. So that’s, again….

Putting that aside, if we’re looking at how long it takes for harm to occur, if you take nicotine as the product causing harm, usually the harm doesn’t happen within one, two, three years. It usually takes a longer time before you get the effects of the nicotine, as opposed to cannabis, and these stats are mind-boggling.

Cannabis, in terms of using…. It’s something to put in a context as well. I’m from the old school. I was born in 1962. I have to truly say I don’t like cannabis. I tried it once, and it got me paranoid, so I never tried it again. In those days, what’s called a THC component was much lower, and we didn’t see the effects that we’re seeing now. The THC component of cannabis is what’s causing the mental health harm. The THC component has gone up from 4 percent to 20 percent, sometimes 30 percent.

What we have to realize is, because it’s regulated but it’s not regulated…. They actually have labels that they stick on it that you can peel off, which shows that it’s, first of all, not made locally, and it’s false advertising. They’ve tested the amounts, and the labels are wrong, if they’re actually labelled. A lot of times they’re wrong, especially if they’re unregulated.

Taking all that into context, if we look at vaping cannabis, you have over 14 times the risk of psychosis than in the general population. If you vape cannabis or use cannabis in any way, you have 241 times the risk in three years of getting schizophrenia, and schizophrenia is usually a lifelong disease associated with multiple hospital admissions, early death, and I could go on and on. Those are the real stats. So if we’re looking at excluding the substance….

There are people that actually use cannabis in a way that is helpful. I’m not saying that we should say nobody should be using it. That’s not at all what I’m saying.

What I’m saying is, if we’re going to be…. And the reason I’m saying that is that alcohol is actually the number one cause of health care issues. We don’t prevent people from drinking, right? But we tell them what the risks are. With cannabis, what has happened is the government legalized a substance without education, and the harms when we’re talking…. Kids vaping today have 241 times the risk of schizophrenia. It’s mind-boggling.

If I look again at your bill here, disease, injury or illness…. “Physical or mental injury or illness” is (a), so I’m assuming…. I’m not sure if that’s the most important one, but it’s (a). It’s a part of the health recovery cost.

How much…? If this is health recovery costs, I still want to understand the concept of why it was excluded in this bill.

[2:05 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: Just building off my last answer to a similar question, it’s that this method or piece of health care cost recovery is not by any means a tool to solve every challenge that exists with recovering health care costs. I appreciate that the member has personal experience as somebody who works as a doctor and the perspectives of what’s showing up.

I want to just take it back a little bit. So if we think about this kind of litigation tool, it’s set up to target deceptive marketing practices that are leading to health care costs. So there’s a wrongdoer, and then there’s an ask for compensation for the harms that were caused by that wrongdoing. That is the model that we’ve developed in terms of health care cost recovery successfully in B.C.

I think the questions that were raised related to cannabis and its harms and how it shows up…. There is a very complex system of federal and provincial regulation and enforcement related to those types of questions.

The cannabis industry is a younger industry than the tobacco industry. What we’ve seen over the decades with tobacco has meant that we have had to meet them in court. It’s a similar line with the opioid companies, where the marketing was focused on a product, hiding its impacts to health and/or perpetuating a product that was harmful and addictive. That wrongdoing is what captures those industries into a type of litigation-style legislation that you see before you.

So when we’re talking about cannabis and the harms and the potential, it’s certainly something that we will watch at the AG’s ministry. But just to say that this tool is not the tool that answers other questions about regulation and oversight and what products can or can’t be sold. That’s a federal and provincial matter. But there may be a time where there is a situation with that industry, along with others, that there is a space for this type of litigation, like the legislation that leads to this type of litigation.

[2:10 p.m.]

Brennan Day: I have a few more questions on this, because I think there’s a serious grey area and some massive overlap between the vaporized cannabis devices and the vaporized tobacco or nicotine delivery devices.

If I am making a device to burn nicotine vaping products, which are included in this act by definition, and you’ve excluded cannabis accessory devices in section 1 of the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act under excluded devices specifically, how are you going to differentiate those devices when they’re effectively the identical thing? One’s a hammer. The other one’s a hammer. They do the same thing.

If I’m the manufacturer of device A, how will you exclude misuse of that device? If I’m the company that’s going to be now marketing these devices, I’m just going to now call it a cannabis-burning device and market it that way. What kind of cover does that give them? What kind of liability does that open you up to? That’s a massive grey area that is opened up here by not including the cannabis devices.

Hon. Niki Sharma: It sounds like what the member is describing is in line with what we’re going after. If there is a business practice, in the hypothetical given, that is actually deceptive in the sense of what the product is used for and how it’s used, I think we could make a strong argument that this is included here and that it would be captured by any future litigation.

Brennan Day: Okay. With that, I can think of a couple more hypotheticals. We’ll use hypotheticals because they’re probably easiest.

Excluded substance — “a substance or combination of substances that contains cannabis, as defined in section 1 of the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act.”

When we look at the manufacturing and the definition of “manufacture” shown here: “includes, for a vaping product, the production, assembly and packaging of the product.”

“‘Manufacturer’ means a person who manufactures or has manufactured a vaping product and a person who, in the past or currently, causes, directly or indirectly, through arrangements with contractors, subcontractors, licensees, franchisees or others, the manufacture of a vaping product; for any fiscal year of the person, derives at least 10 percent of revenues, determined on a consolidated basis in accordance, etc.; engages in or causes, directly or indirectly, other persons to engage in promoting a vaping product.”

I guess the question here would be exactly the same as for the device. If I add cannabis or THC or some derivative of marijuana to a device — I can go pick that up, by the way, a block away, just down the road — that has both marijuana and nicotine in it, how will that be treated? Anybody that mixes them up in any format…. Would those be excluded if they contain marijuana and nicotine, and how would this deal with that?

[2:15 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: As I mentioned before, cannabis is a very regulated, complicated regime. In the instance described, you would be doing something illegal that could be subject to enforcement, because, under federal regulation, cannabis can’t be mixed with nicotine. In that event, if it’s happening, there should be enforcement against that.

Brennan Day: But as we earlier discussed, for this market, 90 percent of the market is illicit. I’m struggling to understand who the government exactly will be going after, because you’ve made it extremely broad.

You’re not allowed to go after anything that’s covered under cannabis, which is also poorly enforced in this province in terms of the black market, which we’ve had for generations. And now we have you going after 10 percent of the market, which is, like you say, those large actors, Big Tobacco, that are now marketing this as a harm reduction device. You’re saying they’re deceptively marketing it to youth. Again, 90 percent of that market is now black market.

I fail to understand who you would go after or how you even would attempt to go after, effectively, shell companies that don’t really exist or operate honestly.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I think we talked before about how it doesn’t distinguish between regulated or unregulated, or who’s abiding by the laws or not. Absolutely, I think these tools of this litigation…. We’ve seen success meeting a range of companies — on the opioid matter and on tobacco — in court because of what they’re doing across, usually, not just our jurisdiction.

The beauty of this type of legislation, which is what I love about it almost the most, is that when we lead in British Columbia by meeting these people in court, other provinces — because we set the class as governments, and I talked about the legislation across other jurisdictions that joined it — can meet us also. It becomes a national class action.

There are litigation tools when it comes to which company is which and how to go after people. We have very sophisticated lawyers that can dig down into who’s doing what and where. And when you lead something like a national-level class action, it gives you that much more power and ability to change the marketplace and make people accountable for what they’re doing.

Brennan Day: I’ll try to frame the question differently.

With tobacco, it was extremely defined who you were going after for the recovery. There was a set group of companies. They were well known. Then the same with opioids. There were major opioid manufacturers that were well known, whether that be Purdue or others, that were precipitating this problem.

This is not that. You’re not going to be going after one major manufacturer. People are mixing this stuff up on their kitchen sink and selling it as a product on the unregulated market. Again, I’ll just get back to…. Ninety percent of the products on the market right now, available right next door to here, are unregulated, and they don’t have that traceability.

Could you please provide an example, through any of the class action legislation that I’m shown here, where a small company that is operating in the black market — not the regulated market, because again, that’s only 10 percent — has been successfully gone after under the legislation either with opioids or tobacco?

[2:20 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: It’s drafted very broadly in the sense where it’s manufacturers, wholesalers and consultants. Consultants is also an interesting one that showed up in a case with the opioid, which is the consultants that advise them on how to develop their marketing strategy.

Just to say that I take the member’s question and point that every industry operates differently, and every industry has different actors in it.

I’ll just say that we would design, if we launched litigation, to go after who was appropriate in the sector, including big or small. In the opioid matter, there are, I think, over 50 defendants. Some of them are big, and some of them are small.

I can’t prejudge or predetermine what work would need to be done by our legal team if or when we launch that litigation. But it certainly would have to take into account how this industry shows up and who the actors are and who the most egregious are with respect to deceptive practices.

Brennan Day: I’ll get back to it again. Can you provide an example where this sort of class action type of legislation has been used to pursue black-market or grey-market actors? In the case of tobacco and opioids, those were all, despite all of their problems, legal, registered companies that had assets that were registered with shareholders, etc.

[2:25 p.m.]

These are not necessarily those companies. These are very small actors, necessarily, if they’re being imported in small quantities from overseas, part of larger businesses, potentially.

I’m just curious if there’s any example where that’s been successful.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I’m afraid I don’t have much of a different answer from the one that I gave to the question. It’s been really, actually, an interesting journey in terms of the style of litigation from Big Tobacco, as the member raised, to opioids, to versions of it like the one we’re proposing here.

We learned every time. We learned how to position it. We learned how to make it so it didn’t take so many decades to get through. We learned how to draft this type of legislation. And we were challenged. In the opioid matter, we were challenged, I don’t know, more than ten times. I don’t know how many times. Maybe 25 times?

Interjection.

Hon. Niki Sharma: Twenty-eight? So 28 times in court, all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada. And we won. We won, defending the public interest and defending people and the public on behalf of, basically, all of Canada. The leadership had started here.

The precedent that sets is the power of government to work in the public good and to meet companies that are acting in a way that causes such harm to our societies in court in a powerful way.

I can’t predetermine, at this stage, how that evolution would show up in this vaping. But I think the member raises excellent points about how the design and the way this industry shows up means that the tactics of which companies we go after and how we do is different, and it’s always different in each case. But the power of the method that’s been proven out in this province is something that I think we can all be proud of.

It was subsequent governments that helped lead some of this charge to victory, largely, and the largest settlement in history in tobacco. Opioid with Purdue — $130 million and still ongoing, the discussions. Winning at every level of court up to the Supreme Court of Canada — well, the most important levels of court — and now with this legislation. And the evolution will continue.

Brennan Day: Since you bring up the recovery of $130 million from Purdue, what was the cost of that litigation to British Columbians?

Hon. Niki Sharma: As I mentioned before, I think, in the tobacco, the legal fees are contingency-based. Just like the opioids. It’s ongoing, too, right? We’re still in active action with many of those defendants. Again, the costs, in terms of the ongoing legal costs, are nothing until…. It’s a contingency-based agreement.

Brennan Day: I think I’m going to jump around here a little bit. I’m waiting for a member. With three Houses open, it’s a little bit busy here.

Could the minister explain how the drafting of this bill aligns with the province’s obligations under DRIPA, particularly the commitments to co-developing legislation that impacts Indigenous economic activity, which outlined which Indigenous governments were consulted in accordance with those principles?

As we know, the illicit tobacco and vaping product market on the reserves is quite notable, certainly in my community and, I know, in many others around the province. I’m just wondering if any consultation was done there.

As you’ve outlined, you will be going after black-market and grey-market actors here. They would very much qualify, but they also are independent nations within the province of British Columbia, and I’m wondering how this legislation will impact them.

[2:30 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: All 204 First Nations and Métis Nation B.C. were informed about the legislation, and more detailed conversations after that. The ones that reached back out to us to say, “We want to talk about it further” — more detailed conversations happened with FNLC and Doig River First Nation.

Brennan Day: So two First Nations reached out to discuss this legislation?

Hon. Niki Sharma: All 204 were informed, and then those two reached out. Well, FNLC is not a nation.

Brennan Day: Okay, thank you.

Did the minister conduct any analysis of how the definitions in clause 1 apply to First Nations retailers, distributors or manufacturers operating specifically on reserve?

Hon. Niki Sharma: In terms of wholesalers, manufacturers and consultants, the definition is broad enough to include any types of those businesses that would be on a reserve. The question would be an assessment at the time of litigation decision-making about the evidence related to deceptive marketing practices or that kind of wrongdoing on how to pursue our litigation strategy.

Brennan Day: Could you outline if an impact modelling was done on how many Indigenous-owned retailers or producers fall within these definitions in British Columbia?

Hon. Niki Sharma: I think we’re…. It’s a little bit of the cart before the horse in terms of that question. This is a framework for litigation. It’s a framework. It’s not a litigation decision.

The framework for litigation under this legislation is broad in terms of its parameters, and then there would be litigation decisions related to that. There would be….

We wouldn’t take an impact assessment of every single aspect, barring…. You know, it would just be a waste of resources at this stage. What you would do is, at the time of deciding what type of litigation that you would be pursuing…. That would be the time to do it.

Brennan Day: Just to confirm, this legislation does allow the government to pursue litigation against First Nations manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Yeah, so I just really want to focus on the fact that it’s the companies that are doing wrong that we’re going after. We don’t limit it in the sense of where it is and who owns it. But the drive is: “Are you a wrongdoer that is causing public health harm related to these products by your actions?” In that sense, it includes anybody at this stage that would fit that category.

Brennan Day: Given the proliferation of on-reserve tobacco and vaping sales, I feel there’s clearly some shared responsibility in terms of the problem with this in the grey and black markets, as we talked about before.

[2:35 p.m.]

Can you outline to me, just because we’re using tobacco recovery as a framework, what amount of the tobacco recovery revenue that the province received and put on the books this year went back to First Nations health authorities, who we know have an extremely high prevalence of smoking, whether that’s traditionally prescribed or just cultural?

What’s going to be potentially apportioned to those First Nations health authorities that operate independently on reserve?

Hon. Niki Sharma: I welcome the question. I think it’s very much beyond this piece of legislation and vaping. That’s also a budget question that is not really related at all to what we’re talking about right here.

I just would ask for your guidance on that, Chair.

The Chair: Does the member have a different question?

Brennan Day: Certainly, I can frame it differently.

This is a health care recovery act, framed on the tobacco act and the opioid recovery act. Again, I think it’s fair to ask the question, the impact it’s going to have on First Nations businesses and their health authorities, given the large impact that tobacco use does have on the First Nations across this province.

I’m trying to understand what the benefits of this litigation and this act would be for those communities, given both their retailers are at risk of being sued, and there are fairly extensive costs for First Nations health authorities in treating these very conditions that this act seeks to remedy.

Hon. Niki Sharma: It gives me a chance to correct, I think, a bit of a misunderstanding. I heard the member say “retailers.” The wholesalers, manufacturers and consultants are captured. So just to correct that reference to retailers.

I would say, in the context, and, also, I think…. As sometimes happens with clause 1, we start to get into broad strokes or whatever, but I feel like we’re straying very far from the clauses before us.

I just would ask for your guidance on that, Chair.

In terms of answering the question, we have, in our health care system, a whole bunch of decisions that are made to fund entities like the First Nations Health Authority and their response to different…. That would be a question that the Ministry of Health, I’m sure, would be happy to guide the member through, as critic, about how much money we spend on supporting First Nations health.

I think we just opened up an Indigenous-led primary care centre, which is part of our work to respond to disproportionate and systemic issues in our health care system. Government continually funds things that are in response to the health care situation, particularly with First Nations.

Brennan Day: I’ll move into the retail question.

Could you please lay out for us exactly what the cut-off for a retailer is versus being considered a distributor or an importer? I think that’s a very important distinction, since a lot of these products are bought directly from overseas, imported to a small company with an import-export licence and then sold in the grey market.

As we’ve talked about before, 90 percent of the market in British Columbia is unregulated. Most of those are small retailers that are importing directly from overseas. I think it would be great to get some clarity around that, because that, obviously, is a huge source of potential revenue under this act.

[2:40 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: Going to the definition of wholesaler, it’s not distinguished, as the member suggests, around size of wholesaler. The definition is capturing a role in the system, so “a person who distributes, sells or offers for sale vaping products to distributors, retailers or other persons for resale.”

Brennan Day: Is a vape shop that buys directly from a manufacturer considered a wholesaler or a retailer, and how is that line drawn? I think it’s a fairly large grey area that’s going to encompass a lot of small businesses in B.C.

Hon. Niki Sharma: Sounds like what the member is describing is a retailer, so it wouldn’t be captured under wholesaler.

Brennan Day: Okay.

To clarify, if I’m a small retailer and I’m purchasing product from an overseas distributor or wholesaler, directly importing it, I would still be considered under the definition of a retailer.

Hon. Niki Sharma: That’s correct.

Brennan Day: We’re going to move on to…. There’s a bit of a missing definition when it comes to secondhand exposure here. As we know, that was a fairly substantial portion of the tobacco harms that were identified as a problem.

Does the inclusion of “exposed to” in the definition of “use” allow the government to recover costs for individuals exposed to secondhand vapour?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Just to talk through how vaping or secondhand exposure, as the member asks, works through these definitions. The first is “‘use,’ ‘use of,’ and ‘expose to’ mean, as applicable.’” You’ll see “expose to” means “the use of a vaping product, or the ingestion, inhalation, injection or application or assimilation of a vaping product, whether intentional or otherwise.”

[2:45 p.m.]

How that becomes useful is…. The next step is a causation question. It’s “vaping-related disease, injury or illness.” That definition says: “Means disease, injury or illness caused or contributed to by an individual’s use of or exposure to a vaping product.”

Brennan Day: Is there a specific reason that secondhand exposure wasn’t included here? I know, obviously, as we progressed, just using tobacco as our reference, that was a fairly large push — banning smoking in vehicles, etc. I mean, we can see people driving around with their vape going, smoke pouring out like Cheech and Chong these days.

Is there a reason secondhand exposure wasn’t specifically identified in this act?

Hon. Niki Sharma: I can agree that the term “secondhand exposure” was not added, but the concept is very much in there, and that’s what I described. It’s “expose to,” which is “the ingestion, inhalation, injection, application or assimilation….” So it’s that concept of secondhand smoke.

Brennan Day: We’re going to move on to the definition of “risk of disease.” I think here the government is trying to legislate liability for a hypothetical illness.

Could you illuminate us on which legal scholar or medical authority advised that risk should be compensable under a damages regime?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Asked and answered.

Brennan Day: If the bill is allowing action where no disease occurred….

I guess maybe we’ll go back to some more budget-driven questions in terms of what the potential recovery is. Do we know what the health authorities are spending on vape-related harms currently? Is there any anticipated growth in that? Are there any projections that we’re basing this on?

Obviously, if we’re proposing legislation to cover harms, there must be something that drove us to propose this legislation. Could you provide some background on that, please?

Hon. Niki Sharma: There’s a bit of a staging answer in terms of the question that the member asks. Actually, it’ll become a lot clearer once we go through other clauses of the bill, because it’ll talk about aggregate-level data and all the things that are part of this type of litigation. I will hold a full answer until we get there, because I think it’ll actually make more sense.

The answer will be that that staging and that work that we do in terms of quantifying comes later. But this sets up our ability to launch a litigation. It’s a framework piece of litigation.

I will just say that there is a reason that we’re here today and proposing this bill, and that’s from a lot of work that organizations like the B.C. Lung Foundation have done, which clearly have said that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances in the world and that its impact on a developing child’s brain is significant. We’re talking about reduced cognition, memory loss, comprehension issues. Those things are not things that necessarily will recover over time.

There was a McCreary study about vaping amongst youths 12 to 19. Vaping use was also linked to trying other nicotine products.

[2:50 p.m.]

So 63 percent of those who vaped had also smoked tobacco, compared to just 2 percent of those who hadn’t vaped. Similarly, 36 percent of vapers had tried nicotine pouches, while just 2 percent of non-vapers had used pouches. And 67 percent of regular users, youth only, say that they are vaping because they are addicted. That was one of the reasons that we’re here today.

Brennan Day: I’d like to propose an amendment to this bill, and I think it fits in here, but I’m going to ask a couple of questions first.

We’ve already sort of gone back and forth on whether it would just be the regulated market that would be gone after, which comprises about 10 percent of the market, or the 90 percent. We’ve gone back and forth. It is 100 percent of the market.

Now, it’s easy to say that there are bad actors in the market. Certainly I will not defend the tobacco lobbyists. But I feel that we have a significant potential here to drive out what little remains of the legal market, which is providing tax revenue to British Columbians.

I guess the question is: were any impact studies done to assess what impact that would have on the regulated market, in terms of projections? There is a very good chance, based on this regime, that we will see a further erosion of that regulated market in British Columbia.

Hon. Niki Sharma: We are going after wrongdoers. That is the whole purpose of this.

To the member’s point, I’m sure there are vaping companies that are following the rules — that aren’t undertaking deceptive practices that are going after youth, targeting youth to vape, leading to some of the things that I was talking about before — and that would like us to probably go after some of those people that aren’t.

This is focused on going after wrongdoers, and we as a government have consistently shown that we will go after those people and those companies that are prioritizing these profits that are causing harm to people and doing something that is obviously leading to a really harmful thing for our young people and their addictions. I don’t apologize for that.

Brennan Day: I think this amendment will be absolutely perfect, then, for everybody. I think we might actually get an amendment passed, which would be great to see.

I’ll just read the amendment now. I think that’s the procedure. It’s my first time, so excuse me for my ignorance here.

[CLAUSE 1, in the proposed definition of “vaping-related wrong”, is amended by deleting the text shown as struck and adding the underlined text as shown:

“vaping-related wrong” means

(a) a tort that is committed in British Columbia by a manufacturer, wholesaler or consultant and that causes or contributes to vaping-related disease, injury or illness, or

(b) in an action under section 2 (1), a breach by a manufacturer, wholesaler or consultant of a common law, equitable or statutory duty or obligation owed to persons in British Columbia who have used or been exposed to or might use or be exposed to a vaping product;, but does not include any action taken by a manufacturer, wholesaler or consultant that fully complies with all applicable federal and provincial laws and does not constitute deceptive marketing or product design;]

[2:55 p.m.]

The Chair: Member, would you like to make any further remarks related to the amendment?

On the amendment.

Brennan Day: Clause 1 is the architecture of the bill. It’s the frame that every other clause is built upon. As we’ve discussed back and forth here, this is to go after dishonest actors and to not discourage honest actors operating within a framework regulated and overseen by either the federal or provincial government.

This amendment is not complex. It isn’t ideological. It doesn’t weaken the bill in any meaningful way, based on what I’ve heard from the minister. It simply introduces the most basic safeguard. If a business complies fully with the law, federal and provincial, and did not mislead consumers, it should not be treated as a wrongdoer under this act. That principle should not be controversial in a democracy grounded in the rule of law. We want to encourage legal businesses to operate legally and honestly in British Columbia.

Nobody in this chamber wants to shield companies that targeted youth, concealed risks, engineered products to be more addictive or misrepresented the contents of what they were selling. Those actors should certainly be held accountable, and this amendment does not change that.

What it does do is prevent something deeply unfair and, frankly, counterproductive to the entire purpose of this legislation and regulation of this product category. The idea that a multinational corporation that set out to addict minors is treated exactly the same as a small distributor that’s following all of the rules the Legislature has put in place doesn’t make any sense. As clause 1 is written, the act makes no distinction between the bad actors or the compliant ones. It treats them the same, which I believe is reasonable.

I’m glad we’re going after the bad actors, but it should also treat responsible behaviour correctly. We don’t want to expose businesses that did everything right to the same sweeping liabilities as those who deliberately did everything wrong. As we know, 90 percent of the vaping products sold in British Columbia are already being sold under the grey or black market. That’s not justice, and it’s certainly not good policy.

This amendment restores the commonsense principle that liability should follow misconduct — not proximity, not participation in the supply chain, not the mere existence in the marketplace, but misconduct.

This amendment does five essential things. It protects legitimate actors. It protects compliant actors. It preserves full accountability for bad actors. It brings the bill back into alignment with the foundations, as you have described, of this bill. And it strengthens fairness and credibility of this act.

If the minister’s position is that this bill only targets those who have engaged in harmful conduct, then the government should have no difficulty supporting an amendment that ensures that outcome. If the objective is to pursue those who misled the public, then this amendment reinforces rather than weakens that goal.

This is not an attempt to narrow the scope of the bill. This is not an attempt to undermine its purpose. It is an attempt to make sure that the bill functions as intended and that we do not send a message to British Columbia’s law-abiding businesses that compliance doesn’t matter, that following the rules offers no protection and that the government sees no distinction between those that played by the book and those who broke every page of it.

Fairness matters, and proportionality also matters. The integrity of the legislative process matters, and punishing businesses that are working under the framework laid out by this government should certainly be protected. This amendment is a safeguard against overreach and a safeguard against unintended harm. It will also ensure that we do protect the regulated market that does exist here in British Columbia, however small it may be, and I certainly encourage the minister to support this amendment.

The Chair: The committee will take a short recess while the amendment is considered by the Chair and copies are distributed to all members.

The committee recessed from 2:59 p.m. to 3:07 p.m.

[Sunita Dhir in the chair.]

The Chair: Members, I call the committee back to order.

The Chair has reviewed the amendment and found it to be in order.

We are on the amendment to clause 1.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I really do appreciate where this amendment comes from and want to share that sentiment.

The reason that I can’t support it is for a few reasons, the first one being that it’s just not necessary. The way that this definition is drafted, it already captures exactly what the member is adding, so that’s the first issue. It’s not necessary. Vape-related wrongdoing means a tort. It has to be a tort or a breach. So because it has to be a tort or a breach, what the member has referred to as additions is already captured.

The second is this legal sentiment of surplusage, which means don’t add more words to something when you don’t need to, or to a concept, because it actually can have unforeseen consequences. I’ll just give an example of that. I think one of the things is that the way this is drafted, it actually is limiting in the sense where it says: “complies with all applicable federal and provincial laws and does not constitute deceptive practices or product design.”

The reason that those two things are limiting…. With this amendment, inadvertently what you would be doing is saying it has to be a tort or a breach, and also, it can only be either a deceptive marketing practice or product design. Now, we raised an example of secondhand smoke. The member raised it as a question of, is it captured? Well, I think you could make a strong argument with this amendment that, actually, it’s not.

So you see that with adding this type of language, you’re actually introducing potential pitfalls to the whole regime. The cleanest….

[3:10 p.m.]

Though I agree, and I think it is captured in (a) and (b), that if a company is following all federal and provincial laws and doesn’t do deceptive marketing practices, they’re likely not included. But it’s already captured in there because it has to be a tort or it has to be a breach of common law, equitable or statutory duty or obligation owed to a person in British Columbia.

That’s the reason that I don’t support the amendment.

Steve Kooner: I’m going to speak in support of this amendment for a few reasons. There’s always a presumption for clarity when we’re looking at statutes. I know that there are a lot of stakeholders out there that are very concerned about this legislation and what impact it will have on them. There has been some concern whether there was some proper consultation done on this.

Although the Attorney General has mentioned that this…. According to the Attorney General, this applies specifically to torts and breaches of duty. It doesn’t hurt to clarify the section — that it will not apply to situations where manufacturers were acting pursuant to the law.

We do see in a lot of legislation that gets brought forward here…. You ask in one place: “Why did you make an amendment to this definition?” Then we get: “Why did you make an amendment to this definition when you’ve already made amendments to this definition earlier on in this legislation?” So this is the second time you’re doing it.

The government seems to not have a problem in having some redundancy in regards to other legislation. So now we are dealing with legislation where some stakeholders are actually speaking that there hasn’t been enough consultation here. They want clarity in terms of how this affects their legal rights.

What this provision, this addition, does here…. It makes it very clear, if these manufacturers, wholesalers or consultants fully complied with applicable federal and provincial laws, and they weren’t involved with any sort of deceptive marketing or product design….

It makes it clear. You follow the law, and there should be no liability if you do follow the law and you’re all law-complying.

Those are my submissions. I think this House should be in favour of clarity, having even more clarity, especially when there are some stakeholders complaining that there hasn’t been enough consultation in regards to their issues.

I will be supporting this amendment.

Hon. Niki Sharma: Just appreciating the sentiment and the concept of clarity. As I mentioned before, the amendment actually does the opposite of bringing clarity. It would add a limitation and potential confusion in what the clean wording of (a) and (b) says, which would all recapture law-abiding companies.

For those reasons, I don’t support the amendment.

The Chair: Seeing no further debate, shall the amendment to clause 1 pass?

Division has been called.

[3:15 p.m. - 3:20 p.m.]

Members, is it okay if we waive the time?

Leave not granted.

The Chair: Okay. We will wait for two minutes and 27 seconds.

Before putting the question, I remind all members that only the members of Section A or their duly appointed substitutes are authorized to vote.

The question is: shall the amendment to clause 1 pass?

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 3
Kooner	Mok	Williams
NAYS — 5
Routledge	Krieger	Lajeunesse
Sharma		Gibson

The Chair: Members, let’s take a 15-minute break.

The committee recessed from 3:25 p.m. to 3:42 p.m.

[Sunita Dhir in the chair.]

The Chair: Members, I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 24, Vaping Product Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, back to order. We are on clause 1.

Brennan Day: I’m just going to loop back to the “specified substances” definition. My understanding of vaping products is that many of them do not contain nicotine. I’d just like some explanation and clarification to ensure that things such as non-nicotine substances, herbals or other compositions like that will not be covered under this act.

Hon. Niki Sharma: The specified substance — I think it’s in subsection (a) — must have nicotine.

Brennan Day: Okay.

The harms of vaping are not necessarily to do with the nicotine. That’s the addictive property in it, but there are many other substances that they add to either make it combust better, vaporize better. In all likelihood, we’re going to find, as we go through this transition…. I’m sure there are studies out there already showing that the additives are actually a significant contributor to the harm, not the nicotine.

With that in mind, then, why are we limiting it only to products that contain nicotine? Is it the addictive property or the actual harm of nicotine that is the subject of the bill?

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: We already talked about nicotine and why it’s in there and the evidence of it being one of the most addictive substances.

But you note that the construction of it doesn’t exclude things like additives. So unless it’s an excluded substance, as long as it includes nicotine as well, the additives also could be causing harm.

Elenore Sturko: Thank you to the minister, her staff and members of the committee for allowing me to participate in this debate in committee stage of Bill 24.

Many of the vapes available for consumption in British Columbia today are illicit vapes. Compliance checks that were done over the last couple of years found that in the majority of stores in British Columbia that sell vapes and vape products, the compliance rate of having vapes that are abiding by B.C.’s laws and those that are not….

That’s vapes that have a higher concentration of nicotine, chemicals identified in Health Canada testing that are not supposed to be used in vapes in British Columbia and just more puffs, or whatever it’s called, more doses inside of a single device than is actually allowed in British Columbia.

We have also, I would say, not a lot of enforcement being done in terms of making sure that the market share of devices and substances that are available for purchase in B.C. stores and vape shops is actually compliant right now with our laws.

We’re introducing this legislation as a means of helping recover costs from people who’ve become ill or injured as a result of consuming these types of products. Can the minister please explain…?

How is it that legislation like this does not place the blame solely on those who are compliant with our laws, who right now are actually abiding by the regulations that are put forth by this government — they’re complying with the formulations that are approved by Health Canada; and that they’re not going to be having to supplement and pay for damages caused by bad actors, by illicit companies, those that are actually potentially causing harm because their products are not approved for use?

They’re overpowered. They’re over the amount of nicotine. They have more doses. So how is it…? Can the minister please provide information on how this legislation ensures that those who are abiding by the rules are not actually having to then pay for the illnesses and injuries caused by those who are non-compliant?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Just to clarify, it doesn’t. It doesn’t restrict it to only…. If we’re talking about illicit or non-illicit markets, as we were talking about before, it’s about attaching ourselves to wrongdoers. Wrongdoers are anybody that’s breaching…. It’s a manufacturer, wholesaler or consultant that fits into the definitions that we’ve put out there, but it doesn’t distinguish between.

To the member’s question, just to correct that, we’re not. And we expect this is of many tools that will go after wrongdoers and the harms that they have caused people.

Elenore Sturko: I thank the minister for that explanation, that clarification.

[3:50 p.m.]

Perhaps, then, the minister can explain how the government, apart from going after multinational companies and others who are abiding by the rules, who are those that are following the rules for manufacturing these products, which are legal…. People do have a choice whether or not they use these products.

Can the minister please explain for the people of the province how it is that they will go after wrongdoers who are manufacturing these things against the rules?

How do we really clarify between what illnesses are caused because someone is not following our rules currently, not abiding by our regulations, and those people who are abiding by the regulations?

Does the minister think it’s fair that those who are abiding by the current laws and regulations with respect to vapes have to pay for damages that could be, actually, caused by wrongdoers who are not following our rules?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Again, I think the member is making a distinction that we haven’t made in the legislation. I think the summary is that we’re overburdening people that are following rules compared to the people that aren’t. That’s just not anything that’s found in the construction of this bill. It doesn’t select one over another.

We’re going after wrongdoers. So it’s those things that are in the wrongdoer category, like deceptive marketing or product design, that lead to vaping-related harms and then, therefore, health costs that we would be seeking to recover.

Elenore Sturko: I thank the minister for that clarification.

I understand the premise of this bill, to go after recovering costs from wrongdoers — people who use deceptive marketing, for example, the minister states, who would market these types of products to children. That’s something really big that we want to avoid, of course, in British Columbia.

But we have a significant problem in British Columbia with illicit vapes, with products, including cannabis products, that are containing harmful substances that could potentially be with flavours and marketing that is not appropriate for children, that might, in fact, lure new, novel users to these products and lead to problems in the future.

How does the government balance what’s in Bill 24 — going after the fact, afterwards, when people may have already been injured or become ill as a result of using these products — with the fact that we are doing an incredibly small amount of enforcement to prevent these possible wrongdoers at the source, who are bringing it into this province and selling for a profit, evading taxes, evading PST, excise?

Why are we not doing more on the enforcement? Why is the government so interested in going after, only after the fact, when you have, maybe, lung cancer, instead of going after these people who are bringing these illicit vapes and who continue to market them and be non-compliant in retail stores now?

[3:55 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: As I was talking about before, this isn’t the only tool that we have in terms of the harms of vaping. This is one tool we’ve seen that has been successful in a recovery aspect, of recovering health care costs.

The member’s right. We have to prevent harm, which is essentially the question — that we should be actively preventing harm.

What we found, as part of the tools, is when you go after bigger companies for damages, it is a way to change behaviour. It’s not the only way, and it’s not the only way that we as a government should be or are doing. But with monetary damages — like the tobacco companies, resulting in billions of dollars; or with the opioid companies, resulting in some going bankrupt for some of the actions they took — that is a lesson to corporations that act badly that there will be reckoning in court someday.

[Jennifer Blatherwick in the chair.]

I just want to say we are waiting for some more information — I didn’t want to stall the debate because it’s a different ministry that handles enforcement — about enforcement measures, which, I think, is to the member’s point about what we do to go after bad actors in vaping that are selling products that they shouldn’t or that are in violation of Health Canada.

To give an idea of what I do know related to the enforcement of vaping-related laws, it’s a collaboration between tobacco- and vape-related enforcement officers, local law enforcement, bylaw officers and other regulatory bodies. Environmental health officers also have enforcement powers under the Public Health Act to enforce e-substances regulations, while police and conservation officers can issue violation tickets for tobacco and vaping-related contraventions.

So anybody who’s listening, if they see that there is a shop on their block or something close to them that is selling substances that are illegal, there are enforcement officers that are ready to respond. And certainly, there are other things that are enforcement measures, that are tools that the police can use.

[4:00 p.m.]

We’re waiting for more information on recent enforcement actions that I just don’t have yet, but when I get it, I could get that to the member.

Elenore Sturko: Thank you to the Attorney General for that answer.

I just have one more question for now, and then I’ll turn it back over to my colleagues. It’s about having this type of legislation in place, where the potential consequence for those who are abiding by the current regulations with respect to substances, how they’re made, where they can be sold, those types of….

There are actually quite a lot of restrictions, rightfully so, on tobacco and nicotine companies, because we want to be able to reduce the number of people that smoke or ingest substances that can be harmful to them.

If we create a regulatory environment, including putting up the civil liability to these companies, is the minister concerned at all…? What are her thoughts about the fact that when you make the environment very, very difficult for those playing on the even playing field, let’s just say, they may leave the market? That creates, actually, a bigger market share for the bad actors. It creates a bigger place on the shelf for those who aren’t abiding by the rules.

Then the market share for people who are producing the vapes, like I said, the overcharged cartridges or that have more doses in them…. Is there risk here? Has the government considered the risk that tougher regulations and the ability to go after companies like this might actually shrink the market share of those who are not in the illicit side of this industry?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Again, there’s no distinction in here, but I think maybe the assumption with that question is that we are purposely going to target law-abiding entities. No, that’s not true. What this legislation does is allows us to get litigation for wrongdoers. The definitions of vaping-related harms are related to a tort or a breach of a common-law liability that resulted in harm and health care costs.

There’s nothing in here that is a distinction between different illicit and non-illicit companies. What we want to create is an industry that doesn’t have wrongdoers in it that cause harm to British Columbians.

Elenore Sturko: I appreciate that. Thank you for the response.

A couple of follow-up questions to the Attorney General. If this is legislation that only has wrongdoers, and it doesn’t have a distinction between those who are currently following the rules on what these vapes and products can be made up of and those who don’t care…. Those who are manufacturing these products that are not approved for sale but that are still on the shelves here in British Columbia — they don’t care. They don’t.

My question, really…. As this is legislation that doesn’t pay attention to the one who is following the rules, why do we allow it at all? If everybody is a wrongdoer in this vape product, according to the legislation in the way it is, because the amendment by my friend here didn’t pass, we have no distinction as to what a wrongdoer is.

Anyone who sells vapes — is that what it’s going to be in British Columbia? If you sell these products and someone gets sick, if you’re the one who has a store, if you’re the one who sells them at a gas station, whether these are illicit products or not illicit products — is the government saying that everybody who sells these products today is a wrongdoer?

If that’s the case, why is it limited to vapes? Why not alcohol? Why not cheeseburgers? Why not pizzas? We have a lot of things that we sell in this province that people make choices about, personal choices. Why is it, then, that everybody is a wrongdoer, whether you’re following the rules or not? Why not just outlaw vapes, then?

[4:05 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: Again, I think I’ve answered this a few times now. We’re going after wrongdoers, and maybe those companies that, as the member said, don’t care will start caring if there are lawsuits against them for recovery, for the damages that their products cost.

We already walked through, in quite some detail during the amendment, why “vaping-related wrong” already captures what the amendment was trying to make…. We’re not going after law-abiding manufacturers, consultants or wholesalers. We’re going after wrongdoers.

Brennan Day: Could the minister please outline why there are inconsistencies between the definitions in the federal Tobacco and Vaping Products Act and in this act?

With those changes, could you outline why they were made? Is it to improve enforcement, improve clarity? It does seem like there are quite a few discrepancies, and it seems like this could cause some confusion if this does get taken, as is intended by this act, for a potentially broader federal suit.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I think it would help me answer the question if we could take what discrepancies in particular the member is talking about. If he could read them out, then I could provide an answer.

Brennan Day: I’ll have to come back with the list. There are quite a few that we found, but I don’t have them here with me right now.

I’ll pass this over to my colleague from North Island, and I’ll try and drag those up.

Anna Kindy: I’m going to come back to the cannabis issue, because I feel quite strongly about it.

The Attorney General repeatedly said that it’s about targeting, because youth are being targeted with vapes, and the harms done.

In terms of nicotine versus…. I just want to put in a sideline. Before we talk about cannabis again, can the Attorney General clarify to me what is causing harm with vaping if we’re taking…? Let’s just move to nicotine for a while. Is it the nicotine, or is it actually the vaping products?

Hon. Niki Sharma: We were talking about this a little bit before, that the definition is nicotine, and it could be also, with that definition, additives or other parts of the vaping product.

The reason that nicotine is so important is that experts…. I’m sure the member knows that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances in the world — this is from the B.C. Lung Foundation — and its impact on a developing child’s brain is significant. We’re talking about reduced cognition, memory loss and comprehension issues. Those are not things that will, necessarily, recover over time.

Anna Kindy: Thank you to the Attorney General.

When she started talking about the bad effects of nicotine, I just went back to cannabis, thinking about how much worse they actually are, in the effects. We all know it.

[4:10 p.m.]

I mean, kids smoke, and yes, it can affect in a certain way. It is highly addictive, I agree. But so is cannabis, and the effects of cannabis in terms of health are much worse, if you look at statistics.

Statistically speaking, and looking at hospital visits, again, alcohol is first. A member here mentioned about: why are we not going after alcohol? Why are we not going after cheeseburgers? Yesterday I talked about cookies. It seems very narrow and targeted.

If we look at the vaping products themselves, unflavoured products have a mean number of nine chemicals, and flavoured, up to 22 and more. So going back to the question…. There are multiple questions here.

First of all, there’s no labelling requirement for vaping products. How do we actually decipher if the health issue was related to the nicotine or to the chemicals added? Then how do we decipher between the regulated and unregulated? The unregulated — 90 percent is what’s on the market. That’s what people actually access. It makes it quite complex.

I just want to ask the question regarding the mean number of 14 chemicals. What are the thoughts on going after that aspect of it? Has it been even thought about?

Hon. Niki Sharma: There’s no…. The way that this legislation is drafted, it’s nicotine. It must contain some kind of nicotine. But all the other, as I mentioned, additives or some of the 14 ingredients…. If it leads to a vaping-related harm, and it’s not excluded, then it would be part of what the litigation would focus on.

Anna Kindy: Thank you for that answer.

Again, how can you go after something when you don’t know what the actual ingredients are? In this legislation, there’s no requirement for finding out what actual ingredients are used during the vaping.

Also, the second thing important to talk about here is the unregulated marketing, where if there is even labelling of the quantity of nicotine in the liquid, it’s actually false. I’m just trying to wrap my head around how that’s going to happen.

Hon. Niki Sharma: Two aspects to that.

On one hand, there are labelling requirements that are set out as a regulation federally, but also, litigation allows for a discovery process. That discovery process is a very powerful tool for litigants to get information about other parties, and in this case, it would be information about potential ingredients that are contained in their substances.

Anna Kindy: Again, knowing that harms usually are done through time…. It’s not like you’ve vaped, and that is the vaping product that caused this. We have to look at the history of vaping, right? People will often change what they vape. They might go to a different vaping producer. They might actually, again, go to the non-regulated.

How can you say, through discovery, you’ll know what is causing the harm, when through a lifetime of vaping, or years of vaping, you change products? I don’t understand that.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I think this is better answered once we get to clause 7, because it talks about the type of evidence and standard and aggregate-level, population-level harm that is the construction of these types of litigation.

Anna Kindy: I’m going to summarize quickly and then go to an amendment, hopefully, that will be considered.

[4:15 p.m.]

Reiterating again that cannabis is the second…. Alcohol is the first reason people go to emergency departments. Cannabis is the second reason. One of the reasons is hyperemesis, where people can’t stop vomiting. That can actually be prolonged, right? It can be very damaging.

I also talked about the rate of psychosis being 14 times the general population. The rate of schizophrenia within three years of vaping cannabis is over 240 times the general population. The cost of schizophrenia, lifetime cost, is humongous, and also the cost to the patients themselves. We’re talking harm to…. If we’re talking three years of vaping, we’re looking at somebody who starts at 15 and can be schizophrenic at 18. Three years — that’s all it takes. It can happen before then, but on an average, three years, 240 times.

I’d like to bring forward my amendment here:

[CLAUSE 1, in the proposed definitions of “excluded device” and “excluded substance”, by deleting the text shown as struck out:

“excluded device” means the following:

(a) a cannabis accessory, as defined in section 1 of the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act;

(b) a prescribed device;

“excluded substance” means the following:

(a) a substance or combination of substances that contains cannabis, as defined in section 1 of the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act;

(b) a prescribed substance or combination of substances;]

The Chair: Would you like to speak to the amendment?

On the amendment.

Anna Kindy: The reason I’m bringing this forward is I think the intent is actually…. When I first heard the title, Vaping Product Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, I thought: “Good idea.” I thought it was going to be inclusive and would actually not only recover health care costs but also that it would be a way of safeguarding our kids that are being targeted by manufacturers. But unfortunately, this bill has been narrowed, and it has deleted substances and devices.

I think it would be important to maybe consider that devices can overlap. Like the MLA from Comox mentioned, the device can be used for either vaping cannabis or vaping nicotine. That’s the same device. So by excluding, we’re actually excluding a device, because if you use it for cannabis, it’s okay. Same injury, but it’s okay. If you use it for nicotine, we’re going to go after you. I would argue cannabis is as addictive. Ask anybody who’s addicted to cannabis. It’s very hard to stop if you’ve been a long-term user.

Also, in terms of health care recovery costs, I think cannabis is…. Again, I’m not saying that it doesn’t have its uses. Certain people do get benefits if done appropriately, but there is that element of harm, which is very real. You mentioned that part of the government’s role is education, and I think it would be a good way of educating not only our children but the general population as to the potential harm of cannabis. So I would very much appreciate it if it was included in the change.

The Chair: We’ll take a short recess to make copies of the amendment and distribute.

The committee recessed from 4:18 p.m. to 4:35 p.m.

[Jennifer Blatherwick in the chair.]

The Chair: I call the Committee of the Whole on Bill 24 back to order.

We are on the amendment to clause 1. The Chair finds the amendment in order.

The mover has already spoken. Would the AG like to respond?

Hon. Niki Sharma: I think we’ve had a good discussion during this clause 1 definitions section about the concerns on all the harms that we all share — which, I think, is the underlying goal, protecting young people. So I just think that that discussion has been helpful and useful.

The reasons that I don’t support this amendment are for a few reasons that I think I’ve talked through.

One is that when we design these…. I’ll just start with this. When we design these pieces of legislation, they’re done so in a way, like with the lessons we learned from tobacco and the opioid legislation, to target an industry and to target the wrongdoers that are in that industry.

You can’t just remove the sections as the member suggests here and think that that leads to a litigation that isn’t like just profoundly different. If there were, at some stage, a need and an evidence to say we’re going after cannabis because of harms, it would be a separate legislative statute that would have to guide the understanding of that industry and how to do that.

The concerns I would have about this are a few things.

First of all, because it’s regulated differently, the regulations are federal and provincial, and — I think I talked about this earlier — cannabis regulation is very complicated. Therefore, the enforcement that governments do related to some of the harms that the member has suggested have different tools associated with them and different fines, and it’s a different regime. The actors are also different.

When you design a litigation, the way these class actions work is it’s a defined group of actors that you choose to go to that are companies that participate in this. I think this introduces a little bit of a grey area, then, that would make it hard to manage that kind of decision-making. And the evidence you would need is another big difference.

If you think about a piece of litigation and you’re trying to show causation, cannabis would be very different than the nicotine and vaping products. Even though these changes may seem like they’re small, there was a policy intent behind making sure that we were circling ourselves around a nicotine-based industry. That was part of the reason for it.

And it’s a young industry. I mentioned other government enforcement tools there, but it’s a young industry in the sense where we don’t have the pattern of behaviour and history that we have for Big Tobacco. What we have is evidence that we believe shows that Big Tobacco very deliberately pivoted into vaping, very deliberately, in order to addict a whole generation of people back on nicotine.

That’s a pattern of behaviour that we’ve seen in an industry that’s been around for a long time that we’ve been holding them accountable for. So this is part of a decades-long fight that we’ve been a part of in this province, and leading the way, related to nicotine addiction and its impact on young people and people of all ages, and the health impacts and the recovery of damages.

The purpose is rooted in all of those things that the legislation was designed in the way it’s designed right now. And I will say that because of the model we’ve developed in B.C., that I think we can all be proud of, related to these types of class actions, absolutely we would look at other….

If there is evidence of wrongdoing and deceptive marketing or tactics of those sorts that we could make a tort breach or other kinds of breaches of statutory duties of companies that led to population-level harms…. This is the type of model that we’ve developed here in B.C.

[4:40 p.m.]

I mean, I don’t know who’s going to be the AG in the future in many successive governments, but it is a model that we’ve developed here in B.C. that has that ability to go after people.

For those reasons, I don’t support these amendments, but I appreciate the discussion.

Anna Kindy: We know that the devices themselves are used to either vape nicotine or vape cannabis. We talked about the devices themselves being harmful.

The bill itself…. I’ll repeat it. “The bill provides to the government the opportunity to recoup some of the health care expenses it is required to incur as a result of health ills caused by vaping products.”

I think if you look at the intent, you’re sort of seeming to target tobacco companies. Cannabis companies…. I’m not sure what world we live in, but it doesn’t take a lot of research to see that at this point in time, cannabis products are causing harm in a short span. We know that. We know that through EVALI, which is both for cannabis and nicotine, which is related to lung injury.

Let me just state a couple of other statistics that are important here to state. When you say you’re going to legislate in a future time…. Every year matters. Every year means more kids developing psychosis and schizophrenia and EVALI and whatever else.

I think time is of the essence here. I think this bill is an opportunity to be able to say: “We know that your tactics….” The same tactics that are used by the nicotine industry or the cigarette industry are used by the cannabis industry.

If you’re looking at cannabis, it’s reported by one-third of youth who vape. How many youth vape right now? One-third of them are vaping cannabis. We know the health effects. I’ve described it here, in terms of the lung injury and the psychosis and schizophrenia.

We know, as well, that the rate of tobacco use in North America has been decreasing steadily, and the rates of cannabis use among youth under 18 have trended downwards since the turn of the century. But nicotine and cannabis vaping has seen unprecedented increases in popularity among youth in a span of less than a decade. This is happening now.

Kids were smoking less. It was working. Whatever we were doing was working, and not as many kids were smoking. But in the last ten years, what we’re seeing is this huge uptick of vaping, not only vaping nicotine but cannabis.

I think I can reiterate that every year matters. That means that many more kids are impacted with long-term — all those five, your list of five — physical health effects. It’s serious.

Again, one-third of adolescents who report e-cigarette use also use the same vaping device to consume cannabis — the same vaping device.

This bill. As far as I’m concerned, cannabis belongs with it because they’re using the same device. And the device itself…. We talked about the number of chemicals involved to aerosolize. They’re the same chemicals involved. We’re excluding cannabis, when the 14 other chemicals are the same. And those 14 chemicals are causing harm, so it makes no sense to me to exclude it. It’s the same device being used for cannabis and nicotine.

[4:45 p.m.]

We’re looking at harms as well. Many of us have children. This is the reality. When my husband talked to me about the two vaping devices…. This is just in a month’s time — those kids that needed hand surgery because the device exploded in their hand.

He told me the parents had bought the device for the kid — for the kid not to smoke. And those kids have now switched to vaping cannabis. A third of those kids have switched and do both, either both or switched to cannabis. So that’s the reality, and I can’t emphasize that enough.

We can’t sit here with our head in the ground saying we don’t know what’s happening. It is happening today, and that’s the reality.

The other thing, too, is the unregulated market. As much as you say there’s regulation, federal versus provincial, etc., the kids don’t care. When they go to the shop, they’ll get the cheapest thing, or their friends buy it in the illegal market, right? It’s so much cheaper, volume-wise and potency-wise.

The potency of the cannabis is extremely high, and that’s why we’re seeing the hyperemesis syndrome, vomiting. You can’t stop vomiting. That’s real. The psychosis — that’s real. The schizophrenia — that’s real. So I sort of would want…. I admire what you said about how we’re here to look at protecting our youth, because they are being targeted.

Youth are…. I mean, they’re at a stage of life where they start things. They experiment. And we have, over the years, stigmatized cigarette use, truly stigmatized it, where you can’t smoke in certain areas. You can’t. It worked. The kids, the nicotine — it was actually decreasing. Now we’re seeing this with nicotine and also with cannabis.

Like I said, it takes only three years. So if you come up with a legislation in two years, that’s that many more kids that are impacted for the rest of their life. And that impacts their whole family. They will have a different course in life just because we’ve decided not to put cannabis in that legislation.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I just wanted to maybe…. Something that I didn’t offer clarity with, and I apologize for the question about specified devices, so the idea that the same devices are used for cannabis and vaping.

I just want to take, maybe, everybody through how the definition would capture that device that’s used for both. So the “specified device” definition describes a device that “renders a…substance in the form of an aerosol, is brought to the mouth for the purpose of inhaling the aerosol.” And then it says: “is not an excluded device.” “A prescribed delivery system for delivering a specified substance to an individual’s body” — that is describing a method of delivery, a device that delivers a substance in a certain way to an individual.

If there is this idea that it’s the same device as used for cannabis and vaping, it would be captured through the description of that device.

If it’s a device that’s solely used for cannabis, like some of the accessories related to cannabis that are under that definition that’s captured in section 1 of the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act and doesn’t have that overlap, then it’s specifically excluded. Just to bring clarity to that question about that device, because I think that the ones that the member is talking about for the vaping crossover is captured in that definition of specified device.

I just want to say that we really do agree on a lot in terms of the harms related to kids. I want to read a quote that was from the WHO, the World Health Organization, that e-cigs are “fueling a new wave of nicotine addiction.” They’re marketed as harm reduction but, in reality, are hooking kids on nicotine earlier, at risk of undermining decades of progress, which is the purpose and goal of this legislation.

[4:50 p.m.]

I just would say that I’m happy to get the member information on all the ways that the regulatory regime for cannabis could target or prevent kind of what sounds like is showing up at hospitals, the misuse or the percentages and the target or selling of devices to young people. I think that’s probably like a full lineup of things.

I think I’ve already answered why it’s hard to make these amendments in the context of legislation that targets litigation where there are different sets of actors and evidence and all those things required to show harm.

Brennan Day: I’ll just speak in favour of this amendment. I think, based on this bill, we’re trying to attach damages to bad actors creating harm in our system. It is clear from all the evidence my colleague has presented and the medical evidence that she’s familiar with in her role as an addictions doctor that there is serious harm from cannabis used in vaping devices.

Given the massive crossover in the grey area, I don’t understand, again, why we would not include cannabis here to not rule it out. It’s the only specified product that is specifically excluded from this. We know that one-fifth of youth users, which this bill is targeting, are using the devices for both.

I fully support this clause. I think we need to go further in this bill to protect our youth. I will be voting in favour of this amendment.

The Chair: Seeing no further speakers to the amendment, I’m going to call the question.

A Voice: Division.

[4:55 p.m.]

The Chair: Can I have the members consent to waive time?

Leave granted.

The Chair: Before putting the question, I remind all members that only members of Section A or their duly appointed substitutes are authorized to vote.

The question is the amendment on clause 1 for Bill 24.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 3
Kooner	Mok	Williams
NAYS — 5
Chandra Herbert	Higginson	Sharma
Shah		Chow

Brennan Day: I’m just going to go back to the question that I posed earlier regarding the inconsistencies with the federal definitions in the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act. The first one is pretty important, I feel. We’ve discussed it today, but it is a definitional difference, so there could be problems later down the road.

[5:00 p.m.]

In the federal definition of nicotine requirement, the substance may or may not contain nicotine. It’s laid out clearly. In Bill 24, a specified substance must contain nicotine. I’m just wondering why the federal law includes this and why there’s an inconsistency with Bill 24.

Hon. Niki Sharma: Thank you for the further clarifications on the question.

I think I’ve answered this one many times, about why we feel like there’s evidence of the tobacco industry using vaping and the targeting of vaping to another generation of people because of nicotine and its addictive nature.

Brennan Day: Thank you, Minister.

The next contradiction or inconsistency is in the definition of “device” versus “delivery system.”

In the federal bill, a vaping product includes devices and parts. The device requirement is simply that it produces an aerosol and is intended for inhalation. In Bill 24, “specified device” is defined more narrowly. It renders a specified substance into aerosol, mouth inhalation, not an excluded device, and it allows a prescribed delivery system for delivering a specified substance into an individual’s body.

I’m just wondering if the prescribed delivery system, as outlined in Bill 24, may extend beyond the federal concept of a device or part and may, in fact, be broader, raising some questions about what delivery systems that might include?

Hon. Niki Sharma: The purposes of the federal legislation are different than the purposes of this legislation. Anytime there’s a difference in purpose, there’s a difference in decision-making related to definitions and other content of the bill because it’s driving different things.

The model that we modelled this type of legislation off was more after the opioid legislation that we had, and that was the model and the purpose that kind of brought forward the contents of this bill, whereas a regulatory framework, like from the federal legislation that the member’s talking about, is quite a different instrument or tool.

I guess I would say I don’t believe there’s a reason for them to need to align, and that this was designed for a different purpose.

Brennan Day: Further to the prescribed delivery system, it allows “a prescribed delivery system for delivering a specified substance into an individual’s body.” I’m just curious if the intent of this is to allow it to be expanded to other types of products, because that does seem very broad, such as nicotine pouches, nicotine gum.

I mean, many of these are prescribed as smoking cessation tools, and I understand that’s….

[The bells were rung.]

The Chair: As that is in the main chamber, we will recess and return after the vote.

The committee recessed from 5:05 p.m. to 5:23 p.m.

[Jennifer Blatherwick in the chair.]

The Chair: All right. I call us back to order. We are considering clause 1 for Bill 24.

Hon. Niki Sharma: In terms of that answer, 17(2) (c), I think, provides an answer to the question the member asked. When we get to that clause, I think it would be a good time for me to point out where that answer is.

Brennan Day: Thank you, Minister.

I guess the next inconsistency or discrepancy between the two acts is that the Governor in Council may designate — this is under regulation-making or prescriptive powers — devices or substances to be treated as vaping products or not, federally.

In clause 17, it allows the Lieutenant Governor in Council to prescribe devices for “excluded device,” prescribe substances for “excluded substance” and prescribe delivery systems for “specified device.”

Bill 24 gives fairly sweeping regulatory authority to expand or alter the definitions, and that, I feel, is quite a bit broader than the federal model.

Could you just explain why those powers are required over and above what the federal act states?

Hon. Niki Sharma: This is another, similar to the answer that I gave before about how the regimes are different because they’re designed for different purposes. This is designed for this model of litigation, which is different than a regulatory model.

Brennan Day: The scope of inclusion of parts and components is a part of the federal model. The vaping product definition explicitly includes “a part that may be used with those devices.”

Bill 24 does not explicitly reference parts in the same way. The “specified device” definition does not reference parts at all.

Is that going to be covered through delivery system, or how is that going to be included?

[5:25 p.m.]

If we’re talking about manufacturers of parts…. You can get quite customized vapes, apparently. I’m not aware of this. But how might that reduce the coverage compared to the federal act?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Again, different purposes for both pieces of legislation, which is the reason for the non-alignment. We didn’t seek to align. We sought to develop a model that was similar to the other models for other legislation, like the opioids one. But the regulatory-making power, which I think we will get to also, is one way where we can make sure that if there are things that we need to add, we can.

Anna Kindy: Just getting back the definition of “manufacturer,” it means “a person who manufactures or has manufactured a vaping product.”

Do you have a list of manufacturers that you actually…? At this point, I’m assuming that there’s a list that you’re going after. You mentioned Big Tobacco, so I’m assuming that you have a list.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I don’t have a list. The purpose of this one is to get the legislative framework in place, and then there would be litigation decisions that would be based on that. So at this stage, I don’t want to prejudge, and I don’t have a list.

Anna Kindy: Looking at the scope of the bill, we’re assuming that the manufacturers are potentially in Canada or North America. How is this bill going to be implemented for manufacturers that are overseas? Just wondering if there’s been a precedent there where companies overseas have been actually liable for harms.

Hon. Niki Sharma: As the precedents we’ve had before with similar types of models, we can name companies that are international, and usually…. Well, the connection would be that the products are somewhere in B.C. It’d have to be located and causing harm in B.C., but it could be an international company.

Brennan Day: On to the territorial scope, there’s no territorial scope definition in section 1. I’m just wondering, as you’ve said….

Does the definition apply to products sold into B.C. by platforms based offshore? And if so, has the ministry done any real evaluation on how it may enforce that liability internationally? Obviously, that’s harder when you’re not suing Rothmans or one of the major companies that have been pursued previously.

Hon. Niki Sharma: There are different litigation decisions that are very complicated. We haven’t made any on this yet, so I don’t have anything to offer in terms of the context of vaping. What I can say about other matters is that there are actually many very innovative and leading ways that B.C. went after companies related to the opioid harms that were international in scope and much bigger than our national or provincial companies.

That would be something that is available to us in this type of litigation, if that was part of the litigation decisions that were made.

Anna Kindy: I’m just thinking logically here, and I’m not a lawyer, so forgive me.

[5:30 p.m.]

The question I have is, and my thoughts are, if you were litigating against a Canadian company — or a North American company, but I’m going to say a Canadian company — the recouping would, I assume, be easier than litigating against, for example, a Chinese company. We know for a fact that a lot of the devices, especially unregulated ones, are from Chinese companies.

Are we unfairly targeting Canadian companies?

Hon. Niki Sharma: We have not made any decisions, so there’s no unfair targeting of anything. Obviously, we wouldn’t do that, right? We would target the wrongdoers. We’ve had some really successful work doing that, and sometimes it requires cross-border cooperation and different ways of using tools that are beyond our borders to do that.

Anna Kindy: Again, looking at different countries, different countries are more cooperative than others, like we know. Thinking of the unfairness of this bill targeting, for example, Canadian companies versus Chinese companies, we know for a fact that…. As an addiction doctor, I knew years before it was published that — patients were telling me, and RCMP were telling me — a big illegal market was coming from China.

Then it became that the ingredients were coming from China. And, obviously, China would not open up to which companies are actually producing the fentanyl or the illicit substances that are brought to our country.

Why would a country like China suddenly cooperate in terms of a legal pursuit from Canada? I’m finding that a bit mind-boggling.

Hon. Niki Sharma: I think it’s the same answer as I’ve said before. It’s that it gives us the tools. Every time you go after different sectors or companies, there are different challenges associated with that. That’s just the nature of the legal work. There are also innovative ways of getting around that.

We don’t require government-level cooperation to use this kind of tool. This is a litigation tool, which situates itself differently than government-to-government discussions or cooperation that may be needed on a government level. Also, it’s not the only tool. We have other enforcement mechanisms that go cross-border with agreements and other things.

Anna Kindy: Just what you mentioned about you having different litigation tools, I’m thinking that we’re still seeming…. It’ll be much easier to litigate against a Canadian company than it would from an overseas company. I hate repeating it, but we don’t even have a list, and we will never get a list from overseas companies because it’s unregulated, and it’s being sold in an unregulated market.

We’re impacting a business that actually has some harm reduction potential, obviously, with nicotine provision. Vaping still, as we know today, is less harmful than cigarettes. We don’t have the long-standing data. That might change, but as of today, vaping is a harm reduction tool.

Therefore, we will be targeting a Canadian company that employs Canadians and that will follow regulations. And if they follow regulations that will say that the product will be safer, no question, the product will be safer. So we’re targeting the ones following the rules that are Canadians providing Canadian jobs that to this day, as we know, provide some harm reduction.

I just want a bit more of a realistic answer as to that question.

Hon. Niki Sharma: Yeah, thank you for that.

Just to say again…. Maybe it’s a bit “asked and answered.” We’re not targeting specific companies or Canadian companies. If they’re law abiding, and they’re not doing the types of practices that are deceptive marketing at targeting and opening up the stuff that we’ve talked about throughout this debate of deliberately targeting young people to get nicotine addiction up again, then we wouldn’t be….

There’s not a national or international…. We don’t have a target list where, at this stage, we’re disproportionately targeting one over the other. So just to say that that, again, I guess, is asked and answered in some ways.

[5:35 p.m.]

Brennan Day: I’m going to move on to the beneficiary recipient. This definition is included here in this act, but it was not present in the opioid damages act, and as you say, this act is modelled after the opioid damages act.

What changed in the ministry’s thinking between the opioid act and this to include beneficiary recipients specifically in this act?

Hon. Niki Sharma: The same definition is included in the opioid legislation. It’s just a different title. It’s “benefit recipient,” whereas the one in the opioid legislation is called “insured person.”

Brennan Day: All right. There’s one more definitional difference between this act and the opioid and tobacco acts. That’s that the “health care benefits” definition changes.

I’m just wondering what the rationale is for changing that established legislation language in this act?

Hon. Niki Sharma: The difference between the two pieces of legislation is (g). Subsection (g) is a very important one because it’s going after trying to capture expenses the government made, or through its agents or educational authorities, for programs, services and benefits or similar matters associated with disease, injury or illness or the prevention of disease, injury or illness.

This is along the lines of the things we talked about, about actually having to spend money to get people to understand the risks, to get youth to understand, all those kind of government expenditures related to the harm.

Brennan Day: I’d like to move forward an amendment to clause 1:

[CLAUSE 1, in the proposed definition of “disease, injury or illness”, is amended by deleting the text shown as struck out:

“disease, injury or illness” includes the following:

(a) physical or mental injury or illness;

(b) problematic product use;

(c) addiction;

(d) general deterioration of health;

(e) the risk of disease, injury or illness;]

The Chair: Would you like to speak to the amendment?

On the amendment.

Brennan Day: I would. Thank you, Chair.

This amendment goes to the core integrity of this bill. Cost recovery legislation must be rooted in demonstrable harm, not speculation, not assumptions and not hypotheticals. That is a foundational principle in civil law and one that has guided damages frameworks for generations. But as Bill 24 is currently drafted, government is giving itself the ability to recover costs for things that aren’t harms at all.

The bill allows the province to sue for problematic product use, which is a phrase with no clinical definition, no statutory definition and no measurable threshold; general deterioration of health, something that happens to every single person as a matter of human biology; and risk of disease, meaning no disease has actually occurred and no injury has actually been suffered.

Once government begins to award damages for the possibility of harm, the entire system loses its footing. It becomes impossible to quantify liability, impossible to defend against claims and impossible for the courts to apply a consistent evidentiary standard. That is not how damages laws work anywhere in Canada or in any comparable jurisdiction.

Tort law is built on a simple essential principle. You prove harm, and then you recover for that harm, not the chance of harm, not for a theoretical risk, not for a condition that never materialized.

This amendment restores that principle. It ensures that if the province brings an action, it is grounded in factual outcomes — actual disease, actual injury or actual illness. If the government believes vaping products caused harm, then government should be required to show that harm. That is the essence of evidence-based litigation.

Nothing in this amendment denies the province the ability to pursue wrongdoing. Nothing prevents government from recovering legitimate costs tied to real health outcomes. It simply puts a limit on speculative damages, which, I would suggest respectfully, should not have been included in the bill in the first place.

[5:40 p.m.]

We all understand the desire to build an effective cost recovery tool, but the moment we untether damages from real-world impacts and measurable harm, the framework becomes vulnerable to legal challenges, vulnerable to overreach and vulnerable to the perception that the purpose of this bill is more about accounting creativity than accountability.

We should be striving to build legislation that is fair, durable and defensible, not one that stretches concepts so far that they lose their meaning. When the bill allows recovery for general deterioration of health, we have crossed the line into territory that no other damages regime in this country recognizes.

This amendment corrects that mistake. It narrows the scope of recovery to what the courts already understand and what the public expects — measurable illness, demonstrable injury and proven disease. If the minister believes this bill is grounded in evidence, then requiring evidence for damages should not be seen as a barrier. It should be seen as an essential safeguard.

This is not about weakening the bill. This is about strengthening its legitimacy. It’s about ensuring that government pursues real harm, not theoretical models. It’s about maintaining the credibility of a legal framework that will likely be used well into the next two decades.

I encourage the minister to support this amendment. It is a modest change, but it restores a fundamental principle of fairness that the bill, as written, does not adequately protect.

The Chair: We will take a short recess to make copies of the amendment.

The committee recessed from 5:41 p.m. to 5:47 p.m.

[Jennifer Blatherwick in the chair.]

The Chair: I call the Committee of the Whole, Section A, back to order. We are on the question of the amendment to clause 1 for Bill 24.

Attorney General, would you like to make some responding remarks?

Hon. Niki Sharma: Yes, thank you.

This amendment is concerning to me. I won’t be supporting it, and I’ll tell you why.

First of all, this was modelled after the opioid legislation, and it was never challenged that risk was associated with it. That’s because risk is a common consideration when it comes to personal injury matters in court, especially when there’s future harm associated with it. The court is often asked to assess risk, and I think this is really important.

Government validly incurs expenses addressing these risks, so we have to remember that this is the causation element of it. It isn’t the causation element, but it is, once somebody’s done…. The wrongdoing has happened — the tort or the breach. We went through that. We’re now in the category of a wrongdoer. What is a wrongdoer responsible for? The government validly incurs expenses addressing the risks that are associated with that.

When research indicates that the use of a product is likely to lead to disease, injury or illness, it is prudent for government, and we’ve done this with vaping, to provide public information about risks, as well as direct care, like medical monitoring programs, such as regular screening for disease once someone has been exposed to that risk. That’s just part of the operation of our medical system, as I’m sure the member opposite understands.

If that risk that’s introduced into that person’s life or the population’s life, because it’s an aggregate level, is caused by someone’s wrongdoing — for example, marketing a product to youth despite knowing the risks — then they should be accountable for it. That’s why this is part of this clause, and I think it’s actually a very important part.

Sheldon Clare: Always a pleasure to be here. I rise to speak in favour of the amendment.

It is a failure of logic and is circular reasoning to define a term using itself. When one inserts risk into a definition, one should be breaking down the nature of risk into its component parts. In this particular situation, we have: “‘disease, injury or illness’ includes the following,” and then the removal of part (e), which says “the risk of disease, injury or illness.”

[5:50 p.m.]

Well, you can’t sit there and have a definition that has its own origin in its meaning. This is a failure of logic, and it is an inappropriate inclusion, so this amendment is a good idea. It would remove that part.

Were the government wanting to make this a little more sensible, they should break down exactly what risk means and be defining risk in a much more detailed fashion rather than attempting to define a term using itself as they have done so in this particular bill.

For this reason, I support the amendment. I think the amendment makes sense, and it gets rid of this problem of circular logic and faulty reasoning.

Anna Kindy: Yeah, I find that the term “the risk” could be implemented to many things that are either inhaled or vaped or consumed. I think it is not a good precedent to use, especially when we consider, at this point in time, if we know the risk of cigarettes. But if we look at the risks of vaping, we don’t know. There are a lot of unknowns.

It throws…. We’re sort of…. Health Canada still considers vaping as a harm reduction model. It is less harmful than cigarettes, as we know today. The idea that we can apply “risk of”…. I mean, what about alcohol? Alcohol is a substance with known risks, and we are not going after alcohol.

It seems this bill is very targeted to a certain industry that, so far, has less risks than alcohol. To me, the logic of pursuing this to such an aggressive extent…. When we’re talking now about something that might happen, it throws cold water.

Would you invest in any company that has risks? For example, chips. I love chips. They’re marketed to kids very well, to people that have addictions to food. The risks of chips equate to obesity and everything that obesity entails. So are we going to go after the risks of chips or any other consumable or any other product?

As far as I know, nicotine is legal in this country. We know that we are using vaping at this point in time as a harm reduction strategy, which, for a lot of people, has worked. I’ve talked to many, many people that went from cigarettes to vaping to a different nicotine product to off, or from vaping to off.

Vaping products, unlike other products, comes in…. Those that are regulated, not the illegal market…. The regulated vaping products that we can actually buy legally and that this bill specifically targets have different milligrams of nicotine that you can actually, in a way, get off the nicotine.

The Chair: Sorry, Member. We’re just on the question of the amendment.

Anna Kindy: Yeah, well, this is the risk, because we’re actually…. You know, we want to take that off. I’m saying that that’s the reason we want to take it off. If you look at the intention of the bill and you look at the intention of the amendment, the intention of the amendment is to remove (e), “the risk of disease, injury and illness.” So what I’m talking about is the verbiage of “the risk of.”

If we know that vaping causes this, and going after it, it makes sense. We know, for example, with EVALI, the risk of vaping cannabis can cause lung injury. We know that. It’s a fact.

[5:55 p.m.]

This implies that we don’t know what the risks are. So we’re going to categorize you, and that puts cold water on something that, at this point, is used as a harm reduction strategy. And if we’re going to go after companies that are producing legally and regulated products that people come off cigarettes from because of the risk potential, then it throws cold water on a company that actually produces a harm reduction product.

We can say it’s marketed to kids. I don’t disagree there, but I disagree with putting the statement “the risk of disease, injury or illness.” It can be applied to everything now. We can actually apply it now to go after car manufacturers because of the risk of injury. There are people that have addiction to speed, to going fast, and that increases their risk of injury. So where do we draw the line?

I think this is actually a good amendment that draws the line, that, yes, we will go after you if we know that there’s risk. But now we’re going to go after potential risk, and everything in life has potential risk.

On top of that, we know for a fact that it is used for a good segment of the population to get off nicotine, right? For example, if you’re on…. Like I said, some people smoke. They go to vaping, and then they go to oral products or a subcutaneous product, and they get off. That was not an insignificant number of people that have done that.

The other thing we have to look at is how many people have actually died from cigarettes versus died from vaping. The numbers for cigarettes are much higher at this point in time because it’s been around for longer. But vaping, we could find out in 20 years that — you know what? — it’s actually not that bad.

So we don’t know, but we’re eliminating, and we’re assuming. I think that’s a very bad precedent to actually assume there’s going to be an issue and we’re going to go after you because we can go after an assumption.

I think it’s very relevant. I think it’s something to think about. This is a precedent for many, many companies now that are doing harm reduction strategy. And this government…. Talking about harm reduction, talking about safe supply, talking about false marketing, that’s false marketing, and we’re going after marketing here.

This here I truly think is an amendment that’s very relevant to what the intent of vaping was. We’re removing that by putting a risk of an unknown.

Hon. Niki Sharma: Just to close off this debate, we have a clear difference of opinion here.

The opinion of the other side is that we should make this amendment and not have government able to recover costs like reducing the risk of harm to children and stopping them from vaping or medical monitoring expenses that are to do with reducing the risk of somebody, over the lifetime of the risk, that’s exposed to vaping.

We decidedly disagree very strongly on this, and we’ll have to leave it at that.

The Chair: On the question of the amendment to clause 1.

A Voice: Division.

[6:00 p.m.]

The Chair: All right. Can I have members consent to waive time, please?

Leave granted.

The Chair: Before putting the question, I remind all members that only members of Section A or their duly appointed representatives are authorized to vote.

The question is the amendment on clause 1 moved by Brennan Day.

[6:05 p.m.]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 3
Kooner	Mok	Williams
NAYS — 5
Routledge	Chandra Herbert	Higginson
Sharma		Chow

The Chair: The Chair apologizes for using your given name, member for Courtenay-Comox.

Now we move back to the question of clause 1.

Clause 1 approved.

On clause 2.

Brennan Day: Happy we’ve gotten through clause 1. I think there were some good points raised there by everybody, so thank you very much for that discussion.

Clause 2 gives government the authority to bring direct action on an aggregate basis. My understanding is that that means the Crown can sue without naming a single affected British Columbian in the claim.

My first question for the minister is: how many individuals in British Columbia does the minister estimate would be captured in an aggregate action under clause 2?

Hon. Niki Sharma: I think these further provisions will help us describe the model and what makes it unique. To clarify, and I think this is a very important point, it’s not an action on behalf of a certain number of individuals, as the member describes. The way these class actions are set up, it’s government. It’s government that’s taking the action. The class is described as governments, and different governments can choose to opt out if they desire.

For example, in the opioid action, no government in Canada opted out. They stayed in. The government as that class is a powerful thing. That model is a really great one that we should all be proud of.

If we think about it, government is bringing in an action, and that action will go after aggregate population-level damages that they incurred for whatever harm by the wrongdoer.

Brennan Day: Would this then prevent private recoveries from occurring, should somebody decide to sue independently?

Hon. Niki Sharma: The answer is no.

Just to say, it’s aggregate basis or for a particular individual benefit recipient, in terms of adding that other section to my previous answer.

But the answer to this one is no.

Brennan Day: Just to spell it out so that I understand a little bit better here, what mechanisms would prevent the Crown, then, from suing for damages that have already been compensated through either individual claims or smaller, privately moved class actions or settlements or, potentially, disability or insurance payout?

[6:10 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma: Another important distinction. This is for government costs, not personal injury — government costs like treating people in the hospital, for example, for the harms related to that. If it was a personal injury claim, the perspective of that, you may seek compensation for your injuries, but you don’t pay for medical expenses. We all pay in our universal system for those expenses. That’s why the claim itself is about government recovering those costs on behalf of people.

Brennan Day: Moving on to the standards of proof in section 2, what evidentiary standard will the government rely on to establish causation for an entire group without individual evidence, this being a population-level claim?

Hon. Niki Sharma: The standard is balance of probabilities.

Anna Kindy: The government can claim costs for specific people or an aggregate. We’ve talked about that already. I’m just wondering. How will the government claim costs when they take into account the harm reduction component of vaping? As Health Canada still claims, they approved it as a harm reduction strategy.

Hon. Niki Sharma: The litigations are designed to go after wrongdoers and the impacts of that wrongdoing at a population level. The example being that there’s been an increase in youth cigarette or youth vaping and addiction to nicotine and the impacts of those on the population — so the medical expenses incurred to do with the risks that we talked about earlier and the impacts to that population.

If you think about it, there’s a range of things that are also possible, like opioids that were used in some medical situations when somebody’s recovering from surgery. And that’s not a wrongdoer’s use. That’s different. So there are different distinctions associated with the capturing of the wrongdoing and its impacts on society.

With that, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The Chair: This committee stands adjourned.

The committee rose at 6:13 p.m.

Proceedings in the
Birch Room

The House in Committee, Section C.

The committee met 1:37 p.m.

[George Anderson in the chair.]

Committee of the Whole

Bill 30 — Employment Standards
(Serious Illness or Injury Leave)
Amendment Act, 2025
(continued)

The Chair: Good afternoon, Members. I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 30, Employment Standards (Serious Illness or Injury Leave) Amendment Act, 2025, back to order. We’re on clause 1.

On clause 1 (continued).

Kiel Giddens: I think where we left it, actually, is I had asked a question. The minister was going to answer.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: The question was about consultation and about the process for consultation, which I’ll address. Just before that, the member had also made some comments with respect to who is covered by this and who benefits from this.

I wanted to note that in British Columbia, it is true that we have many workers who are covered by collective agreements that have leave provisions, some of which will have similar leave provisions to this — not all, I suspect. But it’s important to recognize that we have a unionization rate in British Columbia maybe approaching about 30 percent.

For the majority of British Columbia’s workers, the Employment Standards Act is kind of the floor for their terms and conditions of work. That’s why it’s important to have provisions such as this reflected in the act.

What we do know from employment insurance data is that in British Columbia, the number of employees that initiated a claim for federal EI sickness benefits…. This data is old. It’s just pre-COVID. At that time, they were reporting that approximately 53,000 workers in British Columbia had initiated a claim for federal EI sickness benefits. We saw quite a bump up from that during COVID. Then the number came down again in ’22-23 to about 53,000. So we certainly know that there is a need.

[1:40 p.m.]

There are 245,000 people living with cancer in British Columbia, 42 percent of whom have survived more than ten years with a diagnosis. We also have the benefit of expertise from the Canadian Society of Professionals in Disability Management, who advise that at any given time in Canada, 8 percent to 12 percent of the workforce is off on either workers compensation or long-term disability or receiving weekly indemnity benefits. Of course, the 27 weeks is designed to align with the federal EI sickness benefit period.

With respect to organizations that were canvassed in the consultation process led by the ministry leading up to the introduction of the bill, there’s a list of organizations that the Ministry of Labour typically consults with.

Those include, in this case, the standard worker organizations — B.C. Federation of Labour, the Employment Standards Coalition; we spoke with Unifor — as well as a number of employer and business organizations, including the Independent Contractors and Business Association, B.C. Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association, British Columbia Hotel Association, Restaurants Canada, Retail Council of Canada, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Business Improvement Areas of B.C., Tourism Industry Association of B.C., Business Council of British Columbia.

There were a number of public sector employer organizations canvassed who submitted feedback: the Post-Secondary Employers Association, the University Public Sector Employers Association, the B.C. Public School Employers Association and the B.C. Public Service Agency.

We also heard from health professional organizations: the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of B.C. and the B.C. College of Family Physicians.

There were other organizations that were on the initiative that were invited to provide their views on the bill. Not all chose to do so. If that’s of interest to the member, we can provide that list once we’ve had a chance just to redact the names and contact information of those individuals.

Kiel Giddens: I appreciate the minister reading into the record all of the organizations that were consulted. I think that’s helpful to note. Yes, I would appreciate any of the follow-up afterwards. That would be great.

The data that the minister provided I think is useful knowledge to understand some of the thinking around choosing 27 weeks to begin with.

Aligning with EI — I think conceptually I can understand that. But out of the stakeholder conversations that took place, I’m wondering if there was any feedback on whether deviating from the 27 weeks or finding some other timeline was really something that they wanted to be brought forward.

We’ll have a couple of follow-ups that the member for Kelowna-Mission will follow up on consultation afterwards. But I wanted to hear just on the 27 weeks, maybe as a starter question on that.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I would say that of all of the groups that were canvassed, there was broad support for the principle of the bill. We did not receive advice that we can identify from a particular group that proposed a different time frame.

[1:45 p.m.]

Of course, there were different concerns with respect to ensuring that it was understood that the leave was for conditions of a serious nature, that there was a robust process, that it was verified by the appropriate medical professionals. Those are provisions that we have built into this process to ensure that those concerns were addressed.

I mean, short of going through and recanvassing each and every individual submission, the main business organizations that we look to for advice on these issues did not propose an alternate to 27 weeks.

Kiel Giddens: I guess, as part of the discussion, I think, with all of the stakeholders, likely one of their main questions would have been what constitutes a critical illness or serious injury. I’m wondering if, during the consultation phase, that was something that the ministry provided some initial context on that was used for that framing so that the various groups could provide their feedback.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: The discussion and the material that went out to support the consultation really pointed to, in part, the jurisdictional analysis of other provinces that have employment standards and regimes that contain such leaves, which is a majority of other provinces.

Many of those speak to serious illness, attending medical appointments. In some cases, “serious” is an adjective that’s used. In some cases, it’s not. But the examples that we were putting forward were the same examples that you heard when we introduced the bill.

Individuals who have received a diagnosis, for example, of a chronic illness and are grappling with what may be either a continuous or an intermittent need for treatment. Individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer, for example, who may have a regime of chemotherapy that they need to engage in or another form of treatment. Somebody who has been in a motor vehicle accident who will need time away to deal with whatever the consequences of that accident are.

I think that is the nature of the kinds of situations we were discussing with folks who engaged in the consultation.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday. I might open every question with a happy birthday just to make it extra special.

On the line of consultation, I’m certainly aware that there was a significant amount of consultation undertaken. We, obviously, heard from some of those same groups, so I thought I might take advantage of the opportunity to ask a few questions that relate to areas covered in consultation that are not entirely clear in the legislation.

[1:50 p.m.]

Could the minister expand on the intent around minimum employment thresholds? Obviously, as outlined, it refers only to a prescribed number of days. There’s not a lot of clarity around that, and that is an area where, certainly, from a small business perspective, that is a significant question that has significant implications. It would be very helpful to understand what thought has already gone into what that minimum employment threshold might be, whether it be 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, three days. It will be helpful to have a greater understanding of that.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: This legislation is being brought in with no recommended employment threshold. There isn’t another type of unpaid leave under the Employment Standards Act that has a threshold. There is a threshold for paid sick leave of 90 days, but again, this is an unpaid leave, and of course, it is in circumstances that are not planned for, are serious in nature, potentially catastrophic for the individuals. Those diagnoses can, frankly, arise at any time.

We’ve included a measure in the legislation to allow the opportunity to establish by regulation a threshold in the future, in the event that our monitoring of this provision indicates that might be helpful. While I appreciate that there are some groups that called for a threshold, we don’t have thresholds for unpaid leave, and it was our view that it’s not really appropriate in this circumstance.

Kiel Giddens: Just in follow-up to that, trying to understand how this fits within the broader Employment Standards Act. Under part 6 of the act, under leaves, it does say: “After 90 consecutive days of employment with an employer, an employee, for personal illness or injury, is entitled, in each calendar year, to unpaid leave for up to three days.”

I’m wondering. Within that context, why not match it up with the existing minimum thresholds, particularly given that Alberta and New Brunswick use 90 days. Saskatchewan and Ontario use 13 consecutive weeks, so essentially 90 days. Nova Scotia, same thing — they use three months. Why not make it explicit so that it is just clear and, across the country, there’s a little bit more standardization in that regard?

[1:55 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: With respect to the thresholds in the Employment Standards Act, a 90-day threshold applies to illness and injury leave for the five days’ paid sick leave and the three days of unpaid leave. Pardon my missing that in the previous answer.

However, for all other longer-term leaves, there is not an employment threshold. It doesn’t apply to family responsibility leave, compassionate care leave, critical illness or injury leave, COVID-related leaves or the gender-based violence leave as well. So we don’t have that threshold in place for the majority of leaves that exist in our employment standards regime.

With respect to other jurisdictions, it’s important to compare apples to apples. There may well be — and, in fact, are, in other cases — other thresholds that they have in their Employment Standards Act that may impact how they are treating their serious illness or injury leave.

We’re looking to keep the structure of our Employment Standards Act intact with respect to what we typically do in cases of long-term unpaid leave.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday.

One evident consideration from the consultation is that, in speaking with small businesses, it feels as though the thinking around this is perhaps very focused on large organizations. For small organizations that employ three or five or seven or ten people, I can imagine the effects of the structure being very consequential, especially because those small businesses largely do not have the money to pay for things like a short-term-leave insurance.

There is a very material concern around how this would affect very small businesses, in particular, which is where that desire for greater clarity around the threshold at which eligibility kicks in becomes very important. For a small business that employs five people to have someone they’ve employed for five days be immediately eligible for a lengthy leave period is actually very, very operationally difficult for the company.

[2:00 p.m.]

I’m wondering if the minister could just expand a little bit further on the extent to which the consultation and consideration took into account the very different circumstances of large, medium-, all the way down to micro-sized businesses.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I want to start my answer just by stating that I do believe that…. Certainly, that’s what we heard through the consultation. As the member said in his opening, I think that most employers across this province try to be good employers. I think they try to be good actors, and I think they try to support their employees.

I think the assumption…. Going to the extreme, to somehow suggest that somebody might be hired and work for five days and then have a catastrophic diagnosis or be in a car accident or have to start a regime of chemotherapy treatment and that that’s going to somehow be a typical experience that is going to have a vast impact on small businesses — I just don’t think that’s the way it’s going to roll out. I mean, I just don’t think that’s what businesses largely experience now.

I think when somebody comes forward with some sort of serious illness, by and large, employers try to accommodate, as is their legal, statutory obligation under the human rights code. They try to accommodate that individual. There are no thresholds in the human rights code with respect to that you only are eligible for a duty to accommodate if you’ve been employed for less than a certain amount of time.

I think this is space in employee relations, in labour relations, where there is a fair bit of give-and-take under duty-to-accommodate law, which applies in these cases. If an employer finds themselves at a point of undue hardship, then that’ll be a different conversation.

Certainly, we are alive to concerns that small businesses have. We very much support small businesses. That’s why the employment standards branch has a dedicated line for employers. That’s why we will be very attentive in developing the guidance for employers to ensure that they have the support and the understanding of the intention here that they need.

Again, I would just say that in terms of somebody claiming, for example…. It’s not required that they claim EI sick benefits to qualify for this leave, but in probably the most cases, those two pieces will marry up — the accessing of this leave and the application for paid sickness benefits through EI.

It’s not as though this is a leave provision we’re expecting the employer to pay the employee to be off for any amount of this 27 weeks.

The Chair: Member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday.

I note, just going back to the consultation, that there are, certainly…. I believe the minister has stated, and we certainly agree, that there is a broad will toward the intent of what’s being done here. But certainly, from our conversations, industry, and small business in particular, are looking for a lot greater clarity.

I have a few questions, which I’ll ask to follow up on that. The first is that I understand from speaking, for example, with the Retail Council of Canada that they were given…. The minister has just mentioned there is no requirement. There is no EI qualification requirement here.

[2:05 p.m.]

The impression that I think industry left the consultation with was that there would be a tie to EI, but the legislation makes no reference to EI qualification.

Could the minister just help us understand a little bit how the intent and approach around the connection with employment insurance evolved from the time of consultation to the time of legislation?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I would suggest that it is very clear. It’s not intended that there would be an employment threshold. It is not a requirement that an individual apply for EI benefits.

Of course, the regime and the time frame are meant to align with EI benefits in order to support an individual to have the same job-protected leave in B.C. that would match, potentially, their entitlement for EI benefits. That has always been very clear from the get-go. That certainly is what we said and communicated during the consultation on the proposal. That’s the tie-in to EI.

I mean, the other piece of that is, in responding to concerns from businesses about ensuring that the process for procuring the medical documentation with respect to the leave, that that be sort of as straightforward and clear as possible…. That is why we’ve suggested that the same form that an individual would use to apply for EI benefits is the same form that can be used in these cases with their employer to apply for the job-protected leave. There isn’t duplicate of forms, and it’s a form that people, I think, generally understand and are aware of.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday. I do intend to do this every time.

The members opposite are certainly enjoying it, and we are bringing levity to the day. I think that at some stage, they might even choose to join me in wishing a happy birthday to the Chair.

I do want to return to the matter of, again, that threshold. I hear the minister talking about the threshold not being an issue, but it is actually one that has raised significant alarm from small business. We have received significant inbound correspondence on that, and I’m aware that the minister has too. I don’t think it’s inconsequential.

I want to be, again, very clear that we support the intent here. I think that small business supports the intent here. I think everybody understands the kind of seriousness and severity of the kind of situation that could be faced here, but we also do need to be very sober-eyed about the comparison to what’s happening in other jurisdictions.

To reiterate what my colleague the Labour critic spelled out, Alberta and New Brunswick have a 90-day threshold explicitly spelled out. Saskatchewan and Ontario use 13 consecutive weeks. Nova Scotia uses three months. In peer jurisdictions all across the country, it is explicitly spelled out what the threshold is, and I think that that’s really important because it provides clarity to small business as to what this means.

In fact, much of the concern we’ve heard coming from small business around this legislation is, again, not about the intent. It is about understanding the specifics, because they will have to enact around this. They will have to understand what not only the potential cost implications but also organizational disruption implications could be.

They are, of course…. Every small business that I have ever known are the kind of people that would step up to make sure their people are taken care of. But in many cases, they’ve stepped up to make sure their people are taken care of out of a feeling of moral obligation and community belonging, not out of rules as prescribed as this for unpaid job-protected leave. They are looking for some real clarity around what this actually means.

[2:10 p.m.]

If the minister does not believe the threshold should be spelled out, I would ask her to clarify why she believes that B.C. should be so profoundly different from every other province, or most other provinces, that do spell out the threshold.

If, in fact, there is an intention for that threshold to be defined in regulation, as is obviously there, in terms of the prescribed number, I would certainly appreciate it if the minister could provide some indication as to what that number of consecutive days might be.

Small businesses, particularly micro-sized businesses that will be affected by this, really are looking for some clarity on this from the government before this legislation comes into force. Certainly, we as the opposition are also looking for that clarity and looking to understand why it is that the minister believes B.C. should be so profoundly different from every other province that does provide clarity.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I think I’ve answered this a few times, so I’ll just give it one last shot.

With respect to clarity, I think the bill is clear. There will be no employment threshold. There is no employment threshold to qualify for the leave. There is no employment threshold, I would suggest, to qualify for accommodation.

The bill contains a provision to provide the opportunity down the road, if in the future it’s determined that it would be helpful, to enact a regulation to introduce such a threshold. There has been no consideration of what that might be because we have no experience yet with the leave.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday.

I am still baffled by this obstinacy around clarifying the threshold. I again am looking at Alberta, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia, all of whom have a clear threshold.

We have industry…. In fact, I have letters from industry sent to the ministry asking specifically for clarity around that threshold and flagging it as actually being one of their top concerns with the legislation, a lack of clarity.

I just really want to understand: what message does the minister believe she is sending to small business, who, frankly, are mobile in terms of where they create jobs? What message is the minister sending to small business, who know what the threshold is in provinces elsewhere in the country but are being told by the minister that there is no threshold, there is no clarity, there is no current intent to implement a threshold?

What signal does that send in terms of where these businesses are going to go, in terms of how they should understand the difference between this province and other provinces?

I’m baffled by the unwillingness of the minister to provide clarity. I’m very confused as to why this government believes it is so fundamentally different from other major provinces in Canada that provide explicit clarity as to a threshold.

The Chair: Member, I’ve heard you ask this question actually from this side about four or five times now. I’ve given a lot of leniency. I’d ask that you find a new line of questioning.

Gavin Dew: Mr. Chair, I haven’t really received a substantive answer, but recognizing that it is your birthday, I will pivot to a new line of questioning.

The Chair: The minister said, again and again, her response with respect to the thresholds across the province, with how it applies to different areas of the law. She’s given the answer, and I’m going to accept that that’s the answer.

If you want to move along, thank you, and I appreciate the happy birthday.

Gavin Dew: You’re welcome, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday again. Recognizing that it is your birthday, I will pivot to another line of questioning.

I will just flag, again, that the answers…. I was hoping to hear more clarity on that. I think that a lot of small businesses will be disappointed at the lack of clarity around that, the lack of willingness to engage with their explicit and direct feedback around the need for a threshold, the desire for some comparability to other jurisdictions. But it is what it is.

I will pivot to another area of clarification that small business is again looking for and has submitted to the ministry and has not apparently received any clarity on.

Small businesses are looking for clarification on when the leave would reset. After the 27 weeks have been taken, is it refreshed 52 weeks later, or as long as a person misses only 27 weeks out of 52, then is it job protected?

[2:15 p.m.]

The input of this particular group, the Retail Council of Canada, is that, ideally, there should be 52 weeks between the job-protected leaves, to provide stability for the employer and an ability to hire appropriate replacements.

Again, I take no position as to whether they are 100 percent on the mark with what they think should be done, but I reinforce that here we have, again, a major, major group representing over 358,000 people employed in the retail industry, with $17 billion in wages. This is a major group, and they are asking for clarity as to how the leave would reset.

Can the minister provide clarity on that, please?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: The intention is that the entitlement is for 27 weeks within a 52-week period. So the leave…. The reset would be that 52 weeks have to elapse from the date that the leave was initiated.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday.

Interjections.

The Chair: Don’t humour him.

Gavin Dew: They’re loving it, Mr. Chair, and I just want your caucus to show their love for you. That is important. You are appreciated. So thank you and happy birthday.

Again, I think the minister is earnestly trying to answer the question I’ve asked. Let me just try re-asking so I can get a little bit more clarity here.

It sounds as though what we’re talking about is 27 weeks within a 52-week year, obviously. So that would imply, then, that if there are 27 weeks of leave within a 52-week year…. Would the individual be eligible to take another 27 weeks of leave after 25 weeks? When does the counter reset? Help us understand that.

So if, for example, I take 27 weeks of leave…. I then return to work for 25 weeks. Now I have been on leave for 27 out of 52 weeks. Am I now eligible to take another 27 weeks 25 weeks later, or am I eligible to take another 27 weeks 52 weeks later?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Perhaps it would be a help to illustrate by way of example.

[2:20 p.m.]

So an individual is diagnosed with cancer. They work through that early period. They’re going to go on a regime of chemotherapy, and their doctor advises that they will need to be away from work for either 27 weeks or an intermittent 27 weeks for a period of time.

Say that leave starts, for sake of argument, on February 1, 2025. That individual is off for 27 weeks between February 1, 2025, and October 1, 2025. They would be eligible, with a new medical note, to commence another 27-week, job-protected leave period February 1, 2026, so 52 weeks from the date that the leave initially commenced.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Prince George–Mackenzie.

Kiel Giddens: Thank you, Chair, and happy birthday.

I do think the example that the minister provided was quite helpful.

You know, I’m thinking of, as the minister said, the 245,000 British Columbians currently undergoing some sort of leave with cancer at the moment. Maybe I’ve confused that stat a little bit, but in any case, thinking of the example the minister just described, I think that for those workers, that intermittent block is important, because the nature of some of the treatment is, obviously, in cycles rather than in one continuous period. In cancer treatment, that’s certainly the case, but among other illnesses as well.

In thinking through that reset piece of it, will that be more spelled out in the regulations? Is that something where there will be more clarity, I guess? That could be something that the same groups that were consulted initially on the legislation…. Is that something that will be consulted on the regulations so that that is spelled out very clearly for folks?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Just to be clear, it’s not contemplated that there would be a set of regulations accompanying this change to the Employment Standards Act. What there will be is guidance. That is the way in which the long-standing regime under the Employment Standards Act…. There’s extensive guidance that is updated on a regular basis to reflect the kinds of questions and cases that come before the employment standards branch and/or the tribunal to clarify the interpretation and application of the Employment Standards Act.

[2:25 p.m.]

There will be guidance developed with examples that would lay out the start and stop time for leaves under various scenarios that the team at the employment standards branch thinks cover what they would routinely be expecting to hear from employers.

Again, I’ll note that the employment standards branch strives to be very responsive to the needs of employers for guidance and interpretation. They have a dedicated line. They do from time to time conduct educationals. When there is a big sort of change or addition to the act, they turn their minds, of course, to trying to make sure that they are available to employers to ensure that they have access to the kinds of explanations that they need with respect to the application of the new provisions.

The Chair: We’re on clause 1. Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday. I am only slightly disappointed that the minister has not yet joined us in wishing a happy birthday to the Chair with each answer, but I believe that in the spirit of collegiality, that might be something that we could entice her to take part in, if only for the entertainment of the colleagues seated to her right, who are particularly enjoying the blushing of the Chair each time we wish him a happy birthday.

Returning to a more serious matter, thank you. I appreciate the answer.

Another issue that has been flagged around the additional leave periods — again from industry, again questions they’re looking for clarification on and do not appear to have received clarification on — is: will employees be required to provide updates as required? If leaves are to be extended, is there a requirement that employees provide sufficient notice of the extension to allow the employer to plan for ongoing replacement or to make staffing adjustments to ensure the employee’s return to the workplace can be accommodated?

These are some fairly basic guidelines that need to be in place, but they’re also very important in terms of the practicability of the policy for the purposes of small businesses who are trying in earnest to make sure that they are accommodative but who could find themselves in a very difficult and unpredictable circumstance, particularly when you’re talking about small businesses for whom this is not one person out of 100. This might be one person out of five. Responsibilities may have been shifted. The company may have grown. A lot could be changing.

Again, I’m just looking for a greater understanding as to whether or not employees will be required to provide updates and what the notice requirements are to provide notice of an extension.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: As I think is clearly laid out in the bill, the individual requesting the leave will be required, when they apply for the leave to submit a note from a medical professional attesting to their need to take the leave. We’ve suggested, and we will put this in the guidance on the Employment Standards Act website, that they use the same medical certificate for the purposes of employment insurance sickness benefits for the submission to their employer when they request the leave.

There is no further medical documentation required. When they are ready to return to work, they of course, in the manner of…. Anybody who has spent any time in disability management or navigating an accommodation process understands that it requires the collaboration of both parties to ensure that is achieved successfully. They’re, of course, required to work with their employer on the return-to-work plan.

Now, in the cases of…. We have, certainly, many successful examples to look at. If we look at the workers compensation board process, there is a return-to-work process under the act that requires parties to work together to ensure a timely and appropriate return-to-work process for employees if they’ve been off on a compensable injury, for example. We see similar examples across duty-to-accommodate space where they’re in unionized workplaces, for example.

Those are the same principles. All of those principles flow from the human rights code and common law. There’s extensive jurisprudence with respect to these matters, and those principles are what will be distilled and put into guidance for the parties to guide them in that return-to-work process.

[2:30 p.m.]

Gavin Dew: Another in-the-weeds question. Again, seeking clarification that small businesses have reached out looking for and have not yet received. I want to use this as an opportunity to try to get some answers on the record.

Is there an obligation for employees availing themselves of this leave to provide medical documentation from the medical professionals treating them in Canada and an obligation to continue ongoing treatment specifically in Canada? We are informed by industry that it is a not entirely uncommon occurrence for some employees to take leaves and to leave the country for a period of time without necessarily providing visibility on their ongoing health issues.

If this is not an option, do we have a minimum threshold as to what can be accepted as medical documentation from a foreign country? For example, only from a licensed medical doctor and details on their ongoing restrictions.

Again, this is not a situation I personally encounter, but it is one that has been flagged by industry, where they’re looking to understand exactly what the threshold is for medical documentation, particularly if it is non-Canadian medical documentation.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: The issue of where the medical documentation comes from, where the certificate comes from, was certainly an area that we heard much on from employer groups — all groups, medical professional groups as well.

In that regard, you will note that clause 49.01(1) defines a health practitioner as “(a) a medical practitioner; (b) a nurse practitioner; (c) a person who is authorized to practise a designated health profession, within the meaning of the Health Professions Act, that is prescribed for the purposes of this definition.”

Essentially, what that definition seeks to do is to establish the requirement that it is a doctor or a nurse practitioner who can sign the medical certificate.

[2:35 p.m.]

Again, with respect to the medical certificate that we recommend be in use, it is the same medical certificate that is in use for the application for employment insurance benefits, which requires that the patient list their patient information — their name, social insurance number, date of birth, address, etc. The medical practitioner states their opinion that the patient is unable to work for medical reasons, along with the date. It includes their name, their specialty, etc.

So that is the regime that will be in place to ensure the veracity of the information that’s provided by the individual applying for the leave.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, and I’m conscious that in my prior question, I neglected to wish you a happy birthday.

For the benefit of folks who may be watching this or reading Hansard, to understand the exact meaning of the answer, can the minister just be clear that…? Under the applicable acts — under the HPOA, etc. — are we referring specifically and solely to Canadian licensed medical health care professionals, or is there scope for non-Canadian medical professionals to be the ones providing documentation for, for example, the extension of a leave?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I mean, I think that could happen. I think that’s not what’s purely contemplated here. We would expect that generally it would be either the individual’s GP or their specialist who is filling out this information.

I think it doesn’t preclude, in certain circumstances, that an individual may be receiving treatment outside of Canada. That might be appropriate. But again, I think those cases would be rare. Again, that is advice that we will canvass in the guidance.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and happy birthday.

Thank you. I appreciate the answer. I’m just, again, looking for a little bit more clarity there, because the question has been asked.

It sounds as though we are relying on the idea that it is possible that specific treatment may be sought outside of the country. But I’m just wondering: how clearly will those parameters be defined?

Again, I’m talking about edge cases here, which are likely to be extremely few in number but that are simply those cases that employers do worry about, where there is the potential for abuse of the system.

What are the guardrails preventing a situation, god forbid, in which an employee is taking advantage of the system or is, for example, seeking to use documentation from a foreign country, the provenance of which is not clear, or what have you?

How does that work in terms of ensuring that there are clear guidelines around what foreign country documentation is acceptable and what foreign country documentation is not acceptable? If that is a matter of uncertainty or if it becomes a matter of dispute in these circumstances, what is the mechanism for appeal or resolution in those kinds of situations?

[2:40 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: With respect to, again, who can fill out the form, it’s canvassed and it’s articulated in 49.01(1). The dispute resolution process for that…. If an employer receives a medical note that isn’t the one that we recommend or that looks like, for some reason, a cause for question, then they would call the branch.

I mean, employees as well as employers can access the branch for dispute resolution, so that’s where that would go. They would receive assistance from a branch officer to determine how to proceed from there.

The Chair: We will be taking a brief break, as we’ve lost quorum.

Interjection.

The Chair: For five minutes.

The committee recessed from 2:42 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.

[George Anderson in the chair.]

The Chair: Good afternoon, Members. I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 30, Employment Standards (Serious Illness or Injury Leave) Amendment Act, 2025, back to order.

Kiel Giddens: I will return to a few more questions on 49.01(1) and just the health practitioners and a little bit more I have on the medical certificates.

Before I do, I just want to finalize one discussion we were having previously. The member for Kelowna-Mission, the small business critic, was talking about circumstances where employees may be working remotely — in this case, he was using the example of another country — or they seek medical treatment in another jurisdiction, another country, and how that would be treated from a medical professional standpoint.

I’m just wondering. To provide clarity, for workers and businesses within Canada itself, how would the leave apply for B.C.-based companies with remote workers in other provinces or workers who perform their duties across multiple jurisdictions?

An easy example. There are a lot of folks who happen to be moving to the small town of Mackenzie right now because of the affordable cost of housing there, but some of them do have jobs in Alberta. There’s a family I just met who actually…. He works for an employer in Newfoundland, but he happens to be living in Mackenzie. But vice versa, if there’s a B.C. company and someone is working in Newfoundland, how does this apply to that employee working in Newfoundland in that case? Just to be clear.

[2:55 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I think the example that the member raises sort of depends on the fact pattern. It depends on the circumstances. If you are, essentially, resident in another province, even though you’re employed by a business here, we’d expect that the terms and conditions of the Employment Standards Act in that province would apply if you’re there permanently. That, we expect, is what would apply.

If you’re back and forth, there could be some grey area depending on how often you’re back and forth and how much time you’re spending here versus how much time you’re spending in another province. Again, those are relatively atypical circumstances that, based on a fact pattern, an employment standards officer, if there were a dispute about that, would review, work with the parties, work with the case law to resolve.

Kiel Giddens: I think it is incumbent upon all of us to try to avoid the grey areas that could cause conflict. I do think we’re in a world…. Obviously, it’s very well known that remote work and people moving from province to province are much more common than it certainly used to be.

With that, Chair, I was hoping to move an amendment:

[CLAUSE 1, subsection (2) is amended by striking the text shown as struck and substituting the following shown as underlined:

(2) After the prescribed number of consecutive days, if any, 90 days of employment with an employer, an employee who, due to serious personal illness or injury, is unable to work for at least one week is entitled to up to 27 weeks of unpaid leave in any period of 52 weeks.]

The Chair: Would you like to speak to the amendment, and then we’ll take a short recess?

On the amendment.

Kiel Giddens: Yes.

Just given the fact that our employment standards…. Across Canada, there is, I think, a need for some level of harmonization of what we’re doing. We are talking about harmonization of interprovincial trade, for example, and how important that is right now. But harmonization of our country in terms of our places of work is also something that’s quite important.

We’ve also been talking significantly about the need for clarity for workers and businesses in B.C. for what the minimum timeline could or should be in this case. We have talked a little bit about other provinces that use a minimum tenure, and I think that’s something that we would like to see in this case. It seems to be that 90 days is the most common. We see it in a form of that in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I.

So with that, this amendment that we’re proposing would be to subsection (2), to say striking “the prescribed number of consecutive days” and including “90 days” to make it harmonized with other jurisdictions.

We think it’s a very simple amendment. I also do think that it aligns well with, under part 6 of the act, the broader Employment Standards Act, 49.1. We already use “90 consecutive days of employment with an employer, an employee, for personal illness or injury” for other entitlements under the act, so keeping it consistent both with the Employment Standards Act and also with other jurisdictions provides that clarity for workers who are working across jurisdictions.

[3:00 p.m.]

It’s just having a clear guideline that is absolutely set in stone so there is no room for future employment standards disputes in this regard, just keeping it very clean. We hoped that this would be a friendly amendment.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I mean, it’s not a friendly amendment. It’s not an amendment that we think is appropriate. We don’t think it’s appropriate, in this case, to institute a 90-day threshold for employment in cases where there’s a serious accident or injury or diagnosis.

We don’t have thresholds for unpaid leave other than the first provision in part 1 for the five days’ paid sick leave or the three days of unpaid leave. For every single other unpaid leave, there is no employment threshold. Again, our intention is to keep the structure and framework of our Employment Standards Act intact.

I’m not able to speak to how all of the provisions work in the Ontario act or in other acts or how their thresholds apply to different kinds of leaves. It may well be that those are very differently structured than our act. I just cannot fathom how it makes sense to say to somebody who has received a catastrophic cancer diagnosis or who was in a car accident: “Well, you’re on your 60th day of employment, so your job is at risk. You, on the other hand, are on your 91st day of employment, so you’re okay.”

That just doesn’t make sense given the nature of the kinds of circumstances that we are in and the ways in which we are trying to protect the interests of British Columbians. So it’s not an agreeable amendment for our side.

Gavin Dew: Certainly, I think that…. Repeatedly, in consultation, in the correspondence received from voices from small business who are looking for clarity in regard to this legislation and, in particular, those voices that represent a wide range of employers all across the country, we have heard, consistently, concerns around the lack of a threshold. I think, again, those concerns are not rooted in any lack of compassion for the challenges that individuals face who might well be going on leave.

I think there is a broad and very strong level of support and compassion and a support for the general principles this legislation is geared to solve. But it is very material and very consequential to businesses, to small businesses in particular. It’s actually very significant in terms of the decisions that….

For example, we’ve received feedback that legislation without a threshold potentially makes it very enticing for big companies to place their distribution centres in other provinces or other countries. So it is important to recognize that there are, in fact, unintended consequences of well-intended legislation and that that may, in fact, serve to further diminish the private sector employment growth that has already been anemic in this province for the last eight years.

We are very conscious of the fact that, again, when we look to precedents all across the country…. We’ve articulated numerous times that the comparable legislation is 90-day threshold in Alberta and New Brunswick, 13 weeks in Saskatchewan and Ontario, three months in Nova Scotia.

[3:05 p.m.]

In speaking against the amendment, the minister indicated that she did not know how things worked in those other provinces. That alone is quite distressing. It strikes me that there either has not been the work undertaken to compare to other jurisdictions or there is no interest in knowing how our provisions compare to other peer jurisdictions.

It is, again, disappointing, just as someone who is watching this legislation, and I think would be incredibly frustrating for some of those voices from small business who have provided their good faith, constructive, well-intentioned feedback, based on their experience and the experience of their peers working in jurisdictions all across the country.

Again, I do believe that establishing a clear threshold is the right way to go here. I think that it is an appropriate approach. It has been an appropriate approach in other major provinces all across the country. I would submit that it would be an appropriate approach here.

The Chair: Seeing no further questions, shall the amendment pass?

Amendment negatived on division.

Kiel Giddens: Before we took a brief break for that amendment there to have a discussion about that, the minister was talking about medical certificates. We’ll get into that, but before we do, I just wanted to clarify. Under subsection 49.01(1)(a), (b) and (c)…. Obviously, nurse practitioners were included explicitly, and physicians, but what about physician assistants?

I just want to clarify. More and more, particularly in rural settings, physician assistants are being used in our medical system and are part of our medical system. I want to clarify, particularly for the fact we do have physician shortages in rural areas right now.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Again, just by way of the advice that we had from medical professionals, from others in the course of the consultation, it was clear that folks were looking for a robust approach to the process of the medical certificate.

That’s why you see medical practitioner and nurse practitioner, so a doctor or a nurse practitioner, and clause (c), which allows anyone who’s “authorized to practise a designated health profession, within the meeting of the Health Professions Act, that is prescribed for the purposes of this definition.”

We could add others by regulation at another time, but that is not contemplated at this moment.

Kiel Giddens: I do hope that some additional medical professionals can be added, given the shortage of health care workers in rural communities.

[3:10 p.m.]

Just wondering if that was something that was taken into account — access to gaining a medical certificate, particularly for rural and remote communities with limited health care access. I think of remote Indigenous communities. We know that access to our system can be challenging for some folks. That’s where I think those other prescribed health practitioners could be useful.

Is that something that the ministry did factor in as they were designing the legislation — that rural and remote factor?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I would say, in a broad sense, yes. I mean, we strive to ensure that the provisions that we are putting in place will be available to all British Columbians.

I think there are numerous ways in which our Ministry of Health is looking to and working with health authorities to expand access, including virtual access, for individuals. Again, the provisions that we’ve outlined here are consistent with the provisions in the medical certificate to access EI benefits.

As we monitor the rollout of this provision and the application of this provision, there is room to add others if we see that folks are encountering challenges accessing the required medical signature of a doctor or a nurse practitioner.

Kiel Giddens: In our previous discussion, there was a little bit of discussion on recognizing the validity of foreign medical certificates. I’ll maybe put that aside and look at just the validity and verification of medical certificates within Canada or, if the minister cares to add, outside the country as well. I think that ensuring that they are valid is very important, that there are some robust verification mechanisms included.

Is that something that the ministry is preparing for, to make sure that those medical certificates are in fact valid?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Sure. With respect to the medical certificate for employment insurance sickness benefits, this is the form that we recommend and will recommend in the advice and guidance developed by the employment standards branch, recommended to employers and workers and articulated in the guidance that will be on the website.

This certificate, which we are happy to provide a copy of, states as follows: “An individual must get a medical certificate signed by a medical practitioner when they apply” — in this case, for EI sickness benefits. “The medical practitioner completes and signs section 2 to attest that a patient is unable to work for medical reasons.”

The first section, as I think I’ve described before, has the patient information. The second section, the certificate of the medical practitioner, states: “In my opinion, the above patient is unable to work for medical reasons from this date up to and including this date.” It requires the name of the medical practitioner in printing, the specialty, their licence or registration number, their address, their signature and the date on which the form was signed.

Kiel Giddens: I appreciate that robust response. I think that satisfies my question in that regard. I think that guidance is going to be critical, obviously, as we’re helping folks navigate this system, and making sure there’s guidance around those certificates is going to be very important.

Maybe I’ll just turn to another question. We did….

[The bells were rung.]

I’ll just pause for a moment.

[3:15 p.m.]

Earlier we talked a little bit about the definition of serious personal illness or injury, and I appreciated the minister’s response in that it was noted that we’re talking about a chronic illness that includes, perhaps, a continuous or intermittent need for treatment or a serious injury. The minister used the example of a motor vehicle accident. I think keeping that frame is very important for folks to recognize when we’re looking at the bill in its entirety.

But, I guess, the scope of serious illness is really dependent on the health practitioner’s determination. Just to clarify: will the health practitioner be the one that specifically designates who indeed does have a serious illness or injury? Is that the intent?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Yes.

Kiel Giddens: As a follow-up clarification to that, will that include if a health practitioner designates an individual with a serious mental health illness? Will that also be incorporated?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Again, the answer to that is yes. If, in the opinion of a doctor or a nurse practitioner, their patient requires time off of work due to an illness or injury, whether that illness or injury is a physical illness or injury or a psychological injury, that is at the discretion of the clinical expertise of the doctor or the nurse practitioner to determine.

Kiel Giddens: I expected that would likely be the answer, and I think I agree with it, certainly in principle.

I think, in this case, this is another area where a different type of guidance may be useful, and it’s guidance for the health practitioners, as well, in terms of criteria for medical professionals. There are certainly different medical opinions. Health practitioners also know that it’s not always easy to get access to a medical professional, health practitioner, for folks, so they don’t want repeat visits. They want to try to make a clear determination at the time, so having that criteria could be very useful.

We want to avoid ambiguity, particularly if we look across various health practitioners that could be used in this case. We want to make sure also that the act applies equally to all workers, first and foremost, and really avoid any of those potential for disputes. So I’m wondering, again: will there be any standardized criteria that will be provided for medical professionals or health practitioners, as defined?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I have to say I would be very reluctant to have non-specialists, people without clinical expertise, wading into a determination about an area that required the clinical expertise of a doctor or nurse practitioner.

So again, as with the entire disability management system in Canada, that is driven by the clinical expertise of and assessments by the doctors and nurse practitioners who are providing advice to employers, to workers about how to manage their health conditions.

Kiel Giddens: Maybe a different way of asking that. What if a health practitioner wanted advice from the ministry? Is that something that the employment standards tools could also be used for, for them, as it is for employers and employees in this case?

[3:20 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I wouldn’t expect that a medical practitioner — a doctor or a nurse practitioner — would be looking for advice from…. I guess I’m trying to understand what they might be looking for advice from the employment standards branch for.

I imagine if it were a question with respect to how to interpret a particular set of symptoms or how to arrive at a diagnosis, it would be appropriate for them to utilize their other professional networks, opportunities to help them in that job. The only advice that the employment standards branch is really able to provide is on interpretation and application of the act.

Kiel Giddens: My intention of asking was the interpretation of the act. That was what — if medical professionals did have that. Does that clarify the question?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I mean, if it were necessary for…. If it’s necessary for any member of the public to have clarification on the act, certainly they can contact the branch for that. Our repeat customers tend to be employers and workers, but if there are questions from anyone with respect to interpretation or application of the act, those resources are available through the branch.

Kiel Giddens: Subsection (4) says: “The employee must give the employer a copy of the certificate as soon as practicable.” I’m just wondering if the minister can explain a little bit more on what the ministry would consider as practicable for when an employee must give a copy of a certificate to an employer.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I suppose it’s sort of case dependent. “As soon as practicable” could be immediately upon requesting the leave in certain circumstances. It could be a week or so hence if somebody was in a car accident and they were unconscious, and it took them time to get…. I mean, it really depends on the particular circumstances that the individual is experiencing.

Practicable in this case, under this provision of the Employment Standards Act, will evolve an interpretation based on the actual experience that people are bringing to the branch, and if there are disputes about what is practicable, those decisions will go into establishing what that bar is.

But for all intents and purposes, as soon as you can, you need to get that information into your employer, is what I would say.

Kiel Giddens: I would agree that would be the most logical — as soon as you can. But just the fact that it’s written into the act…. I think it just is open to interpretation from the legal community in particular. I think that’s where they would be looking. But that’s fine. I can leave that aside.

Another legal matter that I think is just worth noting…. Again, we are talking about various types of employers, and also employers that do not have HR departments to be able to interpret as well. So they do really rely on the guidance documents as their…. They may or may not have access to legal counsel or anything like that. In many cases, they probably don’t. So that’s where that guidance is key.

I’m wondering if the government will be providing guidance on the employer handling the storage and use of and confidentiality of medical certificates to avoid any breaches of employee privacy. I just think that privacy is something that is an important theme in the context of legislation in the province, including the Employment Standards Act. So just wondering if that will be included in the guidance documents.

[3:25 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Of course, employers are already in receipt of a certain amount of confidential information of employees. They have extensive…. They may have CVs on file. They may have other documents that contain personal information.

We would expect that employers would, generally, of course, treat any medical information that comes forward with the same level of confidence that they do employees’ existing personal information. We can certainly include some general guidance, if it’s not there, to reinforce that notion.

I agree that privacy is a really important consideration. But again, I think this is not something that would be unusual or something that employers would be surprised by or not have provisions in place already to address.

Kiel Giddens: I fully agree this would be something that employers should have an obligation to handle. I would say medical information is particularly sensitive, so just making sure that’s noted in the guidance would be appreciated, but I’ll leave that up to the ministry’s discretion.

Maybe moving on, I just want to ask a few questions on the alignment to the rest of the act a little bit and then on the EI programs as well. Understanding how these work in tandem, I think, is important for both employers and employees as they’re trying to navigate their leave obligations here.

I think I know the answer to this, but I’m going to ask it. Can the minister confirm whether accrued vacation, health benefits and seniority continue during the 27-week leave?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Yes, they do. As we’ve canvassed here, of course, these rights, the right to accommodation when one has a disability is the…. That’s all backstopped by the human rights code, which does establish that you are treated as though you are at work for the purposes of accrual of seniority and your vacation and all your perquisites and such.

Kiel Giddens: Maybe as a follow-up to that question, part 6 of the Employment Standards Act, the minister will note, has got a number of different types of leaves included. So how will overlapping leaves be coordinated in that case — for example, family responsibility leave, compassionate care leave? If there’s another type of leave, how will it overlap with this one in terms of the number of days, in terms of the start-stop of each, and how will that work in practice?

[3:30 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I think the easiest way to understand this is that individuals aren’t on different leaves at the same time.

For example, if an individual is, in the example of a motor vehicle accident, in hospital, they would have access to five days of paid sick leave, three days of unpaid leave. If they were going to need to be off for a period longer than that and they were going to apply for EI benefits, for example, then, at that point, we’d expect to see them apply for the 27 weeks of protected-job leave in order to align with their EI.

So it would be more of a sequential…. Leaves are taken sequentially.

Kiel Giddens: I appreciate the response from the minister. That provides a lot of clarity, so I appreciate that.

I think the one that may have a little bit more grey area, perhaps, would be disability leave. Obviously, the minister had referenced that employers do have an existing legal duty to accommodate disabilities. But I guess….

How does that accommodation extend to both the 27-week leave and a disability leave, specifically, so that duplication is avoided? I feel like this could be one that could be subject to litigation and just want to make sure that there’s a clear understanding of how these two would interact.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I’m a little unclear on the question because we don’t have a provision for a “disability leave” under the Employment Standards Act. I’m just wondering if the member can help me understand the circumstance he’s thinking of.

Kiel Giddens: I believe there is a duty to accommodate under the human rights code, though. I think that’s where I was looking at those two in tandem to figure out where one would finish and the other would start, how they would interact with each other. I believe that the employers do have a legal obligation in that regard.

[3:35 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I think I understand what the member is getting at.

I guess, I would say that there isn’t a disability leave per se. There is, of course, a positive obligation on employers to accommodate pursuant to human rights law. That shows up in a number of different ways or that can apply to a workplace in a number of different ways.

If we take an example here…. We heard from an individual who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her experience was that she felt like she was forced to leave her job earlier than she would have otherwise, because she didn’t have access to this kind of a leave.

I think the way to think about it is that that is not a sequential happening. The positive obligation to accommodate exists. It’s there. Employers have a responsibility to respond to that. This leave and granting this leave is one mechanism to provide that accommodation.

It is why this leave was established in the way that it is, set up to be either a continuous 27-week period or to be taken in intermittent periods of a minimum of a week, to account for those chronic conditions, those episodic issues that an individual may experience.

The way in which an individual takes the leave is an expression of the accommodation. They don’t flow kind of sequentially. This is one way in which an accommodation can be achieved.

Kiel Giddens: Yeah, as it happens, the member for Bulkley Valley–Stikine and I were just talking about an example of an MS patient. Eventually, a leave turned into a…. In this case, it was with an employer that had a leave policy so there was something in place, and then it turned into disability.

I appreciate the minister’s answer on…. It’s an expression of accommodation, though, within that. I think that satisfies the answer in my mind, so thank you.

Maybe something that was touched on earlier in our discussions as well. Obviously, the 27 weeks was aligning with the federal EI in some ways. But in aligning with how this works in tandem with EI overall, I think it’s just good to understand.

We have established processes for parental leave, for example. But how will overall…? Medical certificates alignment being one example, but are there other examples of how this aligns with the EI program?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: It is in alignment with respect to the time frame of 27 weeks, which is the maximum amount of sickness benefits for a worker, provided they’ve met the criteria for employment insurance sickness benefits.

[3:40 p.m.]

That’s the maximum time period for which they are entitled to receive benefits, and it is in trying to align the medical certificates, really — those two areas.

Kiel Giddens: I think in further aligning with the EI system, there are very clear, established rules around important obligations. An employer has to, obviously, keep an individual’s current position intact and reasonably make sure that that’s the case.

I’ll use, maybe, the parental leave as an example. On the maternity side, that leave can be up to 18 months under the EI system. In this, we’re talking about six months. Under what circumstances, in this case, can employers make changes to an employee’s employment, as compared to the federal EI program?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: In this provision in the Employment Standards Act, the requirement is for an employer to return an employee, at the end of their leave, to their position or, if that position is not available, to a comparable position. That’s the expectation as laid out, which is very consistent with what’s laid out in the accommodation process that flows from human rights law.

Kiel Giddens: To read into the record here, is the minister, in that case, referring to section 54 of the Employment Standards Act? Just confirming that that fully applies to this leave amendment.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Thank you to the member for the clarification.

Yes, essentially, our expectation would be that it’s the same as what flows from the duties of the employer under section 54, which states that an employer must give an employee who requests leave under this part the leave to which the employee is entitled, and that an employer must not, because of an employee’s pregnancy or a leave allowed by this part, terminate employment or change a condition of employment without the employee’s written consent, and so on and so forth.

Kiel Giddens: I appreciate the confirmation. I just wanted that clarified into the record.

I think what the minister just described is, obviously, a very important component of parental leave and, indeed, other leave — job security and protection. It is important that employees don’t lose any benefits, seniority or other entitlements as well.

[3:45 p.m.]

I do want to get into just a little bit of discussion in that regard, in terms of small businesses, where the nature of the work is more fluid. This is where sometimes the disputes in the current system do come to fruition from time to time. Job descriptions do change a little bit more frequently in a smaller microbusiness because of the needs, because of changing customers and the changing nature of work.

Under the parental leave example, there are different pressures and reasons for an employer to, perhaps, change a role to a comparable position, as long as it has the same pay, hours and benefits. Again, I recognize that it needs to have that consent of the employee.

Maybe overall with this amendment, within the overall context of the Employment Standards Act, could it be explained why the act doesn’t allow prescribed circumstances for changes to an employee’s position in this case? Would it not safeguard against employment standards complaints to have a little bit more of that guidance actually written right into the regulations?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: With respect to the guidance that the branch provides, in circumstances that exist already when determining a comparable position, which would flow through and cover this leave as well, there are guidelines that the branch sets out for what’s considered to be a comparable position.

They include things such as job title, job duties, reporting relationships, status as perceived by other staff and the public, the pay package, benefit plans, hours of work, location of work, location of office workstation or desk, provision of equipment and tools. Those are the kinds of things that would be considered in the determination about a comparable position.

Gavin Dew: Thank you very much for the explanation, Minister.

It’s clear the intent makes sense there. I’m just really struggling to understand the way that that return-to-work structure would work in a small, fast-growing, fast-changing company.

[3:50 p.m.]

To use an example of a fast-growing tech company, you could have a situation in which, in a matter of 27 weeks, the company has fundamentally transformed. For the sake of argument, let’s imagine a company that is in hyper-growth, a scenario where, setting aside even whether someone departs on a leave, the entire nature of a company of that sort changes incredibly rapidly.

You could very well have situations where somebody’s effective role is dramatically changed, where there is or was no job description, where somebody was doing something…. Even in a matter of not even 27 weeks but 27 days, you’ll have situations in which an entire workflow is changed massively, and that could have been someone’s entire responsibility.

You could have a situation in which a reporting structure changes substantially. You could have a situation in which someone was responsible for undertaking a process that has been replaced by programming done by generative AI. Entire lines of work can actually be programmed using AI.

There’s a broader conversation there around AI and skills-biased job dislocation. But you could have a situation in which agentic AI is literally supplanting an entire job description, supplanting an entire role.

Again, I return to comments the minister has made. Employers are, generally, for the most part, good employers who want to support people, who want to bring people back, who desire to have those people be part of their community, part of their family, part of their team.

How do we reconcile the return-to-work provisions that are quite fixed, which the minister has just laid out, with the reality of an extraordinarily fast-changing small company where it may not be possible, even if it were desirable, to recreate the job description, parameters, duties, esteem, all the things that the minister has just described? How do we make that work versus having a one-size-fits-all approach?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Yeah, I mean, again, as is sort of very well understood by anybody who spent any time in disability management, in accommodation, in advocating for individuals in a return-to-work process…. It’s really well understood that there’s a certain amount of flexibility that occurs in this space. If an employer was genuinely impacted by a downturn, had genuinely experienced a terrific growth that displaced the particular job that the individual was in, their obligation would be to place that individual in a comparable position.

If they weren’t able to do that, then the question really will become: but for the leave that the individual had to take, would that individual have wound up in the same position?

I think that’s always an important principle in accommodation. But for the circumstances that led to them having to take the leave, what would have happened in the normal course of their employment? Those kinds of questions are part of the accommodation process.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission.

Gavin Dew: Thank you very much, Mr. Birthday Boy.

I understand where the minister is coming from in this regard. But again, I think that in a situation where we’re talking about a large employer — for example, a scenario where somebody is progressing up a salary grid with structured formal processes, where there’s a clear teleological direction that someone is advancing along and that is taking incremental steps — I absolutely understand where that’s coming from.

I am just earnestly struggling to figure out how that reconciles in a situation where, again, we could be dealing with a leave or a series of leaves, 27 weeks. We could see a situation where someone is coming and going over that period of time.

I’m again thinking about that small-scale company where job descriptions are loosely defined, roles are loosely defined. Job descriptions may be quickly…. You might hire against a job description only to have someone’s role change fundamentally in a matter of 27 days or 27 weeks.

[3:55 p.m.]

The entire company is being rearranged in real time and also being supplemented by, again, agentic artificial intelligence, supplemented by contract relationships.

It’s not really so cut and dry as what the minister is describing because it’s very hard…. In a scenario like that where you have, for example, someone who’s playing, let’s say, a senior or mid-senior role in that fast-growing tech company that is evolving, recalibrating, reshuffling teams, implementing AI, implementing other methodologies and tools, it’s hard to imagine how you would actually back out that leave of absence to understand exactly where they “would have ended up.”

It’s not the same as being absent from a job at a university for 27 weeks. It’s being absent from a dynamic, fluid, living system that could be changing extraordinarily quickly.

So again, from a practical, applied perspective, I’m trying to understand how the intent of the legislation and how the intent around return to work and how the various different mechanisms for reconciling if there are conflicting views on this…. How would that actually be done in a situation as fast-moving and dynamic as I’ve just described?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I’d expect, if there were a dispute arising from an employee employed in a tech company or in a resource sector where there might be terrific pressures or any other sector where there’s a lot of change happening, that the parties would seek advice, if they needed advice, from the employment standards branch with respect to how to manage that. They’d get advice from the branch with respect to how comparable might apply in those circumstances.

If they were unable to resolve that, either party could file a dispute, a complaint with the employment standards branch, and use that dispute resolution process to resolve it.

Gavin Dew: Returning to the same scenario, could the minister explain the expertise that the branch has in understanding career progression within a tech start-up? I’m struggling a little bit. I’m asking the question in good faith because I want to understand.

It is very difficult to imagine a scenario in which someone who is employed in the employment standards branch would have the necessary organizational or technological expertise to make a determination or provide advice or make a judgment around how somebody’s career might have progressed in a cutting-edge tech company that is changing dramatically each day.

[Steve Morissette in the chair.]

I’m just trying to understand. Is the toolkit that is available, is the structure that is available going to actually be able to provide usable advice or guidance in those kinds of situations, which are going to probably be an increasing share of the employment in the province, as we see more and more tech companies growing?

It’s a stated goal of this government to grow tech companies, to grow the AI sector. If you’re trying to grow a company in that sector, it matters to you that you have an understanding of what your responsibilities and obligations are in a situation such as this.

There are companies that have literally been founded and exited within 27 weeks. So just understanding what that means for those small, nimble, tech-oriented companies — not just for big giant companies, not just for companies, not just for large organizations but for the hundreds and hundreds and thousands of small companies that are all different and diverse with different, diverse situations and that constitute more than half the private sector employment in the province.

[4:00 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Again, I’ll just be clear. This isn’t a new process. This doesn’t introduce a new or different set of processes that are different than other long-term leaves that are already provided for in the act and which may well impact any of the circumstances that the member outlined.

I will say that in this case, as with other longer-term leaves under the act, the burden is on the employer to demonstrate that a change in condition that occurred while the individual was on leave was not a result of the leave.

The act recognizes that many different things can happen in the very dynamic business environment that we are fortunate to have in British Columbia and accounts for that in recognizing that circumstances may change. They simply have to be in a position to demonstrate that that change was not a result of the individual being on leave but a result of other conditions.

With respect to the kind of advice that one can expect from the employment standards branch, they are experts in the process. They are experts in the principles that underline the act, in the processes that flow from the interpretation and application of the act, as opposed to being subject-matter experts in the very many different sectors that comprise the very dynamic business environment that we operate in, in British Columbia.

I think I’ll leave it there.

The Chair: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-Mission, and just so you know, it’s not my birthday.

Gavin Dew: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It’s a pleasure to see you in the chair, and I wish you a nice day, despite it not being your birthday. I am not, however, going to continue to wish you a nice day with every question, as I have with the prior Chair, although I do wish him a happy birthday.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness with which the minister has engaged with the question. Again, my intent is a good-faith effort to understand how this will work for those kinds of complex microbusinesses.

One of the requests or recommendations flagged by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in its submission of August 14 was for limited exemptions from the prohibition against modifying employment conditions for small businesses with a small number of employees — for example, to the type of work performed in a given role or granted the ability to provide substantially similar work upon an employee’s return.

I would really love to better understand the conversations that happened in the development of the legislation or in the preliminary thoughts around regulation that might contemplate the idea that small, micro-scale businesses are really very fundamentally different and might provide greater flexibility for those small businesses.

Was any conversation undertaken? Were any parameters developed? Is there a reason why microbusinesses were not carved out from what otherwise appears to be sort of one-size-fits-all legislation, given the fact that they are all different but they are universal in their differentness and in the differentness of what may happen to them if they are missing a key employee for 27 weeks?

[4:05 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I will say that, yeah, of course there’s consideration of all of the advice and consultation and feedback that was received through the process. But I will note that our employment standards framework, our Employment Standards Act, does not contain different provisions in any other kind of leave for different kinds of business enterprises, nor does any other employment standards act in other Canadian jurisdictions I am aware of.

It’s an important statutory principle that the floor in the act is the floor. The floor is the floor. There is interpretation that flows from the requirements and the principles of the act, to be sure, in different circumstances, as there are also principles within the application of human rights law when it comes to accommodation that also are brought to bear — recognizing the duty-to-accommodate principle, for example, which may apply in some of these circumstances that the member has raised.

But it is important that when it comes to basic rights, the floor is the floor.

Kiel Giddens: I think the member for Kelowna-Mission was referencing some very specific examples of businesses with very changing environments. I do think, obviously, raising the floor…. We want to make sure that it is going to be possible. We also want to avoid disputes in the employment standards branch. I think we all want to avoid that. We want those healthy workplaces that we talked about earlier.

Making sure that we’re not getting into disputes and all that, and making sure that we have a clear pathway to get out of those disputes, is very important as well. I agree with what the minister said earlier. The burden is on the employer, really. When restructuring happens, they have to make sure that they make it clear.

I guess, maybe, in using an example…. Less of a tech start-up. I’ll use a very easy example to understand. It’s easy for me because it’s my family business. And I apologize to folks in the ministry. You’re going to have to hear about Giddens Services many times. But it’s an easy one, because I grew up in a small business family, a small business environment. We’re an appliance and electronics repair business, and I think the example will work in this case to maybe just clarify a few things.

In the case of a small business like my dad’s shop, when an appliance technician goes off on a 27-week leave, if that was to happen, it would have a material hit to their bottom line because that is their source of revenue, that individual. Replacing that individual within 27 weeks wouldn’t be possible because there is a shortage of skills in that regard, so it would be a challenge. In this case, the employer perhaps could end up having to say that if there was enough of a loss in revenue for this type of employer, they would have to restructure their business.

What standard would the employment standards branch use to evaluate whether the employer acted in good faith if there was a restructuring that the employee did not necessarily consent to or agree with but that was a material reality for that employer because of their economic situation due to the leave?

[4:10 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I guess we could get into a lot of case management here on various different scenarios in which these situations may play out. I think it’s just helpful to note that the employment standards branch has had many years of experience and has accrued many years of administrative law precedent with respect to the application of longer-term leaves, particularly maternal and parental leaves, which are not dissimilar to what’s contemplated here.

[4:15 p.m.]

I would just encourage us to bear that in mind. This is not something that is so new that it creates a whole new set of statutory interpretation. The same legal principles, the same principles of administrative law that are used by the branch to make determinations about whether or not there has been a breach of the Employment Standards Act are going to apply in this case.

The general approach is one of looking at all of the evidence, investigating the fact pattern through talking to the parties and determining on a balance of probabilities what has occurred. So there’s no different standard that will be applied to circumstances under this leave than under other long-term leaves.

Kiel Giddens: I fully would agree with the experience and knowledge and expertise of the employment standards branch. But I would say that there will likely be testing new legal challenges on some of this. There will be new employment standards disputes, likely, that come out of it that the branch would be looking at for the first time. They will use the past examples, but I do think there are some differences that will have to be taken into mind. Obviously, both the legal community and employers and employees will have to go through and navigate that process.

Part of the reason I’m asking is something I brought up at second reading as well and just a general concern. It’s something that we talked at length about in estimates last spring in that employment standards branch does have, in our view, a backlog that…. It is harder to get timely resolution of disputes. Because of that inability to resolve these in a timely way, that can create tension in workplaces, and that’s something we want to, obviously, try to move away from.

I know that we’ve talked about this already, but the service plan of the ministry has a target of 80 percent of employment standards complaints that are supposed to be resolved in 180 days. In 2024, we did hear in estimates that only 32 percent were resolved within 180 days. I think we can agree that we need to try to get some better results in that regard.

With that being top of mind, how will the ministry ensure the timely resolution for disputes related to this new leave? And as a follow-up to that, will there be any additional staffing or resources allocated to handle an expected increase in claims?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Again, I don’t want to overstate what the member is suggesting may occur with respect to significantly increased business for the branch because, I think, as we’ve acknowledged earlier, most employers in this space are striving to be good actors. We aren’t anticipating a huge uptick in disputes arising from this provision.

I think that, as the members stated in their opening comments, in the circumstances in which employers are not already meeting their statutory obligation to accommodate individuals who have a disability — which is a pre-existing obligation, pre-existing to this leave — this leave simply provides access to and confirms access to a job-protected leave.

[4:20 p.m.]

I’m not, given those circumstances, really anticipating a huge uptick. But I take the member’s concern about the backlog at the branch seriously, as we do. We’ve been working very closely with the branch to try and mitigate the backlog and improve the ability of the staff at the branch to do their work and to support employers and workers in the province.

We’ve increased the funding for the branch significantly since 2022-23. We’ve added additional staff. The director of the branch has been working to streamline the process for receiving complaints. We’ve been improving efforts with respect to collecting unpaid wages for workers, making technology upgrades and, very importantly, introducing a new program called alternative dispute resolution, which has proven to be very successful in non-complex cases in moving parties to a resolution much more quickly and efficiently.

That kind of continuous improvement is something we’re very much engaged in at the branch, and we will continue to work to ensure that we get the backlog down and that we’ve got the ability to provide timely support to employers and workers in the province.

Kiel Giddens: I appreciate that we share the desire to really improve that, and I think that we’ll work towards continuous improvement, and we’ll talk about that at a later time, I believe. We’ll have another chance to talk about employment standards and the branch as a whole probably in estimates next year again.

For this particular amendment, what we’re talking about, I think what would…. Obviously, the guidance is going to be important for avoiding disputes. That’s going to be very important, so I hope that it is plain language and easily understood for employers. Small business employers could be prone to mistakes, and I think we don’t want to see a rush of disputes coming to the branch because employers, in good faith, think they’re doing the right thing but they make a mistake.

With that in mind, given that this is a change to obligations, is there going to be any advertising, any outreach to employers or perhaps partnerships with employer organizations that will help to spread the message on this, just to ensure that, obviously, the message is getting out there? And I’d add to that, anything for the employment and labour law community that may also have an interest?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I very much agree around the need to ensure that we have plain-language guidance available for parties. That is a principle of how the guidance is drafted for the website. It’s based on, really, best practices around plain-language communication.

[4:25 p.m.]

Any time there is a change to the Employment Standards Act, there is a communiqué that goes out. We communicate directly with the organizations that have contributed to the consultation process. All of our stakeholders receive the information, and then the staff at the branch will immediately monitor what is happening with the calls that are coming in, both to the employer line and to the general line that workers call in to see, to gauge whether this new provision is in fact becoming a point that requires some intervention.

If they determine that it’s necessary, they can certainly work with partners, put on educational dos — whatever is required in order to address that. I’d say, though, that in the scheme of things, this is a relatively minor change to the act. We don’t anticipate there being a number of concerns that come forward, but certainly, if they do, the branch will be monitoring for that and will be ready to respond.

Kiel Giddens: Thank you to the minister for the response.

I do think that tracking is going to be important. That’s another topic we did talk about at length, actually, in estimates last year. Tracking is important to make sure that we are aligning ministry resources in this case. We also want to be monitoring the effectiveness of the leave, to make sure that employees are getting, hopefully, the job protection that they are looking for here and that it’s working as intended.

Just maybe as a follow-up to that, are there specific metrics in this case that will be used to really evaluate the success of the legislative amendment overall? Is there something that the ministry is going to be doing with these employee and employer groups, after it has been implemented for a period of time, to say whether it is working or not, or whether the guidance documents need to be changed or not?

Are some sort of metrics in place? I’m looking at uptake, the number of disputes, the timeliness of employment standards resolution and, overall, what the ministry could be hearing from small businesses about their staffing. That might be another one. Are there metrics like that that would be looked at for future consultation and discussion with employer and employee groups?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: It’s all of those things. We do track the number of disputes. We track the number of calls and the general subject matter of those calls that come into the 1-800 number to the branch. We monitor correspondence, and we’re in regular contact with all of our stakeholders. I would expect to hear directly if there are problems that are surfacing around the application of this.

Kiel Giddens: Thank you to the minister for the response.

At this time I’d like to move an amendment.

[CLAUSE 1, in proposed section 49.01, by adding the underlined text as shown:

(11) Despite subsection (2), the Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations prescribing limited circumstances in which an employer who has made reasonable commercial efforts to accommodate a returning employee may, for sound business reasons, make modifications within the prescribed parameters to the terms or conditions of an employee’s employment upon the employee’s return from leave under this section;

(12) A regulation made under subsection (11) must not authorize any modification to the terms or conditions of an employee’s employment that would constitute retaliation or penalize the employee for taking leave under this section.]

[4:30 p.m.]

The Chair: I invite you to speak to it.

On the amendment.

Kiel Giddens: What we are proposing in this amendment is really around ensuring there is that flexibility and transparency. I know we have talked about the fact that the Employment Standards Act, as it stands now, relies on these guidance documents. But for consideration, building more certainty into the act could perhaps be a tool of reducing disputes into the employment standards branch.

We talked at length…. The member for Kelowna-Mission talked about specific examples of tech companies and firms that may have a change in their circumstances. I gave a very specific example of my family business, that if an employee in a certain role took a leave, it may have a material effect on the business.

By ensuring that there are prescribed reasons…. That’s not something that we as the opposition often give cabinet — the regulation-making authority to make those. But I think, in this case, with good consultation with employee and employer groups, there could be circumstances that could be agreed to that would be a robust consultation.

It could give a little bit more guidance on if a position is changed in the course of a leave. So upon that employee’s return to work — if there is a dispute, if there isn’t that consent — the business is not relying on their own justification, and there are actually some prescribed circumstances for that leave.

I put this forward as a consideration of something that could be added into the act for this amendment and, perhaps, could be looked at in other sections of the act as well as a tool to try to create some certainty while also giving flexibility for both the employers and the employees.

Under the amendment proposed, subsection (12) is key in protecting workers, in this case, for ensuring that there are not employers using this as a retaliatory tool. I think that is an important component of it.

Really, I just wanted to put this forward as an amendment to ensure that there is a little bit more flexibility, that there’s a little bit more chance for businesses and employees to come to terms on what’s possible and what’s not.

With that, I invite any other comments on the amendment.

The Chair: Thank you, Member. We will take a five-minute recess to make some copies and distribute.

The committee recessed from 4:33 p.m. to 4:42 p.m.

[Susie Chant in the chair.]

The Chair: I call the committee back to order. We are on Bill 30, Employment Standards (Serious Illness or Injury Leave) Amendment Act, 2025. We have a motion in amendment on Bill 30. It has been reviewed and found to be in order.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: With respect to the amendment proposed by the member, I would just suggest the following: that it introduces a provision that’s not consistent with other leaves in the act. It doesn’t add anything to the process that is already conducted by the branch in situations where there may be a dispute about comparability of a job or a return to work of an employee under other, similar long-term-leave provisions. It creates a whole other tier of interpretation and dispute resolution on top of the one that already exists through administrative law to both interpret and resolve disputes that occur.

I would suggest that, given that retaliation is already prohibited under the act in section 83, section 12 is unclear. I think that we can’t support this amendment.

The Chair: Shall the amendment to clause 1 pass?

Division has been called.

[4:45 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.]

At this time, I’m willing to ask the committee if you’re ready to waive the time or if you’d like to keep the clock going. What would you like? You’re good to waive?

Leave granted.

The Chair: Before putting the question, I remind all members that only the members of Section C or their duly appointed substitutes are authorized to vote.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 3
L. Neufeld	Giddens	Maahs
NAYS — 5
Routledge	Neill	Kahlon
Whiteside		Glumac

The Chair: The motion has been defeated, and we will carry on with discussions of clause 1.

Kiel Giddens: You do get eventually, I think, used to losing votes when you’re in opposition. But anyway, we still had a good discussion about it, so I appreciate the conversation with the minister regardless.

Maybe just a few more questions as follow-up. Subsection (5) requires that the leave be taken in full week intervals. I’m wondering why that was the case rather than allowing partial week flexibility or just, you know, a single day of employment. Why was a week used?

Maybe explain that, because some employees may have a question in that regard. Perhaps they would have wished otherwise, to have a set number of days rather than taking a full week, if it’s only one treatment day, for example, in a cancer patient.

[4:55 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: The week is in part a response to what we heard from employers and business groups about wanting as much predictability as possible in the application of this provision. In that regard, we landed on a week.

It also aligns with the EI, the unit of time designated under the employment insurance program. It aligns with the other leaves, other EI sickness benefits like compassionate care leave and critical illness leave. Those leaves are also provided in units of one week. In part, it’s the pre-existing kind of regime that establishes a week as the sort of standard unit of time but also responds to concerns from business about some amount of predictability.

I would say that there’s nothing stopping an employer, in the circumstances where an individual just needs one day off for a medical appointment related to a treatment cycle, to grant that, although that one day may well be covered by another provision of the Employment Standards Act — the five days paid sick leave or one of the three unpaid days.

Kiel Giddens: It’s good to hear that this was some incorporating feedback. I think that’s useful, and I would agree. In most cases, there would likely be a flexibility. But in certain cases, I think it’s good for this perhaps to be outlined in the guidance so that folks know the reason for the one week being the rule.

Under subsection (10), I’m hoping the minister could describe how this would work in practice. It appears an employee may take another leave for the same condition without a new certificate if they’re eligible.

How will the ministry ensure that employers are notified of that without the new medical certificate, which would trigger it in most cases, I think, for notification to an employer? How would that work? Then how, again, that verification, just so that the employers are aware that there has been a change and they have obligations that they need to meet…?

[5:00 p.m.]

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: This clause is essentially meant to cover the episodic nature of certain illnesses or treatment regimes and, therefore, provides for…. It acknowledges that not everybody is going to necessarily take 27 weeks sequentially and not everybody is necessarily going to take 27 weeks over the course of the 52-week period within which they have an entitlement to the 27 weeks.

After 52 weeks from the first date of the leave, at that point, a new medical certificate would be required. The medical certificate is assumed to cover a period of 27 weeks, whether it’s taken in full, from end to end, or whether it’s taken in an episodic nature.

Kiel Giddens: I think I understand the need for that episodic nature, but the one challenge that this may cause is, obviously, that backfilling those positions, for employers, is going to be tricky when there are weeks here and there that are taken throughout that 52-week period. Within that, I do think that this is something that will have to be monitored, perhaps, for its effect overall on the economy and on what we need to do to support the economic growth in the province as well and, particularly, support areas of our economy that have labour shortages.

I think of the construction sector, for example, being one. I think they’re always constrained for labour, and this may be one where it could add to those constraints. The other one, very important, is within our health authorities. I think that’s another example — health professionals overall, not just working for health authorities but working adjacent to them as well. For various employers in the health sector, I think, this is one to watch.

Is there any intent by the ministry to monitor changes to employment standards, how they affect the overall economic situation in the province and how, if any, there would be any mitigation or work with other ministries, such as the Ministry of Jobs and Economic Development, to compensate for any challenges for employers in labour availability?

[The bells were rung.]

The Chair: This committee will take a recess. This committee is in recess until the finishing of division.

I expect everybody back in their seats in approximately 15 minutes. Don’t make me come out and find you.

The committee recessed from 5:05 p.m. to 5:22 p.m.

[Susie Chant in the chair.]

The Chair: I call the committee back to order. We are working on Bill 30, the Employment Standards (Serious Illness or Injury Leave) Amendment Act, 2025.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Before we recessed, the member had asked a question about monitoring for impacts on the economy, on economic development. I would just say that I think there’s no question that economic development is a real priority for our government. I think that is evidenced in a number of different ways.

It’s reflected in legislation that we have passed in this place, in order to expedite permitting for projects that are fundamental to developing our energy independence. We see it in the projects that are on the federal government’s projects of national significance list, of which more than 40 percent are located in British Columbia.

I think there’s no question, there can be no question, with respect to the importance of growing a secure and stable economy in British Columbia. That is what our government is very focused on.

Again with respect to implications around this minor amendment to the Employment Standards Act, introducing a leave that we all understand the majority of employers are already working with employees to accommodate, we would anticipate that the impacts would be, frankly, very minimal. But as always, the employment standards branch will work with employers. We’ll work with workers to monitor any impacts arising from the application of this leave provision.

Kiel Giddens: I think it is very important when we look at the Employment Standards Act in its entirety that we look at the effect on the economy. That is a lens that we want to see, and that’s something that we would like to see from the Ministry of Labour specifically as well. That’s not just this act; it’s the labour code. It’s many pieces of legislation, WorkSafe as well. I think all of that needs to be taken into account.

[5:25 p.m.]

The reality is that in the past five years, the private sector job growth in this province has been nothing short of abysmal. It’s not been that robust growth that we want to see. The vast majority of employment has, in fact, been in the public sector.

With that, these are my concluding remarks on clause 1. You can move the vote on clause 1.

Clause 1 approved.

On clause 2.

Kiel Giddens: On clause 2, just very basic questions, I guess. I understand we saw this actually, I think, in Bill 11 too. It had a similar provision. Getting some head nods.

By replacing the Health Professions Act with the HPOA when the act becomes enacted, will this broaden the professions the minister is able to prescribe as “health practitioner” in section 1(1)(c)? From the current Health Professions Act to the Health Professions and Occupations Act, what are the differences in the prescribed options for the minister or for the Lieutenant Governor in Council?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I think, as the member knows, the Health Professions Act, soon to become the Health Professions and Occupations Act, is administered by the Ministry of Health. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that the provisions are correct in this legislation once it’s passed. This, we view as a housekeeping provision.

If there were any amendments to the list of designated health professions under that act, those occupations, then, would be potentially available to designate under this provision of the Employment Standards Act, but noting that clause .01(1) specifies that in this section, health practitioner means the following: a medical practitioner, which is a doctor; a nurse practitioner; and then (c) provides for a person who is authorized to practise a designated health profession, within the meaning of the soon to become Health Professions and Occupations Act, that is prescribed for the purpose or definition.

They would have to be prescribed. That would happen if it needed to happen at a future date.

Clauses 2 and 3 approved.

On clause 4.

Kiel Giddens: In getting to clause 4, we’re getting to the regulation-making here. We’ve had a pretty, I would say, robust conversation already on the prescribing of a number of days of employment for a minimum tenure. We don’t need to rehash all of that. I think we already have come to some differences there, which is fine, and we can agree to move on from there.

[5:30 p.m.]

I’m wondering if there will be any public consultation or public comment period before regulations are prescribed in this particular instance of prescribing a number of consecutive days of employment for the purposes of 49.01(2).

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: As is the practice of the Ministry of Labour with respect to the Employment Standards Act, in the event that regulations are contemplated, there would be a consultation process. We just went through one, for example, on the regulations to the change to the act with respect to prohibiting sick notes for illnesses of a short duration.

In the event in the future that regulations were contemplated, yes, there would be consultation.

Kiel Giddens: I’m assuming that would be the same for designated health professions or health practitioners if that is also contemplated?

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Yes, that’s correct.

Kiel Giddens: I think we can wrap up much of this, but I really want to thank the ministry staff for the support and the work on this legislation. I want to thank the minister for the time that we’ve spent today in discussing this bill. I hope that it was fruitful.

I think just providing that clarity and reading some questions into the record is an important process for the legal community, for the employer and employee groups. This can hopefully be a reference point for many of those groups, moving forward.

We will look to analyze the effect of these amendments on protecting people, and that’s, I think, the most important thing that we’re trying to achieve, I believe, with this legislative amendment to the Employment Standards Act.

We talked a little bit earlier about the need for sort of assessments of what these changes have done, and I think the employment standards branch will have a very important role for doing that and monitoring — for example, whether it has created any increase in disputes and any need for the employment standards branch to update its resources or guidelines or any of the information provided to employers and employees.

I think overall we want to balance employee protection with the operational realities of employers, and I think that’s a theme we’ve been talking about throughout the course of the day.

I’m wondering. Maybe just a final question, if the government will commit to a post-implementation review of all of these amendments so that there can be a robust discussion on how it’s gone, both with employer and employee groups.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: Well, I would just say thank you to the member for their engagement in the debate on the bill. I appreciate the tone and tenor of our conversation this afternoon.

With respect to the question, I will say that the branch is always involved in a process of continuous improvement. They look at the impact and the application of different provisions. They seek ways to make the process of applying the Employment Standards Act more efficient. That is work that will continue to happen by the branch, including with respect to this provision.

Clauses 4 and 5 approved.

Title approved.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The Chair: This committee stands adjourned for the remainder of the evening.

The committee rose at 5:34 p.m.