Hansard — Monday, April 27, 2026 Afternoon, Issue No. 164

Elenore Sturko: I don’t see them in the gallery yet, but it does give me great pleasure to introduce a group of visiting students from Simon Fraser’s master of applied legal studies program, also known as notary school. Each year British Columbia commissions a small number of new notaries who practice non-contentious law.

I wish to highlight also the work of one of their professors, who is someone that we see here in the chamber on a daily basis. He just finished instructing the most recent notary cohort on wills, estates, personal planning, and he is, of course, the member for Burnaby South–Metrotown.

The students in the House today. We have Amy Niddle; Jody Lamb; Ashley Chung; Mackenzie Anderson; Sarah Miller; Megan Cawthorne; and a familiar face, my CA, Sam Schaap.

Will the House help me to please make them feel welcome.

[1:35 p.m.]

Brennan Day: I’ve got a couple of introductions today.

First is Mayor John Henderson, from the amazing city of Sechelt. He joined us this weekend for the AVICC conference. Some fantastic discussions happened there.

As well, I would like to introduce Jennifer Humphreys from AbbVie. This is a drug company that’s dealing in cutting-edge treatments for things like ulcerative colitis and doing that research right here at home, in British Columbia.

Would the House please make them all feel very welcome.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I would like to have the House welcome someone who is very close to me, my constituency assistant, Adrian Watson-Babij, who is here this week enjoying Victoria and watching our debates and conversations very closely in the House.

If we could all make him feel very welcome.

Peter Milobar: I’d like to recognize the Mechanical Contractors Association of B.C.; their CEO, Kim Barbero, and her board; and the 53,400 highly-skilled jobs that they do represent in and around British Columbia. I had a great meeting with them earlier today.

Will the House please make them welcome.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: I’d like to invite the House to join me in welcoming Kelly Favro who, of course, is an employee in this place, in the east annex, and a happy greeting face as we go into the east annex.

Importantly, Kelly has been really involved in the My Voice, My Choice movement and really focused on the question of how NDAs are used for sexual assault survivors. She has done some extraordinary work in Ottawa, is such a powerful voice on this issue. We’re very lucky to have her voice.

Would the House please join me in making her most welcome.

Misty Van Popta: I’d like to give recognition to Christine Goertzen in the House today. She is the wife of Jason, who is our spiritual care provider and support system to many of us here.

Christine is retiring this year from teaching. She’s been a teacher in Langley for 15 years and, most recently, 22 years here in Victoria.

Will the House congratulate her on a well-deserved career and wish her luck in the years going forward.

Statements

Tod and Jocelyn Maffin
and Nanaimo Infusion 2026

George Anderson: I rise today to recognize and thank Tod and Jocelyn Maffin for the success of Nanaimo Infusion 2026 this past Saturday, an event that brought hundreds of Americans and health care workers to our community and showed them the very best of Nanaimo.

I spoke with Rachael, a nurse from Texas, who spoke about doctors and working collaboratively here. Henrietta, a nurse from Michigan, shared the relief of knowing she does not have to worry about whether insurance will be covered.

Brandy arrived with a job offer, her 13-year-old and their bird because, apparently, even the bird heard Nanaimo and decided it was time to migrate. Brandy said that this is a place where diversity flourishes. Her son loves our schools and is already swimming in the Summer Games.

That is the promise of British Columbia, a place where people can belong, contribute and build a hopeful future.

I hope the whole House will join me in congratulating Tod and Jocelyn Maffin on a successful 2026 Nanaimo Infusion.

Introductions by Members

Jody Toor: I often don’t get visitors from my riding of Langley-Willowbrook, but there is a young lady that’s super smart, talented and has been an amazing volunteer at my office, Raina Walia, who is visiting here with the B.C. parliament council.

I just want the House to please make her feel welcome.

Rohini Arora: I want to take a moment to shout out three amazing advocates and supporters: Jessie Kaur Lehail, who is the chapter director of Shelter Movers; Shana Slater; as well as Preetka Pattar. All three of them were supposed to be here today, but they actually had an emergency and are supporting someone escaping intimate-partner violence, hence the organization Shelter Movers.

Please join me in welcoming them. I will be speaking about them later today.

[1:40 p.m.]

Á’a:líya Warbus: It’s my pleasure today to announce the ten members of the B.C. Youth Council, some of whom were mentioned by colleagues. I want to make sure that we include all of them in our welcome today. They’re here as an organization of clubs in secondary schools from around the province coming together to participate in B.C.’s democratic processes.

They bring these youth perspectives to policy and encourage other youth to be involved in politics. Their mission is to bring youth closer to provincial politics of British Columbia and their local communities through structured engagement, policy analysis and democratic participation.

Will the House please join me in welcoming Jacqueline Leung, Declan Williams, Leo Chen, Sara Black, Daryn Dolatre, Leah Wang, Kim Lue, Sumreen Khera, Dylan Shackle and Raina Walia.

May your wisdom and your participation make us all better members of this House.

Hon. Jennifer Whiteside: I’d like to join my colleague in welcoming the Mechanical Contractors Association of B.C. in the gallery today. MCABC represents 11 primary trades in the construction sector here in British Columbia. They are primarily concerned with clean air, clean water, quality-built environments and safe and high-quality working environments.

Their sector includes more than 25,000 skilled tradespeople in an industry that contributes $10 billion to British Columbia’s GDP. You can think of any project in the industrial, commercial, institutional or residential sector, from HVAC systems to medical gas in our hospitals, and it is mechanical contractors who are responsible for ensuring the safety and quality of those functions.

Please join me in welcoming CEO Kim Barbero, Conor Brendan Dunne, Kyle Wisniewski, Brittany Manulak, Keith Pearce, Maddie Davidson, Simon Miller, Steve Robinson and Rob Nagai to the House.

Thank you so much for being here.

Lynne Block: I am thrilled today to have a very dear friend and former teaching colleague, who is here today along with her two sons: Sandra Sokugawa, her son Kaden and her son Sebastian. She is an extraordinary teacher. She has done professional development and Tribes training, cooperative learning, research-based learning throughout B.C. with me. She has written numerous articles for very different education manuals. She has a master of science in psychology and neuroscience in mental health from King’s College London, England.

Kaden is studying in mathematical sciences at UBC, and Sebastian is in grade 10 and enjoying sciences at his secondary school.

I am honoured to have them here today, and I thank them for their inspiration, their guidance, their mentoring. Amazing.

Please make them feel very, very welcome.

Anna Kindy: I’d like to introduce the love of my life, my husband, Dr. Peter Olesen. We met in medical school 43 years ago. We both worked as GPs in rural areas, and he went back, after doing some cardiac surgery assists, to train in plastic surgery and started the plastic surgery program in the north Island.

I remember those days on call, one-on-one, for three years. That’s how hard we worked. He is programmed now, he has got two partners, and he covers the Nanaimo north. I don’t know of anybody who is a better surgeon and a better patient advocate and a better father to our three children — the love of my life, Dr. Peter Olesen.

Paul Choi: My colleague already briefly mentioned them, but I think they just walked in, so I also want to mention how excited I am to have students from SFU master’s in legal studies program here, led by Professor Margaret Hall: Megan Cawthorne, Amy Niddle, Mackenzie Anderson, Sarah Miller, Sam Schaap, Ashley Chung and Jody Lamb.

They’re our future legal professionals who are here to learn about how law gets made in B.C. They had the privilege of meeting the Attorney General briefly as well.

If I could ask the House to please make them feel very welcome here.

[1:45 p.m.]

Heather Maahs: Of course, we all appreciate the wonderful job that the security team does in the Legislature.

There should be a little perk to that, so today I would like to wish Meighan’s daughter Charlotte a happy 16th birthday.

Rohini Arora: I just want to give a shout-out to my friend Jennifer Cader. She’s the government and public affairs manager with FortisBC. She’s also on the advisory committee of the Natural Resources Forum.

If you could please join me in making her feel very welcome.

Lorne Doerkson: I’m pleased to introduce two constituents of mine today, Lee Granberg and Laura Dewar. They are here representing Watch Lake/Green Lake fire departments.

They’ve had a very, very busy morning. I’m grateful to the Ministers of Water and Land, Forestry and also Public Safety, along with the Speaker of the House, for meeting with them this morning.

Thank you very much.

Please make them very welcome here today.

Mable Elmore: I’d like to wish a happy birthday to my brother-in-law Erick Haines. He’s celebrating today.

Unfortunately, I can’t be with him, but I ask everybody here in the House to please wish him a very happy birthday.

Kristina Loewen: I would like to make an introduction, as well, today. We have the good people from Take a Hike visiting today. I just want to applaud them for the work that they do in our school districts with youth and mental health and getting them out into the great outdoors.

Will the House please join me in welcoming them today.

Members’ Statements

May Day and Day of
Mourning for Workers

Darlene Rotchford: I rise today to recognize two significant observances this week, May Day and the National Day of Mourning.

May Day is a time to celebrate workers, the people whose skill, dedication and resilience keep our communities running. In Esquimalt-Colwood, we see that every day in our shipyard workers, our health care teams, our tradespeople and our service workers. Their contributions shape not only our local economy but also the strength and character of our province.

As we recognize these workers, we must also be reminded that we have lost some. The National Day of Mourning is a solemn reminder of lives that have been lost, the injuries sustained and the families forever changed by workplace incidents. It calls on all of us to reflect on our responsibility to ensure that every worker returns home safely.

This year’s Day of Mourning theme is “Psychological health and safety is occupational health and safety.” To truly protect workers from all workplace hazards, we must treat psychological health with the same seriousness as physical health in our laws and in our compensation system. We must continue to take meaningful steps to prevent occupational psychological injuries through enforceable protections.

These are not abstract ideas. They are practical steps that will save lives, reduce harm and support a healthier workplace here across British Columbia.

As we mark these two observances, let us recommit not only to recognizing the contribution of these workers but to protecting their full well-being, physical and psychological alike. It is why I got involved in this work myself, as a health care worker in mental health and addiction. I saw firsthand what can happen if we don’t support these people. I saw good workers relapse because of their psychological injury, and I saw amazing employers support them.

We need to make sure we continue to do our part, because honouring workers means ensuring their safety in every sense of the word.

Tomorrow I hope everyone in this House will join me, and everyone on south Vancouver Island will join us, on the front lawn of the Legislature at 12 o’clock to ensure that we honour those who have passed and the families who have lost those loved ones, as well as to recommit to ensuring that all workers across this province are safe.

Volunteer Contributions of
Morgan Brewster

Bryan Tepper: It is my great honour today to introduce Morgan Brewster, a lifelong volunteer whose service to the people of Crescent Beach and South Surrey stands as a shining example of what community dedication truly means.

Morgan’s family’s roots run deep in this province. His great-great-grandfather arrived from Ontario in 1885 and homesteaded a farm at Mud Bay between the Serpentine and Nicomekl rivers, overlooked by all of Panorama.

For generations, the Brewster family has returned to those shores. Morgan himself has spent every summer of his life, 43 years, in Crescent Beach, a place his family has called home since 1950. The deep connection shaped a lifetime of service.

[1:50 p.m.]

At age ten, Morgan volunteered in a search for a missing boy in a tragic drowning. With a father who had been a lifeguard, those moments led a lifelong passion for guarding, search and rescue, and helping others. Morgan lifeguarded at Crescent Beach. He began volunteering as a boat instructor, and I have experienced firsthand his skill with an outboard motor.

He has served on the management committee of Crescent Beach Lifeguard Corp. and, for the past five years, has proudly served as president. With the Crescent Beach Swim Club, he started in progressive roles in 2005, and, in September 2025, he became president, a process that is both mystical and exciting every time it happens at the club. He’s the first third-generation president, proudly following both his grandfather and father.

Morgan’s marine rescue record is remarkable. He first volunteered with the Coast Guard Auxiliary on the north arm of the Fraser River. He returned to what is now Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, unit 5. As coxswain, he handled initial responses and resource allocation on more than 100 rescue calls.

Everyone who knows Morgan knows he would have loved to wear the uniform of the RCMP. To this day, all summer long he follows every emergency call in the Crescent Beach area, ready to support our first responders in whatever way he can.

I would be remiss for not mentioning that for the past ten seasons, he has also coached and managed the South Vancouver Little League, from T-Ball right up to majors.

Morgan Brewster is the very definition of quiet, consistent, community-first leadership. Please join me in giving him a warm welcome to the British Columbia Legislature.

Thank you, Morgan.

Loss of Heritage
and Work of Cultural Restoration

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: What does the loss of heritage look like? It doesn’t always arrive with noise. Sometimes it slips in quietly between generations, between languages, between stories that were once told and are now forgotten. It looks like a child who cannot understand the words that their grandparents speak.

It looks like the songs that were once sung on the land, only remembered in fragments now. It looks like sacred places that stand unchanged in the earth but are no longer recognized, no longer visited, no longer protected in the same way.

Loss of heritage is not just about the past. It’s about reshaping the future. It looks like young people searching for identity in a world that never taught them where they came from. It looks like Elders carrying knowledge they fear will not be passed on. It looks like ceremonies that were once outlawed, languages that were once punished and traditions that were pushed into silence.

Yet this loss is not total. Even after generations of disruption, something remains — in the resilience of community, in the revival of language, in the return of the land and the culture. But we must be honest. What was interrupted cannot be simply restored without care, respect and action. To witness the loss of heritage is to understand what was taken and also to recognize what is still being protected, rebuilt and fought for every single day.

The questions we’re left with now…. Just what has been lost, and what we are willing to do to ensure that it is never lost again.

North Shore Rotary Clubs

Lynne Block: Today I rise to recognize the remarkable contributions of Rotary International across the North Shore, encompassing both West Vancouver and North Vancouver.

On the North Shore, Rotary is more than a name. It’s a network of committed individuals turning “Service above self” into real, visible impact.

In West Vancouver, the Rotary Club has made a lasting difference through initiatives like student scholarships that open doors for young people and support for community wellness projects that strengthen families and local connections. Their contributions to public amenities and youth-focused programs help ensure that opportunity and support are always within reach.

Across North Vancouver, the Rotary Club of North Van and the Rotary Club of Lions Gate have led impactful efforts such as organizing food drives to address local food insecurity, supporting youth leadership development through programs like Rotary Youth Leadership Awards and raising funds for global clean water initiatives that save lives far beyond our borders.

[1:55 p.m.]

Together these clubs define what it means to serve the North Shore. They bring people together not just to talk about change but to make it happen. Whether it’s helping a student pursue their dreams, ensuring that a family has food on the table or improving access to clean water worldwide, their actions ripple outward in powerful ways. In a world that often feels divided, the Rotary clubs of the North Shore remind us of what’s possible when compassion meets action.

Let us recognize and thank them not only for their projects but for their leadership, their generosity and their unwavering commitment to building stronger communities here at home and around the world.

Shelter Movers and Action
Against Gender-Based Violence

Rohini Arora: There is an organization quietly and directly changing how our province responds to gender-based violence: Shelter Movers Vancouver.

Last week we marked both National Volunteer Week and Prevention of Violence Against Women Week, a reminder that what looks like data on a page is in reality someone packing a life into boxes and walking away from danger. Shelter Movers exists at the exact moment of decision. They provide free moving and storage services to individuals and families fleeing abuse, meeting a need that is often invisible in our public systems.

Leaving is not just emotional; it’s logistical. It is furniture, clothing, pets, documents, children’s belongings and the question of where to go when nowhere is yet certain. Leaving can happen in a moment of courage, but what comes after is where people are most at risk. It is the logistics that can delay, trap and endanger them. In those moments, every second counts.

Under the leadership of chapter director Jessie Kaur Lehail, Shelter Movers Vancouver has completed close to 1,700 moves across 19 municipalities, supporting hundreds of survivors, children and family pets. Each move is not just relocation but a shift from constant fear towards safety and the space to begin rebuilding slowly but surely.

This work spans low, medium and high-risk situations, including coordination with security partners and municipal police when needed. They support survivors in homes, shelters, encampments and those exiting human trafficking, meeting people in moments of profound vulnerability with care, dignity and a reminder that their dignity remains intact.

None of this happens alone. It is powered by a 150-strong volunteer network, supported by partners and staff like Shana Slater and Preetka Pattar and as part of a national organization with chapters across Ontario and the Maritimes, with Langley resident Alison Dantas serving on the national board.

At its heart are the volunteers — people who show up with trucks, boxes and their time, often in the early hours or late at night so that someone else does not have to face leaving alone. They are not just moving belongings. They are making safety possible. Their work reminds us that safety can look like a truck arriving at the right time, a box carefully packed and a simple message: “You do not have to do this alone.”

Greendale Acres
Farm and Corn Maze

Korky Neufeld: There was an old farmer in the Fraser Valley who once told his son-in-law that his idea was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. Cut patterns in a cornfield and then charge people to walk around in it? Ridiculous. Then John Bruinsma showed up every weekend until the day he died. That’s how, in 1999, the Bruinsma farmhouse, Greendale Acres, became Canada’s first corn maze.

That’s the thing about a good idea. Sometimes it takes someone else living it out before you can see it. Sometimes faith isn’t something you have at the beginning. It’s something you find in the middle of the rows. What started as one article, one phone call, one leap into the unknown became Canada’s first corn maze and eventually something much larger — a place where strangers become regulars, regulars become friends and friends become family. Strangers were just someone they hadn’t known long enough yet.

Three sisters — Danielle, Vanessa and Mariah — learned hospitality before they learned long division, never asked for this life but chose it anyway, not because it was easy but because some things are worth holding onto, such as the land, the table that always has room and the idea that work we do matters, not just to our own families but to everyone who walks through the gate.

We have watched this family work, I mean, really work, the kind that doesn’t stop when the lights go down. We have seen what it costs them and what it gives back. We have watched them choose, again and again, to keep the table long and the gate open.

[2:00 p.m.]

What they’ve built here isn’t just a farm. Greendale Acres is a place where people make memories they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives.

This is for you, Bruinsmas, for the mud on the floors, the SOS techs, the 3 a.m. drainage projects and every single person you’ve ever pulled up a chair for. You made room for us all, and we’re better for it.

Wherever you are today, whatever field you’re standing in, whatever idea sounds a little too strange to say out loud, remember this. The best things rarely make sense at first. They just need someone willing to start cutting.

Thank you, Greendale Acres, for the memories. Thank you, Bruinsma family.

Ministerial Statements

Anniversary of Lapu-Lapu Festival
Attack and Support for Victims

Hon. David Eby: A year ago it was a spring evening after a beautiful day, a festival celebrating a community that I know every member of this place holds close to their heart, the Filipino community in British Columbia. Vendors were packing up, families were getting ready to go home, and volunteers were cleaning up the site when a man drove a vehicle through the crowd on the street, killing 11 people and injuring countless more.

This was a year ago, and I know a number of us were at commemorations of this horrific and tragic event over the last week. For those of us who were there, it is very obvious this could’ve happened yesterday for the families of those who didn’t make it. The healing is feeling a long way off for that.

But with a year in the passage of time, it does create the possibility to reflect on the heroism of those who remain. There are so many heroes I’ve met over the last week and since that tragic event.

The families who are living with people who are profoundly injured, like AJ, who is struggling to recover abilities that we all take for granted every day, his life forever changed, his family’s life forever changed.

The families of those who didn’t make it, who have to go on with their lives, who have to go to work, who have to pay the bills, despite the enormous grief that they face.

The organizers of the event, who put together an amazing event only to see it turned into grief and tragedy, and who turned around to support a community, a city, a province, a nation and a world that was shocked by what they had seen.

The first responders. The police, the fire, the ambulance workers and paramedics seeing the coverage on the news, coming in to cover shifts.

The health care workers. HEU, doctors, nurses, health science professionals, all of them pitching in to ensure people got treatment as the 911 calls came in.

There is a lot of work ahead for this province still. The criminal process is ongoing. The community deserves answers they will need to get. But I know for myself, for the government and for every member of this House, we stand in grief remembering the events of a year ago. We stand with the survivors, the Filipino community and with all who are affected in both thanking those who stepped up, who continue to step up, and in remembering those who didn’t make it home.

Trevor Halford: I want to thank the Premier for his words.

It was one year ago in Vancouver. Eleven members of our community went to a street festival to celebrate and did not come home. They were celebrating Lapu-Lapu Day, a day to celebrate the Filipino heritage, resilience and community. Within seconds, it became one of the darkest days of our history.

I was there that morning. I was there with a number of my colleagues. What I do remember is seeing the Premier there as well. I think the Premier brought his little girl to that event that morning, if I’m correct. It was nice to see that, but what unfolded after was absolute tragedy.

[2:05 p.m.]

We pause to remember, across this province, the families and communities gathered to mark this tragedy. But for the families and survivors of this senseless act, they live with that grief every single day. That is why we speak their names again.

We say Maria Victoria Bjarnason; Jenifer Darbellay; Nerissa Pagkanlungan; Kira Salim; Jendhel Sico; Glitza Daniela Samper and her parents, Glitza Maria and Daniel Samper, three generations of one family; Richard Le and Linh Hoang and their daughter Katie, five years old. Eleven souls aged five to 65. Behind each name, an empty chair, a grandmother waiting for a call or a little boy who lost his entire family.

To the survivors and to the first responders, I can’t imagine what they are going through, with more than 30 injured and some still recovering. We think about the pain that they endure every news cycle, where they have to relive the tragedy. The bystanders who so bravely apprehended the driver. The paramedics, the nurses, the doctors, not only at Vancouver General Hospital but at hospitals throughout the Lower Mainland.

In the midst of that, we saw heroics. We saw the MLA for Vancouver-Kensington step up in a way that all members of this House are so grateful for and so proud of and continue to be proud of the leadership that this MLA has shown for that community and continues to show.

Thank you for that.

To the Filipino community who have suffered so much in the wake of this tragedy. A lot of them came to Canada to build lives of dignity and have contributed immensely. They have done so much. They have filled our hospitals, our classrooms, every walk of life in British Columbia with kindness. In the year since, they have grieved with grace and refused to let hatred define their community. They have been an example to us all.

I want to say to the survivors: we’re with you.

To the people that lost their lives: we remember you.

To an entire community that will continue to grieve for generations: we grieve with you.

Jeremy Valeriote: I stand to buttress the thoughtful words from the Premier and the Leader of the Official Opposition as we mark one year since this horrible attack. The violence of that tragedy stays with me and all British Columbians, and we hold all the victims in our thoughts and prayers yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I think particularly of the Filipino community, who mourn those that were lost, support people who were injured and hold deep trauma from that day. One year is such a short amount of time, where the wounds of the attack feel so raw. It’s also such a long time, where people are so deeply missed and their absence so keenly felt.

It’s so important that we have places to gather, that we invest money and energy in celebrations that recognize B.C.’s multicultural foundations. We can’t let the tragic events of last year’s festival lead us toward further isolation. We must resist the temptation to shrink away from each other, stay indoors or layer on armour. The only lasting remedy for the pain and loss of this day is to come together, to lean on each other, to open our hearts, to share our cultures and to keep making time to celebrate.

As members of this House, we all remember together, and we must all take action together. We honour those whom we lost and the resilience and strength shown by the local community. But we must do more too. We must make sure that victims receive full support, that public sector agencies learn from this tragedy and that there is work undertaken to look at how this event occurred and how future ones can be prevented.

Remembrance in mourning is the first step toward healing, but it cannot be the last. I ask all members of this House to answer the call and recommit to the serious work of keeping British Columbians safe.

Oral Questions

Comments by Regional Chief
and Government Relationship with
First Nations

Trevor Halford: We have asked this government on numerous occasions if they are now co-governing the province with First Nations leadership.

When asked last week if B.C. is being co-governed by the province and First Nations, the Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations responded clearly by saying: “Yes, that’s exactly right.” It looks like we actually finally got an answer from somebody.

[2:10 p.m.]

My question to the Premier, to anybody in government. Will they stand up today and confirm that B.C. has, in fact, entered into co-governance?

Hon. David Eby: The opposition is deliberately twisting this to spread fear. When we work on health care, we work with doctors. When we work on education, we work with teachers and parents, kids. When we work on Indigenous rights, we work with Indigenous People.

Section 35 of the constitution places obligation on our government and every government, given that most of the province was settled without treaty. Parliament has a crucial and primary role to play here, and it will continue to have that role to play.

I don’t understand why the member is opposed to us talking with Indigenous People about Indigenous rights. It is the only path forward. It is not, as he is pretending, a ceding of governance. It’s a recognition of our obligations under the law.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Trevor Halford: Here’s the problem. Whenever the Premier hears a quote that he doesn’t like: “You are now spreading fear.” Okay. Some of the problem is that we are actually reading quotes from the Premier directly, who is saying that we are fearmongering when we are actually giving him his words back to him. That is a problem.

It is clear that when the Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations was asked about changes to DRIPA, he said — this is a quote for the Premier from the regional Chief — “At this point, no, absolutely not. I think DRIPA is working.” That is a quote from the assembly Chief.

I’ll read again from the Premier. He says again, when asked about co-governance: “Yes, that is exactly right.” This isn’t about anybody fearmongering. This is about asking the Premier, for once in the last number of months, to have a clear position.

I’ll ask the Premier again directly. Is Regional Chief Terry Teegee wrong in his remarks when he says that they are now co-governing with the province of B.C., yes or no?

Hon. David Eby: Maybe I’ll read a quote from the critic for Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation to clarify things for the Leader of the Opposition.

The critic said: “Some of the challenges that we’re seeing today, specifically with the land question, come down to the fact that we didn’t complete those treaties over 150, 175 years ago.” On a separate occasion, he said: “Aboriginal title is a real thing under the constitution. There are legal areas where government is obligated to work with First Nations. We have to do that work.”

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh, Members.

Hon. David Eby: This parliament has a clear set of responsibilities under the Constitution Act, under the province of British Columbia. We are elected to do that work. Part of that work includes working with First Nations on areas where the constitution mandates us to do so.

This parliament remains supreme, but we are bounded by a constitution that obliges us to do important work with First Nations, and we will do that work.

The Speaker: Member, second supplemental.

Trevor Halford: Let’s be clear. Right now, in this moment, we are asking the Premier of this province, elected — marginally, but elected — if they have entered into co-governance. He refuses to answer. A very basic question asking the leader of the province to stand up and answer a direct question, whether or not he is now co-governing with First Nations leadership, and he refuses to do it. That is the answer. He has already given it twice.

So let’s ask the Premier once again, a third time. Can he stand up and dismiss the comments made by the Regional Chief, Terry Teegee, when he says that when it comes to co-governance: “Yes, that is exactly right”? Those are his words, not mine.

Does the Premier dismiss those words or agree with the fact that they are now co-governing with First Nations leadership?

It’s a yes or no, Premier.

[2:15 p.m.]

Hon. David Eby: I was asked this question on the radio — I would say, in a more thoughtful way — by a radio host, Simi Sara. She said to me: “Right. It sounds to me like you’re rejecting the idea of a co-governance situation. You’re saying: ‘We’re talking. We’re consulting. We’re working together.’ But you’re not co-governing.”

And then I say: “That is correct. At the end of the day, we’ve got parliamentary representatives that are elected from every part of the province. We have to vote on laws. The sort of Conservative conversation that, at the end of the day, the parliament no longer matters, that it’s some sort of different arrangement now, is simply not the case.”

We have treaties in front of this House right now, where we will be debating….

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh, Members.

Hon. David Eby: Where are they? This is the level of serious debate we get from the Conservatives on crucial issues of the prosperity of our province.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Member, order, please.

Hon. David Eby: And yet when we talk about creating thousands of jobs, economic certainty for British Columbians — Eskay Creek, Red Chris mine, LNG Canada phase 2, crucial investments in the future of our province that require cooperation and engagement with First Nations — these members pretend those aren’t serious issues. They’re not important.

They are important. They’re crucial to the prosperity of our province. We’ll continue to do the work, and I hope the opposition does better.

Mining Project in Okanagan
and U.S. Indigenous Tribe
Involvement in Court Case

Scott McInnis: Wow, it sounds like in 22 minutes and 43 seconds, there’s going to be an awkward phone conversation between the Premier’s office and Mr. Teegee.

A U.S.-based tribe, the Sn̓ʕaýckstx Confederacy, is actively trying to disrupt a vital critical mineral mine within the Interior. The mine is co-owned by WHY Resources and the Osoyoos Indian Band.

My question to the Attorney General. Why is she letting this happen?

Hon. Spencer Chandra Herbert: Well, we’ve been clear. The people we work for are British Columbians. We’ve been clear that the nations within B.C. are the ones that we also work with — as the member mentioned, the Okanagan Osoyoos Indian Band — on these issues.

The member can google it. He can read the Hansard. He can watch television. We’ve been clear in every court of law that our obligation is to British Columbia and British Columbians. And no, the First Nations across the border may have their arguments, just as they do in Alberta and just as they do in Alaska, and we’ll hear them just as we hear concerns from Washingtonians, Albertans and folks living in Alaska.

That’s our obligation. That’s our duty. British Columbia is who we listen to.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Scott McInnis: Well, that was really interesting to hear the minister say that.

There is currently separate litigation against this project which has nothing to do with constitutional duties to consult. Moreover, the project has already been approved. This government, instead of standing up for B.C. resource projects co-developed with B.C. First Nations, made a choice to allow a U.S. tribe being a respondent in this litigation.

I have a letter penned to the Attorney General from Chief Louie and WHY Resources. It says: “Your ministry consented to allowing the Sn̓ʕaýckstx Confederacy being named a party respondent.” Chief Louie further goes on to say: “This is the furthest thing from placing the interests of B.C. First Nations as a priority and primary focus.”

My question, again to the Attorney General, is very simple.

Is your ministry purposefully disrupting this project, or is this utter incompetence?

[2:20 p.m.]

Hon. Laanas / Tamara Davidson: Thank you to the member for that question. I’m more than happy to talk about the environmental assessment office and the good work that that office does.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh.

Hon. Laanas / Tamara Davidson: The environmental assessment office takes our obligations to consult with Indigenous groups who may be impacted by a proposed project very seriously, including with U.S. tribes. The EAO will continue to fulfil its constitutional obligations by consulting with U.S. tribes when there is a credible assertion of Aboriginal rights under the Canadian constitution and a potential for those rights to be impacted by a proposed project.

As this matter is before the courts, I am not able to comment further.

Industrial Water Rates
and Watershed Protection

Jeremy Valeriote: Thanks to relentless lobbying, B.C.’s largest industrial water users get a huge discount. You might even say that B.C. is co-governed with big industry. Mining, oil and gas and bottled water companies pay a fraction of what residents pay for water. B.C.’s industrial water rates are among the lowest in Canada at $2.25 per million litres, and industry uses five times as much as residential users.

For the residents of Vancouver, leaving their taps running for over four months would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. The ten largest industrial water users in B.C. pay less than $1 million combined for access to over 500 billion litres of water annually. Quebec recently modernized their industrial water rates, and there is no evidence of industrial flight.

My question is to the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. We need increased revenue to ensure the health and security of B.C.’s watersheds. In the midst of a historic drought and major fiscal challenges, why is this government giving industrial users a sweetheart deal?

Hon. Randene Neill: I thank the member opposite for the question. I know he cares as much for our watershed protection as we do, as well, on this side of the House.

We know water is literally our most precious resource. It powers our province in so many ways — from a sustainable, good economy; to ensuring that every single British Columbian has access to safe, clean drinking water; to restoring our wild salmon populations across the province.

The Water Sustainability Act was created back in 2016, where it set the rates for how much users would pay for different water systems. That is something that we are actively reviewing now as a province, looking at those rates. Every five years, we put into legislation that it would require a review. The first review was deferred because of COVID, so we are actively doing that now, reviewing rates to ensure that we can get safe, equitable pricing for everyone who uses our water.

Another thing that we’re really proud of is our watershed security fund, a $100 million fund that government committed to a few years ago and that helps ensure that our watersheds remain safe and secure all across the province.

The Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

Government Policy on
Industrial Site Hazardous Waste
Clean-Up and Costs

Jeremy Valeriote: Thanks to the minister for that. I’m hoping that the results of that first review since 2016 will be available soon.

In a similar vein, the public interest bonding strategy was designed by this government to make sure industry cleans up the mess they so often leave behind. A 2021 briefing note from this government admitted the province has no powers to make companies clean up their industrial sites or to collect funds to have the public pay the costs if they refuse. In the case of the Port Alice pulp mill, taxpayers are on the hook for $170 million, and the site is still hazardous.

When industry walks away, the land must be returned to its original state or better than it was originally. This government proudly introduced legislation in 2023 but has never implemented it through regulation. Now the Ministry of Environment and Parks admits the strategy has been shelved.

My question to the Minister of Environment and Parks: if you’re not going to implement the public interest bonding strategy, how will you make sure heavy industry cleans up the mess instead of leaving taxpayers holding the bag?

Hon. Laanas / Tamara Davidson: Thank you to the member for the question.

We do have many different tools in our toolbox when it comes to the polluter-pays. And when we’re looking at the Environmental Management Act, we do have tools under that act as well.

We are still going to keep looking at the public interest and bonding strategy. We’ve been working closely with a lot of the ministries, such as the Ministry of Mining, to look at different alternatives that we can be doing. I would say that it’s not a matter of never doing it, but it’s a matter of when.

[2:25 p.m.]

Government Action on Homelessness
and Safety Issues in
Abbotsford Encampments

Bruce Banman: I stood up on April 1, and I told the Minister of Transportation about a fatal shooting at an encampment on Ministry of Transportation lands in my riding. I told the minister there were numerous dangerous encampments on MoT lands.

On Friday night, a man was murdered at the Peardonville homeless encampment, and the unauthorized cabin he’d built two years ago was set on fire to cover up his murder. Danger is increasing every day for people living in these encampments and the surrounding community, while police are directed not to enforce no-camping bylaws. This House should know this murder was preventable. This was someone’s son, who will be missed.

To the Minister of Transportation…. After I raised this issue in this House, this minister chose to do nothing. This death is on this minister’s watch. My question is: why did this minister do nothing and allow this to happen?

Hon. Mike Farnworth: I appreciate the question from the member, but I have to say the member is incorrect and wrong, which is not something that is unusual in this House.

At the time, I told the member, in response to his questions back on April 1, that I would be meeting with the city of Abbotsford. I met with the city of Abbotsford and outlined to them the efforts being undertaken by my ministry and other ministries involving the relocation of individuals who are engaged in camps of the work that’s underway.

The Cole Road campsite, for example, is being shut down. We have been working with Housing and the city of Abbotsford to ensure that we’re able to relocate those who are camping in inappropriate places, such as this one, to more appropriate, like a shelter.

I can tell the member that the Peardonville camp is going to be decamped and closed down by the beginning of summer, but it will be done in an orderly fashion. To somehow suggest that government didn’t bother to do anything and ignored the problem is simply incorrect.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Bruce Banman: Nine long years to do something — nine long years.

Abbotsford police have said this was a targeted homicide. All of these vulnerable people in encampments have fallen through the cracks, and this government has failed to protect yet another. Encampment violence has become so rampant on Ministry of Transportation lands. People are living in conditions where serious crimes are normalized.

My question to the minister. How many more murders need to happen in these encampments before this minister does his job and allows the police to get in there and do theirs?

Hon. Mike Farnworth: I appreciate the comments from the member because it gives me an opportunity to respond to some of the statements that he has made. It gives me an opportunity to respond to some of the votes that that side of the House has made.

For nine years, we have invested in public safety. We have done the largest investment in policing in the history of this province — something, in the 16 years of the previous government, that they failed to do.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh. Shhh.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: We have put in place additional funding for a gang task force. We brought in the first forensic firearms office here in the province of British Columbia. We have brought in place a witness protection program. All are things that police have been asking for, and all are things that the previous administration failed to do every opportunity they had.

Do you know what else? We’ve invested in affordable and social housing and mental health care.

What’s really annoying is that every time that member stands up to say that we’re not doing enough, you can point to another member on that side of the House who refuses and complains about social housing or supports for the homeless and the mental health and addiction supports required going into their communities.

[2:30 p.m.]

We have seen it, time and time again, from the hypocrisy on that side of the House. Richmond could have had supportive housing to deal with the very kinds of situations the member is doing.… What do they do? They stand up: “Not in our neighbourhood.” That’s the approach that they’ve taken.

We will continue to invest in services. We will continue to support the police. We will continue to work for British Columbians.

Food Bank Use and Government
Action on Issues

Lorne Doerkson: The Premier mentioned economic certainty a little earlier in question period today, and I want to share some of the challenges that our residents are facing.

Food bank usage is the highest it’s ever been. Since 2019, food bank usage in this province is up nearly 79 percent. That’s economic certainty. The numbers are staggering. More than 1.3 million British Columbians are suffering from food insecurity.

What can the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction say to the nearly 25 percent of British Columbians who are skipping meals because they can’t afford them?

Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: The member and I share a concern about the cost of groceries, the terribly increased cost of everything as a result of global inflation and, now laid onto it, the impact of Trump tariffs.

That’s why it has been so important for our government, across the continuum, to have increased income assistance, to have increased affordable child care, affordable housing, increased supports for seniors, free prescription birth control — everything that we can do on this side of the House to help people with the cost of living. That investment, over the last nine years, has been important, and it continues to be a priority of our work.

The member is certainly aware of the work that we’ve done as government to invest in food security infrastructure, which is what the sector has asked us to do. Across the province, thanks to the very innovative work of not-for-profits and community organizations, using the support that we gave, to open up food warehouses, refrigerator trucks, all kinds of food security infrastructure that is helping people right now with the cost of living, with the cost of food and community resiliency…. That’s work that we’re grateful to the not-for-profit sector to have partnered with us on.

The Speaker: Member for Cariboo-Chilcotin, supplemental.

Lorne Doerkson: What this member is very aware of is that if this government had fulfilled their $1,000 grocery rebate and their income tax cut promises, some of these families wouldn’t need the food banks today.

We’re going to see longer food bank lines with nearly 40,000 jobs lost in the past two months. Hundreds of those jobs have been lost in Cariboo-Chilcotin alone.

And 31 percent of all of the food bank users last year were children. They’re children. Absolutely unacceptable. It’s happening in our province under this government’s watch.

Will the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction admit that more children are going hungry every day under this government’s watch?

Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: Because, across government, we’ve been implementing British Columbia’s first poverty reduction strategy — something that the old government refused to do — across the continuum, we’ve got investments in young families. Our education system now, in every school district, is funding again, in partnership with the federal government and with school districts, in-school food programs. Extremely important.

The member knows that when the opposition was in power, they made life harder for people…

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh, Members.

Hon. Sheila Malcolmson: …freezing income assistance at $610 a month for ten years, where we have increased it 74 percent since then. I could go on all afternoon on the contrast and the continued commitment that our government has to invest in people and make life better at an extremely difficult time of globalization.

[2:35 p.m.]

Health Care Benefits for Nurses

Peter Milobar: Not one family going to the food bank is going to be helped with that word salad from the minister, that’s for sure.

B.C. nurses are the backbone of our health care system, and without them, our troubled system is on the verge of complete collapse. That’s why it’s astonishing that this NDP government is cutting back on nurses’ essential health care benefits. Nurses are stressed. They endure physical assaults, physical injuries from lifts, and instead of supporting them, this government is cutting their registered massage therapy benefits.

Is the Minister of Finance really telling nurses that this government can’t afford to pay for their essential health care benefits because of her fiscal incompetence?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: The first thing, of course, that we all acknowledge is how important and highly valued the nurses, working every day in our system, are.

This member knows that I can’t speak specifically to a situation that’s happening at the bargaining table. What I will say is that on this side of the House, we are deeply committed to making sure that we get a fair settlement to these nurses that are so, so important to our system, and we’ll continue to do that work.

The Speaker: Member, supplemental.

Peter Milobar: The minister doesn’t want to confirm that. She doesn’t want to confirm her $6,600 limo ride. She doesn’t want to confirm her deputy ministers and their car allowances. You know, the problem is this government has so poorly managed their finances with their own decision-making that they’re now coming for the extended health benefits of B.C. nurses.

When we raise issues like this, they love to try to say: “Well, you guys would just cut.” So let’s quote one of their members, from Esquimalt-Colwood, who says: “Members opposite suggest otherwise. They criticize our government by spending. They don’t explain how their own plans will even pay for it. I can tell you, as a health care worker, exactly how they would pay for it — on the backs of those workers.”

Well, it seems like it’s this minister, this government, that’s actually making the cuts on the backs, quite literally, of nurses.

Will the Minister of Finance admit she’s mismanaged the economy so badly they are now pinching pennies and taking away critical benefits for nurses’ health and well-being?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: It is ludicrous to hear this member suggest that it is on this side of the House that we are mistreating health care workers. I’ll tell you what.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: My very own grandmother was a cleaner in the Nanaimo hospital. She scrubbed the floors in the emergency room, and you know what? At that time, people were paid union wages. She raised, as a single mom, three kids on those wages.

What did the people on that side of the House do? They took those well-paying jobs, and they privatized them. People who were making a decent living were making nickels.

You were there.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: You were there. You know what? You know as well as I do.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, shhh.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members. Members.

The minister has the floor.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: I understand that this member is running to be the new leader, and he wants to distance himself from the B.C. Liberals or B.C. United or whoever you want to call yourself.

But we know who you are, and the people in British Columbia know who you are. You know what you did, and we know what you did. You’d do it again on this side, and that’s why we’re over here.

The Speaker: Members and Ministers, all comments through the Chair, please.

Property Tax Deferment
and Homeowner Grant Programs
and Support for Low-Income Seniors

Brennan Day: It seems like we need to reset the speed limits on the highways in B.C. to 88, because we continually keep going back to the future with this government. Their excuses….

You’re the government in power now, and you have to answer for your mistakes.

It’s not just nurses being attacked in this recent budget, by this government.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh.

Brennan Day: It’s seniors across this province, living on fixed incomes, that rely on the property tax deferral program to remain in their homes. In the city of Courtenay, changes to the deferral program and the homeowner’s grant program will impact nearly 77 percent of residents. If the minister wants to doubt that number, I encourage her to pick up the phone or check her inbox and call the city of Courtenay.

[2:40 p.m.]

In the last year’s budget, the government claimed to support aging in place. We heard it repeated in ministerial talking lines across the board. This year the absolute opposite. This minister continues to discuss this NDP government and increasing the costs of deferrals for seniors who are just trying to stay in their homes.

The Speaker: Question, Member.

Brennan Day: To the Minister of Finance: why not reverse these broad, damaging changes to low-income seniors and move to a simple, income-tested model that protects the very people you pretend to care for?

The Speaker: Member, through the Chair.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: The changes that we’ve made in this deferral program are changes that are long overdue. This program was designed to help keep seniors in their homes, but because the financing was below what rates people could get in the market, it was being used by investors instead of being used by seniors.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: We’ve adjusted this program so it’s still very reasonably priced, so it can stay true to the intention of the program.

[End of question period.]

Peter Milobar: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure if you’d prefer that this be raised as a point of privilege or just give the minister a chance to retract, but ministers of the Crown should be factual and accurate when they are speaking in this House.

Given that I was never in government and that she repeatedly and continually makes up alternative timelines in this chamber, how would you like me to proceed? A point of privilege or the minister to start being truthful in this place?

Hon. Brenda Bailey: B.C. Liberal MLAs, candidates, leadership candidates and staff.

Surrey–White Rock, Trevor Halford, former B.C. Liberal MLA.

Interjections.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Pardon me. Excuse me.

Richmond Centre, B.C. Liberal cabinet minister.

Nechako Lakes, former B.C. MLA, former B.C. cabinet minister.

Abbotsford South, former B.C. MLA.

Delta South, former B.C. MLA.

Kamloops Centre, former B.C. MLA, former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister.

The Speaker: Member.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Courtenay-Comox, former B.C. Liberal candidate.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh, Members.

Hon. Brenda Bailey: Kelowna-Mission, former B.C. Liberal candidate, former B.C. Liberal contestant.

I can go on.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Thank you, Minister.

Shhh, Members. Take a seat.

Members, come to order. Order, Members.

Members, when debate happens, all members have to be careful not naming anybody. It’s important that we focus our debate on the issue, not on the individuals.

Question of Privilege
(Reservation of Right)

Peter Milobar: I’ll reserve my right of privilege, then, if the minister doesn’t want to be factual.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Member, shhh.

Members, question period is over.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh.

I think we are going to put a tent outside and have a free-for-all. Not in the House. We are grown-up adults. Behave like adults, please.

Reports from Committees

Private Bills and
Private Members’ Bills Committee

Amna Shah: I have the honour to present the report of the Select Standing Committee on Private Bills and Private Members’ Bills on Bill M217, intituled Dashboard Cameras in Commercial Vehicles Act. The committee reports the bill complete with amendment.

The Speaker: Members, the committee report on Bill M217, Dashboard Cameras in Commercial Vehicles Act, will be considered at report stage during private members’ time.

[2:45 p.m.]

Amna Shah: I also have the honour to present the report of the Select Standing Committee on Private Bills and Private Members’ Bills on Bill M231, intituled Veterans and First Responders Month Act. The committee reports the bill complete without amendment.

The Speaker: The committee’s report on Bill M231, Veterans and First Responders Month Act, will be considered at the report stage for private members’ bills.

Question of Privilege

Dallas Brodie: I rise today on a matter of privilege under Standing Order 26. I believe that my ability to function as a member of the Legislative Assembly has been directly obstructed by the actions of an administrative body — namely, the Vancouver school board.

Recently my constituency office booked a public facility managed by the VSB, the auditorium of Prince of Wales Secondary School, which is in my constituency. I’m holding a town hall there to deal with private property rights, because I’ve been inundated with letters from my constituents about this matter. The meeting was intended to fulfil my primary mandate to hear from the people I represent and to discuss matters of importance to my constituents.

Despite a confirmed booking, the VSB unilaterally cancelled this event suddenly on late Friday night, and it’s supposed to happen this Saturday. This is not a mere contract dispute. It is an act of deplatforming an elected official and a deliberate barrier placed between a member and their constituents.

I note that the letter sent to me by the VSB was not signed by anyone, let alone a person in authority, so it is impossible to know whether the cancellation letter is even legitimate. And clearly, someone is trying to avoid being named in this letter.

Parliamentary privilege exists to ensure that members can perform their functions without fear of interference or intimidation. By denying access to taxpayer-funded public space for the express purpose of a political town hall, the VSB is effectively silencing the dialogue between the provincial government and the citizens of Vancouver-Quilchena. When an administrative board, which derives its authority from provincial legislation, acts to suppress the work of an elected member of that same province, it constitutes a contempt of the constitutional role of this House.

The VSB decision sets a dangerous precedent. If a school board can decide which MLAs are allowed to speak in public halls based on outside pressure, then no member in this House is truly free to serve their community. It is without question that VSB must abide by the principle of neutrality in circumstances such as this. It is not acceptable for any MLA, regardless of party, to be denied the use of public buildings for MLA functions.

Mr. Speaker, I move that this matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills to investigate this interference in my constituency role and to reaffirm that the rights of an MLA to assemble with their constituents must remain inviolable and free from administrative censorship. I have provided your office with the correspondence from the Vancouver school board detailing their cancellation, along with all the details of the contract we had signed and paid for in advance.

We have had over 5,000 pieces of literature dropped by volunteers to avoid the expense of mailing it out so that we didn’t have to pay for it. We’ve had volunteers dropping letters specifically to people’s doors. It’s supposed to happen this Saturday. I have two esteemed guests coming to speak, two high-profile lawyers from British Columbia, and I can’t believe this is happening.

I ask that you find a prima facie case of breach of privilege.

The Speaker: Are there any other submissions on this question of privilege raised by the member for Vancouver-Quilchena? If not, the Chair will take this under advisement.

Okay. The Chair will take it under advisement.

Orders of the Day

Hon. Mike Farnworth: In this chamber, I call Committee of Supply on the estimates of the Ministry of Health.

In Section A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call….

Interjections.

The Speaker: Shhh, Members.

Hon. Mike Farnworth: No, estimates.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members. Members. Let’s not be cheeky.

Minister continues.

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

I would remind the House that the estimates of the Ministry of Health are one of those chosen by the opposition to take place in this chamber. That is exactly what is happening.

In Section A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call Committee of Supply, Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions.

The House in Committee, Section B.

The committee met at 2:50 p.m.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Health

The Chair: Members, we’re going to call a brief five-minute recess while we await the team for Ministry of Health.

The committee recessed from 2:50 p.m. to 2:57 p.m.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

The Chair: Members, we’ll call this chamber back to order, where we are going to contemplate estimates of Ministry of Health.

On Vote 32: ministry operations, $35,968,875,000.

The Chair: Minister, do you have any opening remarks before we begin our estimates process?

Hon. Josie Osborne: I’ll just keep it very simple.

I want to introduce the team that I have with me today. I have Cynthia Johansen, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Health, and Rob Byers, who is acting associate deputy minister in the ministry.

Behind me, I have Karina Sangha, who is the acting assistant deputy minister for corporate services and executive financial officer; and Ross Hayward, the assistant deputy minister for substance use, treatment and recovery.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Minister. Appreciate the opening.

Recognizing our member for Skeena.

Claire Rattée: Thank you, Chair. I appreciate it.

Thank you to the minister and all of her staff. I’m appreciating your guys’ time today. I think we’ll just jump right in. I don’t necessarily have any opening comments.

The first thing that I wanted to cover off, though, is going back to last year’s estimates. I had made some requests around the number of treatment beds relating to substance use, and I was promised that I would get a copy of all of the beds broken down by health authority, type of bed, all of those details. I was provided with it, and I really appreciate it. I have it here from last year.

[3:00 p.m.]

I was hoping that I could start off by requesting…. It seemed like this was something that was pre-prepared. If I could get a copy of that as soon as possible so that I have time, before my time is up today, to be able to cross-reference the two. This one was March of 2025, and I’m happy to provide that to the minister and her team if she would like just so that she has a copy of what I’m looking for. Basically, I’m hoping that we can get that over to me and my staff as soon as possible.

I believe I have roughly five hours for my estimates portion. I’m just hoping that I could receive a copy of this in advance so that I have a bit of time to be able to cross-reference the two. I’m just hoping. If the minister can let me know, please.

Hon. Josie Osborne: Welcome to our five hours together.

As well, I just want to say thank you to the member for Skeena. As a critic for mental health and addictions, she’s been very good to work with. Despite the fact we sit on opposite sides of this House, she and I have had a number of really excellent conversations. I’ve had the opportunity to travel to her riding a few times and appreciate her real dedication, commitment and passion for the file.

Yes, we’ll get you that list. We’ll try to do that this afternoon. I know that your five hours will jump up to tomorrow too, so if there’s any holdup, I’ll let you know as we go through the afternoon. But we’ll do that.

Claire Rattée: Great. Thank you to the minister. I appreciate that.

I feel the same. I feel like we’ve been able to work really well together, and I’m hoping that this next five hours is productive.

I will hold off on some of my questions, those specific questions around the beds for now, then, but if we can’t get a copy of that before I get to that section, then I may have to use the numbers from last year and base it off of those.

I want to start off with a bit of some questions around psychiatry. I’m wondering if the minister can provide me with how many patients are currently receiving care through the forensic psychiatric system right now in British Columbia.

Hon. Josie Osborne: Just because I don’t want to hold things up…. We’re just consulting with the team to try to get that number. I can read it into the record in a few moments, but we might want to move ahead to the next question, and I’ll come back to this.

Claire Rattée: Thank you. I appreciate that.

A couple of other questions, then, that maybe could be answered simultaneously. I’m also wondering how many psychiatric in-patient beds currently exist in British Columbia within hospitals, how many of the psychiatric units are at capacity, on average, as well as how many psychiatrists are currently practising in the public mental health system in British Columbia and how many vacancies exist.

[3:05 p.m. - 3:10 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Sorry for the delay there as we tried to pull together all the different answers to the questions. The question was on how many psych beds, hospitals and information around capacity, as well as how many psychiatrists are practising and how many vacancies exist.

I’m going to describe three types of mental health beds, one being community mental health beds that provide mental health treatment and care for people in community settings. This is outside hospitals. There are 19,579 of those beds. To be clear, those include B.C. Housing, health services program units, long-term care, assisted living facilities, family homes, rental subsidies, supported housing, emergency shelters, other services. Those are beds that can be found in those kinds of facilities and that are classified as community mental health beds.

There’s also an acute care system of mental health beds, where mental health treatment and care is provided directly in acute care settings like hospitals that serve both adults and youth. There are 930 of those. There are 952 non-forensic tertiary beds — tertiary beds, a longer stay — and those are distributed in facilities across B.C.

I don’t have a specific number for the member on forensic psych beds, but I’ll take that question on notice. I want to just note that these are very much kind of point-in-time numbers and that the bed numbers do fluctuate because the service classifications will change.

There are some routine contract amendments that can impact the designation of a bed. There are community needs that fluctuate and change over time, but those acute and non-forensic tertiary beds can be found in 77 designated mental health facilities across B.C. Again, I know the member understands that these facilities can provide both voluntary and involuntary treatment as well.

With respect to psychiatrists, the most precise I can be right now is to say there are about 1,200 psychiatrists. This is a combination of full-time and part-time. These are psychiatrists who work in hospital settings, in community settings, academic, so they may not all be seeing patients, for example. I do not have an estimate of how many vacancies exist at this time, but we will endeavor to get that for the member.

Then there was also a question around capacity. This is more challenging to answer because hospitalizations are tracked, but the capacity or vacant beds at any one time are just not tracked on a daily basis in that way, so it’s not it’s not really possible to provide that number.

Claire Rattée: First of all, the community mental health beds. Based on the description provided, I’m assuming these are not considered clinical in any way. They’re not receiving any kind of clinical supports. These are just beds that are designated for people that are struggling with mental illness or mental health issues.

Then with the questions around the usage of psychiatry beds, I think, effectively, what I’m trying to ascertain is: are there beds that are designated as psychiatric beds in hospitals throughout British Columbia right now that are not being used because of staffing shortages?

[3:15 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: I appreciate the member’s intention here, just trying to understand staffing levels, beds and ensuring that we are keeping pace with the need that British Columbians have for psychiatric treatment and access to those services, as well as, as the number of beds grows, that we are doing the work to recruit all of the staff that is required. I would point out, too, that it’s beyond just psychiatrists but also mental health nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and RPNs that are part of that workforce.

Because we work within the regional health authority system, we don’t have the easy instant access to some of the information that the member is seeking. And because, again, it’s a point-in-time count as to how a bed is being used and then how it is staffed…. That makes it a bit tricky. But I absolutely acknowledge that rolling need for continuous recruitment of specialists, psychiatrists being one of them.

I can say that in 2019-2020, if you look at the head count of the specialized workers that are required and then compare that to 2024-2025, some five years later…. We have kept pace with population growth — from 853 in 2019-2020, to 937 in 2024-2025.

[3:20 p.m.]

There’s always a lag in terms of the numbers that we have access to. To get information for the most recent fiscal, ’25-26, takes a little bit longer.

But if that’s where the member is going, to talk about the importance of keeping pace, I fully agree. That’s why we continue to do the work we have around training, recruitment and retention of health care workers like the ones that are required for psychiatric services.

Claire Rattée: Part of the reason I was actually asking the question is because I’ve heard recently that there are psychiatric beds that are sitting unused in my region due to a lack of staff, and that certainly does include both psychiatrists and also a lack of even social workers, case management workers.

So the reason I was asking that is because I’m trying to better understand. Are there beds that are sitting empty, and are there a significant number of beds that are sitting empty throughout this province because we cannot staff them? Again, I know that there are in my region. I’m just wondering how widespread the issue is.

I take the minister’s point that, certainly, the regionalized health authority system has made things very difficult to track, so I’ll move on to another question.

I’m wondering if the minister could let me know, please, what the proportion of psychiatrists is from, basically, rural and urban — between the two. I am just trying to get a clear picture of how many there are in each region per population so that I can understand if that distribution is equitable.

[3:25 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Okay, so I’ve got a little bit more information here.

I want to, first of all, just introduce another staff member who’s here supporting me, Darryl Sturtevant. He is the assistant deputy minister for mental health and concurrent disorders.

This line of questioning around psychiatrists and around the disparities between urban and rural areas…. First of all, I just want to acknowledge that it’s well known that it is more difficult to access specialists in rural areas of the province. It has been more of a challenge to recruit and retain specialists in areas of the province, and it’s something that I take very seriously, coming from a rural community myself and knowing just how important it is for people to be able to have that kind of care.

I’m going to read into the record some of the numbers around psychiatry in the different health authorities. I can tell you that in the Fraser Health Authority, there are 217 psychiatrists; in Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, 429; in the Interior Health Authority, 95; Vancouver Island Health Authority, 160; and Northern Health Authority, 28.

To the member’s point, up north particularly having the lowest number of provincial psychiatrists available for people there, that means quite a bit of reliance on telepsychiatry, on virtual services and on visiting specialists who come up and who come in to communities.

Again, just to point out that this includes psychiatrists who work across private practice and hospitals and publicly funded programs. You cannot take the number of people directly as equivalent to dedicated, clinical full-time equivalents in psychiatry.

I also wanted to just touch on the fact that while in-patient psychiatric services are an important part of the health care system…. Earlier we were talking about mental health beds in community, and this is also an important part of the mental health and psychiatric care system. For example, last year I had the opportunity to visit a facility in the Lower Mainland run by Coast Mental Health that is not an acute care facility. These are community mental health beds, but they help house and provide services to people.

For example, there are individuals living in this particular facility who are living with schizophrenia, but they’ve got this stable housing. They’ve got the supports, and this has enabled them to live in community in a way where they don’t need the same kind of access to those acute psychiatric services that we are, I think, mostly talking about here.

I know the member knows — we’ve talked about this many times — there is a real continuum of care when it comes to the services that people need. It certainly has been a dedicated focus of this ministry and of this government to continue to build out those beds in all places — be it community, be it acute, be it tertiary, be it complex or concurrent disorders, both voluntary and involuntary care — to make sure that people have access to the care that they need.

Claire Rattée: I appreciate the minister’s comments on that and recognizing how much disparity there is between the different regions. I know that based on the numbers that we had already pulled, it is a rate of three times higher in urban areas for access to psychiatrists. When you pull out just my health authority, obviously, that becomes significantly worse.

My question is: what is there in this year’s budget that the minister is trying to do to fix that issue?

[3:30 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: The work that the ministry is doing, funded through this year’s budget, as it has been in previous years, around recruitment and retention activities, when it comes to all health care workers, is, I think, relevant to this conversation.

Let me speak, first of all, just to psychiatrists. Just to remind the member — I’m sure she already understands this — that UBC is the only faculty of medicine here in British Columbia that delivers our province’s psychiatry residency program.

[3:35 p.m.]

There are about 30-odd, a little bit more than that, entry positions that are offered across Vancouver, Fraser, Island Health, Interior and Northern training sites. So it’s an important part of the training system that psychiatry residents have the ability to go out into different parts of the province.

We know that when people train here in B.C. or in communities, they are much more likely to stay here in B.C. or in these regions. That’s why a dispersed model of education like this is a really important part of the training that specialists and family doctors receive.

Again, coming back to the fact that there are multiple different types of positions that are important in psychiatry and mental health altogether, I want to point out the work, the minimum nurse-to-patient ratio commitments, that our government has made. When it comes to staffing units and, over the coming months and years, being able to meet these ratio commitments, this will be a really important part of the recruitment work into smaller communities, into more rural sites.

As well, the expansion of initiatives like the Red Fish Healing Centre in Coquitlam and looking at facilities in Surrey. More notably to the member’s location in the province, Prince George is offering involuntary as well as voluntary care, offering some specialized psychiatric care there.

Simply having a facility like that, knowing that we can recruit psychiatrists to work in such a place with a full team of people, is an appealing part of making a decision about where to live and work in this province. So the infrastructure side of recruitment is an important part of this as well.

I’d also point to investments in hospitals like the Ksyen Regional Hospital in Terrace, like the Nats’oojeh Hospital in Fort St. James, new clinics, new hospitals, renovated facilities that provide more opportunities for people to access care, be it virtually…. Having a telehealth room or centre set up within these facilities for visiting psychiatrists or virtual psychiatrists or other mental health workers, psychiatric nurses and the like to be able to provide those services is an important part of it, as well as our commitment to continue to expand access to mental health services right in primary care.

We have about 350 full-time-equivalent psychologists working in primary care systems, working in health authorities — again, full-time-equivalents. That’s an important part of expanding that access and having a more holistic, if you will, primary care system that provides that kind of care for people, as well as clinical counselling and other community-based forms of counselling and making that more easily accessible for people. The point is to intervene early and try to prevent problems from getting worse, growing bigger to a point where, for some, more acute psychiatric care is required.

The last thing I want to say around this is the exciting prospects that are being seen through the U.S. recruitment campaign and the work that’s being done by communities with unions, with health authorities and through the province, through our Health Match B.C. site and program. The reason why this took so long to get numbers is because I was trying to get an exact number on the number of psychiatrists that have signed job offers who are coming up from the States. It’s not zero, but I don’t have the precise number in front of me.

Over the past months and weeks, and even just the past couple of weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of travelling and talking with local government leaders, talking to them too about sitting at that team B.C. table, particularly in rural and more remote areas, to not only understand what the challenges are that they are hearing from specialists such as psychiatrists but all health care workers in making the move into smaller communities.

Really thrilled to see the way that local governments are stepping up to that table. Burns Lake is an example of a community that has gotten a lot more engaged in physician recruitment. That’s a positive sign. Whether it’s family doctors or nurses, mental health counsellors or psychiatrists —this is the approach we have to continue to take, because we want to make sure that no matter where you live in British Columbia, people have access to the health care that they need.

Claire Rattée: I appreciate that. The main reason that I am focused on psychiatrists right now is because I’m focusing on our public health system and what can be accessed through MSP for people that are struggling. That’s why I wasn’t focusing on psychologists and counsellors. That is a separate conversation.

[3:40 p.m.]

I’m going to move on to another question that I have. The minister had mentioned non-forensic tertiary. I don’t have a health background. I’m not entirely clear on what that is. But my question was: how many beds exist right now for long-term psychiatric hospitalization? I’m wondering if that is what that category would be.

If so, I understand that every case will be unique, but I’m trying to get a better feel for whether or not we have the capacity within our system currently to be able to serve people that maybe have either brain injury or mental illness and that cannot live in community — what that capacity within our system actually looks like. How long can we house somebody like that?

I don’t think it’s appropriate for somebody to live in a hospital that is like a general hospital for the rest of their life if they are unable to live in community. I take the point about mental health beds in community. I think that that is important. I think that’s always the goal, that we get people to a place where they can live in community.

The reality is that we have thousands of people right now that are living in community, on the streets, that shouldn’t be. They’re struggling with severe mental illness and acquired brain injuries or both. We don’t seem to have a system in place that can care for them long term. So I’m hoping that the minister could touch on that, please.

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: I think the best way I want to tackle this question is around a bit of the continuum or types of care that are provided for people with psychiatric challenges. We already canvassed this around acute mental health beds, for example, and I listed that there were 930 of those in the province, acute care being that two weeks to 30 days of stay in an acute care facility for stabilization and the urgent treatment that somebody would need during that time.

Now, some people are discharged, and others need longer-term care. That is where the tertiary beds come in that I was speaking about — typically, a three- to nine-month stay, again, often in a hospital-like setting, if not in a hospital itself.

Then I was speaking about the Red Fish Centre in Coquitlam, where even one step further…. We’ll call them quaternary beds. These are beds where there’s a very high level or high intensity of services that a person requires. To be clear, people can step down or step back up. As the member knows, it’s not a straight-line journey for everybody.

When Dr. Vigo began working with the ministry and providing advice, this really was around what I think the member is getting at. There is a small group of people who are experiencing severe mental illness together with substance use issues — opioid use disorders, for example — as well as acquired brain injury and are not in a position to seek care and stay in care themselves. These are folks who need support. They need stabilization and treatment as best as can be provided for people. That is beginning to happen in a more concerted way here in the province.

Now, since the closure of Riverview and, of course, the public health emergency that we’re currently still in around illicit drugs and the ever-evolving contaminants and adulterants that are found in the toxic drug supply, we are seeing, sadly, a number of people who do survive overdose, for example, and then they have that acquired brain injury that — together with mental illness, together with their substance use challenge — makes life extremely challenging.

It’s important that we care for these people. It’s important, too, that we care for the communities and neighbourhoods where they live. The type of disorder that has been seen on streets and the discomfort that people experience is all part of this and why Dr. Vigo has been providing this advice on how to identify and enumerate these individuals and then what kind of care can be provided.

Now, part of those recommendations is around building out approved homes. Spiritwood, as the Alouette Homes are now called — they’re called Spiritwood, out in Maple Ridge — are exactly an example of this.

This is 18 beds. I have visited the facility myself just before it opened and before patients came on site, and it’s very much the home-like setting that the member is speaking about. Everybody has their own bedroom. They have access to a kitchen and facilities that are needed, but they have the intense supports and services that are needed to help provide the ongoing psychosocial supports, particularly around helping to manage problem behaviours that would make it not possible for these individuals to be living in community.

That being said, there are plans to expand this model of care and approved homes throughout the province. As we’ve canvassed here in this chamber before, I’ve spoken about not only that but the expansion of the facilities that are provided at the Surrey Pretrial Centre. Again, this is not a long-term stay. This is for people in remand or people who are incarcerated to be able to have access to the urgent psychiatric and mental health services that might be needed, especially when experiencing those concurrent disorders.

I do want to again differentiate from other individuals in British Columbia that for different reasons — for example, developmental challenges — are not able to live independently and that through the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction and through Community Living B.C.….There are other avenues and access for people to live in who find themselves in that circumstance.

But to the member’s point, I know she’s made this clearly. We’ve talked about it before, and we agree that there’s a need for more of these types of approved homes, more of this type of concurrent disorder treatment and recovery centres. That’s why this year’s budget has $131 million specifically towards building out that system of care.

We’ll continue that work right now, investigating sites in Prince George and in Surrey, but eventually coming also to Interior Health and to the Island, to make sure that British Columbians have access to that kind of care that’s closer to home than is currently provided mostly in the Lower Mainland.

Claire Rattée: I appreciate that answer because I think that all of those things that were highlighted are incredibly important, and they are part of what we need to be building out.

My concern and my frustration is that none of those, still, are long-term, permanent solutions. Again, it’s a small portion of the population, but it’s a population that’s growing every single day in this province. At this point, it doesn’t seem like we’ve found a solution to actually help people that are suffering like that.

In that same vein, I would like to ask some questions around brain injury specifically.

My first question is if the minister has access to at least a rough estimate of how many people are currently living with an acquired brain injury right now and how many of those are due to overdose. I’m asking “if” because if the minister has it readily available and can provide it, I would appreciate that. If not, I would like to understand why we haven’t made an attempt to understand that number.

I don’t want to hang up too much time on this, so if it’s not something that’s readily available, I’m happy to get that at a later date. But I’m just hoping that this is something that we have begun the process of trying to actually understand.

How many people are currently living with an acquired brain injury, and how many of them are due to repeated overdoses?

[3:55 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Thank you to the member for the question.

First of all, I just want to address a comment the member made about permanent solutions. I think that’s exactly the journey that we’re on, particularly with Dr. Vigo.

Knowing that approved homes have been built in Maple Ridge and that there are intentions to expand that type of housing for people who are not able to live on their own and who do need those intense psychosocial supports to help manage problem behaviours that simply are not acceptable to have in community or out in the public…. That’s exactly an example of the type of permanent solutions and provision of treatment and care and support that we are undertaking. I would disagree with the assertion that there are not solutions being sought.

Again, I do want to say thank you to Dr. Vigo for the type of focus and intention that he has been able to provide government by taking, literally, a deep dive into these very numbers that the member is asking about and identifying not just the number of persons who are living with brain injury, which could be from a variety of sources….

I think the question here was specifically around people living with brain injury as a result of overdoses from the toxic drug supply. Because Dr. Vigo is actively working on this right now, I cannot provide a precise number, but what I can do is make a commitment to the member to follow up. I think it would be very beneficial to help her understand some of that work that Dr. Vigo is doing.

Already we know that it is fewer than 1 percent, fewer than one-tenth of a percent in fact, of people in B.C. who are living with the concurrent severe mental illness and acquired brain injury and substance use challenges. So it is a very small proportion of British Columbians, and those individuals need this type of help that we have been focused on.

We are also doing everything we can to avoid getting into this situation in the first place, and that’s been a very big part of the ministry’s focus — again, on the entire continuum of mental health and substance use care and treatment that is available for people, as well as all of the intervention and prevention work. As we understand and we see in society, it is….

Youth, for example. It’s a really challenging time to be a young person and experience the kind of pressures that people are feeling, particularly since COVID, when we know a lot of gaps were identified. We see the struggles that people are facing.

That’s why increasing access to counselling, building out Foundry, establishing integrated child and youth teams in schools, undertaking education and prevention programs in schools…. That’s why we need to do more work to normalize these conversations and to reduce the stigma around mental health and substance use issues so that people feel safer, they feel more welcome, and they feel it is easier to ask for help and to access that help.

It is just as important, if not even more important, to be doing that work concurrently with the work that we have to do to serve people who do experience substance use disorders and severe mental illness and those who do have acquired brain injury. I can’t answer a question just about this one group of people without speaking to all of the rest of the work that is a part of this ministry and a part of our government’s work.

Claire Rattée: On the topic of doing everything possible to prevent this issue from happening…. I have some questions later on about naloxone, but I can’t pass this opportunity up right now.

One of the things that, it seems to me, would be a really obvious place to start if we’re trying to prevent that would be properly educating the public on the dangers of using naloxone.

[4:00 p.m.]

I want to be very clear when I say that I’m not advocating against the use of naloxone. I’m advocating for increased public education around the fact that just because you can reverse the effects of an overdose does not mean you get away scot-free.

At this point, I have seen no evidence that that work has been done or undertaken. It could be as simple as some kind of a little information card, distributed with a naloxone kit, that warns people about the dangers of repeated overdoses that are reversed by naloxone.

This is a very serious issue. This is something that we’re seeing playing out across the province. It’s only getting worse. In my mind, it doesn’t seem, at this point, that enough people are properly educated on the fact that, yes, there is a way to reverse an overdose, but that does not mean that there is no harm created by that overdose that you have reversed.

I’m particularly concerned about that given the fact that we are pushing naloxone in schools. We are educating students about naloxone, but that work is not being done concurrently with explaining what happens when you end up with an acquired brain injury due to a repeated overdose. You know, there are people that are overdosing right now several times a week, and I have a lot of concern around the fact that we’re not properly educating people about this. It seems like, in some ways, this may have, unfortunately and inadvertently, fuelled this crisis, because we have a way to reverse an overdose.

Obviously, I’m grateful for it, and I want to make that completely clear. I think that is important, and it’s life-saving medication. That still doesn’t change the fact that when somebody stops breathing, their brain doesn’t get oxygen. If you do that enough times, what quality of life is there left when we don’t, at this point, have a really concerted strategy around how we’re handling that?

I would like the minister to just touch on that, please — around whether or not this is something that’s actually being considered and whether or not we’re going to incorporate that into naloxone training, to make sure that people understand the true dangers of repeated overdoses that are reversed.

[4:05 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: First of all, I want to talk about the purpose of naloxone being literally a life-saving measure, a harm reduction measure that keeps people alive in the event of an overdose and that can reverse some of the impacts of that overdose. It has never been the intention of having the presence of a tool like that to be something that somehow enables people, particularly people experiencing a severe substance use disorder, to use substances.

It’s not a terrific comparison, maybe, but just like having a seatbelt doesn’t mean you should go really fast in your car, having a seatbelt can still save your life. Having naloxone on hand has saved thousands and thousands of lives.

We know that overdose, repeated overdose, significantly increases the risk of brain injury. The intention, of course, always is to work with people to try to get them connected to care in a way that they can transition from illicit street drugs to something that is safer to use while they deal with the addiction and move into other forms of medication, treatment and, hopefully, as I think is the goal of most if not all, to a place where they are no longer using substances.

I point to the work that has been done over the last ten years with the expansion of the availability of naloxone, noting that at the time when the public health emergency was declared ten years ago, you could only access naloxone through a prescription. We are now distributing millions of kits every year. They are available in thousands of different places out in community and are easily accessed, particularly by those who are providing care, those who are involved with people who use drugs.

[4:10 p.m.]

Its presence, as I said, has literally saved lives. Part of the work is understanding, to the member’s point, education around the use of naloxone — how to identify the symptoms of overdose, how to use it correctly. That is a part of the work that we are doing.

So in the overall budget, for example, $85 million is being spent on the take-home naloxone program over three years. Just under 20 percent of that is dedicated towards evaluation, education, reporting, as well as the overhead and supplies that are required.

I also want to point out the really amazing work of Chloe Goodison, from the NaloxHome program, as a youth herself working with schools, working with youth groups, to again help decrease some of the stigma around having conversations about substance use, about being able to identify the symptoms of overdose and how to correctly use naloxone.

Again, it’s there as literally a life-saving measure to help keep people alive, whether they are regular drug users, whether they are one-time or occasional drug users. In the case of an opioid addiction or other substance use disorder, to have access not only to naloxone but other harm reduction measures, be it overdose prevention services; be it the Lifeguard connect app, so that people are not using alone; drug-checking sites to look at what might be in illicit drugs that have been sourced off the street, for example….

We know that these are life-saving services, which is why we continue to support them. At the same time as we’ve been talking about in estimates so far here, the work done to help treat people with substance use disorders, the work to help people avoid becoming in that situation in the first place — it is all an important part of this work. I appreciate the question from the member.

Claire Rattée: I just want to underscore again that as I said, I do fully recognize that this is important life-saving medication. I’m not advocating that we get rid of it. I don’t know what the solution is. But if you look at it — correlation, causation, whatever you want to call it….

As the minister pointed out, naloxone was not widely available at the beginning of this crisis, and the numbers were not what we’re seeing today, not even close. I do have concerns that when you remove some risks from risky behaviour, you increase the likelihood that people are going to engage in that risky behaviour. It’s just a fact.

It’s something that I could personally attest to as somebody that has experienced addiction. Had it existed and been widely available when I was struggling with addiction, it might have removed some of the risk for me. I can say that very confidently. Would I have recognized at 16, 17 years old that that would also increase the risk of me developing an acquired brain injury that would permanently disable me? Probably not.

I do have some concerns around that, and that’s where I’m just really hoping to try and underscore here the need for education around that. It’s as simple as…. You know, we put warnings on cigarettes now so that every time somebody smokes one, they can remember that there is an inherent associated risk.

So obviously, it’s not that naloxone itself is risky. It’s the act of overdosing that is risky This will save your life, but, hopefully, next time you might think twice before engaging in that behaviour again and just reach out for some help instead. I do think that needs to be the end goal, that we’re trying to get people to a place where they are not engaging in those risky behaviours anymore.

I have a question around hospital beds and how it relates to this. I’m wondering if the minister could let me know how many beds, on average, in hospital are tied up with psychiatric or acquired brain injury patients at alternative level of care that are waiting for discharge. They need an alternative level of care. They’re waiting for discharge, maybe an alternative level of care that we just don’t have access to or we don’t have enough of. I’m curious how often that is happening and how many beds are getting tied up with that.

[4:15 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Sorry for the delay. We are trying to get the number, and we will get it. But I just thought we would advance the questions because I didn’t want to take up more time waiting.

Claire Rattée: My next question is actually around complex care housing, so it’s switching gears a little bit, but I’ll just read it in now.

[4:20 p.m.]

According to one of the minister’s own briefing notes, it says: “Complex care housing prioritizes harm reduction, respecting resident autonomy and the right to live at risk and use substances.” There’s also in that briefing note that as of December 31, 2024, 527 people had access to complex care housing services, with 49 percent of those being in supportive housing units.

My question is: why are complex care housing units in buildings with supportive housing in the first place? Essentially, why are people with complex mental health and substance abuse issues housed with people who don’t fit that criteria? Does this not make outcomes for those that are in supportive housing units potentially worse? And why is substance use being allowed in those units?

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Thank you for the question about complex care housing. I want to just talk first a little bit about what it is, because I see we’re joined by some guests in the gallery — hello — and then address the question that the member brings forward.

Complex care housing is part of our response. As the toxic drug crisis increased in complexity and we were seeing the impacts on people, we knew that there was a need for housing that provided a higher level of health supports to people living there. Complex care housing has been a mandate priority both for the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs and previous iterations of that ministry since 2020.

[4:25 p.m.]

It’s part of the response as well to the homelessness action plan, belonging in B.C.; and the housing plan of the government, Homes for People. Again, that’s led by the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs.

What complex care housing does is provide on-site and enhanced health services to people who have very significant health needs, be it mental health and substance use issues, and people who are particularly at risk of homelessness.

The sites, which in phase 1 began as additions to existing supportive housing sites — currently 623 people are housed in these units — were very rapidly implemented. Phase 2, which is underway now, sees 120 new units that are proceeding right now in Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Prince George, Vancouver and Victoria, with the first site in Prince George in 2026. The rest are coming along — that provide dedicated services.

To the member’s point, there are units of complex care housing that are provided inside or adjacent to or within supportive housing, and then there are those that will be specialized, dedicated and stand-alone complex care housing sites.

Hon. Lisa Beare: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. Lisa Beare: In the gallery, just joining us today is Experiences Canada, which is a national registered charity that helps young Canadians 12 to 17 years old explore their country in ways that they have never imagined. We’ve got a great delegation here with us witnessing the estimates of the Ministry of Health.

I’d like the whole House to join me in welcoming them.

Debate Continued

Claire Rattée: I appreciate that overview, and I am heartened to hear that we are focusing on trying to build that out as a stand-alone service. But what I didn’t hear in there was why we are allowing and encouraging ongoing use of substances within these facilities.

It’s just an odd one to me, because I would think with it falling under the purview of Health that the focus would be on the client’s health that’s living in those facilities. I would think that part of that would be somewhat of a targeted way to try and prevent further harm coming to them and to their health.

I’m just trying to better understand that. I mean, obviously, I understand supportive housing does not fall under Health. I’ve had those conversations with the minister responsible there, and I disagree with the use of substances in those facilities.

But in these ones, specifically, where these are people that are at severe risk, people that are obviously struggling with concurrent challenges that are very severe in nature, I would just hope to better understand why specifically in that briefing note it stated that we have to effectively do everything we can to allow somebody to continue down that path.

[4:30 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: I’m going to address this question by focusing my comment on one of the central tenets of the work that we do, and that is that addiction is a health issue.

First and foremost, one of the things that people need is stable housing — a place that is safe to call their home, to enable them to literally be in a place where they can form relationships with care providers, a place where they can know they have a safe place to sleep, a place to have a shower, a place to get good food, a place to receive care.

Addiction, being a chronic relapsing disease, is something where, if we get to the point of tying housing to abstinence and not allowing…. And I will take exception to the member’s characterization of enabling or encouraging substance use. This is not at all about encouraging substance use. This is about acknowledging that people have substance use issues and that they deserve safe, adequate housing as well.

When people are able to build trust and form those relationships with people, they can begin to have those conversations, those connections to points of care that enable them to begin to address some of the underlying reasons why they might be suffering from an addiction and to address underlying traumas and other reasons why they are in the position that they are.

I think we would all agree in this House that everybody deserves a safe place to call home and that we need to do everything we can to prevent or lower the risk of returning to homelessness, of living on the streets, of being unhoused and, instead, help stabilize people in their life so that they can get access to the care that they need.

Claire Rattée: I guess this is just one of the areas that the minister and I disagree on. I take exception to calling it a chronic relapsing condition, as somebody that has experienced addiction myself. I have no interest in using drugs ever again, nor will I call myself a recovered addict for a reason. So I don’t believe that we can just simplify it like that. But that’s maybe an ideological difference, and I recognize that, and the minister is the one that’s in charge of this, so that is her determination on it, and I respect that.

I just personally take offence to this briefing note that says that they prioritize harm reduction, respecting resident autonomy and the right to live at risk and use substances. Maybe I am misunderstanding the target demographic for the complex care housing.

My understanding was that these were people that were experiencing not only substance use disorders but also severe psychiatric illness, also acquired brain injury, people that I would think would be precisely the type of people that would fall under the category of who we are aiming the whole concept of involuntary or mandatory care around, people that are experiencing repeated overdoses in a week — that sort of population.

In my mind and in my experience, these are people that directly would benefit from some intervention because they have, in most cases — and again, this is a very small population, but it still exists, and they’re still people that deserve to live with some dignity in their lives — lost the ability and the autonomy to make decisions that are in their best interest for their health.

[4:35 p.m.]

My hope was that the purpose of this housing was to try and find a way to intervene and to provide them with options to be able to live a stable and normal life with dignity. So prioritizing the ongoing use of substances, to their detriment, in my mind, is precisely the issue that I’ve been speaking about around warehousing addiction.

And I agree. Housing is an important part of recovery. It’s an important part of anyone’s life, and everyone deserves to have access to housing. But when we’ve got complex care housing where this is prioritized and it’s also being mingled in with supportive housing, with people that don’t struggle with substance use…. Again, to my previous comment, that puts other people at risk, and I think that we need to be very careful about that. You can’t just prioritize one group over another for safety purposes and their right to have a safe place to live.

Regardless, I do recognize that this is something that ideologically I think we feel differently about, and I can respect that because, again, I am not the minister, so this is not up to me. I just wanted to make sure that that was clear and on the record.

I want to move on to a recent coroner’s inquest. I apologize. This question may be a little bit lengthy, and there may be a couple of questions in here. But I think for time’s sake, it makes sense for me to go through this all as one question and allow the minister to provide a response.

There was a recent coroner’s inquest in Prince Rupert into Christopher Duong and psychiatric hospitals. He was placed on a 24-hour involuntary psychiatric hold and released under the Mental Health Act, days before he and his family were found deceased in Prince Rupert. In February 2026, the coroner’s inquest into the case provided nine recommendations, six of which are directed at the Minister of Health and her portfolio.

Recommendation 1 specifically directs the Minister of Health to change the involuntary admission form, allowing an apprehending police officer to indicate their contact information on the form and, if requested, requiring hospitals to inform the officer on the discharge of a patient admitted under section 28 of the Mental Health Act.

My question on that piece is: is the minister planning on implementing this recommendation, and if so, when can we expect to see this change on the form?

My next one…. Recommendation 2 states: direct resources towards expanding the number of hospitals that offer psychiatric and mental health resources and services. Experts and psychiatrists across the province have been urging for more psychiatric staff in general hospitals, in addition to building actual psychiatric hospitals. We have no psychiatric hospital currently.

Will the minister commit to implementing this second recommendation and investing in psychiatric hospitals in B.C.?

Recommendation 3 states: investigate ways to improve follow-up and wraparound services to patients following discharge from involuntary admission under the Mental Health Act.

My question on that one is: does the minister intend on implementing this recommendation, and if so, can the minister provide context on the methods and timeline for this investigation?

And what oversight and guidance will the minister be providing on recommendations 6 to 8, which are directed at Northern Health Authority and Prince Rupert Regional Hospital? Is the minister implementing a deadline for when the Prince Rupert Hospital must meet recommendations 7 and 8?

[4:40 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: I move that the committee rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The Chair: This committee stands adjourned.

The committee rose at 4:41 p.m.

The House resumed at 4:41 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Mable Elmore: Committee of Supply, Section B, reports progress on the estimates of the Ministry of Health and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Committee of Supply, Section A, reports resolution and completion of the estimates of the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Hon. Jessie Sunner: In the chamber, I call Committee of Supply, continued estimates on the Ministry of Health.

In Section A, I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 16, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act.

The House in Committee, Section B.

The committee met at 4:42 p.m.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Health
(continued)

The Chair: Okay, we’ll call the committee to order. We are undertaking Committee of Supply for the Ministry of Health.

On Vote 32: ministry operations, $35,968,875,000 (continued).

Hon. Josie Osborne: Thank you to the member for the question.

Before we move to the work of the coroner, I wanted to just come back again to the discussion around complex care and appreciate the differences in perspectives that the member and I may have.

But I want to be very clear. The member was speaking about those individuals who are experiencing concurrent disorders of severe mental illness and acquired brain injury and substance use disorders. That is, indeed, a very unique part of the population, one that requires appropriate housing and treatment and has been a focus of this government.

[4:45 p.m.]

Complex care housing. Perhaps we could just think of that a little bit as a step down, and we are talking about, again, people who are unhoused or who are at severe risk of homelessness needing access to stable housing in order to be able to stabilize and have that connection to care.

Any person is…. The scheme that we have under the Mental Health Act here in the province of British Columbia means that individuals who do meet the criteria outlined in the act can be held involuntarily for a short time or for a longer time, depending on the outcome of assessments that are made by clinicians and by professionals. In no way does that mean that persons who need a higher level of treatment or who may be deemed appropriate for involuntary care would not be able to access that kind of treatment.

Again, just coming back to addiction being a disease that is as individual as there are people out there, there are different pathways into addiction and, as such, there are also different pathways out of addiction. For some, to have that access to stable, secure, safe, warm, adequate housing; food; psychosocial supports; the people around them that will help to connect them to care can be the difference between healing and recovery and not.

The member spoke about housing being an important part of recovery, and I completely agree. I think, in this case, what we are talking about is, even before accessing treatment or services and moving into recovery, simply being able to access safe, stable, secure and adequate housing.

On to the work of the coroner. I appreciate the member bringing this forward. First, just to say that we really value the work that the coroner and his team do. Inquests into incredibly serious and tragic matters like this one are an incredibly important way of understanding what improvements can and need to be made in the system. It does take ministry staff some time to be able to review reports and to work with partners in order to assess the plan for moving forward.

I want to let the member know that I’d be happy to speak with her or have the team speak with her once the report has been completely reviewed by the Ministry of Health and I’ve had the opportunity to be briefed and have a full understanding of the implications of the recommendations and what they mean for the ministry in particular. While I cannot respond to the precise questions that the member has just raised, I can certainly commit to her that when we’re ready to do that, I’ll do just that.

Claire Rattée: Thank you to the minister for that. I would appreciate the opportunity to sit down and discuss this, because I think it is really important.

It also, obviously, has some interplay with why I personally have been calling for a public inquiry into what happened in Tumbler Ridge. I do think that while the coroner’s inquest is very valuable, this is a process that has been going on for years now. If we’re at the point where this inquest completed work a couple months ago and we still haven’t figured out or had an opportunity to brief the minister on how that is going to be implemented, I have concerns that these processes take too long to actually see any results.

We’ve seen a number of incredibly tragic cases similar to this in recent years throughout the province, whether it’s mass casualties like Lapu-Lapu or Tumbler Ridge or more concentrated cases like the one that happened in Prince Rupert. We’ve seen now in the last year and a half, I believe…. I’m aware of at least two British Columbians that voluntarily admitted under the Mental Health Act and were very clear that they had intentions of harming themselves. They were released, no one was informed, and they went and they tragically took their own lives. There is clearly an issue with this system.

I think that this feeds nicely into my next question, which is around the review of the Mental Health Act. Now, it’s been a year since the Premier had made that promise around reviewing the Mental Health Act. So far, I have seen no progress. It’s my understanding that someone in the ministry told someone very recently that the reason it hasn’t progressed and is not going to is because of the Charter challenge.

I personally think that is an unacceptable reason for why we wouldn’t be moving forward with this. My personal feelings are that this is more of a systems issue than an issue with the Mental Health Act itself, but I would like to see some forward progress on this. It’s been a year.

I would like it if the minister could explain where we are in that process of reviewing the Mental Health Act and whether or not this is a process that’s going to be taken independently of government.

[4:50 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: This is a really important piece of work. This is an act that has not been significantly reviewed or overhauled for decades. It’s a very critical, a very complex piece of legislation that has very profound impacts on people, on their families and on communities. We remain deeply committed to undertaking this work, and that is a thoughtful review of the Mental Health Act.

Work is already underway around scoping the review and determining the exact timeline, to the member’s point. Awaiting the outcome of the Charter challenge…. The decision has been taken to do that because to go back and have to revisit the scope of the review, well, first of all, could potentially nullify some of the work that is being done. And also, we want to be able to, again, do this in a thoughtful and complete way, in a comprehensive way.

This will include incorporating, of course, the voices of many different groups, and that includes people with lived and living experience, people who work with youth, Indigenous peoples and other groups.

As we await the inaugurating or beginning this review, as the member knows, there has been work that has been done to amend the Mental Health Act late last year. Of course, we sat through committee on Bill 31.

Prior to that, the work that was done to amend the Mental Health Act to bring in the independent rights service….That is an important part of the advice service, ensuring that those individuals who are detained under the Mental Health Act have access to independent rights advice and that they are proactively informed of that and able to access it.

I cannot give a precise timeline for the member right now, but I can assure her that it remains an incredible priority and an incredible opportunity, I think, too, for all British Columbians to do this work and to do this again together with the people that I just previously listed.

Claire Rattée: I just have a lot of concern over what this signals about our determination or predetermination of this government of what is going to come out of that Charter challenge.

I think not undertaking this work and, if anything, actually choosing to undertake part of the work in bringing forward Bill 31 back in December of last year to almost predetermine that we were going to lose this Charter challenge…. Then assuming that we’re going to, moving forward, so then we can’t do this review of the Mental Health Act…. I don’t think that provides a lot of comfort for the victims that have been affected by these tragedies.

Like I said, I mentioned a number of them. It’s not just one, but there is one, obviously, that precipitated the decision to undertake this review. I appreciate the minister’s comments, but I do have concerns about what this signals about what the government’s decision is, predetermined around the realities of what’s going to happen with this Charter challenge.

I would much rather that we were taking the opinion that we were going to win this Charter challenge and that we were going to undertake this review regardless because there are issues that need to be addressed, and if that means that we have to go back and we have to revisit, then that’s what we have to do. But I think that it’s not comforting for the victims that have been affected by this already, unfortunately.

[4:55 p.m.]

I will move on. I have some questions around the work with Dr. Vigo. This is something that we have canvassed already at different opportunities over the last year and a half. About ten months ago, I submitted a freedom-of-information request for the reports that Dr. Vigo was providing to the ministry. These were quarterly reports. I’ve been waiting for ten months to receive anything.

I have received something finally, but I was pretty distressed by what I received. I didn’t receive any kind of report in any form or fashion other than what, effectively, I could only describe as being a $1 million bill. I have some concerns around that, around why that information isn’t being provided.

I’ve mentioned it previously, but this is work that British Columbians are paying for with their tax money, and this is, in my mind, not sensitive work, in the sense that whatever the findings are, I don’t think they need to be sensitive or redacted. This is just very simply supposed to be what are going to be the best practices, moving forward, when we’re handling this crisis.

Since I haven’t been able to get access to those reports and see what Dr. Vigo is recommending to government, I’m not going to be able to ask questions on them, but I do have some questions about what I did receive. If the minister needs a copy of it, I’m happy to provide it. Effectively, it’s just a bunch of line items that are totalling to $1 million.

I was hoping that the minister or someone within her staff might be able to point to where in these line items, specifically which line item, is Dr. Vigo’s salary, as well as what the line item “Indirect costs” for $121,875 is, since I can see that travel, meetings and events, data access and management, communications, knowledge translation and office supplies are all covered under different categories.

The only thing I’ve been able to assume is that the indirect costs are the ministry and, therefore, the taxpayer paying for Dr. Vigo’s salary for UBC while he is doing this work, but I would appreciate some clarity on that, please.

[5:00 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Thank you to the member for the question. I’m going to talk a bit broadly about the work that Dr. Vigo is doing and then narrow in on some of the financial questions that the member has raised.

As the member knows, Dr. Daniel Vigo has been advising government over the past, almost, couple of years around various issues. One is around guidance that is related to the treatment of adults with substance use disorders. This guidance was released to clinicians to help account for some of the variability in the application of parts of the Mental Health Act. That guidance was released in March 2025.

Dr. Vigo then provided advice and guidance on the treatment of youth with substance use disorders. That guidance was released in December 2025. That’s just part of the work that Dr. Vigo has been doing with government. Part of this is around working directly with the Ministry of Health and health authorities to complete what we’re calling a needs-based planning exercise for mental health and substance use services across the province.

In this work he is doing, he is under secondment from the University of British Columbia, as the member has noted, where he serves in an academic position. His salary, as the member has probably noted in the documents that she has, is, for the first year, $304,000, and for the second year, $318,625. This is a direct secondment from the University of British Columbia.

In addition to that, the ministry has contracted the Centre for Advancing Health Outcomes, which is part of Providence Health Care, to help support the work, the staff that he works with, travel costs, administration and the communication activities that support his office, the office of the chief scientific adviser, around the needs-based planning project.

Some of the funding that the member refers to is, and I haven’t seen the exact document that she has, around the research and data support staff that Dr. Vigo is working with. He does have a small team of people that are working with him on this needs-based planning.

Now, he provides regular updates to myself and to government. He has been travelling to conferences, in some circumstances, to present some of the results of the work that he has been doing. He will work in his position as an academic to undertake what he can on the publishable side of proceedings that could come out and that will provide advice and valuable information for clinicians not just in British Columbia but, indeed, across North America and the world.

That also will put us in a position, as he completes the needs-based planning exercise that he’s undertaking, to be able to release more information about that, probably not until summer.

So that work is ongoing, and I will conclude there because I can see the member is going to pass over the information.

Claire Rattée: Yes, I am just sending over the document that I received.

The reason I’m asking is because I don’t see a line item on there anywhere that says — I didn’t write down the exact number — $345,000-something, which I believe was mentioned as the salary amount for Dr. Vigo.

[5:05 p.m.]

There’s no line item that actually has that amount on it, but, obviously, the line items all do total $1 million. So I’m curious. Is his salary on top of that $1 million contract? That’s part of what I’m trying to determine.

The other part is that there was…. Now I’ve given it to you, and I don’t have it in front of me. The very last line item, I think, was “indirect expenses.” I can’t remember for sure how it was worded — indirect something. So $121,000-something, if memory serves.

Those were the two components that I was trying to understand. What is the taxpayer actually paying in total, and how is that broken down?

I’m happy, if it’s easier, for the minister to get that to me later. That is fine. But I just would appreciate some clarity on the breakdown of that, please.

Hon. Josie Osborne: Yes, this might be best served by a follow-up conversation. I cannot speak to exactly what the indirect costs are that the member noted in the line. But to say that Dr. Vigo…. Part of his contract with the Ministry of Health is effectively a reimbursement to the University of British Columbia for that portion of his salary for which he has been seconded. That’s captured in the documents, I assume, but we will double-check.

So there is the portion of his salary from which he is seconded when he is working. There’s no additional payment above and beyond his salary with his obligations to government, and his obligations to the University of British Columbia remain whole and within that envelope. And then, as the member has pointed out, the documents refer to other parts of the costs of his office.

Claire Rattée: As a follow-up to that, since I haven’t yet received the reports that Dr. Vigo has provided to the ministry and, as I’ve mentioned, I’m not able, at this point, to ask specific questions about them because I haven’t seen them…. One question that I do have is…. It was mentioned by the minister several times — different pieces of advice and guidance that Dr. Vigo has provided throughout the course of his term.

I am curious, based on some recent comments that Dr. Vigo has made — which, in my opinion, could really only be determined as being rather damning of the two chief projects undertaken by this government in relation to this, that being safe supply and decriminalization…. They were fairly damning comments, at least when it refers to a specific group of individuals accessing these programs, which we know made up a large portion of that group accessing them.

I’m curious if the minister would be willing to put on the record whether or not any of those comments appear in any of the documents, the reports that she has received from Dr. Vigo?

[5:10 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: As I said, Dr. Vigo provides regular progress updates to myself, to government. These are not reports, per se, but these are regular updates and conversations I’ve already alluded to or actually spoken directly to — two of the pieces of advice that he has completed and has released publicly. The work that he is doing is on the needs-based planning. This phase of the work we expect to see culminated and completed this summer, which is when more information will be made available.

Dr. Vigo’s work has been very focused, again, taking this very deep dive into data sets across the province that previously had not had a comprehensive examination to determine the number of individuals that are experiencing this triad of concurrent disorders that we have been speaking of and to provide advice and recommendations to government about gaps in care and treatment and better ways to serve these individuals.

We have not asked him specifically for advice on harm reduction programs or on the decriminalization pilot, for example. He remains focused on this particular triad of concurrent disorders. I would say, though, just to the member’s comment, that obviously, Dr. Vigo remains an independent academic person and has all the rights to his opinions and to use the expertise that he has. Comments he has made have been taken out of context, I think, in certain situations and applied much more broadly across programs or initiatives that are used by people way outside of this particular small group of people with concurrent disorders.

That is not a good place to go, in my opinion, because again, we want to keep the conversation very focused, particularly in our work with Dr. Vigo, on those individuals but, as well, be able to use the expertise and advice of many different professionals, experts, specialists in the way that harm reduction programs are designed and delivered using the evidence that we have.

Claire Rattée: I would just note that…. I mean, I take the minister’s point about Dr. Vigo’s comments, and that’s why I said in the specific case of a person with a severe mental illness. I think what can’t be understated here is his comments surrounding those programs when it relates to somebody that is experiencing a severe mental illness.

Maybe this is a difference of opinion here, but I would say that applies very broadly to a large portion of people that are suffering right now, a large portion of the people that we see unhoused on the street — the people that are really the face of this crisis, the ones we’re seeing day to day. It may not be a massive part of the population when you look at it proportionally, but these are people whose lives still have value, and they still matter.

My concern here is that if we’re not asking Dr. Vigo for his thoughts or advice on two of the chief, really, landmark projects that this government has undertaken in this regard but we’re trusting his advice on a number of other things, just not this, it doesn’t really make sense to me. I did not take his comments out of context, personally. I do recognize that there are people for whom these projects could have worked, but that is the reality we find ourselves in.

It’s not just things like schizophrenia, for example. Many of the people that are struggling with substance use disorders right now that are on the street, suffering with this every single day, have drug-induced psychosis. That falls under that category of somebody with a severe mental illness.

Just because they may not all be somebody that had a diagnosis before they began down this destructive path of using substances doesn’t preclude them from being somebody to whom it applies now. I would go so far as to say somebody with an acquired brain injury that is quite severe and traumatic due to…. Again, as we mentioned previously, somebody that has had repeated overdoses that has maybe overdosed several times in a week would also fall under that category.

This is really, I think, in large part, that core demographic who we are trying to help with these programs.

[5:15 p.m.]

That was why I made the question and the comments that I did, because I do think that it really behooves us to not recognize that this is somebody who has been tasked with figuring out a way out of this crisis. If we’re not going to listen to his advice and his comments on one major component of it because it doesn’t necessarily agree with the direction that government wants to go, I find that concerning, personally.

All that being said, I’m wondering if the minister could provide me with the total amount of public funds that were spent on the three-year drug decriminalization project, please.

[5:20 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Sorry, it took a few moments to dig up the numbers.

Back up in Budget 2023, $15.6 million was allocated, of which $1.9 million over three years was for staffing, stakeholder engagement, public communications education, third-party implementation evaluation. And $13.7 million was allocated to the regional health authorities and the First Nations Health Authority to support resource card distribution, particular FTEs that supported the program.

This included funding, too, to be clear, for harm reduction supplies for police, like naloxone, and included a drug-checking pilot and additional evaluation activities that the regional health authorities, First Nations Health Authority, assisted with as well.

Claire Rattée: With that evaluation piece, have there been any deliverables that came out of that? Could the minister let me know where I could find those reports around the evaluations?

Hon. Josie Osborne: As part of our understanding and agreement with the federal government, there were certain parameters that needed to be measured and reported. Those reports were done quarterly. They are all posted online.

The final report has been submitted to the federal government, so it will come online shortly. In addition to that, a final report or evaluation of the pilot will be completed, probably this summer.

Claire Rattée: Thank you to the minister for that.

Moving on a little bit here to the safe supply program, I think that it’s been well-established that there were issues with diversion. I know that the minister has also agreed that that was definitely an issue that led to some changes to the program recently.

Now that we’ve had some time and some distance between that revelation and now, I’m wondering if the minister can provide me with a number of how many of the bad-actor pharmacies the ministry was able to find were diverting safe supply.

[5:25 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Thank you to the member for the question around prescribed alternatives.

Just to start out, I want to be clear that the prescribed alternative program offered by the province is part of that comprehensive response to the toxic drug crisis. Again, this is about divorcing people or separating people from the contaminated supply of street drugs, illicit drugs, to help keep people alive, to help connect them to the services they need, to help move them on to medications that are more appropriate and, literally, do keep people alive as they’re connected to that kind of care.

Now, as the member referred to, some of the findings of government — investigative findings, tips, reports, others — indicated that some prescription medications, which is what prescribed alternatives are, were being diverted into the illicit market. That, of course, is the last thing that we want to see — any prescribed drug getting into the hands of someone for whom it was not intended. It’s an issue that we take very seriously. It required and requires ongoing important conversations around balancing the benefits to individuals and the benefits and impacts to communities and to neighbourhoods.

Balancing public health and public safety questions, that work, has resulted in the decisions that we took, as the member and everyone in the House is well aware, of moving into a witnessed dosing program. That ensures that medications are used by the people for whom they are intended. Now, the goal of the witnessing program is to ensure that those prescribed alternatives…. And the program is operating as it’s intended to do so.

[5:30 p.m.]

We support pharmacists and pharmacies and prescribers in moving to this witnessed consumption model, and we’ve been monitoring that program very carefully. A diversion of prescribed medications, certainly, isn’t an issue that’s unique to B.C. It doesn’t occur only within this program and can occur at different points along the supply and distribution chain, and that includes health care facilities, prescribers, employees, pharmacies and individual patients.

The member mentioned specifically and asks a question specifically around action against pharmacies — bad-actor pharmacies, as we’ve called them. Now, as the evidence has come forward — again, it has been in the form of tips, as well as investigations around inappropriate or potentially illegal practices — we’ve been taking action through the Ministry of Health’s special investigation unit, and we’ve been collaborating with the College of Pharmacists on this work.

I can’t speak to the specifics of the investigations. What I want to say is that there are dozens of files open and that there are active investigations underway. I would point the member to the College of Pharmacists website, where one can see specific actions that have been taken against individuals, for example. We’ll continue this work. Then as charges are laid, when things become public, more will become clear.

I want to assure the member that we take this very seriously. The expectation, of course, is that all people involved in the prescribed alternatives program are operating under the program as it is intended to be.

Claire Rattée: Thank you to the minister for that.

Another question on the safe supply program. The switch to supervised consumption is likely going to require an increased rate of staffing and resources. How many nurses and pharmacists will be taken away from providing other care to oversee the administration of safe supply? And how much extra does the minister anticipate that this will cost in 2026?

[5:35 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: First of all, just a little information around the PharmaCare expenditures for witnessed dosing. Back in 2024-2025, for prescribed alternatives for opioid drugs, there were dispensing fees, the drug cost itself and an expense per client.

Moving to a witnessed consumption model, there are fees that are paid to the pharmacies and professionals who are providing the witnessing service. This is not paid by FTE, so there’s not an estimate I can provide the member in terms of staff time. Again, this is all encompassed under the PharmaCare envelope. The fee amounts range from $4 to $10 and depend on the clinical complexity that is present in that particular patient and in witnessing their consumption.

Again, to be eligible for the witness fee, the prescribed alternatives are witnessed by a pharmacist in a community pharmacy or, in an outreach model through a delivery to a patient or client, witnessed by a regulated health professional. I think it’s really important to be very clear that this is also providing care.

Prescribed alternatives are separating people from a contaminated drug supply, helping keep them alive while they are able to consider and move to other forms of medication and, if appropriate and ready, into treatment itself. So I think the perception of taking away resources to apply to this would be incorrect and, if going too far, would really stigmatize people, because a person is a person, and the care they need is the care they need.

[5:40 p.m.]

In this case, in the case of the prescribed alternatives program, that is what care looks like at that part of a journey for a person who is experiencing a severe and serious substance use disorder that has them constantly going back to the street or to the illicit drug supply.

Because of the changes we’ve seen and how rapidly it is evolving, for those clients, the several thousand that are part of the prescribed alternative program, people are seeing real successes in being able to help patients stabilize and then help them move into other forms of treatment.

Claire Rattée: For clarity, the reason I was asking that was not so much around the pharmacists themselves but actually around if it was going to be something where people may show up at a hospital for their witness dosing. We know that we already have very severely understaffed hospitals, and I wasn’t clear on whether or not that may require a nurse to witness dosing. That was the crux of what I was trying to get to with the question.

I apologize. I hope that this doesn’t cause a problem for staffing on this question, but I would like to just go back quickly to Dr. Vigo’s contract, because I was just waiting for a copy of it to get sent up to me.

In Dr. Vigo’s contract, schedule A, “Services,” under “Reporting requirements,” it says: “The contractor will provide detailed reporting on a quarterly basis starting October 1, 2024, for the previous quarter, outlining the expenditures related to the services performed under this agreement. In addition, the contractor must provide the province with any reporting and access to data upon request with reasonable notice.”

The reason I wanted to read that in is because while it doesn’t specifically state that it needs to be a written report, it does say “detailed reporting on a quarterly basis,” and I personally find it hard to believe that that would just be something that’s done verbally through a briefing, although it very well may be. Again, I’m not in the position that the minister is in. I don’t know how these kinds of things work. That just seems odd to me. I would think that you would want some form of a written document.

The reason I’m asking that, though, regardless of that, is that then Dr. Vigo was announced as the chief scientific adviser on June 5 of 2024. Effectively, if I’m to understand this correctly based on the minister’s previous comments, since his appointment on June 5 of 2024, it’s been a million-dollar contract each year, and, so far, his work has consisted of, effectively, providing a verbal report to the ministry quarterly and two pieces of clinical guidance that have been issued — December 5, 2025, guidance on applying the Mental Health Act for children and youth, and March 12, 2025, a Mental Health Act memo for adults, so not really clinical guidance.

This is directly off of the website for Dr. Vigo’s work that outlines a timeline of everything, and everything else that’s on here is basically that he attended announcements either with the minister or with the Premier on involuntary care beds that had already been previously announced prior to his appointment.

I’m trying to really grasp the scale of the work. I’m just having a hard time believing that this is really all there is to see here. I feel like there’s got to be other stuff going on.

If it’s just very simply that it is not completed and I can’t see it yet, I will live with that. I just would like to understand what exactly the work is that Dr. Vigo is doing right now, because I’m just having a hard time believing that one piece of clinical guidance and one memo are all that we really have to show for it over the course of nearly two years.

[5:45 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: I think, at the heart of the matter, the question that the member is asking is: is there value for money in the work that Dr. Vigo is doing for government? And it’s a good question to ask because we always want to see value for money when taxpayers are contributing to the services that British Columbians rely on.

We don’t have the kind of in-house expertise that Dr. Vigo brings us, which is why we move sometimes to external advisers or people who are under contract to provide very focused and specific recommendations using their skills, their background, their experience in their profession. That’s exactly what Dr. Vigo has been able to do for us.

The work that Dr. Vigo has done, again, is taking a very deep dive into some very disparate and far-ranging and difficult-to-access and -coalesce and -convene-together data sets and really beginning to examine, as we’ve been speaking about a lot, this triad of individuals that, unfortunately, has grown in the province due to the toxic drug crisis — those experiencing severe mental illness coupled with a substance use addiction and, all too often, an acquired brain injury — to be able to help us identify those individuals and then identify the services that are needed and the gaps in our existing system.

We know those gaps exist, and that’s why, with Dr. Vigo’s work, we’ve been able to take action on that. I think, more than reports in terms of words on a page and published on a website, the evidence of Dr. Vigo’s value is really in what is already on the ground, that we see. We see his recommendation around establishing approved homes through the work at Spiritwood, which has taken some time to stand up and to deliver and is now active and underway with clients, with patients, with residents living there and receiving those services.

The recommendations that Dr. Vigo has provided around people in the criminal justice system, and I’m speaking specifically to the Surrey Pretrial Centre…. Ten beds are offered for those people in custody who need access to the services that are provided, often under an involuntary admission under the Mental Health Act. The success of that program there…. We are now looking at how that can be expanded in other correctional centres in British Columbia.

Dr. Vigo, also, as a person at that intersection of psychiatry and addictions medicine, which is an evolving area of work, has been able to provide advice on the integration of psychiatry into addictions medicine and has really helped clinicians and people within the ministry to understand, again, some of those specific needs. The memos that the member refers to…. He has, yes, provided two of those, and he does ongoing work consulting with clinicians and answering questions, working with health authorities as those memos are implemented.

[5:50 p.m.]

I would also point to a valuable piece of work that Dr. Vigo has done with the province around the compensation and retention issues within the field of psychiatry. We spoke about this earlier.

It’s been invaluable to have somebody like Dr. Vigo, who, obviously, as a psychiatrist himself, is well connected into that community and has an understanding that’s helped us be able to work with health authorities, to work within the ministry, to get to a place that I think will really stand the province well when it comes to being able to recruit and retain the psychiatrists that we need, not only in community and in acute care facilities but in ACT teams, for example.

Then lastly, the work that is ongoing right now that we have been talking about around the needs-based planning won’t be published, obviously, until it is complete. But we haven’t waited for its completion to act on those things. That’s how Surrey Pretrial came to light. That’s how Spiritwood Homes have come into existence as well.

Again, I just want to say thank you. I have a lot of gratitude for the work that Dr. Vigo has been doing, and I think that this is an investment that’s well worth it. It’s money well spent.

Claire Rattée: Yes, the minister is correct. That is essentially what I’m trying to get at.

I want to be clear that I think that from what I have seen, Dr. Vigo is doing great work. I just maybe was hoping that this was going to provide us with some sort of a roadmap. I mean, it really seemed like we were pinning all our hopes and dreams on getting out of this crisis on the work that he was undertaking. So I anticipated some kind of clearly written-out plan on how we would approach this.

Regardless, I will move on. I think that’s a good segue into talking a bit more about mandatory care, involuntary care. I know it’s got a lot of different names.

I’m curious if the minister could dive into how many net new involuntary care beds have been announced by the government this year. The reason I’m asking that is because there were a number that were announced last year. I would also appreciate an update on where those ones that were announced are at.

When I looked at this year’s budget, it seemed like it was basically the same announcement as last year’s as far as involuntary care is concerned. I’m just wondering how many net new have been announced this year, how many have been completed and what the current utilization rate is — involuntary.

[5:55 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: To begin answering the question, I want to make a distinction between a bed and a person, or a bed and a patient, in that we have beds in the province in acute care facilities, in designated mental health facilities, in approved homes, in Surrey Pretrial and in hospitals, which are available to a person to receive care, whether they have voluntarily sought that treatment or are being involuntarily held under the Mental Health Act. It’s probably not correct to call it an involuntary bed. Because the bed provides the treatment, the person may be held involuntarily under the Mental Health Act or not.

Back in September 2024, government announced that we would build over 400 new mental health acute care beds at new and existing hospitals and expanded hospitals in B.C. Again, these are beds that would be a combination of existing beds that were being modernized or renovated and some that were net new. Of that, there are 278 existing beds being modernized and 141 net new beds being added to the acute mental health bed system.

The projects that are already completed include Royal Columbian Hospital, which saw 30 modernized beds and 45 new; the Royal Inland Hospital Patient Care Tower, which saw 28 modernized beds, five new; Mills Memorial, the replacement project, including the Ksyen Regional Hospital and including Seven Sisters, 30 modernized beds, 15 new. That’s a total of 153 beds.

There are a further 266 beds, and I won’t read out all the projects — in Burnaby, St. Paul’s, Dawson Creek and Cowichan — which are a combination, again, of modernized and new beds that will meet this goal. Additionally, the work that Daniel Vigo, Dr. Vigo, has been doing as chief scientific adviser…. So 28 net new beds have been brought online through Surrey Pretrial and through Spiritwood Homes in Maple Ridge. But those are above and beyond the 400-odd that I just spoke of.

I hope that helps answer the member’s question. As we build out the system of care, we recognize there’s a need for more mental health beds altogether, substance use treatment beds altogether. Some of them are used involuntarily; some of them are used voluntarily. Again, it is about the clinical status of the patient or the person, not so much the bed. The bed is there to be used in either form.

Claire Rattée: So we’ve got the 153, the 266 and then the 28 net new. Am I to understand that those 28 net new are Surrey Pretrial, Alouette…? These are ones that are very specifically solely for the purpose of involuntary care, and these are the only ones that are solely for that purpose?

[6:00 p.m.]

Hon. Josie Osborne: Not quite. Of the 400 new mental health acute care beds, 141 of those are net new. They can be used for involuntary care. The further 28 net new beds that have come online at Surrey Pretrial and Alouette Homes are being used for involuntary care. I won’t speak so much to Spiritwood Homes in Maple Ridge, because I don’t want to misspeak.

The beds can be used for patients or clients or people who are brought in involuntarily under the Mental Health Act, but not necessarily excluded just for that. They have all the conditions that are required for involuntary care, so they have the right secure settings and resources in place to undertake that.

With that, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The Chair: This committee is adjourned.

The committee rose at 6:01 p.m.

The House resumed at 6:02 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Mable Elmore: Committee of Supply, Section B, reports progress on the estimates of the Ministry of Health and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Private Members’ Motions

Motion M205 — Mandatory Orientation
Course for MLAs
(continued)

The Speaker: Members, earlier today during private members’ time, a division was requested on a subamendment on motion M205, moved by the member for Prince George–Mackenzie. Pursuant to Standing Order 25, the deferred division will take place now.

[6:05 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.]

Subamendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 45
Loewen	Kindy	Milobar
Warbus	Halford	Rattée
Wat	Kooner	Banman
Hartwell	L. Neufeld	Van Popta
Dew	Clare	K. Neufeld
Wilson	Valeriote	Botterell
McInnis	Paton	Day
Bhangu	Toor	Hepner
Giddens	Dhaliwal	McCall
Maahs	Block	Stamer
Gasper	Mok	Davis
Chan	Boultbee	Sturko
Brodie	Armstrong	Kealy
Williams	Chapman	Bird
Doerkson	Luck	Tepper
NAYS — 45
Lore	Blatherwick	Dhir
Routledge	Chant	Toporowski
B. Anderson	Neill	Osborne
Brar	Krieger	Davidson
Parmar	Sunner	Beare
Greene	Wickens	Kang
Begg	Arora	Higginson
Sandhu	Lajeunesse	Choi
Rotchford	Elmore	Popham
Dix	Sharma	Farnworth
Eby	Bailey	Kahlon
Chandra Herbert	Whiteside	Boyle
Ma	Yung	Malcolmson
Gibson	Glumac	Shah
G. Anderson	Chow	Morissette

The Speaker: Members, there being an equal number of votes, the Chair must make a casting vote. In keeping with the established practice, the Chair votes against the subamendment. The subamendment therefore is defeated, not passed.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Section A reports progress on Bill 16 and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mike Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:17 p.m.

Proceedings in the
Douglas Fir Room

The House in Committee, Section A.

The committee met at 2:58 p.m.

[Rohini Arora in the chair.]

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of
Energy and Climate Solutions
(continued)

The Chair: Good afternoon, Members. I call Committee of Supply, Section A.

We are meeting today to continue the consideration of budget estimates of the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions.

On Vote 23: ministry operations, $89,684,000 (continued).

Hon. Adrian Dix: I endeavoured to get some responses for the member for Salmon Arm–Shuswap on the cost of a number of some small and some larger projects on Vancouver Island, so here they are.

With respect to the John Hart contract, as referenced, for the dam civil work, which includes an overflow spillway and was awarded in November 2022. The spillway gates contract for John Hart will be awarded in fall of 2026. The project is on track to come into service in 2030 and is on track and on time.

Has the budget increased? No. At this time, B.C. Hydro anticipates the total cost of the John Hart seismic upgrade project will be $912 million, as per the ’26-27 to ’28-29 service plan.

[3:00 p.m.]

How many jobs have been created to date for the Campbell River projects? About 270 people are currently working on all three Campbell River projects. That’s Ladore; Strathcona; and, of course, John Hart.

“With respect to the Brewster Lake Road, how long will it remain closed?” The Brewster Lake Road closure is for six years. The road will reopen in 2029.

With respect to the Jervis Inlet and Agamemnon Channel power line replacement project, the estimated cost of the bypass line near Saltery Bay is $11 million. Project is currently on time and on budget.

Salt Spring Island to North Pender Island submarine cable project — is the project still on track for an in-service date of September 2026? Yes, the project completion date is September 2026. The estimated cost of the project is $33 million. Again, the project is on time and on budget.

“With respect to this project being in planning since 2022, engineering and environmental studies were not completed until 2024. Will the minister explain” — the question last week — “why these studies took more than two years and what contributed to the project delays?”

LEED engineering and environmental studies are completed throughout a project. It is not uncommon for these projects to take more than one year. These studies start at a desktop level to support the confirmation of project scope, then move to field studies to collect site-specific data to inform the advancement of project design. Follow-up studies can also be required before and after construction.

The duration of the study is influenced by a variety of factors, such as seasonality, availability of specialist resources and time to acquire the necessary permits. For this project, engineering and environmental studies began in 2023, after the project confirmed the cable route, and continued through 2024 to support the advancement of the design.

“With respect to the Salt Spring Island to North Pender Island realignment project, can the minister confirm the project completion for this project?” The forecasted in-service date for this project is September 2026.

“An environmental review assessment was completed, and it’s guiding the project design. Can the minister identify the key findings of that assessment and explain how these findings have influenced the design and the implementation?” The answer here is B.C. Hydro adjusted the cable route as much as they could to avoid the eelgrass bed, and where they couldn’t avoid it, they did an eelgrass salvage and replanting.

B.C. Hydro also developed and implemented a fossil management plan. For archaeology, B.C. Hydro did an archaeological impact assessment, an overview assessment, where they will be monitoring 82 of the pole replacement sites. First Nations will be invited to participate.

“Was the project delayed at all?” Yes, the project was delayed about a year because B.C. Hydro needed to source cable splices from the United Kingdom. These cable splices will arrive in August 2026. The upgraded overhead line had the same or increased capacity. B.C. Hydro is replacing an existing 25 kilovolt line with a new 25 kilovolt line. This new line has a slight increase in capacity to address low growth on Pender Island.

“With respect to island generation, what is the number of days this facility operates?” The facility has been used an average of 15 days per year in the last five years or less than 5 percent of the time.

David Williams: Thank you to the minister for the responses from the other day. I appreciate it.

My question. B.C. Hydro’s current public planning documents clearly say the system is aging and that B.C. Hydro is investing heavily in renewable and growth. In its 2026-27 to 2028-29 service plan, it says that B.C. Hydro’s existing system is aging and that it is focused on extending asset life where possible while modernizing and investing in new infrastructure.

B.C. Hydro’s 2024-25 annual service plan says it was advancing a $36 billion, ten-year capital plan to modernize and expand generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. In the 2026-27 to ’28-29 service plan, it also shows annual capital spending split between sustaining and growth, with sustaining capital forecast at $2.102 billion in ’25-26 and $2.39 billion in ’26-27; $2.508 billion in ’27-28 and $2.266 billion in ’28-29.

[3:05 p.m.]

The same service plan gives concrete examples of aged asset replacement, including the Peace to Kelly Lake stations sustainment project to replace end-of-life station assets and other projects replacing aging out or obsolete equipment.

B.C. Hydro is now advancing a very large capital plan, and its own public documents acknowledge that the existing system is aging. British Columbians deserve clarity on how much of today’s budget is going towards replacing old, worn-out infrastructure and how much is going to system expansion for future growth.

My question is: can the minister clarify how much of B.C. Hydro’s current capital budget is dedicated specifically to sustaining, renewing, repairing or replacing aging infrastructure as distinct from new, growth-related expansion?

Hon. Adrian Dix: That sounds like a reasonable capital plan to me. We know, in the years from 2001 to 2017…. I will endeavour not to repeat the discussion we had in the main House earlier, except to say that there was a failure, in that period overall, to invest in maintaining the grid.

There is a requirement to continue to sustain B.C. Hydro. You see that in its capital plan and the significant need — especially in neighbourhoods which have seen unprecedented population growth over the last eight years, certainly, and before that — to ensure that B.C. Hydro’s distribution, transmission and generation systems meet that test.

And it has real value. When we do that, by the way, we often — in the case of a number of resources; I’m thinking of a number of our resources — increase our capacity.

Approximately 60 percent of that capital plan is about sustainment; and 40 percent, the new capacity.

David Williams: Thank you to the minister.

My question would be: which major aging asset replacement projects does the minister consider the most urgent right now? What are the consequences to reliability and cost if those projects are delayed?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Clearly, they’re all important. We prioritize them based on that need in terms of investment in our infrastructure. That’s why you see the most significant capital plan in the history of B.C. Hydro.

Why? There was a failure in past administrations, frankly, to invest in maintenance, and that leaves a deficit of maintenance of the system, sustainment of the system, that needs to be put in place. So we are systematically moving through our system to ensure that it meets the test. You see this throughout the B.C. Hydro system.

Remember, the preamble to his question underlines the importance of that. It’s not just a matter of new requirements, although there are new requirements, and this is also good news for the economy of B.C. Why do we need more electricity in B.C.? Because of growth in B.C. That’s good news.

It’s B.C. Hydro’s job, as it has always been its job, to meet the test in terms of sustaining existing infrastructure. You bet. B.C. Hydro has been around, as the member will know, for about 65 years, since the nationalization of B.C. Electric. But the infrastructure….

Take the case of John Hart, for example, where we’re doing the significant seismic and remediation process that I referred to in my previous answer. The John Hart dam was built by, well, the John Hart government, as the case may be. That was a different time of course. But it was one of the Premier’s most important projects of the time. I’m referring to Premier John Hart, who I will not seek to defend in this House, although he needs no defence from me.

In any event, of course, if you take a dam that was a visionary exercise in the 1940s when Mr. Hart put it in place, the required seismic remediation to ensure people are safe and the investment are significant. Obviously, that continues to be a priority between now and the project’s completion.

[3:10 p.m.]

The list of B.C. Hydro projects is long in that respect throughout communities and almost equally shared on the distribution and transmission side. As the member will know, things wear out. You’ve got to replace them. There was a failure to do that for decades, and we are taking that task on with enthusiasm.

David Williams: Thank you to the minister. We both agree that the infrastructure is definitely aging out, and I’m sure the ratepayers are well aware of that too, with the outages that we experience here, there and everywhere.

My question. When unexpected failures or asset damage occurs on critical infrastructure, what contingency mechanisms does B.C. Hydro have available for emergency capital costs, and how much contingency capacity is available today?

Hon. Adrian Dix: As the member knows, we have redundancy built in the system, and when urgent matters happen and you see it, B.C. Hydro responds. That’s the nature of having the kind of system we have and why there’s enormous value on rates.

We have the lowest rates in the world. Why? It’s a provincial, government-owned, people-owned Crown corporation. We have a system that is comprehensive across the system. We share some territory with FortisBC in what used to be the West Kootenay Power and Light Co. But generally, throughout the system, we have that, and we have redundancy built in place because we have an outstanding system.

I’d be happy…. I think the member would be interested in getting a tour of some of our main facilities, which ensure that responses are made.

B.C. Hydro has one of the best records of reliability in the world, and that’s why it has one of the highest ratings from the public in terms of corporate appreciation in the world. It’s a government Crown corporation, but it’s run by outstanding people who do an excellent job. You see it in our records on reliability, our records on rates, our records on building, our records on moving forward on important priorities, and it has never been more important now to have a public B.C. Hydro.

David Williams: Thank you to the minister.

My question is, maybe in getting a little clarity: is there a dedicated contingency fund within B.C. Hydro for major infrastructure problems?

Hon. Adrian Dix: We don’t need one. When priorities occur, when urgent circumstances occur, you see B.C. Hydro’s response. You see it not just in terms of its application of its capital. It has that as well. You see it in its application of its people when there are major issues.

I have the occasion to talk to members on both sides of the House when major issues occur. The pride I have in IBEW members who go out and do the work under the most difficult circumstances…. We think of Stewart this past year and other places. Our resiliency is in our determination to act when events happen and the outstanding work done by our workers.

David Williams: That leads me to this question to the minister. I have received reports of a significant incident involving critical Peace region infrastructure on or around March 11 this year which significantly affected B.C. Hydro’s supply situation.

Can the minister say whether any major equipment failure or damage event happened on, at or near the Gordon M. Shrum switch station that materially affected B.C. Hydro’s supply, reserve margin or import requirements, and if so, what happened and what did it cost?

[3:15 p.m.]

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, there was a windstorm, and trees got into elements of the power system. It did take two or three days, and B.C. Hydro responded. It’s another example of the resilience to which I just referred.

David Williams: Thank you to the minister.

My understanding is that there were 28 megawatts of power that were lost; 500 got replaced. So there was a major shortfall, and you had to go onto the open market to get the power.

That really brings us to the fact that aging infrastructure is a problem. We definitely…. Can the minister confirm that there would have been rolling outages had we not been able to secure the power from other sources?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Honestly, it had nothing to do with aging infrastructure in this case. It had to do with a freak storm that had an effect on the system. Our brilliant teams who work all over this province responded with the courage and the dedication that you would expect from them.

Of course events happen. They happen in Alberta, and we support them. They happen in Washington state, and we support them. Of course events happen, and especially…. It just reminds us of the significant challenges and the need for resilience in this time of climate change.

I know that there is in some places, even in the Legislature, some debate about these issues around climate change, but surely, the last number of years have demonstrated the need to prepare for it and demonstrated the impact on our economy of accelerated climate change in the community. B.C. Hydro, like everyone else, deals with that.

But when freak weather events occur…. This happens when you’re running a provincewide integrated system. Thankfully, we have B.C. Hydro there to respond to it on behalf of ratepayers and on behalf of all of us.

Larry Neufeld: This is not germane to my question, but in response to the minister’s last statement, I would like to say that I live in that region, and I was home the evening of the event which is being described. It did get a little chilly in the house, I will admit, but I would agree with the minister’s characterization of the excellent work that was done by the individuals involved. I believe we had power back at something like 3 a.m. at my house. Certainly appreciated it. It was getting a little chilly by that point.

On to my question. The minister and I spent a significant amount of time discussing Bills 14 and 31 some time ago. We certainly did discuss the administration of those two bills with respect to the Energy Regulator having been given or being given the ability or the authority to regulate the projects underlined by those two bills.

My question would be — I know it was raised at the time, but it was too early to tell — how many new staff have been added, and what type of training has been provided to ensure that they’re competent, moving forward?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Thanks to the member for the question. The member will know that we, obviously, expanded the mandate of BCER. The BCER — I haven’t heard the member’s view — since the time of the Oil and Gas Commission, now has transitioned, has been paid for by the regulated industries. This has a utility, a discipline on BCER and also an ability to address these issues sometimes that are more challenged when they’re addressed in a Treasury Board process. When industry needs more people to deal with permits and they’re paying for it, that creates real value.

In the case of the changes we talked about, 48 positions have been added. Some of this involves the retraining of people with existing expertise in areas such as environmental assessment and others. Twelve excluded staff, one PEA member, 35 BCGEU members — that makes up 48.

[3:20 p.m.]

Larry Neufeld: Are there any additional changes that are required at the Energy Regulator in order to fully complete their new assigned role — i.e., is there anything else from government, ministry that is required?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The government passed regulations pursuant to Bill 14, and the board was required to pass further regulations in order to assume the new responsibility. Those have been passed, and they’re fully operational. It’s really, really efficient work. Sometimes when it feels you’ve passed legislation, it hasn’t happened. But in this case, obviously, there are right now all of the nine major wind projects and the North Coast transmission line before the Energy Regulator.

As the member will also recall, because we had this discussion in the committee stage debate, we are not cross-subsidizing renewables from oil and gas. It’s straight up, down the line. That was what we committed to, and that’s what the Energy Regulator has done.

Larry Neufeld: I’m not going to belabour my questioning a whole lot here. Just a couple more housekeeping items.

I honestly don’t have a date on this. I wish I had looked that up. But the Premier was quoted as saying….

Sorry. Heads up. I’m switching tracks or switching….

Interjection.

Larry Neufeld: Yes.

The Premier has stated: “If we’re going to do public investment in our resources here in Canada, I think it might be time to pivot that discussion to a refinery.” Does the minister or the ministry support construction of a new refinery in this province?

Hon. Adrian Dix: In fact, not only has the Premier suggested that it’s important to have that discussion but the Minister of Jobs and Economic Growth has. When the Premier and the Minister of Jobs and Economic Growth both say the same thing, then as Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions, I can only humbly agree with them.

That said….

Interjection.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, maybe not the humbly part.

I would say this. It has been, of course, a long time in Canada since we’ve had the construction of a refinery in that way, and it would have value.

Part of that is the debate about where the priority is — whether it’s increasing the value of our resource here, which a refinery does; or whether it’s the export of raw resources. This is not just a debate in energy. It’s a debate in forestry and has been historically around the export of raw logs on the coast. So it has value.

What I would say, though, is that if you consider what we’re doing with Tidewater; and the establishment, the creation, the building of a renewable diesel refinery; and the work we’ve done with the low-carbon fuel standard, which really has supported that work that’s very significant in terms of jobs in the North, jobs in Prince George, it shows what’s possible.

Obviously, and this is true in general, it’s here in western Canada where we have these extraordinary resources. Having the opportunity to upgrade the value of those resources, whether it be in B.C. or in Alberta, is significant. I’m, of course, supportive of that, as I am supportive of the Parkland refinery, which plays such an important role for people in our constituencies — I’d say to the hon. Chair — in Metro Vancouver.

It plays such an important role and has also done, I would say, extraordinarily innovative work in terms of renewable fuels, in addition to the fundamental job it does in serving Metro Vancouver and beyond. So I….

Interjection.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, it doesn’t seem that small to me when I tour it. But that’s to say that it’s….

From our perspective, these are, obviously, private sector projects, and I’d be happy to have a full debate on them. But when the Premier talks about the need to upgrade the value of Canadian resources, I think he shares the view of about 95 percent of Canadians.

The Chair: Just a reminder to members to please speak when it is your turn.

Larry Neufeld: Thank you for the answer, Minister.

I understand and I appreciate that there is support from the government side.

So my next question would be: what concrete steps have been taken for the government to explore and/or move that theoretical project forward?

[3:25 p.m.]

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, in the case of Tidewater, of course, there has been substantial work on the low-carbon fuel standard. To their credit, I think those people at Tidewater have done an exceptional job. We made some changes, as the member will know, last year to the low-carbon fuel standard to support Tidewater, which had an effect.

The reason we did this, and this is of interest, was not, in that case, because of the Trump administration but because of the Biden administration, which had been engaging in such a significant subsidy of renewable fuels from the United States that they were effectively making it impossible for domestic providers to act. So we took some action to support and to ensure that we’re producing renewable diesel in B.C. and that the Tidewater facility does well. That’s a case of a refinery which wasn’t around. It’s beside an existing refinery and is now.

There are, obviously, fewer refineries in B.C. and in Canada than there were, and there hasn’t been a new refinery built, from memory, certainly, I would say, since before the 1980s, anyway — I think it might have been 1977, something like that — in Canada, including in Alberta. This is a bit of an issue between Alberta and the rest of Canada, in terms of the upgrading of the value of their oil resources, right?

That said, obviously, you need private sector proponents. Our point to the federal government is simply that if you want to increase the value, including for export of our raw resources, upgrading them here is important, just as it would be in forestry or anything else. Certainly, we stand ready and interested, as we have been, to facilitate major projects in our province. We’ve done this consistently.

If I may, for a moment, do a small commercial for this. Enbridge’s Sunrise project just succeeded in partnerships with First Nations, an extraordinary success, $3 billion in investment announced on Friday. Shell today announced investment in British Columbia and the purchase of ARC Resources, which demonstrates how interested people are in investing in British Columbia.

We’re, of course, interested in that, but we’re also interested in many other investments — from critical minerals to, especially, clean energy and clean electricity. This is demonstrated by government policy.

Larry Neufeld: I’m going to skip once more and then give a heads-up to my colleagues from other parties, etc., that I’m getting very close to the end here.

The output-based pricing system — i.e., the industrial carbon tax — has seen a 57 percent increase in the budget for 2026. I’m wondering if the minister can explain why.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, the member used a very precise number. He might want to tell us exactly what he’s talking about. In general, we laid out the ministry staff’s statistics at the beginning of the estimates. We haven’t seen a large increase in staff, and nobody has received anything like 57 percent.

Larry Neufeld: That’s, perhaps, one that I will table for a future time. I don’t have that information with me, and I do apologize. I guess I will move on.

What’s the amount of revenue that has been collected annually over the past year under this system? What is that projection for 2030?

Hon. Adrian Dix: What I’ll do is give the member three years. Typically, we give that in the budget.

The member may have been referring to revenues from the system, as opposed to the size of the ministry increasing or the ministry’s administration increasing. That may be the subject of confusion.

[3:30 p.m.]

I would say, as well, to the member that I appreciate that we have a confined time. I personally think 30 to 40 hours would be appropriate for Energy estimates — or, as I like to say, approximately eight answers — but we only have what we have here. It’s a struggle, but it’s just to say that specifically, if the member has written questions that he didn’t get to, we’ll endeavour to respond to them. I add that, to all members, we’d be happy to do it.

Just to give a sense, the ministry collected $199 million in 2024-25 for compliance. We estimate, because we’re closing the fiscal year, $262 million for ’25-26; $334 million, which may be approximately the number the member is talking about, in ’26-27; and $386 million in ’27-28, in compliance revenues.

Obviously, the system incents and we support, as well, the clean industry fund, which has enormous successes both in modernizing B.C. industry, making it more competitive and reducing emissions in B.C. industry.

David Williams: My question to the minister, before I turn it over to my colleagues here. The Burrard generating station was a 950-megawatt generating station in Port Moody. The province announced in 2013 that it would stop generating electricity there by 2016. Since that time, it’s been repurposed. I know that it’s been almost used as a substation for B.C. Hydro, is my understanding.

My question to the minister would be: are there any future plans for the former thermal plant?

Hon. Adrian Dix: In a different time, in a different estimates, we might spend a whole day on Burrard thermal, but not anymore. What Burrard thermal does now is provide voltage support for the system, which makes sense, but it’s not a generating facility anymore.

Those decisions, obviously, were made at a different time and place. As the member rightly says, they were decisions made in the 2013-to-2016 period largely. Burrard does play that voltage-support role in the system. That’s significant. It’s not a substation in that sense, but it does continue to play a role.

There’s lots of interest in the Burrard site, of course — it’s an important industrial site in Vancouver — a lot of interest by B.C. Hydro. If and when we decide to take some action on that, the member will be amongst the first to know.

David Williams: I’d like to thank the minister, and I’d like to thank his staff. That’s the end of my questioning.

Just a direct question. There are no plans to start up that plant, the Burrard generating station, for providing electricity to Vancouver?

Hon. Adrian Dix: No, there aren’t.

I just want to thank the member and thank his colleague from Peace River South. The same offer I made to the member for Peace River South: should the member have other questions that he couldn’t address in his time, I’d be happy to respond to them in writing.

Jeremy Valeriote: Sadly, I only have 30 minutes, so that’s at least ten answers, I think.

Interjection.

Jeremy Valeriote: Two answers, sorry.

I will get straight into it because the time will go quickly. I will start by speechifying a little bit, and then I’ll cut down the preamble.

We’re in an era where we’re continuing to be faced with wildfires, floods, heat domes, droughts and other climate disasters. However, under the line item “Climate Action,” the ministry’s budget has been cut by over $1½ million — $1.551 million, to be precise, almost a 10 percent decrease.

[3:35 p.m.]

To quote the budget estimates, “the activities required to meet the province’s climate action targets under the Climate Change Accountability Act, the requirements under the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, B.C.’s climate policies and overall provincial adaptation” — it is concerning that the ministry has cut funds from this in a time when these resources are as important as ever.

Can the minister describe why this specific part of the ministerial budget was cut and what these cuts mean for the government’s ability to adhere to key pieces of climate legislation that have been put forth, along with the climate targets under CleanBC?

Hon. Adrian Dix: I know I don’t agree with that characterization. We had a little bit of discussion of this in question period at one point. We can go through in detail, in terms of the climate action secretariat, the discussion of jobs, and so on.

If you think of the heat pump proposal that we co-developed with the member in our work together, the money for ZEV, the major things that we’ve done, we haven’t seen any change. We do have administrative savings across the board, but that’s true of all sides of the ministry. I’d be happy to talk in detail about that or refer to the answers I gave at the beginning of these estimates.

I would say that we continue to have a dynamic climate action team. We have merged our decarbonization work together, between the energy decarbonization division and the climate action secretariat, into one. I can go through, in detail, those jobs, should the member want, or — this might be more useful to the member, considering the time — we could simply take him through that. Or we could have the assistant deputy minister, Nat Gosman, take him through the positions, person by person, on some other occasion.

It’s up to him, and I’d be happy to answer.

Jeremy Valeriote: I appreciate the offer. I’ll just ask one direct question about this. I see $1½ million less under “Climate Action” and half a million dollars less under “Energy Decarbonization.” I’m open to the idea, but it seems hard to believe these are just administrative savings.

Can the minister just speak to…? Will any specific divisions or branches within the ministry or doing work pertaining to climate action see diminished resources or staff capacity due to these budget adjustments? Are any existing programs being cut or scrapped altogether?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The answer is no, and if you look at the line immediately below it, you’ll see a $2.4 million increase in the CleanBC programs for industry and the B.C. output-based pricing system, which is a major CleanBC initiative that we just discussed.

If you look, line to line, the “Climate Action” line and other lines are about the same. “Energy Decarbonization” is slightly lower as well. You see electricity and utility regulation slightly lower, etc. This is the staff work.

Just to put it in context, we have the creation of a new division, the climate solutions division, that has 177 staff in the new position. There’s a responsibility there for the Climate Change Accountability Act, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, the Low Carbon Fuels Act, the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act and the Energy Efficiency Act, in addition to numerous CleanBC programs.

In addition to that, we have the work that’s being done at B.C. Hydro, the most ambitious Power Smart program in the province’s history, all programs that directly affect issues of decarbonization and the priority given by the government.

I suppose you could say in general, like all ministries of government, we’ve made reductions, but here in the Ministry of Energy and the priority we give to CleanBC, that hasn’t changed significantly in the main budget. You see that reflected in the budget but in all those other things I’m talking about.

[3:40 p.m.]

Yes, the clean industry fund, the CleanBC program for industry and the B.C. output-based pricing system went up $2.4 million, and yes, there were reductions in some of the other resources within the ministry budget. But overall the priority for CleanBC continues to be the same, and we have, as the member knows, a very ambitious agenda.

Jeremy Valeriote: Just a quick clarifying on the second line item. The item in here, the $6.5 million, is for administration of the OBPS and continued development of that pricing system, correct? There’s no revenue in there.

Hon. Adrian Dix: The funds, in themselves, have revenue, of course, and managing the clean industry fund is an important contributor to excellent climate outcomes, as reflected in the CleanBC review and other work by the government. I think you can say that, and I’d be happy to describe that at length.

But those two things are showing different things, different responsibilities within the ministry. And yes, adding responsibility for the output-based pricing system and expansion of its responsibilities and our work in the CleanBC program for industry — those are increases.

What I’m saying is on the administrative side, there are generalized programs to reduce expenditures, I guess, directed by the Ministry of Finance, which we’ve described previously in estimates. But overall there’s a balancing out of things. And with 177 staff people…. I think that demonstrates the importance of these programs and the combination of the climate action secretariat and the previous energy decarbonization division.

Jeremy Valeriote: Moving on to the end of the local government climate action program, which I’ll call LGCAP, for time, UBCM came out with a statement last week. They noted that LGCAP has not been renewed in the service plan.

This program provides local governments and Modern Treaty Nations with funding, guidance and direct support to help them achieve provincial climate targets and make their communities more resilient. Many communities relied extensively on these funds to support staffing, planning and implementation of climate resilience.

Did the decision not to renew this program ultimately stem from cuts made to this ministry’s budget? Can the government provide any assurance to municipal governments and treaty nations across the province that are now scrambling to find alternative funding sources?

Hon. Adrian Dix: As the member will know, we established three years in funding three years ago, or two years and one month ago, in that budget. This is the final year of that three-year tranche. No decision has been made about what will happen to the fund, but in terms of this budget, it carries on through that three-year commitment of funding.

Jeremy Valeriote: I’d like to ask a little bit about the CleanBC review that we worked on, or that we commissioned jointly with the government. In November 2025, it was released, informed by feedback from various community partners. In the press release announcing the results of the review, the minister acknowledged that the review and its recommendations were going to help government in their efforts to entrench B.C. as a climate leader.

Although certain recommendations are not necessarily endorsed by my caucus, other recommendations — such as those recommending better metrics for carbon emissions, supporting a B.C. Youth Climate Corps, aligning CleanBC with UNDRIP and strengthening the various environmental acts — could be impactful tools in hopes of moving B.C. towards climate action.

With this in mind, can the minister, and this might be a longer conversation, specify which recommendations the minister is planning to implement or not in this review and whether funding and resources have been allocated under this budget?

Hon. Adrian Dix: I would say no, not in a comprehensive way. As the member knows, if you count high-level actions and recommendations, I think it’s about 100 in the review.

[3:45 p.m.]

The member specifically referred to the Youth Climate Corps, which is an organization that I personally love quite a bit. I was involved in the creation of its predecessor organization, the environmental youth teams, in the 1990s. I think it brings real value. Like a lot of things, we’ll have more to say about that soon, and the member will be informed in advance of that.

A very significant portion of the report addressed energy issues, including B.C. Hydro. You’re going to see a very comprehensive response in the near future, based on the work we’re doing.

Part of it is about regular calls for power, which are massive. As you know, the first call for power yielded $6 billion in resources, $3 billion of First Nations equity. The second call for power, the 2025 call, is coming forward, and there’s a whole series of B.C. Hydro initiatives that will reflect a very important response to the review.

Perhaps because of the reviewers, there was particular interest in that. But I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s actually the central role that electricity and clean electricity play in responding to climate action. We’re going to go through the list of recommendations. The member was a co-sponsor of the review, and I hope to do that personally with him at some point in the near future — where we are on things.

I take the review very seriously. The CleanBC review was a mandated review. We’ve moved it forward. I think it was important to do so at this time. I think we need to be ambitious about it. Certainly, the CleanBC review influenced — we’ll be dealing with it after the debate in this estimates, in the miscellaneous bill, so I won’t say more about it — our response on EVs, our continuing work on heat pumps, our continuing work on affordability initiatives.

I want to highlight that because I think one of the values of the review was it showed and demonstrated, through recommendations, taking the value of clean electricity both to the economy and to climate action, the need to connect climate action with affordability. Expensive climate initiatives for individuals, even if they have long-term savings, exclude some of the most passionate advocates for climate action who are themselves…. They may not own a home to put a heat pump in.

This was part of the important work we did on the heat pump program with the member at that time. One of the priorities at this time, having talked about it at length with the member at different points, is the connection of climate action to issues of affordability.

I just might cite this, and I know the member doesn’t have much time. That’s why I get up quickly. You know, we’re living in a moment where Sri Lanka declared Wednesday a national holiday, as they didn’t have enough energy, and where other jurisdictions in Asia reduced school weeks from five to three days because they didn’t have enough energy.

We have the opportunity to engage in something truly unique in B.C.: the development of a clean energy superpower — to an extent, we’re already there — and opportunities for individuals to participate in that.

The members of the opposition, the member’s colleague from Saanich North and the Islands, brought forward an interesting and important idea around balcony solar recently that I hope to work with him and the Green Party leader in the House, my colleague there, to see forward.

I think this is a time of immense opportunities, but I think it’s important for those of us who want climate action to strongly connect that to ideas of affordability. I think that people who oppose climate action have been allowed to create the opposite argument, and this is one of the real values of the CleanBC review.

Jeremy Valeriote: I appreciate the answer. I appreciate the intent for a clean energy superpower. I can’t help but express my disappointment that we are also a superpower in other types of energy, but that has been a decision of the government that we’ve discussed at length.

One other aspect of CleanBC I want to talk about is EVs. The minister mentioned Bill 16. The mandates — this is one area where the opposition and I do not agree. The CleanBC review noted that the ratio of EVs to chargers in the province lags behind other leading jurisdictions, so I do believe that this is an important step forward in the transition. I appreciate the keeping of mandates in Bill 16.

[3:50 p.m.]

On the topic of rebates, does any of the funding allocated under this budget provide any flexibility or opportunities for the ministry to reinstate other previous grant or subsidy programs, such as the go electric rebates for EVs and hybrids? Has the ministry committed any resources over the next fiscal year toward improving the availability of EV charging infrastructure?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The go electric program also involves charging, and that continues to be in place. I’d also say that I think our intent as a province is to focus on charging networks. We’re going to meet our goal of 10,000 public charging stations by 2030, but I think we need to do even better than that. Some of those public charging stations are not fast-charging stations, and we have to meet the test of that. I think B.C. Hydro is going to play a central role in that as well.

But I agree, and one of the reasons we are more successful than Ontario and why we are leading Canada in EV sales is because of the charging network, and that will continue to be our priority. That’s where I see our investment, as opposed to direct rebates for sales.

The other good news, and what the federal government has done recently, is its decision to bring more lower-cost EVs into Canada, including, of course, on a limited basis from China. This will allow for significant new, lower-cost EVs, which will be, I think, quite popular here. We’ve been advocating to the federal government to reduce non-tariff barriers against EVs so that they’re allowed in the country.

I would say it’s a distinction between B.C. and Ontario, our charging network, which is currently at 8,600 charging stations, so we’re going to easily go over the 10,000 number that we promised by 2030. And more, my belief is that we can provide charging when you need it, where you need it, which is what people are used to with gas-powered cars, internal combustion engine cars. We need to provide the same thing. I think that’s a key role for government.

B.C. Hydro plays an important role in that, in all our continued go electric work, to ensure the majority of charging — which, of course, is home-based charging — continues apace. We think that that’s where the problem should put its priority, on charging and not on direct rebates on the sales of new cars.

The federal government has reinstated, in a limited way, its rebate program, which we called for. It’s appropriate, given that it’s federal tariffs and federal non-tariff barriers that have an effect of increasing the cost of those cars. They do. So they’re taking the responsibility for that.

I would only call on other provinces, such as Ontario, which are the main beneficiaries of significant subsidies at the manufacturing level to match us in terms of charging networks. It doesn’t make sense to me that Ontario has about one-third of the sales of B.C. of EVs as a proportion, when their industry is the main beneficiary of national EV policies. I might add that they affect our whole jurisdiction in that regard, so they need to step up too, like B.C. has.

I agree with the CleanBC review. We’ve got to keep doing better on charging networks in that eventually you’re seeing a closing of that price on sales and the creation of a lot more used EVs.

There are 228,000 EVs on the road. There’s a whole used-EV market which creates some opportunities for affordability. Having never bought a new car myself in my life, used cars are important, right? I think all of those are real opportunities, and I’m enthusiastic.

I’ll just say, finally, that in March of this year…. There was a lot of talk last year, at the beginning in 2025, when EV sales declined. A lot of it in B.C. had to do with the number one seller, which was Tesla and Elon Musk, becoming, let’s just say, disliked by the people of B.C., for reasons that are well understood. The decline in their sales over a very short period. That was dramatic, and that affected overall sales.

The sales in March of 2026, the most recent month, are up to 25.2 percent, which is a record for March in British Columbia. It shows the EV market rebounding in a positive way because of, in part, the actions of the federal government and part of our own work together here in building the best charging network in the country.

Jeremy Valeriote: I will move on to my second-favourite constituency issue, my favourite being regional transit in the Sea to Sky, but that will have to wait for another day.

Woodfibre. Recently the B.C. Energy Regulator lowered levies for various LNG products, including LNG Canada; Coastal GasLink; and Woodfibre LNG, which I did visit a couple of weeks ago.

[3:55 p.m.]

Woodfibre’s annual levy fell from $2½ million, a number that was only set just over a year ago, to $1.4 million, which is a pretty stark decrease. I’m sure the minister will agree. These fees are supposed to “meet the regulatory obligations and recovery expenses of the B.C. Energy Regulator.”

Since the BCER is cutting the levies, how will the Energy Regulator and the ministry that they report to ensure that Woodfibre LNG will not violate safety standards, environmental protection measures and other core regulatory requirements, both now and into the future?

Hon. Adrian Dix: It’s interesting that the member asked this question. Again, Michelle Carr is here with the Energy Regulator, an outstanding CEO. We’d be happy to provide a detailed briefing, because sometimes this doesn’t provide the information the member would need.

The levies are based on actual work done in the course of a year, and they go up and down during the life of a project or projects. At the height of construction of LNG Canada, the levies are higher than they were in the most recent year, when they were lower. That’s true of Woodfibre LNG as well.

One of the advantages of the Energy Regulator is that it’s able to reach out and get the resources it needs, and it bases the regulation it does of capital projects, such as Woodfibre LNG, on the requirements of a given year. If it has gone down, it’s because of the work required in that year.

It’s not that we do $2.5 million every year and suddenly it’s $1.4 million. It’s that it goes up and down in the life of a project. I know I wouldn’t be suggesting that the member would like it to come up again, because that might indicate more activity on the site.

Jeremy Valeriote: One more on Woodfibre. We’ve heard various reports that Woodfibre and other LNG operators are still looking for public subsidies. Can the minister tell us whether there’s an additional federal grant available to Woodfibre to pay for any of their additional costs, including a transmission line?

Hon. Adrian Dix: As the member knows, we discussed this in question period. I don’t want to.… B.C. Hydro is building a transmission line and is consulting now actively with the member’s constituents on that question. I think we had more than 100 people at a meeting we had on March 31 that was addressing that question.

[Amna Shah in the chair.]

That transmission line, as you’d expect, is paid for — as such a line does; it’s off the main line — by Woodfibre itself, although being constructed by B.C. Hydro, because B.C. Hydro is good at that.

With respect to his question about what the federal government might do, I think that’s the subject for somebody else’s estimates.

Jeremy Valeriote: I’m going to try and squeak in one or two more and make a note to myself to ask for an hour next year.

B.C. Hydrogen Strategy. I’ll skip the preamble, and I’ll just double-barrel this question. How many actions within the B.C. Hydrogen Strategy have been completed? I believe it’s now four to five years since it was published. Is there work underway to facilitate a formal review or to update the hydrogen strategy?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The answer is yes. I don’t think it’s a formal review, and so on, but I’d like to see the strategy updated. One of my colleagues, a member from Nanaimo, will be doing some of this work from a parliamentary perspective, and we’d be very interested to hear the views of the member, who is very interested in these questions as well.

Obviously, circumstances have changed with respect to hydrogen in the world, and the strategy at the time adopted 63 recommendations. We want to see what’s working. Personally, if I were advising people looking at updating it, I’d say we have to really focus on commercialization and projects that are closest to that. Often those are in areas of transportation.

[4:00 p.m.]

I’m very interested in the views of all members of the House on that because I think there is a huge opportunity here for British Columbia. We’ve got to be very focused in our approach in it, and that’s why I’ll be updating the strategy — it won’t be a year-long thing but over the next couple of months — so that we’re up to date with present circumstances.

Jeremy Valeriote: One more, if I could.

Natural gas royalty system from October of 2021. The new system is supposed to take effect January 1 of 2027. Can the minister just provide any updates on the development of this royalty system and whether it’s on track for 2027?

Hon. Adrian Dix: We’re working closely with stakeholders on this question, and it will be on track for January 1, 2027.

Jordan Kealy: My question for the minister. How much did B.C. Hydro have to buy and sell for power last year?

Hon. Adrian Dix: I’ll give the member what we’re expecting right now and then what we had in fiscal ’26.

The year we’re in, the water surplus update, which gives us a sense of where we are now…. Nine of the last 16 years, we’ve exported more power than we’ve imported; and seven, we’ve imported more power than we’ve exported. Typically, we import water in drought years when we’re increasing our reservoirs.

Our April water supply forecast for this year has increased significantly, such that it’s 111.6 percent of normal in the Peace system and 119 percent of normal in the Kinbasket or Columbia system. Snowpack in the Peace and Columbia is also much above normal.

These conditions mean that there is some chance we’ll have to spill water this year. That’s the excess in supply. We’re currently forecasting to be exporting about 5,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in fiscal ’27, so we’re forecasting, officially, a surplus this year. That’s the estimate for this year.

Last year we finished as a net importer, with net imports of 4,344 gigawatt hours. This represents about 8 percent of our total domestic load.

So as the years go past, we have a very strong system here. It’s a hydro-based system, and what you see is that the value of our exports, even though the amount of our export and imports are such, is always greater than the value of our imports, because, obviously, we get to choose when to release water from the dams at the time when our water and our energy is the most valuable.

[4:05 p.m.]

Jordan Kealy: My question for the minister. I’ll change it up a little bit. Can the minister provide the fiscal 2025 power outage data for British Columbia, including the average number of sustained outages per customer, the average number of hours customers were without power and a regional breakdown showing which parts of the province were hit hardest?

[Rohini Arora in the chair.]

Hon. Adrian Dix: I’d refer the member to the 2024-25 annual service plan reports, where he’d be able to find the information on these numbers. I’m happy to share that with the member as well. What I’m reading from, which is useful…. This is one of the performance measures we have in the annual service plan of B.C. Hydro and Power Authority.

The average duration of an outage is 3.67 hours, and the average frequency is 1.48. That’s the total number of sustained interruptions experienced by an average customer in a year. That’s 1.48 hours in the course of a year. If you think of that, that’s 365 times 24. That’s the total number of hours.

That’s the record. It’s one of our performance measures. I’d be happy to share that information in greater detail with the hon. member.

Jordan Kealy: The numbers that I have are a little bit different when it comes to the performance measures side. It showed 2.25 sustained outages and 7.73 hours without power in fiscal 2025, both worse than 2024.

How much of that deterioration was caused by vegetation-related outages, how much by planned outages, and what measurable steps is the minister taking this year to improve reliability?

Hon. Adrian Dix: One of the measurable steps is the largest hydro capital plan in history, one that’s focused on sustainment — 60 percent; obviously, new demand, 40 percent.

We went through a period, really, in the sort of ’01-17 period when there was a lack of investment in hydro infrastructure, and we’re making up for that now. That said, a lot of the issue of interruption….

For example, in the member’s region, there was a significant interruption related to a windstorm. There are weather-related interruptions, which are a test to the hydro system. Some of them are related to accelerated climate change, and that will continue to be a challenge. But B.C. Hydro crews do an outstanding job.

In terms of the detail, the information I gave you is from the annual service plan. But happy to provide it. I know the member asked for, I think, regional breakdowns of data, and we’ve taken note of that question. We’ll provide the member an answer in writing.

[4:10 p.m.]

Jordan Kealy: Thank you very much for that answer. I’d love the data.

The reason that I was asking that is, yes, we definitely do experience extreme weather conditions, and we have some of those scenarios happen. Sometimes we’re getting planned outages happening when it’s minus 20 to minus 40, as well, which should never happen for scheduled outages, or the scenarios where there are trees that are falling onto the power lines and starting forest fires, which were a couple of the scenarios that happened too. So I was just curious in regards to that.

I’m going to jump to a different topic that one of my colleagues brought up — refineries. You bring a smile to my face when you say that. The fact that your party is considering that, I think, is a great thing. When you see right near the Taylor Bridge…. The McMahon refinery is there. That was a refinery at one point. It could have the capabilities to be one again, same with up in Fort Nelson.

The options, if this government would like to take in pursuing…. Actually making that happen again, having that bulk distribution happen by batching products down to the Lower Mainland, especially to the refinery that you have there, would definitely be a very good plan.

I’m just curious if in Peace River North you’ve actually been considering my region as one of the regions to have one of those possible energy projects.

Hon. Adrian Dix: I think the member was here when I answered this question previously from his colleague from Peace River South.

There’s a reason why a typical refinery hasn’t been built in Canada since 1977. I think I got the right year. I might be off a year or two. There are challenges because you’re chipping into a global market. We’re not always the low-cost producer.

That said, there’s a real opportunity for that. There was a massive federal public subsidy of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, as the member will know — about $18 billion. The question is whether upgrading the value of our resource is an important part of infrastructure. We clearly believe so.

In the case of the renewable refinery in Prince George, Tidewater, where changes to low-carbon fuel standards have made a difference between that being available, especially in-region, and not being available in-region…. Certainly, with respect to gasoline, obviously the biggest source would be Alberta for us. Not just Alberta. We do oil production in B.C., but it’s dramatically more limited, I say modestly.

Our work is mostly natural gas. You see what we’ve done in terms of natural gas, which is to dramatically increase an industry, the LNG industry, which is an upgrading of the value of the resource and doing that in the lowest-emission way of anyone in the world. That’s a significant response to upgrading the value of our resource, which is what a refinery would do for the oil industry.

The member will also know that the pathways project, which is a form of treatment, I suppose, of Alberta bitumen oil, has received some significant support in the MOU between Alberta and the government of Canada. They had a deadline to go forward with that on April 1, which they haven’t met.

This is a time when governments are interested in this. We’re continuing, of course, to engage in our view of these things with the federal government.

Jordan Kealy: I think it’s great that the government is considering these options. It’s definitely a lot different now compared to what it was back in the ’80s, especially when it comes to the capabilities of refining products.

I’ll shift to a different topic. I’ll switch over to the fact that Site C…. We’re seeing that project starting to wrap up. I think about my region as well. We see windmills coming into the region. I’m curious, when it comes to the consultation or the proposed projects that might be pursued for the bioregion, if there are any other major projects that are being contemplated for my region.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, the Peace region is an energy centre in B.C. Let’s call it the energy centre in B.C.

[4:15 p.m.]

The member will know that just today Shell bought ARC. They bought it not with the intent of not doing things but with the intent of doing things. It demonstrates, I think, the interest people have in investing in British Columbia with respect to LNG. Obviously, it’s our commitment, our work, our work with Treaty 8, our work with the industry, to make sure that B.C. LNG is fuelled by B.C. natural gas, which happens to be the best natural gas in the world.

He’s right. The Site C project is coming to an end. There’s still work to be done on it, but we’ll have…. We’ve taken down, as of March 31, the famous Site C work camp, and people in his region played a real role in advocating that that work camp be reutilized.

When I was in Fort St. John, both recently and before, people were fairly passionate about the idea that we should minimize, in Fort St. John, the possibility of landfill for a project that could be used elsewhere. We’re, of course, using that on the North Coast transmission line, so that’s a good use, I think, and a good response to what people in Fort St. John wanted.

There’s immense potential in the northeast at every level. We have a call for power right now. I don’t know the results of that call for power. It’s a call for expression of interest in firm power as well, but a call for power. I don’t know what the results will be.

I would say that the member’s region, in addition to having the best natural gas resources and the best petroleum resources in the province, also has some of the best wind resources. So it’s not inconceivable. We could see that and other projects in the region.

I think that if you look at the last 75 years in the Peace, we’ve seen, at every level, natural gas; liquids, of course, connected to that; the dams on the Columbia system; wind power projects, the wind power projects in Dawson Creek, which I get to look at every time I visit Dawson Creek, which is frequently. As you know, we were building a hospital there when I was Minister of Health.

There’s enormous potential still in the region. We’re committed to working with people in the region. He knows and I know that while there was, I think, a lot of support in the region for a project like Site C, there were also lots of different views in the region by different groups, including agriculture groups and the West Moberly First Nations. Other First Nations and others had strong views on it. So we’ll be continuing to follow, in terms of permitting and/or environmental assessments, depending on the project, all the requirements we have.

The final thing I’d say is, in terms of regulation, that the B.C. Energy Regulator plays a very important role. He knows that the largest bolus of employees in the B.C. Energy regulator are his constituents in Fort St. John.

I think it’s one of the really most positive things about the B.C. Energy Regulator, if you look at it, which is that it’s centred hugely in the region, that the people who work with the B.C. Energy Regulator work with the people being regulated. Sometimes that’s people who have concerns. Sometimes that’s the industry itself, people working in the industry as well, and its staff that works there.

We are very responsive in the region, I think, to the needs of the region. The fact that, for example, we’re using the B.C. Energy Regulator to regulate renewable energy projects is good news for the region.

Jordan Kealy: Well, I didn’t get a single project out of you on that, but thank you very much, Minister.

[Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat in the chair.]

Speaking about the different effects of projects, you’re right that with Site C, there’s a benefit. There’s a lot of power that comes out of that. There was a loss of 7,000 hectares of farmland in that same scenario.

Right now we’ve got the community of Old Fort that’s actually just directly in the emergency spill path of the dam there. Would B.C. Hydro contemplate buying that community out, since they’re right in that floodplain and they’re currently isolated and trapped by that landslide that’s there too?

The Chair: Minister.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Thank you very much, hon. Chair. It’s good to see you in the chair.

I’d certainly consider that circumstance. I think the member raised these issues in question period with my colleague the Minister of Transportation a few days ago. I think it was last week.

[4:20 p.m.]

I’ll certainly be consulting with the Minister of Transportation about his advocacy on these issues, and I’d be happy to meet with him about his concerns in Old Fort with respect to B.C. Hydro. Maybe a good place to start would be for us to sit down and talk about it a bit and then go from there. I’d be happy to do that.

Jordan Kealy: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister.

My next question. I’ll switch over to wind because you mentioned about how windy it is, and our snowdrifts are just starting to melt now. We do have a lot of wind. We’re getting a lot of wind projects.

We’ve got the issue that with the wind projects, some of them are getting older now. As blades age, there is currently no recycling program for the blades. The only solution is to bury them. There are some solutions over in Europe or in the U.S.

Then there’s also the issue when it comes to the stage of reclamation and abandonment of the wind projects, especially when they’re on private property, and how they can affect private property values on neighbouring properties.

My question to the minister is: what are they doing for the consultation, trying to protect people that are affected in scenarios where wind projects are applied to private property owners?

Then will you prioritize trying to have the wind projects on the Crown land where the ridges are, where there’s actually the main source of wind?

Hon. Adrian Dix: First of all, the member, then, would be a strong supporter of Bill 14, which has brought wind projects under the B.C. Energy Regulator and sees life-cycle regulation. Wind projects must have a decommissioning and restoration plan approved by the BCER before construction.

We’re talking about a life cycle of regulation, which is sometimes, on some projects in some industry, especially in his region…. In the oil and gas industry, in the past, it’s been a problem. That issue is directly addressed in the way that we regulate projects and by that kind of life-cycle regulation, which ensures that there’s a plan for decommissioning.

It may be 25 to 35 years later, and it’s possible the member will still be a member of the Legislature at that time. He’s much younger than I am, so he will follow it through that time.

It should be said that decommissioning is required when a project is left and isn’t working for 24 months. There’s a time limit in that process as well. On the decommissioning side, that’s the regulation that the B.C. Energy Regulator does, and it’s not dissimilar to the regulation that’s done in the oil and gas sector.

With respect to the call for power processes, it should be said that we approved nine wind energy projects and one solar energy project in the first round. These are open processes by independent power producers, so it’s the responsibility of those power producers to come forward with their projects and for us to regulate and to assess those projects.

Another approach that the member might prefer is for B.C. Hydro to develop them all themselves or something like that, and that’s certainly an option, I guess, for B.C. Hydro to directly build its own wind projects.

The system we have now and the process we have now is an independent power producer process with calls for power that have competitive bidding. It’s, if I may dare say, free enterprise.

That will be the same in the next round. We have proposals that come forward. They get assessed by B.C. Hydro. Electricity purchase agreements get made. Then they go through the permitting and regulation process of the BCER once the EPAs are put in place and approved by the BCUC.

Jordan Kealy: I was bringing up the reclamation side of it because we’re talking about large-scale wind turbines. Nobody wants one of these in their backyard. They’re giant eyesores. The noise that comes off of them…. They scare your animals, especially if they’re on farmland.

When it comes to impact assessment, if they are not prioritized to be on Crown land first and then they come onto private properties, the impact that it has on neighbouring properties and on their values and even when it comes to reclamation….

[4:25 p.m.]

I can tell you right now. I don’t care what plans you have and process when it comes to oil fields. I’ve got an abandoned well on my property right now that I have to deal with. So these happen. If this happens with these windmills, you’re talking about a giant concrete pad that’s not easy to rip up.

What are you doing, when it comes to the consultation, for people that have private land?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, I would disagree with the member. That has been the case in the oil and gas industry, and regulation has made the oil and gas industry better. Equally, we’ve had, in the member’s region recently, seven restoration agreements with First Nations in the region. They’re going to address fundamental issues around those questions, in terms of oil and gas.

Equally, in terms of wind equipment and end of life, the bringing of the wind projects under the B.C. Energy Regulator means, as noted, they must have a restoration and decommissioning plan. The plan describes this decommissioning and site restoration activities; includes the schedule; and explains how all equipment, including turbine blades, will be safely managed, removed and disposed of.

Decommissioning is required when operations end or if a project is inactive for more than 24 months. Responsibility for blade removal, disposal and site restoration rests with the permit holder. Plans must be reviewed and updated every five years over the life of the project. BCER may require financial security to ensure decommissioning and disposal obligations are met when facilities typically operate for 25 to 35 years, after which the site must be fully decommissioned and restored.

I agree with him that in the past, and this has been particularly true in his region, there have been issues around the way we’ve dealt with restoration, such that we’ve got a lot of restoration work to do — including, apparently, on his farm — but also work that’s being done significantly in partnership with Treaty 8 First Nations and, of course, by the industry itself. That work should continue, I think, and it’s important in oil and gas.

We want to, as we’re developing this industry…. Admittedly, there are some wind farms in the region. But the larger number, in terms of megawatts produced and size, are the ones that are coming in this call for power — this will be the largest amount — and will have to follow all provincial statutes.

The permitting process is being led by the B.C. Energy Regulator. Now, the B.C. Energy Regulator has a centre in his region, significant offices in his region. It’s our expectation that people will follow the requirements of permitting, which include, of course, the requirements under the law.

Jordan Kealy: Thank you very much, Minister. It’s something that a lot of people in my region are concerned about. It’s not something that’s hearsay.

When it comes to the well that’s being abandoned on my property, it has been swapped over with five different companies in the time that I’ve owned my property. This is just something that happens in the region, how they try and get out of the reclamation project, so I’m curious to see if that might be a scenario with this down the road. Hopefully, it works out good.

In the energy resource spending line, how much is specifically earmarked for the oil and gas development, royalty programs or infrastructure improvements in Peace River North, and what are the measurable job or royalty benefits the ministry projects for our region?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The member is asking about royalties in general. Again, I think the question, as asked, would be difficult to provide an answer for. I’d be happy to talk to the member and to answer written questions as well, assuming in his half an hour of estimates he has more questions than that. I can do that.

I would say that, as you know, the royalty system has been under review for a number of years. We’re on a transitional royalty system now. We’re expecting to have a new royalty system in place by January 1, 2027.

But if the member would want to lay that down, because it sounds like he’s asking for a different detail — sometimes we have lots of details, but he might have a different detail — I’d be happy to take the question and get him our best possible response within the next week.

[4:30 p.m.]

Jordan Kealy: In the energy resource spending line, it shows up to $20 million. How much is specifically earmarked for oil and gas development, royalty programs or infrastructure improvements in my region?

Hon. Adrian Dix: That’s the ministry operations side of it. The ministry divides its work. We added the climate action secretariat, and that got added with our decarbonization team in the ministry. This is the Energy Resources Group, and that pays for the work on all projects, a lot of which are in the Peace region, in his constituency and his colleague from Peace River South’s constituency.

I think we would probably provide more of a breakdown in the energy resources side of it. It’s receiving a larger budget in ’26-27 than last year, based on the work we have to do on a range of projects and approvals, new projects that are coming on from LNG to new projects in the region, new pipeline projects like the one announced on Friday that received national agreement with Sunrise Projects. All of that is important.

I would add two things. One, he’ll know Viva Wolf or he’ll know of Viva Wolf, who does a lot of work in the region. We have an ADM really working on the region itself because of it’s high priority to us and to the community in the region. She does outstanding work in the region. She’s frequently there. She’s headquartered in Kamloops, but she’s responsible for what we call northeast initiatives in the ministry. Ms. Wolf does an excellent job, and it shows the priority of that.

We can give a breakdown of basically what we spend the money on. It’s one of the line items in our ministry, but that’s the significant portion of the work that’s done directly. They don’t just do the northeast, the B.C. Energy Regulator, from the Fort St. John office. They’ll do the whole province, but it’s principally there. That work is done and centred in the northeast itself, and that’s the B.C. Energy Regulator’s work, which is obviously a different budget line.

Jordan Kealy: Switching over to…. I’m glad that the minister acknowledges that there’s a lot of energy that comes from my region.

Regarding goal 3 on the energy efficiency for people, what analysis has the ministry conducted on the unique barriers faced by northern and rural residents — cold weather, long distances, lower incomes — versus the provincewide targets for heat pumps and EVs?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Yes, there are different circumstances and different uptake in different regions. At a time when the government was providing rebates for EVs — that program isn’t going forward now — more of those rebates would have gone to people in Metro Vancouver or Vancouver Island, where they have more EVs than there would be in the member’s region.

That said, the priority of our Power Smart program, which is the best energy conservation program in the province and which is, I would argue, more important in the member’s region than it is in other regions because energy costs can be higher and the benefit of action taken, greater…. Those are provincewide projects, and they have a significant effect everywhere.

With respect to EVs, I think that’s fair to say, although I would also add that the charging station network is all around the province, including in the member’s region, that B.C. Hydro has put in place. We have about 8,600 charging stations. It may be that some get used more than others, but it’s important to have a provincewide network if everyone in the province gets to have responsibility for actions.

The other final thing I’d say is this, in a general sense…. Also, I might add that under the energy savings program, northern households switching from fossil fuel heating to electric heat pump may be eligible for up to $19,000, which is the highest level of support you see anywhere in the province.

We’re making an effort to address issues in the North, and we’ll continue to do so because, arguably, on utilization, people in the North have higher needs than elsewhere and need support through Power Smart, through heat pump programs and others. As technology changes, that will continue to be the case.

[4:35 p.m.]

Jordan Kealy: I believe that I’m getting near the end of my time here. I wanted to be able to thank the minister for being able to answer my questions. I’d love to be able to follow up with a meeting to be able to discuss more.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, thanks very much to the member, and I look forward to it. We had a good meeting on a plane the other week. It was the longest meeting we’d had. If the flight were longer from Fort St. John, we would have solved all the world’s problems.

Interjection.

Hon. Adrian Dix: You liked that, eh? That’s good.

So I think, hon. Chair, we’re at the point where I move a motion? Not yet? I think our time….

The Chair: Do you have closing remarks?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Do I have closing remarks? Only to thank all the members of the opposition and all the members of the government who have so avidly and patiently listened to everything I have to say and enjoyed it.

Interjection.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Yeah, absolutely.

I just want to thank everybody. I want to thank our team, Deputy Minister Peter Pokorny, our whole team that’s here, everyone at B.C. Hydro, the B.C. Energy Regulator for all their work and members of the opposition.

This is my favourite thing, and I’m reflecting that, perhaps, we should continue on for another 15 or 20 hours. I’m certainly ready to go.

With that, hon. Chair, I’ll move the vote.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister, and all members.

Seeing no further questions, I will now call the vote.

Vote 23: ministry operations, $89,684,000 — approved.

Hon. Adrian Dix: I move that the committee rise and report resolution and completion of the estimates of the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The Chair: This committee stands adjourned.

The committee rose at 4:37 p.m.

The House in Committee, Section A.

The committee met at 4:46 p.m.

[Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat in the chair.]

Committee of the Whole

Bill 16 — Miscellaneous Statutes
Amendment Act, 2026

The Chair: Good afternoon. I call the Committee of the Whole on Bill 16, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, to order.

Members, I understand that there is an agreement on clauses 1 to 3. Is there an agreement to stand down clauses 1 to 3?

Steve Kooner: Just on the understanding that we will be coming back to clauses 1 to 3 and that I will have an opportunity to speak to them.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Yeah, that’s the agreement. In other words, we’re standing them down so we can proceed with other clauses because of the availability of people. Then we will absolutely be coming down…. Standing down does not mean in any way that the clauses are passed. We’ll be just starting with clause 4, which will be the work of the member for Peace River South and myself.

Clauses 1 to 3 inclusive stood down.

On clause 4.

The Chair: Recognizing the minister for opening remarks, or introduce your staff, if you want to.

Hon. Adrian Dix: I’ll do all that in the course of time, but what I would say is we’re dealing with two sets of amendments to energy statutes here. One relates to the Fuel Price Transparency Act, which, essentially, enables the BCUC to recover revenue in order to perform its functions under the act. The second are changes to the ZEV Act.

We’ll be doing those in order. I think the first is the Fuel Price Transparency Act. I look forward to questions from the hon. member for Peace River South and other members.

Larry Neufeld: Thank you to the minister.

I believe the minister did state this in his preamble, but I’m curious as to.… Clearly, the rationale was for the recovery of the costs so that the government program could be funded by industry. We did go through this earlier, but I think it’s important to have this all together, in one place on the record.

My question would be: who is going to be assigned these fees, and who is going to be paying them?

Hon. Adrian Dix: It’ll be applied to the fuel wholesalers at the wholesale level.

[4:50 p.m.]

Larry Neufeld: My apologies. It wasn’t the minister that spoke to that. My memory serves that I had an excellent briefing from his staff, and that is where I had learned that from.

The next question would be around the concern from the public regarding increased burden of fees relative to how expensive fuel is right now. Has that been considered? Has that been modelled? What is the expectation on the increased cost of fuel from transferring the payment of this program?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, the overall cost of the program is paid for by taxpayers now. In this case, as is the case with other BCUC actions — we just talked in the estimates about the B.C. Energy Regulator — it will be paid for by approximately 40 larger fuel suppliers that participate in the B.C. market.

Just to say this. This measure taken by the government a number of years ago, the Fuel Price Transparency Act, has worked. There’s talk about how it has worked for drivers and for everyone. The 2023 report, which came in just a couple of years after the act came into effect, found there was a 62 percent reduction in unexplained wholesale gasoline price differences from 2019, when the FPTA was introduced, to 2022. Vancouver saw an even larger 84 percent decline in that period.

I think it’s important for the industry, and we see it now. The members, the Energy critic, the opposition — you’ll get this question a lot. Why, when all North American gasoline is produced domestically, are prices going up because of the Strait of Hormuz? People ask these questions.

Well, there was a report produced based on this act from the BCUC at the end of March 2026, just last month, that provides public information. It is one of the most frequently asked questions I get, “What’s the relationship? What’s taxes?” and so on.

We cut, of course, the carbon tax, which had the impact of $2.077 billion on revenues this year, and would have, under the act, $2.4 billion next year, $2.7 billion the year after that. We took those steps, but the unexplained fuel price increases, whether they be in a region or overall, are a subject of, obviously, tremendous interest by consumers.

Very few people have their prices out on a sign in front of their business for their main product all the time, as the member will know. So the reduction in unexplained increases, the fact that transparency has led to a reduction in that, has benefited consumers.

The overall cost of the program was under $1 million, so BCUC has become increasingly efficient in its use of money. Asking the industry to pay for that transparency…. I believe the transparency does not just benefit consumers but benefits the industry as a whole because it gives the public an eye into something that is of great interest to them.

Also, the transparency has led to a reduction in occasionally odd fuel price increases that occurred in the marketplace. I think the BCUC, our independent regulator, is doing a good job here, that this is a project we’re going to assign to them. They get their revenues, as they do in their regulation of other things, not through government allocation, as has been the case up to now, but in the application of fees to affected industry.

Larry Neufeld: Thank you to the minister for that answer.

The minister did mention the unexplained changes in fuel price. I’m asking if the minister could expand on what would trigger the definition or what would trigger the BCUC to look into what an unexplained fuel price change would constitute.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Often it can be public complaint. For example, if I may cite the example of, for no particular reason, the Sea to Sky area of B.C., you’ll see a lot of concern about that. You will see concern in Powell River and on the Sunshine Coast. You’ll see concern in other regions about unexplained increases as they occur.

[4:55 p.m.]

The commission has overall responsibility, so it’s observing things. Certainly, they did a report in the wake of the very dramatic increases we’ve seen in gasoline prices everywhere in the wake of the Israel-U.S.-Iran war that’s occurring. In that case, they did an investigation or review in order to ensure that people are being treated….

It’s obviously a world market, and there are reasons for that, that it occurs as it occurs. I think it’s important to have an independent regulator doing that with something, not just as high profile, but it has such impact on not just the price of gasoline but the price of other products that are affected by the price of gasoline.

So complaints. There are regional complaints on occasion. Those come from different regions where there’s interest. There are concerns from people, and if it reaches the level of doing a more specific investigation, they can do that. Then they review the overall market, and they do it, as I say, in an efficient way.

They’ve received approximately $980,000, I think, in recent years, directly from the government. Now they’ll be recovering that. I think the evidence from their reports is that it is worthwhile and provides worthwhile protection and information to consumers but also to wholesalers who are…. There’s better public understanding of their circumstances, and the member would have to acknowledge, I’m sure, that there’s a lot of public concern around those questions.

Larry Neufeld: The complaint component I find interesting.

My next question to the minister would be: how many complaints have been received since this program was implemented?

Hon. Adrian Dix: I think it varies between 90 to a couple of hundred per quarter. Obviously, this circumstance, the current period where we’re seeing dramatic increases and people are alive to the issue of gas prices, would yield maybe more complaints than other times when gas prices are coming down.

I think everyone remembers the period around the elimination of the carbon tax. Especially in the days and weeks that followed that decision by the Legislature, there was significant interest in how that was being absorbed in the marketplace so that people were actually getting the decrease that the Legislature had voted for and the impact of that.

In different periods, there are different levels of demand. But the commission gets…. It’s taken on this responsibly, and there are quite a few concerned. That said, I said usually that number is $980,000 earlier. The number is $938,000, to be precise. That’s the status quo number. As I say, given the amount of work they’ve done on the question and the amount of public interest, it’s not an unreasonable amount.

The member talked about its impact on the price of gas. I would argue — it’s just an argument — that because of the decline and unexplained increases, that it has generally benefited the public interest. That’s clearly the case, in my view.

The overall cost. The commission is very interested in this. If the member hasn’t met with Dr. Mark Jaccard, the chair of the BCUC, that would be a useful thing, I think, for him to do. Dr. Jaccard has…. We’ve seen a reduction in some of the administrative burden, which makes it easier for interveners, whether they be members of the public or companies, in general — everyone.

A more efficient process and one that’s easier to manage is a better process all around, and this is one example of this.

Larry Neufeld: The next question I would have for the minister is: how many…? I don’t want to say non-compliance. How many investigations have been found where there’s an issue on fuel pricing? We talked about the 90 to 200 complaints per quarter. How many of those have been found to be wanting?

[5:00 p.m.]

Hon. Adrian Dix: There’ve been six major reviews around the province that have been done over the period. They’ve gone into specific issues.

Remember, we’re not regulating gas prices here. We’re ensuring transparency. All of the commission’s investigations are publicly posted on their website. The very fact of transparency has led to a decline in unexplained increases, which, I think, is itself a useful proposition.

The BCUC doesn’t get to regulate the industry or roll prices back. The Fuel Price Transparency Act is just that. It’s showing what’s happening in the marketplace. Often what happens in the marketplace is explainable, but it makes those explanations public and understood. The very fact that you may be subject to a process has led to less unexplained increases, which is a good thing.

Larry Neufeld: The minister, as the last time we met, pre-empted my next question, so I’m going to adjust it a little bit.

The minister has indicated, to my understanding, that the ability of the Utilities Commission or the ability of the government is not there to enforce the findings from an investigation. My question would be then: are we looking at a scenario where we’re publicly shaming wholesalers and retailers in order for this program to be effective?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, what it does is ensure transparency on an issue of public interest where often members of the public feel there’s not transparency. Why does the price of gas go up in one place and not another when objective circumstances seem the same?

Yes, transparency — just as other transparency measures of government shine a light on things, especially in a market that is unusually important to people and unusually controlled as a market. I think that’s a useful thing to do. The purpose of the act was to shine a light on these questions. That was the purpose of it, and it has achieved that goal.

I don’t accept that that is shaming. I say that that is transparency, a transparency that you would expect to occur. Transparency, I think, for wholesalers has led to, maybe for some wholesalers, no change in behaviour. But I think transparency rewards the best behaviour, in a general sense, in all aspects of life — certainly, in this one.

When you see, as we’ve seen, the decline in unexplained increases, where it seems — well, let’s just say unexplained — conceivably capricious, the reduction of those through transparency is the simplest regulatory means to do so.

The member may argue that we should regulate gasoline prices. I don’t think he’s arguing that. But you could argue that.

Obviously, this legislation came out of some very significant increases we’ve had and a lot of public debate about the nature of prices. So I think this helps, this process. This is the absolute role for the BCUC, which is to ensure there’s public understanding, clarity and transparency around prices.

I think a reflection of that is the most recent report in March of 2026, this year, which dealt with really just the last month or so of activity after the war in and around and over Iran and in the region and in the Strait of Hormuz started. I think it’s important that people have a sense of that in something as important to them as this.

The fact that people are interested in the BCUC process, that they’re engaging with it and that the BCUC is producing genuinely useful reports that the public is interested in…. And the public is interested in it. I mean, in my region, there are websites that show the price of gasoline at individual stations. That would be true whether you’re in the Sea to Sky country or in Surrey. There’s a lot of interest in that debate.

Ensuring transparency was the purpose of the legislation, and the legislation is achieving that purpose. A step that would include action against particular wholesalers would be a different form of regulation than we’re proposing here and would, of course, cost more money.

[5:05 p.m.]

Larry Neufeld: I will certainly thank the minister for pointing out…. I certainly could have chosen a better word, as opposed to “shaming.” I was struggling for the word, and I could have chosen more carefully.

In that vein of thinking, I would suggest that my next question would be…. The minister mentioned the public interest in this process. Are there statistics that can be provided as to how many interactions the public has had with the BCUC around how popular this is? Do we have the data to show that?

Hon. Adrian Dix: I think the sheer number of public requests for information…. What I would endeavour to provide the member, perhaps, is the amount of public downloads of the publicly available information. I don’t have that with me, but certainly ask the BCUC for that.

I think there is an unusual amount of interest in the subject matter on the part of the public. Many weighty issues are decided by the BCUC and interventions. This subject is of particular interest to the public. This is a useful way, I think, quite an imaginative way — and it wasn’t me; I wasn’t minister when the bill was brought in — of acting here.

Say that we are going to reduce the potential for…. Let’s call them unexplained increases. I don’t criticize the member’s use of words. “Unexplained increases” will have its own meaning for different people. You could use other terms for that as well, but that’s the one. That’s the defined term we use.

I think this is an important thing for the BCUC to do, and it’s not its primary responsibility, but them taking it on, defining what the work is and doing the work is, I think, a useful thing to do.

Larry Neufeld: I did review the webpage, and I will admit that it’s escaping me right at the moment. The minister mentioned six…. What do we call them? Well, I did write down “investigations.” So if we’re calling them investigations, does the BCUC publish those publicly so that the public can see what the results are?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Yes.

Larry Neufeld: Are companies and retailers named in that public disclosure?

Hon. Adrian Dix: As the member would know, the act contains restraints around commercially sensitive data. Obviously, we want the fullest possible cooperation and work together, so there may be retailers or others that are defined in it, but they’re all publicly available there.

The information, specifically one gets from wholesalers may not be provided in detail because they’re doing a review of circumstances in a particular region — for example, if we were to do a review in the Sea to Sky region. The leader of the Green Party in the House has raised this issue, so has his colleague at the federal level raised this issue, around the concerns in the region about the price of gas on the Sea to Sky, for example, and how that’s fair and how that’s arrived at.

Having the BCUC review that and at least lay out what it is is really useful and a useful control on retailers because it’s transparency. And if they determine that there’s no explanation for it, that would be an important consideration as well.

The other option would be to go further and to fully regulate gas prices. That’s something that would’ve been envisioned at different points in the past, but obviously, this isn’t the way we do that. To do so would have a different impact and certainly cost very significantly more money.

Larry Neufeld: The line behind these questions is for me to try to get a sense as to…. The minister was very precise — $938,000 annually. I’m trying to get a sense of the value of this program to the consumer. And rounding, that’s $1 million…. Okay, I’ll admit $940,000 is the closest rounding.

[5:10 p.m.]

With the austerity that we’re seeing in the province at the moment, I’m really trying to understand. If there’s no enforcement action possible, if we are agreeing that we are not going to, in any way, try to attempt regulating the pricing structure, can the minister give the public assurances that this nearly $1 million is money well spent?

Hon. Adrian Dix: I’ll again refer the member to the 2023 report and the impact that transparency has had on unexplained increases. It has been significant. The reduction has been close to 90 percent in Vancouver, which is very significant. Across the province, a 62 percent reduction in wholesale gasoline price differences for….

I’m not suggesting any amount of public money is not an important amount, but it’s for a small investment. That 2023 report highlights the utility of transparency. People might argue, similarly, against public money for freedom of information or other transparency measures. This transparency measure has demonstrated its effectiveness.

It’s not the same touch as full price regulation. But in a marketplace where we are not, primarily, producers of gasoline and there’s not a national state oil company in the country anymore, this is a means to ensure that something that has a major impact on public confidence can gain that public confidence.

The decline of unexplained increases saves people money. It just does. And it would be a lot more than $938,000. What we’ve determined is that was always a modest sum. They’ve determined a workplan based on that.

What we’re saying here is that the B.C. Utilities Commission, just like the B.C. Energy Regulator…. The Utilities Commission does this, and B.C. Hydro and Fortis. These are regulated companies. They get the money not from the Lieutenant Governor in Council or from the consolidated revenue fund of government but directly from the regulated, just as we’ve asked renewable energy companies to effectively pay for the regulation by the BCER.

I think it’s an effective; precise; and, in governmental terms, not expensive approach to the issue, and I really recommend it to the member as a good way of going about it. The House considered all of these options, I think, obviously, and the government did. But the House considered this option when they supported this measure.

This is a way of ensuring that regulation in an area of fundamental public interest — more public interest than just about any other subject I get asked about — receives clear results. We can say: “Well, here’s how the price of gas is formed. We’ve had the independent B.C. regulator, BCUC, assess it, and you can see on their website how it’s done.” You still might not be happy, necessarily.

Then for wholesalers, there’s the assurance that if somewhere in a region were to have an unexplained increase, that has the potential for review and that would be avoided.

So I think it’s actually a worthwhile process that saves people money, builds public confidence in the market, supports the industry in that sense but also gives consumers the information they need when they’re making decisions. Maybe, to look at another part of the bill, it might lead them to buy an EV.

Larry Neufeld: This will be a two-part question. Has that led the minister to buy an EV? That would be my first question.

The second would be…. Thanking the minister for his assurances of the effectiveness of this program, I’m curious as to the metrics, the data that would show the effectiveness of the program.

Another part to that question is…. Actually, I’ll leave that for the next response.

[5:15 p.m.]

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, we sell about 4.6 billion litres of gasoline, 1.7 billion litres of diesel. It’s a major marketplace. You can imagine, with the price of gas being what it is these days, how much British Columbians pay for that. The metrics that are put out by the commission were put out specifically in the 2023 report, but they’ve been sustained over time. I recommend them to the member.

This is a product. We do significant consumer protection. The legislation is insisting that there be transparency in a market that is of such interest, 6.3 billion litres purchased by all of our constituents, and that people have some understanding of how prices are set. When they seem to be frequently the same on all the corners — they go up in unison; they come down in unison — that’s of real value. This is not regulatory overreach; it’s the opposite of regulatory overreach.

The commission is seeking the relatively small resource that comes from and that is required from the industry that is selling. We don’t want to do this in percentage terms, but it’s a small percentage, a tiny percentage, to ensure public confidence, public understanding and transparency.

That will benefit everyone, including, I would argue, the industry, which benefits from public confidence. Whether you’re a wholesaler or a retailer, to be able to say, “Well, there’s someone here that explains the nature of the market, and here it is,” that’s of great use. I suspect that if we didn’t have it, we’d have to invent it. And we did in 2019.

Larry Neufeld: Just to get it onto the record, if memory serves correctly — I don’t have the information with me, but I’m fairly certain I do recall this correctly — when I had the wonderful briefing from the minister’s staff, I do recall 74 cents per litre of cost to the industry. We all understand, I think, rationally that that is going to end up being passed on — again, to put that on the record. Please correct me if that’s not accurate. I don’t want to put out information that’s not accurate.

The minister has discussed the effectiveness of this. I’m not necessarily questioning that; I’m not. I’m just trying to dig into things.

My next question would be: has the effectiveness of this program been established through comparing it to neighbouring jurisdictions or engaging with neighbouring jurisdictions to see what they’re doing and to establish whether we could be doing it better?

Hon. Adrian Dix: It wouldn’t be 74 cents a litre, obviously.

Interjection.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Yeah, it’s much more like that. Remember, if you’re talking about 6.3 billion litres and you’re talking about $938,000….

You know, there was a time when I used to be able to do that kind of math in my head. I know the Minister of Jobs and Economic Growth could help me here quite a bit with that math, in his head, but he doesn’t want to show me up. He doesn’t want to show me up.

Interjections.

Hon. Adrian Dix: It’s certainly not that.

I think they’ve shown the effectiveness through their own metrics. Everyone has a particular market. We’ve got a particular market. We have one major refinery, as we discussed previously — Parkland. We have some of our gasoline coming from the United States, etc. Understanding the effects of all that, I think, is a useful proposition.

I do think this is a matter of real public focus. Sometimes private websites develop. People have…. You can go anywhere. You can find out the price of gas at every gas station in Metro Vancouver on a website. There’s lots of interest. I’m not suggesting we do that.

People sometimes are in search of cheaper gasoline. We’ve gone through a period where, dramatically, people have reduced their decisions to go to the United States for gasoline, particularly south of the Fraser, I’d say, where Canadians have decided they don’t want to do that anymore.

Ensuring that people have fair access to information is a good thing. For the B.C. Utilities Commission, this is their work. Energy pricing is their work. They, obviously, have a specific role with respect to utilities, public and private, that they provide in B.C., and they do a good job at that. They’re respected at that. They do this work. They have expertise in this work. This is the place to do it. That’s why we chose them to do it.

[5:20 p.m.]

Really, all we’re doing here is giving them the authority to raise revenue to pay for their regulation under the act, which they do in other changes to the BCUC act or the B.C. Energy Regulator act, just as we did when we passed Bill 14, for example, and handed responsibility to the B.C. Energy Regulator for renewable projects.

Larry Neufeld: Thank you to the minister.

As I mentioned when we had the discussion yesterday around federal Bill C-48, the northern tanker moratorium, I am open to the possibility that I may not be correct. That number definitely does stick with me, but I’m open to the possibility that that is not correct.

My question is that it wasn’t around the effectiveness; it was around whether in fact the program has been compared to our neighbouring jurisdictions to assess what they’re doing and if we’re doing as well as or better than they are.

Hon. Adrian Dix: On a per-litre basis…. I got my help from the Minister of Jobs and Economic Growth. He may not appear to be helping me, but he is, in his own way.

The per-litre cost of the act is expected to be 0.015 cents per litre. That’s what it is. I mean, I think what was given him was that the numbers seven and four were involved per fill-up. So if the average fill-up is 50 times the 0.015, you get closer to 0.77, but that’s, again, infinitesimal per litre, right? I think that was probably the number he had. So his recollection was correct.

This approach that B.C. has taken, I think other jurisdictions may or may not take, and the before-and-after comparison is positive. I think it reflects the importance of what we’re doing here but also doesn’t attempt what I call regulatory overreach.

So having a commission which has been reducing its costs both for interveners and for the regulated companies over the last number of years and operating more efficiently take on the responsibility for this, rather than my going to Treasury Board every year and having them determine the rate, is important.

I just say that we’re having a general discussion. There are three clauses here, but I think we just continue our work over the three clauses. This is clause 4, but we don’t need to be specific about that. We just continue our work and debate, really, all three together.

Larry Neufeld: Thank you to the minister for that. I fully admit he’s absolutely correct, as memory is coming back to me after a very, very long day. It was in fact 74 cents per fill-up. I do recall that.

Hon. Adrian Dix: It was 0.74 cents per fill-up.

Larry Neufeld: Per fill-up? Holy cow. I need to…. Okay, I’m going to stop quoting numbers that aren’t in front of me. I’m going to stop that right now, yes.

All right. Last question on this clause for me is under the “fee or other charge.” Does that include levies, assessments, administrative penalties, or is it strictly just a cost recovery fee for the services of the BCUC?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The fee is just for cost recovery.

Just to be specific, it’s 0.015 cents per litre. So it’s not a dollar.… You know, you would say 0.74 cents per fill-up — not 74 but 0.74. This a fraction of one cent we’re talking about.

Humbly, you know, I used to be the Minister of Health. We had bigger budgets. But this is more modest than that.

Clause 4 approved.

On clause 5.

[5:25 p.m.]

Larry Neufeld: Now that I’ve eaten my humble pie, I will move on to clause 5. That’s something we didn’t delve into in clause 4. There is a mechanism that does account for financial penalties. Has that been utilized in the past?

Hon. Adrian Dix: No.

Larry Neufeld: Why?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Because the reporting entities have all complied with the act.

Larry Neufeld: Has non-payment been an issue with respect to the act in the past?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The answer is no because this is a non-payment of fees, and previously the government was providing the money for this. The government provided the money, and we’re replacing that. The purpose of this is to replace that with the fees, so that would be prospective but not retrospective.

Larry Neufeld: Is a supplier able to challenge the amount that is assessed to them before it moves to a fining process?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The process is referred to the BCUC under the regulations.

The purpose of clause 5 is to establish consequences for later non-payment of fees and creates an enforceable mechanism for the payment of fees, which is fairly standard in these things. This supports compliance and strengthens the administrator’s ability to control the administration costs of pursuing fees from people at the BCUC.

That process would be applied by the BCUC. We’re enabling our independent regulator to do that. Here we’re just giving them the ability to recover fees and to apply late payments, should that be required. They will be assessing the process, as they already are, I think, essentially, to make sure that that’s done appropriately.

Up to now that hasn’t been required. The reason we do this is we changed the model from government pays, meaning taxpayers pay, to the regulated industry pays. We haven’t needed it until now.

Larry Neufeld: The next question I would have for the minister is: with respect to the late payments, how is the interest rate assessed?

Hon. Adrian Dix: That process will be developed by regulations enabling it. We’re consulting with the commission right now on how that would be carried out.

Jeremy Valeriote: The 21.2(2) ends with: “Upon filing, the certificate has the same force and effect, and all proceedings may be taken on it, as if it were a judgment of the court with which it is filed.”

We spent the whole morning in a dubiously useful debate about numeracy and economic literacy. I feel like I need a law degree, sometimes, in this job.

Can the minister speak to the intent of this clause, and does it in any way reduce the right to appeal through the court system?

Hon. Adrian Dix: No.

I would also find it irritating if 50 percent of my caucus was a lawyer.

Jeremy Valeriote: For the record, I’m interpreting the minister’s answer as there’s no loss of right to appeal.

For the record, I do not find it annoying.

[5:30 p.m.]

Larry Neufeld: I’d like to publicly apologize to my colleague. I did skip over him on clause 4. He did have a question, and I apologize to him for missing that.

Interjection.

Larry Neufeld: Well, then I apologize for not paying attention to my colleague to the left. I was very focused on….

Interjection.

Larry Neufeld: Yes. Too much focus, yes, it is.

The question I would have is around the certificates. Will these certificates be made public?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Court filings are a public record.

Larry Neufeld: Before I do it a second time, my colleague did, in fact, provide me with a question. Who specifically is expected to bear the cost of fees and penalties under this clause, and can the minister confirm whether transportation-related operators could be impacted?

Hon. Adrian Dix: In our answers to the questions on clause 4, there are about 40 fuel wholesalers who pay the cost of the commission’s transparency activities. That’s a change from taxpayers paying for it, essentially, and this is fairly standard for the BCUC in dealing with regulated industries.

In this case, the price isn’t regulated, but they’re seeking transparency, so we’re asking the fuel wholesalers to pay the cost of the commission. That’s who’s responsible for the cost of the commission and for the fees that are found here.

Clause 5 approved.

On clause 6.

Larry Neufeld: To avoid any difficulty with skipping my colleague again, I will ask his question first. Why is retroactive authority necessary in this clause, and how does the minister justify the uncertainty this creates for businesses in the transportation and fuel supply sector?

Hon. Adrian Dix: It’s not for previous fiscal years, which would be the concern. It’s for the fiscal year that the fee applies to. Say, for example, the fee was set in June for the April 1 to March 31 year. It would be retroactive to April 1.

Jeremy Valeriote: I understand the intention is to cover the approximately $938,000 of costs. For this clause, is the intention for this fee to go up indexed to inflation each year, or will it be set and adjusted as needed by regulation?

Hon. Adrian Dix: The fees will be determined by the commission, based on their expected cost. That’s similar to other things.

We had this discussion earlier. For example, it’s sort of the same principle in the case of the question the member asked during estimates, where fees went down in one year because the expected cost of regulation at that point in the project would be less.

In this case, the commission gets to set the fee based on their costs, but what they’ve been doing is quite an efficient regulation of the system. I suspect — I don’t know this — Dr. Jaccard would be prepared to go on at length about how that’s happened. He certainly briefed me on it. We feel the commission is doing an excellent job in value for money for the public.

Jeremy Valeriote: Subsection 2.1(a)(iii) allows for exemptions from payment of fees. Can the minister provide an example of in what situations an exemption might be granted, please?

[5:35 p.m.]

Hon. Adrian Dix: An exemption might be provided in the case of a very small supplier to whom the fee would be applied. That gives the commission some flexibility in the application of its fees, and that’s why it’s in place.

Larry Neufeld: I do have a question that popped out at me when I read it. “Any factor the administrator considers appropriate” — can the minister explained what that means?

Hon. Adrian Dix: It allows the commission to set the fees based on appropriate factors — for example, the size of the wholesaler, the number of stations that are owned or served, etc.

It allows the commission, as it’s setting the fees, to address the circumstances it sees and the costs it understands and the application of those costs to different retailers, to make a judgment in its process about what the appropriate levy of fees is. They will consider a number of factors and then make a decision as to how to share amongst the wholesalers, in this case, the money required.

Larry Neufeld: Again, the minister pre-empted one or two of my questions, which is great. I will try to combine this and move it ahead a little more quickly.

With respect to the role or the ability of the administrator, are they able to consider market share and to consider geography in their decisions?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Yes, and the initial fee will also be set.

The money has gone forward this year from the Lieutenant Governor in Council, but there’s going to be a public process in the establishment of the fees, so we’ll also be able to hear from wholesalers in that process. That’s the way the commission typically operates across issues, and that’s how they’ll be operating in this case. They will be determining the fee based on that public process, establishing the fee, so there’ll be an opportunity to look at those various factors.

In that previous question he had…. It allows the commission, when they say it sounds ambiguous, to apply the factors that they see fit. But those are the kinds of factors that they might well see fit, after the public hearing they have to get input from those paying the fees themselves.

Larry Neufeld: Is the administrator able to exempt certain responsible persons in its entirety?

Hon. Adrian Dix: That’s the purpose there, which is to potentially exempt…. Say if, through the process, the commission were to decide that the fee wouldn’t be applied to a very small wholesaler, resaler, they would have the opportunity to exempt them, yes.

Larry Neufeld: The minister spoke of…. Well, actually, I’ll just ask the question without trying to put words in anyone’s mouth. My question is: what criteria will guide exemptions?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, here we’re talking about the application of fees. BCUC will have the authority to do that. There’s regulation-making authority that they’ll have, and they’re going to have a public process around the development of those fees. They’re going to hear from people, and they’re going to make a decision about their application. So that’s the process.

Larry Neufeld: Sorry, my question was actually around what criteria will guide the exemptions.

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, the criteria will be set in the process I described.

[5:40 p.m.]

The commission will have a point of view on that. They may put it out there. They’ll have a public hearing, which isn’t necessarily a long process but will give those that will be responsible for paying the fees the opportunity to have their voice heard.

Then they’ll set the criteria based on what they’ve heard and the evidence that they’ve developed and the system they develop.

Larry Neufeld: Moving along here. Can affected parties cross-examine or have other recourse?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, they’ll have the opportunity as interveners to make their case on the issue. I’m not sure who in this case, in the development of the fees, the interveners would cross-examine. It feels like a process that would cost more than $938,000, but I’m not sure.

In any event, people will have the opportunity to intervene and be heard in the process by the commission, engage with the commission. I think that’s a good way of establishing the criteria, which is that we give the commission the authority to pay for its responsibilities under the fuel price transition act. They have a hearing to determine how that fee structure will be created, and they hear from people on it. I think that’s a good public process.

Larry Neufeld: What process or what mechanism prevents the administrator from over-recovering fees?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, this is a very transparent process, so if there were to be over-recovery of fees, one of two things would happen. One, money would be returned, or two, the over-recovery would be applied to the next year.

Larry Neufeld: My question was, actually: what prevents it from happening in the first place? Which mechanism is in place to prevent it from happening?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Like any budget, the commission would set out a budget to say…. Let’s just use the term $938,000 for the sake of argument. It’s going to cost us $938,000. How do we know that? It’s roughly what it’s cost in the past, and we did add inflation to that, and they set a number.

You don’t know, at the beginning of the fiscal year in any business or government thing, exactly how much money you’re going to determine. You know what your budget is, and you want to come in within that.

If, for example, the commission over…. It would manage its budget within the fees that it had set out. If, for some reason, there was an overage in all of that, the commission has two easy routes. One is to return some of the money. Two would be to…. Say it was $30,000. It would be $30,000 down the road the following year. That would, obviously, have an impact on it the following year.

But this is work the commission’s been doing now for seven years. They have a pretty good idea of where they are. If you’re setting a budget at the beginning of the year for your constituency office, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be exactly right. If you’ve in some way overbilled, there are those ways to dealing with it.

In this case, the commission could either carry forward and have less fees the following year, smaller fees, or simply return the money.

Clause 6 approved.

On clause 7.

Larry Neufeld: This next one is…. It’s apt that I have a colleague sitting beside me from another party. We don’t always necessarily agree on everything, but that’s okay.

I will start with the fact that I was listening as he spoke in the chamber. Imagine that, eh? I’d like to start with a little bit of a preamble on this. I will give credit where credit is due. The member made a conversation around the zero-emission vehicles in Norway. I wasn’t familiar. It sounded reasonable, and I’m a reasonable guy.

[5:45 p.m.]

I love research, so I researched it. I think it’s apt to these next clauses that I do tell this story. The conversation was around the use of ZEV vehicles in the cold. The example of Norway, again, on its surface, made sense.

There are some significant differences between northeast British Columbia and Norway. They have a very dense transportation network, and they have the most dense population of fast-chargers on the planet. The reason why I think that’s important to comment on before we get into this clause is that, again, using that as the example, 50 to 100 kilometres is the spacing for high-speed chargers in Norway.

I would suggest that the Alaska Highway, which I live at the beginning of, is 2,232 kilometres long. I would wonder how many…. Well, I know how many chargers we would need at that range, and they don’t exist.

So with respect to clause 7, I realize…. That was not meant as a stab. That was not meant as anything other than just to set the tone of where these questions will be going.

My question to the minister is — and, I believe, the minister actually has spoken to most of this question publicly — why is the government moving, with statutory targets, from multiple to a single target?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Here, on clause 7, I think the purpose of this is, I’d say, threefold.

One, the 75 percent target, which we see here in this legislation, replaces a number of targets: the 90 percent by 2030, the 100 percent by 2035.

It has a number of purposes here. One is to make the targets more consistent with where we are. In other words, to put it in legislation, the longer-term target makes sense. To put it in regulation, shorter-term targets are more flexible and reflect the situations that we see.

For example, last January and February, people stopped buying Teslas in B.C. for a period of time, for reasons that are kind of extraneous to the legislation but were important to them. There was concern about the owner of Tesla, Mr. Musk, so people made decisions that one of the most popular makes of EVs, they weren’t going to purchase them at the moment. In fact, some people started removing the Tesla insignias from their cars, and so on, as the member will know.

What we have here is the removal of the ’26 and ’30 targets from the legislation, targets which we’re not going to meet and we couldn’t reasonably meet at the moment. My view of it, and this is hard to do sometimes, is to say: “Well, I think targets should be things you should meet.”

The good news is that we’ve just had a month, March of 2026, which is the best March we’ve ever had for the sale of EVs. It was 25.2 percent, which is a significant increase over what we saw last year.

If you look over a period of time, you’ll see that B.C. is leading Canada, No. 1. When you’re No. 1 and you’re not meeting your targets, then you need to recognize and celebrate the success you’re having.

Success in what ways? Good for the economy. We produce electricity. As we’ve discussed in the previous sections, we don’t really produce much gasoline here, much oil here. We’re natural gas people, but we don’t produce that. That’s a significant economic benefit to the province. It’s better for us to use things we produce here and that create wealth here.

[5:50 p.m.]

Two, the impact on human health is profound. We have 229,000 EVs on the road right now. The effect on human health is positive, and it’s not a small thing if the air you breathe is cleaner. That’s often an urban question. I agree with the member.

I think that’s part of the point the member was making — that the EV market is much more a car market than a truck market, a pickup truck market. It just is right now. The Interior market, not just in his region but everywhere, is much more a truck market.

The person who told me all about that once, believe it or not, was Jim Pattison. Anyway, he’s an expert on the sale of cars and trucks of all kinds in British Columbia, for sure. He laid out the differences between different people in this, and it was very, very compelling.

What we’re doing here is saying that we should be more flexible in the way that we deal with this. The purpose of having EV targets and everything includes making sure that people in B.C. can buy EVs that they want to. This is not a small question. We’ve had periods not that long ago where you would have a long wait time to even purchase an EV in B.C. That’s not the case in the immediate moment, and there are more opportunities now.

I was just at the car show in Vancouver, and there are 50 different models of EVs. That hasn’t always been the case. The federal government is expanding access to EVs in Canada and the kinds of EVs that come in, especially Chinese EVs, which are, in terms of range and cost anyway, recognized as competitive EVs in the world. Let’s put it that way.

We’re hopeful that they’ll take similar action in non-tariff barriers that will allow more European EVs in the province as well. We want to make sure, if there are EVs in Canada, that British Columbians, who obviously want to buy EVs more than anyone else, have access to them and we get all the benefits that we see from EVs.

The member is right in terms of charging stations. We have between 8,000 and 9,000 public charging stations now and a significant program to expand private charging stations. Most charging takes place at private charging stations. We’re going to meet our target of 10,000 by 2030.

We have ambitions to do even better work through B.C. Hydro to make sure that people have access to charging. That question of range anxiety — also, as the member suggests, in parts of the province, just of range, not range anxiety — is a central question.

How do we deal with this question? The federal government, using tailpipe rules — we’ve used these before in B.C. to apply, in the 1990s, for example, California tailpipe standards here that were stronger than federal tailpipe standards at the time — has said their target for 2035 is 75 percent. I think that provides a useful guidance of where our target should be.

The member might legitimately argue, because we’re also No. 1 in EVs, No. 1 in hybrids in B.C…. When people talk about those two subjects, the ones that are declining are internal combustion engine cars. If you take EVs and hybrids together, they are well over 40 percent now of the market. So it’s those cars that are declining.

In fact, the market is dramatically transforming. Ensuring that people have access…. It does tell us…. When you use the tailpipe measure, you probably include a little portion of the hybrids there. I don’t think hybrids need any help. We’re leading the country now without help in that case, so we don’t need to do that.

Those are some of the balancing considerations of why we removed the 90, the 100 percent, which I think a lot of people were fixated on, for 2035. It meant you were effectively banning ICE cars when you were doing that, like explicitly banning ICE cars and also effectively banning hybrids, if you said it had to be 100 percent EVs at the time.

We’ve changed that to…. Our aspirational goal, therefore, will be 75 percent by 2035. Then how you get there inevitably doesn’t go in a straight line and is a more useful measure to put in regulation.

We’re excited about the possibilities for EVs here. We’re No. 1 in Canada. We’re building strength. It’s good for everyone that we have them. It may be that one day we can produce them here. We’ll see what happens. But there’s a real opportunity for us.

[5:55 p.m.]

So we’re leaving the 2035 target in law, effectively, with these provisions. We’re taking the others and putting them in regulation, reflecting what we see in the marketplace, which is…. If you look at ’23, it was about 23.8 percent, and ’24 is about 23.6 percent. There are people behind me who are saying, “Oh, he’s off by 0.1 percent,” but effectively that’s what it is.

It was about 18 percent last year, and we’re now back up to plus 25 percent because of the specific circumstances of last year. So you can see how the regulatory mechanism is better than us predicting here in the Legislature what ’26 should be, ’27 should be, ’28 should be and ’29 should be. Having the regulatory mechanism makes more sense, and that’s why we’re going that route with the aspirational goal of getting the 75 percent there.

If you look at jurisdictions around the world, you see the growth of EVs growing by 20 to 25 percent a year in the world. The American government has taken a different view on that. But even there, the value and the cost value of EVs is there for people. Obviously, it’s value for emissions, for the environment and for human health, importantly — I’m going to star this: for human health — are significant.

Larry Neufeld: A couple of things.

In an attempt to repair any potential damage to the relationship with my colleague who has had to get offline…. The minister has already answered this question, but I’m going to put it on the record regardless, just so he can hear that I did ask it.

What specifically changed that caused the government to move away from a 100 percent zero-emission vehicle target to a lower target? Again, you’ve already mentioned it, so I apologize for that.

What I would add is…. The minister mentioned hybrids. Canada currently produces two of the best-selling hybrids in the country. With the high proportion within this bill of vehicle mandates, is that not forcing British Columbians to purchase imported vehicles?

Hon. Adrian Dix: Well, I don’t think we would necessarily imagine what the vehicle market would be in 2026 and 2016. This is a changing and dynamic market. Right now that wouldn’t be the case, no. Quite the contrary, I would say. What the production in North America of EVs will be in 2035 will be a changing question. But I would say that British Columbians like EVs. We’re No. 1. British Columbians like hybrids. We’re No. 1.

The member asked why we’ve moved from 100 percent. Well, I think that it creates an unnecessary debate to say you’re banning ICE vehicles in 2035. I understand the reason it was put in place, and it was put in place by the government. But I think that reflects a change in view. I think that to say it should be 90 percent EVs by 2030, when 20 percent of the market is now hybrids and another 56 percent are ICE cars in the most recent month….

Again, we weren’t going to get there, and I don’t think that’s helpful. It creates a false debate. It says to people who are concerned about that that it’s unrealistic and unreasonable. This is both realistic and reasonable, but it’s also reflecting the view of British Columbians. They want these cars. We want to have access to them.

When the federal government does a rebate program, we want British Columbians to get the majority of that rebate program or at least the largest share possible, and we have. About a quarter of federal rebates in their previous program went to British Columbians. It’s one of those areas, and there aren’t many of them — certainly not ferries, certainly not shipbuilding — where we get our fair share. Well, British Columbia consumers got double their fair share of EV rebates because of the commitment to EVs here. That’s why we’re doing it.

I’ll just be the first to acknowledge that going from 100 to 75 is changing the law. But it’s my view that the law should be something that we, with an effort, should attain. The 26 percent that we’re looking at in 2027 — I think we’re going to get there, and I think that’s good news. That’s what targets are for. They’re to be achieved and maintained.

With that pithy and thoughtful response to your second question in half an hour, I’m going to 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 6:00 p.m.

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