Second Session, 42nd Parliament

(2021) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 95

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Orders of the Day

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Finance (continued)

Hon. S. Robinson

M. Bernier

K. Kirkpatrick

B. Stewart

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Office of the Premier

Hon. J. Horgan

S. Bond

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Health (continued)

R. Merrifield

Hon. A. Dix

S. Bond

D. Davies

J. Tegart

M. Bernier

M. Morris

J. Rustad

J. Sturdy

C. Oakes

Proceedings in the Birch Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (continued)

Hon. R. Fleming

M. Lee

J. Sturdy

A. Olsen

S. Furstenau

P. Milobar

D. Clovechok

TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2021

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call the continued estimates for the Ministry of

Finance.

In the Douglas Fir Room,

Section A, I call the continued estimates for the

Ministry of Health.

In

Section C, the Birch Room, I call the continued est­imates for

the Ministry of Transportation.

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

FINANCE

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section B); N. Letnick in the

chair.

The committee met at 1:33 p.m.

On Vote 26: ministry operations, $307,466,000

(continued) .

Hon. S. Robinson: The member had asked a question just before we broke for lunch.

Before I get to my response, I just want to correct something on the

record that I mentioned yesterday. I was talking about the PST rebate

and didn’t read out the full sentence. I think it actually changes the

context. I had said that $19 million was the eligible amount approved.

That was the eligible amount on the machinery, on the purchases that

were approved.

[1:35 p.m.]

I thought I would just qualify that — that the total amo­unt

of the rebate that was approved was $1.347 million. I wanted to make

sure that there was no misunderstanding of what it was that I was

talking about. I wanted to make sure that that was clear.

Now, on to the member’s question that he asked before we broke for

lunch. I want to make sure it’s…. It’s always hard to keep track. There

were so many questions. They were good questions. He had asked about the

annual debt-servicing payments for ’21-22, if I recall, and were there

to be a downgrade, what the impact would be.

First, I want to acknowledge that we entered the pandemic in a

very strong fiscal position. We were strong financially, with a stable,

diverse economy, with a tremendous asset, I think, which is the people

of British Columbia. That’s been going on for years. It’s not unique to

our government — the previous government as well. That’s a testament to

the people that call British Columbia home. We expect that we’ll

continue to do the good work of taking care of our families, building up

this province, making sure that our communities meet the needs of our

families, and that good work will continue as part of

recovery.

The annual debt-servicing payments for ’21-22 are $2.9 billion. I

believe it’s in the budget document, and I can get the page number for

the member if he would like. In our understanding, a downgrade, we

estimate, would be five basis points. I also think it’s important, given

the context of the pandemic, that we still remain the lowest-cost

borrower in the country, which I think speaks to the health,

historically, of our economy, the diversification of our economy and the

hard work of British Columbians.

I’m pleased to tell the member that we’ve been well

re­ceived in capital markets, in terms of conversations. Since

we’ve released the budget and after Moody’s announcement of our triple-A

credit rating holding steady, we continue to be very well

received.

M. Bernier: Thank you to the minister for the answer. With the discussion we

had, also just before lunch, around the baseline credit assessment

downgrade, did that have any material impact at all to our

debt-servicing costs?

Hon. S. Robinson: No.

M. Bernier: That was a very succinct answer.

I’m sure it had some impact but obviously nothing mat­erial,

as I phrased it in my question. I appreciate the ans­wer from the

minister. I should also, just for a heads-up, let the minister know that

probably in an hour or so I’ll have one or two colleagues come in and

ask questions. For the most part, I’ll be the leader of the three-ring

circus for the afternoon.

I just want to change gears a little bit around the public

service. A question, maybe, to the minister. Maybe I’ll put something on

the record first of all, and she can quantify this for me. Since 2017,

the public service has grown by over 100,000 employees, according to the

data in budget documents that we have here in government — 104,124, a 27

percent increase that we’ve seen in hiring in the public service over

the last four, 4½ years.

Is the minister able to tell me — to this year, then, with 100,000

new employees — what the increase is to the budget, just for payroll for

the public service, since 2017? I don’t need to have each year, just the

total increase compared to the 2017 budget to now and into the 2021-22

budget. With 100,000 new employees, what was the increase?

[1:40 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I just want to get clarification from the member. He talked about

the public service. I’m wondering if he was meaning the public sector,

because the number that he’s using speaks more to public sector than it

does to the public service.

Public service is, really, folks that keep government running. But

the public sector is teachers and doctors and paramedics, etc., a much

broader perspective. It requires, first of all, different staff. It

requires trying to add up a different set of numbers, so I want to get

some clarification from the member.

M. Bernier: That’s fair. I appreciate that. Going off the table here that I

have in front of me from the documents, this is everything. It says

public service hiring, but we’re talking about health, education, public

service, universities, Crowns, colleges and community social services.

On this table that I have, it’s a 27 percent increase of 104,000 people

that have been hired over the last five years.

To the question the minister had, it’s a little broader, maybe,

than the way I explained it at first. That, hopefully, will give her and

the people in her head that speak to her a little bit more guidance on

what kind of information I’m looking for.

[1:45 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I’m grateful for the clarification. It has a different meaning,

and that’s really helpful.

Certainly, we have seen an increase in staffing for health.

Certainly the pandemic hiring of contact tracers, for ex­ample,

and making sure that we have folks to do vaccinations has increased

significantly. To go back from 2017, I’m actually not able to do that

today because staff just haven’t pulled up all of those numbers, but I

can say over the last couple of years, if that’s helpful to the member,

what that looks like.

We’ve had an increase in terms of head count — about a 29,000

increase in head count for health. That’s about pandemic response

initiatives. It’s also about the cancer plan and the surgical plan. We

have been accelerating surgeries significantly. It’s people that do

surgeries, very talented people. It’s making sure that we have folks to

make sure that for those who need hips, knees and eyes, and heart

surgeries and cancer surgeries, all of that can happen.

The Hospital at Home program and the rural and re­mote

strategy. These are direct service delivery programs to people here in

British Columbia who need these services. That’s been a very significant

increase.

The K-12 public education. We have seen an increase in teachers

from 45,000 to nearly 48,000 over the last couple of years. Support

staff have increased from 31,000 to about 38,000. We needed additional,

certainly, teaching staff. The population we’re seeing in our K-12

system is growing, and that’s a good thing. It means that the rest of us

can, at some point, retire. That is also, I think, a good thing, because

they’ll be the next well-educated generation to take over for

us.

The Crown corporations. There has been a slight in­crease

over two years — 22,500 to 26,000. These are elements of making sure

that we are continuing, again, to deliver services to British

Columbians. I think about B.C. Housing and the amount of work and the

volume of work they’ve been doing — building the housing, making sure

that we can address homelessness, making sure that we can have housing

for women fleeing violence. All of that, again, takes people.

Other community services. We’ve seen an increase of 6,300. Again,

that’s about taking care of folks who are homeless, making sure that

they have their needs met, be­cause we know what happens when you

don’t have these services. Wait-lists continue to grow. Having large

class­room sizes is certainly not acceptable. Again, it’s making

sure that we have supports for some of the most vulnerable people in our

communities.

We’ve certainly seen an increase in post-secondary

in­stitutions — an additional 3,200 more employees there, again,

educating the next generation. We know that you need to have a skill set

in order to participate in the economy, in order to drive innovation, in

order to drive recovery. Making sure that there are teachers for the

next generation is absolutely critical.

The last thing I want to say about that is that when we look at

seniors care, I think the pandemic has really demonstrated what happens

when you don’t hire people to care for our seniors. Just in question

period today, we heard from the Minister of Health and the opposition

how important it is to have paramedics and what the impact is if you

don’t. So we’ve been hiring more paramedics so that we can have a

response.

When you think about seniors and care aides and the work that they

do…. It’s intimate work caring for an elderly person, making sure that

they have the dignity, that they can access the toilet, that they can

have a bath, that they can age with grace. That’s work that is at the

bedside, and we saw what happens when you don’t have enough people doing

this important work.

Again, I think about the kind of care that my grandparents have

received and my mom. Making sure that they had good bedside support was

absolutely critical. I’m for­ever grateful for the work that they

do.

[1:50 p.m.]

M. Bernier: First of all, I thank the minister for that information. I’ll

apologize. That was not quite where my question was going, and it could

completely be my fault, the way I articulated it. My thought was more

around not necessarily where those people were hired, but I will

acknowledge that that was good information. But it’s the impact to the

taxpayers. That’s where I was going.

On the PSA website, if I’m reading it correctly — I just pulled it

up here — compensation is now at about $37 billion for the areas that

the minister actually just acknowledged. The point that I was just

trying to understand was in the last five years, since 2017, it’s been

an increase of 104,000 people, according to the PSA. So what was the

impact to the budget, I guess, is what I’m saying? So what did we pay in

2017 for the public sector? Now we’re paying $37 million. So I’m just

curious on what that increase was over the five years, because I think

that is significant.

I don’t want to take away from the minister’s point of where

government makes decisions on hiring into different areas, but I think

that it is an expectation, though, from the public to know, okay, what’s

that costing them as taxpayers? So what’s the increase in that five

years in dollars? Not in people, in dollars, if I can, in this time, to

bring us now to $37 billion? What was it in 2017?

Hon. S. Robinson: Well, I was listening to the member’s choice of words: what is the

impact to the taxpayer? And I was thinking: “Well, we’re all taxpayers.”

The real impact is that you get your knees done when they need to get

done. You get your surgical care when you need to get your surgical

care. Your elderly parent or grandparent gets the care that they need,

with dignity. And if you should be needing an ambulance, you’d be able

to get one.

I think that we always need to tie the taxes that we pay to the

services that we receive. It’s not that it just goes into some pot and

then just disappears. It is about services. I think it’s really

important. And I will always tie it — I think that we should all tie it

— to what it means. What’s the benefit? If it means that my kids are

going to be educated, if it means that they’re going to get….

Let me talk about grandchildren, should I ever get them. I like to

talk about the fantasy I have about grandchildren one day. That they’ll

get health care right from the get-go, whatever their needs are. My kids

will be able to access early learning and child care so that they can

continue in their careers. That my future grandchildren, should I be so

lucky to have them, will be well-educated in a public education system

and be able to go on to university or trades or whatever their little

hearts desire and be well-educated. That they will be able to

participate in the economy, because their services and their highways

and their health care and their education are well supported.

That, for me and my husband as we age with dignity surrounded by

all of our grandchildren, should I be so lucky to have them — my son is

probably squirming right now — then I, too, will get the care that I

will need as I age. I think that that’s what we all hope for.

We hope

for aging with grace and dignity and supports. We hope that we won’t

need much, but I think the evidence is clear that we will at some point

need something. So I think we need to recognize that we are paying for

services. As a government, that has been our commitment: to make sure

that the services are there for people when they need them.

[1:55 p.m.]

With that, I don’t have the numbers going back to 2017. I do have

for the last two fiscal years, and I hope this will be helpful to the

member.

Total compensation across all sectors has increased by about $6½

billion, and a net change of nearly $3.8 billion is tied to increased

resources required for the pandemic, as well as a negotiated increase to

the sustainable services negotiating mandate within the health sector.

That’s where the change has been.

Again, before I take my place and wait for the member’s next

question, I do think it’s absolutely critical that we recognize it is

public sector awareness week, I guess, and acknowledge the front-line

work that we have seen time and time again. Whether it’s folks working

with people who are struggling with addictions and people who are caring

for our children in our schools. Whether it’s the janitors, the cleaners

that have been working so hard in all of our public institutions to make

sure that we all can stay safe. I think that’s really worthy of

acknowledgment, and they’re part of this, right? Their services — their

salaries are in this discussion right now.

The taxpayers are getting value for money. They’re getting

extraordinary health care. Extraordinary education systems.

Opportunities for early learning for their children. Aging with dignity

for their parents. I think that’s what’s really important here to the

taxpayers.

M. Bernier: I just quickly looked on my phone, actually, while the minister

was giving that answer. Since 2017, it’s $10 billion, approximately. I

just thought I’d mention that. I think that’s important.

I don’t want to take away from anything the minister has

acknowledged. Governments make choices. Government’s job — and we

acknowledged this, I think, collectively, yesterday — is to bring in

revenue to expend it out to help people in different ways. That is the

role, frankly, of why governments mostly exist. It’s to be those

decision-makers of how to move society forward in the best way possible.

Different groups make different decisions, based on what they think

those priorities are.

This government has chosen to increase the public sector by around

100,000 people so far in their time, and I do also want to acknowledge

public sector week. This is not about the work — and I would agree with

the minister, the great work — that a lot of our public sector does. I

think it’s also important, especially as the Finance Minister, to juggle

the fact that there’s the work that’s being done by the public sector,

but that does come at a cost to the people of British

Columbia.

I’m quickly looking it up, and the minister can correct me if I’m

wrong. When I just looked at my phone here, it’s around $10 billion of

an increase. If we’re at $37 billion now, that is a 27 percent — or

whatever that would work out to — increase, which pretty well mirrors

the increase of the staff complement that we have.

It begs the question — projections. That’s quite a substantial

growth over just four years. Does the minister feel in her projections,

as long as she’s Finance Minister…? I’m thinking that she hopes that’s

for quite some time. But does she see the projection is that we’re going

to continue on this train of hiring tens of thousands? We have 40,000

this year. Is that going to continue on a year-to-year basis? Do we

figure that we’re at a complement that the government is now satisfied

with? I mean, obviously, give or take. You’ve got some movement. I’m not

naive in that aspect.

It’s really around: where does the government then see their

projections going for hiring, and how is that going to be paid

for?

[2:00 p.m.]

If we are $10 billion further up in costs to the taxpayers — don’t

want to get in the debate, necessarily, of the services that they’re

getting for it, as the minister already alluded to in her comments — how

are we paying for that? What tax increases, what revenue sources does

the government see in the short term to pay for this large growth in the

public sector? Do they see that happening year over year, or are we

going to be slowing down post-COVID?

Hon. S. Robinson: I do need to remind the member that the cost increases that you

saw in the early parts of 2017, 2018 until 2019 were part of the 2014

wage mandate that, recall, his government had negotiated. A lot of those

increases were negotiated before we even came into government. So that

increase was not necessarily a decision of this government. I think that

that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at the total

increases. In fact, that becomes the largest impact, the largest driver

in terms of increases in wages.

Also, the member speaks to the cost of increasing services. There

is also significant cost to not increasing services. To not…. I always

think about, well, what does it cost to wait in pain to have some

medical procedure done? What is the cost, and how do we measure that? Is

it just lost time from work? Lost income because you can’t work? What is

the impact to the family? What is the impact for suffering? So I think

about that, and I don’t know how to put a number on that.

I think about not having a response to homelessness. We’ve

certainly seen, and we’ve talked about it in this House, about the

impacts to that and what it means. What it means to health care costs,

what it means in the end, or criminal justice costs. But still, the

costs to communities and the cost to dignity. I think there are also

costs to not doing something.

We certainly saw that in the pandemic. The costs were people’s

lives by not having sufficient bodies taking care of seniors. It was so

challenging that because of historical decisions, people who were doing

the front-line care for seniors were working two and three jobs. That

was making the pandemic significantly challenging to get control over

until we had the single-site order brought in.

[2:05 p.m.]

This was not the fault of the people trying to feed their

families. It was because we didn’t set up a service. We did not have a

service established that would allow them to do an honest day’s work, a

good day’s work, and still be able to feed their families. So this means

having to make sure that we have enough bodies to do that important work

that we value. I’m not suggesting that the member doesn’t value those

services. But we also have an obligation to make sure that they work

well and that they work well for people.

Now, the member did ask about what the future might look like. We

have our three-year fiscal plan. We’ve also had balanced budgets before

COVID. We’re a government that’s committed to returning to balance. The

path to balance will certainly be evident when we bring in Budget 2022.

They’ll be able to see what that looks like and how we’re going to

continue to deliver the services that British Columbians deserve — as

well as a balanced-budget path that I think British Columbians deserve.

I think you can do both.

M. Bernier: I know right now the minister has not been able to give a lot of

timelines, I guess I’d say, around the balanced budgets, and I respect

that. I’ll maybe talk to her a little bit further about that when we

have time.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: The minister says we have time. But unfortunately, with everything

being delayed the way it was, the estimates have been compressed so much

that we don’t actually have as much time as we normally used to for

canvassing in most ministries. We’re trying to make the best of that

time on behalf of the people of British Columbia as an opposition

representing them as well.

Again, I acknowledge the minister’s points that she’s making about

trying to help people. I just don’t know if she’s recognizing the point

that I’m trying to raise. We always try to do what we can to help

people. But there is the acknowledgment that that always comes at a

cost. Everybody always has different ideas.

I think the minister talked about waiting for knee surgery. Well,

I know people up in my region wait 18 mon­ths as it is. That

hasn’t changed. They used to wait 18 months. They still wait 18 months.

But we’ve increased the budget a lot and hired a lot more people in the

health sector. So some would say they’re not getting bang for their

buck. Other people would say things are doing just fine. That’s not

really the debate for Finance estimates. That can be in the specific

estimates. I know Health estimates are going on right now, and there are

probably questions around that.

It’s really around the quality and what you are getting for the

dollars, for the tax dollars that people spend. My point that I’m trying

to just myself articulate for the record is for different reasons, as

the minister said some. We’ve had approximately a $10 billion increase

over the last five years — a 25 percent, almost, increase in revenues

that is needed to pay for public sector workers for the work that

they’re doing.

Again, this is not about taking away or debating the work that

they do. I’m canvassing from a financial standpoint to the Minister of

Finance around the impacts that that has on the work that the Minister

of Finance has to do, because I, too, sooner rather than later, would

like to see balanced budgets. I believe the minister when she says she

would like to see the same thing. That, too, comes with choices, though.

That, too, comes with: how are we going to continue paying for growth in

the province? Somebody has to pay for that.

There are two ways of doing this. Either the government is going

to have to make tough decisions and reduce the public sector that

they’ve hired, or they’re going to have to come up with a revenue stream

to pay for it.

My question is: what does the government…? What does the minister

see that she is going to have to do, whe­ther that’s going to be…?

Are there going to be tax increases? I might talk about the carbon tax

later. We know that that’s going to be a huge revenue driver, if the

government continues to increase on the path that they have. We’ve got

the property transfer tax, which is one of the largest revenue sources

right now, in a lot of ways, for the government on an increased side of

things, and we can debate that if we so choose.

[2:10 p.m.]

I’m just curious. From the minister’s standpoint as the person

responsible to try to get us to a balanced budget, how does she see that

happening in a realistic form if we continue on the path of expenditures

with no plan in place yet that really is determinant on a revenue source

to pay for it?

Hon. S. Robinson: You know, I’m listening to the member’s question, and I’m

thinking: would we be in such a good position here in British Columbia

at this place in time, in this moment, if we hadn’t made those

investments in health care, for example, and in our schools, in

education? If we hadn’t done that work earlier on when we formed

government, it makes me wonder where we would be, if we hadn’t done

those investments.

I’m really proud of the choices. The member talks about choices.

I’m really proud of the choices that we made. I think it really played

out well for all British Columbians because we made those

choices.

Now, the member certainly talks about the revenues and expenses

and getting to balance. We’ve historically, as a government, had

balanced budgets. It’s been a priority of our government to maintain

that, and we did that.

We did that, I have to say, while also expanding services. We did

that, and I think that speaks to (

a) our commitment to those values but

(

b) our ability to be very strategic and thoughtful and careful about

where we invest and how we invest in the services that British

Columbians need so that we can continue to be a have-province, a

province that continues to capitalize on our diverse economy and on the

strength of our people.

It’s certainly a strength that we have, going forward. I have said

in this House and have certainly shared with the member that we will be

presenting a path back to balance with Budget 2022, when we have a

better sense — and we’re getting a better sense, for sure — about what

economic recovery looks like. Now that we were….

I think back to putting this budget together and trying to

understand: “Well, where will we be in terms of our economy? When will

things open?” And we frankly had no idea. We had no idea that we would

be in such a good place here on June 15, opening up and being able to

travel around the province, looking towards July 1, when the next stage,

we hope, as long as vaccinations keep going…. We didn’t have that

information, so it was very difficult to predict how much longer we’re

going to need to be in a pandemic state.

As we see things open up and understand which sectors have been

thriving…. Because not everybody in the economy, not all sectors have

been severely impacted. Certainly tourism has been severely impacted.

There is no doubt. But seeing which sectors will need help in the short

term, the medium term and the long term, which sectors are thriving that

will continue to generate revenues…. We’re looking at how lumber is

going right now. It’s not anything that we predicted six, eight months

ago.

[2:15 p.m.]

Again, there’s certainly…. And the property transfer tax. The

volatility in the market continues. So really, the predictability that’s

required for doing planning, the kind of planning that we need to do for

a path back to balance, is work that we’ve started undertaking — to look

at how things open up.

I certainly look forward to, in February, sharing with the member,

with the House, Budget 2022, about how we are going to get our path back

to balance — what that’s going to look like for British Columbians. It

will be a path that absolutely protects the services that we all count

on.

The member suggested that a friend is waiting for a knee for 18

months. I have a friend in my community who is a staunch Socred — he

still goes by the old name; he prefers to call himself a Socred — who

picked up the phone to say: “I can’t believe this is coming out of my

mouth. I literally waited, like, two months to get my knee done.” He

couldn’t believe it.

Now, this was pre-COVID. So I want to qualify that. We do have,

certainly, work to do to get back on track, but I want to acknowledge

that there have been tremendous strides to deal with the backlog. It’s

made a significant difference, even for some old Socreds who prefer to

grumble about our government but will give an acknowledgment, I think,

when it’s worthy to do so.

M. Bernier: The minister should pass me that gentleman’s phone number. I am an

old Socred too. We could have some good talks.

Just to the minister’s point, again, I have talked about choices,

about decisions, just like the minister has. The one thing the minister

left out was that government has also had to add or increase 23 new

taxes so far during their tenure in the last four and a bit years to

help pay for that. So she talks about being able to still balance the

budget but left out the part of the equation of taxes having to go up or

new taxes put in place in order to help pay for that.

I just wanted to make sure I got that point on the re­cord

too, because I think if we’re going to be fair on the…. If the minister

wants to be fair on the “Yes, we want to do this, and yes, these are

choices we make,” the minister also should be acknowledging: “And we

also chose to increase taxes in some areas because that’s what we chose

to do in order to help fund some of these other choices that we’ve

made.”

The minister also — I’m sorry; it was either this ans­wer or

the one before; I think it was the one before — talked about some of the

increases and staff increases being because of COVID — especially, I

would assume, when she mentioned contact-tracers in the Ministry of

Health and some of the budgetary increases that have happened because of

COVID, especially on the public sector hiring side.

Is the minister able, then, to say that…? Probably, hopefully,

sooner rather than later, we’re out of COVID. Does that mean these

people will no longer be part of the 104,000 increase? Does that mean

that all of these people that were hired because of COVID are temporary

hires? Or do the ministry and government foresee the fact that they

might continue? You know, there are 40,000 new people this year, and

government has continued to say the majority of those have been because

of COVID. When COVID is over, does that mean we’re going to have 40,000

fewer public sector employees?

[2:20 p.m.]

The Chair: Interesting. From a distance, both your masks look similar in

patterns. I wonder if that’s telling from a finance

perspective.

Minister of Finance.

Hon. S. Robinson: These are butterflies, Mr. Chair, and he’s got music symbols. But

then he’s got money symbols on his tie, which I think is always very

interesting for me to look at as the Minister of Finance. I think he did

that on purpose. Do you think so, Mr. Chair? I think so.

First of all, I want to respond to the member’s comments about

taxes. Our government removed two taxes, in fact. Tolls, which are a

tax. They’re called “user fees,” but let’s be clear. It’s a tax — I

think a wholly unfair tax to, particularly, those that live south of the

Fraser. I think it was…. Again, it saved hundreds and hundreds of

dollars for British Columbians living south of the Fraser. It may not

have affected people in his riding, but certainly, there were people in

Surrey who, as a result of tolls…. So we removed the tolls. That was a

choice that we made.

Also, I think the biggest tax relief that British Columbians have

ever experienced is eliminating MSP premiums, which was a significant

tax on people. Again, others might choose to call it a “user fee,”

perhaps, but British Columbians all had to pay it. Sometimes their

employer paid it. That would be fortunate for folks, but that wasn’t

always the case.

This cost, again, thousands of dollars to families. To young

people in particular it was, I think, a shock when they suddenly

discovered that they actually had to pay MSP premiums. Had no idea when

they became adults that they now had this bill to pay. A user fee but,

really, it was a tax. So we removed that as well.

I think it’s really important to recognize that this is a complex

component, but we still, in spite of that, continued to deliver balanced

budgets.

Now, the member’s question that he tacked onto that was about

what’s going to happen post-pandemic. I think that’s a question that is

appropriate for the Minister of Health, given the bulk of those hires

were there. We are still in it, so understanding how things will shift

and change is, of course, to be determined. I know that the Minister of

Health is having estimates right now. I imagine perhaps someone is

asking him that question. That’s where it would be appropriate to ask

that question.

The Chair: Would the member like a recess so he can go to the Minister of

Health’s estimates?

M. Bernier: Thank you, Chair, no. I don’t need to recess to go to the Ministry

of Health, because the last time I looked, the Minister of Finance is

the one that does a lot of the determining work on how much money goes

to each ministry.

The minister acknowledged earlier during the estimates that she

has the constant conversations with all the ministers who came to the

Minister of Finance asking for what they could use and what they need.

The Minister of Finance is the one who has the responsibility at the end

of the day for putting the budget together based on that

information.

I find it interesting with that comment. I mean, definitely we can

find out from the Minister of Health if he’s willing to answer that,

which I doubt, because so far most ministers have said to talk to the

Minister of Finance, because she’s the one who determines the overall

budget determination, especially when you’re looking at a three-year

plan, which the minister puts forward.

My question was really around…. Everybody, for the most part, in

government, ministers and the Minister of Finance, has said that a lot

of the growth has happened because of COVID. So the minister must have

done some planning in the budget documents to say that once COVID is

finished, we know that we’re no longer going to need all those people.

I’m sure that that’s built in somewhere in the conversations that the

Minister of Finance has with her staff, especially when they’re trying

to put together a long-term strategic plan.

Somewhere in there, there must be something from this minister

that she would know on what her projections are.

[2:25 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I think that the member’s question is a good segue into reminding

him of the pandemic and recovery contingencies that we have built into

this budget and for the fiscal plan over the next number of years. In

this one, we have a notional allocation of $900 million for health and

safety measures.

The minister is responsible for putting together a plan that he

determines — with his experts that he deals with, with public health and

with the health care system writ large — in terms of understanding how

the system needs to respond to the health needs of British Columbians. I

know that the member well knows that when the minister identifies a need

and puts together a plan, that comes to Treasury Board for deliberation.

It’s through that process that that allocation is determined. So what we

have here in the budget is this notional allocation that’s part of the

pandemic and recovery contingencies.

I am hopeful — and I think all British Columbians are hopeful —

that we won’t need most of that. With a successful vaccination rollout

and the numbers taking a deep nose dive, which…. Every day at three

o’clock, I don’t know about anybody else, but I go to my Twitter feed

and see what the update is, and it helps to just remind us about how

well we have done, seeing those numbers come down. What that means is

that perhaps we won’t need to carry on in the way that we have been.

That makes me hopeful, and I’m sure it makes all British Columbians

hopeful.

M. Bernier: I’m going to ask — well, on this same topic here — one more

question before I turn it over to my colleague from West

Vancouver–Capilano, who has just a few questions. I might have one other

colleague after that, but I’ll flag that for the minister as we get

there.

Well, let me just say, I appreciate the minister foreshadowing

that we’ll be here next February, hopefully with a lengthier time in

this House than we did this session, so we can actually quantify some of

the comments that the minister has made today. We’ll have a couple of

quarterly reports by then. At least we expect to have a couple of

quarterly reports by then.

I understand that the question that I asked might have been a

little loaded, in hindsight — that it would be awkward for the minister

to answer directly. But I still think it’s important that we highlight

the issue directly. The one thing that I’ve been appreciating through

the course of Finance estimates is that it’s not so much the political

back-and-forth jabs. It’s more about trying to get factual information

on the record for the people of British Columbia — the services they get

and what they pay for those services.

With that comment, though, I think it’s important to acknowledge

that in the minister’s last comments, when we were talking about taxes

and we were talking about choices, the minister forgets to acknowledge

when she says that they got rid of PST that it had already been cut in

half by us when we were in government.

The minister also neglects to mention that only about 50 percent

of the people actually paid MSP at that time, so it didn’t impact

everyone, as the government tried to say. When, in fact, most economists

now, if you talk to them, by putting in an employer health tax…. So it’s

the same thing by a different name charging it to different people to

generate the revenue for their health.

[2:30 p.m.]

The employer health tax, in fact, now can technically impact

everybody, because you have businesses that were not having to pay it

who now have to pay it, which means their product cost goes up, which

means people who weren’t paying MSP before are now seeing increased

costs at the supermarket, at the fast food restaurant, wherever they may

go, because of the employer health tax.

The only reason why I flag that is, again, to the minister:

choices have impacts. I think it’s only fair, especially in Finance

estimates. If we want to talk about those choices, we should also be

articulating, factually, the impacts that those have on people, because

that’s really important.

Maybe I’ll end that monologue-ish bit of commentary with just

asking the minister…. I know some of it’s in the budget documents. In

order to go through this fiscal year, in order to meet the revenues,

even though we’re going to be in a large deficit situation…. Does the

minister foresee any other user fees or taxes coming in this year to

help subsidize and reduce the amount of deficit that we’re going to be

in?

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I believe that the member said PST, but I believe he was referring

to MSP.

Interjection.

Hon. S. Robinson: Yes. My recollection is that it doubl­ed over their time,

and really, we were the last jurisdiction in the nation to have a flat

fee for a medical services premium. That impacted the lower-income

families and had a significant impact on lower-earning families, because

they often did not have an employer that covered off for

them.

We can continue this debate, I suspect, at some other time. The

member asked if we are anticipating any in­creased or additional

taxes, and the answer is no.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the MLA from Peace River South for the time he is

allowing me.

To the minister, when the increased luxury car tax was brought in,

it also caught in its net cars that are antique cars or collector cars.

These are generally cars that are held for long periods of time. They’re

driven infrequently. They are owned by car enthusiasts, groups of people

across the province that enjoy restoring these vehicles and the social

aspect of rallies and car clubs.

Restoring a vehicle can take years. It can be painstaking, buying

parts from different places. Then, by the time it is complete and ready

to register, it can now trigger the luxury car tax. ICBC has a category

of insurance that recognizes these cars as collector vehicles — if it is

driven occasionally, if it is 25 years or older. The application of the

luxury car tax to these cars means very few are now coming into British

Columbia and less are being restored here.

If I can ask the minister: why didn’t government exclude this

category of antique vehicles for the purpose of the luxury car tax, and

will it do so now? The second piece of that, if this information is

available: does the minister know how much revenue is generated through

the luxury car tax on vehicles that also qualify for the collector car

status for ICBC?

[2:35 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I appreciate the member’s question. I do want to, first, say that

I love her glasses. Can I just get that on the record? They look

fabulous.

We don’t have specific information on revenues that come from

antique cars, per se. It’s not tracked that way, but I do want to say

that this tax is on motor vehicles that are $55,000 or more. So it’s

really for very expensive cars.

When we think about the progressiveness of taxes…. Typically,

people who have these very expensive cars or are purchasing these very

expensive cars tend to be high-income folks as well. So if that’s a

hobby, this isn’t a necessity. It is a hobby.

It’s hard to rationalize why these cars and not other cars. This

is part of recognizing a levy on very expensive vehicles. They’re called

luxury, but perhaps that’s a misnomer. It might just be very expensive,

because you could argue that a $55,000 or a $60,000 very old car may not

be luxurious, but it’s still a very expensive car.

Again, it sounds like it’s used for recreational purposes. It’s

used for a hobby. It’s not a necessity, so to speak, so it’s within that

context that this tax applies across the board.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister for that.

[2:40 p.m.]

I would not categorize all people who have this as a passionate

hobby that they have spent their life since they were young people,

working on cars…. I don’t think it necessarily equates to their income.

But I’ll move on to just a second question that I have.

To support the struggling restaurants in my community, several

have asked for the extension of temporary liquor licences from 24 days

in a year to three consecutive months for pop-up restaurants. The

district of West Vancouver and the local police department gave these

businesses permission to operate temporary pop-up locations in

Millennium Park for the summer in West Vancouver.

So why have requests for the three-month temporary liquor licences

gone unanswered? These are restaurants that already have liquor licences

at their primary locations, and these requests began to government not

this month but last June in hopes that they would be able to operate

this over the summer. So it’s the second summer where these restaurants

need support.

I would like to read from an email that one of the restaurant

owners received this past October — so June, July, August, September,

October — after the request was made. This is from Douglas Scott,

assistant deputy minister for LCRB.

“The liquor and cannabis regulation branch is concerned for the

individuals, families, businesses and communities affected by COVID-19

and is committed to supporting licensees through this challenging

time.

“However, the government is currently in a transition period due to

the provincial general election. I will bring this matter to the

attention of the minister responsible at the earliest opportunity

following the general election and the appointment of the executive

council. Thank you for writing.”

I have two questions for the minister, and again, for time, I will

put them together. Was there a delay in the issuing of liquor licences

for restaurants last year due to the transition caused by the election?

The second part of that is: will the minister provide these restaurants

with three-month temporary liquor licences to operate properly approved

pop-up restaurants to support them over the summer and in time for this

summer?

Hon. S. Robinson: I appreciate the member’s question. I was just confirming with

staff that the member’s question about liquor licences really does

belong with the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. That’s

his responsibility.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. It is getting like playing Whac-a-Mole

trying to figure out which ministry the LCRB is under. I recently

received, in response to a letter I sent to the Solicitor General, a

letter back from the Minister of Finance saying that liquor licensing is

in the purview of the Minister of Finance. I appreciate that answer, and

I will take my question back to the Minister of Public Safety and

Solicitor General. Thank you.

[2:45 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I just want to clarify, for the record and for the member, that

the two ministries share responsibility for this file in that the

Ministry of Finance is around the economic side — the sales component,

the revenue that gets generated — but the regulation of liquor policy is

through PSSG. So it really depends on what the request is. I’m happy to

follow up with PSSG to make sure that the member gets an appropriate

follow-up.

B. Stewart: Thank you to the minister for allowing questions to be asked of

her budget, coming up. Minister, I want to just bring up an issue that I

have raised with you. I have been to your office numerous times in

trying to get a particular issue resolved.

I just want to give a little bit of context about this particular

issue. I first wrote on May 29, 2020. This is in re­gard to an

additional transfer tax for the people named McCormick. Again, I

received a letter turning down their application on July 16, 2020. On

July 21, I wrote to the former minister about the previous

correspondence, and then again on April 4, I detailed a specific

opportunity that does consider the fact that there is, in this

particular case, extreme hardship.

We’re not talking about just somebody that was in the business of

flipping homes or whatever. These people immigrated here with the best

intentions. Mr. McCormick has a role as a financial planner. He and his

wife, I believe, now have been accepted through the PNP

program.

The whole situation is that they came with a modest amount of

funds, invested in a home with relatives who live in Coquitlam. The

situation was that they entered into a contract to get a home built in

November of 2017, before the provincial budget of 2018. The home in the

contract was to be completed on or about April 30, not later than. It

wasn’t completed, due to a shortage of skills or skilled

trades.

The situation is that the McCormicks did move in, in July, and

that seems like a big gap from the date when the exemption period

existed. However, besides the trade issues, there were forest fires

directly in and around their neighbourhood, and they were refused

property insurance, so that delayed them moving in at an earlier date —

not early enough to meet the exemption. So it may not be particularly

relevant, but what is relevant is the fact that these people have taken

their life savings and partnered up with relatives to buy this

house.

They were subsequently pressured because of the ad­ditional

transfer tax. That additional $63,000…. Their partners felt they had

been misled by these people. The situation is that the McCormicks have

not only sold the house, but they’ve lost everything that they had in

the house, and they had to pay the tax that was a charge on their

property.

I wrote that letter on February 4. On March 12 I got a letter from

yourself. Thank you. However….

The Chair: Member, just, of course, through the Chair.

B. Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and sorry. I apologize for drifting off

there.

The letter on March 12 talks about the fact that these are not

considerations, and tax remission is not normally given. Although,

having been at the table before, I know that there is, in rare cases

where there’s hardship or other reasons — that makes these legitimate

reasons to reconsideration.

At this point in time, the McCormicks are now without anything,

other than they’re in a house that they’re renting. They’ve lost

everything, and the fact is that their only hope of being able to

perhaps buy into the market at a much different price is through this

remission of tax.

[2:50 p.m.]

They would be very interested to know when they are going to hear,

if you happen to know that or if you could give some opportunity for

myself to, perhaps, meet with you — Mr. Chair, through to the minister.

If I could have that opportunity to resolve this issue in a timely

manner, I would really appreciate it.

Hon. S. Robinson: I first want to just acknowledge the member’s commitment to his

constituents in pursuing this matter. These remissions are a decision of

cabinet, and the member has alluded to that. I can’t speak to any

specific case. Staff are aware of the situation, and it’s under active

review.

B. Stewart: If I could just ask the minister if there was some…. When these

are actively being reviewed for consideration before they go to cabinet,

what’s the length of time that these normally would take place — three,

six months, a year? Could I get some idea of the timeline?

Hon. S. Robinson: Again, to the member, really — and I know he’s not going to like

this answer — it depends. It depends on how complex the situation is and

the amount of research and work that staff need to do in order to

understand the particulars of each case. They’re all unique. They don’t

happen very often. But each one is unique, so it’s very difficult to

provide a very specific timeline.

The Chair: Seeing no…. No, there is a question, of course.

M. Bernier: I know the Chair is always anxious to really do that. But have no

fear. There will be no shortage of questions coming from this side of

the House, Mr. Chair, at least for the next hour or so on this specific

topic.

Just on behalf of my colleague, I know that he would appreciate

some kind of correspondence back as soon as the minister is aware. Or

even, to his comment of timeline, if the minister is able to take that

back to her deputy or to her staff to find out where it’s at, at least,

for some assurance.

Obviously, it’s a heartbreaking story to hear of a family who, in

good faith, put themselves in this unfortunate situation. I think being

left on the end of that plank, not knowing if they’re going to be pushed

off anytime soon, that information would be really important. So

hopefully, we can get some kind of assurance. I know the minister well

enough that she will take this issue seriously and take it back and try

to report back to the member, hopefully sooner rather than later, for

his constituents. I know that would be much appreciated.

On a different topic, I just want to move to talking about GCPE

and spend a few moments on this. I’m wondering. Earlier, in our

back-and-forth, we talked a little bit about the growth in the public

sector and in all of the different departments. Is the minister able to

tell me right now how many FTEs there are in GCPE? Has that gone up at

all?

[2:55 p.m.]

When we talked about other departments that have gone up in the

last four or five years, have they stayed relatively status quo, or has

GCPE gone up since this government has taken over in 2017? What numbers

do they have for FTEs?

Hon. S. Robinson: I can let the member know that there hasn’t been a significant

increase, over this time, to GCPE staff. Although recently, there has

been a little bit of an increase in order to help with COVID. Again

COVID-related — these are temporary, just to help with issues management

and making sure that we can get….

Certainly, the digital team has to do more work around the

pandemic, making sure that people have accurate information, promoting

all the vaccinations and every­thing else that we’ve had to really

push out. It has certainly stretched this team. These are sort of

temporary positions that we’ve added, and it was mostly in this last

year.

M. Bernier: By the minister’s answer to that, is she able to confirm, then,

for this House that all government information campaigns are run through

GCPE? Going off my memory bank, that’s the way it used to be. I’m just

curious if, under this government, they’ve continued that practice. Does

all information that is in campaigns and advertisements and everything

that’s going through government and then disseminated out to the rest of

the province…? Does all of that go through GCPE, funded through

GCPE?

There are no information campaigns or people hired, let’s say, in

specific ministries? The minister referenced “because of COVID.” So am I

to take from that — and I’ll give the minister a chance in a second to

answer — that there have been no people hired in specific ministries,

like Health, to work on COVID information plans — that everything runs

through GCPE?

I think that’s an important piece to quantify, especially when we

are talking about the budgetary allotments for communications of

government.

[3:00 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I can certainly let the member know that all government

communications go through GCPE. There is one exception. For this fiscal,

there is an MOU that we have signed with the Ministry of Health. There

are nine people who have been hired temporarily to provide COVID

communications. They are GCPE folk, but they’re supported by the

Ministry of Health in order to provide that service to British

Columbians.

M. Bernier: Thank you for that answer. So if I understood the minister

correctly, it sounds like it was already existing GCPE staff that were

seconded to Health. Or were these nine new hires that are now in the

Health budget and not part of GCPE’s budget?

Hon. S. Robinson: In this particular case, most of these folks were seconded from

GCPE. There was one person who came from outside government. It’s based

on a cost recovery. So it does come out of the Health budget,

be­cause they are doing very specific COVID-19 communications and

work very closely with the Ministry of Health. It’s temporary through

COVID, just through this fiscal, so it’s a cost recovery that comes back

to GCPE.

M. Bernier: I appreciate that. That’s good information, and it’s also

understandable in the time that those GCPE folks would be situated more

closely to ground zero of the activity, I would say, due to

COVID.

Can I take from the minister’s answer, then, in that commentary

that there are no other GCPE staff situated…? I guess that I’ll put it

this way. If the minister will indulge me, I’ll speak from

experience.

You know, as a former minister, anything I did around

communications in my ministries had to go to GCPE to formulate. I was

not aware, though — so I’d love the minister to explain — how the

funding for that worked. So if I’m the Minister of Transportation, and

I’m working on a whole bunch of information that’s going to be out in

the media — whether it’s Facebook, on TV, in the news, announcements —

GCPE takes the lead on that. But do they bill back the Ministry of

Transportation’s budget, or is that built within the GCPE overall global

budget for the work of government?

[3:05 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: Typically, each ministry has a number of GCPE staff that are

embedded in the ministry so that they understand the issues of the day

and can support the work. They are, however, paid by GCPE budget. So

that’s where all of those resources come from.

M. Bernier: Can the minister, then, for the record…? I know it’s right here in

the budget documents for the minister. What is the overall budget this

year for GCPE?

If she’s also able to — and this might be difficult — as the

minister, say…. Out of that budget for this fiscal, how much of that

does she anticipate will be spent due to COVID information that’s being

presented? As I think everybody is aware, a good portion of the time

that is spent right now seems to be around informational campaigns

around COVID.

Hon. S. Robinson: What we have in the budget for GCPE is $28.338 million.

The second part of the question. We have $3.537 million set aside

for four campaigns: public health information, the vaccine rollout; the

recovery, StrongerBC; wildfire pre­vention; and

anti-racism.

M. Bernier: Maybe I’m going to ask this, and I’m going to preface my comments

to say I’m looking for some factual information here. I’m not trying to

play gotcha politics with the minister.

[3:10 p.m.]

I do have an FOI in front of me, and it’s from GCPE. It’s quite

concerning, actually, based on the commentary that we’ve heard from the

Premier, from the Minister of Health and government officials — with

COVID.

I’m just kind of curious, and I’ll ask the minister at the end of

this if she was aware of this and can explain to me the reasoning. GCPE

direct-awarded to Strategic Communications, Stratcom, which everybody….

It’s no secret here. They’re an NDP-supporting polling firm. They were

direct-awarded, and the FOI says it was direct-awarded due to COVID-19

and no time to get a full competition base. So a direct award of almost

$100,000 to Strategic Communications to do daily tracking polling

numbers on COVID-19. This was for last year, for the three months just

prior to the election being called — almost $100,000 direct

award.

Again, so the minister…. Can she tell me if she was aw­are

of this — for GCPE doing a direct award using COVID as the reasoning why

they couldn’t put it out? But more importantly, to get information on

daily tracking polling numbers…. Is she aware of that — that that was

done?

Hon. S. Robinson: The member is referring to polling that was done, it sounds like,

last spring, if that’s correct. I wasn’t the Minister of Finance. I was

the Minister for Municipal Affairs and Housing.

M. Bernier: Well, can the minister say, then, if she was unaware of this…? I

do acknowledge and recognize that she was not the minister at the time.

But obviously….

Within GCPE, is this a normal practice — for them to direct-award

to a polling company? They’re using the excuse of COVID, but have there

been other direct-award contracts of polling information that have gone

out in the last18 months that the minister is aware of besides

this?

I’m just kind of curious, because the minister said she wasn’t the

minister at the time. Is she saying she was un­aware of this? So

she never saw any polling data, and she doesn’t know anything about this

at all?

[3:15 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: GCPE works with a standing offers list. So there are approved

firms. They do go through a competitive process to do various things

like opinion research. They do the same thing with advertising firms —

the same process.

We also need to remember that, in the pandemic, it’s important to

understand sort of how things are playing out on the ground, so to

speak, with various changes on public health direction and where people

are at. So I’m sure the member can appreciate that during the pandemic,

as things evolved…. Things would happen what felt like instantly, where

things would change. There was a direct award made, but traditional

practice is a standing offers list with approved firms.

M. Bernier: To the minister, I’m aware of a standing offer and the process of

having a list together.

It is interesting. This one company, I believe, in the last year,

has received almost $400,000 from the government in polling — doing work

internally for government, which is interesting.

The minister didn’t also answer the last part of my question. Even

though she wasn’t the minister at the time, was she aware of this

polling that took place? She was a minister. She was at the cabinet

table. Is she able to at least answer for me? This was, yes, last

spring, into summer and into July, basically, of last year, shortly

before the election was called.

It’s just a little concerning when we see a company that is doing

COVID polling information for government, but it didn’t say which

ministry that would be going to or whether it was going to cabinet. So

I’m curious. If it went to cabinet, the minister probably would have

seen it. She was at the table at the time. Is she aware that this was

done? And what was the reasoning for this information being

gathered?

Hon. S. Robinson: I think that the member recognizes — I believe, based on our

discussion — how important it has been for government to understand how

the pandemic has been impacting British Columbians so that we could all

be responsive to the needs of British Columbians. Making sure that we

understood how British Columbians are being impacted by the pandemic,

how their lives were being impacted, I think was really, really critical

to understanding. So taking steps to hear from British Columbians so we

could understand how people are being impacted and in which parts of the

province they were having the most impact….

[3:20 p.m.]

I mean, I know the member is well aware that many parts of the

province didn’t have the same kind of impacts — that urban British

Columbians had more severe impacts than rural British Columbians based

on service industry and where that’s located.

These are the kinds of things government needed to understand so

that government could have a response that would meet the needs of

British Columbians in the moment, so that we could get through this

pandemic. I believe it’s because we were quick to get the information

that we needed, quick to identify the challenges that people were

experiencing, that businesses were experiencing, that communities were

experiencing…. Because we were quick….

Again, I want to thank the public service for their tremendous

hard work in throwing together and pulling together programs to respond

to the needs of British Columbians. It’s not normally how government

works, but they did, I think, a yeoman’s job in pulling together their

teams and getting programs up and running. It has al­lowed us to

be as successful as we have been.

Mr. Chair, can I ask for a five-minute break? Is that

okay?

The Chair: Absolutely. Thank you, Minister.

This committee will stand in recess for five minutes,

returning a little after 3:25.

The committee recessed from 3:21 p.m. to 3:28 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The Chair: Let’s go back to Peace River South.

M. Bernier: Thank you, Chair. I’ll take the lead on this one for

now.

Right before the break there the minister had some

in­teresting comments. From what the minister said — she still

hasn’t answered my question, though — it sounds like the minister was

aware of this polling taking place last fall and summer. So I’m just

kind of curious if she’s able to tell me where that polling….

Why were they asked to poll, first of all? Where did that polling

data go? Did it go back into cabinet? I understand if the minister

stands up and talks about cabinet confidentiality. But if that’s not the

case, I’m just kind of curious where this polling data went.

[3:30 p.m.]

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Hon. S. Robinson: The polling data gets used to hear from different audiences, of

course. That’s why we do polling. I just want to say, especially during

COVID — I don’t know if this has been the member’s experience — that

it’s been a bit more challenging to hear from different groups because

we are not at events.

We’re not engaged in the same way on the ground. So it’s important

that we hear from a broad spectrum of British Columbians, making sure

that we incorporate their thoughts, their concerns, their fears into our

program de­velopment. That’s what this polling data

in­formed. It informed government’s reaction, government’s program

development.

Yes, we do meet with folks through the Zoom channels and certainly

on telephone, but really, having polling data just helps you to

understand, again, where people are at who perhaps aren’t able to

participate in what we call our stakeholder groups, so that we’re

getting a much clearer sense from the ground of what’s going on so that

we can be responsive. That information gets used in program development.

That’s how it has been used, and that’s how I think it’s always used —

making sure that we understand where people are at so that we can be a

responsive government.

M. Bernier: I think the minister knows I’m well aware of the reasoning for

polling data, polling information aro­und

decision-making.

My question was…. This was funded through GCPE. Who is the

audience that GCPE was collecting the information for? Was it

specifically just to the Minister of Finance? The GCPE? Was it for

cabinet? Obviously, somebody asked for this information.

We haven’t yet determined the information they’re looking for. But

somebody asked for polling information for whatever the decision-making

decisions that somebody wanted to make. So was this information for

cabinet, or was it specifically for one minister?

Hon. S. Robinson: This was prepared for the whole of government. Cabinet sits around

the table, representing government. Given that every single ministry has

been im­pacted by COVID and has had to have a COVID response,

having information about how people were responding to COVID, what their

needs were, I think helped every ministry to have a response and

understand how we needed to work together.

I fondly remember, in my previous iteration as a cabinet minister,

sitting with some of my colleagues, safely distant — at the time, you

could meet, just a handful, safely distant — and working collaboratively

to explore how to respond, given the resources that we each had as

ministers, given the problems that we were identifying that people were

experiencing and how we could take the resources that we each had access

to and create a program that would provide us with the opportunity to

respond in a meaningful way.

[3:35 p.m.]

I do know that it makes people crazy when ministries are at

cross-purposes, for example, and it does happen on occasion. But this

was a time that I remember well about how closely we worked together,

that we were singularly focused on a COVID response. Having the same

information helped us to really define how to best respond to British

Columbians’ needs.

M. Bernier: Just quickly reading through the FOI here and the requirements

around the polling, it begs the question. Throughout this entire

pandemic, any time a minister has been questioned around decision-making

— any time the Premier has been questioned around decision-making — they

have said all of their decisions are based on scientific data and

information they have. It’s all science-based information that they’ve

used to make decisions.

This wasn’t a scientific poll. This is a daily tracking poll of a

select group of people on how they are responding to and dealing with

the COVID pandemic, paid for by taxpayers’ money. So this sounds like it

was good information to get as you’re building an election platform, I

might say, as well, since it was conveniently collected right before an

election.

That aside, the reason why I’m actually asking is: a lot of times

this information is shared publicly. I don’t see anything that would be,

necessarily, confidential here. Is the poll made public? Has it made it

public, and I couldn’t find it? Or is the minister and GCPE willing to

share that poll publicly and table it in the House?

Hon. S. Robinson: I want to just, first of all, refer to our government’s commitment

to have a science-based and public-health based response to the

pandemic, which we have been doing, for sure. I see the member nodding.

I know that he appreciates that.

Government also has to respond to the impact of the pandemic. So

when we have to take action — when the public health, based on science,

says, “We must do this in order to keep people safe,” which is

science-based — we need to understand, as a government: what does that

mean for people? What does that mean? How does that impact their lives?

How does that impact their work? How does that impact their

children?

[3:40 p.m.]

How does that impact their community? How does that impact their

sense of safety in the world? How are they responding to these orders,

and what’s the impact? As a government, I think the more we understand

these orders that are delivered from a scientific base, and the more we

understand how that is impacting on people, the more responsive we can

be.

I want to point out that, in addition to some polling, we also did

a significant public engagement through the government digital

experience, as well as stakeholder tables, like the B.C. Business

Council and others. We gathered information from MLAs and their

constituency offices, helping to filter into government what you are

hearing on the ground.

When I was the Minister of Municipal Affairs, I had, for awhile,

phone calls with all mayors and regional district chairs pretty much

every week and then every other week. That’s a lot of being on the phone

and listening to what we were hearing from these people, these leaders

in communities, making sure that we were feeding that in centrally, so

that we understood what it was that we needed to do in order to respond

to the impact of these orders and the impact this pandemic is having on

people’s lives.

It’s for this reason…. It fits into a larger context of gathering

information so that we could have a robust response and we can continue

to support the people of British Columbia.

M. Bernier: I completely understand a lot of what the minister said, and even

what she didn’t say, around the hope and need to do polling to find out

the appetite of the public, how they’re managing dealing with COVID and

what programs that government could and should put in place. That can be

very important information, especially leading into an election possibly

being called.

My question was: who had this information, and was the minister

willing to release that information? Is she go­ing to say it’s

confidential, and they won’t? Or is the minister saying it’s public and

I couldn’t find it somewhere?

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: Again, I want to say to the member that polling is done by

government to understand how programs are being perceived by the public,

understanding how people’s lives are being impacted by decisions.

Certainly, in this case, this polling, in combination with other ways of

gathering information from the public, was pulled together.

Certainly, the member can take a look at all the documents, the

StrongerBC documents. All of that information helped to determine how to

move in the direction to respond to the impacts, the very real impacts,

that people were experiencing from the pandemic. That’s part of the

report-out on what we heard in terms of the response that the public

sees around “this is what we learned.” This is the response to what we

heard from the public around how the pandemic was impacting

them.

M. Bernier: Listening to the minister’s words carefully, she still hasn’t

answered my question after a few times. I’m assuming the answer is that

I didn’t miss it. It’s not out there somewhere. This is government

information that the minister doesn’t feel necessary to

release.

I also listened to the words, carefully, the minister just used.

She talked about, basically, looking at how programs are…. I believe the

word the minister used was how programs are perceived. Well, this

specific poll was before any programs were announced.

Do I take from that and the minister’s answer that…? I’ll ask

directly, then. Was this specific polling firm…? This was directly April

17 to June 30. Was this contract extended? Did they do more polling, or

maybe another firm after that?

I understand that on the FOI, right at the beginning, it says that

because the pandemic had just started, there was no time to do anything

but do a direct award. They wanted this information. Meanwhile, four

months later, at the end of this polling…. That would have given them

ample time, if we take what the minister says — that they want to

continue doing polling to get information — to find out what people

need. I’m not taking away from that at all. That’s important to

know.

It sounds like, also, whether government programs were working….

That leads me to think that more polling was done after programs were

announced. So is that the case? Is there more polling information out

there that government used? Was it a continuation after this one, or

different firms that were used for polling?

Hon. S. Robinson: I just want to qualify for the member that when I was talking

about programs, I was referring to polling in general. It can have many

different uses. That is a use that could certainly be used — how polling

can be used.

I want to reiterate for the record — I answered this

ear­lier — that typically, polling work is awarded using an

approved-vendors list that goes through a competitive and transparent

process.

[3:50 p.m.]

M. Bernier: The minister did answer that earlier. That wasn’t my question,

though. In this case, it was done as a direct award. What my question to

the minister was…. This was a very specific point in time. April 17 to

June 30 of 2020 was this poll.

I’ve asked the minister, consecutively, if that information is

public and can be released. She hasn’t answered that. So I’m going to

take by her lack of answers that this is not a public document — that

this is internal and they don’t plan on releasing it. My question, then,

if that’s the case, though…. I’m just asking because this is part of the

GCPE budget. They spent $100,000 on this poll. Were there more polls

done right after this? This ended in June.

I am not asking whether it was a competitive awarding process or

direct award. That’s not my question. My question is more of — was more

polling done? This was at the beginning of the pandemic, and as the

minister has rightfully said, there were a lot of unknowns and a lot of

changes. So polling maybe was an important part of decision-making of

government on whether programs were working or other programs needed to

be made and where money should be spent.

I guess my question is: was more polling done? Is this the only

poll that government based all their decisions on for programming? Or

were there more polls done after this, and maybe still being done today,

on programs that are being rolled out?

Hon. S. Robinson: The answer to the member’s question is yes. More polling has been

done with a variety of vendors and on a variety of topics.

M. Bernier: Do the minister and government plan to release any of that polling

data at all? The minister so far hasn’t answered that question. Maybe

it’s even post-pandemic. I think that if taxpayers are paying for this

polling information, it would be interesting, if nothing else…. If the

minister wants to say it’s confidential and say that the information is

confidential — will they at least…?

Let’s just say that on this specific one — daily tracking polling

— the minister obviously is aware of this one by the way she’s been

answering. If we can’t get the information, can we at least get the

questions that were asked, so we understand what government information

was looking for?

[3:55 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: Again, I want to reiterate about how, certainly, through this

pandemic we have been ga­thering and continue to gather

information so that we can be responsive.

I noticed the Chair is seeing something I’m perhaps not seeing.

It’s distracting, but I’m wondering what it might be. Anyway. I will

carry on with my response.

There are a number of tools we use that feed into government’s

plans to respond. Working together with various mediums for gathering

information — polling is just one — we also do public engagement using

surveys, right? We get survey information that feeds in. We have

stakeholder consultation that feeds in. Each piece, each data point,

really helps us to get a big picture or a more solid picture, just

continues to fill in the blanks so that we can have a proper

response.

In the member’s example, that was a really important, helpful

piece of information, but it wasn’t the only piece. Having the

stakeholder round table where we heard from various chambers of

commerce, the B.C. Business Council and others, feeding in about what

priorities they were seeing and helping us understand what tools we

could use, as government, to help businesses get through the

pandemic.

Hearing from MLAs and constituencies — and getting that fed into

the system, as well — certainly helped us understand what was happening

on the ground, but there’s no one piece, in and of itself, that you can

say “aha.” This is really all of it coming together to give us robust

information so that we can have a responsive plan.

M. Bernier: I think I just want to notice…. I do appreciate the position the

minister is in. Obviously, decisions are having to be made and

information needs to be gathered to make those decisions. There’s no

argument, I believe, from myself or anybody that would look at

this.

I think it is important just to highlight, before I move on, a few

things, though. That polling, the minister has said, is done, was done

and continues to be done as part of the decision-making process, but the

minister, it sounds like, has agreed that this goes to cabinet and the

ministers for part of the decision-making that they make. By the

minister’s answers, it sounds like they do not want to re­lease

any information that they’ve gathered regarding COVID through that

polling, specific to the polling information — or even the questions

that were being asked.

Maybe I’ll ask this one — which is a little bit more direct,

around polling. To the minister: how much was spent in last fiscal, then

— in the ’20-21 fiscal — on polling, and how much is budgeted with GCPE

or within government for ’21-22 for polling?

[4:00 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: Last year, for doing research and polling around pandemic and

recovery, blended together, it’s $400,000, with $150,000 for other

research — so outside of pandemic. For the year ahead, we have $200,000

identified for opinion research — for this year.

M. Bernier: Thank you to the minister for that ex­change. I think it’s

important information. It leads me into…. We talk about doing polling

for programs.

Maybe I’ll switch gears quickly, and we’ll just do a wrap-up on

some of the discussion we had in the past, starting in December. The

minister, in her opening remarks, if I remember correctly — I think it

was only yesterday, but it seems like a long time ago already — talked

about the B.C. recovery benefit. Can the minister…? Maybe we’ll just try

to get some numbers on the table here, for a little bit. I think it’s

important not only for us but for the public.

I’m not sure about the minister. I’m assuming she sees the same

ones that I do, because there are still some frustrated people out

there. I’ll give the minister an opportunity in a second to maybe

quantify what’s gone out or who’s still in the queue. That queue

part is

important, especially when the frustration letters come to me that say:

“We talked about this in December. The Premier talked about getting this

money out by Christmas.”

We’ve already acknowledged, accepted, the fact that it was a new

program, that there were some problems with the rollout on the first

couple of days. Government did, I would say, their due diligence to try

to expedite and make sure the system was working again — that the phone

lines were up, and doing what they could — which I applaud them on.

That’s why we supported, collectively, in this House to have the money

go out the door to help people as soon as possible.

The program is set to end here, I believe, if I remember the

minister’s comments on this program. It’s only in a couple of weeks that

the program ends, for people to be able to apply. So to anybody

watching, if you haven’t ap­plied: there’s lots of money still in

there. Apply.

It begs the question, though. How many people, again, applied?

I’ll put this all in one question, to help the minister. She can wrap it

all up for me. How many applied? How many were denied? How many are

still in the queue waiting to be paid? And will those people…? Will we

have everybody paid by the end of June, or does she see that taking even

longer if people still apply?

[4:05 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I hope the member has a pencil han­dy and it is sharpened.

Then, of course, he’s got Hansard . So he can

always….

I will go through this. The recovery benefit. We have received

2,500,701 applications. The number of applications that have been

processed is 1,939,830. The number of British Columbians who have

received the benefit is 2,667,585 British Columbians. Remember, there

are some couples in there.

We’re talking about number of people who’ve been…. The amount of

money that has gone out, the amount of benefit that has gone out — this

is as of June 14, or perhaps actually the Friday, in all likelihood — is

$1,321,606,197, and 10,000 have been denied. They weren’t eligible. We

do have 65,871 applications that are still in process. The application

goes to June 30, and staff will continue to process applications until

all applications have been reviewed.

M. Bernier: Maybe I’ll wrap a couple of questions into one here. I appreciated

the minister explaining to me, too, because it sounded like we were

saying more people got the money than actually applied, but then there

are the couples that we talked about that are built into

that.

Maybe I’ll ask this then. How many people, how many families,

households — we’ll put it that way — received the full $1,000? Because

as the minister is well aware, when she launched this program, you can

get…. Everybody is eligible for $500 or $1,000 to a household, but it

was a scale. In this, we could have a lot of people that maybe received

50 bucks.

Yes, anybody who was needing the help and took time to apply might

have needed that. But that also meant that if they only received $50,

they were making fairly good money during the COVID. How many households

re­ceived the full $1,000?

[4:10 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: The member had asked, for the re­covery benefit, how many of

those that have made application received the full benefit. So for the

families, which was $1,000, 85 percent received the full amount. For

individuals — I’m just going to anticipate the next question — which was

$500, 93 percent received the full amount.

M. Bernier: I just have to ask the question — for the minister to explain to

me. I apologize. I don’t understand. I think I do. When she’s saying 85

percent and 93 percent — are those 85 percent of applicants qualified

and got the money? I’m asking more from a dollar perspective. If we had

just over 2.6 million people who got money, is she saying that of

that…?

The math doesn’t match up for me. I’m just trying to understand.

Of that 2.6 million people that qualified, it wasn’t 85 percent that got

$1,000. What percentage…? If the minister doesn’t have the actual

people, her staff might have percentages.

Hon. S. Robinson: We’re all trying to get to the correct description. If I

understand the member’s question, he’s trying to discern whether or not

it’s the number of applications, because one application might impact

two people or more, because they would ask as a family.

I’m just trying to understand sort of…. But it’s still 85 percent

of the applications that came in for families, for the $1,000 — that 85

percent of those folks that put in the request got the full amount.

Those that were individuals were entitled to $500, and 93 percent got

the full amount. So I hope that helps to clarify for the

member.

M. Bernier: I can do the math off of that. I apologize, actually, to the

minister’s staff for me not articulating the question succinctly enough

for them to discern where I was going. My apologies. I was close. The

information — I can figure it out off of that.

[4:15 p.m.]

Again, the minister was saying that it sounds like aro­und

65,000, I believe she said, applications are outstanding. I’ve received

lots of letters, and some are telling me that they’ve been outstanding

for months. But I’d like, maybe, to hear from the minister or from

staff, because originally we were told that that probably wouldn’t be

the case. You know, we have to ask follow-up questions, make sure that

we have all the proper information. The minister has been very succinct

in her points on why that follow-up was needed, based on the criteria

that was put in. But understandably, there has been frustration from

some.

I always want to put it back, maybe, for the minister to justify

or explain or maybe put on the record that that’s maybe not the case,

that we’ve actually worked through things in a timely manner. Maybe

that’s the answer, but there is still some frustration out there. Are

there some that have been outstanding for a lengthy period of time, and

if so, why?

How are we going to catch this up? So 65,000 is still quite a few,

especially being in the latter weeks of the acceptance. My assumption is

we probably won’t get too many more coming in now, but obviously, we

want to clean this up and get the money out the door to people who

needed it quite a few months ago.

Hon. S. Robinson: I certainly appreciate the frustration, for sure. I, too, as well

as the Minister of Finance, receive letters of frustration from people,

and have been in regular contact with staff about making sure that they

have the resources they need to process, certainly the, I’ll say, bolus

that we received in the early days.

I also want to let the member know that we’re continuing to get

new applications on a daily basis. There are still lots that continue to

come in. When I mentioned the number of 65,000, a lot of those are new.

They’re not from January or December. A lot of those are new as well, so

that continues to come in.

Many of those that are in process — we are still waiting for

information. It’s also, I think, frustrating for me, as Minister of

Finance. It’s like, we need more information and would love to process

it and move it through and get staff doing other things that we need

them to do. So I encourage anyone who is still waiting to get the

information to us so that we can continue this along and get it through

the system.

[4:20 p.m.]

There are some that are…. Unfortunately, the banking information

that was provided wasn’t correct. Those have been harder to resolve, and

they’re working through that. Those are, if I could identify three

things that we’re seeing that contribute to that number…. That’s the

bulk of it.

If I might take a moment to acknowledge Jordan Goss and her team

for their commitment and their hard work in getting this program up and

running and moving as quickly as they did. It was incredible work, and

it was incredibly stressful for them. They did their best to not let it

show, but I do know that this was a really big, big

undertaking.

I’m grateful. I know that the millions of British Columbians who

have received the benefit, who then went shopping in the local economy

and helped businesses through the last few months…. That’s made a

difference in millions of British Columbians’ lives. I think we can all

be proud of helping in that regard.

M. Bernier: Thank you for that information. It’s important. We, too…. I mean,

the reason why, again, all three parties in the House supported this was

because we want­ed it to get out to help people — people who were

struggling, people who lost their jobs.

I won’t revisit the whole debate that we had last December. It’s

not a good use of our time. Obviously, there was a lot of debate around

the criteria. There were a lot of people, I would argue, that lost their

jobs in 2020 but, because of the criteria that were laid out, did not

qualify to be able to apply for this specific grant.

I guess maybe…. I was just reading through the minister’s mandate

letter and one of the bullets in there. “As soon as possible provide

immediate relief for people by delivering a one-time recovery benefit.”

My assumption is that this is what we’re talking about.

Is there anything else planned, or is the minister going to be

able to check that one off her list? Is that what she’s

thinking?

Hon. S. Robinson: I have giggling in my ear from staff, because it has been a

tremendous amount of work.

Yes. I do get to tick that one off of my list.

M. Bernier: I believe, to go to the point that the minister raised two answers

ago…. I’ll also thank the staff. I know what it’s like being in a

government position and having to, for whatever reason, make up a policy

on the spur of the moment to meet a need.

The work is, as we know, done by the public sector. It’s done by

our staff, the people behind the scenes who don’t get the accolades for

the work they do as well. So I’ll look at the camera and say thank you

very much to them as well. I, too, can appreciate the stress they were

under and why they would possibly be giggling, as the minister put it,

on being able to cross that one off the list.

One that the minister can’t cross off her list, though…. I’m

curious — she hasn’t been able to cross it off yet — what the plan is….

It’s also listed in the mandate letter. This is around a renters rebate,

support for renters. This government has spoken about a $400 renters

rebate now for five years almost — 2017 election, 2020 election. It

keeps coming up in the promises there.

I’m wondering where the minister, though, can point to in the

budget documents that it’s finally going to happen. I was not able to

find it in there, even though it appears to be in the mandate letter to

come up with an income-tested — I believe it is now changed to; it

didn’t used to be — renters supplement of some sort.

Is that in the budget somewhere, and can the minister point to

that?

[4:25 p.m.]

Hon. S. Robinson: When we formed government in 2017, housing affordability, I could

argue — well, I do argue, and I will continue to argue — was the number

one issue, for sure. As a government, we put together a significant

30-point plan that took a look at how to best address what was

happening, which, from my perspective, had been ignored for a very long

time, and it needed attention.

We took significant steps to build out housing, which hadn’t been

built — government hadn’t been concerted in its efforts to build

subsidized housing — with a $7 billion ten-year investment to put

together the Homes for B.C. plan and build out housing for women fleeing

violence, for Indigenous people, for people that needed supportive

housing, as well as starting the HousingHub, doing middle-income housing

and doing community housing, as well, with the non-profit housing

sector.

We also took a number of steps to address loopholes that existed

in the system. We funded the residential tenancy branch. It had been

severely underfunded for a very, very long time, taking months and

months for arbitration. That’s made a difference. We brought in a

compliance and enforcement branch so we actually have an enforcer on the

ground to help manage the relationship between renters and

landlords.

We took significant steps to…. We closed the fixed-term-lease

loopholes — one of the first things we did — to make sure that it was a

fair system. We’ve been looking at the Residential Tenancy Act and

bringing in significant measures there after the Rental Housing Task

Force did their work. We took speculation out of the market, with

demand-side measures.

The previous Minister of Finance, Carole James, ticked everything

off of her lists that she was responsible for in terms of delivering.

We’ve been taking significant action, and we continue to. It is a

ten-year plan, and we continue to take action.

The new Minister of Housing continues to roll out the housing

component in terms of building the kind of housing that is desperately

needed and working with the federal government, as well, as a partner.

They’re finally back in the housing business. So that’s making a

difference. We’ve brought in rental-only zoning and a housing needs

assessment report that’s required. We’ve taken significant steps of our

30-point plan, and there’s activity happening on all of that.

There is a renters rebate. That is part of my mandate. I look

forward to doing that work and to getting it ready. It is a four-year

term that we are here, and part of my mandate letter is recognizing that

we have four years to get this work done. I look forward to continuing

to roll up my sleeves, with the Minister of Housing, and continuing to

make action on the housing front.

M. Bernier: I appreciate the minister’s answer. I guess what we can take from

that is…. It’s not in the budget this year, then. She’s saying it’s a

four-year mandate. So she won’t be able to cross that one off the list

any time soon.

I think it’s also important to highlight, though…. Altho­ugh

the minister and the government continue to try to, I’d say, skirt the

issue in a little way, affordability is still one of the largest

issues.

[4:30 p.m.]

Supportive subsidized housing is a piece, for sure, but rental

rates have gone up, I believe, an average of around $1,400 a year in the

Lower Mainland, as the minister well knows through the property transfer

tax revenue. You look at the amount of…. In the housing market, it’s

skyrocketing. The values of homes have gone up by hundreds and hundreds

of thousands of dollars, on average, for, some would say, a basic home,

just to try to get into the market.

It was because of those issues that four years ago the government

announced a $400 rebate. The government announced as part of their

platform originally in 2017 that because of the housing prices going up,

because mostly around the rental stock and properties going up, that

they would bring in a $400 rebate. Then they again announced it in

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair]

What I found interesting was also an FOI that I was able to get my

hands on that the work was done back in 2018. It was fully costed. It

was presented to government. It was a costed plan for the $400 renters

rebate, which talked about a $163 million price tag for the phase-out of

this. That was in 2018, but then nothing was done.

Now the minister has said, rightfully so, that the government has

a majority and a four-year mandate. But if the minister was to take

another year or two or three or, let’s say, even the four years towards

the end of the mandate to put this forward, that’s now seven, eight,

nine years from the original promise.

I guess I’ll wrap that up into a question that the work was done

in 2018, fully costed to implement it to be able to, for the Minister of

Finance of the day, which was not this minister, obviously…. That could

have been put into the budget two years ago. I assume that’s why the

work was done to cost it out.

If it wasn’t put in then or in subsequent budgets, is the minister

able to commit that, at least to the people that are requiring this,

there is going to be some kind of relief coming soon?

Hon. S. Robinson: We are committed to the renter’s rebate, but fixing the housing

crisis — and I think the member will likely recognize that — is not

easy. It certainly won’t happen overnight. Again, when we formed

government in 2017 and I was the Minister of Housing, we took very, very

significant steps in a very, very short period of time to form

government in July of 2017 and then by early 2018 have a 30-point plan.

Again, took a significant amount of work to address a significant

housing crisis that had been ignored for many, many years.

We have already taken significant steps to address renters’ needs

in British Columbia. I read a list of things that we had done, but what

I neglected to include was enhancing both the Shelter Aid For Elderly

Renters program, SAFER, as well as the rental assistance program. We’ve

enhanced that. We’ve added additional funds to support those families.

It provides monthly cash assistance to low-income seniors and families.

It makes a real difference, given the significant challenges.

[4:35 p.m.]

The other piece that we’ve done that is really significant, that

has delivered hundreds and hundreds of dollars into people’s pockets, is

we’ve cut the annual allowable rent increase. Before we were in

government, it was 2 percent plus the cost-of-living increase. I could

never, for the life of me, figure out where the 2 percent came from.

There was no record of it anywhere. So we eliminated that. It was just

about the cost-of-living increase, so that it was more

predictable.

When you add that up, if you add up just that piece, taking it out

of the formula, that’s saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars every

single year for renters. That’s a significant indication, I think, about

our commitment to supporting renters.

Additionally, through COVID-19, we put in place a rent freeze

through to this year. I know that was also well re­ceived by

renters, appreciating that they could have stability and not have to

worry about what that would mean for them, going forward.

I also want to reiterate, during the pandemic, a key program. And

I do need to give a shout-out again to the public service, to the folks

at B.C. Housing. I was the Housing Minister, and putting together a

temporary rent supplement — $500 per month for households with children,

$300 a month for households that didn’t have children — and getting that

up and running….

I want to say that it was done in ten days, which was like a

miracle of miracles. I do need to tip my hat to B.C. Housing, getting it

into the hands — and directly to landlords. It was a two-step process.

We wanted to make sure that landlords got their rent, at least partial

rent.

Again, in my personal experience, those were days of what I would

call…. I’ll call them semi-panic, because that’s what it felt like. We

were moving so quickly to support people. We didn’t know what the impact

of the pandemic was going to be. We didn’t know the impact of COVID-19

and what the health crisis was going to look like. We hadn’t yet figured

out protocols for how to keep each other safe.

We just knew that we were all at risk, particularly our seniors.

Having folks like B.C. Housing on the ground, putting together a program

in very short order, delivering for renters right around the province,

was very significant, and I’m very grateful for the work that they have

done and the ways in which they helped people get through the

pandemic.

M. Bernier: We talk about choices. We’ve brought that up a few times today.

Choices have impacts. Earlier, we were talking about polling. I’d be

curious if the minister has ever done this kind of polling. I mean, I’m

a former contractor. I’ve built lots of houses and have lots of friends

who have done that as well — affordable housing, some low-income housing

and some larger homes.

When you put supports in place for the renters, I understand that.

It’s admirable in the sense that government is trying to help the

renters. But if you’re not doing the whole circle, though….

You have to think about supply and demand as well, because the

number one issue that I’m hearing in the construction field is: why

would I build rental stock when the government keeps putting freezes on

what I can or cannot do with that rental stock while prices are

skyrocketing right now? The minister mentioned lumber earlier. I mean,

I’m doing the math right now on some places, and it’s near impossible to

even break even as a developer with the costs to build a place when

there are rental freezes on.

Now, the rental freezes were important in certain as­pects,

but most people would also say that if we build more stock, it also

helps alleviate some of the stress. I’ll use an example. My youngest

daughter just moved to the minister’s neck of the woods from Dawson

Creek. She moved down here. She’s paying more than double for rent for

what she paid up in Fort St. John, and that is in a place half the size,

forcing her to try to find a roommate. Those are the struggles or

challenges that people go through.

Typically, as the minister knows, with myself and herself as

former local government people, we try to find ways to inspire

contractors, developers to build more stock. We used to always say, even

at the UCBM and in local government, if you can get more inventory and

more investment and more housing stock, that will, in turn, help the

renters, because there’s more availability.

[4:40 p.m.]

As this government has been putting freezes on, and especially

with COVID, what impact has that been, then, to the housing market for

development? As a former Hou­sing Minister, I would think the

minister would be quite aware of some of those challenges. We want to

see both happen.

What’s happening, then? While we are not seeing the renters rebate

right away, what’s government doing to try to inspire and instill more

investment from the private sector for development to try to fill that

rental stock? Is that work being done too?

Hon. S. Robinson: The member was asking questions about how we stimulate the right

kind of development. I think I need to go back to some of the work that

our government did as part of the 30-point plan. I want to start with

the housing needs assessment.

When I became Housing Minister back in 2017, I was shocked to find

out that from a housing policy perspective, there really hadn’t been a

robust repository of information or data about our housing stock — what

kind of housing we had, was it meeting people’s needs, what were the

gaps? There was no one collecting provincial data to help government,

any government, make a decision about housing.

We immediately set to work around: “Okay, how are we going to get

this data?” We’ve made it a requirement. We brought in legislation that

requires all local governments to do a housing needs assessment, and

they need to update it every five years.

The idea that I learned from when I was in local government was….

I was making decisions for the city of Coquitlam without having an

understanding of what kind of housing stock we needed. Coquitlam is very

suburban. It is mostly single-family, a handful of duplexes and a

handful of townhouses. And because the SkyTrain was coming, we were

seeing tons and tons and tons of condos — 600-square-foot condos — but

nothing in between.

In hindsight, we now know that the 600-square-foot condos were

being built. The developers were saying: “We’re building them because

the market demands it.” But the market was not for people having

families. The market wasn’t for young people starting out even. Perhaps

there was a small portion of that.

[4:45 p.m.]

It certainly wasn’t for downsizing. God knows, I love my husband,

but I would kill him in a 600-square-foot condo. For downsizing, it

would be disastrous — more for him than for me. But it would still be

disastrous.

We were saying yes to these developments because it was an

investor market. It was about a safe investment, and that’s not the kind

of housing that people needed. So we brought forward this housing needs

assessment, which helps local governments who are responsible for the

land use planning to understand what their needs are so they can make

informed decisions. It also tells the private sector what the appetite

is going to be of the local government, because it meets their needs

assessment.

We expect — and we should expect — that our local governments are

responding to the needs of the community. So it would align people much

better in responding to the needs of British Columbians. That work is

continuing. We brought that in, I want to say, in 2019. It is a bit of a

blur right now. But that is well in hand. The other thing that we did

that I think is about stimulating the market was about bringing in

rental-only zoning. We’re starting to see that. There is uptake on

that.

When I was the Housing Minister, I would have conver­sations

regularly with the private sector about what their challenges were in

terms of building the right kind of housing in different communities,

because what the member might need in his community is going to be

different than what’s needed in my community. What’s needed in my

community right now is row homes and townhomes and duplexes. That might

not be what Dawson Creek might need.

What I heard, certainly from the private sector, were two things.

One was land costs, and the other thing was access to labour. Those were

their two biggest challenges for building rental in particular. So what

we did was we brought in a rental-only zoning that would allow some

temperance of those pieces of land. So when local government zoned it

for rental-only, it took the condo developer out of the market — people

that wouldn’t be interested. It changed the dynamics in the

marketplace.

That work we’re certainly going to keep on eye on in terms of how

it stimulates the market. But I also want to read into the record that

home-building has been resilient, with housing starts averaging 37,903

units in 2020, which is well above the long-run historical average of

around 31,000. They were down by 15 percent in 2020, partly because of

the really significant construction year the year before. But

year-to-date, according to April 2021, housing starts were 40.8 percent

higher than the same period a year ago.

We are seeing significant housing being built. I don’t have the

note in front of me, and I can get it for the member, but if I recall

correctly, we are seeing a record number of rentals being built in this

province in a way that we have not seen ever before. I’ve seen it,

certainly, in my community, in Coquitlam — more and more rental

buildings being built. Thankfully, they’re being built near SkyTrain,

which makes a significant difference. They’re reducing parking

requirements as well so that it actually becomes more

affordable.

There are all of these various component parts coming together.

There is a still a ways to go. I’m not denying that. We still have lots

of work to do. The homebuyer market continues to be volatile, so there

is certainly a lot of work for us to do. Working with all orders of

government in order to address housing affordability is very much top of

mind for me and for the Minister for Housing.

The Chair: We’ve got time for more questions, but if you’d like to move

on, I know we are going to be moving to Premier’s estimates

shortly.

Hon. S. Robinson: I move that the committee rise, re­port progress and ask

leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 4:50 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Committee of Supply (Section B), having reported progress, was

granted leave to sit again.

Hon. S. Robinson: I call the estimates of the Premier’s office.

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: OFFICE OF THE PREMIER

The House in Committee of Supply (Section B); S. Chandra

Herbert in the chair.

The committee met at 4:51 p.m.

The Chair: I’d like to put this committee into recess until we are ready

to go for the Premier’s estimates. Thank you, everyone.

The committee recessed from 4:51 p.m. to 5:05 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

On Vote 11: Office of the Premier, $14,678,000.

The Chair: Mr. Premier, did you want to make some opening

remarks?

Hon. J. Horgan: Thank you very much, hon. Chair and colleagues. It’s an honour and

a privilege to stand once again to defend the budget for the Office of

the Premier.

This has been, as we all know, a year unlike any other that we’ve

experienced as legislators, as citizens, as a country. Not since 1918

has there been a global pandemic that has so rocked, now, a world of

seven billion souls. Here in British Columbia, we 5.2 million people

have been doing our level best to ensure that we keep each other safe,

to ensure that our communities continue to operate and that, to the best

of our ability, our businesses have been able to operate with strict

protocols put in place, with consultation through the public health

office and WorkSafeBC.

Similarly to workplaces, our schools and places of worship have

been disrupted and affected by the events of the past 15 months, but

here in British Columbia, we have all leaned in together, and

collectively, the outcomes have been positive, by and large, right

across the board.

This past week we announced step 2 of our restart plan, starting

today, ensuring that people can start to gather together in larger

numbers in a more safe manner. We’ve seen our vaccination program, the

largest in B.C. history, put…. Over 76 percent of the adults over 18

have had a first dose, and we’re heading to 16 or 17 percent of second

doses. Registrations continue. Vaccines are now coming in sufficient

numbers that we can confidently say that we are absolutely on the right

track.

I’ll go back for a moment to put some context for members and for

all British Columbians. Back in March of 2020, we did not have the

prospect of safe and effective vaccines; we only had the spectre of

uncertainty. In fact, we were knee-deep in uncertainty, but we came

together as legislators in this place, with a hybrid model, somewhat

similar to what we’re seeing here today, coming together to ensure that

the business of the people of British Columbia could take place. By and

large, we’ve been successful in that regard.

The government, since the start of this fiscal year, has put in

place a number of programs, many of them focused on businesses, many of

them focused on communities. Of course, individuals also benefited from

a tax-free payment of $1,000 through the recovery benefit for families,

$500 for individuals. I know those resources were well needed by people

right across British Columbia to meet their daily expenses and to

continue to go through what has been the most extraordinary of

times.

We saw significant job loss in a number of sectors at the front

end, and we’ve seen those jobs slowly coming back, to the point now

where I’m seeing, in the daily press, more calls for concerns about an

absence of workers to meet the demands of a reopened economy. These are

issues that we all need to focus on. It’s not just in one sector or two

sectors; it’s right across the board. As we took steps to address the

challenges in our long-term-care sector, that had an impact on workers

in other sectors.

As we start the restart plan, we’re seeing and hearing from

businesses that are concerned that they won’t have sufficient workers to

meet the challenges ahead. That calls on all of us to make sure we’re

doing what we can to support those who are looking for training or

retraining, to support those who are looking to transition from one

sector into another.

British Columbia is filled, of course, with dynamic,

in­novative people, businesses and, of course, communities that

are as diverse as Atlin in the north, Creston in the Kootenays or even

Cumberland here on Vancouver Island — all with citizens focused on

getting though the pandemic, rebuilding and having a restart plan that

works for everyone.

Now, it has not been without its challenges, hon. Members. I know

each and every one of us will have unique stories about people in our

community who have faced unimaginable hardship over the past 15 months.

Over 1,700 people have lost their lives. Families are grieving the loss

of loved ones. They were also grieving the inability to access loved

ones in long-term care because of appropriate restrictions to keep

people safe during the height of the second and then the third

wave.

[5:10 p.m.]

There is good news on the horizon. We see, through the restart

plan, a clear path forward for every sector, for every British

Columbian. I know that more and more people are going to be travelling

around B.C. over the next couple of weeks. Indeed, as we talk…. I’m

going to be meeting with the federal Prime Minister and my colleagues

across the country on Thursday to talk in more detail about what an

international restart plan would look like, what role British Columbia

can play in that restart.

Of course, we’ve been engaging, through various ministers, with

stakeholders in the for-profit, not-for-profit and volunteer sectors, as

well as families, to try and find out what is the best way forward.

Where will British Columbians be comfortable? What we do know is that

there’s a high degree of anxiety in communities. I know the Minister of

Mental Health and Addictions raises these issues with us regularly in

cabinet and in discussions. But we know in our bones that people are

anxious about what the future may hold.

There’s a sense of excitement that the worst is behind us. The

vaccine program is rolling out effectively. We’re meeting our targets.

We’re meeting the criteria, the data that Dr. Henry and her team set out

for us. And in the next number of weeks, I’m hopeful that we can get

back to something more resembling regular.

Of course, as we go through the final week of this spring session,

we can look forward to a fall session, hopefully, where all of us can

gather in this place, where we can have the robust and vigorous debates

that all of us want to participate in. But I hope that we’ll be able to

do that respectfully, acknowledging that each and every one of us comes

here with the same objective: to lift up the people in our

community.

We all put our hands up in the last election and said: “I would

like to go to Victoria and represent your interests, not go to Victoria

so that I can represent Victoria’s interests to you.” That speaks to the

diversity on both sides of the House, not just in configuration and

ethnicity and gender and orientation, but it speaks to the differences

we all bring to this place, regardless of where we come from.

I’m hopeful that over the next number of hours, as we go through

not just the financial estimates that are usually the focus of these

discussions…. I know that the Leader of the Opposition will take the

same latitude that I did when I held her position to talk about a range

of issues, and I welcome that.

Again, I’m hopeful that we can do that in the respectful way that

we have been conducting ourselves, by and large, in question period and

in debates around legislation and get through the next number of hours

informing the public of British Columbia why we’re making budgetary

decisions, why we’re making policy decisions, always focused, regardless

of where we sit in this place, on lifting up our constituents and making

British Columbia a better place.

The Chair: Recognizing the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal

Opposition.

S. Bond: Thank you very much, hon. Chair. I appreciate your assistance with

the earlier question.

I want to thank the Premier for making his opening re­marks.

This is the beginning of several days of questions that we will engage

in. This is a place of accountability, and this is the opportunity for

the opposition…. As the Premier referenced in his comments, I do well

remember the days when he sat on this side of the Legislature and the

process that we went through.

His remarks, though, provide me with an important segue and a

beginning to some of the questions that I want to ask to start this

discussion, because it matters to me a great deal. I know the Premier is

well known for his referral to the fact that when there are tough issues

— and I will use his language — the buck stops with him. We’re going to

walk through this process with that in mind.

One of the things that I do want to make sure is on the record:

the delay in the introduction of the budget has caused some challenges

for the opposition, both opposition parties, in terms of trying to work

our way through the estimates process. The time necessary has been a

challenge, and that is unfortunate, from my perspective. There will be

at times, in this discussion, some uncomfortable questions. That is part

of what takes place in this chamber. That’s the way this work has to be

done and the opportunity that we get. I certainly do hope that there

will be an opportunity for this to continue to be done in a respectful

way.

I want to reflect for a moment on the statement that the Premier

made about extraordinary circumstances, and I want to begin with a

discussion of some of the decisions that the Premier made related to

mandate letters. That is his job. He has outlined in the mandate letters

to his ministers…. It’s repeated in the mandate letters….

[5:15 p.m.]

I want to begin there, because I think this is absolutely

essential. If one is going to signal that things should be done

differently, then one would assume they will be done differently. Here’s

the quote from the mandate letter. “British Columbians expect their

elected representatives to work together to advance the broader public

good despite their partisan perspectives. That means seeking out,

fostering and championing good ideas regardless of their

origin.”

I’m sure the Premier knows that this will begin a theme throughout

some of the questions that I will be asking over the next several days.

I would like the Premier to know that I agree with those words, but I’m

very concerned that there have been a significant number of

opportunities to take advantage of that mandate, which the Premier, to

this point, has refused to do.

Let’s start there. Both the official opposition and the Third

Party have written to the Premier, calling on him, in the spirit of the

language of the mandate letters, to activate the Select Standing

Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. Will the Premier outline for us today

why, considering the mandate that he’s laid out for his ministers, he

has been so reluctant to demonstrate to British Columbians that of all

the issues we should be working together on, perhaps reactivating the

Aboriginal Affairs Committee would be a very good start?

Hon. J. Horgan: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. She will

know that the past three years have been very, very full in this

Legislature talkin