Fourth Session, 42nd Parliament

(2023) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 309

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

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 24 — Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2023 (continued)

Hon. N. Sharma

M. de Jong

Hon. M. Dean

P. Milobar

D. Ashton

K. Kirkpatrick

Hon. N. Sharma

Bill 25 — Electoral Districts Act

Hon. N. Sharma

M. de Jong

S. Furstenau

J. Tegart

C. Oakes

A. Olsen

T. Stone

Hon. L. Beare

Bill 23 — Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 2023

Hon. R. Fleming

T. Halford

A. Olsen

Hon. D. Coulter

D. Routley

Hon. R. Fleming

Bill 19 — Money Services Businesses Act

Hon. K. Conroy

P. Milobar

Hon. K. Conroy

Bill 20 — Business Corporations Amendment Act, 2023

Hon. K. Conroy

P. Milobar

Hon. K. Conroy

Committee of the Whole House

Bill 10 — Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2023

Hon. K. Conroy

P. Milobar

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (continued)

Hon. R. Fleming

T. Halford

Estimates: Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction

Hon. S. Malcolmson

D. Davies

S. Furstenau

T. Shypitka

S. Bond

E. Ross

Proceedings in the Birch Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions (continued)

E. Sturko

Hon. J. Whiteside

THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2023

The House met at 1:02 p.m.

[Deputy Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. L. Beare: In this chamber, I call continued second reading, Bill 24, Miscellaneous

Statutes Amendment Act.

In

Section A, the Douglas Fir Room, continued estimates on the Ministry of

Transportation and Infrastructure, to be followed by the Ministry of Social

Development and Poverty Reduction.

In the Birch Room,

Section C, estimates on the Ministry of Mental Health

and Addictions.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 24 — MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT (N o . 2), 2023

(continued)

Hon. N. Sharma: Just continuing from where I left off before the break. I was

talking about the amendments to the Vancouver Charter. Specifically, the

amendments will enable Vancouver to establish and regulate fees for the

use of municipal property or for any service that it’s authorized to

provide under the Vancouver Charter through bylaw.

The amendments will also provide Vancouver the broad authority to

take remedial action and recover the costs at the expense of someone who

defaults on a property-related requirement authorized by the Vancouver

Charter. These amendments bring Vancouver into line with the authorities

all other local governments have under the Community Charter.

Next we have the Motor Vehicle Act. The proposed amend­ments

to the Motor Vehicle Act will support the digitization of forms that

police are required to complete when using licence suspensions and

driving prohibitions. The amendments establish an electronic certificate

of service that police will be able to complete electronically at

roadside to establish a person’s knowledge that they are suspended or

prohibited from driving.

Digitization of forms will assist police in completing forms more

quickly, improving the quality of documentation for courts, the public

and police, and will streamline the review process for prohibitions. The

changes build on the success of the current e-ticketing system by

aligning the act to allow for electronic certificates of service for

future forms.

Next we have the Community Living Authority Act. Amendments to the

Community Living Authority Act will establish specific composition

requirements for Community Living B.C.’s board of directors and require

the continuation of the board’s Indigenous Advisory

Committee.

[1:05 p.m.]

These changes generally codify existing practice, repair changes

made by the old government and respond to requests from adults with

developmental disabilities, their families and support organizations.

The changes aim to ensure that people impacted by decisions made by the

CLBC board are involved in providing advice and making those decisions,

by requiring a minimum of two directors eligible for CLBC support and

services, one director that is a family member or a person eligible for

CLBC support and services, and one Indigenous director — and requiring

the continuation of the Indigenous Advisory Committee in the

statute.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

These measures support government priorities including community

inclusion and meaningful and lasting reconciliation with Indigenous

people.

M. de Jong: Another miscellaneous…. It’s the second one this session. That’s

not unusual. As with other miscellaneous statutes amendment bills, an

amalgamation of proposed changes. They’re interesting, these.

[Interruption.]

Was it something I said?

Deputy Speaker: Please continue.

M. de Jong: The bill includes, I think, 46 clauses. It touches on, broadly

speaking, eight areas of public policy and, as the Attorney has said, a

number of statutes.

The first thing: the opposition is going to facilitate, to the

extent that the opposition can. The opposition has a role in that: to

facilitate some movement of the bill into the committee stage. What’s

often the case is that a lot of the provisions that are included in some

of these bills, miscellaneous statutes amendment acts, are technical in

nature — the term that we tend to use around here is housekeeping; in

some cases they are not.

The fact that a statutory provision can be short doesn’t mean that

it cannot be of great significance or great consequence. The difference

between “shall” and “may,” for example, as the Attorney knows, can be

quite significant in a piece of legislation. In some instances, there

can be provisions contained within a bill like this that are very

significant and represent an important shift in law and public

policy.

What I will do today is what I have done in the past: I will try

to alert the Attorney — and, through the Attorney, her colleagues — who

will be called upon to answer some questions where the official

opposition has some interest and areas that it wishes to explore. I’ll

try to characterize, in a couple of instances, where they are matters of

technical interest and areas, in some other provisions, where the

opposition has more serious concerns about the direction or what is

being proposed.

There will be some questions relating to the Child, Family and

Community Service Act amendments. I think the government, the minister

and her colleagues will find there’s general agreement with the

direction, but there will be a desire to explore briefly some of the

mechanics involved in the changes being proposed there.

[1:10 p.m.]

Similarly, I wouldn’t characterize the amendments to the Societies

Act as being controversial, but staff and the minister should anticipate

being made available to answer a few technical questions.

On the health tissue gift act, there will be some questions.

Again, I wouldn’t characterize them as questions that denote a

passionate opposition to what’s being proposed here, but it’s an area

that obviously elicits a great deal of interest. As whenever

scope-of-practice issues and matters relating to human tissue donations

are concerned, it’s worthwhile to ensure that any lingering questions

are being dealt with.

Part 4 in the act, clause 11, deals with the Strata Property Act.

My intention is not to belabour the discussion here at this stage of the

debate with this bill, but suffice to say the opposition has some

concerns. It has articulated those concerns with respect to other pieces

of legislation that the government has introduced. The degree to which

this provision is even necessary is a reflection of the fact that the

government hasn’t got it right. Despite repeated assurances, we see yet

another attempt at corrective legislative action.

The government has caused, by virtue of the direction it is headed

here, a lot of concern. What my colleagues, particularly in committee

stage, are going to point out through their questions is this steady

erosion on the rights of property owners in strata developments, their

neighbourhoods and the ability they have to determine and govern the

composition of their neighbourhoods, the impact that this erosion on

those rights is having and the concern it’s causing.

The fact that this provision is even here is a reflection of the

fact that the government hasn’t got it right and that it is causing

distress, confusion and unintended consequences. My colleague from

Kamloops is here and will likely have something more to say about

that.

Part 6. My colleague from Penticton will be here. Now, when a

government introduces legislative provisions bills…. As I said, in these

misc bills, there are technical matters, there are housekeeping matters,

and there are provisions that the opposition is opposed to. Then there

are provisions that the opposition doesn’t really know what to think

until it gets a proper explanation for what’s taking place here. I think

the word I would use to characterize the opposition’s response to

part 6

is “suspicion.”

I don’t know if this was by design, and I don’t say this in a

critical way. But when the Attorney General read her second reading

remarks…. I understand that these remarks are generally prepared for the

minister, especially when it’s a misc bill that involves a lot of

different areas of government and the Attorney is the shepherd that has

to bring it all together and introduce it to the House. That’s why these

remarks are prepared for her. It struck me that she didn’t make mention

in her remarks about the specifics of clause 7 and road levies and road

tolls.

[1:15 p.m.]

Now, I don’t know what the government is up to here, but the

opposition and the minister responsible can be assured that the official

opposition is going to want to pose some questions about what the

government is up to here and why these provisions are

necessary.

We know that the former mayor of Vancouver, with whom the Premier

was very closely aligned, had some publicly stated intentions in this

regard that the people of that city, of Vancouver, rejected soundly,

along with a lot of other policies.

The fact that these provisions are here and that they speak to the

issue and import an element of provincial oversight that heretofore has

not existed suggests that the government had something in mind. If it

does have something in mind, and if it is seeking approval from this

House to move in a certain direction, it should be prepared to, in a

forthright manner, explain what that direction is.

As I say, my colleague from Penticton will have some comments in

that regard here today, and we’ll certainly be pursuing that matter with

the minister responsible when the bill does move to committee

stage.

I would say, then, that I’ve probably highlighted the two areas of

the legislation that are going to engage the most attention at committee

stage. I think the Attorney will appreciate I am using…. This is not

meant to be a criticism of her, as the coordinator of the three-ring

circus that is miscellaneous statutes bills.

This bill won’t come for committee stage until next week, by

virtue of the rules of this House. I hope that the ministers and

ministries with responsibility for these sections will go to the trouble

of hearing our remarks today so they aren’t caught by surprise when the

legislation comes before the House next week, or whenever the House

Leaders bring it before the House, and are prepared to answer the

questions that the opposition has.

Again, we’ll facilitate, obviously, movement through second

reading to get to committee stage. But depending on the answers we get —

particularly in the two areas of finance, strata; the amendments of the

Strata Property Act and the Vancouver Charter — I cannot, nor will I,

assure the government of support for those provisions. That will very

much depend on what we hear through the committee stage

debate.

Hon. M. Dean: This Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2023, amends

the Child, Family and Community Service Act. What it’s doing is

addressing critical gaps in government services for young adults with

prior significant involvement in the child welfare system.

The legislation enables the implementation of expanded eligibility

and services to support these young people in their transition to

adulthood. Improving outcomes for this population is a priority for

government that has intersections with housing, affordability, poverty

reduction and advancing reconciliation with First Nations, Métis and

Inuit peoples.

Young people from government care want to thrive, not just

survive. That’s what they tell me. They have been telling ministers in

this position for many years that previously, services or programs were

not accessible. It had been termed the superhighway to homelessness,

having been in government care.

For the very first time in the province of British Columbia,

through these legislative amendments, young people from government care

will be able to be supported. We, the government, will have the legal

authority to be able to support young people past their 19th birthday —

and not just a few.

[1:20 p.m.]

We are creating a comprehensive suite of supports and services and

programs for these young people up to the age of 27, for them to be able

to design their own package of supports and services, for them to be

able to thrive.

We didn’t previously have the legal authority to be able to do it.

So this miscellaneous bill is actually really significant to staff in my

ministry who support young people, to the young people who have been in

government care and who see their 19th birthday approaching as well.

Young people told me that it was like a cliff. They dreaded turning 19.

So it’s up to us to make sure that we can provide the services that they

need so that they are able to thrive and so that they are able to have a

dream and to fulfil their dream as well.

We’ve already started this work. In the spring of 2022, we made

indefinite the extension to temporary housing and temporary support

agreements. We increased flexibility to the agreements with young adults

so that more young adults were actually accessing life skills,

rehabilitative and mental health options.

In the summer of last year, we introduced a no-limit earnings

exemption so that young people can still access benefits and services

delivered by government and not lose any of those or be at risk of

losing any of those because they have some earnings. We know how

important it is for young people to be able to have extra money that

they’ve earned, to be able to build a good quality of life and good work

experience and build their résumé as well.

In the fall of 2022, we introduced the first-ever rent supplement

for young people from government care, so young people living in market

rentals were able to access $600 a month for two years, as long as they

were still eligible. Here, now, in spring of 2023, we’re doing our

second rental supplement intake, and at least 50 percent of those rents

will be going to Indigenous children and youth as well.

We’ve hired new transition workers, and they’ve begun work on

Vancouver Island and in the north. We heard from young people that they

want help in navigating systems and programs, and we heard from young

people that access to any of the programs was really inconsistent across

the province. So we want to make sure that wherever young people are, if

they’ve been in government care, they have access to support that is of

the same quality and standard that helps connect them to the services

and programs that they need.

Of course, their goals will change. As they get older, as they’re

successful, as they mature, as they do more training, then those goals

will change, and transition workers will be able to help young people

make those transitions between different types of programming and

services as well.

The duration of the support for agreements with young people has

increased to 84 months and up to the age of 27. Enhanced medical

benefits have been introduced, including expanded dental and optical

coverage, and the temporary support and temporary housing agreements

available between the ages of 19 and 21 have more flexibility to move

between those agreements so that we’re not putting barriers in the way

for young people, saying: “Well, if you choose this, then you can’t

choose that.”

In the summer this year, there will be enhanced funding for life

skills training and cultural programming. The provincial tuition waiver

program becomes available for all ages. That is thousands more young

people who have previously been in government care who will be able to

access the tuition waiver program. I met a guy in his 40s who had been

in government care and who is now training to be a social worker. We

need them. This is one with lived experience, as well, and he’s going to

be able to access the tuition waiver program, which he told me is

absolutely life-changing.

We’re working with our youth advisory group, and they’re actually

going to tell us what we’re going to be calling this suite of programs.

Rather than youth transitions, they’re going to give it a name. So I’m

looking forward to that.

In the fall of this year, we’ll see the rent supplement program,

third intake. There will be enhanced medical benefits with access to

counselling, and we’ll be continuing to recruit more transition workers

around the province as well.

Then in the spring of 2024, there’ll be even further expanded

eligibility for post-19 supports and services. The housing and supports

agreements to remain in current homes will be up to the age of 21, and

there will be an unconditional income supplement commencing at the age

of 19 and lasting up until the 20th birthday of these young people of

$1,250 a month.

[1:25 p.m.]

I talk to young people who have been in government care very, very

often and hear their stories. I know that this is life-changing for many

young people. I know that this is going to lift them, and it’s going to

give them a very different journey when they leave government care, and

different opportunities. It will mean that young people will be able to

thrive and not just survive.

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to rise to Bill 24. I have to say that, as

our shadow Finance Minister and after eight weeks of legislative session

and almost six years as a legislator in this place, I’m thrilled to see

that, at long last, in Bill 24, the burning piece of our time, has been

dealt with in

section 31 of the Societies Act, which is: “(

a) in

paragraph (b)(

i) and (iii) by striking out ‘3rd day’ and substituting

‘third day,’ and (

b) in paragraph (b)(ii) by striking out ‘5th day’ and

substituting ‘fifth day.’”

It’s this type of legislation changes that really drove me to seek

office and represent the fine people of Kamloops–North Thompson in this

place. For those at home that are wondering, it’s because the first,

third and fifth days are numerical, and now they will be in written form

instead.

As we move through the other Societies Act changes, again, there’s

just some housekeeping around what the word “student” means in relation

to a university student, and also a definition of a “student society” in

regards to university students and their societies, as well as a new

definition of “university,” which will now mean any of the following:

“(

a) a university as defined in the University Act; (

b) Royal Roads

University;” and “(

c) Thompson Rivers University,” from the part of the

province that I represent.

I’m certainly glad we have this taken care of. I’m sure people

will sleep much easier in my riding knowing that the third and fifth

days have been corrected and that a university student is better defined

in this act. I do look forward to committee stage, where we will further

probe these hard-hitting things within this bill on the finance

side.

I say that just because it is a housekeeping bill, and obviously,

there are sections, as we’ve heard from my colleague from Abbotsford

West, that will be much more in-depth in committee stage by us in terms

of what the impacts to people are. Certainly, though, the finance

amendments in this with the Societies Act do appear to be very minor in

scope, and that is to be expected within a miscellaneous stats bill. Not

everything can be the much more game-changing-type changes that might

impact people.

With that, I thank you for the time, and I look forward to

committee stage on this bill.

D. Ashton: I would like to thank my peer from Abbotsford West for his opening

remarks, and also the Attorney General. I thank her for the introduction

of the bill and also for her opening remarks.

As has been stated, there is some cause for concern by some of us

that the government has an agenda and a mandate and are moving, and

moving fast and furious in some places. In my opinion and some others,

there is a check and a balance that I think needs to at least be brought

forward.

I also would like to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and

her, I’ll say, wonderful staff, because they are, for agreeing to having

a briefing as of next week, which hopefully will answer some of the

questions. When you look at the clauses, 13 through 36, there are some

very minor amendments, but there is also — in an

interpretation of the

words — some more authority being given to the province.

Yes, the Vancouver Charter stands alone as compared to many

municipalities — or all municipalities, actually — in the province, so

it appears that there are some additional powers that are being

relinquished from the Vancouver Charter at this point in time and being

given to the province.

I have some clauses, specifically 17, 29, and also 21, but these

are the issues that I will be taking up with the Minister of Municipal

Affairs and her staff. Also, I do look forward to having the opportunity

to have this open discussion and this clarification during the committee

stage. I think all of the citizens of British Columbia will probably

enjoy seeing that government has an opportunity to proceed with

this.

[1:30 p.m.]

Also, we have the opportunity to ensure that there are checks and

balances and at least bringing to the attention of the people on the

opposite of the side of the other House, i.e. the government, that there

has been some concern addressed to us to ensure that it is brought up in

the House.

Madam Chair, thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you

again to the Attorney General for bringing this forward. I look forward

to committee stage as of next week.

K. Kirkpatrick: I’m appreciative of the opportunity to be able to stand and speak

to Bill 24, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, as the shadow

minister for Housing. It is clause 11 that I am most interested and

concerned about. Clause 11 appears to be dealing with some

misunderstanding that came out of the wording from Bill 44, which was

rushed through this House in the last sitting of the

Legislature.

The opposition at the time had raised a number of concerns about

the confusion that Bill 44 was going to be causing with respect to

stratas and strata management. The fact that we now already have to come

back and we have a miscellaneous change is quite concerning and, I

think, supportive of what the opposition has said in terms of this being

a poorly thought-out, poorly written and poorly implemented

bill.

This government promised changes. The Minister of Housing promised

changes over a year ago that were going to protect families who are

having children from having extraordinary increases in their rent. That

is something that hasn’t happened yet. There’s lots of opportunity for

important, impactful legislation like that to come through in a

miscellaneous statutes amendment. So it’s very disappointing that what

I’m understanding this piece of legislation, this change, is to make is

to just be more descriptive with respect to age limits in

buildings.

Those buildings which still have the ability to have the 55-plus

age restriction…. This is just rewording or trying to be more clear in

the intention of the original Bill 44 that in those 55-plus buildings or

in other buildings, they’re not able to have any other age restrictions.

So the 19-plus age restriction is no longer there. This is just to add

clarity to that.

I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on this, and I

will take my seat.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, does the minister wish to close

debate?

Hon. N. Sharma: I want to thank all the members for their comments. As the steward

of this bill and as Attorney General, I’m sure that the ministers will

be ready to answer the questions at committee stage.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Hon. N. Sharma: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole

House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after

today.

Bill 24, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2023, read a

second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration

at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. Dean: I call second reading of Bill 25, electoral boundaries act,

BILL 25 — ELECTORAL DISTRICTS ACT

Hon. N. Sharma: I move that the bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this bill is to implement the proposals of the 2022

Electoral Boundaries Commission. The bill follows the adoption by this

House of a resolution approving those proposals without amendment.

Accordingly, the bill would make no changes to any of the commission’s

proposals. It would create 93 electoral districts in the province, an

increase of six districts from the current 87. Each district would have

the area, boundary and name proposed by the commission.

If this bill is enacted, the new electoral districts would be in

place for the next two provincial elections which, under our fixed

election date provisions, are scheduled for 2024 and 2028.

The reasons for adopting the commission’s proposals were discussed

during our recent debate on the resolution. I won’t go into details

about that again. I will say that it is clear that the commission

carried out its work diligently and with care.

[1:35 p.m.]

The commission had the flexibility to address population growth in

the province by proposing up to six additional districts, and it has

chosen to exercise that option by proposing new districts in Burnaby,

Langley, Surrey, Vancouver, Langford and Kelowna. The population of each

electoral district is ideally within plus or minus 25 percent of the

electoral quotient, which is the population of B.C. divided by the

number of electoral districts.

The addition of these six new districts means that only five

districts in the province will exceed the acceptable deviation range,

down from the current 17, to continue to ensure effective

representation. The commission’s proposals retain the existing number of

districts in the northern regions of the province. Boundary changes are

recommended for 72 electoral districts, and the names of 41 districts

will be changed.

The commission is careful to describe in its report the reasons

for alterations they propose to existing electoral districts, either to

balance population or to provide for better representation of community

interests. I believe that, on the whole, the commission’s proposals will

provide for effective representation in this assembly for all British

Columbians, regardless of where they live in this province.

I would like to again thank the members of the commission: Justice

Nitya Iyer; Linda Tynan, local government management consultant; and

Anton Boegman, Chief Electoral Officer for British Columbia. I look

forward to further comments and debate by other members of the

House.

M. de Jong: I’ll pick up where the Attorney left off by articulating, on

behalf of the official opposition — I’m sure all members of the House,

actually — the gratitude we have for the work of the commission and the

commissioners.

It is a difficult task. It is obviously a time-consuming task.

It’s a great way to see the province, which I think the commissioners

would say was probably a component of their work that they enjoyed, and

a chance to meet with people.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. I wouldn’t pretend that

politicians occupy the highest rung on the ladder of affection in the

minds of the public, but try tampering with a community’s electoral

districts or, God forbid, removing or eliminating an MLA — or an MP, for

that matter — and governments, political parties, can discover just how

importantly people view that notion of effective

representation.

The commission. We have had this conversation partially when the

Attorney led the discussion about the motion that adopted the

recommendations of the Boundaries Commission. So this represents the

final step in the exercise of redrawing our political map and our

political boundaries.

The commission has undertaken its work. It has prepared a report.

The House has endorsed those recommendations, and the government has

taken that motion and the work and the recommendations of the commission

and now enshrines it in this bill, which will become law. And absent the

Attorney General suggesting otherwise, I think it has done so faithfully

and accurately, insofar as replicating what was in the commission’s

report, in their recommendations, including the number of ridings and

the boundaries that they have recommended.

It’s the great conundrum that has confronted our province,

confronts our country and will continue to do so as our population

becomes more densified in a particular area of the province. Other parts

of the province, so incredibly important from an economic point of view

— and obviously important socially, insofar as the people and the

families and the communities that reside there — find themselves under

pressure in terms of maintaining the levels of representation that have

historically existed and matching the principle that a vote should have

roughly the same value, no matter where you are in the province, versus

the reality that we have constituencies that are as large as a mid-sized

European country.

[1:40 p.m.]

We tend, in here, to talk about the ability of the elected

representative to do their work, but probably the flip side is even more

important, the opportunity for the citizen to gain access to that

elected representative. Yes, technology has evolved a great deal, but

that is not a substitute for being able to sit down and look an MLA in

the eye, or an MP for that matter, and say: “Here’s what’s going on in

my life, and I need you to understand that.”

The measurement for the House, I would suggest, and certainly for

the opposition is: has the commission undertaken its work in good faith?

Has it prepared a report and recommendations that enshrine the

principles of equality and effective representation? Has it been free

from undue influence? I’m happy to say that I think this exercise passes

muster in that regard, which is why the official opposition was content

— well, I believe the whole House was content; I see my colleague, the

Third Party House Leader, I think was content; we were all content — to

hold hands and endorse the recommendations.

I don’t anticipate a lengthy debate today, but I think the House

will hear from a couple of members, though, who will articulate the

challenge that they have encountered. It is process-related when an

interim report is presented that suggests the commission is heading in a

certain direction. It’s presented for a reason. It’s presented so that

members of communities, members of this House can say: “Okay. Well,

that’s great, but we have some problems, and we have some ideas about

how to produce a better product.” The interim report is designed to

elicit that response, and that’s good.

What has happened, however, in several instances, is that

communities, when they opened up the pages of the final report, found

themselves shifted around on the basis of changes that they hadn’t

anticipated. I don’t have the perfect solution for how to address that,

but I think the House needs to hear from and will hear from several

members of the House who are obliged, I think, to speak on behalf of

communities who woke up on the morning the final report was tabled to

discover that something had happened to them that they hadn’t

anticipated, certainly hadn’t been forewarned about in the preliminary

report.

Madam Speaker, the House is growing. I think that there is

probably room to accommodate the additional seats that the commission

and this bill will be adding. The Attorney may discover that she has at

least one member within her caucus and at the cabinet table who has

ideas about replacing these desks with benches. He’s a fairly senior

member of the government caucus — in fact, the most senior member of the

government caucus — who has some experience and some pronounced views on

the preference for benches.

I, for my part, think the idea has merit. It troubles me that I

won’t have the same kind of access to all of my electronic devices that

I rely so heavily upon in the course of preparing for these addresses.

In any event, that is a practical matter that at some point becomes an

issue.

[1:45 p.m.]

Our task here today is not to necessarily worry about how the

desks or benches are going to be aligned but whether or not people and

communities and families have effective, fair representation. The

commission has happily arrived at a series of recommendations, and the

bill is reflective of those recommendations and, for that reason, will

enjoy the support of the official opposition, subject to some of the

comments that a few members, I think, are necessarily obliged to make

during the course of this debate.

S. Furstenau: I’m delighted to stand up today to speak to Bill 25, the Electoral

Districts Act.

This bill legislates changes that have been discussed for some

time. As we know, after every second election cycle, the Electoral

Boundaries Commission, with, really, a mandate from legislation that has

come from this chamber, goes and looks at all the electoral boundaries

and comes back with recommendations to the Legislature for changes to

electoral boundaries in British Columbia.

I want to start with a little bit on that and then speak

specifically to my own electoral district. I’m going to start with

renaming. Many ridings are proposed to have renames.

There are going to be, according to the recommendations, six new

electoral districts, including four in the Lower Mainland — in

Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and Langley — one on Vancouver Island and

another one in Kelowna, in the B.C. interior. New electoral districts

come with new names or, sometimes, names that have been used before. I

think this is a time for us, as legislators, to ask whether some of

these names should really remain.

I’m going to speak specifically about Coquitlam-Maillardville.

Maillardville is named after its French heritage, as Québécois foresters

settled in the area at the turn of the century and built a community. At

this time, as we know, from our history, there was rampant racism

against Chinese, Japanese and South Asian workers, and the Canadian

Western Lumber Company sought out an all-white workforce. They brought

foresters in from Quebec to displace the Asian community.

Maillardville was named specifically after Edmond Maillard, the

founder of the local Catholic Church. What isn’t often talked about in

the history is…. Twenty years after coming to Coquitlam, Edmond Maillard

later became the principal of the Sechelt Indian Residential School.

Duncan Campbell Scott himself, the superintendent of Indian Affairs and

a man associated with his distaste for what he called the “Indian

problem,” wrote his letter of recommendation, saying: “I am satisfied

that Father Maillard’s experience has fitted him for the

work.”

We can do better. We can make choices. We have that ability in

here. We change the names of electoral districts to reflect geographical

boundaries and to represent our province effectively. We have chosen to

ignore, in this round of changes, given what we know, given what has

come to light since the last round of electoral boundary changes, at

Tk’emlúps, in particular, the first example of gravesites of children

who went to residential schools and never came home…. I think that

ignoring our capacity and our ability to change the names of electoral

boundaries at this time…. It is really not something that we want to

ignore.

Maya Angelou wrote: “Do the best until you know better. Then when

you know better, do better.”

[1:50 p.m.]

We know better now, and we can do better. We know about the

devastating and traumatic impacts of residential schools on Indigenous

peoples in Canada. In just the past two years, the unmarked burial sites

at former residential schools has championed a new wave of action

towards healing and, hopefully, reconciliation.

We know better than to continue the legacy of harm, even just in

words and names. Names have meaning. They reflect a community’s values,

their history and who they continue to uphold as leaders. Continuing to

uphold the legacy of residential schools and the people who supported

them is directly against the spirit of reconciliation that this

government continues to call — and I believe that for them, it is — a

priority.

For many, Maillardville is just a name, but for those who lived

the intergenerational trauma of residential schools, it’s a reminder of

just how pervasive this colonial mindset is. It’s a reminder that the

province continues to celebrate the legacy of perpetrators’ harms. We

have the opportunity before us as legislators to amend

schedule 1 of

this act and change the names that reflect colonial harm, including

Coquitlam-Maillardville. I hope and believe that we can find consensus

in this chamber to do just that.

I want to talk about the Electoral Boundaries Commission’s process

and particularly about public input and about effective representation.

Public input was sought, in multiple community meetings across the

province, around the proposed changes to electoral boundaries. However,

to hear the public input on the draft recommendations, one has to listen

to the only source of that input available right now, which is an audio

recording, and to be able to hear all of that, one has to go through the

whole audio recording.

This is very limiting for somebody who is specifically interested

in listening to the input specific to their region or their riding.

Listening to hours and hours of files is something that, I would expect,

not only those of us here in this chamber might find a significant

challenge, but most people in their very busy lives. For the

hearing-impaired, these changes are not offered in any other format,

including not offered in written transcript. Final public submissions

were put into an Excel spreadsheet and uploaded to the website. But

again, for many British Columbians, this format is inaccessible and very

hard to navigate.

In the future, public input should be represented in many

different reader- and listener-friendly formats, recognizing the

different abilities of British Columbians and the importance of

participation in all aspects of the work of democracy — in particular,

when we are talking about changes that people will feel and experience

in their daily lives and in their communities: who represents them, what

part of the community they are in an electoral district. Let’s make this

as accessible and transparent as possible. Let’s take what we know now

and do better.

Looking at the Excel spreadsheet, there were 780 people who

submitted feedback. Of those submissions, 458, or 58 percent of them,

disagreed with the changes that were proposed.

My current riding, Cowichan Valley — Cowichan named for the

Cowichan people, who are wonderful to be partnering with and to be

working with — is being split into two. My home community of Shawnigan

Lake is now being joined to Sooke, Port Renfrew and the Malahat

area.

That’s about 20,000 people being divided into a new community,

separated away by representation from the community that they are still

very much a part of, particularly as they are part of the Cowichan

Valley regional district. Sections A, B and C of the district are being

moved and attached to a different regional district and separated at

provincial representation–level from the rest of the regional district

that they are a part of.

[1:55 p.m.]

So 13 people provided feedback, through the survey, relevant to

the new proposed Juan de Fuca–Malahat riding, and ten of those 13 were

in vocal opposition, significant opposition, saying that this riding

makes little sense in terms of community cohesion. Malahat, Mill Bay,

Cobble Hill and Shawnigan Lake are all within, as I pointed out, the

Cowichan Valley regional district, not within the Juan de Fuca

region.

These people indicated that Sooke and Cowichan are two very

different populations with very distinct issues and demographics. The

new MLA office would need to be either located in two different places….

I know, Madam Speaker, that you have a particularly large riding, and

you know the challenges, geographically, of representation.

When we’ve had, for so long, an electoral district that really

does match the cohesive community that already exists, it’s jarring to

now have to think of this as the future electoral boundary.

One of the comments that was submitted indicated that this change

to making it the Cowichan Valley was made in the 1990s, previously.

Another comment indicated: “The MLA will need to navigate more than one

regional district and will be disconnected to one part of the riding by

a big block of land that doesn’t have a road through it except the

Malahat, part of which is outside of the riding. Is it normal for an MLA

to leave their riding in order to enter another part of their riding?

I’d say probably for many, that is not the case.”

I, too, voiced my concerns with these proposed changes, to the

Electoral Boundaries Commission, outlining many of these shared worries

about community cohesion, about the division of the Cowichan Valley

regional district, about the geographical issues with travelling in and

out of the riding and to get to another part of it.

What is our role here? We know that the Electoral Boundaries

Commission is an independent body, and it operates based on the mandate

that it is given from this Legislature.

The guiding principles of the Electoral Boundaries Commission are

population representation, taking into account: “(

i) geographic

configuration of any part of British Columbia; (ii) demographic

considerations, including communities of interest and the sparsity,

density or rate of growth of the population of any part of British

Columbia; and (iii) the availability and means of communication and

transportation between various parts of British Columbia.”

The other guiding principles of the Boundaries Commission include

that the electoral quotient may not be deviated from by more than 25

percent — I’m going to talk about that in a moment — and that the

principle of representation by population and effective representation

is highlighted. “Representation by population in our democracy is…the

right to a relatively equal voice in electing the representatives who

govern us. Where a person lives, what they do for a living or how much

they contribute to the economic well-being of the community does not

make a difference to the weight of their vote. The principle of

representation by population must be balanced with the equally important

principle of effective representation.”

Effective representation recognizes that the difference between

people in different parts of the province may affect their ability to

communicate with and seek assistance from their elected

representatives.

This was what I said to the Electoral Boundaries Commission when

we had the opportunity to give input. One of the things that I am most

proud of in my work in Cowichan Valley has been that we have come

together, and there’s a little story of how this all

happened.

There were incidents of racism, in the community, against members

of Cowichan Tribes. We came together as elected leaders: the MLA, the

MP, the mayors, the chair of the regional district, the chair of the

school district, and Chief of Cowichan Tribes, evidently. We came

together on a number of occasions to put all of our voices together into

a shared statement saying: “We do not tolerate racism in our riding.

This is not who we are.”

[2:00 p.m.]

[R. Leonard in the chair.]

We made an expression, as leaders, of who we are as a region. Out

of that we created the Cowichan Leadership Group. And this leadership

group has met regularly ever since 2018. When we come together, we have

no actual authority. We aren’t a formal body, but we come together to

share information and to support each other in the work that we do as

elected representatives of our valley. We come together to support

initiatives, to make joint statements, and to really demonstrate the

cohesion of our electoral district and of our valley, the Cowichan

Valley.

Unfortunately, my case to the Boundaries Commission did not

succeed, nor did the ten of the 13 people who also made the same case to

keep our electoral district intact as it was. So it is, really, with a

heavy heart that I’ve had to contemplate where I will run next as the

candidate. I’m going to read into the record, essentially, a letter I’ve

written to the residents of Cowichan Valley, explaining how I’ve made

that decision and what this decision means to me.

“Dear Cowichan Valley:

“This week the provincial government introduced Bill 25, the

electoral boundaries act, which, if passed, will create six new ridings

and make several riding boundary adjustments. The bill will work its way

through the legislative process, and if passed, the changes will take

effect when the Premier calls the next general election.

“One of the ridings that has been adjusted is the Cowichan Valley.

The new boundary will no longer include my home community of Shawnigan

Lake, Mill Bay and Cobble Hill or South Cowichan, which are now slated

to be part of the new Juan de Fuca–Malahat riding. Shawnigan Lake is my

home. It’s where I live. It’s where my children have grown up. The

reason I got into politics in the first place was because of the work we

did in Shawnigan Lake to stand up to protect our drinking

water.

“If the legislation to change the electoral boundaries passes as is,

I will run as the B.C. Greens candidate in the new Juan de Fuca–Malahat

riding. While I’m clear on this decision, it has not been an easy one to

make, and I am sad that I have to have made it. I’m sad that the

Cowichan Valley riding has been broken up in this way. I’m sad that I do

not have the opportunity after the next election to continue to

represent the whole valley as I have since 2017.

“I will always remain a champion for the work that is underway in

the Cowichan Valley: the ongoing watershed work, the need for affordable

housing, the need for primary care, the need for mental health supports.

As MLA, I have focused on bringing the people, the leaders and the

values of this valley to the centre of my work.

“The current Cowichan Valley boundary makes sense. It captures the

connectedness of the Cowichan Valley, the people in the regional

district. And I made this case to the Electoral Boundaries Commission

when they sought input after their draft report was released last fall.

Since 2014, when I was first elected to the Cowichan Valley regional

district as the area B director for Shawnigan Lake, I have deepened my

understanding, my relationships and my attachment to the Cowichan

Valley.

“I’m so proud of the work that so many people in this community have

undertaken to take care of each other. It has been an honour to witness

the efforts, to hear about the obstacles and to find ways to remove

those obstacles in the B.C. Legislature. We should all be so incredibly

proud of the things we can accomplish when we work together.

“We have a gorgeous new hospice, new supportive housing. In the next

few years, we will have a new high school, a new police station and more

supportive housing and a new hospital. And these are just the physical

structures.

[2:05 p.m.]

“I have witnessed advocates in the business community and across the

social services spectrum and the volunteer community work so hard to

support all of the needs of all of the people of Cowichan Valley every

day. I’m humbled and honoured to work with these groups and these

individuals in advocating for change in provincial policies and programs

for housing, health care, environmental protection, public safety,

education, child care, sports, mental health and addictions, the child

welfare system, and so much more.

“I’m dedicated to being the representative of the Cowichan Valley

until the next election. My constituency office remains open. Our staff

continue to be available to help anyone who needs support in a

provincial matter. We will also continue to provide support to the

Cowichan Leadership Group, comprised of the Chief of Cowichan Tribes,

Duncan and North Cowichan mayors, our MP, me as the MLA, and Island

Health, school district and RCMP representatives as we work

collaboratively to solve problems across jurisdictions and party

lines.

“I’ll continue to advocate for Cowichan with the same fierce

determination that brought me into this Legislature when I was first

elected in 2017. I’ve always respected and been grateful for the support

that I have been shown by the people of Cowichan and in electing me to

be the representative of the Cowichan Valley. I will always take the

lessons that I have been taught, that we have learned together, and I

will take those into the new riding and will continue to credit the work

so many people do every day to make the Cowichan Valley a healthy and

safe place to live.”

I want to thank everybody in Cowichan Valley for the work that has

been done and for the relationships that we have built. While I know

that we are debating this legislation, and it is not yet determined what

the outcome of it will be, I think it was really important for me to

express both my sadness and disappointment at the ultimate

recommendations that have been made and the implications it has for the

community of Cowichan Valley.

My deep gratitude for having been and continuing to be the MLA for

this incredibly special and precious region that has shown such

incredible leadership, not only in B.C. but across the country, with

things like the Cowichan Watershed Board, a co-governance model between

Cowichan Tribes and the regional district that really demonstrates

reconciliation in action.

With that, I will close up my remarks, but I hope that we can get

support, for the very least, to look at the potential to change the name

of at least one riding in this province which I think is long overdue

for a new name.

J. Tegart: I rise today to speak to Bill 25, the Electoral Districts

Act.

It is no small task to conduct such an extensive and thorough

review of B.C. electoral boundaries. As we see in the House today,

people are very passionate about where they represent, and they’re very

passionate about belonging to a riding. So when we look at electoral

boundary reviews, a lot of feelings come out. A lot of people come out.

You get a real sense of how important boundaries are in your

riding.

The electoral boundary review had a very difficult task. To look

at the province of British Columbia and take the mandate given by this

House and review every electoral boundary in British Columbia is a tough

job, and I’m sure they spent a lot of time on the road. I know I

certainly do in my riding, which is a large rural riding.

The thing I want to talk about today is process and the fact that

I have heard from many people in my riding that they felt the process

could have been stronger. When the first draft report came out…. The

first thing you do is look at your own riding, because you want to know

how it affects your people. You want to know whether there are

significant changes or just small tweaks, and you want to know how

active you need to become in order to advocate for changes that perhaps

areas of your riding don’t agree with.

[2:10 p.m.]

Well, certainly in my riding, when the draft report came out, the

first sense was: “Oh, we’re okay.” I can tell you that Fraser-Nicola has

been a riding that has changed with every boundary review. Hope has been

in. Hope has been out. Princeton has been in. Princeton has been out.

Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton have been in, and then they’ve been out.

We’ve had our name changed a number of times.

I think that in the past, when the first draft report came out, my

experience and certainly the experience of people in my riding is that

the second report came out often just doing small tweaks, listening to

the input of people in constituencies and then doing small tweaks in

their final report.

Well, I can tell you that it wasn’t a small tweak this time. I

live in a riding that is large in rural land base but small in

population. We felt quite relieved in the first draft that we were still

there and that our name was still there. We were still named the same

riding, and the area that was to be represented looked pretty similar.

But what happened in the final report was significant for us.

We felt, in the process, that the people who had significant

change in the first draft had the opportunity to make representation,

but the people who were affected by the final report did not. There was

no indication in the first draft that consideration was being given to

significant change in our riding. We had had some areas added on, but

there were no areas being taken away. In the final draft, there has been

significant change.

I guess what I would say to all of us here in the Legislature is

that as we encourage people to be a part of the democratic process, as

we look at ways to get people more involved in the governance of their

area and of their province, it is so important that people feel like

they belong to something. We have worked really, really hard since the

last boundary change to make Fraser-Nicola an entity that people feel

very proud to be a part of. Again, here we find ourselves with

significant change, significant loss of communities and significant

change in who we are and what we look like.

I would ask the House to keep that in mind as we talk about future

boundary changes, future boundary reviews, processes and how they work.

I have a number of people in my riding who are feeling very

disenfranchised. I think democracy is too important for us to ignore

that.

To conclude, I want to reiterate my appreciation of the work of

the commission. I can understand the difficulty they faced at times, to

look at boundaries and how they could be adjusted.

In the final report, similar to the Leader of the Third Party, I

find myself living in a community that’s been removed from my riding,

but I’ve been very clear that Fraser-Nicola is in my heart and is the

riding that I will run in, in the next election.

[2:15 p.m.]

I want the people of Fraser-Nicola to know that despite changes,

we have strong representation. For those who have been added into the

riding, looking forward to meeting new friends. For those who will find

themselves in a different riding after the legislation becomes law,

please know that the transition will be as smooth as we can possibly

make it.

So again, thank you to the commission. Thank you for the

opportunity to express some of the concerns that I’ve heard in my

riding. Thank you for the opportunity to address the House

today.

C. Oakes: Thank you for the opportunity just to make a few brief comments in

response to the electoral boundary review, Bill 25. I want to thank the

member for Abbotsford West for doing such an able job of reflecting our

views as the B.C. United.

I really appreciate the commissioner’s work and certainly

recognize the complexities when we do the review and the challenges of

looking at the population and the geographic area. The bill, having been

tabled — I went back home into the constituency just to hear what the

constituents were feeling and thinking. I had committed to them to bring

this forward, I think to lay down a marker for the next time we go

through this process as something to keep in mind. I’ve heard multiple

members talk today about what effective representation looks like and

what we need to keep in mind as we look at going forward in the future

of this.

The one request that my constituents put forward for thoughtful

review the next time is to look at the digital divide. We often, in this

province, talk about rural-urban divide. But certainly, the constituents

in my riding asked me to bring forward the real challenges of the

digital divide. While almost all urban areas have access to high-speed

Internet and cell service, 60 percent of rural remote communities and 62

percent rural remote Indigenous communities still lack adequate

Internet. So the challenge becomes, really, inequity when you are trying

to have access to your MLA. I think it’s something that we should pay

attention to the next time.

The riding of Cariboo North is currently over 38,000 kilometres,

larger than Vancouver Island. The new proposed riding of Prince

George–North Cariboo is now larger than Vancouver Island. It creates a

significant challenge for constituents of how they have access and are

represented by their MLA.

The final thing they asked me to bring forward was the fact that,

currently, the riding has 6,500 kilometres of roads and 102 bridges. So

it’s pretty significant. It’s a very large riding. When we go down this

process again in future years to look at the geographic expanse where

constituents live and how they have to have access to an MLA, if they

don’t have access to adequate connectivity — whether it’s cell service,

whether it’s Internet to connect — I think it’s just something that we

need to keep in mind.

I certainly look forward…. It is an exciting time to get to know

new constituents. I’m very excited about meeting the people in Prince

George and College Heights and get to understand their unique needs and

concerns.

I think it’s critically important, as well, for all of us in this

House to remember that we still have a large part of this beautiful

province of British Columbia and people who live in those remote rural

areas that still do not have access to some really basic connectivity.

We should always remember to keep that top of mind.

A. Walker: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

A. Walker: I can’t see the grade 10 class of Alistair King, but I hear the

pitter-patter up there. Alistair has done an incredible job engaging youth

in our community, whether it’s all-candidates meetings at school, bringing

their MLA into the classroom or even encouraging their students to send

letters to the Premier.

[2:20 p.m.]

I did ask Alistair to make sure I was copied on those. I haven’t seen

any yet, so this is a good reminder. I just want to really thank the

students for coming down here today. When I was last in the class, they

asked some incredible questions.

I’m hoping that this whole chamber can make them feel very

welcome.

Debate Continued

A. Olsen: I have just a few comments to make with respect to Bill 25, the

electoral boundaries act.

This is, indeed, a process that happens regularly, and it’s a bit

of a boundary adjustments around the province to ensure that there is

equity. It’s undertaken by, of course, the independent Electoral

Boundaries Commission.

As we hear in the debates from the various members, the MLAs, the

incumbents in here…. Because we do such hard work on behalf of our

communities, advocating for them, we form a relationship with the

communities that are within the riding boundaries that we got elected

into and that relationship and those bonds become very strong. It’s

often because the issues that we address and take care of alongside in

our advocacy of our constituents, whether it be individuals, businesses

or the local government bodies that are within our riding

boundaries.

The work that we do is very close, and we form very strong bonds.

As this report…. The date is coming to see the final report. It’s now

passed, and we’ve all had a chance to take a look at it. Now we’re

debating the legislation that is going to make those new riding

boundaries and adopt them into law.

Recognizing that we’ve got six new electoral districts that are

going to be proposed, including four in the Lower Mainland. Vancouver,

Burnaby, Surrey and Langley all get a new riding. One here on Vancouver

Island, in Langford, and another one in Kelowna. Six new ridings. I’m

assuming that, sometime in the very near future, we’re going to be

having a discussion about how we can fit six more desks into this

legislative chamber.

The member for Abbotsford West was noting that there was one vocal

advocate for benches in the government caucus. And I would say that I’m

also an advocate for the use of benches. I think that that it would be a

good adoption and a better use of space in the House. Either that or

we’re going to have to make these desks smaller. Anyway, that debate is

going to be coming probably at a LAMC committee near you in the coming

weeks as we get this bill through the legislative process that’s in

front of us today.

Again, it’s important that the population of each electoral

district…. Part of the reason why, of course, the Electoral Boundaries

Commission does this work is because there’s growth in the communities.

Some communities are growing very quickly in the province, and some are

not. So we need to make sure that, as close as possible, the ridings

across the province are generally similar.

So following the passing of this bill, when we get to that

eventual stage, there will be 93 ridings. The population will be

somewhere between 40,000 and 67,000. In this boundaries commission, 72

districts have had their boundaries adjusted, and 41 districts have had

their names changed.

I think this goes to the comment that my colleague from the

Cowichan Valley was raising with respect to a riding in, I believe,

Coquitlam. There is a scenario here where riding names have changed. So

I certainly encourage the government to take a close look at that riding

name, and consider it to be maybe 42 districts that have their names

changed.

[2:25 p.m.]

Eighteen hundred submissions were a part of this consultation

process. That’s a robust consultation process. Unfortunately, it was not

nearly as accessible as it should be. Hopefully, two election cycles

from now, the Electoral Boundaries Commission can make their work more

available to the public.

I’ll just wrap up my comments by saying that during that process,

the initial proposal was to remove Brentwood Bay from the Saanich North

and the Islands riding. There were, I think, quite a number of comments

from the public with respect to that suggestion made in the preliminary

report. Indeed, Brentwood Bay stays in Saanich North and the Islands.

But unfortunately, the Keating neighbourhood is being moved to Saanich

South. So Saanich South will have a wonderful new community added to

it.

I recognize there was some need for the change to be made. So I

just wanted to take this moment to reflect on the time I have had the

opportunity to represent Keating in the Legislature. As someone who is a

former municipal councillor in the district of Central Saanich, I’ve

been, to one extent or another, representing and making decisions that

have impacted that neighbourhood since 2008. That’s a number of years

now. I can still remember the streetlight conversation that was

happening on Robin Way, back when I was on municipal council. It’s been

quite a while. I’ll be sad to see Keating move to Saanich South. Very

thankful to be the member representing Saanich North and the Islands in

this parliament.

Finally, I’ll just say this. I think that as we are, and as the

Electoral Boundaries Commission is doing their work in the future, and

reflecting on the correct or the proper names that might best represent

the territories that are represented within the electoral boundaries,

other than maybe Cowichan, there are very, very few electoral districts

that have Indigenous place names as part of their name. I really hope

that as we go forward, the Electoral Boundaries Commission and, indeed,

this Legislature considers the use of the original names that were used

by the Indigenous peoples in each of the territories across the province

to reflect the names of the ridings that are represented by the seats in

this chamber.

When I take a look at my riding, for example, while there is more

diversity than just a single nation reflected in Saanich North and the

Islands, vast parts of it are

W̱SÁNEĆ. I think that it would be a

wonderful day when we were able to come to riding names that also

reflected the traditional and historical names that have been used on

these landscapes in this province since time immemorial.

With that, I’ll take my seat and thank the Speaker for the

opportunity to speak to this bill.

HÍSW̱ḴE

SIÁM .

T. Stone: I do appreciate the opportunity to speak very briefly about this

Bill 25.

I really want to start by thanking the Boundaries Commission for

the work that they’ve done. As was very eloquently spoken by my

colleague from Abbotsford West, this is not an easy exercise. It is

very, very complicated. This is a huge province. It’s very diverse. Very

unique regions. Everyone has a view and an opinion, and rightfully so.

That’s how it should work.

At the end of the day, a group of people have to come together and

make some tough decisions: the number of ridings within, obviously, the

maximum allowed; the boundaries of those ridings; the names of those

ridings. None of this is easy. Do you follow a river as a boundary? Do

you follow train tracks? Do you use the boundaries of traditional

territories? Do you try to preserve as many existing names as possible

as a principle, or not?

[2:30 p.m.]

It’s not an easy exercise. I do think that the three individuals

on the Boundaries Commission that did this work…. I think they worked

with all of the information at hand, and there certainly were lots of

engagement opportunities, and so forth.

I did want to offer just a couple of observations. These are

process-related.

I absolutely accept the boundaries that are being proposed here. I

absolutely accept the number of ridings that are being proposed

here.

In fact, I’m very grateful, as are my constituents, that the

Boundaries Commission — I think quite wisely — decided not to reduce the

number of seats in the Interior and the North, which could have been a

very real possibility, going into this process. The Interior and the

North come out of this process with an additional seat in Kelowna —

obviously recognizing the significant growth that has taken place in

that very vibrant city, in the Interior.

I’m pleased that there’s an additional seat here in greater

Victoria. It’s warranted, based on the population growth in greater

Victoria, particularly in Langford. Obviously, the four additional seats

in the Lower Mainland make sense, based on the significant population

growth that we see in the Fraser Valley, through Surrey, parts of the

Tri-Cities and Vancouver. All of that makes a lot of sense.

I do believe that there is an opportunity to get the process even

better next time around. When I say, “next time around,” there’s an

asterisk on that. The next time that this exercise takes place is

actually eight years from now. It’s two elections — the next one and the

one after that — and then you trigger an electoral boundaries process to

do this all over again. So it’s quite some ways off into the

future.

As was mentioned by my good friend the member for Fraser-Nicola

moments ago…. I do believe that the current process has worked really

well in many regards. I look at the two Kamloops ridings. I represent

Kamloops–South Thompson; my friend and colleague represents

Kamloops–North Thompson. Coming out of this boundaries process, there

will continue to be two seats in Kamloops, which makes a lot of sense.

The Boundaries Commission has decided to go in a very different

direction, going forward, in terms of where the boundaries are, and

that’s fine. There are still two seats that will represent the Kamloops

area.

There were significant concerns that were expressed, when the

interim report and recommendations came out, on the part of Barriere,

Clearwater and First Nations up the North Thompson Valley. In that

preliminary report, the North Thompson Valley was, potentially, going to

be moved out of a Kamloops riding. Currently, again, it’s in

Kamloops–North Thompson. It was going to be moved out of the Kamloops

riding and put into a Cariboo riding.

Because of the opportunity for input and the opportunity for

engagement, those communities of Barriere and Clearwater and the First

Nations…. There are other, even smaller, communities up the North

Thompson Valley. The mayors, residents, Chiefs, with one voice, made a

very compelling case to the Boundaries Commission, saying that

everything they do, everything they’re about, everything from their

medical appointments to jobs, to shopping, to education and access to

services, is all done north-south, from the North Thompson Valley down

to, and from, Kamloops.

The request of Barriere, Clearwater and the neighbouring

communities to the commission was: “Please keep us in a Kamloops riding.

The Kamloops riding may look different and have a different name and the

rest of it, but please keep us in the Kamloops riding. Keep us in the

orbit of Kamloops.”

I believe it was a wise decision by the Boundaries Commission to

actually take that feedback from the preliminary report and incorporate

it into the final report. Indeed, Barriere, Clearwater and the North

Thompson Valley, including Wells Gray Park, are mostly continuing to be

part of a Kamloops riding.

[2:35 p.m.]

That was a process that worked really well. That was where the

communities-of-interest argument was compelling. It was, obviously,

seriously considered by the commission and incorporated, and it was the

right result for the residents of the North Thompson.

The unfortunate reality was…. There are other communities that

were not afforded that opportunity to express their concern. It wasn’t

on their radar screen that there was even any consideration that they

would be relocated — moved into a different constituency, literally a

different region of the province. I won’t name them all. There were more

than a handful.

In my neck of the woods, Ashcroft and Cache Creek and Clinton….

There was no indication whatsoever in the preliminary report that those

communities would be moved out of Fraser-Nicola and added into a Cariboo

riding. So why would the mayors of those communities and the Chiefs in

those areas make submissions to the Boundaries Commission to remain in a

riding when there was not even a hint that they were going to be moved

from their current riding?

Well, they were moved out. They were moved out of Fraser-Nicola

and into Cariboo-Chilcotin. They will still maintain their strong

connections with Kamloops and Merritt. They will be served, I believe,

very well by whoever becomes the next MLA in that area. There was a lot

of frustration — and I think, in their case, it was fair frustration —

that they weren’t given a heads-up or any inkling or any indication that

that was even on the table.

Very respectfully, very humbly, I wanted to put on the record…. I

do hope that when the Electoral Boundaries Commission is constituted the

next time — again, it would be two elections from now — there would be

more consideration or some consideration given to ensuring…. If

communities are to be moved out of one riding and into another riding,

there would be some component in the process, which is equally available

to all communities, for those communities to offer their perspective on

whether they believe that fits with their communities of interest and

that fits with how their communities are connected with the communities

around them.

The same process that Barriere and Clearwater had available to

them, which they were able to access and utilize and, by virtue of that,

change the commission’s mind — it has resulted in Barriere and

Clearwater remaining in a Kamloops riding — would be equally available

to other communities like Ashcroft, Cache Creek and Clinton. They didn’t

have the opportunity to raise their hands and say: “Wait a minute. We

might have something to say about this possibility of being moved into a

different riding.”

We’ve heard the same things from Coldstream. It has always been

associated with Vernon. It’s now going to be added to the Kelowna–Lake

Country riding. Fair enough. But again, in Coldstream’s case, they

weren’t afforded an opportunity to really offer a perspective on that.

The moment they found out about it, it was final. It was a done

deal.

The last point that I wanted to make just involves names. It

always baffles me, when there are processes like this…. I don’t just

speak of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. This occurs all across

government. I’ve been on both sides. So I’ve experienced it as a

minister and as an opposition member. How often we get names wrong or we

name something that’s not, maybe, as well named as it could be based on

what the locals would actually think.

For example, my friend and colleague from Peace River North has

been petitioning long and hard. He brought a private member’s bill in

before the conclusion of the electoral boundaries process. He presented

to the electoral boundaries process. He wrote letters. He has

engaged.

In Peace River North…. This is such a massive riding. There are

really two regions within the riding. They’re very distinct areas of the

riding and the province, indeed.

[2:40 p.m.]

There’s the Peace River, a component around Fort St. John. People

who live in Fort St. John say: “I’m in the Peace.” If you live in Fort

Nelson and in the northern two-thirds of that riding, you live in what

people there refer to as the Northern Rockies. They don’t call it the

North.

It may seem like a really silly, subtle thing to those of us who

don’t live there, but it’s actually important. It matters to people in

Northern Rockies that the riding that is to represent their part of this

beautiful province of ours actually represents them not just in

geography but also in how it’s named.

I believe the same is the case with Maple Ridge–East as a new

name. The east part of that riding is Mission, and there are people in

Mission that are saying: “Why would you not call it Mission? We don’t

live in a place called ‘East.’ We don’t say that we live east of Maple

Ridge. We live in Mission.”

In our backyard, the two Kamloops ridings. One of the new ridings

will be called Kamloops Centre, which is fine. It’s great — a postage

stamp or densely populated urban riding in basically the downtown of

Kamloops with a total area of 114 square kilometres. The other Kamloops

riding will take in a geography of 17,024 square kilometres. So they’re

two very different ridings from size.

Kamloops Centre makes sense in terms of the name, but the other

one is being called Kamloops–North Thompson. A more appropriate name

would have been Kamloops and Thompson Valleys. The South Thompson river

valley and the North Thompson river valley are both features of this

riding. There are more people, a lot more people, that live along the

South Thompson Valley than the North Thompson Valley. So it would have

been more appropriately named Kamloops-Thompson Valleys.

Anyway, I digress. These are minor points. Overall, again, I

absolutely support the work that the boundaries commission has done. I

appreciate very much how hard the job is to do this, will absolutely

support what is in front of us and am thankful we don’t have to do this

again for another two elections. The number of ridings will be set. The

names will be set. The boundaries will be set. Again, I appreciate the

work the boundary commission did to get us to this point.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the question is second reading of Bill

Motion approved.

Hon. L. Beare: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole

House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after

today.

Bill 25, Electoral Districts Act, read a second time and referred to

a Committee of the Whole House for consi­der­ation at the next

sitting of the House after today.

Hon. L. Beare: I call second reading of Bill 23, the Motor Vehicle Amendment

Act.

BILL 23 — MOTOR VEHICLE

AMENDMENT ACT,

Hon. R. Fleming: I move that the bill now be read a second time.

It’s my pleasure to rise today to speak about Bill 23, the Motor

Vehicle Amendment Act. This legislation is an important initial step in

supporting our government’s CleanBC strategy and, specifically, our

forthcoming clean transportation action plan to be released later this

year. These changes to the Motor Vehicle Act have been developed with

the goal of achieving government’s CleanBC commitments to lower

greenhouse gas emissions in transportation by 27 to 32 percent by 2030

and, more specifically, to meet the CleanBC targets to increase the

share of trips made by active transportation to 30 percent by

Promoting safety in the active transportation environment on our

roads is one key initiative supported by this bill. For the first time,

changes are proposed that explicitly recognize and respond to the

vulnerability of pedestrians, cyclists and other active transportation

users.

Specifically, a one-metre minimum safe-passing distance that

drivers must observe when passing pedestrians, cyclists and other

prescribed road users is proposed in this bill. The bill also proposes a

three-metre default distance to be maintained when drivers are following

the same road users, prior to passing. Our government also proposes a

new offence framework for drivers who interact unsafely with and do not

take proper precautions in respect of vulnerable road users.

[2:45 p.m.]

We’ve heard from people who want to engage in different forms of

active transportation in all communities right around our beautiful

province, but many have conveyed that they do not do so because of real

or perceived safety barriers. We have developed this legislation in

close consultation with a number of key stakeholders who are part of the

vulnerable road user community and who use our road networks more

broadly.

I want to read a quote from one of these important stakeholders,

and that is a provincewide organization called HUB Cycling, whose

executive director, Erin O’Melinn, had this to say about the legislation

after it was introduced at first reading. “HUB Cycling is pleased to see

the introduction of a minimum safe-passing-distance law and other

protections for vulnerable road users. The majority of local residents

cycle regularly or want to cycle but are held back by safety concerns.

This is an important step to making all road users safer and to

providing comfortable options for people to get around using active,

healthy, affordable, sustainable modes of transportation.”

We’ve also heard from drivers trying their best to drive

defensively, as they were trained to do, to provide for the safety of

pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users. These changes to

strengthen the safety of the active transportation environment are

broadly supported by cycling associations, police, health authorities,

the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia and many, many others. They will

also position B.C. at the forefront in the country in terms of

recognizing and protecting vulnerable road users.

Other key changes in this bill provide new tools to enable the use

of new and emerging technologies to help transform and build a cleaner,

future-ready, safe and sustainable multimodal transportation network on

B.C. roads. The bill provides authority to require the use of speed

limiters in heavy-duty commercial trucking, a change that is strongly

supported by an industry voice, the B.C. Trucking

Association.

I want to quote somebody that members of all sides of the House

know quite well, Dave Earle, who is the president and the CEO of the

B.C. Trucking Association. He had this to say about Bill 23. “We’ve

advocated for speed limiters on heavy-duty commercial vehicles because

the data shows they dramatically reduce the number of at-fault

speed-related accidents. Additionally, speed limiters help green our

sector by curbing fuel consumption and emissions generated by trucks

travelling at high speeds. These amendments will benefit the trucking

industry and British Columbians as a whole.”

Indeed, in proposing these amendments to the MVA, government did

look at data available from the province of Ontario, where what Mr.

Earle has just said can happen in British Columbia, in fact, did happen

in that province, in terms of fuel consumption and the avoidance of

millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

The transportation sector, as members of this House will know,

accounts for about 40 percent of the overall greenhouse gas inventory in

the province of British Columbia. Of that 40 percent, half, or 20

percent of the province’s total emissions, are related to the operation

of commercial vehicles. These and other initiatives in the clean

transportation action plan are going to help us achieve dramatic

reduction targets that we have set out in the CleanBC plan.

In capping speeds at which heavy-duty commercial vehicles can

travel, speed limiters are going to do two key things. They’ll

facilitate safety on our roads by reducing overall speed and capping

them, and they will help to lower greenhouse gas emissions from these

vehicles in the manner that I’ve mentioned. There are other initiatives

that will also do this in that sector, but this is an important one that

needed to be amended in the statutes in order to be achieved. That’s

what this bill proposes to do.

This bill is also attempting to anticipate a number of changes in

technology that are happening in this rapidly changing world of ours.

The emergence of automated vehicles is also contemplated in this bill.

While the province of British Columbia does not have regulatory approval

for the trials and safety approval of automated vehicles — that work is

being done on the national scale and across North America — there is new

authority proposed for our province to enable a framework for the

licensing, the insurance, the prohibition and the permitting of

conditional highly and fully automated vehicles and their future safe

deployment on our roads.

Our approach to be ready for the future of true, fully automated

motor vehicles is strongly endorsed by, again, the Insurance Corp. of

British Columbia, the Automotive Retailers Association, police

detachments, police forces and many others we consulted with during the

development of this legislation.

[2:50 p.m.]

A future where many more clean and affordable transportation

choices are available for the movement of people and goods on our roads

is also contemplated in this bill. New enabling authority for emerging

transportation technologies such as delivery robots and other designated

motorized devices, as well as new and different classes of

motor-assisted cycles or e-bikes are proposed in Bill 23.

We know that the safety of new and emerging technologies is also

critical to supporting their availability and their uptake. We heard

very clearly from representatives of cycling associations, from health

authority leaders, from police, from ICBC and from our other road safety

partners in this regard specifically. To this end, the bill enables new

inspection and enforcement powers to address and intervene in situations

where, for example, a device does not comply with or has been modified

to surpass prescribed power output or speed thresholds.

Finally, the province’s current authority to pilot emerging

technologies and policies, under

part 13 of the act, is expanded,

specifically enabling provincewide pilot projects, as opposed to just

very localized local government pilots, as well as pilots of varying

geographic scope, and broader regulation-making authority to enable a

wider range of matters that could, potentially, be piloted.

We know that modernizing and transforming how we move on our roads

will require more pilot-testing. These changes will ensure that a broad

range of tools are in place so B.C. is open and can lead the way in

partnering with universities, with businesses and with others to support

research and the innovation of new and emerging clean transportation

technologies.

Madam Speaker, I will conclude shortly.

I want to highlight, at this point in the second reading debate,

that we have been attentive to our commitments under the Declaration on

the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act to consult and cooperate with

Indigenous peoples, including modern treaty nations and the

Nisg̱a’a, as we’ve developed this

legislation. We have conducted an assessment of this legislation as it

relates to aligning with the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous

peoples. This bill does not uniquely affect the Indigenous rights

described in the UN declaration.

I look forward to hearing from colleagues on all sides of the

House, during second reading debate, on their thoughts on what we

propose.

In the words of many of the stakeholders that we have been working

with on this legislation over the previous months, beginning last year,

they feel that this is a big deal. The surveys that I referenced for

vulnerable road users — for cyclists, in particular…. It is a

significant barrier to using that as a part of daily

commuting.

Our government has, of course, tried to create a new generation of

safe cyclists by promoting, through the education system, comprehensive

grades 4 and 5 cycling road safety programs that have now, literally,

touched the lives of tens of thousands of young students. They have

developed competencies, safely getting to and from school, and know the

rules of the road, perhaps better than previous generations of cyclists

have, and how to be aware of the environment in which they’re

cycling.

We know that a number of people who hold drivers’ licences — and

it has been some time since they were formally trained and licensed to

operate a vehicle — do their best to drive safely and to be mindful of

the road conditions and all those who use the roads around them. This

provides clarity about what drivers must do in terms of safely observing

and conducting themselves in and around vulnerable road

users.

The goal of our government in everything we do, in terms of

highway improvements, in terms of amendments and projects to our road

networks to make them safer, is to reduce the number of fatalities and

collisions in British Columbia. This is part of our zero fatality

commitment, which the province has been working towards for a number of

years. It certainly informs these amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act

that have been introduced and that are being debated this

afternoon.

I would be remiss in not mentioning we have also used the existing

authorities to conduct a number of pilot projects on new and emerging

technologies in a number of communities around British Columbia. We

will, of course, share the results of those pilots when they come good.

We anticipate that the number of pilots and the scope of them need to be

increased. But we also risked a successful challenge if we did not

change the legislation to enable us to do so.

[2:55 p.m.]

This is a comprehensive set of amendments that I know are being

welcomed. I know that members of the House on all sides would expect

that we consulted broadly and engaged very deeply with those who are

part of the transportation sector who use our roads. And that is what

this legislation does.

The

definitions around vulnerable road users are a first for the

MVA, and those are very important as we try and shift people out of

single-occupant vehicles, primarily, which are a significant source of

greenhouse gas pollution.

This fits in with a number of initiatives that the province is

doing, more broadly. I think I’m allowed to speak to that at second

reading — around being first in the continent, in terms of electric

vehicle adoption, in terms of rebate incentive programs that help

install charging infrastructure. We’re working on 10,000 charging

installations around the province. We have thousands that have been

introduced already.

There is a dramatic increase in strata councils, public spaces

that have charging infrastructure to decarbonize the transportation

sector.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

We’re working on new initiatives with the heavy-duty commercial

truck sector to do that, as well, in specific environments where

heavy-duty commercial vehicles are part of the industry, such as port

authorities, to ensure that, again, having become the No. 1 EV

jurisdiction for private vehicles, we’re positioned to become No. 1 in

the heavy-duty electric vehicle space as well.

It takes a number of initiatives to get us towards the CleanBC

targets we have. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, the clean

transportation action plan is a high-level strategy that features a

number of initiatives that we will release later this year. I wished it

had been available at this stage of debate, but we’re working very

diligently with partners around the province to complete work on that

plan, and it will inform us in our strategy to meet the CleanBC

commitments we have made to 2030 and beyond.

It’s a rare privilege to be able to introduce a bill that will

deliver significantly on safety for our citizens, as well as the

environmental benefits and goals for our province as a whole to be a

climate change leader not only here in North America but recognized

around the world.

With that, I will take my place and look forward to hearing the

comments from my colleagues.

T. Halford: Welcome, and thank you, Madam Chair — grateful for the opportunity

to speak on second reading of Bill 23, the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act,

You know, when we look at several of the amendments — which are

being put forward here — made to the Motor Vehicle Act, I think they are

pragmatic. They’re inclusive of an ever-changing technology. We look at

what transportation enthusiasts are embracing, whether it’s e-bikes,

whether it’s scooters, and I’ll get to those in a little bit. The future

is moving quick, and we need to be prepared for it.

On a side note, I always thought that what happened in the movies

always happened and that it was going to be true. So when I watched

Back to the Future II in 1989, I just assumed that in 2015,

we’d be getting prepared for flying cars and hoverboards. And none of

that stuff has happened. We do not have hoverboards, and we do not have

flying cars, and I look forward to…. Because if we do, I don’t know

about them.

Anyway, it is always important to think into the future, and I’m

hoping we’ll canvass some of these amendments extensively in third

reading.

I think the minister did speak…. And I’ll agree with him on a lot

of things when we talk about pedestrians and cyclists. I know that the

minister has done some recent media on this. I think a lot of people are

surprised that some of this that’s contained in this bill doesn’t

already exist. When we look at the importance of keeping pedestrians and

cyclists safe, it’s absolutely paramount. And we need to encourage those

other options — that being cycling.

[3:00 p.m.]

The minister spoke about some of the environmental factors, and we

will continue to wait for that ever-elusive clean transportation action

plan. There’s no doubt that this government needs help to meet and

encourage more users to jump onto transportation and to help meet their

CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 emission reduction targets.

The most recent accountability report confirms that emissions from

transportation are up 12 percent compared to 2007 and that B.C. is on

track to miss its 2030 emissions targets by 3 percent. There’s some work

to do there. I think that when we look at some of the provisions…. I

believe it is clause 20 that requires speed limiter equipment to be

installed in all commercial vehicles that are over almost 12,000

kilograms, have an electronically controlled engine and are now newer

than 1994.

It also provides for peace officers’ powers to enforce the

section. That’s important, and we’ll canvass that extensively. But I

want to know: who’s paying for that? You look at the struggle that a lot

of these truckers are seeing right now, in terms of affordability with

gas, things like that. I imagine that these devices, and we’ll canvass

this extensively, aren’t cheap.

I’m glad to see that this government is finally tackling the grey

area of auto-vehicles by prohibiting operation of certain types of such

vehicles, but several years of driverless cars operating here in British

Columbia doesn’t mean the NDP has taken a position of not having someone

in the driver’s seat on such an important safety issue. We’ll canvass

that extensively.

Just going back. I’m not going to speak very long on this. We will

have significant questions and canvassing going into third reading, but

when we look at e-bikes, scooters, they somehow have opened the door to

future licensing and insurance requirements, so what does that mean?

Does that mean that if you are purchasing an e-bike or a scooter, the

minister is now going to force you to register that, take out insurance,

pay for that? Those are other questions that we’ll canvass.

With that, Madam Speaker, I look forward to the opportunity to

debate on third reading and hearing the other remarks from other

speakers.

A. Olsen: Thank you for this opportunity to speak to Bill 23, the Motor

Vehicle Amendment Act.

As both of my colleagues the Minister of Transportation and also

the official opposition’s critic have noted, this bill is an important

bill, especially for anybody who’s not in a motor vehicle.

I think the way that our laws in this province have evolved over

the years is very much reflective of the car-centric society that we

have. I can’t stand and speak to this bill without recognizing a

constituent of mine on Saltspring Island, Myna Lee Johnson. Every time I

go to Saltspring, Myna Lee reminds me of our car-centric society. She

reminds me of the noise that’s generated by cars. She reminds me of the

pollution that’s generated by cars. She reminds me of the dangers that

motor vehicles pose to anybody who’s not in a motor vehicle.

Just take a look at the name of this act as a very basic start:

the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act. We’re amending the Motor Vehicle Act.

This is not

an act that’s generally designed for safe transportation in

all the different modes. This is about protecting and enhancing the use

of motor vehicles. It’s a minor point with major impact, I

think.

[3:05 p.m.]

If what we are designing the rules of our transportation

rights-of-way around is just the motor vehicle, then the outcomes will

be that that will be the centre of the decision-making.

I think that now, as we’re looking at active transportation

options that are increasingly prominent in our communities, perhaps it

might be time for us to change the name of the act, to change what the

act is built around, and that would just be transportation through a

variety of different modes. A lot of the time and a lot of the anxiety

that’s created in communities when a municipality moves to build bike

lanes, for an example, on roads is that that space is for cars. They’re

not spaces for cyclists. That space that’s now being taken up and made

just for cyclists previously was made just for cars. So I’ve had a

number of conversations where people get quite anxious and quite

frustrated about that.

As someone who is a cyclist and chooses to get to work here,

mostly on the nicest days, by bike, and even by bus when I’m not on my

bike, the reality is that oftentimes those motor vehicles, often the

single-occupancy vehicles are…. The preference is given to that form of

transportation rather than creating space for buses, creating spaces for

rapid buses, creating spaces for cyclists and pedestrians.

Having that on the record and recognizing the important advocacy

that Myna Lee offers every time I go to Saltspring, I want her to know

and want all of my constituents and, indeed, anybody who’s paying

attention to this to know that these are important changes in this bill.

But there is also a philosophical discussion that needs to happen in

this province — that if we continue to build our legislation around a

single form of transportation, then those are the outcomes that we’re

going to get.

But today I’m very happy to be debating, as my colleague in the

official opposition from Surrey–White Rock and the Minister of

Transportation have been talking about safe passing laws for cyclists,

enabling innovation like speed limiters on heavy-duty vehicles to help

reduce collisions and improve greenhouse gas emissions and to expand the

province’s ability to permit technology like robot delivery

services.

As the Minister of Transportation noted in his speech, this is a

bill that has had a lot of support from third-party stakeholders, people

and groups outside this Legislature, in acknowledging these important

changes.

As someone who cycles to work, cycles down to the Legislature —

I’m one of the seven MLAs that have the benefit of living and working in

the city — most of my ride is on an old railbed, now a trail, off the

road. But there are a couple of spots on my commute where I am directly

exposed to vehicles. As much as a cyclist can create as big a presence

as they can on their bike, using bright colours and a lot of light, the

reality of it is that there is always a sense that the cyclist is an

imposition on this road right-of-way.

I think that that’s part of the psychology that needs to change

and is changing by requiring drivers to share the road and to create a

substantive amount of space in passing cyclists and not trying to rush

to get past the cyclist before the oncoming vehicle gets there, creating

a really dangerous situation for the person on the bike. I’ve had a few

of those incidents, but the incidents that I’ve had are

scary.

[3:10 p.m.]

I think that the decision for me to divest of a vehicle, to move

to a bicycle and to kind of commit, I guess, a portion of my commute on

bike is that every day I get on that bike, I want to get home and see my

family.

I guess just for the drivers out there, and as someone who also

drives a vehicle, I often have to remind myself. It’s not difficult to

get into the driver’s mindset when you’re behind the wheel of a vehicle

and to kind of lose all of that memory of the close calls on a bicycle.

So I’m very pleased that this is an initiative that is underway in

creating 1 metre between vehicles and cyclists and a minimum of 3 metres

of distance following.

The next important thing that will come after this law is passed,

of course, is the education of drivers that this is indeed the new law.

Many of us get our driver’s licence and then that’s the last time that

we really think about it. We know the rules. We follow the rules. But we

don’t ever have to go through a process to be reminded of what the rules

are, to brush up, to have those constant touch-ins throughout our

driving career. When we’re making changes to the rules of the road, how

the government informs the public that this is their new responsibility

— a metre of distance in passing, three metres of distance behind in

following…. Making sure that the public knows of that will be very

important.

It’s also just to say that with respect to this new change, we are

joining a large number of legislative jurisdictions across North America

that are making these changes and making the roads more safe for

cyclists. Thirty-nine provinces and states have passed a similar law,

including New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec.

I think it’s important just to put into context that 1,600 British

Columbians on bicycles are injured in car crashes each year. Almost 80

percent of people say close-passing vehicles are their biggest threat

while cycling, and those who bike regularly say that they are

close-passed at least once a week. That’s slightly more than what my

experience is, but certainly only one accident, just one incident, could

be a life-changing experience for a cyclist.

The speed limiters on trucks. Some good questions being asked by

the member of the official opposition. Just noting that putting speed

limiters on trucks has been proven and shown to reduce at-fault

accidents and to also reduce emissions. Ontario introduced this in 2008,

capping speed limits at 105 kilometres an hour, with fines anywhere

between $250 and $20,000. Quebec introduced it a year later with the

same limit, at 105 kilometres an hour. But their fine structure is a

much more narrow $305 to $1,050. It appears that British Columbia is

expecting a similar 105-kilometre-an-hour limit.

I’m just going to end with this. I think that it’s incredibly

important that we are creating the space and creating the legislative

framework and the classes of vehicles for the future potential of

self-driving vehicles. It feels like self-driving vehicles…. My

colleague from Surrey–White Rock mentioned the Back to the

Future reference from 1989. I also remember that movie, which

also dates me. It seems like the self-driving car has always been just a

couple of years away. It’s just a couple of years away.

Now that we see this renaissance for AI happening, perhaps we’ll

find that yes, indeed — self-driving vehicles, little pods that move us

from A to B, maybe a subscription service. They go and park or go and

pick somebody else up, and then, when you need to come back from the

grocery store, there’s a pod there to take you back to where you need to

be. Perhaps we are just a few years away from that.

But it’s clearly more than just the vehicle that is going to be

required for that technology to be in place. Certainly, a very robust

network is going to need to be in place, access to I think the type of

broadband capacity that we haven’t even imagined yet.

[3:15 p.m.]

We are working towards that. Certainly, the developers are ever

working towards making that a reality. So it’s good to see British

Columbia creating the classes of vehicles and creating the framework for

that to exist in.

Finally, I think just a tip of the hat to InDro Robotics. With the

regulations that are coming in place for emerging technologies like

delivery robots, there are a few companies out there right now that are

using this technology already. I can’t remember the company’s name, but

I just saw a company in Africa delivering blood from a central blood

location out to hospitals in more remote areas using airplanes and

parachutes — deliveries going every 20 minutes. A really phenomenal

system.

InDro Robotics is a company that I think started on Saltspring

Island, or at least has offices on Saltspring Island. The first robotic

— I think it’s called “out of line of sight” — delivery that has

happened in this country happened on Saltspring Island, in my riding. It

happened with a pickup from the London Drugsin Cowichan, in Duncan, with

a delivery to a location on Saltspring.

I’m grateful that the government is working to regulate that area,

because I know that there are innovators in my riding that are working

on this technology, and perhaps it will limit the number of trips that I

need to make on my bike.

With that, I just want to raise my hands in gratitude for the

changes that are being made here. As someone who is going to be

immediately and directly impacted by these laws, it will make my life

safer. I think I appreciate that. My family appreciates that, and people

who cycle in this province and who are pedestrians in this province will

appreciate it as well.

With that, I’ll take my seat.

HÍSW̱ḴE

SIÁM .

Hon. D. Coulter: It’s always lovely to be able to speak in front of you. It’s my

pleasure today to rise to speak about Bill 23, the Motor Vehicle

Amendment Act. I’d first like to just thank the Minister of

Transportation for introducing this bill. It’s a good bill. I’d also

like to thank my colleagues from around the House for their support of

this bill.

The bill proposes many important changes to support the safety of

vulnerable road users and to build a future-ready, cleaner

transportation network on our roads here in British Columbia. It’s the

continuation of our government’s commitment in support of the CleanBC

plan to make active transportation an option for more people and to

reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a better future for all

British Columbians.

A first important step in this journey was the release in 2019 of

Move, Commute, Connect, our government’s active transportation strategy.

That strategy set out our commitments to double the percentage of trips

taken with active transportation by 2030, build on the success of the

B.C. bike program so that communities can build integrated and

accessible active transportation systems that work for all active

transportation users, and work together with communities to create

policies and plans that enable and support complete transportation

networks across the province.

The active transportation strategy set the course for our

government’s commitment to support communities in investments in active

transportation infrastructure. For example, in 2022-2023, the active

transportation grants program provided nearly $25 million in cost-shared

grants in Indigenous and local government communities.

The release of the active transportation strategy in 2019 also saw

an initial phase of changes to the Motor Vehicle Act in that same year

to enable, for the first time, pilot projects to test clean, new,

emerging transportation technologies. These 2019 amendments were a first

step to looking at how we can support expanding efficient, safe and

affordable ways for British Columbians to get to work, school or other

places in their communities.

With the onset of the pandemic, the desire for active

transportation options — including e-bikes, e-scooters and other devices

— increased significantly.

[3:20 p.m.]

It provided clear evidence that the active transportation

environment is one of the key strategies in lowering GHG emissions in

the transportation sector and helping to reduce trips by car in the

community.

This was highlighted in the fall of 2021, with the release of our

government’s CleanBC Roadmap to 2030. The roadmap commits to lowering

greenhouse gas emissions in transportation by 27 to 32 percent by 2030,

and, more specifically, to meet the CleanBC targets to increase the

share of trips made by walking, cycling and transit to 30 percent by

2030. The roadmap signalled that more needs to be done to support the

use of clean transportation and to get us to our 2030

targets.

This bill is one of the most important steps to build on our

efforts to date by further modernizing the Motor Vehicle Act to increase

the safety of the active transportation environment, which is critical

to efforts to increase the share of trips made by walking, cycling and

other forms of active transportation; enable the use of clean emerging

transportation technologies across multiple modes, everything from

active transportation to commercial trucking; and enhance the framework

for researching, testing and evaluating new technologies and policies

through expansion of the pilot project framework in the act.

This bill is an important step in supporting our government’s

clean transportation action plan, which will be released later this

year. These changes will help sustain and drive improvements in support

of lowering GHGs in the transportation sector by 2030 and to our

commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050.

I want to highlight some of the specifics of the proposed

legislation, starting with proposed changes to the definition of

pedestrian. One important change here is to clarify and address recent

ambiguities raised in some case law about who can be considered a

pedestrian. While it may seem obvious that, for example, a person

sitting or lying on a grassy median is a pedestrian, the current

definition does not make that clear. This bill addresses these kinds of

ambiguities.

It also, at the same time, provides flexibility to enable users of

motorized medical mobility devices as pedestrians under the act to have

equal access to both the pedestrian and cycling parts of the

infrastructure.

The bill provides authority for the council of the municipality to

make decisions, for example, on whether motorized assistive mobility

devices and medical scooters can access the cycling parts of the

infrastructure. This clarity provides options to communities to support

changing expectations about how people move as transportation technology

evolves.

approached by groups that really wanted this change to be able to use

mobility devices in bike lanes. Often, on mobility devices, it’s a

little bit dangerous going down the sidewalk, both for other pedestrians

and also the people using the mobility devices, because often the

sidewalks are a little rougher. You can get your front wheels caught and

go head over tea kettle, or whatever they call it, and hurt

yourself.

I, myself, just recently got this thing called a SmartDrive that

clicks to the back of my chair. It’s really increased my range around

Victoria. I’m able to get around with it much better. I’ll tell you that

the sidewalks worry me a little bit, especially a dark sidewalk when I’m

headed back to my hotel alone. So this change to allow me to use a bike

lane is a change that I welcome and has also been requested by folks in

the disability community.

As the movement of people changes, it falls to government to

ensure the safe deployment of devices and their users. In this regard,

Bill 23 proposes, for the first time, amendments that require drivers of

motor vehicles to give a minimum of three metres of safe following space

and a minimum of one metre of safe lateral passing distance to

pedestrians, cyclists and other active transportation users.

[3:25 p.m.]

Our government also proposes a new offence framework for drivers

who interact unsafely with and do not take proper precautions in respect

of these vulnerable road users.

These changes will position B.C. at the forefront in the country

in terms of recognizing and protecting vulnerable road users. In my role

as Minister of State for Infrastructure, I often talk with active

transportation groups, cycling groups and such. I won’t read the quote

from Erin O’Melinn, the executive director of HUB Cycling, because the

minister has already put that into the record. But I will just say that

more people are likely to use active transportation if they feel safe on

the roads. I think this is a great and welcome change to be able to get

new cyclists on the road.

Other changes, already mentioned but worth highlighting again….

The proposed authority to require the use of speed limiters in

heavy-duty commercial trucking to facilitate safety on our roads and to

help lower greenhouse gas emissions from these vehicles. New authority

is also proposed to enable framework for the future of true, fully

automated vehicles and sidewalk delivery robots, as well as new and

different classes of motor-assisted cycles or e-bikes.

Finally, the province’s current authority to pilot emerging

technologies and policies under

part 13 of the act is expanded,

specifically enabling provincewide pilot projects as well as other

pilots of varying geographic scope and broader regulation, making

authority to enable a wider range of matters that could potentially be

piloted.

Under the 2019 amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act to allow for

pilot projects, our government established the electric kick scooter

pilot, authorizing use of these devices in 12 communities across the

province. The project continues to April of next year, and thus far, has

shown the potential to assess clean emerging transportation technologies

on a pilot basis to support the changing ways people expect to and want

to move in this province.

With these changes, we’re broadening the authority to, for

example, pilot autonomous vehicles, sidewalk delivery robots, classes of

motor-assisted cycles, rules of the road and new and different

designated personal mobility devices. These changes will put B.C. at the

forefront in this country in our ability to research, test and evaluate

emerging transportation technologies.

With this enhanced framework, our province will be well placed to

support research with our partners such as Transport Canada, Canadian

Council of Motor Transport Administrators, the Transportation

Association of Canada, ICBC, police, the Automotive Retailers

Association, cycling associations, health authorities, universities,

technology businesses and many others to test the safe deployment of

clean new transportation technologies and policies.

In conclusion, I want to highlight that Bill 23 continues the work

of our government to address the climate crisis. I’m sure you’re happy

to hear me say “in conclusion.” It is a future-focused piece of

legislation that looks to support British Columbians through the changes

in how we will move, commute and connect in our communities in the years

ahead.

With that, I’d like to thank my colleague the Minister of

Transportation and Infrastructure for bringing this bill to the chamber.

I’d also like to thank all the members that have spoken to this bill and

have supported this bill, because these are great changes. Thank you,

hon. Speaker, for the time.

D. Routley: I love standing up in the House to speak about my constituents and

focus on them. At this moment, I’m taking just a brief few minutes to

include myself in my comments, and that’s because I’m a lifelong

cyclist.

[3:30 p.m.]

This piece of legislation, Bill 23, brought forward by my

colleague the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, and thanks

to him for this, is life-changing and will make for much safer and much

more friendly and civil roads.

In my cycling career, I estimate I’ve ridden around the

circumference of the earth at least six times. In that time, I’ve been

hit seven times by cars, and I’ve hit two human beings myself on the

road. So I clearly didn’t give a metre to those human beings on the

road. Some of those times have been pretty terrifying, and I’d just like

to speak about one of them. It would have been affected by this piece of

legislation. That was in 1986, after riding down from the Malahat —

hills on which you achieve speeds of 80 to 90 kilometres per

hour.

I was hit by a motorhome in Goldstream Park. As I was riding

along, I looked down and saw the front wheel of the motorhome beside my

ankle as it passed me, and I knew I was about to be hit. Indeed, the

side mirror of the motorhome hit me in the back of the head, and I

tumbled.

I wasn’t seriously injured, but that was an instance where a metre

would have made all the difference. In fact, I was lying on the road,

and the driver of the motorhome, who had just rented it and was

unfamiliar with the width of the vehicle, jumped out, ran back and,

rather than asking how I was, started screaming at me for being in his

way.

I think my hope is that we, as parents, can have more confidence

that our kids will be safer on the road and that we, as cyclists, can

have more confidence that the onus is on drivers to avoid the cyclists.

I think that’s the most important part of the one-metre passing rule. If

a car has struck a cyclist, clearly they were less than a metre away,

and it will be up to that driver to justify why that

happened.

For my own sake, I think that that’s a really pivotal difference,

and this is a pivotal moment for cyclists in British Columbia. We all

have a responsibility to make the roads safer, but this clearly puts the

onus on drivers to avoid cyclists.

I’ve been irritated by cyclists on the road as a driver, but I

always remember that to me, it’s an irritation, and that’s about the

worst potential from the circumstance,

whereas for the cyclist, it’s a

potentially life-altering or life-ending circumstance. I’ve been hit

from behind, and clearly, the car that hit me from behind was not three

metres away when it hit me.

All of these changes will make life better for cyclists, make it

easier for us to achieve our targets and make a healthier British

Columbia, if more people are cycling. As a cyclist, I just had to stand

up and thank the Minister of Transportation, all the members in the

House who have spoken on the bill, all those who will support it and

you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me this moment of perhaps selfish

reflection on the issue.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, does the minister wish to close

debate?

Hon. R. Fleming: I’ll be very brief in closing debate. I appreciate the comments

from members on all sides of the House this afternoon. I appreciate the

comments of my colleague the Minister of State for Infrastructure and

Transit, in particular, and the member for Nanaimo–​North

Cowichan, who just spoke on his experience as a commuter and as a

cyclist.

I think what we have heard very clearly is that the rules of the

road need to be much more clear and that they must be much more legally

enforceable. That’s what Bill 23 attempts to do. Most of us are not just

commuters in a private motor vehicle. We’re cyclists, and we’re

pedestrians, and we share the roads in that manner.

[3:35 p.m.]

There’s not too much to correct in terms of what we heard at

second reading here, but perhaps I could have expanded, at second

reading, on the definition of “vulnerable road user.” I expect we’ll get