2014 Legislative Session: Second Session, 40th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 6, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Orders of the Day

Budget Debate (continued)

J. Martin

C. James

Hon. S. Bond

D. Eby

Hon. R. Coleman

M. Mungall

Hon. A. Virk

H. Bains

D. Barnett

G. Holman

M. Hunt

M. Karagianis

[ Page 1451 ]

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. T. Stone: I'd like to call continued debate on the budget.

Budget Debate

(continued)

J. Martin: I am so thrilled to be here today. I've got this wonderful opportunity that's probably quite rare in the House. I've only been here nine months, and this is the second time I get to speak in support of a balanced budget.

[1335]

Last spring 84 of my colleagues and I went from community to community, neighbourhood to neighbourhood, doorstep to doorstep with a very simple, straightforward, basic, down-to-earth message: "If you elect us as your government, we will control spending. We will grow the economy."

The next day, on May 15, I was given my marching orders by the people of Chilliwack and everyone else in British Columbia: balance that budget. I'm so happy that's what we've done. British Columbians had a choice, and they chose fiscal responsibility over deficit spending to restore the economy and protect the future.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

British Columbians know that racking up debt simply to pass the burden on to a future generation is not an option. It is not family-friendly, it is not fiscally responsible, and this government will not do it.

You can't spend your way out of an economic downturn and hope that someday your financial problems all go away. It just doesn't work that way. Fiscal responsibility requires discipline. It means making tough decisions and having the courage to follow through on them. I am so thrilled to be part of a government and to be able to work with this Finance Minister and this Premier, who do have the courage to follow through and make those difficult choices that have made us the envy of the country.

Balancing the budget is at the heart of fiscal responsibility. Everything else is secondary. Reduced spending across government has freed up more than $1 billion over the government's fiscal plan. About half the savings is helping to balance the budget; the remaining half is being invested to improve family affordability, to support jobs and to work towards economic growth.

We all know — well, most of us know — that a balanced budget creates economic certainty. British Columbia is leading the country by being only one of two provinces to have a balanced budget. B.C. is the only province in the country with a positive outlook for three more balanced budgets, a solid fiscal plan that provides the economic certainty that is going to help British Columbia lead the way. It is the reason why the Conference Board of Canada has singled out British Columbia as the province to lead the country in economic growth in 2015.

This is not this party or this government thumping their own chests. This is the Conference Board of Canada, and that is a huge compliment. The Conference Board recognizes that B.C. is getting the fundamentals right and recognizes that by creating favourable conditions for the private sector to flourish, we will have a stronger economy. We will have a more secure tomorrow.

Balanced budgets provide investors with certainty, and that's a precious — very precious — commodity in such a fragile global economy. Global investment gravitates to stable and predictable business environments. With this balanced budget, the second in a row, British Columbia continues to be an attractive destination for investment.

Labour stability lends itself to economic certainty. Last December the government announced it had reached tentative deals with three public sector unions representing 51,000 hard-working and very, very dedicated and valued members of the public service.

These innovative agreements include growth-sharing increases, so when the economic growth exceeds projected forecasts, public servants will share in the benefits that flow from a growing economy. By reaching these long-term labour agreements, the government is promoting greater economic certainty and a more predictable business environment.

Again, most of us are aware that lower taxes lead to more investment. A low-tax regime is fundamental to a competitive economy and attracting that precious investment. That's why the government has taken significant steps to reduce personal and corporate income taxes. B.C. currently has the lowest personal income taxes in the country for those earning under $121,000 per year. In fact, personal income taxes for most taxpayers have been reduced by 37 percent or more since 2001, and many low-income British Columbians don't pay any provincial income tax at all.

To increase B.C.'s competitive economic advantage, the government is committed to following through on a number of strategies, reducing small business tax by 40 percent by 2018. This government has done a massive job.

[1340]

We have been so successful in reducing red tape. Some people like regulations because it means more regulators and a bigger government. That's not the direction this government chose to take.

We're also lowering the corporate income tax rate

[ Page 1452 ]

by 10 percent by 2018, and British Columbia is fast on its way to being the best place to do business anywhere. When all taxes are considered, British Columbians enjoy one of the lowest overall tax burdens in Canada, and that's quite a good deal to be able to live in the best part of the country.

Triple-A credit rating. Prudent and responsible management of public finances means British Columbia keeps its triple-A credit rating, the highest standard available. The triple-A credit rating is so important. It is so vital for at least two reasons. It reduces the cost of servicing our debt. Compared to other provinces such as Ontario, we would be spending an additional $2 billion a year to service our debt, money that could be spent on schools, hospitals, social services and infrastructure. Had we tossed away that triple-A credit rating, $2 billion would be going to service the debt.

Secondly, by lowering the government's borrowing costs, we have the fiscal freedom to make significant capital investment in provincial infrastructure projects — roads, bridges, improvements to health care facilities, K through 12, post-secondary institutions. This is something that no other jurisdiction in the country has the luxury of engaging in at this point in time.

In total, taxpayer-supported capital spending on schools, hospitals and other infrastructure across B.C. over the next three years is expected to total $11 billion. This includes $1.5 billion to maintain, replace, renovate or expand K-through-12 facilities. It includes $2.3 billion for capital spending on post-secondary institutions, $2.6 billion on health care structure and $3.4 billion on transportation infrastructure. This is a government that is looking out for the long term and the future, the well-being and the prosperity of this province.

It is critical in this day and age that we diversify our economy. The nature of the economic forces in B.C. has been changing rapidly over the last few decades. In 2001 almost 70 percent of B.C. exports were to the United States. Well, in 2012 that number has dropped to less than 45 percent, while trade with Asia has expanded exponentially. By comparison, 86 percent of Alberta's exports and 78 percent of Ontario's exports are solely dependent on U.S. markets.

Diversification helps shelter B.C. from downturns in the U.S. It enables us to take advantage of rapidly growing markets such as China and India. In 2001 less than 3 percent of B.C. exports went to China, and Japan was our largest customer in Asia. Well, in 2012 the situation is completely turned around, and now China is our largest market in Asia — 18.4 percent of total exports. In fact, British Columbia's exports to China have risen by over 600 percent in the last ten years. India, another fast-growing market — exports to that country total $467 million in 2013. That represents more than a 45 percent increase since this time last year.

Overall, international exports of B.C.-made goods and resources increased nearly 7 percent in 2013 over 2011. In total, we exported $33.6 billion worth of goods in 2013. That's up from $31.5 billion in 2012.

Let there be no doubt about it whatsoever. The commentators from coast to coast are correct. British Columbia has it right.

There is no driving force in our economy more vital, more significant, more important than small business. Small business plays such an important role in British Columbia's exports, accounting for 42 percent of merchandise shipped abroad in 2011. For that reason, the government of British Columbia is making a concerted effort to assist small business by continuing to slash the red tape that has made it so difficult for entrepreneurs and small businesses to be successful in the past. Excessive paperwork, making businesses jump through too many hoops, creates a drag on the economy and ultimately costs jobs.

[1345]

Our goal, and we're well on the way to it, is to become the most business-friendly jurisdiction in Canada and North America. The business community knows we are working in their best interests. And for the third year in a row the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has awarded British Columbia an A rating for continuing to slash red tape. We are the only jurisdiction in the country to receive that distinction, that designation. It is one of the vehicles that is making B.C. the best place to do business. And you know what? We're going to do more of it. We're going to slash more red tape and more regulations. This is a business-friendly environment.

Let's talk a little bit about my favourite acronym these days — the one in addition to BBQ. Let's talk about LNG — a long-term opportunity. I congratulate the Premier for taking leadership on this LNG file and making a concerted effort to diversify B.C.'s economy — not just the northern economy, not just the rural economy but British Columbia's economy.

Emerging economies in China, India and other parts of Asia are significantly increasing their demand for natural gas. Recognizing the competitive landscape to fill market demand in Asia, the government of B.C. is taking action to harness our abundant reserves of natural gas and become a world-class LNG exporter. We're going to do this, and we're going to do it right. British Columbians will enjoy significant benefits, including hundreds of millions of new investment dollars, thousands of construction jobs and growth in local and regional economies.

The economy is much more than the Lower Mainland and the capital region. It is the entire province of British Columbia, and this government understands all too well how important the far-flung regions of British Columbia are. All contribute to a growing economy. That is why we are going to continue to make these types of investments, and we are going to be planning long term for the well-being of future generations.

[ Page 1453 ]

Higher government revenues. Untold spinoff benefits. After ten years of production, estimates are that one single LNG plant alone could generate up to $1.4 billion in income tax.

We're also investing in social infrastructure. One of the greatest advantages of a balanced budget, and it's something that has the rest of Canada literally drooling, is that we have the fiscal freedom to make strategic investments that help B.C. families — for instance, the B.C. training and education savings grant, a one-time $1,200 grant contribution toward a child's RESP following their sixth birthday. In just the past year alone the number of B.C. families with RESPs has increased by 10 percent. And we look forward to begin making payments to as many as 40,000 eligible families in British Columbia each and every year.

Starting in April 2015, the B.C. early childhood tax benefit will provide $146 million to approximately 180,000 families with children under six years old. Families will receive up to $55 a month for each child under the age of six. And while $55 may not sound a whole lot, for young families starting out, every penny counts. This is a major investment in the future.

B.C.'s early-years strategy will invest $76 million over three years to support the creation of new child care spaces and improve the quality of child care and early-years services. The government will also be providing incremental funding of $243 million over three years to Community Living B.C. to maintain services for adults with developmental disabilities and their families.

In conclusion, Budget 2014 represents a commitment to control government spending, to achieve a balanced budget and set the province on a course toward economic expansion and, eventually, a debt-free province. Budget 2014 makes British Columbia a leader in restoring the fiscal health of the government so that we have the fiscal freedom to make our own choices and shape our own future.

[1350]

If I just may conclude, last week I took a little walk at lunch, and I was met by a reporter from the press gallery — one that's not particularly friendly to this government. He asked me what my priorities were. I said my priorities are to balance the budget, control spending and grow the economy. He rolled his eyes and said: "That just sounds like all the stuff you were saying during your election campaign." Absolutely.

C. James: It's my pleasure to stand and rise to speak to the Budget 2014. I just wish it was a better budget to speak to. I wish it was as much of a pleasure to be able to talk about the items that were in the budget as it is to rise in this House.

I want to take a few minutes to talk about the fact that throne speeches and budgets are really a way of a government laying out their priorities. They are the opportunity for a government to be able to put out their choices that they're making. We've all heard the members on the other side talk about choices — that the budget is about choices. That's really what a budget and a throne speech, which we heard a week ago, do.

This is also the first opportunity for this government to put out a full budget and a full throne speech since they were elected. I think many of us, and certainly the public that I talk to, really believe that this would've been the opportunity for this government to put out their new ideas, to be able to lay out their new approaches and, certainly, to be able to build on the strengths of our province and put forward their ideas to deal with the challenges that we face.

I want to take a minute just to look at those strengths and challenges before I get into how I saw the budget addressing or not addressing those issues and, also, to talk a little bit about the concerns that I hear from my community. Although we all come from unique places in British Columbia, there are some areas that are common to the people of this province and that I think we'll hear in other speeches as we go through this budget.

To be able to put a plan together to address the challenges and to address the strengths of the province, first you have to look at what those are. I have to say there is a rare place where I would agree with the government in this budget, and that's the issue that people are our greatest strength in British Columbia.

There is no question that the public, the people of British Columbia are our greatest strength — built on the ground of First Nations and aboriginal people in our province, the most resilient, strong people that we could imagine. That's a foundation that I'm very proud of and that we should all be proud of in British Columbia.

If you take a look at the population of our province, we also need to recognize the extraordinary diversity that we have in British Columbia, which gives us a huge strength — a huge strength when it comes to our economy and when it comes to connections from across the globe and opportunities for us to be able to have family contacts, cultural contacts, business contacts. That gives us a huge strength.

To me, that is one of the things that I'm so proud to be a British Columbian for — that multicultural nature of our province, that foundation built by First Nations and aboriginal people.

I think the second thing that probably most of us in this House would agree on is that one of our other greatest strengths is our environment and the world around us in British Columbia. We have every ecosystem you can imagine — whether we're talking about oceans or lakes or streams, whether we're talking about ecosystems.

I have the pleasure every summer…. One of my ways of relaxing in a job like this is to take off and go camping in the summer. I'm very fortunate that my husband has spent a lot of time in the outdoors, so we disappear off the

[ Page 1454 ]

beaten track in the forest rec sites and have the opportunity to be able to experience it firsthand. There is nothing more extraordinary than spending time….

Hon. A. Virk: Mr. Speaker, may I have leave to make an introduction, please?

[1355]

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. A. Virk: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for granting me leave. I felt it was important, and I apologize for the interruption.

We have a whole bunch of very bright grade 5 students from my riding of Surrey-Tynehead, from the Pacific Academy, from the class of Rick Bath and Nancy Bakken. We have a whole bunch. Fifty-four grade 5 students are coming in from Pacific Academy. These are our future university students. Thank you for the opportunity to make the introduction.

Debate Continued

C. James: Thank you to the minister for doing introductions of young people as we're talking about the strengths of our province. I think we would all agree that our future is in great hands when we all, as MLAs, spend time in our schools and meeting with young people around this province. I certainly feel confident. It's nice to see some young people here today visiting.

I was mentioning the strengths of British Columbia. As I said, I think our natural environment, the world around us, is certainly one of the greatest strengths that I recognize as a British Columbian.

The other piece that's important to acknowledge as one of our strengths is the natural resources of British Columbia. They have really built our province. They have provided the wealth that we see around us each day, whether we're talking about forestry, whether we're talking about mining, agriculture, the fishing industry — although a challenge has certainly been one of those areas that has helped build this province and is a part of our history and, I hope, part of our future. I'll talk a little bit about that when I talk about this budget and how this budget related to those particular areas.

We also see not only strengths in British Columbia but some real challenges. The first one that I want to speak about is the issue of inequality. We are, as a province, more economically divided than we have been in generations. I just want to read a couple of statistics. I think it's important for us to acknowledge this as a major challenge, because it impacts not simply the families and people who are struggling with that inequality. It impacts all of us. It impacts the economy for all British Columbians.

We have the largest income gap in the country right here in British Columbia. Just to give you an example, the last statistic came out in 2009. The top 20 percent in British Columbia held 44.8 percent of the after-tax income. The bottom 20 percent lived on 4 percent of the after-tax income. We know that the middle class are increasingly under stress.

We know as well — and I'll speak a little bit more about this later — that again this year we have the highest child poverty rate in this country. We have the highest rate for children living in single-mother families in poverty — 49.8 percent. Almost 50 percent of single-mother families have their children and their families, therefore — because children don't live alone; those are families living in poverty — struggling in our province.

The rate for children living in two-parent families. People often think it's simply single-parent families that struggle. The rate of poverty for children living in two-parent families is the worst in Canada here in British Columbia — 14 percent.

The rate for children under six years old — again, the worst, here in British Columbia — 20 percent, 8 percent higher than Canada's average.

Another indicator that's often looked at is the use of food banks in our province, and 94,000 people use food banks every single month in British Columbia. What are the numbers for children? One-third of those users are children.

That's a statistic that…. I would imagine that, if you were preparing a budget and looking at how you address the challenges that you face in British Columbia, inequality and poverty would be top of the list to address — not simply, as I said, because it's the right thing to do and because those families are struggling but because it's the right economic thing to do. Inequality is tough for economies, for everyone — not simply for the people living in poverty.

[1400]

Let's look at our economy. Again, as I talk about the challenges we face in British Columbia, our rate of employment and our economy are struggling. These aren't New Democrat statistics. These are statistics that are out there from Statistics Canada, from the government's own Progress Board, from their own budget documents, and I'll get to that as well.

When we look at private sector job growth — which, as everyone knows in this House, is one of the drivers when you look at employment, when you look at economic growth — from September 2011 to January 2014 — and that actually fits the time period of the Premier's jobs plan, interestingly enough; again, I'll get to that a little bit more — we're the worst in Canada. The worst in Canada.

We have the lowest employment rate west of the Maritimes. We have the highest unemployment rate of all the western provinces. We have the lowest GDP growth among western provinces. And we've also had a net loss

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of people to other provinces for nine consecutive quarters. That's 27 months. You would certainly think that the issue of employment and economic growth, if you were a government and you were looking at bringing forward a budget that set out the direction for the province, would be a main feature of the budget. We'll get to that in a minute.

Another huge challenge for individuals and for families in British Columbia — I certainly see it in my community office, and I'm sure other MLAs do as well — is the issue of affordability. I have never had so many individuals coming into my community office as I have had this fall, with concerns about being able to manage paycheque to paycheque — individuals who are struggling to try to make tough decisions that they shouldn't have to make; senior citizens who are trying to decide: "Do I just stretch out the prescription that I got and the medication that I've got, because I can't afford it when we're paying other bills?"

We've seen, since 2001, increases in ferry fares and tuition fees and MSP premiums and hydro rates and child care costs, impacts that aren't simply words but that have an impact on families.

One of the most important roles of government, I believe, is to care for the most vulnerable. I'm a big believer in the statement that a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. I have to say that I've been pretty ashamed with what I've seen in my province of British Columbia over the last number of years.

When I take a look at the reports that have come forward from the Representative for Children and Youth; when I take a look at children in care who, by no fault of their own, are in the care of government…. What could be more important than the role that government takes on in being the caregiver, the guardian, the parents, the family for children when they need support?

It's a serious role, and it's a role that government plays for many, many children at different times in their lives in British Columbia. Yet if we take a look at the record over the last 12 years, it's dismal. The government has not been doing the job that they are required to do as guardian and family for those children. They've not been providing the kinds of supports that they need as they transition to adulthood. They've not been providing that kind of support for adults with diverse abilities, who, again, need that support and require that support.

People who are living on disability and income assistance…. I often think that the other side thinks it's a handout that people are looking for. People aren't looking for a handout; they're looking for a hand up. They're looking for someone to give them a little bit of assistance when they're doing everything right. Were there things in this budget to assist there? No.

[1405]

I have a large population of seniors in my community, in Victoria–Beacon Hill. Seniors, as we know — and I won't make any comment about all of us around this chamber — are a growing population base. Seniors are individuals who helped build British Columbia, who shared their resources.

The member across says there are a couple of young folks in the chamber. Yes, that's true. Behind me, as well, I want the member to know.

Seniors have, with their tax base and with their hard work, helped build our province. Again, seniors are not looking for a handout. They're looking for supports in their years as they need them, which means a range of supports.

Given those concerns, given those areas that are of concern in British Columbia, and given our strengths, let's take a look at Budget 2014 and see how it measured up. How did it address those things that I believe a government should address? How did they deal with their choices that they had to make?

Well, the first piece, of course, is the strength of people. Where were the plans to build on that strength, starting with First Nations? I heard words in the budget speech. I heard words in the throne speech, but I didn't see action.

I didn't see action to address the economic growth that First Nations are looking for — government accepting its role in consultation, not simply industry's role. Government also has a legal role to be involved in consultation with First Nations when it comes to resource development, and I didn't see that there.

I didn't see support for what I think could've been a great opportunity with an education program for skills training specifically for First Nations communities. A lot of the growth, a lot of the economic activity, as we know, that will take place in British Columbia will take place in communities that have a large aboriginal population. There is an opportunity for government to be able to ensure that First Nations have full participation. I was hoping to see a specific training program to address that issue, to be able to provide opportunities for First Nations. I didn't see any of that in the budget.

Where was the opportunity and the plan to ensure that all of the public, all of our citizens, benefit and have an opportunity to contribute in British Columbia? We could've begun with a provincewide poverty reduction plan, a very specific direction where we could've come together, government and opposition and community organizations, to say: "What could be more important than addressing the shameful poverty rate in British Columbia? Let's put a plan together to address it."

This is not something that will be fixed overnight. There is not a quick fix nor one fix to the issue of poverty reduction. But somehow government seems to believe that because it's complex, because it covers other sectors and because it needs to be a community and government partnership, we're not going to do anything. Well, that's simply not good enough.

The children and the families who are struggling and

[ Page 1456 ]

who want to participate in the economy and the life of British Columbia deserve better than they're getting in this budget. We need to ensure that families have an opportunity for that success. We have seen governments of different political stripes across this country put poverty reduction plans in place. This is not something that is unique. This is something, in fact, that is unique to our province — not having done it.

I once again will ask the members opposite to think about how we could look at putting together that poverty plan. It could include all kinds of strategies, like a child care system for British Columbia. I don't know how the government expects families to contribute to the economy of our province and to get back into the workforce when they're looking at $1,200 a month, for example, as child care costs.

I heard the minister say when he stood up and talked about the budget that next year there'll be a child tax credit, support coming to families. Some of them will get $55 a month for children under six. Well, $55 a month, when you're paying $1,200 a month for child care, is not going to support a family returning to the workplace. It's not going to encourage people to be able to get out of the cycle of poverty, which is what they're looking for.

[1410]

We could have seen an investment in affordable housing — a range of market and co-op housing. Again, we didn't see that in this budget.

I heard the Minister of Social Development speaking earlier. We could have seen some changes and some supports in the rules — the archaic rules, in many cases — that are in place in the area of income assistance.

If you're a single mom and you're going back to school, you get cut off income assistance and get cut off support for your children for medical. How on earth are you going to get yourself out of the cycle of poverty and go back and get the kind of training that you need, that we keep hearing government talk about, if you're told you're cut off all of your supports? It makes it impossible for families to do what they want to do, which is get that training, get that post-secondary support and get back into the workplace. I didn't see anything in this budget that talked about that.

I talked about the environment being one of our greatest strengths, and our natural resources. Where was that great strength supported in the budget? I didn't see it.

I didn't see support for transit, one of the best things we could take on to address the issue of climate change. People often think of transit simply as a Lower Mainland issue, but transit is a major issue in communities all across British Columbia, including right here in greater Victoria, where people are looking for an opportunity for their own transit authority, for their own ability to be able to set direction, to increase transit, to provide an opportunity for people to do their part when it comes to climate change.

There could have been an opportunity for the government to not only address the environment but also to address natural resources and to address jobs by having a major investment in silviculture and reforestation. Wouldn't that have been something to cheer about in the budget document if it had been there — something to actually manage all three of those needed areas in British Columbia.

We could have seen a major investment in home retrofits in both public and private buildings — a chance for people, again, to be able to address climate change, to put a real plan in place and to create jobs, green jobs, right here in British Columbia. But we didn't see any of that either.

I mentioned earlier the issue of inequality and how important it is to address inequality. We don't need another study. We don't need more research to show us that societies with less poverty are safer, are healthier, are more productive and are more economically strong. We will pay as a society. We will pay as taxpayers. We will pay one way or the other. I certainly believe a smarter investment is to put the investment in now to get people out of the cycle of poverty, to be able to give them an opportunity to contribute. That's what they're looking for.

Now, if we take a look at jobs, as I mentioned earlier, you would think, given the Premier's focus on her jobs plan, that you certainly would have seen that as a big area in the budget. This is the Premier's major, major plank that she ran in the election on, that she ran before the election on. You certainly would have expected that there would be action, that there would be success in the budget and that the government would be talking about that.

Well, when the public takes a look at this budget document, they will see that the budget document itself — not my words, not the opposition's words but the government's own words — shows that unemployment is going to rise in this next year. Not only that, it's going to rise the year after as well. What kind of hope is that providing to British Columbians and their families?

What's the best tool we can use to be able to address the issue of unemployment, to be able to address people who need skills to be able to get back into the workforce? Well, the very best tool is education and skills training.

[1415]

Again, I expected we'd see a major investment in skills training and trades, a major investment in post-secondary education. I certainly expected that that would be in the budget, given the Premier's jobs plan, given the focus that the government has been talking about. But no.

Not only did they not invest in jobs training — other than perhaps the advertising budget that the Premier used building into the election, which probably is the only money they've added to the budget — this budget actually cut funding for post-secondary education. It actually cut funding for skills training. We see less people

[ Page 1457 ]

completing trades training in British Columbia. What kind of jobs plan is that?

Families are looking for opportunities not only for themselves but for their children. I was a school trustee for 12 years, and one of the things that we spent a lot of time talking with parents about was the fact that a university degree or trades training were just as valuable as each other, that it was important for people to recognize where their interests were and their children — what kind of direction they wanted to look at — and that one shouldn't be seen as less than the other, that everybody should have an opportunity for that degree, for that trades training and for that opportunity to meet their needs and meet their job needs.

Now things have changed from my time as a school trustee in the '90s, and I hear many more parents saying that they recognize that the trades are important. They understand that there are opportunities out there. They want the chance for their children to be able to get trades training and skills training. They've been talking to their kids about that in a way they didn't back in the 1990s, because they didn't see it as important as a university degree.

Well, now that we have families that are looking at both as important, they find out there isn't a space available; there's a wait-list to get in; or the costs are prohibitive for them, as a family, to be able to send their child to school for that kind of training that they need.

There was a quote in the budget that really stood out for me: "A student will be virtually guaranteed access to the training opportunity of his or her choice after high school." Well, my question to the Finance Minister and to all of government is: how? How on earth is a child going to be guaranteed access when the government is cutting the budget for post-secondary, when they're cutting resources for skills training?

Yes, I hear the government talk about the capital investment. Well, what is the point of a building without the support to be able to put the students and the teachers in it? It makes no sense, no sense whatsoever.

So when the government talks about the budget being about choices…. Well, it's about the wrong choices in this budget. It's about missed opportunity.

Let's take a look at affordability, because that's really where this budget hits home for constituents, hits home for members in my community and communities all across this province. How did the government help families who are struggling right now? I talked earlier about the pressures I'm hearing in my community office. Well, this is how the government so-called helped families: by increasing the amount of money that they're taking out of their pockets. That's what this budget does. It increases their MSP premiums — a medical services tax, as many people are now calling it, because that's really what it is.

Increased ferry fares, which really impacts us. Hydro, ICBC rates, tuition — all of those have now gone up for families at a time when they're already struggling, at a time when the government itself admits that unemployment is going up, at a time when we have one of the highest costs of living here in British Columbia. The government's choices didn't include those families. They didn't include those families who are struggling, who want to get out of the cycle of poverty.

Did the budget include anything that was going to support those vulnerable families I talked about earlier, those children who are guardians of government?

[1420]

The budget for children and families put additional money in because of increased pressures in the area of autism but did not increase money to improve services. No money to increase and put in place a plan for youth mental health, as the minister said was going to happen. No increase in residential care, which the minister said was going to happen. No increase in support for those challenged children who need specialized services. That's not going to happen, even though the minister stood up and said so.

Report after report after report has come forward from the Representative for Children and Youth. I have heard the Premier and I've heard ministers stand up and say that they're going to support those recommendations, but this budget does not show that.

To close, I'm sad that I have to stand here and raise those issues that aren't included, because I am very proud of this province. I'm an optimist, and I believe that if government had made different choices, we could have seen some of those strengths built on. But instead, we have a budget that leaves families paying more, getting less — no support for the vulnerable and increased costs.

So I will be voting against this budget.

Hon. S. Bond: It's indeed a delight to stand in the House today, and clearly, I will be voting in support of Budget 2014.

Before we get to that point, though, as other members do in this House…. It is an unbelievable honour to serve in public service in the way that we have been given the privilege of doing as MLAs.

We are grateful to families. Certainly in my case, my family has been unbelievably supportive. It is my fourth term in provincial office, and I served as a school trustee prior to that, so it's been almost two decades in public service.

I have a very long-suffering and wonderful husband and children, grandchildren, who are amazingly supportive of me, especially when we spend so much time away from our homes.

I also want to thank the incredible staff that I have. I have amazing staff in Prince George. I have Dorothy, Katrina and Teagan; and, here in Victoria, a great team at the ministry: Nicki, Kim, Lindsay, Katy, Damon, Rishi, Jason, Monika and Erin — people who work hard every day and who give of their time and efforts to support

[ Page 1458 ]

British Columbians as well.

I am most grateful to have been chosen for the fourth time to represent Prince George–Valemount. I represent a very interesting riding, as many people do. I have a rural-urban riding. I represent the city of Prince George, along with my colleague from Prince George–Mackenzie. But I also represent beautiful little communities like Dunster, Crescent Spur, McBride, Valemount and Dome Creek. All of them are amazingly resilient, incredible British Columbians that I'm very, very proud to represent.

Great things are happening in the north, and they're happening in my community. We have just recently had the B.C. Natural Resource Forum, where literally hundreds of people came. I want to congratulate my colleague the member for Prince George–Mackenzie for his hard work in making sure that people had a chance to come from across the country and across our province to talk about the importance of the resource sector to our province.

I don't know about you, but it was pretty hard to concentrate on doing anything other than watching the Canadian women's hockey team just a few minutes ago. Talk about a comeback victory. It was absolutely magnificent, in addition to the success of our Canadian women's curling team. It's great to be a woman in British Columbia today. We're laying down the challenge to the men's teams tomorrow to do us proud as well.

I'm very excited about that, though, because I am very lucky to have two Olympians from my particular riding. I'm very proud of Megan Heinicke — her maiden name was Tandy, she is a biathlete, and she did an exceptional job at the Olympics — and Matthew Morison, who is a snowboarder and a helicopter pilot. He lives and works in Valemount, British Columbia. He works for Yellowhead Helicopters there. I can assure you that we'll be cheering him on, on February 21 in the parallel slalom.

It's exciting for Prince George, and it's a great connection for us, as well, because we are the very proud hosts of the 2015 Canada Winter Games. It is the first time that the Canada Winter Games have ever come to British Columbia, and I couldn't be more proud of the team of people that are organizing the games.

[1425]

Today in the women's gold-medal hockey victory, Marie-Philip Poulin did an exceptional job of getting us back into the game. She was actually part of the Canada Winter Games program. We're very proud of her, and that's the kind of athlete that we're going to see when the Canada Winter Games come in less than a year from now.

I do want to take just a couple of minutes to react to some of the comments of my colleague in the House the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill. I think it's important to respond in a respectful way to some of the comments that were made.

I want to begin by saying to the member that there is not one member of this Legislature, not one — it doesn't matter which side of the House you sit on — that wants to see people in British Columbia using food banks or struggling to meet their bills at the end of the day or worrying about where their next meal is coming from.

There is not one MLA in this House — whether government, opposition or independent — who wants that in the magnificent province of British Columbia. We do have shared values in this place. We want to care for the most vulnerable. We want to make sure that British Columbia is a leader in our country.

You see, the challenge we have is the route we take to get there. The member very passionately and personally outlined dozens of things that the budget should have done and didn't. What was missing from the conversation was: where's the revenue generation to actually pay for the programs that all of us want for British Columbians?

There are two sides to this equation. It is about job creation. One of the best things we can do for families in British Columbia is grow an economy that actually allows families to get jobs.

What the member opposite failed to note was that unemployment rates in British Columbia today are at near-historic lows. In fact, we continue to see single-digit unemployment numbers all across the province of British Columbia. And yes, the part that wasn't noted in the member opposite's comment was that employment, noted in the budget, is actually going to increase. We are going to see, according to the budget documents, a slight dip in unemployment.

Let's go back to last year's budget. Last year's budget predicted unemployment rates of 7 percent. Today we outperformed that budget and that budget notation, and the unemployment rate in British Columbia today is 6.4 percent. We are in single-digit unemployment numbers right across the province of British Columbia.

The reason that balancing a budget is important — and concentrating on the fiscal fundamentals — is so that we can do exactly what the member opposite was asking for. You can't do that by downloading those costs on the backs of future generations, by simply saying, "Let's spend our way out of this problem. Let's just add more dollars to the budget" — no.

What we've said clearly in this budget is that as a result of strong fiscal discipline, this is the second balanced budget that this government has delivered. And the budget lays out balanced budgets for the next two years.

I do agree with the member opposite on this point. It takes tough choices. It's about making decisions.

Let's look at the decisions we made. We made a decision in this budget to invest $2.5 billion — not million, $2.5 billion — in additional funding to health care in British Columbia. That's a priority of this government. It's a priority of British Columbians. So $2.5 billion.

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In addition to that, we are looking at billions of dollars

[ Page 1459 ]

of infrastructure projects in British Columbia. To suggest that we are not strengthening the economy…. We are adding billions of dollars of projects. In fact, we see as many as $80 billion worth of projects that have the potential of moving forward in British Columbia. All of those come as a result of a strong economy, an environment where investors are willing to come to British Columbia.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

There are reasons that investors choose to do that. They look at your tax regime. They look at your red tape. They look at your regulatory regime. Let's take a look at what this government has concentrated on. We've heard other members say we've reduced red tape in British Columbia by over 43 percent. We lead the country. We are consistently recognized.

Why is that important? Because regulation strangles small businesses. This government said: "We want small business to thrive." And as a matter of fact, today we have the highest level of confidence of small business owners in the country.

Hon. A. Virk: May I seek leave to make an introduction of a class that has just come in as the Minister of Jobs was speaking?

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. A. Virk: Mr. Speaker and members of the House, they have just walked into the House here — a class from the Pacific Academy in my riding of Surrey-Tynehead. They are a bunch of bright, young faces — future university students. Would the House please make them feel welcome.

Debate Continued

Hon. S. Bond: Good afternoon, hon. Speaker.

Creating a budget is about making choices. It is about deciding what your priorities are, and it is about deciding that we are not going to spend more than we take in.

What our goal is, is to make sure that the amount of revenue coming to British Columbia actually increases. That means you have to say yes to economic development in British Columbia. You have to create an environment where investors have confidence in your province so that they will actually come and choose to develop.

Economic growth creates jobs. It creates the kinds of supports for families that we need. We have been clear. Our priorities are clear. There are investments in this budget that support health care, that support vulnerable families, that support families through an education benefit which would allow their children, in the future, to have a great start making those choices that are important to them.

While the members opposite may choose to trivialize the amounts of money that are involved there, it is essential that we look at both sides of the equation. Every single member of the opposition gets up and speaks about: "We need to spend more, spend more, spend more."

What we say is that we need a strong fiscal foundation. We need to grow our economy. We need to have balanced budgets. We need to reduce red tape. We need to keep income taxes low. I am very proud to tell you that we have managed to do every single one of those things.

Why does it matter? It matters because that is what grows an economy. We care about programs for vulnerable families. We care about having an excellent education system.

Let's look at our education and health care systems. The outcomes we have in health care in British Columbia are the best in the country, and yet the cry from the opposition is: "Let's just pour more money in." We are adding $2.5 billion over three years to health care, to a system that already has some of the best outcomes in the country.

In education, both in post-secondary and in the K-to-12 system — exceptional outcomes, great work by teachers every single day in classrooms. We continue to invest billions of dollars, both in post-secondary and in the K-to-12 system.

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We do have priorities. We are making tough decisions. That is why you can actually balance a budget.

Let's look across the geography of our country, and let's count the number of provinces and territories that we have, and let's ask ourselves how many of those jurisdictions were able to put in place the kind of fiscal discipline — the focus on balancing a budget. How many of those provinces and territories are in the position of actually delivering? Two. And the member opposite speaks of her pride in British Columbia. I'm proud that British Columbia is one of two jurisdictions in this country that has the fiscal discipline, the program in place to balance their budget for the future of this province.

We also are in a very privileged position in our country regarding our triple-A credit rating. All of those fiscal elements make a difference. The members opposite may not think much of a triple-A credit rating, but I can assure you that if we didn't have one, that would be the story of the day.

You see, when you have a triple-A credit rating, it actually increases our borrowing power and reduces the percentage that we actually have to pay on debt. It makes an enormous difference. And you don't just get one because you want one. You get a triple-A credit rating by being disciplined and by convincing bond-rating agencies — when they look at your debt-to-GDP ratio, when they look at your tax regime, when they look at your regulatory regime — that you have earned a triple-A

[ Page 1460 ]

credit rating.

We, on this side of the House, are proud of a triple-A credit rating. We're proud of a balanced budget. We're proud to say we know that reducing regulation continues to be a priority. And it must, because small businesses are the heart of British Columbia.

I know that where I live, small businesses drive our economy, and whether it's two or three or five employees, every single one of those jobs matter. So as we move forward, the message that we are sending to our country and to the rest of the world…. And yes, the world is looking at British Columbia, because today in our province we have some of the largest companies and investors in the world looking at us as a potential home for a new liquid natural gas industry. Those fiscal fundamentals matter when you are attracting those kinds of investors to our province.

Yes, we have said clearly, in this House and outside, that job growth is slower than we would have hoped. But what matters is that we are patient and that we are committed to a plan. We actually have a plan. Let's look at it.

Mining. You know, the members opposite are selective in their choices of the reaction to the jobs plan. Mines. Let's talk about mining and well supporting, family-supporting jobs. Last year alone we had two new mines open in British Columbia. One of them is very near to where I live. In fact, that mine alone created 350 permanent, well supporting, family-supporting jobs. That's one of those mines.

You know what? We're not done yet. There is the potential of two more mines opening in British Columbia this year alone. That's because we created a regulatory environment that encouraged mining to come back to British Columbia after they fled the province. And when we've seen the incredible investment….

In fact, I think the numbers are something…. At the beginning, in 2001, exploration dollars were around the $29 million mark. Today I think they're somewhere around the half-billion-dollar mark. That is about job creation.

It's not just in mining. It's in forestry. It's in technology, high-tech. We have an amazing high-tech sector in British Columbia, and companies are choosing to come to British Columbia because we've created the fiscal environment. We've stuck to the fundamentals.

You know, about five years ago the world changed. We faced economic circumstances that most jurisdictions are still grappling to get out from underneath. It was difficult for us, too, in British Columbia. Many companies suffered. Families suffered.

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But we stayed focused as a government on ensuring that we had the fiscal fundamentals right, that we concentrated on making sure we were trying to manage spending. We were going to control spending. We were going to look at job creation.

All of those fiscal fundamentals made a difference. That's why, today, we're able to stand in this Legislature and present to the people of British Columbia a balanced budget for the second time. The members opposite should not be surprised by our budget. We laid it out for British Columbians in May of last year. We laid out our plan, we laid out our jobs plan, and we laid out our goals. We talked about liquid natural gas, we talked about mining, and we talked about job creation. British Columbians took a pretty good look at what we had to offer.

Today we deliver on a promise we made to British Columbians. We told them we were going to balance our budget. We worked hard. We made tough decisions. We've set the fiscal foundation that's necessary to ensure that when our children, my grandchildren and others who now have grandchildren — brand-new grandchildren and some not-so-new grandchildren…. We can look at ourselves in the mirror,and we can say: "We did our best. We worked hard. We made the tough decisions that were necessary so that British Columbia can prosper in the days and the years ahead."

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to respond in the House. I will be an enthusiastic supporter of balanced budget 2014.

D. Eby: I rise to resume my remarks from this morning.

During my remarks this morning I was talking about our post-secondary system. You know, I had some doubts when I heard comments from the other side of the Legislature. I was like: "Maybe I was mistaken when I heard from the Minister of Advanced Education that he'd visited every school in British Columbia and talked to the people at those schools." Maybe I'd made a mistake.

They talked about how they came to Canada and British Columbia understanding that this was a place that valued education, that this was a place that valued immigration, that this was a place which understood that how this country was built was through the hard work of people who came from other places and that if they came here, they would be able to have that chance — a fair chance to make it in British Columbia.

[ Page 1461 ]

our backs and telling us to swim after you push us into the water."

That man is a mechanical engineer who came here from the Gulf, who came here to work in British Columbia. His program, and all these students' programs at Camosun, is being shuttered. It's being closed.

I can tell you that at colleges across British Columbia these programs are being closed to domestic students. There is no solution in this budget to that issue.

[1445]

It's very disappointing to me to hear the members opposite describe what the opposition has done in our speeches, which is to outline practical things, practical investments that can be made that will pay huge dividends down the road.

It's very disappointing to me that this government is not willing to engage in those discussions, but there is an opportunity, and that is that the Minister of Advanced Education can travel to Camosun. They would be glad to have the Minister of Advanced Education come there. I wanted to extend that invitation to him.

It isn't just the people from Camosun that I've heard from about the budget. Members of my constituency have also raised concerns. Some $16.3 million was cut from the Vancouver school board budget in this last round. More cuts to come. We heard Bramwell Tovey, who's the conductor of the Vancouver Symphony, come to the school board and say: "Please, please, don't cut the music programs."

Please don't cut the Prince of Wales Mini School, where gifted students, gifted in sports — we're celebrating the gold medals here — gifted in leadership and who someday may be sitting in this very chamber, will succeed. Yet that's going to be cut as well.

My constituents also raised important issues around mental health, another investment that would pay huge dividends. People who aren't working, who are on social assistance — getting them back to work is incredibly important.

I'm sorry to hear the members on the other side of the House laughing, laughing at the idea of support for First Nations students, for Chinese students, for ESL students. This is not a joke. This is people's lives. There were people crying in the meeting that I was at this afternoon, Minister. I'm embarrassed for you, that you would laugh at that, that this is a joke to you. This is not a joke. This is serious. These are members of your constituency.

Deputy Speaker: I would remind the member to address his comments to the Chair, please.

D. Eby: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Now, the members of my constituency who are facing these cuts to our schools, who are facing these cuts to critical supports to help people on the edges succeed…. This is why we see an increase of 50 percent in welfare use among 19- to 24-year-olds in this province. This is why we see one in five 25- to 29-year-olds not working and not in school. It's cuts to programs like these, and it's shortsighted decisions like this budget that lead to that.

In conclusion, I'd like to thank some of the people who provide the essential support for me to be here today to provide these real stories from real people. As much as the other side of the House may not want to hear those stories, these are real stories. These are real people who are suffering in this province, who can't get the opportunities that they deserve.

The people who make it possible for me to come here. I'd like to thank my constituency assistants — Gala, Chantille and Junie — who work so hard every day in Vancouver–Point Grey. I'd like to thank Jean Lawson, who also provides administrative support for me here in the Legislature, and Derrick Harder and Jennifer Jones, who provide support in research and writing.

Of course, I'd like to thank my partner, Cailey Lynch. As the members here know and as the members on the other side of the House know, we have some very exciting news — and it makes me that much more passionate about the future of the province — which is that we are expecting, and we're engaged to be married this summer. It's very exciting for us.

It also reinforces to me the critical importance of our work here in this Legislature, the critical importance of considering the future of the province and not just

[ Page 1462 ]

I thank the members on the other side of the House for taking these remarks seriously, because I believe that together we can build a better British Columbia.

[1450]

Hon. R. Coleman: I'd like to start my remarks out because of something that happened a couple of days ago, coming into the budget through the throne speech. It's something that, obviously, would have gone unnoticed by most people in this House but didn't go unnoticed by me, because it actually affected me and it affected my colleague the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin and also the Leader of the Opposition.

It was actually a silent honour that was given to my family in the House when, in the throne speech, it said that members of this House had suffered some personal losses: Jack Barnett, husband of MLA Donna Barnett, who I did know; Ken Dix, the father of the Leader of the Opposition, who I did not know; and Rosa Coleman, my mother, who died about a month short of the age of 94 last summer.

I thought that was something pretty special. I thought it special because it was totally unexpected and not something I requested. I'm sure it honoured the lives of the two people that were affected and the other two MLAs in this House.

As I stand here today…. Obviously, like some members, you get the opportunity rarely when you're debating in the House to thank people. So I'm going to take a moment to give a couple of thanks to a group of people that have in many ways been with me for almost two decades. It'll be 18 years in this Legislature in May for me. They've obviously gone through five election campaigns and been there as volunteers and workers for me and done the job.

There's an individual that is, I believe, watching this afternoon, if the TV is on in the office. She has actually worked for me for 25 years this month. My constituency assistant Sheryl Strongitharm has been with me for 25 years. She started out with me in the private sector and has worked for me as my constituency assistant since 1996. Now, many people believe there's a place in heaven for her for that, having to tolerate me all these years, and probably there is.

The other person. You know, when I look back and I think of great people…. I know that he's in Ontario, and he'll probably never know I said this. I have a sister that has Alzheimer's. She contracted Alzheimer's; the diagnosis came in about 2010. If you can imagine, that's four years ago, and my sister is about five or six years younger than I am. So she was very young when she started to suffer from Alzheimer's.

The remarkable love and support that I've seen from my brother-in-law, Barry McKay, to my sister is something that I will always treasure, because she's in Ontario and I don't get to see her. Somebody has to be there to plan for her every day, and his dedication to her and their family has been remarkable.

When we look at things that happen in this House and we actually throw barbs across the table — which we do and will continue to do, and sometimes they might be a little personal — we always need to remember that everybody's got something going on in their life that may be something that could be trying for them. We know that, and sometimes our moods can shift accordingly. However, having said that, we still have to debate and do the job that is in this House, in the Legislature.

Today I stand to speak about the provincial budget. I can take a number of approaches to it, and if I took all the approaches I'd like to take to it, I would be here for about two hours and still have a lot of things to say. So I'm going to try and boil it down to sort of capsulize what I think goes into such a document, such an opportunity for the people in the province and such stability for the opportunities that it brings for us.

I know what it takes. I sat on Treasury Board for the majority of the years I've been in cabinet in this House, over the last 12, almost 13 years in cabinet. I know what goes into those really tough decisions, whether it be a capital project or whether it be a decision around an investment in some program or other things.

There's a plethora of things that come in from every ministry and every constituency in the province, always thinking: "Give us more money." The challenge with this — and I learned it early on — was that you'll never satisfy it all. What you need to do is focus your money that you're going to invest in the province of British Columbia on behalf of its citizens who are taxpayers — there is only one group of people that pay us that money — in the best way possible for the outcomes you can get, but do it responsibly. Today, when I talk about a balanced budget, I'm going to put it in this context.

Today companies have come from all over the world — from Asia, England, Holland; major head offices across the world — to look at investing in liquefied natural gas. There are 12 companies here today, actually — another one just arrived a couple of days ago to make it 13 — that

[ Page 1463 ]

have significant interest in trying to do an LNG project in B.C. or at least invest in one.

Out of these, some of them are smaller. They might be $1 billion or $2 billion. That sort of rolls off the tongue a little too easily when you're dealing with this file as a minister, considering that the largest construction project in B.C. today that's going forward is the $3.3 billion construction of a new smelter by Alcan in Kitimat, and the total cost of one major LNG plant for capital investment, including the plant and a pipeline and some of the upstream, could run as high as $40 billion.

If you talk about the possibility of investment and your GDP and the spinoffs that come from an investment of only $40 billion, most jurisdictions would be doing backflips of excitement to see if they can attract one of those. We have 12. Out of those, I would call seven of them major opportunities — seven major players that, if they went ahead, would actually each spend somewhere between $30 billion and $40 billion in investment in British Columbia.

Now, that's a pretty staggering amount of money. As they do that, they'll create about 100,000 jobs over 30 years, but more importantly, they will create about 39,000 jobs in construction and 75,000 full-time affiliated jobs to the industry.

I always get a kick out of the fact that some people, when they talk about our budget and our throne speech, say: "Oh, they've got a vision, and they're behind. They're not going to get there. Oh my goodness. What, are they kidding themselves?"

I can tell myself this: I know that if we didn't pursue it, if we didn't seize the opportunity, if we didn't go out and try and attract those billions of dollars of investment and the money that could flow from our gas fields in British Columbia to pay our debt and fund social programs, like every member of this House opposite has asked for today, we wouldn't get it.

You can sit there, put your head in the sand and say: "You know what? It's not a winnable situation, so why bother? Why put the effort into it?"

Now, I'm an optimist, as people know. I decide, when I'm an optimist, that I can get things done, or things can be accomplished. Just after an event last year called an election, a number of media outlets put cameras in my face, when I became the minister, and they said: "You know, what are you talking about this LNG stuff for? Why did you create a ministry for it? Why do you have to do this? Obviously, it's a long shot." I looked at them, and I said: "Aren't you the same people that told me in September and in November and in January and in May that we didn't have a hope of winning an election?"

I am an optimist. Do not underestimate the power of the positive thinking that you can bring to a file to make something successful. That's what we're doing on LNG.

We have a Premier who put a vision in place. She said: "Put the team in place. Go to work. Get the job done. Attract the investment. See if we can win at this." That's the job that we have here. This budget, and every budget forward, will look better because of our work that we're doing on LNG today.

Let me try and put it in perspective for some of you, especially those that really haven't been following the file. Five of the companies that are in British Columbia today have spent between $500 million and $1.5 billion already to work towards their final investment decision. They've done work on site, on building roads, doing geotechnical studies, planning pipeline routes, investing in the upstream for more drilling. They've spent money to go out and acquire land, to put down deposits, to do all the things that will be necessary to be able to make their decision.

What most people don't understand about these projects of this size is you don't snap your fingers and say: "We're going to build an LNG plant."

[1500]

You look at the market. You look at projections over 30 and 40 years. You look at all the regimes that affect your costs, and you try and find the most competitive jurisdiction, the resource you need in order to invest that long-term money to be able to deliver that product worldwide.

Why are they in British Columbia? Why are they here? I asked this of some senior people, including the presidents of some corporations. There were conversations. I won't mention their names, but I sat in rooms across from them.

At one company that's actually here in B.C., that's already probably spent $1 billion, the CEO looked at me and said: "Two things to start with. First, you people want to get it done. You welcome our investment. You welcome working with us, and you listen to us about the fundamentals of our business, and we think that's important.

"Two, if we make that investment, we need to know a couple of things. The first thing we need to know is that there is stability — stability that when we make this investment, we're not going to get any untold surprises.

"We look at British Columbia this way. You have a triple-A credit rating. You're' a safe harbour for investment because of that. When we look at other countries, we always worry about the credit rating, because you know what? If they're in financial trouble and we make an investment, a few years later they might just come along and increase the cost to us because they've got to pay bills because they're irresponsible about how they're handling their fiscal plans.

"Secondly, you people are balancing your budget. Do you know how many countries and provinces and jurisdictions we deal with that cannot get that through their head — that it's important to be able to say we've got our fiscal house in order, so that when we make an investment, we know that we don't have a jurisdiction that is going to overspend the future and come back and hurt our investment down the road? That's part of what we do

[ Page 1464 ]

when we make a decision on something like this."

I get a kick out of some of the other folks out there saying: "You're behind schedule." No, we're not. We're actually right on the time frame that I established for this file. "You're not going to get it done." Oh, don't tell me that, because I'm an optimist.

They also say: "You know, they can't all go ahead." I say: "Okay. Let's have three." That's $100 billion. That's 100,000 jobs. That's over 30 years. On that alone I can create the prosperity fund, pay down the debt and have money left over for the future of British Columbia. So why don't I pursue them all and see what I can get?

That's how I think we should look at this. We should look at it as a global opportunity that we have had. It's incredible that we have this opportunity in front of us at a level that we have today. It's about the fiscal responsibility. It's about the triple-A credit rating. It's about the resource.

British Columbia is gifted with a resource. Over 100 years of natural gas could go to Asia off of four or five plants, and we'd still have gas left over for another 50 years. We have to move this resource off the continent because we have a captured market in North America, and we're not going to send any more south in order to be able to build our revenues. So move it. Get it off the continent. Get it working so those royalties and those revenues can come to government to take care of the future of British Columbia. That's the goal.

It's laughable when people say, "I don't know why you're pursuing it," because I don't know why you wouldn't. Obviously, here's an opportunity that faces you, and you should do something about it.

I'll give you a quick synopsis of what we're looking at. The market for LNG is growing at 2½ times the market today, and the need is growing rapidly for the need worldwide. There are today 12 LNG proposals in B.C. at this time, at various stages of development, and another one that's just arrived on our doorstep. A total of seven of these LNG proposals have already received export approval from Canada's National Energy Board.

To support the interest, we have hosted several international conferences, and last year we had a large conference that was oversold. This year we're going to do the conference again. It will probably be about a half-size bigger, and it'll have a trade show. People are actually coming from all over the world to British Columbia to see our resource, our opportunity and pursue the jobs and opportunities for themselves.

At that same conference we will have our Buy B.C. program there for suppliers, for people to know what jobs and what opportunities and what resources British Columbia companies have to offer to LNG.

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As we go through that, we will actually build on that basis to make sure the opportunities for jobs are there for British Columbians, trades are there for British Columbians and the opportunities for suppliers to participate in this opportunity are there as well.

As growth occurs on all of this, we will get to a final investment decision. Now, this stuff takes time. We're hoping and expecting, possibly, our first final investment decision may take place by the end of this year. If that happens, everybody should rejoice for the future of their children and their grandchildren, because that means one of the biggest steps towards long-term prosperity for British Columbia has taken place.

The companies are working towards those dates. As they work towards those dates, they've been working with us to make sure that the fundamentals are there and that the people of British Columbia benefit from the resource as they should and, at the same time, to attract the investment of folks that want to spend billions of dollars here in order to create an opportunity and move a product elsewhere in the world.

I've been to the countries that are going to use this resource. I've seen what it could change in their pollution, relative to coal-powered plants versus natural gas plants. I've sat down with people in government and senior people from companies who have all decided British Columbia looks pretty favourable to them, and it's because we started something a long time ago.

You see, everything doesn't happen overnight. Over ten years ago, the previous Premier, previous Finance Minister, previous Forests Minister said: "Let's try and build our markets into Asia for forest products." We knew it would take time. We knew that we needed, though, to transfer some of the resource opportunities to elsewhere in the world to be successful with our resource.

We were successful at that. Today we send more lumber to China and Asia than we do to the United States. At one time we sent 85 percent of our product. We have a proven track record in diversifying the market of a resource that we have to Asia or other countries. Because we've done it once, we know how to do it, and we'll do it again.

As we do that, we are going to be successful on so many levels that people will be astounded and sit back and say: "Wow, those guys were visionary. They were really thinking ahead. I wonder how that happened."

It happens because of leadership. Somebody has to have a vision — that's our Premier — about leadership, setting a goal and moving forward. It's about having the opportunity to work with colleagues where all ministries work together for a common goal, like it does in this government today — like no government I've ever seen in the time I've been here.

It's about a very talented group of people who are B.C.'s public servants, including my deputy minister who leads the file and all the other deputies who are cooperating and helping to make this thing happen. Their focus is there because the vision has been established, the goal has been established, and they're working unified to that goal with us.

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Those folks who every day work for us should be thanked. They are remarkable people. The senior people in our public service are hard-working — and I mean really hard-working — people who have the best interests of British Columbians at heart.

Nobody said it was easy. Nobody said hard work would not get us there, but it will. The fact of the matter is that with the vision and the budget and the fundamentals that we have today, we will get to a final investment decision and get to that long-term stability.

In addition to that, I've sat in this House the last few days and heard people dis the heart of this government. The comments I've heard are staggering to me. I want to remind members opposite and members of this House what else this government has done. We're going to get LNG done, but even without it, we've made a sea change of opportunities in British Columbia for people less fortunate that we should talk about, because I think it's important to remember.

Do you know that today there are over 7,000 fewer homeless people in British Columbia than there were five years ago? I listen to the members opposite talk about people who have lower incomes, and they never, ever — except to actually oppose this program — talk about what goes on for people in housing.

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Today in British Columbia right now there are over 10,370 families, in just the last five years, who quietly every month get a cheque to offset their rent if they make under $35,000 a year — 10,370 families. They are in every community. They could be your neighbour. They're not ghettoized. They're not stigmatized. They are helped. They quietly can change and turn around their family's life, and their remarkable stories are there.

I always remember the first letter I got when we put the rent assistance program into place. It was a letter from a lady talking about her and her 12-year-old son. Given the way things were at the time, this individual probably would have waited four or five years for a home in social housing. She got rent assistance. She wrote me. She said: "Thank you. You changed our life. I can now afford my housing, I can have my son enrolled in sports, his outcomes in school are better, and our diet is better. You've actually changed our life."

Now, we could have waited and tried to build 10,370 units of housing for those folks. Or we could move a program out immediately that actually helps them immediately when they make an application. It's remarkable.

In addition to those 10,370 families, there are also 16,700 seniors in British Columbia that get rent assistance to help them with their accommodation and their rent in British Columbia, and that in itself is an increase of over 4,500 in just the last five years.

We're the government that took transition housing, expanded it and then put the money on the table, so every transition house in British Columbia has funding to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

In the housing-for-homeless file, where we went after the housing to build housing for people with special needs, with mental health and addictions, there were 1,300 of those units in British Columbia in 2001.

Today there are 6,700 of those units across British Columbia, and they're not just in Vancouver. They're in Quesnel, they're in the South Okanagan, they're on the Island — in Victoria, Nanaimo — and in Chilliwack — all of these communities — to help deal with a very significant concern for people. When you meet these people and see how their lives are changed, you know it was worthwhile.

You know why we were able to do that? First of all, it's because we are fiscally responsible. We had a corporation that was fiscally responsible and still is, and we had the ability and the faith given to us by government to go and deliver on some new options — different, breaking the mould — to be more successful in helping people with mental health and addictions on housing.

Shelter beds in British Columbia. There were 800 of them in 2001 — 800, right? Today there are 1,850 permanent shelter beds in the Lower Mainland and through other communities across B.C. There's a strategy in place on top of the year-round shelter beds. On top of that, we also have a strategy in place for when the cold weather and the wet weather come. We have automatic ways to be funded into weather spaces in communities all across British Columbia.

As we've done that, we've actually made connections with thousands of people in our shelters and been able to connect them into housing with supports and to turn their lives around. We get analysis for their mental health and their addictions. We get them to a doctor. We determine what their weaknesses are — it could be something like literacy, where they can't even read a paper to apply for a job — and we help them. We give them the assistance to get to the programs they want so that they can be successful.

One of the things, when I became the Minister Responsible for Housing, that disturbed me was the number of First Nations folks that were disproportionately represented in social housing in British Columbia, and I knew that to change that, we had to change what we were doing. So early on we took some units, and we sat down with the Aboriginal Housing Management Association and said: "Would you like to take a small amount of units and build some capacity?" Recently we transferred more.

In 2001 there were 409 units of housing run by aboriginal organizations in British Columbia. Today there are more than 4,200 that are managed by those folks, culturally appropriately, for the folks that they need to serve in housing. That is remarkable.

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When I sit in the House and listen to the sometimes frustrating comments that are made by people who….

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Really, go read the facts. Go look in the eyes of the people, and go stand up behind your councils and your local communities when they've got to do a tough public hearing because somebody doesn't want a project in their backyard because they're NIMBYs. They don't want it in their backyard, and they say: "You've got to fix the housing problem, you've got to fix homelessness, but do not build something near me."

We've been building and operating and buying at an incredible rate in British Columbia to solve this problem over the last six years. The one thing I learned is that when they're built and they're finished and they're established, everybody goes: "What was all the talk about? What was it all about? It hasn't destroyed my neighbourhood. It hasn't made any visible change to anything that has gone around me. Crime hasn't gone up. Noise hasn't gone up."

In actual fact, in one neighbourhood where they had a four-day public hearing…. I know my colleague from Vancouver, the Attorney General, remembers. It was on Fraser Street, and it went on and on. Finally, the group that was on council had the guts to stand up and say yes. The building was finished. It was built. When I went and toured it and toured the neighbourhood, everybody wondered why they were so upset about it.

As a matter of fact, the folks that were getting the treatment had stabilized their lives and were out cutting the seniors' lawns in the neighbourhood for free. They were picking up all the garbage on the streets around their housing because they had pride in where they lived, and their lives had changed.

Let's be clear. When you spend over $3 billion in investments — $3.6 billion since 2001 for affordable housing for low-income individuals, seniors and families — and you adapt your programs to get better outcomes, this is what happens. You do change lives forever. It's something I am extremely proud of that this government does and will continue to do.

If you look at the budget, we have new innovations in housing we're moving forward with so that we can do even more for people who are vulnerable in B.C. when it comes to putting shelter over their heads.

I've had the pleasure of being here for a long time, so that's why I say I could probably go on forever. But I do want to touch on a couple of things, just a couple of quick ones — not in my ministry, just things of observation.

A lot of people talk about crime, and they talk about activities around crime, and they talk about policing in British Columbia. So I want to make a couple of things apparent to people that were done over the last 12 years.

Do you know that British Columbia is the only jurisdiction in the entire continent of North America where every police car is on real-time information management in the car? A crime can take place in Prince George, and a police officer in Burnaby will instantaneously have the data and the information about that crime. Do you know why we did that? It's because intelligence-based policing starts at that point.

You actually do your policing based on your crime stats, your locations, your hot spots, but you need the data to do it. You also need to have it because this is what changes the ability to perform. We have integrated units in British Columbia. The most successful investigative homicide unit in the country and in the continent is in British Columbia — the integrated homicide unit. We have units….

Make no mistake. I see the light is on, and that alone is another 20-minute diatribe for me because I know the difference it's made — the crime that's been solved and the changes that have been made even for people who are missing, like missing women.

Today if someone went missing and were put into PRIME and were actually checked somewhere else, you would be able to connect the dots for an investigation today in real time on crime. You can't do that anywhere else in North America. That is why we did it. We thought that information management was critical to crime-fighting and crime management and protection of our public in British Columbia.

I'm really honoured to sit here. I sat and told the Finance Minister myself — this morning and yesterday afternoon — that I thought that was the best-presented budget speech I'd seen in the 18 years, almost, that I've sat in this House. It was a remarkable presentation. I know the work that went into it. I know the tough decisions that went into it.

I do know one thing: if you balance your budget and you don't overspend your money, you can start paying down your debt. It's no different in a household than it is in government. This Finance Minister has worked incredibly hard for the success of British Columbia. He's to be thanked, and we did that as a caucus and as a chamber the other day. But you know what? I watched how tough this was, because I was part of the process.

I'm proud to be part of the budget. I'm proud to stand in this House, support a balanced budget and look for a future in British Columbia with great economic opportunity and jobs because we are doing the right things with the vision the Premier has laid down.

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We will be successful. Do not underestimate the optimism of the people on this side of the House.

M. Mungall: It gives me great pleasure to rise in this House to represent the wonderful people in the Nelson-Creston area and to speak on their behalf today about how this budget impacts them and how it impacts their lives.

Before I continue on with that, I think it's important to remind ourselves that a budget is supposed to be the actions. It's supposed to be the very defined activities that government is going to take, that they're going to put the

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taxpayers' money behind to back up what they've said in the throne speech. That is their agenda, and we just see a lot of discrepancies between the two of those documents, the two of those speeches, when we look at the budget compared to the throne speech.

There are many things — many slogans, specifically — that were delivered in that throne speech, and we don't see a single mention of them, much less a single action behind those slogans in the budget. I know that when people back home in Nelson-Creston were looking at that and comparing the two, they were very disappointed.

When they heard words like "violence-free B.C.," they thought that that would mean better services at our local Nelson and District Women’s Centre. They thought that would mean, perhaps, secondary-stage housing from the transition homes in Nelson and Creston, perhaps a transition home an hour north of Nelson, in Kaslo. But there isn't a dime for any of these things.

The violence-free B.C., unfortunately, remains a slogan. What that shows us…. That is just an example of how the government's agenda in the throne speech was all talk. It is not backed up by the dollars and cents that show that government plans to take action.

I know for people in my area…. I mentioned Kaslo just a moment ago. I was recently reading a document that highlighted that 41 percent — 41 percent; I was blown away at that number — of Kaslo residents are living below the poverty line. I couldn't believe it. People every day, in one of the most beautiful places in the world, are struggling to make ends meet, quietly struggling to make ends meet. I hear about it from my friends every day, my friends in my age group, the young families who are living in a small, little house on their parents' property because they can't afford to buy their own home.

I'm going to talk more about one of the reasons why that is later on, but when 41 percent of the population of Kaslo is living below the poverty line…. Make no mistake. Many of those residents are children. That's one of B.C.'s most shameful legacies in this last decade — child poverty, having the worst rate of child poverty in this entire country.

You would think that after ten years of having the worst rate of child poverty, any government, no matter what their political stripe, would be called into action, would feel the motivation, would feel inspired to take action — real, concrete steps. Lay out a plan and implement that plan to stop child poverty. But unfortunately, in this budget, not a word. Not a word on child poverty, not a word on the fact that British Columbia has had the highest overall poverty rate in this country for the entire time the Liberals have been in government. That's their legacy in this province.

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We have the worst poverty. Fifty percent of children living with single moms are living in poverty. That's 153,000 children living in poverty in B.C. Breaking that down, that's one in five kids. If we look at a classroom that isn't overcrowded and perhaps has only 20 kids, think about that. Five kids in every classroom don't have the supplies that they need every day to do their school work. Five kids in every classroom have parents who can't afford class field trips.

Five kids in every single classroom dream of playing sports, but they can't afford the equipment. If it weren't for amazing organizations like KidSport, which is doing a tremendous job in my riding of helping those kids, they would never grow up to be the Olympians that they dream to be.

Worst of all, the basics. We all have this in common in the House. We all need to eat, and five kids in every classroom — five kids — are going to school hungry. If you don't believe me, all you need to do is open up the Vancouver Sun over the holiday season and read an

article every day about their adopt-a-school program. The Vancouver Sun is doing fundraising to help schools with breakfast and lunch programs to feed kids who are coming to school hungry.

It's not reaching every single kid. They recognize this at the Vancouver Sun. They recognize that they can't get to every kid and that government needs to play a better role. You'd think that they would feel that as well over on that side of the House. Unfortunately, we don't see any of that in this budget.

When we talk about five kids in every classroom struggling to get enough food to eat to get them through the day so that they can learn better, so that they can achieve better, so that they can go on to be adults who can meet their dreams…. They can't get the food every day. It's no wonder that 30 percent of food bank clients are children. Just five years ago it was 25 percent, and we thought that was too high. One-third of all food bank users are kids. I don't think anybody in this room thinks that that's okay. If you don't think it's okay, then you would do something about it. But not this budget.

What does it looks like when a child goes to a food bank? Let me just put that into perspective for members of the House. I had the experience of managing the Nelson Food Cupboard for two years about ten years ago. Unfortunately, in that experience….

Food banks are always the first people who want to put themselves out of business. Ten years ago I would watch parents come in, embarrassed that they couldn't put food on the table for their child. They had no other option. That's what it looked like. Many of them couldn't afford child care, and their kids came with them. They had no other option.

Could you imagine what that's like for a child to look up to mom or dad at the food bank, knowing that mom or dad can't afford the basic necessities of life? It's crushing. You would see it. I would see it — parents asking if we had a few granola bars stashed away so that they could put some snacks into their kids' lunches for school, if we

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had some cereal stashed away so that they could provide a breakfast for their child or children, many of them having more than one child, so they could have breakfast on the table for their kids in the morning.

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Sometimes we had those items, and sometimes I had to say: "I'm sorry. We don't." Sometimes I had to watch those parents walk out the door, feeling so desperate that they contemplated having to perhaps break the law and steal food for their kids.

That's going on in British Columbia in every single community right now. That's not acceptable, and we all know that's not acceptable. We all know that action is needed, but in this budget speech there's not a dollar towards a poverty reduction plan. There's no effort to look at the complexities of poverty and its negative impacts on our economy.

There's been plenty of research to this, where poverty is costing this province $6 billion to $9 billion every year in lost productivity, in health care costs, in education costs, in criminal justice costs and income assistance costs. Think about how much we could save British Columbia. An ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure, and that ounce of prevention could save the British Columbian economy tremendously.

They don't ask themselves, in setting up this budget, how we can make sure that B.C.'s economy includes everybody, that parents have what they need to best support their children. In fact, what I saw in this budget wasn't the Liberals saying: "How can we reduce child poverty? How can we make life more affordable for families?" Rather, it was how they can get their hands deeper into the pockets of some of the people who can least afford it. Let's look at the ways they found to do just that.

Medical Services Plan premiums. In taxation terms, it's a regressive tax. It's a flat tax. Everybody is paying the same. Those who make the most money pay the same as those who can least afford it. So it burdens those who can least afford it more. That's going up 4 percent on January 1, 2015. It has doubled since 2001. Families are now paying $1,738 per year for the Medical Services Plan premium, a regressive tax.

What's interesting is that, as I said, it's going up 4 percent. In 2012 the Premier promised that increases in medical services taxes would only keep pace with increases in health spending. So if things are going up 4 percent on the premium tax side, you would expect that spending in health care would be also going up 4 percent. You're going to pay a little bit more to get a little bit more is the expectation of families all across B.C., and particularly in Nelson-Creston.

But that's not what's happening. MSP is going up 4 percent, but in the budget health spending is rising by 2.6 percent — so a broken promise right there from the Premier. What she said…. All her talk outside of this House is not being backed up by action inside of this House.

Are people getting value for their dollar? Well, the Auditor General, Russ Jones, issued a report today showing that the Liberal government can't demonstrate that physician services are high-quality….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Minister.

M. Mungall: Thank you, hon. Speaker. It gives me great satisfaction to know that I'm causing greater debate in this House even while I am talking.

The Auditor General pointed out in his report delivered today…. We adopted it in this House. That report shows that the Liberal government can't demonstrate that physician services are high quality, nor can they demonstrate that the money provided for physician services is cost-effective.

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So the public doesn't have a reassurance that that increase in their MSP is even going to be felt in the most effective way in their day-to-day lives. That's truly unfortunate. When families are paying more, here we have an example of where they are getting less.

Another place where families are paying more is insurance rates. Those are up by 4 percent as well as of last November. Ferry fares — up $32 round trip. Now, in Nelson-Creston, on Kootenay Lake, we do like to boast about the longest free ferry ride in the world.

We had to fight for that free ferry back in 2001-2002, when it was under threat by the Liberal government, looking to privatize and put fares on that ferry — the ferry that connects communities on the east and west shores of Kootenay Lake. It is our lifeline. It is our highway. They were looking to charge us for it, and we fought tooth and nail.

I have to say that the good people of Nelson-Creston won that fight, and I'm not surprised that they did, because when they put their minds to something in Nelson-Creston, they're going to make sure it happens. But many of them travel to visit their family and friends on Vancouver Island and all along the coast of British Columbia, and they're going to be paying an extra $32 round trip.

We've heard much in this House about the cuts to ferries despite the increase in costs to families — again, an example of families paying more and getting less.

Hydro rates. Now there's a great example of paying more, paying more and paying more. So 28 percent is the projected increase for B.C. Hydro rates — 28 percent. That's a huge dig into the pockets of B.C.'s families from

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this Liberal government.

Even though we're fortunate enough in Nelson to have Nelson Hydro — a publicly owned utility…. We also have Fortis in the area, producing our own hydro. In fact, just so everybody knows, one of the reasons that Nelson-Creston likes to get its way is because we produce 50 percent of B.C.'s hydroelectricity. So when you get us angry, we turn off your lights.

Even though we're producing our own hydro in the region…. People might think that that hydro rate increase isn't impacting us, and it is up in the north end of Kootenay Lake, who are on hydro. But the majority of us say: "Oh, we don't have to worry about it. We're on Fortis. We're on Nelson Hydro." We buy power from B.C. Hydro.

I talked with Fortis, and I talked with Nelson Hydro, and they said that yes, they're going to have to funnel those increased costs right down to the ratepayer in Nelson-Creston. So yes, our pockets are being dug for hydro rate increases.

We've heard members opposite from the Liberal government talk about their child tax credit of $650 per year. I know that's going to be welcomed by a lot of families, as it should be. The unfortunate reality to this, though, is that while they're putting $650 in one pocket, they're taking $900 a year out of another pocket, leaving families — do the math — $250 short.

They can brag and brag about one thing and conveniently ignore another, and that thing that they're ignoring is that they're taking more money out of British Columbians' pockets than they are putting into them. "But don't worry," they say. "Everything will be just fine. If the big corporations make unprecedented profits, the revenue will trickle down to the rest of us."

It's an old framework of reference. It's been done for as long as I've been alive — the trickle-down economics. Unfortunately, trickle-down economics has only proven to exacerbate costs on to families and make the rich more rich.

Families' personal debt ends up going up while government backs away from responsibilities, and the biggest corporations run away with all the profits.

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It's not really "Debt-free B.C.," despite the slogans on the side of the bus, because it's not debt-free for B.C. families. B.C. families are going to have to dig deeper, put those grocery bills on their credit cards, make the minimum payments each month, go further into debt just to pay for the basics, just to pay for milk and bread.

Actually, to be fully frank, to be fully honest — let's be real here — it's not even debt-free B.C. for B.C. Despite all the "debt-free" rhetoric — again, all that talk — total government debt from this budget will rise by $7.1 billion over three years and reach $68.9 billion by the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Then they talk how LNG will fix all that and everything. That's just fine, but it's completely unrealistic. I mean, if you just do the basic math, as I'm sure that many people have been doing, it's unrealistic that LNG could eliminate all of this debt by 2028. The reality is that the biggest contributor to B.C.'s debt has been this Liberal government over its entire 12-year tenure. The largest deficits in B.C. history are their legacy. It's the result of their budgets, and here we are again putting more debt onto B.C.

What do we have? All talk and no action that proves that it's the truth. "Don't worry," they say again, though. "Just ignore that. Don't read our budget books. Ignore that. Just get a job." Well, if it were only that simple. If it were only that simple that everybody could just go out and get a job tomorrow, and that would eliminate child poverty and the highest overall poverty rate in this country. If it were only that simple. But it's not that simple, as we know.

There are many complexities that make it difficult for people to get jobs. The most obvious one is: are there any jobs? Well, not from this government. Right now B.C. is in last place for private sector job creation — 8,500 private sector jobs lost last month. The month before that, in December — 8,200 jobs gone. In the 200 days the Liberals kept us out of this House, B.C. lost 21,400 jobs.

Even the government's own documents say: "B.C.'s labour market performed poorly last year compared to other provinces, as only Nova Scotia registers a greater annual rate of decline in employment." The jobs are disappearing from B.C., and the people are leaving B.C. as well. That does not spell out "good for our economy" when you say to people: "Just go get a job."

I have this beautiful, nine-page document called the B.C. jobs plan. Doesn't it look good? This cover is really nice. There are great slogans inside of it, but British Columbians expect more than a slogan. They expect to actually see some job creation in this province. They're not seeing it with this Liberal government. When it comes to jobs, the only thing that this government has for British Columbians, as I said, is slogans.

Of course, let's remind the House that for failed Liberal candidates and Liberal insiders, they have plenty of plum, high-paying jobs. If the wages weren't high enough, don't worry. They'll increase the wages to make them high enough for their friends. It is this kind of crass approach to governing, where you make sure that your friends have jobs, high-paying jobs — and if they're not paying high enough, "Don't worry, we'll increase the wages" — that breeds cynicism in our democracy, and it's shameful.

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For the majority of British Columbians who are not failed Liberal candidates, what does this government have for them? Higher tuition fees and another broken promise about improving access to skills training. We know that 80 percent of jobs will soon require some level of post-secondary education, but the skills gap in this province is hindering British Columbians from getting those jobs. They need to get the training, but they're struggling to get that training, and it has negative impacts

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on our economy.

We've got people without jobs, jobs without people, and it costs companies hundreds of millions of dollars in project delays and cost overruns. They go out to temporary foreign workers, and unfortunately, some of the companies seeking out temporary foreign workers have treated them poorly, have provided unfair working conditions. These are jobs that could have been filled by British Columbians if they had been able to get the training, but this is what has happened instead.

The government again talks a lot about skills training and everything that they're going to do for skills training, but this is what we saw in the budget. We saw cutbacks. We saw flatline budgets. We saw no actual fiscal plan that was targeting skills training, and this is what's happened.

Tuition has doubled since the Premier went to university. B.C. boasts the highest average student debt load, and it's the only province to offer no financial needs–based grants. Students have to go into massive debt. They cannot get any financial needs–based grants to attend post-secondary education and get the skills training that they need. When you talk to students, they'll say that the high cost of living in this province is, of course, the added burden.

Liberals are making it harder to get the training needed to get the jobs. Liberals are also making it harder to get the jobs — period. After making massive changes to the employment services programs in this province — Work B.C. — they are now cutting the budget nearly in half, removing $25.5 million out of the very services that help people get jobs. Now, this doesn't jibe with any realistic jobs plan, further showing that what this Liberal Premier offers is all talk. She talks about a jobs plan, but when it comes to helping you get that job, those services are being cut.

I have to say that when I went to visit some of the employment centres in this province…. They are doing amazing work, and I have to give full credit to them for the work that they're doing on the front line with British Columbians — helping them get some basic training; many, some literacy training; some computer literacy training or just helping them draft a resumé; practising interview skills.

All of these things are helping British Columbians every day get the jobs that they need. Anybody going into one of these Work B.C. centres and seeing the good staff there do the work that they do would be impressed. But they are worried. They are worried that they're not going to be able to deliver services to clients based on the new fee-for-service structure. PEERS, here in Victoria, has had to shut down its employment services because it did not work with the funding model that this government is now using.

But now it's not getting better. It's getting worse, because the government is cutting the program dollars for these important centres that are helping British Columbians get the jobs that they need to have a good life.

Another area that I was actually quite shocked not to see any mention of at all in either the throne speech or the budget is what's happening in the Ministry of Social Development. A key area for the Ministry of Social Development is the disability white paper. The Premier tasked the minister with going out, talking to British Columbians and developing a white paper to make B.C. the most progressive jurisdiction in Canada for people with disabilities. I think that's something that we could all support, but it's not mentioned at all.

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The people of Nelson-Creston want to see real investments from this government. They want to see investments in health care, in education. They want to see real action on climate change, rather than a final cut to the LiveSmart program.

They want to see employment programs and post-secondary education. They want to see investment in forestry, agriculture, creative and cultural industries in our region. They want to see investment in tourism. They want to see real action, not talk.

British Columbians deserve better. People in Nelson-Creston deserve better. They deserve better than pay more, get less.

Hon. A. Virk: It's indeed my pleasure to stand in this House today and respond to Budget 2014. I thought about how I would start this. I think it's important for all of us to acknowledge those who support us the most, our spouses, significant others.

I want to shout out to my wife, Jatinder, and my three daughters, Jusleen, Anisha and Maansi. One of my daughters is with the Canada national team, training in Montreal right now. My other one is going to be competing at the B.C. Winter Games. It's very fitting that I have three daughters. We've got the women's team that just won the gold medal as well. So I cheer a little bit louder when we have a women's team win.

I'm going to mention my riding, Surrey-Tynehead — a riding made up of people that have crossed oceans as a first generation but, also, that have been there for two, three, four and six generations. From all corners of the world, they have crossed oceans to make a better life. They've chosen Canada, and they've chosen British Columbia because they know that we have a government and we have an economy that will make a better life for them.

I've sat quite patiently. I've listened to a lot of the discussion in this House, and I felt like pinching myself several times. I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day . That side of the House is sort of stuck on the same, if I may say, doom and gloom — the same glass half-full over and over again. I find myself pinching myself over and over again.

From that side of the House it's Armageddon. It's Titanic . It's "the sky is falling." It's "head for the hills,

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Henny Penny." Most recently — it has also been from that side of the House — I hear there's a future-is-declining tour happening. Or is it the declining futures tour? It's fearmongering at its best, scaring the young students of this province. The future-is-declining tour — how absolutely fitting from the opposition.

That side of the House is perhaps lost in space, running around the province saying, "Danger, danger," if I can quote another film. Surely you can't be serious, from what I'm hearing.

While the rest of the country is celebrating one of the few balanced budgets not only in Canada but perhaps in broader jurisdictions in the world in the midst of financial turmoil, I continue to hear the same old, same old: "The future is declining."

I pinch myself. Maybe I'm dreaming all this. Maybe my parents didn't cross an ocean to bring me here, and I'm in a different, developing nation. My daughters haven't grown up in one of the best provinces in Canada and the best country in the world — safe, fair, inclusive and prosperous.

But I am here, and this is my opportunity to speak about the future of British Columbia and the future of post-secondary education in British Columbia.

As much as government is dealing with today's challenges and choices, we must look forward. This side of the House is looking forward with the glass half-full with optimism and hope — not doom and gloom, as that side of the House wishes to do. We must be prepared to make the hard decisions. We must be prepared to make plans and decisions that ensure tomorrow is better than today.

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The measures in Budget 2014 will help us guide and make those tough decisions. You've heard that it takes leadership to make tough decisions. This side of the House is ready to make those tough decisions for the future prosperity of this province and everybody who lives and works here.

Since becoming the Minister of Advanced Education I have made it a priority, and I have visited the main campus of all 25 public post-secondary institutions in British Columbia and many private career-training institutions as well.

I have spoken with faculty — incredible faculty, very passionate about what they do. I have spoken to students from a wide array of backgrounds, and I've spoken to staff. We have something in common. We're all committed to ensure that students have a bright future.

In the north, the wonderful north of this province, I visited the Oil and Gas Centre of Excellence at Northern Lights College. I toured the facility, and I watched the students learn how to operate machinery and equipment. This will prepare these young British Columbians for careers in our oil and gas sector. It's a sector with near limitless potential and incredible opportunity.

On the other side of the province I spent the day on the Lower Mainland at the Canada Education Park campus, and that's the University of the Fraser Valley. A new agriculture centre of excellence is taking over.

These new facilities will provide students with a state-of-the-art environment to learn and conduct research in the agriculture industry in British Columbia — research that's going to benefit generations to come, research that's going to happen right at the University of the Fraser Valley and that is going to meet the growing demand for agrifood products locally and around the world.

Let's go over to Vancouver Island. Campbell River to Victoria, programs range from adult basic education to research in mining to aquaculture and everything in between.

We have a nimble and flexible post-secondary system in this province, a system that is graduating thousands of students every single year into good-paying, exciting and rewarding careers. It's a system that also must be flexible in meeting the ever-changing needs of B.C. students in our economy through innovation, through research and through new approaches.

My mandate as Advanced Education Minister and my responsibility is to make sure the post-education system works efficiently. That means keeping administrative costs down and helping to improve service delivery at our public post-secondary institutions.

At times, that side of the House suggests it's a matter of just throwing money. It's using the taxpayers' money effectively and efficiently, to take that one dollar from the taxpayer and stretch it as far as possible, to avoid duplication, to consolidate wherever possible, to look at efficiencies in every which way possible. These schools are challenged with continually innovating, remaining responsive with programs and being flexible.

My ministry is also working with them to help set targets for graduates so we can match the skills that B.C. needs, not only today, not only a day from today, but far into the future.

We're also reviewing the financial assistance program to make sure it's flexible and innovative enough to meet students' needs as we move forward.

We're making significant progress in all of the initiatives outlined in my mandate — progress such as at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. It's going to be home to the first public school of Chinese traditional medicine in British Columbia.

We invested over a million dollars at the University of the Fraser Valley for the agriculture centre of excellence. That is a promise made and a promise kept.

In addition, our boards of governors all across British Columbia at the public post-secondary institutions are undertaking core reviews of their programming and their activities, core reviews to ensure that seats are being filled, that programs are aligned.

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How novel a concept — that education and programs

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are aligned with labour market needs. How novel a concept — that we do a review to align education with graduating a taxpayer. How novel a concept.

More than 440,000 students are enrolled in at least one course all across British Columbia in our public post-secondary institutions. They're taking classes at one of 130 campuses, satellites or learning centres throughout the province. Since 2001 this government has added more than 32,000 additional student positions and seven new public university campuses. As I recall, that side of the House had voted against the creation of those seven new universities that are teaching students right today in British Columbia.

There are 33,000 more apprentices in the trades-training system, more than double the number in 2004 alone. We've invested heavily in the medical and health fields — more than doubled the number of medical school spaces, more than doubled the number of nursing spaces and added over 4,600 new student spaces for nursing credentials. These are incredible changes.

The number of aboriginal students in post-secondary education has grown as well. In 2011 and '12 alone more than 3,000 credentials were awarded to aboriginal students, an increase of just over 20 percent in three years.

However, we cannot rest on our laurels. I do acknowledge that we all collectively, both sides of the House…. I know that the other side of the House will certainly join government in supporting the fact that we need to put more aboriginals through education, and I'm going to see that support.

Since 2001 taxpayers have invested in operating grants that have increased more than 44 percent. More than $1.8 billion now. It's about $5 million a day. If you look at capital projects — renew, refresh, rebuild, brand-new — all across British Columbia, it's over $2.4 billion in 1,250 capital projects on campuses throughout British Columbia. Should I repeat that? So $2.4 billion invested in capital spending in British Columbia for 1,250 capital projects — capital projects that will enable all students and our staff and faculty to learn and to work in efficient and effective surroundings.

All of us collectively want British Columbians to be first in line for the jobs of the future, and we're working with employers, with educators and with communities to make that happen. Government skills and training planning is focused on investing and improving training facilities all across British Columbia.

I've certainly heard that side of the House suggest there isn't investment in skills training. Let me bust that myth. I continue to hear that in the doom-and-gloom conversation that I hear from that side of the House.

That $30 million investment in Okanagan College. That's real, and it's going to help that entire region.

Nearly $30 million into the Camosun College trades renewal project. Everybody is going to be invited, and I encourage you to join