Third Session, 42nd Parliament

(2022) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 239

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Blessings and Acknowledgments

S. Alphonse

Routine Business

Introductions by

Members

Introduction and First Reading of

Bills

Bill 38 — Indigenous Self-Government in Child and

Family Services Amendment Act

Hon. M. Dean

Motions Without Notice

Address to House by Indigenous leaders and deferral

of routine business

Hon. M. Farnworth

Statements (Standing Order 25B)

Female firefighters and Camp Ignite mentorship

program

J. Routledge

Flooding preparedness and agriculture in Fraser

Valley

B. Banman

Comox Valley Community Justice Centre and

restorative justice

R. Leonard

Wildfire recovery in Cariboo area

L. Doerkson

Community concert and fundraising at Capilano

University theatre

S. Chant

Lytton fire recovery process

T. Stone

Oral Questions

Affordable housing and government action on

issues

K. Falcon

Hon. M. Rankin

M. Bernier

Primary health care services and private

providers

A. Olsen

Hon. A. Dix

Residential tenancy branch handling of tenant

issues

R. Merrifield

Hon. M. Rankin

Rebate for renters

T. Halford

Hon. S. Robinson

S. Bond

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 36 — Health Professions and Occupations Act

(continued)

B. Banman

B. Anderson

L. Doerkson

B. Stewart

M. de Jong

G. Kyllo

J. Sturdy

T. Wat

T. Halford

APPENDIX

Address by Indigenous Leaders

J. Wilson

J. Jack

H. Braker

Hon. J. Horgan

K. Falcon

A. Olsen

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2022

The House met at 1:35 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Blessings and Acknowledgments

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, I ask you to rise as I invite Elder Shirley Alphonse of

the T’Sou-ke Nation to offer the blessing and territorial

acknowledgment.

S. Alphonse: Good afternoon, everyone. I want to welcome you today as I acknowledge

these lands, ancestral lands of our Xwsepsum

Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ Nations, the Coast

Salish Nations of the Esquimalt and Songhees. I wish you all a very good day

today.

Before I begin…. I will be saying a prayer in my own language, and

then I’ve written a prayer. Right now I want to say thank you to

John.

Thank you for this journey. Thank you for your hopes and dreams you

shared with us, the song of your soul.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.

[SENĆOŦEN was spoken.]

Creator, Great Spirit, as we gather together in the Legislature with

our honoured guests, our Chiefs of our communities of British Columbia, on

this special day of legislation regarding our children, we say thank

you.

Thank you for each one of you.

Creator, Great Spirit, thank you for the land we stand on, the air we

breathe, the water we drink. Thank you for Mother Earth, her beauty in

nature and her bounty in the lands, the mountains, the waters.

Creator, Great Spirit, thank you for the blessing of family, the

blessing of community, who work together to raise each child, the blessing

of foster parents, the blessing of our ancestors and teachings to help us

walk together in beauty and strength, respecting all life, respecting all

creation.

Creator, Great Spirit, may we always walk with each other, guiding our

children into the future with harmony and peace within, to live in harmony

and peace with one another, harmony and peace with Mother Earth.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.

Mr. Speaker: Please take a seat.

On behalf of all members, I extend a warm welcome to all our honoured

guests who have joined us today.

[1:40 p.m.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Hon. M. Dean: It’s a real honour for me today to welcome everybody seated here on

the chamber floor, but also in the gallery. Many of these people were with

us as we just had a reception here in the Legislature earlier on today to

recognize the legislation that we are tabling today. It’s an honour to

recognize our esteemed Indigenous Elders, Chiefs, leaders, speakers,

Matriarchs and community members, many of whom have travelled from all

across the province to be here today.

I raise my hands to Shirley Alphonse for her welcome and her prayer so

that we start our session in a good way. She also started our reception

earlier on.

To Chief Russ Chipps and brother Rick and Alana Jay for your welcoming

song, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən dancers as well:

it really started us off in a very good way, and we were very appreciative

of the beautiful dancing, the beautiful singing and drumming that we were

hearing earlier on.

From the First Nations Leadership Council: Kúkpi7 Judy Wilson, Chief

Jerry Jack, Hugh Braker and Ray Harris.

I’d like to welcome Stephanie Atleo, Willie Charlie, George Lampreau

and Edward Johnson.

Thank you for being here today Chief Richard Thomas, Chief John

Powell, acting Chief Bill Yoachim, Chief Leslie Aslin, Chief Derek Epp,

Chief Don Harris, Chief Linda Innes, Chief Valerie Askoty and Chief Michael

Recalma.

I also recognize that today we have students and staff from the

University of Victoria’s Indigenous law program.

To my legislative and policy teams from the Ministry of Children and

Family Development, thank you so much for all of your work over a long

period of time and your work in partnership with Indigenous partners to help

create these legislative amendments.

Would everybody in the House please make all of our esteemed and

honoured guests very welcome.

K. Falcon: I’d like to add to the warm comments of the minister opposite on

behalf of the official opposition to thank Elder Shirley Alphonse for her

lovely blessing and to also thank all the First Nations Elders and chiefs

that have joined us today for this important occasion.

Hon. M. Rankin: I’d also like to rise and welcome all of the Indigenous Elders, the

Chiefs, the leaders and community members who have come to witness this

historic legislation today.

I also wanted to recognize a large group of grade six students from

St. Patrick’s Elementary School in my constituency of Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

With their teacher, Graham Dufort, these students have been studying

parliamentary processes in class this year, and I hear they’re very excited

to observe the House today to prepare them for their upcoming class debates.

These students are also working on a research project on food insecurity and

how to help people who are suffering from that.

I want to say to the students: you are joining us on a truly historic

day. As you’ll see, we’re honoured to be with Indigenous leaders who have

come to the provincial capital from across our province to mark the

introduction of a bill that’s very important to Indigenous children and to

their families. I hope you’ll remember this day as you grow to understand

what reconciliation means to you.

Will the House please join me in making these community-minded young

advocates feel welcome.

A. Olsen: I want to add, from the B.C. Green caucus as well, gratitude and

welcome to all of the leaders from Indigenous communities across the

province who have joined us today and all the leaders who are not able to be

here today but who continue to lead their communities with courage and who

continue to do more with less than any other communities in this province.

We’ve seen incredible leadership in communities right across this beautiful

place. I want to raise my hands in gratitude to them.

[1:45 p.m.]

I have two other introductions that I would like to make. I’d like to

welcome onto the floor again, to the Legislature, my older brother and my

first cousin, Rick Peter, who welcomed us in here after my election, in our

election in 2020, with a beautiful song.

Welcome back to the floor, cousin Rick. [Applause.]

I looked up into the gallery, and I saw my sister-in-law, Rochana

Hall, here with us today. I want to acknowledge her. I think this is the

first time that Rochana has seen me on the floor of the

Legislature.

Welcome to this place.

Would the House please make her feel very welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Members, if there are further introductions, we will do that after the

first part of our proceedings. We will continue what we have to do

now.

Introduction and

First Reading of Bills

BILL 38 — INDIGENOUS SELF-GOVERNMENT

IN CHILD AND

FAMILY SERVICES

AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. M. Dean presented a message from Her Honour the

Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Indigenous Self-Government in Child

and Family Services Amendment Act.

Hon. M. Dean: I move that Bill 38 be introduced and read a first time

now.

It is my honour to introduce amendments to the Adoption Act and

the Child, Family and Community Service Act, the CFCSA. These two acts

govern the child welfare system in B.C. While these acts have been

amended over the years, the child welfare system remains driven by

harmful colonial thinking and practices, and that must change. This

proposed legislation would align the Adoption Act with the United

Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, while changes

to the CFCSA will reduce barriers to Indigenous jurisdiction over

Indigenous child and family services in British Columbia.

Upholding jurisdiction will have a positive impact on Indigenous

children and youth, providing healthier life­long outcomes and

improved connections to their communities. The amendments recognize that

Indigenous laws have their own force of law and establish that

direc­tors, under the CFCSA, must provide services in a manner

consistent with the laws of the Indigenous people to which a child is

associated.

Finally, the legislation provides for the creation of a new

position, an Indigenous child welfare director, a position within the

ministry that Indigenous rights holders and partners have

requested.

These proposed amendments were developed in consultation and

cooperation with Indigenous rights holders, modern treaty nations, Métis

Nation B.C. and Indigenous partners. With these amendments, B.C. will be

the first province to align with the federal Act Respecting First

Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families, which came into

force in 2020. Ultimately, we aim to ensure that children and youth

remain connected to family, community and culture. We know that children

will thrive.

I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second

reading at the next sitting….

Mr. Speaker: Minister.

The question is the first reading of the bill.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Minister, now.

Hon. M. Dean: Thank you, hon. Speaker.

I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second

reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Mr. Speaker: Motion carried. [Applause.]

Bill 38, Indigenous Self-Government in Child and Family Services

Amendment Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on

orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after

today.

Motions Without Notice

ADDRESS TO HOUSE BY

INDIGENOUS LEADERS AND

DEFERRAL OF ROUTINE BUSINESS

Hon. M. Farnworth: By leave, I move:

[That the House suspend proceedings in order that members of the

First Nations Leadership Council may address the Legislative Assembly,

and that their addresses and the statements by the Premier, the Leader

of the Official Opposition, and the Leader of the Third Party, or their

designates, be printed as an appendix to the Official Report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly of this sitting.]

Leave granted.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands recessed now.

[See appendix.]

The House recessed from 1:50 p.m. to 2:37 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: I call the House back to order now.

Statements

(Standing Order 25B)

FEMALE FIREFIGHTERS AND

CAMP IGNITE MENTORSHIP

PROGRAM

J. Routledge: Remember when fighting fires was considered a man’s job? Times

have changed. Let me tell you about the Camp Ignite mentorship

program.

It’s a hands-on firefighting camp for girls in grades 11 and 12.

It introduces them to firefighting. It builds teamwork and

self-confidence. They meet strong female fire service role

models.

Camp Ignite was founded in 2010 by a group of Lower Mainland

female firefighters who saw the need to create an opportunity for girls

to try out firefighting, to meet female firefighters and to show them

that a career as a firefighter is possible and desirable. Camp Ignite

has grown from a dozen girls camping out overnight at the Vancouver fire

and rescue services training ground to almost 30 participants today,

hosted at three different fire departments across the Lower

Mainland.

Camp Ignite is completely organized and run by female

firefighters. They work in partnership with local fire departments,

union locals and professional associations. Camp Ignite is “See it. Be

it.” That lets girls see themselves as firefighters and offers an

ongoing mentorship through multiple levels of support and guidance.

Aspiring firefighters, including paid, on-call and volunteers, actively

participate as group leaders or activity support and themselves receive

invaluable mentorship.

[2:40 p.m.]

Camp Ignite is a pivotal program to encourage and inspire young

women to pursue a career in the fire service, and it is supported by

their male colleagues. In fact, IAFF Local 323 brought Burnaby

firefighter and Camp Ignite director Jody Dobush to the Legislature

today.

Please join me in welcoming her.

FLOODING PREPAREDNESS AND

AGRICULTURE IN FRASER

VALLEY

B. Banman: After a particularly hot, dry summer, many farmers have been

looking forward to a bit of rain, but with heavy downpours expected in

the coming days, they fear a repeat of last year’s disasters.

As we approach the anniversary of the life-disrupting floods of

last year, which left large portions of Abbotsford underwater,

especially the agriculture-rich Sumas Prairie region, our farmers are

worried that this year’s rains will wash away everything they’ve worked

hard to rebuild and restore. They’re worried that the promised help

won’t come in time to avoid the type of disaster we saw last year.

They’re worried that the repair to the dike, which still leaks, won’t be

fixed in time or hold if waters again rise to last year’s level and that

the funding promised to avert the waters of the Nooksack won’t come at

all.

Despite these challenges and worries, what are farmers doing?

Well, they’re doing what farmers do best: working day in, day out to

help keep British Columbians healthy and well-fed. After last year’s

devastating storms, they got to work, they rebuilt, they repaired, and

they restarted at significant personal cost and continue to feed us each

and every day.

Farmers kept their end of the bargain. They’re doing their jobs,

putting food on our table every day. It is my hope that the commitments

made to them a year ago will be fulfilled to protect the people and the

lands that grow our nutritious and delicious food. We can’t let last

year’s destructive events repeat themselves, and such consequences must

be prevented.

On what is the most productive agricultural land in Canada on a

per-hectare basis, Abbotsford farmers are hard at work, producing some

of the most diverse crop yields in this country. They’re counting on us.

British Columbians are counting on us to support them.

Without farmers, we have no food.

COMOX VALLEY COMMUNITY JUSTICE

CENTRE AND RESTORATIVE

JUSTICE

R. Leonard: Two weeks ago the Comox Valley was privileged to be able to meet

and hear from Dr. Cindy Blackstock speaking on restorative practices in

Indigenous child protection. It was one of the latest in the lecture

series of the Comox Valley Community Justice Centre’s patron, Iona

Campagnolo.

The lectures are only one of the centre’s bright lights. The

Community Justice Centre created a one-of-a-kind family conference model

of restorative justice in the 1990s that continues to this day. They

purposefully use the civil court’s language of “complainant” and

“respondent,” reflecting a more active process. Avoiding passive terms

like “victim” and “offender,” those who have been hurt have a place to

meet with those who have caused the hurt in a safe, neutral environment

to move through the steps of apology to the chance for

healing.

There are 150 truly dedicated volunteers with diverse backgrounds

on this restorative justice team, from a 22-year veteran facilitator to

a 19-year-old North Island College criminology student. From 21

impressively trained facilitators to case coordinators who shepherd

cases through from the initial interviews to monitoring the outcomes,

from panel members at each conference who represent the harm to the

broader community, to administrative coordinators, everyone’s long-term

goal is to build a community where restorative justice is the first

choice rather than the last.

Cases come from self-referrals to agency referrals, police

referrals, pre-charge and now referrals by Crown prosecutors

post-charge. Thank you to all of them.

A special thanks goes to Bruce Curtis, who has been there from the

beginning, molding a successful, high-calibre restorative justice

program we can and should all turn to.

[2:45 p.m.]

WILDFIRE RECOVERY IN CARIBOO AREA

L. Doerkson: Recently I was at an event with 100 people in attendance, most of

them from the ranching families in my community. It was gut-wrenching to

hear from person after person who told me about the hardships they are

facing due to the impact of wildfires in our region.

We are just over a year removed from the devastating wildfires of

2021, but for so many people, recovery from those fires has just begun.

In fact, far too many people are still struggling to get by after the

catastrophic fires of the 2017 season, let alone 2021.

You see, the impacts of wildfires last for years. It’s not just a

matter of putting out the fire and doing some clean-up. It can take

years for land to be productive again after it’s been burned. I know a

local family who has had to lease rangeland as far away as Dawson Creek

because theirs is no longer usable. It’s important to understand the

complexities of what’s actually going on, on the ground and the scale of

the losses that are being endured. Lives have been lost, some human and

many animals. Whole ecosystems have been destroyed, communities hollowed

out and landscapes changed.

Every time I hear from constituents about the recovery process,

they ask me the same thing: “Where is the support we’ve been promised?

Where is the help that we desperately need to get back on our feet, to

protect our livelihoods, our families and our land?”

Something needs to change. Something more needs to be done to

support those impacted by natural disasters, because recovery is not

simple or short term. We must realize that recovery is an ongoing, often

long-term process, and people need support every single step of the

way.

We all have a responsibility to ensure it’s provided.

COMMUNITY CONCERT AND FUNDRAISING

AT CAPILANO

UNIVERSITY THEATRE

S. Chant: Thank you for the opportunity to speak about an event that I

attended last weekend.

First of all, I’d like to thank Elder Shirley Alphonse for her

heartfelt welcome and her prayer to open us in a way that is thoughtful,

inclusive and wise. I, too, echo my colleague’s point that we should

open that way always.

Capilano University has a lovely little theatre. It’s perfect for

a variety of events, including community concerts by local music groups.

This past weekend, it was a venue for the Halloween Hootenanny that was

put on by Jazz Connexion, directed by Christian Morrison, and the Sea to

Sky Wind Ensemble, directed by Tak Maeda.

Before it started, I spoke with David, who explained to me how the

gaming grants that they have been getting over the past several years

allow them to not only stage exceptional and fun concerts but also to

direct the proceeds of those concerts to a variety of charities and

groups. This time it was for the amazing folks at North Shore

Rescue.

As he spoke, I was struck by the synergy generated within this

event — a group of musicians who offered their skills, training and time

to create joy in our lives who were fundraising for a group of

volunteers who, in turn, offer their skills, training and time to

provide increased safety on our mountains, through search and rescue on

our North Shore Mountains and beyond. Both of these groups, musical and

rescue, work in teams with strong leaders and a vast range of skills,

and they came together to create a better world for all of

us.

This is what I truly call working in concert.

LYTTON FIRE RECOVERY PROCESS

T. Stone: With the blessing of the member for Fraser-Nicola, I am proud to

speak today about the current status of the recovery and rebuild taking

place in Lytton, after the entire town was levelled by wildfire over a

year ago.

Four hundred eighty-three days ago today the people of Lytton

experienced the worst possible tragedy. The fast-moving Lytton Creek

wildfire ripped through the village, destroying nearly everything. The

residents there fled their homes and local businesses as fast as they

could with barely more than the clothes on their backs. So 483 days

later, none of them have returned to a permanent home, and 483 days

later, they still have no timeline for their return. There’s no sense of

certainty as to when that sense of stability, comfort and community will

be restored.

[2:50 p.m.]

Residents were told that they would be able to expect to return to

the community in September. That deadline came, and that deadline

passed. They were told debris removal would be completed by September.

That also hasn’t happened. A long-term recovery and rebuilding plan

could go a long ways towards providing Lytton residents some hope. But

483 days later, it still doesn’t exist.

Meanwhile, in my riding of Kamloops–South Thompson, a similar

level of uncertainty is felt by those Monte Lake and Paxton Valley

residents who also had their lives turned upside down, losing their

homes last summer due to the White Rock Lake wildfire. In the days

ahead, I will speak to the rebuilding process taking place by the

resilient and determined people impacted by that fire.

But for today, and with respect to Lytton, it is our hope that

residents there can start to see progress and feel hope about their

futures soon. They need action now. They deserve nothing

less.

Oral Questions

AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND

GOVERNMENT ACTION ON

ISSUES

K. Falcon: Of all the failed NDP promises that we’ve canvassed in this House,

there’s probably none more disappointing than their failed promise to

make housing more affordable. Just as in crime or in health care, so too

with housing. We find a massive chasm between what was promised and the

terrible results that we actually see.

Now, we’ll recall that in the NDP’s very first budget, they

brought forward a whole blizzard of new taxes on housing, and they

assured us that this was how they were going to get to more affordable

housing. Here we are in their second term, entering into year 6 of their

mandate. Let’s do a gut check. How are we doing? Well, I’m sorry to have

to tell the House that British Columbia now enjoys the highest housing

prices in North America, third highest on the planet. It’s no wonder

that we have a situation where three-quarters of existing renters have

given up on ever owning a home under this NDP government.

The incoming Premier, who just went through that tainted

leadership race, while Minister Responsible for Housing, oversaw the

worst decline in housing affordability in a generation. You don’t have

to take my word for that. It’s actually stats from the National Bank of

Canada, which pointed out that we saw the single largest decline in

housing affordability in a generation under that former Housing

Minister. Yet this is the same individual, that incoming tainted

Premier, who is now promising to fix this terrible problem that he

himself oversaw.

But it’s not just that. It’s also the promise that we’d heard from

this government that within ten years they would build 114,000

affordable units of housing. Yet here we are, halfway through that

ten-year plan, and we’ve seen exactly 6 percent of those 114,000

promised housing units actually delivered — many, by the way, started

under the previous B.C. Liberal government.

My question to the Housing Minister is: will the Housing Minister

finally admit that they never had any intention of keeping their promise

to build 114,000 homes and this has been yet another abject NDP

failure?

Hon. M. Rankin: Finding houses people can afford right now is difficult across our

country. You know, people are struggling with high housing costs,

exacerbated by global inflation and exacerbated by a record population

growth in our province, because people are attracted to the quality of

life here. Over 100,000 people moved here last year, and housing needs

to be provided for them.

For the Leader of the Opposition to talk of this is quite ironic,

I’d say, because he would have cancelled one of the many tools we’ve

applied to address this, namely the speculation and vacancy tax, which

would have driven prices higher. We’ve created 20,000 units that are now

available for people to live in. But the opposition leader is quoted as

saying that tax is unfair. “These are not speculators. These are people

that have a second property, and they’ve been forced to pay an

additional cost.”

[2:55 p.m.]

We are living with a housing crisis. We need to take steps to do

it in a dynamic way, and the tools that the Leader of the Opposition

would offer would offer nothing to this cause.

Mr. Speaker: Leader of the Official Opposition, supplemental.

K. Falcon: I don’t know where to begin. Let me start with the so-called

20,000 new homes this so-called speculation tax was apparently

producing. Well, that’s actually what they’re doing, counting every

single rental property that was built by the private sector across the

province of British Columbia. I can assure you that….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Let’s hear the question, please.

K. Falcon: I think it’s important to understand that if the speculation tax

was supposed to take care of speculators, I am at least curious as to

why the incoming tainted leader, and Premier, of that party keeps

talking about how he’s introducing a flipping tax. I thought we had the

speculation tax. Are we just going to keep naming things now? Flipping

tax and then speculation tax and then the somersault tax and whatever

other taxes that they can think about that do not get the results that

British Columbians want, which is lower rents and more affordable

housing.

The fact of the matter, as anyone in a five-minute private

conversation in the private sector could have told government, is that

if they wish to have more affordable housing, they need to get a heck of

a lot more supply into the marketplace. I’m glad that the incoming

Premier-designate has now recognized, in the second term, after

overseeing the housing file for years, that maybe supply had something

to do with the housing price crunch we face now.

I would also just point out that the average rent in Vancouver has

risen by $1,200 a month under this NDP government — $1,200 a month.

Vancouver is now the most expensive city in Canada for renters. That’s

their record. Now, they can point fingers. They can talk about

mysterious speculators. They can talk about all these other things, but

the fact is that is their record.

With the highest rents in the country right here in the Lower

Mainland, with the third-highest housing crisis on the planet, with all

of their taxes that they love to name, wonderful names, having not

produced any of the results that they promised, will this Housing

Minister finally admit that their approach has failed and British

Columbians have been let down by the promises of this NDP

government?

Hon. M. Rankin: We’re making up for lost time after years where the old government

didn’t build homes at all. Let me give you an example, not according to

provincial figures but according to the CMHC: more than twice the number

of homes under construction than when the opposition leader was Finance

Minister. Those are facts.

I want to talk about in my constituency….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members, please.

Please continue.

Hon. M. Rankin: I’d like to use an example from my constituency of Oak Bay–Gordon

Head. You know, that side, when they were in power, built only 130

student housing beds in 16 years. How many have we done? Seventy-six

hundred are underway. That means in an overheated market like Victoria

and Oak Bay, students are not competing to the same extent with people

looking for rental housing, because there is housing available at the

University of Victoria.

We are building nearly 8,000 student housing beds across British

Columbia, and 398 just opened last month at the University of Victoria.

They built none — 130 in 16 years.

The temerity to talk about the admittedly high cost of rental. Our

government capped next year’s rental increase at 2 percent. This

government seems to think, although there’s been contradiction by the

Leader of the Opposition on CKNW and elsewhere, so I’m not entirely sure

of their position…. I think it is that they would have 2 percent plus

inflation.

[3:00 p.m.]

That would mean, next year, tenants in this province would be

facing a 7.4 percent increase in rent. We capped it at 2

percent.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members, let’s hear this next question.

M. Bernier: Look, multiple housing advocates from around the province have

actually said the incoming Premier’s schemes are actually going to make

things worse for renters and it will help increase speculation.

Speculation is something the NDP members here should know about, because

not only has their tainted incoming Premier overseen the worst decline

in housing affordability in a generation, his own caucus is full of

speculators. In fact…

Interjections.

M. Bernier: Well, you can keep laughing. I’ve got some numbers here I’ll share

with you, since they seem to think that this is actually a funny issue

that they talk about.

NDP MLAs in this House actually own 102 properties, and 95 percent

of that caucus own properties not only just around B.C., some of them

hidden in private trusts and numbered companies, but also have

properties everywhere from Halifax and the United States to properties

in Mexico.

Here’s a bit more of the hypocrisy we see in the NDP. Since the

last election…

Interjections.

M. Bernier: You might want to hear this. This is really exciting. You can talk

about this amongst your caucus and all your real estate holdings later

if you’d like.

Since the last election alone, the NDP have profited by over $8

million in their own personal real estate deals that they’ve dealt with.

While the NDP are hypocritically profiting on their own real estate

portfolios, they’re attacking the everyday men and women who are

actually trying to work and build affordable homes and communities

around British Columbia.

To the Housing Minister again, will the NDP stop attacking

homebuilders and actually do their job and build the houses that they

promised?

Hon. M. Rankin: In conversations with the B.C. Home Builders Association this

week, they are entirely aligned with our plan to increase housing supply

and want to work hand in hand with us to make more housing for British

Columbians.

The hon. member referred to the plan of the member for

Vancouver–Point Grey. I’m pleased that the UBCM, in a statement, said

that this is a comprehensive and constructive plan. Multiple elements

respond directly to local government requests. We think we are aligned

with local governments as we undertake together the hard work to

increase the housing supply in this province.

I talked about 20,000 homes that were empty and now have lights on

at night, if you go by them, in places like Vancouver–Coal Harbour.

Speculation tax has turned the corner on that. There are 36,000 homes

open or underway. Housing starts are at record highs in our province.

And as I said, we have capped the annual rent increases below inflation

and prevented illegal renovictions. We’ve increased housing near transit

hubs. There are a number of steps that need to be taken, and we are

taking them.

Mr. Speaker: Peace River South, supplemental.

M. Bernier: The reason why the Home Builders Association has offered to help

is because this government has utterly failed in delivering anything on

their housing promises for the people of British Columbia.

Look, the NDP have attacked me for fixing up abandoned, condemned,

run-down homes in my own community and then turning them into

affordable…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

M. Bernier: Well, yeah. I appreciate getting heckled by the member from

Surrey-Fleetwood, otherwise known up north as the Land Baron of Prince

George for the multiple properties that he owns.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members, no.

M. Bernier: I’m proud to have been fixing up and making affordable homes with

my own bare hands and my property. How many, we can debate

later.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members, let’s…. There’s no need.

Please continue.

[3:05 p.m.]

M. Bernier: The Minister of Housing wants to talk about issues in his own

riding. Here’s something else from his own riding: the minister himself

owns a $4 million mansion in Oak Bay, on top of multiple vacation

properties. Maybe he and the incoming tainted Premier can come up to my

riding, and they can see what I’ve done with my own bare hands to help

with the affordability crisis.

I’m not sure what the minister knows about affordability. I mean,

the cost of maybe just a bedroom in his multi-million-dollar mansion….

Just a bedroom is probably more than what it costs for an entire

affordable house in my riding. Maybe the next time he’s sipping a

margarita at his vacation beachfront property in Mexico…

Mr. Speaker: Member. Member.

M. Bernier: …he’ll be able to ponder that thought.

Mr. Speaker: Member, no personal comments. Let’s stick with the….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Shhh. Members, please.

Continue.

M. Bernier: My apologies, Mr. Speaker.

Did you say “no personal comments”?

Mr. Speaker: You don’t have to attack personally anybody.

M. Bernier: I’m hoping we’ll remember that, then, when we look around the

House here.

Mr. Speaker: Continue.

M. Bernier: Well, I’ll make it simple. Back to the Housing

Minister.

Instead of attacking the men and women and people that are

actually building affordable houses…. Again, they promised 114,000

houses and have failed on that promise. When will they finally

deliver?

Hon. M. Rankin: To say the government has failed…. I’d asked the hon. member to

tell that to the 20,000 people who now are living in units that would

not have been available if we had stuck with what the Leader of the

Opposition had wanted and not brought in the speculation tax.

The hon. member is right: we have committed to the delivery of

114,000 homes, in partnership with…. A portion of those planned as

publicly funded homes. So for example, we are on track to spend $7

billion over ten years through B.C. Housing. We’re on track to do that

now, and we’re on track to deliver those 114,000 homes. Investments with

the federal and local governments. A new housing hub, which has already

brought more than 6,000 homes to the market.

We have worked with local governments and given them a number of

tools to achieve what they need to do. We’ve made investments in

transit, which of course is central to the housing supply issue. Yes,

there’s much more to do, but we’ve made enormous progress in addressing

the housing crisis in our province.

PRIMARY HEALTH CARE SERVICES

AND PRIVATE

PROVIDERS

A. Olsen: Thousands of my constituents in Saanich North and the Islands are

desperate to get access to primary health care.

Back in February, I asked the Minister of Health about a doctor’s

clinic charging a so-called continuity-of-care fee over and above MSP

billing. For the past year, we’ve asked the minister why there’s a

growing corporatization of primary health care on his watch. He claims

to support an equitable, universal health care system for all British

Columbians, yet the excruciatingly slow pace of his response is leaving

our communities without accessible health care, and vulnerable,

underserved citizens are desperate.

In Sidney, a new operator has just hung a shingle. For $2,400

annually, you can get primary health care services not covered by MSP.

Prior to the minister, primary health care included preventative care,

screenings, diagnostics, and so on. However, now people have to pay out

of pocket for what they’re calling “non-medically necessary

services.”

To the Minister of Health, why are the exclusive primary health

care clubs like Shoal, like Harrison, like Telus growing under his

watch?

Hon. A. Dix: In 2018, one of the early actions as Minister of Health was to

strengthen the protections, by regulation, in the Medicare Protection

Act. The provisions that had been passed under the previous government

were never proclaimed. We’ve taken consistent action to support public

health care everywhere, including the repatriation of private contracts

and actions to support public care in every way. This has included, in

particular, the purchase of private surgical centres and private MRI

centres to reduce wait times in the public system.

With respect to people who may be in violation of the Medicare

Protection Act, that is the responsibility — under the law, under the

Medicare Protection Act — of the Medical Services Commission. And they

consistently take action, including cases in the member’s riding, on

that basis.

[3:10 p.m.]

They are going to be taking action. They have the authority, based

on the act, to take action, including the power of injunctions, and they

take that role very seriously. The commission is, as the member will

know, made up partly of representatives of the government but also of

the Doctors of B.C. I think the commission is a strong supporter of

public health care and opposed to any extra billing, as am I.

Mr. Speaker: Member, for a supplemental.

A. Olsen: The minister’s response is void of actually answering the

question. The reality is that while we’ve been asking these questions

over the last year, the minister has stood up and continued to repeat

the same rhetoric back to us.

Meanwhile, in our communities, we are seeing more and more

services which are differentiating between those who can afford to pay

for the health care or primary health care that they’re desperately

needing and those who cannot. That is the very definition of a growing

two-tiered health care system in our province under this minister’s

watch, yet he will not respond directly.

It’s been months since the minister has been sitting on a report

investigating Telus Health’s enabling of a two-tier health care system.

He has the report. Meanwhile, we have prominent NDP staffers, former

staffers, continuing to lobby this government on behalf of Telus Health.

It seems the NDP lobbyist pipeline is not just for oil and gas

companies. They’re now getting into the corporatization of our health

care system as well.

Meanwhile, more and more services continue to show up in our

communities across the province. A Victoria clinic is offering access to

a family doctor for $110 a month. In Maclean’s , the owner said

this: “The reality is that the kinds of changes that need to happen

within the public system take years to implement, if they ever do.

Clinics like ours, and patients throughout B.C., don’t have the luxury

of waiting for that to happen.”

I have operators in my communities that are pleading for the

government to act quicker so that we are not being exploited by services

that are charging fees.

To the Minister of Health, is this his vision of equitable access

to universal primary health care in B.C.?

Hon. A. Dix: We are, of course, a province of laws. We’ve strengthened the

Medicare Protection Act. We have a strong Medical Services Commission

which enforces those laws and takes the action where appropriate. There

is no report to be sat on. The Medical Services Commission does reviews,

and then it takes action. That is their authority under the law, as the

member surely well knows by now.

What I would say is that we are also taking action, of course, to

address primary care in our province — 1,200 people added incrementally

to primary care networks, 350 people working in 28 urgent and primary

care centers. The addition of Indigenous primary care centers; the

addition of community health centers; the addition, in fact, this year

of a record number of new-to-practice doctors committed to full-service

family practice — these are actions that we’ve taken working with the

Resident Doctors and the Doctors of B.C.

Yes, we’re working closely with doctors and nurse practitioners

and everyone else in B.C. to make improvements to primary care

everywhere — in the member’s riding and everywhere else.

RESIDENTIAL TENANCY BRANCH

HANDLING OF TENANT

ISSUES

R. Merrifield: Renters and landlords in my community have been completely ignored

by the residential tenancy branch under the tainted incoming Premier,

who oversaw the worst decline in housing affordability in a

generation.

In Kelowna, a 19-year-old woman came to me after she was

physically assaulted by her tenant. Despite the fact that the police

charged and placed a restraining order on her tenant, the tenant was

still allowed to live in her house. What should have been urgently

resolved at the residential tenancy branch instead took months. This

woman was left alone to deal with her assailant, who later broke the

windows of that same house with a baseball bat.

[3:15 p.m.]

Can the Housing Minister explain why the NDP would force a

landlord to keep renting to someone who physically attacked them without

any support?

Hon. M. Rankin: There is, of course, a new compliance and enforcement unit in the

residential tenancy branch so landlords and tenants have a place to go

where disputes of the kind the hon. member has brought forward are

addressed.

There are new rules, of course, allowing landlords to seek

increases in rent in certain circumstances where necessary capital

expenditures must be made in order to ensure the house remains

habitable. Notwithstanding that, we have, in the interests of housing

affordability, attempted to provide a rent cap of 2 percent,

whereas the

hon. opposition would have made it 7.4 percent, I believe.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. M. Rankin: The residential tenancy branch has had an increase in staff

lately. The residential tenancy branch is aware of the need for change.

They’ve been swamped by work, as you can well imagine, in this difficult

period, and they’re making the necessary changes to adapt to those

realities.

REBATE FOR RENTERS

T. Halford: The last time we heard from the tainted incoming Premier on his

promise of a $400 annual renters rebate was before budget day. He said:

“We’re working on it.”

After 2,000 days of being at the cabinet table, the former Housing

Minister only managed to oversee the worst decline in housing

affordability in a generation. He has failed time and again to deliver

the rebate. He even failed to mention the rebate in his 100-day

non-action scheme — 100 days, no renters rebate promised. Meanwhile, the

skyrocketing cost of living is eating away the value of a now

six-year-late rebate every single day.

To the Housing Minister, when will renters get the $400 annual

renters rebate that was promised six years ago by this

government?

Hon. S. Robinson: As I’ve said in this House before, we will bring in the renters

rebate during our mandate.

I think it’s really important to remind everybody about how the

old government operated and treated renters. In fact, I was actually

thinking and recalling sitting on that side of the House and listening

to Christy Clark giggling at the rising cost of housing and saying to

people: “Just move out to the valley. Just leave the Lower Mainland if

you can’t afford it.” Then I remember the next Leader of the Opposition,

who thought that renting was…

Interjections.

Hon. S. Robinson: I couldn’t remember the word.

…a wacky time.

That’s the leadership for the people opposite: the B.C. Liberals

giddy that the wealthiest people in this province were making tons of

money on housing.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members, please.

Member, it’s okay.

Please continue.

Hon. S. Robinson: Suggesting that renting was a wacky time — again, the B.C. Liberal

leadership.

Under the old government, when they were in government, landlords

could raise rents at inflation plus 2 percent. I remember asking: “Where

did that come from? Who decided that? What was the rationale?” Nobody

knew. It’s just what the previous government said was fair to

landlords.

We knew that renters were struggling, so what did we do? We took

action. We eliminated the automatic 2 percent. We made sure that that

was eliminated. We also have capped rents during the pandemic. What did

the members opposite say? They thought it was a terrible idea to cap

rents during a pandemic.

We’ve taken additional efforts for this coming year, capping rents

at 2 percent.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. S. Robinson: We kept rent…. If the members opposite…. They continue to

oppose….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Minister. Minister, just hold it.

Members. Members from the opposition, if you have a disagreement

with the answer coming, you have every right to come back and rebut

that. Okay?

Please, let’s continue.

Hon. S. Robinson: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, the previous leader said that the eviction ban during

COVID-19 was not leadership and was a “formula for trouble.” That is a

quote from him on April 8, 2020.

[3:20 p.m.]

The opposition continues to oppose the caps that we’ve been

putting on rent, helping renters get through what is a difficult

inflationary time. In fact, a renter paying $2,000 a month will avoid

paying $814 because we put in a cap, because we made a difference. We’re

going to keep making a difference for renters.

S. Bond: Well, I think perhaps the Finance Minister might want to go take a

look at her revisionist history. She may want to plan to correct the

record very shortly about what this side of the House did.

Not only that, she had no hesitation to stand in this House and

defend a retroactive pay increase for her and her colleagues. So maybe

what she should do today is stand up and commit to a retroactive rent

rebate for the people in British Columbia who can’t afford to pay for

it. While members on the other side of the House shake their heads,

let’s remind them. Not once but twice — glossy brochures all about the

promises to renters in British Columbia.

Let’s look at the record of this government. Let’s look at the

fact that under this government’s watch and the tainted incoming

Premier, guess what. The biggest decline in housing affordability in a

generation — that’s the record of this government and the incoming

Premier.

Will the Minister of Finance get up today and tell British

Columbians exactly when renters in this province will see the rebate

that’s been promised not once but twice, and will she make it

retroactive?

Hon. S. Robinson: As I said, we will be bringing in the renters rebate in this

mandate. But I also want to point out…. We did the math around the old

government bringing in their rent increase formula: 2 percent plus CPI.

Here we are, 15 years later. If we had continued with that….

Interjection.

Hon. S. Robinson: The members mock: “75 years ago.” Well, we only have to go back 16

years — well, 20 years now.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Shhh. Members.

It’s okay. We are almost done.

Please continue.

Hon. S. Robinson: Fifteen years after they brought that in, that new formula, rents

were 40 percent higher because of their formula. Their formula, their 2

percent plus CPI, has added 40 percent of the increase. To me, that’s

shameful.

[End of question period.]

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members, it’s over. Question period is over.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading, Bill 36.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 36 — HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND

OCCUPATIONS ACT

(continued)

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Abbotsford South.

Interjection.

B. Banman: Well, thank you for that splattering of applause. Thank you very

much.

[3:25 p.m.]

It is indeed a pleasure to talk about this massive bill that’s

before us, a historic bill that is over 200 pages long and has over

640-some-odd clauses or sections in it. It is all about the Health

Professions and Occupations Act.

The goal of the act is to replace the current act, which was

working — although, as I said before, I do appreciate the work that went

into this by the members of the House that worked on this. I would say

that the major goal of this act is to protect the public. That is a very

noble goal.

I find just a little bit of irony in it that Bill 36’s job is to

protect the public, yet we currently have this catch-and-release program

going on. We have absolute pandemonium going on in our streets, yet we

are here talking about protecting health care professionals.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I would remind you that we are debating Bill

B. Banman: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for that for that

advice.

Yes, we are talking about health care professionals and protecting

the public. As I was saying once before, I was a health care

professional myself. When you talk to health care professionals, they

would be very much in agreement that protecting the public is important

— and then, when a health care professional steps out of line, there

should be sanctions and/or penalties as a result of that. This act does

go into some of that.

I know, in my profession, we talked often amongst our­selves

that protecting the public was of utmost importance. Our patients would

entrust their care to our hands, to our knowledge, to the art that is

health care. There is a science and an art to health care. When someone

comes into your office, they trust that the health care practitioner is

going to have their best interests at heart.

It’s important that legislation such as this come before this

House. As I said once before, I question the timing of this. Quite

frankly, I think there are other, more pressing matters that could come

before this House, such as protecting the public at large.

Yes, I know that’s not in this particular bill, Madam Speaker, but

in actuality, it kind of is because this is protecting the public at

large. There is a connection to that.

This bill also talks about transparency. If a health care

practitioner has done something wrong, I think you’d find most health

care practitioners would agree that a client or a patient has a right to

know if the professional they’re about to see has done anything

outrageous, anything egregious — if they’ve had any sexual misconducts,

if they actually have the right to practise at all.

[3:30 p.m.]

Transparency is quite important. I do find it, tongue-in-cheek

again, interesting, coming from a government that has won the most

secretive award by the Canadian journalists. I said it once before, and

I’ll say it again. This is a case of do as I say, not as I do. The

government should take a note out of the transparency that most health

care practitioners are more than willing to comply with. It’s a shame

that this government doesn’t follow its own advice, which is in this

piece of paper.

Interjection.

B. Banman: Well, thank you very much.

But the bill here talks an awful lot about transparency. It talks

an awful lot about safety, and it talks an awful lot about penalties

that exist if those particular items are not fulfilled. Those are all

good things, and I would again suggest that as this House goes through

there, it looks at this model that they think is important.

This government brought this transparency to this House in this

act. Yet, when it comes to other things, I think that they should follow

the advice in Bill 36. It’s a clear pathway to transparency, and it

would be good if this House were to use it as a model for other bills as

we move forward.

I also was mentioning that we are going to see an awful lot of

these individual colleges now be compressed. What was mentioned on the

other side of the House was, for instance, that chiropractors, Chinese

medicine, acupuncturists and others will now be put under one

disciplinary body and that in order to get those, there would be a

lawyer, of course, that would be on that disciplinary board.

I find it interesting that the legal profession still gets to

elect their representative. I fully and heartily agree with that. Here’s

why. In each profession, it’s important to have someone elected by your

peers to represent you. The reason that’s important is because on that

entire disciplinary board, you need to have someone there that

understands your profession forward and back. You want to have the

person that can best articulate what standards of practice within your

profession are.

To leave that up to someone to choose, for a group of names to be

picked by the superintendent and then be given to the minister, I think

is a huge red flag. The reason that’s a red flag is no matter whom it is

that’s in government from now on….

Governments come and go. Governments change. Ministers come and

go. Ministers change. What’s important and why it’s important to have

elected officials and why it’s important that that profession has some

input and some say is because if it is left up to an individual minister

— I look forward to hearing the minister talk about what safety guards

there are in place — that power could be abused.

If a particular individual from a profession, especially when that

profession does not necessarily follow mainstream allopathic medicine,

such as…. Let’s take Chinese medicine, for instance, or naturopathic

medicine or chiropractic. It is not always in total harmony with

allopathic medicine.

Whatever the sway or attitude of the Health Minister is, I would

think that those professions would worry that if that particular

representative from their profession is out of step with whatever the

philosophy of the Health Minister is, they would be removed. Be it

you’re a nurse or a medical doctor, dentistry, psychology.

[3:35 p.m.]

Many of these professions that will be put inside these particular

colleges and moved into this particular bill…. I think it’s highly

important that they have some say and some vote as to who that

representative is, because they may or may not always agree with

whatever philosophy of the minister who ultimately, according to what

I’ve read, signs off on the recommendations.

To cherry pick, especially after we take a look at the controversy

that went through during the pandemic, where there were all kinds of

discussion and disagreements…. I could see a point, where whatever

particular health emergency is going through, that a particular college

that exists now may not be in full step with government. For government

to have the power to pick and choose who they want that aligns with them

should be concerning for all of us.

I look forward, as we go through this act, to finding out what

safeguards are here to protect that, because medicine is not always in

100 percent agreement in what they do. In my own profession, we would

have huge discussions about what is a best practice. We would not always

agree, and that’s a healthy thing, because you end up getting to a

general consensus as to what best practices are by having that

disagreement, by having that discourse.

A Health Minister is not necessarily a health professional, and it

is very hard for a layperson to understand that discourse that happens.

It is tough for a layperson to understand whether or not….

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

B. Banman: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

B. Anderson: I am proud to speak in support of this bill, Bill 36.

I want to thank my friend. This is my childhood friend Nicole

Ripley, who, almost the moment after I was elected, sent me an email and

was advocating for this. She is a professional counsellor with over six

years of experience through education and then a long professional

career after that.

What she was primarily concerned about was public safety, because

counsellors haven’t been included before. Now this bill will provide

them with the opportunity to be considered and regulated, which is

something that their profession knows is important. This is important

because they’re dealing with children. They’re dealing with people with

severe trauma. They’re dealing with people that are suicidal. So we need

professionals in order to provide them the support.

I want to thank, again, my friend Nicole for the advocacy work

that she did and the team that she also worked with so that we’re able

to make progress in public safety today.

Thanks, Nicole.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin.

L. Doerkson: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I bring greetings, of course, as you

mentioned, from Cariboo-Chilcotin, certainly the most beautiful riding

in British Columbia. I’m sure that we can agree on that point here this

afternoon.

We’ve heard a number of words. The one that has been thrown around

quite a bit over the last day of debate with respect to Bill 36 is

“transparency.” I’m going to talk a little bit about that, but it is

certainly a privilege and an honour to stand before you and make some

comments about Bill 36, the Health Professions and Occupations

Act.

Yesterday we had much debate in this room, and one of the members

— the member for Skeena, actually — mentioned that he didn’t think

people at home would be excited to hear what we were debating. I can

appreciate his comments yesterday. I agree. They probably wouldn’t be.

But I’m hopeful that this legislation that’s before the House will be an

opportunity to have ripple effects throughout other parts of our health

care system.

[3:40 p.m.]

I think that he’s right in saying that what the residents of

British Columbia want us to be debating is how to fix a system that’s

seemingly in crisis right now.

I’m going to try, through my comments, to relate back to the

Cariboo-Chilcotin. I’m going to talk a lot about transparency, because I

think there’s no question that my residents are hopeful for that

transparency, not just in Bill 36, but Bill 36 will be a catalyst for

that. I think it’s important to have so much of this in the open and to

be transparent. But I want to talk a little bit, during my comments,

about some of the incidents that have happened in my riding as

well.

I’ve met with nurses — I’m going to say dozens and dozens — in my

riding, in 100 Mile House and Williams Lake, and they’re concerned, for

certain. We’ve heard it many times. This bill will talk about public

disclosure and public consultation. We’ve heard it many times, and I

think that nurses are genuinely appreciative of what may come forth. But

we’ve also heard, a number of times, I guess, questions around our

support for the bill. Frankly, it’s a massive bill, and I think there

are a lot of questions to be asked here.

Certainly by the health care professionals in this province…. I

think they’ve spent the last week trying to digest it, as well, and

trying to get a handle on what it could mean for them.

I know that nurses that I have spoken with on many occasions are

extremely frustrated with transparency. It’s not just around staff

mistakes, errors or things that may require discipline. It’s around

decisions made by health care authorities, certainly decisions made by

layers of management. All of those things are coming into question by

people of this province and, certainly, people in my riding. There’s no

question about that.

We saw a time last Saturday where hundreds of people were on the

front lawn of this Legislature, trying to reach out to doctors, because

many of them don’t have doctors. I think that is a pretty clear

indication of what’s happening. I can’t imagine that we’re not all

receiving questions from our residents, from other people in the

province, around this extremely sensitive topic.

I really feel that the transparency portion of this bill will give

us an opportunity to get some of that into the open, because I honestly

don’t think we can solve the problems in this province, specifically

around health care, unless we are able to speak openly about

it.

I’m going to outline a number of stories, as I go forward, that

will show where that transparency will be helpful to constituents and

certainly people that have had some pretty significant events happen

with respect to their health care.

Again, I want to try to draw it back to Cariboo-Chil­cotin

to show how Bill 36 will have an impact, certainly, on our

people.

I want to talk a little bit just about the actual bill itself, the

size of the bill. It is more than 640 sections. That has been pointed

out repeatedly. I know that while we have thanked the MLA for

Kelowna–Lake Country, the Leader of the Third Party and, certainly, the

Minister of Health, I also wanted to take a moment to obviously thank so

many people that had an unbelievable amount of commitment to bring a

bill of this size to this chamber. I certainly can appreciate that it

has taken a massive effort on their part.

Those significant recommendations, of course, are before us now.

This is going to establish an independent discipline process while also

revising the complaints process, with the aim to make it more

transparent and focused on patient safety. Of course, there’s that

“transparency” word again. Amongst the 640-plus sections, that is the

item that is most important to me. There are obviously other things

about the bill that are important, but that one is the one that is most

important to me. I just can’t stress enough how that can help with real

repairs to a system that certainly needs it.

[3:45 p.m.]

It’s important to establish from the beginning that this bill is a

complete redesign of the Health Professions Act. The Health Professions

Act deals currently with 26 regulated health professions, of which 25

are governed by 15 regulatory colleges. At present, the colleges review

all complaints about the professionals that they regulate, including

both the current and the former registrants.

Bill 36, of course, significantly expands on the previous duties

of the college and establishes a series of guiding principles that will

be applied to all under the act — colleges, office of the

superintendent, director of discipline, etc. In light of that, there’s

no question that there will need to be transparency, for

certain.

The principles include acting in accordance with the united

declaration on the rights of Indigenous people — of course, UNDRIP. I

want to speak a little bit about that, because I know that oftentimes in

this House we have debated or questioned whether or not Indigenous

people have been fully in the loop as far as making these decisions.

Certainly, with respect to Bill 36, I have a number of First Nations in

Cariboo-Chilcotin, and I want to be perfectly clear — and I suppose

we’ll find that out during the committee stage — that my First Nations

have been properly consulted with, without question.

As we go through the bill, we need to keep in mind that it’s

largely enabling legislation. Much of what this bill seeks to accomplish

is not done in the text of legislation but through regulation at a later

date and, of course, at the discretion of the minister. Now, I can

appreciate why that’s there, and that is definitely something that, I

think, I and other people will want to fully understand at the committee

stage when we do have opportunities to ask questions about that. There

are other areas where it sort of falls back to the minister to make a

decision, even noting that, in the bill itself, the director would be an

independent person. I will certainly have questions about

that.

With respect to how Bill 36 will, I guess, play out in the

Cariboo…. I mean, I guess I need to draw a little bit of a picture of

what the Cariboo looks like. You know, we have a number of facilities in

Cariboo-Chilcotin. We have Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake.

We have another hospital in 100 Mile House. We have a station at Tatla

Lake, another one at Anahim Lake. We have a new First Nations Health

Authority clinic that is opening, actually, this week, and we have, of

course, a variety of supports around that.

Honestly, the system is…. I mean, I’ve said the word “crisis,” and

I don’t think that’s wrong. We have had some very, very serious

situations in the Cariboo, and going back to the “transparency” word in

Bill 36, I think that that will, obviously, help to answer questions

that so many residents have, whether it was a loved one that was in a

serious situation or perhaps themselves. I’ll get to those situations,

but frankly, some of them have been very serious.

Rural B.C., of course, is a challenge to get to appointments…. I

don’t think it would be misunderstood that when you drive from Anahim

Lake in the West Chilcotin and you have to see a physician or a surgeon

or whatever in Kamloops, that that could be a seven- or eight-hour

drive. The concern is that we’ve had a number of missed opportunities,

cancelled appointments, etc. Of course, people have questions about

what’s happening in the system. Right now, it’s difficult even for an

MLA to get a clear answer on that, so that’s why I think this will be

helpful with respect to the transparency that the bill touts.

[3:50 p.m.]

Again, I don’t think that anything I’m saying is shocking or

earth-shattering. One million British Columbians are wait-listed in this

province right now to see specialists. I cannot believe that people

don’t have questions about that. We have some of the worst walk-in

clinic wait times in the country. Hundreds of thousands are unable to

get timely medical imaging. One in five are without a family doctor, and

many of those people were on the front steps of the Legislature lawn on

Saturday, seeing doctors under tents.

To me, if we’re not all alarmed by this, then I am even more

frightened. I really hope that Bill 36 — with respect to the other

actions that it will, of course, tout — will have ripple effects through

the entire health care system. I hope that there will be cascading

success, honestly, for all of the people in the province.

In 100 Mile House, our emergency department has been closed

multiple times. Again, I can’t put in perspective just how serious that

can be.

We have had one serious situation where one of our residents had

their father visiting from the Lower Mainland. He fell and had a very

serious injury, and he could not get into this hospital. He was sent

home, on a day when he had an extremely serious health situation

happening. Fortunately for him, those kids were able to bang on the

front windows of the hospital, loudly enough that someone finally came

to their aid. By the time they talked to me, they had already talked to

Canadian Mental Health. They were reaching for help from anybody that

was willing to help.

I’ve got to say that they have multiple questions. Bill 36 will

help to clean some of that up. The minister and the health authority

itself will have questions as to what happened in that situation. Some

of that we did work through with Interior Health. I want to give kudos

to them, because they realized that it was a serious situation. I think

some of that got fixed, but there was also a period of time when it was

very difficult to get some of that information.

We’re not alone. Ashcroft, of course, has seen a number of

closures. I can certainly explain to you that on December 2 a young lady

that I know very well pulled upon the front door of the Ashcroft

Hospital. Again, it was December 2. It was a very cold, snowy evening.

They pulled on the front door of the Ashcroft Hospital, and it was

closed. Quite feverishly, they packed up their car and drove to Kamloops

to deliver my granddaughter. It was a pretty harrowing evening for them,

I can assure you. With those types of events, there are often questions

around them.

I’ve got lists and lists of hospital closures. Our residents

question those decisions. When those hospitals are closed, that traffic

has to go somewhere. Ultimately, it’s putting pressure into places that

are already pressurized. When 100 Mile closes, you have to make a

decision. In an emergency situation, by the way, you need to make a

decision as to whether you’re going to go to Williams Lake, which may be

at capacity, or to the Kamloops Hospital. That pressure, of course, is

happening all the time. It’s not just in Ashcroft and 100 Mile

House.

[3:55 p.m.]

Rest assured that people have questions about this. It’s hard to

get answers around these closures, specifically Barriere, Blue River,

Clearwater, all of them — some of them significant closures, for two and

three days at a time, sometimes longer than that. Some are just

diversions. I have a massive list of closures for Clearwater, which is

extremely significant because, obviously, they have to go to Kamloops,

and Kamloops is already under an unbelievable amount of

pressure.

I guess I don’t really want to belabour that point, but it is

happening throughout the entire province, with so many questions about

what is happening there, in Grand Forks, Kamloops, Keremeos and all

throughout the north, in Chetwynd, Dawson Creek — all serious closures.

Those are happening on the Island as well. It’s a significant issue that

does, obviously, require some answers.

Bill 36 is a complete redesign of the Health Professions Act. It

has been preceded by recommendations, of course, from August 2020. The

bill significantly expands on the previous duties of the college and

applies these principles to all under the acts, as I said: colleges,

offices, office of the superintendent, etc.

I do want to just speak a little bit about the bill, the way it

establishes a new oversight body, the office of the superintendent of

health profession and occupation oversight, which consists of the

superintendent, the discipline tribunal and other employees as required.

The superintendent is to be appointed by cabinet. My concern is that

much of the direction, of course, would be coming from the minister and

that the minister can simply, I guess, issue orders, etc.

That, to me, is a little bit concerning because it does mention

that this individual is to be somewhat independent. I think that that,

as I say, is a little bit concerning. I will definitely have questions

around that. The superintendent will be able to utilize consultants,

experts, specialists and others exercising this duty. This is extremely

important to me. This is where I want to relate a couple of fairly

serious stories that I’ve talked about in this House and that are

currently at that stage of being questioned, for a better understanding

of what happened during these events.

I can tell you that people are involved in a situation that

developed at Cariboo Memorial Hospital with respect to a 90-year-old

gentleman who was taken to the hospital for a number of concerns. He was

taken there late in the evening. Because of the capacity of the

hospital, he was left on a gurney in a children’s playroom, covered up

with his own coat. Behind him were exterior windows of the hospital, and

in order to give him privacy, the staff there duct-taped sheets on the

window.

Now, I’ve talked about this gentleman, this person, a time or two

in this House. I can say that Joanna, who is this now deceased fellow’s

daughter, has, sadly, tried to understand what happened. Now, I want to

be clear; I don’t want to introduce false information. This person did

not become deceased in the hospital; that happened after this event. But

this constituent has very significant questions about what happened that

evening and that ultimately required getting an MLA involved, getting

the highest levels of the hospital involved, because decisions were made

there that were not beneficial to her father.

Under the regulation that we’ve seen before us…. I certainly hope

I’ll have an opportunity to ask questions to the minister directly

about, perhaps, this situation or how Bill 36 will help that individual.

I want to point out that this is an individual that, I think, is owed an

answer. She removed her father after, about 5½ or six hours, out of

frustration, because he hadn’t even been given water in that

time.

[4:00 p.m.]

The cascading effect that I hope that happens…. I can tell you

that the secrecy…. Maybe that’s not the right word. The reluctance, I

suppose, to answer questions about serious situations is

frightening.

Last year in my riding — this past year, I guess — a very good

friend of mine lost his son. He was a 14-year-old. He went into cardiac

arrest in the Chilcotin, near the area of Redstone. We had an ambulance.

That ambulance was just a short distance away, really, but it wasn’t

staffed. Of course, the ambulance that responded to this call — a

desperate call, by the way…. A 14-year-old in cardiac arrest. I don’t

think I have to explain how serious a situation that is.

The situation unfolded where people from the health unit did their

level best to help this child. But as I said, there was an ambulance

just a half-an-hour away that could have responded, but it wasn’t

staffed. The ambulance that did come came from two hours away. By the

time the ambulance arrived there, this child, sadly, was deceased. I can

assure you that this family has multiple questions around

that.

In fact, even the staff of B.C. Ambulance have questions around

that, because they have reached out to me and asked to push that issue,

to ask: “What happened? Why wasn’t that staffed? What are the staffing

levels?” To that point, I filed a freedom of information to get that

information, and this is what I’m suggesting. The concern is how long it

takes to get that information, in a moment where a friend has lost a….

It doesn’t matter if it was a friend. It doesn’t matter. It’s a

14-year-old child that died of cardiac arrest while waiting for

emergency responders to get there.

Certainly, Bill 36 does talk about disciplinary action and things

that could certainly happen to employees. But I want to make it very

clear that I have questions around the different levels of management

and the people that are making those decisions, who made the decision

not to staff that ambulance that day. I hope that constituents like this

can get the information, get the answers that they are so desperately

seeking — if nothing else, to get closure.

Right now I have a constituent who has undergone…. You know what?

We’ll maybe come back to that. That one’s a little bit raw to

discuss.

I want to come back to the independent body. While the office of

the superintendent is an independent body, there is a provision in the

bill that requires the superintendent to comply with any orders of the

minister. That again…. I just want to talk a little bit about that,

because I do have concerns about that.

These are supposed to be…. Certainly, the bill has convinced me

that this individual should be independent and that they should not be

necessarily taking that direction from the Minister of Health. It

actually goes as far as saying that the superintendent must act, in some

circumstances, on a request of the minister. I’m not exactly sure what

that will entail, but again, as I’ve mentioned before, I guess we’ll get

into that in committee stage.

I want to lend my support to the suggestion of internationally

trained and educated health professionals. Certainly, we’ve talked much

about that in this House. Certainly, we’ve talked about it much as

residents of the province.

[4:05 p.m.]

I can assure you that just months ago — I think this individual

actually met with a number of people from government and from opposition

— I had a ride from a fellow, from the airport to this Legislature, who

was a cab driver. He was a doctor. Unfortunately, he couldn’t practice

here in in Canada.

Sadly, he had mentioned that he had been hired in the UK, but his

credentials were not acceptable here. With respect, he basically laid

out his plans and how he would be leaving British Columbia, not only

himself but certainly with his family as well. That is extremely

concerning, because while we’re trying to, obviously, get people into

the country, not just doctors and nurses and care aides…. Again to my

earlier reference of cascading effect, we’re having the same problem in

other areas — veterinarians and everybody else.

Bill 36, in a lot of ways, if it’s going to deal with that, may be

a catalyst to help in other areas in our province. I am really hopeful

that somehow we can understand that more clearly. Certainly, I hope that

people in our province that are licensed to be able to do some of this

important work ultimately can be hired, particularly if they’re already

Canadian residents.

In this case, we’re actually talking about hopefully speeding up

that process and bringing those individuals into the province. I know

that there are certainly ways that that can be done, because we’re

seeing it with residents that are fleeing the Ukraine. We’re seeing the

process being sped up, of course, for those folks as well.

Finally — I guess I’m a little bit short on time — I want to just

make a quick reference to our health care workers. I know that a number

of health care workers are concerned about this bill, and rightly so. I

think we have concerns. It’s not that we’re opposed to it at all. I

think that it’s a very large bill, and I think many of us have

significant questions. I certainly look forward to getting a chance to

ask some of those questions.

Honestly, on behalf of our front-line workers and our medical

providers…. I mean, I just can’t…. Thank-you is just not enough,

honestly. Some of the stories they’ve told…. We met with the B.C. Nurses

Union the other evening, and some of the stories that they told are

simply heartbreaking as to what they’ve had to deal with.

Certainly, in my riding, that is the case too. I’ve heard from

nurses — in fact, I heard from one that evening — that had been

assaulted. I’ve heard from others that have been assaulted and just a

lack of respect, in general terms. So for all of our front line health

workers — all of our front line people, to be honest — I’m extremely

grateful, from the bottom of my heart. I know that I probably speak for

many people in this House when I say: “Thank you very much.”

Indeed, I do hope that Bill 36 will be helpful not just to our

folks that are in the medical profession. Certainly, I hope that we will

have an opportunity to make things so much better for the residents of

British Columbia, the residents in Cariboo-Chilcotin.

Without question, I would like things to be better for them and,

certainly, people in rural B.C.

B. Stewart: It gives me great pleasure to stand today before this House and

speak on Bill 36. The opportunity to stand up…. This type of legislation

is significant in terms of the fact that it increases the impacts on the

health care industry at a very critical moment in time.

We know that we’re already in the midst of a deadly health care

crisis. We hear it every day. It isn’t just the professionals that are

in our hospitals but in our clinics and general practitioners. I know

that I hope that this is going to help address some of the challenges

that they face by streamlining and making regulatory issues around the

professions more streamlined.

[4:10 p.m.]

The legislation, Bill 36, before us today does not seek to solve

the health care crisis. In fact, it has been in the works for quite some

time and deals mainly with the regulation of health professionals, but

that does not necessarily mean that it won’t have an impact on the

system as a whole. Therefore, we must be extremely careful, as we make

changes, to ensure that we do not exacerbate the existing

problems.

I think that with a bill of this magnitude — as my colleagues have

mentioned, it has some 645 sections along 276 pages, compared to the

previous bill in existence right now, which is 55 sections — it’s quite

a reach in terms of its breadth of expansion and powers of the new

superintendent. It also is full of rules. With rules comes the fact that

people don’t necessarily know…. They have to get familiar with

it.

I mentioned that when we go to make these changes — I’m sure that

we’ll get into this in committee stage, in the implementation, the

timelines — I think that it’s so important that we don’t do things that

are going to disrupt or delay getting new people into the marketplace to

fill the vacancies. As my colleagues have mentioned, more than a million

British Columbians are without a family doctor. We do have a lot of

people that are looking for solutions and not necessarily

barriers.

This legislation has been a work in progress for quite a long time

— multiple years, actually. The Minister of Health yesterday corrected

the MLA for Kelowna–Lake Country in talking about Harry Cayton, who came

out with a report in 2018 that talked about what could be done in this

particular case. Of course, I’m sure that this very carefully follows

some of those recommendations, but it also is based on the hard work of

the Minister of Health, the member for Kelowna–Lake Country and the

Leader of the Third Party.

The committee’s work obviously started well before the pandemic,

when our system wasn’t showing some of the challenges that we face

today. Members here, all around this House, could talk to you about the

shortcomings and the challenges for people that are in the system. As I

mentioned earlier, we don’t want Bill 36 to all of a sudden become a

barrier to solving those problems. I do see that there’s some

encouragement also, in the minister’s mandate to streamline regulatory

procedures, in making certain that we can get professionals in here and

that those barriers are reduced.

The main purpose of the committee, the one working on

recommendations for redesign of the Health Professions Act, was started,

as I mentioned, after the 2018 report of Harry Cayton. This bill

introduces two distinctions: health professions and health occupations.

I think that that’s a good way to describe things. I’m sure that as a

professional, I wouldn’t want to be labelled as just a health

occupation, etc.

I think that there are certain professionals that have worked long

and hard. We all know how long it takes to become accredited as a GP,

let alone a specialist and a further specialist in that. It is a very

demanding and complex area of work. I think one of the things that is

necessary is to make certain that we don’t diminish the importance of

what might be considered to be a regulatory issue or an issue of

competence for any one of the many professions that are governed by this

new Bill 36.

There has been a long period of consultation and significant

recommendations by the committee that include cultural safety; humility;

improvement in governance, regulatory boards and college boards; and

establishing an independent discipline process while also revising the

complaints process, with the aim to make it more transparent and focused

on patient safety.

[4:15 p.m.]

Transparency is a huge part of this. I hate to say it, but I think

there’s a belief that professional regulatory groups sometimes don’t

either tell the facts or feel that they can’t share them. I think that

this is an important aspiration. It should be, hopefully, an outstanding

goal of this particular legislation, in Bill 36: increasing

transparency.

Its main intents are to protect the public and to streamline the

way we regulate health professions. Both goals we are supportive of as

the opposition. This bill expands on previous duties of the colleges and

applies these principles to all under the act — the colleges, the office

of the superintendent, the director of discipline, etc.

I think another thing that’s important is the principle —

especially today, where we’ve recognized some changes in Indigenous

child protection — that we are trying to use the lens of UNDRIP and

DRIPA to make certain that those principles are respected. I think the

steering committee previously supported the Declaration on the Rights of

Indigenous Peoples Act and the requirement that they align with

UNDRIP.

Other important things that I mention are procedural fairness,

respect for privacy, promotion of a holistic healthcare system,

identifying and removing barriers for extrajurisdictional practitioners.

I’ll go into the part about internationally trained and educated

practitioners. I think one of the things that I touched on — we talk

about a health system that, hopefully, is not always in crisis. There

are always challenges, right? It’s a big system. It’s a huge portion of

the provincial budget.

We need to make certain, with this legislation we’re bringing

forward in Bill 36, that we find a way of making it clearer, more

streamlined and effective, in the sense that people know how it will

work — not just in being more transparent and that it has an UNDRIP kind

of respect and all of those kinds of conditions but, more importantly,

that we work on the principle that this legislation is going to make it

easier for health professions and people that are in health occupations

to know where they stand and their obligations.

I mean, we’re paying them. There’s an obligation that patients, as

well as the citizens of British Columbia, expect from this group. We

need to make certain that this bill does everything it can and that we

don’t end up tripping over ourselves because of all 276 pages and 645

sections — in the sense that that’s a lot, I know, having looked at it

briefly.

I’m hoping that by the time we finish committee stage on that, all

of us as legislators will be much more educated and briefed on the

answers that I know that the Minister of Health will have on Bill 36. As

I mentioned, we’re supportive of the many goals and efforts of this

bill. It is long, and it is complex. It needs to have serious scrutiny

before we can be fully supportive. It doesn’t mean we don’t support the

idea.

In our questions and the scenarios that we play out, I hope that

the consultation process with Harry Cayton and the others have made it

clear to the people that are in these professions that this was going to

be an improvement, and streamlining was going to occur. There are bound

to be people that…. It’s not within our control or bailiwick as it is

currently, but I think it’s really important that we make certain that

that’s the objective of what we try to understand in the committee stage

of this.

[4:20 p.m.]

It’s important that we establish, from the beginning of this bill,

that this is a complete redesign of the Health Professions Act.

Currently that’s 55 sections — versus the 645, just a little bit more —

and 82 pages. The Health Professions Act deals with the current 26

regulated health professions, of which 25 are governed by 15 regulatory

colleges.

I think that in terms of groups that were perhaps unregulated,

there is an opportunity for groups under the previous act to apply to

the minister for a designation, or the minister could designate and

investigate a health profession to determine if it should be designated.

I’m quite certain that Bill 36 is very comprehensive in trying to group

all of those people together and making certain that it’s very

streamlined and that the integrity of the act is upheld.

Bill 36 is going to enable a newly created office of the

superintendent to conduct an assessment of unregulated health

professions and occupations. If regulation is needed or different

regulation is needed, the minister can determine if an assessment would

be in the public interest.

The bill sets out how the process of assessment would be

conducted; however, much of the parameters in terms of scope, conduct

and timeline are left to the minister to decide. I know how much extra

time the Minister of Health has. I’m sure that this will be an important

addition to his work duties. But anyways, I look forward to, in

practice, how practical Bill 36 will be to deliver on these

objectives.

As part of the assessment, the superintendent will be required to

consult specific people or bodies more broadly than is required under

the current process, including regulated health practitioners who

provide similar types of health services, Indigenous persons,

post-secondary institutions and the public. And the assessment process

also includes public hearings as well as risk assessment.

There’s a long list of rules. I think that we know what rules

bring, right? It brings added cost. We’ll get to that in a minute. I

think that it’s important that we figure out who’s going to pay for all

of these regulations and the benefit, ultimately, to British Columbians

and the citizens of British Columbia.

The superintendent will be required to make a report with

recommendations, which will not be made public until the minister makes

a decision. So I think that those are important points. We want to make

certain that these rules that we’re talking about are something that are

clearly understood by us in the House here when Bill 36 goes through.

Secondly, I think that the public needs to comment on that and make

certain that they’re informed and that they’re not disenfranchised by

these changes.

These principles, as I mentioned, include acting in accordance

with UNDRIP. This is an important piece of legislation and is something

I know that my colleagues and I will discuss in greater detail in this

debate.

Other principles include things like procedural fairness, respect

for privacy and promotion of a holistic health care system, which I have

a little bit of experience in in terms of trying to find the balance

between things that are maybe coming of age or becoming more common.

Whether it’s….

I wouldn’t say that they’re unusual, but naturopaths, Chinese

medicine and people that are practising in areas that are not maybe

understood by all of the other professions that might either not

understand or maybe not even agree. But I think that there is a degree

of procedural fairness needed across the spectrum of treatment and care,

identifying those challenges and removing barriers for

extrajurisdictional practitioners.

I think that the last part that I just wanted to touch on here was

that one of the things that we talked about is the internationally

trained and educated professionals — well, both occupation and

professionals; we need both.

[4:25 p.m.]

I don’t think that there’s a place in our health care system that

is without a shortage currently. And the fact is that it is one of the

objectives in Bill 36, to make certain that there’s more respectful

treatment of those people that are coming in internationally trained. I

know we’ve heard it many times. I know it myself, as an MLA for a number

of years, that people who were not accepted in British Columbia and went

outside of the system and trained in, maybe, another country, and are

accredited and assumed to be recognized under the international

standards of medicine, that those people cannot necessarily easily get

back in because we don’t provide adequate residency spaces.

I think that the bottom line is that we need to welcome people

back, especially if they started in British Columbia. We educated them

all the way along, and then we said: “Oh, no, we don’t have space for

you in British Columbia.” They go elsewhere. That was their goal, they

pursued it, and they were successful. I think in Bill 36, we do want to

make that one of the things that is an objective.

As a matter of fact, I just happened to have a discussion with my

doctor a couple of weeks ago. I was asking him about some of the issues.

I know he’s got a big sign up on his door that he’s not accepting any

new patients. I know that even today, looking on the Health website….

There’s a portal to go and find a doctor.

In this discussion with my own physician, he said that he and

other physicians in the Kelowna area accept and adopt new families. I’m

not exactly certain. But anyway, these people, this particular couple

with children, came here from, I believe it was, Sudan. She practised

medicine in Egypt, in Cairo. They came to Canada. She’s written all of

the exams, and she’s been waiting two years for a residency spot. Yet

she’s practising, in Kelowna of all places, as a care aide. To be

honest, that just doesn’t seem logical, the fact that we have

these.

This is one of, I’m sure, hundreds and maybe even more stories of

people. There’s a barrier, and part of that is the fact that we don’t

have the space. But second, it may be a regulatory matter. So I did pass

this on to the minister, and I’m hopeful that there will be a positive

outcome and that this particular constituent will be able to

practise.

I’m looking forward to Bill 36 and adding to the contributions to

make it easier to welcome foreigners. I think that that’s consistent

with some of the numbers we even heard today, talking about the numbers

of people that are working in British Columbia and in Canada. A large

majority are immigrants. We certainly don’t want to have barriers to

groups that we need here. I know that regulating them is one thing, but

welcoming them is another thing that we need to do.

We talk about the office of the superintendent as an oversight

body. The superintendent is going to be appointed by cabinet and would

have a number of duties, including the ability to conduct an assessment

of an unregulated health profession or occupation if regulation is

needed, or different regulation is needed, of an already designated

profession or occupation if required by the minister or if the

superintendent determines an assessment would be in the public interest

and would be required to notify the minister if so. This bill sets out

how that assessment would be conducted. However, such parameters, the

scope and contact timelines, are left to the minister to

decide.

When I read that

section of Bill 36, I do ask the question about

costs. These are new. The current regulatory bodies do have costs. Those

are usually paid through membership fees of the profession that’s being

regulated, as are CPAs and lawyers — the legal society of B.C. I’m

probably misquoting that. But I do want to think that when it comes to

this new superintendent and the fact that they have the ability…. It

says under

section 440 that the superintendent requires colleges to pay

a general administration fee to be set by the superintendent.

[4:30 p.m.]

In light of all of the questions that we’ve heard about costs,

this particular one is an additional cost to both the colleges and the

people that are members of those colleges. I do wonder, in terms of what

those numbers are going to be.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, on Bill 36, I’m asking about the introduction of the

costs that are going to have to be borne by the superintendent and the

office and the broad scope of the number of people that can be added

into their control.

Currently discipline matters are under the jurisdiction of

regulatory colleges. The legislation introduces a new discipline

process, separated from the regulatory colleges. However, the

investigative stage will remain with the college as recommended by the

steering committee.

A discipline tribunal would be established within the

superintendent’s office and would include a director of discipline and

discipline panel members.

When I read that, I immediately think it’s going to take a fair

amount of additional financial resources, as well as the people that

have to sit on these panels, to resource them. I think in Bill 36…. I

know that we’re trying to streamline and reduce some of the overlap, but

the part about this is that there is an increased cost in

that.

It says that the director of discipline may be appointed by the

minister and that they must be a lawyer, currently or formerly, in B.C.

or elsewhere in another province.

I immediately go back to some of the work in terms of the Finance

Committee. I’m looking at the Office of the Police Complaint

Commissioner, in terms of their process, in terms of what it costs to

have a person of that calibre doing a review of particular questions

that are asked of police forces in British Columbia that are not part of

the national police force. It costs a considerable amount to have these

adjudications run by these people.

This jumps out at me as a significant cost. Although it may be

necessary and it may increase the transparency and the fairness of it….

I think that the question, really, at the end of the day, is: how are

the costs going to be covered? There’s certainly…. I know that it says

the colleges are going to be responsible for some of these

costs.

I do think that those are important questions. When it comes time

for committee stage on Bill 36, I know that the minister will be all

over that with answers. I know that he has the solutions or the answers

to these things.

In creating the office of the superintendent…. This bill creates

the new independent dispute tribunal, which I’ve just brought up. The

tribunal brings out, from the jurisdiction of the regulatory colleges to

this independent body…. However, the investigation still remains with

the colleges.

It’s also important to highlight the impacts that this bill could

have on internationally trained or educated professionals. I did mention

that earlier. This would appear to respond to the minister’s mandate

letter, which required him to improve the province’s credential

recognition process and licensing.

In addition to the guiding principles piece, division 3,

section

50 of Bill 36, regulatory colleges would be required to create bylaws

specific to the processes and requirements for licensing

extrajurisdictional applicants, including the issuance of provisional

licences. This would appear to respond to the minister’s mandate letter,

as I said previously, which required him to improve the province’s

credential recognition process of licensing.

We welcome that. I think that’s one of the things that is

definitely needed here in the province — to make certain that we’re

properly supported with the health professionals, as well as the health

occupations, and that we meet the needs in British Columbia.

[4:35 p.m.]

Speaking about the needs, I can’t help but think…. Although Bill

36 talks about regulatory issues….

There has been a flurry of new urgent and primary care clinics

opened up across the province. The minister and I have spoken about two

that are in the vicinity of my riding, one directly involved. The whole

basis of these clinics is that they need to be staffed by professionals,

and we need them.

The current one — I just checked today — if you can believe it, is

open Monday to Friday, 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. I’m thinking: “Four hours a

day.” What happens with that is…. The recommendation is…. Patients that

require attention within 12 to 24 hours but that are not emergent are

welcome to go there. What they do is…. They direct people to call 911 or

present themselves at the hospital in Kelowna or maybe Penticton, if the

traffic is what it often is in crossing Lake Okanagan.

I look forward to the fact…. All of this, under Bill 36, is going

to open up people wanting to come to British Columbia — the

professionals feel valued, they feel important, and they’re properly

rewarded, the same with the occupations — so that we have the supports

and the people that can deliver. Clearly, this one urgent and primary

care clinic is demonstrating that there is a significant shortage. That

community that I’m referring to has almost 50,000 people, and it takes a

good 30 minutes, under regular traffic, just to get to the

hospital.

We want to make certain that this bill, Bill 36, improves the

government’s ability to be nimble in situations where flexibility is

necessary, but it also raises some questions because of the regulatory

regime that’s going to be imposed on health professionals. With Bill 36,

we support the idea of nimbleness, but we don’t want to burden the

system with undue regulations and a process of slowing things down so

that people can’t get to…. I mean, taking a health professional out of

service, disciplining them or temporarily suspending them would be

something that would be terrible, considering the situation that we find

ourselves in.

While some of the regulation-making powers make sense, there is

still much that we don’t know about this bill, what this bill will do

and how it will impact our health care system. As such, we will be

examining this bill, Bill 36, closely and thoroughly in the committee

stage, particularly as to what to look for or what this will look like

in practice with our health care system in its current state.

We cannot forget that we are still in the middle of this crisis. I

say that meaning…. I don’t think anybody would describe it differently.

We’re dealing with a long, long list of closures, especially in rural

and remote communities. I don’t know if it was the intention of Bill 36

to try to help bring professionals or health occupations into rural and

remote communities, but by the current status of what many of those

communities are facing, I would say that there’s a high degree of need

to make certain that we attract and bring people into these rural

communities.

On top of that…. Then we’ve got the other stress of ambulance

delays and things like that. They’re a significant problem if you happen

to be in rural areas and stuff like that.

We want to support the government in making certain that they can

make the improvements to health care that will streamline and make

certain that we have adequate health care professionals here in the

province.

M. de Jong: I will begin my submission to the House by making this confession.

I hadn’t actually anticipated speaking to Bill 36.

[4:40 p.m.]

I think it’s no surprise to people that we tend to divvy up

responsibilities with respect to legislation. My attention had been

focused on some other legislation that the government has tabled

relating to the provision of health care and the collection of health

care–related costs. That is legislation that’s yet to be

debated.

As I have discovered over the years, there are times when one is

persuaded by the subject matter and the issues being dealt with that it

is prudent to become involved in the debate. And there are other times

when one is persuaded by one’s caucus officers to become involved in the

debate, and this is perhaps a combination of the two.

I hope that I can offer something useful in terms of observations

around the legislation before the House. I would say this — begin by

saying or suggesting that the importance of the bill is reflected in the

breadth of the activities and health-related professionals that it will

impact. That is something that others in the debate have commented upon

and I think have commented upon accurately and fairly.

The provision of health care services in the province is far more

than just doctors and nurses, though there is no way to overestimate the

importance of the work individuals in those professions and vocations

undertake. But whether it is occupational therapists, respiratory

therapists, people providing dental care, dentists, eye care,

optometrists, opticians, these are all aspects of our interwoven health

care services that we, in this province and in this country, to a

certain extent, take for granted and, I think, in many cases, have a

measure of pride in.

I think it is certainly true that Canadians continue to have a

measure of pride in the provisions of our publicly funded health care

system, though it is worth noting that a number of the health care

services that I’ve just mentioned are not covered by that publicly

funded system. I would say this and make this observation: that level of

pride in British Columbia, at least, I feel is on the decline, for

reasons I’ll allude to later in my commentary with respect to Bill

It is also, I think, appropriate, in the course of this debate, to

pay tribute to the people, the folks that dedicate themselves to

providing those services, and acknowledge, as others have, some of the

challenges they have faced, unique challenges, as it relates to the

period of time we’ve come through in the past number of years beyond

anyone’s control, but also some of the challenges they are now

encountering in areas where it falls to this chamber and, ultimately,

the government to try and respond, to try and anticipate and respond to

those challenges and, in some cases, respond in a more effective way

than we have seen thus far.

At the heart of the legislation before us, I think it is fair to

say, is the desire to achieve a professional regulatory model that

protects the public interest. And that notion of the public interest is,

I think, something that needs to be at the forefront. We need to ensure

people understand.

[4:45 p.m.]

Frequently, I think there is confusion about what bodies like a

college are charged with responsibility for, versus other professional

representative bodies that have a different mandate.

By way of example, the profession that I was involved with before

coming to this place, the legal profession, has a public regulatory body

that is charged with protecting the public interest. That’s the Law

Society. It’s populated by — it’s a unique term, I guess — benchers, and

that is their mandate. Now there’s another body that has a different

function. It’s an advocacy group for lawyers called the bar association,

and that exists in various formats. But the roles are very different,

and sometimes people confuse them.

In the same way that the Law Society is charged with protecting,

first and foremost, the public interest, so too would the College of

Physicians be charged with protecting the public interest. This is

different than the Doctors of B.C., which, I will say happily, accepts

as a very important part of its role advancing the public interest. But

it is an advocacy group for its members, for the doctors of practice in

B.C. That similar distinction exists throughout the health care

professions and occupations and vocations.

This bill focuses in on a significant reinvention of the bodies

that exist to protect the public interest with respect to the practice

of various health-related professions, vocations and occupations. One of

the things that the opposition will do throughout the course of the

debate and the discussion and the examination of the bill is to explore

the degree to which the model being proposed in Bill 36 effectively does

that.

By now, it’s become clear that whilst the opposition is anxious to

facilitate the committal of the bill to the committee stage for a closer

examination of many of the clauses contained within this very lengthy

piece of legislation, it will also be exploring in detail some of the

issues that arise.

I’m going to focus on three or four of those issues, as an

indication of where some of those more detailed questions and critiques

and examinations might take place when we do move into that committee

stage of debate.

The first thing that I think it is appropriate to observe — and

many others during the course of the debate have — is the fact that the

bill provides for the creation of a new oversight body: the office of

the superintendent of health professions and occupations oversight. It’s

a new office. It’s a new body with new responsibilities. The

superintendent of health professions and occupational oversight is an

appointment that will be made by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council,

which is the fancy word for the cabinet.

[4:50 p.m.]

I don’t say that to necessarily provoke argument. I say it only to

observe that, as is always the case with the creation of these bodies,

the tension is between ensuring that the officeholder — in this case,

the superintendent — possesses sufficient independence to discharge the

responsibilities that this legislation would presume to grant to her or

him, and measure that and ensure that independence exists in ways that

can’t be compromised by political interference by those who make the

appointment or possess some lingering authority or jurisdiction over the

conduct of the person who occupies the office.

The superintendent is appointed by cabinet, and then the

responsibilities or the mandate for the superintendent are contained in

the legislation itself in, I think,

section 435. There may be some other

sections that are relevant to this. Where the minister, I think, will be

anticipating some lines of inquiry is the degree to which the ability

for the Minister of Health to provide specific direction to the

superintendent, where the minister retains or acquires the right to

direct certain activities on the part of the superintendent….

To what degree does that compromise this notion of independence?

Are there safeguards in place to ensure that that authority isn’t

abused? As I say, it’s a common tension that exists. Someone has to make

the appointment. I don’t think the minister or the government should

anticipate a line of inquiry or an argument that says that there is

absolutely no role thereafter, but the question is whether this

legislation has been drafted in a way that preserves and protects and

safeguards the superintendent’s independence of action. We’ll see, as we

go through the bill in further detail.

The second thing I wanted to comment upon briefly is the creation

of a new independent discipline tribunal. This, I think, is fundamental

to protecting the public interest and ensuring that the public can have

confidence in the discharge of that responsibility to ensure that health

care professionals are conducting themselves appropriately and, where

they’re not, that they are being held to account and that there is

appropriate sanction.

All of that, I think, is fundamental. But again, one needs to

ensure that in the discharge of that responsibility by what will be the

independent discipline tribunal, there are procedural safeguards in

place for the member of the profession that might find themselves on the

receiving end of a complaint to ensure that they have an appropriate

opportunity to provide their explanation and to provide their defence,

as it were, in response to a complaint — again, ensuring that there is,

in the construct being proposed here and in the new structure being

proposed here, sufficient balance.

Again, I can only draw on the experience from my profession. I

will say this about the disciplinary provisions of the Law Society.

Lawyers live in fear.

[4:55 p.m.]

I have to say, they take very seriously the reporting of or the

filing of a complaint and understand that on a monthly basis, under

something called the discipline digest. There are lists made public of

lawyers who have been disciplined, with a description of what they have

been found to have done wrong and a report of the sanction, everything

from disbarment to fined.

I am not an expert, nor do I purport to be, on what the model has

been for each of the health professions and occupations that exist in

the province, what their colleges have done. My sense is that they, in

each case, have been a little bit different, and in some cases are not

seen to have been adequate. This represents an attempt to bring some

consistency across the fold.

I do note, as several of my colleagues have observed, that there

is likely not to be elected representation from the various health care

professions in the way that, for example, exists with the Law Society.

There are certainly appointments to the Law Society, to the Benchers,

but there are elected members, as well, from the profession.

To the extent that that is problematic, I would only say this. As

others have observed, in considering a complaint, it will be important

that the discipline tribunal also understand and have the perspective of

the profession, whether it is a doctor, a nurse, a dentist. When we are

considering concepts such as the reasonable discharge of responsibility

and reasonable care, having people who are familiar with what that

represents with respect to each of the health care professions that this

is going to cover, will be important — there again, an issue that I’m

sure will be the subject of discussion when the bill moves to committee

stage.

Similarly in this, and I’ve just touched upon this, the changes to

the board appointment process, the college appointment process itself,

insofar as they will now, as I understand it, all be ministerial

appointments, is something that the opposition will be canvassing with

the Health Minister, to at least explore the rationale for eliminating

the opportunity that some of these professions heretofore have had to

select from amongst themselves people who can participate in the body

charged with protecting the public interest.

The government, it would appear, has chosen to eliminate that as

an option or an opportunity for practising members of these occupations,

vocations and professions. Determining the wisdom of that decision and

exploring the potential problems associated with that decision, I think,

is a legitimate exercise of the opposition’s responsibility when we move

to committee stage.

Another area that has attracted some commentary in this

discussion, and I’m pleased that it has, is the attention that the

legislation focuses upon the opportunity and ability for internationally

trained and educated health professionals. We have heard a series of

examples. I will add my own and then maybe go a little bit further, if

time permits, and presumptively offer what I hope is a direction that

the government will move in and the colleges will move into, in taking

advantage of the legislative focus that Bill 36 seems to

include.

[5:00 p.m.]

At a time when we were facing, and are facing, severe shortage in

areas like nurses, I was surprised this past summer to receive a phone

call from a woman who had returned from the United States. This was a

former resident of my community in Abbotsford who had taken her nursing

training at a university called Brigham Young — I think, in the annals

of post-secondary education, a fairly well respected university in the

United States, in Utah.

She had done her degree, graduated with all the credentials

necessary. She had then passed the equivalent of the college

examinations in the state of Utah and had been certified as a registered

nurse. At that point, she decided that she wanted to come home to

Canada, to B.C., to Abbotsford. She came here and actually secured an

offer of employment at Royal Columbian Hospital, where they were in

desperate need. After almost a year had passed of trying to get her

credentials recognized, she contacted my office.

I’m not going to suggest that this is an issue that has suddenly

arisen in the last six months. I must say, in all fairness, that this

has proven to be a challenge for a number of years. It was a challenge

back in the day when I sat in the Health Minister’s office.

I will say this. I failed to understand then and fail to

understand now what it is that prevents us, in this prov­ince,

from acknowledging that there are a vast number of training facilities

and schools, outside of our borders, that produce qualified medical

professionals. Why we wouldn’t take the step of accrediting them

beforehand and simply stating, “If you are a graduate of this program,

we accept that you are a qualified professional for the purposes of

operating in British Columbia,” is a question I couldn’t get a

satisfactory answer to when I sat on that side of the House. Apparently,

we still can’t get a satisfactory answer to it.

When someone graduates from the UBC teaching program and gets

hired on by a local school district, they don’t test them to see if they

know how to teach. They accept that they are a qualified teacher. Why

wouldn’t we get to the point in this province where, if you are a

graduate of any number of U.S. schools, any number of schools in the

U.K., any number of schools in France, any number of schools in Germany

— I could list other countries — we would say: “We accept that you are

qualified”?

Now, the trade-off is that we may have some procedural issues in

how we do things in B.C., and you’ll be obliged to take a short course

to ensure that you’re familiar with that or be attached to a

professional that has been operating here, but this arrogance that seems

to exist — and to preclude us from accepting that there are institutions

all over the world that train people as well as we do in B.C. — defies

any explanation.

To the extent that the focus this legislation gives to that issue

can be used to poke, prod and provoke a more realistic response, a more

effective response, I hope that is the case. Again, it’s something that

we will want to explore with the minister, to find out how the tool can

be used to address that issue.

[5:05 p.m.]

It is frustrating beyond description, as I say, that our colleges,

our professional bodies and other agencies continue to harbour this

notion: “We are the only people on the planet that know how to train a

registered nurse. Everyone else has to be dealt with in a suspect

manner.” We can’t afford the delay. We cannot afford to make people wait

one, two or three years in circumstances where they clearly possess the

training and the knowledge to go to work more quickly.

I said at the outset that at the heart of this is the notion of

protection of the public interest. I have to say that we’re having this

conversation in the context and at a time when, I think, the public

interest and public confidence in our health care system are at an

all-time low. It doesn’t make me happy to have to say that.

Colleagues of mine, from across the province, have pointed to

situations that they are confronted by: hospitals and health clinics

that are closed. Some of them are just closed; others are on diversion;

others have emergency rooms where, if you’re going to be in a car

accident, i