Third Session, 41st Parliament

(2018) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 187

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 57 — Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2018

Hon. D. Eby

M. Lee

A. Olsen

Hon. C. Trevena

Bill 55 — Passenger Transportation Amendment Act, 2018

Hon. C. Trevena

J. Sturdy

P. Milobar

T. Stone

J. Thornthwaite

A. Olsen

D. Barnett

S. Sullivan

J. Isaacs

L. Throness

S. Cadieux

B. Stewart

S. Gibson

J. Yap

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of the Whole House

Bill 45 — Budget Measures Implementation (Speculation and

Vacancy Tax) Act, 2018 (continued)

T. Redies

Hon. C. James

S. Thomson

S. Bond

M. Stilwell

S. Sullivan

N. Letnick

A. Weaver

B. Stewart

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018

The House met at 1:31 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

L. Reid: We are joined today by Jon Leech of ASTTBC fame, formerly of that

organization. He did wondrous work for all of us and is a dear friend of

probably every member in this chamber. I’d ask the House to please make him

welcome.

Orders of the Day

Hon. D. Eby: In this chamber, I call second reading, Bill 57, Attorney General Statutes

Amendment Act, 2018. In the little House, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill

45, Budget Measures Implementation (Speculation and Vacancy Tax) Act,

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 57 — ATTORNEY GENERAL STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT,

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the bill be now read a second time.

Bill 57 amends a number of statutes. Amendments to the Civil

Resolution Tribunal Act continue to make improvements to this act. The

act will give the civil resolution tribunal jurisdiction over motor

vehicle accident disputes up to $50,000 for accidents that occur on or

after April 1, 2019.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

The act also grants the tribunal exclusive jurisdiction to

determine whether a person injured in a motor vehicle accident has

suffered a minor injury which will result in a limit on their damages

for pain and suffering.

Although the act has general public support and was unanimously

adopted by all parties in the Legislature, it will be legally

challenged. It is therefore essential that we make the act as clear as

possible. The proposed amendments make additional technical changes to

the act in order to clarify provisions and close potential loopholes.

None of the proposed amendments change the underlying policy of the

act.

Access to justice is a primary objective of class action lawsuits.

Amendments in this bill to the Class Proceedings Act will further this

objective by ensuring that at least 50 percent of awards and settlement

funds that cannot be paid to class members will be provided to the Law

Foundation of British Columbia to support a wide range of access to

justice programs and initiatives.

Class proceedings addressing harm suffered by Indigenous people

will be exempted from this new scheme, ensuring that 100 percent of

undistributed funds remain available for programs and initiatives,

specifically benefiting Indigenous people.

Dr. Peter German’s report Dirty Money: An Independent Review

of Money Laundering in Lower Mainland Casinos makes 48

recommendations to address money laundering in B.C.’s gambling industry.

Government has accepted all recommendations in principle from Dr. Peter

German’s report.

Bill 57 makes three amendments to the Gaming Control Act to

address the intent of four of the report’s recommendations. These

amendments provide new authorities to the gaming policy and enforcement

branch to begin the process of creating a more independent

regulator.

[1:35 p.m.]

Finally, amendments to the Legal Profession Act will provide the

framework for the regulation of new legal service providers called

licensed paralegals. These amendments are intended to increase access

to, and choice in, the provision of legal services, particularly in

areas of underserved or unmet need.

With some limited exceptions, the Legal Profession Act restricts

the practice of law to lawyers. The amendments will expand who may

engage in the practice of law to licensed paralegals, who will be

permitted to provide a limited scope of legal services to the public.

Licensed paralegals will be regulated by the Law Society of British

Columbia.

The amendments will apply the framework of the Legal Profession

Act to licensed paralegals and will provide authority for the Law

Society to establish the scope of practice within the practice of law of

licensed paralegals or a class of licensed paralegals.

Additional amendments will also clarify the interaction between

insurance legislation and the Legal Profession Act, which authorizes the

Law Society to operate an insurance program. The amendments provide that

the Law Society is not an insurer and is not carrying on an insurance

business in respect of the indemnity program that is operated by the Law

Society for its members — both of those sets of amendments coming at the

request of the benchers of the Law Society of British

Columbia.

With that, hon. Speaker, I look forward to hearing what other

members have to say about this miscellaneous statutes amendment

bill.

M. Lee: Let me rise also to speak to Bill 57. I appreciate the Attorney

General and his staff for the briefing that myself and the member for

Richmond-Steveston, my colleague, were able to obtain a mere 80 minutes

ago. That gave me the opportunity to have a quick lunch and to formulate

some thoughts, which I wish to share with this chamber.

Let me, first of all, start by going to

section 4 of the bill,

which does expand the provision of legal services in our province to

include licensed paralegals. This, of course, as the Attorney General

has just referred to, was the outcome of the many reports and

considerations that have been put forward, including by the Law Society

of British Columbia. I appreciate that this has been the outcome of a

particular set of recommendations.

We all know that we can do better in this province in terms of

ensuring that all British Columbians have a greater access to justice,

and establishing a new category of legal practitioners who are not

lawyers and allowing them to do a limited amount of work to assist

individuals who are seeking guidance and navigation through our judicial

system will be important, at least to continue to find greater ways to

promote greater access to our justice system.

Certainly, in the visits I’ve been able to do in the Attorney

General critic role, I have seen some of the important work that our

family law justice access centres and our First Nations courts have done

as examples of ways to enable and open up our justice system to people

who typically have a hard time finding their way through our judicial

system, particularly in the areas of family law, employment law, debtor

or creditor arrangements, as well as appearing in front of various

tribunals like small claims matters and the like.

As we look at this, I know that the Attorney General, in his

mandate letter, has an important directive by the Premier to consider

our judicial system and improving our access to justice in this

province. This, I expect, is one initiative that the Attorney General

will bring forward, and I look forward to working with him and seeing

what else he is considering to come forward with, on this.

[1:40 p.m.]

As we know, there have been many leaders in the judicial community

who have put forward important statements and reviews of the challenges

with our justice system. Len Doust, in 2011, stated in particular,

around our legal aid system, that it continues to fail those individuals

and families who are most needy of assistance in our justice system and

in our communities. A quote from his report, back in 2011, indicated

that it’s been unanimous, in terms of the view that:

“There are many people who are left behind by legal aid in British

Columbia and that it is the most disadvantaged members of our community

who are suffering the most as a result of inadequate legal aid, the very

people for whom the service was created.”

He went on to say:

“It is always important to remember that the people applying for

legal aid are often dealing with the legal system for the first time and

are unsure and intimidated by the process. They require patience and

understanding in explaining the process in guiding them through the

legal system.

“Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of British Columbia residents are

struggling with a range of problems and do so without the benefit of a

lawyer or qualified assistance. They face hearings, trials, judges,

lawyers and legal documents alone, putting their children, their mental

and physical health, their economic independence and their personal

safety at risk.”

More recently, Chief Justice Robert Bauman has said that it is

obviously important and worth considering this opportunity, in terms of

expanding legal service providers, as the Law Society has recommended,

given the ongoing systemic problems.

In December 2014, the Law Society unanimously adopted a task force

report that recommended that the Law Society seek this amendment to the

Legal Profession Act: authorizing it to establish and regulate new

classes of legal service providers in order to address unmet and

unserviced legal needs.

That report had noted that as much as 85 percent of people with

legal problems were not getting the assistance of a lawyer. Many of

these people, of course, were left to solve their legal problems on

their own. This has been the challenge that our court system has seen

with self-represented litigants — individuals who choose to address

their legal issues and come forward in the court system.

I think it has been, as acknowledged by many, a burden which is

continuing to lead to longer and more prolonged time periods, waiting

periods, to get through our court system, to get into the courtroom to

have matters heard. So this particular initiative will help to address

some of that.

The Law Society, in their reporting, has found that about 66

percent of British Columbians experienced at least one serious and

difficult-to-resolve problem in the three years preceding a 2009

Ipsos-Reid survey. They also found that, despite this, 70 percent of the

respondents to that survey seek no assistance to try and resolve the

problem, preferring to go it alone, as they say, rather than to seek the

services of a legal professional. The three main reasons for seeking no

assistance that were cited were: legal assistance was not actually

required or necessary, legal assistance was too costly for the issue,

and legal assistance was too difficult for the plaintiff to

access.

Of the 30 percent who did seek legal assistance for their

problems, only half sought assistance from lawyers directly. That should

be, actually, 30 percent who did seek assistance with their legal

problems — only half of those sought assistance from a lawyer. Again,

some of those who sought help from someone who was not a lawyer did so

because they had a desire to avoid the court, as well as the expectation

that non-lawyers are cheaper than lawyers. That’s probably true, given

the state of our legal aid tariff.

However, expanding legal services to non-lawyers is not the only

way to expand access to justice. As I said, if there’s an unmet need for

legal services, lawyers should have the opportunity to review the way in

which they can offer services to groups.

[1:45 p.m.]

Of course, I must acknowledge that many members of the bar in this

province do great service for British Columbians by taking on countless

hours of pro bono work — some of that work they do which, clearly,

they’re not billing for. Many lawyers are doing that on a consultative

basis. They do it in their communities with not-for-profit organizations

in the roles that they play. But we need to continue to find ways to

make our legal aid access system work well, through legal aid, for

example.

I think that as we look at the expansion of the consideration of

non-lawyer legal service providers, we need to address and ensure that

the public is protected. I expect that one of the key areas that the Law

Society will first consider further will be in the family law area. We

need to ensure that the people who are providing these legal services in

that area, for example, are properly trained, are regulated, are

carrying liability insurance in circumstances where the absence of such

safeguards would clearly create an unacceptable level of risk for our

province.

The Law Society had acknowledged that once this regulatory scheme

was provided for under this bill, they will continue to develop the

credentialing and regulatory scheme for this change — and that the

in-depth work that the Law Society will be responsible for conducting

under this bill will be moving forward to identify the specific types of

legal services that the public requires and the type of training that is

necessary to provide those services in a competent manner.

The original proposal from the Law Society had nearly 20 areas

where they proposed the new class of legal practitioner would be trained

in. For example, in the area of family law, these would include

effective interviewing skills; triage intake and assessment; dealing

with families in crisis; screening for family violence and power

imbalances; cultural competence training; effective advocacy; enforcing

court orders; business and practice management fundamentals; identifying

when to get a lawyer involved; referring a client for independent legal

advice; and dealing with unrepresented parties.

Having said that, the proposal to move forward with a new class of

legal practitioners is not entirely a new concept. The Law Society of

Ontario has approved in principle a new licence that would permit

paralegals to provide some form of family law legal services in the

areas of custody, access, simple child support cases, restraining

orders, enforcement and simple and joint divorces without

property.

Clearly, as we look at other jurisdictions, this is something that

law societies working with government are moving forward to progress.

Over the border, our immediate neighbours down south, Washington state,

have had a similar program that allows for a new class of legal

practitioners. We’re seeing that in many of the states in the U.S.,

recognizing, of course, they have a different system. But they have a

similar approach in order to improve access to justice.

The legislation also sets out the fact that the Law Society, as I

mentioned, will have control over and responsibility for determining

what this new class of legal practitioner will be responsible for. The

Law Society will have oversight on that.

That’s certainly something that at committee stage on this bill,

we’ll want to have some discussion about, in terms of what the

expectation of government will be on that. They will also have the

ability, of course, to designate what a new class of legal service

provider would be and the scope of practice for that class.

[1:50 p.m.]

I believe that it’s important, as the government has

acknow­ledged here in this legislation, that it is the Law Society

of British Columbia that is best positioned to regulate legal service

providers. They are the ones, after all, who know best how to regulate

their profession. I say that because it is surprising that in contrast,

as we’ve seen under Bill 49 in this House, this government has taken an

opposite approach where they have taken professional governance out of

the hands of professional engineers and professional foresters, for

example, under that bill. They put in place a superintendent to provide

oversight on codes of ethics, professional responsibilities and training

and conflicts of interest.

These are matters that the Law Society of British

Col­um­bia administers for all lawyers in this province.

Here we have a situation where under one bill, this bill, the government

recognizes the importance of the Law Society for determining the scope

of practice, the new categories of legal practitioners who are

non-lawyers who might provide legal services in this province — that

they clearly have that responsibility.

Of course, it’s very important that this government continue to

recognize the opportunity, the ability and the confidence that the

members of the public of British Columbia have in lawyers governing

themselves under the Law Society of British Columbia with some external

lay members, as there would be in this effort as well, recognizing that

public component. We have lawyers as a professional class in this

province that continue to have the confidence of British Columbians and

this government.

Yet this government says to engineers and professional foresters:

“We don’t have the same confidence in your ability to govern yourselves.

We don’t have the same confidence in your ability to govern your ethics,

your conflicts, your training. We need you to give us competence

certificates for projects every step of the way.” I am, in one respect,

pleased to see the continued confidence that this government has in the

legal profession of this province, but reluctantly, I’m sorry to see

that the government does not have the same confidence in other

professionals in our province, like professional engineers and

foresters.

I would like to go on, though, to say that the Attorney General,

in this Bill 57, has taken the opportunity to address the Civil

Resolution Tribunal Act — which, of course, a few months ago we had the

opportunity to review in this House. Members on this side included the

member for Richmond-Steveston as the lead critic for ICBC.

In this bill, there are a number of amendments being proposed.

Again, as I learned just a little over an hour ago in terms of the

briefing, many of them address some potential transitions and gaps in

the tribunal act to deal with this new responsibility that the tribunal

will have in making determinations and adjudications around minor

injury. This does give me the opportunity, though, to comment on the

nature of that determination that this government has provided authority

to the tribunal to do.

As we looked at in terms of the Civil Resolution Tribunal

Amendment Act, the act that governs the determination under the

Insurance Vehicle Regulation, what this government did — on the Friday

before the Remembrance Day long weekend, the Friday after this House

rose — was to table and issue that regulation.

That regulation expanded the definition of “minor injury” to

include brain injury and concussion. This is, to say the least, a grave

concern that we would have, with the increased jurisdiction of the civil

resolution tribunal. Already we’ve had concerns about the competence and

the ability of that tribunal to deal with matters of personal injury,

matters that include psychiatric and psychological conditions, as well

as pain, and now brain injury and concussion.

[1:55 p.m.]

This is a concern because, after all, back in the committee stage,

in May of 2018 — in answers to questions from my colleague from

Richmond-Steveston and myself — the Attorney General said that no

individuals with brain injuries or with broken bones are subject to the

limit on pain and suffering awards or the minor injury

definition.

When I asked, “Can the Attorney General at least confirm that the

way that the minor injury definition is today” — that is, back in May,

when we were passing the original legislation — “will not be extended in

such a way that will be prejudicial to British Columbians?” the

Attorney’s response was: “The member will know that regulation-making

powers are constrained by the statute itself. In this case, this is the

regulation-making power in relation to minor injuries.” This is the

concern that we have with this government. It passes major legislation

and then puts it all into the regulation-making power of this government

through cabinet.

The concern that we had at the time was whether the minor injury

definition would be expanded. The Attorney General clearly indicated

that it would not be, yet he has done that through regulation. Now we’re

seeing some adjustments, let’s say, in this bill, in terms of how the

tribunal will function to deal with minor injuries. Yet the major

concern that we should be dealing with and addressing in this House is

the greater expansion of “minor injury” to include brain injury and

concussion.

I’m under the understanding — when I talk to those who deal with

claimants who have minor injuries, defined in this way — that this

government has effectively included up to 90 percent of all injuries

that we would see claimed to ICBC under the definition of “minor injury”

now. That means that 10 percent of injuries are not included, but this

is the scale and scope of what this minor injury definition has been

included to provide.

The Attorney General went on to say that the regulation-making

power is restricted by very strict specific directions, and he would

assure myself, at the time, that “if government attempted to put a more

serious injury in by regulation that was outside the jurisdiction that

this

section sets out, it would be challenged immediately by plaintiff’s

counsel.”

Well, I would suggest that as we debate this Bill 57 and talk

about amendments to how the tribunal should function, and whether its

decision, under

section 2 of this bill, really gets to a point where “a

party alleges that a matter in a proceeding before the court relates to

a minor injury…the court must stay the proceeding until the tribunal

determines,” in the case of an accident claim, “whether an injury is a

minor injury….” This bill merely strengthens, of course, what was

intended by the government in the first place, which is to take the

determination of minor injuries out of the hands of the

courts.

Judiciaries have been trained, through case law in this province

and in this country, to deal with the complexity of injuries to British

Columbians, the complexity that would include brain injuries and

concussions. Many of us, including people that we work with here, know

that brain injuries and concussions can have implications and effects,

even though they may not be determined or evident in the first short

period of time that this government is putting on these new claimants,

which is a four-month period, under this regulation. They may show up

later.

[2:00 p.m.]

We have a test around serious impairment. We will have situations

where, because the burden of proof is on the claimant himself or herself

to demonstrate serious impairment, we’re putting British Columbians in a

very tough position to deal with what, I think, all members of this

House recognize.

When we talk about mental health, when there’s been a physical

trauma to the brain and those who are continuing to suffer the effects

of that, surely we should all be sensitive to how we’re dealing with

that — not suggesting, as the regulation is doing now, sending those

claimants to the designated medical or health practitioner to determine

whether that individual has a minor injury. This is under a very tight

time frame, 28 days, to put out a report under a very low fee

schedule.

I understand that last year, there were 63,000 minor injury claims

that went to ICBC — 63,000 potential minor injury claims that now this

tribunal is going to be faced with, now with an expanded definition.

When we had that debate and discussion in committee stage around minor

injury with the Attorney General, he indicated that if the government

oversteps the act by expanding the definition, that would be, in his

estimation, subject to immediate challenge by plaintiff’s

counsel.

This government is proceeding at a time when we need to continue

to encourage access for justice. I appreciate that the civil resolution

tribunal — which was brought forward under the previous government,

under the leadership of my colleague from Prince George–Valemount — was

done for specific purposes, with a specific mandate, dealing with strata

disputes in the way that it has.

Encouraging legal providers who are not lawyers to come forward in

a restrained and specific area to provide legal services is another

example where we can increase access to justice. This, though, is not

that. This is increasing the role of government and ICBC overtop of the

minor injury definition and determination in a way that is highly

prejudicial to British Columbians. The way that this government brought

forward that regulation will be called into question, as in the words of

the Attorney General.

This will merely block more of the work of the tribunal. This is

not what anybody wants to see. We want to see people get access to

justice to deal with their issues, their minor injury claims, to be able

to get the kind of care and attention they need to get that whole

situation of a traumatic accident behind them. But this isn’t going to

do that — not if the government is acting beyond its scope of the act

and introducing something that….

As I understand it, when consulting with various associations —

psychiatric, psychological and others dealing with mental health — the

Attorney General had said to them, as well, directly that brain injury

would not be included in the minor injury definition. I think this

government needs to explain to British Columbians why they’ve gone ahead

and done this.

I think that as we look at…. I’ve commented on the health care

practitioner concept that’s in the regulation itself. This is to assist

the tribunal under its adjusted responsibilities in this bill. Health

practitioners include acupuncturists, chiropractors, dentists, massage

therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists,

counsellors and kinesiologists.

There is now going to be a new roster, just like under Bill 49.

You will be certified by the government with a stamp of approval by the

government that you are in a position to deal with minor injury. But

these are complex matters, and I think that regulation is merely making

it harder for British Columbians to seek the kind of treatment they need

and the determination they need under this new regime.

[2:05 p.m.]

I see that my time is coming to a close here on this particular

bill. Let me just say that I look at two other parts of the bill with

encouraging greater funds to go to the Law Foundation of British

Columbia. I think that that’s an important area to consider. We don’t

know, from a class action proceeding, how many of those funds would not

typically go to the claimants who are part of that class action — those

that are unclaimed, in terms of these amounts. I understand from the

briefing that that could be in the thousands of dollars or it could be

in the millions of dollars. It just raises the question as to what else

this government is doing to encourage access to justice.

The work of the Law Foundation is very important. I certainly sat

on a board of a public legal education organization, promoting access to

justice — the Justice Education Society. They received, for many years,

both from government and from the Law Foundation, important funding to

move forward with their initiatives.

That’s just an example of an organization that does good work in

this area and, I presume, will have benefit — not that organization

necessarily but other organizations alongside of it that continue to

promote access to justice and provide the tools and resources to the

public to help them navigate through the justice system. I hope to see

other resources that this government is prepared to dedicate towards

access to justice, beyond just this undefined amount.

A. Olsen: I was somewhat prepared today for a short speech, and then the

member went and used the entire time. So now I am….

Interjection.

A. Olsen: I used up the time yesterday.

It’s my pleasure today to stand and speak to Bill 57. I do listen

with intent to the member for Vancouver-Langara, as he does have some

important insights that I think…. I look forward to hearing him ask the

questions to the minister during committee stage and engaging as is

necessary. Certainly the member has much more depth of field than I do

on this file, so I thank him for the comments that he just

made.

This miscellaneous bill makes a number of important amendments to

four key pieces of legislation, with the purpose of furthering the

direction that this government has been taking in improving the state of

ICBC’s finances and in dealing with money laundering in B.C.’s

casinos.

The civil resolution tribunal, or the CRT, is an on-line tribunal

that resolves small claims. Changes to the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act

will give the tribunal jurisdiction over motor vehicle accident disputes

up to $50,000 and further enable them to make determinations of whether

or not an injury qualifies as a minor injury.

This builds upon legislation that was unanimously passed by this

House, in this chamber, during the spring sitting earlier this year in

the Civil Resolution Tribunal Amendment Act, which seeks to remedy the

substantial changes facing the Insurance Corporation of B.C., or

ICBC.

Legislation governing class action proceedings in British Columbia

is also being shifted by the act before us that we’re debating today.

The amendments to the Class Proceedings Act require that at least 50

percent of undistributed awards, the settlement funds from class action

suits, be disbursed to the Law Foundation of B.C., a non-profit

foundation that funds projects and programs in the province in areas of

legal education, research, aid and more.

Currently undistributed awards and settlement funds from class

action suits are disbursed through the legal convention of Cy Pres, or

as near as possible. In other words, funds that may have been awarded in

a proceeding relating to a medical class action might be allocated to a

medical foundation to ensure that unclaimed money still supports the

cause that it was awarded to. The Law Foundation of B.C., with its broad

mandate to improve access to justice in our province, will now receive a

portion of these unclaimed funds.

[2:10 p.m.]

Importantly, class action suits addressing harm suffered primarily

by Indigenous people are exempt from this allocation of funds. The

entirety of unclaimed funds allocated to Indigenous people in class

action proceedings will instead continue to be managed according to Cy

Pres in an effort to ensure that the benefit of funds is felt by

Indigenous people. I think that it’s important. I’d like to hear, and

I’ll be asking, what level of consultation has been taken with

Indigenous folks on this.

When there’s not a change being made, I can understand that

perhaps there’s a feeling that there isn’t a need to have much

consultation. But if there is a change being made, perhaps it’s time to

have the conversation about whether or not that is still working for

people. So I’d be interested to find out more about that, and we’ll be

asking more about it at committee stage.

The third act adjusted by this legislation before us is the Gaming

Control Act, one that has been the source of a lot of conversation in

British Columbia over the past number of months. It continues to enact

the recommendations of Peter German’s report into money laundering

released earlier this year. It enables the gaming policy and enforcement

branch to issue directives without ministerial approval, further

strengthening the authority of the regulator to respond to

money-laundering concerns. It also allows the gaming policy and

enforcement branch to ban, in consultation with the RCMP, individuals

suspected to have been engaged in money laundering in British Columbia

casinos.

Finally, this act also amends the Legal Profession Act by

establishing licensed paralegals as practitioners capable of delivering

legal services. Certainly, the member for Vancouver-Langara highlighted,

I think, the importance of being able to expand legal services in this

province so that people are able to get the kind of advice and the kind

of support that they need as they go through the process.

I remain interested to see how the scope of their practice will be

established in regulation, in the regulatory body. But I think that this

is an important move that will broaden access to legal services for

British Columbians. There are also additional amendments to provide

clarification to the insurance program that the Law Society of B.C.

offers to its members.

Overall, the miscellaneous statutes enshrined in Bill 57

demonstrate a general commitment to the increased access to justice for

British Columbians. I think that’s something that we all support in this

House and, certainly, the B.C. Green Party supports. It’s encouraging

that more people have access to legal services, thanks to an increase in

funds for the Law Foundation of B.C. and the empowerment of paralegals

to offer legal service.

I’m also pleased to see the further commitment to the

recommendation of Peter German’s report on money laundering, in addition

to more action in remedying the problems faced by ICBC. I look forward

to learning more about these changes at committee stage, as they mark an

important step for improving justice in our province. I’ll take my seat

now and thank the Speaker for the opportunity to speak to this bill

today.

Hon. C. Trevena: Seeing no further speakers, I move second reading of the

act.

Motion approved.

Hon. C. Trevena: I move the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to

be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 57, Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2018, read a second

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

next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Trevena: I call second reading of Bill 55.

BILL 55 — PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION

AMENDMENT ACT,

Hon. C. Trevena: I move that the bill now be read for a second time.

[2:15 p.m.]

It is my pleasure to rise today to speak about Bill 55, the

Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. Many people have the experience

of waiting for a cab, either at a stand or on the corner in the rain or

at home, hoping it’ll be there in time to get to the flight you want to

catch.

For the last six years or so, many have looked to their smartphone

apps as providing a solution. In this, our first year of government, I

have heard from many who want such a solution. Some see that the app

will replace cabs. Others feel it will allow for transportation in rural

communities unserved by public transportation.

The legislation before us today does two things. It modernizes the

taxi sector, and it does pave the way for app-based ride-hailing. We

know that people want new, convenient and safe options to get around,

and this legislation opens that door.

We want to get this right for B.C. B.C. is different from the rest

of the country because we have the Passenger Transportation Board, and

we’re using that to ensure that our new demand-driven approach, rooted

in data, works.

This bill delivers on our government’s commitment to bring in

legislation which will set the stage for app-based ride-hailing. The

bill amends the Passenger Transportation Act to modernize the regulatory

framework for taxis and passenger-directed services. It also has

substantive changes to seven other statutes.

This is complex legislation that is informed by the work of the

Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, which provided its

recommendations to this House earlier this year on commercial app-based

ride-hailing. The bill is also the product of Dr. Dan Hara’s report

entitled Modernizing Taxi Regulation , which included a number

of suggestions to enable the existing industry to remain viable and to

compete on an equal footing should app-based ride-hailing services be

introduced in B.C. I also want to take the opportunity to acknowledge

the introduction of some private member bills in this House, which have

also been useful contributions.

The approach set out in this legislation is also informed by

experiences elsewhere. Whether the gridlock that New York City is now

trying to address, in addition to its already dense traffic, or the

accident in Toronto resulting from a lack of regulation on drivers, we

know that the absence of…. A well-balanced regulatory framework for

app-based ride-hailing services is necessary to ensure that B.C. doesn’t

repeat the mistakes made elsewhere.

We believe that the changes set out in this bill strike the right

balance between meeting consumer demand for more services while

establishing a modern regulatory framework that prioritizes safety for

all British Columbians.

First and foremost, the bill does not propose any change to the

provincial regulation of passenger-directed vehicle services in this

province. The Passenger Transportation Board, an independent tribunal,

will continue its role in receiving applications and setting out terms

and conditions of licences, including those from companies seeking to

provide transportation network services in which passengers hail and pay

for trips with their smartphones. The Passenger Transportation Board

will have the authority to determine the rates charged to passengers as

well as the supply and operating area of vehicles under licences

authorizing transportation network services.

Safety is key to our approach. New requirements are proposed for

drivers of taxis and other passenger-directed vehicles to meet a

provincial record check standard. This change addresses the gaps in the

current municipal approach in which some communities demand police

record checks of drivers while others do not.

To strengthen compliance and enforcement, the bill proposes

significant increases to the administrative penalties for non-compliance

of licence holders as well as a hefty increase to the maximum fines for

offences, up to $100,000 a day for corporations who contravene the

act.

The bill contains several changes to ensure that the new regime

effectively monitors and provides an adequate supply of accessible

vehicles where they are needed.

To reflect the unique operating framework of the transportation

network services in which drivers typically use their own personal

vehicles to carry passengers, amendments are proposed to the Insurance

(Vehicle) Act and the Insurance Corporation Act to ensure that ICBC can

develop new insurance products for the use of app-based

ride-hailing.

The bill also addresses the overlap of jurisdiction, unique to

this province, between local governments and the Passenger

Transportation Board. We’re proposing changes to local government

legislation that remove the authority of a municipality to refuse to

allow the delivery of transportation services within their jurisdiction

despite the Passenger Transportation Board’s approval.

[2:20 p.m.]

Finally, I want to highlight the checks and balances we propose to

ensure the legislative framework for passenger transportation services

in this province works, first and foremost, for British

Columbians.

The bill proposes to place a requirement on the House to appoint a

special committee to review how things are working. We recognize the

multiplicity of stakeholder viewpoints on the topics of taxis and

ride-hailing. That’s why we’re providing members of this House, working

together in a joint committee, to have an opportunity to engage

stakeholders in a transparent and public review process and then make

whatever recommendations the committee deems appropriate to ensure we

have a model that works for everyone in this province.

British Columbians have told us they want more transportation

options. They’ve also told us they expect these options to be safe,

affordable and convenient. Our government believes this bill marks a

significant step in ensuring such services will soon be available to all

the citizens of this province.

J. Sturdy: I wish I was more pleased to rise today to speak to Bill 55, the

Passenger Transportation Amendment Act, and hopeful that we were going

to see a piece of legislation that would allow ride-hailing to be

embraced by British Columbians in the near future. But once again we’re

debating a piece of legislation that does not make it possible to do

something today, nor tomorrow, but at the end of a somewhat convoluted

process and a high level of uncertainty, in a year or two or perhaps

never.

This government has been in office for 18 months now. The

government even appointed a legislative committee on ride-sharing, of

which I was fortunate to be a member, and then, unfortunately, chose to

disregard most of the recommendations — such as, simply, the requirement

for a class 4 driver’s licence, for example, when the committee

recognized that a class 5 was adequate for ride-sharing and taxi

drivers.

The entire time they have been promising the ride-sharing rules

are coming, that they’re just around the corner, that they will be here

soon and that we’ll have them by 2017 Christmas or 2018 Christmas and

now, perhaps, 2019 or, more likely, 2020 — if at all. Unfortunately,

there’s not much in this bill that will tell us when ride-sharing will

be active in British Columbia.

Let’s imagine, for a second, the happening of other things. The

NDP’s made-up speculation tax, you know, is the one that doesn’t

particularly address speculation. Imagine if the Deputy Premier said,

“Well, you know, it could be in effect next year, or it could be the

year after, or just wait until you get your property taxes, and then

we’ll figure it out,” or if the Attorney General had said: “Well, we

don’t know when that referendum on proportional representation is

happening. It could be next year, could be tomorrow, could be

never.”

Actually, all things considered, he might have done that, given

everything else he left for deciding after. We’ll see what happens here.

But last Christmas the NDP said this would be a thing. I have here a

quote from the NDP news release: “The B.C. NDP support the passing of

new rules to introduce ride-sharing to B.C. in 2017.” Unfortunately,

they then said it’s too hard, too difficult, too complicated, to do what

literally every other province and hundreds of jurisdictions around the

world have done, and that it’ll have to be later.

A quote from Mr. Vaughn Palmer in today’s Sun : “Sure,

they wasted no time launching a half-baked speculation tax and in

stacking the deck in favour of electoral change. But the implementation

of a service that is already in place in comparable jurisdictions all

over the world? Well, some things just can’t be rushed.”

[2:25 p.m.]

I’m going to take a minute to list some of the jurisdictions that

have ride-sharing, either through companies that operate as close as

Seattle or Alberta or through local companies. Iraq has international

ride-sharing, called Careem, which operates in Baghdad. Even Baghdad has

ride-sharing. Careem operates in more than a dozen countries across

Asia. Afghanistan has an Uber, with a “b,” called Buber, which is

probably a better approach than here.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

J. Sturdy: Even Syria, with all its problems, has ride-sharing. Russia has

Uber, but we don’t. Some other jurisdictions — Edmonton, Calgary,

Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Halifax — all have ride-sharing.

North Battleford, Saskatchewan, has ride-sharing, population 13,888. You

might say that is a tiny population and they have less to worry about

than British Columbia. At the same time, Shanghai, home to six times as

many people as in all of British Columbia, has Uber.

Now, we have here today, if this bill is any indication, a

realization that there’ll be little under the tree for Christmas coming

forward, because we won’t be seeing this type of opportunity. Sadly,

it’ll be like waiting for a cab in Vancouver, standing at the curb,

told, “It’s going to arrive soon. Really, it will be here soon,” but you

wait, and you wait, and you wait, and sometimes it just never

arrives.

It’s been 18 months, and even with this legislation, we still

don’t have a clear pathway to ride-sharing. Eighteen months where — and

it’s true; I actually checked on it today — your hamburger can get an

Uber, but we cannot.

Government seems to be approaching ride-sharing like it’s

inventing something new. Yet jurisdictions around the world have

ride-sharing. Every other Canadian province has managed to pass

ride-sharing legislation. They have people getting to appointments on

time. They still have a taxi industry. They still have public transit.

They have systems where people have the power of choice. But British

Columbians are being denied these kinds of choices.

I have no idea why government is reluctant to allow a service that

has been adopted by jurisdictions, large and small, across the globe.

With the constant promises from this government, it feels like we’ve

been waiting forever.

I know that getting ride-sharing on the road is one of those areas

where we do agree with the Third Party. But this bill is set up to

create further delays and make it impossible to deliver ride-sharing.

Amendments will need to occur to eight different statutes: the Passenger

Transportation Act, Insurance Vehicle Act, Insurance Corporation Act,

Motor Vehicle Act, Commercial Transport Act, Local Government Act,

Community Charter and the Vancouver Charter.

Through this amendment, the Passenger Transportation Board, an

independent tribunal, will have its powers expanded enormously. It will

decide the fare structure, the floor and the ceiling rates. It will have

exclusive jurisdiction in determining supply and operating area for both

taxies and ride-hailing companies.

They evidently apply a three-part test to this determination in

terms of their decision on whether and how ride-hailing will be

implemented, the tests of: is the applicant fit and proper to provide

the service; is there a public need for the service; and does the

applicant promote sound economic conditions in the industry?

[2:30 p.m.]

It’s this last test which is particularly a mysterious

requirement. How will it be interpreted? Sound economic conditions for

whom — the taxi industry? Where is the consideration for the consumer?

This is how decisions will be made with regard to ride-hailing. Is it

the consumer, or is it the industry that is dominant in the decision to

promote or adopt or approve ride-hailing?

The concern is that there’s not a worry about the consumer. What

happens if there are no good transportation options available? The

provision of the service is good for whom — the taxi industry, the

drivers, the consumer?

I’m told this will be based on Passenger Transportation Board

precedent, of which I don’t believe there is much in terms of this

particular type of activity. We learn through the decisions and the

presentations through the standing committee that there was little data

available to base decisions on, even with the requirement of the public

need, other than anecdote.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

I might add that this legislation does ignore the bulk of the

committee recommendations with regard to boundaries and rate and vehicle

caps, along with the previously mentioned class 5 recommendations. When

combined with the opportunity of local government to set vehicle types,

to create the requirement in each jurisdiction for business licences and

the ability of local government to determine the age of the vehicles,

the type of propulsion in vehicles and the cleanliness of vehicles,

amongst other things, it just strikes me that the implementation of

ride-hailing in British Columbia will be a very cumbersome process, if

it’s possible at all.

Instead of unleashing the potential of ride-sharing, the

government has offered up some of the most restrictive rules and

roadblocks for ride-share drivers in Canada. They will be subject to

commercial licences, special training, road tests, medical exams and

annual vehicle inspections.

I don’t think there’s debate around criminal record checks, an

annual or appropriate health certificate, drivers’ abstracts and these

types of things, but these other issues are roadblocks that will be

problematic for the industry to come into play in British Columbia at

all. Then, of course, there’s the need for the Passenger Transportation

Board and ICBC decisions.

Government has had the opportunity to bring clarity and standards

to a service that people want. Instead, with this bill, they’re offering

the potential of a wild patchwork of fares and regulations across

different cities and different jurisdictions. Across the Lower Mainland,

there could be a dozen different ride-sharing fare regimes.

The minister mentioned that this is all about safety, and we

certainly agree that safety needs to be paramount. But we also need the

entrepreneurial spirit and the opportunity for the new economy to be

embraced and to be supported.

It’s not really about public safety. In reality, it’s about

providing safety for the status quo industry. It’s not building the kind

of public safety that Mothers Against Drunk Driving know ride-sharing

can build by getting drunk drivers off the street. In fact, in many

ways, you could say that we have a ride-sharing bill designed to stop

ride-sharing.

Apparently, the way this government works, it takes three times as

long to bring this framework for ride-sharing in as it does for them to

alter our electoral system. Let’s remember that ride-sharing is already

operating in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jurisdictions around

the world.

[2:35 p.m.]

When it comes to changing democracy, it’s a matter of a few weeks

to cook up two electoral models that don’t exist anywhere in the world,

and this bill fits the pattern for this session. While the government is

telling people that this legislation will bring ride-sharing to British

Columbia, it is in fact all about making it next to impossible for

ride-hailing to hit the road in the near future.

It’s one more delay piled on a legacy of broken promises and

delays. There is no surprise coming from this government. This

government has spent this fall talking about how it wants to alter our

democracy so every vote counts. Yet, it’s promoting a system where

backroom party officials instead of voters will decide who gets a seat

in this House. It sounds like less democracy, not more. Then there’s the

so-called speculation tax and delivering higher taxes for hard-working

B.C. families. The one thing it fails to end is flipping and

speculation.

So it’s no surprise that this government, after more than a year

and a half of delays and broken promises, delivered a piece of

legislation that looks to throttle the potential of ride-sharing.

Instead of ride-sharing, we can say that government is offering up

ride-failing.

Interjection.

J. Sturdy: There you go. It’s failing all the people who are waiting for a

cab yesterday, today and tomorrow. It’s failing all the businesses

losing productivity to staff who just can’t get to meetings and

appointments due to a lack of transportation options. It’s failing

B.C.’s tech sector, which thrives on ride-sharing in other successful

jurisdictions. It’s failing our tourism sector that sees tourists

welcomed to British Columbia and welcomed to long waits for a

cab.

The owner of Harbour Air just blocks from here has called time and

time again for ride-sharing because his customers are astonished when

they land in Vancouver or Victoria and can’t order an Uber or other

ride-share. In my own riding, we see countless tourists coming to

Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton and finding out they’re forced to use

an overtaxed taxi industry rather than any ride-sharing apps that they

have on their phone already, either at home or to use it in other

countries or other tourist destinations around the world.

A quote here, Kirk LaPointe, Business in Vancouver , just

today: “Like its proportional representation proposals, the ride-hailing

plan leaves much to be defined in the months ahead. This is a government

so intent on studying situations that it needs to start paying

tuition.”

It’s failing public safety, where ride-sharing could help reduce

impaired driving, according to the University of Philadelphia study.

Availability of ride-sharing can reduce impaired driving by more than 5

percent.

The great success of ride-sharing is the innovation that is

unleashed — the power it has handed to its customers. The wants and

needs have set the quality of vehicles, the fairness of the fares and

the expanded availability of transportation options. But instead of

being driven by the customer and the consumer, this government, through

the Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC, is going to decide the

supply, the price and the boundaries for ride-sharing.

In 18 months, this government has failed families of the province

through its transportation policy. More families are stuck in gridlock,

with a failure to address the Massey Tunnel bottleneck and pushing back

the solution by years and adding billions of dollars, undoubtedly, to

the cost.

There will be fewer projects at higher costs just like the

government’s previous incarnation years back, forcing unionization on

public projects. The failure to deliver ride-sharing is denying people

the benefit that would flow from powerful new transportation choices.

This legislation is yet another transportation failure that leaves

British Columbians paying the price for the NDP’s ideologically driven

policies.

We have a bill that once again has little of substance, pawning

off responsibilities to other bodies for regulation that will be

developed down the road, with intense regulation and no actual plan to

bring a much-needed service anywhere near the smartphones of British

Columbia.

[2:40 p.m.]

As we move into committee stage, I hope that we’ll be able to see

support for amendments to this legislation from our Third Party

colleagues that reflect their previously stated ideals along with ours,

including allowing private insurers to provide an insurance product to

the ride-hailing-vehicle industry. Private insurance opportunities are

already provided all across North America, and the product does not have

to be re-created. It’s available now. We’ll be looking to make

amendments to allow for this type of product to be provided.

Ride-hailing, typically, is part-time work. Class 5 licensing

should be adequate. To get a class 4 licence is an onerous process. I

know, from personal experience, as I do have a class 4 licence. But it

adds and creates additional barriers, especially for very much a

part-time job.

Out of curiosity, I did phone ICBC, in the motor vehicle branch,

to see if I could book myself a time to get a road test for a class 4

licence. Unfortunately, after half an hour on hold, I gave up. I will

try again and will update the House in the future to see, actually, what

the process is to get a class 4 licence. But my experience has been that

it adds a barrier that is really going to limit the ability for people

to take up this opportunity and provide transportation services around

British Columbia.

We’ll be seeking an amendment in this regard, and hopefully, we’ll

see the support of our Third Party colleagues. This is a more

challenging amendment to try and incorporate, given the nature of the

legislation as it’s written, but seeking to let the market drive the

price and volume of drivers is key to how this service is supposed to be

working. It should be a market-driven service, and that determines the

price, and it provides an opportunity for more people to come into the

industry, where it’s necessary at any given time of day.

It should be a market-based approach. The approach we are seeing

by government flies in the face of the new economy and stifles

creativity and entrepreneurship. This is all being loaded back onto the

transportation board and its mysterious approval process in terms of how

these types of activities will be allowed.

I am concerned at the circumstances that we see here. I am

concerned, with the heavy-handed and controlling nature of this

legislation, overseen by a government-appointed board that does not

support the addition of ride-sharing services in British Columbia, that

we will remain, here in British Columbia, an outlier in North America as

a jurisdiction without ride-hailing.

I do look forward to the committee stage to dig a little deeper

and see if we can approve this bill and actually get to a place where

when you turn on ride-hailing apps in British Columbia, they actually

work.

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to rise to Bill 55, the bill around

ride-hailing, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. I only wish I

was rising to speak to a bill that would actually see ride-hailing and

passenger transportation improvements happen in British

Columbia.

Unfortunately, with this bill, what we’re seeing is nothing but

further delays by the government — delays that are really unnecessary

and delays that…. If the government was truly sincere about bringing

forward ride-hailing and modernization of the taxi industry, we should

be able to see it happen immediately, as opposed to kicking the can down

the field.

Now, I don’t often take more than a couple days off at any given

time, but this summer I was fortunate enough to spend a week in New York

with my wife for our 25th anniversary. And I thought, “Well, here’s a

perfect opportunity to….”

Interjection.

P. Milobar: Thank you. She’s a very patient lady, tolerating me for that many

years.

[2:45 p.m.]

I thought I’d take that opportunity to try Uber. I had the app,

actually, as I was on the committee looking into Uber in January, which

was, remember, such a rushed process. In last fall’s session, we had to

rush to create the committee. We had to rush to meet in January so that

we could get our results to the minister at the beginning of February so

that something could happen. Something was going to take

shape.

Something was going to be moved forward at lightning speed.

Although the Premier missed his target of his promise of 2017, we were

going to see Uber and ride-sharing and Lyft and all of those types of

companies in place by the time we’re standing here right now.

After all of that rushed work, we still don’t see anything. But I

digress. I go to the app on my phone, the Uber app on my phone, knowing

full well it wouldn’t work in British Columbia. But I was just curious

to see what the overall layout of it was. I didn’t bother connecting it

to my credit card or anything like that at that time because I thought:

“Well, I’ll never use it in British Columbia anytime soon. So what’s the

point?”

I got to New York and realized: “Oh, I’ve still got the app.” So

we actually took a cab from the airport down to our hotel.

Unfortunately, they had mechanical problems, and they let us off at the

side of the freeway and we walked a block and a half to get to a gas

station to get a new cab that, luckily enough, was filling up. We got to

our hotel fine.

I decided well, maybe we should try Uber. Put the credit card

attached to the app. I had never tried it before. It took a little bit

of getting used to in terms of trying to track where exactly the car is

when you’re on a busy street and it’s coming — which side of the street

and that and the like. But it seemed to work reasonably fine.

An interesting thing was you knew exactly, as the consumer, how

much it was going to cost you. You punch in where you want to go, where

you’re standing. You know what the fare is going to be. In fact, they

would give you some options. There were various levels of options you

could take. You knew roughly how long the car was going to take within

about 30 seconds or so, depending on traffic lights.

You could track it in real-time approaching you with a dot on the

screen or the car on the screen. And as a consumer, you were able to

know exactly what you were getting. There were a couple times where Uber

seemed like it was a little too expensive, so we actually just went over

and we hailed a cab instead. We didn’t exclusively use Uber when we were

there. We used both.

I think that’s, in talking with the cab drivers and the Uber

drivers in New York on each drive, what we were finding. We were finding

that that was the same experience they were having, that people were

using both. People were exercising their own free option as a consumer,

their own ability to think and their own ability to make a decision as

to whether they felt Uber was a good deal at any particular given time

or a cab was a good deal or, if between the cost and the convenience,

the two together made one form over the other more desirable. That was

up to the consumer to decide.

Jump forward to coming back to British Columbia. We don’t have any

of that. What we see in this bill is, frankly, not only a way to put a

legislative end to ride-hailing coming in — because there’s very little

in this bill that the ride-hailing industry would have been asking for —

but, in fact, it adds further confusion even for the taxi industry. In

fact, what we’re seeing is a piece of legislation that’ll actually add

further confusion to public transportation options for people in British

Columbia and further confusion for those companies that are providing

those services and the people that work within those services as they

move forward.

The fact that there’s still not defined geographic boundaries but

there’s a recognition that there will be some sort of geographic

boundary change — but we’ll leave that to the Passenger Transportation

Board. That report was in the minister’s hands in February. Why was that

not directed in February to the Passenger Transportation Board? And why

was that not already figured out now, instead of eight, nine months

later, when now we’re going to direct the Passenger Transportation Board

to start looking at redoing the boundaries in the Lower

Mainland?

If you want to talk delay that falls directly at the feet of the

current Transportation Minister, there’s a very clear delay. Report

generated in February. Much rush to do it. We had to meet in all of

January, the committee did. I don’t mind that. I don’t mind working

hard. That’s totally fine. But one would think if such a rush was on to

get the report done and one of the most basic things for the report

would have been around ride-hailing and around the ability for

ride-hailing companies to be able to go across boundaries, that that

would have been directed right then.

[2:50 p.m.]

Let’s not forget that there had already been a report done on the

Lower Mainland area for the taxi industry, but that 34-page report was

deemed not to be good enough. I’m still not sure if it was actually read

or not, because, lo and behold, the exact same consultant had been hired

by the Transportation Minister to do the exact same work around the taxi

industry again.

That was the whole reason the committee on ride-hailing was

created — because that new report was specifically not to look at

ride-hailing, and we were specifically not to look at the taxi industry.

So a report that was supposed to be basically the reworking of the same

work done by the exact same consultant that started even before the

committee got their work done…. And here we are nine months later from

the later report of the Uber committee, as it came to be known, and

we’re only finally recognizing that boundaries in the Lower Mainland

might be an issue when it comes to ride-hailing and the taxi

industry?

Forget about the fact they’ve been in power for 18 months. The

fact that the Minister of Transportation took nine months to figure that

piece out after all these new reports were done is astonishing, to say

the least.

It’s embarrassing, actually, to have to say to people from outside

jurisdictions that we don’t know when this is going to come because

something as fundamentally well known as boundary issues in the Lower

Mainland — both with the taxi industry and the issues they would create

within the ride-hailing industry — up until yesterday seemed to be

totally foreign to the Transportation Minister — not to anyone else that

has an inkling of what’s going on in the transportation industry, but to

the minister.

Here we have a piece of legislation that would finally direct the

Passenger Transportation Board to do what they should have been doing in

the first place. Yet the minister’s own answer during question period

today indicated that the minister was going to be looking at the

boundaries, not the Passenger Transportation Board. I’m not sure if she

misspoke in her answer in a hurry to try to get an answer out — because

there really wasn’t much of one there — or if she was misquoting her own

bill, misquoting her own piece of legislation.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: Yes, it is. It’s very embarrassing. You should read the

Blues , because you would find that the minister actually

did commit to the minister taking care of the boundary issue. In fact,

it’s the Passenger Transportation Board that will be. The interesting

thing about that…

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

P. Milobar: …is that the Passenger Transportation Board is being held up in

this piece of legislation as the cure-all of how this is all going to

just run smoothly and seamlessly and how everyone is going to be able to

move quickly once all the legislation regulatory pieces are worked

out.

Well, let’s look at that. It was a few months ago that the

minister directed the Passenger Transportation Board to get 500 taxi

licences out for Christmas time. How has that been going? I think we’re

at about 200 right now. Now, they’re still going to be processing those

other 300 applications for new taxi licences at the same time they’re

supposed to be doing the new boundaries, at the same time they’re

supposed to be coming up with the criteria for people to apply for Uber

licences, at the same time they’re supposed to be figuring out how many

Uber licences would even be allowed, which typically doesn’t happen

anywhere.

They’re going to do all of that, and then the minister will turn

around and say: “Well, we didn’t delay anything. It’s the transportation

board.” No, it’s not the transportation board. There needed to be more

direction in this bill. There needed to be actual leadership in this

bill from the Transportation Minister, not just washing of the hands and

pushing it off to the Passenger Transportation Board.

I don’t hear or see a massive up-hiring in the Passenger

Transportation Board to be able to try to move these permits through in

a timely fashion. In fact, I’d be willing to bet it would be faster for

a wannabe Uber driver to apply to be a cannabis store licensed permit

holder and get approved through the Attorney General’s office than it

would be to apply to be an Uber driver and have your paperwork handled

by the Passenger Transportation Board. That’s how ridiculous this

legislation has become.

To think that people on an individual basis, on a one-off basis of

Uber drivers are going to go in one at a time and apply, or in pockets

of five…. That’s not how this all works. The fact that there was a total

ignoring of the class 4 or class 5 driver’s licence by the minister says

it all right there.

[2:55 p.m.]

No one is saying that you should only have a class 5, and that’s

it. Of course you need to have criminal record checks, of course you

need to pass those types of tests, and of course there needs to be

safety check-ins for your car to make sure that there’s proper repair

and maintenance to your car. All of those things need to be in play,

absolutely. But to suggest that the class 4 licence is the key to make

zero problems ever happen would be to suggest that there’s not

occasionally the odd bad apple that drives for a taxi

company.

Now, I’m not saying the taxi companies and the taxi drivers in

general. I’ve always had good experiences with them. So I’m not trying

to paint the industry with a brush. But it’s like any industry. When you

have thousands of people working in it, there’s the odd underperformer.

There’s the odd person that maybe snuck through the cracks or shouldn’t

be actually operating. You hope that the system will catch and identify

those people.

Having someone on the front end take an extra step while they’re

waiting for the passenger transportation board, then sit around and, as

the previous speaker said, start to wait for ICBC to have a road test

for their class 4 will not only back up the ICBC offices, but it will

make an even longer wait for that person to be able to try to make a

living.

Look at what happens when you start backing up the ICBC office.

I’ve written the minister earlier this year about issues we’ve had in

Kamloops, where people with their Ns and their Ls are trying to get road

tests and are being told to come back in six months because of staffing

shortages, because of people away on legitimate long-term leaves and not

able to backfill.

That’s the real world that people are living in. I know the other

side doesn’t want to actually hear about the real world. They would

prefer to just pretend that everything works in a great theoretical

realm. But the reality is that there are a great many people out there

in a great many road test centres that are waiting long periods of time

for something as simple as getting their class 5 to begin with. We’re

now telling people….

Plus all that competition for time. Let’s add in all these other

people to come back in and get retested for essentially one extra

criteria check instead of the skill set of: “Can you drive a vehicle

properly? Do you know the rules of the road? Do you operate in a safe

manner?”

They could even do a quick, simple endorsement to a class 5, like

you do if you want to pull an oversized travel trailer over a certain

weight. You go in, and you have a class 5. I don’t have a class 4, like

the previous speaker, but I have that endorsement — to be able to haul a

travel trailer. That was a much simpler process than if I’d tried

getting a class 4.

Those processes exist, but those processes exist and could be used

only if you had a government that actually was trying to make something

streamlined and only if you had a government that was actually

interested in trying to make true, relevant changes versus finding

roadblocks to modernization.

In an earlier interview, I likened it to when the CRTC was first

trying to control the Internet. I think the government needs to

recognize that the world is changing. They can keep putting up these

roadblocks all they want. They can keep having their innovation

commissioner. They really like to tout the new innovation commissioner,

and here they are trying to block one of the most simple of new

technologies coming in within the transportation realm, trying to make

it sound as if this is some insurmountable hurdle that needs to happen.

We haven’t heard about the boundaries being a huge issue in the other

jurisdictions, yet here it seems to be a massive, massive

problem.

When you start looking at the bill…. As our previous speaker said,

we’re looking at bringing in a few amendments. Now, frankly, I’m not

holding my breath that the junior partners of the government are going

to support any of the amendments. I hope they do, but so far we’ve seen

a long history of bluster. We’ve seen a long history of threats and

demands, very public, and then, at the end of the day, nothing but

capitulation.

We’re watching it right now unfold during the committee stage with

the speculation tax — amendments to allow municipalities to opt out,

after months of the Leader of the Third Party insisting that that would

bring the government down if they didn’t at least amend that, and that

he was going to amend that, and he was going to make sure it was

amended. What did we see? We saw him vote against that very same

amendment on the speculation tax, in spite of what he was promising to

do in face-to-face meetings with mayors, in spite of what he was

promising the public he would do in terms of how he would conduct his

votes in this House.

[3:00 p.m.]

I have every expectation, frankly, that that’s going to happen.

That’s going to happen as we see this bill unfold. We’re going to hear

lots and lots of bluster from the Third Party about how they’re

disappointed in certain aspects of the bill. It’s the exact same aspects

that we’re probably going to agree need amending. We’ll bring in those

amendments. Then they will come up with some excuse, some reason —

probably because of a conversation in the $1 million secretariat room

that none of the public is ever privy to — to make sure that that

doesn’t happen, to make sure that the government can continue to stall

ride-hailing and ride-sharing and, more importantly, improvements to the

overall transportation network system that the public is demanding

happen.

Let’s look at something like insurance. It’d be very simple for

the government to allow the private sector to come in when it comes to

passenger transportation companies. That type of insurance product

exists all over the place. In fact, the insurance industry has been all

over the airwaves the last couple of days, saying they’re ready to go.

They could jump into B.C. in a heartbeat. But it would require the

government to allow the dreaded private sector to actually do something

in this province, so that’s not going to happen.

Let’s look at the ramification of that not happening sooner. Let’s

just say for a moment that the minister changed the insurance right now

and allowed that to happen while still dragging their feet on all of the

licensing and approvals and everything else Uber drivers would

have.

Why is that significant? Because when you look at people within

the taxi industry saying that they’re paying up to $37,000 a year in

insurance for a cab, allowing those cab industry people access to a more

affordable, equitable insurance product instantly would actually help

the current taxi industry. But the Transportation Minister doesn’t seem

too concerned about helping the current taxi industry get more

competitive, doesn’t seem to be too worried about helping the taxi

industry meet their request of their 500 licences that they’d like to

see extra on the road, doesn’t see intent to help them at

all.

It makes perfect sense if there’s an insurance product out there

for a passenger transportation vehicle, be it a taxi or an Uber or

whatever it is, that says, “On the 12 hours it’s parked in the compound

not doing the work of the vehicle, you’re not paying any insurance of

any great significance….” The odds of it causing any harm when it’s

sitting parked in a compound and not earning any money are pretty slim.

But when you have the meter running, when you’re out on the road looking

for fares, you pay insurance for that 12 hours or eight hours or

whatever it happens to be. That seems to be an insurance model that has

worked for the Uber and ride-hailing industry.

The taxi industry would love to see that come in as well, because

they know it would drop their cost structure. They know they wouldn’t

have to come up with $3,000 a month for insurance for their cabs. That

would make them more competitive.

They’ve been a long-standing industry in this province. They’re

very hard-working men and women. They take great pride in what they do.

They work very hard. They’re like any other small business. They look at

any way they can to try to keep their costs under control. At $3,000 a

month for insurance, and having the minister stall an insurance product

that would actually result in them paying less insurance, I can’t

understand how they would think that’s a good thing.

I think that they’re realists. I think that the taxi industry is

realist. I think they understand that it’s only a matter of time that

things will keep evolving, that the modern world will keep changing how

people order their passenger transportation vehicle to come pick them up

and take them from point A to point B. I think the taxi industry fully

understands that.

I think they don’t understand why we have a Minister of

Transportation who’s done nothing to address their insurance needs as

well as the ride-hailing company’s insurance needs and is essentially

saying to the taxi industry: “You can only have cheaper insurance once

we allow Uber and Lyft to have cheaper insurance.”

Well, I would say, on behalf of the taxi industry, that’s not good

enough. They should be able to get cheaper insurance as soon as possible

under the same insurance models that are being discussed for Uber and

Lyft moving forward.

You know, the other side loves to try to keep pointing out that

we’ve had years; we’ve had years. I don’t think anyone is disagreed that

there was some learning that needed to happen, that there were some

early days problems that needed to be understood and

addressed.

[3:05 p.m.]

Those days have long since passed though. Those days have long

since passed to the point that the Premier himself said during the

election — made a promise, made a commitment to this province — that a

year ago, as we stand here today, we would already be having this system

in place.

Of course, he also said there’d be a simple yes-or-no question on

a referendum. He also said it would be part of a municipal campaign. He

also said it would be part of a dual-threshold system of a referendum.

He’s also said there’ll be no closed lists. So right now I’m starting to

have a little hard time believing at what point we start to take the

word of the Premier on these types of promises, because he’s also said

that we would have it in the fall of 2018 after he blew past the fall of

2017 promise.

Well, I’m standing here. Last I checked, it’s the fall of 2018. In

fact, when is the winter solstice — December 21? We’re about 30 days

away from winter solstice, 31 days away. And the best we’re hearing is

maybe this time next year, maybe in 2019. And I say maybe, because by

all indications, whenever the government has been pressed on these

dates, 2019 starts to filter off, and it starts to become apparent that

the goal of this bill is to create an environment where people could

actually apply by this time next year to get a licence.

Then they could sit in the queue with the Passenger Transportation

Board for who knows how long, trying to find out whether or not they get

a licence. Once they get that licence…. And it’s not sure, obviously, at

this point, if the Passenger Transportation Board would require you to

stand in the ICBC line and wait for your class 4 licence first, to wait

six months to get that licence to then turn around and go in the line.

If that’s the case, you would not actually be able to apply until the

spring of 2020 if you have to wait to get your class 4 first. Given the

moving goalposts of these dates, I don’t know why anyone would go out

and get a class 4 licence and spend the extra money and time and

everything else trying to get their class 4 licence when they’re not

even 100 percent sure when this may or may not happen and what the

process to apply would be.

Most people applying would reasonably know if their criminal

record check would pass. I know of, in the city of Kamloops’s case — and

I know a great many other communities are that way — taxi companies who

had a driver that wanted to drive that didn’t pass the criminal record

check. The RCMP recommended they not get a cab licence. It would come in

front of city council, and it would be a quasi-judicial hearing by city

council in a closed meeting, and you’d make a final

determination.

I’m not sure if that’s going to happen here with Uber or Lyft

drivers. There’s no real clarity on that. There’s a lot of

back-and-forth language in this bill, but there’s no real clarity on a

whole lot of stuff.

The bottom line is that this bill does nothing to try to actually

implement ride-hailing into the province. I can only imagine where we’ll

wind up, hearing from the Third Party, as we bring forward our

amendments. It’ll be a very interesting conversation, because on the one

hand, they’ve been very clear that they really think we need to have

ride-hailing. Yet their partners in government — it’s one of the reasons

that they’re taking their time with this — are worried about all the

congestion it will cause on the roads.

Yet at the same time, we see the Leader of the Third Party out

front, touting all the EV vehicles and this new magical target for EV

vehicles that will probably give him justification for supporting LNG,

is my guess, because now they’ll have this 2040 goal for EV vehicles

they never have to prove out while they’re approving all the LNG

legislation and approvals that need to happen over the next little

while, so they can turn to their base and try to pretend that they’re

still meeting their targets while approving LNG and that they didn’t

actually sell out on LNG.

It’ll be very interesting, and I wait to hear what the Third Party

comes up with to try to justify why they’re not going to support our

amendments, the exact same amendments that they’ve said all along they

think need to happen to make ride-share actually a proper ride-share,

ride-hail-type system, yet at the same time, probably try to use the

excuse of congestion, even though they’ve known about

congestion.

[3:10 p.m.]

I know the Leader of the Third Party spoke about possible

congestion even as we were going through this as a committee back in

January. They’ve certainly been aware of it all this time, have not

really mentioned it as a potential problem, have mentioned that they

would like to see similar amendments that we’ve made, or will be making,

as a way forward to try to actually get this.

You have an innovation commissioner. You have parties that are

trying to tout innovation. You have a Premier that’s desperately trying

to recapture his youth and speak like he’s 32 again. You have all these

things going on. Yet the one piece of transportation that has been

solved everywhere…. It has been solved in North Battleford, Saskatchewan

— a fine place. I have been there. And Kazakhstan. I haven’t been to

Kazakhstan. I hear it’s lovely in the springtime, though. They both have

ride-hailing.

In fact, I found it interesting earlier today. Maybe that is the

key to PR. Several examples they use were actually PR countries. Maybe

that’s actually the sales pitch for PR. It’s what they’re trying to say.

With PR, you’d actually get ride-hailing, because apparently, under

first-past-the-post, they really don’t want to bring it in.

It’s ridiculous in the extreme that we need to stand in this House

at the end of 2018, knowing full well that there is no way that this

legislation will be in practice, in actual function, will be picking up

fares, will be transporting people around in British Columbia until, at

the earliest, mid-to-late spring in 2020. There is absolutely no way,

given the timelines laid out in this legislation. In fact, when staff

and anyone else within government is pressed on that fact by the media,

they have actually backed that up on earlier press conferences and when

this bill got introduced.

The reality is that 2019 is nothing more…. Like the referendum,

it’s a sham. It is nothing more than a date made to placate people. It

is nothing more than an acknowledgment that at a minimum, it’s a

two-year broken promise by the Premier, going into a third-year broken

promise by the Premier. It is nothing more than a reaffirmation that one

should be very careful what they trust when the Premier makes a

commitment, because it seems that be it PR or be it ride-hailing,

neither of those two topics ever seem to have any commitments that

actually stand the test of time. They continually seem to keep moving,

and they continually seem to get changed at the moment and at the whim

of the Premier.

Bill 55, by title — I like the title. Bill 55 in practice does

nothing to achieve ride-hailing and the modernization of the passenger

transportation system in our province. I look forward to the amendments

coming, and I really do encourage our Green partners for once to put

their money where their mouth is and actually stand up and vote for

something they’ve told the public and their grassroots supporters all

along that they support.

T. Stone: I am pleased to rise and speak to Bill 55, the Passenger

Transportation Amendment Act, 2018. The amendments that are provided for

within this relatively large bill are intended, or so we’re led to

believe, to pave the way for the introduction of ride-sharing into the

B.C. market. The amendments provide for changes across eight statutes

and a whole bunch of regulations that will then flow from

that.

I start there because this was a file that I was able to develop a

fair bit of familiarity with, if I can say it that way. It is a very

complex regulatory framework that’s in place. It’s akin to the

complexity that exists with the liquor framework in British Columbia.

The passenger transportation framework has been built up in this

province through successive governments over literally decades and

decades.

[3:15 p.m.]

Arguably, the legislation and the regulations that form the

passenger transportation framework haven’t kept with the times, haven’t

kept with the rapidly evolving technologies that we see in passenger

transportation and that we see very vividly with respect to

ride-sharing.

In terms of the key principles that this package of legislation is

intending to address, I think all members of the House can acknowledge

that there is value in these principles and that they’re worthy of

embracing.

Enabling a regulatory framework for the introduction of

ride-sharing to British Columbia is good. Obviously, ensuring public

safety, the safety of drivers but also the travelling public, is

important. Establishing a system that allows for the existing industry —

so the taxi industry and the existing passenger transportation companies

— to continue to thrive as well as welcoming new entrants is a worthy

principle, as are reducing regulatory overlap and burden, enhancing

compliance and enforcement and, very notably, protecting and enhancing

transportation.

All of these principles, as detailed in the package that is

wrapped around these amendments, are worthy and do carry tremendous

value. I think, as I said, all members of the House can get behind those

principles.

I mentioned a moment ago the disruptive element of this particular

industry, ride-sharing. As a former tech CEO myself, I’m proud to have

been associated with, prior to my coming into politics, lots of

individuals in my business life, prior to elected office, in the

technology space. There is no question that the technology that is

represented in ride-sharing came upon the world very quickly. This is a

file that landed on my desk shortly after becoming a minister back in

the summer of 2013.

As the member who spoke prior to me, the member for Kamloops–North

Thompson…. There is no question that this particular industry, the

ride-sharing industry…. Some call it the ride-hailing industry now or

transportation network services, passenger-directed vehicles — all kinds

of different phrases to describe the industry.

It has evolved quickly. There were lots of lessons to learn

through the period of 2013, ’14, ’15. As this disruptive technology

emerged in parts of North America and other parts of Canada and, indeed,

in other parts of the world, it emerged and was bumpy in some places.

There were no end of issues in jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions really

grappled with how to embrace this disruptive technology known as

ride-sharing.

It was important in the earlier years of our last mandate….

Certainly, as the minister responsible, it was very important to open up

a dialogue about the potential impacts of ride-sharing coming into

British Columbia — to open that dialogue with the taxi industry, to open

that dialogue, obviously, with ride-sharing companies and potential new

entrants into our market but also to have that dialogue with local

governments. There are significant passenger transportation implications

at the local level that are represented through the onset of

ride-sharing. And, of course, to have that dialogue with British

Columbians in communities big and small.

[3:20 p.m.]

There has been a lot of focus on ride-sharing and its potential

benefits but also the challenges that it poses to existing industry in

Metro Vancouver. There is also an appetite for additional passenger

transportation choice and consumer convenience in small communities,

whether it be my hometown of Kamloops or whether it be along Highway 16

and communities there that are looking to provide innovative

transportation options for their citizens.

The point was that through the early to midsection of our last

mandate, and as the minister responsible, it was important to have these

conversations. It was important to do the research. It was important to

conduct the reviews that were conducted then. It was important to learn

those lessons from other jurisdictions around the world.

Where that got us was that by late 2016 and into 2017, we had done

a tremendous amount of work, as the government of the day, at not only

having those conversations and learning those lessons but developing a

brand-new framework for passenger transportation here in British

Columbia. That culminated in three tracks of work.

One was the development of an actual legislative package, which

was done through to the end of December of 2016. I will talk about that

more in a moment. That also involved a lot of work at ICBC in terms of

developing not just an insurance product that would be needed for

ride-sharing companies — recognizing that there is no existing insurance

product that ICBC can offer for the model that is represented by

ride-sharing — but also addressing the taxi industry’s long-standing

and, frankly, rightfully placed concerns around the cost of insurance to

their industry and ways to improve how insurance works for the taxi

industry. There was a tremendous amount of work, through a good amount

of 2016 and into 2017, on the insurance product side of this question as

well.

Thirdly, pulling together all of the above, the potential proposed

legislative changes and what that would mean for driver and passenger

safety. Changes to how the Passenger Transportation Board would function

and what that would mean to its relationship with government. They’re

changes that would significantly impact — I believe, in a positive way —

local governments and communities across British Columbia. All of that

had to be considered not just from a regulatory perspective but also

from a policy perspective. There’s a tremendous amount of policy work

done.

This all culminated on March 7, 2017. I very proudly stood in

Vancouver at the Trade and Convention Centre as the minister

responsible, along with my then colleague Peter Fassbender, the former

minister of community services and member for Surrey-Fleetwood. We were

proud that day, on March 7, 2017, to announce that we were moving

forward with the introduction of legislation, with policy changes and

with insurance product development approvals to welcome this new

industry into British Columbia, and doing so all the while respecting,

appreciating, acknowledging and supporting the contributions of the

existing taxi industry.

That was our commitment to voters, to British Columbians, in 2017.

We put our plan in the shop window, so to speak. I’ll come back to the

more detailed reminder for you of what those plans were. We put that in

front of British Columbians, and we said, going into the provincial

election which took place in May of 2017, that we would, if re-elected,

at the first session after an election, be introducing that legislative

framework, that package, and other related regulations. And we would

also be ensuring that the insurance products for both changes on the

taxi insurance side but also the new insurance product for the

ride-sharing companies….

[3:25 p.m.]

All of this would be done and would be ready so that ride-sharing

could be welcomed in British Columbia in time for the holiday, the

Christmas season of 2017. We had that work all done. We do know that the

NDP and the Greens matched that election commitment and also promised to

welcome ride-sharing by Christmas of 2017.

Well, not to rehash what happened from that point

forward….

Interjections.

T. Stone: As much as some members of the House might want me to regale a

transfer of power that may have taken place, I’ll let them use their

time to talk about that part.

But there was a transfer of power in July of 2017. There was a new

government that was sworn in, and that new government now sits on the

government benches. It is an NDP government, a minority government, that

is supported by three Green members of this House. Therefore, at that

point, it was incumbent upon this new government, the NDP, to deliver on

their election commitment — which again, as I said a moment ago, was to

facilitate the introduction of ride-sharing in British Columbia by

December of 2017.

We then, as the summer of 2017 left us, found ourselves in the

fall of 2017. Very regrettably, despite an election commitment to do

otherwise, the current Minister of Transportation announced that

ride-sharing would not be coming in 2017. Rather, there would be a plan

underway to pave the way for ride-sharing in 2018.

Now, we know that there were two facets to that plan. There was

the Hara report. This was to look at what strategies could be employed

to further strengthen the taxi industry. I understand that, and we’ll

talk about that in a moment. But there was a second track, which was

represented through the legislative committee — the legislative

committee of this House with representatives from all parties — that was

mandated to deliberate and to come back with a plan for the entry of

ride-sharing in British Columbia.

All of that work was done that winter and into early 2018. We were

then advised, earlier this year and the summer, that, in fact,

ride-sharing would not be introduced in 2018. Rather, legislation would

be introduced in the fall session, which is what we are talking about

here today. So another Christmas season, another holiday season, is

bearing down upon us, and there will be no ride-sharing in British

Columbia. Communities large and small will not see it on their streets,

will not be able to embrace it, will not be able to look forward to

trying it out because it won’t be here this year.

Now, it is perplexing as to why the government is intent on not

fulfilling its commitment to deliver on ride-sharing. As was mentioned

by previous speakers, this government found enough motivation to move

very quickly on the speculation tax. In fact, they announced it before

they’d even determined what exactly it was going to look like and have

changed and amended it several times since.

We do know that they moved very quickly — and should be lauded as

such, frankly — at putting in place the necessary framework respecting

the legalization of cannabis in Canada. That is no small piece of work

on the part of the government. I know, because I sat at the cabinet

table, and I was part of the earlier discussions around what those

policy choices would be, what those challenges would be, from a

regulatory perspective. That is a huge amount of work. And in under a

year, the government has managed to pull most of the regulatory

framework for the legalization of cannabis here in British Columbia all

into place.

[3:30 p.m.]

Of course, we know it didn’t take more than a year to put together

the referendum process on proportional representation. We’ve spoken ad

nauseum about how that process leaves a lot to be desired. Nonetheless,

a referendum on changing how we elect our MLAs was pulled together in a

matter of months. Yet here we are with a public policy issue,

ride-sharing, which has huge public support here in British Columbia.

Public opinion polls will tell you that anywhere from 90 to 97 percent,

that I’ve seen, support the introduction of ride-sharing. And they want

it now.

Ride-sharing is in existence in almost 800 cities around the

world. It’s in place in 200 cities in North America. Vancouver continues

to be the largest metropolitan centre in North America without

ride-sharing. As I said earlier, yes, I do understand when I’m

challenged about why it was not implemented in 2012. Well, I wasn’t here

in 2012. I was here in mid-2013.

As I said, the technology evolved quickly. As I said, there were

lessons to learn from around the world, and we did that. We did a

tremendous amount of consultation and engagement with the taxi industry,

with ride-sharing proponents, with local governments and with the

public, through our last mandate, to get to a point where a legislative

package could be developed, which we did. To get to a point where

insurance products could be developed, which they were. To get to a

point where policies could be crafted and could be ready to implement,

and they were. We put that in front of British Columbians in the 2017

election.

As the former speaker said, North Battleford, Saskatchewan, will

be the latest Canadian city, on January 1, to welcome ride-sharing — a

city of about 15,000 — yet we don’t have ride-sharing here in British

Columbia.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

This issue, for me — I think for most, if not all, members of this

House — really is about consumers. It’s about the public. It’s about the

public having choice and better convenience. It’s about the public,

whether they live in the west end of Vancouver or whether they live in

Kelowna or here in greater Victoria, that they’re able to choose the

mode of transportation that they would like, whatever is most

appropriate for them and their loved ones at that particular point in

time. This isn’t about beating up on existing industries.

I have said for the years that I have been elected to this House —

and this comes through having been able to build some very strong

relationships and good friendships with many in the taxi industry — that

these are good, decent, hard-working people who have invested, in many

cases, their life’s earnings to establish a business and to grow that

business. They’ve played by the rules over the years.

I, personally, have never experienced that situation that we hear

all too often of calling a cab and a cab not showing up and picking me

up. That actually hasn’t happened to me, personally, but I know it’s

happened to my wife. I know it’s happened to other members of this

chamber. I know that there have been concerns expressed about the lack

of choice, about inefficient pick-ups and deliveries, about seeing a cab

come and not being able to get into it because that cab, by law, can’t

take you from where you are to the community you want to go to because

of arcane regulations and rules that prevent that.

Consumers want that choice, and they want that convenience.

Businesses want their staff to be able to get to meetings and

appointments on time. The tech sector. Again, I mentioned earlier, I’m a

former tech CEO. I talk to folks in the tech sector all the time, and

they continue to be absolutely beside themselves that we promote

ourselves, promote British Columbia as a great place to invest, as a

great place to come with your innovative ideas and to build your

companies, yet we put up a big wall around this province when it comes

to certain technologies, certain disruptions, like

ride-sharing.

[3:35 p.m.]

Of course, the tourism sector. I know subsequent members will talk

about the impact that the lack of ride-sharing has on tourism,

particularly in Metro Vancouver. It’s very difficult — increasingly

difficult — to explain to people why we don’t have ride-sharing here in

British Columbia.

Now, I mentioned a moment ago that this isn’t about assessing

blame on existing industries. This is about welcoming new industries and

understanding that existing industries and new industries can coexist. I

believe that they can. I believe that they can coexist, that they can be

strong, that they both can be vibrant and successful here in British

Columbia.

Our approach with the existing industry was to support that

industry through a series of measures, some of which was looking at what

more could be done from a red-tape perspective and working with

municipal governments and the taxi industry to eliminate overlaps in the

system.

Our former government had put $3½ million on the table for a

crash-prevention technology to save the taxi industry money. We had

offered assistance in the form of $1 million to support the taxi

industry to develop a common app across their industry. We maintained

exclusive rights to curbside hailing and street stands. We had committed

to opening up a taxi supply and, as I said, making changes to taxi

insurance to make that insurance work better and cost less for the taxi

industry.

The approach that we find in this bill is disappointing. There is

much in this work that I recognize insofar as the people who were there

serving our former government, and me as a former minister, are still

there today. A lot of the documents look similar and some of the

concepts are similar, but things have gone in a very different

direction.

This approach and this plan are really reflective of the

government’s default to creating a much larger bureaucracy. We see that

in the changes that are being proposed for the passenger transportation

branch, which will, through this legislation, be transformed into a

massive regulatory machine, certainly not with consumers first and

foremost in mind.

The Passenger Transportation Board will have its powers enormously

expanded. As I said, this will only be accomplished through a huge

increase in staffing that will be required to administer and track and

enforce the rules. Of course, the leadership of this board will be even

more of a creature of the cabinet than it was previously.

Cabinet, through this legislation, will determine the rules of

practice and procedure for the board. This legislation provides sweeping

powers to cabinet, all of which will be determined later through

orders-in-council, to set fees, define terms, delegate power and specify

geographic areas and classes of vehicles. This will all be determined by

the government and be determined by the cabinet, and will be pushed

through the Passenger Transportation Board.

It means that the government will decide how many cars are on the

road, how many taxis are on the road and how many ride-sharing cars are

on the road. That supply will be tightly managed by this government. It

means that the fares that can be charged, including minimums and

maximums, will be tightly controlled by this government. It means that

where cars can drive — the operating areas — will be tightly controlled

by this government.

All of this will be based on three factors that will be taken into

account by the Passenger Transportation Board upon the direction of

cabinet, and that will be any requests for additional taxicabs or for

ride-sharing cars have to demonstrate that:

(1) They’re fit and proper to provide the service. That’s good.

That’s important.

(2) There’s a public need. I think everyone can agree there’s a

huge public need for more cars on the road — taxi and

ride-sharing.

(3) But the request must also must meet sound economic

conditions.

[3:40 p.m.]

Now, that’s the one that’s really worrying. The government had the

opportunity to bring clarity and standards to the service that the

public wants. Unfortunately, this legislation, as it appears to be

constructed, offers a huge patchwork of fares and regulations across

different cities and jurisdictions.

Safety is critical. No question about that. It certainly was under

our government. I take the minister absolutely at face value that safety

is the number one priority. But maintaining the requirement for a class

4 licence is simply not required in this case.

The onerous requirements that this places on potential

ride-sharing drivers that would be very part-time, at best, in terms of

special training, road tests, medical exams, annual vehicle

inspections…. Of course, all of this is after you’ve paid for the

privilege of doing this test and you’ve gone, on your time, down to a

driver’s licence office, and so forth. This just isn’t going to happen.

This is a significant deterrent to this new industry.

Now, I mentioned earlier that this work was largely done. We hear

often from the government that it’s complex, it’s challenging, and it

takes time. We announced that we had legislation ready on March 7, 2017.

The miscellaneous statutes passenger transportation services amendment

act, 2017, was ready for introduction in this Legislature.

The insurance product work, which we hear requires another year of

work at ICBC — that work was also done. A new insurance product had been

developed by ICBC for ride-sharing companies. It would have been a

blanket insurance policy, similar to other jurisdictions. It would have

been purchased by each ride-sharing company. It would cover drivers from

the minute they commit to picking up a fare until the time passengers

exit the vehicle. It would provide low-hassle, flexible and future price

adjustments, and the premium would be based on the distance driven. This

work was done.

Likewise, the insurance product for changes to the taxi industry

was done as well. The existing policy would remain intact for full-time

operation, but for part-time vehicles, there was to be a new fleet

reporting insurance model, similar to the blanket insurance model that

had been developed for the ride-sharing industry.

The work was done. It was done in late 2016, early 2017. So any

suggestion from the government that this work requires a lot more

analysis and heads-down effort on the part of ICBC for the insurance

product is simply not true. The work was done.

Our legislation placed consumers at the centre of passenger

transportation, provided a level playing field for existing and new

operators, including driver and safety standards, insurance requirements

and service and supply flexibility. It provided for open supply. It

provided for no boundaries. It provided for no restrictions on fares.

And our system placed a high priority on passenger and driver safety,

ensuring criminal record checks, safe driving record checks — you had to

be 19 years to drive — regular vehicle inspections, and so

forth.

This bill fails in its promise to deliver ride-sharing to British

Columbia.

J. Thornthwaite: I’m very proud to stand here today and talk about this new

legislation that is before us. As my predecessor just said earlier, the

member for Kamloops–South Thompson…. I very much appreciated him giving

us a history of what the work was that had been done under our previous

government. It was quite evident that a lot had been done. I’ll talk

about that in just a little bit.

Coming from the North Shore, my constituents have been waiting for

ride-sharing for many years and were very excited to hear that this

government was going to bring forward this bill yesterday. But almost

minutes after the bill had been introduced, I started getting all of

these emails. I’m going to go through some of them just to kind of give

you an idea of the feedback I’m getting from my constituents on this

bill.

[3:45 p.m.]

After much fanfare that ride-sharing was coming to British

Columbia, we realized that, in fact, it’s not coming. In fact, we had

heard from the NDP during their election campaign in 2017 that, like our

government had promised, it would come at the end of 2017, by the

Christmas season. We know that did not happen with the NDP.

Now we know that it’s not happening at the end of 2018, probably

not in 2019 and, quite frankly, maybe never, because this bill puts so

much level of bureaucracy onto any company that wants to come into

British Columbia and offer ride-sharing. There’s so much red tape and

requirements that they have to do that is way more than anywhere else in

the world.

I really appreciated previous speakers that had said ride-sharing

is available in 200 cities in North America. We are the largest city

that does not have ride-sharing. In addition, there are other countries

that you would think would not have this progressive service — like

somebody said, Baghdad, Afghanistan and Syria. And the most recent —

North Battleford, Saskatchewan. So, quite frankly, give me a break. I

mean, there is no reason why we cannot have ride-sharing here in British

Columbia.

I’d like to just go over briefly — not to repeat what the member

for Kamloops–South Thompson said but just to explain to my

constituents…. If they’re interested, I’d refer them to the press

release that was put out by our government on March 7, 2017. It

introduced a series of improvements to help the taxi industry modernize

and remain competitive in anticipation of ride-sharing services coming

to British Columbia by the holiday season at the end of 2017.

The work was done, as was explained before, through a process of

consultations, policy work and dialogue with all stakeholders over the

period of, say, 2015-2016, leading up to the 2017 press release.

Everything that needed to be done to introduce that legislation had been

done, and it was on its way. Unfortunately, we ended up not being able

to maintain government. But we relied on the opposition at the time, and

now the government at the time, to fulfil their promise for bringing

ride-sharing into British Columbia. Of course, we know now that they

failed. They totally failed.

Without further ado, I would like to read some information that I

have gotten from many constituents. About an hour ago it was up to 138

emails I had received in my office from my constituents alone. I’m going

to just read you something to express a significant amount of

frustration that my constituents deal with every day. I’m hoping the

minister will listen to the frustrations that my constituents have and

perhaps take note of how not having ride-sharing is negatively affecting

their lives.

This is from Gina.

“We tried hailing a cab one rainy and cold night in late November

last year. We had just exited the tents of a Cirque du Soleil

performance for my mother’s 80th birthday celebration. We just assumed

there would be a lineup of taxis waiting to whisk us away to my mother’s

birthday dinner, but no.

“We started trekking to find a cab, in the wind and the rain. I

called the main taxi company and was immediately put on hold for 20

minutes, only to be finally informed it would be another 45 minutes

until a cab would arrive.

“Here we are in the downtown core. I looked over at my poor mom,

huddling against her husband, trying to stay warm, hair ruined for the

birthday dinner, even under her small umbrella. I felt extremely mad at

the taxi industry right then. They could do much better. Just a horrible

business model.

“After an hour under the viaduct at the Rogers Arena, my husband

basically jumped out in front of the one cab with a light on top,

speeding towards him, not looking for rides, and managed to pull him

over. We were freezing, and the night was ruined.”

[3:50 p.m.]

Then she gives a suggestion.

“If this had been Uber or Lyft, the scenario would have gone like

this. Sitting in our seats inside the warm, dry tent, I would have

opened my app and called a car. The car would show me exactly how long

it would take until it arrived right on the app — two minutes, seven

minutes tops. We’d wait inside until it arrived. I would get an alert as

soon as the driver pulled up outside the door. We’d walk out of the

building into a warm car. No one else could grab our car as it was

called especially for me. We get out at our destination. No money or

tips would change hands. Just a thank you and good night. That’s the

simple system of ride-sharing.”

I got a text from somebody else — and this is a young person — who

was downtown at three o’clock in the morning. “Seeing no taxi in sight

for blocks, we resorted to calling every one of our friends. It just so

happens that one was awake and was able to come and pick us up.” She

said: “The only time I’d ever gotten a cab downtown is by running down

to one of the hotels at Waterfront station and getting them to get one

for me.”

Ian says that he was bewildered by the press conference that the

minister put on. “I’m very sad on behalf of the hospitality industry,

people with disabilities, workers that can’t get home, people that get

stranded.” And he brought up the wineries in South Okanagan, because

apparently they only have one taxi. “I can’t see how the Liberals and

Greens can support this.”

Joe from North Van said:

“I would like to voice my absolute frustration with the whole

process surrounding ride-sharing legislation in British Columbia. How is

it remotely possible that Vancouver is the largest jurisdiction in North

America without this service? The British Columbia government claims

they are committed to the tech industry in B.C., yet they have failed to

bring one of the best tech services to its citizens. It’s actually quite

embarrassing, as far as I’m concerned and many, many others in my

network of family and friends.

“Industry changed, and in the case of transportation services, Uber

and Lyft have raised the bar. Where was the provincial government when

Blockbuster went bankrupt as a result of Netflix and HBO? There was no

support there, nor should there have been.”

Another constituent of mine, Brenda:

“My husband and I just returned from a vacation in a city where Uber

is available. We took a taxi from the train station to our

accommodation. Our host encouraged us to use Uber for the return trip.

We did it for the price of $3. The savings was the icing on top. We had

excellent service, availability of a clean ride, clean vehicle, friendly

driver and the ability — and this is the key — to see what other

passengers have said about the driver. You get an estimate of the fare

before the trip starts, and you can pay by credit card without push-back

from a driver. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I don’t believe the delays in

allowing this service in B.C. are driven by any legitimate concerns for

the public.”

Joanne said:

“Living in Deep Cove on the North Shore, no taxi would bring me home

from the downtown. It’s even near impossible to get one from the

Lonsdale Quay. The day of the week, time of day does not make a

difference. They refuse to take me home. It’s even difficult from the

airport. Having used ride-sharing in other countries of the world, I

know it works, and I can’t understand why British Columbia doesn’t have

it. The general population needs and wants ride-sharing, and the current

service is not second to all.”

This one’s an interesting one. This is from Brett.

“Hi, Jane. I’d like to express my concern regarding the delay of

getting Uber to B.C. I see Uber as a way to reduce my environmental

footprint while lowering my personal transportation costs by deferring

and eliminating the decision to purchase a second car.

“However, policy-makers are working against me here. With further

delays in getting Uber up, delays in getting car-sharing close to my

home in the district of North Van and delays in the expansion of the

TransLink network and SeaBus, soon I’ll have no other choice but to add

another car to the system.

“In the meantime, my patience has run out. The taxi services seem to

be diminishing monthly. Vancouver can’t wait. Please increase the pace

and get Uber as soon as possible.”

[3:55 p.m.]

Lastly, I’d just like to talk about Lisa.

“As a resident of North Vancouver, I, too, have had many experiences

trying to plan ahead and prebook a cab, only to learn at the last minute

that no cab was available. As a result, I’d be late for meetings, in

jeopardy of missing flights and forced to drive when I didn’t want to.

My teenage children have been unable to get cabs home late at night,

even from within North Vancouver. This is unacceptable to me.”

She goes on to express her experiences with Uber and Lyft in many,

many other cities. She finishes:

“I’m very frustrated and want ride-sharing introduced in B.C. now.

We have waited long enough. I want to be able to choose my mode of

transportation. If there’s a model for making it work in other

jurisdictions, we should be able to adopt that too.”

One last one here. This guy told me he actually didn’t vote for

me. He voted for the Greens. His name is Greg. He asked me: “What is the

holdup with ride-sharing? This is crazy. Every other major city in

Canada has Uber. I use it in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. When I voted

for Andrew Weaver and the Greens, I expected more from them in this

area.”

Interjections.

J. Thornthwaite: Sorry, the Leader of the Third Party.

“I guess, just like their NDP brethren, they are enjoying their

seat at the table. Get moving, and get Uber.”

I’m not going to go on, but you could see that the Daily

Hive has a whole exposé on comments. I thought it was kind of

funny. Their title was: “So Not Lit: B.C. Reacts to Ride-Share

Legislation Timeline.”

Others have quoted many media outlets. Kirk LaPointe, from

Business in Vancouver : “Rather than free the market, it has

coaxed into place lenience for the incumbent industry in the context of

regulatory conservatism bound to make strenuous the competition most of

us believed was pending.”

Mike Smyth, from the Province : “It’s an overly

bureaucratic and excessively regulated system in which the government,

not the ride-hailing firms, will decide how many drivers will be allowed

to accept passengers, where they can work and how much they can

charge.”

Vaughn Palmer today, in the Vancouver Sun : “Sure, they

wasted no time launching a half-baked speculation tax and in stacking

the deck in favour of electoral change, but implementation of a service

that is already in place in comparable jurisdictions all over the world?

Some things just can’t be rushed.”

I’ve given a little rundown of the feedback that I’ve been getting

from constituents. One last thing with regards t