2015 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 40th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 20, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 4 — Chartered Professional Accountants Act

Hon. A. Wilkinson

K. Corrigan

R. Sultan

C. James

L. Reimer

B. Ralston

D. Bing

L. Krog

Hon. A. Wilkinson

Bill 3 — Building Act

Hon. R. Coleman

M. Farnworth

V. Huntington

H. Bains

B. Ralston

L. Krog

A. Weaver

S. Robinson

Hon. R. Coleman

Throne Speech Debate (continued)

On the subamendment (continued)

Hon. T. Lake

C. James

S. Sullivan

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2015

The House met at 1:34 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. N. Letnick: I call second reading of Bill 4, intituled Chartered Professional Accountants Act.

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Second Reading of Bills

BILL 4 — CHARTERED PROFESSIONAL

ACCOUNTANTS ACT

Hon. A. Wilkinson: I move that Bill 4, the Chartered Professional Accountants Act, now be read for a second time.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

This bill will unify the chartered accountants, certified general accountants and management accountants of British Columbia. It will amalgamate them into a single Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia regulatory body. The single chartered professional accountant body will create a more modern, streamlined regulatory system for accountants in British Columbia. The Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C. will be one of the largest professional bodies in western Canada, with more than 34,000 members, including the students in training to become accountants.

The Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C. will be responsible for a number of things, including setting and enforcing professional standards and ethical standards, promoting and increasing the competence of members by providing a comprehensive program of ongoing professional development, assessing the continuing competency of members, enforcing practice standards and rules of professional conduct for both students and members, and providing a fair and efficient mechanism for investigating and adjudicating complaints against members.

The Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia will have authority to regulate its members, students, registered firms and professional accounting corporations. Accountants who are non-members of this new body, the CPABC, will not be prevented from practising accounting in British Columbia. This is a mobility issue, it seems, as accountants do come and go with their work. The legislation will request that the use of certain professional accounting designations, such as the CPA designation, be limited to members of this new body.

The three current B.C. accountancy bodies have been consulted extensively and are in support of this legislation. They have supported it through voting and surveys, and we’re looking forward to support for this legislation from those bodies. The legislation is actually part of a national initiative that will bring British Columbia into line with other provinces and territories that have already introduced or passed similar legislation.

K. Corrigan: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to stand up and speak on Bill 4, which we on this side of the House will be supporting.

We know that this is something that the various disciplines in the accounting profession have been looking for, for some time. In fact, I think many of us on both sides of the House have had representations from the profession for almost four years — perhaps more, in the case of some of my colleagues who have been looking at it. I know that there was a major initiative around 2011 in order to try to merge the management accountants, the CGAs and the chartered accountants at that time, and it wasn’t successful. So it would certainly not seem appropriate — after the profession itself has for many, many years been working to merge — to stand in the way of that.

This is, sadly, a little near and dear to my heart. I’ve been sitting on the Public Accounts Committee since I was first elected in 2009. I’ve been very, very pleased to serve on that committee, along with the member next to me, the member for Surrey-Whalley, who has been the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee for many, many years and has done a great job. It has made me come to appreciate how important, how critical the role of auditing is in government and in societies.

The role of accountants — keeping us all honest, appraising, auditing, performing performance audits — is a very critical role in government. Now, we’re talking about a merger that is going to apply both to accountants who work for government and certainly in the private sector, but that role is one that is certainly critical in government. I have appreciated it, as I have read countless reports coming from our Office of the Auditor General — which is, of course, an independent office and I think serves this Legislature well, as do the independent offices of Auditors General across the country.

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The role of accountants in our society is critical in order to evaluate the truth of books, the effectiveness of government programs and the good use of taxpayers’ money.

Certainly, I have seen report after report — which have come from various Auditors General that have been here while I’ve been here — that have been very important. Sometimes they’re uncomfortable to government, but the purpose always is to make sure that government does things more effectively and transparently and that the use of taxpayers’ money is appropriate. I have appreciated that.

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In fact, I even have read the public sector accounting standards. I have been known to do that, not even just late at night when I want to go to sleep.

It is a very important merger, and it has taken a long time. Part of the reason it has taken a long time is that there is a long, long history in the profession of a separation into three different groups. So when you’re talking about the merger of the three areas — the chartered accountants, the certified management accountants and the certified general accountants — representing 34,000 members in the province…. It’s not an easy thing to do.

Of course, part of what has had to happen is merging the standards, merging the education, merging the governance. There are many, many streams that had to be merged. Not only that, this is happening within the context of merging and harmonizing the profession across the country as well. That’s also within the context of merging the profession, or the standards, or an attempt to increase the standards around the world.

Part of the impetus for this is the meltdowns that we have had and, as well, some of the scandals, like the Enron scandal. I think that there has been a real shake-up in the accounting world. There’s a recognition that we need to have worldwide standards, and those need to be high standards.

There needs to be harmonization. That’s part of globalization. I know that some of those concerns about globalization, the idea of harmonization, were some of the concerns that were raised over many years. That’s why it has taken several years in order for this to happen.

I’m satisfied from taking a look at the bill, but more from speaking to professionals in the field, that this is a good thing, that it is worthy of being supported. For that reason, I’m certainly happy to support it.

When we talk about how large of an effort it is, we’re talking about requiring approvals over the last few years of 40 different accounting bodies, including the national association for chartered accountants, the management accountants and the CGAs, certified general accountants, and the regional bodies for each of those in two provinces and territories.

We certainly have to congratulate, I think, the various organizations. There were, back even a couple of years ago, those groups and members of those groups that were concerned about this merger and were not so sure that they wanted to support it.

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Some of the areas of concern that happened were some of the students. Some of those students that were concerned….

For example, one area of concern was by the CA students, a number of CA students who felt that the process, the education that they had gone through, was a very rigorous process, and they were concerned that the very high standards that they were being held to would be kept across the profession. I know there were some students that felt they had really gone through the gruelling process, as well as the exam that happened at the end and that they wanted to make sure that the profession had the same high standards as they were being held to and the same level of education.

It seems that over the last couple of years, at a time when there were, perhaps, in some of the areas, particularly the CAs…. One survey I saw from a couple of years ago, there was just barely majority support. I do have to give credit to the governing organizations for shepherding this process through and addressing the concerns that many of their members had over time.

Originally, the designations were separate because the work that was done was seen to be different. CAs were historically seen as working as external auditors,

whereas CMAs were more often in-house counsel or corporate accountants. Because of that separation, there was a separate body. The point has been made that, number one, those lines have been blurred over time and that, certainly, there are not those separate designations.

Also, I think what has happened is that it is recognized that, with this legislation and in the accounting governance as a whole, what is going to happen is there will be more, like in other professionals that are unified…. There will be specialties within the CPA designation.

When I first saw that there was some advertising that has been pretty heavy over the last several months…. I think you see them in SkyTrain and hear them on the radio and so on. I was little surprised that the accountants would be advertising this new designation.

But the reality is that once I started looking back at the history and reading about the resistance there had been and the concern about the integrity of each one of the designations, it came to make more sense. There is a brand that’s associated with credibility. Each one of those designations saw their brand as being a brand and having credibility in the world. Of course, an accountant’s credibility around the work that they do is perhaps the most important thing that they have.

In Canada we all believe that we have very high standards of credibility for our professions. This is one of those professions. The reason, I believe, for the high degree of advertising over the last while, using the new designation…. There had to be a separate piece of legislation in order to allow the use of the designation before the unification was complete, which seemed a little bit putting the horse before the cart. Other way around. Sorry.

It seemed to be because of a concern…. The reason for that was, partly, to be able to allow that branding exercise to happen. A lot of the concerns that the individual members and the organizations had before the unification were around the fact that that highly respected designation might be lost.

As I said, this is within the context of both national and international developments, and the international

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developments are that there are competing designations. Those are like brands as well. In order to make this work for the benefit of the profession, it was felt that the accountants needed to come under one strong umbrella in order to be cohesive, to have harmonization, to have mobility. Part of it is to have mobility so that a chartered professional accountant can work in British Columbia or, equally as easily, in Ontario or in other provinces. The way to do that was to have a more harmonized profession and professional bodies representing them.

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Then the other thing that is important about this is to make sure that we have a strong profession and representation internationally. As there is globalization of these accounting firms, one of the things is to try to have a strong Canadian voice. I believe that’s important.

When I’ve seen the representatives from, for example, the Auditor General’s office, who sit on some of the international bodies, I think we have a great deal of credibility. We have great professionalism. I look at our new Auditor General, Carol Bellringer, who has sat on international bodies, and I’m very proud to have her as our Auditor General. I think she’s very, very credible provincially, nationally and internationally.

We have a very high standard in this province and in this country. I think having the unification of the governing bodies will bode well for us in terms of having a voice internationally as well. That’s important because of our credibility. I think we are seen as having very professional chartered professional accountants and as leaders in terms of thinking and setting standards.

I know that’s a large part of what chartered accountants do through their professional organizations — they set standards. Every jurisdiction has supported that. I think almost every jurisdiction has passed the required legislation merging the CAs, the CMAs and the CGAs. I think we’re towards the end. That’s certainly not a criticism of government. I believe that in British Columbia we wanted to get it right. That has certainly happened. I would say that this is a positive move.

When you look at the context of concern about some of the very large frauds that have happened over the last years, I think it’s important to have a strong body and strong governance at the national level, given some of the concerns about the profession itself, and the criticisms. I think when you have a more fractured body with 40 different organizations representing them, it makes it harder to be unified, it makes it harder to be strong, and it makes it hard to have an international presence.

I am pleased to support this bill. I’m pleased that it has now come forward. I know that the various organizations have been wanting this for a long, long time. I know that an extraordinary amount of work has gone into making this happen. I’m very pleased to say that we’ll certainly, on this side of the House, be supporting Bill 4 and the merger that it represents.

I look forward to spending some time, when we get to looking at the bill clause by clause in committee stage, just drilling down a little bit more into a few of the questions that I have about how the actual merger works.

When you think about it, it’s not just the merger of the three professions. It is the merger of the education, as I said earlier. It’s the merger of the governing bodies. It’s the merger of accountability, the accountability mechanisms. It is the merger of so much of the profession that it’s a real challenge. I’m going to look forward to asking a lot of questions when we get to that stage of the bill.

With that, I will take my seat.

Hon. A. Virk: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. A. Virk: It’s been an exciting week for me as I had not one, not two, not three but four classes from my riding in Surrey attend. I have the third of those classes here. I have with me, from Pacific Academy, Mrs. Bakken’s grade 5 class. With her she has 27 future leaders and 16 adult chaperones. Would the House please make the Pacific Academy grade 5 class welcome.

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Debate Continued

R. Sultan: I have great pleasure to join my colleagues on both sides of the House in supporting Bill 4, intituled the Chartered Professional Accountants Act. As the member opposite has pointed out, there is really no discernible opposition in the legislatures across Canada in any jurisdiction to date, and I am informed that it has been introduced in eight provinces and passed in six. Should we pass this legislation, which I am confident we will, we will increase that number.

We will also facilitate Mr. Richard Rees, the chief executive officer, in not having to put after his name: “CPABC joint venture.” Our failure to complete the job of merging these three organizations a year or so ago has required them to operate in a somewhat awkward joint-venture fashion, but they have done so in good spirit, and we’re now here to finish the job.

As both the preceding speakers to this bill have pointed out, accountancy, I suppose for many of us growing up, strikes one as rather dry. We have pictures of that Charles Dickens bookkeeper sitting at a tall table freezing to death, right out of A Christmas Carol, with a quill pen, trying to balance some ledger book.

The reality is that accounting has become a fundamental tool and mechanism of modern life, modern business and, in particular, modern government. As my distinguished colleague opposite has pointed out, we rely

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very heavily on the Auditor General of this Legislature to produce her opinion on the accuracy and reasonableness of the accounts that we submit to the voters every year as evidence of our progress, or lack of it, in balancing the books.

They are the yardsticks, you might say, of modern society — modern market society. One of the great handicaps of many parts of the world is that they do not have reliable accounts. They do not have professional accountants that adhere to standards that are universally accepted, and their economies operate at a great handicap as a result.

The reason we, with this legislation and its components, transfer such powers to a group such as the merged association is a consequence of the fact that the practice of accounting is an example of a professional world which has become too complicated for most people to reasonably administer from the outside. The only way we can police the quality and the effectiveness of the practitioners in this field is by having them police themselves.

With this act, we delegate to the professional accountants the power to not only represent accountants but to self-regulate. If they run across the odd person who does not follow the rules — and these things happen in all professions — we rely upon the association to take appropriate disciplinary actions because, frankly, those of us on the outside are incapable of making those judgments.

This principle of professional reliance is in fact one that this government has embraced with vigour. We see the principle in action not only in the accounting profession but in the engineering profession — one with much greater familiarity in my own personal life as a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists. Again, it’s a field of practice so complicated and in many ways so sophisticated that the only people who really can sort the wheat from the chaff are the members themselves.

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We also, rather than produce books and books of regulations, delegate to the professions to ensure that they are designing bridges that don’t fall down, or producing books that are accurate. We do not try and specify the rules in law or regulation here because it would be impossible to do so.

There are many examples of the professional bodies operating in British Columbia and elsewhere who carry on these self-governance functions. Aside from the accountants and engineers, perhaps the ones that most immediately spring to mind are the various colleges in the practice of medicine. I’m sure our minister can enumerate how many different colleges there are. It seems that every piece of the body has its own college and enforces its own standards, and we rely upon them to do that.

It is quite easy for me to applaud this statute, but I’ll mention before I sit down two other issues which I think this Legislature may want to debate at some time in the future. One is the distinction between such organizations operating in a self-disciplinary fashion — to be kind of the internal cop, to make sure that competence prevails — which is really the most important function, I think, the government delegates to them, as opposed to the very natural inclination of such bodies to promote their profession.

The lawyers and the physicians split these two functions into separate organizations, and wisely so. We are sort of creeping in that direction in engineering. I’m not sure the accountants have quite come to grips with the distinction between those two very distinct functions. Complaining that one of your colleagues isn’t really quite up to the game isn’t quite the same as turning around and issuing a press release saying: “Aren’t we wonderful? Please hire all of us.” There’s a built-in contradiction there that we depend on people like Richard Rees to sort out as he administers as chief executive officer of the new, merged association.

A second issue which is coming up fast on the inside lane, just to put us all on notice, particularly as it applies to accountants, is the issue of civil liability. Quite some years ago Attorney General Geoff Plant undertook a very ambitious reform of civil liability law and regulation in British Columbia and couldn’t quite get the job done. I think it doesn’t mean the issue has gone away.

I will merely quote from a paper, a backgrounder piece, that the Chartered Accountants of British Columbia has issued under the title Modifying Joint and Several Liability to Manage Audit Risk . On the sidebar they have this quote: “Since 1986, 40 U.S. states have modified the rule of joint and several liability, and three states have abolished it altogether.”

Why should that issue concern us? Well, it certainly doesn’t concern us in this particular statute. But in the months ahead I think we will be asked to revisit this issue as an important element of maintaining the competitiveness of our accounting industry, the cost of audit and the ability, in fact, to perform an audit in British Columbia. These will all be important issues which should be debated thoroughly in this chamber.

To sum up, I think this is farsighted legislation. To a small degree it’s overdue. I think all of the accountants…. The minister has referred to them as 34,000. I’m told, reliably, that that number is probably a little bit out of date. There could be as many as 36,000 today, and they all vote.

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It’s a very important, influential body. I’m sure that, like the two previous speakers, we will not have any difficulty supporting this legislation.

C. James: I’m pleased to rise and take a few minutes to express my support as well for Bill 4, which we’re discussing today.

I thank the members previous who have talked about the support for the important role of accountants in our

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society, in our everyday life and, certainly, in the work that we do here in the Legislature and the work that we see in government. It’s a critical role, a role that provides us with some security, some peace of mind, some checks and balances that I think are even more critical if you take a look at the global economy of today.

I don’t think anyone could have imagined the kinds of links that we see across the globe when it comes to our economy now. I think in the kind of complex world that we live in today, the role of accountants is even more important. That’s why I’ll certainly be supporting this bill and the approach of a merger of the three of B.C.’s accounting bodies.

I want to start off by expressing my appreciation to all of those bodies. I think when you take a look at professional associations — not simply accountants, but all professional associations — there is often a lot of turf that’s looked after. They’re often individual organizations that have their particular history and their particular work. Understandably, those associations protect that work and make sure that they look out for the kind of history that they’ve had.

What you see here is that, in fact, three existing associations came together to say this good work needs to happen. They recognize, themselves, the importance of taking on this merger, the importance of looking at what needed to be done and in fact followed a process that I think is a process other associations could look at, if they were looking at mergers, if they were looking at the work that needed to be done.

This really was a long process, no question — others have mentioned that, the time that it’s taken to get to this place — but from the work that’s happened, this has been time well spent.

What you’ve seen is the associations actually recognize the importance of engaging everyone. They took the time to recognize the role that each party played — the role that each of the three associations played, the role of government and the role of other stakeholders. They actually put together a process that would include all of those important stakeholders, that would give them an opportunity to have their say, that would give them a chance to be able to talk about their concerns in a merger and to talk about the strengths that would come.

I think it’s telling that they actually held 58 town hall meetings. The member prior to me talked about the fact that people don’t think of accountants, perhaps, as individuals who are out there engaging with each other. I think if you take a look at 58 town hall meetings on any subject, that speaks well to the process and to the engagement that the three associations took on with their members in making sure that they really saw the challenges and saw the opportunities that were here.

We’ve heard the numbers that we’re talking about. These are not small numbers of individuals that we’re talking about. When you include the students in each of these organizations, this is a large number of individuals.

The merger, from my perspective and from the bill’s perspective, really takes a look at three particular areas that it brings strength to. One, I would say, is accountability. The second one is the issue of labour mobility. The third one, which I think is in some ways the most important one right now, is to build public confidence and to build confidence in economic business.

I just want to take a couple of minutes to start off with accountability. Bringing the three bodies together really provides a level of accountability — for the public, for government, for other groups and organizations that use accountants — by making sure that we have a common regulatory framework that takes the best practices of each of the three organizations and brings them together.

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That gives some level of accountability and strengthens the level of accountability to those organizations becoming one.

I think the other piece that’s really important is the issue of consistent regulations. We will now see consistent regulations across the three bodies coming together — the CAs, the CMAs and the CGAs. Again, if we’re taking a look at accountability, and if we’re taking a look at consistent regulation, you’re looking at things like a code of conduct. You’re looking at things like disciplinary processes, which right now could be different in each of the organizations. You’re talking about consistency across not only our province but other provinces and taking a look at what happens nationally.

I think those are critical accountability pieces that are going to be strengthened through this process and are certainly strengthened in the bill as well.

I do have to add a bit of a chuckle when we talk about regulations, because we often see this government on the other side talking about getting rid of regulations, talking about regulations not being valuable. I think this is a perfect example of how important it is to have good-quality regulations in place and support for those good-quality regulations by these bodies coming together in this piece of legislation.

The second piece that I mentioned is the issue of labour mobility. I think we can’t, again, underestimate the opportunity that it provides in bringing the three associations together to give a common entry point, a single entry point for people who are looking at moving into the field of accounting.

The issue of common standards. To come back to that for a moment, I think all of us in this Legislature, probably on both sides, have heard concerns raised by individuals who emigrate from other countries, with credentials, and who come to British Columbia and then find that they can’t use their credentials when they’re here, that they’re not able to and that their credentials aren’t recognized.

It’s a difficult process to try and go through and make sure that you can get your credentials recognized.

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Imagine if you’re an accountant coming from another country. You come in and there are three associations with perhaps three different opportunities to be able to try and get your credentials recognized. I think the issue of labour mobility and having a single entry point will certainly provide a better opportunity for us to be able to utilize the skills of individuals who immigrate here and who we asked to come here to bring their skills and then who are not able to practise.

I am hopeful that this legislation will provide a better opportunity for those individuals and a better chance for us to use their skills. It’s a waste for them, and it’s a waste for all of us to have people here with those credentials who aren’t able to use them.

Then just the last piece that I want to touch on before I take my seat is the issue of confidence. I think we can’t underestimate this when we take a look at what has happened with financial crises around the globe. We can’t underestimate the strength we have here in Canada with our regulatory system around banking and financial institutions, and the strength that that has given us as a country. When you take a look around the world at what has happened, we have the ability here to be able to stand proudly and talk about the strengths of our accountability.

I believe what this legislation does here in British Columbia is provide us with another step — another step in those regulations and another step in building confidence for the public and for the economy. I’m certain that accounting can seem a very daunting profession for people who are taking a look from the outside and wondering about an accountant and using an accountant, perhaps, in their own finances or in their business. Then to have to take a look at three different bodies and three different accountants adds a level of complexity. So I think having a single body and an opportunity for the public to really gain that kind of confidence will be a strength as well.

I am pleased to see this come forward. I think it was time well spent. I congratulate the associations for the good work that they did in engaging government, as well as the public, as well as their members. I think it was a very good process. They did a very good job of letting people know on both sides of the House how important it was to have this bill come forward. I certainly will be supporting it.

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L. Reimer: I am pleased to stand up in the House today and speak in support of this act. I have and know many accountants in my community. I’m very pleased that government drafted this legislation, and it was presented in the Legislature the week before last. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services for all his work on this file and also the Minister of Advanced Education for sort of putting the icing on the cake, so to speak.

This act modernizes and streamlines regulation of the accounting profession in B.C. by enabling B.C.’s three accountancy associations to unify and create a single professional organization, which will be known as the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia.

The legislation establishes a framework for the CPABC to regulate accounting services that members can provide to the public. Accountants will be required to meet strict professional and ethical conduct standards established by CPABC as they do under their current professional legislation, whether it be chartered accountants, certified management accountants or certified general accountants. This will, of course, serve the public interest well and will increase public confidence.

The purpose of this legislation will establish a new governance structure for the profession, authorize CPABC to provide for chartered professional accountant education programs and allow CPABC to regulate, investigate and discipline members and students as well as accounting corporations and firms that are registered by the CPABC.

CPABC will continue to regulate accounting services that members provide to the public, and accountants will continue to be required to meet strict professional and ethical conduct standards. The benefits of this, the unification of the three B.C. organizations into a single designation, will create a more modern, streamlined regulatory system.

The new designation and consolidated regulation of professional practice allow the unified association to strengthen its position in an increasingly global marketplace. This legislation will bring B.C. into line with the rest of Canada. To date, all provinces and territories except Nova Scotia, Ontario, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut have introduced or passed similar CPA legislation. The educational programs and professional standards for accountants will be largely consistent across the country, enhancing labour mobility.

The legislation will, as I said, establish the governance structure for CPABC, which will be a board consisting of both elected and appointed members; set out the powers for them to regulate, investigate and discipline members; authorize CPABC to provide educational programs; reserve the use of specific titles or designations for their members only; and include transitional provisions to ensure that the amalgamation does not adversely affect the public or members of the current three accountancy organizations.

This bill, along with the minor legislative amendments made in 2014, enables unification. It’s an interim measure to allow members of the three organizations to use the new designation.

In conclusion, the unification is supported by CAs, CGAs and CMAs in B.C. They have been very active, making this their primary focus. The members of all three of these organizations voted in support of the uni-

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fication and establishment of the new CPABC, and the three organizations have requested this legislation. Today I stand here in support of this act and commend the Minister of Advanced Education and also the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services for what will be one of the largest professional organizations in the province, with 27,000 designated members.

B. Ralston: I rise to speak to Bill 4, the Chartered Professional Accountants Act. I want to begin by congratulating the three merging bodies or amalgamating bodies: the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C., the Certified General Accountants of B.C. and the Certified Management Accountants of B.C.

Many of us, in the course of our lives, will have been involved in mergers of one kind or another, whether in the business world…. I suppose the texts of the business schools are replete with analyses of successful mergers and unsuccessful mergers, because a merger is sometimes not a certain thing.

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It’s more than simply the legal drawing together of two entities. It’s also a joining together, sometimes, of very different corporate or business cultures.

I see the member seeks to make an introduction, perhaps?

Deputy Speaker: The minister seeks leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. A. Virk: Hon. Speaker, once again, thank you very much. I’m happy this week and very excited. This is the fourth and final introduction I make of Pacific Academy. It’s my deep, deep pleasure to have another grade 5 class from Pacific Academy, an excellent school in my riding. Afterwards they’re going to come to my office, and we’re going to have a question-and-answer period.

Debate Continued

B. Ralston: As I was saying, the culture of merger in business has certainly been well studied. Reviewing the documents and the briefings that I’ve had over the years as this process has gone along, I’m confident that a very successful merger plan is indeed underway and will be successful as a merged organization.

Other members will have had experience in the merger of trade unions or, in my case, in the merger or amalgamation of credit unions. The challenges are immense when that process is undertaken.

This is more than simply a merger or amalgamation at the provincial level. It’s also the national merger across every province and territory in the country, whether Nunavut or the Northwest Territories or Yukon territory and every province right across the country. This is certainly a huge undertaking that the profession across the country has begun and is enacting. It seems to so far have been very successful, but that’s only because of the amount of work — the discussion, the public fora that have been held and the ongoing work — by the leadership in the profession.

In the documents it’s clear that the profession commissioned external professionals to review the benefits and the detriments of a potential amalgamation. The other professions and other bodies — notably the Securities Commission; I believe, the Law Society as well — have all supported the effective amalgamation of these bodies.

I heard the minister say that a merged profession would have 34,000 members, including students. I believe that the member for West Vancouver–Capilano elevated that to 36,000. Certainly, it will be a substantial presence in the province given the contacts and the work that accountants do, whether in the public sector….

I chaired, in the past, the Public Accounts Committee. Certainly, the importance of the role of accountancy in both the analysis of the financial position of the province and in performance audits really contributes to the scrutiny that the public expects and deserves in terms of the financial accountability of the government itself.

A further benefit of regulation, as others have spoken of, is mobility between provinces. Although it will not be a requirement to practise that you be a member of the association, those who do join will find it easier to move from province to province. Given the global mobility of capital, it’s probably helpful for there to be one designation within the country.

Certainly, some of the national firms will find it much easier to move key personnel from one province to another if there’s a common designation. One could move from Calgary to Vancouver or from Toronto to Surrey with much greater ease, given a common designation. Internally, I think in the national firms that will help. Also, there’s an affiliation with international standards, and it will facilitate that as well.

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The risks were analyzed as well. I think there was some concern, given that there were three bodies, that perhaps two bodies might merge and one would be left out. I think that also helped to encourage all three to come forward at the same time and accept a merger. The possibility that the body that might be left behind would not be aligned with a global accounting designation was a concern as well.

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After lengthy consideration…. Accountants are highly qualified professionals, so I’m sure that there was an assessment, a risk assessment and a benefit assessment, by each member of the three bodies. Clearly, they are now taking the final steps here in British Columbia to merge.

The national profession, the national body, will have approximately 170,000 members, which is, again, when one compares it to other national bodies, a significant presence on the national scene and will, I think, benefit the ability of the profession to make its views known publicly and to influence the course of public affairs in the country.

The other, I think, important aspect of the merger is the merger of training. In the document that was provided to me, there’s a recitation of the merged training opportunities. The competencies of a newly qualified Canadian CPA will involve having been trained in the following six areas: financial accounting and reporting; management accounting, planning and control; assurance; taxation; finance; and performance management. “Financial accounting and management accounting, planning and control would be central to the program, but the CPA certification program would require the demonstration of competence in all six competency areas.”

That provides a substantial assurance to members of the public and those in business, when they engage either a sole proprietor, a partnership or a national firm with CPA designations, that they have the assurance that there are well-trained and well-rounded CPAs who are going to undertake the business that they’re being asked to undertake.

Certainly, speaking from the perspective of the Public Accounts Committee, performance audits are invaluable in assessing deficiencies in programs, whether it’s internal to a company or whether it’s internal to government — deficiencies in program offerings and recommendations on how efficiency and value for money might be achieved in the ongoing operation of either government or a business or, indeed, non-profit enterprise.

This is a significant step. As I say, I think they’re executing a well-considered and effective merger plan. The new merged profession, I think, will be something that all of us will benefit from.

I support the legislation. I thank the minister for bringing it forward, and I congratulate those participating organizations on achieving yet another milestone in the road to an effective merged national profession.

D. Bing: On behalf of my constituents in Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, I am pleased to speak in support of Bill 4, the Chartered Professional Accountants Act. Bill 4 will bring together three organizations: the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia, the Certified Management Accountants Society of British Columbia and the Certified General Accountants Association of British Columbia. All combined, they will be unified to create one professional organization, the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia or CPABC.

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By unifying accountants under a single professional organization, the CPABC will be able to establish a modern and streamlined regulatory system, which will include a board of elected and appointed members. This will ensure that educational programs and professional standards are consistent. It will also promote transparent governance for the accounting profession. Our government is pleased to streamline the accounting profession to make it a more effective service in British Columbia.

Bill 4 is also consistent with changes to the accounting profession that are happening across the country. Many jurisdictions have introduced or passed similar CPA legislation. This legislation will not only create consistency in B.C. but help to consolidate the accounting profession across the country. Modernizing and streamlining accounting regulations in B.C. will benefit all British Columbians.

There are approximately 34,000 members in three organizations who will benefit directly from this act. Individuals who are certified and in good standing with existing provincial accounting organizations will be able to apply to become a member of CPABC. A single modern regulatory system that will govern members will strengthen the position of CPAs in B.C. in an increasingly global marketplace.

Because these changes are occurring across Canada, it will allow members the flexibility to work in many different parts of this country. Individuals who currently use the CPA, CGA, CMA and CA designations have all expressed their support for this bill. Each organization has voted in support of unification and has requested this legislation. They have also consulted extensively with stakeholders and post-secondary institutions, who have also shown their support for unification.

Similarly, this legislation will help accounting students by allowing those enrolled in an existing program to receive a CPA designation when they graduate. The president and CEO of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C., Richard Rees, agrees. He says: “This is an exciting time for new graduates as we move forwards towards unification under the CPA banner. They represent a new generation of professional accountants, who will add great value to the businesses who employ them.”

Finally, this legislation will benefit the general public of British Columbia. It will enforce strict professional and ethical standards on members to ensure that they are held accountable. It also authorizes the CPABC to regulate, investigate and discipline its members and students.

Beyond ensuring accountability, Bill 4 will help simplify the accounting profession to the public. Only members will be able to use the CPA designation in their title. This legislation does not prevent individuals from calling themselves accountants or from participating in ac-

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counting activities. It simply clarifies to the public who has received certified training and continues to be held to rigorous professional standards.

Our government is making these changes to ensure that clients of accounting services can have confidence in the people they hire. Despite these changes, accounting services provided to the public will not be disrupted. The legislation includes transitional provisions to prevent adverse effects on the public or members.

The intention of this bill is to streamline and to simplify the accounting profession, allowing it to be a more efficient service for all British Columbians.

L. Krog: I’m very pleased to rise today to make a few remarks about the Chartered Professional Accountants Act.

It’s a somewhat sentimental day for me in one respect. My dear sister-in-law, the first sister-in-law to marry into the Krogs…. Oh, I shouldn’t even mention names. She took a secretarial course back in 1969 at the vocational school in Nanaimo and went to work for MacMillan Bloedel. We used to have giant forest industries in this province at one time, and MacMillan Bloedel was that signal champion of B.C.’s forests. She worked her way up through a very long career. She only retired a few years ago and became a certified management accountant along the way. No small achievement. A very difficult program.

That is an organization, the Certified Management Accountants Society of British Columbia, which will disappear as a result of this merger. Having said that, I can’t help but remark that a merger is somewhat like a marriage and, in this case, it’s clearly voluntary. It’s not like some problematic marriages where the parties are forced together because of untoward premature couplings that have produced a certain pressure to tie the knot.

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This is, in fact, more of a polygamous relationship here. We have three parties merging into one for the purposes of the greater good.

Interjections.

L. Krog: I’m somewhat surprised that there’s such enthusiasm for the encouragement of polygamy, given the recent rulings of the Supreme Court.

Having said that, and not wishing to make light of the seriousness of this legislation, of course, I want to say that opposing this bill is not quite like opposing motherhood or saying that you dislike ice cream, but it’s not far off the mark. But I would be remiss if I didn’t say that notwithstanding the love that obviously exists now amongst all the various types of accountants in this province who have merged into this new organization and will be able to do so under a more fulsome piece of legislation than existed before, we only allowed them last year, in a quick run-by in this House, to get together without legal ramifications.

Notwithstanding that, there will be problems, as many members have pointed out. Like all relationships, there will be some very difficult times ahead, no doubt, but I think it is extremely important, as it is true for all professions, that the public be able to have reliance, that the members of that professional group — who are, by virtue of statute, awarded significant responsibilities but also significant opportunities — will in fact be the kind of people who can be trusted.

There have been some occasions in the last few years where some very large international accounting firms have faced some significant and real criticism — and indeed, prosecution in various jurisdictions — because of their actions.

I am firmly of the belief that in fact, here in British Columbia, with the merger of these three professional bodies, it will enhance what, on an international level, certainly, has been a somewhat diminished reputation. That is important, because, as the member for West Vancouver–Capilano, one of those members whom I was referring to the other day when I talked about the best and the brightest brains being banished to the back bench, of course…. When he commented earlier today that there would be some difficulties around the objects, I think he was bang on.

As a member of the Law Society of British Columbia, they afford me my professional credentials, but it’s the Canadian Bar Association that I expect to be an advocate for lawyers in general. I think it’s important to note that in

section 3 of the act it lays out the objects of the Chartered Professional Accountants board. What it says is, firstly:

“(

a) to promote and maintain the knowledge, skill and proficiency of members and students in the practice of accounting; (

b) to establish qualifications and requirements for admission as a member and continuation of membership, and for enrollment and continuation of enrollment of students; (

c) to regulate all matters, including competency, fitness and professional conduct, relating to the practice of accounting by members, students, professional accounting corporations and registered firms; (

d) to establish and enforce professional standards”; but then “(

e) to represent the interests of members and students.”

Now, I don’t want to be terribly legalistic here today, but the phrase “to represent the interests of members and students,” by implication, to me means that you are to advocate for them as well. I’m not entirely sure that, over time, that will be something that the society or the Certified Professional Accountants board will be able to handle in the way that we have come to expect of other professional organizations. I used the lawyers as an example. The B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons, as opposed to the BCMA, is another example.

These are all issues that will have to be worked out over time, because if we are in fact to ensure that the reliance is justified — and I’m sure that it will be — by the people of British Columbia in the 34,000 members of this new organization, than we have to ensure that there are high standards and that the most important object is surely to ensure that the public has every reason to have reli-

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ance on it. There is a bit of a duality here that may present some problems.

I’m sure the board is going to have to confront that, but I do note that certainly, in the bylaws division — division 2 on page 7 of the bill — the first thing authorized under the

section under “Bylaws” in the bill is: “The board may make bylaws for the purposes of the management and objects of the CPABC.”

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Then it goes on at some length respecting all the other bylaws, with a fair bit of specificity as to what those objects and what the powers would be respecting those bylaws. But it’s left it pretty broad when it comes to making bylaws for the purposes of the management and objects of the CPABC and really doesn’t say very much with respect to that provision that says: “to represent the interests of members and students.”

Subject to those kinds of questions, which I’m sure the minister responsible will be able to answer in a fulsome and modest way, of course, noting his usual delivery in the House. I’m sure that the opposition and those members of his very own party and fellow MLAs will now be asking…. I’m sure those questions will be answered in a more fulsome manner that will illuminate the government’s reasoning behind the wording that is in this bill so that, again, the public can be satisfied that this new body will in fact do as good a job as the three bodies that are now being merged into one.

Certainly, I think, like most of us who — and I say this not in a bragging way — have had the pleasure in our society of having to have an accountant look after our financial affairs on occasion and, certainly, being very satisfied with mine…. I won’t go so far as to mention the name of the firm, lest I be accused of trying to promote business in the wonderful city of Nanaimo.

Having said that, if the experience of every other person in British Columbia has been as satisfactory as mine, I’m sure we’ll all be happy. So as I say, I look forward to the minister explaining the government’s views with respect to the objects of the society. I think it is important because other professions have certainly had to confront this at other times. There has been legislative change as a result of that. But this is, after all, the first go.

I’m reminded of what President Obama has become famous for: basically promoting — and I’m sure he wasn’t the first ever to say it — that one should never let the pursuit of the perfect stand in the way of doing the good. This legislation is doing the good.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister closes debate.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: I move second reading of Bill 4.

Motion approved.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: I move that Bill 4 be referred to a Committee of the Whole to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 4, Chartered Professional Accountants Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. Polak: I call second reading debate on Bill 3.

BILL 3 — BUILDING ACT

Hon. R. Coleman: I move that Bill 3 be read a second time now.

As I reflect on this piece of legislation…. The member opposite, the Opposition House Leader and I will be able to do some reflection on this because we actually have worn separate hats in this House in the same portfolio. When he was a cabinet minister in the former NDP government he was also the Housing Minister, and I was the Housing critic. We actually had conversations about the efficacy and the consistency of the building code, going, I think, back as far as maybe 1996 or 1997.

This piece of legislation behind us, which is the Building Act, has actually been a piece of work in process as I’ve been the Housing Minister, since 2005 — with some process, I think, prior to 2001. The work with the communities and UBCM has been extensive over those years.

It’s

an act, the first legislation in British Columbia devoted to the building and construction sector, particularly the building code and how building codes and construction standards will be done in British Columbia in the future. We have to remember that the construction sector is a big contributor to the economy of British Columbia. It generated about $9.6 billion in gross domestic product and employed 110,000 people last year, in 2013.

The objective of this act is to balance the consistency of construction.

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The industry desires the flexibility of local government and the quality of the product and the certainty of the product that flows through to the consumer of British Columbia, the end buyer of a home in B.C. — and other buildings. In particular, it’s so we can actually make sure that we’re not putting needless costs on the construction of housing and so that, by having some consistency in how we do business, everybody can understand from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

The legislation is intended to increase efficiency, productivity and innovation in the industry. Its goal is to achieve three things. First, the act will streamline regulation of building construction. Basically, that means currently that we’re going to go look at how we do.… Well,

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we want to streamline how we do this, with the regulation and building construction. Some of the things that are faced we’ve been talking about, as I said a few minutes ago, for a long time — about how some things in the building code, building act have become confusing over the years.

Not only has there been a national building code, which is harmonized, for the most part, with the B.C. building code, there’s always been a tendency for other building bylaws to be put in at local government levels that are different from one community to another. Whether it be from Coquitlam to Port Coquitlam, from Langley to Surrey, there’s confusion in that. They go beyond the intent, the efficacy and the reasons for a building code.

The result of that has become a patchwork of different requirements across B.C. which increases the costs for building a home or other buildings and, at the same time, increases the time to be able to do your work and to be able to do things.

You can imagine if you are an architect or engineer and you’re designing a building in B.C. You design it in Surrey, and you go to a community next door, and they have a different set of bylaws and rules around the designing of the same building, even though you’re matching up to the building code. That creates confusion and costs, not just for you but for the bidding process, for those people who would build it, the finishers — all the people that do the work with regards to that particular building.

There is a story out there, which is true, that one community many years ago had an opportunity for 300 jobs in a special kind of warehouse. That warehouse would have brought $1 million in municipal taxes to the local government and about 300 jobs. The local officials decided to put some differing things within their local building bylaws and their fire code that had never been applied anywhere else before, which increased the cost of the building exponentially. So they didn’t build it there.

They went to a neighbouring community in the Lower Mainland that today gets the million dollars in taxes, has the 300 jobs. Their fire suppression system is the same fire suppression system as anywhere else in North America, except for this one place where somebody decided they wanted to change the local bylaws. Not only did the community lose $1 million and 300 jobs, but the opportunity was lost there too. And somebody actually had to pay extra dollars to try and design a building twice.

The act is intended to ensure that the building requirements are set by the province, that existing requirements set by local government will be eliminated over time so that we can harmonize this. If local governments have basic things during the transition period, we’ll fix them. For other pieces, we’ll do harmonization. But as we come through to the future, they will have to make the case if they want to do something outside the building code in a particular community in B.C.

There was a time when I had those debates…. I don’t remember if the member opposite was actually the minister at the time, because debates on the building code have gone on forever. There was a situation where we had a building code in B.C., and it was the reverse of this.

It said there was only a certain type 2:12 slope roof, etc. It didn’t make allowances for places like Whistler and Revelstoke, where they needed a higher-pitch roof with a metal roof because of the snow load. So we need to be able to have that efficacy and smoothness, but it has to be practical, and in some way it has to be consistent. The intention here is to accomplish that.

We think that it will help reduce costs, improve efficiencies of construction, increase the consistency of building requirements across B.C. and will help a lot of communities across British Columbia that want to actually improve some of the things in and around their building.

I should say that there have been a number of consultations at UBCM. One, in particular, I actually chaired myself, for everybody from the local governments. I think, at that meeting, in excess of 90-plus local governments that were present unanimously supported that we move to a harmonization and some consistency in the building code.

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Secondly, the act’s going to increase the competency of local government and building officials. Now, building officials monitor the compliance with the B.C. building code in their communities. Currently there’s no required qualifications for building officials in B.C. The result is different levels of building code knowledge and contradictory decisions on what the code says and how it should apply.

The Building Act will establish minimum qualifications for building officials and require local governments only to employ qualified building officials. That is a nuance in itself for local governments that don’t want to have full-time building officials on staff because they may not have enough activity in the construction sector in a very small community. So they can have somebody that is qualified, with the qualifications, to do the inspections on behalf of that community and know that they’re reaching a standard.

Third, the act is going to expand the provincial role to better support the construction sector and local governments. Currently there’s no clear approval process for innovative buildings such as the Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George, such as taller wood-frame and, basically, cross-laminated beam structures in British Columbia, even though they’re built elsewhere in the world.

We have a situation where there’s a proposal that’s come in from UBC, I think it is, where they’d like to do something with their engineering department with regards to a taller building. We actually have to put an en-

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velope around that, do a special directive and try and build a separate code for that because there’s no ability or flexibility in the existing code to be able to do that.

We think there should be that ability to get to that clear approval process for innovations in any type or form of construction. If we don’t do that, we’re likely to just repeat the past, and repeating the past, given some of the experiences we’ve had in leaky condos and other forms of construction in B.C., isn’t really something that we want to do.

Under this act, the province will review proposals for innovative building by a cost-recovery approach. If there’s a building that is coming in that needs an extensive amount of work in and around building code that could be applied across the province, but they need a special directive, they will actually pay a fee for government to be able to bring the experts to play to make sure that can happen.

We know, for instance, in wood construction, particularly cross-laminated beam, there are buildings in Europe that are substantially higher than the wood innovation centre in Prince George. We know that we could do that here, but it is a matter of making sure the code and the consistency with communities and the expertise and understanding to be able to do that is consistent across the province.

The act will expand the capacity of the Building Code Appeal Board to resolve more complex disputes between industry and local governments. So for the folks that have some complexities and disputes as we come through the transition period, we’ll be able to solve those.

Through these new services, the province is taking leadership to support the building innovation part of our future in construction in B.C.

As I’ve said, some of us have been around here a while and consulted extensively over a number of years with the industry, with communities and with building officials. There’s broad support for the act from the construction sector and building officials, but also, I believe, it will come from the public as well. They understand that by streamlining this, having consistency, we should be able to actually drive some costs out of the retail costs of housing, which the consumer should be able to benefit from.

In response to feedback from local governments, the construction sector and the public, it will be phased in over several years, providing time to adapt. The new Building Act is a significant step forward for the construction sector of the economy of B.C.

I believe that our committee stage discussions on this will be very instructive, and the work that goes from here will be very important to make sure that we have a stable, understandable and professional construction sector for the future of British Columbia.

I am pleased to move second reading, and take my seat now.

M. Farnworth: I thank the minister for his comments on Bill 3.

This is a piece of legislation that has been a long time in coming. The minister’s right. We’ve had discussions on the issues around building code going on for many, many years — in fact, going back almost two decades and even before that. That is why this particular piece of legislation is important. There’s a lot in this bill, and I’m going to touch on several key areas where we have a lot of questions.

As we know, much of this bill is regulatory in nature. I will address that in my remarks around that. It gives significant power to the ministry or to the minister, and I think it’s important that we explore that. There’s a fair bit that I have to say in second reading, but the bulk of the questions will, of course, come during committee stage. I know the minister will be more than willing to deal with and answer questions at that time and address concerns raised in the bill. I see him nodding. So I look forward to that discussion.

Interjection.

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M. Farnworth: Absolutely, this is exciting stuff. The reality is — you know what? — the minister’s right. It is exciting stuff. It’s scintillating.

This bill doesn’t come out of nowhere. We’re talking about building. As we all know, for people the most important financial decision they often make in their lives is purchasing a first home or purchasing a new home or purchasing any home. It’s an important decision. So we need to make sure that we’ve got the right building standards and building codes and training systems in place.

This bill arises from the hope of most people in the province that new buildings built in British Columbia meet minimum standards for safety, environmental efficiency, access for people with disabilities and consumer protection. In fact, for many years B.C. has had a building code to address some of these issues.

Standards required for quality and consumer protection. On the topic of the need for standards to ensure consumer protection and high-quality, long-lasting buildings, this province has seen in the past the worst of what happens when building codes fail. The leaky-condo crisis cost homeowners across the Lower Mainland hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs that they could not afford. Seniors remortgaged their properties. Families sold and moved. First-time homebuyers saw their investments collapse when, if their building had just been built to better standards in the first place, their condo would have increased in value the way that would have been expected.

I mean, I still remember my partner and I buying our first condominium in 1992. In 2004 I was still paying off $35,000 in an assessment to get that leaky unit fixed. I

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paid $158,000 for it in 1992. In 2002 you couldn’t sell it if you wanted to for $85,000. The mortgage was bigger than the value of the equity in that unit, and that was typical of thousands of people in this province.

The leaky-condo crisis is exactly why minimum standards are needed in this province as a preventative measure. The standards must be fair, must be transparent and must establish the minimum level of quality that builders must reach in their products in order to protect the biggest investment most British Columbians will ever make — the purchase of their family homes.

For many in this province their homes have also become their retirement plans. The value of their homes, preserved through high-quality building, must carry them through their later years in comfort and dignity. High-quality construction, reinforced by clear and transparent standards, will help them reach those goals. Low-quality construction that undermines this critical investment’s value will threaten many retirement plans across the province.

Another important use of building standards is to protect rights of access for people with disabilities. It may not be intuitive for people who don’t live with a physical disability what the connection is between building standards and access for people with disabilities. However, for people who must live with a physical disability, the connection is clear.

Building standards that mandate doors wide enough for scooters and wheelchairs, doors with push handles rather than door knobs, commercial buildings with requirements for disabled-access bathrooms — the list of how building standards can and have improved life for people with physical disabilities by ensuring basic access is endless. One need only look at the challenges presented by this legislative building to understand how building codes and planning access for people with disabilities have changed in the last 100 years and how well-planned standards can overcome very costly retrofits down the road.

A building code can also be used to restrict the use of materials found to be linked to diseases like asthma or cancer and can have a profound impact on public health initiatives. The elimination by law of the use of asbestos in buildings, for example, has almost completely eliminated asbestosis among construction workers because the product simply isn’t installed. We no longer permit the use of lead-based paints.

Provincial building standards could react quickly and provincially if new health hazards — for example, in treated wood product — were discovered. Through amendments to our building codes we could act to protect British Columbians, and the work of monitoring health research into building materials wouldn’t fall to small municipalities across the province and patchwork enforcement. Similarly, uniform building codes can help ensure safety.

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The height of stairs is predictable to people, and when stair height changes suddenly, falls occur more frequently.

Standards for using fire-retarding building materials and designs can help our firefighters keep accidental fires under control. Instead of accelerating a small fire into a four-alarm blaze, standards for water sprinklers and smoke detectors and alarm systems, especially in multi-unit buildings, have been proven to save lives.

In many areas of our province seismic building standards help ensure that when the big one finally comes, as many buildings as possible will be able to resist the earthquake.

There’s a direct connection between building standards that are well planned and protecting the public from hazardous building materials and ensuring that buildings are as safe as possible.

In addition to those positive aspects I have listed about how building codes can improve public health, environmental sustainability and access for people with disabilities, consistency in building codes through a uniform building code mechanism can also help provide contractors with cost efficiencies — which, ideally, are passed along to consumers, reducing the overall cost of new construction.

This bill holds the promise of all of the benefits of a well-planned uniform building code. However, it also holds a number of perils for the province that we will be exploring during the committee stage of this bill.

Let me begin by saying that the initiative to establish a provincewide building code is a good one and should be welcomed by most British Columbians. However, like many initiatives undertaken by this government with the best of intentions, we want to make sure that they are implemented properly and in the way in which they are intended. There are some hotly contested issues behind this legislation, and the government is well aware of those issues.

One only needs to read

section 3 of this new act to understand what new powers the minister will be able to exercise in the cabinet rooms of the Legislature through regulation. That’s one of the critical components of this particular bill, is that it gives significant power to the minister to make changes through regulation. There are advantages to that, in the sense that regulations can be passed quickly. The flip side, of course, is that those regulations are not debated here in the chamber.

Section 3(1)(

a) says that the minister may make regulations for “establishing one or more building codes” — which, although broad, could be understood to be reasonable given the quick-changing standards for buildings and the need to keep up without requiring the Legislature to debate the merits of various cement aggregates or clearance requirements, for example.

But the powers for the minister are not just reserved to the right to rewrite technical aspects of the building codes. They can also, by regulation, empower the minis-

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ter to look at other areas, such as under subsection (b), to regulate “building generally for matters not included in a building code.” A regulation-making power for everything to establish a building code and also a regulation power for everything related to any matter not included in a building code — that’s a pretty broad power. That is a very broad power.

Now, I look forward to exploring this with the minister, and the minister may have a sound idea of how this is intended to work. But as the minister himself well knows, having served in this place now for almost 20 years, he will not be the minister forever. At some point there may well be somebody else exercising the power given to them through these regulations. We need to understand exactly what the intent of those regulations is going to be and how they’re intended to be implemented.

This is not a closely restricted regulation-making power for technical matters, structured to require the minister to come back to the Legislature for approval for major changes. This is regulation-making power for literally everything relating to buildings in the province. In fact, the law goes on to say that the minister can pass these regulations to prescribe requirements for “any other matter that the minister considers necessary or advisable.”

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This legislation has come about through considerable discussion and consultation. If you read it the way that it’s presented, in many ways, some might say that it creates a building czar.

Now, the minister smiles, and, as I said a moment ago, he’s not going to be the minister forever. But the fact of the matter is….

Interjections.

M. Farnworth: I hear “What? What?”

This is a powerful piece of legislation, and this issue of so much power in this legislation, concentrated by regulation, is one of the issues that has been raised by the Union of B.C. Municipalities. In fact, in July of 2014, months before this bill was announced, they asked for clarity about the new role of the minister in implementing regulations and for certainty about what the government’s intentions were. Well, as of this stage of the bill, those intentions aren’t clear, and one of the areas that we intend to explore during committee stage is just that.

The UBCM wrote: “The reform plan presented by the province lacks specific details as to what is planned. The scope of the proposed legislation is not detailed, and no indication is given on the nature of the new ministerial powers, nor how they might compare with existing powers.” The plan lacks specific details, and now it seems the plan has been implemented in this bill and that — no surprise — it lacks specific details on critically important issues.

One of the controversies that we need to understand how this bill is going to impact or deal with is around the requirement of licences for people in the province who may have been building homes for decades. That’s why, in December of 2012, the minister indicated to Tar Sandhu of the builders relations organization based in Surrey that existing builders would be grandfathered. This seems reasonable, if builders have the necessary experience to build. But what does the legislation actually say, given the commitment that the minister has made?

Additional regulation or powers requested by the minister in this legislation include the ability to require that building activities like carpentry, form building, or really any construction task of any kind be performed by “persons in specified classes of persons” — those classes, of course, being set privately without coming to the Legislature, set by cabinet regulation without coming to the Legislature.

This legislation grants, without restriction, the minister the ability to impose any licensing requirement on any contractor in any part of the province — not just new builders who start their trades after the date of the legislation’s passing, but all builders. This wide-ranging power has the potential to be considerably at odds with what the minister’s statements have been to existing contractors, and this is an issue that we will be exploring closely in committee stage.

We need to have a debate on these issues. We need to understand what the requirements are going to be.

What I hope, in the course of the discussion around this bill at committee stage, is that it is clear that contractors have been consulted, that they have been able to make presentations to the government, that they have been able to express their concerns to the government but they’ve also expressed these concerns to opposition and that we have a full understanding of how these regulations will deal with the issue that I have just mentioned so that we’re not waking up one morning to new restrictions that were never anticipated and, in fact, end up being put in place when they were told that they would not be implemented.

Beyond the ability to make regulation on areas around licensing, the bill has some other areas that we will want to explore in committee stage.

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The bill does not actually address energy efficiency, renewable energy or other green initiatives directly, despite the reality that building codes present significant opportunities for establishing high energy efficiency standards that will help B.C. meet our carbon pollution reduction goals that could help B.C. address issues of climate change.

Section 5 reads that local bylaws will not be allowed where they deviate from the new building code that will be set by the minister’s regulation.

The bill fails to define what a contravening building standard at the municipal level will be. Ideally, contraven-

[ Page 6171 ]

ing building standards would be, in the best-case scenario, less energy-efficient standards than the provincial code. In such a scenario this bill would set a basement level for energy efficiency, and municipalities would be free to impose higher standards.

Unfortunately, at this point it seems likely that rather than a minimum standard for energy efficiency, this law will set an absolute standard. Sometimes absolute standards work the same way — for example, where a city had a lower energy efficiency standard for insulation, the new provincial standard would make their buildings more energy-efficient. But if a municipality has higher environmental efficiency standards than the provincial standard, an absolute standard could claw them back to a lower standard, eliminating energy efficiency initiatives taken by that community.

We need to make sure that what this bill — and the regulations and sections dealing with this bill — proposes to do in terms of establishing absolute standards…. Municipalities must have the ability to use initiatives to go to higher standards than what is necessarily, potentially, going to be here in this particular piece of legislation.

The act also needs to be clarified on issues where municipalities want to see a variation in terms of what’s proposed in the legislation. It’s another issue that will be explored at committee stage.

Section 7 and

section 8, in terms of how municipalities approach variations, are going to have to be explored further at committee stage. I want the minister to know ahead of time that there will be discussion and debate around that.

When it comes to safety, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, that is a key component of what a building code is all about. I’ve talked about minimum levels, minimum standards around energy efficiency. Well, similar concerns about the code can be said about setting a minimum level of compliance or an absolute standard around safety.

For example, the mayor of Pitt Meadows wrote to the minister expressing concern that aggressive fire sprinkler requirements, which they say have saved lives and property, would be compromised. The mayor wrote:

“The city of Pitt Meadows has a highly successful fire sprinkler component to our building bylaw that has enhanced public safety, reduced fire service costs and dramatically reduced fire losses, both human and structural. It has never experienced negative push-back from homeowners, builders or developers for over 19 years.

“The positive results of local fire sprinkler requirements above those contained within the current building code are irrefutable. Removal of the ability for the city to continue to ensure such efficient and effective service is unacceptable without an alternative solution that, at minimum, provides the city with equal or better results to those obtained by the government.”

What we want to do is to ensure that this legislation is encouraging municipalities, that it doesn’t discourage municipalities from adopting higher safety standards.

This particular piece of legislation has the potential to significantly improve building standards in the province of British Columbia. It gives significant power to the minister.

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The question in debate in committee stage is going to be: is the minister prepared to give greater detail to how the regulations will work? Is the minister prepared to give a sense to this House of what regulations are going to be in place, how they’re going to be implemented, how they will be developed, what kinds of consultation will take place, what kind of implementation plan there is and what are the time frames for the implementation of those regulations? Those are going to be critical.

As I’ve said, there are a number of areas where we have provincial standards. We have standards in this chamber, and sometimes those standards are not met. We have standards around the use of cellphones in here, and sometimes those standards are not met. Members are held to account to those standards. Likewise, in legislation such as this, once these standards and regulations are in place, then the government will be held to account for them.

The reason that that’s important is because these particular standards will be impacting the construction of not just commercial buildings, not just residential buildings but of people’s hopes and dreams when it comes to the most important purchase that they make in their life, which is their home. I think that’s what all of us want: to ensure that we have the best possible building code with the best possible minimum standards in place and, at the same time, that we have building standards that enable and encourage municipalities to go above and beyond to meet the needs of their communities.

That is why I look forward to what other members have to say in the course of this debate. More importantly, I look forward to the discussion on these issues and other issues that will be raised in committee stage. With that, I take my place.

V. Huntington: Standardizing the building requirements and the qualifications for building officials across B.C. is an obvious and very practical step to take. The standardization will hopefully result in a more efficient system where all building inspectors, architects, construction workers, local governments and now the province are on the same page as to what the law allows and, presumably, will ensure compliance with the code provisions.

The minister says its intent is to balance consistency with local flexibility. However, I’m not entirely sure local government is on the balancing scales here, nor has, I think, the ministry been able to reduce costs and red tape. I think the unfolding of the provisions in the transition as it goes forward is going to be an interesting opportunity to see exactly what level of bureaucracy is being introduced into the system.

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I know that the government has been working toward modernization of the building regulatory system for a long time, and even the modernization strategy of 2004 wasn’t implemented at the time, according to the UBCM, because government priorities shifted and focused on greening the building code and on the mid-rise six-storey wood-frame construction regulations. Nevertheless, the system has been undergoing numerous reviews in the past 25 years.

This move to harmonization itself, I believe, will be welcomed by everybody. But along the way, more than one local government and the UBCM itself have raised concerns about a uniform building code and its implementation.

A 2012 UBCM policy paper asked that no changes to be made to the Community Charter. Well, this bill does repeal sections of the Community Charter, and that repeal forms one of my most serious concerns with the bill.

Section 47 repeals the

section of the Community Charter that gives local government the ability to establish standards greater than provincial regulations. This is the important meet-or-beat principle of municipal authority.

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This a significant incursion into a time-honoured principle of local governance in this province, and I await the comments of local government with some concern.

An application of this principle, for instance, was the case where a number of municipalities commented that a uniform building code would take away their ability to uphold stricter fire sprinkler requirements. Campbell River is one of the local governments with localized fire sprinkler requirements. This past October they commented that taking away their local building code bylaws would threaten the efficiency and effectiveness of their fire service.

Now Campbell River and the other municipalities will be required to request exemptions from the act, from the minister. Will these municipalities be granted their exemptions under government regulation? How quickly will the exemptions be granted? Will they even be granted, or will they have to go through the approval process under

section 7 and ask the minister to make local regulations, only to be met with rejection?

I’m hopeful the minister will answer these questions in committee stage, because I think they’re important to the local governance structure in this province.

The government is also portraying the bill as a means to streamline the building code requirements across B.C., which I feel is an essential issue, and to cut red tape. But for municipalities that have to jump through new hoops to uphold their existing and often necessary local building code requirements, this legislation appears to mean additional red tape, additional bureaucracy and additional cost.

The bill does provide for a transition period for some of its provisions, but it will be telling to see how easy or difficult it is to obtain exemptions under this bill or to what extent the government will exercise its regulatory powers under

section 41 of this legislation to declare unrestricted matters where local authorities can exercise their discretion. UBCM wrote in 2012 again that there could be increasing delays as everyone waits for a decision from Victoria about issues of jurisdiction and standards.

I could speak from local experience in Delta, where Delta is under an order-in-council where the Minister of Agriculture has to approve any Delta bylaw, as are two or three other municipalities in the province. It can take months — months — to have a bylaw approved — months of negotiation with the ministry while people wait, while the municipality waits, while cost rises and while frustration rises. The authority of local government to be run by the minister in Victoria, who does not necessarily understand the local issues, can at times be lengthy and very frustrating.

I can understand the importance of uniformity and of training standards, but I do not understand, nor agree with, treating municipalities like children. They are by far the more experienced partner here, and removing their decision-making authority almost entirely is counterproductive, in my opinion. It is a response, I believe, to industry pressure rather than a need to enable good governance.

Despite these concerns, which I hope to canvass further during committee stage, it is worth noting that a government report on the results of consultations found that 84 percent of local government and industry respondents favoured a uniform B.C. building code and over three-quarters of the respondents favoured mandatory certification requirements for building officials. Meanwhile, only 56 percent of local government supported phasing out all local government bylaws that didn’t conform to the provincial standards.

I do hope that the government and its local partners can, through the transition period, come to some understanding of where their various and unique authorities lie.

There are still some question marks here about how this bill will be received by local governments. Government says that eight other provinces have stand-alone building legislation, but I’d like to ask: how was that legislation received?

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What was the debate in those Legislatures? Have there been consequences, including push-back from local gov-

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ernment? Does the provincial government enforce the code, as ours appears to? Have costs and delays increased or declined? Is industry in control, or are the people in control?

There are other outstanding issues as well. The government’s 2012 paper proposed a levy on the value of construction to cover the costs of the uniform code. Local government and construction stakeholders again pushed back, with only 31 percent of local government and 46 percent of industry respondents supporting the idea of a levy.

Well, there doesn’t appear to be anything resembling a levy in the legislation, although government can collect money to offset fees for consultants and specialists who are reviewing proposals from the local authority.

[P. Pimm in the chair.]

That raises the question: are there other costs that we don’t see? Are there costs to the local authorities? Is the local authority going to be allowed to recover those costs from industry? Or is industry going to be passing on those costs to the consumer? While we say that we’re cutting red tape and making things more efficient, we appear to be making things more costly in the long run. I’d be interested again in hearing much more on this from the minister during committee.

I’m also curious about the provision in

section 57, which appears to allow councils to make more stringent maintenance rules for manufactured homes and manufactured home parks and sites. What was the reason for that change? There are a number of questions that relate to those issues too.

This is another bill where the devil will be in the details or in the regulations and how the minister chooses to use them, and how liberally or conservatively the ministry will be approving or vetoing local government decisions. Will it be industry, or will it be the people in charge? This bill changes the power dynamic between local authorities, industry and the provincial government when it comes to building regulations. I hope to pursue these issues, as will my colleagues, during committee.

H. Bains: It is a pleasure to stand here anytime that an issue arises or legislation that comes before us that will affect our constituents. When you look at this Bill 3, from the surface, it looks pretty benign, it makes sense, and perhaps we should not even talk about this. Perhaps it is something that is the right thing to do. But I think that when you apply some of these legislations on the ground…. I think that the real effect is understood and realized by those who are affected by it and those who may not even have real input into making these changes.

I will speak to some specifics, but generally speaking, I think during the committee stage we will be asking some more specific questions about many of the concerns that were raised in the last year or year and a half within my community and, specifically speaking, within the building community in Surrey and the Lower Mainland.

I think at that time the idea was floated by this government that perhaps the builders will require certain training and qualifications and then going through a test. That really raised nervousness within the building community in the South Asian community and some of the other immigrant communities who are in the building industry.

I must say that the construction industry is one of the industries that is a lifeline for Surrey, generally speaking. But the residents of Surrey who are of South Asian descent are deeply involved in the construction industry, from the smaller-sized, one house a year — they have a regular job, and they build a house on the side for extra income — to other medium-sized, who build four, five, six, seven houses a year. Then we have real large ones.

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At that time, the concern was raised that the larger developers and builders have resources. They have trained managers. They have people fully qualified, understanding the code and understanding how the system works. They possess those qualifications, but they would have no problem with that issue. I think going through committee stage, some of those questions will be asked. I hope the minister will be able to answer whether it’s a part of that or not.

Interjection.

H. Bains: The minister says that has nothing to do…. I’m glad to hear that because at that time the real concern was…. The reason the minister got involved…. I remember him going on. I didn’t hear it directly myself, but I was told that he was on one of the radio stations. It was such a heated issue that he had to go on one of the radio stations and make a pledge that: “No, we will not bring in such legislation.” But that was before the election. Now, if the minister says that it has nothing to do with training the builders and the building community, I think that would be of some comfort to those folks.

I had some questions here, especially under

section 11, the definition of “building officials.” My understanding and reading from the surface, again, is it looks like we’re talking about the building inspectors and those who look at the plans and inspect the buildings. That issue, I think, is…. Largely, I think those are trained and qualified people. They understand the industry. They know what the codes are, and then they go and make sure that all buildings meet those building codes.

I’m really happy to hear from the minister, but I would like to see the minister go on record during committee stage to say exactly what the minister’s intents are.

On the other side on this issue, one of the three things that the government’s press release says is that the intention is to streamline building requirements to create the

[ Page 6174 ]

same standards across B.C. We all understand B.C. is, geographically speaking, a very big province and very, very diverse. What works in Prince George may not work in Surrey. What works in Surrey or the Lower Mainland, with heavy rain and moisture, may not work in Whistler. The minister touched on some of those issues during his speech.

I think those are some of the questions. How would you streamline and have similar building codes all across the province when you have that kind of diversity when it comes to weather and terrain and different building requirements due to the weather? There are other diverse issues involved in different areas as well. Those are some of the questions.

Also, “establish mandatory qualifications for local building officials,” expand the province’s ability to review building proposals…. When you go on to see

part 7,

section 41, there are certain regulations that the minister mentioned in the press release. But it is a general section.

Section 41 says: “

(1) The minister may make regulations referred to in

section 41 of the

Interpretation Act.

(2) Without limiting any other provision of this Act, the minister may make regulations as follows: (

a) respecting any matter for which regulations are contemplated by this Act, other than matters for which regulations are expressly contemplated to be made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council….”

That is a wide range of powers given to one office, one minister. As the member for Port Coquitlam mentioned before me…. He said very, very clearly that this minister may have certain intentions, but the minister is not going to be around forever. There will be different people, and their

interpretations of the intentions may be different from what this minister’s intentions are.

[1535]

Again, saying here that respecting any matter, without limiting any other provision of this act, the minister may make regulations respecting any matter for which regulations are contemplated by this Act…. It’s giving complete powers to the minister, and the minister’s discretion, to determine whatever the contemplation was within this act.

Those are some of the questions that will be asked at committee stage so that the minister coming after this minister will know what the intentions of this minister are as far as this act is concerned.

Other questions are raised by UBCM. Again, the minister is saying that…. I may have heard him correctly or may not, but I think this minister said the UBCM endorsed this at their UBCM convention. But this is what they had to say in a July 2014 news release. UBCM stated that several questions need to be answered before they can offer their support to move to a unified building code. “The reform plan presented by the province lacks specific details as to what is planned.

The scope of the proposed legislation is not detailed, and no indication is given on the nature of the new ministerial powers nor how they might compare with existing powers.” Again, they have some serious concerns and some very serious questions before, they are saying through this press release, they could support the unified building code.

Then they go on to say: “The plan indicates that changes will be made to the Community Charter and the Local Government Act. However, the scope of the amendments are not identified.” Again, a very serious concern.

“The reform plan calls for a uniformed building code but does not apply to the city of Vancouver, leaving a large gap in the coverage” — I guess because the Vancouver Charter is giving Vancouver some special rights. Again, you talk about, as much as you want, having a unified building code. But then, again — Vancouver being such a large population base and the housing and the buildings — it’s a big gap left. That’s a concern for the UBCM.

Then they go on to say: “The plan calls for strong provincial leadership but does not identify how the province will provide the wide-ranging support services needed to implement the new building measures and the funding required to implement these changes.” I think they have a very legitimate concern here. We’ve seen the history here, the last 14 years — downloading, off-loading on to the local governments. They make legislation here. They make agreements here. We’ve seen with the teachers contract previous to this one. They will make decisions on behalf of the local government but will not fund them.

If you talk to any local government out there today, they will tell you that they are burdened by off-loading by this government time and again. Again, here they have a concern. Will there be some resources available to them in order to make this a unified building code application? There are many, many concerns.

I was going to go into what the minister said on the radio. The minister has said that they are nothing to do with the training of the builders who build homes or the buildings. It is only to deal with the inspections of the homes by the inspectors and those who inspect the plans and who come and inspect the houses that are being built. That is good assurance for me, and I think that message will be passed on to the community. I’m sure the minister will be asked that question by the local media as well. So I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunity for the minister to clarify that one part.

With that, I will take my place. We will have a number of questions during the committee stage.

[1540]

B. Ralston: I rise to address Bill 3, the Building Act.

As a member who represents a riding in Surrey, of course I’m keenly interested in anything related to building or construction.

It’s a very important part of the local economy, whether building the new city centre in my riding, where there is intense construction activity and a number of high-

[ Page 6175 ]

rise apartments and some office buildings going up, or whether it’s the single-family residential industry, which employs many people in a variety of trades, whether it’s framing, whether it’s concrete work, whether it’s insulation, plumbing — the full gamut of skills that are required to construct buildings in the municipality.

Also in some parts of Surrey, where the zoning has been established, there’s a very vigorous growth in townhouses — which are, for many people, a more affordable option than a single-family dwelling. So it is with some interest that I rise to scrutinize the Building Act.

The minister has set forward the objectives of the legislation. I certainly understand the mandatory qualifications for local building officials. The minister will know, because he took the legislation through the House, that the formerly unregulated building inspection industry was the subject of legislation that set basic standards for people who would profess to do home inspections as a business, as part of the steps that people take before buying a house.

This seems reasonable, and I note that the president of the Building Officials Association, in the minister’s press release, is supporting that. I think it’s in

section 11, which sets out the legislative framework for the standards that will be required.

The other proposal — I suppose, the more important proposal — is to set out uniform building code standards across the province. I think that, in essence, is a valuable approach. One wonders…. This may be balanced by the other objective, which is to give the minister and the ministry some power to scrutinize innovative building schemes.

In Canada, as a federal entity, sometimes the federal government has looked to individual provinces for innovation in social programs and then taken those programs and adapted them nationally. Just arguing, I suppose, by analogy, individual municipalities sometimes do have good ideas about innovations in building code standards. Although they may deviate from the uniform code, they may be effective innovations that should be more broadly adopted.

I suppose my concern would be: does this legislation strike the balance between giving municipalities the ability to innovate, for example, in environmental standards or, as the member for Port Coquitlam spoke of, standards for access for our disabled citizens or safety standards, such as fire retardant and the emerging sector of larger and taller wood-frame buildings? How will that balance be struck?

Certainly, I think there are people with good ideas. There are people who want to make innovations in building, although I think building is a notoriously stuffy and somewhat conservative business, and houses are built very much the way they’ve been built, certainly at the single-family level, for generations. There hasn’t been a great deal of innovation there.

So how will that balance be struck? I’d be interested in hearing from the minister when we move later in the legislative process.

The other exception which has been noted…. And this is clearly the result of the fact that Vancouver is governed by a separate charter for which they are, I think, fortunate, in the view of some other municipalities. It is custom-designed legislatively for the city of Vancouver and its particular situation.

[1545]

Since many builders operate — certainly the larger ones — in Vancouver and Surrey and perhaps Langley and Abbotsford, up the valley, where the centre of a lot of intense building activity is taking place these days, one wonders: will there be an effort on the part of Vancouver to voluntarily harmonize the standards? I know certainly Vancouver is keenly interested in environmental standards in order to meet their objective of being the greenest city in the world. Those are laudable goals. But what will be the ability of the standards that are imposed in the rest of the province to fit with or mesh with the standards that are being set in Vancouver?

I don’t raise this question in a hostile way. I think it’s a legitimate question that some will be interested in finding out the answer to — certainly those involved in construction or at the design level, whether it’s architects or building designers and planners. How will those standards mesh? Certainly there are, I think, real questions that need to be answered there.

I’m pleased to hear from the minister that the proposal to set mandatory standards for builders is not present in the legislation and has been dropped entirely. That will be welcome news to many in Surrey, although certainly there are mandatory requirements, I think, in American states. The one that comes to mind is California. But as I say, that will be welcome in many parts of Surrey, given the position that the minister has taken here in the Legislature today.

I support the objectives of the bill. As others have pointed out — and this information may be dated — certainly the Union of B.C. Municipalities did issue a news release expressing some general concerns with the detail of the legislation and the specific powers that would be conferred upon the minister and how those powers would be exercised. The minister says, if I heard him correctly, that consultation has taken place with the member municipalities of the UBCM, and they are supportive of the direction that’s being taken here. Perhaps we’ll hear more about that as the bill moves through the legislative process.

It’s always a pleasure to talk about the construction industry, the jobs and prosperity it brings. It’s one of the few industries that you can’t offshore. You can’t ship a building over — probably with the exception of prefab buildings, to some extent. For the most part, building and construction is an activity that’s firmly rooted geographically in the jurisdiction where the building is be-

[ Page 6176 ]

ing constructed and, therefore, an important driver of the local economy.

I think, indeed, during the boom, in the run-up to 2009, the B.C. Business Council said that six or seven of the ten leading industries in the Lower Mainland were building or building-related. It’s an important industry. I’m sure that this debate will be followed keenly by those affected in that industry and by consumers generally.

With those comments, I conclude my remarks.

L. Krog: I won’t trouble the ears of the members of the chamber for too long today. [Applause.] I’m delighted by the enthusiasm expressed by the member for Peace River North, I believe, at that announcement. I’m always delighted to please…. Oh, south. Obviously, the north has far more wisdom than the south in this particular case, but we won’t go there.

Interjections.

L. Krog: I would never comment on the presence or absence of any member.

Having said that, look, this is the kind of legislation that is necessary and appropriate. Housing, I hate to say it — and it’s even more readily apparent in the Lower Mainland and certainly in the city of Vancouver — has become not housing the way most of us were brought up to envision it — you know, the major asset, the place where we raise family, where we live with our loved ones.

[1550]

Housing has very much become a commodity. In Vancouver, it’s an international commodity. It is a commodity subject to the whims of the marketplace and the wealth of other parts of the world who are happily purchasing residences and, indeed, commercial buildings in what is regarded as a beautiful part of the world. No credit, lest the members opposite start to pound their desks mightily, to this government. It is an historical reflection of the beauty of this province and climate and many other factors, including the fact that we are a multicultural society, a fascinating place to live, that we have so much to offer.

Having said that, we expect when we purchase a commodity certain standards. We go into restaurants expecting the food won’t poison us. We buy automobiles expecting them to be safe and to meet certain standards. And it is surely only right and proper that if you purchase housing in British Columbia, it meets certain standards, that you know that the price you’re paying may well reflect the market price, but it will also reflect the fact that you are assured of toilets that flush, electricity that won’t set the house on fire, of systems that actually work.

My wife and I had a lovely vacation in the Dominican Republic for a couple of weeks in January. I must tell you, it was a lovely, luxurious hotel. It was gorgeous, but every once in a while, out of the blue, the toilet would start to run. I have no explanation for it. You would go and flush it. It would stop. Another hour or two later, it would start to run again. I don’t believe in ghosts, so I’m assured it wasn’t the toilet ghost.

The little things we take for granted every day — that when we flip on the switch and the electricity works, that we’re assured that the wiring in houses we purchase is going to be safe — all of those things are important. So this is a very necessary and appropriate step forward.

But I, too, want to comment about the criticism that’s already been voiced by other members. It’s a criticism I have raised in this House time and time again with respect to legislation proposed by this government — which inevitably, with their majority, gets passed — and that is this increasing reliance on regulation that doesn’t get debated in this chamber, that isn’t subject to public scrutiny in the way that legislation is here.

It diminishes the role of this Legislature. I would argue on a larger plain, it’s entirely anti-democratic. It may be easy for a government, and it may make it simpler for government, but it doesn’t make it better for the public.

That is the simple reality when you keep putting more and more power in the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, in the hands of cabinet, in the hands of individual ministers, which is what this legislation proposes to do. It is quite simply not right. I don’t suppose this government is going to change as a result of the remarks of the members here, but that is an objective reality of this legislation.

Now, there’s one other thing I want to say, because I did promise to be brief. The one other thing I want to say is going to take at least a minute or two. That is simply this. It is 2015. In my response the other day to the budget, I said there were two great issues facing our time, facing our generation. One was the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and the other was the effect of climate change.

I would have expected that having a majority, having been in power for 14 years, having access to all the information and knowledge that is available to the government and to public servants….

At a time when we could be encouraging building in a way that had the least impact on the environment, that encouraged energy consumption, that encouraged the use of new and innovative materials or indeed, old materials that are being rediscovered by many of those young, forward-looking, idealistic people who have come to occupy many of our communities, whether it’s rammed earth, whether it’s using straw and mud, whether it’s using all kinds of innovative things….

[1555]

I would have hoped and thought that this government, even as a token gesture to a younger generation that is in tune with what’s happening, could have included objects in this act, in this bill, that encouraged that, that said: “Look, this is a worthy goal for our society.”

[ Page 6177 ]

“Here,” to the building community, “we’re going to give you a basis on which to work — standards that will be applied fairly and equally across the board. But in addition, we want more out of you. We want to give the opportunity to all those young, entrepreneurial folks in our society who want to create housing that suits the 21st century.”

Would it have been that difficult to include a provision that simply said: “The goal of this legislation is to encourage safe construction, to reduce energy consumption, to encourage the use of multimaterials, to build communities that are designed for people and not for automobiles, to do all sorts of things that might have been forward-thinking”?

It’s rather like Site C. I mean, hydroelectricity has been a wonderful thing for British Columbia, but if you’re going to spend $9 billion on energy generation, maybe you should have considered a whole series of alternatives that might have generated just as much energy and had just as much economic impact — and might even have been cheaper — and put that before the public.

Interjection.

L. Krog: Oh, the Minister of Health. I always enjoy having him speak back to me in the chamber. It’s always very flattering that he pays so much attention to me. Well, I shouldn’t say that. He listens; he doesn’t really pay attention to me.

Having said that, there is a very simple example of looking at the bigger picture, of doing something forward-thinking. Even the Minister of Energy himself, I believe, said, in effect: “Well, this will be the last dam. Okay, we can’t be innovative, but this’ll be the last dam. Okay? I just want to assure everybody: it’s the last dam.” That, in and of itself, tells you that the government didn’t look at alternatives.

I come back to my point about this bill. It would have been better if this had been forward-looking legislation, if this had held out something to the building community saying, “Look, we don’t want to keep doing things the way we’ve done it in our communities, in our society, for decades just because it’s familiar, we’re used to it and it’s easy. We want to encourage something that is new, bright and modern and that attracts the thinking of all of those people who want to see real innovation.”

We could have encouraged, with this bill, new industries, new approaches, new technologies — all of which would have the impact of making this a better province to live in, ensuring reduced energy consumption — and, thus, saving the environment — and at the same time attracting capital and development here, which will otherwise, candidly, go to some other place.

This is a prime example of what happens to a government after 14 years in office. Frankly, you run out of doing something new. You run out of innovative ideas. This was another missed opportunity.

This isn’t a controversial bill in the sense that the members of the opposition are going to be pounding the desk, probably, and voting against it. It’s something. It’s a significant step forward, and I give the government credit for it.

I recognize the Minister for Housing’s kind comments to our House Leader, earlier today, acknowledging that this has been in development for a long time. I don’t know if he recognized the work done by the former parliamentary secretary, now minister, who did some work on this issue. It’s a good thing. But I repeat my point. When you could have taken the bold step, when you could have done something quite interesting, when you could have drawn attention to British Columbia — international attention — you chose not to.

That’s the problem with this government: “When there’s something innovative that could be done, we want to go back and rely on what’s tried and true.”

[1600]

Frankly, on this side of the House, we’d like a government that would have provided real leadership in British Columbia, that helped address the two issues I talked about in my response to the throne speech. On the climate side, this would have been a bold and golden opportunity to move forward.

It’s a disappointment. I hope the government is listening. I hope they’re paying as much attention today as the Minister of Health is. Maybe the next time they have an opportunity, they won’t pass it up. They’ll be forward-thinking and look to the 22nd century instead of back to the 20th.

A. Weaver: I must say, I do agree with the member for Nanaimo about the importance of climate and actually having that reflected in building codes. There have been steps made in the province of British Columbia, without any doubt, in that area. I assume and hope that there will be in the future. Speaking with….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: The minister points out that the building code has been greening for the past seven years. I agree that there have been advances in that area. My concern, of course, is whether or not this bill will actually limit the innovation that has occurred and will continue to occur at the municipal level.

There’s a lot of good in this bill. I’ve been in contact with municipalities in the area that I serve, and they’re generally supportive of this bill. There’s strength within the streamlining of the building requirements across the province, particularly in a region like the capital regional district, with our multitude of municipalities and subsequent building codes. There does need to be standardization, and that has certainly been conveyed to me.

The intent, of course, is to reduce costs and improve

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efficiency, productivity and innovation in the construction sector. It’s hard to argue against attempts to reduce bureaucracy, red tape and costs in the construction sector. Of course, builders and construction associations have been lobbying for a streamlined Building Act for many, many years. As a stakeholder in the building business…. Of course, listening to an important stakeholder is of great importance.

Some of the local governments that we’ve looked into, particularly the ones that I represent, have expressed concerns not so much about what they’ve read