Fourth Session, 41st Parliament

(2019) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 243

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 28 — Zero-Emission Vehicles Act (continued)

S. Gibson

Hon. J. Sims

J. Thornthwaite

D. Routley

Reporting of Bills

Bill 4 — Witness Security Act

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 28 — Zero-Emission Vehicles Act (continued)

B. Stewart

R. Coleman

D. Davies

J. Rustad

D. Clovechok

M. Bernier

Hon. M. Mungall

Point of Privilege (Reservation of Right)

D. Routley

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 28 — Zero-Emission Vehicles Act (continued)

Hon. M. Mungall

Bill 23 — Land Owner Transparency Act

Hon. C. James

T. Redies

A. Weaver

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of the Whole House

Bill 4 — Witness Security Act (continued)

M. Morris

Hon. M. Farnworth

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Labour

Hon. H. Bains

J. Martin

N. Letnick

Proceedings in the Birch Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation (continued)

E. Ross

Hon. S. Fraser

L. Throness

D. Ashton

D. Barnett

D. Davies

I. Paton

M. Bernier

TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2019

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

R. Chouhan: Mr. Speaker, it’s my pleasure to welcome some special guests who are

in the gallery today. I understand they had a wonderful lunch with you as

well — very enjoyable.

We are very pleased to host a visiting delegation from the German

Bundestag. The delegates had the opportunity to meet with members during

lunch, and they have a number of meetings planned with officials from

various ministries this afternoon. They are Bernd Rützel, Prof. Dr. Matthias

Zimmer, Martin Erwin Renner, Dr. Tobias Lindner, Henning Otte and Sandra

Weeser. The members are accompanied by Dr. Klaus Schmidt, consul general;

Geoff Gartshore, counsellor, political affairs, Canadian Embassy in Germany;

Franco Legiano, Office of the Parliamentary Groups; and Bernd Saure and

Carola Garth, two interpreters with their delegation.

[1:35 p.m.]

Would the House please join me in welcoming these wonderful people,

Members of Parliament, to British Columbia and to our

Legislature.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call continued second reading debate on Bill 28, the

Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. In Committee A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call

continued debate on committee stage of Bill 4, Witness Security Act. In the

Birch Room, I call continued debate on the estimates of Indigenous

Relations.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 28 — ZERO-EMISSION

VEHICLES

ACT

(continued)

S. Gibson: I appreciate this opportunity to make this presentation today on

behalf of my constituents in the Abbotsford-Mission riding. I appreciate

the opportunity to represent them here regarding Bill 28, the

Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. Important legislation but it requires

considerable attention, I think, by every member of this

House.

The implications are significant. I think all of us…. There’s

unanimity in this place with regard to the desirability of reducing

emissions significantly, and these kinds of vehicles that we’ll be

discussing today are all a part of that paradigm.

There are some reservations that rise to the surface as we examine

the materials that have been disseminated. I want to thank the minister

for arranging a briefing. A number of my colleagues went to a proposed

Zero-Emission Vehicles Act briefing, which was quite helpful. We were

able to engage the staff with some questions that we thought were

relevant, and I believe most of their responses were timely and

well-thought-out. So I want to make that comment here.

It’s my concern that what I would call a measure of hollow

optimism, as government moves ahead with this, in some ways quite

expeditiously, notwithstanding the long window which will approach us

quicker than we might imagine — 2040….

We do acknowledge, I believe, on this side of the House the

desirability of pursuing lower emissions, ultimately leading to zero

emissions. The question is: at what price, and how is that

executed?

As I talk to my constituents, there is the realization that the

internal combustion engine will continue in many iterations but that its

application, particularly as we pursue this means, is something that

will be reduced over the years, perhaps significantly.

[1:40 p.m.]

I do want to honour government to this extent. I believe the

intentions are good. I believe that they’re honourable. Of course, we

would agree that it’s a tampering with the marketplace. Who better knows

how to provide these kinds of vehicles to the public but the

manufacturers and dealers themselves? So the vision that the government

has may not necessarily be congruent with the aspirations of the various

companies that make these vehicles.

Now, there are a lot of vehicles registered in our province. As a

matter of fact, interestingly, in my riding of Abbotsford-Mission, I’m

advised that in the Abbotsford side of the riding, it’s the most

percentage of vehicles per population. In other words, we have a 140,000

population in Abbotsford, and the largest percentage of those adults own

a vehicle. You can tell we are a very vehicle-oriented community, and

we’ll continue to be so around it.

I also want to make some comment with regard to what industry’s

aspirations are. I was having a look at the growth of the Nissan LEAF,

which is the largest electric vehicle, EV, sold in the world — hundreds

of thousands sold in the U.S., Japan, Canada and other places. But it

should be noted that this vehicle was really brought about by the

initiative of Nissan itself and, in particular, the CEO. He said to his

team: “We need an electric car.” The result, of course, is one that is

selling widely in all parts of the world.

Although it’s true that the nature of society was moving in that

direction, it was not regulated. I want to make that comment. Wherever

commerce is regulated, you need to be suspicious. You need to remember

that the values that government imposes on the free marketplace will

have some repercussions.

I’ve noted, in particular, that the profitability of companies is

essential. If companies can’t be profitable making these kinds of

vehicles, zero-emission vehicles, then so what? The companies will

collapse, or there’ll be other issues and maybe some bailouts. We’ve

seen bailouts of car companies, a number of instances, in the financial

crash in the U.S.

It’s interesting to note that a Labour government in the U.K. —

which would be characterized as a left-of-centre government, perhaps

similar to the government here — nationalized a good portion of the auto

industry in the mid ’70s in the U.K. Of course, subsequently, that auto

industry collapsed, and now you see that the manufacturing of

automobiles in the U.K. is, largely, boutique luxury

vehicles.

I want to make that point. I’m hoping that government will review

that, because as we move in this trajectory, which is laudable to some

extent, we are saying to the manufacturers: “This is what we want you to

do, and here’s how you’re going to do it.” I’m a bit alarmed about

that.

In addition, the changing marketplace is going to have an impact,

repercussions like little dominos clicking together, with regard to the

future of the internal combustion engine. It should be noted, for the

record, that the internal combustion engines today, with all of the

catalytic converters and the other paraphernalia that are added to

vehicles, are considerably cleaner than those that I had as a university

student, driving my big, gas-guzzling, old V8 Buick.

I wanted to make that point. Although I’m not saying that we

shouldn’t be pursuing these kinds of vehicles, it should be noted that

internal combustion engines now are much cleaner than they’ve ever been,

which is why the AirCare stations have been closed in the Lower

Mainland. They really were no longer a necessity.

[1:45 p.m.]

The planning for this is in place. I won’t review too much, other

than the fact that there’s a sequence of requirements, and I think

that’s a good thing. But in terms of history, we’re going to accelerate

it quite dramatically, to the point where we are going to have a full

imposition of this policy in 2040. So it’s a significant

change.

Also, I would recommend to government that they have a plan in

place to review what the future of the internal combustion engine is,

with regard to those vehicles above a Ford 150 pickup and all light-duty

vehicles. I’m advised, when we had the briefing, that every other

vehicle above that would be still internal combustion. Now, that may be

moderated in due course, but that’s the plan right now. You’ve got

larger pickups and other vehicles — delivery vans, small buses — that

are all going to have internal combusion engines. As we are adding more

of the charge stations, then, of course, the need for more gas stations

is going to be really compromised. This is another

implication.

I might add, as well, that the whole infrastructure of our society

is, in many cases, based upon the availability of people to work on

cars, work in the transmission repair places. In all of the shops and

those other kinds of businesses in my community, they’re working on cars

— transmissions, air-conditioning, radiators, all of those things. Most

of these will not be found on the new EV cars. Now, I’m saying that,

really, to point out to government that when you interfere with the

marketplace dramatically — and I understand the aspiration — there’s

going to be an effect of connecting with people who are feeding their

families by taking care of internal combustion vehicles.

Of course, there are going to continue to be used dealerships

selling these kinds of vehicles. Eventually they’ll disappear, if that

ultimately is the case.

We need to remember that. On both sides of this House, we’re glad

to have people working on cars. I would say that everybody in this room

knows somebody who has a livelihood working on internal combustion

vehicles — whether it’s the radiators, the transmissions, whatever it

is. Many of these components are not found on zero-emission

vehicles.

I want to make a comment, if I may, with regard to government’s

attention to the manufacturers. When we had our discussion, it was

really an emphasis on the manufacturers of vehicles. Some, of course,

are more prepared than others. There are companies that are just

starting to get into zero-emission vehicles. Mitsubishi is coming into

it, and we know Chevrolet is working at it. Of course, the premium

companies, such as Tesla and others, are grabbing a lot of headlines

with some pretty amazing cars, but they’re out of the reach of most

people. I want to speak to that in just a moment.

With regard to automobile manufacturers, I think we have to be

quite careful in trying to understand who they are. Just because a

company calls themselves Chevrolet and they get the acknowledgment or

recognition, it doesn’t mean that they make those cars. Many

manufacturers will buy one vehicle and put their label on others. A

recent example is a car made by Subaru, but Toyota puts their name on

it. It’s a sports car. Some of you are familiar with that.

The auto industry is extremely competitive. I want to make sure

that anything that this House supports is sympathetic to the fact that

the auto industry operates sometimes on razor-thin

profitability.

Interestingly, when you look at a car…. You’ll see a Volvo drive

by on the street. Most of us will think of Volvo as being a Swedish car.

As a matter of fact, it’s now owned by Geely, out of China. The Lotus,

Chinese.

[1:50 p.m.]

Jaguar has just produced their brand-new, first zero-emission car,

a very handsome car and very expensive, which I’ll speak to in a moment.

Jaguar and Land Rover are both owned by Tata of India.

You might say: “Well, what’s the relevance?” The relevance is that

if we’re going to start categorizing companies and doing our best to

encourage them to produce the cars that we want to see here, we’d better

make sure that we’re categorizing the cars appropriately and under the

correct manufacturer.

I want to say, in addition to that, that my comments regarding the

competitiveness of the auto industry…. I think we all know around here,

this place, how many car marks, companies, have declined or died in the

last few years. I just casually made a list, and some of you here could

probably help me with the list. I remember Mercury. Mercury is gone.

Plymouth is gone. Pontiac is gone, Oldsmobile, Hummer, Scion, Suzuki and

many others. Well, these were pretty big names. When I was a young

student in university, I owned a couple of Pontiacs. They were pretty

nice cars. They’re gone, and that was a result of GM’s

bankruptcy.

We’re a small market here in British Columbia, if you contrast the

overall in Canada or the U.S. However, I think we need to be sensitive

to the fact that car companies are vulnerable. We need to make sure that

when they produce zero-emission vehicles, they are doing it in a

trajectory that they feel comfortable with, not one that we impose on

them.

What about these zero-emission vehicles? I worry significantly

that these cars are likely going to be out of the price range of average

families. On both sides of this House, we characterize our work we do

here as benefiting families, in particular. Well, if you look at the

zero-emission vehicles, I believe a Nissan LEAF is early $40,000s,

$40,000 plus for a small car. That’s out of the range of a lot of young

people and young families. Tesla makes three different models. The two

most expensive ones are around $140,000, $150,000 — something in that

area, putting on options. Their new one, which is kind of a mid-size,

I’m given to understand it’s around $60,000 to $65,000 — out of the

range of most people.

We can see that government needs to think about the implications

of that, because if they’re going to impose this dramatic model on the

public and the public can’t afford these cars, what they’re going to do

is just buy used vehicles that have internal combustion engines. I have

a Toyota 4Runner ’02, not a very new car, and it’s got 215,000

kilometres on it. The guy that looks after it for me, my buddy, says to

me that I can go probably 400,000 kilometres with that car.

You imagine in 2040, you’ve got all the lots filled with used

internal combustion engine cars. Those are the ones that can be afforded

by young families. It’s only going to be rich people that are going be

riding around in the zero-emission vehicles. So you’re going to get a

hierarchy of society. You’re going to have the people with limited means

driving internal combustion engine cars, and then you’ve got the other

folks driving the zero-emission cars. I think this government needs to

be sensitive that they’re not having a kind of bifurcated society,

bifurcated between those who can buy them and those who

can’t.

One of the things that we’re going to have to anticipate is

availability of power, clean electricity. I was very happy to see this

government finally acquiesce on Site C and clean power, clean energy. I

was very thrilled to be a part of a government that moved that goal

forward to the extent that we now are constructing it and providing

clean energy. But may I say that government, this government in

particular, seems to be nervous about clean energy. I want to say that

if we don’t have clean energy, we’re sure not going to have

zero-emission vehicles.

In addition, I want to make the point that the point system — and

I refer to the document that was disseminated here — is complicated.

It’s not easy to understand. I had a look at it. My colleagues looked at

it, and it’s a bit perplexing. We discussed it with staff.

[1:55 p.m.]

I don’t think it’s insurmountable, but I can tell you that if a

manufacturer is looking at a point system…. There’s a ratio. If you make

this many vehicles, then you get this kind of point system. If it’s

overly complicated, I wonder if some companies are going to look and

say: “Why are we going to bother with B.C.? This is, like, really

complicated. It’s only a small market. There are only five million

people in the population. Let’s work on California more.” California’s

population is more than that of Canada. What is it? It’s 34 million —

something like that — against five million.

So I worry. If this document is too perplexing and too

complicated, I fear that manufacturers are going to be quite

uncomfortable. They won’t want to bother with this market.

Overall, I think it’s laudable that we’re going in this direction.

However, I must say that I’m worried that this government hasn’t

anticipated all the possible challenges. I think they’re moving in a

trajectory that could be problematic. Yes, we need zero-emission

vehicles on the road within a certain time frame. But whether we’re

doing it in a way that’s respectful for families, for the auto sector,

for dealerships, for people who work on cars right now — all of those

things…. If it’s not respectful of them…. I think really, to some

extent, it’s a social agenda, which isn’t bad, wrapped in some kind of

ideal, which really compromises the objectives for this.

I’m going to register those concerns. I know we’ll be discussing

it further. I do appreciate this opportunity, today, to speak to

it.

Hon. J. Sims: It’s my pleasure to rise and speak in favour of the Zero-Emission

Vehicles Act. As you know, our government is very committed. We have

launched CleanBC. This is just one component of our total package to

make sure that we have a program in place, policies in place, so that

we’re taking actions to make sure that we’re looking after Mother

Earth.

I don’t think there are too many people in this House who would be

in denial about climate change. We don’t need to read scientific tomes

to know that the climate is changing. We just have to turn on our

television set and see images of the North Pole, and in the south, of

the melting of the glaciers. We just have to look at the kind of climate

we have experienced over the last number of years and see what kind of a

massive shift has occurred, with massive fires, floods and temperatures

that have varied greatly.

One of the ways of starting to address climate change is to take a

look at our biggest polluters and start moving towards zero-emission

vehicles. I’m so glad that my colleague across the way who just finished

speaking spelled out that we have to do this judiciously. When we are

bringing about this kind of change, it can’t just be a massive

shift.

That’s why I am so pleased that this legislation does exactly what

my colleague across the way was asking for. It’s not asking for the

manufacturers and the retailers to have zero-emission vehicles in the

next two or three years — 100 percent of their fleet, let’s say. The

legislation requires automakers to meet increasing annual levels of

zero-emission vehicle sales to reach 10 percent of the new light-duty

vehicle sales by 2025.

We’re not starting from zero. We’re already at 4 percent. So I

think that kind of an increase, up to 10 percent by 2025, is very

judicious. Then, by 2030, to build up to 30 percent, and by 2040, we’re

looking at 100 percent. The reason that I think this is a very

thoughtful way to proceed is because it takes into consideration the

very issues I’ve heard being raised here about transitioning, about

transitioning the economy, transitioning our automakers.

[2:00 p.m.]

We all know that when the automobile was first manufactured, it

was out of bounds for most people. It could only really be afforded by

the very, very rich, and very few people had a car or an automobile. But

then as more people began to buy and more cars got to be produced, the

prices became reasonable. I’m absolutely convinced that’s what’s going

to be happening with ZEV, the zero-emission vehicles. That is exactly

what is going to be happening with them, because as more are produced,

more sales will be made.

I know that in our province here in B.C. — I’m only going to speak

on behalf of B.C. — we do have a shortage. I have a number of friends

who are on wait-lists. They have been waiting. I know that when my

vehicle went through a need for a renewal…. I’m one of those people who

buys a vehicle and then keeps it forever, until it kind of gives up. I

had to go out and buy one a few years ago, and my first choice was to

get a hybrid or an electric vehicle. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the

luxury of waiting, and there was no vehicle available at that time that

I could have purchased.

So the demand is definitely here. I know my children and my

grandchildren vocalize this. They expect our generation to do something

about climate change. They expect us to take steps to make sure that

we’re looking after Mother Earth. And for those of you with children,

you know that after our children finish kindergarten and grades 1 and 2,

they come home and become the police for recycling as well.

I can remember me throwing a piece of paper into the wrong bin and

getting a lecture from my little ones, saying: “Mom, you’re not supposed

to do that.” Our children are very, very much into this, and they’re

expecting us, as adults, to set policies, to set targets, to make sure

that we do move into zero emission and are looking after the

planet.

I’m so proud of the recycling that goes on in so many of our

cities, especially of the organic waste. Talking about organic waste, I

really want to talk about Surrey’s state-of-the-art biofuel plant. This

facility will actually reduce the city’s carbon footprint by up to

50,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. That’s huge. And who would

have thought that your potato peelings and banana peelings could lead to

this?

The city unveiled its new industrial-scale biofuel plant, and I

had the pleasure of being there for the opening, the ribbon-cutting, and

then getting a tour of this facility where organic waste will be

converted into natural gas, which then fuels the city’s waste collection

fleet. To me, that’s another example of a creative and innovative way of

using our produce, our waste, to make sure that we are looking after our

emissions. The Surrey biofuel facility has capacity to transform up to

115,000 tonnes of organic waste into biofuel, according to the city. It

will reduce local greenhouse emissions, as I said, by 50,000 tonnes per

year.

That’s a city that I’m very proud of, the city of Surrey, and the

steps it has taken over the last number of years — not just the city but

the residents of Surrey — in protecting our environment, getting

involved with recycling and also in reducing our emissions.

As you know, Madam Speaker, April 13 is Vaisakhi month. Even

though Vaisakhi was on April 13 here in B.C., we like to celebrate

Vaisakhi all month. I think all of us have been to a number of Vaisakhi

celebrations.

When I was in Kelowna this past weekend, lo and behold, they were

having their Vaisakhi celebration there on that day. In Surrey, it was

an amazing Vaisakhi parade. We had over 500,000 people in the streets of

Surrey — safe, secure, eating amazing food and listening to some

religious lectures along the way, as well, but really enjoying the Nagar

Kirtan.

[2:05 p.m.]

What was special about this Vaisakhi is the work that is being led

by Bal and Sarj Sabharwal, two brothers from Surrey who are hoping

businesses and families that serve free food at last year’s Vaisakhi

parade would find alternatives to Styrofoam to cut down on the waste

headed to the landfill. I believe that in Surrey, this was the first

Styrofoam-free Vaisakhi. A huge, huge shout-out to the initiative of two

citizens who took this upon themselves because they care so, so deeply

about Mother Earth and about our planet.

When I talk about electric cars and the importance of us moving

toward zero-emission vehicles, it is something that is no longer a

luxury. It’s not something we can just keep talking about and hope it

will happen by osmosis. We know that when we reach that target, then we

have something to aim for. So does the industry. And it gives the

industry a clear road map.

I don’t think the automakers are going to find it hard to read the

charts that are going to be provided to them. If they do, I’m sure

they’ll know which minister to phone. It certainly won’t be me. But I

can tell you that giving automobile makers and the retailers a road map

of the targets actually helps them to do the planning and actually helps

them to transition from the old to the new.

That is really, really important, because that’s the kind of

thing…. Businesses want to know that ahead of time. They don’t want to

be surprised one day and then told a year later or smacked: “Why aren’t

you doing this?”

I’m very, very happy with the way that this is going to be rolled

out. It is a transformative tool. Setting targets will transform the

production, but it will also be transformative in changing habits, as

well, because we know that we need to have cars, clean electricity from

batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. We need to have that up and running,

and it is no longer something we can talk about.

I heard my colleague talking about the Tesla and the luxury end of

that market. Absolutely, even in the traditional cars fuelled by

gasoline, we have the luxury end of the car market as well. You know,

you can go out, and you’ll see the Hummers being driven. You’ll see the

Lamborghinis on the streets of Vancouver and Surrey. And you will see

the luxury cars that we were talking about.

I’m sure that in the electric category, there will be luxury cars.

But also, when you have targets like this and when the practice of the

consumer is changing and the government is helping with that

transformation, you know what’s going to happen? It’s going to give

manufacturers that incentive. It’s going to allow them to do that

planning. It’s going to allow them to start transitioning their

workforce as well.

All of that is very important. And this is about growing jobs. It

will grow jobs. Absolutely. It’s not about getting rid of jobs, as was

hinted at earlier. This is about jobs as well. But we do know that

zero-emission vehicles use cleaner energy. And absolutely, I don’t think

there is anybody on either side of the House that does not support clean

energy. Of course we do. It improves air quality, and it costs

dramatically less over time to fuel and operate.

There was a time when even recycling was unheard of, and now we

take it to be part of our lives. We either compost or we have a green

bin, and it gets picked up and gets taken away. Electric cars. Yes,

they’re still very expensive, but even at the expense they are at, there

are people out there who are wanting them because they care about the

planet.

There’s the luxury end, absolutely. Not everybody will be able to

afford those. But as more vehicles are produced and we move more into

the electric vehicle zone, I think what we will see is a dramatic shift

in the prices as well.

Who would ever have thought that the other cars, the regular cars

that use gasoline, would have come down in price from when the

automobile was first invented, when only very few people and those with

lots of money could afford to buy those cars?

[2:10 p.m.]

So it is without any hesitation that I speak strongly in favour of

this plan. One of the main reasons I speak in favour of this plan is

it’s well thought out. It’s laid out like a road map, both for the

consumer and for the automakers and those who retail. It gives them the

time to make the transition that we must all make, because at the end of

the day, what we have at risk is our planet, is Mother Earth.

As my colleague said earlier, from the other side, all of us want

to move towards zero emission. Here, then, is a prime example for all of

us to stand together and say that each and every one of us, no matter

where we sit in this House, is committed to looking after Mother

Earth.

J. Thornthwaite: I’m pleased to rise today to talk about Bill 28, the Zero-Emission

Vehicles Act. The challenges that do come with climate change are an

action item for all governments, and the B.C. Liberals are no different

than that.

We do support — I support — the thrust of this legislation.

Obviously, it sounds like a great idea with regards to moving British

Columbia vehicles towards zero emissions.

Our government set the stage for that to happen. Basically, I’m

talking about Site C. We had a lot of doubters from the other side. I

know that it was a campaign issue in the 2017 election. I had a lot of

people from the other side, the NDP side, telling me that the Site C dam

was not needed.

Well, we’ve had folks from B.C. Hydro since tell us that if

everybody is going to go to an electric vehicle, then we’re not going to

need just one Site C dam; we’re probably going to need three. It was the

leadership from the B.C. Liberals that certainly got that one

started.

The other thing that…. Before I get into specifics about my

situation, being an owner of an electric vehicle, I’d like to have a

caution. I think there are a few cautions that my colleagues from this

side have brought forward, but one of the main ones is that there’s a

huge assumption in this bill that the price of zero-emission vehicles is

going to be the same or go down. In other words, it’s the very

foundation of this bill that zero-emission vehicles will be affordable.

Right now they’re not affordable to the average person.

I’ve talked to numerous people, because they always ask me about

my car, and then they want to know how much it was. Even with the

rebate, they are not classified as a cheap car. One thing we do know is

costs never go down. They always go up.

According to the bill, in six years, 2025, at least 10 percent of

the new light-duty vehicles, sold or leased, will be zero emission. Then

it goes up. Five short years later it is expected to triple again,

making an increase in affordability critical. Then by 2040, all

light-duty vehicles will have to be zero emissions.

The viability of this entire legislation, and for the targets for

the zero-emission vehicles, relies on the affordability of the cars.

Ten, 15, 20 years from now, the government is counting on price drops in

technology to make zero-emission vehicles more affordable, to make the

sales targets. I’m worried that this whole thing will fall apart if

prices do not drop.

It was us, the B.C. Liberal government, that brought forward the

proposal for the rebates — the CEV for B.C. vehicle incentives for point

of sale, which I’ve been able to benefit from. But we worry, again, that

it doesn’t necessarily mean that in the future these vehicles are going

to be affordable.

Then just an aside, because I know that my colleagues from rural

British Columbia will be bringing this up in more detail. What I worry

about, and I worry about it with regards to the options of transit and

other non-car ways of getting around, is that those of us who live in

areas that do not have access to public transportation — or, in this

case, say, a neighbourhood charging station and long distances…. We

don’t want to punish those folks.

[2:15 p.m.]

Certainly, in rural British Columbia, they seem to get the brunt

of these decisions often that we make here in urban British Columbia.

Even some of us in urban British Columbia don’t have those things close

by. The point being is that I think we have to have an appreciation of

how this legislation will affect my colleagues in rural British

Columbia.

I’d just like to talk a little bit about my personal situation.

I’ve had a 2018 Chevy Volt for almost a year. I was very pleased that I

was doing my part for the environment by purchasing an electric car. The

Chevy Volt, just so you know, is part gas, part electric. I get, on

average, 85 kilometres on a charge, which is okay for bombing around in

the riding and even Vancouver. But you can’t get very far if you’re

going on a trip, certainly not in rural British Columbia, on 85

kilometres.

I do have a gas tank. So when I do go up to Whistler, because my

sister lives up in Whistler, I basically make it to Squa­mish, and

then it kicks into gas. Thankfully, Squamish gas is cheaper than here.

Then you’ve got to try and find where you are going in Whistler and

whether you have a plug-in. That’s where it becomes really

interesting.

Although the idea of having an electric car came to me, and I

enjoy driving it, the number one barrier right now is the lack of

charging stations. I can charge at home, and because I don’t have a fast

charger in my home, I use the regular outlet. It takes an overnight

charge to get it up to snuff. If I am driving because I have to be

somewhere at an appointment outside of downtown Vancouver — so going to

visit my colleague in Surrey — there is no place for me to plug in close

to the area that I want to go to meet that person.

I’ll give you another example. I’ve got some friends that live in

the Interior. Traditionally, I would probably gas up in Abbotsford or

Chilliwack and then head on the Coquihalla or the Hope-Princeton or

whatever, wherever I’m going. But this particular example is what

happened to me last year.

I thought: “Okay, this is going to be good. I’ll go to

Abbotsford.” I was going to meet my girlfriend there, because she works

at the university. I thought: “Well, the university will have charging

stations.” Well, they do have charging stations, except that all of them

were full. This is in the summer. Who knows who was filling up all of

these charging stations, but they weren’t available to me.

One of the problems that I’ve noticed in owning an electric car is

that there’s no etiquette when it comes to charging stations. People

will go and park in those one or two charging stations that you’ve got

in an area, and they’ll park there for the whole day. So everybody else

that’s maybe commuting and coming to a meeting in that area and wants to

plug in…. If it’s a fast charger, you can sometimes get it charged in a

couple of hours, which is good. But if those charging stations are

unavailable or full, then that kind of defeats the purpose. So back into

gas.

Then what did I do? I didn’t get a charge in Abbotsford, so I

decided to go to Chilliwack. Okay, notoriously, where you can fill up

your car is at district halls. Municipal halls have charging stations.

Are they always available? No. But sometimes they are. So I thought:

“Okay, well, there’s….” I didn’t know where another charging station

was. Yes, I do have the app that has the points of charging stations,

but one of the ones that they alerted me to was this one at the

municipal hall.

If you’ve ever been to the municipal hall in Chilliwack, it’s kind

of out of the middle and not exactly in the centre of town. You can’t go

to London Drugs or Starbucks or whatever. There’s actually not a heck of

a lot there. But I thought: “Oh, okay. I’ll go visit the mayor.” I know

the mayor in Chilliwack. So I did. I went and visited the mayor, but she

wasn’t there. She was on holidays.

[2:20 p.m.]

The point is that I plugged in my car. I got to plug in my car,

but I wasn’t there very long — say, half an hour or so. Then I came

back. And you know how much charge I got? I got enough charge to get me

from the municipal hall to the highway. So I’m back on gas.

This is the point. There is a significant problem right now with

the lack of infrastructure for charging stations and for fast

chargers.

Funnily enough, last year I was in Europe on a holiday with my

family, and I was talking to a guy from Ireland, actually. He had an

electric car, but he was selling it. He was selling it, Madam Speaker.

Why? Because he lived in an apartment, and he needed to plug in his car.

His apartment didn’t have a charging station, so he had to find charging

stations all around the place.

As I just alluded to, trying to find a charging station that’s

actually free — I don’t mean free in cost; I mean free like available —

because there are too many people that are charging their cars…. They

might charge up in two hours, but their car is sitting there for

eight.

Then I can tell you another story that happened just last Friday,

when I was at the BCSTA convention, which was in Richmond, at the

Sheraton. I was elated when I saw that the Sheraton had five parking

spots devoted to electric vehicles, except for — guess what — only four

charging stations. So I went in, and I paid for my parking — at parking

spot 141, or whatever it was — then went to go charge. No charging

station available, because they only had four for five spots. That seems

a bit ridiculous.

I went and told the person at the front desk, and of course, they

acted like I was from Mars and I didn’t know what I was talking about.

But I had already paid for my parking spot, in parking spot 141. I don’t

want to move, do I?

These are the kinds of things that people that don’t own an

electric car — huge frustrations. And if we’re having more people get

electric cars and not the accompanying charging etiquette as well as the

number of places that you can charge up, then it’s going to be a huge

problem.

The other thing that I think people aren’t talking about. I

mentioned that I was eligible for the $5,000 rebate. And that’s all

good, but it still doesn’t make the car affordable. I’ve got a Chevy

Volt, not a Tesla. I think I’ve got probably the cheapest electric

vehicle on the market, and it’s not cheap.

The other thing that I think people are not talking about…. I

actually asked the Attorney General about this last year. It’s the

insurance. I compared my insurance, the new insurance for a new vehicle,

to my old vehicle, which actually wasn’t that old. It was a leased

vehicle. It was four years. I was trying to figure out, when I was

buying my insurance by the ICBC guy at the dealership: why is this

insurance so expensive? He said: “It’s because the electric cars are big

computers. They cost a lot to replace or repair, and your insurance

reflects that.”

Nobody is talking about the affordability here when they’re

talking about how much more expensive the insurance is just to insure an

electric vehicle because of all of the bells and whistles that are all

in the car.

The other thing that I think is something that is a barrier: what

about the home charging stations? I mean, I mentioned that I’m okay

getting my car charged up overnight at my house. But what about

incentives for private businesses? As I said, I’m not going to go to a

district hall to plug in my car when my meeting is down somewhere else.

I mean, this sort of thing has to be convenient. I don’t think that the

majority of these charging stations are convenient.

Private businesses. If I was going to go to a Starbucks or a

coffee shop or even someplace in Deep Cove, there is absolutely no place

to charge your car in Deep Cove. Yes, I do take transit a lot of times,

but if I have to be there quickly, I have to take my car, because

transit only comes once an hour to go to Deep Cove.

[2:25 p.m.]

I talked about those examples. And the enforcement issue — I

talked about that. And the apartments. I really do want to get onto the

apartments, because here we are in Metro, where not everybody expects

anymore to be in a single-family home. Granted, some of the newer

apartments probably do have plug-in stations, but the older ones don’t.

So where are these people going to plug in their cars down the

road?

Maybe in the city of North Vancouver there’s a couple of plug-in

stations in their district hall, but I’m not aware of very many plug-in

stations right in the city of North Vancouver. What about that? If

everybody has an electric car and the grid isn’t prepared to provide

electric cars for everybody in your apartment complex, what about that?

I don’t know. Has anybody thought about that?

For sure, if you’re in a single-family home, it’s maybe not so

much of a problem. But if we’re all trying to do our part and get into

the electric car business or to purchase an electric car or lease or

rent or whatever, then we have to have a really easy and convenient and

affordable way of charging, if we happen to live in an

apartment.

Then the last thing I wanted to mention with regards to some of

the barriers of owning an electric car is the HOV lanes. We all thought

that was great. You get your little decal there, you stick it on, and

then you can whip in onto those HOV lanes.

Well, guess what. Every time I’ve…. To be fair, I’m in North Van.

There’s no such thing as HOV lanes. If I was going to Vancouver or going

further beyond on the highway, they have HOV lanes. But the HOV lanes

are already packed, not just with electric vehicles, obviously with

people that have more than one person in the car. If everybody’s driving

an electric car and they’re all going to be piling into these HOV lanes,

then that’s not going to do anything for congestion.

I guess what I want to say is that I like the idea of Bill 28. I

like the idea of it. But I think, in practical terms, there has to be

more of a concern of the barriers to ownership, either affordability of

ownership, because they’re expensive, as well as the lack of

infrastructure to accommodate more of the usage of electric cars, even

today.

D. Routley: It gives me great pleasure to stand in support of Bill 28. That’s

because it answers all of the basic principles that I and the NDP stand

for. Those are equity at the core, but using the three pillars in our

society to achieve the goals that we all share. One of those goals is

environmental protection.

Using the market forces, using directed action through public

policy, as has been done in so many other jurisdictions, is definitely

an effective way to go about achieving your goals. It’s really

surprising to hear the party that claims to be the free market

representative reject the use of market force to achieve goals. I mean,

I think it really runs counter to the basic principle that they stood

for when they introduced the carbon tax, which they said was using a

market force in order to achieve a goal. I think all of us should be

supporting that.

Also, I think this represents a shift, because it takes us from

expressions of hope in agreements with targets, which essentially put

off action, to a place of action. This bill takes action. This bill is

not telling these students: “Hope for the best. It will work out.” It is

actually saying that by this time, we will achieve these goals, and we

will use these forces to make their futures better and also protect our

economy at the same time.

It also represents a just transition, which is core to the

principles I represent and that my party represents. A just transition

means effecting change in a way that doesn’t displace people or harm

them. When you provide predictability to a marketplace, that protects

jobs. That creates security and protects prosperity.

[2:30 p.m.]

Similarly, the Vancouver building code, which looked out and had

several phases of change, told the industry to expect those changes.

Those changes could be predicted. The leaders in the industry actually

leapfrogged ahead and met those conditions early in order to be more

competitive. There are so many examples of using market forces to

achieve these goals — California, which demanded higher vehicle safety

standards. We all benefited, because the marketplace demanded it. They

had a large enough pressure in the marketplace. Similarly, California

vehicle emission standards meant that every vehicle in every

jurisdiction met those standards.

The member refers to other jurisdictions. The member before the

member for Abbotsford-Mission recommended against any tampering with the

marketplace. It’s obvious that we do not live in a free market. We live

in a marketplace that is guided by regulation and law.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

We exist in a marketplace that has restrictions as well as

freedoms, and adjustment of those is the responsibility of every

government, to the benefit of the people we represent. So it seems odd

to see the B.C. Liberals standing up and opposing the constructive use

of market forces to achieve the goals that we all share, or we, at

least, purport to share.

Prosperity usually goes to early adopters, and in this case, that

couldn’t be more true. Not only will prosperity come to those who are

early adopters, but so will the cars. You know, California, the state

that the member mentioned, is, in fact, doing a very similar thing.

They’re joining together with seven other states to become ZEV states.

They are ZEV states, and in ZEV states, there are rules and regulations.

It’s already paying off, in that those states are receiving far greater

shipments of zero-emission vehicles than other states. They’re receiving

the newest models up to six months earlier than any other

state.

If you go into dealerships in states that are not ZEV states, you

may face a six-month waiting time to get the car that you want,

whereas

in a ZEV state, it’s much less. In that way, again, this bill protects

our local marketplace, our provincial marketplace. The car companies,

far from what the member opposite suggested, aren’t saying, “Why bother

with B.C.?” because B.C. is demanding more zero-emission vehicles.

They’re going to be saying: “Why bother with jurisdictions that aren’t

requiring this? We need to go where this is a requirement, where there

is a demand.”

I didn’t know I would be standing up and tutoring the B.C.

Liberals on marketplace dynamics, supply and demand. But it’s pretty

clear that a jurisdiction that takes these steps along with California,

along with Colorado, along with the six other states and along with

other jurisdictions, I’m sure, that will be leaping to do this as well….

We will, in fact, be protecting jobs, protecting the economy and

protecting prosperity at the same time that we’re protecting the

environment. That, to me, is a pretty good equation.

The member for Abbotsford-Mission said that interventions will

have consequences. Interventions in the marketplace will have

consequences. Well, I certainly hope so. I anticipate that the

consequences will be excellent, because, in British Columbia, companies,

including car repair service outlets, will be able to have time to

adjust — not only adjust their business to the demands of the

marketplace but also have time to put their employees ahead of the curve

in training for new technologies. That’s a very important advantage that

jurisdictions like ours will capture by taking these steps with public

policy.

In fact, I would read from an article. When we look at California

and Colorado, ZEV states that adopt California’s rules establish a

system that requires they attain specified numbers of ZEV credits for

low-emission vehicles. Automakers must comply with these numbers or face

financial penalties.

[2:35 p.m.]

This is very clearly the wave of the future, when the largest

marketplace in North America — California, the marketplace that was

responsible for vehicle safety standards that we enjoy now — demanded

lower emissions from vehicles so we don’t have leaded gas anymore.

That’s what they did, by using the marketplace to achieve the goals that

we all share.

That’s what this bill does. Not only does it do that, but it puts

us in that critical mass with California, with Colorado, with other

states and, hopefully, with other provinces. That will create the

demand, and we’ll be the place that those car companies come to in order

to supply and in order to train and maybe even in order to manufacture

and design. That would be a wonderful thing. This bill puts us on that

path.

This

article goes on to say that non-ZEV states have a

six-to-12-month waiting period for new models, after they go on sale in

these ZEV states. For example, in December of 2018…. Subaru started

selling its first electrical vehicle, the Crosstrek Hybrid, in January

of 2019. The reporter who wrote this

article went to her dealership in

Colorado, which was not yet a ZEV state, and was told that she would

have to wait for at least six months, and they would have likely no cars

to test-drive in the foreseeable future. So she had to order sight

unseen and then wait six months to 12 months.

Becoming a ZEV state will motivate automakers to deliver more

models and thus increase future sales in Colorado and right here in B.C.

That will help. That will help the environment, that will help the

economy, and that will help our communities. There will be fewer people

displaced from the current industry. That’s an important principle for

us to remind ourselves of.

The member for Abbotsford-Mission, I think, mistakenly reminded us

of that when he said: “There will be conse­quences.” I agree with

him. He said: “If car companies fail, so what?” He thought that if the

marketplace caused a company to fail, well, so what?

There’s a lot more to it than that, isn’t there, Mr. Speaker? It

is a marketplace that we affect by the rules and the expectations and

the regulations of government, governments past and inherited by

governments now and handed off to governments in the future. Obviously,

we live in that kind of an environment — that these things have

consequences in the marketplace.

I think it’s rather callous to just say: “Well, if these companies

fail, so what?” Well, so a lot. If we are setting public policy that can

help transition an economy into a new phase, ahead of the curve, thereby

protecting jobs, protecting the economy and encouraging and supporting

prosperity, why would we not do that? We’d be derelict in our duty if we

did not do that. That’s what this bill does.

He also was worried, he said, about those workers who work on

internal combustion engines. So am I, which is another reason that I

support this bill. Those workers will have a greater and advantaged

opportunity to train for future opportunities that will be coming due to

this bill and its requirements.

He then went on to say that car companies are vulnerable. Well,

that’s a debatable notion, but I don’t think I need to spend much time

on it.

He said he worries that these technologies will be priced out of

people’s reach. So did the member for North Vancouver–Seymour, who said

that prices only go up and that this technology will only go up in

price. Well, I’d ask the member to harken back about eight or ten years

ago when a flat screen TV cost $6,000. A bigger one now costs $600, some

20 years later.

Interjection.

D. Routley: Yeah. We created demand, right?

[2:40 p.m.]

The notion that technology costs will go down when there’s a

greater demand created seems nonsensical to me. In fact, when

California, which is a fairly large economy and not known for being an

outlier but in fact a leader, is leading their partner states, in ZEV

states, to create the demand necessary to get those vehicles into their

market so that they can make the transition as quickly as possible, with

the least disruption to the current marketplace and also protecting jobs

by ensuring those vehicles actually come there, thereby protecting the

environment.

States and jurisdictions that fail to take these steps will be

left out. They will not receive the inventory, and they will not receive

the latest technology, because it will go to places where there is a

demand. That demand is being created by that critical mass south of us,

and we need to get on board with that. We need to get on board with that

and make B.C. one of the leaders, rather than a laggard. This is about

just transition. This is about achieving goals. This is about using the

principles that we believe in, in order to satisfy our goals, the dreams

of British Columbians that they would have a future that’s worth hoping

for.

I think we owe it to the students who were here earlier, and to

future generations, to take whatever steps we can to transition our

economy to a low-emission and zero-emission state as quickly as

possible. It’s too late to avoid the effects of climate change — we are

going to have to cope and to manage through them — but it is not too

late to begin to turn that around. This bill is part of doing

that.

I think it’s even more principled or more important than the

goals, specific and technical, of this bill: to achieve so many cars in

a certain length of time. That is, obviously, the thing we’re trying to

achieve here, to have an impact on the environment. But to do that in a

democracy, we need to persuade people. We can’t simply…. We need to

persuade people to make that change, and this is part of doing that.

This is part of making a step in government that will encourage not just

hope. Hope, in climate agreements that put targets off, simply puts off

action. We’ve seen that.

People, particularly young people, can be forgiven if they become

skeptical or even cynical about the steps that governments will take.

The pronouncements that they will achieve certain goals within a certain

time period are met only after a while, with an adjustment of that time

period. They need more than that. They need to see us do more than that.

They need to see us take action, not just issue words, not just proclaim

goals with no specific plan.

This is a specific plan. This is helping us transition. I support

it because it does it in a just way. It does it in a way that protects

the marketplace, the economy, our society and our communities. Those are

the pillars of our core principles. The third one is the goal that we’re

all aiming at here. That is to improve our environment. Then I think we

can go home after the end of this session and feel as though we’ve taken

a step that we can be proud of to all the young people that we encounter

in our communities. We can legitimately stand in front of them and say

that we are taking concrete steps to improve their lives, improve their

environment and make their communities and their economy more just and

fair.

Those are laudable goals. This is a worthy tool. This is something

that deserves support from all sides of the House, and I hope that the

government that claims to support using the free market to achieve goals

will do just that. I am sincerely hopeful they will do that. That’s what

this bill does. It uses that tool of the marketplace economy to achieve

a goal shared by all of us. Then we can go home, hold our heads high and

tell people that we have actually taken action to address climate

change.

[2:45 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: The member for Kelowna West.

Member, would you please move adjournment of debate?

B. Stewart moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Reporting of Bills

BILL 4 — WITNESS SECURITY ACT

Bill 4, Witness Security Act, reported complete with amendments, to

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

Hon. M. Farnworth: As the ravages of time require me to have my glasses…. In this

chamber, I call continued second reading debate on Bill 28, the

Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. In the Douglas Fir Room, I call the

estimates of the Ministry of Labour.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 28 — ZERO-EMISSION

VEHICLES

ACT

(continued)

B. Stewart: It’s a pleasure, after that little bit of confusion, to kind of….

I have watched this before, but it’s kind of like I’m one of the

animals, and I don’t quite know the direction I’m supposed to be, where

I’m supposed to be standing or sitting.

It gives me pleasure to rise and speak on Bill 28, the

Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. The challenges that come from climate change

are a call to action for all governments of every stripe — no

individuals, no matter where they live. Our government set the stage

with the introduction of a carbon tax way back in 2007, the Clean Energy

Act, and the improvements that we were aspiring to, to reduce emissions

that were emitted by vehicles and transportation, the built environment

and manufacturing.

I don’t know if anybody has really referenced that, but the first

report-out on the CO 2 emissions in British Columbia…. With

growing GDP, an economy that was one of the best in Canada, we saw

CO 2 emissions decline in British Columbia because of the

revenue-neutral carbon tax that this government had brought in. I’m

talking about our government.

What I do find about Bill 28 is that it is an attempt to be more

prescriptive, and it’s a narrow point of view. What is really missing is

that…. There appears to be a lot of effort that’s gone into the credit

system around cleaner vehicles, which I think is good. But what’s

lacking in it are the other things that are so important and vital to

making this a success.

People have spoken…. I can’t help but think about the comment that

the member for Chilliwack-Kent made yesterday about a photograph that

was taken in 1903, and there’s a single automobile in there. The

question was: can you find the vehicle? Ten years later, in 1913,

there’s another picture. You can’t…. Where is the buggy in the picture?

That’s how quickly technology can change.

It is changing, as we’ve seen by the growing list of vehicles that

meet the requirements about CleanBC. I look at this page, and there are,

pretty clearly, over 25 different options here. We’re starting to fulfil

a need, and I think that that is great.

[2:50 p.m.]

I’m not necessarily certain that everybody is buying those

vehicles because they’ve thought through, as the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour just mentioned, in the sense that there are

fundamental things when you buy an electric vehicle. You think that

you’re going to be able to plug it in and find charging stations. You

don’t know the range, and all of those things. These things are very

complicated. Buying the vehicle is only one small component.

What is expected in this plan that’s laid out by government here

is to put people into new, completely emission-free vehicles by 2040. Is

that realistic? I mean, that means that we’re going to be selling a

number that I don’t even know if they actually manufacture that many in

the world yet.

The reality is that our vehicle sales today are about 80,000 per

year. It’s going to increase over that period of 16 years. The reality

is that the government’s Bill 28 mandates that we’re going to be at 10

percent in 2025, which is a more than 60 percent increase. Today’s sales

are roughly…. As an earlier speaker from the government mentioned, it’s

about 4 percent today of all vehicle sales. It has to grow in six years

from 3,200 to over 8,640, I think it is.

The reality is that there’s an affordability issue in there, and

there’s the other things that the member for North Vancouver–Seymour

mentioned — the whole availability of where the electricity plug-in

stations are going to come from.

I’ll talk more about how much consumption this is going to be and

how it all works. You know, I think that most of us have been frequent

visitors to California during the wintertime, maybe Disneyland and other

things like that. I can tell you that there are a lot of regular

internal combustion engines on the road in California. I don’t know

where their numbers are at, but there are certainly not charging

stations on every corner, and they haven’t got it figured out. But one

thing that I did notice when I was down there recently was that they do

have a charge when you go to charge up. You can get a rapid charge,

etc., and you’re expected to pay for it.

When I’m thinking about the grid system and I’m thinking about the

Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, it doesn’t take very long to get out

of town. Squamish was mentioned earlier. What about Hope? Maybe

Chilliwack. Or the University of the Fraser Valley was cited, right? The

fact is that they’ve got a couple of charging stations there. We don’t

have it figured out how we’re going to have these charging stations so

that everybody in 16 years can have a plug-in vehicle.

It kind of reminds me of when I used to live in Calgary back in

the ’70s. Every parking lot had a plug-in for a block heater. Maybe

that’s the kind of grid that we have to build up.

I don’t see anything in here — nor do I see it in the government’s

plan — in terms of its CleanBC plan as to how they’re going to build

that infrastructure out. In estimates earlier, the Minister of Citizens’

Services talked about money to go in to putting in charging stations.

Not specific — the design and the actual numbers haven’t been determined

or planned out. But $5 million to randomly — and I would say random at

this point, because it’s not a plan — put in electric charging stations

in government offices, whether that’s Service B.C., or maybe it’s

forestry offices, conservation offices, wherever it might be.

The bottom line is that these charging stations are not…. I don’t

know if it’s clear as to whether those are for the public or just for

the electric vehicles that government plans to put into its

fleet.

When I hear numbers about how far and the distance that the

vehicles can actually travel in terms of…. Again, the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour said that her Chevrolet Volt did 83 kilometres, which

is about what it says it does on the electric range. It does a full

range of 676 kilometres based on the gas-electric mix.

Are we prepared to accept that as a lower standard, even though

it’s not really meeting the CO 2 emission targets, by allowing

vehicles in rural British Columbia that have to have backup? I mean, I’m

sure that when you hear from some of my colleagues that represent the

ruralest parts of British Columbia that they’re going to talk to you

about the impracticality of even driving from Dawson Creek to Fort St.

John, which is a good hour. That is not likely to be on electric

power.

I have to say that one of the things that I really wonder about is

when it comes to this planning about…. We talk about the grid, and we

talk about the goal, this target, of having 100 percent of the vehicles

in 16 years being all light-duty vehicles and being emission

free.

[2:55 p.m.]

I guess the real question is: well, where is the plan? Where is

the electricity coming from? I mean, it’s all great to be self-righteous

and to say that we’re going to do this. We’re doing this, I am assuming,

because of the confidence and supply agreement. I think that it says

that, that this is a fundamental part of why the Green Party has joined

up and created a coalition to have two minority parties that are

basically running the government — saying that they want

this.

I understand that they want it. We wanted it too. But the reality

is that we have to have the electricity. We have to have the grid. We

have to have the costs. I’m assuming that costs will decline. What about

the recycling of all of these leftover batteries?

Now, I happen to have a business that uses electric forklifts. We

prepay for the battery, and we get five years use out of the battery out

of a forklift. At the end of it, that battery has to be recycled, and

that is in place. But the new batteries that are going into electric

vehicles are not the same, and they do need to be recycled at some

point. There’s an end-of-life use that has to be considered, and I

haven’t heard anything from the Minister of Environment on

that.

I think the minister that’s working on this initiative…. No doubt,

I think it’s probably near her riding, where Teck is actually doing a

lot of this complicated recycling with rare metals. But it is still a

big project. Where do you take them to?

I remember as the minister having to recycle electronic goods. We

had a depot in Surrey — for all of British Columbia, one depot. Now it’s

expanded, and we have a system that’s grown. I’m not saying it’s

perfect, but the reality is that we can collect used television sets,

stereos and all of those things. We can take it back to a place where it

will be properly disposed and put those mined minerals back to good use.

But there’s nothing in this plan that talks about it.

Even the member for Cowichan Valley mentioned about the building

code, and I do think that we have to address that. Is the Minister of

Housing dealing with how we’re going to incentivize existing buildings?

New buildings. How are we going to put charging stations in for

everybody that’s in those buildings? If the life cycle of the building

is 50 years and it’s only a ten-year-old building, we still have to

retrofit it. We’ve got to come up with that. Who’s paying for

it?

When I talk about planning, I can’t help but think about starting

out with a small winery. I started out making a few bottles of wine. It

takes roughly 1½ plants to make a bottle of wine. The reality is that

we’re still a small winery. We make just under one million bottles a

year. It takes a lot of plants and a lot of management to do that, and

we’re still a tiny winery in the scheme of the global things.

To put it in perspective, all of these things that…. The grid

system — think about it. Look at the Internet. We’re talking about

expanded Internet services into rural and remote communities. We’re not

talking about hard-wiring every house. We’re talking about putting fibre

optic on highways and then distributing through local systems. We know

how much money…. The Minister of Citizens’ Services has just announced

$50 million to the Northern Development Initiative Trust to help build

out the system. It takes years and years of planning. Technology

changes. The reality is that our grid system…. We don’t have that

plan.

We’re talking about Site C. We’re talking about maybe…. I don’t

know if it’s 1,500 gigawatts. The member for Langley East would probably

know the terminology because I always get that turned around. But the

reality is: how many Site Cs is it going to take to power the number of

vehicles that we want to achieve or convert to electric?

Three Site Cs. There you go. Where are those going to go? I mean,

we didn’t have plans to build more. We tried to improve. We reinvested.

We put more efficient generators in there, reconstructed old

dams.

What’s going to happen about affordability? All these people that

are demanding electricity for these vehicles are going to be increasing

demand. How is B.C. Hydro expected to be able to deliver affordable

energy in terms of electricity for homeowners?

Some of them were convinced years ago to put electric heat in. As

demand goes up and the cost of electricity generation goes up, these

people are going to be forced into the situation…. Maybe the minister

has the answer to that. How are we going to make certain that we keep

the prices in a realistic, affordable range for the average

homeowner?

[3:00 p.m.]

I mean, the electric vehicle user is going to have to pay a fair

market price for the electricity. Maybe the new energy that we’re

talking about — wind, solar, whatever it is — is going to come way down

in price, etc. I didn’t see that when I was in Asia, by the way, even

though it’s widely adopted. Hydroelectric would still be the number one

preferred choice, in any of the countries I visited, for electricity

use.

One of the things that I really worry about in this particular

bill is the fact that it lacks the completeness and a plan so that we

can count on delivering this in the sense that you, as government, and

ourselves, as members of the Legislature, can be adequately prepared

that we don’t go off and embark on something that is great marketing

but…. What about the rest of the thing? What about the cost to the rest

of British Columbians?

We’ve got in estimates this year “Making life better.” Not only

have we seen the carbon tax go from roughly just around $1 billion to

$1.4 billion to $1.7 billion this year; we have $679 million for funding

to CleanBC to reduce carbon pollution and to promote the use of clean

energy to power B.C.’s economy.

What have we got here? We’ve got $90 million out of that $679

million of new funding, it says. But it’s still $90 million out of the

$1.7 billion that the government is going to collect. Only $90 million

is being put into the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum

Resources to encourage and accelerate the adoption of

zero-emission vehicles. So we’ve got $42 million that’s going into the

point-of-sale incentives, $20 million to support the creation of new

public fast-charging and hydrogen fuelling stations and $10 million to

offer more incentives for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including

trucking, port, airport, ground equipment, buses and marine

vessels.

It seems to me that port electrification…. I seem to recall that

we were a big investor in port electrification when the former minister

and member from Cloverdale…. We tried to reduce emissions with bunker

fuel, etc., in the port of Vancouver and many of the other places and,

I’m sure, right here in Victoria — $6 million in support of training

programs for automotive technicians, $6 million to help the light-duty

vehicle fleets adopt zero-emission vehicles, and $5 million and another

$1 million. So this year $96 million is going into this

program.

Then we have ’20-21, $6 million, and ’21-22, $5 million. It’s

front-end loaded with $96 million. What type of plan is that? How are we

going to get to over 8,600 vehicles that are clean energy vehicles —

going to be incentivizing people to buy these? We don’t have the

charging stations. We don’t have the grid. We don’t have the vehicles.

All we’ve done is we’re putting an imposition on the people that are in

business to sell vehicles, trying to provide fair value, to make certain

that they’re clean and energy-efficient.

If people want electric vehicles, we want to have those too, but I

don’t see that Bill 28 actually delivers — with all of the credits and

the complicated accounting and the bureaucracy it’s going to create — a

system that’s going to have people running to the car lots to buy new

electric vehicles, because they don’t have the infrastructure or the

plan. And especially if they know that the money is running out this

year, they get their vehicle, and then they start to find out that there

are other costs with it.

I think it’s unrealistic — the timelines that are put on this.

It’s not that I don’t like aggressive timelines, but let’s be realistic.

We don’t have the buildout. We don’t have the plan that I’ve talked

about.

You know, I think that it’s fine to legislate. As the member from

North Cowichan mentioned, it’s about… I think he used the term: “We do

not live in a free market.” It’s up to the government to tell people

what to do. That’s not the way that…. I’m trying to think that people

are raised to make their own decisions. The situation is that we’re not

going to be successful if the government is there telling everybody:

“You know, you have to….”

[3:05 p.m.]

Of course we know that we have to reduce emissions. I’ve had

dozens and dozens of people that have come to my office because after

they’ve retrofitted their homes and reduced energy, now the carbon tax

costs more than the fuel that they’re using. They can’t square the peg

on this, in the sense that they’re completely perturbed by the fact that

we’re allowing this to go on. There’s a disconnect.

Anyways, I think that when it comes to this, it’s got to make

sense. People have to be brought along. We have to be thoughtful about

where these millions of charging stations have to go — I mean, not just

a few hundred thousand, millions.

First and foremost, I think the other thing that’s really missing

is that we need to ensure that this legislation remembers the realities

of living in rural B.C. I mean, I have places in my riding that are ten

minutes from my office that are considered to be almost off the grid. I

don’t think that they’re going to be having charging stations at their

home, unless somebody can explain to me how this is going to end up

happening with some other legislation that’s yet to come in.

I don’t want to sound cynical, but it seems this government is

embedding itself deep into the sales process in a way that is fraught

with dangers to consumers, to the cost of vehicles and to the very goals

of the program itself.

Then there’s the government’s continual lack of transparency,

again reflected in this legislation’s reliance on regulation to come

later. There are a lot of unanswered questions. It’s difficult, when

something like this doesn’t have the planning behind it, to really

believe that the act and giving the ministry the power through

regulation is going to come out in the best interest of British

Columbians.

It’s going to end up costing British Columbians, because as

taxpayers — we’re all taxpayers here — we have to fund what government’s

spending or investing. We want to make certain that that investment is

not only idealistic or ideological but that the whole process of this

investment works out in the end to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing

CO 2 emissions.

Many of the specifics of the program have been left to be

developed behind closed doors, lacking the security of this House,

pushed out through regulation without any consultation. I’d say that

this is just a bad way to develop the system that’s supposed to help to

accomplish an important goal: a transition to zero-emission vehicles.

This is more than a lofty goal. It represents a fundamental change in

the daily lives of the vast majority of British Columbians, and it has

the potential to have major impacts on their pocketbooks.

I look forward to the committee stage, to digging deeper into the

complex system the government is establishing and making sure that we

can actually reach the 2040 aspirational targets laid out in Bill

R. Coleman: I’m pleased to stand up and speak to this legislation. The

aspirational goal of EV vehicles is an interesting one and one that is

fraught with not just one or two questions but probably a thousand

questions. The thousands of question come from a number of

places.

I want to spend a couple minutes just talking about how the

previous government actually got to the idea of maybe putting in place

an incentive for people to buy hybrid or electric vehicles back starting

in about 2009.

There was a period of time where we went on a very extensive

public listening and hearing process, with regards to thousands of

people and actually 160-plus meetings with everybody from the automotive

industry through to the David Suzuki Foundation to all the environmental

groups — scientists, environmentalists and all kinds of other people

that were concerned about climate — and had a conversation about how you

could improve the climate in the country and in the world.

It was quite eye opening, to be honest with you, because you got

an opportunity to hear all aspects of the discussion. I’ll give you an

example. In one day, we were having a conversation with a variety of

groups about what was clean energy. One group came in and said: “There’s

only one clean energy in the whole world that’s clean energy, and that

is nuclear.” Well, knowing that B.C. doesn’t want to mine uranium and

that B.C. doesn’t support nuclear power, that wasn’t going to be

something in the future that the government would put in policy to say

this is how we’re going to get our clean energy.

[3:10 p.m.]

We had people come in and tell us: “Well, in actual fact, because

it’s cleaner than coal, natural gas is clean energy.” Of course, that

led to the conversation about learning what GHGs were and what the

calculations per tonne were and what all of those things were

about.

It also led to a conversation about hydroelectric. Some people,

including members of the Green Party who I know, actually said that Site

C was a good idea at the time and that it should be pursued because it

was clean energy. Today you’d get a different answer on that particular

conversation. But it does take you down a road where you try and put

together a plan where you’re trying to create opportunities for change

in your economy with regards to getting cleaner energy into the

marketplace, reducing your GHG profile and finding a way to help the

rest of the world at the same time.

That’s not an easy task. This actually gets pretty

compli­cated, complicated to the point that one person, one

organization…. Not an auto industry. It was actually, I think, one of

the scientific magazines that came in and presented us with what I will

refer to as the life-cycle environmental impact of a Hummer versus a

hybrid Prius.

They went through all the aspects of all of the things that went

into building the one and the other, frankly, from mining to commodities

and what had to go into building them; what their life cycle was; what

the life cycle of each of them was with regards to what their waste

would be at the end of the cycle; and the inability to actually recycle

the batteries, at that time, relative to the Prius. I was shocked. They

came up with the conclusion that, at that time, the Hummer had less

environmental impact in its life cycle than the Prius did.

You’re trying to figure this thing out, and you get these people

who are actually considered to be experts in their field coming in and

giving you that example. So as you go through this, you start to say:

“Okay, how do we get to where we need to get to?”

Now, the biggest change that was made to try and drive a change in

climate in any province in Canada or any jurisdiction in North America

was to actually come up with a workable carbon tax, a carbon tax that

would actually be reinvested in the economy to promote issues relative

to encouraging people to go green, whether it be that you add money from

the carbon tax so you can recycle the old televisions to replace what

are now the high-definition televisions in your recycling programs or

whether it’s to enhance the recyclability of tires by having money

invested from the user of the carbon to being able to deal with the

carbon that you want to dispose of.

It’s to take that carbon tax and make sure it’s revenue-neutral

relative to incenting the marketplace with other taxes to reduce use in

certain areas and to increase the use of other clean energies in other

sectors.

Well, I fought the campaign of the $30 carbon tax. I remember the

Axe the Tax campaign. I remember the pro­test outside my

constituency office — led by, at that time, a member of the New

Democratic Party of British Columbia who was running for politics — to

axe the tax. We shouldn’t have a carbon tax. It was no good for people

and the economy. It was the wrong tax. It wasn’t fair to people, and it

should go.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, on the first of April, the NDP

government raised our carbon tax to $40 a tonne, $40 a tonne paid for by

every single person that goes to a gas pump in B.C. but, just notably,

not by the newest industry to come to British Columbia, which has got a

holiday at $30 a tonne guaranteed for 20 years.

As I looked at the numbers with regards to this program, as I

started to debate this legislation…. It’s about $96 million, if I’m not

mistaken, in the first years to try and encourage people to buy electric

vehicles. So we’re going to give them an incentive to go buy a vehicle,

but on the flip side, we give out $600 million tax-free on PST for 20

years to a company when you’re only putting $96 million into actually

incenting people into an electric vehicle market. That PST thing is to

push for another resource. I don’t have a problem with that. I support

the resource. But I think it can be a bit hypocritical.

As we went through this whole thing, with these 160-plus meetings

and the conversations and whatever, I actually handled a couple of

portfolios as I came through that. I found out some things that were

kind of staggeringly interesting.

[3:15 p.m.]

First of all, let’s talk about vehicles themselves before I get

into their life cycle. I’ll admit that my wife owns a small SUV, and I

own a pickup truck. I happen to be an RV’er. I’ve been RV’ing with my

kids since they were little, and my oldest is now in her 40s. So I like

trucks for that particular purpose, and for others.

One of my children had a hybrid vehicle that turned out to be not

so good at the end of its life cycle. As they tried to get a change in

the battery piece because it was starting to go down as the car had aged

about three or four years in, they were told that it was $8,000 to

replace the batteries in the vehicle if they wanted to continue owning

that car, for which they would only say the value was $6,000. You have

to think about that as a life cycle, because in a car of the same size,

to replace it with a rebuilt engine was actually about $1,200, which

would then give that vehicle a life cycle of another five or six years,

whereas the other one now has to be disposed of and recycled.

I remember sitting in a room with people from B.C. Hydro when I

was the minister responsible for Hydro, talking about the future needs

and supply of electricity in British Columbia. We knew we had a growing

population and that it wasn’t going to stop: “We’re predicting a million

more people in British Columbia over the next 15 or 20 years. What do we

need for electricity?”

At that time, you could have made the argument that we were not

energy-self-sufficient in British Columbia, because we were actually

buying power from other jurisdictions. Even though we liked to say we

were clean energy, we were buying coal power from Alberta on a pretty

regular basis. We traded some of our electric power into the U.S., but

the reality is that we did not have the mix that says we’re

energy-self-sufficient but that also we’re as clean as we thought we

were.

We moved to push that, to try and attract ourselves to more things

like wind and solar, to figure out how we could do deals with First

Nations based on megawatt prices, to be able to make it a business case

with some subsidies to try using the carbon tax to incent people to come

up with other forms of power. We did that.

As we did that, of course, we got criticized, because the megawatt

price of energy that was coming from run of the river, from wind or from

solar was higher than what would come over the top of a dam. The

criticism, by the way, that came from the now Premier, very

aggressively, was about us buying junk power. He would have preferred at

the time to just have us keep buying power by coal, which would never

have met any climate goals whatsoever.

The next thing I found interesting, though, is that…. I said to

B.C. Hydro one day: “Okay, we have the incentive program. We’re moving

towards electric and hybrid vehicles as we go through this. Tell me: if

every single vehicle in British Columbia” — forget the grid; forget the

capacities; we’ll get to that in a minute — “went electric, how much

more power do we need?” The answer was: “Minister, you would probably

need to build three more Site C dams, because the juice has got to come

from somewhere.”

Now, people talk about — and California is a classic example — how

clean California is with regard to its encouraging electric vehicles.

But do people in this room know that 35 percent of the power in

California still comes from coal — that you’re actually burning more

coal in California to power electric vehicles? What’s coming out at the

end on the electric vehicle…. They call that clean, but the source of

the power is not.

The interesting thing, when I got into that piece recently,

looking at that part — I have a keen interest after sitting through 160

meetings back in 2007 to ’09 — was that I asked them, through the

transportation people in California: “What does the internal combustion

engine do today in California versus what it used to?” The answer was

kind of interesting.

They said today’s car, a modern car driving down a highway in

California today, puts cleaner air out of its tailpipe than it takes in

through its intake. The modern car actually treats air, and there’s more

H 2 O than CO 2 coming out of the tailpipe of a

car. In one case, one guy said to me: “It’s actually like an air

cleaner.” It’s actually helping us with our own environment of air down

here because the cars have gotten modern. It’s the reason, quite

frankly, a whole lot of air got cleaned up — because technology helped,

from the old leaded fuel–type engine all the way through to the new

technology today.

[3:20 p.m.]

Here’s where I found the conversation the most interesting: if you

have to add more electricity. It’s a given, because you won’t have

enough, with a million people coming, the cars that’ll be here and the

electric car and all of the other electric aspects of the economy. So

then I went down to the nub, and I said, “Tell me something. In a

subdivision built in the last 20 years, and one built in the previous 30

years, how many homes on a street can handle the voltage that’s required

for a quick charger or a charger in a home for an electric

car?”

This answer was not very good. To use an example of a subdivision

with two cul-de-sacs, with a T-intersection coming into them, if six

went onto that, with one charger per home out of six homes, the lights

would flicker in the rest of the houses when they’re all being charged.

He said: “You’ve got a problem with transformers outside of that because

of the underground power, simply because there’s a load capacity

here.”

I was shocked to find out that in actual fact, as we go and move

down these roads, we have to look at what the costs are to the next

stage of what we want to do. It’s great to say — and I believe we should

try to get to it — as many zero-emission vehicles as possible by a

certain date. But let’s understand the downstream. First of all, you

need to have bigger KVR lines in a number of areas of the province just

to bring in enough electricity. A place like Prince Rupert, for

instance, has a relatively small KVR line compared to the one that goes

up Highway 33. It was built a few years ago.

The lines into Kitimat and Terrace, because they actually have to

deal with Rio Tinto Alcan, are pretty large and are being upgraded by

LNG Canada for the purpose of taking a bigger load. But Rupert has no

backup. Their line goes into there, and if it goes down, the city is in

trouble. That means that nothing would run, that nothing would charge.

So you’ve got to be careful with what that load is coming in

there.

If you take the number of cars that are possibly docked that day,

forget the incentives. It’s not anywhere near the number of cars that

would be on the roads of British Columbia, but if you incent every one

of them, you could be running up around $5 billion to $15 billion in

incentives to try and reach your goal. That’s not the scary number. The

scary number is how you then handle the capacity in subdivisions and in

communities where, in some cases, all the power lines need to be

replaced. They need to be bigger, they need to be stronger, they need to

be able to take a better transformer, and they need to take the

load.

As you do this and you start to look at it, you’ve got to keep in

mind that you need to deliver. Otherwise, you end up doing some things

like you’ve done in other aspects of government over the years. You have

a great idea, and the inability to deliver actually makes it

unattractive to accomplish the actual goal you wanted to accomplish,

which was to clean up the environment.

Back in the day when we did the 160 meetings, one of the

interesting conversations we had was about the subsidy for an EV or a

hybrid. Even when you put it in place, that conversation took place with

all kinds of groups, both environmental and business groups. One of the

things that struck me in that whole conversation — I heard it from a

group of people in my own riding when we were sitting around at a round

table — was that middle-class and working people said to me: “Has it

occurred to you that your subsidy to the electric vehicle is a subsidy

to the richest people in the province of British Columbia? Has it

occurred to you that we can’t afford the car even with the subsidy? We

can’t get in on this, because we can’t afford it.”

The one lady, who had a couple kids, said: “You know, every time I

see a Tesla and I’m driving my five-year-old SUV, I’m offended, because

somebody subsidized that for somebody to buy that car, and I could never

afford it.” As you start to do this sort of social engineering, remember

the people that you’re actually working with and representing. In this

case, you forgot about a whole bunch of them. A whole bunch of them are

the people that actually would like to have themselves in a situation

where they could get an EV.

[3:25 p.m.]

You have this interconnection; you have the power load. What’s it

going to cost? I know what it costs to bring power into a single-family

residential home. I know what it would cost, in addition to that, to

increase that for capacity. Let’s assume that we build 30,000 homes in

British Columbia a year. Let’s say we added an extra power line in there

for capacity. For the homes, at about $10,000, that’d be $300 million in

additional costs for the homeowners who might want to buy homes in B.C.

That doesn’t count the million or so homes that we already have, which

takes you into $10 billion plus, just to get the power.

That doesn’t get the power down the street. Now you have to dig up

the street, or you have to go down, whichever way you put the power in,

and pull in more wire in order to handle the volume. I know how

expensive that is and how difficult it is because when I was minister

for Hydro, I actually watched the project proceed. It snaked wire

through a neighbourhood, from downtown Vancouver, underneath the water

and into Vancouver, to replace the 40-, 50-, 60-, 80-year-old vaults, as

we would then call them, with big switches in them, to make sure that

Vancouver had the power, just in case they started to go. That was about

300 million bucks.

Now, I’ve just talked about the single-family home. Let’s talk

about condominiums and townhouses for a minute. Condominiums are wired

to be able to handle branch-off wires into each individual unit. If

they’re concrete, it’s not so simple to actually add the power — to

bring it in, necessarily, to do the ability to handle the number of

chargers.

My colleague from North Vancouver was talking earlier about how

difficult it is to get a charge. Well, I just sat down with somebody who

asked me about whether…. Their strata council wanted to look at how they

would put in electric chargers. Are there incentives for them to do

that?

Here’s a big argument. The big argument is if you have 50 people

in the condominium, 50 units, and ten of them say they might like to get

electric cars. They want the strata to pay for ten EV charging stations

at their parking spots. They don’t want to pay; they want everybody else

to pay. The other 40 say: “No way. If we’re doing one, we’re doing them

all.”

What was going to be a fairly simple project of a number of

thousands of dollars is now running up close to north of $1 million, and

somebody has to pay for it. With 50 people divided into $1 million, are

they all going to get electric cars next week? No. Are they going to get

one in two years? Not likely. Will they sell some of them and not care?

Who knows?

The reality is that this initiative ignores all that. It ignores

the ability for people to actually make use of what this is about. This

is really about saying: “You have to do something. We’ll incent you to

do it to a point. We’re going to run out of money, but it’s okay. We’ll

dish it out somewhere else. We’ll reduce the carbon tax for somebody

over here, but we’ll keep charging it over there. We’re going to take

that into general revenue and actually not put it into the

infrastructure that’s required to build this program in the first

place.” What we’re talking about is a multi-billion-dollar hole — in the

production of power, how it’s used and how you will access

it.

The neatest thing about all of this — or the sad thing, actually —

is that people that get electric cars today think that electricity is a

free good. It’s not free when you have to build the dam. It’s not free

when you have to build the power line or bring the line underground into

a subdivision, a condominium or an office tower. It’s certainly not free

when some municipality is putting up these quick-charging stations. If

the demand goes to them that they need ten, 20, 30 or 40, they will

start to charge for electricity.

If there’s a draw on electricity and there’s not enough of it, we

then have to start buying it in the marketplace because we haven’t

thought the other piece through, and electricity is going to get very

expensive. British Columbia right now pays about the fourth-lowest power

costs on the continent. It looks a lot more attractive when your power

cost is four or five times higher in some states in the U.S.

[3:30 p.m.]

The U.S. answer to this is to build more power stations, but they

don’t build power stations with hydroelectric. They build them using

coal and natural gas. In actual fact, they’re polluting at one end to

call something clean at the other end. They’re talking out of both sides

of their mouth, and it isn’t true.

We need to get our head around this before we decide we’re going

to vote for this bill or make sure some of the committee stage debates

are taken care of, because quite frankly, if we don’t, there’s no reason

to vote for this. Why would you vote for something where thousands of

cars are going to be put on the road with a subsidy to people that can

most afford it, as opposed to those that can least afford it in your

community, because they can afford the more expensive option of an

electric vehicle?

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Why build an infrastructure that disenfranchises those people with

less income and ignores them and, at the same time, give away $30 a

tonne in carbon tax to one company and charge every single person in the

province $40 a tonne every time they get their fuel, their natural gas

at home, their electricity or if they get the simplest of things, like

fill up at the pump?

Every single person in B.C. is now subsidizing one industrial

deal. And the carbon tax, which is supposed to help them have an

incentive to buy an electric vehicle, is not going back into this,

because the last $10 a tonne that has been charged to everybody at the

pump in B.C. is going to general revenue and is not actually being spent

on environmental initiatives at all. There is no revenue neutrality, and

there is no ability to look at this thing and say: “There’s a good

reason why I’m paying this, because this is helping over here on the

environment.” That’s no more. That does not exist in British Columbia

anymore.

It’s all about the cash grab and then, in this case, subsidizing

the cars that only the people with money can actually buy. As we do that

and we move people down this road and we try and hurt the auto industry

and the other industries in B.C., we’ll find out that we don’t have the

money at this stage to actually make the grid perform with the ability

to charge the cars in a way that’s convenient for those people that want

to run them.

I think, in this particular piece of legislation, somebody’s gone

into a room and said, “Let’s make this announcement. We’ll do a deal

with the Greens. We’ll make all the cars in B.C. electric by such and

such a date. Oh, and don’t worry about how much power you need. Don’t

worry that you might need three Site Cs. Don’t worry that you might have

to rewire 90 percent of the houses in B.C. to be able to handle the

load. Don’t worry that the wires in the subdivision, whether they’re on

the power line up on the telephone pole or underground, need to be

upgraded to handle capacity. Let’s just make the announcement, and let’s

pass a piece of legislation,” knowing full well you can’t

perform.

You don’t have a business case. You don’t know the numbers. If you

even sat down with the people that have worked at Hydro or are still at

Hydro that know capacity, know growth and know power and know what the

wiring is in the places in British Columbia, given the age of some homes

and buildings, they would say to you: “Go cautiously. Don’t put too much

pressure on the grid until you know you have it. Make sure that if you

say you’re going to get out of the car and plug it in at night and it’s

going to be charged by morning or in a couple of hours, you have the

ability to deliver that electricity, because today you’re not wired for

that.”

We’re talking about a decision on a thing that could run up in the

hundreds of billions of dollars. What we’ll do is we’ll incent people to

go buy a Tesla or some other electric vehicle, because we’re going to

give that rebate to those and have other people have to live with what

they have. And then on the back of the very people who are living with

what they have and having to pay the higher gas prices, we will rewire

the province. I’m assuming that’s what they want to do, at a cost of

billions of dollars.

Reality is going to come home to roost on this one. The reality is

that all that work, all that study, all those meetings I went to back in

2007, 2008, 2009…. The reality of listening to how the NDP tried to

campaign on axing the tax, the carbon tax, which today they take $10

more a tonne and take it out of every single person’s pocket at the pump

— and they subsidize industry elsewhere, because they don’t want to

actually give it back to British Columbians to clean up the climate — is

what they’re faced with today.

[3:35 p.m.]

I won’t call it a fraud. I will call it a multi-billion-dollar

misdirection, for a piece of legislation, that can’t be accomplished in

the reality of how you actually get electricity to flow to the right

places at the right time in British Columbia.

D. Davies: It gives me pleasure to stand here today and give my two bits on

Bill 28, the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. Certainly, I’m going to come at

it from a perspective of rural B.C. — of course, speaking on behalf of

the great constituents of Peace River North — and how this bill is going

to have significant impact on more rural and remote areas of British

Columbia.

We’ve heard in the House here many, many times how diverse our

province is, which is great. I think we all embrace the diversity that

we have in our province. From up in my area, I look to the west, and I

see the Rocky Mountains. I look to the east, and I can see Winnipeg,

with the Prairies and the vast agriculture; moving over to the coast, of

course with the ocean; and down into the Interior, where we have the

wine region. I mean, this is what makes British Columbia beautiful,

fantastic. The diversity is what I certainly appreciate from our

province.

However, often we see these bills come forward, policies coming

forward, with a cookie-cutter approach. It is something that even

before, when I served in local government, we would see government come

out with cookie-cutter policies that might work well here in Victoria or

Vancouver but do not work well for Fort St. John or Kelowna — or

Terrace, for that matter.

I think that this is one such policy. This is one such bill that I

don’t think has taken into consideration British Columbia’s diversity.

It is definitely a cookie-cutter approach.

When I see places like Fort St. John and our winters…. I’ll

briefly define winter in the North Peace, and the South Peace would be

very similar.

Interjection.

D. Davies: “Usually a little warmer,” he says. Just a smidge.

My children never…. Well, they get to wear Halloween costumes, but

it’s usually under their snowsuit, because usually about mid-to-end

October, that’s when the temperature is dropping down to about minus 10,

minus 15, even colder sometimes. It just keeps going down and down. By

the time we’re hitting toward the end of November, we are usually

hovering around the minus 25 to minus 30 mark. It’s usually in and about

there, between minus 15 and minus 30, right through until — well, this

year — March. I think it’s important to keep that in mind when we’re

talking about electric vehicles.

Just before I came here today…. You just have to do a quick

search. There’s lots of research on batteries — the lithium-ion

batteries, which is now the main battery that’s used in electric cars —

and how the cold weather impact these batteries.

I found it quite funny. This is a lot of American information, so

bear with me. They’re talking about when a battery is cold, they know

for a fact that the battery performs less efficiently, does not hold a

charge as long — in fact, a 20 percent reduction in energy from the

battery — on tempera­tures from 32 degrees Fahrenheit to 20

degrees Fahrenheit.

Now, put that in perspective: 20 degrees Fahrenheit is minus 6,

and we’re already looking at losing 20 percent reduction in capacity and

output at minus 6. Well, minus 6 — that’s a September temperature in

Fort St. John, maybe an early October temperature. As it gets colder,

the research shows that there’s permanent damage to

batteries.

[3:40 p.m.]

Some of the recommendations…. I printed off — this is, I think,

from the Tesla website — tips for driving while cold. I’ll read a couple

of them here. “Turn off your wipers in the winter to avoid damage.” I

mean, when it’s snowing and we have ice and everything else, I’m not too

sure how we’re going to do that.

“Preheat and warm up the cabin as well as the battery for at least

20 minutes prior to driving your car.” A lot of people don’t have

garages in Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Dawson Creek and other

communities. People that live in apartments have to park

outside.

“Expect substantial range reduction in the cold.” I’ve already

talked a little bit about that.

“Short trips dramatically reduce the range in cold temperatures.”

Well, when it’s 40 below, you’re going to be driving to the grocery

store. You’re going to have to drive to pick your kids up at school.

Then you’re going to be driving them to the sporting events that each of

your children attend. You might have to go to your employment. You might

need your car as a delivery service. Short trips in cold are a no-no for

electric vehicles.

It talks about limiting use of brakes.

“Turn on the chill mode.” Okay, I think minus 40 is a little bit

beyond chill.

“Park in a garage or covered area.” I talked about that. Again, a

lot of people do not have garages or even covered ports. I’m not sure of

the number of apartments that we have just in Fort St. John, but there

is a significant amount of people that live in apartments or in

townhouses and park in the street and will not have access to

this.

“It is strongly recommended….” And remember, we’re talking minus

6. I could not find anything other than talking about extreme

temperatures, which are critically harmful to batteries. At minus 6,

it’s strongly recommended that you use a battery heater when you’re

charging in the cold — not 110 volt, as it cannot keep up. So there

opens up a whole new range of infrastructure that I know my house

doesn’t have. Well, I guess my dryer plug-in is 220. The oven, I think,

is the other one that’s 220. I guess I could get an extension cord and

run it from out there…. I don’t know.

My point on this is…. We’re talking 20 years from now. I don’t

think any of us in this chamber or that work in this place argue the

fact that we want to reduce our emissions. We want to see improvements

on what we’re going to leave behind for our children and our

grandchildren. But I also need to stress the point that with the

diversity of this province, we also need to take a realistic approach

when we are introducing any kind of legislation in this House, and I

don’t believe Bill 28 has it, for just some of these reasons.

I talked briefly about the freezing. Again, we’re talking minus 40

sometimes for up to seven or eight days, an entire week. In February

this year, I think we had in excess of — I don’t know — ten to 15

consecutive days where we were below 30 below.

When I see “permanent damage for frozen batteries” or

“significantly impact the ability to hold a charge from batteries

freezing,” that’s going to be a fact of life for electric vehicles up in

the northeast, up in the northwest. I mean, Terrace gets 20-below

weather. Prince George gets 20- or 30-below weather. This is much

easier, I would say, certainly, to have in the Lower Mainland or here on

the Island, but it’s not going to work in regards to the extreme

temperatures that we experience in the north.

[3:45 p.m.]

Another thing: distances. We have great distances to travel pretty

much when you leave the Lower Mainland. Your distances to travel to go

shopping, distances to travel to go to schools…. Everything increases,

and it increases more as you head further north.

Just an example, my riding alone, and I’ve talked about a lot in

this chamber, is almost 170,000 square kilometres. It’s the size of four

small European countries. When we talk about batteries having a 300-mile

range, 200 miles in the cold weather…. When I say 200 miles, that’s 321

kilometres. Remember, when they’re talking cold temperatures and all the

stuff I found here, that’s minus 6. So when it’s minus 30 or minus 40,

we could significantly reduce that again, and I’m not even sure what it

goes down to. Maybe 100 miles is all.

When I look at even just maybe travelling to Fort Nelson, which I

do every four to six weeks to visit my constituents up in Fort Nelson….

I have an office in Fort Nelson. When I go up there, we’re talking

upwards of 500 kilometres, with a little community called Wonowon that’s

roughly 70 kilometres north of Fort St. John. When I say community, I

should say a service station and some houses. The next place is Mile

143, Pink Mountain, which has got a service station. When you get north

of that, there’s nothing. There are certainly no charging stations up

north of Fort St. John. So what are people to do that need to travel

between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson?

We’ve talked lots in this House, as well, about rural health care.

People in the north, people in rural B.C., have to travel significant

distances to obtain specialty health care. People in Fort Nelson cannot

have a baby. There are no maternity services in Fort Nelson. They are

advised to go to Fort St. John three weeks prior to their due date and

have their baby in Fort St. John. Now, I can talk about the health care

issue. That’s a complete other issue. I’ll save that for another day.

But people have to travel from Fort Nelson to have their baby. They have

to travel to Fort St. John, 450-plus kilometres.

This puts people at risk on a remote highway. Yes, there are

vehicles going back and forth. But in the wintertime…. I’ve driven that

highway before. If you’re travelling at night because you need medical

treatment in Fort St. John, there are not a lot of vehicles that travel

that highway. I guess they’re all going to be electric in 2040 anyway,

so everybody is going to be facing the same concerns and same issues.

But it puts people at risk that have to do this.

Prince George is the home of the northern cancer centre. The

province has put a significant amount of money into that, which is a

great thing. There are a lot of people in Fort St. John or Dawson Creek

or Fort Nelson, other areas, that have to drive on a regular basis from

Fort St. John to Prince George to receive medical treatment, to receive

cancer treatment as well as other specialty treatments. Prince George is

438 kilometres from Fort St. John.

The range is not there, especially, again, if we go back into the

winter months. I have real concerns that the range is ever going to be

there. I mean, technology will improve. We know that technology will

improve, but I don’t think, in 20 years, that we will be to that point

to make the significant changes and mandate that everybody buy an EV by

[3:50 p.m.]

A lot of people, again, travel to Edmonton for appointments, for

medical appointments. Edmonton is much easier to get to for us than

going down to Vancouver. We’re talking a difference of a 15½-hour drive

versus a seven-hour drive. A lot of people get referred to Edmonton for

specialty appointments. So we’re talking almost 700 kilometres now. Now,

granted, you go through a couple of communities. The city of Grande

Prairie is approximately, I think, in the area of about 50,000 people or

thereabouts. They currently have two charging stations, by the way, in

Grande Prairie — only.

I think Whitecourt would be the next town that has a charging

station. But people are travelling, again, great distances in vehicles

that will not have that capacity, unless you’re going to stop somewhere

and charge. Again, this is Alberta, and I don’t foresee Alberta bringing

in this legislation any time soon. But people are still going to be

required to travel to Edmonton to go to their appointments.

We won’t have an internal combustion engine to drive. We’ll be

taking an electric vehicle into Alberta, where who knows what the

infrastructure is going to look like in Grande Prairie. Again, it’s a

city of almost 60,000 people, and they’ve got two stations today. I

didn’t look at how many charging stations Edmonton has. I know they do

have some, obviously, but what is that going to look like in just 20

years from now?

It’s unique up in the northeast corner because there is a lot of

movement of people between British Columbia and Alberta — a lot of

movement. Whether we’re talking commerce, medical appointments…. Like I

said, there are a lot of people that go to Edmonton — and Grande

Prairie, for that matter — for medical treatment. There are a lot of

people that work, of course, with the oil and gas industry, back and

forth. A lot of work happens in between the two provinces. How is that

going to work?

In the bill, it talks about light-duty motor vehicles — a half-ton

pickup and under. A lot of people up there have a half-ton pickup

because they require that for employment. They require that if they work

in the oil and gas industry, when we’re hauling around a surveyor that

requires a quad to go surveying in the back country. The tools that are

required to do a lot of jobs that are required up there…. There is a

requirement to have a pickup, and a half-ton pickup is significantly

cheaper than when you start going in to your three-quarter-ton or your

one-ton pickups.

I think there is also the luxury tax that starts playing a role

there as well. A half-ton pickup would not be captured under that, but

when you go up to a one-ton vehicle or other, it will be. Again, it’s a

cookie-cutter approach that is penalizing people that are required to do

certain things that aren’t required elsewhere.

One of the biggest concerns, then, that I do have for rural B.C.

and the people in my riding is the travelling of great distances, not

because they just want to. It’s the travelling of great distances

because we have to. We need to go to these medical appointments. We need

to go to Edmonton. We need to go to Prince George. I might also add,

too, that driving to Prince George, you have to go through one of B.C.’s

passes, the Pine Pass, which often isn’t the greatest pass to be going

through in the winter. Once you get out of Chetwynd, you’ve got one

little gas station at Mackenzie Junction, which does not have a charging

station, by the way, and I’m not sure if they will have a charging

station 20 years from now.

[3:55 p.m.]

I just see so many issues with this legislation for my riding, and

certainly for more rural ridings, that are going to be challenged on

just access to the infrastructure around it. I’m not going to belabour

the point here. It’s been talked about numerous times by my colleagues.

But it is an issue, and it will be an issue, even in Fort St.

John.

There are only two charging stations in Fort St. John. There are a

couple of vehicles that are electric vehicles. They don’t drive in the

winter, by the way. I’ve never seen an electric car in the winter, but I

do see them in the summertime. So those people must have a garage that

they can park it in and keep it warm all winter. But even then, those

two electric charging stations in the summer, you know, people just park

at them. They plug their car in, and they’re there all day long. So I

see significant issues coming that way as well.

We’ve talked about consumption of electricity. Site C, of course,

is in my backyard. It’s roughly eight kilometres away from my home. You

know, there was lots of opposition in this chamber by the government

side initially about Site C. As B.C. electrifies…. When I say

electrifies, I’m talking a push to move to more electric vehicles, a

push to move away from fossil fuels, so we’re talking heating homes,

heating apartments. We’re talking, even in industry, a move to move off

of fossil fuels, to electric-driven motors. There is a massive move to

electrify British Columbia. And when you layer, of course, the electric

vehicles onto this….

I’m just going to go a little off here. I talked earlier, from the

Tesla website, about plugging in the extra battery warmer in the

wintertime. There is already incredible surge on the grid right now that

pushes it to the limits in the wintertime when everyone’s heaters are

on. Things are always plugged in. We’re almost, right now, at maximum

capacity. And again, 20 years is not very far away. When we start

driving all of this stuff — pardon the pun — onto our electrical grid,

as mentioned here before, we’re going to need three Site C equivalents

to put everything onto the grid that we are pushing toward. Where is

that going to come from?

I know where it’s going to come from. Well, I don’t know where

it’s going to come from, but I know who is going to be paying for it.

It’s going to be every single one of us, as British Columbians, paying

for this incredible push of required infrastructure. There will be

significant costs to do this.

We’ve already, again, seen challenges about how some of this is

going to be drawing onto our grid. I wonder what the plan is for our

communities that are not on the grid. I’ve got communities in my

riding…. Toad River. I’ve got two First Nations communities, Kwadacha

and Tsay Keh Dene. They’re off grid. They run on diesel generation. How

is this going to impact them, for them to be required to have electric

vehicles in these remote areas that don’t have access to the B.C. Hydro

grid? There is no plan. There is no talk about that in this

bill.

I’m sure there are other communities in my riding that aren’t on

the grid that are on diesel. But those are three fairly significant

communities that are in my riding. So I would be really curious to see

what the plan is for some of these communities that are remote, on

diesel power generation and how that is going to work. Actually, I

believe even Fort Nelson is not on the B.C. Hydro grid. They’re through

cogeneration at the Spectra gas plant.

[4:00 p.m.]

There are some significant challenges that I don’t see addressed

in this bill. I’d be curious. Again, these will be certain questions

that I’ll be asking in committee stage as well.

I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned or not, just about the aspect

of the lithium and the mining of lithium. Like any resource in our

world, lithium is a finite resource. Right now lithium is mainly being

mined in Australia, Chile, Argentina, China and Zimbabwe. Those are the

top five countries that mine lithium.

Well, as we start talking about a resource being depleted, what

happens with that resource? It goes up in value. Electric cars are

already only pretty much affordable to people because of significant

subsidies. I will guarantee that as lithium becomes a rarer resource,

the cost to produce electric cars is going to increase significantly.

Maybe the word astronomically even comes to mind, when you start having

something that’s…. Well, look at gas prices. We’re talking about a

supply issue right now, and we’ve seen gas prices go off the charts.

Well, imagine what’s going to happen when lithium gets down to that end

piece where it’s rare.

Now, granted there are recycling stations, but the recycling of

these batteries is nowhere near able to absorb what is expected. If we

look…. I don’t have the number here, but I did see something on…. In

2040, the amount of batteries that will need to be recycled is an

incredible number. And they don’t expect the recycling facilities to be

anywhere near capable to be handling all the batteries that will need to

be recycled.

Again, I think we’re kind of putting the cart before the horse.

That’s a double pun as well. Not bad, right? Not bad at all. This is the

cheap entertainment you get here today, folks.

I want to make sure I don’t miss anything on my incredible notes

here that I was making.

Interjection.

D. Davies: Oh, great. Thank you.

I also want to talk briefly, just to mention a comment on the

member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, who mentioned earlier today that…. He

was talking about when you buy an electric vehicle, you drive it off the

parking lot, and you never have to go back to the dealership until you

buy your next electric car. Well, I’m sorry. I’m going to call him out

on that. There are issues, just like every other car has. There are

powertrain issues. The number one issue right now on new vehicles are

electrical issues, and they’re the most expensive and hardest to

diagnose in a car. Electric cars are no different.

I just want to call him out. He made it sound like you buy an

electric car and drive it off the parking lot, and you’re hassle-free

for the entire time you own your vehicle. Well, that is just not true.

There are equal amounts of issues that can happen and do happen to

electric cars, as any other car.

Just finally, talking about Alberta. Myself, Peace River South

actually even more so, where you are right against…. You’re one hour

from Grande Prairie. I just wonder the challenges that are going to be,

as people are obviously…. Again, I mentioned Alberta is not going to

change much, I don’t think, moving to….

[4:05 p.m.]

I certainly don’t think they’re going to be beating us on a move

to electric vehicles, but there are going to be signifi­cant

challenges as well, I think. Certainly, in our border communities that

border