2015 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 40th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 22, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 18 — Administrative Tribunals Statutes Amendment Act, 2015 (continued)

L. Krog

B. Ralston

V. Huntington

Hon. S. Anton

Bill 19 — Civil Resolution Tribunal Amendment Act, 2015

Hon. S. Anton

L. Krog

Hon. S. Anton

Bill 10 — Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2015

Hon. M. de Jong

C. James

S. Simpson

R. Fleming

D. Eby

G. Heyman

A. Weaver

L. Krog

B. Ralston

G. Holman

Hon. M. de Jong

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Advanced Education

Hon. A. Wilkinson

K. Corrigan

S. Simpson

K. Conroy

G. Heyman

V. Huntington

C. Trevena

H. Bains

J. Shin

[ Page 6869 ]

TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2015

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Polak: In this chamber I call continued second reading debate on Bill 18, the Administrative Tribunals Statutes Amendment Act, and in Committee A, the estimates of the Ministry of Advanced Education.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 18 — ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNALS

STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2015

(continued)

L. Krog: I’m delighted to continue debate on Bill 18, the Administrative Tribunals Statutes Amendment Act, 2015.

As I said before the break at lunch, I think the Attorney General summed it up rather nicely when she said it has the potential to reduce. It reminds me of all those weight-loss commercials that come on TV after Christmastime when they’re promising all sorts of miracles in terms of weight reduction as everyone tries to wear off the results of overconsumption during the Christmas season.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

I’m not suggesting for a moment that the opposition isn’t grateful for this small present. I see some of the members trying to pull it in as I’m speaking, hon. Speaker. I’ve obviously touched a nerve with some members of the House. I’ll just try not to let myself be drawn away to talk about weight with what is, as I pointed out before lunch, the weightiest bill of the session so far, with 204 sections. But I digress.

It’s not even a map, really. It’s certainly not a series of well-thought-out directions. I understand the purpose of what the government is trying to do, I believe, with Bill 18, but it is essentially enabling legislation, in the broadest sense of the term “enabling.”

It is attempting to bring into force the opportunity to supposedly streamline our administrative law system which, to use the old cliché, has grown rather like Topsy, for obvious reasons — costs, failure to fund the existing justice system, our court system, our traditional system of resolving disputes, failure to fund that in the way that justice is seen as accessible and speedy and, arguably, even fair.

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It’s hard to argue for fairness in a justice system where justice is so often delayed that we’ve had the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, talk about that as an issue, and our own chief justices in the last few years here in British Columbia. It’s not an uncommon topic, certainly in the legal community or for those who are involved in matters relating to, I’ll call it in the broadest sense, our justice system and the way we have historically resolved our disputes.

What this bill is attempting to do is cluster. I love that term, “cluster.” It’s talking about allowing for the creation of clusters of administrative tribunals. In

section 8 it talks about adding the following part after

section 10 —

part 3, “Clustering.” “The Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by regulation, designate 2 or more tribunals as a cluster if, in the opinion of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, the matters that the tribunals deal with are such that they can operate more effectively and efficiently as part of a cluster than alone.”

Now, the member for Surrey-Whalley, being the witty fellow he is, did point out that perhaps you could argue there’s a bit of a similarity here between the way the Speaker and the Clerks of the House come in, in a cluster when they approach the chamber. I’m sure that’s probably going to be a more effective cluster than what the government is proposing in terms of the administration of justice.

It’s not as if the Attorney General could stand up in the House today when she had her opportunity to speak — as she did, and spoke at some length on this bill — and tell us what is proposed. What does the first cluster potentially look like? In the very generous and kind briefing that I mentioned earlier this morning by ministry officials, they could not talk about specifics. As we used to say in the legal profession, they couldn’t condescend upon the particulars of what was being proposed.

That’s really the problem here. It’s not that the opposition is opposed to granting the government a blank cheque once in a while if we think they’re actually up to something really good and efficient and is likely to be successful. But it’s not entirely clear from this legislation — certainly, on the opposition’s reading of it — that it is going to lead to the end result that is supposedly desirable. That is, as I mentioned earlier, the hope that it will reduce cost or create efficiencies.

Now, there are a number of areas of the bill that represent, I would suggest, vulnerabilities, and certainly vulnerabilities based on the opposition’s experience and the experience of the public of British Columbia with respect to appointees. There is significant power being given to the executive chair of these clusters when they’re formed.

My understanding is that we may be looking at a substantial period of time before any clusters are formed, and we have no idea how big the clusters will be. We can assume that there may be some that will be working together fairly quickly, and by that I mean within a matter of a few months or a few years. Others may take longer. But the power given to the executive chair, who will be

[ Page 6870 ]

a government appointee, is significant. I guess that’s one of the opposition’s problem.

We have spent considerable time in the last few days of this session talking about the appointment of the Auditor General for Local Government. Again, one would argue, it was a piece of legislation that was not terribly well thought out, to the point where it wasn’t clear how one made that office function or whether you could audit the auditor or how you could terminate the auditor or all of those things that flow from that fiasco.

The Auditor General for Local Government was a government appointee. She wasn’t an appointee of an all-party committee of the B.C. Legislature. She wasn’t like the conflict commissioner or the Information and Privacy Commissioner. She wasn’t like the real Auditor General, the one whose office we suggested should be responsible for auditing local government, if that was seen as a pressing political issue. No, she is a government appointee.

The concept has always been that public servants should be true public servants, in the sense that they would be non-partisan, they would presumably have expertise, and they would be able to render, quite literally, public service.

[1340]

It’s not a foreign concept. It’s the way of western democracies and, indeed, governments throughout history. You try and move forward in a way, with people who can actually deliver the service. The people, whether they be, in the common parlance now, taxpayers or citizens or whoever, would receive services.

But we’ve seen a number of very partisan appointees by this government. John Les. Ben Stewart. Gordon Wilson, for heaven’s sakes. Now, I know if the Minister of Finance were in his chirpy mood, he would point out, of course, that he was a former B.C. NDP cabinet minister. He would take that to heart and say he was a completely non-partisan appointment, except for the fact that prior to the last election Mr. Wilson so publicly and clearly announced that he was happy to support the present occupant of the Premier’s office and the west wing of the legislative buildings.

To describe him as a non-partisan appointment is just rather a bit silly. I mean, it’s rather like arguing that Churchill who, as he put it, re-ratted — left the Conservatives and then to the Liberals and then back to the Conservatives — somehow was a non-partisan individual.

That is a genuine concern of the opposition, because the body that looks after those appointments is run by Ms. Mentzelopolous, and we certainly know her history in terms of being a close associate and supporter of the Premier in the most partisan sense of the word. So when we talk about forming these clusters, the opposition has legitimate concerns that we are going to create a system — even if it appears to be, on the face, fair — that is stacked with partisan appointments.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that this Attorney General would do that, but the concept is: when you bring in legislation, you set up a process so that not only can it not happen; it cannot appear to happen either. The problem here is the system is not structured, as I read it, in such a way that in fact partisan appointments couldn’t be made.

What this legislative scheme is all about…. The administrative tribunals are set up to, essentially, resolve disputes and give justice, and the independence of that process — being separated from government, being separated from undue influence — is an important and fundamental concept. If there is even a hint that there is a partisan aspect to these appointments because there isn’t that kind of process, then it leaves it open to criticism, even in situations where it’s not merited, and it certainly leaves it open to criticism in situations where it is.

I think the average Canadian and, certainly, I think most members of the bar would say that, generally speaking, our judicial appointment system works quite well. Even at the federal level, notwithstanding a bit of a preponderance, obviously, until recently, for the federal Conservatives to appoint male members of the bar as opposed to female and their record on visible minorities — to use a phrase from a while ago — as pretty dismal…. Nevertheless, there is the sense that the quality of the judiciary at the federal appointee level is very high, and likewise in British Columbia.

Here these folks will be flying somewhat below that radar. They will not be subject to the same process, as I understand it. I look forward to a member opposite illuminating me and telling me I’m wrong, but they will not be subject to that same kind of scrutiny and process that exists now. What that means is that that appearance of fairness, of independence, has to be not only true in appearance but true in fact, and that is not necessarily going to be the case here.

[1345]

Moreover, the power that will be given to facilitators under this legislation is significant. One gets the point that it’s nice to have tribunals have that an expertise. In a commonsense way, the concept, for instance, that people dealing with residential tendency problems actually have some expertise, as opposed to a Supreme Court or a Provincial Court, where the judge is expected to have a fairly broad range of knowledge but will be reliant on lawyers to assure the court that the appropriate law is being provided to the trier of fact and the decision-maker.

In administrative tribunals and particularly this system — which has a positive discouragement, if I can use that term, to keep counsel out of the process — it becomes even more important that the persons who are working as facilitators and who will be involved in these administrative tribunals have a significant level of expertise in their area. But they also have to have a level of expertise, understanding and knowledge with respect to how to conduct fair hearings.

As I quoted from the act itself from 2004, they decide the rules, they decide what happens by way of process,

[ Page 6871 ]

and process is extremely important. Process has to be effective and fair so that the parties, regardless of what the end result is, feel that, to use the old cliché, they got their day in court. Ultimately, that’s what this is all about. It is about a replacement for our court system.

The public takes the view, and the government certainly takes the view, that our present court system isn’t functioning effectively. It’s inaccessible, it’s expensive, and I think, in the words of Geoffrey Cowper in his report, there is a culture of delay. All those criticisms are fair. They’re all fair.

The question that will obviously be delved into more appropriately in committee stage of this bill, because the opposition may well take the view that some of the sections of the bill are not appropriate, is: is this the vehicle, the process, by which we will do a better job of resolving issues between British Columbians?

As I understand it, these tribunals handle something in the range of 60,000 matters a year. Now, I don’t know whether that in fact reflects residential tendency matters, as well, or whether that includes every kind of the smaller tribunals, the specialized tribunals that may deal with a forestry issue or an environmental issue or an oil and gas issue — things on which I claim no expertise. The reality is: this system impacts on a lot of British Columbians, and it is the system that they look to in order to resolve disputes.

The people who are involved, and now people involved in the cluster, particularly the cluster executive chairs — again, “cluster” is never defined — will be in charge, it appears from the briefing the opposition received, of hiring the front-line people and, potentially, contractors who will be in the position to make these decisions.

I want you to think about that for a moment. When I appear as counsel in front of a Supreme Court judge — I’ve never had the pleasure, thank the Lord, of appearing as a litigant — I’d like to think that person was completely and utterly independent and is seen as one of the highest forms of public service.

This is contemplating a process whereby that person may be a private contractor making money. In other words, this is a business. This is a provision of services for monetary gain. You go on the Supreme Court bench, the Provincial Court bench. You know what the salary is. You’re going to be well paid. There’s going to be a pension.

[1350]

You’re protected till 75 as a Supreme Court judge. And, essentially, now in British Columbia, it’s basically the same thing for Provincial Court judges. You know that you are free from influence related to money, related to a reappointment, related to, in this case, the renewal of the contract if you’re a contractor.

I don’t know if the government has thought all of this through. Certainly, it hasn’t been addressed yet by the Attorney General in her remarks on second reading. But these are legitimate concerns that any thinking British Columbian would have and certainly the legal community, which is used to dealing with litigious matters and of the resolution of disputes between parties.

Moreover, there’s a bit of a kicker in the legislation that says essentially that a decision of the tribunal cannot be made invalid due to an invalid appointment of a chair or a member. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean that if it’s determined there was a terribly partisan appointment and that on the outside it looks like justice wasn’t done, the parties involved in that dispute can’t say that because of the tribunal — the person who heard it, because of their partisan appointment — they can’t get that decision set aside or appealed or dealt with?

These are questions which have to be answered. It is not clear. It is not clear from what we’ve heard so far or in the reading of the bill how that’s going to operate.

Again, I come back to one of my essential points: the bill is a pretty thin framework. If I was thinking of building a house, I’d say that the 2x4s are up, but the roof isn’t on. There’s no gyproc on the walls, there’s no siding, there’s certainly no electricity, but we have some idea of what the house is going to look like. Just imagine trying to decide between Arborite and granite and quartz countertops, just as a simple example, to furnish the kitchen, let alone deal with the quality of the taps, who you’re going to hire to be the electrician. Is it a lifetime appointment, or is it a contractor?

All of these are legitimate questions that arise from the process, as it’s suggested, and how the power has been given to these appointees. Again, I come back to it. If the process by how people are hired is not seen as a public and a non-partisan and an appropriate process, then it will bring the whole system into disrepute. It will raise the possibility of more challenges than it’s worth and, indeed, potentially make the system more complex than it was intended to be.

There are still many in the legal community who would say that all of these administrative tribunals aren’t always effective. This bill, to some extent, is saying: “Look, we think that there are efficiencies to be obtained.” And maybe there are efficiencies to be obtained. Certainly, the opposition hopes so. We don’t want to be supporting something that’s not going to happen as a result of the passage of this bill.

Again, with the lack of detail around what form the clusters will take — and the appointment of members and chairs and all of those things — we don’t know what it’s going to look like. The briefing indicated that there might be 25 or 28 that are clusterable.

If the government hasn’t thought through what the end product looks like, why are we in a position where we’re being asked to give a carte blanche to the government, when they don’t know what the end result is going to look like?

I mean, it may come as a surprise to the Attorney General, but the opposition’s job is to criticize. But we

[ Page 6872 ]

rather like to have something relatively concrete to criticize, without having to step back and say: “We know there’s a big, grey elephant, we think, in the room, but we’re going into it blind because the government hasn’t said it’s an elephant because the government doesn’t know what the elephant looks like either.”

We’re all sort of poking around and prodding at it in the belief that somehow we can do our job effectively when the government hasn’t thought this through far enough to even know what it’s going to look like. That, again, is a real problem.

[1355]

How does it fall together? When we talk about the chair….

Deputy Speaker: Is the member the designated speaker?

L. Krog: Yes, I am, hon. Speaker. I know the members opposite are delighted to hear that, so they’ll have more opportunity to listen to my words. [Applause.]

I’m always flattered by the attention given by the government benches. My friend from Surrey-Whalley does point out that the opposition benches were not nearly as enthusiastic, and I’m not sure the independent members even care.

Notwithstanding that, I will carry on. This is supposedly based on the Ontario system, as opposed to, I think, the Manitoba and Quebec systems. This appears to be the new model of the way we’re dealing with administrative tribunals. That may well indeed be the right thing to do.

One has to respect and accept that Ontario is one of the founding provinces of Canada. They have a larger population. They’ve had a legislature longer. Presumably, they’ve got some idea what they’re doing back there, notwithstanding it’s a Liberal government. Nevertheless, one has to respect a province that’s substantially larger than ours — roughly double and a bit.

What’s going to happen with respect to the clustering that takes place? How does that work? I mean, if you’re going to have separate statutory mandates, how does that fall into place? How does that mesh? Again, one would have thought that the government, in its wisdom — because this is not an easy process to put together — would have sort of worked that all the way through.

As I pointed out, once you get to

section 30 and you get to

part 10, the miscellaneous section, starting alphabetically, bless them, with the Administrative Tribunals Act and going all the way through to the Utilities Commission Act — hardly a letter of the alphabet omitted. All of those sections, 31 through to 203 — 204 is the commencement of the

section — deal with the nitty-gritty of how we have to coordinate this and bring it together and make it work.

In deference — and I say with great respect, because I appreciate the difficulty of legislative drafting — this was a massive undertaking. This did not happen in a matter of a few weeks. I have no idea, understanding a little bit about how the process works and the Cabinet Committee on Legislation and Regulations — or Legs and Regs, as we used to call it in the happy days of the ’90s…. I have no idea how long this took, but I don’t think this got created overnight. So what that means is it has been in process a long time. Again, I come back to my point. Why isn’t the end result clearer?

Why is it we weren’t given — and I suspect because they couldn’t — answers as to what it would look like when it’s done?

We’ve got confusion and concern around the power of appointees and how they’re going to be hired and whether that process will be subject to the obvious criticism. We have concerns about what the clusters will look like, because the government apparently can’t tell us. And it leaves…. Bill 18 changes the tribunal process to focus on the end goal of a settlement, using facilitators rather than the satisfaction of the parties involved in the conflict, who are represented by counsel.

Now, if a settlement can be declared that it’s not satisfactory to either party, if the process is facilitated and is unsatisfactory to any other parties, they can, however, have a traditional hearing and, ultimately, have recourse to the courts. However, under Bill 19, which we’ll be talking about later today, recourse to a court hearing is not permitted in strata disputes, for instance.

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We’ve got a system that, on one hand, recognizes the commonsense view that the tribunal and the people who work within the administrative structure will have expertise and therefore be able to perhaps deal more expeditiously or with greater understanding with the issue, problem, dispute that is placed before it. But at the same time, you are not going to be in a position to argue your case in the traditional way.

Now, there is a strong argument that we don’t want people to be disadvantaged because they can’t get access to legal representation. We know, from the significant cuts that still exist to our legal aid system, that getting legal aid for family disputes in this province is still problematic. We know that it is virtually impossible to get any assistance with other civil matters unless the pro bono justice society, or whoever, steps in and is prepared to give you assistance. But essentially, there are no guarantees.

Those under our system who can afford counsel presumably have a great advantage. But is this the best solution — to simply deny the possibility to people that they will have access to counsel? I’m not entirely convinced that that is necessarily the best method of approaching it.

With respect, also, there is the issue of costs. An applicant can be required to pay partial fees under the current dispute resolution system, but under Bill 18 a tribunal can decide that all or part of the fees must be covered by the applicant. Again, it’s all kind of amorphous. It’s not spelled out.

[ Page 6873 ]

Now, in the spirit of coming into the 21st century, you can say, to the government’s credit, that there’s going to be brand-new, purpose-built technology. You’ll be able to file on line 24-7. Just imagine. You’re up at 1 a.m., and you want to file your claim, and away you go.

We all know that stuff that gets sent at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. may not be good for you for a whole series of reasons. You might say things to people, for instance, that get you into trouble. You may say things that might make it into the media, if you’re a politician, and cause you great embarrassment. But there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that many of us work strange hours and have strange inspirations at different times of the day.

It’s not improper that the government accommodate people who want to do that. You could say that’s a good thing. What we understand is that at the briefing, the request proposal went to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Then they subcontracted to a Vancouver firm. And we have a cloud-based platform with Salesforce, and that clearly raises a number of privacy issues.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind the government, who I’m sure would like to forget, that their history with technological innovation has been a pretty expensive disaster from time to time. We could go back to Gordon Campbell’s web portal, if we want something historic.

More recently, I can’t remember all the details of the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent on systems that were supposed to make it easier for people who were dispensing the miserly amounts that the Ministry of Social Development pays to people who require assistance. We don’t need to talk too much about that. We know there are some attempts being made within the health care system to get accessible medical records available across the province. That is not necessarily going perfectly.

I don’t pretend to be an expert in all of this. But what I do know is that the government’s general history with technological innovation is not a record of success that gives the opposition comfort. I think most of us, by and large, if we file a claim — and you can do that electronically in the court system — have some comfort that it’s going to work.

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I don’t know that that confidence is going to extend to a system being set up under legislation painfully short on specifics with a potentially partisan appointment system in place being handled, possibly, by contractors, not even people who enjoy some independence or security of tenure in a way that would protect them from influence. The reality is that the people who will make this system work can’t give us a guarantee that this system is going to work.

It’s not as if we are taking over an existing system from some other jurisdiction that has a proven track record. I can’t remember which came first — no jokes, please, from the members opposite about which came first — the Model A or the Model-T, but I think it was the Model A. Henry Ford had something to work with, and then the Model-T followed. We had a proven kind of system for a car that worked. You could improve on it, but at least you knew it functioned.

Well, there’s no guarantee that this new purpose-built technology is in fact going to function successfully. Again, we are asked to be comforted by the government’s confidence in this, without any substantive record or history of technological innovation that has worked successfully and that hasn’t in fact resulted in the wasting of hundreds of millions of dollars of money. There is a sad history here.

The process which is set out in Bill 18, by way of amendments to the Administrative Tribunals statute as it exists, is one that is going to require a great deal of work. It’s fairly clear from the government that there isn’t even an intention that this will be up and running in the near future. Perhaps it’s a three- to five-year buildout. You sort of have to ask yourself: “Well, why are we in a position today where we don’t know where we’re going?”

To use a house analogy, if this is the structure, why don’t we have an idea of what the finished product is going to look like? If this is a road map, I’m not sure that it explains what the destination is. We certainly have no itinerary as to how long it’s going to take us to get there, by what circuitous routes, by what side paths. What obstacles may exist and, more importantly but not necessarily the only important thing, what is it going to cost and what savings, if any, are going to accrue to government as a result of these changes?

At the end of this, we in the opposition are all left with a significant number of questions, significant concerns. Although it’s hard to say that this is not a step forward in the broader sense, the opposition really has to question whether or not it will achieve the ends that the government intends.

The proposed amendments, in their own

summary, say it’s to enable a clustering of administrative tribunals, giving tribunals the authority to require that early dispute resolution methods be used, including on-line resolution, and enhancing the accountability of tribunals through new reporting requirements.

As usual, as is the habit of modern governments and this government in particular, most of this is left to regulation, to be determined at some later date. I think I’ve said it at least three or four times in the last couple of days, speaking to various bills, but I’m going to repeat it again, just in case there’s someone listening for the first time. The problem with that is this. We get to debate some things here in this chamber. They’re televised. They’re open. They’re available. You can read it in Hansard . You can go on line. You can see the concerns that are raised by the opposition. You can see the government defend itself.

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But when it comes to regulation, that happens over there in the west wing or in the Vancouver cabinet offices or wherever the cabinet may meet, wherever the

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Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may gather, without public scrutiny, without the ability of the public to express its views during the course of the debate, which we hope and trust takes place around the cabinet table.

They obviously had quite a discussion the other day when it came to denying George Abbott his appointment. I would like to have been a fly on the wall for that discussion. But it’s out of public view.

To come back to my housing analogy, if the flooring and the wall covering and the siding and the roof and the cabinetry and everything else that’s going to go into this house are all going to be decided by regulation, that’s what we say, in the trade, a pretty big blank cheque. I’m just not satisfied that a change like this, which is essentially the government asking the public to trust them, is appropriate.

To use the road map analogy, we’re not sure what the end looks like. We’re not sure how we’re going to get there. We don’t know if there are going to be savings. We hope there are going to be savings — but again, nothing of substance. Indeed, the forum here is singularly lacking as well.

As Desi Arnaz said to Lucy, the Attorney General has got a lot of explaining to do.

Interjection.

L. Krog: ’Splaining to do. The Minister of Environment has just tried to improve my accent and obviously admitted that she’s older than she looks by remembering Lucy and Desi. I’m flattered that she would pay close attention to my words.

That aside, there’s an awful lot of explaining to do. This opposition is not going to let this thing slide through without that kind of criticism. The fact is that these are significant changes, both this and Bill 19 — which is going to follow in terms of debate, as I understand it — and so much so that the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association and the Trial Lawyers Association aren’t in a position to provide the kinds of comments that one would normally expect from those organizations — and they’re just two amongst many, but important organizations — when this kind of legislation is placed before this House.

I would hope that the government, before we proceed much further, will ensure that bodies that represent significant numbers of people who are already working in the justice system in the broadest sense, in the administrative tribunal system presently, will have that opportunity to offer their comments. I didn’t hear the Attorney General say that she’d happily run it by the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association or the Trial Lawyers Association.

We know that the chair of the B.C. Council of Administrative Tribunals has indicated some happy support of this. That’s nice, but that’s the only body that I’m aware of that has happily said something. We need to hear a great deal more.

I look forward to committee stage of this bill, at which time the Attorney General, I’m sure, will be able to give us a full description of what this house is going to look like or what the destination looks like. Right now we really are working in the dark.

B. Ralston: I rise to address Bill 18. As the critic has pointed out in his speech he just made, the high-level rhetoric of this bill is hard to disagree with in the sense of making justice more accessible and finding economies within the operation of that particular branch of the judiciary. The grouping or clustering — I prefer the term “grouping” — may yield administrative efficiencies.

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Prima facie, there are some obvious benefits to grouping together tribunals that deal with a roughly similar subject matter, although the more you cluster, the more they become like courts of general jurisdiction, and you’re back to the legal system. Part of the reason for creating administrative tribunals was the very reason that they are focused on a specific area where the tribunal develops some expertise and familiarity. Presumably, that makes for more expeditious and fairer decisions, because there’s a knowledge, on the tribunal, of those decisions.

I think it’s probably worth looking at an actual case study of where some of these kinds of reforms have been implemented. The Community Legal Assistance Society, a very well-respected advocacy organization, did a recent study — it’s October 2013 — on the residential tenancy branch. It’s entitled On Shaky Ground: Fairness at the Residency Tenancy Branch . What they conclude in their

summary is:

“There are significant and ongoing problems with the branch’s adjudication services at all stages of the adjudication process, resulting in inconsistent and unreliable enforcement of the legislation.”

They go on to say:

“In our opinion, many of these issues stem from the fact that the branch is drastically underfunded when compared to other similar administrative decision-makers in the province. As a result, in recent years the branch has prioritized efficiency and cost saving at the expense of fairness. For the…obligations contained in B.C.’s tenancy legislation to have meaning, the provincial government must give the branch a renewed focus and the necessary resources to do its job fairly.”

They point out, and I think this is probably a given:

“Tenancy disputes are not trivial. They include disputes that can and do lead to rapid homelessness, disputes relating to the health and safety of rental premises and disputes over significant sums of money and property.”

Many people may not realize this if they have not been involved in a landlord-tenant dispute. As an MLA, frequently constituents come to the office for assistance dealing with these matters. All but 1 percent of the hearings are teleconferences. It’s not a conventional court or tribunal in the sense that people are meeting face-to-face.

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They’re making their representations on the phone. What they say at page 33 of the report:

“The hearings are almost always done by teleconference. This creates challenges for arbitrators and for the parties.

“Hearings are typically very short.”

Some may see this as an advantage. They have some more complex reflections on that.

“From 2007 to 2012 between 92 and 94 percent of all hearings, annually, took place in less than an hour, and 68 to 70 percent took place in less than 30 minutes.”

So these are very brief.

They go on to say that “the community advocates and legal organizations that represent tenants at hearings universally reported a strong sense of frustration with the arbitrators’ approach to the process, noting that the hearings are unpredictable and at times disorganized, disrespectful and unfair.”

They do a review. There is an opportunity, a limited opportunity, to undertake what is called judicial review, which is to take the decision and ask a higher court — that is, the B.C. Supreme Court — to look at those decisions. They found a rather high…. Typically, with administrative law reviews, it is very difficult to overcome the legal hurdles that are placed before someone who would seek to overturn such a decision. The court exercises what’s called deference to the tribunal — in other words, giving them, largely, the benefit of the doubt where there may be some ambiguous aspects to the decision.

The number of decisions that were overturned is very high. I think it’s 57 percent, and 35 percent were because of procedural unfairness serious enough to invalidate the original hearing and justify a new hearing. For example:

“An arbitrator proceeded with a hearing and issued a decision even though one party had never been notified of the hearing. One party was unable to connect to the teleconference, and the hearing went ahead in her absence. An arbitrator conducted a hearing without ensuring both parties had received all the documentary evidence that was being considered.

[1420]

“One party was not prepared to present its case and was not permitted to challenge the other side’s case. An arbitrator decided the case on the issue that neither of the parties had raised or argued, without giving the parties an opportunity to make submissions. The branch allowed one party to communicate with an arbitrator post-hearing without giving the other party a chance to respond.”

These are elementary, one would think, aspects of basic fairness, which is recognized in administrative law. This is a fairly lengthy experiment in these kinds of hearings.

When it comes to reviewing, a judge has commented…. Mr. Justice McEwan, in a case called Helgren v. Campbell , 2010, B.C. Supreme Court case No. 1247, says:

“Before proceeding I think I should note that the nature of these proceedings is highly problematic. The dispute resolution officer never sees the parties or the witnesses, and they do not see the dispute resolution officer. In cases such as this, where credibility is an issue, the dispute resolution officer is deprived of a very significant factor in the assessment of credibility, and the participants are deprived of a face-to-face sense of what apparently matters and what does not to the officer.

“The accountability imposed on tribunals required to face the participants is lacking in such hearings. It is certainly impossible to say that justice has been ‘seen’ to be done. The lack of a record makes review of the decision that is made very difficult, particularly where it is submitted that material evidence was overlooked and ignored.

“The hearings on judicial review of such proceedings are fraught with other perils. The court usually sees and hears from the participants themselves — or some of them, as in this case — and, lay litigation being what it is, hears a great deal of evidence in the form of unsworn submissions. The court must proceed deprived of a record, on the one hand, and consciously excluding much of what has been entered its record on the other.”

That’s a judicial comment on the process.

As the report points out, these sometimes can be very substantial disputes resolved in this way. What is proposed here, I understand, in broad terms, by this bill is to expand that system — if not this bill, in Bill 19, the companion bill — to the small claims court, where the jurisdiction is, I believe, disputes that are of a value not exceeding $25,000.

For most people in the province — maybe not for the top 2 percent that the government is so fond of — a sum of up to $25,000 is a pretty substantial sum. One has a question, then, about how this process will unfold. Recognizing, of course, that the resources of government are not infinite and that economies must be made and should be made where possible, what weight is given to procedural fairness and actual fairness, and what weight is given to economic efficiency in the administration of the act?

Certainly, my colleague from Nanaimo has mentioned the appointment process. What is not entirely clear but seems to emerge from this bill is that the executive chair of the so-called clusters will be a government appointee, will have both executive and adjudicative functions and may be able to hire the members of the tribunal within that particular grouping and — as the member for Nanaimo has mentioned also — possibly as contractors.

This does give rise to the issue of the perception of bias in the performance of those duties, particularly where the person is a term appointment — that issue has been litigated — or, in perhaps the more extreme case, where the person is a contractor, paid, perhaps, on their ability to resolve disputes and thereby reduce expense, thereby creating an economic incentive for them to resolve disputes in a way that may not be fair to both sides.

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There’s a well-known British case, Starrs and Chalmers v. Ruxton , where the decision really says — and this was an issue about appointment for a term of one year:

“The appointment for one year at the discretion of the Lord Advocate did not square with the appearance of independence, nor did the removal from office through ministerial policy rather than statute. A well-informed observer would think that a temporary sheriff might be influenced by his hopes and fears as to his prospective advancement.

“The combination of a one-year appointment with liability either to recall or suspension or limited use is inconsistent with the requirement of independence. Security of tenure is one of the cornerstones of judicial independence, as the adequacy of judicial independence cannot appropriately be tested on the assumption that the executive will always behave with appropriate restraint.”

[ Page 6876 ]

That’s a very judicial and restrained way of expressing the concern about political interference in the process.

The judge, Justice Prosser, goes on to say — and this is, I think, an important point:

“I would add one final point. Like your lordships, I am not suggesting in any way that there has ever been any impropriety, either on the part of temporary sheriffs or on the part of any holder of any ministerial office or their officials. But I would add that if a judge is not independent, then however great his integrity, it may be very difficult for him to know whether his want of independence affects the way in which he carries out his judicial duties.

However determined a minister or public servant may be to carry out his functions in relation to the judiciary only on the basis of wholly appropriate considerations, it will be important for him to remember that his own confidence in his own integrity is not, and cannot be regarded as, a guarantee.”

I think what’s being said here is that self-evaluation — the “I would never do that” kind of response that people sometimes give — isn’t sufficient. I think that’s a very useful and well-phrased caution to those who would consider this issue a trivial issue, a lawyerly issue, not really in tune with the exigencies of the budgeting process of the government.

It’s clear that this bill — I can give one further example — really takes a very negative view of lawyers in their participation in the process. I turn to

section 62 of the bill, which says somewhat cryptically: “Sections 94 (2) and (3) and 95 are repealed.” The reference is to the Environmental Management Act.

What do those sections say?

Section 94(2) says…. It’s in division 1 of

part 8 of the Environmental Management Act. It says under

section 94(2): “A person or body, including the appellant, that has full party status in an appeal may (

a) be represented by counsel, (

b) present evidence, (

c) if there is an oral hearing, ask questions, and (

d) make submissions as to facts, law and jurisdiction.”

The ability to be represented by a counsel, call evidence, make legal argument, ask questions that would presumably be cross-examination or questions of any form — it’s not entirely clear…. Certainly, those will all be swept away. The person will be able to show up, they will be able to appeal, they’ll be able to appear before it, but they won’t be able to do anything that would have any impact on their case. Presumably, all they would do is be able to show up and answer to their name and say nothing further.

Section 94(3) says: “A person who gives oral evidence may be questioned by the appeal board, a panel or parties to the appeal.” That’s the cross-examination provision, that a party to the appeal — that is, the appellant — will be prohibited, if there is oral evidence, from asking any questions.

This is merely one

section buried in this bill — one

section buried in this bill. Perhaps the government, somewhat like the federal Tory government, is interested in “streamlining” the environmental appeal process that views legitimate advocacy on behalf of those who would challenge decisions going before the environmental appeal board as people who need to be silenced.

[1430]

Certainly, this goes some way towards silencing those people. You can’t cross-examine, you can’t have a lawyer, you can’t ask questions, and you can’t call evidence. A drastic and sweeping revision of the powers of the Environmental Appeal Board.

Now, that doubtlessly will streamline this process. It doubtlessly will make it more “efficient.” But does that serve the ends of justice? Is that good public policy for the province? I would submit that there’s at least a strong question about that. I’ll be looking forward to hearing the minister’s justification of that kind of…. And that’s only one example in this particular act.

The other thing that I wanted to address was…. My colleague from Nanaimo has addressed it. There is some proprietary software that has been, basically, set into the legislation. It’s always perilous when one deals with proprietary software because you become the financial captive of the supplier of the software. How it’s connected, whether it was sent out to tender, what’s the opportunity for changing it, what are the cost implications of the software in terms of saving money, again, is not at all clear.

The bill really does generate, as the member for Nanaimo has said, a number of very serious questions about the future administration of justice in this province. That’s not something that just concerns lawyers or members of the Legislature. That concerns the 60,000 or 70,000 or so disputes that are taken before the Residential Tenancy Act tribunals and the countless others that are taken, prospectively, before the small claims court.

It really is a major change. One certainly can see the need for perhaps greater pressure or incentive to resolve disputes, although…. I have been involved in the past in the mandatory mediation in the small claims court, and generally what happens is the most stubborn person wins in the sense that you can drive the case forward if you are not reasonable.

Litigation and tribunals and court systems have to be constructed to deal with the person who is the most stubborn, not the most reasonable. There’s an assumption here that somehow people are necessarily going to want to come to agreement and resolve disputes rather than taking them forward to a tribunal where someone else will decide. That isn’t always the case, regrettably. Human nature, perhaps, doesn’t run in that grain.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

I would say in conclusion, then, that this bill raises a number of very serious questions about the ongoing administration of justice in the province and what is good public policy in this area. We’ll be pursuing those issues as this bill proceeds through the House.

V. Huntington: I just want to speak very briefly to Bill 18 and to reiterate or at least compliment my two other

[ Page 6877 ]

colleagues here who have discussed their concerns at fair length about the bill.

I, too, am very concerned that there is, with this bill and a number of others that have occurred over the last year or so and are about to occur in this session, a fundamental reshaping of access to justice and the administration of justice as we know it. I have said before in this chamber that my concern is that the public is not aware of these changes and does not understand that these fundamental changes to the way we understand justice to be served in this province are occurring.

[1435]

I note that the White Paper on Justice Reform, Part Two that was released in February of 2013 discussed transformation of dispute resolution and tribunal processes. I take it what we’re seeing in Bill 18 is that transformation beginning to take place.

However, there are certain issues that arise from this bill that are deeply concerning, and that, as my other colleagues have said, will be explored in full during committee stage. But I just would like to bring a couple of my concerns to the fore and to assure the minister that these issues ought to be explained in their full context in to what the government is attempting to do here.

If you take, just for instance, the changes in the forestry and agriculture areas alone, where the forest practices code, the farm practices appeal board and the Environmental Appeal Board…. We see interesting provisions such as that the necessity or even the right to hold public meetings has been revoked or changed; that hearings don’t necessarily have to be open to the public any longer; that written reasons, and even reasons for accepting or rejecting an application, no longer have to be written; that decisions no longer have to be written in the farm practices appeal board hearings. The notice of a hearing is no longer required.

Well, I have to ask: what is this? And what does this mean to fairness and justice and equality and the public right to know? There is something going on here that is not healthy, that I would like to understand much more fully, that concerns me and I think other members of this House — that the administration of justice in the province of British Columbia is being manipulated in a fashion that we no longer understand nor have we agreed to.

To suggest that “Oh, the parliament of British Columbia has authorized this legislation” isn’t sufficient, because we know that a lot of the debate in this House will not be paid attention to, will have no force and effect by this minister or this government. Again, how does the public enjoy an understanding and an appreciation for what justice should mean to it and what it is going to mean to the public in the future?

I am very concerned, even to the point where I hope that we get a fulsome explanation of the difference between dispute resolution and facilitated settlement. I, perhaps, don’t understand the full difference, but I wonder if anybody does at this point — especially when it looks like unless the tribunal chair or the member that is assigned to a particular facilitated settlement can require consent of one or none of the parties to that facilitated assessment as a condition of the facilitation.

There are many things that need to be explored here, many things that the public in British Columbia and, I hope, the legal profession are careful to listen to and are also participating in discussions with the minister’s department.

With that, I just wanted to foreshadow some of the concerns I hold. I do look forward to the committee stage, and I hope it is taken very seriously the questions that will be presented to the minister.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. Seeing no further speakers, the minister to close the debate.

Hon. S. Anton: I take the comments of the members opposite, and obviously, we’ll be considering them carefully prior to committee and during committee stage. I thank them for those comments.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading of Bill 18.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Anton: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting after today.

Bill 18, Administrative Tribunals Statutes Amendment Act, 2015, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

[1440]

Hon. T. Stone: I now call second reading of Bill 19, intituled the Civil Resolution Tribunal Amendment Act, 2015.

BILL 19 — CIVIL RESOLUTION TRIBUNAL

AMENDMENT ACT, 2015

Hon. S. Anton: I move that Bill 19 now be read a second time.

The Civil Resolution Tribunal Act was passed on May 30, 2012. It establishes the civil resolution tribunal, which will have authority to resolve strata property disputes and some small claims matters. Work is well underway on the launch of the tribunal, including creating extensive software systems, assembling the legal and other information required for on-line dispute resolution, appointing tribunal members and otherwise getting ready for the tribunal to open its virtual doors.

Our plan is for the civil resolution tribunal to begin operations this year as a voluntary tribunal. In other

[ Page 6878 ]

words, almost all parties must consent to the tribunal resolving their cases. Before implementing the tribunal, however, legislative amendments are required to ensure that the tribunal can shift from a voluntary model to a mandatory model when it is ready.

The amendments we are debating today will enable British Columbians to access justice in a different way, as we make the civil resolution tribunal the primary avenue for resolution of most small civil claims and many strata disputes.

For small claims, the existing justice system is difficult to access for many reasons. First, one must go to the courthouse at designated times to conduct court business. This can prove difficult for persons with work obligations, child care responsibilities, lack of transportation or difficult winter driving conditions. British Columbians who live in rural areas, for example, may not have an easy time pursuing a legal matter in small claims court. Under the civil resolution tribunal model, however, cases could be handled any time of day or night from one’s living room or anywhere, with a smartphone.

Secondly, currently a small claims matter could take a year or more to resolve. Most people need a resolution far faster. Even among those that don’t need a fast resolution, most would like the matter resolved one way or the other quickly so they can move on with their lives and their businesses.

Strata property cases are currently more expensive to take to court than small claims, as only the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over these cases. The Supreme Court process is well suited for major strata disputes but is too complicated, slow and expensive for minor strata property matters. The B.C. Supreme Court should not be handling disputes between neighbours about the noise from someone’s hot tub or the colour of drapes.

The tribunal will provide British Columbians who are trying to resolve small claims or minor strata disputes with early dispute resolution tools that are available on line 24-7. It will also use staff and independently appointed tribunal members to resolve small claims and strata disputes fairly and quickly. The civil resolution tribunal will be aiming to resolve its cases, on average, within 60 days.

The civil resolution tribunal will start up this year as a primarily voluntary tribunal, meaning the parties must agree that the tribunal may resolve their case. This will allow the tribunal and its innovative technology to be phased in and tested with the lower volumes inherent in a voluntary tribunal.

Parties in conflict over small claims, however, may not agree to the tribunal’s jurisdiction. Similarly, uncooperative strata residents may decide to avoid accountability if they can decline the tribunal’s jurisdiction, leaving the other parties with no option other than the Supreme Court’s processes. For these reasons, the proposed amendments, when they come into force at a later phase of the tribunal’s implementation, will make the tribunal’s processes the required method of intake if a party wants to use the formal justice system.

During its first year of operations as a voluntary tribunal we will be able to ensure that processes and systems are working as effectively as possible before it takes on the higher volumes expected in the mandatory model. We will be monitoring the technology and processes carefully and will implement the CRT in stages to ensure that it is effective and functions well at each stage before moving to the next phase.

A mandatory tribunal will focus on encouraging a collaborative problem-solving approach to dispute resolution for both small claims and strata disputes. Once it is fully implemented, we anticipate that it will provide up to 40,000 British Columbians with improved access to justice services every year.

[1445]

While the amendments provide for a mandatory tribunal, they also enable British Columbians to request that their matter be handled by the courts in the traditional way. For small claims matters, any party can apply to the provincial court for an exemption to the tribunal process. Further, after the tribunal renders a decision, either party will be able to object to the decision.

If any party objects to the decision in a small claims matter, the party wishing to pursue the matter will be entitled to bring it before the Provincial Court. If a party does not object to a tribunal decision within four weeks of that decision, then the tribunal decision may be filed in the Provincial Court and would become an enforceable decision of the court.

In order to deter parties from delaying enforcement or from routinely objecting to tribunal decisions, the amendments also provide for a judge to order the imposition of filing fees, costs, penalties and the posting of security. The amendments include safeguards to ensure that these provisions do not hinder access to justice.

For strata property disputes, the amendments will bring a balanced approach by adding to the 2012 provision that compelled strata corporations to participate by providing that owners and tenants can also be compelled to participate in tribunal proceedings.

The civil resolution tribunal will have jurisdiction over many but not all strata disputes. However, the B.C. Supreme Court will retain jurisdiction over all strata property matters. For cases within the tribunal’s jurisdiction, the B.C. Supreme Court will retain full authority to determine which ones must be heard in court. In strata property disputes decided by the civil resolution tribunal, the tribunal’s decision will be final, subject to limited rights to an appeal to the B.C. Supreme Court.

These amendments align with the recommendation in two government white papers on justice reform. Those white papers have set out the government’s plan to rebalance the justice system, including the implementation of the tribunal.

[ Page 6879 ]

The move to a mandatory tribunal also aligns closely with core review objectives by implementing a proportional model for resolution of these disputes. The tribunal will provide a specialized and user-friendly dispute resolution process for the majority of strata property disputes and lower-value small claims, reserving Provincial Court and B.C. Supreme Court judicial resources for cases where they are most needed.

In conclusion, I believe the amendments we are debating today will transform the way small claims and minor strata disputes are resolved in British Columbia. In doing so, we are transforming our justice system and assisting British Columbians in accessing justice wherever they live and whenever it is convenient for them.

L. Krog: We’re now with the second of the Bobbsey Twins, Bills 18 and 19. Obviously, as night follows day, 19 has to follow 18 because of the changes that were outlined and discussed at some length earlier today around Bill 18.

It’s again obvious that the vehicle of justice in this province is a little slow. The minister is well aware that we passed the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act back on May 30, 2012. Here we are just about three years down the road, and it remains unproclaimed, basically, and we are now making amendments to it.

It’s always good that the government takes a famous second look, and à la W.A.C. Bennett, that’s probably a very positive step, but they certainly don’t seem to be moving expeditiously to reform the justice system in the way that they believe or think it is appropriate.

The proposed points that were provided by the ministry at their briefing — and I want to thank again the Attorney General for the work of staff in briefing the official opposition on this — make it very clear that justice is going to be accessed in a different way in British Columbia, and this flies in the face of some of us old traditionalists.

The Attorney General talked about the problems now with small claims court — not being able to get into the system. You’ve got to trot yourself down to the small claims registry and file your claim and those kinds of inconveniences.

I guess my immediate reaction when I heard it was, in terms of accessing justice: “Well, why didn’t we propose a system that allowed for electronic filing in small claims court and see if that speeded up the process or made things more expeditious for the public and those who find themselves in situations requiring the assistance of the court to resolve their issues or difficulties?” I think that would have been a fairly smart thing.

[1450]

Obviously, we’re moving into an age where smartphones and computers will allow for what is the ministry’s much-touted first on-line tribunal. I’ve got to give compliments to the government in terms of that. That’s a pretty significant step. It will be fascinating to see how it works out. It’s not something that’s going to require a lot of adaptation by the legal profession, because the legal profession is still essentially excluded from this process.

As the Attorney General well knows, when the bill was introduced, there was a fairly quick response by way of a press release from the Canadian Bar Association. In the appropriate diplomatic approach, they thank the Attorney General and ministry staff for some of the amendments that address issues that they’d raised earlier and say very kindly:

“It is clear that the consultation and input leading up to the bill’s introduction were taken seriously.”

Of course, it’s rather like the way I often say something nice about the government, then say something that isn’t quite as nice. That’s pretty much what the Canadian Bar Association has done here. Then they go on to quote Alex Shorten, the current president. It is complimentary, in a way. He says:

“There is no question that, for strata disputes in particular, the new civil resolution tribunal will be a significant improvement. Court was rarely a practical or accessible option for strata disputes,” etc.

Then the press release goes on to say:

“On the matter of extending the civil resolution tribunal process to small claims matters currently resolved through Provincial Court, there remain two significant issues of concern to the bar.”

One, CBABC, the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch, “strongly advocates for the repeal of

section 20, which…sets restrictions on the parties’ right to retain legal counsel.”

The second great concern of the bar is that “as the government moves funding and jurisdiction….” Note that they’ve hit the nail on the head: funding and jurisdiction. I think there is every argument to be made that our court system has been underfunded for a number of years. Certainly, on the legal aid side we’re still not, after 14 years, up to the same raw dollar number, not taking into account inflation or population growth, we’re not up to the same budgetary number that was in place in 2001, and we’re 14 years down the road.

In any event, the release says:

“The second concern of the bar is that as the government moves funding and jurisdiction away from justice administered by independent courts, the public is being funnelled into a process that relies on the appointees of the government who are fulfilling adjudicative roles in deciding general civil claims matters — without actual judicial independence, security of tenure, a higher degree of administrative independence from government, etc.”

Those are two very important criticisms of this whole process. As I know the Attorney General listened carefully to what I had to say earlier today, I will not repeat all of my arguments around the effect of Bill 18 with respect to the hiring, potentially, of even contractors who may be fulfilling these roles, who may be treating adjudicating these matters as a business, for heaven’s sake.

I won’t go on at great length about that, but the Canadian Bar Association gets it. Is that the right way to adjudicate disputes in our society, as opposed to an independent body whose members have security of ten-

[ Page 6880 ]

ure and that degree of administrative independence from government?

Again, we’ve just gone through this fiasco with the Auditor General for Local Government — not an appointee of the Legislature sitting as a whole through an all-party committee making a unanimous recommendation about the appointment of a person, but a government appointee.

The same concerns apply here with respect to the resolution tribunal. Who are these appointees going to be? What expertise will they bring? How will the process work? Will we be in a position to say with comfort that they, in fact, are in a position to do this appropriately? Will they be seen as patronage appointments?

[1455]

I mean, are we going back to the days, hundreds of years ago in England, when the local landed gentry were, in fact, the magistrates, when they got to decide disputes between parties — speaking only for their class, of course — in a hierarchical system that we’ve moved away from? Who are these people going to be?

These are extremely legitimate concerns and criticisms of this legislation, and the Canadian Bar Association was absolutely right to raise them. Indeed, they’ve been raised again in a letter that has been sent to the Attorney General as of today, asking that the government repeal in particular

section 20 of the act and replace it with a

section that says: “Representation: a party may be represented by counsel or an agent and may take submissions as to facts, law and jurisdiction.”

One of the reasons that there is a good argument to be made for that is not just that the right to legal representation has been recognized throughout our legal history — and by that I mean both Canadian and British, on which our legal system is based — for hundreds and hundreds of years, but the evil that, presumably,

section 20 was designed to correct or solve has, unfortunately and sadly, been solved by this government’s failure to fund legal aid appropriately, therefore denying access to many people in disputes, who might historically have had some assistance — and also by the realities of the marketplace, where the most significant portion of our society is not in a position to afford legal counsel.

Now, the downside is, of course, that those who can, if they’re involved in a dispute with someone who can’t…. Then the same old cliché applies: there’s one law for the rich and one law for the poor.

This bill, you could argue — and I’m surprised the Attorney General didn’t make that point — in its clumsy and crude fashion attempts to solve that problem by saying, rather like a plague on both your houses: “Neither of you get to have counsel involved in this process, so it’ll all be fair.” But whether or not it’s fair is also going to be dependent on the quality of the people who are dealing with the matter. And that, again, is a legitimate concern of the opposition.

There’s a reason — and I don’t wish to sound in any way pretentious or arrogant or the things that lawyers are often accused of being — you don’t take your baker into the courtroom with you when you want to plead a case. There’s a reason you don’t get your brain surgeon to look after your automobile. That’s because they bring different experiences, education and training to their various roles, callings, occupations, professions — whatever you want to say.

The reason you don’t want to be in an adjudicative process of any kind without a lawyer is because they bring an expertise and a knowledge that most people don’t have. That knowledge and expertise is to be respected and honoured and is valued in our society. A process that denies people their right to that expertise is questionable, and the prohibition against being able to use that expertise or employ it — is that the solution?

It’s a legitimate question, and it’s a question raised not just by me. It is, as I have pointed out and read into the record here today, a question raised by the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association, who represent some 6,700 members in British Columbia.

And just by the way, the members of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association all make their choice to pay hundreds of dollars in fees. It used to be mandatory in this province. If you wanted to practise law, you paid CBA fees. Essentially, what we have is roughly half or better of the lawyers in this province consider the CBA so important that they’re prepared to pay fees voluntarily to support its good work.

[1500]

It speaks for a significant portion of British Columbia’s lawyers who have said through Mr. Shorten, quite appropriately: “Don’t deny people’s rights to legal representation.”

Now, there are three key elements to the bill. It makes the tribunal process mandatory. It attempts to address some constitution issues and small claims matters through court review. It is designed to deter parties from routinely seeking court review in small claims matters, and it’s designed also to address constitutional issues and strata property matters by retaining Supreme Court jurisdiction and rights to appeal.

It’s pretty clear that if in three years we haven’t proclaimed the first bill…. We’ve had a long time and obviously a great deal of representation from various parties who’ve raised these issues, so before we let this horse out of the barn, so to speak, we just want to make sure it doesn’t have a broken leg or something stuck in its hoof and it’ll be able to trot out safely. Well, I’m pretty sure also that the government has been a little reluctant to feed the horse so that it could move anyway. That seems to be a continuing problem with this government in terms of providing funding.

Indeed, we probably wouldn’t be discussing these bills if the government had been funding the justice system

[ Page 6881 ]

appropriately over the last few years or providing legal aid with the necessary funds to effectively deliver legal services to the poor and vulnerable of this province. But that’s an issue for another day, and I’ve certainly raised that issue in this House often enough, as have other members of the opposition. I’m sure that the government members are well aware of the impacts of those cuts to our justice system, whether it be just in the legal aid side, which affects the poorest and most vulnerable, or in terms of delays that their more prosperous constituents or business owners face when trying to get matters resolved in our court system.

Making it mandatory. Now, on one level, there’s something to be said for forcing people into a tribunal process for small claims and strata matters but retaining some access to court. Our very system in this Legislature, I think you could argue in a higher-plane philosophical discussion, is not necessarily the healthiest way to address problems and issues because there is an ongoing dispute, arguably, between the haves and the have-nots in our province, between those who care about the environment and those who think things are just fine, those who care about human rights and those that think human rights are more than protected.

This is an adversarial place. We don’t engage one another, by the very process we’re engaged in this afternoon, in the way that we would, for instance, around a committee table or the way a family might discuss an issue around the dinner table. This whole process is one where we’re not only not compelled to meet and discuss and try and resolve. This process, indeed, discourages us from that kind of discussion and potential resolution. Again, that’s a topic for another day.

What this process says is that you have to get into it. You have to try and resolve it. That includes both small claims and strata property disputes. Now, as I say, on one level, I don’t like the concept that people are forced to choose a process and that their rights to use our court system in the way it was designed to be used are, in fact, taken away. On the other hand — and I know this is the hope and wish of the Attorney General — if it resolves disputes and people leave this system with the matter resolved, with little or no expense, then that is a pretty positive thing.

In fairness to the government, we’ll see how this rolls out, but the proof is in the pudding, to use a time-worn cliché. How this will get resolved, I’m rather hopeful, might be seen within, gosh, even the remaining two-plus years of this legislative session, the term of this government — hopefully, its last for a while. But in two more years we’ll see if they actually get something up and running — maybe, if that horse does literally and figuratively get let out of the barn, funded and appropriately resourced.

[1505]

Now, the second issue is that it tries to address constitutional issues and small claims matters through a court review. It’ll enable the parties, for instance, to apply to Provincial Court for exemption. That’s going to be a difficult process, and if you can’t have lawyers, who’s going to make up the law, so to speak?

I must tell you that notwithstanding the high quality of our judiciary, generally, they do tend to rely on counsel in a courtroom providing them with the law to enable them to make an appropriate decision that is not inconsistent so that if you applied for the same kind of thing in Prince George as you do in Duncan, as you do in Chilliwack or Courtney, you’re likely to get the same result. That kind of consistency is what our legal system is all about. The law must be certain.

If you don’t have lawyers in the process who can ensure that the court is reasonably informed as to the law and you don’t resource judges in a way that they have time to study the law, that presents some issues. We’ve seen a case recently where a judge was heavily criticized for, essentially, going out and doing a little work on their own. I won’t bother bringing up the details, but it wasn’t seen as a wise thing. In this case, this bill, by these very sections, recognizes that that’s going to be potentially an issue. If we have a tribunal decision within four weeks and it’s not objected to, then it’s going to become the decision, so to speak, and enforceable as such.

The other thing is that it’s designed, the act, to deter parties from routinely seeking court reviews and other small claims matters. Part of that…. This is a serious issue, and this is one where the government, again, is asking us to take it on blind faith, because the legislation itself doesn’t contain the numbers. There are provisions for filing fees and costs and penalties, a potential requirement to post security for both the amount of the tribunal decision and for costs.

Now, the great advantage that I have had, both as a lawyer and as a politician, in dealing with people who do come into your constituency office is that you can say to them: “Look, if you can’t afford to litigate this matter or you don’t have access to a lawyer, you can always go off to small claims. And you know what? The worst-case scenario is that if you lose, you’ll lose the filing fee. It’ll be assessed against you, you’ll be stuck with the witness fees, but it’s not a lot of money.”

It gave people who had limited resources an opportunity to have their disputes adjudicated, knowing full well that if they succeeded, there’d be no great reward, other than getting what they thought they deserved or claimed, but there’d be no great punishment either if they lost.

Here, on one hand, this legislation is saying: “We want you to use an on-line process, and we want to make it more accessible, and we want to encourage resolution, and we want to have it dealt with in a simple manner. But oh, by the way, if you’re not happy with this process, we’re going to have a system of filing fees and costs and penalties and posting of security.” That goes exactly against the whole purpose of small claims court, which was to be

[ Page 6882 ]

“the people’s court,” where you could go in cheaply and try and get it resolved. If you lost, you lost, and so be it.

It’s kind of a yin-and-yang thing going on here. We’re not entirely sure what the government is up to. On one hand, they’re saying, “We want to bring in a process because small claims now are potentially costly, arguably, and time-consuming and not efficient and not responsive,” but at the same time: “Oh, by the way, when this new, flashy system” — electronic make your claim in the ether — “comes into being, if you’re not happy, we’re going to have a system of costs and penalties and the necessity of posting security.”

[1510]

Now, far be it for me to suggest that the government’s position on this is somewhat inconsistent. But you know what? What is it? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I think it’s a duck. I think this position is somewhat inconsistent. At this point, we don’t know what that fees and cost system is going to look like. We do know that the government is going to bring it in, and as usual, it will be brought in through regulation.

If I was on the government benches and believing we were purer than driven snow, I’d probably be happy with bills and acts that said we could do anything we wanted and do it by regulation and away we go. I mean, it’s just like, to use my barn door analogy, letting you out in the field, and you run wherever you want because, after all, we’ve opened the barn door.

Well, I’m not on the government side. I’m surprised the members didn’t start to clap or cheer at that point. It means they’re not listening to me.

We on the opposition side now — not being in control of the barn, so to speak — kind of want to know whether that horse has a little control. We’re just a bit concerned that the government is asking to let it out without knowing where it’s going and without knowing what it’s going to do, whether it’s going to even be trained, whether it’s going to be rideable, whether it’s going to be useful. That’s a concern for the opposition.

Now, on the fourth point, and that’s the constitution issues and strata property matters, I must say in fairness…. I don’t disagree with the submission of the strata owners associations in the province who have said: “You know what? Please give us an expeditious, sensible system that doesn’t involve us having to go to Supreme Court.” I get that.

I mean, you have to think about this. If you’re an owner in a ten-unit strata and you’ve got a difficult owner and your strata fees may be, say, $200 or $300 a month to cover the basic expenses annually and you’ve got some…. I was about to use a term that referred to a donkey, but I won’t.

If you have some individual owner who is difficult and has access to cash and wants to drag the strata council into court and the strata council has to go to the ten owners, including the person who’s like the donkey, and ask for a special assessment in order to cover legal fees to deal with that person who is like a donkey, one can understand the incentive and the desire to have a process that’s expeditious, cheap and doesn’t involve legal expense and/or lawyers. I get that.

It’s hard to argue with the strata owners of this province who have expressed themselves fairly clearly. They like this, and they want it done. The opposition, in fairness, agrees with them. We’ve still got the option to get to Supreme Court in terms of appeal and other rights. Ultimately, we want a process that recognizes the reality of the hundreds of thousands — and that is without exaggeration — of British Columbians who live in strata units across this province.

One doesn’t have to look very far. Let alone in the wonderful city of Victoria and my own community of Nanaimo, in the Lower Mainland in particular — that is where people are living. They are living in strata units. So we need a process that responds to their needs.

[1515]

Then we’re going to come back to another issue, and that is the purpose-built technology that I raised earlier. I have to work on a sort of primitive legal assumption that if I don’t say it for this bill, it doesn’t form part of the debate on this bill, even if I said it with respect to Bill 18, the other of the two Bobbsey Twins that I mentioned earlier. So I’ll come back to it.

We’re going to have this new purpose-built technology, and as I said earlier today, this government’s record with technology is pretty dismal. I’m sure some of the brighter members on the opposition benches could start to chirp up now and mention the various technological disasters that have cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted money that has gone into trying to bring in systems that didn’t work or didn’t work efficiently, weren’t tried in other places or had no history. And here in British Columbia we have a new technology that we hope will work.

I don’t wish the government any ill. After all, like every member of this chamber, I pay my taxes in British Columbia. As I’ve said in this chamber many times, I don’t think we pay enough taxes in this chamber, but that’s a question for another day. Having said that, I don’t like to see public moneys wasted when there are so many desperate needs in the province and so many people in desperate need in the province. So, again, those are legitimate concerns of the opposition.

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The Canadian Bar Association has expressed itself, but because this is a complex bill…. At this point, my understanding is that the B.C. Trial Lawyers Association, which is an important group whom the government should listen to in matters of this nature, hasn’t even had a chance yet to prepare an appropriate response or commentary on this bill.

Now, I don’t know how the House Leaders are going to work this out, but I would hope that there will be sufficient time for the B.C. Trial Lawyers Association, particularly, and others to comment on and raise concerns or, indeed, potentially offer their compliments to the government around Bill 19.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

L. Krog: I’m the designated speaker, hon. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: Carry on.

L. Krog: It’s nice to be designated. It’s even better when they actually listen, hon. Speaker, but I’m not sure they are.

Interjection.

L. Krog: All ears. All ears.

Hon. M. de Jong: We’re actually designated listeners.

L. Krog: Well, hon. Speaker, I suppose it’s better than going out partying with the crowd and being the DD, the designated drunk. Having said that, I’m delighted to have so many designated listeners over there paying attention to my every word.

So is this going to be an improvement? One would hope so. Has it taken a long time for us to get here? Absolutely. Are there significant issues with this bill? Pretty clearly. Has the government entirely thought through this process? Probably not. Are we satisfied that the individuals who are going to be involved in this process à la the changes to the administrative tribunal statute…? Are the individuals going to be able to do this work effectively?

Given, as the Canadian Bar Association so eloquently put it when they talk about the public being “funnelled into a process that relies on appointees of the government who are fulfilling adjudicative roles in deciding general claims matters, without actual judicial independence — security of tenure, a higher degree of administrative independence from government, etc….” Are the people who are going to do this able to do it? Will they do it effectively? Will they render justice? Will the system have the respect of the public who is going to be using and paying for it? And will justice be the result of the process?

[1520]

That, much like the lack of detail in Bill 18, very much remains to be seen. So during the course of committee stage I am hoping that the Attorney General, in her wisdom and with the assistance of staff, will be able to illuminate the provisions of this bill and bring light into this so that we might actually understand whether what’s being proposed is going to work and whether or not it will actually be the improvement that it purports to be.

Certainly, on the strata side — and I say this only somewhat mockingly — probably anything would be an improvement over the present system, which left the Supreme Court as the only venue for resolution. Anything would be an improvement. So this is fairly clearly, I think, an improvement. On the other issues it remains to be seen how well this will work.

Again, I look forward to the continuing debate and other members who may wish to participate in a discussion of legislation which is not capable of generating great emotion but will have an impact on all those thousands of British Columbians who, once this legislation is proclaimed, will in fact be forced into this system. There are thousands of people now who take their claims before the small claims court every year, and all of those people will now be in a position where they will have to participate in this process. I hope for their sakes that it actually works.

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

Hon. S. Anton: I thank the member opposite for his comments, and I look forward to diving into them in detail during committee stage.

With that, I move second reading of Bill 19.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Anton: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting after today.

Bill 19, Civil Resolution Tribunal Amendment Act, 2015, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call second reading debate on Bill 10, Budget Measures Implementation Act.

BILL 10 — BUDGET MEASURES

IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2015

Hon. M. de Jong: I move that Bill 10 be read a second time now.

Bill 10 promotes a number of policy and economic development initiatives. It also enables government to adapt to changes in accounting standards in particular

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sections of the bill.

Broadly speaking, there are two parts to Bill 10. In

part 1 the Financial Administration Act is amended to add a provision that enables payment out of the consolidated revenue fund to discharge liabilities resulting from retroactively applied accounting changes. These accounting changes arise from updates to the set of standards and guidelines that comprise GAAP, or generally accepted accounting principles, for senior governments in Canada.

part 2 of Bill 10 eight statutes are amended. They are, to be sure, designed to implement many of the tax measures announced in the 2015-16 budget. Bill 10 amends the…. I’ll go through them, though, recognizing that there will be an opportunity in committee to delve in more detail into the specific amendments and the rationale behind the specific amendments that I am going to refer to now.

Bill 10 amends the Income Tax Act to enhance the B.C. tax reduction credit effective for the 2015 tax year. The credit is increased from $412 to $432, and the credit phase-out threshold is increased from $18,327 to $19,000. The credit phase-out rate is also increased from 3.2 percent to 3.5 percent. The upshot of all of that numeric description is that the enhancement will increase the amount that British Columbians can earn before paying any provincial income tax. That will benefit about 500,000 low-income taxpayers in British Columbia.

[1525]

The Income Tax Act is amended also to create the new children’s fitness equipment credit. The non-refundable credit of $250 complements the existing children’s fitness credit by acknowledging equipment costs that are associated with children’s fitness programs. The credit will be set at 50 percent of the amount claimed for the existing B.C. children’s fitness credit.

Bill 10 also amends the Income Tax Act to create the new B.C. education coaching tax credit. This, too, is a non-refundable credit, in this case of $500, that will benefit teachers and teaching assistants who volunteer their time to support extracurricular sports and arts activities in B.C. schools. The B.C. education coaching tax credit recognizes the important contribution that educators make to creating a vibrant school community and enriching the lives of B.C. students.

The Income Tax Act is further amended to extend the B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit to the end of 2015. Members, I hope, know that B.C.’s mineral exploration and mining industry is a vital part of our economy, and the flow-through share tax credit will help to encourage continued investment in mineral exploration and development.

Bill 10 also amends the Income Tax Act to extend the training tax credits for an additional three years, to the end of 2017. Extending those credits will, we are confident, support apprentices and their employers and help ensure B.C. has the skilled labour force necessary today and well into the future.

The Income Tax Act is also amended to extend the interactive digital media credit for three years, to August 31, 2018. This refundable tax credit is worth 17.5 percent of eligible salary and wages. B.C.’s interactive digital media industry is an important employer for many, many British Columbians, providing thousands of highly skilled and well-paying jobs for people here in the province.

Bill 10 also provides support for B.C.’s film industry. The Income Tax Act is amended to expand the digital animation or visual effects tax credit to include post-production activities, something the government pledged several years ago. This will provide an additional 17.5 percent refundable credit on labour expenditures relating to post-production activities and will be available to productions that start principal photography on or after March 1.

Bill 10 also provides support for small businesses. The Small Business Venture Capital Act is amended to increase the small business venture capital tax credit budget by $3 million for 2015, providing up to $10 million in additional equity capital for new small businesses.

Building on the changes made in Budget 2012, Bill 10 amends the Carbon Tax Act and Motor Fuel Tax Act to further streamline obligations related to larger volumes of fuel imported into B.C. by ship.

Bill 10 also amends the Motor Fuel Tax Act to enhance deterrents for the unauthorized use of coloured fuel. Effective July 1, 2014, in certain circumstances purchasers of coloured fuel who do not provide required documentation must pay tax on that fuel at clear fuel tax rates. These purchasers may be eligible for a refund of the difference in the tax rate if they demonstrate that the coloured fuel was used solely for an authorized use.

In addition, the penalty for using coloured fuel for an unauthorized use is expanded. A person who purchases or uses coloured fuel for an unauthorized use may be subject to a penalty equal to the greater of the current penalty of three times the tax that would have been payable on the fuel if it had not been coloured and a new fixed amount penalty not to exceed $1,000.

The authorized uses of coloured fuel under the Motor Fuel Tax Act are expanded, effective July 1 of this year, to include coloured fuel to operate a locomotive.

[1530]

The Motor Fuel Tax Act is amended to move the due date for tax returns in respect of motor fuel tax payable on natural gas used in a stationary combustion engine to be consistent with the due date for returns under the Provincial Sales Tax Act.

Bill 10 also amends the Provincial Sales Tax Act effective February 18, 2015, to ensure consistency in that tax treatment of goods acquired to make other goods that are then used to improve real property outside of British Columbia. Again, technical provisions that I’m hopeful

[ Page 6885 ]

at least the opposition critic has had an opportunity to have reviewed with her in a technical briefing and that we can discuss in more detail when we get to the committee stage.

With these amendments, such goods will be taxable regardless of whether they are purchased in B.C. or if they are brought, sent or delivered into British Columbia.

A person may be eligible for a refund of PST paid if sales tax in another jurisdiction is paid on the resulting goods that are used to improve real property in the jurisdiction in which the real property is located.

Bill 10 also amends the Provincial Sales Tax Act to extend mandatory registration obligations to businesses located outside of B.C. that in the ordinary course of business sell goods to a person located in B.C. and holds those goods in inventory in B.C. at the time of the sale.

Voluntary registrations will be accepted before September 1, 2015, and a person may be subject to failure to register penalties if they are not registered as required on or after September 1 of this year.

As previously announced, effective January 1, 2015, the Provincial Sales Tax Act is also amended to clarify the calculation of the multi-jurisdictional vehicle tax payable on commercial vehicles that are licensed under prorate. Consistent with the implementation of full reciprocity under the international registration plan, the multi-jurisdictional vehicle tax will be calculated using set travel ratios for new fleets and actual travel ratios for existing fleets.

Bill 10 further amends the Provincial Sales Tax Act to adjust the maximum allowable tax rate under the municipal and regional district tax program from 2 percent to 3 percent. The municipal and regional district tax is imposed on behalf of local governments and approved eligible entities to raise revenue primarily for local tourism, marketing programs and projects.

Local governments and approved eligible entities will be required to request an increase in the municipal and regional district tax rate in their community. The application requirements for such requests will be made available later this year.

Bill 10 amends the Tobacco Tax Act to clarify that security is payable on tobacco that a wholesale dealer brings or sends into B.C. The Tobacco Tax Act is also amended to ensure that the security scheme under the act designed to protect provincial revenues operates as intended.

Finally, in Bill 10 there are consequential amendments to the Small Business and Revenue Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, and the Vancouver Tourism Levy Enabling Act. As I mentioned a few moments ago, most of these provisions actually are technical adjustments on existing provisions. Most relate — or a goodly portion of them relate — to initiatives that have been set out in the budget. To the extent that there are technical provisions and the questions regarding the manner in which they are intended to operate, I will be only too happy to try as best I can to answer those questions as we move through the committee stage debate.

Before we get there, however, I am certain that there are submissions and reactions to these provisions from members of the House.

C. James: Thank you to the minister for that overview. As we discussed on a previous bill, many of these, as the minister has said, are technical amendments coming forward. This really is the bill that implements the measures in the budget that require legislative changes.

As the minister has said, many of these are technical in nature. Certainly, Income Tax Act, Motor Fuel Act, etc., I think, are changes that, as we saw in a previous bill, will coordinate acts together and will deal with people who are doing business inside and outside the province and bring some consistency to that. Those will be pieces that I expect will go forward in committee stage without a lot of questions.

[1535]

Just as I talked about in a previous bill, I think it’s important to take a look at the bill and the impact on British Columbians, the impact on business, the impact on the economy and the impact on families themselves. That’s really the eye that I took when I took a look at the Budget Measures Implementation Act. What will be the impacts on British Columbians? What will be the impact on families? What will be the impact on our economy?

I just want to take a few minutes of my time to talk to the specifics that are in the bill — a few of those, as the minister has mentioned. Then I also want to take a few minutes to talk about what might have been in the bill — what isn’t included in this bill and could have been included in the bill and, from my perspective, would have made a much stronger budget and certainly a budget that I believe would have benefited families.

Just to start off and talk a little bit about what is in the bill. The government did introduce, as the minister has said in his remarks, a couple of tax credits in this bill. While I am sure that every family would say that every penny is appreciated, given the fees and services and the costs that families are facing

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that the government has forced on them, I would say they’re very little comfort to those families that are struggling.

If you take a look at the children’s fitness equipment tax credit as one example, this combines with a fitness tax credit at the federal level, and that will provide a benefit of up to $12.65 per child. When parents are taking a look at increases in MSP premiums and taking a look at increases in ICBC rates and taking a look at increases in hydro rates, they certainly can use every penny. I would be the first one to say that families deserve a break, that they deserve support.

But those pennies, up to $12.65, are going to be more than eaten up in increased costs that families are facing in the budget overall. You know, these are families that are working hard and trying to do everything for their family. They’re trying to squeeze their dollars.

Every parent knows that they want their children to be better off than they were. They want their generation to be better off than they are. And yet that’s not what we’re going to see in the bigger budget. The $12.65 isn’t going to go very far to help those families.

As I am sure other MLAs do in this House, I see those families in my office. I talk to those families who are struggling, who say yes, they want to make sure their child has every opportunity that every other family does in British Columbia. They of course want their child in sports. They of course would love to take the opportunity to be able to get a tax credit and have their child engaged in sports in the community.

But I have to say that $12.65 isn’t going to take them very far. I don’t think it takes much. If anyone’s been involved in sports and takes a look at the costs that families are facing in everything, every level of sport, never mind the equipment, the travel for many teams for local involvement…. Even for something as basic as soccer, which we think about as the sport that most kids can take

part in, when you’re talking about buying a pair of cleats or when you’re talking about young children whose feet are changing sizes every six months in some cases, that’s a big expense for families.

Again, as I said, while $12.65, I’m sure, will be a support to families, I think it’s small comfort when you compare it to the $230 million-plus that the high-income earners in British Columbia ended up getting.

It seems to me that if you are a millionaire in British Columbia, you get a $17,000 tax break in the budget coming up. If you’re a hard-working parent trying to make sure that your child has an opportunity for sports, you get $12.65 — up to $12.65 per child. It certainly seems to me that there’s something skewed there and the priority is wrong when it comes to the direction that’s there.

[1540]

There’s also another example in this bill of a tax credit. That’s the B.C. education coaching tax credit. This tax credit provides a benefit for teachers and teaching assistants who carry out at least ten hours of extracurricular coaching activity per year.

Now, I want to take a minute just to recognize those hard-working coaches and teachers and teaching assistants who put in the extraordinary time and energy to be able to coach school teams, community teams that provide that extracurricular life that, for many kids, keeps them in school. As we know, there are many children for whom that’s their opportunity to engage in school. They’ll stay in school, even when they’re having some challenges, because they may be involved in an extracurricular sport. That’s really their passion.

As we know, teachers and teaching assistants and coaches don’t get paid for that extra time they put in, in schools. That’s their own time that they put in. It isn’t simply the few hours when a game happens. It’s the practices. It’s the weekends. It’s the following-up. It’s the trips that go on. Those are all extra hours that are put in. So I want to recognize all teachers who provide that extracurricular support.

This speaks to coaching activity, but I think, as we all know, there are drama teachers. There are music teachers. There are counsellors. There are very few teachers I know who don’t put in some time outside of school hours in extracurricular and other activities in the school to keep kids engaged in school. I think it’s important to recognize and acknowledge that extraordinary work that goes on in schools and the hours that teachers put in long beyond their school day.

Again, I’m sure that for those teachers and those teaching assistants and those coaches, every penny is appreciated, because they certainly put out a lot of their own resources to be able to do this kind of work. But with this tax benefit, with this credit, they’ll get a benefit of $25.30. Well, I can guarantee you that the coaches and the teachers and the teaching assistants who do that extracurricular work are putting out more than $25.30. They’re spending hundreds of dollars on supplies. They’re spending hundreds of dollars on trips and support for their students.

I think it’s important to do that comparison where the government did make choices in this bill. If we look at Bill 10, the government did make a choice to leave out extending the high-income tax credit, and I’ll speak a little more about that as I go on. They decided not to include that in the bill. As I said earlier, you will see those millionaires getting their $17,000 in a tax credit, and teachers and teaching assistants and coaches getting $25.30.

I think that sends a pretty clear message, and it’s not a positive one, from my perspective, about the priorities that we see on the other side, that there’s that challenge there for families.

The minister mentioned a change in the B.C. tax reduction credit, which from my perspective is a plus. I’m quite prepared to speak to when I believe something positive has occurred, whether it’s in the budget or anything else that comes forward. This is a change, as the minister mentioned, that reduces the income tax liability for those who make $19,000 or less. It reduces it by $432 and also changes the threshold around where people pay income tax from $18,327 to $19,000, which means that people can earn a little bit more before the credit phases out. A small plus, but a plus nonetheless.

As I said, I believe it’s important to recognize when there are things that are pluses, and I believe this is a plus in the budget. It’s small in comparison, I have to say, to the $230 million. If you look at how much money went into this change and the threshold change, compared to the money that was given to the top 2 percent in British Columbia, that’s a big difference. That number is a very big difference. I think it’s important to acknowledge that.

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There are, as the minister had mentioned, some business tax credits. I know we’ll have a few others on this side of the House speak to those. The digital media sector is a direction that we support, extending that tax credit for three years to August 2018, and the digital animation or visual effects tax credit is expanded to include post-production activities.

[1545]

These are both very positive steps, industries that we certainly support in this province — that give back to us in British Columbia and that provide opportunities for all of us when it comes to economic growth, when it comes to good-paying jobs, green jobs in our province. So these are positive steps.

I do think it’s important again, though, to note that while it’s great to see the extension and the expansion of these credits, it does not make a plan for a sector. While we’ve seen the government focused on LNG and LNG alone for the last number of years, there is a real worry that industries that have provided long-term support for British Columbia have not received the kind of attention they should have.

Whether we’re talking about the digital sector, whether we’re talking about the high-tech sector, whether we’re talking about mining or forestry, those are industries that have, long term, provided support to our province. They’re here now, not in the future, as we talk about with LNG. They’re here now and, I believe, haven’t been getting the kind of support that they should have as industries, have not been getting the kind of attention from government that they should have.

As I said, while I’m pleased to see those changes and those credits extended, it doesn’t provide the opportunity for a real plan to support diversifying our economy and support all of those industries that have contributed to British Columbia.

The changes to the Tobacco Tax Act, as the minister had mentioned, and the Provincial Sales Tax Act are minor and pretty straightforward coordinating acts. We see, as well, the B.C. training tax credit extended. Again, I know there will be others on our side who will be speaking to these specifically, but that is certainly something that we would support.

Extra support for apprenticeship and trades training is something that we’ve long advocated for and felt was a real gap in the Premier’s jobs plan, where the Premier talked a lot about creating jobs and didn’t talk a lot about providing support for apprenticeship and trades training and, in fact, cut post-secondary budgets instead of looking at providing that support.

I think this is an interesting area. When I was on school board, it was an area in the 1990s where it was an education program to really show parents and to show students the opportunities that were there in the trades.

I think many of us as parents came through the system when it was expected that you’d talk to your child about going to university — that it was their future, that it was important to go to university and to get a degree. There was a lot of work being done to convince parents and to convince students that trades apprenticeships were a real opportunity for their student.

I think that education work has really paid off. Certainly, the students and the parents that I talk to see the huge opportunities that are there in the apprenticeship and trades area, the skills that are needed, the work that needs to be done to move into those areas. I find it a bit ironic that once that work’s done now, it’s tougher for students to be able to access the trades, to be able to get their apprenticeship, to be able to do that kind of work.

While the credit is certainly helpful and is certainly something that, as I said, we support, I certainly think that a more thorough plan…. We’ve had a few lost years, in my opinion, and I think that’s unfortunate for our economy. It’s unfortunate for students and parents as well.

Now I just want to take a minute to talk about what’s not in this bill. I think that’s one of the most important pieces. It seems odd to focus on a piece that’s not in the bill, but if you take a look at a bill that looks at tax measures and implementing tax measures, I think an obvious piece that could have been included in this bill was to extend the income tax charge for the top 2 percent income earners in our province. That’s something that expires at the end of 2015 and certainly could have been included in this tax measures bill as an extension over this year.

[1550]

While I’ve heard the minister say that they’re not implementing a tax break for high-income earners — I’ve heard the minister say that it’s simply the expiry of a surcharge, or of a charge on high-income earners — I think whatever way you look at it, the government made a choice. The government made a choice not to continue on with that tax increase for high-income earners and to basically give the top 2 percent a tax break.

It’s not that it couldn’t be done, because in fact there were tax measures extended in this very bill. In this very bill the area of mining, the area of digital, as we mentioned before, and the area of apprenticeship and trades training have been extended. Those measures have been extended. So the government could have made a choice. They could have made a choice, in fact, to extend the tax on high-income earners as well.

But the government didn’t do that. It decided instead that it would find $230 million to fund that tax cut for the top 2 percent earners and, at the same time, continue on with the increases for families — MSP, hydro, tuition, ICBC, parks, ferry fares. A choice — a wrong choice from my point of view, a wrong direction from my point of view and certainly not support for families.

I think it wasn’t that long ago that we heard the Premier still talking about a families-first agenda. Well, this budget certainly put to rest any direction around families first that came forward from this Premier when that’s the

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choice. I guess it’s only certain families that are the choice. I guess it’s only the top 2 percent income earners’ families that are the choice. It’s certainly not a choice for other families in this budget. It’s a choice for that top 2 percent.

I think that if you look at the reality for families in our province, it’s very clear that we’ve got huge challenges. At a time when other jurisdictions are taking a look at how to support the middle class, how to increase the middle class — knowing that that’s not simply good for those families but, in fact, is good for the economy, is good for all families — we’re seeing the opposite happen in British Columbia.

Statistics Canada put out some data that showed that between 2006 and 2012 British Columbia experienced the worst income growth of any province in Canada. Income here in British Columbia actually declined for families. Wages actually fell by 2.4 percent.

So at a time when the government is making choices in their budget and bringing forward a bill that speaks to implementing a budget, it’s clear that they weren’t looking at statistics for families, average families in British Columbia. The numbers are particularly bleak, as I’m sure people would understand, in B.C. cities. In Metro Vancouver we saw incomes fall by 3 percent, in Victoria by 4.8 percent and in Abbotsford by 5.1 percent.

This really is a statistic that needs to be paid attention to, because what it’s showing is that families are falling further and further behind. We know that. We hear that from people every single day. We hear that people are struggling to get paycheque to paycheque, that it’s not easy to get by right now.

We also have the highest level of wealth inequality in Canada. We have the highest level of market income inequality. As I said, when jurisdictions around the world are looking at how we support a strong middle class, here in British Columbia we’re going in the opposite direction. This bill, in fact, goes in the opposite direction as well.

Very tough for young people to get ahead. Vancouver ranks last among ten metropolitan cities when it comes to median incomes for those between the ages of 25 and 35 with a bachelor’s degree or greater. These are individuals, again, who have gone to school, who have got the degree, who wanted to better themselves and who are still struggling.

British Columbians have the worst worry about retirement security. Again, I think that points to the challenges that families are facing. I haven’t even spoken to what the most vulnerable face in British Columbia, the poverty rates in our province, the struggles that families have to get by, the number of children living in poverty. I think it’s always important to remind people that over half of the children living in poverty have one or more parent who is employed.

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We are not simply talking about people struggling on income assistance, although there are those individuals, many of them — most of them, all of them — who are struggling on income assistance rates or people who are living with disabilities who are facing huge challenges. But there’s also a large portion of families who are living in poverty who are employed. I think, again, that speaks to the wrong direction that this government has gone.

While families are struggling to get by, while we see slow economic growth, slow job growth, slow income growth on wages, what does the government decide to set as a priority? They decide to set, as a priority, not including in this budget a continued tax increase for those at the top 2 percent. They decide instead that families are the ones who are going to have things made more difficult for them.

I think it’s important, again, to acknowledge that many of the increases that families are facing are not included in the budget. You will not see MSP premiums in this bill. They are not included as a measure that comes forward in this bill. But as everyone knows, we’ve seen them increase 92 percent under this government, and they’re going to continue to increase by 4 percent each year.

B.C. Hydro — 74 percent since 2001, going up 28 percent over the next five years. That impacts not simply families who are struggling to get by but businesses. That impacts industries, including industries like the mining industry, who face huge increases when it comes to hydro rates. B.C. Hydro used to be one of our competitive advantages in this province. It was an opportunity for us to attract investment here in British Columbia. Instead, now we’re seeing businesses that are struggling because of that. And there’s nothing in this budget that will address that unfairness.

We will have questions specifically on various parts of this bill as we get to committee stage. But I think it’s important, as I said at the beginning, to take a look at legislation that comes forward, particularly budget legislation because it really speaks to a government’s direction, a government’s choice, what they see as important and what they don’t. It’s why I take a look at bills and say: what’s included and what isn’t?

In this bill, I certainly believe that if the government had continued with the tax increase for the top 2 percent income earners, $230 million, and had looked at giving average families — hard-working British Columbians, middle-class families — a break, I think British Columbia would have been better off, and families certainly would have been better off.

With that, I’ll take my seat. I know we have other colleagues who wish to speak.

S. Simpson: I’m pleased to join this debate around the Budget Measures Implementation Act, Bill 10, with a few comments.

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gets reflected in the budget process and in the presentation of the budget. Part of those choices and part of that gets reflected, in this case, in this piece of legislation, in Bill 10, the Budget Measures Implementation Act — a piece of legislation that addresses a whole series of tax-related measures that the government requires in order to fulfil the budget.

As the previous speaker has said, the reality, though, about budget measures and about this particular piece of legislation is it becomes a question of choices. It becomes a question of what choices government chooses to make. We see in this legislation that the government has made a number of those. They have extended a number of credits. They have taken a number of initiatives that were in previous budgets that were intended to expire at some point and chosen to extend those for policy reasons of the government.

We’ve seen the extension of the B.C. training tax credit for an additional three years. That’s something that I’ll speak about a little bit more specifically in a few minutes. It has been extended out to the end of 2017. The B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit — extended for another year. The B.C. interactive digital media tax credit — for an additional three years, through to the end of August 2018. And the government has extended the small business venture capital tax credit for qualifying new corporations for one additional year.

These are all examples of things that the government chose, where the government chose to make extensions around tax policy and to continue with tax measures that were in place previously that were intended to expire.

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In the making of those choices, you have to ask yourself: what are the most fundamental of those? Those sometimes are the things that probably best demonstrate the government’s thinking, the government’s priorities and the government’s desire.

I think that as this side would say — you’re going to hear this, I suspect, a little bit in debate around this, and you may hear this in committee stage as well — for us, probably the most telling thing about Bill 10 is the choice that wasn’t made. That choice that was not made was to extend the tax rate for the top 2 percent of earners, for those earning over $150,000 a year — the decision not to extend that. That’s 2 percent of earners.

The cost of not extending that, a tax rate that will expire and revert back at the end of the calendar year, is about $236 million. That was a choice that was made, a choice to not do that, and it was something that could very well have been included in Bill 10, had the government made the decision that extending that particular tax made sense.

Of course, the result of that is a significant revenue loss, $236 million, revenue that could have been used to create opportunities for those who are probably more in need of that money than the top 2 percent. As an example, of course — and we’ve talked about this before — if you earn $1 million, it would be a $17,000 tax break that you get. A $17,000 tax break — that’s almost, within $3,000 or $4,000, a minimum-wage ear