Third Session, 42nd Parliament

(2022) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 168

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 9 — Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2022 (continued)

S. Furstenau

Hon. D. Eby

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation

Hon. R. Kahlon

T. Stone

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport (continued)

A. Olsen

Hon. M. Mark

Estimates: Ministry of Labour

Hon. H. Bains

G. Kyllo

A. Olsen

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2022

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

D. Routley: I made an introduction earlier and forgot a couple of things.

I’d like to ask the House to help me introduce a wonderful young woman for the first time. She can’t be with us today because she’s not well. She’s only one. She turned one on March 3. Her name is Ruth Eleanor Florence Robinson. Baby Ruth, not the candy but the sweetheart, is the precious daughter of Pam Cooling — and she notes, in the notes that she gave me, my CA — and her husband, David Robinson. David is the son of longtime Canadian Olympian basketball player Bill Robinson.

David and Pam had Ruth, and Ruth joins as the next chain of very strong women, represented

by her grandma Karen Cooling and her mom, Pam Cooling, who are both lifetime

activists for liberty, justice and feminism.

It’s with great pleasure that I ask the House to help me welcome and celebrate the birthday of Ruth Eleanor Florence Robinson on women’s day.

Orders of the Day

Hon. K. Conroy: I call continued second reading on Bill 9, Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2022.

In

Section A, I call continued estimates on Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, to be followed by the Ministry of Labour.

[1:35 p.m.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 9 — ATTORNEY GENERAL STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

(continued)

S. Furstenau: I rise to speak to Bill 9, the Attorney General Statutes Amendment

Act.

I don’t have a huge amount to say. The bill amends three pieces of

legislation: the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act, the Legal Profession Act and

the Notaries Act.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The changes to the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act remove the ability to

object to the small claims decisions, and those objections would be moved to

judicial review with the B.C. Supreme Court. I will echo the comments of the

member of the official opposition in that we are not opposed to these changes,

but we’ll want to dig into them a little bit at committee stage.

I think what’s important to think about, as we would all know from

experiences with our constituency offices, is that a lot of people feel that

processes are unfair, and they seek resolution through various bodies to remedy

that sense of unfairness. It will be important to hear about the understanding

that that sense of fairness will have to be embedded in, I hope, these changes

that are being made.

One of the concerns is the difficulty that people have of accessing what

they feel to be justice, oftentimes. The impartiality that we see in Provincial

Court and Supreme Court — with judges who have gone through lengthy training,

education and experience — is recognized as an important facet of the delivery

of justice in British Columbia.

The tribunals and the various civil bodies that we have don’t require

that same level of training and experience. The members are appointed by

government and there can be a sense of: “How do I know whether or not this is

an impartial decision, or if this is a decision rooted in justice and

fairness?” I think it is so important that our institutions really confirm for

people that justice and fairness are at the root of decision-making, and that

when people don’t have that experience, they have an avenue to have that

addressed.

I refer, from personal experience, to our community having dealt with

the Environmental Appeal Board hearing of a permitting decision related to our

community in Shawnigan. Weeks and weeks of hearings at the Environmental Appeal

Board resulted in a decision that upheld the decision to grant a permit, and

the recourse for our community was, of course, an appeal to the courts, to the

Supreme Court of B.C., for a judicial review. But that recourse wasn’t

guaranteed. We had to make the case to a judge that it be heard.

One of the interesting outcomes from that experience was…. This is a

long story, so I won’t get into it. In the decision that was ultimately made by

Justice Sewell, in his judicial review of this Environmental Appeal Board

hearing, he indicated that what had transpired over the process of this

permitting and in the way that that permit got granted, and then in the

experience that the community went through, it struck at the heart of the

integrity of the Environmental Management Act.

What has always been a mystery to me since then is that that didn’t

provoke a particularly strong response from the government at the time, or from

the successive government, to say: “Wow, we definitely don’t want things that

strike at the heart of the integrity of our laws. We want to make sure that

that never happens again.” That’s not what I have witnessed or

experienced.

I look forward to hearing the debate at committee stage of the bill. I

expect that the Attorney General will be wanting to convey to the opposition

members how this will improve fairness, accountability and, ideally, good

judgment and good decision-making.

[1:40 p.m.]

The changes to the Notaries Act and the Legal Profession Act give the

respective board of governors abilities — it’s my understanding — to increase

the interest rate on trust accounts and not give their clients any notification

that they’ve done so. This is a little bit of a concern to us, I think, for

obvious reasons.

On the themes of transparency and accountability and justice and

fairness, I think that governments really do have an added burden, particularly

in the times we’re in, to ensure that people can look at how any kind of

process, particularly that involves money and the accumulation of it and the

spending of it, is actually quite transparent and accountable.

From what we understand from the bill, the revenue earned from the trust

accounts would go to legal education, legal research, legal aid, law reform for

law libraries. These are important elements of running the Law Society, but the

discretion granted to the board of governors raises some pretty significant

questions about accountability and transparency that we will be wanting to

explore in committee stage.

With that, I will end my comments and look forward to watching the

unfolding of the debate on this bill.

Hon. D. Eby: Thank you to the members for their second reading remarks, helpful guideposts from the opposition about areas of interest to them. Just a couple of quick remarks to respond to some of the questions that were raised that may help focus questions in committee stage.

With respect to the interest on trust accounts — lawyers’ trust accounts, notary trust accounts — this allows the Law Foundation, which is not the Law Society, to negotiate arrangements with commercial banks and credit unions around interest rates. They already have the authority. Lawyers are not allowed to keep the interest from their trust accounts. They have to remit it over to either their client or to the Law Foundation. At the client’s request, it can go to the client. If the client doesn’t request, the interest from the trust account goes to the Law Foundation.

It already funds all these things, so this is a way to negotiate with the banks to get more interest for both clients and the Law Foundation and the Notary Foundation. So this is a win-win for everybody. It’s not sort of a strange, anti-transparent interest rate trick. This is actually a goal to increase the resources available, if the client wishes, to the client and, otherwise, to the Law Foundation to do their continued good works, which are already funded by interest on these trust accounts.

The second piece is a question around justice and fairness related to allowing a judicial review in B.C. Supreme Court rather than — it’s called a trial de novo — a brand-new trial in Provincial Court.

Just a little background. The civil resolution tribunal was actually invented, for lack of a better word, or created by the opposition B.C. Liberals. I think that the intent at the time was to create a parallel justice system that didn’t interfere with or even come close to taking any of the constitutional responsibilities of the Supreme Court or any jurisdiction away from the Provincial Court.

It was layered on top. You could still go to small claims court in Provincial Court, or if

you found Provincial Court and the processes not to be in keeping with what you

wanted to do and your claim was below a certain amount, $5,000, you could go to

the civil resolution tribunal. You would do your small claims case through the

civil resolution tribunal. You had the choice. You still have a choice to go

through the civil resolution tribunal or through the Provincial

Court.

The trick was that the civil resolution tribunal, in order, I think…. I don’t know. I don’t want to attribute motive, but I think the reason was just to reassure the courts that they would still maintain the final decision-making authority. The person who lost the civil resolution tribunal hearing could then, for the application fee, go to Provincial Court and start a new trial in Provincial Court and then wouldn’t have to take any other steps.

That had the effect of cancelling the civil resolution tribunal judgment. If the person

who was successful in the civil resolution tribunal said, “Hey, what the heck?”

and went to Provincial Court, they would have to prove their case all over

again in Provincial Court, do the whole trial again, and then come up with

another decision from Provincial Court, which itself was then reviewable in

B.C. Supreme Court again.

[1:45 p.m.]

I understand why it was done in the early days when this was an experiment. It was a pilot. It was a lean start-up, all those kinds of things. The civil resolution tribunal has really proven itself as a world-leading virtual tribunal responsible for some significant claims in our province. They still have concurrent jurisdiction, meaning you can go to either Provincial Court or to civil resolution tribunal.

The goal here is so that people don’t feel tricked. Right? You go to the civil resolution

tribunal. You win your case, and then you find out you have to do the whole

thing again in Provincial Court from scratch. It feels like you’ve been

tricked. What was the point of that civil resolution tribunal process? So

really, this is aimed at addressing people’s sense of justice and fairness. “I

won the case at the civil resolution tribunal. So why do I have to do the trial

all over again in Provincial Court?”

Really, we’re trying to meet people’s expectations with this change around justice and fairness and still provide the courts with their constitutional guarantee — B.C. Supreme Court — that they have the final say. Regardless of what the tribunal says, the B.C. Supreme Court can overrule that decision on judicial review.

To clarify a couple of the remarks, I wouldn’t want members to be concerned about this, because I think they’re all really positive things. I hope they are things that all members of this House can support, because I think that they do increase justice and fairness. They increase access to justice and resources for vital legal advocacy work that’s done across the province funded by the Law Foundation and the Notary Foundation.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 9, Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2022, 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. K. Conroy: I call estimates on Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.

Deputy Speaker: We’ll take a short recess to allow the minister and their staff to come take their place, and we will resume shortly. Thank you, Members. The House is in recess.

The House recessed at 1:47 p.m.

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

JOBS, ECONOMIC RECOVERY

AND INNOVATION

The House in Committee of Supply (Section B); S. Chandra Herbert in the

chair.

The committee met at 1:53 p.m.

On Vote 36: ministry operations, $110,426,000.

The Chair: Thank you, Members. I’d like to call the committee into session. We’re here for ministry estimates for Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.

Minister, I believe you might have an opening statement.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thank you, hon. Chair.

It’s nice to see all my team here with me today for these estimates.

It’s been a year. It’s been another interesting year. But here we

are.

I’ll start by acknowledging the folks that are here that are supporting

the work of the ministry. We have Bobbi Plecas, my deputy minister. We have

James Harvey, associate deputy minister for investment and innovation. We have

Joanna White, who is the assistant deputy minister for management services and

the executive financial officer.

[1:55 p.m.]

We have Tim Lesiuk, who is the assistant deputy minister for innovation,

technology and investment. We have Jeff Vasey, who is not physically in here

but in the building, assistant deputy minister for the office of mass timber

implementation, and Chris Rathbone, who is not actually here right now but will

be here in the morning, assistant deputy minister for small business and

economic development. Kerry Pridmore is the assistant deputy minister for trade

and industry development.

We also have another host of teams joining us. Leslie Teramoto is the

executive director for interprovincial trade and investment operations. Lori

Henderson is the executive director for rural operations. Angela Coco is

executive director for small business and economic development. Morningstar

Pinto is the executive director for small business and economic

development.

Paul Pawlowski is the executive director for investment analysis and

policy. TJ Parhar is executive director for regional inclusive economic

recovery. Tara Cameron is director for executive operations in the deputy

minister’s office. Jill Earthy is the new chief executive officer for InBC.

David Mortimer is the chief financial officer at InBC. Michael Loseth is the

chief executive officer for Forestry Innovation Investment, FII. Raghwa Gopal

is the CEO of Innovate B.C.

I want to thank this amazing team of people who have worked incredibly

hard through very difficult times, through the pandemic. I know we’re going to

dive into a lot of the important topics, but I just want to say how challenging

these last few years have been for the people of British Columbia.

I want to say a big thank-you to these extraordinary people and to all

the people in the civil service who have worked around the clock, under extreme

pressures, to be able to put programming in place to support people and

businesses through what has been one of the most challenging times, certainly,

of my life and our history as a province.

With that, I look forward to hearing the questions from the members

opposite.

T. Stone: I would like to begin what I’m sure will be a scintillating eight hours

of exchange between the minister and the opposition over the next couple of

days.

I’m also really thanking the incredibly hard-working men and women of

the ministry that I think have done exceptionally good work under extremely

trying circumstances through this pandemic. It certainly has not gone unnoticed

by British Columbians. I know I speak for all of my colleagues in the

opposition when I say thank you very much for your service.

We are here to focus on the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and

Innovation, and we’ve got a range of questions. I’m going to focus a fair bit

of our time on the economic plan and the range of initiatives that are

contained therein. I wanted to start off, though, with a few general questions.

I think we can all agree that, whether speaking as an individual British

Columbian or a small business owner, we’re all exhausted.

We’re all tired. British Columbians are ready to, hopefully once and for

all, come out of this pandemic. But we’ve said that three or four times now, as

we’ve kind of come out of it and gone back in and out and back in. I just

wanted to ask the minister this first very general question. In the context of

all of the lessons that have been learned….

With respect to restrictions that have been implemented — again, to keep

people safe and stop the spread of COVID, minimize economic impact, and so

forth — based on the lessons learned, is the minister working with, and can he

give us some details of what the work would look like if he answered yes…? Is

he working with others in government on what the transparent COVID metrics

would look like?

[2:00 p.m.]

If we ended up having to impose more restrictions on small businesses,

in particular, what would those metrics look like, based on everything we’ve

learned up to this point, that would really drive the minister’s preparation of

programs and supports, and so forth, for those small businesses which have been

and would presumably be impacted, should we find ourselves having to go back

into a period of time — hopefully not — whereby we would have to live with

further restrictions?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Certainly, I think there are a lot of lessons learned across the province, across Canada and across the world on how to manage these types of situations. Now, every wave of the pandemic wasn’t the same. Every single wave of the pandemic had different challenges.

I think the premise of the question from the member is probably more appropriate for the

Ministry of Health. The member will know — and I’ve shared this extensively in

the House — that the decisions around what restrictions are brought in and when

they’re brought in are made by the provincial health office. The provincial

health office decides what’s needed and when they’re needed. I have never tried

to step into that space. I respect that boundary.

I respect that they have a need to make decisions in a pandemic to protect British Columbians, and they’ve made those. We’ve worked around that and tried to ensure the supports are there. But that decision-making process is certainly with Dr. Henry and the provincial health office and may be a better question for the Ministry of Health.

What I will say is that one of the lessons that we did learn to support the community — and I say community broadly, whether it’s First Nations or industry or our partners in labour or not-for-profit — was that we need to bring people together and we need to ensure that they get the information that we have so that they can be informed of what we’re doing, to help us all work together to navigate these challenging times. It was a very important lesson that we learned, I think.

When we started what we call the Industry Engagement Table…. We have over 140 organizations that are present. Dr. Henry and sometimes the Minister of Health come on to that session, share the most up-to-date information and allow people — in one space — to ask questions so that it’s not a question of what conversation is happening in another room somewhere else with someone else, but having that forum where everyone can ask questions.

They’re hearing the same questions and the same answers. So we found that space created to be an excellent place for information to be disseminated but also an opportunity for us to hear from them about how they could help and what issues might arise from certain decisions that the provincial health office may make.

It was a really positive, I think, process. It showed that when we work together, we can accomplish anything. That’s certainly my hope as we start coming out of this pandemic — that we can continue that level of cooperation to get some good things done.

T. Stone: I appreciate that. I guess, at the end of the day, one would hope that

the lessons that have been learned over the past two years, in part, would be

reflected in the approaches taken, moving forward.

I’m not talking about the decisions by the provincial health officer and

the public health community around health-driven restrictions. I’m really

talking about: what more and how much better could government and the

ministries on the front lines of this prepare small businesses for the impacts

of restrictions that could be forthcoming in the future?

I want to move on. Again, this is a fairly generalized question. I think

it would be safe to suggest — and the minister, I’m assuming, will agree with

me on this — that small businesses have been really hit hard, depending on the

sector. Some sectors went through the pandemic and even grew. Opportunities

presented themselves, and so forth.

There are many sectors and many small businesses that were really hit

hard, many that went out of business and a lot that are still, to this day,

struggling and are barely hanging on. We see that determination of

entrepreneurs, at the core of who they are, as risk-takers, to press through.

But there are a lot of struggling small businesses and small business people

out there.

[2:05 p.m.]

The CFIB’s latest survey from February — a few stats, which I think

reflect the struggle. Two-thirds of B.C. businesses are below normal revenues,

or 55 percent are below what had been their normal staffing levels. CFIB says

that the average small business has taken on over $150,000 of debt during the

pandemic. That number actually increases to an average of about $200,000 for

businesses in the hospitality sector.

On and on the numbers go, and it’s easy to rattle off a bunch of stats.

I appreciate that behind all of those stats are real people and the struggles

that they’ve gone through and that they continue to go through.

One of the realities, I think, of what we’ve been through and what small

business people have been through is reflected in the sheer numbers of these

business people that have said that they’re really struggling from a mental

health perspective. I think that is a reality across the whole population. But

we are seeing an extraordinary number of business owners here in British

Columbia saying that they’re very close to, if not at, burnout. CFIB puts a

finer point on it and says that British Columbia is reporting the highest level

of burnout amongst small business owners, coming out of this

pandemic.

The question I wanted to ask…. Again, I appreciate that it’s a

high-level question, and there would be different agencies involved, and so

forth. But can the minister speak to any focus that his ministry has placed on

ensuring that there are supports available to small business owners from a

mental health perspective?

Are there programs to help people adjust to their reality in life at the

moment — which, in many cases, is depression and other forms of mental health?

Are there things that are happening within the minister’s ministry that are

focused on supporting small businesses and the small business owners, their

staff, through what have been extremely challenging times and have resulted in

significant mental health challenges for these individuals?

Hon. R. Kahlon: There were a lot of pieces there. I’ll start with the big one, which is

mental health.

I think members across the way and members on our side have all talked

to small business owners who have been navigating these challenging times, and

the mental health pressure on so many of them is a huge, huge issue.

[2:10 p.m.]

As the member highlighted, there are some businesses that have really

been challenged through the pandemic, but there are many, many businesses who

have actually thrived through the pandemic. It’s two stories, certainly, that

are out there. It depends on what sector you are and whether you’re

people-facing or not.

As we were talking about learnings from the pandemic, I think one of the

biggest learnings is that when you make investments in people and you make

investments in supporting businesses, you get the outcomes that we all want to

see. That’s certainly, I think, the lesson that we’ve learned from this

pandemic.

I’m going to try to avoid this exchange with the member, but I have to

say it once, which is that we provided one of the highest per-capita supports

for people and businesses in the country. I think that’s why we’re in a

position now where we’re able to see the fastest job recovery rate in the

country, one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. Wages are going

up.

All the positive things that we’re seeing are because of those supports.

In fact, if you listen to folks across the country and North America and even

the world, that’s an important conversation that’s happening. When you invest

in people, you do get the outcomes that you want to see in your

economy.

The member also asked about — kind of was going at — businesses that are

shut down. You know, we have seen, throughout the pandemic, that insolvencies

are actually flat because of the historic amount of dollars that was supported

for people and businesses. A lot of businesses were able to

navigate.

Now, I’m not saying all. We know there are some businesses in our

communities that just couldn’t make it through the challenging times, but many

did. In fact, British Columbia is ranked No. 1 when it comes to continuing

business activity and recovery through all the provinces in the

country.

I think that kind of gets at the question the hon. member was raising,

but if he wanted something more specific, I’m happy to take that

back.

T. Stone: Well, I won’t ask another question along these lines. I will just

underscore that, again, in that most recent CFIB survey, 74 percent of small

business owners here in British Columbia say that they are either at or nearly

approaching a burnout. That has obvious mental health implications, so I think

that that’s something that needs to be squarely on our radar screen for all of

us, moving forward, to make sure that these hard-working men and women are well

supported.

Again, I don’t expect that this will be a significant back-and-forth in

our exchange, but I do have to correct the record in terms of what the minister

said about the level of supports and this constant refrain of No. 1 in Canada.

The details really do matter.

When you actually look at the gross totals of all supports that have

been provided to businesses across the country and you sort that on a

per-capita basis, British Columbia is actually No. 8 in line in terms of the

level of supports that are provided that are not liquidity-related, which is

all of that debt that I’ve talked about. When you actually look just at the

grants — the cash in pockets, the help with cash flow — British Columbia

actually has provided the lowest amount of financial supports — so the tenth

spot out of ten provinces.

Again, I don’t expect we’ll go back and forth on those numbers. We

likely agree to disagree. But those are the actual numbers.

I did want to ask the minister about one, while we’re talking about

economic recovery. I’m going to spend the vast majority of my time today

talking about the forward-looking economic plan. But just while we’re on this

topic of struggling small businesses and recovery as a theme here and now, we,

I think, are concerned, as many British Columbians are, about the potential end

of the temporary expanded service area authorizations.

[2:15 p.m.]

I’m sure that the minister would agree that one of the key lifelines for

restaurants and breweries and distilleries, these hospitality businesses which

have been really, really hit hard — on-again, off-again restrictions, sometimes

with no notice, sometimes with a bit more notice, the absolute hammering of

their revenue and now the significant challenges of finding labour, finding

people to come and work for them. I mean, it’s just been challenge upon

challenge upon challenge for restaurants, breweries, distilleries and others in

the hospitality space.

Against that backdrop, one of the initiatives that the government

brought in, I believe, back in 2020 was this temporary expanded service area

policy, which threw a bit of a lifeline to a number of these hospitality

businesses by allowing for the expedited approval of patio space that, against

the backdrop of capacity limits, and so forth, really enabled, I think, a lot

of these businesses to actually survive.

These temporary permits were put in place very, very quickly with no

fees. The patios were built, and they were paid for. In many cases, the

businesses assumed some of the costs for putting these patios in place. They’re

loved by patrons, and again, they represented a lifeline for small

businesses.

It seems beyond odd, as we highlighted in this chamber yesterday through

a line of questioning in question period, that the government was planning to

end this temporary expanded service area authorization as of June 1 and

basically tell these businesses, “If you want to make these patios permanent,

well, you’ve got to go back to the drawing board. You’ve got to reapply. You’ve

got to pay a fee. You have to submit plans for the patio space again,” which

already exist. “You’ve got to enter into a referral process with local

governments.” And on and on and on.

It says on the government’s own website, the liquor and cannabis

regulation branch website, that this entire process can take up to ten months.

So assuming that the government moves forward with this for June 1 and assuming

that many of these small businesses…. And we’ve certainly heard from a lot of

them. It would appear that many of them haven’t initiated the process for

following this onerous, costly process to make these patios permanent. Many of

them stand the very real possibility of losing their patio space as soon as the

weather has warmed up a little bit.

I mean, people already, certainly down here, are starting to enjoy patio

space again. You can certainly do it when the cherry blossoms are out down

here. It’s not quite that time of the year up in Kamloops, let alone Fort St.

John.

Whether you’re that business owner of that business or you’re a patron,

that is something that people love. It’s something we can all look forward to.

It’s something that’s been a lifeline. And many of these businesses would

appear to be staring down the very real possibility of losing that patio space

and perhaps, due to the length of the process in play, possibly having to watch

the forthcoming spring and summer patio season pass them by.

I just want to ask the minister: why is this transition or this decision

to move away from the temporary expanded service area policy, which has been

such an important piece of the survival of these hospitality businesses, being

so poorly handled? Whether it’s through his ministry directly or whether it’s

through other ministries, this has jobs implications. These are small

businesses for which this minister is a champion within government by virtue of

his role. Why would the government decide to do this and end this temporary

expanded service area policy? Why not just make this policy permanent?

Grandfather these businesses and make it permanent?

[2:20 p.m.]

Any net new businesses that don’t have these patios now can enter in

whatever the process is. But just recognize that these businesses have been

hard hit with debt and lost employees and lost revenue and barely hanging on.

Why not just make this policy permanent?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think the member and I agree that the small businesses in B.C. have been incredibly resilient through these challenging times. Navigating the pandemic, ensuring that they can keep their workers and people safe — all have been challenging. I’m actually very proud of the support we were able to provide businesses to make those pivots and make those transitions.

There are a couple of things. We talk about the restaurant industry, and obviously it’s close to my heart, having family that was in the business for almost a decade. And it was difficult then, but I can’t even imagine how hard it is for many of these businesses during these times.

I think it’s important to highlight that we made a lot of changes to not only support them through the pandemic but also make sure that they’re more resilient going forward. Whether that’s the 25 percent reduction in liquor pricing, which I know that the sector had been asking for a long time…. That’s made permanent. The cap on food delivery — more and more they’re becoming reliant on food delivery, and they knew what that meant. These are big, big wins for the restaurant and hospitality sector that we’ve made. I know it’s appreciated.

Now, the question on patios is something that I do think the member should canvass with the Solicitor General, as his ministry is the lead on that. But I would disagree with his assertion that it was poorly handled. In fact, it was applauded — the way it was handled.

Now, I appreciate that there are some issues in Vancouver, and the Solicitor General

highlighted that in his response. There have been people who messaged me from

the exchange who say: “These are our public streets, and we want to have a

conversation about whether a private business should be able to get on to the

streets — to be able to decide.” So each local government has had the

flexibility to make decisions. As the Solicitor General highlighted, Coquitlam

moved really quick, and businesses are being transitioned real fast to be able

to keep their patios.

I do think that it’s an important question. I appreciate the question. But it’s something he should canvass with the Solicitor General, since they lead on that file.

T. Stone: Well, we will canvass it with the Deputy Premier in his estimates

because there is a piece of this that is his.

I will remind the minister that the minister actually was quoted in the

news release when this policy was put in place in the first place. He was

quoted again on a news release in June 2021. In that quote, he said: “For

thousands of businesses, the grant has been a lifeline. It has allowed them to

pivot to…build a patio.” That’s the minister, so I think it’s more than fair

game to canvass this in these estimates here — the Ministry of Jobs and

Economic Recovery.

[2:25 p.m.]

For the minister to suggest that this is being applauded…. What was

applauded was the policy being implemented in the first place. What was

applauded was the couple of extensions to the program that were made

previously. But if the minister was to get out and engage with restaurants,

breweries and distilleries — and I know he’s receiving the same emails that

we’re receiving — he would know that there is frustration and anger, and it’s

broadly spread across the province.

It makes no sense coming out of this pandemic, with the state that many

of our restaurants and others in the hospitality business and many of these

businesses find themselves…. It makes no sense to tell them that they have to

engage in a process which is not a local government process. It’s not a local

government–mandated process; it is a process of this government. They have to

engage that process in order to try and make this space, these patios,

permanent.

A process which the mayor of Delta…. George Harvie wrote one of many

letters that we’ve received, where he said: “Sure. Of course. Local governments

are all going to have different perspectives on this. But fundamentally, at the

end of the day, nothing matters at the local government level if the province

doesn’t extend the expedited approval process that exists through the liquor

and cannabis regulation branch.”

I will remind the minister that that particular policy, which is on the

LCRB’s website, makes it very, very clear that for these restaurants to

continue to use their patio space, they have to apply to the LCRB for permanent

use of this patio space. They have to pay a $400 fee. They have to submit floor

plans. Then this all has to be referred to local government. It says right on

the website: “Approval…can take up to ten months to complete.” This was printed

off the website just yesterday.

Again I ask the minister: why would the government not decide to,

ideally, just make these patios permanent and thus say to these businesses: “We

are going to recognize the tremendous pain and struggle that you’ve made.

You’ve made it, and we’re not going to add another layer of red tape and costs

onto your shoulders. We’re going to make these patios permanent”?

If the government is not willing to do that, then can the minister

advise this House if he and his colleagues in cabinet are prepared to extend

the expiration deadline for that temporary expanded service area and if they’re

prepared to extend the deadline out far enough to allow these restaurants,

breweries and distilleries and others to take advantage of this patio space

that many of them have already paid for — the patio space that already exists

and the patio space that has been a lifeline for them — so that they can

continue to utilize this space for the good of, the survival of their

businesses through the forthcoming spring and summer seasons in

2022?

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

[2:30 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thank you to the member for the question.

I was highlighting the fact that the way that government was able to

move to support businesses was being applauded. Certainly, our move on the

patios was being applauded. It was a really positive move.

The member says it’s red tape. Respectfully, the member knows that his

party was in government for a long, long time, and it was never changed. The

rules were never changed. I assume the rules were there for a purpose. Although

I appreciate that many of the businesses used the grants that we provided them,

used the fast-track process to be able to open the patios, I’m supportive of

them.

We’ve seen communities that have come through and made them all

permanent. Coquitlam is an example. I applaud Coquitlam for their action. That

being said, other communities have the opportunity to do so as well.

The member references…. Obviously, making the reference indirectly,

Vancouver is the community that has got this challenge. He mentions he’s got

letters from lots of communities. I’m happy to see those letters and speak to

those local elected officials that raise those concerns.

T. Stone: This isn’t just a Vancouver issue. This is an issue across the entire province. It’s an issue across the entire province because the province has a critical role to play in ensuring that this policy, this temporary expanded service area authorization, remains in place and therefore would continue to be that very useful tool that many of these hospitality businesses — restaurants and others — have found to be key to their continued survival.

As I said, it’s on the LCRB website, exactly what the process is that has to be followed, the application form that has to be submitted to the provincial government, a $400 fee that has to be paid to the provincial government, a survey and floor plans that have to be provided to the provincial government and referrals that then have to be kicked into gear with a local government.

That referral piece — you don’t even get to that if you don’t first go through the steps that are being mandated by the province. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Ashcroft, with a patio there on a restaurant, or Delta, as in the case of Mayor George Harvie’s letter that I referenced earlier, or the city of Vancouver.

This, I would submit, is likely going to be the most egregious example of a government not really understanding or being willing to engage and support with hard-hit local businesses, when you look at the 34-page process that the city of Vancouver has laid out, and the fees and all of the rest of it. But again, you don’t even get to that local government part until you go through the required steps that the province has mapped out.

[2:35 p.m.]

All we’re asking here, on behalf of restaurants, on behalf of distilleries, on behalf of breweries, on behalf of those establishments where serving alcohol and food on a patio, an expanded patio area outside, has been such a lifeline. All we’re asking on behalf of these businesses is: will the minister commit to extending the expiration of this program, the TESA program, push it way out to the fall of this year, at minimum, to allow for these businesses to take advantage of the forthcoming spring and summer opportunities and, at maximum, just make this policy permanent so that these businesses can take advantage of this on an ongoing basis moving forward?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I would agree with the member that the patio fast-tracking process has been a success. I think it has been well received, and I think the member knows that as well.

Again, I’ll highlight two important things. One, it’s a question for the Solicitor General, since all these decisions around this are being made by the Solicitor General. I’m sure the member will raise the question there.

I’ll also highlight that communities like Coquitlam have fast-tracked the process and are making everything permanent. Local communities have the opportunity to do so, which means we should applaud the communities that are doing so.

This question is better suited for the Solicitor General, because they have all the levers

to make these decisions, and a better place for estimates.

T. Stone: Again, and not to belabour the point, there’s a disconnect here, I

think, between what the minister is saying is reality on this here and now in

this chamber and what’s actually happening outside.

It would be a very simple decision to make, and the right decision to

make, to say to all of these restaurants and all of these breweries and

distilleries: “Hey, sure, we may have wanted initially to go with a June 1

expiration of this temporary expanded service area policy. But we’re going to

give everyone, if not on a permanent basis…. This forthcoming spring and summer

we’re just going to get ’er done.”

I’m not aware of any traffic data or collision data or other points of

information that, in some cases, have been thrown back at us when we’ve

suggested this policy be made permanent that would suggest that these patios

have become a safety hazard or a risk to motorists or a risk in some other

sense. What they’ve done is they’ve given small businesses a

lifeline.

I don’t know why sometimes it’s so difficult just to acknowledge that

what is being asked for here is a reasonable ask from a group of businesses

that employ a lot of people that have been hit really, really hard, to just

say: “You know what? Through this forthcoming spring and summer, we’re going to

let you keep your expanded patio service area at no additional costs, no

additional paperwork or red tape or delays or whatever. We’re going to let you

continue.”

I want to move on. I do hope that the government gives that some

thought, though. There have been some indications through today that there’s

maybe a little crack or a little opening for some reconsideration of the expiry

of this policy. I really do hope that the government does the right thing here

to do good by these businesses.

I want to move on to the economic plan. I want to focus on the issue of

affordability. I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time in the…. We’re approaching the

end of the fifth week of this legislative session. I believe it’s a 13-week

session, so we’re nearing the halfway point.

[2:40 p.m.]

We’ve spent a lot of time in this chamber talking about affordability.

Why? Because it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about housing costs or rents

or gasoline or groceries or a myriad of other things; the cost of virtually

everything is going up. Inflation is a huge and growing challenge for British

Columbians.

My first question to the minister would be this. It’s not like rising

housing prices, rents, gas, groceries, and so forth, haven’t been increasingly

a challenge for British Columbians. These items and inflation generally have

been increasing in cost well before the war in Ukraine and through the

pandemic.

I don’t see any mention whatsoever of inflation in the economic plan. I

don’t see a plan in this plan to address the rising costs that British

Columbians are facing. So could the minister please advise this House: why does

this economic plan not address the rising costs of the so many things that

British Columbians depend on day to day to raise their children, to run their

business, to raise their kids and to live?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Yes, I appreciate the member mentioning the economic plan. This gives me an opportunity, a limited opportunity: 15 minutes. But the next question will take the additional time to talk about the economic plan, which I’m very proud of.

I think that, first off, it’s important to note that we’ve had a plan that’s been guiding

us through the pandemic. Because of that plan, we have the fastest job recovery

rate. Because of that plan, we have the lowest unemployment rate in the

country. Because of that plan, we’re actually seeing wages go up. All things

that are critically important metrics, certainly on our side of the House, that

we gauge on.

Now, I can give the member a copy of the plan, because he talks about key measures that are actually reflected in the plan. He talks about affordability. The plan talks about supporting people and families. In fact, child care is central to the plan, because we know that child care is a key piece of the economic success of our economy.

We know that supporting people and families is a central piece of our economic plan. We talk about housing. We talk about child care. We talk about good access to health care. We talk about access to food. I don’t recall that ever being in the opposition’s jobs plan. I appreciate the questions. That’s why we’ve got this reflected in here.

Now, the member talks about inflation. We know that there is inflation right now. We know that supply chains have been hampered because of the pandemic. And now, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we are seeing spikes in gas prices. We may even see pressures on food. So there are implications of all of those global pieces that are moving that have impacts on it.

[2:45 p.m.]

Now, most economists will say that when you’re looking at inflation that’s caused by supply chain disruptions, that will start to ease as we start getting out of the pandemic. But we’re not waiting for that. We have already started to take action. In fact, with the StrongerBC economic plan, we had grants available for manufacturers so we could shorten supply chains — start to produce more of the products we need, closer to home. That’s why we’ve been making historic investments in child care, historic investments in housing and historic investments in access to health care.

We know all those things are critically important for the economy. There is no separation. I think gone are the days where you just talk about cutting regulations and cutting taxes for really wealthy people and hope that it works for the economy, for everyone. Those days are gone. Certainly, if that’s the premise that’s going to be advanced today, I would say that we’re in 2022, and it’s a long ways away from 2002. And that playbook that the previous government used for so many years should be retired, because times have changed.

This economic plan reflects that change. This economic plan highlights what’s critically important for us. It focuses on labour supply. It focuses on human capital. It focuses on public infrastructure, and it lays out the six critical missions that we need to ensure are front and centre if we want to ensure that our economy grows. We want to see economic growth, but we want to see it done in a sustainable way and in an inclusive way.

Now, we know that in the pandemic, the saying that Dr. Henry used — which is that we’re all in the same storm, but we’re all in different boats — is true. We know there was a disproportionate impact on some communities. We know that women, people from Indigenous and Black communities, racialized communities, those with disabilities, were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. That’s why we stepped up with the highest level of per-capita supports for people and businesses in the pandemic to ensure that those people had the supports they needed.

That’s why we’re seeing the numbers come back to where they are. But we are not done there. We know that we need to continue to do more. This economic plan lays out a vision for that to go forward. It highlights key initiatives that we’re going to take to address the critical issues that we’re facing — whether that’s continuing to support manufacturing so we can produce things closer to home, whether that’s supporting our ports so they can continue to grow and ensure that the goods are being moved in a very efficient way throughout our regions so that we can continue to increase productivity.

It focuses on people and investing in people, ensuring they have the skills required, whether that’s post-secondary or skills training, to meet the jobs of the future. We had a labour market outlook report that highlighted how we have over one million jobs that we’re projecting to be opening in British Columbia over the next decade. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that those people have the skills that are needed to take the opportunities that are ahead of us — in fact, more jobs than people, which is certainly a different challenge than we’ve had in the past, but a challenge, nonetheless.

The member talks about affordability. I would say that it’s reflected in here. It’s reflected in this economic plan. It’s never been reflected in economic plans before. This is what’s new about it. This is what’s different about it. We talk about the economy, which is people. People are the economy. And the more people start realizing that they are the ones who drive the economy, the more they’ll realize that when we support people, it’s good for the economy.

I’m not sure how the member missed it, because it’s such an important piece of the plan. Maybe he’s going on word counts. But if he reads this, when he reads the document about inclusive growth, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about those who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic — making sure that they see the opportunities and economic growth.

Too often we’ve seen that if you look back in history, when economic growth increases, those who are most vulnerable don’t actually see an opportunity to participate in that growth. That’s what we’re talking about in this plan.

T. Stone: Well, much like this economic plan, the minister is all words and no action. I mean, he can go on for hour after hour after hour, and like the plan, there is no tangible action here. It’s all words.

[2:50 p.m.]

Housing. Give me a break. We have the highest housing costs in British Columbia’s history.

It’s happened under this government. We have the highest rents in the history

of British Columbia, and it’s under this government.

The Attorney General just confirmed the other day that only 5,269 units of housing have actually opened under this government in five years. Ten-dollar-a-day daycare has gone the way of the dodo bird. We’re sitting here looking at $20-a-day daycare in select communities around the province. Give me a break. We actually created child care spaces that had real people in them. Give me a break.

You sit there, and he talks about how there’ve been all of these supply chain grants that have been intended to help with challenges that we’re encountering right now. Well, I’ll remind the minister that was a grant that came out in April of 2021. There have been no new dollars to assist with supply chains since that point. He talks about wages being up. Wages are up because the low-income jobs have recovered a lot more slowly than the higher-income jobs. It’s all a law of averages.

This plan has nothing in it that focuses on the challenges that British Columbians are facing from an affordability perspective. He can fall back on his rhetoric about taxes and red tape, and that this is all just about wealthy people and whatnot, when we’re standing in this House every day this week and last week and the week before, and we’re asking about real people.

They can’t afford the cost of fuelling their vehicles to get their kids to school or to soccer. That’s not talking about wealthy British Columbians. That’s talking about British Columbians. When we’re talking about people that can’t afford the increase in rents, that’s not wealthy British Columbians. Those are regular British Columbians.

My question was: where in this economic plan is there a focused, detailed plan to address these inflationary costs that are impacting real people? Whether it’s increased housing, increased rents, increased gas costs or increased grocery bills, where in this economic plan are there details with targets and metrics that focus on those affordability challenges that British Columbians face?

[2:55 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’m sorry that the member felt so defensive in his last answer. But the truth is the economic plans that they’ve laid out in the past have never talked about affordability. Never. In fact, their plans have never highlighted child care.

I appreciate the member said: “We did this with it.” No. They didn’t do that. In fact, when we first formed government, we had to give money through UBCM to local communities to just do an inventory of what child care spaces were available because there was no inventory. Nobody knew. There was nobody keeping track of this. It was just happening. Maybe because they believed the market would fix itself. Maybe that’s what it was.

Affordability is highlighted in this plan, if this member would take the opportunity to

look. On housing, he says: “Oh, people are facing huge challenges.” And they

are. People are facing challenges in housing. No doubt about it. Low interest

rates. We’re seeing a record low of houses on MLS that’s driving prices up. But

imagine if they had made serious investments when they were in government, so

we wouldn’t have this problem now. We have built more rental units, more

student housing, just in his one community alone than they built in 16 years in

government — just in his community alone.

I’m not going to stand here and listen to the member lecture me about housing and how important it is. If they had made those investments, we wouldn’t be in the dire situation that we’re in now.

We can go on about other things too. We can go on about ICBC, the dumpster fire that was ICBC. I mean, left in historic debt, took money out to give tax cuts to people who were really wealthy and then left everybody holding the bag. Now we’ve been able to navigate that. In fact, we didn’t give one rebate back to people. We gave people two rebates because of the difficult changes we had to make.

We talk about MSP. We can talk about cuts for those crossing the toll bridges, which I know the newish leader, Kevin Falcon, is very proud of because that was something he delivered. We can talk about all of these things, but what I’ll highlight for the member here is part of the economic plan. We actually talk about those things that were never talked about in economic plans before. Never have they in an economic plan talked about housing. Never have they talked about child care — all of these critical, important things that we know that are vital for our economy.

Now, the member is complaining that child care now is only $20 a day — by the end of this year. I mean, the hypocrisy to talk about how we’ve only reduced child care to $20 a day. In fact, there are a lot of families that are actually at $10 a day. But you’ve got to train people, and you’ve got to open spaces, and you’ve got to build the capacity in the system.

All that work we’ve been doing is historic. Over $1 billion of investment, because we

realized that it’s not only important on an equity question — we know that

disproportionately that means more women entering the workforce — but we know

it’s about the economy. We’ve known that from the beginning, and that’s why we

put it in our economic plan. It’s never been in an economic plan before. So

these are all poverty measures.

Now, the member talks about metrics. Their jobs plan talked about jobs. They didn’t care about if they were good-paying jobs. They didn’t care if it was helping support communities. In fact, in our economic plan, we have metrics in place to gauge the health of communities — whether that’s looking at the wage gap and ensuring finding ways to close the wage gap or looking at housing, rental starts, so we could actually monitor whether we can get the rental housing starts we need to.

[3:00 p.m.]

I know there’s going to be a good conversation with the member, with the Attorney General, to talk about housing. To suggest that affordability isn’t central to our economic plan is just false. I would argue that this is the first time an economic plan has talked about these key measures for B.C. That’s rare, and we’re really proud of that. We’re really proud that the metrics go beyond just GDP growth and just job numbers. It looks at wages. It looks at new rental starts. It looks at a whole host of measures that will be important for us to monitor as we go forward.

It is central. We also look at the very important question — and he says “fluff” — of

grants for agritech companies, grants for manufacturers, grants for small

businesses to be able to pivot and grow in these challenging times. All of

these things are critically important to ensure that we can continue to have a

strong economy as we go forward. The member said: “Oh, well, wages are just

going up because, you know….” I can’t remember exactly what he was saying, but

he just kind of dismissed it.

Hon. Speaker, wages are going up because, as a government, we

prioritized that, just like when they were in government, they prioritized not

increasing wages.

We know that Kevin Falcon, when he was in this House before, prioritized keeping wages down, didn’t raise the minimum wage for years, left out people that were most vulnerable. We know that they created a two-tiered wage for women, in particular, when it came to a training wage in the hospitality sector — overwhelmingly represented by women, women getting lower wages than everybody else just because they thought that was a good policy.

We are tracking a different process. We are going in a different way. This economic plan puts us on a pathway to a more equitable, more sustainable economic growth going forward, the things that are core to what we value. I would argue that the opposition should join this because this is where the public is now, not in 2002. A lot has changed in 20 years.

T. Stone: I hope the minister feels better getting that out of his

system.

The reality is clear, though. This economic plan is really just a

mishmash of recycled previous announcements that are lagging behind. A lot of

language, very little action. He talks about metrics. Well, metrics mean

nothing if you don’t have targets. There are no targets in this plan at all.

We’ll go through them, but there are no targets, and the metrics that are laid

out are, in most cases, lagging by a couple of years. That’s not a

plan.

I appreciate that the minister will likely want to take every

opportunity he can to spout off on all of the things that he wants to talk

about, about the previous government, and contrast to the current government.

We’re five years into his government — five years. Half a decade. Two terms

this government is working on. It’s incumbent upon this government to defend

its plan and to answer questions, be held accountable for the promises that

it’s made, the commitments that it has put out there, and the absolute abysmal

track record of this government on virtually every account.

I’m not going to go through again…. I laid out the litany of just how

rich it is for this minister and his colleagues to talk about how wonderful

life is in British Columbia right now, how extraordinarily good people should

feel about themselves, even in question period today.

It’s extraordinary to hear the Deputy Premier patting the government on

the back for all the wonderful things this government has done for British

Columbians when British Columbians are crying out for help here and now. Help

with rising gas prices, which the Premier promised he would address and has

not. Help with rising housing costs, which his government has not addressed.

Help with the rising cost of groceries. Help with the rising cost of a whole

wide range of things. Instead, this minister does what this government does so

well. He bounces back to misrepresenting the policies and the record of the

previous government and deflecting from the abysmal record of his

government.

[3:05 p.m.]

To my knowledge, I don’t think the minister has started and run a whole

series of businesses himself, so maybe that’s part of the challenge here. But

let’s get real and talk about the challenges that British Columbians are facing

here and now and what this government should be focused on to address those

challenges.

There’s nothing about the inflation crisis that we’re facing in this

plan. There’s nothing that addresses the affordability challenges that I’ve

mentioned, with specific metrics and targets, to give people hope that the

government’s actually going to do something that might fulfil their promise to

bring housing prices down or bring rents down. They could bring in the renters

rebate. That promise is missing in action still.

There’s nothing about gas prices, a whole wide range of things. There’s

also nothing in this plan about business competitiveness, what the government’s

plan is to make British Columbia a more desirable place to invest within.

There’s nothing in this plan to provide relief on a go-forward basis for

struggling small businesses.

The minister points to these metrics and these targets. I don’t really

know what he’s talking about. I do know that there’s a companion document to

the economic plan that talks about measuring our progress. In the context of

the economic plan’s two key goals and the six missions — I think the government

calls them — there are a number of goals that are mapped out. Median after-tax

income for households…. It lays out some metrics that go, it would appear, to

about 2018, maybe 2019. That was, like, three years ago. There are no targets

for this particular goal.

How about the goal of inclusive growth, supporting families and people,

the Gini coefficient? It only shows metrics to, what, 2019 — again, three years

ago. Where’s the target for this? How do you measure your success against

backward-looking statistics?

How about the goal of inclusive growth, the mission being improving

quality of life and core housing needs? An admirable target or an admirable

goal — the metrics on here go to 2018. That was four years ago. Where are the

targets for measuring success on that goal?

Poverty incidence. Those metrics go to 2019. Improving the quality of

life and post-secondary education go to 2020. Building resilient communities….

New business openings goes to 2020. These are all metrics. They mean nothing if

you don’t have targets for the years ahead.

I haven’t even gotten to the goals under clean growth. Again, these

metrics…. Let’s see. Net provincial GHG emissions go to 2019. Emissions

intensity goes to, what, 2018? The metrics around labour productivity go to

2020. The value-added exports go to 2016. Are you kidding me — six years

ago?

How the heck does the minister expect to measure the progress of the

achievement or non-achievement of these goals in this economic plan when there

are absolutely no targets against which you can measure that

progress?

[3:10 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: There’s a lot there in the hon. member’s statement. So I’ll try to

get a couple in.

First, I’ll start with maybe a little bit of a backhanded comment

about not having opened multiple businesses and maybe not having that

skill set and to understand how important this is. There are members of

this House who perhaps have started multiple businesses but then also

have been in charge of important files in government and run them into

the ground.

I would say that if that’s the bar we’re using to decide who is

qualified or not, I think there are some members here that perhaps

should reflect on their experience and the outcomes of their results.

But I won’t go too much into that. If the member would like to go into

more detail, I certainly can.

Now, he talked about records. I think the record that we all

should be proud of here in British Columbia is the fact that we have the

lowest unemployment rate in the country. I’ve said this so many times,

but a big part of that is because British Columbians followed the health

guidelines. They did what they needed to do to ensure they kept

themselves and their communities safe, and I’m grateful. I mean, a

92-point-something percent vaccination rate is remarkable.

It’s also because we had targeted supports to support people and

businesses through the pandemic. The plan we put in place worked. The

member can discount that as a record that’s not important. It’s a record

that we’re proud of. Certainly, other provinces look at us with envy,

whether that’s the lowest unemployment rate or whether that’s the fact

that we had, just in the first three-quarters of last year, 30,000

people migrate to B.C. from other provinces.

It’s the largest net migration of people between provinces,

interprovincial migration, in over 28 years. People are coming here

because they see opportunities for themselves and their families. Now,

there is pressure. There is pressure on housing. There is pressure on a

whole host of things in our society due to the pandemic, due to war and

conflict.

[3:15 p.m.]

This plan takes steps to address many of those challenges, whether

that’s addressing the goods and movement throughout the regions…. It

looks at manufacturing and how we ensure we can have more manufacturing

here. It talks about trade diversification, which is going to be very

important.

At the core of the work that we’re talking about here is the fact

that we are expecting a million job openings in the next ten years, and we are

expecting about 630,000 of those jobs to come from young people entering the

workforce. So we have a lot of work to do, whether that’s attracting people

from other provinces, whether that’s attracting people from other countries to

come here, set roots and be residents of this wonderful country, and also

finding ways to get people back into the workforce who have left the workforce

for a long time. So that’s what’s reflected in this plan.

Now, the member says there’s nothing about competitiveness. I

would guide him to page 7 of the document, where we talk about B.C.’s

competitive advantage. He’ll know that in that, there are a lot of the

things the government is doing. We know that in order to be competitive,

you need to focus on talent and capital. That’s why we’re making

historic investments in skills training for people, whether that’s

people that are coming into the workforce or those that are existing

already in the workforce that are having to transition because of

technological change or because of environmental change.

There’s the need for capital in B.C., half a billion dollars. I’m

sure we’ll talk about it. But we’re also seeing a historic level of

capital being invested here in British Columbia. We do have competitive

tax rates. Right now in British Columbia, we are competitive. Look at

child care, which helps increase our competitiveness, and the historic

amount of investment we’re making, whether that’s housing or whether

that’s investments in transit — extending the SkyTrain to Langley,

what’s happening on the Broadway line — and other investments. All these

things help ensure that British Columbia is competitive.

I’ve been talking to companies that are looking to invest in

British Columbia, and they say: “It’s your people. We want to come to

British Columbia because of your people, because of your skills and your

talent.” That’s something that we know is core to our competitiveness

and core to who we are as British Columbians, and we’re going to

continue to focus on this.

The member also mentioned metrics. I would say that some of the

metrics that we’ve highlighted in the plan are new. This data has never

been collected. So we’re charting a new path. I would highlight Gordon

Campbell, when he was Premier, I think, realized that there’s more to

GDP growth. In fact, I believe he also took that step to expand the

amount of metrics we use, as opposed to the narrow few. But when the

government at the time realized that those metrics were actually getting

them in trouble, because of certain cuts that they were making, they

scrapped that.

I think it’s important for us to take that spirit that he had

early on and then look at what other jurisdictions in the world are

doing. That’s why we’ve taken this path with the metrics. We’re going to

continue to work with our stakeholders to find better metrics, better

targets for us going forward. That’s a commitment I made to them in the

consultation.

Certainly, the entire plan and how it was created was done in a

way that has never been done before. We took people that are from

varying views, different sectors, and we put them at the same table to

have conversations about what they value in the economy and where they

want to go. We had tables where we had people from the environmental

movement; from industry, whether it was resource development or tech;

people from labour, First Nations, not-for-profits. All of them were in

tables to have conversations about what they value, what they think is

important for them in the economy.

What they told us was affordable housing, which we’re making

historic investments in. They told us we must address the climate

emergency. Every single table I was on — didn’t matter if it was

industry, environmental, First Nations — everybody knew that this is the

most crucial thing that we can address right now.

Health care is a competitive advantage. We heard that clearly at

every single table. We need to continue to invest in health care. We

need to continue and ensure that it’s accessible to people. We heard

from companies from other jurisdictions that say yeah, health care is a

huge cost for them in other jurisdictions, and the fact that we have

public health care here gives us a competitive advantage.

We heard about closing the digital divide. We heard about

immigration. We heard about the importance of reconciliation with

Indigenous people.

One of the pieces that I’m really proud of is our commitment in

this plan to work with Indigenous communities to create metrics on what

and how they see the economy working for them, as opposed to us saying

to them, “Here are the metrics we believe. Here are the targets we

believe for you,” and working with them to say: “Okay, what would you

like to see? How can we co-develop metrics so that we can monitor and

track the same data at the same time to assess the wellness of

communities?”

[3:20 p.m.]

That is historic work. It’s a new place that we’ve never gone. Of

course, we’ll be soon collecting race-based data, which will also allow

us to look at the health of our economy in a lens that’s never been

looked at, a lens of Indigenous, Black and racialized communities, who

we know have disproportionately been left out of economic opportunities

in this province because of barriers. Now we’ll be able to track it and

monitor it and address those issues as we go forward.

I think that the member and I won’t agree on the plan. We won’t

agree on the metrics. But we can agree that we’re going to have a

million new job openings in the next decade.

We have a great challenge in front of us, a challenge that’s

different than in the past. You know, in the past, we’ve had people and

no jobs, and now we have more jobs and less people. That’s something

that we’re going to have to work on together.

T. Stone: Well, I would say to the minister, you know, suggesting that we have amongst the most competitive tax rates in British Columbia…. Against the backdrop of the highest gas taxes and gas prices in North America, the rising costs of housing, basically the most expensive real estate and housing market outside of perhaps Toronto, this is hardly establishing British Columbia as a highly competitive jurisdiction within which to operate.

The second piece that I wanted to touch on is that I’m not sure that the minister understands the difference between metrics and targets. I actually don’t take issue with any of the metrics that are included in his economic plan, because metrics are backwards-looking. It’s actually the data that illustrates what has been achieved on a particular measure. I don’t take issue with the metrics that are in here. What I take issue with is the absolute, complete lack of targets. There are no targets.

The minister says: “Well, these are a bunch of new measures that have never been tracked before in British Columbia. That’s why, you know, the metrics are what they are.” That’s nonsense. How will you know if you’re successful on a particular economic goal if you haven’t set targets for that goal? That’s the point.

The competitiveness question that I asked him, my most recent question — the competitiveness piece is one page, this glossy page in the middle of the economic plan. That doesn’t make it an economic plan. This is a brochure.

A very specific question, and I’m hoping that the minister, again, will acknowledge the difference between a metric and a target, something that’s backwards-looking and something that’s forward-looking, and answer this question. On the inclusive growth goal of medium after-tax income for households, what are the two-year and the five-year targets for this particular goal?

[3:25 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.]

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The Chair: Minister.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Welcome to the chair. Our previous Chair gets a break from listening to me, which I’m sure she appreciates.

Thank you to the member for the question. There are a couple of things. He referred to competitiveness in the document, and I would say competitiveness is weaved through this entire document. All the pieces we highlight address productivity. They address competitiveness. I think that I gave him one

section to point him in one direction, but he should read the entire document, and he’ll see that weave through.

The metrics that we have in the plan are to assess the health and wellness of our economy. It’s something that we haven’t done before. A lot of leading jurisdictions around the world, certainly in Europe, are now starting to use similar metrics to monitor the wellness of their communities.

Now, I know the member will probably go to the fact that when they had a jobs plan, they promised — I don’t know — $1 trillion. They promised that they would have — I don’t know — eight new mines. They promised a whole host of things which never really happened. What we’re doing with this plan is putting in metrics to see the breadth of our economy, to track the wellness of our economy.

We’re going to continue to work with sectors that are in our economy about where we go now that they’ve seen the vision of where we’re going.

Interjection.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Oh, we have another member who wants to join the conversation,

which is great. More people engaged in this important

conversation.

Interjection.

Hon. R. Kahlon: The hon. member is right. I shouldn’t…. He’s a veteran of this place, so he can do as he pleases.

What I would say to the member is this. We’re going to continue to work with our stakeholders, which was a commitment we made to them when we laid out this economic vision for where we’re going — that we would continue to work with them on the metrics as we go through.

He’ll see that there are a lot of new initiatives, just like previous economic plans that were laid out — how we’re going to move these important pieces forward. Certainly, with the First Nations and the metrics we’re working to co-develop with First Nations, we will be leaders in the country on that. So a lot of work to do still.

[3:35 p.m.]

This is about continuous improvement. We’re going to have to continuously do the work to address the challenges in the economy as they’ve been identified by our stakeholders. We have a lot of work to do to address the major labour challenge that we have ahead of us, which is laid out here — one million job openings over the next ten years and not enough people to meet the job openings that we have. So a lot of work is going to be required to ensure that we’re prepared for that.

T. Stone: Is the minister confirming, then, that there is no target — a two-year or five-year target, let’s say — in relation to the median after-tax income for households goal, which is included in this economic plan?

[3:40 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I guess the member wants to know how we will know whether we’re actually closing the wage gap. Because it’s International Women’s Day, I will share with the member that, in fact, we already have, with the investments we’ve been making.

Right now, since July 2017, the female average wage gap has gone up 25.2 percent since July 2017. The current unemployment rate has gone to 4.4 percent. B.C. leads all provinces for employment recovered from the pandemic. That’s highlighted because of all the measures we’re taking.

We had a discussion earlier today as well, in question period. There were discussions. There were speeches about how we need to close that wage gap. I think it’s important to highlight: why is there a gap?

Of course, there are institutional challenges which we need to address, and that work is

going to come through legislation. But it’s also sectors that are doing very

well that are disproportionately male-dominated, whether that’s much of our

resource industry, which has got good-paying jobs, the disproportionately male

construction sector…. Especially when we talk about recovering….

When the economy is struggling, often people say: “Well, we should make

more investments in infrastructure.” Well, that’s great. It’s important, and it

helps the economy. But we know that disproportionately, it’s men that are

getting those employment opportunities.

All the work we’ve been doing is to help address that, whether that’s community benefits agreements, where we get more women into the trades, whether that’s the ISI program which we launched, which was created to get more women into tech, because we know that that’s a growing sector. I know there are a lot of stakeholders, a lot of organizations that are doing a lot of good work to try to increase the participation of women in their sectors, because they’re good-paying jobs. It’s going to require a collective effort.

The member wants to know how we’re closing the wage gap. We are doing that, and we have a lot more work to do. We’re going to continue to work with our stakeholders to see where we can go and how far we can go.

With that, hon. Speaker, my team would appreciate it if we could just have a couple minutes to have a little break.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister. Hearing that suggestion, the Chair suggests we will take a recess until members are ready to return — shortly. The committee is in recess.

The committee recessed from 3:43 p.m. to 3:52 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The Chair: We’re here with the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and

Innovation estimates.

T. Stone: Following on my last question and the answer that the minister provided, the specific question I asked was: what are the two- and five-year targets for the inclusive growth goal of median after-tax household income? I didn’t get an answer to that, which I presume means that there are no targets.

I will also, for the benefit, hopefully, of this discussion, just remind the minister as to the difference between a metric and a target, because he keeps referring to metrics as if they’re targets. Metrics are defined as “standards for measuring or evaluating something, especially one that uses figures or stats.” A target is “a goal to be achieved.”

These metrics, in most cases — and I read them all, for the most part, into the record earlier — end at some point between 2016 and 2019. So I will just assume, unless the minister, again, can point to where in this economic plan there is an actual target, a two-year or five-year target, for this median after-tax household income goal or metric…. If he can point to where that is, I’d appreciate it. But I’ll move on.

Can the minister advise the House, advise British Columbians as to what the two-year and five-year target is for the Gini coefficient? Of course, this is a goal that certainly I support. I think everyone does. It tracks pay inequality. What is the two-year and five-year target for the Gini coefficient, which is included in the economic plan?

[3:55 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thanks to the member for the question.

I kind of see where he’s going. I’m going to try to save him some time with his line of questioning. The member asked, under “Improving quality of life,” what…. Obviously, we have the metrics in place, which have not been in place in the past, so we’ll monitor that. But we have targets on core housing needs: 114,000 affordable new homes.

Under the poverty index, reducing poverty, the target is to reduce overall poverty by 25 percent and reduce child poverty by 50 percent. Under “Meeting B.C. climate commitments,” reducing emissions by 40 percent below 2007 by 2030, 60 percent by 2040 and net zero by 2050. Under “ESG standards,” I think it’s a new space, so we’re going to continue to work with the sector on that as it moves. Under “Resilient communities,” connectivity is a big piece of that, and we announced that we’re going to be trying to connect the entire province by 2027.

T. Stone: Again, I asked the minister, on behalf of British Columbians: what is

the two- and five-year target for the Gini coefficient goal that’s in his

economic plan?

[4:05 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member asked about the Gini coefficient. I think, first off, he’ll know that governments have not done that before here in British Columbia, so certainly it’s new. Our initial target is to start to close that gap, but we’re going to have to collect more information. We’re going to have to collect more data to make an assessment of what that long-term target will be.

Our initial target, coming out of the pandemic, is to close that gap. I’ve highlighted for him the targets under the different boxes, whether that’s inclusive growth or clean growth that we’ve got, and we’re going to continue to work with the private sector, the not-for-profit sector, the environmental movement, as we have from the beginning, to continue to look at the data, to refine the data and then figure out what targets we think we as a province should reach in ten, 15 years. But we’ve got a whole host of targets that I’ve already highlighted for the member.

T. Stone: Yeah. All of those targets that the member has mentioned are pushed out,

in most cases, ten, 12 or 20 years. What I’m talking about here is the economic

plan, for which he is responsible, that is supposedly the government’s road map

for the investments and the policy priorities, and so forth, of government in

the forthcoming years that contains, attached to this economic plan, a whole

series of goals.

He’s confirmed that there indeed is no target — a two- or five-year,

ten-year target — on the first goal I asked him about, that median after-tax

income for households. There’s some data that seems to expire around 2019 in

the attachment to this economic plan, but no target beyond that. I don’t know

how you measure your progress other than to say we’re going to try to increase

that number over time. That’s not a target. That’s an aspiration.

With respect to the Gini coefficient, likewise. I’m not hearing any

target, which obviously means that there is no target. It’s an aspiration to

close that gap.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t, largely in the context of it being

International Women’s Day…. Today, I think, is a day to reflect on progress

that women have made in a whole, wide range of ways and areas and a lot of work

that’s still yet to be done, a lot of work that can be done in this

place.

I think we can all acknowledge that it’s completely unacceptable, for

example, that there is a pay differential between men and women, that women

make less than men for comparable roles, or for the same role, in some cases.

That’s completely and totally unacceptable in today’s day and age. I say that

as someone who has three daughters. I say that as a legislator. I say that as a

British Columbian.

What I find very interesting is that earlier today the government

announced that it intends to move towards pay transparency measures and that

it’s going to launch consultations on that effort beginning this spring and

that the purpose of the consultations will be to inform the development of new

legislation that will focus on closing the pay gap in British Columbia. A

laudable effort, a laudable focus.

[4:10 p.m.]

I also note, however, that there are a number of facts that are included

in the government’s news release that really hit you between the eyes and make

you realize how important this work really is. For example, the government’s

news release from today says B.C. is “one of four provinces without either pay

transparency or pay equity legislation.”

This government news release from today says: “B.C. has one of the

largest gender pay gaps in Canada, with women making, on average, approximately

20 percent less than men.” That’s in the government’s news release today,

presumably to underscore the importance of the work that needs to be done to

close that pay gap.

Well, my colleague from Surrey South has introduced in this Legislature,

including again today…. Five times she has introduced legislation that would

focus on that transparency. My colleague’s equal pay bill would require

businesses of a prescribed size to report the pay gap between their male and

female employees.

This would be focused on ensuring that businesses…. It would be about

encouraging businesses to close that pay gap and provide support for female

employees to negotiate equal wages. This bill is called the Equal Pay Reporting

Act. It’s been introduced in this House five times. This government hasn’t

taken it up. Five years in power. Now we learn today that the government

intends to engage in consultations.

My question to the minister would be this. Why do he and his colleagues

not support simply calling the Equal Pay Reporting Act, which is on the order

paper? Why not call that bill? Call it today. Let’s have that debate, and let’s

come together and pass this legislation to actually take a meaningful step —

not in six months from now, not in 12 months from now, not beyond that but in

the next number of days — to meaningfully close that pay gap, which I think we

can all agree is egregious and should not exist for one day longer.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I know this issue is close to the member’s heart, so I appreciate the

premise of the question.

Too often, us being elected officials, we come here and we think: “Oh,

well, you know what? Let’s just create a law. That will solve the problem.” Why

don’t we create an anti-racism law? That will end racism in this province. Why

don’t we craft a law that says that you must report on pay, and that will solve

the challenge of the gender pay gap. I think the member knows that that’s not

how it works.

How it works is identifying employment areas where women are

predominantly employed. Let’s say, for example, the hospitality sector. Instead

of finding ways to support them to get good-paying jobs, instead of doing

things like creating a server wage, which the member knows…. He wasn’t here.

Some of his peers created a server wage in a sector that was dominated by

women. The women who were serving were getting paid less than everybody else.

I’m talking less than minimum wage.

I know it’s easy to say: “Why don’t we just pass this legislation, and

that will address the pay gap?” We have to do a whole host of things with it.

Creating a server wage to keep women with lower wages than minimum wage isn’t

going to address that. So that was what was done.

What we’re doing is we’re looking at things like child care. That’s why

child care is so highly featured in this economic plan. It was always discussed

as a way to create more opportunities for women, predominantly, to enter the

workforce, but we now know it’s about creating more economic

opportunities.

We’re not waiting for legislation. That consultation is happening,

because we want to make sure that everyone is on the same page, that everyone

agrees with where we’re going, that everyone understands the timeline of how

we’re going to roll it out, because we want it to have maximum impact. We want

to consult with Indigenous communities to make sure that it’s right. But we’re

not waiting for legislation. We’ve been acting already. That’s why we’re making

historic investment in child care. That’s why we ended the server wage

piece.

[4:15 p.m.]

That’s why, when the Minister of Health announced that he was bringing

in those workers that were privatized that clean our hospitals…. We brought

them back in-house because we know that will significantly increase their wages

and give them a better life. Maybe I’ll have to say that that’s personal to me,

because my mom was one of those people that got laid off because the previous

government, in 2002, with one bill, had the single largest layoff of women in

B.C.’s history.

I’m not saying that to this member. I know this member is passionate

about this issue. I’m saying that legislation is an important piece — we’re

going to be doing that work — but so is a whole host of things that you have to

do to actually ensure that women are getting better opportunities to

participate in the economy. That is things like something in our ministry that

we’re focused on with ISI. It’s ensuring that women can get their first job in

tech, because we know the sector is paying well and the sector is

growing.

It’s across government. It’s community benefits agreements so that more

women can participate in construction projects to get the experience they need

to work in the construction sector. It’s going to require everyone to work

together, but it’s not going to be just one legislation. It’s going to be

legislation plus a whole host of other measures to ensure that we’re closing

the gap.

Again, I know that it’s important to the member. It’s very important to

me. When we talk about inclusive growth, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re

talking about, when the economy grows, how we ensure that those that have been

disproportionately impacted by the pandemic actually get an opportunity to

participate in that growth meaningfully. So that’s why I’m proud of the

economic plan. It addresses the key piece the member says.

I certainly hope that all members participate in that engagement, to

make sure that we can get that legislation right and we have good buy-in from

everyone, and then we can move that conversation in a very good way.

T. Stone: Well, I find it disappointing, and I find it sad that the minister really can’t explain. He hasn’t got an explanation for why we’re five years into the NDP government…. By acknowledgment of the government’s own news release, B.C. has one of the largest pay gaps in the country. It is one of only four provinces that doesn’t have pay transparency or pay equity legislation on the books.

Five times in a row the member for Surrey South has introduced the Equal Pay Reporting Act. That wasn’t written off the corner of her desk. She did extensive consultation on this. This was written so that it could be debated in this House and could be implemented and enforced as a tool.

I would suggest that contrary to the minister’s comments about…. “Well, we’ve got to get this right, and we’ve got to look at those areas where the pay gap is significant and so forth.” That all might be true to a large extent, but why don’t we just start with a baseline of there is no workplace that’s acceptable to have a pay gap between men and women? That’s what the member for Surrey South’s bill, the Equal Pay Reporting Act, would address.

It’s sitting on the order paper. No need to engage in consultation. We could certainly have a vigorous debate in this chamber. We could certainly go through it

section by

section in committee stage. We could do that work, and we are prepared, in the official opposition, to start that work tomorrow.

I don’t know why this government, five years into their mandate, with arguably one of the worst current situations when it comes to pay gaps in the country between men and women, wouldn’t have a greater sense of urgency to move forward with meaningful action that would close that gap. Oh, by the way, there is a member in this chamber who has proposed a solution that many have looked at, that many in this space and many experts have agreed would get the job done in closing the pay gap. We could debate that legislation immediately.

Further, I still didn’t hear any comment or response from the minister on what the targets are, the two- and five-year targets for the Gini coefficient, which is this income inequality measurement, which, again, we can all agree is important. How do you achieve it in any meaningful way when you don’t have any targets to work towards?

[4:20 p.m.]

My question on this piece at this point would be: can the minister provide this House with any specific targets or timelines related to when this House can expect to actually be considering and debating pay transparency or pay equity legislation so that we can come together as legislators and do that work, close that gap — which would be right and just and should be happening tomorrow, not many, many months from now?

The Chair: If I might just remind members that debating legislation is to occur

when we’re debating that legislation. We’re here for Ministry of Jobs,

Economic Recovery and Innovation estimates. As that bill has been now placed

on the floor, the time to debate that bill would be if it was called. Just a

gentle reminder to members. Thank you.

[4:25 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I appreciate the member’s question, and I appreciate the advice given by

the Chair. I’ll just provide one answer, and then hopefully we can move

on.

I really appreciate him raising the issue from the member who brought

forward a private member’s bill. I think it’s critically important that

anything we bring forward ensures that it has been consulted with, with

Indigenous community, with women of colour, various organizations. That work

needs to happen, and we’re going to do that.

I think the member probably knows — if he doesn’t, I’ll let him know —

that in 2001, the previous government, the B.C. Liberal government, actually

repealed pay equity legislation. At the time, Attorney General Geoff Plant

said: “I don’t think pay equity is a critically necessary component of

achieving the economic renewal of British Columbia.” That was in the Times

Colonist , March 23, 2001.

The Chair: Sorry, Minister, if I might. We, of course, don’t use electronic

devices while speaking from the floor, just for your information. Thank you,

Minister.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thank you, Chair.

As I was saying, I appreciate the desire to see this move forward, and we’re going to continue to work with all sides of the House to advance that. But that was repealed. In fact, I am sad to inform the member that the new leader, Kevin Falcon, voted to repeal it at the time.

I do appreciate his genuine desire to see this come through, but I think he has to reflect on the history of his party and their actions when they were in government.

[4:30 p.m.]

T. Stone: I will reflect on what I’m hearing from women across British Columbia today: that they find it completely unacceptable that five years into this government that talks a good game, rather than calling legislation that is ready to debate, they choose to engage in lengthy consultations. They could have done consultations on their own bill last year, the year before or the year before that, and they have chosen not to, which I find very, very disappointing.

Again, there was absolutely no comment from the minister on what the target is for this particular goal — closing the income inequality. We simply have a graph in the economic plan that has data current to a couple years ago, with no forward-looking targets. I think that’s a theme that is pretty obvious with this so-called economic plan.

I’d like to ask the minister about the goal that’s in the plan that relates to improving quality of life with respect to post-secondary education. The metrics that are in the plan go to 2020. No targets. What are the targets for this goal of improving the quality of life in post-secondary education? What are the two-year and the five-year targets that the government will be working towards in the achievement of this particular goal?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Again, I appreciate the member’s comments about the legislation. I think

I’ll highlight again that it’s important for us to ensure that Indigenous

voices are heard when we bring it forward. We’re going to do that engagement. I

hope all members can join.

I do want to emphasize to the member…. You know, he highlights the gap.

Imagine if this hadn’t been repealed when they formed government. Imagine, if

that had been there, where that gap would be now. I think it’s important, since

he’s raised this question.

I just want to highlight, again, the quote: “I don’t think pay equity is

a critically necessary component of achieving the economic renewal of

B.C.”

We’re heading in a different direction, and I assume there are going to

be some uncomfortable conversations with members on the other side, with their

new leader, about why he voted to repeal that and where we would be now if they

hadn’t done that at that time.

[4:35 p.m.]

Now, I think the other important stat for us to know is that right now

B.C. has the lowest unemployment of women in the country — 4.4 percent. So

there’s significant progress being made, but again, we’re not stopping the

work. The pay transparency is one piece. It’s going to be important when it

comes forward. I appreciate the work that’s being done by my colleague from

Victoria–Beacon Hill, and I appreciate the work and the advocacy of the member

for Surrey South on this. I certainly hope they can work together to ensure

that all voices are reflected in that legislation when it does come

forward.

We’re not waiting. We’re doing that work right now. We’re finding ways

to reduce barriers for more women to participate in tech and to find more ways

for new immigrant women to have their accreditations, from whichever

jurisdiction they come, recognized.

The member asked questions about skills training. Now, one of the key

initiatives that we are going to be launching is creating a future-ready,

skills-for-tomorrow framework, which is highlighted in multiple places within

the plan. That’s going to be to address the critical question, the critical

challenge, we have ahead of us, which is over one million new job openings. And

how do we ensure that…?

In the labour market outlook report, it highlighted that 80 percent of

those jobs require some form of post-secondary training or skills training. How

do we do that? How do we ensure we have that? How do we ensure that new

immigrants that come have their skills recognized, to the best of our

abilities? Also, if they need upgrading, how do we ensure they have

that?

The member wants to know where those more concrete plans will be and how

we will judge success. That will be coming out later this year.

T. Stone: Well, actually, my question was about the goal in the economic plan that relates to improving quality of life, post-secondary education. The minister didn’t touch on that. I asked for targets. What are the targets? Like, if the goal here is to achieve this, as government calls it, mission, how do you measure your progress when there are no targets?

Why don’t we try another one? I mean, there’s obviously…. As with all of the other goals that I’ve asked about, where there are no targets, there’s clearly no target for this post-secondary education quality-of-life goal.

Why don’t we try this one? The goal is building resilient communities and new business openings. The data that’s in the chart ends in 2020 — nothing for the past two years, and there are no targets.

To the minister, what are the targets, the two- and five-year targets for building

resilient communities and new business openings in his so-called economic

plan?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member may have missed it when I shared with him a whole host of targets. Whether it’s affordable homes — 114,000 is the target. Whether it was around reducing poverty — reducing overall poverty by 25 percent, reducing child poverty, which is really important, I think, to everyone, by 50 percent.

[4:40 p.m.]

We have targets that are in legislation. I know if the member refers to his economic plan, it said things like: “We will have LNG for everybody, and we’ll have mines for everybody.” We’ve got targets that are in legislation.

We have climate-related targets that are part of the economic plan — 40 percent reduction of GHGs below the 2007 level by 2030, 60 percent by 2040 and net zero by 2050. We have as part of the resilient communities that we’re going to connect British Columbia by 2027. All these are ambitious targets.

The member also highlighted where the plan is for addressing the million new job openings. I already highlighted for the member that one of the key initiatives that we have from this, the new actions, is to create a future workforce plan that will show how we’re going to address the skill shortage that we have. I think I’ve answered the member a couple times on that. But if the member wants to make it a third, we can.

T. Stone: The question was about new business openings. Like, I don’t understand

what…. Are we talking in different languages here?

I asked about this sheet in the economic plan that speaks to the goal of

“Building Resilient Communities” — new business openings. What’s the target?

What’s the target that you’re going to measure against to determine whether or

not you’re actually achieving that particular goal?

Let’s try another one. This goal is under the clean growth side of this

so-called economic plan. The goal is to foster innovation across our economy.

B.C. labour productivity.

I’m not asking here about any of the other things that the minister

keeps rattling off. I’m asking about this goal, labour productivity, that’s in

his economic plan that’s attached to it. What are the two- and five-year

targets that the minister is using to measure progress on this specific labour

productivity goal?

[4:45 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think that the member was saying in his question that he was asking about something else. He had asked about specific targets within the economic plan, so that’s what I was highlighting for him. We have specific targets for affordable housing, which is one of the metrics we’re tracking. Whether it’s child poverty, whether it’s our climate targets, that’s what I was highlighting. I think it’s important for the member to know that.

Now, this particular metric was obviously very well received from the business community. I think they’ve been asking for to us track this closely as we go forward. I think it’s important for the member to know that what gets measured gets done. That’s why we were so keen to make sure that we had this captured in our metrics as we go forward. Especially with this, it’s important to note that there’s no finish line for this, because you can’t say we’re going to have eight mines and say that’s our target.

This is about making continuous improvement, about keeping ourselves accountable to the public about how we’re making improvements. This plan is about setting direction of growth, and that’s what we’re doing with this.

Again, a whole host of targets that I’ve laid out. I’ve shared with him that we’re going to have more around the future workforce work that’s highlighted as a new initiative, and we’re going to continue to work with our stakeholders, as we come out of this pandemic, to look at our vision of where we’re going and identify new opportunities for us to take on together.

T. Stone: Well, I think at this point in the debate, it’s frankly embarrassing to

have the minister stand up and try and suggest that he’s answering questions,

providing answers to what are very specific questions about his

plan.

I ask about household after-tax income, a goal that’s in his plan, and I

get bafflegab. I ask him about the Gini coefficient and the income inequality

goal which is in the plan. Doesn’t answer. There are no targets. I ask about

the core housing need goal which is in his plan, and I don’t get any targets,

no details.

I ask about the post-secondary education, improving quality of life

goal. Again, he reverts back to bafflegab, just recycled announcements and

statements that have been made in the past but nothing that bears any alignment

to his economic plan. Economic diversity, no targets. The labour productivity

goal in his plan, no targets. The value-added exports. I suppose if I asked him

about that one too, I would get more deflection and aversion to what is a

simple question.

I think this is what estimates are supposed to be all about. We’re

supposed to be, as an opposition, sitting here with the minister, having a

debate from an accountability perspective on the ministry’s plans for which

he’s responsible and which has, as its centrepiece, an economic plan. There are

all of these goals. It’s a whole appendix to the economic plan. That even goes

so far as to quite boldly, considering what’s in it, talk about measuring our

progress, with not a single target for any of the goals in this

plan.

[4:55 p.m.]

I don’t know what else to say, other than that I think British

Columbians…. If anyone was listening to this debate, I think they would be

pretty disappointed that the minister can’t or won’t answer any questions

specific to what is in his plan.

I’m asking about the goals. I’m asking about the goals here, for which

there are some metrics, but there are no targets. He even stands up and says:

“Well, you can’t measure what you don’t track.” Well, you don’t know where the

heck you’re going if you don’t set any targets, and you can’t measure your

success against those targets if you don’t actually establish targets in the

first place. And there are no targets, not for any of the goals that are in the

plan. He rattles off other targets which are old, outdated targets.

Your GHG emissions. Good luck. You’ve increased GHG emissions every

single year that you’ve been in power, and your GHG emissions are actually, in

CleanBC, scheduled to go up every single year. That’s in alignment with the

actual budget. I don’t know what else to say about that, but I think it’s

embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for the minister.

I will ask one more question about these goals. On the last page of,

again, these measuring-our-progress goals that have no targets, it says that

one of the next steps will be to develop a dashboard and to implement annual

reporting. Can I ask a straightforward, simple question to the minister? It’s

in your plan, the second-to-last bullet point on the last page. Develop a

dashboard and annual reporting. Could the minister please advise this House and

advise British Columbians as to when British Columbians can expect to have

access to this dashboard, and when will this reference to annual reporting

actually be implemented?

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member says he’d be embarrassed, and I think I maybe embarrassed him earlier when I reminded him that pay legislation was repealed by his party and his leader voted against it. I appreciate the tone has changed since that revelation.

[5:00 p.m.]

The member asked: “How are you assessing core housing needs? What are your targets?” I

said: “Our target is 114,000 affordable new homes.” He said: “How are you

addressing poverty?” I said: “Our target is reducing overall poverty by 25

percent and reducing child poverty by 50 percent.” He said: “How are you going

to address post-secondary completion?” I said: “We have a future workforce plan

that’s coming out that will lay out that information.”

At the same time, he says he’s debating me whether we can meet our targets when he talks about the CleanBC targets, and he says: “There’s no way you’ll meet your targets.” So a recognition that there are targets in his response. I highlighted for him that in “Building Resilient Communities,” one of the main pieces was connectivity, and we shared that we’re going to connect the province by 2027.

I appreciate this is part of the debate, so that’s fine. I look forward to continuing this. His follow-up question was around the dashboard and report, and I can share with him that next spring, we’ll have both the dashboard and the report public.

T. Stone: Let’s move on. Hopefully, we can get some more specific answers to the

actual questions that I’m asking.

I wanted to ask a few questions about the Future Ready: Skills for the

Jobs of Tomorrow plan. Can the minister advise this House when this future

ready jobs plan will be finalized?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thank you again to the member for the question.

The Future Ready: Skills for the Jobs of Tomorrow plan is going to be

very important. I think that the member would agree. I’m sure he’s hearing from

employers right now that they’re already starting to face challenges finding

workers. We have more people working right now than we did prior to the

pandemic, which is putting a lot of pressure on our labour market.

There’s a lot of interest on this specific piece, of course, from the

business community, from our academic partners, but also from labour, from

environmental organizations, from Indigenous communities. There’s a lot of

interest to engage on this critical question, because not only is it important

for growth, but it is important for inclusive growth to ensure that those that

have been disproportionately impacted get the opportunity to get the skills

training that they need to take those opportunities.

[5:05 p.m.]

I’ve had the opportunity to meet with people in the tech community, for

example, who say: “I would hire people right now if I could find them.” We’ve

been meeting with people in the aerospace sector who say: “We would hire people

right now, and we’re even willing to help train. How can we partner together to

provide those opportunities?”

With one million job openings that we’re expecting here in B.C., over

600,000 of those jobs will come from new, young people coming into the

workforce, which is going to be, obviously, a big chunk of that. But there are

also two pockets that need to be addressed. One will be those who come from

other provinces. I’ve highlighted already that we had the largest net

migration, interprovincial migration, to B.C. in the first three-quarters of

last year — the highest in 28 years. That’s significant. We know we’re going to

need people to come here.

We also know that we’re going to need people to come from other

countries, to immigrate here like I did, like my family did, like most people

here and their families have. To put down roots and help, not only in the

economy but also contribute through arts and culture and all of the other

pieces that new immigrants bring to strengthen the fabric of our

society.

Then the third piece is pulling people that are out of the labour market

back into the labour market, giving them opportunities to enter the market.

That’s through child care. That’s through the work that WorkBC is doing. All of

this work will be led by AEST. I think that if the member wants to find out

more specifics of when that plan will be public, I would advise the member that

when the AEST estimates are happening, he take that up at that time.

T. Stone: Actually, no. I’m going to take it up now, during these estimates. This is the Jobs Minister. This is the Jobs Minister’s economic plan.

My next question in relation to this is the latest labour market outlook forecast, that over 80,000 jobs won’t be met by either population growth or immigration. Obviously, that’s going to create a huge job shortage here in British Columbia.

I’d like to ask the minister what specific actions are contemplated within his plan to address that massive shortage that everyone is acknowledging cannot and will not be filled via population growth or immigration.

[5:10 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Of course, I’m happy to talk about this topic. It’s an important one. I

just couldn’t give the member a specific time, because that’s something the

AEST will handle. He can do that in estimates, but happy to talk about this

important topic.

It is a challenge. One million job openings and more employment

opportunities than people. That 80,000 is going to be very important. How we

address that gap is going to be critically important. So there are multiple

ways, and it’s highlighted in the plan.

Housing. Housing is going to be a critical piece of that, because we

know when people have stable housing, it’s easier for them to be able to get

into the market.

The Minister of Mental Health highlighted a new initiative to build

supportive housing units across British Columbia to give people the basics

first, so that they can get some stability in their lives so that they can

enter back into the workforce with the wraparound support services.

Child care is going to be vitally important in that. That’s why it’s

featured so prominently in the economic plan. We know that as the cost for

child care comes down, more people — predominantly more women — will take the

opportunity to enter the labour market. We’re already seeing that, in fact,

given that we’re at 4.4 percent unemployment rate for women. But we’re going to

need to do more of that.

Of course, health care is critically important in that, but also transit

and connectivity. We know that, now, there are a lot of families and a lot of

people who are moving to smaller communities out of the larger hubs, out of

Metro Vancouver, and finding a home in rural parts of B.C. That investment and

connectivity is going to be vitally important for them to connect, to be able

to work, now that there’s a big shift happening for more employment going

remotely. So that also is going to be an important piece.

WorkBC leads the important work on those that are on income assistance,

to ensure that they are supporting people with the skills training, the

reskilling, the upskilling portion of it, so that people can ensure that if

they have the skills — to be able to take the opportunities that

arise.

I think the other big piece is Indigenous communities, and we’ve heard

from Indigenous communities. They raise it all the time, which is, “We want to

be part of the workforce” — the Future Ready: Skills for the Jobs of Tomorrow

plan, so that they can engage to ensure that they are a part of that. They see

huge opportunities for their communities to get into the labour

market.

All of those things come together. I’ll also highlight the

micro-credentials. We know how important micro-credentials are for so many

sectors. We’re hearing from many of them to say we need more micro-credentials.

We need to provide these quick skills, and we’ll train people on the job once

we’ve got them. So these are the measures that we’re looking at to address that

80,000 gap that we see in the future in the labour market outlook.

T. Stone: Again, the question was: what specific actions is the minister undertaking as part of this economic plan to address the very real jobs shortage that we know is barreling at us like a runaway train, in some respects?

[5:15 p.m.]

Virtually every independent analyst, economic organization and otherwise, is suggesting that population growth and immigration is not going to make up for a large gap of 80,000, maybe more than that. So I was looking for a bit more specificity around actions beyond what the minister has talked about quite a bit today — transit and child care and these other things, which are very, very important investments. What I’m looking for in the context of this economic plan: how do we fill this gap? What are the specific actions?

I’ll ask him one more time on that if he wants to share any details there, but I’ll add this one additional piece. How much funding does the minister have at his disposal to bring this Future Ready: Skills for the Jobs of Tomorrow plan alive?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Well, there are a couple of things that I will say. The hon. member has been around for a long time, and he knows that not every measure of the plan is a line item that’s within our ministry. So there are going to be some questions he’s going to have to ask other ministers around the line items.

I’ll just say that I have highlighted the work that’s going to be required for us to get this 80,000 people. It’s hard. It’s not easy. It’s been a challenge for governments for a long time to find ways to get people who are out of the labour market back into the labour market.

[5:20 p.m.]

It’s not a B.C. issue; it’s a world issue. It actually happens that it’s a challenge for jurisdictions around the world. How you do it is through these investments. How you do it is through child care. How you do it is through connectivity and health care and housing and reskilling and upskilling people.

We’ve made some investments already. We announced new nursing seats around the care economy, because we know that there are three major sectors that are going to have the biggest challenges. One is the care economy. That’s nurses, people who take care of our loved ones in our care homes, ECE workers. Then there’s tech. Then there’s also the skills gap with con