First Session, 43rd Parliament

Official Report

of Debates

( Hansard )

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 99

The Honourable Raj Chouhan , Speaker

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

Contents

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 25 — Housing and Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (continued)

Rob Botterell

Á’a:líya Warbus

Heather Maahs

Peter Milobar

Hon. Christine Boyle

Committee of the Whole

Bill 20 — Construction Prompt Payment Act (continued)

Steve Kooner

Hon. Niki Sharma

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of the Whole

Bill 31 — Energy Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (continued)

Jeremy Valeriote

Hon. Adrian Dix

Larry Neufeld

David Williams

Ward Stamer

Gavin Dew

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

The House met at 1:34 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. Jodie Wickens : I call continued second reading in the chamber on Bill 25, and continue in Committee

of the Whole on Bill 31.

[1:35 p.m.]

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 25 — Housing and Municipal

Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2025

(continued)

Rob Botterell : I rise to speak to Bill 25, Housing and Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act.

[Lorne Doerksen in the chair.]

Bill 25 builds on legislation introduced in the fall of 2023, most notably Bill 44.

It aims to align zoning rules, tighten compliance and enable small-scale, multi-unit

housing, like triplexes and townhouses and townhomes.

The high cost of housing remains top of mind for individuals and families across British

Columbia. In every community I visit, the message is consistent and clear. People

are struggling to afford a safe, secure place to live.

As Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,

reminds us, we do not have a housing crisis. We have a housing affordability crisis.

It’s not a crisis, because the system is working exactly as it was designed to, enriching

property owners while pushing renters, low-income households and Indigenous people

further to the margins. That is not a functioning market; that is a crisis built into

the foundation of our economy.

Bill 25 builds on the legislation introduced in the fall of 2023, most notably Bill

44. It aims to tighten compliance and make a variety of other changes. But while some

elements of Bill 25 are reasonable and necessary, such as closing loopholes in short-term

rentals and updating local planning statutes, it still continues the trend of centralizing

control and overriding the careful planning done by local governments.

Along with short-term-rental changes, the government says the bill would ensure all

local governments are meeting small-scale, multi-unit housing requirements that allow

for more forms of housing.

In response, Cori Ramsay, the president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, said

she expects local governments are going to be disappointed that the province continues

to centralize decision-making for housing in Victoria. The government’s approach,

she says, could significantly increase infrastructure costs for local governments

who are being asked to carry the burden of rapid densification without the financial

support or planning capacity to match.

The province is asking municipalities to add density without sidewalks, without sewer

upgrades, without sufficient waterlines, and then wonders why development is stalling

or why communities are frustrated.

Bill 44 applied a one-size-fits-all approach to housing across the province, upending

official community plans, which have already carefully mapped out housing needs and

stripped local councils of their ability to hear from residents about the future of

neighbourhoods.

The legislation contains no provisions for affordable housing.

Further, when Bill 44 was introduced, it was passed under a time allocation. Analysis

and modelling were released only after legislation passed, after the House had adjourned

and after cabinet had approved regulations behind closed doors. This is not how we

build public trust. This is not how we support evidence-based policy-making.

The Union of B.C. Municipalities expressed concerns about the legislation at the time.

While recognizing the urgent need to address the housing crisis, the union stated

that the shift towards prescriptive centralized planning comes also with risks and

potential unintended consequences.

My colleagues raised concerns at that time, and they were right, as it turns out.

The former MLA for Saanich North and the Islands warned that these reforms could inflate

land values, entrench wealth inequality and put home ownership even further out of

reach for working people.

[1:40 p.m.]

Let’s not forget that in November 2023, Statistics Canada released a report showing

that children of multi-property owners see a significant economic advantage over those

whose parents rent.

That’s Bill 44. Now to Bill 25, which entrenches that inequality by turning thousands

of single-property owners into multi-property owners. This isn’t housing policy. It’s

wealth transfer policy.

We’ve built more homes in this province, but prices keep rising. Why? As Ricardo Tranjan

explains, adding supply won’t fix the affordability crisis if the homes being built

are out of the reach of the people who need them most. In other words, not all supply

is good supply.

Today developers are building for profit, not for affordability, and what gets built

isn’t accessible to low-income renters, seniors or people with disabilities. Yes,

the private sector has a role in building housing, but 15 percent of British Columbians

are in core housing need. Their housing is inadequate, insecure and unaffordable because

they’re spending more than 30 percent, almost at times 50 percent and even more than

50 percent of their annual income on housing.

The market has consistently failed to produce the volume of housing needed to meet

the core housing needs. It is the responsibility of government to regulate the market

and fill the gaps, yet neither Bill 25 nor its predecessor include any provisions

for affordable housing. This is a missed opportunity.

Let’s ask a simple question. Who benefits from these legislative changes? Developers?

Yes. Multi-property homeowners? Absolutely. Investors? Without question. But renters,

working-class families, seniors, Indigenous communities? Not yet.

Consider this. The Urban Development Institute, which represents developers and real

estate professionals, lobbied the government 80 times in the year before Bill 44 passed,

including 25 meetings directly with the minister. Who wasn’t in the room? Renters,

Indigenous leaders, tenancy advocacy groups, small-town mayors. They weren’t part

of the process, and it shows.

We were told that rents would come down, the minister says, by 5 percent. My caucus

staff, most of whom are renters, haven’t seen it. My constituents haven’t seen it.

What they have seen is growing insecurity, renovictions and increasing homelessness.

The province says conditions are improving. Yet Ginna Berg, executive director of

the Fraser River Indigenous Society, recently said: “Things aren’t getting better.

Since 2023, there’s been a 30 percent increase in Indigenous unhoused. This can’t

continue. This is something we cannot accept.”

According to the 2025 homelessness count, 42 percent of unhoused people in B.C. became

homeless due to eviction. Of those, two in five simply could no longer afford the

rent.

If we’re serious about solving this crisis, we need to treat housing like health care,

transit and education as a public good, not a speculative commodity. That means direct

public investment in non-market housing, co-ops, non-profits, community land trusts;

125,000 new affordable rental homes over the next decade, including 30,000 homes for

Indigenous people and 5,000 units of supportive housing; vacancy control; and transparent,

inclusive policy-making that reflects community voices, not just developer interests.

These are not radical ideas. They are pragmatic, data-driven and, most importantly,

just. We can and must do better.

Deputy Speaker : Member, sorry to interrupt you. I believe that we’re going to hear an introduction

here, if you would just pause for a moment.

Hon. Jodie Wickens : I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Deputy Speaker : Thank you. Carry on, Minister.

Introductions by Members

Hon. Jodie Wickens : I see that in the Legislature we have some visitors. We have Gordon Head Middle School

— our teacher, Kelli Meredith, and our middle school class.

[1:45 p.m.]

I really wanted to welcome you to the Legislature. What you’re hearing today while

you’re visiting is a debate on a bill around housing. I know that’s thrilling for

all of you.

I’m really excited that you’re here. I hope you enjoy your visit, and your MLA, Diana

Gibson, sends all of her warm wishes.

Would the House please join me in welcoming the middle school.

Deputy Speaker : Thank you very much, Minister.

Just to let the kids know, we don’t usually use names of our current MLAs in this

room.

So thank you very much. It’s a good lesson for our kids.

Welcome, indeed.

And our House Leader of the Third Party: take it away.

Debate Continued

Rob Botterell : We are a wealthy province in a wealthy country. When we decide something is important,

like pipelines or emergency pandemic relief, we move mountains. Housing is no less

urgent. We need to stop asking, “Can we afford to build affordable housing?” and start

asking: “Can we afford not to?”

As Tranjan reminds us, every home counts, but unless the units are affordable, accessible

and secure, we’ll be back here in ten years having the same conversation. Let’s ensure

that we’re not. Let’s invest in public solutions to a public crisis. Let’s put people,

not profits, at the centre of our housing policy.

Á’a :líya Warbus : I rise today to speak also on Bill 25, the Housing and Municipal Affairs Statutes

Amendment Act and really talk about some of the implications of the bill.

We know… All members of this House would know that housing has become a crisis in

British Columbia. Many families and vulnerable populations have been pushed out of

the ability to save and buy their own home and even, at the rates we’re seeing today,

be able to afford rent month to month.

It does seem that the government’s response, in this instance, would be to introduce

a bill to make shifts to meet that demand and to meet that need that we’re seeing

across B.C. right now. But some of the unintended consequences that we’re hearing,

and the consultation that is lacking from bills introduced by this government, have

been loud and clear by local governments and leaders across British Columbia. It’s

disheartening to see that many of these concerns seem to be pushed off.

In a statement by UBCM, what they’re experiencing is a lack of conversation and being

heard. When presenting some of their concerns through the webcasting process — even

going back to what other speakers have referred to, Bill 44 — some of the response

from government was to consult with their lawyers on those questions.

These are real and valid questions that mayors and city councillors have a right to

ask of government when new legislation is being imposed upon them in their towns and

their cities, where they’ve been elected to ensure that their response to their citizens

is going to fit within the frameworks that they’ve been elected to uphold. The pressures

that are mounting on these mayors and city councillors in towns across British Columbia

is getting to a level that, frankly, has become frustrating.

Again, going back to the reality, the crisis is very real, but what we’re seeing is,

again, examples in some places where housing has been built, and now they’re unable

to fill it because people can’t afford to live there.

[1:50 p.m.]

I’m not sure if this density, these proportions of stacking and building and really

giving people more limits, is the answer. That’s what we’re hearing from small governments

who are meant to be in partnership with the provincial government.

We hear the word “consultation” thrown around a lot today, and it feels to have lost

the meaning of what consultation is, really.

What do we do with those outcomes and with that feedback? How is that implicated in

the legislation that we see today? Are local governments truly supposed to sit back

and watch as decisions that were once theirs to make on behalf of their communities

are basically ripped from their control and their hands?

It’s concerning to me. Again, because of the consultation piece in some instances

of legislation we’ve seen, it’s claimed that consultation has happened. Yet when we

look at these tools, they’re really tools that say: “Here are choices that you can

sign on to.” But they’re really just slight differences between a decision that’s

already made.

We hear loud and clear the same feedback that I’m sure members from government are

getting, but that’s not reflected in a change and an update and a form that fits for

British Columbia today. This bill fundamentally reshapes how decisions are made. It

reshapes who gets to participate in reshaping communities so that they work.

Speaking with my own mayor and city council on a number of occasions since I’ve been

elected, the troubling issue that they’re having is that, in a rush to adopt — again,

going back — Bill 44 and now these changes that are coming down, they’ve found that

they’re getting more and more burden put onto their shoulders.

By doing the projects that the government asks of them, they’ve become inundated and

flooded with more and more need that they cannot fill. The issue is that there’s not

the infrastructure money and the support to ensure that those numbers are reflected

in the budgets and the support that they receive. So they’re really just buckling

under the pressure that is being downloaded to them without the decision-making power

that goes with it.

That is the harsh reality that we’re seeing today. That is the feedback that I get

when I go back to my community. I have a responsibility in representing my constituents

to bring those concerns to this House, put them on record, so that we can attempt

to relieve, potentially, any of those grievances that, again, take away the power

of our local governments to be able to decide at what volume, at what level, at what

pace.

We know that every single municipality is unique, 188 of them. Every single one is

different. Many rural communities feel as though they’re forgotten in this legislation

and that it does not truly reflect their needs, which have already been consistently

falling behind — the pressures of the financial side and then now a pressure to, again,

deliver but without the correct and the proper tools to do so in an effective way.

Local governments have always been essential partners with the province of British

Columbia. We see that now with the emergence of Indigenous local governments as well.

We see this government often champion those relationships in listening and in being,

truly, partners on an equal level, the hand-in-hand relationship.

[1:55 p.m.]

Again, unfortunately, it feels as though the ability to celebrate those successes

or partnerships or consultations is quite overshadowed by the uproar that we’re hearing

from communities that are consistently not heard. Their recommendations are not taken

seriously, and their grievances are pushed to the side, which leads me to believe….

If we are to centralize some of these decision-making abilities in the name of streamlining,

if governments are already having a difficult time getting processes approved through

and with this government, and it’s starting to put them more and more behind in their

ability to deliver what they need to, to communities, how are they supposed to take

another process that, again, has to go through a central office and does not get approved

at a local level, which we know is actually faster and more efficient? It doesn’t

really make sense.

These local governments are the ones that are closest to residents. They hear directly

from families, from seniors and from businesses. They are the ones that community

organizations go to, sometimes on a quarterly, even a weekly basis if there are issues,

because that is what’s most accessible and closest to home for them. That’s what they

know. You see the mayor walking around the town and say hi. You know the business

he owns.

Those are the relationships that we need to foster, not relationships that seem to

be not really advertised or promoted well to residents across British Columbia. The

representation that we have here in Victoria is meant to address high-level concerns

that we can say for sure: “This affects everybody in the province. This makes sense.

This legislation going to fit.” But again, the one-size-fits-all for such a diverse

place is not going to sustain the imposition of needs that we have right now with

our housing crisis.

So the strength of our systems, our government systems and these layered relationships

— provincial and even federal and municipal and, again, the new layer of Indigenous

governance that, really, I think a lot of British Columbians and people are trying

to understand — needs to be more clear, but I don’t think that it needs more of a

top-down approach.

One of the things that I resent in opposing legislation or debating legislation in

good faith is oftentimes we get ministers who say: “Well, these members know.” It’s

condescending. It’s condescending to say that we should know something when many people

are newly elected. There is a whole learning curve that happens when you come into

an elected position. And you work very, very hard — I could speak for myself — to

understand how systems manage together.

This feels like a reflection of that tone-deaf statement saying, “You should know,”

when local governments are still spinning and experiencing whiplash from Bill 44.

Now they have to quickly adapt to more tweaks and changes that they don’t feel comfortable

with. These are impositions. These are decisions that once sat with them on how they

want to allocate density in their own town.

When I went door-knocking around Chilliwack and meeting neighbours that I’ve never

spoken to before and different communities…. I went to school in this community, but

it changes over time. So when I moved back to my community, it was a whole getting-to-know

process of me understanding what my town looks like today.

We’ve had long-time residents, people that have lived there their whole lives. They’ve

raised generations of families there.

[2:00 p.m.]

In that process, what I learned was that there was a lot of discomfort by residents

in some of the density that they’re seeing. The reason that they live in the town

that we all love and enjoy is because in the morning they can wake up, and they can

see the mountains. They can see the fog settling on the farmland. They can see the

sunrise from their porch.

When those things are rushed or are imposed, there is understandably a lot of anger

and frustration, when it feels as though residents aren’t involved in how those decisions

are made.

There are a lot of things you can do where a taller building is not going to affect

the people in that area. It may even improve a downtown core in being able to apply

certain levels of density. But there are other areas that really could fundamentally

change a place forever. We lose exactly why we love our province and why we love to

live near a river or a mountain or a hiking trail. That fundamentally loses even the

spirit of who we are as British Columbians. And it’s sad.

I think there are other members that brought up good points as well, that we can’t

always answer a problem with a simple solution such as density when what we’re actually

seeing is a crisis in affordability. You could build it. You could crunch people into

smaller spaces and say: “Well, this is what you have to make do with.” But we’re increasingly

seeing people can’t even afford that. This push to give less space, when many of us

had the opportunity and the privilege of growing up in wide open spaces and yards

and play areas, might not be healthy in the long run.

These are important discussions that we need to take seriously as communities and

as a province and as leaders. We have to give it the time that it deserves. That is

the whole purpose of why we come here and debate these things.

Going back to our local governments, the 188 that are represented by the UBCM, it’s

been very clear and consistent that they’ve been asking for meaningful collaboration.

I think collaboration might be a stronger word than consultation. When we go beyond

the notion of consulting, collaboration is a word that means it’s two ways. Consulting

seems to be reduced to: “Here’s a survey. Check some boxes, and we’ll consider what

you said.”

In some of these consultation processes, there’s not even a way to enter in dialogue

— typed comments. There are only locked-in options that you can choose from. To me,

and I think…. Again, I reflect back to our emerging local Indigenous governments and

local governments, especially rural governments. I think they are looking for collaboration,

more collaboration, and the buzzword of consultation seems to be not a fit anymore.

This transparency, clarity, appropriate resourcing and clear timelines really reflect

the reality of our communities rather than a political imposition. But unfortunately,

what has been returned to some of our local governments and what Bill 25 continues

is a unilateral top-down approach that really leaves municipalities scrambling to

adapt rather than working as true partners.

[2:05 p.m.]

Let’s consider for a moment the magnitude of what the bill does. It amends both the

Local Government Act and the Vancouver Charter. These are foundational pieces of legislation

that govern how municipalities operate. Changing the balance of authority within those

statutes often affects planning, zoning, density, transportation, parking and, ultimately,

the lived reality of people in our communities across British Columbia.

Under the proposed changes, the province will have the ability to standardize housing

forms, dictate density, override local bylaws and impose additional provincial housing

standards whenever it chooses. That includes rules governing buildable area, permitted

heights, the number of units on a lot and parking requirements — all areas that have

traditionally been within municipal control.

While the government argues these powers are necessary to streamline development,

the reality is they minimize local decision-making and reduce the ability of municipalities

to plan growth in ways that actually reflect infrastructure capacity and community

needs.

Municipal zoning is not simply a bureaucratic exercise. It’s one of the core expressions

of local democracy. It is where neighbours come together to express concerns. It is

where elected officials weigh competing interests. It is where communities decide

what they want their future to look like. This bill diminishes that process significantly.

For myself, as an elected person, again, I go back to…. I do a lot of my work here,

and I do feel as though I lose touch with the community. But when there are very serious

issues, I’ll often host a coffee or a town hall or I’ll go in person to stakeholders

who are expressing concern. That truly is the only way that you can feel the concern

people have, that you can hear exactly what their worries are. They’ll bring their

families, their kids, their grandmas, because communities are the heart and the centre

of what we all enjoy. That’s the lifeblood.

To me, having a minister or a cabinet be responsible for those kinds of decisions

is taking us in the wrong direction. One of the most consequential aspects of Bill

25 is the expanded ministerial authority that I was speaking of. It’s getting bigger.

Under this legislation, if a municipal bylaw, even one developed through extensive

public consultation, is deemed inconsistent with provincial housing requirements,

the minister can unilaterally amend or replace that bylaw.

That is a sweeping new power. It allows the province to insert itself directly into

local land use decisions, replacing the democratic authority of councils with ministerial

directives, and it creates uncertainty for municipalities already struggling to keep

up with continuous regulatory changes.

UBCM’s analysis also highlights that the bill broadens the geographic areas where

provincial requirements apply. In practice, this means the province could decide that

certain types of housing are required in areas that local planners know are not appropriate.

Sadly, we are seeing some of these instances happen where local governments, even

farmers, people that grow our food, are left out of important decisions. They are

bypassed. And when that happens, you get angry communities, angry community members

and people who are now divided against one another, because they don’t understand

why a decision was made without them.

Whether it’s traffic; congestion; environmental sensitivities; floodplain concerns,

which we experience a lot in Chilliwack; or inadequate transit service, any one of

these issues could be completely unknown to someone who’s never been and walked and

set foot in a community that they’re making decisions for.

[2:10 p.m.]

If a municipality that spent months reviewing an area plan and has consulted and held

open houses for that consultation, listened to all the concerns of all the different

people in a community, done careful studies by geotechs, paid those moneys, made sure

that they’re really doing something properly, and they choose to maintain low-rise

development along a corridor that’s already overburdened….

Until Bill 25, they were able to make those decisions soundly and securely. Now, with

this bill, this minister or cabinet could easily override all that work that has been

poured into carefully planned decisions made by local governments.

These decisions would not be based on local evidence. They would not be based on local

planning but on a provincial policy priority which, as we’ve heard today by other

oppositions to government as well as our own, doesn’t necessarily meet the crisis

that we’re all seeing today.

This is a dramatic shift away from local autonomy, as I’ve raised, and there are true

concerns about democratic accountability. How is a local government supposed to remain

accountable to the people that elect them, if the decisions that are made are not

in their hands?

It frustrates people, because they hear from another government: “Sorry. We didn’t

make that decision. You’re going to have to go to this ministry to have your concerns

addressed.” I’m not sure if you’ve been on the other side of that conversation, but

it sends people to different doorways looking for answers that they’re not quite sure

they’re going to get and with concerns that may never be heard because the lineup

is too long, the backlog is too high and the ministry is too busy.

That is what’s concerning about moving some of these decisions away from local governments

where they can be easily accessed, easily changed and easily heard. That’s the purpose.

That’s the point.

Bill 25 introduces significant changes to public hearings as well. Public hearings

have long served as vital platforms for residents to participate in local decision-making.

Public hearings are where people, including those who aren’t lobbyists or developers,

finally get to be heard. For many residents, it’s the only time they ever speak directly

to people that are making decisions on their behalf.

Many residents, especially those living up north who don’t get an opportunity to ever

leave their hometown, may be busy working the land as farmers. They may not have the

money or the means. They enjoy the surroundings they’ve chosen for themselves. They’re

not going to get that opportunity too often or, really, ever at all, if they have

real concerns, to push their concerns up one level, beyond the local governments that

are accessible to them.

This bill restricts the ability of councils to hold public hearings on rezoning that

align with official community plans. In theory, this may appear efficient, but in

practice it removes the discretion of elected officials to gather additional feedback,

even when they feel the community really needs it.

When the province reserves the right to define which public input processes are allowed,

we risk excluding the very voices that make local democracy meaningful. Think of residents

in rural communities fighting to preserve agricultural land.

As I mentioned before, I’ve experienced this firsthand. One of the very first issues

that came front and centre was from people that grow our food locally not being able

to address a concern they had about ALR lands that were not properly shifted from

one zoning to another.

If they had been asked, they would have been able to tell those decision-makers: “There

are ALR lands over there that are far more appropriate. We can’t farm those lands.

So it would be fine to use those.” Instead, they watched prime land, vital to their

survival as farmers and the people that grow our foods, being taken away.

[2:15 p.m.]

Oftentimes when that happens, they’re taken away forever, because once you build dense

housing on lands, it’s going to be a long, long time before you see those lands available

again.

Local Indigenous governments, local municipalities, local farmers and people in rural

communities understand that. They understand that very well. Change can be very difficult,

but when change is happening and it’s not in your hands, and you’re not a part of

that decision, it can be a very difficult road to walk back and to fix after the fact.

Now you’ve got to do a repair, and you’re going to confuse and hurt people even more

along the way of that repair road.

With the residents in rural communities, just going back to that for a minute, we

have a real fight to preserve these agricultural lands. There are also other kinds

of uses for lands right now.

I feel that I could be honestly debating this all day, because I’m really passionate

about local governments and local voices meaning something today in this province

and with this government.

I know that I’m getting close to time, so I’ll just finish to say that we really need

to take pause and consider the implications of these kinds of legislation coming forward

from this government.

Heather Maahs : Well, here we are, back-to-back Chilliwack on Bill 25.

This bill is presented as housing reform, but what it actually represents is something

very different, a sweeping centralization of power in Victoria at the direct expense

of local governments, as we’ve heard — rural communities, neighbourhoods and the residents

who live with the consequences of land use decisions.

Over the last several years, we have seen this government advance a pattern — Bill

44, Bill 47 and now Bill 25. Each bill chips away further at municipal authority.

Each one replaces local knowledge, local consultation and local accountability with

mandates drafted by people far removed from the communities that they are reshaping.

Bill 25 is simply the clearest and most aggressive expression of that trend so far.

The government insists that this is about solving the housing crisis, but if you look

at what the bill does and, more importantly, what it overrides, it becomes clear this

is not a housing bill at all. This is a control bill.

It strips authority from councillors and mayors democratically elected to represent

their communities. It sidelines official community plans that took years of public

consultation to create. It imposes unfunded infrastructure pressures on towns that

are already strained. It forces a Vancouver-centric template onto every corner of

British Columbia, regardless of geography, transit, weather, topography or local capacity.

Communities across B.C. are not interchangeable. Prince George is not Vancouver; Chilliwack

is not Mount Pleasant; Quesnel is not Kitsilano; etc. Each one of these communities

has a different transit reality, different roads, different utilities, different wildfire

risks, different snow loads, different workforce needs and different planning histories.

Bill 25 ignores all of that.

One of the most striking ways this bill detaches itself from reality is the attack

on off-street parking requirements. The bill prohibits municipalities from requiring

even a single parking space for duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and other multi-unit

forms mandated by the province, even in areas where transit is weak, non-existent

or impossible due to geography or weather.

[2:20 p.m.]

For many communities in British Columbia, parking is not an optional feature of development.

It is a basic requirement of daily life. In Prince George, winter snowbanks make street

parking impossible. It is literally against municipal bylaws. In fast-growing suburbs,

families rely on vehicles to get children to school, activities, medical appointments;

and to shift work.

In rural and northern communities, tradesworkers travel with tools and equipment in

their trucks. Nurses drive to night shifts. Millworkers commuting to remote sites,

contractors moving equipment. None of these realities disappears because Victoria

declares that off-street parking is no longer needed.

Those vehicles will not vanish. They will spill onto streets, school zones, boulevards,

bike lanes and emergency routes. They will obstruct plows and emergency vehicles in

winter. They will intensify conflict in neighbourhoods already struggling with congestion.

Municipalities have already raised this concern loudly and repeatedly.

Port Coquitlam pushed back on the very same theory underpinning Bill 25, the idea

that there is too much parking and that eliminating requirements will magically reduce

car use. Mayor Brad West captured the problem perfectly when he said that believing

this requires ignoring the evidence of your eyes.

In West Vancouver, Mayor Mark Sager warned that zoning all of British Columbia from

Victoria is an error.

These are not fringe voices. These are long-serving, experienced municipal leaders

saying the same thing. This province is overreaching, and Bill 25 takes that overreach

to a dangerous extreme.

Density done responsibly requires infrastructure. You cannot force significant rapid

densification onto streets served by water and sewer lines from the 1950s and ’60s

without creating serious risk. You cannot add hundreds of people to wildfire interface

areas without reviewing evacuation plans. You cannot transform neighbourhoods with

narrow roads or steep grades without compromising emergency access. You cannot pile

additional units onto aging storm drains without planning for floods and washouts.

Yet Bill 25 does none of this. It mandates density while pretending infrastructure

is someone else’s problem, specifically the problem of municipalities already struggling

to maintain their systems.

Here is where the government’s credibility truly falters. A contract posted on the

B.C. Open Information website shows the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs

hired MNP for $26,000 to run a financial risk and controls review of the short-term-rental

registry. If the short-term-rental system was solid, the ministry would not need a

big firm to tell them where the risks are. They would know. They should know. That

is their job. They built the system. They run the system, yet they had to bring in

outside help just to explain their own program back to them.

Another contract shows the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs paying $10,000

for monthly executive coaching sessions, coaching at a time when towns are told to

stretch every dollar and do more with less.

Yes, both contracts, the MNP review and the coaching, were signed this year on April

Fools’ Day. I am not saying that means anything. I’m just reading the date off the

page. Maybe the coaching was meant to help the minister understand the very programs

they keep hiring firms to review. Hard to say, but when outside firms keep explaining

the programs, and coaching shows right after, you start to wonder who is actually

running these systems.

[2:25 p.m.]

As I looked for housing-related contracts across the ministries, because housing work

often touches more than one ministry, I found even more examples that tell a bigger

story about how the government runs its work.

One contract has the Ministry of Jobs and Economic Growth paying $133,000 to make

four economic development videos and the photos that go with them.

Another contract shows $60,000 for the creative work on those videos — the scripts,

the storyboards and the plans. Two videos. Two video contracts. Almost $200,000 for

four videos.

Let’s lay this out. $26,000 for MNP to review a system that the ministry built, $10,000

for executive coaching, $60,000 for creative video work and $133,000 for the videos

themselves. That’s over $229,000 in contracts, and not one cent of that helps a town

add pipes, fix roads, build parks or hire staff to handle the load of new homes.

This government keeps hiring consultants to do its work — consultants for planning,

consultants for risk checks, consultants for videos, consultants for messaging, consultants

to clean up old laws. And now they want towns to trust them with new powers under

Bill 25. They spend on coaching videos and reviews, but they do not spend on the core

work that towns need — pipes, roads, transit, parks and staff.

When a ministry keeps hiring firms to explain its own systems, fix its own programs

and build its own messaging, that is not strength. That is not leadership. That is

not planning. And it raises one clear question. If they cannot run the programs that

they already have, how can towns trust them to run the sweeping powers granted in

Bill 25?

This is not about one contract. This is about a culture — a culture of outsourcing

the work, outsourcing the problems, outsourcing the fixes and then downloading the

costs onto towns. And the truth is that my colleague from Abbotsford West, our critic

for AI and new technologies, could probably sort out half these systems before the

government signs its next consulting contract. But the government never asks, because

advice is free. Consultants are not.

Municipalities have been explicit. Their staff are overwhelmed. Instead of processing

permits or planning infrastructure upgrades, staff are spending their days explaining

to provincial bureaucrats why certain mandates will not work in their community, why

timelines cannot be met, why provincial assumptions collide with local reality. This

is not partnership. It is administrative chaos.

Local governments are already facing aging waterlines, storm drains and sewer mains,

supply chain delays, skyrocketing construction costs and wildfire risks. Think of

Calgary’s massive 2024 water main break. Every city across Canada looked at that and

understood this could happen anywhere. Yet Bill 25 adds hundreds of new units onto

failing infrastructure without so much as acknowledging who will pay for the upgrades.

Residents deserve to have their voices heard in shaping their neighbourhoods. Instead,

this government has eliminated public hearings for key development types and now seeks

to eliminate local planning authority entirely. People have the right to speak about

what happens on their streets, in their communities. Bill 25 extinguishes that right.

Communities across this province — north, south; rural, urban — are telling the government

that this approach will not work. They are warning that the bill is impractical, unaffordable,

unplanned and fundamentally disconnected from local realities.

I will conclude by saying Bill 25 is not a housing solution. It is an overreach. It

imposes density without infrastructure, obligations without funding and mandates without

local knowledge. It replaces trust with coercion and replaces collaboration with control.

[2:30 p.m.]

For these reasons, for planning reasons, economic reasons, democratic reasons and

the long-term well-being of communities across British Columbia, I cannot and will

not support this bill.

Peter Milobar : I rise to speak to Bill 25. I appreciate the comments that my colleagues previous

have been sharing, and I agree with everything that’s been said to this point.

I’m going to bring a slightly different perspective to this bill, I think, than what

we’ve heard. It’s really around, as I’ve listened to the debate, as I’ve read the

bill, trying to get a sense of why the government is so hell-bent, why this minister

wants to have so much extra overreach into municipal decision-making and take it away

from communities.

Part of, I think, the backdrop to the concern you’re hearing from this side is…. If

this government could point to anything they’re currently operating well, we might

not be quite as worried about the fact that they keep trying to add to their ability

to have even more reach and decision-making into other areas of our daily lives.

As someone coming from the municipal background…. I was a councillor for six years.

I was the mayor for nine. In fact, I was the longest-serving mayor in Kamloops history,

believe it or not, just that short of a tenure compared to what you see some other

mayors around the province.

I really started to think: “What perceived problem is this government trying to solve?”

I looked back on my time in Kamloops as the mayor. I did a speech to UDI once, shortly

before my term where I became an MLA. I remember speaking to that group and saying

that in Kamloops, at the time, we were six months from concept to rezoning to building

permit in your hand.

We were showing to the development community down in Vancouver that, in fact, although

the dollars on your rate of return would be lower, the percentage on your rate of

return would be about the same to get more housing being built into the Kamloops area.

When I was done the speech and the luncheon, I had someone come up to me. Actually,

it was a question from the floor. They said: “You said six months in your speech.

You meant six years, right?” And I had to correct that, no, in fact, we were six months.

We’d already been hearing about the problems Vancouver had been having on moving applications

forward, the back-and-forth negotiations that feel almost like a…. On the community

amenity agreements that they have and how the developers would think they had an agreement,

and then it would get renegotiated yet again and yet again…. But that’s a very Vancouver

problem.

So I started thinking: “Well, wait a second. The Housing Minister is a former Vancouver

councillor. What years was she the councillor?” I can’t keep track of when everyone

was elected, obviously, in what cities. And she got elected just shortly after I made

that speech at UDI under OneCity Vancouver banner. It’s amazing how closely aligned

this bill is to many of the initiatives that she unsuccessfully tried to bring forward

as a councillor in Vancouver.

Now, local government is a special place. There are all political stripes that get

elected. Now, I grant that in Vancouver and in a very few Lower Mainland cities, there’s

party politics at play, but in most cities, there’s not.

So the public tends to gather the six or seven or nine around the council table with

the mayor that best reflect the overall makeup of their community. There are people

from the left side of the political spectrum and the right side of the political spectrum

on almost every council out there. Collectively, they tend to work together quite

well. It doesn’t mean they always agree on everything, but they tend to advance things

relatively well.

Because we have what’s called a weak mayor system in Canada, which means the mayor

is but one vote around the council table, mayors have to be part diplomat as well

as part politician within their own council if they want to advance things. So when

things don’t get advanced at the Vancouver council table that were brought forward

by our now Housing Minister….

[2:35 p.m.]

[The bells were rung.]

Deputy Speaker : I’ll just ask you to pause for a moment, Member.

Thank you. Member.

Peter Milobar : Thank you.

When things weren’t getting advanced, is that a fault of the Vancouver council and

the residents of Vancouver, or was it that the now Housing Minister actually wasn’t

striking a chord with the broader community and her colleagues around the council

table to get things advanced?

When you do a quick Google search, you can find all sorts of initiatives the minister

was bringing forward, very similar to Bill 25, around wanting densification but, more

importantly, around wanting to deal with cars.

It was interesting. In one of the articles I was reading, it was around overnight

parking fees for cars in Vancouver, in neighbourhoods. The Housing Minister made it

very clear that she recognized that not all neighbourhoods in Vancouver have equal

access to transit, that some are more car-dependent neighbourhoods in Vancouver than

others, that not everyone could eventually afford to drive an electric vehicle over

another, because this was somewhat tied to a climate agenda within Vancouver council

as well.

All the things you’re hearing from this side about Bill 25, the minister — at the

time, as a councillor — was recognizing just within the confines of Vancouver. This

is what real daily life is for constituents. So to bring forward legislation that

ignores what she was literally saying at the Vancouver council table, to the detriment

of all the other municipalities in the province, seems heavy-handed at a minimum.

The relentless push around densification — we can understand that. I fully support

densification. I fully support densification where communities are identifying it

needs to go. My track record back at the city of Kamloops can be looked up, all on

public record. The amount of rezonings and units that we rezoned, both market and

B.C. Housing…. I will stand behind that track record every day.

We actually had a public hearing one night for six different pieces of city land that

we were going to make available for B.C. Housing to use. Despite staff recommending

that we just do a citywide public hearing for all those six, I said: “No, let’s do

each site individually and give each neighbourhood a chance, individually, to have

a say on those.” Four of the six got passed by council for future B.C. Housing projects.

It’s not that communities can’t and won’t engage and can’t and won’t still approve

housing and densification. It’s that they want to have a say in how that unfolds within

their own neighbourhoods.

There were times with public hearings on things like what Bill 25 is proposing, for

small lot development and extra densification on there, that the car actually was

the sticking point in the neighbourhood, not the housing unit. Where would the car

be parked?

More importantly, sometimes it was that the extra lot or the extra unit was going

to create a new traffic flow slightly. Neighbours would come and say, “But now I’m

going to have headlights coming into my bedroom window when the neighbour comes home,”

because of the way the lot was going to get reshaped. And it was as simple as requiring

a hedge to be put up.

Being the broker at the council table, from listening to the community members and

listening to the developer and saying: “Well, we’re willing to let this housing proceed

if you’re willing to listen to your neighbour and be a good neighbour and put a hedge

in or a foot-higher fence” — both sides would agree. Life went on in the neighbourhood.

All those examples actually revolved around a car. When you talk about secondary suites,

the number one complaint cities get from basement suites isn’t noise, isn’t anything

like that. It’s tenants’ parking.

[2:40 p.m.]

On houses, whether it’s a legal or an illegal suite, when there’s enough off-street

parking, those complaints don’t happen. Even the illegal suites function quite well

in those neighbourhoods. That is why Bill 25 is such an affront to so many at the

municipal level and in this Legislature.

If the minister wanted to just enact her own wish list of things that she wished she

could have convinced council colleagues at the council table in Vancouver to do, back

when she was a city councillor in Vancouver, then just change the Vancouver Charter

and leave the rest of the province alone. Vancouver operates under its own charter.

This government could have actually brought this legislation in, Bill 25, made it

specific to Vancouver and been done with it.

Instead of trying to layer on requirements in a heavily transit-oriented part of our

province — which, by her own words, the minister in the last couple of years has acknowledged,

even within Vancouver, does not have equal access to transit — she is insisting that

cities like Kamloops, Terrace, any city over 5,000 people…. Your concerns around parking

in your neighbourhood are no longer valid.

Here is the problem. Here is where the saying “is the juice worth the squeeze?” comes

into play with this bill. I actually don’t think this bill is going to massively increase

housing options in those cities.

All it has to do on a street is create a development that does not require any off-street

parking, and your impact will be felt for that whole street. Those extra few cars

will be the tipping point to make the difference of frustration in that whole neighbourhood.

Without doing anything to actually meaningfully address the number of housing units,

we are going to meaningfully impact people’s daily lives in those neighbourhoods.

I know the NDP will shake their heads at that and say: “That’s not real.” It is. Anyone

on that side, the other side, that has served in local government knows what I’m saying

to be valid. They might not want to admit it. They might not want to have to look

like they’re undermining their own minister’s bill. But they know it to be true.

It creates operational problems on things like street sweeping. I’ll use Kamloops

as an example. We have to put down a lot of sand in the winter.

We get nowhere near the snow of our MLA from the Rockies, and I’m nowhere near as

tall as him, so I don’t know how many multipliers it would be for me in the Rockies

of snow versus not. But we get regular snow in Kamloops, which requires regular plowing

and regular sanding, especially as we’re a city full of hills.

What that means is that in the springtime, they start in the valley bottom, typically,

where it doesn’t freeze as often in the spring, and they start with street sweeping

to get the road dust up. Otherwise, that becomes, actually, a bit of an air quality

issue in and of itself, if we want to talk about the environment and public health.

But they notify neighbourhoods, and they get the occasional cars that have to park

on the street to make sure they pick one side of the street or the other, given on

the day, so that they can get a proper cleaning done and not be dodging in and out

of parked cars. They do the same when we have very heavy snowfall and they have to

come in and start to auger it out and get it into the backs of trucks to haul away.

We’ve heard from others, where they get lots of snow, in terms of the obstacles cars

on the street create. They create that same obstacle for garbage pickup.

Now let’s imagine a cul-de-sac, which is a perennial problem for on-street parking,

and take one of those lots. Tell that house they don’t have to have any on-street

parking for the multiple units that are now on that lot, and add an extra four or

five cars into the cul-de-sac permanently.

[2:45 p.m.]

Explain how that is going to work. Explain why this government feels that municipalities

are incapable of understanding legitimate concerns from a neighbourhood around something

as fundamental as where to park a car.

Now, I agree, especially with the mandates that have been legislated, although those

are questionable. It’d be interesting to see if this government actually recognizes

reality and starts to change the EV mandates, like the federal government already

has had to do, or if they’re just going to be extra punitive and start making everyone

pay more for a used car and more for a new car because, god forbid, they want to drive

a non-electric vehicle for the time being for whatever reason, usually because of

cost in the middle of an affordability crisis.

That’s a good move by the government. Let’s force everyone to buy an even more expensive

car.

I agree, though, that the transportation shift over time will be to electric. It’s

still a car. It’s still occupying a road. It still needs a parking space. How are

all those electric vehicles going to charge themselves at home when they’re not parked

on their own property? Are we now just going to have a series of extension cords as

trip hazards running across sidewalks? What does that do for people in scooters and

These are real-world implications that, outside of this chamber, actually happen on

a daily basis, but inside this chamber, it appears that there’s just a magical land

where none of this ever takes place. Fundamentally….

I would encourage anyone to type in the Housing Minister’s name. Put in “Vancouver

parking restrictions.” That’s what I googled. You will see a litany of articles come

up for the six years or so that she was a Vancouver city councillor.

I’m not saying they are policy positions that many local government officials have.

It’s not about that. It’s about the fact that the rest of Vancouver council and the

rest of the neighbourhoods that were going to be impacted by these decisions were

continually saying no to those types of thoughts.

It appears that the minister’s reaction to that is: “Well, I’ll just come in and,

as a minister of the Crown, bring in a piece of legislation that will be extra heavy-handed,

not just to Vancouver, to everywhere else. And thou shalt do what I couldn’t accomplish

in a cooperative way around my council table and around the neighbourhoods in my own

city.”

I’m hard-pressed to find any cities that were asking for this legislation. This seems

to be a government…. In the face of all the issues they have going on: crime and safety,

health care, drug use on our streets…. The list goes on — education, post-secondary

education that’s struggling right now, all the issues this government has to actually

focus on. They went looking for a problem that doesn’t even exist, but they’re going

to create it now.

If any of their housing initiatives that they had tried over the last eight years

had actually done close to what they said they were going to do, they wouldn’t be

having to Mickey Mouse around trying to pretend that Bill 25 is going to help solve

the housing crisis in heavy urbanized areas, because what’s really missing is a couple

of extra small-scale housing units on occasional lots. That’s not going to change

the housing crisis. It’s just going to create headache and pain in neighbourhoods

that don’t have the on-street parking capability and don’t have transit nearby.

I was on the board of B.C. Transit for a few years. The walking rate to a B.C. Transit

stop is 400 metres. If you are more than 400 metres away from where there’s a bus

stop, you won’t take transit. I’m not sure if they’ve shortened it or lengthened it

since that time. I have a hard time believing it’s any different than that. Why I

bring that up is we heard about Bill 44 and other bills that were similar to this,

and this is the chef’s kiss to Bill 44 of hammering down.

[2:50 p.m.]

I talked to people in city planning departments when that legislation came in and

hadn’t had the proper thought-through by the government. And that was if you were

close to what they considered a transit hub, you could have a sixplex, not a fourplex,

on the property without on-street parking.

There was a planner from, I believe, New West that asked the question. They had about

100 planners from around the province on a call. They said: “Well, how can this area

of New West down by the river be considered for sixplexes?”

The answer was that the distance that they were using for a transit hub was as the

crow flies. The transit hub they were using was on the other side of the Pattullo

Bridge in Surrey, which would dictate sixplexes in a neighbourhood in New Westminster.

Now, the legislation had passed. They were still working on regulations, so they had

to start trying to figure out how to actually deal with this because they didn’t think

it through.

We warned and warned at committee stage, in bill debate, that this wasn’t thought

through. Then, once they started to try to develop the regulations in the real world,

the planners got engaged in it, and, I have to say, they brought forward almost all

the same concerns I certainly brought forward in the second reading debate and in

committee stage to the minister that were all rebuffed as ridiculous.

All the professional planners from around the province, not just from a city but from

around the province, were saying this is ridiculous. A piece of legislation that was

designed for small-lot development actually had some cities starting to contemplate

increasing the size of their minimum lot size in their zoning bylaws, not decreasing.

We would have wound up with a net negative number of housing units in that scenario

because they didn’t have the infrastructure to accommodate if there was.

I said at the time, just like I’m saying now on Bill 25, that it’s not that adding

a fourplex to a street is the problem. It’s if you have a service area for roads,

sewer and water, and you add a fourplex on one street, a fourplex on another street

and a fourplex on another street. Cumulatively, that creates the problem in that area

for the water and the sewer.

The off-street parking removal will create three streets’ worth of problems for parking,

each with those individual streets. Neighbours that generally get along with each

other or just wave and get on with their day…. That will not be the case when parking

is an issue on a daily basis, when it’s the race home to see who gets to park closest

to their home versus actually having to walk that 400 metres just to get to your own

house from your own car.

That’s without even taking into account anyone that, god forbid, wants to have anyone

visit their home as a friend. I’m not sure what the minister and the NDP think happens

in most people’s homes, but people tend to come over and visit in the neighbourhood.

They require parking. It becomes a big problem. That is why municipalities have things

like residents’ parking permits, which the minister would be very well acquainted

with because Vancouver has a lot of those. We have select neighbourhoods in Kamloops

where we have to do that.

Parking is real. It’s daily, and it’s needed. If I just have my kids and my mother-in-law

over to my house for dinner, there are four cars that pull up. That’s one house on

the street. If my two cars weren’t parked on my lot, you now have six cars in the

neighbourhood for one single family gathering. It’s a problem.

[2:55 p.m.]

I guess what I struggle with, with this government and with this bill overall, is

why this government, why this minister in particular, based on her recent track record….

I’m not talking about ancient history. It’s kind of ancient history since I’ve been

at the city, at this point. It has been eight years. It hasn’t been eight years that

this minister has been removed from Vancouver city council.

Why this stubborn adherence to advancing a piece of legislation in Bill 25, the premise

and the concepts inside of which were soundly rejected by Vancouver city council,

by Vancouver neighbourhoods? How a minister who is on the record as recognizing that,

even within Vancouver, people don’t have equal access to transportation, and they’d

have to have different types of rules for parking permits depending on the neighbourhood

to account for those neighbourhoods where people are more car reliant or not.

Again, take the microcosm of Vancouver that she was solely tasked with governing at

the time. Then take all of those same comments she made about Vancouver and overlay

them about the province, which she is now a minister overseeing. They’re one and the

same, except instead of neighbourhood, it’s city.

Lifestyle undoubtedly plays into this, in terms of how many cars people have or not.

But I can tell you that in the city of Kamloops, where we do have small lots for housing

that we brought in…. The standard city lot used to be 5,000 square feet. We have some

areas and some subdivisions where it’s 4,000 square feet.

We still had to make sure there was space for off-street parking. The narrower a lot

gets, the less space in front of that house there is for a car to parallel park for

the resident. So if you have more homes on a block with less frontage and no off-street

provisions, you actually have more cars on the street than you would have even with

off-street parking.

I have an aunt. I remember, fondly, always going to her house. In fact, I lived there

for a little while, while I was a baby. A 33-foot lot in Vancouver in the Dunbar area.

It seemed really strange coming from Kamloops to see how tightly packed the houses

were and how narrow the lots were. Those are long-standing old neighbourhoods, beautiful

old neighbourhoods. But a 33-foot lot barely gives you enough for two small cars,

end to end, to park in front of that house.

With the laneway houses we’re adding, with all of those other types of housing, which

are good things, to not recognize that this is overreach and not needed, to not recognize

that municipalities, if they can’t be trusted to figure out whether or not parking

is needed in the neighbourhood for housing to proceed…. We’re not talking about massive

changes to parking requirements.

The minister lauded and was excited that Vancouver was expanding its minimum parking

requirements. So Vancouver was already taking steps in neighbourhoods that they deemed

could get away with less parking while she was there.

Municipalities are dealing with this, but they’re dealing with it in their own time,

in their own way. That’s what is critical to all of this. Let them have that autonomy

to keep evolving as their communities and their neighbourhoods want to evolve, in

a way that makes sense to them, not that makes sense to a minister.

Ministers come and go. Governments come and go in Victoria. So do mayors and councils.

That’s how a municipality evolves, not at the pointed, singular direction coming out

of a cabinet room after a closed-door meeting where they make a decision.

I thank you for the time, and I look forward to further debate.

Deputy Speaker : Seeing no further speakers….

Hon. Jodie Wickens : Could I just request a five-minute recess, please.

Interjections.

Hon. Jodie Wickens : I’m requesting a five-minute recess.

Deputy Speaker : We will have a three-minute recess.

The House recessed from 3:00 p.m. to 3:03 p.m.

[Lorne Doerkson in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker : Members, we’ll call this House back to order, and I’ll call on the minister to close

debate on Bill 25.

Hon. Christine Boyle : We have heard a great deal of commentary on this bill.

I want to start by being clear that this government’s commitment continues to be delivering

homes for people in every community of this province — yes, every community — working

with local governments, working with regional districts, working with communities,

removing barriers, reducing red tape and ensuring that people can continue to find

a home in the community that they love.

I want to spend a few moments providing some corrections to some of the points that

we’ve been hearing on this bill. I’m not sure if some members of the House didn’t

read the legislation or if there was confusion, but I think it’s important to be clear

on some points.

There was quite a bit of discussion about infrastructure. As members of this House

should be aware, the government provided $1 billion in growing communities fund dollars

to communities, directly to communities, for those local governments to decide what

the best investments for their own communities were.

[3:05 p.m.]

I am fortunate to see and am happy to share with members, related to their own communities,

how those dollars have been spent: on sports facilities, on underground utilities

and infrastructure, on playgrounds, on a wide range of priorities that local governments

have chosen and that support the work that we’re doing on housing to build good, growing

communities for people. That’s important work that will continue.

I want to speak to parking because, again, there was quite a bit of commentary on

parking. The amendments outlined in this legislation are about balancing parking and

housing, not setting maximums or minimums but ensuring that parking isn’t set at artificially

high rates to prevent homes from being built.

What we want to prioritize is that parking spaces are determined by the local need

and by the market, not as a barrier to building badly needed homes. That’s an important

conversation, of course, one that comes up in communities, and the amendments in this

bill are in line with that approach.

We have been working very well with the vast majority of local governments. I am on

the phone all of the time with mayors and meeting with councils. And 98 percent of

communities that these small-scale, multi-unit regulations apply to have passed the

small-scale, multi-unit regulations already. They are working with us to implement

these new policies to allow more housing options, to build more housing choices in

their communities. Again, 98 percent.

This is good work we’re doing in partnership, because local leaders understand that

building duplexes, multiplexes, townhomes is good for their communities, that it allows

the kids who grew up there to continue to stay in the community, to raise their own

kids in that community. It keeps our neighbourhoods vibrant and full of life. We’ll

continue to work with local governments doing just that.

I also want to address…. We heard in speeches from across the aisle the names of a

number of communities where these regulations would not be a fit.

Again, I’m not sure if members weren’t able to read the legislation or were misunderstanding,

but I think it’s important to be clear that the small-scale, multi-unit housing policies

only apply in communities over 5,000 people and within urban containment zones. This

means that they don’t apply in Telkwa or Sparwood or Elkford or Spuzzum or Golden

or Invermere — beautiful communities that we’re working with, as well, but where these

regulations don’t apply.

I think that’s important to be clear on that, just like I think it’s important to

be clear that the short-term-rental regulations don’t apply in tourism-dependent communities.

Largely, what I want to reiterate is this. We are making historic investments in schools,

in transit, in transit-oriented development. We’re making historic investments in

affordable and non-market housing options. The small but meaningful changes in this

legislation, amendments to past legislation, are to ensure that the hard work of local

communities results in more homes for more people in those communities that they love

and that they call home.

I want to tell a short story about the neighbourhood that I grew up in, in Vancouver,

where housing prices continued to escalate over decades as speculation was running

rampant and more housing options were not being allowed. There was too much red tape,

and families increasingly couldn’t call the neighbourhood home.

My two sisters and I certainly couldn’t afford to raise our own kids in the neighbourhood

where we grew up. We heard the same from many of the folks that we grew up with. In

a neighbourhood that used to be full of trick-or-treaters at Halloween, there are

hardly any kids anymore.

[3:10 p.m.]

This is the same story in many, many places in low-density residential neighbourhoods,

single-family neighbourhoods, where folks are being priced out. We’re losing the character

of those neighbourhoods. The work that we have been doing as a government in partnership

with communities, in partnership with local governments, is to retain and bring back

the vibrancy of so many of those neighbourhoods by ensuring that families can continue

to call them home, that seniors can downsize within their communities.

We want to keep that character and that vibrancy. That means adding more housing choices,

and that’s the focus of this work — livable density that keeps our neighbourhoods

vibrant rather than just a tall-and-sprawl model. What we’re building is communities

for everyone.

We know that the old system wasn’t working. We were seeing….

[The bells were rung.]

Deputy Speaker : Minister, can I just ask you to pause for a moment?

Hon. Christine Boyle : Absolutely.

We know that the old system wasn’t working. Massive speculation driving up costs.

Homes sitting empty. We’re working to build more housing options, family homes, homes

in neighbourhoods where young people can stay, can see a future in this province,

stronger communities and a stronger B.C.

I have sat in this chamber or elsewhere watching and listening to videos of speeches,

and I have been, frankly, incredibly surprised to hear members opposite complain about

permitting delays but defending the need for a public hearing on every secondary suite

or laneway home or duplexes and small-scale housing options. That is not a good use

of public time and money. We know that it increases the cost of every unit of housing.

As my colleague the Minister of Jobs described earlier, it is surprising, when the

federal Conservative Party ran on reducing barriers, reducing red tape and building

more homes, to hear members opposite defend just the opposite — that we want more

red tape and more restrictions.

On this side of the House, we understand that we need to build good housing options

in every community so that young people can see a future in those communities, so

that families can live close to one another and grandkids near grandparents. This

is housing that supports local economies. This is housing that supports families.

This is the work that we will continue to do to ensure young people feel a sense of

hope and see a future for themselves and to ensure that our neighbourhoods remain

vibrant and full of the seniors who helped build them and the young people who grew

up in them and more and more young people to come.

I am deeply committed to this work. Our government is deeply committed to working

alongside local governments and homebuilders to build good, strong neighbourhoods

for everyone across B.C., and we will continue to do that work.

Deputy Speaker : Members, the question is second reading of Bill 25 intituled Housing and Municipal

Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2025.

The motion fails. Division has been….

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker : Thank you very much, Members.

Pursuant to the sessional order adopted by the House on April 30, 2025, the division

call will be suspended until the division call is completed in

Section A. The Chair

will then ring the bells.

[3:15 p.m. - 3:20 p.m.]

Division has been called.

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

[The Speaker in the chair.]

The Speaker : Members, the question is second reading of Bill 25, intituled Housing and Municipal

Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2025.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 48

Lore

G. Anderson

Blatherwick

Routledge

Chant

Toporowski

B. Anderson

Neill

Osborne

Brar

Krieger

Davidson

Parmar

Sunner

Beare

Chandra Herbert

Wickens

Kang

Sandhu

Begg

Higginson

Phillip

Lajeunesse

Choi

Rotchford

Elmore

Morissette

Popham

Dix

Sharma

Farnworth

Eby

Bailey

Kahlon

Greene

Whiteside

Boyle

Yung

Malcolmson

Gibson

Glumac

Arora

Shah

Chow

Dhir

Valeriote

Botterell

NAYS — 44

Wilson

Kindy

Milobar

Warbus

Rustad

Banman

Wat

Kooner

Halford

Hartwell

L. Neufeld

Van Popta

Dew

Clare

K. Neufeld

Brodie

Armstrong

Bhangu

Paton

Gasper

Chan

Toor

Hepner

Giddens

Rattée

Davis

McInnis

Bird

McCall

Stamer

Day

Tepper

Mok

Chapman

Maahs

Kealy

Sturko

Boultbee

Williams

Loewen

Dhaliwal

Doerkson

Luck

Block

[3:35 p.m.]

Hon. Christine Boyle : I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered

at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved.

[3:40 p.m.]

Hon. Mike Farnworth : In this chamber, I call committee stage on Bill 20.

The House in Committee,

Section B.

The committee met at 3:42 p.m.

[Mable Elmore in the chair.]

Committee of the Whole

Bill 20 — Construction Prompt

Payment Act

(continued)

The Chair : I’ll call the House to order. We’re on committee stage for Bill 20, Construction

Prompt Payment Act.

Steve Kooner : I believe we are on clause 40 right now.

The Chair : Clause 39.

On clause 39 (continued) .

Steve Kooner : Okay. We’re still on clause 39.

How did the Attorney General determine the 35-day window that this

section deals with

to file an application for judicial review? How was that decided, the 35 days?

Hon. Niki Sharma : I think we answered this last time, but I’ll just say it again, since it’s been a

while since we’ve been back here. The 35-day deadline is consistent with recent amendments

to the time period in Ontario.

Steve Kooner : Well, we don’t know exactly where we stopped, so I don’t know if I asked this next

question.

When we’re talking about judicial review, we’re talking about another procedure. There

may have already been a hearing or adjudication, and then we’re talking about a court

procedure of judicial review.

In the meantime, we’ve discussed payments and orders around payment. We’ve discussed

orders around interest.

What would happen to the interest when someone’s applying for judicial review? What

would happen to that?

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma : The way the system is set up is that if there is a determination by the adjudicator,

then it’s 15 days after that the payment must be made, or interest would accrue. So

it probably depends on the individual, what choices they would take.

If they pursued a judicial review, and interest was accruing on it, it’s likely that

if they did win the judicial review, they would ask, as part of the relief sought,

that the payment plus interest is not owed. That would be one way.

Steve Kooner : Just to that question about interest, what about the time period that…? I guess this

kind of answers it. Sometimes when you make arguments in court that there were certain

delays that happened as a result of the court proceeding…. It wasn’t really anybody’s

fault, necessarily, but because that actually happened, how would that play on the

interest?

Hon. Niki Sharma : To some extent, the discussion that we’re having is a little bit beyond the scope

of the legislative framework. The reason is because what’s clear in the legislation

is that you could pay it within 15 days, and there’s no interest. If you don’t pay

it, then interest is accrued.

If there is something that shows up in the judicial review that is more about the

party’s conduct — which is, I think, what the member’s asking about…. If there’s conduct

throughout the judicial review that leads to delays or more accrual of interest, then

it would be up to that injured party in that scenario to ask the judge for relief

related to that. So it’s a little bit beyond the scope of the legislation.

Steve Kooner : Some of these adjudications may happen as a result of combining proceedings or combining

parties, but not all parties may want to do a judicial review, or there may not be

a judicial review needed for all issues that were canvassed at the adjudication.

If somebody’s applying for adjudication and they qualify, how would the whole case

be dealt with when it gets referred to a judicial review when you don’t need to have

a review on all the issues, and all the parties don’t need to have a review as well,

but there may have been a consolidated order for adjudication in the past?

[3:50 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma : I think this answer would actually be better given when we get to clause 40, because

that talks about the grounds of the judicial review, of what you can pursue.

Just to say in response to that question, it depends. It depends on the matters at

issue. It depends on the stage of the individual decisions by the parties to say what

they would pursue. But the way that the legislation is structured is that it provides

multiple avenues. When we get to clause 40, we can talk about the grounds for judicial

review.

Steve Kooner : I did have another question to that. I can save it for the next clause, but it kind

of had to do with 39. If you look at the adjudication and what types of orders can

actually be made, there’s a laundry list of what orders can be made under adjudication.

What if the individuals involved want some of those orders to continue to be applied,

but now we’re applying for a judicial review, and the judicial review is taking place?

Is there a way to sever the applicability of this judicial review?

Obviously, it might be applicable to one issue item, but there might have been five

items that you have orders for. One could be interest. One could be payment. One could

be site inspection. There could be a list of items you already have orders for. So

now you’re applying for judicial review, but it may only be related to payment. But

you want the order for adjudication to apply to the other items while you’re waiting

for judicial review on one specific aspect.

This goes to the applicability. I can save this question for the next one, but however

the Attorney General wants to answer this question.

[3:55 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma : Okay. I will answer it here, and maybe it’ll help with the questions before. I think

the heart of the member’s question is: what if this is very complicated litigation?

Maybe they’ve been at it for a while, these two parties. How does this fit into that?

If we think of it one way, this legislative scheme sets out a process for prompt payment.

It’s meant, when a project is going on, and we talked about it a lot when we were

going through it, to move money through a project so it doesn’t cause delays and all

those things.

If a party is in a long-standing dispute with somebody, they can choose to use the

prompt payment for a particular part of the payment in that bigger project. Then if

there’s adjudicated determination based on that, it triggers all the provisions that

we talked about for that payment. You pay by 15 days, or you have interest. All those

things.

If it’s part of like a bigger dispute going on, that payment may be a factor in that

dispute if something’s been paid and I was the party that paid it. I may bring that

up in the bigger litigation that I’m in with the person.

It’s one of those answers that is really “it depends.” In many different scenarios….

You could think of a party asking for a stay or, if it’s a more complicated decision,

a stay of adjudicator’s decision because there are bigger matters to sort out. So

I guess it depends.

Going back to the basics and need for this legislation, it’s meant to provide a low-level

access to a justice process for people that need to be paid through the construction

cycle. In the case of complicated things, hopefully it would mitigate harm against

people that are not being paid in the context of a bigger dispute.

Steve Kooner : A lot of times in disputes like this, construction disputes, the total value of the

dispute may not be that much. It could be, say, $20,000, but there could be various

issues related to the litigation.

Here I don’t think the exact point that I was trying to address was answered. I was

referring to the orders that could actually be made by an adjudicator pursuant to

clause 27. Clause 27 allows an adjudicator to make a decision in terms of on-site

inspection and allows you to make a decision about the conduct of the parties. It

allows ascertaining something about the facts and law.

There may not be an issue with the actual payment. Parties may be satisfied. Payment….

I have an order, but I also have an order for, say, something about the facts of the

project or something about the conduct of the parties. The party’s not refraining

from doing something in particular. I’m happy with the amount that I got, but I’m

not happy with the conduct.

Now I want to do a judicial review. I want to make an application for judicial review

pursuant to clause 39. I do not want to do a judicial review on the payment, but I

want to do a judicial review on the conduct. Maybe I don’t agree that I have to do

this, putting myself in the shoes of a contractor, and they want to get a judicial

review done of that.

[4:00 p.m.]

Can you separate the issues? It’s either-or. It can’t be “it depends.” You can either

sever, or you can’t.

Hon. Niki Sharma : As we’re working through formulating an answer, we’re actually getting onto the further

sections that are about the other ways you can, if you’re not happy with an adjudicator’s

decision — the steps you can take. Just to say, obviously, litigation is open to anybody,

right? Everybody. This is just meant to create this low-barrier defined process that

is there to cut the disputes down, particularly with prompt payment.

But I think if we move on to the other clauses, I can explain part of the answer.

Steve Kooner : I take it that once adjudication is done, there’s probably some sort of order that

comes. There’s probably some type of order. Within that order, you’re…. When you go

to a judicial review, you are appealing that order. There must be some paper, some

decision, some order. You’re like: “I’m not happy with a part of this order, but a

part of it I am happy with.”

Now, why we’re discussing this right in this

section is because this is essentially

the enabling clause for judicial review. My understanding is that there would be some

type of order as a result of an adjudication hearing.

Then you’ve got to decide if you want to do a judicial review. If you’re going to

decide to do a judicial review, my understanding is that you would be filing for judicial

review of that adjudication order. But that order may have five different items listed

in it.

Is there a way to just say that four of those items are going to proceed, but one

item of that order will not proceed? Is there a way to do that?

Now we’re getting into the enabling

section of judicial review. This determines if

we can actually go file it for judicial review. So I’m still not…. I don’t have clarity.

I don’t know if this can be done. If a further elaboration can be made.

You have a specific order, and usually when you have some hearings, the arbitrator

makes an order. There’s a piece of paper. There’s like: “Okay. These are the order

items in this decision.” Then if you’re not happy with it, you go and appeal it. But

in this case, you might be happy with part of that order, so you do not want to do

a judicial review of the whole order.

[4:05 p.m.]

That’s the question. That’s why I’m asking this question here in this particular clause,

because it’s an enabling clause for judicial review. I don’t know if there’s a further

elaboration on that, because I still don’t have the clarity in my mind for this answer.

Hon. Niki Sharma : We are on clause 39, and clause 39 just sets out a timeline for when you can do this

review. As I was talking about, the subsequent clauses, in 40, talk about the grounds

and the different things you can do.

To the member’s question, I think there’s nothing in here that says you must appeal

all or nothing of what you’re unhappy with. Of course, you’re always able to choose

the thing that you don’t want touched and the thing that you do want touched in any

kind of review or appeal or anything that happens in law. So you could find the thing

that…. It’s your choice, basically.

I think it would become…. What we were setting out in this legislation about judicial

reviews and what role they have will become clearer in clause 40.

Steve Kooner : Just going back to clause 39 again. “As a result of making an application for judicial

review” — that does not state the actual adjudication decision. That’s what I take

from this answer that was provided.

Hon. Niki Sharma : No, it’s not an automatic stay. You would have to ask for it, just like, I think,

is pretty common. If that was a concern to you, you would go before the judge, and

maybe the first thing you ask for is: “I’d like a stay of the adjudicator’s decision.”

Steve Kooner : Now, this talks about the applicability of applying for judicial review. It sets

a time period, but the heading is “Application for judicial review.” Do you have to

ask for leave to actually do this, to be able to get into that court, or no?

Hon. Niki Sharma : No.

Steve Kooner : Since we do have a time limit — you would do this within, say, 35 days — was the

judiciary consulted in terms of this time?

Hon. Niki Sharma : We have an MOU with the courts, and that sets out the procedures and processes that

we do with our legislation, and it does involve consultation with them and showing

them legislation as it develops.

Steve Kooner : And then, I guess, the other applicable parties here that involve a profession are

lawyers. Were lawyers consulted with this time period, and what did they have to say

about it?

Hon. Niki Sharma : We’ve spent a lot of time on clause 1 talking about consultation and the depths of

consultation and who we talked to, so I would just refer the member back to that part

of the debate.

Steve Kooner : Most of the discussion that we had in terms of consultation was with what the industry

thought about it, contractors thought about it, and now we are actually in a legal

section of this particular bill. It doesn’t involve the industry, per se, in terms

of that type of consultation. This involves, essentially, a legal manoeuvre, in terms

of this bill, and that applies to the construction industry.

So with all due respect to the Attorney General, that discussion that we had about

consultation with the industry is a separate discussion that was had. But this one

has to do with the actual courts, and that doesn’t have to do with the actual industry.

I never heard that consultation was had with the lawyers. I heard a lot about: “These

construction industry associations were dealt with. We dealt with the ICBA. We dealt

with contractors.” All that was had. But we didn’t talk about judges, and we did not

talk about lawyers.

Hon. Niki Sharma : I did get a list of the law firms that we consulted with: Borden Ladner Gervais;

Bennett Jones; Jenkins Marzban Logan; Dentons; Lawson Lundell; Kuhn LLP; Black and

McDonald; WeirFoulds; and Duncan Glaholt from Ontario, which is one of the experts

of the review, I think, that was done in Ontario.

[4:10 p.m.]

Steve Kooner : I appreciate the Attorney General’s answer to that, because it’s insightful that

a whole bunch of law firms were consulted. What did the law firms say? What was their

concern? What aspects were they happy with? How is this going to affect their legal

practice?

Hon. Niki Sharma : No concerns on this clause.

Steve Kooner : I think that’s about it for this particular clause.

Clause 39 approved.

On clause 40.

Steve Kooner : On

section 40, the first question I have is, is this a…?

We have a list of items here that set the framework, the limits of judicial review.

It says: “A determination may be set aside on application for judicial review only

if the applicant establishes one or more of the following: (

a) the dispute may not

be the subject of an adjudication; (

b) the adjudicator otherwise does not have jurisdiction

to conduct the adjudication; (

c) the adjudicator failed to observe the rules of procedural

fairness.”

There seems to be a list of items here involving an adjudicator, and if the circumstances

fall within any of these three items, essentially, then that might be a ground for

judicial review. This seems to be a list to me. Sometimes when you have a list, the

next question that comes to mind is if that list is exhaustive, is limited, or it’s

a full-ended list.

Maybe the Attorney General can explain that. Is this an exhaustive list indicia for

when you can have a judicial review?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Yes, it is limited, and it’s limited with a very clear intention to limit it.

We go back to the point that the purpose of this legislation is not to create a whole

other legal regime of appeal upon appeal. Instead, it’s quite the opposite. It’s to

carve out a process that is quick, fast-moving, with clear expectations to all the

parties.

Freedom of choice. They enter this as a method of resolving their prompt payment issue,

and then they understand what their options are in terms of resolving it through this

process, knowing that the way it’s worked in other provinces is it is a clearer, faster,

quicker way to do that.

If there was an unlimited view of judicial reviews and that scope, then it would defeat

the purpose in a lot of ways. And parties are free to go to court and litigate their

disputes in that system that already exists.

Steve Kooner : I thank the Attorney General for that explanation that this is an exhaustive list

for the purposes of having expediency within the adjudication process for prompt payment.

That will take me to my next question. We need to figure out the wording within this

piece of the clause, and the reason why we need to do that is we need to see how broad

this clause actually is.

[4:15 p.m.]

Going to clause 40, the first thing we see here is “a determination.” It does not

talk about an adjudication. It talks about a determination. In terms of the meaning

of determination, maybe the Attorney General can enlighten us on that.

Hon. Niki Sharma : This is clearly a term used in this to refer to the decision of the adjudicator.

The adjudicator makes a determination, and that’s the language just used throughout.

Steve Kooner : Okay. Going further in this line, a determination may be set aside. So we know adjudication

decision may be set aside on an application for judicial review.

Now, since we’re dealing with a specific legislation, since we’re dealing with a piece

of legislation that is designed to have expediency, resulting in prompt payment, the

next question is this: would the same court rules apply for forms on this piece of

legislation when someone is making an application for judicial review, or is there

some expedient form that can be submitted to the court for application for judicial

review?

Hon. Niki Sharma : This loops it into the judicial review process that’s available. So all the forms

and procedures there would apply.

Steve Kooner : That clarifies that part of it.

This clause goes further: “application for judicial review only if the applicant establishes

one or more of the following.” It says “only.” That’s a qualifying word to these provisions,

to the start of this clause. Maybe the Attorney General can enlighten us on that qualifying

word “only.”

Hon. Niki Sharma : It’s still what I said earlier about “only” meaning exclusively this list. So we’re

making it clear that there are limited grounds.

Steve Kooner : Okay.

Going further, if the applicant establishes….

One more thing. In terms of the applicant, does it matter who the parties are? I assume

there’s no bearing, that it can be that the person that owes a payment or the person

that needs to receive the payment, and this judicial review process is open to both

parties. Maybe the Attorney General can just confirm my assumption there.

Hon. Niki Sharma : The limiting factor being they need to be a party to the adjudication.

Steve Kooner : Okay.

Going further, an applicant, which can be a debtor…. We may call them a debtor, or

the creditor in terms of the payment, in terms of the construction dispute. One of

them will have to establish one or more of the following. So in terms of establish,

what is the specific meaning behind “establishes”?

Hon. Niki Sharma : I mean, establishes is a pretty common term that means, in this instance, and in

every instance, that you’ve proven to that court…. You’ve established that court is

able to hear your judicial review because you fit into one of these categories.

Steve Kooner : Now, going forward, because the exhaustive list is the theme within this particular

clause. It says “establishes one or more of the following.” We know “one.” But “more”

— please enlighten us in terms of that word.

Hon. Niki Sharma : Plain meaning of the term. It has to be one or more from (

a) to (c).

[4:20 p.m.]

Steve Kooner : Now we actually get into the actual limiting factors of the exhaustive list. In (a),

the dispute may not be the subject of an adjudication. So dispute — is that a legal

term, or is that just a common-meaning term within the dictionary?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Essentially, that one would be grounds that you may pursue for judicial review, which

says that the adjudicator adjudicated on something that was actually not open to them

to adjudicate on. It was the subject of something that, through the previous clauses

we talked about, was not something that should have been before them.

Steve Kooner : Because you can have many different orders — as we discussed earlier, as I was mentioning

in another clause — could the Attorney General give us an example? Is it a subject

matter, an example with a subject matter? What can’t be a dispute?

Hon. Niki Sharma : If you go back to clause 16 in the bill, it sets out what type of dispute could be

referred to an adjudicator, so failure to give a proper invoice, whether an invoice

is a proper invoice, those kinds of things, and anything prescribed under regulation.

The way you would apply 40(

a) is if the adjudicator did something that made a determination

to cover something that wasn’t in this defined list of what could be referred to as

a dispute in 16.

Steve Kooner : That really clarifies things there.

So then the next words, “dispute may.” Again, the word “may” is a qualifying word.

It’s a permissive word in terms of

interpretation.

Is there a reason why we didn’t just use the word “must,” which is an obligatory word?

What was the purpose of putting “may” in there, instead of saying “must” or “shall”?

Hon. Niki Sharma : That term “may” is to defer to the discretion of the court to make a determination

on that.

Steve Kooner : Going further, “dispute may not be the subject of adjudication.” We have seen words

used such as “dispute” and “determination,” and now we’re on the word “subject.”

[4:25 p.m.]

When you’re reading that word “subject,” what are you looking for in this subject

matter? How do you determine what’s in that subject? The whole purpose of this particular

clause is to limit where you can apply for judicial review. Is there some sort of

restraint on what subject can actually include and what it can’t? Maybe an elaboration

on that, please.

Hon. Niki Sharma : I believe I answered this when I referred the member to clause 16.

Steve Kooner : Okay.

Moving forward, the subject of adjudication. That’s fine.

Now, moving forward to subclause (b), “the adjudicator otherwise does not have jurisdiction

to conduct the adjudication.” How do you determine that they don’t have the proper

authority to do the adjudication?

I know there are certain items that they can make orders on. There may be a grey area

whether something’s included in that area or not, but here, as the Attorney General

stated earlier, this should involve pretty basic stuff.

So when we are saying jurisdiction, how do you determine that? How do we determine

what was in their jurisdiction — other than that they could make an order for, say,

conduct of the parties, interest, payment, the method of payment, doing on-site inspections?

How do you determine jurisdiction there?

Hon. Niki Sharma : This one is related to…. I’ll explain it with an example, because I think that will

help. I’ll start by saying what it is: if an adjudicator decided on a matter that

was outside of their responsibility, and they lost jurisdiction by doing that.

For example, it may have been components of a payment dispute, where they had something

under clause 16 that triggered it, but then they made a determination, based on discrimination

or something else, that the payment wasn’t made.

[4:30 p.m.]

Then a party that is in receipt of such a determination could use

section 40(

b) to

say that the adjudicator lost their jurisdiction because of not having the responsibility

to make that determination — for example, discrimination, or if they were out of time

to make that determination. Just some of the examples.

Steve Kooner : Thank you for that explanation.

That leads me to my next question. When you have adjudication authorities or tribunals,

sometimes the legislation sets it forward that there’s a privative clause, meaning:

how much deference is that board going to have? How specialized are they going to

be?

When you actually go to judicial review, the court will look at that. They will be

like: “Okay, do we interfere in the decision in this case? Is this board or tribunal

to be given some leverage because they are highly specialized in the area that they

are dealing with?” So that’s a highly applicable factor in judicial review.

Now, reading through this legislation, I don’t see any sort of clause that says that

this adjudication body will have some specialized training, and it’s very equipped.

I know the purposes behind it and that you want to make prompt payment. That’s what

it’s doing, but specifically, the legislation doesn’t come out and do that.

Now, we’re discussing jurisdiction. When the judicial review is happening and the

court is trying to make a determination on jurisdiction, it will also look at what

this adjudication authority was mandated with. What specialized knowledge was this

mandated with? If it was not embodied with that much specialized authority or to handle

certain subject matters, then the court might exercise more leverage.

But if it was more specialized to deal with a certain aspect, then the court might

say: “Look, we’re going to give it some deference. We’re going to allow it to be decided

that the tribunal did what it did. It may not be something that we agree with, but

we’re going to allow it to kind of stick.”

Going back to that, how does this discussion play into it? If there’s no privative

clause and there’s no clause that sets this adjudication body by saying that it is

specialized, how does it play out when you’re determining jurisdiction, when you’re

at the Appeal Court and the review court, in this case?

Hon. Niki Sharma : I think the question is standard review that the judicial review would employ in

these matters.

I’ll start by saying that we will be getting into the qualifications of the adjudicator

later on in the bill that set out the types of expertise we want them to have to be

able to take conduct of these types of adjudications, and that’s important.

[4:35 p.m.]

The second one is, as many things, when the Legislature puts forward legislation,

we rely on the courts. We give them that deference to interpret and apply the law,

and a lot of that law of standard review is pretty well developed. But I can tell

you that the Ontario standard, I’m told, for these types of things is reasonableness.

Steve Kooner : That takes me to my next question, based upon what the Attorney General just stated.

At the outset, when we talked about consultation and talked about looking at precedents,

there were examples that the Attorney General’s ministry looked at, in terms of other

jurisdictions, to come up with this particular piece of legislation.

Now, they may have legislation in there. They give a different deference to their

bodies. How does that relate? Was that aspect looked at too, in terms of what they

were doing there and what we’re going to be doing here in terms of how much deference

we’re going to give to our adjudication body?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Yes. Just like every aspect of this bill, we…. I went over all the law firms we talked

to and the experts. So yes, we talked about this with many people, and where we landed

is what you see before you.

Steve Kooner : When this legislation was adopted…. It was reviewed in other provinces to decide

what model we accepted here. The legislation that was adopted, the most similar legislation

that this one was adopted from — do we have a similar standard in this legislation,

in terms of what role we’re giving to the adjudication authority?

Hon. Niki Sharma : All prompt payment legislation has some form of limited judicial review. What you

have before you is pretty consistent, although there may be variations across jurisdictions

with, especially, the approach of having a limited version of a judicial review and

then the reliance on the courts for their role in interpreting.

Steve Kooner : Thank you for that explanation there.

This goes further, “jurisdiction to conduct the adjudication.” The word “conduct”

— is that the legal term, or is that just an ordinary dictionary word?

Hon. Niki Sharma : As it’s not a defined term, it’s just the plain meaning of the word.

Steve Kooner : Okay.

Now we are going to subclause (c): “The adjudicator failed….” This is also limiting

this last clause to a certain direction. When you look at the word “failed,” what

does that mean?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Again, it’s not a defined term, so it’s plain meaning and would be defined by the

courts.

Steve Kooner : So we take that as the literal meaning. Adjudicator failed; they incorrectly did

something. The adjudicator incorrectly did something.

“To observe.” The meaning of “observe” — what’s that?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Again, it’s the ordinary meaning.

Steve Kooner : Next, going further, “the rules of procedural fairness.” The rules — is this from

the case law?

[4:40 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma : This is a pretty well-established term, and I’m sure it was in my memories of being

much repeated, also, in law school for lots of people — the rules of procedural fairness.

I think it’s just playing off that common understanding of what that means.

Steve Kooner : All right.

Now, we have judicial reviews that can happen, but the whole purpose behind this legislation

was to make things prompt, have prompt payment for contractors, whether small contractors

or middle-sized contractors, that are having a really tough time getting payment so

they can start their next project.

One of the intents behind this legislation, as I’ve heard from the Attorney General,

was to make the process easier and simplified in terms of collection of payment, so

not to have too many obstacles.

Somebody is going to be able to apply for judicial review. Judicial review isn’t the

easiest thing. Sometimes, for a lot of lawyers, it may require a lot of detail, a

lot of effort, to actually go forward with a judicial review, and it might be quite

labour-intensive to assist clients to do that process.

So then if we’re going through a process where we’re getting to be more intensive

and the court is pretty rigid…. You’ve got to follow certain forms, submit certain

forms, submit them by certain timelines. You may submit the original application,

but then you might have to comply with some other court rules until you get to the

actual judicial review.

Once you get to the judicial review, you have to apply those rules, and you’ve got

to have a certain etiquette in terms of how you present things. Then you will have

to have a specific format of your arguments and stuff like that. And then, even after

that, there’s a certain process to actually get your decision.

So me explaining all this goes to the point that it requires time. It requires delay.

It’s not a fast process. A lot of people, sometimes when they refer to the courts,

they refer to justice, and they usually say that the wheels of justice move slowly.

The purpose of this legislation is to fast-track everything. But now, when you get

to the judicial review, somebody has to deal with the judicial review. Somebody may

have a payment order. They’re like: “Oh, I’m going to get this payment.” But now a

judicial review has to happen. This may take months to actually get some resolution,

whereas you were expecting payment within maybe a month or so.

How does this all come together? How does this work? Does this not backlog all these

different small cases that are happening to get payment by having a mechanism to actually

do a judicial review through the court?

[4:45 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma : So just in terms of putting this in context again, there’s no requirement for judicial

review. And, of course, the right of judicial review is open to anybody. What this

does is limits that. The point of this provision is to limit what you can go to on

judicial review, and that’s to make sure that there’s a fast-track process and that

there’s no right of appeal barring this if there’s a limited factor here that you

can put to judicial review.

Now, the courts are already a system and process that the parties can avail themselves

of, so this was to cut back on what I think the member is describing as a very long,

arduous process.

Steve Kooner : Yeah, this is a long process. I understand that no one’s going to be pressured to

actually do this, to go file for judicial review.

There will be one party that’s happy with what happened with their adjudication decision.

They’re happy to get on with it. But then there’s another party that may find some

facts and say that they want to do a judicial review of it. It might be even a party

that holds the upper hand, a party that has a lot of funds and resources, and they’re

like: “Hey, this person’s not going to want to go to court, so let’s just file a judicial

review.”

The party, the other small party, may already have the order for payment. They may

want that payment. And now they’re going up against a giant who has the resources

and says: “Hey, bring it on. Let’s go to court. Let’s file this judicial review.”

That other party is like: “I don’t….” They may not have the funds to pay for a lawyer.

You need a lawyer to go to judicial review. You don’t really need it, procedurally,

but to navigate the law, you’re most likely going to have to get a lawyer.

[4:50 p.m.]

So having this procedure was to help, essentially, the little guy to be able to move

quickly. On the other side, when you’re having parties, you will most likely have

the little guy that’s expecting payment, but then you have the big guy that has resources

and may say: “Well, we’re filing judicial review.”

Then the other party might just give up. They may not go through with it. They may

not be able to pay for a lawyer. So what happens? They’re not entitled to their payment

anymore? What happens?

I understand that we’re putting in a procedure here, but then it still leaves it a

little open-ended for a person or an entity that has a lot of resources. That, sometimes,

is a strategy that you do see in the legal world. Somebody has resources, and they’re

like, “Let’s go to court,” because they know the other side can’t navigate the system.

They know that they don’t have the resources to go through the system. And then they

force a settlement.

I know there’s a limited indicia. You’ve got these three indicia. But these limited

situations still catch a lot of subject matter in here: dispute may not be subject

to adjudication; the adjudicator otherwise does not have jurisdiction; an adjudicator

failed to observe rules of procedural fairness. There might be a lot of things, that

these things didn’t catch, to limit the judicial review.

The judicial review happens, and the person that deserved the payment…. They were

rightly entitled to it, but just as a practical manoeuvre, a person with a lot of

resources that owes the money can say: “Well, let’s go to court.”

So how does this help the little guy that this legislation is designed for?

Hon. Niki Sharma : I think this helps as a baseline of what we’re talking about. The right for judicial

review comes under

section 96 of the constitution, so there’s nothing that we do or

don’t do that removes that right. What we’re doing is limiting it to established grounds

of judicial review. That’s important because we want to make that fast process that

we talked about.

Also, I think to clarify everything that we’ve talked about previously, everything

about this act is about helping the little guy in the construction chain. We talked

previously, in other clauses, about the ability to stop work if you’re not paid. But

just as importantly, if you have a determination to pay and you haven’t paid within

15 days, interest accrues starting at that date. So you’re paying interest and the

payment. There are a lot of different remedies that somebody has because of this legislation.

Steve Kooner : I understand you have access to interest. I understand you’ve got access to your

payment if someone leads you on and takes you through the court process.

The fact of the matter is that these are small disputes. We’re told that the disputes

that go through this tribunal may not be that big and that complicated, but the legal

bills can be huge. It’s not cheap going on a judicial review. And when you are the

little guy, you’re dealing with this.

Is there not a mechanism that the Attorney General’s office actually thought about…?

Okay, yeah, we’ve got to respect the constitution, but is there a mechanism where

the little guy says: “Look, I know this is sometimes a business type of manoeuvre

that happens in the industry. I’m willing to cut my losses. I know I deserve more,

but I don’t want this person dragging me into the court. I’m going to have to pay

for lawyer fees. I’m going to have to waste more time. Months are going to go by.

I’m willing to take less”?

I know it happens a lot of times when there’s a decision and somebody goes: “I’m going

to appeal this decision.” Then sometimes there’s a settlement that happens, and then

the settlement that happens is actually less than the decision.

Is there something…? Did the Attorney General’s department turn their minds to the

fact that there might be an appeal that happens, a judicial review that happens, and

there should maybe be a mechanism where the parties can say, “Okay, well, it’s the

cost of business,” and this is supposed to be an informal setting?

So a way that the parties can say that one party that deserves an order and is getting

payment says: “I don’t want to pay for the legal fees. I know I can go to court, and

I can ask for court costs, but those court costs are not going to pay for my legal

fees.”

[4:55 p.m.]

We know that when you get these cost assessments, legal bills are usually through

the roof, and lawyers usually have to explain: “Hey, you’re going to get costs, but

those costs might not cover your fees. It might be a portion of your fees though.”

Now we’re dealing with this less complicated matter. It’s becoming a bigger issue.

And you have the giants on the other side saying: “Well, we’ve got resources. We’ve

got in-house councils. We can go, and you might as well forget about your order. Don’t

collect.”

A lot of times, you do get an order. You go to, say, Provincial Court, and people

don’t go and collect on their orders because they can’t deal with the enforcement.

It’s one thing getting payment, but then you’ve got to go and collect it. And if you

don’t have the resources, it’s going to be an issue. The whole intent behind this

legislation is recognizing there might be people or entities that do not have the

resources that they need to kind of proceed further in larger legal battles.

Now, if you have to do a judicial review, you have to do it, as the Attorney General

just mentioned, pursuant to the constitution. Has the Attorney General’s department

turned their minds to: “Let’s maybe have an alternative dispute resolution from the

time that there’s an adjudication decision to before actual judicial review happens”?

A party that got that order for payment may not want to go through with the judicial

review and say: “I got the order. I’ve got an order for $10,000. I don’t want to do

it because I can’t afford it. I can’t afford paying a $20,000 legal bill to go through

with the judicial review and just get an order for costs for $5,000. I’m going to

be out of pocket.”

So is there another mechanism…? Did the Attorney General’s department turn their mind

to: judicial reviews might happen and, if they do, they might be costly? Is there

another mechanism to settle the dispute?

I know I just mentioned earlier that you could have court decisions for rewards, and

if the other party doesn’t like it, they appeal it. But then the party that got the

original decision…. They decide to take less and say: “We don’t want to go to the

appeal.”

Because the government is getting involved to help people settle their disputes, have

they turned their mind to that question or that issue?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Yes, we have. I would just refer the member to a previous discussion, which I think

we had in detail on clause 31, and just, again, talk about the fact that this is rooted

section 96 of the constitution and the right of judicial review.

We absolutely gave a lot of thought to how to design a process that was low-barrier

and effective for people, and it was why we have clause 40.

Steve Kooner : In terms of the other clause that the Attorney General just mentioned, does that

provide for settlement pending judicial review?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Chair, your guidance? We’ve already passed that clause. He can go back and read it.

Steve Kooner : The only reason I mentioned that clause was because the Attorney General just mentioned

it. We don’t need to talk about that clause. We can talk about this clause.

In terms of the mechanism, moving forward…. You’re applying for judicial review. Is

it possible that you don’t have to go through with a full judicial review because

you can just settle the matter before the judicial review?

Hon. Niki Sharma : Asked and answered.

Steve Kooner : The question that I asked before, for the record, had to do with the actual adjudications.

Now we’re past the adjudication. We’re heading to a judicial review. Two different

processes.

I understand the Attorney General maybe doesn’t want to answer, maybe doesn’t have

the answer. But I’ll just state for the record that I did ask, and I’m going to move

on. I brought the issue up.

For my next question…. Now, this talks about procedural fairness, but then we also

have facts. Is there a reason that the indicia here doesn’t talk about, say, if the

adjudicator has improperly applied the facts, incorrect facts?

[5:00 p.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma : I just would ask the member to consider the rules of procedural fairness and what

that term means in terms of the ability of a reviewing court, under judicial review,

to take a look at misapplication of facts or things like that. Also, (

b) might apply.

Steve Kooner : With all due respect, like the Attorney General, I’m also a lawyer, but the fact

that we’re having a public debate is because there are people watching. We’re doing

it for the record. The explanations that are provided are for the people that are

listening at home.

Sure. I can go and review procedural fairness rules. Maybe that might help me personally,

but it might not help the people that are actually listening today. So I don’t know

if the Attorney General can provide an explanation for the record.

Hon. Niki Sharma : The rules of procedural fairness are part of our common law in this country, and

rooted in that is the idea that you can have a process that is fair to you and, if

you feel like there was a process that was unfair to you somehow, that you have a

remedy, through judicial review, where you can ask for another level of court to take

a look at the procedures that were applied by that adjudicator in this matter and

determine whether or not procedural fairness was applied.

Within that common law, the common law that has been developed through our courts,

there are many ways in which, if somebody thinks that there was a misapplication of

facts and there was something wrong with the facts, you could attack a decision under

40(

b) and (c).

[5:05 p.m.]

You could either think about how they breached the rules of procedural fairness by

coming up with an arbitrary decision, or you could potentially say that the adjudicator

lost their jurisdiction over the matter because of the way that they took a look at

the facts of this case or determined the facts of this case. The provisions allow

for that type of ability to review.

Steve Kooner : I thank the Attorney General for that explanation.

Going further now, we are dealing with construction law. This type of dispute is very

common, and I would put the suggestion out there that there are lots of these cases.

Anybody that’s starting out their new practice might get lots of people that just

come in, and it might be one of the common areas of law that you see.

You see family law up there, but you see construction and commercial litigation law

up there as well. There are a lot of these disputes.

I think the intent behind this is recognizing there are a lot of disputes, and it’s

very challenging for all of these disputes to go through the normal stream. It’s very

challenging for the industry to be having to go through that normal stream as well,

because it takes such a long time.

Now, if we’re adding all these cases, and now these cases, a significant portion,

may be heading for judicial review…. I know there are three limits. Would this backlog

the courts? How would the dynamics work in terms of handling this load? I know that

there are a lot of these cases that are happening.

Maybe the Attorney General can shed some light on what the impact would be on the

court system and whether the court can actually handle it.

Hon. Niki Sharma : In fact, we expect it to do the exact opposite, to take matters outside of court

that would otherwise go to court, as their only venue would be court at this stage

or to just go unpaid. We expect the opposite, that it will take matters outside of

court.

Steve Kooner : In terms of doing a judicial review, what’s