Third Session, 42nd Parliament

(2022) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 152

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Reports from Committees

Selection Committee

Hon. M. Farnworth

Motions Without Notice

Powers and role of Finance Committee

Hon. M. Farnworth

Powers and role of Public Accounts Committee

Hon. M. Farnworth

Powers and role of Children and Youth Committee

Hon. M. Farnworth

Adjournment of Thursday sitting

Hon. M. Farnworth

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 4 — Skilled Trades BC Act (continued)

J. Brar

Hon. A. Kang

Bill 5 — Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2022

Hon. H. Bains

P. Milobar

Hon. B. Ma

R. Merrifield

R. Russell

L. Doerkson

B. Bailey

Hon. H. Bains

Throne Speech Debate

(continued)

T. Shypitka

Hon. N. Cullen

E. Ross

J. Routledge

L. Doerkson

B. Bailey

R. Merrifield

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2022

The House met at 1:02 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

S. Furstenau: I’m delighted to introduce three people who are in the gallery right

now. Our incredible chief of staff, Maeve Maguire, is here. More

importantly, her parents, Patrick and Maura Maguire, are with

her.

While they’re here and I can say it in person, we could not be more

fiercely proud of Maeve and having her as our chief of staff. She is an

incredible leader, and she has done amazing work for our team and our

caucus.

A. Mercier: I’d just like to introduce a core part of the Advanced Education and

Skills Training team, Tony Loughran, the associate deputy minister for

governance and corporate planning in the ministry, who’s done some really

fantastic work and who’s been a core part of putting together our new

program for skilled-trades certification.

Reports from Committees

SELECTION COMMITTEE

Hon. M. Farnworth: I have a series of motions.

I have the honour to present the report of the Special Committee

of Selection for the third session of the 42nd parliament.

I move that the report be taken as read and received.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I ask leave of the House to move a motion to adopt the

report.

Leave not granted.

[1:05 p.m.]

Motions Without Notice

POWERS AND ROLE OF

FINANCE

COMMITTEE

Hon. M. Farnworth: By leave, I move:

[That the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government

Services be empowered to:

1. Examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to

the budget consultation paper prepared by the Minister of Finance in

accordance with

section 2 of the Budget Transparency and

Accountability Act (S.B.C. 2000, c. 23) and, in particular,

to:

a. conduct public consultations across British Columbia on

proposals and recommendations regarding the provincial budget and fiscal

policy for the coming fiscal year by any means the Committee considers

appropriate; and

b. prepare a report no later than November 15, 2022, on the

results of those consultations.

2. Consider and make recommendations on the annual reports, rolling

three-year service plans and budgets of the statutory officers, namely,

the:

i. Auditor General

ii. Chief Electoral Officer

iii. Conflict of Interest Commissioner

iv. Human Rights Commissioner

v. Information and Privacy Commissioner

vi. Merit Commissioner

vii. Ombudsperson

viii. Police Complaint Commissioner

ix. Representative for Children and Youth

3. Inquire into and make recommendations with respect to other

matters brought to the Committee’s attention by any of aforementioned

statutory officers.

That the Committee be designated as the Committee referred to in

sections 19, 20, 21 and 23 of the Auditor General Act (S.B.C.

2003, c. 2) and that the report in

section 22 of the Auditor General

Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 2) be referred to the Committee.

That the Committee be designated as the Committee referred to in

sections 47.02 and 47.03 of the Human Rights Code (R.S.B.C.

1996, c. 210).

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon the Select

Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on

Finance and Government Services be empowered to:

a. appoint of its number one or more subcommittees and to

refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee

and to delegate to the subcommittees all or any of its powers except the

power to report directly to the House;

b. sit during a period in which the House is adjourned,

during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and

during any sitting of the House;

c. adjourn from place to place as may be convenient;

and

d. retain personnel as required to assist the

Committee;

That the Committee report to the House as soon as possible; and that

during a period of adjournment, the Committee deposit its reports with

the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and upon resumption of the

sittings of the House, or in the next following Session, as the case may

be, the Chair present all reports to the House.]

Leave granted.

Mr. Speaker: And the question on the motion.

Motion approved.

POWERS AND ROLE OF

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

COMMITTEE

Hon. M. Farnworth: By leave, I move:

[That all reports of the Auditor General of British Columbia

transmitted to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly be deemed

referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. For

greater certainty, the following exceptions are provided:

a. the report referred to in

section 22 of the Auditor

General Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 2) shall be referred to the Select

Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services;

and

b. reports of the Auditor General respecting the Legislative

Assembly prepared under the provisions of the Legislative Assembly

Management Committee Act (R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 258) shall be

referred to the Legislative Assembly Management

Committee.

That the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts be the

Committee referred to in sections 6, 7, 10, 13 and 14 of the Auditor

General Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 2).

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon the Select

Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on

Public Accounts be empowered to:

a. appoint of its number one or more subcommittees and to

refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee

and to delegate to the subcommittees all or any of its powers except the

power to report directly to the House;

b. sit during a period in which the House is adjourned,

during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and

during any sitting of the House;

c. adjourn from place to place as may be convenient;

and

d. retain personnel as required to assist the

Committee.

That the Committee report to the House as soon as possible; and that

during a period of adjournment, the Committee deposit its reports with

the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and upon resumption of the

sittings of the House, or in the next following Session, as the case may

be, the Chair present all reports to the House.]

Leave granted.

Mr. Speaker: On the motion you have heard.

Motion approved.

POWERS AND ROLE OF

CHILDREN AND YOUTH

COMMITTEE

Hon. M. Farnworth: By leave, I move:

[That the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth be

empowered to foster greater awareness and understanding among

legislators and the public of the BC child welfare system, including the

specific needs of Indigenous children, youth, families and communities,

and in particular to:

1. Receive and review the annual service plan from the

Representative for Children and Youth (the “Representative”) that

includes a statement of goals and identifies specific objectives and

performance measures that will be required to exercise the powers and

perform the functions and duties of the Representative during the fiscal

year;

2. Be the Committee to which the Representative reports, at

least annually;

3. Refer to the Representative for investigation the

critical injury or death of a child;

4. Receive and consider all reports and plans transmitted by

the Representative to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly;

and

5. Undertake, pursuant to

section 30 (1) of the

Representative for Children and Youth Act , (S.B.C. 2006, c.

29), a comprehensive review of the Act or portions of the Act before

April 1, 2022 to determine whether the functions of the Representative

described in

section 6 are still required to ensure that the needs of

children and young adults as defined in that

section are

met.

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon Select

Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on

Children and Youth be empowered to:

a. appoint of its number one or more subcommittees and to

refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee

and to delegate to the subcommittees all or any of its powers except the

power to report directly to the House;

b. sit during a period in which the House is adjourned,

during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and

during any sitting of the House;

c. conduct consultations by any means the Committee

considers appropriate;

d. adjourn from place to place as may be convenient;

and

e. retain personnel as required to assist the

Committee.

That the Committee report to the House as soon as possible; and that

during a period of adjournment, the Committee deposit its reports with

the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and upon resumption of the

sittings of the House, or in the next following Session, as the case may

be, the Chair present all reports to the House.]

Leave granted.

Mr. Speaker: On the motion that you heard.

Motion approved.

ADJOURNMENT OF THURSDAY SITTING

Hon. M. Farnworth: I move:

[That, when the House next adjourns after the adoption of this

motion, it do stand adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 22,

2022.]

Motion approved.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate, Bill 4.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 4 — SKILLED TRADES BC

ACT

(continued)

J. Brar: Once again, I’m really pleased to stand up in this House today to

support Bill 4, Skilled Trades BC Act, introduced by our government in

this House last week.

This new legislation will establish a made-in-B.C.

system to support and train apprentices and modernize the Crown agency

responsible for trades training. The act lays the foundation to address

labour shortages and support and to recognize the critical work that

skilled tradespeople do in British Columbia.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Last week we introduced the labour market outlook, which forecasts

job openings over the next ten years. B.C. continued to lead Canada’s

economic recovery, with 100,000 jobs added in 2021. B.C.’s economy is

strong, and forecasts show that it will continue to grow. In the next

decade, we are expecting a wide range of job openings in various

occupations. Almost 80 percent of these openings will require some form

of post-secondary education.

In the trades alone, we expect 85,000 job openings, with more

workers retiring than entering trade occupations. There are so many

opportunities for meaningful work in B.C. trades. People are critical to

B.C.’s economic growth, especially during the COVID-19 recovery. These

are peo­ple building our homes, our bridges, our hospitals and our

schools. Tradespeople fix our cars, keep our lights on and our water

flowing, and they deserve better.

We want tradespeople to count on having good, family-supporting,

steady work by ensuring that they have the certified skills they need to

be first in line for these job openings. That’s why this government is

taking strong steps to modernize B.C.’s trades-training system and to

set a new vision for the future.

[1:10 p.m.]

We have a real opportunity to create a lasting legacy for our

trades-training system that puts workers first. We build a strong, more

sustainable and inclusive economy and respond to the challenges of

COVID-19 recovery. This vision begins with the new legislation and a

new, focused Crown agency.

The Skilled Trades BC Act will lay the foundation to support and

recognize the critical role skilled tradespeople play in our communities

and economy by establishing skilled-trades certification for ten initial

trades. This will require people to register as apprentices or to be a

certified journeyperson. It is shocking that in 2003, the requirement

for B.C. skilled-trades certification was eliminated by the B.C.

Liberals, making B.C. the only province without this requirement. That

was their plan, and that is not our plan.

B.C. is the only province without mandatory skilled-trades

certification requirements. That means that there are thousands of

uncertified workers practising a trade with no formal recognition of

their skills and knowledge levels. These workers are often paid less and

have lower rates of employment stability and mobility, making it harder

to support their families. This is particularly true for those in

underrepresented or equity-seeking groups.

With so many experienced trade workers expected to retire, we need

to make sure that there are enough qualified journeypersons to train the

future trades workforce and keep our economy strong. Skilled-trades

certification will do that by making sure workers are credentialed at

the highest possible skill level, earn the best possible wages and are

more resilient in an evolving economy, breaking down the barriers that

keep underrepresented and equity-seeking groups from accessing

good-paying jobs, shifting the conversation so trades are recognized as

the critical, prestigious and valued career that they are in our

society, to attract young people.

This government is finally bringing our province back in line with

the rest of Canada. The skills of thousands of British Columbian

tradesworkers will now be recognized and valued as much as teachers,

nurses and other certified professionals. The Skilled Trades BC Act will

replace the outdated Industry Training Authority Act and continue the

Crown agency’s responsibility for apprenticeship training, which will be

renamed from the Industry Training Authority to

SkilledTradesBC.

This renewed vision of SkilledTradesBC reflects the expanded

responsibilities to oversee skilled-trades certification. The act will

also introduce a journeyperson-to-apprentices ratio to ensure that

apprentices have access to supervision from a qualified journeyperson.

This act will establish a fair and transparent compliance model to

ensure that requirements are applied consistently and that employers

know that they are working on a level playing field.

These legislative changes will ensure that B.C. has one of the

best trade-training systems in the country. It will do that by investing

in additional apprenticeship advisers to provide hands-on guidance to

apprentices, employers and sponsors by investing $5 million.

[1:15 p.m.]

This is so more trades workers can start an apprenticeship or

upgrade their skills at a recognized post-secondary institution, by

ensuring that apprentices and trades students have the most up-to-date

facilities in which to train, by providing opportunities for over 7,500

high school students to discover, explore, train and work in trades, and

by increasing the successful participation of women, Indigenous people

and underrepresented groups in the trades.

Since 2018, our government has invested nearly $85 million to help

build new, or upgrade existing, trade cen­tres and over $17

million in industry-standard training equipment, with more investment to

come. Now is the time to ensure that the trades workforce has the

knowledge and skills to embrace innovation and diversity, while staying

resilient in the face of rapid change so that they can reap the benefits

of the changing economy. This legislation gives tradesworkers the

recognition they deserve. These are good-paying, stable jobs that

support families and communities.

I have been listening to the members of the official opposition

with interest. One of the concerns they have raised, time and again, is

of red tape. Now, red tape, of course, is different than red seal. Red

seal is a certification for a tradesperson for a better future, and red

tape is a bad thing.

I want to mention here, so that members knows about this: the

members of the official opposition, when they were on this side,

introduced a new rule in B.C., and the rule was that if you want to

build your own house, you need to pass a test and have a certification

to build your own house. On the other hand, for the people who actually

build houses, the tradespeople, many of them don’t need any

certification.

Just to be clear. If you want to build your own house, you need a

certification. You have to go through a lengthy test. But the people who

are actually going to build the house don’t need certification. That is

red tape. That is clearly red tape for people who want to build their

own house.

I just want to say that this new legislation, the Skilled Trades

BC Act, makes skilled-trades certification a re­quirement. It

provides support and resources to skilled tradespeople for better

training to ensure that workers are credentialed at the highest possible

skill level. This is the purpose of this bill. When we call someone to

our house to repair something, we want to make sure that the

tradesperson is certified and has the highest possible skill level,

because we believe that certification means a better skill set and

better service.

We are now debating this bill. The difference between us, the

members of the government side, and them, the members of the official

opposition, on this important bill is as follows.

First, B.C. is the only province without a mandatory

skilled-trades certification requirement. We want to make it a

requirement that tradespeople be certified at the high­est

possible skill level. That is our proposal in this bill. The B.C.

Liberals, on the other side, eliminated the requirement of

skilled-trades certification in 2003, and they want no skilled-trades

certification moving forward. That’s the difference.

Two, we are breaking barriers that keep underrepresented and

equity-seeking groups from accessing good-paying trade jobs. The B.C.

Liberals don’t support breaking down those barriers that open

opportunities to underrepresented groups.

[1:20 p.m.]

Three, we are shifting the dialogue so that trades are recognized

as the important, prestigious and valued careers that they are in our

society — to attract young people. The B.C. Liberals are not interested

in this shift, and they don’t want to support skilled trades as a valued

career in our society to attract young people.

People are the best judge. People are listening. People are

listening to both sides. Of course, people will judge about this. So

people will judge: do you want a skilled trade–certified worker fixing

things in your house, or do you want a non-certified person? That’s the

debate, people, going on here.

I am very proud to support this bill moving forward, because this

is the future of this province. This is the future of the young people

of this province, and this is a good thing for the people of British

Columbia, so I’m proud to support this bill.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, does the minister wish to close

debate?

Hon. A. Kang: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the members’ comments on

this important piece of legislation and enjoyed hearing from all members

across the House.

Firstly, I appreciate that members of the House are interested in

the costs associated with the legislation. However, I would like to

remind the members that we are not able to give details until after the

budget is released next week. I look forward to discussing this topic

more during the estimates debates.

I am encouraged to hear that we all share a commitment to getting

British Columbians the skills they need to be first in line for the jobs

in our growing economy, to ensuring we’re keeping our workers and

members of the public safe and increasing opportunities for women and

Indigenous people to participate in high-paying trades

careers.

However, it does concern me that the members opposite are not

interested in ensuring that our tradesworkers are paid equal to their

value. Evidence shows that workers who have received training and hold

certification have access to higher-paying jobs.

I would also like to remind the members that 80 percent of

apprentice training is completed on the job, under the close supervision

of a qualified journeyperson. Don’t we want our tradesworkers to be paid

better wages and receive on-the-job training from a qualified supervisor

instead of being left on their own to train by themselves? I know that

we all do.

That’s why this legislation is putting apprentices and

tradesworkers at the centre and moving our trades-training system into

the future. This legislation will bring us in line with other

jurisdictions and ensure our tradesworkers are recognized for their

skills and their achievements.

As outlined in the what-we-heard reports, available online, we

spent the summer hearing directly from the groups representing

industries and workers, apprentices, women, Indigenous peoples and young

people. We repeatedly heard that workers and employers both stand to

benefit from the introduction of skilled trades certification and a

highly skilled trades workforce.

We also heard that access to training is imperative to completing

certification, and we agree. That is why just last Friday we announced

an addition of a $5 million investment so that more trades students can

start an apprenticeship or update their skills at training institutions

close to home in every region of the province.

Since 2018, we have invested nearly $85 million to en­sure

our trades students are learning with the most up-to-date and relevant

equipment and facilities. Just today, this morning, we announced an

additional $136.6 million investment to build a new state-of-the-art

trades and technology complex at BCIT. The complex will be a hub for

skills training and include four new buildings, benefiting more than

12,000 full- and part-time students per year in more than 20 trades and

technology programs.

[1:25 p.m.]

Having the right skills gained through quality training and

certification ensures our tradesworkers will earn higher wages, the

public will have confidence in high-quality service delivery, and

employers will benefit from a workforce credentialed at the highest

possible skill level to meet the future demands of a strong, inclusive

and sustainable economy.

With that, I look forward to the committee phase of the bill, and

I move second reading.

Motion approved on division.

Hon. A. Kang: I move that Bill 4 be referred to a Committee of the Whole to be

considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 4, Skilled Trades BC Act, read a second time and referred to a

Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the

House after today.

Hon. H. Bains: I call Bill 5, Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2022, for

second reading.

BILL 5 — WORKERS COMPENSATION

AMENDMENT ACT,

Hon. H. Bains: I move that Bill 5 be read a second time now.

As the Minister of Labour, my commitment always has been — and the

commitment of this government — that the health and safety of workers in

British Columbia, and support for injured workers and their families, be

my number one priority. My goal is to ensure that the workplaces in

British Columbia are the safest in the country.

That’s why it is critical that every worker who goes to work in

the morning return home safe and healthy. I do not just mean injury in a

physical manner. I’m also talking about safe from exposure to hazardous

and dangerous materials at their workplaces, exposures that may lead,

over time, to serious illness and death.

This is the situation that Bill 5, the Workers Compensation

Amendment Act, 2022, addresses. These amendments provide important and

direct actions to safeguard workers and, in many circumstances,

homeowners and the general public against the dangers of exposure to

asbestos and asbestos-containing materials. In short, the Workers

Compensation Amendment Act, 2022, is about actions to im­prove

workers’ health and safety.

Although the use and installation of asbestos-containing materials

in residential and commercial buildings has been banned in Canada since

1990, asbestos continues to be the number one worker killer in B.C.

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral composed of flexible fibres

that are resistant to heat, electricity and corrosion. Asbestos was

widely used in construction as an effective insulator, and it can be

added to cloth, paper, cement, plastic and other materials to make them

stronger.

When asbestos dust is inhaled or ingested, the fibres can become

permanently trapped in the body. Over decades, trapped asbestos fibres

can cause inflammation and scarring and, at their worst, can cause

cancer and other health conditions. The carcinogenic quality of the

minerals is what makes asbestos so dangerous.

Asbestos-related illnesses are the leading cause of work-related

deaths in the province. Workers and contractors performing asbestos

abatement work continue to be at risk for future illness and death

because some contractors do not take all necessary steps to ensure the

safety of their workers. This is the case many years after the product

was banned, as buildings get renovated and demolished and the fibres get

disturbed.

[1:30 p.m.]

To put things in perspective, asbestos-related deaths accounted

for 38 percent of all occupational disease and traumatic workplace

fatalities from 2017 to 2021, a total of 280 deaths out of 741 workplace

fatalities. Think about this: 280 out of a total of 741 deaths that the

WCB handled in the last five years came from the exposure of asbestos

that happened years ago.

Then, year by year, I will give you a little breakdown: 70 out of

158 work-related deaths were due to asbestos-related illness in 2017, 46

out of 131 work-related deaths in 2018, 60 out of 140 work-related

deaths in 2019, 51 out of 151 work-related deaths in 2020 and 53 out of

161 work-related deaths in 2021. These fatalities are heavily

concentrated in the general construction sector and in occupations

directly engaged in the asbestos abatement process.

These are truly disturbing numbers, numbers that re­flect

directly on the lives of those workers and their coworkers, families and

loved ones. Such tragedies are completely unacceptable and must be

addressed. Asbestos remains present in products and buildings

manufactured or built before 1990, including drywall, floor tiles,

insulation, fireproofing material and automotive brake linings. Anyone

undertaking renovation, demolition or repair work when such products are

present runs the risk of exposure to hazardous asbestos

fibres.

For buildings built before 1990, the key to protecting everyone’s

health and safety is to undertake proper asbestos abatement work, which

involves identifying asbestos-containing materials and having them

safely removed and disposed of prior to renovating or demolishing the

building. Asbestos abatement work may be performed by the building owner

and its employees or by contractors who are in the business of carrying

out asbestos abatement work for clients. In all cases, it is critical

the work be performed safely and properly, not only to protect the

health and safety of who perform the work directly, but also to protect

others who may work, live or simply be near where asbestos is

located.

As I indicated, it is completely unacceptable that the workers and

contractors performing asbestos abatement work continue to be at risk

for future illness and deaths. This is especially true in 2022, when

there is full knowledge and documentation of the dangers of asbestos

exposure. The diseases and fatalities that asbestos exposure cause are

not up for debate. It is fact, not speculation. This government is

making it clear that it will no longer tolerate non-compliant and unsafe

behaviour in the asbestos abatement industry that puts the health and

safety of workers at risk.

It is important to note that like other industry sectors in

British Columbia, many owners, employers, contractors and other

participants in the asbestos abatement industry value their workers and

their workplace safety. They recognize the hazards of material they are

handling and follow all the rules and regulations to ensure workers and

others are protected from asbestos dust and fibre. This involves

purchasing the appropriate abatement and safety equipment and using it

properly, thoroughly training and educating their workers on the hazards

of asbestos and the necessary safety procedures.

I would like to take the opportunity to extend my thanks and

gratitude to those responsible asbestos abatement contractors who have

taken all the actions required of them to protect their workers and

public. I recognize that this work can be very challenging, difficult

and precise, and I applaud all those who undertake this work properly

and safely.

[1:35 p.m.]

I also want to acknowledge the work that WorkSafeBC has done, from

inspections to enforcement, to create very creative advertising

campaigns to raise the awareness of the dangers of asbestos, including

public and homeowners. However, serious problems exist with a

significant number of non-compliant contractors in B.C.’s asbestos

abatement industry.

Despite WorkSafeBC asbestos regulations, education programs and

enforcement actions, WorkSafeBC fre­quently uncovers very high

levels of non-compliance with the regulations, unsafe practices that put

workers and the public at risk, and obstinate and endangering

attitudes.

Problems encountered include contractors allowing workers to

perform renovations and demolition work without ensuring that proper

asbestos surveys and testing are undertaken; not making workers aware of

the dangers or not training them to do asbestos abatement work safely;

permitting workers to disturb or remove asbestos material without

personal protective equipment or other required safety precautions and

equipment being in place; endangering people living in the immediate

area of the project through unsafe procedures; and illegally or

improperly packaging or containing the asbestos material for transport

and dumping.

Contractors and employers who deliberately flout WorkSafeBC

regulations and orders for safe asbestos abatement are primarily driven

by a negligent workplace culture that associates non-compliance with

financial gain. Much of the asbestos abatement work is precarious in

nature, and it is often performed by workers who are marginalized by

reason of age, culture or race and are, therefore, susceptible to abuse

and endangerment by their employer.

A direct result of this negative workplace culture is to discount

workplace hazards and to cut corners and put people at risk. The money

that these contractors save by not taking the appropriate safety

measures allows them to undercut those contractors that take workplace

health and safety seriously.

Two things: to protect the workers’ health and safety — no doubt —

and also to support those contractors that take workplace health and

safety seriously who are being undercut by these fly-by-night

contractors who do not care about workers’ health and safety. Currently,

there’s no way for building owners and homeowners to know who the

reputable and safe contractors are.

In

summary, in too many cases, the highly hazardous nature of

asbestos is not properly taken into account in carrying out asbestos

abatement work, thereby placing workers and members of the general

public at risk. Bill 5 correctly acts to address this critical workers’

health and safety issue.

The proposed legislation will amend the Workers Compensation Act

to protect the health and safety of workers and others from the hazards

of asbestos. Specifically, Bill 5 establishes a new requirement that

employers who are asbestos abatement contractors be licensed to operate

in British Columbia. Second, it provides the authority to WorkSafeBC to

create a mandatory safety training program for workers and contractors

who perform asbestos abatement work.

These changes are necessary to address the systemic non-compliance

and inadequate safety training in the asbestos abatement industry. When

combined with WorkSafeBC’s existing regulations and education and

enforcement programs, the proposed licensing and safety training

requirement will support a regulatory framework that is better aligned

to the highly hazardous nature of asbestos abatement work and will help

ensure that the work is performed safely and in accordance with the

law.

It is also my hope that over time, serious illness and death can

be significantly reduced or eliminated, creating safer workplaces and a

culture and commitment to the safe handling of asbestos.

As background to this legislation, since 2017, a cross-ministry

asbestos working group has been working to identify, review and report

on outstanding risks that asbestos poses for people in the environment

and to propose strategies and initiatives to address those

risks.

[1:40 p.m.]

The working group issued a report in 2018 that contained 16

recommendations. A pivotal recommendation flowing from the report was

the recommendation to establish the licensing and training requirement.

Key findings of the working group concerning asbestos exposure and

workers include that some employers were failing to take basic

precautions to keep their workers safe, that workers lacked basic

awareness about the risks and lacked access to training about these

risks and how to keep themselves safe, and that workplace cultures

within the industry underestimate the risk associated with

asbestos.

The licensing and training requirement contained in Bill 5 will

play a key role in addressing some of those broader issues involving

asbestos. As work towards implementing this legislation proceeds,

members of the public will also see development of these other measures

and the benefits that will flow from them. The licensing provision under

Bill 5 provides that an asbestos abatement contractor must not carry out

asbestos abatement work unless they hold a licence issued by

WorkSafeBC.

Following the bringing into force of this legislation, the

asbestos abatement contractor will be required to acquire and hold a

licence to carry out asbestos abatement work in B.C. Unlicensed

contractors will be prohibited from performing asbestos abatement work

in this province, and that will include contractors who lose their

licence to perform this work for failing to comply with the law. Bill 5

establishes a requirement that WorkSafeBC create a public registry of

licensed contractors. This will support the legislation’s objective by

letting the public know which asbestos abatement contractors are in good

standing when deciding which contractor to engage.

Bill 5 also promotes safe practice by self-employed asbestos

abatement operators, who are independent operators that carry out

asbestos abatement work as a business. As many British Columbians may

have seen in media reports over the past few years, there have been

instances in which WorkSafeBC found itself engaged in a constant game of

cat and mouse with some wilful, non-compliant asbestos abatement

contractors.

In these instances, after WorkSafeBC shuts down the current

asbestos abatement company, a non-compliant contractor can reopen the

next day under a new name. This licensing requirement will enable

WorkSafeBC to refuse a licence to those with a history of

non-compliance, including those who try to get a licence under a new

business name.

WorkSafeBC can also suspend or cancel a licence when a contractor

acts unsafely or illegally, curtailing the right of the person to carry

out asbestos abatement work in B.C. The intent of the licensing program

is to permit WorkSafeBC to remove non-compliant contractors from the

industry quickly, when necessary, in comparison to the time it may

currently take courts to issue an injunction currently.

With the licensing requirement provided for in this bill, British

Columbia will be unique among Canadian jurisdictions, given that no

other Canadian jurisdiction has taken this step to ensure safe abatement

of asbestos-containing materials.

The second key component of Bill 5 provides WorkSafeBC with the

legislative authority to approve safety training developed by others or

by WorkSafeBC and to approve certificates for individuals who

successfully complete the safety training. One of the most effective

ways to combat the hazards of asbestos is to be trained on the hazards

of this dangerous material and on how to perform asbestos abatement work

safely.

With the changes in Bill 5, WorkSafeBC will oversee the

development of a certified training program for workers, employers and

independent operators who perform asbestos abatement work in British

Columbia. This will support the health and safety of these individuals

and save lives, following the passage of this legislation and

others.

[1:45 p.m.]

After WorkSafeBC has undertaken the work to establish an asbestos

safety training and certification regime, it will be a condition of the

licence that the licensed contractor may not employ a worker other than

a certified worker for the purpose of carrying out asbestos abatement

work.

Once this important legislation receives royal assent, WorkSafeBC

will begin work immediately to develop the necessary regulations,

policies and programs to implement the licensing and training

requirements. This includes consulting with impacted groups for their

input, including workers, employers, contractors and

trainers.

WorkSafeBC will require the time that is necessary to design and

develop a successful program but will do it as quickly as possible, to

have these important programs in place as early as later this year, to

protect workers and others. The Ministry of Labour will also continue to

engage with industry and other impacted ministries on the broader action

plan in light of new licensing and certification

requirements.

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform the House

that government undertook substantial consultation with those who have

an interest in safe asbestos abatement work, including representatives

of employers, workers, businesses, housing management and local

governments. The feedback and input government received through all the

consultation and public engagement proved very valuable and insightful.

There was very strong support from stakeholder groups and almost all

survey respondents for both the licensing of asbestos abatement

contractors and the certification and training requirement.

Our government is committed to taking the action necessary to

improve the occupational health and safety of workers in British

Columbia. Bill 5 is vitally important to safeguard the health of workers

and to work toward eliminating asbestos-related illness and deaths in

British Columbia. It will also help to keep homeowners and the general

public safe.

As I have stated before in this House and in my other duties as

Minister of Labour, workplace safety is everyone’s responsibility. It is

the responsibility of employers, supervisors, workers, government, all

of the members of the Legislative Assembly and WorkSafeBC. I ask all

members of this Legislative Assembly to join with me and this government

and support these important legislative initiatives.

I cannot emphasize enough that the dangers of asbestos are a fact.

We know it is the number one killer of workers in workplaces. We know

that there are many workers out there who do not realize the real

dangers of asbestos when they are handling asbestos abatement work. We

know there are so many good operators who take care of their workers and

care about their health and safety. They take all precautions and follow

the regulations. But there are a few, I must say, unfortunately…. We’ve

seen it in the last few years in the media.

WCB, under the current tools that they have, will go after those

bad characters and shut them down today, but they’ll reopen their

company tomorrow under a different name. With the changes we are

proposing under Bill 5, the requirement of a licence to be an asbestos

abatement contractor will go a long way in removing those difficulties

the WCB has. More importantly, having workers go through mandatory

training, knowing the risks of asbestos, knowing that this substance

will kill you if you’re not protecting yourself, over time will save

lives.

I urge all of you to support these initiatives. I do look forward

to debate on this bill.

Deputy Speaker: Member for Kamloops–North Thompson.

P. Milobar: Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome. It’s my first time to welcome

you to your new role, and I’m looking forward to it.

[1:50 p.m.]

I’m happy to rise to speak to Bill 5. In fact, most of what I was

going to say — the dates and the timelines and the data — aligns with

what the minister had to say. That’s a good thing, but it’s also an

unfortunate thing. I’m going to point out a few things with this bill

revolving around a lot of the information that the minister said. I

don’t dispute the information that he said. As I say, I came to the same

conclusions.

I think it’s important to look at the timelines, because as we’ve

seen all too often, over the last five years with the government, there

are the good words that get said, but there’s a lack of timely action,

of moving forward quickly, of actioning things of critical import. That

is, I guess, unless you’re signing off on a decision note around FOI

fees, and then that can move at lightning speed.

When it comes to workers’ health and safety, by the minister’s own

acknowledgment, the cross-ministry working group, which was actually

started by the now Leader of the Opposition when she was the minister in

charge back in 2017, provided their feedback to this government in 2018,

four years ago. As the minister rightly points out, every day matters

with asbestos exposure.

Now, over those four years…. I’m not going to suggest that those

almost 40 percent of all workplace deaths that are attributed to

asbestos would have been stopped, be­cause as the minister also

rightly points out, it’s a long-term exposure and takes years to

manifest itself. But we have four years’ worth of workers that have been

exposed to asbestos by those bad-actor operators that the minister

talked about.

Those people have now been exposed for four years longer than they

needed to be because of the delay of bringing forward the

recommendations that were presented to this government in 2018. Those

families, those workers — I think rightly so — should be asking

themselves why a government that purports to worry that much about

workplace safety would take four years to bring forward what’s in place

in other provinces.

Now, all provinces needed to start to react in around 2016 when

the federal government made their indications around asbestos and its

use known. That’s why 2018 was a target date, because of what was

happening federally. There are training programs in place in other

provinces. In fact, that’s what this is modelled on.

Why that took four years…. Four years of workers being unwittingly

exposed to asbestos is not acceptable. There should have been more of an

emphasis, more priority placed on this by this minister to move this

forward with all speed possible.

Now, I recognize and I fully acknowledge the registry piece of

this bill, the registry piece that the actual contracting company will

need to register and be easier to track so they can’t flip and alternate

companies…. That doesn’t exist. So that’s a good addition. That might

have taken a little bit more time. But we should have been protecting

and training the workers for that four years in the meantime. They, at

least, would have been protected.

Yes, we would have still had bad-actor contractors out there,

flipping their company names, but the workers themselves would have been

certified and trained properly. They would have known what they were

looking for on the worksite to be able to operate safely to prevent

future death, future medical issues, future harm. Asbestos exposure

leads to very, very serious — as we’ve heard, death — but painful as

well…. It’s very hard on families to watch a loved one have to struggle

and go through that.

Although I don’t take issue with this coming forward, and we will

be supporting the legislation, we’re not doing our jobs if we don’t

point out that there seems to be a lack of prioritization within

government when it comes to things that are truly life and death — and

where the prioritization is of moving things forward to this chamber to

get implemented and enacted.

[1:55 p.m.]

You don’t have to look very far for further delay — to realize

that WCB actually needs to now create the training programs, which will

take 90 days, 120 days, sometime into the future after this bill is

passed.

One has to wonder, when a government holds a 2-to-1 vote advantage

in this chamber on a piece of legislation that was initiated by this

side of the House back when we were still in government, why the

uncertainty to instruct WCB to actually be working on the training

program and the regulations — to have everything in place when this

passes on royal assent and be in effect immediately — hasn’t been done.

Surely the minister is confident enough that 40 of his members aren’t

going to suddenly vote against this piece of legislation out of the blue

and WCB’s work would have been for naught.

So we’re sitting at four years of added exposure, and we have

untold months to wait until any of the training programs, any of the

requirements that are in this, will actually be developed. That’s

certainly the message that we got loud and clear when we got a briefing

on this bill after it was introduced yesterday. I’m going to have a lot

of questions about that at committee stage, because, as I say, we do

support this bill. We do have a lot of questions though.

I think the government actually has a lot to answer for. Not so

much to any of us in opposition, but through us to all those people that

worked four years extra in asbestos abatement without these trainings

and regulations in place. I think their families are going to want to

know why this wasn’t brought forward to the House after the

cross-ministry working committee brought forward the recommendations in

Now, in 2022, the clock is still ticking and WCB still has a lot

of work to do after this, because they were not instructed by this

minister to get that work done simultaneously with this bill coming

forward, in advance of this bill coming forward — just another piece of

legislation by this government that says: “Trust us. We’ll show you what

everything looks like after it’s passed.”

It wouldn’t have changed us voting for it, but it would have sped

up and made those workplaces safer for workers that much faster. Is it

going to be five years? We’ve seen how long it takes them to roll out

some programs. Is it going to be six years before it’s in full

implementation? We don’t know.

That’s simply an abdication of responsibility by this minister,

this Premier and this government to actually have their actions match

their words about WorkSafe safety and worker safety. We have four years

worth of workers that could have been better protected had this

government actually actioned things in a timely fashion.

I know it sounds like I’m being a bit of a smart aleck when I

compare it with the FOI bill, but I’m not. That’s the sad, very serious

reality of what this government prioritizes. The speed that they could

move to cut off access for the public to gain information of government

documents, trying to shut out the Premier’s office from information

requests, being evasive at best — the most charitable I could say —

about a fee structure and decision notes….

With the speed that they’re able to move on that and put a

priority on that to move, I think all those workers that have been

exposed for 4½ years deserve a straight answer from this Premier and

this government on why that was deemed to be a much higher priority for

this government to action than their health and safety at the workplace

for 4½ years worth of exposure to a known carcinogen. It’s shameful. It

shouldn’t have happened.

They sat on a report for four years. Very skilled governmental

workers that know how to draft legislation — I highly doubt it took them

4½ years to figure out how to turn the recommendations into the language

we see in front of us on a bill, considering the larger framework, by

the minister’s own statements, already exists within WCB.

[2:00 p.m.]

This is adding another layer of how WCB enforces and works on

workplace safety. That wouldn’t have taken them 4½ years. You know how I

know it certainly wouldn’t have taken 4½ years? If this Premier, if this

minister had gone to the drafters and said, “This is a priority. It

needs to be in front of the House next legislative session,” when they

got those first reports in 2018 and the recommendations, it would have

happened.

As we’ve seen on FOI, arguably a more junior ministry than Labour,

man, they can move fast when they want to. They even overrode statutory

committees that were supposed to be doing their work and ignored it.

They ignored everybody to make sure that work was prioritized and moved

forward with lightning speed.

What did the workers that are going to be protected by this bill

get? They got 4½ years of dithering, literally with their health on the

line — not some documents that may or may not actually even get

released. So it is a serious matter.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

It’s a serious, I think, look into how this government truly does

prioritize and figure out what they are actually going to put their time

and effort into. It certainly doesn’t align with their words. Those are

turning out to be very hollow words.

It will be interesting to see when somebody — an

un­fortunate circumstance for a worker — gets diagnosed from

asbestos exposure over the next few years. We know it will happen,

because we know it takes time to build. The minister has acknowledged

that. I wonder what they and their human resources lawyer are going to

think of the government that sat around for 4½ years on a report instead

of making sure they were properly protected in the workplace.

Sitting on this recommendation for 4½ years means we have 4½ more

years’ worth of large numbers of deaths in the workplace attributed to

asbestos. That number won’t start to come down until the goals of this

bill are actually enacted, the training has actually happened, the work

spaces are actually safer, and the abatement is being done properly and

safely. Then you’ll only see those numbers drop, years from now, because

all the previous years’ worth of workers that were working under unsafe

conditions are still needing to work their way, unfortunately, through

the system. It’s a shame.

Across this government, we’re seeing a lack of prioritization and

urgency when it comes to people’s lives — literally. Over six people a

day and climbing, on average, sadly, on opioid deaths. Still no apparent

urgency and action on that file. Lots of great words and rhetoric.

That’s been five years of inaction. Almost as much time as inaction on

this, a different subset of people that are literally dying and getting

extremely ill because of government inaction and lack of

prioritization.

But boy, if you want to ask to access some government documents,

they’re going to move lightning-fast to shut that down. Wouldn’t want

you to see what’s going on within government. Wouldn’t want you to

actually have any information on how government even makes a decision or

arrives at making a decision. Move lightning-fast for that.

We’ll have nice, flowery words on matters of life and death for

people, but no tangible action. Haven’t seen any tangible improvement in

ambulance response times. That’s putting people’s lives at risk on a

daily basis. Lots of great words.

[2:05 p.m.]

We will have a lot of questions at committee stage on this bill to

try to get a better understanding of why exactly the minister, the

Premier and his government didn’t seem to want to prioritize the

importance of those workers over the last 4½ years to get proper

training and proper protections in their workplace, why we couldn’t

replicate what was going on in other provinces faster than 4½ years, or

why it took 4½ years to implement recommendations from a cross-ministry

committee that started under one party’s government and continued on

with the current government’s guidance.

If ever there was a time to likely signal that this was not going

to be heavily opposed in this chamber, I would suggest that’s the type

of thing that would be there. It’s cross-ministry, but it was also

cross-party, if you look at the timelines of when the recommendations

were being developed and brought forward.

So I have a hard time understanding why this minister took 4½

years to sit on the sidelines while people kept getting exposed to

asbestos. I have a hard time understanding how this government has

watched the death count on opioids go from 4½ to five, to 5½ to six, to

now over six people a day, each and every single day in British

Columbia.

It’s bad enough that we have 210 people that died, in those 4½

years, from asbestos exposure as this bill was percolating away,

somewhere in the background, with government. It certainly wasn’t a

priority to bring forward. We’ve sat a lot of sessions in this

chamber.

There seems to be an inordinate amount of time spent talking about

a throne speech. I’m not going to say “debating a throne speech,”

because that’s not really what it is. Legislatively, we call it debating

a throne speech. Really what it is, is the government standing up,

patting themselves on the back and talking about random things in their

riding to fill time, to kill time, to say that we were actually here

working for a full day.

Guess what we’re going to jump to later today, unless we’re done

second reading debate on this bill: the throne speech that we started

back in this chamber last week. This is the end of week 2. I guess we

can see where the prioritization of legislation and of things of import

to people’s lives is with this government.

It probably explains why it has taken 4½ years, with countless

workers being exposed, especially during a hot real estate market —

where there has been a lot of demolition, a lot of renovation going on,

of older buildings that would be filled with asbestos. That’s what the

market has been like for the last 4½ years — everyone running flat out,

everyone in a hurry for deadlines, everyone scrambling, everyone with a

labour shortage.

I’m willing to bet that the minister knows exactly what happens in

that scenario. Corners get cut. Deadlines need to be made. A blind eye

gets turned to safety infractions: “Just go ahead and do it. Don’t worry

about it. It’ll be fine. Just go outside and cough a bit; you’ll be all

right. Here, use this flimsy little mask. Don’t worry about it.” That’s

the backdrop of these 4½ years that this minister sat around and didn’t

get this legislation in front of this chamber in time.

The minister can shake his head at me all he wants, but he knows

it to be true, because in his own words, he acknowledged it. In his own

words, introducing this bill, asbestos is a fine particle that gets into

the air. It gets into your lungs. It takes years after exposure, and

repeated exposures, to start to manifest itself. That’s what this

minister was acknowledging. Passing this today is not going to help

those people that have been exposed for the 4½ years that this bill

didn’t get brought forward to the House; it simply isn’t, based on the

minister’s own words.

If the minister knows it now to be true — I know he’s got a long

history, and I have no doubt, if you look at his background and his

history, about workers’ rights and workers’ safety — surely, he had to

know, in 2018, that those were the facts around asbestos. I find it hard

to believe he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t, I find it amazing that a party

that is so tightly connected with labour wouldn’t have somebody in their

ranks that would know that.

[2:10 p.m.]

I don’t say “connected with labour” in a bad way, because they

advocate on behalf of the safety of workers. We all go to Days of

Mourning. We all speak at them; we all acknowledge them. There’s no way

that those people representing, especially, organized labour who are

continually, and rightfully so, advocating for workplace safety wouldn’t

have been wondering why the minister is taking 4½ years to protect

people on the worksite. But that’s what we have.

We will dig into the timelines a little bit more when we get to

committee stage. We will certainly have some questions around timelines

on the WCB work that still needs to be done to actually get

implementation of this — what speed that will have, what priority that

will have — and what extra resources the government will make available

to WorkSafe so that they can get the job done quickly, so that we don’t

have to be here at year 5½ wondering why we still don’t have proper

protections for workers with asbestos when we all knew from 2016 onwards

very clearly what needed to be done.

I look forward to committee stage on this bill. I look forward to

the government trying to explain their lack of prioritization when it

comes to literally life-and-death issues on a wide range of

files.

Perhaps we can find out a little bit more as to why the

prioritization of hiding information from the public seems to be front

and centre and the number one priority of this government, versus making

sure everyday, hard-working citizens are properly protected in their

workplace.

Hon. B. Ma: It is my honour to be able to rise today to speak in support of

Bill 5, intituled Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2022. Can I begin

my remarks by thanking the Minister of Labour for making this work a

priority and making sure that this actually got through. There have been

so many improvements to the Workers Compensation Act, to worker safety,

to the Employment Standards Act, that make life better for workers here

in this province. It has been a long, long time since we have had a

champion like the Minister of Labour for working people.

Before I became an MLA, as people may know, I worked as a

professional engineer managing projects as an onerous projects engineer

out of the Vancouver Airport Authority. In my role now as Minister of

State for Infrastructure, I get the honour of working with the hon.

Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure to deliver a lot of

transportation projects. The vast majority of them are more like

horizontal construction projects, although this bill does have some

relevance there as well, because I’ll note that asbestos was used in

asphalt between the 1960s and 1980s.

Now, working on horizontal construction has been just really rad,

I have to say. But back when I was working at the Vancouver Airport

Authority, the kinds of projects I was primarily involved in were

vertical construction. I was primarily involved in terminal expansion

and redevelopment projects.

I have to say that the pandemic has changed a lot of things for

airports around the world. I really need to acknowledge that. I think of

all of the people who have spent so much of their lives working and

supporting their families through work at these airports, and I know

that it’s a very difficult time for them.

When I joined them many years ago, though, well before the

pandemic, it really was an engineer’s dream job to work there. You had

runway rehabilitation programs that could employ you for a lifetime,

ridiculously cool conveyor belt systems that move baggage along

underneath the airports. You had another baggage systems under the

airport building to stretch from YVR all the way down to downtown and

back again.

Of course, it was all jumbled up and…. Well, not jumbled. It was

very coordinated and organized down there — I have to say a huge pain in

the ass to install and take apart, but very cool. Also, you had very

complex….

Deputy Speaker: The appropriate term might be “pain in the butt,”

Member.

Hon. B. Ma: Pain in the butt. I retract my former comment. Pain in the butt.

You also had very complex building expansion and redevelopment projects

as well.

[2:15 p.m.]

Now, the other thing that the YVR airport terminal had a lot of,

especially when you were talking about the older buildings, was

asbestos, which also meant that when you were impacting those areas, you

needed to do a lot of asbestos abatement.

I remember the safety training that we got when I first started

working there as a young engineer in training. I remember that the

safety trainer came up, was presenting in front of a whole bunch of us,

and he said: “Asbestos is an amazing material. It has fireproofing

properties; it is something to behold; it makes materials strong and

long-lasting.” He pauses. He says: “It’s also the leading cause of

workplace deaths in B.C.”

We have to let that sink in. Asbestos is the number one killer of

workers in British Columbia today. It causes cancer, a very rare and

aggressive cancer called mesothelioma. It is almost exclusively caused

by asbestos exposure. Gets into the lungs, accumulates in the body with

every exposure, and we don’t know how to reverse the damage that it

causes.

Now, I was very fortunate because working out of YVR, their safety

program was extraordinarily stringent. We didn’t take hazardous

materials lightly. When your project involves demolishing the oldest

part of the main terminal, you better believe that there were a lot of

hazardous materials to deal with. There was asbestos in the gypsumboard,

lead in the paint on the tiles and a lot of rodent droppings, which you

also had to deal with as a hazardous material.

I remember that there was this room that I needed to demolish.

Because it was quite an old room, the floors had been redone many, many

times. So under the carpet, there were ceramic tiles. Under the ceramic

tiles, there were linoleum tiles. Under the linoleum tiles, was the

concrete deck. The ceramic tiles tested for lead. The linoleum tiles

tested for asbestos, and the carpet dust was probably made up of rodent

droppings, quite frankly. The whole building was like this.

Systematically, off we had to go through this whole building that

we were about to demolish, testing, setting up containments, sending in

trained abatement contractors, doing air quality testing, monitoring the

work, bagging, tagging, making sure everything was properly disposed of

and that everyone was safe.

Fortunately for us, there were a lot of highly-skilled abatement

contractors and abatement consultants out there who would work with us.

We had contractors who would suit up, step into sealed bubbles that no

one else would be allowed to do without a full hazmat suit before they

were done.

We had consultants who would come in and act as third-party

monitors for the work. They would take a look at the rooms. They would

identify materials that needed testing, make sure that it was done

properly. I have to really give them credit. The consultant that I had

the privilege of working with was RJ and Associates Environmental

Consulting, led by Richard Connelly and Andrew Marshall, who now leads

the company. They were absolute pros, absolutely uncompromising on the

value of high safe work practices.

If we broke into a material that we hadn’t tested and that we

hadn’t set up abatement containments for, they would shut us down, and

that was the right thing to do. But it also meant that we were extremely

incentivized to get everything done right the first time. You know what?

That is what it takes to do abatement right, to keep workers safe and to

ensure that you’re not exposing people outside, members of the public,

to asbestos as well.

Now, as the Minister of Labour has already discussed, sadly, not

everyone does abatement right. Sadly, not everyone even knows that

asbestos has to be treated with such care. That kind of culture of

complacency and non-compliance in many parts of the industry has been

killing people.

At long last, we are bringing in a licensing requirement for

asbestos abatement contractors, something that will save lives and

reward and recognize those contractors who are already doing things

right. And this will protect them from being undercut by companies that

aren’t doing things right.

[2:20 p.m.]

We’re bringing in a requirement that asbestos abatement workers

and others will have to complete mandatory asbestos safety training so

that they fully understand why they must do things properly. Being

educated means that you know when you’re at risk. When something needs

to get sent for testing, or when you experience that shortness of breath

and wheezing and crackling of the lungs that indicates that you may have

been exposed to asbestos.

Now, inevitably…. I’m actually very grateful that the official

opposition did not ask this. I’m so grateful that we are likely to have

support from all sides of the House. But inevitably someone out there is

going to ask: “Doesn’t it cost more to do asbestos abatement

properly?”

Let me tell you this: right now people are paying for this with

their lives. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends continue to

die today because ten, 15, 20 years ago they worked on a project or

multiple projects and had no idea that their employer should have been

hiring a proper abatement contractor to make the site safe for them

before they went in.

I think of all of the men and women that I had worked with on

these construction sites — hundreds and hundreds of them at a time, in

some cases. I think of their families, people with…. I remember — I

think of their children — Craig with his two young girls, whom he took

so much pride in, how he was so excited or so looking forward to walking

them down the aisles in ten, 15 years. I think about Don, with his wife

who’s pregnant, and the children that he wants to have in his family,

and of Debbie, with her children.

I imagine them in ten, 15, 20 years.

Gosh. I didn’t think that I would do this.

There are…. Excuse me.

There are a lot of workers out there who have had their lives cut

short by this.

This is so embarrassing.

Dozens and dozens of workers — we lose them every year, because of

something that happened decades ago, which they never would have been

able to know about.

I think it will mean a lot to everybody who works in the

construction industry and everyone with family members in the industry

to know that they have a government out there that cares about them.

It’s not just government; they have legislators throughout the province,

on both sides of the House, who have said: “Enough is enough. We’re

putting an end to this. Your safety matters, and your life is worth so

much more than we could ever put a value on.”

I’m going to stop there.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for your words, Minister. That was very

beautiful.

I do rise today to speak in support of this bill today. As one

from the construction industry, I do recognize how vital this

is.

I love that we’ve had two female legislators from opposite sides

of the House stand up and both speak of their construction experience in

the last couple of minutes. I also celebrate that fact — that it’s the

females involved in construction that are the ones that are speaking

positively to this. I, too, am going to tell my asbestos story. I’m

probably a little bit older than the member before me, and mine does

come in the private sector.

[2:25 p.m.]

I still remember getting the phone call that some of our

construction trades had discovered asbestos. We needed to get it tested.

I remember having the huddle outside of the construction site. It was a

renovation. It was an old building. We had taken it apart. It wasn’t

part of our budget. It wasn’t part of our contingency. I remember, as a

young business owner, in that moment, trying to decide how I was going

to choose, and to choose correctly.

We all put on our hazmat suits. It was quite laborious to put them

on. We walked into the site. We tried to ascertain exactly where things

were at. We got in testers to test what was in the air, to test what was

on the ground, to test what was in the walls and in the

ceiling.

I still remember that gut-punch when I realized that my workers

had been in that atmosphere — in that space — working for the last four

months: “What does it mean? What are the implications? How do we

actually deal with this?” I echo the feeling of devastation, knowing

that some of our workers had been put at risk.

Yes, there are the cowboys and cowgirls out there who just say,

“Plow forward; it doesn’t matter,” during that time frame. But I didn’t.

I stopped the site. I pulled everyone out as soon as we knew what was

going on. We brought in professionals. We did look for someone who was

licensed. We did look for someone who knew how to deal with asbestos

properly. We did do everything right — to our own detriment, at our own

cost — because it was the right thing to do, and because on a

construction site, safety is number one.

Throughout the last 25 years of my tenure as a construction owner,

we became core certified. We made sure that our safety protocols were

second to none. Why? It’s because, every single day, trades and

construction workers risk their lives to build what we see. Nowhere has

been as devastated, even in this last year, as my community, when safety

or shortcuts are made.

I will say that my speed of action was immediate. When I knew that

people were at risk, I responded immediately. We worked 24 hours a day

until we had a safety plan in place and everyone abided by

it.

I have a quote that I’ve posted on my Facebook many times. It

says: “Characterize people by their actions, and you will never be

fooled by their words.” Talk is cheap; action is everything. When I hear

words like “safety” and “priority,” I think “action,” and I think

“immediacy.” Everyone should feel safe in their workplace, whether it’s

on a construction site 17 floors in the air or sitting in a building,

but that is not the case over the course of the last five years of this

NDP government.

Asbestos is undoubtedly one of greatest risks of our workplaces,

our homes and our communities. According to WorkSafeBC, 608 of the 1,448

work-related death claims between 2011 and 2020 were related to

asbestos. That’s 42 percent.

Since 2000, asbestos has been the cause of more than 50 percent of

all work-related occupational-disease deaths. That’s atrocious. That’s

“Sound the alarm bell” time. As the dangers of asbestos have become

known over the years, governments and industry — and others like me,

running my own, very small at the time, construction company — have

taken those steps to protect people, to protect them from exposure to

asbestos and to contain its impact on the environment.

[2:30 p.m.]

This legislation that’s before us right now is the result of

initiatives undertaken by working groups and industry leaders — oh, wait

— as well as the previous government. You guys had five years — five

years.

Now, recognizing that the focus group, or the initiatives that we

were undertaking, date back to 2017, with the cross-ministry working

group to engage with the federal government’s December 2016 announcement

to ban asbestos and asbestos-containing products…. But the working group

submitted the report to the current government in 2018, and it took four

years before we actually have a bill — four years.

This is a government that has been identified with a lack of

action. The Sumas floods. Well, we have three reports dating back to

2017, 2018 and 2020, all of which were sounding the alarm bell that a

flood could be devastating to that area. We’ve got long-term-care

reports during the pandemic that were literally left on the minister’s

desk rather than being responded to.

Instead of getting this bill — oh, I don’t know — anytime in the

last four years, even last fall, we’re debating the throne speech

still?

I love that we’re actually going to see action in this area. I

love that we’re going to see asbestos abatement contractors licensed by

WorkSafeBC. I love that we’re going to see employers, workers and

contractors who perform asbestos abatement…. They’re going to be

certified. I love that.

It’s just too late. Why is this government taking so long? I quote

from our former government’s Minister of Jobs, Tourism, Skills and

Training and Minister Responsible for Labour in 2017.

“The government of British Columbia supports Canada moving towards a

national ban on asbestos by 2018, and we want to make sure we are doing

all that we can to protect British Columbians and our environment from

asbestos hazards. This working group will look at this issue from a

cross-government perspective to ensure our number one priority is

protecting British Columbians from the dangers of asbestos and will

engage with important partners as the work progresses.”

Well, we didn’t get the opportunity to do that. But this

government has just stood up, with the last two speakers, and said that

safety is their priority. And it took four years more? That’s

unacceptable. So I celebrate this legislation finally coming through,

because it will undoubtedly save lives.

Why did I choose the reports that I did — the long-term-care

report or the Sumas Prairie flooding report? Because they also cost

lives. Inaction costs lives. My caution here and my urging here is to

try to get WorkSafeBC to get those licensing and safety training

programs in place as soon as possible.

I don’t understand why they weren’t actually queried on this

before, why they’re not gunned up and ready to go, because they should

be. Why, with a majority government, could WorkSafeBC not be ready? I

don’t understand.

[2:35 p.m.]

The only thing I can think of is that we’ve actually be­come

okay with letting government take whatever time it wants to, to get

things done, and that’s simply unacceptable.

Like the minister before me, I don’t want everyone to have to feel

that gut punch, wondering if lives are at risk. We should behave as

such, and we should get legislation in place to protect people. We

should activate.

My biggest question right now is: when are the practices actually

going to change of handling asbestos? After this bill is given royal

assent? Or when WorkSafeBC finally has the time or the regulations, the

capacity, to put it in place?

Every day for the last 25 years, I’ve gone to work and I have made

safety a priority, the number one priority. We have some of the lowest

WorkSafeBC rates because of our safety protocols, because safety was our

number one priority. But we did it through action, not through

talk.

So yes, I support this legislation and the work that it builds,

from this government but also from our previous government. But I sure

wish it was tabled sooner. And I sure wish we could have implemented

these actions before more lives were lost. I think that if there’s a big

caution here, it’s that working together, we can accomplish much better

things.

I look forward to debating this bill further in committee stage,

and I look forward to supporting this bill in this House.

R. Russell: I rise today to speak in favour of Bill 5, the Workers

Compensation Amendment Act.

Our goal here, genuinely, is to support worker and workplace

health and safety. The diseases that are caused by asbestos, as the

minister said, are not up for debate. As the minister also noted,

asbestos is the number one cause of workplace death in B.C. The dangers

are, indeed, fact. But they’re also difficult to see. Those tiny fibres

deliver a delayed and painful death that is dramatically disconnected in

time from the exposure.

I will tell my own asbestos story. When my partner, Christine, and

I started farming, we didn’t know what we were doing, but we were fast

learners, I hope. My teacher in that process, who had probably six

decades of farming experience under his belt, was a neighbour and a

friend. Werner was strong and sharp. Even well past what anyone would

reasonably expect the retirement age to be, he was up before dawn and

working his farm and regularly helping me to figure out how to farm all

day long.

He was the one I called when our baler would break down, for

example, which is essentially a giant sewing machine on wheels. He would

be the one to come and help me figure out how to get it back

operational. If one of our ewes was sick, he was the one I would call.

He and his wife were also the ones that showed us how to convert a

buffalo meat chopper and a 1950s wringer washing machine into a

convenient apple cider production system.

He was a healthy character, and then a few years ago Werner got a

cough he couldn’t kick. In the months that followed, he got weaker and

weaker, and of course, eventually he was diagnosed with mesothelioma. As

he got weaker and weaker, I took on the task of trying to navigate the

legal morass that he was in, documenting that it was a workplace

exposure that he had been exposed to decades earlier, literally

surrounded by asbestos that had brought this strong and sharp friend to

his bed.

Again, as the minister made clear, the dangers are fact. Werner

was killed by asbestos exposure that took place working in oil and gas

construction decades and decades previously. When he was there,

surrounded by asbestos panels, I don’t think he would have had any idea

that it would be what killed him in the end. His workplace was not safe

nor healthy.

[2:40 p.m.]

As the minister spoke to, in the abatement industry,

non-compliance is not acceptable. Again, abatement in­dustry

non-compliance is not acceptable because the consequences can become

apparent so many, many years in the future after exposure, decades and

decades and decades. Even making the connection back to asbestos is

challenging at times, given that dramatic delay.

When impacts are disconnected from causes, when those feedbacks

between action and reaction are slow and murky, incentives for bad

actors increase — much like climate change, where we have a duty to act

now to be sure we’re not eroding future value on behalf of current

short-term wins. Our goal here, again, is to support worker and

workplace health and safety now and into the future.

I would close by echoing the gratitude of the minister for the

good work that is being done by the asbestos abatement industry players

that do good work. They do good work, and from what we heard, they will

be happy about these changes to make sure we’re all making good choices

into the future.

L. Doerkson: I just want to take a couple of moments to speak to Bill 5, the

Workers Compensation Amendment Act. I don’t have a lot to say. I think

basically what you’re seeing from the opposition here is an

agreement.

I think what’s been largely conveyed from us this afternoon is

that this is about alarm bells — alarm bells that have gone off with

respect to asbestos and other things in this province, and the response

time has been extremely slow. We’ve seen things like heat domes and,

certainly, flooding in the Sumas Prairie that we knew about, that we did

have advance warning for.

With asbestos, this is not something new. I mean, for years we’ve

dealt with this. What we’ve heard from the women in construction in the

Legislature today here, which is fantastic to hear…. I’m so glad to see

women standing up to talk to this bill.

I have my own personal experience with this. It’s suspected that

I’ve lost family members to asbestos. Myself, in home renovations and in

a glass business — I’m not certain if I’ve been exposed. Again, we’ve

had that moment when you run a saw into a wall or into something and

think: “Oh, my gosh. What have we come across here?”

I agree with the member prior who mentioned that we don’t know

fully who has been exposed. But what we do know is that four or five

years ago this bill, or the contents of some of this bill, was brought

forward to this House. It’s taken this long to bring this bill forward

to this House for a reading.

Furthermore, I’m very concerned…. I mean, when you think about the

numbers and the loss…. The minister himself talked about 280. I’m not

sure what the reference was there. But when you think of the loss….

According to WorkSafeBC, 608 of 1,448 work-related death claims between

2011 and 2020 were related to asbestos, nearly 42 percent of all those

claims. That is just a staggering number.

For us to know that there was something that we could have done

about this four or five years ago and for us to take this long to draft

a bill that is, I think, probably eight or nine pages — it’s not massive

— is concerning to me. I think it’s concerning for the

opposition.

Now, we don’t want to hold this bill up. We want to debate it, and

we want to, obviously, have some questions at committee stage. I think

they’re going to be important questions. But the biggest question is:

why do we wait when we have an opportunity, in this case, to save lives?

All of those people, for that time, that have been exposed or could have

been exposed…. There could have been a death that we may have been able

to stop because of legislation that could have been introduced years

ago, honestly.

For everybody that is watching in the chamber, we are debating,

obviously, Bill 5 with respect to asbestos. I just can’t explain enough

that we do think everybody should be safe in the workplace.

[2:45 p.m.]

In fact, it sounds like many of the members in this building have

actually had something to do with asbestos or potentially have had

life-altering sorts of situations in their businesses or their personal

lives. We are happy to see it come forth, but we want to point out that

it should have come forth a long time ago.

Mr. Speaker, that’s all I really have to say. Thank you very much

for a few moments.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

Recognizing the member for Vancouver–False Creek.

B. Bailey: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I apologize, for almost jumping the line there, to my colleague

across the way.

It’s an honour to rise today in the House to speak to Bill 5, the

Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2022.

Asbestos has the, unfortunately, well-earned name of the silent

killer. Breathing in asbestos fibres can cause cancer and other diseases

such as asbestosis, which is a scarring of the lungs. It makes it very

difficult to breathe. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer of the lining of the

chest or abdominal cavity. It’s a relatively rare but extremely

aggressive cancer with a negative prognosis. One year after diagnosis 40

percent of patients survive. Of course, also, lung cancer, which is

exacerbated if the person also is a smoker.

It’s silent because, of course, exposure can happen, and most

often does, without the person knowing that they’ve been exposed. There

are a few reasons for this, one being historic. We know so much more now

than we used to in regards to the risk of exposure to asbestos. For

many, many years, we handled it improperly and unsafely. Many folks who

worked in heavy-duty trades or construction, 40 years ago, 30 years ago,

were exposed to asbestos before we understood the risks.

There’s one of those people in my family: my Uncle Wayne, who’s a

long-haul truck driver. Wayne drove a truck for many decades, mostly

stainless steel insulated tankers moving British Columbia milk across

our country.

Of course, brake liners contain asbestos. The more wheels you

have, the more brake liners you have. Most of these trucks are

16-wheelers. In the brake assemblies of industrial-sized commercial

vehicles such as the trucks I’m describing and tractor-trailers, they

take two brake shoes and four brake linings for each brake drum. Imagine

being a mechanic who works on these brake liners and changes 40,000 or

50,000 of them in their lifetime.

Wayne was diagnosed with asbestosis in his 40s. A healthy, strong,

fit man, a wicked guitar player, his symptoms were absolutely

life-altering. His situation, unfortunately, was common. Textbook

symptoms arose, starting with a shortness of breath, a persistent dry

cough, a chest tightening or chest pain, lots of weight loss, a loss of

appetite, a dry, crackling sound in his lungs while breathing and wider

than usual toes and fingertips, which is called clubbing. All of this

accompanied with very low energy.

Imagine being in your 40s and losing your income, your energy,

your health and for reasons you didn’t even know about. Wayne has been

unable to work since his diagnosis, now more than two decades ago. This

situation is not the specific situation this bill is addressing, but

these are the types of experiences people who are exposed to asbestos,

unfortunately, can experience.

The new standards introduced in this bill, under the Workers

Compensation Act, will require asbestos abatement contractors to be

licensed to operate in British Columbia and will require workers and

employers who perform this work to complete mandatory safety training

and certification.

A few quick facts in regards to asbestos. It’s actually a

naturally occurring fibrous material that was used as an ingredient in a

variety of building construction materials prior to 1990. It’s often

found in construction materials — drywall, building insulation — and as

I’ve mentioned, car and truck brake pads and the natural environment. It

becomes hazardous, as we know, when it’s disturbed and releases dust or

fibres into the air where they can be inhaled or ingested.

While other provinces have taken steps to improve the safe

handling of asbestos, B.C. will be the first jurisdiction in Canada to

implement a licensing requirement. That’s something for all of us to be

proud of.

[2:50 p.m.]

In 2021, asbestos exposure was a contributing factor in 53 of 161

workplace deaths. Many cases originate from workplace exposures to

asbestos 20, 30 or more years ago, when it was still being widely used

in construction.

I want to share the words of how folks are seeing this legislation

out in the world outside of this building. This is a quote from Al

Johnson, who is the head of prevention services at WorkSafeBC. Al says:

“We support efforts to keep workers safe from the dangerous asbestos by

adding further layers of protection and assurance. That’s why we were

pleased to participate in the cross-ministry asbestos working group and

view the new standards for licensing and safety training as a positive

step forward.”

Another quote. This from Don Whyte, who is an industry advocate

and former executive director of the Hazardous Materials Association.

“Many buildings in B.C. were constructed during the peak use of

asbestos-containing building products. These buildings are now at an age

where renovation or demolition is required. The potential for exposure

to asbestos in the construction industry has never been higher. I am

very pleased to see a competency requirement for those who handle this

hazardous material.”

The last quote that I’ll share with you today is from Neil Munro,

who is a business manager of the B.C. Insulators union. “Licensing

asbestos abatement contractors is an important step towards ending the

death toll of workers exposed to this terrible carcinogen. As the first

such licensing in Canada, it will serve as a model for other provinces

to follow.”

I want to just raise my voice to the many who have congratulated

the Minister of Labour on bringing forward this really important

legislation. I’m proud to support it.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. Of course, just as a general reminder, but also

to the member, the use of electronic devices like a laptop or an iPad

when speaking is not common in this House because it’s not allowed. So

just a general reminder. But thank you to the member.

Seeing no further speakers, I recognize the Minister of Labour to

close debate.

Hon. H. Bains: I do want to take this time to seriously thank all of the members

who took

part in the debate, because they all understand the importance

of having the piece of legislation that is before us, how important it

is about the workers who happen to be our brothers, our sisters, our

sons, our daughters, our parents, grandparents, partners. Many of them

have lost their lives over the years to exposures that they were exposed

a number of years ago, decades ago, not knowing that one day, this

substance was going to kill them. My sympathies to the families, to

them, to the colleagues — all of them.

At the same time, I want to thank a number of people who worked

hard in advocating for the changes that we are debating right now. Don

Whyte, who was the head of the association of insulators. Lee Loftus,

who was the representative of the workers of the insulation union. Neil

Munro today. I say thank you to all of you and many others who

participated in cross-ministry discussions to bring this piece of

legislation together.

Members opposite talk about the delay and the time it took. I take

that seriously. If we could have brought it in two, three, four, five,

ten years ago, it would have been preferred. But a lot of work went into

it, and it involves a number of different ministries. They all came

together.

My hope is that WorkSafeBC is working, as the pieces of

legislation are being developed, to put together training programs, to

put together licensing programs. My hope is that before too long, all of

those will be in place, and the workers who will be handling asbestos in

the future will be fully trained and know the full dangers of asbestos

when they’re dealing with it.

[2:55 p.m.]

British Columbians will also know that when someone is in their

home dealing with asbestos — removing, patching, repairing — the work

that is being conducted in their home is done safely to keep them and

their families safe and their neighbourhood safe. I think that the

workers knowing the dangers through the training is the key.

And the bad actors that we had, the cat-and-mouse game that went

on for too long…. The WCB, at times, had to go to court to get

injunctions. That’s a lengthy, really legalistic process. In the

meantime, those bad actors continued to be operating under different

names. So I hope that with the support that I see here in this House,

from all sides of the House, we will put that in our past, put that in

behind. We are sending a clear message to those bad actors: “No more. It

will not be acceptable in this province for you to play with the lives

of the workers that you employ.”

Saying that, I say I now move second reading of Bill 5.

Motion approved.

Hon. H. Bains: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House

to be considered at the next sitting of the House after

today.

Bill 5, Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2022, read a second time

and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next

sitting of the House after today.

Hon. L. Beare: I call continued debate on the throne speech.

Throne Speech Debate

(continued)

T. Shypitka: I’ll just quickly wrap up. I’ve only got about a minute

left.

I wanted to just say that I want to plead with government to listen to

peaceful and lawful protest. We’ve seen how things have gotten out of hand

in Ottawa, and we have seen, by contrast, these protests here in B.C. in

regard to the COVID pandemic.

What I can tell you, with the protests that I’ve personally witnessed

here in B.C., are great Canadians of all demographics, race and culture that

are only looking for supportive data and timelines to justify government

decision-making surrounding our current COVID mandates. Of course, there are

those that spew hate and violence, and I definitely don’t condone any of

that.

But we can no longer be okay with Canadians against Canadians. We all

need to come together, and we’ll start with listening and understanding.

Government needs to listen, bring in and recognize these strong

Canadians.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the Minister of State for Natural Resource Operations and

Rural Development — something like that. Really important — it’s a lot of

letters, yes.

Hon. N. Cullen: There is change afoot, Mr. Speaker, so you don’t have to get too

wedded to the name forever and ever.

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. This is a

reply to the Speech from the Throne. For many British Columbians, many

Canadians, this part of our legislative tradition is a bit of an unusual

one, in which a representative of the Queen — a Lieutenant Governor in our

case, a Governor General in the case of Canada — reads a speech that she did

not create. She does it with great effect, but it is, in fact, a speech from

the government, setting forward how we’re doing and where we’re

going.

The American equivalent is the State of the Union, I suppose.

Unfortunately, Canadians are often more familiar with American procedure

than our own, but that’s okay. As a son of Irish immigrants, I wrestle with

some of our traditions, and this, sometimes, is one of them.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Specific to what our government has been up to and is about to be up

to, we, of course, know the sequence of events. We saw the speech last week

outlaying the broad and general narrative of what concerns our government,

which, I think, are issues that concern British Columbians broadly — things

like the various crises that we’ve had to deal with collectively as a

people; the government’s response to them; and the protests that my

colleague, just across the way, just referred to, that are ongoing in our

nation’s capital and, until very recently, at a number of our nation’s

borders with the U.S. and in many of our communities.

[3:00 p.m.]

I know my community I live in, Smithers, has had pretty consistent

Saturday afternoon drives around town, up and down the highway, honking

horns, and other things. In this context, representing Stikine has been, I

think, an important experience that I would like to share with other British

Columbians.

In small towns, we don’t have the luxury of just being in a bubble

with only like-minded people. This is the great advantage of small-town

life. By the nature of our smallness, we get to interact with people of

different political persuasions, different faiths, different backgrounds and

different questions and orientations to any particular problem.

Normally, even in moments of strong disagreement, we are able to find

common ground, treat each other, generally, with great respect and dignity,

even when the conflicts have been high. I have to say, this past couple of

years, with increasing intensity, that that has become even more

challenging, with, as my friend from the B.C. Liberals talked about,

elements within some of the protest movements expressing some of the most

hateful notions humanity has ever come up with.

with swastikas and Stars of David and other hateful acts, even after I’ve

talked to the organizers and said: “I’m of Jewish descent. This is

particularly troubling and offensive to me.” I’m told how we are living in

1934 Nazi Germany. I repeat to them that that allegory and insinuation is

unbelievably offensive, demonstrably incorrect in every way that you can

imagine. Yet, unfortunately, within some — not the majority but enough to

worry me and some others — it continues. There has been provocation from one

federal leader, in particular, that has gone with the rest.

I’m off topic, and I’d like to get back to the topic, which is the

throne speech. It’s context, and I think sometimes context

matters.

For us in Stikine, looking at the throne speech, we are able to see a

number of things that are very important to the people I

represent.

Stikine, for those that doesn’t know, is the largest constituency in

British Columbia, in our provincial system. It’s beautiful and stunning. For

members and people that have not had the opportunity to spend time up in the

northwest, the riding goes all the way from outside of Telkwa, through the

Bulkley Valley, the Hazeltons, up through Stewart, another gorgeous part of

our country, and all the way up the highway to Alaska and the Yukon

border.

It’s unbelievably rich in culture, in history, in resources, with some

of the most ancient and formidable First Nations anywhere in the world, all

the way from the Taku River Tlingit, the Kaska, down through Tahltan. Some

Tsimshian from time to time gets in, Wet’suwet’en and Carrier Sekani

sometimes coming in on the edge.

Much of what we look forward to in the next year…. We are in the midst

of this rolling series of challenges and crises. I think that it’s a good

test of a person, certainly any organization and, obviously, a government as

to how we respond to those crises.

I would argue to all members that the response, broadly, from British

Columbians to an unprecedented global pandemic, preceded by and then

followed by incredibly devastating forest fires, heat domes, floods of

unprecedented magnitude…. Our innate ability to come together to find common

cause, in the midst of struggle and strife and tensions and political

divisions, is always remarkable to me. That is as much true in rural B.C. as

it is anywhere, perhaps more so at times, and certainly in Stikine, the

place that I represent.

The Jobs Minister was out just today, with the Premier, laying out our

economic strategy, which follows nicely in that we’ve had the throne speech,

which I’ll talk about. We’ve now had our economic strategy, understanding

that B.C. has got a very good problem. We’re a very popular place to come

to. We’re a place that’s seen of great opportunity and have been for a long

time, and increasingly so, where our forecasters look ahead and project that

we’ll need upwards of hundreds of thousands of new jobs to be filled, in

some cases by people we don’t have here yet, which again speaks to the

need.

[3:05 p.m.]

I think the terms and understanding of the role of immigration to this

province have been shifting. I think there have been times where there has

been a knee-jerk reaction to the other, to people from away. We have had

policies that have been starkly racist in this province and in this country.

We’ve seen some evolution of that, but we remain with many challenges of

properly welcoming people to British Columbia. We’ve seen enormous

challenges.

We saw the inflation numbers out today. While lower than the Canadian

average and lower than in many parts of the U.S., inflation is a significant

problem for British Columbians. The cost of very essential things has gone

up. Now, it is a well-known thing that in politics governments take credit

for things that they had little influence over, and they get blamed for

things, from time to time, that they have little influence over. Yet we all

must wrestle…. The throne speech speaks to this, of the challenge of

affordability.

We have made moves, obviously, as a government, to try to keep things

as affordable as possible with the things that we do control. The largest

middle-income tax cut in British Columbia history was done by an NDP

government in the last term, which was to cancel the MSP premiums. That

mattered to families.

I actually got a notice from MSP the other day that my address might

have been wrong. It was one digit off, and I should phone. My wife said:

“Get on that. You’ve got to phone those guys, because you might owe them

money. If you’ve got the wrong address, it will pile up, and it will be

terrible.” I phoned them, and we corrected the address. I said: “I just

forgot. Are there any arrears? Is there an account that I’m owing?” She was

so delightful. She said: “Oh. No, no. We’ve done away with

those.”

I previously, coming out of university, ended up accruing a debt to

MSP as I was paying off significant student loans, trying to make my way

through the world, running a small business and getting to my MSP premiums

last. After a year of that, it got real expensive quick. This is a lived

reality for many British Columbians — that that’s suddenly just not there.

We’ve decided to understand and address that through our taxation,

collectively.

We’ve also, of course, completely overhauled ICBC. The previous

government could not refuse the temptation of turning that institution into

an ATM that they could just keep withdrawing from, withdrawing from, and not

be, I think, honest with British Columbians that that withdrawal was coming

from their pocketbooks, that the insurance corporation was overcharging — in

some cases, we think intentionally — to elevate profits, which were then

just flowing back into general revenue for whatever the government of the

day happened to want. It’s not a good way to run anything.

My friends across the way talk about being the pro-business party.

They know how to understand things. That’s not a good way to run any

business, where you knowingly overcharge your customers in order to create

political slush funds to use for other things that you’re not accountable

for. We fixed that, and that matters. That saves British Columbian drivers

hundreds and hundreds of dollars every year, every year from now

on.

We, of course, created the child opportunity fund — $1,600 for a

child, another $1,000 for the second — which, again, puts money back into

the pockets of working British Columbians to be able to handle and manage

the costs of raising children. I’ve got twins. I know these costs very well.

It matters when you are thinking about trying to get them into a swim class,

when you’re thinking about…. Are the winter boots going to make it another

year, or should we try to get another pair? All of these things

matter.

On housing — adding tens of thousands of units, trying to create the

push on supply, while also looking after the speculators who have been

torquing our markets, initially, probably, mostly in the Lower Mainland. You

know, you throw a big rock in a pond. It ripples out. We have seen it all

through the Fraser Valley, up north and through Vancouver Island — that

speculation and treating homes like investments rather than a place to live,

over time, has compounded to the point where livability in our major city,

and many of our communities, has become very, very difficult for

people.

While it may be exciting for the approximately north of 50 percent of

British Columbians who do own their home to watch their valuation come

through, we see a lot of cases — and I hope members have talked to people in

their communities — of the so-called house rich, cash poor. Their home has

become worth a lot more.

This has definitely been a problem in Vancouver and the surrounding

districts for a while. The taxation rate just on the municipal taxes, even

if their home is paid for, becomes so high that their affordability of

staying there, in a neighbourhood that they love and have probably lived in

for quite some time, becomes impossible.

[3:10 p.m.]

We have added 18,000 affordable housing units. We’re adding a bunch

more, really struggling at times in working with municipalities and their

permitting process. That’s something that we have to work diligently for, as

members know, especially those that have spent time sitting on town or city

councils. NIMBYism is a powerful force in the world. People might like an

idea in the abstract, until it comes one neighbourhood over, and suddenly

they have opinions, whether it be on SkyTrain or a mixed affordable housing

unit. Of course, those histrionics are often driven up by misconceptions,

and we’ve got a lot of work to do on that, because we have such

need.

Now, on the reconciliation front, I just came from a phone call with a

global mining company that operates in the northwest — cut one of their

first entrances into the Americas, as they like to call us. In talking about

their project and their prospect, I said: “You know, our government is

really pushing for new reconciliation agreements with First Nations that

allow for co-management, co-jurisdiction, a sharing of authority on the

territories.”

There were some, when we were arguing through the declaration on the

rights of Indigenous peoples in this place, and also in the national

capital, that said that this was a bad idea, maybe, that it would create

uncertainty, that it would shy away from investment and that it might even

be bad for First Nations. Some argued that, and some still do.

I said: “What are your reflections?” They said: “Well, our certainty

is extraordinary. Our relationship is incredibly strong. Our partnership is

essential to our ability to do business, our partnership between ourselves

and the First Nations” — in this case, it was the Tahltan — “and our

partnership between the province and us.”

The more we can do on capacity, on building up the ability to respond

to the many requests that are banging on the door of many First Nations,

particularly in the northwest…. I know a number of nations who struggle just

with the ability to respond to all the potentials and opportunities that are

coming their way. It’s something that we’ve invested in and need to invest

in more.

I think there are some partnerships available — the throne speech

speaks a bit to this — between the private sector and the public, with

respect to encouraging more of the revenue stream through First Nations,

which we’ve done through the Lottery Corp.

Of course, many billions of dollars, over the next 25 or 30 years, are

going directly to First Nations to build up own-source revenue and capacity

as well as the commercial agreements that nations are signing, with the

backing and the authority of the Crown in this case, as we refer to it, to

say that a co-jurisdictional environment exists, a co-management, a

co-decision-making environment. “Here is how it’s going to work. Here are

the legal documents. Here are the precedents. Here’s how these agreements

will be durable in court and in other places.” This is the certainty. This

is the present, and I think that increasingly, it will be our

future.

Now, I mentioned the significant challenges that we face as a

province, the challenges that were put upon this government. I think there’s

an old citation from a British parliamentarian that said: “If there’s one

thing that you could have changed in your time in office, what would it be?”

His reply was: “Circumstances, dear boy.” It’s the notion that you can plan,

and the universe laughs. We do our best, and we adapt when the crisis is put

upon us.

I’ve noticed the tenor in debate. There have been some inferences in

talking about Fort McMurray, a community I’ve visited a number of times — I

have friends and family that live there — and the fire that swept through

that community and burned down a fairly significant

part in the housing

section. Not so much in the core of the municipality. At the time, there

were people — this is going back just a few years now — that very much

wanted to debate the impacts of climate change. “Is our weather changing? Is

the intensity of our fire system changing?” People wanted to be careful and

respectful of the tragedy that people in Fort McMurray had gone through, to

not make the connection to the impacts of climate change.

I have noticed the difference, at least in the public discourse here

in this place, in the Legislature, and in Ottawa. When looking at these

climate-impacted events over these last few years that we’ve had, these

incredibly devastating forest fire seasons, costing the treasury millions

and millions, tens of millions of dollars, the fear of loss of life and the

loss of massive amounts of our forests, the heat dome effect and the

hundreds of British Columbians who lost their lives in that devastating

event, the floods, the fire that ravaged and destroyed an entire town in

Lytton, B.C., we’re no longer debating the question of what we need to

do.

[3:15 p.m.]

The realities are upon us. They’re not going to get easier to deal

with. They’re not going to get necessarily better in any kind of way.

There’s a need for resiliency to be built into all of our infrastructure,

into our planning, into our government thinking, and to reduce the impact

that we’re having on the planet, thereby reducing the threat that is now

borne upon us in our communities.

There’s much jargon — there often is — in politics about building back

better. We’ve noticed in some of our interactions…. This is a real

challenge. Say we seek to partner with the federal government in a

building-back program to rebuild some infrastructure. The current policies

on the books don’t allow us. We’d have to build back to the standard of

whatever the infrastructure was before the devastating event — the flood or

the fire.

But if building back that infrastructure puts it as vulnerable as it

was before the disaster, it makes no sense to anybody, right? You make

yourselves just as vulnerable. These are the conversations we need to have

with our federal partners, our municipalities and First Nations governance —

to say we all need to adapt in our way of thinking and our way of building

and our way of creating economy.

There’s much hopefulness in this. We have, through very difficult

times, learned these hard lessons of what it is when the weather changes on

you, when something that you’ve known for a long time looks this

way.

If folks remember far up north, in Telegraph Creek, when that

community was hit by fires…. I sat at a lunchroom table with one of the

firefighters. He was a man of great experience. He had been fighting fires

for near-on four decades. He’s exhausted. He’s just come off another shift,

trying to just protect this remote community of Telegraph Creek — very

exposed, very vulnerable, right close to the fire. The escape is the

river.

I said, “How are you doing?” which is a tough question for someone

going through what he was going through. He said: “I’m fine.” I said: “Well,

what are you seeing?” He said:

“It’s different. The fires are acting in a way that is different. What

we used to see was this. If you had a stand that was dominated by this

species, the fire would come up to it, and it would slow down. So we would

know we’d have time to work around it. We would know that a trench would

have this impact on a firebreak because we’ve done it over and over

again.

“There are a lot of fires in the north — it’s part of the actual natural

process — but not of this intensity, so our firebreaks don’t work. The fires

are going deeper. They’re going hotter. We don’t have precipitation in the

soil, so we don’t have that absorption of the heat. We don’t have the plans

to deal with this. We have not learned how to deal with this kind of

fire.”

This person — I had no idea what his politics were. I don’t think he

was particularly interested. He wasn’t advocating a particular view of the

world. He was just telling me how it was for him in dealing with this

particular fire. He had a lot of friends around the province and in

Australia and other places that have seen similar events, and he says this

is not unique. This is what’s happening. We can’t debate this anymore. This

is what it is.

I think building back means that you build your resiliency. The

pandemic certainly exposed for us — and it speaks to this in the throne

speech — where our vulnerabilities and weaknesses were as a people, that

those on the lowest income margins were very vulnerable, very exposed, very

near to being tossed from their homes, very near to losing their

jobs.

When the pandemic first hit, we took a number of steps that I think

were intelligent, in the sense of saying we have to protect people. We’ve

always been a people-focused government. We’ve got to think about people

first. So when the initial lockdowns….

Many of our constituents have forgotten what a lockdown looks like, by

the way. I get emails on the regular, saying: “Stop the lockdown.” I say:

“Well, there are restrictions, of course. There are things that we can’t do

as easily. But you have forgotten.” It’s only been a couple of years, I

realize. But it was about two years ago when we locked down.

In fact, if you look around the world, this jurisdiction, in British

Columbia, has been one of the least locked-down jurisdictions in terms of

restrictions on mobility and movement, because that was one of our three

principles: to allow people as much freedom as was safely possible and the

economy to continue in ways that it could, to protect our health care system

from being overrun.

We all saw the images coming out of Italy. We saw the images coming

out of New York City. We saw the images of what happens when the numbers get

too high. And we were to protect people: do what we could, bring in the

measures that keep us safe. We still have a number of those measures in

place, because as we’ve said too many times, we might be done with the

virus, but it’s not yet quite done with us. It doesn’t care. It simply

doesn’t. It’s a virus. It has no concern for our feelings, our exhaustion,

our political orientation. It lives to spread. That’s what it does. You can

argue with a virus all day, and you’ll lose in the end.

[3:20 p.m.]

In taking this on and coming to this stage that we’re at, we saw the

recent announcements by Dr. Bonnie Henry and the Health Minister and the

Premier, moving in a steady, wise fashion, which can be nerve-racking to

some. We have to acknowledge that. We definitely, I think, as MLAs, hear

from constituents that are really upset with restrictions. There is a large

number of people that you don’t get to hear from, but you do when some of

those restrictions come free, and they’re anxious.

I think there’s good counsel from our good doctor to say let’s be kind

to one another and understand that we’ll be dealing with people who do not

feel safe even talking outside without a mask or whatever changes happen,

being in a restaurant without seating limits. That remains something that we

should be conscientious of with one another. But in those three principles —

protecting our health care system, not allowing it to be overrun, protecting

people….

Our mortality rate was one of the lowest in the developed world. Our

equivalency to other provinces, even in Canada…. We would have lost 2,000

more British Columbians if we had an equivalent mortality rate per 100,000

people. That’s 2,000 more lives — moms, dads, uncles, brothers.

Not perfect, and at no point did we claim perfection, but the best

economic recovery of any province. We have the strongest economy of any of

the provinces right now. We were able to defend and protect and invest in

our health care system. It had been underfunded in some significant ways. We

will continue, and the throne speech speaks to that.

We were able to understand that having a high vaccin­ation rate,

which we have, amongst the highest…. Not without great effort by the health

minister and the public health office to continue to this day to ask people

to get their shots, because we know they’re safe and effective. At various

points, the vaccines have played various roles. We still see, on the effect

on hospitalization, that the rate of hospitalization of those that are

unvaccinated is orders of magnitude higher than those who have received

their shot, especially their booster shot. A little over half of British

Columbians have got their booster shot. There’s some work to do.

I know people can somewhat feel complacent that maybe omicron isn’t as

bad, but anyone just has to look up the health reports and see that British

Columbians are continuing to die. I would suggest they’re unacceptable,

because one is too many.

We’ve been tested, and it’s good to be tested. It’s good when the

opposition tests the government. It’s good when people, our constituents,

push and test the policies we bring forward, because we don’t look for

perfect. We look for good and constant improvement, constant ways to

understand how to do things better.

I’ll speak to this, because it was mentioned in the throne speech. It

was some personal work of mine, as colleagues will know. We spent a great,

significant amount of time — an unprecedented amount of time — talking with

First Nations governance, rights and title holders, the leadership council,

just about every industry group, many municipalities, tourism operators and

local businesses about the potential reorganization of our largest natural

resource ministry, which is Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and

Rural Development. That is not just a mouthful in terms of ministry names. I

think it wins the award for the longest ministry name in B.C.

history.

It was a ministry that had been put together about 11 years ago or so,

just at the tail-end of the tenure of former Premier Campbell. As colleagues

across the way would know much better than me, that Premier was a bit of a

policy wonk, self-admitted, and he liked to tinker and adjust and

change.

One of his pet peeves had been, “Let’s smoosh them all together. Let’s

make a mega-ministry, a one-stop-shop,” which, on principle, I can

understand, because for indus­try or First Nations government, maybe

there’s some convenience and maybe some ability to break down the natural

silos that happen within government. Colleagues have all experienced this.

One ministry not talking effectively to another.

One person from industry, a senior natural resource executive, said in

one of our consultations: “Well, you promised to break down the silos, but

what ended up actually happening is you had the silos and you threw a tarp

over top. It looked like one ministry, but we still ran into those

challenges.” So the Premier asked me some time ago to go out and propose

ways of specifically dealing with land and marine use planning, which is an

incredibly important thing when thinking about the future, which is what the

throne speech does.

What does the future look like? Well, what you do on the land, how you

make decisions — are those decisions durable? Are they good