Third Session, 41st Parliament

(2018) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 176

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 53 — Recall and Initiative Amendment Act, 2018 (continued)

A. Weaver

P. Milobar

D. Barnett

T. Shypitka

S. Gibson

L. Throness

B. Stewart

R. Sultan

J. Thornthwaite

E. Ross

M. Hunt

J. Isaacs

D. Davies

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

S. Thomson: I’m very pleased to welcome into the House today Carmen Sparg, who is

the president of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce, and Dan Rogers, who is the

CEO of the Kelowna chamber. I had lunch with them. They’re here to meet with

some representatives of government. Kelowna chamber, one of the largest

chambers in the province, does a great job representing the community and

our area. I’d ask the House to please make them welcome.

J. Rustad: I also want to just extend a welcome to Dan Rogers, who is a former

mayor of Prince George and some­one who I played soccer against for a

number of years as well. It’s great to see him here in the gallery. Please

make him welcome.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate on Bill 53.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 53 — RECALL AND INITIATIVE

AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

(continued)

Mr. Speaker: House Leader, Third Party.

Leader, Third Party.

A. Weaver: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I continue my place in this debate after

the demotion I just received over lunch.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

For those in Hansard, I was introduced as the House Leader of the

Third Party instead of the Leader of the Third Party.

Deputy Speaker: Leader of the Third Party.

A. Weaver: Thank you, hon. Speaker.

I rise again to continue my place as designated speaker from the

Third Party on Bill 53, the Recall and Initiative Amendment Act,

[1:35 p.m.]

I kind of want to summarize where I left off before lunch. As I

left off, we were standing here in this Legislature essentially debating

this. On the one side of this House, we have a party and a third party,

a government and a third party who are supporting legislation which will

eliminate big money from recall campaigns and initiatives. What that’s

saying is that this act — that is, the Recall and Initiative Act — will

come into compliance, in essence, or come in to be similar to the

elections act — which the Liberals voted against, mind you — to ban big

money from B.C. politics.

Now, what the official opposition is arguing, in

summary to this,

is they’re actually arguing against this bill. In essence, this is what

they’re saying. They’re defending the ability of one individual or one

corporation with deep pockets to spend millions of dollars because he or

she may have a personal grudge against an MLA. They’re aggrieved by the

affronts to democracy that this would have by not allowing one

individual with a grudge against an MLA or a grudge against a

government’s policy to be able to spend their millions to actually

recall an MLA or put forward an initiative.

You know, members opposite laugh. I mean, the member for

Kamloops–North Thompson, who seems to find this all very funny, should

probably spend more time talking to British Columbians about how happy

they were that big money was finally from B.C. politics. Let’s see him

stand up there and defend the fact that they, the B.C. Liberals,

continue to argue that it is okay.

A year after we banned it from B.C. elections, they continue to

argue that it is okay for a corporation to intervene in our electoral

process and spend millions of dollars because they don’t like an MLA or

they want an initiative. This, to the B.C. Liberals, is democracy. On

this side of the House, we’re saying: “Enough of that.”

You clearly — you being the B.C. Liberals — have learned nothing

from the last election. You have not listened to British Columbians for

the last year and a half. You continue to think that British Columbians

think it is okay that you seem to see that your only goal in this

Legislature is to stand and complain about the fact that you’re in the

opposition. At some point….

Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair, Member. Through the Chair.

A. Weaver: At some point, hon. Speaker, the B.C. Liberals need to recognize

that they’re in a time-out, that they’re going to be sitting in

opposition for a long time. As soon as they come to realize that, they

might actually start to debate issues that matter here in the province

of British Columbia, not issues that come to the foundation of their

existence as a party and their quest for power.

I cannot believe this. They seem not to have learned anything.

They seem to not recognize that people in British Columbia are cynical

about the B.C. Liberal approach to politics.

They seem to not recognize that it is not okay for friends and

donors to that party — through you, hon. Speaker, the other party that’s

not on this side of the House…. It is not okay for them to have

corporate donors give them hundreds of thousands of dollars and then

them make decisions — some of which I hope to explore in the weeks and

months ahead — that are clearly not in the best interests of British

Columbians but are clearly in the best interests of the donors to the

party making those decisions.

This is what we’re hearing. We’re hearing a defence of the status

quo from a couple of years ago, the status quo that put the opposition

where they are. In the debate, their critic to this file, the member for

Vancouver-Langara, did not once mention the fact that this bill is

actually banning big money. His remarks to the debate were a diatribe, a

continuation of the 36 hours we’ve had to sit here and listen to the

drivel — yes, drivel — misinformation, alternate facts emanating from

members opposite as they try to campaign on a quest of fear over

proportional representation.

[1:40 p.m.]

Again, they clearly haven’t understood that in British Columbia,

the largest voting demographic are the millennials now. The largest

voting demographic are the millennials. And what they don’t understand

is that millennials are voting out of hope — the hope expressed by the

two parties over here working together — and they’re not reacting to the

fear of a dynasty from the last century, struggling to find a mandate

for itself, unable to define who they are but united under one quest —

the quest for power.

They have the gall at times to suggest that ride-hailing not being

brought in — it’s going to come in this fall; it’s not being brought in

now — was somehow not their responsibility.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Please continue.

A. Weaver: I sat in this Legislature, and not once, not twice but three times

brought in a private member’s bill that they had every opportunity to

enact, to bring in ride-hailing, three years ago. But ah, they didn’t do

it. Why? It’s because as I pointed out before lunch, the cynical

framework that governs the party opposite is one in which it is all

about power.

Heaven forbid they’d actually bring in ride-hailing in the lead-up

to the 2017 provincial election and alienate a few key ridings south of

the Fraser that they were hoping to get. Fortunately, they were trumped

out by removing some tolls on those same ridings. Nevertheless, it

wasn’t brought in. There is simply no high ground for the members

opposite on this file. In fact, it’s almost humorous when they bring it

forth.

Coming back to this Recall and Initiative Amendment Act. Again,

we’re seeing nothing more than consistency here, eliminating the ability

of big money to influence politics in B.C. in its final form. Coming to

some of the changes that I outlined earlier that are happening. We know

that the Election Act was amended last year and that this area, this

particular component, the Recall and Initiative Act, was not. Right now,

all that’s happening…. This is what we’re debating here, not the

proportional representation that they’re hung up on.

Honestly, I come back to 36 hours in here. I’ve heard the same

speech for 36 hours. For those riveted to Hansard , just go back

and type in the words “stacked deck” and see how many of the members

opposite have been reading their media lines.

Interjections.

A. Weaver: Changed game…. I mean rigged game. Look up “rigged game” as well.

They have a 22-year-old staffer down in the basement who’s writing them

speeches, and we have the puppets opposite who are reading the same

speech member after member. It’s frankly embarrassing that we have 42

members opposite who collectively cannot write an independent speech,

and we have to listen to that here.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. Let’s get back to the bill, please.

A. Weaver: Coming back to the financing, we know that this act aligns

financing rules for recall campaigns with the Election Act and changes

that were made last year, the Election Act amendment changes last year —

which the members opposite also voted against because, of course, they

still want big money in politics.

We know that this bill before us is banning unions and

corporations, just as has occurred in the local government elections,

school board elections and provincial elections. We know that it’s

setting a $1,200 limit to contributions for individual British

Columbians, just like it exists in the Elections Act, just like it

exists for local governments and school boards. We know it creates a

third-party spending limit of $5,000 for advertising during the recall

petition period.

Frankly, these were needed changes. Frankly, I do not think it is

okay if somebody with a grudge, or an MLA who happens to have access to

a deep corporate sponsor, could somehow, in the case of an MLA — there

might be a recall campaign — perhaps go to somebody and get several

hundred thousand dollars to prop up a campaign and spread

disinformation.

I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think it’s right that the

opposite could occur — that a particular vested interest could solely

fund a campaign initiative in British Columbia. These are commonsense

changes. Again, I get that these commonsense changes make the Liberals

feel uncomfortable. They make them feel uncomfortable because they’ve

been playing by this rigged game with a stacked deck for far too long.

What they’re finally seeing is that that rigged game with a stacked deck

is being fixed.

[1:45 p.m.]

They can’t take it because they know that the reason why they were

able to remain in power and the reason why they were able to ignore

British Columbians for so long was because they could appeal to their

corporate donors for vast quantities of money to ensure that they got

the airwaves filled with their message. They went on character

assassinations of anyone who opposed them. That’s the way they go;

that’s the way they operate.

Look at where we are now. Corporate donations no longer. The B.C.

Greens are nipping at the tails of the B.C. Liberals in terms of annual

funding. We are not too far from them in terms of annual funding. That’s

what happens when people, not vested interests, have to support

parties.

As I said, the bill is common sense. Only one recall campaign can

exist at a time. Now, I heard that the member for Vancouver-Langara

somehow thought this was an affront to democracy, clearly not even

listening to his own arguments during his diatribe. On one hand, he

would suggest that it’s important for people to actually have an attempt

to follow through with a recall and that maybe now it might be misused.

Well, in actual fact the best way to misuse a recall campaign would be,

as soon as somebody did one, to start three others. Then you get people

not knowing which petition they signed.

This is actually cleaning up a problem that existed with the HST

initiative that went forward and passed. What if we’d had four that were

running at the same time? Four initiatives like that? How would that

initiative have been successful? There would’ve been many people who

signed and said, “I’ve already signed it.” Confusion would have

abounded. That’s commonsense rule No. 1. Again, B.C. Liberals hate that

because it’s not the kind of status quo of their cynical party politics

from the past.

Another smart change. We’re getting a prohibition of a recall

petition six months before general voting day for a scheduled election.

My understanding is that I think there was a recommendation for a year,

but this is a compromise from what was actually asked for by the Chief

Electoral Officer.

Six months makes sense. It’s kind of ridiculous to be able to have

a recall campaign initiated in the six months, so that after you have

the 30 days, you’ve got a few months left. You call a by-election, and

basically, the person may not even come into the Legislature, or very

much. Then you swear him in; you swear him out. Back to the election.

It’s consistent, again, with by-election legislation. The six-month time

frame is entirely consistent with that. Makes some positive changes,

this act does, to violations of the act.

It provides the Chief Electoral Officer with regulation-making

authority. What it’s not doing, despite the fact…. If you listen to

members opposite, you’d think the world was going to end. Chicken Little

and his or her friends opposite would suggest that the sky is falling.

This bill does not provide any new protections for MLAs. It actually

creates a level playing field that ensures the interests of British

Columbians are front and centre, not vested corporate and union

interests.

If people wanted to make this harder, they would’ve pushed it up

to 50 percent, to 60 percent. It’s 40 percent. Nothing has changed with

that requirement of 40 percent of the electorate. It’s a very high

threshold, a hard threshold, but it is still the only threshold that

exists in Canada. We are the one jurisdiction that has that.

I don’t hear us today saying: “Let’s repeal this legislation.” I

don’t hear government today saying: “Oh, let’s make it 60 percent.” I

don’t hear government today saying: “Let’s ban donations.” All I hear in

this bill is government putting forward a very, very reasonable approach

to protect our democracy from the influence of big money and special

interests.

To conclude, I have sat here now for, it must be, two weeks

listening to members opposite in question period, in speeches. It seems

that they have forgotten what it means to govern in this province, what

it means to be in opposition. The role of an opposition is not to try to

solely argue for everything in terms of trying to actually save a party

and get back into power, no matter what. It’s about representing the

will of the people of British Columbia.

The will of the people of British Columbia is that big money be

gone out of politics here.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Aw, thank you — I don’t know whether I’m able to acknowledge

somebody not sitting in their chair — to somebody who normally sits down

in the Premier’s chair for the support of this.

Interjection.

[1:50 p.m.]

A. Weaver: Of course the member for Kamloops–North Thompson is shocked that

the Premier would support this bill.

What should be shocking to the member for Kamloops–North Thompson

is the fact that they, their party, are yet again standing up before

British Columbians and saying that it is okay for one corporation to

donate whatever they want, because they have a grudge against an MLA, to

try to out that MLA. Or it’s equally okay for the member for

Kamloops–North Thompson to go to a corporation and say: “I have a recall

campaign against me. Can you give me a million bucks to fund the no

campaign?”

He’s essentially arguing that that’s okay. That is the essence of

the argument that we have before us. The members opposite think this is

funny, but what is funny is their lack of moral compass, the fact that

their wind vane is broken. It’s spinning. There’s no direction. There

are no values.

British Columbians don’t know what they stand for, apart from

trying to get back into power to ensure that their vested corporate

interests are at the table, through donations, to actually ensure that

their friend’s interest, as opposed to British Columbians’ interests,

are put front and centre in this Legislature in decision-making in

British Columbia.

With that, I proudly stand, and my colleagues proudly stand, in

support of this speech. I look forward to continued debate.

P. Milobar: I must say that it’s always a little difficult to get up and

follow such a self-serving, sanctimonious and hypocritical speech as

that, but I will give it my best shot.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about Bill 53, the Recall and

Initiative Amendment Act, also known in these parts — quickly becoming

known — as the EPA, also known as the self-preservation act.

This bill is fundamentally flawed. To hear the previous speaker

talk, I think it actually shines a light on a lot of those concerns. In

fact, this bill…. Maybe we were originally thinking it was for some

already-talked-about recall campaigns, but perhaps the member for Oak

Bay–Gordon Head, who seems so concerned about this, is worried that

people in his riding maybe are a little bit concerned about his bluster

and lack of action around the speculation tax.

Maybe members in his party and his riding are a little bit

concerned about his bluster and lack of action on Site C. Maybe they’re

worried about his lack of action and bluster when it comes to LNG. Maybe

they’re worried about his lack of action and, in fact, helping to be one

impetus to drive Kinder Morgan to now be a nationalized

project.

Maybe they’re worried about the inevitable out, the convenient out

that will happen when the climate action plan comes forward and it’s

nothing but a diluted piece of legislation. Instead of bringing the

government down around it, he will prop the government up yet again.

Maybe he’s the one that’s actually worried about a recall campaign

happening in Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

Frankly, I thought that the Attorney General’s comments were

ridiculous until I heard the member, the Leader of the Third Party. To

stand in this House and suggest that I was laughing because of the

bill…. I was laughing because of the absolutely extreme, ludicrous

examples that the Leader of the Third Party was bringing

forward.

To suggest that this bill was designed because, in previous recall

campaigns, individuals, let alone corporations, were running out and

spending millions upon millions of dollars to fund recall campaigns

shows you just how desperate and extreme both the Attorney General and

the Leader of the Third Party are when it comes to this piece of

legislation. The fact that they are reaching that far to try to come up

with some type of a red herring for people to latch on to is flat-out

ridiculous.

The banning of big money when it relates to recall is one thing. I

would point out that it was conveniently forgotten about with all the

other legislative changes. They didn’t make an amendment. It didn’t

trigger when we dealt with the local government election act and made

those changes in time for the local government election.

[1:55 p.m.]

It didn’t trigger that this was actually part of the legislation

when they brought in the first legislation around election financing.

No, this has been triggered nine, ten days, eight days before recall

campaigns can go active.

Frankly, I don’t get to Point Grey that often. It’s a little bit

outside of my neighbourhood when it comes to price point for housing,

but I have driven through it. I have seen for quite some time very large

signs, pretty much like a countdown clock, indicating to the Attorney

General, in his own home riding, that a recall campaign is on its

way.

When the Attorney General stands in this House and tries to make

it sound like he’s protecting everybody, and then the laughable extreme

of his quote saying he actually would feel uncomfortable if people were

trying to defend him by donating…. That’s ridiculous in the extreme —

trying to come up with an excuse to justify legislation that is taking a

sledgehammer to a nonexistent problem.

We’ve had 26 recall initiatives in this province with a zero

success rate on those 26. So the fact that the Attorney General or the

Leader of the Third Party would be this worried about these phantom

millionaires that are going to come in with millions upon millions of

dollars for a recall campaign is beyond ridiculous.

Let’s set aside that part of this bill, and let’s look into the

whole 51 pages. Because although the Attorney General and the Leader of

the Third Party would love us to think that this is only about big

money, it’s a 51-page bill. It’s a 51-page bill that hammers down on

anybody’s ability to try to engage in their civic right to try and

recall somebody. And I say “try,” because, again, 26 times it has not

been successful.

I’m not sure where all this phantom big money was on those other

26 times, but the Attorney General seems to be very, very worried that

they’re going to come now.

The problem with this bill is…. Those same signs that are up on

people’s lawns, it gets very confusing if they’re allowed to do that

individually or not in this bill. In fact, the cap, and everything else

that they have in here, makes it almost impossible for anybody to run a

proper recall campaign. By that I mean there’s almost not enough money

in this for the limits for you to properly photocopy and have forms and

petitions for you to be able to take door to door. And we’re not even

sure how you would account for the pens and the paper, or the pencils,

that you would need, if that would count as a donation or

not.

Because it’s ridiculous in the extreme when you read through the

51 pages that this so-called legislation gets into. It gets into very

back-and-forth, confusing areas. And one has to ask: what’s the

rush?

Again, it’s a self-serving piece of legislation. It’s a

self-serving piece of legislation brought in by an Attorney General who,

since almost, I think, the budget…. I think it was the budget measures

that actually triggered the unrest in his community, in his riding.

Since about then, there have been “Recall the Attorney General” signs in

his riding.

Miraculously, eight days before it’s going to start — eight days

before it’s able to be triggered by the public for them to do a

grassroots campaign — the Attorney General is worried and trying to

stifle that.

Now we’re hearing from the Leader of the Third Party, who takes it

to even more of the extreme in trying to elicit the image of

million-dollar payoffs happening and million-dollar cheques being cut

for a recall campaign.

To show just how ridiculous that is, it took that side of the

House ten years to be able to extract $20 million out of their

handpicked 19 unions. They didn’t get $20 million in a year out of 19

unions. It took them ten years to get the $20 million out of them, and

it took those unions 11 years to get the payoff back from the

government. So it’s disingenuous to appoint….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, you have to be in your own seat to make any

comments.

P. Milobar: It’s totally disingenuous for the Attorney General to continue to

say that this is actually about protecting the public from his

supporters defending him. This is like we’re in a banana republic right

now. This is just bizarre, what this government is bringing

forward.

[2:00 p.m.]

We’re in the middle of debating proportional representation on

Bill 40. I’m assuming, since the Leader of the Third Party spoke about

almost every other type of bill and everything that happened over the

last 16 years while talking to Bill 53, unlike the speaker before him,

this won’t hurt the sensitivities of the members opposite this time when

I talk about Bill 40 for a little bit, like he did earlier in the

day.

This is the problem we have. We have Bill 40 which is meant to try

to fundamentally change the decision-making process that people might

make in a referendum while they’re actually being asked to vote, while

they can actively engage in voting. The Attorney General brings forward

that to try to change the conversation. Then we hear the member of the

Third Party mad that we have the temerity to try to debate that in this

House, to try to show to the public how ridiculous this is

getting.

Why that’s important is because a lot of the discussion in the

communities is about lack of information around proportional

representation, lack of what would happen under this system or that

system. Well, we know there’s no certainty on what happens in a

by-election under proportional representation because the government

hasn’t seen fit to tell us what that scenario would look

like.

Before they say, “Well, by-elections are rare,” I’ll save them,

because I think we might be having a by-election in Nanaimo pretty

quickly here, if I’m not mistaken. By-elections actually happen on a

fairly regular basis in this House — not every year but fairly

regularly. So I think people have the right to know how they would get a

member elected in a by-election under prop rep.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: I’ll draw the line for the member that’s confused about how this

might be a lack of information for people as well. I see no language in

this bill around what happens, for recall, to an appointed member of

this Legislature under recall. I see no language under this — what

happens to an elected member under recall with proportional

representation.

In other words, if this wasn’t such a self-serving rush to try to

save one’s own hide, this bill could have come forward more complete

post-referendum, knowing what type of electoral system we’d have moving

forward for the next little while. But no, there’s a massive rush to try

to ram this through.

It is important, because if people are voting predicated on the

percentage of votes should equal the percentage of seats and you’re an

elected member of this House who loses their seat under recall, that

changes the percent of seats in this House. Does the same party just get

to reappoint a new person but that party holds the seat? Is there an

actual by-election that happens? Instead of appointing 60 people or 50

people to this House, do the party bosses get to hand-select a new

person to come in and fill that elected seat?

None of those are in this bill. It’s a rushed bill aimed strictly

around serving one’s own interests when it comes to recall — which,

again, has never actually been successful. So the fact that there would

be this much worry…. Recalls have never, to this point, had the

big-money boogeyman behind them that they’re trying to say on

this.

Yet I notice that the union loopholes are wide open still in this.

The loopholes are wide open in this bill. The loopholes that would allow

unions to do exactly as they did in the last municipal election, where

they could pay people to not show up to work that day and make sure they

were paid and be able to go campaign, are still in existence.

If the Attorney General was really trying to be forthright with

everybody here and trying to truly make this a level playing field, if

the Leader of the Third Party actually truly would follow through on

what his words say with actions around this bill and many other bills, I

would be very surprised. Again, it’s 51 pages. This is not about big

money. You do not need the 51 pages to clarify the big money. This is 51

pages of trying to make sure that you can self-preserve

yourself.

The “six months out before a general election” clause. Now, on the

surface, that seems actually quite reasonable. Then I have to listen to

the Attorney General introduce this bill.

[2:05 p.m.]

His justification for the six-months-out clause is that for

Elections B.C, it’s important for them six months out to be able to

focus on an election. Well, imagine if we hadn’t been running a

municipal campaign at the same time as trying to get ballots in the mail

and a voter guide out for the proportional representation vote how much

more focus Elections B.C. could have had during the last municipal

election.

According to the Attorney General, it’s pretty difficult for them

to do two things at once. I don’t think it is. I think they’re a very

professional organization, but the Attorney General certainly seemed to

indicate in his speech that Elections B.C. needs a clear six months of

nothing else going on to make sure they run an election

properly.

Why is that important? I know that in my riding, I got reports and

complaints — and I know that in lots of other ridings, we got reports

and complaints — that during the municipal election, the Fair Vote

volunteers with their third-party advertising were standing in front of

polling stations and jamming proportional representation literature in

their hands.

It would have been nice, maybe, if Elections B.C. wasn’t split in

two directions on an election day when that was happening. But that

seemed to be okay for the democratic process. That really followed the

spirit and the intent of what we do in the democratic

process.

It doesn’t matter that you’re not allowed to have an election sign

within 100 metres of a polling station. Let’s stand right at the front

steps of the polling station and jam campaign literature for a different

referendum in people’s hands, whether they want it or not, and when

returning officers come out and ask you to move along, you tell them to

leave you alone because you’re standing on public land and it’s your

right to stand there.

That’s sure the nice spirit and the intent that was followed

through. Unfortunately, Elections B.C. probably didn’t think that was

going to actually happen so they didn’t bother to put in firm rules

ahead of time to prevent that from happening.

I guess we know that this government has no problem having

convenient loopholes that work in favour of what they want to try to do.

Just make sure you hammer down with 51 pages on anyone else that might

want to try to voice an opinion in contrary.

Now, I’m assuming that the NDP memo telling people that they

cannot dissent to them was probably shorter than 51 pages, because that

probably wouldn’t be called a memo at that point. I think we’ve seen

this government demonstrate already, both internally and externally,

that you dare not disagree with them or else.

That’s what this bill is saying. It is very clearly telling

people: “Don’t you even bother trying. Don’t bother trying to do

something that 26 times has already failed anyway. In fact, we’re so

worried that it might be successful, we’re going to make it harder for

people.” But the interesting thing….

The Leader of the Third Party touched on this. I found it

interesting. They didn’t change the 40 percent threshold for a recall.

They kept that the same. In fact, the Leader of the Third Party’s

evidence that nothing is being rigged here…. I believe he kept using

“stacked deck” and “rigged game.” I assumed he was talking about Bill 40

and the proportional representation bill at that point, but I’m not

entirely sure. He was rambling a little bit, and I wasn’t paying total

attention, admittedly, to him.

We have a 40 percent threshold in the existing legislation, and in

this new legislation we have a 40 percent threshold. The speaker of the

Third Party thinks that’s symbolic, that that demonstrates the

government’s not trying to hammer down on people’s ability and make this

harder than it already is, because they were so generous as to not go to

50 or 60 percent.

I point out that in the Referendum Act that they amended to have

this referendum that we’re under, instead of keeping that percentage

threshold at 60 percent with a secondary threshold of number of ridings

so that the rural people would have an equal voice, they had no problem

scaling that percentage right down. Get it down to 50 percent plus one

and get rid of regional thresholds.

The same Attorney General had absolutely no problem — and the

Leader of the Third Party agreeing — making a proportional

representation vote much easier to pass. But when it comes to their own

recall legislation, worrying about recall campaigns coming against them,

they keep the threshold the same, the same threshold that’s 0 for

One has to wonder: why is that? Why didn’t they just lower that

threshold at the same time? Why didn’t they lower the threshold down to

35 percent or 40 percent? Why would that be?

[2:10 p.m.]

They seem to have no problem lowering the threshold to make it

easier to get what they would like. Yet when it’s something that they

want to try to hinder, when it’s people’s own personal opinions, people

in their own neighbourhoods…. Let’s remember that a recall campaign is

not some provincewide phenomenon going on at the same time.

When the Leader of the Third Party goes on about people donating

millions of dollars to a recall campaign, either he’s totally clueless

about what that means in terms of a recall campaign — that it’s one

specific riding or two specific ridings — or he’s trying to do exactly

as he tries saying we do, accuses us of doing all the time, saying that

we’re overexaggerating. Talk about an overexaggeration.

Recall campaigns survive and thrive and, to this point, have not

even been successful because they require people going door to door,

knocking door to door in a very small geographic area, for the most

part, especially for the Attorney General. It’s probably, what, 20

square blocks, his riding. I’m not sure how big it is, but

Vancouver–Point Grey can’t be very large compared to Prince George

ridings, Kamloops–North Thompson.

It requires that type of initiative. It requires people going out

within their own riding and saying: “We’ve had enough of this MLA,

regardless of political stripe.” Because of that 40 percent threshold,

it requires usually cross-party lines. That’s why it hasn’t been

successful anywhere.

The one that came close, the one that people assume may have been

successful if it had actually happened, if the member hadn’t resigned

ahead of time, which I think is telling…. I think even the member at

that point realized what was going to happen. That one was close. That

one was because that member, at that time, to the public…. The public,

across party lines, felt like a trust had been broken and it was time to

get a different MLA.

To try to change this legislation with the amount of crossing the

t’s and dotting the i’s that you will need, to be an average person, to

not be in contravention of this act and have someone phone and try to

make this whole process invalid…. That’s what this bill is really doing.

This bill is stifling grassroots people from being able to get

together.

There’s a clause in here that says that even if you’re registered

and allowed to be fundraising and able to fund a campaign, if you have

it in your house…. Well, again, these are internal one-riding-off types

of processes. If you have that fundraising event in your house…. You are

not allowed to get a donation over $100 from anybody if it’s in your

private residence, even though the limit is $1,200.

Talk about the state being worried about what’s going on in

someone’s private residence. It doesn’t matter if you mark down their

name. It doesn’t matter if you properly account for it all. Your

neighbour can’t walk into your house, if you’re in charge of that recall

campaign, and hand you a cheque for $101 — not the millions of dollars

that the Third Party Leader wants to talk about but $101. You would be

in contravention of this act.

I’m not sure. Does the Attorney General want people to stand on

corners and be able to hand the cheques back and forth? Is that more

preferable? If it’s outside of your house, you’re allowed to take the

money, but not inside your house. I thought we were past the

days….

Interjection.

P. Milobar: Well, if the member would read his own bill, he would know it’s a

$1,200 limit.

I thought we had gone a little further along. I thought, frankly,

an Attorney General who used to be the head of B.C. Civil Liberties

would be a little less concerned about what people are doing in the

privacy of their own home if they’re properly documenting the cheques

and the donations or the cash coming in and attributing a name to them.

One would think that would be the bigger concern for the Attorney

General, the former head of the B.C. Civil Liberties union, not that

somebody sitting in their living room with three neighbours happened to

get three $200 cheques given to them to try to have a recall campaign

against them.

Talk about yet another overreach. We’re seeing that a lot with a

lot of their legislation coming through here. All the loopholes they’ve

got in here favour their supporters.

[2:15 p.m.]

The Attorney General will have you believe he’s really trying to

protect himself from looking like he’s getting too much support in his

community, and he doesn’t think that would look good. Well, I can tell

the Attorney General that what doesn’t look good is this bill that he’s

trying to introduce, with eight days to go before recall campaigns can

be initiated.

Then there’s the “no two at the same time.” Now, it’s how you want

to look at this. Certainly the Leader of the Third Party has a very rosy

picture of it. But the reality is that it would not take much to be able

to orchestrate and have, basically, a piece of paper filed saying that

there’s a recall campaign action happening but no one actually doing

anything about it.

Although the Leader of the Third Party would paint it as, “Could

you imagine three different sets of people actively running around

trying to get petitions signed,” if they were all working that earnestly

for a true recall campaign, I would suggest those groups would figure it

out pretty fast, and they would join forces and work together. You would

only have one active — one being actioned.

Instead, what this legislation says is that you can’t even let

those three parties that are all wanting the same end goal figure it out

in the first few days and get together and work towards a common goal.

No. What the government is saying to you is that if one of the

government supporters — those same groups that the Attorney General is

so worried would look like they’re oversupporting him and trying to

protect him — wanted to file the paperwork right on day 1, minute 1, it

blocks anyone else from starting one.

There is nothing that says they have to actually initiate, lift a

finger, do anything to actually move forward on an active recall

campaign. It just says no one else is allowed to. It doesn’t take long:

a second filing and, boom, the interest and the heat of the moment, the

passion people have, starts to die. This is yet another example of this

Attorney General, of this Leader of the Third Party trying to game the

system for the benefit of making sure that they cling to power. That’s

exactly what this does.

Mr. Speaker, you think of the scenario, right now, where you have

a House with a one-seat differential. You think of the situation right

now with a House where, if the Nanaimo by-election is lost by the

government, that creates a whole other dynamic in this House. If there

was a successful recall campaign on either side of this House, that

changes that dynamic that much again.

The Attorney General, in the middle of a referendum, eight days

before recall campaigns become live — even though he has known from day

1 that on the first day of 18 months in, recalls can be initiated —

waits until eight days before, after months of going back and forth in

front of signs in his own riding indicating there may be a recall

coming. I’m not aware of signs in any other riding in the province

suggesting recalls are on the way. The only one I’m aware of is in the

Attorney General’s.

Now, Oak Bay–Gordon Head…. I don’t live down here, but to hear the

extreme ridiculousness of the Leader of the Third Party’s comments, in

terms of dollars involved in this, in terms of process around this, one

has to wonder if he’s not hearing rumblings in his own riding. Again, a

long string of broken promises by the Leader of the Third Party — not to

the B.C. Liberals. No. It’s broken promises to his core party members,

to his core supporters, to his core people who donate — maybe he’s

worried some of those people will suddenly start donating to a recall

campaign instead of to his party — and certainly to the broader public

of British Columbia.

Let’s not forget about walking away from fundamental promises

around proportional representation, which both parties did. They

basically were walking away from those promises before the ink was dry,

as they were walking out of the Lieutenant-Governor’s house after they

got given the keys to government. We don’t have a single ballot, we

don’t have a single form of proportional representation to vote, and we

certainly did not have the vote during the municipal campaign — all of

which was promised in the confidence and supply agreement.

[2:20 p.m.]

Perhaps members of the governing side, who cling to a one-seat

advantage right now, with a by-election underway…. They are desperate to

hang on to power, and they have a long string of broken promises behind

them. Perhaps it is really them that are very worried about the upcoming

recall season, as it were, and can see the writing on the wall that, in

fact, maybe at some point, 0 and 26 becomes 1 and 26, because even the

Cleveland Browns won a football game this year. So at some point, it

happens.

This bill guarantees it will never happen. This bill takes what is

a long shot to an absolute, and that’s fundamentally wrong. It is

totally self-serving. It is totally self-serving for the members

bringing this forward and trying to wrap themselves in all of

righteousness and all that’s good in the world by saying that if we dare

to point out the flaws of what they’re trying to do, if we dare to

question their motives, we’re somehow evil and trying to support Dr.

Evil–type characters coming in and trying to rig an election to

overthrow one person in a seat. That has never happened in the past. I

don’t see why it would start happening now.

A 51-page bill is complete overkill. It is not protecting people

from people coming in and writing phantom million-dollar cheques. What

this bill does, though, is it prevents you from having your neighbour

come into your house and offer you a $100 cheque.

D. Barnett: I rise today to speak to Bill 53, the Recall and Initiative

Amendment Act. We, as British Columbians, have a lot to be proud of when

it comes to our democracy. Our electoral system has delivered a peaceful

transition of power since we entered Confederation as the sixth province

in 1871. We have elected stable governments. We have reflected the will

of most people. And we built a prosperous and peaceful place that is the

envy of the world.

I’ve been sitting, listening to this debate now since it began

earlier today, and I listened to the Leader of the Third Party in shock.

We are debating a bill, a bill that is supposed to make life easier and

better and fairer for processes. It does nothing of the sort. I listened

to the Leader of the Third Party condemn this side of the House —

myself, my colleagues and a government that worked for 16 years and made

British Columbia the place it is today.

I come from rural British Columbia, a place where we have to work

twice as hard as those from an urban centre do, where we have to travel

distances that urban centres have no concept of. If you’ve ever gone

door-knocking in rural British Columbia, you may go ten miles between

houses.

The recall initiative is something that I believe is fair and

democratic for all of us, even though some members’ ridings could be 20

blocks, with 100,000 people, and some of ours are 44,000 square

kilometres, with 40,000 people. So we are not asking for any special

concessions. Fair play is fair play.

But why now is this bill before this House? We’ve had 15 months. A

bill was put before this House at the beginning of the session, after

the last election, to take big money out of politics from unions, from

corporations, from individuals. It was also put forward for local

governments. There was election reform. I don’t believe there was enough

reform, but there was election reform. So why now, a few days before the

legal time is up to recall an MLA if you’re not happy?

[2:25 p.m.]

To me, this creates a conflict of interest for the minister. And

that is not democracy. Fair play is fair play. And we must always

remember democracy is fair play. We must remember that in this

House.

We built a prosperous and peaceful place, as I said before, that’s

the envy of the world, yet we are in the midst of one of the greatest

bait-and-switch programs we have seen in our political system. Though we

keep hearing promises and policies aimed at fixing our democracy, every

step has brought an erosion, in my opinion, of our democracy.

For instance, that side of the House said they’re getting big

money out of municipal politics, as I mentioned, yet big money remained,

with union-endorsed candidates enjoying the support of union-paid staff.

That doesn’t happen in rural British Columbia, does it? In rural British

Columbia, we are independent people. We go out there, and we get

ourselves elected in local government elections. We don’t have

interference — not as yet. I hope it never happens.

I ran for mayor. I was mayor for 17 years. The most I ever spent

on an election was $800, and I spent that out of my own pocket.

Normally, in municipal elections in rural British Columbia, the reason

you don’t need a lot of money is because you do your job. You talk to

the people. You meet them on the street. You meet them in the Safeway.

You meet them at the gas station.

Right now British Columbians are voting in a referendum on

proportional representation that proclaims it’s bringing more democracy

to town and that somehow people’s votes will count more and be better

reflected. I still can’t imagine how that is going to happen under what

is on the table.

I had a session last Friday night. One of my colleagues came up,

and we had a debate with the yes side and no side. Very interestingly,

one of the local politicians who was elected for local government and

just went through an election was on the yes side. She stood up and

said: “Well, 40 percent of the population should not be government; 40

percent of the vote isn’t enough.” So I said to this lady: “You just

went through a local government regional district election, and you got

elected with 10 percent.” Ten percent of that area went out and voted,

and that person won by 7 percent.

It seems we have two or three different systems. It all depends on

who you are, where you are and what is believed in. Instead of more

democracy for people, this government and its friends in the Third Party

are just delivering more power to the political parties.

The Leader of the Third Party, as my colleague said a few minutes

ago, his followers and…. I had lots in my riding. They believed in what

they were sold before the election: “We’re going to look after getting

rid of Site C. We’re not going to have LNG. We’re not going to have

this. We’re not going to have that.” Well, talk is cheap; action is

not.

For all the talk of making every vote count, the reality is that

the real choices are being….

Deputy Speaker: Member, let’s talk about Bill 53.

D. Barnett: Mr. Speaker, I am.

Well before election day and by a small, inside party

headquarters…. At least, that is what we have to guess from experiences

we’ve seen elsewhere in the world. That’s because the actual mechanics

of PR in B.C. have yet to be revealed. What that side of the House calls

more democracy, I call an erosion of democracy.

[2:30 p.m.]

This bill has many flaws. It has some really valid points, but it

has many, many flaws. As I’ve heard from the other side over and over

again, and I heard it just a while ago today, we’ve got to talk about

HST. I recall when HST was put on the table, as I was an elected MLA. I

recall the outcry from many people. Of course, there was a referendum.

We got rid of HST.

To change this recall legislation at this time and with many of

the changes in the wording, to me, it is wrong — wrong timing and a lot

of wrong words.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I think what might be a good idea when there’s something that is

of this much importance on a bill like this to the people of British

Columbia…. The people really do like the recall. They like the idea of

it. They like the concept of it. I’ve never heard anybody say they

don’t.

When you go to change it, I think this should be a public

discussion. I think having an all-party committee, if we’re going to

make changes on something this important, would certainly give more

credibility to it, more input. Probably, we would be looking after the

interests of the people of British Columbia even better with an

all-party committee.

This here legislation proposed is made, once again, in one

person’s office. It is made without input. It is made without public

input that I keep hearing about over and over and over again is the most

important thing in the world. I believe it is very important to have

public input and especially on things as important as this.

With MLAs selected…. I just heard over here 80,000 people had

input. Not to the recall legislation. I don’t believe anybody in the

public had input into this particular piece of legislation. If they did,

please tell me who it was.

The party insiders will choose. They may even choose themselves.

It is absolutely undemocratic at this time. I will say over and over and

over again that I believe this is a conflict of interest. When the

person who put this bill on the table may be recalled…. There are signs

out there. I’ve seen signs in the newspaper. That’s all I’ve seen. We

could all be on recall. So be it, if we are. But if you are, then,

basically, a bill should not be on this floor at this time.

I’m quite shocked at some of the comments I’ve heard from across

the room. I believe every MLA does a job to the best of his ability. I

believe MLAs work very hard for their constituents. The insults that I

listened to over here from the Third Party Leader on the TV today

totally, totally are unacceptable to anybody. We care about our

constituents. We care about each and every one of them. When I had to

listen to what I listened to today, boy, sometimes recall may be better

than I thought it was in the first place.

That side of the House is claiming they’re cleaning things up and

bringing rules in line with all of the other changes they have made.

Well, it’s like they got rid of big money while letting union-paid

activists work on municipal campaigns. If we’re going to clean house,

you best do it completely, not just in your interest.

As I’ve said before, British Columbians are proud of our Recall

and Initiative Act as it is now. If you don’t believe it, maybe talk to

some of your constituents.

[2:35 p.m.]

Every British Columbian has the right to challenge an MLA and have

them removed from office if enough people in their constituency agree

with it. That is in the existing act. But that right is being restricted

by this government in a bill tabled by a minister who is apparently

being targeted by recall. In my opinion, he’s using his power to change

the rules in his favour in the middle of the game. That, to me, is not

acceptable. It is a conflict of interest.

It is to be expected. After all, it is the same minister who is

portrayed as the government’s squeaky-clean independent arbitrator of

electoral reform while at the same time acting as a fierce and

formidable proponent for scrapping our electoral system. Shame. It’s

like asking Colonel Sanders to be the independent arbiter of a vote on

imposing vegetarianism. Can you believe it?

If this bill passes, MLAs will only be subject to a single recall

campaign. Once one recall is attempted, there can be no more during that

term of office, which is totally unacceptable. Four years is a long time

if an MLA is not doing what he should be doing as an MLA — him or her —

and their constituents should have the right to recall under the

existing legislation.

There’s always room for change — always. But it should be done by

all parties on a situation like this, and this is my opinion. I think it

would be great if there was an all-party committee looking at

legislation that is as important as this — so important to the citizens

of British Columbia, not to the people in this House. If you’ve ever

been threatened with recall, it doesn’t give you much sleep at night,

believe you me. I’ve been there. I wasn’t recalled, but I was

threatened.

We never want to shut out constituents with legitimate concerns,

yet this bill, in my opinion, would be an erosion of our democracy, the

most important thing we have in Canada, in British Columbia, in our

homes and in our place of work that we have today.

We live in a world full of struggle, strife. You take a look at

the countries around the world and what a mess some of them are in. You

take a look at the sadness, the things that happened in Pittsburgh here

last week. It is heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. We need a

better world. We need a more inclusive world. I keep hearing from the

other side that that’s what they’re doing. But this is not being

inclusive.

I won’t even raise the spectre of a fake recall being held just to

pre-empt an actual recall from being launched. That could happen under

this bill. I mean, with all of these so-called democratic enhancements

happening, one can’t imagine an anti-democratic move going that far, but

I don’t know.

This bill also seeks to lop six months off the window for recall —

the six months before a scheduled general election. Again, this is

reducing democracy and limiting the tools available to citizens. It does

not matter, in this debate, that in 26 tries of recall, only one single

recall has succeeded in its goal. What does matter is that the

opportunity for recall is there.

Citizens have the right to recall. Our democratic power rests with

the people, all the people — not just some people but all the people.

This will be a sad legacy for this House and this government if this

bill passes in the manner in which it has been presented.

[2:40 p.m.]

T. Shypitka: Thank you to my colleague from Cariboo-Chilcotin. Well

done.

I appreciate the opportunity to rise today and speak to the House

on Bill 53, the Recall Initiative Amendment Act, 2018, or as my

colleague from Kamloops–North Thompson more affectionately knows it, the

self-preservation act.

Before I start, I want to give some credit out there. I want to

lighten the mood a little bit and give some credit to the dining room

staff downstairs. I had a great lunch today. I was in the hospitality

industry for 25 years, and you know, we kind of take that dining room

for granted sometimes. I don’t go there enough. But for the quality they

put out and for the price they put out — and the staff have always got a

big smile — I think they need some credit down there. In ten minutes or

less, the meal is out, and it’s great.

I want to give a special shout-out to Amanda Cootes. She’s the

hostess with the mostest downstairs. She’s always got a smile on her

face. She knows your name. I thought I was lucky enough to be the only

person that she knew, but she knows probably every single member in this

place, so she’s got quite a memory, and she’s a great person. I just

thought I’d give a quick shout-out to her.

On to the act at hand, and that’s the Recall and Initiative

Amendment Act, 2018. It is truly amazing, as I stand here about to speak

and debate on it, that the other side isn’t presenting any speakers.

It’s their bill. It’s their act. Yet they’re silent. We hear some

chirping from time to time, and that’s to be expected, but the fact that

they’re not even speaking to their own bill, to me, just speaks volumes

on how much it’s actually being embraced on that side.

I don’t think it is. I think for the most part…. There are some

parts of the act that I can agree with, but for the most part of this

act, it’s an erosion of our democracy. It’s coming at a very timely

point right now, and it’s very suspect on those things. So I think the

fact that nobody is speaking to it speaks volumes.

To start off, I would just like to say that I’m proud to be a

British Columbian, proud to be a Canadian. There’s lots to be proud of

when we live in this great democratic society that we have. We have some

of the best scholastic achievements in the world. We have some of the

best health outcomes in the world. Our livability is among the

best.

We also have a good choice on who we elect as our representatives.

This has been going on for over 140 years. It’s part of the reason why I

raise a family here, and it’s part of the reason why I feel secure and

stable in this society. This is the key to the debate — that it’s a

fair, representative choice of our voices to this House which gives us

the prosperity that we have and the lifestyle that we enjoy.

Since this government has been formed, this government here, in

particular — the NDP-Green coalition with a minority government by the

slimmest of margins — has all been based on a political agenda. Right

from the get-go, an agenda was formed by pen and paper and a backroom

deal between the Green Party and the NDP, and what came out of this

document would be the binding glue between the two parties that they

have a mutual understanding on how this government is to be run. The

document, as everybody knows, is called the confidence and supply

agreement between the B.C. Green caucus and the B.C. New Democratic

caucus.

As I said, from the get-go there’s been an agenda set, and this

kind of speaks to Bill 53 and where we’re going with this. When we talk

about the confidence and supply agreement, we see the number one

condition of a vote or a referendum on proportional representation. I

know that some other members spoke to this, and there is a connection

between that and Bill 53. There’s no doubt in my mind.

You would think that when these two partners got together and they

were hashing out deals for one another and how this partnership was

going to work, a referendum on proportional representation would fall,

maybe, lower down the list. You’d think that some of the ones on the top

of the list would be, maybe, stopping the Site C project or the

elimination of fracking or, you know, embracing the thought of an LNG

resource to British Columbia. It would be some of those top priorities

of this confidence and supply agreement. But no. It was all on

proportional representation.

[2:45 p.m.]

Bill 53 is an extension of that agenda-setting and manipulating of

the system for the endgame, which is, of course, proportional

representation — giving life to extreme sides of the political spectrum

that can’t win any other way. Bill 53 is an obvious attempt to change

the rules to rig the system, the political outcomes, plain and simple.

I’ll explain why.

We’ve seen some very rushed and timely decisions come about from

this government — the referendum I just spoke of on PR. This won’t be

implemented until 2021, yet there’s a big mad dash to get this rammed

through and get it done in an untimely manner. It’s a flawed process,

with not a lot of consultation from the public. We’re seeing the same

thing with this bill.

Why is this bill coming forward right now? We’re literally on the

eve of the recall period in our province, which is 18 months after the

general election — literally days away. I’ll give you the definition of

“recall” from the Elections B.C. site that I found. It’s interesting to

read. It says:

“Recall is a process through which a registered voter can petition

to remove a Member of the Legislative Assembly from office. A voter can

only petition to recall the member for the electoral district in which

they are registered to vote. The voter must collect signatures from more

than 40 percent of voters eligible to sign the petition in the electoral

district. Applications for recall petitions cannot be submitted to

Elections B.C. during the 18 months after the member was elected. In

Canada, the recall process is unique to B.C.” — we’re the only province

to have this process — “No other province or territory has a system in

place for removing elected representatives from office between

elections.”

I found that interesting, and I thought: why would we be the only

ones, in B.C., that have it? I believe it’s a fair process. I mean, if

we have a choice or if a representative that we’ve elected maybe is

dishonest or does something wrong, I think we should have a process to

get rid of that person. I’m okay with the legislation. But I went on

further.

This seems interesting that B.C. is the only province in Canada to

have such

an act,

an act the other side is demanding is obsolete.

They’re saying we’ve got to change. We’ve got to get rid of it, or we’ve

got to put ridiculous caps on it. We’ve got to dumb this thing down a

little bit. Money that we’ve seen in the past from corporations

alike….

I pressed on, and I read a little bit further.

“The Chief Electoral Officer has approved 26 recall petitions

since the Recall and Initiative Act came into force in 1995. Six of

those petitions were returned to Elections B.C. for verification. Of the

six, five did not have enough valid signatures and one was halted during

the verification process because the member resigned.”

I thought to myself: it’s a pretty rare event that a recall would

ever be successful. Technically, it’s never been done before. One MLA

resigned during the verification, possibly knowing the jig was up or he

didn’t have a chance. Whatever the reason was, the MLA decided to

resign. Nevertheless, a recall’s never been technically successful. It’s

never been done before. So one could argue that a recall is extremely

rare.

The second part that amazed me was the fact that this recall act

came into play in 1995. Now, I don’t have a political science degree,

like the Minister of Advanced Education does, but I’m pretty certain

that 1995 would have been during the NDP’s reign of terror of that

decade. I did a quick fact check, and it showed I was right. So this is

an NDP piece of legislation that was brought to us 23 years ago, and

now, all of a sudden, it doesn’t fit their agenda anymore. Somehow,

something that they brought forward and they thought was a great idea

now doesn’t suit their means.

This is part of the manipulation — I like to use that word — of

this process, which is saying: “Let’s change the rules midstride,

because we don’t like what the outcome could be, so we’re going to do

this.” It’s disingenuous. It’s dishonest in my opinion. I think that’s

why we’re so passionate about this bill right now, and that’s why we’re

having all of our members come up to speak to it. That’s probably the

reason why nobody on the other side is speaking to it.

Why is there an urgency to change an NDP piece of legislation that

rarely ever gets used and has never once produced a victim — or a

product of the process, I guess, would be a better way to say

it?

[2:50 p.m.]

My life, and I’m sure everyone’s life here in the Legislature, can

understand the phrase that timing is everything. We see it from time to

time, and we use that phrase all the time. I want to go back a little

bit. One of my favourite heroes growing up was a hockey goalie called

Ken Dryden. I’m a Montreal Canadiens fan, and I always admired No. 29.

He’s a great guy.

I’ll just read a little something here, just a little brief thing

that will kind of highlight why timing is important to Bill 53. Late in

the 1960s and in the early 1970s, the Montreal Canadiens had no room for

underperformers on their team. On the famous club’s roster, there were

enough talented and highly experienced players to put together several

teams. Like all top-notch teams, the old guard gradually retired, and

the team had to be reinforced with young players, but rookies spent as

much time in the press box as on the ice.

In the spring of 1971, Dryden was called up from a farm club.

Actually — I might interrupt there — he was brought up from the farm

club from out east. It was a guy, a goalie from Cranbrook, a town that I

represent, that actually had the head goalie’s position. Ken Dryden was

the backup. They were in the Memorial Cup or in some big tournament, and

the head goalie, the guy from Cranbrook, couldn’t go, so they sent Ken

Dryden. That’s another timely situation. This guy in Cranbrook used to

always talk about it all the time, how he could have won four Stanley

Cups in a row, but that’s another discussion.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Ken Dryden was brought up.

There was an injury. He was placed in the game during the playoffs. He

won six games against Boston. They went on to win the Stanley Cup. Not

only that, he went on to win another three more after that. He won

several Conn Smythe and Vezina trophies, and the rest is history. But it

was all about timing.

I think that’s what Bill 53 speaks to. This is about timing. It’s

not about what people want. I don’t remember anybody in my riding

saying: “You know what? We should really revisit that Recall and

Initiative Amendment Act.” I never heard that once. I don’t think that

was a platform for anybody on the other side, yet here we are, making a

big push. All of a sudden it’s a big deal to get these restrictions in

place and these limits and these caps in place.

We talk about timing. Why is it now? Well, as we said and as other

members on this side of the House have said, we’re right on the eve of a

recall. There are a couple of situations I think we all know of where a

recall is possible, and it doesn’t suit the other side of the House —

plain and simple. I don’t know if anybody can deny that. I’m sure they

may. They’ve got an opportunity to say that, and I don’t see any takers

on that side. Maybe that’s the reason why we’re hearing silence from

over there.

It’s about transparency. You know, I hear big money: “We’re

getting big money out of it.” Well, we’re looking at this bill. We’re

seeing that this isn’t about trimming down a little bit and making it

better for all British Columbians, to have a fair, even playing field.

We’re talking about drastic caps and drastic reductions: a $5,000 cap on

third-party and a $1,200 individual cap. I mean, $5,000? If I had a

recall in my area — I hope I never do, as long as I’m the MLA there, but

it could possibly happen — if that was the voice of the people, then I

would honour and respect that. But $5,000 — I would say that half that

money would be taken up just driving around my riding.

I don’t even have the largest riding here. The member for

Kamloops–North Thompson or the other members there from the Peace region

— their ridings are the size of several small European countries. How

far is $5,000 going to get to do a legitimate recall? It’s

absurd.

This is an obvious statement from the other side going forward,

saying: “We need to stop something from happening.” They see something

on the horizon that they don’t like, and that’s what’s happening with

this bill, this act. The big-money thing is smoke and mirrors, in my

opinion. The leader of the Green Party says he sat here and he’s heard

the “stacked deck” and a “rigged game” over and over.

Has a member ever gone through Hansard and seen how many

times the catch phrase of “big money” is used on that side? Over and

over again. It’s their national anthem, it appears. They say it over and

over.

[2:55 p.m.]

It’s a trigger to dumb things down, to make it simple and to say:

“Yeah, I don’t like big money.” They never say “union money”; they say

“big corporate donations” all the time. Never once have I ever heard

them say: “We’ve got to get rid of this union money.” That’s where we

live right now.

Now, this is not a one-off with this government. This Bill 53, as

I said, is in an ongoing pattern. We’ve been seeing it here since the

coalition between the NDP and the Greens. We see these glitzy

catchphrases, like “big money,” all over the place. We’ve heard, “Every

vote counts,” even though that’s the farthest thing in the House. We’ve

debated that on this side, so I won’t go into it. These dumbing-downs

and these simplifications of something that’s more complex and has more

going on in the background are insulting to British Columbians. It’s

pitting British Columbians against one another.

People are getting mixed messages, misrepresentation,

misinformation. They’re hearing: “We’ve got to get rid of big money.”

Well, yes. There have got to be limits in place, and we’ve got to make

it fair for everybody. But to say that this bill that’s being put

forward is an attempt to stop big corporate money is absolutely insane,

in my opinion. It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s about an agenda;

it’s about power. It’s about stopping a process they don’t want to see

happen — plain and simple.

We’re days away from a recall being allowed to kick in across the

province. There are a few recalls right now that are gaining some public

support, and I dare say that the other side doesn’t want to see that get

off the ground. That’s why we’re here right now, but now they want it

changed, because it suits their agenda. To be honest, this is shocking,

but it’s also disappointing.

I’ll go into a few little things that this amendment act

highlights. It removes the possibility that an MLA be subject to more

than one recall petition at the same time. Why is that important? Why

wouldn’t we want to have more than one petition on any one MLA at any

one given time? There are lots of reasons.

Interjection.

T. Shypitka: The member’s got lots of answers on the other side, and I invite

him to stand up and debate that after I sit down. It’s his right to do

that. I’m looking forward to the member’s response after I sit

down.

One could say it’s not to convolute the process, but one could

also say it’s to block the process. If I were first in queue to put in a

petition on an MLA for a recall, I might not be very motivated. I might

not be too excited for the recall to reach everyone, and it might block

the person that really has a legitimate petition to put forward, a

genuine concern that this member has not done the right things and has

dishonoured or disgraced their constituency.

The fact that this blocking, I would say…. I would call it a block

— pure and simple. To remove this…. That there’s only one petition that

can be allowed at any one given time on any one given member is, in my

opinion, controlling at the very least, disingenuous for certain. I

can’t understand why that would be one of the pieces that they’d want to

amend. It opens the doors to false-flag recalls, campaigns to prevent a

real one from launching. That’s what I’m saying with that.

The second piece here applies, to recall campaigns, the same

spending and advertising rules the NDP introduced to the Election Act

for general elections — for example, the ban on corporate and union

donations — and makes the $1,200 cap apply to recall campaigns, so that

it will be very hard to raise sufficient money. I went into that a

little bit already — $1,200 per individual, $5,000 per third-party

campaign. Four people could literally drive a campaign, and that’s it,

no other money — $5,000 for a two-month campaign.

I mean, I come from a small town. If I buy advertising space in

the Townsman , our weekly paper, it costs about $1,200 just for

a quarter-page ad. I would say it was probably more like $2,500 for a

full-page ad.

[3:00 p.m.]

For two full-page ads in a two-month period, to get people

educated, to get the advertisement out and to collect and serve all this

data…. I don’t think anybody here could say that’s acceptable. I don’t

think anybody could make $5,000 stretch that far. It’s absolutely

crazy.

It also requires third-party advertisers to register and disclose

their funding sources. Okay, I can go along with that. It’s got to be

equal on both sides. As long as that’s the way it is, that’s fine with

me.

Like I said, it establishes a $5,000-value cap for petition period

recall advertising for third parties. Once again, in municipal

elections, I know candidates that ran as councillors that spent more

than $5,000 on municipal elections. We’ve also heard in this last

municipal election, there was lots of help and volunteers that helped a

lot of these municipal candidates. Some of them were sponsored by

unions.

Why does that not apply? Why is that one set of rules, and here’s

another set of rules? Because it doesn’t suit the agenda at hand is the

answer.

It brings in significantly more disclosure requirements for

spending, which is fine, but a lot more, which bogs down the system and

makes people disinterested to what they have to put into a campaign

that’s very rarely successful. As a matter of fact, it’s never

succeeded, ever, in British Columbia before. It creates another way to

rule a recall campaign that was unsuccessful, by the CEO, of finding a

spending disclosure violation materially affected the outcome, thus

setting aside the outcome.

Volunteer contributions are not considered contributions in this

act…. So unlike the municipal elections…. You can have volunteer

contributions, and they don’t go towards the $5,000 cap. Those are over

and above. It’s goodwill — I guess you’d call it — or in-kind

contributions. But we have seen through the municipal elections that a

lot of organized labour is participating in these elections. I dare say

that they would participate in a recall.

We’re not making things equal. We’re not making things level.

We’re stacking it. We’re addressing an agenda that this side does not

want to address. It’s very unfair that the people of British Columbia

are getting forced into this again.

I think that is almost it — just to re-summarize, I guess. We live

in a great democracy. It’s been around since 1871 here, in British

Columbia. We’ve had a really stable government. We’ve had the best

outcomes in the world in many different ways and the best livability

anywhere, built a prosperous and peaceful place. We’re the envy of the

world.

Yet we are in the midst of one of the greatest bait-and-switch

programs we’ve seen in our political system. But we keep hearing

promises and policies aiming at fixing our democracy. Every step taken

has brought an erosion of our democracy. For instance, that side of the

House said that we’re getting big money out of municipal politics. That

hasn’t happened. That big money remains, with union-endorsed candidates

enjoying the support of union-paid staff. Actions fail to line up with

words.

Right now British Columbians are voting in a referendum on

proportional representation that proclaims it’s bringing more democracy

to town, that somehow people’s votes will count more and be better

reflected. But instead of more democracy for the people, this government

and its friends in the Third Party are delivering more power to

political parties. We see that in the PR. It’s a party-based system

rather than a voter-based system.

We’re seeing it here with this act, where we’re taking away

choices and ways to do recalls and we’re lowering the bar to the

minimum. Like I said, $5,000 goes nowhere. They talk about big money.

They’re not talking about big money; they’re just talking about making

it better for them so they can avoid something they don’t want to

see.

I guess more than anything, I just want to say…. I’ve said this

time and time again. I’m a very balanced person. I’m not as partisan as

some. I like to see fair process. I like to see things run in a good way

for all British Columbians. But I see this bill as not one of those

ways.

[3:05 p.m.]

I have family. I have friends, young children and aging parents.

All we want is a fair and democratic process. We’ve seen a bill come

forward here. We saw

an act that’s in place now that was brought in, in

1995, by the NDP party. Now we’re seeing them switch the

rules.

They want to take it away. It served them in the ’90s, and now

it’s not serving them in 2018. With eight days or so before the recall

can kick in, they want to change it back. I think people…. You know, we

talk about transparency. This is about as smoke and mirrors as you can

get.

For all of these reasons, I do not support this act at all, in any

way, shape or form.

S. Gibson: It’s a privilege for me to speak to Bill 53, the Recall and

Initiative Amendment Act.

I just want to begin with a couple of little anecdotes that I

think put into perspective my attitude to this act. I want to

acknowledge the good presentation just a moment ago by the member for

Kootenay East, who provided some excellent detail and some response.

Good job.

My wife and I were travelling a few years ago on a tour bus in a

country where they’re kind of a one-party state. The tour guide said to

us: “When you have an election, you find out that evening who gets

elected. In our country, we find out last year.”

Another time I was visiting a country in Africa. I won’t name the

country, but my impression was that it was a democracy. It seemed to

have some democratic ideals. That was my perception at least, as

specious as it was. I put on the radio in the evening. They had some

kind of rock music on, and at midnight, the newsreader came on. The

first story was that the leader of that country was wishing happy

birthday to the President of North Korea. Now, I was struck by the fact

that it wasn’t a democracy at that moment.

Why do I bring that up now? The reason I do that is because I

treasure the precious nature of democracy and how quickly it can be

diminished, how quickly it can be diluted. I might mention that this is

my 38th year in elected office. When I was 28 and first elected to

council in Matsqui, which later on amalgamated with Abbotsford, in 1995,

the next youngest member of Matsqui council was a fellow by the name of

Peter Dueck, who has since passed away. He was Minister of Health here

in this province and sat in this Legislature for many years. He was the

next youngest. He was 56. I was half his age.

If you think that I treasure democracy, if you think I value it,

you’d be correct. It’s why I’m concerned about the general trend that

this government is taking, both with proportional representation, which

I’m sure we’ll be discussing again….

We’ve had an excellent discourse around this place on proportional

representation. Interestingly, the public is very quickly wising up to

the perils of proportional representation, but that’s for another

discussion.

The democratic ideals that I bring to this place, I think, make me

very suspicious when a government starts tampering with legislation that

affects democracy. Democracy’s quite a fragile thing. It doesn’t take

much to lose it. So I want to point out, for the interest of the

viewers, the citizens of our province, that recall was something quite

unique when it came up in the early 1990s. In fact, as has been

enumerated, British Columbia is the only province in Canada with

recall.

[3:10 p.m.]

My strong suspicion is that if this was today, this government

would be afraid of recall legislation. I believe that. They’re already

tampering with it — changing the rules, messing with it. Because they

want to make it better? I don’t think so.

I kind of did a little research and found the origins. You know

what? It’s kind of exciting to see the genesis of recall. What party

brought up the idea of recall? Does anybody know? Social Credit. Social

Credit brought up the idea of recall. They brought it forward, and

initiative, and in the 1991 general election, it was a part of the

election process. Here’s something exciting. It was approved by 81

percent. People wanted recall. People like grassroots democracy. There’s

a passion for it in our province.

For myself, coming out of local government…. Many of us have. Some

of us have been…. The member for Penticton was the mayor. We’ve got the

member for Kamloops–North Thompson, who was the mayor of Kamloops, and

many others on both sides of the House. We bring that passion. We’ve got

ex–school trustees as well. That passion for grassroots democracy is

what we’re really talking about today.

Eighty-one percent. Now, it was a part of that election. Which

government brought in recall and initiative legislation? Which one was

it? NDP, yeah — the precursor to the current government, this temporary

government that’s here right now. Later on it was adopted. Mike Harcourt

was the Premier then, and I think that could be a part of his legacy at

the time. So recall is grassroots democracy.

There have been concerns around here, laments, that this

government is trying to politicize democracy. The best example, of

course, is the proportional representation discussion and act. Everybody

on this side of the House is standing up for the public by saying we

don’t want to politicize this vote.

In the previous two times, ’05 and ’09, the citizens’ assembly was

non-partisan, and it worked very well. Now it’s run out of the Attorney

General’s office and the cabinet. No wonder the public is suspicious.

The level of cynicism is high.

My daughter, who just moved to the Chilliwack riding, and her

husband are so suspicious of politics. They’re so cynical when I talk to

them. They’ve known me, of course, my whole life being in politics, and

they’re so cynical. Well, a part of their cynicism relates to the kinds

of acts that this government is trying to pull with the proportional

representation and now tampering with something that’s been around for

years.

The Recall and Initiative Amendment Act…. Don’t tamper with

democracy. It will flourish if you leave it alone. Let the public have

their involvement. The public can make their decision. This government

assumes that the public is not very smart. “We’re going to have to guide

them. We’re going to dictate what they want.” On our side of the House,

we’re freedom-oriented. We’re a free enterprise party. We trust the

people. We trust them. This government is all about social designs,

social construction. “We’re going to run your life.” Here are some

examples of that. It’s kind of a shame, in a way. It’s kind of a

shame.

Now, what on earth are they scared about? The member from Kamloops

made some excellent points about recall. Of 26 attempts, only one was

marginally successful because the MLA resigned before it could finally

proceed.

What’s the suspicion? What’s the concern? Surprising. All of this

excitement. Look at this document. I’ve read through this. How many

pages? Forty-seven pages to correct something that’s really not a

problem? Talk about inefficient. This is a very inefficient government,

to have this huge document, 47 pages, for something that nobody has

really complained about.

[3:15 p.m.]

Back to proportional representation for a moment, because these

are allied. In my five years as an MLA for the Abbotsford-Mission

riding, I’ve never had one person phone me and say: “You know what? How

about a third proportional representation vote? Let’s get one of those

going.” Never had that call.

Never had a call about this either. This is government politicians

taking the initiative, hanging out and saying: “Hey, how about this?

This would be a good idea. Let’s introduce this.” Messing with

democracy.

Now, the lack of success of recall should encourage us to realize

that it’s difficult. You’ve got to have 40 percent of the folks that

voted in the previous election, and you’ve got to do it over 60 days.

It’s tough. But that doesn’t deter this government from tampering with

it, changing it. The member for Kootenay East had some of those details.

I won’t go over those again.

We know that. This government gives the impression that they’re

nervous. They’re scared. They’re worried. They’re anxious. Why could

that be? Is there something that they know that we don’t know on this

side of the House? Is something looming just below the surface? It’s

going to bubble up and take out somebody here. We don’t know how many,

but I think there’s a fear.

There’s an angst over there, and I have some sympathy. I get it.

When you’re nervous, you sometimes act strangely. I see that. It’s okay.

We understand over here. We’re pretty empathetic.

They’ve reduced the number of days for the recall. They’ve changed

that six months. You have to wait for the year and a half. They’ve

changed that. Only one recall per member per term. Why is that? What

could possibly be the reason for doing that? Fear. Fear is sweeping like

a river over that side of the House. It’s almost tangible. You can

almost see it.

Hey, you remember that movie 101 Dalmatians and the lady

and that pink cloud that followed her? Remember that? Why do I think of

that? I don’t know. It’s reminiscent, I guess.

Now, the question I would ask myself, as a fan of democracy, as

someone who’s been elected for a couple terms here and there…. My

question always is: is this furthering democracy? Is it making democracy

more accessible and more understandable to the average person? What’s

the answer? The answer is no. Not.

I would love to be able to listen in on some of these discussions

before they come to this House. I think I would be shocked at the high

level of partisanship and not caring for the public. We need to protect

the interests of the public — just the average person who says: “I’m

going to vote.” Protect them.

When the Vancouver Sun wrote an

article about recall when

it came up originally in 1994, this was the headline, and this is very

profound: “This law would provide voters power to fire politicians.”

Whoa. That’s pretty heavy. That’s very heavy.

Most people that run for elected office are defeated, right? In my

community, in Mission, 19 people ran for six seats. In Abbotsford, 18

people ran for eight seats. So you can tell that most people are

defeated. Then a bunch of others ran for mayor and school board, etc.

You know what? That is healthy. In democracy, there are winners, and

there are the vanquished. There are victors and the

vanquished.

[3:20 p.m.]

This government is trying to compromise that by messing with

democratic ideals, first-past-the-post, by introducing proportional

representation, which allows the vanquished to have access to MLA rolls.

We know that. Appointed. This is going to be very confusing, too, with

this legislation — very confusing, right? Now we’re blurring who’s

winning and who’s losing. This government is tampering with that

process.

Now they’re claiming to get big money out of campaigns, and we

heard this earlier from some of our colleagues, but they’re still

allowing all kinds of folks to help out. There are lots of things going

on here just below the surface, like the metaphor of the river that

looks really calm. But don’t go swimming in that river, because you’ll

get sucked in by that undertow. There’s an undertow here.

I’m disappointed that this government is tampering significantly

with democracy. They’re going in the wrong direction. It’s very

partisan. It’s very self-serving. Democracy is not being served. I am

totally opposed to Bill 53, the Recall and Initiative Amendment

Act.

L. Throness: I want to begin today…. Just for my constituents who may be

watching, I’m speaking to Bill 53, which is the Recall and Initiative

Amendment Act. That is, it will amend the existing Recall and Initiative

Act.

I want to start with a bit of an historical retrospective, because

I went to Ottawa with an MP, a Member of Parliament named Chuck Strahl,

in January of 1994. He was a member of the Reform Party of Canada, which

was a new party, and we were extremely idealistic at that time. We talk

about a $1,200 limit on donations today. The Reform Party inched forward

on $5, $10, $25 and $50 donations. It was not a movement of the

intelligentsia, of the higher-ups in our culture. It was a grassroots

movement of ordinary people. As such, it was highly

idealistic.

I have before me 63 Reasons to Support the Reform Party of

Canada , a pamphlet that was produced in 1994. It had all sorts

of things in it — things like balancing the budget, cutting the size and

role of government and cutting subsidies to business and Crown

corporations. Getting rid of the GST was one. MP pensions, pay and

perks.

Federal Reform members were true to their word, and they gave up a

lot. For instance, Preston Manning gave up his pension and never got it

back. He gave up the keys to the car that he was allowed and didn’t go

to Stornoway, where he was entitled to live. I always think that Preston

is one of the great men of Canadian politics — unrecognized and often

maligned by the higher-ups in our culture.

Two of the things, numbers 4 and 5 of those 63 reasons to vote

Reform…. Number 4 was citizens’ initiatives. Reformers believe that

Canadians should be able to put questions to a national referendum by

submitting a citizens’ initiative petition signed by 3 percent of

Canada’s eligible voters. The fifth was recall. Reformers believe that

constituents should have the means to remove MPs who lose the confidence

or betray the trust of the people, and replace them in a by-election. So

they were very idealistic.

Of course, Preston Manning ran the Reform Party. Preston Manning

was the son of Ernest Manning. Ernest Manning was a minister in the

government of Bill Aberhart, who was the founder of Social Credit in

Canada, which has an illustrious political history, beginning in

Alberta. In 1936, the Social Credit Party passed a Recall Act. But the

very next year, Bill Aberhart repealed that legislation. Why was that?

It was because a petition was circulated in his own riding.

So you see, even in idealistic people like Bill Aberhart and

Social Credit and Ernest Manning — great people, wonderful people — the

tendency to protect yourself from recall is very strong. I’m going to

get back to that as we continue to speak.

I want to talk for a moment about the idea of recall in general.

Of course, as a former member of the Reform Party of Canada, the ideal

of local accountability, the idea that if an MLA does something that’s

so outrageous that the people of the constituency do not feel they can

wait until a general election to kick out the guy…. They can take

action. They can put together a petition. They can ask the Legislature

to force a by-election and kick out that MLA.

[3:25 p.m.]

What constituents are saying in a recall petition is: “You no

longer represent us. You no longer reflect our interests. We disagree

with you so profoundly that we’re going to remove you right now and

elect someone who will more accurately mirror our interests.”

The first recall legislation in B.C. was brought in, in 1995. They

decided to do so — the NDP decided to do so — because they decided to be

bound by the 1991 referendum, which was held, by the way, during a

general election, when referenda should be held, not in a stand-alone

mail-in ballot. The first recall legislation was brought in by the NDP,

who declared that they would be bound by the Social Credit referendum of

I think the concept is good. I would point out that the Reform

Party of Canada gathered a lot of NDP votes. A lot of NDPers were

excited by the idealism of the Reform Party of Canada, because the NDP

tend to be more idealistic sometimes, and therefore, they gravitated to

the Reform Party of Canada. They helped them bring 52 MPs to parliament

in one year.

An MLA should not necessarily be safe for four full years.

Therefore, recall legislation is an escape valve for constituents. It’s

a caution to an MLA, saying: “You can’t be totally safe in your riding.

You can’t do anything you want. You have to watch your P’s and Q’s. You

can’t do anything you please between elections, because your job could

be in jeopardy, right away, if you do something really bad.” Within 60

days, a by-election can be generated.

Let’s look at what recall actually is. It’s actually a very

difficult process, with a very high bar. First, you have to be a

registered voter. If you are, after your elected MLA has served for 18

months — they have 18 months, sort of a blackout period — you can

petition to remove a sitting member of the Legislative Assembly from

office.

A voter can only petition to recall the member for the electoral

district in which they live. The voter has to collect signatures from 40

percent of voters eligible to sign the petition in that electoral

district, and applications for recall petitions cannot be submitted to

Elections B.C., as I said, during the 18 months after the member was

elected.

In Canada, the recall process is unique. There’s no other province

and certainly no other federal law like it.

It’s a high bar. What would it mean for me, in practical terms? I

have about 35,000 voters in my riding. So a constituent who would want

to recall me would have to get 14,000 other constituents to sign a

document, and that is from the voters list that was valid 18 months

previous to that. As we know, people move. They move in and out of

constituencies. They move around in constituencies. They change their

names sometimes. Voters lists become outdated quite quickly, and that’s

why the voters list is renewed every year, and we, as MLAs, get a new

voters list every year.

The petitioner has to go off the old one of 18 months ago, and

that makes it more difficult. There’s a time limit to complete a recall

petition. You have exactly 60 days. If you can’t sign up 14,000 people

in 60 days, in eight weeks, there will be no recall of the member.

Moreover, you’ll have to sign up way more than 14,000, because there

will be mistakes. There will be voters who are no longer voters. There

needs to be a big margin of error. They would have to gather way more

than 14,000 signatures.

I don’t know if my constituents are aware of the magnitude and the

difficulty of this task. During an election, which is a 28-day period,

just half of that time, a politician can get to maybe 3,000, maybe 5,000

homes. One person, therefore, could never do a recall. This needs to be

a concerted effort, a coordinated effort by a large number of people, to

go door-to-door, to visit thousands of people, to attend public places,

to accost people as they come out of public buildings, to explain the

reason for the recall, to get the signature, to make sure the voter is

on the voters list as it was at the time of the last election — as long

as 18 months in the past.

There also needs to be some kind of a public campaign to let

people know the issues, what the MLA has done, the reason that the MLA

needs to be recalled. That requires funds to advertise on radio, TV and

newspapers; to print materials to hand out; to assist volunteers with

expenses; maybe to open a campaign office. There are all sorts of

expenses that go with a recall petition.

[3:30 p.m.]

What kind of funding would it take? Well, the current government

has set a limit for spending on a provincial election campaign, which is

only 28 days, of $58,000. What kinds of personnel are

required?

As an example, in 2010, there are records, extensive records, of

former recall campaigns. In 2010, there was a recall campaign against a

member here in Victoria. There were 289 canvassers who registered as

canvassers officially, who stepped up to gather signatures. They

gathered not quite 9,000 signatures. I would need 14,000 in my

riding.

The petition failed because there were not enough signatures, even

with 289 people to motivate and to coordinate and to contact. To get out

289 people to help canvass is a huge task in and of itself. There were

several other petitions with nearly 200 canvassers.

A recall petition is an enormous challenge to undertake. It

requires funding. It requires hundreds of volunteers on the ground going

door to door. This is grassroots politics. It requires, I think, a lot

of public dissatisfaction with the MLA in order to motivate the public

to get on board.

Well, the history of recall is really a history of the difficulty

of the process. Elections B.C. tells us that there have been 26 recall

petitions approved by the Chief Electoral Officer since the legislation

came into being in 1995. Every single one of them has failed — every

one. Of those 26, only six were even returned to the Chief Electoral

Officer. Twenty of the petitioners just gave up. They couldn’t find the

volunteers. They couldn’t get to enough doors to even come close to

meeting the steep threshold for approval.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Only six of the petitioners were really serious. Of the six that

were returned for verification by the Chief Electoral Officer, five were

rejected because they didn’t have enough signatures. In the case of the

last petition, the MLA resigned before the petition was finished, so the

petition was dropped. But in each case, every petition was unsuccessful.

There’s never been a successful recall campaign in Canada in which a

petition was certified by the Chief Electoral Officer, which would

automatically trigger a by-election.

Well, let’s talk about funding of recall campaigns. Under the

present act, the Recall and Initiative Act, there are already lots of

financial controls on funding. There has to be a financial agent. That

agent has to record contributions, establish a bank account, keep

detailed records. There are audits. There’s a report to the Chief

Electoral Officer.

There are limits on anonymous contributions of $1,500. There are

rules about fundraising functions. There are expense limits of $25,000,

which is less, I would remind the Speaker, than half of what it takes to

run a provincial election campaign, which is half as long as a recall

campaign.

Since 1995, under the regime of so-called big money, which is

really not big money at all, under legislation passed by the NDP, by the

way…. It’s never been really about big money. It’s about small money. A

successful recall petition has never been filed. No campaign has ever

been successful.

I’m making a point through all this — the description of what

recall is, the description of how difficult recall is, the description

of current financial controls and limits, and so on. My point is that

the piece of legislation that has been placed before us today raises the

bar for a recall campaign yet further. It makes a nearly impossible

campaign practically, literally impossible. I think that there will

never be a recall successfully completed under the legislation,

additional legislation, that we have before us today.

In fact, I thought that maybe the NDP retained a shred of idealism

from way back in 1995, when they would vote for the Reform Party, even

though they weren’t NDPers, and when they would pass recall legislation.

I thought that they might make it easier to do a recall, not make it

harder — maybe to lengthen the period of time to collect signatures or

maybe to reduce the threshold of the number of signatures

required.

They’re not doing any of that. They’re making it much more

difficult so that an MLA will be able to act with more impunity than

ever before and be less accountable to constituents between

elections.

Well, the NDP say that their only motive is to take uncontrolled

spending out of recall — big money — the way they did for general

elections. But there never was big money in recall campaigns, and they

were never successful under the financial regime that exists.

[3:35 p.m.]

It’s irrelevant financially if they introduce new financial

controls, which were already tight. No, there has to be another reason

for introducing this legislation in this form and at this

time.

I want to talk about the existing legislation and the new

legislation. The existing legislation is a significant body of work. It

amounts to 173 clauses in ten different parts. It’s a long piece. It’s a

complex piece. It’s intensive legislation. But this new legislation just

adds to it. It is a brick. It’s 35 pages long. It has 185 clauses. It is

a massive piece of legislation, in addition to the 173 clauses in the

existing legislation. Talk about using a hammer to swat a

fly.

It’s placing an administrative regime on a recall campaign so

burdensome as to make recall impossible, and I think that the NDP have

lost their way in doing so. They have lost the vision of accountability

that they had 23 years ago. They’re the ones who put this legislation in

place. They’re the ones who wanted to make MLAs more accountable to

their constituents. But under this legislation, an MLA is less

accountable, because he or she can rest assured that recall will never

be successful against them.

Let me point out some measures in this law which will ensure that

no recall campaign is ever successful. And I don’t care about the $1,200

limit that they’re imposing. I don’t know why it should also count

against the political donation that an individual might make. The two

are not connected, and they should not be connected. This is a penalty

for someone becoming involved in the democratic process.

First, this imposes a massive new bureaucracy. I’m not going to

relate it at all. There are pages and pages of requirements for

recording, publishing, revealing names and addresses and making reports

to Elections B.C. of disclosures and filings. There are stiff new

punishments for the slightest breach of these detailed laws.

It’s like a bunch of tangled string. How would you ever figure out

how to actually run a recall campaign under this legislation?

There are 19 new, long and complex sections detailing monetary

penalties for breaking this or that little rule alone — 19 sections,

many with multiple clauses in the section. These new penalties all apply

to smaller amounts, because you can raise less money and spend less

money under this legislation than you could before. That is, there’s a

growing disproportion between the punitive nature of the legislation on

one hand and the smaller and smaller amounts being managed on the other.

It’s disproportionate.

The cumulative effect of all of this, of course, is to place a

huge wet blanket, a deep chill, over any recall campaign.

You get a prospective petitioner, and that petitioner will ask a

prospective financial agent to help him or her. The financial agent, I

think, perhaps an accountant, would take one look at this forest, this

dense thicket of laws, and say: “Forget it. I don’t have enough time to

do the paperwork. I don’t have the hours necessary to figure it all out.

And the risk of doing something wrong is too great. If I don’t cross

every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i,’ there’s going to be an investigation by

Elections B.C. I could get a monetary penalty about a minor, tiny

infraction. My good name and reputation in the community will be

sullied. Let the MLA go ahead and do whatever they like. Whatever bad

thing they’re doing, I don’t care. It’s not worth it.”

This, I believe, is in keeping with the government’s broader

policy agenda, because under proportional representation, recall

wouldn’t be able to function at all. There’s a one-member,

one-constituency relationship of accountability now, but in proportional

representation, we would lose that. Party lists would make sure of that,

because the party boss would simply parachute a party appointee into a

riding.

Accountability of individual members to their constituents will be

gone, in any practical sense, even if this legislation stays on the

books. I doubt that the government would repeal this legislation because

it would look too bad, so they’ll leave it there, but it will simply be

a dead letter.

Second. Second obstacle in the way of recall: the window of recall

campaigns has narrowed by retaining the 18-month blackout period that we

now have, which ends on November 9, and it will now include six months

before the end of the same term. So there’s less time in which a recall

petition can be launched.

[3:40 p.m.]

Third, the advertising limit for third parties is set at $5,000.

Well, that’s not very much. Campaign signs alone for an election will

cost more than double that. If you want to have a tele–town hall, for

instance, where you call thousands of constituents at the same time so

you can talk with them on the telephone, a live call, one call costs

several thousand dollars. So this money would be eaten up just like

that. Third parties won’t be of much assistance in a recall campaign to

get the message of unaccountability across.

Fourth — and here’s a great one — once the Chief Electoral Officer

approves a recall campaign application, no other recall campaign can

start against that MLA. Whoever gets through the door first and files

gets to do the recall campaign, and there can be no other launched. This

means that an MLA, if they were in trouble, could get a friend to launch

a recall campaign, file the paperwork and then do absolutely nothing.

And that MLA would be safe from a recall campaign.

Well, none of this makes for more accountable government. The

government, for some reason, is seeking to choke out any recall

campaigns under their watch, and I find it particularly suspicious that

they’re doing so when the numbers are so close in this House. The

government cannot afford to lose a member. Even if that member does not

represent his or her constituents, even if they’re not doing what their

constituents want, even if they’re doing the very opposite to what their

constituents want, even if the MLA does something egregious, the NDP are

going to make sure that that MLA is safe by setting in place a huge

number of practical barriers to recall. That’s what this legislation, I

believe, is all about.

I also find the timing of the legislation to be suspicious. The

first recall campaign could begin 18 months after the last election,

which was held on May 9, 2017. That means that that day, 18 months

after, falls on November 9. That’s the day the first recall petition

could be filed. Lo and behold, this legislation suddenly appears

miraculously, on November 1, on the floor of this House. What a divine

coincidence. This is nothing more than a brazen and transparent attempt

to ensure that no recall against a government member will be successful.

I think the people of B.C. will see through this and see the real motive

of the government.

The government passed legislation a year ago at this time to

provide for a new donation regime for both municipal and provincial

elections. It’s now applying those same rules to recall campaigns. Why

didn’t they include recall in that package that they introduced a year

ago? Wouldn’t it have been more efficient? Wouldn’t it have made perfect

sense to do that? It only becomes clear in retrospect, as we look at the

events of the past months since the budget in February.

There was an eruption of discontent in one MLA’s constituency as a

result of the budget, and all of a sudden, the government wakes up and

says: “Hey, recall is a real possibility here.” All of a sudden, the

government, which ignored this issue until now, has a fit of principle.

Suddenly it shudders to life. It shakes off its slumber and shoulders

this great moral burden. Their hearts are convicted with the need to

take more money out of politics.

Lo, a light descends from heaven, and the angels are singing to

the Attorney General: “You need more controls on recall, Mr. Attorney

General.” True to the growing sensitivity of his tender conscience, the

Attorney General responds immediately, with enormous ethical passion, to

the great moral challenge of his time.

We have this legislation plopped on the floor of this House just

in time, just a week before a recall campaign can be mounted, a recall

campaign possibly against the very member who introduced the

legislation. What an amazing and fortuitous coincidence.

Well, let me point out a few things about the Attorney General. Is

there any reason at all for him to be personally worried about a recall

campaign? The NDP has said that they’re introducing this legislation to

protect the member for Fort Langley–Aldergrove, the man who’s come back

to this House six times, one of the most popular and upstanding and

respected members of this House. It is absurd to think that a serious

recall campaign of any note would be launched against him.

No, this is to protect the member. This is not to protect the

member for Fort Langley–Aldergrove. It is to protect the Attorney

General himself and the government across the way because they cannot

afford to lose any member. The loss of just one member would jeopardize

the viability of the government itself.

There is a reason for the Attorney General to be worried. Just

take a look at his riding, Vancouver–Point Grey. It’s one of the more

wealthy areas in Vancouver. It’s a beautiful area. It’s one of the

wealthiest areas in Vancouver, on the west side.

[3:45 p.m.]

I used to own a small condo at Main and Broadway. I quickly

learned that the west side begins at Ontario Street, and I was on the

wrong side of that street. The Attorney General is on the right side of

that street, very much on the right side of the tracks. He has UBC and

the endowment lands; the ultra-fashionable, the ultra-chic Kitsilano

Beach; the leafy suburbs which march up the hill from the water; Pacific

Spirit Regional Park; Spanish Banks; Jericho Beach; Locarno Beach;

Vancouver’s museum. This is a beautiful, expensive, very compact riding

with almost exactly 40,000 voters in it, compressed into a very small

area.

I went onto Google maps, and I measured it. It’s an area of

approximately 18-by-27 city blocks and, when you measure it in

kilometres, approximately 2 kilometres-by-1.5 kilometres. It’s a large

population in a small geographic area, an area which the minister full

well knows is very efficient and simple to canvass. It would require a

minimum number of canvassers and a minimum amount of money.

In other words, if there is a riding in B.C. that would be

vulnerable to a recall campaign in which a recall campaign might be

successful, it would be the Attorney General’s riding.

Let’s look at the average house price in his riding. In the

neighbourhood of Kitsilano, the average four-bedroom house sells for $3

million. That’s a trigger. That’s the magic number to be touched by the

school tax, an annual tax on the wealth of those who live in that area,

which kicks in at $3 million.

There are some in this area who would own a second home in B.C.

They would be touched by the speculation tax. What about the increase in

property transfer tax? There are many retirees in the minister’s riding

who will be selling their homes — and who will need to — which they

bought when they were cheap indeed. Now they will be selling dear and

paying property purchase tax through the nose — and very unhappy about

it.

There are many other taxes the minister’s government has raised

that will go quite contrary to the general tenor of his riding. All I’m

saying is that the minister, and his government, has made himself odious

to the people of his own riding. There have been public meetings of

protest against him. These people are angry, and they’re motivated. I

can only imagine that a recall campaign will be mounted against

him.

The government is doing everything it can. It’s pulling out all

the stops in the last moments before November 9, placing every obstacle

in the way to stop it and preserve this great member and his seat,

regardless of whether or not he really represents the interests of his

own riding.

We all know the numbers in this House. If a recall campaign

against the Attorney General were to be successful, if the NDP were to

lose the by-election in Nanaimo — Nanaimo has its own reasons to be

angry against the government — we’d be looking at a minority coalition,

a government that could not pass a budget.

I view this bill as a shameless and transparent attempt to protect

the government. It has nothing to do with responsibility or

accountability or transparency. In fact, it’s the opposite of all these

things. It’s dampening down the opposition by legislation. It’s a highly

partisan piece of legislation, and the Attorney General should be

embarrassed that he would table this legislation in this House, which

would benefit him personally in his own riding. I find that quite

unbelievable.

It’s so contrary to how the NDP were when they were young and

idealistic, when they passed this legislation in 1995, which had been

approved by a Social Credit government, a government they opposed tooth

and nail. Yet they passed that legislation, when they believed in

greater accountability for their members.

Now they’ve become cynical and hungry for power, ready to give up

on their principle, ready to step into conflict of interest so that they

can keep control. And their friends in the Green Party are only too

happy to support them in this.

We, as a body, will be voting against this bill.

B. Stewart: It’s an honour to stand here today before the House and speak

about Bill 53, the Recall and Initiative Amendment Act.

After that last set of remarks by the member for Chilliwack-Kent,

I can hardly imagine that I can add more to the passion and history of

something so important like this, especially when I think about former

leaders like Preston Manning and others like that. I am thinking that

they did give up a lot to fight for democracy.

[3:50 p.m.]

Here we are. We’re talking about why this is even before the

House. What is the rationale behind this? Why would we be dealing with

this on the eve of the trigger point of recall campaigns in British

Columbia here? I’m struck by the juxtaposition of the fact that we keep

talking about the government and that we keep hearing promises and

policies aimed at fixing our democracy. A system that has worked for our

entire history is suddenly, apparently, so full of flaws that now, since

the NDP has come to power, we need to make these amendments.

I think about the campaigns that have been fought since 1995, the

people that have been subjected to that. I worked on a number of

campaigns to help other members of this House not be discarded by their

electorate. I see that one of the very first people on this list was a

former NDP member from Prince George. Paul Ramsey was three times

challenged by recall in the early days. I’m thinking: “Geez, that must

really have hurt.” They were in power at the time, but they didn’t see

the need to alter such a fundamental piece of legislation that is now 23

years old.

We’re standing here in this House talking about the fact that all

of a sudden there are these new rules: “There should only be one recall

campaign. There should only be one person that can file.” It could be a

friendly person that files it just to keep others away — kind of like

shark repellent in the business world. I really do kind of wonder at the

validity, the integrity, the authenticity of what this act is really

meant to bring.

I mean, we talk about spending limits. I think most of us all have

run campaigns. I think we know how just running a simple advertisement

in a local newspaper or trying to make certain that you get information

out there to households — what the real cost of that is today. What does

it cost to mail a letter? What does it cost to do something that’s a

bulk mail drop? The $5,000 is a ridiculous amount for anybody to try to

live under that cap.

Right now British Columbians are voting in a referendum on

proportional representation. They say that it will bring more democracy

to our province and that somehow, people’s votes will count more, but

instead of more democracy for the people, this government and their

friends in the Third Party are delivering more power to political

parties. Let’s not get this wrong. This is about power. This is about

staying in power, not about democracy, where the voters have the power

and the parties don’t have the power.

This is about making certain that people’s rights are respected.

The fact is that there has only been, really, one resignation out of all

of these campaigns. I think there were 26 campaigns that have actually

been out there of people that have actually been run against. One might

have been successful, but the person that it was against resigned prior

to that being validated. So there were no successful campaigns under the

current system.

The majority of the campaigns have been, really, against the B.C.

Liberals, not against the NDP. When we were in government, we didn’t

think that we should amend the act. We didn’t change the act when there

was an onslaught of campaigns brought in by people’s anger — mostly,

maybe, the opposition — to a tax that we were proposing to bring in. It

was defeated, but the situation is that we didn’t go and alter the

democratic rights of British Columbian voters by saying that the act was

maybe not restrictive enough and that we needed to make some changes to

that.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

For all the talk about making every vote count, the reality is

that the real choices are being made here, well before election day, by

a small cabal inside party headquarters. What that side of the House

calls more democracy, I call an erosion of democracy. It’s taking power

from the people and giving it to the political parties. With MLAs

selected and appointed by party lists, the power of political parties

becomes entrenched if the proportional representation referendum is

successful.

[3:55 p.m.]

I guess the real question is: with these new rules, what happens

if somebody was successfully recalled, but then they made their way onto

a party list and were reappointed? Are they subject to recall because

they’re on the party list or appointed to a different riding? I have no

idea, but those are a lot of unanswered questions.

The party insiders will choose who’s on that list, as we know.

They may even choose themselves. Future MLAs will have to pass a party

test, not one of the electorate. They won’t have to stand there and

defend themselves about the fact…. They put themselves out there. They

expose themselves in the most naked way to make certain that people see

that this