Fifth Session, 42nd Parliament

(2024) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 424

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Tributes

Michael Lunn and Fred McEachern

Hon. S. Malcolmson

Introductions by Members

Orders of the Day

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Housing (continued)

Hon. R. Kahlon

K. Kirkpatrick

T. Halford

Report and Third Reading of Bills

Bill 20 — First Nations Mandated Post-Secondary Institutes Act

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Housing (continued)

K. Kirkpatrick

Hon. R. Kahlon

A. Olsen

A. Walker

Report and Third Reading of Bills

Bill 22 — Safe Access to Schools Act

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of the Whole House

Bill 20 — First Nations Mandated Post-Secondary Institutes Act (continued)

C. Oakes

Hon. L. Beare

Bill 22 — Safe Access to Schools Act (continued)

M. Lee

Hon. N. Sharma

S. Robinson

Proceedings in the Birch Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation (continued)

A. Walker

Hon. J. Osborne

S. Furstenau

Estimates: Ministry of Finance

Hon. K. Conroy

P. Milobar

D. Clovechok

TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2024

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Tributes

MICHAEL LUNN AND FRED

M c EACHERN

Hon. S. Malcolmson: Today in Nanaimo is Red Shirt Day. It’s the ten-year anniversary

of a terrible and tragic workplace shooting at the Western Forest

Products mill. Two men lost their lives, leaving two families

devastated.

Please join me in thinking of Michael Lunn and Fred McEachern and,

also, their union brothers and sisters, the United Steelworkers, who are

mourning today and thinking of the terrible day ten years

ago.

Introductions by Members

A. Walker: Today is the birthday of a constituent of mine, Mr. Robert Filmer. He

was one of the youngest councillors to be elected in this province and most

certainly the youngest in Qualicum Beach.

I’m thinking of him today on his birthday because the town of

Qualicum, under his leadership, put in a rainbow crosswalk. It was a big day

for our community. However, over the last week, we’ve seen two alleged

incidents where someone has dumped chicken manure on that crosswalk. That is

not something I stand for, nor anyone in this House.

I do want to wish him a very happy birthday.

Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Kahlon: In the main chamber here, I call Committee of Supply for the Ministry of

Housing.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole for Bill

20, First Nations Mandated Post-Secondary Institutes Act.

In the Birch Committee Room, I call Committee of Supply for the Ministry

of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, followed by the Ministry of

Finance.

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

HOUSING

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section B); J. Tegart in the

chair.

The committee met at 1:35 p.m.

The Chair: I’ll call the committee to order. We are dealing with the

estimates for the Ministry of Housing.

On Vote 33: ministry operations, $1,033,255,000

(continued) .

Hon. R. Kahlon: I want to start by just sharing with the member. The member asked

me a question last time. We were discussing estimates around the rental

protection fund. It was a question that was a little bit towards the

Ministry of Finance, but I committed that I would try to get an

answer.

When we discussed the rental protection fund, in particular, the

question was around the impact for the property transfer tax and how

much would be coming back to the province and not available for

acquisitions.

The team did have a chance to connect with the RPF and can share

the following. Of the 27 properties currently approved for acquisition,

24 of them are exempt from the property transfer tax. This exemption

resulted in savings of $13.8 million in property transfer tax. Yeah, I

believe that’s what the member’s question was.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister, and thank you to the staff for that

follow-up. It’s much appreciated.

Lots to cover in a little bit of time here. You’ll be happy to

know I don’t have a headache today, so we are going to go…. I’m going to

be much tougher than I was last week.

There was a modelling report that was released in December of

2023. It was written by my friends at the Sauder School at UBC and Terra

Housing. It was a modelling report. I’ve got a couple questions with

respect to that.

It did show the housing prices set to rise and housing starts

reducing over time. That was through the Finance Ministry projections as

well. The modelling report’s mid-line estimate for how many new homes in

the next five years, out of the 250,000 that have been talked about, is

49,000. That means that 80 percent of the 254,000 homes won’t be

completed until after 2028, which is the end of the NDP’s ten-year

housing plan.

Specific questions: can the minister confirm that the purported

reduction in housing prices is only a reduction in future increases and

not a decrease in prices overall?

[1:40 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: The team is just pulling the stuff from the report. They’ll be

doing that, and we can canvass the report at greater length over

time.

I will share with the member that the report did say that it would

lead to from 216,000 to 293,000 additional net new housing units for

British Columbia over the next ten years.

The report did highlight that without the important interventions,

the prices for housing would continue to go up, given that we have more

people than housing available. The report also did highlight that with

these measures, with the increase in housing supply, prices would

stabilize for rents, and prices would stabilize for the ability for

people to buy homes.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

May I clarify with the minister the beginning of what the minister

said. Does the minister need time to pull that report so that I can

continue to ask questions on it? Should I move to another part, and come

back to that report? Would that be the preference of the minister?

Okay.

If the Chair can indulge for a moment, I just need to reorganize

here for a moment.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Yeah, that would be greatly appreciated. That way, the team that’s

working on that can cue up. If the member has the general frame of which

topics we want to discuss, then we can just have everybody prepare

accordingly. I know that these things move, and that’s fine. But any

insight on that would be, I think, helpful for the limited time we

have.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

It’s a pretty key document, in terms of the implementation and the

impact of legislation that has been coming down the road. There’ll be a

number of things: the ACC impact, land lift costs. There are a few key

pieces in there. I hope that is directive enough.

If I might, Chair, I will then move to asking some questions

specifically about the main estimates documents. I will start with this.

There has been a dramatic reduction of over $20 million in the housing

and land use policy piece of the budget. It’s the largest cut in the

ministry’s budget this year.

If I can ask the minister: how would he plan to ensure that

affordability and availability of housing will move forward without

these critical funds? Isn’t this move counterproductive to addressing

the housing crisis?

Introductions by Members

Hon. R. Kahlon: I want to start by welcoming students from Pacific Christian School, I

believe, that are here today.

I see head nods. I want to welcome them to the chamber. There are 20

grade 10 students that are here.

[1:45 p.m.]

I want to welcome you to the chamber today on behalf of my colleague

the MLA for Saanich South. She’s not here right now. We’re debating the

housing estimates, the Ministry of Housing, and we’re having an exchange

about all the things related to housing in the province.

Welcome. I hope you enjoy the proceedings.

Debate Continued

Hon. R. Kahlon: On the question, it’s actually not a decrease. What’s happened is

that we had some dollars for DAPR, the development approval process

review, and we moved that sooner. The dollars got out quicker than they

were. It’s not a massive….

I’ll read this: “The $20.123 million funding decrease is primarily

a result of accelerated payments in fiscal ’23-24 for development

approval process review funding.”

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you for the answer. I have to ponder that for a moment to

see where to go from that answer. I may come back for some

clarification.

The ministry’s budget reflects a substantial $7.5 million increase

in salary and benefits. How does the ministry justify such a significant

increase in administrative costs? Doesn’t this again show a misalignment

of priorities during a housing affordability crisis?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The number referred to by the member is broken down in different

initiatives that we committed to as part of our Homes for People plan.

Some of these things were in contingencies before, and now they’ve just

been put into the budget.

For short-term rentals, it’s $1.7 million. We’ve launched a new

digital permitting tool. We haven’t launched it, but we will be

launching it soon, and $1.3 million is for the team that’s working on

that. We’ve got housing innovation resources, strategy, governments and

accountability, housing supply. We’ve got different pieces of the

housing strategy that are now coming into the base budget when most of

those were in contingencies previously.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I’m really interested in the housing innovations division. There

is a $2 million estimate provided for that, maintained into the next

year. Can the minister describe what kinds of innovative solutions the

ministry is expecting to be funded?

[1:50 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: That team is doing exciting work. First, they’re working on

digital permitting.

I can share with the member that the digital permitting team is

working on a new digital building permit tool which will enable

community proponents to submit building permits digitally so that there

could be automatic code compliance checks on the building code side and

will also do a complete check for completion of applications to ensure

that it meets the local government’s needs. That work is happening right

now.

We think that’s going to have significant impact in communities,

and we want to expand that over the years. It’s starting as a basic

tool. We have signalled that we will digitize the building code to PDF

initially, but we are moving to BIM-enabled over time so that an

application that is created in BIM, in a digital model, will be able to

be submitted in a digital format and be automatically checked for code

compliance. That’s where that team is heading, and we’re working with 14

communities on that.

Then the team is also working on opportunities for modular going

forward. In particular, they’re also working on mass timber and

advancing mass timber use in B.C.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister for that answer.

The digital building permits part of that is being funded under

the $7.5 million increase in benefits. Another piece is coming out of

the housing innovations division. I understand the minister said they’re

working with 14 commun­ities. Is the digital building permits

technology something that’s expected to be rolled out and then

customized to municipalities across B.C. once it’s finalized?

Hon. R. Kahlon: It’s a front-facing tool that will be rolled out initially with

the communities that have agreed to pilot with it. More details will

come soon. If it is successful, I suspect that communities around the

province would be wanting to be part of it, but there’s work for us

still to do on that.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I’m very interested in that. I think

that is certainly the way of the future.

Can I ask then, with the $2 million for the housing innovations

division and the various things going on there, how will the investment

directly impact the housing market, and what measures is the ministry

putting in place to determine the effectiveness of the new projects that

the innovation fund is funding?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I can’t give the full impact at this point, other than to say that

the team is working. We have a working group: UDI, ULI, local government

representation, architects, engineers and the Building Officials

Association. We’ve got a whole table of professionals who work in this

space that are at the table helping design and guide it.

We have got the folks at Digital on it. We have got folks from

B.C. Tech on it. Really, pretty much everybody that touches that type of

work is at the table helping guide the process.

There’s a lot of excitement about the potential around this. This

may be a surprise, but the federal government is interested in something

that B.C. is doing. They’re interested in this initiative in particular.

The reason why everyone is excited is because they see the potential

impact this could make, to address both time and uncertainty.

[1:55 p.m.]

Also, there is potential in the future for this tool to have the

ability for information-sharing between different entities, different

authorities. That is an important piece, I think, for us. That is,

again, future work.

I can share with the member kind of where we’re at now. We think

that this team will have major impact, whether it’s on the digital

permitting side or on work they’re doing around the building code on

mass timber. It’s a small but mighty team. I think, as the member has

highlighted, that this is the future, and the team is leading that

work.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Back on the digital permitting, which I think is quite

interesting, certainly this is a good idea. What I have found with this

government is that sometimes the execution on things doesn’t go quite as

smoothly as initially intended. Can the minister explain when this

project will be completed?

Hon. R. Kahlon: We will have to disagree on the characterization of the work. I

would highlight that almost every single initiative that we have brought

forward when it comes to housing is being adopted across the country. We

are leading the way when it comes to new policy, new tools, new

technologies. I’m really proud of the folks sitting around me, because

they’re leading this work across the country.

There’s no end goal, necessarily, of this work. Digitizing our

processes is ongoing. So I can’t put an end date. I can say that in the

coming months, we’ll have phase 1 of the digital tool made available to

the public, to homebuilders. Part of the work, the scope of the work,

is: what would phase 1 look like? This is what we’re in now.

Then, with that advisory group, we’re talking about what phase 2

looks like, what phase 3 looks like. It will be multiple years to roll

out this work. I know I’ve met with housing advocates, homebuilding

organizations, from Ontario, that are trying to get the Ontario

government to do this work. We’re hoping that we can set a model which

then can be taken across the country.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I’ll move on, but just two things. I know we’re making statements

here prior to answering questions. I may disagree with the minister that

the plans and the work that are being done on housing are being adopted

across the country.

I think there certainly is a curiosity as to how things are

rolling out here. I am concerned — with such a significant investment,

such as software, in the development of what could potentially be a real

game-changer, in a significant, complicated project — that there’s not a

specific scope in timelines for when it’s going to be completed and how

that work is going to be done.

A question to the minister, again on the financials. The strategic

governance and accountability allocation sees a significant rise of

$536,000. Can you explain the necessity behind this increase? How does

bolstering governance and accountability translate into tangible

benefits to those who are struggling with housing?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think the member and I can probably agree that governance and

accountability are critically im­portant. That’s the process we’re

going through right now. I can share with the member that this team

works with the FPT tables. This is one of its

responsibilities.

[2:00 p.m.]

There are a lot of initiatives that we’re doing that now require

us to work better, in better collaboration, with the federal government,

whether that’s BC Builds, or their version, Canada Builds, or whether

this is…. Now some of the conversations they’re having are around

infrastructure, housing targets, all these things. That’s partly the

work this team is doing.

Also, a new Indigenous unit that we’ve started there…. More

Indigenous communities are very active in construction and projects. We

see a need for a team to be able to support that work, to support

communities, but also support housing across the province. It’s actually

a modest amount, considering the work that the team is doing.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I’m going to talk a bit about the cost pressure grants and some of

the issues happening with construction overspends on projects. The cost

of construction has gone up significantly under this government, and the

government had to expend $154 million on overbudgeting housing projects,

and that’s nearly $4 million per project. I have about three pages’

worth of projects here that have overruns.

We have seen the cost of construction soar, leading to that $154

million in cost pressure grants being poured into the over-budget

housing projects. How does the minister justify nearly $4 million per

project in overruns to taxpayers who are already burdened with some of

the highest cost-of-living increases we’ve ever had?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member referred to this government, but I think the member can

easily say governments across North America, across the world are

dealing with global inflation. Certainly, in Canada, my counterparts

across the country are seeing cost pressures on housing, infrastructure,

all types of projects. And that’s no different than the private sector.

There are a lot of projects that are private sector projects that are

dealing with major cost pressures.

What I would say is that there is a deficit of affordable housing.

There is, we believe, decades of underinvestment in affordable housing.

And when you have projects that are going, it’s vitally important that

they get built, because they’re supporting some of the most vulnerable

people in our community. We acknowledge that there are cost pressures on

housing, on infrastructure, across the board, across Canada. What we’re

doing here is we’re stepping up to deal with it.

We also are looking at supporting federal government projects. The

federal government, at one point, decided that they were going to go

directly to local governments to support housing projects. Some of those

projects had cost overruns and stalled those projects. We’ve been trying

to find ways to ensure that even those types of housing units continue

to get built, because we know what it means for people in our

communities.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

It’s easy to say that everybody else is having the same problem,

and everybody else is having the same results, but that is not

necessarily true. When there are anticipated cost overruns, when you’re

managing a project, you have to make decisions along the way that are

going to make that project affordable. The ability to simply write a

cheque at the end of the day and not actually be really managing the

budgets on these projects and making decisions to manage those costs is

concerning.

I know my colleague from Kamloops last week was asking the

minister about a B.C. Housing project that had been purchased. Money

hadn’t gone into it to make sure that…. I shouldn’t say that money

hadn’t gone into it. There was no thought to maybe turn off the water

during the winter so all the pipes didn’t burst. You’ve got a building

sitting there empty that should have people in it. So it’s hard to take

the explanation for the cost overruns on “it’s just something that

happens,” because we know that bad management is certainly a contributor

to those cost overruns.

Given the table from the B.C. Housing FOI that we re­ceived,

indicating numerous projects across various communities, it’s clear that

the cost overruns are widespread. So realizing now that this is

happening, what specific measures is the ministry taking to ensure more

accurate budget forecasting and control over public funds?

[2:05 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think it is true and fair to say that cost pressures are being

felt across the country. I know this because I talk to colleagues across

the country. We’re talking about our not-for-profit partners, who are

the ones who are dealing with these cost pressures. No one is trying to

make extra money here. These are real cost pressures — because of global

inflation, interest rates — that are being felt.

I think the member knows that it’s the same with our local

government partners. It’s the same with the federal government. It’s the

same with our private sector partners. All of them are facing real cost

pressures that are putting challenges on their projects.

We’re doing an analysis to ensure that it’s real cost pressures,

tying it to things that are actually impacting the housing to be built.

The accountability measures are in place to do that. In the end, it’s

vitally important that when a community knows there are 40 units of

housing coming in their community, we find a way to make sure those 40

get built so people can get indoors.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

There is considerable financial impact when budgets, obviously,

are overrun. I’m curious about the accountability measures within B.C.

Housing. What kind of oversight is there to make sure that these budgets

are being managed as best as they can be?

I’ll take what the minister says. I mean, I know we’re in a high

inflationary period of time. There are cost pressures, but we have to

manage those cost pressures. Again, I’ll…. You know, the Kamloops

reference…. There’s money being spent on things where you’re not

actually getting benefit, and those are taxpayer dollars being

spent.

What accountability mechanisms are in place when projects exceed

their budget forecasts? Is there a risk of systemic inefficiency within

the current approach to housing development?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The accountability measures that are in place…. All related cost

overruns for new projects get verified through a third-party cost

consultant. If the variance is above 10 percent, it automatically has to

go back to the board. If there’s a variance of over 15 percent, it has

to come to the province as well.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Who is the third-party cost consultant?

Hon. R. Kahlon: There are many consultants out there. An example would be Altus.

Altus is a well-known company that does this work. But there are many

that B.C. Housing works with.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

May I ask the minister if we can now move back to the December 7

modelling report? Okay. I’ll start questions on that. Let me just see.

Did I ask a question on this, or did we stop before I started? Yeah.

Okay.

Is the information in the modelling report baked into the

ministry’s budget? Does it inform the housing starts and the supply

projections?

[2:10 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: The report was a third party doing an economic analysis of the

impacts of the legislation that we brought forward. The data has been

shared with the Ministry of Finance. It has been shared with our local

government partners. It may guide communities in some of their

decision-making. It was important to see the impacts, potentially, of

the work. That’s why they were consulted to provide us this

information.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

The question was based on the data that’s in this report. These

are people that this government relies heavily on for data that is meant

to inform policy decisions.

Was the data in that report considered in the government’s budget

in terms of estimates on housing starts and supply

projections?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The data that’s presented reinforces that the legislation we

brought in was important to address the challenge we have. I would not

say it was used for creating the B.C. Housing Ministry’s budget. The

projections are for private sector, mostly, housing that’s going to be

built. We, obviously, use the data internally. We use the data for what

could possibly happen, but it did not impact the size of our housing

budget in the ministry.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I’m sure that the minister and the ministry are alive to some of

the comments and analysis of policies that this government has brought

in and the view that there will be negligible impacts in many areas from

the legislation that is being brought in.

How does government respond to concerns that the majority of the

new homes which are promised under the current plan won’t be available

until after the end of the NDP’s ten-year housing plan in 2028? I know

that the minister said these homes will be ready in ten years. The date

I’m referencing is actually the end of the NDP’s ten-year housing plan,

and the majority of these homes won’t yet be completed.

Hon. R. Kahlon: There are a few things. The projections from this third party are

in addition to the targets that we had set. It’s in addition to the

targets that we had set. That’s the first important thing.

The member refers to studies that show that the policies we’ve

brought forward won’t have a big impact. I’m happy to talk about those

studies that the member is referring to. I can’t point to specifically

which policy the member is referring to.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. This is just, again, from the research

that was done out of UBC and Terra. The modelling report suggests that

the new amenity cost charges could actually significantly and negatively

impact housing growth, particularly in Vancouver.

[2:15 p.m.]

Why, then, is the NDP allowing Metro Vancouver to triple the taxes

on new housing in the region?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think the member’s question is conflating two different issues

into one. Amenity cost charges are an important tool because not only do

we want housing, but we also want to ensure we have viable, livable

communities that have amenities. I don’t know if that’s a position of

the official opposition, not to support amenities in our

communities.

The tool, as we debated at great lengths, comes with checks and

balances for local governments. They have to clearly put in their bylaws

what amenities they’re prioritizing, what part of their community. It

comes with some certainty on costs. It comes with some requirements to

have analysis done on the impacts it would have for housing.

I think that it’s important that communities be able to build

those amenities, and that’s what the amenity cost charge is: moving away

from a model of negotiations or discussions that are not in the public

to a very transparent public form of funding critically important

amenities.

We believe we can have both. We believe we can have housing but

also ensure that local governments have dollars to build important

amenities to support growth in communities.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Well, it was quite the leap to suppose that by my asking about the

negative impact of amenity cost charges, there was any suggestion

whatsoever that the official opposition doesn’t believe in community

amenities. I mean, livability is foundational in terms of the housing

plan that we’re talking about on this side of the House.

The question is that this is modelling that is done that is

showing that the introduction and the use of amenity cost charges could

significantly, negatively impact housing growth. May I ask what the

minister has as a response to that?

Hon. R. Kahlon: It would help us, in this exchange, if the member were able to

point to a page number on the report or what

section the member’s

referring to when referring to amenity cost charges.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I appreciate that. I’ve got page

numbers on some of these, but I’m sure that my folks behind the computer

here will provide a page number in a moment that I can share with

you.

I will move on to the next question then. Can the minister

elaborate on the modelling report’s caution about the potential for

rezoning to mainly benefit the incumbent property owners?

[2:20 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I was trying to find where the member is referring to in the

question, and I can’t find the reference. I will say that to suggest

that the impacts or the effects of this legislation won’t have impacts

on people that are renters or others in the housing market is

incorrect.

If the member is referring to the report, on page 17, it says:

“The primary effect of small-scale, multi-unit and TOA legislation on

renters is to reduce rents by existing rental homes through supply

effects.” It also says: “We show that in most cases, new higher-density

housing would be built closer to city centres, with potential benefits

in reducing commuting, congestion and associated carbon

emissions.”

Throughout the report, it talks about the impact of the changes

and what that means to communities. So let’s say I respectfully disagree

with the member’s characterization of what the report says.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

To go back to the amenity cost charges, although I won’t debate

those again, there is a table entitled “Impact of ACC charges on TOA

development,” and that’s located on page 126. That is where it shows

that there could well be a negative impact on housing starts because of

the ACCs.

I’m going to, if the minister is okay, move along with similar

questioning, but we don’t need to necessarily connect it directly to the

report. Though I will provide, when I have those details, what pages and

what areas in the report we’re referencing.

As when the member of the Third Party and myself were talking

about some of this new legislation and asking the minister questions as

we went through, there was a concern about wealth inequalities from Bill

44 and the value uplift in properties. That is supported in the

modelling report.

Does the minister, at this point, in hindsight, or with

information that’s coming in…? Could he respond to concerns that gains

from rezoning would exacerbate wealth inequalities?

Hon. R. Kahlon: This is like déjà vu of the fall session. The member for

Parksville-Qualicum is laughing because we spent hours talking about

these topics, and the information was in front of us when we had that

conversation.

The housing system we have right now is not working. Income

inequality and the spread between those who have and those who do not is

growing with the system, prior to any changes. It’s happening. Those

that have access to housing, homes, multiple homes have greater wealth

than those that don’t have access to it. The reforms are about

increasing the housing supply, in­creasing the ability for people

to get into the market in housing that is affordable to them.

[2:25 p.m.]

I spent, I think, five or six hours talking about this topic. I’m

happy, for the last four or whatever hours we have, to continue to talk

about the legislation in the fall, but I think that time might be better

used for us to spend on the estimates at hand.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

With respect, we may have been talking about things, but in the

interim period of time, this report has come out, and there has been

other information that supports what some of our concerns

were.

There is also, in this report, a recommendation for value capture

mechanisms to tax the land lift in these properties. Coun. Christine

Boyle has advocated for a land value capture tax to deal with

this.

Has the minister had any communications with Councillor Boyle

regarding this type of tax?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I have not, and I’m not aware of any conversations happening

around this.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Because there seems to be a disconnect between the ministry and

the information I’ve got with respect to the modelling, I’m going to

move on to some other topics at this point.

Surprise, surprise. I am going to ask the minister about

compensation for homelessness costs. This is starting with the invoice

from the city of Victoria to the ministry. They have decided to invoice

the province for $100,000 to cover the operational costs of Our Place’s

storage facility and community centre.

I’ve got a couple quotes here from a few different

mayors.

Marianne Alto in Victoria: “This council has done yeoman’s work

well above its usual capacity…in stepping into spaces that have been

traditional responsibilities of the provincial and sometimes the federal

governments.”

Mayor Leonard Krog from Nanaimo: “Should local residents taxpayers

be paying for what’s essentially the delivery of medical

services?”

Again, UBCM president Trish Mandewo: “We are footing the bill, and

it’s getting increasingly difficult for local governments to balance the

budgets. This issue is not going away.”

A question to the minister. Will the Minister of Housing be paying

the invoice submitted by the city of Victoria? Is that a yes or a

no?

Hon. R. Kahlon: If the member has the invoice, I’d like to see it. We’re not aware

of any invoice that the city of Victoria has shared with us.

I will say that in this case, the city of Victoria made a decision

in 2018 to provide funding for an initiative. The province wasn’t

consulted. They made that decision, and they’ve been funding it for six

years. I am not aware of any invoice that has been sent to us. If the

member has information about that invoice, I’m happy to see

it.

Beyond that, I can say that we have been working with communities,

providing an unprecedented amount of investments and funding for these

measures in particular. I’ll highlight a couple.

Just today I met with the councillors and staff from Prince

George, where we are bringing online 100 affordable housing units,

supportive housing units to get vulnerable people out of encampments and

into homes.

Crab Park — I mentioned that. We had over 100 people at Crab Park.

We’ve been working, building relationships, getting people into housing.

We have 16 people, and our goal is to get them into housing. It’s the

same story in Nanaimo.

Just in Abbotsford, on Friday: 221 housing units that we’re

funding in Abbotsford. Lonzo park site is opening this week. We’ve got

people moving in. We identified new shelter locations. The list goes on,

and it’s important work.

I’m keen to work with our local government partners to support the

efforts that they’re making. I think all the mayors you’ve mentioned —

Mayor Alto, Mayor Krog, Mayor Yu in Prince George, Mayor Siemens in

Abbotsford — will tell you that the historic amount of dollars we’re

investing is needed, and we’ve been doing it in partnership with

them.

[2:30 p.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I don’t think there’s any debate that these investments are

important and that we need to provide shelter housing in these

communities.

The concern from these municipalities is that it does put

additional pressure and additional costs because of the nature of the

housing that’s going into the communities, and that is pushed down to

the municipalities to have to pay. Whatever has happened with Victoria

covering costs in the past, the issue is today and how those increased

costs are being managed.

Given the city of Victoria’s recent action to invoice the

province…. I appreciate that the minister has said he has not seen that

invoice yet. But he has certainly heard about that invoice in the media,

and we are certainly aware that that invoice is coming. So given the

recent action of the city, what is the Ministry of Housing’s stance on

such claims from local governments that these costs are now being

downloaded to them that should traditionally have been the cost borne by

the province?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I would say that dealing with homelessness is a real challenge. I

appreciate the pressures that local governments face, the province

faces, the federal government faces, First Nations communities face. But

I want to make sure that it’s on the record that this discussion of

local governments not believing the province is funding enough is not

something that’s new to our government now.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

If you go back to Hansard to 2002, 2004, 2008, you will

hear the same conversation happening. Whether it’s infrastructure or

whether it’s other matters, local governments are always making the case

that the province and the federal government provide more dollars. All

for good reasons, all for good causes.

My goal in our ministry is to work with our partners to address

the challenges around housing. My door is always open to mayors. I spoke

to Mayor Krog just a couple of weeks ago. We’re making some real good

progress when it comes to getting vulnerable people off streets and into

housing. Mayor Alto, similarly. Mayor Siemens — I met with him on

Friday. The list goes on.

Again, we can go into this “the local government’s wanting more

dollars” question, but it is something that is, I think, a historic

piece that local governments have raised that we’re going to have to

just work together on.

K. Kirkpatrick: Just so the minister is aware, and whoever has sent this to me,

Victoria has actually sent the invoice. I’m not sure why the minister

has not seen that invoice, but it has been sent, unless I am being given

wrong information.

I hear what the minister is saying with respect to the kinds of

requests for municipalities that have been historical in terms of asking

for increased supports. But we are talking about issues that are

traditionally, and should be, covered by the province, which are unique

to the times that we are in today.

Additional homelessness, public disorder, decriminalization,

conversion of motels into supportive housing units: all of these things

actually add to the burden of a municipality in terms of the costs they

have to pay. The costs are related primarily in terms of homelessness

and shelters that the municipalities are flagging and that the city is

talking about.

Again, what does the minister have to say to those municipalities

on those specific issues that are unique today that are causing

financial hardship? There’s only so much that a municipality can do,

only so many tools that it has in order to be able to balance its

budget.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I have knowledge that homelessness is a challenge. I think it’s

two things. I think it’s important to acknowledge that homelessness

didn’t just start. We’ve had a homelessness challenge for a long

time.

We went at great lengths when we were discussing homelessness when

the previous government was on this side, on the government side, and

were dealing with homeless encampments in the city of Victoria and

communities across the province. Those were real challenges that

communities have been dealing with for a long time.

Again, for the city of Victoria, I’m not aware of any invoice. But

again, if a local government comes forward with some information, and

they want to have a conversation, we can certainly have that.

[2:35 p.m.]

I think it’s important for the record to note that Victoria

decided they were going to fund this in 2018, six years ago. It wasn’t a

conversation with the province. They decided they wanted to do it. Then

for them to turn around and say: “We want you to pay for it now.” I

think if there’s true collaboration, we should be working together on

that. And that’s my expectation with all communities that we work with

in the province.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I think that we’re talking about two

different things in terms of what the city of Victoria has agreed to

fund previously and the nature of their request today. But as the

minister has not seen the invoice or the correspondence from the city of

Victoria, I’ll move on, although to note that this is an issue that is

not just city of Victoria. I believe other invoices will be in the mail

to this ministry in the future.

UBCM has been here recently, advocating for some of the key issues

that municipalities have. With respect to housing, there were several

requests of this minister. As we’ve seen in the last few years, there’s

been a lot of conversation about what’s happening with B.C. Housing. So

one of the questions that UBCM had was: how does this government intend

to improve B.C. Housing operations that will minimize delays in

affordable housing projects?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I would first start by saying that there are a lot of improvements

happening at B.C. Housing. I’m not saying that because the CEO is behind

me, but I am saying that because the CEO is behind me. He’s been doing a

fantastic job in his role in making the changes that I think are

necessary at B.C. Housing.

When it comes to projects, I think there’s always a desire for

projects to move faster. Sometimes it’s procurement challenges.

Sometimes it’s challenges related to local governments and their

permitting and change of use and additional requirements that get put on

in the last minute. I’ve seen it all. It’s a combination. Sometimes we

can do better; sometimes local governments can do better. We are

committed to continue to work with them, especially in this

time.

It’s one conversation to say we have limited funding for housing,

and because there’s limited funding the issues are limited, and the

scale is limited. But we are investing in dollars that we have not seen

in B.C. when it comes to social housing or affordable housing. With that

increased capacity, it puts pressure on local governments. It puts

pressure on us. So we continue to work through that.

I met with the UBCM and the executive members that were here. We

talked about a whole host of topics that get raised about housing. Then

I mentioned the projects that are happening in communities that have

opened, that are opening right now. There is generally a real

excitement.

I think from a UBCM perspective…. Certainly what I heard from them

is that they are pleased to finally see the investments that are needed.

They would always like to see more. The other topics we discussed around

infrastructure and all those pieces, I think those are things we have to

work together on as we go forward.

K. Kirkpatrick: I’m not sure that I would describe the reaction to much of the

changes in housing policy as being pleased. I know that there are a lot

of concerns that municipalities have.

I’m going to ask a couple more questions on B.C. Housing, very

mindful that Vincent is sitting in the House here. There have

consistently been concerns from housing providers that the bureaucracy

at B.C. Housing is challenging. The turnaround times are challenging.

It’s very difficult to get an invoice approved or to get something

that’s rela­tively critical so that you can move on and a housing

provider can pay for something.

After everything that happened with Atira and B.C. Housing, and I

know there have been changes, there is a recognition of an inefficiency

in the processes at B.C. Housing. Can I ask what has been done to review

that? Are there recommendations just in terms of increasing the

efficiency of how the organization works?

[2:40 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: There’s been a lot of work happening around streamlining processes

between the requirements from treasury, from B.C. Housing, from our

not-for-profit partners. We’re also doing a lot of work with our

not-for-profit partners. I think that there are ways for that

interaction between our not-for-profits and B.C. Housing to be much more

efficient. We’re looking at digital tools to make sure that information

can be going back and forth, so it’s less labour-intensive. There are

efficiencies, definitely, that we can achieve, but that work is actually

happening right now.

My team, B.C. Housing meet with CEOs from not-for-profits. There’s

a bit of a working group, and those are places where all these

discussions are happening right now.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Are contract renewals with the housing providers being done in a

timely manner, or are they actually exceeding the dates when the initial

contracts are expiring?

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

I think it’s important to note first that there’s never a gap in

service. If an operating agreement hasn’t been renewed, the service

continues, and there are provisions built into the operating agreement

for that.

There is work to do there. We are doing a lot of work in that

space. It’s an important conversation we’re having with our

not-for-profit partners. How do we streamline? How do we find

efficiencies? How do we do this in a better way? The working group I

mentioned to the member is a place where these conversations are

happening.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister for the answer.

The concern I have heard is that there are often services being

provided prior to even having a contract in place with B.C. Housing.

That happens…. The most obvious examples, I think, or the easiest

examples are winter shelter and some of those things that seem to be

left to the last minute to be able to develop and sign contracts with

the housing providers.

What I would like to do now…. I’m going to move on to some

different questioning, but I am going to turn the floor over to my

colleague from Surrey–White Rock for some questions.

T. Halford: I thank the minister and his staff, and I do thank my colleague

from West Vancouver–Capilano for giving me this important time here on

the Housing estimates.

[2:45 p.m.]

The minister and I have canvassed this in the chamber, I think,

definitely outside, regarding the warming shelters in White Rock.

Specifically, this winter, obviously, we saw record temperatures, at

least where I am, of freezing.

White Rock itself is a fairly small community, with just over

20,000 individuals. But also, in terms of our population that’s

unhoused, a lot of those individuals come from Surrey as well, or other

parts of the province. But White Rock has been on the hook —

specifically, we’ll talk about this year — for the warming shelter,

where they approved, through council, $360,000 to fund it.

I’ll be honest; it was kind of done at the last minute, because

they were trying to get support. It’s a much smaller tax base. They did

have a request in for emergency B.C. or $75,000 last season. They can

only apply for those funds if the temperature drops below zero. But now

with their tax base to absorb that and not have any support, where

they’re having to house people from other municipalities….

I know the minister was on record with CBC, following the mayor’s

comments, that he would look into ways that he could assist White Rock

in terms of their funding.

White Rock has a bill here for a substantial amount of money. They

stepped up, and they did the right thing. And we always want to make

sure….

I’ll keep in mind that that warming shelter was only in place

until 10 p.m. Okay? So after 10 p.m., these people had to leave. Where

did they go? A lot of them went behind the movie theatres, the Rialto. A

lot of them slept in alleyways, businesses, abandoned homes.

So my question to the minister is, one, is he still willing to

help White Rock with the bill that they have for the previous winter?

Also, two, how do we find a way where we can actually get people that

aren’t getting put back onto our streets when it is the coldest? After

10 p.m., it’s much colder than it is at four o’clock when they’re

checking into the shelter.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thanks to the member. The member has spoken to me about this

topic.

I think it’s important to note that my comments on radio were

about a conversation with the city about a permanent shelter. My comment

was that if the city can help us find a location for a shelter, where

people can be in­doors, they have a place to sleep at nighttime,

that is a conversation we’re willing to happen.

I don’t think at any point I said that we would fund a new

operation that they started without talking to us about what that looks

like. If White Rock is interested in having something that is available

for people for overnight sheltering, not just day space but overnight

sheltering, we’re keen to have that conversation.

The Chair: I had a brief request for a five…. I had a request for a

biology break, but I’m going to go back to the member from White

Rock, and then we will take that break, so they can get those

questions done.

T. Halford: Biology breaks are important, so I will be brief.

Anyways, I want to thank the minister for that answer, but my

point is this, and I’ll ask the minister this question: did the

minister, or through the ministry, have conversations with the city of

White Rock and with the city of Surrey specific to funding a warming

shelter or an overnight shelter in the either White Rock area or South

Surrey area prior to council approving this $360,000 which had the

warming centre in operation from November 20 to March 15?

We, in my area, have relied primarily on faith-based communities

to do this housing. I know that this has been a very important topic for

those, to make sure that we have something.

Then my second question would be: is the minister in talks with

just White Rock proper in terms of finding a permanent facility for

daytime and overnight? Is that just White Rock, or are those

conversations also including Surrey, specifically in the region of South

Surrey?

Hon. R. Kahlon: There may have been conversations with B.C. Housing staff, in the

local staff, with White Rock. I’ll get that information. I’ll read into

the record for the member once we reach the person that’s the lead on

that.

[2:50 p.m.]

I will say to the member that B.C. Housing doesn’t fund warming

centres. If there is a request for funding for when the temperatures

rise, it’s done through EMCR.

I can say that there were lots of conversations with the city of

Surrey around supportive housing and shelters. I know that for a fact.

We’ll just have to verify what conversations have happened with White

Rock.

Again, communities coming forward and saying, “Hey, we have a

location; we want to put a shelter in place,” is music to my ears. Those

are really difficult conversations to happen in communities.

I do appreciate the member’s understanding and agreement that

there’s a need for this type of housing in communities. I will get that

information for the member and read it into the record so that he has

it.

The Chair: Thank you, Members. I’ll ask that we take a recess for ten

minutes. That means be back here at three o’clock so we can get

going at three. A request to all members. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 2:51 p.m. to 2:59 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The Chair: All right, Members. It’s just about three o’clock. I’d like to

start things early, if I can.

We are here with the committee for the Ministry of Housing

estimates.

First, I recognize the member for

Coquitlam-Maillardville.

S. Robinson: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

The Chair: Please proceed.

Introductions by Members

S. Robinson: Up in the gallery today, we have several guests. Leo Facio is here

joining us. He’s a city councillor from the burgeoning town of Harrison Hot

Springs. He is a former mayor. He has been a really good friend of mine. A

lovely gentleman. He’s no longer the mayor. He’s now a city

councillor.

He is here with his family: Alja Facio, Matthew Facio, Danica Facio,

Caleb Facio and Mikayla Facio.

[3:00 p.m.]

This is their first trip to the Legislature. I’ve taken them on a bit

of a tour. I think some of the highlights for them, besides the library and

this lovely chamber…. I think it was meeting Keith Baldrey out in the

hallway.

Can everyone please welcome the Facio family to the House.

The Chair: Welcome to anyone else as well.

Welcome to the Facio family.

Hon. R. Kahlon: On a good day, it’s nice to see Keith Baldrey in the hallway. On a bad

day, it’s probably not as nice for us to see him in the hallway.

I’m glad you got a chance to have a tour and see the library. The

library is my favourite spot.

Nice to see you again. Thank you for being here.

Debate Continued

Hon. R. Kahlon: My colleague from White Rock, the MLA from White Rock, asked a

question prior to the break. Our team has connected with White Rock.

They have connected with the staff.

Now, the challenge they found, in the conversation, was the

location. Location was the big challenge. There was, I guess, a round

table with B.C. Housing and others in the community that existed to talk

about how to address this challenge. There was a leadership change, and

under the new leadership, there isn’t that table yet. I think there

might be value in bringing that table together again to talk about how

we address these challenging issues.

I’m certainly hoping my friend from across the way sees this

comment and maybe reaches out to me. We can figure out how to start that

process again.

With that, I’ll pass it back to the member.

K. Kirkpatrick: On behalf of the member for Surrey–​White Rock, I thank the

minister for that answer.

I’d like to talk about the impact of some of the policies that

have come in, in the last few years, in terms of how they’re impacting

the work that we’re doing with real estate today. The homebuyer

rescission period, HBRP, was brought in with a goal of cooling the

market and dealing with the multiple offer issues. Has the ministry gone

back and reviewed if that tool has been successful in doing what it was

intended to do?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I appreciate that we’re talking housing. This is a piece that was

the Ministry of Finance. Those estimates are coming up in the other

chamber. This question may be better suited there.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I appreciate the response that this is

a Ministry of Finance question.

It certainly has an impact on housing. It’s got to be connected to

housing plans and policies and behavioural modification, which is being

attempted with this kind of work.

Has the minister…? Who would be monitoring whether this tool is

actually working? Is that something that someone in Housing looks at, or

is that something that somebody in the Ministry of Finance would look

at?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Yes. This is, again, the Ministry of Finance.

The challenge we have is they’re in estimates right now in another

chamber. I wouldn’t be able to get any information from the Ministry of

Finance. But it is something that is better suited to ask the Minister

of Finance.

K. Kirkpatrick: I agree with the minister. The challenge is the Ministry of

Finance is in estimates in a different room, and I’m not able to ask

that question right now. I am certainly hoping I will be able to do

that. I do think there are some challenges with the implementation of

that.

Another question on behalf of BCREA and, I believe, on behalf of

most British Columbians who are dealing with the housing market right

now. There has been an escalation of policies and legislation. There’s a

lot going on in British Columbia right now with respect to housing and

changes in housing. BCREA has been asking this government for a

permanent provincial housing round table.

I would like to ask the minister: is that something that’s being

considered, and if not, why not?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ll give the member the same answer that I gave BCREA when they

were all here, at their conference, in front of all their members. We

value the input that they could provide to this conversation. In fact,

we have BCREA sitting at various tables on various topics. But when it

comes to housing, limiting the conversation to one table is a real

challenge.

[3:05 p.m.]

We have a lot of local governments. We have different bodies

representing local governments. We have BCREA. We have engineers. We

have architects. We have commun­ity planners. We have the Urban

Development Institute, the UDI. The list is actually quite large. There

are local organizations in each community.

My message to BCREA is that, yes, we should all get together and

have conversations about how we move housing together. But to limit it

to one table becomes challenging. It’s hard to have one table where you

can be productive to have the conversation, but at the same time, who

doesn’t get a chance to come on the table is a challenge.

Again, I think they have good input. They have actually shared a

lot of input, and I know from my last meeting with them that they’re big

fans of the reforms we’re bringing forward. We’ll continue to work with

them and all the other partners in the housing space.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. With all due respect, I think saying

“big fans” might be a bit of an overstep in terms of their reaction to

some of this housing legislation.

If I might just clarify as well. What they’re asking for is not

simply a BCREA ability to meet with government and have input into

policy and legislation. They’re asking federal, provincial, municipal,

regional, Indigenous governance authorities, market and non-market

developers, builders, real estate professionals, civil society

organizations.

I mean, there are a lot of people that need to be at the table,

and then there is ability to have subcommittees or different groups that

can look at something in a more specific area. It is something that I

know has been asked of the minister, and I reiterate that I think that’s

important.

I’m going to move on to something else, which I think is actually

an example of perhaps not getting enough feedback, clarification and

consultation when coming out with legislation. I have a couple of things

I’d like to address, as tomorrow is May 1. We know what happens on May

1. It’s when the STR bill, Bill 35, comes into effect in terms of

limiting short-term rentals.

We did a lot of work on Resort Drive in Parksville and in

Qualicum. That was, admittedly by this government, an oversight in terms

of looking at the impact on a particular community with the overreach of

this STR legislation and the impact that it would have had on

Parksville. I know that Parksville appreciates that the minister heard

and has addressed this issue. Now, he could not have not heard this

because of the 100 people that came into the Legislature and the

introduction of the amendment of this act by B.C. United.

But I have another example that I would like to share and would

ask if the minister could explain why this particular project and

property would be included in the STR ban. This is a resort community

called Aqua resort. It’s a 300-plus unit, 380-degree waterfront,

multiphase, concrete highrise. It is in the process of being developed.

Presales have been made. It’s on the shore of Lake Okanagan’s Lower

Mission resort drive.

It was purpose-built for short-term rentals, distinct in every way

from its zoning. So it’s got commercial zoning, its OCP designation,

waterfront and hotel tourism–specific districts next to hotels — a hotel

on each side of it. It has a private boat launch, state-of-the-art

indoor boat club with crane-assisted rack storage and boat valet

service, waterfront boardwalk with beach and waterfront restaurant,

multiple swimming pools, spas, hot tubs, concierge, central air

conditioning, yoga studio, golf simulator, fire pits and more

hotel-style amenities.

To me and to anyone that would look at this, it’s clear that this

is a resort community. This was built as a resort community. The people

who have done the presales and purchased in here paid for something that

they believed was legal and was within the OCP. Can the minister please

explain to me and to the owners in Aqua resort why this would be

considered under the short-term rental legislation?

[3:10 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: It sounds amazing, but your description, I think, has put it out

of my price range. I can pretty much guarantee.

I would say that, first off, I would strongly disagree with the

characterization from my friend across the way. At no point did I say it

was incorrect or an oversight. From day one, we said that strata hotels

would be able to continue to operate. But because of the complexity of

strata hotels, given the complexity of the different economic models

that all of them operate on, we wanted to have the time to bring that

in. We said we would bring that in through regulation, and that’s

exactly what we did.

I want to recognize the member for Parksville-Qual­icum

because he also brought lots of different types of scenarios to us,

which helped inform the policy.

To the specific property, the member knows that we’ve laid out

clearly what is required for new strata hotels to be considered strata

hotels. That’s laid out clearly. If the member doesn’t have the three

different

definitions of that, I can certainly share that with the

member. Anyone that wants to come into this space needs to ensure that

they’ve got that.

If they’ve got a concierge, that’s one important step. One of the

items is “staffed at the front desk.” It sounds like they’ve got

that.

One or more employees or contractors that provide housekeeping

services for overnight accommodation. It sounds, from the description….

You had me sold. It does sound like that’s there.

A platform providing platform services available exclusively for

the owners offering short-term rentals of the property. Those are

important pieces that they have to have in order to be considered a

strata hotel.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Can I clarify that the significant difference between whether this

is ex­empted from the legislation or not would be whether there is

one central management company that is managing the short-term rentals,

as opposed to individual owners who are managing those rentals on their

own?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ll read this into the record. “Before December 8, 2023,

accommodation was provided in a manner similar to the hotel and motel —

a staffed front desk on site, one or more contractors that provide

housekeeping services for the overnight accommodation, a platform

providing platform services available exclusively for the use of owners

offering short-term rentals of the property.”

These are the elements that have to be in place for anything

that’s coming in the future.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Can I clarify, then, that the property had to be operating prior

to December 28, 2023? That is my understanding of what the minister has

just said.

[3:15 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I wanted to make sure I had the right language here. I think it’s

important to note that this is all on the website already, available to

the public. If the member would like it to be in writing, I can get that

in writing for the member as well.

The following services have to be provided that are similar to a

hotel or motel. They have to have a staffed front desk on site. One or

more employees or contrac­tors are providing housekeeping

services. Overnight accommodation, a dedicated online reservation

platform and the strata lot and the property are not able to be used as

a principal residence by anyone due to legal use restriction, including

zoning, rental management agreement between a manager and an owner of a

strata lot, and then a restrictive covenant or a covenant under

section

219 of the Land Title Act.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. That opens up some opportunities,

maybe, here.

If I could clarify. I didn’t understand when I heard…. Maybe I

didn’t hear that date, and I heard something else. But the date of May

28, 2023 — was that something in there as a requirement for something to

have been operating already, or did I take that out of

context?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The description I’ve laid out is going forward. The description

that I’ve laid out is for strata hotels that want to come online in the

future. They have to have those requirements they must follow. Again, I

can get this in writing for the member. The information is on the

website for everyone right now.

K. Kirkpatrick: I was just confused about that date, so I’ll look on the website

to find the date.

My concern here is that we’ve got a building that isn’t operating

yet. It’s still under construction. I would like to read a paragraph to

the minister. This is from a real estate development professional who is

in Kelowna: “I am not aware of any similar punitive change to a

development, completed or under construction, in the history of the

province of British Columbia where the intended use for a purpose-built,

OCP-designated, neighbourhood-planned, zoning-applicable project has

been stripped of its permissible use rights without grandfathering or

compensation.”

[3:20 p.m.]

Now, when this legislation was being drafted, can I

under­stand, please, from the minister why, at the very least,

those units who were legally operating designated short-term rentals

were not grandfathered?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The information we’ve laid out on the website makes it clear, for

these proponents, what they need to do to ensure they can operate like a

strata hotel. Certainly, the member verified two of the three things in

the description of the amazingness of this new property.

The third is that it seems reasonable for them, as a site that

wants to operate as a strata hotel, to follow, so we made the

information available for them. I appreciate it. It may mean that some

units may not be as easily sold by this salesperson. That could come as

a challenge; I appreciate that.

We wanted to make sure that the rules were clear, in that people

that were coming forward in the future would know how they could operate

in a strata hotel. It does mean they can. It just may mean they perhaps

won’t be able to sell the units as expensively as they wanted, or maybe

they have a smaller pool of people that are interested in

buying.

Those things I can’t control, but I can control the fact that this

is important work that we did, in partnership with a lot of folks, to

make sure that strata hotels that are operating like hotels can continue

to do that and that those that want to come in the future can operate

this way as well.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

This is cold comfort for a lot of people, people who are owners in

the Janion, for example. I’m still really struggling with how we can

look at a building like the Janion…. It is sold as strata units, zoned

specifically as tourism short-term rental, legally operating commercial

licences, owned by those individual strata owners. Why are we making

this distinction, between the Janion and what the minister is now

describing as strata hotels, in the ability to operate?

I don’t understand why the good people who own in a building like

the Janion — who were operating legally, who purchased on the absolute

understanding that it was zoned appropriately, and who were following

the rules, without any expectation that these types of short-term

rentals would be caught up in Bill 35 — had the rug pulled out from

under them.

Hon. R. Kahlon: This is a conversation we’ve had at great lengths. Again, I’ll say

that I appreciate that investors have bought homes and want to use them

for short-term rentals. What we’re saying is that when you’re losing the

percentage of homes towards short-term rentals, it’s putting a huge

strain on families and people in our communities. People are not able to

access housing. We’ve seen studies that show rents have gone up because

of this.

We can spend the next four hours going on with this, but we’ve

canvassed this multiple times. Those are housing units that we believe

should be made available for people, either for long-term rental or, in

some cases — if a person says, “I don’t want to be doing long-term

rental” — then sold.

We have seen both. We have seen people sell the units. We have

also seen that people say: “You know what? I’m just going to put it on

the long-term market.”

This is the reason why we’re going in this direction. It’s a

balanced approach that ensures that we can have short-term rentals

available in communities to support tourism but also that we can

prioritize these complete homes and make them available for people who

are struggling for housing in our communities.

[3:25 p.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I feel that when I ask these questions and the minister says that

we’ve canvassed this already, that is disingenuous. We have not even

begun to have these conversations. Every time I ask a question about

this, the minister dictates what to me sounds like a press release. That

is the answer we get over and over.

The minister knows — I think this entire House knows, as I break

into tears in here from time to time — that I take people’s issues,

concerns and impacts to their lives very seriously. I would hope that

the minister and this ministry would as well.

There are terrible consequences to people who have purchased these

units. They are incorrectly painted with a brush, from the other side of

the House, that these are evil investors. This government has destroyed

people financially and emotionally because of Bill 35 applying to these

units that it simply would not apply to. The minister can say over and

over that this is needed for short-term housing. This is a limited

number of units. These are not these investor-owned condos that were

built for people to live in.

The people that are being impacted and hurt in these legal

short-term rentals agree with the majority of Bill 35. They agree with

it. They are saying: “Yes, we need to put some guardrails on here. We

need to make sure that there are not…. Those units in condominiums that

were meant for people to live in, to rent in and to buy — they should

not have short-term rentals in them.”

That is not what this is. The minister is not hearing that. He’s

not listening to people, and he is not reacting to the actual, real-life

impacts to people. To say that we have canvassed this…. We have not even

begun to canvass this. It’s important today, because tomorrow is May 1.

This is going to have, and already has had, unbelievably negative impact

on British Columbians.

I would just like to…. If the Chair will indulge me for a moment,

I have got a couple of quotes and some information on the people and

their families that have invested in the Janion and these other legally

operating short-term-rental buildings.

Here’s one headed “Pension plan gone wrong”: “I have been in a

state of shock and under extreme stress since the announcement of this

legislation. My financial well-being has just evaporated. Sixteen years

ago my partner and I, professional musicians with two young children,

realized we needed to get serious about our financial planning in order

to make sure we could provide for ourselves and never be a burden to our

children, while we were able to pursue our musical careers.”

Now I will jump to the end, but after they have lived frugally —

never going out to restaurants, never getting babysitters, never having

a new car — they were able to come up with a down payment to make an

investment in a hotel-zoned condo in Victoria. This ends with: “I’m now

62, still self-employed, having pivoted career-wise a few times to pay

the bills. I am very tired of the years of hustling and working

extremely long hours. I was planning to retire in three years, but now I

can’t.”

That is the evil investor that this government is going after, but

that is only one.

A young family with a new baby:

“You mischaracterize who short-term-rental owners are. We’re not

wealthy people from out of town. We’re not corporations. I’m from

greater Victoria, born in ’86, starting out in elementary school in

Sidney, working hard. I have a Hungarian grandfather who left Romania in

the ’50s when his property was expropriated.

“Please understand that most short-term-rental owners have been

messaging you that they believe in 95 percent of Bill 35. I’m sending

you a photo of my family. We’re not privileged out-of-town investor

speculators that you imagine. We are collateral damage to this

legislation.”

I’m going to just do one more here, a senior with a disability.

This is part of a transcript from a call.

“I apologize. I own in the Astoria, but I’m legally blind, so it’s

hard for me to participate in this call. This situation shouldn’t have

anything to do with Airbnbs. This is strictly about the provincial

government breaking a law that has been in place since my parents were

children in Vancouver.

[3:30 p.m.]

“The government told us we could do things the right way, the legal

way, to have vacation rentals. It was expensive for us to do this,

expensive to buy into these buildings, costly for our taxes, but we are

not lawbreakers. We did what the government told us was the proper thing

to do. Many seniors, like ourselves, will be facing bankruptcy, as we

have to sell at a loss. If we’re lucky, we’ll be left with a few dollars

in the bank.”

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

So when this minister says that all of these investors are taking

these suites out of the market, I would like him to please speak

directly to the people that I have just read this from, to the other

people who have been financially devastated by Bill 35, so unfairly

pushed on people without consultation, without the ability to

grandfather and without any heart from this government hearing and

understanding what you have done to British Columbians.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ll say a couple things here.

We have canvassed this at great lengths. The member may feel like

we need to do more, and that’s okay. This is the member’s time. I have

no problem talking about this further.

I think what the member doesn’t often talk about in this place is

the people in our communities who are struggling for that housing, who

need that housing. We’re not saying to these folks that you have to

sell. We’re saying: “You can rent it. You can rent it in the market.” In

fact, the majority of the sales that have happened in these buildings

have been sold at a profit — some, considerable profits. That’s for

those who sell it. I know many folks that are actually renting these

buildings.

What we’re saying is we need housing for long-term renters in our

communities. I appreciate these are challenging topics to discuss. But I

have to say to the member that we are seeing record numbers of investors

buying homes and then putting them into the short-term rental space

while we have families who are struggling in our communities.

Now, the member talked about Victoria. I grew up in this town,

born and raised here. My dad was involved in the tourism community when

he was alive. Drove a taxi. My mom owned a restaurant in town. I

understand tourism is important in this community. I get it. Grew up

here.

But when I have friends I grew up with who can’t live in our

community anymore and can’t raise their kids in our communities because

we’re losing more and more housing stock towards people wanting to buy

investment properties for short-term rentals, it puts a real strain on

our community. I appreciate the member is passionate about it. I’m

passionate from a different perspective, which is the people who really

need to access this housing.

The member read some stories. I’ve got stories of people who, now,

have actually got into housing that were short-term rentals. A woman in

Vancouver reached out to me, who now not only has a home for her family

but is running a daycare out of it. We have so many examples of people

who are like: “We actually have access to housing now, which we didn’t

have access to.”

Our goal with this is to ensure that we have housing available for

people, housing units that were meant for housing available for people.

And when they’re operating like strata hotels, then they’re able to do

that. That’s the differentiation that we made with this

legislation.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

The minister said that housing that was meant for housing is being

used for housing. The point of what I was saying is that these were

never meant for housing. These were never built for housing. They were

built…. And the minister knows this.

To tell us that these people have actually been able to sell for a

profit…. We know that the market value of those strata hotels, although,

that’s not how you refer to them…. Those strata-specific buildings for

short-term rentals…. Their market value dropped 30 percent overnight

with no warning for those people. So other than the Premier of British

Columbia actually being able to make a profit from selling a short-term

rental unit, other British Columbians have not.

The minister talks about families who are struggling financially.

You have created 600 families who are now struggling financially with

this bill. The minister is not hearing me and is comparing apples to

oranges. The woman who has found a place in Vancouver where she can now

have a child care facility — fabulous. That doesn’t sound to me like it

was a 250-square-foot, purpose-built, short-term rental that she has

moved into.

[3:35 p.m.]

I would ask that the minister continue or begin to give

consideration for, at the least, providing grandfathering for these

people.

I understand — and I know it’s before the courts, so the minister

will not speak about this — there is a group of people who have found

themselves in this position where they are being devastated and have now

brought a lawsuit forward to the province of British Columbia, asking

for this to be paused and ultimately asking for compensation. That’s

what this government has done.

Are we…? Okay. Well, I can move on to a whole other section. Or it

looks like you need to read something.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ll just reply. The member knows that I can’t talk about anything

that’s in front of the courts. One case was brought forward, and it was

thrown out. There’s one in front of the courts right now, and I can’t

comment on that.

Now, hon. Chair, I move that the committee rise, report progress

and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 3:36 p.m.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

Committee of Supply (Section B), having reported progress, was

granted leave to sit again.

Report and

Third Reading of Bills

BILL 20 — FIRST NATIONS MANDATED

POST-SECONDARY

INSTITUTES ACT

Bill 20, First Nations Mandated Post-Secondary Institutes Act,

reported complete without amendment, read a third time and

passed.

Hon. R. Kahlon: In the main chamber, I call Committee of Supply for Ministry of

Housing.

In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, I call Committee of the Whole

for Bill 22, Safe Access to Schools Act.

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

HOUSING

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section B); J. Tegart in the

chair.

The committee met at 3:38 p.m.

The Chair: I’ll call the committee to order.

On Vote 33: ministry operations, $1,033,255,000

(continued) .

K. Kirkpatrick: I’m going to move on from Bill 35, because my blood pressure is

hard to manage. I am going to ask a final…. This is a favour — actually

not a favour but a question to the minister.

If I can have somebody from the Aqua resort in Kelowna reach out

to somebody in the ministry…. I understand the information is on the

website. I think there are some unique issues with respect to this

particular project. If I might ask that you can, perhaps later, provide

me with a contact, and we can have these folks connect, because maybe

there is a solution that we can find for them, which I think everybody

would be better off with.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Yes, certainly. Right after we rise today, we’ll get you

information and then make that contact.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you very much to the minister.

I’m going to ask some questions now with respect to the seniors

advocate, seniors housing and SAFER. We know, according to the seniors

advocates, that seniors are being left behind in British Columbia.

Housing is unaffordable for them. They’re being impacted even more than

general British Columbians.

[3:40 p.m.]

Wait-lists have grown, and SAFER isn’t reflecting the cost of

living. Even with the increase of $110 per month which was recently

provided, it just simply isn’t enough in order to be able to help

seniors truly live with dignity and live safely.

Questions with respect to this. When will the minister share the

outcome of the NDP’s review of the SAFER program?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think the announcement was well received, but there’s always

more that needs to be done. I can share with the member the

changes.

We increased the income limit for eligibility for SAFER from

$33,000 to $37,240. So more seniors are now eligible. We increased the

minimum benefit from $25 to $50 a month or $600 a year. We established

the ability to revise the rent ceiling annually. Obviously, we’ve also,

as part of it, launched a public awareness campaign so people are aware

that this financial support is available to them.

This is what was highlighted to us as an important step. I

appreciate the member’s point that more is always needed to support our

seniors.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Rents have gone up $500 a month, at least, for most of these

seniors. In doing an analysis of what was required, and I appreciate the

minister has said that there have been changes, why is the SAFER subsidy

increase only a fifth of that in the long term?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I appreciate the member’s point. We can always do more to support

seniors.

What we’re saying here is…. These changes are significant. We made

a significant increase to this program in 2018. We increased the budget

by 48 percent. Now we’re taking another step to advance this, not only

to ensure that seniors that currently are in the system get

supports.

That number the member refers to is an average. Those that have

lower incomes get more, and of course, those that have higher incomes

get a little bit less. But it does make a significant impact. Not only

that, we’re also including…. Just under 5,000 more people that didn’t

get access to supports before are getting access to this.

We’re going to continue to monitor this as we go forward, continue

to meet with the seniors advocate and continue to also build more

affordable housing that’s accessible to seniors. We know that’s needed

in conjunction with these dollars.

K. Kirkpatrick: Will that one-time payment of $430 through SAFER result in a CRA

2500 slip being issued and having seniors benefits clawed back through

other programs like the GST tax credit?

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Our understanding is no. We always preface that with…. People need

to get their own tax ad­vice and should reach out to a

professional to get that advice from them.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

Reach out to get tax advice. I’m not sure if the minister

appreciates who we’re actually speaking with now. Senior citizens, who

are on very small incomes, are not going to be reaching out to their tax

professionals to get information on this.

Would receiving a SAFER boost reduce eligibility for carbon tax

rebates? Government has the ability to make these

determinations.

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member is taking me into the Ministry of Finance unwillingly.

This is something the Minister of Finance is better situated to

answer.

K. Kirkpatrick: It must be nice to be able to say that. “You’ll have to ask

somebody else. Even though it’s related to my ministry, you’ll have to

ask somebody else.” Okay.

With only 20,000 of the originally targeted 45,000 seniors in the

service plan receiving SAFER benefits, can the minister explain the math

behind this shortfall, or is this another example of creative

accounting?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think it’s important to remind the member we’re in the estimates

for the Ministry of Housing. If there are items that are not in the

Ministry of Housing, I have no choice but to refer the member to that. I

think the member knows that.

I appreciate that this is an opportunity to try to get digs in.

We’re just trying to give answers for things that are within our

estimates. If you’re asking about carbon tax, that is something that is

done by a different ministry.

Now, the member referred to something. If she can point us to what

exactly is referred to in the documents, it would be easier for us to

answer the question.

K. Kirkpatrick: I believe that’s 45,000 seniors — this is in the ministry’s

service plan — being targeted for the SAFER benefits,

whereas only

20,000 have received them.

[3:50 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ve got in front of me the B.C. Housing service plan. It says for

’23-24, 30,000; for ’24-25, 35,000; for ’25-26, 36,000; and for ’26-27,

38,000. I’m not sure where the member’s number is coming

from.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister, and I will have to validate where that

number came from and pro­vide that back to you.

I’m going to move on now from questions that I believe will be

sent to the Minister of Finance and focus specifically on seniors issues

that fall into the Ministry of Housing.

Does the minister believe it is acceptable for seniors to be on

wait-lists of over five years for housing?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think it’s unacceptable that for two decades, we had governments

that didn’t want to invest in affordable housing. They decided that they

were going to just leave it to the private forces to figure out and that

it would just all work out. It’s an unfortunate situation that we’re in.

We’re so far behind on investing in affordable housing that we’re trying

to make up for lost time.

So yes, every day we get up in our ministry, and we try to figure

out how we can get more housing built through affordable housing or not.

I can share lots of examples of affordable housing units that we’ve just

opened because of our investments and a lot more that are coming through

recent CHF announcements.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

At some point, I feel I should ask the question as to when the

minister will stop blaming policies from previous governments for the

inability to actually deal with issues and address issues today. The

minister does tend to start many of the answers to my questions with the

blame game of almost a decade ago or 20 years ago, even,

sometimes.

The question that I asked is: is it acceptable for seniors to be

on wait-lists for over five years? Can the minister explain specifically

what is being done to target that wait-list for seniors to help make

sure that they can get into safe and affordable housing

sooner?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I appreciate the member gets sensitive when I talk about the lack

of investments in affordable housing over the last two decades, but it’s

a fact. The member attends not-for-profit association round tables,

attends many events. This is well understood.

It’s always a challenge to say, “How come there’s no affordable

housing available for seniors who are on wait-lists?” and then at the

same time say, “Well, when we were in government, we didn’t build it.” I

have to highlight that point.

[3:55 p.m.]

Now, when it comes to seniors housing, I can tell you that the way

you get at it is building it.

In kʷikʷəƛ̓əm, 14 new

affordable homes just opened up for First Nations Elders.

In Kaslo, ten opened up for seniors in the community.

In Kelowna, 68 rentals for seniors and people with low and

moderate incomes.

In Merritt, 75 new affordable rental apartments for families and

seniors.

In Mission, 61 just opened up.

In Nanaimo, 53 just opened up. Another project in Nanaimo, 62.

Another project in Nanaimo, 74 units.

I’ve got pages and pages of the units that are opening up from the

investments that we’ve directly made since we’ve formed government, and

there’s much more to come. In fact, it’s well recognized across Canada

that we are investing the most in affordable housing, per capita, from

any province in the country. We have the most amount of new units coming

online.

We appreciate that there’s much more that needs to be done. We

have much more work to do. We are starting at a deficit. All the work

we’re doing in our ministry and B.C. Housing is to try to ensure that

there’s housing available for people in our communities.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I’ll remind the minister that when he

references the last two decades, this NDP government has been here for

almost one of those decades at this point.

A question. When we’re talking about the five-year waiting list

for seniors housing…. Can the minister confirm, actually, what that

waiting list is right now for seniors housing and what that was five

years ago for seniors housing?

Hon. R. Kahlon: First off, I think it’s important to say that this is a registry

for people that need housing. People are placed by need. The teams try

to assess who has the greatest needs. We try to get them into the

housing as it opens up.

The member asked a pretty detailed question. The team at B.C.

Housing is going to try to get that number. We can continue to have

conversations, and I’ll put it on the record once I have it.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I appreciate that.

Does the minister plan to address what we see as a drastic

underutilization of the SAFER program by seniors in rural

communities?

[4:00 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: A couple of things. One, I said earlier, when we announced the

additional expansion of the program, that part of the initiatives will

be around public awareness, making sure people are aware that this is

available to them. That’s important. We also share that information with

the seniors advocate. They’ve got regional groups. They’ve got advocates

in communities throughout the province. So using those agencies to try

to ensure that everyone is aware that they have access to this funding,

if they qualify within the brackets of what the program has.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister for that.

A couple questions I’m going to move on to with respect to the

upzoning, be it Bill 44, the transit-oriented development. We recently

met with a group that, I believe, has been in touch with the ministry

called the Tri-Cities Urban Forest Working Group. They’ve raised

significant concerns about the loss of urban green space due to the mass

upzoning.

Enhancing urban density should be balanced with green

infrastructure planning to prevent future heat domes. When you look at

the information that they provided us with — and they map it against the

heat domes and where the majority of the fatalities and health issues

took place — those areas with strong tree canopies were actually the

safest place for people to have been.

The concern is that while we aim to create new homes, which we

need to do, the legislation seems to lack measures to ensure

environmental protections, and this simply raises concerns about

sustainable development amidst the climate crisis.

A couple of questions on this: how does the government plan to

balance the increased housing density mandated by the need to preserve

and expand urban forest cover, especially in light of the exacerbating

effects of reduced greenery and urban heat islands?

[4:05 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Sorry, we’re just changing staff over.

Staff have just shared with me that they actually met with urban

tree canopy groups today, in fact, and it was a good conversation. We

shared with them similar answers that I’ve shared here in this place

already, which is that we know that green space is incredibly important

for communities’ health and for climate resiliency. Part of the work

that local governments are doing right now is planning for parks,

planning for green spaces.

Of course, we know at the same time that as we increase housing

supply, which we desperately need to, doing it in existing developed

urban areas is critical to preserving green space overall. So build

housing where we’ve already said we’re going to build housing will

protect green spaces in other areas.

We did canvass this when the bill was in front of the House here,

and we continue to meet with those advocacy groups on this

topic.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I am glad to hear that the minister has

met with this group.

There are a number of communities and organizations that have

similar concerns, so there are a few threads that come out of that. I’m

going to anticipate the minister’s answer on this, but I will give him

the benefit of the doubt that it might be different than it always

is.

I recently had a tour around Brentwood. There’s a community group

there. I know that their local MLA came and toured around and took a

look at their community. I’m not sure if the minister has been in

contact with them. I think it’s representative of some challenges and

concerns that many communities have.

Burnaby, I think, is again punching above its weight in terms of

densification. If you look at the amazing Brentwood Mall and all of the

development around there, it’s significant. It’s had significant impact

on the community and has been a great provider of additional housing for

people within Burnaby.

But if you look at that 400-metre…. You draw that circle around

the transit there, and you come across a single-family community with

people living in houses built there in 1965. There’s been very little

redevelopment in the community. These houses are 900 to 1,200 square

feet. They are very modest. It’s a very family-friendly community. The

majority of the homes already have secondary suites in them.

There is a concern about livability. I think just having

one-size-fits-all legislation, where you’ve got your 400-​metre

circle drawn around the SkyTrain station there, can have serious

consequences on the livability in communities. And this community is

very concerned.

When I have spoken to a number of planners — and I can assure the

minister, and he’s probably not surprised, I have been speaking to many

planning departments in municipalities around British Columbia — there

are a lot of concerns. The one that is not getting spoken about maybe as

much, or highlighted as much, is the concern about livability:

ground-floor living for people with mobility issues; the fact that it’s

much healthier for children to be able to have access to the outside

from ground floor.

Then there are communities, like Brentwood and other ones, who

really have a character that I think we need to be aware of.

[4:10 p.m.]

We can’t get rid of all of these small, older, single-family

communities where we can actually point to other pieces of property and

other government-owned property and other places where it makes much

more sense to have that density.

In my long ramble, the question really is: can the minister

explain to the people in the Brentwood area why they would be included

in this 400-metre, transit-oriented development without consideration

for the livability and the existing community?

Hon. R. Kahlon: My colleague from Burnaby North has spoken to me about this. We

all agree that the livability is important. We talked about ACCs,

amenity cost charges, and what that means, what those amenities mean for

the community, whether it’s park space or whether it’s community

centres, etc., and why it’s important. I think small-scale multi-units

help also in communities to build that type of housing.

I think it’s important to note that B.C. United, the B.C. Greens,

supported the transit-oriented development legislation with the

understanding that we need to build more housing near the billions of

dollars that we invest in transit, and understanding that, as our

communities grow, people want to live closer to transit because it makes

it easier for them. Sometimes people don’t need the cars because they’re

able to just commute on transit. So that is a good place to have

housing.

I mean, that similar argument can be made pretty much anywhere

where there’s transit. I think what’s important for us is: how do we

want our communities to grow? Where do we want that housing to be? I

think we can all agree that if there’s a place where we should have

housing, it’s near transit. That actually enhances the livability of

communities.

Now, it’s important to know, for Burnaby…. In Burnaby, the towers

they approve are significantly higher than anything that’s in the

transit-oriented development policies. Local governments have the

ability to go ahead and do that. What we’re saying is we want to see

density of housing near transit because we believe that leads to

healthier communities, a healthier province.

Burnaby, of course, can go and do much more, which they are in

their community.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. That was the answer I was

anticipating.

It is density regardless of impact on community and on livability.

That’s what I’m hearing. The minister himself said that Burnaby has gone

above and beyond with the work that they’ve done and the towers that

they’ve put around the amazing Brentwood Mall. That is the actual name

of it, which is why I’m calling it that.

Can there not be consideration given to the fact that there is

more density within that 400-metre area than is required? Can we not

have some flexibility that communities can have to make rational

decisions about what makes sense in a community?

Yes, absolutely, B.C. United supports transit-oriented

development. It was part of our housing platform long ago. It’s been

something that we’ve been fans of. It makes sense. Everything the

minister said with respect to the value of having housing densified

around transit zones makes complete sense.

Applying it with a heavy hand without the consideration for the

impact on communities feels shortsighted. Yes, we are not going to be

living in a single-family world anymore, single-family-lot world

anymore, and I understand that.

We also do have to have different types of communities, and we

have to value history in certain areas. There are other ways to increase

density. In a community like this, fourplexes might make sense. That can

be done through a secondary suite and coach houses. I mean, there are

different ways for gentle densification rather than to kind of shock a

community into having single-family homes and huge highrises in the same

community. It’s not good urban planning. It’s not good for the health of

the community.

[4:15 p.m.]

An issue that will also occur is you’re going to have conflict in

communities. Rather than creating a cohesive community where people can

say, “Yeah, I can get on board with this. I’m happy to have these other

neighbours in my community and the coach houses,” this is going to cause

a lot of stress to people. It’s going to cause the fabric of communities

to really be torn.

As I will always say — and I’m constantly misquoted, regardless —

we agree that we have to upzone. We agree in the spirit of what is being

done, but God help us, can we please have some flexibility and be

rational about how we’re applying this legislation?

Hon. R. Kahlon: As I said previously, three major parties in this place supported

this transit-oriented development legislation. The Leader of the

Opposition has spoken at great lengths about why housing should happen

around transit. In fact, other housing was opposed by the opposition,

but this one was supported.

I appreciate the member is trying to have the cake and eat it too,

to say, “We support transit-oriented development, support this, and we

need to do it,” at the same time as saying: “Oh, maybe we shouldn’t do

it.” It would be great to hear where the clear position on that

is.

The member did talk about history and heritage, and the member

knows that there are protections in place for that. There are

communities where there’s transit, but there are heritage sites. All

those things were built into the legislation. I think it’s important to

note that transit-oriented development has been happening over

time.

In fact, I was just talking to someone at a not-for-profit who was

telling us about how they were landing into Vancouver. They could see

the SkyTrain route and see where the housing was being built, by being

able to tell where the SkyTrain was and the stations were. That is

actually best practice. If you look at planning across the globe and you

see housing, when it comes to transit, the best practice is to have

housing close to transit.

That’s what we’ve done. We’ve taken best practice and brought this

forward, because we know that this is a good place to have housing. It’s

going to happen gradually. It’s not going to happen

instantly.

People think there are going to be towers everywhere. It’s not

going to happen that way. Transit-oriented development happens

gradually, but it’s important that we move in that direction so that we

have more sustainable growth. We get best use of our infrastructure, and

it creates more livable communities for everybody in our

communities.

K. Kirkpatrick: That is what I had anticipated, and I just would like to clarify

again, because it seems to be an art form on the other side of the House

to be able to kind of flip what I said and make it sound like something

else.

B.C. United supported transit-oriented development. The majority

of how that’s going to work is within regulations. Regulations — you

know, how this is working and the details of this — were not put in

front of the House. It needs to be done in a rational way.

When the minister talks about transit-oriented development, yes,

that is how we should be developing, but there’s also a difference

between new development and when you’re going into a community where you

have existing development.

The example I’m giving with Brentwood is that that’s an existing

community. If you were an urban planner and you were starting with a

blank slate, you’re going to say: “Okay, well, we’re going to put

transit in here. These are new communities. We’re going to start to

build out this way.” But you’re dealing with people who already exist,

homes that already exist and communities that already exist. It has to

be more sensitive to that.

This government likes to point to anybody who has a single-family

home…. I believe most people appreciate they’re very fortunate to have a

single-family home. There are many renters that have a single-family

home. They’re not bad people because they have this. There need to be

different kinds of housing stock, and there needs to be a sensitivity to

how we are implementing. This is a really big hammer that is being

used.

[4:20 p.m.]

We have to give some voice to the communities. Brentwood is a

community where they already had done a lot of work to put restrictive

covenants on those lots so that even the homes that are coming in are

limited in their size, because they didn’t want a community that was

full of big monster homes.

They wanted a community that was more true to the 1960s and those

homes that were originally built. They don’t want a bunch of

redevelopment, but not for the wrong reasons. It’s not because they

don’t want people coming into the community, but because that community

has a flavour and style.

It’s hard. I wish I could articulate this in a way that really

frames the concerns that people in communities are having: that urban

planning needs to look at livability. It needs to look at where the

density make the most sense. You can say: “Yes, it makes sense to be

around transit-oriented development.” We agree, but there also has to be

a reasonable application that has some sensitivity to the way that that

community was originally developed.

A question — not to this, we’ll move on — is…. Actually, I will

ask. This is related to all of the upzoning. Let’s say that a

municipality has an application for a fourplex on a single-family lot,

that it’s the appropriate size under this legislation and that the

fourplex should be allowed, but the fourplex’s upzoning is denied by the

municipality for concerns that it’s too close to a school field, that

there’s some issue with trees, or whatever the issue is.

Who is going to be the arbiter of why a municipality can turn down

an upzoning application? I understand that government can come in, and

they can just approve it if the municipality hasn’t approved it. Who’s

the arbiter? What is that mechanism for overriding the decision of a

municipality?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I wanted to correct a couple of things.

I don’t recall…. The member can let me know if she’s ever heard me

call people who live in single-family homes bad people. I don’t recall

anyone on our side of the House ever saying a person who owns a

single-family home is a bad person. I want to clarify that on the

record.

When we brought the transit-oriented development legislation

forward, we said this was what we were expecting within 200 metres, 400

metres, 800 metres, and we had support from all the parties in this

place. I want to make sure those two things are on the

record.

Now, we’ve switched to the small-scale multi-unit, and I’ll just

say that local governments are required to pre-zone the three or four

units in their communities. That is expected in June. So it will be

clear for people as to what they are able to do on their parcel of land

and what they’re not able to do.

K. Kirkpatrick: Forgive me where I’m not understanding this. That was probably not

the best example to give.

In an example where a developer, say, wants to upzone to put in

whatever the development is that they want to put in, and it fits in

with Bill 44, on what basis can a municipality turn down an

application?

If I’m understanding this, and the minister can tell me if I’m not

understanding this, I believe that the province has the ability to come

in and override a decision that the planning department in a

municipality has made. Under what circumstances would they be able to

override that? Am I correct that they can override that

decision?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ll just clarify for the member. It’s not a one-by-one case. It’s

not going to be like one proponent comes forward with one home and then

the province is overriding it. This is around communities doing their

zoning planning as one community.

[4:25 p.m.]

We’re not going to be going in one by one. We’re asking

communities, by June, to update their zoning bylaws to reflect our

legislation and the site standards document. That’s what we’re

expecting.

It won’t be us going one by one, overriding across the province.

That would be, I think, difficult for anybody that wanted to do

that.

K. Kirkpatrick: Targets. I know I asked about targets last week because, of

course, it was fresh on the target being introduced to the city of North

Vancouver.

Can the minister describe how targets work and interact with Bill

44? I understand that the targets provide different types of housing in

terms of what’s affordable, what’s family, what’s not. If I’m incorrect

in what those targets set out, the minister can correct me.

How is that not something that should have been addressed by Bill

44? It seems there are a lot of competing requirements for communities,

and the targets are just one more layer of something that their planning

department has to worry about.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Bill 44 and the targets actually go together. We don’t see them

competing. One enables the other one to be done in a more efficient way.

I’m not sure where the member is going with it, but we just don’t see

them as two competing things. We see them as two things that go

together.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister. I’m going to change channels for a few

minutes here.

I would like to ask about a specific affordable housing project,

the Mission affordable housing project, which was denied funding by this

government. The decision to deny this has sparked some criticism from

local council members and the project developer.

A question to the Minister of Housing. I don’t know if he needs

more information about the specifics. I believe the minister would

understand what the specific Mission affordable housing project was.

Given the provincial em­phasis on affordable housing, why was the

funding application for the Mission affordable housing tower rejected,

especially when the project aligns closely with government’s

objectives?

Hon. R. Kahlon: We shared this through our MLAs and publicly as well that this

project in particular was being built without any government funding. In

fact, it was almost complete, and the proponent wanted us to buy that

from them. Now, as you can imagine, there are a lot of projects that

would just say: “Hey, we’re going to build it. We’re just going to sell

it to you, and we’ll try to make some money from it.”

We have to do assessments, just like we do everything else,

assessments on affordability of the units compared to what we buy, look

at the operating of it. How will we operate that in an efficient way for

the partner that will be operating it?

It’s got to go through the same criteria, so we’re not picking and

choosing projects. Certainly, I’m not picking and choosing projects at

all. It goes through the same criteria as every single other community

housing fund project. The assessment is done through B.C. Housing. They

share with me the successful proponents. And then we follow up with

proponents that weren’t successful if that’s of interest to

them.

K. Kirkpatrick: I’m actually going to ask the Chair’s indulgence in a five-minute

break.

The Chair: We’ll take a five-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 4:30 p.m. to 4:37 p.m.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

The Chair: I call the committee back to order.

K. Kirkpatrick: We’re wrapping up here. I’ve just got a couple more housekeeping

kind of questions.

For the minister. Government recently announced an increase in the

exemption for first-time homebuyers from $500,000 to $835,000. I just

wanted to clarify with the minister that, although the exemption has

moved from houses that are $500,000 to houses that are $835,000, the

exemption is still only on the first $500,000 of the first-time-buyers

exemption.

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member asked a specific question. It is Ministry of Finance. I

know the member is going to say it’s Housing, but it’s a tax measure, so

it’s Ministry of Finance.

[4:40 p.m.]

I can get the member the answer from the Ministry of Finance, in

writing. Or the Minister of Finance is in estimates for the next two

days, probably until Thursday, so this question can be raised there as

well.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I have to assume that the Minister of Finance doesn’t wake up in

the morning and go, “I have a great idea for housing,” and come up with

that without consultation with the Ministry of Housing. But I guess I

will see if I can ask that question directly to the minister.

Here’s a new question, because things are changing quickly out in

the world right now. Are tent cities going to continue to qualify as

lawful residences for the purpose of the decriminalization revision

introduced on Friday?

Hon. R. Kahlon: We’re not consulted on tax measures.

K. Kirkpatrick: That’s really concerning.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Yeah, well, information is always made available through Ministry

of Housing, but they don’t inform us of tax measures. This is, I think,

the history of all Finance Ministers and every budget as far back as I’m

aware of. But that being said, I’m supportive of the measure. I think

it’s a good measure to help first-time home buyers.

Now, the member has asked a question. I don’t support or agree

with the characterization or the framing of the question. We have seen,

coming out of the pandemic, multiple things. We’ve seen people being

displaced. We’ve seen mental health challenges. We’ve seen a significant

increase in population in Canada, but in British Columbia in particular.

The amount of housing has not kept up to that pace.

When there’s a limited housing availability…. What that means is

those with means have access to the housing, and it pushes everybody

else further into challenging situations. That has led to challenges of

homelessness in some communities.

This is not a B.C. thing. This is North America–wide. Every

community is dealing with it. You know, meeting with communities through

PNWER…. If you look at Seattle; Portland; California; Austin, Texas; New

York — everywhere, this is a challenge communities are dealing

with.

What we’re doing is taking action to address that. That’s what I

was doing with the MOU with the city of Abbotsford on Friday, 221 units.

We announced shelter spaces. We announced opening of supportive housing,

affordable housing. That’s what we’re doing with the city of Nanaimo,

with our MOU there. We just opened up a brand-new supportive housing

site.

We’ve got other projects that are in the works, but we’ve

committed significant dollars to scale up the capacity so people can get

indoors. That’s what I met with Prince George councillors this morning

about. We’ve got an encampment there of 30-something, I think 36,

people. We’ve got 100 units right now that are coming online. I would

say by the end of summer, we’ll have all 100 open. So that means we can

get people indoors and not have them in encampments.

Similar discussions in Kamloops, similar discussions, of course,

in Vancouver — I’ve shared with the member — around Crab Park, where we

had over 100 people at one point. We’ve been able to build the

relationships and get people in. I think 16 people are remaining

there.

Our team spends a lot of time on dealing with these issues

community by community, trying to get housing options available so we

can get people indoors.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister.

I would like to extend my appreciation to the minister and to the

minister’s staff for the time. I am concluding my questions, and I will

be passing it over to the member for Saanich North and the Islands. But

I would like to say I appreciate the time.

We don’t agree on certain things. I think we agree on the

overriding vision of providing housing for people in British

Columbia.

I would like to just leave with the request that this government

be open to listening to the true stories of people who are being

impacted by housing policy and that one-size-fits-all, or one

paintbrush. There are many unique circumstances and issues that should

be considered.

And then one final thing is: Go Canucks!

[4:45 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I have to note, for the record, the strategic timing of this

ending and the “Go Canucks!”

I just want to say that I really respect the member across the

way. She comes at this work with all of her heart. Every exchange we’ve

had has been a thoughtful one. I think it’s a real shame for that

community not to have you as their representative. I want to thank you

for the work you’ve done as my critic. You’ve made our team better in

the work you’ve done. So thank you as well.

The Chair: Recognizing the House Leader of the Third Party.

A. Olsen: Okay. I agree with your comments, by the way.

I disagree with the comments from the member who spoke before me —

or, at least, the hockey team. Anyway, we’ll leave that for another

place.

Interjections.

A. Olsen: There have been articles written about it. Yeah. Go for it. Just

google it.

Now back to the business here about housing, very im­portant

business about housing.

The minister earlier talked about the tree canopy. I’m just

wondering if there can be some clarity. This was in a question directed

by the official opposition’s Housing critic just around green space

being preserved elsewhere. The places where we’ve developed are where

the housing is going to go.

While I recognize that densification need happen, there are

actions that this government could take and that local governments do

take or were able to take previously to be able to protect the urban

tree canopy. In fact, there are many initiatives, as the member talked

about, and residential neighbourhoods and community groups that work

very hard to ensure that there is a tree canopy within their

communities.

As we saw in the heat dome…. Indeed, that tree canopy was the only

place that many residents were able to get refuge. We don’t have the

standards within our building code that require air conditioning in

every unit, as an example.

I’m just wondering if the minister can maybe respond to this. It

seemed like there was a position taken…. The urban tree canopy is at

threat. Basically, it was…. The effort is to preserve green space

elsewhere.

I’m wondering if maybe the minister wants to reflect on whether or

not there will be any measures put in place, from the densification

project last fall, that protect the urban tree canopy in the areas that

are already developed, if there are any measures to encourage

development to happen adjacent to that tree canopy, etc.

[4:50 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I had answered to my critic from the official opposition that the

reason why the amenity cost charge is important, the tool, was that it

would provide a means for local governments to be able to collect

dollars to build parks and to build green space. So that’s what I was

referring to in my answer to the member.

Now, there is flexibility in the small-scale, multi-unit

legislation for local governments to make some adjustments, but it can’t

be unreasonable. We know in some local governments, they want to protect

a tree. They want to adjust the setbacks in order to have the housing

being built. That flexibility is there, but it can’t be seen as

unreasonable in the measures that they’re taking.

A. Olsen: I guess I want to draw the distinction and perhaps my colleague

was wanting to draw the distinction between building new parks and

planting new trees and the fully old trees, the actual cover that an old

tree provides that a young tree won’t be able to provide for at least

60, 70, 80 years, in some cases. The clarity in this…. I appreciate the

minister, I think, drawing more clarity in the response, that there is

space for trees to be protected as long as it’s not unreasonable. I

guess my fear is the