Fifth Session, 41st Parliament

(2020) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 330

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Tributes

James W. Mann

L. Reid

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 4 — Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2020 (continued)

M. de Jong

B. Stewart

S. Bond

Hon. C. James

Bill 6 — Mines Amendment Act, 2020

Hon. B. Ralston

T. Shypitka

R. Coleman

S. Furstenau

M. Morris

P. Milobar

D. Barnett

D. Davies

J. Rustad

R. Sultan

Bill 4 — Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2020 (continued)

Hon. C. James

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2020

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Tributes

JAMES W. MANN

L. Reid: I rise today to pay tribute to James W. Mann. As an advocate for

the rights of people with the lived experience of dementia, he has been

acknowledged as the single most influential person in Canada for

countering negative stereotypes and promoting an inclusive society in

which persons with dementia can make an active and meaningful

contribution.

For these accomplishments, Jim Mann will be awarded a 2020

honorary degree from the University of British Columbia. Please join me

in offering our congratulations.

Orders of the Day

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

Implementation Act.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 4 — BUDGET MEASURES

IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2020

(continued)

M. de Jong: Before the break we were talking, and I was referring to the

provisions of Bill 4 and the various taxation statutes it purports to

amend. I was making the argument and the observation that asking the

House to lend support to a piece of legislation dealing with taxation

instruments that affect the bulk of the revenues government receives

over the course of a fiscal year, without the benefit of up-to-date

information about the extent to which those revenues have been impacted

by the onset of the pandemic and are expected and forecast to continue

to impact the receipt of revenues, is unfair but also

irresponsible.

[1:35 p.m.]

I referred to the reference in the bill to the Carbon Tax Act, the

Employer Health Tax Act, the Income Tax Act and the likely prospect for

revenues in those areas to drop. Now, in some instances, there will

already be in the possession of the government information confirming

what the impact of the pandemic has been for months past. There will

certainly be information and advice relating to the range of impact

anticipated going forward. The government and the Finance Minister thus

far have purposely chosen to withhold that information.

Again, I’ll make this case and this observation. When the House

convened for a day-long session in March at what we now would refer to

as the onset of the pandemic, the minister and the government asked for

and received great licence to alter the spending side of the budget that

had been tabled just a few weeks prior to that and secured approval from

the House to expand spending into some all-important areas with skeletal

information.

I think the minister endeavoured to provide what she could by way

of information and assured the House there would be an opportunity to

review the decisions that would be made with respect to those

significant changes.

The House, as I have mentioned, responded by granting that

authority, realizing several things — realizing that for the fiscal year

ahead, something that governments in British Columbia have sought to

achieve would not be achieved. We would be spending more operationally

on programs and supports for people than the government has at its

disposal based on the revenues being received. I think the public

understands that. I think the public accepts that. The opposition

certainly accepted that.

We are now nearly four months further down the road, and

legislation that would otherwise have been debated very close to the

tabling of the budget is back before the House in dramatically different

circumstances. Now, while the government is comfortable and likes to

talk about its spending initiatives, it and the minister have been very,

very hesitant to share information about the revenue side. Like any

organization….

I mentioned earlier and described the scene of a family looking to

the year ahead and making decisions about what it was going to spend

and, in certain circumstances, what it was going to borrow. There is

surely a correlation between the answers to those two questions and what

it has at its disposal revenue-wise — what it’s going to earn, what that

family is going to earn. But the government doesn’t want us to know

that.

The minister has said: “I’ll be providing a quarterly update in

September.” Well, that’s fine. That, to be fair, equates with the

regular budgetary cycle. But these are very irregular times. The change

has been swift and dramatic, and the circumstances have changed

accordingly. I think it behooves the minister and the government to

return the trust to the House and the people of B.C. that she received

from the House and the people in B.C. when she sought authority to

dramatically amend the spending side of her budget back in

March.

[1:40 p.m.]

I’ve heard the minister say: “I’ll talk about that on July 14.”

She hasn’t provided much in the way of detail about what she intends to

disclose then. I know that she has data about what the impact has been

on retail sales. I know that she has data on what that has translated

into with respect to the provincial sales tax, which is another piece of

legislation dealt with in Bill 4 before the House. But she is asking

this chamber to vote on this legislation. I don’t know if she intends to

disclose that data on July 14. I would hope she would. I can’t imagine

any reason for her not to.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

M. de Jong: Oh, I think I have been granted licence to continue on behalf of

the opposition.

Deputy Speaker: Okay, your licence is granted then. Carry on.

M. de Jong: Thank you very much.

She’s provided us with no assurance that she will disclose that

information, even though it is fundamentally relevant to the question

before the House and the interest that British Columbians will

have.

Just before the break, I was talking about the Insurance Premium

Tax Act which, in the minister’s budget, is anticipated to account for

$660 million in revenue in the coming year. I made some observations

about what has happened to insurance rates, particularly involving the

strata title world and the condominium sector. That, ironically, may be

an area where revenue to government goes up. That is problematic for an

entirely different set of reasons, given the crisis that is confronting

so many residents of condominiums.

I know that the minister has updated forecasts and information

relating to the Insurance Premium Tax Act. Why won’t she share that

information? Why won’t she show the trust in British Columbians and the

House that the House and British Columbians gave to the government back

in March?

Bill 4 touches upon the Logging Tax Act and the Mineral Tax Act.

In the four months that have passed since Bill 4 was tabled, areas that

were already suffering negatively, the resource sector, have since also

been impacted dramatically by the COVID pandemic. They’ve also been

impacted by softwood, by international trade disputes, by market access

issues related to COVID, and that, undoubtedly, has altered the

revenues.

Again, in table 1.3 of the minister’s budget, she has provided

numbers, as Finance Ministers always do, for what the anticipated

revenues will be. They have changed. The minister and the government

have updated information and forecasts about how they have

changed.

Bill 4 talks about the Motor Fuel Tax Act. The budget that the

minister presented in February, to which Bill 4 directly applies,

forecast for the year 2021: $1.024 billion in motor fuel tax revenue.

That will not happen. It’s the ultimate good-news, bad-news story. The

good news is the price of fuel went down. The bad news is no one can

drive anywhere. We all saw that phenomenon.

[1:45 p.m.]

It has had undoubtedly profound impacts on the revenue that

government will receive. I think British Columbians understand that. I

certainly do. I will say again, so that the minister is under no

illusions, that the crisis that has befallen, that has led to this

dramatic change, the pandemic, isn’t the fault of this government — or

any government in Canada, for that matter. But it has impacted those

governments. All I am asking, and all I think British Columbians

deserve, is honesty from the government about the nature of those

impacts, because it influences the decisions that we have to make, going

forward.

In the case of the motor fuel tax, this is not entirely

speculative. The minister today knows what happened to revenue from

motor fuel tax in the months of March, April and likely May. She gets

briefed on that. I expect she gets briefed on it, if not daily, then

certainly weekly. To say, “I will provide a full update through the

regular course of the budget cycle in September,” doesn’t cut it, is

unfair and, in my view, irresponsible.

What is the impact? What has the impact been with respect to the

Motor Fuel Tax Act thus far? What are the minister’s officials telling

her, those very able and capable people within the treasury branch who

brief the minister on a daily basis? What are they telling her about the

likely impact on revenues to government from motor fuel tax going

forward through the rest of the fiscal year?

If the Finance Minister has some argument for why disclosing that

information is problematic or why it’s none of the people’s business or

why there are other interests that are best served by not disclosing

that information, given the dramatic change in circumstances that we are

facing, then she should make that argument. But thus far, she has been

silent. Thus far, she has said nothing.

Bill 4 includes amendments to the Property Transfer Tax Act. In

the minister’s budget at page 28, she makes the point. She says, on

behalf of the government, that the government anticipates, for the

fiscal year ’20-21, receiving $1.586 billion in property transfer tax

revenue. Most assuredly, that has changed. Most assuredly, it has gone

down.

How much has it gone down? The Minister of Finance won’t know for

certain how much it has gone down until after the end of the fiscal

year. I grant you that. But she has a good idea, certainly a better idea

than anyone in this House and anyone else in British Columbia, about how

much it has gone down thus far from when she made her budget, and she is

refusing to tell people. If I’m wrong, if she can point to somewhere

where she has provided that information, then I’ll stand up and withdraw

that remark. But I don’t think she has. I don’t think she has been very

specific at all about what she intends to say on these matters on July

[1:50 p.m.]

If her response in closing this debate is “I’m going to tell you

all of that on July 14,” then why are we debating this bill now? Then

why aren’t we waiting until July 14, when we can have this information?

I’m not certain, again, what interest would be compromised by delaying

the debate on this bill until after that information has been disclosed

to the public and to this House.

Then the big one that I mentioned, and it is…. There are

significant provisions of Bill 4 dealing with the provincial sales tax

and the Provincial Sales Tax Act. According to the minister’s budget

tabled in February, the government is relying on that taxation

instrument to receive $7.9 billion in revenue. That number has gone

down. Most assuredly, it has gone down.

The minister has been briefed on what took place with respect to

retail sales in March and April. She should share that information

because that will directly influence the number. She has been provided

with advice, and it’s likely a range. No one can know for certain that

instead of $7.9 billion…. She has been provided with a reduced forecast

for the balance of the fiscal year — and likely a range. Thus far, the

government’s and her approach to this has been to say to British

Columbians: “Well, you’ll just have to wait and see, and I’ll get around

to telling you about that in September.” I don’t think that’s good

enough. If we’re in this together, then we should be sharing the

information we have together.

Retail sales have declined for reasons we all understand. How much

have they declined? What is the forecast impact on government revenues

going forward? Although we now inhabit a time when I think people are

accepting of the notion that government will spend more than it receives

in revenue, and I think people are accepting of that, they are not, I

believe, prepared to give the government a blank cheque and say: “Well,

you just spend whatever you want.”

There is still, surely, a link between how much we are going to

borrow, because that’s how we’ll do this. Well, I guess, in the case of

the government, how much are we going to borrow; how much are taxes

going to increase, in the case of this government; and what are the

revenues going to be to government in the balance of the fiscal

year?

I don’t think these are unreasonable requests to make of the

government and the minister — that they would be forthright in bringing

legislation before the House, in seeking passage of legislation to enact

a budget that the minister herself has acknowledged is no longer in

keeping with the economic circumstances that the province is confronted

by and use that argument to justify asking for and receiving from the

House the licence to spend far in excess of what this budget allows for

originally.

[1:55 p.m.]

In that same spirit, I believe it is entirely appropriate,

reasonable and essential that the minister show similar good intentions,

similar forthrightness by disclosing to British Columbians the details

of where we are at — the genuine impact this pandemic is having with

respect to the revenues that she and the government forecast

receiving.

There are other instruments available, by the way, to the

government. I mentioned in my earlier remarks the era several decades

ago when numbers and budget schedules were manipulated for blatantly

political purposes. We have in this province happily made, particularly

over the last two decades, significant changes to prevent that from

occurring.

One of the mechanisms that was developed to shine a brighter light

of transparency on the budgeting process was the creation of the

Economic Forecast Council. The Minister of Finance, like Finance

Ministers before her, touts the advice and, quite appropriately so,

says: “I am building a budget and the budget forecasts and particularly

the revenue forecasts around the advice I receive from the Economic

Forecast Council.” These eminent economists from across Canada who

gather and provide not always a consensus but a range of views about

what is happening with the economy.

Has the Finance Minister consulted the forecast council? She’s not

obliged to do that legislatively. She is obliged to do so with respect

to the preparation of the budget. But in these extraordinary times,

where she and her budget, the government’s budget, rely on forecasts

that are now entirely out of date, entirely inaccurate — and the

forecast council authors would acknowledge that openly — has she reached

out to them and said: “What are your new numbers?”

If she has done that, is she prepared to share that information

with the public? If she hasn’t done that, why for heaven’s sake not? In

this extraordinary time, armed with this instrument that has served the

province so well, hasn’t she made use of it to solicit the views of the

forecast council to say: “What are your predictions for retail sales

going forward, given what we know about the state of the economy

today”?

It would certainly provide, I think, British Columbians with a

greater measure of confidence to know that they were being given an

accurate set of facts about the state of the fiscal situation in British

Columbia — a greater degree of confidence than they can have now, armed

only with the assurance from the government and the Finance Minister

that goes something like: “Well, just trust us.”

I am, as I have said now repeatedly in the course of this, not

just understanding but accepting and supportive of the proposition that

there will be times in the life of a country, the life of, in our case,

a province, where extraordinary events descend upon us that require

government to take extraordinary measures and where it will fall to

government to absorb a greater share of the impact. That will translate

into spending more than the government receives in revenues.

[2:00 p.m.]

That is, obviously, the classic definition of a deficit. We are in

one of those times. There is no argument.

We are, I am going to say, armed better than most jurisdictions in

Canada to address and provide that support, and there is a reason for

that. As I’ve listened to the Finance Minister talk about the strength

of British Columbia, talk about the strength of our economy, talk about

the strength of provincial books, which are now serving us well, I have

waited — I didn’t expect to hear it; nor do I think I have — for

acknowledgment of the reasons we enjoy that strength. Governments

previous to this one took steps to ensure that when that rainy day

arrived, our debt had been reduced — in the case of our operating debt,

virtually eliminated.

I guess I would not be honest if I didn’t say I was disappointed

when I heard the Finance Minister say back in February, on the day she

tabled the budget, that the days of hoarding budgetary surpluses are

over. I was disappointed to hear her say that. I wonder if today she

regrets having said it, because no one hoards budgetary surpluses; they

pay down debt.

It is that debt room that the Finance Minister and the government

happily can draw upon today. I’ll say that again. It is that debt room,

which accrued because previous governments paid down debt, virtually

eliminated the operating debt, that we can now draw upon on this rainy

day. And it’s not just a rainy day; it’s a monsoon. But it’s probably

asking too much for any acknowledgment that the strength we enjoy and

our ability to respond to this circumstance were enhanced because of

those measures and those steps.

Today British Columbians, I think, are accepting of the

proposition that the government will need to spend more than it receives

in revenue. But they are entitled to know how much it’s going to spend,

and they are entitled to know how much in revenue it expects to receive.

The government and the minister refuse to provide the latter information

yet asked this House to breathe life, through Bill 4, into a budget that

she acknowledges is now completely inaccurate and completely out of

date.

As I said, I think that’s irresponsible. I think that’s

unfortunate. I think it’s disrespectful to British Columbians. So for

all of those reasons, I am troubled by the government’s attempt now to

seek passage and support for Bill 4.

The minister, at some point during the course of the debate, will

have an opportunity to respond to some of my concerns if she chooses to.

If she stands here and says to the member for Abbotsford West: “Well,

that’s all well and good, but I’m going to disclose all on July 14. I’m

going to tell British Columbians what is happening to revenue, what is

happening to retail sales, what our updated forecasts are and what that

translates into, into reduced provincial sales tax revenue.

[2:05 p.m.]

“I am going to tell British Columbians what happened through the

months of March, April and May with respect to the sale of motor fuel

and the impact that had on revenue to government from the motor fuel

tax. I am going to tell British Columbians what our forecasts are, given

the escalating unemployment situation, to revenue from personal income

tax. I am going to tell British Columbians what our forecasts are with

respect to revenue from the employer health tax, because if you’re not

an employee, you’ve got no employer to pay the health tax.

“I am going to tell British Columbians all of those things to the

best of the ability, because I have been briefed on it, and I will share

that information. I trust British Columbians enough to share that

information with them….”

If the minister says that in response to my commentary, I will be

gratified. I will be very pleased. But thus far, she and the Premier and

her colleagues have steadfastly refused to disclose that information or

be specific at all about what information, what updates they will

provide, short of saying, “Well, there will be a first quarter update in

September after this House has adjourned, after Bill 4 has been voted

upon, after the spending estimates have been debated over the course of

the next five or six weeks.”

So for those reasons, I have unburdened myself in terms of my

concerns and trouble. I thank the House for its patience and listen with

interest to those that follow.

B. Stewart: I definitely found that very interesting — especially the member

for Abbotsford West, having had this portfolio and been in government

for some time. I think that there was a lot of sage advice there for all

of us as well as the government.

I want to rise today to continue the conversation on Bill 4, the

Budget Measures Implementation Act. This bill is an important part of

the budget process, and it put into law the changes that the government

is making to taxes in British Columbia.

Reflecting on this bill in light of the pandemic impacts, many of

our previously held assumptions have led us to a whole new line of

questioning that we will be exploring in the committee stage of this

bill. We are now in a period where we need to put an urgent focus on

economic recovery. So we proceed in our examination of this bill, and we

will be using that lens.

Our fiscal and economic position has completely changed because of

the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial picture that the Finance Minister

laid out for us in February no longer accurately reflects the state of

the province’s finances. Therefore, we do need to look at an updated

look at our fiscal position. Frankly, going into estimates starting this

Thursday, it behooves me that the government is not preparing to share

that information with British Columbians or this House.

We live in a different world than we did in February, and we need

to see exactly what the impact has had on our finances. What are the…?

Nobody can see the future, but we know that we look at these things with

a view to a growing economy and expanded tax revenue.

Frankly, I think that the member for Abbotsford West has laid it

out very succinctly — that the idea is of having a nest egg. I can’t

believe that I remember those remarks, back when the budget was

introduced, about hoarding. Gone are the days of hoarding. I’m thinking:

“Here we are, and we just recently gave an extension or a spending of $5

billion just to deal with this crisis, which is more than the surplus we

turned over in May of 2017.”

The Finance Minister has told British Columbians that you will

have this information on July 14. But what will that entail? We’re

asking for a fiscal update, not just the figures on the debt. We don’t

know if we will get the full picture on July 14. Frankly, the public

deserves to have that information.

[2:10 p.m.]

We unconditionally supported this government’s necessity to spend

emergency funds, $5 billion, on March 23. We would expect, in return,

that there would be some transparency so that we can help work with the

government in a transparent manner to help build the economic recovery

that everybody knows and the public is demanding.

I know it is extremely tough on businesses throughout British

Columbia, especially in areas of tourism events that are hosted

through­out the Lower Mainland, but certainly in the Kelowna area.

We lost the Memorial Cup. The whole activity cost the city and the local

hockey team that was hosting it significant resources, with no

opportunity to recover from that. How we are going to recover is what we

need to build a plan for.

In order to best serve this province and debate the legislation

before us, the House needs to be able to take an accurate look at our

finances — but not only that. The people of B.C. deserve to know the

truth about the budget and where we stand. The Finance Minister is

getting regular financial updates, and she said so herself. “I’m getting

regular daily updates. I’m getting updates where the numbers are going.”

This was just in a scrum a day ago.

There’s no reason why this information [audio interrupted]

especially in light of the massive sacrifices that people across the

province have made to fight the pandemic. British Columbians deserve to

know exactly how much government revenues have gone down and spending

has gone up. We need to know where the money has been committed and

spent, the size of the deficit and the debt-to-revenue ratio. All of

these things allow us to understand where we are as a province. We hope

that the Finance Minister will give us a clearer look at where we stand

so that we have a better idea of how to move forward into a

recovery.

Now, all of this brings us to the piece of legislation before us

today. This year, the Budget Measures Implementation Act amends a number

of statutes to allow the implementation of four more new and increased

taxes announced in the budget. These taxes bring to this government a

total of 23 new and increased taxes since coming to power. I think that

probably deserves mentioning — when you slowly pull the thread and bring

out a few taxes each time you bring a budget document out. But here we

have one of the most egregious taxes, which I think most employers, and

probably employees, feel the impact of because of the cost to their

employment. It’s the employer health tax.

Added also was the Victoria gas tax; the Vancouver gas tax; the

Airbnb tax; luxury vehicle tax on vehicles over $55,000; tobacco tax

increased three times; the property transfer tax surcharge, another 2

percent on the 3 percent charge; the foreign buyer tax, now up 5 percent

at 20 percent.

I just wrote the Finance Minister on a particular constituent of

mine, Mr. McCormick, who, in Westbank, just lost his house about two

weeks ago because of the fact…. As somebody that arrived from outside of

the country, invested in 2017 in a contract to be completed before the

deadline to have it complete, April 30, and due to forest fires and

other unforeseen circumstances was unable to complete, he now has had to

pay $63,000 of tax on a home and couldn’t afford it.

The additional school tax on homes over $3 million and $4 million.

The speculation tax. What more could I say about a tax that was

unforeseen. I know members in both the city of West Kelowna and Kelowna

directly impacted by this question of whether this has been helpful in

terms of creating more housing supply.

I go back to some of the incremental taxes that the government has

brought in that just nibble away at the affordability issue on homes.

Photo radar. The carbon tax, which has gone up not only from being

revenue-neutral…. We’ve had a $5-per-year increase in 2018, 2019, and

this year it was suspended temporarily. But that $15 a tonne, plus the

previous amount, is going into general revenue, along with the surplus

that we were able to put together to make certain that the government

had the resources necessary to pay for all of its

responsibilities.

[2:15 p.m.]

Parking sales tax. The development cost charges. These are

obviously in Vancouver or the Lower Mainland. Property tax for

TransLink. Cannabis tax. Income tax up 2.1 percent on incomes over

$150,000. Corporate tax has now been increased to 12 percent. The ICBC

unlisted driver premium. ICBC learner premium. The B.C. Hydro crisis

fund. Pre-trip ride-share fees. The vaping PST. And now the sugary

drinks tax, Netflix tax and new income tax bracket.

Well, Minister, all I can say is that this is like the emperor,

British Columbians, having a new set of clothes. They’ve built a

resilient, durable set of clothes, and here, after all of this, we’ve

got the government pulling at the threads, to the point where British

Columbians are completely naked. The emperor has no clothes.

I think that we as the official opposition have made no secret of

our criticism of the government’s constant tax increases. The NDP,

meanwhile, has continued to make it clear that the only source of

revenue that they really care about is the pockets of hard-working

taxpayers. That includes both businesses and people that have everyday

day jobs.

Bill 4 is a continuation of enabling this trend. Despite record

taxation by this government, they were still struggling to balance their

budget when this bill was originally introduced.

So let’s get into those four new and increased taxes. Of course,

we have some detailed questions on specific aspects, when we get to

committee, but for now I’ll keep my comments to a high-level

review.

It’s important to note that even before COVID-19 pandemic, without

new taxes, Budget 2020 would have been in deficit. That budget, as you

can see from the budget document that was presented, shows revenues that

have climbed from, in 2017, a forecast of around $48.5 billion to, this

year, $60.585 billion, topping out in 2022-23 at $64 billion. That’s a

whopping 30 percent increase in the provincial taxation rates of

revenue.

Now, it’s great that we’ve got an economy that was growing, and we

need to get it back there. But I have to say that these tax increases….

There is a limit to what is possible for people and business. It’s

important that what we try and do is to make these taxes work for

everyday things, making life just about affordable for everybody in

B.C.

Let’s talk about a prime example of this — the Netflix tax on

digital services. Sounds innocuous enough, but this is going to add PST

to Netflix, Disney and Spotify. This tax is also going to bring in about

$11 million to provincial coffers and will end up costing consumers

roughly $15 per year for the streaming service. But this is also going

to be added to services like Zoom and many of the other services that we

have become accustomed to — becoming a necessity for us to use during

these challenging times. The boundaries of this tax are somewhat

nebulous, so I look forward to hopefully getting greater clarity on what

services this tax will apply to during the committee stage.

Another new tax of note is the soda tax. While we can support the

idea behind the measures that encourage people to make healthier

choices, we certainly have some questions about the implementation of

this tax, which is set to bring in about $27 million in tax revenue in

the coming year. In addition to the previously mentioned taxes, this

bill also specifies heated tobacco as a separate class so that it will

be included in the tax on vaping devices and substances that was

introduced on January 1 of 2020.

As we move forward to the committee stage on this bill, we will be

asking some key questions about how these various taxes will be

implemented and the effects that they will have on British Columbians.

But we do already know that the NDP government has raised taxation, the

equivalent, right now to $3,000 per household. Total taxation increases

will amount to almost $4,700 per household by 2022. What’s it going to

be after we address the issues caused by this pandemic?

[2:20 p.m.]

I think what we have to remember is that we have to make certain

we live within our means. The fact is that we just can’t afford to have

everything and continue to tax at a relentless rate. That’s going to

make life completely unaffordable in British Columbia and turn people

off from creating businesses or wanting to live here.

These are huge increases in the expenses of B.C. families and are

certainly not making life more affordable. We have gotten all too used

to discussing tax increases with this minister, and I look forward to

getting into these measures in more detail during the committee stage of

this bill.

Now, these tax increases look quite different in light of the past

few months, where we have seen the pandemic hit our economy hard,

leading to hundreds of thousands of job losses, many business closures

and, in response, a dramatic increase in government spending. We

understand that much of the original budget for Budget ’20-21 has now

completely changed and the assumptions that were made in February are

not necessarily accurate or relevant now in June.

But while our world has changed and our economy has changed, the

NDP haven’t. They didn’t have a plan to grow the economy at the start of

the year, and they still don’t today. They’re still worrying about

canvassing people about the economic recovery with a survey. I just find

that that’s incredible in light of all the people that we have in

British Columbia, the economists that were mentioned by the previous

speaker — in terms of the Economic Forecast Council — and what ideas can

be brought to bear to help with this.

I know that it’s important to survey British Columbians, but the

time for action is now. This is worrying at this time when we need a

clear plan to grow the economy and generate jobs more than ever. When we

expected and hoped that they would finally lay out a clear economic plan

for B.C., they instead unveiled a public survey, stalling it for another

six weeks.

These next few months are going to be absolutely critical to our

province’s economic recovery. With unemployment rates already nearing 14

percent and widespread concern about the second wave of infection this

fall, there are serious concerns that this government is not poised to

set us on a path for growth that we so desperately need. Increased taxes

will not help us beat COVID-19 or bring economic prosperity back to our

province.

The only way to get there is through true government transparency

and letting us know where we stand, through careful, comprehensive

planning to inspire job growth and economic creation. I sincerely hope

that for the good of British Columbia, this government steps up and

takes these much-needed steps.

S. Bond: Good afternoon to my colleagues in the Legislature. I am very

pleased to be able to provide some remarks to a bill that I’m sure

pretty much everyone in the House would agree is a very technical bill.

In fact, it’s pages long, and what it does, in essence, is it brings to

life, it breeds life into a budget, a budget that every government

tables. This is the technical bill that brings to life the budget

decisions and policy choices that a government has made.

I don’t know about my colleagues, but I know that from my own

personal perspective, I have to admit it’s actually hard to remember the

tabling of the budget, for a number of reasons but mostly because of the

unprecedented circumstances that we are facing as a province, as a

country, and, in fact, the entire world.

You know, one of the things that makes me incredibly proud is the

fact that…. I don’t think there would be any disagreement in the

Legislature today about some things, and one of those would certainly be

the incredible resiliency and strength and determination that has been

demonstrated by the people of British Columbia during these most

difficult circumstances. When I stop to think about it, just months ago

the phrase “flattening the curve” would have meant very little to most

of us.

[2:25 p.m.]

I think that today we recognize that it was a rallying cry that

was presented to us, as we worked together to protect our communities,

our neighbours, our families and our friends from the effects of

COVID-19. I think that as we watch the briefings every day and we see

British Columbia’s outcomes, compared to those of the rest of Canada and

the world, in fact, we’re doing pretty well. It took hard work, and it

took a focus.

I have been personally very grateful to see the leadership

provided and that sense of collaboration during what is a public health

care crisis. I think all of us have recognized that the time to express

our differences is not likely related to a health care crisis. I’m proud

of the fact that people stood shoulder to shoulder, taking the advice of

Dr. Henry and under the leadership of the Minister of Health and others,

and paid attention to what was going on from a health care perspective.

I think that matters.

I certainly recognize — all of us in the session today and

throughout the next number of weeks…. We all recognize that we need to

remain diligent. We need to pay attention to the ongoing health crisis.

In fact, just yesterday — I don’t know what today’s numbers are — there

was, tragically, another death in our province and 32 test-positive

cases over the last 72 hours from yesterday.

But I think it’s also important that we recognize that we have to

be as equally determined to deal with the devastating impacts that the

response to COVID-19 has had on our economy. Yes, it is a health care

crisis. But I can assure you that what we’re facing in the days ahead

will impact health care outcomes as well, and that is an economic

crisis.

Let’s just take a moment and think about what we know from an

economic perspective. Part of the discussion…. I want to say thank you

to my colleagues for their participation in the debate today and also

for their very thoughtful and eloquent presentations. I felt like I

could almost say ditto to the work that they have done and that they

presented in the House.

We had a former Finance Minister, one who did an exceptional job

for British Columbia. Yes, members of the opposite side — the government

bench — can agree to disagree with that. But when you look at the

position that the government inherited when our government became

opposition, it was the envy of most of the provinces and territories in

our country. So to hear from a former Finance Minister — to hear from my

co-Finance critic and others of my colleagues — about why we are having

a discussion about Bill 4 and why we disagree with the debate at this

time is important.

Let me go through a few of the things that we know about the

different place that British Columbia finds itself in than when the

Finance Minister tabled her budget in what seems a lifetime ago. We do

know some things, but we don’t know them because the government has laid

out those facts for us. I have a great deal of regard for the

government’s Finance Minister, and she and I have served in the House

together for a very long time. I deeply respect that.

It’s also important, and has been noted by my colleagues, that the

opposition gave the Finance Minister the opportunity to move ahead with

a financial aid package, with initiatives that would be funded by $5

billion. It was granted. It was given in that very unique session that

my colleague from Abbotsford mentioned. It was given without

reservation, but it was given with an assumption that there would be

complete disclosure of how that money would be spent, how it would be

utilized and — not only that — about the efficiency and effectiveness of

the programs that have been announced that are attached to those funding

dollars.

[2:30 p.m.]

Just as we’ve seen in the last two days, we have a disagreement

with the way the government is dealing with a particular file to deal

with temporary layoffs. Those are reasonable and important discussion

points. To have them dismissed or criticized by members of the

government bench as we just don’t get it — it has absolutely nothing to

do with that. Our job as the opposition is to raise issues that

certainly have emerged during the last number of months, and there are a

lot of them that have been raised since the budget was

tabled.

Here’s what we know as of today. And we don’t know that because

the government has laid out, in a transparent and thoughtful way for us,

these details. We’ve had to glean them from reports that are being made

by economists, organizations and others have a significant interest in

making sure that British Columbia prospers once again, from an economic

perspective.

[S. Gibson in the chair.]

Yes, the priority has been health care issues — we’ve worked

alongside; we agree with that — but what we’re saying is that today we

need to, in conjunction with remaining vigilant and paying attention to

those directions on the health care side, we now need to turn additional

attention to the economy.

Let’s look at what a recent report from the B.C. Business Council

told us. The B.C. Business Council noted in their report that our

economy is going to shrink by 7.8 percent in 2020. What’s interesting

about that was that the business council had made a projection earlier

in March and already they’ve revised that. I think the earlier number

was 7.3 percent, in terms of the drop of economic growth, and it’s now

projecting 7.8 percent.

While I’m sure we will hear enthusiastically from the Finance

Minister and members of the government side: “Yes, but the provincial

economy is expected to expand in 2021.” Certainly the B.C. Business

council would concur with that assumption. But the expansion will be

approximately 4.8 percent. If you stop and think about the significant

downturn that we’ve experienced in British Columbia, it means that B.C.

will be regaining just over half of the economic output that we lost in

That has significant impacts, not just in the short term but over

the longer term. Those are the kinds of issues that we think we should

have the ability to debate in a well-informed, thoughtful way in the

Legislature. In order to do that, we need the Finance Minister to

provide us with the information and provide British Columbians with the

information and the briefing data that she is receiving. Here’s a

staggering number, if you stop and think about this: the unemployment

rate in British Columbia nearly tripled in three months, and the number

of people working dropped by about 350,000 people in our province. If

that doesn’t give us reason for concern, it should.

In the debate earlier today in question period, the point we

wanted to make is that we want employers to have the ability to keep

permanent jobs for British Columbians. That means that we need to act

swiftly and pay attention to the kinds of issues that are significant

and that are being brought forward by the very people who employ British

Columbians. So 350,000 jobs have been impacted. The number of people

working — individuals, family members — 350,000 people….

I think one of the quotes in the report from the B.C. Business

Council that I was most impacted by was a statement. I want to quote it.

This is what the report said: “For both Canada and British Columbia, the

2020 downturn is shaping up to be the deepest in 100 years.” I know that

in the Legislature, the government likes to measure time in terms of how

long we were government and how long we haven’t been government. But

let’s be clear: we weren’t there over the last 100 years, and this is

the deepest downturn — at least, that’s the expectation — in more than

100 years. That is an absolutely impactful statement. I think that all

of us need to be paying attention to that.

What else do we know, and where are we as a result? Again, it’s

not because we’ve been provided with specific briefing documents and had

inside briefings. We work to try to get information so that we can look

at where exactly British Columbia is today. Let’s talk about the labour

force data. As I have just mentioned, 350,000 people in B.C. are out of

work. Think about what that means on a day-to-day basis for our

neighbours, for some of our family members.

[2:35 p.m.]

I can tell you, as a member of the opposition, that one thing we

would agree with the Premier on is the fact that we should be doing

everything imaginable to try to ensure that those people have the

opportunity to go back to work in permanent positions. That’s the kind

of debate that we raised in question period and will continue to raise

in the days ahead.

The general unemployment rate currently stands at 13 percent.

Thirteen percent — again, nearly tripling over that three-month period.

And here’s a number that should cause all of us to want to think very

carefully about where we’re at and how we’re going to reboot the economy

and who are the people that have been most significantly impacted. The

unemployment rate is up 30 percent for youth in our province. The very

future of our province — 30 percent unemployment rate.

Let’s look at what the CFIB had to say. What did their business

survey results show? This is as recent as June 22. In British Columbia

today, only 50 percent of businesses are fully open. Eighteen percent of

businesses are at above normal revenues — you think about that for a

moment — and 29 percent of businesses are at or above normal staffing

numbers.

Small businesses in British Columbia…. Again, that’s not the fault

of the government. The former Finance Minister who spoke previous to me

said that, and we’ve been clear about that. It’s not about whether or

not it’s the government’s fault; it’s that we need to know the state of

play in British Columbia. And British Columbians deserve to know

that.

Those are incredibly challenging numbers: 18 percent of businesses

— only 18 percent — are at or above normal revenues; 29 percent of

businesses are at or above normal staffing. People are not working. They

can’t provide for their families. They are not able to have those jobs

that they had pre-COVID.

Here’s another statistic. So 33 percent of businesses will not be

able to pay full July rent without additional supports. Certainly, my

colleagues and I on the opposition side called for a long time…. We’ve

sent a series of policy letters with suggestions to the government. One

of them was about commercial rents and how absolutely critical it was

that if we want to see small businesses continue to grow and thrive and

survive in British Columbia, we needed to pay attention to commercial

rents. What are we seeing now? That almost a third of businesses, small

businesses, in British Columbia will not be able to pay their full July

rent without additional supports.

Here’s another interesting fact. You know, when we start thinking

about layering on costs…. In fact, what Bill 4 talks about is actually

the layering on of additional taxes. I think we’re very concerned about

those things. But 58 percent of businesses are finding it difficult to

absorb or deal with the costs of PPE. Now, all of us, as MLAs and

elected officials, have been required to look at our office space and

how we serve British Columbians, and there have been additional costs.

Well, businesses are finding it difficult to absorb those costs as

well.

Let’s look at what the B.C. Business Council had to say. The B.C.

Business Council estimates that at least 10 percent and perhaps as many

as 15 percent of the 200,000 businesses with paid employees could be

gone by late 2021. Now, if that doesn’t cause us to want to…. And what’s

driving our questions and our thinking and our requests to government

about this kind of information…. It should drive all of us to think of

every single opportunity to find reasonable and responsible supports for

small businesses across the province.

As we pointed out in question period for the last couple of days,

the government received what could only be described as a scathing

letter saying: “We need some help here.” So it’s not unreasonable to

bring those concerns both directly to the Premier and to the

Legislature. That’s our job.

[2:40 p.m.]

BCBC also expects, as I noted, the provincial economy to shrink by

7.8 percent, growing in 2021 but only bouncing back by about half of

what our economic growth was pre-COVID.

B.C. hydro consumption. I’m sure there are people who will be

smiling and thinking that it’s a good thing that electricity demand has

seen its steepest drop since the 2008 recession. Demand is down 10

percent, and we expect that to continue, potentially reaching a drop of

12 percent by April of 2021. If you stop and think for a moment about

why it’s that steep of a drop, it’s because the decline is linked to

declines in commercial and light industrial activity — the very kinds of

sectors we need to grow the economy and to provide jobs for British

Columbians.

Let’s look at what Central 1 Credit Union had to say. B.C. posted

a record retail sales drop in April. Sales fell 20.7 percent from March.

At $5.62 billion, sales were the lowest since June of 2014, and we know

that retail sales and consumer confidence have a significant role to

play in the economic success of British Columbia.

It’s suggested that economic growth will not return to pre-COVID

trends until mid-2021. Unemployment could rise significantly — and

continue to. We’ve certainly heard about the impacts. I’m sure every MLA

in the House has heard about the tourism and service sector impacts. The

view, very likely accurate, is that that will continue, potentially, for

the next two years — very dire circumstances for sectors and for the

economic health of our province.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. has national data. About 12

percent of homeowners have deferred mortgage payments, with the

potential for that number to rise to 20 percent. Gross consumer debt is

projected to rise to 130 percent of GDP in the fall of 2020, and there

is a growing mortgage deferral cliff that looms in the fall, when some

unemployed people will need to start paying their mortgages

again.

It’s something that I’ve heard a great deal of concern about, and

I’ve heard it from my colleagues as well. Deferral is certainly a tool

that can be used, but the key

part comes when people actually have to

start paying it back again. I’m very deeply concerned for people who

have taken advantage of those deferral tools and suddenly find

themselves in the position of having to pay it back, and for how they’re

going to manage those things.

Restaurants Canada. Well, I think all of us can imagine what those

numbers look like. When you think about B.C. establishments, their

revenue is expected to have declined by $2.9 billion over a three-month

period. That is a drop of approximately 80 percent of their revenue.

Four out of five restaurants have laid off workers since March 1 —

again, a loss of jobs, a loss of revenue, a significant impact on our

economy. Here’s another staggering change since the budget was

introduced. Nearly 10 percent of restaurants have closed permanently,

with another 18 percent prepared to close permanently if conditions

continue.

These are devastating circumstances for families, for businesses

and for government. Certainly, I can only imagine the challenges that

the Finance Minister is facing. But just as we’ve faced a health care

crisis, we need to be dealing with what is an economic crisis. I have

every confidence that British Columbians, given proper information,

given opportunities, given all of the kinds of tools that they require….

Just as we’ve seen that resiliency on the health care side, we have that

potential in British Columbia. I’m confident of that, but we need to

look to the future.

Let’s talk specifically about some of the pieces of Bill 4 now. I

can tell you that as I reviewed my notes — I made them, I have to say,

many months ago — there was one glaringly obvious conclusion. I’ve

always been taught that it goes better with saying than without. The

budget that was tabled in February has virtually no relevance to the

economic realities that our province is facing today, yet the

Legislature was recalled with the assumption that the debate will centre

on what is now an irrelevant budget.

[2:45 p.m.]

Bill 4 introduces new taxes. You’ve heard my colleagues speak of

them, but it’s worth repeating. This bill brings to life four new taxes,

but it brings the total number of new or increased taxes and fees under

the NDP government to 23. As we pointed out each and every time that we

talked about the budget, the budget would have been in deficit,

pre-COVID, without these four new taxes.

If you then stop to consider the long list of economic details

that I and my colleagues have referenced in the House today, it is

absolutely essential that the Finance Minister take the opportunity to

provide as much information as she possibly can to the members of this

House so that we can have a well-informed debate, as we’ve all

mentioned. We need to do that as soon as we possibly can.

How quickly we have forgotten the Netflix tax. It’s a tax on

digital services where PST will be added to streaming channels like

Disney and Spotify. That tax would bring in $11 million in 2020. The

government received approval to spend 5 billion additional dollars. One

of these taxes alone — we’re talking about $11 million. Of the increased

tax for people earning above $220,000, that would generate $216 million

of revenue in 2020-2021, nowhere near the $5 billion that this

government is either spending or has spent.

Of course, we have the sugary drinks tax and the vaping tax. I

don’t know about the members in the House today, but somehow when we

talk about the budget and we think about these measures, they pale by

comparison to the economic realities that we are facing in British

Columbia today. When it was tabled in February, we raised the alarm

bells about the tax-and-spend approach of the government, but so much

has happened since then.

While all of us agree that the government needed to take action to

support British Columbians…. Hopefully, we’re not going to start reading

tweets that say we don’t care about British Columbians and we didn’t

think there needed to be action. Of course we did. We agreed

unequivocally with the ability for the government to move

ahead.

What we’re saying today is that British Columbians deserve and

should expect transparency about the decisions that the government made

in response to the pandemic. It’s not that we didn’t think government

needed to act; of course it did. In fact, we provided additional

suggestions. Our leader has sent a number of policy suggestions to the

Premier and his team. I’m hoping they’ll still be considered. We, too,

want to be part of how you think about the solutions for British

Columbia. What we’re asking for today is the opportunity for transparent

disclosure of how the $5 billion has been spent, will be spent. Has it

been done efficiently, and is it working?

Bill 4, as noted, also introduces a host of other amendments,

which of course will be part of committee stage. I can assure the

minister that we will have lots of questions that will, hopefully,

provide some more clarity about other sections. I think it’s fair to say

that it is entirely reasonable to ask the Finance Minister to provide an

update earlier than the one she promised for September, after the

Legislature has ended its session.

These are extraordinary times, and that calls for as much

transparency as possible. As we’ve heard from a previous Finance

Minister and others, we know that the Minister of Finance is receiving

regular, if not daily, updates and that it shouldn’t be difficult to

provide the public and this Legislature with the specific details about

the current economic status of our province.

[2:50 p.m.]

I have been so proud, and I know everyone in the House has been,

of the efforts and sacrifices made by British Columbians as, together,

we fight the pandemic. But now they deserve to know some very key

information. My colleague from Abbotsford raised this in such a very

thoughtful and well-laid-out argument. We need to understand both sides

of the balance sheet. It is not just about spending; it is about revenue

generation. Exactly how have government revenues been

impacted?

Those are some of the key pieces of information that the Finance

Minister will, hopefully, outline for the members of this House and for

the people of British Columbia. The government has committed $5 billion

of taxpayer money. It’s not our money. It’s not the government’s money.

It belongs to taxpayers in British Columbia. That money is to provide

programs and initiatives related to support as a result of COVID-19. But

it is time for detailed information about what has been spent and what

is yet to be spent to be provided not just to the public but to the

House so we can have that debate.

Recently the official opposition did formally request, did ask,

for a fiscal update to be provided that reflects the most current

financial information that the government now has. That should be done

now, not in September when the House has risen. So we were relieved to

hear that the Finance Minister has now said that she will provide, that

she is prepared to do, a fiscal update on July 14.

While that’s a step in the right direction, the question remains

as to what will be included in that update. We certainly recognize that

we’re three months into the fiscal year, but that doesn’t mitigate the

need for British Columbians and members in this House to be given as

much information as possible so that we can establish a

baseline.

We need to be able to…. And the government needs to be able to

demonstrate to us that they can explain exactly how that $5 billion is

being spent. What else? The other thing that matters is: what is the

success of the programs that have been announced?

As we reviewed Bill 4 months ago, we knew that the measures

contained within it would create an additional tax burden for families

in our province. So here’s a question for the Finance Minister: has she

reconsidered her plan to add new taxes as families struggle as a result

of COVID-19? So 350,000 people are out of work in our province. The

world has changed dramatically. But it’s apparent to us that the NDP

have not.

We have continuously held the government to account for the fact

that they have no jobs plan, no plan to grow the economy. They didn’t

when they tabled the now irrelevant budget, and they don’t today. We

learned just last week that the government doesn’t have a plan for

economic recovery. Instead, they’re going to do a survey.

British Columbians can’t afford to wait for this government to

survey or monitor. They need to know exactly where we stand financially

and what exactly the government is going to do to get our economy moving

in the right direction as soon as possible.

Deputy Speaker: I believe this concludes the discussion of second reading of Bill

4, Budget Measures Implementation Act. I invite the Minister of Finance

to close debate.

Hon. C. James: Thank you to the speakers who have spoken on the bill. So much to

respond to. I’m not going to take time to respond to every piece, but I

do want to touch on some of the common themes that I heard through the

discussion because I think it’s important to put the facts on the table.

I think it is important to make sure that accurate information is out

there. I also believe it’s important that the public has an opportunity

to have their say, and I’ll talk a little bit about that as

well.

I want to start off with a plan for recovery for the economy in

British Columbia. I think the most important statement…. The Premier has

said this. I have said this. Certainly, Dr. Bonnie Henry and Minister

Dix have said this. Our very best economic recovery plan is to make sure

that we’re following the health orders, because one of the key areas to

deal with economic recovery is consumer confidence and the public’s

confidence.

[2:55 p.m.]

People can open all the businesses in the world, and if the public

doesn’t feel confident in going back into those businesses because they

don’t feel that safety guidelines are being followed, then we won’t see

economic recovery. Business is in partnership with us around talking

about this issue about building confidence, making sure we follow the

orders. That’s why you see in our restart plan a very measured, careful

approach to build that confidence in British Columbia, and that’s

critical.

Let’s talk a little bit about the supports that are out there:

$1.8 billion support for people and businesses, direct support to make

sure that people have the support that they need; $1.7 billion, supports

for critical services to make sure, again, that we have those quality

services that people rely on; and then, yes — $1.5 billion put aside for

economic recovery.

I think the Premier has said it best. We will never, on this side,

apologize for listening to the public and giving them voice. In fact, I

think that’s been obvious why there is a difference between the two

sides during this discussion and debate at second reading. We do believe

in respecting the public’s voice, respecting the voices of business,

respecting the voices of not-for-profit, respecting the voices of labour

and respecting the voices of Indigenous leaders in this province. We

will continue to do that.

We’re coming out of COVID because we pulled together, because

people work together, and we have that same opportunity with economic

recovery. So the work continues. The benefits and supports continue on.

But yes, there will be additional dollars that will be based on the

values that matter to British Columbians — values like protecting our

environment, doing our part on climate action, reconciliation with

Indigenous people, equality and equity and making sure we address those

pieces. Those matter to us as a government, they matter to the people of

British Columbia, and they will be part of the economic recovery that

we’re looking at.

There was a lot of discussion about information, what information

is out there. Again, I have said this often, and I’ll say it again to

the members. Two and a half months into the fiscal year we will be

bringing forward — some chose to ignore it, but some members have

mentioned it — an economic update on July 14 that will include the

variety of indicators that are used always to look at the economy,

everything from retail sales to exports, imports, natural resource

dollars coming in, corporate taxes, personal taxes, employment numbers

and housing.

Many of those, as the members will know well, are always a month

and sometimes, in fact, two months behind. So it’s important to make

sure we have a couple of months into the fiscal year to bring forward a

variety of scenarios or to bring forward the scenario in place, subject

to change, recognizing that we’re just in the restart process. That

information will come forward, as I said, on July 14.

A number of members spoke about the $5 billion and being

accountable for the $5 billion. I appreciate the fact that the

Legislature came together across party lines to be able to put those

dollars in place so that we could support the public and businesses in

British Columbia. As I said that day when those dollars passed, we are

accountable for every dollar of that $5 billion. The members know that.

They know they have an opportunity here, in estimates, during this

session to debate those dollars.

Each of the ministers who have individual programs will be

responsible. I will be responsible for talking about the dollars and how

they were divided into ministries. So the public does have their

accountability and their opportunity for accountability through this

session. That’s part of the reason that we’re here — to make sure that

we’re held accountable. Those dollars, as I said, are continuing to flow

when it comes to support.

There were a number of people who talked about surpluses and how

important surpluses were. The former Finance Minister from the past

government talked about the fact that surpluses for surpluses’ sake were

a good thing. Well, in fact, we saw and British Columbians, for 16

years, lived through what happened when we had a government that thought

surpluses for surpluses’ sake were important. The highest child poverty

rate in the country right here in British Columbia. Doubling of tuition

fees, doubling of MSP premiums. The challenges of people with diverse

abilities who had a bus pass taken away. We saw huge speculation in the

real estate market. We saw money laundering occurring in this

province.

[3:00 p.m.]

That’s what happened when a government thought surpluses for

surpluses’ sake were important. The people of this province struggled,

and that’s why we’ve put key investments into our budgets over the last

three years to be able to address that.

I heard one of the members say that the budget that was tabled in

February didn’t matter. Well, in fact, that budget will be what each of

the members in this Legislature is accountable for as ministers. The

spending continues in important values that we put forward, that we

believe are British Columbians’ values. That, again, is making sure

we’re investing in things like climate action, CleanBC, child care and

the critical nature of child care as an economic tool.

The member has talked about doing nothing for the economy. In

fact, child care and housing are two critical pieces that are necessary

for a healthy economy. Those are investments that are in this budget

that we’re talking about in the Legislature.

The B.C. child opportunity benefit coming in the fall. The

opportunity for a B.C. access grant for post-secondary students. Again,

those will be critical and will help us as we look at economic recovery.

They will be critical to getting people back into the workforce, getting

people the kind of training that they need.

Over $20 billion in capital spending. Again, an investment we made

before COVID that will help us and make sure we’re on a strong economic

footing. It has been pointed out by international rating agencies and

others that B.C. is very well positioned because of the investments that

we put in there, because of the fiscal responsibility that was in

place.

Taxes. I just want to mention for a moment…. A number of members

mentioned the e-taxes that are in this bill. I think the members need to

go back and take a look at the legislation that they brought in, in the

past government. In fact, e-taxes were already in place. They just

weren’t enforced. The government already put the PST in place to be able

to be collected. That was already part of their past legislation. They

just hadn’t enforced it. So I think, again, a little bit of listening

might be helpful as we’re going through this process.

I look forward to the discussion in committee stage. I look

forward to, as I said, the accountability that will be there, through

estimates, for the $5 billion. I look forward to bringing…. Perhaps

looking forward isn’t the right word, when we look at the challenges

we’re going to face in the economic statement coming forward in July,

but making sure that that information is there, because it is going to

take all of us pulling together to be able to address the economic

challenges that we face ahead.

With that, I move second reading of Bill 4, the Budget Measures

Implementation Act, 2020.

Deputy Speaker: I am hearing “division” now. We’ll defer, under sessional order,

consideration of that division to later on this afternoon here

today.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call second reading of Bill 6, Mines Amendment Act.

Deputy Speaker: I call now on the member for Kootenay East to speak to this Bill

6, Mines Act.

My apologies. I thought the House Leader was kicking this

off.

Please invite the minister to speak to this.

BILL 6 — MINES AMENDMENT ACT, 2020

Hon. B. Ralston: I’m pleased to be able to introduce second reading and speak to

it. I know my colleague will follow me, and I’m looking forward to his

comments. Thank you very much.

The Mines Amendment Act, Bill 6, contains amendments that will

build on the government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen mining

regulation in British Columbia. These amendments will accomplish three

things.

[3:05 p.m.]

First, they will establish a chief permitting officer, a position

distinct from the chief inspector of mines, which will ensure the mine

permitting process is efficient and effective. Responsibility for

health, safety and its enforcement will continue to rest with the chief

inspector of mines. Those two functions will be divided, and that’s the

purpose for creating that new position.

This separation of roles and functions in the ministry allows for

a more dedicated focus on permitting and competitiveness without

compromising worker health and safety and the ability to hold the

industry accountable. The separation of the permitting process from the

enforcement side of the ministry also aligns the ministry with other

regulators in British Columbia and best practice across

Canada.

Secondly, building on recent improvements and results delivered by

the ministry, these changes will further strengthen the government’s

ability to hold mines accountable. These amendments will clarify offence

provisions and increase the limitation period from three years to five

years in both the Mines Act and the Environmental Management

Act.

These changes will ensure the government has enough time to

undertake complex investigations if they are warranted. The amendments

will also strengthen the ministry’s authority to conduct an

investigation, respond to environmental issues and ensure that mining

companies meet both their environmental and regulatory

obligations.

Thirdly, these amendments will formalize the creation of the

ministry’s Mine Audits and Effectiveness Unit. That unit will ensure

that mining regulation in British Columbia remains effective and aligned

with global best practice. These amendments will bring into law the

position of chief auditor, who will lead the audit unit independently of

the ministry’s other regulatory functions. The chief auditor will report

publicly on each audit and make recommendations for

improvements.

Those are the comments I have on the bill.

I move second reading.

Deputy Speaker: Now we’re going to enter into debate.

I invite the member for Kootenay East to speak to this.

T. Shypitka: It’s great to be here virtually from the heart of the Kootenays

and the southeast corner of the province.

Before I get into Bill 6, the Mines Amendment Act, 2020, and

because this is my first time speaking since returning to the

Legislature, I’d like to recognize the sacrifices we’ve all made during

this unprecedented pandemic.

I first want to offer my sympathies to those families and friends

who have lost loved ones. I also want to congratulate all British

Columbians for doing their

part in flattening the curve and adhering to

our provincial health orders. We’ve all been very successful.

Finally, a recognition to all those businesses that are having a

very difficult time right now and trying to hang on. Where I live, our

tourism industry is hit especially hard. I want to give a big shout-out

to our fishing guides, guide-outfitters, hoteliers, restaurateurs,

coffee shops, pubs, gift shops, houseboat operators — the list goes on —

and anyone else in the tourism towns of Fernie, Sparwood, Elkford and

the entire south country. My heart is with you. We need to be kind to

any visitors right now and be respectful of their own unique

situations.

Another industry that is suffering, as well, is junior exploration

companies, placer miners and operating mines.

As the minister knows, mining is one of the most important and

storied industries we have here in B.C. For close to 150 years, mining

has been the cornerstone of our economy, employing thousands and giving

us billions in revenue in order to be spent on the things we need, such

as education, infrastructure and health care.

[3:10 p.m.]

B.C. is very fortunate to have a bounty of natural resources that

many countries and jurisdictions could only dream of. Our metals and

minerals cover every corner of the province and give great opportunity

to the small placer miner all the way through to the large multinational

company competing on a world stage.

These metals and minerals are key in transitioning to a newer

economy. Our metallurgical coal mines produce some of the world’s

highest-grade steel for surgical tools, electric vehicles and wind

turbines. Copper, gold, moly, silver and many other metals make up solar

panels, electric wiring for computers and other uses in artificial

intelligence and high technology. As a matter of fact, it is the

high-tech sector that benefits from industries such as mining. Software

and artificial intelligence are developed for uses in making mines more

effective with less impact on our environment.

In order to benefit from this gift of nature, we as a province

must face fierce competition across the globe. One thing that has set

B.C. apart from almost all other jurisdictions is in the way we conduct

business. B.C. has been identified internationally as a safe and

reputable jurisdiction. We have high standards, a human rights record,

top environmental standards and a major focus on worker safety, with

great relationships with our unionized and non-unionized

employers.

If some people knew of the atrocities of hard child labour and

environmental damage that some jurisdictions put on their landscape,

they would hold their hands up high to what we accomplish already here

in British Columbia. You can do your mining in the Congo or the South

Sudan and watch how workers without ventilation — many of them children

— navigate their way down a rabbit hole mine shaft with little to no

engineering. Or you can place yourself in B.C., with the best standards

anywhere.

We need to be competitive, or we lose to those jurisdictions that

have horrifying practices. In the three years that I have been critic

for Energy and Mines, I’ve learned a lot about this valuable industry,

and I have been honoured to meet the folks that make this industry as

valuable as it is.

A miner is a unique person. You can spot them a mile away, for all

of the right reasons. They are weather-worn, hands of leather,

hard-working risk-takers with a twinkle in their eye on the prospects of

a good prospect. The big find, the hidden treasure — that’s what they’re

looking for. But above all, they are tenacious. In fact, it is their

tenacity that really sets them apart from any other.

At any given time, this industry faces many barriers to business —

global demand, commodity prices, interest rates, currency fluctuations,

access issues, intense public scrutiny, protest demonstrations, social

media attacks, geographical and geological challenges and many other

things that are really out of their control. What is in our control is

to help us to compete globally as our fiscal policy here in

B.C.

The carbon tax, employer health tax, fuel tax — the list is

endless — are hindering our competitiveness, according to the Ernst and

Young report that was delivered to the Mining Jobs Task Force over a

year ago. As a matter of fact, the number one hindrance to our

competitiveness globally was our tax structure here in B.C. and, more

directly, the ever-increasing carbon tax.

That said, what is perhaps the biggest obstacle for our mining

industry are red tape and bureaucracy that bog things down. All that

industry wants are clarity and certainty in order to be competitive. The

amendment to the Mines Act that is in front of us now could severely

challenge that.

The minister led off his first reading statement yesterday

highlighting the terrible accident at Mount Polley. I am very well aware

of the terrible accident that occurred from the tailings breach in 2014.

We are constantly reminded with the same pictures over and over, and we

never want to see another incident like this ever to happen again. I’m

happy to report, however, that the reclamation efforts done thus far

have been very successful.

Polley and Quesnel lakes, along with Hazelton Creek, have been

restored to see aquatic and riparian areas being productive once again.

Frogs, fish, wildlife and vegetation are bouncing back in great numbers.

I would like to thank the teams of biologists and the workers that have

made this possible. It’s truly amazing. Over $100 million has been

spent, spent wisely, and it definitely shows.

The minister alludes to or has us believe that this legislation

will prevent other accidents like Mount Polley in the future or that

Mount Polley would have been avoided altogether if legislation like this

was in place when the former government was in office.

[3:15 p.m.]

This is something I would like the minister to explain to us, and

perhaps he will get his chance in committee stage. If this is in fact

the case, I will be totally in support of this bill, because we need to

prevent the preventable. However, I suspect that will not be what we

hear.

As a matter of fact, it was an expert panel that determined that

the dam failure happened because when the dam was designed and

originally built, there were insufficient test holes drilled to find the

unstable clay that eventually, in 2014, caused the dam to fail. Who was

the regulator in charge of this mine and its design? What government

signed off on the design of the Mount Polley tailings dam? It is the

same government that is putting forward this legislation in front of us

today.

After the Mount Polley incident, the Auditor General came out with

a report. I believe there were 16 recommendations to which the former

government responded — all except one, and that was to remove the

compliance and enforcement out of the ministry. Our current government

has not acted on that recommendation, as well, for good reason. That is

because there is no jurisdiction in the world that I know of that

removes compliance and enforcement out of the ministry that permits

those same projects. So in actuality, this government has done nothing

to further advance the Auditor General’s recommendations laid out in

Remember, Mr. Speaker, this is the government that brought us the

über-regulator of engineering. I hope that the minister has considered

the day when (1) the NDP’s chief mine inspector; (2) the NDP’s mine

permitting officer; (3) the NDP’s chief mine auditor; and (4) the

representative of the office of the superintendent of professional

governance, who is responsible for the competence of our engineers and

geoscientists, otherwise called…. The engineers call them the

über-regulator. All four of them show up at a minesite simultaneously

and declare that they are from the government and want to ensure that a

planned tailings dam does not collapse 30 years from now.

Is this going to stop an NDP government from issuing a permit for

a flawed tailings pond project design, as the NDP government actually

did at Mount Polley some 30 years ago? I doubt it. But perhaps the

minister would launch a forensic audit of how the NDP government of the

day allowed that flawed design at Mount Polley to proceed and maybe

bring criminal negligence charges against the guilty NDP government

official or NDP minister involved so that justice can be finally

achieved.

What does this amendment attempt to do? First, it establishes an

audit unit and chief auditor for mining. The chief auditor’s authority

extends to the regulatory framework for mining in British Columbia and

the policies, programs, practices and actions to fulfil the objectives

of that framework. Also, the audit unit is independent from permitting,

compliance and enforcement divisions. The chief auditor may issue orders

for immediate remedial action, work stoppages, mine closures. It

formalizes the creation of the mine audits and effectiveness unit led by

the chief auditor. It creates and separates the role of chief permitting

officer from the chief inspector of mines.

Transitional provisions are established to amend the mining code

to assign chief inspector powers to the chief permitting officer. It

adds new enforcement powers for the chief inspector and his or her

delegates and broadens the scope of orders to have mine owners produce

independent engineering reports regarding incidents — we will discover

what that means in committee stage, I’m sure — at their own

expense.

It expands the compliance provisions under

section 24 of the act,

and it adds a couple offences. It all sounds very complicating and

rigorous, and it is. This amendment shores up the separation of

compliance, safety and enforcement from the permitting and

authorizations within the ministry, and I could go along with that.

However, what is glaringly missing is what this legislation will do for

permitting and enabling mining to move quicker with more clarity and

certainty.

What I’m afraid of what this amendment will do is fatten up the

layers of bureaucracy and challenge certainty and clarity. For all that

this amendment does. it’s what it doesn’t do that’s more revealing.

There appears to be no economic or competitiveness component in the

audit unit’s mandate.

[3:20 p.m.]

It is amazing that the government will claim this is somehow going

to have a positive impact on permitting. It has absolutely nothing to do

with permitting except it creates a new title, chief of permitting. We

already have a chief of permitting. The position is known as chief

inspector, and this setup has worked for over 100 years.

B.C. is being held up as a stellar mining jurisdiction all over

the world. This is the creation of a brand-new layer of bureaucracy to

add on top of the already complex bureaucracy. It creates a permitting

chief, along with an auditor chief, on top of the already existing chief

inspector.

Meanwhile, you have constituents trying to eke out a living in the

mineral exploration business who are already heavily scrutinized when

they apply for a simple permit to drill a hole in a dry rock. What do

these hard-working folks get out of this new legislation? Hopefully not

a lot of new bureaucracy and some new titles. The $20 million in

resources that were allocated a couple of years ago to the ministry to

assist with permitting and fast-tracking applications has seemed to have

dried up and been diverted to more bureaucracy, regulation and bigger

government.

It seems bizarre that more efforts are being put forward to

enforcement and compliance when we haven’t seen a new mine coming to

operation in the province since the government took over three years

ago. The folks I talk to in the industry can’t see any new resources,

more people to work on permitting, nothing tangible to move permits

faster so that people can work, invest and pay taxes. I have talked to

several mine operators, and they tell me the investment dollars are

leaving the province due to the uncertainty and length of time it takes

to get anything done.

Although we need regulation to hold us all accountable, it is the

unnecessary regulation and legislation that needs to be trimmed and not

fattened up, and I’m afraid that this amendment will do just that. As we

enter phase 3 of economic recovery, now is the time to be less

burdensome with bureaucracy and to leap ahead of our competitors with a

smooth, seamless process that values our high environmental, health and

safety standards.

In short, we support increasing safety in B.C. mines. Absolutely.

However, we are increasingly concerned that while the economy is in such

dire straits, the NDP continue to be focused on red tape, increased

bureaucracy and regulation instead of helping industry thrive. For

example, there are significant new powers contemplated through the

creation of the chief auditor for mining. The chief auditor may issue

orders for remedial actions, work stoppages and mine closures. We’ll

have questions about how these powers are used by an independent office

in the committee stage.

The money spent on separating compliance and enforce­ment

and two separate divisions is supposed to help to foster new mines and

exploration. We have not seen this. Instead, we haven’t seen any

improvements to permitting. In fact, we continue to hear complaints of

delays and inadequacies at front counter. Permits that traditionally

took two to three months now take eight months or longer. Some

exploration companies are losing entire seasons.

We need our mining industry to remain competitive if we are going

to foster recovery and jobs and play a role in building clean energy

technologies for now and into the future. We will be asking key

questions at committee stage to ensure these changes are nimble and

don’t add unnecessary red tape for one of B.C.’s vital

industries.

I think a key quote came from the president of the Mining

Association of British Columbia. That was a quote from last February,

during budget. The quote was: “The mining industry is at a crossroads in

B.C., and we are hoping to see a solution in this budget.” I think those

comments are especially true now, as we try to recover from the COVID-19

pandemic, and I hope for all our sakes that government is listening and

all British Columbians can come out of the other side of this crisis

stronger and more united than before.

To keep it short, for the love of our most-important industry —

coming from a very biased mining critic, mind you — I cannot support

further bureaucracy that will most definitely jeopardize the benefits

that come from this tenacious industry. After all, we’re all in this

together, and in British Columbia, it’s both yours and mine. Yeah, a

little pun at the end.

R. Coleman: Thank you for the time this afternoon to speak about this

particular bill, which brings in an audit function, a separate entity

within Mining.

[3:25 p.m.]

I want to talk about mining to begin with for a little bit, then

how we got here, and then how maybe there are questions about how

effective this will or will not be as we go through that to see how this

will have an impact in the future.

The B.C. mining industry has been pretty foundational to the

fundamentals of British Columbia for a long time and a pretty key

component of our economy. Some people would refer to it as a sunset

industry; some actually call it the old economy. I would tell folks who

would say that that they’re terribly misinformed.

If any one of you hold one of these — or have one of these, or an

iPad or a computer — in this House, it does not function without mining.

It is impossible because the components and the minerals that are in

your phone are required to make that phone function. In British

Columbia, we have copper, we have gold, we have coal, and we have a

number of other elements in our mining sector.

I’ve had the honour of being in almost every mine in British

Columbia, whether it be the Highland Valley Copper open-pit mine, one of

the underground mines that I have been in, even the one up north of

Campbell River that was on the edge of Strathcona Park. I’ve also had

the opportunity to be in all kinds of other mines in B.C.

Every time I go see an industrial complex of any kind — whether it

be mining, forestry or anything else — I’m always amazed at the

innovation, the technology, the research and what goes into actually

being successful at finding a mine, bringing it to market and then

making the product come out in such a way that you can use

it.

It’s been a pretty important part of B.C.’s history. Today close

to 40,000 people in British Columbia rely on this sector for their

livelihood. They’re some of the highest-paid family supporting jobs in

British Columbia, very important to families, in small communities and

large, and significantly important for revenue-sharing, jobs and

training for a number of our First Nations communities who do

revenue-share and have agreements with mining companies with regard to

training and opportunities.

I have to say that I’m proud to say that our mining sector is

actually part of the transition to a cleaner economy. Electric vehicles

require mining. Alternative energy sources, like solar and wind, all

need mined minerals to build. So although you look at the raw side, the

small footprint of a mine on the environment and on the landscape, the

reality is that it has a huge impact on the landscape of the world.

Without it, a lot of the things we enjoy we wouldn’t have. That even

includes things like clothing, draperies and blinds in a house. All of

these things come out of products that are mined in British Columbia and

other areas.

We’re now known, and have been known for a long time, as basically

the centre, globally, for mineral exploration. When I say that, it’s not

just exploration in British Columbia. There are more than 700 mining and

mineral firms that are based in Vancouver alone, and they explore and

look for mines and work in countries all over the world. Approximately

one-third of B.C.-based businesses that supply materials and goods and

services to the mining industry are located in 20 urban municipalities

in Metro Vancouver.

Mining is a big deal in my community. The Knelson separator was

developed by a gentleman, Mr. Knelson, many years ago. He was a

contractor. He thought that with liquid moving and spinning, you could

separate the other minerals out of a copper mine — like gold,

particularly, and others — by having it be able to be a circular

pattern. Today those are sold worldwide. He started by drilling the

little holes by hand in the first one, and today those and others that

are also built in my riding actually go into mining all over the

world.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

The amount of money by which this affects the economy is around $1

billion. We have an opportunity, as we come out of this pandemic,

following this, to be able to make sure that mining is part of our

diversified economy. And we should build a diversified economy as we

come out of the pandemic, not forgetting where our basis and

fundamentals were, but looking at what other opportunities there are

with our industries that could complement, other resources that could be

valued, or other things that could come out of the resource in the

future.

[3:30 p.m.]

A major part of our winning formula, for a long time in B.C., has

been this industry. It started with the gold rush over 100 years ago.

Shortly I will take two of my grandchildren to Barkerville to see that

national historic town. I have an opportunity to give them a little bit

of the history of British Columbia.

One reason we’re a global centre is because our province is rich

in high-quality mineral exploration. We have high-quality education —

people in engineering, geoscience and what have you. We actually make

sure that we have invested in that expertise, in that scientific

expertise to share globally so people can enjoy this industry

elsewhere.

B.C. is actually Canada’s largest producer of copper, the largest

exporter of metallurgical coal and is the only producer of molybdenum,

all of them key projects. All of those are key minerals for everything

from steel to, actually, your cellphone, which that would have the

copper and molybdenum in it, and other products that are in everything

you do every day.

It’s a well-earned reputation we have on a global scale. It is a

stable place to do business, with the highest environmental standards in

the world. B.C. is strategically located, as everybody knows, with the

Pacific Gateway so that we can actually get the resources and the things

to market. That makes us extremely competitive.

Mining, as we all know, is affected by something that really is

the toughest part of the industry itself, and that is fluctuating

commodity prices, which always pose a challenge to an industry where

it’s very, very expensive to invest and build a mine. But it is a

cyclical business which requires people, with investment globally and

internationally and inside B.C., to take the risk and build the mine and

the business and then be able to weather the markets. Copper could be

down for two years, and it could come back for three. Mines can be in

the position of closing because of world markets and then could actually

be wanting to expand because of the change in them. That’s something

that is difficult.

I must say, for British Columbia, our industry actually is pretty

nimble, as far as being able to adapt and change and be able to deal

with stuff going forward. In the past few years, gross revenues from

B.C.’s mining industry rose from $7.7 billion to $8.7 billion in

In our province, metallurgical coal, as we all know, commands the

lion’s share of B.C. mining revenues at about 40 percent. That is

followed by copper at 25 percent; zinc at 12 percent; gold at 9 percent;

silver at 8 percent; lead at 5 percent; and molybdenum, which is

considered a pretty significant mineral, at 1 percent.

That means it contributes not just to the well-being of the people

in the world, with regards to the cell phone and any other things that

they may use, but it also contributes to the well-being of British

Columbians, not just from the fact that the mines are here and the

minerals are here, but for the contribution of the taxes paid by the

mines, and the royalties, to help pay for education and health care in

our province. It’s also to support families and communities across

British Columbia, not just where the mine is but all across B.C., as

technology goes up and jobs are created around them. This is important

because in 2016, the last time I had numbers for, mining contributed

about $650 million to the province of British Columbia’s dollars to

operate on.

There are 10,000 British Columbia families that work directly in

the mining industry, as I said, 40,000 indirect and direct jobs. And

really, in the other studies that we’ve seen about the Canadian Mining

Association equipment — because the technology we build here is

exportable — and services, we found that for every direct mining

position at a minesite, at least two indirect jobs are supported outside

the mine.

Currently more than 1,100 businesses in B.C. provide supplies or

services to mining operations in the province, which is pretty

significant. The minister is from Surrey and I’m from Langley, and we

know we have the Port Kells area that covers the border of our

communities. There are a number of those companies that actually do

those things and build those things for the mining industry and

manufacture and hire people within our communities. In other words, it’s

an important industry to Langley East and to Surrey but also to the rest

of the province.

[3:35 p.m.]

Now, there’s a reason we’re here today. It’s a sad reason in many

ways, because on August 4, 2014, there was a breach at the Mount Polley

dam, the Mount Polley mine, of the tailings pond site. As the result of

that, there was, first of all, this emotional feeling of: “My goodness.

Is everybody okay?” When you saw the pictures and you saw the flow of

the water down into the lake, you wondered: “What’s the environmental

impact? What is this? What caused it? Do we know? How could we know?

Should we have known?”

At that time…. When something like that happens, the first thing

that happens, and it would happen whether it was this opposition — or

the government that is now the former opposition — or back, dare I say,

even to the days when I was opposition before…. The first thing that

happens is that political opportunities are seized upon, usually showing

up with lots of emotion in question period, where the criticism of the

government isn’t your fault: “You should have done something, you should

have known better, and what are you going to do about it?”

I have seen people field those questions, and I’ve actually asked

those questions over the years, depending on whatever thing took place.

But the reality was that we had a lot to learn coming out of the breach

in 2014. When you were in opposition in the ’90s, you’d be saying,

“Well, actually, you guys permitted that mine when you were government,”

or now you were government, and it happened under your watch. It is

really the least productive piece of the discussion in and around the

Mount Polley mine situation and what it has led to today. The fact of

the matter is that out of things like this often comes some

good.

The first thing that happened was the minister — Minister Bennett

at the time, who is no longer here in the House…. He was very much

emotionally affected in the initial phase of the Mount Polley mine.

First of all, he was the minister responsible, so it was landing on his

desk — plus the Minister of Environment. He’s an outdoorsman. He really

does like the outdoors. He has, for many years, been an avid person that

fishes. He knew…. For him, it was: “My goodness. We’ve got to figure out

what happened here.” And he immediately, as quickly as possible, got up

into the area and into the community of Likely and to the First Nations

and started to talk to them about this particular incident.

It wasn’t for the purpose of dumbing it down. It was for the

purpose of trying to learn but also to allay the fears of the community

and start to understand what had happened at Mount Polley and what would

come out of it. So out of that came an independent expert engineering

investigation, a review panel report. The chief inspector of mines did

an investigation, and the conservation officer service also did an

investigation. The CIM found, as did the panel, that the dam failed

because the strength and location of the layer of clay underneath the

dam was not taken into account in the design of the subsequent dam

raises.

That’s an important statement around this, because if it was

designed one way…. Maybe you didn’t drill down with your bore holes far

enough to see where it was under the clay of the dam and the tailing

pond. But the reality was that the tailing pond and dam were raised,

based on an original engineering report, but obviously the increased

water and packing in the dam had an underlying, under-surface effect on

the geotechnical side of this particular thing.

Then there was, obviously — assisted by Environment Canada and the

Department of Fisheries and Oceans — the environmental issue, and the

RCMP also took a look at the file. The government of the day accepted 26

recommendations of the panel. To date, 22 of the 26 recommendations made

have been addressed, and I believe it’s now 25 out of 26. This

legislation, I believe, is to try and meet the needs of one of the

recommendations, which is the most complex one to do relative to what’s

come out of the Mount Polley dam.

Out of that came, of course, some code reviews, significant

updates to the tailing storage facility requirements, from the aspect of

health, safety, reclamation code for mines in British Columbia. After

those updates to the code and those things, international engineering

geoscience environmental consulting firms were also taking in…. Klohn

Crippen Berger completed a third-party comparison of mining legislation

and guidelines in British Columbia, Montana and Alaska, finding B.C.’s

requirements to be equal to or better than those in Montana or

Alaska.

[3:40 p.m.]

Now, that was good news from the standpoint that we have

standards, but we still had a failure. That meant we needed to continue

to follow on the recommendations to enforce things even better — to make

them better, not worse.

The changes to the health and safety portion of the code came into

force in February 2017. With these updates, British Columbians can have

the confidence that B.C. standards are good and world-class.

With all of these and other things that were implemented the

previous two years and then going into 2017 and continuing into this

government, I think that a lot of things in compliance and enforcement

for mining today are way more robust and transparent than ever before.

That’s because you need to learn from your mistakes. You learn from

things that can happen with regard to it. I think the earth is always

changing geotechnically, which consideredly means that our engineering

firms and others need to look at these things to learn from

them.

On January 30, 2015, the panel delivered its final report on its

investigation. That report included 35,000 pages of documentation

related to the panel’s investigation. Of course, the minister of the day

and the Minister of Environment of the day were charged with making sure

that those things were put into place.

While the breach may not have occurred had it not been undetected

by geo and clustering layers of soil, as they call it, the consequences

of the breach were made worse by other factors. Those factors were the

expansion and the raising of that particular tailings pond, and that

mine failed to basically understand, perhaps, what those things

were.

That takes us through to a period of time where a number of the

recommendations — I won’t go into all of them, because they’re extensive

— have been implemented by successive governments, whether it be to

improve corporate governance or implement the best technologies using a

phased approach for existing tailing impoundments, for new tailings

facilities and for closure of the ones that existed and are no longer

being used — hence, the validation of safety regulations for all classes

of those types of things.

It was also to implement things about mine and dam safety

management, water balance management and mine emergency response plans

so that they were updated in case they were weak at any point in time at

any mine. An independent technical review board was put into place.

Professional reliance was upgraded. All of these things took place in

the period of time that was subsequent to Mount Polley.

Would those things, as a normal regulatory review process, have

been accomplished? Some. But when you have a failure, you have a

tendency to go look and do an entire scan of what you have out there for

regulation and compliance. Actually, out of that comes, obviously, the

fact that we’re here today.

The government is bringing in a piece of legislation that we will

debate. I admit I read the legislation initially, and I thought okay,

when I saw it yesterday. Then I started to have some questions with

regard to it, which isn’t unusual for anybody that reads a piece of

legislation. I’m sure as the legislation was developed — having been a

minister, I would know — the minister probably had questions about the

effectiveness and whether this is the right way to go or whatever. He

will have that opportunity when we get to committee stage of this

particular bill, so we can talk about it in more detail.

I must admit, to the policy of watching Mount Polley, the one

thing I was struck with the most was the compassion of the ministers and

the compassion of the MLA for Cariboo North, who still sits in this

House, for their community, trying to make it stronger, to actually be

there for them, to deal with the First Nations. It has led to a letter

of agreement between the First Nations and the province of B.C. with

regard to when to reopen. The environmental piece with the First Nations

will be part of the environmental management of the mining in the

future, and inspections.

All of those things come together in order for us to be able to be

here today and continue to improve on an industry that’s been

substantially important to British Columbia.

Now, as we go into this, we actually are setting up a separate

entity within the ministry. I think one of the early recommendations

with that would be separate from the ministry. But obviously, if it’s a

separate statutory authority within the ministry, that’s more of an

argument about semantics than it is anything else.

[3:45 p.m.]

The question will be: how does this new entity interact with the

ability of a mine to actually find a core sample, do its environmental

assessment — which, in British Columbia, will take you two to three

years at a minimum — be able to finance the mine because you now have a

sample that you can actually get to where you can get to a permitting

place and provide this certainty so that these jobs can be created in

the future successfully and seamlessly for the province and the people

of British Columbia? It’s a big question.

The other challenge is that if you’ve ever been the minister of

any resource ministry, the one thing you find early on in almost every

ministry in government is that there are what we call statutory

decision-makers. So we have the chief of mines, who has a statutory

authority. Then they have mines inspectors or approval officers who have

their own statutory authority — and not to be, frankly, questioned by a

minister, influenced by a minister or the public. They are independent,

and they have the ability to do their job independently because they’re

a statutory officer.

As we go into a new auditor for the Ministry of Mines — this whole

section, which will have people employed in it — a number of questions

come to mind. The first one: will the audit include the ability for the

auditor to look at the job being done by a statutory approving officer

for a mine, whether they, in fact, have influenced that in any way or

whether they have a personal bias as to what should be allowed on the

land base outside their statutory powers? One surface mine I came across

recently was where the approving officer also had a hobby, an interest,

that conflicted with the very land they were trying to approve a mine

on, and he made his decision.

Now, that I will discuss at some point with the Minister and the

new Deputy Minister of Mines, because it’s something that needs to be

discussed. But having said that, does the auditor have the ability to

look at the performance of people that are actually approving mines

because they’re working within the same industry in another statutory

authority?

The other piece that struck me about this, though, was this. It’s

going to be a big question. This auditor has the ability to go on any

individual minesite in B.C., can walk on the site and do an inspection,

hire all the experts that he or she requires to conduct that inspection

or any geotechnical work, expertise, anything — whether it be a

hydrologist or whether it be somebody that’s an engineering person with

regards to geotechnical or structural issues. Some of the mining stuff

is built, particularly in the shafts, and things are structurally

engineered. So has the ability to go and hire those people to actually

do that review.

The biggest question about that will be for the minister, as we go

into committee stage. Can those same experts still work in other aspects

of the mining industry? It’s not like there are a whole bunch of

geoscientists out there — special engineers, geotechnical people that

would understand a mine or a dam — in addition to what’s already out

there today.

If I was, for instance, one of those experts and I did work for

the auditor, does that exclude my ability from there on to do any other

work with government in the Ministry of Mines? I would be conflicted out

— would I not? — if I’ve done work for one statutory authority on one

site, and I go do similar work for a client, being the Ministry of

Mines, on the other site. That’s a big question. Where are you going to

get the people if you want to do this job right?

Then, by extension, ask yourself the third question. If an

engineer that worked on, let’s say, the Red Chris mine in northeastern

British Columbia and had helped build that mine was asked by this

auditor to go check out a mine in southeastern British Columbia on an

audit with them, because they had worked in the private sector with that

expertise, would they be conflicted out for working for this new entity

as an auditor in another mining operation in British Columbia? Would

there be presumed to be any conflicts of interest with regards to that?

It’s a big question.

[3:50 p.m.]

I don’t know if you know much about mining, but I do know this.

The holdings and ownership of mines are often diverse, and they’re often

public companies. The holders of those stocks that might own that

company, who are actually building a mine and funding it, have experts

that are working for them. They can also be holders by institution. The

stock can actually be held by institutional investors. For instance, in

B.C., the provincial pension fund actually has resource investments in

mining and other resources around the world to protect the pensions of

the public service in B.C.

When you go to work for a company, are you excluded from doing

work from either one of these entities? If you go to work for the one

entity, are you excluded from doing work somewhere else in B.C. for the

other entity, which is, let’s say, the Ministry of Mines, versus the

auditing function within mining?

That is a big question, because the effectiveness of this is to be

that we basically appoint someone in the public service to be the chief

auditor of mining. That individual then has a mandate. And this is the

mandate: to determine the effectiveness of the regulatory system for

mining and protecting workers, the public and the environment. The chief

auditor’s authority will extend to the regulatory framework for

mining.

Input on the regulatory framework would come from this other

entity, this statutory decision-maker — with regards to the regulatory

framework for mining in B.C. — to the bureaucrat that is actually

writing the regulation, who is now…. Write the regulation and be

approved by orders-in-council. But then it can also be taken by another

authority and changed — and change the framework.

It is independent, which is important for an auditor. To be

independent from permitting, compliance and enforcement divisions. So if

they’re independent, that’s fine. But for permitting and what have you,

as they go through to do an audit, if they come across something that

actually was not correct in their mind in permitting, compliance and

enforcement, where is their authority going back and forth across the

two streams?

There appears to be no economic competitiveness component in the

audit unit, except…. Some of the material I have seen from the Ministry

of Mines is that this is supposed to help streamline and improve and

speed up the ability to get a mine in B.C., because it’ll help

strengthen the public understanding and the permitting understanding of

mining. And there’s nothing wrong with that if these two can cohesively

work together and increasingly create jobs and economic development for

British Columbia in this very important sector. But those would be

questions.

The chief auditor may also issue orders. Now, the orders could be

for immediate and remedial action, which means by expertise. He’s hired

somebody to do a geotechnical review on a dam or a holding tailing pond

or the structure of a mine or road construction. I would assume that

anything to do with a mine, this auditor would be able to look at and

put in remedial action.

Nothing wrong with that as long as that remedial action isn’t

outside of the standards that have been established by the ministry as

to what the level of construction of that road or that tailing pond or

whatever has been approved by them with their expertise. And does the

expertise clash? That’s why it’s going to be important to understand

where the independence of that expertise is.

He can also issue orders for work stoppages, which any inspector,

even in building a house or a building, can actually put a stop-work

order for things that are for safety purposes and for mining

closures.

It also creates a unit of mines, audits and effectiveness. It’s

led by the auditor, and it follows the recommendations of the mineral

jobs task force, which is also, by the way, followed by the Ministry of

Mines with regard to how it operates on the land base. So there could be

some crossover.

Also this is, you know…. As these new enforcement powers come in

and his or her delegate upon these things have done, they may enter or

go below the surface of a mine to cause required work to be performed.

They’re going to need to have expertise to do that, because this

individual won’t know everything about the construction and the

operation of the mine. Then it expands compliance provisions under

section 24 of the act, which is basically to include reclamation in the

scope of the

section and also makes compliance requirements constant,

irrespective of the existence of orders from officers under the act. You

could have one statutory authority making one order, and another making

another.

[3:55 p.m.]

Lots of questions about the future of a very important industry in

our province, recognizing where this came from and how important it was

that we went through this process over this period of time to get things

right.

I look forward to debate in second reading with the

minister.

S. Furstenau: I’ve been listening with interest to the comments of my colleagues

from the official opposition and also to the minister’s opening comments

on this bill, Bill 6, the Mines Amendment Act.

I think I’m going to start with a story from 2016 about a quarry

in the area where I was the area director at the time, regional director

for the Cowichan Valley regional district in Shawnigan. There was a

quarry operator that local residents had been monitoring the activities

of at this site. They determined that this operator had been quarrying

for some time outside of his Mines-permitted area on his property. They

had drone footage of the site. They overlaid that on the permit

documents, and it was very clearly outside of the permitted area for

where he was allowed to be quarrying.

We approached the Ministry of Mines staff, and we set up a

meeting, and we went down to the meeting. The response from Ministry of

Mines at the time was: “Well, this can be solved. We will simply redraw

the permitted area, and then the operator is in compliance with his

permit.” We were a little bit gobsmacked at this — that the consequence

to an operator of a quarry for operating outside of his permitted area

was that the Ministry of Mines staff would simply redraw his permit and

make him retroactively in compliance, despite the fact that he had been

operating out of compliance.

This is not unlike the citizens who reach out to me regularly from

the area of Kingburn, also in Shawnigan Lake, where a landowner has been

essentially quarrying for nearly a decade without a mines permit. The

process is now underway to get this person a mines permit, despite the

fact that he has been operating without a permit for a great long time,

extracting materials from what is essentially a quarry.

Both of these stories illustrate something very important, and

this isn’t just limited to the Cowichan Valley regional district. I

actually have people reach out to me all over the province with stories

just like this. It speaks to that fundamental role that government, as

regulator, is meant to be playing, which is to regulate an industry, to

ensure that an industry is following the rules, just as we would expect

to be regulated in our day-to-day lives.

If we are speeding, or if we are operating a vehicle under the

influence of alcohol, we would absolutely anticipate that there would be

consequences for that, because we’ve broken the rules. Yet what seems to

be too much of a theme in the industry in this province is that rules

kind of apply, but really the solution is, if you’ve broken the rules,

we’re going to fix that for you.

That undermines public trust. It undermines public trust in

government as a regulating body, it undermines public trust in the

industry, and it causes citizens to question why it is that some

industries get to break the rules, get to flout the rules, yet I, as a

citizen, am expected to follow those rules. Both of the members from the

official opposition have cited the Mount Polley example, the worst

mining disaster in Canadian history. It was certainly very much a

wake-up for those of us in Shawnigan who were engaged in trying to

prevent a kind of disaster in our own community, to see how that played

out.

[4:00 p.m.]

Both of the members from the opposition have talked about how

unfortunate that situation was. But what’s interesting is that when they

were in government and the recommendations came out from the Auditor

General’s report on compliance and enforcement in the mining sector, the

main recommendation, recommendation No. 1 from that report from the

Auditor General was: “We recommend that the government of British

Columbia create an integrated and independent compliance and

enforce­ment unit for mining activities, with a mandate to ensure

the protection of the environment.”

Today’s bill goes a long ways towards achieving that. However, the

government’s response at the time — the former government — was that

government does not support the need for reorganization of the

ministries. Business as usual.

Another recommendation from the Auditor General’s report at the

time was to recognize the role that professional reliance and

overreliance on qualified professionals had played. Again, you know,

this was a very significant part of what motivated me to run for office.

I’m pleased that this government has brought in, as part of our

confidence and supply agreement, pretty significant changes in

professional reliance, including the superintendent of professional

governance.

Listening to the comments of the official opposition, it made me

think about the role of proper oversight and regulation of an industry.

What I was hearing from them was that this is somehow a diminishment of

that industry. But I would argue it actually isn’t. It’s a recognition

that there is an agreement between government as a regulator and as the

overseer of the public good, the public interest and the public resource

that industry has access to. So it’s not a diminishment to have proper

regulation and oversight of an industry. It’s a recognition that

government plays a very important, very specific role in that

oversight.

Members opposite also spoke about mining companies overseas and

how we can look at Canada and B.C.’s mining industry as exemplars of

good corporate activities. I had a couple of thoughts on that. One was

that I really have a challenge with the kind of arguments around: “This

sector is behaving very poorly in other countries. Therefore, we should

give more leeway in our country because we’re at least not