British Columbia Hansard — 28 October 2019, p.m., Issue 283 (41st Parliament, 4th Session)

20191028pm-Hansard-n283

British Columbia — Debates (Hansard)

Fourth Session, 41st Parliament OFFICIAL REPORT OF DEBATES (HANSARD) Monday, October 28, 2019 Afternoon Sitting Issue No. 283 THE HONOURABLE DARRYL PLECAS, SPEAKER ISSN 1499-2175

PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Entered Confederation July 20, 1871) LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR Her Honour the Honourable Janet Austin, OBC Fourth Session, 41st Parliament SPEAKER OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Honourable Darryl Plecas EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Premier and President of the Executive Council ............................................................................................................... Hon. John Horgan Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance ...........................................................................................................................Hon.

Carole James Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training..................................................................................................... Hon. Melanie Mark Minister of Agriculture.........................................................................................................................................................Hon. Lana Popham Attorney General.................................................................................................................................................................Hon.

David Eby, QC Minister of Children and Family Development ............................................................................................................ Hon. Katrine Conroy Minister of State for Child Care...................................................................................................................................... Hon. Katrina Chen Minister of Education ............................................................................................................................................................ Hon.

Rob Fleming Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources ...............................................................................................Hon. Michelle Mungall Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy............................................................................................. Hon. George Heyman Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development ..............................................Hon.

Doug Donaldson Minister of Health .....................................................................................................................................................................Hon. Adrian Dix Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation ......................................................................................................... Hon. Scott Fraser Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology............................................................................................................................ Hon.

Bruce Ralston Minister of State for Trade...............................................................................................................................................Hon. George Chow Minister of Labour ...................................................................................................................................................................Hon. Harry Bains Minister of Mental Health and Addictions............................................................................................................................ Hon.

Judy Darcy Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Minister of Citizens’ Services ...................................................... Hon. Selina Robinson Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General ........................................................................................................... Hon. Mike Farnworth Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction..............................................................................................Hon.

Shane Simpson Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture.....................................................................................................................................Hon. Lisa Beare Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure................................................................................................................ Hon.

Claire Trevena LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Leader of the Official Opposition................................................................................................................................Andrew Wilkinson, QC Leader of the Third Party ....................................................................................................................................................Dr. Andrew Weaver Deputy Speaker................................................................................................................................................................................

Raj Chouhan Assistant Deputy Speaker................................................................................................................................................................... Joan Isaacs Deputy Chair, Committee of the Whole ................................................................................................................ Spencer Chandra Herbert Acting Clerk of the Legislative Assembly...............................................................................................................................

Kate Ryan-Lloyd Clerk Assistant — Committees and Interparliamentary Relations ..........................................................................................Susan Sourial Sessional Law Clerk...............................................................................................................................................Loredana Catalli-Sonier, QC Parliamentary Counsel ...................................................................................................................................................................... S.

Suzie Seo Acting Sergeant-at-Arms..................................................................................................................................................................Greg Nelson

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF MEMBERS Ashton, Dan (BC Liberal) ........................................................................ Penticton Bains, Hon. Harry (NDP)...............................................................Surrey-Newton Barnett, Donna (BC Liberal) ................................................... Cariboo-Chilcotin Beare, Hon. Lisa (NDP).............................................Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows Begg, Garry (NDP) ..................................................................... Surrey-Guildford Bernier, Mike (BC Liberal) .......................................................

Peace River South Bond, Shirley (BC Liberal)......................................... Prince George–Valemount Brar, Jagrup (NDP)..................................................................... Surrey-Fleetwood Cadieux, Stephanie (BC Liberal)....................................................... Surrey South Chandra Herbert, Spencer (NDP) ..................................... Vancouver–West End Chen, Hon. Katrina (NDP).....................................................Burnaby-Lougheed Chouhan, Raj (NDP) ............................................................... Burnaby-Edmonds Chow, Hon.

George (NDP)............................................... Vancouver-Fraserview Clovechok, Doug (BC Liberal) ................................ Columbia River–Revelstoke Coleman, Rich (BC Liberal) ...............................................................Langley East Conroy, Hon. Katrine (NDP)......................................................... Kootenay West Darcy, Hon.

Judy (NDP) ............................................................New Westminster Davies, Dan (BC Liberal) ..........................................................Peace River North de Jong, Michael, QC (BC Liberal) ............................................ Abbotsford West Dean, Mitzi (NDP)...............................................................Esquimalt-Metchosin D’Eith, Bob (NDP) ...............................................................Maple Ridge–Mission Dix, Hon. Adrian (NDP)......................................................Vancouver-Kingsway Donaldson, Hon.

Doug (NDP).....................................................................Stikine Eby, Hon. David, QC (NDP)............................................. Vancouver–Point Grey Elmore, Mable (NDP)....................................................... Vancouver-Kensington Farnworth, Hon. Mike (NDP) ...................................................... Port Coquitlam Fleming, Hon. Rob (NDP) .....................................................Victoria–Swan Lake Foster, Eric (BC Liberal)........................................................... Vernon-Monashee Fraser, Hon.

Scott (NDP) ................................................ Mid Island–Pacific Rim Furstenau, Sonia (BC Green Party) ........................................... Cowichan Valley Gibson, Simon (BC Liberal) ................................................. Abbotsford-Mission Glumac, Rick (NDP)........................................................Port Moody–Coquitlam Heyman, Hon. George (NDP) .............................................. Vancouver-Fairview Horgan, Hon. John (NDP) ...............................................

Langford–Juan de Fuca Hunt, Marvin (BC Liberal) .......................................................Surrey-Cloverdale Isaacs, Joan (BC Liberal) .........................................Coquitlam–Burke Mountain James, Hon. Carole (NDP)...................................................Victoria–Beacon Hill Johal, Jas (BC Liberal)...............................................

Richmond-Queensborough Kahlon, Ravi (NDP)..............................................................................Delta North Kang, Anne (NDP)..................................................................Burnaby–Deer Lake Kyllo, Greg (BC Liberal)............................................................................ Shuswap Larson, Linda (BC Liberal) .............................................Boundary-Similkameen Lee, Michael (BC Liberal) ......................................................

Vancouver-Langara Leonard, Ronna-Rae (NDP) ....................................................Courtenay-Comox Letnick, Norm (BC Liberal)............................................Kelowna–Lake Country Ma, Bowinn (NDP) ................................................... North Vancouver–Lonsdale Malcolmson, Sheila (NDP) .......................................................................Nanaimo Mark, Hon. Melanie (NDP) ..................................... Vancouver–Mount Pleasant Martin, John (BC Liberal)......................................................................

Chilliwack Milobar, Peter (BC Liberal).................................... Kamloops–North Thompson Morris, Mike (BC Liberal) ..........................................Prince George–Mackenzie Mungall, Hon. Michelle (NDP).................................................... Nelson-Creston Oakes, Coralee (BC Liberal) ...........................................................Cariboo North Olsen, Adam (BC Green Party)........................... Saanich North and the Islands Paton, Ian (BC Liberal)......................................................................... Delta South Plecas, Hon.

Darryl (Ind.) ..........................................................Abbotsford South Polak, Mary (BC Liberal) ............................................................................ Langley Popham, Hon. Lana (NDP)..............................................................Saanich South Ralston, Hon. Bruce (NDP) .......................................................... Surrey-Whalley Redies, Tracy (BC Liberal) ..................................................... Surrey–White Rock Reid, Linda (BC Liberal) ................................................

Richmond South Centre Rice, Jennifer (NDP) ............................................................................ North Coast Robinson, Hon. Selina (NDP) ....................................... Coquitlam-Maillardville Ross, Ellis (BC Liberal)..................................................................................Skeena Routledge, Janet (NDP) .................................................................. Burnaby North Routley, Doug (NDP) ................................................Nanaimo–North Cowichan Rustad, John (BC Liberal) ..............................................................

Nechako Lakes Shypitka, Tom (BC Liberal) .............................................................Kootenay East Simons, Nicholas (NDP) ........................................Powell River–Sunshine Coast Simpson, Hon. Shane (NDP)................................................

Vancouver-Hastings Sims, Jinny (NDP) .......................................................................Surrey-Panorama Singh, Rachna (NDP) ........................................................Surrey–Green Timbers Stewart, Ben (BC Liberal) ................................................................Kelowna West Stilwell, Michelle (BC Liberal)..............................................Parksville-Qualicum Stone, Todd (BC Liberal)........................................

Kamloops–South Thompson Sturdy, Jordan (BC Liberal).......................................West Vancouver–Sea to Sky Sullivan, Sam (BC Liberal)...............................................Vancouver–False Creek Sultan, Ralph (BC Liberal) ......................................... West Vancouver–Capilano Tegart, Jackie (BC Liberal) ................................................................ Fraser-Nicola Thomson, Steve (BC Liberal)..................................................... Kelowna-Mission Thornthwaite, Jane (BC Liberal) .............................

North Vancouver–Seymour Throness, Laurie (BC Liberal) ..................................................... Chilliwack-Kent Trevena, Hon. Claire (NDP) .............................................................. North Island Wat, Teresa (BC Liberal) ................................................Richmond North Centre Weaver, Dr. Andrew (BC Green Party) ......................... Oak Bay–Gordon Head Wilkinson, Andrew, QC (BC Liberal) .............................. Vancouver-Quilchena Y ap, John (BC Liberal)..........................................................

Richmond-Steveston LIST OF MEMBERS BY RIDING Abbotsford-Mission ..........................................................................Simon Gibson Abbotsford South ..................................................................... Hon. Darryl Plecas Abbotsford West .................................................................... Michael de Jong, QC Boundary-Similkameen.....................................................................

Linda Larson Burnaby–Deer Lake ...............................................................................Anne Kang Burnaby-Edmonds ..............................................................................Raj Chouhan Burnaby-Lougheed................................................................... Hon. Katrina Chen Burnaby North................................................................................

Janet Routledge Cariboo-Chilcotin ............................................................................Donna Barnett Cariboo North .................................................................................. Coralee Oakes Chilliwack.............................................................................................. John Martin Chilliwack-Kent..............................................................................Laurie Throness Columbia River–Revelstoke........................................................

Doug Clovechok Coquitlam–Burke Mountain................................................................. Joan Isaacs Coquitlam-Maillardville..................................................... Hon. Selina Robinson Courtenay-Comox ................................................................. Ronna-Rae Leonard Cowichan Valley ............................................................................

Sonia Furstenau Delta North ...........................................................................................Ravi Kahlon Delta South.................................................................................................Ian Paton Esquimalt-Metchosin.............................................................................Mitzi Dean Fraser-Nicola........................................................................................

Jackie Tegart Kamloops–North Thompson............................................................Peter Milobar Kamloops–South Thompson ................................................................Todd Stone Kelowna–Lake Country....................................................................Norm Letnick Kelowna-Mission.............................................................................

Steve Thomson Kelowna West.........................................................................................Ben Stewart Kootenay East .....................................................................................Tom Shypitka Kootenay West ...................................................................... Hon. Katrine Conroy Langford–Juan de Fuca............................................................. Hon. John Horgan Langley....................................................................................................

Mary Polak Langley East .......................................................................................Rich Coleman Maple Ridge–Mission ............................................................................ Bob D’Eith Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows ..........................................................Hon. Lisa Beare Mid Island–Pacific Rim .............................................................. Hon. Scott Fraser Nanaimo ....................................................................................

Sheila Malcolmson Nanaimo–North Cowichan.............................................................. Doug Routley Nechako Lakes ...................................................................................... John Rustad Nelson-Creston.................................................................. Hon. Michelle Mungall New Westminster ......................................................................... Hon. Judy Darcy North Coast..........................................................................................

Jennifer Rice North Island ............................................................................ Hon. Claire Trevena North Vancouver–Lonsdale ................................................................. Bowinn Ma North Vancouver–Seymour ......................................................Jane Thornthwaite Oak Bay–Gordon Head ..........................................................Dr.

Andrew Weaver Parksville-Qualicum .....................................................................Michelle Stilwell Peace River North.................................................................................. Dan Davies Peace River South ............................................................................... Mike Bernier Penticton................................................................................................ Dan Ashton Port Coquitlam .................................................................... Hon.

Mike Farnworth Port Moody–Coquitlam .....................................................................Rick Glumac Powell River–Sunshine Coast ..................................................... Nicholas Simons Prince George–Mackenzie ..................................................................Mike Morris Prince George–Valemount.................................................................

Shirley Bond Richmond North Centre ........................................................................Teresa Wat Richmond-Queensborough .......................................................................Jas Johal Richmond South Centre........................................................................ Linda Reid Richmond-Steveston..................................................................................

John Y ap Saanich North and the Islands............................................................Adam Olsen Saanich South............................................................................Hon. Lana Popham Shuswap .................................................................................................... Greg Kyllo Skeena ......................................................................................................... Ellis Ross Stikine ..................................................................................Hon.

Doug Donaldson Surrey-Cloverdale............................................................................... Marvin Hunt Surrey-Fleetwood ...................................................................................Jagrup Brar Surrey–Green Timbers ......................................................................Rachna Singh Surrey-Guildford ....................................................................................Garry Begg Surrey-Newton.............................................................................Hon.

Harry Bains Surrey-Panorama..................................................................................... Jinny Sims Surrey South............................................................................... Stephanie Cadieux Surrey-Whalley........................................................................ Hon. Bruce Ralston Surrey–White Rock ............................................................................. Tracy Redies Vancouver-Fairview ............................................................ Hon.

George Heyman Vancouver–False Creek....................................................................... Sam Sullivan Vancouver-Fraserview .............................................................Hon. George Chow Vancouver-Hastings .............................................................. Hon. Shane Simpson Vancouver-Kensington ..................................................................... Mable Elmore Vancouver-Kingsway ................................................................... Hon.

Adrian Dix Vancouver-Langara .............................................................................. Michael Lee Vancouver–Mount Pleasant ................................................... Hon. Melanie Mark Vancouver–Point Grey...........................................................Hon.

David Eby, QC Vancouver-Quilchena ......................................................Andrew Wilkinson, QC Vancouver–West End....................................................Spencer Chandra Herbert Vernon-Monashee...................................................................................Eric Foster Victoria–Beacon Hill ................................................................ Hon. Carole James Victoria–Swan Lake .................................................................. Hon. Rob Fleming West Vancouver–Capilano .................................................................

Ralph Sultan West Vancouver–Sea to Sky ..............................................................Jordan Sturdy Party Standings: BC Liberal 42; NDP 41; BC Green Party 3; Independent 1

CONTENTS Monday, October 28, 2019 Afternoon Sitting Page Routine Business Introductions by Members................................................................................................................................................... 10281 Introduction and First Reading of Bills.............................................................................................................................. 10283 Bill M227 — Trespass Amendment Act, 2019 L. Throness Bill M228 — Home-Based Craft Food Act I.

Paton Statements (Standing Order 25B) ....................................................................................................................................... 10284 Family Services of the North Shore B. Ma Agriculture and farmers I. Paton Tony Hoar D. Routley Contributions of Clifton and Thomas ranching families L. Larson Remembrance Day ceremonies in Esquimalt M. Dean Ranching industry D.

Barnett Oral Questions....................................................................................................................................................................... 10286 Agricultural land reserve changes and impacts I. Paton Hon. L. Popham M. Stilwell Chilcotin and Thompson steelhead populations and protection plan A. Olsen Hon. D. Donaldson Agricultural land reserve changes and impacts S. Bond Hon. L. Popham M. de Jong M.

Polak Petitions .................................................................................................................................................................................. 10291 I. Paton M.

Stilwell Tabling Documents............................................................................................................................................................... 10292 Guarantees and indemnities report, fiscal year ended March 31, 2019 Orders of the Day Second Reading of Bills ........................................................................................................................................................ 10292 Bill M225 — Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act A. Weaver T. Shypitka Hon. B. Ralston M. Lee Hon. M. Mungall A. Weaver

Second Reading of Bills (continued) Bill 33 — Securities Amendment Act, 2019 (continued) M. Dean M. de Jong S. Malcolmson M. Lee J. Sims S. Bond N. Simons S. Cadieux Hon. C. James

MONDAY , OCTOBER 28, 2019 The House met at 1:36 p.m. [Mr. Speaker in the chair.] Routine Business Introductions by Members I. Paton: I would like to introduce and welcome a group of farmers and rural landowners from throughout British Columbia that made the trek to Victoria today, a little bit of a get-together this morning. They travelled from Vancou- ver Island, from the Chilcotin, from the Okanagan and from pretty much all over B.C. I also want to introduce and thank the members of the British Columbia Agriculture Council that are here for the next two days.

It’s going to be a pleasure to meet with their president, Stan Vander Waal, and their executive director, Reg Ens. In particular, I want to thank the group that has come here today. In particular, I want to thank Megan, Janet, Raquel, Chris and Teresa. Please make all these large- and small-scale farmers wel- come today. R. Chouhan: It is my pleasure to welcome some special guests to this House today.

In January 2017, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia signed a partnership agree- ment with the National Assembly of the Parliament of the Cooperative of Guyana, under which the two assem- blies agreed to a program of exchanges between members and parliamentary staff in an effort to build capacity in the National Assembly of Guyana and to explore areas of mutual interest. Under this partnership agreement, we have the privilege this week of hosting five parliamentary staff from the National Assembly of Guyana for a week-long attachment program.

Joining us in the gallery are Sueanna Reynolds- Sandy, clerk of committees; Kiana Benjamin, table officer; Samantha Crawford, administrative officer; Ricky Hardeen, research and analytical assistant; and Shevona Telford, Hansard editor. Please join me in welcoming them to British Columbia. M. Stilwell: I’ d like to welcome a special guest in the House today, Jonathan Bluestein, who has recently moved here from Victoria. I actually know his father, who is a fellow board member with me on the International Para- lympic Committee. I had the honour of meeting Jonathan here today.

Not only is he the founder of the Tianjin Martial Arts Academy, where he teaches the traditional martial arts of xing yi quan and pigua zhang; he is also a decorated author whose research has taken him around the world. As a mul- tidisciplinary researcher, his many works include two books, Research of Martial Arts and The Martial Arts Teacher.

They have not only helped readers develop their understanding of martial arts but have allowed countless other researchers and martial artists to delve deeper into the history, psycho- logy, philosophy and sport science behind the many differ- ent forms of the sport. [1:40 p.m.] If anyone in the House has any burning questions about kung fu, today is your lucky day. But for now, would you please join me in giving a very warm welcome to shifu Jonathan Bluestein. Hon. B. Ralston: Joining us in the members’ gallery this afternoon is His Excellency Andriy Shevchenko, the Ambas- sador of Ukraine to Canada.

His Excellency was in British Columbia earlier this month for an economic mission, and we’re pleased to welcome him back as British Columbia introduces the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodo- mor) Memorial Day Act. He is joined by Oleksandr Danyleiko, consul general of Ukraine at Edmonton; Mr. Lubomyr Huculak, honorary consul of Ukraine at Vancouver; and Mr. Oleksii Liashenko, counsellor with the embassy. Would the House make them all very welcome. D. Barnett: Today it is my pleasure to welcome two won- derful ladies here.

Karen Eden, from the Cariboo-Chilcotin — actually, Williams Lake — is the CEO of Community Futures for the Cariboo-Chilcotin. She’s been with Com- munity Futures since 1996, and she’s been the CEO for 12 years. I would also like to welcome Cheryl Johnson, who is the executive director for British Columbia for Community Futures. She lives in Vancouver. I had a very pleasant evening with these ladies last night. Please help me welcome them to this House. Hon. R.

Fleming: I am very pleased to be able to intro- duce some guests to the chamber today that also put on a fantastic science show with a local elementary school of grade 5 kids. I want to thank all members from all sides of the House who attended that. I think we all shared in the wonderment that was part of that science show earlier today. With us is Janet Wood, who’s the CEO and president of Science World, brand-new in the role. It’s lovely to have her here in the Legislature today. Nancy Roper, the vice-presi- dent of Science World’s development is here.

Sherry Lu is the program coordinator for On the Road, which was the sci- ence show we all enjoyed today, and Brian Anderson is the director of performance and fun times. That’s actually his job description. I want to thank all four of them and welcome them to the House this afternoon. M. Lee: I’ d just like to join the Minister of Education in welcoming the team from Science World. I know, as a former 10281

board member at Science World for eight years and going back to the days of Bryan Tisdale as CEO, I enjoyed on many occasions Brian Anderson’s performances on centre stage. And Sherry Lu, for all the work that you do in terms of bringing Science World outside to the rest of our province. Outreach is a big focus for Science World. We saw that under Gordon Campbell, as previous Premier for this province, and Tom Christensen and the leadership they brought for the B.C. government formally to bring the B.C.

PALS program, a $5 million partnership with Science World to bring and ensure that every child from K to 7 could access the great facility of Science World and see that in community science celebrations all over the province, including in Terrace. We want to look at continuing to support and work with the board of Science World and the team as they continue to be a very good example of the kind of partnership we need in this province, where you can leverage the philanthropy and the commitment of individuals, including in the techno- logy sector, to support science and learning in our schools.

Whether it’s Super Science Club or through the Ken Spencer Science Park, there have been great partnerships, and that’s a great example of the leverage we see between government taxpayer dollars, the good of the community through Sci- ence World, as well as entrepreneurs and other philanthrop- ists who support our community and our children. Thanks very much, and welcome to this House. Hon. M. Mark: I appreciate the enthusiasm from the member opposite talking about science, tech, engineering, arts, math, entrepreneurship and design.

That’s precisely the world that I live in as Advanced Education Minister. [1:45 p.m.] Aside from that, I want to invite some students that are in the gallery with us. They are joined, from the Alliance of B.C. Students association — 80,000 students from Langara, UFV , Capilano University, the grad students at UBC and KPU. Gurvir “G. ” Gill is their chairperson, along with student representatives from across B.C. They’re in the gallery. They are with us to advocate and lobby with all MLAs in these chambers. I’ll be meeting with them today and tomorrow, along with the Premier.

Will the House please join me in welcoming our students representing the Alliance of B.C. Students. Hon. K. Chen: I’m very happy today to welcome a group of members from the National Taiwan University Alumni Association here in B.C., who are visiting the Legislature today and joining question period. The National Taiwan University is one of the top universities in Taiwan, with many professionals and graduates now living all over the world. Here in B.C., we’re happy to welcome their president, Dr. Lyren Chiu, who is also a very active member in the com- munity, and with her, members.

We have John Tsai, who also happens to be the Taiwanese overseas commissioner; and also May Mei-Ching Chan and Paul C. Chan, who have lived in Canada for over 45 years; and with their members Chin- Yin Chen, Wen-Hsiung Chen; and some of their new mem- bers like Nelson Kao, who just emigrated here over a year ago, and Jen Chen, who just arrived over a week ago. I would like to ask the House to please make them feel very, very welcome. M.

Lee: I would also like to join the member opposite for a welcome to all of the participants from the Taiwanese Alumni Association, in particular, Paul and May Chan, who are constituents of mine in Vancouver-Langara. I know they’re active participants with the Taiwanese Cultural Centre and the great social and cultural activities that are run through that centre. Thanks, and welcome to this House. D. Routley: I have three people I’ d like to introduce today. The first two are from the Nanaimo Association for Community Living.

Graham Morry is the executive dir- ector, and Randy Humchitt is the deputy executive direct- or. Graham has been with NACL for 29 years, and Randy for 13 years, real assets to our community. Nanaimo Asso- ciation for Community Living has proudly been serving people with developmental disabilities in the mid–Van- couver Island region since July of 1986, offering a wide variety of programs and services to support those they serve to have the best lives possible.

Their mission states: “ A person-centred approach is the way we challenge ourselves, our communities, the people we support and families to be innovative as we help each oth- er live fulfilled lives. ” They offer youth and adult services by referral. I’ d like to welcome them and thank them for their many years of dedicated service to the families of the mid–Vancouver Island region. The third person I’ d like to introduce is somebody who worked for me for a time as a constituency assistant from 2005 to, I believe, 2010. This is Debra Toporowski. Debra has gone on to take on several hats all at once.

She’s a Cowi- chan Tribes councillor. She’s on the council of the Cowichan Tribes. She’s a municipality of North Cowichan councillor, and she’s heavily involved everywhere in our community. We’re very proud of the work that she’s done, and she’s cer- tainly gone on to forge her own path in politics. Welcome, Debra Toporowski. A. Kang: Joining the gallery are two of my friends: Alan Sexauer, who works in business development for Wawanesa, and Tanya Cabrita, who’s a physiatrist who works, coincid- entally, with the wife of the member from Maple Ridge, Kim D’Eith.

I want to welcome them to the House of the people, which is actually their House. Alan and Tanya are local philanthropists. Also, with the member for Vancouver-Langara, we hosted them for lunch today. They are actually the winners of a SUCCESS Gala fun- draiser. I don’t know if that was a win to be able to spend an 10282 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

afternoon with us, but certainly, it’s a win to be here in beau- tiful Victoria. I want to say thank you so much for their contribution and support for SUCCESS for so many years. With that, would all members please make my friends feel very welcome. [1:50 p.m.] M. Lee: I just wanted to join our lunch partner, the mem- ber for Burnaby–Deer Lake. As we were in the parliamentary dining room today, we were sitting in the

section of the din- ing room where members of this side of the House com- monly sit for lunch. There was some question about the lunch arrangement. But I must say that any member that I introduced to our guests…. They certainly, with no doubt, said that clearly, the value of the auction item was the mem- ber for Burnaby–Deer Lake and not myself. Maybe there’s something to that. I also wanted to join her in welcoming our guests, Alan Sexauer and Tanya Cabrita Sexauer. They are constituents of the member for Burnaby North. They’re fine examples of individuals who want to find out more about our political process.

Alan is someone who has moved from the United States in the last three years. We had a great discussion about what our political process and our system is like here in Canada versus the United States. We also talked about dif- ferent, alternative forms of voting and the polarization that continues to plague and trouble our society here in British Columbia. With that, I wish Alan and Tanya a great tour. They’re hav- ing a tour at three o’ clock. Thank you for bidding on our live auction item. Thanks again. Appreciate it. S.

Chandra Herbert: If there is anyone in the gallery that the member for Vancouver-Langara didn’t introduce and welcome, I want to say welcome. I want to acknowledge someone who was introduced slightly earlier, but it’s the first time I’ve had a teacher of mine in the House. Brian “Googly” Anderson was the teach- er of the resident improviser training program, the RITP , at the Vancouver TheatreSports League that I took many years ago. Thankfully, we’re both still members of the Van- couver TheatreSports League. They actually allowed me to come back and play with them last year. I hope to do so again.

Please welcome a great teacher, a hilarious man, Brian Anderson. B. Ma: We are also joined in the House today by 30 high school students from St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Second- ary School in North Vancouver. They are in grade 10 and are brought here by their teacher Mr. Jerome Francis. I’ve also been asked to make a special shout-out to Lucas Friesen, who I’m told by Keith Baldrey is the son of Global National news anchor Dawna Friesen. Would the House please join me in welcoming all of them to the House. Introduction and First Reading of Bills BILL M227 — TRESPASS AMENDMENT ACT, 2019 L.

Throness presented a bill intituled Trespass Amendment Act, 2019. L. Throness: I move that a bill intituled Trespass Amend- ment Act, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and now read a first time. Farmers around North America, and in my riding, who raise animals are experiencing a spate of threatening mes- sages, some of them violent, from activists dedicated to shut- ting down the practice of animal husbandry, which supplies protein for millions, comprises much of our agricultural industry and is an important way of life in B.C.

In a number of cases, including in the Fraser Valley, unlawful trespasses and occupations of farms have also taken place, leading to a loss of income and of security for farmers and their families. Recently the government accepted an opposition motion to include farms and livestock under the Trespass Act. While this is a first step, there is much more to be done. Today’s private member’s bill, presented on behalf of myself and the member for Delta South, will add specific and targeted pen- alties against those who trespass on farms.

It will also pro- tect food processing facilities from trespass and provide even greater penalties to address a greater threat, a breach of bio- security protocols when trespassing, since an outbreak of disease can take the lives of hundreds of thousands of anim- als and threaten an entire industry. Finally, as the govern- ment of Alberta has done, penalties are applied to organiza- tions which encourage the trespass or occupation of farms.

It’s our hope that the government will take this bill or respond with its own to send a strong preventative message to activists, like that sent by the government of Alberta earli- er this month, and that B.C. will act decisively to protect farmers, processors and animals alike from unlawful tres- pass. It’s fine for protesters to demonstrate about anything they want, but let them do so on public property. It’s not all right to break the law, take away the rights of our farmers and threaten the safety of their families and livestock while making their point. Mr.

Speaker, I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today. [1:55 p.m.] Mr. Speaker: The question is the first reading of the bill. Motion approved. Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10283

Mr. Speaker: Member, if you could please restate the second motion, the question. L. Throness: I move that the bill be placed on the orders the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today. Bill M227, Trespass Amendment Act, 2019, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today. BILL M228 — HOME-BASED CRAFT FOOD ACT I. Paton presented a bill intituled Home-Based Craft Food Act. I.

Paton: I move that the bill entitled Home-Based Craft Food Act, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and read a first time now. Around our province are farmers, families and indi- viduals who seek greater opportunity to supplement their income and start new businesses, many through the pro- duction and sale of low-risk food products right from their own homes and farms. Who has ever wanted to market an old family recipe, encourage a new baker or bring in a little extra money for your family through selling your famous jams at home?

At present, this is only possible in B.C. in cases where the food products are being sold at a farmers market. If some- one is hoping to sell their low-risk products anywhere else, they are subject to strict rules and regulations that a small home operation would not be able to meet. The Home-Based Craft Food Act would change this, allowing small home- based businesses making low-risk food products like jams, candy, honey or bread, among others, to sell throughout the year across B.C. simply by obtaining a local business permit and FoodSafe level 1 certification.

This legislation is about opening up new opportunities, enabling farmers to increase their incomes by using products from their own farms or their neighbours’ . This bill is about fostering new microbusinesses that could grow and create value-added opportunities for farmers and all British Col- umbians without impacting valuable farmland. Mr. Speaker: The question is first reading of the bill. Motion approved. I. Paton: I move the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

Bill M228, Home-Based Craft Food Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today. Statements (Standing Order 25B) FAMILY SERVICES OF THE NORTH SHORE B. Ma: Family Services of the North Shore has been a not-for-profit serving the region for over 60 years. From Deep Cove to Bowen Island, they offer counselling, support, education and volunteer engagement opportunities to help people reach their full potential throughout their lives.

On the surface, they offer high-quality, master’s-level counselling for as low as $20 a session, based on income. But if you look a little deeper, you’ll see that their work is even much more than that. Their work in gender-based violence, trauma and abuse is inspiring. Their Caring Dads Group helps dads committed to changing their behaviors so that they no longer use violence, anger or other types of abuse at home. They help families through their Thrive Family pro- gram, supporting parents through the joys and challenges of raising a family.

There are Thrive Family Centres at Maplewood, Lonsdale Quay Market and West Vancouver’s community centre, offering drop-in programs where you can play, learn and connect with your children from birth to six years of age — everything from breastfeeding and postpartum support to clothing and toy exchanges and even special programs just for dads. All North Shore par- ents can attend Thrive programs for free, regardless of their social or financial circumstances. Family Services of the North Shore are also the host organization for Jessie’s Legacy.

This is a provincewide eating disorder prevention and awareness program that helped build the “Love our bodies, love ourselves” movement. Just recently they hosted the sixth annual Proud 2 Be: Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Conference, which is a two- day conference for youth, parents and professionals to cel- ebrate and strengthen our diverse LGBTQ2S+, gender-non- conforming and allied community. [2:00 p.m.] Finally, who can forget the Christmas Bureau, where low- income families can apply to receive toys and holiday gift baskets to help them celebrate the holidays?

With the sup- port of grants, funding partners and many committed donors, Family Services of the North Shore has changed lives, brought hope and made the world a better place for countless people. I am so grateful for their work and so hon- oured to serve as their MLA. AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS I. Paton: Farming has not only been a huge part of my community of Delta and its history; it has been a central focus of my family. I still live and work on the farm that was run by my father and his father before him. Like most farm- ers, our livelihood is powered by the passion we have for the work we do.

My involvement in the family farm and farm 10284 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

auction business allowed me to gain valuable experience that I could use to serve my community. Over the last two years, I have toured the province and met with farmers and ranchers from all corners of British Columbia. I have heard about the hardships that farmers have experienced through challenging weather conditions and troubling new legislation that are making it tougher for them to make a living. We have discussed best practices, research and development, innovation in the industry and the hope that we all share for the future of farming.

I’m proud to see many exciting initiatives taking place in my riding of Delta South to support the next generation of farmers, like the 14th annual Day at the Farm, which provides 4,000 visitors the opportunity to experience the joys of life on the Ellis family’s Westham Island Farm near Ladner. Another farm, Emma Lea Farms, provides popular U- pick, fresh vegetables, a petting zoo, homemade jams, their own homegrown beef and a myriad of local berries whipped into ice cream and milk shakes.

Barnside Brewing is a new passion project of four long- standing Ladner farm families making beer with hops and barley grown right here on Delta farms. Backroads Family Farm Market, run by the fifth genera- tion of Guichon farmers, hosted an artisan market on their premises last summer for the first time ever. They also sell a huge number of items grown on their Delta farm. Ladner Village Market is as successful as ever, inspiring thousands of shoppers to buy local every summer and giving up-and-coming growers an opportunity to showcase their products.

These are just a few of the many amazing examples of innovation in agriculture taking place in Delta. I thank the farmers in our community and beyond for their many economic and social contributions to our province each and every day. I am hopeful for the future of farming, not only in Delta but every corner of this province. Whether you farm five acres or 500 acres, I believe in opportunity for all farmers in British Columbia. TONY HOAR D.

Routley: I’m not happy to have to stand up and deliv- er this news to the Legislature, but I am glad to be the one who gets to do it, and that is on the passing of cycling legend Tony Hoar. Tony was born in Emsworth, Hampshire, in 1932. In 1954, he rode the Empire Games, now the Commonwealth Games, in Vancouver, and he fell in love with Canada and vowed that he would return. In the meantime, though, before he returned, he went on to win races in the Tours of Egypt and the Netherlands.

He took third overall in the Tour of Ireland and then was tempted or lured into profes- sional cycling by an amazing £10-per-week salary. So Tony went on to be a pro cyclist. The first British team riding the Tour de France in 1955 started with poor tires and ended with only two riders, one of them Tony Hoar — him finishing last place, the Lanterne Rouge, which made Tony a famous rider, the Lanterne Rouge being a very prestigious thing, believe it or not. Tony would always explain to people that, in fact, he’s the guy who spent the most time on the bicycle in the whole race. He was a fantastic guy.

He moved back to Canada. He started building racing bicycles. He built the wheelchairs for Rick Hansen when Rick Hansen was a wheelchair athlete. He went on to form Tony’s Trailers, a business where he built trailers for homeless people — by day, it’s a binning cart; by night, it’s a tent trailer, for disabled people. He did fantast- ic things, winning awards for his designs — humanitarian awards — and serving so many people. Leanne, my partner, and I went for a ride with him the first time she met Tony. This was ten years ago, so he was 77 years old. She’s a good cyclist.

I said: “Y ou know, Leanne, we should really be respectful of Tony going up the Malahat. ” And sure enough, the 77-year-old Tony Hoar rode away from both of us. [2:05 p.m.] He was a fantastic person, one of my heroes, and I deeply appreciate everything he did for cycling. Will the members please clap and celebrate the life of Tony Hoar. CONTRIBUTIONS OF CLIFTON AND THOMAS RANCHING FAMILIES L. Larson: Today I’ d like to talk a little bit about some of the activities of our farmers that we don’t often hear about. For close to 50 years, the Clifton family has been ranching in the Similkameen Valley, near Keremeos.

Wilson, Brad and Wade Clifton and their families manage 380 cows, 200 acres of hay, 3,000 acres of private and leased grazing land and many thousands of acres of Crown grazing land. Brad is responsible for keeping all the machinery in top condition. Wade looks after all the cows, and Wilson keeps everyone and everything in order.

This year the Clifton Ranch was the recipient of the national Environmentalist Stewardship Award in recognition of their work with the Nature Trust to restore and preserve the grasslands and eco- systems of the ranch, conserve species-at-risk habitat and preserve spawning grounds and habitat for songbirds. Another generational ranching family of note is the Thomas family of Okanagan Falls. Lloyd Thomas’s father, John, came to the Okanagan in 1898 to work on the ranch of Penticton pioneer Tom Ellis. The ranch in OK Falls was purchased just after the First World War.

Lloyd left the ranch to work as a welder on many projects around the province, but in the 1970s, he returned to his family roots to help his brother Morrie run the ranch. The family sold most of the ranch in 2000 to the Nature Trust. Morrie’s son Brian now operates it under a lease agree- ment with the trust. Lloyd, who was born in the original Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10285

Penticton Hospital, recently gave a substantial donation to the hospital. He said it was the right thing to do. These are just two examples of the commitment of our farmers to the stewardship of the land they live and work on and the support they demonstrate for the health of their loc- al communities. REMEMBRANCE DAY CEREMONIES IN ESQUIMALT M. Dean: I was born and grew up in a part of world that knows all too well the ravages of war.

When I emigrated from England and settled here on the south Island, I dis- covered a vibrant, tightly knit military community where we protect our coastline, welcome immigrants and pull together to weather all storms. No surprise, when you consider that Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt is Canada’s Pacific coast naval base and home to Maritime Forces Pacific and Joint Task Force Pacific headquarters. I’m proud to represent Esquimalt and very humbled when I attend Remembrance Day ceremonies.

It’s a tradition that began 101 years ago, at the end of the First World War, as a way to pay tribute to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and thank those in the Armed Forces who have served our country and serve it to this day. This year we’ll gather again at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month at Memorial Park on Esquimalt Road. Before that, there is a ceremony at Veterans Cemetery on Colville Road that begins at 9:30.

Following the 11 a.m. service at Memorial Park, a post- ceremony reception hosted by Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 172 will be held at CFB Esquimalt’s Chief and Petty Officers Mess on Lyall Street. Everybody is welcome to join us as we remember. Once again the words of poet Robert Laurence Binyon ring out. “They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. ” RANCHING INDUSTRY D.

Barnett: Ranching is one of the most important sectors of the agricultural industry, and British Columbia has a reputation as a high-quality producer. My riding of Cariboo- Chilcotin is no exception. We produce a variety of crops, but we are predominantly known for our cattle industry. While beef cattle are raised throughout our province, many of the 4,000-plus cattle ranchers that operate in B.C. are located in the Cariboo. [2:10 p.m.] B.C. ranches occupy over five million acres of private land. They also have tenure on a further 21.5 million acres of Crown rangeland.

In fact, two-thirds of the agricultural land reserve is owned by ranchers. B.C. is also home to Canada’s largest working ranch. The Douglas Lake cattle ranch has a cattle herd of approximately 20,000 head and a land base of more than 500,000 acres. Overall, the beef industry is important to the province’s economy and supports many family and community busi- nesses. The total economic contribution of the industry is estimated at $600 million annually. It is an important source of employment. It is in rural B.C., with an estimated 8,700 persons employed in the B.C. beef sector.

In the Cariboo, there are small and large cattle ranches. We are talking about family operations that are passed down from one generation to another. People who work in the industry love their industry. We have highly active and vibrant 4-H clubs. For an industry that has contributed so much to the development of this province, I would hope that this gov- ernment would recognize the need and act accordingly. For all young people interested in pursuing a career in the cattle industry, the government needs to signal the kind of support to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for our ranchers and families.

Oral Questions AGRICULTURAL LAND RESERVE CHANGES AND IMPACTS I. Paton: Well, today is Agriculture Day, and the gallery is packed with folks who make their living off the land. But sadly, they are not here to celebrate. These are the same folks that started an online petition against Bills 52 and 15, which has now reached approximately 26,000 supporters. They are here to show the minister the damage she is doing to the farming community. Now, Meghan McPherson, who is here today, is from Comox and is very clear that Bill 52 will hurt small family farms and drive family members off the property.

She has a very simple question for the minister: will you repeal Bill 52? Hon. L. Popham: Although it’s actually Agriculture Day in B.C. tomorrow, it is great to have two days to celebrate agriculture here in the chamber. I think we do have a lot to celebrate here in British Columbia. I can tell you — and this is great news for this chamber — that we have reached a record $15 billion for the first time ever in the sector. This is a positive economic indicator for the Ministry of Agriculture, as farm receipts are not the only measure. We had food and beverage processing jump up 4 percent.

Seafood has increased by 10 percent. So there is a lot of good news. Now, to the member’s point, farming’s hard. It takes a lot of hard work, and I respect the work that farmers are doing around the province. I spend a lot of time on the ground with farmers. One thing that they tell me is that the policies we’re putting in place are giving them more opportunities to do value-added to their farm. 10286 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Members, we shall hear the response from the minister. Thank you. Hon. L. Popham: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we look back on 2018, we see that 2,000 more jobs were also created in the agriculture, seafood and food-processing sectors — something that we’re very proud of. As far as the legislation we’ve brought forward, we know, on this side of the House, that you can’t have farming without the agricul- tural land to do farming on. We are very proud of the work that we’ve done. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. The member for Delta South on a supplemental. I.

Paton:Well, I appreciate this sort of answer. It really had nothing do with Bill 52, but we’ve heard the minister duck, weave and avoid the question. The truth is that never in the history of B.C. have we seen such an outcry from the farm- ing community as in the last 12 months. [2:15 p.m.] After a career in education, Raquel Kolof, who’s here with us today, moved to the Sunshine Coast six years ago. She started her dream, Hough Heritage Farms, which raises free- range, pastured Berkshire hogs, sheep and goats. She worked hard to build a sustainable, small-scale farm.

The minister’s changes, in Raquel’s words, “unfairly penalize” operations like hers. So here’s one more chance, the same question as Meghan McPherson asked: will you repeal Bill 52? Hon. L. Popham: I have a lot of respect for the creative ways that farmers are farming around British Columbia. We see different types of activities happening on farms. It’s unfortunate that when the opposition was in government, they changed regulations that really limit family fun on farms. What we’re doing right now is we’re undergoing a con- sultation, as we move forward to put regulations in place with that legislation.

What we’re hearing loud and clear is that British Columbians support value-added and they sup- port activities on the farm that support the farming opera- tion. We’re looking into that. Unfortunately, we’re doing cleanup for the mess the oppo- sition made when they were in government. M. Stilwell: What this minister doesn’t seem to under- stand is that you can’t have farming if you don’t have farmers. Let’s talk about Elenore McKinnon. She operates a 120-acre beet farm here on Vancouver Island. The farm has been in the family and in operation since 1948.

Elenore and her husband are seniors, and they rely on the support of their four children to help out on the farm. But under the NDP’s new rules, that won’t be possible unless they all crowd into one house. As Elenore puts it: “Stop this nightmare for everyone. ” Again to the minister: will you stop the nightmare and repeal the legislation that threatens to evict the McKinnons from their farm home? Hon. L. Popham: I feel very privileged to be able to stand up and clarify the information — misinformation — from the other side of the House. I’m very proud of the legislation that we’ve put forward.

What this legislation does is it makes a path forward for farming families. So let’s be clear. Let’s be clear. Interjections. Hon. L. Popham: It’s upsetting for the opposition to hear the truth, but I’ll try to describe it. In the legislation that we put forward, there is a path for- ward for the residential needs of farming families. In fact, if the farming family requires more residences to support their farming activities…. Perhaps it’s… Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Hon. L. Popham:…a multigenerational farm. Perhaps it’s a succession plan that farmers need to have in place.

When we say supporting farms, there are many ways that families can support farms. Sometimes it’s child care, any way that the farmer needs help supporting the farm. If it’s a residential need they have, they are able to apply to the Agri- cultural Land Commission for not one…. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Hon. L. Popham: They are able to apply to the Agricul- tural Land Commission for additional residences — not one, not two, not three but unlimited residential needs if the farm needs it. Mr. Speaker: The member for Parksville-Qualicum on a supplemental. [2:20 p.m.] M.

Stilwell: It’s not just farmers who have lived on their properties for generations who are at risk. It’s new farmers, as well, like Daniel DeFrane, who wants to farm vegetables, poultry, pork. He wants his children to live on the property in a separate unit. But Daniel also is a heavy-duty mechanic, and he wants a shop on the property so that he can do repair work on the off-season from the farm. But he just keeps hit- Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10287

ting roadblocks. Something that is so commonsense seems to just have no place under the NDP . Again to the minister: will you tell all the people who are here that you will repeal Bill 52? Hon. L. Popham:When you hear stories about new farm- ers coming onto the land, one of the things that has always concerned me when we had a different government in place was that the Ministry of Agriculture was being eroded. When new farmers needed information, there was starting to be a black hole when they went to find agrologist inform- ation, industry specialist information.

I can tell the opposition that since we formed government, we’ve increased the amount of agrologists that will be able to reach out and help new farmers make a living on their farm. We’ve got a new agrologist in Kamloops. We’ve got a new agrologist in Abbotsford. We’ve got a new agrologist in Fort St. John, one in Quesnel and one in Williams Lake. We also have industry specialists that we’re putting back in place for emerging markets, for fisheries and seafood and food processing. In addition, we have new staff that are sup- porting livestock and B.C. ranchers.

We’ve got staff that are supporting the organic sector. We’ve got staff that are sup- porting the cereal and oil seeds in the Peace. We have also expanded our Indigenous agriculture team from one to three staff. This is to support First Nations around B.C. to become part of the agriculture sector. This is the other part of the answer that the member might be curious about. Looking at applications that have been processed by the Agricultural Land Commission since last April 1 until this month, there has been a type of application that a farmer can put in. It’s called a non-farm use applic- ation.

Thirty applications were approved, and I want the members to listen to what was approved by the commission as a non-farm use. Approvals include a poultry barn, cleaning business, animal rehab facility, a home-based mechanic shop, a weld- ing shop, oil and gas parking, wood manufacturing, small- and light-scale industrial use, movie and TV filming, a com- munity library, a fire hall, a recreational facility and element- ary school fields. CHILCOTIN AND THOMPSON STEELHEAD POPULATIONS AND PROTECTION PLAN A.

Olsen: The migration of steelhead trout from inland B.C. to ocean waters and back represents one of the wonders of the world. Y et the genetically distinct Chilcotin and Thompson River populations are at grave risk of going extinct, plummeting in numbers by 80 percent over the past 15 years. Last year the scientific body that assesses species at risk, COSEWIC, took the unusual step of issuing an emergency recommendation to list these populations as endangered.

Federal and provincial ministers agreed that they are under imminent threat, yet the populations were not listed under SARA, the federal species at risk legislation. Of course, as B.C. doesn’t have an endangered species law, they were not listed here in B.C. either. Instead, the province and DFO, the Department of Fish- eries and Oceans, responded to this ecological crisis with an opaque, non-binding and widely panned joint “action plan. ” My question is to the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.

Last year in question period, when I asked about the drastic decline in steelhead, he said: “The commercial bycatch in the Fraser is of utmost concern to us. ” Why, then, does the steelhead action plan, “the product of significant and sustained col- laboration” between the two levels of government, centre around continued commercial and gillnet fishing on the Fraser River? [2:25 p.m.] Hon. D. Donaldson: Thank you to the member for the question. Our government takes the decline in steelhead stocks very seriously, and we’re committed to supporting steelhead con- servation.

It does concern us, what the member stated, that obviously not enough was done in the last decade and a half, and now we’re at critical levels. We have worked on the steelhead action plan with the federal government. In that plan, we agreed to take joint measures, especially measures under provincial jurisdiction around habitat management, around watershed manage- ment and around recreational fishery management. We are concerned over DFO’s salmon harvesting alloca- tions.

Staff estimate that the federal decision increases the protection measures for Interior Fraser steelhead from a 27-day closure to a 40-day closure, and that will only protect 60 to 75 percent of the species. B.C. recommended 60 to 75 days for protection. I have met, most recently in June, with the former federal fisheries minister, Jonathan Wilkinson. We’ve met several times on this matter. Nonetheless, in our disappointment with the federal response on the bycatch issue, we are taking habitat protection measures seriously and have been conducting work jointly with the federal government on that measure. Mr.

Speaker: The member for Saanich North and the Islands on a supplemental. A. Olsen: Thank you to the minister for the response. Not only has this government’s steelhead action plan been widely cited as a conservation failure; it’s also been marred by allegations of political interference in the scientific pro- cess to favour commercial interests. Many complaints are coming directly from the provincial public servants. If that wasn’t bad enough, DFO is now refusing to release the recovery potential assessment altogether.

The assessment was co-authored by this government, the federal govern- ment and independent scientists, and the public has a right 10288 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

to see it. Instead, to get basic information about how steel- head are being managed, they’re forced to file FOIs. DFO’s response to those freedom-of-information re- quests…. It will take 822 years to organize the information for us. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. A. Olsen: That was actually really quite funny. My question is to the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.

Last year in question period, the minister said the previous government “did nothing to represent B.C. interests with DFO when it comes to steelhead…. ” From where I am standing, things are looking pretty similar. At the very least, can the minister please tell me if his government has a scientific integrity policy for its public service? Hon. D. Donaldson: Y es. It’s well-documented that we were disappointed with the report that came out that didn’t accurately reflect the original scientific knowledge that pro- vincial biologists, federal biologists and an independent bio- logist put in place.

However, we are working with the federal government. We contributed $42 million towards the sal- mon restoration and initiative fund. That funding has allowed us to work on, for instance, habitat restoration in the Bonaparte River that was needed after the Elephant Hill fire and has increased steelhead habitat for that steelhead run. I also want to highlight — we haven’t had the opportunity to talk about this even just briefly in the Legislature — the tremendous efforts between the province and the federal government on the Big Bar slide this past summer.

This slide not only threatened salmon runs but also threatened the Chilcotin steelhead run, blocking fish passage. With the tremendous effort that was put into that, the natural pas- sageway was restored when the river levels dropped, and the steelhead were able to make their way to the spawning grounds. We’ll keep working with Canada, First Nations and other stakeholders on our action plan, because we know the value of steelhead as a species to ecological integrity and also to the people of the Interior. [2:30 p.m.] AGRICULTURAL LAND RESERVE CHANGES AND IMPACTS S.

Bond: In June of this year, Shirley Moon of Vanderhoof wrote to the Minister of Agriculture to share her story. It was personal, and it was poignant. The letter outlined how her family had cared for their elderly mother, and that included having her live on the family farm in a mobile home. Shirley told the minister in that letter that “she was surrounded by the people she loved, flowers and animals.

I believe that this loving care extended her life. ” The letter goes on to say: “The changes to the ALR will keep families from being able to take care of their own. ” These concerns are shared by farm families right across this province, and the minister knows that — farm families that are trying to support their loved ones and to care for their aging parents. I know the minister’s heard from countless families, including many of the ones that are here today. Is the min- ister prepared to do the right thing, stand up in this House and repeal Bill 52 today? Hon. L.

Popham: I appreciate the member bringing for- ward a story like Shirley’s. We do see families that are strug- gling with aging parents. I, myself, had my mom who ended up passing away from dementia. We know that dementia and struggles as people age are affecting families all across B.C. As far as how farming families are able to care for their aging parents on their farms, we have opportunities and paths forward in the legislation that would allow a farming family to apply for a secondary residence if they need that. We look at succession planning with farming.

The Agricul- tural Land Commission has that ability to look at succession planning and what’s needed to support a family farm. Of course, every application that goes to the Agricultural Land Commission is treated as an individual application, an individual circumstance. They’re an independent tribunal. They look through an agricultural lens when they make their decisions, but they do have flexibility to look at what family needs are. Mr. Speaker: The member for Prince George–Valemount on a supplemental. S. Bond: Well, Minister, it’s actually interesting that you stand in the Legislature and give that answer.

Because do you know what? The Moon family actually did their homework. They sent a letter to the ALC. Let me quote what they asked the ALC, and then let me give the minister the answer from the ALC. Here’s what the Moon family said: “I’m still confused on one thing. After February 22, 2020, will I be able to put a manufactured home on my farm as accommodation for a family member who is disabled or elderly?” A pretty straightforward question and pretty important to the farm families that are here today.

Under the minister’s own mandate, here’s the answer from the ALC. “ After February 22, 2020, you will have to apply for a manufactured home with a non-adhering residential use application, and the chances of it being approved for any- thing other than farm help would not be good. ” So much for the minister’s assurance to the families that are here today. That’s from the ALC. Let’s be clear. Farm families are distressed. They are con- cerned. They are here today. This is a chance for the min- Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10289

ister to stand up, admit she made a mistake and repeal Bill 52 today. Hon. L. Popham:I am happy again to stand up and clarify the misinformation that is coming from the other side. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Members. Hon. L. Popham:One of things that is a good opportunity in this House is to bring out the facts, so I’m going to talk about the facts. [Interruption.] Hon. L. Popham: Well, I’m just going to review…. [Interruption.] Mr. Speaker: Members, this House will stand recessed for five minutes. The House recessed from 2:34 p.m. to 2:35 p.m. [Mr. Speaker in the chair.] Mr. Speaker: Members.

Members, we will resume ques- tion period in a moment, but if I just may say…. The ques- tion was asked with quiet from the government side, so if we might hear the response with quiet from the opposition side, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Hon. L. Popham: I would like to just clarify some facts around applications and what’s happened at the Agricultural Land Commission since April 1 of last year. Now, remember that the mandate of the commission is to look at applica- tions, and the first lens they use is agriculture. That’s what they do.

Of course, they have other parts of their mandate, as well, to encourage farming and to support farmers. I can tell you that the type of application that the member brought up is called a non-adhering residential use applic- ation. Since April 1 till October, 65 percent of those applic- ations that have been submitted to the ALC — that’s non- adhering residential use applications — have been approved. I can tell the member exactly what type of applications fall under non-adhering residential use. Farming for family use, farming-related — 83 percent of those applications have been approved.

Farming-related non-family applications — 60 percent have been approved. So there is a path forward for farming families, but there needs to be a lens of agricul- ture placed on it. M. de Jong: Of course, what the minister has not wanted to repeat is that, as a result of her amendments, there are many applications that farmers can’t bring in their own name because they’re no longer considered persons. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Members, we shall hear the ques- tion. Thank you. M. de Jong: The Abbotsford Women’s Centre opened its doors in 2003.

For the last five years they’ve operated out of a house located in south Abbotsford right along the U.S. bor- der that, for the last two decades, has housed women and youth in crisis. Nine women live there. They get the counselling, the sup- port that they require to overcome addictions, to overcome other challenges that they face. A few months ago the Abbotsford Women’s Centre received notice. They were ordered to shut their doors and close down. Their sin is that those women live in a house located on ALR land.

Why, despite having operated successfully for years, is this government and this minister saying to those women: “Y ou have to leave your home; you have to leave that place that is giving you support and find another place to live”? Hon. L. Popham: Before I get into the question, I just wanted to clarify something that the member said when he began his question. He said that farmers didn’t have the right to apply to do anything at the Agricultural Land Commis- sion, but that’s not true, and he knows that. It’s part of the strategy…. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Hon. L.

Popham: It’s really part of the strategy of the opposition to spread as much mistruth and put fear into the minds of British Columbians who are living on agricultural reserve land. [2:40 p.m.] When I talk to people and I clarify some of the facts, I think people are quite reassured, and they understand that there is a path forward. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Hon. L. Popham: Just to demonstrate my point, if some- body wants to exclude land out of the ALR, we did change that part of the process. Nothing else has changed. Y ou would have to get your local government to forward that application for you.

That’s because we are hoping that an exclusion application, which is a permanent exclusion of agricultural land, works with the local government plan, the community plan. 10290 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

Here’s something interesting for the member. Since April 1, till now — actually, October 18 — there have been eight exclusion applications that have been approved by the ALC. That’s a 57 percent approval rate for exclusions, so I think that process is working. But of course, every application is looked at individually by the Agricultural Land Commission. Now, the situation that the member brings up…. There are 1,500 new homes for women fleeing violence, including opportunities in Abbotsford. That’s the first in 20 years. That specific situation was really about the tenants having out- grown the facility.

But they have been given two years to find additional residence. I think that it’s very encouraging that the Minister of Housing is creating housing that would address a situation like this. Mr. Speaker: The member for Abbotsford West on a sup- plemental. M. de Jong: Well, it’s a curious response from the minister and the government side. I’m trying to imagine what their response would have been two or three years ago if, in response to a question about a women’s centre being closed down because of…. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members.

M. de Jong: The response from government would have been: “Oh well, don’t worry about it. The eviction notice gives them two years. ” Look, I’m actually…. To the degree that members of the government caucus are upset, I’m glad, because they should be. The minister amended the mandate of the Agricultural Land Commission. She did that in this House. We voted against it. Her colleagues voted for it. The ALC has used that mandate, that amended new mandate, to say to the Abbots- ford Women’s Centre: “Y ou must leave. Y ou must close your door.

Y ou must find a different place for these women. ” They don’t want anything from government. They don’t receive government funding. They want to be left alone. They want to be left alone by this minister. The irony is that a part of the property actually extends into the U.S. They’ve even managed to reach an accommod- ation with the U.S. border services. Can the minister explain why, in circumstances where this women’s centre has operated for all of these years, where even Donald Trump has managed to find a way to accom- modate their operation, she and her government seem bent…?

They have issued an eviction notice that will force them to leave the home that has served them so well. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. Hon. L. Popham: I think, as I mentioned earlier, that that facility has reached its capacity. But there’s nothing that we’ve changed that would have affected that situation. Interjections. Mr. Speaker: Members. [2:45 p.m.] Hon. L. Popham: Now, the members continue to say I have a handpicked commission with a handpicked chair that does everything. Here are the facts on that as well. The majority of commissioners that work on the commission were picked by the B.C. Liberals.

The current chair was appointed to the commission by the B.C. Liberals three times. The B.C. Liberals even appointed Ms. Dyson as vice- chair of the Agricultural Land Commission. There are not that many ideas that I can support from the B.C. Liberals, but that was one idea I could get behind. Mr. Speaker: Members, that was an unusual set of long answers there. Does the opposition have another question? M. Polak: I will assume that means one question… Mr. Speaker: One question. M. Polak: …so I will put this together in one. We’re coming up to Halloween in Langley.

What that usu- ally means is that families get together and they go to Glow Harvest at Darvonda Nurseries. However, this year they won’t be doing that. It’s been shut down, in spite of the oper- ators asking over and over of the ALC: “What could we do to change this so that we could comply, so that we could oper- ate this festival?” Nevertheless, the ALC has chosen not to permit what they were planning to do. The same is true for an even better-known festival that has been going on for years, drawing people from all over the Lower Mainland, and that’s Glow Christmas.

Annually these festivals have raised more than $50,000 for local charities, but they’re not happening anymore in Langley at the nursery site because the ALC has shut them down. To the minister, how does shutting down harvest festivals help farming? Hon. L. Popham: That’s an interesting question, because the changes that that government made in 2014 are the reas- on why it’s happening. [End of question period.] Petitions I. Paton: I rise in the House today to present a petition Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10291

calling for the repeal of Bills 52 and 15. This petition was cre- ated by farmers for farmers, and it has more than 26,000 sig- natures in this 30-pound stack I have on my desk. These farmers feel that they have not been heard by this government, which introduced these bills without adequate consultation and continues to ignore their concerns. This petition asks to restore the right of farmers to have two dwellings unconditional to farm use. M.

Stilwell: I rise to present a petition started by Jodie Lucas of the Rusted Rake, with 8,500 signatures, asking the government to allow for food service facilities on agricultur- al land reserve. Tabling Documents Hon. C. James: I present the guarantees and indemnities approved report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, in accordance with the Financial Administration Act, subsec- tion 72(8). A. Weaver: I seek leave to make an introduction. Leave granted. Introductions by Members A.

Weaver: In the gallery before us here are members of the Ukrainian community in Victoria as well as my moth- er, Ludmilla — née Krawchenko — Weaver, and my father, John Weaver. Would the House please make them feel very welcome. Orders of the Day Hon. M. Farnworth: I call second reading on Bill M225, Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act, 2019. [2:50 p.m.] [J. Isaacs in the chair.] Second Reading of Bills BILL M225 — UKRAINIAN FAMINE AND GENOCIDE (HOLODOMOR) MEMORIAL DAY ACT A. Weaver: I move that Bill M225 be now read a second time.

It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak at second reading to Bill M225, the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act. As I noted upon introducing the bill at first reading, the term “Holodomor” is derived from the words moryty holo- dom, meaning extermination by hunger. During Holodo- mor, between three million and five million Ukrainians died as a result of a deliberate and politically motivated famine in 1932-33. This bill, if passed, would allow the fourth Saturday in November to be memorialized by the Legislature as Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodo- mor) Memorial Day.

Canada is home to the world’s third-largest Ukrainian population behind Ukraine and Russia, with an estimated 1.36 million Ukrainian Canadians living across the country. Among them are members of my family. Please let me expand upon the importance of memorializing this horrific tragedy through the narrative of my own family’s experi- ences in the Ukraine. I’m profoundly grateful to my uncle Bohdan Krawchenko, who was born in December 1946, shortly after the Second World War, in a refugee camp in the American zone of southern Germany, for helping me with our family’s history during, after and before the Holodomor.

Dyadʹko Bohdan was director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta for many years before moving to the Ukraine in 1991. There, he became director of policy studies at the Council of Advisors to the newly constituted Parliament of Ukraine after Ukraine declared its independence on August 24, 1991. Bohdan Krawchenko is presently the dean of the Graduate School of Development at the University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, where he also served as direct- or general from 2007 to 2014.

My grandfather on my mother’s side, Alexander Kraw- chenko, immigrated to Canada in late 1950, arriving in Montreal with $5 in his pocket and with a family of four waiting in France to join him. Within half a year or so, being a good welder — I’ll come back to that — he had saved up enough money to pay for the transatlantic passage that brought everyone, including my mother, to Montreal.

Born in a small village in Dnipropetrovsk, Eastern Ukraine, in 1914, he survived the offensives and counter- offensives during the 1917 to ’20 Ukrainian revolution, the Stalin collectivization, the famine, the repressions and the horrors of the Second World War. He often reminded his children, including my mother, that he was one of the fortu- nate ones. Most people like him didn’t make it. The Soviet regime was not established in Ukraine until 1919, after three attempts.

At the end of 1918, the Bolshevik party in Ukraine had only 5,000 members in a country of 29 million people, and Soviet power depended entirely on Red Army forces from Russia. In 1919, the Bolsheviks implemen- ted devastating agricultural policies of collectivization and forceful grain requisitions that led to the 1921 famine that claimed the lives of a million people and proved to be a dress rehearsal for a far more ominous famine a decade later. [2:55 p.m.] It implemented the new economic policy in 1921 — NEP , as it’s popularly called — a more market-oriented economic policy to foster economic growth.

That allowed private indi- 10292 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

viduals to own small enterprises, but its biggest impact was on the countryside, abandoning the much-hated collectiv- ization and allowing private holdings, including a relatively sane tax policy instead of forceful confiscation. Agriculture production increased; 70 percent of peasants were members of cooperatives. There were huge leaps in educational achievement. The urban economy expanded. The Ukrainian countryside had one of the world’s highest birth rates.

All of this came to an end when Stalin decided on rapid industrialization that meant forced collectivization — that is, the abolition of private holding and forcing peasants into state-controlled collective farms for the simple reason that it was easier this way to extract enormous surpluses through outright confiscation. The fact that agricultural pro- duction plunged was not an issue as long as the surpluses could be extracted.

I should note as a little sidebar here that this same cata- strophic policy was also pursued by Mao Zedong, Stalin’s disciple, in the Great Leap Forward from 1957 to ’60 that res- ulted in 30 million deaths in China. The country — China, that is — recovered under Deng Xiaoping, who was also greatly influenced by the experience of the new economic policy, the NEP , in his reforms, built in Ukraine. Ukraine was always viewed by the Russian Bolsheviks as something of an El Dorado, with its rich black soil, whose agricultural produce was there for the taking.

But it had a troublesome peasantry, with its strong self-organization, vil- lage committees, cooperatives, and so on, that also served as a social base of the national idea. If only it could be brought to heel, broken, then the rapacious policies would encounter little resistance. My great-grandfather, Ustym Krawchenko, was part of the large base of the natural leadership of village society that had to be removed.

He had seen the world, having sailed some 20,000 nautical miles as an army conscript, from Petersburg around the Cape of Good Hope to the land in the Far East, to participate in one of the last battles of the 1905 Russo-Japan- ese War. He was stirred by the Ukrainian Revolution. During the 1920s, under the new economic plan, he was active in village life and, in 1925, a founder of the village improvement soci- ety from his village. There were nine children in his family, and the parents scrimped to send the eldest three boys to institutions of higher education.

The family was sustained by a farm of some five hectares. As Stalin moved towards collectivization in 1927, there was a large tax increase on the middle- and high-income peasants. The vast majority of peasants in Ukraine were middle peasants, holding somewhere between four and sev- en hectares of land. That year, at a meeting of the village council — recalling that, at this time, these councils played a very significant role in the governing of villages — Ustym criticized this measure, arguing that it would lower incent- ives of peasant households to generate surpluses.

The village council supported his position and voted against the tax increase. A few days later Soviet security services arrested him, and he spent half a year in prison. Ustym was released in May 1928, the year Stalin declared industrialization and the first step of collectivization. The onslaught of the Ukrainian peas- antry began with the so-called dekulakization campaign, which involved ridding the countryside of its most product- ive strata and its natural leadership. The aim was “the liquid- ation of kulaks as a class. ” Their property was to be con- fiscated.

One group was to be imprisoned in concentration camps or shot; the other, deported to Siberia or northern Russia; and the third, resettled in another location. My family fell in the second category. On March 5, 1930, a dekulakization brigade comprising party activists, the OGPU — that’s the forerunner of the KGB — and urban res- idents descended on the village, ordered the family out of the house and took them to be loaded on a crowded cattle wag- on headed for the woodlands of northern Russia, the Volog- da region.

Aboard was Ustym, age 50, his wife, 41, and five of the youngest of the nine children who were at home at the time: my grandfather, Alexander, who was 15, and four girls — aged 11, twins aged eight and a five-year-old. After some two weeks on the cattle wagon, they were deposited in Vologda, where it was still winter. Women and children were separated from able-bodied men and herded into a church. Conditions were appalling. There was one loaf of bread for 18 people. [3:00 p.m.] Children started to die en masse.

The mortality rate was so high that the camp commander petitioned authorities to allow children under the age of 15 to be sent to their rel- atives and friends. The four girls, my great aunts, the eldest being 11, were put on a train alone and sent to Dnipropet- rovsk, in Ukraine, into the care of one of their elder broth- ers, my great-uncle, Dyadʹko Vasyl, a 21-year-old engineer- ing student at the time. Ustym, their father, was driven into the woods to work to fell trees. It was winter, and he was half-barefooted since his boots were torn, and there was only one pair.

In a letter to Vasyl, he wrote: “We are doomed here to a gradual death from starvation. We are told here that a bullet is worth more than any one of us, the exiled. So you all together must take care of your sisters and brothers to save them and lead them on the path that your parents put you on. I myself am destined to find a grave in the woods of Volog- da Governorate. ” He quoted a poem written by one of his fellow exiles from the Odessa region of the Ukraine. “When I remember Ukraine, my heart sinks…. Cry, children of Ukraine. Grow up in tears….

One day we will cry and sing and rejoice together. ” As a side note, in 1930, before the fully blown apparatus of repression was established, people wrote these letters where they expressed themselves in a manner that would be simply unthinkable a few years later. My great-uncle Vasyl collected Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10293

22 such letters he received from various members of our family, burning the originals after transcribing them into school notebooks. He clung to them when the Germans took him from Ukraine during the Second World War as forced labour, where he remained after the war. My grandfather and his mother escaped the Vologda region. With the young girls gone, the authorities decided to move them to where the men were working in the woods. There was no place to live, no food, and they lived on the street. There was only one way out — to flee. It was an epic journey of almost 1,500 kilometres.

My grandfather was 15 years old. As he wrote in a letter to his brother Vasyl: “If a runaway is caught, he or she is arrested. A Ukrainian is easily distinguished from a Russian. I learnt to speak their tongue and got a Russian jacket and dressed mother in a Russian sarafan, ” which is the national dress. His mother had to pretend to be deaf and dumb, since she didn’t know Russian. They slept in the woods or haylofts and begged for food. There was a dramatic moment on the journey when they reached the River Sukhona that they had to cross. “ As they waited, ” as grandfather wrote, “the militia came.

They sat in the boat, and I pleaded with them to take us across. I thought we were caught, but they only asked: ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To work, ’ I said, and they didn’t react at all. ” By the end of 1930, they’ d made it to Ukraine, to Vasyl’s cramped quarters, and my grandfather was about to turn 16. Imagine that. He was just 15 when he made the 1,500-kilo- metre trek on foot with his mother. They couldn’t stay in Dnipropetrovsk. As escapees, they would be punished. My grandfather did what thousands of other runaways did.

He fled to the eastern cities of Ukraine, where indus- trialization had created a massive demand for labour. The industrial centres were a cauldron. Y ou could lie about where you came from, and in this period, there was no way author- ities could quickly verify the information. He worked on a massive construction site, the building of the Dnipro hydroelectric dam just outside Zaporizhzhya, carrying heavy drills up scaffolding at the age of 16. Then he moved deeper into the industrial heartland, Donetsk oblast, changing jobs if it looked like the truth would emerge that he had fled exile.

My grandfather excelled at welding. He visited nearby Berdyansk, a town by the sea where he met my baba Antonina, whose family were rooted city- dwellers with their own house. She worked in an office at an enterprise and was quite adept at getting him various identity papers. They married. He was 20, and she was 18. One year later my uncle Oleh was born in Donetsk, and my mother, four years later, Ludmilla, in Berdyansk. The town had several machine-building plants, and there they lived until the middle of the Second World War.

The rest of the family, by now, was scattered — the elder sister in one place, the young girls and mother together either with one of their brothers or with other relatives. One brother, who was a land surveyor, even spent a short time in Tajikistan. But Ustym, fortunately, did make it back to Ukraine. He “broke away, ” as one of the brothers wrote in a letter, and meandered to the Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, found work in Stalingrad and moved to Donetsk. [3:05 p.m.] Ustym, my great-grandfather, died in 1951, far away from the Vologda forests.

After the Second World War, he and his wife moved to Truskavets, Lviv oblast, in Western Ukraine, where he worked building wells in this town of spas. It’s a cruel twist of fate that those, such as my grandfather’s family, who were exiled to northern Russia or Siberia for their resistance to collectivization and not allowed to return to their village, survived the 1930s because of this. For what unfolded in the Ukrainian villages was horrific. Collectiv- ization was accelerated in the winter of 1930-31, and there was large-scale resistance. Revolts and uprisings broke out in many villages.

Peasants slaughtered cattle rather than turn them over to collective farms. Draconian grain requisition quotas were set that included the confiscation of seed grain. By early 1933, the average peasant family, comprising five or six people, was left with 80 kilograms of grain to feed themselves. Peasants were forbidden to leave collective farms, and the Ukrainian borders were closely patrolled to prevent the starving from searching for bread in neighbour- ing Russia. One of the worst famines in Ukrainian history, which killed millions, ravaged Ukraine, the Holodomor. It is one that could have been totally avoided.

Collectivization and the famine-genocide of 1932-33 destroyed the peasants of Ukraine as a social strata. The Ukrainian village was silenced and never again rose in opposition to the Soviet regime. Ukraine had not recovered from the traumas of the 1930s when it was plunged into the cauldron of the Second World War. It was the largest Soviet republic, which the Germans occupied in full, and armies swept through it — not once, not twice, not three times but four times.

The Nazi invasion and the Soviet army retreat involved a scorched earth policy, destroying all that could not be evacuated and included the execution of inmates in the NKVD prisons. That’s what the secret police had called them. The German retreat left yet another trail of destruction and the retaking of the country by the Soviet forces. Not once but twice the mere fact that my grandfather was a weld- er saved his life and the lives of his family. Forced-labour, some more often called slave-labour, work camps were the destination for my family.

The war was characterized by unheard-of brutalities out- side the field of battle. During the occupation, some five mil- lion civilians were killed, of whom over 600,000 were Jews, and 1.4 million military personnel either perished on the fronts or died as prisoners of war. Every third man in the Red Army was lost, compared to one in every 20 in the Brit- ish Army. Altogether, 6.8 million people and two million cit- izens of the republic were sent to Germany as Ostarbeiter, forced labour. Stalin’s appalling unpreparedness to fight the war has been well documented.

He pinned all his hopes on the Molotov- 10294 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

Ribbentrop pact. The Germans invaded the U.S.S.R. on June 22, 1941. By October, Donetsk oblast was taken. They con- fronted an army that was poorly led. During the 1936 to ’38 purges, 60 percent of army commanders, from the corps to brigade level, had either been executed or died in prison camps. The dispirited troops were quickly encircled and sur- rendered, only to die as prisoners of war. My grandfather, Alexander, was in the Donetsk region digging anti-tank ditches when the German army and the German war machine shattered the Soviet army. He survived and walked to Berdyansk, where his family lived.

Once he told my uncle Bohdan about his experience. He struggled through battlefields, with thousands upon thousands of corpses strewn across the landscape and with wounded sol- diers in agony, breathing their last breath. He arrived in Berdyansk bedraggled, emaciated and in shock. When he knocked on the door, his wife did not recognize him. My grandfather, like others, did not know what to expect. His brother Vasyl, the engineer, and three of the elder girls had already been taken by Germans as Ostarbeiter.

When it became known that the German advance in Russia was stopped and that they would retreat in the face of superior Soviet forces, my grandfather knew that the steppes of Ukraine would once more become a bloody battlefield. [3:10 p.m.] He loaded the family on a wagon. He was just 28, his wife 26, with two children: my uncle, who was seven — that’s Uncle Oleh; and my mother, just two years old. With a cow in tow, he said goodbye to his parents, promising to return soon, and headed to no particular destination — just west, some out-of-the-way spot so that the fronts coming to and fro would pass.

My grandfather’s welding skills provided a livelihood as they meandered and ended up in Slovakia. There, the Ger- mans took them as forced labour — my grandfather to work repairing railcars and my grandmother as a highly exploited agricultural labourer with two children to take care of. The end of the war found them in the American zone of southern Germany. Otherwise, they would have been sent back to Ukraine, as three of his sisters were. From Germany, they moved to France and then to Canada.

When the casualties of the revolutionary period, collect- ivization, famine and the purges in the second world are combined, more than half of the men and a quarter of the female population of the Ukraine perished. The survival rate of those who had been marked as enemies of the people was even lower. My grandfather was, indeed, one of the fortunate ones. It’s hard to believe — one of the fortunate ones. He did return to the Ukraine, by then in retirement, after his wife, my baba, had died. He completed a theological degree at the Ukrain- ian Orthodox St.

Andrews College Faculty of Theology at the University of Manitoba and became an Orthodox priest. With his eldest son, Dyadʹko Oleh, also an Orthodox priest, they visited the native village and held a memorial service for all of the departed souls from his family, my family and the rest in Ukraine. That is my family’s story before, during and after the Holodomor. My family is only one of millions of Ukrainians who experienced the same.

Through the passage of this bill — as has been done in the federal parliament as well as the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec — we say that we remember and that we memorialize the memory of the millions who died in Holodomor. Today we can only imagine the atrocities experienced by the people of Ukraine. And while our memories fade with time, let us collectively say: “Never again. ” T. Shypitka: It gives me pride and honour to speak to Bill M225, the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act.

Before I do, I’ d like to really thank the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head for spearheading this issue and bringing it forward to where we are today. Thank you for the sombre and terrifying tales that you shared with us. I think it’s an important piece of the recog- nizing and the reflection that we need to bring this act to where it should be. To first recognize and reflect, as the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head so eloquently did just now, we must first understand. I thought I would take a moment of my time today to recognize the past because we cannot move forward without sometimes looking back.

I will refer to some historical facts that I found through the Holodomor research and education consortium. The term “Holodomor, ” as the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head has stated, essentially means death by hunger in Ukrainian. It refers to the starvation of millions of Ukraini- ans in 1932 and 1933 as a result of Soviet policies. The Holodomor can be seen as the accumulation of an assault by the Communist Party and Soviet state on the Ukrainian peasantry who resisted Soviet policies.

This assault occurred in the context of a campaign of intimidation and arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals, writers, artists, reli- gious leaders and political cadres who were seen as a threat to Soviet ideological and state-building aspirations. Between 1917 and 1921, Ukraine briefly became an independent country and fought to retain its independ- ence before succumbing to the Red Army and being incor- porated into the Soviet Union. In the 1920s, Soviet central authorities, seeking the support of the populace, allowed for some cultural autonomy through the policy known as indigenization.

By the end of the 1920s, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin decided to curtail Ukraine’s cultural autonomy, launching the intimidation, arrests, imprisonment and execution of thousands of Ukrainian intellectuals, church leaders, as well as Communist Party functionaries who had supported Ukraine’s distinctiveness. [3:15 p.m.] At the same time, Stalin ordered the collectivization of Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10295

agriculture. The majority of Ukrainians, who were small- scale farmers, resisted. The state confiscated the property of the independent farmers and forced them to work on government collective farms. The more prosperous farmers, owning a few head of livestock, for example, and those who resisted collectivization were branded kulaks, rich peasants, and declared enemies of the state who deserved to be elimin- ated as a class. I think that’s important to note because elim- ination of a class or a type of people is essentially genocide. Thousands were thrown out of their homes and deported, exiled or executed.

In 1932, the Communist Party set impossibly high quotas for the amount of grain that Ukrainian villages were required to contribute to the Soviet state. When the villages were not able to meet the quotas, authorities intensified the requisition campaign, confiscating even the seed set aside for planting and levying fines in meat and potatoes for failure to fulfil the quotas. Special teams were sent to search homes and even seized other food stuffs. Starving farmers attempted to leave their villages in search of food, but Soviet authorities issued a decree forbidding Ukraine’s peasants from leaving the country.

As a result, many thousands of farmers who had managed to leave their villages were apprehended and sent back — virtually a death sentence. A law was introduced that made the theft of even a few stocks of grain

an act of sabotage punishable by exe- cution. In some cases, soldiers were posted in watchtowers to prevent people from taking any of the harvest. Although informed of the dire conditions in Ukraine, central author- ities ordered local officials to extract even more from the villages. Millions starved as the U.S.S.R. sold crops from Ukraine abroad. The U.S.S.R. vigorously denied that the Holodomor occurred.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Com- munist Party, secret police and government archives that have become accessible to researchers support the conclu- sion that the famine was caused by Soviet state policies and was indeed intentionally intensified by Soviet authorities. Unfortunately, humankind has seen numerous examples of political injustices: the Holocaust, as the member said, the Mao Zedong regime and the Holodomor. Closer to home, we are working through injustices that years ago were brought upon our First Nation communities. This is some- thing that we’re all trying desperately to heal from.

Truth and reconciliation is not specific to any one area or region of our planet. Reconciliation may look differently, but truth is syn- onymous with us all. Moments in history like the Ukraine famine and genocide serve as a reminder of the horrors that have been inflicted on innocent people. Nearly 90 years later the memories of this still linger in the minds of generations of people affected. This bill honours those that died and the millions affected, many of whom found new homes in other countries, far from the horrors of the Soviet regime.

By commemorating this day here in British Columbia, we are affirming our position with the rest of Canada that we are a place of welcome that remembers the past while striv- ing for a better future. Now this isn’t a big bill. However, its simplicity doesn’t reflect its importance. When a mistake is made, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it and don’t repeat it. I’m hoping for all three with Bill M225, 2019. The Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act will do just that. Hon. B.

Ralston: I’m pleased to rise in support of Bill M225, the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act. I want to thank the Leader of the Third Party for intro- ducing this legislation. I particularly want to thank him and his family for sharing a very moving personal history of his journey through the last century and the impact that events such as Holodomor and other major events of world history have had upon him and his family, and how he comes to be here in this place.

It’s important, as we seek to understand each other, to understand our own back- grounds and antecedents. [3:20 p.m.] I have brought very similar bills forward in this House as a private member in 2009 and 2013, so I’m familiar with this issue. I’m really glad to have the opportunity to speak to it today. I, unlike the Leader of the Third Party, have no Ukrainian ancestry, not even remotely in the lateral reaches of my fam- ily background. I came to an awareness and an interest in this issue in a very different way.

I was elected in 2005 as the MLA for Surrey-Whalley, and in my riding is the Ukraini- an Orthodox Cultural Centre on 108th Avenue in Surrey. It’s next to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of St. Mary. As a constituency MLA, I went to various events there. What I discovered was something that I didn’t really know anything about — the history of Holodomor and its signific- ance to Canadians who trace their origins to Ukraine. I par- ticularly want to thank Katherine and Bill Miske, who really got me interested. They really piqued my interest in this top- ic.

I really want to thank them for making me aware and set- ting me on a journey to learn more and to join with others in the Ukrainian community and the Ukrainian diaspora here in British Columbia and Canada, as we seek to do just what this bill says, here in British Columbia. The Miskes are pretty amazing people. They were rec- ognized in 2016 by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the B.C. provincial council, for their contributions to their com- munity. They’re the kind of people that….

In any organiza- tion, there are always a few who do all the work: they organ- ize the events; they collect the tickets; they organize the food; they organize the dance; and they do it selflessly and without complaining. Part of, I think, their legacy — in a minor way — is that they got me interested in this topic. Therefore, that’s why I brought it forward previously, and that’s why I’m so pleased that it has come here to the Legislature today. As others have said, the bill recognizes the famine and 10296 British Columbia Debates Monday, October 28, 2019

genocide that killed literally millions of Ukrainians in the winter of 1932 and 1933, during that period of forced col- lectivization in the Soviet Union. The tragedy…. Some estimate that up to — estimates vary, understandably — as many as ten million Ukrainians died. One-third of them, fully, may well have been children. It’s known, as we’ve discussed here already, as Holodomor. The derivation comes from the two Ukrainian words — holod, meaning hunger, starvation or famine, andmoryty, to induce suffering, to kill.

During this time, the Soviet state had drawn a line around a huge area in Ukraine and would not let anyone come or go from that area. And inside that area that was circumscribed, they set very high — impossibly high — quotas of grain for villages to contribute and forbade Ukrainians from leaving their village in search of food. The inevitable consequence, along with a battery of laws to enforce that, was the resulting tragedy and widespread fam- ine that killed many, many people.

The Leader of the Third Party has spoken about some of the motives of the Soviet leadership, for fearing the nation- al awakening of Ukrainians and their aspirations for cultural expression and an independent state. It’s significant that the former Soviet state attempted, with great success, to actually keep the news of this tragedy from spreading out into inter- national news. There was a very famous reporter for the New York Times who was, I think, convinced — wrongly — that nothing had happened. That was what people relied upon as an accur- ate account of what took place.

So for many, many years, the truth of what happened in Ukraine was hidden from history — of course, no more. [3:25 p.m.] Some of the survivors of this famine and genocide, and their descendants, reside in British Columbia. In the course of my meetings and attendance at events in Surrey, I’ve met those who trace their origins to Ukraine at this time. I’ve actually heard firsthand accounts from one woman who lived and managed to survive that period of history — very moving and profound accounts of deep personal and societal suffering.

Those who have survived, and their descendants, have made, of course, valuable contributions to the province’s cul- tural, economic, political and educational life, not the least of which is the member who just spoke before me and the Leader of the Third Party. About 5 percent of British Colum- bia’s population traces their origins to Ukraine. It’s approx- imately 200,000 people. There are about 1.3 million Cana- dians who trace their origins to Ukraine as well. This event has been memorialized and recognized by a number of governments.

The government of Ukraine; the Parliament of Canada; the governments of Alberta, Saskat- chewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec; UNESCO; the United Nations; the United States House of Representatives and the Senate; the European Parliament; and many other jurisdictions worldwide have officially condemned the Holodomor or recognized it as what it was — as a genocide. The Ukrainian government itself has officially observed the fourth Saturday in November as Holodomor Memorial Day since 2006.

So that’s why we join with all of those other jurisdictions, and particularly with the government of Ukraine, to proclaim the fourth Saturday in November of each year Holodomor Memorial Day to remember those who perished as victims of the Holodomor. I look forward to hearing the contributions of others to the debate. M. Lee: I wanted to add my participation to this discus- sion in support of Bill M225, 2019. As with the member for Kootenay East, I certainly would convey our appreciation on behalf of the B.C.

Liberal caucus and the Leader of the Offi- cial Opposition, the member for Vancouver-Quilchena, who wanted to join in this discussion today and has been, cer- tainly, a great friend of the Ukrainian-Canadian community, particularly in Metro Vancouver. It is a time when, unfortunately — with bills of this nature, with the struggles that we have in our world — we need to continue to have memorial days to remember. Regrettably, acts against humanity continue to exist and are brought to other members of our world, both in the past and in the present.

As the member for Kootenay East referred to, the history of Canada, with Indigenous peoples…. There are other examples, of course, but I know that when we talk about other tragedies in the world, including in this country and in this province, with other communities, there’s no comparison. We cannot compare what has happened in the history of one people to another.

For the Ukrainian-Canadian community, which has been, for many years, leaders in the world, to bring greater atten- tion to the tragedies, as to what happened, as the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, the Leader of the Third Party, so eloquently described….

It’s the Ukrainian-Canadian com- munity, both here in Victoria and in Vancouver — with memorials that have been erected in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Windsor, to name other parts of our country — that have demonstrated the leadership to bring a greater awareness of what has occurred. [3:30 p.m.] Like the Minister of Jobs, I also don’t have any Ukrainian heritage in my blood. But in 1985, I had the opportunity to serve on a national youth advisory committee, and I would say that was the first time that I met with young Ukrainian Canadians in Winnipeg who served on that committee with me.

I learned a lot about the history of the Ukraine and much of the tragedy for generational impact that Holodo- mor brought to the Ukrainian people. More recently, I have made many friendships, including clients of mine who are from Edmonton in the Ukrainian community there. [R. Chouhan in the chair.] I just want to mention…. I think it was a year ago that the Minister of Jobs and Trade and I were with the Ukrainian Monday, October 28, 2019 British Columbia Debates 10297

community at the Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Vancouver. It was to commemorate Holodomor, and it provided much information, as the minister just outlined, in terms of the misinformation that was brought either by the Soviet Union or by others and the hiding of this human tragedy for so many years, until the 1990s, and the efforts that it took to make the world understand what had occurred. I also want to pay tribute, as well…. I recognize that the minister has, through other efforts in this House, tried to bring a similar bill to this House.

I share his efforts in this, but also to recognize another friend of the Ukrainian com- munity, the late Mark Warawa, the Member of Parliament for Langley-Aldergrove who, I know, in speaking that day, also had great sympathy and great understanding for the importance of this memorial. I know he’s here with us in spirit today. It’s important, of course, as we look at the bill….

There is an aspect in the recitals to the bill that it would “provide an opportunity to reflect on the enduring lessons of the Holodomor and other crimes against humanity…. ” Y ou know, much of what we talk about in this House is the importance of the rights of the individual, and to suffer what occurred during that regime…. It’s said that at the height of what was occurring in 1932 and ’33, people were dying at the rate of 25,000 per day, 1,000 per hour or 17 per minute. The scope and the depth of this tragedy is untold.

One cannot imagine what others have said when there is mass starvation that’s forced at the hands of the Soviet communist regime. Children, parents, mothers and fath- ers, grandparents, suffering together, having n

Document details

Collection	British Columbia — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	20191028pm-Hansard-n283
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	20191028pm Hansard n283
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	f9a692fe3b6c73b4f2d015712a526c45db3ed5bd

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