Yesterday in the legislature I rose to speak in support of Bill 36: Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3). This is a non-controversial bill that makes myriad small changes in a number of existing pieces of legislation.

Below I reproduce the text and video of my second reading speech.

Text of Speech

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and stand in support of this bill, Bill 36, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act — (No. 3), no less — 2018.

I thank the member for Vancouver–False Creek for the welcome to speak to this.

Now, those who have been riveted to Hansard videos for the last five years will know that I’ve made it a frequent occurrence, speaking to miscellaneous statutes amendment acts. This one actually is quite remarkable in that it is somewhat unlike a lot of the acts we see in that there are a lot of quite meaty changes that are brought in and a diverse array of bills. You know, sometimes we’ve joked in this House about spell-checker and comma acts when they’ve been the whole bill. Important changes are made, but these have meatier changes.

I would like to start by speaking to part 1, the Advanced Education, Skills and Training amendments. Now, I understand where opposition are coming from in their concern about this, and the very first thing I did, as well as my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands, who spoke so eloquently earlier on this issue, was raise a flag. The first thing I did was pull out my conspiracy theory hat, thinking that perhaps we were seeing a political payout for union friends here and perhaps this was a way to try to get negotiators on the board of governors.

I actually requested a briefing. I was delighted to have that briefing this morning with ministerial staff who I was able to ask and probe some questions as to where this emerged from.

To give you some context of this, I was the president of the UVic Faculty Association when I was at the University of Victoria, and I was chief negotiator in two bargaining sessions spanning about five years. At that time, when you look at what’s being removed here, you might suggest that perhaps by removing the language, I could potentially put myself in a conflict of interest by being allowed to serve on the board of governors of an institution while at the same time serving as chief negotiator for the faculty. In essence, you would be negotiating with yourself. I understand where the concern was coming from with the opposition.

Now, therein lies the source of what I believe is some further necessary comment. To get there first, I think it’s important to see what has actually been repealed. In the College and Institute Act, the University Act and the Royal Roads University Act, the same bit of language…. I’ll only read the one, because it’s slightly and subtly different in the University Act from the College and Institute Act. This is what’s being removed. Language presently exists, and it was recently added by the previous government….

“A person is not eligible to be or to remain a member of the board if the person is:

(a) an employee of its institution, and

(b) a voting member of the executive body of” — that would be like a president, a vice-president or someone like that — “or an officer of, an instructional, administrative or other staff association of the institution who has the responsibility, or joint responsibility with others, to

(i) negotiate with the board, on behalf of instructional, administrative or other staff association of that institution, the terms and conditions of service of members of that association, or

(ii) adjudicate disputes regarding members of the instructional, administrative or other staff associations of that institution.“

My Spidey senses were raised when I saw that being removed. I thought: “Well, hang on here. Is this some nefarious backroom deal to pay back friends?” Was this one of these “good faith, no surprises” kind of step-asides?

Again, coming back to the briefing, it turns out that what I was able to learn from this briefing was that we are the only province in the country that has language like this, and we are unique in that regard because in essence we already have a requirement. Again, the previous government put in place very fine conflict-of-interest measures, and demanded that with institutions, that exist that would not allow the negotiator like me, for example, to negotiate with myself on the board.

So again, this is not what I had originally thought it would be, as some kind of payback. It wasn’t. It was actually trying to streamline a process that was already being dealt with, which is the issue of conflict of interest. But in fact, it is making it more accessible for some smaller institutions, particularly in rural B.C., where there are some difficulties to actually get qualified members on the board.

What this has laid out as is a broader ability, particularly…. I mean, this is not an issue for the University of British Columbia or the University of Victoria. But it is an issue for some smaller rural colleges subject to this act, and this is clarifying that the existing conflict-of-interest legislation is sufficient and the responsibilities that are governed by board members are sufficient to ensure that you can’t negotiate with yourself, in essence.

So while initially very suspect about this component, I’m pleased to say that I was very satisfied. Again, I’m very grateful to the ministry staff who provided the briefing at such short notice and did so in such an informative manner — and to the government, frankly, for arranging a briefing on this important topic within literally 24 hours. Because as we know, this bill was only brought before us two days ago, and ministry staff were able to get the briefing this morning, shortly after QP.

I wasn’t the widest awake of all days, having been up since four in the morning, preparing questions and other things, because it was rather a lot of things that have been going on here today in the B.C. Legislature. Nevertheless, though, I am grateful that we were able to do this.

I look to part 2, and this is changes to the Milk Industry Act. I suspect the Minister of Agriculture will speak quite passionately as to why these changes are necessary, required and fundamental to good governance here in British Columbia.

But I’d like to say…. Obviously, I support it, but this is important and timely that we start to talk about the dairy industry in British Columbia. Why is it important and timely? Because we’ve seen recent signing of a NAFTA agreement where our supply management component of the dairy industry has taken a little bit of a hit. They’re not happy losing 3½ percent of their supply to potential U.S. milk products.

I will say to British Columbians who are riveted to the television, watching Hansard today, I’m not worried about that. The reason why is that in Canada we don’t put hormones in our milk. In the U.S., they do.

Why would anyone go to a supermarket and choose to have hormone-laden milk from somewhere else when you can get Vancouver Island Dairyland cows or Island Farms cows? You can buy milk made in B.C. that doesn’t have steroids, that’s supporting local farmers.

I’m not worried about this supply management, so I say good on Canada in their negotiations with NAFTA. I think we’ve done well in the auto industry. I think we’ve done well in other aspects of that, in order that we’re ensuring that labour standards in Mexico, for example, are up to the same, or at least better paid, compared to us here, which ensures that the so-called Dutch disease doesn’t occur by shipping manufacturing jobs offshore.

Again, with the small changes to the definition of a dairy plant…. I didn’t go into a detailed briefing as to what those were. Clearly, the civil service would have identified, in consultation with the minister’s office, issues that have arisen in recent years where the definition of dairy plant has been troubling in terms of legislation. Again, small yet important changes have been put in here.

When we move on to part 3, we see a number of amendments to the Mental Health Act, the Offence Act and others. These are all under the purview of the Attorney General’s office. Again, these are relatively minor yet potentially impactful.

The first, of course, the changes to the Mental Health Act, are, in essence, saying that a retired medical practitioner can now serve on a review panel. It doesn’t have to be a current practitioner. Why this is important is that I understand there have been some issues, historically, where perhaps a retired member has been on it, and then panels have made deliberations, and there’s some question as to whether this person was allowed to be on it.

Frankly, it’s hard enough getting a GP in our present system here in British Columbia. It’s hard enough getting access to a medical practitioner. Let’s actually use those and allow those who are no longer practising but actually have the ability to make informed decisions to serve on these panels, to free up our doctors to actually spend the time in the health care system that they so want to do. Again, that’s another small yet important change.

There are slight changes here to the Offence Act, slight changes to the Public Guardian and Trustee Act. On that note, I would like to raise — on the Public Guardian and Trustee Act — some issues that I think government needs to further explore.

This is especially relevant to an ongoing case I have in my constituency, where there are examples in British Columbia where you might have a child who’s taken into care in one province, into the foster care system, and then is adopted, legally adopted, by a family member in another province. The system that we have set up in Canada makes this extraordinarily difficult for that family care provider to actually get the services that they need in the province of British Columbia if, in fact, the case or the child originated from a seizure — whatever the word is.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Apprehension. Thank you to the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast who has worked in the field. If there’s an apprehension in another province.

This is an important issue. In the one particular case we’re working on right now, this person, this family member has stepped in where the system has failed and given a home to two young children from a family member, two children who were apprehended from another province and now have a safe home here. The irony is if the children were apprehended in that province and put in care in that province, there would be funding for the caregivers in that province. If their children are apprehended in that province and given a safer way forward in another province — in particular, in this case, British Columbia — there are barriers to access of funds.

I’m hoping, as we make small amendments here to the Public Guardian and Trustee Act, we might keep a view of what the bigger picture here is and look at other barriers that exist for existing issues here.

Section 9 — and through 16, frankly. Changes, again, are being made with respect to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, roles and powers of chief justices. My colleague would have addressed these issues in further detail.

Then we move on, of course, to the important changes in part 4. These are the Finance amendments. I had the pleasure — the distinct pleasure, no less — of hearing the Finance Minister talk so eloquently and so passionately about these changes that have been added to ensure that there’s consistency amongst myriad acts with respect to recent changes in the Business Corporations Act.

What do I mean by that? In the Business Corporations Act, there is a new requirement or, essentially, a definition in there as to who is authorized to act as an auditor for a company. The need for this has clearly arisen from issues that were brought to government’s attention with respect to auditing and non-qualified auditors serving as an auditor in the cases of the business corporation.

In the act, what is done in the Business Corporations Act is actually mirrored in a series of acts to ensure consistency across legislation in British Columbia. We see changes that mirror the definitions as to who can serve as an auditor occurring in the Cooperative Association Act, the Credit Union Incorporation Act, the Financial Institutions Act, the Societies Act, and the Chartered Professional Accountants Act. We got into the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District Act, the Greater Vancouver Water District Act, the Legal Profession Act, the Notaries Act, the School Act, the Vancouver Foundation Act.

That’s a lot of acts, but now we have consistent definitions or, in fact, regulations as to who can serve as an auditor. You can’t just phone up Uncle Bob and say: “Uncle Bob, can you audit my accounts and give me your stamp of approval?” That’s no longer going to be approved. Although Uncle Bob may be qualified to do so, there are proper and more rigid measures that are now put in place.

We turn finally to part 5 of this act, a number of Municipal Affairs and Housing amendments. These are, again, providing some regulatory powers, changes, some minor language adjustment, some standardization of terminology. All in all, not very controversial — housekeeping — yet important changes of various act under the Municipal Affairs and Housing Ministry. And then, of course, we have the concomitant amendments, some related amendments, in the Safety Standards Act at the end.

All in all, this is not, in my view, a controversial bill, although on my initial reading of sections 1 to 3, flags were raised. I understand where opposition is coming from. I had exactly the same concerns. I had the benefit of a briefing from ministry staff. I feel comfortable now, knowing that this is actually bringing us in line with what every other province in the country has done, as well as the fact that this has been already covered under conflict of interest and fiduciary requirement and other existing rules that apply to governance of boards in our colleges sector.

The importance of this change actually goes to rural B.C. where there are some issues in terms of getting qualified board members representing various institutions in some of the colleges that we have. This has been asked for, as well, by other representative organizations that have pointed out some of the difficulties that arise.

With that, there’s not much more, I think, in this bill that needs to be addressed. I do suspect we’ll see other miscellaneous statutes amendment bills coming forward. I do commend government on providing a substantive bill here, of substantive amendments. It’s much easier to actually go into the depth and detail of these with briefings. I hope that the support that we’ve given to this — that I’ve given to this bill and also reflected in the support of my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands — is recognized by government as: we’re happy to support this through second and final reading.

Video of Speech