Today in the legislature we debated Bill 5: Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2019 at second reading. This bill amends several pieces of legislation in order to implement a number of the tax measures proposed in the BC Government’s budget. As one might expect from my earlier detailed remarks on the overall budget, I spoke in favour of this bill.

Below I reproduce the video and text of my remarks.

Video of Speech

Text of Speech

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak on second reading on Bill 5, 2019: Budget Measures Implementation Act.

As we know, this bill implements a number of the tax changes that were outlined in the budget. I won’t go into rather gory detail on this. Of course, I did speak quite a long time to the original budget, and we’re seeing a few of the items there reflected in the implementation act here.

There’s, obviously, a number of initiatives — major new initiatives — like the new B.C. child opportunity benefit, as well as things like expanding existing programs, like the small business venture capital tax credit. I’ll come to some others shortly. There’s a number of other minor changes that we’ve been told clarify administrative aspects of existing taxes. By and large, I and my colleagues are supportive of the overall direction of this budget, as we articulated in our budget speech.

The first one I want to address, though, is section 1 of Bill 5, 2019. This is a proposed change to the Carbon Tax Act. Now, it’s been suggested to us that the legislative change here just clarifies that the existing penalty already exists for selling natural gas without a certificate, and the legislation wasn’t clear enough previously. I must admit. A flag was raised by this section, and I look forward to a briefing on this section, in approximately 45 minutes, to ask a few questions directly about what was intended here.

Other sections in the bill are not particularly controversial, from our perspective.

I want to address the flow-through mining tax credit. This is a key piece of ongoing legislation, or now becoming permanent, that we’ve seen in budget implementation act after budget implementation act — at least every year since I’ve been here. It’s either done for one year or a couple of years, sometimes three years. We know that certainty is critical to the industry. One of the reasons why this is, essentially, being made permanent is to provide said certainty for the mining sector.

In that aspect, I’m very pleased to see this become a permanent feature of legislation, because we know — I mean, pun intended — mining, literally, is the bedrock industry of our economy. It’s the foundation of much of what we have — that and forestry. We build a foundation with mining and the house with wood from our forestry sector, so it’s critical that we continue to support these industries.

I recognize that the mining sector would have approached the government and suggested that this would be something that they’d like to see. Government has already announced this. In January, they announced that they were going to be doing this and that the tax credit would continue to flow directly from a company through to investors.

My one caveat in all of this is not that I’m opposed to the notion of flow-through tax credits to the mining sector. The problem I have, of course, with this is that we need to ensure that there’s government oversight. The flow-through program is important in terms of attracting investment, particularly into venture capital. But without proper regulatory oversight, it can be exploited.

It is very difficult for the average investor to get access to this flow-through tax credit. You have to be part of private placements. You have to, sometimes, know the right person who is issuing it. So it’s not really a tool that’s open to the average retail investor, and that’s one of the caveats and flags I have. It allows so-called in-the-know investors or investment corporations to get the flow-through tax credits. If there’s no hold on them…. And the holds vary. These can actually be dumped on the market, as soon as they become tradeable, at a discount to the market. In essence, it can be an unfair advantage that certain people in the know get when they have access to the flow-through.

So the notion and concept — very much support. I hope government ensures that there’s regulatory oversight and that we ensure that, in fact, the average retail investor is not put at disadvantage, as only a select few have access to these programs for private placements and so forth.

The child opportunity benefit, I would argue, is a flagship change in this government’s budget. It’s a flagship change that we’re very pleased to support.

Actually, what’s fascinating about this is you can view this as an important transition credit. As we start to worry more and more about gig economies, as we start to worry more and more about artificial intelligence replacing certain jobs in our society, this really is looking like a form of basic income. But it’s really a form of basic income that applies to people with children. I suspect, both in the province of British Columbia and federally, we’re going to see more and more of these kinds of initiatives take place as the gig economy continues.

This change aligns very nicely with the fundamental core values of our party, which is the notion of intergenerational equity. This is a benefit that’s being applied for people with children, who are struggling now with affordability issues. They’re going to be given a little bit of a leg up, and that is something we’re very proud to support — an initiative that we think is a very timely initiative that government has brought in.

Child poverty in British Columbia is stubbornly high. One in five children in B.C. has been growing up in poverty. Honestly, when you think about it, this is not Zambia. This is not some Southeast Asian country that’s struggling with a dictator. This is British Columbia. Twenty percent of children living in poverty in British Columbia? This is unacceptable. I think most British Columbians would argue that this is an unacceptable situation, particularly as our province is so wealthy and as we have so many opportunities before us.

We believe that supporting children in their earliest years…. Whether it be through education by ensuring that kids get the services they need when they need them in the school system, those critical developmental years; whether it be through support to ensure that parents struggling to make ends meet have access to early childhood education provisions and services; whether they have access to child benefits — these are all critical for income security for struggling families in British Columbia. So good on government for doing this.

We understand that it can’t go until 2020. I’m a little…. I understand that the critic from the official opposition was troubled that it’s going to take a year to get in, and government has argued that the revenue agency needs this lead time.

I’m not so sure, knowing the way governments work, that in fact it would be possible for the federal government to do the necessary changes in the time frame that the member opposite wants in light of the fact that they can’t even still get their payroll system done federally. I don’t know how many years they’ve been working on that. They can’t even fix the T4 slips for their own employees who are filing tax returns this year.

With the greatest respect to the member opposite, I’m going to go….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Yeah, benefit of the… And I look forward to the question at committee stage, because I agree it’s a very legitimate question. But I am quite troubled, federally, when I hear that people are getting T4 slips that don’t reflect the income they actually made.

This credit. One of the good things about this, of course, is it’s being extended to children who are 18. You know, hon. Speaker, it seems that I always miss out on these. My children have just passed the 18 threshold yet again. When you are born right at the boundary of the baby boom era, you get nothing. When you graduated from university…. We always look at the millennials, and we always look at the baby boomers, but there are those people who were born in the early 1960s, those transition people. They didn’t reap the benefits of the boomers. They didn’t have the people coming to the universities when they graduated, interviewing for jobs.

Back in the day, you had a degree? You got a job. Back in the 1980s, we didn’t have that. So yet again, had I been born a few years later — my generation; those transitional boomers, let’s call them — there would have been a benefit. But no, we don’t get a benefit.

So I feel no conflict at all in resoundingly voting for this, for the extending of this tax credit, given that my children have all aged out of this benefit.

I’m not sure that families with higher-end incomes, at the higher end, will be better off. In fact, they might even be worse off than under the existing credit. However, I think most people would reflect upon the fact that we have a society where it’s difficult to make ends meet if you’re earning below, say, $80,000 as a net income of your family. That’s really tough in places like Victoria and Vancouver to make ends meet.

If you have a couple of children living in a two-bedroom house, you’re maybe spending $1,500 to $2,000 a month of after-tax income. That’s a lot of money. Groceries aren’t going down, transportation costs. Hydro — heaven forbid, you get a hydro bill. It’s going up dramatically. I think people understand that it is important to target those families that need it, particularly families that are on the lower income stage.

We’ve got some changes to the motor fuel tax. This is an important change, the one allowing for an additional 1½ cents per litre of gas to be collected in Metro Vancouver. Of course, this is the power that the mayors wanted to fund their phase 2 transit projects. Again, they’re responsible for 20 percent of the cost, and they have a $30 million shortfall.

I suspect people in Vancouver will be concerned, but in fact, I suggest that with the transitioning to…. If you view this in the context of the ZEV mandate that’s been introduced, we’re going to find more and more people, particularly in Metro Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, switching to electric vehicles in a timely fashion. The one danger is that if you become overly reliant on fuel taxes, at some point, with the adoption of electric vehicles, you’re going to be in a shortfall down the road — which is a good problem to have, I would suggest, a good problem to find alternate sources.

Let’s continue on moving forward with this. TransLink’s estimate was that this small 1½ cents is going to cost the average vehicle $24 a year. I think most people in Metro Vancouver would be pretty okay with a much revamped and upgraded transit system. One of the things, I think, we need to look at is getting transit out into the Fraser Valley in a very efficient manner. It troubles me that TransLink stops and B.C. Transit picks up. There are transitional issues that they have to deal with, and hopefully, that will get dealt with in the months ahead.

The small business venture capital tax credit. A small change here but an important change: effective 2019, the annual tax credit limit that an individual can claim for an investment will increase from $60,000 to $120,000 a year. Again, it’s a small change but a very important change, particularly for the innovation community in British Columbia.

So I take exception with the notion from members opposite that said there’s nothing in here for business. It’s actually not true. This change, while small, is actually critical for the innovation industry: technology companies, start-up companies, companies that are looking to make investments in themselves. This is a very welcome change. It assists companies in scaling up from being stuck perpetually in the bottom echelons of corporate hierarchy. With an ability, through this tax credit, to do some reinvesting in themselves, it allows for a more efficient a scaling up of programs — again, something that we’re delighted to support.

Government’s expanding support at the commercialization stage to businesses outside of Vancouver and Victoria only. This is important. You know, it’s a good place to start. But businesses in Victoria and Vancouver, I would suggest, also need to get some benefits as well.

Speculation tax. We have a slight change in this bill too. Another exemption to the speculation tax has been added for an owner of a residential property, for a calendar year, if a residence that is part of the residential property becomes uninhabitable fewer than 60 days before the end of the immediately preceding calendar year.

You can imagine a house burning down, for example. It would be pretty rough to be nailed with a speculation tax if your house is uninhabitable, because it happened to be habitable, you had a house fire, and it’s no longer inhabitable. So I’m obviously supportive of this approach to add this commonsense exemption for people who are being burdened. That would be another…. There are other commonsense exemptions that we might talk about at some point in the future, but now is not the day for that. I’m sure in question period in the weeks ahead, I’ll hear some other examples.

There are a number of other minor changes to existing taxes. For example, section 33 “authorizes the use and disclosure of personal information for the purpose of administering and enforcing the Income Tax Act,” if collected under…. Which is why that’s important because we’re now getting a linking there between Home Owner Grant Act and the Land Tax Deferment Act and Income Tax Act and this allows for sharing. Gone are the days that you can actually buy and sell properties and try to avoid, through nefarious activity, paying the taxes that you’re supposed to pay.

The bill also prevents local governments from averaging or phasing in the additional school tax that was announced. I found that interesting that they did this, because I wasn’t aware that there were municipalities planning to do so. Clearly, if the minister is bringing it forward, there must have been. It’ll be interesting to find out more details there.

In conclusion, as promised, not a long second reading address to this. Obviously, my colleagues and I will be supporting this bill. They’re not all, again, as I say, the things we would do, but we are not government. We are but three MLAs who spend a lot of time going through the documents we have to ensure that the essence of the values that are reflected in our confidence and supply agreement are in bills like this. We’re delighted to see that they are.

We’re very pleased, as I said, with the government for funding CleanBC to the extent that they did. As well, we’re very pleased with the professional reliance reform, increasing affordability for students. I could make a cheap shot here, but I’m going to resist the temptation. One of the things I think is…. Oh, no, I don’t think it’s appropriate.

One of the things that is really, really…. I can’t emphasize enough how important it was to get the interest removed from student loans. One of the things I hope to see further is, as our province continues to benefit from a growing, clean economy, that we start to think about needs-based grants system for certain post-secondary education students. We’re one of the few — I’m not sure if there are any others that don’t — provinces that doesn’t have a needs-based grant system. To me, if I look at the progressive northern European nations and I look at some of the more progressive societies in our world, public education, post-secondary education and education in general is deemed to be a right as opposed to a privilege.

I would suggest that no student in British Columbia should have availability of resources be a barrier to them attending a post-secondary institution. As a society, it’s critical that we need to nurture our next generation. If they don’t, the ability to actually go to post-secondary institutions…. I think it’s imperative that we actually create some resources to allow them to do so, in a manner that doesn’t burden them for the rest of their life.

If you’re a student who, perhaps, comes from a poorer family, you don’t have the financial wherewithal to pay for the post-secondary education. You may be working part-time as you do it. It’s tough working part-time. You may be working in a restaurant. You may be being paid $13 an hour. You may be getting even $15, even $20. Even with tips, it’s tough to make ends meet while paying tuition fees and living full time in a province. So I think a needs-based grant system is the direction that our society here in British Columbia needs to go, something we’re committed to continuing to work towards advocating for. It is ultimately one of our most important jobs — to preserve our education system for future generations and to not make it one that only the elite can actually attend.

I will have note across that I did not take that opportunity to make any cheap shots about any comments that anyone made about the importance of the grant system.

As I said, we would have made different choices. We are very grateful to the minister and her staff for the process that was put in place here. We do commend the minister for actually listening to the Finance Committee. When I saw some of the inclusions of support for the Foundry services across B.C….I was on the Finance Committee last year. The cases being made by Foundry have been so compelling and their successes so great that I was very pleased to see that the minister listened to the report from the Finance Committee. Both two years ago and I suspect…. I didn’t read the full thing this year — but I know two years ago, we were all in on the Foundry and their presentation. It’s good to see that that process led to it.

Also, we provided a submission, like others, and we were pleased that CleanBC was funded. Obviously, one of the things that we would have liked to see more of…. We would have liked to see more investment in terms of, say, riparian habitat preservation; and more investment in terms of protecting species at risk. We recognize the problems with federal and provincial jurisdiction.

We would have liked to have seen, perhaps, more investment in terms of forestry, but again, I recognize government is starting the process to build and take a look at the forest system. Some of the low-hanging fruit that we can actually deal with and that don’t cost that much money are regulatory.

I’m quite excited to take a look at government, despite what question period said — taking a look at our tenure lot licensing system here in B.C. I can tell you that these are Crown trees on Crown land. When we give Crown trees on Crown land to multinationals that don’t actually report to the people of British Columbia but have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits, those said Crown trees on Crown land are shipped south of the border as raw logs because (a) you can avoid softwood lumber tariffs, and (b) why have a mill in Burns Lake if you could have one south of the border and mill it up there?

We really need to take a look at this. I’m not advocating for reintroducing the appurtenancy requirement, but we’ve got to do better than this tenure lot licensing system.

We could also stop spraying glyphosate on our forests. Why on earth do we think it’s okay? Well, the reason why we do it is not because the forest companies actually want to go into our pine forests and spray glyphosate. It costs money. They have a requirement to allow the stands to come back, and this is part of what they believe they need to do in order to meet requirements.

However, we would suggest that if you eliminated that use of glyphosate, you actually get a double benefit. Number 1, you get the broadleaf undergrowth — the aspens, for example, and other broadleaf undergrowth, which are critical food sources for ungulates. These are depleting in our province, partly because of predator management but also inappropriate forest management practices which have led to predators having more take-in on our ungulates — and food sources going away. Co-benefit right there.

Secondly, if you allow the aspens and the birches to start to grow up, you provide a natural fire retardancy. We’re spending money after the fact, in terms of fighting fires. We’re spending money rebuilding devastated areas. We’re spending money going into forests and trying to deal with things after the fact.

Perhaps we could take a little proactive approach and say: “You know what? A little bit of forestry policy change. Let’s stop spraying glyphosate. Let’s allow that broadleaf undergrowth. We’re not going to have a monoculture stand. We recognize it may take longer for the pines to come back and compete, etc., but we’re going to have healthy ungulate populations and we’re going to provide a natural fire redardant. And guess what. We’re going to save money in the process.” It seems to me a win-win-win there. Hopefully, the Forests Minister and budgetary measures moving forward will deal with this.

Finally, moving forward, we’ll continue to work to ensure that government continues to deliver on the promises it has made. It has offered British Columbia as putting people first — the health and wellbeing of people first — while, at the same time, ensuring that the innovation agenda that this government has adopted in partnership with our party continues to thrive.

And it is thriving. Next week is the B.C. Tech Summit in Vancouver. I hope to see members there. I can tell you the community in B.C. is excited. The innovation community feels reinvigorated, and I’m very much looking to see the fruition of this good hard work that’s been going on for the last 18 months or so play out in the next couple of years.

I thank you for your time. With that, I’ll take my place