Yesterday my colleague Adam Olsen successfully negotiated an important amendment to the government legislation to enable ridehailing. As I noted earlier, his amendment added much needed flexibility to the Passenger Transportation Board’s test for approving ride-hailing licenses.

During committee deliberations, Adam was also able to convince the Minister of Transportation to change the Terms of Reference of the Legislative Committee that will provide recommendations on the regulations to be attached to this bill. Such a change required a motion to be passed in the House and we debated that motion this afternoon.

Below I reproduce the video and text of my brief speech in support of the motion.

Video of Speech

Text of Speech

A. Weaver: I rise in support of the amendment that’s before us on the original motion 34. I wish to address a couple of issues. One, of course, is what we passed yesterday in the Legislature is enabling legislation that sets the framework by which a regulatory environment will be implemented to allow ride-hailing in British Columbia.

What government has done here is recall the Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, a committee that I served on last year, to advise it on the regulatory environment that should be put in place. As amended here, there are a few other things that have been added into that regulatory environment that we felt were critical.

I recognize the member for Kamloops–North Thompson was not in the Legislature in the last four years. But this is the first time, in my view, that a legislative committee is being put together to actually advise on the regulatory environment that should be applied in enabling legislation. So I’m less cynical than the member for Kamloops–North Thompson on this.

As a member of the previous committee, I would say that I thought we did a lot of good work. I know the member for Surrey South was on that committee. The member for Richmond-Queensborough was on that committee. The member from North Delta was on that committee.

We did not have a consensus report. We had some consensus recommendations, but there were areas where there was disagreement. In the committee, those on the committee will recall that, in fact, my views were, frankly, a little more similar to members of the official opposition’s views than, perhaps, the government’s views.

We’ve now got to a situation where we have a framework in place. This amended motion is tasking the same committee to make recommendations on the actual regulations that will be in place. I’m actually quite excited by this, as somebody who’s been working on this file for quite some time.

Now, I recognize that ride-hailing is not going to open tomorrow. But we have been in touch with the major ride-hailing companies. I, personally — and my colleague more recently — have been in touch on an almost daily basis with these companies.

We know, despite what you have heard here, that they needed and wanted the legislation to pass yesterday. The reason why is that this is the first time a door has been opened that they want to enter into. There were some critical things that had to be put in place for them to actually want to walk through that door.

That critical thing was what my good friend from Saanich North and the Islands did, through the introduction of an amendment to the Passenger Transportation Board’s framework, which could have potentially blocked ride-hailing from coming in. The passage of that amendment has enabled major ride-hailing companies to walk through the first door.

Now they’ve gone through the open door, the first door. There’s no doubt there are a number of other smaller doors before them, those doors being the regulatory environment. As my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands has indicated, we are concerned that we get good public policy that will bring ride-hailing as soon as possible to this province.

We’re ensuring. We believe this amended motion, particularly the amendment, enables the legislative committee to ensure that those secondary doors do, indeed, open. Because as amended, allowing the discussion of things like class 5 versus class 4 licences — a lot of people get hung up on that.

When you actually go into the area of class 5 versus class 4, there are really certain things in class 4 that I think most people would agree are appropriate for class 5. Those are the age requirements, health checks, safety of car, etc. But does it actually need to have class 4 or class 5? This is an issue that the committee can now look at. This was a critical issue that could’ve potentially blocked one of the secondary doors opening.

On that note, I think that this is an advancement of public policy in a fine way. It’s allowing a legislative committee, for the first time in my recollection, to actually be in a position to advise government on the regulatory — not the enabling framework. That’s was what we did with the first committee. We advised on the enabling framework. Now we’re actually advising on the regulatory environment. With that, I will take my seat as a strong supporter of the amendment