Since introducing my private member’s bill Bill M212 — Animal Liability Act, 2016 earlier this month I have had the opportunity to meet with a number of individuals and my office has been in contact with various organizations and concerned constituents.

There has been overwhelming support for the notion that BC  needs some sort of legislation to encourage responsible pet ownership. Dog attacks happen every day and for the most part it is from irresponsible owners. To begin the conversation as to how we can more effectively deal with irresponsible pet owners I introduced a bill in the Legislature on April 6.

We’ve received numerous emails and comments on our proposed bill and while virtually all the correspondence is from people supporting the bill, a number raised some important concerns.

One concern has been around provoked attacks. Obviously pet owners may feel concern that they would be held liable if their dog was provoked into attacking someone. While ultimate liability would still rest with the owner,  the bill I introduced clearly states that  the actions of the plaintiff must factor into any decision. Section 2 of the bill I introduced states, “the court shall reduce the damages awarded in proportion to the degree, if any, to which the fault or negligence of the plaintiff caused or contributed to the harm.”

Simply put, this does not, nor is it intended to, put full liability on pet owners if their dog acts out of self defence or in response to aggression. The context that led to a bite is as important as the fact that a bite took place.

There are an untold number of circumstances that could occur and I think it is preferable to allow the court to figure out the degree of liability based on the circumstance.

As with any piece of legislation, the regulations behind this bill are integral to its operation. The bill itself assigns liability but should also be considered enabling. For example, regulations could provide more context around defining important terms such as an “unprovoked attack” or whether specially-trained dogs could limit their owners liability (such as guide dogs for instance). Regulations could change the rules around pet ownership, and there is ample room to have the regulations address dog-training programs to encourage more responsible ownership. There could also be increased penalties for repeated offenses of irresponsible pet owners.

Indeed, regulations, if developed properly with consultation and forethought, could address many if not all of the gaps in this legislation. Pretty much every piece of legislation introduced has a number of regulations that are behind it, and if enacted this bill would be no different.

One final concern that has arisen is how this legislation might affect the adoption of rescue animals. Some might see this bill as increasing the barriers to adopting an animal, however, I think it ensures that animals that need additional support and help are going to families that understand their responsibilities and are prepared to provide what is needed. In my view, this is a positive step as I don’t think it is wise for irresponsible pet owners to adopt rescue animals.

Ultimately I brought this issue forward because there is a gap in our legislative framework in BC regarding pets and pet ownership liability. Other provinces have addressed it, and while I don’t think it is wise to follow Ontario’s lead in banning certain breeds, we do need something to ensure that pet owners are responsible for the behaviour of their pets and that there are stiff penalties for not being a responsible pet owner.

Since introducing the bill my office has reached out to a number of organizations and we have been in contact with the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development as a way to move this issue forward.

I welcome discussion on this topic and I am hopeful that the interest that this bill has generated gives the government the push it needs to start working towards a solution for British Columbians.

Today I had the distinct honour of addressing delegates to the 67^th Annual General Meeting and Convention of the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC) in Nanaimo. As noted on their website, the AVICC

“… is a body formed for the purpose of representing in one organization the various municipalities, regional districts and other local governments of Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast, Powell River and the Central Coast.“

The AVICC has 51 member municipalities, districts and local governments from these regions. Below I reproduce the text of my speech.

Text of my Speech to the AVICC

Please let me start by thanking the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities for granting me the opportunity to speak with you today.

The last time I addressed the AVICC was at the 62^nd AGM and Convention on April 8, 2011 at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney. I spoke as a UVic-based climate scientist on the challenges and opportunities associated with global warming.

If someone had told me then that I would be standing before you five years later as the MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and leader of the BC Green Party, I would have told them that they must be crazy.

But here I am. And here we are.

Ultimately the reason I got into politics is probably very similar to the reason why you got into politics.

I cared deeply about my community and I wanted to do what I could to better it for present and future generations.

I was profoundly troubled by the direction this province was heading.

I could no longer stand on the sidelines and watch the dismantling of British Columbia’s provincial leadership on the climate change file as our government pursued an utterly unrealistic fossil fuel windfall from a hypothetical Liquefied Natural Gas sector in a desperate attempt to win an election that nobody thought they would win.

Well we are already seeing these promises unravel as the province chase a falling stock, doubling down and selling out future generations along the way. And I’ve been saying the same thing now for more than three years. The market did not, does not and will not, any time soon, support a BC LNG industry anytime soon.

Rather than chasing the economy of the last century we should be positioning ourselves as leaders in the 21^st century economy.

We have a unique opportunity in British Columbia because of three strategic advantages that we have over virtually every other region in the world.

1. Our high quality of life and beautiful natural environment attracts, and retains, some of the best and brightest from around the globe —we are a destination of choice.
2. We have a highly skilled work force. Our high school students are consistently top ranked — with the OECD specifying BC as one of the smartest academic jurisdictions in the world.
3. We have access to renewable resources — energy, water, and fibre — like no other jurisdiction. We have incredible potential to create a clean, renewable energy sector to sustain our growing economy.

But for British Columbia to actually capitalise on our strategic advantages, we must ensure we protect them.

A quality public education is not the luxury of a strong economy. A quality education is what builds a strong economy.

A Loraxian approach to resource management does not protect our renewable resources, natural environment or build public support. We need to move away from the professional reliance model and ensure our regulatory framework is complied with and enforced.

And we must start thinking about the long-term consequences of our decisions, decisions that put people, rather than vested interests or re-election goals first and foremost.

We should be using our strategic advantage as a destination of choice to attract industry to BC in highly mobile sectors that have difficulty retaining employees in a competitive marketplace.

We should be using our boundless renewable energy resources to attract industry that wants to brand itself as sustainable over its entire business cycle, just like Washington and Oregon have done.

We should be setting up seed funding mechanisms to allow the BC-based creative economy sector to leverage venture capital from other jurisdictions to our province.

Too often the only leveraging that is done is the shutting down of BC-based offices and opening of offices in the Silicon Valley.

And following the recommendations of both the B.C. Mayors Climate Leadership Council and the BC Climate Leadership team we should continue steadily increasing emissions pricing.

By doing so we send a signal to the market that incentivises innovation and the transition to a low carbon economy.

And the BC Greens have a plan about what to do with the revenue. The funding would be transferred to municipalities across the province so that they might have the resources to deal with their aging infrastructure and growing transportation barriers.

By investing in the replacement of aging infrastructure in communities throughout the province we stimulate local economies and create jobs.

By moving to this polluter-pays model of revenue generation for municipalities, we reduce the burden on regressive property taxes.

Stable, local jobs give rise to vibrant, resilient municipalities. Yet, building strong municipalities is about more than making smart economic choices at the provincial level.

It is also about ensuring that municipal governments are empowered to make the investments their communities need. It is about asking ourselves: “How do we finance our municipalities now and how might we better finance them in the future”.

It’s critical to immediately initiate a provincial dialog on the future of municipal financing. There is far too much downloading and deregulation that is putting increased pressure on municipalities.

Whether it be dealing with the failure of issues that fall under provincial or federal jurisdiction, pressures on municipal spending through the introduction of regulations that they have no control over, programs paid by municipalities for which they have little control over costs, or the cancellation of funding of programs that are still require to be offered, municipalities are often left on the hook.

Take an issue that affects everyone here. Coastal communities often need to step in to clean up derelict vessels. They often bear the cost of the clean-up even though it falls in the jurisdiction of higher levels of government. This is a glaring example of a dereliction of duty exhibited by both provincial and federal governments.

Is continuing to burden homeowners with property tax increases year after year really the best approach?

Or, could provincial and municipal governments instead work together to create a more progressive financing system that promotes, instead of impedes, the type of fundamental economic activity that we all value, such as buying a home.

It’s also critical that we bring the typically urban-based tech and rural-based resource sectors together. Innovation in technology will lead to more efficient and clever ways of operating in the mining and forestry industries.

I was recently told the story of a BC-based technology innovator partnering with a local mine to dramatically improve the efficiency and environmental footprint of their mining operations.

Rather than hauling thousands of unnecessary tonnes of rock to a crusher for processing, the new technology allowed the rocks to be scanned for gold content on site. This meant that prior to trucking, the company could determine if it was more cost-effective to simply put the rock to one side for use as fill later.

We should be investing in innovation in the aquaculture industry, like the land-based technologies used by the Namgis First Nation on Vancouver Island who raise Atlantic salmon without compromising wild stocks.

These are just a few of the many ideas that could help us move to the cutting edge in 21st the century economy.

Fundamental to all of these ideas is the need to ensure that economic opportunities are done in partnership with First Nations. And that means working with First Nations through all stages of resource project development – from conception to completion.

The Green Party of BC is a solutions-oriented party — one that fundamentally believes that policy should flow from evidence. I like to call this evidence-based decision-making, as opposed to what happens too often in politics today — decision-based evidence making.

We have a vision of a compassionate society that lives within its means while preserving the environment around us. It is a vision that guides us to think about the long-term consequences of the decisions we make today.

If you’ve been watching the BC Greens in the Legislature over the last three years you’ll see I’ve tried to offer government solutions to problems that are facing all of us.

As I learned in my scientific career, and as I tried to teach my students, criticism is easy. But what’s more difficult, yet far more valuable, is being constructive in one’s criticism.

If you don’t like my idea, tell me what you would do instead. That is the approach I have taken in the legislature. That is the approach of the BC Greens.

MSP reform, housing, affordability, and sexualized violence are issues that we’ve been able to make significant progress on this year.

I believe that the BC Greens have helped to shape the narrative and in a not insubstantial way have been strong agents of change on these files.

Most recently it was announced that another one of my private members bills is supported by the government — a bill requiring responsible pet ownership.

So what are the essential traits of a successful leader? I firmly believe is that it is being principled, honest, authentic, trustworthy and having integrity.

Leaders must have the courage to be honest with British Columbians about the risks and consequences of any government decision.

Leadership builds public opinion – it doesn’t follow it.

In the shadows of the massive challenges that we face, our province needs new leadership.

Leadership that offers a realistic and achievable vision grounded in hope and real change.

Leadership that places the interests of the people of British Columbia — not vested union or corporate interests— first and foremost in decision-making.

And it’s not only today’s British Columbians that we must think about, it’s also the next generation who are not part of today’s decision-making process.

We need leadership that will build our economy on the unique competitive advantages British Columbia possesses, not chase the economy of yesteryear by mirroring the failed strategies of struggling economies.

Leadership that will act boldly and deliberately to transition us to 21st century economy that is diversified and sustainable.

Yes BC needs leadership. But leadership doesn’t just rest with one person. Everyone here has the opportunity and responsibility to take this mantle of leadership on.

Leadership means inspiring others to act in ways that contribute to the betterment of their society.

We are all here because we believe BC has the potential to show this leadership.

I hope to offer that vision and that leadership to the people of British Columbia over the coming years and I look forward to working with all of you to make that a reality.

The fact is, very few of the important challenges facing our society can easily be placed within the traditional left-right political spectrum.

Addressing these challenges requires us to come together from across the political divide. It requires us to cooperate and collaborate across all levels of government. And it requires us to develop a social license before, not after, a policy pathway is chosen.

I’m asking everyone in this room to consider working together to find real solutions to the important problems that face us today —problems in affordability, homelessness, poverty, climate change, education and health care.

To conclude, I leave you with what Stephen Lewis stated at his UBCM speech in 2012. He noted that British Columbia has the most lunatic political culture in Canada. Everyone laughed.

But quite frankly, I think we should all have been ashamed.

We can do better. We will do better. And I commit to you today, on behalf of the BC Greens, we will to do our best to work with you to solve the challenges each and every one of your communities face.

Thank you and thank you to the AVICC for giving me the opportunity to present to you today.

Today in the legislature I had the great pleasure of introducing Denis Canuel. Denis runs a professional gardening business here on southern Vancouver Island. He was the recent victim of a vicious dog attack featured in the Saanich News.

Later in the afternoon I introduced my private member’s Bill M212 — Animal Liability Act, 2016. Based on similar legislation in Manitoba, this Bill will ensure that owners of animals are held liable for the actions of their animals. Below I reproduce the text and video of my introduction of the Bill. I append our media release at the end.

Text of my Introduction

A. Weaver: I move introduction of the Animal Liability Act, 2016.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I’m pleased to be introducing a bill intituled the Animal Liability Act. Earlier this year a number of vicious dog attacks occurred in the Lower Mainland. Over the years, British Columbians have called on B.C. legislators to act.

According to the Canada Safety Council, more than 460,000 dog bites occur in Canada each year. Just last week, there was a case of unprovoked dog attack reported in Saanich, an attack that nearly left an individual without his employment for years to come. In this case, the dog was a repeat offender.

Here in B.C., we do not have adequate laws that ensure owners are liable for the actions of their animals. Indeed, we only have liability being imposed on the basis of scienter doctrine, negligence or, in some cases, the occupier’s liability act.

This bill would ensure that owners are liable for any damages resulting from harm that the animals cause to a person or property. This bill, based on similar legislation that exists in Manitoba, is designed to ensure that owners of animals take their ownership seriously and are held responsible for the actions of their pets.

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.

Motion approved.

Bill M212, Animal Liability Act, 2016 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.

Video of my Introduction

Media Release

Media Release: April 6, 2016
Andrew Weaver – Legislation needed to ensure responsible pet ownership in B.C.
For Immediate Release

Victoria B.C. – Today Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, tabled legislation that would ensure pet owners are held responsible for the actions of their animals.

“Thousands of people are bitten by dogs in B.C. each year,” says Weaver. “While provinces like Ontario and Manitoba have enacted legislation to ensure that public safety is put first, BC is falling behind. We need appropriate measures in place to hold the owners of dangerous pets to account.”

Weaver introduced the Animal Liability Act, 2016, which is modeled on Manitoba’s legislation, to make owners directly liable for any damages caused by their pets. The Bill would not apply to damages caused by livestock.

“As it currently stands, when someone gets bitten by a dog the options available for legal recourse hinge on the dog having a previous history of violence. That’s simply not enough,” says Weaver. “This legislation does not affect the vast majority of caring, responsible pet owners. It targets negligent pet owners who are not appropriately socializing, training, or restraining their animals in public places.”

“In most instances I would expect this legislation to be used in situations where an irresponsible owner fails to take appropriate precautions and their violent dog attacks someone. If someone happened to have a particularly aggressive cougar, llama or emu and they let it run around biting people, however, it would certainly apply,” Weaver added. “We need clear liability legislation so that owners are required to ensure their pets behave safely and are held to account if their pet does behave in a dangerous manner.”

Media Contact
Mat Wright – Press Secretary Andrew Weaver MLA
1 250 216 3382
mat.wright@leg.bc.ca

Today in the legislature I introduced Bill M214 — Local Government Amendment Act, 2016.

If passed, this Bill will ensure that municipalities in BC cannot be incorporated without first ensuring that there are residents actually living in the area at the time of incorporation. This might seem like an unnecessary bill as it would seem obvious that a municipality, governed by a Mayor and two Councillors, should actually have people and property to govern. Well that’s not the case in the wild west of British Columbia politics.

Back in 2012, the BC Liberals amended The Local Government Act to allow mountain resort municipalities to be created that have no residents. In particular, this was done in support of the proposed Jumbo Glacier Mountain resort that I have written about earlier.

Given opposition to the resort by the Ktunaxa Nation, the fact that the environmental assessment certificate has expired, and that the project has not substantially started, it seemed timely to close the loophole for good as it sets a dangerous precedence.

Below I reproduce the text and video of my introduction of the Bill. I append our media release at the end.

Text of my Introduction

A. Weaver: I move introduction of the Local Government Amendment Act, 2016.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I am pleased to be introducing a bill intituled the Local Government Amendment Act.

In British Columbia, we have a municipality that has no houses, no infrastructure and no people. The Jumbo Glacier Resort is designated as a mountain resort municipality, and despite having neither any people nor any buildings, it is governed by a mayor and two councillors and funded by the province.

For the existence of a municipality to make any sense, it needs people. The Local Government Amendment Act would ensure that this be the case across British Columbia. This bill would close a glaring loophole created in 2012 by this government solely to support a project that has not substantially started. It’s opposed by the Ktunaxa Nation — and whose environmental assessment certificate has expired.

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.

Motion approved.

Bill M214, Local Government Amendment Act, 2016, 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.

Video of my Introduction

Media Release

Media Release: April 6, 2016
Andrew Weaver – Municipalities in B.C. should not be created without people.
For Immediate Release

Victoria B.C. – Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, today introduced a Bill that would ensure municipalities could not be created unless there were people actually living in the area first.

“Normally you might assume that you would need to have people living in an area before you could form a municipality,” says Weaver. “That was the case in B.C. until the government made an exception a few years ago. In 2012 the government introduced a loophole that allowed Mountain Resort Municipalities to exist without any residents.”

Today Andrew Weaver introduced the Local Government Amendment Act, 2016. It is a bill designed to repeal the changes made in 2012 to the Local Government Act under the B.C. Liberals.

“The whole reason this ridiculous loophole exists in the first place is because this government has a pet project that it wanted to succeed, despite huge opposition from the local community and First Nations,” says Weaver. “Now a municipality exists that has no people, and to top it off it also has a mayor and councillors and the whole system is being funded by the British Columbian taxpayer. It’s an absurd situation and the bill I introduced today would close that loophole.”

“The approach to the Jumbo fiasco reminds me of how this government approached the Petronas deal last year. Not only are they choosing winners in the economy, they’re creating laws specific to helping those projects succeed. The laws of this province should not be used to help specific projects succeed or fail.”

Media Contact
Mat Wright – Press Secretary Andrew Weaver MLA
1 250 216 3382
mat.wright@leg.bc.ca

Today in the legislature I rose at second reading to speak to Bill 17 — Local elections Campaign Financing (Election Expenses) Amendment Act, 2016. The purposed of this bill is to enable expense limits for local government elections, although the actual expense limits are left to regulations.

As you will see in the text and video of my speech (reproduced below), there are both positive and negative aspects of this bill. The fact that fixed spending limits during the campaign period are being introduced is a very good thing in my view. Unfortunately, union and corporate donations still are not being banned. Unfortunately, there is still no single contribution limit. And unfortunately, there will be a free-for-all period outside of the 28 day campaign period where restrictions on spending will not exist.

I have an amendment on the order papers to extend the 28-day campaign period and my colleague, Vicki Huntington from Delta South has proposed an amendment that effectively bans union and corporate donations.

Text of my Speech

A. Weaver: I rise to speak at second reading to Bill 17, Local Elections Campaign Financing (Election Expenses) Amendment Act, 2016.

This bill is being brought forward as the second in two bills with respect to local elections campaign financing and reform. This second bill is a result of…. It has been brought together based on recommendations from the Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits, a committee that extensively consulted with numerous stakeholders with respect to local elections campaign financing.

Now, as we all know, consultation is a very important component of building social licence for any bill. But consultation is more than listening. It’s about reacting to that which you’ve been told in a way that reflects what you’ve been told. While much of this bill has done that, there are some glaring omissions, which I’ll come to shortly. The omissions are respect to the continued allowance of corporate and union donors, as well as the fact that there are no caps on the magnitude of individual donations. And the reduction of the campaign period to 28 days thereby allows, essentially, free-for-all spending by any person, any corporation or any union for anyone prior to the campaign period.

With that said, there are, as in all bills, some key points that I support and some other key points that I have some troubles with. Let’s first start with the summary of aspects of this bills that I can support — aspects of this bill that were done extensively through consultation and research as to what’s happening in other jurisdictions.

First and foremost, while the recommendations from the committee are consistent with the recommendations that government stated it would do in the fall, we are being asked to trust government, because everything is put in regulations.

Now, this is becoming a bit of a pattern with this government. We have some enabling legislation which, essentially, kicks the can down the road so that regulations can be put in place that we’re not actually able to debate here.

We’re told in the draft legislation that was released in the fall and the accompanying press release — consistent with the recommendations from the Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits — that for candidates in election areas with less than 10,000 people, the proposed expense limits established a flat rate of $10,000 for mayoral candidates and $5,000 for all other locally elected offices. For election areas with more than 10,000 people, a per-capita formula determines expense limits.

Expense limits for candidates in electoral organizations would apply from January 1 of the election year to the election day, the third Saturday of October. I’ll come back to that.

Proposed expense limits for third-party advertising sponsors would be 5 percent of the expense limit of a candidate in the local election area, with a cumulative provincewide maximum of $150,000, applicable during a 28-day campaign period.

For elections with more than 10,000 people, mayoral candidates would have an expense limit that’s graduated — a dollar per capita for the first 15,000, 55 cents per capita for a 15,000 to 150,000 population, 60 cents per capita for a population between 150,000 and 250,000 and 15 cents per capita thereafter. For election areas with more than 10,000 people, candidates for all other locally elected offices would have an expense limit of 50 cents per capita for the first 15,000 population, 28 cents per capita for a 15,000 to 150,000 population, 30 cents per capita for a population between 150,000 and 250,000 and eight cents per capita thereafter — essentially, half the amount allowable for mayoral candidates.

Now, these numbers are justifiable — the committee that brought forward these recommendations did extensive research on what was going on in other jurisdictions — and will, in essence, eliminate, to some extent, the ability of those who have access to the greatest amount of money to necessarily win an election by blanketing airwaves, etc., with their advertising and so forth.

Again, we are being asked to trust government that, in fact, this is what will happen through regulations. It’s not clear to me that this government continues to earn our trust in light of the fact and the preponderance of promises and other things that we’ve been told over the years — that we should trust them, that they will take care of. Trust them about LNG — still waiting. Trust them about this. Trust them about that. I wait to see these regulations and certainly hope that they roll out in accordance with the guidelines that have been given to us already.

There are a number of aspects — again, coming back to some of the things that I believe are steps forward — that are good steps forward. For example, there’s an elimination on social media — a ban on tweets, Internet communications, Facebook, etc. — on election day, provided it solely encourages people to vote. I think that’s a good change. It’s essentially recognizing modern-day forms of communication, and it’s timely that we introduce this here.

The fact that expense limits are being introduced, overall, is a good change. Again, we’re kicking it down to the regulations and hoping that at some point these regulations will address the concerns expressed by people through the consultations with the special committee on local election finance expense limits.

Let’s come back to the two big failings of this bill, the lost opportunities within this bill. It’s a continued lost opportunity extending from the previous version of the local election campaign financing bill that we discussed a while back here in the Legislature. It is the continued ability for unions and corporations to influence the outcomes of elections through essentially unmitigated campaign donation limits that can be as high as anybody wants.

Unions don’t vote. Corporations don’t vote. People vote. It is the people who vote to put people into this Legislature, who put people into local governments, who put people into local school boards, who put people in Ottawa in the federal government. Yet we are being asked here, once again, to approve a bill that allows unions and corporations to determine who is in local government.

Now, I know that the official opposition supports the notion of not allowing union and corporate donations, both provincially and in local government elections, but we continue to allow this to happen. What’s so troubling about this is you’re then left with the question: whose interests are being represented?

My very favourite example of this is the incident that happened at Mount Polley. Now, when we look at Mount Polley, we recognize that there was a potential for a lot bigger problem than actually occurred. Still, it was certainly a big enough issue to cause local environmental concern, and we still don’t know if there are long-term ramifications from the pond tailings breach.

Part of the problem with the communication is this. When we look at the owner of that company that’s running Mount Polley, we recognize that they’re substantive donors to the B.C. Liberals. Then, on the other hand, when we look at the union that represents the workers who work at Mount Polley, the United Steelworkers, they’re substantial donors to the B.C. NDP. So the public, the people of B.C., can wonder whose interests are being represented. Is it their interests? Is it the interests of the workers at the mine? Is it the interests of the corporation at the mine?

I’m not suggesting that there was undue influence arising from this, but there’s a perception that is very, very difficult to move away from. When big donors to both sides of this House come from both sides of an issue, we have to question whose interests are being represented.

Now, in the case of local government, the same thing can happen. Let’s take an example of something that’s been in the news quite a lot of late, the Trans Mountain Pipeline proposal. We know that there are certain individuals, certain corporations, who would be more predisposed to see that go through, and there are others who might not. You might find, for example, a corporation that wants this proposal to go through and decides to fund a bunch of candidates with a huge amount of money prior to 28 days before the election. You might find, for example, another corporation might decide that they don’t want this and fund the other candidates. I suspect that the other candidates would get far less than the first candidates. But then we have a battle of election with money influencing the political discourse, not in the interests of the people but in the interests of the stakeholders of a project, and this is wrong.

This is absolutely wrong and points to the real problem in our democracy in British Columbia: we have a government that no longer represents the people. We have a government that puts its corporate friends first and thinks about the people second — whether that be resident hunters, as I look at the minister over there, whether it be the people in Shawnigan Lake, as I look at the minister over there. Regardless of the issue, this is a government that’s putting vested corporate interests first, people second.

What it’s saying, through this missed opportunity, to our local elections, to school board elections, is that we are encouraging you to do the same.

Why is it that in B.C. we allow the B.C. Teachers Federation to donate to the campaigns of trustees? This should not be allowed because school trustees are there to look out for the public good. They’re not there to impose the will of the BCTF. It should not be allowed, but it is allowed under this legislation. We should not allow an oil company to be able to influence school board elections through campaigning, but it is allowed under here. Why are we doing this?

Our democracy is broken, and this government is missing out an opportunity to fix it. One of the things you’ll see in the order papers, is that I proposed an amendment. This amendment is to actually address one of the recommendations of the local elections committee, which says as follows. On page 33 of this document, under the “Elections proceedings period,” it states this:

“The committee received notice from government late in the process of its work of a proposed change to the local elections campaign period from 46 days to 28 days. Committee members expressed concern that the 2014 expenditure data included all spending from January 1 until election day and, therefore, the committee’s recommendations were based on the analysis of a longer campaign period.

“One concern is that candidates may make purchases of election materials such as flyers or advertising materials and use these materials prior to a 28-day period and not have this captured as an expense. Committee members agreed that in order for expense limits to be effective, they must apply to all campaign spending.”

They concluded that the local expense limits, recommended by the committee for electoral organizations and candidates, should apply from January 1 of the election year to election day.

I heard from members opposite that they consulted. Indeed they did, but coming back to my first point: consultation is not just sitting and listening; it’s about reacting to what you heard in a manner that’s consistent to what you heard and that puts all together the various issues that are raised before you.

This is a very specific recommendation from a committee — very specific — yet it is ignored. I just do not understand why it is ignored. Why would government ignore this? Why would it ignore its own committee that it has majority vote on? Why would it do that? I don’t know. I’m certainly hoping we will get more information on this as we move forward.

In summary, while it’s long overdue for us to reform our electoral financing expenses in British Columbia and while there are aspects of this bill that of course I can support, this is a lost opportunity.

It continues to allow corporations and unions to donate. I do recognize the member for Delta South has introduced a rather innovative amendment at committee stage.

Two, it doesn’t preclude somebody from funding an entire campaign for an individual. You could have, say, the city of Vancouver — one group funded almost entirely by one individual. That still could happen.

Three, it allows people to avoid campaign spending limits because of the short 28-day campaign period time that was introduced, despite the recommendation of the committee.

Four, this bill is asking us, once more, to trust the government. “Trust us that we will introduce regulations, because we know what’s best for you.” We don’t see the information here in the bill. It’s kicked down the road for some time in the future.

Frankly, I no longer trust this government. British Columbians no longer trust this government. I would have preferred to see these numbers actually in the legislation so that we know what we’re voting for, instead of giving them carte blanche to continue to do what they’re doing, to put their corporate interests ahead of the interests of British Columbians.

Video of my Speech