Today in the legislature I tabled a bill titled Family Day Amendment Act, 2017. The Bill amends the Family Day Act to prescribe that the third Monday in February each year is observed as “Family Day”.

As noted in the text of my introductory speech below, the amendment would align the date of BC’s Family Day with Family Days and other public holidays observed across the rest of Canada, and in the United States.

To see the rationale for this change, please consider viewing the video made by Andrew Johns, founder of the #UniteFamilyDay petition. His petition has already received more than 20,000 signatures.

Below are the video and text of the introduction of my bill together with our accompanying media release.

Video of my Introduction

Text of my Introduction

A. Weaver: I move that a bill intituled the Family Day Amendment Act, 2017, of which notice has been given, be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I am very pleased to introduce the bill intituled Family Day Amendment Act, 2017. This bill amends the Family Day Act to prescribe that the third Monday in February each year is observed as Family Day. This amendment would align the date of British Columbia’s Family Day with family days and other public holidays observed across the rest of Canada and in the United States.

The purpose of Family Day is to highlight the importance of family and to bring families together. This isn’t happening in B.C., with us observing family day a week earlier than all other provinces. Families spread out beyond B.C. aren’t able to be together. Federal employees and many who work in business are forced to work on Family Day since it is a business day everywhere else.

Instead of responding to corporate lobbyists in the ski industry, this government should honour the spirit of Family Day by putting families first and moving it to align with the rest of North America.

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.

Bill M204, Family Day Amendment Act, 2017, 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.

Media Release

 February 16th, 2017
For immediate release
Weaver proposes legislation to unite B.C. Family Day with rest of Canada

VICTORIA B.C. – “Family day is meant to put families first, not lobbyists from B.C.’s ski industry.” says Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party.

Premier Christy Clark passed the Family Day Act in 2012 establishing B.C.’s very own Family Day on the 2nd Monday in February, compared to the rest of Canada who celebrates on the 3rd Monday. This bill amends that act to align the date of B.C.’s holiday with Family Days across Canada and President’s Day in the United States.

“With B.C. observing Family Day a week earlier than all other provinces, families are not being brought together. Many British Columbians are forced to work Family Day, since it is a business day everywhere else, and families spread out beyond B.C. aren’t able to be together.

“Instead of responding to corporate lobbyists in the ski industry, this government should put families first and honour the spirit of Family Day. The B.C. Liberal should move the holiday to align it with the rest of North America.”

– 30 –

Media contact
Mat Wright, Press Secretary
+1 250-216-3382 | mat.wright@leg.bc.ca

A number of constituents recently contacted me regarding the high cost of upgrading high school courses. To start the new year, and in anticipation of the upcoming provincial budget to be tabled in February, I wrote to the Minister of Education to ask that he consider removing the barriers to educational access that his government put in place in May 2015.

A non trivial component of the government’s surplus has come at the expense of those who can least afford it. Cuts to those seeking to upgrade their high school education to pursue work and educational opportunities do nothing more than perpetuate the poverty trap.

I reproduce the text of my letter below.

Text of the Letter

January 4, 2017

Honourable Mike Bernier
Ministry of Education
PO Box 9045, Stn Prov Govt
Victoria BC
V8W 9E2
Canada
Dear Minister Bernier,

I’m writing to you today in light of concerns that constituents have brought to my attention regarding the high cost of upgrading high school courses.

Since the subsidy was removed in May 2015, adults now face a fee to upgrade grade 11/12 courses, generally $500-$550 per course. This fee is placing a huge burden on families and individuals looking to upgrade their high school education and pursue work and educational opportunities.

I have learned that at the South Island Distance Education School (SIDES) in Victoria alone, there are hundreds of students who are unable to afford the fees of upgrading their courses, and thus remain on the waitlist; many more don’t even apply to join the waitlist, discouraged from doing so when they learn the cost.

In particular, these fees harm those who are seeking to upgrade their courses at secondary schools, since only courses taken at postsecondary institutions are eligible for tax deductions, reimbursement under RESPs, or the Adult Upgrading Grant.

This situation leaves a significant gap in our support for students, leaving those who upgrade their courses at secondary schools to pay course fees and to go without the financial assistance that benefits students at postsecondary institutions. It is not always an option to attend a post-secondary school: many low-income individuals need the flexibility of distance learning to enable them to balance their studies with their work.

I have heard from families who are struggling financially to help their children cover the costs of these courses. For others, the cost is too high a barrier to overcome, preventing motivated individuals from upgrading the courses they need to attend college or university, and therefore foreclosing the opportunities that would otherwise become available to them.

Currently, the BC Government is penalizing people who return to school, and preventing so many from upgrading their education and realizing the associated opportunities.

Please act to make adult education more accessible. This would be best achieved through reinstating the subsidies to these courses. In the absence of these subsidies, I ask you to extend the eligibility requirements for upgrading grants, to encompass students who upgrade their courses at secondary schools.

Sincerely,

Andrew Weaver
MLA, Oak Bay-Gordon Head

Looking ahead to 2017, I can’t help but feel incredibly excited – not the least of which is because the provincial election is on the horizon. I sincerely thank you for putting your trust in me these past four years. This May I’m hopeful that you will afford me the distinct honour of serving you as your MLA for a second term. I’m also eager to see how the election will play out across British Columbia.

The politics of 2016 were trying, to say the least, but I feel that positive change is afoot in B.C. From east to west and north to south people are realizing that status-quo politics is not serving them or their communities. We are seeing people reach their limits with parties who bend to organized union or corporate interests. People are fed up with political parties and their MLAs being reduced to puppets controlled by corporate or union puppet masters with a firm grip on their purse strings. The election, however, will put the power back where it belongs, in the hands of British Columbians.

Since the B.C. Greens, of which I am now the leader, stopped accepting corporate and union donations, we have seen an incredible ground swell of support. Politics for the people, by the people, has really struck a chord in B.C. and I know it has not gone unnoticed by other politicians. These politicians now have to leave their back room meetings and answer directly to British Columbians. And British Columbians are demanding thoughtful responses, not sound bites or media lines, to their questions about housing, affordability, public education, income security, MSP premiums and hydro rates, environmental protection, climate change, doctor shortages, and the spiraling Fentanyl overdose epidemic, to name but a few.

The riding of Oak Bay – Gordon Head had the highest voter turnout in the province in 2013, something I am endlessly proud of to this day, and I’m optimistic that the change that started in our community will spread to other ridings in 2017.

I draw my inspiration from our community that I’ve been grateful to call home for my entire life. I was born in Victoria, attended Oak Bay High School, raised my family in Gordon Head and built a career here. As a professor at the University of Victoria for the past twenty-five years, I have been fortunate enough to work with, and teach, some of the brightest minds in science.

The B.C. Greens have incredible candidates stepping up across the province. I’m convinced that this election will be the first time in a very long time that voters have a viable third choice, and no longer have to hold their nose when voting for the lesser of two evils. It’s my job as leader of the party to provide people with something they can vote for, not against.

We will face some massive challenges in our future, to be sure, but I am confident we will overcome them. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with my office.

I wish everyone a safe and happy New Year.

During our tour today, Jonina Campbell, the BC Green candidate for New Westminster in the upcoming provincial election, and I were profoundly moved by what we experienced and the stories we heard. As Jonina noted in the statement we released after our tour (reproduced below), we witnessed “a grassroots effort of downtown eastside community members who have come together, because it is their friends and family who are suffering and dying.”

Thank you to Sarah Blyth, who is working with the Overdose Prevention Society, for taking the time to tour us around the downtown east side and educating us on the overdose crisis.

Later in the day I appeared on CBC’s On the Coast (starting at the 52:48 mark) in an attempt to convey what we learned from our visit.

Media Statement

As I sat down to write this article, with a dozen tabs open to fentanyl-related stories and studies, a new headline made its way to the front page and it hit me like a tonne of bricks. “Overdose deaths involving fentanyl fill Vancouver morgues to capacity.” One life lost is heartbreaking; the scale of this emergency can hardly be articulated in a way that respects and represents the grief felt around B.C.

The situation in Vancouver is particularly dire, but fentanyl-related overdoses are happening all over the province and our riding is no exception. The reach and magnitude of this crisis has been tragic. The fact that it has only continued to escalate since the B.C. Ministry of Health declared it a public health emergency on April 14 is horrific in its own right.

Also in the news at the time of writing is an article in the Vancouver Sun that reads “the B.C. government is almost doubling its advertising spending [to $15 million] five months before the provincial election, but the minister responsible says it’s to raise awareness of the fentanyl overdose crisis…”

People are dying. We need to help them, not make ads about them.

In 2009 when H1N1 hit B.C., the province put $80 million towards fighting the flu that killed 57 people. Illicit drug overdoses have killed 622 people in the first 10 months of this year, surpassing car crash fatalities to become the leading non-natural cause of death in B.C.

By their own, arguably generous, estimate the provincial government has spent $15 million to prevent and respond to overdoses. Yet even their plan to create 500 new addiction treatment spaces by 2017, a promise made by the premier in the 2013 election, remains unmet. So far only 220 new spaces have become available. And during the same period, the number of substance-abuse treatment beds for young people has dropped 25 per cent to just 89.

The government’s resources thus far have largely been focused on collecting data and distributing naloxone kits, a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. They are important initiatives, to be sure, but they are reactionary. They kick in when someone is already in the throes of an overdose. If we want to get ahead of this crisis, we need to step in with a comprehensive plan to support people before they are that close to dying.

Reports released by researchers with the University of Victoria’s Centre for Addictions Research of B.C. (CARBC) provide evidence of the inadequacy of government responses to this emergency, but they also detail a path forward.

For Victoria specifically, they write that by delaying the implementation of supervised consumption services – despite the indications of a growing overdose epidemic and widespread reports of washrooms in social service agencies being used as unofficial and unsupervised injection sites – the province is ignoring the evidence.

As Dr. Bruce Wallace and Dr. Bernie Pauly, researchers at CARBC and faculty members at UVic, wrote in the Globe and Mail, “What is needed is a more comprehensive approach.

“This should include supervised consumption as well as increased access to treatment and opiate-substitution therapy. There is a wealth of evidence that supports the effectiveness of supervised consumption services in preventing overdoses, preventing the transmission of blood-borne disease and increasing access to referrals to treatment and opiate substation therapy.”

Last week Island Health finished the public consultation phase of their application to open a supervised consumption site in Victoria. I hope you will join me in imploring the provincial government to do everything in its jurisdictional power to support this process along, as well as follow CARBC’s recommendations to increase the number addiction-treatment facilities.