On March 8th I introduced Bill M205: Post-Secondary Sexual Violence Policies Act. This bill, based on similar legislation in Ontario, was designed to address the pervasive occurrence of sexualized violence plaguing universities, colleges and other post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. If enacted, it would create a legal responsibility for them to develop and maintain policies that would work to prevent the occurrences of sexual violence and provide support for victims. The act would allow university- and college-specific policies to be developed that would meet the needs of students, including education and protection, while working to create a safe environment for all students to come forward to report a sexual assault.

Today in the legislature I rose to question the Premier as to whether or not she supports the need for sexual assault policy legislation for post-secondary institutions. I was very pleased with the Premier’s response. Not only did she respond with a strong statement acknowledging the importance of this issue, but more importantly, the Premier noted the urgency with which we must act on it. She committed to work with me to bring the legislation forward in a timely manner. In fact she stated that her hope was that it would happen this session.

As noted in my press release (reproduced below), I am thrilled by the Premier’s response and welcome the opportunity to work with her, and with students across the Province, to ensure campuses become safer places. I want to thank the Premier for her willingness to make this important issue a priority.

It would not be appropriate for me to take full credit for the introduction of this bill. I am incredibly fortunate to work with exceptional people who helped with its development. I am indebted to Claire Hume, Stefan Jonsson, Evan Pivnick, Aldous Sperl and Mat Wright for their efforts in this regard. In addition, I am very grateful to Brontë Renwick-Shields, Kenya Rogers, Jean Strong and the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre, for their willingness to educate me on the importance of this issue. Finally, and collectively, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the incredibly courageous survivors of sexualized violence who had the courage to speak out.

Below I reproduce both the text and video of my Question Period exchange with the Premier.

Question

A. Weaver: Last Tuesday the Premier told News 1130 that she acknowledged more needs to be done to support the survivors of sexual assault on B.C. post-secondary campuses. The Premier stated:

“Rape kits need to be available, trained staff need to be available, and some universities and colleges are doing a more thorough job than others. So the Minister of Health is going to go out and have that conversation, because we have to make sure that help is available.“

I fear that the Premier may have missed the larger point about the conversation we need to have. With respect, we don’t just need more rape kits. We need to take this issue head on, recognize that our post-secondary campuses aren’t always providing a safe environment for B.C. students, and we need to have a plan in place to prevent assaults from happening in the first instance.

When the University of Ottawa surveyed its student body last year, it found that 44 percent of female students experienced sexual violence or unwanted sexual touching while attending the university. I’m asking the government to take a clear leadership role and make a clear statement that this is a responsibility they will act upon.

To the Premier, does she support the need for sexual assault policy legislation for post-secondary institutions?

Premier’s Response

Hon. C. Clark: Being raped is one of the worst things that can happen to any woman, whether that is intimate-partner assault, whether that’s sexual abuse at the hands of a family member or whether it’s an assault from a stranger. Any woman who has experienced it will tell you that it leaves a lifetime of scars.

We hope for women who are raped that they can find a way to heal, and many do. Some will say they became stronger as a result. But all women who have been sexually assaulted are changed.

It’s something that should not be happening in our society. Sadly, it appears to be more prevalent on university campuses than most other places in our society. There is more that we can do and more that we should do.

The Minister of Advanced Education has begun that work. I certainly welcome the interest of the member from Oak Bay. I’ve had a chance to look at his bill, Bill M205, and I’d certainly look forward to working with him on finding a way that we can either pass this bill or amend it and pass a similar version to it in our Legislature.

We need to do more to protect women on campus from sexual assault because these life-changing, traumatic events don’t need to happen. As a society, we can and we must do more to prevent them.

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: Thank you to the Premier for her response. I’m very pleased to hear this. As the Premier and government will know, without a legislative requirement to develop a policy, we risk continuing the status quo where institutional optics are sometimes allowed to trump student safety.

For example, a student at Thompson Rivers University, who was recently assaulted twice in one term, was told: “Maybe you would be better suited to a different school.” UBC made headlines last year when it turned out that reported cases of sexual assault on their campus were less than a quarter of those reported by the UBC RCMP detachment. Just yesterday, at the University of Victoria, a student noted that she felt “completely invalidated and silenced” by a UVic investigation into her sexual assault.

Addressing this has to be about our institutions, our students and not post-secondary institutions. My question to the Premier is this: what is the timeline for government to introduce such legislation?

Premier’s Response

Hon. C. Clark: I can’t give a definitive timeline today, except to say that I recognize, along with the member, that this is an urgent issue. A rapist’s best friend is silence. A rapist’s best friend is shame. A rapist’s best friend is the failure of authorities to recognize a complaint when it comes forward and fail to act on it.

We will not reduce the prevalence of sexual assault until we strengthen the institutions that are there to protect women, until we ensure that women feel safe coming forward and saying that they have been sexual assaulted. They will only do so when they have the knowledge that someone will act on what they’ve told them and keep them safe.

We have much more to do, and I welcome the member’s active interest in this. I thank him for presenting his bill. We will work with him on it on an urgent basis and try and get something passed with respect to changing policy as soon as we possibly can.

Video of Question Period

Media Release

Media Release: March 16, 2016
Premier pledges to work with Andrew Weaver to pass Post-Secondary Sexual Violence Policies Act
For Immediate Release

Victoria B.C. – In response to a question from Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, the Premier pledged that her government would pass his Private Member’s Bill, or develop comparable legislation to address the prevalence of sexual assaults on post-secondary campuses.

“This is a strong statement from the Premier and her government that they acknowledge the importance of this issue,” says Weaver. “Most importantly, the Premier acknowledged the urgency with which we must act on this issue and has committed to work with me to bring forward legislation in a timely manner.”

“I am thrilled by the Premier’s response and welcome the opportunity to work with her, and with students across the Province, to ensure campuses become safer places,” notes Weaver. “Sexualized violence affects everyone in our communities, regardless of gender identity.”

Andrew Weaver tabled the Post-Secondary Sexual Violence Policies Act, 2016 last Tuesday. The Bill, if passed, would create a legal responsibility for every University and College in B.C. to develop and maintain policies that would provide education for students, support for survivors and would work to prevent the occurrences of sexual assault on campuses.

There have been several highly publicized incidents in the news lately. When a student at Thompson Rivers University was sexually assaulted twice in one term she was told ‘Maybe you would be better suited to a different school.’ UBC made headlines last year when it turned out that their reported cases of sexual assault on campus were less than a quarter of those reported by the UBC RCMP detachment. Earlier this week it was reported that a UVic student felt ‘completely invalidated and silenced’ by a UVic investigation into her sexual assault.

“We can’t know the actual scale of the problem unless we have post-secondary institutions honestly reporting about it,” says Weaver. “Based on the little data available, and the widespread culture of under reporting that exists, any post-secondary institution that takes this issue on seriously would likely see their reported assaults far exceed other institutions. No public institution wants to have that negative attention; they want to be seen as safe places for students to study.”

“A legislated approach is required to ensure best practices and consistent standards are met, while establishing a clear legal responsibility for post-secondary institutions to maintain these policies,” said Weaver. “I want to thank the Premier for her willingness to make this important issue a priority”.

– 30 –

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

Media Release: March 16, 2016
Premier pledges to work with Andrew Weaver to pass Post-Secondary Sexual Violence Policies Act
For Immediate Release

Victoria B.C. – In response to a question from Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, the Premier pledged that her government would pass his Private Member’s Bill, or develop comparable legislation to address the prevalence of sexual assaults on post-secondary campuses.

“This is a strong statement from the Premier and her government that they acknowledge the importance of this issue,” says Weaver. “Most importantly, the Premier acknowledged the urgency with which we must act on this issue and has committed to work with me to bring forward legislation in a timely manner.”

“I am thrilled by the Premier’s response and welcome the opportunity to work with her, and with students across the Province, to ensure campuses become safer places,” notes Weaver. “Sexualized violence affects everyone in our communities, regardless of gender identity.”

Andrew Weaver tabled the Post-Secondary Sexual Violence Policies Act, 2016 last Tuesday. The Bill, if passed, would create a legal responsibility for every University and College in B.C. to develop and maintain policies that would provide education for students, support for survivors and would work to prevent the occurrences of sexual assault on campuses.

There have been several highly publicized incidents in the news lately. When a student at Thompson Rivers University was sexually assaulted twice in one term she was told ‘Maybe you would be better suited to a different school.’ UBC made headlines last year when it turned out that their reported cases of sexual assault on campus were less than a quarter of those reported by the UBC RCMP detachment. Earlier this week it was reported that a UVic student felt ‘completely invalidated and silenced’ by a UVic investigation into her sexual assault.

“We can’t know the actual scale of the problem unless we have post-secondary institutions honestly reporting about it,” says Weaver. “Based on the little data available, and the widespread culture of under reporting that exists, any post-secondary institution that takes this issue on seriously would likely see their reported assaults far exceed other institutions. No public institution wants to have that negative attention; they want to be seen as safe places for students to study.”

“A legislated approach is required to ensure best practices and consistent standards are met, while establishing a clear legal responsibility for post-secondary institutions to maintain these policies,” said Weaver. “I want to thank the Premier for her willingness to make this important issue a priority”.

– 30 –

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

Today in the legislature I introduced a private members bill M204 entitled Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act, 2016. The purpose of this bill, based on a similar bill in Nova Scotia, is to ensure that criminals are unable to profit from recounting their crimes. Below is the text and video of my introduction of the bill. The accompanying media release is also appended below.

Text of my Speech

 A. Weaver: I move introduction of the Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act, 2016.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I’m pleased to be introducing a bill intituled Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act. I’m sure many members in this chamber are aware of the recent revelation of Canada’s most prolific serial killer, Robert Pickton, publishing a book called Pickton: In His Own Words.

Madame Speaker, this has outraged many people in this province, and it has brought to light a glaring omission in our legal system. We have nothing in our legal system to prevent convicted criminals from making money through the recounting of their crimes. Other provinces in Canada have laws to prevent this type of activity, and British Columbia must follow suit

This bill I am introducing today draws heavily on the Nova Scotia legislation and would provide a means to prevent criminals from potentially profiting financially from the recounting of their crimes.

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, Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act, 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 Speech

Media Release

Media Release: February 25, 2016
Andrew Weaver – Bill to stop criminals from profiting from recounting their crimes
For Immediate Release

Victoria B.C. – Today Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, introduced a Private Member’s bill entitled the Criminal Notoriety Act which would prevent convicted criminals from profiting in recounting their crimes.

“It is immoral that a convicted serial killer can potentially gain from retelling their crime,” says Weaver. “I’m not talking about censorship or limiting freedom of speech, but offenders should not be able to financially benefit from such actions. I greatly sympathize with the continued anguish facing victim’s families in these tragic situations.”

While there is no legislation in British Columbia that prevents criminals from financially benefiting in recounting their crimes, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia all have laws that specifically prevent it.

“It was a relatively simple piece of legislation to bring forward,” says Weaver. “The Criminal Notoriety Act is based off Nova Scotia’s model and is a practicable bill that the government should carry forward. I see no reason why it couldn’t be brought into legislation by the end of this session.”

-30-

Media Contact
Mat Wright
Press Secretary – Andrew Weaver MLA
Cell: 250 216 3382
Mat.wright@leg.bc.ca
Twitter: @MatVic

Parliament Buildings
Room 027C
Victoria BC V8V 1X4

As I mentioned earlier, we’ve had a couple of odd bills introduced during this legislative sitting. In the case of  Bill 37, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, (No. 2), 2015, things are no different. The government introduced a bill that simply corrected a few commas, a bracket that shouldn’t have been italicized, and a couple of spelling mistakes.

Below is the text of my not to be taken too seriously comments on Bill 37. I encourage those interested in other comments on this bill to read the Hansard transcript of Leonard Krog’s second reading speech. He had me in stitches as he unpacked the (non)complexity of the bill.

Text of Speech

A. Weaver: I bound to my feet in enthusiasm to speak in support of Bill 37, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, (No. 2), 2015. Like my colleague from Nanaimo, I have been waiting many months to read about the many provisions that have been made here with respect to commas and periods.

Now, I take social media very, very seriously. I believe it’s important, as legislators, for us to engage our constituents and ask them what their views are on bills. So I form my opinion based on the opinions of the constituents and the input I get from talking to my staff and so forth. Now, I had a torrent of information come my way — really, more enthusiasm as to this bill. I had a couple of other suggestions that I think are relevant, and I think a couple of them should be read in because there are new ideas that the people of British Columbia are bringing to this government.

They’ve offered me an opportunity to give this government some more ideas for bills that they can bring forward this session to complete the legislative agenda. Here are a couple — I quite like these — from a fellow called Dave Hutchinson. He suggested Bill 39 be introduced — an act to replace the dash with the semicolon. I’m impressed with that. He has also suggested Bill 40, the act to eliminate redundancies act. Quite clever, actually.

We’ve had a comment from an Andrew Park, who was quite taken aback by the fact that the government’s agenda seemed so void of ideas. He said: “What’s up next — a bill to outlaw the selling of Twinkie bars in months that have two full moons?” Now, hon. Speaker, you will not believe it. It must have been a boring day on Facebook, because a discussion ensued, after that comment, as to whether or not you could still buy Twinkie bars in Canada. That’s the level of discussion that this bill is provoking in British Columbia. Turns out, there is good news. I was able to provide my constituents with an address that they could write to, to order Twinkies on line.

But it doesn’t end there. There have been other ideas. Truly my favourite, which we could debate for probably a couple of days, was suggested to me by my press secretary. That would be Bill 41. And those going back as far as my fellow alumnus Pierre Berton, a 1937 grad from Oak Bay that I mentioned in a statement today…. Sadly and ironically — just a sidebar with respect to the statement. For the first time in recorded memory, the Hansard blacked out. But it didn’t black out; it greened out. A green screen came up through my statement, so it’s no longer available as a video with other than a green screen there. Appropriate? Perhaps it’s seeing something in the future, I don’t know. But let’s come back to the bill. I sway. I move off it.

Bill 41, Mat Wright, press secretary: the double space after a period re-enactment bill, 2015. Say it again: the double space after a period re-enactment bill, 2015. That’s an issue that we should debate. Some people, sloppily, only put one space after a period. Within the legislation here, there are sometimes two spaces, sometimes one. We should have consistency on this — consistency.

Bill 42, the wilful and willingly act of willingness act, 2015. Bill 43, the healthy heath act, 2015. And one that I’d like to expand upon further, Bill 44, the two l’s or one act of decision, 2015.

Let me expand upon that a bit more. You know, we wonder whether “wilful” was willingly and wilfully worded wisely in the bill brought before us. Why I say that is that it appears, as the member for Nanaimo pointed out, that government has chosen to pay tribute to my former alumnist Pierre Berton from Oak Bay but has done so not consistently. It turns out that there are a further 15 acts that have spelled “wilful” wrong, one of them being — and I say this with the deepest sadness and shame on the government — the School Act. Heaven forbid that the School Act is not being corrected to change the way “wilful” is spelled. Yet we are doing it in others.

The Community Charter, Insurance Premium Tax Act, the Local Government Act, the Logging Tax Act, the Maa-nulth First Nations Final Agreement Act, the Mineral Tax Act, the Motor Fuel Tax Act, the Perpetuity Act — I don’t even know what some of these are — the Personal Property Security Act, the Property Transfer Tax Act, Railway Act, Tobacco Tax Act — we’re amending that one; that’s good — Trustee Act, and Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement Act.

Why are we just wilfully changing the spelling of “wilful” in a couple of acts when staff, in a matter of literally maybe 30 seconds — maybe it was 45 seconds — did a simple Google search with “site: B.C. Laws” and you can find all these other acts that have the misspelling. I don’t really quite know what’s going on here, but it actually goes further.

There’s an inconsistency with the use of the number of l’s and in other areas. One of my staff researchers gave me a lot of fuel to actually further this discussion. “Fuelled” is either spelled with one l or two l’s throughout the legislation in British Columbia. It’s sloppy. The environment act, the Environment Management Act, the Clean Energy Act, the Motor Vehicle Act, the Safety Standards Act and the Wildfire Act — the regulations there — have “fuelled” spelled with double l’s.

“Fuelling” is spelled with double l’s in the Assessment Act, the Nisga’a Final Agreement Act, the Park Act, Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement Act, the Clean Energy Act regulations, the Environment Management Act regulations, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act regulations, the Utilities Commission Act regulations.

Yet single l’s in “fueled” are used in the Local Government Act, the Wildfire Act and regulations, the Workers Compensation Act regulations, and “fueling” with single l’s is used in Forest and Range Practices Act regulations, the Wildfire Act and regulations and so forth. In fact, what’s even worse is that in some, double l’s are used and single l’s are used, so it’s not only inconsistent across laws but within laws.

The same thing. As you travel through these documents, you quickly realize that “travelled,” indeed, also is spelled with single l’s or double l’s. I won’t belabour the point. But why I’m raising this, honourable speaker….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: The hon. member for Nanaimo, very hon. member, points out that…. As soon as I get downstairs, I will be tasking my staff to search “colour” and “color” and “labour” and “labor” spelled with “our” or “or,” because this is critical.

Interjections.

A. Weaver: The member for Cowichan Valley points out that this is a can of worms that has been opened. British Columbians from Victoria to Fort Nelson, from Rossland to Haida Gwaii are going to be combing through B.C. bills looking for spelling mistakes. We’ve already started with the School Act, because we really wanted to find a few more spelling mistakes in the School Act. We’ll work on it. It’s a long act. We’ll find a couple. But it’s a challenge that I put out today to all British Columbians.

We’ve got nothing to do in this Legislature. Go through the act, find the punctuation errors, find the spelling mistakes and send them to me, andrew.weaver.mla@leg.bc.ca, and I will bring them to the Legislature to enable discussion for months ahead as we debate the matters of importance to British Columbians.

Interjections.

A. Weaver: I’m getting comments on my e-mail as not being correct from the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

Interjection.

A Weaver: I’m sorry. I cannot say my name, the member points out. But I think I was quoting an e-mail.

You could do…. It’s a good point. The e-mail is member.memberslastname.mla, where I am that member, at leg.bc.ca. Thank you to the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

With that, I do encourage my fellow citizens of British Columbia to please spend hours, send us more of your money, so that we can spend hours to go through with a fine-tooth comb and find those misplaced semicolons, to find those split infinitives, to rightly find those split infinitives, because that doesn’t do justice to our fine English language.

I really don’t have much more to say on this. But I do realize that the people of British Columbia expect us to debate these issues, and I’m having a hard time filling up the time with anymore substance here, because I’ve just run out. I just don’t know what to say. I honestly don’t know what to say.

Here I thought, being elected an MLA, you would actually debate matters of substance — and I say “debate” matters of substance. Here we are talking about spelling, talking about red tape, while real issues affecting British Columbia go by.

I would love to talk about LNG. I would love to talk about the fact that recent news article out of Malaysia points out that Petronas is actually going to move on, to the mid-2020s. I’d love to talk about that. But, no, we have to talk about punctuation.

With that, I thank you, hon. Speaker, for your time.

Video of Speech

Today in the legislature we continued debating Bill 20, the Election Amendment Act, 2015. Sadly, despite numerous amendments and sub-amendments, the Bill passed third reading as every Liberal MLA present voted in support of the bill in an almost robotic fashion. Of the 48 Liberal MLAs eligible to speak to the bill, only three, in addition to the Minister responsible, even bothered to take up this opportunity. Two of these MLAs simply rolled out patriotic pabulum about the importance of voting and the warm reception that Canadian World War II veterans recently received in the Netherlands. Neither referred to anything specific in the bill leaving me wondering if they had actually read it. Only Liberal MLA Moira Stilwell had the courage to speak out against the bill and its disturbing ramifications. For this she should be recognized and applauded.

In an earlier post I addressed the reason why I was opposing Bill 20: Election Amendment Act 2015. Bill 20 implements a number of the recommendations made by the Chief Electoral Officer in his October 2014 report. However, only one of the Chief Electoral Officer’s three priority recommendations was implemented, and that concerned providing flexibility in opportunities for advance voting. One egregious addition to the bill not recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer and opposed by the Privacy Commissioner is new language that allowed political parties to obtain a list of voters that indicates which voters on the list voted in a previous general election. This list would be available between general elections.

Government introduced an amendment at committee stage, in an attempt to create a level playing field for independent members wishing to run for office. How this amendment took the privacy concerns to a whole new level.  Government proposed that any candidate who ran in a previous election or is running in an upcoming election can obtain the list of voters that indicates which voters on the list voted in a previous general election or by-election.

This morning I tabled a petition of nearly 3,000 signatures from across British Columbia of British Columbians who were petitioning, respectfully, the honourable House to withdraw section 6 of Bill 20, the Election Amendment Act, 2015 and all amendments related to it. This petition was collected in just a matter of a few days.

Petition Introduction Video

Today was a very sad day for democracy in British Columbia. I hope that people across our beautiful province will speak up and let MLAs know that you are fed up with politicians putting their party ahead of the people they represent; that you are fed up allowing vested interests to influence election outcomes through campaign donations; that you are fed up being treated as a data point; that you are fed up with cynical campaigning — And the you demand better from this who you elect to represent you.

In a final attempt to delay introduction of the bill I introduced a so-called hoist motion. Below is the text of the motion and my speech, a video of my speech. The outcome of the votes are at the bottom.

Video of my 3rd Reading Speech introducing my Hoist Motion

Text of my 3rd Reading Speech introducing my Hoist Motion

A. Weaver: It is with a mix of frustration and desperation that I rise to table a hoist amendment of this Bill 20, the Election Amendment Act. The hoist amendment is this:

I move that the motion for third reading on Bill 20, The Election Amendment Act be amended by deleting the word “now” and substituting the words “6 months hence”.

A. Weaver: I feel that this bill is fundamentally at odds with what is in British Columbia’s best interest. We’ve seen amendments brought in at the last possible moment to address concerns of the Privacy Commissioner. The Commissioner’s concerns have been public knowledge for over a month. Yet the government’s amendments are circulated the day before the final debate on this bill is due to take place, preventing a proper view of the proposed changes.

The Privacy Commissioner first wrote a letter to government regarding Bill 20 on April 13, 2015, expressing serious concerns with aspects of the bill  and urged the government to withdraw sections which amended section 51(2) of the Election Act . These provisions would give political parties the ability to receive information on who voted at the end of an election.

Her concerns were how this information would be used, especially since making the information available after the election runs contrary to the government’s stated purpose that this information was to be used for getting out the vote. Far from providing new tools for political parties to increase voter turnout, in my view there are legitimate concerns that provisions in this legislation could be used to do the opposite.

The members of the official opposition have spoken at great length during committee stage about the importance of our democratic reform and the need to reinvigorate our democracy. Over the course of this session, for example, as well, they’ve introduced the Parliamentary Calendar Act, 2015; the Legislative Standing Committee Reform Act, 2015; the Fixed Fall Election Amendment Act, 2015; the Youth Voter Registration Act, 2015; the Whistleblowers Protection Act, 2015; the Members’ Conflict of Interest Amendment Act, 2015; the Open Government Act, 2015; the Lobbyist Registry Reform Act, 2015; the Electronic Petitions Act, 2015; the Fairness in Financing Local Government Elections Act, 2015; and the Campaign Finance Reform Act, 2015.

According to the members who tabled these bills, each is intended in one way or another to help enhance our democracy by, for instance, improving how we finance our elections, hold our governments accountable and engage British Columbians. Over the course of the debates on Bill 20, carried through to committee stage, the members of the official opposition have raised several concerns.

I would like to take a moment to dial in on one in particular, because it is of the utmost importance for the point I am about to make. The members of the official opposition have spoken substantially about the declining voter turnout that we have seen over the past several decades. To quote the member for Vancouver-Fairview: “When many of us were growing up, it was not uncommon to see voter turnouts in the 70s and 80s. When we now see voter turnouts of 54 percent called an increase in voter turnout, we should be alarmed.”

Similarly, to quote the member for Port Coquitlam: “I think all of us in this chamber — and in fact, people outside this chamber — have expressed concern about the decline in voter participation over the last few decades. There’s a constant desire to look at how we can increase voter turnout and how we can encourage voter turnout.” They are not alone. Almost every opposition speaker who stood up to speak to this bill and who raised questions during committee stage spoke about this concern.

One of the key solutions that members of the official opposition proposed was to register youth as voters as early as 16. This came up several times, both through official opposition questioning and my own questioning to the minister during committee stage. I, of course, have been actively promoting this idea also for quite some time. However, I think there is an important point here. The members who spoke in favour of this solution also generally recognized that on its own, it’s not enough. It is certainly a step in the right direction, but increasing voter turnout requires much more. It requires giving voters something to vote for.

In fact, the three ridings with the highest voter turnout in the 2013 provincial election were, one, Oak Bay–Gordon Head, the riding that I represent; two, Saanich North and the Islands, the riding that the member behind me here represents, and a riding that my colleague Adam Olsen ran in a very close three-way race; and third, the riding of Delta South, where 68 percent voter turnout existed. The member is just to my left here, sitting off camera. I welcome the member for Delta South.

What these three ridings have in common is that all of them had a strong, credible and viable third candidate who inspired people to get out to the polls, who gave them something to vote for, as opposed to vote against, traditionally in our vote-splitting arguments.

This brings me to the point at hand. In its current form, Bill 20 would make a significant change to laws surrounding the voter list. This came out time and time again during questioning in the committee stage. Time and time again, it appeared that this bill had not been thought out to the level of detail that we had expected for a bill like this to be brought before us. This bill would give political parties and any candidates access to information about who votes and who does not vote.

The opposition has spoken about the privacy concerns surrounding this change. They have, as I have, highlighted the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner.

In fact, the member for Saanich North and the Islands quoted the Privacy Commissioner specifically by saying this: “There must be clear limits on the use and disclosure of this personal information by political parties. For example, permitted use of this information for electoral purposes, as set out in section 275 of the Election Act, should be clearly defined, and political parties should be prohibited from using the information for commercial purposes or disclosing this information to any other organization or public body.”

During questioning during committee stage we were certainly unsatisfied that the steps have been taken to ensure that this would be the case. Now, while I agree with these concerns, I believe that both government and the official opposition have missed a key point. There has been no consultation about whether a political party or candidate should even have the right to know if somebody has voted or not. Until such a time that that question is actually asked and discussed, in my view, the information is the purview of the voter and the Chief Electoral Officer and no one else.

Putting aside the questions of privacy that I’ll discuss a little later, I want to turn to a separate issue that is the core of the government’s stated purpose of bringing the bill forward: voter turnout, a statement that we explored in great detail during committee stage. We’ve seen very clearly from other jurisdictions where voter turnout information is already available that more often than not, it’s used to slice and dice voter lists so that political parties can get more bang for their buck.

They do this by focusing more of their resources on targeting people who have a tendency to vote, because they know, as we do, that one of the biggest indicators and predictors of whether or not a person will vote in the next election is if they voted in the last election — a question I explored in some detail during committee stage. Contrary to all of the talking points about how this change will help increase voter turnout, the evidence shows quite clearly that it will actually support political parties to focus more than ever on the subset of registered voters who actually vote.

Non-voters will run the risk of being neglected, as parties focus their limited resources on those people deemed most likely to be worth the investment. This isn’t idle speculation. It’s found in study after study into how political parties in North America compete in elections. This is especially relevant in our first-past-the-post system where, rather than seeking a majority, parties only need to seek a plurality of voters, greatly reducing the number of voter contacts some parties feel are necessary to win.

It goes even further. Once parties know who actually votes, they can then layer their own support data on top of this and ascertain who their opponents’ supporters likely are. We saw this very clearly in the last election. In fact, we see this in almost every election — the use of tactics that border on voter suppression, in trying to convince your opponents’ supporters to stay home and not vote.

We saw this when the B.C. NDP phoned voters in my riding telling them that if they voted for me, they would split the vote and elect a Liberal, despite no evidence at all to back up the claim. We saw the same message when Liberals blanketed B.C. with messaging designed to undermine voters’ confidence in the NDP so that those voters who would never vote Liberal would perhaps be less motivated to vote at all.

In second reading of this bill, and explored further at the committee stage, the Minister of Justice dismissed suggestions that parties might use this information to “essentially badger non-voters through repeated and unwanted communications” by saying: “why would a party do that? The goal for any political party is to gain voter support. The last thing you want to do is to alienate voters through unwanted contact.” Oh, the naivety of the minister for quoting such fine, fine words that I obviously agree with. But in practice, they do not play out, as the evidence I showed before suggests.

It’s clearly seen in the above two examples. This claim that political parties would never act in abusive ways is simply not borne out by the evidence. A more publicized example, of course, is the robocall scandal in the last federal election. In this instance, supporters of certain parties were called and told that their polling had changed. The caller purported to be from Elections Canada but was in fact a partisan attempt to suppress votes from other parties.

Now, the relevance of that, of course, is that, as I raised in committee stage, the sections that were being brought into the Election Act here in British Columbia mirror those sections that were brought into the Elections Act federally as an attempt to actually find ways, I would argue, to skirt around the election financing requirements that were brought in by successive governments federally. And we’re seeing the trend here as well. That was clearly evident from the questioning during committee stage.

By giving political parties and candidates access to the voters list, including information on who voted, we will be allowing those parties to run more targeted and effective voter suppression campaigns. No longer will they need to waste resources blanketing a riding or an entire voter list. Now they would be able to target just that subset of voters that they know for a fact are more likely to vote, and they can throw even more resources at them, thanks to the savings they receive from not spending resources on non-voters.

This change is not about increasing voter turnout or reinvigorating our democracy. If the members of this House truly care about this goal, they will agree with me that we need more time to consider the changes we are about to make so that we can find other ways to truly increase voter turnout. For example, we could read again the report provided in the fall of last year from the Chief Electoral Officer, which clearly outlined his top two priorities: (1) voter registration of youth at the ages of 16 and 17; and (2) introducing, on a trial basis, innovative ways of actually conducting election voting.

The member for Vancouver-Langara also rose courageously in this House to speak against the provisions of the act that she feels “do not improve our democracy and do not improve our ability to increase voter turnout nor produce better oversight of election results.”

This is not a common occurrence to see a government MLA speak out against a piece of legislation, and I believe it demonstrates the seriousness of what we are considering here. The member laid out an elegant critique of these provisions. “I stand to speak out,” she said, ” against these changes because I know that they do not have anything to do with improving voter turnout or improving our democracy. Quite simply, these changes are in the interests of political parties, not in the interests of individual British Columbian voters.”

The member for Vancouver-Langara talked to her constituents, listened to her constituents and recognized that her constituents did not support this bill, and I wonder if others in this House on that side of the House have done the same.

There are a lot of ways to improve voter turnout, and the member noted that these don’t involve violating people’s privacy. The member went out and talked to the constituents, as I said. She discussed it with them, and again, to quote from her speech, “voters do not want political parties to have more information about them, including whether or not they voted. When asked, people distrust political parties and politicians and believe, in the majority, that political parties, if they could, would manipulate election results.”

Wow. Is that not a testament to the reason why voter turnout is actually declining — the increased lack of trust, the increased belief in people that politicians are not trustworthy, that if they could, they would manipulate election results? This is why the member for Vancouver-Langara spoke out against it, and it’s why I have spoken out against it. It’s why the member for Delta South has spoken out against it. It’s why the members in the official opposition have spoken out against it.

The member for Vancouver-Langara’s concern was that this change would only make people more cynical, more guarded and more skeptical about their relationship with politics. It was not the commercial uses that worried her constituents, but the use of the information for targeted political pressure.

I would not for one moment presume to know whether the member for Vancouver-Langara feels that the government’s last-minute amendments address her concerns. What I do know is that I listened closely to her speech and found myself sharing many of her original concerns, and these last-minute amendments that we discussed and explored in committee stage only amplified my concerns for the political occurrence of abuse.

Despite claiming that these amendments address the Privacy Commissioner’s concerns, the Minister of Justice “did not feel it was necessary” to run the amendments past the Privacy Commissioner when asked if she had consulted with the office. This has as much to do with the content of the amendments as the manner in which they have been introduced into the legislature. They have been slipped in at the last possible moment.

Before the break, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner issued a statement on these amendments. While acknowledging that an attempt had been made to address her office’s concerns, I reiterate that in her original letter she commented that the best course of action would be to withdraw the provisions of this bill related to providing voter turnout information.

As I stated earlier today, I do not think this is a thoughtful manner for government to propose amendments to legislation, especially when it concerns fundamental issues of privacy. I feel that this is a clumsy attempt to put political interests ahead of what is best for British Columbians.

It’s in our best interest to postpone this debate and gather the necessary information from the public — those who are affected — and from a variety of experts, those who have explored other jurisdictions before proceeding with this bill.

I now wish to turn to addressing a secondary concern of this bill that was revealed extensively during committee stage and why I believe it’s in our best interest to hoist it.

The debate has so far centred primarily around what the government’s stated intentions are with this information — namely, the claim that these provisions are to facilitate “get out the vote” efforts. There is, of course, another area of concern: privacy.

In order to properly evaluate the privacy concerns that exist within this bill, I think it’s important that we understand how British Columbians feel about their privacy and whether political parties are acting responsibly to those concerns. Through thorough questioning at committee stage, it became clear to me that government has not sought input from British Columbians.

Let me give you such input. In the 2014 Survey of Canadians on Privacy, a report that was prepared for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, nine in ten Canadians expressed some level of concern about the protection of their privacy, with 34 percent saying they are “extremely concerned.” This is an increase from 25 percent in 2012. Furthermore, 73 percent of Canadians, the largest proportion since tracking began, feel that they have “less protection of their personal information in their daily lives than they did ten years ago.” A third statistic that is relevant to this debate: 56 percent do not feel they have sufficient knowledge about how new technologies affect their personal privacy.

This is the context in which we must evaluate Bill 20, as explored in detail through committee stage — a massive majority feeling they have less control over their personal information, a growing number of people expressing serious concerns about their level of protection, and a majority feeling they do not posses sufficient knowledge to evaluate how new technology affects their privacy.

What’s fascinating is that this study found that those people with low knowledge tended to be highly concerned, compared to 16 percent who were unconcerned. That is, the highly concerned percentage was 33 percent, compared to 16 percent who were unconcerned.

However, gaining knowledge about the privacy implications did not make these people less concerned. Those with knowledge still were overwhelmingly “highly concerned” — that’s 26 percent — as opposed to being unconcerned, 6 percent.

Within this larger Canadian study, British Columbians as a group were the least informed about how technology affected their personal privacy, with only 34 percent saying they feel confident that they “have enough information to know how new technologies might affect my personal privacy.” That’s compared to 48 percent in the Atlantic, 46 percent in Ontario and 41 percent in the Prairies.

We have heard in this session the Minister of Education tout repeatedly — and I concur — the exceptional nature of our education system. Yet these statistics are very revealing. Only 34 percent of British Columbians feel confident they have enough information to know how new technologies might affect their personal privacy. That’s very troubling, and it suggests that the government has not engaged British Columbians, has not informed British Columbians. This is why this bill must be delayed through another six months, to give the government a chance to actually consult with the people of British Columbia.

Let’s have a look at how Bill 20 fares when looked at through this lens of privacy. Bill 20 would provide political parties with a complete set of data on who in the province is voting. It would also, due to the last-minute amendments moved by the government and passed at committee stage, allow candidates in an upcoming election and people who were candidates in a past election to receive the information about who voted in the riding. That certainly constitutes more information about British Columbians that may be used in unforeseen ways.

As I stated above, despite the government’s suggestion that the information would be used responsibly, I think it’s imperative upon us that we consider the possible abuses permitted by the legislation. It’s my opinion that the legislation before us contains a number of areas of such possible abuse, which is why we need time to explore this further, to actually close any loopholes that would allow such abuse.

This, then, may rightly feed the growing number of Canadians expressing serious concerns about their level of protection. This is an important point. There is nothing in this legislation that outlines any enforcement regime to ensure privacy rights — that they are not violated. Certainly, we have the government’s new addition of a privacy policy requirement. But with such a lack of detail about how this will work, with no legislated enforcement and with no clear involvement of the Privacy Commissioner in the legislation, it’s hard to assess the level of protection afforded British Columbians.

In response to a specific subamendment to actually replace the Chief Electoral Officer by the Privacy Commissioner, to actually approve the policy requirements, I was given an answer that essentially said: “They work together. Trust us.” Well, there has been too much of this trust-us in this Legislature for quite some time. Sadly, trust-us just is not working.

We want to see the details. We want to know that the details have arisen from consultation with British Columbians. We want to see the evidence behind those details, not a trust-us approach, as this government is taking on this particular bill and everything else of late that seems to be coming through this House, whether it be the education amendment act or whether it be LNG and the fantasy that British Columbia lives in as to its wealth and prosperity for one and all.

This approach may rightly feed the growing number of Canadians expressing serious concerns about their level of protection. Again, this is an important point. There’s nothing that outlines any enforcement to ensure the privacy rights in this bill. I re-emphasize that.

Another important point is the total lack of consultation concerning the change. Providing voter information was not recommended by the Privacy Commissioner but was instead expressed by political parties as worthy of exploration. At no point has there been any attempt to properly assess whether British Columbians support this change or, indeed, whether they are even aware this change is taking place. Looking at privacy concerns, then, this legislation only feeds feelings of a loss of control by the electorate. It constitutes a change whose full implications we cannot rightly assume British Columbians are aware of.

To sum up this argument, then, this legislation is being considered without addressing the overriding privacy concerns that are being expressed by British Columbians. It does not clearly lay out a regime that British Columbians could feel confident about and, in fact, is being brought forward in a rushed manner where amendments and subamendments are brought to bear at the last possible moment. I think it’s important that we consider additional evidence and analysis of privacy considerations for political parties as I make my argument that this bill needs to be hoisted.

What else does the evidence tell us about privacy? A critical concern for political parties should be that Canadians feel more confident giving personal information to organizations when they feel confident in or trust that organization. As the member for Vancouver-Langara pointed out, “trust” in political parties from the electorate is depleted. We regularly see the reports of cynicism about politics.

The minister’s own talking points cite the lack of engagement in political parties as a key reason this is being brought forward. Yet the manner in which it has been brought forward would refute this as amendments have appeared at the last moment, appearing to have skirted a review from the Privacy Commissioner. Is this the best way to bring legislation forward concerning privacy, when transparency and expert opinion are so critical in building trust? I think not.

I want to look at this bill from another angle as well. This is the angle from the Canadian Standards Association’s model code for protection of personal information. It’s particularly important to look at it through the lens of this model code and in light of the evidence that arose during committee stage. There are ten principles in this code: (1) accountability; (2) identifying purposes; (3) consent; (4) limiting collection; (5) limiting use, disclosure and retention; (6) accuracy; (7) safeguards; (8) openness; (9) individual access; and (10) challenging compliance. After going through committee stage, it’s clear to me that there are provisions in Bill 20 pertaining to privacy that do not fare well according to these standards, and I’ll expand here.

For accountability. The government’s last-minute amendments that require a responsible person to bring forward a privacy policy may go a small way in addressing this area, certainly. But the manner in which it was brought in and the questions that still remain suggest there’s still a large gap that needs to be filled.

For identifying purposes. In my view Bill 20 fails to align the stated purpose, which was increasing voter turnout in an election, with the manner in which the information is gathered by “request after the election has taken place.”

It seems like a stretch to link this to voter engagement for the reasons I have given earlier and given during committee stage. We don’t today, as of this date, have an invention called a time machine to use such information to increase the voter turnout in an election that has already happened.

For consent, Bill 20 fails spectacularly. Not only are the provisions related to privacy advanced by the political parties and not Elections B.C., there have been limited attempts to actually inform or educate British Columbians as to what information may become available. This is one of the more important issues concerning privacy, in my view.

As politicians, we are in a unique position to legislate ourselves access to more information. It is shocking that we’re taking advantage of this. I feel it’s therefore our responsibility to ensure that we have adequately consulted with the public. While we cannot expect everyone to take time from their busy lives to read up on the privacy policy and inform themselves about Bill 20, we thankfully have created an independent office to look after these concerns. However, if we skirt around this office, limiting its ability to do its job, I feel we are failing to ensure the consent for this change.

With limiting collection, I have similar concerns to identifying purpose. The collection of this information is not limited in such a way that it is clearly used only for increasing voter turnout. The fact that this information is gathered by political parties after an election limits the applicability of the data to its stated purpose — to increase voter turnout. I retract all of this once a time machine is invented and we can actually go back and use this data in an election that has already occurred. But as of this point, such a machine does not exist.

For limiting use, disclosure and retention, I feel that we can legitimately question the retention aspect of the voter information. I attempted to address this with amendments to earlier sections of the bill during committee stage to require the destruction of this information once the election was over. Not to belabour the point, but if the purpose is to drive voter turnout up, why are we receiving this personal information after an election, and why would parties need to retain this information?

They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t need this information. And that became very clear during questioning at committee stage. For accuracy, this bill would ensure that parties can keep this information up to date. I’m not sure that that is exclusively a good thing, as I think there are legitimate concerns this information could be misused

With regard to safeguards, I’ve spoken earlier about my concerns that this bill does not lay out a legislative regime where information is being adequately protected. This really comes down to two points. The Privacy Commissioner does not have a legislated role in the act, despite the clear triggering of her jurisdiction and despite the fact that we tried, in amendments, to get that legislated role included.

Two is that there is nothing in the legislation that speaks to enforcement of the “privacy policy” that must be created to access this data. We’re left with a “trust us; it’ll work out” kind of approach to this. We’ve given examples — in committee stage, and here I’ve given others — to show that “trust us” simply is not good enough.

In looking at openness, it remains to be seen whether these privacy policies will contain a requirement that they be made publicly accessible. I don’t know. You don’t know. We haven’t been told. “Trust us” is the answer we get.

With individual access, British Columbians should expect to be made aware of the existence, use and disclosure of their information. To a certain extent, technology is changing the rules about data acquisition, but we must be careful that we don’t swing that pendulum too far.

Finally, with challenging compliance, I feel that Bill 20 provides no guidance except that a privacy policy must be accessible to the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections B.C. There is no guarantee specificity about how compliance can be assured, and this was ever so evident during committee stage.

The Canadian Standards Association’s model code for protection of personal information may or may not be the appropriate tool to use in analyzing this piece of legislation. It is certainly one that would look favourably upon certain provisions in this bill. However, without an ability to adequately consult the Privacy Commissioner to ascertain whether amendments that are tabled at the last minute address all of her concerns or whether other amendments that were put forward by members of this Legislature would have addressed them even better or completely or not at all….

Without this information, I am left to find whatever other tool I can. It is the use of the Canadian Standards Association’s  model code for protection of personal information.

In conclusion, it’s fitting to conclude this section by quoting directly from the Privacy Commissioner’s letter to the minister on Bill 20 so it is clearly on the record what it is that we are voting on.

“The amendment to section 51(2), however, extends beyond the objective of increasing voter turnout. This is because it authorizes the release of voter participation information to political parties after an election or by-election.

“Unlike the disclosures discussed in the previous paragraph which codify an existing practice and are directly tied to getting out the vote on voting day, the purpose of this disclosure is for political parties to receive personal information in a comprehensive and accessible format after voting day in order to perform analytics and other uses.

“This disclosure was not recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer, and the purpose of this disclosure is not directly tied to getting out the vote. It is also not a disclosure allowed by most provinces in Canada.”

These aren’t my words. These are the words of the Privacy Commissioner. These are words that should have been adhered to. Yet “Trust us. It’ll work out” is the answer that we get.

The original reason the Legislature authorized Elections B.C. to compile a list of voters was for the purpose of administering elections. I’m deeply concerned that the proposed amendments allow for other uses and expand the already broad ability of political parties to collect information about voter participation.

It would also certainly exceed what British Columbians anticipate when they provide their names to Elections B.C., given that I do not believe there has been any public consultation on this expanded use of the voters list.

If this act were to proceed, Elections B.C. would be disclosing personal information that is likely to be linked with other information in political party databases and elsewhere. This linking and the associated analytics can be used for creating voter profiles, targeting voters, fundraising, sharing data across systems for secondary purposes, collecting non-consensual information, inappropriate communication from parties and other intrusive uses. This became absolutely apparent during committee stage as members in the opposition probed the minister on various sections in the proposed bill.

I’m not persuaded that any of these uses are consistent with the foundational purpose for which the compilation of the list was originally permitted. Given the above, I urge government to withdraw the proposed amendments to section 51. Personal information compiled for efficiently administering elections should not, from a privacy point of view, be provided to political parties for their broader use. People are not data points, and they should not be treated as such.

I urge members on all sides of this House to recognize that this bill was brought in prematurely and that additional time — six months in particular — is required and necessary to actually go to British Columbians, the voters of our province, and ask them what they think, whether they support this and what they believe the role of the voters should be in terms of enhancing, or not, voter turnout.

Hon. Chair, with that, I thank you for your attention, and I certainly hope the hoist motion is supported

The Vote on my Hoist Motion

The Vote on 3rd Reading