Last week the BC NDP and BC Liberals joined forces to pass Bill 10, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019. This bill created tax credits and a fiscal regime for what will become the single largest point source of carbon emissions in Canada’s history two days after a government report confirmed that Canada is warming at twice the rate as the rest of the world, with the North, the Prairies and northern British Columbia pushing to nearly three times the global rate.

The BC Greens already voted against the Bill at first reading and at second reading (where we introduced three amendments to kill the bill that were all defeated). During our numerous speeches, Adam Olsen, Sonia Furstenau and I argued that it’s time politicians level with British Columbians about the economic and environmental consequences of this historic betrayal of future generations.

During committee stage of the bill, my BC Green colleagues and I voted against each section of the bill. It was during this stage that I was also able to find out that LNG Canada has no requirement to hire locally, despite BC NDP promises to the contrary. In addition, I was able to determine that the BC NDP have a moving definition of what “cleanest LNG in the world:” actually means.

Section 1	Section 2	Section 3	Section 5	Title

When section 4 of the bill was discussed at Committee Stage, the BC Liberals proposed an amendment that would strike out section 4b in the following:

4  The following Acts are repealed:
    (a) Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act, S.B.C. 2014, c. 34;
    (b) Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, S.B.C. 2015, c. 29.

That is, the BC Liberals did not want their Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act repealed.

While the amendment was being debated there were a dozen or so MLAs in the chamber, and when the Assistant Deputy Speaker called for a verbal vote on the amendment the “Ayes”  won. This simply means the MLAs in the chamber collectively said “Aye” louder than those saying “Nay” (I stayed silent). Given that the BC NDP lost the verbal vote, a number of them (and I) called for “Division” (a standing vote). Not interested in quibbling about how the deckchairs on the Titanic should be arranged as it starts to sink, I left the room. My colleagues Adam and Sonia were in other meetings in the building and were not present.

The standing vote led to a tie: 41 BC Liberals for the amendment; 41 BC NDP against it. The 3 greens were not interested in amending a section we were about to vote against and so were not present. The tie was broken by the Assistant Deputy Speaker (a BC Liberal) and so the amendment passed, but not without controversy. The Assistant Deputy Speaker is supposed to be a non-partisan role.

In cases where  there is a tie, there is a convention that should be followed to preserve confidence in the impartiality of the Speaker’s office. But here, the Assistant Deputy Speaker voted her “conscience” and the amendment passed. Moments later the amended section was put to a vote. Adam Sonia and I voted against that.

On Thursday last week the bill came up for third reading. Adam, Sonia and I rose to speak a final time. Sonia was shut down early by the speaker and so was unable to move an amendment to send the bill to a Legislative Committee. Adam and I both moved amendments, that Sonia spoke to, as we tried to persuade the BC NDP and BC Liberal MLAs the scale of the sellout embodied in Bill 10. Sadly, our two amendments failed and third reading passed.

Amendment to Committee	Hoist Amendment	Third Reading

Below I reproduce my third reading speech as well as my speech to Adam’s hoist motion in both text and video format. I also reproduce a copy of the media release that we issued once Bill 10 passed.

Without a doubt, witnessing the BC NDP and the BC Liberal MLAs collectively vote against the three BC Greens fourteen times on this bill made it abundantly clear to me:

The BC Liberals and the BC NDP are two sides of the same neo-liberal coin.

---

3rd Reading Videos

---

3rd Reading & Motion to Send to Committee	Hoist Motion

---

Text of 3rd Reading Speech

---

A. Weaver: I must say I am deeply troubled and deeply disturbed by the precedent set today in this Legislature at a time when it is quite clear from the standing orders as to the rules and regulations with respect to reading at third reading. We have been following very clearly the rules as demonstrated in the standing orders. I rise to speak to speak at third reading against this same bill.

My colleague from Cowichan Valley didn’t have the opportunity to bring forward this important information that has been brought to light during the debate, important information that is required by members of this chamber in order to make their decision, important information that reflects on the very nature of the bill-debating before us. The natural gas tax credit. The changes in the calculations that are being put forward.

It is only through a complete understanding of the complexities of the nuances in this bill, in the context of the global picture, that we are able to make an informed decision in this House. To have my colleague — to have her shut down in debate because of an interpretation that I believe is flawed is simply outrageous.

I do apologize for my comments here, but never before have I — in sitting here for six years in this chamber — seen what I believe to see: an interference of a member’s right to enter a debate on an issue subject to the standing orders that we have had guide this place for generations. I continue, as to provide the important information.

I see the House Leader for the government. They’re talking to the Speaker. I would suggest that is out of order as well in this moment here. So I continue.

Deputy Speaker: Member, the Chair would welcome any comments related, relevant, to Bill 10. So nobody is stopping anybody making those comments. I would urge the member to limit those comments just to the bill. Please carry on.

A. Weaver: These comments are to Bill 10. Bill 10, as has being articulated here, introduces three things. One, it tries to repeal the LNG Income Tax Act.

I would like to publicly note that right now, the House Leader of the government is providing advice to the Speaker in the Chair. In my view, that is outrageous. That is not something that should be happening. This is a non-partisan position. To see witness the Speaker getting advice being provided is surprising.

On to Bill 10.

Deputy Speaker: Member, please take your seat. The Chair will again urge all members who wish to speak on this bill in third reading: keep your comments relevant to the bill. That’s all we are asking for. The member wishes to continue? Please proceed.

A. Weaver: I do wish to continue, and I do apologize for challenging the decision there. But as I said, it’s troubling. I will continue on focusing solely on the bill, the number of points raised in the bill.

As I pointed out, there are three points in there. The first, of course, is the repealing of the LNG Income Tax Act. The second is the repealing of the Petronas agreement, the LNG project development agreement, which we now know — through the rather interesting amendment put forward by the opposition that has passed — will not be repealed as part of this. We enjoyed watching those deliberations and interesting to see how that moved forward.

We also know that the B.C. NDP, in this bill, are trying to retain the giveaway, the natural gas tax credit giveaway that is embedded in the original LNG Income Tax Act. We have three aspects of this bill. We have articulated in second reading time and time again….

I see in the gallery a young group of children, and I welcome them to this place. I would suggest to them, as we continue to explore this bill and the ramifications of this bill, that members in this House actually think about their future, members in the House actually recognize that this generational sellout embodied in this giveaway is not doing their future any good. Frankly, it is a betrayal of their future.

As my colleague from Cowichan Valley tried to articulate, there have been a numerous number of articles appearing that have highlighted the reason why this bill and the actual elements in it are inconsistent with the government’s goal to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is inconsistent to give away a tax credit to this industry that would not otherwise be here in British Columbia in a desperate attempt to try to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. That’s it. That’s the only rationale I can see behind this moving forward.

As my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands, who will speak after me, brings forward information on the bill, I would hope that members opposite, members in the B.C. Liberals, who have been saying for so long that they do not believe that this giveaway is actually fiscally responsible…. The member for Langley East was quite clear in that regard. The member from Abbotsford — not only was the member for Abbotsford West clear, his deconstructing of the job narrative that was supposed to be here was compelling. This government did not provide any information to back its claims that this agreement embodied in this bill would actually hire British Columbians.

In fact, just today I received an email from a contractor up in the north who validated the concerns I raised about Boskalis hiring temporary foreign workers. Today I received that email.

We are going to vote on a bill at third reading where information provided at the committee stage was either not provided in entirety or not delivered. We have yet to be given information. We were told in committee stage that we had to ask the Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology questions before we get answers to the issues of how this would affect jobs. Those questions were delivered to the Finance Minister in committee stage, yet we did not get answers to those questions. How is it possible that we could actually vote in favour of bill where the answers were not forthcoming to fundamental questions raised by members of opposition and by members in the Green Party at committee stage?

It seems to me that if ever there was a reason to actually not continue forward and vote on this, if ever there was a reason to actually send this bill to committee for further deliberation and debate, that information would be the fact we didn’t get answers. It’s for that reason that I move:

[That the motion for third reading of Bill (No. 10) intituled Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019 be amended by deleting all the words after “that” and substituting therefore the following:

“Bill (No. 10) not be read a third time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.”]

A. Weaver: The rationale for proposing that this bill be sent to committee, as put forward to you a few seconds ago, is that the information we were trying to seek at committee stage was not forthcoming.

The information about jobs, the information about where the $23 billion was going to come from, the fiscal breakdown, was not forthcoming. The information on contractors, who was going to be contracting — not forthcoming. Information on emissions and whether this initial final investment decision is actually a pathway to a four-train system — not forthcoming.

It is only through the exploration of this matter further at committee stage, it is only by bringing in expert testimony — the expert testimony from people like Katharine Hayhoe, who my colleague from Cowichan Valley tried to bring forward here…. She tried to actually bring that information to this chamber, to allow members to actually inform themselves prior to a vote.

The only means and ways that members truly will be able to actually recognize the scale of climate change, the scale of what is before us here with this bill, in terms of the generational sellout of those young children and their friends up in the gallery…. It is only through exploring this at committee stage that we will actually be able to get to the bottom of whether or not this truly is in the best interest of British Columbians.

We know that members of government’s caucus have not even been briefed on the details of this bill, and we have, as three Green MLAs, had to brief them on the details of this bill. It is sad that we have, in this chamber, so many MLAs who have not spent the time to actually go and get the information on what we’re debating before us.

That is why a committee, a legislative committee exploring this issue, bringing forward recommendations, deliberations on what is supposed to be a big project for B.C. but is, in reality, the single biggest point source of emissions that this country has ever seen, at a time that this government’s claiming it’s championing climate change policy.

This needs to go to committee, and I certainly hope members in the government will join us in supporting this, for democracy is about seeking input. It’s about making decisions based on evidence. It’s about going to the communities across British Columbia — whether it be the farmers, the farmers in the Peace, who came to us, who came to our caucus to brief us on the profound issues they have with the way the fracking is happening on their farmland, that they are considered second-class citizens.

The fact that the committee would be able to explore the views of the youth of today — the views of the youth of today who today, across this country, are getting ready for Friday. It’s another day of walkouts in schools, another day of walkouts as youth point to the political leaders and say: “You are ignoring us. You’re not going to have to live the consequences of the decisions you are making. Yet we are, and you are not including us. You are not thinking about our future in your decisions. You are thinking about your re-election. You’re thinking about what it takes to score a tick box in a ‘I did what Christy Clark couldn’t.’ And you’re doing what you think is actually the best thing that you can do based on focus groups, polling testing, etc., not doing what’s right, not doing what’s principled.”

It is sad. The saddest moment, for me, again coming back to why this should be sent to committee, is I look to what was raised when I was interviewed by CFAX this morning…. I was challenged by Al Ferraby, and I enjoy being challenged. I was challenged by Al Ferraby, who said: “What’s this about you not wishing to participate in a vote?” And we talked about that. He said: “What’s this about the member for Abbotsford West with this phrase?”

Well, I could talk about this later. But the point I’m trying to make is that I’m hoping, for the first time in the six years I’ve been here, members in government, back bench, will reflect upon these words, reflect upon those children in the gallery, as they stand up at third reading and determine the future of this bill — the future of this bill which my colleagues, numerous times over the last few days, have pointed out betrays our climate commitments, betrays future generations, provides false promises to the people in northwestern B.C., who are already seeing the temporary foreign workers coming in.

We know that the only way to actually get to the bottom of these very important questions is through committee, because we did not get the answers at committee stage. We need to send this to a standing committee.

Again, wouldn’t it be a joyous occasion if members opposite, who have criticized this deal for being fiscally irresponsible…. We agree with them. We agree with them that it’s fiscally irresponsible. If they then joined us in voting to send this to committee, to allow a committee to actually explore the level of fiscal irresponsibility embodied in this bill, to challenge the claims, give us the chance to explore with the Minister of Jobs, Trades and Technology what the real job deals are. Have there been secret sweet deals signed with certain people about bringing in temporary foreign workers?

With that, I’ll take my place and certainly hope that others will join me in supporting this amendment

---

Text of Speech in Support of Hoist Amendment

---

A. Weaver: I rise to speak very briefly in support of my colleague’s, the member for Saanich North and the Islands, hoist amendment on the bill.

My colleague, I think, has made a very, very compelling case as to why we need the additional six months’ time to reflect upon it. More so, I would suggest, members in this House, have not received the information that they need to make a decision. I’ve heard many talk about the importance of evidence-based decision-making. It’s something that’s fundamental to who we are as members of the B.C. Green caucus. I’ve heard others in this place talk about the importance of that. Yet, we know that the information, the evidence on which to make such a decision, has not been presented to us here in committee stage.

We know that this bill has three components to it. It has a component to repeal the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act. There’s a component to repeal the LNG Income Tax Act. And there was, at the same time, a component of the bill to retain the tax credit — the corporate welfare on steroids — that existed within the LNG Income Tax Act. We know, in what has got to be described as a bizarre set of things that have happened here, that we’ve broken precedent in this place. We’ve broken historical precedent in Westminster parliamentary democracies during the course of these debates, not once, but twice during the course of these debates. That, in and of itself, I would suggest should give us pause to reflect upon this bill with the additional time that we would get through this hoist amendment.

We had an amendment put forward by the B.C. Liberals, an amendment to quibble about where the deck chairs on the Titanic should be prior to the Titanic sinking to the bottom of the ocean. We had an amendment that actually led to a tie vote — 41-41. With respect, in the long, rich tradition of Westminster parliamentary democracies, we had a precedent set that goes directly against the historic nature of this building, where a Chair votes out of conscience in a partisan manner with the opposition. This is outrageous. It’s outrageous, given that we, at the same time in the U.K., had the ruling set out why the Speaker in the U.K. ruled with government. That is the role in a Westminster parliamentary democracy of a Chair, to ensure that the debates flow forward.

That was our first precedent-setting decision. Very, very unfortunate. But that was not the only one. The second one, too, gives reason to pause as to why we need to reflect upon this bill for a few more months, because clearly, the process in this place, leaves a lot to be desired. That was my colleague from the Cowichan Valley, who spent many, many hours going through the media to determine what information was missing, in order to inform members on the decision that was going to be made today — information that was not present, not given during committee stage, information that she took upon herself to find and bring forward. She was shut down at third reading. The member was told to sit down. Her voice was silenced. Outrageous.

Two times during the course of the last 48 hours, two times we’ve had such statements. That is why it’s critical for us to reflect upon this.

With that, I’ll take my place and suggest to members opposite that this is the time for us to actually reflect upon the implications of this. I certainly hope we’re joined in voting in support of my member’s amendment.

---

Media Release

---

BC enables landmark emissions source same week report finds Canada warming at twice the global rate
For immediate release
April 4, 2019

VICTORIA, B.C. – Today, the BC NDP and BC Liberals passed into law tax credits and the fiscal regime for what will become the single largest point source of carbon emissions in Canada’s history two days after a government report confirmed Canada is warming at twice the rate as the rest of the world, with the North, the Prairies and northern British Columbia pushing to nearly three times the global rate.

“This legislation is not only lacking vision to bring BC into a competitive economic future, it is compounding the massive challenges we have before us today in the form of extreme weather events: massive fires, droughts, and flooding,” said Dr. Andrew Weaver, leader of the BC Greens and award-winning lead author of four United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. “The BC NDP and BC Liberals are together sending BC down the wrong path with new fossil fuel subsidies and the expansion of the oil and gas sector while much of the world is transitioning to a clean economy based on innovation and sustainability.

“Our caucus used every tool at our disposal to oppose this legislation. We forced 14 votes in order to give MLAs repeated opportunities to stand up and vote against this bill, to vote with their conscience, and to question whether this was the path they support our province pursuing. When the BC Liberals brought forth an amendment to the bill itself, our caucus chose to abstain; we will take no part in debating, passing or defeating an amendment on a piece of legislation we fundamentally oppose. Every MLA who felt conflicted in supporting giving massive tax breaks to what will become the single largest point source of carbon emissions in Canada’s history right after endorsing CleanBC’s objectives to reduce BC’s emissions, should have voted against this legislation.”

The BC NDP have ignored the rising economic costs of the environmental impact from the increase in floods, forest fires and drought that this project’s emissions will contribute to when they talk about its potential benefits. Last year, BC’s forest-fire spending increased from an average of $214 million to $568 million. Floods cost $73 million last year and studies show a major Fraser River or coastal flood could cause damages up to $30 billion.

“What is so disappointing about the passage of this bill is not only that the costs will fall squarely on communities across the province – but that there is a viable alternative in front of us,” said MLA Sonia Furstenau of Cowichan Valley. “Rather than put our effort into working with communities and First Nations across the province to implement an economic roadmap that increases their resilience to climate change, we have yet another government that has worked hard to aggressively secure tax cuts for a new major fossil fuel development.”

“There were 83 legislators from both the BC Liberals and BC NDP who supported a project that will pollute until after our children have retired,” said MLA Adam Olsen. “Now, more than ever, BC needs the Greens to be here in government. We may just be three MLAs, but we will continue to do everything in our power to set BC on a sustainable course. We must allow science to inform our policy if we want to ensure our children inherit a world worth living in.”

-30-

Media contact
Macon McGinley, Press Secretary
+1 250-882-6187 | macon.mcginley@leg.bc.ca

Yesterday in the legislature we debated Bill 20: Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2019 at second reading. This bill eliminates the collection and payment of MSP premiums through several sectional repeals of the Medicare Protection Act. The bill also requires the commission to notify a beneficiary when their enrollment is being canceled. The bill introduces transitional provisions to allow the commission to collect outstanding premium debt.

As you will see from my second reading speech, reproduced in video and text below, MSP premiums have existed in British Columbia in one form or another since 1968. Successive NDP, Socred and BC Liberal governments retained or increased this form of regressive taxation for more than 50 years. It wasn’t until the BC Greens made this an issue in 2015 that the BC NDP and BC Liberals could not ignore that action was taken.

I am sincerely grateful to the seniors at the Monterey Centre in Oak Bay who brought this issue to my attention in 2014. As a consequence I initiated a campaign to eliminate the MSP in January 2015. Over the following two years I raised the issue numerous times in the Legislature including tabling a petition with over 65,000 signature on it, responding to myriad emails, and encouraging British Columbians to contact their local MLA to raise awareness on the issue.

In the end, all three parties agreed to move towards the elimination of MSP in the 2017 election campaign. No party could afford to ignore the regressive nature of this form of taxation in light of the widespread attention British Columbians were now giving it. Further details are provided in the speech below.

---

Video of Speech

---

---

Text of Speech

---

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and stand and speak in support of Bill 20, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2019. This bill enables the elimination of the regressive approach to MSP premiums in the province of British Columbia.

I’d like to start by correcting history, because history is often overlooked. A lot of people are trying to take credit for what’s going on with MSP reform today. I can tell you that MSPs were introduced in British Columbia in 1968. That’s 51 years ago. Successive Socred governments, Liberal governments, NDP governments have come and gone, and each and every government has done nothing to eliminate MSPs. Not once.

It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that this form, this approach, this regressive approach, was turned into a form of indirect taxation, through the B.C. Liberals, a one-size-fits-all approach to taxation. In essence, a head tax, a head tax that led to rather myriad issues.

This issue became front and centre in British Columbia in January of 2015, an issue that the B.C. Green Party brought to the Legislature in January of 2015, with a call for the elimination of MSPs. Both the official opposition at the time and the government at the time will recall I introduced a petition with 65,721 signatures on it that was put together by Michelle Coulter, from Ucluelet.

I introduced another petition of about 7,000 names who contacted the B.C. Green Party. I also proposed at that time an alternate means of actually eliminating the MSP that maintained the revenue. It was at that time that overwhelming public support started pressuring the B.C. Liberal government at the time, and the NDP opposition jumped on it.

So as people reflect upon this historic event today, I would suggest to them that they should look no further than the influence of the B.C. Green caucus on government policy to get us to the elimination of MSPs when, as a single MLA sitting in this House in 2015-2016, we as a group turned this into a provincial election issue and had people fighting over themselves trying to determine who would eliminate it first.

I say that again with sincerity and by pointing to the history. So 1968 was when we introduced MSP premiums in British Columbia. The very progressive Barrett government of the 1970s didn’t touch MSP premiums. The Liberal and Socred governments thereafter didn’t touch…. I daren’t even say this, because I’m so sick and tired of hearing about the 1990s, but nevertheless, in the 1990s, another NDP government didn’t eliminate MSP premiums.

Those last 16 years that we’ve heard so often didn’t eliminate MSP premiums. But I would suggest that it was in those last 16 years that, actually, public pressure and public concern rose. The reason why is people started to recognize that this was tax creep. It was tax creep happening in a truly regressive fashion, in a one-size-fits-all fashion. Whether you earned $3 million a year or $30,000 a year, you were paying the same premium.

What we proposed, what the B.C. Greens proposed in 2015, was a different way of looking at the funding of the premium, a funding that mirrored what goes on now presently in Ontario. While we applaud that the government has eliminated MSP, we would not have done it this way. We would not have done it this way, because the way the government has chosen is to singularly pass that cost on through an employer health premium.

Now I recognize, and we support the notion, that there was room to grow the employer health premium in British Columbia, as we were by far the lowest employer health premium in terms of employee paying in the country — the payroll tax, in essence. However, the approach we took is that we believe it’s important to place a value on a service, but that value should actually reflect your ability to pay.

We had proposed a measure that followed and mirrored what is done in Ontario, where each and every person in Ontario has an item called an Ontario health care premium. That’s a progressive amount, much akin to what we see in employment insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. You have a third line. It’s called Ontario health premium, which, for low income, is precisely zero dollars, and if you earn over $200,900, I think it is, you pay something like $900 a year — a progressive amount. So there is a value to the health care services — a small cost, based on your ability to pay — which ensures, then, that revenue comes in, but in a progressive fashion. That was our approach.

That was an approach that would have actually not led to the double-dipping situation we have for this single fiscal year. It’s an approach that would have also recognized that across British Columbia, there are many collective agreements where the signing of those agreements has actually included costed benefits, which is the employer paying the medical services premiums. That’s a costed settlement against an agreement that a union, a collective bargaining unit, has actually costed against the salary settlement.

Now, unfortunately, through the elimination of the MSP premium, what has happened is that costed settlement against past settlements is now vaporized. So those benefits, which were accrued and negotiated away by unions from north to south and east to west…. They now can look back and say to their union members: “We have lost that ability to negotiate for that thousand or whatever dollars a year that was coming off.”

I’m actually quite shocked that the NDP decided to choose this approach, because they have thrown under the bus, in essence, every single member of a labour union in the province of British Columbia that had a negotiated settlement that included the medical services premium being costed against that settlement in terms of the actual past negotiations. That’s, in essence, something like $1,000 that has come off each worker’s costed rights. The unions in British Columbia should be up in arms over the NDP approach, because now that costed benefit has vaporized.

Those previous salary settlements could have had that extra amount that was costed to pay the premium added to salary and other benefits. I’m surprised, honestly. I’m surprised that we haven’t heard protests from the unions. Well, maybe not, in light of some of the other kinds of things we’ve seen in areas where they’ve been given…. But that, to me, is quite remarkable.

That progressive approach would have avoided many of the problems that we see with the implementation, particularly for this year. It is this year that there’s a problem with the double-dipping. It would have recognized the costed settlements that were in place with existing collective agreements. It would have respected that amount, moving forward, by allowing members who gave up that money, gave up that in a negotiation, the right to have that come back to their actual negotiated package.

You know, in 2001 and 2002, the B.C. Liberals rose the MSP premium something like 50 percent. Then they froze it for six years, and then again, in 2009 and 2010, they started to increase it again, 4 to 5 percent each year, until 2015. By 2017, all categories of MSP premiums — individuals, families of two, families of more than two — had doubled since the B.C. Liberals took office in 2001. That started to create dissent within the broader public in British Columbia — the sense that there was an unfairness, which is why we had so much support for this initiative that we took on in 2015. As I mentioned, 65,721 signatures were on a petition put forward by Michelle Coulter that I brought to this Legislature. I believe I introduced that in 2016.

It was an issue that I know there wasn’t a single MLA in this room that did not receive many thousands of emails on, from chain emails across the province.

I’m glad that government today and the opposition at the time, and the Greens, in the election campaign, were all climbing over ourselves to say who would eliminate MSP premiums first. I don’t think…. In fact, one of the moments in the 2017 leaders’ debate I thought was quite a fine moment, from my perspective — selfishly, he says — was when I asked the now Premier: “So let me get this right. In your campaigning for MSPs, what you’re planning…. You have a plan to develop a plan to come up with a plan.” That was the NDP approach. And he agreed, remarkably.

In fact, one of the plans to develop a plan to come up with a plan was to create a committee — an MSP Task Force. Government actually put such a committee together before the budget last year, and then decided that government knew best exactly how it was going to move forward with the elimination of the MSP, despite the fact that the committee had yet to actually return their reports.

So while the committee was talking about a variety of measures and metrics and ways that the revenue could be replaced, whether it be through a sugar tax or whether it be through a small employer health tax or whether it be through a health care premium, government decided to go its own way and go 100 percent with the health care premium.

That’s government’s prerogative and government’s choice. As I say, again, I’m surprised that there wasn’t uproar within the union movement in this province, because I can tell every single union member in this province that has had, historically, MSP premiums paid by their employers, that they’ve just lost out a thousand bucks plus, at least, for each and every one of them, from a negotiated previous costed settlement against what they were owed and deserved because that was costed against their settlement.

It’s actually quite remarkable that government has gone this way. And yes, I know this full well because I have acted as chief negotiator twice in bargaining agreements where we have actually costed our MSP premiums against a negotiated settlement. So yes, I know this to be true.

With that said, I do applaud the fact that we are, indeed, moving towards the elimination of MSP. The co-benefit that is not often talked about is that there’s an entire bureaucratic structure that is no longer needed. There are literally tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of letters that are emailed every month saying: “This is what your MSP premium for this month will be.” If you think about 100,000 letters going out at $1 a letter, that’s $100,000 a month for a start, but it’s much, much more than that.

We also know that there is a very serious problem in terms of collecting long-term debts that have been accrued in the MSP premium. Part of it is unknowing debt — there are those who can’t pay — but there are also those very egregious examples out there where people have gone away and not realized that they, apparently, owed MSP. They come back to rather large bills.

I’ll give you a real-world example. A student might be working in British Columbia for one summer after graduating from high school. Say they graduate from high school in June, they attend their convocation, and they work through the months of July and August. They might have a union job. They might actually be in a union job where they look at their paycheque and they realize that, as part of their employment, the employer was paying MSP.

So they go and take their job. It’s their first job straight out of high school. They see that the employer is paying the MSP, but they don’t really know what that is. Then they decide that they’re going to go to Europe for college. They go to Europe for four years; they leave the province of British Columbia. They may go to France or Britain or Germany or Sweden or Norway and attend a collage there for four years. Then, perhaps, they might want to come back to Victoria or Vancouver and work in British Columbia.

Well, guess what. The second they come back to British Columbia, they get a bill. They get a bill for four years of MSP premiums plus accrued interest because they did not opt out of MSP when they left the country to go to these other jurisdictions, for which they were 100 percent covered by the local jurisdiction. When you’re a student in England, you’re covered. If you’re a student in other jurisdictions across Europe, you’re covered. But you’re expected to continue to pay here unless you physically opt out.

Now, the number of people who physically opt out has been so small, you could almost count it on a hand, because people didn’t know they had to do that. The number of people who had these outrageous bills presented to them upon their return is huge. Therein lies the problem.

We know that what happens is that a young person — and there are many examples of this — will come back from abroad. They’ll get the bill, and they have a choice: do they pay this bill they think they owe, even though they weren’t eligible — or they may have been eligible, but they didn’t use it, or even know they did — or do they not? In many cases, they don’t.

What happens then is that collection agencies start to come after them. Then they have a credit rating…. They’re starting off in their life. They may have worked for one summer — one summer — in a union job. They didn’t that that company that was paying them actually was paying the MSP. They come back four years later, and they get a bill for thousands and thousands of dollars. They don’t know what this is about. And then the collection agent comes after them, and on and on it goes.

That’s no longer going to be the case, and that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing, because we don’t need those collection agencies. We have a lot of debt on the books that is going to have to be forgiven, I suspect, or collected by some other means, but at least we’re moving forward and beyond this.

Again, coming back to this. This was a campaign issue from the B.C. Liberals. They didn’t want to be left out. Fifty percent cut, they planned. When the B.C. NDP ran, they campaigned to eliminate….

They didn’t really articulate how. Frankly, I don’t think they actually figured it out, because their plan was to develop a plan to come up with a plan, and the plan was going to be first developed by a committee that was developing a plan that they ignored.

They staggered their way through, and they decided to come through with this employer health tax approach. That’s their prerogative. We understand that. We recognize that they are government, and they have these choices to make. While we support the overall notion of MSP being reformed, we don’t believe that that was the appropriate way to go in its entirety. A small component, yes.

The B.C. NDP campaigned on cutting the MSP, and they initially did it by 50 percent. In actual fact, what they did was basically leave in place the B.C. Liberal budget, which had already reduced it by 50 percent. They had promised to move on to the entire elimination, which is where we are right now.

The first step of the MSP premium, reducing by 50 percent, happened in Budget 2018. Here we are now moving forward with the completion, through this tax. Again, when I look at this…. We’ve had a platform issue even in 2013 — going back to the history. In 2013, we were calling on the elimination. It actually was formally put forward repeatedly in 2015 and 2016. As I stated, I’m very, very pleased that we’re actually at this position now.

Overall and in conclusion, since 2015, we’ve outlined a number of regressive natures…. One of the things that we’ve outlined, as well — and I hope the Minister of Health takes note — is that right now we’re penalized in British Columbia for being a destination of choice for elderly Canadians.

Why I say that is that it’s very simple to calculate the amount of money that is spent on health care and weight that as a function of age. We know that the average age in British Columbia is lower than the average age in other provinces. We know that the federal Canada health transfer is based on the number of people, with no age weighting to that number of people. So we know that when you do a simple weighted average….

We know how much health care money is spent as a function of age. We know it increases exponentially toward the latter years of your life. We know that when you take the age profile of the province and you weight the Canada health transfer by that age profile, B.C. is short by something in the order of $200 million of Canada health transfer money that should be coming to us, based on an age-related approach.

We know that people in British Columbia may work in the oil sands in Alberta during their younger years. They may be paying provincial taxes in Alberta. They may be working in the Hibernia fields. They may be working in a factory in Ontario. Then in the latter stages of their life, they may choose to come back and live in a place where there’s no snow in the winter. Where is that place? That place is often Vancouver Island.

We know this is going on in Canada. That is the beauty of this great nation that we have: we allow people to freely go from east to west and north to south. We encourage people to come here, and we have a long history of being a home…. In fact, Victoria — I’ve grown up here. I don’t know whether it’s still called this, but it certainly was called this when I was a younger person: the city of newlyweds and nearly deads. I’m one of those few people who has moved from the age of newlywed to nearly dead. There are not many of us out here, but I am….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Maybe. The member for Chilliwack-Kent is suggesting I’m speaking too soon. I hope so. Certainly, I’ve watched the growth of this town over the last 57 years, and my goodness, it has grown. It has grown and become more diversified. It’s quite exciting.

But coming back to that Canada health transfer. I sincerely hope that we do have the pressure being put on the federal government to reflect upon the nature of the Canada health transfer and the unfairness of people paying their taxes in other provinces and then retiring to British Columbia.

I would suggest that it is entirely defensible to argue that the Canada health transfer should be weighted by age, based on the amount of health care spending we do as a function of age. I’ve done the calculation. And 200 million bucks? We could use that. I’m sure the minister could use 200 million bucks. We could fund all sorts of drugs, like Orkambi, for example. I’m just joking. But we could — $200 million is nothing to sneeze at. This is something that I hope they’ll encourage.

Anyway, with that said, I do commend the Minister of Health. I mean that sincerely. We in British Columbia are very lucky and fortunate to have a minister who goes so deep on files and is truly committed to this file. We’ve seen some very good things happen in this province. This is one of them. Again, I don’t necessarily like the way the funds are being replaced, but I do certainly have full confidence in the Minister of Health, the direction he’s taking this province in health care.

With that, I’ll take my place and thank him for his good work.

Yesterday in the legislature Bill 10, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019 was being debated at committee stage.

As I noted during my second reading speech, if enacted, this bill would repeal the LNG Income Tax Act as amended in April 2015, as well as the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act. The bill also creates yet another tax credit for the natural gas sector.

During committee deliberations yesterday I took the opportunity to unpack an outrageous government claim that LNG Canada would be committed to hiring locals. Well to no surprise to those of us who have been following this for a while, there is no such requirement. In fact, and further, government has no tools at its disposal to insist that LNG Canada preferentially hire British Columbians during the construction phase.

Below I reproduce the video and text of my exchange with the Finance Minister.

We will resume committee stage debates today.

---

Video of Exchange

---

---

Text of Exchange

---

A. Weaver: I’ve been listening quite attentively, trying to get some information with respect to the jobs, because I have clearly witnessed the same language that was emanated from government, as well as LNG Canada. “We’re going to be hiring British Columbians.”

I know for a fact that right now Boskalis is dredging in Kitimat, and I know for a fact that Boskalis uses a Newfoundland company to bring in employees. That is a distance from LNG Canada, and I know for a fact that those employees are not from British Columbia. I know for a fact that those employees that were from British Columbia did not last very long on the Boskalis dredge because they were summarily fired for raising safety issues.

I come back to what the member for Abbotsford West was suggesting. Is the minister saying that she has no mechanism at all to ensure that any of these jobs are actually for British Columbia citizens other than the goodwill of LNG Canada because they said they’re going to try?

Hon. C. James: Thank you for the question. I think we’ve spoken about a great deal of this over the last few hours but happy to run through it again.

We have, as I said, a job strategy with LNG Canada, a commitment around the support that will be there for local hire first, including apprentices on this project. The job numbers, as I said, we have built in when it comes to assumptions around revenue — very conservative numbers. But we certainly expect thousands of jobs for British Columbians.

I can’t speak to the specifics that the member raises. I’m happy to take that information and have that conversation. But as I said, the local hire first, including the requirements around contractors using local hire first, is a very important piece that is in place. The contractor is bound by that local hire first, which I think, again, is a very important factor in making a decision around whether local jobs are going to be in place.

Then, again, there’s the work that’s already being done in Kitimat and the number of locals — 600 people — already working since December. You know, over 45 percent of those were from Kitimat alone, in that area. That’s, again, showing the support that needs to be in place for these jobs.

A. Weaver: I recognize that that’s been read in a couple of times to the record. My very specific question is this: is there a single mechanism that the government has to ensure that the jobs will be from B.C. — yes or no?

Hon. C. James: The answer is the jobs strategy, put together and negotiated with LNG Canada and negotiated together, which requires local first, which requires the contractors to also be utilizing the local first, which requires apprentices and makes a commitment around the dollars that have already been put in place by LNG Canada.

A. Weaver: So we now have an LNG jobs plan. What are the ramifications for LNG Canada if that document is ignored? Does the government have any teeth to that document — yes or no?

Hon. C. James: I think the biggest strategy is making sure that this project is successful. That is a commitment that not only we have as government but obviously LNG Canada has when it comes to their investment. The fact that they have a number of contracts with communities across the pipeline strengthens that kind of commitment as well.

A. Weaver: Again, coming back to the question, the question was: does government have a single measure to actually ensure that British Columbians are hired — yes or no?

Hon. C. James: I think I’ve answered that question. Again, the commitment is the four conditions that we put in place. The commitment is the agreement by LNG Canada to meet those four conditions and the commitment to the people of British Columbia to follow through on that.

A. Weaver: With respect, there is a duty in committee stage to get answers, to get answers to questions. The question was very simple. There is a jobs plan. I understand that. Let us suppose LNG Canada ignores that. What avenues, what teeth, does government have that will ensure that LNG Canada does make sure they hire British Columbians first?

The reason why I raise that is that the minister said that what’s critical is the success of this project. How do you define success? Well, success involves triple bottom line. There’s a social aspect to that, and one of those is hiring British Columbians. Because both the minister and the Premier, and several others, were very proud that this was going to bring 10,000 jobs.

Yet I come back to the question, and I think we are owed an answer to this: does government have any mechanism — yes or no? — to ensure that LNG Canada actually hires local? This is not a difficult question, and in this chamber, it is a duty and a responsibility of government to provide a yes or no answer to this question. I’m afraid it is not acceptable to pivot off to some kind of loosely worded commitment letter, which has no legal standing. I would like to know what legal tools this government has to ensure that British Columbians are hired first, because they said they would.

I’ve offered you one specific example, the example of Boskalis, a dredger up there that uses a contractor to get labour in Newfoundland. That labour is coming from all across Canada and elsewhere. It is not coming from British Columbia, and I know that for a fact, because I know people who were fired for raising safety issues.

What metrics does government have to ensure that LNG Canada is hiring British Columbians?

Hon. C. James: I know the member wants a simple yes-or-no answer, and I’m not being obstructionist. I’m being upfront with the member about the process that was utilized to come to our four conditions that had to be met by LNG Canada.

This was a back-and-forth process. This was a discussion around how important it was to meet the commitments, how important it was to reach these four conditions, how critical they were to us as a government and critical to British Columbians, we feel. I talked about the four conditions. One of those are jobs for British Columbians.

We did go back and forth around the letter. We did go back and forth around a strategy on jobs. We did go back and forth around the climate action and the importance of making sure that we address that in part of our CleanBC. We did go back and forth around First Nations and a real partnership with First Nations.

Again, on the jobs piece, the member has the copy of the letter. He will make his determination about whether that, from his perspective, holds LNG Canada to meet these commitments or not.

But, certainly, from our perspective as government, when you are taking a look at a project this large, when you are taking a look at the kind of investment that’s there, when you are taking a look at the reputation of the company coming in to do a long-term project in British Columbia, and when you’re taking a look at the fact that this project will not be successful unless the communities are engaged and taking part….

I think it’s part of the example that we’ve seen with the work that they did with First Nations along the pipeline. Again, we’ve seen many projects that have not come forward in British Columbia because they did not build that community partnership. They did not, in fact, engage the communities.

This is a very different project from that perspective. They have engaged the communities, and those communities will be critical for them to be able to be successful in this project. Therefore, as I said, we feel that the jobs strategy provides that support.

A. Weaver: I’m getting a little frustrated. I’ve asked a very simple question. What tools does government have at its disposal to ensure that the company follows through with its intention to actually hire British Columbians? I’m not asking for all the rhetoric around “my four conditions.” I’m asking for the specific tools that the government can use.

I’m asking the same question, and I recognize I’ve asked it several times. I have not got an answer to this question. I have got rhetoric about other stuff. The question is very direct and very simple. What tools does a government have at its disposal to ensure that the letter that they’re trusting LNG Canada to do is used to ensure that British Columbians are hired?

The minister can just say we don’t have any, and that’s fine. But I think she owes it to this chamber here to say what those tools are. Failing to do so, I think, frankly, is not what we’re meant to do at committee stage. We need answers to provide further guidance to the people of British Columbia.

Hon. C. James: I think that the biggest tool that government has is the success or non-success of the project. From my perspective, that is the biggest tool that is in place. In order to have the success or non-success of the project, it requires a relationship. It requires negotiations. It requires building that between the partners.

In fact, if you will speak to the Premier, I know he’ll also make those kind of comments around the work that that took to get to this place. The success of the project, from my perspective, and those relationships and the negotiations are the critical tools that government continues to have in this project.

A. Weaver: This is very frustrating, because now we have a circular argument. The success of the project is defined by bringing jobs to British Columbians, and the tools that the government has available to it are the success of the project. That’s a classic chicken and the egg. What is it? Is the project successful by definition, because they’re bringing it in? Therefore, it must have people in B.C.? It just doesn’t make sense. Clearly, the only take-home message I can have from this exchange is government has no tools.

What the statements are about hiring British Columbians is nothing short of unsubstantiated political rhetoric that, frankly, British Columbians should have cleared up. It’s quite embarrassing that this government would suggest to British Columbians that they’re going to be hiring British Columbians.

I’ve given you one example. The only example that I know of that is actually ongoing now, the dredging, where that company, Boskalis, is hiring a contractor in Newfoundland. The employees up there are not from B.C. Some of them are from Newfoundland, some from the oil patch, some temporary foreign from the Netherlands. And government has yet to provide any information as to how they’re going to ensure B.C. jobs.

But it gets worse than this. My final question on this: has the minister actually suggested that their four criteria were met? They never actually once, since prior to the 2017 election campaign, defined what those criteria were. What does it mean to say that it fits within our climate targets? What does it mean to say that truth and reconciliation has been looked at? What does it mean to say that it’s a good deal for British Columbia?

In essence, the question is, then, this. Why has the minister not, at any point in the last two years, at any time, ever once, put up metrics that would say: “These are how we’re defining success, and these are what we’re looking for to ensure that our four conditions are met”?

Frankly, all we’ve been told is, “Trust us,” and that is clearly what government’s wanting, for us to trust them. But it’s very difficult to do so when I look in this document here, which I won’t use as a prop. I’ll just read the title: “Operating Performance Payment Agreement.” I don’t see any requirement in there. When I look at some of this other stuff, “LNG Investment Fiscal Framework,” I don’t see a requirement there. I see a lot of rhetoric.

The question, coming back to it: what are the metrics? What metrics did government use to actually determine that their four criteria were met? Simple.

Hon. C. James: Thank you very much to the member. The member talks about what success will be. From my perspective, yes, success is meeting the four conditions. The Premier laid them out and talked about the four conditions. We will be held, as a government, accountable for meeting those commitments to British Columbians, as we should be — as we should be and as the company should be. That’s going to be critical.

I know the member was directly involved in the discussion around LNG emissions and including LNG emissions in our CleanBC program. Again, I expect the member to hold us accountable for that. I expect him to ensure that that occurs and that the discussion occurs.

Fair return. Again, I expect members to ask questions about whether we believe that’s a fair return or if they have other ideas or other approaches.

Partnerships with First Nations. Certainly the expectation around the elected bands along the route who have signed on to the LNG agreement and the work that continues to be done, I think, again, talks about how we will be successful.

So I think it is important to come back to those four conditions. I know the member felt that that didn’t provide him with an answer, but I think it’s critical and important, and I think we will be held accountable as to whether we’ve met those conditions or not.

A. Weaver: Well, this is the problem I’m having. It is impossible to hold the government to account when they’re not forthcoming with the answers to very simple questions that I’ve articulated. The four criteria, which, frankly, are nothing more than an election slogan, are this.

One, “Proposals must include express guarantees of jobs and training opportunities for British Columbians.” Well, we’ve heard today, from very extensive questioning from opposition and my further attempts to get something, that the government has no ability, clearly, no ability at all to guarantee any British Columbians any jobs. That clearly was never met. You could not have met criteria No. 1, because you’ve got no requirement of any jobs.

Two, “Proposals must provide a fair return for our resource.” Well, given that government has never once articulated since two years now what a “fair return” is, how do we know that we’ve got a fair return? I’ve suggested, through the analysis of the deep-well credits in second reading and elsewhere and through what I’ve described as a generational sellout and the giving away of this, that and the other in a desperate attempt to land what Christy Clark couldn’t, that, in fact, you’re not getting a fair return, because not once has government articulated what that return will be.

We haven’t seen the numbers, and it’s worse than that. We can’t even get information on simple questions like: “What is that $23 billion going to…? Where is it coming from?” We get rhetoric. We get no substance. So, clearly, criteria No. 2 was never met, because government actually hasn’t articulated what a fair return is.

Number 3: proposals must respect and make partners of First Nations. Well, we know that there are some, quite a lot, that have partnerships. Wet’suwet’en — still some issues, but government there abdicated its responsibility and essentially left it up to LNG Canada to deal with the Wet’suwet’en Unist’ot’en Camp, and what can they do? The only thing they can do is seek injunctive relief and get the police in there to move them. The government clearly did not do what you would expect on a leader-to-leader, government-to-government negotiation point of view, so I’m not so sure that No. 3 is being met.

Number 4: proposals must protect air, land, water, including living up to our climate commitments. Well, I’ve seen no analysis from government as to the air quality within the Terrace–Kitimat valley. As you know, Rio Tinto Alcan just did a substantive upgrade to their resource facility — increase sulphate emissions, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There’s a very problem in terms of the air quality in that watershed. I’ve heard no discussion. I’ve heard no criteria, no check — “We can do it.”

I do recall a report that was written a number of years ago where the Liberals explored what the consequence to the air quality in the valley would be, and it was very troubling. It was very, very troubling — a number of years back. It was, actually, in terms of…. It was. You probably don’t remember it. I looked at it very well. I know the author of it.

And living up to our climate commitments. Well, that has yet to be seen. Certainly we know that we can only get, with all of the policies that have been identified, just 75 percent of the way there. So how can you say that it’s fitting into living up to our climate commitments when we still haven’t articulated the other 25 percent of getting to those climate commitments? That was the basis of my reasoned amendment.

What’s happening here today is a charade. It’s literally just a charade. We have no substantive, quantitative analysis of any of these criteria. We’re told: “Trust us. We’ve met it.” We’ve clearly tried to find what metrics government’s using. They haven’t. It’s embarrassing. And so I go back to my original second reading speech, and I think what happened is that LNG Canada walked in to the new government and said: “We’re out of here unless you do this.” And they said: “What do you want us to do?” And they said: “This, this, this, this, this.” And, out of their depth in negotiations, completely out of their depth, they said yes.

LNG Canada has got a good deal here. I’m not so sure you can actually articulate how British Columbia has, and we haven’t heard a single answer to any of the questions that I have raised. This is very troubling.

With that I’ll leave it. I know that the member for Abbotsford West was suggesting a break, and I’m perfectly open to such a break now as well, if the Chair believes we should do so.

Hon. C. James: I’ll just respond to the question, and then…. I know that the members want to take a break. And, you know, I think it’s…. I respect the member in bringing forward the issues. I respect the member. We know that our Green partners are against LNG development. We understand that, and I think the member is very articulate in raising his issues and concerns. But when we take a look at the success in meeting the four conditions and meeting our commitments to British Columbia as a government who looks at how we balance our promises, economically, socially, and environmentally, and our commitments to reconciliation, I, in fact, am very proud of the four conditions that we’ve put in place and the work that we’ve done to be able to address those.

Jobs for British Columbia. Again, I come back to the jobs strategy around, around “locals first” around the support for apprentices on the project. When it comes to partnerships with First Nations — 20 bands, all of the bands, elected bands, along the route who have signed on, who have partnerships, who see this as an opportunity for economic development and for growth for their communities and opportunities for their members to be able to be working.

The fair return for British Columbians — $23 billion when it comes to support for programs and services here in British Columbia, including action around climate. I think it’s critical. And I know we’ll get a chance to talk about those as well as we go through this process and other processes through the budget.

Protection for our air, land and water, the fact that we required LNG emissions to be included as part of CleanBC and brought forward a commitment around CleanBC, over $900 million in the budget to commit to environmental protections. I think it speaks to our commitment as a government around addressing environmental issues and the fact that we’ve been able to sit down with a large company and get to a final investment decision that recognizes how important that is and requires us to live up to this.

Do I expect the member to continue to raise concerns and continue to hold us accountable for this? Yes, I do. I expect that that’s exactly what the member will do and what other members will do and what the people of British Columbia should do as well.

With that, Chair, we will take a ten-minute break?

The Chair: The member has a question. Then we’ll have a break.

A. Weaver: A brief follow-up because the issue of $23 billion was raised again. Could the minister please articulate how that $23 billion is calculated and not just generally but actually specifically? That number has been batted around a lot. It used to be $40 billion; now it’s $23 billion.

Despite asking a multitude of times, not once have I got an answer as to what makes up the $23 billion and where that number came from.

Hon. C. James: I’m happy to answer that question when we come back from recess.

The Chair: The House is recessed for ten minutes.

The committee recessed from 5:31 to 5:44 p.m.

Hon. C. James: The member asked a question around the $23 billion and where the $23 billion came from. We did offer a briefing, an opportunity to go through that, but I know the member wasn’t able to make it. I just wanted to let the member know we can provide that opportunity, the documents around the generic LNG project and the highs and lows that we’ve been talking about. That information will be public. It’s going to go up on the site, so we can provide an opportunity for the member to get the materials and then ask questions as we go on. I expect committee stage will continue, and there will be an opportunity for the member to ask questions, if that works for the member.

Over the last two days we’ve been debating Bill 10, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019 at second reading. As I noted earlier, if enacted, this bill would repeal the LNG Income Tax Act as amended in April 2015, as well as the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act. The bill also creates yet another tax credit for the natural gas sector.

If passed, Bill 10 would enable the fiscally and environmentally reckless LNG project to move forward in Kitimat. Frankly, it’s time politicians level with British Columbians about the economic and environmental consequences of this historic betrayal of future generations. And that is precisely what my colleagues Adam Olsen, Sonia Furstenau and I tried to do in our speeches at second reading and our speeches to the amendments we introduced at second reading.

After my second reading speech, I moved a Reasoned Amendment that the bill not be read a second time as the BC government had not yet identified a pathway that brings us 100% to our 2030 target, and it is inconsistent to add significant new emissions sources even as we strive to show the world that it is possible to develop a low carbon, sustainable economy that can meet our targets. Below I reproduce the video and text of my speeches to both of these (the video is long – 1:46:38).

I also reproduce the videos and text of my speeches in support of amendments brought forward by my colleagues Adam and Sonia.

Sadly, all three amendments were defeated and the bill passed second reading with the Liberals and NDP voting in unison against the three BC Green MLAs (all four votes are reproduced below).

What’s most remarkable about what transpired this past week is the scale of hypocrisy exhibited by the BC NDP and, but to a lesser extent, the BC Liberal MLAs. Here are just two examples:

Example 1: Lana Popham, MLA Saanich South

On April 6, 2016 during second reading of Bill 19, Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, Lana Popham (now the agriculture minister) had this to say (in reference to the BC Liberals):

“They’re creating reckless legislation, which, in my mind, as someone who has always been an environmentalist, is absolutely reckless, irresponsible and disappointing. They’re creating this reckless legislation. They’re sweetening the deal as much as they possibly can, treating LNG like a loss-leader in a department store.”

“When you talk about the cleanest LNG or an LNG industry or opportunities that we have as a province, and you fail to address all the emissions coming from the LNG processing and extracting process, then you’re not there. You’re not doing our province any favours. You certainly don’t have the right, I don’t think, to stand up and talk about how much you care about children’s future in this province if you’re not taking into account 70 percent of emissions coming from an industry.

So the cleanest LNG? We’re going to have an industry that discounts 70 percent of emissions. How do the other members sleep at night knowing that that’s what they’re running on, that that’s okay?”

The irony is profound given that the BC NDP have exempted LNG Canada from any requirements that would have ensured that they were low greenhouse gas emitters (see 2nd reading speech for details).

Example 2: Michelle Mungall, MLA Nelson-Creston

When speaking at second reading to Bill 30, Liquified Natural Gas Project Agreements Act on July 14, 2015, Michelle Mungall piled on the rhetoric against the BC Liberals:

“Now, they wouldn’t understand what it means to say no to selling out this province. They put themselves in such a desperate position when it comes to negotiating for LNG that they had to say yes to any single thing that walked through the door. That’s exactly what they have done. This is the big sellout of British Columbia.”

The taxpayers have to foot that bill. It’s just utterly ridiculous and irresponsible and reprehensible to sell out British Columbians for the next 25 years, not just for this industry but potentially others as well.

“What we hear from this government is a big yes to selling out British Columbians, selling out British Columbians’ futures, selling out our future potential at reducing our impact on global warming and selling out future revenue sources. That’s what I hear from this government, and I don’t think that’s right for British Columbians.”

“We have a big sellout of British Columbia so somebody can stand up for a photo op around the next election.”

“British Columbians deserve better than what they got with this development agreement and with this bill. They should be demanding better, and they are demanding better.”

The irony is mind boggling in light of the fact that the BC NDP have taken the sellout to whole new levels (see 2nd reading speech for details).

As you will see from the speeches below, it is clear to me that the BC NDP were simply out of their depth when LNG Canada approached them for further concessions. The BC NDP literally took corporate welfare to whole new levels while neither guaranteeing LNG Canada be required to employ British Columbians nor source BC Gas. And the very same BC NDP MLAs who hurled abuse and vitriol at the BC Liberals for four years are now the same ones doling out this corporate welfare.

But what saddens me the most is the fact that I know full well that many BC NDP MLAs rose and supported this sellout as they were whipped into doing so. They voted against everything they apparently believed in.

I’ve sat in the legislature for almost six years now and there has not been a single instant when an NDP MLA has voted against their party. What is the point of electing local NDP MLA representatives if you know the backroom crowd are the ones who will be making all policy decisions. It’s become abundantly clear to me that the BC NDP and BC Liberals are simply two sides of the same coin. And it’s become abundantly clear to me that we have no hope of avoiding the collapse of western civilization as we know it as long as the same old neo-liberal paradigm of corporate welfare dominates our political discourse.

This brings me to the hypocrisy within the BC Liberals. During their second reading speeches they took great delight in arguing that the BC NDP are giving away the farm and the deal is not good for British Columbians. The BC Greens have always said that we will never support the generational sellout embodied in this corporate welfare. The BC Liberals have been presented with a golden opportunity to join us in rejecting this deal. If this bill fails, it is almost certain that the BC NDP would view this as a confidence measure and call an election. Given that the BC Liberals are struggling in the polls, and the BC NDP might view this as an opportunity to seize a majority government, it is unlikely that the BC Liberals will vote against this bill. The ball is in their court.

---

Videos

---

2nd Reading & Reasoned Amendment (1:46:38)	Hoist Motion (43:12)
Motion to Send to Committee (26:19)

---

The Votes

---

Reasoned Amendment	Hoist Amendment
Amendment to Committee	2nd Reading

---

Text of 2nd Reading Speech

---

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to take my place in the second reading debates of Bill 10, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019. This is a bill, hon. Speaker, that takes the LNG regime that the B.C. NDP have put forward and agreed to with LNG Canada, and in doing so, does a couple of things in this bill.

The first thing it does is it repeals the LNG Income Tax Act brought forward by the B.C. Liberal government in the last session. The second thing it does is repeal — these are towards the end of the bill, in section 4 — the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act. That’s an act that enabled the Petronas project development agreement.

The third thing it does is it says: “Okay, well, buried within the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act, which had a number of components, was a tax credit that we want to retain.” So what the B.C. NDP are doing here is taking the LNG tax regime of the B.C. Liberals, repealing the income — a component of that — that would allow us to generate revenue but keeping in place the giveaway, the tax credit, that would enable, again, this what I call sell-out to continue at staggering levels.

You know, for many years, I’ve been speaking out against the fiscal folly of the B.C. Liberals at the time, trying to chase the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow — that’s the LNG pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Early on in the mandate of the previous government, the B.C. NDP were a little cagey about what their views were with respect to liquefied natural gas. There were a number of backbench MLAs who purported to be quite concerned about the issue of climate change, quite concerned about some of the unregulated activity that was ongoing with respect to the widespread adoption of horizontal fracking technology in the northeast of our province and the kind of unregulated free-for-all — Wild West almost — that was going on in northern B.C.

We’re starting to see some of the consequences of that now. We’re talking about what we’re going to do to preserve our caribou stocks, as the natural habitat on which they’ve relied has degraded to such a level that we’re now worried about extirpation of various herds.

Again, the B.C. NDP, historically, have been quite concerned about that, and onwards we move to today. All along, consistent since 2013 and, in fact, in 2012, the PowerPoint presentations I was giving at the time — that’s seven years ago, seven years ago — are unchanged today. The essence of that is unchanged today.

Here’s the narrative that was being done in 2012 in the lead-up to the 2013 election. The B.C. Liberals, at the time, knew they had no hope of winning an election. In fact, the front page of the Vancouver Province had a picture of the now Minister of Health and said: “This man could kick a dog, and he would still be Premier.”

Well, when faced with such insurmountable challenges to victory, the B.C. Liberals had to come up with a new shtick, a new plan, something to offer British Columbians hope with. That was hope and prosperity from LNG: a $100 billion prosperity fund, 100,000 jobs, $1 trillion increase to our GDP, thriving schools, thriving hospitals, debt-free B.C. and on and on and on. So went the rhetoric of the B.C. Liberal government.

I sat opposite for four years as I watched the members now in government hurl abuse at the B.C. Liberals, hurl abuse. Not just a little bit of criticism here, a little bit of criticism there, but substantive vitriol was being hurled across the aisle to the members of the government at the time, claiming that there was a generational sellout, claiming that they were not looking out for the best interests of British Columbia, claiming that they were signing sweet deals with their corporate friends.

I have a litany of quotes that I will be reading in during the course of the debates here. Actually, I had to ask my staff to pare them down because I’ve got 20 pages of quotes that I look forward of bringing in of various NDP MLAs now, the words that they said, directed to the B.C. Liberals about the. LNG Income Tax Act.

Dialing back to the history of the LNG Income Tax Act, in the first reading of that act, the B.C. NDP did support the original introduction of the LNG Income Tax Act.

Now, the rationale for that act was as follows. The B.C. Liberals recognized that it was an incredibly competitive international marketplace for natural gas. They realized that our royalty regime, while quite rich, needed to be sweetened, and so they did in 2014.

This is what they did. They took what is known as the deep-well royalty credit, a credit which was designed a decade earlier to incentivize risky business, to incentivize the deep drilling, the deep vertical hydraulic fracking to access deep reservoirs of natural gas, and they extended that credit to shallow drills if you have a certain length — essentially, all natural gas drilling. All of it is, essentially, now getting the credit. And that’s fine. That was a strategy that they took, that we want to ensure that, upfront, business has access to a resource that’s incredibly competitive in terms of royalty regime. Frankly, I would argue, almost a giveaway.

But nevertheless, they felt that what they would do instead is try to get the companies here and then earn some revenue down the road when those same companies started producing or shipping LNG. That was the rationale behind the LNG Income Tax Act. Give away — well, not give away — but take little upfront, let the companies get going and then have an income tax starting to generate revenue for the province. Whether you agree with it or not — clearly, I didn’t at the time — that was the logic behind the B.C. Liberal’s approach.

Now, the B.C. NDP voted in favour of that when it was first brought in. I stood alone — the only MLA, I have that framed on my wall — and voted against the second reading. At the time, the reason why I did that was I argued it was a generational sellout. I pointed out the indemnity loophole that was in and a number of other loopholes that were in.

In the spring, the B.C. Liberals brought in an amendment to the original LNG Income Tax Act. That amended, corrected, some of those loopholes, tightened some of the legislation, made the regime a little sharper. At that time, when the B.C. NDP clearly realized that they were on the wrong side of a public opinion, it was at this time that the vitriol started to ramp up.

Ironically, when the LNG Income Tax Act was put to a vote, I voted in favour of it. All the NDP voted against it.

Now, think about the logic of this. Think about the logic of this. The original bill was brought forward. It had so many loopholes that you could have driven a bus through it. B.C. NDP support it. I stand against it.

The amendment act comes in. The bill is now a matter of law. The bill is a matter of law, and the amendment act was designed to make a bad piece of legislation better. The principal thing to do, if you’re actually trying to improve public policy, was to recognize that, in fact, the amendments, while I don’t agree with the original legislation, made that legislation tighter, closed some loopholes. So I stood in support of that amendment. The NDP, in a frankly principlist approach, trying to just essentially cater to popular opinion, voted against the amendment act, in essence saying to this that a bad bill that we supported should stay bad on the books rather than trying to make it slightly better. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time, but then again, much of the discourse and much of the debate about LNG in British Columbia has not made sense to me going forward.

But now we want to take this one step further and actually repeal the whole shebang. I’ll come back to the whole framework that’s being set up in a few minutes. But I’d like to start, because it’s at the beginning of my speech, with what I believe is an incredibly important letter that I received from a civil servant in the province of British Columbia, a civil servant who worked in this government’s oil and gas provincial registry, who has resigned. He has resigned because of what’s going on in B.C. with respect to the LNG royalty regime.

Let me read this letter. This letter was mailed to the Premier, accessible by FOI, and it says the following.

“I am resigning today as a public servant and would like to draw attention to certain issues in our province’s gas royalties program and administration. With four years experience as a royalty analyst for the province, five years of field experience in upstream oil and gas operations and undergraduate economics training, I offer my somewhat informed perspective below with the hope of catalyzing increased transparency and perhaps improvement to B.C. gas royalty policy.“

Bold heading: “Conflict of interest in policy control. The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, EMPR, jointly govern and administer natural gas royalty policy. However, policy is largely controlled by EMPR, with Finance tasked with administering the corresponding royalty calculations based on monthly production data.

“Gas production and technology has changed rapidly, along with the economics of this industry, over the past 15 years, during which time our gas royalty policy has remained largely unchanged, with the said extension of the deep-well credit to shallow wells being added.

“In my opinion, much of our royalty policy is not functioning as originally intended, leading to unwarranted ballooning of industry subsidy amounts. This expensive subsidy growth is hidden by complexity and less-than-transparent public-facing information. EMPR has become responsible to promote the B.C. natural gas and LNG industry internationally, as well as creating a policy that encourages gas sector growth and profitability.“

Stop right there. I’ll come back to the letter. The EMPR has become responsible to promote the B.C. natural gas and LNG industry internationally. Hang on. Right there is the first flag. EMPR is the regulator, not the promoter — the regulator. When the regulator becomes the promoter, we have what’s called capture, and we have perceived, real or not, conflict of interest. We need to ensure that the public’s interests are always front and centre, and this can never be trusted when we have the regulator captured by also being the promoter.

These are aren’t my words. These are the words coming from this ministry analyst, who has since resigned. I continue.

“The ministry closely collaborates with gas producers on a variety of initiatives.“

Hang on again there. The ministry — that is, the regulator — collaborates with gas producers on a variety of initiatives.

“However, there is a natural conflict of interest between promoting gas producers profitability and ensuring the B.C. public receives a fair royalty for the private extraction of our shared natural resource. A segregation of duty should exist between policy makers and industry promoters but, from my perspective and experience, clearly does not. Consequently, there is no unbiased champion for the B.C. taxpayer’s rights at the policy table, and the costly consequences of this absence are hidden behind complexity.”

I’ll continue with this letter. It’s quite long. This is precisely the issue that I’ve been trying to peel and unwrap and unravel in budget estimates with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, who, to be honest, I’m pretty sure doesn’t actually understand the file. Because when I was asking about the variety of royalty measures that were in place, the answers I got in the estimates in the fall were, frankly, shocking. I would have expected better from a minister charged with regulating an industry — not championing an industry but regulating an industry — but sadly, that was lacking.

I continue with the letter. “Billions of direct subsidization disguised as drilling incentives,” is the next headline. The deep-well credit program, which I’ve raised many, many times in this Legislature — I don’t know how many times — was originally designed around now outdated assumptions of drilling technology.

That means that back in the day, we used to frack in B.C. for 50, 60 years, and it was vertical fracking. The onset, in the early 2000s, of horizontal drilling allowed for much more intrusive as well as much more efficient fracking. No longer are you just drilling vertically, but you can go for great distances horizontally with the same process of injecting a mixture of water and chemicals and some sand at high pressure underground to fracture the shale and allow the gas to flow. Revolutionary technology created the boom of shale gas and oil around the world. The original deep-well credit was designed to incentivize those deep vertical wells.

Coming back to this:

“The deep-well credit program, originally designed around now outdated assumptions of drilling technology, represents an ongoing, eye-watering transfer of the provincial tax burden from natural gas producers to the B.C. taxpayer.” This person continues: “This program, originally devised in 2003, has directly reduced gas producers’ existing and future royalty liability to the Crown by nearly $6 billion Canadian today.” So $6 billion have been taken off the table because of this credit going back to 2003.

I hear some mumbling from the members opposite, and I’ll tell you, I’d much rather listen to a civil servant who has resigned over this than some former member of the B.C. Liberals who happened to be in charge of this file. I’m going to go with the civil servant on this, because, to me, I’ve been very impressed with our civil service in this province of British Columbia and the diligence with which they approach their job and the ethical approach that they take in doing their daily work. This person showed great courage in bringing this forward.

“The subsidy continues to grow. In each of the last fiscal years the Crown has issued more offsetting deep credits than it collected in actual total oil and gas royalty revenue.“

That, I have checked myself, is true. We’ve given away more future deep credits than we’ve actually earned in royalties. When I asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources in the fall what the accrued liability was, it was something like $3.2 billion of unclaimed deep-well credits that can be applied to future royalties that were on the books.

Some have wondered why Petronas bailed and then joined LNG Canada. Well, we know why Petronas bailed and then rejoined. Petronas is the proud owner of many, many of those billions of dollars. I don’t know the exact number, but a significant number of that credit is associated with Pacific NorthWest gas, which is an upstream supplier that was going to work with Petronas. They now feel a bit landlocked, but they could bring those credits into an LNG partner as, I believe, the fifth partner.

On we go. It says here:

“The Crown has issued more revenue-offsetting deep credits than it has collected in actual total oil and gas royalty revenue. Royalty agreements exist to compensate owners of mineral rights for the removal of their mineral resources. The deep-well program continues to ensure that B.C. citizens, as collective owners of B.C. natural gas, receive a net negative return for the depletion of our gas resources. We issue more royalty/tax offsets annually than the revenue we receive. Put simply, the Crown is giving out $2 in available royalty tax rebates for every dollar in royalty tax payables.

Now I’ve been raising this in this Legislature for what must be two to three years now and seem to be hitting deaf ears. Frankly, the legislative press gallery have been caught up in the hoopla of the LNG promises and have really not been exploring the scale and level of this giveaway either.

It gets even worse here. I’ll just digress from this letter for a second. Let’s go back to what the B.C. Liberals have done in terms of trying to entice LNG here. They said:
“Well, okay. We’re going to bring the cleanest LNG in the world.” I know rhetoric. I remember, and I’ll read quotes later, how member after member for the B.C. NDP ridiculed the Premier of the time — simply ridiculed her and the Minister of Natural Gas at the time — about cleanest LNG. The same language is coming up now about clean LNG.

However, the B.C. Liberals said: “Okay, LNG Canada. We’re going to give you cheap electricity. We know we can’t deliver into it unless we build Site C. But we’ll give you cheap electricity to deliver on this ‘cleanest in the world’ promise if you use electricity to compress the natural gas. You’ll be a big user. You’ll still need lots of other electricity in your upstream and downstream activities, but the compression will take a lot of energy. We will give you the industrial rates, something like 5.4 cents a kilo an hour, if you use electricity to compress.”

Now, that was the rationale of the B.C. Liberals. B.C. NDP economics, for what it’s worth — I don’t know whether it’s an oxymoron or not…

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Thank you. The member for Chilliwack pointed that out, and I think we were thinking alike at this time.

…are as follows: “Oh, that’s not good enough. We’ll still let you get the industrial rate if you compress natural gas, but we’re going to give you the resource up front.”

Go figure that. In the B.C. Liberal world, you actually pay very few royalties upfront. However, we’re going to force you to be clean and green down below, if you’re going to get the industrial rate. B.C. NDPs say: “You don’t have to pay the royalties up front for the natural gas. You’re going to ship it to yourself and use it.”

Essentially, we’re giving LNG Canada free LNG compression. What sort of economic argument is used to justify that, other than outrageous NDP economics? It simply doesn’t make sense to look at a company and say: “You can have the gas for free to actually compress it.” And a ton of gas will be used in the process. That’s a problem yet again in terms of the race-for-the-bottom economics that goes on here.

Let’s continue with this letter.

“The deep credit program does not achieve any measurable behavioral impact on industry or benefit society other than increasing the profitability of gas production at the expense of the public.

“When the program began, only a small fraction of new wells would qualify for credits. A single deep well produces more gas than many shallower wells. Therefore, fewer total wells are needed to be drilled, with less surface equipment and road-building reducing costs and environmental harm.

“However, in the past four years, 99 percent of all new wells qualify for the program. An industry would drill these types of wells regardless of our policy, due to the inherent cost savings and productivity gains that arise from horizontal fracking versus vertical fracking and profitability achieved by this modern, commonplace type of well construction.

“Royalty tax reduction programs should be employed to change behaviour and solve specific problems, rather than a complex and misleadingly labeled subsidy“

That is what it is: a subsidy, yet another subsidy to a sunset industry. We’ll come back to that.

“The cost of drilling and completing a deep gas well in B.C.’s main formations has declined drastically over the past decade. Yet our royalty discounts per new deep well remain fixed.“

There are arguments to be made that supporting B.C.’s gas industry benefits our society. Fair enough. Let’s make those arguments. However, the public should be able to determine how much support is being given and whether other industries could put that financial support to better use.

What might be the societal benefit of $6 billion in subsidies for B.C. infrastructure — for the tech sector, agriculture sector, R and D, innovation? Alternatively, could the province simply lower other taxes and service fees? Would we really need to be going through the headaches of the employer health tax in certain municipalities and school boards if there was $6 billion more found from not subsidizing this industry? If our gas sector requires a subsidy, it should not be hidden from public view behind complex mislabeled policy, and that is precisely what’s going on in the province of British Columbia.

The letter continues.

“Last year’s 2018 Public Accounts document revealed that over $2.5 billion worth of deep credits will offset future revenue. This disclosed liability figure will continue to rapidly grow this year and into the future and does not include those credits that have been granted and already used by royalty payers.“

The next section of this letter — quite a scathing indictment of what’s going on the oil and gas ministry here in the province of British Columbia — is entitled “Gas producer cost of service allowances grossly inflated.”

“Producer cost of service allowances,” another additional royalty reduction program, “are calculated based on an approximation of the ‘Crown share.’ The policy compensates producers for certain field-gathering costs associated with the ‘share’ of their production value collected as a Crown royalty payment.“

“In theory, what this means,” according to the letter, “is this should mean that if the province assesses a 10 percent royalty of the value of a producer’s gas production, we could compensate for 10 percent of the associated costs” — i.e., the cost of service.

“In reality” — the letter goes on — “the Crown’s share is approximated by a factor called the weighted average royalty rate,” or WARR with an extra R.

“The WARR is consistently inflated two to three times higher than the amount we actually collect for producers, because this factor is a measure of ‘gross’ royalties before deductions, which are far higher than actual royalties payable.”

The average effective royalty rate payable is about 5 percent in the province of B.C., whereas the average WARR — that’s the weighted average royalty rate used in the Peacoss allowance calculation — is several times that on average over the last few years. The Crown pays for 10 percent of the costs and receives 5 percent of the benefit.

Think about that. The Crown is paying 10 percent of the cost and receiving 5 percent of the benefit. This is both unfair for the B.C. taxpayer, and frankly, it’s not, as he says here, what we’re telling the public.

You can go directly to the ministry website and go and look at the producer cost of service natural gas allowance information, on the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines website, and you can read the information there, and you’ll see that this writer is exactly right. The Crown pays for 10 percent of the costs and receives 5 percent of the benefit. It’s not what we tell the public on the producer cost of service natural gas allowance information page.

“For instance,” the letter continues, “evidence suggests that gas producers’ costs were offset by $3,248,871.27.” That’s $3,248,871.27 too much for their production costs incurred during a single month of 2018. There have been some calculations, which I can make available — I’ll do so in my blog later — that actually show some supporting evidence for this.

“The total producer cost of service allowances offset Crown revenue annually by over $100 million.” He says here, “in my opinion” — that’s the letter writers’ opinion — “the unfair and illogical way the allowance is granted to producers overcompensates them by many tens of millions of dollars per year at the expense of the B.C. public. The problem is very difficult if not impossible to understand by reading public-facing information alone. The policy rewards high-cost operators while disincentivizing industry behaviours that might lower costs or increase efficiency.“

The letter continues, another area. “Significant policy compliance burden” is the subsection of this part of the letter.

“B.C. gas royalty policy is exceedingly complex, and the province has made strong efforts to monitor the industry. However, the royalty regime could be greatly simplified by the use of a fixed, fair, monthly reference prices for all of the product types and assigning fixed fair costs that would apply to all producers.“

“The province of Alberta already does this and comfortably relies far more heavily on royalty revenues as a proportion of their budget. In contrast, B.C. producers are forced to compile, calculate and submit thousands of valuation and cost details each month for what are already closely monitored commodity transactions.”

Coming back to the letter, the writer says this:

“In my opinion, a much closer look should be taken at any cross-jurisdictional, royalty-competitive comparisons, as B.C.’s current natural gas royalties includes revenue from gas, liquids and field condensate, which is dissimilar from other provinces, such as Alberta. A comprehensive policy review and simplification could significantly benefit industry, government, staff and the B.C. taxpayer.“

Coming back to this civil servant, this civil servant has resigned. This civil servant has resigned now, and has taken it upon himself to provide information to the Premier and others as to the rationale for why he or she was feeling somewhat uncomfortable in that position.

Let’s continue forward with the scale of the giveaway here. I alluded to the fact the B.C. NDP agreed to give LNG Canada the industrial rate of electricity, even if they don’t use electricity in the compression of the natural gas at an LNG facility. I also suggested that the B.C. Liberals gave them the caveat that we give it to you if you use natural gas in the compression. What I didn’t elude to in more detail was that we couldn’t deliver into that contract unless we did one of three things.

We could’ve evoked the Columbia River entitlement and got about the equivalent of Site C power to come in. That produces — I forget the exact amount — a couple of hundred million dollars directly into provincial revenues. Nobody is really wanting to mess with that, it seems, but we could have gone that way.

We could have gone for a very aggressive standing offer program for independent power producers to put out a call for power. These might have gone in partnership with Indigenous communities from north to south and east to west to produce a multitude of small, more intermittent types of power. The load could have been leveled either through coupling them with local storage systems, which are now becoming ubiquitous, or even using our existing dams to actually stabilize load.

B.C. Liberals decided that what we’re going to do is continue with Site C. Back in 2010 or 2009, when stage three of the environmental assessment began, there was a lot of uncertainty as to what the total costs would be. However, at the time, it was a relatively inexpensive way of producing power, compared to things like solar and wind. Now, of course, that price curve has completely changed.

Now we have the B.C. NDP, who campaigned on stopping Site C. Whether it be the member for Saanich South, who stands up in front of a large audience in Victoria and stands before that audience and urges people to vote for the B.C. NDP — not the Greens, of course, but the B.C. NDP. Because only the B.C. NDP can form government, and they will stop Site C, and — guess what? — we’re going to send it to BCUC, but that’s really just an inconvenience. There’s no way it’ll pass.

That’s what B.C. NDP campaigned on. We, in our confidence and supply, thought, “Okay, you need the political cover to do the decision that needs to be done.” We knew what the BCUC was going to put forward in terms of a cost analysis. It’s going to come in 10-15 cents a kilowatt hour to produce that electricity.

We know, right now, that we can produce intermittent power or small-scale hydro, solar, and others, at a fraction, a half to a third, of that cost. We know we could do that right now, today, with standing offer programs if they were put forward. But no, the NDP wanted to build Site C. Remarkably, with SNC-Lavalin as one of the big proponents — but that’s neither here nor there. However, they wanted to build Site C.

They argued, “Oh, we can’t cancel Site C, despite the fact that the BCUC gave us all the information that we needed to make that decision,” the political cover that they so desperately wanted, they now could not bring $5 billion on to the provincial books because it might hurt the credit rating.

That didn’t stop them bringing Golden Ears and Port Mann debt on to books — didn’t stop them for even a microsecond bringing them on to the books. Now what has happened….

Sure, it may have won them a couple of seats in and around the Port Mann Bridge. But what they have done, through bad policy measures of removing that toll, is ensuring that no future infrastructure projects will be able to have a tolling component, the user-pay component, which is so critical for the development of modern infrastructure in today’s world — user pay. But by removing those tolls, we no longer will have an appetite to move forward with user-pay. Are the B.C. NDP going to have an urban congestion tax in Vancouver? That’s another option — congestion taxes. I’ll believe that when I see it.

So the B.C. NDP continued down this path, building Site C. There are an awful lot of their former supporters who are quite upset about this. Their Premier, our Premier, the member for Saanich South, the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast and others were very proud to stick a yellow stake on the side of the Peace, standing up for the Peace, saying they would do what they could to save the Peace Valley from being flooded. They were going to do what they could for the Indigenous communities in and around the Peace who were concerned about their territory being flooded forever. They were going to do what they could to preserve the heritage site that was on the fort down at the water level. They were going to do what they could to preserve the habitat for the ungulates, some of which winter-over on some of the islands there. Only would they do it if they became government. But they did, and they ignored what they promised people.

They ignored what they promised people, in my view, because for this present government, what was more important that actually looking out for future generations, ensuring British Columbians got value for our natural resources, was that this government felt that it wanted to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. That’s the base level of politics and natural gas in B.C. “We’re going to try to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t.” The only way to do that is to take the giveaway — the giveaway that I’m so looking forward to articulating through quotes — to a whole new level, a whole new level like we’ve never seen in Canada in terms of corporate welfare.

I’ve already articulated the $6 billion that the upstream oil and gas sector have got in royalty credits. That’s not counting a myriad of others. That’s not counting the below-market power that the ratepayer of British Columbia — you, hon. Speaker, me, other members here — are going to have to pay.

When I’m paying ten cents a kilowatt hour for my tier 1 electricity, and I know it’s going to cost 15 cents a kilowatt hour to produce electricity from Site C; and I know that I’m a ratepayer who is subject to BCUC prices or whims of the government; and I know that industry’s not going to have to pay that because they’ve been locked into a multigenerational rate of 5.4 cents a kilowatt hour, that I’m going to be paying for that — that’s saying to me that, at minimum, my hydro rate has got to increase by 50 percent in the next few years, and more like it’s going to push to a 100 percent increase within the next decade.

That falls squarely on this government. We have stood here as an opposition party doing our best to point out these issues that government has to address.

Now, at any given time, we could act like children and throw up our hands, walk out, pick up our bat and ball and say: “Oh, we’re going to an election.” Is that really the best way forward? Or is the best way forward to stand up and hold this government to account for what it’s doing here today, hold this government to account from, on the one hand, saying to the province of British Columbia…?

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Well, the B.C. Liberals opposite. You’re entitled to vote against this bill. And if you vote against this bill, because it is a generational sellout, we know you didn’t do this. You did not have the gall to do such a giveaway. Let’s see if you have the courage, the moral fortitude, to vote against this bill. Because it won’t pass if you have the moral fortitude to stand up for British Columbia. This is on you; this is not on us.

We are standing up here and saying enough is enough. This generational sellout is not on. This is not a free market. This is a so wedged-out market that has so got corporate welfare on it like steroids, that if this is what you want to support, the so-called free market party…. Is the free market party going to talk about the mother of all non–free-market bills? Let’s see, because the ball is certainly in their court.

We’re at a juncture here in B.C. We have two paths. We have the CleanBC path, which is the path that we were so very proud to work on. It’s not a path for greenhouse gas reductions. What CleanBC is, is an economic vision for prosperity in British Columbia that’s grounded in our strategic advantages that recognizes that we will never compete against jurisdictions like the Philippines or Indonesia or Malaysia in terms of straight digging dirt out of the ground, because we in British Columbia care about our social systems. We care about our environment. We have, typically, regulations in place — although not so much in the oil and gas sector — and we believe that it’s critical for businesses doing business here to internalize the social and environmental externalities that other jurisdictions don’t.

So, sure, we can compete on the international resource extraction front, but we don’t do so with race-for-the-bottom economics. You’re watching that here with Bill 10, the Income Tax Amendment Act, right now as we speak. You do it through being smarter, by focusing on efficiency, by focusing on value-added and by bringing the tech sector together with the resource sector to ensure that when we are accessing our resources, we’re doing so in means that are cleaner, are more efficient, allowing us to value-add and exploit the technology and knowledge at the same time as those resources. Yes, this can happen in British Columbia, because it is happening in British Columbia.

But what’s missing is leadership — leadership by government and, prior to that, leadership by the official opposition. The market needs signals to be sent. Now, I take my hat off to the member for Surrey-Whalley. Surrey-Whalley?

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Yeah.

I take my hat off to the member for Surrey-Whalley — not Surrey South. I take my hat off to Surrey South as well, but to the member for Surrey-Whalley, who is a proud champion of the tech sector in British Columbia. However, being a proud champion is one thing, and then all of the good work that you’ve done is undermined by this signal. Because you can’t signal to the market two different directions. You can signal to the market that B.C. is the place for new innovation, for the economy of tomorrow. We want leaders of tomorrow because we know we can attract and retain the best and brightest in the world to B.C. because of the quality of the life we can offer, a stable — quasi-stable — democracy. We’ve got the most beautiful place in the world to live. We’ve got bountiful energy, wood, water that we have access to. The quality of life we can give people in British Columbia is second to none.

So highly mobile industries like the tech sector, like the biomedical sector, like value-added, like manufacturing — these highly mobile sectors can come to B.C. and know and rest assured that they’ll be able to attract and retain the type of workers they need because of the quality of life we can offer them. But on top of that, our education system is second to none in the world. And so we know we can offer employers first-rate trained and skilled workers to actually consider hiring them for their new economy jobs.

No. Sorry. Take that back. It’s time we stopped talking about jobs here in British Columbia and time we started talking about careers. It’s easy to create jobs. Build a bridge, and you’ve got a bunch of jobs. What we want in B.C. is careers. We want people to be able to go into a profession and know that their investment in education is going to pay off because there’s a future for them in their chosen career. Not job — career. And it’s about time in British Columbia that we stop focusing on jobs and more on careers, because careers are what will lead to sustainable employment and income security. Jobs are what pay the bills at the end of the week, but it is a career that you need to ensure sustainable income security.

You know, we’ve been clear. The B.C. Greens will never support…. We will not support an expansion of taxpayer-funded giveaways to help a large, multinational fossil fuel industry set up in B.C. I mean, the corporate welfare…. These are not even B.C. shareholders, by and large. This is LNG Canada. Many of the shareholders, the five big ones, are based in Asia. The resource is ours, but we’re giving it away. We want to repeal the LNG Income Tax Act because we don’t want to earn anything there. We think that there’s going to be wealth and prosperity through the false promises that we’ve heard for four years from the Liberals and now two years from the NDP. And we claim that the B.C. NDP have now approved this because their four conditions have been met. To remind you what these four conditions are: fair return, jobs training, respect and diversity for Indigenous values and rights, and to meet the climate commitments.

Now, what I find so incredibly…. What’s the word I’m looking for? Incredibly frustrating. That’s one word. It’s probably not the correct word. Mind-boggling. There’s another good word. Much like Christy Clark’s five conditions for agreeing with the Trans Mountain pipeline going forward, the B.C. NDP provided zero metrics, not a single metric, as to what would determine whether fair return is there or not. Because they said so? Well, they criticized Christy Clark for having five conditions, for which she never articulated what the metrics were that those conditions were judged against. Yet we have the same here with the B.C. NDP.

Fair return. In light of the fact we’re getting no return, as far as I can tell, for decades, I’m not so sure what metric they’ve used for fair return. I guess it’s above zero, because it wouldn’t happen unless they did this generational sellout.

Jobs and training. Well, you know, I’ve actually already gone to the International Union of Operating Engineers and filed complaints. I’ve filed complaints because I actually know people who are working on the Boskalis dredging ships in Kitimat. Let me tell you how this so-called hiring local works.

There’s a Newfoundland company that’s contracted out to provide workers for Boskalis, which is dredging in Kitimat. The Newfoundland company gets people from wherever. How many of them are from B.C.? Well, I know a couple, but they were summarily fired when they dared to raise questions about safety standards on the Boskalis dredge. We don’t want those pesky British Columbians raising questions about hydraulic fluid spilling over the decks, because that could lead to issues. So nothing has changed. Boskalis is a Netherlands company, dredging with temporary foreign workers, much against the so-called promises of the B.C. NDP, saying we’re going to have jobs and prosperity for locals.

Respect in partnerships. I understand that the member from Skeena is quite pleased with the development of LNG Canada. And I take my hat off to him for standing up for his community, but I would suggest that we’re far from respect and reconciliation along the entire route, particularly when you ask the question of Indigenous people not only immediately affected but in Haida Gwaii. Ask the Indigenous people of Haida Gwaii what they think of this. They’re opposed. The Yunesit’in camp. The Wet’suwet’en. They have some issues.

So to suggest that this is all clear sailing is by no means giving the complete picture. It’s actually worse than that, because the government has a duty and a responsibility as an agent of the Crown to negotiate and work with Indigenous communities in our province, yet this government abdicated its responsibility and left it up to LNG Canada to go deal with the so-called pesky Wet’suwet’en.

What did LNG Canada do? The only thing they could do, which was ask for injunctive relief, get the RCMP to clear the path, because this government abdicated its responsibility as an agent of the Crown required to negotiate.

Meet climate commitments. Well, as I get towards the latter part of my second reading speech to this, I’ll suggest that it’s somewhat premature to be celebrating that we’re meeting climate commitments with LNG Canada. There’s simply no way in a million years you’re No. 4. The B.C. NDP’s own criteria — No. 4, meet climate commitments — is not met by the legislation today. For that reason and that reason alone, I will be moving, later on, a reasoned amendment in a few minutes. But not just yet.

Before I get that, I want to come to some of the more interesting quotes that we’ve seen with this. I’ll come back to…. I want to start off with a couple of my favourites. Let’s go directly to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources has been quite boisterous on this file. In fact, my understanding is that there’s a funeral happening right now in Nelson, a funeral going on commemorating the credibility of the now Minister of Energy and Mines. It’s quite funny. I mean, it’s kind of weird, but they’re holding a funeral for the credibility of the Minister in Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources in Nelson.

Fair enough. Well deserved, frankly. The same minister who stood up and argued — got this on video: “Vote for us, the NDP, because we will stop Site C, and I’m for you.” But it was under her watch, as the minister….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Paddle for the Peace. I never went to Paddle for the Peace.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Yeah, I didn’t do Paddle for the Peace, because…. As you know, I’ve been up there several times. I’m extraordinarily supportive, but in my view, we’re there as elected as MLAs. We’re not elected to be activists; we’re elected to listen and to engage with people. When you become an activist, as the member from Nelson did, and you start doing things that activists do, which are calling on this, it all comes a cropper when you are now in a decision-making capability. Frankly, she has no credibility in this file.

In light of that file and in light of these comments, these are the comments that Minister Mungall said, and I’m referring to Bill 30, Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, on July 14, 2015. Let me read this. It’s fairly lengthy, but it’s filled with rhetoric and hyperbole, and I think member’s opposite, at least, will take some solace in hearing this and I suspect there will be one or two smiles….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: The member for Langley East: are you up after me? You know I’ll be staying. I’ll be looking forward to listening to your thoughts.

Here is what it says.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: That’s right. The member for Chilliwack tells me he doesn’t smile any more. It’s quite sad, but we’ll see if we can’t break a smile on you.

This is the Minister of Energy and Mines, July 14, 2015:

“Now, they” — they being the Liberals — “wouldn’t understand what it means to say no to selling out this province. They put themselves in such a desperate position when it comes to negotiating for LNG that they had to say yes to any single thing that walked through the door. That’s exactly what they have done. This is the big sellout of British Columbia.

“British Columbians are going to be on the hook. Should they raise taxes for LNG, we have to indemnify Petronas. We have to indemnify the nine other corporations that are involved with this deal. Taxpayers are footing the bill.

“If we want to target this industry for any future environmental changes that would improve environmental sustainability, we’re going to have to pay them for that. We have to pay that. The taxpayers have to foot that bill.”

Here we go: “It’s just utterly ridiculous and irresponsible and reprehensible” — no hyperbole there — “to sell out British Columbians for the next 25 years, not just for this industry but potentially others as well.”

Those are words from the member of Nelson. “No longer can we impose that based on public interest and do the public will, as we are supposed to do here. Instead, the company will be indemnified by the taxpayers for any costs incurred to meet the new standard. That’s ridiculous. That is a sellout. That is a sellout of this province. That is a the sellout of this future, and that’s not okay….

“People in my part of the world” — the same part of the world that are presently giving her a funeral for her credibility — “view the environment and long-term environmental sustainable planning as one of the top priorities that any government should be considering, and that is not reflected in Bill 30. What is reflected, rather, is a desperate, desperate grasp at any deal put in front of them, because promises were made in an election….”

“There’s a revenue-generation opportunity that has been sold out by this government. It’s been sold out by this government. And we’re hearing from the opposite side that some deal is better than no deal, and this is a good start, that getting to yes and so on and so forth. I think what’s interesting is that Alberta never gave the same type of sweetheart deal to its oil and gas sector.”

“What we hear from this government is a big yes to selling out British Columbians, selling out British Columbians’ futures, selling out our future potential at reducing our impact on global warming and selling out future revenue sources. That’s what I hear from this government, and I don’t think that’s right for British Columbians.”

“We have a big sellout of B.C.so somebody can stand up for a photo op around the next election. British Columbians deserve better than what they got with this development agreement and with this bill. They should be demanding better and they are demanding better, and they are demanding better.”

Well, oh, for the days that we had the Petronas development on the table before us, because what the B.C. NDP want to do is take that so-called sellout and put it on steroids. The industrial rate for electricity — 5.4 cents a kilowatt hour. Wanting to exempt LNG Canada from a future increase in the carbon tax because they will be “world leading.”

The only problem with that is LNG Canada wanted to use natural gas in the compression of natural gas. Well, guess what. In Louisiana, we now have electric compression, which has zero emissions from it. But, hon. Speaker, the member for Peace River South is clearly up on this file. I’m quite enjoying this. But in a briefing where I asked them questions about this, oh, how the goalposts do move.

Now we start hearing: “Well, we’re going to start considering the entire supply chain, including where the electricity comes from, as well as other things in terms of this, that and the other.” Well, I’m afraid that just doesn’t cut it, because right now, electricity is an integrated grid, and you pay the spot price if you wish. There’s a ton of cheap wind on the market for two cents a kilowatt hour if that’s what you want.

It just doesn’t work that way. If this government thinks that somehow it can con British Columbians…. To suggest that, in fact, LNG Canada should be exempted from future increases in the carbon tax because it is the cleanest…. Well, it’s not. It’s nowhere close, because they are continuing to propose to use natural gas in the compression of natural gas.

As I pointed out, in the great sell-out, the NDP have given LNG Canada natural gas, essentially, for free, because of the royalty structure and the preponderance of credit that exists. No wonder LNG Canada are pretty happy about this deal. They clearly were negotiating with people who have very little experience in negotiation or were utterly desperate to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. That was the bar, and no other bar was used. Frankly, this is very troubling — what’s being brought before us here today.

I’d like to come to another quote. The member for Saanich South, another member, door-knocking in my area. A very strong opponent of LNG. Well, let’s just see what happens when she becomes government. We know what happened with respect to fish farms: say one thing; do another. We know what happened with respect to Site C: say one thing; do another. What about LNG? Well, let’s have a look here.

In the budget debate on February 18, 2015, the member for Saanich South, now the Minister of Agriculture, said this: “It’s politics, not impartial analysis, that led this government to focus on LNG to the exclusion of all other sectors in this province.”

And then, on April 6, 2016, in the debate on the greenhouse gas industrial reporting and control amendment act, she says this:

“As we look at the latest rendition of the B.C. Liberals’ attempt to carry on this facade and to have ‘the cleanest LNG in the world’ — I mean, at this point, it’s any LNG — Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, we need to go back to Bill 2. My colleagues really laid out our strategy on Bill 2 last time, but I’m going to just talk about my views on it.

“We opposed Bill 2.” That was the LNG Income Tax Act. I think that was it. “I think we made really great arguments around why it should have been opposed. While doing that, we laid out our concerns about what this bill did and what it didn’t do. Really, what it didn’t do was it failed to address the whole picture. That’s again what we’re doing with this amendment. The whole picture is not there.

“When you talk about the cleanest LNG or an LNG industry or opportunities that we have as a province, and you fail to address all the emissions coming from the LNG processing and extracting process, then you’re not there. You’re not doing our province any favours. You certainly don’t have the right, I don’t think, to stand up and talk about how much you care about children’s future….”

Oh, my goodness. The member for Saanich South is evoking the children’s future. You remember the protests on the steps of the Legislature just last Friday? Thousands of people, millions across the world, of children, standing up and saying: “Listen to us. Hear us. Our concerns about climate change are real, and you, the adults, are ignoring them, and you’re not taking our interests in your decision-making.” Are those the children she’s referring to? I’m not sure, but I do suspect my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands will provide some further information on that.

“…I don’t think, to stand up and talk about how much you care about children’s future in this province if you’re not taking into account 70 percent of emissions from an industry.”

“So the cleanest LNG?” she goes on to say. “We’re going to have an industry that discounts 70 percent of emissions. How do the other members sleep at night knowing that that’s what they’re running on, that that’s ok?”

A very, very poignant question poised by the Minister of Agriculture back in 2016 to the members of the B.C. Liberal Party, a question that I pose to the members of the B.C. NDP today.

How do you sleep at night? How do you sleep at night knowing that you are putting before us a generational sellout that actually goes against everything you campaigned on in the last election?

You campaigned on generational equity. You campaigned on dealing with climate change. You campaigned on a new economy. You campaigned on protecting water. You campaigned on Indigenous rights. You campaigned on having electricity rates that are reasonable and cheap. Yet what we see here is you just going to another side.

My challenge….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: I was asked the question how the confidence and supply agreement is going. It’s going just fine. You see, I get an opportunity here to stand up and point out all the problems with this bill.

I’m looking to you. I’m looking to my friends in the B.C. Liberals to see whether they have the moral fortitude and the courage to stand up and vote against this. Do you have the courage to vote against this? It’s my challenge to you, because you know we are, and if you want to defeat this bill, we can defeat it here today.

I’ll keep going here from the same minister, because she has a lot to say — an awful lot to say. It’s remarkable. “It’s problematic for me,” she continues. “It makes me….”

Interjections.

A. Weaver: Well, I vote…. I’m getting a few comments from the peanut gallery here. It does make this time fly a little faster, but I’ve already covered the decision-maker on file, so we’ll come back to that.

“It’s problematic for me,” she says. “It makes me believe that as the public and as people in this province look at this government and its decision-making process, their credibility is going down the tubes just as fast as their opportunities to develop an LNG industry.” That’s a nice quote.

The member for Langley East is going to like this one. Just before you go, I’m going to say it again. “It’s problematic for me. It makes me believe that as the public and as people in this province look at this government and its decision-making process, their credibility is going down the tubes just as fast as their opportunities to develop an LNG industry.” Talk about pot calling the kettle black. Wow.

“This is a government,” she says, “who’s leading, not on the climate change file but, I think, on the file of being entitled to make decisions. In this case, I believe it’s because they’re so desperate to fulfil campaign promises that aren’t going to happen that they’re really throwing away our future in this province. It’s a selfish, selfish decision.” Putting it in context, what the Liberals are doing actually looks super conservative fiscally relative to the giveaway we have before us right now.

She continues: “They’re not legislating like we’re in one of the most important races of our lives, and that’s the race to slow down the effects of climate change on our planet.” I’m just going to pause there for a second. Let me read this again, and let that sink in to those millions of viewers at home. This is what the member for Saanich South, the Minister of Agriculture, had the gall to say, hurling abuse at the B.C. Liberals when she was in opposition in 2016. “They’re not legislating like we’re in the most important races of our lives, and that’s the race to slow down the effects of climate change on our planet. This is not a joke.”

You could have fooled me that this is not a joke when I see this piece of legislation before me, which takes the legislation that the B.C. Liberals brought forward and puts it on steroids. I’ve only covered a few of the exemptions. I talked about the carbon tax. I talked about Site C. I talked about the elimination of the LNG Income Tax Act.

Then we talked about the steel tariffs, because of course, LNG Canada doesn’t want to build this plant in B.C. That is not going to happen, despite the rhetoric we hear. They want to build it in Asia. In order to do that, to build it in Asia, they want to build it with Asian steel. If they did that, they’d import everything built in Asia with Asian steel, and they’d be hit with an import duty. But good old Trudeau stood up for Canada and waived that duty as well. So we have another giveaway there. That’s on top of what the B.C. Liberals…. And there’s still more, and I’ll come to those more giveaways as we keep going.

Let’s continue down with these very illuminating comments by the member for Saanich South. “Other areas of the world are acknowledging that,” she says. “At the same time that they’re acknowledging that, we’re passing legislation that basically greenwashes climate change legislation with” — again, this needs to be said slowly — “reckless, empty rhetoric that doesn’t mean anything. And it’s very, very dangerous.”

Here, here, I say, to the member for Saanich South. Where are you now in this chamber? What are you going to vote for? Do you have the courage, do you have the moral fortitude, to stand up for what you believe in? You said so back in 2016. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised. Sadly, knowing the way this place works, I suspect you’ll be whipped to vote the way you’ve been told to vote, as opposed to the way that you should.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: I bet you you’re right. I bet you we’re going to see one or two people speak on second reading, and that will be it. They want this bill to pass fast. The beauty of our parliamentary procedure is we have ample opportunity to debate this moving forward. I look forward to continuing this debate.

Let’s continue with her comments. This is what she says: “We have a government that, on one hand, talks about a climate change action plan and being a climate leader but, on the other hand, brings in legislation to govern an industry that would, in Liberal reality, operate outside of a climate action plan. How does the government square that? It’s very concerning.”

Good question. Good question, minister from Saanich South. Lead me read you your own question that you posed then. “We have the government that, on one hand, talks about a climate change action plan and being a climate leader but, on the other hand, brings in legislation to govern an industry that would, in Liberal reality, operate outside of a climate action plan.”

Remarkable. Truly remarkable, because that is precisely what this government wants to do. It wants to have a climate plan and then exempt LNG Canada from being part of that climate plan if they’re the cleanest in the world. But they don’t really have to be, because others are using electric compression. We’re going to be cleanest by NDP definition, which means that you are cleanest by definition, because you are who you are.

This is what we’re dealing with here — shameful. How these members sleep at night, I actually don’t know. I don’t know how they can. Principled people would not be able to stand by and vote for this legislation, knowing that it betrays future generations by bringing into play in Canada the single biggest point source of greenhouse gas emissions this country has ever seen in one fell swoop. That is what this legislation is doing, and that is shameful, using the words of the member for Saanich South. What is this government doing? She says: “And it’s very, very dangerous.”

The member continues. “The fact is that there are no commitments made to control or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 70 percent of emissions.” The same is said for LNG Canada. There is nothing on the books as of today that says in CleanBC how LNG Canada are going to reduce emissions — zero. We have not got the methane regulations in place as of today. We’re waiting for the feds. So what was said back in 2016 is in variant to today. Nothing has changed.

The member goes on. “Of course, they’re in a bit of a bind right now, these members. They’re creating reckless legislation, which, in my mind, as someone who has always been an environmentalist” — that’s a joke — “is absolutely reckless, irresponsible and disappointing.” Being an environmentalist until you don’t want to be considered one anymore, because now you have to make a decision — that’s a tough one. So your principles are out the window. “They’re creating reckless legislation,” she says, “which, in my mind, as someone who has always been an environmentalist, is absolutely reckless, irresponsible and disappointing. They’re creating this reckless legislation. They’re sweetening the deal as much as they possibly can, treating LNG like a loss-leader in a department store.”

I just have to read those quotes one more time. “They’re creating this reckless legislation. They’re sweetening the deal as much as they possibly can, treating LNG like a loss-leader in a department store.” That from the fiscally conservative B.C. Liberals. That Pandora’s box of irresponsible activity was unleashed when the NDP took over this file. What the B.C. Liberals are proposing to do, while I stood against it — and I agreed with the member back then — pales in comparison to what the B.C. NDP are doing. Pales in comparison.

It’s one of three things. I just don’t understand. It’s either that we’re blind by what we’re doing; we just want to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t, because that’s just cool; two, they just don’t understand it; or, three, they’re just opportunistic. I don’t know which of those it is, but it’s got to be one, because you can’t have it both ways.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Point taken by the member for Peace River South. It could be some combination of all three. I didn’t appreciate that, and now I do. Let’s keep going. Same minister. She provided so many juicy quotes.

“One of the things that I find so despicable, the most despicable almost, with this bill….” She’s referring back to the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: I digress a little bit. The member for Peace River North is getting a little upset at me because I’m using all his quotes up, and he had some quotes that he wanted to read into the record. I’ve got 20 pages.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: We have lots of them. But you know, we jest about these quotes, but it is really serious. This is important because this is a government, now, that literally hurled abuse — I sat here for four years — hurled abuse, rhetoric, catcalled, name-called, all sorts of things for four years. Now what they propose to do is take what the B.C. Liberals did to a whole new level. It’s remarkable.

Coming back to the member from Saanich South. One of the things that I find so despicable — the most despicable, almost — with this bill is something that Marc Lee from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives states so clearly, and it’s this: “A small step for GHG emissions and a giant leap for greenwashing.”

Greenwashing is such a good term for this. Now we see legislation coming forward to allow government to greenwash the LNG industry. How does that make sense? It doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense. Obviously, I’m going to be voting against this bill — and I certainly hope she carries this forward now — as well as my colleagues. I would assume the independents are also doing the same. Those independents did indeed vote — for those bills — against it, and we will do so again now, except we’re now no longer independents. Here comes down another case. I remind you again of the funeral for the credibility of the member for Nelson that’s ongoing.

But here she says it again, the member for Saanich South:

“I think it comes down to credibility. There’s a problem with credibility. I want to be proud of this province. I want to be proud of the government. Whether it is us in government or someone else in government, it still doesn’t mean I don’t want to be proud of the decisions and the direction that governments are taking here in this province.

We do have amazing opportunities here, but why would we squander them just to get an election promise through at all costs? It doesn’t make sense. I’m disappointed. Why don’t you take this time to pull this bill right off the table, to come back with an amendment that actually speaks to climate change and emission targets? Then you could see us support something like that. But until you do, we will not be supporting that bill.”

Words that I’m not going to argue with. Words that I clearly agree with. Words I just wished the government chose to follow themselves.

Now, I’m going to read another quote from another member. I’ve become quite good friends with this member, and I don’t mean this with any disrespect at all. I just mean it to…. I recognize that this member is probably struggling with the decision because I truly believe this member’s heart is in the right place. I truly believe this member wants to do the right thing, and I truly believe this member is frustrated. I’ll let you guess who this member is. I won’t say the member’s name.

But the member said this on April 23, 2015 to the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, Bill 23. We were doing some LNG stuff. This is what he said:

“They must come through with some kind of approved project at any cost. The cost was defined in Bill 6 debate around LNG royalties and corporate taxation. Now we have Bill 23 that opens the door to any giveaway that government should imagine would materialize a deal. Not only are they actually opening the door to the favourable provisions around tax benefits, tax cuts and royalties, but this bill essentially shields those agreements from Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act scope.

Not only are these deals going to be offered, at any cost to the interests of British Columbians, in order to achieve a political benefit for the B.C. Liberal government — a promise during the election which, of course, could never have been fulfilled — but even to remotely come close to actioning the promises that the government made during the election campaign….

This bill offers them the tools to offer any benefit they should imagine but then hide that from the public. Not only hide it from the public, but exempt it from approval from the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council or cabinet. In a sense, the minister has complete control over the future of the LNG industry and the deals that are being offered to corporations in order to land the deal — land the big one that the B.C. Liberal government absolutely needs to salvage any vestige of political credibility.

Having made this great commitment, having now opened the barn doors to any imaginable benefit to be offered to these corporations, having hidden it from FOI scope so that the people cannot discover what those agreements might be, using project development agreements which are more common in the Third World….”

Project development agreements more common in the Third World. I’m going to have to pause there because I just had a light bulb go up.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: You might want to use this later.

This quote here: “Project development agreements which are more common in the Third World.”

We just signed project development agreements on the Pattullo Bridge, on the highway near Revelstoke, and there’s talk about more project development agreements being signed in the near future, and other infrastructure projects too.

But the member’s own words here are: “Project development agreements … more common in the third world.” That’s odd. He gave a shout-out to me, this member: “as the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head said, it is not just a generational sellout but a multigenerational sellout.”

In fact, what we see is the B.C. Liberal government saying it’s the resource of the people of B.C. In order for us to save our political skins, we must have the free hand to give this resource away, to give it away in perpetuity, to hide that “give it away” from the public, and not even require the approval of cabinet to make that giveaway.

How little has changed in just a couple of years on this particular file. They’re coming back to the main…. Obviously, I’ve got many more. Hon. Speaker, could you give me a sense of the time on this?

Deputy Speaker: Forty-six minutes remaining.

A. Weaver: Thank you. Oh, great. Let’s go to Vancouver-Fairview then. Let’s have some comments there.

The bill…. We’ve been very clear — the B.C. Green party have — all through this, that we’re never going to support the expansion of this taxpayer-funded giveaway, and we’re not going to help the B.C. NDP implement this generational sellout. We’re going to remain focused on seeing B.C. seize the opportunity that it has to build a sustainable economy based on the foundation that was outlined in CleanBC. That is exciting. That is where our focus is.

After years of criticizing the B.C. Liberals for their giveaway of our natural gas royalties, the B.C. NDP have, as I’ve mentioned, taken it to a whole new level. Just to provide some context to that, I’d like to pivot to some of those very salient remarks from the Minister of Environment, also known as the member for Vancouver — um, Fairway — Fairview.

Fairway is a local grocery store here in town. I don’t recommend they send MLAs to represent them here.

Let’s take a look at these. This is a debate on the LNG projects. Hansard provides so much richness in terms of hypocrisy of the B.C. NDP on this file. We didn’t even know where to begin. But these are some fine comments made by the Minister of the Environment, who knows my frustration on this file, as we’ve talked many times over CleanBC. I’m very pleased with the direction we’ve got on CleanBC, but we’re not there yet.

This is what he had to say: “Let’s look at what the benefits are to British Columbia. What we are seeing in this agreement is a particularly favourable tax regime for this proponent, one that will be replicated for other proponents in the future. It allows the proponent to write off capital costs against projects until they’re paid off. It also allows a particular reduction in the corporate tax, and it has a lower special natural gas LNG tax than it was originally proposed by the government. “

Fair enough. And the B.C. NDP just want to get rid of it entirely.

“But critically, it locks that in for a period of 25 years. I listened to the Minister of Finance on CBC, about a week ago, say, ‘Oh, no, no. We’re not binding the hands of future governments. We’re simply saying that if a future government changes a tax regime, the proponent will be reimbursed dollar for dollar by the people of British Columbia.’ It’s sophistry. That’s tying the hands of future governments. It’s tying the hands of British Columbians.”

Well, what are we doing right now? Right now this government is saying:
“We’re okay hurling abuse at the B.C. Liberals for not having a stringent enough tax regime, so what we’re going to do is to eliminate it entirely, but” — but — “we want to ensure that the companies still get a credit. And let’s not worry about those capital costs. Let’s exempt you from PST during the construction.” Like another one of their great giveaways that was not in the original NDP project development agreement with Petronas. I mean, I don’t even know where to begin.

The Minister of Environment….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: No, that was Liberal beforehand.

The Minister of Environment also said this, “It’s not keeping our environmental options open for government and the people of B.C. It is not leaving room for a future government to deal with the environmental policies or to deal with measures that have costs that are important, that we may deem to be important in the future. That is why so many people on this side of the House disagree with the government’s approach, disagree with the 25-year deals and disagree with the guaranteeing to Pacific NorthWest LNG and Petronas that they will not have any additional costs if things change, as we know they will, over the next 25 years. “

Let’s come back to where we are now. I’ve heard members of this government talk about IPCC reports. I was a lead author, 1995; on the second report, 2001; on the third, 2007; on the fourth, 2013. It was tough on that one, because I was in an election campaign, trying to write a chapter on…. Anyway, there as well. I can tell you that these members understand the importance of climate change. At least they say that they do, and they’re not shy about telling the electorate they do. They’re not shy at all.

So they will know from those climate change reports that the latest one, which I wasn’t part of, suggests that we have 12 years to turn around. That’s a meaningless number. I’ll be honest with you. Climate change is going to…. We’re going to have a certain amount. The question is how much we, as a society, are willing to accept. There’s no magic number of ten, five, six, seven years.

But I will tell you this. The world’s already warmed by over a degree. It’s warmed by over a degree, and we know that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is a little over 410 parts per million. We know that if we do no more than keep existing levels fixed, we’re going to warm by another 0.6 degrees. That’ll take us to 1.5.

All this talk about 1.5 degrees — it’s hooey, because we’re already going to break 1.5. We also know the permafrost carbon feedback is going to give us another 0.1 to 0.2. We know we’re going to hit 1.7, 1.8, 1.9 degrees. That’s regardless of what we do. That’s the baseline.

So for this government to start using sound bites from the Liberals about how we’ll save China from themselves by shipping them LNG is a little bit remarkable to me in light of the fact that what the IPCC is saying, what the climate community is saying is decarbonization begins now, not 25, 30 years from now. It’s now. If we want to deal with this problem, then there is no solution but to start now.

The Paris treaty, signed by Canada, for which this Minister of Environment went and was proud to be seen at, committed the world to keeping warming below 2 degrees, substantially below 2 degrees. The direct translation of that statement is this: effective immediately, we can put no more money into building new fossil fuel infrastructure that will be around for decades to come. Decarbonization begins now. Today. That’s what Paris said.

The reason why I say that is you don’t build infrastructure today to tear it down tomorrow. Nobody in the climate science community is saying shut down the tar sands. Nobody’s saying stop producing oil and gas.

What we’re saying is that if you care about this problem, then you have no choice but to stop building new infrastructure today, because when you build that infrastructure today, you’re committing emissions for decades to come. You build a coal factory today. It’ll be in place for 50 years. You’re committing 50 years of coal-burning emissions in doing so. You build a two-train LNG facility, you’re committing four megatonnes of emissions in perpetuity.

But we all know that LNG Canada actually has an environmental permit for four trains — not two, but four. They have a permit in place for four trains. Now, this government will say: “Oh, we’ve only given them approval for two.” Well, they don’t need approval for the other four. They’ve already got the permit. I can tell you, and I’m willing to stake a bunch of money on this, is that if you build two, you’re going to build four, because you’ve already invested fixed capital costs that you don’t have to double invest. You’ve got the site there, and away we go.

This is very dangerous. This is a government that actually is trying to have its cake and eat it too. I commend this government for the work on CleanBC. It is good public policy. The ZEV mandate, good public policy. The rollout of the infrastructure, good public policy. The changing of building codes, good public policy. The cottage industry of small business that will be created as we move down that path, like we did when Gordon Campbell brought in the LiveSmart program back in 2007. A whole cottage industry of small business developed. That will happen as well. So I’m pleased with that.

But at the same time, going after LNG Canada, it’s reckless. It’s actually giving false hope to the people of Kitimat and Terrace. For a long time, we’ve been saying this. We understand that the economics of the rural north are hurting. It’s hurting precisely because of the all-in attitude that the previous government took to natural gas. You must diversify economy to make it resilient to the ebb and flow of commodity prices. The north needs diversification.

The way that we get diversification is by bringing in broadband — which this government is doing, after some pestering — and bringing in tech — ensuring that we reinvigorate a manufacturing sector.

We have access to that clean energy like no one else in the world. Where is B.C. Hydro and this government in signalling out to the world that we want you to bring your manufacturing here. We want you to bring manufacturing to Terrace, to Kitimat, to Prince Rupert, to Burns Lake — all along that northern corridor where that rail line connects Prince Rupert to Chicago — and the gateway to Asia, the gateway to eastern U.S.

That is the hope that we should be focusing on. That is the hopeful message that we have an opportunity to deliver on — not this promise for prosperity from a pot of gold that may or may not ever materialize — and a pot of gold that we’re giving away and those who might reap the benefits will be multinational shareholders sitting in some office tower, probably not in Vancouver.

Let’s find more comments from the member for Vancouver-Fairview, because he also provided some insight into his criticism with respect to the previous government’s efforts on this file. Here’s one. April 5, 2016.

“We have a government that on the one hand talks about a climate action plan and being a climate leader and, on the other hand, brings in legislation to govern an industry as if that industry would operate in complete and total isolation from an overall provincial climate plan, from commitments made by this government to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall.

“In reality, when we voted against Bill 2 in the first place, we said clearly said that we criticized the bill, as did independent members” — that was me at the time and Vicki Huntington — “mainly because it excluded upstream greenhouse gas emissions from the ‘world’s cleanest LNG benchmark’ — which we said isn’t a world’s cleanest LNG benchmark at all. It’s a sham. It’s illusory.

“You can’t take an entire industry that depends on extraction, transportation, construction, power, export and ultimate burning of the fuel, and pretend that, if you’re accounting for cleanliness in a mere 30 percent of it and ignoring another 70 percent, you’re developing the world’s cleanest LNG.”

Yet that is precisely what this government wants to do right now, because it wants LNG Canada to be viewed as the cleanest LNG in the world — using the exact same language as they criticize the NDP for, but not willing to consider that, in fact, there’s electric compression in the U.S. Gulf Coast, and that is cleaner.

So in order to kind of square that round peg…. In a briefing, I’m told: “Well, we’re going to count the upstream supply of where the electricity costs down there.” What about the fact that the natural gas is conventional, versus unconventional? Are you going to be accounting for that? Because conventional gas is an awful lot easier to get out of the ground Jed Clampett style. That dates me. Should have had a couple of chuckles from some of the older gentlemen on the other side there. Bubbling crude?

Interjections.

A. Weaver: Sad, sad.

We’ll continue. “You can’t take an entire industry that depends on extraction, transportation, construction, power, export and ultimate burning of the fuel and pretend that, if you’re accounting for cleanliness in a mere 30 percent of it and ignoring 70 percent, you’re developing the world’s cleanest LNG.”

“We have a government that says” — I quote him — “‘Here we have this industry that will deliver everything for British Columbia’ over here, and over here: ‘British Columbia has been a climate leader. We have demonstrated climate leadership, and we’re going to continue to demonstrate climate leadership and be at the head of the pack.'”

I’ll say that again. This is what the member for Vancouver-Fairview, the Minister of the Environment says, and he’s saying this cynically and with derision. “We have a government that says, ‘Here we have this industry that will deliver everything for British Columbia’ over here. And over here: ‘British Columbia has been a climate leader. We have demonstrated climate leadership, and we’re going to continue to demonstrate leadership and be at the head of the pack.”

To quote the Minister of the Environment: “There is no connection between these two statements” — hear, hear — “and Bill 19 does nothing to establish that connection.”

So what has changed? All that has changed is now you’re in a decision-making position.

And rather than recognize that you were on the right side of history when you stood and pointed out that this was a generational sellout, you’ve fallen in the same trap — race-for-the-bottom economics in a desperate attempt to try to land something that Christy Clark could.

As far as I can tell, it’s solely for bragging rights. There’s no economic sense in it, because of the giveaway that you’re doing in terms of electricity; the fact that the jobs are essentially offshore where we construct this; the fact that we’re exempting PST, the steel tariff; the fact that we’re asking all British Columbians to pay a carbon tax but not LNG Canada. They don’t have to pay the tax above 30 bucks, because they are going to be cleanest in the world — but not really, so we’ll change the rules so we can call them the cleanest in the world even though they’re not.

This is the kind of hypocrisy explained by this government. At any given time, we have to ask the following question: what do we do about this hypocrisy? We call it out, yes. We give the opportunity for members opposite to stand up and join us in voting this down. I’m sure each and every one of you have your own litany of quotes that you’re just itching to read into the record, like I am.

I’m looking forward to see you actually stand by those quotes, stand by the fact that you took the responsible position. You recognized that there has to be something in this for British Columbia. I didn’t like the direction you were going. I thought that you were trying to squeeze rock from a stone, but never in my wildest dreams did I think you had to take that stone and put it in a hydraulic press to try to desperately get water out, like the B.C. NDP have done. I look to your support.

I look to the B.C. NDP. I ask the question to those backbenchers in the B.C. NDP, who I understand know the seriousness of this decision before them: what matters to you — to the back bench? Does your integrity to future generations matter? Or are you going to toe the line and support this direction by government after having to hear three years, maybe four, of the same government hurling abuse at members opposite?

You know, the B.C. NDP don’t own this LNG file. They’re simply trying to fulfil the B.C. Liberals’ vision. Made a few more minor tweaks. Gave things away even more. It seems to me that both the B.C. NDP and, to a lesser extent, ironically — I never thought I’d say this — the B.C. Liberals….

Interjection.

A. Weaver: I’m voting with you now if you want.

They are both two sides of the same coin. Flip the coin, heads or tails, it doesn’t really matter. You get LNG and all its negative pollution on that side. You get corporate welfare on that side. You get corporate welfare on steroids on this side.

That is really odd, because this is supposedly a left-of-centre government. But in recent days, we’re starting to see a government more along the lines of what you might envision in a conservative approach, a Stephen Harper approach.

I’ll say that for a couple of reasons. Look at the war on drugs. We’re starting to see, like with the civil forfeiture bill, the act that’s brought forward…. The B.C. NDP, and particularly the Attorney General, criticized the B.C. Liberals for bringing in civil forfeiture law as being draconian, as being police state. Now we have the B.C. NDP taking it to a whole new level.

We have the B.C. LNG. W have the climate plan. The B.C. NDP criticized the B.C. Liberals for ignoring the climate plan and focusing on LNG and giving a generational sellout. Here, sure, we have a climate plan, but it’s the same sellout but at a higher level. We’ve actually taken the give up and added some steroids to it.

You know, I have much more, and I will speak to my amendment.

At this stage, I would like to move:

[That the motion for second reading on Bill 10, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019, be amended by deleting all the words after “That” and substitute the words “be not now read a second time as the BC government has not yet identified a pathway that brings us 100% to our 2030 target, and it is inconsistent to add significant new emissions sources even as we strive to show the world that it is possible to develop a low carbon, sustainable economy that can meet our targets.]

I have multiple copies of this signed reasoned amendment to pass to the table. I’ll wait a few minutes before I speak to the amendment.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: No, this is reasoned. We’ve got the hoist coming.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: The member has moved that the motion for second reading on Bill 10, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019, be amended by deleting all of the words after “that” and substitute the words “be now read a second time, as the B.C. government has not yet identified a pathway that brings us 100 percent to our 2030 target, and it is consistent to add significant new emissions sources, even as we strive to show the world that it is possible to develop a low-carbon, sustainable economy that can meet our targets.”

You may proceed.

On the amendment.

A. Weaver: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I have a few words to speak in favour of this amendment. First off, the amendment is important because the amendment peels right back to the four conditions that the Premier said needed to be satisfied before this government was going to support LNG. One of those conditions was that we had to fit it within our climate targets. That’s an important reason. Now, the climate targets have been articulated both in CASA as well as in legislation — that is, a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 2007 levels by 2030, with interim targets as well.

We have identified, in the CleanBC plan, a pathway to reach 75 percent of those emissions, assuming all goes well and everything is met. Twenty-five percent is the wedge, the gap that has not been met. What is being proposed with the Income Tax Act is that we are going to add 3.45 megatonnes of emissions. Those are LNG Canada numbers. Pembina estimates would be higher. And we have to get to 75 percent below.

Now, had we identified 100 percent, this reasoned amendment would have been viewed as out of order, of course. But we have not. So the fact of the matter is that the Premier has said that we cannot go ahead as a province with LNG Canada until such time as it fits within our climate plans. Those are his words, reiterated again by the Deputy Premier, the Finance Minister, in her opening remarks to this bill.

The amendment says this. We have not made it that way. We’ve only identified a pathway to 75 percent of the way there. Were LNG Canada not to go ahead, the six megatonne gap that exists…. Two-thirds of that would vaporize because two-thirds of that gap is essentially being added from LNG Canada.

So I would suggest that the members in government should be resoundingly supporting this amendment, as well, in light of the fact that they actually told British Columbians that they would only support LNG if it fit in our climate targets. And they have yet to show that that is the case. The fact that they’re trying to bring this in now is not consistent with their intentions as singled out to the broader electorate.

You know, we’ve been pushing, down here in the B.C. Green caucus, for quite some time, a different vision for how the province of British Columbia might move forward. Not a vision of saying no but a vision of capitalizing on our strengths and building an economy that’s resilient and sustainable, that focuses on our strengths and recognizes our strategic opportunities that allow us to compete in areas that others can’t. That is what we’ve been pushing for — a 21st century economy, investing in renewable energy infrastructure and transforming the province into a destination for innovation and for innovative industries to thrive. This is what should be happening.

Sadly, today I missed a meeting with a shipbuilding group. Shipbuilding is a classic example of what we should be doing here. People will say: “Oh, shipbuilding is an old industry.” Think about it this way. Right now we have, in Richmond, B.C., one of the leading companies in the world in terms of the development of storage batteries for ferries. We ship those batteries and that technology to Poland and Norway, where they build these ferries and they use them. They’re using B.C. technologies in electric ferries in Europe.

We just had an announcement here that B.C. Ferries is considering building a passenger transportation ferry from the West Shore to downtown Victoria. What an ideal opportunity. We know that there are 30-something B.C. ferries in the B.C. fleet. We know that each B.C. ferry lasts 30-something years.

Why is it that in B.C., we’re not thinking about building a sustainable, resilient shipbuilding industry? We know the government could signal in that we’re going to need one ship a year and we’re going to rotate through our B.C. Ferries fleet every 35 years. This is a place where we know we can actually put in place standing orders, and we can feed B.C. innovation into practice by developing the latest and best and shipping that technology elsewhere.

That is what leadership is. That is what a sustainable, resilient, new economy is. That would be getting places like Nanaimo. Nanaimo, which is turning into a satellite home for people who live and work in Vancouver, should and could go back to its roots and should be having a vibrant shipbuilding industry there. But again, we have people who are afraid of showing the leadership that needs to be shown on this file.

We have a company that builds forklifts in Germany wanting to relocate to Langford. We have a company that builds electric buses that moved to Edmonton, and they wanted to be in B.C. There are so many manufacturing companies that want to come to B.C.

We’ve got Langford mayor Stew Young, who has already zoned an industrial park for clean business to grow. But what it needs, again, is the government to send a signal that they want it. It needs government to identify people within its Premier’s office, within its ministries, who are going to be the go-to people for industry and manufacturing that want to come to B.C. — to know who to go and ask questions of. Right now people don’t know who to ask, because no one quite knows who’s on first base.

These are the opportunities. Truly implementing CleanBC provides a pathway to a carbon-neutral economy, one in which British Columbia is free from having to rely upon the boom-and-bust cycles of fossil fuels. The International Renewable Energy Agency, for example, recently reported that there are over ten million jobs in renewable energy — ten million jobs. At the 2016 UN Climate Change Conference, 48 countries have agreed, already, to make 100 percent of their energy production renewable by 2050. So 48 countries. Not Canada. Not British Columbia. Not Canada.

The rest of the world is moving into the future while this government is tethering us to the past. And unfortunately, with this legislation, we’re allowing LNG Canada to make history for all the wrong reasons. We’re actually saying that we want to enable the single largest point source of carbon emissions in this country’s history under the watch of this government. Is this really what our province wants to be known for? Is this really what this government wants to be known for? Is this really what this government wants to risk?

All the good work that’s been done in terms of affordability. All the good work that’s been done in health care. Very impressed with the good work being done by the Minister of Health. The good work being done in child care. The good work being done in the Attorney General’s office. Is this really what this government wants to risk?

It wants to risk all of that goodwill solely to try to land a project that Christy Clark couldn’t, and, in order to do so, undercut all of your principles and point out — as I’ve done, and I’m sure members opposite are — the grand hypocrisy of those last four years that many of you sat in this House. Many of your words are coming back to haunt you as you say one thing, but now what is good for the goose is no longer good for the gander. Is this really what your government wants to be known for?

Is this really what the members on your back bench…? The member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast. Is this really what he wants to be known for? The newly elected member for Nanaimo, who claims to be an environmentalist. Is this really what she got into politics for? The member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale. Is this really what she wants to be known for?

The member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan. The member for Burnaby North. Is this really what they want to be known for — standing up and blindly voting in support of the single biggest point source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canadian history at a pivotal time in human history when we have to set the path on decarbonization?

This government wants to take the sellout that they described, of the B.C. Liberals, to a whole new level — on steroids. Exempt the PST. Don’t have to pay the carbon tax. Redefine what “cleanest” is. Give you Site C power. You don’t have to use electricity in the compression. No steel tariffs. No PST in construction.

Did you offer them your second babies? Did you offer them to pay your speculation tax too? I mean, this clearly was a deal written by LNG Canada for LNG Canada.

Interjections.

A. Weaver: Probably got an exemption for that, as well. Good point raised by the member for Peace River South suggesting that we haven’t really got that on the paper yet. There’s probably going to be an…. Well, there’s no exemption, because they’re all going to be temporary foreign workers. Why would you exempt on the employer health tax?

We will be voting against this legislation and in support of this amendment. I will, at this stage, take my place in the debate. I have so much more to add. But I look forward to any other amendments that might come forward. If I get an opportunity at that time, I would love to speak in favour of anything. But I assume that members opposite will support this reasoned amendment and move this down the road.

---

Text of Speech in Support of

Hoist Amendment

---

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and stand in support of the hoist motion brought forward by my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands.

Let me start by saying this government claimed that it had four conditions that needed to be met prior to it supporting natural gas. Now, when I spoke at second reading, I pointed out how it was somewhat ironic that this government criticized former Premier Christy Clark for having five conditions with respect to Trans Mountain. They criticized her, and rightfully so, by pointing out that there were never any metrics against which those five conditions were judged, so those five conditions were met magically because the former Premier just said so, without saying why they were met.

Well, here we have a situation where this government has now got four conditions, very proud of those four conditions: fair return, jobs and training for B.C. workers, respect and partnership with Indigenous communities and meeting climate commitments. The point raised by my friend here from Saanich North and the Islands is that we need an additional six months’ time, and as I outlined earlier, the reason and rationale for that is directly embedded within the four commitments of this government.

Meet climate commitments. There is no way right now that this government can say that this project meets climate commitments. It doesn’t — period.

CleanBC, for which government deserves credit, articulates a pathway only towards three-quarters of the emissions reduction target by 2040. There is a gap of six megatonnes, 25 percent, that still needs to be found. Three and a half, or closer to four megatonnes, of that would be found right away if LNG Canada did not go forward. To claim that the condition has been met about meeting climate commitments is false.

Therefore, the government’s fourth condition has not been met — period — today. As such, I expect and hope that those members in government who claim to have some concern over the climate issue would actually see this amendment for what it is. It’s giving government opportunity, the time to reflect upon what is required in that further 25 percent. How are we going to get those six megatonnes?

You know, that’s a lot of megatonnes, given that the entire province of British Columbia only puts out around 64 megatonnes annually. We have found in CleanBC a pathway to reduce the emissions by three-quarters of the 40 percent reduction relative to 2007 levels that are required by 2030. But that 25 percent, six megatonnes — or 10 percent of the total of B.C. emissions — has yet to be found.

Even in the pathway that’s been articulated, it is but a pathway. There are some, but very few, measures that have got rolling. The methane regulations, we’re still awaiting those. Some of the statements with respect to building codes, we’re still getting some of those. Some of the industrial activity changes, we’re still getting those. There is no way in a million months of Sundays that this government can stand up with any credibility and say that we have met our climate commitments if we pass this bill. Just false.

Number 2 — respect and partnerships, which is a third condition of the government. Now we know — I needn’t go on about the Wet’suwet’en and the Unist’ot’en camp — that there clearly are still issues with respect to respect and partnership. I need not go much farther to the west, but when you go to the Site C region, we clearly have more issues with respect to Indigenous respect, partnerships and truth and reconciliation.

Again, government claims that that box has been ticked. But I would argue that it hasn’t, which is why, again, the motion brought forward by my colleague here is perfectly reasonable and ultimately supportable in the light of the fact it would give government six months more to actually get to deal with some of the truth and reconciliations with the Wet’suwet’en and, in particular, the treaty 8 Nations around the Peace River area.

Jobs and training. We’ve heard government say: “Okay, that box has been met.” But it hasn’t, because we’ve heard nothing about it. I know from personal experience. I’ve had a friend who worked on the Boskalis dredge, literally from Victoria, worked on Boskalis dredge, but not for very long.

There are lots of stories about the hiring practices going on in that area, the fact that Boskalis is not a Canadian company. It’s a Dutch company. The fact that Boskalis has contracted a Newfoundland company to find the employees to work on the Boskalis dredging camps. Guess where they’re coming from? B.C.? No. Everywhere else in the world, but not B.C. So we have a problem there with respect to that as well.

On top of that, we have the fair return. The fair return. Now this is where it gives me enormous pleasure to read a few quotes about the so-called fair return, and I will underpin that with some direct statements by members of the government as to what exactly that means.

I’ve tried to argue…. In particular, I highlighted with the resignation letter of an employee within the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which essentially points out…. If I could, without re-reading the entire letter into the record again. I should say that, you know…. The summary says: “In my opinion, a much closer look should be taken at any cross-jurisdictional royalty-competitive comparisons, as B.C.’s current gas royalty figures include revenues from gas, liquids and field condensate, which is dissimilar from other provinces, such as Alberta.”

Again, the six months requested by my colleague in this hoist motion would allow government time to actually explore that.

In addition, there are other questions with respect to the deep-well royalty credit, which, as I’ve articulated and outlined, is essentially a great generational giveaway, which was initially brought in place to incentivize deep drilling and now is applied to 99 percent of all drilling. Basically, anybody who’s drilling anywhere gets a credit. Again, this royalty structure has not changed since 2005, except for the expansion of the drill credits.

So again, it’s pretty clear to me that we’re not getting a fair return. And it’s even worse than that. Not only are we not getting a fair return, we’re not getting a return — period. And we are subsidizing an industry to come, and the ratepayer has to build Site C to deliver the electricity that we’re going to lose 50 percent of the construction costs of every time we sell it.

Every kilowatt hour of electricity sold to LNG Canada from Site C is going to lose the British Columbia ratepayer, like, 5 cents per every kilowatt hour. That means that you and I are going to necessarily increase our hydro rates to pay for this promise by the B.C. NDP, which is being done only, as far as I tell, to do what Christy Clark couldn’t. Because the economic rationale simply doesn’t fly. If it did, we’d have companies clamouring to come to B.C. But no, they’re not.

What we have is LNG Canada, a global multinational with very clever negotiators who saw a change in government and thought: “Ha ha, lambs to the slaughter. Here come our negotiators.”

The deer stuck in headlights walk in and say: “What can we give you? Because we want to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. We know we’ve got a litany of quotes a mile long about how we’re hurling abuse at them, but we really want to deliver. What can we do?”

LNG Canada says: “This is great. We’ve got them now. Okay. Eliminate the PST on construction.” “Okay, sure.” “We need the steel tax tariff removed as well.” “Okay, sure.” “We don’t want to pay the carbon tax. Every other British Columbian should.” “Okay, sure. But you have to be the cleanest in the world.” “Oh, we will be. Oh, but we’re not anymore, so we better redefine what ‘clean’ is.” So now you can use natural gas in the compression but clean….

“We’re going to pretend that that Louisiana export facility doesn’t exist so we can still get an exemption. Of course, we wouldn’t want to have to use electricity in the compression because that’s costly, so we’ll use natural gas. But we know that we can get that NDP, because we know they’re not thinking this through. So we’re going keep that royalty rates regime in place for the upstream natural gas, and we’re going to use natural gas in the compression. Bingo. Suckers. We got natural gas that we’re going to use for free, that we’re going to pay no one for, so we can compress our natural gas and sell it.”

I mean, we are literally dealing, frankly, with negotiations that are embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to think that somehow we got a good deal here. And the member for Skeena stood up and had the gall to complain about natural gas prices. If he thought this through for one second, he would realize that what happened in Australia is going to happen in B.C.

When Australia developed its LNG industry, the domestic price for Australian natural gas went through the roof. And that is exactly what’s going to happen in B.C. So while we might be thinking about affordability, as soon as you create a massive demand for a resource that we’re not claiming any royalties on because we have given that all away, you know that we’re going to have to compete for our own domestic supply for that same resource. And prices are going to go up. Good thinking, NDP. Really good thinking about the long-term prosperity of this province.

Coming to these quotes, let’s take a look at what the Premier had to say. It’s the Premier of our province who, when in opposition and during the estimates for the Office of the Premier, asked a number of questions.

He was asking questions of Christy Clark, who was the Premier at the time. He said this:

“The question I hear wherever I travel, in the Interior, on the Island, in Vancouver…. What I hear is this: is this government selling the store? Are they giving away these resources without getting a return back to the people who own those resources?

“Sadly, when you look at the information that’s made available to us, it’s infrequent that we get complete stories from the B.C. Liberals. We’re not getting access to project development agreements. We’re not going to be able to take a look at those. I’m very confident that Petronas has been well taken care of in these documents, but I have no understanding or no ability to understand whether or not job protection is there for British Columbians, whether the resource will get a fair return to those who own it, the people of B.C. We’ll see later on. We’re cutting deals,” said the Premier, “and we’ll let you see it when we’re done.”

Ironic, we still do not see those deals. We’re trying to, with this bill, repeal the project development agreement that Petronas was given. I don’t see government bringing forward an agreement with LNG Canada that this House is able to debate. I don’t see that happening. If anything, transparency is going the other way. We’re becoming less transparent from where we were with the B.C. Liberals.

In terms of the statement, what people are telling me is: are we giving away the store? Well, as I mentioned earlier at second reading speech, the proposal by the B.C. NDP is to take the B.C. Liberal giveaway and to put it on steroids — to actually to take their LNG Income Tax Act, an act that would have brought B.C. some revenue when the companies were making money, and say, “You know what, let’s just eliminate that,” but ironically, bringing in the credit that was embedded within that.

Talk about unbelievable. Not only are the NDP wanting to eliminate the LNG Income Tax Act, they want to retain the credit that was embedded in that in a hope that maybe a few head offices will get set up here — wishful thinking.

This is what else the Premier had to say. This is all so very relevant as to why we need to give a bit more time, because I don’t think that the Premier and his party have thought this through. They haven’t reflected upon the comments they made historically and on the rationale for those arguments, what’s fundamentally underpinning why they put them forward, and they don’t see how they apply now more than ever.

He said this: “We need to have an open discussion about the value of our resources and who we’re trying to benefit most.” Very salient words. “We need to have an open discussion about the value of our resources and who we’re trying to benefit most, because the government overpromised on LNG. My fear and the fear of many British Columbians is that the secret agreements that are being negotiated right now are going to be giving away that resource.”

Well, my, my, isn’t that ironic? The secret agreements being negotiated right now are going to be giving away that resource. What we saw in the end, we saw what the B.C. Liberals proposed. We saw that. The NDP hurled abuse at them when they brought it forward, just vitriol. The level of vitriol that was emanating from that side at the time across the aisle was remarkable.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: I’ve been consistent. The member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast suggests it wasn’t me. I’ve been consistent on this file since day one. Since 2012, I’ve stood up and said it was not economic in 2012.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: To the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast, I wonder if he can look himself in the mirror tonight when he stands up and votes against these amendments, knowing that he somehow thinks that he stands for climate change mitigation.

This is a difficult…. I realize you’re chirpy because this is a difficult decision for you. But I would suggest that perhaps you might reflect internally a little more on the decision that you have to make shortly, rather than chirping because you don’t agree with what’s being said. Because what’s being said now is the truth.

The truth the matter is this: the NDP we’re against the LNG Income Tax Act. They were against it because they felt it was a giveaway. They felt that the B.C. Liberals were not doing due diligence and were giving away our resource. Those are the words of the Premier. He said this: “Because the government overpromised on LNG, my fear and the fear of many British Columbians is that the secret agreements that are being negotiated right now are going to be giving away that resource.”

What are the secret agreements that the B.C. NDP negotiated? They not only eliminated the income tax but actually kept in the royalty, exempted the PST on construction, eliminated the steel tariff, exempted LNG Canada from increases in the carbon tax and agreed to give them Site C electricity that the ratepayer is going to pay 10 to 15 cents a kilowatt hour for and sell it to them at 5.4 cents a kilowatt hour. So you and I are each going to each pay and lose 5 cents-plus for every kilowatt hour of electricity that LNG Canada uses.

And they’re not required to use electricity in the compression. They’re not required. And we’ve given them the upstream natural gas for essentially free compression.

Hats off to LNG Canada negotiators. They really were dealing with a bunch of suckers, I tell you. They came out of this with the sweetest of sweet deals. It is embarrassing. I don’t know who was on the B.C. NDP negotiating team, but it’s embarrassing.

Going back to the Premier’s comments: “Because the government overpromised on LNG, my fear and the fear of many British Columbians is that the secret agreements that are being negotiated right now are going to be giving away that resource.” The Premier continues: “We’re going to be tying the hands of future governments. When commodity prices do go up, which they usually always do, we — the people of B.C., the owners of that resource — will not be able to benefit from that because we’re locked into agreements that were signed by a desperate government trying to make one promise….”

 Say that again. The people of B.C., the owners of that resource, will not be able to benefit from that because we’re locked into agreements that were signed by a desperate government trying to make one promise. That was the Premier talking to the Liberals in 2015. Now, as I articulated, while he was very concerned that the owners of the resource, the B.C.’ers, were not going get royalties, now we’ve taken that to a whole new level. Oh, how the chicken comes home to roost.

Secondly, the Premier also said: “The challenge, then, is: are we putting in place a royalty regime that does not meet the needs of a growing economy, does not meet the needs of a resource that will go up in value? The benefit of that will be realized by the company and not by the owners of the resource.” Nothing, nothing has changed. The benefit will be realized by the company and not by the owners of that resource. Those are the Premier’s words. The Premier’s words.

The Premier was also very critical of the prosperity fund and other promises that were attached, along with the promises of wealth and prosperity for one and all. This is what he said here, too. “Instead, there’s an agreement that gives money to the company, that gives tax breaks to the company and gives royalty concessions to the company. Good deal for Petronas, not such a good deal for the people of British Columbia. Promise made; promise broken.” Those were the words of our Premier on July 13, 2015, in discussion of the LNG project development agreement that this government wanted to repeal.

He said this: “Instead, there’s an agreement that gives money to the company, that gives tax breaks to the company and gives royalty concessions to the company. Good deal for Petronas, not such a good deal for the people of British Columbia. Promise made; promise broken.” The fact that this is on record, and the fact that we’re now debating the LNG Income Tax Act that my colleague has so wisely suggested be kicked down the can for six months so that we could actually reflect upon this, is critical because we need to understand what on earth the Premier was thinking. If he was thinking that back in 2015, the LNG agreement signed by this government with Petronas was giving money to the company, gives tax breaks and gives royalty concessions to the company…. If he truly believed that — which is promise made; promise broken; a good deal for Petronas and bad deal for people of B.C. — how can he stand before this House, before the people of British Columbia, and say what we’re bringing forward with LNG Canada is a good deal for B.C. and for British Columbians?

There simply is no credibility to that statement because what is being brought forward in terms of the LNG Canada deal takes the deal that the B.C. NDP had with Petronas to an entirely new level — an entirely new level, hon. Speaker. Exemptions of steel tariffs, exemption of PST in construction, elimination of the LNG Income Tax Act, but retention of the royalty credit, essentially electricity at the industrial rate even though you didn’t have to use electricity in compression

On top of that, we’ll exempt you from the carbon tax because you’re going to be the cleanest in the world, if we redefine what clean is and forget about the fact that there actually is electric compression in an LNG facility in Louisiana. Remarkable.

The Premier was also very critical of LNG emissions. Trying to reconcile his statements upon that with respect to the present bill requires further reflection and delay, which is why my colleague has brought that amendment forward. This is what the Premier said:

“What is the result of all of the efforts of all of us in this House and all of the citizens of British Columbia, by reducing their personal footprint? The government allows a company from Malaysia to come and increase our overall emissions by 8½ percent. That’s massive, absolutely massive.

“So all of you out there who are doing your best, who are buying into the notion that if we all work together, we can get out of the morass that industrialization has brought upon this planet, all of us who want to work together to address the challenge of our generation…. One project that the ragtag people is going to have an impact were the forces of no.”

Again, everything the Premier said with respect to Petronas applies to LNG Canada, but on a higher scale. An 8½ percent increase of emissions? LNG Canada got an environmental assessment approval for four trains. That’s essentially nine gigatonnes, which is a 15 percent increase of emissions. But all of this seems to be lost upon the Premier.

What about the Deputy Premier? Maybe the Deputy Premier, because she led the NDP at a time that they ran an Axe the Tax campaign in the 2009 election. One might be somewhat cynical and think that perhaps she’s not very supportive of the climate plan, but then again, she did fund CleanBC in the budget. You never quite know.

So let’s get a sense of what her comments were, to get sense of what she believed when the Liberals were in power. Again, coming to 2015, back in July. We’re debating the project development agreements act. This is what the Deputy Premier said: “In other words, there will be no future climate change action in the area of LNG without a cost, without a huge cost, to the company. The agreement says that specifically. It says it specifically. It’s unbelievable. One of the biggest issues facing us, the issue of climate change.”

Clearly, the Deputy Speaker believes that climate change is one of the biggest issues facing us. She says this: “One of the biggest issues facing us, the issue of climate change.”

“And the Premier says” — that would be Christy Clark — “‘Don’t worry. There will be no changes to do with climate change.’ There will be no new regulations. There will be no new requirements over 25 years when it comes to the LNG industry. Unbelievable.

“No future discussion around greenhouse gas emissions with the industry. No future discussion about the costs of offsets or future targets or additional changes that may occur in 25 years. We don’t expect any kind of change when it comes to climate change and the industry for 25 years? Extraordinary.”

So the Deputy Premier, in 2015, expressing the same frustration as the Premier, as the now Energy Minister, as a number of other members….

My colleague here has noted some of these inconsistencies and suggested that a six-month hoist is in order to ensure that we come to grips with some of these inconsistencies so that we can better articulate how this proposal before us today actually fits in with the climate plan, for which we’ve only identified 75 percent of the direction towards the end.

It further says this. She also said that…. She was very critical about LNG being given away for nothing. This is what the Premier said…. This is her bill today.

“They” — they being the Liberals — “want to see plans that move economic growth along and do it in an environmentally sound way. They want to make sure that although this province is built on resource development, it does it in a way that protects our land and air and land and water and fisheries. That’s what the people of this province care about.”

Actually, sorry. “They” were the people of British Columbia.

“They don’t want our resources given away for nothing. They want a fair return. They want a fair share, and they want a fair share for current and future generations.”

These are the words of the present Deputy Premier when referring, in 2015, to the debate on the LNG project development agreement with respect to Petronas.

Again, she said, “they” being the people of British Columbia: “They don’t want our resources given away for nothing. They want a fair return. They want a fair share, and they want a fair share for current and future generations. They don’t want to pit the economy against the environment, the environment against the economy, and that’s exactly what this bill does.” She says, referring to the B.C. Liberals: “…that’s exactly what this bill does.”

The hypocrisy that we today are debating…. We’re debating an amendment to give us six more months’ time to reflect upon this.

But we’re debating an amendment on a bill that actually takes the Petronas project development agreement to a whole new level. All these words about not wanting resources to be given away, wanting a fair return, not wanting to sacrifice future generations — all of this applies. Yet, the hypocrisy of what is before us is that it’s now the B.C. NDP putting this forward. The B.C. NDP — those who campaigned to be there for British Columbians, concerned about climate change, concerned about future generations. There is not a single member of the B.C. NDP who, tonight, can go home, look at the mirror or look at their children and say anything other than: “I betrayed you today. I betrayed you today because I voted against your future. I voted to give away a resource that we could have actually protected and preserved. And instead of sending our province on a path for economic prosperity and a diversified 21st century economy, I hijacked your future by building Site C and ensuring that your hydro rates are going up to subsidize this, by exempting this company from the carbon tax. So you go and do your stuff to reduce emissions, but it doesn’t matter at all because the signal we’re sending is LNG Canada can add four megatonnes right away, and when they put the four trains in, it’ll be eight megatonnes. Eight megatonnes is 15 percent of all of British Columbia’s emissions as of today.”

This is not a climate plan. This is why we need those additional six months. We need to justify this pathway with the fact that we’ve only identified 75 percent of our target. There is nothing right now on the books that will take us to 100 percent of the way.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: My colleague and I have to coordinate because we are but three in our caucus. When there are committees on, I have a colleague who….

I will be designated on this. I just noticed the green light went up. I know my colleagues would like to hear more of my quotes here.

The difficulty we have is coordinating someone who’s in a committee at the same time. She will be speaking to this amendment, and I must give my colleague a few minutes of notice, to give her some notice.

There’s some more criticism. These are important too. You know, I’ve got a ton of comments from MLAs to bring forward, but these are instrumental, key figures in the present government: the Premier, the Deputy Premier who is the Finance Minister. This is what she also said: “We have an opportunity here to stand in this Legislature and talk about local benefits; to talk about support for education; to talk about support for a diverse value-added, modern economy; to talk about investments in people, which are our greatest resource.”

I agree 100 percent with those sentiments, and we’ve been doing a lot of that in collaboration with the B.C. NDP. But this is what she further says: “…not to talk about a giveaway to simply meet the Premier’s political agenda, which is what we’re talking about right now.”

Frankly, those words also apply today, except the agenda is to try to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. That’s essentially it. That is the driver for this deal. “Oh, we can deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. Aren’t we good. Let us give away the farm and hope nobody pays any attention to it.”

Then, perhaps the best quotes of all. There are two here. These are from April 15, 2015, both of them, in response to the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Amendment Act, an act that the NDP voted against, as I articulated in more detail at second reading. I voted for this amendment because, unbeknownst to any rational thinking in my mind, the B.C. NDP voted in support of the LNG income tax act in the fall of 2014. I voted against it. I was the only one here. That act passed. It had loopholes in it. It had problems with it.

The Liberals brought in an amendment act in the spring to close a lot of those loopholes and tighten up the legislation. Obviously, bad public policy is on the books. The amendment act came forward. I voted for the amendment act. I remember speaking to the then Finance Minister, saying: “How could you not vote for it? I didn’t like the act to begin with, but it is bad and you’re making it better.” But this where explain the rationale — I don’t know. NDP voted against making it better. But they did.

In that speech, the now Deputy Premier said this:

“Given this government’s direction and this government’s record around LNG and LNG commitments, I have to say that this is an incredibly troubling direction. To think that you could take a tax credit and decide that we’ll just up it…. We want to give industry a little bit bigger tax credit. We won’t take that to the Legislature to be debated. We won’t let the public know ahead of time that that’s a direction we’re looking at. We’ll just do that by regulation. We’ll sit in the cabinet room, we’ll decide that by regulation, and then we’ll publish that regulation later.”

Well, let’s have a conversation about some of these things that are happening by regulation. Exemption of PST. Exemption of PST in the construction. Did we debate that here? No, it happened in regulation. What about exempting LNG Canada from increases in the carbon tax? No, happening in regulation. What about exempting LNG from the requirement of having to use electricity in the compression to get the industrial rate? No, we’re going to do that through regulation. What about royalty regime changes? No, we’re going to do that through regulation.

Again, yet another remarkable example of pot, meet kettle. And please don’t call each other black, because this is just something that you cannot make up, even if you wanted to. The hypocrisy is just mind-boggling.

She also said this:

“I worry that this is exactly what we’re seeing with this government in this bill and in their direction around LNG — is in fact a sell-off of an asset in hopes of seeing some part of industry come forward to be able to invest in our province. It’s not a direction that I support. It’s not a direction that we on this side of the House support. And it’s not a direction that the public supports, most importantly….

“They would also say that these resources belong to British Columbians. To give them away without fair value…for British Columbians, to give them away without jobs for British Columbians, and to do all of that with a cone of secrecy is the wrong direction for our province to go. It’s the wrong direction for a government to go.”

Wow. It’s all I can say. Wow. Let me read that again. I want to read it again because it’s important that this sinks in, to those B.C. NDP backbench MLAs who are going to vote for this — those NDP MLAs who have the gall and the audacity to tell their constituents that they’re champions of climate change, the gall and audacity to stand with the children on the steps of the B.C. Legislature and say: “We are here for you as you protest.”

Across the world, millions of these students stay away from school on Fridays, pleading with their leaders to take action on climate change. Let me read that again.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Oh my. It’s been a long day. Let me read that again. Hansard might want to just put “Interjection” in there, instead of explaining the interjection.

So with respect, Hansard, “Interjection,” please.

Interjections.

A. Weaver: What was that? We got the nod from Hansard. Thank you. Interjection. That’s awesome.

Let’s do this one more time, because it’s important to read this again, and it’s important to read it slowly and articulate each syllable.

“I worry that this is exactly what we’re seeing with this government in this bill and in their direction around LNG — is in fact a sell-off of an asset in hopes of seeing some part of industry come forward to be able to invest in our province. It’s not a direction that I support. It’s not a direction that we on this side of the House support. And it’s not a direction that the public supports, most importantly….

“They would also say that these resources belong to British Columbians. To give them away without fair value…for British Columbians, to give them away without jobs for British Columbians, and to do all of that with a cone of secrecy is the wrong direction for our province to go. It’s the wrong direction for a government to go.”

I say wow again. We’re not debating the LNG project development agreement.

At least, whether you like it or not…. I clearly voted against it. I did not like it, but at least we got a chance to debate the Petronas development agreement when the Liberals were in. I was pretty miffed that I had to move my summer holidays and come back on July 15 to do it, with two weeks’ notice, but we did it. At least we had that opportunity.

Here the remarkable aspect of this is much of this has been done — despite the fact that the now Deputy Premier said we shouldn’t be doing this — through order-in-council, most of the giveaway.

We’re left with a couple of things: repealing the LNG Income Tax Act, essentially repealing the act that allowed the province to earn some money. They basically said, “You can have it. We don’t want any money.” Because LNG Canada clearly walked in the room and said, “We’re not giving you any money for this. This is part of a giveaway. Just give it to us.” NDP said, “Okay.”

That’s presumably what happened, because we have no income tax act now, but they want to retain that tax credit — all done through this bill. Remarkably as well, we are claiming to be climate leaders, which is why the delay of six months is very important to actually give us some time to reflect upon this.

I’d like to come to a dear friend, one of the MLAs in this chamber that I respect above most — high integrity, very thoughtful, a commanding presence when he speaks — that’s the member for Vancouver–West End. Let me tell what you he had to say.

This is what he said in the debate in July about an alternate path that’s required. He said this: “We need to be moving to a cleaner path, a greener path, a more healthy path that actually recognizes climate change impacts today, in the future and distant future. Because it’s going to get worse. It could be way worse or it could be bad. This government has decided to go with ‘way worse,’ — that’s referring to the Liberals — “We know it is already bad. We feel it today, but if this government continues on this path, they’re going to be putting the pedal to the metal, so to speak, to drive up emissions, increase the climate instability and create climate chaos. That’s the Liberal record. That’s the Premier’s record. Look at the science,” he said, “Look at the math. Look at this agreement. Look at your conscience. Look at the future. You can’t support this agreement of locking in 25 years of no environmental protections, giving away the store, and harming the future. I can’t support this agreement on environmental reasons alone. It does not make sense. It’s bad for the future, and I will be voting against it.”

My challenge to the member for Vancouver–West End is hopefully, you’ll realize that — with this motion before us, this amendment before us, to give us six more months — you will stand and support this amendment because you realize that what is actually before us now makes what the Liberals brought forward pale in comparison. They looked like remarkable fiscal conservatives in their dealing with LNG, relative to what’s going on now.

Here we look like we don’t know what we’re doing, frankly. We just say, “What do you want? We’ll give it to you.” There’s no benefit for British Columbia. We may get a few hundred jobs in the construction phase. Even there, most of the construction is going to happen in Asia. There’ll be a boom and a bust. I suspect, even if it gets built, it won’t be operating for very long. We’ve had a bunch of snake oil promised to British Columbians, and this government is no better, in that regard, than the previous government.

To the member for Surrey-Whalley, who is sitting there looking at his phone, who I know that wants to recall and think back upon his sage words of advice that he presented to this legislature on April 15, 2015, when speaking against the response to the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Amendment Act.

This is what he had to say: “Yet now before the House, in Bill 23 and Bill 26, this bill, is a mechanism to lower, dramatically, corporate income tax returns from these projects and natural gas royalties. The total tax return, the return from the publicly owned resource to the citizens of British Columbia is diminishing once again, and the mechanisms by which that’s done, the agreements by which this is entered into, are not going to be disclosed publicly.”

Well, pretty remarkable….. Same thing happening right now, except — except, hon. Speaker —the giveaway is being taken to a whole new level, because as I’ve articulated multiple times before, the LNG Income Tax Act, government wants to repeal it. That’s one place where we were going to get some income. However, they want to keep in place the tax credit.

We’ve already, as articulated earlier, given away $6 billion in credits from the deep-well royalty regime — $6 billion, with $3.2 billion of unclaimed credits into the future. We’re not going to earn money from royalties. We don’t want LNG Canada to pay the carbon tax, of course, so we’re going to call them “cleanest in the world,” despite the fact that they’re not. Because we’re going to redefine “clean” to sure make that, by definition, LNG Canada is the cleanest in the world. That’s the definition, it seems to me, because, as far as I can tell, the government’s making this up on the fly.

I have a bunch more comments from the member from Surrey-Whalley, but I think I’ve made my point. The point being, quite clearly, that in 2015, in 2016, in 2014, government members were sitting in opposition, and they were profoundly troubled about the direction that this then government was going.

Time after time, speaker after speaker, they stood and passionately argued for worrying about the issue of the climate, worrying about climate change. And that’s before the forest fires that happened two years in a row in B.C. That’s before the flooding that was going on. That’s before the absolute devastation that’s there now in Mozambique, where vast swaths of land have been turning into a lake, flooding towns and villages.

Before all of that, they were passionate about this. But then they came into government, and the thrill of having the decision-making power and the potential challenge of doing something Christy Clark couldn’t. Well, that just was too much. So here we are, before us, debating a bill, a bill that we need more time to look at, the six months more, which is why this amendment is so critical. We’re debating this, and we’re basically saying: how low can we go? How desperate are we in British Columbia? How desperate are we in British Columbia to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t?

You know, internationally we know that Canada’s natural gas reserves pale in comparison to those of, say, Iraq, Qatar and Russia. They’re smaller than the U.S. We’ve got active production in Australia. The world is a glut with natural gas, because, despite what the B.C. NDP and, before them, the B.C. Liberals might want you to believe, we’re not the only ones with shale formations, and we’re certainly not the only ones with access to horizontal fracking technology.

However, unlike many, our shale reserves are very, very deep, so we have to go deep down. We’re actually a little more expensive to get down there. We, fortunately, have some wet wells in the Montney region. The Horn River Basin, completely shut down now, as far as I can tell, because of the dry basin. So we’re struggling in a very competitive world.

What we should be doing, and why we need this six months to actually reflect upon this very important motion, this hoist motion brought forward by my colleague, is we need to be able to understand the ramifications of this and the implications of this bill on the climate plan that is embodied in CleanBC. We will not do that without this additional time.

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

---

Text of Speech in Support of

Amendment to send Bill 10 to Committee

---

A. Weaver: I rise to speak in support of the amendment brought forward by my colleague from Cowichan Valley — the amendment to send Bill 10 to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for further review and deliberations.

Let me see if I can articulate in the words of the Minister of Agriculture exactly why this is important to do so. The Minister of Agriculture, back in April 6, 2016, said this — and this was in reference to the B.C. Liberals at the time — “They’re creating reckless legislation, which, in my mind, as someone who has always been an environmentalist, is absolutely reckless, irresponsible and disappointing. They’re creating this reckless legislation. They’re sweetening the deal as much as they possibly can, treating LNG like a loss-leader in a department store.”

Oh, how those words ring so very true right now. Those words ring so very true, but, no, it is not with reference to the B.C. Liberals. It is with reference to this government of which the Minister of Agriculture is a member.

We go to others who have spoken forth. We go to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, who has come up with some remarkable zingers while she was in opposition. It’s just utterly ridiculous and irresponsible and reprehensible to sell out British Columbians for the next 25 years, not just for this industry but potentially others as well, she says.

“People in my part of the world” — that would be Nelson — “view the environment and long-term environmental sustainable planning as one of the top priorities that any government should be considering.” That is not reflected in Bill 30 at the time. What is reflected, rather, is a desperate, desperate grasp at any deal put in front of them because promises were made in an election.

Now, as I articulated yesterday, in further deliberations at second reading, and in support of both my reasoned amendment and my colleague’s, from Saanich North and the Islands, attempted amendment — unsuccessful one — to hoist this, what is before us now is an amendment to send this to committee.

To send this to committee is important for a couple of reasons. We’ve heard a lot about the so-called benefits of LNG. We’ve heard about $23 billion of investment, and we’ve been told “trust us. We know that’s true. But we’re not going to share that publicly, because we’ve signed an agreement with a company.”

The government is not willing to put before this Legislature the detailed agreement that we are supposed to be supporting. We know that by going to committee, and only if this were to be sent to committee, would we be able to reflect and further quiz, as a Legislature, government and proponents about the details of the plan. It’s an eminently reasonable suggestion. We’ve waited for so long, yet now we’re being rushed, in two days, to try to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. In essence, that’s the stick.

Here’s what happened. After the last election, I’m sure LNG Canada was a little antsy because the Liberals left, and they were the champions of LNG. Unicorns, tooth fairies all in your backyard, Maseratis for each and all of us, a $100 billion prosperity fund. That was the Liberal dream. When that election happened, LNG Canada was probably a little hurting.

Here’s what I’m pretty certain happened. A bunch of executives walked into the newly formed NDP government office and said this: “We’re going to leave unless you do this, this, this — that and this and this.” And the NDP government’s response was: “Okay, let’s just do it. Let’s not reflect upon what the numbers are that you’re suggesting. We’ll believe at face value.”

So here now we have before us a motion to send this to committee to allow, for the first time, this Legislature to probe the proponent, to probe government as to the numbers and the rhetoric that’s thrown out there, to probe to see to what extent those numbers are actually grounded in evidence.

To the credit of the B.C. Liberals, we actually had that opportunity with the Petronas agreement. As I recalled yesterday, time after time, MLA after MLA hurled abuse and vitriol at the B.C. Liberals. These were NDP MLAs doing that, because they didn’t like what they saw in the Petronas agreement. Yet here before us, the B.C. NDP take that corporate welfare, take that to a whole new level.

The blog post that I’ll be writing later today describes it as this: this is corporate welfare on steroids — on steroids. We’ve already given $6 billion in deep-well royalty credits to the natural gas producers. We already know that this is an industry for which there’s a glut of natural gas globally, where Iran has 20 times all of Canada’s supply, where Russia has 20 times all of Canada’s supply, where Australia already has LNG fields that are not being developed because the market is not there for them. We know that the U.S. has three times the shale gas of Canada alone. We know that Louisiana already has clean compression, electric compressions.

We know that this government doesn’t really like that, because they want to refer to LNG Canada as the cleanest in the world and exempt them from the carbon tax — exempt them from the carbon tax increases above $30. Because they’ll redefine what “clean” is and forget about the fact that there are electric compressions elsewhere.

But most importantly, what this committee needs to reflect upon is not just the so-called benefits but the actual costs. What is the cost to the decertification of southern Europe? What is the cost of 80 percent of species on this planet being committed to extinction by the end of this century?

These are the questions that MLAs in government need to look at and ask themselves. They can put their faces in their paper. They can stay away from the chamber. We don’t even have quorum here on the government side in the chamber because they’re afraid to hear the truth. We have quorum in total; we don’t have it on the government’s side in terms of the number of people. We do have quorum. I’m not calling quorum, hon. Speaker. It’s there.

But frankly, we don’t have the government MLAs here that are supposed to deliver us the quorum because they’re afraid to actually have to have to listen to the cold, hard truth about what they’re going to support.

Eighty percent species extinction this century globally because of global warming. Commitment to a six-metre sea level rise because of global warming. Vector-borne diseases moving northward because of global warming. Forest fires like we’ve never seen before because of global warming. Drought, famine because of global warming. Frankly, the end of western civilization because of global warming.

Yet here in this chamber, we think it’s a balancing act. We need a couple jobs, a hundred jobs, and we need to subsidize a multinational fossil fuel company that has no interest in British Columbia but is interested in filling the coffers of the shareholders in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, perhaps in the Netherlands. Yet this is being done for the goodness of the people of British Columbia.

Nobody talks about the cost. Nobody is talking about the cost. And let us be very clear: this is what B.C. NDP MLAs will be voting for today. They will be voting for putting this province on the pathway to join the biggest subsidizers of the fossil fuel industry in the world and to put us on a path to become from climate leaders to climate laggers — a very serious accusation, hon. Speaker.

But you do not tell British Columbians that you must cut your emissions by 98 percent by 2050. Every British Columbian must cut their emissions by 98 percent by 2050 to meet our target. “But, LNG Canada, you’re good, because we are going to let you add four megatonnes.” And then they’re going to add another two trains later this decade. This is what we’re doing.

All of the good hard work of every British Columbian in this province is for naught. It’s for naught because this government…. These NDP MLAs stood in the last election and had the gall — yes, the gall — to look British Columbians in the face and say: “We are environmentalists. We care about your future. We care about the climate. We care about the children’s future.”

Yes, I am invoking the children’s future because that is the very reason why I got into this building in the first place. I could not stand by in 2013 after witnessing the now Finance Minister, who was former leader of this party, run the Axe the Tax campaign in 2009, a cynical, cynical campaign to undermine efforts to move us forward to cut emissions. I could not stand by and watch what happened in 2013.

It was tough running as a B.C. Green. It was tough, because the NDP sent in their hundreds of union workers to door-knock in Oak Bay because they didn’t want a beachhead. They switched the famous weathervane switch on Kinder Morgan because they were about environmental support. They’re going around meeting with environmental groups, saying: “We’re here for you.” But when actual legislation is before us, the true colours of the B.C. NDP are revealed.

They are not interested in the well-being of future generations. They are interested in the well-being of their friends, their union workers and, frankly, their re-election.

So I say to the NDP MLAs who vote for this, shame on you, and don’t you, for one second, ever come to me and say you are supporting climate change action in this province, because this vote today — this singular vote today — will undermine all of the good efforts contained in CleanBC. We will add four megatonnes of emissions, the single biggest point source of emissions in Canadian history, to British Columbia’s emissions trajectory. We will add a 15 percent increase in emissions because of a four-train LNG facility. And don’t get me wrong — the pretense and the half-truths being told to the B.C. public about this being only a two-train facility is nothing more than idle rhetoric, because we know that the environmental assessment process has already approved four trains for LNG Canada, and that’s eight megatonnes of emissions.

So any NDP MLA who stands up and votes for this…. There will be a day of reckoning, not only by the electorate but also by history. Historical books will be written, and this time will feature big and large in the history books, this time in British Columbia where we had a choice to make. We have two paths and two roads. One road is the road that we’ve tried so very hard to get the NDP to get behind, and they have in some sense — the road to recognize that innovation in the 21st century is the foundation of a vibrant, resilient, strong economy for that 21st century. That is where our strength is at.

We build on our strategic strengths. We don’t chase the weaknesses of others. And it is only through sending this to committee that we will be able to explore this in further detail, which is why this amendment must be supported by the B.C. NDP and, hopefully, some B.C. Liberal members, because I know there’s discomfort over there as well.

We’re not asking much here. My colleague from Cowichan Valley is simply asking that we as legislators do our due diligence. We have a duty and responsibility to future generations to ensure that we reflect upon the true costs of what’s coming before us. Not just the idle rhetoric that is untested with no foundations and no evidence that somehow this is $23 billion. Not because the Premier gets to stand up and say: “I got to do what Christy Clark couldn’t.” Those are not reasons.

History will not be kind to this government. This government will be short-lived, and history will judge it accordingly. They’ll judge it as betraying an entire generation.

What we saw today in question period is really a microcosm of the bigger issue. We saw in question period haggling back and forth across the aisle. “We didn’t do ride-hailing. You didn’t do ride-hailing. You’re bad. We’re bad. Oh, make fun of you. You make fun of us.” The reality is that none of the people in this place did anything about ride-hailing. It’s only because of the B.C. Green caucus that we got to where we are and the countless hours we put in to drive this government to insist upon the standing committee’s meetings, to insist upon bringing in regulations that will allow ride-hailing, to insist upon the introduction of an amendment that my colleague brought forward in the fall. If that amendment had not passed, we wouldn’t even be here talking, because we know that both major ride-hailing companies would have walked if it were not for that amendment passing.

We continue to work hard with this government to try to advance good public policy, but here we throw up our hands. We throw up our hands in disbelief at the cognitive dissonance embodied by the NDP right now as they stand up and claim to be there for the environment. They claim and have the gall to talk about the future generations. To see NDP MLAs clamouring over each other to get stuck in a photo shot with the young children demonstrating here on the steps…. It’s enough to make you want to throw up. It honestly is, because it is sickening to the core with the hypocrisy of the B.C. NDP MLAs standing with those children pleading for decision-makers, pleading for them to look out for their interests, because we have a global movement of youth calling upon our leaders to stand up and actually put their interests in the decision-making, because they’re not here to be able to vote. They’re not part of our decision-making process. Yet they live the consequences of the decisions we make.

None of us in this room — not a single one of us in this room — will have to live the consequence of the decision we’re making today. That consequence will manifest itself on the future generations, and God help them with the world we are leaving behind because of our irresponsible and utterly reckless approach to energy policy.

I had hope in this government. I had a hope, when I saw CleanBC, that this government actually got it. But what I see now is that they are no different. I would pull out a coin and flip it, but that could be considered a prop. What I would say by that is that we have one coin in this whole House. We have one coin with two sides, and they’re exactly the same on both sides.

Ironically, the B.C. NDP take the Liberal giveaway to a whole new level. I might add some additional colour to that and suggest that we have a fiscally irresponsible version of the same LNG cheerleaders over here, because they’ve taken the level of corporate welfare to a whole new level.

That, again, coming back to this motion, is precisely why it is so critical that we send this bill to committee — to ensure that the Legislature, all of us, can actually reflect upon the decision we’re making. Has there ever once in the history of this Legislature been an expert climate scientist pulled in front of a committee and told: “Tell us. What are the ramifications of our decision on future generations?” I safely say no. How many times have you pulled in an economist and said: “How much will our GDP change three years from now?” I’d say a lot.

How often, in decision-making that happens here, do we think about: “Will I get re-elected because of this?” An awful lot. In fact, I would feel it’s fairly safe to say that most people in this place, sadly, are more interested in their re-election than they are in actually putting in place good public policy that will ensure that future generations inherit the quality of environment that we were blessed to inherit from our forefathers.

Here today we are at this pivotal moment. It’s a moment that I ask each and every MLA to reflect upon, as my colleague from Cowichan Valley so beautifully articulated. Why are we here? What is a Westminster parliamentary democracy? What is our role as MLAs? It is to dutifully stand like sheep because our Whip tells us we must vote this way? I’ve sat here for six years now, and probably seen people vote against the party two times. Three times, maybe. One of them was when my colleagues and I shared a difference of opinion on a vote. No other time.

Why do we elect 41 NDP MLAs? Why bother? We should only elect three of them. They all say the same thing. They all do the same thing. They all stand like sheep and sing out…. I mean, we don’t see any kind of negative rhetoric coming about this bill, even though, again, I could go on with my 20 pages of quotes here. I could read more quotes, but I’m not going to because we’ve got the point. The point is hypocrisy like we’ve never seen before.

This government should be ashamed of itself. Those NDP MLAs who vote for this should be ashamed of themselves.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: The member opposite says I should be heckled. No, I think that that’s unfair. This is a very, very serious point that is being raised. I’m appealing to you, as well. Why are you not standing up? Why are you, the member for Delta North, why are you not thinking…? You’re a farmer.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, no

A. Weaver: Through the Chair. Thank you. I understand.

Why are we not having the agriculture community…? The Minister of Agriculture, of all people — I’ve already read a quote — who would stand up and argue in an election campaign that: “No, no, no. You’ve got to vote NDP, because we’re there for the environment.” The Minister of Transportation, same thing.

I don’t know how many times on the campaign trail I had to listen to the vote-split narrative. “Oh, I’d love to vote Green, but I’m voting NDP. You know what? They’re good for the environment too.” Well, today is that day of reckoning. Show us. Show us what you your real, true colours are. Are your true colours that you are a progressive party, one that that cares about the future generations? Or, really, are you no different from the B.C. Liberals, just the other side of the same coin? How do you want to be remembered?

I’ll leave it with this: how do you want to be remembered in history? Do you want history books to pick up and turn the page and see the NDP member from this jurisdiction or that…? I know in which jurisdictions you’re feeling it from your constituents, because I’m getting copies of every single email going out. I know there are some MLAs who are hearing it from their constituencies. And I know that those same MLAs, if they actually voted their conscience, would stand up and support their constituents and vote with this motion to send it to standing committee, because we know that that’s what their constituents want.

Not all. I suspect the member for Peace River North is on pretty safe ground. There seems to be cognitive dissonance out there in terms of the fact that we’re talking about forest fires. We’re talking about the caribou preservation. And we’re not putting the dots together.

Why do you think we’re having forest fires, for goodness’ sake?

In 2004, I wrote a paper with Nathan Gillett and Mike Flannigan. It was the first time we were able to detect that forest fires were already increasing because of global warming. We knew that in 2004, for heaven’s sake — 14 years ago. What’s the government’s response? “Oh, we need more money to fight fires.” No, you’ve got the wrong response. What you should be doing is recognizing that climate change is a very, very real threat.

Fighting fires is no good. You must prevent fires in the first place. But we don’t think that way in this place. We’re too narrowly focused on re-election, short-term decisions, and we’re too narrowly focused on: what’s in it for me, and how do I get a quick win? Nobody, other than these three here, is thinking about the long-term consequences of decisions here on future generations. That is a shame.

With that, I hope NDP MLAs and Liberal MLAs do some soul-searching here as they think about this amendment and ask whether it is really that big a deal to send this to committee, to allow the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to actually reflect upon it. Call in some expert testimony. Make a recommendation as to whether or not this is actually, in the triple-bottom-line sense, good for British Columbians, because I suggest to you that it’s not.

I suggest to you that it’s hard to have a vibrant economy on a dead planet. I would suggest to you that we are putting ourselves right on that pathway, and rather than recognizing the opportunity, we are doing the very best we can to put us on this pathway to extinction. Is that what we want here?

I know it’s a big reach from one LNG facility to extinction. I recognize that. But what is important is to recognize that Canada is a signatory to the Paris Accord. The Paris Accord says that the global leaders, of which Canada is a signatory — our Minister of Environment was very proud to fly off to Paris and have photo ops — are going to take steps to commit warming to substantially below 2 degrees. Forget 1½ degrees. That’s long toast. But substantially below 2 degrees.

What does that mean, as I said yesterday? The direct translation of that policy statement is that there can be no new investment in fossil fuel infrastructures effective immediately, because you don’t build a two-to-four train LNG facility to tear it down in five years. We have a legislated target of 80 percent greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, and we want to add four megatonnes, which will go to eight when you get four trains, by 2030.

That’s a 15 percent increase on all B.C. emissions, yet we have a legislated target to take us to 80 percent reductions. That means every British Columbian must reduce their emissions 98 percent. I’m pretty close to zero emissions as it is. But I challenge you to find every other person in the province to go to 98 percent emissions. It’s going be tough, and we’re making it tougher.

Let us look upon this upcoming vote. Let us look upon this upcoming vote, and let’s think about this with somber reflection. A vote to not send this to committee is nothing short of a betrayal of future generations, nothing short of a betrayal to the voters of British Columbia and nothing short of a betrayal to the fiscal well-being of this province as we put another corporate subsidy on steroids to a fading fossil fuel industry that would not otherwise go on here in British Columbia, while at the same time, and this is what is so sad about it, missing out on those incredible opportunities for innovation in the north — incredible opportunities that we could have.

I don’t know how many times we’ve brought forward ideas for the north. Thank goodness we’re actually getting broadband redundancy in Prince George now. We waited for the B.C. Liberals to do that for years. We’re finally getting investment in broadband redundancy. We should be getting the tech sector together with the resource sector. We should be building on our forest sector. We shouldn’t be giving away our resources. We should thinking about all of this through the lens of climate change adaptation and mitigation, because that is the defining issue of our time, that many of you will be judged, and you will be judged negatively.

With that, I ask and I plead with the members of this house. Vote in support of this amendment. You’re only sending it to committee for further deliberation. Thank you for your time.

On Monday Bill 11: Civil Forfeiture Amendment Act, 2019 was up for debate at second reading.  This bill amends the Civil Forfeiture Act brought in by the BC Liberals in 2005. It further targets the proceeds of crime by enhancing the civil forfeiture office’s ability to seize property and assets, and the rationale for doing this is so that the criminal assets can be seized before they can be actually liquidated or transferred out of province.

Below I reproduce the text and video of my cautiously supportive comments on this bill. As I point out, it’s ironic that the BC NDP, while in opposition, expressed significant concern regarding the powers granted to the Civil Forfeiture Office under the existing legislation. Yet now, the BC NDP propose a substantive increase these very same powers.

As I was the last speaker on Monday, March 25 before the house rose, my speech will be broken into two parts. I updated this post on April 3 with the remainder of my second reading speech.

---

Videos of Speech

---

 

March 25	April 3

---

Text of March 25 Speech

---

A. Weaver: Thank you, hon. Speaker, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to rise to speak to Bill 11, Civil Forfeiture Amendment Act, 2019.

This bill aims to target the proceeds of crime by enhancing the civil forfeiture office’s ability to seize property and assets, and the rationale, of course, for doing this is so that the criminal assets can be seized before they can be actually liquidated or transferred out of province.

This bill is, I would suggest, somewhat controversial. The idea here is that some of the time taken to actually move forward with other civil forfeiture applications meant that some criminals were able to liquidate their assets or move them out of province before they were targeted.

The bill allows the civil forfeiture office to make preliminary orders to preserve the value of property or proceeds linked to unlawful activity; i.e., it’s intended to freeze accounts from being transferred or sold before a court proceeding starts, to ensure that the source of any claim actually remains in place before court proceedings have concluded.

Second, this bill also shifts the onus to the defendant to prove that an asset is not an instrument or proceed of unlawful activity. Herein lies some of the controversy. For example, vehicles with a hidden compartment, say a drug hatch, or large amounts of cash near a prescribed substance, say opioids, are now considered proof of unlawful activity.

The civil forfeiture office would still have to provide the court with sufficient evidence to link the asset or proceeds to crime. However, the fact that the burden of proof is now moving to the defendant suggests some concerns from my part, as well as other NGOs and third-party organizations — in particular, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which we’ll come to shortly.

Third, the bill allows the civil forfeiture office to apply for a court order to compel financial institutions to give limited financial information of a suspect, e.g., a suspect’s bank account number.

The first part of the bill is the most controversial of all of these — the second and third parts to a lesser extent.

My notes have this initially being brought in in 2005. It may have actually received royal assent in 2006. The bill was not actually new. It followed other examples that were built and put in place in places like the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia. In fact, British Columbia in 2005 was the fifth province, following Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, to bring in a civil forfeiture office.

You know, the idea was a way for the province to combat organized crime, separate from the criminal law, by using civil law processes to go after property or assets that were purchased as a result of unlawful activity. It was a way to increase the province’s jurisdiction into preventing crime. Civil law, crime prevention and public safety all fall within the provincial jurisdiction. Under the Civil Forfeiture Act, cash or property acquired from an unlawful activity was now subject to forfeiture by a civil court order.

Now, here lies the problem. If we go back in time, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association saw the use of the civil forfeiture proceedings as an abusive legislation that circumvented due process. To quote the now Attorney General — he said this back in, I believe, 2011: “It’s very concerning that they would pursue forfeiture in a situation where they were unable to get a criminal conviction.”

He further said: “It means that even if you win your criminal trial now, you are still not out of the woods. To defend yourself on a civil forfeiture application can cost thousands of dollars.” He further said, and I believe these words are very salient: “Civil forfeiture was sold to the public as going after gang members. But we are increasingly seeing it go down a slippery slope where it is being used for everything from speeding offences to situations where people haven’t been convicted of any crime at all.”

Those are the sage words of our now Attorney General back in 2011, when he was representing the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. The key words in that were the following: “Civil forfeiture was sold to the public as going after gang members.” That is precisely the way it is being sold now as well. So let us hope that, indeed, it is used wisely to do just that, rather than becoming a means and ways to generate revenue through somewhat un-tempered application in all sorts of odd conditions.

In 2014, the Globe and Mail published a lengthy report raising questions about the fairness, public interest and transparency of B.C.’s civil forfeiture law. At the time, media reports highlighted problems where innocent people or people with minor criminal activities — speeding offences, for example — got caught up in what appeared to, at times, be an overzealous civil forfeiture office. This is what was being referred to by the B.C.’s Civil Liberties Association.

At this time, the B.C. NDP opposition started to call for a review of the civil forfeiture office. Now, in fact, they have the power do so. But they have chosen not to do so and, instead, brought forward legislation in the absence of such a formal review.

Here are some quotes from former B.C. NDP MLAs while serving in opposition. This is Kathy Corrigan, who’s no longer with us — served until the last election. In 2014, she said the following: “I think the government has to answer some serious questions about….”

She’s still with us, but no longer with us in this chamber here today. This is what she had to say. “I think the government has to answer some serious questions about the scope of the office.” She referred to the office as a “cash cow” and said: “assigning a budget target it must meet creates a real danger that cases that don’t meet a high standard will be accepted.”

In February of 2014, Robin Austin, the former member from Skeena area, said this. “I think what we’re concerned about in some instances where people are not charged and convicted…. We’re concerned there’s not enough transparency and oversight.”

Wally Oppal in 2014 — the province’s former Attorney General — agreed and suggested that a review of the existing 2005-06 civil forfeiture law was warranted. At the time — we’re now in 2014 — both the official opposition as well as Mr. Oppal, the province’s former Attorney General, are agreeing that a review was necessary, as was also articulated by the official opposition critic who suggested that it had been some time since this bill has had some check over from its initial implementation.

In 2016, a B.C. judge ruled that the civil forfeiture office could not seize assets unless they are tied to unlawful activity. Previously, the office had been targeting assets purchased with legitimate income if the suspect had engaged in unlawful activity.

That ruling was pretty important — again, would have suggested that we might have had a reflection upon and a review of what was done prior to introducing this new legislation. This was seen at the time as precedent-setting on what the civil forfeiture office could go after. And as I’ve said, there have been no reviews of if the civil forfeiture office is doing its job and if it’s doing so in a manner consistent with its mandate.

I’m quite surprised, in light of the fact that the present government has done so many reviews. In fact, it seems like every time you open the newspaper, the NDP have issued another two or three reviews of something. Yet here we have a piece of legislation, which has been in place since 2006 — an important piece of legislation — where the NDP, when in opposition, as well as the former Attorney General, called specifically for a review. We’re getting legislation in the absence of said review.

You know, in 2019, we see that new changes are being enhanced in this, but also we’re seeing this legislation being brought in when money laundering is clearly a huge problem in our province. The civil forfeiture office is now actively targeting money-laundering suspects as we speak.

So here are some of the problems with the civil forfeiture legislation as it stands. It incentivizes oddities: 50 percent to 60 percent of the proceeds of the civil forfeiture office go towards the funding of the office. This creates an incentive. The more successful the civil forfeiture office is, the more money they get and the more money they have to spend on their operations and the more people they hire and the bigger bonuses they can get. The question I have there is: are there targets that the office should be meeting? Or what determines whether a case is brought forward or not?

Of the $87 million that’s been recovered since 2006, less than $2 million has actually been given to victims of crime, while $37½ million has gone to crime prevention initiatives — whatever they might be. The rest has gone to legal counsel and office operations.

The NDP, for many, many years, called the civil forfeiture office a cash cow, so I’m wondering how they’re viewing this differently now. Hopefully, during committee stage, we’ll get some insight into that. We’d like to look at changing the incentive structure in the future or at least doing a review to make sure that the incentive structure isn’t creating a situation of unfairness, of incentivizing the application of civil forfeiture to cases that may be not so clear-cut.

A second problem is there appears to be very little oversight in the civil forfeiture office. The checks and balances simply are not clear. It’s not clear that the civil forfeiture office is actually deterring crime. We’ve not taken the time to see if the office is meeting its goals or deterring illegal acts and compensating victims accordingly.

This is precisely why we would have expected government to initiate a review, to actually determine whether the civil forfeiture office is actually doing what it’s supposed to do — meeting targets it’s supposed to meet — and by what metrics is it being judged. We don’t have the benefit of that. We have legislation before us — somewhat controversial legislation — taking the civil forfeiture to a whole new level.

The Globe and Mail has recently raised the issue of civil forfeiture and innocent people being targeted by the offices across Canada and here in B.C. Here’s a couple of examples.

Example one: in 2012, a 74-year-old woman named Ellen New had the charges against her staid. The charge was for possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, but her home was ordered forfeited in 2013. Think about that. In 2012, her charges were staid, but her home was ordered forfeited in 2013. There’s a problem with the application there.

The second example was in 2007. Police showed up at David Lloydsmith’s house. They entered without a warrant, found a couple of pot plants, and despite no charges being laid, the civil forfeiture office sued to seize his home in 2011 — four years after the initial RCMP raid. In 2015, eight years after the initial raid, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that his rights were violated. Again, I can only imagine the undue hardship that poor Mr. Lloydsmith faced over years of uncertainty as the civil forfeiture office went after his home.

In example three, we have, in 2015…. Mumtaz Ladha sued the provincial civil forfeiture office and the RCMP for pushing a false narrative and relentlessly trying to take her home. In this case, the police allegedly ignored witness testimony problems and pushed a false narrative of Ms. Ladha being linked to human trafficking. The CFO — that’s the civil forfeiture office — then tried to take her multi-million-dollar home. The RCMP had since issued an apology, and the claim has been settled.

These examples are important because they demonstrate about the potential problematic nature of the application of the Civil Forfeiture Act. Many of these examples are but needles in a haystack.

The minister has said that some of these problems can be attributed to growing pains and that it’s important that civil forfeiture is used in the spirit it was intended, which is organized crime and gang crime. Again, I come right back to what I outlined early on in this brief speech. According to, in 2011, the now Attorney General, “civil forfeiture was sold to the public as going after gang members, but we increasingly see it go down a slippery slope where it’s being used for everything from speeding offences to situations where people haven’t been convicted of any crime.” I fear that perhaps, while the intentions may be good, we have no control, and there’s no oversight provided us here as to how we might see this forward.

I do note the time, and I move adjournment of the debate and reserve my right to continue the debate at the next sitting of the House that this debate occurs.

A. Weaver moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

---

Text of Remainder of Speech on April 3

---

A. Weaver: I rise to take my place and continue my second reading speech on Bill 11, Civil Forfeiture Amendment Act.

When I left off last week, I’d just completed articulating three specific examples wherein the application of civil forfeiture in the province of British Columbia had led to some issues that require some critical oversight as to how civil forfeiture operates. The first example I raised — just to bring some continuity to the speech — was with respect to a 74-year-old, Ellen New, who had the charges against her stayed. Those were charges for possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. But nevertheless, her home was ordered forfeited in 2013.

Another example of inadvertent consequences with respect to the application of civil forfeiture in British Columbia was the example of David Lloydsmith’s house. There, police showed up at his house and entered without a warrant. They found a couple of pot plants, and despite no charges being laid, the civil forfeiture office sued to seize his home in 2011, four years after the initial RCMP raid. In 2015, eight years after the initial raid, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the rights of Mr. Lloydsmith were, in fact, violated.

The third example I outlined was in the case of Mumtaz Ladha, who sued the provincial civil forfeiture office and the RCMP for pushing a false narrative and relentlessly trying to take her home. In this case, the police allegedly ignored the witness testimony problems and pushed a false narrative of Ms. Ladha being linked to human trafficking in British Columbia, so the civil forfeiture office then tried to take her multi-million-dollar home. The RCMP issued an apology, and the claim has been settled.

The reason why I outlined these three examples is to provide a cautionary tale as to the application of civil forfeiture in British Columbia. As it stands today, we have some of the strongest laws in the country, and before us, Bill 11 purports to bring forward even stronger laws. While much of this bill is not controversial, certainly aspects of it are, with respect to putting the onus of proof onto the defendant as well as some of the timeliness issues with respect to how fast civil forfeiture can move.

The examples were deeply problematic, because they showed that the scope of the civil forfeiture office is sometimes overreaching in its powers. We don’t know for sure, but I suspect that there are other examples than what we’re hearing about. It may be a needle in a haystack.

The minister has said that some of these problems can be attributed to growing pains and that it’s important that the civil forfeiture office is used in the spirit it was intended, which is organized crime and gang crime. You’ll get no argument from us here that it is important to ensure that civil forfeiture is used for the purposes that it was introduced for, in particular for organized crime and gang crime.

However, this bill does not seem to do anything to ensure that civil forfeiture is used for organized and gang crimes specifically and not applied in broader cases. In that case, I raise again the issue of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and the Canadian Constitution Foundation as well. They raised some concerns, I would suggest valid concerns, and the Attorney General, obviously, has spent some time working in the former organization and would recognize that he, too, raised similar concerns when he was there.

I bring these forward not in speaking in opposition against the bill but purely as a cautionary note. We already know we have one of the most aggressive forms of civil forfeiture in the country, and we’re proposing to make it stronger, with increasing powers. We also…. Again, I put that in the context of British Columbia. It has an outrageous money laundering problem, and frankly, we have not yet got to the bottom of it. So I bring these concerns, and I raise them mainly as a cautionary note.

The B.C. Green caucus is supportive of the province taking measures to go after those responsible for money laundering and organized crime. But we need, at the same time, to ensure that innocent British Columbians are not also targeted. We’d recommend that the Auditor General review how the office is operating and if it is achieving its objectives, particularly in light of these increased powers.

I articulated in the previous speech last week a number of calls for review by members in government caucus, as well as external agencies, as to how civil forfeiture is operating, and I would hope we’d have an ongoing assessment as to the effectiveness of that office, not with any punitive goal in mind but more to ensure that it’s targeting that which should be targeted, which is organized crime and gang activities.

As I’ve said, we have a couple of concerns in the bill. We look forward to hearing government’s explanations. The most notable will be section 14, where the burden of proof changes. In section 14, if a suspect has an after-market compartment in their vehicle, for example, certain equipment or cash over $10,000, this is now considered to be proof of being an instrument or a proceed of illegal activity.

Heaven forbid that you be a type of person who likes to buy things in cash, and there frankly are people who do that — people from my father’s, my mother’s, my in-law’s generation, where cash is king. The notion of paying with cash is king. It would not be uncommon with some people who hold that belief to actually pay for things in cash, and having $10,000 is not all that much these days, in cash. Certainly, in many cases, it would not be indicative of it being proof that a crime has been committed and this is an instrument of crime. So we express some caution there.

While I personally have never carried around $10,000, I do know people who have carried around $10,000, specifically to pay for cars, where they paid cash for cars, and the car was over $10,000. You might have ask the question: “Why are you paying cash?” That’s a legitimate question to ask, but it does happen, and certainly it was not money that comes from the proceeds of crime.

Not only does the burden of proof change…. In what was already a regime that simply needed the balance of probability, it also means that the defendant might have to implicate themselves to produce evidence to counter the evidence of the civil forfeiture office. For example, an after-market compartment in a vehicle — that’s like a hidden compartment in a vehicle — might have nothing to do with trafficking drugs. You might have bought a car from somebody who had the compartment. You may not be aware of it. You probably are, but you may not. You may just ignore it — whatever.

But the reality is that can now be considered as proof of illicit activities, and it’s not clear that, in fact, the burden should have to go onto the owner of the vehicle to prove that the existence of that after-market compartment is proof of illicit activity.

Maybe, for example, there’s somebody who lives in their car. We know this is more and more common. We have students living in their cars. We have senior citizens living in their cars. Maybe, in their cars, they might want to have a space where they protect their valuables, a locked or secret compartment where they put their credit cards, their birth certificate, their driver’s licence, maybe some other valuable goods, some jewelry.

That might be out of necessity. That’s certainly not evidence that the car or anything in the car has been acquired as an instrument or proceed of illegal activity. So I would suggest that we must be cautious in putting the onus of proof on the individual as opposed to the actual accuser. It’s potentially problematic. We look forward…. I’m sure members opposite will also be exploring this further at committee stage. I would suggest that that is probably the most controversial aspect of this bill.

Of course, there’s also the regulation-making authority. Quite a number of items in this bill…. As is common in all bills that government brings forward, a lot of what will be done is left up to regulation. One, for example, is the ability to prescribe what would be considered a piece of equipment relating to trafficking. What does that mean? Who’s going to make the determination? Cabinet, based on advice, I suppose. I would have thought that we would have thought this through a little more before bringing it to the floor. Nevertheless, this bill, we believe, is something that is worthy of support, and we look forward to exploring this at committee stage.

To summarize my remarks on this…. Clearly, as you will know from question period, we have been raising this issue. We are profoundly troubled about what’s been going on and the issue of money laundering. We are now labelled a nation of money laundering by U.S. officials. This is not a terribly flattering label to be given. Our caucus is profoundly troubled by this, so we are supportive of the inclusion and addition of more tools to prosecute criminals in British Columbia. We hope that this bill is used accordingly.

While no one should benefit from the proceeds of crime, it’s also important that we are vigilant in protecting the rights of Canadians and the freedoms of Canadians as well. In particular, we must be very wary of the potential abuse of power that this legislation instills upon the civil forfeiture office. You know, they’ve sought to obtain property from innocent British Columbians in the past. We need to ensure that this does not happen moving forward and that British Columbians are protected in the case that inappropriate civil forfeiture attempts are moved forward.

Our caucus has heard from civil rights organizations. We’ve heard from constituents about the concerns with regard to the issues that are raised here in the legislation. The government, when they were in official opposition, also had similar and strong concerns about the civil forfeiture office. Ironically, one might say, we’re moving to increase its powers.

With that said, though, I suspect that the government — now moved from a position of opposition to a position of government — opened the books on the money laundering and realized just how serious this issue is. From the answers we’ve been getting from the Attorney General over the last couple of weeks, we are convinced that he’s taking this issue very seriously. We’re convinced that he finds this to be a very troubling issue and that he’s hoping to ensure that more and more tools are brought forward to allow his office and the province of British Columbia to get to the bottom of what’s been going on in money laundering.

It is inappropriate. It is not right. It is something that British Columbians do not support — people using the proceeds of crime to build monster homes, leave that money there and have there be no accountability. So we recognize that, in fact, this bill does potentially give police and others more power to actually go after those who’ve committed criminal activities.

We’ve also heard, as I mentioned, from others about this legislation. We’ve recognized that there is some concern. But we are supportive. We’re going to look forward to exploring this in committee phase, and I look forward to the questions and continued debate from members opposite. We believe that, right as it stands, there is reasonable justification for the changes being made, but we hope to canvass this further at committee stage. I look forward to listening to the further speeches at second reading.