Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call continued second reading debate of Bill 28, Forest Amendment Act.

In the Douglas Fir Room, Section A, I called continued Committee of the Whole for Bill 23, Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 28 — FOREST AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

(continued)

L. Doerkson: I’ll try to start where I left off last evening. Where that was is I was trying to paint a picture. There was much conversation in the chamber yesterday about words used, like fearmongering and those types of things. I was trying to, I guess, share with all of the members of the House why people might be fearful. I’m certainly one of those people.

To paint a bit of a picture, within district boundaries of Williams Lake, we have six mills. Now, they’re varying types of mills, but we have six very large operations right within the city limits of Williams Lake. We have a mill in 100 Mile House that is a significant operation in what is obviously a very small community. We have the West Chilcotin Forest Products, which is also another very successful mill that provides a lot of employment west of Williams Lake. And we have many small mills throughout the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

Above that, we have many value-added, lumber-type operations where we have, of course, log home building. Some of the world’s largest log home builders are there in Cariboo-Chilcotin, along with timber frame construction as well. The fear that we’ve talked about, of course, is how Bill 28 — and, to be honest, other bills that have been introduced to this house — will affect those businesses and those people. To be honest, it’s unclear.

Part of what we started to discuss yesterday is the frustration of the timing of these bills. We’ve had all kinds of time here in this House to discuss these bills. Just moments ago, of course, closure has been imposed upon us. It’s not just myself that wanted to speak to Bill 28; there is certainly a number of people. Certainly, other members in this House have been speaking to Bill 28. But the idea that the debate on this bill is quickly coming to an end when so many British Columbians have wanted to come to this place to rally, to protest, to be heard on these bills…. The idea that that is now not going to happen is extremely frustrating to me and certainly other members of this place.

[1:50 p.m.]

Bill 28 allows the government to reduce timber harvesting rights of the existing tenure that is in place, and it allows it to redistribute those rights. The plan suggests that this will create new opportunities for new innovation and new companies. I would argue that new companies are certainly not going to be interested in investing millions of dollars when we are in a position in this House to strip companies that have invested for decades in our economy and our communities.

The idea that everybody is happy about this, in my mind, is false, and it’s very false. I have heard from very few people in my riding that are excited about these changes, and particularly, I want to speak about First Nations — First Nations that have worked extremely hard to build relationships with many of the large companies of this province.

Likewise, the companies have done a great job of reaching out to First Nations and building not only relationships but partnerships. Some of the largest companies in my riding are partnerships between First Nations and those logging companies. Those First Nations stand to lose tenure that they currently have through those partnerships. In my mind, that is wrong. It will hurt our region, and certainly rural B.C., in a very big way.

I touched on it. I can’t imagine, though, that people or businesses that are watching this happen, watching companies that have invested so much in our province, being stripped of that tenure…. I cannot imagine that that is going to be an incentive to look to invest in this province. The introduction of these deferrals and transfer of tenures is going to have a horrendous effect on the province. It’s not just me saying that. Many have spoken out against this. We’ve all heard in this House, over the last number of weeks, groups like COFI that have spoken about the loss of, potentially, 18,000 jobs, and potentially 14 to 20 mills.

The bill suggests that transfers will be transferred to First Nations, and I have given some thoughts on that, but again, I cannot…. I wish that somebody would explain this to me, because I have asked it outside the doors of this chamber — how that will encourage new business. First Nations are also concerned, along with mills and tenure holdings. They are extremely concerned about special purpose areas. These are defined in this act, but they’re not defined by size. They’re not defined by location.

The fear is that these special purpose areas, along with the potential of repatriating younger forests into what we’re referring to as old growth, is also a very serious concern. There is no clarity around that. That message, of course, around special purpose areas, needs to be clear before this bill can pass. People have to understand what they’re referring to in these special purpose areas.

Will those areas be decided by age? It appears, as I said, that we’re pulling younger stands of trees — i.e., 40 or 50 years old — into the old-growth category. For many of the logging operations, certainly in my riding…. I can’t speak for others, but many of the operations in my riding are logging in those trees as a regular course of business. This is where that is fearful. That’s where these businesses are fearful of losing that tenure, because in some of those areas, that 40- or 50-year-old growth is actually a second generation.

Of course, this is obviously what I and many refer to as a renewable resource. The concern is really around the age of those trees, the location of those trees and the size of those forests that might be protected under these special growth areas.

There is a question around stumpage. Do not get me wrong, in this House. I think we’ve even talked about it on both sides of this House — the possible encouragement of different levels of stumpage. We’ve talked about some of the ways that we could better manage our forests.

[1:55 p.m.]

I know that in my riding particularly, I have companies that would be glad to make better use of the piles of debris that we burn currently. Now, I know that we’re using some of that to make chips and different types of heating materials, which are exports out of this province. I know that we’re making use of it in some ways.

Oftentimes in my area, while we don’t, obviously, use the beehive burners of the past, we simply light them up in big piles and burn them. There are a number of companies that would make use of that as heating wood in areas, particularly, that don’t have access to natural gas or other forms of heat. So there are better things we could be doing.

Rather than hammering on these tenure transfers, we could be encouraging and incentivizing companies to do better and to do better with things like that that we describe, honestly, as waste. I can’t imagine that we should be using that word in any way. We should be making use of everything that we possibly can.

Up until now, I’ve talked mostly about mills and focused on larger forestry companies. I want to talk a little bit about the compensation. I know that it’s been discussed here, too, with respect to compensation that the mills may receive as tenure holders. But again, that hasn’t been clear. What also has not been clear is that there has been conversation about bridging to retirement. Now, I guess we can have all kinds of rhetoric around that, but the problem is that this is an extremely large hole to fill.

My fear is that when we talk about bridging to retirement and we refer to people who may have had the good fortune of working in one of these mills for 20 or 30 years, built a pension and have the ability to retire to that pension, well, this might have some success for those people. But for many people who perhaps haven’t worked in the industry for a long time, they’re simply going to be displaced. I mean, let’s face it. Whether they’re young or whether they’re my age, if they’re displaced now, it’s a long time to retirement, and without a pension, it’s going to be difficult for many.

What’s worse is the contractors who are caught in the crossfire of all of this that’s going on — the contractors who have millions of dollars of debt in machinery that costs an unbelievable amount to operate in this business. With what is, really, little notice to these tenure transfers and such, these contractors are caught in a really bad place. Even if they wanted to get rid of their equipment, I can’t imagine what the prices would be like, at auction, for these people who are stuck in the middle of this government bill.

What about the indirect employees? This is where…. I think my colleague across the way and I are going to talk about it in the future, and we’ve talked about it in the past. But what about the impact that this is going to have on all those people who are indirectly affected by bills like this? Because I know that normally we focus on that target, and I know that this is directed at a certain group of people. But what about the glass shop? What about the restaurants that make their living from the success of that forest industry and, also, could see their demise because of the damage we do to the forest industry?

So many of these businesses are already challenged in such difficult ways because of COVID, and with bills like this one, 28, I very much am concerned that it could have a very serious impact on small-town B.C. and rural British Columbia. I’m going to get to the city in a minute, but certainly it’s a scary thing for those folks.

With respect to the city, 40 percent of the jobs are in the Lower Mainland. How will these tenure transfers affect those jobs and, again, all the spinoff jobs? I’m very concerned that we are focused on 18,000 jobs and that that number could very much grow much bigger.

[2:00 p.m.]

Oftentimes, I think, when people think of logging or these types of operations, they obviously refer to rural British Columbia. Let me just point out a few companies that do business in the Lower Mainland: Andersen Pacific Forest Products, Maple Ridge; Cedarland Forest Products, Maple Ridge; Fraserview Cedar Products, Surrey; Agassiz; Surrey Cedar Ltd., Langley; the Waldun Group, Maple Ridge; Watkins Sawmills, Mission; Surrey; Surrey; Richmond; Haida Forest Products in Burnaby; Jasco Forest Products in Abbotsford; Chilliwack, Abbotsford; Pacific Western Wood Works in Delta; Terminal Forest Products in Richmond.

The list goes on and on and on. There’s an unbelievable impact to the Lower Mainland as well. I don’t know how funding, bridging, transfers…. I don’t know how any of that is going to play out for the folks in the Lower Mainland, in the city.

People are not pleased about these bills in my riding. They’ve expressed their concerns. I mentioned yesterday, while we were sitting here debating this very bill, I had received an email. Well, this morning I’ve received a number more. Today we heard from a constituent of mine in question period. People are upset. People are upset because they’re filling in blanks in places…. They don’t know what is about to happen to their business.

I’ve also asked in this House about the socioeconomic studies that have been debated and talked about in this House. They’ve not been presented to me. These are serious decisions, and if we haven’t done those studies, for heaven’s sake, we must do them before we make this into law.

Again, I want to say that uncertainty is not going to encourage investment in this province. Taking tenure away from companies that have invested in this province for decades is going to send a very, very bad message to people that are looking to invest in this forest industry in British Columbia.

I know that our forests are renewable. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I have seen habitat that has been created by logging. I have seen forests that have actually been improved by logging. I’ve seen blowdown. I’ve seen beetle wood. I’ve seen firewood been cleaned out of the forest. I’ve seen the forest disregarded so badly that animals could not manoeuvre through the forest because of blowdown and because of those types of items.

If you want to encourage ingenuity in this province…. We need to encourage new practices, better ways of doing things, but not by just stripping companies of what they currently have.

It’s not just me that has talked about this. I want to read out a couple of quotes. I’ll try to read some that haven’t been necessarily heard here before. The B.C. Council of Forest Industries says: “Small, medium, large, family-owned and Indigenous-owned forestry companies, contractors, suppliers and workers are extremely concerned that the province is moving in this direction.”

B.C. Council of Forest Industries again: “Our strong hope is that the province will commit to a fact-based, balanced and inclusive approach, including meaningful engagement with Indigenous nations, forest professionals and other local experts, before proceeding with decisions that could irreparably harm workers, companies and communities across this province.”

One that is very interesting to me is the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. “While there are many forestry-dependent communities across B.C., the sector is also a major employer in urban areas, including greater Vancouver. It is estimated that close to half the employees in the forest industry work in Metro Vancouver.”

[2:05 p.m.]

This is a very serious bill that is before us. It is serious because it’s compounding on another bill that is also before this House. As I said before, it’s frustrating that we are not going to debate, or not be able to debate in its entirety, this bill.

People want their voices heard on Bill 28. For certain, they wanted it. That’s why they planned a protest on this front lawn. I hope that those people are able to come and be heard this week.

Interior Logging Association says: “Without proper representation of all parties, a real solution that is best for all British Columbians will not be realized. The loss of any job is unacceptable, and without proper socioeconomic study to fully understand the effects of such a drastic shift in forest policy, the B.C. government will be making policy decisions that are not balanced or fair to British Columbians.”

I guess, for me, that’s where I would wrap up. If the government does have a socioeconomic study, I would love to see it. I think that it’s owed to the people of British Columbia, particularly the people and the communities that are going to be most hard hit by this bill and others.

To be honest, I can’t believe, again, that this late in the Legislature of this session…. I cannot believe that we are having this debate with two days left to go, when so many people want to be heard.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to Bill 28 today. I hope that we will see that socioeconomic study. In the worst way, I hope we’ll see it.

T. Stone: It gives me, I usually say, pleasure to stand and speak to legislation in this House. It’s just a nice way to begin, I think, one’s remarks on a piece of legislation. I won’t use the word “pleasure.” I won’t say it’s my pleasure to stand and speak on Bill 28 today. I am going to speak to it.

Frankly, it is nothing short of outrageous that we’re sitting here on Tuesday, November 23, and this Legislature is being asked to accelerate our consideration, our scrutiny, of Bill 28. And if we don’t complete all of the different stages, the required stages, of analyzing this bill — second reading, which we’re in at the moment, and committee stage, which would follow this — the government will be invoking closure time allocation and requiring Bill 28 to essentially be deemed to be scrutinized and analyzed and reviewed and discussed and debated in this House no later than 5 p.m. this Thursday, November 25.

Now, I will get into the actual content of the bill, from a second reading perspective, and some observations and concerns. But how is it possible that with a six-week session and a legislative calendar, which this government is responsible for…? How is it possible that we spent the first two to three weeks of this legislative session being asked to essentially fill time to debate a range of miscellaneous statutes amendment acts?

The government waits until it is about more than halfway through the legislative session to decide to bring in some pretty hefty pieces of legislation. I would count Bill 22, the freedom of information amendment act, in that category as well.

[2:10 p.m.]

Bill 28, which I’m speaking about here now…. These are fundamental changes to our forest sector. This bill, along with Bill 23, provides for a significant overhaul, not all good, that requires scrutiny of this place, requires every member in this House that wants to stand up and articulate the concerns of their constituents to be able to do so, but to be able to do so in a reasonable period of time.

We are literally being asked to take a 74-section bill here, the Forest Amendment Act, Bill 28…. We’re not anywhere close to committee stage on this bill. We’re in second reading, on a Tuesday, two days before this entire bill is supposed to be scrutinized and approved by this Legislature. How is there any definition other than outrageous for that?

What do we say to our constituents back in Williams Lake? What do we say to our constituents in Chetwynd? What do we say to our constituents in Quesnel or my constituency of Kamloops? What do we say up the North Thompson Valley? What do we say to all of those workers and families who are going to be impacted by the changes that this government is making to forestry legislation in the province? Are we supposed to go back to our constituencies and say: “While the changes were brought forward, they weren’t brought forward with more than about a week to ten days to actually scrutinize the legislation”?

Of course, the opposition doesn’t control the timing of bills being introduced in this place. We don’t control which bill is debated before which other bill. We don’t control which of the legislative chambers here the legislation is debated in. We don’t control how many chambers are even open at any given time. That’s all in the purview of the government.

We’re supposed to go back to our constituents and say: “Yeah, they introduced pretty substantive changes in a couple of pieces of forestry legislation,” including Bill 28 here, “but they didn’t allow any time to debate it. They didn’t allow a reasonable period of time to scrutinize it. Oh, well, yeah, there are going to be pretty substantive changes.”

It’s not the opposition making up the numbers related to impact. The Council of Forest Industries says the impact of the changes in Bill 28, on top of the proposed changes in Bill 23, on top of — on top of, on top of — the cumulative impacts of changes that this government has made related to the forest industry in this province….

The employment impact is anticipated to be about 18,000 lost direct and indirect jobs. That’s not the opposition just throwing a dart at a board. That’s not us making it up. That’s not an opposition number. That’s a Council of Forest Industries number, and it’s backed up by virtually every other forestry association and organization in this province. Even the Steelworkers and even Unifor say that the changes that the government is proposing in Bill 28 — again, coupled with the changes in Bill 23 and all the other impacts — are going to significantly cost employment. They’re very worried about that.

But no, we’re expected to take Bill 28 and Bill 23 and Bill 29, the range of other pieces of legislation that still haven’t completed second reading…. We’re just supposed to look past it, just say a few words, I guess, passing words on this, and let’s move into committee, and, oh, we’ll ask a few token questions, because that’s all that we have time for.

This really is another proof point of just how little regard this government has for the process of this place. I mean, you consider the changes that they’re making to freedom of information and making those changes by short-circuiting the statutory committee that’s charged with actually making recommendations to government — and just how secretive and tight-lipped, notwithstanding multi-million-dollar communications budgets, including in FLNRO that you can’t actually get any information out of. These communication departments don’t communicate, certainly not with the outside world and with the opposition.

[2:15 p.m.]

Here we are in this legislative session — six weeks of time, 24 days of legislative time — and we are told: “No. Sorry. We’re wrapping up this Thursday. We know we’ve dumped more than half of our entire legislative agenda on the opposition beyond the halfway point, the second half of the legislative session. But sorry, it’s your problem. It’s up to you guys.” The process stinks. It’s outrageous. That’s a word I’m going to keep using: it’s outrageous. I’d like to hear from government members, NDP members, especially those that represent forest communities. Are they happy?

There are a bunch of them that haven’t spoken to this legislation yet. Are they happy that we’re going to take a 74-section bill and we’re going to — what? — ask a few token questions about the odd section and just call it a day? They’re going to feel good about going back to their constituents? What about the MLAs that represent Maple Ridge? What about the MLAs that represent Abbotsford? How about in Mission? How about in Surrey? How about in Delta? These are all communities that have mills of one sort or the other. They’re all going to be dramatically impacted by this legislation.

They’re not interested in getting up, scrutinizing it and debating it? They don’t want to have tough questions asked? If that’s the message, that’s the message. I just cannot believe that the government is going to shut this place down. We’re all going to go home, back to our communities to get into the Christmas or holiday spirit, take the winter period between the two legislative sessions to spend time with our loved ones and family. Many of us are going to be going back to communities that are going to be staring down the barrel of a whole bunch of lost jobs.

This government won’t even afford the opportunity to properly scrutinize the legislation that is going to underpin those job losses. There are 74 sections. You know, when you step back and you actually consider the context of this legislation, the industry that it will impact, you take a look at one of British Columbia’s proudest industries, one of its proudest sectors, one of its longest-standing sectors, one of the original industries in this province.

Heck, when visitors come to the buildings here, it’s always a great honour for us MLAs to take our constituents on a tour of the building. You take them into that grand rotunda, you look up at the ceiling, and what do you see? You see four murals of the four original industries in British Columbia — fishing, agriculture, mining and forestry. This is a sector that provides $1.1 billion in public revenue every single year.

It’s a sector that employs over 100,000 British Columbians, directly or indirectly, including 5,300 Indigenous people. That segment of the forest sector is growing as more and more First Nations, more and more Indigenous people, engage in forestry. It’s a sector that’s responsible for about $8 billion in wages every year. It’s a sector where one in five of the jobs might be in British Columbia’s north and central Interior, but one in four of the manufacturing jobs in forestry are actually in the Lower Mainland, and 40 percent of all forestry jobs are actually in Vancouver, in the Lower Mainland.

[2:20 p.m.]

We often focus on the Interior and the north or the Kootenays and Vancouver Island when it comes to forestry, and that’s fair. You often lose sight of the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, there are a whole bunch of mills of different types situated, for the most part, along or near the Fraser River, in communities all through the Lower Mainland.

There are also a heck of a lot of forestry jobs that are right in downtown Vancouver. These are all jobs that are hanging in the balance with this industry right now.

There is a wide, wide variety of products that we export. Forestry is our number one export product, to this day, very proudly so — whether it’s mass timber and engineered wood; whether it’s softwood lumber; whether it’s MDF; whether it’s biomass; whether it’s pulp like the Domtar mill in Kamloops, which we’re very proud of and which has been a mainstay in our community for generations. These are products that are harvested, and they’re made, and there is value added to them in communities all over our province.

So $7 billion in local goods and services purchased. Almost 10,000 businesses are directly supported by or exist for no other reason than the forestry sector. Almost 10,000 businesses. You know what? An increasing number of those businesses are engaged in technology, a sector that I come from. No longer do we talk about technology as its own separate sector. Technology is woven into every single sector, and it’s particularly woven into the forest sector.

It’s a heck of a lot of jobs. The sector drives 15 percent of B.C.’s economic activity. So we’re not talking about a rela­tively small, emerging industry. We have a lot of those too. They’re all valuable, and we want to grow them all. We’re talking about a mainstay of British Columbia’s economy, a sector that employs 100,000 people, as I said — that has jobs throughout this province.

Now with recognizing the footprint that this sector has today, we understand that that footprint is likely going to change somewhat in the years ahead, notwithstanding any of these changes that are being proposed by this government. There is no quibble with the suggestion, even from within the forest industry itself, that practices need to evolve, that there needs to be some change in how we do what we do on our land base. There is no question about that.

There is no question that we have to take a long, hard look at the evolving role of Indigenous peoples in the management of our forestry resource. There is no question that — and we’ve said — our stumpage system is outdated. We’ve got to ask ourselves why it is that this government can’t seem to strike that softwood lumber deal that John Horgan said was going to be the his top order of business when he became Premier.

We know, with the ravage of pine beetle and other insects, and so forth, or the increasing prevalence of wildfires, that there is tremendous impact of all of the above on our land base and our timber volumes and the annual allowable cut as a result. So we’re saying that change is needed. Change is inevitable. Change will need to be part of how we evolve our practices on the land base.

[2:25 p.m.]

But we should be debating those changes, some of which the government is proposing, which we’ve got a bit of a problem with. Others, less so, but some of it is contained within this piece of legislation, within Bill 28.

But we’re not going to be given that opportunity, because once we’re done on Thursday of this week, at five o’clock, a little over 48 hours from now, it doesn’t matter where we are in this bill. It doesn’t matter where we are in the FOI bill. It doesn’t matter where we are on a number of other bills, in their normal legislative scrutiny. Those bills — like this one, Bill 28 — are just going to become the law of the province. Again, that is deeply, deeply regrettable considering the impacts that some of what’s in this bill are going to have on the sector.

I want to talk about the sector a little bit from the perspective of the community I represent, the city of Kamloops. We have a proud forestry history in our city. It’s one of the earliest industries in the Kamloops area. I remember going down to the museum in Kamloops when I was a little boy and actually looking at those black and white photos of trees that had been cut and were being hauled by horseback.

I’ve got a lot of relatives that have been gainfully employed in forestry over the years. We had a sawmill in Kamloops at one point. It’s no longer there today, but as I mentioned earlier, we have a pulp mill, a state-of-the-art pulp mill. It’s a pulp mill owned by Domtar, which is a really, really good corporate citizen. But more than that, much more important than that, it’s a company that employs a heck of a lot of Kamloopsians.

I can’t tell you the number of parents that I’ve met over the years whose kids play soccer with one of my daughters or play volleyball with one of my daughters or just go to school with one of my daughters. They work at Domtar. They’ve got a home in Kamloops. They’ve got a vehicle or two in the driveway. They’re able to enrol their kids in activities. They choose to raise their families in Kamloops, in large part because they’ve got a great family-supporting job at Domtar.

I’m just going to regale the House with a few facts about Domtar. There are 317 mill employees today. It’s a big number. It’s not a massive, massive number, but it’s a big number. Those are good wages. Those are really good wages. So 317 mill employees; 1,500 direct and indirect jobs associated with Domtar. The number is getting a bit bigger. The impact of all those wages getting even bigger. And 400,000 tonnes of annual pulp production, and 460,000 megawatts per hour of annual green power production.

This is one of the areas where Domtar has really stood out. It’s one of the areas where they’ve actually been able to generate cost efficiencies, which has enabled them to keep lines going and therefore keep workers employed when times have been a bit tougher. They’ve invested in generating a good chunk of their own power. They do it on site. They actually generate net power, more than they need, which they sell back into the grid. It’s an example of the investments that Domtar has made in Kamloops over the years that have enabled the company to continue to employ, as of today, 317 mill employees.

Having met with them recently, they’re very proud of the fact that they continued operation during the pandemic. They didn’t cease operations at all. They continued their operations through the pandemic, and it wasn’t easy, for a whole bunch of reasons.

[2:30 p.m.]

I should point out, as well, that the workers and the union that represents the workers, Unifor, are a terrific partner with Domtar. This is a fantastic example of how it’s supposed to work, where you have the union and you have the company that are in lockstep.

You know what their common denominator is? It’s the employees, the workers, that work at that mill. There were no layoffs at the Domtar pulp mill throughout this pandemic — not one. They advised the member from Kamloops–North Thompson and I that they have performed as planned or better through the pandemic.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The point that I’m trying to make here is…. You would think that for a pulp mill, granted the wild fluctuation in pulp prices that is just a reality of this subsector of the forest sector…. You would think that a mill as modern and as efficient and as committed to their employees and as committed to the community as Domtar…. You would think that when asked, “How are you feeling about the future?” Domtar might say: “Well, we’ve got some challenges coming at us, but you know, we feel pretty good.” That’s not what they’re saying.

Now, I don’t want to put any words into their mouth, and I don’t want to overstate anything here, but they have flagged for us a very significant challenge with chip supply that exists today and that is going to get far worse, in their estimation, if Bill 28 and Bill 23 — and all these other cumulative impacts that this government seems intent on pressing forward with — actually come to pass.

We’re sitting here thinking: surely to God it’s not possible that Domtar isn’t going to be in our community in the months or years ahead? I think the conventional answer or conventional wisdom on that is no. I think that Domtar will be around well into the future. They have been innovative. They have figured out how to face a number of challenges in the past.

But why are we putting companies like Domtar, why are we putting the workers at Domtar in that kind of potential risk? Why are we doing that? And why are we doing it without appropriate and reasonable debate on this bill?

It’s outrageous. That’s what workers from Domtar are telling me. That’s what Unifor, which represents the workers at Domtar, is telling me. That’s what Domtar itself is telling me.

These changes warrant appropriate debate. After weeks and weeks of — I’m going to be really be charitable here — a pretty darned thin legislative agenda…. I mean, how much time did we spend on a throne speech that was delivered how many months ago? Yeah, April. It’s November. We actually spent time in the front end of this session debating the throne speech, which is so completely no longer timely with where things are at.

But then we’re being asked to, here and now…. “Let’s just look past these changes, and we’ll just hope for the best. We’ll just hope for the best.”

Well, you know what? My constituents who work at the Adams Lake sawmill on Adams Lake, that Interfor operation, my constituents who work at Domtar…. They don’t have the luxury of just: “Let’s hope for the best.” Let’s just hope that these changes actually don’t have an impact such that, from a cumulative perspective, it’s wham-bam: “We’re done. We can’t afford to operate in this province anymore. We can’t afford to…. Or we’ve got to go from three shifts to two shifts. Or we’ve got to furlough a bunch of employees indefinitely.”

This is all being brought forward at probably the worst time it could be, considering the impacts of the pandemic on everyone — the need for communities to have stability, the need for workers to know that they’re going to have jobs that they can look forward to, that are going to keep paying their mortgage, that are going to enable them to keep sending their kids to soccer and ballet.

[2:35 p.m.]

I think that they’re going to want to know that we actually debated the legislation, that we actually went through it with a fine-toothed comb like we’re supposed to, but no. I guess the government is saying to me: “You’re going to have to go back to Kamloops, MLA, and you’re going to have to tell the 317 workers at Domtar — the direct mill employees, the 1,500 people who have indirect or direct jobs associated with Domtar…. You’re going to have to say to them, ‘Sorry. We tried, but there wasn’t enough time on the clock.’”

You know what? I am going to tell them that. But I’m going to also tell them that this is all on the government. This is all on an NDP government that is being disrespectful to these workers, that is being disrespectful to their communities, that is being disrespectful to the companies, that is being disrespectful to the customers of these employees. This is not how we normally do business in British Columbia.

With that in mind, I am going to move a motion, and the motion is as follows:

[That the motion for second reading of Bill (No. 28) intituled Forest Amendment Act, 2021, be amended by deleting the word “now” and substituting “six months hence.”]

This is a hoist motion, Mr. Speaker, as you’re well aware. This bill must be delayed. It must be held back so that it can be brought forward again for proper discussion, debate and analysis. We owe nothing less to the workers in this industry across the province.

On the amendment.

T. Stone: Now I’m speaking to the proposed amendment that’s on the floor. It doesn’t bring me any great satisfaction to be bringing this forward. Let me be really clear about that. Hopefully, I’ve laid out some arguments here or a perspective that’s informed by people back in Kamloops, people in Chase, people in communities around my riding that are wondering what the heck is going on with this government when it comes to forestry.

How is it that this government could feel it is appropriate, let alone reasonable, to bring forward this 85-page bill — it has 74 sections in it — that provides for some pretty substantial changes to forest practices in the province? How is it that this government could bring this forward and expect that in a matter of two more days, along with a whole range of other bills that are in varying stages of the legislative process, we should just accelerate our scrutiny? Let’s just hit the gas pedal and bomb through this faster. Let’s just do it faster.

This amendment is important, because it’s the right thing to do. It would be the right thing for this government to take a pause on legislation this significant that proposes changes to the tenure system in this province. That’s going to have ramifications.

[2:40 p.m.]

Again, we’re all trying to quantify to what degree and on whom and who the winners are and who the losers are. We don’t know. We haven’t had an opportunity to scrutinize section by section by section in the level of detail that the workers, the 100,000 British Columbians who are gainfully employed in this sector…. We haven’t had an opportunity to scrutinize it and ask those pointed questions to the Minister of Forests, the individual who has brought forward this legislation.

It doesn’t matter if you talk to the opposition. Go and talk to workers at any of the mills in the province. Or how about independent contractors? How about those thousands and thousands of British Columbians who are out there working for themselves, gainfully employed because the forest sector exists and there are opportunities for them in that sector? They’d like us to scrutinize this piece of legislation. So would all the other contractors. So would all the suppliers. So would mayors of communities where the forest sector is a big footprint, a big economic driver, a big part of the quality of life in those communities.

I’ll say this. You’ll hear from, certainly, a good cross-section of opposition members on this as part of the hoist motion that is before us at the moment, and hopefully, we’ll hear from members of the government as well. The changes are significant. We’re of the view, in our initial analysis…. It’s certainly informed by COFI and by the independent contractors out there. The IWA and unions, like I mentioned — Steelworkers and Unifor, and others — have expressed concern, and all kinds of business organizations. It’s rare that you have labour and business all on the same page, all expressing consistent concerns.

My greatest fear is in a community where the mill in town is the only game in town, the only major employer in town. If these changes go through…. The risks that they bring with them — the impacts on our operators, the flow-through impact on employment, operators that will likely close. COFI estimates — what? — 12 to 14 mills are likely to close. Two of the three pulp mills in the province are likely not to make it.

In Kamloops, if Domtar went down, it would be a huge blow. It would be felt far and wide in our community. But I’ll tell you, if the one mill in a town of 5,000 goes down, the town is going to be struggling big time. The very survival, the very future of that town is in jeopardy at that point.

I could take time and go through a number of the sections that I have concern with, like the special purpose areas and the approach to compensation that’s provided for in this bill, which doesn’t really marry up with what the government said it was going to do. I could talk about the absolute lack of a socioeconomic impact analysis. The minister said one day: “Yeah, it’s coming in a couple of weeks.” A couple of weeks later it was like it never existed in the first place, and we still can’t get an answer on that.

There’s been no clear statement of what supports will be available for these 18,000 workers that are potentially going to lose their jobs with these changes — those proposed in Bill 23 and through other policy and protocol changes — and costs that have been layered onto the sector, and so forth.

But I think for now, hopefully, I’ve made the point and set the table a bit here for the reality that, one, this is a pretty substantive bill. The changes provided for within this bill are significant.

Two, those changes — the proposed sections and the amendments here in Bill 28 — warrant a thorough and thoughtful and reasonable analysis. That is what we are paid to do as legislators.

[2:45 p.m.]

Three, the government’s decision to invoke time allocation, otherwise known as closure, and to essentially ram through this piece of legislation and ram through other pieces of legislation because they couldn’t get their act together at the front end of this legislative session. They couldn’t manage their time properly.

They had us debating a throne speech from April in the first few weeks. They had us discussing and debating miscellaneous statutes bills. I’m not taking away the fact that there were some things in those bills that are important public policy, but that was the focus of the first several weeks of this legislative session. Then, bam, we’re past the midway point, and they drop on us some dramatic changes, huge overhauls to things like the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and this Forest Amendment Act, Bill 28.

That third point I’m making is in light of how substan­tive this bill is, in light of the need for appropriate scrutiny, for reasonable, thoughtful, thorough scrutiny of this bill. My third point is it’s outrageous that the government is shoving this down the throats of British Columbians, so many people that are potentially going to be so dramatically impacted by this government’s approach to forestry, much of which is mapped out in this bill.

It’s outrageous that we’re being asked to just look past the changes in this bill and not accord the appropriate reasonable analysis and debate to this bill, try to improve it, perhaps, going forward.

We owe 100,000 people in this province a heck of a lot better than what’s being provided for in this bill and what’s being provided for in this government’s heavy-handed decision to impose closure and time allocation on the debate of such critical legislation as Bill 28.

I ask everyone in the House to support this important amendment.

P. Milobar: It gives me no joy to rise to speak to the amendment, but I think it’s important that I do.

The amendment to postpone Bill 28 six months hence would enable people in the province, as we’ve heard, to actually look at and scrutinize a bill that has major, major consequences to every forest community in our province. People sometimes forget that Surrey is a forest community. They forget that Maple Ridge is a forest community. Certainly, Kamloops, where I’m from, is a forest community; Barriere, which I represent; Blue River; Clearwater; 100 Mile House; Williams Lake. The list goes on and on and on, not to mention all of the Island communities as well. All will be impacted dramatically by Bill 28.

I think it’s important for, perhaps, the new members of government to understand why this time allocation is so egregious, because the management of when bills get presented to this House is 100 percent the responsibility of the government. The opposition has no control over when those bills get presented.

In the spring-summer session when we were just wrapping up and what are called exposure bills get presented to this House — they kind of hang out there over the summer, so people can look at them and scrutinize them — we didn’t see Bill 23, which is currently being debated, on forestry. We didn’t see Bill 28 that we’re discussing here today, a very complex, 80-page bill with 74 clauses in it that will have dramatic impact to the forest sector throughout British Columbia, potentially for generations.

We didn’t see those bills so that we could scrutinize them and get proper feedback from industry, proper feedback from communities, proper feedback from unions and people representing the hard-working women and men in the forest sector. No, we got two child care bills.

[2:50 p.m.]

Now, child care is incredibly important in this province, but the complexity of those two child care bills was not one that needed months of summertime to scrutinize and look over — not like these two complex forestry bills. And 28 is incredibly complex. It deals with tenure. It deals with the very core of how trees and fibre are accessed for pulp mills, for sawmills, for value-add manufacturers — for everybody that has anything to do with a tree in the process.

But instead, we come back in October. We come back to almost a week’s worth of debate on an April throne speech. We follow that by almost a week’s worth of debate, primarily by government members — because the opposition was trying to get down to the actual business of digging into bills — almost exclusively speaking to miscellaneous statutes amendments, imploring us in their speeches how important miscellaneous statutes are.

And we agreed. The important part of a miscellaneous statutes bill is actually in committee stage, not in second reading debate. It’s when you actually get, as opposition, to scrutinize the miscellaneous statutes that are being changed and get questions answered, much like on Bill 28.

Bill 28, at a minimum, should be given the same respect as a miscellaneous statutes amendment act. It should, at a minimum, have been given the same amount of time in this chamber for second reading. It’s not going to. We’re getting shut down at 5:15 today.

That’s why the amendment for six months hence is so important, because it would delay things for six months. The government has a majority. They’re going to pass what they’re going to pass. No one’s disputing that. But it does make you wonder what they’re trying to hide in the bill. It does make you wonder what they don’t want scrutinized in the bill, what they don’t want a light shone on in the bill.

We’ve already heard how poor their track record is on Indigenous consultation on bill after bill after bill, especially on regulation and bills regarding forestry. It sure would be nice to have enough time to properly scrutinize that and to reach out to Indigenous forestry communities and find out what they think about this bill. There’s not enough time for that.

But of course, this is a government that thinks they can overhaul and defer old growth with only 30 days’ comment period for Indigenous communities too. So it’s no real surprise that they’re not that worried about us properly scrutinizing this bill — as we’re paid by the taxpayers of British Columbia to do on behalf of forest communities, on behalf of Indigenous communities — and understanding what the impacts to those communities are actually going to be on Bill 28 and the tenure changes.

Instead, it’s just a slap in the face of democracy by this government. It’s rushed through — delay, kill time on other bills and then, at the 11th hour, say: “Well, we’ve got to get through this.” We have not been the obstructionists through any of these bills, to this point. I would challenge anyone in government to go through and look at the time that we, as an opposition, have properly and responsibly tried allocating to bills.

But when you show up with two weeks to go…. Three bills get introduced on the Monday. Two more bills get introduced on the Wednesday. You have now six days left in the calendar. Now we’re down to three days left in the legislative calendar. It’s a little hard, as opposition, to keep managing that time responsibly, as we’ve been doing to this point, because the government’s ministers can’t get their act together and get legislation presented in time.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t a timeline of trying to get this legislation developed between the summer session and October. October marked one year since this government took office. They had a year to get this legislation in front of us in a timely way, a year to get it in front of this House.

[2:55 p.m.]

Instead, we saw it on week 5 of a six-week legislative calendar. Then on week 6, when we’ve barely even gotten to it, they say: “Oh, you’re done. We’re going to invoke closure on it. Oh, and we’re going to invoke closure on FOI, because we don’t really like to talk about things like transparency. We should probably invoke closure on the other forestry bill.”

This is how asinine this is. We actually have a different forestry bill being debated in a different chamber at the same time as this forestry bill right now. This government is so inept at managing their bills time that they actually have simultaneous forestry debates going on, both of which would fundamentally change forestry in our communities, because they can’t even manage their calendar enough to get them on different days.

Sadly, they’ve invoked closure this afternoon on both of those bills. I find it incredible that new members of the government actually signed up for what they are witnessing. No discussion on FOI from the government, of any substance. Certainly not. No discussion on anything of substance — any legislation of substance put forward to this House — certainly not on Bill 28, because now we have our time restricted.

If there were ever a shining example of just how poorly managed this legislative session has been going, on behalf of the government, it’s the fact that they have simultaneous forestry bills being debated in this building. I’m unaware of that ever really happening. In fact, when we pushed back against that, because we ultimately, as opposition, don’t control which debate is happening at any given time in any chamber, the response back was: “Well, the minister has already introduced Bill 28. She doesn’t really need to hear the debate.”

That was government’s response when we challenged the concept of having two Houses going at the same time on the same subject matter: “The minister doesn’t need to hear the debate on Bill 28.” That is reprehensible. That is a total abdication of your responsibilities as a minister of the Crown. You introduce a piece of legislation that has 74 clauses — that’s 80 pages — Bill 28. It’s bad enough that you invoke closure. You literally have informed opposition that you don’t need to hear the debate. When does that ever get acknowledged that publicly?

I guess, at least, the minister was honest about really not having a care what forest communities have to say about Bill 28, not wanting to listen to what forest communities have to say about Bill 28. All of this government’s union supporters that are against it, all of the Indigenous communities that are against it and all of the companies that are against it — the minister doesn’t need to hear, according to the Government House Leader. “Nothing to see here, folks. We can have simultaneous debate happening.”

So on Bill 28, to have that type of attitude shown to community after community and to not have the time to properly scrutinize this bill, to understand what the impact to value-added mills in Surrey will be, is not good enough. To not scrutinize this bill so that my mill in Barriere, which is a specialty mill, can understand what this means to them is not acceptable. To not have the time for Valemount and McBride — mills all over — and Tolko in Kamloops to understand the impacts of this bill and to find out that, literally, government does not care what is said in this chamber when it comes to debate — no wonder they feel that it’s their right to bring in time allocation.

No wonder they have such arrogance, one year in. There’s a saying going around: “It took the B.C. Liberals 16 years to get as arrogant as this NDP has gotten in less than a year.” It’s starting to be that they have well exceeded that arrogance. It’s pretty sad that the one thing that they actually overachieve on is arrogance. Very sad. Because there’s lots of stuff that we’re still waiting on this chamber to deal with that’s important.

[3:00 p.m.]

We’re waiting for a statutory committee to actually meet. We’ve heard: “in a couple of weeks.” That was a month ago. We still haven’t seen that committee start to meet yet. So a wide range of things that this time allocation is problematic about.

I think it’s very symbolic to the overall theme we’re seeing from this government about making up the rules as they go, making sure that they’re squeezing every procedural quirk they can to ram through their legislation, to not listen to people, to not listen to the elected members of the opposition, to not listen to the communities that we represent, the voices we’re trying to bring forward.

The sheer level of arrogance and disdain that this government seems to have for proper democratic debate and scrutiny of their legislation is shocking. It’s absolutely shocking.

That is why the amendment to delay this bill for six months…. It does not mean the bill has to die, although it might, I guess, if there’s a proroguing of the parliament, but the government could reintroduce it in its full form. It would just mean that communities would have time to properly scrutinize.

But this government seems afraid of that scrutiny. They don’t want scrutiny. They talk a good game about collaborating, about consulting. They come up with great, glossy marketing brochures. They should. They’ve got — what? — 500 people now working in GCPE, on the communications side. Can’t figure out how to get one of them to click on an emergency alert to work, but they’ve got 500 people that are trying to communicate to the public, but only the message they want the public to hear.

They don’t want the public to actually have any questions asked on their behalf in this chamber. They don’t want to actually have to defend what they are doing. They don’t want to defend the gutting of resource town after resource town after resource town, and remote Indigenous communities that rely on forestry as well. They don’t want that scrutiny, and that’s why we see time allocation brought in today. That’s why we need the amendment to pass. That’s why we need the extra six months to actually get that important work done on behalf of everyone that the government MLAs purport to represent and support. But they sure don’t.

Boy, they sure turned their back on their union brothers and sisters when the donation cheques stopped flowing in. That was pretty fast. Last I checked, Unifor and Steelworkers weren’t very happy with what’s going on with all of these forestry changes — total ignoring from the government. It wasn’t that way when big union cheques were being cut. In fact, I believe it was the Premier that was going to go sell softwood lumber, and the only thing he came back with was a big Steelworkers’ cheque out of the States, a few hundred thousand dollars. No softwood deal but one last big donation before the donation rules got changed.

The donation rules needed to be changed. It’s interesting how, as soon as they changed, this government stopped listening to the people writing the cheques. Just like that. It will sure make their inevitable future leadership race interesting. Everyone says: “We’re a big-tent party.” Well, last I checked, there are 33 big groups of people within the government ranks.

It will be interesting to see how their labour arm reacts to being ignored non-stop, because that’s what’s happening with Bill 28 — flat-out ignoring.

So it’s a pretty sad day for democracy and proper process in this province when we have a government that’s more interested and more concerned about debating a throne speech and miscellaneous stats than answering and providing the time for opposition and communities to properly look at, scrutinize and question legislation.

Bill 28 has serious, serious potential ramifications that need to be understood. Forestry is an incredibly complex file, and, yes, forestry needs to update its practices. The industry acknowledges that. We in the opposition certainly acknowledge that. Workers acknowledge that.

[3:05 p.m.]

These workers live in these communities. They live in the forests. They get that it has to modernize. No one is saying that shouldn’t happen. But they should understand what the government is planning to do because, frankly, based on the track record of so many files that have been so badly managed by this government over the last 4½ years, I can see why communities are scared with this bill.

To take something as complex as forestry and think you can drop a bill, give it a day and a bit of debate, give it a day and a bit of questions, which is ridiculous…. Thursday we end early, because we’ve got to make sure that the Lieutenant-Governor gets here for royal assent. That’s right and proper, but it means things always wrap up a little bit earlier on the last day. So that’s what we’re left with — a government that doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to be held up to scrutiny, doesn’t actually care, literally, what is being said in this debate and is content with running simultaneous forestry debates at the same time in this building.

I see the member…. We have former MPs on the other side that had pretty strong things to say before, when they were in opposition in Ottawa, about things like time allocation and closure. Mind you, they had pretty strong things to say about FOI that they suddenly went pretty silent on in this chamber too. How disappointed their communities must be that the opinions and thoughts they thought they were electing, based on historical references and touchpoints, no longer seem to be voiced in this chamber. I guess it’s do as you’re told in the government ranks, say as you’re told in the government ranks. How disappointing, indeed.

It’s shocking. It is an absolutely shocking display, as I say, of arrogance by this government to ram through legislation of this magnitude, and the other pieces of legislation that are now subject to closure, simply because of government incompetence to bring forward legislation in a timely fashion.

Had this bill been presented when we first got back in October, we probably could have dealt with it. We would have allocated time, moved time around responsibly, as an opposition does, and made sure we provided enough time to get proper debate and proper views out there and proper scrutiny. But when it gets dropped with only a few days left in the session, that opportunity is gone. This should have been, at a minimum, presented the first day we were back in October.

Best case, it should have actually been presented as an exposure bill at the end of the spring and summer session so we could have had the summer to actually look at it and deal with it properly: consult with professional foresters about the impact that this will mean; consult with communities; consult with those unions — you know, those ones that used to sign you big cheques that you listened to then; consult with the Indigenous communities that the government side keeps wrapping themselves in around UNDRIP, but whenever there’s something that requires any bit of actual meaningful consultation, they shrug their shoulders and ignore that piece of it.

No, that’s all out the window with Bill 28. It’s all out the window, and it is such poor time management on the government’s side — simultaneous forestry debate. I am very hard-pressed to hear or remember when that would have ever happened in this building.

With that, I will cede the floor. I’m sure there are many others on our side that have very strong opinions on this. I’m sure, undoubtedly, we’re up against the clock. We have basically two hours left of debate. I’m sure, magically, the government’s members will suddenly find their voice again and try to run the clock out on us because they don’t like to hear the cold, hard truths about what’s actually going on within their own government. I guess we’ll see what happens with that or not. Once again, we can’t control that either. But if any of their actions up to this point are any indication, I would expect an afternoon of arrogance on full display by this government yet again.

[3:10 p.m.]

T. Halford: I speak in support of the motion put forward by my colleague.

It is a fairly disappointing day when we are talking about a piece of legislation that is 80 pages long, of vital importance, that will affect thousands of British Columbians’ livelihoods, and we’re bringing forward time allocation, which is closure.

It’s interesting because, in question period today, the Minister of Forests did say…. It was a plea. We had workers in the gallery who are obviously very anxious, concerned about their industry, about their jobs, about how they’re going to put food on the table, how they’re going to buy Christmas gifts for their family. She made a plea to stop the misinformation.

Well, if you want to make that plea, it has more substance if you actually allow this bill to be debated in this House. If you want to have some credibility when you stand up in this House and answer a question that is related to the thousands of jobs that this sector employs, let your bill stand up to that. Defend it. Defend it.

The level of arrogance that we are seeing from this government is, I think, somewhat surprising. Maybe some would say it’s not. But we are a year into this government’s mandate, and when you look at some of the challenges they’ve faced, they don’t want to face them head on. They don’t want to consult. They don’t want to listen. They don’t want to defend. Whether it’s the forestry industry today or the autism sector yesterday and tomorrow, whether it’s private child care operators, this government doesn’t want to listen. They don’t want to defend. They don’t want the scrutiny.

If you look at what we’ve accomplished in this fall session — three things. We’ve had a filibuster misc stats bill. We have debated a throne speech in October that was put forward in April. In the last two weeks, this government has introduced a wave of bills. Third, they’ve now cut off debate on those bills.

It seems to me that there are two things that you can come to a conclusion on. I think neither is good for this government. It’s either calculated or it’s incompetent. Neither serves British Columbians. It’s either calculated that you don’t want to have the conversation — when we have forestry workers sitting in the gallery, when you want to defend this bill in committee — or it’s incompetent that you don’t know how to run this building. That’s the only logical answer that I can come to, incompetent or calculated.

We are talking about a sector that generated $1.1 billion in B.C. public revenue. Over 100,000 jobs are generated, over $8 billion in wages and salaries paid and $4 billion in taxes to all three levels of government. As my colleagues have mentioned before, 40 percent of these jobs are in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. In my community of Surrey, forestry is vitally important.

I see it as a challenge every day when we come to this House and the importance that we put on it and the expectation that our constituents give to us each and every day that we will come and defend their rights and put forward their ideas and, honestly, try and protect them.

I’ve seen my colleagues do that. I’ve seen the two colleagues from Kamloops do that. I’ve seen my colleague from the Cariboo do that. I’ve seen my other colleague from the Cariboo do that. I’ve seen my colleague from West Vancouver do that. I’ve seen my colleague from Kelowna-Mission do that. I haven’t seen anybody in government do that. I haven’t.

[3:15 p.m.]

It’s a pretty sad, damning statement when you look at where we are today. When you look at some of the issues that are facing us, whether it’s freedom of information — which was a very sad statement on this fall session, I think we all agree and are ashamed by — or it’s the changes we’re making to the autism sector, which are unforgivable. Now it’s the fact that you’ve put forward, in the last two weeks, an 80-page bill, and you can’t defend it.

When you look at the people that are hit by this…. I’ll go through it. I know we’ve gone through it, but I’ll do it again, because they’re owed that. Andersen Pacific Forest Products in Maple Ridge. Cedarland Forest Products, Maple Ridge. Fraserview Cedar Products, Surrey. Leslie Forest Products, Delta. Mountain View Specialty Products, Abbotsford. PowerWood Corp., Agassiz. Surrey Cedar Ltd., Langley. CarlWood Lumber, Maple Ridge. Central Cedar, Surrey. Jasco Forest Products, Abbotsford. Lyle Forest Products, Chilliwack. North American Forest Products, Abbotsford. Terminal Forest Products, Richmond. Pacific Western Wood Works, Delta. Teal-Jones, Surrey. Goldwood, Richmond.

Now, I understand…. I’m a new MLA, and I’m joined by new MLAs in this House. Maybe it’s an embarrassment that they don’t want to speak to this. Maybe it’s hard to go back and look at their constituents when they come into your office or send you the emails and say: “What have you done to defend my job?” Well, we debated the throne speech for two weeks in October, which was put forward in April. We didn’t stand up for families of children with autism. We didn’t stand up for the forestry workers and defend the legislation that we jammed through with only two weeks left in this session.

It’s a pretty sad statement when we look…. We know that the forestry sector is the backbone of our economy in British Columbia, and it has been for generations. Some $11.5 billion of B.C.’s total exports came from forest products in 2020, and 87 percent of B.C. lumber was destined for international markets in 2020. It’s the number one export sector in B.C.

So why aren’t we talking about this? We’re going to bring time allocation on an 80-page bill. That, to me, is…. I’m sure it’s not unprecedented, but it’s deeply, deeply troubling.

I see that the Minister of State for Natural Resource Operations is in the House. Maybe he will speak to this.

Will you speak to the bill, through the Chair? I didn’t understand.

Interjections.

T. Halford: Sorry, Chair, did the member speak?

Deputy Speaker: It’s your time, Member.

T. Halford: It must have been an impactful speech. I don’t recall it. Nonetheless, I see that he has poked his head up. I’ll maybe be regaled with his antics throughout my remarks, but that’s okay.

Interjection.

T. Halford: Good job. Good job.

Let’s read a few quotes here while we’ve got the time.

B.C. Council of Forest Industries: “It’s particularly troubling that these deferrals come on the heels of a pandemic that has challenged us all and where the forest industry has been a bright light. We kept people working safely and continued to deliver more than $4 billion in revenues to government over the last year, which has helped put our province in a financial position better than most. Now the key industry that continues to contribute to our resilience is being devastated.”

[3:20 p.m.]

Now that, to me, is a quote on a piece of legislation that deserves proper debate, I think.

Another one. This is the B.C. Council of Forest Industries: “Small, medium, large, family-owned and Indigenous-owned forestry companies, contractors, suppliers and workers are extremely concerned that the province is moving in this direction.” That’s not a positive endorsement.

We’ll go on to the next one, Bob Brash, executive director of the Truck Loggers Association: “Make no mistake. Based on the limited information provided by government, the deferral of 2.6 million hectares of deemed-at-risk forest will, in fact, result in immediate and long-term impacts on B.C.’s forestry sector.”

Now, people may have different opinions on these quotes, but shouldn’t we be debating that? On an 80-page bill, shouldn’t we be having that fulsome debate?

Don Kayne, CEO of Canfor: “If fully implemented, it would have significant impacts on our hard-working employees and their families, along with our Indigenous partners, contractors, communities and the entire in­dustry.”

President and CEO of the B.C. Business Council, Greg D’Avignon:

“Today’s announcement is deeply concerning for the future health of the B.C. economy and will have direct and unintended consequences for communities across B.C., from Campbell River to Surrey, businesses big and small and thousands of forestry-related workers across the province. Further, this will have a nega­tive impact on provincial revenues, which pay for the essential services that all British Columbians rely upon and of which the forest sector contributes an outsized share, particularly in the context of the ongoing pandemic.”

I think we get the hint. People are concerned. I think we should acknowledge the fact that, whether they’re our ridings, government ridings or Third Party ridings, we have a due diligence to bring questions to this Legislature to challenge the minister — even, maybe, the minister of state — on these issues. If that’s inconvenient, I’m not going to apologize for that.

Like I said at the beginning of my remarks, it’s either calculated or it’s incompetence. Neither is good for this government. More importantly, neither is good for British Columbians. Whether they support this legislation or are against this legislation, it deserves to be debated. It deserves to be heard. Anything less is a sad statement.

Now, the fact that this was dropped two weeks — I think it was less than two weeks — ago and that we’re now at the point where we’re invoking closure is, I think, a pretty sad commentary on how this government has chosen to treat the workers of British Columbia. They need and they deserve better than that. Their families deserve better than that.

I support my colleagues on their motion. I’ll be interested to see if anybody from government gets up and speaks, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

S. Furstenau: I rise to speak to this amendment related to Bill 28. I’ve been listening with interest to the comments by the members of the official opposition on this, and they raise a lot of good points. But I think what’s important here is pulling it up to the more bird’s-eye view of what we should be aspiring to do in here. What are we meant to be doing?

When you think about process, all these…. I had Emma-Jane Burian and Grace Sinats here this morning with me. They came in and watched a little bit of committee stage on Bill 23 in the Douglas Fir Room. As we were entering and as we exited, I appropriately bowed to the Chair. They asked: “Why do you do that?”

[3:25 p.m.]

Well, good question. Why do we do that? I said to them: “For me, that is a physical reminder that when I come into the chamber, one, I’m showing respect to the Chair, to the Speaker. Two, I am in here not as myself, an individual — I am in here as the member for Cowichan Valley. I am in here as a representative.” It’s a way to make a physical reminder of that, every time we come and we go. We are leaving something outside of the chamber when we come in. Then when we go back out, we can reassume that individual. But in here we are representatives.

I take that incredibly seriously. It really matters to me. It’s not like: “Oh, I always wanted to be a member of the Legislature.” This was not the life plan. But one of the life moments that informed so much of how I see this role and the work that we should be doing in here was in 1980. I’ve spoken about it before, but it was going to a place that was devoid of democracy — going with my father, who had been born there, to East Germany, during the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain, behind the wall in Berlin — and experiencing, as a ten-year-old child — not democracy.

Having our passports taken away from us. Being followed and monitored everywhere we went. Knowing that — I spoke with my father many times about this after our visit, and once I was grown up — they were waiting for a misstep, for us to do something wrong, because we didn’t have protected rights in that realm, in that world.

Having been born in 1939 in Germany — then coming here, becoming a citizen, finishing high school, getting his university degree at UVic and his master’s and PhD at the University of Alberta, becoming a professor and raising a family — at every step of my childhood, he instilled in me that we are so fortunate to live here in Canada. We have democracy. We have freedom of the press. We have rights. We have the Charter. All of these things were the fabric of my childhood.

I remember, at six years old, asking a friend of the family — politics was a conversation in our household a lot — saying: “What’s a caucus?” I’d heard them talking about caucus. “What’s a caucus?” She said: “Oh, that’s the group of people in one political party in the Legislature — in parliament.” I remember, really vividly, saying: “It sounds noisy.” She was like: “Hmm. Yeah, it probably is.” But it really mattered.

Then growing up, I had this spectacular public school education in Alberta, being educated in French and English, further being woven into the fabric of this country, this sense of who we are, and learning, all along the way, about how democracy works. In grade 11, I had that great experience of spending a week in Ottawa — young parliamentarians — along with a few of my other colleagues, it seems. I may have fallen asleep on my way to go meet my Member of Parliament and was much dismayed to wake up in the bus later to discover that I’d missed my meeting with the Hon. Joe Clark, Leader of the Opposition.

Interjections.

[3:30 p.m.]

S. Furstenau: I know. I was very disappointed that my friends didn’t wake me up. They said: “You were so asleep.”

Anyway, I was a part of Model UN in grade 12, spent ten days in Rocky Mountain House learning about how the UN works, ended up studying, as part of my undergraduate degree, the evolution of parliamentary democracy, Westminster parliamentary system, as a medieval historian.

This isn’t like: “Oh, I really care about the ….” This is my life. This has been very, very central and very core. Being here is a responsibility and a privilege and a gift that I take incredibly seriously. So on a day like this, when we get a motion that ends debate on several significant pieces of legislation, it’s not just a disappointment that I feel. It’s actually a deep sadness, because the processes in here are a reflection of where we should be doing our very best work. The processes in here should convey to the public that the legislators are doing their job, their service that they owe you, that you elected them to do.

Let’s think about the process. We get a bill introduced. First reading. It can’t be debated on that first day. It has to at least sit on the papers for one day so there’s time for everybody to look at it, digest it, read it, try to get a sense of it. It’s easier with a smaller bill. An 80-page bill is a little harder. Second day, it can be brought for second reading, and that’s when you hear the responses to it from all sides of the House, the kinds of positions that different members will take. Then we get to, generally, not always, because there can be these kinds of amendments at second reading, but we get to the committee stage.

The committee stage for some people…. I’ve heard students, even Grace and Emma-Jane, earlier say they were in here recently. I think Grace was in here recently with her class, and she said: “But they were on committee stage of a bill, so it was pretty boring.” It can look pretty slow and uninteresting externally. But in some ways — I would say, in all ways — it’s the most important stage, because it’s where the members get to ask the government minister about this legislation, get to understand it, understand what the intention is, understand what they expect will result from these changes or these pieces of legislation.

It provides the public with the capacity to look in Hansard and to see those answers, to get an in-depth understanding of this legislation. As was pointed out earlier today, it’s a place where a judge might go to try to understand implications of legislation if that judge is faced with making a decision.

It has significant long-term implications — the committee stage debate. It’s also an expression of the very highest work in here, which is, as legislators, Members of the Legislative Assembly, we are looking at in depth the legislation being brought forward. Not only today are we seeing the end of that — the limits on that ability to happen — but I would say that, over the course of this session, that committee stage debate has been less than stellar.

I will point to, just yesterday, my colleague and I asking very straightforward questions and getting the same answer, like a communication answer, a message block answer over and over and over again. That doesn’t help us understand the legislation better.

[3:35 p.m.]

That doesn’t help us understand the implications or the intentions. It starts to feel like a larger erosion of what this institution is meant to be doing — an erosion of the respect for this institution and for the work that we do in here.

I’m looking at the people sitting in here, and I don’t think that they feel disrespect personally for the Legislative Assembly and the work we do in here. But collectively, the decisions being made by this government are showing a disrespect. I think that many of the people on the government side of the House right now would stand up and say exactly that, if they were on this side of the House.

Maybe they would say: “Well, when this party was on that side of the House, they did this.” I’m so tired of that argument. I’d really like us to make a commitment in here to not have as a response to criticism the answer: “Well, they were worse,” or “they did it too.” Because we are, at every moment in our work in here, shaping the future. Every time we let that be shaped by the past in that kind of way — “We’re going to do it even though we know it’s not that great, because it was done before” — that’s not the kind of tradition we should be upholding in here. There are lots of traditions we should be, but not that one.

Committee stage should be seen by a government that is proud of its legislation as the opportunity to stand up and explain to everybody why they’re so proud of their legislation. What are the intentions of that legislation? What brought them to this place? What is the vision for the future that this legislation is fulfilling? What service does this legislation do for the people of British Columbia? But that’s not what we’ve had here.

One of the bills that is time-allocated now is the freedom of information — the changes of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. There could have been an entirely different journey for that bill, a journey that was started already in the committee that had been appointed and had a mandate. That bill, that legislation that exists and the vision for the future of that legislation could have made way through that committee. It exists already.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

That committee could have brought consensus-driven recommendations to the government and this House in the form of a report from the committee. The government then could have used the consensus created in that committee, a consensus based on a shared vision across party lines of what the future should look like when it comes to information and privacy in British Columbia. Then, the government could have brought forward legislation based on those consensus recommendations and spent the time on committee detailing exactly how we got here, what the intention is and the process that was so rich and worked across party lines in a committee, as it should.

I would expect, rather than the tumultuous and conflict-driven approach that has really characterized this bill, that that would have been very different.

[3:40 p.m.]

We could have had, instead, an entire Legislature saying that we’re really so incredibly proud of this work that we did together. We’re so proud that we took that input with a sense of: “What’s the future for this province that we all share, and how are we going to get there together? Now we have this legislation that is the manifestation of all that work, of all of us, and we’re holding it up. We’re all standing up together to celebrate nemine contradicente.”

Instead, we’re not even going to get the opportunity to get through the committee stage on this bill.

Instead of feeling proud of this legislation, I expect there will be a different feeling at the end of this — a feeling of defensiveness, a feeling of: “I don’t want to talk about if this was the right thing. We had to do it because the opposition parties were asking too many questions.” Instead of a feeling of, “We actually did what the minister says over and over again — made government more transparent and accountable,” the feeling is going to be: “Can we just move on and not talk about this anymore? It’s not comfortable.”

Process matters. What we’re being deprived of in Bill 28, Bill 22, Bill 23 — there’s another one in there too; there are a lot of them — is robust process. Robust process really is the best work that we could be doing in here, especially when it leads to consensus building, especially when it leads to actually improving legislation, when it recognizes that there is a collective knowledge and wisdom and understanding in here. At our very best, that’s being tapped into as a matter of course, as opposed to pushed aside and not recognized.

When we have elections with a 50 percent voter turnout and just under 50 percent of those voters voting for the party that has over 60 percent of the seats in here — two-thirds of the seats — we have another distortion of democracy. While there are an overwhelming number of seats, and the governing party absolutely doesn’t need to build consensus, doesn’t need to be collaborative, doesn’t need to work across party lines to achieve whatever outcomes it wants to achieve…. I would suggest that four years of that are going to impoverish us in terms of our democracy and our processes in this Legislature.

There is always the opportunity to say: “You know what? We’ve been doing it that way now for a year, but we can change course.” I’ll point to the number of times that the official opposition and our caucus have called for a more collaborative approach. A more collaborative approach to the drug poisoning crisis that we’re seeing in this province, which is robbing people in all of our communities of their lives. A more collaborative approach to these emergencies that we’re in that are going to continually compound and intersect with each other. A more collaborative approach, as we had in 2020, to responding to COVID.

[3:45 p.m.]

We serve better when we serve collaboratively. When we get caught up in this being a contest of wills between two parties that have been caught up in a contest of wills forever — different names — in this province, we lose sight of what is possible in here.

All of us, at some point, have experienced that when we do our best work, whether it’s as legislators or in other realms of our lives…. I think almost all of us would agree that our best work is done in collaboration or as part of a team or when we recognize that we are in service to something much greater than ourselves, certainly much greater than a political party. When we’re in service in here to the future, wholly in service to the future, I think, is when we do our best work.

I support this motion. I think what we could see is a recognition from government at this point to say: “Yeah. Let’s wait. We can do our best work. We are so excited to defend this legislation. We think it is fantastic legislation, and we don’t want to squander the opportunity to properly defend it, because we believe in it so much. We can wait. Maybe we’ll even bring the House back a little sooner than expected so that we’ll give it all the time it needs for us to convey not just to the members of the opposition and our own caucus but to the public, to the press, how proud we are of this legislation.” What’s going to happen now is that that opportunity is not going to happen.

It’s not a show of weakness to listen and to change course. It’s not a show of weakness. It’s a show of strength. It’s an understanding, again, that we are in service to something bigger, not just our own short-term political agendas. When consequential legislation like the legislation that’s in front of us right now doesn’t have enough time to be properly debated, it’s always possible — it’s certainly totally possible, with this number of seats on the government side — to change course.

I’m not going to give up on this wholehearted, lifelong faith I have in democracy. I don’t want anyone else to, either. I want to see it from my colleagues, because I know it’s there. They all ran for office. They all want to be in service. I want to see from them that same commitment.

We’re not playing a game in here. This isn’t a game. There are real-world, real consequences, real implications that are long term and significant to all of the legislation that we pass in this place, and we should take that incredibly seriously.

R. Merrifield: I rise to support the hoist motion that has been put before us. I don’t even know if support is the right word. I want to demand that it be moved and supported.

[3:50 p.m.]

I want to plead on behalf of every family that is going into Christmas with a tremendous amount of insecurity, uncertainty, not knowing if they have a job; for every business that doesn’t know if they can make it to next payroll or if they’re going to have a future in two weeks; for every community that is absolutely going to be decimated by this bill; and by the Indigenous leaders. I want to plead on their behalf and stand up for them today to say: “We have not had enough time on this bill.”

The NDP government has just voted to impose this time allocation. This bill isn’t even going to make it to committee stage.

I became a member of this Legislative Assembly because I believe in democracy, wholeheartedly — probably somewhat idealistically. In a democratic process, we actually have time to look at a bill. We have time to debate a bill. We have time to take it through a committee stage. We scrutinize it. This bill threatens 18,000 jobs. It threatens 4 percent of the B.C. GDP, and we’re not even going to give it the decency of taking it through a committee stage?

I’m going to agree with the Leader of the Third Party on what committee stage actually means. What does it do? Yes, it gives the public some clarity. It gives the public some understanding, if it’s done correctly. It also engages the stakeholders and allows them to bring their questions, through us, to this House. It also informs the judicial system as to what the intention was of these bills. An 80-page bill of highly technical jargon that is going to have serious implications, no matter who you actually believe, for the forestry industry isn’t even going to be given that process? This is shameful. I’m not proud of us today.

I’ll note that this type of time allocation is not usual. It takes a tremendous amount of arrogance to not want scrutiny. It’s old-world politics, old-world politics that our province is desperately wanting us to get rid of. They’re craving something different. They’re craving us to actually debate things. They’re craving for us to work together on issues. They’re craving the best ideas to come forward. They’re craving diversity of thought.

If I was going to see my family go without Christmas, I’d at least want government to give me the decency of knowing why. Instead, what we see, over the last two weeks, is a lack of transparency, a lack of accountability, trying to get away from transparency, get away from accountability and get away from debate and scrutiny. Truth never fears scrutiny. Strength never fears someone else’s ideas. This government fears both.

[3:55 p.m.]

I’ll note that time allocation has been criticized by some of the NDP caucus members. The member for Stikine, the minister of state, actually stated in 2018, when he was an NDP Member of Parliament, that it is a process used to “ram it” — government legislation, that is — “through parliament” and that government would be wise to “just don’t use your total power to shut off people’s conversations, because that is a way to only encourage more suspicion.”

The member for Stikine isn’t standing up today to support this amendment yet, this motion. But maybe he will. Or now that he’s sitting on that side, maybe he agrees that it’s okay to ram legislation through parliament, through this House. I would argue it is never right to do so. It is never right to do so.

Our Indigenous peoples want economic and environmental sustainability. They want reconciliation. They don’t want 30 days on an 80-page bill, but I guess they had 30 days or 20 days longer than we had with it. Businesses and industry? Well, they need certainty. It’s government’s job to provide both of these. Without this, we’re not going to see investment in B.C. We’re not going to see a future for B.C. The five top exports of B.C. are all in the energy sector, and four of them — four of them — are in forestry. Taking 20 percent of this industry away is catastrophic for B.C.

Great planning comes when disparate voices are brought together through consultation, through debate, through committee stage, and all are heard. The reason that we’re hearing so much opposition from outside of these four walls is because it didn’t go through the proper process inside of these walls, never mind the process outside of these walls. If this had been done effectively, if this had been done appropriately, if the consultation outside of the walls had been done appropriately, you would see the environmentalists walking hand in hand with the Indigenous, walking hand in hand with industry, walking hand in hand with our forestry sector.

You would have seen agreement. We have no agreement on this except for the seats on that side of the House. That’s not called government. That’s called dictatorship. That’s not called democracy. Democracy ends when you stop having the conversation. But right now I don’t see anyone happy with this bill, except for that side of the House.

The environmentalists say they haven’t gone far enough. There has been virtually no economic analysis done, and if it has been done, we have not seen it. Industry certainly isn’t in agreement. The Indigenous aren’t in agreement. We’re not in agreement right now.

In my previous life, I built a lot of homes — a lot of homes — and we used lumber to do it. I used to walk through after framing stage. That was my favourite stage, because you could see the openness of the walls still. You could feel how the skeleton of the home was coming together.

[4:00 p.m.]

I could close my eyes and almost because of the smell of the lumber know how the room was going to feel. We used it because it was renewable. Has it always been done correctly? No, it hasn’t. Do we have to change? Absolutely, we do.

But change management 101 is not shoving change and — using the words of the minister of state — ramming it down someone’s throat. It’s actually engaging in the process. It’s collaborating. Wood is still the best building material. It’s still environmentally friendly. Our forestry industry deserves protection, not at any expense, but it also deserves communication and conversation and collaboration.

In my riding, the forestry sector is important. In our Okanagan, we have two head offices of two very significant contributors to the forestry industry, Gorman Bros. and Tolko. My nephew made his way all the way through his professional program by working summers at Tolko. Hard work, absolutely. Great-paying job, absolutely. Debt-free when he graduated.

Communities throughout this province rely on our forestry sector. Families rely on our forestry sector. But instead of actually having that conversation, instead of introducing this bill when it should have been introduced towards the beginning of our six weeks together, we actually watched as the NDP filibustered their miscellaneous statutes bill. I think that’s almost the first time in recorded history. But when that didn’t work, well, then it was continued debate on the throne speech of last April.

Meanwhile: threatening 18,000 jobs. To put that into perspective, that’s not 18,000 people. That’s 18,000 families, so let’s take it to…. Each family is probably four people. So 54,000 British Columbians being threatened by this bill. This bill is introduced very last and has just been cut short on committee stage? Shame on us today. Shame on them.

Instead we’re standing up. We’re standing up against this act with this hoist motion. Look, we’re not asking for no change; we’re actually asking for change. But no government should have a blank cheque on how that change is made. So at least in this standing up…. At least in this, the record is clear.

We are not the ones with those 18,000 jobs lost. We are not the ones threatening the families at Christmas. We are not the ones who are choosing to not have a conversation about this bill. We are the ones that are standing up for families. We are the ones standing up for Christmas. We are the ones standing up for the holidays. We are the ones standing up for the forestry sector. We are the ones standing up for all of the communities that are dependent on this.

[4:05 p.m.]

Instead, these guys just want to heckle. They think it’s funny. Wow. They actually think it’s funny.

We are dealing in such a fragile time. Our systems, our infrastructure…. We don’t even know if we can mail something right now or when it would arrive. We don’t know if we can drive home from this place today or how long it would take us. The fragility of our systems is threatened. There are natural disasters — due to climate change, due to the changing times — that are occurring.

Then there are man-made disasters. This is certainly an NDP government–made disaster. The stress of COVID and the stress of floods and the stress of fires and the stress of the economic uncertainty is now the stress of job uncertainty for 18,000 more British Columbians.

What do we need to do to be sustainable? Well, we need to get serious about our cultural sustainability. I love that this House stood up and unanimously supported UNDRIP. It’s so disheartening to now see the Indigenous community saying: “We don’t have enough time to actually give the feedback necessary on this bill.”

Social sustainability — well, that’s how we support those in need. That’s how we support the softer side of our society. Well, there is no social sustainability in this bill.

The environmental sustainability of this bill? Well, we don’t actually know what it is, because it’s nothing more than a deferment. We’re not sure what it’s going to mean, and there is no scrutiny with a committee stage that would actually identify what that environmental sustainability is going to mean.

The last pillar of sustainability is actually economic. This government, when they stand to actually vote for this bill, will threaten 4 percent of British Columbia’s GDP, at minimum — 18,000 jobs, 54,000 people, how many communities — and then all of the spillover effect of having those communities no longer require services, no longer need to exist.

So heckle all you want. Laugh all you want. The reality is that this is an incredibly serious topic, in which we are threatening the very backbone of our economic sustainability. The top five exports, four related to forestry…. What do we replace it with?

I haven’t even started talking about — I don’t know — cutting Bill 22 short, cutting Bill 23 short, cutting Bill 29 short. This government doesn’t seem to want any scrutiny, any questions: “We know best.” Well, at least, they certainly did when it came to the miscellaneous statutes bill, as they talked ad nauseam about that.

[4:10 p.m.]

I sure hope that they stand up to talk about this, because I would love for the Okanagan’s constituents to at least hear about how you’re going to support them — why it’s necessary to cut off committee stage, why it’s necessary to cut off due process, why it’s necessary to abandon democracy so that you guys can feel great, can feel powerful, can feel invincible. I don’t know; I don’t know. What I feel is heartbroken, heartbroken.

Today I rise to support this hoist motion. I plead with you on the other side. I plead to your best interests: why you believe, why you came here, why we all came here — for democracy.

Deputy Speaker: Just a reminder to go through the Chair, please.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Speaker.

I ask on behalf of all the families — 18,000 of them. I ask on behalf of the industry — forestry. I ask on behalf of the communities. I ask on behalf of the Indigenous. I ask on behalf of the environmentalists. Please give this more time. Support the hoist motion. Press pause. Collaborate. Begin the conversation to actually make something truly remarkable, truly sustainable and something that we can all be proud of.

Deputy Speaker: Just a reminder — this is obviously a very passionate discussion, as most discussions are — to go through the Chair.

A. Olsen: I appreciate the opportunity to stand and speak to the hoist motion on this, one of two forestry bills that are currently in debate in this House. It’s something that I think is quite remarkable.

I know that closure of debate is not new. We asked the librarians to take a look at that for us, and it has actually been used often over the last decade or so. It’s a tool that’s used as a government is trying to get to the end of session and have their legislative agenda ended. You know, one of the things I found remarkable about a lot of the instances of closure that have showed up since 2003 is that, in many instances, that closure has come by agreement, where both sides of the House — their House Leaders, the Whips, whoever it is — get together and have a conversation about it.

Oftentimes closure is needed because the official opposition, and the opposition just in general — which is the part of the opposition that I’m in — are asking a lot of questions. This isn’t to pass judgment on the questions that are being asked. Let’s just assume that every question that’s asked at that stage of debate is valid and is necessary in informing the public about the bill that’s in front of them. Perhaps there has been a time or two when a few questions that were needless were asked as well.

However, it is the job of the opposition to scrutinize these bills, because we don’t, in this chamber, make an assumption that the piece of legislation that has been brought forward by the democratically elected government of this House is perfect. We make the assumption that the opposition, the loyal opposition, has a very legitimate and very important job in this system of government that we have: to scrutinize and to hold government accountable.

That’s what the stages of this debate process that we have this in this House are all about: ensuring that the people of British Columbia understand the laws that their elected governments are making and understand that those laws have been able to withstand the test of the scrutiny of the members of this side of the House.

[4:15 p.m.]

At times — not every session — government needs to be able to invoke closure in order to be able to get to the end of a session. As I said earlier, many times it has happened by agreement.

What’s unique about the situation that we’re facing today is not a challenge of House management. That has been a challenge that I have experienced since the day I was elected here in 2017. There has always been a challenge in managing the House, from my experience. I have complained about various aspects of House mismanagement, I would say, over that period. I never had a chance to experience what the management of the House was like prior to 2017, but I can tell you that it’s been a challenge over the last 4½ years, five years, that I’ve been here.

What’s unique about the closure of this bill is that it was brought in, as has been pointed out previously — an 80-page bill, brought in last week — to a legislative agenda that already was languishing. There were already questions as to whether or not…. Anybody who has been in these chambers for any period of time — you get a sense. You have a feeling about what is coming and about what the last couple of weeks are going to be like in any session. In this case, the last week.

I had a feeling about four weeks ago that this House was in trouble, partly because there was some time spent in this fall session, in October, debating the throne speech. There is an article written about it. That’s a first to me. That is a real indication that the government simply does not have its legislative agenda in order. It’s remarkable that a forest minister would not be available to be here to listen to the debate about the bill that they have tabled because they are in the committee stage of another forestry bill that they had tabled. That is remarkable, and an indication of really, really poor House management.

There should be an expectation by the people of British Columbia that the minister tabling a bill is available to listen to the debate, because we would at least like to pretend that that debate is going to inform the minister and the ministry. There is no pretence here. The minister is currently unavailable. In fact, I had to pull myself away from that debate to come and do this, and plead with my colleagues to give me a few minutes of the time so that I can then go back and ask questions in the committee stage of that debate. A really, really remarkable mismanagement of the House, one that I find totally unacceptable.

You see, I’m not so much irritated by the fact that we got to a point where we have closure. I’m irritated at the fact that we have a bill that is going to pass that is substantial, that had very little, if any, or no time, for scrutiny by the members of this side of the House. See, we get elected here, on behalf of the people of British Columbia, so that the people of British Columbia don’t have to spend their time doing this work. We do this on behalf of the people of British Columbia so that then, they can go and do all of the other things that we need British Columbians to do.

I can tell British Columbians at this point in the debate that the bill that we’re debating right now is not going to have…. This forest act — I can’t remember which one; is it 28…? Bill 28 did not have the benefit of scrutiny. That might be the first time that a government tabled a bill and then invoked closure with less than just a few hours of debate available at committee stage — an 80-page bill. I think it is important.

[4:20 p.m.]

It is completely appropriate to be raising the times in which members on the other side of the House have raised concerns about the use of this tactic. Again, I am less concerned about when this tactic is used when the opposition is legitimately, or has been, dragging their feet on something. That’s not the case in this bill. It was the government’s choice to put this bill on the table. We didn’t force them to bring this bill to the table. They put it there.

Now we’re going to have fundamental changes, complex changes, to forestry legislation, most of which, as I review the bill, are supportable. However, the nuances, the complexities need to be fleshed out and understood. Zero percent opportunity to do that. That’s what’s so egregious here. It’s not so much that the government…. It’s irritating that the government is using this tactic, especially when they could have chosen to manage the House more efficiently.

That’s the reason why I stand in support of this hoist motion. What is the hurry to have this done now, when it could be done…? This process could be started 60 days from now, the same number of days that the other forestry bill is giving Indigenous nations to respond to a notification. It’s the same period of time between now and when this bill could be put on the papers. Okay, so maybe it’s 60 days plus two weeks — 74 days, give or take. Once we get through that throne speech, there could be a bill that’s already drafted. We could put it on the order papers immediately.

In wrapping up…. I’ve got just a few seconds left here. I want to say that one of the techniques the former government used, which I would like to see this government employ, was putting bills on the order papers in the spring for debate in the fall. This is a really, really important nuance.

We’re debating bills that we’ve had less than 24 hours to review. That, to me, is as much of an affront to the democratic process in this House as it is putting a bill on the table a week before we’re done and then not giving the House a chance to debate it before closing the debate. The idea that we are given zero time to understand the bill that we’re debating is also an indication from this government that they don’t want serious debate on their legislation. I find that inappropriate.

I stand with this hoist motion because I think that it is entirely acceptable to suggest that this bill be pushed outside of this legislative session and be brought back first thing in the next legislative session, which starts about two months from now, for debate, and for us to flesh out all of the important things that the Minister of Forests wants to do with this bill and the intentions that this government has with the reforms of forestry.

I pass no judgment on it, but I will judge harshly a government that decides to put substantive legislation on the table and then give the people who were elected to do this job no time to do it. That is inappropriate and should not be supported by any members of this House, whether you sit on this side of the House or that side of the House.

Deputy Speaker: Just to explain for folks back home, standing orders do dictate that members should not point out the absence of a member or minister from this chamber. I let it go because the absence was organized. However, I would not encourage the member to do that in another room or any members to do that in this room going forward, okay? Thank you.

C. Oakes: I stand in strong support of a hoist motion to ensure that all members of this House have the adequate time to debate, to scrutinize Bill 28, which is going to fundamentally have a significant impact on the forest sector in British Columbia.

[4:25 p.m.]

I am incredibly troubled. I’m concerned. I’m anxious. I have a lot of questions. It’s not just the workers, the contractors, the small business owners, the people in my community…. I feel I have an elected responsibility to come forward to this House, to raise their voices and to bring questions forward. I feel I have a responsibility on behalf of all British Columbians to raise serious concerns based on expertise that I have gained from coming from one of the most integrated forest communities in North America.

I want to acknowledge the words of the Leader of the Third Party, when she highlighted the importance of democracy and process here in this chamber. She talked about the process, that when we come through those doors and we take our bow, in great respect and reverence to all of the people who have come forward in this chamber, we come forward carrying the voices of our constituents. We have a responsibility, every single one of us, every single MLA, to have that adequate time to ensure that when legislation is tabled, we have adequate time to ensure that the voices, the concerns, the questions that people in our ridings have, that we can bring them forward and get them answers.

The fact that this government has tabled not just Bill 28 but a suite of legislative changes to forest policy that is going to significantly disrupt our forest economy, forest communities, workers, contractors, small businesses, Indigenous-led businesses in each of our communities….

The reality is — and I raised it yesterday — it is also going to have a significant impact on our housing stock. Consider for a moment…. Consider this. To all of the members in this House, what do you think builds your houses in British Columbia? How does the Premier possibly go and stand up in front of the Council of Forest Industries and talk about building with wood and then dismantle the very systems that help build it? What do you think is going to happen when you start closing 18 sawmills? Where do you think those wood products are going to come from? Where is the lumber going to come from? Where are the trusses going to come from? Where’s the plywood going to come from?

I have watched, over the years, when significant events happened in the United States, whether it was a tornado or significant environmental impacts on communities south of the border. We ship our wood products down there, whether it’s plywood, whether it’s lumber, to help support and look at their rebuild effort.

We’re looking right now, today, at the devastation that exists in British Columbia. I look at Lytton, a community completely burned to the ground. I look at Merritt, and I look at Abbotsford. I look at all of these communities with such significant challenges ahead and consider, in my mind, what it’s going to mean to rebuild.

I come from a community, again, one of the most integrated forest products producers in North America. I understand from the sawmills down to an MDF plant down to a pellet plant to an energy district heating system to pulp. All of those industries exist in my community. It’s rightfully so that I have concerns, that when I see a suite of legislation that’s going to disrupt that, I am deeply troubled.

I’m also deeply troubled that when I raised it yesterday, when I talked about the people in my community, when I talked about the workers, when I talked about the products that I am so proud that we create here in British Columbia and in my community…. I’m proud of that because it builds British Columbia. It builds homes for people. When I raised these concerns, what was the response I got back from the government? “You’re fearmongering.”

Well, you know what? You know one way to prove that I’m…. You know what? Maybe I am fearmongering.

[4:30 p.m.]

Let us debate the bill. Let us go section by section. Prove me wrong. Prove that the concerns that I’ve raised in this House based on expertise, based on the people that I know and respect in my community, that they’ve raised those concerns for me to bring forward to this House…. Prove me wrong.

Let us debate the bill. Let us debate section by section in committee so that we understand the implications and the consequences that this suite of legislation — and particularly Bill 28 — is going to have in our communities. Let us debate the bill. Let us understand section by section.

Don’t go and say that I’m fearmongering. Prove me wrong. Let me get into the committee room and debate it section by section. Let me ask the questions that my constituents have for this government. Prove me wrong. Call the bill. Let us debate it. Let us have the opportunity to go section by section and have an understanding of the implications.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I had the opportunity to talk a little bit yesterday about some of the contractors, and I want to take a moment on this, because why I’m so deeply troubled is: I don’t believe that this government understands what the integrated forest product sector looks like in the province of British Columbia.

Again, when we asked questions in the House during question period today, the minister talks about her experience from decades ago. That’s her experience on understanding what the forest sector and the workers need. Those workers weren’t even born then. The experience that the minister has…. And the workers that I brought forward to help this House understand the impact weren’t born decades ago. They want to know what the government is going to do to support them now.

What are you going to do to help to support that processor who just spent a million dollars on a piece of equipment, who is 30 years old, who has a young family, who just bought a house and has a mortgage and a piece of equipment? Is this minister going to support this 30-year-old? Are you going to make the payments on a $1 million piece of equipment while it takes two years…?

Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair, Member.

C. Oakes: Through you, Mr. Chair: will you encourage the government…?

Deputy Speaker: The appropriate form would be: “Would the minister….”

C. Oakes: Through you, Mr. Chair, would the minister consider making the payments for those young 30-year-olds who bought a $1 million piece of equipment in our communities? Will you make the payments while it takes a couple of years to figure out this new suite of legislative changes that are all designed to look at supporting small businesses? Don’t you think that a 30-year-old who runs a processor or a logging truck…? Aren’t they a small business? So you’re going to eradicate them?

What about community forests? What about woodlot owners? All these sectors have questions to Bill 28.

In closing, and I have a lot more to….

Oh, I can keep going.

Interjections.

C. Oakes: Well, look at that, folks. You just got me started. Let me talk about community forests. I know the incredible impact that community forests can have on our communities. I’m so incredibly proud that, time and time again… And I know that members of all sides of this House have talked about the success of one of the community forests in my region, a partnership between Hatsel First Nation and Likely. It has made a significant impact on the lives of not just people in my community but the entire region.

They are held up as example of how community forests can be managed and how we need to invest and understand the potential that these types of arrangements and partnerships with First Nations, Indigenous communities and local governments can have on making a significant impact. They have questions. When you start looking at this new special interest and drawing circles around and pulling out the best fibre, who’s going to get that best fibre? Are you going to take fibre out of community forests to distribute to somebody else? And who makes that decision on pulling out that special fibre? What does that look like?

Let’s talk about woodlots. We’ve got a lot of fantastic woodlot managers in each of our communities. So are you now saying…? Well, I don’t know, because I’d love to debate it. I would love to understand through this bill, which we are now not going to have an opportunity to debate. I want to know that. Are you now saying to the woodlot owners of British Columbia: “We are going to start pulling fibre out of your woodlots”? Community forests? Other arrangements that we have in our communities? Is that going to happen?

[4:35 p.m.]

Now, the government will say I’m fearmongering again. I see the MLA from Stikine saying a few comments. Hey, prove me wrong. Let me debate it. Let us take the time to go section by section so I understand, so that I can go back to community forests across British Columbia, so that I can go back to the Woodlot Association, so I can go back to small business owners in my community.

Let us have that debate. Do not disrupt the forest sector of British Columbia. Do not make such significant changes that you are doing today, on a legislative suite of changes that are going to completely disrupt the entire fibre supply management system without any opportunity for us to go section by section to understand exactly what those implications are.

Again I go back to the Minister of Forests. The minister again stood in this House and said: “Look, we’re going to be there for workers.” I don’t know. It seems to me that you’re turning your back on workers.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I don’t want to interrupt you while you’re speaking. But please follow the rules of the House, which is to suggest…. Please say “minister” or “would the minister.” The member knows the form of address that’s appropriate here.

C. Oakes: Well, I would, Mr. Speaker. But then again, that just highlights the fact that we have two bills….

Deputy Speaker: Sorry, it’s not a debatable point, Member. You were cautioned earlier, and the House was cautioned by my colleague the Assistant Deputy Speaker earlier. I’d just appreciate if you’d follow the rules of the House.

C. Oakes: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and please accept my sincere…. With respect, the fact that I’ve never been in a situation where we have two forestry bills at the exact same time where I’m trying to be in two Houses…. And I can’t say who’s in the House or who’s not, but it makes it very complicated to follow our rules of process when we’re in a situation that none of us have ever been in before. At least I haven’t since 2013.

So forgive me if I’m struggling a little bit on trying to understand how we can possibly stand up for not just the workers in our community but the very products that they create to build British Columbia. Forgive me, Mr. Speaker. I am struggling here. I am struggling with the fact that I’ve not been in a situation where I have such a piece of legislation such as Bill 28 that could have such significant consequences on so many people in my riding.

Again, my community is one of the most integrated forest product producers in North America. Imagine my concern when we have a bill that’s now been forced closure, where I do not have the ability to go section by section to understand what the implications are going to be for my community. I haven’t been in this position before.

Forgive me, Mr. Speaker, if I’m deeply concerned.

Deputy Speaker: I did not mean to interrupt you. You’ve given me a job to ensure that the rules of the House are followed. That’s all. Thank you, Member.

C. Oakes: Yes, and in all honesty, with sincerity, Mr. Speaker, I am just deeply troubled.

Again, what do I say to that 30-year-old in my community who I have to go home to now and say, “Well, the government has said that there would be support for you, and it’s a bridging program to retirement,” because it’s worked so well in the past. He’s 30 years old. He’s just invested his entire life savings into a piece of equipment. What do I say to that person?

I say that, “Hey, the government understands best, and they understand who you are,” but I don’t think they do, because the government would have not said that comment. It is clear that they’ve not done the socioeconomic impact. They’ve not done the very studies to understand exactly the consequences and the impacts on people in my community, because they would know that the demographic now that is working in our forest sector is a lot of young people.

It’s that saw filer who works in the sawmill in West Fraser,the person that has spent years training, investing in themselves, investing in their future, just bought a pickup truck and probably a house, just bought a sled and now is thinking, like: “Wow. Holy cow. There are going to be some significant changes on the horizon.”

[4:40 p.m.]

Again, prove me wrong. Prove us wrong. Give us the opportunity to at least debate section by section and understand the consequences that this legislation is going to have in our communities.

I’m disappointed. I’m troubled. I’m concerned. Look, I feel I have enough experience in this Legislature, and I feel that I have enough knowledge from my community to know that the impacts aren’t just going to be in my community. They’re going to be felt right across this province, whether you are in Surrey or Maple Ridge or Mission.

Or how about…. I heard the member for Port Moody–Coquitlam heckling quite a bit earlier. Hey, if you live in that community and you’re concerned, maybe call your MLA and let him know that instead of heckling, perhaps it would be far more proactive if you respected the values that each of us come into this Legislature with and say: “You know what? I think it’s important that we respect this chamber, we respect this House and we respect the right that when significant pieces of legislation are tabled, we actually have the ability to go through section by section and understand what the consequences are.” Scrutiny matters.

I asked this government yesterday to pause and reflect on the consequences that they will have on British Columbians and how we rebuild. I ask it again. Pause, provide adequate time on Bill 28, approve this hoist motion and allow this chamber, this House, these MLAs, to do our jobs and make sure we get it right, because British Columbians — they’re counting on us.

E. Ross: I will try to follow the rules, but check me if I don’t. I was hoping to get here to speak to Bill 28, the Forest Amendment Act, which is going to affect at least 18,000 jobs in British Columbia. We’re talking about mill workers. We’re talking about loggers. We’re talking about fallers, buckers, chokermen. We’re talking about the value-added industry here in B.C.

I was hoping to talk about that because Bill 28…. For those thousands at home that are watching us, this is Bill 28. This is the kind of work we do here in the Legislature. Bill 28, the Forest Amendment Act, 2021, has got 75 sections in it. It’s 81 pages long. But I’m not here to debate that, unfortunately. What I’m here to debate is the hoist motion that was put forward by my colleague for Kamloops–South Thompson.

Basically, for those at home, what we are talking about is saying, look, this is way too complicated, and there’s too much at risk to just ram this through in a couple of days of debate at the end of session here in Victoria. That’s what the amendment is.

What this side of the House is asking government is: could you at least take a breath, sit back for a while and consider the socioeconomic impacts this is going to have on families all across B.C.? Nobody can be expected to go through this kind of a document in two days and expect to come out with a fulsome understanding of what this is going to mean, not only to the people and families of British Columbia, but to communities — communities like Surrey, communities like Port McNeill. Some of these communities can’t reinvent themselves in a short period of time.

A lot of our communities — and dare I say, the province of British Columbia — were built on the backs of forestry. My father was a logger. I was a logger. I was a hand logger.

[4:45 p.m.]

To add to this, we’re talking about Bill 28, specifically the amendment, where we’re asking government to take a pause and do the consultation and do the studies on the impacts that this is going to have on British Columbians and communities. But at the same time, what’s happening here in the Legislature…. In another room right now, as we speak, there’s a debate going on, on Bill 23, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

Look at this thing. This is 64 pages long. It’s got 111 sections. When we’re talking about 111 sections, you’ve got to know that there are subsections. To give you an idea of what we’ve got to do down here, that’s section 35, subsection (a), sub-subsection (0.1) and then sub-sub-subsection (a) underneath that. That’s just one clause. A lot of this is definitions. It takes time to go through this.

But instead of taking the time, this debate is going to be shut down today at 5:15. They’re going to force closure. When you read this in the news, when they say they forced closure, what it means is that we’re not going to debate this. Government does not want to debate this.

I see that yesterday five NDP government members got up to speak to Bill 28 to support it, but I see nobody on that side of the House getting up to talk about the amendment that was put forward by the member for Kamloops–South Thompson to say: can we take a break — 70 days, three months, six months? Can we take a break and do a full study on what this is going to mean to the people working in the forestry industry, the people that take a pay cheque home to pay the mortgage bill, the people that take a paycheque home to actually put food on the table, to chart out a future for their children?

A lot of these workers, men and women, wanted to spend their lives working in the communities and in the jobs they’re in right now. That’s what they wanted to do. Part of the socioeconomic impact study — that’s a really big word, by the way — could be simplified just to say: what does it mean to a person who loses a job? That’s all it means.

What we’re asking the government to consider — maybe what I’m asking the government to consider — is to understand what kind of stress a family goes through when they know they’re going to lose a job. We already know that there’s family violence happening right now due to the stress of COVID. We already know what financial pressures get put on a family when their future is uncertain, when they know they might have to sell their house at below-market price because the community has got no economy.

But do we know, do we truly understand what it means for a young person, halfway through grade 12, when they have to pack up and leave because their mother or their father lost a job? Do we understand some of the purchases that were put in place that have to be foregone? They have to be forgotten. Do we understand some of the luxuries that we take for granted that are no longer possible for a family because they don’t know how long they’re going to have a job?

I heard some comments in here today. One of most troubling comments I heard was that it’s not the end of the world. That is so heartless.

[4:50 p.m.]

Why don’t you go to the mother that’s trying to think about where her next paycheque’s going to come from because she’s been working in the mill for the last five years? Tell her it’s not the end of the world. Why don’t you go talk to the faller? Why don’t you tell that faller it’s not the end of the world?

How do you take a faller or a buckerman — or a chokerman, for that matter — and take those transferable skills to someplace else? Where is he going to go? Where is that woman going to go? Where do you take the skills of a faller or a buckerman or a chokerman, and where do you transfer those skills to? You might say that you can actually go to the value-added industry, but guess what? The value-added industry relies on the product that you’re actually talking about deferring.

When we’re talking about this, there have been studies done on what happens when somebody loses a job. It’s not just economics. It’s mental health. We’re talking about 18,000 people that this government has promised to help somehow. Don’t worry, faller or chokerman, we’re going to transfer your skills to a different sector. I’ll be really curious about what sector the government proposes to transfer these skills to.

But in the meantime, it’s been studied. The conclusion is that mental health is not just mental health. The treatment of mental health in the case of losing a job is not just helpful, it’s required, especially in today’s day and age when there are so many pressures being put on the people of British Columbia and so many pressures being put on families. Not just with COVID. We know what the stresses are on people and families with COVID. But the cost of living is going up. Inflation is going up.

Taxes had a lot to do with that. It’s going to continue to go up with this move by the provincial government, and part of the economic analysis that wasn’t done speaks to the supply of the products that come from our forestry industry. When you reduce the supply, demand goes up. So as demand for our products go up, housing prices are going to go up. Millennials already can’t afford to buy a house. What is this going to do to the price of housing in Vancouver, Maple Ridge, when they can’t even afford lumber?

And, by the way, when you’re talking about the supply, we are going to become more of a dependent province than we already are. We already see how dependent we are on other countries and other provinces for gasoline. It’s hurting people, 30 litres of gas and a gasoline shortage. That’s only how much they’re allowed to get. There’s a possibility of penalty if they go over the border and get gas from the United States. There’s a penalty for what are deemed to be the essentials.

Where are we going to get this lumber product when this deferral takes place? Where are we going to import it from? The United States? Do we allow the United States to supply us with a product for our basic living needs and allow them to get the benefit of jobs? Allow them to get the benefit of taxes that come from a thriving economy so that they can build schools and hospitals and infrastructure?

This is what an analysis of an economic report could do. It could enlighten us. It could get us to look at all of the factors across this legislation that we’re proposing. This is all that the member from Kamloops–South Thompson is proposing. That’s it. What’s the rush?

[4:55 p.m.]

In either case, we know Bill 28 and the deferrals are going to get forced through anyway. It’s going to get forced through. The government has got, what, at a minimum, 50 votes? You’ve got the majority of votes. It’s a done deal. It’s a slam dunk. But like many of my colleagues here have said, let due process take its course in the Legislature. That’s why we’re here.

We’re supposed to debate this 80-page document on behalf of the people of British Columbia. That’s what we’re supposed to do. We can’t. We can’t debate 75 clauses in two days, yet this is going to have a dramatic impact on people and families across British Columbia — including First Nations, including the communities that depend on forestry.

They will not have time to reinvent themselves. How are they going to reinvent themselves? Tourism? Tourism is dead. The tourism ship industry that was actually going from Washington state to Alaska, a $2.9 billion industry, was ignored by this government. It’s gone. How do you reinvent a tourism economy?

What else can they do? You can’t do value-added from the forest industry. You can’t do that. There are no mines outside some of these communities. This will go down to the places like Surrey, like I mentioned, for the manufacturing facilities. It will affect people down there as well.

What I will say about the government shutting down debate on a bill that has tremendous negative impact on people and communities is that this is not what I signed up for as an MLA. I’ve said it before in this House: I truly respect the process of the B.C. Legislature. This is a great way to do governance. I never knew this type of governance existed.

There are a number of measures — we’ve been talking about it already — in terms of how we hold government accountable, how we make government transparent. The freedom-of-information bill was one way. Now that’s going to cost the people of British Columbia, at a minimum, $25 per request, just to have an understanding of what the government is doing. That’s going to have closure. That’s going to be rammed through.

In terms of what we’re doing here today, the accountability that that side of the House, the NDP, fought so hard for when they were the opposition is now something they ignore. Members of the NDP government, when they were in opposition, actually condemned ramming through legislation like this and demanded fair process or else something might get missed.

In this case here, that’s what the official opposition is for. They’re supposed to hold government accountable. They’re supposed to go through, line by line, every single word in a document like this. That’s not going to happen.

Now a lot of MLAs, including NDP MLAs, are going to have to go back and tell their constituents…. “Did you debate this bill fully? Did you fully consider the impact to my livelihood and my family?” You’re going to have to say, “No, I didn’t, because we didn’t debate it; we forced closure,” which is pretty sad.

I’ve told you guys before that back in the ’90s, as a young man with a young family, I didn’t have the opportunity for a full-time job. It was depressing going from one part-time job to another part-time job, to welfare, to unemployment insurance, to another part-time job, just because there was nothing full-time. This is why I fight so hard for people. I know what that’s like. I know the kind of stress it can put on you, where you don’t have a future.

In this case here, the people that you’re talking about — the 18,000 people that you’re talking about putting out of work — have a future. They’ve been working on it probably half of their lives, in some cases all their life.

[5:00 p.m.]

There are people on this side of the House that went to work for their family contracting company and started driving a tractor or a loader. It was just part of their culture. In fact, if anything, this is B.C.’s history. At the worst times of our economic crises over the last 100 years, forestry was always there. Yeah, it had its ups and downs, but it was always there. This affects so many different areas of our society today. We’re not even getting into the first few pages or the first few issues of what this actually means for the future of families in British Columbia. As opposition, we’re trying to do our job. But we can’t, because this is going to get forced through, no matter what, at 5:15 today.

I feel bad for the families of British Columbia that are going through this stressful time, wondering if it’s their job that’s going to get lost, get deleted. I feel bad for the workers who have to go home and tell their husband or their wife or their children that they don’t know what their future looks like. In a time of the uncertainty that they’re already experiencing under COVID, they’ve got to experience this. I feel bad for them.

Like my colleagues around here have said before me, it almost feels like we’ve failed. We’ve failed the people of British Columbia, and we’ve failed families, only because we didn’t give this bill the due diligence that it deserves. Some 18,000 people, who represent 18,000 families, expected us to do our job as MLAs. We didn’t do it. As of today at 5:15, we’ll have failed our duty to British Columbians.

M. Bernier: Why did we put our names on the ballot to begin with? I think that’s an important question for every single person in this House today. I know, for myself, how honoured I was to be chosen first to be a candidate and then to be fortunate enough to be successful, to be the MLA representing my riding.

I put my name on the ballot…. I sure hope that every other person in this House would say the same thing if asked the question: you put your name on the ballot to help the people in your riding, to be here as their voice, to do the best you can to represent the people who elected you, to stand up for them. Do we always agree with everybody in our riding? No, of course not, but we do the best we can on the issues to make sure that we are defending the people.

Part of that means coming to this House and discussing legislation, debating legislation. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the government side or the opposition side of the discussion. There’s a duty for all the people in this House to speak on behalf of the people in their riding. If you’re fortunate enough to be on the government side, you’ll hopefully be part of framing legislation. You’ll have the opportunity to stand in this House and defend that legislation on behalf of the people in your riding, the people that elected you, on why that legislation is important, why you can confidently vote in favour of it and why you think it’s the best thing for the people.

[5:05 p.m.]

We have a job, in opposition, not only to represent our distinct communities that elected us but also — as an opposition as a whole, for all of British Columbia — to ask questions on behalf of families, on behalf of employers, on behalf of the people of British Columbia, when legislation is tabled, on the goods or the bads of that legislation.

There are many pieces of legislation that have come in front of this House, regardless of who’s in power, on which we have all collectively said: “This is going in the right direction. This will help the people of British Columbia. We can unanimously support this.” That usually comes after a discussion, after a debate, after scrutinizing the bill, after asking questions about what’s in the bill, to ensure that at the end of the day we have the best product possible, that no stone has been left unturned and that questions can be asked to make sure the people understand that this is good for them. In some cases, maybe, they’ll have questions. Some bills don’t pass unanimously.

When I was elected, I can tell you, one of the first things that hit me was walking into this building, walking into the rotunda and looking up. What do you see? You see, for the most part, what built this province: the resource sector. You see paintings of mining, depictions of the agriculture sector, our history, fisheries — and yes, forestry, as one of the prominent pictures in this building when you first walk in. It helped build this province, which is what built communities, which in turn built families. Families were part of all this. Families have built this province.

I heard, today, some amazing passion from members in opposition, especially for Cariboo North and Cariboo-Chilcotin — which are, in some ways, the epicentre of where some of the impacts are going to be felt from this bill. But as many have said, this bill does have provincial implications. I would say that there’s no riding at all in this province that will not be impacted or affected in some way. This means that families are going to be affected in our ridings. Families are going to be affected in the government ridings.

Again, when I got elected, one of the things I was very proud of is being able to stand in this chamber and have an opportunity to speak on almost any bill, on almost any issue that I felt was important for the people in my riding, especially if I felt there were going to be negative impli­cations from a bill, or something that could really hurt the growth, prosperity or future for the people in my region.

This Bill 28 — we’re talking about the hoist motion on this, and why it’s important — is, in all fairness, I’m going to say, a benefit for government. I have not heard one person from the NDP this afternoon stand up and say why this bill is important, why it should pass, what the problem is with it, or what they’re going to say when they go back to their riding.

You know what’s depressing? We are going to have a vote on this bill at some point. Member after member of the government side of this House has not spoken once to this bill, has not said one thing of why it’s important, and has not acknowledged at all the loss that’s going to take place in this province and that’s going to hurt families.

[5:10 p.m.]

No. Instead, they’re just going to be quiet. They’ll stand up. Their name will go on record in Hansardas voting in favour. That will be the only place. The only place on record that they had anything to do with this bill will probably be their name after a standing vote. No explanation why they supported it at all.

I have to think about that and say, with all due respect, then…. Have they read the bill? Do they understand the implications? Do they understand why we are saying we have to hit the pause button, why we have to have more time?

I cannot believe that we wasted so much time in this six-week session at the beginning. Ironically, we were joking about it, thinking it was funny at the time. Well, god knows now it’s not funny, that we were wasting day after day after day talking about a misc stats bill, that this government was so disorganized that there was nothing to talk about or debate.

“Well, let’s bring back a Speech from the Throne from April.” Something that’s completely irrelevant. But guess what. “We don’t have bills, we have nothing to talk about, so let’s talk about a Speech from the Throne that’s eight months old.” At the time, we made fun of that, thinking: “What a waste. This government has no plan. This government has no legislation.”

Well, I hate to say…. Obviously, what they were doing was…. They had legislation in their back pockets, and they thought: “Let’s ram it through at the very last minute so there’s no time for discussion, no time for debate, no time for scrutiny at all.”

Now, if somebody wants to stand up and say: “That’s wrong. That was not our intention….” Then the next thing has to be: okay, I guess government’s incompetent, and they can’t figure this out.

It’s one or the other. You either were disorganized and didn’t plan appropriately and bring legislation forward so it can go through the proper due process that every bill should go through, or you’re doing this deliberately. You’re doing this deliberately to ram something through. Why? Well, we don’t know, because we can’t ask the questions. The assumption is there’s something you’re hiding. And if there’s something you’re not hiding, please stand up and tell us.

I said that I was very proud of my colleagues who stood up and spoke so passionately on behalf of their constituents, on behalf of the people they represent. I want to maybe just highlight something here and why this is important for every single person in this House.

When you have groups out there saying there could be 18,000 jobs lost…. There could be ten, 15 mills closed. I think those people, those employers, especially the families that we saw in the Legislature yesterday and today and possibly tomorrow, deserve an answer from this government. They need a straight answer. Am I losing my job? What supports are going to be there?

This Premier said there would never be a mill shut down under his watch. I haven’t heard a leadership race being called anytime soon. We still have the same Premier. So is this another broken promise?

This is what I find also very interesting. It’s only been the opposition members who have stood up to try to justify for their constituents why we need more time, why this is important to continue to debate.

Let me just say this. We’re only 2½ months away from the next session. In this COVID world that we’ve been in, 2½ months sometimes feels like two days. It’s not that far away that we will be back in this House. So why on god’s earth do we have to ram this through in 48 hours, which is actually only about six hours of House time? Why are we ramming this through without one NDP member explaining to their constituents how important this is?

Guess what. If you voted in favour of our motion, you will have that chance next session to explain why this is so important.

When you look at….

[5:15 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. We have met our time. It is now 5:15, as stated under the time allocation motion.

M. Bernier: I appreciate that. Am I allowed to ask leave, then? I’m still in the middle of my speech, Mr. Chair.

Deputy Speaker: According to the time allocation motion, the vote is to be called on this at 5:15.

M. Bernier: Well, that’s…. I will just end, then, by saying again how disappointing this is — that every single person in this House is going to stand and vote on something that just is a sham…

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

M. Bernier: …and a shame for the constituents in their ridings…

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

M. Bernier: …that they have not represented today. That’s absolutely appalling — that they are paid to be in this House and that they are not doing their jobs.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. If you could please take your seat. Thank you very much.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81.1(2) and the motion adopted earlier today, the question on the motion for second reading of Bill 28, intituled Forest Amendment Act, 2021, and the question on any motion and amendment thereto, must be put by 5:15 today, Tuesday, November 23, 2021, without further amendment or debate. Of course, if a division is called, it shall proceed forthwith, in accordance with Standing Order 16(2).

Of course, the first order of business that we’re discussing is the proposed amendment moved by the member for Kamloops–South Thompson.

A division has been called. We are just finishing a division in the other chamber, so we will be waiting until that division is finished. We will be recessed until we are ready to resume after that division vote is complete.

The House recessed from 5:17 p.m. to 5:19 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Members. Division has been called in this chamber, and that starts a clock ticking for ten minutes. I haven’t had it completely correct with all these different sessional rules. As I see is being explained now, it is ten minutes until we are voting on this.

[5:20 p.m. - 5:25 p.m.]

Thank you, Members. Members, could I ask leave to give up this remaining one minute and 49 seconds and get right to the votes?

Okay. I heard a nay. I guess leave has not been granted.

The question is the proposed amendment to Bill 28 moved by the member for Kamloops–South Thompson.

[5:30 p.m.]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

On the main motion.

Deputy Speaker: The next vote now will be on the proposed second reading of Bill 28, the Forest Amendment Act.

I will ask if there is leave to waive the time.

Leave not granted.

[5:35 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: The question is second reading of Bill 28.

Second reading of Bill 28 approved on the following division:

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, if we could have a little decorum, please.

Minister, please proceed.

Hon. K. Conroy: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 28, Forest Amendment Act, 2021, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call committee on Bill 29 in this chamber.

Deputy Speaker: We’ll take a short recess to allow staff to come into the room. The House is in recess.

The House recessed at 5:39 p.m.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 29 — INTERPRETATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 29; N. Letnick in the chair.

The committee met at 5:43 p.m.

The Chair: Attorney General, would you like to introduce your staff?

Hon. D. Eby: I’m joined by Adrian Gibson, legal counsel, justice services branch, and Debbie Chan, senior counsel, legal services branch.

On clause 1.

M. de Jong: May I say, I was appreciative of the opportunity to have a discussion with the two staff members that are here today, and one of their colleagues. To a certain extent, I’ll be interested in verifying on the record some of the information that they provided to me at that time.

[5:45 p.m.]

To begin with, under section 1, there are three terms defined. Simply to confirm the following declaration, where it has been defined as being the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act — that having been, in 2019, Bill 41 — can the Attorney confirm, then, that the definitive version of the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples is that which is attached as the schedule to Bill 41, 2019, that being the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act?

Hon. D. Eby: Yes, that’s correct.

M. de Jong: The next defined term, “Indigenous peo­ples,” also refers to that act. I’m going to ask the Attorney General this.

I will say at the outset that I understand the lineage, the linking between the term and the term in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, but when you go to that act, it tells us: “‘Indigenous peoples’ has the same meaning as aboriginal peoples in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.” So we have an act that says the definition of this term is found in a second act, which tells us that the definition of this term is found in a third act.

I’m sure there is going to be some construct-of-construction argument that the Attorney cites for why this is the preferred way, but I’ve also heard him say in the past that part of the objective — and his objective — is to make statutes somewhat more readable. This does not strike me as a glowing example of making a statute more readable when you have to consult three to actually get a definition.

Hon. D. Eby: It is, in fact, a drafting convention to ensure consistency across the provincial statute book. This also has the meritorious impact of, hopefully, eliminating any uncertainty about the difference between the term “Indigenous peoples” in this act and, within the DRIPA act, the same term — and then the constitution, which uses an older, interchangeable term, “aboriginal peoples of Canada.” Given the difference between the two terms, we wanted to be clear, among the acts provincially, what we’re talking about, and to ensure consistency across the statute book.

M. de Jong: I’m not sure I understood the last part of the Attorney’s answer. I think what he was probably referring to is language that is contained within section 35 of the Constitution Act and how it differs slightly from the language we are using in, for example — as I’ll call it — Bill 41 and the soon-to-be amended Interpre­tation Act. Is that correct?

Hon. D. Eby: That’s correct.

M. de Jong: In subclause 1(2), which I won’t re-read, but again, to confirm what I believe to be the case: the inclusion, at the outset, of the words “for certainty” is designed to convey to the reader that this doesn’t change anything but is merely a reassertion and confirmation of the existing state of the law. Is that correct?

Hon. D. Eby: That is correct.

[5:50 p.m.]

M. de Jong: This, then, brings us to (3), which is really the main part and the most significant part of the legislation after the defined terms, I suppose.

Can the Attorney, using an example…? I suspect his staff may have alerted him to the exchange we had at the time of the briefing. The best way to describe how this is designed to operate is probably for the Attorney to offer up on the record an example of what will happen when this interpretive tool that is the Interpretation Act is amended in this way, and specifically where every other piece of legislation and regulation in the province is hereafter construed as being consistent with the declaration, as will be defined in 8.1.

How does that work mechanically? Then I’ll have a couple of questions about how that plays out in a few different circumstances. But it would be…. Whenever we’re deeming something to hereafter be the case, I think the best way to try and illustrate the significance of that would be for the Attorney to offer up an example. The example we talked about with his staff, related to the disposition of Crown land, may be as good a place as any for the Attorney to start.

Hon. D. Eby: To back up a little bit, modern principles of statutory interpretation require that words be read in their entire context, grammatical ordinary sense, and harmonious with the scheme of the act itself, what the act is trying to achieve and the intention of the Legislature. In addition to those principles, we have the Interpretation Act, which layers on a significant additional role in determining how legislation is interpreted.

The general principle is in section 2 of that act, that the Interpretation Act applies to every enactment unless a contrary intention appears. So if, on its face, the legislation doesn’t have that intent, then the legislation should be preferred to whatever the Interpretation Act would otherwise suggest. So if there is not a contrary intention, then this provision will, hopefully…. Our intention is that it will operate in such a way that a reasonable interpretation that’s consistent with the UN declaration should be preferred by a statutory decision–maker or a court over an interpretation that is not consistent with the DRIPA legislation.

An example of this would be consideration of the public interests. There are many statutes that refer to the public interest. Section 11 of the Land Act is an example of that. Public interest is not defined in that legislation, and a decision-maker has to consider the public interest.

Currently there are certainly policies that include supporting reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. But where a decision-maker is faced with two possible interpretations of the public interest in making a decision, the Interpretation Act, in this circumstance, would, we intend, instruct the decision-maker to prefer the interpretation of public interest that is consistent with the principles of the DRIPA legislation.

[5:55 p.m.]

M. de Jong: A couple of things flow from that that I think bear ensuring are clear on the record. The Attorney has, I think, in offering up that response, pointed out the significance of section 2 of the Interpretation Act, where contrary intention becomes an important aspect of applying regulation or legislation.

In circumstances — if I can ask this in a way that is clear and more easily understood — where a piece of legislation contains provisions that are very clear but may be inconsistent with the declaration…. This legislation we’re passing today, and clause 1 in particular, doesn’t cure that, and it doesn’t say to a statutory decision–maker — someone engaging in judicial interpretation — that you must discount the clarity of that legislation, notwithstanding the fact that it is inconsistent with the declaration. If it is clear, that is a job for the Legislative Assembly to address.

Is that a fair statement, or more importantly, is that an accurate statement?

Hon. D. Eby: In response to the member’s question, that is correct. It would be easy to read this amendment in isolation from the rest of the Interpretation Act and, perhaps, come to the conclusion that it functions, perhaps, like the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, where that is a law that invalidates laws that are inconsistent with it. That is not how the Interpretation Act functions. Where there is a clear and contrary intention, where the law is not consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and that’s clear in the legislation, then that’s that. This doesn’t serve to overrule that.

The work to make our laws consistent with the UN declaration is happening through an engagement partnership with Indigenous peoples, through work happening within the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, and requires ongoing consultation and discussion. That’s not what’s meant to be done here, and it’s not how the act works. It’s important to be clear about that on the record.

I do want to correct one error that I made. I misspoke when I said: “Not consistent with DRIPA.” DRIPA is the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. What I should have said is, “Not consistent with UNDRIP,” the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the rights document that is attached to that act — just for greater clarity.

M. de Jong: I guess, for the sake of absolute accuracy and clarity — we’re not even referring to it any longer, for this legal discussion, as the UN declaration. It is “the declaration” within the meaning of these provisions.

Let’s go back to the example that I had a conversation with the Attorney General’s staff and that he mentioned — in terms of the disposition of land and that concept of the public interest. What I’m trying to get a bit of a sense of is how this is going to operate at a practical level for, in the example we’re using initially, a statutory decision–maker — I suppose, perhaps one day, some court or judicial instrument, a judicial review. But for the moment, I’m more interested in the day after, what this is going to mean for the statutory decision–maker.

The staff offered up the example of the disposition of land, so I went to the declaration, through which we are now…. This lens of the declaration that now applies in interpreting terms like “the public interest.”

[6:00 p.m.]

In the article dealing with land use and resource use, article 32, “Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources,” it states. Then in No. 2 in article 32: “Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources.”

Then in No. 2, in article 32: “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories….”

Now, we’re not going to rehash that entire conversation of two years ago. But it does strike me that, for reasons the Attorney has already alluded to, the statutory deci­sion–maker now must very much take that language into account. If that is so — and the Attorney can indicate whether he agrees or disagrees — how does that alter, if at all, the exercise of that statutory decision-making power?

The Chair: Members, it’s my duty to finish this now, pursuant to Standing Order 81.1(2) and based on the motion passed today.

I will now call the question on clause 1.

Clauses 1 and 2 approved.

Title approved.

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:02 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 29 — INTERPRETATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

Bill 29, Interpretation Amendment Act, 2021, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. D. Eby: I call committee stage Bill 22.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 22 — FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND
PROTECTION OF PRIVACY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 22; N. Letnick in the chair.

The committee met at 6:04 p.m.

The Chair: We’ll recess for one moment while we wait for staff to come in.

The committee recessed from 6:04 p.m. to 6:09 p.m.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

On clause 21 as amended (continued).

The Chair: Minister, would you like to introduce your staff?

Hon. L. Beare: Thank you, Chair. With me, I have my deputy minister, Shauna Brouwer.

M. de Jong: Events have moved fairly quickly. I’m only going to take less than a moment. I don’t suspect that this will require…. Well, maybe the minister will want to respond. We’re now back at Bill 22. The committee has just heard a discussion about Bill 29, which came to, unfortunately, a sad ending. A bill that enjoyed universal support in the chamber ended mid-discussion because of a closure motion.

[6:10 p.m.]

I have said to the Attorney General that for a bill that attracted universal support in this chamber, it was a sad way for that bill to cross the finish line. With respect to Bill 29, it would seem that we are headed in a similar direction….

I would say to the minister, with respect to Bill 22, that the differences that distinguish the position of the opposition from the position of the government are being chronicled in the committee in the previous bill. We had all of ten or 15 minutes to discuss a principle that was very, very important and will shape the laws of British Columbia for years and decades to come.

I appreciate, hon. Chair, the opportunity to impose myself in this debate simply to record my disappointment that the government chose to adopt that strategy and approach and force the end of that discussion in the way that they did.

B. Banman: I have in my hand a document that affects both this clause and subsequent clauses, and I feel that it is important to read this document in its entirety to be into the record. It is from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, dated November 23, 2021, and it is addressed to the Hon. John Horgan and the Hon. Lisa Beare.

The Chair: No names in the House, please.

B. Banman: My apologies. It is addressed to the Premier of British Columbia and the Minister of Citizens’ Services. Thank you, Chair.

It is an open letter. It calls for the immediate withdrawal of Bill 22, Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2021.

“Dear Premier and Minister:

“On October 18, 2021, your government introduced amendments to British Columbia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, FIPPA, through Bill 22. We have learned that Bill 22 is quickly proceeding through the Legislature and is antici­pated to receive royal assent before the end of the current legislative session on November 25.

“However, the bill in its current form fails to uphold First Nations’ unique right of access to information as many of the proposed amendments will create new barriers for First Nations requiring access to provincial government records to substantiate their historical grievances against the Crown.

“Further, several proposed amendments disregard significant concerns we identified in formal submissions to the public engagement process and introduce measures about which we were never informed, contravening article 19 of the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous people, UN declaration, and your government’s legal obligations under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, DRIPA.

“We call on your government now to withdraw Bill 22 and establish a process of substantive engagement with Indigenous governing bodies affected by FIPPA to ensure that transparency, openness and fairness are enhanced and First Nations’ rights under the UN declaration are upheld.

[6:15 p.m.]

“The right to access information is a fundamental component of First Nations’ efforts to resolve historical land-related grievances, such as specific claims. Because First Nations are required to produce a wide range of records to substantiate their land claims and historical land-related grievances against the Crown, freedom of information has direct impacts on the ability of First Nations to achieve justice through government mechanisms of redress, a right articulated in article 28 of the UN declaration.

“In April 2018, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs made a formal submission to the Ministry of Citizens’ Services engagement process in which we identified key barriers that First Nations routinely experience when attempting to obtain provincial government records through freedom of information, including prohibitive fees and the denial of requests for fee waivers; prolonged delays; overly broad applications of exceptions to disclosure; widespread failure to create, retain and transfer records; and the exclusion of subsidiaries from the duties of disclosure.

“We emphasize that the barriers faced by First Nations seeking information access must be specifically and systematically targeted such that the rights to redress are advanced and protected. The provisions in Bill 22 ignore our concerns and further entrench barriers to access. The introduction of an application fee for all freedom-of-information requests…”

The Chair: Hon. Member, how much more of the letter do you have? I’m supposed to shut you down.

B. Banman: Not much. My apologies.

The Chair: Read quickly.

B. Banman:

“…will disproportionately harm First Nations requests since they experience higher levels of poverty and often lack resource capacity. Your characterization of the new fee is modest and displays astounding ignorance and insensitivity, since legal process of redress for historical losses requires First Nations to make multiple formal requests for records from various public bodies in order to obtain evidence.

“It is nonsensical that a government publicly committed to reconciliation, transparency and accountability would impose further financial hardships on First Nations who require access to provincial government records to substantiate claims of government wrongdoing. The bill also prevents the Information and Privacy Commissioner from waiving the application fee if the request is in the public interest. It is especially egregious that the introduction of an….”

The Chair: Hon. Member, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to interrupt you.

Interjections.

The Chair: There is no point of order, and I would appreciate that other members would not question the Chair. This is difficult enough as it is.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81.1(2), all remaining stages by 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday, November 23, shall be called.

You can sit down now, please. Thank you.

Hon. L. Beare: Noting the hour, I ask that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:18 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Committee of the Whole (Section B), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

[6:20 p.m. - 6:25 p.m.]

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 23 — FORESTS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

Bill 23, Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2021, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed on the following division:

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6:27 p.m.