Shane Simpson, MLA, Vancouver-Hastings

Response to the Throne Speech

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in my place and join the debate on the throne.

To start with, I'm really pleased to have the opportunity to speak to another throne and to again express my appreciation and gratitude to the people of Vancouver-Hastings, my constituency, for the opportunity to continue in this place as their representative.

It's a remarkable community. It's one that I've lived most of my life in and that I certainly have an affection and an affinity for that goes much deeper than my job here as the MLA. It's always a great privilege for me to have the opportunity to come to this place and stand and speak on behalf of the people of Vancouver-Hastings, as I'm sure it is for every member to come and speak on behalf of their constituencies.

This is an interesting time. We're here for three short days before we take a break for the Olympics and then come back at the beginning of March to debate the budget and get on with the work of the Legislature. It's interesting that we're here for these days. Of course, the hype and the excitement in the province and mostly, I would say, in the Lower Mainland, but certainly across the province where the torch has been…. It's clearly been great excitement there as well.

The excitement is growing — there's no doubt about it — about the coming Olympics in a couple of days that will open in Vancouver and continue over the next 17 days, primarily in Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler. It is a time that I know that everybody in this House is hopeful will be successful for Canada and for our athletes, and that the investments we've made in our athletes will lead to great success at the podium in terms of results for the Olympics.

I think that most, if not all, of us are fans of the Olympics, of the sports of the Olympics, and it's great to have the opportunity to watch the Olympians, these young men and women — primarily young men and women — who are achieving remarkable accomplishments in athletics and who do that in a way as such proud representatives of Canada.

We all can be very appreciative of that and cheer them on, and I'm sure we will. I'm sure that we're all confident — and, I think, confident with some good reason — that we'll have a great performance among our athletes at the Olympics.

I know there have been lots of people excited about the torch. I know that the torch is not coming into my constituency, but that's okay. I have a couple of venues in my constituency, and I must say that many of my neighbours are pretty excited that figure skating and short-track speed skating are there in the constituency.

They're not all so excited about some of the reasons they can't drive their cars around anymore or get down the streets they usually travel down, but all of that aside, they're pretty excited about those events. Certainly, having those venues there has made the Olympics very evident for people in that community.

Also, VANOC has their offices in my constituency. As I was by there the other day on some other business, you certainly could see the electricity bopping off the top of the VANOC building as they were getting this ready to go.

The Olympics are going to be, hopefully, a great time and hopefully successful, because we certainly have invested billions and billions of dollars to make them work. I hope that the investment pays off well and that we move on with some success.

Having said that, I guess, when I look at the throne speech and what we heard yesterday around the throne speech, there was something that was concerning. The concern about the throne speech is that it really offered nothing of substance in terms of a plan for after the 28th of February. It offered nothing in terms of a plan of where we go.

That's the concern that I, quite frankly, have heard for the last couple of years from British Columbians. The concern has been that we've had a government that has been fairly single-minded in its focus on the Olympics — it's understandable, the attention to the Olympics, but pretty single-minded on that attention to the Olympics — and seemed to be myopic in terms of their inability to think past that as to where British Columbia goes after the 28th of February.

The throne speech clearly was evidence of that. It was a pretty sad document all in all, a pretty sad commentary on a government that's been around for ten years to have that be the speech. It really was an opportunity lost. That's pretty clear. It really delivered and offered nothing new.

It talked, as the speeches are wont to do…. It seemed to go back and revisit a number of things that we've had visited for us in previous speeches. Within the first page or two, I think, we were on to the five great goals again. Of course, we've heard the great goals time and time again. The only thing that hasn't come out of the goals is that we haven't realized any of the goals. In fact, all we've seen is failure on goal after goal, but that's been the story of this government. It has been failure on goal after goal. Rhetoric without substance would be this government.

There was, of course, the talk again…. In this document we again revisited the new relationship. We know what's happened to the new relationship with first nations: it's collapsed. It collapsed because the government was prepared to put a couple of pages of paper together but clearly was not prepared to move forward on that and create substantive change around that. Because of that, the frustrations of our first nations have become clearer, as many of them have turned their back on that process because the government failed them.

We, of course, had the Conversation on Health. We had the health budget or the health throne speech in one throne speech. The government invested the better part of $3 million in having a conversation on health, and it would be pretty hard-pressed to find out where that conversation went.

We'd be pretty hard-pressed to know where any of that discussion went, because it's been buried as deep as possible. I suspect it's because what the government heard from British Columbians was not what the government wanted to hear. So they buried that document and buried those comments deep.

That's very unfortunate, because we all know that the challenge of health care is very real. We know the challenge of determining how to deal with this policy area that absorbs 40-odd percent of our budget and of how we move forward and effect changes around health care that work for British Columbians. It really is a discussion that needs to be had. Unfortunately, it's a discussion that the government chose to bury.

Then, of course — I guess it was in 2007 — the government had the throne speech around climate change. There's still some discussion to be had on that, but I think the most telling thing to date — I believe it was in the last year — has been that we saw that industrial emissions topped out in British Columbia. I think we in British Columbia led the country in increases in industrial emissions, so that tells you how sincere that effort around climate change was by this government. It was more rhetoric without substance.

British Columbians understand that, and I think they're understanding that reality more and more. It happened, of course, post-election when the government told British Columbians one thing about what the deficit would be and then created a deficit that was five times that size, and when the government promised British Columbians in writing and told British Columbians there would be no HST and, of course, immediately reversed their position and introduced an HST.

British Columbians are getting wise. They're getting pretty wise about how believable this government is and how much they can have faith in the government to do the things that they say they will do or to accomplish the things that they say they've accomplished when you really look at the empirical evidence that supports it. It's created real frustration.

We had a rehash of promises, and we had a number of other things that were in the throne speech. What we saw was a clear message for everybody to brace themselves for March 2 and significant increases in cuts to services. The honeymoon — the party — will end on the 28th of February, and two days later the pain will start with the budget on March 2, when more cuts come.

We heard about more privatization — privatization in health care delivery, privatization around education. All of these rumblings. We'll wait and see what that all means in a few short weeks. But that's coming.

We heard talk about property tax reform, and we'll have to look and see whether that means another way for the B.C. Liberals to download onto local governments. That's probably what we have.

We of course heard about the HST. It's quite remarkable. What we heard is exactly the same defence that the government was giving days after they announced the HST, at a time when arguably the Finance Minister would have had us believe that this all was sprung upon them with days' notice. Somehow they negotiated this in a matter of weeks or days, but they hadn't sorted out all the business around what the real economic arguments for this were.

The remarkable thing is that we had a throne speech that did nothing to reinforce or support the feeble arguments of the B.C. Liberals before, at that time. Now that they've had months and months to do that work, we still heard these feeble arguments about how it was good for the economy, with nothing to substantiate or back that up.

The reality of what we know about the HST is this. It is a tax shift. It is a tax shift that takes $1.9 billion of basically corporate-related taxes and moves those taxes to consumers and to small businesses, primarily in the service sectors. So it does that.

The tax is said to be revenue-neutral, so it wouldn't garner any more dollars for health care and education supports, but that isn't even accurate. Now what we start to learn is that it will generate maybe as much as $400 million less than current taxes. So we move $1.9 billion of tax burden onto consumers and small businesses in the service sector, and we take $400 million out of government revenues to pay for health care and education. If that isn't incompetent bungling, then I don't know what is. That's what we're dealing with here.

British Columbians are angry about that. They're angry about it because most British Columbians have the common sense to know that that makes no sense at all.

The other thing that British Columbians know is that they like to be told the truth. They know that this government, during the election, told them…. The B.C. Liberal Party told them. The Premier, when he was running for re-election, the Finance Minister, and every member of this executive council were telling them: "No HST."

You couldn't even have enough time to blink before the HST was on the table afterwards. Why was it on the table? It goes back to the mismanagement and fiscal incompetence of the Liberals around the budget, where the other story that was told, of course, was $485 million — not a penny more — of deficit. Best managers in the world.

However: "Oops. Excuse me. Going to be $3½ billion. We'd better do something about this." The federal government waves $1.6 billion in front of the province. It excludes any thought or consideration of actually looking responsibly at the economy and at our tax policy and grabs the money.

It says: "Well, at least maybe we can use that money — not to deal with the transition that the money was supposed to be for, but we'll grab that money to figure out how to weasel this deficit down under $3 billion, because we're embarrassed enough about how incompetent and bungling we look and are that we'll try to drive that down a bit so that we don't look quite as bad as we truly are."

The $1.6 billion was the payoff. Unfortunately for British Columbians, that money will all be gone in two or three years. We will still face the results of that, and the money will be gone.

The other things that we heard about in the throne speech…. Of course, we heard some very scary things about education in terms of reductions in school boards, about privatization around early childhood education. We heard concerning things about how education will get responded to, and we'll have to wait a few weeks to see what the results of that are.

I know there are communities around this province today that have school boards, boards of education, that are starting to wonder whether they will still have a board of education in a year's time or whether those will be abolished — whether the government is going to move to take control of that or to consolidate those boards and reduce the democratic process in terms of their ability to work with elected people around the futures of their children.

All of this is done, and more of the language that the Premier and his ministers are well known for is to talk about…. This is one of the good ones. The goal is now set for 2030. We've had the decade that was going to be complete in 2015. We've had numerous dates. This government pops up a new date periodically, but now we're out to 2030.

I suppose the executive council cabinet sat down around the table and said: "Okay, let's look at everybody. What's the date that we can be sure none of us will be here to be held accountable for having misrepresented this issue again?" They picked 2030. That was the date to set as the goal, because none of them will be around by then to be held accountable for the gibberish they put in that throne speech.

The throne speech was a sad document, but the other area where the throne speech was very painful is in what wasn't there. The throne speech did not talk to our most vulnerable citizens. It did not talk to poverty with children, poverty with families. It did not talk to homelessness.

The reality in this province…. I heard the Minister of Housing and Social Development, who just spoke previously, talking about homelessness and talking about housing. I'm sure the Minister of Housing and Social Development…. The throne speech was a sad day for him, because his ministry got thrown under the bus by the Premier yesterday. There's no doubt about that.

There was nothing in that speech for homelessness, nothing for social housing, nothing for families, nothing for poverty. What do we have? We have a reality that there are half a million people in this province living in poverty — half a million British Columbians, and 140,000 of those are kids. These are 2007 numbers, and the economy in 2007 looked a lot better than it looks today. We can only believe that those numbers have grown exponentially and that they are much larger today.

We have a half a million people living in poverty in this province, almost a third of them children. We have 15,000 homeless people in this province and untold thousands and thousands more who are right on the bubble. They're couch-surfing, they're living in seriously inadequate housing, and they're living from one paycheque to one paycheque to keep a roof over their head. They have no security. They have no future around their housing.

We have significant numbers of people in shelters, and shelters are not housing. Shelters are the last resort — important, no doubt, but the last resort. They do not constitute housing, and the government has done very, very little. The government and the minister, as we learned in estimates last year, clearly have turned their back on family housing and on building housing for families.

Let's be clear. When we talk about the highest rates of child poverty six years running in this country in our province, kids don't get poor by themselves. Poor kids are about poor families, and those families are getting no support — no support at all.

The other reality we know is that half those families don't collect a welfare cheque. They're on a minimum-wage paycheque. They have a paycheque that comes into the house.

The reality, though, is that this is a government that has slashed taxes for their corporate friends, has cut taxes across the board on others, has seen costs skyrocket but has found no reason, since the day they were elected in 2001, to give one penny — not one penny — to low-wage workers. They have turned their back on low-wage workers completely and entirely. That's the legacy of this government and how it treats vulnerable British Columbians.

Hon. Speaker, it's a sad day. It's a sad day for the ministry that I'm a critic of, Housing and Social Development. As I said, clearly the government has thrown that ministry under the bus. I'm sure that the minister — who, all indications are, is looking to build himself a strong and good profile these days — is a little desperate about the fact that maybe that's been damaged. But that's for another day's discussion.

The throne speech offers nothing in terms of a plan post-Olympics. The fears of British Columbians are that they are going to be left behind after February 28, that the hurt all comes then. For example, in the area of housing — it's a remarkable area — from 2001 to 2007 the government does absolutely nothing for housing in this province. In 2007 somebody turns the switch on a couple of years before the Olympics, when the reality of the embarrassment starts to become clearer, and they buy some SROs. They build a few units of seniors housing and build a few units of assisted living.

The interesting thing is that I talk to people around this province who are close watchers of the housing situation in this province. Person after person says to me that their greatest fear is that as quick as that tap got turned on in 2007 to make sure they would have something to say about housing and the desperate treatment of people who are vulnerable in this province, that tap will be turned off just as quickly days after the Olympics are over.

We'll see on March 2 whether those concerns are realized. My fear is that those concerns will be realized. That will be the reality — that the modest amount that has been done for housing will become non-existent, essentially, after we get to the second of March. So we have to be concerned here.

What is very clear to us on this side and what is clear to British Columbians in this province and becoming more evident to British Columbians across this province is that the B.C. Liberals truly have run out of gas as a political party, that they have no leadership anymore — their leadership has lost interest after February 28 and is prepared to take a pass — and that they are floundering as a political party. The infighting is starting in this party, and it's becoming clear.

The broken promises continue — broken promise after broken promise. The mismanagement continues, and the incompetence at the level of the executive council is unprecedented in this province. March 2 will clearly announce the end of the celebration, and we will all hopefully enjoy the next 17 to 18 days as the Olympics come and we have a good time — and hopefully huge success for Canada's athletes during that period. Unfortunately, on the second of March it will hit with a thud.

As we know, with most throne speeches, the throne speech comes and it goes. The reality comes with the budget. The budget is a few weeks away. People are holding their breath for that. As British Columbians, we'll have to live with the result of a government that is out of ideas, is out of control and is out of touch. We can only hope — and we will do what we can do on this side to mitigate the damage — to try to hold this government to account as it bungles its way through the next couple of years.

Hopefully, in due course the changes will occur that British Columbians now are realizing, had they been told the truth in May of last year, should have occurred then. But sadly, they weren't told the truth. They were told something quite different. They voted based on what they were told. In community after community they've woken up to the realization that what they thought they were getting, they didn't get with the B.C. Liberals. It's sad, and it's unfortunate.

I look forward to continuing the debate here for one more day or so. I look forward to going and enjoying the Olympics and, hopefully, a great Canadian success over the next couple of weeks that we can all celebrate.

I do look forward very much to being back here in about three weeks' time and having the opportunity, come March 1, when we all come together in this place again to start the serious debate that will occur then on what the future of this province looks like over the next near term — a time when the economy is still in serious trouble; a time when what talk there is of recovery is talk of a jobless recovery; a time when community after community around this province is still in very, very serious shape and has very serious concerns about what their futures hold for them; a time when community services in this province that had their money ripped away from them after the last election are looking in hopes that maybe some of those dollars will be put back, dollars that they certainly believe were committed to them through gaming dollars and other dollars; a time when parents across this province are concerned about the future of their kids and the future in their classrooms; a time when health care is facing a very difficult challenge.

All of these are the issues that we will face over the next short period of time. They will be the issues that we'll debate in this place over the coming months, starting on the first of March or the second of March after the budget.

We'll get the opportunity to see at that time whether the government has any ideas. We'll get the opportunity to see whether the fluff and the modest rhetoric out of the throne speech actually result in any kind of legislative program that will do anything for British Columbians.

That future is in front of us. We can only hope that the government will see fit to restore some of the funding and think twice about the cuts that are inevitably coming and that they're trying to prepare people for.

Our hope is that the government will maybe come to its senses and pay some attention to the good advice that they're getting from many sources, I'm sure — that this is the last time and the wrong time to be taking services away from British Columbians, to be taking services away from communities, to be compromising the future of communities in order to look to spend a few less dollars at a time when we actually need to support our communities and support our citizens in ways that they unfortunately haven't been supported for the last number of years.

Hon. Speaker, I look forward to that discussion, and I look forward to continued debate on the throne speech.

Letter to Vancouver mayor and council regarding the construction of a temporary stadium at Empire Field

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

January 20, 2010

Mayor Robertson & Members of Council

City of Vancouver

453 West 12th Ave.

Vancouver, BC

V5Y 1V4

Dear Mayor and Council:

I am writing to comment on Motion B.6, the temporary stadium slated for Empire Field, which has been referred to the Planning and Environment Standing Committee meeting tomorrow at 2 pm.

I am disappointed and disheartened that council is instructing city staff to begin a public consultation process only after the decision to build a stadium at Empire Field has already been made. I have heard from many residents in my community who have expressed their extreme dissatisfaction with the lack of community consultation on this issue. The process would have been better served - and more credible - had a

consultation been completed prior to the decision being made.

Unfortunately, the decision to build a temporary stadium at Empire Field has been presented to our community as a fait accompli, compounding the existing frustrations residents feel after council's recent decision to approve the flawed Hastings Park Master Plan over many legitimate community concerns.

I am requesting that council ensure a full community consultation on the use of the new facility, particularly activities other than BC Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps games, and commit to developing a full community mitigation plan in co-operation with residents around the noise, traffic, and light issues that will inevitably arise.I further request that council commit to the site being fully restored to its current condition, or upgraded with the co-operation and support of the community, after the 2010/2011 BC Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps seasons end.

I look forward to an outcome that takes into account the many concerns and voices of the residents of Vancouver Hastings.

Sincerely,

Shane Simpson, MLA

(Vancouver-Hastings)

Government fails to safeguard personal information of 1400 income assistance recipients

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: Today newspapers are calling for this minister to resign. For now, we'd be happy if he'd just answer a few questions.

The minister says that he's known for about a month about this security breach, and in the last few days he's learned that he was kept in the dark for seven months. The minister simply can't continue to hide behind this call for a review, to not answer some basic questions. It's not believable that he doesn't know by now which officials received these files back from the RCMP, and it's not believable that he hasn't asked the public affairs bureau why they didn't inform him sooner, since it appears that they knew. Will the minister answer those questions now?

...

S. Simpson : Those 1,400 people who have been put at risk — certainly, if they haven't been compromised, it's no thanks to this minister and his colleagues.

This story continues to grow. We understand and we've been informed that the spouse of the employee who was fired for this situation was exempt staff working in the Public Service Agency. It's our understanding that she has also been fired. Can the minister confirm that? Was she fired, and is there an investigation of her activities in the Public Service Agency, and will that be part of the review?

Personal information of 1400 income assistance recipients compromised

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: Hon. Speaker, 1,400 individuals compromised by government ineptness — 1,400 British Columbians potentially put at risk because of a lack of due diligence by the B.C. Liberals. And if that isn't bad enough, we now learn that the government sat on this information for seven months without informing these people that their identities may have been put at risk.

This minister has been on the job for over five months. How are we supposed to believe he only learned about this a couple of weeks ago, and if he only learned a couple of weeks ago, who else over there knew seven months ago?

...

S. Simpson: Hon. Speaker, we can be assured that the RCMP didn't just come and drop the files at the front door of the Legislature. They returned those files to the government, and I'm sure they did it in a formal way. If this minister is telling us that he didn't know about this until three weeks ago, maybe the files were returned to the Minister of Housing and Social Development.

Has the Minister of Citizens' Services taken the time to ask his colleague when he got the files and why he never told this minister that this compromise had happened?

Government inaction on child poverty

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: Poor families are poor kids, and for the 156,000 children in B.C. and their families, this government has done less than anybody else in this country to deal with the issue of poverty.

Mr. Speaker, six provinces have adopted poverty reduction strategies. The B.C. Liberals have said no. Everybody in this country knows that affordable family rental housing is needed to reduce poverty. The B.C. Liberals have said no to building that housing. And 55 percent of the families identified in this report have at least one adult working full time, but the B.C. Liberals have said no to increasing the minimum wage — condemning those families to poverty.

Will the Premier commit today to introducing a poverty reduction strategy with targets and timelines for British Columbia?

...

S. Simpson: This minister should know that this government has done nothing to build affordable family housing in this province... We hear the prattle from the Housing Minister, who has failed British Columbians time and again.

But let's talk about the statistics that this minister talks about. From 1980 to 2001, British Columbia's poverty rates mirrored the national rate. In 2001 they spiked by 20 percent. They have stayed at that rate since then. That's the B.C. Liberal legacy — 20 percent higher than anyplace else in the country.

The children's representative called on the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition to meet with her and bring forward a bipartisan strategy to deal with poverty. My leader accepted that offer, and the Premier refused.

My question is to the Premier. Will he finally reverse himself, show some leadership, meet with the children's representative and the Leader of the Opposition, and bring forward a policy on poverty that British Columbians can be proud of, instead of ashamed of?

Petition to stop the HST

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: I rise to present a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

S. Simpson: I present a petition signed by hundreds of constituents of Vancouver-Hastings calling on the government to stop the HST.

Government decision to scrap Tourism BC

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: The minister says that they're ready, yet what we know now is that this decision to scrap Tourism B.C. was done with no analysis, no assessment, no reports to support this.

The minister might think he's ready, but the president of the tourism association of Canada says: "I was absolutely floored when I heard the news…. I'm just not sure the post-Games opportunities will be as accessible to government as they would have been before."

The reality is this. This minister, this government, scrapped an effective, award-winning agency that would make this successful, and he did it with no support. How does the minister justify making that decision with no intelligence at all?

Provision ensuring leadership roles for disabled indivuals and their families on board of Community Living BC removed

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: Section 15, part 6, the housing and social development amendments section, deals with the Community Living Authority Act. Section 15 of the bill repeals a number of sections about the composition of the board under the Community Living Authority Act.

First of all, it says: "All directors, other than a director referred to in subsection (4), must have the necessary skills, qualifications and experience to direct the authority." That now is being removed as a requirement under this section.

Could the minister tell us: why would he remove a section of the bill that talks about and obligates that directors should have skills, qualifications and experience to direct the authority?

...

S. Simpson: What it says to me is that the board, which…. Under section 5, the "Composition of board," "The board consists of up to 11 directors appointed by the minister," which is all good and fine. But the sections (2), (3) and (4) that this Bill 20 will repeal removes some significant components in terms of some of the people and the interests that are made up on that board and provides no guarantees of those interests, which are certainly legitimate to the community living authority and to families who are involved in these activities.

Again, I guess it comes back to the question I have. Why has the minister chosen to remove a reference in the current legislation that says "…members of the board have to have the skills, qualifications and experience to direct the authority," and stay silent on that question in terms of this legislation?

...

S. Simpson: It's interesting that you would remove something that explicitly refers to the requirement for that skill set in the authority. But moving on to section 5(3), which is also dealt with by this and repealed under this legislation. What 5(3) says is: "Subject to subsection (2) and section 6 (2) (c), a majority of directors must be (a) individuals referred to in the definition of 'community living support', or (b) individuals who have a significant connection to the individuals referred to in paragraph (a), including family members."

It seems to me, and the minister can correct me, that this is the section that ensures that a number of people who will be on the board will actually be people who have a direct relationship to the services of the authority, and they will have that relationship by being family members of people who have a developmental disability or fit the definition of members of community living support.

Could the minister tell us: why would the ministry make the decision to remove stakeholders — and this will be true in section (4), clearly, which requires that two of the directors must be individuals with a developmental disability?

So sections (3) and (4) are removing the people who have the most direct interest as stakeholders in this and providing no requirement at all — not a single requirement here — that those groups who have the vested interest, because of family members or because they have disabilities themselves, are going to have any representation on this board. Why would the minister do that?

...

S. Simpson: The minister is saying "it doesn't preclude." That's not the problem here. The problem is that this section quite rightly, in my view, in fact obligates that those folks have some representation, that they have a role on the board of Community Living B.C.

Now, I understand that Community Living B.C. has its problems, and I understand that there are challenges in Community Living B.C. But the reality is that this requires people to be on the board.

The minister may talk about an advisory committee, but there is a distinct difference between sitting on an advisory committee and sitting on a board of directors. They're not the same thing, and I'm sure the minister knows that.

Since the minister intends to remove all obligation of representation from families or people with developmental disabilities from this board — which will guarantee that not one single person who has a connection to developmental disabilities is obliged to be on this board — nowhere will that be a requirement. It is today; it won't be when this legislation passes.

Why would the minister do that? Can the minister tell that community what assurances they have that they're going to have any representation at that board table at all?

...

S. Simpson: Just for those people who are involved with Community Living B.C…. I know that those people who face, sometimes, the challenges related to the work at Community Living B.C. can now know that they will have additional challenges, because this government has just said that the people who have disabilities, the families of people who have disabilities, are not worthy of playing a role in the leadership of this organization.

We are going to rip up the sections of this act that ensure that they have a role in the leadership of this organization. It's gone now.

That is sad, and it's unfortunate, and the minister may say that this is what we're going to do, and he truly, I'm sure, is going to do exactly that. But the loss will be to the families and people with developmental disabilities, and it will be a loss to the quality of work that this organization provides because they've removed those people from the board. It is a sad day that those people no longer have a role to play as legitimate stakeholders in this, because the government has chosen to close the door on them and turn their back on them.

Vancouver-Hastings 2009 Food Drive

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Many members of our community rely regularly on the food bank, many of them families with children. My office will be collecting donations of non-perishable food items until December 18. Please help if you are able.

DROP OFF YOUR FOOD DONATIONS AT:

2365 East Hastings St. (Next to the Royal Bank at Hastings and Nanaimo) Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 4 PM.

Many thanks,

Shane

Shane Simpson, MLA Vancouver-Hastings

Bill 20, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: Bill 20, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, deals with a whole array of matters. I would like to direct just a couple of comments to one section. The member from Nanaimo reflected on these earlier: the Homeowner Protection Office and changes to that office.

Very specifically, what Bill 20 does is it puts some of the enabling pieces in place to put an end to a program that was commonly known as the leaky-condo loan program. What that program did, as many know, is it provided an opportunity, a loans program. It was an interest-free loans program for those people living in condominiums who are suffering from leaky condos, who have leaky condos and were in a tight box, to be able to pay for their loans, to be able to get loan money through this program, which was, incidentally, paid for by a $750-per-unit fee on new development.

What's happened now is that the government has taken what I would consider a tragic and nonsensical decision to eliminate this loans program. What this means is that essentially the leaky-condo program has been killed. In justifying this, the Minister of Housing and Social Development, who has responsibility for the Homeowner Protection Office, has spoken about this being a ten-year program and that it has passed its ten-year period.

The minister is correct about that. But what we also know is that the level of demand for this program was significantly greater than, I think, anybody had projected at the time when the program was first put in place. That demand still continues today. The research and the analysis that have been done about the state of affairs suggests there's still a significant amount of units in the province that potentially could be facing the leaky-condo syndrome, for lack of a better term, and that require this assistance.

What we know is that this program is essential, as the member from Nanaimo talked about. There are all kinds of people who, obviously, have invested in their homes. Many people who are getting older, who have purchased condos for their retirement time have now found themselves in situations where they could have demands for assessments on them of up to $70,000 or $80,000 — money that they don't necessarily have or that isn't necessarily available to them.

They have a very difficult time to figure out how they're going to pay for that, and the government now has eliminated a program that supported those people to ensure that they could in fact do the repairs on their homes and move forward.

We need to be clear here. This was not a grant program. It was a loan program. It was a program that ensured that people could access the dollars they required. The government provided those guarantees. They could access those dollars, and they could get the repairs done in a timely way.

What we know from speaking to people in the industry and in the sector is that the worst possible thing you can do is stall on getting those repairs done. You want to get them done as quickly as you can because it reduces the costs. It reduces the amount of damage. It allows you to move forward, hopefully — make successful repairs and do them in the most cost-effective way possible. That means moving forward as quickly as possible. But the government has killed that program, and it really makes no sense as to why they did that.

There's been some discussion about the nature of the program, but let's be clear here. It is a loan program. If the concern is about the interest-free nature of that, and there has been some discussion about that, then maybe there was room to have a discussion about whether some level of interest should have been charged to people who

participated in the program. That would have been a reasonable discussion to have. But the government didn't have that discussion. Instead, they killed the program. There could have been some discussion.

I've heard the minister previously speak about a number of uses that this program was being used for, which were outside that original intent. If that's the case and if the government felt the program shouldn't have been used for repairs that were outside of what the original intention and purpose were, then make adjustments to tighten up the program to ensure that it gets used for the purposes it was originally intended. That would have been a reasonable thing to do.

The other thing around this program that we need to identify is that we've had a lot of discussion in the last year or so, with the change in the economy in the last year to 18 months, around stimulus and the need for stimulus. I can't imagine what possibly is a better plan than to have stimulus that puts people to work. There are a couple of thousand people in this province who, during the life of this program, made their living by doing these renovations and restoration work on condos.

It put people to work on loan programs, not grant programs, where people could go out and repair these homes. At the end of the day, the benefit is that people went to work. They had good jobs, especially at a time when we have seen some diminishing…. We had seen the construction sector in some trouble.

Put those people to work. Get them banging nails, doing what they do best. Have those jobs on the table. People get their homes repaired. It's a loan program. The money comes back to government.

It seems to me that it just makes sense as a stimulus program and what we need to do. But the government didn't choose to look at this as a stimulus program, didn't choose to say that we're going to make some adjustments to deal with some of the factors around the program that are difficult. Instead, they just killed the program, and Bill 20 provides some amendments that support the decision that was made.

It was a mistake. It's a mistake the government has made. It's like a number of programs that the government has dealt with certainly since the election, where we've seen dramatic changes in public policy — what seemed to be very reactive and shortsighted decisions by the government. Clearly, this decision to kill the leaky-condo program in its entirety is one of those decisions.

It's unfortunate the government didn't see fit to sit down with some of those organizations that work in this sector, whether it be in the building sector or the condominium homeowners sector, and look at ways to make the adjustments to the program that would allow it to continue for those people who required it for the purpose of leaky condos; to deal with the interest-free aspect of that, if that's a problem for the government; to make some adjustments there but make the money available or guarantee the loans in a way that would have ensured that we would continue to have units improved.

Those people who are living in condominiums — who have a difficult time being able to put this money on the table, being able to get these loans to be able to pay their share of assessments — would have the opportunity to be able to access money and access loans. Unfortunately, that hasn't occurred. So that is a section of the bill that I think is very problematic.

It's not good for stimulus. It's not good for the people who live in these condos, and it certainly won't be good for confidence around condos, even with all the improvements that have been made around warranty programs.

We may get to discuss this further when we get to committee stage. But for now, it's just an observation on my part that this is another area where the government has been seriously misguided in terms of doing what is good public policy, doing the kind of things that British Columbians expect and doing the kind of things that would actually help homeowners and the million-odd people who live in condos in British Columbia.

Bill 18, the Assistance to Shelter Act

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to have the opportunity to stand and join the debate on Bill 18, the Assistance to Shelter Act.

What the Assistance to Shelter Act essentially does is give the police additional authority to use reasonable force — and we're not clear what that is; we'll talk about that a little bit as I proceed in my comments — to take people off the street and drop them off at shelters. Then they, by this bill, would have the opportunity to choose whether to stay at the shelter or not. The purpose of this is to be done during periods of extreme weather. Again, we'll talk about what constitutes extreme weather. That's essentially what this piece of legislation will do.

What this piece of legislation does not do is create one more unit of housing. It does not provide one more shelter bed anywhere in this province. It doesn't deal with those issues at all.

Now, the minister in his comments today in introducing second reading and speaking to second reading — and the minister certainly had made these comments on previous occasions when talking about this bill and issues that relate to this bill — speaks about Tracey, a tragic case of a woman dying on the street. What we don't hear about when we hear the discussion of Tracey is, of course, that Tracey was resistant to going into a shelter because there was no assurance that her cart or her few possessions would be protected.

Hon. Speaker, if somebody said to you, "Come with me, but leave everything that you own in the world behind," you'd say no too. The minister doesn't talk, when he makes these comments, about the thousand other people who were on the street the night that Tracey tragically died.

The minister in his comments doesn't talk about Darrell Mickasco, who died last February in a fire because he was on the street and had no place to go. He died tragically, and his partner was left with serious injuries that she still suffers from.

For all the minister's comments about this, this piece of legislation does absolutely nothing that would be of any support or assistance to Tracey or Darrell or any of the thousands of people in Vancouver and the thousands more people across the province who are in the situation that Tracey and Darrell were in before they died.

This piece of legislation, Bill 18, will do nothing to support those people who are in that situation.

What the bill does do is this. The bill gives the police additional enforcement authority, and we know from previous documents that there was another iteration of this bill. The previous iteration was the one that said the police could throw people in jail, but we know the government pulled back from that. The documents came out. We had those documents. We introduced those documents. The government backed away from that.

Clearly, it's my belief that the government backed away from saying, "We will throw people in jail," because the lawyers and the counsel for the government said: "You simply can't do this. You cannot go that far." As a result, we have seen this adjustment through Bill 18, which says: "We will walk people up to the door. We will take people by reasonable force." We don't know what "reasonable force" means. Reasonable force will be decided — as with many things in this bill, as with many things the government does — by regulation as to what reasonable force is in this circumstance and what police can and can't do.

That will be a cabinet decision behind closed doors. It will not be a public discussion. It will be a cabinet decision behind closed doors. It's the same as with extreme weather and what extreme weather will and won't be in different places in the province. That the minister and others at the minister's designation…. But the minister also can deem what extreme weather is, and I'm not sure how the minister chooses to do that. I'm not sure what the minister's expertise for that is, but the minister can choose to do that.

We have a situation where the police are given the ability, the authority, to take somebody. There is nothing in this legislation that says anything about protecting the possessions of somebody. There is nothing in here that obliges in any way the police, who decide to enforce this, to move forward and protect those possessions or move those possessions or, if somebody has a pet, to move that pet, as well, and ensure the protection of that pet.

Of course, if those are the few things that somebody owns, why would anybody expect them to turn their back on their few possessions? How could anybody expect them to do that?

The minister talks about assisting people with serious issues around mental illness and addictions. We know that under the Mental Health Act authorities already have the jurisdiction, the capacity and the ability to deal with people who do not have the ability to make those decisions or who they deem to not have the ability to make those decisions on their own accord. Under the Mental Health Act, that authority already exists.

We're talking here about a piece of legislation that would say that the government, that police, can take somebody who is of sound mind, who knows exactly what they're doing, who has made a decision not to go into a shelter for any number of reasons and say to them: "You are coming with us whether you like it or not, and we're going to drop you at the door of that shelter." There's nothing in here that obliges them to take any of that person's possessions with them when they go to do that.

What is the reality of this? The minister speaks about talking to people in the community. Well, I've talked to an awful lot of people in the community with this — people here. The people in the community, people who work in the community do not support the minister. They do not support this legislation. They believe that it's flawed and that it will do nothing to support the people the minister talks about today. That's what people who work in the community say.

What they say is that the tragedy of this legislation, should it pass, is that it will do two things. First of all, those people who are afeard and have a concern that the police are going to forcibly move them will look to go farther underground. They will look to go to places where the police can't find them.

The tragedy of that, when you talk to people who actually work in the community and work with the homeless, is that people will get hurt. People will get into trouble, and they may not be found because they will be hiding. They'll be hiding from Bill 18 and the consequences of Bill 18.

The second thing that happens is that…. If you're saying to somebody, "You come with me, whether you like it or not. You leave your possessions behind, and we are taking you to a shelter. We are taking you to a shelter, and you can stay there if you like," what are the possibilities, after you have imposed yourself on somebody like that, that they're going to want anything to do with that shelter?

If they're angry and they do stay, what are now the obligations and the exposures you have put on that shelter and on other people there — when you have people who have arrived who are angry because of the way they were treated and the way they were brought to that shelter and under what circumstances they were brought to that shelter? These are real issues.

Let's be clear here when we talk about shelters. Of 25 shelters in Vancouver that we looked at last year, three were barrier-free. Three of those shelters would have provided people the opportunity to have brought their possessions or their pets. The other shelters offered them nothing. They offered them nothing.

Now, the minister talks about wanting to expand this program, wanting to have more of those barrier-free shelters. Well, the minister would have been better placed…. It would have been a better use of the minister and the ministry's time to have invested the time in looking at how to open more barrier-free shelters, get more community outreach workers on the street who worked with people than to have spent his time developing Bill 18.

Under this legislation, we essentially…. It is my belief that all the potential is there to make things worse. Let's be clear. Everybody in this House, I believe, wants people who are on the street and homeless, when the weather gets difficult, to have an opportunity — and when the weather is not difficult — to have a shelter bed available that is inviting to them, that accommodates their needs, that meets their needs around their possessions, that meets their needs around their relationships, where they feel safe, where they feel that those shelters are supervised in a way where people don't feel at risk.

I believe that if we can create and provide those beds for people and if we invested a few more resources at the community level with community support workers — people who know the streets, people who work with people who are homeless every day — and gave them additional supports to go out and work with people who are homeless, to encourage them into those shelters in ways that are collaborative and cooperative, we would get a lot farther than telling the police to go out and grab people and throw them in the back of the car and take them off to a shelter for their own good.

We will do much better if we invest in the community. This legislation doesn't put ten cents more in the community. It doesn't open one more barrier-free shelter. It doesn't provide one more opportunity for one more outreach worker to be out working with the thousands of people on the street who might need help this winter.

The minister also spoke — and it's the minister, interestingly, who raised this question — about a Charter challenge. I have no idea whether there will be a challenge to this or not. There certainly is no shortage of eminent lawyers out there who believe that this legislation can be challenged and overturned, that it is a breach of civil rights, a breach of people's rights, and it can and will be overturned in the courts, should that be pursued into the courts. I believe there's a good possibility that that will occur.

But — and the minister, again, referenced this himself — a lot of those folks, a lot of people in the community, are pretty cynical about what the B.C. Liberal objective with this legislation is. They are cynical about it. For all the hand-wringing of the minister on this one, this really isn't about whether anybody wins a Charter challenge, as long as that challenge isn't realized till sometime after March.

There are people who are cynical, and they're cynical because of the lack of support in the community to create new beds. They're cynical that this, in fact, is about

the Olympics, that this is what this legislation is about: to provide tools to be able to move people should that decision be made during the Olympics. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but I know there are an awful lot of people in the community who truly believe that that's what the objective behind this is.

Those people in the community are looking for other supports. They're looking for help, but they don't see any help here. They don't see any resources. The minister talks about the SROs that have been purchased. It's a good thing to purchase the SROs, to upgrade the SROs, to create that stable housing.

But let's be very clear. Those SROs didn't provide one more unit of housing. They took existing housing that was in pretty bad shape. They've improved, and they've stabilized it. That's a good thing, but it's wrong to suggest that they created any new housing, because they didn't do that.

What do we need to do here? First of all, we need to work much more closely with the communities that work every day with these challenges. Whether it's the inner city of Vancouver, in Prince George, in Kamloops…. Whatever community it is, we need to be sitting down and working with people in those communities and working on the solutions that work in those communities, and they will be somewhat different in every community.

We need to make the commitment, and the resources have to be committed now. They have to be committed now to open significantly more barrier-free shelter beds in Vancouver and elsewhere in this province where they're required. We need to have those barrier-free beds — those beds and those shelter beds that are inviting to people, where people feel safe and secure and where they know that their stuff is going to be okay too. We haven't had any of that to date.

We need to hear more about the building of housing generally. The government, for all the minister's rhetoric, does not have a record on housing that anybody would be proud of.

If we really want people to be the front-line workers who are going to work with the homeless and are going to look to encourage the homeless, who are going to provide them with information about the availability of shelters — and I think that is an important question…. If they're going to encourage them and support them in getting to those shelters, if they're going to be able to provide transportation to help get them to those shelters, then let it be community outreach workers who have the confidence of homeless people in the community, who work with them day in and day out.

Be clear. That is not the relationship that the police have with the homeless in many cases. It is not a relationship where there's confidence that there is the level of respect there that needs to be. It's unfortunate, but it's the reality. Homeless people do not believe they are respected, in many instances, by the police. Consequently, you have this conflict that makes this difficult to do.

Community outreach workers, who work every day with the homeless, have built that rapport, can build on that rapport. I would say to you, hon. Speaker, that they, working in a collaborative and cooperative fashion, are much, much more likely to get many, many more of those people into shelters in a way that everybody feels good about at the end of the day, rather than to ask police, who have an awful lot of work to do already, to go out and play that role of social worker.

We already know that police are very uncomfortable with that role. They would much rather have somebody else doing it. They know that they are not the best people to be successful on this.

It would require the government to make a commitment that was more than rhetorical to deal with that, and the government hasn't made that commitment to date. They have not made that commitment to date.

The bill does none of these things. It does not work with the community. It has not garnered community support for this legislation from the people who work every day in the community. It does not have their support. It does not have the support from people who have legitimate concerns about civil rights and civil liberties. It does not have the support of people who are looking for more housing. It does not have the support of people who want to open more shelters.

It has none of that support. It doesn't have it because the bill does not offer one single solution to any of those issues — not one single solution. It is a knee-jerk reaction by this minister and this government. The concern really has to be that we, arguably, will do more harm than good with Bill 18, in terms of what it does to get people off the street.

The minister talks about the Traceys. We talked about the Darrell Mickascos or the thousands and thousands of British Columbians who are on the street today, who will be on the street this winter and who there will not be a shelter bed for. There will not be a place to take them.

What we know is that Bill 18, in all likelihood, will pass sometime in the next couple of weeks, but you will leave the police in a place that is an untenable situation for them. You will leave the homeless in a situation where they feel…. Those people feel that they are being targeted — not to be found a place to go, not to be found a shelter. They are being targeted to be picked up off the street by the police, and they will look to protect themselves from that by hiding and going farther underground.

You will have community organizations across this province in communities, working with the homeless across this province, who will have to pick up the pieces that this failed legislation will create — the damage that it will do — and try to put them back together with the limited resources that they have.

You will not have enough shelter beds for those folks who want shelter beds. You will certainly not have enough shelter beds for those people who have their few possessions in the world or their pet or for couples who want the opportunity to stay together. You will not have those shelter facilities for them.

If the government is serious about dealing with this issue — and I'd like to think that the minister is serious about wanting to deal with this issue — then put the investment in the place where it will do the most good.

It will not do the most good by having a piece of legislation that talks about the police using reasonable force to drive people into shelters, whether they are interested in being there or not, exposing those shelter operators to potential challenges. It's probably getting most of those people who aren't interested in being there or who are indifferent to it and making them angry so that they, in fact, walk away, when it might be a good thing for them to stay at those shelters. It does nothing to create better opportunities for those folks at all.

We have a piece of legislation in Bill 18 that doesn't deal with the problem and that raises serious levels of cynicism about what the motivations for this legislation are. We hear that every day, and it just could have been so much better. It could have been done so much better.

There could have actually been an assistance-to-shelter act developed in a way that really would put people in shelters and that they would feel good about. They would come, they would be looking to come, and we would be moving forward. Bill 18 simply does not accomplish that.

It would be my hope that as we get through this bill — and we're going to get into the committee stage — we will be looking closely at the bill.

I look forward, as do my colleagues, I know, to having a discussion with the minister over some of these details, particularly the long list of things, as this government is wont to do, that will be done by regulation instead of by legislation — the long list of areas where we have no idea what the government's real intentions are and won't know until after some closed-door cabinet meeting, when they come out and announce that these are the rules, instead of putting the rules in the legislation where everybody can look at them and judge them for what they are and for what they aren't.

We will have that discussion with the minister in committee stage over the coming days. We will get to the details of this, and hopefully, the minister will have something to say. As he talked today, the minister said: "We're working with these folks on this" and "We're working with those folks on that."

Maybe we'll get the minister to tell us how many more barrier-free shelter beds he is prepared to pay for and open up in Vancouver in the next couple of weeks. What commitments, and how firm are those commitments that nobody who gets picked up under this legislation will have their possessions left behind? How will that occur? The minister will be able to explain why he thinks it's better to have police do this than to have community workers do it.

There will be a lot of questions to be answered here. I'm sure the minister will be happy to answer them. Those questions will all be there. We'll ask the minister about what advice he got about the legitimacy of this under the Charter and what advice he has received about that. I look forward to having those discussions with the minister. I know a number of my colleagues on the opposition benches look forward to those discussions too. We will move forward. We will see where this legislation lands.

There are many, many people out in the community who are watching this very closely, who certainly share the concerns that we will raise here on this side of the House. They will also be looking with great interest to see how the minister responds to these questions about whether this legislation is credible in terms of meeting the objectives that the minister says it's there to meet or whether it is, in fact, a piece of feel-good legislation that will achieve very little in terms of actually meeting the needs of people who are on the street, who are homeless and who will need support this winter.

Motion to allow paramedics further bargaining

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to have the opportunity to stand and speak to the hoist amendment that was moved by the member for Port Coquitlam. I'm also pleased, just as an observation here, that we have paramedics who have joined us in the gallery today. Tanya Bellagente and Shane Edwards, who are both paramedics, are here to watch the debate today. I'm sure they're pleased to hear the comments of the members of the opposition, and I'm sure they would be very happy to hear some members of the government's side stand up and explain why this is a good idea.

Regarding the hoist amendment moved by the member for Port Coquitlam, the first thing that I'd like to do, maybe, is just put that in a bit of context. This is a hoist amendment to Bill 21. Bill 21, of course, is the imposition of a collective agreement on the ambulance paramedics in British Columbia. It's a decision to impose a collective agreement that would be in place up to and including the post-Olympics period, at which time, next spring, the paramedics would essentially be back in bargaining, and we would be largely back where we stand today.

What the hoist motion does is it will set this piece of legislation aside for a period of six months. What that does is it sets it aside for six months, and it allows for further discussion and consultation to occur over that period of time — or for, as some people have said, sober second thought on the part of the B.C. Liberals and the minister and the Premier as to whether this is, in fact, a good idea.

The debate here on this particular amendment really is around whether this hoist motion is warranted or not. So why is it necessary? Why is it necessary for us to move forward with this action, to put this motion to set aside this piece of legislation for at least six months?

Well, ultimately, the objective of this has to be for the government and, through the government, its agents to in fact reach a fair settlement with the ambulance paramedics in British Columbia — a settlement that respects the ambulance paramedics, that respects the free collective bargaining process and that comes to a resolution where people in the Ambulance Service — paramedics and management and others — can focus their attention on the critical and crucial task they have in delivering those emergency health services to millions of people across this province every day.

The problem, of course, that has led to us being in the place where we needed to move this hoist was, first and foremost, the draconian decision of this government to bring in Bill 21 — the draconian decision of this government to turn its back on the collective bargaining process and decide to ram this through when it clearly isn't warranted for any reason that is fair.

What that does is demonstrate a lack of respect for paramedics. It demonstrates an inability on the part of government to provide leadership that would lead to fair negotiations, including the notion and what we know in the case of the paramedics — as with many emergency services and critical services — that paramedics are an essential service. They have limited capacity. They cannot withdraw services, and everyone appreciates why that is important.

They have essential services, so essentially a full complement of paramedics is working every day. They're delivering the health services. They're protecting us and protecting our families and loved ones every day. They have a limited capacity to affect the bargaining process through what would be the more traditional tools available to unions — one of which is, of course, to withdraw their services.

I know the paramedics all understand why essential services are there, and their commitment to the service they provide…. They know that they need to be there every day. It's critical for people in crisis who require their services.

But part of the problem is that when you do that, you need to provide tools to be able to find resolution. Binding arbitration is one of those tools, and it's one of those tools that the paramedics have asked for. It's one of the tools that the government has denied them, and it's one of the few tools.

That being the case, part of the reason to move this hoist amendment is to ask the government to take this period of time. Let's be clear here. If the government walked away from this legislation today and went back to Mr. Doney and the Ambulance Service and said, "We are telling you that it's time to bring a binding arbitration to the table, put an experienced arbitrator into this process and come to a solution that is fair for everybody," I am confident we would have a collective agreement that was dealt with in a fair way by the time we got to Christmas.

That's not what's going to occur. Instead, if Bill 21 goes ahead, if this hoist motion isn't successful today, then what we're going to see is a very bitter process through the next number of months. We're going to see ourselves get to April of next year when this whole exercise will start again, only it will start with a very poisoned atmosphere.

It will start with a bargaining table where there is no trust. It will start with a bargaining table where paramedics come to the table knowing that government has no respect for them and the job that they do.

That makes it a very difficult place to ask those people to come to the table to bargain in good faith and have any confidence at all that they are being treated in a fair and respectful manner, even though hundreds of thousands of British Columbians across this province would tell you every day that there are particular professions and professionals who deserve that respect. Paramedics and the job they do are very, very high up that list of people who deserve that respect.

That's why British Columbians across this province are angered about Bill 21. The most clear thing here is that it's a government that is refusing to show that respect to paramedics. In the middle of what we had hoped would be a negotiation we see a situation where Bill 21 is introduced in the middle of all this. What Bill 21 has done, of course, has just taken all the possibility of a solution off the table. Now the hoist motion potentially gives us the opportunity to step back. It gives the government the opportunity to step back and to find a solution.

As my colleagues have said earlier, if we're facing a situation in the coming period of time leading up to the Olympics…. We'll talk about what has caused Bill 21, a little bit, and part of the reason that government members might say that the hoist motion doesn't make sense. Since it doesn't appear that the government members are prepared to talk to this, I'll explain what I'm sure part of their argument would be for you.

Of course, we know that we have the memo from VANOC that essentially says to the government: "You have to settle this thing. You have to put this in place, because we need to be satisfied, at VANOC and at the IOC, that everything is going to be the way that we want it to be come Olympics."

Now, there has never been any suggestion from anybody that the paramedics are going to do anything but fully cooperate through the Olympics. The fact that VANOC or the government or whoever doesn't have the ability to be sitting down with the Ambulance Service and others to determine, in fact, what kind of strategy should be put in place; the fact that to the best of my knowledge, nobody's talked to the Ambulance Service, nobody's talked to the paramedics about what those services look like — maybe they should have opened those discussions.

If the argument is that the hoist motion, if it is put in place, proceeds through the Olympics, so as a consequence we can't support taking Bill 21 off the table because it might affect the Olympics, my argument would be that there's no foundation for that.

Be absolutely clear. If an independent and binding arbitration process is put in place, there is no reason why this collective agreement cannot be fully resolved through a legitimate process of collective bargaining, binding arbitration, well in advance of the Olympics, and the system will be back in place and operating as it should be. And we won't be back doing this in a few months.

There are other reasons why this labour relations failure that the government is about to impose on British Columbia needs a second look. The hoist motion offers us that second look. The Health Minister, unfortunately, has proven himself, well, not just to be a dismal failure in his ministry. He's taken that sort of rhetorical flair that he has, that sort of in-your-face approach that was pretty good for building highways, and is now trying to make that work when it comes to the health care people. He's trying to make that work when it comes to how he treats emergency health care workers like paramedics.

What we know is that that process is a failure. Increasingly, British Columbians are realizing that the current Minister of Health brings nothing to the table as a Health Minister that does anything for British Columbians — nothing to the table that supports British Columbians. I'm sure that if they had a wish for Christmas, it's that the Premier would wake up and find a Health Minister who could do the job.

Let's look back at how this works in negotiations. Part of the success of labour relations…. Maybe if the government were to say, "We're going to accept the hoist amendment and look at this one more time," they could go back and revisit the conduct of their own past Minister of Finance, Carole Taylor.

Now, Carole Taylor admittedly had a pot full of money to spend when she settled public sector negotiations, and that money, obviously, was an important component of that. But I'll tell you — and I've known Carole Taylor for a few years — that the other thing that Carole Taylor would have brought to that table was respect for those unions, their members and the jobs that they did, because that is her nature. That is her nature.

That doesn't mean that she wouldn't have been tough. It doesn't mean that she wouldn't have looked at the government's interests, but she would have brought that respect to the table. I may quibble and argue with her about some of that settlement, but I would not have questioned the integrity that she would have brought to that in terms of her respect for people at that table.

That respect…. As we know, Ms. Taylor couldn't stomach more than a single term in that cabinet before she walked away, and there are many of us who would be pretty sure to know it's because that respect that she showed was non-existent with the vast majority of her cabinet colleagues. She couldn't stomach that, so she walked away.

The problem we have now is that we have a government that doesn't have anybody who brings that quality to the table, who brings that maturity to the table. We have a bunch of bullies. That's what we have today. They need to get over this. They need to think this through.

The reality is that this hoist amendment gives them a chance to do that. It gives them a chance, whether it is the Health Minister or the Labour Minister or whoever, to catch a breath, to reinvent this government a little bit and to begin to settle this. This is an important thing. This is a very important thing because what the hoist amendment will achieve is the time for some more discussion.

It will allow all the parties who need to be there some time to come to the table and talk. It will take a level of tension right now, a tension that's in the streets with the paramedics who are angry at how they've been disrespected, and rightfully so — a public who doesn't see the government working in its best interest to deal with a critical and important group of workers….

We have an opportunity here to rebuild some relationships, and that's critical. It's very critical right now, and this hoist amendment will allow that, the opportunity to build some relationships. Let's be clear. This is not just about paramedics today. This government is going to enter into a broad set of negotiations with the vast majority of the public sector in the coming few months.

In the coming few months all the negotiations with most of the major public sector unions are going to be on the table. Does anybody think for one minute…? If the government proceeds with Bill 21, as they have today and puts the boots to the paramedics, forces this contract down their throats and then expects those other unions to be able to come to that table with any confidence that they are facing anything but the same thing, you're dreaming. You're dreaming.

We know those will be tough negotiations. We know that there aren't the dollars on the table that Carole Taylor had to be thrown around — hundreds of millions or billions, or whatever it was, for bonuses. We know that it will be a difficult discussion. But it will be made no easier at all if the government proceeds with Bill 21 and doesn't take the opportunity afforded to them by the opposition, by the member for Port Coquitlam, to in fact step back and find a solution that is fair and is based on fair collective bargaining processes.

Otherwise, what we will see — and there is no doubt about it — is an extremely challenging time, and not just challenging for a government that doesn't have the capacity or the ability or the competence, quite frankly, to deal with those relationships with workers, but it will reflect across the province. We will see it in difficult situations around the province — difficult situations that will have been caused by this government's intransigence and by this government's inability to deal with people in British Columbia in a fair way, by this government's inability to show respect for people who deserve their respect.

We're giving the government an opportunity to get out of that situation, that box they have put themselves in. That opportunity is this hoist amendment. That opportunity is the chance to step back and have another look at this, the chance to step back and do this right.

Now, we all know on this side that this government's not very good at taking advice, certainly not from British Columbians, but we can be hopeful that that will be the case.

What is the situation that we face, then? Well, let me just make a couple points about how again we got into this situation.

First and foremost, when it comes to labour relations in British Columbia, when it comes to the relationship between the government and the public sector — and today that's encapsulated in the relationship between the government and CUPE 873 and the ambulance paramedics — somebody should tell the Premier, the Health Minister and the Minister of Labour that while VANOC has an important job to do to deliver the Olympics, VANOC doesn't get to call the shots on labour relations in British Columbia.

VANOC may have a legitimate right to be concerned that ambulance services are provided in a full and complete way for the Olympics, but there has not been one indication, not one sliver of evidence or one reason to believe that that would not occur. There is no reason at all for anybody to believe that we wouldn't have full and complete ambulance services for the Olympics.

It isn't VANOC's job to make those decisions for government. It's cabinet's job, and cabinet shouldn't be the toady to VANOC in this situation. There are no diminished services. We know, and I am sure, that if the government said today, "We've had the change of heart. We're accepting the hoist amendment, and we're asking the union to come back and sit down. We're bringing in a third party who's respected by both sides, and we want to find a settlement. We're going to go back to those items…."

The member for Vancouver-Kingsway, in his debate yesterday, talked about the previous Health Minister and about the work the previous Health Minister had done to try to start to fix some of the problems with the Ambulance Service.

What we know is that many of the issues that the paramedics are facing today, and many of the issues and concerns they have…. Well, some of them are certainly things like the $2-a-day pager fee that they're being paid for sitting on a pager — those are critical issues that need to be resolved — but the paramedics have, as much as anything, talked about what it will take to enhance the service.

They have talked about how to improve the service. They've talked about how they make sure that the facilities, the equipment and technologies, the staffing levels, the resources are sufficient and adequate to deliver the job that they need to do, and how it is that the Ambulance Service can once again be the world-class ambulance service that we've all been so proud of.

That's been a big part of what the union has brought to the table. Wouldn't it be good if the government said: "We're accepting the hoist amendment, and we're going to sit down, and we're going to talk about how we move forward together"?

That means dealing with the strict labour relations matters, and it means having a discussion about the integrity of the Ambulance Service and those critical questions.

What we know is that the previous Health Minister had some appreciation of that. As the member for Vancouver-Kingsway said yesterday in his comments, the previous Health Minister was prepared and had, in fact, begun to develop some serious conversation and dialogue and some solutions that, potentially, led to some of that.

What we know is that what Bill 21 has done is ripped those all up. This government hasn't even had the integrity to keep on the table the matters that the previous Health Minister was prepared to engage the paramedics in to try to find solutions to problems that weren't just the paramedics' problems. They're British Columbia's problems, because they affect the quality of our ambulance service.

But those fell off the table. Not only did Bill 21 not move us forward; it moved us backwards. It moved us backwards in terms of the discussion that was going on. It took the hammer and just brings the hammer down. There's no value in that. There is no value for anybody. Mostly, there is no value in that — there is nothing good about that — for British Columbians across this province.

You will hear from my colleagues, and you've heard from them previously, and you will hear from them again today, tomorrow and for days to come. You will hear from my colleagues, hon. Speaker, about how this affects communities around this province.

I come from Vancouver. We have a number of other unique challenges for our ambulance paramedics in Vancouver that are very complex, but we do have paramedics there. In many communities it's a question of whether the paramedics are even there because the resources have not been applied to have the paramedics on the ground 24-7 when they're needed. As we all know, you don't schedule your emergency as to when paramedics are available. They've got to be available 24-7, and the Ambulance Service does not have the capacity to do that, though the paramedics would be happy to do that job.

The hoist motion is about bringing a little good faith to the table. It is about an opportunity for sober second thought by the government. It is about trying to have everybody bring the temperature down a little bit in the room on this and begin to talk again. But if this motion fails, if the government doesn't come to its senses and see the logic of passing the hoist amendment and getting on with the opportunity to settle people down, to have a real discussion, to bring in some expertise like binding arbitration to the table…. If they don't see fit to do that, we will end up in a situation here very, very shortly when the government ultimately does force this legislation through.

If they turn their backs on the hoist amendment and they force Bill 21 through, we will be into a labour relations climate in this province that is nothing but bad news for everybody from workers to citizens to the British Columbia economy, because there will be no good faith and no trust at the table.

The only people who will have 100 percent of responsibility for that poisoned atmosphere will be the cabinet and members of that B.C. Liberal caucus. They will have 100 percent of the responsibility for poisoning labour relations in this province, and they will do that by passing Bill 21, if they don't come to their senses. The member for Port Coquitlam has offered them the opportunity to do that, to come to their senses by saying that we will adopt the hoist amendment and that we will sit back and find a solution that is fair and balanced.

We have just a few days here. Who knows how long this will last? We have a few days here to try to bring the government around. We're hearing from more people every day and, hon. Speaker, you've heard from my colleagues and members of the official opposition, who have talked about and read letters into the record from people that they have heard from –– from paramedics who are so extremely disappointed in this government's conduct, from citizens and British Columbians who have no direct link to the paramedics but who intrinsically know the value that they bring to the table and who trust the paramedics and want the paramedics to be treated fairly and believe that Bill 21 does not treat them fairly.

You've heard those letters read –– letter after letter from members of the official opposition. Every one of those letters is an endorsement of the hoist amendment. Whether it says it or it doesn't, it is an endorsement of the hoist amendment.

Every one of those letters, when you read through what they say, when you get to the message that underlies every one of those letters says: "As a British Columbian, as a paramedic, as somebody who is concerned about my province, I am terribly, terribly disappointed in where this is all going and where it's leading. I am terribly, terribly concerned about what this means for a critical service, the Ambulance Service, and what it means for the social contract and the social fabric of our province as we rip them up one more time." That's what those letters are saying, once you get past the stories and all of that. That's the message that lies under those letters.

I would hope that the government would get the message, because the reality is this. The government may be here. They may have this view that they know what is right, that they don't have to listen to anybody, that the Premier calls every shot, and everybody else just says: "Yes, how quickly can I abide the Premier's interests"?

But the reality is this. Every one of those members on the government side, like every member on the opposition side, was sent here to represent the people of British Columbia. The people of British Columbia know that Bill 21 is not good enough. The people of British Columbia know that Bill 21 does not address this issue in a fair manner. It does not address it in a competent manner. It does not address the issue of the relationship of the Ambulance Service with the paramedics in a way that any reasonable or thoughtful person could endorse.

They are asking. They sent us here, and we all stand up every day and talk about who we represent and how we speak for the people in our constituencies. Well, think about what the people in your constituencies really want you to do.

The people in our constituencies want us to resolve this in a way that is fair for paramedics, in a way that is fair for British Columbians, in a way that moves the Ambulance Service forward and in a way that ensures that as this becomes the first step in what's going to be a complex public sector labour relations period, it's done right and done in a way that sets a foundation for fair and honourable settlements for all the unions that are coming up and for every British Columbian.

We can only do that if the government comes to its senses, realizes the opportunity that's been put in front of them with the hoist amendment and makes the decision today that they will back away, adopt the hoist amendment, come back to the table and bring to the table an independent third party who's respected by all sides, get a fair solution for the ambulance paramedics and move on to build that ambulance service once again into a world-class service that we can all be proud of.

If the government would do that, it would truly have accomplished something that in the long term is probably a bigger deal than the Olympics coming in February, in terms of what's good for British Columbians.

Hon. Speaker, I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to speak to this issue and to speak to Bill 21 or, more appropriately, to the hoist amendment for Bill 21. I do look forward to hearing from my colleagues. I must say I know there are paramedics visiting us and there are many who are watching us. I would like the government members to stand and explain themselves.

Private BC clinic charging fee to access H1N1 vaccine

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: The H1N1 vaccine is supplied free to clinics and doctors' offices in British Columbia. In return for that, British Columbians can reasonably expect to go to those facilities and receive that vaccine, if they're on the priority list, free of charge. Colleen Fuller, a type 1 diabetic in British Columbia, called the Copeman clinic and had it confirmed that she in fact was a priority because of her condition and then was told that, no, she could not receive the vaccine there unless she paid a $3,900 membership fee. That is not free access.

Will the minister demand today that all clinics in this province and all doctors' offices, including Copeman, provide the vaccine free of charge to any British Columbian who comes through the door who is on the priority list? ...

S. Simpson: We have a pandemic. We have a public immunization program. We have a shortage of vaccine, and we have a pay-as-you-go program here. It's $3,900 to walk in the Copeman clinic and get this vaccination.

Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec have all said the vaccine only goes to public clinics so that it can be provided free of charge to all of the residents of those provinces. Deb Matthews, the Ontario Health Minister, has said that she's doing a review of Medcan because of exactly the same problem as Copeman is creating here, where they are charging, essentially, through a membership fee for people to jump the queue and access that.

Will the minister follow those examples — examples of good public policy — and say no to private clinics that charge for this vaccine? ...

Paramedics unable to access H1N1 vaccine

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: Mr. Speaker, the Health Minister has been telling us that the reason he's used Bill 21 to try to force a contract on paramedics is to deal with the H1N1 pandemic. However, we now know that the government doesn't have a coherent plan at this time for those front-line paramedics to get vaccinations themselves.

Elizabeth Grant is one of 22 child and maternal critical care paramedics who work every day with late-trimester pregnant women, premature babies and children with serious health conditions. Yet there is no coherent plan for her to get vaccinated. While she's at Children's and Women's Hospital every day, they wouldn't vaccinate her because she's not a direct hospital employee. Meanwhile, the Ambulance Service runs some limited clinics that don't work for many paramedics' schedules.

My question to the minister is: how can British Columbians have confidence in his ability to manage H1N1 when he can't get together a plan to vaccinate critical health personnel like Ms. Grant? ...

S. Simpson: The minister's trying to tell us here that people like Ms. Grant, who deal with critical health care issues every day — with pregnant women, with babies, with children — are not essential health care workers. Is that what the minister wants us to believe?

Meanwhile, in the Comox Valley, Bill Coltart along with other part-time paramedics have been told that they're not considered emergency health care workers either, and they're not eligible for any priority vaccination. Does this minister have any explanation for the inept manner in which so many paramedics aren't getting access to vaccinations when they are the front-line health workers who should be? ...

S. Simpson: What I would like is for the Health Minister to show one shred of leadership when it comes to this issue. Critical health care workers — no support for them at all, no support at all...

These workers provide essential services. This government, this minister have a responsibility to show some leadership, but there are no plans for Ms. Grant, no plans for Mr. Coltart or many of their colleagues to get the vaccinations they need to be able to do the job on behalf of British Columbians.

How is it that front-line ambulance paramedics have become an afterthought for this government when it comes to H1N1?

Critical legal aid services cut

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

S. Simpson: The reality is a $22 million budget cut since '01-02 in terms of the legal aid services; five offices will close in this province; a number of critical services that are provided for community advocates and others will be shut down — all of these things that affect our most vulnerable citizens, those ones who cannot afford to go out and pay a lawyer. How on earth is this fairness and equity from this government when those are the services that this minister allows to be cut? ...

S. Simpson: Unbelievable is the only word to describe this minister's comments. Tell that to the people in Kelowna, in Kamloops, in Prince George, in Surrey or in Victoria, where those offices are closed and they can't be accessed by those people anymore. Explain to people how 22 million less dollars for services for legal aid since this government came to power is good for those vulnerable people. It is unbelievable.

Will this Attorney General stand up and for once say: "Vulnerable people, poor people matter, and we will restore that funding"?