B.C. Today – Daily Report April 30, 2019
Quotation of the day
“We have the official Opposition and their leader arguing for Marxist policy to bring in a price cap, and we have the leader of the socialist party arguing for free market economics.”
Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver says sky-high gas prices have B.C. political parties espousing unexpected views.
Today in B.C.
On the schedule The House will convene at 10 a.m. for question period.
Monday’s debates and proceedings Labour Minister Harry Bains introduced the long-awaited Bill 8, Employment Standards Amendment Act, which, if passed, will make changes to the province’s employment standards. More on the new bill below.
Attorney General David Eby introduced Bill 31, Police Act Amendment Act, which will make changes to the way the Independent Investigations Office recruits police investigators and update its guidelines for referring investigations to Crown counsel.
Speaker Darryl Plecas presented the Office of the Auditor General’s service plans for 2019-20 and 2021-22.
Following question period, Government House Leader Mike Farnworth activated a third committee, Committee C, to speed up the pace of legislative debate and estimates review. It immediately starting tackling the estimates from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and, upon completing them, began to review the estimates for the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.
Three bills received second reading and were referred to committee:
● Bill 29, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, which makes tweaks to several existing statutes; ● Bill 18, Workers Compensation Amendment Act, which, if passed, will make fire investigators and forest fire fighters eligible for workers’ compensation for certain cancers, heart disease, and mental health disorders; and ● M209, Business Corporations Amendment Act, which would allow B.C. companies to incorporate as B Corps — for-profit companies that agree to be subject to more rigorous standards in areas such as labour and the environment.
Two bills passed committee stage and were immediately granted third reading:
● Bill 20, Medicare Protection Amendment Act, which would eliminate Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums, effective January 1, 2020; and ● Bill 25, Coastal Ferry Amendment Act.
MLAs also began second reading debate on Bill 28, Zero Emissions Vehicle Act, which, if passed, will require all light-duty vehicles sold in the province to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2040.
In the House Deputy Speaker Raj Chouhan welcomed a delegation from the Parliament of Western Australia, one of the country’s six states, and another from the New Zealand House of representatives, who met with legislature officials and MLAs ahead of the afternoon session.
Labour Minister Harry Bains welcomed representatives from various B.C. labour groups who were in the chamber to watch the introduction of Bill 8, Employment Standards Amendment Act.
Amendments to employment standards aim to better protect young workers, among other changes The NDP government continued its overhaul of B.C.’s labour standards yesterday with Labour Minister Harry Bains’ introduction of Bill 8, Employment Standards Amendment Act.
"We are making improvements that are long overdue — bringing back basic rights and protections that were gutted by the old government," Bains said of the bill.
Bill 8 makes changes to four priority areas of the Employment Standards Act: protecting young workers, improving the process for dealing with worker complaints, providing job-protected unpaid leave for workers facing difficult circumstances, and ensuring workers are paid fairly.
The legislation incorporates some of the 71 recommendations made by the B.C. Law Institute in a December 2018 report and builds on legislative amendments passed last spring related to extended worker leave and compassionate care leave.
In 2003, legislative changes made it possible for children as young as 12 to work — provided they had parental permission. The provision put B.C. out of step with international child labour standards; the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and the International Labour Organization recommend a minimum work-start age of 16.
The proposed changes would make the UN standard law, while providing exemptions to allow 14 and 15-year-olds to do “light work” — such as stocking grocery shelves or delivering papers — with parental consent. Regulations will also be introduced to set minimum ages of 16 to 19 for workers in industries “likely to be harmful to their health, safety or morals.”
Two new job-protected, unpaid leave policies are also part of the bill. Workers will be able to take up to 36 weeks to care for a critically ill child and 16 weeks for adult family members. Workers experiencing domestic violence will be eligible for up to 17 weeks off, which can include 10 days of intermittent leave and up to 15 weeks of continuous time off.
The policy is “a strong, good first step,” according to Bains, who indicated the government is looking into paid leave policies as well.
The bill also tackles wage theft by banning employers from dipping into their employees’ tips, a provision based on Ontario law. “Tips and tip pooling will be allowed still, but the employer will not be allowed to participate in it unless they are doing exactly the same work that their workers are doing,” he told reporters.
The legislation also extends the period for workers to apply to recover owed wages from six to 12 months, and includes the possibility of extending it to 24 months “in cases involving willful or severe contraventions of the act.”
Finally, the bill includes a suite of changes to modernize the Employment Standards Branch (ESB), which handles complaints from workers regarding alleged contraventions of the act. A “self-help kit” introduced by the Liberal government, which workers were required to complete before filing a complaint, will be discontinued and complaints will instead go directly to the ESB director for assessment and investigation.
The legislation will also require employers to inform workers of the rights, and temporary help agencies will be subject to licensing.
Bains said the ESB plans to hire more than 40 additional employees over the next year; it will receive an additional $14 million to support enforcement efforts over the next three years.
Many of the details of the legislation remain to be defined via regulation, and two additional priority areas have yet to be addressed: hours of work and overtime, and fairness for terminated workers.
Bains told reporters that further changes to labour standards are coming — legislation to amend the labour code will be introduced today.
Stakeholder response Adrienne Montani, the provincial coordinator for First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition, said the changes to protect young workers are long overdue.
"For the past 15 years, employers have been allowed to hire children for inappropriate and dangerous work and too many of them have gotten injured doing those jobs each year,” she said in a statement, adding she hopes Bill 8 will bring in “robust monitoring and enforcement of employers' compliance."
According to WorkSafeBC, claims costs for injured workers younger than 16 were more than $5.1 million between 2007 and 2017 — $1.1 million went to workers 14 and under who were injured on the job.
The B.C. Federation of Labour also welcomed the legislation.
“Providing leave from work in cases of intimate, personal and family violence leave is the right thing to do,” secretary treasurer Sussanne Skidmore said. “It’s needed for victims to start addressing the impact of violence on all aspects of their life. However, we are concerned that the most vulnerable may not access this leave because it will be unpaid.”
Today’s events
April 30 at 12 p.m. – Victoria Social Development and Poverty Reduction Minister Shane Simpson will be joined by Victoria Foundation CEO Sandra Richardson at the legislature to make an announcement about food security projects.
April 30 at 12:05 p.m. – Victoria B.C.’s Lieutenant Governor Janet Austin and Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Lisa Beare will be joined in the Legislature’s Hall of Honour by MLAs and representatives from the
Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia — as well as a special guest author — for a celebration of B.C. Book Day.
April 30 at 7 p.m. – Victoria The B.C. Liberals Women’s Network will host a panel discussion at Pearkes Rec Centre. Richmond—Queensborough MLA Jas Johal will emcee the event, featuring the party’s co-finance critics Shirley Bond (Prince George —Valemount) and Tracy Redies (Surrey—White Rock) and 2017 election candidates Alex Dutton and Puneet Sandhar.
Topics of conversation
● Government House Leader Mike Farnworth did not offer any specifics regarding the next steps for former Supreme Court of Canada chief justice Beverley McLachlin’s forthcoming report on the conduct of the legislative clerk and sergeant-at-arms. “It could be something for LAMC, it could be something that goes straight to the House,” he told reporters. “I have to see the report first.” ○ McLachlin’s report is due to be delivered to Farnworth and the other house leaders this Friday. A LAMC meeting scheduled to take place this week has been rescheduled for Thursday, May 9.
● Premier John Horgan is not the only one who believes gas companies are gouging British Columbians at the pumps. Research conducted by Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, concludes that 90 per cent of the 55-cent increase in provincial gas prices since April 2016 is the result of higher crude oil prices, higher profits going to refineries and higher mark-ups taken by gas retailers. Lee estimates that 20 to 30 cents on every litre Vancouver drivers buy goes directly to refiners — resulting in an extra $500 million to $750 million per year in profit. ○ “Alberta’s oil industry is making huge excess profits at the expense of Metro Vancouver drivers,” Lee said of his findings. “This is pure profit for oil producers whose production costs have not changed. Refiners are also raking in excess profits and refining margins being charged for gas in Metro Vancouver have spiked in recent years and are much higher than in other Canadian cities, which makes no sense.”
● Small-scale cannabis producers and proponents in B.C. are sounding the alarm about the impact of legalization on cannabis cultivation in the province. B.C. Small Cannabis Producers and Processors has released a discussion paper, calling on Ottawa and Victoria to take steps to ensure that small-scale producers can compete in the legal cannabis market. The report suggests that a co-op model may be the solution to keeping small operators in business.
Question period Monday’s question period focused on sky-high gas prices and other road-related issues.
What are you going to do, premier? ● Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson ridiculed Premier John Horgan’s “ineffectual and often non-credible” suggestions to solve the gas price problem. “To the premier: in the next 30 days, what are you going to do to bring down the price at the pumps?”
● Horgan offered no 30-day solution but reiterated that the province can’t significantly reduce gas prices all on its own. “The average refining margin in Canada is 20.8 cents; in British Columbia, it's 42.7,” he said. “That's a problem not created by government but created by the market.”
● “There are two immediate things you can do,” Wilkinson shot back. “You can deal with the 35 cents a litre of gasoline tax that people are fed up with paying when they're paying all-time high prices, and you can get on a plane to Alberta and make peace with [premier-designate] Jason Kenney so we have a reliable supply of fuel.”
Supporting the tech industry ● Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver suggested the gas price debate resembled an episode of The Twilight Zone. “Here we have the official Opposition and their leader arguing for Marxist policy to bring in a price cap, and we have the leader of the socialist party arguing for free market economics,” he said. “What has B.C. politics come to?” ○ Weaver asked Jobs, Trade and Technology Minister Bruce Ralston about a lack of provincial funding for B.C.’s tech sector, citing the scheduled closure of the B.C. Tech Association’s Cube facility next month.
● Ralston laid blame on Ottawa, saying it was the federal government’s decision to discontinue the program from which the Cube drew a significant chunk of its funding.
B.C. Liberal MLAs also asked about continued delays to the Massey Tunnel replacement.
New briefs - Governmental
Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development The ministry is seeking feedback on a discussion paper related to its review of the Lakes Timber Supply Area (TSA), which covers approximately 1.5 million hectares in north-central B.C., more than 363,000 of which are available for timber harvesting.
Comments will be accepted until July 5, and an open house will be held at the Lakeside Multiplex in Burns Lake at 6:30 p.m. on May 1.
The discussion paper and public feedback will be reviewed by the province’s chief forester before a new annual allowable cut for the Lakes TSA is set.
Funding announcements
● The Kootenay Lake ferry service will soon benefit from terminal upgrades and a new, “electric ready” ferry with nearly double the capacity of the MV Balfour, the smaller of two vessels that currently service the route. B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is providing up to $37.5 million for the project, and the federal New Building Canada Plan is investing up to $17.1 million.
Can’t get enough of B.C. politics? Listen to this week’s episode of PolitiCoast featuring BC Today’s Shannon Waters as special guest co-host.