BC Today – Daily Report December 2, 2019

Quotation of the day

“Mr. Scheer is entitled to surround himself with a team that fully supports his leadership.”

Conservative MP (Abbotsford) tells the CBC he asked “not to be included” in Conservative ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Party Leader ’s shadow cabinet. ​ ​

Today in B.C.

On the schedule The house is adjourned for the Christmas break. MLAs will return to the legislature on February 11, 2020, for the speech from the throne.

Committees this week The Legislative Assembly Management Committee (LAMC) will meet tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. to review the assembly’s budget submission for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

LAMC is scheduled to meet once more before the year it out. The committee’s final meeting is set for December 9 with the budget submission currently the only item on the agenda.

The final committee meeting of the year will be the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts on December 17.

Cabinet order enacts whistleblower protections for B.C. public sector workers Current and former B.C. public sector employees — including political staff — who report wrongdoing in their workplace are now covered by whistleblower protection legislation.

The Public Interest Disclosure Act, which received royal assent in May 2018, took effect ​ ​ ​ yesterday.

“This legislation protects whistleblowers if they speak up and requires that any investigation into allegations of serious wrongdoing will be administratively fair,” Attorney General David Eby said ​ ​ in a statement. “It supports high standards of integrity and accountability in our public service, which British Columbians expect and deserve.”

Under the law, wrongdoing includes both acts and omissions that violate provincial or Canadian ​ law, constitute “gross or systemic mismanagement” or a misuse of public funds or assets.

“Directing or counselling” a government employee to take any of those actions is also an offense as is “creating a substantial and specific danger to the life, health or safety of persons, or to the environment” — except when that danger is “inherent” to an employee’s “defined duties or functions.”

The act protects employees who make internal complaints or disclosures to their supervisor or their ministry’s designated disclosure officer, as well as those who go directly to the B.C. ombusdperson with their concerns.

It makes retaliation — including disciplinary measures, demotion or termination— against whistleblowers an offence and gives the ombudsperson a new mandate to investigate complaints by whistleblowers who report experiencing reprisals.

The legislation was introduced in response to recommendations made by Ombudsperson Jay ​ Chalke in his report Misfire: The 2012 Ministry of Health Employment Terminations and Related ​ ​ Matters. ​

“Having a legal framework that allows public employees to speak up about wrongdoing helps ensure accountability, transparency and integrity in government,” Chalke said of the legislation. “I am confident that with the expertise of the investigative staff and policies that are in place at

my office, both disclosers and those who have allegations made against them, will be treated fairly.”

In an August interview with BC Today, Chalke said his office had been working with the ​ ​ government to ensure the public service was prepared for the implications of the act, including education efforts and the nomination of designated disclosure officers in every ministry who will receive complaints.

The Ombudsperson’s office will report the number of disclosures they receive each year and the results of any investigations undertaken as a result. Government ministries will be required to do the same.

Over the next five years, the government plans to expand the legislation’s protections to include ​ schools, universities, Crown corporations and health authorities.

B.C. was the last province to introduce whistleblower protection legislation, although Prince Edward Island has yet to proclaim its own law. ​ ​

Today’s events

December 2 at 8:30 a.m. EST — Mississauga, ON ​ Premier John Horgan will attend the Council of the Federation Meeting, chaired by ​ ​ Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, at the Hilton Toronto Airport Hotel. The premiers will pose ​ ​ for a photo op at 6:15 a.m. PDT and hold a news conference at 11 a.m PDT. The news conference will be livestreamed. ​ ​

December 2 at 9:30 a.m. — Sechelt ​ Education Minister Rob Fleming and NDP MLA Nicholas Simons (Powell River—Sunshine ​ ​ ​ ​ Coast) will make an announcement about supporting students at West Sechelt Elementary.

December 2 at 10 a.m. — 100 Mile House ​ Ravi Kahlon, parliamentary secretary for rural development, will be joined by local government ​ officials and business owners at the District of 100 Mile House council chambers for an announcement about the expansion of high-speed internet access in rural, remote and Indigenous communities throughout B.C.

December 2 and 3 — Northeast B.C. ​ ​ The Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development’s Old Growth Strategic Review panel will visit communities in northeast B.C. “on or around” these ​ ​ ​ ​ dates to gather “perspectives on managing the province's old-growth forests for ecological, economic and cultural values.” Future sessions are planned over the next month.

Topics of conversation

● In November 2015, Chinese officials detained former Liberal MLA Richard Lee in the ​ ​ Shanghai airport and confiscated and searched his government phone before cancelling his visa and sending him and his wife back to B.C., according to reporting from Global ​ ​ News. Lee says he notified members of the Liberal caucus at the time and MLA Rich ​ Coleman, who was deputy premier in 2015, says he considered the incident a federal ​ issue. “It’s a bit befuddling four years later that he didn’t do anything with it at the time, ​ which I thought he would have,” Coleman told News1130. “My understanding … [was] ​ ​ he was going to talk to his MP or somebody federally, so I would have assumed that he did that.” ○ Lee told Global he worried that going public about what happened would have had a negative impact on Canada-China relations. “I was deputy Speaker of B.C. government, so if I call a press conference, at that time the relationship [between Canada and China], things are going well,” he said. “So a situation like this could cause a lot of problems.” Lee did provide Global with a letter he sent to Prime Minister and former foreign affairs minister in ​ ​ ​ ​ January 2019. ○ Lee reportedly kept using the device accessed by Chinese authorities following ​ ​ his return to Canada. "They may have installed a key logger, which keeps track of all the inputs onto the device,” cyber security expert David Vogel told CTV. ​ ​ “There may be a remote microphone to listen in on his conversations. That device — if the MLA still has it — they should pretty much burn that device — it’s compromised.” ○ Attorney General David Eby plans to bring the incident up with Ottawa. “The ​ ​ allegations have international implications for Canada and our relationship with China and that is why I will be writing to the federal attorney general, asking the federal government to look into this,” said Eby in a statement. “I will also offer B.C.'s assistance to get to the bottom of whatever happened during Lee's detention.”

● Conservative MP (Chilliwack—Hope) will serve as chief Opposition whip ​ ​ and eight B.C. MPs were appointed members of Andrew Scheer’s shadow cabinet, but ​ ​ ​ ​ Abbotsford MP Ed Fast was not. ​ ​ ​ ○ “Mr. Scheer and I recently had a conversation about where I could fit into his shadow cabinet, and I expressed my desire not to be included at this time,” Fast told CBC on Friday. “Mr. Scheer is entitled to surround himself with a team that ​ fully supports his leadership.” ○ He did not provide further details about his discussions with Scheer. During the Conservative leadership race, Fast supported Erin O’Toole (Durham). ​ ​

● NDP MP Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Duncan) will once again serve as ​ ​ ​ ​ the federal party’s critic for agriculture, adding rural economic development to his critic portfolio. MacGregor will also be the deputy critic for Justice and Human Rights.

○ New Westminster—Burnaby MP will resume his role as NDP house ​ ​ leader in Ottawa, and North Island—Powell River MP will serve ​ ​ as whip, a role she performed for just over a year prior to the election.

● On Saturday, NDP MP joined protestors demanding the government take ​ ​ ​ back the Little Mountain property in from the developer who bought it from ​ the province more than a decade ago. Davies promised to lobby the federal government to take action. “If we’re going to have a real chance at taking this land back — which is what, I think, the call of the community is for today — then I think it’s going to take the efforts and maybe the resources of all levels of government, including the federal government,” he told the Vancouver Sun. ​ ​ ○ Little Mountain used to be the site of a social housing development before it was sold to Holbourn, a development company that had yet to fully pay for the ​ ​ property as of last year.

● Calls for B.C. to decriminalize all drugs and provide a clean drug supply are growing. The families of dozens of people who died of overdoses gathered in Vancouver on ​ ​ Saturday to share their grief and call on the provincial government to do more than fund recovery options and anti-overdose measures. ○ Delegates at the NDP convention in Victoria passed a motion to urge the government to “immediately decriminalize personal possession of drugs,” but Solicitor General Mike Farnworth has said doing so is outside of the province’s ​ ​ jurisdiction. “Possessing these substances is still illegal under federal law,” Farnworth told reporters in April. “No provincial action can change that.” ○ Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry disagrees. “The province cannot wait ​ ​ for action at the federal level,” she said in a report released in April. “I ​ ​ recommend that ... B.C. urgently move to decriminalize people who possess controlled substances for personal use.” She laid out two options that would allow ​ ​ B.C. to effectively decriminalize illicit drugs without federal support.

● The faculty association at the University of Northern plans to file a ​ complaint with the Labour Board over the way the school’s administration has handled ​ bargaining efforts. After a three-week faculty strike, classes at the university will be back in session this week to ensure students don’t lose the fall semester, but the administration and the faculty association have yet to reach an agreement and job action will continue.

● Some of B.C.’s salmon populations may be headed for extinction in the wake of the Big ​ ​ Bar landslide, which blocked the Fraser River this summer.

● After nearly three-quarters of a century, the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation held its first ​ ​ potlatch (balhats) in Prince George on Friday. The spiritual and cultural celebration was ​

banned by the Canadian government until 1951 — the Lheidli T’enneh last held an illegal potlatch in 1946.

Funding announcements

● Healing Spirit House (həy̓χʷət kʷθə šxʷhəliʔ leləm) officially opened on Friday in ​ ​ ​ ​ Coquitlam. The three-storey, 38-bed facility — which houses The Maples Adolescent ​ Treatment Centre — provides a range of direct residential and community mental health ​ services for youth aged 12 to 17 and houses some youth who are in custody. The building also provides space for the Provincial Assessment Centre, managed by ​ ​ Community Living BC, which provides treatment for youth aged 14 and up needing ​ mental health or behavioural support during crisis. ○ The province provided $75 million to build the facility.

● The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing hopes to open a 40-bed temporary ​ ​ ​ ​ winter shelter in West Kelowna early next year. On December 10, BC Housing plans to ​ ​ submit a temporary use permit application to the City of West Kelowna for a site at 1160 Stevens Road. The temporary shelter would consist of modular trailers with bunks, showers, toilets and amenity space and would be operated by the West Kelowna ​ Shelter Society. Interior Health would also provide health services based on individual ​ ​ ​ needs.