I have been hearing about the challenges that school districts are facing managing the unfunded inflationary pressures that are piling up. Especially in districts of stable or declining enrollment newly elected school board trustees will be tasked with challenging decisions about what is going to get cut. The BC NDP...
I spoke to Bill 36: Health Professions and Occupations Act. It must be the heftiest, all 645 clauses, that has been tabled in my time in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly. This is new legislation comes out of the work of a steering committee created by the Minister of Health, Hon. Adrian Dix, and including the...
Child welfare in British Columbia has long been a shameful part of our provincial history. As the Ministry of Children and Family Development Fact Sheet noted despite the reality that Indigenous people are less than 10% of the population, Indigenous children represent 68% of the children in care. The provincial child...
Despite Minister Adrian Dix’s claims he is addressing the primary healthcare crisis in British Columbia, thousands of my constituents in Saanich North and the Islands do not have access to a family doctor. The pace of Minister Dix’s response is creating a gap and the corporations are lining up to exploit it. While the...
In September, former Saanich North and the Islands MLA and Sidney businessman Clive Tanner passed away. In my statement this week I stood to recognize Mr. Tanner and the significant contribution he made to our community and province. [Transcript] Today I stand to celebrate the life of a community leader and former...
This week, the report of the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that was published earlier this summer was officially table in the Legislative Assembly. As a member of the Committee, I had an opportunity to speak to the process and the contents of the report. As the...
Currently there is no province wide protection for bear dens. While they are protected on Haida Gwaii and in the Great Bear Rainforest, and some protection by logging companies for the vast majority of the province bear den habitat is vulnerable to logging. The private members bill that I tabled today corrects that,...
The Coastal GasLink pipeline controversy continues as the BC NDP allow the company to drill and blast under the Wedzin Kwa (also known as the Morice River) while it is full of spawning salmon. The company faces a host of compliance issues with environmental regulations, meanwhile the Minister of Environment and...
On behalf of the B.C. Green Caucus, I responded to the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, Hon. Murray Rankin's Ministerial Statement on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ National Day of Action. [Transcript] Mr. Speaker, first I would just like to acknowledge both of the...
In my first Question of the Fall session I asked Minister of Forests, Hon. Katrine Conroy about the growing controversy surrounding the wood pellet industry. Journalists in both the United Kingdom and here in Canada are investigating the claims of the British Columbia government and Drax, a large multinational...
ÍY SȻÁĆEL (Good Day), Welcome to my weekly update for June 5th, 2022! This will be the last weekly update of the Spring legislative session. I will produce a monthly newsletter until the Legislature resumes sitting in October. There is a lot of content in this newsletter. Please scroll to bottom as I am sharing important information about...
I am grateful to Gud Takin Jaad, Rose Williams for preparing this statement about the official name change of Queen Charlotte City back to Daajing Giids. [Transcript] The statement was written by Gud Takin Jaad, B.C. Green caucus intern and proud Haida. In 2019, the Skidegate Haida immersion program submitted a...
Today, I tabled legislation to ban the use of prolonged solitary confinement in provincial correctional facilities for both adults and youth. Solitary confinement is defined by the United Nations (UN) as any confinement, seclusion, or segregation of individuals for more than 22 hours a day without meaningful human...
The Gwa’sala-‘nakwaxda’xw Nation are in the process of taking back jurisdiction of child welfare as per federal legislation. They have been attempting to get access to historical information from the provincial Crown governments Ministry of Children and Family Development but have been consistently blocked by the BC...
The BC NDP have long claimed to be the only party that speaks for workers. Increasingly we are seeing they cannot back up their claims. They have failed to protect educators and healthcare workers from COVID-19 and as the climate crisis is causing more and larger wildfires, British Columbians who work outdoors will...
As we approach the one year anniversary since Kúkpi7 Rosanne Casimir (Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc) announced the preliminary findings of 215 graves of children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School I stood and marked the occasion in a response to a Ministerial Statement delivered by Minister Murray Rankin. This...
The BC NDP need to get their priorities straight. They announced an $800 million new Royal BC Museum, when millions of British Columbians are struggling to keep up with the increasing costs of basic needs like food, transportation and housing. And, for months British Columbians have been demanding the BC NDP address...
On April 13, 2022 Jim Hume passed away. He was an extraordinary, and longest-serving member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly Press Gallery. I am grateful to have the opportunity to honour the memory of Mr. Hume. [Transcript] This was prepared by Stephen Hume. Jim Hume surrendered his seat in the press...
It has been 25 years since the British Columbia government did a comprehensive update of the Mental Health Act. In 2021, the BC NDP made a record investment in mental health programs and services. However, the Act governing them is outdated and based on ideas and values from a previous generation. Another Act that...
In the first Bill addressing climate change since the BC NDP got their majority government, the Low Carbon Fuels Act is upgrading the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act (2008). With 37% of the greenhouse gas emissions in British Columbia coming from transportation, our pathway to meeting our greenhouse gas reduction targets...
May 5th is the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry began in 2015 and concluded with a final report on June 3, 2019. In 2021, the federal government released a National Action Plan and the provincial government tabled...
Both the BC NDP and BC Liberals support gas liquefaction for the export market. However, a growing body of research is showing that fracking, the process to extract gas from the ground, causes significant harm to human health. Indigenous communities, children and pregnant people are disproportionately impacted by the...
Services for adults with eating disorders across the province are delivered by health authorities with one exception - Island Health. For some inexplicable reason those services are delivered by the Ministry of Children and Family Development. For years, the services have been inadequate but during the pandemic the...
For decades labour policy has lurched back and forth. This is a result of a legislative assembly previously split by two establishment political parties, BC NDP and BC Liberals, aligning as pro-labour and pro-business respectively. This has not benefited workers or business owners. Neither of these entrenched "sides"...
ÍY SȻÁĆEL (Good Day), Welcome to my weekly update for May 1st, 2022! Following a two-week adjournment to accommodate the Easter long weekend, the BC Legislative Assembly resumed the Spring session this week. It is always a shock to the system. The pace of constituency and legislative work is very different and it usually takes a few hours on the...