LEGISLATIVE LOAD LEAVES NDP IN CALENDAR CRUNCH

B.C. government struggling to get planned agenda accomplished in time

As Premier John Horgan prepared to head out to Ottawa for the pipeline summit this week, the legislature adjourned with less than half the days remaining on the sitting schedule and much still to be done on the NDP’s ambitious agenda.

Only a dozen or so bills have been tabled. Yet to come are promised legislation to reform auto insurance, critical to cabinet minister David Eby’s vow to cap claims and rein in costs at the troubled Insurance Corp. of B.C.

Nor was there any sign of the promised bill or bills to handle the B.C. share of the federal government drive to legalize cannabis this summer.

The legislative package, involving changes to some 12 ½ pieces of provincial legislation — and touching on everything from impaired driving to tenancy to sales and distribution — won’t be ready until after the next break in the spring schedule, I’m told.

That means the potentially contentious measures will be tabled on or about May 7, when there are just a dozen days of sittings left for debate and scrutiny.

The delays are telling because the New Democrats cited the ICBC and cannabis legislation as justification for delayed action on the enabling legislation for the controversial speculation tax.

It has been put off until the fall session, leaving potentially affected property owners from B.C. and elsewhere to guess about the precise application of the legislation until then.

The jam-up on the government legislative agenda has also affected the NDP’s partners in power-sharing, the Greens. Among Andrew Weaver’s legislative proposals, only one, establishing a B.C. Innovation Council, has made it through the house so far.

Apart from legislation, much remains to be done on what is usually the main business of the spring session, approving the spending estimates (budgets) for government ministries.

Only five of 20 ministries have made it through the estimates process and been approved so far. Yet to come are some of most significant ministries, including those dealing with health, finance, Attorney- General, housing, jobs, energy and natural gas, child care and child protection, social assistance and Indigenous relations.

Still, government house leader Mike Farnworth insists the myriad holdups have nothing to do with distractions like the imbroglio over the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion or the back and forth on the speculation tax.

Rather, he says it is a result of the complexity of the bills, some overload in the drafting process, and, in the case of cannabis, holdups at the federal level.

As for auto insurance reform, Attorney General David Eby, whose ministry includes both the legislative drafting team and responsibility for ICBC, is handling the excuses on that front.

“It’s complex legislation,” he told Rob Shaw of The Vancouver Sun this week. “We’ll take the time to get it right. We’ll be introducing it this session and there will be time to debate it.”

But I gather not everyone on the government side is as confident as Eby. I’m hearing the ICBC bill might have to be put over until fall, or else necessitate an extension of the spring session into June.

Farnworth has so far ruled out the possibility, insisting there will be no need to extend the session beyond the scheduled May 31 adjournment.

If need be, he says, he could add “another house,” meaning send additional estimates for debate to one of the legislative committee rooms, as has been done in the past.

The NDP house leader’s confidence notwithstanding, the management of the legislative workload is not entirely in the hands of the government.

The Opposition can and does use its power to string out debate on legislation and ministry budgets.

Witness what has been happening lately with the ministry of environment and climate change, bailiwick of cabinet minister George Heyman.

The B.C. Liberals, particularly MLAs Mike de Jong and Peter Milobar, have used the estimates process to elicit some surprising admissions from Heyman.

Most notably, the minister acknowledged this week that the New Democrats have known since the day they took office that their election promise to “stop” the Kinder Morgan project was untenable — “inappropriate and unlawful,” as Heyman put it.

There was also a telling exchange where Heyman discounted the significance of a similar stop-the-pipelineproject clause in the NDP’s power sharing agreement with the Greens.

The vow was no longer operative, he explained, because it was made before the NDP assumed the reins of power and gained access to legal advice that stopping the project was not within provincial jurisdiction.

Not surprisingly, when the house adjourned Thursday, the B.C. Liberals opted to extend debate on the environment ministry estimates for another week. That will be the third in all for Heyman and a reminder of the adage that the government decides when the session opens but the Opposition decides when it ends.

Given the modern-day innovation of a fixed legislative calendar, the previous B.C. Liberal government was known to invoke closure and ram-rod the remainder of its agenda through the house on the final day of the schedule, sometimes allowing no debate whatsoever.

The New Democrats would rather not invoke memories of that ugly experience this soon in their term. But unless they can get bills and estimates moving through the pipeline faster than they have so far, they may soon face a choice between extending the session or postponing more business to the fall.

We’ll take the time to get it right. We’ll be introducing it this session and there will be time to debate it.

DAVID EBY, Attorney General