ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Ep. 54 Rob Botterell, MLA

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Ask Salt Spring Answered host Damian Inwood talks to Rob Botterell, Green Party MLA for Saanich North and the Island about taking over from Adam Olsen and issues like housing, roads, US tariffs and his role as House Speaker for the BC Greens.

you're listening to episode 54 of ask salt spring answered when we talk to rob botterill the green party mla for sanich north and the, about his life as an MLA, filling the shoes of Adam Olsen, a long-time MLA, and a lot of issues surrounding Salt Spring and the BC government generally. Now, you're listening to Ask Salt Spring Answered with me, Damien Inwood, and I'm very happy to be here today talking to our new MLA, Green Party, Robert Bottrell, for North Saanich and the Islands. Welcome. Great. Thanks very much.

It's really great to be on Salt Spring. We're on Salt Spring today, and I'm hoping to be here regularly to meet with constituents and make sure that I'm doing everything I can to represent you. How's it been? Obviously, we've known Adam for many years and he's big shoes to fill. Has it been tough for you the first little while? Well, Adam certainly had big shoes. And, you know, when I was running to get elected, a couple of people said, boy, you've got big feet.

So the fit's pretty good. It's a big job, and I'm really excited about carrying on the great work that Adam performed, and here we are. We're raring to go in 2025. Right. Now, obviously, you fell, I think, probably one seat short of being the power brokers

in the legislation, but you do have a great deal of influence. And you made an agreement with the NDP, the governing party, to work with them collaboratively. And I think in Ask Salt Spring today, you talked about some of the priorities, the Green Party's priorities that you will be pushing. Now, the deal is, as I understand it, you'll vote for the NDP budget and you'll vote against any non-confidence motions that come from the Conservative opposition. Is that correct? Yeah. And so the accord is renewable every year.

So for this year, we've agreed to support the NDP, both in terms of the budget and if there's a non-confidence vote to vote against it, as you mentioned. And in return for that, as part of the overall accord, we'll work collaboratively on a variety of key initiatives that I think will be of interest to Salt Spring Islanders and folks throughout my riding, community health centers, non-market housing, working together to protect Ferry Creek permanently, a review of Clean BC to make sure that we're tackling climate change. It's accelerating. We really need to work hard on it. Those are a few of the examples.

We're really looking forward to working with the NDP to really get results this year. You said the legislature is a total gong show. I'm quoting from what you said in the meeting this morning. Can you just give me your impressions of what it's like actually as a politician in BC? Sure. I mean, when I say it's a gong show, when I look at the way the legislature worked in recent years, it's often been highly divisive and really the various parties are not working together as well as they could. I think that in her role as leader, Sonia Firstenow and Adam Olson really worked hard to change the tone

and approach in the legislature. And I'm going to carry on that work this year. And in our accord with the NDP, we've looked at some ways to help create that more positive, collaborative legislative environment. And I'm house leader for the Green Party, so I'll be working with the other house leaders

to create a much more collaborative environment. And it may take time, but I'm going gonna lean into that now you said as house leader you're in a good position to advocate for i guess various things um and you you're talking daily with uh with mike farmworth you said the ministry of transport when a question came up about uh about roads on salt spring so how can you help with the people who say we need more money for roads here? Yeah, so Mike Farnworth is the Minister of Transportation and also the House Leader for the NDP. Both Jeremy Valeriot, the other Green MLA and I, you know, just by virtue of being in the legislature

on a daily basis through the session, we have an opportunity to raise issues with other ministers and, you know, in a fact-based way, make the case for issues affecting constituents. Transportation and road issues is just one example of issues that I'm hearing about that Salt Spring Islanders really want to see movement on. And so we'll help amplify the Salt Spring Island voice on those issues and see what we can get. You said that you think tariffs obviously from the US are going to have a very significant impact on fiscal spending in the coming months.

How do you see that shaking down? Well, time will tell, but certainly, you know, on the assumption that ultimately a 25% tariff comes into play or hopefully a lower tariff or, boy, wouldn't it be great if there's no tariff, but if there is a tariff, that will raise the cost of goods going into the United States and make our exports more costly. That'll have impacts in terms of forestry, in terms of other industries that really rely on exports to the U.S. And so in that way, you know, it's going to dampen the economy. And what we'll need to do is work together, all the parties work together, to make sure that, you know, people across British Columbia, much like COVID, have the types of support they need to deal with the unemployment and dislocation that can cause in the short term. of economy that's much more diversified and less reliant on U.S. markets and really focuses on the industries and knowledge and innovation economy of the future, which is more suited to fight

climate change. Yeah, and I think, you know, I've read that environmental groups are quite worried by the NDP's approach to this fast-tracking projects that basically are natural resource-based and may have a negative impact on the environment in a bid to combat the tariff threat. How do you feel about that from a green perspective? Well, the accord lists the areas in which we're agreeing to collaborate, and it also leaves us free to advocate strongly in the legislature and publicly to make sure that the government takes the right approach on other issues. And so as we go through the approval process for these projects that have been announced, we'll be advocating very strongly, as I expect environmental groups will too, to make sure that we don't abandon proper environmental safeguards and the fight against climate change in the process of

considering those projects. And most importantly, you know, we need to turn our minds fairly quickly, and we'll really press for this, to make sure that future decisions around where we see economic growth in the province are focused on the innovation and knowledge sector and areas like renewable energy where we can actually contribute to fighting climate change rather than eroding our fight. Right. Now, we talked about private members' bills, and you said there's been a change in the process that one bill can now go forward to second reading. And then you talked about one thing you ran on was a bill to ensure that there's transparency about oil and gas subsidies. So is that something that you'll be bringing up fairly soon? Well, we're just in the process of identifying the areas or the topics for private members' bills. And the way that it works in the legislature

is it's a lottery. And so every private member, you know, put their name in the hat and found out when they could bring forward a private member bill. And so I don't have the exact number that I got, but I think it's probably around 40, number 40. And so it really depends on how the first 39,

how fast they get introduced. But we're going to start drafting legislation so that we're ready when the time comes. Right. And this is an issue that big companies are getting subsidies for oil and gas development, I guess, that could be spent on other things such as health care and roads and whatever, right? Absolutely.

And we believe that British Columbians, Salt Spring Islanders, residents of my riding, we should all have accurate, independently verifiable information on the scale and extent of subsidies that are being provided to the oil and gas sector. That could be LNG, that could be fracking, that could be pipelines, so that we understand the full amount of money that's being used to subsidize that economic sector. And that's important because, you know, just as you said, we're under pressure around housing, health care, lots of pocketbook issues where families are living paycheck to paycheck. And we talked about transportation,

where there's a real need to invest in the things that matter to people. And if those oil and gas sector companies are heavily subsidized while making significant profits. There's a question for British Columbians about whether that's the right course of action. And without the information, you can't have that debate. Right. And given the NDP's longstanding position on the environment and all the other issues, you'd think that would be something that they would be interested in but yeah i mean i uh back in 1992 i led the team

under an ndp government of mike harcourt uh to introduce freedom of information legislation uh in this province and the whole purpose of that was to make sure that citizens across the province have access to information to hold their government to account. And so it should be a core value of the NDP, and I guess we'll be putting that to the test with a private member bill like the one I described. Right.

Now, the BC Greens have had a little bit of an upheaval with, obviously, Sonia lost her seat, and now she's resigning as leader, and you're not going to run for leadership, and neither is Jeremy... Valeriot? Valeriot, yes. I have trouble pronouncing his name.

Yeah, so in my experience, I mean, I've covered the legislatures in several provinces. The party leader seems to do better when they have a seat in the House because they can obviously speak from the floor of the House rather than sitting up in the gallery. But neither you or Jeremy are going to run. Do you think that's a deterrent or is it, you know, you said it was a positive. I don't know quite how that would work. Well, I think it's a positive and you can see in other jurisdictions

where a new party leader has been selected and they don't have a seat and yet they are, you know are very effective in the work they do, and the time will come where they get a seat. The reason I see it as a positive is that a new party leader has a lot of responsibilities around building the party and making sure that the party is in a good position to fight an election and be ready to really support MLAs like us, Jeremy and I. And so that's why, for me, it's a positive. I mean, if you have your hands full on a day-to-day basis in the legislature, as Jeremy and I will, and advocating as strongly

as we can to advance interests of constituents like Salt Spring Islanders, there's not enough time to really focus on parties. So I think it's a win-win in the short term, and the time will come where the party leader will be elected, and then we'll have three MLAs. Okay, now obviously on Salt Spring, a big issue here is housing, and you were asked about that. And you said that the NDP has plans for 7,500 non-market units per year over the next four years of their mandate. How can Salt Spring get their hands on some of that housing? That's part of our accord with the NDP, that commitment to ensure that 7,500 units per year are available. And we see that as a pretty vital step towards dealing with the housing crisis around the province. But here on Salt Spring, there's obviously significant need for affordable non-market housing

for folks that live on Salt Spring. And so the way that'll work is that we'll be working with local government, we'll be working with community, we'll be working with housing, non-profits and so on on Salt Spring to make sure that when the call comes for new applications that Salt Spring Island proposals

are in the hopper near the front of the line. It's an independent decision-making process, but we'll be doing everything we can to support proposals that are coming from Salt Spring so that they get a full and fair consideration. And having met some folks I'm pretty confident that that Salt Spring Island will be able to put together and present some pretty compelling proposals given the the housing crisis on Salt Spring okay and a thorny problem of local government came up with questions about

the official community plan and the islands trust and I think you said that while you support them the preserve and protect mandate you think the islands trust has lost its way can you explain a bit more about that yeah sure well the islands trust has put forward requests to the provincial government for the provincial government to review the Islands Trust. And, you know, the mandate of the Islands Trust to preserve and protect is as true today as it was when the Islands Trust was created. But the Islands Trust, when I say it's lost its way, it doesn't have the tools it needs to actually deliver on its mandate. And to be successful, the Islands Trust needs a broad base of support across islands

because ultimately it needs to be a form of government that actually delivers on that mandate. And so, you know, I respect the Islands Trust in every way, shape and form, but I welcome the opportunity to see how we can bring it into the 21st century in a way that enables it to better deliver the mandate. And I'll give you one example. You know, Islands Trusts do not have the authority to do tree bylaws. Well, everywhere else in the province, communities have the ability to do tree bylaws. Well, everywhere else in the province, communities have the ability to do tree bylaws to ensure that the cutting of trees is regulated in a way that both, in this case, preserves and protects the unique amenities of the islands and is some based on community input so there's one change for example

that would be hopefully part of that review and you're going to be meeting with the minister of intergovernmental affairs is that right the minister responsible for uh municipalities and local governments is minister ravi kal. He's also responsible for housing. And yeah, I'll be meeting with the minister to learn more about how he plans to approach that request from the Islands Trust because we need to make sure that we have a strongly supported process

that's got community driven so we get a result everybody can support. Yeah, and I think you said at the end that you really want to make sure you touch everybody on Salt Spring and in your riding. How do people get in touch with you if they want to talk to you about any particular issue they have? Yeah, so the best way to do that is to reach out to our community office, which is in Sydney, and we'll make sure we post on the exchange

and in other spots on Salt Spring both the phone number and the email address. And then we're going to make every effort to be here at ask for future asks and also in other ways to be present here on on Salt Spring so that folks can reach out to me but in the in the short term the the best way is to reach out to the community office, and I don't have that information right in front of me, but we'll certainly make sure it's made available. And just in closing, I really want to make sure that this, just like Adam,

that I'm constituent-driven, community-driven, so that I'm working on your priorities as Salt Spring Islanders and that that means all Salt Spring Islanders and that we just do everything we can to bring the concerns and issues and items forward to government, the provincial government, the provincial issues in a way where we can actually get results for you. Okay, great. Well, thanks for coming in, Rob. And you've been listening to Ask Salt Spring Answered on CHIR FM, the sound of the Gulf Islands. Great. Thanks very

much. Anyone wanting to contact Rob Bottrell can reach him by telephone at 250-655-5600 or by email at rob.botterell.mla.ledge.bc.ca