ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Ep. 60 Rob Botterell, Green MLA

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Ask Salt Spring Answered host Damian Inwood talks to Rob Botterell, Green Party MLA for North Saanich and the Islands about the repel of the consumer carbon tax in BC, Bill 7 which gives the NDP cabinet sweeping powers, tax reform and proportional representation.

You're listening to episode 60 of Ask Salt Spring Answered with me Damian Inwood talking to Rob Botterell, the Green Party MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, about all kinds of things including the consumer carbon tax repeal, the legislation by the BC NDP government to be able to essentially do things without legislation to respond to Donald Trump's tariffs etc, and tax reform, proportional representation. It's a very wide topic today so please enjoy. I'm here with Rob Boterel the Green Party MLA for North Saanich and the Islands. Welcome Rob. Great yeah it's great to be here. And this is Ask Salt Spring Answered with me Damian Inwood and we were just at Ask Salt Spring and the first thing of note

that came up we were talking about the repealing of the consumer carbon tax and obviously you as we read in in the newspapers and heard on the radio you and your co-agreement Jeremy Valeriat stood out against this basically because there was no kind of plan for replacing it with anything. Can you just enlarge on that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. You know, BC was a leader in bringing in the carbon tax and it was actually Gordon Campbell's government that brought it in many years ago now. And here we are the carbon tax has been repealed by the NDP government through legislation and we opposed that for a number of reasons. One is that the carbon tax is good policy and it works but the way in which the government went around about removing or

canceling the carbon tax has some major problems. The first one is that it puts a three billion dollar hole in the BC's budget and we're already looking at a budget deficit of 11 billion and so that would be another 2 to 3 billion on top. So, you know, in these times, I mean, sometime we have to balance the budget and it just doesn't make sense to introduce legislation that doesn't explain how you're going to offset that loss in revenue. The second thing is that a billion dollars of the carbon tax raised was providing credits or financial support to low and middle income families. We have really, really a serious situation here where grocery prices are going up, cost of living is going up, now we're going to be

dealing with Trump's tariffs and you know the the least the least advantaged in our society. I mean we need to take care of everybody and so that's a big problem. And then the third problem with the legislation was that it didn't present any alternative way to fight climate change and that's fundamental. I mean you can't remove one of the main strategies for tackling climate change and not say how what you're gonna replace it with so we opposed it up until 1 49 a.m. in the morning on Tuesday when it was passed by the Conservatives and the NDP. And did they all vote in favor of it? Yes yeah and that was

disappointing for us because you know the NDP talk a good line about fighting climate change but here we go they axed one of the main policy mechanisms and the conservatives complain about the you know and rightly so complain about the high deficit and but when it came right down to it they would vote in favor of eliminating the carbon tax and be responsible for supporting a three billion dollar increase to our deficit. Right, as you said the NDP legislation didn't, I think you said as usual, didn't tackle that part of any part of the problem really Yeah, and you were the only MLA to vote against it at the first reading right because you felt it was a fatally flawed piece of legislation

Yeah, I mean we the the in this role as Green MLA you know my job is to hold government accountable and speak truth to power. And unlike other parties, we're not whipped. You know, we don't always have to vote the same way. And we all vote consistent with green values, but we all choose the path we want to take. In my case once I heard the Minister of Finance stand up in the legislature say she was introducing a bill and confirming for my ears and the ears of everybody in the legislature that no they didn't have an alternative source of revenue, yes they would be eliminating the credit and the benefits for low and middle income

families and no, it didn't have any plan, alternative plan to fight climate change. I said we shouldn't even be introducing this legislation. So I was the only MLA in the legislature that stood up and said no we shouldn't introduce this at all. Has the government given any indication that it's going to come up with a plan? Well you know there's lots of talk the government but through the work of the review of the legislation into the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday this was introduced Monday we never heard any clear indication of how they're going to deal with either the revenue shortfall

or the impact on low and middle income families or the impact on the fight against climate change. So the short answer is no. Lots of good words but nothing clear enough that we could rely on. Okay. Now the other big thing that happened was Bill 7 legislation to give the cabinet the ability to amend acts and do all kinds of things without the permission of the legislature essentially right tell me a bit more about that and what's happening yeah so normally when you're dealing with a major issue that requires an act, an act of the legislature, that's what you do. You draft a piece of legislation and you bring it to the

legislature and it's clear to the legislature what they're authorizing and it goes through three readings and committee stage and lots of debate and it can be quite quick if it needs to be but the legislature, all the parties have an opportunity to see the legislation, to debate it. That's parliamentary democracy, that's the way we operate. Well, we've seen South of the border is the way Trump operates with executive order. And Bill 7, when it was introduced, gave cabinet, took that decision-making authority away from the legislature and gave cabinet the NDP cabinet the ability to make major decisions with respect to purchase of goods from who BC government would buy goods and services from, major decisions related to reducing trade barriers, major

decisions related to tolls, and then a catch-all, part four, that basically gave cabinet power to do anything else it felt might be necessary. And we said that's fundamentally undemocratic, particularly part four. And so what's happened on bill seven is that part four, the worst part of the legislation, has now been removed and next week and the week after, presumably, we'll be debating the other provisions of Bill 7. And we still have major concerns about this legislation because there needs to be legislative oversight, there needs to be openness and transparency so we can all British Clemens can see what Cabinet is deciding

and there needs to be a short sunset clause on this legislation so that in a year's time we can get back to the normal way of doing things. You know I just want to emphasize we understand the need for agility, for being nimble, for being able to respond in a timely way to these things Trump does and and the tariffs, but we also need legislation that that has some checks and balances on the unlimited power of cabinet and that's what we're pressing for. Okay, another thing we talked about was you said that we need to overhaul our tax system. Why do you think that?

Well the point is that we have an 11, now 13 or 14 billion dollar structural deficit, which means that we're spending more than we take in in terms of revenues and there's three ways you can't go on like that forever I mean sooner or later you hit the limit on your credit card and you have to pay it off and live within your means so on a provincial basis there's three ways to do that one is you can reduce the level of expenses and that work needs to be done. We need to make sure we're getting value for money. The second way you can do it is through innovation. Find ways, whether it's the forest sector, the mining sector,

the high tech sector, you name it, to get more value for your investment and increased revenues. And the third way is to overhaul the tax system and what that means is making sure that everybody pays their fair share. And so you know certainly in the fall and into next year what I'll be advocating for is the establishment of a special committee of the legislature to all parties involved to have a good thorough look at our tax system. You know, maybe there should be a windfall tax on corporate profits. Maybe there should be a wealth tax or a tax on the wealthiest to increase revenues. Maybe there should be an end to oil and gas subsidies. Certainly that's

something I advocate for in the oil and gas sector. In other words, different ways to overhaul the tax system and raise more revenues so that all the programs and services for all British Columbians are timely and fully funded. So is this special committee actually going to be formed or is this just a wishlist at this point? It's my wishlist and this fall when we're renegotiating the next year of the accord with the NDP that'll be something that I put front and center on the agenda. Okay and because you have this agreement with the NDP does that make it more likely to succeed do you think? Well, I really hope that The NDP will be prepared to add that to the list of initiatives next year

We certainly have a good working relationship with the NDP. Although we have different views on a lot of issues and So I'll be looking I, I'm hopeful that we'll actually agree to do this work, but it takes two to tango. So I'll have to be convincing. Okay. And, um, you also talked about the CleanBC review. Um, Yeah.

I mean, CleanBC is the review of CleanBC is part of our accord right now and for us, we need to take, certainly for the Green Caucus, we want to take a close look at everything to do with the fight against climate change. We know that forest fires are adding a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere and we need to figure out how we're going to counter that. We know that LNG contributes to climate change and we need to figure out how we're going to deal with that and certainly from our perspective there should be no further LNG expansion.

And then we need to look at all the different ways that we can fight climate change. All the options need to be on the table because climate change is accelerating and we need a new plan. So that'll be our focus for this year and when people ask me are you committed to fighting climate change and what are you doing about it our focus this year is to do a really thorough review of CleanBC which is the umbrella programs fighting climate change in this province. Okay the question of electric school buses came up with some people from the school district saying that they have to pay the difference between the cost of a diesel bus and an electric bus and you said you felt they shouldn't be paying for doing the right thing.

Are you going to be able to take this any further do you think? Absolutely I'm going to work with the school district and we'll take this forward to the province, to the Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions to look at from a policy perspective. This is a small but important example of how the Clean BC review could could really lead to some beneficial policy change. and what I mean by that is that you know school districts that that want to pursue

electric buses they shouldn't be penalized yes the you know the the cost of a diesel bus is is covered but why should they have why should a school district have to come up with additional funds to do the right thing to have electric school buses so that's definitely something that we'll take forward and you know we don't make we don't make the final decisions I mean the NDP are the government, but we'll press really hard to get them to do the right thing. OK, now finally, the last thing we talked about

was proportional representation, which you said is ground zero for you. The reason you said that you got into this in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. So you talked about a special committee on electoral reform, is that actually happening or is that something that's going to happen? Yes, so the Accord with the NDP, one of the key initiatives in that Accord is to establish an all set up that committee to be brought to

the legislature for approval next week or the week after and that will be the official kickoff of this work. You know from my perspective proportional representation is a much better form of democracy and a much better way to conduct elections. And the last referendum, the question, who knew what the question was, it was way too complicated. And the referendum before that the percentage vote required in favor was I think 60% and you know that seems to me to be too high and so the path forward for me is to work as hard as I can as a member of this special committee and see if we can get proportional

representation back in the mix. And you know, other countries like New Zealand, they tried out proportional representation and then had a vote on whether to keep it. And certainly that's one of the options I'll be putting forward to the special committee. Well, I mean, some of the European countries have proportional representation and that's why they have so many Green Party members. Yeah, I mean, the whole goal of proportional representation, whether you're a conservative or NDP or Green is that you get to vote your values and that and you're not having to strategic vote you vote your values and then the government is made up proportionally of the results of

that vote and you know this doesn't just benefit the Greens. I mean the conservative opposition is comprised of some very conservative members and some former members of the United Party who are more middle of the road and actually call themselves liberals. And you know this would be an important advantage for, for, uh, conservatives because they wouldn't, uh, be required to sacrifice some of their values to vote conservative. They could vote in the way that works best for them and reflects their values. And that's, that's good for democracy and it's good for stable government because then you get everybody represented in the government at the day. I think you said you want to make presentations in the schools on Salt Spring about how important elections and democracy are

and to point out there are alternatives to the current system. Yeah you know the we're all working as MLAs for the next generation of British Columbians and you know everybody between the age of say 15 and 30 you know have a huge stake in the decisions we make and probably are pretty turned off by politics right now because they're not really seeing how they can participate or how their items and issues are being actually thoroughly represented in the legislature. And so, you know, I want to do everything I can to meet with high school students and students generally to just talk about the importance of democracy in a time where a lot of people are turned off by the way we do our business in the legislature

and I just really want to share that there's lots of different ways to improve on that and and also really encourage students to get involved and to get out and vote and to because ultimately you know we're making decisions and they'll be shortly voting very soon after they opportunity to vote very soon after they graduate from high school so you know really encouraging them to get involved because their votes matter. Okay well thanks very much for coming in Rob. You've been listening to Ask Salt Spring Answered on CHIR FM. Great, thanks a lot. Look forward to next time.

Okay thanks Rob.