Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Premier, I want to structure this interview. We want to know more about you. That's just one of the elements of this interview, because we see you making announcements, we see you discussing policy. But in all those discussions, what gets lost is just finding out more about David Eb as the person. Because you were born in Ontario, when did your family move to BC?
[00:00:23] Speaker B: I came out, it's more than 20 years ago now.
And it was just as I was in law school. I started summering out here in Vancouver for summer jobs as a law student.
And it's such an amazing place. I'm sure a lot of your listeners can identify. It's hard to go back. Once you visited British Columbia.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you were born in Ontario and you went to law school in Halifax.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: In Halifax University. That's right, yeah.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Within a span of about ten years, you went from being an activist to a rookie MLA and then holding a very high profile position in the shadow cabinet. Then you get into government, then you become a high profile cabinet minister, attorney general, and then you become the premier within a ten year span of time. That's quite the meteoric rise.
How do you gauge your progress and this journey so far from coming from a law background into activism, then into active politics, and now to the premier of the province?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Well, I think about my career as really being almost the perfect training for this job. I was working in communities.
People were really poor.
They didn't have any homes or they were going to lose their homes.
And just learning to listen to people about what the actual challenges they were facing instead of trying to tell them what their problems were and that you were here to fix them.
And that kind of training was so important for what I do now. Just being able to hear what people are concerned about, what they want government to be working on and being able to turn that into reality, I think it's the most rewarding part of this job. And that kind of coming up that way and then also having a legal training is very useful for government because it's the language of government. So I feel very fortunate. You know, it's been an incredible opportunity to serve people in this way, and I'm very thankful for it, and I'm thankful that my family supports me to do this work because I couldn't do it without them.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: How did you get into politics? Was it just a natural progression or what was it that was the impetus?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Well, I went to law school to sue politicians.
I didn't go to become a politician. And so it was a surprise to me that it's still a surprise to me sometimes that I've ended up here.
I was doing work around homelessness in the downtown east side, and I had a bunch of clients that were being kicked out of their homes, these old residential hotels, and becoming homeless.
And there were some pieces the city of Vancouver could be doing that were very straightforward to keep people in their homes and improve the conditions in the buildings. And I got so frustrated with going to city council again and again and they wouldn't change their policies that I was like, finally, I'm going to run for city council. And I ran for nomination with it was Vision Vancouver in 2008 and lost. Very close, though. And because I was so close, they incorporated some of the housing suggestions I had into their platforms. And then they got elected and started doing it. I was like, wow. Politics has the ability to really change things and be quite a powerful tool to improve life, lives for people. And that's what inspired me to go into politics and eventually beat Christy Clark in 2013. And here I am.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: How was that like? What was that like?
[00:03:38] Speaker B: It was crazy because the BC Liberals.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Won a majority, but Christy Clark lost to you in the point gray riding, and then they had to fight an election at a safe sit in Kelowna for her to get into the legislature. What was that like? What was that victory like?
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Well, it was. It was an interesting one because we lost, but I won.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: So that was. It was a bit hard to celebrate. Too much bittersweet, the local victory. It was very bittersweet. And. But the lesson that I learned there was, you have to show up. You know, the reason why Christie lost that seat is because she wasn't in the community. And so I've tried to stay as present as possible in our community while still having the role of premier, which is a challenge. But it's so critically important for politicians to be present in their home communities.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Prima, you mentioned that you went to school to train to how to sue politicians. And that part of your career often gets highlighted by the opposition, because when you were working for pivot legal society, the work that you did with the pivot legal society sometimes is held against you. Now that you're in active politics, you're the premier of the province by your opponents. What would you like to say about that? Because you've gone from being an activist to being in the opposition now being in to running a government, and all those three levels have their own compulsions and their own limitations. What you can say and do as an activist, you can't say and do in opposition. And what you can say and do in opposition sometimes does not translate into action when you get into government. So how do you, how do you thread all of that?
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Yeah, there's some big differences in the roles, but there's some real consistencies. So, you know, when I was working in the downtown east side, I was like the lawyer for a neighborhood. You know, I felt that way and representing that community and using the law to try to support basic dignity for some people. And it's the same now. You know, I'm representing a community. The community is much bigger. It's the province of BC. The priorities shift. It's a very diverse province. There's all kinds of different priorities and outcomes that people want, but in many ways it's the same. I gotta be listening to people, gotta respond when things aren't going the way you want them to. You gotta change course. You've got to use the government as a tool to make life better for people and not just take the advice of the bureaucrats or other people. Say, you don't want to change this. You want to keep things the same, because otherwise someone's going to get up, some powerful interest is going to get upset about it.
I believe that you have to be willing to stand up for what's important and right for people. And so it's been, I think, consistent among all those different jobs.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Was it difficult when you, now that you're the premier and even when you were attorney general before, some of the changes that you brought about, when it upsets the people that you worked with in the past, and when they say, oh, you are now changing your position because it suits the responsibility that you have now?
How do you cope with that? How do you address that?
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's some of that. The hardest one for me was the ICBC reforms.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Your dad was a personal injury lawyer?
[00:06:36] Speaker B: That's right. My dad was a personal injury lawyer. When I was a kid, I'd seen the then NDP government in Ontario changed the rules around insurance that really hurt his practice and he had to change his focus of his work.
And I know and knew a lot of personal injury lawyers that did ICBC work. That was a big part of their practice.
But there comes a point where you're like, what is the right thing to do? And the right thing to do for ICBC was the same thing that is done in Manitoba and Saskatchewan with their public insurers to look after the people who are badly injured with support so they can get better.
Instead of funding endless lawsuits and funding lawyers, I have endless respect for lawyers, I am one myself, but I don't think that our current insurance dollars should go to funding multi year court battles.
And that's what was happening. And so we got it back on track. It's providing lower rates now. It's looking after people. We have the support of the disability community because of the supports it's providing. And yeah, it was a tough one, it was a difficult one because those personal relationships.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Right, since we're talking about ICBC and the reforms that you brought about with the no fault insurance model. Recently, the BC conservative leader John Rustad said that should he become premier, his party would do away with some of the provisions of the no fault insurance, especially for major injuries, because he says that some people are not getting the benefits that they deserve. There's too much control, the hands of ICBC. And that being said, there are some ICBC customers who are now even suing this whole, or the settlements that they've gotten, they're not happy with it. So how do you balance that? Because there have been some concerns with the no fault model, despite of all the assurances that people would get the care and the benefits that they deserve. And some say that's not what's happening.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: So, first of all, no insurance model is perfect. There are going to be people who are facing challenges of one kind or another. But I can tell you with certainty that the old model was not working. There's a monopoly. ICBC has a monopoly. They're the only car insurance provider in British Columbia and they were losing more than a billion dollars a year. People were looking at the highest insurance rates in Canada with benefits that we're not keeping up. People who were badly injured found themselves in court for three to five years, and the lawyers were lending money to people at high interest rates while they went through this court battle so that they could try to come out the other end and they didn't have enough money out the other end to support themselves. So they ended up on disability, provincial disability insurance, instead of being paid for, as they should have been, through the car insurance system. So it was badly broken system. And the fact that John Rustad wants to go back to that is astonishing to me. But not only that, he says he wants to privatize car insurance, which means turning young drivers especially, and anyone that has a business with drivers or has a young driver in their family, that's going to mean massive cost increases for them. We have some of the lowest car insurance rates in Canada, with some of the best benefits for both commercial and for younger drivers and turning people over to private insurance companies that are really going to increase charges. The reason why ICBC was established was because private insurance was so expensive in British Columbia and so ineffective because we have dangerous and challenging driving conditions.
It's a really huge mistake that he's lining up for, and it's going to cost people a lot of money.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Do you think more needs to be done to address the way people drive in this province? Because others, everybody knows somebody who visits from another province and when they are in the lower mainland area or in other parts of BC, it seems that we don't have as much of an enforcement, whether it's speed limits and any of the other provisions around safe driving, that are concerned, that people are sometimes astonished that it truly seems like it's the Wild west when you're driving out on the roads.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's a couple of pieces. One is, you know, we. We recognize there are some pretty serious challenges with truck drivers. In particular, they needed to have better driver training.
So we established some of the highest standards around truck driver training in Canada through our minimum licensing requirements and around enforcement. The RCMP in this province are understaffed and although we've provided funding, Ottawa's not providing the police officers to fill those roles. And so typically the police get diverted out of traffic and they get moved over to other sections that are more urgent.
And I think that's what people are seeing.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Should there be a role for technology for that?
[00:11:12] Speaker B: I think that while we are using technology for that, we have red light cameras that now have a speed function as well built in across the province. And I think there's an opportunity for us to do what some other jurisdictions have done around having dedicated traffic enforcement so that police can stay focused on crime and the traffic enforcement can stay focused on that.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Premier, we had Pierre Polyev on the show, the federal conservative leader, on the show on Friday. And while commenting on the state of the provincial politics, he said that British Columbians should really think that. What have you gotten? What have the people gotten? In the last few years, with NDP government at the provincial level and a federal liberal government in Ottawa, that combination has brought rent and drug use, high housing costs and a healthcare system that is crumbling. So how do you address what he says when he ties your government, NDP government in the province, and Justin Trudeau's liberal government at the federal level, and then connect the dots back to all the problems which people are facing in the province. How do you address that? How do you address that correlation, that Pir Polyev is establishing.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: Well, I would say, like many British Columbians, I have my frustrations with Ottawa as well. I don't think that British Columbia has been treated well by Ottawa.
Right now, British Columbia's are sending our tax dollars to Ontario through equalization, a billion dollars to Quebec, $13 billion, and then Ottawa putting $20 billion plus into battery plants in those provinces. That's not fair to British Columbia. We need to see some basic respect back from them.
But I think it's completely wrong to suggest that the challenges we face, for example, around healthcare aren't right across Canada and that BC is not leading the way on addressing those. So we have 300,000 people in the last two years that have a family doctor now who didn't have a family doctor two years ago. And that is the first time that the number of people looking for a family doctor has gone down in our province's history for more than 20 years. And we're building a huge number of hospitals across the province to make sure that our infrastructure is there to recruit and retain healthcare professionals, deliver care for people. And here where we're sitting in Surrey, new, sorry, Cloverdale Hospital, 250 people working on that project right now, the memorial tower planning process is well underway.
And what the conservatives are proposing for healthcare in British Columbia is a $4 billion cut. And so I just don't think that you're going to be able to address healthcare and the challenges people are facing by cutting that health care system right now. And so some of the things. I agree with him, we face big challenges with Ottawa and some of the things he's saying just aren't right. You know, Alberta has major emergency room closures right now, 24 different hospitals, and they're run by a conservative government.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: What about the policy that was brought around for drug decriminalization then? It had to be. That pilot project had to be terminated much earlier than anticipated.
Do you feel that policy could have been implemented in a different manner? Because now the conversation around treatment has been ongoing for quite some time. At one point, you were even in favor of mandatory treatment, involuntary treatment. Is that something that you're willing to look at and implement moving forward?
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that what we hoped for through decriminalization was that more people would feel comfortable coming forward, asking for access to treatment, talking to family and friends and employers about, you know, I'm struggling with addiction. I want to. And what we saw instead was people struggling with addiction felt more comfortable coming out and smoking their drugs in a Tim Hortons or a hospital or a street corner where families were nearby, or these kinds of things, which was the complete opposite of what we wanted. So we had to terminate it early. And in my opinion, governments should be ready to change course when things aren't working out the way you hoped. And it wasn't just us who hoped that we would have those outcomes. We had support of the other parties in the legislature, including the BC Liberal Party and all party committee and police officers, chiefs of police across the province. And it wasn't going the way we wanted. And so we had to change direction. We've opened 600 new treatment beds in the last year. We got 3600 funded treatment beds. If people are looking for treatment, there's a new phone number, one phone number across the province to get on medications that reduce your cravings and to get people in for treatment.
And I think that's the path forward as far as involuntary care. There's a group of people that need that in our province.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: A quick comment from you about BC united withdrawing from the election campaign.
What would you like to say?
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think it was astonishing to see Kevin Falcon give up. It's pretty clear the influence of the major business people in downtown Vancouver that they still have on the political system. Even though we got the big money out of politics. I was surprised to see that party unify around a far right vote in the BC Conservatives from really extreme and unusual views from the BC conservative party, and some pretty dramatic cuts proposed for our province. So my message is to the people who are thinking about voting for BC United, or who have always voted BC Liberal is, as you have, a home here at the BC NDP. We raised $400,000 in the first four days after Kevin Falcon gave up. We've had some very high profile former BC liberals come over to support the BCNDP, say, this time we're going to vote BCNDP. And I just want to assure people who are thinking about that if you do lend us your vote this election, you will not be disappointed. We will govern responsibly and in a way that supports communities right across the province.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Now that the election is a two party fight, there was earlier this feeling of comfort among NDP supporters that the split of the vote on the right is ultimately going to prop up the NDP candidates in some of the tough ridings that NDP faces. But now that it's a two party fight, do you regret not calling an election last year when things were a lot more in your favor?
[00:17:24] Speaker B: No, not at all. Politics has never been for me, like a sport where you kind of rig the system to try to find ways to get an advantage over the other guys. I believe very firmly that you need to. If you're given the opportunity to govern and people don't want an election, then that you should govern and you should do your best and put forward the proposals that you think will make a difference.
And I do understand that we've had a province in the past under the BC Liberals and John Rustad where it was a completely different philosophy.
We saw public money going to support the political party, criminal charges, RCMP investigations, scandal after scandal, million dollar donations, everything else, and just to support getting reelected. And I just fundamentally disagree with that. I think that is a big problem that hurts the province in the long run. And I was and remain content to wait for the fixed election date to give people a fair say about where they want their province to go.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Priyanka, good morning.
[00:18:24] Speaker C: Good morning.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Good morning, Prim, Sir Jim Vijay Sani Bolrayanji. Premier Sadhanarni.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: Hi, premier. My name is Priyanka and my question is, so, premier, I'm not against any apartheid party and I'm not with any party rather, but I want to elect a party that is in favor of common man. Better healthcare is what we need. And I've been hearing that other parties, like conservatives and liberals, they did not let the hospital build and they want to privatize healthcare. And I'm afraid what will happen to our province if, you know, healthcare is privatized because we all cannot, you know, afford the costly insurance.
What do you think will be the picture of British Columbia if they come in power?
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Thanks for the question.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: That's a pretty easy question.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for the. Well, thanks for the question.
It is part of the discussion that'll happen in the election is the conservatives are saying that they will bring in more private healthcare. The challenge that we have is a shortage of healthcare workers.
When you have a shortage of healthcare workers, bringing in private companies means you're paying for the same healthcare workers, but you're also paying the profit margin for the companies as well. So it's more expensive for the same amount of healthcare workers. That's why the shift that we're making is to open the first new medical school in a generation in western Canada. We're opening it at Surrey, at SFU to train up the healthcare workers that we need. And this is not a problem that is public private. This is a problem of a shortage of healthcare workers.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: Our next caller is deepen.
[00:20:00] Speaker D: Hi.
[00:20:00] Speaker E: Sasi Gali Mana sure be lifetime member Cgartha inside.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Thank you Deepji. So the caller is highlighting an issue with this local organization, Pics. And there have been concerns lately about the way the organization is being run. Yesterday was the AGM and Mister Deep says that he is one of the lifetime members and they were not allowed to enter in the AGM. Yesterday there have been allegations of mismanagement of funds and the caller wants to know, are you aware of this? And once this comes to light, what is it that you would do to make sure that this organization, which is funded by taxpayer dollars, is held to account for the way they spend the money?
[00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Thanks. I am aware Pics has done work for a generation here south of the Fraser supporting immigrants, new arrivals, supporting the south asian community.
There were allegations of inappropriate use of funds. There was an independent audit done totally cleared pics. They're building Mister Gill's vision for the community which is a long term care support for south asian seniors with appropriate language and food so that they feel comfortable in their final years.
The project, like all construction across Canada, across North America, it's more expensive now than when it was originally proposed.
And I know there's concern about that and there should be. We've got to try to keep costs down. But the organization has been fully cleared of any allegations of inappropriate use of funds and they're building what is needed here which is culturally appropriate care for CDC.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: If members are still concerned, if there was an AGM yesterday and the access to membership was blocked, is that something that should be a cause of concern? And if there are other allegations that crop up, should that lead to some action from the government side?
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Well, for nonprofit organizations, anytime there's an allegation that government funds are used improperly, we ensure that there's an independent audit and review of that. And we did that for PIcs.
I think in terms of the running of individual nonprofit organizations and their agms and everything, people need to resolve that with the membership or with the board of directors. And if they can't, then they can go to court of course.
But I have confidence in picks and I've seen the outcome of the review which is positive for pics and they're doing important work for the community.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: You are on air. What's your question for the premier?
Status Kia hospital. One out of status Kia doctor India who? Foreign country instead of giving, putting money in system.
Thank you. So premier, the question, it's a three part question. First of all, the update on the Messi tunnel replacement. Would it be a tunnel? Would it be a bridge? We know that the construction timeline has been delayed and it will be by the end of this decade when the tunnel is ready. What's going on with that?
[00:23:38] Speaker B: We have put out the contract for tender and awarded that contract.
And so there is a contractor that's already beginning work on this and we will be delivering the tunnel for people just like we're delivering the highway one expansion eventually right out to Chilliwack. Recently we just announced the funding and construction of the Abbotsford section of that and many other major infrastructure projects that were put off for far too long, like the Surrey Langley Skytrain.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Any money from the feds for this yet?
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Thank you for asking. Yeah, Ottawa, they used to fund infrastructure and they're not. And I don't know why that is. Massey tunnel, highway one. This is all part of the TransCanada goods movement from ports to markets across Canada and vice versa. And we really need them to step up on this.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: And what's the status with the new Surrey hospital being constructed in Cloverdale? And I'll tag along the question with this. What's being done to integrate foreign trained doctors into PC's medical system?
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I visited the Cloverdale site a couple of weeks ago. There are 250 workers on site building that hospital right now. It's a massive hub of activity and I'm really excited about that finally happening for the community and then for foreign trained doctors is a very similar approach to foreign credential recognition generally is having a fixed set of rules to get people off the sidelines and into working using their skills to build our province. We have so many new arrivals in the province with skills, engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, making sure that they're able to get to work right away rather than working other jobs. We've got, I think somewhere in the order of 800 internationally trained physicians that have been recognized since we started this program and we've got more to do.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Prima David ibn al Galba Chaldi lines bought Saria full nay with the timing.
The next caller is Gurinder Singh Puni.
[00:25:43] Speaker E: Punishaji thanks premier, for taking the question.
We are a worker association and we have experienced like the worker who raised the concern about the under the british, columbian or canadian labor laws or safety law, those workers are reduced their hours or terminated or just reduced their hours so they are forced to quit. So do you think the need to be improved bt labor law or so.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: You'Re talking about the trucking industry, right? Mister Puni?
[00:26:14] Speaker E: Actually this is situation of actually all workers, but we are just dealing with the trucking container driver. This is the situation for all the workers in VC premier?
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Yes, specifically on trucking.
We need to do a review. We had an agreement that was struck with the container trucking industry and the time is due to have a review and see whether the results that came from that were delivered in terms of everything from worker safety to assignments and so on. But that more broadly, WorkSafeBC is an organization. If workers have had this experience, they can go to WorkSafe. They should not be retaliated against for raising safety issues. And we put resources into the employment standards branch so you can bring a complaint forward if you're being retaliated against in that way. And they do have Punjabi language services available as well, so people shouldn't be worried about language barriers.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Our last caller is Karamji Tatwal. Karamjee to Sierra, what's your question for the premiere?
[00:27:15] Speaker D: Good morning to both of you.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Good morning.
[00:27:17] Speaker D: And I'm a taxi owner and you know, working in the taxi industry from last 33 years and before the NDP comes under power, we was not accepting they will bring the ride share and there will hurt us badly. So now from last two, three years and we are accepting from the NDP government to ban that there should be limit and ban on the more ride share hiring or making big fleet and because it's already hurting us badly. And if the NDV want to have the mood from taxi industry, so what will they do if they come in the power for the taxi industry?
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Premier?
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I've talked to a lot of taxi drivers that are anxious right now.
Thankfully, we had a record setting tourist season. I think that was helpful for a lot of cab drivers and cruise ships coming in. But I know they're hurting right now. We're having conversations with them about the need to ensure that insurance reflects the actual risk and the costs that they impose and that it's fair in a level playing field with rideshare to address the issue of the number of rideshare cars that may be driving congestion in major centers, making sure we have reliable data from the companies.
Taxi drivers will know that we recently increased minimum standards of treatment for rideshare drivers so that they're protected, but also provides more of a level playing field. And then finally, we're going to keep the class four license requirement in place for rideshare to make sure British Columbians are safe when they're riding, which includes the criminal record check and all those other pieces that the, that John Rustad and all of the BC Liberals at the time said was going to be a huge barrier to adoption of rideshare. We need to make sure that people are safe. It's not about giving one sector or the other an advantage. It's about making sure that it's fair between rideshare and taxi premier one more question.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: City of Surrey is voting on a proposal tonight to ask the province for a separate city charter for the City of Surrey that sooner or later is going to land at the desk of the Ministry of municipal affairs and your desk as well. What's going to be your stance on it?
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Well, I think it's important to recognize that the city of Surrey is distinct. It is facing huge pressures that other cities aren't around growth and it's seeing massive infrastructure investment from the province. Right now, we need to coordinate that. We need to be able to work quickly with mayor and council now that hopefully we're past the policing issue for the city of Surrey. I'm hopeful that the mayor and council and the province can have a very constructive relationship about how we make sure that the city is successful, because I think there's so much that we can do together to make Surrey amazing. It's already an incredibly vibrant place, but to make it work well around traffic, around an identifiable downtown core, about supporting culture and sport and recreation. So it's an exciting and wonderful place to live for all families. The opportunities are huge, and whether that's through a charter or other targeted legislative changes, the only way we can get there is through cooperation with city council, working closely, closely together, and I'm hopeful we're going to be able to do that.
