 Good afternoon, everyone. It's good to see you back here as we begin the fall session of the legislative assembly. It is a real thrill to see so many of you here in person on the Terrestrial Territory of Lekongen speaking people. I only have a brief comment at the beginning which is to say that I will be leaving this afternoon to head to San Francisco. Not for the Labor Day weekend show of the day. I will be meeting with Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington as well as Kate Brown, governor of Oregon as we continue the work of the Pacific Coast Collaborative to put in place an MOU on climate action and I won't tell you more about that because then you'll have nothing to write about tomorrow. With that, I will pass it over to Lindsay and we will go from there. One question, one follow-up. I'm going to start with Linda Sagan, CTV. For months now of course we've seen a huge increase in the number of glass windows that have been smashed in downtown Vancouver. And now also the Olympic Cauldron and the Comagato Memorial have been smashed over the last couple of days. First of all, kind of like your reaction to seeing these kind of treasured monuments being smashed and also what can the province do to stop this senseless vandalism from happening and to punish those who are responsible? Well, like all British Columbians, I'm horrified when I see bad behavior, vandalism, recklessness with other people's property and particularly when it comes to those iconic images that belong to all of us. The Olympic Cauldron is an example of that. A monument to the Comagato very important to recognize and acknowledge that stain on our history, and to recognize the importance of history. But with respect to enforcement, these are largely local law enforcement issues. We continue to work with law enforcement to ensure that they have all of the tools that they need. And I would say to those who believe that vandalism is a way to draw attention to yourself or bring some sort of societal change, you're on the wrong track. People don't want to see that. People react viscerally and negatively to the most recent examples. That being the attack on the Cauldron at Jack Fould Plaza, we've got these perpetrators on film and I know law enforcement will be following up on that. And your plastics on it. Yes. Am I? Oh my gosh, I didn't even know it was on the spot. You're used to the spotlight, aren't you? Nurses are rallying right now in downtown Vancouver. And of course, as you know, they have a long list of complaints about ER closures, weightless, workload and staffing levels. And also state on the job. So what is your government prepared to do to improve working conditions for nurses? Well, we are currently entering into negotiations with the BC Nurses Union and a range of other public sector workforces. And that's a good place to have these conversations. And I know that we have a lot of compensation in terms of the challenges of shortages. But I have said, as you know, repeatedly for many months now, that the human resource strategy which we just recently announced, I was hoping would be buttressed by support from Ottawa with a national plan. Because the issues that we're experiencing here in British Columbia are duplicated in every other province in the country as well. It's almost a year since the federal government has been working tirelessly. We have a national strategy means that there's not poaching. Those provinces that have more fiscal capacity, like British Columbia, are in a better position to recruit and retain healthcare workers than smaller provinces that don't have the same fiscal room to do that. That's why the federal government needs to be at the table so we can have a national plan. But I do know Minister Dix has been working tirelessly. He's been working tirelessly. He's been working tirelessly. And I think that with the improvements in recognizing foreign credentials, those issues are already underway. And of course at the bargaining table, we'll hear directly from representatives of the BC nurses union about where they believe we should go. And that's where those discussions should stay. Next question, Richard Zestman. Global news. Do you agree with your Attorney General's statement that you would like to see those who have perpetrated the crime held responsible for their actions? I fully agree with the statement you just made that people who see crime and see perpetrators being not dealt with aggressively. I'm frustrated by that. But I also share the view of the Attorney General as does the new member from Surrey South who said virtually the same thing in August. BC liberal with a law enforcement background said we can't arrest our perpetrators. It's a multi-faceted problem. And we're taking a number of initiatives to address it. One off the top was to put in place an all-party committee to review the police act. Because it's a 50-year-old document. And clearly, and this is I think representative of the first question I was asked by your colleague, is that these issues seem to be more pronounced now than ever before. We have more technology, more ability to track and monitor perpetrators and the law enforcement doesn't necessarily have the tools to address that. And so we need to make changes in that regard. When it comes to the prosecution service , there has been no change in direction to the prosecution service for at least a decade, which would include two different governments. Largely constrained by federal precedent, federal court precedents about intrusions and interventions with respect to prosecutions. So for the BC liberals who followed the same course that we are on the current head of the prosecution service, the only thing they could fall back on I suppose is that they are putting more money into it, but that's not true either. We have increased the budgets of prosecution services so that we can get more done in our courtrooms. We have put more money into a whole host of other issues with respect to mental health and addictions, as you know. So we are trying to come at this in a multifaceted way, which is exactly what was suggested by the new member for Surrey South. I think that's a good point. It's been consistent. I know the federal government finds some of that, but there seem to be a mention of that yesterday that could be something your government would consider. That was recommended by the opposite of that. In fact, they highlighted the rationale for not having politicians interfere in law enforcement and prosecutions. I think that's a precedent I would want to uphold, but at the same time I would like to point out to all of you on their television screens, what they are reading in their newspapers, and what they are actually feeling in their communities. I would say to those people who are fearful in their own home towns, that members of the legislature of all parties come from somewhere. We all come from a community and we are equally concerned about the well-being of our loved ones and our neighbors. We need a concerted effort by all of us to address this. We would continue to keep this debate at a high level, but unfortunately we are in a place now where accusations are being made incorrectly by the official opposition, one which was that Mr. LePard had suggested that we interfere, which he did not, and also taking issue with Minister Rankin's comments, which are absolutely the same almost word for word to what a newly elected BC liberal who has a strong background in public safety. These are not partisan questions. I am hopeful that we can keep that debate at a high level so the public can have confidence that we are all working on this together because we are all affected by it. Is there any accuracy to the suggestion that both major projects, infrastructure projects and ministries are given an October deadline to submit their briefing notes to the Premier's office almost suggesting that your office thinks that the new Premier could be in by October and does that mean that there is an effort to disqualify Angelia for dying? That is a misrepresentation of what is going on. When elections are called, if they are not on a fixed calendar, immediately the public service begins putting together transition binders in the eventuality of change. The minute I made my announcement public that I was not going to seek out any of these documents, I had the time to step down. The process of creating these documents started. To suggest that we have them in early so they can be reviewed, I think is prudence. I would expect that most British Colombians would prefer we don't do our homework the night before but in fact we are prepared. That means when we get these documents we can ensure that we look at them and see if there are any errors or errors. If they are errors, there is a error and a error is not available. If there is an error in the case of a depot, a mountain out of a molehill, a twitter dome explosion by a bunch of partisans who want to make misdrifts. If that gets them off, I'm tumbling rocks and going efficient myself. Follow up, Kitty. On the... Sorry. But the NDP government, 73% of British Columbians said that NDP government is not doing enough on inflation, health care, and affordability. And so does that create a problem for the government when you exit that your popularity is much higher than that of the government? I think that we need to separate the issues out. Personal popularity or confidence in individuals is one thing. I'm equally concerned about inflation. As those who experience the same issues, I would have probably had the same answers. And I'm the leader of the government. So it's not unusual for people to say there are things in the community that I would like to see improvements on, or I don't believe enough is being done. But the challenge of government is that we have to manage all of those balls at the same time, not just the one that hits the top of the polling charts. Admittedly, the issues around housing are the same for the five years that I've had the opportunity to be premier. And we have been systematically increasing expenditures on more housing, trying to find ways to encourage development and municipalities, and we'll keep doing that. So I don't think when I see emphasis on issues in public opinion polls, I think that's a good barometer not just for governments, but for the public. To say, yeah, that's how I felt. Those are the concerns that I have as well. And I think that's what I believe, more opportunity to lean into those issues without, you know, if we have to leave one behind or two issues behind as we focus on the ones that are top of mind, I think there's a better understanding of why that happens because of the emphasis in a poll. So I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's an instrument for government and oppositions to better focus the discussions we have in the legislature. I think that's one of the concerns about provinces poaching health care workers from each other and how you'd like to avoid that. I'm wondering if you maybe comment on Alberta is calling and it's their campaign there. Obviously, they're very keen to do that. Yeah. Well, that's an outgoing premier. So we're going to be in a club. He and I, Kenny and Horgan consulting, I suppose, we joke about that from the left to the right. Everything you need right in one place. And I think that's consistent. The Alberta approach is inconsistent with what provinces have been doing for the past four or five years that I'm aware of. And I'm told by the council of the Federation staff that there's been a consistent message on health care because it's so profoundly important to all Canadians that there be a direct focus on that from Ottawa so that we can have a national strategy for Alberta to encourage people to come and work there. They have a younger workforce, a lot of people who are in the community, they would need to do that, but they do and will carry on regardless. But I think most people make their choices about where they want to live based on family, based on climate, based on opportunity. And if Jason Kenny calls somebody and says come to Alberta, they might go, they might not. I know that what we need is a national strategy on not just, quite frankly, not just on health care, but on how we can do that. Just to follow up, Justine? Just, I mean, at the same time, we don't want to be losing doctors and oncologists, any of these highly-trained health professionals to other provinces. So how do you, for people here, like do we need a VCs call in camp? Well, we are working on a range of items. We are sitting for the first time in my memory and I've got a good memory and I've been here for a long time. Sitting down with the doctors of BC to work out how we address the differences between a doctor who has just come from med school and a doctor who is at the end of their career. And we have many, many 70 and 75 and older physicians who have businesses that they want to protect. That's their investment for the future. And we have doctors who have just graduated who are more concerned about their student loans than they are about the costs of their practice. So it's not like all doctors are the same and I think why we're making progress is because government is acknowledging that and doctors are acknowledging that, that there is a continuum as there is in all walks of life between those who are just starting and those that are coming to the end of their careers. So I see progress on that front and retention is the big challenge and that involves trying to find creative ways to make that happen. I am the director of the local mayor of the local constituency, a former local mayor, not of my persuasion, who has a family foundation who is working hard across party lines to find ways for municipalities to be a participant in the recruitment and retention component, housing, making sure that there are ways to reduce costs for starting a practice if you want to have a business, if you want to have a, you know, hire the staff and others are saying we want the province to hire the staff, we want to manage the records and we need to find the balance between all of those but the good news in my mind and I am relentlessly optimistic about this is that if we all bear down and we all find ways to increase our ability to retain people, the recruitment will become that much easier because it is a welcoming environment, opportunities for young practitioners, whether they be nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, carer aides, technologists, whoever, to come here, state of the art post secondary institutions and a track record of success in delivering those services. I think that we have a lot to offer. I am not making calls to people like Jason Kenny but that is his choice. I believe we should, instead of putting up a flag saying come here, we should demonstrate to those who are already here the value of staying and that word will catch across the country and if people want to come here they will. I am not going to encourage that. How does it feel to be in your last session as premier? Good. I don't know what to say. Good. I love this place and I love the work but I also know that everything has a season and mine is near done and I am anxious to get on to other pursuits but also comfortable that the province is in good hands not just by the team that I had the good fortune of leading but also looking at other members of the legislature, the public service, there is going to be change and revitalization at the municipal tables and local governments as well. I believe that people are going to be content and happy with where we are going. There is going to be frustrations and there will be poll upon poll that will tell you that and you will ask whoever replaces me these questions but I am going to miss it a lot. Do you have a follow-up, Alec? I was just going over this. Any advice for whoever turns out to be your successor? Always duck early. When you see the brick coming at you, be kind. Always. I learned that from Dr. Henry. I would like to think I learned it from my mom but it was reinforced by Dr. Henry that until you have walked a mile in someone's shoes, you are going to be in opposition. Your business is to be critical. In government, your business is to be hopeful and focused on finding solutions. I will not miss the prospect of another minute in opposition but I will miss the opportunity to make progress for people. That is why all of us, regardless of our political persuasion, all of us get into this business because we want to make our community stronger and better and help those who need help. It is not a partisan thing until you know what their strike is. If you lose, maybe try again or maybe you don't. I am not trying again. Last line, Tons Connist. Thank you. The assistant deputy minister of prosecution, Peter Jukic, in a lengthy statement two weeks ago. It is hard to summarize but he disputed the whole system or belief that the criminal system, justice system is broken. He took issue with the phrase catch and release and he cited the crime rate is as low now as it has ever been. Two weeks later, there is a bit of a disparity between their approaches. The part butler acknowledged the extreme frustration and the angst and said crime stats don't provide the full picture of what is going on in DC. I just wonder where Mr. Jukic came from, what is the origin behind that rather unusual statement and is everybody in your government to change on this issue whether it is important or not? I think we are on the same page that is important. Mr. Jukic's comments speak for themselves and I would encourage you to follow up in whatever avenues you can pursue there. What I do know is that we asked Butler and Lepard to look at the issue of repeat offenders which was not the sole focus of the report that Mr. Jukic was referring to and in question earlier today about what I would characterize as crimes that would not emerge as statistics until charges are laid and convictions are realized. We are seeing and hearing about crime every day and those aren't manifesting in those numbers. I believe the public has a genuine and real concern about what is happening in their communities, my community as well and the communities of the leader of the Slicer General and every other member of the legislature. I don't want to get into a dueling report issue less. I think you are erudite enough to navigate all of that. I would say this is a genuine concern of the public and we need to make sure we are doing everything we can to reduce that anxiety by demonstrating there has been progress. I do take issue with the catch and release thing as well. I would like to think that we have been in the business of trying to solve the problems and that is not done by a handful of words that is done by hard work and collaboration and that is going to be the essence of the government going forward I am sure. The prosecution service has pretty much complete independence from the political sphere. Most people accept that but there is a statutory mechanism that the politicians can direct the prosecution by issuing that directive that was referred to a couple of days ago. Is there any consideration in your government at this present about issuing some kind of directive to the prosecution service to address the perceptions that Bill releases the rule rather than the exception and the detention is just not on for most offenders these days. I don't know if that is actually correct most offenders these days so I can't speak to that last bit but I understand your sentiment and again I would say to your readers and to the public that every effort is being made to address these issues we have invested more in increasing the prosecution service than previous governments but there has been no directive issued by this government that is the federal constraints that we talked about earlier and you know well. The challenge I think we have is that we have asked, we started the police work as I said, we are working on mental health and addictions issues that are also part and parcel of the crime and the senselessness in my mind of these wanton attacks randomly at people who are just going about their business. The act is criminal but the perpetrator clearly has some challenges. This is not normal behavior to do what we have been seeing and you have been reporting so ably. So we need to address all of these issues concurrently. That means more continuing care for those who need it, more housing for those who can't find it but more importantly we need to go back to some of the challenges that have been raised. I haven't thought about going down this road but to have the opposition who were in the business of firing health care workers say that we don't have enough when we have hired more than they did in their whole term to have the same group of people say we are not doing enough on crime when they turned a blind eye to gang activity in the billions of dollars is laughable and I think the public gets right and who's wrong. They want demonstration of progress and you do that by collaborating having urban mayors standing shoulder to shoulder as we did with the solicitor general, the attorney general and the authors of the report last week I think demonstrates to the public that effective capable people are working on this and I'm hopeful that the arrival of the new member for Surrey South will also bring some discussion debates here and get us away from the bumper stickers and more to the solution oriented approach and I know that's tough for oppositions but I think the public would prefer to hear some solutions from the opposition rather than claiming that everything has gone to Helen Hambasket. You mentioned a couple of times trying to show the public progress on health care. Do you feel like you have the room to make decisions right now to show progress on health care and prolific offenders when there's another leader who's going to step into your job in the weeks ahead and do you feel constrained in any way on the things you might be able to do or the money you might be able to spend or the decisions you might be able to make without sort of handcuffing the next person in the job to do that. I think that's just my cabinet that I was going to step down. I also and I advise all of you at that time that I had every intention of focusing on doing the job until I wasn't doing it anymore and I've had no push back from anyone within government about that. My team continues to set directions to the cabinet met this morning. We went through a range of issues to continue that work on a range of other issues. I don't feel constrained at all. I made it clear that we had a mandate granted to us by the people of BC two years ago and we're going to fulfill that. The mandate letters are active until they're changed. I've had no and the system I have to say again having spent 30 years in and around this time I've had the system outside the system elected in executive council that the professional public service has done extraordinary things in the past five years. As all British Columbians have, I don't want to single out in that way. We've gone through a global pandemic, a toxic drug supply, natural natural catastrophes that we couldn't have imagined in the past and we started in some cases, which is not normally how government works. I think the system has been very responsive to the expectation of the public that because we have instantaneous communication, I see colleagues looking at their telephones, I'm sure you're not playing Scrabble like I would be doing, but you're doing things, you're interacting and you're moving issues forward, the system has been doing that as well. I don't believe anyone has been constrained by what happens. We've got binders prepared that will be reviewed and if there are changes to happen, that will happen after I'm gone, but as of today and throughout the next number of weeks, I fully intend to keep on moving the ball forward, which is what I intended to do when I was first elected. What do you make of the liberal strategy in the first two questions here? Your ministers have stood up and they've turned around and said show us the results. Show us the real world results where things seem to be getting worse. It's sort of this disconnect between the public on you increase the crowd prosecution budget but crime, random crime is up and people are scared. You've increased the healthcare recruiting but people are dying in emergency rooms waiting for care. That disconnect, what do you make of it? I understand how the public would go and why are they saying this and this is my lived experience. This is what I'm seeing in my community and I get that and the job of government and I would argue without putting too much pressure on all of you, the job is to explain these things. Not just to, and I'm easy for me to say, but taking the catch and release issue that less referenced. You all know that that's nonsense but yet that's become part and parcel of the way we discuss this very important issue. Rather than burrowing down to the mental health issues, burrowing down to the challenges of past practice and that's why you bring in experts to look at these things with new eyes and again why there's a need for renewal in all of our institutions in elected offices, in media across the board. We need to make sure we're constantly looking these things anew and instead of wasting a slogan, we should dig a little bit deeper. One example this week was there were more police than protesters here on the opening day and what I heard was you're not doing good enough on X or Y and someone that it was a disembodied voice but it sounded like someone who did not have a lot of life experience talking about things that have been going on in BC for 150 years that won't be turned around in a nanosecond. Again, I'm not I don't want to piss any of you guys off because you're still by ink by the ton so I'll just leave it at that but the disconnect is a result of everybody not just governments, not just oppositions but everybody, the conversations at the hockey rink. If you've got an opportunity I would say to those watching if you've got an opportunity to correct someone who you think is wrong or to engage in a discussion about the complexities of life I think you'll have more heads nods at the end of the day and a bit of despondency is not better, but the best way to make things better is to step up and participate get involved and I hope people will do that. Last question today, Dirk Meisner C.P. Thanks very much. You said you're going to California tomorrow but we also did say you can't say much about it but can you at least or can you say what you're hoping to achieve what could be discussed there and what you would like to see discussed. The province of British Columbia not just this government but going back a number of years have been working with our west coast neighbors the Pacific Coast Collaborative on a range of economic, social and environmental issues. Most recently the focus has been on climate change and the consequences to our jurisdictions. When we look to the fire seasons and the drought devastating droughts in California the impacts of those issues all the way up the coast the conditions and the impact on salmon. Salmon are not just an iconic species. They're iconic to Californians as well as Oregonians and Washingtonians. So what we're going to do is what we've been doing for some time is finding ways to collaborate on these issues. The Nooksack river for example is one of those cross border issues that requires Washington and British Columbia to work together. But there's a whole range of issues that we can deal with as well as British Columbia and whenever we can build relationships at the political level supported by the infrastructure in my case the intergovernmental relations secretariat as well as the climate action group and economic innovation I'll be going to the Silicon Valley to talk about recruiting more tech companies and more tech workers back to BC so it's an opportunity to do all those things but the focus is going to be on climate and the challenges for jurisdictions they're facing. We had a conference earlier in September that laid the ground work for the signing we're going to do in San Francisco. A couple weeks ago the seniors advocate came up with the report and her conclusions were that British Columbia ranks at the bottom of in Canada with financial supports for seniors in BC. I'm just wondering what your response to that is. Well I have a great deal of respect for Ms. McKenzie and the work that she does I did not dive deeply into the report Dirk so I can't give you an informed answer on that question but I do know that we have been increasing supports for seniors since we came to government significantly the safer grants and others we reduced costs I don't know if she quantified seniors paying MSP premiums a range of other initiatives to reduce costs for people obviously seniors aren't looking at their child care savings but there's been significant child care savings as well as grandparents perhaps they're seeing some advantages there more free time for themselves but I do know that there's always more work to do I think that's the only way to really answer your question is that we take advice from representatives like the seniors representative and again Ms. McKenzie did extraordinary work on long-term care facilities and when you look across the country through COVID because of the work that she had done to prepare the new government our government to start that work when COVID hit we were in a much better position than Quebec for example where Mr. Legault despite good outcomes at the end of the pandemic had some big big challenges particularly in long-term care as did Mr. Ford in Ontario so because of the work of Ms. McKenzie to highlight the shortcomings of former government we were able to start making progress but that means there's still more work to do and I welcome her inputs at all times I apologize I haven't read the report that's all the time we have thank you for joining us okay yeah thanks