 you ready Richard you ready Mike? Oh good job. Three. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's availability. A reminder to media on the line please press star one to enter the queue you will be limited to one question and one follow-up. I will now hand it over to Attorney General David E.B. Good afternoon everyone thank you for joining we're assembled here on the traditional territory of Lekwungen speaking people the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations here with me today as Manpreet Kara from Vancouver Island Health Authority. As you know we just introduced access zone legislation to establish protected zones around schools and healthcare facilities we know that the pandemic has been incredibly stressful for so many British Columbians and obviously we don't need any additional unnecessary pressure on key workers and healthcare and education facilities they're already under incredible strain as a result of COVID-19. We recognize that free speech is an important right but there is no right to intimidate healthcare workers patients students teachers and staff who are already stressed and pressured this bill establishes vital safeguards for those heroic essential service workers who have kept those services open for all British Columbians it ensures that people will be able to access hospitals and students will be able to access their schools to enjoy the rights that they have to access those services. With that said I'd like to hand it over to Manpreet Kara from the Vancouver Island Health Authority for her remarks. Thank you Attorney General David E.B. My name again is Manpreet Kara and I'm the interim executive director of our acute care hospitals here in Victoria and I'm here today on behalf of Island Health to speak about access to our hospitals. Protecting access to our hospitals and healthcare facilities is paramount to the safety of our patients staff and volunteers. Patients must have urgent access to our emergency departments every day and in some situations even a brief delay can have serious outcomes. Non-emergency situations also require immediate access. Outpatient clinics, dialysis, medical imaging or just some of the essential healthcare services many people rely on every single day. The people visiting our hospitals deserve the certainty this change brings. The pandemic has been hard for everyone. Healthcare workers have had and continue to have many long hours and difficult days. COVID has made many things difficult but it should not be difficult to get to work. With this change our clinical staff volunteers and visitors will be be able to access our facilities without being obstructed or delayed. People will not be obstructed when they're visiting their loved ones in the hospital. People seeking emergency care will not be delayed. People who have dedicated themselves to caring for others will not be held back as they go to work. So on behalf of Island Health I appreciate that access to our hospitals will be protected for all British Columbians. Thank you. Thank you very much Manpreet. I'd like to open the floor up for questions from members of the media. Thank you very much. A reminder to reporters on the line please press star one to enter the queue. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Our first question today goes to Lisa Kordasko Vancouver Sun. Good afternoon, Minister. I would like to ask you for comments that you made earlier today to the conference on affordable housing. You said that you would withhold funding for programs if a municipality refuses to work on the supply challenge. And I'm wondering what you mean by refusing to work on the supply challenge and what funding are you referring to that could be withheld from them if they do? Well, Lisa, I'll say this respectfully because I do respect your work greatly. I did not say that. I said that in fact our government was working in cooperation with municipalities to establish housing needs surveys that we hope they will incorporate into their official community plans and match zoning to a consistent with legislation that we've introduced. I did say that if that cooperative approach was unable to work that one of the avenues that is open to us that was recommended in the opening doors report was to use what that report described as carrots and sticks to respond to the issue of housing supply. That is something that has been outlined for us as a potential option. It is not something that we are actively doing. And so I can't say what that would look like at this stage. But it is something that has been presented to government as an option in that jointly commissioned federal provincial report. But at this point, I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to get where we need to get cooperatively with municipalities. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? Yes, but you did suggest, I guess, that there is some resistance somehow. Otherwise, why would you have even, you know, kind of brought up the idea that possibly funding could be withheld? I'm worried, Lisa, you didn't get to see my full remarks and I'd be happy to make them available to you. I outlined a number of examples of challenges we faced, frankly, around housing supply. For example, one of the situations I listed was in Surrey where the municipal council turned down an independent living facility for adults with disabilities because it was too tall and there were complaints from immediate neighbors. So when I think about those adults with disabilities who don't get BC housing funded independent housing, this is a concern for me that we have a problem in our system. I hear from developers who are working with nonprofit organisations who made up that audience that I was speaking to this morning, talking about the fact that their work with these nonprofit organisations is held up adding massively to their costs in an inflationary environment. There are serious issues and anyone who looks at our housing market right now and doesn't say, wow, we do have a serious supply issue around needed housing, knowing that we have potentially as many as 40,000 new Canadians a year coming to areas like the Lower Mainland under the federal government's increased immigration targets, knowing that we have in migration from other provinces as people move to British Columbia for opportunities here, knowing that we're hearing from employers that staff can't find homes for their workers, seeing the escalation and pricing and record low options for people that are looking to buy. I don't know. I have to express some incredulity that people are still speaking out saying that they don't believe that there's a supply problem in our province. I think most municipalities agree there is one. And in my remarks, I also outlined some of the nuances in our province that are very significant regional differences. So in the north, a shortage of developers in communities like Prince Rupert in the south, lots of developers that want to build a challenge getting through the approvals process. It's something that we need to work on. I'm very grateful to my colleague, Josie Osborne, who's taking on this issue. And I do think there is a very serious issue and hopefully we're able to tackle it in partnership with municipalities. For the next question, we go to Richard Osborne. Minister to the legislation. Now that we're getting prepared at some point in the next few weeks, hopefully to immunize children, but is there a concern that there could be protests aimed towards that type of immunization? And how would this legislation prevent that from happening? The proposed legislation that was just introduced in the house establishes a boundary of 20 meters around a facility where there is a testing site, where there is a vaccination site around schools and hospitals. And the goal is to preserve access and key elements that are in the legislation are creating an atmosphere of intimidation towards people that are trying to access that service. That's what we're trying to control here and try to limit so that people are able to access those services and that essential work workers are able to get to work without facing that kind of intimidation that we've seen. We definitely have concern based on what we've seen in British Columbia and what we've seen across Canada that some of these folks will attempt to interfere with people accessing schools, with people accessing hospitals in order to promote their message. And that is completely unacceptable. The legislation is intended to send that message. Richard, do you have a follow-up? I haven't seen the legislation in full, but I understand from the materials you've provided that it also gives an option to add additional places. Can you talk to me about what that means? You know, we saw protest with the FENETAP on Remembrance Day. Could that be included? Where else could the province add the bubble areas and what are the tools to add those additional areas? So it's important to recognize that there are some specific criteria that Lieutenant Governor and Council or Cabinet is required to consider in adding a new site to the list. And that is, are people having difficulty accessing a service? How essential is the service that they're trying to access? Because we do recognize that there's a balance here in terms of people's right to free expression and people accessing these services. So that's a key component that Cabinet is directed through the proposed legislation to turn its mind to. And there is the possibility after engaging in that weighing exercise to add additional locations. I don't know that anyone would have predicted that emergency rooms and children's schools would have been a site for anti-vaccine protests and intimidation. And so we're not quite sure what people will think of next in terms of trying to advance this particular idea that they have in a way that intimidates essential service workers. So that's why we have this ability to add additional sites. It's also important to note that the 20-meter boundary that the legislation establishes could also potentially be increased if we find that that for one reason or another is unworkable. For the next question, we go to Rob Shaw, Check News. Prime Minister, just on that 20-meter that you mentioned there. So, could that have a bubble zone of 50 meters? Is that one has 50 meters? I think the bubble zone for abortion clinics in BC is 50 meters. Why did we take 20 here? Why is it different than what seems to be kind of an agreed upon number that other places are using? So we're trying to balance a couple of important pieces here. One is obviously people's right to free expression. And the other is the access of essential workers and people who depend on the services that they provide to those facilities. We have started with 20 meters, if we find for some reason that that's inappropriate, that that's not meeting our desire to protect access for patients and students, as well as education workers, teachers and staff, and medical workers, then we can revisit that through regulation. It was part of the design to start as restricted as possible and then expand if necessary. Rob, do you have a follow-up? Sure. And then there's also, I haven't seen the legislation, I don't think it's online. You don't line what the fines might be and there's mention of arrests. So are there sort of prison terms or kind of jail terms that are arranged here? There are a couple of different enforcement tools that the legislation empowers. Police can issue tickets of up to $2,000 for violations. Police can arrest individuals and imprisonment can be up to six months. In addition, it establishes an application process to B.C. Supreme Court, where an injunction could be sought. So it's an expedited and simplified injunction process for particular activities that might be intimidating workers. For the next question, we go to Bender Sajjan, CTV. Hi, I'm just wondering, give us that piece there about the enforcement to leave often seen, you know, these kinds of rallies happening. People are massively seem to be reluctant to go in. So have you had discussions with police forces? What makes you think that they will actually move in and enforce these rules? So this legislation was co-drafted with the Ministry for Public Safety and Solicitor General and their office engages regularly with police. It is our understanding that this will be an additional tool available to law enforcement at their discretion to respond to these kinds of events. And that is the goal here is to give them one more tool to use their discretion to make sure that access to these essential services is protected. You know, when we put various enforcement orders in place at the provincial level, it is still up to the discretion of the individual enforcing officer whether or not to use them. Bender, do you have a follow-up? I have a follow-up on what we are doing with American marriages. What is in this legislation that says to make sure that potentially next year it will end up with a new ceremony that will be able to start the ceremony? Yeah, I think I caught it. You caught it? Yeah, I think I caught it. So the question I understood was about what will, in this legislation, will prevent an interruption at a remembrance day ceremony potentially next year, if this continues to be an issue. And if that's wrong, let me know. But so this legislation is around protecting access to essential services like healthcare and education. The police do have breach of the peace charges that they can use around breach of the peace arrest powers that they can use around public events where someone is being disruptive. They also have mischief charges that they can use if someone is interfering with someone's use of property. Those tools will remain in place. This legislation, though, is carefully tailored around access to services like healthcare and school. Next question goes to Rob Monroe, Info News. Hello, Minister. I'm just wondering why this is taking so long. We've had incidents in July in Kelowna where we had a racism rant outside of vaccination clinic. We've had people showing up in schools. And a guy that was ranting hasn't even been charged yet. We haven't been sent for files. Why now? Why not much earlier? There's been so many incidents in the interior. Sure. So this is our first legislative session since these incidents took place. Our team worked very hard to bring this legislation into place and make sure that we were satisfying a number of different concerns. The urgency, obviously, that all of us share around ensuring the protection of access to schools and hospitals. And also a shared desire to ensure that we're protecting as best as possible the rights and freedoms of all British Columbians. In addition, we had concerns and have actually put into the legislation specific consideration around the rights of Indigenous people and Indigenous nations in terms of ensuring that they have control over when and how any legislation like this would be used on their own territory. So I'll say that I think this is the right approach to make sure that we have it right. And I hope that it's passed in the House as soon as possible. Rob, do you have a follow-up? Yeah, I'm just wondering when we're going to be targeting some of these people charges that you can find. Numerous times, some of these organizations, we had weekly rallies in Kelowna, and you've asked for rallies. Are we going to really start cracking down and charge some of these people? This legislation gives law enforcement one additional tool. It's under the Provincial Offense Act. It's not a criminal code provision. That is federal government jurisdiction. We think that the administrative ease of the Offense Act and our hope is this legislation will give police officers those tools where there is intimidation happening, where there is an interference with access to essential services. That this will be something that they're more readily able to use to ensure there are consequences for those individuals up to a $2,000 fine, up to six months in prison. These are serious potential consequences. Thank you very much. That's all the questions we have, and that concludes today's event.