Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma took an eleventh-hour shot at amending the government’s controversial infrastructure bill on Monday (May 26) night — only to have her amendment motion fail.
Bill 15, the Infrastructure Projects Act, would allow the province to expedite permitting for new schools and hospitals. It would also enable the government to fast-track resource and housing projects by deeming them “provincially significant.”
The bill has been the subject of numerous complaints by First Nations leaders and local government officials. The proposed amendment would have required the government to undergo more consultation with First Nations before creating the rules about what is eligible to be considered “provincially significant."
This did not go far enough to convince B.C. Greens MLA Rob Botterell, who joined five B.C. Conservatives to vote against the amendment. He told the committee considering the motion that it did not sufficiently address First Nations consultation concerns and that even with the alteration, it could still be used to fast-track oil and gas projects.
"[First Nations] weren't consulted in a meaningful way on Bill 15, they've been very clear about that," Botterell said on Tuesday. "Then an amendment comes forward. They hadn't been consulted on the amendment. So two wrongs don't make a right."
Because of the NDP’s razor-thin majority, the committee debating the bill had six NDP members, five Conservatives and one BC Green.
The chair is a member of the NDP and can cast a tie-breaking vote, but procedure requires a committee chair to side with continuity, which means voting against amendments.
Ma said it was a “surprise” that B.C. Greens MLA Rob Botterell voted against the motion. She said she had a “pretty positive” conversation with Botterell and B.C. Greens Leader Jeremy Valeriote about the amendment Monday morning.
“At the end of the day, it is their prerogative to vote the way that they wanted,” Ma told reporters on Tuesday. “We were hopeful that they would support us in increasing transparency and accountability, in a way that I thought that they would appreciate. They chose not to, and we move on.”
Botterell said he and Valeriote listened to what Ma had to say, but decided the amendment was "too little, too late" to address the bill's flaws.
"It was dead on arrival," he said.
The government has a closure motion in place to force a vote on the bill in its entirety by Wednesday (May 28). Botterell wants this retracted so the bill can go through consultation over the summer.
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