BC Politicians are Cowards - Dallas Brodie talks about Deep Reform needed!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hey party people, it's Wyatt Clayool here back with 1BC BC leader Dallas Broaddy on what was a very exciting QP day because Dallas finally got a question in BC legislature for once.

[00:00:14]>> It's it's hard going through the QPS week to week when it's pretty much the exact same questions being asked over and over again by both the Conservatives and the Greens. Uh, so I guess before we get into your QP, what what were the conservative QPS today, yesterday, and the day before that?

[00:00:32]>> Well, they've been still focusing on um well, there was questions this week about people who have been released from healthcare, mental health facilities or hospitals with severe mental health problems who have left and actually not even made it home and committed suicide on the way home. This was a really good question actually. And why? Because apparently there's a rule against notifying family when an adult mental health patient is released, something like that. And so it's a privacy issue for the patient, but the families are finding out later from the police that their their son or daughter or parent or whoever was released, but they're now dead.

[00:01:11]>> Yeah, we had a good we had a good one on that front, like an actual substantive question. But overall, like I always find every day you kind of hold on to the nuggets of good questions that are asked, the occasional good drip aa question and but then it sometimes just goes back to like why are healthcare wait times long without any actual, you know, >> substance to like, well, what do you mean by that? What what would you do about that? So, and I'm not trying to be hard on the opposition. I'm definitely not pro NDP here, but I always kind of get annoyed when NDP kind of gets off easy with the same easy uh uh questions every week. And frankly, it's usually the independent questions that are more interesting.

[00:01:47]>> Well, it's it's true because QP is such an important um piece of what we do in government. It's probably the most important half an hour each day of what goes on here. And uh it's only half an hour. It's uh Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And um this is the chance to hold ministers accountable. And what I've noticed is that the Conservative party seems to choose one subject a day and then they all ask the same question a top a question on basically the same topic. So it'll be all day hitting on um senior care homes and then six questions about that. And what I see the problem with that is although it's a serious concern that the minister who's answering just stands up and repeats the same answer over and over and over again. So there's absolutely no element of surprise and there's no uh dynamism to the the answers being given and I don't think it really accomplishes something to ask it over and over again unless it's a really really hot button issue and each questioner is finding a way to find a slightly different angle um but still hard-hitting on that topic.

[00:02:59]>> It's got to be in like the headlines. So like when DRIPA is in the headlines, absolutely make every single question about DRIPA. They don't want to answer it. Don't ask again the same question over and over or the AG or the premier can kind of just turtle up and just kind of, you know, weather the storm. Make it so that the indigenous affairs minister has to ask, then the health minister and then the finance minister, then the AG kind of hit the same question around different parts of the room and show none of them have a good answer. But if you only hit Josie Osborne over and over again on a health question or you only hit Nikki Chararm on a on a DRPA question and she can say, "Well, the case is ongoing, so I can't tell you what's going on with that," it's like, "Well, in a certain sense, she kind of it's kind of a good answer. It's not, you know, she's she's offside on this issue. she sucks on DRIPA and they've been doing a terrible job defending the province in court. But if you keep asking about cases that she technically is not allowed to actually talk about, it's a good it's a good deflection to just keep saying that.

[00:03:55]>> And of course, for someone like me who is a independent now or with 1BC, of course, but independent we only I only am assigned a question about every two and a half two and a half weeks now. So I I'm I'm craving questions. uh when we still had the party uh we had a question our party had when we had official status we had a question every day um and now I'm back to just one every two and a half weeks and it's so frustrating because I watch the Conservative party use up all their question period with things like oh no don't don't ask that go for this and it's just I have to sit there >> PST on security again we had more PST on security guess what I don't like when they put the PST on security services they suck on crime more people have to hire private security and then they're putting the PST on that's private security. That's bad. I don't think it's deserved nearly as many QP questions as it has gotten since February.

[00:04:49]>> I agree. And also questions about um long-term care beds and and and and what's the other one that long-term care beds and then the loss of funding for families with kids with autism. Yeah, they're serious issues, but like I said today, I think that these small questions about how come you cut this, how come you cut that is like getting lost in what the really bigger question is, Wyatt, is that the province is literally bankrupt right now. We've maxed out every credit card. We've maxed out our line of credit. We've um we've gotten three mortgages put on the house.

[00:05:22]Now, we're topped up on every on every front. We've borrowed all we can from mom and dad and now we're literally unable to pay for anything. And yet the NDP wants to keep spending and even presented some treaties uh last week that each treaty has like a hund00 million signing bonus and we don't even have any money. The cupboards are bare.

[00:05:46]So this is what needs to be discussed is the fact that the whole thing we can't afford senior care beds and we can't afford these things because there's so much unidentified waste and inefficiency in the system right now and that is where the focus needs to be and I personally wish that that would would be the target for the conservatives day in day out. You have to cut spending. You have to show discipline. the you know when uh when a business is in trouble you come in the first thing you do is you have to stop the bleeding the the outflow of money you cut cut cut get rid of some employees you have to stop it then you can start working on in increasing your bottom line your revenues but the first step is always to stop the bleeding Wyatt >> and this leads into your question today where you actually again trying to model the behavior that we want to see from the opposition you ended up asking a question kind of on this subject so I guess you can take us through >> the general general details and what the responses were like from the two ministers.

[00:06:44]>> Yeah. So the general question was about this very thing is that um asking why did you cut this like I understand why the conservatives ask but it's not the right question. We need to say overall what is this government going to do to fix our disastrous situation? 13.3 billion dollar in deficit and let's not 13.3 billion is 130 times 100 million.

[00:07:11]So we have to have a hund we have to find 130 100 millions to save just to get rid of our deficit. Then our debt, the taxpayer supported debt is at over 155 billion and our credit rating for British Columbia has already been downgraded five times. And of course, if you've been listening, we all know that when our our credit gets downgraded, um the interest that is charged to this province when it borrows is higher and that affects us because the amount of interest the government is paying is it's not the government paying, it's you and me, it's it's us. We are the ones paying. So it's, you know, we talk about government spending. It's actually you are spending taxpayers money and you're flagrant. You're irresponsible. You're reckless and you have a duty to balance these budgets. I mean, maybe that makes me the the quintessential conservative, but I believe in balanced budgets. If we don't have it, we shouldn't be spending it. Yes, we take some debt on things that are longerterm capital projects, maybe bridges, dams, these kinds of things that that that can make sense.

[00:08:15]but not just, you know, pissing it away on um DEI or, you know, programs that just feel good projects and giving out money to this arts group and this uh you know uh lunch meeting book club or all these things that I mean it just there's so much waste that could be found. So my my question was about that and >> asking the minister if she'd actually even has you know have you done anything to actually mandate that departments have to find 20% in terms of cuts or wasteful you know wasteful spending savings and the the the answers are always just so lame because that's a very just you know yes or no you know explain to me what your plan is. This isn't like cuz sometimes I don't like the way people ask questions and it's too much of a gotcha. You know, obviously the person's not going to be able to say exactly when they're going to be able to deliver you this or that or it's a yes or no, but it's not a fair yes or no. This was a completely fair question. Why haven't you actually mandated significant cuts?

[00:09:15]>> Yeah. And you say you send a letter, it's called a mandate letter to each ministry and you say you are now charged with reducing your spending by let's say 20%. Even 10%. Why not start there? That hasn't even been done. That would be very easy because in every department, I guarantee you there is millions and millions of dollars in waste. And um so that was my first question. Why haven't you done that? And my second question focused on, you know, we have business people, fantastic, skilled business people in the private sector in British Columbia who would be able to help this government find answers to this crisis, people who really know how to turn around a business case, which is what we need here. And I said,"Wh don't you bring these sup superb business people in and establish a department of government a department of government efficiency and and start letting them turn them loose, allow them to audit the whole situation, the entire budget in BC and go to town on it." And I would bet, this is my guess, that we could erase the deficit just through finding waste. That's what um that's what I would do when I am premier. I will establish a full audit of this government. I will give the auditors subpoena power and we will dig in and find out what lurks in the basement of the budget.

[00:10:42]>> Well, this is what we talked about yesterday in the office while we're going to get to the the hoist motion later on in this and all the meaningless drama that went on yesterday. But while we were just kind of talking back and forth, we were starting just researching just how many people work for the provincial government. And I think the guest I put in was like in the range of like 250,000 300,000 people. And when we actually saw the number of people who work for, you know, core government services, you know, uh, hospitals, teachers, all that, nonprofits, >> 593,000 people.

[00:11:15]>> That's the real reason they don't want to cut any spending.

[00:11:17]>> And by the way, our population in British Columbia is only 5.8 million.

[00:11:21]590. That's almost 600,000 people working in the public sector in BC.

[00:11:28]>> It that's crazy. And each of those jobs has incredible benefits, pensions, you name it, it's goldplated. And part of the problem, by the way, of having a bloated public service is that with all of these incredible gold-plated pensions and so on, the private sector can't compete with that. There's no way they can offer the same large S to their employees. And so, of course, people are given a choice between getting a job in the private sector and government.

[00:11:52]They'll say, "I think I'll go there. I get 21 sick days that I can carry over year-over-year. I could end up with an entire year of sick days one day down the road. Or I can get, you know, all of my dental, my it it's just way more than the private sector can afford to offer.

[00:12:07]So, >> and no doubt there's people doing a good job in the public sector. Obviously, we always have to say this boilerplate, but the problem we have is that there's a government incentive to never get rid of anyone who really doesn't need to be doing the job they're doing or maybe not as many people need to be doing that specific job because it's votes. If you're the the government in power and you can employ all these people and then fearmonger that other people are going to cut your job and it creates this hostage situation between private sector taxpayers and then the government and public sector unions where effectively they can deliver a big chunk of the vote every single year for the party that not only will keep everyone employed but also increase benefits against those who are barely struggling to make ends meet working in frankly the productive side of the economy. We need the public sector, but the public sector needs the private sector more than the other way around >> because without the private sector, the public sector can't be paid for. You know, that that push me pull you between, oh, the socialist government's wanting to always increase the number of people who work for the state because it increases their voter base. This kind of stuff drives me crazy because that that type of behavior really does that perverse incentive that's created by that is really um negative for the the the body of the of the province like for all of us. It's it becomes a drag and it's so self- serving. I I would like to believe I'd never be a premier that would find ways to spend public money to make sure I get reelected. That's really bothers me. This is a little bit of the problem with the conservatives is that they want to act tough, but none of them will ever actually stand up and say, "When are you going to cut all the bloat in the healthare and education system?"

[00:13:51]Because if the health education minister says, "You guys want to cut health and education spending." They get really uncomfortable and tight and they don't like being accused of that. Oh my goodness, you guys are cutting healthare. I'm like, "Yes, you have to cut healthcare. We We have some stats here on just how bad the spending to quality ratios have gotten." And and remember the numbers here have been adjusted for inflation. These are in 2025.

[00:14:13]>> Yeah. So in 1993, British Columbia spent $4,200 per person on healthcare. And the median wait time for major procedures was 10 12 weeks. Still too long, but it was 10 12 weeks in 1993. In 2025, the government is now spending almost $7,000 per capita. So that's a $3,000 increase.

[00:14:35]Um, so s almost $7,000 per person on health care, but our median wait time has ballooned from 10 and a half weeks up to 32.2 weeks. So the the spending of we've had a 48% increase in spending, but weight times have increased by over 300%.

[00:14:57]So, 48% increase in spending, but weight times have increased by over 300%.

[00:15:04]>> And for anyone in the cheap seats who didn't hear it the first time, that is with inflation already included into those numbers, $4,200 a year per person up to $6,900. And that's both 20 $25.

[00:15:18]Another reminder, and the wait times have gone from 10.4 4 weeks, I believe, is the exact number, up to 32.2.

[00:15:29]>> Yeah. People could age in population.

[00:15:31]>> The population didn't age that much.

[00:15:33]>> Nope. And no private business would operate this way. Wow. I've spent all this money on improvements for my my my um Burger King or whatever my shop is.

[00:15:42]And um the lineups are longer than ever.

[00:15:45]Business is slowing down. I have more complaints than I've ever had.

[00:15:49]Everybody's unhappy. They hate my burgers. They hate my restaurant.

[00:15:53]Everybody's unhappy. The food is lousy and I've spent all this money and and nothing's better. Any normal business person would say, "Gee, I wonder what I've done wrong here." Yeah. Obviously, we have been spending in the wrong way or like like I don't know what do you call it. Is anybody even working at the front desk anymore? Maybe. I don't know.

[00:16:14]>> This happens all the time in the private sector. You'll have a car company or some other corporation that's massively in debt. they're losing money every year. Somebody comes in and they just cut a good 25% of all the costs because they found out that they were doing double work for no reason here or this there's an entire department that was purely useless that they could just get rid of. But as soon as it's the public sector, it's become sacred. You can't touch it because that's somebody's job.

[00:16:39]Don't you know? And it's like, well, the public, the private sector that pays for those jobs are the ones who are like actually cutting waste in order to keep their businesses healthy enough just to fund the government. But the government never thinks that they have to do it the other way around. And we check this in education, too. It's not as dramatic of an increase, but the per student spending from 1993 to 2025 increased by 17 uh 17.8%.

[00:17:06]Now, not as dramatic of an increase compared to 48%. But again, that's already adjusted for inflation. Why, when we have better technology than ever, has it become more costly to teach the average student? And the reason is because schools now have five vice principles. We don't have just one.

[00:17:22]>> We need fewer fewer chiefs up at the top, fewer skippers, and more sailors, right? So, we've got a a lot too many chefs in the kitchen or whatever they say. So, I um I don't know. I It's so simple to me, but all I can say is that I it must be that the NDP just does not have the political will, the intestinal fortitude to do what needs to be done.

[00:17:48]And I I'm fearful that we are going to have to wait another two and a half years for the next uh provincial election, for a change of government, and to have proper administration come in. And it's going to be painful by that time because they're predicting even greater deficit come next March and I can see it coming myself unless there's a dramatic turnaround in direction here which I doubt David Eie would ever do. U unless he you know maybe he'll have a 11th hour conversion or something but you know I mean you know more miraculous things have happened I guess but he could uh see the light and say I I got to do something here. They have been reckless. It has been reckless. It's dangerous for people. People are dying on weight list. They're dying in waiting rooms. People say, "Oh, healthare spending is so important." Well, we're not getting service for this anymore.

[00:18:42]>> Yeah.

[00:18:43]>> I'm worried. I'm, you know, in my early 60s now, and I think this is the time when I'm going to need healthare, and I know it's not going to be there for what I need it for.

[00:18:51]>> You know, even when, you know, I've had to have some surgeries and I waited a long time. Long time. You know, >> I honestly have a concern that if the Conservatives were in government right now, because about 50% of the caucus is liberal, like they were literally planning on running for the BC Liberals before, that it would then turn into you guys left us with a mess and, you know, ignore the fact that we're not improving it. You guys left us with a mess.

[00:19:14]Because that's what happened previously.

[00:19:15]The liber the BC liberals were not doing a good job before John Han the took over. And then John Han, the NDP is like, "Well, you guys left us with this mess." And now if it gets passed back, it's just going to be, well, you guys left us with this mess. And no one's ever actually talking proactively about the fact that we need to just massively cut spending and reorganize all it. But you know what the conservatives did do?

[00:19:36]They did a hoist motion, Dallas. All of the problems of this province have now been solved because of a hoist motion that was done in the legislature into the wee hours of the morning last night.

[00:19:47]>> And we might ask, what is a hoist motion? So, you did a statement on Bill Nine. It's the BCNDP's absolutely ridiculous changes to freedom of information requests that make it more expensive and more difficult to get information from the government. Bad.

[00:20:04]Obviously bad. The Conservatives have decided that this is the big issue that they're going to fight on. They're not fighting the treaties from the First Nations. They're not fighting all that money going out the door. And freedom of information is maybe one of many hills to die on, but for some reason this is the only hill that they want to die on.

[00:20:21]And they put up a hoist motion to basically bump this bill 9 from being implemented for another 6 months and it would be in the fall.

[00:20:31]>> We hoist it over there, lift it up and hoist it.

[00:20:34]>> Yeah. You're giving it a big punt.

[00:20:35]>> Yeah. You're kicking it >> into November and then they would vote on it in November.

[00:20:38]>> So 6 months hoist. This is also what we call could call a fool's errand motion because it was never going to work. And we have these conservatives patting themselves on the back today because they stayed up to 4:00 a.m. Don't you know sitting around debating the hoist motion getting up and every 5 seconds they'd say this is why we need the hoist motion and that is why we need the hoist motion.

[00:20:58]>> I didn't.

[00:20:59]>> We ended up going home because you know >> going home around 11. The definition of somebody who's not a fool is somebody who doesn't go on fool's errands. And we were more focused on writing QPS on on going over bill speeches for the treaty acts coming forward. The treaty acts, by the way, that the conservatives only criticism on them so far. Has been other First Nations do not like the Komox and Kitellis treaties. Who cares? I don't know. But they're they're hoisting and they're really getting stuff done and they're saying they're going to go to the mattresses on this one or whatever.

[00:21:32]And turns out it didn't actually work because wow, the NDP have a majority and they can do whatever they want still.

[00:21:39]>> Yes, they do have a majority still. And uh but even the the Greens Wait, it was interesting because two former Conservatives voted with the NDP last night and the Greens, did they vote with the Conservatives?

[00:21:51]>> Yeah. Interestingly, Rob Bell, the NDP, sorry, the green MLA from Sanish North in the Islands, was actually one of the original writers of some of the legislation back in the day for freedom of information. You know, I can give Brael a compliment on something between him advocating. Okay, I'll let you.

[00:22:08]Yeah, but he he will eventually, >> but I have to mention that their leader hangs out with Hassan and Zoran Mandami. So let's not forget that >> and Rob and Rob Brell did advocate for human compost like you know human composting >> BC's pole pot or something like that.

[00:22:23]>> Regardless though I can give him a compliment on that. You have the two former conservative independents voted with the NDP to kill the hoist motion then voted on second and then they said that they want to fight it on third and fight for adjustments to be made.

[00:22:37]Whatever. Honestly, I think that Boltby B and Sturko voted just with the NDP because they hated this hoist motion thing in general. I think it was mostly out of resentment than anything.

[00:22:46]>> You might be wondering to yourself at home, and I'm maybe talking too much in this video, but >> yeah, you're talking too much, >> but >> I'm only kidding.

[00:22:53]>> But this was a lot of speech and pather about >> something that doesn't matter. And that's the lesson here is I don't know.

[00:23:03]I don't know what the lesson here is >> there. Well, I personally will go into fights that that I can win. You don't expend your your your treasure and your time uh on fights that are completely useless. That that doesn't make sense.

[00:23:18]And you you put your uh effort and your time and your your focus on fights you can win and that are crucial. That's my view of it. And uh this one was really to my mind a big I'm going to just say it. It was a waste of time.

[00:23:34]>> Like I'm I again I'm not a fan of the MVP. I actually kind of found it all kind of gross in the sense that they were effectively I guess hoping every single conservative was going to be there to vote. You were going to be there to vote that the two other that Sturko and Boltby were going to vote against it. The were going to vote against Yeah. This was their plan that they never actually told anybody.

[00:23:58]>> And then I guess the plan was the plan.

[00:24:00]They were going to have everyone who wasn't the NDP vote against it. And then they were hoping that Joan Phillips, who's in hospital with cancer, was not gonna be able to vote at 4 am, which when you think about it, is kind of gross. You know, we have our differences with Joan Phillip, but I don't exactly think that that's exactly the most ethical way of trying to block NDP legislation is just hoping that a cancer patient can't vote at in the wee hours of the morning.

[00:24:22]>> And John Rostad was away. He's been away, so he wasn't there yesterday.

[00:24:26]>> They planned this thing around whether he was going to be here or not. One of the funny things is is the Conservative Party likes to make plans and they don't tell any of the independents what their plan is. It's like they want to go into battle but they don't tell a bunch of their their the soldiers they hope they need. Namely the six is it six of us now or seven?

[00:24:44]>> Six. Yeah. Yeah. Six with Hon.

[00:24:47]>> Six independent MLAs. Now they need to talk to us and let us know what their battle plan is. I mean none of us had any clue. And so >> by the way they also don't ask us about Bill 20 or anything like that. They can give us some great advice on why Bill 20 is bad. Apparently, they don't know why it's bad. Apparently, it's bad because other tribes who want even more money in land don't like it.

[00:25:07]>> Well, we have our own reasons for saying that Bill 20 is bad, and I'll be speaking to that this week. But, you know, I just uh it's it's an interesting dynamic and um I'm learning a lot about the legislature and how things run here.

[00:25:18]And some things are really really important and some things are just performative garbage.

[00:25:23]>> Yeah. Well, with all that being said, thank you guys for watching this episode of the 1BC postgame podcast. We will be back next week. There's another episode that I've already filmed that I messed up on. I have to correct the audio for.

[00:25:37]You might see that later this next week.

[00:25:40]It's bunch of background BS because we're off.

[00:25:43]>> Yes.

[00:25:45]Next week, then we got two more weeks.

[00:25:46]So, we'll probably have at least two or three more Rose Garden podcasts from the the last two weeks of the ledge. I would think >> that will be our bills week because we actually do have a bunch of bills in the works. We don't really want to throw bills around. Uh these days it's more so you always want to focus on something that really matters rather than again doing anything that's too performative.

[00:26:05]And we already kind of ran through all the really good bills of things that we could propose that don't shouldn't just be like a video or whatever.

[00:26:12]>> Y we have some two good ones coming up in the next couple of weeks too.

[00:26:16]>> So see you guys all later.

[00:26:18]>> Okay. See you.