Finance and Government Services - Issue No. 17 - Thursday, October 25, 2001, a.m.

2001 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 37th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES
MINUTES AND HANSARD

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES



CONTENTS

		Page

Presentations		585
	K. Veldman	585
	G. Martin	588
	C. Jennings	589
	I. MacLean	591
	P. Barnes	593
	R. Seltenrich	595
	S. Dadds	597
	D. Buck	598
	K. McAthy	599
	B. Sissons	600
	D. Ritchey	602
	I. Mohler	603
	D. Philpott	606
	N. King	608
	V. George	610
	B. McLeod	612
	C. Mantie	614
	R. Leclerc	616
	L. McKeown	617
	F. Rowe	619
	J. Nester	620
	D. Scarborough	621

Chair:	* Blair Lekstrom (Peace River South L)
Deputy Chair:	* Tony Bhullar (Surrey-Newton L)
Members:	* Harry Bloy (Burquitlam L) Jeff Bray (Victoria–Beacon Hill L) Ida Chong (Oak Bay–Gordon Head L) Brian Kerr (Malahat–Juan de Fuca L) * Kevin Krueger (Kamloops–North Thompson L) * Lorne Mayencourt (Vancouver-Burrard L) * Barry Penner (Chilliwack-Kent L) Ralph Sultan (West Vancouver–Capilano L) Joy MacPhail (Vancouver-Hastings NDP) * denotes member present

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Good morning, gentlemen. We will call our committee meeting to order. My name is Blair Lekstrom. I'm the MLA for Peace River South and Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We are here today to hear your input on next year's upcoming budget — your ideas and priorities as to what direction or ideas we should try and encompass in next year's budget.

There are a number of things I'll point out before I ask the other members of the committee to introduce themselves. Today's hearings are being recorded and will be transcribed by Hansard, over to my right. With us, we have Catherine Schaefer and Virginia Garrow. Also at the back table when you came in was one of our assistants, Jacqueline Quesnel. To my left is our Committee Clerk, Anne Stokes.

Our mandate is to go out and host consultation throughout British Columbia. This is our fifteenth of a scheduled set of 16 meetings. There's also the possibility for people who can't get to these public hearings to put in written submissions as well. We will accept those until the 31st of this month. If there's anybody you're aware of who hasn't had the opportunity to be here, I would encourage them to please put a submission forward.

The presentations today are allotted 15 minutes, although you're first on the schedule, and you can have some extra time, guys. Ken, you've worked hard at that.

Without carrying on too long and eating up too much time, I will begin at my far left with Kevin to begin the introductions, and then we'll carry on.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): Tony Bhullar from Surrey-Newton, and I'm Deputy Chair of this meeting.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): With that, I will turn it over to you, Ken. Gentlemen, we look forward to hearing what you have to say.

K. Veldman: Thank you very much for the opportunity. Before we begin, I'll introduce my partners here as well. Mr. Gerry Martin and Mr. John Strangway are both board members with the Terrace Economic Development Authority. My name is Ken Veldman. I'm the executive director of the Terrace Economic Development Authority.

What we're going to attempt to do today is give you a bit of a brief backgrounder on the economy of the northwest and on Terrace specifically. I appreciate the chance to go first, because I think it'll be a good backgrounder for many of your presentations to follow today. Secondly, we'll go into some of the more specific issues we're dealing with from an economic viewpoint that are specific to the provincial government.

Northwest B.C. has traditionally been and continues to be a resource-based economy. The resources include timber, minerals, hydroelectric power, fishing, mining — really, a wide variety. In addition to that, there certainly is potential for natural gas and oil, which I know all of you have probably heard a lot about over the last few months. That is both offshore in this area as well as onshore.

In addition to natural resources, our economic advantage lies in our location. Located in such close proximity to tidewater, and therefore having great access to Pacific Rim markets, we've also been able to develop a fairly significant manufacturing sector in the region. Because we're so highly dependent on resource markets, we've always been very susceptible to the traditional resource price cycles that come along with it. It's very much the boom-and-bust economy. Right now that is certainly very much the case.

All of our industries seem to be suffering from very low commodity prices, and that has filtered back through all of our local businesses. We have a very small population base. Therefore, pretty much all of our basic industries are export-oriented — as I said earlier, most of them Pacific Rim–based. Asian markets in particular tend to be our biggest customers. Even when it comes to lumber and pulp, while most of the province is very focused on the U.S. market, we've always traditionally had much more of a Japanese and, increasingly, a more Chinese orientation.

Because of the type of land we have here and because of the export orientation, we're very dependent on an effective and efficient infrastructure system. Transportation is absolutely key to us. As we go through some of the issues later on today, many of them relate back to basic infrastructure and how that relates to our competitiveness. Certainly, if there's an overall message to take away today in terms of provincial financial approaches and that sort of thing, investments and infrastructure are absolutely key to us.

In addition to those resource bases, we have also started — very slowly — to grow and diversify through the export of what we call non-traditional service and knowledge-type products. It includes tourism. It's very slow. Because we have a small population base and therefore a small labour force, and because those industries really tend to be driven by that sort of skill level, it will continue to be a fairly slow growth process for us. It is certainly something we're trying to feed.

Terrace itself is a service centre for all of those industries in the region. You'll notice that around town,

there are actually very few manufacturing facilities here. There's a great number of everything from retail, business service, consumer service, financial and government services located within this town. We are very much dependent on the health of the entire region. While being a regional centre has been a very good strategy for us to follow, we're certainly dependent on the health of the region. The health of the region economically, frankly, has been quite poor especially over the last two to three years, and you've certainly seen that within the service centre as well.

I'll go very quickly through some of the major industries, beginning with forestry. Forestry is approximately 25 percent of our economy in terms of the basic industry. We've got two major vertically integrated forest companies. They include West Fraser and, of course, Skeena Cellulose. Between the two of them, they control about 75 percent of the industry here in the region.

There are major issues in terms of harvesting costs in B.C., but also within the region. I'm going to touch on that a little bit later. We've got a very high pulp content in our forests, which makes us the highest-cost wood region in B.C. and, by extension, the highest wood cost in North America. That tends to be the root of the big issues in the industry.

Aluminum is approximately 15 percent of the basic income in this area, and it is driven, of course, by Alcan and their large smelter down in Kitimat that employs about 2,000 people. Alcan is a unique industry in that its local resource is basically hydroelectricity. All its other raw materials are brought in from all over the world, and they're manufactured here. They're then shipped to markets all over the world.

Mining is approximately 5 percent of the basic income in this area. It's a very quiet industry, because the mines usually tend to be several hundred miles into the wilderness, so to speak. It's also an industry that has plenty of potential in terms of mineral resources in this area, and the future depends very much on how competitive we want that industry to be in this province.

The production of methanol and the production of ammonia — i.e., petrochemical production — is about another 5 percent of the basic income here. It's driven largely by the Methanex facility down in Kitimat. It employs approximately 200-plus. Again, they take the raw material from gas fields in north central B.C. and pipeline it out here, go through a manufacturing process on the coast and, again, send their raw product to markets throughout the world but primarily to the Pacific Rim.

Tourism is approximately 5 percent of our basic economy. It's driven largely by two different sectors. One is a very destination-oriented market driven by the sport-fishing industry. Several very high-end, world-class lodges and guiding-type operations make up a lot of that. The other sector in the tourism industry is the touring sector, driven largely by U.S. citizens coming up to visit Alaska. This is a drive-through type of area. As well, the B.C. Ferry system and the Alaska Marine Highway system that runs out of Prince Rupert generate a lot of the traffic that comes through this area. That basically makes up the tourism industry in this region. There is a lot of high-end adventure product and cultural product that has potential here. That's certainly going to be a focus for us in the years to come in developing this into a more significant industry.

The last thing I'll touch on is oil and gas. Obviously, there is no current industry in northwest B.C. in terms of the actual extraction. In terms of the Hecate Strait offshore reserves as well as the Bowser basin, which is inland reserves, early estimates indicate that there are some very large deposits that have potential there. We feel that in the longer run, but certainly not in the shorter run, that also has potential to expand as a resource industry in this region.

There's more detail on each of those industries within the briefing package you've been given. If you get a chance, I'd encourage you to take a look at it. It'll give you a little bit more background on what really makes them up.

In terms of specific issues, I'd like to start with the forest industry in northwest B.C. As I mentioned earlier, it's the largest industry we have in the region. It's primarily involved with two major companies. What we need in this area, frankly, is to reduce the fibre costs of getting wood from the bush to the mill. That's probably the single biggest issue we have.

There's a biogeoclimatic region in this area called interior cedar-hemlock, more commonly known as a wet belt. It's basically the transition forest between coastal and interior. The wood in this area is largely 50 percent pulpwood, as compared to the interior, where you're dealing with maybe 90 to 95 percent sawlog. Obviously, your value within that decadent-type wood is nowhere near as good as solid, but it costs just as much to get it to the mill. The lower value of that wood is not recognized within the current system, because it's basically charged on an interior pricing system.

There's a number of different things that can be done to make this region more competitive in terms of dealing with that, but a lot of it needs to come from a provincial commitment to saying that yes, this is a very different kind of forest. It's completely unique in the province, with the exception of the small area around Revelstoke and Golden and that area. It's been our Achilles heel, frankly, from day one. Because of that high cost, anytime the price cycle comes down, we're always the first region to be affected and the last region to come out of it.

There have been several reports done on solutions to deal with this, but it has to start with a commitment and a recognition from the provincial government to designate it as a special management zone and deal with things from there. That's really at the root of the problem. Until we can deal with it, a lot of the other issues come along subsequent to that — i.e., SCI and that sort of thing. An understanding and recognition need to occur. How competitive do you want to make the forest industry in this region? As the owners of the land base, I would expect you'd want to make it very competitive.

It's probably also worth mentioning that there obviously has been harvesting in this area for several years. The second growth is estimated to be about 15 years away from coming on stream. That second growth, rather than being of the decadent nature, is going to be more of a solid-wood nature, and the economics in this region will improve greatly once we hit that. What we're looking for here is a 15-to-20-year bridge to get to that area. Again, there's more detail on that within your package.

Building on that, Skeena Cellulose, which of course is under CCAA core protection right now, leaves the northwest economy in a very vulnerable position. Because it's so large, because it stretches throughout the region — you've got a pulp mill in Prince Rupert, a sawmill in Terrace, a sawmill in Kitwanga, a sawmill in Hazelton, a sawmill in Smithers and, of course, all the harvesting operations that go with it — we're probably talking in the neighbourhood of 2,400 estimated jobs. If it goes down for any given period of time, what you also start to lose is the infrastructure that supports it. The impact could be significant. I can't impress enough how critical this issue is in this region.

In terms of a resolution, first of all, we recognize that the provincial government is trying very hard to move forward on a sale here. Obviously, the short-term solution lies in completing that sale. The key to completing the sale, going back to my earlier point, is probably going to be the recognition and understanding that this is a very different fibre base here and needs to be dealt with that way. I don't think a sale is going to be a real easy thing to do, unless there's a commitment from the provincial government to a potential purchaser that they recognize that. They need to make the fibre base more competitive and be a part of reducing those high wood costs.

In addition, we'd like to make the following recommendations that we think should be part of the go-forward. One is a commitment of a new owner into capital investment, plus prompt startup and ongoing operations with the company, as opposed to a sale with someone that wouldn't be moving forward in terms of operating it. In addition, we've also got a lot of local creditors that were caught out during the CCAA process. Any commitment to helping to make them whole, as opposed to losing them as part of the vital business infrastructure that supports the industry in this region, is going to be very important in moving forward.

I referred earlier to the importance of transportation and infrastructure in the region. There's a proposal that's currently being promoted by several communities within the region as well as by several industries. It's commonly referred to as the Omineca-Stewart road. The Omineca-Stewart road is a proposal to build approximately 100 kilometres of resource road to link up existing networks that run from northeast B.C. to northwest B.C. What it would end up providing would be a contiguous link that runs from Mackenzie directly to the port of Stewart. That would allow drastic improvement of the transportation economics involved with resource extraction, both in the forest industry and the mining industry within that area.

It's important to note that there are actually only 30 kilometres within that entire 100 kilometres that are not planned to be built within the next 15 years through the forest industry process. CanFor out of Prince George currently has rights into there. The planning process, as I said earlier, is to build all of those roads out, with the exception of 30 kilometres, by 2015. What we're talking about here, basically, is just accelerating the capital investment to get that done.

Why it's important to do that is that we have a great window of opportunity with the operation of the Kemess mine, which is currently going on in that area. Kemess currently has a very high transportation cost because of moving out through Mackenzie, down to Prince George, down to Vancouver. What this will allow them to do is get the product directly through to the west coast at Stewart. Kemess has indicated that it would be very willing to do this on a toll-type basis through the road.

You've got a very unique situation where you can put some capital investment up and actually have revenues returning right away. That takes a lot of the risk out of building it, and once you've got it in, of course, the economics of all of the other mineral properties in that area drastically improve. Your ability to start actual mining operations in them drastically improves. The same principle also applies to the fibre resources within that area.

This is an investment. We're not asking for a provincial capital contribution to this. There's currently a proposal that's going forward being spearheaded by the district of Stewart to look at various options. What would the actual capital estimates be on building that? We think there are some public-private things that can be done to take some of the capital burden off the provincial government.

As that study comes forward, what we're asking for, more than anything else, is recognition of its importance, recognition of it as an investment and support from the provincial government of the players involved to get it done. What we're asking for here is to accelerate a planning process as opposed to doing something completely new.

There's actually a map of that resource road within your package that gives you a bit more of an idea as to where it would go through. If you look at the history of northern B.C., any time there's been a significant upgrade in capital infrastructure, you see a significant growth within the economy. One is directly linked to the other. The history of this province in southern B.C. certainly has followed that. I would suggest that if we were to embark on a more aggressive infrastructure development program in the north, you'd see some significant economic growth directly resulting from it.

Alcan's Kitimat works is obviously a major economic driver within this region. Alcan obviously has not had a great history within this province in its relationship with the provincial government in the last six to seven years, mainly relating to its Kemano completion project issues. It was built in 1953, and the plant

itself is coming to a point where Alcan is aggressively looking at upgrading its technology. Basically, they would be rebuilding the plant within ten years, and this would be about a $2 billion capital project. Currently, as they move forward on that, they're actually building a $30 million pilot project in Kitimat within the next two years to test out the technology and make decisions on its appropriateness.

What their biggest issue is going to be in making that investment, frankly, is its own internal company competition for capital. Since the merger between Alcan and Alusuisse — this is a major multicorporate — what they're going to need to see, more than anything else, is public support of Alcan's operations within this province. Obviously, we've got a major role to play locally in making sure that we're working with that company, giving it the assistance it needs, being partners with it.

I would also suggest that because of its history within the province over the last few years, the provincial government's attitude toward the company, toward that industry…. Making aggressive, proactive efforts to work with the company and get that investment done is largely going to relay back to the provincial government. There needs to be a very active, positive partnership for that to happen.

Our last issue is somewhat more local, but it is an issue that many airports in the province are actually dealing with. One of our biggest issues here locally in terms of infrastructure is the availability of developable land, which given the size of things, seems somewhat ironic. As many of you know, especially if you've been involved with municipal politics, the actually developable land is sometimes somewhat different.

To give you some background, the Terrace-Kitimat Airport was devolved from Transport Canada several years ago. With most of the airports involved with that process, all of the airport reserve land was also transferred down. Most municipalities saw that as an excellent opportunity to add to their developable land base.

Four airports within the province were in the odd situation that when they were built, most of them during World War II, the actual title was not transferred from provincial Crown to Transport Canada and the federal Crown. Instead, it was handled underneath a control-and-administration agreement that basically comes out to a head lease for a dollar-a-year type of deal, if you want to relate it back to practical purposes.

When it was devolved, the provincial government did not see fit to transfer those lands back to local authorities. That issue continues to be out there, so what we basically have is several airports within the province, including ours, that have no rights to the airport reserve around them. It's still owned by provincial Crown. We believe we're dealing not only with a matter of equity here between different airports.

Obviously, if local authorities have healthy airports and can use lands around them for an additional revenue source, that's good for the infrastructure of the province. Certainly, the provincial government and, more specifically, the B.C. Assets and Land Corporation need to approach it from that perspective, work proactively with those airports to get through an issue that's been hanging around, quite frankly, for much too long. They need to make sure that those lands are transferred in an equitable way to the local authorities, so they can continue to build the infrastructure on a provincewide airport basis.

G. Martin: There are only four as well. We're not talking about a great number of airports here: Williams Lake, Fort Nelson, ourselves and Port Hardy.

K. Veldman: Anyway, that is our quick overview. If you have any questions with regard to that, I'd certainly be willing to answer them. Again, there's a fuller briefing package in front of you. We'd certainly encourage you, if you've got the time, to take 15 minutes and read through it.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Ken, I would like to thank you for your presentation to our committee today. I can tell you that your brief will be gone through by the members of the committee. I will look to questions from committee members.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): Good morning, Ken. You had indicated that there was a manufacturing base here. What type of manufacturing base exists?

K. Veldman: The manufacturing base is largely resource-related. Obviously, the forest industry is doing everything from lumber to pulp to paper as well as some limited value-added work around the region. Alcan is our single largest manufacturer. Methanex and Pacific Ammonia deal out of Kitimat in converting petrochemical supply into a value-added product. The commercial fishing industry, mostly based in Prince Rupert, has a large manufacturing component there. Most of it is primary or limited secondary. It's sort of at that level.

Down the road, because of our access to tide water, our ability to develop greenfield land, especially between Terrace and Kitimat in that corridor…. We believe there is an ability to expand that manufacturing sector, and it even has the potential to expand beyond resource-oriented manufacturing.

L. Mayencourt: Could you tell us about the state of the infrastructure at the airport? Is it maintained well? Is it something that you're going to have to spend a bunch of money on in the next couple of years?

K. Veldman: The infrastructure at the airport currently is actually decent. We're not at a point right now where it's falling apart. That being said, it's obviously irresponsible to look at it without the long-term infrastructure consequences that may come down.

L. Mayencourt: You're not looking at a ten-year deficit of maintenance on it.

K. Veldman: What we're looking at is going to be a deficit in terms of putting money away for an infrastructure investment account. That is what we're looking for. We just don't have the ability to build up the capital to deal with the type of projects that are going to come down the road, which puts us in a position of being completely dependent on other public sources — i.e., the federal government in particular and probably provincial to a lesser extent — in terms of being able to maintain that capital over the longer term.

I might look to my compatriot here, Mr. Martin, who's actually a director with the local airport authority.

G. Martin: The airport here is actually in good shape. We run it in the black. We don't have an airport user fee. We just spent $2 million repaving the main runway. That was through a federal program.

G. Martin: Yeah, ACAP. That is an annual program, so you're always at their mercy. There is some upgrading we have to do on aprons. We have a number of other programs going forward, which all airports have, because it's a constant maintenance kind of thing. The airport here is actually very well run.

K. Krueger: Actually, I have two, so I'll ask them at the same time. I'm really intrigued by this Omineca-Stewart road proposal and appreciative of the fact that you know we don't have any money. I'm wondering what, if any, opposition you're expecting to that proposal and whether there are opponents to it or if, in your view, the only impediment is cost.

The second thing I want to quickly have you comment on is: how could B.C. Ferries help with your economic situation? We were talking in our Port McNeill hearing about the possibility of a third ship and an expanded season. What ideas do you have about that?

K. Veldman: I'll begin with the Omineca-Stewart road. If you were to rank infrastructure projects in northern B.C., I would say this should be right at the top of the list. I don't think there's any other project being proposed right now that could have as drastic an impact as this one.

In terms of what we see as impediments, number one, simply because we're dealing with an undeveloped area, is the type of opposition that tends to come out anytime you're dealing with that. There obviously has to be a commitment on the part of the provincial government to facilitate the process and make sure it gets through.

The worst thing that could happen to this and our biggest issue, frankly, is going to be time. While Kemess is up and running, there's obviously a limited time life there. For every year that they're running out the other end, their cost savings are being reduced. While Kemess is running, this is when you want to get this project in.

If you get it wrapped up into some kind of consultative process that ends up taking two to three years and then you've got to build it out, the opportunity's going to be lost — hence, an open public commitment to saying: "Yeah, this is something we want to see happen." Obviously, there have to be the right precautions, environmentally and such, put into place. If it's proactively supported by the province, I think that would be a huge step in making sure the process doesn't drag.

B.C. Ferries, as I mentioned earlier, is a big part of our tourism industry. The current issue with B.C. Ferries is that during the summer, it's essentially a poor man's cruise of the Inside Passage. It is very booked up to the point where if you're trying to get on two months in advance with your vehicle, you probably won't.

It runs every other day. What ends up happening is that all the hotels and tourism-related type of businesses end up at 100 percent capacity one day and 40 to 50 percent capacity the next. Because it's an every-other-day thing, their ability to fill that 40 to 50 percent with any kind of a multi-day thing is extremely limited. Because you've got the wide variance between those two occupancies, you also can't justify expanding your capital, especially in the hotel industry.

What we need more than anything else is not a bigger ship on the days when it's still going. What we need is to get another ship coming in on the days that it's not, so you get a consistent service and consistent revenues coming through, and you can build a capital case for expanding your businesses along that line.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Ken, John, Gerry, I would like to thank you for taking time out of your day to come and present to our committee today.

C. Jennings: Good morning. I was told to use the black microphone. Hopefully, that's going to help with the fact that I don't have much of a voice. I'm going to take the liberty of largely reading from my presentation, if that's okay.

C. Jennings: First of all, what I'd like to do is thank the members of the select standing committee for the opportunity to address them. This is really an important issue that you're looking at, and I really appreciate the government's commitment to public consultation and to involving us in the decision-making process.

When you live in a small town like Terrace, you tend to wear a variety of hats. People not only know you; they know you in a variety of roles. One of the hats I wear, and I'll be honest right up front, is my employment hat. For the last seven years I have been an employee of the provincial government. I currently work for the Ministry of Skills Development and Labour, though to be honest, over the seven years that I've worked for the provincial government, I've worked for six different ministries.

That's not the hat I'm wearing this morning, and I'm hoping that the uniform makes that a little bit obvious. It's probably not the hat that people in Terrace know me best for, either, because one of the other hats I wear — and one that's very, very important to me — is that of a community volunteer. I'm one of the people who believes that you can choose the community you live in, and you choose that community by participating in it. The quality of life you have is directly dependent on the amount you've put into the community. That's why I'm a community volunteer.

I've lived in Terrace for 23 years now. In that time, I've coached a couple of softball teams and raised money for a variety of charities. I've been the chair of Terrace and District Community Services Society, and when it existed, I was president of the Terrace Association for the Mentally Handicapped. I was an active member of the Terrace Downtown Lions Club, and I'm currently secretary on the board of directors of Kermode Friendship Society.

For the last 17 years I've also been an adult volunteer for Scouts Canada. I've been a Cubs leader and a Venturer adviser. I've been a group committee chair and president of Terrace district council. I'm the immediate past president of northern region — a small region covering only the area from 70 Mile House to the Yukon border. As past president, I'm still an active member of the executive of northern region. I'm also the vice-president of operations for B.C.-Yukon provincial council.

I'm addressing you not only in my personal capacity in scouting but also on behalf of our many youth members. Scouting serves both male and female youth ranging in age from five years to 26 years. I obviously don't need to speak on behalf of our older youth. We have a great number of members of our Venturer and Rover sections who are more than capable of coming here and addressing you on their own. I am speaking on behalf of our Beavers, our Cubs, our Scouts — our junior members who someday will be inheriting this province from us.

Scouting, as you know, is about developing leaders and citizens. Our mission is to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potential as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities through the applications of our principles and practices.

Many of you will have personal knowledge of scouting. During the break earlier, Harry came over and introduced himself, saying he's still active. That was pretty obvious from the fact that he gave me the left handshake, which is a scouting tradition. You may have been youth members yourselves or leaders or adult helpers. You may have had children in the movement or siblings or spouses or other family members. You may have had close friends or neighbours who were involved in scouting.

Whenever we've dealt with our community leaders in Terrace, whether it's the Rotary Club or mayor and council or the chamber of commerce or the ministerial association locally or the labour council or the sports groups or non-profit organizations, we consistently find that a significant number of them have scouting in their background. They've become the responsible citizens and involved community members that our mission statement describes.

Scouting is the largest youth membership organization in Canada. Even in these times, when youth have so many activities to choose from, when we've developed what's known as a browsing culture and when our own membership numbers are declining, we're still the largest and most influential youth group. We're still helping to produce our future leaders.

What has this got to do with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services? Scouts, after all, are supposed to be resourceful and self-reliant. Their ideal is wilderness and survival and no-trace trekking, not feeding at the trough of government handouts. What has scouting got to do with government services? Surprisingly, quite a lot.

You probably know that one of the models and one of our guiding principles is "Be Prepared." Well, these days, what with risk management and duty of care, we have to be even better prepared. To do that, we rely heavily on government services and government workers. Just to go on a hike, for example, we need maps — reliable, accurate and up-to-date maps. We need to know about the road conditions, about the weather conditions, about any animal concerns or problems with the water and about emergency services, should we need them. All of that means we have to liaise with government agencies.

On a regular basis, scouting is dealing with conservation officers and the Ministry of Forests, with the health council and with Transportation, with the parks branch and the government agent's office. Our responsibility to the youth in our care also means that we deal with the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Ministry of Human Resources. Many of our meetings take place in facilities funded by the Ministry of Education, and because of our intersecting interests, a large number of our leaders and volunteers are government workers.

We're already noticing that fewer and fewer of those resources are available to us. Many school districts in the province have introduced user fees for gymnasiums as a direct result of funding cutbacks. As the person responsible for Scout properties in the province, I can tell you that several municipalities are also bringing in user fees and utility charges for our Scout halls. We use a lot of Forest Service recreation areas for our camps and activities, but the upkeep on these is

declining, and charges are being considered. We're worried that charges and cutbacks will affect many of the other services we need.

How are we going to pay for these charges and user fees? I probably don't need to tell you about the economy, particularly the economy in the northwest, and I probably don't have to tell you that our ability to do fundraising here has been greatly diminished. We're not able to sell as much popcorn, Christmas trees or sandbags as we used to, and people can't afford to be quite so generous with our apple days or Scout trees. We've participated in bingos and casinos, but as of December 1 that revenue source will disappear. We'll still have direct access under the Gaming Commission, but it looks as if direct access will become increasingly competitive, and if you believe the rumours, it also looks as if lottery funds may be at least partially diverted to general revenue.

Where is this leading? Well, if government services and workers continue to be cut, it will have a direct and profound impact on scouting. We will have fewer places to meet in. We will have fewer areas to hike and camp safely in. We will have less funding to work with, and ultimately, we will have fewer members we can accommodate.

As a select standing committee, that may not bother you. After all, the government is not responsible for scouting, but it's not scouting we're really talking about here. It's the youth that matter. It's our future citizens and leaders who won't have a place in scouting, and that should be a concern to you. Scouting exists because of partnerships, and one of the partnerships we've always had is with government. If that partnership disappears, scouting won't cease to exist, but it will become a lot less effective. It will become a lot less accessible to those youth who really need the scouting experience. Thank you again for the opportunity to bring these concerns to you.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thank you very much, Chris. I will look to members of the committee if there are any questions.

H. Bloy: I'd like to thank you very much for your presentation. Actually, I come from the smallest region of British Columbia, which is Burnaby. It will be amalgamating soon. I want to tell you that just about every concern you expressed is all over the province. It's not just unique to this region.

One of the things that has frustrated me considerably is the rental charges that are coming in or the cancellation of properties in which to hold meetings as the school districts change, as principals change. After groups have been there for 35 or 40 years, all of a sudden the Thursday night isn't available. It's gone. It's one of those things.

I wanted to reassure you. The gaming funds have caused a lot of problems for a lot of groups, but the bingos are not being cancelled. For sure, you'll be treated fairly now and with more respect, I've been assured by the Attorney General, and there will be no cut in those funds.

C. Jennings: Okay. It's also an issue with the other groups I'm involved with, such as Kermode. The understanding we had was that as of December 1, charitable bingos are being eliminated.

H. Bloy: It was a rumour that was passed around. Nothing will change. They went from five commissions to two. I've been guaranteed that you'll be treated with respect. There are other community groups that I've been involved with, and I've been one of the people that have been 15 minutes early, before the bingo started, and then had a letter written criticizing us for not being there on time. That won't happen anymore.

K. Krueger: Just a little bit more on the charitable gaming, because there have been some destructive rumours circulating. The Solicitor General made a decision to ensure that there was professional management of bingo and also a savings in government itself by eliminating, as Harry said, the five-commission approach and by having B.C. Lottery Corporation on the administrative side and the rest directly under his ministry.

His assurance to us is that not only will you continue to have access to your bingos, but you can use the same management groups if you wish. They have to sign a management agreement with the B.C. Lottery Corporation, which is a tremendously professional manager of gaming operations.

The idea is to make sure everything is done properly and that no money leaks out of the system and doesn't get to the charities it's supposed to be getting to. It is a more comprehensive and professional management structure, but it's certainly not going to remove your access to charitable gaming funds.

C. Jennings: Okay. Well, thank you. That is good news. It is indeed news, and you need to get that message out there.

K. Krueger: The Solicitor General has written to charities. He has responded to all the letters that have been flying around, but the people who start the rumours aren't as zealous about quashing them.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Chris, I would like to thank you for coming out, taking time out of your schedule and presenting to our committee today.

Our next presentation this morning comes from the BCGEU faculty representative, Mr. MacLean. Good morning.

I. MacLean: Good morning. My name is Ian MacLean. I'm the chair of the BCGEU instructors at North

As instructors, we serve a region that is geographically vast, climatically challenging and culturally diverse. There's a tremendous need for our services in this region, and there are many challenges involved. This area has very low high school completion rates — actually, the lowest completion rates in the province. The resource sector jobs that were once the mainstay of this region are now rare. People come to the college for retraining. Many of our students are older people who maybe quit school in grade 10, when they got a job on a fishboat or in the forest sector, and now they're coming back. Many of those jobs have dried up.

Mechanization and the use of computers have changed the labour market. At this time the need for a good education is more important than ever. You can't get by on those old resource sector jobs. You have to be well trained. More people are needed in the trades in this area. There's a shortage of nursing and other medical services. A teacher shortage is looming in the near future. The current economic downturn has hit this region especially hard, and I think everybody knows that. You're probably hearing that again and again as people come up to speak.

People need the college and its programs to attain levels of functional literacy and numeracy. A lot of people in this area don't have those skills and need those skills. People need the college to access career transition programs as they move from one job to another. People need the college to complete high school. A lot of people coming back need to get that.

People obviously need the college to get new job training, to take on a new direction in their life. People also need the college to at least get a start on their university education in this area without having to go a long way. Maybe right after a student is out of school, it's nice to be able to start their university career in this area.

As such, the college has an absolutely vital role in our communities. It needs stable funding in order to remain dynamic and to continue to evolve and meet the changing needs which we're faced with. With the decline in the fishing industry, the uncertain future of Skeena Cellulose, American softwood tariffs, an underutilized transportation infrastructure and depressed world markets, we need the college more than ever for the services it is providing.

It's critical that we look at educational funding not just as an expense we can look at chipping away at, but as a necessary investment — something that is going to pay back — in the future. Failure to make those investments in the college and in other educational programs is going to cost far more in the long run.

It must also be realized, however, that although our region is mired in difficult economic times, we shouldn't lose sight of the tremendous potential this area has: areas in forestry, mining, oil and gas, aquaculture, transportation, tourism, manufacturing, merchandising, and so on. This area has recently been hit hard, and things are down right now, but there's tremendous potential here as well. I think we should be looking toward ways we can exploit that potential. Adequate funding for Northwest Community College will ensure that when the economy does turn around, we'll have job-ready workers and an institution that can further respond to industry needs. From an ethical point of view, I think it would be wrong to abandon displaced workers in a time of need. You have to have some kind of programs there to help these people.

I'd like to commend the new government on fast-tracking the proposed licensed practical nursing program at the college. That's meeting a real need, and I think it'll have a real positive impact on the community.

On a negative side, however, we are very disappointed with the decision to put the new Prince Rupert campus building on hold. It's desperately needed. I don't think it's a decision that stands up financially. There are large costs in staying in the old building. I've worked in the old building. If you're going to Prince Rupert, I encourage you to walk around the annex when you get there. It's falling apart. It's not accessible for handicapped students. We currently pay large lease fees in order to rent these facilities. In addition, there's the cost of dealing with the giant hole that's left in the middle of Prince Rupert. In a community as hard hit as Prince Rupert, I think this is especially hard. It's sort of the last straw. I would urge you to reconsider the Prince Rupert campus building.

As instructors, we ask for your support in meeting the many needs and challenges of our region. Education and job training aren't frills. They're vital to the economic well-being of this region.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Ian, I would like to thank you for coming and making your presentation. It's interesting that you bring up the Prince Rupert issue. We're off to Prince Rupert following this, and this afternoon at 4 we do have a tour scheduled for the members to go have a look.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): I will look to the members of our committee if there are any questions of Ian.

I. MacLean: Yes, we operate year-round. Our programs in the summer are scaled down, obviously.

L. Mayencourt: May I ask one more? You mentioned that the LPN program has been a very positive thing for your college. We've heard that in other areas as well, yet we're also hearing about the skills shortage

on the trades side. Are there other programs that we should recommend to the Advanced Education ministry?

I. MacLean: I would say that trades is one area. We could definitely use a lot more tradespeople. There's a shortfall of tradespeople. What we call career and college prep here — adult basic education — is very important. We need that to feed into all the other programs. I see that as being absolutely vital. I think we can look at creating a lot of new programs at the college.

B. Penner: I'd just like to say that I feel your pain when you're talking about the suspension of the college project at Prince Rupert. The largest dollar project in terms of advanced education that was suspended for colleges was in Chilliwack. It was a project to replace what we were told, back in 1975, were temporary facilities. When I was a college student, I attended in those makeshift buildings, and those will continue to be the heart of the University College of the Fraser Valley in Chilliwack, so I certainly feel your disappointment.

There are many other communities across the province that saw "suspension" of capital projects. That's not to take away or diminish the concern from you. I have also toured the facilities of your existing college there in Prince Rupert, and I can agree with you that they need replacement.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Ian, I see no further questions from members of the committee. Once again, I would like to thank you for coming and making a presentation.

We will move on to our next presenter this morning, who is with the Academic Workers Union, Patti Barnes. Good morning.

P. Barnes: Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate in this prebudget consultative process.

My name is Patty Barnes. I am here representing two groups: the academic faculty and the college librarians. I am also speaking as a northerner who has lived here since 1978 and raised a family here. I'm the president of the Academic Workers Union, representing approximately 55 faculty throughout the college region teaching first- and second-year university arts and science courses, the faculty and social service worker program, the early childhood education program and all the librarians and counsellors across the college region.

Our union's first objective in our constitution is to promote the cause of community education at Northwest Community College and in B.C. That's why I'm here to speak about the role that our college and faculty play in the economic and social development of our communities and the unique challenges we face in providing accessible and affordable education in the north.

I'm also here in my role as college librarian, a position I have held since 1988. Librarians and libraries have responsibility for the development and maintenance of intellectual freedom, for promoting literacy, for providing access to all expressions of knowledge and intellectual activity and for making available all the library's facilities and services to all individuals and groups who need them.

We are a community college library and, as such, work closely with each community we're in. We do not duplicate the various public or school library services but instead work closely with them in providing a continuum of library services across the north.

The focus of my presentation is on the need to grow our own workforce. We grow a lot of trees and mushrooms up here, but we need to concentrate on growing our own workforce. Why? Retention and recruitment. You know the stats. The baby-boomers are retiring, and over the next ten to 15 years all professions and trades are going to face drastic personnel shortages.

Even now it is increasingly hard to fill faculty or administrative vacancies at the college. We are on the third reposting for two key management positions. I have finally filled a librarian's position after the second posting. The position has been vacant twice in the past year. I lost another librarian in Rupert after only eight months. The public library here has been looking for a children's librarian for over six months and has just reposted that position again.

In the sciences and computer fields, faculty are extremely hard to find. Part-time faculty to teach one or two courses in the smaller communities are nonexistent. Last year our academic head had to teach a course in Kitimat and a course in Hazelton each week as well as carry his regular workload in Terrace, because there just wasn't anyone else we could find to teach those courses. Transition programs in Stewart and the Nass were delayed months because we couldn't find any instructors that would relocate up there, yet the students were waiting for the same amount of time.

We need to educate our own. We've had successful examples of that here. SFU runs a teacher training program, and those students are from the north. They go through the program and then remain up here. They have all gotten jobs in schools. UVic runs a band social work program, where they take the first two years at the college and then go into their social work program. All those people have also gone back to their villages and bands and are working. Now UNBC is running a social work program of the same ilk.

The people of the north need to be the ones making the decisions about the future of the north and their lives in it. They need to make educated decisions, though, and to do that, they need access to that education. A well-educated population is less likely to require government income assistance, less likely to be a burden on the health system and more likely to participate in voluntary public service.

Ian has already mentioned some of the challenges we face, so I'll quickly go over them. We have large geographical distances. We cover over 80,000 square kilometres. The unpredictability of the climate makes travelling between campuses and communities a daily

challenge. The small populations are scattered among numerous diverse and closely knit communities. We have seven first nations up here that cover 24 first nations communities. Some are still only accessible by boat or plane.

We have a very low grade 12 completion rate. Over 42 percent of the region's residents have not graduated from high school, and that's compared to the provincial average of 34 percent. Fifty-five percent of the region's residents have no post-secondary education. That's compared to 48 percent provincially. They have no idea of what a post-secondary education can be to them, so they don't have that experience of wanting to go outside the region to attain it. We need to have it here, available for them.

From the B.C. Stats report, under the percentage of population by age receiving benefits — that's B.C. and employment insurance — the Skeena–Queen Charlotte region has more than double the provincial average in all age categories. Of course, our economic hard times in the forest industry and in the fisheries and mining have workers turning more and more to the college for upgrading and retraining. This is where the college has an important role to play in northern economic development, by providing education for its residents both now and in the future.

How does the college address these challenges? We've just completed an educational plan that outlines in detail the core services we want to provide in each community — that's library services and student support services — and a core program, which is the academic upgrading to prepare for career programs in order to address the very low rates of secondary school completion. The plan also speaks to the program priorities in each community that particularly suit the needs and opportunities in those communities. Proposed for the future, as well, are rotating programs, niche programs in a community and community opportunity funds, which would address the challenge of small isolated communities and the need for just-in-time programming rather than just-in-case.

The plan was put together after a year of extensive consultation with internal college staff, faculty and students and with external communities through public meetings and forums. This plan will provide northern residents with a plan that they, in turn, can use to plan their future. They will now know what to expect in each of their communities — what programs and services will be offered and which ones will be there on a rotational basis. Stability and security — that's what they need in order to stick around in the north.

We've also recognized the need to combine academic long-term options with immediate job skills and training, and we've integrated many of our programs. Giving students the option of taking a program consisting of technical and university courses gives them the option of going straight to work after their certificate or diploma year or continuing on in an undergraduate program.

The flexibility of integrated programming is the wave of the future, and the college and faculty are working closely together to integrate more and more of the programs. Right now a student could take a social-service worker diploma and go on to UVic's or UNBC's school of social work, or they could be hired as a financial assistance worker with the ministry. A student could take a natural resources diploma and transfer to any university in B.C. or Alberta or be hired immediately as a forestry technician.

We're modularizing courses, putting them on line and over the phone, experimenting with different course delivery methods, all with the goal of giving residents in the north as many opportunities as possible to educate themselves where they live and work.

The largest challenge of all is how to convince over half a population — 55 percent — who have no history of post-secondary education and who have often come through a bad experience with K-to-12 that education is their right and that they need to exercise and demand that right and the right to access it wherever they live.

What strategies have we used to do this? We have offered focused transition programs for specific subjects. We did one for the natural resource program and another for the nursing program when it was here. They have been very successful in getting students back into school and started on their career paths.

College and career prep programs are moving away from self-paced, individual offerings and into instructor-led classes. These have also resulted in much higher success rates for the students. We have a broad range of student support services. We have educational advising, planning and assessments. We have first nations student-access coordinators in each community. We have disability support services, student success services, financial aid and counselling. The college has partnered with community-based literacy projects, high school classes and public and school libraries on a number of different projects. We've done many more things.

To reiterate what Ian said, we need to look on education as an investment, not as an expense. We need to plan and budget for the long term through multi-year funding. We need to recognize the geographical realities of the north and support our extensive system of multi-campus operations. We need continued support for our core service areas, the library services and student support services. We need to maintain and extend the tuition freeze in order to keep our post-secondary education accessible. We firmly believe that an increase in tuition fees up north would lead to a direct decrease in enrolment. We need your continued support, both financially and politically, in providing affordable and accessible public post-secondary education opportunities to the people of the north where they live and work. I thank you again for the opportunity to speak.

H. Bloy: Good morning, and thank you for your presentation. Do you represent the same people as Ian?

P. Barnes: We both represent college faculty. His programs are the college and career prep that he spoke about, the trades programs. What else? We're sort of split half and half. He represents half the faculty.

H. Bloy: I believe in higher education, but I also believe in the trades. Some of the smartest people I've met have been on construction sites. They have a real commonsense relationship to it.

H. Bloy: One of the things in the space and capital budgets being cancelled is to do some of the courses by distance learning. I don't believe in 100 percent distance learning, because there's the atmosphere of being around a university, but I believe a percentage of all the courses now each semester should be done by distance learning.

P. Barnes: We're one of the first, the leaders in what's called e-business — the e-merge business administration on line. We have a number of classes running in Hazelton, Houston and Smithers that are taking our whole business course on line. This year they're working on putting first-year arts on line. We're also a part of that.

The library is one of the best examples of using on-line communication. That's because of the electronic library network. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's through the Open Learning Agency. Our students and all community members have access to thousands of resources that they would never have had access to before, because they're available over the Internet. As long as you have a connection to the Internet, you can get a full-text article from thousands of different journals in all disciplines.

Our latest initiative this year was to have what's called netLibrary. We've purchased over 600 books on line. You can download the actual electronic version of a business book and read it, if that's what you like to do. Especially for people in the communities like Stewart or Kincolith or Greenville, up the Nass, who would have absolutely no hope of getting a library up there, it's opened up these library services.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): I see no further questions from members of our committee. Patti, I would like to thank you for coming and presenting to our committee this morning.

I will call our next presenter this morning, Russ Seltenrich. Good morning, Russ.

R. Seltenrich: Good morning. Welcome to Terrace. We had hoped to have some sunshine for you, but alas, that is not to be.

I would like to introduce myself by first saying that I've been a resident of Terrace since 1980 and that I have filled several positions both as a provincial government employee and in the private sector. I've been involved in public life throughout my life here in Terrace. I've run unsuccessfully for the school board. I served on the Terrace Hospice Society as treasurer and vice-chair. I served the Skeena Valley Fair Association as president and vice-president, and I'm presently serving on the Terrace and area community health council. I work for the North West Community Health Services Society, which is not provincial government employment, but I do work for a society funded through the provincial government.

My job is different than those of most health care professionals in that it involves the enforcement of regulations. The regulations that are made pursuant to the Health Act are designed to protect members of society so that they have safe water and a safe food supply, and so they're not exposed to harmful chemicals or bacteria through the unsanitary disposal of human wastes. We also protect the recreational waters that our children play in. We have very few warm-water lakes in this area, and we need to protect those.

What it's important to realize is that the regulations I work with are like a set of tools to a mechanic or a carpenter. The tools that I use are designed to allow people to live in their communities safely. They provide a safety net for the individuals of society to live, interact and conduct business without endangering the structure of that society.

With prevention, how do we know that we're doing a good job? Well, it's pretty simple: nothing happens. When outbreaks of disease occur in the community or when people are affected by food poisoning, things have gone wrong. Even now I believe that people do not deliberately set out to poison others or cause them to become ill. No public health program is designed to prevent the events of September 11. That's a police or military problem.

What a public health program is designed to do is ensure that measures that have prevented disease in the past are implemented and to find out what has not worked when problems occur. The factors that influence the health status of a population are described in Dr. John Miller's determinants of health. Just briefly, the ones we need to talk about now are the demographics of our area. When we look at our area, we have approximately 83,000 to 85,000 people living in this area. About 21 percent are aboriginal in origin, and the percentage of people aged less than 15 years — this was back in '91 — was 26 percent.

That has a bearing on the needs of this area. Take the education level. We just heard that we have the lowest high school completion rate in the province. That's borne out by the graph in the presentation. The number of youth that are presently in school in British

The geography of the area also has some major constraints on the ability of a population to make adjustments to help themselves. For example, we live in an area that's approximately 250,000 square kilometres. It has the lowest population density in the province, and 40 percent of the communities in our area are located on the Highway 16 or Highway 37 corridors.

The remainder of the communities, with about 30 percent of our population, are located on unpaved roads or have no road access at all. To give you an example of the types of distances involved, for us to deliver services from Terrace to the northern parts of our area involves travelling over gravel roads the same distance you would drive from Vancouver to San Francisco, and it's not I-5 that we're driving on. That has an impact on the ability of the population living in those areas to access health care and for us to provide preventive services.

The wealth of the population also impacts the ability of the population to minimize the health risks that they have. We have the lowest income rates in the province, and within our area, we have probably the highest disparity between the wealthiest and those that do not have the income to support themselves. That has a real impact on the ability of some people to do simple things like provide a septic tank with a tile field to dispose of their sewage. Some folks can't afford that. They may be working, but they can't support the basic necessities of life, whereas it's not a problem to those of us who live in wealthier parts of this area.

If we have Skeena Cellulose shutting down, those areas totally dependent upon the forest industry for their incomes will be simply devastated. It happened before, four years ago, when they defaulted on payout of contracts. There were a lot of people that lost their lives, because they had to leave. They lost their homes. It destroyed lives. We can't allow that to happen again.

The Premier has stated that the health sector will not be affected by cuts to government services, but in performing my job, I work with several government ministries. Yesterday I was consulting with staff from the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services about grant money for infrastructure improvements to one of the communities in the northwest.

Cuts in this ministry would impact the ability of local government to provide services like safe community water and sanitary disposal of human wastes. Cuts to the Ministry of Forests would impact the ability of the ministry to provide protection to community watersheds. Cuts to the Ministry of Transportation would impact the timely development of subdivision and other developments.

Cuts to the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General would impact the ability to enforce legislation when it's necessary to do so. Staff in the Crown Counsel's offices have already been laid off. Cuts made to the Attorney General and the minister responsible for treaty negotiations will impact the ability of local government to respond to disasters and plan for emergencies.

Cuts made to government services will impact the services to people. Cuts made to government ministries will impact the ability of the health sector to react and respond to the hazards that exist in our everyday life, hazards that do not disappear in times of economic downturn. Thank you for listening.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thank you, Russ. I will look to members of our committee to see if there are any questions at this time.

Russ, you made an interesting statement. It's a little off-topic, I guess, but you talked about the rural road infrastructure system. I serve the northeast of the province. You talk about travelling on the gravel roads. I guess there's just one positive note for you. At least you have gravel. We're fighting to get some gravel laid on the roads over the mud. It is a challenge. The infrastructure that drives the economy of this province has not been maintained that well over the last number of years, and it's going to take some effort from all of us to get that back in place.

Possibly one question following through on the issue. We're certainly facing some financial challenges in British Columbia. That's a fair statement. I note in your presentation that you say cuts — cutting different ministries — will affect virtually everything we do. I think it's safe to say that we're going to have to streamline.

We've lived beyond our means. We spend billions of dollars a year more than we take in. Certainly, you can't run a small business or your household that way, and I don't think we can run government that way. To think that we can go through this with no pain for anybody is unrealistic. We have to share the pain together. It is going to take some work to get back.

R. Seltenrich: I don't agree that we should be cutting those things that provide safety to our population. One of the primary tenets in my professional life has always been preventing disease or preventing injuries. Things that impact on my ability to try and prevent disease need to be addressed. If you're suggesting that we should have a lower standard of safety as part of the pain, I disagree with you.

R. Seltenrich: If we need to look at not doing things that won't impact safety or health, then we have to be very careful about what things we are going to be giving up and be very clear about those things that we do give up. We can't be expected to remove the responsibility for legislative enforcement with fewer people to do that, to take away the jobs that we need to do or the task that needs to be done. There are a number of things I'd be interested in making suggestions about perhaps at a future date, where we could come up with

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Russ, I certainly would encourage you, if you get the opportunity, to put some thought into this and put it down on paper for us. We have till the end of this month to receive written submissions for this committee. There's also the waste-buster website, where ideas can be submitted, if we can streamline some of the regulations. There is a large amount of overlap in many cases. I think trying to get some of that cleaned up comes from ideas from people in British Columbia. Certainly, we'd appreciate that. Thanks very much.

I will now call on our next presenter this morning, Simon Dadds. Good morning, Simon.

S. Dadds: Hi, my name is Simon Dadds. I live in Thornhill, and I'm a B.C. government employee. I want to talk about how the cuts will affect child protection in Terrace.

As I'm a civil servant, I'm limited in what I can say within a public forum. I can't discuss with you my thoughts on how these cuts will impact specific children from Terrace. I can't talk about how the cuts will impact current wait-lists for services or how the changes will affect my staff and our ability to competently do our jobs. As it is public knowledge, I can say that we have had a huge problem in retaining child protection staff in the northwest. Laying off staff and cutting back services will further aggravate this problem.

I left a job in northern Ontario when Mike Harris, the soon-to-be ex-Premier of Ontario, started his cutbacks. I had enough seniority that my job would not get cut. I decided I did not want to stick around and watch my office's morale get flushed down the toilet, as newer staff, who had just spent six months in training, got laid off when positions and services were cut. I took my earning power, all my training and my extensive education, paid for courtesy of the Ontario government, and brought it to B.C. You got a fully trained, experienced child protection worker courtesy of Mike and his social agenda, with little cost to the B.C. taxpayer.

I have lived in Terrace for the last two years. Prior to that, I lived in Hazelton and, before that, Prince Rupert. Before moving to B.C., I worked as a child protection worker in a small pulp mill town in northern Ontario. All these northern rural communities I've lived in have a few things in common. They have limited economic diversification. They have one or two primary resource-based industries.

The economic diversification they have softens the boom-bust cycles of resource-based economies. The economic diversification comes from a variety of public service sector jobs and small businesses. These three areas — public services, small businesses and resource industries — are all interdependent. Eliminating jobs in the public service has a greater impact in rural communities than in larger city centres, because we don't have a high degree of diversification in our economies.

I'm a supervisor of a team of child protection social workers in Terrace. My wife is a doctor and runs her own medical clinic. She asked me to ask you today to let us know what you plan on doing by spring. If I'm going to be out of a job, we have a $65,000 extension to our mortgage from a local credit union that we've just negotiated and set aside for renovations by a local contractor, which we will need to cancel. As well, we'll need to dump our house and the ten acres attached to it. My wife will need to close her medical clinic, lay off her staff, and we will move south or out of province. Both my wife's job and my own are in high demand throughout Canada. We can work anywhere we want to. If you destroy the public service here, we will join the caravan of people leaving the north.

When you talk about reducing public services, you're talking about reducing jobs. Small communities deal with unemployment differently than urban centres. You lay off people here, and they will leave and take their earning power with them. They'll walk away from their mortgages. Their spouses will leave their jobs. If we have children, we'll pull them out of their schools. This will then reduce the overall enrolment, which precipitates more layoffs within the school system.

Your businesses lose the local dollars spent by people like me. Your municipalities lose their tax base, and your schools lose their funding as citizens pack up and head for places like Alberta. You should hear more about this in Rupert tonight. Skeena Cellulose has given them a warmup for what is coming down the pipe when you start slashing public services.

Do you have any idea how many people and dollars you're talking about here? BCGEU, my union, advises me that direct government employee cuts at 35 percent in the north will result in a loss of income of over $29 million to families in the north. If you cut at 50 percent, you will take more than $42 million out of the north. The actual financial impact will be considerably higher, because these figures do not include spouses' lost incomes when families move.

In closing, your government's planned reduction in funding for child protection services will increase the risk levels for children. You get the standard of child protection services you pay for. This means that we will see children being hurt, abused or neglected as a direct result of inadequate services.

I hope you all have broad shoulders. You're going to have a lot of weight to carry. The Walkerton crisis brought Mike Harris down. I hope that whatever tragedy your government seems determined to face, it does not come off the child protection caseload. That's my presentation.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thanks, Simon. I will look to members of the committee to see if there are any questions.

L. Mayencourt: Just a comment. I don't know if your union can accurately tell you what we're going to be doing, because we haven't made any decisions on

that yet. The Premier has asked the various ministries to come up with different scenarios for how they can bring down their overall costs.

One example of a program that we cut was something called the B.C. bond program. It employed a few people in Victoria but cost us something in the neighbourhood of $200 million over a four-year period. It really would have been cheaper for us to go down to the Royal Bank or Bank of Montreal to borrow the money. It was basically a public relations exercise that cost you and all of us a lot of money.

You know, I look at your programs, as do all of the members of this committee, and those are very important programs. We're trying to find ways to do it better. If you have some ideas about that, we'd love to hear them, as we would love to hear them from your leadership at your union. I just wanted to say that.

B. Penner: Thanks for your presentation, Simon. A few years ago a young woman moved to Chilliwack, and she was recruited by the provincial government child protection services out of Toronto. She had a master's degree in child protection for social work. Within six months, she got disgusted working under the previous government and accepted a position to work in the United States. You're right. She was very skilled and could essentially write her own ticket to go and work elsewhere. I recognize the skill level and the competence and the competition in order to keep people like that. It is a key role.

I did notice you made reference to a concern that your wife has about $65,000 in extra debt that you took on. You're aware of the necessity of having to be able to finance or service your debt. In British Columbia we've more than doubled our provincial debt just in the last ten years. If the current trend continues, we'll double it again in five years. We're going up an exponential curve here unless we do some rethinking about how we're operating government.

Our choices are going to be difficult ones. We're going to try and make sure that whatever changes happen hurt people as little as possible. In the long run, we have to get our finances stable so that we don't keep digging the hole deeper and spending more money on interest costs than we do, for example, on post-secondary education. That's the situation today. We spend more money just paying interest — at $3 billion a year — than we do on advanced education in the province.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): We do have one more question, Simon. If you have a moment, I'll go to Kevin.

K. Krueger: Thank you for your presentation. Without being at all patronizing, you're a bright guy. You obviously know what's up and what's what in your own family finances and in your operations, and so does your wife. You are exactly the type of family that we hope stays in British Columbia and comes to British Columbia to help us build the economy and deal with an aging population and the pressures we face.

Obviously, it's crystal-clear to you and your wife and to your household what you would do if you were stuck in a situation where your expenses exceeded your revenues. You've already mapped out very clearly what you would do. We inherited a situation, and it's no news or secret that we're running a huge deficit, given the commitments made by the government that we succeeded. In ten years we went from being the best-performing economy in Canada to the worst, and we languished there a long time. Now we've got to turn that around.

Frankly, it's unfortunate to hear of someone with your ability and at your level playing into the rumours that are frightening people in this province. We don't want civil servants to be frightened. We value a professional, non-partisan civil service, and we know we need the people we have. We're looking for ways to provide the services British Columbians need that we should be providing, while facing up to our obligation to stop going in the hole.

Just as you and your wife aren't going to take on a $65,000 debt without the ability to service it, we can't go on living beyond government's means either. Besides, we have to service a debt that, as Barry said, someone else ran up — to the tune of $3 billion a year in interest right now, even with the interest rates as low as they are. As you know, every nickel of that attacks the future and the future of your children — if they stay in British Columbia, as I hope they will.

You mapped out a pretty gloomy scenario for us. I'd like to encourage you and your wife to apply that intellectual power to the questions at the beginning of our paper and tell us, in a written brief before our deadline, what you would recommend with regard to dealing with the situation we find ourselves in.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Simon, I think that concludes the questions. I would like to thank you for coming and making your presentation to our committee today.

Our next presentation this morning comes from the Canadian Federation of Students, Karen McAthy and Dan Buck. Good morning.

D. Buck: Good morning. My name is Dan Buck, and I'm the chairperson of the Northwest Community College Student Association. I'm joined by my fellow student, Karen McAthy, who is our external affairs coordinator.

Our organization represents the Northwest Community College students at six main campuses located in Prince Rupert, Terrace, Kitimat, Hazelton, Houston and Smithers, as well as various smaller satellite campuses. We welcome this opportunity to address the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

We believe in the fundamental importance of a post-secondary education system that is of high quality, comprehensive and accessible to all persons. While these may be challenging economic times that we are

enduring, the value of investing in our post-secondary education system shouldn't be underestimated. Human Resources Development Canada projects that 73 percent of the job postings in B.C. between 1998 and 2008 will require post-secondary education, especially in regard to the emerging high-tech sectors in British Columbia.

As our preceding speaker, Patti Barnes — who is also from Northwest Community College — stated, just to go over it a wee bit, the demographic, educational and cultural makeup of northwest communities and residents presents unique challenges. Forty-two percent of the region's population hasn't graduated from high school, compared to 34 percent at the provincial average. The traditional resource-based economy of the northwest has resulted in 55 percent of our region's residents being without post-secondary education.

The northwest region has experienced a significant economic downturn, resulting in stagnating family income levels due to declining resource sector employment. These workers, intending to remain contributing members of their municipalities, are turning to our college for upgrading and retraining. As a result, literacy and adult basic education programs are critical to our communities.

The decline in resource-sector employment in the northwest has far-reaching ramifications. It means a growing number of residents will no longer have the means to support a post-secondary education or training. For these residents and their families, the tuition fee freeze and the reduction, along with the comprehensive system, of student financial assistance, will continue to be critical in post-secondary participation throughout our region.

The Northwest Community College has an important role to play in northern economic renewal. To this end, our communities, in conjunction with the college, endeavour to realize a flexible infrastructure of educational support for residents now and in the future. The northwestern communities depend on their students and have come to realize that the northwest must grow their own workforce to create a stable pool of workers who are committed to the north and understand its strengths and complexities.

Flexible multi-year funding is strongly encouraged in order to support the college's planning and responsiveness to our region's residents. The part-time FTE funding has been instrumental in assisting the college to address emerging educational needs and goals within our communities. For example, providing untargeted program funding to the college serves as an excellent funding model for other program areas in the college.

By providing the college with health education funding as opposed to specific health programs — for example, home support — the resulting science classes would then be accessible to all students. This would increase the participation and benefit everyone. This would also make an allowance for the college to direct funds to programs and demands as they arise and avert saturation in the job market with particular program graduates.

To conclude, I would like to emphasize the importance of maintaining and indeed investigating further reductions in tuition fees and increased public funding of our public institutions on a multi-year basis. High-quality, accessible post-secondary education should not be a privilege of those who can afford it, but a right for all citizens. Education is an investment, not an expense, and we would like to urge the members of the committee to consider this carefully.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Dan, Karen, thank you for your presentation this morning. I will look to members of our committee if there are any questions.

H. Bloy: Good morning. Thank you for your presentation. Higher education is important, along with the trades, but you've heard from the other members about the dire straits that the government is in. Can you make suggestions on how we can reduce our costs in education so the tuition won't be increased? I've heard no talk about it.

K. McAthy: We obviously haven't done a lot of research — because we're not publicly elected officials — on how we could reduce the direct costs to education in that way. We know up here that if there isn't some method of funding the education — that tax base would have been increasingly important to fund that college here — we're going to suffer enrolment losses.

K. McAthy: The average tuition up here is about $1,500 a year. The reason we've been able to have increasing enrolment, particularly in Prince Rupert, is because tuition is low and because the ABE programs don't have tuition on them. If that changes, we will lose enrolment, and we won't be able to continue to provide the important educational resources that our communities need. That includes the trades.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): Thank you for an excellent presentation. I notice you're with the Canadian Federation of Students. I'm not sure of the organization, and they've made other presentations. Are you one organization, or are you delegates?

K. McAthy: Our students association is a member of the Canadian Federation of Students.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): It is a member, so you're not the Canadian Federation of Students?

K. McAthy: Well, yeah, as a member of the Northwest Community College Students Association and a member of the Canadian Federation of Students. We are members of both.

D. Buck: It's a national organization, a student union, of which we are a member local, more or less like the infrastructure of a union.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): Do you share the same opinions as the other individuals from the Canadian Federation of Students who are making presentations?

D. Buck: I can't speak in respect of what other people have been saying, but I would imagine.

K. McAthy: We believe in an accessible post-secondary education for all, and it was a democratic vote by which our members joined the organization.

D. Buck: We do have our annual general meetings and executive meetings, provincially, each month, so there is a bit of communication going back and forth between the locals — so yes.

L. Mayencourt: When Ms. Barnes was speaking, she spoke a little bit about a core services review process that sort of went through the community. Did the federation participate in that?

K. McAthy: Yes, our college president has been very inclusive of having us involved at all levels.

L. Mayencourt: I see that Ms. Barnes is still in the room, and I didn't ask her to do this, but I will do that through you and through the Chair. If you could provide this committee with that core services review which, in my understanding, is a plan for how you would achieve….

L. Mayencourt: If you could get a copy of that to our committee, that would be greatly appreciated. We can also share that with the Advanced Education minister.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): I see no further questions. Karen, Dan, I would like to thank you for making your presentation to our committee today.

I'm here this morning to talk about child care, which seems particularly appropriate right at this moment, since we've heard from previous presenters about health, child protection, training and the need to replenish our workforce here in the north.

I'm speaking to you as a parent who has used a variety of child care arrangements for my own children until they were 12 and who anticipates having children who have to use child care for their children while they are working and studying. I'm also an early childhood educator who has spent 30 years in the field working with parents and children and families and the care providers who provide care for them.

I'm a human service worker who has seen firsthand the devastation that lack-of-quality early childhood experiences can cause. I'm a bachelor of social work student at UNBC — the program that Patti mentioned — and I'm really hoping to make a difference in the lives of children and families who are suffering.

Mostly I'm here as an employee of the Family Place, which is one-stop access to child care here in Terrace. We're a community agency that partners with government and community organizations to provide a range of services for parents around child care: information about who's providing care in the community, resources, access to child care subsidy programs — a lot of resources around parenting but most specifically the child care aspect of parenting.

Hundreds of parents come through our doors every year. They've all got unique child care needs, and we're in regular contact with all the people who provide licensed child care in Terrace and the surrounding communities. The recommendations I'm bringing to you today are a sort of blend of what they've told us and our reflections on the needs we see in our community. Parents in Terrace and all over the community need a range of affordable, quality child care options. Without that, they can't engage in the work or the study that we've heard other people speak about today, which is going to be so necessary for the recovery not just of our community but of the growth of the province.

We support the government's recommendations to develop a sustainable child care system for British Columbians. We do urge that it be done without imposing further hardships on people who are already struggling financially. Most parents who have to make arrangements for alternate care, for non-parental care, for children under 12 already fall into this category of people who are financially struggling. The cost of child care in those years when your children are under 12 is very high. As somebody else here said today, you get what you pay for. If you want good care, you have to pay good dollars for it.

We understood that you were looking for suggestions for prioritizing spending, so I brought some here today. The first is that the government maintain existing programs such as the compensation contribution program, which really helps to stabilize the child care workforce. You may or may not know that child care workers are among the lowest paid in the country. They generally receive less of an hourly wage than parking lot attendants, despite the fact that they're required to have significantly more training. This compensation contribution program helps to stabilize wages and therefore stabilize the workforce.

Programs like the child care resource and referral programs directly improve parents' access to quality child care. Most especially, the child care subsidy program directly impacts parents' ability to purchase child care. All of these programs significantly affect

the stability of the child care system. We seriously hope that you won't consider cutting any one of them, because all together they really do impact on the child care system.

Our second recommendation and hope is that this government will honour the commitment made by the previous government for the use of the federal dollars received under the intergovernmental early childhood development agreement. This commitment allocated about two-thirds of those dollars, which was around $26 million of that fund, to child care and about one-third, or $13 million, to other family supports and specialized services.

The amount of these dollars is going to be increasing in 2002 and in the north, where as other people have mentioned, the loss of traditional high-paying jobs in the logging industry is sending more and more mothers with young children into the workforce at an earlier age to support their families. These dollars could be used to provide the child care services that are so fundamental not just to enable parents to work but also for healthy child development and economic viability in the north. That was No. 2.

As No. 3, we're suggesting that the government reallocate the funds that are currently going into the unregulated child care system to support sustainable, regulated child care services as an efficient and fiscally accountable way to invest in both our social and our economic futures. There are thousands of taxpayer dollars paying for care that is totally unregulated in this community and across the province, because parents cannot afford to pay for licensed care even if they're eligible for a child care subsidy.

This past month a couple of parents who are making the transition from income assistance to the workforce told us that they literally cannot afford to work and pay for licensed child care for their children. This is representative of the stories we hear. Even though both of these mothers qualified for the maximum child care subsidy, each of them got bills of over $300 for child care in the past month.

These women are working minimum-wage jobs, and their income does not support that kind of bill for child care. For these parents and for most parents, any financial gain that they might realize through the government's proposed income cuts will be more than absorbed in one month's cost of child care. They won't have those dollars to spend in the economy. They'll have it to spend on one month of child care.

We understand that every income assistance recipient in the province has received direction to get training or get work. Many of these are parents, and they're going to need child care. If the government doesn't ensure that there's an adequate supply of affordable child care for parents who must work, the costs to society are going to increase. They're not going to decrease. The evidence is there. If children don't have good, positive early childhood education experiences, they're going to cost society later.

We want to know how your government will ensure that parents who follow this directive — to get off income assistance and get into the workforce — are going to have access to quality child care arrangements and the ability to pay for it. The numbers just don't add up.

We know that licensed child care relates directly to the quality of care that children receive, just as we know that the quality of care directly enhances their social and economic productivity when they get older. How is the government going to put those pieces together to ensure that children in this province and in our community are getting what they need?

The last one, No. 4, is that the government build on what works for families and children today rather than sacrificing successful programs to achieve a balanced budget immediately. I don't deny that it's important to have a balanced budget, but if you have things that are working, it doesn't make sense to sacrifice them for the long-term gain and sacrifice the short term.

Minister Stephens has heard repeatedly all over the north — she shared with us last Saturday — that the funding assistance program for school-age care introduced by the previous government worked. Last fall many parents echoed the heartfelt words of one parent in this community who said: "My kids have had to look out for themselves for the last 3½ years. As a lone working parent, I've never been able to afford anything like child care." Last year she could and she did. For the first time her school-aged children had access to licensed school-age care. Next year they most likely won't if your government doesn't revisit its plan to cancel the funding assistance program. Those kids will be back to looking out for themselves. We really urge you to revisit that decision. Far too many children in this community and all across the province are looking out for themselves before and after school because their parents can't afford to access school-age care.

In Terrace the mall manager tells us that every day kids as young as six go down to the mall after school and hang out for three hours waiting for their parents to get home, because there isn't money in their family for child care. No child should be put in that position, and no parent should ever have to make the choice between feeding their children and keeping them safe. It just shouldn't happen.

Another example of what works is access to early childhood education. The benefits of early childhood education are recognized in children's readiness to learn in kindergarten. Children's readiness to learn in kindergarten is an indicator of their future success in school, which in turn is an indicator of their likely success as productive members of this society. In recognition of the value of preschool education for all young children, parents who aren't working or going to school right now can access child care subsidy for preschool. For families who meet the child care subsidy program income tests, the subsidy contributes a maximum of $5.35 per session. The cost of a preschool program is $10 to $12 per session. That means parents are having to pay over $7 a day. They have to pay the difference. For a family that's living on $11,000 a year or a working poor family, preschool education is just not affordable, and therefore it's not accessible.

We really urge you to ensure the subsidy covers the entire cost of preschool education for low-income families to equalize the opportunities all children have to quality preschool experiences, which do have such a profound impact on their future productivity.

In conclusion, I just wanted to say that in her recent visit, Lynn Stephens heard how vital child care is to our community and to our province's viability. She promised that she would put forth our recommendations. I urge you to listen to her. The comment that we often hear in this field, and as parents, from decision-makers is: "I don't see what the issue is. Child care has never been a concern for me." The reality is that child care becomes less of an issue the more dollars you have to purchase it. Parents in our community have limited and diminishing dollars, as you've heard today, to pay for child care. But the need for child care remains as they look at both parents having to work, having to retrain. Parents here are already feeling the pain that you talked about. Please don't make them suffer any more cuts. The dollars just aren't there.

I urge each and every one of you here today to make your decisions regarding child care not on the consideration of whether it's ever been an issue for you or your family, but on the knowledge that for thousands of British Columbia citizens who are parents it is a huge, huge ongoing issue. If this government doesn't enable all parents to make better lives for themselves and their children by providing access to affordable, quality child care experiences, it can't lay any believable claim to economic leadership. It just can't. Thank you.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thank you, Brenda, for your presentation. I will look to members of our committee if there are any questions.

L. Mayencourt: I'm glad that Minister Stephens was up here to talk with you and hear from you. I believe that she sent out a letter about a month ago to the various child care facilities — I think yours was one of them — to talk about priorities. I know that about a year and a half ago a very excellent report was produced and got widespread support from all across British Columbia, but the program was more than what we could reasonably afford right now. So there's infant and toddler care; there's early childhood education; there's all-day school and after-school care. Where do you see those getting the best benefit for the people? If you had to choose, which of these would you say is most important?

B. Sissons: I don't think you can choose. We certainly know that there's a great need for infant and toddler care here in our communities, but there's an equally great need for before- and after-school care.

L. Mayencourt: Can I rephrase it? Which is going to make it more possible for kids to finish grade 12 and get to post-secondary, trade or technical education? What's going to keep them in the education system and prepare them for success as adults?

B. Sissons: Speaking just purely for myself, I guess I'd have to say early childhood education. As others have mentioned here today, we have an extremely low literacy rate and an extremely high drop-out rate. If all of the children in our communities had access to early childhood education, I think that would make a significant difference. But I don't want to be quoted as the one who said: "In Terrace or in the province, this is where the dollars should go." All of them are equally important.

B. Sissons: I appreciate your challenge in having to make the cuts. It's a tough call.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): Not so much a question, Brenda. I just wanted to thank you for a very informative presentation.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): I see no further questions, Brenda. I would like to thank you for coming out and presenting to our committee. As with all the other presenters, your presentation will be given due consideration in the development of our report, which is due by November 15. Thank you.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Our next presentation this morning is from the Terrace and Area Health Watch Group: Ida Mohler and Don Ritchey. Good morning.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Members will come and go on occasion. For the members, when they aren't in the room, everything is recorded and transcribed by Hansard. Certainly, I can assure you that every word that's said will be reviewed by every member.

D. Ritchey: Thank you, Blair. I think you've all got a copy of the Terrace and Area Health Watch Group presentation. Basically, our focus for some time has been to improve health care services in the northwest. The funding distribution has been our key focus for a long, long time. We've recognized that there's a tremendous amount of money in the health care system here. We feel it's being directed in the wrong places.

There's been a significant increase in administration and bureaucratic staff levels throughout the health care industry in the northwest. For example, one of the things we've been discussing for a long time and trying to get through is the fact that we have nine regional health districts here with nine CEOs, all making

$125,000 or $150,000 a year. This is $1 million a year. It's the same with the administration. The administration is virtually the same in every hospital here. We believe there should be a centralized administration, since there's duplication continually throughout the hospitals. It's the same with CEOs. We don't believe there need to be nine CEOs. It's a tremendous amount of money.

One of the other things that we would like to see is for the funding to follow the patient. I think there could be a system implemented within the province where they would have like a CareCard that would go with that patient to those different hospitals, especially in the rural areas, where they often have to be transferred out to other areas. The funding doesn't follow those patients appropriately.

You get a situation like Terrace, for example, which has served as a regional hospital for many, many years. All the specialists — everything — are here from the northwest, yet 35 percent of the workload in the hospital is from other areas. Mills Memorial is not funded as a regional hospital, so 35 percent of their budgetary moneys are used on other areas coming here. There's probably close to adequate money within the health care system here if it was redesignated properly and looked at properly.

The other thing that has chewed away at me for a long time is the amount of money used for health care dollars that go to things like the building, the structures. We feel that they could be put under an organization that's already in existence, like BCBC, which are professionals that are looking after public buildings. The hospital budget spends a tremendous amount of money every year on the building and the mortgage payment for that building to CMHC. Whenever they do additions and things like that, it comes directly out of their budget. We feel this should go to acute care.

First of all — I guess I should have started here — I'm so glad you're holding these sessions. To me, we're not here trying to save programs. The programs are already in existence. They're in dire straits, suffering because of lack of funds and the money being in the wrong places. We feel the health care system is one of the biggest things in your budget, so obviously this is foremost to you.

There's a lot of abuse in the system. I'm not sure how to tackle that. That's another whole thing I don't really want to get into here today.

There are many other things. For example, now eye care and stuff will be paid for privately. I don't particularly disagree with that except that you maybe have to go a little further. There's a lot of choices that are made personally, like vasectomies and things like that. If I chose to have a vasectomy, then I think I should have to pay for that. I don't think the public should have to pay for that, nor any form of birth control that's used — like abortions necessarily used as a birth control method. It oftentimes does get used as that.

I have a niece in your town, in Kamloops, and she's on her third child. She's a chronic social services person and will be for the rest of her life. She's been attempting for the last couple of years to have her tubes tied so that she would not continue to have more children. She's mentally challenged, yet the children just keep coming out. There'll be another one next year and the year after. I know that, and I see it within my own family. This is clearly wrong, and it's a burden on the whole health care system as well as the rest of the area, you know. I feel that there is a great deal more that can be done, and I'm really happy to see you just getting right to the core of the thing.

The Health Watch Group presented the other committee on many of the issues to do with health care. The administration in these places is basically stacked one on top of the other. There are multiple layers of it. You see situations on the floor where you have nurses and stuff — head nurses and things — that are not allowed to practise their profession because they're now on a different level. They're closing ICUs and things like that when there's a qualified nurse who's a department head who's not allowed to go and be a nurse — these types of situations. I'm a self-employed small business person, and I would be absolutely flat broke in no time running a hospital the way they're run now. You really need to get to the core of these things, and I applaud you for being there and getting to that sort of thing. I'm happy to be here to make a presentation.

I. Mohler: Actually, I'd just like to add a couple of things. In some of the statements he's made about how decisions have been made within the administration, there's some criticism by Don and myself and many people in the community. If you look just after page 5 in the report, there's "Special Department Head Committee Meeting." Actually, it was given to me anonymously. It was because there is concern even within the hospital about how decisions are being made. If you look at the list there under "Business," there are five enhancements where they were trying to decide what to do. The first enhancement was nursing staffing increase on acute care. Clearly, they've said no. We need to find money for this — to hire acute care nurses — and we can't do this until we find money. All across this nation we've been hearing that nursing is the big problem, and yet here the first thing they did was veto hiring acute care nurses.

The second was to hire an ESP scheduling person. This is somebody that actually looks after the scheduling of the staff and what not, and it's: "Yes, we can probably do this, and therefore we will move ahead with this." Occupational therapist: no. Full-time information technology person: yes — we have a bunch of computers; we need to get somebody in here to make sure these computers are running well. Then back to ICU nurses, and it says: "We think we can find the money." It's interesting. Whenever it dealt with direct patient care, it was like: "Well, we need to find the money." But when it was ESP scheduling or a technology person, it was: "Yes, we've got to move ahead."

As citizens in this city we've watched our hospital being closed, and we keep getting told through the media that it's due to lack of nurses. Then you see a

message like this speaking loud and clear that no, we're not hiring nurses, but yes, we're going to hire more bureaucracy, more administration people.

For you who aren't familiar, our hospital right now is presently running at 30 beds for acute care. Years ago, back in the eighties, I think it was approved for 89 beds. Now it's down to 30. As you heard earlier this morning, there's a vast area here, and Mills does serve a larger area than just Terrace. There are quite a few referrals that come in, and so you'd think, being in the position this hospital's in, that instead of hiring more bureaucracy, the administration would say: "We need to get more nurses." Those are some of the issues on acute care. Also, you heard from Russell earlier regarding the North West Community Health Services Society. They look after a lot of the other issues.

I've recently been called by a person here in the community. She's in a wheelchair. She has been for the last 15 years. She tried calling the health society and said: "I need help. I need more home support." She was told: "Sorry, the resources are just not there. We can't help you." She was having complications. She needed more surgeries, and it was really a tough situation. Then when you look at the following page in the report I've given you, there's a copy of a recent ad in the newspaper. It's right after the minutes. It's an ad asking for someone to apply for communications and information technology. Again, here are more positions in bureaucracy, and here's a resident in Terrace in a wheelchair saying: "I need help. I can't cope. I've got more surgery coming up ahead. I need help." We really believe that the moneys need to get back into home support services, into the nursing issues. If there were some reductions to administration and the bureaucracy, that would help quite a bit. It would cut down duplication.

I just want to leave you today with three Rs. It might help a little bit, so that you guys go: "Man, these stakeholders are really passionate about what they believe in." If I leave you with the three Rs, that might help you remember what we're here for and what we're about. We really believe that Terrace, over the years, has become the regional referral centre of the northwest. We've got the data and stuff to show you if need be so that you can see that this hospital serves the majority of patients throughout the northwest. R: we need it to be designated as a regional referral centre.

We've already talked about reductions in administration. I haven't touched on this, and neither did Don earlier, but we would like to talk just briefly about restructuring. Right now we've got nine health councils, and then there's the Nisga'a health board, so there are ten health authorities in the northwest. There's council of chairs, and they have vast meetings. They travel all over. There's a lot of money going out, again, in that aspect. We would like to see a regional health board that has a mindset for the whole region instead of all these different communities. It seems like right now there is so much fighting amongst the different communities.

Restructuring, reduction in administration and regionalization — those are the three Rs today. Thank you so much for listening to us.

L. Mayencourt: I was looking under item No. 5: "Provide medical services for patients in their own communities." You've got here under "hemodialysis" that many of the people that require this procedure — treatment, whatever — have to actually live in Prince George.

L. Mayencourt: If you needed this, you would actually just get up and go live in Prince George.

I. Mohler: Right now we know of three people personally, friends of ours, that are actually living like this. It's caused a huge disruption and financial burden to their families, and there's the emotional aspect of it all. It's an emergency situation. One day you wake up and…. I know one lady who was telling me that her husband had cold feet all the time. He went to the doctor, and he said: "Oh, your kidneys have packed it in." You're air-evac'd to Prince George. You're now living in Prince George. There's no hemodialysis here. They've lived here in the community for 30 years and been married for 47 years, and now he has to live in Prince George until they can decide what to do.

I. Mohler: You know, I'm not familiar with that, but if you'd read the paper this week, it sounds like this has been approved and is going to be going ahead. That was one of the things that we had heard earlier. Again, we're talking about rumours. There was a rumour that we might lose this. I've seen a letter from the director of tertiary services recently, and it said that there will be no new enhancements and no new programs, because there's no money. We in the community panicked. I went: "Oh my word." We've got a bunch of citizens whose homes are disrupted, and they're living apart, so we kind of went after that with a vengeance. I finally got an e-mail last week saying it's a go. It's going to be done by 2002, so that was good news.

I. Mohler: Yeah. It's in the report, because I put this together before the good news came.

There are other things. Under that same item — re-establish a nursery for sick babies and a pediatric ward

— I know we have two pediatricians on staff at the hospital, and there's no pediatric ward. I've also painted a picture of it being a regional centre. A lot of people get sent to Terrace, and you can imagine where they end up. They end up in Vancouver or Prince George or in Children's Hospital or whatever. Some of these actually could be treated right here locally if there were a facility, if they would open up the beds.

Again, as Don said earlier, it's not about new money: "Let's throw new money at health care." Maybe instead of spending all the money in transferring these children out and then having them in hospitals in Vancouver, why not reunite the family and disburse those funds or reallocate those funds so that they're available in the northwest to treat patients in the northwest? Believe me, there'd be a lot of happier people up here knowing we could have services like that closer to home.

K. Krueger: You mentioned nurses a number of times, and I had the impression that there may be available nurses that haven't been able to secure full-time permanent positions here. Is that the case? Do you have a supply of nurses who haven't been able to get jobs?

D. Ritchey: There have been a number of nurses. We had one leave the community just very recently and go down to Victoria to work. Along with her went her husband, who was providing a chiropractic service here, and he was very good. Unfortunately, because they refused to hire her full-time here, she applied in Victoria and went there, and we lost him as well.

There are many, many nurses in this community. You can go down to the grocery store, and you'll find them working at Safeway and things like this. They're very, very frustrated with — I guess, to put it in a nutshell — the administrative decisions within the hospital. There's so much emphasis placed — see the tail-end of this report — on other positions and things, and nursing and the core things are pushed down all the time.

They just feel so frustrated. It's just a terrible situation to be working in, and this needs to change. To change that, you need to get right into the meat of this thing and disband all these different levels in there and start over. I've been a businessman for 40 years, and it just bewilders me that you can operate a system like this. I just wouldn't survive. I would have been gone a long time ago.

Somebody needs to take the bull by the horns, really make the decisions that are necessary and put the health care back in. Like Ida said, we've spent a long time at this, and we do believe there's a substantial amount of money here that could go back into acute care. It would just work out so well if somebody would make those hardest decisions.

These community health councils have absolutely not worked up here. It's one of the few areas in B.C. where there's been a tremendous number of problems between communities. They do not work here. The council of chairs does not work here. They're basically impotent. They spend a tremendous amount of time and money. They're very secretive. On every question you ask, it's: "Well, we're going to discuss that in camera." One recent question that was asked was: "How's the progress?" We have the oldest mammography machine in the province here. Only a week ago I was in Vancouver at Women's Hospital with my wife for a procedure that could be done here but couldn't be done because the mammography machine is so antiquated.

The cost of me going down there and everything was substantial. Yes, I can afford this, but I'm one of the few. There are not a lot of people who can do this. I have to leave my business and everything for a week to do this. This is not right, and it's not cost-effective. These types of things really need to be got at and some hard decisions made.

The whole northwest needs to be put under a regional governing body where somebody is there to draw the line in the sand when a decision can't be made. It just needs to be done. There's nobody here to do that.

I mean, Prince Rupert's raising a lot of money to buy a CAT scan. We have a CAT scan in Terrace that gets used extensively by Prince Rupert. To me, it would make sense to have an MRI machine in the northwest, not another CAT scan, so that everybody could benefit. We still have to go to either Prince George or Vancouver to have our MRIs. There are many of those things that could be dealt with by a regional health board. They could make the correct decision for the communities of the north. I don't know what else I can say, except I'm glad you're at it.

K. Krueger: That is what we're here for, and the ministries of government will be going through the Hansard record of the things you've said and all the reports we've received. We are certainly looking. Our Health ministry is actively looking at the whole governance model and the 52 boards and councils, and so on, that exist in the province. To hear the practical effects of that governance in this area really grieves me. We have a tremendous nursing shortage in British Columbia. If you actually have nurses who want to be working as checkout clerks, that's a bizarre waste of resources.

I. Mohler: Actually, if you go to Fabricland and buy yourself a metre of 100 percent cotton, you'll find a gal there who is cutting fabric today. She is an RN. She told me: "If there were some changes in administration, I would love to get back to nursing. I loved patient care. I loved treating people." But she said it was just the administration. I said: "Would you go public with that?"

A lot of times I've talked to different nurses in there. One is working in a bakery here in town. Another one is working in a fabric store. Another gal, actually, was just told by someone in administration that — she'd been called seven or eight days in a row — "You've got to come in." She just said, "I've got to spend time with my family," and they said: "Well, you might end up looking at some disciplinary action, you know." This person resigned and is now working elsewhere. The treatment of some of these nurses I'm not too sure about.

We've talked a little about administration. Maybe in some ways, in trying to save money, they don't want to pay the full-time benefits and what not, so they'll keep a whole pool of casuals, but it's really hard to rely heavily on casuals. One of my items there was hiring full-time-equivalent nurses versus the casuals. You probably end up with a more stable work environment for the nurses, for the patients, for the physicians. I think it'll work out. You might have to invest in them by going ahead and paying some of the benefits.

K. Krueger: On November 7 it'll be 22 years since my baby boy, one month old, underwent emergency surgery at Delta Memorial. He would have died without it. We lived in Smithers at the time. I'm really shocked to hear that you're down to 30 beds, because it's an absolutely vital need to have an equipped hospital service in the region. We'll be working on the issues you've raised.

D. Ritchey: It's worse than that, actually, because you can't even get surgery.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Tony has one quick comment, and then we have to carry on.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): The MRI — have you raised that with your local MLA yet?

D. Ritchey: Oh yes — and the health councils and the council chairs and everybody else that will listen to us. Thank you for listening to us.

D. Philpott: Mr. Chairperson, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Don Philpott. I've lived in the northwest since 1976. I'm a single parent. I've raised two teenage boys on my own. In addition, I'm also the parent of a developmentally disabled daughter for whom I share parenting responsibilities with my ex-spouse. I work as a social worker for the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and I worked for many years in child protection services. For the past eight years I have worked in community living services with a caseload of developmentally disabled adults.

That's the primary purpose for my being here today, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I'm also the first vice-chairperson of the social, educational and health services component of the BCGEU provincially. I'm the local chair for Local 612, which stretches from the Queen Charlotte Islands to Burns Lake. I'm also the vice-president of the Kitimat-Terrace and District Labour Council.

Before I start my own presentation, I do want to take issue for a second about one comment that was made when my friend Simon was making his presentation. That was a comment around the union not providing the right information about proposed cuts, etc. The information that people are responding to and getting upset and concerned about isn't coming from the union. Our position throughout has been that we have no specific information yet and that we'd like to get it. The information is coming from your managers and, to some extent, from your members and your ministers through the media. When people hear those kind of comments about things that affect their livelihood, it does cause a great deal of concern and consternation.

I might also add that some layoffs are already occurring. We are already seeing the layoffs of auxiliary employees in the Ministry of Human Resources, the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Ministry of Attorney General. We're talking about auxiliary employees who are covering long-term illness or maternity leaves for people. They're covering vacancies. They're not excess baggage; they're not excess employees. They are people who are providing support to people with disabilities, support to the child protection system and support to the welfare system, as well as victim assistance workers. These people are being laid off now. This is not speculation.

Yesterday in Nanaimo my colleague Doug Barr provided this committee with an excellent picture of the problems facing community living services for children. I would like to provide you with some idea of what currently happens once these children become adults. These issues are very close to me. I am facing them both professionally and personally, as my daughter approaches this transition in two years.

There has been no increase in base funding for adult support services since the ministry was formed in 1996. Core services for adults had been at maximum utilization while CLS was still with the Ministry of Social Services and Housing. Since 1996 program funds for crisis intervention have been eliminated and budgets for residential programs, behavioral and professional support, life skills, respite and supported employment have been capped and frozen. Nonetheless, every year more developmentally disabled young people turn 19. When their parents turn to us for help, most often all we have to offer is a nice warm waiting list or, at best, a makeshift service that is only a fraction of what they really need.

The only circumstances where new service dollars are provided are around issues of extreme health and

safety needs or if a disabled child who has been in care turns 19. The latter is part of a longstanding double standard which provides much higher levels of support for those who give over the care of their child to the state, as opposed to those who try to care for their children at home. If natural parents received even close to the level of support received by foster parents, there would be far fewer disabled children in care. Likewise, that care would be supported into adulthood, requiring fewer expensive adult resources. Instead, many natural parents are facing the dilemma of having to quit their own jobs in order to provide care for their sons and daughters. For many, welfare will be the only option. For others, it will mean financial hardship at the least.

This is not some future doomsday scenario. Real families are facing these choices today in this province. That's before any slashing and cutting has occurred. Many individuals are now being cared for by aging parents with little or no in-home supports. Many of these situations will break down over the next few years. With adequate respite relief and day program support, they could be salvaged, and younger family members could be encouraged to take over the care.

In the mid-eighties the government of the day took the very progressive step of closing provincial institutions for the disabled. I can remember that this bold move included a promise to ensure that these people, then and in the future, would have a high quality of life in the community, that the principles of integration and supported independent living would be upheld, that the individual's right to self-determination and mobility would be honoured.

You must not renege on this promise, lest we forget that the institutional option was extremely expensive as well as abusive and inhumane. In today's dollars the cost would be astronomical. Had we not wisely chosen to do better, we would be continuing to feed resources into the institutional money pit today.

Daily we are exposed to new threats of cuts from this government. Will it be 35 percent, or will it be 50 percent? New promises to eliminate services and privatize programs into the hands of profit-takers are in the news daily. I would like to ask you: if the budgets to provide these services are stretched to the max now and your plan is to cut them further, how will allowing someone to take a profit out of what is left contribute to more and better services? The answer is obvious: it will not. People will be left at risk, services will be deskilled, and families will suffer.

We heard that tax cuts would pay for themselves, but we now know that your tax cuts are being paid for by the poor and the disabled. We are currently facing an economic crisis in this community caused by massive unemployment. If I have it right, your answer to dealing with this crisis will be to create more unemployment by laying off hundreds of government workers and eliminating their purchasing power from the local economy. Somehow this logic escapes me.

I've been proud of the work that I do as a public servant. Today I work in an atmosphere of fear and despair. Many of the people I work with are new recruits who have been moved many miles to take up positions in the north. It has been very difficult to recruit social workers to serve in the north. It is an extremely difficult, stressful and often thankless job. We do not know from day to day if we will have jobs. In many cases people are sitting around waiting for the axe to fall. You must in your deliberations also consider the human resources, which you seem to be willing to squander and which, once lost, you may never be able to regain.

In conclusion, I would like to recommend the following. Consider the impact that the loss of wages and benefits will have on an already failing economy, and do not engage in laying off valuable public servants. Utilize attrition and early retirement incentives to achieve reductions in the workforce. Abandon your plan to eliminate regulatory services that are vital to public health and safety. We do not need another Walkerton here, and no, industry will not monitor itself in the public interest. Of this we can be sure. Provide adequate funding for services to people with disabilities so that programs can continue to be delivered by skilled and effective caregivers. Finally, acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of people who are poor and unemployed do not choose to be so. Refrain from eliminating the programs that offer them some dignity and respect. Thank you.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Don, thank you very much for coming out today and presenting. I will look to members of our committee if there are any questions.

Possibly just a brief comment I would make. I think you would agree that we are facing some challenging times financially. Just ideas — and I know that you've touched on one that I think is a good avenue: attrition and early retirements. We look around at what different corporations have done in trying to achieve downsizing. I think that's certainly one method. Outside that, outside even the tax cuts that you've touched on, if we take the tax cuts out of the picture, we face a $3.8 billion deficit by 2004. Any ideas on what we can do?

D. Philpott: I wasn't in Nanaimo yesterday because I was engaged in a process of developing a submission to core review, but I can see, because I sit on a provincial union management committee, the burgeoning of management in the ministry that I work for. It's doubled and tripled in the last five years. In fact, in child protection services there's two competing streams of management. It's incredibly inefficient. There are many, many contracts that could be reviewed, many that were let when the institutionalization occurred 20 years ago. They need to be reviewed for their relevancy, for their effectiveness. There are many ways this ministry could be streamlined. The whole issue of providing money to families to provide the care for their loved ones, as opposed to having those people cared for

by the state, is a cost on the one hand, but it is an investment on the other which costs less over the long run.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Just a brief comment on the core review that we're presently involved in as government. Is it getting to the front-line worker? Are they being asked for their comments?

D. Philpott: Certainly in preparing the submission that I made, I consulted with community living services social workers all across the province and continue to do so. I think the message is getting out. It's certainly on our Internet site, and hopefully people are submitting briefs. We have seen a lot of stuff from the other side of the equation.

N. King: We've had some very eloquent speakers. I won't take up much of your time. What I have to say is very short and, I hope, somewhat relevant.

I've been a resident of Terrace for 28 years. As a senior I am concerned about layoffs in the public service, cuts to Pharmacare and privatization. I don't pretend to be a financial wizard, but given my age and what not, I've been around the block a time or two. I've seen changes come and go, then come back again. Cutbacks in public service look good on the surface, but what really happens? Services have to be delivered in some manner.

What do we do? Well, I've seen it before: contracting out of the government work. That makes fewer government workers on the books, but it's still government work. Less cost? I don't think so. Perhaps the person doing the actual job will receive less pay or benefits, but the persons holding the contract will certainly be in business for a profit. All it does is shift the responsibility and the accountability. Will many of the workers have to resort to employment insurance or perhaps, eventually, welfare? With the world economy as it is, the likelihood of everyone being re-employed within an acceptable time frame is probably not a reasonable assumption. What impact will this have on our communities? This segment of society will hardly have extra cash to spend and will need to limit themselves to taking care of the basics. Our communities are already feeling the pinch due to the shutdown of mills, etc. Will we be relegated to more service delivered by pressing numbers on the phone? There's already too much of that. Personal contact is becoming a thing of the past. Many people become frustrated when they phone for assistance and are faced with an automated system, even those that are familiar with it. Imagine how a senior would feel in this unfamiliar territory.

Perhaps the structure of the public service needs to be looked at. Is it too top-heavy? Talk to the front-line workers. They are the ones that know the system and could probably come up with ways to cut waste and provide more efficient service. At one time, those who presented cost-effective suggestions were awarded cash incentives. I don't know if this is still in effect, but I think you get good suggestions. You get good ideas from the people who are doing the actual jobs in the ministries.

As to Pharmacare, this is an institution that B.C. residents rely on. I have heard suggestions that we may have means tests. I find this very demeaning. My fear is that folks just getting by would be in a real financial bind should an illness befall their family and costly prescriptions be needed. Must they forgo treatment? Will they, hopefully, get better by self-treating, or will they end up on the emergency ward? What happens to people with chronic illnesses should their particular prescriptions be delisted? Many are becoming fearful about the uncertainty and whether or not they will be able to sustain their quality of life when it is dependent on their medication. Surely we do not want to go the way of our American neighbours. Look at the price they pay for prescriptions.

Some things are untouchable, and I believe Pharmacare is one of them. We may need to look at ways to keep costs down, but please not at the expense of those who can least afford it. Look at other alternatives. Can we not come up with a solution on a national basis — buy in bulk, save money? I don't know.

I don't know if ICBC is included at this time, but I have one comment: don't privatize. Once you've gone down that slippery slope, there's no turning back.

As a final comment, if we are in such a financial crunch, then why not rescind the 25 percent tax cut? It would appear at this time that we can't afford it. Has it really put enough extra into the public's pockets that we will in turn go on a spending spree and save our economy? Not at this time, I don't think. Times are tough, and we as well as you must tighten our belts.

As I was leaving my house this morning, my husband had a suggestion. He said: "What goes on with all the lottery funds? Couldn't they be utilized for hospital equipment or educational funding?" I'm sure there's lots of money in those funds. People are always waiting for that wish to win that million dollars, so they do spend that money on lottery tickets. It would be nice if a portion of that money could perhaps do something to help with equipment in hospitals, so it wouldn't have to come out of all the funds that you are so tight with.

That's about all I have to say. I really thank you for your time and hope you come up with lots of good suggestions.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): I'll just look to the committee members if they have any questions.

K. Krueger: Thank you for a tremendously articulate and heartfelt presentation. I saw that you were here for quite a while, and you heard other people's presentations.

K. Krueger: Not at all, but you heard people tell us about the tremendous need for more support with regard to the care of infants and toddlers, child care, early childhood education. You heard very concerned civil servants talking about the consequences if there were cutbacks in those programs. We've had presentations like these all around the province.

We've had a presentation from the pharmaceutical organization, which said that the way the Pharmacare system exists presently, there is no discouragement of waste. In fact, it encourages waste because of the way it's set up so that people stockpile medications that they never use, which is an environmental issue but also a terrible waste issue.

We have an aging population. I'm one of the baby-boomers. As we move into retirement, the population trends presently are that there are fewer and fewer people paying into a system that's going to cost more and more to service. Do you think it's fair that the dwindling number of people working and paying taxes have to pay higher taxes in order to fund a system that professionals within the system say is wasteful for people who have already retired?

N. King: Oh boy, I don't know. That's a really hard question to answer. Obviously, there is waste within any system. You'll always find that, and you'll always come to the point where things need tweaking. You do have to look at ways to provide things in a more cost-effective manner and look at ways that you can save money. Nobody wants to do it at the expense of another group.

Quite frankly, I'm no expert, as I say. I honestly don't know how to answer that. All I can say is that we really rely on Pharmacare. Whether you are a senior, whether you are a child, we've become…. This is our system. This is what our country is. Maybe things need to be done not just provincially; things need to be done nationally. Maybe we need a national Pharmacare. Perhaps we need to bring all factions in here and get everybody working together. If everybody's on the same page and working together, then perhaps it can be more cost-effective, if you have that broader base.

K. Krueger: That's what this process is all about. We really appreciate your honest presentation and your honest answer. If you felt a little bit on the spot for the moment there, that's how we feel all day long.

T. Bhullar (Deputy Chair): There's one other quick question that Mr. Mayencourt has.

L. Mayencourt: I was intrigued by the suggestion of a prize or a reward for finding a way to save some money for the government. I'm not sure how people would feel about us giving a clock radio or a TV to someone who saved some money, but it's a very interesting idea. One of the reasons I've heard from administrators for why they don't like to cut out programs is that they lose that funding. If there were some way for an agency, a board or something like that to come up with an innovative way to still deliver the product, the thing that we need, or the service but do it for less — and they were able to redirect those funds or a portion of those funds into something that was new and innovative and was going to move things along — how would you as a citizen feel about that?

N. King: Basically, what you're telling me is if you could privatize a portion of the health care, education or whatever…. Is this what you're alluding to?

L. Mayencourt: No. Let's say there's a program in Ministry of Children and Family Development. That's not a really good example. Let's go to the Ministry of Human Resources. A program exists there that was really worthwhile in 1968 and was great up to 1972. We kind of kept it there, and it became less relevant. Instead of shifting those dollars to another area, we kept that program in, topped it up and did some more money.

What I'm wondering is…. Within a ministry you've got so much money. If an administrator in one of the offices were to come up with a way of making their office more efficient, and they wouldn't be losing the money — they would be able to enrich the programs they're offering in their community — how would you feel about that? I'm just talking within the ministry.

N. King: Again you say a program that's not relevant, but then you think, too, who it's not relevant to. Obviously, the program came into effect because it was relevant to somebody. Where do you divide that? It's declining in this area, so let's scrap it. Let's roll it in with something else or whatever. I think you have to be very careful when you start divesting or getting rid of something that you're not excluding somebody from a service that's required. Like I say, efficiencies within a ministry…. I believe that you do. You have to look at efficiencies. I think you have to be very careful that you don't exclude people as well when you're doing that. Probably I'm rambling on here.

L. Mayencourt: No. I'm just asking you in the same sort of context, where you said: "Well, somebody in a ministry came up with an idea that was good."

N. King: An idea that's good, sure. That's what it's all about. This incentive thing that I was talking about…. I don't know how many years ago, and like I say, I don't even know if it's still in effect. Do you know

the paper postings that they used to have out, and they used to list all the jobs for provincial government? Well, on the back of that they would have somebody from a ministry who came up with an idea. It saved X number of dollars within their particular ministry, and they were awarded $1,000 or $2,500, depending on the amount of money that it saved and what efficiencies it created.

You know, you've got a lot of talented people working in government service, and I really think you should be calling upon those people — even if you put out something and say: "Look, crunch time is here, folks. Let's come up with some innovative ideas, and let's help each other along so that we're not having to lay off people." As somebody else said, maybe we do have to scale back, but do it by attrition or whatever means you have to, but don't cut out the government services we need.

We will move on to our next presenter this morning, Val George. Good morning, Val.

V. George: Thanks for giving me this opportunity to make a presentation. I'll just say up front that I'm making this on my own behalf as a concerned citizen. In particular, I am not making it as a city council member. I guess I've got to say that because, as some of you guys know, being a municipal councillor…. Whenever somebody in my position gets up and speaks, people automatically assume you're making it on behalf of the city council. Well, I'm not. These are my own private thoughts.

One of the main reasons why I'm making this presentation is because I know you've been hearing a lot, both in this hearing and in other ones around the province, from people who oppose what the government is trying to do in order to get our provincial budget in shape. I've got to say that I'm not one of those. I know a lot of these people who've been making these presentations. In particular, this morning you heard a lot of presentations of this type, and I know these people personally. I know that they're very sincere in the concerns they're expressing to you, but I think they're quite wrong in their predictions of what is going to happen under the sort of restraint program which I think you're trying to put into effect.

We're at a point where we have to get our budget under control. It's out of control after ten years of mismanagement. It's got to be brought under control. I think you have to effect the tax breaks that you've been talking about. Canadians are some of the highest-taxed people in the world. We've got to do something about that. At the same time, I honestly believe that we can do it and at least not decrease the services to the public. In point of fact, if we do it properly with the right political motivation, we can actually improve services to the public and still balance our budget.

By the way, my comments are going to be fairly general because I don't pretend to be an expert in these matters — although I spent most of my life in senior administrative positions in the public sector, so I've had some pretty direct experience with administering budgets in the public sector from that point of view. I've also had some experience at the political level. I served a couple of terms on school boards, and I've served three terms now on city council. I've seen it from a political point of view too. I do have some direct experience here.

My comments are going to be pretty general. I'm really going to talk about three areas where I think we can effect some pretty massive reductions in various areas of our provincial budget and with no detrimental effect to services. The three areas I want to talk about are management of government services, waste in the public sector and abuse of services by the public. I think I'll read this. I don't normally like to do that, but it'll stop me rambling on and going over my time.

First, a few general comments. It seems that the only solution most Canadians have to problems in our society is to throw more money at them. We've proven conclusively that this doesn't work. We just have to look at our health care and education systems, which are two of the largest areas of public spending. Canada spends more money per capita on health care than all but a very few other countries in the world, yet we still have major problems, and the services are getting worse, not better. Many countries that spend less than us have better health care systems. The same can be said for our K-to-12 education system, another area of major expenditure. Again, we spend more money per capital than most countries, but by any standards, we have only a mediocre education system compared to many other countries.

Let me talk about my first area of real concern, which is management of government services. I think this is an area where it should be possible to make huge savings. We need to massively cut bureaucracy and do a major streamlining job in the administration of government services in the field. The example I was going to quote you, actually, is the one that was given to me by the Health Watch group. Incidentally, I've been pretty involved with this Health Watch group, and we've got some pretty horrible examples of duplication of administrative services in this area. I won't go at that one, but I just thought of another one, which is our school district system.

The last government reorganized the school system — the government is sort of a school system — by reducing from whatever it was, 75 or 76 school districts, down to whatever it is now, about 50-something. I think that was a good start, but they needed to go and I think you guys should go a lot further than that. We've got huge duplication of administrative and government services in our school district. We should go down to about 15 or 16 school districts in this province.

If you want to look at a model that works, it's the community college model. I spent 12 years of my life, by the way, in administration in the community college system. There's a system that works very well. I think it's a very efficient management system. They work with 15 or 16 regions, so that's a substitute example there. Of course, I don't have to tell you this, because you know that there are many, many examples like this around the province where we're duplicating administrative services, and we have administrations that get in each others' way and lead to very ineffective and very costly ways of administering our public services.

Looking at the bureaucracy…. I've distinguished bureaucracy from administration. I am calling it bureaucracy, though. Other people generally work directly for government — mostly in Victoria, of course. The whole bureaucratic structure has to be massively reorganized and downsized, and I think the way to do this is to manage by results rather than by regulation. Management by regulation, which is what we've got now in the public service, encourages expansion of bureaucracy because it's in bureaucracy's interest to cover themselves in their decision-making with ever more regulations. It's a job-security issue too, because with more regulations there's more need for bureaucrats to administer them. This doesn't make for efficient operations.

I think a very good example here is what we've done with our Forest Practices Code. When it was introduced, everyone in the public and the private sectors agreed that it was a good thing to do. We then allowed the code to get bogged down with regulations at massive cost to the forest industry and to the public, through the huge bureaucracy needed to administer it. We need a Forest Practices Code based on results, and I am very pleased to see that the government is moving in this direction. But almost all areas of government should be subjected to this type of fundamental rethinking: management by results, not management by regulation. The cost savings and reductions in the bureaucracy would be massive, and we'd end up with a more efficient and more effective government service.

By the way, when I say this, I'm not criticizing individual bureaucrats. As I say, I worked in the public sector for many years myself, and I think we have some very excellent people in the bureaucracy. The problem is that they're not allowed to do an effective job because of the structure that they're working in. Let's use these people better, in a much more streamlined and more efficient structure.

The second area I want to talk about is waste in the public sector. This is another area where we can save huge amounts of money. Just a couple of local examples from, again, the many that could be quoted. It's a health example, and one that incidentally came up a couple of times when the Health Committee was in Terrace last week.

Last year we had a study of our regional health services here in the northwest that cost $230,000. As a matter of fact, it actually cost a lot more than that if we take into account the time of people that were involved with it, but that was the quoted figure — $230,000. Apart from the fact that the study was totally redundant because we've already been studied to death, the final report was so superficial as to be almost completely worthless. I quote this example because it just so happens — and you've heard about this already from the Health Watch Group — that the money spent on this report would have paid for this desperately needed mammography unit for our local hospital, which we've been told we don't have the money for.

Another example of gross waste of money is the LRMP — the land and resource management plan — process. I was involved in this for five of the nine years it took to do the one up here. By the way, I've got to say that I very strongly support the objectives of the LRMP process, and in general I actually support the process too, but the way we've got it set up is hugely inefficient. I think these LRMPs should be able to be done in about one-third the time and at about one-third of the cost. If anybody wants to sit down with me for about two days, I'll tell them exactly why I think that, having been involved in it.

V. George: Yeah, do a study — maybe about three studies. Anyway, here's an area, again, where we could literally save many millions of dollars. We're not talking about peanuts here; we're talking about saving millions of dollars. In fact, if we look around the province, I think we can find hundreds, if not thousands, of examples where we could easily eliminate waste and put the money to better use.

The third and final area I want to talk about is abuse of services by the public. I've got to say that I was pleased to see the government's recent attempts to cut down on the abuse of optometry services and use of prescription drugs. Hopefully, these attempts to eliminate abuse of health services will go much further. For example, some experts have suggested that a third of doctor's office visits are unnecessary. That's a huge cost to the system. I know that most, if not all, of you were at the dialogue on health session on Monday, and we heard a lot about the introduction of user fees. We're the only country in the industrialized world now which doesn't have user fees in health services. Other countries have made them work, so why can't we? Do we have to be different from everybody else in the world? If we had a good health services system compared to other countries, then maybe we could justify being different from everybody else, but we don't have a good system. So let's try some of the things that have been tried very successfully in other countries.

Another example that I want to talk about here, in terms of abuse of services, is welfare. That's costing taxpayers huge amounts of money too. Some studies here have suggested that as much as a third of welfare is attained by fraud and major abuse of the system. I know, as everybody knows, that we'll never eliminate all abuse, but if we could cut out even half of it, we'd be saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The irony here, by the way, is that those who oppose at

tempts by government to control abuse claim to be representing the poor and the needy when, in fact, they're only protecting the abusers to the detriment of those in genuine need. If we could effect the massive savings to be realized in this area, we could provide better help to those in genuine need.

In conclusion, I'll note that these are just three areas where I think we can make huge savings with no decrease in services to the people of this province. I think there are very obvious areas where there are potential savings, but if we look back at the history of attempts to make these savings, we see that politicians have rarely had the political fortitude to seriously address them. That's what's led to the serious financial situation that we're in right now. I think the time has come where we have no choice but to do major and fundamental restructuring of government services and the way they're delivered. The status quo for delivery of government services is no longer an option. Throwing more money into these services, as some people advocate, is the worst possible option. Even maintaining the present level of funding is unsustainable.

I believe that it is possible, though admittedly it's not politically easy, to accomplish the financial plan the government has outlined in the past several months with no decrease in service to the public. In fact, it should be possible to end up with more and better services due to a much more efficient government operation.

Just one final comment. Those who oppose what the government is trying to do to get the budget under control claim there will be a massive decrease in the number of jobs in the public sector. In fact, though there will and certainly should be some decrease, it won't be anything as dramatic as some people and organizations would have us believe.

Some considerable proportion of the savings in the areas I've talked about should go into increasing health services and increasing the numbers of people in the front lines of public services. Moving money from management in the health services to actual patient care would allow the hiring of more doctors, more nurses and more health services technicians, which I think everybody agrees we need to have.

Streamlining the administration of the education system will make it possible to hire more teachers, which most people think we need. Eliminating many of the more blatant examples of waste and abuse will allow us to get more people into other areas where most of us agree the public sector is genuinely understaffed.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thank you very much, Val, for your presentation to our committee today. I will look to members of the committee if they have any questions.

You've done such a good job, Val, that I see there are no questions from members of the committee.

Our next presentation this morning comes from Mr. Mark Collins. Is Mark not with us yet? Possibly I will move on to our next presenter and see if Carla Mantie is here.

I will try that one more time. We will move to the following presenter, who would be Mr. Bob McLeod. Is Bob with us?

B. McLeod: I'm here. I didn't really expect to get on today, so this is pleasant.

B. McLeod: My name is Bob McLeod. I've lived in Kitimat for 45 years. For most of these years I've been a volunteer involved in search and rescue and emergency preparedness activities. I'm presently the northwest regional representative on the search and rescue advisory committee, representing the 15 SAR teams in the provincial emergency program's northwest region. I also serve as an emergency preparedness coordinator for the district of Kitimat. Both of these are volunteer roles.

I'm here today because I'm concerned about the future of the provincial emergency program and the ability of the program to maintain the level of service to British Columbians in the areas of search and rescue and emergency response that existed at the beginning of this year. These services are especially important in the more remote regions of the province like our northwest region.

The provincial emergency program, I think, is a very necessary body in the province. It's a small organization that was part of the Ministry of Attorney General. It has since been moved into the Solicitor General's ministry. It's not really an organization that one hears much about. They have a number of functions. To me the most important one is that they coordinate the building of a volunteer support base in emergency social services, search and rescue, amateur radio communications, air search and rescue, and road rescue.

These disciplines involve over 13,000 volunteers who respond to more than 6,000 emergencies on an annual basis. Ground and inland water search and rescue in the province is performed by approximately 5,000 volunteers. Volunteers purchase and maintain personal and group equipment, including boats and vehicles, with no assistance from the provincial government.

While the cost of presenting training programs throughout the province is paid for by the provincial emergency program, the cost of attending the majority of these courses is borne by the volunteers. These costs include travel, food, accommodation and — depending on the duration of these courses — sometimes lost earnings.

Search and rescue volunteers respond to police requests for assistance at any hour of the day or night, usually in inclement weather, and often work under

dangerous conditions. The only cost to the province on a call-out is expense reimbursement for the volunteers involved in the task and occasional replacement of lost or damaged equipment. The volunteers are not paid for their efforts. In fact, they often lose wages or salary to respond to a search.

In the year 2000-01, 9,600 volunteers responded to a total of 757 incidents involving 1,011 people. They located or rescued 898 people and brought closure to the families of 66 others by recovering bodies. Here in the northwest, the area I'm most familiar with, we have a relatively low number of incidents, but we are hampered by geographical distances and a limited number of volunteers. For example, a recent search for a missing pine mushroom picker in the Nass Valley involved searchers from Hazelton, Smithers, Burns Lake, Vanderhoof and Prince George. All this activity was coordinated by the provincial emergency program's regional manager working out of the Terrace office.

Search and rescue members operate under policy and guidelines established by the provincial emergency program and are trained by that agency through the Justice Institute. It's my understanding that the training of search and rescue volunteers is accomplished on a budget of $850,000 a year. This training enables volunteers to conduct searches in a safe, efficient and economical fashion. Costs of searches vary from year to year, but it ranges between $500,000 and $800,000 per year. If you add these figures up, it's a very small price to pay for the lives of approximately 1,000 people a year. This is the number of people that are affected by search and rescue groups. I don't think that anybody can supply this level of service with full-time employees at the cost that's involved. It would be significantly higher.

In the area of emergency preparedness, the provincial emergency program provides standardized training to enable municipalities to deal with their own emergencies, and because of standardization in the training throughout the region and the communities, they can assist once the municipalities' resources are strained or overwhelmed by activating a provincial regional emergency operations centre and coordinating mutual aid from other communities or directing provincial resources to assist. As you've heard, most of our communities are quite small, and all have limited resources. In the event of something like the earthquake that occurred a short while ago, if damage had occurred in any community, the resources would have been taxed very quickly. We would need help.

I'm going to give you some numbers here. I've heard conflicting numbers this morning, but our region has approximately 120,000 permanent residents — I heard a lot smaller figure earlier on — living in an area of over 300,000 square kilometres. It's a vast region. Having a provincial emergency program regional office and the establishment of a provincial regional emergency operations centre, or PREOC, are extremely important to the safety and well-being of the residents in the region. You need the local relationships and the local knowledge to be able to provide timely help in the event of an emergency or a disaster, and I think this would be best accomplished by having regional resources.

Our region is the only one in the province that does not have a PREOC. This was due to earlier budget cuts. Given the diversity and the natural hazards in our region — our communities could be subjected to tsunamis; earthquakes are a fact of life here; floods; and we even have the danger of volcanic activity; all interfaced with wild fires — I think we need the support in the region and in the community.

In summary, the provincial emergency program, through the extensive use of trained volunteers, provides a very high return in terms of service to residents and visitors for the dollars that are put into it. I think future budgets should reflect that fact and provide the funding necessary to restore and maintain the services that are provided. I've heard quite a bit about getting good value for your dollar, and I sincerely believe that there is good value for the dollar in what is being put into the provincial emergency program through the use of volunteers. That's really all I have.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Bob, thank you very much. We heard a presentation, I believe it was last night, on the same issue, and it's very compelling when we talk about the volunteers and services provided for the safety of our citizens and visitors. I think it's very important. I thank you.

Thank you for your presentation. We did hear a similar one last night in Port McNeill. Certainly the case that we're getting a huge bang for the few bucks that are being spent on search and rescue in the province is compelling. It's actually a remarkable story in terms of how much is accomplished on such a small shoestring. I've got a question for you. In the event that search and rescue activities in this area require aircraft and helicopters, do you rely on Canadian armed forces personnel search and rescue staff from Comox, or do you have air assets based here locally that you're able to access?

B. McLeod: We have fixed-wing assets on a volunteer basis, providing the weather allows you to fly. The provincial emergency program allows for the use of helicopters. They're hired locally on a contract basis for a different search if they're required, generally for moving people into remoter areas or recovering people.

B. Penner: How often do you have to call in the Labrador or Buffalo aircraft out of Comox for a search?

B. McLeod: To the best of my knowledge, we haven't in several years in this region.

L. Mayencourt: It's my understanding from last night's presentation — and you can clarify this for me if you would — that in the past funding for this has come out of something called the emergency vote, which is a fund we have for a disastrous event or whatever. It seems to me that what your group seems to be looking for is the money to train and equip those volunteers.

B. McLeod: Just maintaining the level of training. I think the volunteers do a very good job fundraising and supporting themselves. While you do hear grumbling about it at times, I think it's something people do because their hearts are in it, and they enjoy doing it. Having equipment would be wonderful. We're very adept at scrounging; it's part of the game. I think the training levels are a critical aspect.

My understanding of the emergency vote is, for example, that when we have a search, we open a task number. The task is assigned a certain amount of funding, because we don't know how much funding is going to be needed or required for a search. It depends on the duration and all these other aspects. This is where the funding comes out of the emergency vote. Training, I understand, is a separate budget.

L. Mayencourt: I think that Rich Coleman, who's the minister responsible for this, really appreciates what you guys are doing, as we all do. Really, what you're looking for is finding a funding mechanism for the training program and access to that emergency vote for an actual search and rescue operation, if you will.

B. McLeod: That's correct from the search and rescue perspective. Wearing my other hat as an emergency preparedness coordinator for the community, we also need the regional assets in terms of having a regional office.

L. Mayencourt: What would that look like? How much would that cost, and where would it come from?

B. McLeod: Well, our regional office has one full-time and one part-time employee. I'm not too sure what it actually costs to run the office and what the cost of the building is. It's not a very large amount.

L. Mayencourt: In size it's probably like a community police office, almost.

B. McLeod: Yes. It's a small office — you could probably put it in this room — in terms of a physical asset. I think the important part there is that you have someone who has their fingers on the pulse of all the communities and is able to assist us and steer us in the right direction when it comes to preparing for emergencies and things of that nature — and doing an awful lot of coordinating for search and rescue efforts.

L. Mayencourt: Just in conclusion of my part of it, thank you very much for the good work that you and your volunteers do for our province.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Bob, that concludes the questions the committee has. Again, thank you very much for your presentation today.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): At this time we will call on Carla Mantie. Good morning.

C. Mantie: Hi. I was expecting 13, so I think I can handle seven. This is good.

Actually, I wanted to come to talk today about mental health services. I'm a parent of a child who has mental health issues. As well, I've worked in the mental health area for ten years, most specifically in the child and youth area in the last two and a half. This is an area that is often kind of forgotten and needs serious attention with some budgetary priorities.

I have real concerns about the thought of less money being allocated to support children with mental health issues. Right now we run on a very emergent and crisis basis with little budget, energy or connection with preventive or early intervention. I've spoken with many parents of children with mental health issues who have voiced serious concerns about the inability to access early intervention services for their children. It has been proven that a system run with prevention in mind is cost-efficient and provides better services to children.

Like I said, I have a child with a specific mental health disorder. Luckily, I lived in Vancouver when he was diagnosed, and I also am quite knowledgable about his needs and working with the mental health system. However, for him to be successful in his life and through his growing-up years, he's going to need a lot of support that I might not be able to give him — more supported school, possibly psychiatric support and medication management and possibly respite or a child and youth worker. He'll sit on long wait-lists, as the most urgent and emergent get the services first. We'll be expected to travel to Vancouver for assessments, clinical suggestions and follow-up, and I'll need to be educating his teachers and support staff throughout his life on strategies that'll help him and make him successful.

Unfortunately, others like Luke aren't able to access or have as many services provided. Whether that is because they don't know the services exist or because they, too, will sit on wait-lists until it becomes a crisis — and we will act then…. They won't have possible financing to be able to travel back and forth to Vancouver or to anywhere for services. They may not be as knowledgable or have access to the information about their disorders or be able to communicate this as well to their teachers or team members.

I believe we need to maintain or increase funding to a standard that would provide more support for families

and youth prior to a crisis. Of course, crisis management also has to be considered. However, it cannot be the only consideration. Some preventive and early intervention strategies would be to continue to improve the creation of links with health, mental health, community services and schools, where they can work collaboratively to improve the knowledge base around mental illness and how to access resources and treatment modalities; and educating caregivers, education providers, school personnel, community services providers and such with not only assessment information but what to do then. Resources spent at an early detection level to support families, teachers, community services and youth will result in more success and better prognosis.

I know you heard earlier this morning about the importance of early childhood education, and this is a great place to start for first response and prevention. One example I have of this is a youth that recently was facing really serious charges in our legal system. I'm not going to say what the charges are, because it's a small town. It was noticed that this child was having difficulties very early — in fact, in elementary, probably grades 1 and 2. It started with learning disorders and behavioral problems. As it grew, because it never got to a crisis or emergent state, he didn't get services, and because the parents weren't squeaky wheels in the education or the social services systems, he didn't get support. I'm not saying, of course, that that would have been a different outcome, but I believe it probably would have. It probably would have been able to prevent some of it and offer him a bit more support. Unfortunately, now he's in jail.

It is imperative that the budget takes into consideration the limited resources we have up here — not only here but in the province, of course. We all know that we're struggling to provide for doctors, specialists and nurses. Having additional cuts to these services will not help. Locally, we struggle with recruitment of specialists and retention, whether it be social workers or psychiatrists. I worked in the northwest for about 2½ years. The first six to eight months we didn't have psychiatry at all, and after that it's been once every two months by a consulting psychiatrist out of Vancouver. This has limits in itself in that the consulting psychiatrist can't offer ongoing psychotherapy or any other kind of modalities other than serious crisis management. To see the psychiatrist in the northwest, you sit on a wait-list. Of that wait-list, it is the most emergent people of the whole region. It goes from the Yukon to Kitimat and from the Queen Charlottes to Houston. Eight people get seen every two months out of that whole region. It's a vast region, as I'm sure you guys have heard. The closest adolescent psychiatry bed is in Prince George. Even for crisis management they have to be shipped via air ambulance.

I've had many parents describe their frustration and disgust with the present services, as it has many ramifications financially, emotionally and culturally on family and community health. The implications of having to travel for services can be detrimental and traumatic to a family — the financial cost for the travel; the discomfort in having to be away from their community and support system, many for the first time; as well as battling the issue of child care for family members remaining at home. Also, many of these resources exist in large urban areas, which in itself can pose a risk as well as be overwhelming to youth who are coming from isolated rural areas. We often worry about contagion when they're down there. Because of the lack of resources and the crisis focus of care, there are wait-lists for existing services, which cause difficulties. People with less urgent or crisis problems can wait for up to six months for mental health supports. For child and youth workers, it seems to be less lately, but I remember a time when we waited for a year. For respite, sometimes it's even longer.

There need to be more resources in the north to adequately support youth with mental health issues. In keeping with the best-practices model for mental health care, services have to be created locally to assess, plan, care and treat children within their geographic area, cultural environment and support network. I think the respite program is imperative to the support and maintenance of these families as it can work preventively to keep the family together and youth out of full-time care. I've seen many circumstances where the family and the youth do not receive services until much too late. The family system breaks down, and the child is put into a costly provincial resource. If the respite program were expanded to assist in prevention, many youth would benefit.

The last point I want to talk to you about is quality assurance. As mental health services now fall under the ministry umbrella, the government has some controls over the quality and standards of care as well as process. If privatized, the government is further away from these controls. How can government ensure that a standard of care will be universally provided when the services are provided outside the ministry? How can we protect lines of communication, community links, education minimum requirements or experience minimum requirements when it has to be passed through a contract to agencies and government? Is this good use of our resources in the long term?

In conclusion, I believe the government needs to strongly consider maintaining and improving funding for mental health services. A movement to prevention and early intervention, increased resources and quality assurance is imperative. Further cuts will keep us in an emergency system, and we'll never get to the prevention system that we all know saves money. Children are our future and our investment. Any investment that we can put in now will pay itself off in the end.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thank you very much, Carla. I will look to members of the committee if they have any questions at this time.

L. Mayencourt: We heard from some people earlier this morning about early child care. We've heard people in other communities talking about having a problem where, lo and behold, there's a government program to

help them, but they don't know about it. You're speaking about it as well. It seems like we only wait until everything's all broken to communicate with people that that program exists; it's there to help them. How can we do a better job of that?

C. Mantie: I think you're right. We had a focus group up here, and many of the kids who attended said: "I didn't know you were there, and I wouldn't come and see you because you're mental." I think you're right. We're not out there. We don't go out and advertise. We don't have time. I can only do crisis calls.

I think we need to start looking at linking with the schools and saying: "Yeah, we're here, and we want to do some education with your teachers so that they can take up some slack." We want more counsellors in the primary grades, the elementary grades, where they can pick up the first problems — to notice there's a problem, know what to do about them and access our program.

We have very little time to go into the schools to present, you know. What does depression look like? What does ADHD look like? What can we do for these problems? We need to be able to create more links and have more time to be able to get in there and do some prevention, whether that's with health or whatever, with the health system.

L. Mayencourt: Yeah. The idea of going to schools is great and going to physicians and letting them know about the range of things. You know, kids go to school, and people go to see their doctors, and stuff like that. It just seems a shame that we have a great program that could maybe help somebody, and they have no idea that it exists until their life is just destroyed.

C. Mantie: The nice thing about that is that hopefully, then we can connect, and they'll come back before it's a crisis again. However, it would be nice to get them before it gets to crisis in the first place.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): This is just touching on your presentation, Carla, and recognizing the importance our government has put in a Minister of State for Mental Health. I think that by breaking up Health, instead of one Minister of Health, we've actually broken it down into four. It's a very significant issue, not just for budgets but an issue of building a better society. The recognition is there.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): I will call on Mark Collins. Has Mark joined us? Not yet.

That concludes the formal presenters who have registered. We do have what we call an open-mike session for people who came to listen and possibly put some thought into what they've heard and would like to speak to the committee. I do have a list of some presenters. At this time, I will call on Pat Borovec and Eileen Howells.

R. Leclerc: Good, thank you. My name's Roger Leclerc, and I'm the token male in the crowd here. We'd like to make a presentation on behalf of Terrace and District Community Services.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Just to point out that the time frames of the presentations are shortened for the open-mike session. Just to let you know so we don't get into it and have to…. We're going to try and get to as many people as we can in this session as well. With that, I will turn it over to you, Roger.

R. Leclerc: Where are we coming from as service providers in the community? Over the past decade we have seen a decline in the resource-based sectors like forestry, fisheries and mining. This has had a negative economic impact on the service sector in the community as a whole. Because of the decline in the resource-based industries sector, unemployment in the northwest of British Columbia has increased substantially. High unemployment has increased social problems in the communities and increased the number of families trying to access services.

In the past five years we have seen client wait-lists grow. In spite of the 1.5 percent clawback in the ministry, the expectation of services has increased. Over the past few years there has been an increase in utility costs, with hydro, natural gas, vehicle gas and insurance.

The northwest has a diversified culture and a very large region for accessibility. This results in a tendency for a wider range of community services and programs.

Over the past ten years the provincial government bureaucracy has increased. This has made it more difficult for clients to access services and for the service providers to access the necessary information to meet the mandate of their contracts.

What have we done to address these challenges? As community service providers we have looked at identifying and implementing operational efficiencies within our programs while maintaining quality client services. We have worked with community organizations and government ministries to minimize duplication of services and maximize client opportunities. We have in place two accredited programs and are in the process of accrediting the organization as a whole. We have completed a human resource study, an ergonomic study,

and developed a technology plan for our society. We have reviewed all job descriptions, and job evaluations have been modified as required.

Where are we now? We are a community in crisis with resources stretched to the limit. The constant restructuring and reorganization within the government ministries has impacted the relationship with service providers. The 1.5 percent clawback was taken from the entire contract. However, a directive to service providers was that the client programs could not be reduced or affected. The service providers' stress levels have increased, because the contract person, our agency, has changed, may change or will change. This affects continuity of care. It also increases the possibility that individuals or families may have a more difficult time accessing services.

There is an increased demand for social services as more families in stress need help. This stress results in service providers and ministries seeing an increase in the number of people suffering from depression, low self-esteem, neglect within family units and an increase in anti-social behaviours. Some of the negative impacts are poor nutrition, higher numbers of attempted suicides, an increase in alcohol and drug abuse and violence within the family. The end results of these impacts are an increase in demand for services like addictions, financial debt services and medical assistance. With their financial commitments in the community, some families cannot pick up and move. They cannot sell their house in the present climate and cannot afford to take financial losses.

What next? Terrace and District Community Services has played a lead role for over 25 years in meeting the changing needs of the community. We counsel a paced and thoughtful approach to any future system change. Our priority is to sustain service delivery with a minimum of disruption. We are committed to providing community services into the future.

It is important to recognize that services cannot be measured in financial terms alone. Government needs to base its decisions on broader human and social outcomes. This requires resources that address the unique circumstances and conditions facing people who live in the northwest. Without a government commitment to recognize the reality of people's needs in a community, children do not live and thrive in healthy families and are subjected to an increased degree of isolation, and families are pushed further into crisis. Not only will the cost to society as a whole be high, but government will be forced to bear the cost of the more expensive crisis-driven services.

Over the past three years government time, energy and resources to structure change have not resulted in any significant improvement in the quality and responsiveness of services for individuals and families. This ultimate responsibility for funding, monitoring and ensuring the maintenance of standards for community services and support must remain with the provincial government. On behalf of its citizens, the provincial government must remain publicly accountable for sustaining a level of service that is truly responsive to identified community need and meets consistent standards across the province.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): We'll look to members of our committee if they have any questions at this time. I see no questions.

I would like to thank you for taking time out of your schedules to come and present to our committee today. Thank you very much.

L. McKeown: Just for the record I wanted to tell you that I did bring two presentations today, one on behalf of Frank Hamilton, who couldn't be with us as he's attending a conference in Smithers. He did want me to bring his thoughts forward to this committee. You have a copy of that. I hope you'll have a chance to read Mr. Hamilton's comments.

As for myself, I appreciate your coming to Terrace and giving us the opportunity to meet with you. As a business owner I want to thank you for the steps you've taken to date. It is refreshing to know there is now a climate in B.C. that appreciates business, whether large or small, for their efforts and contribution to this province. You have sent a strong message of your determination to get B.C. back on a businesslike footing. This was long overdue. We must balance our budgets and reduce our debt. This is going to be painful over the next few years, but it has to be done to ensure that we re-create a province that can sustain its citizens. Please stay the course.

I have two suggestions to make. One is general in nature. Government must learn to make decisions quickly, to be flexible and to understand the principle of the time value of money, as business does, in order to succeed. You are all aware of the SCI collapse in our region and the hardship it has created. There was an agreement in place for FRBC moneys to be administered by SCI for contracts for tree-planting, brushing, watershed restoration, etc. With the collapse of SCI, this was put on hold. Our MLA, Roger Harris, made the suggestion in September that the administration of this approximately $2 million contract be done by a third party so that contractors could not only get back to work but also so that the work could be done this year before the snow flies. This suggestion struck me as such an obvious commonsense solution. It would keep people working, it would ensure the work was done this year rather than next, or never, and the government would be perceived as working proactively for the people of Skeena. A month later this work will finally begin to move forward. I think the government has to be prepared to act very quickly on a very simple decision like this.

My second suggestion: the government has to be a proactive, constructive partner in the development of projects in B.C. by providing personal project development support. Besides cuts, you have to also look at the revenue side of your income statement. Cuts are the easier of the two. Attention has to be paid to how you're going to get investment into this province which

in turn will produce revenue. You have a huge negative reputation from the last ten years to break down.

There are projects on the books now that are slowly, so slowly, working their way forward. I recognize that at the end of the day, the final decision of corporate investment in B.C. is a business decision. But rather than sit back and hope this will happen, let's be proactive. It will take you a while to restructure government and reduce regulations. In the meantime projects still have to work their way through the existing bureaucratic morass. We cannot hold up any investment in this province.

An example in our region is Alcan, who now employs 1,700 in Kitimat. For years they have planned an approximately $1.5 billion to $2 billion plant rebuild of the Kitimat works. Today there is a very real possibility that it will not happen, and we could lose Alcan. They are facing some real hurdles in this project, such as a slump in the aluminum market; a head office that is very focused on the bottom line; a myriad of people in the northwest who seem to assume that Alcan is here forever and should pay for an astonishing variety of services; difficulty moving the dredging of the Tahtsa Narrows forward; and government bureaucracy and perceived indifference.

You can't do much about most of these hurdles, but you can do something about the ease of investment for companies such as Alcan in B.C. Alcan has to be reassured by this government that there is a place for them in B.C. and that the B.C. Liberals endorse their rebuild plans. The province, let alone the northwest, simply cannot afford to lose such a major contributor to our economy. There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity on this project, and we must take advantage of it.

I would like to see the government hire someone with senior executive abilities and a can-do attitude to ensure that Alcan is not hampered by red tape. This person would have the authority to ensure that the bureaucracy does not hinder the project from developing in a timely and efficient manner. Whoever you hire cannot be a product of a bureaucracy but must bring the principles and urgency of private enterprise to the project.

I am sure there are other latent projects in B.C. that could be brought forward with the help of just such a person or persons. There would be a side benefit of having an independent person or persons help shepherd major projects through the government: it would soon become apparent which regulations are the stumbling blocks to development. I'm sure the Minister of State for Deregulation, Mr. Falcon, would be happy to hear about them.

We do live in a very competitive global economy. For anyone who expresses a willingness to invest in B.C., there should be an open door and a helping hand extended. Government's attitude should be: how can we help you bring your project to fruition in a timely manner? Then follow it up with decisive, timely, constructive action.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thank you very much, Lael, for your presentation. We do have time for questions, if there are any. I will look to members of the committee.

L. Mayencourt: This idea of someone that expedites and moves it through the system — is Alcan looking for that as well?

L. McKeown: I didn't ask Alcan. I listened to a presentation by their manager of corporate affairs, Michael Schuster, not too long ago to the chamber of commerce here. In a somewhat flippant manner, he did say that under the Glen Clark government…. Remember when we were going to have three — count them, three — aluminum smelters in the province? He said the NDP placed 21 people in a room and said: "You make this happen." He wasn't advocating that, but he was saying that that did exhibit a willingness of the government to try and move these developments forward.

I know that Roger Harris and Rick Thorpe and others have been meeting with Alcan. This wouldn't apply just to Alcan. You need that one person that's going to be the front person for the government with the file in his hand and the direction to say: "Make sure this happens."

L. Mayencourt: One other question. If we don't do that and Alcan doesn't move forward with their plans because of their feeling that we just don't want them and we lose the 1,700 jobs….

L. Mayencourt: We've heard from some groups that if we cut 100 jobs in some ministry or some range of ministries, there's three times that amount of an impact. In other words, 300 people are affected. Is that similar for Alcan?

L. McKeown: Oh, very much so. Kitimat is built around the three major plants, number one being Alcan, Air Canada and Methanex. It's not just the employees of the those plants. It's the service industries — that's not just Kitimat; it's Terrace too — who provide services to maintain those plants.

B. Penner: I'd just like to echo your comments about the importance of showing industry that we're interested in having them here. I was born in Kitimat.

B. Penner: My parents were there in part because of the smelter. My father was a school teacher but obviously would not have had a job there except for the smelter. I had a tour there a couple of years ago and saw that they were desperately in need of new

investment. I was told that given the climate in British Columbia with the previous government, their board of directors would not authorize that kind of investment.

B. Penner: The aluminum industry in general is facing great challenges. As you probably know, throughout the Pacific Northwest in the United States there's been a huge reduction in aluminum smelting operations in the past 18 months.

B. Penner: So there's difficult times all around for the aluminum industry. We have to do everything we can to keep Alcan here.

L. McKeown: I agree. You know, there's obviously a lot in this scenario that you can't deal with. I heard the other day that one of the companies that was thinking of investing in SCI hadn't heard that we'd had a change of government in B.C. I mean, we've got to get the message out that we want investment here and that we're willing to help them make it happen.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Lael, I would like to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to present to our committee.

F. Rowe: Hello. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to you. I'm the president of the local teachers union. I have provided a written report to the committee. I point out that the report that is being distributed is essentially the same report that I made in November of last year to the select standing committee at that time. The elements of the report haven't changed between then and now. What the report attempts to do is give some on-the-ground examples, which are happening in schools right now, of the effect of insufficient funding in public education. I don't propose to take you through the report in detail, but I would like to just hit some of the highlights for you.

One of the elements that I mention is the use of computers in schools. I'm sure you'll have heard this many times. Although teachers by and large support the use of computer technology in schools, it's useless if the computer doesn't work. If you take your class to a computer lab and the lab is not functioning, you can't teach computer skills effectively that day. That happens frequently. There are hardware problems, software problems and maintenance problems that make the incorporation of computer technology into the curriculum difficult and very frustrating.

The teachers in this school district have lost our resource centre, so there are fewer supplies available to teachers for the instruction of their students. In addition to that, the effect of that is compounded by the introduction of many new curricula over the past few years that have been insufficiently supported with materials. There are many classes in this school district that are operating without enough textbooks for the kids in the class. Consequently, especially in an era when teachers are expected to provide for the individual learning differences of students, the use of photocopying becomes important.

There have been agreements reached through Cancopy to photocopy some material. However, this school district has reduced the supplies budget to schools by hundreds of thousands of dollars recently. That means the budget for photocopying materials is reduced. We have a compounding effect of new curriculum requiring new resources that aren't available and the inability to copy for meeting individual student needs because of a tight budget situation.

That entire situation is also compounded by the integration of students with special learning needs in all classes in the district. That is certainly a philosophy and an initiative that has the support of teachers. If it isn't adequately supported through the provision of resources to meet the individual learning needs of those students, it can in fact have a harmful effect in the sense that the time the teacher takes to deal with individual students with learning difficulties is time not spent with students who don't. There is often a disproportionate amount of time spent with students with exceptional learning needs. You will have heard before, I'm sure, that mainstream is a philosophy supported by teachers, but it does require money, and there is insufficient money. In fact, in this school district there has been a reduction in the number of assistants available to help the students in classrooms this year.

The school system in this district has had a couple of hits in recent years. As you're aware, we're in a school district that has been amalgamated. I would like to say to you that amalgamation has not been a good thing for this school district. I don't think the alleged savings materialized, although that may be for someone else to say. The effect in the classroom has been significant. The school district, because it's been amalgamated, has lost grants that formerly supported instruction in Kitimat and the former Terrace school district.

There's been a significant reduction in the amount of money coming into this district, but the needs of the students have remained the same. Amalgamation hasn't changed that. It's very difficult to achieve efficiencies of service when you need personnel in each community who have to stay in those communities. The amalgamation of the district at the board level, perhaps, is one thing, but amalgamating administrative and instructional services is an entirely different story, and it hasn't been a good effect.

In this school district we've also suffered a decline in enrolment. Certainly, that's directly related to the economy in the region — no question about it. The decline in enrolment has been uneven. A couple of years ago it was very sudden, and the district was ill-prepared to

accommodate the reduction in enrolment and consequent loss of funding. The government of the day provided a bit of a cushion.

We're still in an era where we're likely to see further declines in enrolment. I would simply ask that if the government is introducing accountability contracts in public education, I have no objection to being held accountable for what I do, and my members have no objection to being held accountable for what they do, provided the measures of accountability are professionally defensible, make sense and are in fact directly related to the tasks that we've been assigned. But if we're going to be held accountable for what we do, I would respectfully put it to you that you, as well, need to be held accountable for what you do. If you're asking us to do a job, you need to give us the tools to do the job with. I'll stop the presentation here.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Thank you, Frank. Just a question I would ask for your comment on. The issue of the three-year-rolling funding that we're looking at to provide to school districts — your comments on that.

F. Rowe: Well, if it were rolling uphill, I'd be much happier, but since it's rolling on a level plane, it seems to me that three-year-static funding will, in effect, be a reduction in moneys available to the system. Obviously, inflation is going to reduce the value of today's dollar next year. I think that unless there is an increase built into the budget — and it's my understanding that is not anticipated — then we're looking at a further erosion of moneys available to support public education. The three-year aspect, I don't mind at all. The predictability factor is fine, but the static, level factor of funding, the no-growth factor, is going to have a harmful effect.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): The funding issue — trying to remain level or neutral, with no decrease. Should our economy grow and so on, it certainly would be addressed that way. We've heard from a number of presenters across the province talking about the issues in different ministries. If we were to increase, do you have any ideas on where we'll find that? We're running a multibillion-dollar deficit in this province right now which is slated only to grow if we don't address how we provide government services. Any ideas on funding or abilities to cut our spending?

F. Rowe: Well, far be it from me to give you financial advice; I'm certainly not the person to do that. We're probably in the realm of political philosophy if we want to debate that, and I don't think that's the point or purpose here.

F. Rowe: It is my absolute belief and commitment that public education is an investment in the future. All of us at some time in our life have taken a mortgage on an investment that's going to yield dividends in future. I put it to you that public education is such an investment, and a mortgage, if it's necessary at this time, would be a wise mortgage to undertake.

J. Nester: Thank you for making time. I realize that it's getting late in the day, and you have to go Prince Rupert.

I've lived in Terrace for 30 years, and I've been a small business person here for the past 25. I'm in the resource-based sector. About ten years ago — on the coast here we're always facing some environmental assault on the logging industry — a consultant told me that in the modern political climate the world is run by the people who show up. Unfortunately, I have a lot more time now, so maybe I'll show up.

J. Nester: As I said, I'm in small business, and I've been in business for 25 years. I understand the pressure that a lot of the public sector employees are feeling right now, facing job losses and the prospect of downsizing, because it's something that we've had to deal with for the last five years. It's not pleasant. It's a lot easier and more pleasant to spend money than it is to cut costs.

Six years ago my business employed six or seven people. We rolled just under a million dollars a year through the company and into the local economy, paying good wages that supported good families. Now I have one part-time employee, and I've been able to take one paycheque this year myself. It has a dramatic impact. I won't say that government is fully responsible for the demise of our industry, but it has had some role to play. We've had increased taxes. We've had increased service fees. Administration fees have grown because we've had new regulations that have all resulted in reduced competition. We spend more and more of our time doing paperwork. I have some examples.

The National Safety Code is run by the province here for trucking companies. By their own admission about 80 percent of trucking companies are two or three trucks or less, yet the regulations are designed to judge whether I'm doing a proper job of safety supervision based on a paper trail that would be more applicable to someone like Canadian Freightways. That's the way we're judged. That's the way we're penalized. That's the way we're taken care of. Those impact my business greatly.

Over the past ten or 12 years commercial property taxes in this town have doubled. That increases my cost of maintaining a shop in this town. It makes it harder to keep that facility open or keep it viable. The provincial sales tax has been expanded. It didn't used to cover labour on repairing equipment, and now it does. It has for some time. The government, on one hand, is telling us that they want us to run a safer industry, and on the other hand, they've increased our costs by 3.5 to 4

percent by adding provincial sales tax on the labour to repair that equipment and keep it up to date.

The penalties when you don't meet some of these regulations have increased in severity, which impacts our ability to compete. The amount of regulation has increased; our competitiveness has decreased. The status quo can't continue. The government has to reduce costs. We have to have some tax breaks. We have to have some opportunity to be able to work in this province in an effective manner.

I don't think that any government program whose sole purpose is creating jobs has ever worked. At the same time any cuts in government, if all that you're gearing for is to cut jobs, will not work either. Government has to work; it has to be effective. As an example, I was involved with a non-profit organization in this town. We applied to the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks for a licence to occupy some Crown land in a vacant gravel pit that the Ministry of Highways was all in favour of us using. It took three years for that process to go through. That's not government that's working. Just cutting to reduce jobs will not be effective.

Another example. I've been working for the department of highways. You could reduce jobs by getting rid of the lowest entry-level job there, which would probably be the receptionist. That would probably be the person who I would go to for information that I wanted. That's probably the more effective person. You could replace that person with a phone system, where it might take me three days to make that contact. In the work that I'm doing, when I supply an invoice, it ends up going through three or four different offices and three or four different cities in this province before the cheque is issued. It's 60 days before I get that cheque. That costs money. A more effective way is to overhaul that system and make that department work more efficiently in dealing with their things. That would be a better way to make cuts and to save money than just by getting rid of that job.

That's about all that I have to say. I reaffirm that I want you to stay the course. We need to make government cuts. We have to reduce the tax burden and reduce the regulation that impedes industry to get this province back working again, but we have to do it in a constructive and strategic manner so that government works. When we go to government for the services that we need, it has to work. Right now it's not working very well.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): John, I thank you for taking time out of your schedule today to come and present to our committee. Thank you very much.

D. Scarborough: Hi. I didn't actually plan on speaking, but I was standing back there and couldn't stay quiet. It'll be very short.

I know that B.C. is made up of many communities that are not unique from one another. What is familiar to ours and what's going to impact ours is going to impact others. I just want to put a personal note on our community and let you walk away with a bit of a feeling of what Terrace is about.

Some of us in this room and certainly people that I work with do a number of different jobs, probably not unlike some of the communities you come from. To give you an example, like many others I worked for the RCMP victim services program years ago. Then I put the uniform on and was an auxiliary member of the RCMP for six years. That's community time that you're donating to keep our communities safe. I'm also a foster parent and have been for years, and I presently sit on the parole board. My full-time job is as coordinator of a transition house, working with victims of domestic violence. As well, you're coaching and doing those things for your children. I know that I'm not unique by any stretch of the imagination. We work hard to sustain a healthy community.

I work with a staff of anywhere from 12 to 20 people who are BCGEU employees. I worry about what's going to happen to their jobs, as well as all the others. When I look around and see what's happening, people losing their jobs, I think that we can only get better.

The money that I see the government cutting is, in a sense, going to make our jobs that much needed. I see, and everybody here knows, how abuse trickles down. Each and every one of us has to have a sense of power in our lives. Whether we get it through what we do on a daily basis, through our relationships or our children or whatever, each one of us needs a sense of power and control in our lives. When we don't have that anymore, we tend to get it over somebody else, and that can be in an unhealthy way. That's through bullying, domestic violence — whatever.

When we hear that there are 160 jobs going from SCI, 600 jobs from a mill town in Rupert or whatever, we're talking about 600 people who all have families. This is going to have a huge impact on them, as it would for you or your children or your brother or sister, etc. What I worry about is that we're not going to have the services.

I heard the woman speak about the child with mental health issues. It was acknowledged by you that in fact mental health has been identified as part of a ministry. That's great; I certainly wouldn't want to take that away. But the ministry that I worked with, the Ministry of Women's Equality, which funds transition houses in this province, has now been taken away and put into the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services. In essence, we've taken three and put them into one.

I'm asking you to acknowledge that if we're going to do all these cuts and these slashes to jobs…. I'm hearing that the slashes are also going to happen to the health care. I heard on CBC radio that we're going from 52 regional health boards down to 12. Being in an outlying area, I don't know how that's going to impact Terrace. We know that when you go to the optometrist, there's going to be a charge now. We know that physiotherapy, chiropractors and those sorts of things are

now going to be a cost out of pocket. Where we're going with that is that only those with money are going to have access to those services. When we know that a lot of people are going to be suffering abuse, whether it's economic abuse or domestic violence, etc., the social service field is going to be overburdened. From talking to the government, what I'm feeling a sense of is that in fact we're going to be streamlined, so there comes my concern.

I'm hoping that if these cuts are all going to go through, you acknowledge that it does trickle down and will impact communities. It impacts every one of us on a very personal basis. I just wanted to hear what your response to that would be.

B. Lekstrom (Chair): Well, thank you, Debbie, for coming to speak to the committee today and taking the time. I think you've touched on something. The issue that we believe has to happen is certainly to get the financial house back in order. I think that's a fair statement.

I can assure you that it will be done with compassion and balance, because as you sit over there, we sit here. We're all human beings, and we realize the impact this can have on families, our friends, our neighbours. At one point there has to be some realization that we will move forward, and I think that doing it together, with balance, is the only way to do it.

You brought up some interesting points. To continue what we were doing in the delivery of service, I can tell you, just isn't going to work. We're digging a bigger hole every day that we do that. Finding the proper method is what we're doing right now — out listening to British Columbians, trying to gain their ideas and their priorities and then putting a report together that we have to have completed by November 15, which the Hon. Gary Collins will take into consideration and utilize in the formation of next year's budget.

I don't know if that helps answer your question. I think I speak for all of the members that we do have hearts and we do have compassion. Bringing a balance to this is not an easy job. No one thought it would be when they ran for this position. Change does have to occur, and we'll try and do it in the most balanced and compassionate way we can.

D. Scarborough: I think hearing that and knowing that there will have to be cuts, etc…. Just remember the human component. Thank you.

That concludes the witnesses that have requested time to speak to us today. It is now roughly ten to one. Our next stop is Prince Rupert. We will be leaving shortly, but I want to thank the people that have come out to make presentations to our committee. For those of you that were unable to make presentations or through the deliberations today have come up with thoughts, there is still the opportunity to submit written submissions to our committee by the 31st of this month. The information is at the back table with Jacqueline on how to go about getting those to us. I would encourage you, in speaking with your friends and neighbours and if they have ideas, to please forward us those concerns.

Just before I close, I want to thank the people of Terrace and surrounding area for coming out today and giving us your views. I think it's very important that we take a broad view and listen to the broad issues that are brought before this committee in formulating our report.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES