Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 51 — Thursday, September 20, 2007 (HTML)

2007 Legislative Session: Third Session, 38th 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		1193
	P. Barbosa
	K. Blackburn
	D. Lewis
	L. Jarvis
	L. Dryden
	G. Frayne
	G. Maclagan
	M. Babchuk
	J. Banks
	S. Ackland
	N. Lax
	J. Leicester
	J. Twigg
	J. Malcolm
	M. Wright

Chair:	* Bill Bennett (East Kootenay L)
Deputy Chair:	* Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley NDP)
Members:	* Iain Black (Port Moody–Westwood L) * Harry Bloy (Burquitlam L) * Randy Hawes (Maple Ridge–Mission L) Dave S. Hayer (Surrey-Tynehead L) * Richard T. Lee (Burnaby North L) * John Horgan (Malahat–Juan de Fuca NDP) * Jenny Wai Ching Kwan (Vancouver–Mount Pleasant NDP) * Bob Simpson (Cariboo North NDP) * denotes member present

Witnesses:

Shirley Ackland (Vice-President, North Island College Faculty Association)
Michele Babchuk (Board of Trustees, School District 72 — Campbell River)
Joanne Banks (Council of Canadians, Campbell River Chapter)
Patrick Barbosa (North Island Students Union)
Ken Blackburn (Executive Director, Campbell River Community Arts Council)
Dr. Lou Dryden (President, North Island College)
Gwyn Frayne (Council of Canadians, Comox Valley Chapter)
Lois Jarvis (Citizens for Quality Health Care)
Noel Lax (Quadra Island Protected Areas Committee)
Judy Leicester (Quadra Island Protected Areas Committee)
Dave Lewis (Executive Director, Truck Loggers Association)
George Maclagan (Chair, Board of Trustees, School District 72 — Campbell River)
Judi Malcolm (Forest Circle Child Care)
John Twigg (Leader, B.C. Refederation Party)
Malcolm Wright

B. Bennett (Chair): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's nice of you to join us. We appreciate your coming out.

My name is Bill Bennett. I'm the MLA for East Kootenay, and I'm the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. I'm going to ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves so you know who's up here. I'll start with Mr. Hawes over here on my left.

H. Bloy: Harry Bloy, MLA for Burquitlam, the home of Simon Fraser University.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Bruce Ralston, MLA for Surrey-Whalley and Deputy Chair of the committee.

B. Bennett (Chair): On my left here today is our Clerk, Katch Koch, who happens to be from the Ontario Legislature. He's on loan to us for a while and is just taking note of how we do things here in British Columbia. I haven't heard him say yet whether he thinks we're superior to what happens in Ontario or not, but maybe we'll get that out of him before this tour is over.

Also, at the back of the room are Jonathan Fershau, who is the research analyst for this committee, and Jacqueline Quesnel, who is at the registration desk. We also have two folks here from Hansard Services, who prepare a written transcript of our meetings. They stream this audio out to the Internet so that anyone out there who wants to listen to what's happening at these hearings can avail themselves of that.

The Minister of Finance for B.C. is required to release a budget consultation paper by September 15 each year. This budget consultation paper provides a description of the fiscal and economic conditions of the province and identifies the key issues that need to be addressed by the public in preparation for the next budget. If you don't have a copy of the budget consultation paper, you can get one from Jacqueline at the back of the room.

The Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services is charged with carrying out public consultations on the minister's behalf. This all-party committee is required to report back to the Legislative Assembly not later than November 15 of this year.

Everyone who's here probably knows how you go about making a presentation to the committee, so I won't go into that, but we do have a website that you're welcome to go on. You can see how to make a written submission, or an on-line submission if you'd like to do that.

As a reminder, any input that we receive as a committee, whether it's in writing or in electronic form, has the same impact. The deadline for all submissions, written or otherwise, is Friday, October 19.

Today we're going to hear from a number of presenters — we have a full schedule today — who have preregistered with the Office of the Clerk of Committees. Our presentations are up to ten minutes. That allows us five minutes for questions and answers. I'll usually remind folks if they're getting close to the ten minutes.

If you go over the ten minutes and you're close to the end of your presentation, we just kind of deduct that from the five-minute Q-and-A time. We have to keep to schedule. We don't want people to come and have to wait a half-hour or an hour to make their presentations.

We usually have time at the end of the session for what we call the open-mike session. That's where people can get up for five minutes and tell us what they think about the upcoming provincial budget. We're going to do that today.

I know that we have one gentleman in the audience who will take some time then. He tried to make a submission to us and somehow or other got caught up in our inefficiencies and wasn't able to get registered, so we're going to give him that opportunity.

B. Bennett (Chair): Okay. You'll have your opportunity at the end of the meeting.

With that, let's get started with our first witness, North Island Students Union, Patrick Barbosa.

P. Barbosa: First, I'd like to say good afternoon, and I'd like to thank the committee for allowing me to present today on behalf of North Island Students Union. As mentioned, my name is Patrick Barbosa, and I am the resource coordinator for North Island Students Union, Local 72 of the Canadian Federation of Students.

The North Island Students Union was formed in 1991, and we represent students across a vast region of 80,000 square kilometres. My members would like to raise the following points for the committee this year. The first issue that we're going to talk about is arequest to reduce tuition fees by 10 percent for the 2008-2009 academic year. The second is the reimplementation of a system of non-repayable grants that will

provide upfront funding to improve accessibility for students. The third is the elimination of interest on B.C. student loans. Finally, we wanted to talk a little bit about increased funding for the post-secondary system and a recognition of inflation — so inflationary funding as well.

First, on tuition fees. As you're probably all aware, recent public polling has shown that the belief that the government of British Columbia ought to improve access and reduce tuition fees has received overwhelming support. In fact, in a recent poll over 80 percent of British Columbians polled showed that they shared the view of students that tuition fees are too high and that the government needs to reduce tuition fees to eliminate the huge financial burden being paid by B.C. students and B.C. families.

In B.C. the average student pays nearly $5,000 in tuition and in ancillary fees if they're going to university and about $3,400 if they're going to a college, university college or an institute. Despite the obvious public support shown by citizens of this province, B.C. families have seen no action by the province on this issue.

The current tuition fee policy which caps the annual fee increases at 2 percent has done nothing to reduce the cost of attending college or university, and it has done nothing to ensure that as a province we provide opportunity to all young people and all families in our province. It has done nothing to recognize the overwhelming support shown by British Columbians for a new policy of reduced tuition fees and improved access for better jobs and better citizens.

In this year, B.C. students will pay about $963 million in tuition fees, and that's about $18 million more than they paid last year. We request that the committee fully fund a 10-percent reduction in tuition fees across the province.

In terms of student debt in 2001, when I started my post-secondary education, I entered a system that had a comprehensive system of need-based grants. For example, in my first year I was eligible for a first-year grant. Once I moved on to my second year, the first-year grants were removed from the system. In my second year I was again eligible for second-year grants, and when I moved into my third year, the second-year grants were removed from the system. I completed my third and my fourth year, and in completion of my fourth year, third- and fourth-year grants were removed from the system. So one would probably assume that because I was eligible for such a robust grant system, I would have a fairly low student loan. My student loan is $40,000, and I'm currently paying that back.

I cannot imagine being a student in the current system. It's currently devoid of any grants, and the loan remission program that we have now is actually a very unclear system. Students don't know how much money they'll be eligible for, and they don't really even know if they're going to be eligible for loan remission.

As I'm sure you're aware, this last budget saw a $23 million cut in funding for student financial assistance. What that indicates to me — and I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to see this — is that students from low incomes are continually reducing at accessing post-secondary education.

We believe it's time to start reinvigorating the student financial assistance program to do what itwas meant to do, and that's to provide access to post-secondary for low- and middle-income British Columbians. We know that the Ministry of Advanced Education is currently undertaking a review of the student financial aid system in British Columbia, and we hope that as a committee you will recognize the important role of government so as to ensure that British Columbians from all backgrounds can access college and university. We hope that will happen without having to pay a $40,000 student loan.

Just a personal note. By the time I'm finished my student loan, I'll have paid nearly $100,000, and that's $100,000 that is paid by me and my family.

We request the committee recommend that the B.C. budget in 2008 include funding to expand loan reduction and a full grants program and measurable targets mandated to reduce student debt in the province.

I'll just move on to student loans and interests. Student loans are currently sitting at about 9-percent interest for people who are sort of not fixed, so that's a floating rate. It's 2½ percent plus prime. For students who lock in to their student loan, they're paying nearly 11-percent interest on their student loan. That's a locked-in rate, so if interest rates were to increase dramatically, then they wouldn't be affected in the same way as students at the floating rate are.

I just want to note that I have a Visa that has an interest rate of around 11 percent, so that means the B.C. government is actually charging the same rate on student loans to some students that a private Visa company is charging students. It's my understanding that the B.C. government has a borrowing rate of around 4 percent to 6 percent. Essentially, that means that we're making money off the backs of students who had to take loans to go to post-secondary education.

For a student with an average debt upon graduation, they're going to be paying about $400 per month for 9½ years before they'll finish paying off their student loan. In that time, the average student will have paid about $15,000 just in interest. That's $15,000 on top of the actual money they borrowed to go to post-secondary.

We know that the B.C. government's own numbers on tuition fees have shown that as tuition fees have increased, lower-income students have been less and less likely to access post-secondary education. As a result, we're asking that the B.C. government eliminate tuition fees on student loans in the province to help students from lower- and middle-income backgrounds actually go to college and to make more opportunity for people once they graduate.

Certainly, I know from my experience that buying a house or investing in something of that nature is not a realistic proposition until much, much later in my life.

Moving on to funding. In January 2007 a provincial poll by the Mustel Group showed that almost 60 percent of British Columbians said they would rather see

investments in post-secondary education than a personal cut in tax rates. As the student contribution to the cost of their education increases, the government contribution to post-secondary education is actually decreasing.

So students are paying a larger portion of that cost, and this has been a trend that's been going on for the last 15 to 20 years. That's despite the fact that British Columbians have shown quite clearly that they support increased funding for post-secondary and would rather do that than see a personal tax cut.

In the 2007 B.C. budget, students saw an actual decline in the real funding for post-secondary education. The ministry's own service plan shows that funding is increasing at a rate of about 1.3 percent, while inflation is increasing at 2 percent. That's about a 0.7 percent decline in actual funding for students and for post-secondary education.

At the very best, we believe that the B.C. government should be investing significant dollars to return the level of government funding to historic highs and reduce the amount that students are contributing to that education. At the very least, we believe this committee should recommend that government increase post-secondary funding at the rate of inflation.

We're requesting that the committee recommend a post-secondary funding increase of 10 percent and that future funding be increased to account for inflation.

With that, I would like to thank you for listening to me today. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

B. Bennett (Chair): Okay, Patrick. Thank you very much for that. I have to tell you that this is our fourth meeting, and I must say that students across the province of British Columbia are very well organized. Congratulations on that. You're doing a good job of advocating for students.

J. Horgan: Thank you, Patrick, for that riveting presentation. We have, as the Chair says, heard from student unions right across the piece. I was on the committee last year, and we had similar presentations. I had heard in previous locations three requests: a reduction in tuition fees, the re-introduction of the grant program and the increase in per-student funding.

I'd like to explore the interest-relief suggestion, because I think that's a good one. There are students, like yourself, who have incurred significant debt to complete or to participate in the post-secondary sector. As you say, there is quite a gap between what you're required to pay in repaying your loan and what the government pays to borrow money.

Could you maybe expand on that and how you would see this committee reporting back to the Minister of Finance on how we can assist students who have already been saddled with significant debt, as opposed to those that are coming through the system now?

P. Barbosa: In terms of students who are currently repaying their student loans, a reduction in the interest rates at any level would be a huge improvement, but the reality is….

I think the reason people go to post-secondary or go to university or college is to provide a better opportunity for themselves and to provide a better opportunity for their families. Being saddled with this very, very high interest rate on their loan makes it very difficult for people to contribute and to make a better life.

My daughter is nine years old, and I'll be paying off my student loan well into her 20s. That's, in part, because I had such a high student loan. I had to extend it over a longer period of time.

The ideal is that you go to school, you do the right things, and then you move on. And you're able to get a decent job, you're able to contribute to the economy through better taxes, through entrepreneurial initiatives. The student loan system actually really restricts people's ability to do that, because they're saddled with this huge debt, and they really need to focus on paying that back.

I think the reality is that investing in a reduction in interest on student loans would improve the economy in so many ways and provide better opportunities for me, for my daughter, for other people with families, for other British Columbians.

R. Hawes: The one thing you didn't mention — and I'd be very interested, from your perspective — is about the cost of books. I know that the cost of books is increasing pretty dramatically in relation to tuition fees. That's the first part of my question: in relation to tuition fees, what would be the cost of books, on average?

P. Barbosa: I don't think you could make a fair assumption. I would suggest that books in one semester could go from $300 to maybe as high as $1,000. It really does depend on the program. It depends on the publishers and all of those factors that we really can't control.

What I do know is that one of the reasons that bookstores on campuses are being forced to charge such high rates for books is because they're ridiculously underfunded. One of those opportunities for the institution to make back some extra funding, to help cover the costs that aren't being covered through the provincial funding grant, is by charging more on books. Students need those books, students have to have those books, so in absence of increased funding, that's one way that a post-secondary institution — be it a college or university — can actually make back that money.

I think the reality is that the high cost of books is linked to the underfunding issues that our post-secondary institutions face.

R. Hawes: You and I may differ on that, because I think that the publishers.… They do charge a tremendous amount of money for the books.

I guess the big part of my question and where I really want to…. And I'm not sure if you would have a

perspective on this. How often are the required textbooks for any given course, in your experience, changing over? And how much change is in the course content for the change in textbook? In other words, used textbooks are a lot cheaper than new ones, but you can't use the used textbooks if they've made small changes. What would be your experience with that, or do you have any thoughts on that?

P. Barbosa: Well, I can say with some experience that the changes to textbooks from edition to edition are generally very minor. I think that the reality is that student unions across the province have recognized this as a real issue, and that's why most student unions that have significant space would provide some sort of used-book service that allows students to access books that have been pre-used.

The reality is that I think the changes are often insignificant, but I'm not sure that, as a province, we could deal with that issue. If there was some sort of legislation to stop private companies from changing editions, that might be a good thing — or from changing editions insignificantly. I don't know if that's something that this committee could do, but I think that would be something that would not be unwelcome.

R. Hawes: I guess my final point would be…. MLA Horgan pointed out that we've heard, in various stops, about the 10-percent reduction, etc. But the one thing we never seem to hear about is books and how frequently they change with inconsequential changes that force you into buying new books rather than used ones. I would have been interested to hear from some of the student unions about that.

P. Barbosa: I suppose that we recognize that issue, but for us the priorities are clear. We believe the system needs more funding, lower tuition fees, a better grant system. While the book issue would be something that we wouldn't not welcome, the real priority is these issues, and that's why we focus on them over textbooks per se.

B. Bennett (Chair): We have one additional questioner, if we could keep the question and the answer as short as possible.

P. Barbosa: Well, that's actually a little untrue. About two years ago I had amassed a student loan debt of $40,000.

P. Barbosa: Yeah, as a full-time student. The reason I amassed such a high level of debt, in part, wasbecause I was a single father. A job opportunity came up in the Okanagan with the students union. I had some good experience and had been involved with student unions across the Island. So faced with the opportunity of amassing more student debt or moving on to a job that would help me pay off some of that debt, I was forced to move on to the job. I would have liked to have finished my degree.

Consequently, an opportunity came up in this region. My degree has to be completed through Malaspina because of transferability issues.

P. Barbosa: Yeah. I work with the students union full-time, but I do take courses part-time because I simply just can't afford to amass more debt. So my only opportunity is to try and struggle through course by course and to pay it off while I'm working. It's going to be a slow process. In part, it's caused by my high debt, which is related to tuition fees, funding and grants and all of that jazz.

B. Bennett (Chair): Patrick, thank you very much for taking the time to put together your presentation. If you want to, you're welcome to leave the Clerk at the back with a copy of your speaking notes. Your choice.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to introduce the local MLA for North Island, Claire Trevena, who is sitting back here. I'm sure you all know who Claire is. Welcome.

Our next witness is the Campbell River Community Arts Council, Ken Blackburn. Welcome.

K. Blackburn: Welcome to Campbell River. You brought us the rain, though. It's been sunny for the last week.

K. Blackburn: My name's Ken Blackburn. I'm the executive director for the Campbell River arts council. I'm also the public programmer for the Museum at Campbell River, and I'm part of the arts and culture alliance for Campbell River which includes the museum, the art gallery and the Tidemark Theatre, all of whose executive directors are in attendance today.

I'm here to talk about the importance of arts and culture in economic development. I'm hoping this is something you hear as you travel around the province. It's moved into a very central role, I think, in terms of local communities and the role that culture can play. We take it very seriously here in Campbell River.

I'd really like to focus on the need for sustainable and stable core funding for the arts and culture sector of British Columbia. I think recent developments, notably in the last ten years, have seen the arts and culture

migrate from what was once regarded as a somewhat fringe activity into a much more central and essential core part of coherent economic planning.

It has always been a misconception that the arts are a fringe, but I think that in more traditional times, especially in a developing Canada — notably in Campbell River, with a dependency on resources such as logging, fishing and mining — the arts tended to get shuffled to the side.

As economies are changing and as we move away from dependency on resources and move into what's being called the intellectual marketplace, or a knowledge economy, with an emphasis on human capacity skills, on innovation and on creativity, I think you find that arts and culture begins to be one of the most valuable tools that you have, to develop all of the skills that are necessary to meet that changing economy.

Probably what you'll find, too, as you visit the province, is that not only are the communities in competition with the world in a global economy, but it ends up being a reality that communities are also in competition with each other, especially to attract skilled workers, to attract professionals to relocate to the communities and to go after that retired demographic — people looking to move to communities and generally with disposable income, with very specialized skills and talents, and with time for the first time in their lives.

I think you'll also find that the competition tends to focus on three major issues — I'll call them the big issues — which are security, health and education. I'm sure you're well aware that those three issues tend to be what elections turn on — tend to be the big issues of elections — and also tend to be big issues in budget planning.

When we look at these three areas, I think it's important to understand the linkages that connect them in communities. We have to develop the ability to match these linkages to available resources. We also have to pay attention to the cultural climate within which these three issues are occurring and make the links between them.

I think that understanding the links between the issues, alongside understanding the climate within which the linkages operate, is what will foster coherent and consistent planning, especially economic planning.

Having just said that preamble, I want to just look at these three big issues and highlight the central role that arts and culture plays in addressing each of them. I'll do that by highlighting what it is we're doing locally.

Number one is security. Obviously, security gets a lot of airplay now in terms of international politics, but I think you find that when people are polled, it's not so much the international level that concerns them as their local level that concerns them. This is where we talk about things such as — I've listed them in the notes — assault, violence, street violence, gang violence, burglaries, vandalisms, which have things like graffiti. There tend to be a lot of youth issues in communities as well. These are very quickly related locally to issues of poverty, mental health, homelessness, drugs and alcohol, etc.

Crime costs Canadians $59 billion each year. That's from Stats Canada. The overall estimate of the monetary value of intervening in a high-risk youth is $1.7 million to $2.3 million. Researchers are concluding that social interventions can yield positive, measurable benefits within three years, with reductions in crime of 25 to 50 percent in ten years.

Arts programming addresses many of the root causes of crime and security issues. Intervening in the lives of youth pays positive economic benefits, mostly through skill development. The skills of trust, confidence, self-esteem, organization, communication and teamwork, which have all been identified by the Conference Board of Canada as being the key skills needed for the future workforce, are all addressed through arts programming.

Arts intervention into working with marginalized youth or youth at risk has shown to reduce crimes of assault, vandalism, visible graffiti, reduce dependencies on drugs and alcohol and reduce crime in neighbourhoods where the programs are run.

Locally, especially working through the alliance but in partnership with social agencies, including all the first nations bands in town, Success by 6, John Howard, we run a number of programs that look at just these kinds of issues. The youth identity program that we run at the arts council is skill-building for all of those identified marginal youth that have either been kicked out of the school system or are working on the fringes of it.

The art gallery runs a Super Saturday program that is free and is targeting low-income families. The Tidemark youth theatre program is developing exactly the skills that the Conference Board outlined by providing opportunities for youth to get experience in the theatre.

The Music in the Museum program is working with youth to give them audience experience — standing in front of an audience — and getting them skills working with symphonies through partnership with the Strathcona Symphony.

When we look at health, the national round table on arts and health notes that mental health and addictions represent 30 to 40 percent of the global burden of disease, estimating that the average age for the onset of anxiety disorders in Canada is 12; for addictions, it's the age of 18. The cost in Canada for mental illness is estimated at $14 billion, notably affecting job absenteeism and job performance in the workplace.

A healthy economy needs a healthy community. The arts — again, probably more than any field — have moved centrally into concerning themselves with health issues in communities across Canada and notably in communities in the United States, where local jurisdictions have actually mandated arts programming in any health delivery service.

Locally, our new media festival is a prime example. The arts council will be running the first media festival

this spring with a category called community health. This is in partnership with CADAC, the local drug and alcohol action committee. The John Howard Society, Family Services, Homalco band, Campbell River band, Laichwiltach Family Life and the RCMP are all involved in this new media festival and are addressing issues like drug and alcohol abuse, marijuana, sexual exploitation and gang violence.

I won't go into details, but there is much research now on the role that the arts play within hospital structures. This is very relevant for the north Island, as VIHA continues to work on its plan to build a new regional hospital. We are encouraging VIHA to look at some of our strategies for arts intervention, notably with music programs for the treatment of Parkinson's and visual arts for the treatment of Alzheimer's.

Education is the key factor for a knowledge economy and is the link between productivity and human resource development. The Microsoft Can Win conference that was held in 2007 noted that the emphasis for the future must be on "reducing dropout rates in high school and welfare reform in order to bring the marginalized more fully into the economic mainstream." That's coming from Microsoft.

I don't think it's even theoretical anymore. The arts have been proven, in any field that's been studied, to be productive in nurturing creativity, lateral thinking and creative problem-solving and have relevance whether we're studying medicine, law or engineering. It should form the basic core curriculum; it should be part of the basic core curriculum. It pays dividends in all areas.

Again, the art gallery's program Artists in the Schools, which the arts council funds, is a prime example of working with the curriculum to supply artists that are working in the classroom directly with students. Our writers' series through the arts council is particularly targeting low-income families that are working in isolation because of economic problems, to try to get those people out into the community meeting other writers and to just start, basically, to build their social skills and communication skills.

I think, in short, that these three big issues and the role that the arts play have to do with what we call quality-of-life issues. This is the key in measuring the climate of a community. That climate is what is the determining factor of why businesses will look at new communities to relocate.

It's what professionals are looking for when they choose or are looking to relocate or are being attracted to relocate to communities. Recent graduates — doctors, for example — will pay attention to the local quality of life — a place to raise a family, options for their youth. How safe is their community? Are their kids safe there? Is there programming in the community that will augment the educational system?

For retired people, are there volunteer opportunities in communities? A lot of them do come with skills and are not going to come to a place like Campbell River and just be content with looking at the water. They do want to be active, and they do want to continue applying their skills and experience to, in a sense, give back to communities.

I don't think there is a sector more powerful than the arts and culture community that is able to attend to all of those incoming skills and incoming needs, whether of new families or retired folks that are coming to relocate.

When I look at the sheet that was put out asking for input, I think that if you look at the language that's used in attracting new business and talking about standards of living and you note the bulleted points as to what the priorities are, I notice there is no bullet for arts and culture. What you find is that arts and culture are inherent within over half of them, like when we're talking about protecting the environment, which will demand a need for education and advocacy, for altering people's lifestyle, for raising awareness of the impact of activities on their local environment. That's going to take education. That's going to take reaching out to youth and having them understand how you alter people's lifestyles.

Again, when you look at strengthening a standard of living, we've talked about quality of life, protecting people and property. We just talked about reducing crime, violence and vandalism. Those kinds of things I think are foremost for people living locally. Education is in there. The arts are part of all of this.

In terms of how much, when the rubber hits the road, and what kind of funding would be recommended, I'll take the lead on Arts Future on that. The main funding agency, which all of the arts alliance in town depends on — the Tidemark Theatre, the gallery, the museum and the council — is the B.C. Arts Council. That's the main funding body.

We're recommending an increase of $14 million to their budget for next year. That probably breaks down to approximately 1.6 percent of the $900 million in new funds, which is not a significant chunk of it but will have direct impact, I think, in all of those areas.

In summary, I wanted to come and address you today on how the arts have, in fact, shifted from not just being what was perceived at one time as a quality-of-life issue. If you can go to the theatre, if you can go to see dance, if you can go to the movies, read good books — all of that is essential, but the arts, notably in the last ten years, have moved much more progressively into being on the front lines of what would be termed social development and community development. I think it's important to get that message across to you as you tour the province.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much. Ken, you've used up pretty much all of your time, including your question-and-answer time. We're going to put in one quick question for you from MLA Black.

I. Black: Ken, first of all, let me offer my congratulations to you. I've been listening to arts presentations a

long time. It's a very subjective area to try to emphasize the priorities and importance within community. The way you've done that, logically linking within those PowerPoint examples, is probably the best I've seen — very well done.

My question to you is pertaining to the B.C. Arts Council itself. You've mentioned it is the main funding vehicle for the arts organizations. In suggesting an increase in their funding — I think you said by $14 million — has the B.C. Arts Council itself taken a position relative to these hearings that we are doing? Is it consistent with that number?

Last year, when we did these sessions throughout the province, we heard different numbers being suggested as to how the B.C. Arts Council budget should be increased. The arts community was extraordinarily well organized and should be very proud of the representation it had.

Do you have any thoughts on that? Are you aware of that in terms of a centralized approach from the B.C. Arts Council relative to the presentation you gave us this afternoon?

K. Blackburn: No. Where the $14 million came from is through the Arts Future coalition, which I think represents about 900 organizations around the province, many but not all of which are dependent on the B.C. Arts Council. It's my assumption — and it's only an assumption — that the number has come up through their dialogue with the B.C. Arts Council, but it's not through my direct dialogue with B.C. Arts Council.

The thing that's important, just one thing to highlight, is that the funding being targeted by Arts Future is that core sustainable operating funding. Through gaming, for example, and through local municipalities, etc., there tends to be project-based money around that you can apply for year after year, but it doesn't do much to give security and sustainability to arts organizations. So that's where I think they're targeting the funds.

B. Bennett (Chair): It's no problem. Thank you very much. Actually it is a bit of a problem, because it makes people wait. But thank you for that.

The next witness is the Truck Loggers Association, Dave Lewis. Welcome, Mr. Lewis.

D. Lewis: I'm the executive director for the Truck Loggers Association. I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today.

Independent contractors harvest over 90 percent of the annual harvest that takes place on our coast. We employ over 50 percent of the workforce that operates on the coast. Annual investment by independent companies exceeds $150 million.

The TLA represents more than 500 member companies whose payrolls help to support more than 5,000 families from Boston Bar to the Queen Charlotte Islands. TLA members are critical contributors to the economic and social well-being of coastal communities.

I'm a professional forester by trade. I've owned and operated many small businesses over the last 20 years. I've served as a mayor of a resource community, and I've sat on regional district boards and hospital boards. I now represent these companies that are community-based and are reliant on the coastal forest industry for their well-being.

I'd like to think that my past experience and present responsibilities provide me with a very well-balanced perspective on the abundant and diverse interests of coastal voters, stakeholders and business owners.

We offer the following recommendations as you consider the provincial budget and fiscal policy for the upcoming year.

The harvesting sector is the largest component of a forest industry that continues to employ one in six people provincially. B.C.'s forest industry contributes approximately $7 billion in direct and indirect tax revenues and moneys to the economy, which is more than half of the annual cost of B.C.'s health care system.

Forest harvesting activities account for 70 percent of the total value of finished wood products. Quite often forest harvesting activities are marginalized or forgotten because they don't happen in town, in front of people. It all starts at the stump, and the TLA represents businesses that are the largest single component of that industry.

Land use is of critical importance to our entire industry. Currently there are more than three million hectares of coastal forest that are protected in parks and protected areas, while only 2.7 million hectares are contained within the timber harvesting land base. Yet we continue to see the timber harvesting land base reduced at an alarming rate in favour of other stakeholder interests.

These reductions are largely driven and supported by an urban population that feels unaffected by the decisions that they precipitate. Any reduction in the operable land base has profound effects on both my membership and on the people that work within the sector.

A simple calculation shows that each hectare that is removed from the harvesting land base represents a loss of $250,000 to the provincial economy for each rotation that it has been removed. A mere 1-percent reduction coast-wide equates to a $6.75 billion loss to the provincial economy for every rotation for which it's inoperable.

In many instances, it's a ministry other than Forests and Range that is pursuing an entirely different agenda which triggers such losses, and they give little regard to the impacts that they are having on our sector and on the people who live within these communities.

We feel it's critical that every government policy considers the long-term impact that it will have on the timber harvesting land base and incorporates the cost of that loss in their decision-making.

Our first recommendation to the panel would be that before any government policy or decision is finalized that could negatively affect the timber harvesting land base, a quantified financial impact statement should be prepared that clearly identifies the cost of implementing the decision or policy in question.

A second critical component of protecting the harvesting land base is ensuring that the forest industry maintains the support of the rural communities that serve as gatekeepers to the resource. They are the counter-balance to the urban masses that don't acknowledge or understand the impacts that reducing the harvestable land base has on the provincial economy.

The forest industry has always relied upon coastal communities to support them. Whenever it came to lobbying government, mayors and councillors were out in force. They have assaulted the lawns of the Legislature, carried coffins through the streets and any other number of antics to get government's attention — which invariably were related to a forest industry crisis.

It's very difficult these days to find that kind of commitment from communities. They're less and less interested and supportive of the industry, as they've been forced to focus their attention on industries other than forestry to provide for their needs.

It used to be that we promised them employment and taxes. However, in the last decade we have seen considerable consolidation within the industry, and there's a much more corporate approach to forestry. The erratic and inconsistent nature of forest harvesting has caused much of the harvesting capacity to become more mobile and centrally located. There are fewer and fewer workers who call Sayward, Tahsis or Port Hardy home.

The fact that there are fewer and fewer communities that consider themselves as forest-dependent is extremely alarming to us. We must accept and embrace the realities of a changing forest industry that will allow us to be globally competitive. But we must also find a new way to acknowledge the importance of our rural communities and to ensure their support.

What the TLA supports and is lobbying for is the age-old concept of a fair share. We see it in the northeast of the province with oil and gas revenues. It's fair, it's overdue, and most importantly, it's required. Whether it comes from fees that are charged for timber that is exported, from lumber tariffs or from stumpage revenues is irrelevant.

Unless communities can refer to a single line item in their budget that shows a direct and meaningful reward for the support they've given to forest harvesting activities, they'll continue to come forward with the notion that they're no longer a forest harvesting community. When that happens, we're all in trouble.

Our second recommendation is that we return a share of forest revenues, whether it be export fees, softwood tariffs or stumpage fees, to the communities where the timber harvest occurred.

Finally, the last major issue that I'd like to bring to your attention today relates to ecosystem-based management, or EBM. EBM was intended to be a method of managing the forest, including logging, in such a way that environmental, social and economic factors were considered over time.

Much of the central coast has now committed to following EBM through adoption of land use plans. Significant attention has been paid to what it should look like and what it should entail. However, there's been very little done to address the importance of ensuring the economic well-being of those who will be most affected by it. Currently, timber harvesting is not even mentioned as an objective within EBM, and it would appear that some of those who are driving the process would not be unhappy to see it wind up as a casualty in the final outcome.

The TLA is supportive of EBM so long as the logging industry and the social values provided by the logging industry can be sustained in the short and the long term. We understand this to be a key principle of EBM, where a healthy economy is critical to support a healthy environment and healthy communities. We are concerned that the cost of final implementation will either be prohibitively expensive, or it will be unfairly accounted for in the stumpage appraisal system.

The TLA has been consistent in its messaging to government with regard to EBM, and we offer the same commentary today.

Our third recommendation to the panel would be that the TLA request government to monitor the economic impacts of EBM as it's implemented and to ensure that it can be adapted over time, while also providing adequate allowances for costs that arise as a result of practising EBM within the coastal MPS system.

I'd like to thank you very much for the opportunity to provide this input to you today. I'd be happy to answer any questions, or you can contact me later for more details.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much, Dave. That was an interesting submission.

B. Simpson: Thanks, Dave. You and I have had a number of conversations since you took over this very fun role that you have now.

B. Simpson: I just want to follow up on a couple of things with respect to your recommendations, particularly recommendations 1 and 2. We may have a difference of opinion on what's happening with the EBM in through there. But this is the Finance Committee, so

what we get the opportunity to do is recommend to the Finance Minister where we think things should be covered off in the budget.

With respect to recommendation 1 about the need for a cost analysis to be done and then recommendation 2, the sharing, the coast recovery plan is supposedly somewhere there floating in the background.

I'm going to ask you two questions. Would you suggest that this kind of discipline needs to be applied to whatever comes out of that, whenever it is released — that we do that cost analysis? Secondly, you mentioned a couple of options for flowing revenues back to communities and said that it didn't really matter how it flowed back. You know that I've said some of the softwood lumber tax should be part of that source.

Is the TLA in a position to actually be more deliberate about that as opposed to leaving it loose? I think the more deliberate you can be for us, the easier it is for us to incorporate such a recommendation into our report.

With your first question, I quite frankly don't care how it's delivered — whether it's in a coastal action plan or it's something completely on its own. Anything of this nature takes time; I don't think it's something you can roll out. I think most of the work for the coastal action plan has been completed already. To try and introduce something at this stage….

As you said, I've only been here six months. We've carried out strategic planning since I've been here. These are a couple of the initiatives we're pursuing, but to try and expect them to be introduced into a process that began a long time ago is probably inappropriate. Looking forward, this is definitely something the TLA would support.

With regard to your second comment, once again, we don't care how the money gets there. Those are all sources of government funds. I think one of the interesting aspects of potential export fees…. There are currently some in place. We surmise the fees may be going up. If they are going up, that is new money to government. It's not money that's already allocated, which makes it easier to find a home for it. I'm sure with a lot of the cost pressures coming from rural communities, the urbanization we see and the infrastructure needs of communities, it would be very welcome.

As a past mayor of Gold River, I know how tough it is. To be able to go to a line item in your budget and say, "This is why we support forestry," instead of simply going to government with two hands out and saying, "More, more, more," they can actually look at something and say: "This is what came out of the harvest in our area."

Where I think it might be difficult is that some communities will not have exports occurring. There are a lot of communities that have mills and manufacturing plants that receive a tremendous amount of tax revenue from them, while the communities that generate the harvest and are the prime supporters of it see very little now. That's the push that we would like to see: protecting the access to the land base. Quite honestly, in the mill towns they don't care where the fibre comes from; they just want it to come to them. In the harvesting towns we've largely been forgotten.

R. Hawes: Dave, as land use management plans are being discussed, I'm assuming that the TLA puts very strong input on a going-ahead basis.

D. Lewis: It's very frustrating. I guess I should, first of all, separate…. There is a fine line between land use and forest management systems such as EBM. Quite often EBM is a component of land use. The TLA is very supportive of the government-to-government process that's ongoing right now within land use.

What we see on the central coast, Randy, that is somewhat troubling is that we have a process that has been put in place by government, which has the LRF and the working group and the PIMC — the implementation and monitoring committees. The TLA has been very supportive of that. We're involved at the implementation-and-monitoring-committee level.

However, we have this parallel process that's ongoing right now that has a group of NGOs and impacted industry companies that are outside of the framework. They seem to be getting a lot of play within government. There is a lot of stuff that goes to them that never even comes to our committees for review. I've discussed this with the minister, and we'll be having a meeting shortly about that. They're equally frustrated, I think.

What we need to do is get everything back into the process and make sure that the process isn't hijacked. To date I think that the NGOs, quite frankly, have had a lot more resources to apply to those, and they have dominated and driven the agenda. It's time for us to become more active and to try and get that back on course from our standpoint.

We see the same frustration from the first nations at the LRF and the government-to-government level. Hopefully, it's not too late to really guide where that goes.

B. Bennett (Chair): Dave, thanks for your presentation. We appreciate it. Thanks also for sharing the coastal forest industry public opinion poll. That's fascinating.

D. Lewis: Yeah. We've got a lot more questions that went with that, and there is a lot more breakdown in the full presentation deck. We circulated that, when we did it earlier this year, to the Ministry of Forests. If anyone has any more interest, they can call us, and we'll be able to release all of it. I just thought I'd pare it down to stuff that was relevant to the conversation today.

The next witness is Lois Jarvis. Lois, I understand you're with a group known as Citizens for Quality Health Care.

Thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity today. My name is Lois Jarvis. I am a retired B.C. government employee, having worked for the RCMP, Crown counsel's office, as office manager and eventually transferred to Lakeview Youth Custody Centre to work part-time while looking after terminally ill parents. I have volunteered as a girls' softball coach; been a member of search and rescue for eight years; and spent 20 years as a founding member of the Campbell River branch of the First Open Heart Society, of which I am currently vice-president. I am also president of the board of directors of the North Island Co-op, a position I have held for the last nine years.

I have been involved as a member of Citizens for Quality Health Care since March 2006. I have gained knowledge of the health care system through ill relatives and also worked in the pathology department years ago at Vancouver General Hospital.

Campbell River and the Comox Valley hospitals. The number one priority for Comox Valley and Campbell River is to have two upgraded, fully functioning acute care hospitals, one in each community. There was a study commissioned by the Vancouver Island Health Authority, VIHA, in 2003, with the finding that both hospitals should be upgraded. Since then, another study was commissioned by VIHA in 2005, offering four options. However, VIHA wishes to downsize two hospitals into one with a proximity of location that will, according to our doctors, not provide timely, optimal access for a vast number of people.

Citizens for Quality Health Care is a group of combined citizens from the Comox Valley and Campbell River. We have over 15,000 signatures of people on our ongoing petition, agreeing with us that we need two excellent hospitals to continue serving two rapidly growing communities and the whole north Island. The two-hospital option, according to VIHA's own website, is much less expensive than the current proposal. The money spent on studies and consultations since 2003, and still ongoing, could have gone a long way in assisting upgrades. We desperately need funding for our two hospitals now.

Don't privatize our hospitals. Privatization of hospitals, P3s, has just been announced elsewhere in B.C., such as expansion of St. Paul's and the Royal Jubilee, in spite of the vast number of people participating in the Conversation on Health strongly stating they did not want our hospitals privatized. Research has indicated that P3s cost more money and do not work as well as our present system. One only has to look at the new P3 hospital in Abbotsford and see the huge cost overruns.

Once signed, a contract states the profit goes to a private company rather than being utilized for the sick and elderly. The profit as per the contract must be paid to the private company, even if other services have to be cut.

Fund more training for doctors. Sustainability would not be a problem if there was more funding provided to train doctors. Twenty years ago in Canada there was a reduction in the number of doctors being trained, which has now caused a shortage. There is also a global shortage. The cap on the amount of doctors being trained should be raised, and immigrant doctors should be encouraged to be retrained as well. That would solve the problem of staffing into the future.

Increase funding for long-term care and home support. Long-term care for the seniors who built our communities needs more funding for long-term care facilities, extended and intermediate care and home support, which suffered serious cuts some time ago. Sunshine Lodge, a long-term care facility situated in the Campbell River Hospital, is to be closed when the new private New Horizons building is completed next year.

There is a new plan to retain Sunshine Lodge if funding can be achieved to house more sick and elderly and to relieve the acute care rooms in the main hospital. It costs a lot more money to keep a sick elderly person in an acute care bed than in a long-term care bed. This funding is a must.

Increased funding for sick kids. My granddaughter has a rare autoimmune disease, and she has to be fed through a tube in her stomach. There are other children like her. Her supplies were fully funded two years ago and then cut by more than 50 percent. Spending for the sick and vulnerable should not be reduced.

Increased money for government funding. The amount of the two tax cuts implemented by the B.C. government would be far more appreciated being utilized to provide the desperately required funds for our hospitals in Campbell River and the Comox Valley and all the other hospitals in B.C. — long-term care, home support and assisting sick kids and the disabled.

Since the government sets the budget for the health care system, and that is variable depending on what percentage the government wishes to set in the budget, it would be more appropriate to give percentages of the health care system as compared with the B.C. economy or annual gross domestic product, GDP, which hasn't shown much significant change in health care costs for years despite expensive technology and health care costs.

Perhaps if a significant amount of the $7 billion that B.C. takes in from legalized gambling were also to be utilized for our health care system, that would also relieve any increased costs — along with the very significant surpluses announced last year by Finance Minister Carole Taylor.

Perhaps other areas should be tightened up on spending to increase moneys for our health care system. The highly paid appointed people on the health authority boards are not nearly as effective as when we had an elected, local, unpaid board and a local administrator, who did a great job. The money these people

are paid is also coming out of our health care budget, and it would be better spent on patients' care.

While the travelling Conversation on Health was a good idea for getting lots of opinions, it could have been done in a much cheaper fashion. It is also a great waste of money if all those opinions and suggestions are just ignored.

Funding a guard for a flag and a clock for three years, hosting the 2010 Olympics, the new Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre — both with huge cost overruns — and many other things, like funding expensive government ads, all may be very important to the government. They are not nearly as important to the population as our hospitals and health care system.

People's lives do matter. The patients, public taxpayers, do have the right to state what they wish with regard to the future quality and accessibility of their health care. They are paying the bills. This undoubtedly will be a major election issue.

Thank you again for this opportunity to address you on this extremely important matter.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much, Lois. We have some time for members to ask you a question or two.

R. Hawes: I won't go into any of the other ones, but I will clarify one for you. I am on the construction committee for the Abbotsford hospital. It is not over budget. It is completely on budget, and it is ahead of schedule.

The hospital was significantly increased in scope. There were a lot of things added from the original estimate some years ago, even before it had a cancer centre attached to it, but that hospital is being built completely within budget and is now ahead of time.

R. Hawes: No, I'm just pointing…. As you say here: "Don't privatize our hospitals. One only has to look at the new P3 hospital in Abbotsford and see the huge cost overruns." Well, there are no cost overruns in the Abbotsford hospital. I simply wanted to clarify that. I do sit on the construction committee there, and I do know that there aren't overruns.

L. Jarvis: Okay. I understand that the cost of negotiating the contracts was about $23½ million. That's what I read on that as well. All the negotiation of the contracts….

L. Jarvis: Okay. Well, I know that in Coventry, England…. There is quite a good article on what happened to their hospital. The parallel is the same as what we have in Campbell River and the Comox Valley, where the people wanted two hospitals upgraded.

They did go into…. They call them P1s over there. They built one hospital. In that hospital, they weren't making the money that they thought they were going to. The contract is in place to pay the profit to the company, and there have been huge cutbacks in health services because of this.

I can gladly give you the article to look up. I have a lot of other reference material on that as well.

J. Horgan: As a Vancouver Island MLA, I've been following the debate in this community around the two upgraded facilities versus one mammoth facility. Having had access over summer holidays to health care in the region, I understand that there's a significant divide.

The notion that the government committed to providing health care where you need it, when you need it…. What's your sense of the advice we could give to government with respect to the capital project that's so controversial in your community?

L. Jarvis: I've been speaking to our doctors as well. The current situation, they are adamant, will not provide optimal access to people in Campbell River and the north Island. They are very concerned that lives will be lost.

Their description of the golden hour that VIHA refers to, according to emergency health services…. I have the date and everything that that report was out. The golden hour is from the time that you call an ambulance to come to the house to pick up the patient.

That patient has to be stabilized. That takes 15 or 20 minutes. Then they have to get the patient to the hospital and in an operating room. All that has to be done at least within 60 minutes. That is not possible where VIHA now wishes to put one hospital.

H. Bloy: Just again, health care is one of those big-picture items, and you have to be able to think about it from a long way. We may agree to disagree on some of your points in here.

There's another point that you made: that the Olympics are hugely over budget. The Olympics are on time and on budget. The $600 million is what we committed and what we're at. The trade and convention centre is something totally different.

I just wanted to correct you so that when you're out speaking you can keep the facts well relevant to where they are.

L. Jarvis: Thank you very much. Those are the reports I got from the television reporters.

H. Bloy: They must be true. And the local newspaper is way above that, I'm sure.

R. Lee: In your presentation you mentioned the doctor shortage. In fact, they have doubled the number of trained doctors in UBC training system over the last few years.

L. Jarvis: Okay, but is that enough to solve the problem of the shortage of doctors?

R. Lee: Of course not. We'll still keep increasing that, but over the last few years it has been doubled.

L. Jarvis: Yes, I know the cap…. There has actually been a new place on Vancouver Island for training, but it's still not enough.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Mr. Chair, I think it would be much more appropriate if this person was allowed to answer the question, rather than being constantly interrupted by MLA Lee.

L. Jarvis: Yes, I understand that. There is a new place on Vancouver Island training doctors, according to Howard Waldner, the CEO of VIHA. But there still is a huge shortage of doctors, and to solve that problem, we still need to train a lot more than what we're doing, according to Mr. Waldner.

R. Lee: There are a lot of requests for increasing the funding in the health care system. Of course, there are a lot of demands on it as well. But over the last 20 years the percentage of the budget used for health care has been increased from, say, 20 percent to about 44 percent. What kind of number do you think would be appropriate to be used for health care in our budget?

L. Jarvis: I guess it would be up to the Finance Committee and the government to set those parameters. According to the GDP, there hasn't been a real significant increase for several years. Yes, health care costs are increasing, but obviously, there's going to be more money required to meet the needs that are there now. The needs are not being met right now.

B. Bennett (Chair): Lois, on that note, we appreciate your presentation very much. Thank you for coming to talk to us today.

B. Bennett (Chair): The next witness for the committee is North Island College, Dr. Lou Dryden. Welcome, Dr. Dryden. It says "Office of the president" on my witness list. Does that mean you're the president of the college?

L. Dryden: I am, and sometimes I'm the office of the president too. It depends on what needs to be done.

L. Dryden: Thank you for the opportunity to speak at today's prebudget consultation process. The government is to be commended for giving British Columbians a voice in shaping the 2008-2009 budget.

As the president of one of B.C.'s 12 community colleges, I'd like to take this opportunity to first, briefly introduce you to North Island College, and I apologize to those members who are very familiar with our institution; second, describe the impact that community colleges have on the province; and third, describe some of the challenges that colleges, and in particular rural colleges, face in responding to the education and training needs of the citizens of British Columbia.

North Island College serves a population of approximately 160,000 people spread across a largeregion — 80,000 square kilometres — from Ucluelet on the west coast of the Island to Klemtu on the mainland coast, and all spots in between.

North Island College, with an annual budget of approximately $30 million, offers comprehensive programming to our region's citizens — everything from adult basic education to university studies, to career and technical programs, to trades and apprenticeship training.

Programming is offered in a variety of formats from our four campuses and our four learning centres, including traditional face-to-face classroom learning, and distance and on-line learning.

North Island College students are offered a personalized learning experience that responds both to their education objectives and to their particular and unique learning styles. Our exceptional faculty and staff are dedicated to our students' success. We offer our students education and training that is both high quality and affordable and, most importantly, close to home.

North Island College's tuition fees are the lowest on Vancouver Island, a direction that's given to the administration by our board of governors on an annual basis.

Last Monday the B.C. College Presidents group released the results of the largest-ever economic impact study of community colleges in Canada. This particular

study looked at B.C.'s 13 colleges and institutes, including North Island College.

The study shows that the return on investment in B.C. colleges is $7.7 billion a year — just over 4 percent of the provincial economy — as a result of the economic activity of colleges and their past students. The study reports a benefit-cost ratio of 3.8, meaning that every dollar of taxpayer money invested in B.C.'s colleges returns $3.80 to the provincial and local governments.

Regionally, the statistics for North Island College are equally impressive. Taxpayers see a real money return of 17 percent on their annual investments in North Island College, a benefit-cost ratio of 3.3, where every dollar invested in NIC today returns $3.30 to provincial and local governments.

Students enjoy an attractive 13-percent annual return on their investment of time and money, something that most people would certainly envy when they look at the returns in their own portfolios. That is, for every dollar invested in North Island College, our students receive a cumulative $2.50 in higher future earnings over the course of their working careers.

The NIC service area economy receives roughly $352.5 million in income each year due to the annual activities of North Island College and the cumulative effects of its past students. This figure represents 4.8 percent of total income in the regional economy. The study clearly demonstrates that colleges contribute a significant financial return to governments, to students and to our communities.

The study was undertaken by CCbenefits, an American company that has completed similar studies for 800 community colleges in the United States and in every province in Canada except Quebec. We released the study last Monday. In attendance was the Minister of Advanced Education and the deputy minister, along with all the presidents and the chairs and vice-chairs.

One of the principals had just come back on the Sunday from the United Kingdom, before the release on Monday. The colleges and technical institutes in the U.K. are all lining up to have a similar study undertaken. What this does is not only look at a traditional multiplier of 2 or 2.3 for the money invested in and the spinoff of that; it takes into consideration the money that graduates earn and will continue to earn during their work life and the taxes that will come back to both the province and the federal government.

What do colleges need to maintain service levels in British Columbia? We require a new funding mechanism. This is especially critical for rural colleges. The current funding mechanism does not account for the increased cost of delivering education in rural and remote communities, where low participant numbers and small class sizes are a reality.

Students in these communities must also have access to the same level of services as their counterparts in an urban location — services such as educational assessment, learning assistance, and educational advising and counselling.

If we truly believe in the fundamental Canadian value of equality of educational opportunity — and I believe the Premier of this province certainly does — then if we're going to have equality of educational opportunity for the residents of this region, it will take unequal dollars. It will take more dollars to provide the same level of educational opportunity for rural people than it will for urban people.

To maintain the current levels of programs and services, colleges and institutes require the same overall one-time base operating adjustment that was provided to the universities in 2006-2007. For us it would be $21.7 million provincewide. For North Island College it would be $1.2 million.

In terms of the requests that you're hearing from everybody and in terms of the predicted size of the surplus this year for the provincial government, $1.2 million doesn't seem like a lot of money. But to us it is a lot of money, and it means a lot of services to the people in our region.

Keeping pace with technological change and new equipment is a particular challenge for B.C.'s rural colleges, where student numbers, as I said, are often small. But the school requirements of graduates are the same as those required of urban graduates. A graduate of our automotive technician program has got to be able to fix the same cars in Campbell River as they do in Vancouver. To maintain and enhance teaching and learning, the colleges require an increase in the equipment and capital allowance of 10 percent a year for the next three years.

North Island College's specific needs. In order to meet our student recruitment targets, North Island College will need to focus on substantially increasing the participation rates of underrepresented groups — that is, students from low-income households, aboriginal communities and families without a prior pattern of post-secondary education. We refer to people in this category as first-generation learners.

All of you as business people and as political leaders are very well aware of the skills shortage, which is fast becoming a labour shortage. If you haven't read Foot's book, Boom, Bust and Echo, and you're a policy person and a politician….. If there's one book you ever read in your life, it should be that one. It tells you what's going to happen to the population of Canada, where the baby-boomers were the largest, proportionately, of any country in the world — ahead of the United States, and then Australia in third place. If you look at what's happening in Australia, the labour shortage is hitting there with a really big crunch.

The solution isn't completely immigration, because immigration is going to be a very, very competitive field. All of the developed countries are going to be competing for the same labour pool as we are.

We can't forget people that are underrepresented. They are Canadians, and investing in these people will have a tremendous benefit because we'll get them off of income assistance, and we'll get them into jobs that, hopefully, will support families.

To support the participation of these under-represented groups, the colleges require enhanced student-learning support services, as I've already indicated, as well as facilities and infrastructure.

To quantify the funds required, I ask the province to join with us in undertaking an assessment of enhanced learner-support services specifically related to underrepresented groups. We don't know the best way to educate these people. We don't know the supports they're going to need. Therefore, I would suggest that we — the colleges and the ministry — work to take a look at that.

I applaud the province's recent decision to provide adult basic education tuition-free provincewide, but I wish to inform you that North Island College has always provided adult basic education tuition-free. We therefore need to be compensated when the other colleges receive additional funding, to make up for that difference. We dedicate a large part of our provincial grant to sustaining adult basic education tuition-free, so we'd just like to be compensated for that.

In conclusion, colleges and institutes are significant economic engines in this province, especially in rural areas that are suffering economically due to reliance on resource-based industries. We are also the institutions most capable of assisting business and industry to respond to current skill shortages through the provision of skilled and job-ready workers.

Without sufficient funding, North Island College is not able to deliver what our students need and expect if they are to become part of a literate and well-educated province. Colleges require an adjustment to base operating funds, a new funding mechanism that provides the resources we need to maintain and improve the quality of education that our college delivers in the North Island College region.

Thank you for your time, and I'd certainly be pleased to respond to questions if there's any time left.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thanks very much, Dr. Dryden. My guess is that you'd probably find that most people at the table here have read Boom, Bust and Echo. I'd be surprised if all the members haven't.

J. Horgan: I think, for this committee, that perhaps Great Expectations might be a better book to read.

I wanted to make two points, hon. Chair. Perhaps we could ask Dr. Dryden for the full copy of the report that he referred to with respect to the cost benefit of time at North Island College.

If you would provide that to the Clerk, and they could circulate that, that would be terrific.

J. Horgan: What we tend to find, Dr. Dryden, as we travel around is that…. We heard from the president of New Caledonia with a similar request to what you put in one of your bullets regarding the lift for universities versus the lift for colleges.

I'm wondering if you could just expand on that. You say you were anticipating $21.7 million. How did you come to that? The $1.2 million to North Island…. Have the college professors come together and coordinated any response on this, or is this ad hoc?

L. Dryden: Oh, no. This is done through the B.C. College Presidents group. We have all the presidents of the 12 community colleges and the Justice Institute. We have an association.

In '05-06 the four major universities and BCIT were able to…. They approached the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance hired Perrin and Thorau to take a look at the compensation. This is when the 2-percent tuition cap came in. The study was carried out, and they got a lift.

We said, you know, that we were in exactly the same boat — 2 percent applied to us as well as the universities. So we asked the Ministry of Advanced Education if they would carry on a similar study. They again hired Perrin and Thorau. Using the same methodology, they came up with the figures I provided you with. So this has been done by a consultant who worked for the Ministry of Finance, and he replicated the study for us. That's what he came up with.

We're not seeking any more than the universities received. We're just looking for parity.

J. Kwan: Actually, John asked one of my questions, so I'll ask the other. In terms of the ABE program — which your college continues to fund even though the funding wasn't there to make ABE free for adult students — you asked for compensation. Can you let the committee know what amount that is for your particular college?

L. Dryden: I don't have an exact number, but it's approximately $300,000 in that….

L. Dryden: If we were charging for adult basic education at the rate we charge for everything else — we don't, but if we did — then we would take in additional revenue of around about $300,000. So we're asking the government for compensation for that.

L. Dryden: No, we're not looking…. No, we're not, you know, overly avaricious.

I. Black: Just for clarification, if I may. Is the $300,000 figure the revenue forgone as the result of

L. Dryden: No. No, we've been bearing that. It's the cost of forgone revenue.

B. Bennett (Chair): Dr. Dryden, thank you very much for your submission and for your answers. We appreciate it.

Next witness for the committee is the Council of Canadians, the Comox Valley chapter. Gwyn Frayne. Welcome, Gwyn.

G. Frayne: Thank you for allowing me to come back. I have met most of you before. I'm happy to be here, and I'm happy that you've come up to Vancouver Island north.

I'm a retired social worker and college teacher. I've lived, worked and volunteered in the Comox Valley since 1991. I retired at the age of 65, and in the last eight years I've been very involved in community groups and issues. Today I'm here on behalf of our Council of Canadians, Comox Valley chapter.

I'm going to try to be very brief. I usually have a lengthy wish list to present to government committees. I'm trying to streamline my comments under two or three main categories, which come under the general umbrella of health. This is a hot topic up here.

First, the current provincial guidelines saying that any project over $20 million must be a P3, or public-private partnership, is shortsighted. The research that's been done in other jurisdictions in Canada and in Europe show that privatized institutions and services cost more in the long run.

On September 4 in England the Guardian had a long article by George Monbiot, who is a noted author: "A Hospital in Coventry Lays Bare the Deceit of Neoliberal Logic: Staff Cuts, Ward Closures and Millions to the Financiers." It is of note that the problem there bore a direct resemblance to our north Island current predicament. You had some mention by one of the former speakers of this.

In Coventry two hospitals were going to be refurbished at a cost of £30 million. But the scheme was too small for business to be involved. That is: "There was no scope for the financial innovation that could produce serious profits." They decided instead to tear down the two hospitals and put up one new one at a cost of £174 million, which later turned out to be £410 million, and fewer hospital beds than before.

They have had a huge shortfall of funding, which resulted in a freezing of the recruitment of district nurses and the cutting of jobs. The new Coventry hospital now is in the bottom ten of British hospitals for wait times, and the government is worried about how they will be able to afford the 30-year contract with the private finance initiative, or PFI.

When private companies get long-term contracts to manage public services, it stands to reason that they're going to be making a profit. We know that profit will be paid, ultimately, by the taxpayer. You, the government, are only the brokers.

The July 20 edition of the Vancouver Sun reported that even Finance Minister Carole Taylor was rethinking about this problem and this process. We say: "Good."

The issue of one regional hospital for the north Island is definitely a case in point. Many of the people in Vancouver Island north have now analyzed that going from two hospitals to one hospital will drastically reduce access to service.

Since you're looking at both finances and government services in this committee, we urge you to look at the cost estimates, which both the Campbell River Hospital and St. Joseph's in Comox have, for renovations, earthquake proofing and upgrading. The estimates for those are significantly less than for the building of a new regional hospital in the middle of nowhere with no infrastructure and not enough water available anywhere near.

If you can take back to the Minister of Health, George Abbott, that the government could actually save money by pleasing the taxpayers — that is, the people who use health services for the north of Vancouver Island — we would be extremely grateful. And, oh yes, please mention to him that the appointed Vancouver Island Health Authority is not an accountable body. They seem to have great difficulty in understanding what we in this area have been saying: "Two hospitals, not one."

VIHA has kept saying over and over to us that medical specialists won't come unless there is a new regional hospital. However, doctors have told us that what is needed is more funding for operating room times. As well, B.C. could lobby the federal government and the medical official bodies to allow more entry to Canada of doctors and nurses.

I know that you will be getting submissions — at least, I hope you will — about the environment, and that is important, but I can't dwell on that today in my eight minutes.

I'm hoping that other interveners will also talk about homelessness and poverty and how they cut into the health of our communities and our province. At the end of the day, people who are homeless will cost our health system much more than some elementary supports like raised welfare rates and a universal day care system.

I want now to touch on one other area of spending which could be radically reduced with some lower-cost prevention. I'm talking about home support. If the disabled and the elderly had more access to the supports of housecleaning, etc., they could remain living independently longer and out of hospital. I'm sure you all know the cost of one day in hospital versus the salary of one home support worker, who could visit several homes in a day.

Many of us seniors who are unofficial caregivers are tired of trying to be ad hoc helpers for neighbours in addition to our relatives. I won't belabour that point, but again, I have to say that we taxpayers also happen to be voters, and we would appreciate more home support.

Contrary to what I said in the beginning, I find my conscience won't let me stop without mentioning at least some of my wish list: affordable mixed rental housing; the Courtenay legal aid office reopened; local seniors counsellors restored; income assistance amounts for those aged 50 to 64; Pharmacare fees restored to the pre-2001 levels; restoration of the delisted medicines; physiotherapy, podiatry, chiropractic treatments, etc., replaced to the pre-2001 levels; medical coverage of eye exams; non-profit intermediate and long-term care — and I underline the non-profit there; medicare coverage for the provincial government retirees; and women's centre core funding restored.

My main points from this submission are for two hospitals on the north Island instead of one; home support, which includes housekeeping, laundry and grocery shopping; and a voice about policy decisions in the health authorities, as used to happen with the health councils.

B. Bennett (Chair): We do have time for questions, if there are any, from the committee.

The next witness for the committee is school district 72, the Campbell River board of school trustees, Michele Babchuk and George Maclagan.

G. Maclagan: My normal job is as a sergeant in the B.C. sheriffs, so when I saw a witness list, it sort of took me in a different direction. It's good to be back.

B. Bennett (Chair): The Clerks had to train me to use the term "witness." Apparently, that is the correct term, but no aspersions are intended.

G. Maclagan: My name is George Maclagan. I'm very fortunate and proud to be the current serving chairman of the board of education for Campbell River school district 72. With me is Michele Babchuk, who is my vice-chair.

We're very proud of our district. It goes as far north as Sayward and as far south as the Oyster River. It includes the outer islands of Read, Cortes, Quadra, and it serves a combined population of over 43,000 residents. Currently in school district 72 we have approximately 6,000 students in 22 schools, and we administer a yearly budget of about $50 million.

Firstly, we'd like to start by acknowledging the government over the past few years for creating a fairly stable funding environment for us. We've been able to work very closely with our partner groups — DPAC, our teachers association, CUPE members.

We've been able to budget and plan, and we look forward about three years. Even in an era of declining enrolment, we've been able to take some things out that have been hard choices but put things back in that we think will be invaluable to our students and to our professionals in future years.

We also acknowledge that around the province you may hear some different stories from different boards. We feel very fortunate to be where we are. The community that we live in supports our school district extraordinarily well, and the people that work with us and for us are great, great people.

Though we feel that it's been very positive how funding has come to our district over the past few years, we'd like to acknowledge and talk to you about some of the challenges we're facing. At times when government has initiatives, sometimes they don't necessarily come with the full funding that takes place in them. It forces us to make choices, which we accept as elected leaders that we have to do within our budget and our mandate.

At times it's taking away another layer and another layer of what we feel is important to our students and our district. They can be initiatives, such as Bill 33 or the grad portfolios. All of those things have taken time away from our staff. It's taken away what we feel is really important now, especially in a time of declining demographics, as older teachers are leaving and new teachers coming — that is, the educational leadership time for our staff within our schools to work with and build better teachers and better educational professionals.

We know the key to making a successful student is to ensure that they have a successful teacher in that classroom. At times it also seems, when we hear the initiatives, that we're being asked always to do more with a little less. Sometimes when that happens and these initiatives come, it will cloud what we think is most important. That is student achievement and student success. Sometimes it has forced the focus to be removed from the student, and conflict has arisen over certain issues and funding choices — those sorts of things.

When we sit back and look at this, we want to acknowledge what has been positive. But we also want you to know that we don't want to continue to be asked to do more with less. We want you to keep us stable, which is what you have done, pretty well, for the past few years.

Within that stable funding environment, we think we can do great things for our students. We can move the initiatives that the government wants, and we can make our students better educated — better to fulfil their role within the province, within the world that's so closely connected now.

We know that there are challenges within government spending. We see that within our own budget that we work with. But we're hoping that we can remind you that…. Education, we hope, you'll keep as a spending priority. Again, we're not asking necessarily for more, but please don't take away from us.

We hope that you will acknowledge that within some of the government's initiatives, whether it's the poverty initiatives supporting the families, the health and fitness initiatives…. Certainly, the initiatives around improving aboriginal success around our province have come to the top of government priorities. Those are initiatives that are driven through the school system.

We hope that again reinforces the importance we see for education within our district and that we hope you see within our province. We hope you look at education in a way that uses it in terms of an intervention and allows a means of prevention on a number of important social issues.

We also move beyond the social issues. We view that educational success and the sustainability of an economic success go hand in hand. If we don't have trained, experienced and knowledgable workers who are safe and who understand the leading-edge equipment available to them in the district, our economy is going to grind slowly and slowly to a halt. So we want to reinforce the value of education and of keeping technology current within the school.

Yes, we have had infrastructure declines based on declining enrolment. We have not necessarily needed as many schools or buildings. We've acknowledged those issues.

But meanwhile, in areas such as trades development, the amount of tools needed by the student within the classroom to make sure that the person transitions successfully from us and into the college environment or maybe even directly into the labour market…. Those machines are more and more important, whether they're CNC machines, or they're in areas of robotics, or they're in computer technology — or, as Dr. Dryden mentioned, mechanics, the ability to plug in. Our students are coming with those.

We have very strong co-op programs within our community. We want to continue to do that.

Again, like I say, we acknowledge the cost pressures and the choices that you're having to make. Certainly, as you've heard today, health is a concern within our community, and we know that policing is, around the province. We know there are social issues — the homeless, drug addictions and those sorts of things — around the province. We think that through supporting education, we can make a difference, and we can work with you to make that difference within our community.

We also would like to acknowledge to you some challenges that we hope you, in your wisdom as members of an elected body, will take back and have some discussions with the leaders that work for you. One of them is staffing. It's going to be a real challenge for us.

We are concerned that, as demographics are facing people working throughout the government, we're going to lose a very large capacity of knowledge within our senior teachers. We need to take that knowledge and have the time to reinforce those things that are good practices with our incoming teachers.

We also, then, have a problem of wage compression for some of the people that may move into roles of leadership, into being principals, vice-principals, administrative instructors and leaders of the community — the gap from being a successful senior teacher to taking on the role of being an administrative leader. There's not a real necessary incentive for them to move forward, even though it may be important.

So we would ask you carry on those further discussions with those people that you can talk to within your different ministries. We would hope that you talk about and address in some form that wage compression issue for people in leadership positions around the province.

The other issue that we're facing in our community — which again, we would hope that you would take back and be a leader within our province about — is poverty. Poverty in education is in all of our communities, and it's in all of our schools. It creates issues for us around transient populations, where people move and come back and forth. It may not seem like much, but a young child that's only with us for six months will lose that whole year of learning, and as he gets older, he loses more and more.

We see a lot of that in some of our communities right now — people and families that are moving and coming back and maybe not necessarily able to sustain themselves, and students that are not necessarily ready and able to learn. Some of that may be around choices, where their family members may be underemployed, may be having to work two jobs and can't necessarily sustain their families or spend time reading with their children, maybe not even having the time to prepare healthy meals, because one is working one job and they're out the door to another. It's a challenge.

We also see this where…. Brought to our attention last year very much was the hardship that it places on our staff. If you could have been in our educational meeting at one of our schools and seen how the teachers felt about having to send their students home on long weekends, over spring breaks, where other people celebrated Christmas vacation…. Yet they knew the hardship that those children they'd worked so hard for were going to face when they went home. It really created a connection for us.

We hope, again, that you would keep those conversations fresh in your minds and share and show some leadership around those issues within the community. I know we're doing a good thing, but we hope we can do better.

The other thing we'd ask for…. We're not necessarily asking for money. You guys provide us money through the Ministry of Children and Families around Community LINK. In our community that is an incredibly successful and important program. It's approximately $60,000 that's shared between three or four of our schools. We've allowed it to run breakfast programs, fruit and vegetable programs, after-school programs — those types of programs. It's really important.

When you look outside of education, it's not just the direct funding. Sometimes it's indirect funding sources that make the most difference.

With that, I think I'd like to close by reminding all elected bodies that it's not always necessary to listen to the loudest voice; sometimes the quietest voice is the voice of reason. Sometimes it's those who need to be listened to, and the wisest of all are listeners.

Thank you for listening to us and my community when you come here on your travels. From the board of education of school district 72, we wish you a good journey around the province. Thank you for your time.

R. Hawes: Yours certainly is the voice of reason. Your presentation was very impressive.

I want to ask you a question around your senior administration. I'll just briefly say that where I live — in a smaller community just on the edge of Vancouver — our senior administration is being poached on a regular basis and taken into Vancouver because our school board does not have the ability to offer higher wages. Their hands are tied. Even within their own budget framework, when they have some surplus funds they could use, they are not allowed to do that.

G. Maclagan: We are to a point. We made a presentation last year to BCPSEA, who is our labour body that we go through to work with PSAC. After hiring a company, a consultant firm, to look at our jobs and where we're going with people and demographics, we felt that what we needed to do to ensure that we were providing the best leadership, the best people within our communities throughout….

It hasn't necessarily got the biggest, strongest response that we want. But going through that process, we acknowledged several phone calls and several conversations with many other school boards around the province that are facing the same issues. But I think it's a bigger issue than just the educational issues. I think you need to take it outside and look at everybody in terms of government service.

One of the things that's happening is…. You say people are getting poached. We have one-off positions. In one community it may be the director of instruction that is such a need that they'll move his or her pay level up to get that person in there. Now it creates an effect somewhere else, and now you're doing this all the time. What we've been looking for is sort of that voice of wisdom that says: "This is commonsensical."

I think we need to do that. I don't think we've done that for probably 20 years, where we've looked at where this person should be in relationship to where this person should be. All jobs are valuable. The power of work is important to all communities. But I think that leadership needs to have a look at that outside the framework and just have a commonsense approach to how we pay and how we compensate people within our communities.

J. Horgan: George and Michele, thanks for reminding me why, when I was the Education critic, district 72 was the poster child for reason and practicality.

Again, when we worked together, you brought forward similar issues and similar arguments in a comprehensive and clear way, not apportioning blame, not looking to criticize, but looking for solutions. I certainly appreciate that and echo what Randy said about your presentation.

In terms of shining the light on poverty in our rural schools as well — of course, Jenny could go on at great length about the issues in downtown Vancouver — representing a rural area and listening and talking to teachers and administrators about the challenges of poverty in rural schools….

How do we reconcile those special needs children who are not categorized as per Bill 33? How do we find funding? How do we find opportunities to solve those problems, as front-line workers, in essence, as teachers and administrators are in these schools? What solutions have you been talking about here in Campbell River to address those issues beyond what you've told us today?

G. Maclagan: Michele was just asking me whether you're talking about sort of the grey-area students and those sorts of things that are there or just the poverty issues.

J. Horgan: No. My sense is that the poverty issues create a new category of special needs that are beyond those learning challenges.

G. Maclagan: We do have. It has a ripple effect, like I said, from top to bottom within your schools, not just on your students but on your staff. You can see that in some of their health and welfare issues as people move through that work in some of these schools.

I don't have an answer for you. I don't know, and I think where I'd put it back to you is that it needs to have a holistic approach. We need to sit back with the leadership and the wisdom of this community.

Poverty is such a huge issue that we're never going to solve it. It's not just saying that $10 an hour is right or $8 an hour, or any of those sorts of things. It's a holistic approach that talks about things like quality preschool, after-school care programs, affordable day care, transit that allows people to move within communities and supports them, affordable housing within communities that are there.

There is so much that's there. I think it's going to take real leadership, it's going to take a community approach, and it's going to be different in every community, as it's different in each and every one of my schools.

We're fortunate as a community in Campbell River, which I am very proud of, because we have an incredible relationship with our community partners. We

have businesses in this community that have supported us for 50 years and will continue to do so, and you'll never hear their name ever mentioned.

Those are the relationships that we need to talk about, and that's sort of where I raise it. I don't necessarily know. It's a frustrating topic for me. I'm hoping that through the wisdom of the Legislature, we can talk about poverty and develop action plans and community resources that will work on it.

There are people in this community who are just dying to get involved, but I think we need to put them in a direction and move ahead. Success by 6, early literacy, all those sorts of things — developing district literacy plans — are going to be positive things for our communities. But there are bigger issues that are outside of that where we need to have those conversations, and necessarily around…. You're asking a community to read, but if everybody is working two jobs, when do they get time to spend with their family?

I don't have a simple answer for it. I'm just posing the question as somebody in my community that sees the effect of it. I'm sorry for talking so long.

M. Babchuk: Okay. One of the things we are hearing a lot from our teachers all the way down to our parents is that we're finding that our mandate as a board is a little bit blurred between a social service provider and an educator. That's why we were talking to you today about the Community LINKs funding and how we can support the poverty at that level and allow us to stay on the educational support for our students. It makes it a lot easier for us to deal with the funding issues that we have.

In the long run, it's building better students. Student achievement is a huge, huge part of our district. We sort of get mandated by the government, like the healthy schools initiatives, which, you know, inherently are great. Everybody would love to be healthier. The reality is that if you've got a single mom who is trying her best to get her children through the day, that $5 Big Mac for her two kids might be the only option that she has.

If we can see the support in the community so that we have those kids coming to us ready to learn — fed, clothed, cared for, right? — then it does make our job with the funding that's available to us…. Don't get me wrong. We can always do more with more — I'd just like to make that very clear — but we do understand the fiscal responsibilities that are put on this committee.

B. Bennett (Chair): Look, folks, thank you, on behalf of the committee, for the civil tone of your submission and also for its constructive nature. It was very good.

G. Maclagan: If any of you ever have time, please come to my school district. It's great; we're very proud of it.

B. Bennett (Chair): Our next witness is another chapter of the Council of Canadians, this time from Campbell River. I think Joanne Banks is the presenter. Welcome.

J. Banks: I feel fortunate to be able to speak here today. As I understand it, Campbell River is the only north Island location.

My name is Joanne Banks, and I am a member of the local chapter of the Council of Canadians and a retired teacher. Having worked at Grandview School, I can totally relate to the last speakers as far as poverty and the need to get kids ready for school.

I also sit as a board member for JADE, formerly the North Island Advocacy Coalition, and spent four years in an advisory capacity to various health and mental health ministers from 2000 to 2004.

I feel that a tax cut is not an effective use of the budget surplus. I feel that we must spend this money with an eye toward the future. The deep financial cuts and privatization policies that both your provincial government and the federal government have created in health care, social services, education and the environment need to be rescinded.

Looking around us in Campbell River, we can see the results of these cuts every day. Some examples and solutions.

Immediately and adequately fund health care services wait-lists and take a stand against the costly and unaccountable privatization of medical services and public-private partnership funding of hospital construction and other public projects.

You need to disband the costly, unelected and dysfunctional health authorities you have created to run our public health system and return to the public accountability and needed medical services.

This government must stop privatizing and contracting out public projects and programs without proper research into the long-term effects and true costs of privatization. An alternative is to bring accountability back into the public realm with citizen-controlled advisory groups and elected hospital boards.

You need to help the homeless and low-income people by creating more affordable housing and related policies.

You need to eliminate the lineups at our food banks by increasing welfare rates and legislating $10 an hour or more for the minimum wage. I'll speak to that further.

You need to make financial assistance for people in need more accessible and on a timely basis and eliminate policies and red tape that prevent this from happening.

You need to address the shortage of workers in the labour force by funding more training and education for all professions, from bricklayers to doctors, and abandon the anti-union policies that cause instability in community.

We need you to support, in your economic and social planning, renewed respect for our beautiful envi-

ronment by adequately financing green policies to conserve our energy and to fight pollution. How do we do this?

First, we need to regain control of our energy supplies. B.C. is a resource-rich province and needs government policies that support domestic ownership of our resources. For instance, I don't agree with your legislation preventing B.C. Hydro from developing any new power projects and giving this task to private corporations.

Also, you must take a stand against further privatization of water systems and against bulk water exports.

In a time of global warming and accelerating climate change, I also feel you should be putting public dollars into fully supporting energy self-sufficiency and energy development from clean sources, like tides, wind and the sun.

Unless you change your direction in these matters, you are risking our natural resources by making us lose the ability to control and regulate standards. In the long term, by making energy a private commodity, you increase the cost to the taxpayer.

Locally, a mining company which continues to violate many provincial environmental regulations is promoting coalbed methane development. This plan has few economic benefits and has the potential for pollution, especially of our local water systems. The provincial government should question its support for this plan and adequately fund environmental officers to enforce the laws against these polluters.

Also, we need to abandon forestry policies and legislation that have resulted in shutdowns of local mills, exports of our raw logs and decreased employment and safe working conditions in the forest industry. Bring back the policies of linking forest licences to local processing of timber and adequate enforcement of environmentally friendly and safe logging practices, and you'll have fuller employment and longer-term renewable forestry again in our towns and probably less labour strife.

On another matter, you need to repeal the regressive TILMA — trade, investment and labour mobility agreement. It has the potential to adversely affect local employment and bankrupt our government. More rights are being given to foreign corporations than to voting citizens.

Your government's support of P3s must be abandoned. The mantra "on time and on budget" has proven to be a lie. Insufficient research into the long-term effects of P3s before signing P3 contracts leaves taxpayers on the hook.

Over the last 30 years the tax burden has shifted onto working people and away from corporations. At the same time, this government continues to accumulate budget surpluses while cutting public programs and pushing a privatization agenda. Citing a need to attract businesses, our taxpayer dollars are financing high CEO salaries and bonuses, rather than adequate and timely public health, education, and social and environmental services and programs.

We need public ownership of all natural resources and investment in the human resources to secure a better future. Economic policies cannot stand alone and ignore social costs. You need to look at the human resources of this province as your bank account. When you invest in them, you get the best returns.

I've been asked as a board member of JADE to also present some ideas here. We would like the provincial government to raise welfare rates by 50 percent and index them to inflation. Senior income assistance rates as well as MLA salaries are indexed to inflation, but welfare rates are not. According to data released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, raising the welfare rates by 50 percent would have cost only about 1/6 of B.C.'s surplus.

We would like the provincial government to remove the arbitrary barriers to accessing welfare. Administrative barriers like the requirement for multiple appointments to get a cheque and the completion of a computer-based orientation keep people in need from getting the help they need right away.

We would also like the provincial government to let all people on welfare keep at least $500 a month of their earnings. B.C. is the only province in Canada that does not allow welfare recipients to keep some of the money they earn.

We would also like the provincial government to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour and to abolish the $6 training wage. Again, B.C. is the only province that has a reduced wage of $6 an hour for the first 500 hours of paid work. Most low-wage jobs are not high-skill and require maybe only two weeks of training at the most.

B. Simpson: Thanks very much. Again, like the presentation we had before, it's very comprehensive and speaks for itself. It's quite a fulsome agenda.

I'm just curious about the forestry component. I come from Quesnel, which of course is a forestry town and so on. One of the feedbacks I get, because we've talked about what does a new appurtenancy look like to tie processing to mills…. But a lot of my smaller communities that feed Quesnel or Williams Lake say it never really did work for them.

Is the issue here more how we get benefit from the resources in the towns that the resources are flowing through? Or does it really just reinstate the way that it was? Because many communities will say that the way it was really didn't benefit them anyway. Do you know

what I mean? Is it just the issue that those communities need the benefit from the resources extracted from their area?

B. Bennett (Chair): Joanne, thank you for your submission. We appreciate your taking the time to put it together and coming to present to us.

Our next witness for the committee is the North Island College Faculty Association, Shirley Ackland.

S. Ackland: Good afternoon, committee. Thank you for the invitation to make a presentation.

Our faculty association president Bill McConnell had a scheduling conflict today, so I was asked to speak on behalf of Bill and the North Island College Faculty Association. I see, by the agenda, you've heard from our president this morning and also the president of the North Island student association as well.

H. Bloy: Actually, we heard from an employee of the student union. It wasn't a student.

B. Bennett (Chair): We really don't want to use your time up debating amongst ourselves, so we're going to let you go ahead.

S. Ackland: By way of background, North Island College has four campuses in the region as well as a number of learning centres. We take our mandate as a comprehensive community college very seriously, and we put a lot of emphasis on outreach in the community to ensure that we make the most of the resources given by the province.

Our current enrolment is about 2,000 full-time-equivalent students. Those students are involved in a broad range of disciplines, including apprenticeship programs, particularly here in Campbell River; various two-year certificate and diploma programs; as well as university transfer and four-year degree programs.

To meet our mandate as a comprehensive community college, our institution has developed a number of programs that not only support our students' learning objectives but also link with the needs of employers in our region. For example, we've recently developed a bachelor of accounting program in response to local demands for these skills. We think there are opportunities to deliver a lot more program options, but those opportunities won't happen unless the post-secondary education system receives better funding from the provincial government.

It's important that this committee understand the context in which our public post-secondary education system is trying to operate. It would be an understatement to say that post-secondary education will play an increasingly important role in the future of our province. According to the B.C. Business Council, 73 percent of all new jobs will require some form of post-secondary education: a degree, diploma, certificate or apprenticeship.

However, currently only 60 percent of the workforce has that level of education. Clearly, we have a gap to close, and to meet that objective will take more than a status quo approach to post-secondary education. Closing that gap is becoming more complicated and more urgent as our province deals with the looming skills shortage.

Part of the shortage is demographic. We have an aging workforce in which more of us are slated to retire over the next decade than there will be new entrants into the workforce. Those demographics tell us, amongst other things, that we need to do a much better job of increasing post-secondary education participation rates. Yes, demographics will make it tougher to find the skills necessary to meet the demands of the future, but if we don't increase participation rates, the looming skills shortage will become more and more acute.

If the past six years are any indication of how we, as a province, are dealing with those problems that I just described, we have reason to be concerned. Starting in 2002, the provincial government brought in a new policy which allowed tuition fees to be deregulated. The immediate impact was for tuition fees to skyrocket. On average, they've doubled since 2002.

However, that average often understates what has happened in specific program areas. For example, in many of the professional program areas, the rate of increase is much higher. Tuition fees for a teaching certificate program at SFU today costs over $10,000 — a threefold increase from what it was prior to deregulation.

As tuition fees went up, the economic pressure on students climbed dramatically. Student debt levels have increased. According to the Canadian Federation of Students, the average student debt is now approaching $30,000. The rise in tuition fees also meant that today's post-secondary students have to shoulder more of the cost of their own education than was the case for previous generations of students.

For any committee member who went through the B.C. public post-secondary education system in the '70s or '80s, like myself, your tuition fees at the time accounted for about 15 percent to 18 percent of the total cost of your education. Public funds covered the balance. For today's post-secondary students, the number now ranges between 25 percent and 30 percent.

Rising tuition fees have forced many students to drop back to part-time status from full-time status. They turn to part-time work to help cover the higher

cost of post-secondary education. Unfortunately, they also had to endure the effects of the provincial government's ill-considered $6-an-hour training wage. Not only is it taking them longer to complete their education, but the prevailing minimum wage is far below the level necessary to keep these students above Statistics Canada's poverty line.

The deregulation of tuition fees sent the wrong signal at the wrong time. At the very point when we need to be encouraging more people to access post-secondary education, closing the skills gap and addressing a looming skills shortage, we've made post-secondary education more expensive.

The problems didn't stop with tuition fees. Funding for the entire public post-secondary education system has languished over the last six years. Real per-student funding levels for post-secondary institutions have declined. In fact, real per-student funding isn't projected to surpass the level it was at in 2001 until next year.

What that means at an institutional level is that the programs and services for students are reduced. Not only are we making it more expensive to get a post-secondary education, but we're not providing today's students with a range of programs and services that will help them achieve their educational goals.

They're serious problems, and we have the resources necessary to fix those problems. What seems to be missing is a much stronger commitment from the provincial government to make the necessary investments we need to address these problems. We have budget surpluses.

In previous reports by this committee, you've talked about the seriousness of the skills shortage and the role that post-secondary education can play in solving that problem. To date, neither the surpluses nor your final reports have been enough to make meaningful change in the budget allocations for post-secondary education.

In February 2008 we need to see far more decisive measures. Here are some priorities that we think would make a major difference for post-secondary education in this region.

First, make affordable public post-secondary education a major priority in the February 2008 provincial budget. We know there is a skills gap that we need to close. We know, as well, that our skills shortage can be solved by investing more in post-secondary skills.

Give post-secondary institutions the funding necessary to improve program options as well as program content. We need to ensure that post-secondary institutions have proper funding to provide the full range of program options that students need to complete their post-secondary education.

As a specific target for better funding, the 2008 provincial budget should allocate an additional $200 million for post-secondary education. That would represent a 10-percent lift in the Ministry of Advanced Education's budget and would put it in a position to bring real per-student funding back to the level it was in 2001.

Endorse the Canadian Federation of Students call for tuition fee relief. The CFS has, in previous budget consultations, asked for a 10-percent reduction in tuition fees. We support that call and believe that such a move would send a strong signal to existing and potential post-secondary students that B.C. is serious about supporting those interested in post-secondary education.

Bring back the student grant program. It was eliminated in 2001 and 2002, and it has simply added to the growing debt burden that is discouraging students from either entering or completing their post-secondary education.

Thanks for the opportunity to make this presentation. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much, Shirley. You did well to get that done in eight minutes and 31 seconds.

S. Ackland: I'm a teacher. You know that nobody wants to listen to you for very long.

J. Horgan: I had one question. I don't know if you're aware that we're streaming live on the Internet right now, so my single question is: who is older, me or my brother?

B. Bennett (Chair): I didn't actually hear an answer to that question, just out of curiosity.

S. Ackland: Well, it's unfair, because his older brother is my husband and takes a lot of: "Hey, John must be your older brother." Pat wears it well and says: "Yeah, actually he is."

B. Bennett (Chair): You've just confirmed that your husband is older than the member.

B. Bennett (Chair): We have a pair of witnesses in the audience — Judy Leicester and Noel Lax.

N. Lax: I will probably be making the presentation, and Judy will field any questions.

We represent the Quadra Island protected areas committee, which was founded in 1989 to protect some special sites on and around Quadra Island. We've been working on this diligently and, to some extent, successfully. As often is the case, the completion is the hardest part of the job.

Since completion of the Vancouver Island land use plan's protected areas strategy, PAS, in 1996, the B.C. government has been acquiring private land in inholdings within designated parks to complete the areas chosen as environmentally sensitive and ecologically representative of the province's rich biological diversity.

However, this task is not yet complete. There are a few additional properties which need to be acquired to achieve the original PAS objectives. A common understanding seems to exist in government and its agencies that these properties should be acquired to secure the integrity of the respective parks.

On Quadra Island several forested properties are actively being considered for purchase or trade. A critical piece on the north end of the island awaits acquisition to link two provincial parks at Waiatt Bay and Small Inlet and to complete the Octopus Islands Marine Park. These private lands contain a critical portage route, the view shared by two important anchorages and a much-used hiking trail to a nearby lake.

In the Main Lake Provincial Park chain, there are active files pertaining to two more properties. These inholdings are on the B.C. Parks acquisition list, and they await funding for their inclusion in the B.C. park system. Unfortunately, as the past 11 years have revealed, the longer the delays, the more costly the properties become, and the opportunities to find appropriate Crown land as trades become more challenging.

As property values have increased to the benefit of the province, the budget for B.C. Parks land acquisitions over the last few years has declined from $5 million to $3.07 million. This has also been accompanied by a dramatic decrease in staffing levels to deal with these and similar files.

Given the present government's concern for climate change, the protection of forests and native ecologies within parks is an intelligent way of mitigating the threats of global warming. At a time of budget surpluses, this would also be an appropriate opportunity to complete the promises of the protected areas strategy.

We respectfully request that adequate funding be provided in the next budget to successfully complete these long-promised Quadra Island property acquisitions.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much, Noel. That's a very specific request and easy enough for the committee to understand. We appreciate the clarity of your submission.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Sometimes in these matters it's necessary to move without much fanfare just to avoid driving the price up further. Is it your sense that there is no activity taking place on these files, or that there is an opportunity to move quickly in the near future?

J. Leicester: There is a lot of activity on three of the files. On the very large file, which they've been working on for close to 11 years now, the problem appears to be funding and lack of staff. That one file alone will probably take one person six months to work on.

It keeps getting bumped and being put to the side as new properties come forward. This happens to quite a few of the areas within the parks that were promised to be purchased. They just keep getting put aside.

Unfortunately, we have lost one property already for purchase because the money wasn't there. They are negotiating the other two properties right now in the Main Lake chain, but again this is a stumbling block.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Are the prospective vendors forest companies, then?

J. Leicester: One is a private forest company, and they are willing to negotiate. They are already meeting with the government. Again, we'll need money in next year's budget to be able to complete this. Our concern is that if we don't this time….

What happened about seven years ago is that they started logging their property. We were very fortunate in that the government did finally sit down and negotiate with them. All that was left on there was the viewscape, the important portage and all the land up to the lake.

If negotiations aren't successful, if they feel that the government isn't coming forward to complete these trades now, they could start logging again. This is our concern. They must really feel that the government is serious this time.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you, Judy and Noel. We appreciate your submission. Again, it was very clear, and we appreciate the time it took for you to come up and present to us.

Ladies and gentlemen, that completes the formal part of our hearing today. We're now into the open-mike session of the program. We have two people who have asked to speak to us during the open-mike segment of the hearing today. The first person is John Twigg.

Thank you to the committee for coming to Campbell River again. I presented to this committee some years ago when Joy MacPhail was on it. Actually, some of the suggestions that I made, made it into the following budget. Maybe I wasn't the only one recommending it, but…. I believe in the process here. I like the way

the committee has worked today. You listen respectfully, and I think that's really good.

As leader of the B.C. Refederation Party, I should maybe keep my recommendations to myself until campaign time. But believing that the system still works and that most B.C. politicians still do want to make the province work better, I'm here today and thankful for the opportunity to present my recommendations for the next B.C. budget.

I'll get right to it. I think you should cut back on the slush funds. You should stop lowballing the revenue forecasts and the underspending on social programs. You should significantly raise spending on virtually all social programs and services, including higher welfare and disability, which other presenters have mentioned — removing the hurdles and the wait times for hardship cases. We definitely need more home care and more social workers with more flexibility.

When you have a $4 billion surplus, not all of that, obviously, should go into programs. I agree with Minister Taylor on that. But a 10-percent surplus is way too big. The first quarterly report that just came out shows the same syndrome. The surplus is grossly underestimated. What was $400 million is already projected to be $1.6 billion. That's either deceitful or incompetent.

The Fraser Institute reports that over the last four years the underestimating of the revenue totals $10.6 billion. There's a quote here from the Times Colonist of September 4, '07, an editorial:

I reiterate that I'm glad to be here and I'm glad you are listening. I want to point out to MLA Lee that this rise in health spending as a percent of the budget is bad data when the rest of the budget is being cut. There are lots of articles on this that show it. Health spending as a percent of GDP is not soaring.

There's the Fraser Institute thing. You probably received a presentation from the Fraser Institute about the personal and corporate income tax revenues exceeding expectations. Then they have some recommendations, which I don't necessarily endorse. I think they're too pro-business.

My concern is more with the underspending on social programs. I'd recommend a column on July 12 by Les Leyne, who you all know, pointing out the B.C. Progress Board finding that B.C. now ranks ninth out of ten provinces in social conditions. With our wealthy province, that's disgraceful.

"A Wasteland of Deprivation and Despair" — that's a headline out of the Vancouver Sun op-ed on August 30. Vancouver is not alone in its apparent abandonment of accountability for the quality of life of all of its citizens and for their right to safety and security. Calgary and Toronto are also experiencing much of the social degradation and decline.

Now, come on, guys and lady. This is British Columbia, one of the wealthiest, best places in the world to live, with $4 billion in surplus, and we can't provide adequate social programs? I think it's disgraceful. There is room for a lot more spending on programs, and there is a desperate need for more money for many social programs.

The emphasis on greenhouse gases in Minister Taylor's recent statement is a diversion from the Campbell regime's disgraceful record of cutting social services. The Campbell Liberals' downsizing has been done so badly that scores of people have died. The shootings in the Kamloops Ministry of Environment office are an example. That resulted from orders to fire people that shouldn't have been fired.

I've got a few more. Maybe I'll put it in an e-mail. There is a long list of recommended policies.

B. Bennett (Chair): John, if you would care to do that, to put it together for the committee and make sure that we get it before October 19….

J. Kwan: I have a quick question. You've mentioned the issues around the social deficit. If you could advise the committee: what are the priorities that you think the government should address in redressing the social deficit that's been created?

J. Twigg: I'll put that in the e-mail, but some of the other presenters here today have done a good job of that — like the impediments to emergency care for the welfare cases. I've seen people, friends of mine, die because they went for emergency aid and were told to come back a week later and jump through a few more hoops.

When we're so prosperous, that is just disgraceful. But I appreciate your question, Jenny.

I. Black: I would extend an offer to you that if you call me at my constituency office, I'd be delighted to walk you through some of the logistics of why I feel the logic behind a lot of your remarks is flawed and the numerical accuracy is way off base.

I sit on the Treasury Board, and the notion that the variety of highly complex factors — especially things like natural gas prices, which go between $4 and $14

for a unit on the open market…. Any $1 change in that results in about a $220 million difference in the top line of this province. I'm a numbers guy, so I have a fair bit of knowledge in this area.

I will suggest to you that the notion that the inability to accurately nail down exactly where numbers will end up at a provincial level, with a $38 billion budget, is not reflective either of deceit or of incompetence of some of the brightest minds in the province.

In any event, I would be delighted to entertain a conversation with you off line on that basis, but what I would suggest….

B. Bennett (Chair): Committee, we have a witness before us. Whether you agree with him or not, I think we should listen to what he has to say.

J. Twigg: I've been following B.C. budgets since 1972, when I was press secretary to Dave Barrett. I was away for ten years in Saskatchewan, and I still kept an eye on it.

As a member of the press gallery until a few months ago, I have studied every budget since 1987, I guess. So yes, I understand the difficulties in estimating revenues and expenditures.

The statistics show that the estimating effort in recent years has been off. I agree that there is room for prudence. We've got three levels of slush funds in our budgeting now. We don't need that much protection.

I've got a graph here about how the Campbell Liberals tax cuts work, and it's true. The tax cuts that were done in 2001 — which, by the way, I supported — have paid dividends. We are not in an austerity mode anymore.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much, Mr. Twigg, for hanging around this afternoon. We appreciate your submission.

B. Bennett (Chair): Committee, let me just say as the Chair of the committee that this table is the portal through which people in the public make their submissions to this budget consultation process.

I think it would behoove us as elected people to listen, to ask questions, but not to argue with them and not to speak out of turn and hurl comments one way or the other. It really doesn't matter at this point whether we agree with what we hear. What matters is that they get the opportunity to tell us what they think.

Child care, as you know, is a very convoluted and complicated issue in this province. Limited access to quality child care has been cited as a key factor for employers attracting and retaining employees.

Even in my own experience as an administrator of child care programs at North Island College, I routinely have a wait-list of about 90 families. Many of them have just moved to Campbell River and have very good skills and can't access employment due to child care or are students wanting to better themselves and can't get the classes they need because they can't find child care.

I wanted to let you know that early childhood educators work very hard, and they make an average of around $12 to $14 an hour. I can make $12 an hour at Kentucky Fried Chicken. So it gives you an idea of their undermining. It's such an economic issue not only for Campbell River but B.C.

Employers can't keep employees, because of child care issues, and I as an administrator can't keep employees. I have people who have left to clean houses, because they can make $15 to $20 an hour cleaning a house. I have employees who have left and gotten carpentry jobs, because they can make $18 to $20 an hour.

That gives you an idea of the economic issues, but just suffice it to say that child care is early learning. It's not babysitting. We have a lot of very recent data and research on the very valuable necessity of quality child care for our children, as they are our future.

I'm just requesting that it would be a wonderful thing to be able to work together with you in a visionary and collaborative way to come up with a quality child care program and a plan for B.C. as a forerunner for the country. That's my request to you. That's all I have to say.

B. Simpson: Thanks, Judi, and thanks for sitting around and taking the time to do the presentation.

I have two questions for you. We've had some very good presentations on the child care issue and the ECE wage issue. I'll limit it to one question, as the Chair has asked us to.

The one question is…. This is the Finance Committee. I would like to understand how the government can assist to bring up the early childhood educators' wage structure. From a budgetary consideration, what should we recommend to the Finance Minister to address that particular aspect of child care?

J. Malcolm: All child care centres are accessing the child care operating funding program, and that has been cut. When you look at operations of a child care centre, 92 percent of my budget is wages. They don't even get benefits. The child care operating fund is a vehicle that could easily be helped out in order to allow that to happen, because we can't charge more fees. It would end up being a disaster — again, the economics — for families trying to work.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): You mentioned that employers are losing employees because their prospective employers don't have access to good reliable child

care. In Prince George the chamber of commerce, as one of its policies, is advocating for improved child care in the province. Have you had a similar discussion with the chambers of commerce in this region?

J. Malcolm: Yes. Actually, I'm meeting with the president of the chamber tomorrow to finalize a collaborative resolution for them.

B. Bennett (Chair): Judi, would it be a good idea for the provincial government to forgive repayment of student loans for child care workers that are graduating from college?

J. Malcolm: That would certainly be a good help. It's very difficult to even attract people to take early childhood education because they know that at the end of the day, they're going to be making $12 an hour.

I really don't have the dollar figure of what it costs to take early childhood education, but I know it's a ten-month course for just the basic, and then post-basic it's another couple of years to get a diploma. When you invest probably thousands and thousands of dollars to go out and make $12 an hour…. It's just pretty hard to attract people to do that.

R. Lee: We heard in the previous presentation that some students are getting $6 an hour. I don't know if these kinds of jobs are available in your field.

R. Lee: Yes. That's why I have trouble reconciling the numbers. The other presenter was saying that students are getting $6 an hour.

ECE students do have to do practicums. They don't get paid for it. Then they need to work 500 hours in the field before they actually get their certificate as early childhood educators.

J. Kwan: Some of the other presenters advise that they're losing child care workers from your field into the education system because they actually get paid more. Are you experiencing that as well here in Campbell River and in this region?

Just by way of an example, my daughter is in preschool at the moment, but only half-day preschool because that's the setup. I'm looking around to find programming for her in the mornings so that she's occupied with other things than, perhaps, the television — hiring a student, for example, from an art college, Emily Carr, to come and do an arts program with her. I'm paying her $20 an hour just to come and do that.

I can't actually imagine child care workers being paid at the rate which you guys are being paid. I just think it's horrendous for that to happen. I really do. I know that problem started particularly, or escalated, because the Munroe agreement was pulled out.

J. Malcolm: Yeah. I was part of the provincial team for the Munroe agreement. Certainly, in our society we have lost four full-time, very valued employees to work as education assistants in the…. They make more than I do as an administrator, and I have 15 employees.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you for sharing your views and your situation with us, Judi. We appreciate it.

B. Bennett (Chair): The bus departs at 4 p.m. sharp for the airport, and we are adjourning the committee to Vancouver.

M. Wright: Excuse me. I know you're leaving. I just have a quick question. My name's Malcolm Wright.

B. Bennett (Chair): Sir, if you would like to just come up so that Hansard can record your question.

M. Wright: My name is Malcolm Wright. I'm an injured worker. I was injured in 2000. I've been through every story you've ever heard. I was cut off three and a half, four years ago, and I finally had to go to my MLA to get the pension that I am getting.

When I was being paid, my rate was $4,000 a month. I worked for Seaspan International. I was a cook-deckhand. I was making between…. In my job you could make anywhere from $54,000 a year to the low $90,000s, depending on how you worked the overtime.

I understand all the problems there are that are inherent to WCB, and there are people that are cheating the system. There are no two ways about it. I was suspected of that until I went to the Richmond so-called rehab centre. Six weeks there, and they finally said at the end of it: "We're sorry, Mr. Wright. You are one of the 5 percent that's not lying." Soft tissue back injuries.

I have a hard time believing that number because of the people I know and the people I've worked with. I worked at Seaspan for 13 years, with an average crew of five and a half to six people on the boat, and I never ever worked on a boat where I was the only one that had been injured. I'm not slamming Seaspan, but there's an awful lot of stuff going on out there that's just not right.

When I read the $1.6 billion in the paper, I was floored. I'm sorry I wasn't here for the beginning of the meeting, for all the presentations. If I've reiterated

something, then please forgive me and take it into consideration, but I was told by the people at WCB that I am one of the 5 percent that's not lying.

I've got at least two discs in my lower back gone. I got one in my neck that was so severe…. Well, it was moderate, but when the accident happened, it punched through the thecal sac that surrounds the spinal cord. There is a flattening of the cord, and I do have residual problems that are going to get worse. I have degenerative disc disease in my back, and it's going to get worse.

Today I got a letter, after two and a half or three years of trying to get a decent pension. I made a call today. I've been accepted for the federal pension, and I'm all happy. I make a call, and I find out that the federal pension is going to be under $100 more than I'm getting now. It's just over $1,000 a month.

I'm an immigrant. I came to Canada in '66, landed in Toronto. Had I known what I was coming to…. Don't get me wrong. Canada's a beautiful place. I'm very, very lucky to live here. I lived in Europe until I was nine, so I remember the cold-water flats that my mother and I lived in.

Had I known what I was coming into and all the taxes that I'd be paying and the benefits that I'd get from those taxes that have been paid, I wouldn't have shown up if I'd had a choice.

B. Bennett (Chair): I'm sorry. We're in a bit of a crunch for time. We do appreciate you taking the time to tell us your story.

One last thing. The people that are cheating WCB — put them in jail. Don't just cut them off. Put them in jail. And the people that are running WCB are, in my view…. What would the right word be? I'm shaking because I'm nervous. The people that are ripping off the real people that are injured….

Sorry, it's just that sitting for too long really makes me a lot worse. They should go to jail too, because that's fraud. It's fraud on both ends. Just cutting people off and letting them keep the money they've already fraudulently gotten from the government and you and me, the citizens of this country, is wrong. That's totally wrong.

I've worked with those people. I don't want to mention any names, but I know they're out there.

B. Bennett (Chair): The committee is adjourned to Vancouver. We're still going to meet at four o'clock, or try to meet at four o'clock, to go to the airport.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.

Other MLAs:	Claire Trevena (North Island NDP)
Clerk:	Katch Koch

1)	North Island Students' Union	Patrick Barbosa
2)	Campbell River Community Arts Council	Ken Blackburn
3)	Truck Loggers Association	Dave Lewis
4)	Citizens for Quality Health Care	Lois Jarvis
5)	North Island College	Dr. Lou Dryden
6)	Council of Canadians - Comox Valley Chapter	Gwyn Frayne
7)	School District #72 - Campbell River Board of School Trustees	George Maclagan
		Michele Babchuk
8)	Council of Canadians - Campbell River Chapter	Joanne Banks
9)	North Island College Faculty Association	Shirley Ackland
10)	Quadra Island Protected Areas Committee	Noel Lax
		Judy Leicester
11)	British Columbia Refederation Party	John Twigg
12)	Forest Circle Child Care	Judi Malcolm
13)	Malcolm Wright

Committee Staff:	Jonathan Fershau (Committee Research Analyst)
	Jacqueline Quesnel (Committees Assistant)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES