Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 54 — Friday, October 5, 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		1343
	S. Fast
	R. Rees
	P. Brar
	P. Alexis
	C. Finch
	L. McKimmon
	L. Oikawa
	L. Geschke
	M. Davies
	J. Atebe
	C. Hamilton
	F. Dunham
	L. Malone

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:

Pamela Alexis
James Atebe (Mayor, District of Mission)
Preet Brar (Silver Creek Premium Products Ltd.)
Mike Davies (District of Maple Ridge)
Frank Dunham (Superintendent of Schools, School District 75 — Mission)
Scott Fast (President, University College of the Fraser Valley Faculty and Staff Association)
Dr. Christopher Finch
Laurie Geschke (REAL Women of B.C.)
Carole Hamilton (Chair, Board of Education, Mission Public Schools)
Lloyd McKimmon (Fraser Valley Regional District)
Lori Malone
Lorene Oikawa (B.C. Government and Service Employees Union)
Richard Rees (CEO, Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C.)
Ray Velestuk (School District 75 — Mission)

B. Bennett (Chair): Good morning. I'm Bill Bennett. I'm the Chair of this committee. This is the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. I'm the MLA for East Kootenay. I'd like to welcome all of you.

I think this is the largest crowd we've had to start a meeting. Our crowd usually filters in over the course of the meeting, so thank you for being on time.

I apologize. We're a few minutes late getting started here. I'd like our committee to introduce themselves to you before we get going.

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.

R. Hawes: Randy Hawes. Maple Ridge–Mission is the riding, and Mission is the home.

B. Bennett (Chair): My Clerk today is Les Gönye, who actually comes from Australia. He is here on loan from the Legislature in…. Is it New South Wales?

L. Gönye (Clerk-Assistant, Committees): Yes, the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

B. Bennett (Chair): Jonathan Fershau and Jacqueline Quesnel from the Clerk of Committees office are over at this table. Of course, over here are the staff from Hansard, who will record this meeting today and send it out over the Internet for anyone out there in cyberspace who is interested in this sort of thing.

Our job as a committee is to go out into the province on behalf of the Minister of Finance, who is actually required to release her budget consultation paper by the 15th of September each year — which she did. That paper provides a description of the fiscal and economic conditions and identifies some key issues that need to be addressed by the public prior to the creation of the next budget in February.

The budget consultation paper is here. It's available at the table in the back. If you don't have a copy of it, it's worth having a look at it. It's only four pages, and it is an interesting document. I hope you'll have a look at that.

Our job is to carry out the public consultations on behalf of the minister. We're required to report back to the Legislative Assembly not later than November 15 of this year.

Some, or perhaps all, of you are here to make presentations. That's great; we appreciate that. There are other ways you can make a presentation in this process. You can do it on line. You can fax us one. You can e-mail us one. You can hand us one. There is a variety of ways that you can give input into the prebudget process.

You have until Friday, October 19 to make written or on-line submissions, so that's an important fact.

Today we're going to hear from people who have preregistered with the Office of the Clerk of Committees. Presentations are supposed to be held to ten minutes. There are also five minutes allowed for questions and answers, but you'll lose some of that time, to the extent that you go over ten minutes.

At the end of the session today, we, hopefully, will have a few minutes to do what we call the open-mike session, as long as we're not too late. We have another meeting to get to in Coquitlam in the afternoon, but if we have the time, we'll do an open-mike session. That allows people who have not preregistered to take five minutes and make an oral submission to us.

With that, I'll call our first witness of the morning: University College of the Fraser Valley Faculty and Staff Association, Scott Fast.

S. Fast: Good morning. This is the first time I've ever been the first one. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. At least we're all awake.

Thank you for the invitation to speak to your committee this morning. I am Scott Fast, and I am the president of the Faculty and Staff Association at the University College of the Fraser Valley. I'm here representing over 850 faculty and staff at the university college. UCFV annually serves over 10,000 students from the region and has become an integral part of the economic and social development of the eastern part of the valley for the last three decades.

Other presenters from this region will no doubt talk about the major demographic shifts that are taking place. Our end of the valley has seen tremendous growth over the last decade and a half, and that growth is projected to continue as affordable housing becomes a greater and greater constraint in communities to the west of us.

Although my intention is to talk about the role that properly funded post-secondary institutions can play in sustaining growth in this region and around the province, the issue of affordable housing is something that I hope this committee will address — hopefully, sooner rather than later.

For those of you who aren't local, UCFV has branches in five communities in the region, including one here in Mission; our main campus in Abbotsford; another in Chilliwack, shortly to move altogether to the former CFB base there; as well as facilities in Agassiz and Hope.

Our objective is and has been to be both a destination and a pathway to post-secondary education for the citizens and communities of this region. It's an objective that means we provide not only bachelor's and some master's degree programs but also a range of developmental education programs, trades and technical training, and adult basic education as well as a number of diploma and certificate programs.

Our institution places a strong emphasis on teaching. Like other university colleges and community colleges, we believe that our greatest strength is providing a quality learning experience for our students. While some of our students transfer to universities to complete their degrees, we believe that their starting point at our institution is a critical platform for their future success in post-secondary education, graduate schools, law schools, etc.

As good as we like to think our institution is at providing a quality learning experience for our students, we know that we need to do more. We know, for example, that it's not good enough to simply maintain the status quo approach to enrolment in our institution. Despite relatively strong population growth in this part of the province and very strong growth in the demographic that would normally attend post-secondary institutions, our enrolment figures have stalled. They've held their own, but they've stalled, at least as of September.

That reality should be seen by us and by a committee like yours as particularly troubling. As a province, B.C. is experiencing both a skills gap and a serious skills shortage, as you well know. We're told by the B.C. Business Council that about 73 percent of all new jobs will require some form of post-secondary training or certificate, a degree, a diploma, certificates in the trades, etc.

However, only 60 percent of the current workforce has that level of education and training — hence the skills gap. When we add to that the fact that as a population our workforce is aging and that within the next five years we'll see more people retire from the workforce than we will see entrants, you can see how our current skills shortage will certainly get much tougher.

Post-secondary institutions like ours can and must play a critical role in addressing both of those problems. We need to be able to support, encourage and accommodate more students into our institution by offering more programs, course options and student support services.

Unfortunately, this isn't happening, and the main reason is because from a provincial policy perspective, arguably B.C. has done the wrong things at the wrong time. Let me be more specific.

We've known for more than a decade that we had a skills gap in our workforce. We've also known that we would face a demographic problem of an aging workforce. Solving both or either of the problems would require careful action and real funding support from the province.

What did we get? Well, in 2002 the province deregulated tuition fees. What happened was both predictable and unfortunate. Fees skyrocketed. On average they've doubled since 2001, but even that number underestimates the real impact.

Many professional program tuition fees, including those at UCFV, have increased at a far faster rate. Many basic support services for students have been eliminated, and of those students who are prepared to endure higher fees, most have gone into higher debt. Others dropped back to part-time studies. Others dropped out altogether.

According to the Canadian Federation of Students, the average student debt is now approaching $30,000. Tuition fees today account for about 25 percent to 30 percent of the cost of the students' post-secondary education. Thirty years ago, when many members of this committee were going through the public education system, including myself, that percentage figure was closer to 15 percent.

No matter which way you look at it, the government's approach to post-secondary education is meant to make access more difficult and more expensive at a time when we should be opening the doors to higher skills and learning, because that's what we need to overcome the skills gap and the skills shortage. We have tended to do the opposite.

The problems don't stop there either. For the past six years operating grants for the post-secondary institutions have simply not come close to current needs. Real per-student operating grants have stagnated over the last six years. In fact, those measures won't exceed the 2001 levels until 2008. What that means at an institution level is that programs are cut back, services are marginalized, and our ability to contribute to solving the problems that our province needs solved — the skills gap and the skills shortage — is vastly reduced.

Let me quickly give you a specific example of how funding problems of a slightly different nature at UCFV frustrate our ability to do what we and the Ministry of Advanced Education have agreed we should be doing.

Our institution, working closely with the provincial government and our local communities, has been able to relocate the majority of our extensive trades programs to a totally renovated facility on the grounds of the former CFB Chilliwack.

Those renovations are near completion. In fact, classes began there last Monday. A month late, but they began last Monday. The demand for those programs is very high, and when completed, the renovated facility will be state of the art and first class. For this, we and the students are very pleased and very grateful.

However, part of the ministry's approved space utilization plan was to convert the old trades buildings on the Abbotsford campus into classrooms to accommodate our growing needs. While the funding has been approved by the ministry, it appears to be held up at Treasury Board, where approval is required to actually get those renovations underway. That in turn has cascaded into other scheduling and facility problems and to date has undermined our ability to plan and deliver on what we see as the basic mandate for our institution: providing skills and knowledge to students in our community.

It's not as though B.C. doesn't have the fiscal capacity to address these problems. We do. What's needed is some clear direction in priority to ensure that the resources are found to help address those problems.

I'd like to conclude by giving the committee members some specific suggestions for what those priorities should be in the 2008 provincial budget.

(1) Make affordable post-secondary education a major priority in the budget. We know there's a skills gap that we need to close. We know, as well, that our skills shortage can only be solved by investing more in a range of post-secondary skills.

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

(3) As a specific target for better funding, the third point is that the provincial budget should allocate an additional $200 million for post-secondary education. That would represent about 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 at in 2001.

(4) Endorse the Canadian Federation of Students call for tuition fee relief. The federation has, in previous budget consultations, asked for a 10-percent reduction in 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.

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

Thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation. I would be glad to answer any of your questions to the best of my ability.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much, sir. We do have at least one question.

R. Hawes: Thanks, Scott, for the presentation. There were a couple of things in it…. I would just be curious as to your take on it.

You quoted the Canadian Federation of Students saying that the average debt load is $30,000. Now, 30 percent of that is tuition — correct? — which would be $9,000 of that debt. You've said that the doubling of the fees has caused students to drop out. I would read that, then, to be 50 percent of the $9,000 that's included in the $30,000, or a $4,500 increase over the period of a degree program.

I know university students to be pretty ambitious. They have a lot of initiative. I'm just trying to envision the student who would forgo a degree for the want of $4,500 over the length of time of the degree. I would suggest to you that a student who might do that might have difficulty in the real world anyway and may not have graduated. That's the first point. I just wanted your take on that, because it just doesn't sound to me like….

S. Fast: I can't keep up with all that math in my head, so I have to look at those numbers.

R. Hawes: The second one you spoke about. Enrolment has stalled at the university, but I wonder how much of that is due to a really super-hot economy. I know there are a lot of kids who are making choices right now. They can get jobs right now, without having that post-secondary education, that pay a lot of money. The enticement of that is pulling a lot of kids away from school and into the workforce.

I suppose if the economy cooled, many of those would return. When the economy is in an up-cycle, university enrolment tends to decline. When it's in a down-cycle, it tends to increase. It is cyclical, and I think you probably know that.

There's an incongruity here. You say that the government has failed to fund the new classrooms in Abbotsford in the old trades building, but your enrolment has stalled. I'm wondering: could it be that they're not being funded because the enrolment has stalled and maybe they're not needed quite as badly right now?

S. Fast: I don't quite know what's in the mind of Treasury Board. In this particular case, of course, we had an elaborate and ministry-approved facilities arrangement in which we would, at a certain date, be moving to the new trades building at CFB Chilliwack.

That would allow us to open up classroom space in the trades building that is already on the Abbotsford campus. That would allow for some new classrooms, which we need, and would also allow us to expand the cafeteria — which is part of the plan — that goes with the new dorm.

Now we have students who need to eat routinely in our cafeteria, which is quite small, as part of their dormitory life. So there is this whole series of stages where this would move to here, and then this would move to here, and then this would be constructed here, and then these would move to here. It's all part of a plan that has been worked out in great detail over the years.

Where we really are kind of stuck is in the middle of this plan. If we can't essentially now renovate the building that has just been vacated to move to the trades building at CFB Chilliwack, all of the stages in this construction development are in a kind of suspended animation.

I'm not sure if it was your first or second question. I can't keep up with the math in my head, but as a social scientist I certainly know that part of the enrolment issue is that there is in fact a booming economy. I also know as a social scientist and from government reports themselves that you don't expect that boom to go on forever. Part of this is talking about funding to build the capacity for those students to come back.

One of the things we're getting is students who are building up considerable debt loads and are essentially dropping out of school for a year or two while the economy is in a boom, and who are making some wages so that they can pay off those debts so they can come back and borrow more money and go to school at a later date.

I have to say that I'm always impressed with this when I make these presentations and when I get these questions from the committee. Most of our students are trying to go to two and three and four classes at a time. Many of them are married and have families. They're essentially going at the rate that they can afford, little by little. When you look at the level of the family budget and what the income is, the notion that one would take two classes instead of four classes, because one could work a few more shifts and it would cost you a little less tuition and some fewer books…. This is how people are essentially spreading this out.

In my own class I had four students come yesterday. It's just before midterms. I have a woman from a very conservative background now coming back to really get an education. I have a woman trying to get a teaching degree. I have a married student who is coming back and taking two or three courses at a time, depending on what he can afford. I have another fellow who has been working in the trades putting up big telecommunications towers all over western Canada, who now would like to get down off the high rigs and get an education and carry on.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thanks, Scott. That was a good answer to a long question. We appreciate your presenting to us this morning. I'm sure we'll see you the next time the committee is here.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next witness is the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C., Richard Rees.

Richard, before you get started and before we start your time, let me just say that Richard Lee, MLA for Burnaby North, has joined us. Jenny Kwan, MLA for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, has joined as well.

R. Rees: Good morning. I'm Richard Rees, the chief executive officer of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia. We welcome the opportunity to present to the Finance and Government Services Committee our recommendations for the 2008 British Columbia budget.

I'm speaking to you today on behalf of our 9,300 members as well as 1,500 students. Our members work throughout the province, and there are likely very few significant business investment decisions that do not involve one of our members. CAs have their finger on the economic pulse of the province. Through initiatives undertaken by the institute, such as the B.C. Check-Up report and the CA business outlook surveys, we contribute to the public policy development debate.

Let me start by saying that I think everyone knows that B.C.'s economy is booming. In 2006, B.C. continued to see strong economic growth, record low unemployment levels, buoyant markets for economies and a thriving construction sector. An ongoing diversification into new industries contributed to strong economic performance.

There is no better sign of an economy's overall health than its ability to attract residents. In 2006, B.C. was one of only three provinces to record an interprovincial population gain of 3,800. International immigration also continued at a healthy pace with almost 37,000 new residents coming to our province, up for the third year in a row, making B.C. the second-highest destination for immigrants within Canada.

As detailed in our 2007 Check-Up, which will be published shortly, B.C. saw its largest increase in disposable income in two decades, which helped keep personal indebtedness in check. In addition, B.C. outpaced the national average in terms of per-capita health care spending and in ensuring the majority of our youth received high school diplomas. However, B.C. was the only jurisdiction to see a slight increase in the cost of living, which was driven up by rising housing values.

B.C. had its lowest unemployment rate in three decades and the second-strongest job creation record in Canada. The province also experienced an increase in real wages and educational attainment. B.C. companies benefit from a lower non-residential construction cost index and stronger corporate profits. The province is also increasing its employment in the sciences and R-and-D spending and has reduced its government debt levels.

My members are encouraged by the positive fiscal and economic trends we are seeing in the province, including a projected drop in the taxpayer-supported debt-to-GDP ratio to 13.8 percent in 2008, an expected budget surplus of $1.6 billion and an economic growth forecast of 2.9 percent next year, despite the challenges of a high Canadian dollar and a U.S. economic slowdown.

B.C.'s chartered accountants believe that government policy has influenced the province's strong economic performance. In particular, lower business and personal tax rates and a reduction of red tape have played an important role in encouraging both people and investment to the province.

We are in the process of releasing our 2007 Check-up report and will be sending it to you with our final submission. While this is mainly a good-news story, you may be surprised to see that in a number of key areas we continue to be below the national average.

For instance, real personal disposable income per capita in British Columbia is $25,194; the national average for Canada is $25,624. The percentage of the labour force with a post-secondary certificate or diploma or higher is 61 percent; the national average is almost 64 percent. The ratio of R-and-D spending to gross domestic product is 1.24, and nationally it's almost 1.7. For aftertax profits to GDP, in 2006 it was 10.31, whereas the national average was 11.29.

I'd like to really emphasize, though, that in each of these measures, what we do in the Check-Up is look at how these things have progressed. Each of these

measures actually has shown significant improvement over the last five years. They are trending upwards, but we're still below the national average, which is quite surprising, given how optimistic everybody is and how everybody is feeling so good about the B.C. economy at the moment.

That is why we would emphasize the need for the government to keep its eye on the ball as you prepare the 2008-2009 budget. This is not the time to say: "We're doing great. Maybe we can branch out a bit." We're not there yet.

In fact, we'd like to now make some recommendations in two areas. We need to continue to work on enhancing the competitiveness of our economy, because that's what generates investment, growth and jobs. Secondly, we need to continue to look at enhancing productivity.

In terms of competitiveness, I'd like to begin by saying that we are very supportive of the B.C.-Alberta trade, investment and labour mobility agreement. We see this as a very important agreement with the potential to increase both jobs and investment in both provinces. Reducing regulatory hurdles that will allow labour to work in either province is a very positive step and long overdue.

In our own profession we have used national qualification standards for years, which have ensured interprovincial mobility for our members. We also have international recognition agreements with major accounting bodies of the leading economies around the world. Such steps have allowed mobility while protecting and enhancing professional standards.

Moving on, there are other areas where B.C. can improve its competitive position, particularly with regard to taxation. Those of you who participated in this process before will know that we have long been advocates for the harmonization of federal and provincial sales taxes. The current tax system requires about 400,000 B.C. businesses to administer two separate sales taxes, one at the provincial level and one at the federal level. The lack of harmonized sales tax translates into two key disadvantages for B.C. businesses.

Firstly, B.C. businesses require separate recordkeeping, reporting and remittance for the GST and the PST, creating unnecessary costs for accounting and administration. In addition, businesses must deal with two sets of auditors enforcing compliance at the provincial and federal levels, based on two different sets of rules.

Secondly, provincial sales tax is paid on inputs — for example, business supplies and materials — and is not creditable against tax collected, which imposes additional costs on business. These input costs are simply passed along to the consumers as a hidden tax. Both of these competitive disadvantages could be resolved through harmonization.

A comprehensive review of our sales tax system examining the costs and benefits of harmonization is a reasonable approach to sales tax reform. A review of the existing PST was recently conducted by the Ministry of Small Business and Revenue. However, what I am talking about here is a specific study on the merits of harmonizing the PST rather than tinkering with the rules of the existing program or simply replacing the PST with a value-added tax like the GST. This particular issue was not considered in the recent review.

While CAs believe that harmonization is the best approach, we would also be supportive of a made-in-B.C. value-added tax modelled after the GST. This is an alternative to harmonization that addresses the disadvantage-related input costs and is the policy course that is being followed by the province of Quebec.

Another competitiveness issue to consider is corporate tax levels. Our 2007 Check-up report shows that B.C. businesses are still lagging our counterparts in Alberta and Ontario when it comes to profit levels. We encourage you to consider a further reduction in B.C.'s general corporate income tax rate to 10 percent, which would match Alberta's rate and improve the bottom line for B.C. businesses.

It's important to note that better corporate profitability is crucial in allowing B.C. business to better weather potential challenges. After all, profitability will help companies invest in environmental technologies that will help them reduce their carbon footprint. A better bottom line is also needed to make greater investments in training to help address the serious and growing problems of skills shortages in B.C.

We also believe B.C.'s competitive position would be improved through the elimination of a capital tax on financial institutions. Alberta has no capital tax on financial institutions, and B.C.'s capital tax was called unfriendly to investment and inhibitive of growth by the B.C. Competition Council.

The CAs of B.C. fully supported the phasing-out of the corporate capital tax on general corporations earlier this decade, and we believe it is now time to phase out the capital tax on financial institutions.

Lastly, I'd like to talk briefly about productivity. As you may know, B.C.'s productivity levels are lagging behind our competitors and the national average, and have been for some time. This productivity gap has been noted in our Check-Up reports and has been discussed extensively by the Progress Board and the Competition Council.

The B.C. Check-Up report concluded that improving productivity requires greater investment in public and private infrastructure, faster technological innovation, and improvements in human capital through education and training.

As a profession with one of the most rigorous training programs in the country, we do value education and, more specifically, the need for co-op placements. Co-op placements provide students with on-the-job training and experience while still in school. These arrangements also provide employers with an opportunity to train potential workers.

We support the educational initiatives such as those proposed by the Victoria Chamber of Commerce that the B.C. government introduce a co-op tax credit to business employers.

We know that taxation is an important tool to create incentives and disincentives for behaviour and

requires a delicate balance to motivate greener actions in a way that both protects the environment and sustains our competitive position.

To date, this government has strengthened the provincial economy by creating policies based on following best practices, harmonizing, reducing red tape and enhancing competitiveness. These principles have served the province well, and we would strongly encourage the government to use them when developing environmental policies and employing them to measure the efficacy of specific policies put forward.

That concludes my remarks today. As I mentioned earlier, we will make a final submission with copies of the B.C. Check-Up by the October 19 deadline. Thank you very much. I would be pleased to answer any questions.

R. Lee: Thank you for the presentation. You mentioned the real personal disposable income per capita, and B.C. is still behind. Have you done any studies on why?

R. Rees: Well, when the economy slowed down, we fell down. When you track it right back to the early '90s, I think we were at or above the national average. We fell down for a number of years, and we started the climb back in about 2001 and have steadily gone up.

If you've seen the front page of the business section of the Sun this morning…. The Sun has picked up on a section of the B.C. Check-Up that we've released. We actually had the biggest increase in the country last year. What seems to be the reason for that is that the job market is extremely tight. There's a lot of demand for skilled workers.

What's happening is that B.C. businesses that want to hire talent are having to pay more for it. We certainly see that in our industry, where we see firms recruiting outside of the province extensively and having to adjust their compensation rates to attract people to do the work.

J. Horgan: Thank you for your presentation. I'm wondering if you could comment on two issues.

The price of copper ten years ago was about 75 cents a pound, and today it's $3.75 a pound. Firstly, do you think that has some influence on the amount of investment in that sector?

The second question would be: how long can our forest sector sustain prices below $250 a thousand board feet?

R. Rees: Obviously, the increase in copper prices has stimulated investment in that sector. The challenges that our forest industry is facing are significant and are probably going to be accentuated by the slowdown in construction in the United States, plus the high dollar.

What I think is interesting is that 20 years ago our province was very dependent on forestry as the leading industry. The chairman of my board has worked in the forestry industry all his career, and he tells me there is nobody in the industry making money for the last couple of years. If you think about the history of the province, that would have been disastrous.

Because of the diversity that we now have in the economy, the re-emergence of other industries like mining across the province, we actually have a booming economy notwithstanding that. I think the things that have been done to encourage diversification of our economy are very positive and are helping us.

J. Horgan: And that commodity swing is not the primary indicator, in your view?

J. Horgan: I'm suggesting that the diversification resulted in one commodity price tanking and then another one going through the roof. That led to a rapid diversification and new investment because it was profitable to do so and not profitable to maintain the old industry.

R. Rees: Well, that might work in relation to the emergence of the mining industry, but you know, we've had the emergence of the film and production industry. That's had a huge influence on the lower mainland. Our tourism industry has grown extensively. We have the biomedical sector and all of the offshoots that have come out of the University of British Columbia, which are staggering. So there are some staggering figures in terms of the….

Again, my past chairman is chairman of the audit committee of one of the university offshoots, and he staggered me the other day when he said: "Oh, we just had to raise a little bit of money." How much was it? Well, $1.6 billion, all of which is going to be spent in British Columbia. So there are some huge things going on. The diversity is not necessarily related to resources.

B. Bennett (Chair): Members, I'm sorry. I know there are a couple of other people that want to ask questions, but we're out of time.

R. Rees: Good luck with the rest of your deliberations. We look forward to seeing your report.

I'd like to start by telling you a little bit about Silver Creek Premium Products. It's a company that has been here in Mission since 1982. We make shake and shingle products for roofing and siding. We employ approximately 40 employees. One day shift is what we're running right now, and the problem we're seeing is that we're only running at 30 percent capacity, whereas we could be running two shifts and employ a lot more people.

The problem we're having is an overwhelming labour shortage. We can't find people to work. I've been hearing all morning about skilled labour. We require unskilled labour. We need people that we can bring in and train in-house for these particular jobs that we need them to do, such as block piling, cubing, making the shakes and shingles.

So far we've exhausted all conventional ways of recruiting — for example, newspaper ads in The Province, the Sun, local ethnic papers, the HRDC job bank. We're seeking help from the provincial government to talk to the federal government in regards to immigrant work, such as the Mexican farmworkers — something like that. If that could be extended to, say, working in other industries like this industry — millwork….

Silver Creek right now pays a starting wage of $15 an hour. We'd like to move those employees who start on an hourly wage into piece-rate jobs because that's where they're going to make more money. An average guy can make $150 to $200 a day working for us. Like I said, we're having a very, very hard time finding labour to do these jobs that we need them to do.

If the government could help in perhaps dedicating some sort of program and putting in policies for labour to migrate from international countries and apply for work permits and be granted those work permits, we'd be more than happy to employ those people. That's about all I have to say.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much for that. That's not the first time that we've heard about the challenge that your type of business is having.

D. Hayer: Thank you very much, Preet. I'm the Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism and Immigration, and we've been hearing these types of cases throughout the province almost — from the restaurant to the hotel to businesses like yours.

P. Brar: I'm not directly involved in the business. I'm just here representing my father Davinder Brar. But I've been hearing about these problems for quite a few years now. I can't say exactly how long, but we've been seeking outside labour, trying to push for outside labour for at least two years now, because we can't find it here.

D. Hayer: We're working with the federal government, and we'll be meeting with the minister. I'll pass your concerns there. I think the committee has heard you.

P. Brar: Yes, and immigration consultants. We've been dealing with them. We've been trying to get LMOs from HRDC to allow work permits to be issued to citizens of international countries.

J. Kwan: I'm just curious. How many people does your company employ? And, therefore, on the labour skills shortage side, what are the numbers we're looking at in terms of people?

Then, a secondary question to that: what's the starting wage level that you pay to such employees?

P. Brar: Right now, the numbers that were given to me…. We're sitting at about 40 employees, and that's one day shift. We have the capability of running two shifts, a day and an evening. We pay starting at $15 an hour. That progresses into a position which would be piece-rate, and whatever they produce, they make. Guys are making $150 to $200 a day.

R. Hawes: Preet, frankly, I know your dad, so I know that he has labour now, I think, from Mexico working on a blueberry farm.

R. Hawes: Does he not? Is he not using that program in some farming activities?

R. Hawes: I know there are lots of people who are involved in the shake and shingle industry that also have farms and will use that program. I gather they are precluded from using the labour that they've got on the farms also in their other endeavours. Is that…?

P. Brar: I'm not familiar with that. We are allowed to use that labour. Are we? I thought that….

P. Brar: No, you can't, because once Immigration Canada issues a work permit, on that work permit is a designated employer. They're not allowed to work for anybody except that employer, so that business, let's say it's "ABC farms"…. They can't go work for "ABC shake and shingle."

Also, there are canneries — berry canneries and whatnot — that are using Mexican farm labour. I think

if they can extend it that far, they should be able to extend it to other industries as well.

R. Lee: What kind of categories do you think the workers should be classified as?

P. Brar: Labour. We don't need people that are skilled in any way, because we train in-house. They don't need to speak English or French. It's not hard to dictate to someone through sign language: "Pick up this block from here, and put it over here." It's not hard at all.

R. Lee: My question is…. Usually, the labour market opinion is dedicated to a certain…

P. Brar: Mill worker, mill labour. I'm not sure of the categories or what they are. Is that what you're looking for — how you would name that particular job?

P. Brar: We require block pilers; we require cubers; we require packers. What else? I guess, machine operators — heavy-duty machine operators, saw operators, if that is the classification. I'm not familiar with the actual titles.

R. Lee: Okay. In your industry, do you think…? What are the requirements, say, in Hope, B.C.?

P. Brar: For this type of job, I can't say. I can't even start to guess. I can tell you that right now we're only running at 30-percent capacity with 40 employees. We require quite a few helping hands. I'm sure there are lots of mills like ours along the Fraser River that require that kind of labour.

P. Alexis: Many organizations, actually, and just representing arts and culture generally in the community.

P. Alexis: Good morning, and welcome to Mission. We are very appreciative of your stop here and hope you can take a minute afterwards, if you haven't already and when the fog lifts, to take a look from the lookout at Westminster Abbey on Dewdney Trunk Road. We'd love for you to take a look. It's where we take all of our guests, as it exemplifies the natural beauty that surrounds us here in Mission.

My name is Pam Alexis, and I've lived in Mission for the last 11 years. We chose Mission to raise our children, as it provided us with the right balance of city and country life, of culture and creeks.

I'm an active Rotarian and/or a volunteer coordinator for a number of non-profit societies that produce arts and cultural events — for example, the Mission Folk Music Festival, the Mission Community Services Multicultural Festival, the Rotary Carol Festival and the Fraser River Heritage Park Envision concert series, which all take place annually.

Many benefit from grants from the B.C. Arts Council and could not continue without its support. We are a community defined by our abundance of arts and cultural events — so much so that the ex–entertainment editor of our local paper and I created a community calendar on a website to eliminate the chance of two events happening on the same night, which was becoming a regular occurrence.

I am committed to the arts in this community because I understand its benefits. I lived in Tsukuba City in Japan for several years and treasured the culture which was part of almost every aspect of life. Tsukuba was a city created by the Japanese in 1985 to promote scientific research and earn Japan a Nobel prize. But in its centre was the concert hall and the cultural centre, which was equally as important as the laboratory.

I also serve on a number of task groups: literacy projects, a committee to promote cultural exchange with our sister city in Japan, and an arts and culture committee dedicated to reviewing where we are successful and where we are not with respect to a cultural master plan that was approved by council in 2004.

In recent survey results conducted by this task group was the need for additional arts and cultural programming for youth and youth at risk. I'm also a school trustee, and I find this of particular interest. The school district strives to offer fine arts in all three of our comprehensive high schools. With the building of the Clarke Theatre in 1996 at Heritage Park Secondary School, many students have had experiences that have taken them to the next level in performance or technical arts.

Carly Rae Jepsen is one such student who lifted our collective soggy spirits this past summer in the Canadian Idol competition and inspired many of our young teens to follow their dreams. I have witnessed numerous performances in all of our high schools that make me feel so proud: aboriginal dance and drumming; bhangra dancing; dance performed by special needs students; moving choral pieces, which is of particular interest, as I also sing in a community choir; jazz bands; and drama performed so intensely that it's hard to imagine that the actors are high school students.

I've also had the pleasure of meeting at-risk students who come alive in the sound booth, running lighting and sound boards. For those students who stay away from the arts, the theatre has provided them with the skill of being an attentive audience member, which is an essential element to performance of any kind.

In six of our 16 elementary schools we offer music and choir. I wish it could be all 16 schools, but the arts programs are often overlooked for lack of resources and trained staff. As a result, the school district has formed some partnerships to promote more arts and cultural activities in our elementary schools.

I would like to read a letter to you from Nancy Arcand of the Mission Arts Council, who is one of our partners.

That's with regards from Nancy Arcand, the executive director of the Mission Arts Council.

Another group that brings many of Mission's youth opportunities is the Mission Folk Music Festival. Every summer our young adults in the community, as well as some old ones like myself, clear the calendar to help create a very magical weekend of world music.

I would like to read a letter now from Francis Xavier of the Mission Folk Music Festival.

As you've heard, increasing the budget of the B.C. Arts Council would make such a difference to

this community and communities throughout British Columbia. We are growing, and so are people's expectations. Non-profit boards are finding it increasingly difficult to balance the books as so many costs are rising.

I'm grateful for your attention, and thank you for your patience. At this time I would like to introduce Dr. Chris Finch, my co-presenter.

C. Finch: I'll just say this. Obviously, if you know Pam, she's a tough act to follow. You have my written submission. I am representing arts in general in Mission, but I am also the president of the Mission Concert and Recital Society. We operate out of the Clarke Theatre, and we involve a lot of professional artists who have benefited from the B.C. Arts Council.

In the interests of getting some discussion going, I'll leave it at that. I have given you a written submission.

I'll just ask a quick question myself, then. Do you know whether whoever has come up with the statistic or statement that B.C. funds the arts community less than other provinces…? Do you know whether that includes all of the funding from all of the ministries and all of the agencies in the B.C. government that fund the arts, or does that include the money that goes to the B.C. Arts Council?

C. Finch: Well, looking at the annual report of the B.C. Arts Council…. The amount that they spend is there.

We're not aware of how you list those contributions to arts and culture. Hopefully, there'll be some dialogue where we would learn some of the information, but the information comparing this province with other provinces suggests that the amounts are less. The amounts per individual would appear to be less, but I don't know how you tease out the Olympics or any other organization that might be supported by provincial money that's considered to be arts.

The B.C. Arts Council is, in fact, a very effective conduit of getting money out into the arts. It works well. But if you look at the map in their annual report, it's a lot down in the southern part of the province and a few scatterings elsewhere. I just wonder whether that's equitable and whether or not there can be more funding for the entire province.

J. Horgan: Thank you very much for your presentation. You should take comfort that every community we go to is well represented by artists and those who want to advance cultural activities in their community. We're very pleased to hear from you as well.

I want to expand on two points that you just touched upon, Chris: (1) the efficacy or the value of the B.C. Arts Council as the conduit for distributing resources, and (2) whether or not moneys flowing through VANOC or Olympic-labelled entities are diminishing the ability for the outlying areas to access those dollars.

What we've heard in some other communities is that the focus on providing funding for the mecca — downtown Vancouver and area — is diminishing the opportunities in outlying areas. Could you expand on that? You just touched on it in your comments, and I think there's more there.

C. Finch: As a layperson, I don't fully understand the budgets that have been put into VANOC and whether that's new money just for the Olympics or whether in fact it's going to be heritage money and legacy money that'll continue on year after year. I would hope so.

We also received a bulletin the other day that there is going to be $1 million set aside to celebrate B.C.'s 150th birthday. Is that new money, or is that going to be redistributed money? We don't know. I think there's room for a lot more dialogue as to where the money is coming from. Randy has reminded us many times that there are all these organizations, but there is only one taxpayer.

Obviously, if we're going to make a meaningful presentation for more money, we have to have the rest of this information. I don't think it's out there.

The other thing is that some of the money might be turning up in the schools. I would hope it would. As Pam has outlined, the schools are a very important part of the arts and culture mosaic of our community. If the schools aren't funded in a consistent fashion, then we don't have that continuity from youth to adult.

Right now, I think Pam would agree, we're trying very hard to integrate youth into our programming. To do that, we have to work with the schools, and to do that, we have to have consistent fine arts programs. The fine arts programs often get axed. We would like to see the fine arts in the school system considered to be a very important part of the curriculum.

P. Alexis: I would just like to make a comment with respect to your question. I think some of the projects, like Legacies Now, are for specific projects. We're not talking about sustainable operational costs. We're talking about one project. It's over, it's finished, and then what happens? That, I think, is part of the whole problem.

C. Finch: Maybe, to help us, there can in fact be some sort of information that does give us information on all the moneys that go out to arts and culture. It's not clear.

L. McKimmon: Good morning. I only have two pages. I'm a poor dairy farmer, and I couldn't afford to copy them for each member, so I don't think it's going to take me ten minutes to get through this.

L. McKimmon: My name is Lloyd McKimmon. I'm here today as a director of the Fraser Valley regional district. I've served as a regional director for area G since 1995 and as a director for the Deroche area since 1982.

I'm here today to speak about two issues. One is the Nicomen diking system and Fraser River dredging, and the second is flooding of Deroche Creek.

The Premier, in his speech at the UBCM, took a lot of the thunder out of my presentation, because he announced long-term funding for dikes. That's one of the things I was here to talk about today.

The Nicomen Island diking system serves the Nicomen Island area. It has 35 kilometres of dikes. That's more dike than what Chilliwack has or what Abbotsford has, and it's an area that is protecting approximately 850 people. It's essentially a ring dike around Nicomen Island. The main land use is agriculture, and there's a lot of Indian reserve as well.

This diking system was scheduled for upgrades in the 1980s under the Fraser River flood control program, but that work was never started, as funds ran out. That program, as you're probably aware, died.

Our dikes are consistently plus or minus one metre below the designed dike elevations and consistently do not meet the 2-to-1 slopes. They also suffer from livestock damage, animal burrows, ponding and other concerns.

The Nicomen Island improvement district is responsible for the inspection, operation and maintenance of the system — and these are all volunteer farmers — and the Fraser Valley regional district is the local authority. Our dike is, arguably, in the worst condition in the lower Fraser Valley and is in need of immediate upgrades to achieve standard dike status.

As well, a long-term gravel removal strategy is needed for the lower Fraser River from Agassiz to Mission in particular. Funding may be required from time to time to keep this gravel removal economically feasible.

Continually raising the level of the dikes will not solve the problems in my area. As the dikes go higher, the water goes higher, but the ground inside the dikes is lower, and the hydraulics flood regardless. So raising the dikes alone is not the only answer. We need to also remove the gravel.

I believe there's something like 350 cubic metres per year dumped into our river. I think for about 11 years there was absolutely no removal, and then we had some one year. Last year I think there were some financial problems, and that didn't happen. We need provincial support to work with Fisheries and the feds to get that going.

Also, on the long-term funding, I think it's absolutely imperative that the feds be brought into that program as well. They have a responsibility here as well. Municipal government for funding —I'm not so sure about that.

Prioritizing these projects. This $100 million — $10 million per year over ten years — is going to be difficult. I read in The Province yesterday that the acting mayor of Chilliwack is saying that they're in immediate need of some $24 million to upgrade their dikes. A councillor from Abbotsford was saying that Abbotsford is owed $4 million already from last year, and they were the least-funded area in the whole province. Yet we look at the Nicomen system with 35 kilometres, and we had 800 metres upgraded. There are going to be lots of battles.

If maintaining viable farmland within the ALR is a priority, then standard dikes are needed to allow farmers and their families to work and live on Nicomen Island without fear of having to move cattle and kids every spring — the same level of security that farm families in Abbotsford and Chilliwack now enjoy. That's it for that for now.

I'd just like to speak about another issue in my electoral area, and it's a problem throughout the Fraser Valley regional district — throughout the province, I'm sure. That is the aggradation in the creek beds. I heard a number — like there are 4,000 in the province that have problems.

I'm just going to speak about mine. In Deroche Creek there's an urgent need for funding to remove the gravel buildup in the local creeks. Deroche Creek has not had any significant work done to it for several years — to recontour the channel, I guess.

From the 1950s to the late '60s there was a local contractor. Every year he would come in and remove gravel. It worked — providing a catchment basin right at the fan of the creek. The creek was self-scouring. No problems.

In the 1970s federal Fisheries and Oceans put a stop to that. Since then there's been no material removed and several flood situations as a result, as the creek bed backs up the stream.

During the storms in November 2006 the creek left its bank in two places. PEP paid to have the immediate repairs necessary to have the main channel put back in place. Severe aggradation has taken place over the years and has to be addressed.

The regional district conducted a study to repair several creeks in our region, and the cost for Deroche Creek was in excess of $450,000. In July this year we applied to PEP for funding and were informed that a disaster financial assistance project for this creek would require a 20-percent commitment, or $90,000, from the Fraser Valley regional district.

Well, this money doesn't come from the entire regional district. This money would have to come from the property owners adjacent to the creek. We're talking about a handful of people having to come up with $90,000 in order to get $450,000 worth of work done. It's a no go. It's just absolutely not possible.

One of the statements put to us was: would we be willing to provide a specified benefiting area to maintain this creek if it was put back into place?

We had a meeting with the residents and some other partners, and we think that could be done. To start out asking a couple of dozen property owners to put up $90,000…. We don't even need to start the paperwork, because we know what the answer to that is.

There are two local bridges serving two roads in that area where the clearance is like two feet right now. It should be about eight or ten feet. It's an immediate problem. We need help, and that's why I'm here today. That's all I have for you.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you, Mr. McKimmon. Well presented and a real problem.

R. Hawes: Lloyd, we were in Terrace. Jack Talstra, the mayor of Terrace, spoke on almost the identical issue. One of the things he said was that he wanted to see something like the federal-provincial-municipal infrastructure program put in place for this. He said that for the work that needs to be done in Terrace, they would gladly put up one-third if they could get two-thirds of the money from the feds and the province. The Premier has committed $10 million for ten years, and there's some expectation or hope that the federal government will do the same, will match that.

What do you think is the likelihood that the Fraser Valley regional district — using them as an example — would match the funding that would come for the whole Fraser Valley, if it were done along the lines of an infrastructure program type of situation?

L. McKimmon: Of course, I can't speak for the entire Fraser Valley board. This is an issue that we discussed, I believe, in the late '90s. In fact, I think we actually put the proposal forward to the province and the feds for one-third, one-third, one-third funding for dikes.

I think the dikes are a huge resource not just for protecting farmland and cities and industrial areas along the Fraser but also as a recreational tool. If the feds and the province and the local taxpayers — even taxpayers that aren't affected by these dikes — are contributing, they should get some benefit.

The benefit could be long-term park use with walking trails and what have you. There's tremendous demand for access to the Fraser River. There's very little from Albion east, very few accesses to the Fraser River on our side. Abbotsford, I believe, has walking trails. They work very well; they're well utilized.

If you're asking me, we would have to look at those numbers and see how they fit in with our current funding. I would not say no to something like that. I think that's a responsible position — to accept that one-third is the number. I personally would probably support it, depending on what those numbers look like. Without knowing that, it's hard to say what's coming to the Fraser Valley. I know what's needed, but what's coming is another thing.

J. Kwan: Along the lines of the question of need in your area that you're aware of, what do you think the cost is to address the diking system that is required?

L. McKimmon: That's a tough one, because it would probably take a $500,000 study to put an accurate number to that. We did an upgrade to a standard dike on the Nicomen dikes for 800 metres, and it was right around $800,000. You're probably looking not too far off a million dollars per kilometre — ballpark, today's numbers. Don't hang that on me, but it's a good guess.

J. Kwan: I'm just trying to work it out in my head. The Premier just announced $100 million over ten years for the whole province. Trying to break it down in terms of where the needs are and therefore how much would give us a sense of it.

J. Kwan: You were. Did you get a chance to meet with the minister to present your case? What was the response?

R. Lee: Thank you for the presentation. One of the keys for the river run is the gravels and aggregates you mentioned. Those materials have commercial value — right? Once you remove it, you can sell it. I think what I've heard is that the DFO is really the bottleneck in terms of getting the gravels out of the riverbed.

R. Lee: No. What you want is for the province to talk to the feds about this.

L. McKimmon: I think the provincial government and the federal government need to work together to have the gravel removed. Part of the federal government's area of concern is federal fisheries.

Whether these materials can be removed economically, I don't know. Some of the response we're getting is that that probably was the case, but whether it is today or not, I don't know. Regardless, they have to come up. Someone has to take the whip, and I want to make sure that happens.

R. Lee: From what I heard, the aboriginal people and also their commercial operator would like to have some kind of an operation along the Mission and other areas. The bottleneck, I heard, is the DFO.

If you have a message to the federal government and if you want us to bring it forward, then we are happy to do it.

L. McKimmon: I think the DFO is aware of our concerns at the regional level, and I think the province has made it clear that they support the removal. I believe they have agreed to allow the 350,000 cubic metres to come out. Last year I think there were financial concerns. Whether a contractor could actually recover those funds from the material, I don't know.

The gravel strategy expert is sitting at the end of the table there. He might be able to answer that.

R. Hawes: Two things I'd tell you, Lloyd, just as a quick comment. Gravel usually doesn't come out, because the window to allow it to come out…

R. Hawes: By the time you make the application and it goes through all of the process, the window of opportunity to take it out is usually down to about a month. It's just economically not possible to recover all the costs of the engineering, etc., in one month. People have walked away from doing it because the bureaucracy around getting permits is just too great.

I do want the people in the regional district to understand that if we are suggesting that they come forward and offer, at least, to take part financially….

Last spring, I'm told by PEP, there was a storm coming in on a Friday night. If it had hit here, the dikes would have overtopped, and there would have been damage probably in the billions. At the very last minute that storm turned. That's how close we were, in the Fraser Valley, to an absolute disaster. It was a matter of hours and an act of God that turned the storm to the south. That's how lucky we were.

It's critical that we do this, but I also think that to get the work done, it's critical that local government steps up to the plate and participates. This isn't a criticism, but a lot of the permitting that has taken place to allow businesses, etc., to grow along the river has been issued by the local government. We all benefit from that, so I think we all need to take part on every level.

L. McKimmon: I would agree with that, but I wouldn't single out the Fraser Valley regional district.

L. McKimmon: I think the GVRD and metro Vancouver need to be a part of this process, because what we do up here affects them as well.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you very much, Lloyd. We appreciate it. Are we going to get a copy of your submission at some point?

The B.C. Government and Service Employees Union represents more than 65,000 women and men who work in a wide variety of occupations, including provincial government employees as well as people who work in financial services, post-secondary education, first nations governments, highways maintenance, hotels and casinos. We are B.C.'s largest union in the child care and community social services sectors and the third largest in health care. We welcome this opportunity to present our proposals for the 2008 provincial budget.

The consultation guidance document steers participants this year by asking: what choices would you make for a greener future? Our submission provides advice as to how the government can invest in the province's green infrastructure as well as its social infrastructure. We feel these two priorities are actually one and the same.

The effects of global warming fall disproportionately. While it tends to be those who are richer that are most responsible for the actions contributing to global warming, the negative effects will be felt more acutely by the poor. The consequences of global warming will increase the need for health, social and community services.

The ability to invest individually in energy-efficient solutions is related to one's wealth. Even any rise in price for food, fuel, transportation or other goods and services as a result of global warming will have a more significant effect on poor people, as they spend a higher proportion of their income on these necessities. It's important that the people most affected by global warming and the people expected to share in the burden of change have a real voice in any climate actions undertaken or supported by government.

The government can act boldly with this budget. The B.C. economy has been booming. Growth predictions are such that B.C. is second only to Alberta in terms of economic strength. The Ministry of Finance shows that B.C. is on track for significant surpluses this year and the next. Effective public leadership will be necessary to convert this prosperity into the greener and more inclusive future that British Columbians want. Major changes are required, and the red-hot economy is not delivering these changes on its own.

Here are some of the challenges this government faces. B.C. is the second-lowest ranked province in Canada on social indicators, and during this economic boom B.C. has been losing ground compared to

Of British Columbians, 17.3 percent are living below the low-income cut-off mark, and out of all the provinces, B.C. has made the least progress. The income gap between the rich and poor is more pronounced in B.C. than in any other province. B.C. has the highest poverty rate among seniors. Only one in six children has access to regulated child care spaces. Fees are increasing, and wait-lists are getting longer.

It's in this context that we've put together our proposals for budget 2008. Our submission identifies a number of spending priorities for this budget, and I will outline a few of them here. On environmental spending this budget must commit resources to ensure the province will actually meet the target of reducing current greenhouse gas emissions by a third by 2020. This government will need to bring a green lens to bear upon their own policies, not only those dealing with B.C.'s forests, parks, salmon fisheries and energy use but also those supporting local production and processing, setting infrastructure objectives and government procurement practices.

Environmental concerns must guide any forward movement on major issues such as oil and gas exploration and the pine beetle devastation. Strong green public leadership on transportation will be essential, as transportation is the largest component of B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions. Planning must play an important role. From the beginning this planning should involve workers and communities and be transparent.

The government must take the lead on developing and adopting efficient and renewable energy solutions. Regulation and enforcement must be central to any green approach. The government must bolster resources, staff and the mandate of the ministries of Forests, Agriculture and Lands, and Environment. These ministries have the greatest responsibility for our natural life-support systems: clean air, clean and abundant water, healthy soils, functioning ecosystems and biodiversity. These systems are the most threatened by global warming.

However, curbing global warming will require industry to cooperate by reducing its emissions, and additional monitoring and enforcement of industrial behaviour will be critical to success.

An important element of greening the budget is additional funding for just transition programs that integrate worker and community input on global warming actions from the beginning, to provide support, training and services for workers displaced from their jobs by some of the necessary economic changes entailed by a greener future.

On health care spending this submission argues that a greener future must also be a more equitable future. This requires government to reinvest in B.C.'s social infrastructure. One of the most important ways to do this is through further commitment to our public health care system. Our union represents over 13,000 health care workers in many diverse areas, and they see firsthand the effects of cuts to service.

The provincial government should increase spending on community-based health care. In particular, the BCGEU recommends investment in three key areas: home support, residential care, and mental health and addictions services.

First, the Premier's Council on Aging and Seniors Issues recently recommended a new vision for home support services — one focused on prevention; maintaining quality of life; and avoiding the high cost, both financial and human, of institutional care. The BCGEU agrees with this recommendation, and moving to a global core funding model will increase flexibility and stability.

Second, in terms of residential care the closure of more than 2,400 long-term care beds between 2001 and 2004 resulted in a critical shortage of residential care for seniors in B.C. Increased spending to ensure sufficient beds and appropriate staffing levels is urgently needed.

Third, there are more than 25,000 hospitalizations each year in B.C. for mental illness or addictions-related reasons, at a cost of $347 million. A comprehensive and fully funded mental health and addictions strategy must be a priority. These investments will not only improve health outcomes for individuals and communities but will also reduce pressure on and costs within the acute care system.

Recruitment and retention of health care workers is an increasing and serious challenge. There has been a lot of public attention on the shortage of doctors and nurses, but the challenge extends to all workers, including community health workers and residential care aides. Wages and working conditions are key for recruitment and retention. If we're going to address this shortage, then investment in all our health care providers is necessary.

Our members actively participated in the Conversation on Health and repeatedly heard the same message: "Protect our public health care system." Research shows that private for-profit investment in health care is not the right approach to dealing with these challenges. There are many innovations within the public system that are working. The priority must be to expand and build upon these successes.

On other social infrastructure spending…. In the time remaining, I'll just briefly highlight our other proposals.

Community Living B.C. CLBC has had budget shortfalls, and wait-list problems exist. There is an urgent need for the government to implement an adequate and stable funding model for CLBC to effectively deliver services for people living with developmental disabilities.

Child care. The government must fund a public comprehensive child care system to improve upon the current inadequate patchwork of services. This is supported by the Union of B.C. Municipalities, which recently passed a motion calling on both federal and provincial governments to fully restore child care funding and build a quality early learning child care system for all children.

Housing. The province must address a range of housing needs for the growing homeless population and for low- to mid-income people, especially families and seniors. The province should re-establish a com-

prehensive and ongoing not-for-profit program to address the immediate housing crisis and ensure housing affordability.

Welfare. This budget should significantly increase welfare rates to have a meaningful relationship to actual cost-of-living estimates and index welfare rates to the consumer price index.

Post-secondary education and trades training. Student debt on the rise, labour shortages…. Steps must be taken to ensure tuition costs are reduced, especially in trades or occupations where government has approved or is considering approval of foreign-trained workers entering the B.C. workforce. The government should also provide accelerated funding for trades training.

Ministry of Children and Family Development. The government should ensure stability and adequate funding for MCFD. We would like to stress the importance of the Legislative Assembly's Representative for Children and Youth to focus on the needs of aboriginal communities and enable front-line social workers to make decisions.

Open government. Openness and transparency are essential to accountable governance. This budget should increase the funding to offices of both the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Auditor General.

In conclusion, the province has enjoyed an economic boom, and the province's finances have reflected large surpluses. This is the time to invest in both our green and our social infrastructure. This means more funding to key government programs as outlined in this presentation.

Please see our written submission, which you all have a copy of, for more detail on our proposals. There's not enough time in ten minutes to go into a lot of detail here, but I'm very happy to take any questions and thank you for this opportunity to provide the BCGEU's input.

R. Hawes: You have quite a list of suggestions here for spending. Do you have, perhaps, an order of magnitude of what the global cost of all of your recommendations are to the annual budget? Do you have any idea of…? If the government said, "Yes, we're going to do every one of these," what would it cost?

L. Oikawa: Well, costs will be significant to people if we don't look at the urgent needs of people. There are people…. We live in a beautiful province, but it's not the landscape. It's the people.

R. Hawes: But we're charged…. As you know, we have legislation that says that we cannot run deficits. So we have to keep an eye on the bottom line and ensure that we do not run into a deficit.

Implementing improved or new programs that have ongoing operating costs has to be considered into the future, because the surpluses that we see today may not be there down the road. That's why I'm asking: do you have any idea of what the global cost to this is?

L. Oikawa: What you can do is look at, in each of these sections, the importance, the urgency of each area. You can look at areas, particularly, where if the BCGEU and our line workers have input, we can show you where there can be efficiencies, where it doesn't need to be a deficit. The public health care — there are many ways that we can look at efficiencies.

J. Kwan: I think on each of these items…. Certainly, with your presentation but with other presentations that we've received as we travelled across the province, many of them actually come with the dollar figures which we can attach to the headings that you have identified.

I guess for government the issue here is a question of priorities in terms of the $4 billion–plus surplus that we have. Where should government put the money in supporting our communities throughout British Columbia? You have listed the headings, and some specific items within each heading, for government's attention to target its funding towards.

My question is: at a time when we do have a huge surplus — especially right now; over $4 billion worth of surplus — does the GEU have a position around perhaps having the government set aside some of those funds for the future should the economy, the resource sector, let's say, collapse? Some might call it a rainy-day fund. Setting aside a fund that targets certain programming for the future so you always have a contingency fund that you can go into at a time when you have a huge surplus.

L. Oikawa: I think what you said, though, is probably one of the most important points. There are huge surpluses, and every budget there's been sort of extra money, extra surpluses that we've then found out about.

There is sufficient funding to look at all these different areas. There is still sufficient funding and surpluses, and as the government's own Ministry of Finance has shown for this year and the next, it's growing. It's booming — the economy. There are surpluses. There is money.

I think we need to wrap our heads around that. We're talking about huge surpluses. You can still be conservative. You can still look at the future. You can still do all of that, but you can still look at, if the will is there, the urgent needs of the areas that we've outlined in our written submission.

L. Geschke: I'm representing myself today, but I will give a brief introduction of who I am, because I am associated with several organizations.

L. Geschke: I was on a corporate board until 2003, for nine years. It was an elected position. It was a privately held company in a provincially regulated industry. The assets when I joined the board were $57 million and dropping. When I left the board, they were almost $125 million and climbing. This was really good corporate experience for my background, and I do know how to read financial statements because of it.

I am also currently on the provincial advisory committee, one of ten individuals from around the province, advising the board of Community Living British Columbia, which is one of your Crown corporations, as you know. I am also on the board of REAL Women of B.C., which is a non-partisan provincial lobbying organization. And I am the national president of REAL Women of Canada, which has the same aims — a non-partisan lobbying organization and family advocacy group.

I have been a resident of B.C. since 1974, when my father retired. I moved out here as a teenager. I've been married for 30 years, and I'm the mother of four children, ages 25 to 14.

I read some statistics. As of July 1, 2007, there were 4.31 million people in British Columbia. Approximately 22.5 percent, or 970,675, were children and teens aged 19 and under, as of the 2006 census. The 2006 census also said that there were 816,232 people, or approximately 20 percent, aged 60 and over in British Columbia.

With regard to the budget consultation paper, the tax incentives on hybrid vehicles, production of wind power and use of biofuels don't benefit the majority of British Columbians, and they don't benefit families at all. How would I ever have gotten my four kids, when they were little, into one of those itty-bitty, squishy little cars that'll save me money on gas?

I have some questions, also, about the bottom of page 2 of the budget consultation, "The fiscal and economic forecast." What are the new anticipated revenues "not yet committed to specific purposes"? Are they things like the new TV tax, or the new levy or surcharge on TVs and monitors, that came in on the first of August, which is $25? Or is that something different?

I also notice that the committed revenues go up and up and up, and the infrastructure expenses over the next four or five years are going down. Why would the infrastructure go down when the commitments are going up?

I'd like to know the province's definition of "balanced budget," because I think it might be different than my definition of our family's balanced budget.

Where are these revenues coming from? I tell you today, in case you've forgotten, that they come from families' pockets — from their grocery budget, their clothing allowances and their school fees.

With regard to the forecast allowances, we had these in the credit union. They were necessary because of the legislation under which we were operating. But I'd like to know: have these allowances that the government is setting aside been taken away before these budget surpluses and the new uncommitted revenues are being accounted for?

The consultation paper says that the government is looking to the future, which is good. But the future is in the children of this province, and the children are in the families of this province. The family needs protection and financial stability through low taxes, low sales tax, reduced surcharges and eliminated user fees.

About 18 months ago the government set up a ministry office to ensure that the children's best interests are protected when their parents are not able to take care of them and they are in care. I would like to suggest at this time that the province should also be setting up a similar office, or using the same one. I don't think it is called an ombudsman.

It would be for children whose parents are in divorce courts, because quite often those children's best interests are not represented when the parents are fighting in court. The lawyers, the judges and the parents are all in conflict and thinking of no one but themselves. The children are very often forgotten.

The next thing I would like to speak about is the RDSP, the registered disability savings plan, which was implemented in the 2007 budget by the federal government. It's a powerful financial tool with a grant that recognizes family contributions and a bond to assist people directly who own the RDSP or in whose name the RDSP is registered. It provides tax-free growth of contribution.

From British Columbia the RDSP needs a shift away from a welfare mentality for people with disabilities to one focused on poverty reduction and asset accumulation at the provincial level. The RDSP needs greater provincial acknowledgment of the financial contributions made by families and, also, respect for the family's motives, wisdom and understanding of their disabled children's needs.

The RDSP also needs more and better tools and instruments to assist families worried about the long-term security and well-being of their relatives with disabilities. B.C. needs to remove obstacles that currently deter individuals with disabilities from accumulating assets. B.C. needs to create provincial mechanisms to recognize contributions and also needs to update current discretionary and non-discretionary trust regimes to align them with RDSP standards.

Provincial reforms are needed to ensure that British Columbia citizens are protected and that families are respected in their desire to provide for the long-term support of their family members with disabilities.

I'd like to refer now to Pay Now or Pay Later: Autism Families in Crisis. This is the final report of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Tech-

nology. It was released in March of 2007. On page 17 this book mentions that the RDSP will be available for people with autism.

On page 21 the conclusion states: "The Committee fully supports the views expressed by families with autistic children and autistic individuals themselves that governments must pay now; otherwise, they will pay later. We believe that the latter is simply not an option."

With regard to autism funding in B.C., there has been a change to allowable expenses recently, disallowing biomedical interventions that are being used successfully to reverse the autistic symptoms of many children and adults with autism. These interventions have a growing body of supporting research and published studies in peer-reviewed journals. Please ensure that biomedical interventions are again allowed to be reimbursable expenses through provincial autism funding.

In conclusion, the families of B.C. provide B.C.'s most precious renewable resource: our children. They need our protection for the future, for a just and equitable society.

I'd like to introduce you to my daughter Jacynthe. She is 22. At the age of seven she was misdiagnosed as mildly psychotic and unable to relate emotionally to other human beings. At age 15 she was diagnosed PDD-NOS, which is pervasive developmental delays, non-origin specific, and autistic with severe language processing delays.

She is 22 now. She never graduated from high school. She finished high school only. She worked very hard at it. My daughter is currently receiving disability benefits out of a welfare office. She should not be treated like a welfare recipient, because she's different. My daughter would work if she could, but she's unable to.

My daughter has a friend in Burnaby. This friend, after high school, spent about eight years going to adult special education classes in various colleges around the lower mainland. My daughter's friend — her name's Alex — lives in Burnaby.

Alex got a job for the first time about 18 months ago. Her mother confided in me one time, just shortly after Alex had begun working at Safeway, that when Alex received the news over the phone that she had been hired — that they wanted her to work for them at their Safeway store — she burst into tears. She told her mother that she was so happy because they wanted her.

Our citizens with disabilities need to feel like they are needed. They have gifts to contribute, and they need to be appreciated. Having them treated the same as people on welfare willingly or unwillingly …. Those are people who could work. My daughter is not able to through no fault of her own. I would like that to be changed, that attitude to be shifted, within the province.

In conclusion, I'd like to say: please align all necessary provincial programs, statutes and benefits to accommodate the registered disability savings plan. Please respect the parents of B.C. children with autism, because they know what's best for their child or children with autism. Open the criterion for the autism funding to include biomedical interventions, which work, so that some of these children and adults can be cured of this enigmatic condition.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you, Laurie. I noticed that the first part of your presentation contained several questions. If you want to give the Clerks' table a list of those questions or supply them to us later, I'll make sure that you get an answer from the Ministry of Finance.

R. Hawes: Just quickly, Laurie, with respect to biomedical interventions for autism. I know there is some flexibility. Parents are given a lot of choices. I take it that is not one at the current time.

L. Geschke: It was one, but the choices are being limited now to only applied behavioral analysis, which has a lot of negative potential in many children. I have met many autistic individuals who have greatly suffered emotionally because of their past experience with ABA. I would not recommend it. My daughter was not subjected to it, and I'm grateful for that.

The criterion was allowing biomedical interventions, and now it's not. It should continue to allow it. There are different treatment modalities coming out which have actual double-blind testing done that shows improvements, where ABA has none of that.

R. Hawes: If I could just expand on that slightly. My understanding of this — and you can correct me; maybe I'm wrong — was that if there was any accredited program that had shown results, the ministry was prepared to fund it or to allow parents to use the funding to acquire those kinds of services as long as there was some accreditation.

L. Geschke: I believe that is the case, but mostly you're talking here about applied behavioral analysis. There are other programs or services which would be beneficial to the child with autism.

There's a lot of research now that shows that in many children, especially with autistic symptoms…. There's gut inflammation, and there are definite direct relationships between healing the gut of the child and seeing the behaviours — the mental inability to focus, the repetitious behaviours, the headbanging, the screaming and the inability to process sensory information. Those diminish, and the child becomes able to function in a normal world and in a school setting.

R. Hawes: But would those biomedical interventions be through physicians, through naturopaths, or what? I'm not sure who the practitioners are.

L. Geschke: The practitioner would be a naturopath or a physician who would do that, and they're no longer being allowed. They were being allowed, but they're no longer being allowed.

M. Davies: My name is Mike Davies, and I'm the emergency coordinator for the district of Maple Ridge. I'm here on behalf of the district of Maple Ridge and its residents and businesses located in areas of the Fraser River freshet influence. As the emergency coordinator, I work with the provincial emergency program staff and the Metro Vancouver municipal emergency coordinators. I know that the district of Maple Ridge's Fraser River mitigation concerns are echoed by municipalities throughout the Fraser River watershed.

I commend the Premier and the provincial government on their recent funding announcement that will provide $100 million over the next ten years to communities across British Columbia for flood protection, infrastructure and maintenance. The Premier is correct when he states that we narrowly averted a flood situation that could have been devastating and was very tough on many communities.

Maple Ridge council expressed concerns by passing the following resolution September 10, 2007: "That a letter be written to the Premier of British Columbia and to the Prime Minister of Canada requesting the establishment of a program and funding to upgrade the dikes on the Fraser River to the new standards outlined in the Fraser River basin council 2006 report and that other municipalities along the Fraser River be asked to do the same."

During the past winter the Ministry of Environment and the provincial emergency program identified that weather conditions were such that flooding of the Fraser River was a real possibility during its annual freshet. Along with the weather predictions, the Fraser River basin council completed a Fraser River modelling report in 2006, which identified that the river conditions had changed and a new dike standard was required. Portions of the dike system in Maple Ridge were identified to be 0.9 metres below this new standard.

In Maple Ridge during this past spring and summer flood, information was distributed to residents in potential flood areas, and a number of community meetings were held. Our emergency operations centre was activated for 14 days. The federal government was represented in our emergency operations centre by Department of National Defence staff. The provincial emergency program provided daily conference call updates, and five areas of the community, affecting approximately 500 people, were placed on evacuation alert.

As Randy mentioned earlier, a single rain event off the coast of British Columbia did not, thankfully, develop as predicted and moved south, allowing the Fraser River waters to subside. If the major event had occurred, the total population of Maple Ridge — some 80,000 — would have been affected.

Historically, provincial and federal funds have been made available to qualifying municipalities for limited works prior to a potential flood event. In addition, the provincial emergency program provides disaster financial assistance to qualifying residents and businesses following an event. Those who do not qualify are left to absorb their losses. Both of these programs have been successful and were available during the Fraser River freshet of 2007. We have a great working relationship with the provincial emergency program staff, and they do a good job.

In preparation for this single flood event, $33 million — one-third of the Premier's present commitment — was made available to local authorities for emergency mitigation works that could be completed prior to May 15, 2007. And the disaster financial assistance program was made available to communities flooded by the Fraser River during the freshet.

Maple Ridge used both of these resources. Originally, Maple Ridge applied to the province for $9.5 million to complete flood protection where it was needed prior to the freshet. Maple Ridge received just over $2 million to complete two projects. Following the event, Maple Ridge applied to the province for $147,000 in assistance to cover portions of the response costs.

During the freshet planning and response, additional mitigation works were identified. Maple Ridge's flood mitigation requirements alone could be well over $10 million. There is still lots of work to do.

In addition, since November 2006 Maple Ridge has applied to the province for recovery of $310,000 in response costs, and we have activated our emergency operations centre six times. Citizens have also applied for financial disaster assistance over this period of time.

Given the magnitude of the flooding that could occur, we request that the standing committee recommend that the provincial government undertake the following: review the proposed flood mitigation funding, and recommend that it be substantially increased to meet the needs of our communities; make the flood mitigation funds available over a shorter period of time, and request the federal government to provide matching funding.

As local authority, we are concerned about the safety and well-being of our citizens, as is the provincial government. Each level of government has a responsibility to have emergency plans in place to assist their citizens in mitigation of, preparation for, responding to and recovery from emergency events.

Compensation can assist with the material items but not with individual citizens' fear, stress and confusion, which can magnify in the more vulnerable populations. We are not meeting the expectations of our citizens by placing them in unsafe and stressful situations. Nor are we necessarily making the best use of the dollars if repeat compensation is required.

The sooner we can complete the flood protection projects, the better, as we will continue to experience

the Fraser River flood threat every few years. The previous event was in 1999. One of these flood events will cause major impact to our citizens.

In summary, we are requesting that the steering committee on Finance and Government Services recommend that the provincial government undertake the following: review the proposed flood mitigation funding and recommend that it be substantially increased to meet the needs of our citizens, and make flood mitigation funds available over a shorter period of time and request the federal government provide matching funds.

R. Hawes: Mike, I won't ask you about whether you think the local government should also participate financially, because you're not in an elected position. So I know you can't really say too much about that.

I'm going to ask you about…. Aggradation of the river — from, certainly, the gravel reach, which actually comes down to Mission — has significantly increased the size of the gravel reach. The amount of the gravel in the river has increased. When you get to Maple Ridge, it's mostly sand. I know that the Fraser River Port Authority does significant dredging up to, I think, New Westminster and into Surrey but not up to Maple Ridge. I wondered: would you have any sense of how much siltation is in the river in the Maple Ridge area? How much is that affecting the safety or security of your dikes?

M. Davies: Randy, I don't really have much information on that particular aspect of mitigation. From the reading I've done, the comments have been that there is substantial buildup in certain areas, and in other areas it's actually been scoured. That has obviously moved in to create additional sandbars and so forth in the river. As far as the actual quantities and the real effect, I really don't have information on that.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): I had a question. I appreciate that this is your request at the end, but the Premier did announce this $100 million program, so that's about $10 million a year.

I note on page 2 of your presentation here that Maple Ridge originally applied to the province for $9.5 million. If it's a $10-million-a-year program and Maple Ridge is applying for almost all of it, your argument, then, is that it is inadequate.

M. Davies: The concern we have is that it's a great start, but it is inadequate. In doing some quick research for this presentation….

Lloyd actually talked about Chilliwack earlier, estimating about $24 million is required. Maple Ridge is estimating somewhere over $10 million. Pitt Meadows is looking at roughly $30 million. That's their estimate for three communities. You're pushing close to $70 million for three communities that are situated along the Fraser River. If you multiply that out, the funding is far short. It's a good start.

The other thing that I think needs to be recognized is that unlike other types of events, the flooding event is so dependent on what the condition of the river is for its full length. A difficulty in one community could certainly cause a problem in other communities.

We really need to have the government do a really good, concentrated review on what the community needs are. I think that's key. Although $100 million is great, if we can double that with the federal government, that gives us $200 million. Given the fact that if some event happened, you're looking at $6 billion of possible impact in the lower mainland just from a flood event…. So, consequence versus dollars available versus the time. When is that next storm going to come in? When is the next flooding period? That's so important.

J. Kwan: Just a quick question. In part, you answered my last question to the previous presenter.

I'm curious. Are you aware of anywhere, whether it be with the GVRD or provincial government, where there's a list of the requested funding for the flooding programs that are required in communities and the total cost of that? Are you aware if anybody has compiled that list?

M. Davies: I don't know whether there's a complete list. I would imagine that most communities…. In doing submissions for this $33 million, they pick the top ones. It's my understanding that when the diking district requested projects for the use of this $33 million, the Diking Authority got over $140 million in requests, so they had to cut back.

I don't know of a concentrated list showing everything, but the provincial emergency program, because they did an awful lot of advance planning, would be one authority that probably could assist in answering that question, along with the Diking Authority.

R. Hawes: I have one last question, Mike, around side channels. Are the creeks and streams, etc., in the Maple Ridge area silting in, or do you have any experience with that? Are they posing a danger to houses, farms and residences along the side channels?

M. Davies: The answer is yes. In Maple Ridge we have the Alouette River system, the north and the south. We experience, on an annual basis, some level of flooding connected with that river system. Of course, it's also influenced with the Fraser, because the water does flow in.

The Alouette is a major concern, and we would hope that would be part of the funding dollars that would be available so that some of that could be addressed as well. The sediment — the gravel, the sand — is building up in that area.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Mike. You've got a good work program for us.

J. Atebe: Good morning, members of the committee. I want to thank you, first of all, for your commitment to consult, and I want to thank the government and the Minister of Finance for offering this opportunity to comment.

I have provided, in note form, a number of areas that I wanted to address. Perhaps I'll focus my comments, in more detail, in some of those areas. I'm going to be addressing issues related to policing and crime. I'll also be addressing areas in transit, transportation and diking, just adding a little bit to what the other presenters have said.

I would like to focus a little bit on social issues and the need for investment in that area. I'll comment a little bit on health and perhaps focus on revenue diversification from municipal governments, very briefly on a one-business-licence system and Go Green initiatives that the province has involved themselves in, but in ten minutes I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that.

Policing and crime. Really, the municipalities experience such a huge challenge. Crime has become more complex. It doesn't know boundaries or municipalities. We are very glad, through the province, that you are sharing traffic fines revenue with us, and that has brought a lot of relief, but I have to tell you that it's not enough. The criminal element is becoming more sophisticated, with more organized grow operations within our communities.

The innovative way of fighting crime through integrated and regional services has become a way of the future, yet we cannot rely on property tax as a source of revenue to fund that.

What we are asking is if the province could, hopefully, look at a special fund that could be targeted to fund particularly the integrated services so that we can focus on local crime reduction strategies and fund them from property taxes as opposed to funding these integrated programs. Frankly, the E division sets the standards, and automatically the costs start escalating from there. Local government has no control in really controlling those costs. We're asking if the government could focus on that and give us some relief.

The next points I wanted to comment on are transit, transportation and a preview on diking. In transit, we appreciate the partnership we have with the province. The province does contribute 47 percent towards the operation of the transit system in our community. But I have to tell you that when the government came to power in 2001, there was a need, first of all, to bring their financial house in order.

At the time, with some of the younger systems — like the Abbotsford-Mission transit system, where they brought in a flex system — we had to fund, basically, 100 percent of any expansion and improvement of transit. It had to be done through property tax. That became completely unsustainable and unattainable.

What we are requesting is that as we move forward, as we go on pursuing the Go Green initiatives, we would like some more investment to be put towards transit to help us. Actually, our council wouldn't mind if that formula of 53 to 47 for municipalities could change a little bit to where it can become more like a 50-50 contribution — or more still. Since the province has got more diverse revenue sources, they could take a little bit of the lion's share of that. That would be my request to the Minister of Finance.

If I can move on to social issues, we've got a huge phenomenon happening in our communities. We've got mental health issues. We've got addiction issues occurring on our streets. Based on that, we are having a huge issue not only in terms of homelessness, but it's becoming even more costly because we are finding that these individuals who are completely disadvantaged are constantly going through a revolving door to emergency services or being put in our jails. Then they're releasing them the next day when they are sober.

What I would like to suggest is that maybe the province and the minister would look at this issue and perhaps add some investment into this, particularly dealing with the addiction issues, by perhaps providing resources that would deal with the sobering centres and detox centres, as well as treatment centres — and the supporting system that would accompany that, mainly the life skills and training initiatives that would get these people moving their life forward.

Health care, if I can comment a little bit. As a municipality and at the regional hospital board we have committed that we are going to put in a capital reserve fund of $20 million to try to improve health facilities within our community. That's taxing ourselves to provide that capital to inject capital improvement, whether it's Mission hospital or any other hospital within our community. We would like it if the minister would consider adding some operational funds. As we move forward to improve our facilities, we're going to need the operating funds.

Notwithstanding that we're committed 100 percent, which is rather a concern for us because it used to be 60-40 — 40 percent from the provincial government…. It appears that the government is trying to shy away from their 40-percent contribution. We would encourage that to become a priority so that contribution could go on — perhaps also taxing capital investment, and if we can have some additional investment in the operating… As we improve the facilities, we need the operating funds to be committed to that.

I believe that the ActNow program, for instance…. We need to be more preventative in health care initiatives. I would suggest that perhaps the ActNow program, which has been very active in promoting being active in the community…. If the province would invest some moneys to partner with us through, for instance, parks and recreation and culture — some incentives through the municipal government, if we had some resources — we could inspire people to be actively involved. That would create all kinds of preventative initiatives within our communities throughout the province.

Revenue diversification is an area that I want to address. The municipalities throughout this province

— all they have is one source of revenue, and that's the property tax. It's not sustainable, ladies and gentlemen, in terms of trying to deal with the phenomenal growth process that is going on.

I should commend the government for facilitating the process where there is economic growth. It's record-breaking economic growth. But that comes with challenges in terms of trying to provide areas related to social services in our community — whether it's affordable housing or whether it's related to providing additional services to do with water, sewer and everything.

What I would like to suggest to the government is perhaps to identify a special fund or to share room with us — whether it's PST and GST, whether it's sharing room with regards to the sales tax — so that we can have some resources, other revenues for carrying out business for the community.

Finally, I would like to comment. Please, with the one-business-licence system…. We anticipate that if that goes through, we will be losing some revenue that comes to our community. Look for a fund that would allow us to replace the loss that we will get if that system gets approved. That's what I would like to comment on.

I will submit my notes for you to review. If there are any questions, I would be more than willing to address them.

B. Bennett (Chair): Your Worship, thank you very much. I apologize for missing the first couple of minutes of your presentation. I'm glad that you were able to get on the schedule for today.

R. Hawes: James, thanks also for having Mission host us here today. The sun is shining, and you and I both know that the sun always shines here, even when it's raining.

R. Hawes: James, I wonder if I could just ask you about health care. Within a year the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre is going to open. I'm just curious what work has been done by the Fraser Health Authority to work on integrating how services are going to flow from the community hospitals, like Mission and Chilliwack, into that new hospital.

There's going to be a change of patient flow when that opens, and I'm just wondering what kind of work the city has been engaged in, if any, with the Fraser Health Authority to make sure that there's a truly integrated regional approach to the acute care system here. I know you've been actively working with that $20 million fund, for example.

J. Atebe: That's a very good question. At the moment what we've requested…. With the support of the regional hospital board we have got a commitment from Fraser Health in terms of the next 12 months to do a community health plan for Mission, mainly focusing on complementary roles that these hospitals can undertake.

We have Mission Memorial Hospital; we have Chilliwack Hospital. We need to develop a plan that looks at the complementary roles that these hospitals can play with the Abbotsford Regional Hospital. My sense is that in the next 12 months, once we have that plan for Mission, we will be able to establish how we will complement the Abbotsford Regional Hospital. Some of the services can be delivered from Mission Hospital, and the people from Abbotsford or Chilliwack would come and consume services from here, depending upon the results that that comprehensive plan comes up with.

My vision, however, is to be able to see patients either being treated in Abbotsford or…. For instance, the acute care services — if they're delivered in Abbotsford Regional Hospital, people don't have to take the beds there and stay there until they are well enough to go home. We could build sub-acute care within Mission hospital. Therefore, the doctors can come and take care of the patients within Mission Memorial Hospital.

That's the kind of view we are looking at in the next 12 months. Hopefully, that plan will be able to spell out that those complementary processes will work.

R. Hawes: That's the kind of increase in operating expenses that you're talking about.

J. Atebe: That's why I'm requesting, through the Finance process, that provisions could be provided for operating funds in case we expand the space in Mission Memorial Hospital.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Mike Davies from Maple Ridge was talking about flooding, and I believe you were here for that. One of the things he has requested is that the federal government provide matching funding. I understand that you know the Prime Minister personally and had him out here during the flood threat. It's probably not an entirely fair question, but how did your lobbying go for federal money?

J. Atebe: First of all, I need to thank the Premier and the government for committing $10 million. We've been meeting with both the federal and the provincial government representatives. Minister Penner and Minister van Dongen were at the meeting where we met with Chuck Strahl.

My interest is to make sure that the federal government comes to the table. With the commitment that the Premier has made right now, I can see that in the next little while our work is cut out for us in terms of really making a case to the federal government that they need to come to the table.

The Prime Minister, when he was in this room here, did commit that he wants move into a mitigational approach as opposed to disaster relief. I hope that he can match what the province has committed.

Frankly, I hope we can sit down and do a little bit of analysis to understand what the actual cost is going

to be, because $10 million is a good start, and $100 million in ten years is a good start. But we haven't actually done a full analysis. It's my understanding that the cost may actually be larger than that.

We have to start somewhere. I think the Premier started somewhere. I'll be making calls to make sure that they can come on board and commit to this long-range planning. That's what we're asking, and I'm glad to see that the province has committed to that long-range planning.

B. Bennett (Chair): My guess is that the provincial government will be grateful for any support you can provide with the federal government, so thank you for that. Thank you for your presentation and your interesting suggestions.

C. Hamilton: I'm Carole Hamilton, board chair, and I have with me our superintendent Frank Dunham and our secretary-treasurer Ray Velestuk to field any questions that you may have at the end of the presentation.

Good morning to the committee members. This is kind of a great place in the morning. I'm the last presenter, and you're not far off lunch. I'm excited.

I am Carole Hamilton, chair of the Mission board of education. Today I'm here to present to you a vision of how the expanded mandate of boards of education and the wider range of services that can be provided can lead to positive outcomes for children and their families in our community.

First, I should provide you with some information about our school district. Mission Public Schools is an innovative school district. It is proving to be a leader in public education. We are proud of the work being done by our staff as we continue to provide the best opportunities to improve life challenges for our students.

We recognize that quality education extends beyond our primary achievement goals to ensure we readily identify the inherent and diverse talents of our students. All of these efforts are helping us foster support and confidence in our school district and also in our province's public school system.

The Mission board of education acknowledges and supports the Ministry of Education's goals of improved student achievement, a high-quality education system and improved literacy for all British Columbians. We also support and acknowledge the linkage to three of government's great goals: making British Columbia the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent; leading the way in North America in healthy living and physical fitness; and building the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, those with special needs, children at risk and our seniors.

The support of these goals is evident in the work of the school district and in the actions of the boards of education. The success of our district is also evident in our achievement results, our completion rates, district satisfaction surveys and in the results reported in our last district review. It is very worthwhile for me, at this point, to point out that while our district completion rates have been improving steadily over the past number of years, significant and hopefully sustainable gains have been made in the completion of our aboriginal learners. For this we are very proud.

The success of our students is not something we have left, or intend to leave, simply to chance. It takes dedication, commitment and true leadership to move a school system from success to significance. Like most successful organizations, whether public or private, Mission Public Schools is not satisfied with the status quo. In Mission Public Schools we are striving for significance.

To us, significance will be achieved when each child in Mission is an independent learner meeting his or her learning goals. These are not just words on a page, but something that is truly within our reach.

Though our board of education is committed to sustaining all of our current programs and services, it is critical that we look for opportunities to enhance these programs and services. As a successful organization, we have a vision for the future that we are to move from success to significance.

Our district's recently revised mission and vision statements solidify the commitment of the Mission board of education. We believe that as provincial leaders, designing and implementing an integrative service model will go a long way to support government cross-ministry initiatives.

Imagine if our schools served as centres at the community level for the delivery of not only education but also social, health, recreation, restorative processes and other services for children and their families.

Could our schools then be described as meeting the developmental and learning needs of children and youth, as centres of community that are opening and welcoming, as providing human services within our schools, with teachers focusing on providing high-quality learning opportunities and local governments and agencies collaborating more effectively, where schools are kid-ready rather than kids being school-ready and there are parenting and other community programs in place? Just imagine.

We have designed a service model in our district that provides outstanding service to the community. We are proud of the interministry projects we have developed both at Mission Secondary School, called the Mission Family Support Network, and West Heights Elementary School, called the West Heights Inclusive Neighbourhood — commonly known as WHIN.

In these integrated service models our school district — along with the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Mission Community Services, Ministry of Health, the district of Mission and our aboriginal community — has worked together to provide support structures for our students and their community. Although at the start there were no funding initiatives for these projects, our district embarked on them because they served a great need in the community and this was the right thing to do.

With the recent addition of our new StrongStart centre, we continue to provide the families in our community with a wealth of community services available right in our schools. Creating such an environment requires a significant change in the culture, structure and relationships within the education system and across other human service sectors, but it can be done.

Our board has enthusiastically accepted its expanded mandate and is working hard with our community to meet expectations. We have the motivation and the leadership, but we'll need government's continued support to ensure these programs not only meet the needs of our community today but are sustainable and reliable services in the future.

The board of education is seeking three things from government as we work toward providing our community with leadership in this area: first, more urgency on the part of government to break down the barriers to increased integration of Education, Health and other social service ministries; second, mechanisms for sustained funding that permit the board of education to truly support the expectation of the expanded mandate; and third, autonomy of the board of education to make the right decisions and exercise the leadership expected in all aspects of our work.

To conclude, this will be difficult work, but with support from government, we are more than prepared to step up and do what is necessary to make our community stronger. Building community capacity requires a long-term commitment at both the local and provincial levels. We look forward to working alongside government to support and attain our district goals and, in return, the five great goals of government. We hope to see this great province also move from success to significance.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much. I appreciate the direction in which your board seems to be moving in terms of what in some places they call community schools.

In Surrey, the area that I represent, the district has initiated what they call a community school coordinator. It's a pilot project for, I think, two elementary schools and one accompanying high school. The plan is to expand that model in the district.

Have you had any discussions, or are you familiar with the Surrey model? How does that compare with what you're proposing here? It seems to me it has some common themes in terms of using the community as a base for delivering not only educational programs but also social programs, and for generally strengthening community capacity and resilience.

F. Dunham: We have been in contact with other jurisdictions. We have presented our model provincially at forums throughout the past year. There are a lot of similarities.

I think the challenge for us in starting out was the fact that…. Establishing partnerships between ministries that really hadn't worked a lot together in the past was a real challenge. At the local level we've begun to overcome that, but as Carole pointed out, to sustain it we need to put some money behind it. It needs to come, I think, from all the ministries.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): If I might, one follow-up question. I did ask the Minister of Education, in estimates, a question about expanding funding for community schools. Her response was that the CommunityLINK program, I think, within the ministry budget is the area in which money is drawn. The sense of the answer was that for the time being, there was no inclination to expand it.

Are you specifically focusing on that program or that funding envelope as the area that should be expanded? I'm just thinking of how we might craft a recommendation, were we to agree as a committee to recommend that to the minister.

F. Dunham: If I may, we do use the CommunityLINK funding to our advantage, but what we believe is important if we're going to strengthen the entire community is to set up more than one of those centres. We need to replicate that model in at least three or four other areas within our community. We certainly aren't in a position to do that right now.

R. Hawes: Thank you for the presentation. You didn't touch on the Riverside Centre, and living here, I am very familiar with how innovative the school board has been. I want to also commend you on the Riverside Centre. It was kind of created off the side of someone's desk, without funding, but reconnects kids into trades. It's an absolutely fantastic program.

What I wanted to ask you about, Carole, was your comment on autonomy or the ability of the school board to make the right decisions and exercise leadership, etc. I guess my specific question is around the retention of administrative personnel. As you know, the school district is going to be as strong as the administrative people that you have running it.

We also know that because of the funding restrictions put on you with respect to what you can pay administrative people, there are other school districts nearby that would poach on the administrative staff that you have spent a lot of time developing.

I'm wondering what specific recommendations you are making and what steps are being taken to give you the autonomy to at least retain staff, when we're so close to a larger urban area that would try to pick them off.

C. Hamilton: I'll speak briefly to that, Randy, and then I may ask Ray to comment as well. I know that over the last years we've experienced some situations in our district where we had some of our staff being recruited from other districts and provinces.

As a board, not being able to retain those staff without having to be pushed to the wall first and then having to go and say: "This is what we're up against.

Are we able to compensate effectively to keep…?" It's about retention and recruitment.

I think we should be able to have that if we have it in our budget to do that — to be able to have the autonomy to give those raises if we feel that it supports it. At this point we can't do that because of the levels of government that we have to go through. I would like to see that boards will have that autonomy to be able to make those decisions on our own if in fact it is in our budget to do so.

R. Lee: Thank you for the presentation. Recently there is some funding for helping immigrant families and children in schools. Are you aware of that funding?

Another question is on the utilization of the school facility. Do you see the number of students decreasing and then you have some facility where it would actually help to have more of these kinds of community programs?

F. Dunham: We don't have the numbers that would warrant us really requiring settlement assistance at this time — to answer the first part of the question.

With respect to the second part of the question, we have 16 elementary schools right now in Mission, of which I believe seven are under 60-percent capacity. So we do have an opportunity with those buildings. We do have space to integrate services, but we don't want to get started down that path and not be able to sustain it over time. We certainly have the opportunity. We believe we have people in our community across ministries that are committed to the model.

B. Bennett (Chair): Carole, Frank, Ray, thank you very much for your presentation today. We appreciate it.

That concludes the formal portion of the hearing today. We have one person who has requested to present to us during our open-mike process: Lori Malone. If you'd like to come up, Lori.

L. Malone: Thank you, sir. Actually, I was reviewing some of the budgets that have been released, and I had some questions regarding them. I know that some of the details I'm looking for I will have to request formally.

In March of last year George Abbott, the Minister of Health, announced $7 million in annual funding for the crystal meth strategy. Fraser Health was to have ten long-term residential beds because of this, and they're not here. Where are they? What about the treatment centres that they were allocated with that $7 million for the youth in our valley? Does anybody know?

B. Bennett (Chair): If you'd like to provide us with a list of questions, whether it be for the Ministry of Finance or another minister, like Minister Abbott in Health, we'd be happy to pass those along and make sure that you do get a response from the appropriate people.

L. Malone: Okay. I guess — because most of these are in the form of questions — that might be the best way to go.

The one thing that James had mentioned was revenue diversification, and you brought up property taxes. With the new housing endowment legacy, how is that going to affect the city of Mission? A lot of our tax base is seniors.

B. Bennett (Chair): I would suggest you submit that one to your local MLA, who happens to be sitting here today. I'm sure he can dig out the answer for you.

L. Malone: Okay. Regarding the housing endowment legacy, who on a community basis is responsible for providing the assistance and informing the public about those decisions — about funding opportunities, providing the applications, assistance in completing them and following up that they are actually handled in an appropriate manner?

B. Bennett (Chair): Again, we're not the experts on that. You deserve an answer, and I'm quite sure you will get an answer.

I think you should get MLA Hawes's card and make an appointment and go in and ask those questions, or simply leave Randy with a copy of the questions, and he'll get back to you.

B. Bennett (Chair): Thank you for taking the time. I'm sorry that we weren't more knowledgable.

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1)	University College of the Fraser Valley Faculty and Staff Association	Scott Fast
2)	Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia	Richard Rees
3)	Silver Creek Premium Products	Preet Brar
4)	Pamela Alexis Chris Finch
5)	Fraser Valley Regional District	Lloyd McKimmon
6)	B.C. Government and Service Employees Union	Lorene Oikawa
7)	REAL Women of B.C.	Laurie Geschke
8)	District of Maple Ridge	Mike Davies
9)	District of Mission	Mayor James Atebe
10)	Board of Education (Mission), School District No. 75	Ray Velestuk Carole Hamilton Frank Dunham
11)	Lori Malone

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

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REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

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