2010 Legislative Session: Second Session, 39th Parliament

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

MINUTES AND HANSARD

MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Friday, September 24, 2010

8 a.m.

Douglas Fir Committee Room

Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.

Present: John Les, MLA (Chair); Doug Donaldson, MLA (Deputy Chair); Norm Letnick, MLA; Don McRae, MLA; Michelle Mungall, MLA; Bruce Ralston, MLA; Bill Routley, MLA; Jane Thornthwaite, MLA; John van Dongen, MLA

Unavoidably Absent: John Rustad, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 8:00 a.m.

2. The Committee reviewed the correspondence received August 25, 2010 from Mr. Stan T. Lowe, Police Complaint Commissioner.

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

4. The Committee recessed from 8:53 a.m. to 9:01 a.m.

5. Opening statements by John Les, MLA, Chair.

6. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

7. The Committee adjourned at 11:48 a.m. to the call of the Chair.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

select standing committee on
Finance and Government Services

Friday, September 24, 2010

Issue No. 27

ISSN 1499-4178

[ Page 763 ]

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

The committee met at 8 a.m.

[J. Les in the chair.]

J. Les (Chair): Good morning, everyone. This is your wake-up call.

We are here this morning at the request of the Police Complaint Commissioner, who has taken the committee up on the opportunity to come back and discuss his budget, which we last discussed last year in November. The commissioner indicates that he has some additional requirements that he'd like to discuss with the committee.

Mr. Lowe, with that, over to you.

Office of the
Police Complaint Commissioner

S. Lowe: Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation to the committee and the hon. members for finding the time to convene this special sitting of the committee on short notice in what I know is an extremely busy time for the committee members. I thank you for having the opportunity to appear before you.

To my left is my Deputy Police Complaint Commissioner, Bruce Brown. To my right is Lanny Hubbard, who I've brought today to provide assistance both to ourselves as well as to the committee for any legacy information that may be of assistance in your decision-making process.

We have provided in advance a briefing package which provides a foundation for our appearance here today. I intend to rely on this package in some respects as an outline of my submissions, and where I feel necessary, I will drill down through the materials to provide more detail to you to ensure that my message there or my concerns are made clear to you.

As the hon. Chair noted, I am here today, pursuant to your invitation in your last review of our budgets in November, not only to request your assistance but also, importantly, to update you as to the implementation of the new legislation by government in relation to the police complaint process in British Columbia. That's where I would like to begin.

We are pleased to report that the strategic plan that was developed and implemented by the OPCC to ensure a smooth transition to the new act has worked out fairly well. I'm very proud of the efforts of my staff.

We had the benefit, when the earlier bills were first floated out, to begin work immediately on planning, implementation and identifying what our role would be pursuant to the legislation, but I think it's important that you know that this hard work undertaken by my staff was also done on the sides of their desks, in addition to the current burgeoning caseload that they had with oversight in this province.

We have managed to develop business practices to facilitate the efficient operation of the police complaint system. We also have developed a system of what we refer to as information bulletins to assist all stakeholders with respect to procedural guidance in defining the expectations at our office to ensure that this process is consistent and works efficiently.

We continue to work and liaise with all stakeholders to address issues and shortcomings arising out of the new complaint process. We took part in introductory training to stakeholders about the complaint process, and we continue to feel the very high volume of inquiries on a daily basis with respect to substantive and procedural questions under the act.

Now, I'm happy to also report to the committee that the policing community — in the broader context, police agencies and boards — has responded positively and professionally to the implementation of the new legislation. Police agencies and boards recognize the importance of this legislation, but I must tell you that they, too, are struggling to find resources necessary to fund the additional obligations mandated under the act.

Many police agencies have provided additional funding to the professional standards sections. However, to some extent, all stakeholders, including ourselves, have underestimated the impact on resources created by the new provisions of the act.

I can say anecdotally that to some extent, the policing community was taken by surprise. We had the luxury, if I could use the term, of preparing our planning with the initial drafts of the bill when it first came out, but the announcement of the enactment of the legislation on March 31, 2010, caught some of the policing agencies out of step and behind in their planning. So they're in catch-up mode, if I can refer to that.

[0805]

I'm also pleased to report that the police unions have recognized and supported the changes created by the act but in turn are experiencing a commensurate drain on their resources in ensuring that they provide the appropriate training to their members as well as their agents.

I met very recently with Mr. Stamatakis of the Vancouver Police Union and B.C. police unions, and that was something that was very consistent within the room when I was speaking with them — that there is so much work to be done this year in educating his members about the act.

We've also reached out to community-based agencies, and I must say they've responded remarkably. We have an enhanced, if I could use that term, commitment to public outreach, which we've engaged in. We met recently, for example, with Pivot and a number of groups
[ Page 764 ]
involved in violence against women through the Jane Doe Project. We were welcomed graciously by all these groups, and we are constantly soliciting their support.

Perhaps I can move to the meat of my appearance today. It's our request for additional funding and in terms of your assistance today. In considering the OPCC's funding request last November, the committee responsibly identified the uncertainty that existed around our request. In fact, much of our submission to you was supposition, our best estimates, our best guess. And even then we couldn't begin to tell you an implementation date with respect to the act itself.

In essence, I was unfortunately not in a position to provide some meaningful guidance to this committee. However, in light of the economic climate that existed at the time, this committee sought hard to find a realistic estimate upon which to provide funding to our group and then left open the door, which I've quickly entered into today, to ask for further revenues to assist in our operations.

Our previous budget submission to committee for the 2011 and 2012 fiscal envisioned the hiring, in our request, of seven new investigative analysts — five in 2011 and two the following year. Now, this cost was partially offset by a restructuring within our own office to try to improve efficiencies, which would eliminate, as we have today, one of those positions. But the committee saw fit to provide funding for three additional analysts.

In the annual review report this committee summarized a portion of my submission as follows:

"The Commissioner informed the Finance Committee that the estimated cost of implementing the Police Act amendments is conservative and perhaps underestimates the needs of the Office. Further, he maintained that without requested funding, the success of the legislative amendments may be in jeopardy. From his perspective, funding of the implementation stage 'sets the tone for the process amongst all the stakeholders,' thus it was important to get started on the right track."

Having had the opportunity to review our data to date and to rely on our experience to date with the act, I'm able to confirm that indeed my estimates at that time were conservative and underestimated the needs of our office. Our data and experience support the projection that the number of registered complaints will almost double this year and are projected to remain at least at that level in what I view as the mid- to long term.

We believe this dramatic increase in complaints is a result of two matters. The act provides for an enhanced accessibility, which allowed for complaints to be made orally as well as in writing. But also the act provided that we would review non-registered complaints — complaints that normally remained and were resolved within the police departments. We were asked to take a look at these to see if any of them should have been registered complaints.

Finally, initiatives within our office to improve accessibility included on-line filing and a better educational system with respect to the complaint process. I can tell you that the on-line filing has resulted in numerous complaints.

I think if we can take a step back, one of the issues around accessibility was the difficulty of complainants to go to a police department and report to a front-desk member about another member of that department. There was always, in my view, a sense of hesitancy to make that step. Having on-line filing, we found, has alleviated that concern, and the public has responded significantly to that.

[0810]

In addition, over the course of the past three years, the media in covering police-related incidents and inquiries have taken a role in educating the public about the process in British Columbia. I think British Columbians are now very familiar with processes that exist with respect to police complaints in this province. Again, I think that to some extent the education by the media is also credited for the influx or the increase in complaints to our office.

I should also add, as far as workload, that there is another side that comes with the act that I know I underestimated, and that's the operational aspect. There have been additional areas of oversight implemented under the act that have resulted in a substantial increase to the daily workload of our analysts and of our staff in general.

Some of these obligations include…. Now the admissibility of complaints is being undertaken by our office. This is an area of concern, because it is what I refer to as the first filter in the process. We've struggled with defining the criteria for this filter. Is it too broad? Is it too narrow? It's really a balancing of interests.

What I've done is taken it upon myself for the next month to review every complaint that comes into our office, to look at these complaints, to come up with a reasonable, principled criteria that we can distribute amongst stakeholders and amongst the public for discussion and input and then to implement in hopes that we can streamline the admissibility of complaints as well as balance the interests that are engaged.

We have also had, pursuant to my direction, an emphasis on mediation and informal resolution. I've asked my staff to give this area a huge priority because I believe that resolutions between individuals who have a complaint against a member are best resolved between the two individuals to have a lasting effect and a positive impact on policing.

As I alluded to briefly earlier, we also review non-registered complaints, which we, as you'll see…. The statistics have underestimated the amount of complaints that come into offices that are non-registered.

We also now are tasked with reviewing reportable injuries, which, again, in and of themselves is a very important area. It involves instances where, through police
[ Page 765 ]
incidents, members of the public have had to seek medical attention. These matters are often quickly reported to us, are comprehensive in nature and require monitoring over the long term.

We also received a substantial increase in files that just require monitoring to see where they're going. They'll be learned through the public or are self-reported by police agencies.

We also have enhanced duties of oversight, which I will address in a more detailed fashion later in my submissions. Also, with the new avenues of adjudicated review, it requires litigation support. It requires an analyst who has conduct of that file to provide constant and comprehensive assistance to commission council. We underestimated the amount of time that would take with these two additional avenues of review.

We have also worked hard toward a resolution of substantive and procedural issues and worked with government and their representatives towards amendments to the act to facilitate the efficient operation of the act. I can tell you, coming out of the gate, that it's an excellent document. But it's a work in progress because we need to, procedurally, define a few areas in which there has been what I view as procedural gaps that stakeholders require assistance in.

As I indicated earlier, we provide, on a constant and comprehensive basis, procedural advice to all stakeholders to our office. We are constantly being asked for advice. That's time-consuming. We're happy to provide it.

Regrettably, we're not fulfilling our oversight function as contemplated under the act due to the shortage in skilled staffing. We are not contemporaneously reviewing investigations, nor are we able to conduct those audits that we had proposed to you as an interim measure prior to the introduction by government of a computer system in which we could conduct oversight electronically.

We are currently focused pretty well in an ex post facto review that we had earlier, before the act, by virtue of our burgeoning caseload. Furthermore, this is complicated by very stringent timelines. The current quality of our oversight work is not meeting the standards contemplated by legislation, nor are they acceptable to our office. If I can equate our work, as far as oversight contemporaneously, to an investigation that we provide oversight on, to developing a story….

[0815]

An analyst has between 45 and 50 stories that he or she is constantly receiving contributions from all the time. What we're asking in this story is that, as they receive the materials, they remember where they left off in the story, in amongst the 45 stories that you're looking at.

It's labour-intensive in the sense that you have to remember where the story was — here's the new addition to the story, and now we have the power to direct where the story should go. You have to keep the 45 to 50 stories straight and clear, and it requires a lot of rereading, a lot of review, a lot of determining where you left off. During this process, the story ends. At the very ending of the story, you have to determine if the ending of this story is appropriate.

With a caseload of 45 to 50 stories, if I could use that analogy, it is impossible to do the necessary oversight that the public demands in this case. The caseload for a very busy police department, for professional-standards investigators, is about 20 ongoing investigations a year.

Having 45 cases to review with a short time fuse, once the story has ended, of 20 business days…. It's impossible to keep up with. Realistically, it should be half that load, if not less, because we must bear in mind that the decisions made by those reviewing the stories have an impact on policing careers and have an impact on the public, on people who lay complaints and on their concerns.

Our current workload is also creating a challenging work environment for our staff. At this time, having hired those that had been allotted by the committee earlier and by, as you'll hear, combining our offices, we are double-bunked in many of our offices — two analysts working together on two separate telephone lines.

Our current caseloads, as I indicated, are not sustainable. There have been four occasions where we have not met our statutory limits, which we've discovered with respect to our review. When you miss the statutory limit, an arguable case could be made that we've lost jurisdiction. So whatever we write afterwards, in my view — and I've told my staff — is irrelevant. It might as well be shredded.

On those four occasions, I've personally reviewed each one of those cases, and I've been in agreement with how they were disposed of, but that provides very little consolation to members of the public. That's not how you do oversight. You do oversight within the statutory time limits. We're working hard to correct that issue, but it does force us back into an ex post facto review of looking, of focusing on what has ended and not being able to focus on the contemporaneous aspect.

Our statistics indicate that our file load, in the broader context, will increase over this year by 200 percent — not doubled but, in effect, tripled. These are not, in our view, temporal increases but rather permanent workload demands, given the increased nature of our oversight work pursuant to the act.

I'd like to take a moment…. Mindful of the time, committee members, I'll move through quickly, but I think it's important that I discuss the nature of our oversight work.

The work of the OPCC is very unique in comparison to the other offices of the Legislature. Not only do we provide oversight over a profession of municipal policing — I mean that; it is a profession — which in turn enjoys
[ Page 766 ]
significant powers over citizens in the enforcement of the laws created both federally and by this government, but we must also possess a comprehensive understanding of the legislation and the complaint process.

This again is similar to other offices of the Legislature, but where we depart is that we go one step further. We must possess an expertise in the professional aspects of police operations. The policing expertise includes strategic operations, policy, training and the conduct of all aspects of police investigations. In the past this office has relied on the significant contribution of retired police officers to fill a void in this expertise as it relates to police operations.

However, I've also insisted upon and monitored the philosophical transition of our retired police staff to civilian life. Most staff with policing backgrounds have made this transition readily and on their own initiative. The selection of these individuals that have worked with us has been a project of a very careful hiring practice.

We will always require staff with policing backgrounds to maintain a knowledgable base of expertise for oversight purposes. However, in my view, the public interest requires that we engage in a restructuring at the OPCC targeted at increasing the representation of civilians on staff engaged in decisive roles.

[0820]

The expertise of staff with policing backgrounds will play a prominent role in the training of these civilian members and from a standpoint of maintaining a level of expertise, but it's my hope that with the assistance of this committee, we can now turn towards transforming the nature of the OPCC.

We are undertaking a restructuring plan that we initiated as of last fall. We recognize that the successful implementation of legislation and efficient operation of the complaints system begins with an examination of our own operations. Our review of our operations resulted in the decision to close down our Vancouver office to gain significant operational efficiencies and improvements. On November 1, our Vancouver office will cease to operate. The staff have been moved to the Victoria office, into the new premises that we intended to move into.

This is the initial phase of what I view as a comprehensive restructuring plan. We hope that with the committee's support today we'll be able to initiate a comprehensive strategy commencing November 1. We have leased additional space in the new building to accommodate an existing staff in Victoria as well as to accommodate modest growth in the size of our office in the future. This additional expenditure on lease costs and intended improvements has been significantly offset by the cancellation of the Vancouver lease.

Our experience to date has been that the average career length for staff with a policing background has been approximately six years with the OPCC. So we have members leaving the policing community after long careers and working with us for approximately six years before they move into permanent retirement.

What complicates the matter is that those individuals that are qualified to work for our organization constitute a very small pool. We have engaged most recently — are in the process of engaging — two recent job competitions in search of qualified candidates in preparation for this restructuring.

To gain employment with the OPCC, a former police officer must possess the right attributes that make a fit. This fit is from a professional standpoint. As I indicated earlier, the pool is very small, for two factors. One, we're not a place of choice for most members. Most members do not retire and want to enter into employment where they sit in judgment of their fellow officers. There are other places to work. So the attraction aspect is one issue. Few retiring officers really possess the knowledge, expertise, the judgment and the philosophical disposition to do our type of work.

I can advise the committee that we have also conducted a civilian entry job competition where we have created an eligibility list of some very bright minds that we're excited about. This has all been developed, these lists have all been put together, because we're here today to ask you to form, to decide on, the nature of what we will look like. As you'll see in part of my briefing package, there are two options. This is a time where we need your input and your assistance.

When I talk about the concept of strengthening the civilian nature of our oversight, I want to allude that we're at a very important crossroads with respect to civilian oversight in British Columbia. As I indicated, the committee's decision today will inevitably shape what we look like.

I must allude to some recent commissions of inquiry and review involving police incidents and oversight. I refer to the Davies Commission involving Frank Paul. I refer to Commissioner Braidwood and the Dziekanski matter as well as Ontario Ombudsman André Marin in his review of the SIU. One common theme that emanates throughout all of these reports is the importance of civilian participation in the oversight and the investigation of police-involved incidents.

What I am proposing to the committee is a requirement internally that 50 percent of people in decisive roles be from a civilian background. The current complement is far lower than that. I believe that can be achieved through our restructuring plan.

What we also need are civilian employees who can come in at an early age in a career and stay, through retention with the OPCC, to provide what I call legacy knowledge to each successive commissioner. As I indicated, for a retired police officer the average horizon is six years. What we need to do is attract young minds, brilliant minds, and create an attractive work environment so that they can
[ Page 767 ]
engage in a long career in the civil service and then themselves become the trainers from a civilian perspective.

[0825]

I'll get to our request. To meet our current staffing needs, the OPCC requires funding for what I would propose as one of the options: four entry-level civilian analysts and three full-time senior investigative analysts. This essentially equates the funding…. If we abandoned the need for civilian oversight and went strictly towards what we need immediately, I would say I would need five senior investigative analysts with policing backgrounds. I believe, even though you'll see there is a slight gap in the amount of money we're seeking, that gap can be closed within four years.

There is some statistical data. I note the time and that I've grossly, as a previous lawyer always does, underestimated the time. I'm happy to answer questions on the data, but I think the data speaks for itself — that we are looking at really a doubling of our work.

It's important to note that our estimate this year for open files is 1,005 files. Our files last year were 532. But with each file or each complaint, on average there are two allegations, which means we are looking at probably 2,000 discrete allegations that must be investigated by police and must be decided upon by our office. In essence, where we were at approximately 800 allegations last year, over the course of this year we're going to top 2,000 allegations.

If I can turn to page 11, because I don't want to waste the committee's time. You have our projections. Sorry. Page 12 is really a submission as to option costs.

What I've presented to the honourable committee are two options. Option 1 is one that I'm recommending, which involves what I refer to as four entry-level civilian analysts. The training must occur in-house. You can't send analysts to the JI and train them to do oversight. It must be done in-house because oversight is a specialized area. We believe it should be equated to an apprenticeship. We believe that in four years' time, entry-level civilian analysts should be able to engage in moderately complex oversight cases.

But in order to train four entry-level civilians, it will require, we believe, 1½ positions at a senior level that focus on training these individuals and supervising every aspect of their work. We must bear in mind that in the decision-making process their decisions, no matter at what level, will have a profound effect on an officer's career, a profound effect on a complainant's view of the complaints system and how their complaint was treated. So in my respectful submission, I'm asking you to consider option 1.

The other option, comparatively, is the immediate hiring of five additional former police officers. As you'll note, there is an operational gap, both in the short term for the current fiscal year but more so in the long term, of about $75,000 to $80,000. I am confident that I can close that gap in three to four years. What this allows for, with the short horizon with police officers, is it allows for us to continue to draw on entry-level civilians through attrition and retirement of police officers. I think that in a very short period of time we can achieve the 50 percent minimum that I'm seeking, and if not, exceed that substantially in the two to three year term.

As I alluded to earlier with respect to our restructuring, there was a closing of our Vancouver operations but also the obtainment of additional lease space in our current Victoria operations in a new building. There was a liability that occurred with that decision, requiring that new space. The liability initially began at $50,000, but through some innovative negotiations between the officers and the builder in this particular case, our portion for the additional capital cost had been reduced from $50,000 to $20,000.

I'm here today, regardless of either option that the committee may suggest funding for, to seek the amount of $20,000 to help offset those capital costs with the new lease space where tenant improvements had occurred.

This option 1 has the potential of setting the foundation for a strong civilian component in the OPCC. The public interest and public confidence in any police complaint system first draws its eye to that of process.

[0830]

Process is the most important aspect. That's what the public seems to be asking for — a process that has civilian involvement. The individual cases and the decisions can be adjudicated through a retired judge, but in order to just begin with the concept of confidence, the public must be satisfied with the process. In my view, a move to a larger civilian component within our office and a civilian-based model is one that the public cries out for.

I've taken up half an hour of your valuable time, but I'm here to answer any questions that the committee may have.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Stan, for that overview.

Just for the committee's information, I think we're probably going to need all of the rest of the time this morning for questions. I already have four marked down. In addition to that, I have some questions myself as well, and John just put up his hand.

We have to break at five to nine sharp in order that we can allow Hansard to prepare for the session that starts at nine o'clock. We'll do our best to get through the questions. If there are questions that remain at five to nine, we can perhaps get them to Stan for further enlightenment of the committee at a subsequent meeting, perhaps as early as next Tuesday in Whistler, but apparently that schedule is filling up fast too. We will attend to the request in terms of a committee deliberation as quickly as possible.

Starting with the questions, then.
[ Page 768 ]

N. Letnick: Thank you, Stan, for your presentation and for coming this morning.

I have two questions for you, sir. The first one is: are there statutory limits in the act that prescribe how much time you have to respond to a particular complaint? Is it the same for all complaints? That's my first question.

You mentioned that you were going to be looking at the criteria by which you filter the different complaints. The second question is: is the act prescriptive on that criterion, or do you have flexibility to decide if a complaint is not serious enough to warrant continued investigation? The reason why I ask that is that if you have that flexibility, then you could choose to pick the most serious complaints and work on those and work within your budget and decide to….

Well, I'll just leave it there. Those are the two questions.

S. Lowe: Thank you, Norm.

I'll deal first with the statutory time limits. Yes, as it affects our office, without going through the whole process, once the final investigation report following an investigation has been filed, and once the discipline authority has filed their decision on the matter, we have 20 business days upon which to either confirm the decision or reject the final investigation report and request more investigation or order an adjudicative review.

It's not only an adjudicative function in making the matter final and conclusive. We also perform a gatekeeping function of saying: "You know what? A retired judge should take a look at this." One thing that we've noticed in coming into this position is the complete lack of adjudicative precedent over the last ten years. It's remarkable.

If you go to any other jurisdiction and you look at the websites for law enforcement, you have hearings, you have proceedings, you have case law, and you have precedent. What we're missing, and what we've missed for ten years, is some guidance.

Everyone is now enjoying the litigation that comes with the new legislation. We are all engaged in litigation, and we've used the adjudicative avenues on two occasions now. They've provided valuable information, but I suspect and predict that for the next three years we'll be engaged in a litigation process which is required to iron out the jurisdiction of the act and iron out the process.

With this body of adjudicative guidance we can then start making principled decisions and not rely as much on the litigation process. So yes, there are times.

The criterion of admissibility is really guided…. It's a gatekeeping function that's guided by administrative law. What the administrative law tells us as we look at these matters is: to an extent, we have to weed out the frivolous and vexatious matters, but it's a very low threshold.

It's a decision of whether a matter should be investigated, and the issue of weighing it at that juncture is one that really is only reserved for the most outrageous of cases where there is what we term an oblique motive. Other than that, the complaint should go through the process.

Now, trying to confine our criteria to the most serious cases…. It's a very subjective standard. If you were detained and placed in handcuffs for five minutes, and then released and said, "Fine, you're free to go," how does that compare to someone that has been allegedly sworn at or been discourteous to?

[0835]

It's really to each individual citizen. When they buy into this process, they're asking for their complaint to be investigated, to be looked at and to be adjudicated on — where you'll see our efforts have been.

Those types of complaints can be addressed through informal resolution and mediation. For the minor complaints, that serves two purposes. It allows us to divert those less serious cases to a responsible process, where two people can walk away with their heads held high. It only moves to promote the image of policing.

There are many studies that show that having an officer and a complainant get together and come up with a joint solution at the end of the day is far more preferable than an acrimonious and litigious process and a determination at the end of the day.

Those are my answers.

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. One only has to look to the police force that is not in your jurisdiction, the RCMP, to recognize, I think, that there is a public concern and demand for more effective oversight of policing in the population. I think that's why the legislation passed with all-party support in the House.

Bearing that in mind and bearing that this is your first full budget year, I have a couple of quick questions. Firstly, what is the full-year savings on the lease in Vancouver that you've cancelled as one that's set against the request that you're making?

Secondly, you refer to non-registered complaints. I gathered from your explanation that those are complaints that police departments have dealt with internally without reference to the process. Would those be migrated over to your intake, given the lower barriers to access that you've spoken of — telephone and on-line complaints?

Thirdly, just to follow up on what Norm has said on the issue of the filter. Obviously, it seems to me, in some respects, that your submission here may be premature in the sense that the filter, how it's calibrated — if I can put it that way — will have some effect on the stream of cases that you deal with. Would you agree that it may be premature? You may even increase the demands on your office, depending on where the filter, as you called it, is set. So if I could have your comment on that, perhaps, and your answers to the other two.
[ Page 769 ]

S. Lowe: Mr. Ralston, I'll work in reverse order. Let's deal with the filter first.

The issue of filtering is that as you filter more, it becomes a more labour-intensive process, because as you try to drill down on what's been complained about, it raises more questions. Unfortunately, what we're finding in my venture into the admissibility is that I'm asking questions and asking them to get hold of complainants to flesh out exactly what was the problem and where it was going, and also to ask the police departments to provide just a cursory bit of information, like a general occurrence report from time to time, to give it some background as to what may be missing.

In essence, at that point we have to be very mindful of our roles as gatekeepers. The process doesn't allow us to adjudicate a matter at that point; it's a matter of gatekeeping. What should go in to be looked at for an inquiry? We're finding that when we look at this issue of filter, the downside is that yes, we may be able to reduce some of those cases, but it's a further increased drain on our current resources. So if you want to reduce the cases, it's a catch-22. You have to hire more people to review those cases in depth, because it all requires time and judgment.

Admissibility is an area that's open for judicial review. That's where, if we don't act appropriately and apply the appropriate principles of administrative law, they can say, "Well, we want to take it to judicial review," because it's an extinguishment of a complainant's rights. It's over. There's no avenue for a review except through the courts. So we have to move cautiously in that area. It's an extinguishment of a complainant's rights at the outset, without having the opportunity of an inquiry — a very high threshold, in my view, to do that.

That's why the administrative law guides us. It says: "You're not to weigh the evidence unless there's an obvious oblique motive to a complaint." Let it go through the system. That's what the system was designed for; that's what the public expects.

[0840]

Moving back to non-registered complaints. These are complaints where, to give a typical example, a complainant may initially say, "I just want this brought up with the officer and taken by senior management," but that complainant may not know the powers and obligations and rights under the act that the complainant enjoys now. This government has passed a legislation that has given complainants more information and more rights to enhance transparency and accountability in the police complaint system.

We review these, and some of them are serious in nature. They should never have been a non-registered complaint. That individual may choose not to go ahead, but the public interest says that we need to look at this. This is a serious matter. So even though the complainant says, "I only want this to go to the senior officer and for a report back," we say: "No. It's now an ordered investigation by us." We want accountability at the end of the day because, remember, your legislation says that in 2013 there's going to be an audit of the system which will include an audit of our office.

We are working hard to make sure that we generate appropriate data for you to review that. These are the types of issues that will be reviewed in that audit that we have to address and that we would face questioning on the importance of: "Look at the non-registered complaints. Don't you think, Mr. Lowe, this one should have gone to the normal complaint process?"

Again, looking through these registered complaints, they're voluminous. They used to be dealt with by a telephone call. If they could resolve it informally on a telephone call, that was the end of it. We would never hear about it. We would never get it. Now we're getting them all, and it is very time-consuming.

Going back to the issue earlier with full year and cost savings, Mr. Ralston, I think you began by alluding to the concerns regarding, in a broader sense, the RCMP. If you can just refresh my memory a bit as to your earlier question.

I think it is the admissibility. Will we enjoy some savings from my decision on the admissibility? I think what I'm determining at this point in time is that because of the low threshold it's going to require, in fairness, more expenditure of time on our behalf in looking into the basic components of a complaint and what incident occurred. But I don't believe a drastic reduction in what we determine is admissible.

We go back to the issue of…. It's such a subjective call. And for us to say what's important and what's not important…. We can do so in very broad terms. That's what vexatious and frivolous…. That's what frivolous is about, and it's a legal term. Is it so minor that the impact and having this looked and the resources really don't amount to much at the end to assist the process? Is it such a minor transgression?

To build on that, there is so much work that has not been done that I see needs to be done. I'm looking at the issue of what constitutes misconduct. We've been operating in a system of misconduct and finding misconduct for ten years. I've come in, and I've said, "Show me the criteria," and no one's been able to do that.

I've engaged legal counsel, and I've engaged in considered thought for hours and hours to say: "Does a technical breach of a charter constitute the more blameworthiness of misconduct?" There has to be a threshold where we say and can point to and articulate that when you do this, you cross this threshold. That's misconduct. If it's below that, it's not misconduct. No one has examined this question. I was amazed at this. I asked: "Where's the case law? Show me."

So we're in the process of developing the guidelines by looking at the case law, by doing the legal research to
[ Page 770 ]
try to come up with guidelines that discipline authorities can apply when they do their initial review. We're asking discipline authorities, chiefs, to be principled in their decision-making, and they have nothing to rely on. They call each other: "What do you think?"

Law shouldn't be: "I know the right decision when I see it. I know this is the right decision when I see it or I know misconduct when I see it." That's not good enough. We have to define misconduct, and we have to have tests and broad concepts so that it allows for discretion.

That's what we're working on. When I came into this job, it was some of the fundamentals that were missing. I'm playing catch-up. But when I'm done, I guarantee you I will deliver on those fundamentals, and they need to be in place. We're constantly being asked for guidance.

The act itself…. We've exhausted all our legislative powers of guidance, and you will see — it will come to this committee and will come to the government — some of our revisions. We want a broader discretion.

Most recently — and I'm sorry to opine out loud — I spoke to my staff, and I said: "I'm feeling from just the broader concept that not only do we have to have a role to play in the oversight of professionalism; we also have a role, and I believe the OPCC, in promoting professionalism."

[0845]

One of the projects I'm developing is an outreach project to police and policing communities to identify those types of complaints that often occur that could be easily avoided, as a preventative measure. We have to have a preventative professionalism concept to our office.

If you have the occasion to ask members within our office if they're busy and if there's a new idea coming up every week from the commissioner, I can assure you that there is, but these are all areas that should have been addressed from day one and built upon.

My goal, when I leave this position is that, hopefully, the next commissioner will be able to focus on medium- and long-term goals — just not the day-to-day issues. I want to resolve the day-to-day issues and the background in which we operate.

D. McRae: Thank you very much for coming. Maybe I missed it. I forgot. One of the questions that the member opposite asked was how much money was saved by closing the Vancouver office.

S. Lowe: We had to…. In order to get out of the lease, with the assistance of ARES, there is a cancellation fee of $40,000. Our actual lease cost per year — Mr. Hubbard may assist me on that — was $48,000. The acquisition of the new space is, I think, 60….

L. Hubbard: Getting out of the lease required an expenditure of $38,000. So there's a one-time pressure, but going forward for a full year, it would be $48,000 savings.

S. Lowe: But I want to add, that has been resolved internally. I'm not here to ask you for the money. I found the money within our budget to do that. So there is a modest increase in cost in order for us to consolidate and centralize our operations. We will get efficiencies from that; I guarantee you that. It's not on the paper. I'm not here to ask you for that. We've dealt with it. We've done some significant internal restructuring to absorb a lot of these costs. Any other costs that you may foresee that are associated here…. We're not asking for them, because they've been absorbed.

It's a good opportunity to forewarn you. In my submissions to you last year, I warned you of the potential for litigation costs to go up, and I can tell you now as a precursor to my appearance before you in November, those litigation costs have substantially gone up. It's the litigation costs associated with the growing pains of new legislation.

We've started at square one: which act applies? That has been litigated. That has been resolved. I don't know if that would be judicially reviewed. When you bring in or implement an act, you have 300 files that are called transitional files. What do you do with them? Which act applies? So we started at square one to determine….

The ruling we have is that the new act, your new legislation, applies procedurally and substantively, and that's a very important ruling. Now we really are able to move full ahead with the new act. We're not encumbered. We're not going to be working in the past.

D. McRae: May I go to my question? First of all, excuse my ignorance, but is there a statute of limitations or equivalent in terms of a complaint that we've brought to the OPCC?

S. Lowe: Yes. To file a complaint, it has to be within the previous last year of the incident unless — an application made to us, the nature of the complaint — there's a public interest in waiving that time requirement and having it investigated. That's an important exception that this government saw fit…. I think it's a good exception.

As far as the statutory limits for deciding matters, we're finding that the usual length of an investigation remains at six months. Where we're finding a problem in meeting terms is really the initiation of a complaint. Once we find one admissible, we're finding a huge lag in which the police start the initiation. Once you start the initiation, the six-month clock runs. In some cases we're having three months.

We're asking the departments, "Why are you waiting three months to start?" because we're trying to informally resolve it. That's a matter that I prefer to deal with this government through our submissions on revisions
[ Page 771 ]
to the act. Those things are all fixable. They're just slight modifications. No one could contemplate the complexity of the procedural aspects of this act, and I'm happy to report that there aren't many. They're small tweaks that need to be done. I think that, with the other stakeholders, we're all on the same page on many of the procedural aspects. But there is a statutory limit.

D. McRae: Did you find that after April 30, with the new legislation, that people are raising complaints from maybe a year ago, trying to get resolution under the new legislation?

S. Lowe: What we did is this. With the assistance of legal counsel, I had to come up with a policy, an information bulletin about what we're going to do about old police complaints. I had to set a limit, and the limit was one year. Otherwise, all the moneys that you were expending towards this new legislation would be dried up with matters that occurred in what I view as ancient history.

[0850]

We produced an information bulletin that was a balancing of interests, to say that we're going to go back to the year before to look at these ongoing matters, but other than that, that's the cutoff. So if it was two years ago and it was a matter that was resolved under the old act or not able to proceed because of procedural shortcomings or legislative shortcomings, you cannot now refile a new complaint. We had to draw the line somewhere, and we are comfortable with the one-year mark.

J. Les (Chair): I just want to recognize Bruce for an additional comment.

B. Ralston: Perhaps it would assist the committee if, in addition to the material you've provided, you could provide a short summary of the time limits and perhaps the time sequence of the treatment of a typical complaint. In your detailed knowledge of the process, you may have left some of us behind.

I think that would be helpful. That does seem to be a part of the submission that you're making — that the very nature of the statutory limits within the act at each stage requires additional personnel to deal with them. So I think that would be helpful to the committee.

S. Lowe: Yes, I'm happy to provide that to you. We have procedural timelines that we've provided to all of the professional…and to our own office to outline the timelines.

The issue is…. The primary timeline from our perspective — the OPCC — is the 20 business days once receiving a discipline authority's decision. That's 20 business days that amount to a rush for us. The concern that really is the…. If I can say in the broader term, it's that our work has become so comprehensive.

I will provide you also with a flow chart that we've given to people for ease of reference. When you look at this flow chart, you will see, actually, that it's not very easy. It's very complicated. That shows the complexity of the work.

What I'm saying is this. The primary thrust of my submissions is that the overall work has doubled, if not tripled. The additional obligations to our office — we underestimated — are huge drains on resources. Then on top of that, there's a compiling or a complementary matter: there are rigid time limits.

I can't emphasize more, and I regret to announce, that there were four cases that we failed on. I consider that a failure. We can't just swipe it away as collateral damage. It's a failure of our office when we miss four files, which people have a legitimate interest in. I have to turn around and say: "Sorry, I missed a time limit. But we reviewed it, and it looked fine." That's very little consolation to a member of the public.

J. Les (Chair): We're almost at the time where we have to recess this meeting.

Let me say this. It's obvious to me that there are quite a number of additional questions. I've got four or five people who still want to ask questions.

Just going slightly in a different direction from what I mentioned earlier, I think it best if we find an opportunity to reconvene here in the next week or ten days or so. We'll work with Kate to set up that meeting time. I don't think it does it justice if we try to informally get some of these questions asked and answered.

If we can leave it at that for now, everybody keep their notes, and we'll reconvene this meeting as soon as we can find an opportunity to do so.

With that, we stand recessed until nine o'clock.

The committee recessed from 8:53 a.m. to 9:01 a.m.

[J. Les in the chair.]

J. Les (Chair): Good morning, everyone. I'm John Les, the MLA for Chilliwack and the Chair of this parliamentary committee. I'd like to welcome everyone that's in the audience this morning.

Hello out there in Smithers and Nanaimo, and thank you for taking the time to participate in this process.

Each year in preparation for the next year's budget, the Minister of Finance releases a budget consultation paper by September 15. This presents a current fiscal forecast, and it also identifies the key issues that need to be addressed in the next budget. It also identifies a focus for the consultations of this committee, and it includes information on how members of the public may provide their views on budget priorities.

Print copies of the 2011 consultation paper are available on the information table in this room. Normally,
[ Page 772 ]
when we have these meetings physically in communities, they are located in the meeting room as well.

The Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services is the parliamentary committee which is responsible for conducting public consultations on the forthcoming provincial budget. Our committee is required to report back to the Legislative Assembly no later than November 15 of this year.

This year we will hold 14 public hearings in each region of the province. We have also scheduled three video conferencing sessions to hear from residents of rural communities living in the more remote areas of British Columbia — the second time that we have tried this consultation method.

This week we have already travelled to Lake Country, Penticton, Kamloops, Cranbrook and Castlegar. Last week we were in Vancouver and Surrey. Today we are doing video conferencing sessions in Nanaimo and Smithers. This is the second year, as I've said, that we've tried this video conferencing process.

In addition to public hearings, there are a variety of other ways that British Columbians can share their ideas with us. We accept written submissions by letter or e-mail and also video and audio files. Further information on how you may participate using one of these methods is available on our website.

Committee members carefully consider all the public input that we receive, whether it's an oral presentation made here today, an on-line survey form, a submission in writing or an audio or video clip. The deadline for submissions to be received is Friday, October 15.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for ten minutes, with up to five additional minutes allocated for members' questions. Time permitting, we may also have an open-mike session near the end of the hearing, with five minutes allocated for each presentation.

Keep in mind that today's meeting is a public meeting. It will be recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services, and a copy of the transcript, along with the minutes of the meeting, will be printed and made available on the committees website. In addition to the meeting transcript, a live audio webcast of this meeting is also produced and available on the committees website to enable interested listeners to hear the proceedings as they occur. An archived copy of the audio broadcast will also be retained on the committees website.

I'll now ask the other members of the Finance Committee to introduce themselves.

J. Thornthwaite: Jane Thornthwaite, North Vancouver–Seymour.

J. van Dongen: John van Dongen, Abbotsford South.

D. McRae: Don McRae, MLA for the Comox Valley.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Hello out there. Doug Donaldson, MLA, Stikine.

B. Ralston: Bruce Ralston, Surrey-Whalley. Good morning.

[0905]

B. Routley: Bill Routley, MLA for the Cowichan Valley.

M. Mungall: I'm Michelle Mungall, MLA for Nelson-Creston.

N. Letnick: Norm Letnick, MLA for Kelowna–Lake Country.

J. Les (Chair): I would just like to mention to the presenters that your microphones will be live at all times in both locations, so just keep that in mind in case there are more people that come into the room. If you'd like to have chat about something or other, we'll be able to hear it too.

With that out of the way, I'll now go to our first presenter, who is in Smithers — Debbie Pierre, speaking on behalf of the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs.

Debbie, over to you.

Presentations

D. Pierre: Thank you very much. On behalf of the Office of the Wet'suwet'en, I'd like to recognize that today's proceedings in Smithers is on Gitdumden territory and thank Gyologet for this opportunity.

My name is Debbie Pierre, from the Gilseyhu clan. With me….

J. Ridsdale: I'm John Ridsdale, Chief Namoks from the Tsayu clan.

D. Pierre: First of all, I'd to thank you for the opportunity to be heard through the public hearing process of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Just a little bit of a history on the Wet'suwet'en. The Wet'suwet'en have lived on our traditional lands for thousands of years. We have had profound and reciprocal relations with the land. We believe that we belong to the land as much as the land belongs to us. The Wet'suwet'en elders teach that our land and our people are one.

The Wet'suwet'en rights to our traditional land and territories have been and continue to be threatened and violated. Despite years spent in courtrooms to protect our traditional lands and resources, both are being alienated by the Crown to third parties at a rapid and disturbing rate.
[ Page 773 ]

The Wet'suwet'en have asserted and struggled for recognition of our ownership rights on our territory from the time colonial settlers began to trespass on our traditional lands in the early 1800s.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries the provincial government's policies and practices led to the violation of the Wet'suwet'en's right to our traditional territories. Beginning in the 1890s, the province attempted to remove the Wet'suwet'en from our territories and confine us to small parcels of reserve land. The Wet'suwet'en have actively protested the reserve system and fought to retain our entire territory.

To this day the Crown continues to permit forestry, mining and other companies to extract resources from Wet'suwet'en lands. Much of the Wet'suwet'en people's most productive and sacred forests have been destroyed by clearcutting. Through this process, the Wet'suwet'en continue to value and use those areas currently and for future generations.

For a large part of the 20th century negotiations with the Crown were the only legal recourse open to the Wet'suwet'en to protect our rights. From 1927 to 1951 the Wet'suwet'en were effectively barred from bringing a claim for recognition of our rights to the courts — a provision in the Indian Act, the federal statute that has regulated Indian peoples in Canada since 1876. In the face of the Crown's refusal to recognize the existence of Wet'suwet'en rights to our territories, negotiations did not offer any real opportunities for the Wet'suwet'en to secure our land rights.

In 1977 the Wet'suwet'en, along with the Gitxsan, attempted to engage British Columbia in negotiations towards treaty. Throughout the negotiations, the provincial government insisted that Wet'suwet'en rights to territories had been extinguished. The failure of the negotiations and ongoing violation of our rights throughout the 1970s caused the Wet'suwet'en, along with our neighbours the Gitxsan, to bring our land claim before the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1984.

The Wet'suwet'en and Gitxsan commenced with our case for the recognition of our rights to property and a remedy for the provincial and federal governments' continued violation of our rights. The Supreme Court of British Columbia, and later the B.C. Court of Appeal, denied the existence of our rights.

[0910]

The Wet'suwet'en and the Gitxsan brought our case to the Supreme Court of Canada in what is considered the most important Canadian decision on aboriginal title. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to examine the evidence to determine if the Wet'suwet'en, the Gitxsan had established our right to the aboriginal title.

As described below, the court remitted the matter back to trial on the basis of a defect in the pleadings and an error of law by the trial judge in his treatment of our oral history.

Consequently, 13 years before the Canadian courts and at a huge cost to the Wet'suwet'en, the Wet'suwet'en were not given any remedies for the government's refusal to recognize our rights on our traditional territories. Our experience provides evidence that recourse to the Canadian courts has not provided available, adequate and effective remedies for the ongoing violation of Wet'suwet'en people's rights to our traditional lands.

Despite the ongoing court case in British Columbia and Canada, it is very clear that the courts have been reluctant to issue a declaration of aboriginal title. This history and recent events amply demonstrate that domestic remedies have failed to provide indigenous people, the Wet'suwet'en, with protection from the ongoing violation of our rights to traditional lands and territories.

The Wet'suwet'en still struggle today to have our rights to our territories recognized. Although we have engaged through the B.C. Treaty Commission negotiations, no tangible progress has been made. The Crown has refused to recognize the Wet'suwet'en house and clan system of land tenure and governance.

Despite negotiations which began in 1977 with the federal government and resumed through the B.C. Treaty Commission in the 1990s, no final or interim Wet'suwet'en-based land protection or other measure has been implemented. Yet the Wet'suwet'en have had to borrow in excess of $12 million Canadian from the Crown to fund our negotiations.

Due to the lack of progress at the treaty table, in 2007 the hereditary chiefs declined to incur further debt to fund the treaty table. Consequently, active treaty negotiations have halted due to the inability of the Wet'suwet'en to sustain the mounting costs of negotiations and the lack of capacity.

The ongoing violations of the Wet'suwet'en rights — which deny our interest in the land and threaten the forests, waters, animals and our people of our traditional territories — are a testament to the failure of the domestic remedies to offer indigenous people in British Columbia meaningful recognition or protection of our property rights to our traditional lands.

The frustrations and disillusionment among the Wet'suwet'en with both the treaty-making process and court system have been profound. Years of effort in the courtroom, at the treaty table, have yielded no relief or remedy.

The Wet'suwet'en have experienced firsthand that exhausting domestic remedies does not provide effective or meaningful protection or recognition of Wet'suwet'en right to property and ownership of traditional lands.

The Wet'suwet'en have resisted Canada's and British Columbia's attempts to exercise jurisdiction over land in our territories. We have asserted our right to govern our lands according to our own system of laws before Canadian courts and in the course of political negotiations. The provincial and federal governments have not
[ Page 774 ]
recognized the Wet'suwet'en's jurisdiction and have attempted to displace Wet'suwet'en property laws with other systems.

As a result of the provincial and federal government's historical denial of the Wet'suwet'en ownership of the jurisdiction over our lands, conflicts have arisen between the different legal systems operating on and within the Wet'suwet'en territories.

[0915]

For example, in the early 20th century the province implemented a system for registration of hunting grounds or traplines by individuals rather than by houses. The system, which is still place today, is based upon individual property rights and regulated according to the provincial rules on inheritance, in which property passes from father to son.

Thus, the provincial registration system challenges both house ownership and the matrilineal inheritance laws of the Wet'suwet'en. The operation of the two fundamentally different systems in the same territory has led to disagreements and conflict over ownership.

In the 1890s the province determined that the Wet'suwet'en should be allocated small areas of reserve lands which included some of the villages but was not extended into our territories. This was the province's solution to the Wet'suwet'en demands for land. It removed all the Wet'suwet'en property rights to their territories and confined us to small tracts of land, profoundly undermining our ability to be self-sustaining and our self-determination.

The Wet'suwet'en rejected the reserves and protested their use to the provincial and federal governments. Finally, without establishing that Wet'suwet'en have aboriginal title to our lands, the Wet'suwet'en people have had to turn to and return to the negotiation table without any ongoing protection of our rights.

In the meantime, our traditional territories and resources continue to be exploited by the Crown and third parties. The Crown also refuses to accept the traditional authorities of our hereditary chiefs under Wet'suwet'en law, Inuk Nu'at'en. The B.C. Treaty Commission process has not yielded any relief against the ongoing violations of the Wet'suwet'en property rights. The Wet'suwet'en have not been able to negotiate a comprehensive or interim benefit agreement with the federal or provincial governments.

The current process is failing and has created much uncertainty in the province over aboriginal title, which has led to the lack of investments, the lack of jobs, which is not only bad for the Wet'suwet'en, our neighbours, but for the province overall.

The province must begin to reinvest in local resources. The province must reinvest and build upon local capacity within the Wet'suwet'en and consider looking at a framework that will set the boundaries and determine what industry and developers need to adhere to when negotiating with the Wet'suwet'en.

Through these processes, we continue to see the lack of services to the people around education and health. When the Wet'suwet'en look at the traditional territories and lands, the people are directly connected. We cannot move forward on lands and leave our people behind. Resourcing must be equally and adequately supplied to come to a process that will create certainty within the province.

Government contributing appropriate resources to the negotiations around consultation and clarifying aboriginal title and what that means. Currently the Wet'suwet'en have offered many vehicles to the province to reconcile, to address these issues that we continuously have faced for many generations.

J. Les (Chair): Excuse me, Debbie. Your 15 minutes are up, and I have people waiting at the Nanaimo location, so we'll have to leave it at that. I would ask if you would make sure that you either fax or e-mail that presentation to the Clerk, and it will be distributed to the entire committee. Thank you for your presentation this morning.

Next we will hear from Lee Mason, who is located in Nanaimo.

Good morning, Lee.

[0920]

M. Delves: Good morning. Actually, my name is Mike Delves, and I'll be representing the Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce today.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Deputy Chair and members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in this process today. As the vice-chair of the Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, I'll be presenting our positions and our recommendations.

For the most part, our positions echo those of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, so I won't go into more detail there, as they provided an extensive report on the 15th of this month. I will differentiate, however, from their report, in that I would like to start by addressing the harmonized sales tax. The B.C. chamber has spoken extensively on this, and I understand why they omitted it from their report.

Particularly, our concern is with the probability of its future and the presentation of the tax. We want to address it because it's a significant revenue line item — more than $5 billion per year — and its future is currently somewhat uncertain. A simple majority referendum in September of next year will decide its fate. Numerous economists and tax advisers have stated that the HST is good tax policy, and this is a position that we support.

The benefits are already beginning to show for businesses in the province. As an accountant working in public practice, I can tell you that the first of the HST returns are in. My business clients that I've been speaking with are finally being able to recognize the benefits of it and seeing some refunds through the acquisition
[ Page 775 ]
of new investment in equipment and assets, and that's really what we're looking for — to encourage new investment in the province and ensure the economic viability of existing industries.

In a presentation previously to this committee we heard Rick Jeffery from the Coast Forest Products Association stating that for his organization, he was looking at $130 million per year of savings. This is essential to an industry that has seen years of strife and reductions in employment. We've got a lot of unemployed loggers and millworkers out there, and these are individuals that we're seeing as having a possibility of getting back to work. That's really a benefit that we're hoping to see from the harmonized sales tax.

It's good for business, and part of what this consultation is about in this process is what to do with the $2.7 billion of higher-than-expected revenues for the four-year outlook. We should remember that $2.5 billion of this is from corporate income tax, and corporations and businesses are who the harmonized sales tax is directed at, encouraging their investment.

If we look at Ontario and the other harmonized sales tax provinces, they've recognized the benefits and accepted the change, where here in B.C. we seem to be struggling in a bit of a political quagmire. We think it would be a mistake to allow harmonized sales tax to fail due to the political issues surrounding it.

If we're going to be allowing an uninformed and misinformed electorate to vote on the tax, the referendum could allow for that failure to happen. If we're going to ask individuals whether they want to pay tax, likely they're going to tell us they don't. But at the same time, there also need to be provided the services and facilities that are provided by the province, and we need to pay for that.

Our recommendation is really that the province must be able to provide credible, independent means of informing the public of the benefits and educate them on where their income is coming from to pay for this tax and how it impacts the economy of the province. So I'll leave it at that for HST.

As far as addressing public spending, this is another area we have of concern: health care, with 86 percent of new spending going to this. I believe that's a quote from Mr. Hansen.

[0925]

We request that the province ensure that some of this funding goes into providing a more efficient and effective system. Not being health care experts, we don't have specific recommendations on how that's to be done, but we think it's an important aspect of health care spending itself.

On other public spending, education, we support the fact that our future depends on our youth, and we certainly would support B.C. in providing the best quality education possible. Our concern is with the structure under which funds are spent.

School boards, many of them, are having different processes and procedures. There's duplication of effort. We've seen mandates for keeping all schools open, even where enrolment is dropping or whether those facilities are no longer economically viable. In the short term we think there needs to be more accountability of school boards for their spending and in the longer term a review of the effectiveness of the structure as a whole.

Transportation is another aspect of public spending. We recommend that the mandate is for the movement of people as well as vehicles, and not just in the Lower Mainland, where we've seen some excellent steps taken by the province, but rural areas as well. Here we're working on the revitalization of rail, but we're challenged with the issue that the province invests in highways, subsidizing vehicle movement but not necessarily rail infrastructure, which could be utilized for moving people in a more effective manner.

The other aspect of transportation that we'd like to address is B.C. Ferries. We understand that their five-year transfer payment agreement is due. For coastal communities the ferries are an extension of the highway system. Their mandate also appears to be in the movement of vehicles, and we would like for them to address the issues of passenger movement without vehicles.

Nanaimo is a central access point to the Island and has been attempting to establish and direct a passenger ferry service, but we've been unsuccessful. The last private enterprise that was looking at this felt that they were going to be unable to compete with the subsidized B.C. Ferries, which again is directed more towards the movement of vehicles than people.

The budget consultation paper mentions clean energy and leading climate action. These are important environmental initiatives. Let's take it a step further and invest in opportunities to effectively transport people without their cars.

Speaking of climate action initiatives, we wanted to make note that we of course support this as essential to the environmental health of the province. We need to ensure that it's done in a manner that business can sustain, particularly in the sensitive economic recovery period.

I have a question with regards to personal tax reductions that the province is suggesting as a possibility to do with our excess revenue. B.C. already has the lowest personal income tax rates for low-income people, for income under $40,000, and the lowest effective personal tax rates of the country for individuals under $100,000. We appreciate the government's steps already taken to make B.C. a very competitively taxed jurisdiction for both individuals and corporations.

At this time we recommend sticking to the planned tax reductions but not implementing any new tax reductions. If the higher-than-expected revenues do not materialize, as we have seen occur in the past, we would
[ Page 776 ]
be politically challenged to reverse any tax reduction promises and thus increasing our deficit.

The question is what to do with predicted additional revenues. Here we support the B.C. Chamber recommendation to allocate all additional funding to reducing the deficit, allowing a more expedient return to balanced budgets.

Those are our comments for this morning.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much. I have several questions from committee members for you. We have about another four minutes left, so the first question will go to Doug.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. Doug Donaldson, MLA for Stikine.

We've heard from a number of business leaders regarding the uncertainty around the referendum. You mentioned Rick Jeffery, who presented, and also Doug Wittal from the Canadian Home Builders Association. They both pointed out the uncertainty of having a year to wait to get an answer — that it's bad for investment and bad for the business climate.

[0930]

Would your association, the members, considering the wait that these people have in the business sector, be in favour of moving the referendum date up and having the answer as soon as possible on this question?

M. Delves: Thank you for your question. I'm not sure that moving the referendum date up would be helpful, because I believe we need the time to educate the voters. I think that moving too quickly would not allow us to ensure that people recognize the benefits and perhaps give the HST an opportunity to show its benefits. The HST is already in place, so businesses will be able to take advantage of the credits and pass those on to the consumer.

So I don't think moving up the referendum is the answer. I think education is the answer.

M. Mungall: I guess my question was somewhat asked by my colleague, Doug Donaldson. Mr. Delves, thanks very much for your presentation.

One of the things I have noticed in talking with British Columbians from all corners of the province is that they're quite educated about the taxation system. They have opinions about ways in which we ought to generate revenue in this province and then, of course, how we ought to spend it. In fact, that's the whole purpose of the Finance Committee. They might not agree with you, but definitely I find them quite educated and not misinformed.

On that note, that debate between various opinions around the HST is quite important, and having the electorate having the opportunity to engage in that via a referendum. You wanted to see education — the electorate be educated….

Interjection.

M. Mungall: Doing that is going to slow me down, actually, Mr. Letnick.

Anyway, the point is that considering the public is quite educated, do you not see that moving the referendum up would actually be a benefit to business? I don't see the benefit of keeping it postponed.

M. Delves: To respond to that, I think that I'll again go back to my previous point. I'm not so sure…. Certainly, I appreciate that you've had the opportunity to speak to a number of individuals who do seem to be informed, but at the same time, in my office I get calls even from my individual business clients, who are surprised when they're getting the provincial portion of the HST back. And when they were asked to sign a petition, they were told that everything was going to cost them 12 percent more. I think there is misinformation out there.

As well, non-profit entities are eligible for the public services body rebate. I am continually having to educate them that they're getting 57 percent of what used to be the PST back that they weren't before. I'm still hearing surprise with regards to that.

It's my feeling that there does need to be more education, and I think we need to have the time to allow for that.

J. Les (Chair): Okay, thank you very much. That's all the time we have for your presentation. If you'll just slide over, there's probably somebody there by the name of Mark Busby who would like to make a presentation.

M. Busby: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. Firstly, may I say thank you very much for granting me this opportunity to speak to the committee, with a view to establishing, as part of our budgetary priorities for British Columbia, support for innovation across the field of acquired brain injury.

My name is Mark Andrew Busby. In addition to being an active citizen of Nanaimo, I'm also the executive director of the Nanaimo Brain Injury Society, which is a non-profit organization in town here.

Our society records show that 439 different people in Nanaimo have or continue to access our services for brain injury–related matters. We also know that a significant percentage of our people in the community are doing whatever they can to cope in the absence of timely and experienced support. As a small three-day-a-week agency we do not pretend to meet this need adequately.

I present to you this morning both in my capacity as executive director and also as a person who has experienced brain injury within our own family.

The facts. The incidence of civilian trauma-related brain injury exceeds 504 people in every 100,000, with a similar rate of other acquired brain injuries — for
[ Page 777 ]
example, stroke, infections, anoxia and tumours — having a similar incidence.

[0935]

More than a quarter of a million new brain injuries occur each year in Canada. More than 685 people incur brain injuries every day. That's one every two minutes. If all causes are included, more than 4 percent of the population of British Columbia live with a long-term disability as a result of acquired brain injury.

Traumatic brain injury is the greatest killer of people under the age of 45. Traumatic brain injury is the greatest disabler of people under the age of 44. Injury kills more children under the age of 20 than all other causes combined. In comparison, the rate of traumatic brain injury relative to spinal cord injury is 100 to 1.

Brain injury can result in any number of physical, emotional or cognitive impairments. Usually, physical sequelae to injury are treated well and rehabilitation is provided. Cognitive or emotional disability rarely garners the attention required, and people are discharged without treatment for long-term problems related to cognitive disability. The long-term result is routinely an inability to maintain employment, family obligations or other social relations.

More than 50 percent of people living with brain injury experience drug and alcohol abuse. Many come to rely on income assistance. The health costs associated with brain injury are estimated at more than $1 billion. Previous reports have estimated that one in six hospital and long-term care beds are occupied by somebody with a brain injury. Newer research has demonstrated that an average of 82 percent of prison inmates live with brain injury, and over 60 percent of the homeless population interviewed had evidence of acquired brain injury, with 77 percent of those becoming homeless following brain injury.

Two recent studies have demonstrated a significant correlation between brain injury and the development of specific mental illness such as schizophrenia, clinical depression and personality disorders. The data suggests a gateway or biological precursor between brain injury and mental illness.

Considering health costs, the cost of lost productivity and the reliance on income assistance, brain injury is one of the most costly conditions facing British Columbians. Brain injury holds the highest lifetime loss of productivity costs of all injuries. Net lifetime productivity loss due to brain injury totals almost $585 million in British Columbia. Nearly 20 percent of people hospitalized for traumatic brain injury do not return to work. Estimates of acute rehabilitation and long-term care costs put the cost of brain injury at $686 million annually in B.C.

The economic case for increased brain injury services is played out on two fronts. More effective and appropriate services result in better health outcomes and less overall cost to the health, social services and criminal justice systems. The second area of savings potentially relates to injury prevention.

Ninety percent of traumatic brain injury is preventable. To date, little effort has been made to target the highest incidence group, which is our 14- to 24-year-old males. Catastrophic brain injury results in 24-hour intensive group home or acute care settings, with annual care costs exceeding $130,000 per person.

Moderate to severe brain injury results in a need for group living to provide supports to compensate for behavioural concerns, with annual care costs exceeding $73,000 per person. The majority of the population living with acquired brain injury have a moderate to mild injury and live with cognitive behavioural sequelae requiring daily living supports, continuing care, family care homes. Annually care costs exceed $50,000 per person.

The same cognitive impairments often result in people with brain injury accumulating a series of non-violent offences which eventually lead to incarceration in the provincial correctional system. The cost of provincial incarceration for each inmate equals $70,000 per year.

Homelessness is a real and pervasive outcome from brain injury. The cost to the provincial system for a person living without stable housing is estimated at $55,000. If prevention programs were developed to reduce the incidence of brain injury by just 10 percent, the total health cost savings would equal $68 million annually, with an additional saving of $58 million in lost productivity.

There is no coordinated policy body responsible for the development of effective and efficient ABI services in the province. Each health authority operates without coordinated policy. This has resulted in a patchwork of programs; difficult interregional service transitioning; almost no data acquisition regarding the instance, prevalence, geographic distribution, cause and severity of injury in British Columbia; and no data on program effectiveness.

[0940]

The Nanaimo Brain Injury Society therefore respectfully asks the committee to support the establishment of an acquired brain injury innovation fund for British Columbians. We support the request for $2 million to be granted annually to the BrainTrust Canada for accomplishing the following purposes.

(1) Creation of a public granting program to provide funding to projects that have a direct positive impact on the development of services to people with acquired brain injury. Projects that demonstrate partnership between health authorities and community service agencies would be considered highly desirable.

(2) Funding of applied research that has remained outstanding for decades in British Columbia.

(3) The development of effective prevention, education and enforcement strategies to reduce the rate of brain injury, with a particular emphasis among the
[ Page 778 ]
highest-incidence category — that is, the 14- to 24-year-old males.

(4) Creation of a fund to assist the B.C. Brain Injury Association to develop a provincial acquired brain injury strategy, a clinically effective and cost-effective provincial strategy for the management of acquired brain injury from emergency services through to community living, in partnership with provincial ministries and health authorities.

(5) Encourage and stimulate primary and continuing education of acquired brain injury etiology, sequelae treatment and support in the humanities, social and health sciences.

By achieving these objectives, the fund is projected to save provincial ministries significant resources through reduced health care costs, reduced social support costs and reduced criminal justice system costs.

The fund would be established as a perpetual legacy for people living with brain injury in British Columbia and their loved ones. The fund would be established as an investment opportunity for those interested in investing in the future of acquired brain injury research and development, and supporting funds would be sought to augment the annual contribution created by the province.

It will allow for the monitoring of services available to people with acquired brain injury from across B.C. and will provide a provincial picture of brain injury services. Development of the strategy and advisory capacity would assist provincial ministries to establish effective and appropriate policies for dealing with acquired brain injury in British Columbia.

Thank you very much for your kind consideration.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Mark.

J. van Dongen: Thanks for your presentation, Mark. Could you just describe what programs you have on Vancouver Island through the Vancouver Island Health Authority and the role of your society in that?

M. Busby: Sure. I'll start with our society. As I mentioned, we're a three-day-a-week organization. We have a facility where we work with people with brain injuries to help folks regain mostly cognitive skills but also skills that can help people manage behaviours — and emotional support, but primarily to help people redevelop cognitive skills following brain injury. There's a demand for it, a large demand for it. We have limited capacity.

We also provide something of outreach support. We have one outreach worker, who I think is on a 0.3 contract, who can make some inroads into the community, supporting people with such activities as homemaking, getting from A to B with public transport, relearning different modes of transportation in the community.

We have a peer support group which brings together a number of people from our community that live with brain injury, so there is mutual support that is shared amongst the group. We're just about to introduce a grief and loss group to help folks who have had brain injury deal with the transition. We have, again, limited capacity for one-to-one counselling. We also do a lot of intake and some case management work. So that means….

J. van Dongen: What services do you get from the health authority? And do you know anything about the numbers?

M. Busby: Yeah, a little. We work somewhat in partnership with the Vancouver Island Health Authority insofar as we're provided some funding to keep our doors open.

[0945]

My experience is that the brain injury program on Vancouver Island is in a state of freeze right now. It's in the deep freeze, to put it as somebody said to me. We're familiar, because we get people through doors, with people who have been on the wait-list for service with the Vancouver Island Health Authority for a number of years. It's not unusual to hear.

The Vancouver Island Health Authority provides services to people in the community through a contractor system. Certainly in our community, people with acquired brain injury are — or some people, I have to say, an amount of people — matched with a subcontractor in the community for their community support needs.

Now, subcontractors in our community could be anywhere from people with exceptional human skills, people skills but with very little background in acquired brain injury, or vice versa. Really, it's a little piecemeal. We've worked well together, but we don't pretend that we're meeting the needs fully.

J. Thornthwaite: Thank you very much for your presentation. As a mother of a 20-year-old male and also a dietitian who used to work for G.F. Strong in the acquired brain injury ward, I know that the effectiveness of education for that group would probably be increased substantially from their peers.

Do you have any suggestions from folks in that age group that have gone out to schools to actually tell their stories as to how they are in the position they are in and could maybe drive home the importance of these young males, who don't tend to listen to superiors but might listen to their peers as far as educating them on making smart choices?

M. Busby: Let me speak to that, because right now we're trying to establish some funds for a prevention project that we're working on. Part of that prevention project is…. A team of our people, who include people with brain injury, are going into elementary schools, and we have a partnership relationship with ThinkFirst B.C.
[ Page 779 ]

So we're going into elementary schools, and we're working with the kids around brain injury prevention. That's including survivors of brain injury who have reached a place in their recovery where they're, like you say, able as an ambassador to go into schools and share their story.

That's a project that we're trying to get funding for right now. We have a little bit of funding that has enabled us to put a pilot project into Georgia Avenue School here in Nanaimo. It's working very well. We want more money to do more of that kind of work in our schools in Nanaimo.

We also, as part of that pilot project, have been into the Nanaimo District Secondary School here, where we've worked with some I guess what can be called at-risk youth. We've done a similar thing with the at-risk youth around prevention, helmet use.

We're actually looking, again, to get a little bit of funding to work with those youth to develop leadership within them, because we have a helmet project which is going to engage those kids, and those kids will then to be able to go into the community as ambassadors for helmet use and develop a culture around helmets.

We have some research that points to…. There are two things that came up for us through the young people, the youth — the reasons why they are not wearing helmets. One is cost, and we have a significant population in Nanaimo where income is an issue. The second one is the whole culture around helmets. So one is to address building culture around helmets, a youth culture around helmets, and the other is looking at ways to address the poverty issues around helmet use too.

Thank you for asking that question. It's a piece of work that we're piloting, and we're really looking for funds to continue that work.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Mark, for your presentation this morning. We very much appreciate it. You're finishing right on time, so we appreciate that too.

[0950]

If you would now slide over, I suspect we will then hear from Lauren Sabine and Jenny Tindall.

J. Tindall: Thank you for coming to our community and allowing us to participate and to give recommendations on arts and culture funding in the province. Before I start…. I don't know if you've got them yet. There was a date error on the presentation material that I sent to you in advance.

I'm Jenny Tindall of the Oceanside Community Arts Council, and I am currently a board member of the Assembly of B.C. Arts Councils. I have been involved in the arts for the past 25 years, starting as a board member of the Oceanside Community Arts Council, then a staff person, and eventually I became a board member of the assembly.

With me is Lauren Sabine. She is a fellow assembly director. She is formerly the artistic director of Oceanside Community Arts Council, and we are both practising artists. We are both deeply concerned about the funding cuts that local and provincial organizations have experienced over the past year.

Though the recent allocation of $7 million to the B.C. Arts Council helps tremendously, we urge this committee to recommend that the arts and culture legacy fund continue to be allocated to the B.C. Arts Council over the next two years. Better yet, we suggest that the legacy fund be used to actually enhance a restored and stable appropriation for the B.C. Arts Council, rather than merely replacing its significantly eroded resources, as was done this year.

The restoration of funds to the B.C. Arts Council is only part of the story. Even after restoring these funds this year, the considerable loss, which is 60 percent of arts and cultural investment that was previously available through the B.C. Gaming Commission, has still meant an overall cut of 30 percent to arts and cultural activity in the province.

The current criteria and priorities for direct access grants have been rewritten to exclude most arts and cultural organizations, community-based and professional, which previously were able to access these funds. The impact of the recent gaming cuts has had the most profound impact on access to arts and culture around this province. Many community-based organizations and volunteer-run organizations, as well as emerging and culturally diverse organizations, are left without any support for their work as a result.

These cuts have had a huge impact on many arts and cultural organizations and artists in this province, which endangers public access to arts and culture, local economies, quality of life and creativity. Some organizations have folded, and many events and programs have been cancelled indefinitely. All of the uncertainty and cuts have left the arts community reeling over the past number of months. What our province needs is stable funding and a renewed vision and plan for arts and culture, including heritage.

[0955]

For the past two years, for instance, B.C. Arts Council funding, through the committed appropriation, has been cut significantly and then restored later in the year, first through supplementary funds and then through reallocated gaming funds. The uncertainty and instability caused for the B.C. Arts Council and the community arts have made it impossible for either to plan forward or to fulfil their mandates.

We recommend that a stable and sufficient appropriation be allocated to the B.C. Arts Council in the upcoming provincial budget — at least $16 million. This would provide the B.C. Arts Council with resources that are equivalent to those provided this year, including the $7 million legacy funds.
[ Page 780 ]

We are grateful for your past support and belief in the importance of stimulating the arts and cultural industry. Since 2001 the B.C. Liberal government, without doubt, has invested in the arts and cultural sector in significant ways. For most of its mandate it has prioritized arts and culture to a greater degree than most governments in B.C.'s history.

That investment has yielded a great deal. Your creation of the renaissance fund and the BC150 endowment fund were initiatives that further strengthened our sector. B.C. artists were proudly showcased in the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in 2009 and 2010, and we impressed the world with the Cultural Olympiad that was integrated into the Winter Games just this year.

On behalf of the board of the Assembly of B.C. Arts Councils I would like to gratefully acknowledge the recommendation of last year's standing committee to restore arts funding to previous levels, including an appropriation directly to the B.C. Arts Council. The 2010-11 budget indeed included an allocation to the B.C. Arts Council, albeit much less than was recommended.

Our key recommendations are as follows. Support public funding for the non-profit arts and cultural sector. Arts and cultural organizations, including heritage and community-based organizations and individual artists, must be fully supported with arm's-length public investment, through the B.C. Arts Council, that is stable and sufficient to support the council's strategic plan.

Continue to allocate the arts legacy fund, $7 million, to the B.C. Arts Council in the next two fiscal years to supplement the council's base appropriation. Finally, restore the amount of funding for arts and cultural organizations supported through gaming revenues, and honour the social contract with British Columbians regarding the expansion of gaming.

I would like to thank you for your past support and ask you to consider these recommendations. Restoring core funding will ensure stability for hundreds of arts and cultural groups across the province. It will ensure ongoing economic, social and health benefits to our communities and will contribute to the growth of a successful cultural tourism sector.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much. I have a couple of questions.

N. Letnick: Thank you very much for your presentation and for your work in culture and arts in the province.

This is a question I've asked other arts and culture groups. Given that there are not unlimited funds, if the government saw fit to provide more money for arts and culture in our province, would you like most of that to go through the B.C. Arts Council versus the gaming funds, or would you like a pro rata share or more through the gaming funds? I think from your presentation that you're leaning more towards the B.C. Arts Council, but I just want to make sure I understood you correctly.

J. Tindall: I think that if it was either-or, that would be the choice, although in the past there were funds from both directions. As I say, that was what cut the funding a lot, in smaller communities in particular.

B. Ralston: Could you explain the impact in dollars of the cuts on your organization, the Oceanside Community Arts Council?

J. Tindall: I could ask Lauren to speak to that.

[1000]

L. Sabine: Yes, absolutely. After the funding cuts took place we lost approximately $20,000 in grants, through the B.C. Arts Council as well as gaming, which impacted us from doing much of our programming, which was our main source of revenue. I've subsequently lost my post at the Oceanside Community Arts Council because without the grants that we had been receiving, we could not continue to run in the same manner that we had been.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you both very much for your presentation this morning. We appreciate you taking the time to do this.

Somewhere nearby, Chris McIntosh is waiting to take over the microphone from you.

C. McIntosh: Good morning. First of all, I'd like to thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity. I'm speaking to you this morning on behalf of FAIR, which is a group of 1,500 concerned citizens, parents, family and friends of children with autism.

I'm going to skip over the outline, but I did present a few different options here. I'm just wondering. On the outline that you have, do you have "Background: Science and Experience"?

J. Les (Chair): Yes, we do.

C. McIntosh: Oh great. Thank you. That's the outline of what I'd like to talk to you about.

What I'd like to say is that autism is a problem with a solution. We do have many challenging problems these days which do not have any easy solutions. There's poverty, homelessness, addiction, mental health. All of these are very difficult problems to try and get a grip on.

Autism is not one of these problems. It is tremendously challenging, but there is a proven, affordable solution, and that is intensive therapy for children zero to six.

I truly believe that there is no other disorder where there's such a vast difference between effective therapy and no treatment or ineffective therapy. With no therapy, children can be non-verbal and have no ability for
[ Page 781 ]
self-care. This does not change as they grow into adults. With effective therapy, children can grow up to be productive members of society, contributing and leading meaningful lives.

As to the science, the National Autism Center's National Standards Report says a number of things. First of all, it says that therapy needs to be intensive, which is a minimum of 25 hours a week, to be effective.

The lifetime costs of someone with autism average around $3.2 million per person; 65 percent of those costs, around $2 million per child, can be saved with early intensive therapy. Currently there are around 900 children zero to six with autism in B.C. The potential savings are…. Nine hundred children times $2 million is about $1.8 billion. These really are significant numbers.

What about the experience in other jurisdictions? Dr. Larsson, the director of the Lovaas Institute study, compared intensive versus non-intensive therapy. I think it's really important to mention that he did not compare intensive versus no therapy. He compared intensive versus non-intensive therapy, and that's what we have in B.C. right now — non-intensive therapy.

Four U.S. states — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and some parts of California — fully fund intensive therapy. Their experience has been that only a third of eligible families use it, for a variety of reasons. Their cost is about $35,000 per child. In B.C. the costs are around $70,000, so the potential savings…. They're saving a billion dollars.

The B.C. potential. If we want to look at realistic savings, we can take the $1.8 billion potential that I mentioned on the previous slide and multiply that by a third, if only a third of families here decided to use it, for a savings of $600 million, which I think is quite realistic.

The incremental expense over and above what we're paying now to do this would be $15 million. That's at a $70,000 cost. If we could reduce those costs, based on experience and expertise, down to the U.S. cost of $35,000, then the incremental cost would only be $4 million.

I'm not sure whether you've got the background cost calculations. I added that last night. That's just to indicate how I came up with those figures. Before, it was $70,000 per child. The current funding is $22,000 per child, so to get back to where we were, we would need an extra $48,000. You multiply the $48,000 times a third times 900 children. That's where you get the $15 million.

To get the $4 million, you take the current $22,000 funding…. You'd have to increase that by $13,000 to get the U.S. cost of $35,000, and you get the $4 million.

I won't dwell on those, but that's just letting you know how those…. I have that in my own presentation. I'm not sure whether you've got that in yours. That was a last-minute addition.

J. Les (Chair): Yes, we do have that.

[1005]

C. McIntosh: Thank you. Wonderful. You've got a very good Clerk.

Low-risk solution. This solution is proven. The government often has to take lots of risks. That's just the name of the game. The Olympics were a risk with potential benefits. They were a huge success. Nobody knew that ahead of time, but that's what they turned out to be. The HST is a risk. There are potential benefits. We expect to receive those in the future, but nobody knows. Funding autism therapy is not a risk. There are proven benefits and a history behind it in other jurisdictions.

It's also a low-cost solution. Needed government programs are often very costly. Infrastructure maintenance for roads and hospitals is just the name of the game. They cost hundreds of millions of dollars. For an incremental cost of between $4 million and $15 million those start to look very inexpensive, especially given the benefits.

There's a very high return on investment. Government always hopes to get monetary or social returns on their investment. Funding early intensive therapy for children with autism, I believe, gives the best return on investment possible. For an investment of $15 million, you get returns of $600 million. I believe that there is no other expenditure in the entire provincial budget that is getting anywhere close to that kind of return.

New research in the U.K. shows that children with autism are costing them about 2.7 billion euros, but the interesting part of that study is that adults are costing them 25 billion — about ten times as much.

You also are spending a fair amount of money right now on autism therapy. That spending is critical, but it's like building a foundation and walls with no roof. Studies showing long-term savings compare intensive therapy with non-intensive therapy. Prior to the autism therapy cuts that were made last year, 70 children in B.C. were receiving effective, cost-saving intensive therapy. Now not one single child in B.C. has that therapy funded.

Families are getting $2,000 more per year. That increase is needed. It's critical. Families are desperate. They have to use every penny of it. But that will not change any long-term outcome for any children. That $2,000 buys one extra hour of therapy per week; 25 is required. Children are currently getting between seven and ten, so you're only going to get eight to 11. It's not going to make a difference. Plus, service providers have raised their rates, eating up that, so you're not even getting that extra hour.

How could this be implemented? Well, there are two distinct regions in the province — Victoria and everywhere else. In all regions except Victoria the existing centres remain. Centre directors worked phenomenally hard to retain all staff, to get extra clients to maintain their operations, so our only hours of therapy are reduced. If funding were to be increased tomorrow, tomorrow people would be getting this therapy — the hours they need.
[ Page 782 ]

Victoria faces additional challenges. The centre has shut down; staff have left. Increased funding would increase hours because parents would have more money to buy them, but a non-profit centre really should be started, and that's what we're looking at trying to do. That would allow therapy at cheaper, independent rates so you'd get more hours for your dollar.

What are the challenges? There were challenges with the old intensive therapy program, and that needs to be acknowledged. There was vast disparity of quality throughout the province. There does need to be increased training for ABA practitioners, and there does need to be monitoring for quality. But this is doable.

Transition costs. The savings will come as the zero- to six-year age group ages through the system, into school and other things. But for right now you'd still have to fund the six-plus funding, and you'd have to increase funding for the zero-to-sixes. That's only for a few years. Then you'd really start to see savings. The major challenge is political will. That's what we're asking your help for — to try and generate that political will.

The last thing I just want to mention is my own personal story. I am an adult on the autism spectrum. I have a diagnosis of Asperger's. I have suffered depression on a number of occasions throughout my life. I've had to quit jobs and leave my home and family, my parents and my friends. I spent my life savings on a couple of occasions and fully expected just to run out of the money, and then I was suicidal.

It's really a miracle that I am here today. I'm over all that through the good work and hard work of a lot of people and a lot of supports. I have a wonderful wife. I have a good job, a good home. I truly think I'm the luckiest person on the planet.

To my way of thinking, other children should not have to go through what I have. Not everybody's as lucky as I am. The suicide rate for people on the autism spectrum is much higher.

You know, not everybody makes it like I did. I could have gone either way. So to my reasoning, there is no reason that anybody else has to go through this. We've got a solution. Let's implement it.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Chris. I have several people with questions, starting with Jane Thornthwaite.

J. Thornthwaite: Hi, Chris. Thank you very much. I come from North Vancouver–Seymour, and I do know many people in my riding who are in exactly your same situation and also have children — some with more than one child — on the autism spectrum.

[1010]

My question to you is about the funding, and I do appreciate your very comprehensive cost analysis that you've given us. What do you suggest — if we were going to do something from a provincial perspective? Obviously, you want to target the early learning part — so before they get into school, even though we do have services during the school.

Are you suggesting that we have a system not unlike the B.C. Arts Council, that money goes there and then it is distributed to the appropriate groups and the appropriate individuals as per the expertise of this so-called non-profit or whatever group you're talking about? Or that the money should go directly to the individual, and then they choose what kind of treatment they want? I know that there is controversy as to what treatments are better for which child.

C. McIntosh: Right. Well, there are a couple of questions you've asked. I'll answer the simple one first, and that is the nature of the therapy.

Right now only ABA, applied behaviour analysis, was fully funded in the intensive therapy programs. The National Standards Report does identify a number of what they call established therapies. So there are established therapies, which are proven and have good track records and science behind them. There are emerging therapies which show promise but don't have the same level of history behind them. I forget what the third one is, but there, basically, there is no science and no evidence. I think what we would like to see is that any established therapy be funded.

As to how the money would be distributed, I think the old model was very, very good. I think the quality needed to be monitored, but there parents could enrol to be in an EIBI program. They did not get the money. There was an RFP that went out, and seven centres participated in the process and won contracts. Then any parent that signed up could take their child to that centre, and the centre would get the funds. I think that was a very good model.

Now, if you were in an area that did not have centres, then I think if parents had the money…. But parents were not given money. They basically spent the money, then had to submit receipts and got reimbursed. So it's not like you're giving parents $70,000 to spend as they wish. You're essentially saying that you can spend up to $75,000 worth of approved expenses, cross your fingers and hope you get the money back, because if you don't, you're out of pocket. So there would have to be some work done in that area too.

D. McRae: Thank you very much for your presentation.

You cite research, and I have no problem with research, though I don't know the actual organization that did it. I think we have 6,000 children with autism in British Columbia, it's estimated. I seem to remember that from a stat.

Are you able to provide any study that's been done that's specific to British Columbia, comparing early aut-
[ Page 783 ]
ism therapy compared to what the existing practices are? Or if not, maybe something from a study that is, I guess, from a different balance?

I just look at this one institute that you've quoted, and they obviously have a vested interest in early intervention — which I'm fine with. I don't want to take anything away from their research, but it would be nice to have one that was definitely not from a biased organization.

C. McIntosh: There are. If you go on the Internet, there are a lot of studies that have been done in the U.K., in Australia, in the States. These ones are ones I picked out. Dr. Lovaas — I think that he, maybe, has got the most experience in providing cost-effective EIBI programs, but there are other studies universally.

I am not aware of any in B.C. There was one study that was done of B.C.'s own intensive therapy program, but that was done just after it was set up. I believe it was done by the operator of a private centre, and it was, I think, four or five years old, so it really did not give an accurate assessment of once the program was up and running.

I would be happy, actually, to provide the Clerk with other studies.

D. McRae: Please do so.

B. Routley: Good morning, Chris. Thank you for being here and giving us this comprehensive and outstanding report and background material. It's very helpful. Being a grandfather of a child with autism — my grandson, Gabriel, has autism — I certainly agree with you that early intervention…. All of the studies do show that the earlier children are assessed and are able to get the intervention, the better off they are.

[1015]

My question is about this early intensive behavioural intervention as compared to ABA. My daughter went through one called RBI — relationship behaviour intervention. You may or may not be familiar with that one. She seems to think that RBI is a good one.

There seem to be a lot of different ways to deal with kids with autism, and as you know, with this spectrum, not all children require the same level of intervention, but it certainly needs to be developed by the professionals.

I think you're on the right track in proposing that there needs to be early intervention, but I don't think just coming up with a number for every child the same is necessarily the way. Just your comment on that.

The challenge that we all face, I think, is trying to convince the public and the powers that be that the money we invest today actually does save money in the future. When you're dealing with social costs, the problem is that it doesn't have the same kind of appeal to public figures, I don't think, because the results are longer term. Just so you know, you and I face those challenges together.

Anyway, your comment on this early intensive behavioural intervention, and have you come to the conclusion that there is one model better than another, as compared to ABA and RBI?

C. McIntosh: No, I have not come to that conclusion. I think that there are a number of other therapies. ABA is one form of intensive therapy, but I think there are two different questions: what type of therapy do you want, and should it be intensive or not? I think that the research says pretty universally that whatever therapy you choose should be intensive but that there is no one therapy that works.

ABA certainly has the most studies behind it, and it can be very effective, but as the National Standards Report points out, there are a number of other therapies which are just as established and just as effective. So no, I would not want to see just one type of therapy funded, but the research shows that therapy should be intensive to be effective.

You're right. That's one challenge I did not put down. But yeah, long-term benefits for short-term expenses is definitely a challenge.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Chris, for your presentation this morning. It's very much appreciated by the members of the committee. That's all the time we have for your presentation.

We're now going to move back to Smithers. I understand that Brian Fuhr from the mental health and addictions advisory committee is standing by. If that's the case, Brian, the floor is yours.

B. Fuhr: Thank you very much. It's a great opportunity for us.

I'll explain that mental health and addictions advisory committees are mandated by the health authorities around the province. We are a group of often a dozen or so family members, consumers, as they are called — people who've been affected by mental health and addictions — and practitioners, generally out of the health authorities or somewhere in some professional field.

We're mandated to advise the health authorities on basically how to make the system work better, how to make improvements. We also have an advocacy role. I'm going to give you an example. I'll use mental illness as the example case that runs through the system and what happens. This is often intertwined with addictions anyway.

A serious mental illness will involve a gradual decline of an individual into paranoia, delusion, falling out of society, falling out of university or school or work, and then gradually becoming worse and worse, eventually becoming dysfunctional and not really contributing at all, and then entering the system in one way or another.
[ Page 784 ]

In terms of serious mental illness, about half of these people end up in the justice system. The justice system will process them through. They'll end up in Corrections or wherever. The other half of them are either on the street — and I'm sure you've heard lots of that in the papers — or in treatment or dead. There's a high rate of suicide — about one in ten.

[1020]

How many of these people are there out there? In general terms, about 3 percent of the population has serious mental illness. If you do the math on three in a hundred, there's a tremendous number of people out there with a lifelong disability, which in physical terms would be somewhere between a paraplegic and a quadriplegic. There are many more than that who have some degree of mental illness, but overall, only about one-quarter of people who are ill are known to the system — have actually got into the system. The other three-quarters are out there and costing government a great deal.

Who's really paying those costs? Well, the ministries are Attorney General, Children and Family Development, Health Services, Housing and Social Development, Public Safety and Solicitor General. In addition, in federal costs, the RCMP and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada are greatly affected. In addition to those direct budgetary costs, you have large economic and social costs, with people, families and communities affected.

Most of us volunteering on these committees got there somewhat involuntarily. Mental illness doesn't choose social rank. Many of us have family members involved. I'm a retired civil servant. There were periods when I was not at work. The taxpayer was paying. There were other periods when I was at work but not really there — right? It's a tough time for families and anyone who is already in the workplace to carry on while dealing with that kind of thing at home.

While many of those costs are indirect or hidden in the system, it's very easy in budgeting — and in health care specifically, I'm talking about — to not fund that kind of thing. I'm sure you'll hear that theme frequently.

We have three areas where our committee believes a relatively small investment could bring about a large saving in money that's currently being spent within these systems. The first is expert and timely intervention.

Now, in small northern communities we have very limited access to psychiatric care, so we're talking a psychiatrist — that is, someone with a high level of skills who can intervene and prescribe medicine. They're a medical doctor, not a psychologist, not a social worker. We get one in our community here, Smithers. Our committee covers about seven communities from Kitseguecla to the Hazeltons down through Houston. We have a psychiatrist for two days a month in our community.

There are many opportunities to intervene. The windows for intervention are short. They're when someone comes to interact with the RCMP or with the emergency services in the hospital, or interestingly, many interventions are by the clergy. If someone does not have the skills to intervene and change that, then the result is that they're back out on the street.

When I interview the police sergeant about their concerns and their interests, how they would like to improve the system, it's very clear that they're frustrated because they know that in another hour this person is going to be back out on the street again and that they're going to cycle again and again through the system. Every time that happens, every time they enter emerg or deal with a family doctor, our system pays for that, yet there's no real resolution that's coming about.

[1025]

The other situation is where you have long-term care, so you have someone who is in care, and they end up essentially on income assistance and with a chronic outlay of services and funds out of your system. In this case, it would be Children and Family Development and, in part, Health Services, with no one really to pick up that case and have the professional continuity to make help make that person a contributing member of society. So there's a lot of frustration amongst RCMP, doctors — in particular, between the medical system and the RCMP — around that.

The second area is that we believe there should be greater provincial leadership in the coordination of services. That's the coordination of existing services, both from the province and the federal government and the tremendous resource of volunteer service that's available with the community.

The reason why leadership is very important is that there is already a tremendous amount being spent, and many of the people in the field, people we talked to, don't believe that it is well coordinated.

Coordination often falls to people who are trained in other areas. They're not trained as facilitators, negotiators or people who are actually in the business of managing people and organizations. They have that role fall in their laps when they're actually trained to do something else, and of course they're not good at it. So I'm advocating on behalf of the committee that there be people specifically hired to make better use of the resources that are available. I believe, also, that we could leverage existing federal funds that go into health care or mental illness and addictions in that way.

The third area where there's lots of room for improvement is collaboration with First Nations. I'm sure it's provincewide, but it's particularly true in our northern communities, where we have large First Nation communities, often a third of our population, geographically separated — not very far, in some cases — also integrated within the community.

If you look across the volunteer committees, across the mental health advisory committees across the province, it's very difficult to see a native face or a native
[ Page 785 ]
presence in those things. They tend to have their own processes on their own when, in fact, we're the same community. There are a lot of opportunities there, and we think that given the direction that we see the province going in terms of collaborating with First Nations in integrating existing processes….

I come from a lands and resources background, with Pat Bell, in that ministry — land use planning — and we know that their direction is much more towards integrated social services things, in the same way that natural resource and land use areas are.

So with that, I'll leave it and open the floor to questions.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Brian.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Hi, Brian. Thanks for the presentation. It was well presented and well put and, I think, highlights some of the challenges we're facing in more rural areas and more isolated communities with mental health and addictions.

Two really quick questions. One, you talk about a small budget investment. I'm not sure if you have even a ballpark figure on that for the points you raise, in Stikine, anywhere in the north.

Secondly, regarding coordination, it was my experience in the Legislature this past year that there was a propensity to cut anything that said "coordinator" behind its title, because of a lack of understanding about the savings that coordinators can bring. You point that out well in point 2. So have you seen impacts of those kinds of budget cuts in what you're describing here?

[1030]

B. Fuhr: On the first — to give you a monetary number — no, I don’t. I don't know what a psychiatrist costs per year. I expect a quarter mill, something like that. I'm not sure what their wages are. I would contrast that with what it costs to keep someone in jail, in the judicial system, the penal system somewhere, for a year. Keeping several people out of jail, which serves punishment and serves no purpose whatsoever in treating someone who is mentally ill…. As I said, fully one-half of people with mental illness end up in that system unnecessarily — now, always a proportion will.

The second, as you say, is leadership. Indeed, we have seen a decline in the coordination and leadership. There have been the team leader positions in mental health, both in Hazelton and Smithers, that have been vacant for some time — over a year — and are just being filled again now. So it has been a challenge to keep that kind of leadership going — to keep staff motivated. You tend to have a lot of junior staff per cycle. It makes it very difficult for them to manage their caseloads.

I am speaking to a higher bar of leadership — leadership that is specifically trained to facilitate, negotiate and collaborate and bring agencies, organizations and communities closer. Two FTEs for small communities.

J. van Dongen: Thanks, Brian. A quick question. Under the law today we rely on people with mental illness and addictions to present themselves voluntarily. I know there's a fair bit of debate about the degree of persuasion that should be applied or could be applied. How much of a factor is that, in your view, in terms of doing a better job of dealing with the existing situation of this serious problem?

B. Fuhr: The difficulty in having them present themselves voluntarily is huge. You're dealing with someone who is very suspicious of authority, of systems, who often will not even willingly, voluntarily, go into an emergency department to get treatment for themselves.

The windows when those people come into contact with the system are usually a critical medical emergency or some kind of incident that brought them into contact with the RCMP. If there is no one available to intercept them at that point and redirect them through the Mental Health Act into involuntary treatment, medication and to move them into a path where they can be treated, they will re-cycle and you will pay again and again.

J. Les (Chair): All right. Thank you very much for the presentation this morning in a very important area of public policy.

We'll now invite you to play a little musical chairs, because if my information is correct, someone by the name of James Bourquin should be somewhere in the neighbourhood.

J. Bourquin: Hello. James Bourquin here. I'm assuming you have a copy of my presentation.

J. Les (Chair): Yes, we do.

J. Bourquin: Okay, great. I'll use that for notes and try to speak a little more directly.

I made a previous presentation on September 21, 2007, on behalf of Protect Our Ports Committee, which is an ad hoc organization that looks at our regional routes to prosperity and sustaining them. Back in 2004 we published a map — Sustaining our B.C. Routes to Prosperity — and that's basically looking at the transportation infrastructure between the Cassiar-Stikine region down through to Stewart and the other northwest B.C. ports. If we're going to have industrial development in the north, we need to look not only at our centralized power infrastructure but also the transportation systems to move the resources.

[1035]

Those would be threatened by similar infrastructure improvements going out to Alaska. We basically have a
[ Page 786 ]
situation where resources can either move north-south through British Columbia or east-west out to an Alaska port. The issue back in 2004 was the Bradfield Road. Now the issue is the Alaska-B.C. intertie and how that hooks up with the northwest transmission line.

The specific content of this presentation regards looking at our opportunity to do value-added when it comes to northwest B.C. copper production. The mine development plans that are being put through environmental assessment now are for digging up copper-gold concentrates and refining them to 30 percent copper concentrates and then trucking them to port and shipping them to Asia for smelting and refining.

What we could look at right now in northwest British Columbia is a value-added system where we actually take another look at how we transport these copper concentrates and, also, how we potentially refine and smelt them in northwest B.C.

So what I've been discussing around northwest B.C. with economic development authorities, city councils and basically anyone who would listen, including environmental groups, is that we develop a northwest B.C. citizens' initiative, where we would form a task force to look at the production of green copper in northwest B.C.

I think we're in a unique position right now to take real industrial action on climate change as opposed to cap-and-trade or other methods of dealing with climate change. We have an opportunity right now to produce some of the cleanest copper in the world, where the industrial steps in the process of making copper are done with electrical power — clean, green electrical power — as opposed to fossil fuels being used at every step of the production chain.

So by the end of my ten minutes here, I'd like to familiarize you with three different budget requests that are needed to move this idea forward.

The first one is to form a northwest B.C. citizens green copper task force. That would consist of a standing committee, which would put ideas together for a conference, and then the conference followed by next steps. So these would be northwest B.C. regional stakeholders, some expertise in different fields and also some oversight from levels of government, including the First Nations along the north-south linear corridor between the eight different proposed open-pit copper mines and the ports of Stewart and Kitimat.

This request for a task force was put into comments on the northwest transmission line that we need to look at the north-south linear corridor as a corridor for all sorts of infrastructure, not just the hydro power. It's also a chance to look at the industrial transport of copper concentrates, something we really haven't taken a look at yet as a province or as a region.

We're just accepting that each of these companies is going to put a lot of trucks on the road for the next 20 or 30 years. We haven't really looked at whether this is going to be a concurrent development or a sequential development. So there's this comment that's referenced there from the Cassiar Watch Society.

[1040]

The second reference is a letter from the town of Smithers, mayor and council, agreeing to support in principle the idea of a regional task force to investigate copper production. That's to investigate the social and environmental case for locating a copper refinery in northwest B.C. and to investigate the case for additional north-south linear industrial infrastructure as determined to be the most economical, social and environmentally feasible along the north-south highway corridor or the northwest transmission line corridor for the refining and manufacturing of copper.

There are at least ten slurry pipelines in the world now over 300 kilometres long between open-pit copper developments and ports. So it's the going technology. It's energy efficient and cost-efficient, and interestingly, it's very low carbon producing compared to, say, a company running 70 trucks every day back and forth between an open pit and a port. This could put all that heavy industry travel and transport into a slurry pipeline, which would also make the highways safe for the rest of the travelling public.

The second budget request is for a study that already exists. There's a group in Australia that's already put together a study which they are selling for $20,000. Basically they sell it to copper refineries, so that if you're the owner of a copper refinery or a production chain all the way from the open pit to the refinery, you can compare your operations to 90 different copper production chains around the world out of 120 that exist in the world. You can compare, mine by mine, your carbon emissions compared to these other production chains. What that gives you is a ranking, whether you're in the worst quartile or the best quartile in terms of reducing your carbon emissions or not having any carbon emissions.

I believe that in northwest B.C. we have the opportunity to produce some of the lowest carbon emission copper in the world and that this could give us a high-end market for certified green copper. Market certification is something that's done to differentiate one's product from the rest of the herd.

There are hundreds of millions of hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles that are being produced that require copper, and I think that's a market of consumers that aren't going to always want to be buying this dirty copper from Asia that's produced with high sulphur coal. If we were producing a clean copper in northwest B.C., I think there would be a ready, a niche market, for this low-carbon copper.

There's a $20,000 study already out there that I think would really help the task force look at the opportunity for northwest B.C.
[ Page 787 ]

The third line item is that I believe that B.C.'s provincial agencies and First Nations combined would need approximately a $200,000 budget to participate with the northwest B.C. citizens task force, both in terms of the expertise required and the government policy and oversight to move to a prefeasibility stage study, to look at the overall northwest B.C. green copper opportunity.

For instance, one area of investigation would be our B.C. carbon tax revenue policy — to review these policies, to look at how those revenue streams are spent by the province. To build and capitalize a copper smelter refinery at a northwest B.C. port could cost in the area of half a billion to a billion dollars, and a 300-kilometre long slurry pipeline could cost, perhaps, half a billion dollars.

[1045]

This is actually within the realm of the existing B.C. carbon tax revenues. The money that the province is collecting as a carbon tax could be put into capitalizing a fairly carbon-free industry, a primary industry to produce copper in northwest B.C. which could then be used for manufacturing goods that could be sold and certified as green copper and fetch a lot more on the market than what the dirty copper that's coming out of Asia is getting currently.

Some of the other studies that would need to be done under this $200,000 budget would be cost and timeline comparisons between…. Do we put the money into adding a third lane onto Highway 37 for the 500 or 600 industrial trucks a day that would be travelling up and down the highway, or do we put funds into a public-private slurry pipeline that moves the industrial traffic off the highway and into a buried pipe heading to a smelter or a refinery there in Stewart or Kitimat? Part of that study would be also to look at what port facility would be the best place to facilitate a smelter or refinery. Would that be Stewart, or would that be Kitimat?

So we need the expertise, and we need the budget to put together that sort of a pre-feasibility study. Other studies and priorities of studies also need to be determined by the task force and interagency participants. I believe those are the three line items that we would need in 2011 to move this value-added opportunity forward.

Otherwise, if we just go as is the base case coming out of the environmental assessments of the northwest transmission line and these individual open-pit copper mines, we're just going to concentrate our copper to 30 percent and then export that to Asian companies.

If we're going to really capture the most…. If we're going to find the wealth and prosperity we want from our raw resources, we have to look at the downstream manufacturing and downstream processing end of the overall copper production chain.

I think this is a visionary regional solution that's going to help us build our way out of our current economic downturn. It's a way to involve citizen action and stakeholder participation, and it's a way to gain the social licence that's required from First Nations and municipalities for any project to move forward.

I think this is a relatively small budget in comparison to the potential opportunity. A copper refinery could employ 400 people for the next 150 years, so that's a huge opportunity that we're really not taking a look at. I think it's something that the citizens of northwest B.C. need to be involved in right from the get-go, rather than wait for a large multinational corporation to come forward with their plan.

I think it's something that we should build a framework for, based on what we want as the receiving environment, so that it's the best it could possibly be, environmentally, socially and economically for northwest B.C.

I'd like to use the rest of the time for questions.

J. Les (Chair): I don't think there is, unfortunately. You've used up the entire 15 minutes. On behalf of the committee, thank you for that presentation.

We're now going to go back to Nanaimo, where I believe representatives from school district 79 are standing by to give us their presentation. I believe we will be hearing from Candace Spilsbury. If that's the case, please go ahead.

C. Spilsbury: Good morning. Yes, it's Candace Spilsbury, chair of the board of education for school district 79, Cowichan Valley.

The Cowichan Valley school district has a student population of 8,250 students in a region of approximately 52,000 people.

Within our district are the Cowichan Tribes, the largest and fastest-growing urban aboriginal group in British Columbia, if not in all of Canada. In addition, the Halalt First Nation, the Penelakut First Nation, the Chemainus First Nation, Lyackson First Nation, the Malahat First Nation, Lake Cowichan First Nation and members of the Métis Nation are within our boundaries. We have approximately 1,500 aboriginal children in our schools.

[1050]

Our financial situation is bleak. The Cowichan Valley school district is one of many districts in B.C. whose funding has been frozen at the 2008-09 funding levels for a second year — in our case, at approximately $72.5 million for operating costs.

Our school district, like most districts in the province, is suffering from chronic underfunding as we struggle with inadequate funding for inflationary costs and downloaded costs from the provincial government.

The board had to make compromises in our classrooms and with our facilities in order to balance our 2010-11 budget. This year we have reduced services and choice for our students. Often the students most affected
[ Page 788 ]
by this underfunding are our most vulnerable students. This year we have made significant cuts to our transportation budget, making access to our programs of choice more difficult. We have an aging infrastructure that is becoming increasingly more expensive to maintain.

As we all know, education is the foundation of a healthy, vibrant society. We must educate our children to be literate, socially conscious and productive citizens prepared for the 21st century. We can only ensure that these goals are achieved through adequate resources for public education.

Make no mistake. We are proud of our education system, of the achievements of our students. With other B.C. students, our students rank among the highest in the world in student achievement. However, we are making drastic cuts around our classrooms to continue this excellence.

Our board has worked hard to minimize the impact of these funding pressures on students. Administrative costs have been reduced, and we continue to explore shared-service opportunities. We worry, however, that ongoing reductions in support services, in school- and district-based leadership and infrastructure will have long-term negative impacts on student achievement and the health of the public education system as well.

The operational funding the school district receives from the Ministry of Education does not keep up with inflation or the costs associated with initiatives and agreements.

Inadequate capital funding means that we cannot replace a school in the rural community of Lake Cowichan, a school that we were forced to close due to mould. Even though our school district, in partnership with the town of Lake Cowichan, identified that the replacement of this school is our top priority, we have received no funding.

Besides mitigating the impacts of funding shortages on the system as it currently exists, we want to look to the future and the kind of education system required to prepare today's and tomorrow's students for success throughout the 21st century. Emerging trends on how education is delivered and changing expectations of students and parents for increased choice and the integration of technology challenge all levels of our system.

While it is true that the solutions to these challenges are not totally dependent on funding, implementing new models of education will undoubtedly cost more. For example, increased use of technology brings some efficiencies in the delivery of education, but it also brings a high overhead of building and maintaining the necessary infrastructure.

As a result, the Cowichan Valley school district urges the province to provide adequate, predictable funding for education in British Columbia. Specifically, we recommend to the province to fully fund decisions made at the provincial level that affect school districts, including provincially negotiated wage increases for teachers and support staff, any increased pension and benefit costs, full-day kindergarten implementation, our new mandate for boards to be responsible for early and late literacy programs throughout adult to super adult, legislative limits on class size and composition.

Just a comment. We agree that these limits are necessary in order for all students to succeed, but we do not have sufficient funding to make it a reality. You may be familiar with this requirement, called Bill 33.

[1055]

Finally, in the decisions made at the provincial level aspect, the BCeSIS program…. It is the expectation from the ministry that we will use this electronic system for data recording of information regarding our students' programs and services. We agree that it is acceptable, as we need an information system.

Unfortunately, BCeSIS is very expensive and complex to use. The costs of the program and labour are more than districts can afford, and this needs to be fully funded by the government. To date, since our implementation in 2005, we have spent $1.3 million just on program and labour to implement this system. And finally, the carbon tax and other green initiatives that are coming provincially.

Secondly, we recommend that the province fully fund inflationary costs for goods, services and energy. You can give many examples of increased costs as you go through personal and professional budgeting. I can just comment on books and materials, which are the tools of the education system, and we all know these costs are dramatically increasing.

Our third recommendation is to adequately fund maintenance of our aging buildings. Our buildings need a great deal of attention, as they are basically wearing out over time. We need funding to adequately keep them in proper shape.

Our fourth recommendation is to increase funding for capital purposes in order that we can replace our deteriorated, outdated buildings for education in the 21st century.

I submit this to you respectfully on behalf of the board of education, school district 79, Cowichan Valley.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much.

B. Routley: Good morning, Candace, and thank you for the work that you do on behalf of the citizens in the Cowichan Valley.

Certainly, we're aware that throughout the province school districts have brought forward their concerns to this committee regarding shortfalls in budgets. For example, I know that transportation and school replacement issues are being brought to my office on a regular basis, certainly, from people in Lake Cowichan and that kind of thing.

Could you give me some ideas on…? I know you've outlined a number of areas, but the success budget:
[ Page 789 ]
what was the difference between the compliance budget and…? I think your school district came in with a number on what success would look like — in other words, if we had done all of the things that we would have liked to have done to keep pace with the educational needs in the Cowichan Valley.

C. Spilsbury: Thank you, our MLA. We're encouraged to see you as part of this committee and appreciate your work in our community.

The difference in the budget was $15 million between what we received from the Education Ministry and what we feel is needed in order to respond adequately to education within our community for our students and, of course, for our mandates beyond the K-to-12 program.

B. Routley: I understand that the transportation budget has been frozen for some time, and I know that there have been constituents raising concerns about that as well — long travel times for kids. Could you elaborate a bit on that?

C. Spilsbury: Yes, the transportation budget has been frozen for a number of years. In fact, I don't remember the last time that it was increased, and I'm talking at least six years, probably more than that. It has been under review from the Ministry of Education for a very long time, a number of years. We are constantly told when we come forward with our concerns that it is under review, but we, in fact, have never received any response to that review.

The transportation is really difficult. As you know, we live in a rural community. We have buses going into areas where there are no sidewalks as part of the norm and long distances between houses. We have been forced to establish bus stops where children need to walk distances, and when they're little, there are a lot of concerns. I'm sure you're hearing those in your constituency office.

[1100]

We've also got walk limits that are two kilometres for little ones and 3.5 for older students. Sometimes when you're in traffic areas or you're in isolated areas, that is a real concern for parents.

Also we have schools of choice, and those choices are important to parents. To not be able to provide the choice that parents are demanding now is a concern. It means that we're not giving access to programs for students.

So transportation is a big issue. This year we cut $350,000 out of our transportation budget in order to not take it out of the classrooms. So you can understand that it is significant for us.

J. Les (Chair): I have one final question from Don McRae.

D. McRae: Thank you very much. I think you do a good example of showing how the system can actually do very much good with some limited funds. As a high school teacher myself, I know it could use more dollars. But the challenge is that as MLAs, we often have people saying: "We want more services, but we also want low taxes."

In this particular case with education, the fix is hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars, with some estimates. The challenge is: where do we find those dollars?

Do you have any recommendations? Do you think the public is willing to pay more in taxation, or do you think the public wishes to have cuts in other areas to fund these changes?

C. Spilsbury: I think the public wishes the government to set different priorities than they currently have. I think they want education to be raised higher in the rank order of priorities for dollars.

Children are our future. They are the stability, the productivity, the health of communities. We need to put our priorities there. And yes, I think that not only would people be wanting that priority-setting to move education up, but also I think they're willing to put some additional dollars in.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Candace, for your presentation this morning.

We're now going to go back to Smithers, and I believe we are to hear from Heidi Westfall. Maybe the reporter there can verify whether she's on her way. Yes, there she is.

Good morning.

H. Westfall: Good morning. Thank you for having me. I will first apologize that I was only confirmed yesterday, so if, after this, you would like to have a written summary or references, I'd be happy to send those in to the appropriate people. If there isn't anything to start, then I'll just get going.

J. Les (Chair): You're front and centre. Away you go.

H. Westfall: Fantastic. I live in Smithers. I'm a direct stakeholder in the business community, and I'm also a resident angler. I'm here today as an independent to speak about the wild salmon and steelhead fisheries on the Skeena watershed system.

The steelhead and salmon fisheries to the Skeena watershed, not counting ocean fisheries or commercial, in direct revenue annually bring in just over $52 million. This is the most sustainable, renewable, wonderful asset that B.C. has. The Skeena watershed is one of the longest in North America. It's also one of the largest watersheds that feed the Pacific Ocean, which, of course, is a major part of B.C.'s geography and also its economy.

I'm here today to point out and, hopefully, bring a little bit more consciousness to what happens and where
[ Page 790 ]
the funds are directed from the angling licences and the additional steelhead stamps as well as classified waters fees that anglers pay.

In 1990 the B.C. government introduced a classified waters fee. This fee was to try and space out anglers during prime time, which would alleviate pressure on the river and increase a quality angling experience. As well, that money was to be brought in for habitat, conservation, education.

[1105]

In 2005 the province started a quality water strategy because it was felt that there was too much angling pressure on certain portions of the Skeena watershed and it was deterring from a positive angling experience. Even though between 1990 and 2005 the angler numbers did not increase, there were concerns about overcrowding.

In 2008 the Ministry of Environment started a process which resulted in an angling management plan, or an AMP, for the Skeena watershed. This plan basically set about to define the number of angler days for specific rivers that are tributaries and the main Skeena stem. It was also to define the set number of guided rod days on the Skeena watershed system. It was also put in place to place limits on locations of angling, place restrictions on licensing and to classify waters according to their importance for steelhead angling.

Between 1992 and 2008 — I have to apologize; trying to glean information out of Victoria was fairly limited in the last few days — there have been over 360,000 angler days on the Skeena watershed system. And from 1966 they have been collecting money for steelhead tags. As of 1990 they've been collecting money for classified waters tags.

Our concern, as direct stakeholders as well as anglers, is that this money that was put in place to help regulate, conserve and create a healthy fishery does not seem to be coming back to the Skeena watershed system at all.

I have to apologize; I couldn't find any numbers from Victoria on just the exact amount that has been brought in over the years from these steelhead stamps and from classified waters fees. The only place I could find information was in Oregon, and they know that the number in 2008 for classified waters fees was over $7 million. None of that money, to the best of our knowledge, has been returned to the local watershed system.

Now, steelhead stamp revenues and classified waters revenues go to an organization called the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund, which is administered by a board of directors who are supposed to be impartial. They are supposed to administer these funds back into the local watersheds where they are collected from, and it is not happening.

We are one of the world's foremost fly-fishing destinations, and we experience heavy angling use, but it is a simple problem that could be eliminated by better access through boat launch, angler education and habitat restructuring.

My presentation today is nothing more than to ask if the standing Finance Committee could find a way to figure out just how much revenue is being generated from the licensing, additional stamps and fees that anglers pay — where this money is going and why it is not coming back into our local watersheds to help sustain this fabulous resource and this fabulous economic drive that gives the Skeena watershed, its communities and people some stability.

J. Les (Chair): All right. Thank you very much. I've actually got a couple of questions for you. One is from Doug Donaldson.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Hi there, Heidi. Thanks for the articulate presentation. I have two, perhaps three, quick questions.

First, can you give the committee members an idea of how much the angling licence is and then how much the additional stamps for steelhead and the classified waters stamps as well, just so that we have a better idea of potential revenue generated from that.

H. Westfall: Sure.

[1110]

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Secondly, I know that in your business interests, you were a former owner of a restaurant and pub that benefited greatly from the sport-fishing sector, the wild salmon and steelhead. Can you give an idea of just the kind of importance that was to your business, the percentage it played in that form of business?

H. Westfall: Sure. To address your first question, in 1966 a steelhead tag cost $2 for a resident and $5 for a non-resident, and that was an annual tag. As of 2008 a steelhead tag costs a resident angler $25 a year and $60 for a non-resident angler. Classified waters in…. I don't have a starting number. I couldn't, unfortunately, find that anywhere. But in 2003, the last report that MOE has on line, the classified waters was a $15 annual fee. For class 2 waters, which means some available direct access, it was $20 a day, and for class 1 it was $40 a day. Now, the per-day charges are for non-residents.

To give you an idea of the financials of this, as a resident angler purchasing an annual licence with classified waters, a salmon tag and a steelhead tag, my licence comes to, I believe, $96 before tax.

We had a longtime fishing client visit us this year. He was in a guided lodge for two weeks, which meant he spent in excess of $7,500 U.S. per week to be guided. In addition to that, he had to pay just over $800 for angling licences to fish those two weeks as a non-resident angler. So the economic impact is huge.

Now, the amount of resident anglers still highly outweighs non-residents and non-resident aliens — the dif-
[ Page 791 ]
ference being non-residents are non-residents of B.C.; non-resident aliens are non-residents of Canada. But both standings of non-residents pay the same licensing.

As far as the second question goes, I am still a direct stakeholder. I have a secondary business, but it is not as public as the restaurant-pub business. But sport-fishing, steelhead anglers accounted for almost 40 percent of our business, and between September 1 and October 30 we would generate the majority of our revenue for a year.

Sport-fishing and steelheaders contribute almost $500 per day, and that's above and beyond what they would pay to be guided. So between licences, fees, hotels, transportation, meals and shopping, each individual outside angler coming into a community is putting over $500 a day into our local economies.

They are incredibly important. They are great conservationists; they are great stewards of our rivers. A lot of them become homeowners. We're finding that more and more people who have come to fish and visit and hunt here over the years are becoming residents themselves, coming to retire, coming to have second homes, coming to invest in businesses. So they are a crucial part of not only our economy but of our communities.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you.

J. van Dongen: Thank you, Heidi, for your presentation and for reminding us of the great benefits of wise use of our natural resources, both the economic benefits and the social and recreational benefits.

Two questions. Is it your understanding that these funds from licences and tags are to be directed through the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund and used specifically in the areas that they came from? Is that your understanding?

The second question is: have you looked at annual reports of the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund or approached them to determine the disbursement of these funds?

H. Westfall: To answer the first question, it is my understanding that a portion of the revenues collected from classified waters and specifically from steelhead tags is to be redirected into the stream which it was purchased for.

[1115]

I have not contacted the Habitat Conservation Trust directly. I have asked for information and am in the process of trying to receive some information from Victoria. I will continue to do research on this. I do know firsthand that last year there was a proposal made to the Habitat Conservation Trust for a Skeena tributary, for habitat enhancement, and they were flatly denied — no explanation, no recourse.

Our biggest thing is that we have over 300 miles of roadways that parallel the main Skeena stem and its tributaries. This is a highly accessible river, and it could be a wonderful opportunity for people to get out there and enjoy it. But there is such limited access that it is causing overcrowding in specific areas, which is why they have implemented the angling management plan.

Yet through that, all they have done is impose more restrictions but not given any merit to increasing access through things like boat launches. There is no mandate for angler education, which is a huge part of the angling experience as far as fish handling, river etiquette, even fish identification. Personally, as far as I'm concerned, to get an angling licence as a B.C. resident or a non-resident you should have to take a test, just like you do to get your hunting licence. It is important that people understand how valuable this resource is.

There was a report commissioned in 2008 that showed very clearly that the lower river system had 60 percent of the anglers. The upper river portion, where we are here in Smithers, on the Bulkley and its smaller tributaries, only gets 10 percent to 12 percent of the angling population. It really shows us that there is an opportunity to spread people out and increase angling options through education and access.

J. Les (Chair): All right, we're out of time, Heidi. Thank you very much for your presentation. If you have further information, please do feel free to send it in to the Committee Clerk.

It's my understanding that we now have Dave Jones standing by, also from Smithers. Good morning.

D. Jones: Good morning. Are you ready for me?

J. Les (Chair): Ready when you are.

D. Jones: Okay, great. I guess I somewhat naively have entered this foray to present my comments. They are based basically on observations made by my wife and myself after having lived in the Smithers area for the past three years.

I'm going to speak specifically to some of our spending priorities and the need, perhaps, for a shift within those spending priorities from a couple of things to a couple of other things. These are just general comments, and again, they're based on just observations.

I would like to see some of our spending priorities shift from new highway projects and highway upgrades. Spending on highway maintenance is required, obviously, but new highway projects and upgrades, I think, are superfluous now. I'd like to also see some of the spending on subsidies to the mining and the oil and gas sectors within B.C. maybe trimmed back a bit, especially with regard to their infrastructure assistance.

Some of the priorities I'd like to see the shift go to would be a revitalization and modernization of the agricultural sector, especially with the need to address the
[ Page 792 ]
recent Auditor General's report on the Agricultural Land Commission and their funding shortfalls.

[1120]

I would also like to see some money shifted to stimulating destination tourism within our region and within B.C., beginning with a funding injection to B.C. Parks, specifically dealing with the trailer and campsite upgrades required at our B.C. parks.

Thirdly, we need to strengthen funding for our social services, our family services and our community services. A general comment is that there are still just too many tragic stories being generated within our communities. I think that that sector needs an injection of money to address those tragic stories.

Those are really just my only comments.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Dave.

I have a question from Norm Letnick.

N. Letnick: Hello, Dave. Thank you for coming, and thank you to and your wife — to sit down and go through that list. It was refreshing to hear that you took the time to look at what we are funding and where the money should go. Thank you for doing that.

If you can enlighten me a little bit. What specifically are you referring to when you say incentives or funding for the oil and gas sector that you'd like to see curtailed and moved over to the other priorities that you've mentioned?

D. Jones: Well, this is my understanding of the oil and gas sector and the mining sector. Both are after subsidy money for infrastructure, be it roads, power lines or whatnot. To be honest, I don't know the specific numbers. I'm not up to speed on that. The hair on my neck goes up whenever I hear that money is going to be given to those sectors, because they seem to get enough subsidies as it is.

I don't mind paying more money at the pump or more money elsewhere if that's where the money needs to come from, but I don't want to see it going directly to them. That's all.

N. Letnick: Okay. So just to be sure, you're talking about the infrastructure necessary for the companies to do their work, like roads and transmission lines. You're not talking about specific, direct subsidies to the businesses.

D. Jones: Well, whatever funding subsidies seem to be the greatest, seem to be unnecessary…. You know, again, I would have to be more enlightened as to where the money's going.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation, Dave. It's refreshing to have someone who's not specifically representing an organization to have put some thought into the budget for next year. Thanks for that.

I'm interested in a couple of the points you made, both around the Agricultural Land Commission and B.C. Parks. Both, as you alluded to, were pointed out in recent Auditor General's reports as areas that were underfunded to the point that neither could carry out its legislative mandate.

As far as the ALC, you've introduced comments around revitalization of the agriculture sector. Could you elaborate a bit more on what you would see as some revitalization opportunities up where we live?

Then secondly, B.C. Parks. Could you talk a bit more about what opportunities lie there as far as attracting more tourists and tourism dollars?

D. Jones: Very quickly, then, with respect to the Agricultural Land Commission. My wife and I just purchased a quarter section of agricultural land, and in dealing with the Agricultural Land Commission process to subdivide it, we had to deal with a local committee, the regional committee and then the Agricultural Land Commission itself in Vancouver.

There seems to be this archaic view of what agricultural land is in British Columbia, and I think that needs to be addressed. I think the Agricultural Land Commission would like to address that itself in terms of its planning needs, but I just don't think they have the money to revitalize their plan structures and to move that forward.

We're specifically looking at local food security issues, generating food from within our region to provide people with food within our region. I think that sort of farming…. That part of the farming sector needs some strengthening.

I think the Agricultural Land Commission needs to be, somehow, more integrated with the Ministry of Agriculture to provide for those needs. I could go on about this, because the process of subdividing within the ALR and the ALC is quite cumbersome. But that requires some time to discuss.

[1125]

As far as B.C. Parks goes, I've done a lot of skiing and hiking and canoeing within B.C. parks over the last few years. I was on a canoe trip this summer on the Nanika Lake system near here. It's a new park. The system itself is beautiful. It's wonderful. It's attracting visitors from all over Canada. It's just that it needs some money. The system itself is not great. There are issues with the trails, the campsites, the safety issues regarding bear problems. I think that visitors to B.C. and to those parks have seen that, and they would appreciate a little bit of money with that infrastructure to make it a world-class destination instead of a lagging and somewhat decrepit system.

I think the money that's required within B.C. Parks is in the field and on the ground — not necessarily a top-down approach, that's for sure.
[ Page 793 ]

J. van Dongen: Thanks very much, Dave, for your presentation. I'm just wondering. One wouldn't normally associate the agricultural use of land in the agricultural land reserve with a subdivision. I'm just wondering if you could tell the committee the purpose of your subdivision. I think it's an interesting issue you raise. I just want to understand it a bit better.

D. Jones: No problem. The land that we purchased, although in the agricultural land reserve, is without a doubt 100 percent not agricultural land. Although I have a desire…. I come from a farming background. My wife is from Saskatchewan, and she has a farming background. We would like to be able to provide food for ourselves and to provide food, perhaps, for retail — let's say the farmers market — but we don't need 160 acres to do that, especially this particular 160 acres. All we would need is 30 acres, and that's almost impossible to find, apparently, with the current system.

We wanted to subdivide a portion of our property. Now, that would give us an opportunity to not only farm the piece that we need to farm but also to generate a little bit of income, because land prices right now are so expensive that it makes it prohibitive for a small farmer to get established and to make a little bit of income and to provide money for their family.

It's a multilayered issue here. It's the cost of land; it's the use of land. Like I say, there are different farming needs. We don't want to have cattle, which is what the current system is all geared for. They want larger parcels of land to provide so-called sustainable farming opportunities. It's just not addressing the current needs and the projected needs of food security within our region and within our province.

J. Thornthwaite: Thanks, Dave. I appreciate your interest in sustainable agriculture. Just a quick question. I know that the Ministry of Agriculture is right now receiving submissions and interest specifically on the topic of the Agricultural Land Commission. Have you sent in a submission directly to them?

D. Jones: I haven't, but I will now that I know about it. I'm not up on everything. Like I said, it's somewhat naive of me to present this, but it's just based on observations. But I definitely will be submitting something.

J. Thornthwaite: Yeah, directly to the Ministry of Agriculture would be good.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Dave. Be assured that no presentation is naive. We very much appreciated yours.

If my information is correct, our next presentation is also from Smithers. Trevor Johnson is next on tap.

T. Johnson: Good morning. I'm going to bring you back to mental health, if I can. It's been asked that I give my personal story in the hope to get the real numbers or effect of mental health here in the valley.

[1130]

My youngest son developed schizophrenia at 14. That was 12 years ago. My wife spent 35 years in the early childhood development programs and was an executive in that — the child development. So we knew about intervention and utilizing and accessing local help.

We went through the school system of counsellors and vice-principals. We hired a psychologist. No one that we'd seen could discover what was wrong with our troublesome youth. This young fellow up until then had been what I would call an ideal son. Last time I had a good talk with him, when he was 14, he expressed his desire to pitch for the Canadian softball Olympic team. It was his goal. Unfortunately, then the schizophrenia kicked in.

We finally asked a local pediatrician out of desperation what he thought might be wrong with our son. He discovered that he was depressed to the point of ridiculousness. He couldn't figure out why, so he did arrange for a meeting with a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist didn't find anything particularly wrong with him. We went from that psychiatrist to a number of professionals who would tell us he wasn't sick enough, he wasn't bad enough and that sort of thing.

We managed to drag him through high school so that he could get some incredible cooperation from the principal at the alternative school, who helped him to get his grade 12. The situation did not improve. He was unable to work or, in our minds, function very properly in normal society.

We sold our property and moved. That seemed to be the catalyst to bring on the psychosis of the schizophrenia. Since then we've been dealing with all forms of mental health here in Smithers and Terrace — anything else we could find.

I'm no expert on schizophrenia, except on how it applies to my son. We discovered, and we weren't surprised, that early intervention was the key. Now, this would have been really good to know back when he was 14 or 15. By the time we actually got the diagnosis as schizophrenia, he was an adult. Now, as an adult, he's in charge of his own health, and his mom and dad have no say. Needless to say, he didn't get much in the way of help.

This current situation, in our minds, costs you money. There are two ways to go on the road to recovery for mental illness: early detection, treatment started rapidly, short duration of untreated psychosis, continual treatment. We went the rocky road: late detection, treatment started late, long duration of untreated psychosis, interrupted treatment.

It was about this time that he started breaking the law with the use of street drugs, as they have to shut up the voices in their head some way or another, and they will, whether it be with the street drugs or blowing their heads off or whatever they do. They are not in their right
[ Page 794 ]
mind, and they have no business making up their own medical treatments.

We would continue down this smoother road of optimal treatment, medication, individual counselling, family supports like treatment and information, supportive social network. All these things are out there and in place, but if we don't use them, they are useless. You're paying for nothing.

[1135]

We have continued down this rocky road, I'll call it, to the point where I don't hold much hope now for my son. But I sure hope that other families in the future who come across this problem could find their way onto a smoother road. This is nothing new — one in a hundred people afflicted throughout the globe. The governments have been dealing with this for as long as they can remember.

I remember the days of Essondale and things like that, and the governments have chosen to go down different routes. Me and my family have to say: "Well, they're on the wrong road now."

As I said, my wife was an executive director with the child development centre, dealing with special needs children. I've been to these locations, and I've spoken with these special needs children. If you have the opportunity to go to one of those facilities — especially in Nanaimo, I would recommend — you'll see that the children are welcome there, they're at home there, and they don't even feel special needs there.

This is the kind of situation that must be made available to these people with mental illness. You can't properly treat them in a jail or in a courtroom. This is a waste of your money and ours, and as Brian pointed out earlier, punishing them will get you nothing. They don't get it.

My wife, like I said, was an executive director with the child development centre. She did God's work with many children and families. She's unable now to continue her work. That costs people and families here in the valley. I fought the beast until I had a heart attack. Now I'm on long-term disability. This costs the society in which we live. Doing it the right way would have minimized all of that and would have given us some hope for our son.

As I say, it's been my experience that most of these situations are quite unique for the individual involved, so I'm only an expert on my son. But that was a beautiful child. He had a lot of potential, and we've lost it all. I don't think it was necessary, and I don't think it's what our system is wanting to produce.

I have since followed my son — now he's 25 — into the dregs of society where he's gone for and found some kind of what he thinks is acceptance and friendship. What he has found and is getting involved with is the Willie Picktons of the world. That is where our system is leading these sad, defenceless people.

I don't think I can make it any clearer than that. That's what's costing you money. I don't even think we are asking for money. I think we're asking for the money to be implemented properly and save you a ton of money in the criminal aspect.

The other thing I need to make clear is that I've met many people now on the front lines who are there because they have had family in this situation and they want to help. The system's not allowing them to help. You have police officers who would like to enforce the law and protect the citizens of the valley, and they're out there being forced to shoot down what they know are innocent, sad victims of a failing system.

[1140]

Like I say, I am hoping that other families don't have this. This is destroying our family. I'd like to see that it doesn't carry on. I would sure like to give those vice-principals at high schools, who have to deal with these, and policemen on the streets who are forced to deal with this…. This is not right. It's not their job, and they're not able to do it properly.

I think that's all I have to say.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Trevor.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Hello, Trevor, and thanks for the courage to come and make the presentation that you did. I know that we've talked, and I'm up to speed on your family situation that you described. But to actually come and make that presentation, to put a human face on it for the committee members, for us — I applaud you on your courage with that.

What is even more concerning is the fact that you and your wife are very agent members of society and know how to access the kinds of services that are out there, so it's even more problematic that you weren't able to get the results that you desired and that would have put your son on potentially a much healthier track.

My question. You talked about the right way for how things need to be done in the future to help other families. Would those be the points that we heard earlier in the presentation from Brian Fuhr, around timing intervention, leadership, collaboration? Is that, in your opinion, what the right way is? And is there anything else you want to add to that?

T. Johnson: Yes, that’s very true, what he said there. The situation we have that's most affected here in Smithers is that the mental health offices are by the courtroom. This is pitiful. The clients do not want and are not going to seek help at a courthouse. As I was saying with the special needs kids, they are at home, they are welcome, and they know that this place is their place. You have to have the same thing for those mentally ill people. They can't go into a courthouse or a police station. They won't. They just won't.

B. Routley: Good morning, Trevor, and thank you for being here. I certainly very much appreciate your courage
[ Page 795 ]
in coming forward and advocating on behalf of mental health and in regard to special needs and, certainly, other forms of illness that involve brain injuries or, as in your son's case, a mental illness that clearly wasn't diagnosed or treated in a way that you agree with.

Can you kind of identify for me what you think could have prevented some of this? You talked about early intervention, and they didn't seem to get to the bottom of it. Was there difficulty for you and your family in finding proper assessment or referral to the right kinds of sources to get a proper assessment? Do we need to do more work on assessment of individuals at an early age?

We know that early intervention definitely changes lives. Were there just not enough choices for you in terms of early intervention? Is that what you're saying?

T. Johnson: Thank you for hitting the nail right on the head. It's the assessments. In order to get an assessment for mental health, or anyone else, to find out what they're dealing with, we had to bribe, cheat and trick FAS/E into doing an assessment. We had to say our son was FASD to get an assessment done, in which case, then, the mental health organizations couldn't ignore the fact that a psychologist had said: "He needs help." Up until that time there was no assessment, and there was just lip service. There again, he's not that enough; he's not this enough; he hasn't killed anybody.

J. van Dongen: Thank you, Trevor, for your personal story. It always helps to have a story like that to illustrate the issues.

[1145]

I wanted to follow up on the question that Doug asked you about the location of mental health services and facilities. I thought I understood that you said the courthouse is not a good location for mental health services or workers. I guess I had thought that that would be one point of intervention, but you're saying that they should be located away from courthouses, or maybe in both places.

I understand. I certainly get that a lot of the resources currently going into policing could be better focused on helping people with mental illness. I mean, we're dealing very often with the same client group. But if you could just clarify how to locate the services and people in the best way possible to get people to come and use them.

T. Johnson: No problem. There's a group in town now, the Grendel Group. They've been working on this for years. They've got a building fund established, and they've got lots of money in it. They don't have enough to build a building, but they are working very hard to get there. They understand the problem with adult mental illness.

Off the top of my head, the rent that mental health is paying in the courthouse could be put with the Grendel Group in order to build a building, so if the police have a person that they figure is under mental stress or having psychosis, they can take him there. They don't need to take him to a police station. They don't need to take him to the emergency. They can take him to a place where they understand his problem.

The club community groups, the patients getting together and helping each other would be greatly improved if they were happy with the place they've got to go to. Like I say, I've immersed myself quite a bit in my son's world. Most of those people like him are paranoid and cannot go to a place like a courthouse expecting to get any kind of help. They don't trust anybody. It has to be a building.

The sick part, the sad part — and I can't stress it enough — is that more and more people like my son are going into these lousy locations, and the people who victimize those people are well aware of the goldmine they've got and are happy as heck to feed on them at will.

J. van Dongen: Just to be sure, then, you don't envision any services available at a courthouse? You see no merit in that idea?

T. Johnson: No, I don’t.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Trevor. We appreciate you doing that.

I believe that concludes our presenters this morning, so at this point we stand adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 11:48 a.m.

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