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

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

9 a.m.

Summit Room

Coast Inn of the North, Prince George, 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; John Rustad, MLA; Jane Thornthwaite, MLA; John van Dongen, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 8:59 a.m.

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

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

4. The Committee adjourned at 12:57 p.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

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Issue No. 30

ISSN 1499-4178

[ Page 855 ]

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2010

The committee met at 8:59 a.m.

[J. Les in the chair.]

J. Les (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is John Les. I'm the MLA for Chilliwack and Chair of this committee. I'd like to welcome everyone who is already here and thank you for taking the time to participate in this important process.

Each year in preparation for the oncoming year's budget, the Minister of Finance releases a budget consultation paper by September 15. That paper presents a current fiscal forecast and identifies key issues that need to be addressed in the next budget. The paper provides a focus for the consultations of this committee and includes information on how members of the public may provide their views on budget priorities. Printed copies of that consultation paper are available on the information table at the back of the room.

Our committee is the parliamentary committee which is responsible for conducting public consultations on the forthcoming provincial budget. The all-party committee is required to report back to the Legislative Assembly no later than November 15 of this year.

[0900]

We will be holding 14 public hearings in all, in each region of the province. We've also scheduled three video conferencing sessions to hear from residents of rural communities living in the more remote areas of the province.

We started our hearings in Vancouver, in Surrey, on the week of September 20, and the following week we travelled to Lake Country, Penticton, Kamloops, Cranbrook and Castlegar. Last week we were in Whistler. We also did some video conferencing sessions from Nanaimo, Haida Gwaii and Smithers. This week we are visiting Fort St. John, Prince George, Terrace and Courtenay before we return to Victoria for more video conferencing sessions with Fernie, Golden, Creston, Merritt, Vernon and Port McNeill. Our last public hearing will be in Abbotsford next week.

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 and e-mail and also video and audio files. Further information on how anyone may participate, using one of these methods, is available on our website.

Committee members carefully consider all of 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 audio or video clips. Our deadline to receive submissions is Friday, October 15.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for ten minutes, with up to five additional minutes allotted for members' questions. I would note that we have a very full day today. We also have a very full schedule for this particular meeting, so there will be no benevolence exercised by the Chair. We have to rigidly adhere to the schedule. Time permitting — and at this point there looks like there might be five or ten minutes — there will be an open-mike session near the end of this hearing, with five minutes allocated for each presentation.

Today's meeting is a public meeting. It will be recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services. 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 am now going to ask the members of the Finance Committee to introduce themselves, starting with Bill.

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

B. Ralston: Bruce Ralston, MLA for Surrey-Whalley.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Doug Donaldson, MLA for Stikine. Welcome, everybody. I'm the Deputy Chair.

M. Mungall: Michelle Mungall, MLA for Nelson-Creston.

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

J. Rustad: John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes.

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

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

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

J. Les (Chair): Also with us, to my immediate right, is our Committee Clerk, Susan Sourial. Heather Warren is staffing the registration desk at the back, and our Hansard staff with us today are Michael Baer and Jean Medland.

With those introductions, etc., out of the way, I will now start the presentation list and invite Tim McEwan from Initiatives Prince George to take the floor.

Good morning, Tim.
[ Page 856 ]

Presentations

T. McEwan: Good morning, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide some thoughts on the forthcoming 2011-2012 budget cycle.

By way of background, Initiatives Prince George Development Corp. is the economic development authority for Prince George. In full partnership with our sole shareholder, the city of Prince George, our organization works to build Prince George's synergy with the vast service space over the northern two-thirds of British Columbia as a sustainable knowledge-based resource economy connected to the world.

As the largest, and hub, city in northern British Columbia, Prince George stands at the crossroads of the world's great economies of the Asia-Pacific and the United States. Our staggering resource endowment locally and regionally is required by the global marketplace, and our international city stands right in the middle of one of the world's fastest-emerging supply chains.

Prince George has recently been identified as a top-rate place to do business in an independent report by KPMG, the highly respected international accounting and consulting firm. Their study, the 2010 Competitive Alternatives report, identifies Prince George as the No. 1 ranked city among 13 surveyed in the report's United States–Canada Pacific category for overall cost competitiveness, based on an assessment of 17 sectors and 26 location-sensitive cost factors.

I want to clearly point out that Prince George's leading competitive position in this well-regarded report on cost competitiveness didn't happen on its own. It is instead the direct result of deliberate choices and actions of our local government and senior governments.

[0905]

For example, the city of Prince George has adopted a very balanced approach to local property taxation, while both the government of Canada and the government of British Columbia have undertaken deliberate and painstaking efforts over the last decade to incrementally reduce corporate and personal income taxes.

The harmonized sales tax is a complementary measure of both senior orders of government that stands to further improve the overall cost competitiveness of British Columbia generally and a resource-oriented economy in Prince George and northern British Columbia in particular.

Our hard-won costs and competitive position in Prince George and northern British Columbia, together with its inherent locational attributes, regional resource endowments, manufacturing activities and our full suite of urban amenities couldn't be more positive as our city enters what we aspire and resolve to be a northern decade for the economic and social benefit of all British Columbians.

Prince George, in full partnership with other communities in northern British Columbia, is committed to further expansion of resource-based industries, provided they carry out their obligations to consult and accommodate First Nations interests, meet or exceed environmental protection standards and provide social and community benefits. The resource-based economy will also continue to anchor the regional employment base and to provide opportunities for science-based innovation.

We appreciate the strong working relationship that we have with both the provincial and federal governments. We are committed to achieving our long-term vision tied to targeted incremental economic development initiatives and asks. As we look to the future, we are committed to leveraging our highly strategic geographic position between the Asia-Pacific and our traditional markets in the U.S. heartland.

Consistent with our corporation's ongoing representations to the provincial government, there are three high-priority asks for the current budget cycle.

First, the wood design and innovation centre and associated programming — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services recommend that the province, in partnership to the greatest extent possible with the federal government, provides capital and operational funding for the wood design and innovation centre and that this include support for civil and mechanical engineering disciplines.

Second, Highway 97 Pine Pass technical and safety improvement completion — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services recommend that the province, in partnership with the federal government, expedite required safety and technical improvements to the Pine Pass to enable Prince George and central B.C. supply and service businesses to compete for prospective business opportunities flowing from the construction or the prospective construction of the Site C clean energy project, ongoing gas development in the Peace region and new interprovincial opportunities flowing from the terms of the new west partnership.

Three, Prince George Airport Authority additional infrastructure — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services recommend that the provincial and federal governments work with the Prince George Airport Authority to address additional infrastructure needs, including an additional air cargo apron, an additional instrument landing system, hydrant fuelling and additional ground support equipment.

The opportunity that the Prince George Airport and the associated Global Logistics Park present for Prince George and northern B.C. stands to be as transformational in the current decade as the University of Northern British Columbia was in the past decade. We must not sell short the opportunity but instead get all requisite infrastructure in place as expeditiously as possible.
[ Page 857 ]

There are a number of other program and policy issues that require thorough and thoughtful consideration by the standing committee in the run-up to the 2011-12 provincial budget. I'll go through a few of these. There are ten that are listed within the submission, Mr. Chair.

Municipal infrastructure. We have reviewed the submission of our shareholder, the city of Prince George, and encourage the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to carefully consider the requests in general. We note that municipalities, including Prince George, have been challenged with an infrastructure deficit that has been years in the making.

We encourage the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to recommend that the provincial and federal governments seek long-term financing solutions for a municipal infrastructure to create certainty for local government multi-year planning.

Second, the additional hotel room tax legislation. Earlier this year, Initiatives Prince George led the establishment of a new Tourism Prince George society with the implementation of an additional hotel room tax within our community. We are very pleased with Premier Campbell's announcement at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention that the AHRT will be extended beyond June 30, 2011.

We do, however, encourage the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to recommend that clear legislation be enacted for community tourism marketing fund retention to give go-forward certainty for our city's new and other existing destination marketing organizations.

Next, northern health care and education — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services recommend a focus on physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy as priority areas for additional educational programming over the next few years.

[0910]

Rural K-to-12 education — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services consider creative ways to support K-to-12 education, given the ongoing and anticipated enrolment declines due to changing regional demographics.

Government office decentralization — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services consider recommending decentralizing government offices to Prince George wherever practicable, especially in resource and land use ministries.

Northern Bioenergy cluster development — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services recommend supporting local efforts to build a forest-based bioenergy cluster in Prince George and central British Columbia.

Open skies policy — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services endorse the provincial government's push for a full open skies policy. Supportive air policies are an important corollary to ongoing efforts to get required infrastructure in place at the Prince George Airport. Time is of the essence, and we must take full advantage of the significant opportunities ahead in both air cargo and passenger aspects of Prince George Airport operations, along with maximizing the potential benefits from the Prince George Global Logistics Park with the future completion of the Boundary Road connector project in September 2011.

Finally, environmental assessment harmonization — that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services recommend that work on harmonization of the federal and provincial environmental assessment processes be expedited to the greatest degree practicable.

As the northern decade unfolds, there are four projects that are critically important for building the incremental competitiveness of our entire region. Each of these projects is also inextricably linked to continued efforts to unleash the full economic potential of Prince George and northern British Columbia.

First, Fairview container port, phase 2. Given the strategic current and future role of the Fairview container port at Prince Rupert to the economy of northern British Columbia, we urge the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to recommend that the province and federal government provide the required $400 million in funding assistance that will enable further significant private sector investment to increase the design capacity of the container port from 500,000 TEU to two million TEU.

Second, Cariboo connector completion. We ask that the Standing Committee on Finance recommend that the province expedite, in partnership with the federal government, the Cariboo connector four-laning program and that both governments jointly establish a deadline for completion of the entire 463 kilometres by no later than 2020.

Third, communications infrastructure. We ask that the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services encourage the province to reduce remaining gaps in northern British Columbia broadband coverage and to eliminate cell phone dead zones over a fixed timeline over the current decade. Further, we recommend that your committee encourage senior governments and telecommunications firms to address the need for fibre redundancy in northern British Columbia, particularly at the two key transportation nodes of Prince George and Prince Rupert.

Fourth, Highway 16 four-laning. We applaud the governments of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan for their visionary commitment to advance trade, investment and export market development through establishing the new west partnership. Building a modern and seamless supply chain throughout western Canada and realizing the latent potential of the Port of Prince
[ Page 858 ]
Rupert and other northern economic development opportunities requires a modern transportation corridor, which includes four-laning Highway 16 from Hinton, Alberta, to Prince Rupert.

The opportunity before the three provinces is to take advantage of the inherent strategic geographic position of the northern corridor, including Highway 16, as the shortest distance between the two largest and most dynamic markets in the world — the United States heartland markets and China.

We encourage the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to recommend that the member provinces of the new west partnership and the federal government expeditiously fund a comprehensive program to four-lane Highway 16 — again, from Hinton, Alberta, to Prince Rupert.

Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Finance, in conclusion, we wish to thank you again for the opportunity to share our organization's economic development priorities for Prince George in synergy with our vast service base over the northern two-thirds of British Columbia.

Our organization is committed to working in deep partnership with like-minded public agencies and private sector interests to build Prince George and northern British Columbia as a sustainable knowledge-based resource economy connected to the world.

A northern decade that unleashes the full economic potential of our vast resource-rich region and its strategic location between the two largest and most dynamic economies in the world — again, the United States and China — for the economic and social benefit of all British Columbians. This is our aspiration, and it is our strategic resolve.

[0915]

Our strategy of strengthening Prince George as a regional and international hub should be met with targeted assistance in the north's smaller communities. We encourage the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to examine impactful community-specific initiatives which complement our overall efforts to build a sustainable knowledge-based resource economy connected to the world.

Finally, and on a very happy note, I wish to note that our great city and region is very pleased to be hosting the 2015 Canada Winter Games. These games will be for all British Columbia and, I should say, for all of Canada.

For Initiatives Prince George and its many partner organizations in the economic development realm, the 2015 Canada Winter Games will provide an unprecedented opportunity to market our great city and region and to deepen provincial, national and even international understanding about the existing and future strategic importance of Prince George and northern British Columbia.

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

We have 2½ minutes left for questions. First one to Norm.

N. Letnick: Thank you very much for your presentation, and congratulations to Prince George on getting the 2015 games. That comes from an MLA from Kelowna, by the way.

Could you talk a little bit about the HST? You've mentioned it in here that you're not taking a political position, but you think it's good from a policy perspective. Could you give an example or two of how it has impacted the people that you deal with, moving towards the future?

T. McEwan: Our corporation has been consistent from the outset that when the HST was introduced, it was — on strictly policy grounds; we're absolutely not interested in the political dynamics that have unfolded — a game changer for our export-oriented economy here in northern British Columbia. It reduces that marginal effective tax rate on business inputs by 41 percent, which is substantial. At the margin it will mean the difference between retaining jobs and expanding, and not.

I think, as we say in our brief, senior governments, both the federal and provincial governments, over the last decade have in our view taken a very painstaking approach to getting the cost-competitiveness and tax-competitiveness of this province in line. We're now in a position, I would say, where we have a terrific story to tell internationally. The results of the KPMG study that we reference, and our city within it, show that we've become ultra cost-competitive.

The HST is the next building block in that way. If you look at our cost-competitiveness in that study relative to eastern provinces, they're ahead of us, and it's because they have an HST in place.

J. Les (Chair): One very quick question from John van Dongen.

J. van Dongen: Government office decentralization. What, specifically, do you mean by that, Tim?

T. McEwan: There are a number of functions, of course, that we think…. With the city that we've got here, that's very well connected to the south — there are nine flights a day in and out of Prince George — there's the opportunity to move land- and resource-based ministries, some of the functions, out of Victoria and Vancouver. It would bring much…. As the New Democrat government of the late 1990s in its day established the Oil and Gas Commission in the northeast, there's probably some ability to expand that concept to other things such as mine development, environmental assessment and a number of other things.

I'm not in a position to examine what the full panoply of government functions that could be decentralized are,
[ Page 859 ]
but we do suggest that the standing committee have a pretty close look at that.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Tim. We're out of time.

Our next presentation is on behalf of the College of New Caledonia — John Bowman and Ray Gerow.

R. Gerow: Good morning. My name is Ray Gerow, and I am chair of the board of governors for the College of New Caledonia. With me today, holding my hand, is John Bowman, president of the college.

To begin with we want to thank the committee for coming to Prince George and recognize that we are on the traditional territory of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation.

We appreciate this opportunity to share with you our thoughts regarding the 2011-2012 provincial budget and government policy and funding for the post-secondary education system. We would like to briefly provide you with information regarding three topics.

[0920]

First, we will comment on the important roles that our college plays in economic and community development across the north and central Interior region. Second, we will identify the priority budgetary and policy issues that are of concern to CNC as well as to our ten sister colleges. Finally, we will offer a few recommendations for consideration in the development of the 2011-12 provincial budget.

We have kept our prepared remarks brief in order to leave time for your questions regarding the points we will raise.

CNC and British Columbia's ten other regional colleges are educating and training the workforce of today and tomorrow. Our colleges prepare people to work in literally hundreds of occupations, such as nursing, welding, construction, business and technology, to mention just a few.

Colleges develop and offer programs that reflect and anticipate changing social, economic and labour market realities. In fact, B.C.'s colleges are the largest providers of highly skilled, job-ready graduates for employers in the province. By adapting to the needs of local communities, B.C. colleges continue to be at the forefront of the economic recovery. The development of grass-roots programs to effectively meet the needs of the new and changing workforce ensures B.C. colleges will continue to be a strong catalyst for the province's continuing economic growth.

CNC has campuses in six communities: Prince George, Quesnel, Mackenzie, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James and Burns Lake. We support and strengthen these communities by providing affordable access to higher education and skills training — most importantly, close to home.

Our college currently provides about 60 different programs leading to a certificate, diploma or degree. CNC is the largest of the six rural colleges in B.C. In 2010-11 we enrolled a total of over 4,000 full-time-equivalent students, or approximately 10,000 individuals.

At our institution we are justifiably proud of our progress. Over the past several years we have responded quickly and comprehensively to the economic recession by reallocating resources to programs in communities where needs were greatest. We have assisted hundreds of recently displaced workers to upgrade and retrain for new employment. We have grown and diversified our smaller campuses to serve 87 percent more students since 2005.

We have increased the enrolment and participation of aboriginal learners by 33 percent in regular credit programs since 2005 and by over 80 percent in all program and service areas. We have more than doubled the number of trades apprenticeship and foundation-level-training student spaces delivered, from under 800 in 2005 to over 1,700 last year.

We have increased health-related training provided within the region, including expanded registered nursing, practical nurse and health care assistant training, and we have graduated the first students from the new medical laboratory technology program. Next year we will enrol the first class of students in a new medical radiography technology program.

Our college is working closely with industry, First Nations and other educational institutions in addressing labour market requirements in the central Interior and across the north.

A few of the many collaborative and partnership initiatives we are leading currently include: development of new mining-related training opportunities in partnership with other northern colleges and BCIT; introduction of a northern civil engineering technology program in cooperation with Camosun College, Northern Lights College, Northwest Community College and UNBC; and implementation of an aviation business program in partnership with the University of the Fraser Valley, a local flight school based in Vanderhoof and other community partners.

Time does not permit us to go into details. However, we feel that it is important for this committee and government to recognize the extensive collaboration and partnerships that exist amongst colleges, other educational institutions, as well as business and community organizations.

The following are our priority budget and policy issues: the skills gap and college capacity. As we all know, Canada is facing a looming skills gap. As the baby boomers begin to retire in droves, we will need to recruit more workers, including those from traditionally under-represented groups, and arm them with advanced skills for employment.

Just two short years ago the government was identifying the provincial skills gap at approximately 300,000 people by 2015. The Conference Board of Canada has
[ Page 860 ]
predicted a shortage of 150,000 tradespeople in B.C. over the next decade.

Increased demand for training brought on by the economic recession has put increased pressure on colleges' capacities. At CNC in each of the past two years we have seen about 400 more prospective students apply for admission to programs at our Prince George campus alone, which is about a 20 percent increase over the '08 application levels.

[0925]

Unfortunately, this year many of those additional applicants could not be accommodated because most of our programs have reached their enrolment capacities and our current resources do not enable us to create many new spaces. As more people turn to colleges for training or retraining, our college faces both physical and financial capacity challenges that limit our ability to serve our communities.

Aboriginal education. Aboriginal citizens make up a large and growing segment of our regional population — arguably over 13 percent of the entire population in our region, or 18,000 individuals, in 2006. The 21 First Nations communities in our college catchment area want and need to increase participation in and successful completion of post-secondary education and training programs. The largest proportion of these potential students will be interested in the programs and services offered by the college system.

I am sure we will all agree that it is critical that many more aboriginal learners succeed in post-secondary education and contribute to the economic and social health of their communities and the province as a whole.

Annual capital allowance. In 2009 CNC received a major capital funding commitment, totalling nearly $30 million, under the knowledge infrastructure program for the construction of a new technical education centre here in Prince George and for the completion of the phase 2 expansion of our campus in Quesnel. These new and expanded facilities will greatly enhance our capacity to deliver high-priority programming.

However, the majority of our colleges' 600,000 square feet of facilities, which were constructed in the '70s and '80s, are now, 30 to 40 years later, reaching the stage where significant maintenance and improvements are needed. During the past year we completed an inventory of repairs, upgrades and energy conservation projects that we believe will be required over the next five years. We estimate that the total cost for those projects is approximately $10 million.

Now, to be realistic, we don't expect that we will have $10 million available to complete all of these projects, given that our annual capital allowance funding for this year is only $374,000. However, we are concerned that our aging facilities may force us into a financial crisis if we are not able to invest in preventive maintenance and renewal of critical building systems.

Accounting policies and standards. Changes in government administrative and accounting policies that limit the use of prior years' surplus funds are restricting our institution's ability to respond effectively to the changing requirements of students and communities.

At a time when there is an increased need for flexibility and nimbleness, government administrative requirements and changes to accounting policies and standards are restrictive and may have a dramatic impact on our institution's future ability to respond effectively to changing education and training requirements within our communities.

We are concerned that the unintended consequences of these changes will be to discourage entrepreneurialism by institutions as well as to foster a "spend it or lose it" mindset, which would clearly run counter to prudent fiscal management and not be in the best interests of students, communities and the achievement of government's priorities.

Recommendations. The College of New Caledonia and our sister colleges recognize the difficult fiscal circumstances facing the province and the significant challenges government will face over the next few years. The government has made some difficult budget decisions, and the College of New Caledonia appreciates the commitment the government continues to demonstrate to post-secondary education in British Columbia.

Growing the investment in provincial colleges for 2011-12 and beyond will be critical if the province really wants to have the highly skilled workforce to meet both current and future economic and labour market needs. B.C.'s colleges play a vital role in providing advanced skills and education for B.C.'s knowledge-based economy.

We therefore urge this committee and the provincial government to continue to preserve and enhance operating funding provided to the B.C. college system in the 2011-12 budget; to address the administrative and accounting policy issues that may negatively impact post-secondary education institutions' abilities to provide the education programs and services required for students; to start to restore the annual capital allowance back to pre-2009 levels; and finally, to make a renewed funding commitment to support increased educational access and success for aboriginal peoples.

Thank you for your time and attention. We would be pleased to try to answer any questions you may have.

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

M. Mungall: Thanks very much. My question is about post-secondary access for aboriginal students.

[0930]

One of the presenters from Selkirk College was actually talking about how it doesn't just start at the first day of college or university but actually in the K-to-12
[ Page 861 ]
system, most notably in the high school end of things. Recently a study came out that students are making decisions about post-secondary education in grade 8, grade 9 — not even at grade 12 but quite early.

So with all of that in mind, I'm wondering, when you make this recommendation, if you're also asking us to focus on the high school level as well as the post-secondary level.

R. Gerow: Well, of course we are. It's very important that we grow our student population, and they have to make it through the K-to-12 system in order to get to the college. But it's equally important, I think, to recognize that the college, especially in the past few years, has really been reaching out to the K-to-12 system to try to assist where we can. I think the Burns Lake campus is probably the best example I've seen of a college actually becoming very much so the heart and soul of the community.

If you went into the Prince George campus, you wouldn't even necessarily recognize it as a college. It's got all sorts of prenatal stuff going on and early childhood stuff going on. So we're assisting the community to make sure that the children are healthy and making it through the system so that we will have access to them for the college.

J. Bowman: I'd just add that the relationship between colleges and secondary schools is critical, particularly for aboriginal learners. Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of having breakfast with Minister Bond and Minister MacDiarmid, and we talked about the career technical centre program model of educational delivery that we have in this region.

It's funded through the ASIP program under the ITA. We think that program, whereby students enrol in the college in grade 11 and complete both their Dogwood and a one-year certificate program through the college, holds great promise for all high school students but in particular for aboriginal learners.

R. Gerow: I guess just one thing to add to that one, too, which I'm seeing as a trend coming back again, is the focus on immigration. It really concerns me that in the past, when we started to focus on immigrants to fill that void in our workplace, we did it at a cost to our aboriginal youth.

I'm hoping, as the provincial government starts to look at addressing those skill shortages again, that we don't put all our eggs into the immigration basket and again forget our aboriginal youth. We did at the last go-round, and it would be a shame on us if we do it again.

J. Rustad: Thank you for the presentation and also for the great work that the college does throughout my riding. I know that it's much appreciated by the communities.

Two quick questions. For the first one, you mentioned that you had enrolment capacity issues where you weren't able to accept additional students. I'm wondering: is the first part of that because of policy constraints, because of physical constraints, because of contract constraints or a combination thereof? We may not have time to be able to answer that in full. If you want to give a response in writing, that would be great.

I'll tell you the second question that I have. When you talked about accounting principles and the unintended consequences of GAAP and of what's happening, I would like to ask you to take some of the people, some of the pressures you have in your college, and give us a suggestion as to what we should be doing, how it should look, so that it can better suit the facilities such as the colleges and our universities moving forward.

R. Gerow: The quick answer to the first question is yes, and I'll let John answer the second question.

J. Bowman: That's a complex question, so I'd be delighted to give you an undertaking to respond to that in writing.

J. Rustad: Great, thank you very much.

J. Les (Chair): Excellent. Thank you both very much for coming this morning.

Our next presenter is Kris Zemlak, AiMHi, which I guess can also be translated into "Aim high." Good morning.

K. Zemlak: Good morning. I have the big package that's going around.

My name is Kris Zemlak, and I'm stepping in to do this presentation on behalf of AiMHi's executive directors, Melinda Heidsma and Bill Fildes. They are currently out of town.

The following feedback in our written submission is specific to the community living sector in the province of British Columbia. The late Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey had a keen perspective on what government should be doing. In a 1977 speech he said: "The moral test of government is how the government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

[0935]

AiMHi has been serving some of the most vulnerable citizens of Prince George for the past 50-plus years. We have remained actively involved in this community and in issues surrounding the community living sector in the north region and in the province. Today we would like to focus your attention on three areas of concern specific to the community living sector.

Aging. Supporting people with a disability appropriately. Individuals with developmental disabilities, including Down syndrome and autism, are living longer.
[ Page 862 ]
As life expectancy increases, clinicians, families and service providers are witnessing new challenges in managing age-related issues. These novel challenges require innovative solutions.

The 2000 participation and activity limitation survey, PALS, studied the Canadian population of those with at least one disability. According to PALS, persons with disabilities represent a significant portion of the population. There are 3.6 million Canadians, 12.4 percent, with disabilities, and approximately 13.8 percent of the B.C. population that have at least one disability.

There is a great deal of discussion these days about the aging of the Canadian population. Government policy-makers worry about pension and health care. People are living longer not only in Canada but around the world. Never before in history have people lived so long. A Canadian born in 1960, for example, can expect to live 20 years longer than a Canadian who was born in the 1900s.

Meanwhile, birth rates have declined, so the growing proportion of the population is over 65. By the year 2031 approximately 20 percent of the Canadian population — one in five — will be seniors. This fact has important consequences for B.C. and for the Canadian society.

These facts are not different for people who are being served by the community living sector. No longer are people dying at a young age while residing in institutions in B.C. It must be recognized that the costs of supporting an aging population are impacting not only the general population but specifically the community living sector as well.

We recommend that increased funds be provided to the community living sector to ensure that the additional costs of services and supports to an aging population and people who have disability in this province are adequately and appropriately funded.

Second point, the community living sector employs the living wage. In March 2008 the Social Planning and Research Council of B.C., SPARC B.C., published a report based on an independent study regarding recruitment and retention issues in the community social services sector. This study examined both qualitative and quantitative data and included the following summary of their findings.

"The community social sector in B.C. is experiencing difficulties with recruitment and retention. Almost half of the organizations surveyed indicated they had existing vacancies, and many positions had been vacant for over three months. Employers in B.C.'s community social sector also reported difficulties with retention. Turnover rates are particularly high for the casual employees.

"Employers consulted through the interview process all said the low wages in the sector are a contributing factor to their difficulties around recruitment and retention. They said that they are having trouble finding qualified applicants, partially as a result of the low wages but also because of the instability in the sector created through short-term funding models for the non-profit social services delivery. Study participants expressed great concern around the lack of public and government respect for those working in the sector and those served in the sector.

"The study revealed that the recruitment and retention challenges have impacts for both employers and the employees. Employers said that as a result of recruitment and retention challenges, they're seeing increased costs and a declining quality of services offered through their agencies. Employers said the work-life balance is compromised for employees, which leads to burnout and perpetuates the recruitment and the retention problems."

Employers said we need to work with others to make sure that the government funding for the sector is adequate to cover the cost of living and to also ensure that the funding reflects the value of the work that's done in the sector. According to the data provided by the employers association, CSSEA, Community Social Services Employers Association, our residential care workers — as one of the most common positions in this sector, for an example — are paid between 9.15 percent and 22.82 percent below the community health sector for performing the same work or similar work.

Our sector employs a large percentage of women, many who are single mothers who are trying to raise a family on this limited income. Many employees need to have at least a couple of jobs to make a comparable income to someone who is doing the same work in another sector. How can that be?

[0940]

AiMHi strives to provide good quality of life for people that are served, but this can be challenging when we have employees who need to work day after day just to meet their own financial needs.

Today we have a bargaining team who is actively engaged in bargaining for the collective agreement in the social service sector, with a funding mandate of zero funds to improve this dire situation.

We recommend that the government increase funding for the community social service sector to allow employers to pay the employee wages to cover the cost of living and appropriately reflect the value of the work done in this sector, with wages set that are comparable to similar work done in other sectors — example, health and education — to promote both recruitment and retention in the community social sector in B.C. and to fairly recognize the value of the services provided by this sector.

Lastly, the Community Living B.C., CLBC, deficit of $22 million through 2010 and 2011. Once again, this year the community living sector is being asked to do more with less funding. The numbers that we are using in our stuff are not only of adults, the people that AiMHi serves, but also of the children. You may be aware that children's services were moved back to the Ministry of Children and Family Development in 2009.

Based on AiMHi's AGM reports, in 2002-2003 we were serving 529 people in Prince George. In 2009-2010 we're now serving 800-plus people. Through the years we've been asked to reduce the costs of services in the community living sector. We have responded by reducing our costs in a climate that continues to add increasing demands, accreditation and licensing standards and by
[ Page 863 ]
also finding more cost-effective and efficient ways to provide optional and less costly services to the community.

This year we have been asked to participate in CLBC's service reduction and redesign initiative. Once again, AiMHi has responded by reducing our cost, which will equate to an annualized reduction of approximately $1 million. Many residential shifts have been reduced, and a number of people have been moved to less costly services. At this point, all these people have moved through their own choice that they have made themselves.

However, this trend cannot continue. The needs of the people we are currently serving are increasing. People and their families continue to wait for services they need and desire.

Families may be requesting residential services for their adult child who lives at home with them. The choices they may be offered are not what they would choose for their own child, so they keep the child at home. This is not what you and I would expect as our children grow into their own adulthood. They will make choices of where they want to live, not what the funding dictates.

We are unable to continue to quietly participate in funding reductions that impact the quality of life of vulnerable citizens in the province. On March 11, 2010, Canada ratified the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, a historic first international treaty that comprehensively recognizes the rights of persons with disability.

From article 19, "Living independently and being included in the community":

"The states parties to the present convention recognize the equal rights of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their…inclusion and participation in the community, including by insuring that persons with disabilities have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement; persons with disabilities have access to a range of in-home, residential and other community support services, including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community, and to prevent isolation and segregation from their own community; community services and facilities for the general population are available on an equal basis to persons with disabilities and are responsive to their needs."

The B.C. government's No. 3 great goal reads as follows: "Build the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities…special needs, children at risk and seniors."

[0945]

Finally, we recommend that adequate funding is provided to the community living sector in B.C. to ensure that the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and the B.C. government's No. 3 great goal are honoured and adhered to for all persons who have a disability and special needs.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Kris. A question from Doug.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for a very thorough presentation. I just have one quick question; although, your presentation has a lot of questions for me in it.

But the one is around the living wage — the good work SPARC-BC has done that you've quoted. There was a brief presentation at the Union of B.C. Municipalities on the living wage, and I know the municipality of New Westminster has set that at $16 to $17 an hour. I'm wondering if your organization has done any work along what a living wage is in Prince George, or whether you're aware of any of that information.

K. Zemlak: I know the collective agreement bargaining is currently going on. In the thing I said that it's zero percent. So there is some comparison occluded to the SPARC presentation on the living wages in regards to the stats around what the percentages are. It is between 9 and 22 percent less.

J. Les (Chair): Okay, thank you very much, Kris, for coming this morning. You've given us all something to read on the plane this afternoon.

K. Zemlak: Yeah, it's a nice package.

J. Les (Chair): Our next presentation is on behalf of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce — Jennifer Brandle-McCall, Roy Spooner and Bill McGill.

R. Spooner: Thank you for the opportunity to be here. My name is Roy Spooner. I have the pleasure of being the president of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce. With me is our second vice-president, Dr. Bill McGill, from UNBC, and Jennifer Brandle-McCall, who is our new CEO.

Our presentation is, I presume, being circulated to you. What we wanted to do is to start by acknowledging and appreciating some of the past investments that the government has made in this area. Over the past several years provincial investment in Prince George and region has been significant.

Among many projects, areas of investment have included: transportation, with new bridges, passing lanes, highway upgrades, Highway 20, expansion of the airport runway; bioenergy, with the biomass gasification facility at UNBC; education, with strong support for both operations and facilities at CNC and UNBC at the post-secondary level, six StrongStart B.C. centres and a new Duchess Park Secondary School at the K-to-12 level; health, with the new cancer control strategy underway, new radiography programs at CNC, assisting to attract new physicians to northern B.C., and one we celebrated just a week or so ago, the first radiation oncologist
[ Page 864 ]
appointed to what is now the University Hospital of Northern B.C.

The benefits from these investments have accrued through safer, faster and more globally connected transportation infrastructures; new opportunities for economic development such as in biomass energy and expansion of mining; increasing numbers of people educated in the north with knowledge — doctors, nurses and in the skilled trades and technologies field. These are people needed in the north.

We have improved prospects for health care delivery and, in many cases, disease prevention, to name but a few of the things, the benefits, of the money that you have invested.

In return, these investments have enabled the business community to more easily attract and retain skilled and highly trained personnel to develop new products and services and to find new markets for them.

The members of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce are aware of and highly appreciate these investments. The advice that follows is aimed at building on those investments and the provincial contributions to what has become a very strong foundation for our growing area.

[0950]

We've identified some principles for continued investment, and we're going to give you some examples. The global recession from which we are now emerging has required cautious allocation of the fiscal resources of the province. We acknowledge that. As we transition back to a more prosperous economy, it is still urgent that government control deficits and exercise extreme diligence over increased spending.

The Prince George Chamber of Commerce believes that investments in the future of the region and of the province are best guided by core principles rather than another wish list of expenditures.

Also, the business community in Prince George sees a complementary connection between the economic bottom line and the social and environmental bottom lines. In the context of those above observations, the Prince George Chamber offers the following principles and examples — and they're in no particular order — as its advice to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Principle No. 1. Balance the budget before undertaking new expenditures. We recommend that any new revenues, any windfall revenues, should first be applied towards reducing the deficit. Half of any revenues in surplus of current budget needs should be used to pay down the debt, and the other half should be available for strategic investments.

Principle No. 2. Community sustainability and business stability require economic diversification around areas of strength. After people, our natural resources are our main assets. Forestry, mining, oil and gas, and agriculture are traditional sectors that have contributed to this region, with forestry vastly dominating the others. Continued support for economic diversification during transformation of the forest sector is critical.

Recent growth in the mining sector is applauded and should continue, and the energy sector should expand to include increasing participation in renewable energy developments. As a specific example pertinent to this region, we recommend continued attention to biomass energy.

Where feasible and appropriate, investigate additional renewable resources such as wind energy, water power or geothermal. Pilot projects exploring innovations in silviculture should be considered to generate fast-growing fibre supply for next-generation forestry. Consideration should be given to supporting expansion of food production and processing through agricultural research done in the region.

Two further principles should guide energy development. First, all possible efforts should be made to increase efficiency of energy use, regardless of the source. Second, all such developments should meet rigorous standards respecting a triple bottom line.

Our Principle No. 3 is to support business through effective infrastructure, both locally and regionally. We recommend building on the past achievements to hasten completion of the electrification of Highway 37, upgrades to Highways 97 and 16, and the completion of the Prince George Boundary Road. Continue your efforts to improve broadband access with reduced cost of delivery of the last mile in rural and remote regions.

Development of safe, reliable and affordable interurban transit should be considered. I'm going to break from my notes here, because I can't resist. If one thinks about the availability of interurban transit to move from Langley, Abbotsford or White Rock to downtown Vancouver, one has to wonder about the availability of interurban transit that could be available to transport people between Vanderhoof, Fort St. James, Quesnel and Prince George. The distances are not terribly different, and the travel times are certainly not different.

Principle No. 4. Education and skills development in Prince George and region are key foundations. A robust civil society and sustainable business environment both require people with the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to contribute to the central and northern parts of B.C. Such people must be educated in the north if they are to appreciate and stay in the north.

To build on past successes, we recommend development of civil and mechanical engineering at UNBC, of civil and mechanical or mining technologies at CNC and greater participation in science and mathematics courses in the K-to-12 system. Serious efforts are needed to provide a more effective balance of participation between science and math courses on one hand and the alternative offerings on the other.

[0955]
[ Page 865 ]

Principle No. 5. Healthy communities are necessary for healthy businesses. Despite recent advances in and expansions of health care delivery, which have been of great value, we are still faced with a serious homelessness problem and associated inadequate mental health care. A renewed emphasis on healthy life choices and mental health are recommended as part of a healthy community.

Community organizations have provided important voluntary services supporting community health. Such organizations depended in part on provincial funding from gaming and lotteries. We have recently seen a loss of such support to critical organizations. We recommend that it be reinstated.

Principle No. 6. Land claims need to be settled. All citizens need to be treated justly, and settling land claims in mutually agreeable ways is a step in the right direction. Business needs to know what the rules are, who has jurisdiction and that there is stability respecting use of land. Non-aboriginal businesses wish to work with First Nations peoples and businesses and to respect their rights and titles as appropriate. Settlement of land claims will assist all of us to achieve economic opportunities and social justice.

In conclusion, infinite horizons. The Prince George Chamber of Commerce looks to the future of our northern region with pride and optimism, recognizing that the government is attempting to use available resources in ways that reflect the priorities of the people and of the province.

The Prince George Chamber of Commerce has attempted to communicate to the committee not a list of spending priorities but a modest list of principles against which we ask the government to weigh all of its spending decisions — like the families and businesses across our region and indeed across the entire province. They have to during times of financial constraint.

We urge the government to focus on needs and wise investments rather than on optional wants. From this period of tough times we must learn lessons that are the foundation of our greater success in the decades to come.

We applaud the time you have put into this consultative process and ask that you consider the six basic principles that we've outlined for you today as you move forward in developing your budget for 2011. We wish you good luck in your endeavours.

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

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. I enjoyed many of your points made in your principles. Lots to think about there.

I have a question on principle No. 2, around exploring innovations in silviculture. As you know, we've seen a fairly substantial decrease in revenues generated by the forestry sector in our provincial budget. Would you suggest that these pilot projects are something that the government should be supporting and paying for within the budget?

R. Spooner: I think it's unavoidable that to go into a pilot project…. They will probably work better if government plays a role in it — plays a role both in defining it, plays a role in allocating the land resources for it and partners with industry to move forward through it.

There are any number of companies I've spoken with that have a real interest in exploring the new forest. The challenge is: where do we get the land to do it? How are we going to pay for it? Is the government going to come to the table?

The government is a partner in forestry. Whether it's stumpage fees or the portion of the taxes, there's a good chunk of money that comes to the province of British Columbia from forestry. It would make sense that in that partnership the province share some of the load, which I think could be done through making the land available, providing technical support and moving forward from that. Maybe it requires direct investment. I don't know.

D. McRae: Thank you very much for your presentation. At the start of this process we were talked to by the Finance Minister, and we were given the good news that the government had about $600 million of unexpected revenues from corporate income tax. With those dollars, one of the questions we ask people is: where do you wish those targeted?

According to your priorities, one of them is to return to a balanced budget, obviously, but at the same time other spends like gaming grants and improving programs. So with that $600 million that the government has, unexpectedly, do you have an opinion on where those dollars should be targeted? Should all of them go towards paying down deficit — or spread them around?

[1000]

R. Spooner: First, balance the budget.

J. Les (Chair): That was a quick and succinct answer. That allows another question, from Bill.

B. Routley: First of all, I appreciate your principles. I think they're well laid out. One thing that seems to be missing is any position on the HST. Obviously, other chambers of commerce have had something to note on that issue.

So my question is: have you had any negative impacts reported in your region, whether it's in new-home construction or restaurants? Also, the second part of that is: are you okay with waiting an additional year to have the results? How does that affect local businesses? Any impact or concern of business?

R. Spooner: I haven't seen any fact-based analysis of the impact. I've heard lots of stories. Without question,
[ Page 866 ]
there are lots of people who are disturbed, I would argue, more by the process than by the fact.

In terms of waiting, I think you should expedite it if it's possible. How you do that and whether or not you legally can do that…. I've read a variety of stories that suggest there are challenges in how to do it, and others say that it's easy to do it. Frankly, I think it's in the government's best interests to do it sooner rather than later, and I think it's probably in the province's best interests.

For the vast majority of businesses in our area…. This is a thing that I've said to media here frequently. Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the HST are the major employers of our region. It's hard to jump up and down in opposition to it when they're the major employers of the region. And I don't buy the nonsense that they're simply going to tuck it away in their personal RSPs or take an extra-long trip to Mexico. I think they will reinvest it in their businesses, because that's what business people do. They look at how to make more money out of more money.

I think if you can expedite it, expedite it. When there starts to be a body of factual data around the impact, it would be interesting to see it, but I haven't seen that analysis yet. I suspect that there are businesses…. I know my barber gives me a bad time, so I get one less haircut every year.

J. Les (Chair): Because he gives you a bad time?

R. Spooner: Yeah. I won't tell you what I said to Pat Bell about it.

J. Les (Chair): Anyway, thank you for your presentation this morning. We appreciate you coming.

Our next presenters are from the Child Development Centre of Prince George and District. Darrell Roze will be making a presentation, and Val O'Connor is here too.

D. Roze: We're here today to discuss a funding issue that's negatively impacting a critical service that is provided provincewide, and this service is early intervention therapy. This is a service that helps allow children to prepare for school entry — children with special needs and developmental delays.

Over the last five years services available on a per-child basis have been reduced by 37 percent in the province — at least 37 percent. In Prince George and many other jurisdictions we have seen a doubling of demand over the last ten years, and we have not seen any additional resources to hire additional therapists. This is causing substantial problems in that this program is one of the most effective and efficient ways to prepare children that have developmental delays for school.

The full cost of providing these services is relatively small in relation to other support services that these children would be receiving in the future, such as health services, education services. The cost is $10,000 per child, approximately, to provide full services to these children.

To bring services up to a level on a per-child basis that was available ten years ago, we are recommending that the province doubles the size of this program provincially at a cost of $30.7 million.

[1005]

Also, there are a number of other support services that do help children with special needs. This is the one that we see as most critically needing…. This is requiring new services. We don't see it being beneficial to reduce other services. So at the same time when we are looking for a doubling of the resources to this program, we're looking for maintaining or increasing services of all other MCFD contracted services in support of children that are vulnerable or that have special needs. Increasing these services will directly support four or five of the B.C. government's great goals for B.C.

Going through those goals, you have a first goal of making B.C. the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent. Obviously, to be able to reach a goal such as this, you have to ensure that children are ready to be educated by the time they hit the school system. As early intervention therapy has proven to be one of the most efficient and effective ways to prepare children with special needs for success in the education system and beyond, this is one of the programs that you should be concentrating on.

The province has a goal within their strategic plan of reducing childhood vulnerability for children entering the school system to 15 percent by the year 2015. Unfortunately, the levels of vulnerabilities have actually been increasing in the province over the last five years. In 2004-2005 we saw vulnerabilities of 27.9 percent. Now we're seeing vulnerabilities of 30 percent, so almost one in three children is entering the school system not ready to learn. This is one of the ways that you can help combat this problem.

Children that are deprived of adequate developmental opportunities in their first few years of life will struggle through the balance of their education and in later life, so you're looking at a small window of opportunity where you can provide these services before they enter the school system.

There was recently an Angus Reid poll that stated that 60 percent of the recipients would be willing to support the government in adding an additional $1 billion in services to support their achieving of the 15 by 15 — the 15 percent vulnerability levels — by the year 2015. Obviously, this is a tiny percentage of what the public appears to be willing to support in this area.

Going to a second great goal, we have: "Lead the way in North America in healthy living and physical fitness." Obviously, when you have children that have gross motor delays, can't walk, can't run correctly, have balance problems or have hand-eye coordination problems,
[ Page 867 ]
these children will not be as physically active, on average, as their typically abled peers. So this definitely supports a more healthy and physically active lifestyle. These children that have unresolved delays are more apt to have increased incidences of obesity and increased incidences of chronic conditions in later life.

The third goal: "Build the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, special needs, children at risk and seniors." In many instances the provision of full early intervention services will be the difference between a child that enters the school system with delays and children that enter with typical abilities. We estimate that two-thirds to three-quarters of the children that get these services can enter the school system without delays, so it's a huge, huge opportunity.

Beyond having children that are prepared for school, this also improves their quality of life. So you have individuals that have issues of chronic pain or have reduced mobility or reduced range of motion, and these services also help in those areas. That does help in reducing medical costs downstream and also reducing unnecessary and painful operations in the future.

The fourth great goal: "Create more jobs per capita than anywhere else in Canada." There was recently a paper put out by the human early learning project out of UBC. They estimated that allowing children to enter school with biologically unnecessary delays will cost the economy of British Columbia $400 billion over the next 60 years — so this is a huge economic problem — and that this will cost the economy 20 percent in growth in the GDP over that same time period. So there's a huge economic argument for increasing services such as this.

[1010]

Now, I've mentioned that we have faced a huge increase in demand with very little increases in resources — little to no increases for additional therapists. We've also faced the problem that annual increases from the ministry haven't always covered all of our overhead costs. Critical cost pressures such as the cost to heat your building, the cost of electricity — those overhead costs are not always covered by the annual increments from the ministry.

We have annual bumps in our funding. We're actually facing reduced services as well. All of these critical costs need to be accommodated.

When looking specifically at our physiotherapy department, we are not just seeing increases in demand. We're seeing much younger children come through our doors. The percentage of newborn babies is growing very, very quickly. We see a time, if our funding isn't resolved, that we may only be able to see newborn children within our physiotherapy department, and we'd be discharging those children before they have had all necessary services.

This would just be catastrophic. We'd see much higher costs. We'd see children that are confined to wheelchairs unnecessarily for the balance for their lifetime. We'd have children being subjected to painful, expensive and unnecessary surgeries. We'd see much greater rates of childhood diabetes and obesity because these children aren't receiving the services that they need.

We've seen problems like this in physiotherapy. We've seen problems like this in our other areas of occupational therapy and speech-language pathology as well.

Within the province this year we'll be spending $46 million on services for autistic children, and autism impacts under 1 percent of the children. Over 10 percent of the children in this province have some form of special need. During that same period we're going to be providing $30.7 million for early intervention therapy services for children of all other disabilities.

Most of these groups have the same critical need for early intervention services in their initial years of life. I think it's very critical for the province to understand that services can't decline on a per-child basis. That's exactly what's happening to all of these other children.

There's a recognition within autism that we need to ensure these levels of service. This hasn't been established for all other children, but it's really critical that that's recognized.

A couple of years ago I heard an ADM within the ministry say that money isn't the problem — that even if we had enough money, we wouldn't be able to hire therapists. I can tell you that this is completely false. All of the large centres have routinely been able to hire additional therapists when they have the funding. Smaller programs can use itinerant workers, and they can also make greater use of therapy aides, which can support the therapists that they already have. So money is the issue here. We need money to support these services.

Now, I have a couple of items on here that are showing some of the analysis I've used. I've showed the reduction in funding per child. Unfortunately, from the information that the ministry provides, the Ministry of Children and Families…. There is information that isn't there.

I've stated that there's a minimum reduction of 37 percent to the children over the last five years. We don't know what the reduction is for children over the last ten years. They have funding levels, but they don't have the number of children served over that ten-year period. It's likely that the reduction is much more severe.

We also don't know how many children are waiting for services. So we have children waiting for these services during a critical developmental period — the early years of their life. They're on wait-lists, but that isn't reflected in the ministry numbers as well.

Economic costs. There is a huge cost to not providing these services. There's not great data on the exact cost. I've used a cost estimate that was based on a child with learning disabilities and the anticipated payback to the province of putting $10,000 toward that child. The anticipated payback is almost $700,000 through the
[ Page 868 ]
lifetime of that child. So we'll have several thousand percent return on investment, if you want to consider it that way.

These numbers aren't discounted for inflation, but even if they were, there would be a huge, huge payback.

[1015]

We are looking at children with a learning disability. All children with learning disability would be a child with special needs, but children with special needs is a broader population than it was considered in this calculation. The calculation also ignores the many benefits that accrue for children that don't present typical abilities by the time they enter the school system. All of these children will have been positively impacted, and there will be benefits for that, but it doesn't include that in the calculations.

There's my presentation for you.

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

J. Rustad: Thanks very much for your presentation and also for the work that the CDC does. It's greatly needed in the community, and it's greatly appreciated — what you're doing.

However, I've one quick question, and that's around a couple of years ago when Prince George was still part of my riding. We started an effort to try to coordinate services between the school district and the health authority, MCFD and the CDC. I know that we had started some work on there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay involved in that.

I'm just wondering how that initiative has gone and whether or not that has been able to move forward in terms of that coordination of services and trying to streamline the efforts to utilize those dollars more effectively.

D. Roze: We continue to work toward those efforts that we were looking at back then. We are looking at generating a network of service providers. These have been provided in other areas of the country, so we are working actively toward that. That would provide much tighter integration between the many service providers in Prince George and Mackenzie and out toward McBride as well.

We do work very closely with the health authority. That has provided us with many, many benefits, and it's simply looking at expanding that out. The actual initiatives that we were working on have stalled a little bit, but we are still working with the school district on that one as well.

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. I certainly appreciate the reference to 15 by 15. Given the sort of demographic trends, I think many people have noted that it's important that children who are — if the social justice arguments don't win you over — about to enter the workforce are an increasingly rare commodity over the next 20 or 30 years. It is important to identify those learning disabilities early on and ultimately reap the economic benefits.

But my question is based on your analysis of reduced funding, and I appreciate that this may not be something that is possible for you to do. Have you turned your mind to how much you think the global budget in provincial spending should increase in order to meet adequately some of the objectives that you have set out here?

D. Roze: Well, the total costs that were within my recommendation were $30.7 million. That is right in the recommendation. That would double services available in this program provincewide.

B. Ralston: Just one point, then. Are you speaking on behalf of all the child development centres in the province, or...? Is this a coordinated approach? Or is this you speaking on behalf of them, imagining that they will support you?

D. Roze: I know that they will support me. We belong to the British Columbia Association of Child Development and Intervention, and that provides support services for almost all of the child development centres in the province. This is a problem that is widely recognized within this area. I'm sure that as you go along within your deliberations, there are probably going to be a number of folks that are going to come in and say fairly similar things to you.

J. Les (Chair): Okay. Thank you both very much for coming this morning.

Our next presenters are from the Prince George Hospice Society — Donalda Carson and Evangeline Studney.

D. Carson: I've sent you rather a thick copy. My actual report isn't heavy duty, but there are two reports that I've added to this to assist you maybe for reference in the future if you wish to take a look at that.

[1020]

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity. I am accompanied by Evangeline Studney. She is our board president.

I want to make note, too, that at the back of the report I've attached a care note. It's in recognition of the grief you may be experiencing due to Sindi Hawkins's death, and it's a sample of the service that we provide to the community.

I'm not standing, but sitting before you is a discouraged person. I've presented to this committee on behalf of the Prince George Hospice Society many times. We've actually been mentioned in the report as well, but nothing changes. I've been working in hospice palliative care in Prince George for 15 years. Prince
[ Page 869 ]
George has the very first freestanding hospice house in the province — Rotary Hospice House.

We have assisted other societies to develop a hospice house in their community. We've shared our fundraising and development experiences with others, yet we are inadequately funded by the British Columbia government while other hospice houses in B.C. thrive with sustainable funding.

The situation, I believe, is disgraceful. When we advocate for increased funding to the B.C. government, the request gets downloaded to Northern Health. That, in turn, creates a stressor in our relationship as their budgets are committed.

It is your job to increase our funding. Our funding comes from Northern Health, which is B.C. government, gaming, user fees, donations, grants and fundraising events. Recently it was announced in the media that gaming and lotto revenues are down, and this affects the income of charities in B.C. The provincial government needs to be responsible by increasing the funding to ensure that freestanding hospice houses survive by receiving adequate funding.

You may have seen the television show 60 Minutes on August 8, 2010, titled "The Cost of Dying," produced by Andy Court. The following are excerpts from that report.

"Fifty-five billion dollars has been spent on doctors and hospitals in the last two months of patients' lives. Twenty percent to 30 percent of that medical expertise has no positive impact. Were people saved by medical technology or prevented from dying? Often there is no conversation about dying in comfort and peace. Dying in the hospital is the path of least resistance. Doctors are paid based on patients seen. Eighty-five percent of health care costs are paid by government or insurers. This has led to our out-of-control health care costs."

I have provided, with my presentation to you, copies of two reports — Raising the Bar by the Hon. Sharon Carstairs, the Senate of Canada; and "Letting Go, What Should Medicine Do When It Can't Save Your Life" by Dr. Atul Gawande as printed in the New Yorker magazine, August 2, 2010.

Atul Gawande is an American doctor and journalist, a Rhodes scholar and has a master's degree in public health from Harvard. The medical culture he describes is North America–wide. "Letting Go":

"Modern medicine is good at staving off death with aggressive interventions and bad at knowing when to focus instead on improving the days that terminal patients have left….Twenty-five percent of…Medicare spending is for 5 percent of patients who are in their final year of life, and most of that money goes for care in their last couple of months, which is of little apparent benefit."

He's talking acute aggressive care as opposed to hospice palliative care.

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illnesses find their top priorities include: avoid suffering, being with their family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs.

For most people death comes only after a long medical struggle with an incurable condition — advanced cancer, progressive organ failure or the multiple debilities of old age. In all such cases death is certain but the timing isn't.

In the past few decades medical science has rendered obsolete centuries of experience, traditions and language about our mortality and created a new difficulty for mankind — how to die. The difference between standard medical care and hospice is not the difference between treating and doing nothing. In ordinary medicine the goal is to extend life. We'll sacrifice the quality of your existence now by performing surgery, providing chemotherapy, putting you in intensive care for the chance of gaining time later.

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Hospice requires nurses, doctors and social workers to help people with a fatal illness have the fullest possible lives right now. That means focusing on freedom from pain and discomfort, maintaining mental awareness for as long as possible or getting out with family once in a while.

A study of over 4,000 patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure showed no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice. Curiously, the hospice care seemed to extend time for some patients.

Another study showed that 63 percent of doctors with terminally ill patients overestimated survival time. The average estimate was 532 percent too high. No, that's not a typo. More than 40 percent of oncologists reported offering treatments that they believed were unlikely to work.

Dr. Gawande concludes that patients need doctors and nurses who are willing to have the hard conversations and say what they have seen, who will help people prepare for what is to come and to escape an oblivion that few really want.

In Raising the Bar it notes that in Canada 10 percent of deaths are sudden, and the other 90 percent can benefit from hospice palliative care. But all 90 percent will not receive hospice palliative care because governments have failed to accept responsibility to make death a natural progression of life by not sufficiently funding programs.

The success of our health care system has created a situation in which we now manage chronic diseases longer and more effectively than we ever did before. Because of medical technologies, it is not unusual for a person to live long enough to develop multiple chronic deteriorating conditions.

Round-table participants across the country identified the all too common view of administrators and some non-palliative practitioners that resources devoted to dying patients are wasted — as if dying people do not need care. There remains a total disconnect between the model of health care built by politicians, administrators and practitioners and the real needs of the population.
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In many communities, not-for-profit groups can and do play an important role in end-of-life care. They support the publicly funded services and try and bridge the gaps, yet the capacity of these organizations is limited. That's us. People are still being presented with the hospital as their best choice, often because we charge a small per-diem fee.

Some 97 percent of respondents to a survey identified a leadership role for provincial government to adequately fund hospice palliative care. According to this report, the four western provinces have designated palliative care as a core service of the provincial health care program, with a separate budget line. Somehow, Prince George Hospice Society has been left out.

The present B.C. government had a goal of building 5,000 out-of-hospital beds in the province. We were required to build five, and now we have the responsibility to support a good portion of the cost of our ten beds with money we must fundraise to obtain in a very competitive field.

In the fiscal year 2009-10 our 174 volunteers provided over 7,000 hours of work. At $15 an hour, that amounts to a $112,390 value. In fundraising, we compete with every group from the Girl Guides to the Canadian cancer strategy and now, the 2015 Canada Winter Games. It's not the way to run a hospice, a health care facility.

We must comply with the Community Care and Assisted Living Act, yet we are not funded as care facilities are. Recently it was announced that gaming revenues are down, and certainly we know that our gaming access is reduced. We are regarded as essential by the fact that both the cancer strategy and the primary care physicians group include palliative care in their mandates. I want to say: "Where's the money?" Yet our funding is left to chance.

I ask you: at least bring us up to par with Interior Health funding of hospice houses. I think you will find that it's not a lot of money to the B.C. government but a huge amount of money for the Prince George Hospice Society. I ask you to listen to the wisdom of these two reports and my plea. Your decision may be a promise of our tomorrow.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you. First question from Michelle.

M. Mungall: Thanks very much for your presentation. My partner, my spouse, is a nurse practitioner, so I'm very familiar with primary health care.

[1030]

I'm listening to your presentation, and I'm hearing a lot more than just needing appropriate funding levels, but also a shift in the way in which we practise medicine in North America and western societies, really, which is a focus more on primary care, and then that includes palliative care, rather than always the reactionary acute care. To that end, would you also suggest that perhaps we need to re-evaluate the way in which we're training our physicians and our nurses?

D. Carson: Yes, I would. The main reason why I wanted to share these two reports and give them to you was that you might wish to utilize those reports in a positive way to make changes in the society in British Columbia.

N. Letnick: Thank you for your work and your presentation. My question has to do with funding. Just so I can be clear, and maybe other members here as well, you're saying that IHA funds their hospice house in Kelowna, for one example, fully but your regional health authority does not fund your particular hospice facility as well as IHA.

Are you suggesting, then, that we as government take some money out of the 40 percent of our total budget, which is health care, and direct it specifically to hospice around the province and reduce the health care budget accordingly? Is that what you're suggesting?

D. Carson: Well, I know that the Kelowna hospice is actually funded 100 percent, and it's actually operated by Interior Health. There are two other hospice houses there that are freestanding. Those are in Vernon and Kamloops, and those are the ones I'm actually referring to. They're very similar to us. In fact, they learned from us how to get their houses going. That's why I find it frustrating that they have adequate funding.

Yes, I am seeking that — that hospice palliative care has the same respect and recognition as necessary in this society. And the funding we require is considerably less than other health care facilities.

J. Les (Chair): Final question from Bill.

B. Routley: Yes, actually building on your final point there on the cost savings, do you have…? I gather that in these reports we'll find some evidence of that. I know from personal experience. I had a father-in-law dying of cancer who benefited greatly from hospice. Hospice was there for more than a month, I believe it was, in his final days. He was able to die at home and hold the hand of his spouse of almost 60 years in the final moments of his death, thanks to hospice. So thank you for what you do and your organization.

But in closing, you're trying to understand…. Do you have studies that show the difference between the dollar amount of having someone die in a hospital? It seems to me that that should be one of the things you're calling for — a study of the comparative costs. Would you support a study of the comparative costs in British Columbia of someone dying in the last six months in the hospital and what it would cost to have them under the umbrella of hospice? I know that nurses were coming to the home, and that was a far more sensitive way to treat people.
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D. Carson: I have not done a study myself, but I have requested, when we've been in negotiations with the health authority, as to "tell me the cost of a hospital bed," and I've not been able to access that information. I certainly know that the costs of our beds are dramatically less. But no, I do not have any knowledge of any such report. To tell you the truth, I would not even entertain trying to do that, because I am actually a glorified fundraiser. I'm an executive director. I spend 90 percent of my time fundraising.

J. Les (Chair): All right. Again, thank you very much for coming this morning. I appreciate your perseverance, and I say that sincerely.

Our next presenters, I believe, are from the Northern Development Initiative Trust — Janine North and Evan Saugstad.

Oh, His Worship came instead. You, too, are welcome, sir.

[1035]

D. Rogers: I'm a last-minute fill-in.

J. Les (Chair): Whenever you're ready, you can go right to it.

D. Rogers: Excellent. Thanks, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present. I must first of all provide some acknowledgments from the chair of the board, Evan Saugstad, who was hoping to be here to present, but he's unable to attend. So on behalf of the board, I'm pleased to step in and assist and provide the regrets from Evan, but also acknowledge that I'm joined today by our CEO, Janine North, who is the expert on much of this subject matter. So it's great to have, and it certainly puts me at ease to step in at the last minute on behalf of the board to present some information for you today.

First of all, let me thank you for the opportunity to speak from the Northern Development Initiative Trust and provide some background. There is some material that has been circulated that will provide an overview.

What I'd like to do is just introduce for the members of the committee a little bit of background about the Northern Trust, and then turn things over to Janine to take you through a little bit and review what we believe is the true success story of bringing community leaders and leaders that represent the communities that are served by the trust across a vast area of British Columbia and, after five years, what we believe is a true success story that we want to share with you.

We'll give you additional background and some learnings that we've achieved over the course of the last five years that we believe are potentially applicable in a number of different circumstances that might be of value to the province in moving forward as a whole.

As you're well aware, the northern development area covers about 70 percent, geographic, of the province. You've likely heard many times before that we're the size of France with a population of Belize. It's a vast area with numerous communities along the way — some 40 communities and then you cover all the regional districts. There are nine that cover the catchment area and numerous First Nations communities that we also work hand in hand with because these are our neighbours, some 88 First Nations that we work with.

As you're well aware of, of course — just for background, to move through it fairly quickly — this was established by the province of British Columbia, comprising a capital base of $185 million some five years ago. It was centred on the principle that was put forward at the time: the best decisions for economic development should be made by those that live within that catchment area.

I can't speak for the other trusts, but from our trust's perspective, the local decisions made by people in their communities…. This has definitely been a journey that is for the north, by the north. That's been reinforced by the board members around the table who represent those communities and areas, those that provide us advice through the advisory boards, and then the numerous folks that we engage with on the many, many projects that we have helped to move forward to serve economic development across the north.

The total trust balance as of September was $183 million. It includes about $20 million in receivables, about $100 million in approved projects that have moved through the doors, and $71.5 million has been dispersed to projects, totalling 660 — so a significant amount of activity over the last five years. As you'll see later in the presentation from Janine, that has ramped up.

Not only have we laid the foundation, but we've achieved success. The success has bred additional interest and eagerness to harness the opportunity that's presented by the Northern Trust. Roughly a 39 percent return on the province's investment is a true success story, drawing almost a billion dollars into the region because of that leveraging opportunity.

I will say — and I'll turn things over to Janine here to take us through a little bit — that the approach that we have taken, which was prior to my joining the board, was that we will look to ensure that this is in perpetuity. The established fund will be a legacy for many, many decades. We have continued to work on that principle, to maintain that this will last in perpetuity. There is some adjustment we're making. There are drawdowns that occur, but the overall arching principle of ensuring that this trust is around for a long time and leveraged and sustainable is a primary focus of the board in the decisions we make.

[1040]

With that said, I think I'll turn things over to Janine to take us through some of the breakdown of the investment categories, where they've been focused, to further
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build on some of the success stories that we want to share with the committee and potentially, as mentioned, identify those areas that might be applicable for some of that success in other areas of the province to help us collectively move forward together.

J. North: This is a presentation about the value equation of the trust rather than asking for money. Our approach to economic development, and that which is led by communities and business leadership in this area, is that we focus on sustainable but very flexible programs to meet the needs — very outcome-focused with strong reporting and performance measures on jobs, revenue and economic growth; building the pipeline for communities and business to access all funding and financing, regardless of where it comes from; and draw more funding into this region.

We focus on capacity of both business and communities. We keep the administration very lean, streamlined, time sensitive — eight staff. We also produce economic development interns for the north. Three have been placed in communities into full-time jobs now, and we're hoping to do four more next year and each year thereafter. We're looking for two bright young commerce graduates and two very motivated — whether they be in commerce or other programs — First Nations university graduates to give some practical approaches so that they can take them back into the region.

We coach very much for success. Our focus — it seems like our motto in staff — is how to get to yes, how to make things work, not how to have barriers. We focus on partnered economic development products for communities. We've got 11 programs — you'll see those in the presentation — and we have a number of partnerships where we have been either asked to flow out funds for the federal government, $30 million, or asked to flow out $250,000 for the new relationship trust into grant writers and programs like that.

You'll see in this presentation some of the products we build for communities and the level of First Nations involvement, but I draw your attention to what the ramp-up has been. If we look at funding applications last year over our first full year, which was 2006 — almost a 1,000 percent increase in funding applications.

Dollars invested in projects. If we look at this year over, again, a full year, 2006 — a 436 percent ramping-up increase, just kind of one year over another. Project financial transactions — almost a 700 percent increase.

How do we do it? How do we keep pace, with not growing our staff? It's around very effective governance and a highly engaged board of directors from the region. We take the best practices from the Auditor General and two of his reports — Aspects of Financial Management and Public Sector Governance — as well as board best practices, and we put them into play — no bureaucracy, 100 percent client focus, and systems and software.

I'd like to talk to you about what we've developed on the software side. I know that can sometimes be a boring topic, but that is the secret to our success, and it was done extremely cost-effectively. That is the value equation we have back for government.

When I look at the Auditor General's reports, there'll be comments about the LocalMotion program and other programs. We believe that we have project management software that can be adapted — it's used by other trusts now — and provides very strong accountability into funding programs that are managed by whatever level of government.

I'm just going to go through, essentially, what Catalyst does for us. It's self-developed. We do have it trademarked and own the rights to it. It helps us keep pace with that demand I showed you. It streamlines our administration. We're allowed to be entrepreneurial and very focused in our approach, and it allows us to provide more service to communities in addition to project funding — like the interns that I talked about, like funding research, investment profiles.

[1045]

It simplifies reporting for our clients, and applications are all electronic. And it allows us to have flawless audits, which we have had through the five years of the trust — external audits and from a variety of sources.

It's an enterprise-wide grant-and-loan-management software system. It allowed us to handle 490 applications received within three weeks around the community adjustment fund, a federal fund. It allowed us to get under contract that $30 million and start those groups creating jobs in the economy in less than eight weeks from the time the program opened.

How's it done? You'll see some screen prints of the software, but essentially, if you just look at the headers, that is what's important at this level.

It's streamlined. It was designed by users for users, and it's completely searchable. It works like Google. It's program-driven navigation. We can build a new program, a new module instantly, kind of within a week, if there's a new funding program we want to deliver. It's all electronic forms. It works for dial-up. It works for the rural areas of the province. They can access it. They don't need high-speed Internet. We're very focused on making it that user-friendly.

We've got things in there like Project Genius, which allows us to create due diligence reports for our board, score things, and it's highly transparent. It electronically populates funding contracts. We can produce a funding contract really at the touch of a button, and then review that and make sure it has everything we need to have in it.

It tracks project disbursements. It also incorporates the financial side of our business: tracks loan repayments; strong account management that aligns with our financial systems; very strong project reporting that can
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be done by proponents once a year. That's very important to understand. On all of our projects, those 660 projects, every single one reports every year for five years. So we've got a long history in terms of performance reporting.

It allows us to instantly produce ad hoc reports, where we're able to query: what's happening in the community? What's happening in a region? What's happening by program?

The 470 applications — or the 490 that we got in on the federal program — give us a sense of what communities want, even if they weren't funded by that program. We can go back and say: "Something new has come up in terms of what the provincial government is offering." We can partner with a provincial government program, like Towns for Tomorrow, and go back to a community and say: "You know your expressed interest around this that we received a couple of years ago in this particular program. Have you thought about refreshing that and approaching these two new programs?"

In essence, it gives us a searchable database of community and non-profit group desires.

Finally, we're able to take it to the next generation of the Web and social reporting, where you'll see every single one of those projects up on our website, with pictures, with what the outcomes are and how communities can connect to other communities. If they're interested in a certain project, they can figure out who's done it already and how they can gain and learn from their experience.

A non-profit group that's interested in a non-profit ski hill development can learn from what Mt. Timothy has done or what Fort St. James has done. It facilitates sharing across the region of the best and brightest ideas and that collective "how do we move and propel our communities forward."

We think it's a product of considerable value to this region. It allows us to operate at a low overhead, and it's something just to think about as new programs are introduced and there are aspirations around doing that to assist communities across this province.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much. You've used up your entire 15 minutes, so we don't have time for questions, unfortunately. But it's always good to hear from the Northern Development Initiative Trust. You're doing great work.

D. Rogers: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I know our economic development agency will be providing some thoughts later on, as well as my colleague from city council on the finance and audit committee, from the city of Prince George. They'll be talking about specifics.

[1050]

But let me say, as the mayor of this community, welcome to B.C.'s northern capital and the host city for the 2015 Canada Winter Games. It's a pleasure to have you here.

J. Les (Chair): Oh yes, we've heard about that. Thanks again.

Our next presenter is Amanda Alexander from the Elizabeth Fry Society.

A. Alexander: Good morning. I am Amanda Alexander, and I am the chair of the B.C. Society of Transition Houses, which is the umbrella organization that represents 92 safe homes and transition houses, 18 second-stage houses and 19 Children Who Witness Abuse programs across B.C. I'm also program manager with our local Elizabeth Fry Society. I manage a variety of women-centred programs, including a transition house here in Prince George as well as one in Burns Lake.

Our programs provide services to women and children who are fleeing domestic violence. The document that I've circulated to you is the 24-hour census report which was released yesterday by the B.C. Society of Transition Houses. The reference point for me around this document, the importance, is the service crunch that we're experiencing around the women and children that we can't service, the additional costs that our programs are really challenged to bear, and the women and children that we're forced to turn away.

In this document it identities that in one hour out of a 24-hour period of time we served over 1,800 women, children and youth across the province. However, in that same period of time we also turned away over 500 women, youth and children because we weren't able to serve them.

What that means for women and children who aren't able to be serviced in a transition house is that we will work to provide them a hotel room where they can access services. If a woman and her children aren't on income assistance, we have no opportunity of being able to get the service through income assistance. That can be problematic for folks who are working poor or who just have real safety issues and do not have control over their finances. So they're left with no safe place to go.

Locally here in Prince George at Amber House, which is a 17-bed transition house, we provide safe shelter to over 550 women and children every year, and we turn away the same number every year.

Two years ago I had a conversation with income assistance around their suggestion that a woman and her children sleep in her car. That's unacceptable. I'm sure that if it was your sister or niece, you would want them to be able to find a safe place where they can work through their options and be safe from their violent partner.

The need for violence-against-women services is in higher demand than ever before. It's clear that the need for these services is increasing. The more women we turn away, the more we perpetuate the cycle of violence. Children exposed to violence in the home tend to be either more susceptible to engaging in violence or become victims of violence as adults.
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We need to ensure that these services are well funded. Currently most agencies provide a service with a single worker on shift, so their client-to-staff ratio is one to up to 25 women and children. They are entrusted with ensuring their safety, turning away partners that may come to the door, providing a safe respite for their children, dedicated children service. Quality service is hard to deliver to the women and children with these circumstances. Women and children fleeing domestic violence deserve more.

It's clear that more money is needed to provide better service, to increase the number of beds available and to ensure those will not be turned away because we don't have the staffing resources.

Currently the transition house programs are funded for $30 million each year. The amount of funding has not increased. In my 15 years working in this sector, we've received one increase to our programs, which was to address the lack of 24-7 funding. In this course of time we've received…. There has been cost of living around food, diapers, many additional costs, maintenance costs, that has not been reflected in our budgets, and these are hard to keep up with.

For example, in our local transition house we had water in our basement for the entire winter due to leaks in the pipes. We simply couldn't afford the process that had been recommended to us to address this issue during our wintertime, when the ground is frozen. During the spring we had to excavate our entire front yard, including our driveway. The previous year we had to replace our roof and our entire office to ensure that leaks had not produced mould.

[1055]

We run into these situations when we do band-aid solutions around our maintenance costs because we simply don't have the money to fix them in a way that other folks might be able to with contracts that allow for those appropriate funding costs.

To exemplify it, our transition house bears…. Over 75 percent of the cost of our contract will just simply cover staffing wages. The remainder moneys have to cover off utilities, running a house, providing food for the multitude of women and children that we serve. In addition, the implementation of the HST this July has increased all our agencies' costs by 4.7 percent, and we are left to cover that additional cost.

We recommend funding increase over the next three to five years by at least 4.75 percent to offset the impacts of the HST as well as the costs of living that we haven't had any increases to offset.

In addition, the systems around us have less services to offer our women. For example, a woman used to be able get a comforts allowance, when she would come to our house, of $82 a month to buy toiletries, diapers, formula. She now no longer does. These are costs that we have to bear.

For example, last week we spent two appointments with the doctor with income assistance trying to advocate that a woman receive Depends. We had to articulate how many times she would need this, and it was a really degrading process for this woman. These simple necessities of life should be provided for people who are in crisis.

It may seem like a minimalistic thing to talk about these costs, but these are the hard decisions we're left with when we have such a small budget — how we can provide people with toothbrushes, how much juice to provide to a person, and do we bring out a fresh block of cheese. But that's the reality of our budgets.

This is the situation our houses are in, and we strongly appeal to you for an increase in our funding.

J. Les Chair): Thank you, Amanda.

M. Mungall: Thanks very much for your presentation. My first question is about the statistics around women not being able to get served. Clearly, there is a greater demand than there are available services. What happens? You mentioned that some women end up sleeping in their car. Do you have statistics on how many women and children go back to a violent home because they cannot get the services and get access to the transition home? I'll go with that one first.

A. Alexander: Provincially, we do keep statistics around the number of women that we can't service. We divide that by category around if the woman's needs were too great, if there was no space available at that particular time. We don't have the ability to track, with the systems in place, whether she returns to her abusive situation.

We try our best to ensure that she has the appropriate referrals. It'll differ community to community, depending on how many other resources there are. But we know that she's wanting to access services, and we know that she can't have services, that we don't have capacity for it. That we have quantified.

M. Mungall: Quickly, my second question is about how services around violence against women and children are delivered via the government. Right now it's separated between two ministries, with transition houses now being under B.C. Housing and the counselling programs now being under the Solicitor General Ministry. I've heard some reports that this separation has actually been very problematic in terms of on-the-ground service delivery.

A. Alexander: It's creating a division, so certainly, now, there are two parties that are trying to track systems that should be connected, and that makes it that much more cumbersome.

For example, the conversation came up with the Solicitor General around what would happen if a woman
[ Page 875 ]
was being turned away at a transition house. They don't have any understanding around how that's unfolding, because that's not part of their area. So it certainly is problematic.

It's also creating differing levels of reporting and administration for our sector because we're having to report out to separate bodies around the same issues. I'm sure that from their end, too, their administration, their time is also being duplicated, because they're having to connect as well.

B. Ralston: Just to follow up on that, then. This committee has the power to make recommendations, if we can agree on them. Are you suggesting that the committee make a recommendation that these programs be housed in one ministry?

[1100]

A. Alexander: I think that there is a benefit in keeping the services together that are about violence against women and children. I am also recommending that there be the financial resources to run the programs appropriately and effectively.

J. Les (Chair): All right, thank you. I don't see any further questions. I appreciate you being here this morning, Amanda.

Our next presenters are from the Commonwealth group — Dan McLaren and Heather Oland.

D. McLaren: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and committee members. Welcome to Prince George. My name is Dan McLaren. I am the chairman of the Commonwealth group of companies. I would also like to introduce my colleague Heather Oland. Heather is the director of planning for L&M Engineering and the vice-chair of the Commonwealth development group.

By way of background, the Commonwealth group of companies represents eight British Columbia corporations. We began our operations some 15 years ago, and initially our scope was limited to retail lending, insurance and investment services. While Commonwealth conducts business operations throughout British Columbia, we are proud to be one of the very few financial services firms that is headquartered here in Prince George.

In the past year Commonwealth has expanded its operations to include the establishment of health care facilities, various urban revitalization initiatives and seniors housing projects. As a firm that has quite literally invested in northern British Columbia, we welcome the opportunity to speak to this committee and provide some thoughts as to where we think government may want to take the next budget.

We've entitled our presentation "What Would We Do If We Could Write the Budget?"

Our recommendations can be summarized in four points: (1) please use sound economic assumptions, (2) balance the operating budget as quickly as possible, (3) accelerate the execution of already committed capital spending, and (4) maintain a competitive tax strategy.

Heather will speak to our first point.

H. Oland: Thank you, Dan.

As I'm sure you're all aware, all budgets start with a series of assumptions and predictions. Please let us start with ours.

We believe that interest rates will remain constant over the next year. In fact, rates may even see a slight decrease. To be candid, we think the central bank overdid it with the most recent round of rate increases. Indeed, a modest amount of worldwide inflation would not be a bad thing for B.C.'s export market.

So to this point, we believe that inflation will remain constant over the next year — say, 2 percent. For budgetary purposes, we think the government's cost of borrowing with its renewed triple-A credit rating should be around the 1 percent to 2 percent mark.

We see an improving global economy pushing up the price of oil from around $81 today to $90 a year from now and over $100 in 2012. Similar increases will also be realized for base metals such as copper. The world's vast supply of natural gas means that gas prices will remain very low for some time. We believe that today's $3.70 price point may even fall further.

In 2010, U.S. housing starts modestly increased, from 540,000 in 2009 to almost 600,000 in 2010. This increase was very welcome news to our northern mills, where the corresponding lumber prices are more than double what they were just two years ago.

We believe that next year Canada has the potential to break out as the acknowledged safe haven for those global investors that want to invest in America without actually investing in America. Prince George's position as the most cost-effective place to do business in Cascadia is very welcome news.

D. McLaren: With respect to our second point, it is critical that we balance the operating budget. As everybody in this room knows, nothing could be more popular than spending more and taxing less — that is, of course, until the credit card runs out and the family silverware needs to be sold. In short, B.C. must return to a balanced budget.

Nothing, in fact, defines a government more than its budget. The budget speaks to more than ideology. In fact, the budget speaks to our core values. We think the core values of budgetary planning can best be summarized in three points: (a) tax policies that encourage investment and job creation, (b) operational spending that is not merely rationalized but is actually revolutionized and, finally, (c) social policies that are fiscally responsible.

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British Columbia has weathered the economic global crisis as well as it has due in no small part to the government's aversion to deficit budgets. In other words, our balance sheet was so strong, it was strong enough to actually take it, while other jurisdictions were not so lucky.

Change is always tough, but when it comes to the big three spending areas — health, education and welfare — it's even tougher. That's why we've quite deliberately said that government spending should not merely be rationalized — in fact, that's probably too easy a word to use — but rather, government spending should be revolutionized.

Here's an example in health. We applaud the government's decision to look at the way health care is funded. We support the notion that greater budgetary emphasis should be placed on results and less on bureaucracy. In fact, we would ask the government to take that notion to the next stage. Why not consider increasing scopes of practice with such things like the opening of nurse practitioner family clinics? What a novel idea to have a wait-list of family medical practitioners taking care of real needs on a more cost-effective model.

Perhaps a streamlined purchasing system that would allow all suppliers an equal opportunity to bid in a world that we're very used to, and that's office space. It is this new way of thinking, in our view, that will allow us to manage our priorities while at the same time keep taxes as low as possible.

H. Oland: Our third point, accelerate the existing capital plan. As strongly as we feel about balanced operating budgets, we also feel there is more room for an accelerated capital spending strategy.

First of all, it is useful to understand that capital budgets and operating budgets are, of course, two very different things. The operating budget addresses day-to-day program spending, while the capital budget deals with construction of clinics, schools, hospitals, roads. Capital budgets are akin to building a new house. It requires the spending of a lot of money in a short period of time. It typically requires borrowing. It employs a great many people to build infrastructure that will last decades to come.

Like most organizations, the provincial government has a list of proposed capital projects for the next two decades. We propose accelerating that construction schedule, and here are the three reasons why.

Construction costs are low. We just constructed a brand-new building in downtown Prince George, and we enjoyed the benefit of those low construction costs with our competitive bidding process. Borrowing costs are low. To illustrate our point, over the past 50 years the average cost of a residential mortgage was 9.8 percent. Today it is 2 percent to 3 percent. Do we really want to wait until interest rates increase perhaps four- or fivefold? And in relative terms, unemployment is high, so now is the time to employ people.

D. McLaren: Our fourth point or suggestion is that the government needs to maintain a competitive tax regime. This is, I know, a topical debate, but for a government that's been beaten up previously for lowering taxes too fast, it's remarkable to observe today's political discourse respecting the government's current tax strategy.

While nobody likes to pay a tax — any tax, ever — we also need to recognize that all of us enjoy some pretty first-rate services from our government. In an effort to tax British Columbians more fairly, we would offer the three guiding principles.

First, a consumption tax is preferable to an income tax.

Second, income taxes, by their very nature, stagnate investment and job creation.

Third, capital taxes. Well, they're the worst taxes of all, because you don't even necessarily need to run a profit before the tax bill comes in. The province of British Columbia has lowered taxes to families and small businesses faster than any other government in North America. This has been a catalyst for new investment.

I can assure you that were it not for the province's thoughtful and sensible tax regime, Commonwealth would have taken its investment dollars to Alberta. Today we are happy to say that we are currently in various negotiations that, if successful, would see another $50 million to $75 million invested in Prince George alone.

Finally, no legitimate contemporary discussion about taxes would be complete without mentioning the HST. So Mr. Chairman, I will be very straight with you. The HST is an improvement over the previous tax regime. The HST encourages investment. The HST streamlines administrative processes. The HST is the right thing to do, and the abandonment of the HST for short-term political gain would be a mistake.

H. Oland: In summary, B.C. is on the road to recovery. We need fiscal leadership, not fiscal management. The HST is preferable to increasing income taxes. The operating budget should be balanced as soon as possible. Operating programs should not be rationalized; they should be revolutionized. Now is the time for new thinking and new metrics. Capital spending works best when costs are low, costs of borrowing are low and jobs are scarce.

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Thank you very much for the opportunity of sharing our thoughts with you. We are happy to answer any questions.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you. Norm has the first question.

N. Letnick: Thank you very much for your presentation. You say, and I wrote it down when you said it, that
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we need to tax more fairly. I remember reading a report by the C.D. Howe Institute which showed that people in low-income brackets…. Actually, their marginal effective tax rate is quite low, because the provincial government doesn't tax them very much. For people in the high income brackets, again, their marginal effective tax rate is low. But for the ones at the middle- to lower-middle class, because they don't get the rebates and they are subject to clawbacks, their marginal effective tax rate is very high.

Have you seen this kind of analysis in the community, and what are your comments on the "tax more fairly" when you're given that kind of scenario?

D. McLaren: It's an excellent observation, because the one thing that's the great equalizer with any sort of a consumption tax is the ability to manipulate the rebate formula. I think that's a very fair comment. But that's a relatively easy thing to do. The system is in place to adjust the formula so that it's consistent with the marginal tax rate. So I would argue that your point is correct and that, if anything, we need to lower that.

The other thing I think we need to do when looking at income taxes is a serious look…. Probably this needs to be done in conjunction with the federal government. But the minimum amount of taxable income in this country should realistically be closer to $24,000.

If we're going to tax — and we all know that we have to tax — the question is: how do you do it fairly? It's not easy; it's really hard. But the bottom line is don't do the things that are going to stop jobs. We would encourage that those poorer people…. Frankly, they spend all of their marginal money that comes in. They are actively engaged in the economy.

Our proposition would be to actually get more people off the tax rolls at the lower end, but don't do it at the price, as we saw it in England at the turn of the century, where the marginal tax rate was over 90 percent. That has just an equally negative amount. So I think you're right.

B. Routley: Yes, your comments on the HST. I just wondered whether you're okay with waiting and the continued uncertainty the province is going through and the business uncertainty with not knowing the result. Do you believe that we should be accelerating a vote or recommending…? In terms of the Finance Committee, obviously something that affects the finances of the province is a serious matter.

D. McLaren: My understanding of the act is that once the petition was returned to the Speaker of the House or whoever the officer responsible was, the committee of the Legislature had one of two options. It could either refer it to the Legislature, or it could send it to a referendum. My preference probably would have been that it goes to the Legislature and that sensible amendments be made as we march along, but the committee chose not to do that. The committee chose to go to a referendum, and the act, as I understand it, has very prescribed timelines.

I think there's a danger in democracy when you sit there and get something that's unpopular and choose to manipulate timelines of an established piece of legislation merely because it's politically in your best interests. I would argue that if we're going to a referendum, let's go to a referendum. The rule of law should apply, and the law gives it a year.

Frankly, we are hopeful that there will be no changes, and we think that we run a dilemma in our economic environment if it gets unwound. But that's what we chose to do for those people that signed the petition — which I did not.

B. Ralston: Thanks, Heather and Dan, for your presentation. I'm not as familiar as I perhaps should be with your company. This is brief, of course — your response that I'm expecting. Could you tell me a little bit about what you do?

D. McLaren: Commonwealth was founded 15 years ago. We originally were an investment, mortgage and insurance firm. About a year or two ago we expanded to doing some other projects, mostly of an urban revitalization initiative. For example, if you leave the hotel across the street, you'll see a $10 million integrated health centre that we received a certificate of substantial completion on, on August 29. We have tenants, and they are building up. So land development and urban redevelopment.

J. Les (Chair): We have time for one quick final question from Michelle.

M. Mungall: You mentioned taxing fairly, and you noted that it's quite complex and difficult. Would you therefore, then, be in favour of the government establishing a fair tax commission?

D. McLaren: I've always enjoyed the oxymoron "fair taxes." It's akin to "military intelligence."

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B. Ralston: How about "smart taxes"?

D. McLaren: Smart tax, yes.

To be fair, I mean, should there be a procedure in place with respect to fair taxation? Certainly. But as the question was posed earlier about how do we define the fair way to run a referendum — right? — well, there are rules in place. Now we're looking to move it.

I think what we need to do is a good job of writing the laws, a good job of writing the regulations, hire some really smart people to manage it and then execute.
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M. Mungall: So is that a yes?

D. McLaren: Yes.

J. Les (Chair): I've got a few seconds left for John Rustad.

J. Rustad: This question may take a little bit longer to answer, so if you'd like to do this as a written response, we'd be happy to receive that.

I'm just wondering. In terms of accelerating capital, you as a company, when you're investing in a new building downtown and you make that kind of capital investment, carry that over a period of time. You pay back both the interest and principal over that period of time. As a government we pay back the interest and, you know, we really never get around to paying down the principal as our debts have increased year after year throughout the decades.

I'm just wondering what your thoughts are in terms of accelerating capital as to whether or not there should be some way to be able to retire principal over time, retire that capital over time as part of government planning.

D. McLaren: Well, as a mortgage broker we never want anybody paying off their debt too quickly. But to be serious for a second, yes, there should actually be. I think the government, about a decade ago, put together a very sensible debt management plan. It spoke to the reduction of principal over time. And, of course, the debt-to-GDP is a critical number that we have to look at, and debt implies not merely interest but also principal.

But we should note this when we're talking about debt generally. Today — and my colleague Heather made the point — the cost to borrow for the government is very low. That doesn't mean we should go out and spend a bunch of money. But if you're going to spend $100 million on a new capital asset — for example, in our downtown, the wood innovation development centre that's been in three throne speeches so far — are you better to do it today when you're paying one-half to 1 percent of your borrowing cost, or should we be waiting down the road where it's going to be 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 percent?

With respect to paying down principal, that's probably not what opportunity cost would dictate we should be doing right now. But should we have a plan in place? Absolutely, and it should be tied to where we believe interest rates are going.

J. Les (Chair): We're flat out of time. We appreciate you being here this morning.

The next presentation is on behalf of the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition — Sharon Tower and Don Bassermann. Ready when you are.

D. Bassermann: Chairman Les, members of the panel, thank you for the opportunity to make a presentation to you today. My name is Don Bassermann. I'm chair of the Omineca beetle coalition, and I'm joined today by our corporate officer, Sharon Tower. Sharon joins me because if you have difficult questions at the end, she is going to be my right-hand lady today.

We're advised that the southern Interior beetle coalition and the Cariboo-Chilcotin beetle coalition will, in fact, be making print submissions to the panel. The Omineca beetle action region spans more than 18 million hectares, from Smithers to Valemount. It includes two regional districts and their rural constituents, 12 municipalities and more than 20 First Nations communities. The members of the coalition are Burns Lake; Fort St. James; Fraser Lake; Granisle; Houston; Mackenzie; McBride; the city of Prince George; Smithers; Telkwa; Valemount; Vanderhoof; and two regional districts, Bulkley-Nechako and Fraser–Fort George.

From its establishment in 2005 to September 2009 the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition's mandate was to make plans for economic diversification and community resiliency in the wake of the mountain pine beetle epidemic that has threatened to devastate the region's timber industry and exacerbate pre-existing trends in population decline and economic uncertainty.

The planning work involved a broad range of stakeholders and resulted in an overarching five-year diversification and implementation plan and nine sector strategies. These are located on the OBAC website, www.ominecacoalition.ca.

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These strategies and the overarching diversification and implementation plan, along the strong and growing relationships built during the strategy development phase, will be the foundation for action on reconfiguring this region's future.

OBAC is currently partnering with other levels of government, regionally based groups and industries on implementation. However, there is a continuing need to communicate and act on priorities as a region, to coordinate the use of public resources for best value and to build lasting partnerships that will see the work done over the long term.

The coalition believes that the need to address the community and economic consequences of the mountain pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia is far from over. In fact, although the epidemic has nearly run its course in the forest, the impacts are just beginning in our communities. Research conducted by the beetle action coalitions and other organizations has identified many very serious mountain pine beetle issues and impacts that are of major concern to community leaders.

Among these are the hydrological impacts created by the mountain pine beetle epidemic and other climate change impacts and the implications this could have on drinking water quality and local government and First Nations community infrastructure.
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Secondly, increased wildfire and interface fire risks. I think many of you are aware of some of the challenges we had in the region this summer.

The significant reductions in midterm timber supply in many parts of interior B.C. will undoubtedly lead to sawmill closures and significant job loss. Indeed, research conducted by the Southern Interior Beetle Coalition and other organizations suggests that the closure of ten to 20 sawmills in the interior of B.C. is a distinct possibility. A recent private sector report suggests that the timber supply for the interior of B.C. could drop by 42 percent in the midterm and remain at this reduced level for at least 25 to 30 years.

The combined effect of a reduced timber supply and less sawmills will lead to significant and serious job losses in the Interior forest industry. Research by the coalitions and other organizations suggests that this job loss could be in the order of magnitude of 10,000 to 12,000 direct jobs and an additional 8,000 to 10,000 indirect jobs in interior B.C. Significant financial losses in many rural, resource-dependent communities in B.C. are due to job loss, decline in disposable incomes and loss of municipal industrial tax base from sawmill closures.

The majority of the most at-risk mountain pine beetle communities are small, rural, heavily forest-dependent communities with very low rates of economic growth and diversification. As a result, they are ill-prepared to deal with the forthcoming negative economic and employment impacts of the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Without additional economic development assistance to these communities, there is a significant fear of a self-perpetuating cycle of permanent population loss and community decline.

For Interior First Nations, the mountain pine beetle epidemic creates not only all the impacts and challenges noted above but also the tremendous additional impact that this significant change of landscape will have on First Nations culture and economic use of their traditional territories.

The trend of declining population continues across the OBAC region. The resident population decreased by 7 percent between 1996 and 2006, compared to a 10 percent increase across the province as a whole.

While significant strides have been made by many organizations and across sectors to diversify, the region's economy continues to be heavily forest-dependent. At least 50 percent of the region's forests are lodgepole pine, and 37 percent of the jobs in the region depend directly on forestry. It is projected that the mountain pine beetle epidemic will kill approximately 65 to 70 percent of the mature pine in B.C.'s interior forests.

The most recent estimates of the Ministry of Forests and Range conclude that approximately 630 million cubic metres have already been killed by the mountain pine beetle, which is roughly the equivalent of eight to ten times the total annual forest harvest of B.C. The heaviest mountain pine beetle impacts provincially are found in the core of the OBAC region, based on the percentage of pine in the timber supply, direct employment and level of dependency on forestry income.

Despite these circumstances, OBAC is confident that a diverse forest sector will be a strong part of this region's economy and livelihood. OBAC supports the industries and businesses that are already in the region to continue to be a part of the region's future prosperity, but the signals are clear. Without new industries, businesses and markets and without engaging new people in generating new wealth in the region, we may erode our ability to continue to generate and contribute to the province's well-being.

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The communities and leaders of this region are committed to investing their maximum effort to ensure that a different future is realized.

Both the federal and provincial governments have recognized the mountain pine beetle epidemic as a key priority. In June 2010 OBAC submitted a letter to the Prime Minister. We acknowledged the federal government's support and dedication to our communities to date, but we respectfully reminded the government of its commitment to British Columbia of an additional $800 million to fulfil a promise of $1 billion over ten years to mitigate the beetle's impact.

We recognize the global economic situation necessitated the postponing of this commitment, but we wish to inform you that on September 27, just last week in Surrey, the three beetle coalitions came together and made a joint presentation to the prebudget federal Standing Committee on Finance.

We made the two following recommendations: first, that the federal government provide British Columbia with $100 million in mountain pine beetle funding in 2011 and '12 and annually the same amount for the next seven budget years, for a total of $800 million; secondly, we asked the federal government to commit to collaboratively developing a mountain pine beetle mitigation action plan for B.C., in formal partnership with the provincial government, mountain pine beetle–impacted communities and First Nations.

Beetle action coalitions believe that their ability to provide leadership, oversight and connection to community leaders, businesses and organizations during the implementation phase of the mountain pine beetle mitigation plans will be essential to continued success. The coalitions' knowledge and connections to the local communities and regional business leaders will provide ownership and meaningful transition. We are positioned to mobilize strategies, assets, resources and networks while being able to pursue opportunities.

In order to implement the mountain pine beetle mitigation strategies of the province and the BACs, continued significant and long-term assistance is paramount. To date
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the province of British Columbia has contributed $2.6 million to OBAC.

During our meetings with the Premier and ministers at UBCM last week we respectfully asked that the coalitions receive continued funding. We made the request of $1 million and additional provincial support for leverage-freeing funding from the federal government and other partners for 2011 and '12, and we asked for a similar yearly contribution to each of the coalitions extending into 2014.

On October 1, 2010, the Premier announced that the three beetle coalitions will receive $1 million a year in additional funding. We were delighted at this announcement, and we look forward to receiving more details on the province's commitment. We believe that this will ensure the continued success of the implementation of the mountain pine beetle strategies and will strengthen our rural communities, enabling them to continue to generate wealth in our region and to contribute to prosperity in B.C. and Canada.

We appreciate this opportunity to present to you this morning, and we would be pleased to answer any questions that you might have.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you. First question from Bill.

B. Routley: My question is about the mitigation strategies that you've come up with. You talk about how you're positioned to mobilize strategies, assets, resources and networks to pursue these opportunities. Could you describe some of those initiatives or ideas that you've come up with? I gather they're on your website, so I can do that.

Have you estimated the number of jobs that are going to be lost and the number of jobs that could be created? Do you have any plan to track the jobs that are lost and try to find retraining opportunities?

Finally, intensive silviculture. Is intensive silviculture in any way associated with your planning in this region?

D. Bassermann: If I forget part of what you've asked there…. I think I heard several questions.

Jobs lost and gained. We referenced some numbers of job loss in our presentation to you. They are substantial, in the order of 10,000 plus. In terms of monitoring jobs gained, we'll attempt to do that along with a variety of partners. That's a challenge. We're optimists at heart. That's part of the reason why we're sitting in front of you today.

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In terms of the silviculture intensification, I think, to try to paraphrase what you said…. We have referenced that we see forestry being a significant part of this region's economy in the long term, and that requires substantial silviculture investment.

In terms of some examples of our ability to come together with other persons, again, we are a local government organization. Though when we sit at the board table, we will often have differences among ourselves, we conclude our day's discussions by a common voice on virtually every topic.

We have engaged in a number of partnerships. I'll share two or three with you to give you a sense of them. We are actively involved with Northern Health on a number of projects that relate to health and agriculture, which is an interesting connection. We could speak at length if time was available for that, and we'd be delighted to do so at some other opportunity.

We are also vigorously engaged with the University of Northern British Columbia. One of the objectives there — and we're well down the path — is to try to establish an agriculture institute or something similar at the university. Again, we're well down that path.

A third example that comes to mind very quickly is that we have committed to be a partner — and I'm going to need some help here — with the Northern B.C. Bioenergy Partnership?

S. Tower: Northern Bioenergy Partnership.

D. Bassermann: So we have committed to being a partner in that, and the provincial Bioenergy Network is in fact a partner in that as well. Those are three examples of organizations that we have vigorous projects underway with.

We do have letters of support from a variety of players, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention organizations such as Northern Development Initiative Trust.

I think I've captured most of your question, but if I've missed a piece, I'd appreciate being reminded.

J. Les (Chair): A quick final question from Doug.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. I've read the nine sector strategies and congratulate you on the quite a few hours of work you've put into it as a group.

Mayor Farrow from Smithers mentioned to me not long ago concerns around the $800 million that's still outstanding from the federal commitment. Would you suggest to this committee that a recommendation would be, on your behalf, to encourage the provincial government, for lack of a better word, to hold the federal government's feet to the fire on that funding?

D. Bassermann: We made some considerable effort to bring the three coalitions together — Rhona Martin from SIBAC; Mayor Kerry Cook from CCBAC; and myself, with some of our key staff persons — to vigorously make a presentation to the federal prebudget committee. We wanted to be in a position to lend our voice to what we believe the province could and should do.
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We would encourage the province to continue to pursue the federal government on this front. We recognize that there are all kinds of other issues that enter the conversation. We understand that, and we recognize that. We are prepared to continue to add our voice to a vigorous approach to the federal government to support this province and, therefore, our pine beetle–impacted communities to receive additional funding to help us with our diversification strategies.

I think I've answered it.

J. Les (Chair): Okay. I'll recognize John van Dongen for a quick one.

J. van Dongen: Well, I'm okay, Mr. Chair.

I was really interested in what you had done to date in terms of the actual on-the-ground project. It was a lot like Bill's question. I still don't have a good, concrete handle on how what you've talked about translates into jobs on the ground for communities.

D. Bassermann: I'm trying to pick one out that I can quickly go to. One of the challenges we have, Mr. Chair and panel members, is that when we offer a partnership to an organization, they're interested in being a partner with us but they ask us two very quick questions: "What are you able to contribute in terms of cash and in kind?" and "How long are you going to be around? Are you going to be a partner that can be here in the longer term?"

We are on extremely modest funding at this point in time and have not been able to be very aggressive on that front. We have attempted to enter into a partnership that would see the development of agriculture as an expanded and growing employment opportunity in the region. We see that that will create a variety of employment opportunities that will range from people actually returning to the farm or staying on the farm to export-import opportunities, which of course starts to impact transportation and so on.

This region is well-positioned, has made significant investment in railways, airports and ports to try to enter into that mix. So having more people working in that industry alone is an example.

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J. van Dongen: Okay, I know the Chairman is tight on time, but I'm just curious, then. What is the funding you've received to date? I'll go to the website and look at what you're doing.

D. Bassermann: Since 2005 we've received $2.6 million, which has put us in a position to develop the strategies by engaging in a very broad sector of the community.

J. van Dongen: And no money from the federal government.

D. Bassermann: I believe that the $2.6 million — I could stand corrected on this — is from the initial mountain pine beetle resources that were provided to the province, and I believe we were able to access those through the province. That's how I understand it.

J. Les (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much, Don and Sharon. I appreciate you being here this morning.

Next we will hear from the city of Prince George's finance and audit committee — Murry Krause.

M. Krause: Good morning. On behalf of the citizens of Prince George, I would like to welcome you to our city and thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

I would like to compliment the province of British Columbia for its commitment to return to a balanced budget in 2013 while maintaining core services such as health care and education. The city of Prince George appreciates B.C.'s initiative to build a new relationship with First Nations and to work with local governments in Canada to expand public transit, reduce crime and build new community infrastructure.

Over the past year city council has defined its vision for our future and has articulated clear priorities in the city of Prince George's strategic plan. Council's vision centres on creating a resilient and sustainable city. Its strategic plan includes core focus areas such as creating a better downtown; improving our health and safety; taking care of our air, water and land resources; strengthening and diversifying our economy; and continuing progressive and responsible fiscal management.

Council's projects include revitalizing the downtown; constructing the Boundary Road connector; implementing air quality improvement initiatives; implementing flood mitigation and control measures; maintaining effective, sustainable and affordable infrastructure; and preparing to host the year 2015 Canada Winter Games.

I would like to begin by saying that the city of Prince George is extremely honoured and privileged to be awarded the 2015 Canada Winter Games. We look forward to the $70 million to $90 million economic impact that the games will generate as well as the lasting legacies that our region will receive through national exposure, building new infrastructure and assisting our young athletes to achieve success.

We ask that the provincial government continue to support the games' operational funding formula, which provides for 30 percent federal, 35 percent provincial and 30 percent local government contributions; to consider applying inflation factors to the operational and capital funding formulas; and to confirm the funding formulas at the earliest possible date.

In support of the government of B.C.'s Wood First Act, the city of Prince George is implementing a sustainable
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procurement policy, which includes the city's commitment to the act, and is investigating the creation of a residential wood innovation comprehensive district.

The city is enthusiastic about the province's commitment to building a wood innovation and design centre in Prince George. We believe the centre will position our community as a world leader in wood construction, design and education. The project will also play a pivotal role in the revitalization of our downtown core. The city of Prince George reconfirms its support for the proposed wood innovation and design centre and urges the province to focus heightened attention to ensure that the project remains top priority.

The city of Prince George is very thankful for the $7.5 million provincial and the $7.5 million federal contributions to the Boundary Road connector project. This project serves as an important link in Prince George's regional road network, providing safer and more efficient connectivity between the provincial highways, railways and the airport. It will allow our city to move forward toward corporate and community objectives, which include economic growth and diversification, greenhouse gas reduction and energy management.

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Mr. Chair, this morning I would like to present comments on six issues relating to the city of Prince George's strategic plan for the standing committee's consideration.

(1) Flood mitigation and improving our health and safety. The background is that with the help of funding from the provincial government through emergency management B.C., the city of Prince George has completed a comprehensive flood risk evaluation and flood control solutions report to assess flood risk in the city and potential solutions through which that risk might be managed.

As a result of this assessment, the city council has recently adopted a flood mitigation strategic plan, which sets out a multi-year plan identifying work valued at $42.5 million, which will manage flood risk in the city.

In the past years the EMBC flood protection–funding program was structured to exclude specific costs associated with flood solutions such as design for civil works and land acquisition. This has been problematic, as it has prevented key work from moving forward.

The recommendation is to structure the EMBC flood protection program to include a broader range of eligible costs.

(2) Sustainable infrastructure and continued progressive and responsible fiscal management. Joint federal, provincial and local government infrastructure programs have been very beneficial to municipal governments, which on their own have insufficient resources to fund required investment and reinvestment. However, recent programs' criteria have favoured projects that result in new infrastructure or whose expenditures are incremental to current planned expenditures. This can result in municipalities increasing their assets and diverting limited resources from needed asset reinvestment.

Recent programs have emphasized funding for provincial facilities such as that support sports, culture or tourism. While this is very much appreciated, municipalities also need infrastructure funding for administrative facilities. Providing infrastructure funding for such facilities would contribute to strong, safe and prosperous communities.

The local governments have often been given very short timelines to apply for infrastructure programs. The added step of environmental review related to federal portions of the infrastructure funds can be problematic.

Recent good examples of environmental review timelines have occurred for funding which has been delivered through Transport Canada and, locally, through the Northern Development Initiative Trust.

Recent infrastructure programs have required that funding projects be constructed within short time frames. Major facility projects may take up to two years to design and up to two years to construct. Given these design-build timelines, quick project completion deadlines may prevent municipalities from accessing much-needed funding.

Although their funding is appreciated, new infrastructure programs often set new directions and are short-lived. This creates a moving target for municipal infrastructure planning that is difficult to manage. It creates uncertainty regarding the funding of core functions and increases administrative effort and costs.

Good examples of continuing in funding are the federal gas tax and the provincial infrastructure study grant programs.

The recommendations are (a) to contribute to municipal asset investment and reinvestment by tailoring infrastructure program criteria to local government priorities; (b) to encourage the federal government to review the Transport Canada, NDI Trust management environmental review processes and to consider requiring federal ministries to adopt similar processes; (c) to develop and implement a long-term program for municipal facility development; and (d) to continue successful funding programs and, when new programs are created, structure them to be compatible with previous programs.

(3) One of our priorities is public transit and results in taking care of our air, water and land resources.

The background. NextBus uses satellite technology and computer modelling to track buses on their routes by having each bus fitted with a satellite tracking system. The information is then made available on the Internet and to Internet-capable cell phones, including text messaging. Wireless signs displaying NextBus information at bus stops and businesses could also be utilized.

B.C. Transit has indicated that it will be approximately three years before NextBus or similar technology is
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implemented in the Prince George transit system. The recommendation is to consider implementing NextBus in the Prince George transit system in 2011.

(4) Policing, improving our health and safety. The Prince George RCMP detachment has historically had and currently has 2.5 rural members. Requests for additional members have been responded to by indicating the province does not have funds available for them.

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Additional rural members would assist in dealing with crime in the city of Prince George, as criminal activity doesn't recognize administrative boundaries. The recommendation is to increase provincial funding to enable municipal RCMP detachments to add rural members.

(5) Volunteer criminal record checks and increasing communal pride and continuing progressive and responsible fiscal management. The background is that the city of Prince George encourages the contribution of volunteer organizations, which build and sustain community pride. In the most recent Canadian survey, which broke up volunteer participation rates by city, Prince George had the highest rate in B.C., 62 percent.

When individuals are required to provide criminal record checks to non-profit groups for which they volunteer, in support of volunteerism, the city of Prince George waives the criminal record check fee. Doing so results in forgone revenue of approximately $200,000 per year.

The recommendation is that the city look forward to hearing more about the new social innovation model referred to in Premier Campbell's recent speech to UBCM. We're especially interested in the proposal that criminal record checks will only be done once and that the province will provide financial support for them.

(6) Additional hotel room tax legislation and strengthening and diversifying our economy. The background is that tourism is a critical sector of growth and opportunity for Prince George, especially now, with the catalyst of the 2015 Winter Games.

In order to take advantage of this and many other opportunities for Prince George to grow the tourism sector and further to Premier Campbell's commitment to extend the AHRT beyond June 30, 2011, we require that clear, enabling fiscal legislation for community marketing fund retention be in place prior to the repeal of the existing additional hotel room tax legislation.

The city of Prince George contributes approximately $300,000 annually for the newly formed Tourism Prince George Society, and the AHRT now enables the provision of approximately $500,000 incremental funding for the destination marketing of Prince George, based on our hotel occupancies. Industry's participation will leverage this investment further so that effective destination marketing can be accomplished by our city.

The recommendation is to enact clear enabling fiscal legislation for a community marketing fund for retention prior to the repeal of the existing AHRT legislation in July 2011. Principles of the new legislation should be similar to those of the existing legislation, with performance-based funding collected by the accommodations sector at or above the existing levels, with accountability through the governance that recognizes local government, industry and economic development as key partners.

Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation. The city of Prince George thanks you for the opportunity to provide our comments and looks forward to continuing to work with the province to address these issues.

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

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. Sometimes it's hard to talk about negative things, although in Kelowna the chamber of commerce mentioned that they're very concerned about the presence of organized crime in their community.

There have been certain news reports about organized crime here in Prince George. Are you satisfied with the level of support you're getting from the RCMP? In Kelowna there was an Integrated Gang Task Force group that was working there, and they were concerned that it continue its work. So I'm concerned that they may not be responding to the challenges that you seem to be facing here in Prince George.

M. Krause: We believe that they are, and we certainly appreciate the support from the Integrated Gang Task Force from Vancouver. Our local detachment is working very hard on that issue. Certainly, we have seen it ebb and also seen it flow.

I think that certainly, in the last report…. I think it was a two-page spread in the Sun which talked about some recent busts in our city. Those are very, very critical, because we know that gangs have moved in from the Lower Mainland and are plying their trade here in Prince George, and we know that unfortunately, they are also attracting very vulnerable people to work for them. I come from a social work perspective, so my concern, I guess, is those vulnerable people who get recruited.

Of course, then, we want to make sure that that crime ceases in our community, so we're really appreciative of the effort by the provincial task force and certainly very appreciative of our local detachment.

J. Les (Chair): Any further questions, anyone? Okay.

Thank you very much for coming this morning, Murry.

[1150]

The next presentation is from the College of New Caledonia Students Union — Robert Chavarie and Kyle Wilson.
[ Page 884 ]

K. Wilson: Good afternoon. My name is Kyle Wilson, and I'm the college relations coordinator of the College of New Caledonia Students Union. With me today is Robert Chavarie, our executive director. Thank you for this opportunity to share our concerns and constructive solutions with you today.

Before beginning today, we would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on traditional Lheidli T'enneh territory, on which our members also live and study.

Our students union represents approximately 4,500 students across a large geographical area from Prince George to Valemont, Mackenzie, Burns Lake, Quesnel and destinations in between. Not only do our members cover a large geographical area; we also have very diverse demographics, ranging from high school students to retired seniors continuing lifelong learning.

We advocate for these students and provide value-added service to make students' lives easier and improve their overall student experience. The core mandate of our students union is to advocate for a system of post-secondary education which is rationally planned, accessible and of high quality — which is part of why I'm here today.

The four things I would like to bring up with you today would be reducing tuition fees, increasing per-student funding, establishing upfront provincial grants and eliminating interest on student loans.

The first priority of all of B.C.'s colleges and universities is to reduce tuition fees. To start, reduce tuition fees to 2001 levels. Out of all the recommendations we can give, this would be the most impactful, especially for low- and middle-income earners who make up the majority of our students at CNC, and this would reduce the largest barrier to a fully accessible post-secondary system today.

This now brings us to the beginning of the current government's mandate. This government has overseen a huge increase in student numbers and funding for colleges and universities in B.C., for which credit is definitely due. However, like other governments that came before, increases in funding have not kept pace with the growth of costs.

Across the system, per-student funding has declined by more than 15 percent in the past ten years. It puts undue hardship on CNC students every year. If this underfunding is not addressed, the funding gap worsens. That is why we are today asking that your committee recommend that government restore operating funding to universities and colleges to 2001 proportions.

The decline in government funding to universities and colleges continues to fuel pressure to increase tuition fees. Tuition fees in B.C. increased from an average of $2,527 in 2001-2002 to an average of $5,040 last year. In comparison to other provinces, B.C. went from having tuition fees 30 percent below the national average to now surpassing that average by 7 percent. In the past eight years we have set the record among provinces for the highest rate of increase in tuition fees.

There is ample evidence that financial barriers are the most significant obstacles to many citizens achieving entry into colleges and universities. The Canadian Federation of Students–B.C. has plenty of current data in support of that fact. The data is clear, well researched and on record. For this reason, we urge this committee to recommend that tuition fees in B.C. be progressively reduced to 2001 levels.

I would now like to turn to the issue of student debt. At an average of $27,000 upon graduation from a four-year program, B.C. has the highest student debt in Canada outside of the maritime provinces. It is important to note that this figure only includes public student loan debt, and according to Statistics Canada, that number is in excess of $32,000 in private debt like credit cards.

Members should be aware that following graduation, student loan borrowers may pay interest on their public student loans substantially above the government's cost of borrowing.

[1155]

Members may not be aware that nearly every province charges a lower interest rate on student loans than B.C. Students with higher debt levels upon graduation pay more for their education through higher interest rates than those who had to borrow less or nothing at all in order to get an education. A system in which low- and middle-income students are expected to pay more for the same education than those who can afford to pay upfront is fundamentally unjust. By keeping interest rates high, the government is penalizing students and students' families who have the least amount of financial resources.

In terms of the impact on the provincial treasury, the annual cost of even complete elimination of interest on student loans is well worth the investment. We ask that the committee recommend that government progressively eliminate interest charged on government student loans so as to ensure that students who cannot afford a debt-free education no longer have to pay the most for it.

Not only is B.C.'s rate of interest higher than average; B.C. is last among all provinces in the provision of non-repayable student financial aid. That's 60 percent below the national average. Provinces with comparable tuition fees to B.C. — Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario — all designate approximately one-third of their financial aid as non-repayable, when in B.C. less than 12 percent of financial aid is non-repayable.

Given B.C.'s relative wealth as a province, it is not reasonable that we are lagging behind other provinces in provision for support for low- and middle-income students. B.C. families deserve no less than other families across Canada. We ask that the committee recommend the creation of a provincial system of non-repayable, upfront grants.
[ Page 885 ]

The issues of institutional funding, inflated tuition fees and student debt are presented here together because they are tied to each other. Cuts in funding create pressure to increase tuition fees, which in turn increases student debt. Our universities and colleges are then pushed into privatization, and students are pushed into debt.

As we noted earlier, the mandate for our students union is to promote a post-secondary system that is rationally planned, accessible to all and of high quality. In B.C. we have a system that does not meet either of the first standards — rationally planned and accessible — and will inevitably fail to meet the third — high quality.

The recommendations presented today — reducing tuition fees, increased institutional funding, eliminating student loan interest and offering more non-repayable student aid — are structural solutions to the issues facing our post-secondary system. However, they are the beginning of a process to reverse the erosion of our public post-secondary system that started at least 25 years ago, two governments ago, seven Premiers ago.

We ask that committee members come together and demonstrate the leadership needed to change the course of our public colleges and universities for the better. By investing in the public post-secondary education system, this will improve B.C.'s diverse economic potentials and ensure that this province has a flexible and adaptable workforce. These recommendations are a necessity to ensure that B.C. can meet and expand in local and global economies.

On behalf of our 4,500 students, thank you for your time.

J. Les (Chair): And thank you for yours.

The first question is from Norm.

N. Letnick: Thank you very much for continuing in post-secondary education. I much appreciate it. You're the future of the province.

First thing, I have to make a clarification on something you said. Then I have a question.

You said that you are concerned about the tuition going up from about $2,500 in 2001-02 to about $5,000, mid-$5,000 today. But I just looked on the Internet, and the College of New Caledonia tuition fee for last year was $2,331, so you must be talking about all universities and colleges and not just specifically for your college. Is that correct?

K. Wilson: That is correct.

N. Letnick: Okay. I just wanted to make that clear.

The question I have is similar to one I've given to other student organizations. Given limited budgets like we all have, if you had to pick a particular item of the four or five different items that you mentioned, which one would you like the government to move forward on first?

K. Wilson: I would think that the most tangible would be reducing interest rates.

J. Rustad: Thank you very much for your presentation. I always enjoy hearing presentations from students, because one day you'll be on this side of the table, possibly, in the future. Then you'll have the same type of decision-making issues that we have.

[1200]

Two quick questions. The first one…. You talk about reducing tuition rates to increase access but in Saskatchewan versus Manitoba…. In Saskatchewan, where tuition rates are much higher, the percentage of students accessing post-secondary education is also higher. And in Ontario versus Quebec, where Ontario tuition rates are almost double what Quebec is, they have a much higher level of participation in post-secondary education. So I'm wondering if you can make a quick comment about that.

The second part of my question is also similar to my colleague here. Given that what you're asking for, in terms of the tuition decreases, interest, loans, etc., is going to cost money, significant dollars actually in terms of the overall thing, where would you recommend getting that money from? Should we be raising taxes? Should we be looking at reducing services elsewhere? Where would you consider doing that?

R. Chavarie: One of the things I can attest to…. I actually work for the students union. I just graduated this past May.

In our province we're obviously not sitting members, so that's not our decision to make. We've elected you guys hopefully to make the right decision as far as where the focus is on education as a priority in the budget. So where you prioritize that is up to our sitting members, but we really want to urge you to see education as a very high priority, something to help our economy and to help our communities in B.C.

As someone who recently graduated, I do experience debt load, and I saw many of my peers not finish their studies because of some of the debt load they did incur while they were there. So I can definitely attest to some of the things that Kyle is saying.

Although at New Caledonia we do have lower tuition than at some other colleges across B.C., we do have a demographic that really needs that education and is really looking for it as they retrain for the workforce, to help the community of Prince George.

D. McRae: Thank you very much and congratulations on graduation.

I think it's really important to reinforce Mr. Rustad's question as well to the Canadian Federation of Students because one of the reasons we're out talking to communities is to actually get a sense of where they wish spending dollars to come from and go to.
[ Page 886 ]

When we started this whole process, the Finance Minister was very happy to say that we have as a province $600 million of unexpected revenues and where did we wish them to go to. Still we have a deficit, obviously, but there are so many good organizations and programs that wish to be funded. Basically, you guys are asking not a million-dollar question but a billion-dollar question. A billion dollars is not easily come by in government.

It gives us as committee members, I think, more licence to go forward and say: "Well, yes, we can see these spends and priorities, but where do you wish these dollars to come from?"

I'm very curious to know if people wish to see their taxes go up to pay for these services. They're great services, but at the same time we also hear many, many people say: "Please don't raise taxation. It's going to destroy the economy."

To make the ask is one thing, but to have a solution really gives a lot of power to that ask.

I don't think there's a question there, just a statement.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation. Actually, I was thinking about the StatsCan study in Ontario that my colleague referred to. What it actually says is that a quick increase in tuition fees in professional programs did not actually lead to a decrease in participation, but it changed the demographic about students who could access that education. In other words, low- and middle-income students weren't able to afford going to those programs.

I think good ideas and good minds aren't necessarily connected to income levels. I think you'd agree.

My question would be: have you seen that in your years at the college? Have you seen people, stories that you know, that are having a lot of trouble accessing post-secondary because of their income levels?

K. Wilson: Yeah, I'm actually in the social work program. I'm in my second year. Speaking to that, with the barriers set up against certain people, quite a few of my friends that I've made at the college.... Some of them have dropped out because they weren't funded anymore. They were not eligible for student loans. Others had too much debt already, so they couldn't even get a student loan. They had to go through other programs.

[1205]

With all the cuts, it's started to become competitive for these fundings. So some of these people who are in a two-year program are either struggling, because they're scratching pennies from their couches, or have decided that it's much easier to not continue with their second year, only because they couldn't find funding and they feel it's too late to catch up.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, gentlemen. That's all the time we have for your presentation. We need to move along.

The next presentation is from the Northern Technology and Engineering Society of B.C. — Albert Koehler. Good morning to you.

A. Koehler: Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to speak before you. I guess there have been some handouts, or they are in the process of being handed out. John, I guess you have seen something like this shown before, so I apologize for that. I also apologize for, at this meeting, not having recognized you. I forgot your name. So I hope you forgive me for that.

What this is all about is technology and engineering. Let me briefly start with why I am speaking before you.

Ten years ago already there was a shortage of technologists and engineers in the north. I had an engineering company and could not find technologists and engineers with the right skill set. First I thought it was just my company, but then I found out that pretty well it was with everybody else who was involved with engineering. They just couldn't find the right persons. Why is that? I will come to that.

When I was afterwards — that was three years ago — the president of the chamber of commerce, corporations came to me and said: "So, Albert, what can you do now for us, because we need these engineers?"

I said: "Well, I can't really do too much unless you get involved." So many corporations at that time got involved, like B.C. Tel, B.C. Hydro, McElhanney Consulting. A total of around 50 corporations said: "Okay, we've got to do something."

So we formed a consortium, which we called Applied Technology and Engineering Education Consortium. We met regularly, and we agreed on the case, but we said: "Well, we have to certainly document all of this."

We hired a consultant, a very — I would say completely — independent consultant, to come up with this case, so to speak. That was a wake-up call. This report of this consultant is on the Web. The webpage is in your hand. You may not want to study it now, but I refer to it. There are 600-plus pages. You don't have to read them all, but if you study or read the 24 pages as an executive summary, that would provide you with a good insight into this whole problem.

That was quite something. The question is: where do we go from here? Also, part of the report was, for instance, and I'm very conservative when I say…. Let's assume we would now — right now, today — have 500 engineers or technologists with the right skill sets in the north. They would be all employed. There was even a shortage of technologists and engineers in the north during the recession. It is sad.

The question is: why do we not get them up here in the north? There are surveys around. Experience shows that if someone studies a university or post-secondary education,
[ Page 887 ]
this person tends to find a job within a 200-kilometre radius around the institution. Either this person comes already from there, is familiar with it and wants to live there, or this person comes from somewhere else but likes the area or the city or whatever — during the studies — or this person falls in love with somebody else and stays there.

We do not get them in the north. There are several reasons. They go to the States or to Europe or to Dubai, where it is exciting. They come eventually, for a short period, up here to the north to get training for a year or two years, but then they take off again because they don't like the climate. They don't like the north. They don't like the winter. There are many reasons.

[1210]

If I go back to the physician shortage, which we had here, and quite a few are familiar with that case, we came to the result of: "Yeah, we've got to educate them in the north to have them in the north." That obviously worked quite well. As you know, now we educate physicians in the north, and the problem is mitigating step by step.

We have to do the same thing for technologists and engineers. Quite a bit of work has been done by the society, by the consortium and, certainly, also now by the university. The university is fully behind it and has sent some proposals to the Ministry of Advanced Education. There is even a reply letter from the Ministry of Advanced Education, but that is it. So I'm now here before you to increase that awareness.

The Premier, when I was president of the chamber, said at one of those meetings: "The north of B.C. is the future of B.C." If that is it, then we have to do something about it. He said some other things that are related to the north of B.C. We hear so often about innovation and development and the like, and if that is the case, then we have to educate individuals who can innovate and develop. More than 90 percent of all innovations are done by engineers.

I talked recently to the human resources manager of Teck Cominco, and he said: "Albert, if we start the mine up that we are talking about, we don't have the people." We haven't opened up a real new mine within the last 30 years, and we all look forward to the north of B.C. and mining and what have you. So if we want to do it and our corporations — and I've mentioned a few — have to hire the right engineers, then we have to educate them here. Otherwise, we don't get them here.

All I'm asking you today is to please raise the awareness around the cabinet and please contact the Ministry of Advanced Education. The funds I've heard of this morning…. We don't need the $600 million that is there but ask that a good portion of those funds be dedicated to education in the north, especially technology and engineering at our university.

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

B. Ralston: Thanks. The University of Northern British Columbia is going to present shortly, so I'm sure they'll be able to address this topic as well. I believe this committee did make a recommendation that mechanical and civil engineering be a faculty at the university here. What's the status of that recommendation?

A. Koehler: I spoke here, I guess, two years ago already about something like this, and you may have made this recommendation. All I know is that the Ministry of Advanced Education is aware of it. As one of our MLAs just recently said to me: "Albert, the promise is not broken; we are just poor. We just have to set priorities." So I don't know where the priority is. I think one priority would be to allocate the right funds for the north on the education side.

Where is this file now? I would suggest that you direct this question to Dr. Mark Dale — who will speak here, I guess, very soon after me — to find out where they are. I've been on this file now for ten years, and as a results-oriented individual, I would like to see something happening.

J. Les (Chair): I have a quick question. You use the analogy of the medical school that's now at UNBC as perhaps a platform that we could emulate for engineering. Have there already been graduates from that school?

A. Koehler: Oh yeah, for a few years already. Yes.

J. Les (Chair): Have we some statistics in terms of how many have stayed in the north?

A. Koehler: There are statistics around. I guess three-quarters of them stay in the north, and the doctor shortage is not completely solved but on a very good way to being solved all over the north.

[1215]

When I speak on behalf of the Northern Technology and Engineering Society, this society had been established after we had this loose consortium, so we said we have to have something more legal. Within a few months we got memos from zero to 100, as there was such an interest to really push this ahead. They said: "Oh yeah, Albert. You have been on this file so long. Take it on, and push it further."

Yeah, so there are good numbers around.

J. Les (Chair): Good. Thank you for coming this morning and highlighting the issue with us. We appreciate it very much.

Our next presenters are from PacificSport Northern B.C. — Anne Pousette, Ann Holmes and Jim Burbee.

Good afternoon.

A. Pousette: Good afternoon. Thanks very much for allowing us to come and speak with you today. Ann was
[ Page 888 ]
just reminding me that we were here a couple of years ago, just after Mr. Koehler last time as well. She said that you all appreciated a stretch break. Since we're here to talk about physical activity, if everybody needs to stand up for a minute, that's good with us.

Anyway, if you're all good to go, we want to thank you for allowing us to come. We want to acknowledge, as members of the board of directors for PacificSport Northern B.C., the huge accomplishments that have been made in British Columbia in the last few years in the area of sport and physical activity and the recognition that this is important to us as a society, as a culture, to our health, and that it crosses all sectors. I think tremendous things have happened in the last six to eight years in B.C., and we thank our representatives in Victoria for pushing those agendas forward.

Benefits of sport have been highlighted in lots of presentations and research projects across B.C. and Canada in the last ten years. You only have to pick up the paper every day and see some new stat. The key areas are health, social and economic. We're going to briefly speak to all of them but probably focus more on the fact that this is an investment, not a cost.

We're going to focus on some of the economic benefits. So 2010 challenged us to evaluate why we as a nation value sport, and it initiated a huge investment by volunteers, athletes, communities and governments. Going forward, we need to capitalize on that. I think we've got some information to share about the significant impact that that investment potentially has, how fragile that is and how we need to keep it going forward. We want to focus on how this is about investment, not spending.

Quick facts. You've all heard them before. In B.C. 40 percent of adults and at least 30 percent of youth and children are not active enough to be considered healthy, fit or even active enough for normal growth and development.

We know that we've got rates of obesity and overweight that are not improving in B.C. We haven't gotten worse; the rest of Canada's trends seem to be getting worse. We have actually held our own, which in the big picture looks better than the rest of Canada, but it's not where we want to go.

We know that physical inactivity causes a host of chronic diseases and difficulties, lost productivity. I don't need to bore you with the details; you've all heard them before.

We know that physical activity provides numerous opportunities for increased health, increased self-esteem and a sense of well-being. It reduces areas of illness in mental health as well, and it promotes normal growth; development; strengthens bones, joints and muscles; and prevents injuries. It's all good.

What about the cost? The cost of inactivity in B.C., in the 2004 study that was done by the provincial government, is estimated at $573 million for direct and indirect costs. There was a prediction that a 10 percent increase in activity would result in a savings of $49.4 million, based on that 2004 study. We haven't achieved that. We had a goal of 20 percent by 2010. We didn't make it, but we didn't slide like the rest of B.C. If we actually did accomplish that, where would we put that $49.4 million? Could we get the snowball going the other way?

I'm going to turn it over now to Ann.

A. Holmes: I'm going to look at social impacts and education. There was the National Household Survey on Participation in Sport done in 2004, and it discussed great things like sports skills being transferable beyond the sporting context. These skills are important for success in work and for being good citizens — things like teamwork and leadership, problem-solving, decision-making, personal management and administrative skills — and 46 percent of the people that responded identified discipline as a value that sport develops.

[1220]

Sport also increases family and community cohesion, brings families together. The presence of children in the household tends to encourage and stimulate adults to be more active themselves and participate, to volunteer and to attend more sporting events. Over 40 percent of these participants engaged in sport in their own neighbourhoods, and over 80 percent of these participants engaged in sport in their own community.

In addition, over 85 percent of people that were surveyed indicated things like: sport encourages people from different backgrounds to work and play together; provides an opportunity to volunteer within the community — we'll discuss that a little further shortly; teaches people about responsibility and respect for other people and their property; gives people a sense of purpose; and helps reduce and prevent juvenile crime.

There was a 2003 Ipsos-Reid survey, and it discussed…. Children and young adults aged 12 to 21 felt that playing sports helped them to succeed at school — so all these positive benefits of sport. But now I'm going to turn it over to Jim to discuss not only the social benefits but the economic investment of sport.

J. Burbee: Thanks, Ann.

I want to speak to three economic points today: government's investment in sport, the volunteers' investment in sport and the significant risk to these investments.

First of all, government investment in sport. Based upon 2007 Stats Can reports, there are 24 million persons in the B.C. workplace with a payroll of roughly $84 billion. Public health is a large factor in this cost. Public Health Agency of Canada cites study results that the physical activity in the workforce is directly related to both productivity and profitability. They also cite B.C. case studies — such as B.C. Hydro and Vancouver Airport Authority — with specific productivity factors
[ Page 889 ]
such as reduced turnover, reduced injuries, compensation costs and increased attendance.

However, a Stats Can research paper on sport participation in Canada shows that sport participation in B.C. is actually declining. In 1992 participation was at 52.7 percent, in 1998 at 35.8 percent and in 2005 at 26.3 percent. That's an average decline of 2 percent per year. This is a disturbing trend, and it has a cost in the workplace.

What's the value of investment in sport, then? Well, there are significant opportunities through sports for cost reductions. Absenteeism, for example, is a huge factor.

A peer-reviewed study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, based upon 34 companies over a period of four years, showed a higher mean duration of absenteeism among employees either not currently practising in sports or never having practised sports — approximately 25 to 50 days respectively over a period of four years, compared to the employees who actually participate in sport. The average for both inactive groups was five days lost annually greater than those who participate in sport.

This equates to a 2.1 percent increase in absenteeism, for a potential $1.7 billion cost on an $84 billion payroll — a significant number. Regaining the 10 percent of sport participation that B.C. lost over the last seven years would be worth $176 million annually, so sport can be a factor. This is a peer-reviewed journal.

Other significant costs are productivity losses. On the Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport there's a quote from the Industrial Accident Prevention Association that says, "Physically inactive employees cost employers $488 more per year in sick time benefits and lost productivity" than physically active employees. For a 2.4 million workforce, this equates to a 1.4 percent loss in productivity or $1.7 billion on an $84 billion payroll.

An average decrease in participation of 2 percent per year would equate to an incremental cost of roughly $23 million a year, annually and compounding. Obviously, there are some significant contributions that sport can make to reduce costs in the workplace.

[1225]

There's also revenue potential, which I don't have numbers for. They're difficult. But I think we've all been through the Olympics and the Paralympics recently and seen the kind of injection of funding that brought into the province.

Event hosting spurs infrastructure development and leaves legacies behind in communities like this, and the event hosting builds human capital and the technical capacity to support a sport tourism sector in the province. There's a significant reason to invest in sport for government, because a lot of those employees are government employees or government-funded employees.

With respect to volunteer investment in sport, B.C. enjoys huge cost reductions through leveraging of sport delivery in the volunteer sector. Some of those volunteer contributions are….

According to the StatsCan Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 45 percent of British Columbia residents aged 15 and over, which is 1.6 million people, volunteered in 2004. The B.C. stats are not segregated for 2007, so I couldn't use the more recent numbers. Each volunteer contributed an average of 199 hours for a total of 315 million hours, or the equivalent of 164,000 full-time-equivalent jobs, volunteering in B.C. each year.

Of this number, 11 percent was in sport and recreation. That's over 18,000 full-time jobs a year that the province is getting and not paying for in terms of sport delivery. So at a $65,000 per annum loaded salary, the value of sport volunteers in B.C. is $1.2 billion. I use this number because most volunteering is done by higher-income individuals. That's also a StatsCan figure.

Relatively speaking, government contributions…. According to the Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport 2010-2011 service plan, the cost of sport delivery is $21.6 million. Also, according to the 2010 budget backgrounder, sports and arts, the further sport funding planned is ActNow B.C., $14.8 million; gaming, $22.9 million; plus 2010 sports and arts legacy, a further $10 million, for a total of $47.7 million. Combining that with the ministry's internal plan, the total provincial sport delivery spending is just over $69 million.

The $69 million portion of sport delivery in the province represents 5.5 percent of the cost of delivering sport in the province, and $1.2 billion, of course, is the other 94.5 percent. The leveraging there is over 17 times. Every time you spend a dollar, you get 17 back from your communities.

Collectively, it's a big number. I guess you'd have to ask the question of where else government can get this kind of return on investment, especially when you have the significant savings to put it against in the workforce. It's not just about having fun at sport. It's costing us money, and this is a good place to invest — in your volunteers.

Further to that, the point that I really want to make is that this volunteer system that delivers 95 percent of your sport in the province…. I'm not talking about building stadiums and those sorts of things; these are the people that run the events. It's very fragile — extremely fragile.

Less than 5 percent of funding in sport delivery in B.C. is now below sustainable levels, demonstrated by a decreasing sport participation trend at 2 percent per year. There's a critical threshold where, if you go below it, there's not enough professional guidance to support the volunteer sport delivery system. They need leadership. Volunteers also need to do their day jobs during the day. So they can't go to university and take sport science courses, for example.

Sport organizations require stability. That's the message. Government develops four-year service plans for a
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reason, and volunteer-driven organizations need them for the same reason. That reason is stability.

Multi-year plans for sport organizations in place prior to the Olympics are gone, and they need to be restored. We had three-year funding commitments from government previously. Without commitments on base-level funding, the volunteer sport–driven community cannot effectively plan or effectively function.

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The volunteer sport community relies on government funding in essential areas, such as sport-specific technical standards, sports science, event standards, coaching and official training, sport policy, management frameworks, etc. Without this essential support, the system can implode, and this risk is very, very real.

Goal 4, Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport service plan, is a robust provincial sports sector that supports increased participation in athletic achievement.

J. Les (Chair): Jim, we're going to have to leave your presentation there. We're out of time. We will review the rest of the presentation as you have delivered it to us, and if members of the committee have any specific questions, they can, I'm sure, e-mail them to you or fax them to you.

So thank you for coming today. I'm sorry to have to cut the time exactly at 15 minutes, but I've had to do that rigidly this morning. I have to be fair to everyone.

J. Burbee: Just remember we're fragile.

J. Les (Chair): Yes, exactly.

The next presenters are from the University of Northern British Columbia — Dr. Mark Dale and Kaleigh Milinazzo.

M. Dale: I'm going to start. Good morning. I'm Mark Dale. I'm the provost. I'll tell you later what a provost is, if you really want to know, and I'd be happy to answer your questions about engineering if there's time at the end. But my principal task today is to introduce Kaleigh Milinazzo, who's the president of our undergraduate students society. She's a fourth-year student in political science and international studies, and her hometown is Burns Lake.

K. Milinazzo: Perfect. Well, thank you for the introduction, Mark. I'm really happy to be here today to get a chance to address you all not only on behalf of our Prince George campus but also on behalf of our regional campuses in Quesnel, Terrace and Fort St. John.

As you're all aware, UNBC is a new university. This year is our 16th anniversary, and we're really proud of everything that we've accomplished in this short time. We're also extremely ambitious about what the future holds for UNBC.

We have become an economic asset for the province, and we're a unique northern university. When you consider the structure of Canadian universities, having a university in the north is very unique because in Canada all the resource and innovation is centred in large cities, in large universities.

I'd also like to recognize that the provincial government has made really important strategic investments in research, in infrastructure and in post-secondary education. We think this is a great base, and we're really excited to build on it.

Our presentation today will just briefly go over three main priorities that we have for the 2011 provincial budget.

To begin with, I'd like to talk about what we'd like to see be restored, and that is our annual capital allowance funding. In 2009 and 2010 we received a $1.4 million reduction to that funding, and it's really important for us to see that restored so we can continue to pay for the ongoing operation and maintenance of our campus.

It's also important to us to eliminate the infrastructure deficit that we have on campus. We feel this could be achieved through a significant one-time investment by the provincial government, as well as the restoration of our ACA funding.

The second recommendation we have is that the operating budget of UNBC be protected, because any erosion of funding that we receive is going to result in higher tuition costs for students as well as reduced services for students. That's not only going to impact the quality of the education that students are going to receive but also the accessibility, which is something that's really important to us.

Also, I'd like to note that the costs to operate UNBC on a per-student basis are higher than what you might see at other universities, as a virtue of our northern and remote location. I don't need to stress this point too much. I'm sure everyone in the room is really aware just how important UNBC is for the north.

You know, growing up in Burns Lake — I know John and Doug know where Burns Lake is — it's been remarkable to see just how this has brought about such a change, not only economically but socially. I mean, students that I never thought would go to university are going to university because it's right there, and they don't have to go down to Vancouver. That's so important.

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You know, 71 percent of our students are from the north, which is remarkable and reflective of what our institution is about. So to conclude on that recommendation, it's really important for us to ensure that our operating budget is going to be protected.

Our final recommendation is an opportunity for additional investment for the provincial government: renewable energy at UNBC. Right now we're poised to implement a renewable energy system that is a model for universities in North America — and our renewable energy goals and mandate as Canada's green university. You know,
[ Page 891 ]
they're directly tied to the aspirations of Prince George and the region to diversify from a solely resource-based economy.

We've already demonstrated that our campus is ideal for this type of investment. Further investment from the government could very realistically make UNBC Canada's first carbon-neutral university, which would be very exciting and an amazing platform for research and education.

Just to conclude my section, I'd like to say that investing in UNBC is an investment in building a knowledge-based resource economy. That is so important to the economic prosperity of British Columbia as a whole, and I hope that you take our recommendations into consideration.

M. Dale: We also have Dawn Martin with us, who is the chair of the board of governors.

D. Martin: Good morning. Good afternoon. I'm not sure where we're at, time-wise.

J. Les (Chair): Nor are we.

D. Martin: Chair Les and committee members, thank you so much for giving UNBC the opportunity to talk about what we would like to see in the future. I'm going to just speak about three things that the government has done that we're pleased with.

I'd like to start by commending the government for its commitment to post-secondary education in B.C. through its decision to provide a new provincial HST rebate for universities. We feel that that underscores the government's commitment to the university — our university and others. This policy decision will help ensure that post-secondary institutions continue to have the resources necessary to provide quality education, leading-edge research and excellent services to our students.

I feel nervous. Kaleigh did such a good job. She just spoke directly to you, and I'm reading. I can learn from a student.

The second thing I'd like to commend the government on is: given the fiscal climate, the provincial government's decision to maintain the operating grants for 2010-2011 is significant. Over the last number of years we applaud the increases in government operating grants to fund the 25,000 student seats, medical school expansion, targeted programs and other initiatives. This has made B.C. a leader in post-secondary education in Canada, a position we must maintain.

The third point would be: moving forward. Leading jurisdictions recognize that university research and education are key drivers of economic development and increased productivity. Countries around the world are investing in post-secondary education generally and in research universities in particular in order to ensure the development of human capital, research capacity and knowledge transfer. It is great to see our province of B.C. being a leader in this kind of investment.

I'd just like to conclude by reminding you of the three points that Kaleigh spoke of that we think are crucial steps for us as a university. One is to restore the capital annual allowance, and to continue to maintain operating budgets in the universities. And the third one: investments in renewal bioenergy at UNBC as a model for other universities and other communities. We're very proud of what we're doing in that area.

Thank you very much, and if you have any questions of us, we'd be glad to ask Mark to answer them.

M. Dale: I knew I was here for a reason.

N. Letnick: I have two questions. First, since UNBC has been created, obviously more students are able to stay here in the north and get educated here. Do you have any idea how much that is saving students on a four-year degree basis, as opposed to going away from their homes and the cost that incurs with that?

The second question. We received a lot of submissions from student groups across the province with different priorities, such as lowering tuition down to 2001 levels, bringing in a needs-based grant program, lowering interest rates on loans and things of that nature. Do you have a particular preference as to which of these many asks you would like to see the Finance Committee make recommendations to the Finance Minister to move on first?

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K. Milinazzo: For the second question, I would just like to say that I recognize that education can't be free. Student loans can't be interest-free. I mean, the government has all these competing interests and costs to consider, and I think some of the proposals put forward are maybe not quite realistic and may be a bit too expensive. I know that this is probably a bit of a departure from what you've heard from other student union presidents.

I think something that's important for students is to see money in terms of scholarships. There are a lot of students that are at university, and they think: "Okay, there's a scholarship. I'm going to work hard because I know that this is a potential." I think that it kind of alleviates some of the debt burden for students and also helps promote excellence in our students. There's something to strive for, and it's not just: "Here's an interest-free loan."

M. Dale: On the first question, I don't have the numbers, but if you just do an armchair mental calculation of living expenses for eight months of the year for 3,000 full-time students, that's $24 million. So just as a start, before you do anything else, that's a lot of money.
[ Page 892 ]

The only comment I'd add, if I can, to Kaleigh's — to depart from our script but to go back to an earlier presentation about tuition — is that one of the things to think about is having a more flexible tuition policy that would allow for higher tuition rates in professional programs, for example, provided that some of that money then goes back in the form of scholarships — to address the question that was already addressed in the sense of what the Ontario experience was about accessibility, particularly to professional programs. I think you made the point on that.

K. Milinazzo: Education costs money, but it's very reasonable, and if you think about it in terms of a return on an investment, it's incredible. You know, it's one of the best investments you'll ever make.

D. Martin: If I can just add to that, I don't know what the difference would be economically between going to UNBC and one of the southern universities, but I do know that UNBC has opened the doors so that people can see that they can go to university, that it is available and that it is accessible by having it in Prince George, in the north.

K. Milinazzo: Lower rent too, a lot lower.

M. Mungall: Kaleigh, you make a very good point about how education is an investment, an investment that people can make in themselves as individuals but also, of course, one that a provincial society, a provincial government, can make in the people that reside in that province. Making sure that that investment is accessible is key — whether it's location or whether it's cost.

I'm going to go back to what my original question was. The dialogue that we've had so far has brought up a lot of other questions, but I'm going to get my original question in there. That's on the renewable energy programs that you're talking about. I'm just wondering if you can expand on that a little bit more, describe the program a little bit, very briefly, and also maybe highlight what particular energy sources you're looking at using — geothermal, hydro or so on.

K. Milinazzo: Yeah. I know it's a bioenergy plan, and I think Mark would probably be better able to speak about more of the details of the project.

M. Dale: The Prince George campus will have up and running, in not too many months, a bioenergy facility that uses wood product waste to turn into biogas, which is then burned as fuel. It is not just environmentally friendly; it actually produces less pollution than burning natural gas, for example. The Quesnel campus, which we share with CNC, actually is a geothermal facility. But with the Prince George campus, we expect that there's the potential to be essentially carbon-neutral within a couple of years. That's a gasification plant.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation, Kaleigh, and thanks for mentioning strategic investments. I'm sure you'd be happy that strategic investment by the government in the '90s enabled UNBC to be where it is today. Thanks for pointing that out.

The question I had for you was the link. I found it very interesting that you made the link between operating budgets and tuition fees. I'm wondering: have you found that the tuition fees are a barrier to students in the north who may not have as many opportunities to earn income because of the economic situation we're faced with now?

[1245]

K. Milinazzo: That's hard to say. I personally feel that the tuition at UNBC at $4,500 a year, approximately, is somewhat reasonable. I think we're fortunate to live in a province and a country where student loans are easily accessible. It's very rare that I hear of a story of a student that says: "I can't go to school, because I don't have the money." They just take the option of the debt burden instead. The only case where that happens sometimes is where people's parents make too much money for them to have access to those loans, and then they end up working.

In the north we're fortunate because…. I had a job where I worked for the Ministry of Forests for two summers and was paid very well. There are a lot of, I think, higher-paying jobs in northern B.C. than there are in other provinces and regions of the country.

To answer your question, I don't see it as being a huge barrier. If you want to get an education, you can do it. You know, you can overcome those barriers.

M. Dale: If I can just add a comment there, one of the things that we're most concerned about, of course, is for people in rural communities and small communities, particularly First Nations, where there are social and personal barriers to access, as opposed to just financial ones, and they're often more important.

K. Milinazzo: Yeah, that's an important point.

J. Rustad: Thanks very much for your presentation. It was very thoughtful, and I look forward to being there on Tuesday for a special event around your bioenergy program. With that, I just wanted to add those comments because I was going to ask about the Nexterra project, but you've already answered that question. So thanks again for the presentation.

B. Ralston: Dr. Dale, you were going to update us on the mechanical and civil engineering recommendations
[ Page 893 ]
the committee made a couple of years ago. Hope you've got some good news.

M. Dale: Yeah, we have put in a proposal to the Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development for an engineering program here at UNBC that would be for both civil and mechanical engineering. As you know, the government has announced a wood innovation and design centre to be located in Prince George.

It's not clear how closely related an engineering proposal would be to that facility, so we are, essentially, considering several different options that would allow us to offer engineering, whatever the shape is of that project.

J. Les (Chair): Okay, that's all the time we have. You finished right on time. Good for you.

Don't anybody go away, though. We have two more presenters under the category of open mike, impromptu or otherwise. The first would be Sharel Warrington and Lyn Hall. We have exactly five minutes for each presentation. It's not because we're not nice people; it's all the time we have.

Oh, there are three of you now. There's Roxanne Ricard as well.

S. Warrington: Thank you very much for giving us some time to speak to you today. You do have a handout. I'm going to be very brief and try to skip through it and try to hit on the most pertinent topics. I do hope you will have time to read through it. The first page basically just overviews what I'm going to say and the details of our concerns in a general form.

With that, Chairperson and hon. committee members, we're here to represent K-to-12 on behalf of the K-to-12 public education system, and I know you've heard from others. Last year we came to stress the importance of predictable and sustainable public education funding, and we're here again to stress the same. Because I have limited time, I would like you to turn to our second page if you want to read along with me.

I'm going to talk first about our first point, which is the need for adequate, predictable and sustainable funding that will enable districts to develop long-range plans and to continue to provide quality education to our students.

This past year, in spite of prudent and careful management, district 57 — along with many districts in the province — faced extreme challenges in addressing projected operating deficits. In our need to balance our budget, district 57 was required to close nine schools.

Three of the nine were reconfigured, and a complete restructure and reorganization of the delivery of education at both school district level and school level was put in motion.

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Staffing was reduced or reassigned, class size was increased, and reconfiguration of schools…. Communities of closed schools and those slated for closure were significantly impacted. This action definitely emphasizes the need and provides a strong argument for adequate, predictable and sustainable funding.

If you turn to our page 3, I'd like to make the point which was my last one. It is a case for the revision and expansion of the government capital maintenance and replacement program.

Capital and replacement funding is not meeting the needs of our aging schools. The life expectancy of our schools is 40 years, and the average age in school district 57 is over 35 years. Maintenance and upgrading for our schools has been exacerbated by the annual facility grant that is not sufficient to meet the cost for necessary upgrades and general maintenance in order to expand the life of our aging buildings.

Without these sufficient upgrades, the district's ability to finance major energy retrofits to become carbon-neutral is further compromised, requiring the district to incur additional expenses to cover carbon offsets.

The district is further challenged in finding funds to keep our closed schools in condition for future use. As capital maintenance programs were designed to address capital maintenance for existing schools in operation, the district is forced to use operating funds to minimally maintain our closed schools. The capital maintenance program must be revised, and the cost of maintaining both schools in operation and closed schools must be adjusted and fully funded.

I'd like to also turn back — as I'm going to move you around quickly, because I know I have limited time — to address the rural schools issue. That was my third point. The crisis, as you all know, facing our rural schools and rural communities is significant. The current per-pupil funding formula and the present rural school funding supplements are not sufficient to provide the sustainable educational programs to our rural schools.

This past year district 57…. Of the nine schools that we closed, three were rural and two were semi-rural. The district could not continue to provide the sustainable funding educational programs in these rural schools under the current funding formula. The closure of a rural school is devastating to its families and its community, and if rural schools and their communities are going to survive and continue to survive, changes must be made to the way that we deliver education to rural schools and the way we fund rural schools and their communities.

The point I made in my second point was the need for educational funding to address increasingly complex student needs. B.C. has the highest rate of child poverty. Prince George has one of the highest levels of vulnerable children in B.C., so we need to make sure that we have funding that supports vulnerable, at-risk, aboriginal, gifted — all of our children that require that extra support.
[ Page 894 ]

We also need to encourage the government to fund their new vision for personalized learning. Without funding and support, districts are at a handicap in meeting the objectives of that very, very important agenda.

With that, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to hear our report. Please do read it to its culmination. It is our firm belief that public education requires the highest priority that the government can give it to significantly improve the economic, educational and social opportunities of our youth who are going to be our citizens for tomorrow, and we need to ensure that the future is healthy and bright in B.C.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much. We have one final presentation, from Terry Robertson. Again, five minutes.

T. Robertson: I'm going to be really brief. I'm here as a mom today. I have a daughter who is 24 who lives at home with us and has significant multiple disabilities. I sit on several provincial boards, and I work for Vela Microboard Association, which is a provincial organization. There are four of us that cover the entire province.

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I have space that I am responsible for, from basically 100 Mile to the Yukon border and Prince Rupert to the Alberta border. I think that works out to half the province, but you know, I don't get into details with them.

We support families who want to keep their kids at home, which is a huge cost saving to government as a whole. While I'm frustrated sometimes with CLBC, I really think that to some degree they're underfunded. They got no increase in their budget last year, which has put many, many families at risk.

I see families all over the north. They're in communities where there are very few services. They're kind of stuck out there in the middle of no man's land. I'm going out there to help them create something, but there's just no money. I'm worried about the families that are in crisis in the province, and not just in the north. It's all over the province.

I would really encourage you to consider increasing…. I know there's a small increase coming to CLBC next fiscal year, April 1. But we have an increasing population of children with disabilities. I think that just speaks to our excellent health care in the province. We're able to save kids at younger and younger ages. While I have nothing against that — because if I didn't have that I probably wouldn't have my daughter living at home with me — the reality is that we need to think about what that's going to cause long term for the system that's going to be taking those kids on — MCFD, eventually CLBC.

I encourage you to just think about, when you're putting that money out there and where it's going in other places — I get that everybody wants a piece of the pie — that the most vulnerable people in your communities are the people that I'm talking about.

I just want you to consider that when you sit down at the table and you're chopping up the pie. That's all.

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

That concludes our hearing for the first part of today.

The committee adjourned at 12:57 p.m.

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