Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 80 — Wednesday, October 3, 2012 (HTML)

Present: Douglas Horne, MLA (Chair); Mable Elmore, MLA (Deputy Chair); Gary Coons, MLA; Marc Dalton, MLA; Dave S. Hayer, MLA; Pat Pimm, MLA; Bruce Ralston, MLA; Bill Routley, MLA; John Slater, MLA

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

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


CONTENTS
Page
Presentations	2160
S. Brunton
S. Service
C. Weremy
G. Armstrong
S. Scott
T. Mooring
E. Facey
P. Colbourne
L. Ruotsalainen

D. Horne (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Douglas Horne. I'm the MLA for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. This is an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly whose mandate includes conducting annual public consultations for the upcoming provincial budget. I would like to welcome everyone in the audience and thank you for taking time to participate in this important process.

Every year in preparation of the next year's budget the Minister of Finance releases a budget consultation paper. This paper presents a current fiscal and economic forecast. It identifies key issues that may be addressed in the next provincial budget. Printed copies of the Budget 2013 consultation paper are available at the information table at the back of the room where you registered.

Once the paper is released, this committee holds public consultations and invites input from British Columbians. Following the consultation period, the committee releases a report containing a series of recommendations for the upcoming budget. This report must be presented to the Legislative Assembly no later than November 15.

There are several ways for British Columbians to participate. This year the committee is scheduled to hold 18 public hearings in communities throughout British Columbia. We have already visited Surrey, Castlegar, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Vernon, Vancouver, Coquitlam, Abbotsford, and this morning we were in Fort St. John. We also held video conferencing with Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson and Salmon Arm.

After today's meeting we're scheduled to travel to Kamloops, Prince Rupert, Kitimat, Smithers, Prince George, Courtenay, Parksville and Victoria. In addition to the public hearings, British Columbians can also share their ideas by sending us written submissions through an on-line form on our website. We also accept written submissions by e-mail, letter and fax, along with video and audio files.

As I said, British Columbians can fill out a short on-line survey on our website, which is located at www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. There you can find further information on the consultation process, download a copy of the budget consultation paper and learn more about the work of this committee. All the public input we receive is carefully considered, and the deadline for submissions is Thursday, October 18.

I'd like to start today by having the members of the committee introduce themselves. We'll start with John Slater, to my right.

D. Hayer: Good evening. I'm Dave Hayer, MLA for Surrey, home of the widest bridge in the world — the Port Mann Bridge.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Good afternoon. Mable Elmore, Vancouver-Kensington and Deputy Chair of the committee.

D. Horne (Chair): As well, John Les, who is the member for Chilliwack, is away on other business today. Also joining us from the parliamentary committee office is our Clerk, Susan Sourial, who is to my left, as well as Jacqueline Quesnel at the back of the room, who is at the registration desk — as well, Michael Baer and Jean Medland. I must note that today is Jean's birthday as well. She is travelling with the committee on her birthday, and it's a great thing to have them with us today.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for up to ten minutes, and an additional five minutes has been allotted for questions from committee members. Time permitting, we may also have an open-mike session near the end of the hearing. If you're interested in participating in the open-mike session, please register at the back of the room at the registration desk prior to the end of the hearing.

Today's meeting is also a public hearing which is being recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services. A copy of this transcript, along with minutes, will be printed and made available on the committee's website. In addition to the transcript, an audio webcast of this meeting will be posted on the committee's website as well.

We'll now start the meeting with our first presenter, the Quesnel Tillicum Society Native Friendship Centre represented by Sandy.

Please come forward. As I said, you have ten minutes to present, and welcome to the committee. Your time begins now.
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S. Brunton: Thank you very much for this opportunity to present to you. I received some information from the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres about this hearing. It's of great importance to them to seek out additional funding from the government, and there are some points that they'd like to make in regards to this.

The friendship centres are in critical need of a long-term annualized $3.1 million capacity investment. Friendship centres are the largest network of social infrastructure for more than 70 percent of B.C.'s aboriginal population who live in urban and rural areas, and they are increasingly burdened with a growing demand for social, cultural, education and health support services.

As more First Nations people move off reserve and family sizes continue to grow, friendship centres are increasingly burdened with a growing demand for settlement support services for the off-reserve populations. Our urban aboriginal communities are at a breaking point, and friendship centres are in desperate need of additional capacity to respond to increased demands.

Urban aboriginal people have the lowest life expectancy and graduation rates, and the highest rates of suicide, unemployment, poverty and incarceration. I don't think I'm telling you things that you don't already know.

An increased investment in aboriginal friendship centres will create downstream benefits in social and economic outcomes for aboriginal people. Our centres ultimately save government money in health and education costs. With long-term annualized investments in friendship centres, centres are better able to respond to rising demands for services from B.C.'s fastest-growing population group as well as providing preventative resources. Community-based resources and preventative measures are linked significantly to reduced health costs, education, justice and child protection systems.

Friendship centres do more with less. For every capacity dollar the friendship centres receive from government, centres are able to lever an additional $10 from other sources. Friendship centres are able to provide quality services that are culturally driven and community-based, delivered cost-effectively and efficiently on behalf of the government.

Friendship centres enhance the labour market participation of aboriginal people, a key factor in job and economic growth in British Columbia. Aboriginal people are British Columbia's youngest and fastest-growing population, and friendship centres support and improve social and economic outcomes, which help to reduce barriers to full participation in B.C.'s economy and labour market.

The B.C. government committed to an off-reserve aboriginal action plan in the 2011 throne speech. As friendships play an essential role for off-reserve population, it is critical that the off-reserve aboriginal action plan include a long-term, annualized $3.1 million investment in aboriginal friendship centres.

On a personal note, I'd like to just relate to you the fact that the friendship centre in Quesnel, which is one of 25 in the province, is one of the smaller centres. We run ten programs out of our office. We provide services to four bands in our area as well as the off-reserve population. Of our ten programs, four are funded exclusively by the province of British Columbia. All of our programs, with the exception of one, are open to everyone. Everyone in the community is welcome to come to the friendship centre and can participate in our programs.

I've worked in this community for close to 40 years, and 30 of those years were spent as a probation officer. During those 30 years there have been a number of times that successive governments have gone through deficit-reduction exercises, restraint and job cuts. Each time there are very difficult decisions to be made. There are also political considerations in each decision.

I remember during my years with the government that what were considered soft programs were always the first to go during these hard economic times. You know those programs — the preventative programs, the diversion programs, the alternate measures programs. What were always kept in place were what were considered essential programs.

In my case, as a probation officer, public safety was the great concern. We would cut money for preventative programs, but we'd keep money to keep the jails open. As you know, jails are probably the most expensive way to deal with criminal activities. I don't dispute the need for jails. What I do dispute is what I consider the false savings when we cut programs in our community that are preventative in nature in favour of keeping the most expensive programs, which are jails, open.

In my present position, as I mentioned, I oversee ten programs. Other friendship centres have more programs than we do that are essential for healthy communities. All of the programs at the friendship centre in Quesnel help to reduce costs to government. They are not expenses to the government; they are investments.

The return in this investment is both in money and in people. The return in people is twofold. More serious problems are prevented, and in some cases people develop healthy and productive lifestyles that contribute to our province's economy.

If I could just take a moment, I'd like to detail these ten programs that we have and outline the way in which they reduce costs to the government. We have a family support worker program. Our family support worker is extremely familiar with the aboriginal community, their needs, their familial ties and their community capacity. Our family support worker works closely with MCFD, the Ministry of Children and Family Development, to help mediate conflicts in cases of child protection, and it
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helps reduce the number of people that come into care.

We also have a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder coordinator. This position provides information to the community on how to prevent FASD in children. There are also support groups for parents who are dealing with children with developmental delays. The cost to society is staggering for the care of an FASD person who does not have a loving and caring family to care for them. This is a very preventable disease. When we prevent FASD in families, we prevent staggering costs to our society.

We also have an alcohol and drug counsellor who is supportive of people who are struggling with addiction issues. This referral to treatment programs and counselling programs helps reduce addiction issues in our communities and prevents violence and saves families.

We also have an HIV prevention worker. Everyone knows the staggering costs of dealing with people who are HIV-positive, so the benefits of this program are quite obvious.

We have an adult upgrading program to help people with education. We have an employment coordinator to help people obtain employment. We have a Connecting the Dots program, which helps address or identify the serious issues, risk factors and protective factors in our communities.

I think I'd just like to leave you with a thought. Organizations like the friendship centre…. If we don't receive the proper amount of funding, then the burden of addressing the issues within our communities lies in the most expensive methods. Our medical systems, educational systems, justice systems and child welfare systems have to deal with more issues, contributing more costs to government.

All of our programs operate on a year-to-year basis. There's nothing secure in them, and they can be terminated at any point. I would think that if a program is essential one year, it's essential the following year. I, therefore, put forward the fact that friendship centres need the $3.1 million in capacity investment.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We'll start our questions with Dave.

D. Hayer: Thank you very much, Sandy. Thank you for your service to the native friendship centre and your society and the general community.

What is your annual budget for your organization, how much extra money are you looking for your organization, what is the number of staff you have, and how many people do you serve every year?

S. Brunton: Wow. I don't have those statistics. We're a modest-sized friendship centre, and our annual budget is about $800,000 from all of the programs that we receive.

We provide statistics to the B.C. association, and all of our funding agencies get the information on how many clients are served and how we use the budget. So we're audited every year. I couldn't give you a breakdown today on exactly how many clients we serve. We serve clients in varying capacities. Some clients just come in for a cup of coffee and to sit and talk to a worker. Some other clients are more involved with us in the family groups or the sharing circles, the healing circles. So there's a wide variety of ways in which we serve the people.

S. Brunton: I'm speaking on behalf of the B.C. association. They're asking for $3.1 million. They would distribute it to the various friendship centres on the basis of need and size and capacity.

G. Coons: Thank you, Sandy, for your presentation, and thank you for the work that you do. You did mention something about the 2011 throne speech a year and a half ago and the commitment to an off-reserve aboriginal action plan committed to by the government a year and a half ago. It must be pretty disappointing that that hasn't been followed up on.

I do acknowledge the work that friendship centres do. Gathering Our Voices — I've been to a couple of them. I think there's a Gathering Our Voices on Health that the youth are organizing.

There has also been a funding cut by the federal government — some aboriginal youth funding. In Rupert we've run into that. It's like a double whammy. It appears that the commitment made by this government…. It's not following through. And I believe there are — what? — 25 or 30 friendship centres.

Now, if this long-term funding fails to appear, along with the federal cuts, what do you foresee happening in the region here?

S. Brunton: As you know, we're a non-profit. I think every friendship centre is in the same boat. All we need to do is start losing one or two programs, and then we'll have to start cutting back on staff. We don't have the capacity to carry on when the funding is cut.

In relation to the program that you're referring to, many organizations had to close their doors when they lost that funding. That was the cultural connections for aboriginal youth money. That was a federally funded program. The government decided that they wanted to change the focus.

Originally, with that program…. We were in fear of losing it, and then the government said: "No, we just want to change the focus." So they've been negotiating. We're anticipating that money coming back.

When we work on contracts that are year to year, it is very, very difficult to do any long-term planning. Our friendship centre is 40 years old. It's had no major work
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done to it. Well, the friendship centre formed 40 years ago; our building was built 35 years ago, so 35 years of virtually minimal maintenance. It means we're getting into an old building.

We want to have some funds to upgrade our facility. We'd also like to expand our facility to make it more attractive to people from outside the native community. We want to promote aboriginal culture in our area. It's impossible to do that when you're operating on year-to-year funding. So we're looking for some secure funding on a year-to-year basis.

D. Horne (Chair): Unfortunately, we've reached the end of the allotted time. I thank you for your presentation.

One thing that I think would help the committee. We actually have heard from a number of the friendship centres. It's a very specific amount — the $3.1 million. I'm wondering if you or the broader association could provide a detailed breakdown of the use of the $3.1 million.

D. Horne (Chair): That would be great if you could provide that. Thank you so much for your presentation.

We'll now call our next presenter, the Quesnel and District Hospice Palliative Care Association represented by Darlene, Sally and Carol.

S. Service: We thought you might need a little sweetening up or a little pre-dinner snack — a little Barkerville fudge.

D. Horne (Chair): The committee members are very grateful for the fudge. Unfortunately, that still only leaves you ten minutes. Your time begins now.

S. Service: First of all, like Sandy, I want to thank you all for giving us this opportunity to participate in the Standing Committee on Finance. I'm Sally Service. I'm the president of the Quesnel and District Hospice Palliative Care Association.

To my right is Carol Weremy, our past president and founding member, I believe, of the association. Darlene Osborne is unavailable this evening. She's at home frantically awaiting the arrival of her next grandchild in San Francisco.

Since the late 1980s the Quesnel and District Hospice Palliative Care Association has been involved in promoting and supporting quality end-of-life care in this community. In fact, Quesnel was among the first of the communities in B.C. to investigate and introduce palliative care to dying patients in hospital. The experience gained over these past 27 years allows us to have some measure of confidence that what we say here this afternoon is both valid and relevant.

The comments I'm offering here refer to the items listed on page 6 of the presentation in your package, under the heading "What our governments can do." First and foremost, we ask this group to recognize that hospice palliative care must be regarded as an essential component of primary health care in B.C., just as maternity, internal medicine, psychiatry and mental health and surgery are seen as essential.

As an essential component of primary health care in B.C., hospice palliative care should be available and fully funded in as many communities in this province as possible. It is true that the number of hospice palliative care beds has increased in our province. Our own hospice unit here in Quesnel has three beds and has been operating since opening in August 2006. While that might seem to have addressed this need of which we speak, there is a problem — a barrier, if you will — to the fulfilment of our goal, which is equal access for all. Patients who seek admission to our hospice are required to pay a $30-a-day per diem. It doesn't seem like much, but a stay of any length can be a barrier for many families. That in itself is a concern, but it becomes more problematic when we realize that not all hospice beds in the province carry that per-diem charge.

Patients admitted to hospice palliative care beds that are located in an acute care facility, a hospital like our G.R. Baker Memorial Hospital, pay no fee. Quesnel's hospice unit is connected to a residential care facility, so patients who choose end-of-life care there do pay.

This fee, paying to die, is based not on the level or kind of care but solely on the location of the bed. For some reason that defies logic, this Ministry of Health policy is based on geography.

Hospice palliative care beds located in hospice facilities, not hospitals, make sense for so many reasons. For example, our hospice offers a homelike atmosphere, spacious rooms with comfortable furniture, a kitchen, a library and a living room, a deck and a garden. There is room for families to gather and stay, if they wish. Hospice is, if you will, the antithesis to an acute care ward: calm, quiet and welcoming.

Hospice beds are practical and economical. Even with the removal of the $30 per diem, the cost savings to the health care system will be evident. While we aren't privy to the real facts and figures, we've been led to believe that the cost to care for a palliative care patient in a hospice palliative care bed, in a hospice, is significantly less than what it would cost to care for that same patient in an acute care bed in a hospital.

If, in fact, the removal of the per diem means more patients are choosing hospice over acute care, there will be another benefit to the community health care system.
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Acute care beds will be available to overflow patients who require hospitalization. No longer in emergency hallways and common areas, they could have a bed in an acute care ward. We think of this as the right patient in the right bed at the right time and at the right cost.

Our first request of you this afternoon is to encourage your fellow MLAs, the Ministry of Health and the government of B.C. to remove the per diem attached to patients in hospice palliative care beds in residential care facilities.

We also want to turn your attention to associations such as ours. The services and supports provided to patients and their families by our programs are important and most often delivered by trained volunteers — again, a cost saving to the government. Their involvement in hospice palliative care contributes to what I might call a positive outcome, what some term "a good death."

Acknowledging the role of palliative care associations will go a long way to promoting the notion of partnership between the Ministry of Health and local associations. Unlike many partnerships, this will not be based on finance. Rather, it will be based on mutual understanding, collaboration, common objectives and the provision of quality end-of-life care for everyone who seeks it or needs it.

Lastly, we look to the future. In order to prepare for a time when my friends and I grow older and are in need of who knows what kind of care, it will be heartening to know that the provincial government has planned ahead. It will have committed to establishing hospice palliative care as one of several kinds of available health care options that will mean that I, too, can hope for a good death.

There is much more in your package in the background information and information about our association in the presentation that's in your folder. Carol and I would be happy to answer questions if any of you have any questions, particularly about the discrepancy regarding the per diem, because it is a huge discrepancy.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation, and also, thank you for the good work you do in the community. It's a very important service and often very difficult. I think it's the commitment of the volunteers that really make a difference.

I'd like to follow up on your point that you mentioned with respect to the recommendation to remove the cost for the per diem. Here in Quesnel have you calculated what the financial amount is that that would come out to?

S. Service: Well, it depends, of course, on the length of stay, but it's conceivable that a patient could be in hospice for up to three months. At $900-plus a month, that's close to $3,000 for a family. Particularly a young family, where dad's in hospice…. It places a financial burden on the family. The other part of that is people are often reluctant to sort of lay their personal finances on the table for someone to evaluate and assess whether or not that is a hardship and therefore they don't have to pay.

C. Weremy: It's based on last year's tax return. If it's a breadwinner who is dying of cancer — mostly it's cancer when they're younger — they don't qualify. Yet they have a house payment, a car payment and kids that have to go to school and all of that. That's a real hardship. They end up not going to the hospice house.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Are the number of beds adequate? I know you have the new facility here that you have available.

S. Service: We like to think that with the removal of the per diem, all three beds would be utilized. There are, in fact, six beds in our hospice unit, three of which are community respite beds. In an ideal world, we would like all of those six beds to be designated hospice palliative care beds.

We're not privy to accurate figures with regard to patient numbers. We do know that in the last fiscal year, there were 22 hospice palliative care deaths in our hospice. Those are just palliative care patients that go through our program. We don't have the stats.

S. Service: Yes. The association contributed almost $1 million to the capital cost and the furnishings and fittings and everything — $500,000 to the actual capital costs of the part of the Dunrovin complex that is the hospice and then another $500,000 to beds and ceiling lifts and furniture and everything.

P. Pimm: Okay, just further on that — the six beds here. How many staff do you have on all the time?

S. Service: Again, that's Northern Health. There is a nurse educator in the hospice who is there during the day, an RN during the day, and then, I believe, an LPN at night.

C. Weremy: I believe there are two staff members during the day. That's my understanding. There's a period of time in the evening when there's only one person.

G. Coons: Thank you, Sally and Carol, for your pres-
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entation. It is a tough time for families when dealing with cancer. I know in Rupert that we don't have a facility, and it's even tougher.

You do mention…. Under "What our governments can do," it says: "Hold the health authorities accountable for funding received." I'm unclear what that means. It sounds like funding is coming into the health authorities, and there's some sort of lack of accountability there. Could you clarify that?

C. Weremy: We're a society, so we're not able to speak for Northern Health. Just my understanding, from being involved with this for so long, is that there have been moneys allocated for end-of-life care in the health care system. Those moneys are given to each hospital region, and then it's up to them how they spend that money.

G. Coons: Okay. So just some more clarification on that is necessary. Again, that should be all part of the process. If they're receiving the money, there should be transparency.

C. Weremy: We see that if they could just…. I don't know. Sometimes you need…. It's another person in an office rather than someone right up front in the field.

D. Hayer: Thank you very much for your volunteer work. I think you volunteers put in over 2,100 hours every year. It's really important. I think hospice care is very important. Looking at the pictures, your town has done a really good job of raising so much money to help this out.

My question is: have you sort of totalled up how much money the province would have to put aside if they would eliminate these extra fees — not just in Quesnel but maybe the whole province? Maybe the organization at the provincial level, if they don't have it, could calculate it and let us know approximately how much money they are looking at from a budget point of view.

D. Hayer: Yes, if they were to make it the same as the hospitals for the hospice service, so they wouldn't have to pay the extra fees.

C. Weremy: I think there's a real challenge, in that every health region has different agreements with different places. I think it would be a difficult number to find. I have asked my local MLA to try to address some of this. There's always this issue as to what is public knowledge and what is operational.

D. Hayer: Well, thank you very much for coming over and explaining the challenges. On the other hand, I think that many times in the past, when people have income levels that are different in the current year versus last year's…. When we talk to the government, sometimes they understand and they can use the current level of income rather than last year's, especially if you're not working, if you are sick and then you have a different income level.

In some other different programs, we have looked at it. I don't know if you've tried it, but I think we should definitely look at that issue. At least they should be looking at the current income rather than the income when you were healthy and well and working.

S. Service: That's a Ministry of Health policy, and therefore, the Ministry of Health — or in this case, Northern Health — controls all of that assessment. It has nothing to do with the association.

D. Hayer: No, I mean that from the government side, they should probably look at it. I will raise that issue anyway.

S. Service: Well, we fundamentally take issue with the fact that not all palliative care patients are required to pay this fee. It's all about geography, where the bed is located.

C. Weremy: If the bed is located next to an acute care bed, or if it's off an acute care area, they don't pay until three months, if they've been there for three months. Now, apparently, Hospice Victoria is being asked to pay if people stay more than three months. For the first three months they don't pay in Hospice Victoria. But in Quesnel they do.

D. Horne (Chair): Unfortunately, we've reached the end of our allotted time, so I thank you for your presentation.

We'll now call our next presenter, the Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce.

Speaking of local MLAs, I'll perhaps use this opportunity to recognize the presence in our audience of the member for Cariboo North, Bob Simpson, who has joined us here today as well.

Graeme, welcome to the committee. As I believe you've heard a couple of times now, you have ten minutes to speak and five minutes for questions, and your time begins now.

G. Armstrong: Thank you. Darlene Osborne was going to be with me, but I'm by myself because she's awaiting the arrival of her grandchild.

I am Graeme Armstrong of the Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for the opportunity to present our comments and suggestions regarding the
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budget and financial plans for the province of British Columbia. We consider this consultation process to be important. Budgets brought down by the government are not only about bottom lines, but they must include an element of sensitivity to the underlying effect on people.

This is the 11th year that our provincial government is consulting with communities through the process, rather than formulating a budget in isolation. Our members appreciate your allowing us to have opportunity to provide input.

In general terms, our key priorities for government are to grow the economy, lower the tax burden on business, strive for efficient and cost-effective service delivery, and to contain spending. These general priorities notwithstanding, we would like to take the opportunity to provide perspective on the following.

For more than 50 years communities in northern B.C., such as Quesnel, have added significant economic wealth to British Columbia. However, these same communities are now facing difficulties. The region's main economic driver, the forest sector, is undergoing significant and dramatic changes as it adjusts to a smaller resource base and retools so that it can maintain its well-established leadership role within the global industry.

While a number of creative initiatives have been taken by the government to help diversify northern economies, we believe that these efforts should not only be continued but intensified in the coming years. For example, with the recent release of the mid-term fibre supply recommendations, we would like to encourage the government to begin consultations with local communities as soon as possible to determine how best we can increase area-based tenure.

If our economy is to continue to grow and diversify, we need to strengthen transportation infrastructure. Our area is rich with natural minerals, and having the right transportation infrastructure in place to link remote areas where mining is taking place with service centres like Quesnel will be critical to economic success.

We encourage adequate and sustained funding for the B.C. geological survey to ensure that this agency is able to continue their work of providing a foundation of information around the mineral resources for future revenue generation in B.C.

Further, we recognize that we must work as a region to support the mining activity, as no one community has the capacity to provide all the services. We recommend upgrading Hydraulic Road to better link Quesnel with Spanish Mountain Gold.

We encourage the government to work with B.C. Hydro to ensure that there is adequate power to advance many economic opportunities in rural British Columbia. For example, we support the Nazko First Nation gateway project for accessing three-phase power. The startup investment and long-term operations of this project would inject billions of dollars into the economy and generate thousands of long-term, well-paying jobs, directly and indirectly, for many years.

Businesses operate best in a stable and predictable environment where rights are certain and are protected under the rule of law. We encourage the government to continue its work in achieving long-term certainty by moving forward with the aboriginal treaty process for all parties involved.

Quesnel has real opportunities to diversify its economic reliance on forestry. For example, we feel that tourism is one of the ways to do that. The Barkerville Historic Town site is currently celebrating its 150th anniversary and is of iconic value to the entire province of British Columbia.

We believe that upgrading the Bowron Road to link our region with Prince George–McBride would increase our tourism market share considerably. A strong transportation infrastructure with circle-route opportunities is needed for the success and expansion of our agritourism businesses as well. We also encourage the continued support of the valuable visitor-centre network across the province of British Columbia.

It is critical to the success of our business community that we have access to skilled labour. We require continued operational funding for the College of New Caledonia to ensure that they are able to continue to provide their trades training. We applaud the scholarship program that the province has implemented to support students going into trades. We also encourage continued funding to Junior Achievement of B.C.

Despite high levels of funding, it is our impression that the health care system is struggling to keep up with patient care needs. We would like to suggest that the government look for opportunities in the health care system to provide administrative efficiencies in order to shift some of the resources spent in administrative services to patient care services.

Furthermore, we would like to encourage investment in more diagnostic equipment and operating capacity in northern communities. People will stop relocating to our community if we fail to provide adequate health care services.

Finally, to address our chronic shortage of doctors, we would like to suggest that the health care system explore financial incentives for doctors and specialists who locate in northern communities or, further, incentives for student doctors of the north to stay in the north upon graduation.

In summary, Quesnel will quickly need to transition from our forest-based economy. Notwithstanding these challenges, we're excited and optimistic about the future of our community. There is a short window for us to put our house in order, diversify our economy and plan for a
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bright future. It is imperative that new resource development take place in our region.

We ask the provincial government to partner with our community in helping to facilitate the necessary infrastructure to allow us to thrive and prosper in the coming decades.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We'll begin our questions with Bill.

B. Routley: Thank you for your presentation. I sat on the Timber Supply Committee, and I was in Quesnel. Actually, the Timber Supply Committee came up with a joint set of recommendations, as you're obviously aware with the comment in here about area-based tenure. You want to have some discussion about that.

Do you realize that some of that is dealing with marginally economic timber supply? That's kind of where the so-called extra supply is going to come from. I had it explained to me by several chief foresters actually. They suggested that the way to grow the pie was to utilize some of the marginally economic stands in Burns Lake alone.

While the cut was going to go down from two million cubic metres to 500,000 cubic metres, there is an extra 300,000 to 380,000 going to be available in a combination of using marginally economic stands and doing some fertilization. That was going to be connected in a form of tenure to the First Nations bands there. That was the tenure that we were talking about, that kind of tenure reform.

I know that in the north there's a lot of volume-based area, so could you identify for me what kind of area-based tenure reform you were looking for?

G. Armstrong: Yeah, I'm not going to claim to be an expert on this myself, but our discussion…. We have forestry people on our board in the chamber. The idea is based around the idea of them being able to practise intensive silviculture.

When either a First Nations group, a company or woodlots have the ability to practise intensive silviculture, the yield is increased. Whereas, if they don't have the ability to know that what they're putting back into that they're going to be able to reap the rewards of 70 years later, there's going to be less yield from what we're producing. That was the type of comment that we had — that we need to move in that direction because of that reason.

D. Hayer: Thank you very much. I visited, with the Premier and some other MLAs, Barkerville this June. It was an amazing sight — lots of history there. We saw people from Surrey, from Richmond, the Lower Mainland — many of them young students. I think we can do a lot more with it, attract more people.

My question is: where is this Bowron Road? Is that road going from Quesnel to there? Or is that a different route you're looking at?

G. Armstrong: The problem that we have with Barkerville is that you have to go up this road an hour to get to it and you have to come back. People that are coming through the area…. It's difficult to get them to go off of where they're going to go out to Barkerville. What we're talking about there is that through Bowron Lake and through the park there's a distance of about seven kilometres where it's not connected to the road from Prince George to McBride.

Whether it's pie in the sky or not, I don't know what the details are to open it up. But by doing that, we would have increased traffic through Barkerville. From the tourism point of view, obviously it's going to increase the amount of people and traffic that we're going to get into this region, because it is such an iconic piece of history that we have.

D. Hayer: Now the second part to that. You also talked about diversifying the economy. Have you looked at it from a chamber of commerce point of view? I'm past president of the Surrey Board of Trade, Surrey Chamber of Commerce. What diversification are you looking at? What different markets, different types of businesses would you like to focus on this area? You talk about maybe looking at diversifying.

G. Armstrong: Well, I think we believe, from our chamber perspective, that what we have to have is other resource development to start replacing forestry, or diversifying our economy.

In the north it's based on resource. Mining is obviously the easy one. That is going on. But those mines will be away from the community, so we need the infrastructure to support that. That's our main point with this.

But there are other opportunities as well — like pellet plants, cogeneration plants. There are other opportunities that we can move to, but we just need to make sure that there's the appropriate infrastructure to provide that.

D. Horne (Chair): Thanks. We'll end with a question from our Deputy Chair, Mable.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Graeme, for your presentation. I'm interested to hear more about…. Besides those examples you cited, in terms of diversifying the economy and the challenges around that, specifically, can you talk about the status of the Nazko First Nation gateway project? Also, you mentioned here your agrotourism business.
[ Page 2167 ]

G. Armstrong: With Nazko…. I don't know if everybody's familiar with where it is, but it's out to the west. Currently there are advanced-stage exploration projects out there. New Gold has one that's out in that general direction. It's kind of out between us and Vanderhoof. There are others as well. There's talk of pellet plant opportunities and other things as well.

But the problem is that there's not three-phase power out into that area, so that's one of the things that we wanted to address. The idea was — and this was presented to us by Nazko First Nation — that if we could help…. That's one of the major obstacles, having three-phase power out into that area to allow those mines to get going. I just wanted to bring that to your attention.

Agrotourism. I think we're just talking about…. I'm not exactly…. That's not my specialty. There are other opportunities around agriculture and farming, where we could provide tourism to people that are coming into the area. Again, it's outside of the local areas.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Sure. Just to clarify in terms of the Nazko First Nation gateway project, the point is that there's need for infrastructure and the supplying of power to develop.

We'll now call our next presenter, the Quesnel Women's Resource Centre, represented by Susan Scott.

Susan, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes to present, five minutes for questions, and your time begins now.

S. Scott: Thank you. The Quesnel Women's Resource Centre is a feminist collective committed to promoting the rights of all women and providing women-centred services in our community. We provide information, resources, support, advocacy and counselling for women, to assist them with life choices.

Our purpose is to work together to create a world that is free from violence, inequality and oppression, where all women have access to equal rights, child care and have the right to equal pay for work of equal value.

The Quesnel Women's Resource Centre has been under severe strain in the last few years, since the B.C. government cut our core funding over ten years ago. Those cuts came in conjunction with cuts to social assistance and legal aid, as well as many other social programs. This increased lack of prevention programs for parents and people with a range of social issues has meant that the increasing numbers of women who have been accessing the women's centre present with increasingly complex and more deep-seated problems.

Women have been left to cope on their own with increasing poverty, shortages of affordable housing and mental health concerns. More women have been self-medicating with prescription drugs and alcohol, thus exacerbating their issues and requiring longer and more intensive agency responses to deal with the issues.

We have fewer staff at the women's centre, and we are overwhelmed by the amount of demand on our services. We are increasingly frustrated with our inability to offer the range of assistance that a number of other agencies had traditionally provided, such as legal aid, access to affordable housing, parenting courses and family support programs.

Cuts to other social programs puts additional pressure on our outreach program as well, as women require support and advocacy to help navigate their way through our systems.

We currently have two Stopping the Violence counsellors on staff. The wait-list to access counselling services there is four to six weeks. Women are simply not able to access services they desperately need due to the numbers of people accessing the centre.

When people are in crisis and cannot receive emotional support and advocacy, it can have disastrous effects for them, as well as for their families and, ultimately, our community.

There are no alternative drop-in counselling services available in Quesnel. There are currently other counsellors available in the community. However, I would estimate that 90 percent of the women accessing our centre are of limited means or living with extreme poverty and cannot afford to access these services. Nor do these services specialize in domestic violence and abuse and do not operate within intersectional feminist frameworks.

The Quesnel Women's Resource Centre has always been well placed to respond to the needs of the women and children in our community. However, there has been an increase in the number of women accessing the centre. The numbers have risen in the last two years.

For example, from January to September 2011 the centre saw 540 women and fielded 75 telephone calls from women who required assistance. In 2012 for that same time period the centre saw 620 women and fielded 179 calls. This is a 76 percent increase from last year. The total number of women who accessed drop-in services at our centre in 2011 was 740. These figures do not include women who have regularly scheduled appointments with out STV counsellors.

British Columbia's struggling economy has had huge social repercussions on families living in rural northern B.C. and is evident in terms of people's jobs, standard of living and income distribution. The widening gap between the affluent and the poverty-stricken continues to
[ Page 2168 ]
grow, in addition to mounting unemployment, the lack of growth in real wages and the growth of poverty.

Poverty means hunger and inadequate nutrition. It means substandard housing or no housing at all. In unsafe housing it means impossible choices, stress and isolation. It takes an enormous toll on the people who experience it. Poverty breeds violence in families, and women are accessing our services in record numbers in its wake.

There have been mill closures and job losses in our community, and the women's centre is doing what it can to support the women and children who seek emotional support and crisis intervention.

The B.C. government…. We're urging you to consider reinstating funding for the prevention programs, the legal aid programs, subsidized housing programs and social assistance as well as women's centres. The cost of defunding these programs is seen at the other end: more addictions, homelessness, troubled children who then require intervention by the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the legal system.

B. Ralston: I have a couple of interrelated questions. One, I'm sensing from your presentation that domestic violence is increasing in your experience rather than decreasing. Some communities have programs that are funded for children who've experienced the trauma of witnessing violence. Are there such programs? If there aren't, would you see the value of those programs?

B. Ralston: And thirdly, the policy of the prosecutors was changed a few years ago, pretty well coincident with the reduction in your funding, where prosecutors were granted discretion not to proceed with prosecutions in cases where the complainant was reluctant to testify, which as you know was quite a frequent occurrence.

S. Scott: To answer your first question, we do have a program for children who have witnessed abuse. It's called the Children Who Witness Abuse program. It is currently…. The contract has been given to the Amata Transition House Society, and they operate that program out of their house.

To speak to the prosecutors being granted that women are not coming forward to testify, I think that speaks to the lack of other support services that may be available. Where are they going to be left if they testify? Domestic violence happens in a home. A lot of women are reluctant to charge because their thoughts on that are: "Where am I going to go? Where am I going to live? How are my children going to be supported?"

I just wonder if you could share what your budget is and the funding that you receive from the government — if you receive any grants, any contracts — and perhaps any outside funding also.

S. Scott: Our funding comes from a few different sources. What we are doing with our Stopping the Violence and outreach programs — those are programs that are funded by the Ministry of Justice. It's not sustainable funding. We have to reapply every year. With our Stopping the Violence contract for the year, it's $91,000. The outreach program, which comes from gaming funds, is $37,000 for the year.

I did apply to the United Way. We have a drop-in program at the centre, where women come to access computers and our lending library and may be able to have access to a drop-in counsellor — which we currently don't have, but we try and work around that. That comes from the United Way. The United Way gave us $4,200 this year.

G. Coons: Thank you so much, Susan. It is a real struggle that a lot of programs…. The transition house in Prince Rupert is going through the same thing.

You talked about the core funding being cut ten years ago and all the support networks that also accompanied funding reductions. In your presentation there was a 76 percent increase in service requirements — I'll call it — because of the economic climate, I guess, and the loss of jobs and just what's happening in the community and the region.

I think you might have just answered this — the amount of funding that you think is necessary to at least look at going back to help your prevention programs. If that funding isn't there, what do you foresee in the coming year or years in the climate that you have right now in the community?

S. Scott: I would like to see our Stopping the Violence contract increased to include another counsellor. So with wages, the limited benefits that we do get…. We do get some benefits; I would like to see that come up. We'll need next year another $60,000 to add to our Stopping
[ Page 2169 ]
the Violence contracts.

I can really foresee us being able to utilize at least another $20,000 to $30,000 for the outreach program. Outreach can take anywhere from five minutes to four hours or all day, depending on the needs of the woman that you're serving.

D. Hayer: How many — total number — staff do you have? Are there any volunteers who also help out at the society? Are there any other societies that provide similar types of services in your area?

S. Scott: We have three full-time staff at the women's resource centre: two STV counsellors and then myself. I am taking care of most of the drop-in clients, and we do have a lot. We're averaging about five clients a day walking in and really needing someone to speak with and needing information and resources to other services, whether it be trying to get them into the transition house…. We only have three.

We do have a young woman who comes in and volunteers at our Luna Clinic, which is a women's wellness clinic that we run every Thursday. The public health nurses come up and are there to answer questions as well as to do examinations.

So we do have volunteers as we can, but everybody needs to be working now. You know, everybody needs to be there making the wages and the money, and the centre just can't fund that. We do have volunteers from time to time. Right now I have two fourth-year nursing practicum students that I'll have with me for the next two months.

D. Hayer: Any other organization providing a similar type of service in your area, or no? Like, in Surrey we have lots of organizations providing a similar type of program. Here is it only yourself?

S. Scott: We have counsellors in the community, but those counsellors charge for their services. There's no charge for any services at the women's resource centre. If you're asking if there's another place where women can access, I would have to say no at this point.

B. Routley: Thank you for your presentation and for the work that you and your organization do.

In terms of the increased numbers that you're dealing with…. Sadly, I'm all too familiar with the growing numbers of these kinds of issues in communities, particularly where there have been mill closures or forest industry job loss — but I'm sure that applies with any kind of job loss.

You talked about both counselling…. Is affordable housing part of the solution? How would you prioritize some of the solutions that might be available in communities? I know funding for counselling, but that's not really getting at the root cause. That's kind of something that comes out of unemployment, etc.

S. Scott: Yes. I would say that the biggest issue on the table right now would be access to affordable housing.

D. Horne (Chair): We have a little bit of time left so last question from our Deputy Chair, Mable.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation, Susan. I would just like to commend the efforts of the Quesnel Women's Resource Centre for being able to survive. I think many women's centres across B.C. have had to close their doors since the provincial government cut core funding. Certainly, Quesnel is one of a handful that have been able to survive.

I'm just curious to hear: what is it that you think you contributed to being successful here, that allowed you to…? Have you had support in the community in terms of your board of directors? What would you attribute to, I guess, the success of the women's resource centre here in Quesnel?

S. Scott: We have a wonderful board of directors that is very supportive. We hold regular monthly board meetings, and we discuss the issues that have come up in counselling with women or women coming through the doors with a broad range of social issues. They are instrumental in what we do — a very dedicated group of women.

We also have built over 30 years really great working partnerships with other agencies, and that includes the school district. We do a lot of prevention work with the schools. We have students coming in to see the Luna Clinic and to talk about violence against women. Last year we had a couple of boys' groups come through the centre, and they were really receptive to what was presented because currently there aren't any services for men and boys in Quesnel.

We don't get funding for the prevention work, but we feel that it's too important to ignore. We have had a lot of support from the community — every other social service agency. Legal aid works with us. Mental health works with us. So we really do have those great working partnerships. We are like a sister agency with the Amata Transition House, so we get a lot of support from their staff as well.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I know. I think it really reflects your ability to be integrated into the community and also a credit to your work. Thanks.

D. Horne (Chair): I want to thank you for your presentation today and for being with us.

I'll now call our next presenter, the Quesnel District Teachers Association — Theresa Mooring.
[ Page 2170 ]

T. Mooring: Thank you. My name is Teri Mooring, and I am the president of the Quesnel District Teachers Association. I appreciate the opportunity to present in front of you today.

You've heard by now that Quesnel is a resource-based town, and like many northern communities, we see a slow but steady decline in student enrolment in Quesnel. We also have neighbourhoods in the community that have been identified as some of the most vulnerable in the province.

The previous presenter did a really good job of outlining some of the issues that we see in Quesnel and then, of course, that teachers see in classrooms. So significant issues of poverty and student transients in certain areas are a big issue.

In 2009 I presented to this committee with a school board chair, parents and CUPE. We raised many issues of concern at that time. Unfortunately, we still see those issues today, so I'm back to outline some of the areas of concern.

I have a number of issues and recommendations that I'm just going to briefly go through. I have nine in all. I'll really briefly summarize them. The first is a learning improvement fund.

The learning improvement fund is a fund that is new this year. Quesnel saw $452,000 into our community, into schools, from this fund. It allowed the school district to hire just under five additional teachers, which was beneficial.

Part of the problem with it…. There are a couple problems with the fund, however. One is the way it was implemented. The regulations that were set out couldn't begin until after the start of the school year, and they were quite onerous. As a consequence, we're in October, and we still don't have fully staffed schools. There are still outstanding post-and-fill issues. There are still teachers to hire.

Some of these teachers are resource teachers. In fact, the bulk of the outstanding hires — the people that have not been hired yet — are resource teachers. As you are probably aware, resource teachers work with some of our most vulnerable students. Delaying service to those students really impacts them negatively.

The other problem with the LIF, the learning improvement fund, is it's a one-time grant. It's not sustainable. It's not predictable. This makes it really difficult to plan long term. What teachers need to know, and school districts need to know, is that the additional jobs that were able to be added this year can be sustained, can continue next year as well. It's really important that funding be sustainable.

The other problem with the fund is it's just not adequate to meet the needs of students in classrooms in Quesnel. Luckily, because of our size, I suppose, we don't have any classes that are over 30. I've got to tell you that 30 is a really big number anyway. It's not okay to have 30 kids in a class.

What our real issue is, is composition. For many of the reasons you heard from the previous presentation, we have many students with special needs in our community. We have many classrooms that have many more than three IEPs in them. While the LIF was certainly helpful, it's just not adequate.

The other issue that I want to draw to your attention is the provincially mandated programs and underfunded costs that take moneys away from classrooms. A couple examples I'll give you. This is not exhaustive; this is just a few examples from this year.

One is the ERASE program. The problem with the ERASE program is that it's not funded. In Quesnel, for example, we have to send a teacher and a principal from each school to Prince George and fund those costs. The secondary teachers and principals need to stay two days, so there are additional hotel costs associated with that.

The other problem with the ERASE program is that there was no consultation with unions or districts. A concern we have is that the training will either be redundant or unnecessary in terms of our local context. There's been a lot of work on bullying in our community, and there was nothing taken into account in terms of local needs. It's just an example of sort of a top-down program that is going to cost the school district and may not be helpful.

The other example is the graduation program. There are changes that are going to be happening with the graduation program. Again, broad-based consultation is expected. It's unfunded, so those costs just have to be absorbed.

Another example is MSP premiums are going up. That's not addressed in school district budgets. So there are a number of unfunded costs that sort of don't get taken into account but are a drain on the system.

Another problem is the carbon tax. The carbon tax changed this year in that the ministry decided to allocate a capital funding program so the districts can recoup the last two years of the carbon tax — which steadily increases, by the way. I have the figures in my presentation, in terms of every year the carbon tax increases.

The problem with that program is that when you get small or mid-sized locals, you just don't have the expertise to spend the time to do the analysis and develop a plan for these big projects that would recoup the money. Larger districts do have the expertise or do have the money, because what they would recoup is large enough that they can afford to hire a consultant, for example.

Not that I think that school districts should have to hire a consultant for this purpose. It just seems to me that schools should be funded. There should be a fund made available for green projects to enable school districts to invest in the necessary infrastructure to become greener over time.

It's particularly difficult for northern districts to be-
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come carbon-neutral. You know, we have increased heating costs. We have long bus routes. It's just not really realistic to expect us to be carbon-neutral without the necessary investment. What ends up happening is this tax ends up being a fine to school districts because they aren't carbon-neutral.

The other issue is that there has been a change to the way that distance learning and continuing education are funded. In our community, given the population size, the numbers for distance learning and continuing education can vary from year to year quite dramatically or from month to month, and there's no sort of funding protection for these two areas. It means that moneys expended won't necessarily be recouped if the population is not in place, so it is a bit of an issue.

The other issue, and it's been an issue for many, many years in Quesnel, is that we have this school called Quesnel Junior School — it used to be Quesnel Secondary School — and it has been on a list to be replaced for at least 14 years. For the last four years it's been in the top ten for replacement. This year there has to be another report written in order to ensure, I guess, that it still needs to be replaced. I'm not sure. It seems redundant to require year after year different reports that say this school needs to be replaced.

I encourage you while you're here, if you have an opportunity, to go and tour the school. I really think that if it was located in the Lower Mainland it would have been replaced long ago. It is a really unsightly building for students to go into every day and learn. It is the top priority, I know, for teachers in the school district.

D. Horne (Chair): Teri, I usually give a one-minute warning, but I'll give you a two-minute warning because I know that you've got a lot of items still to go through. I figured I'd give you a bit of extra time.

Aboriginal learners. We have done a lot of work around aboriginal education. In Quesnel we have an employment equity agreement. We have many issues with our aboriginal students. We have poverty issues, lack of safe housing, drugs and alcohol, and a large number of students in care. So these students need extra supports and smaller classes in order to connect with the adults in their lives. It's another reason why we need more supports in the system.

We have a high rate of child poverty in Quesnel. You heard, from the previous presentation, some of the impacts of that. Again, we have lunch programs, we have breakfast programs, but these are not sustainable solutions any more than food banks are sustainable. We need a poverty reduction plan in order to really address the core issues of poverty in communities such as Quesnel.

Net zero and cooperative gains. We in Quesnel have a tough time attracting specialist teachers, like French immersion teachers. Our current French immersion teacher, one of them, is from Ontario this year — a brand-new teacher. With that disparity between the provinces in terms of teachers' salaries, it's going to be harder and harder for us to attract these types of specialty teachers.

Lastly, we need a progressive taxation system. We need to ensure that corporations and wealthy Canadians pay their fair share. The system of personal income tax…. Reducing personal income tax and charging user fees is not the way to go. We need to ensure that people are paying taxes based on their income level, and that would provide enough funding for the specialists and public services that we need.

I'm not going to go through my complete conclusion here. You get the idea of where I'm going. We have real needs in education in Quesnel. It's not properly funded, and it needs to be.

G. Coons: Thank you so much, Teri, for your presentation — very good and informative. Again, we had a presentation from the BCTF, Susan Tickson — sorry, Susan Lambert. I'm going back 25 or 30 years; we used to teach together.

We sort of hear a whole broad-based, encompassing problem or issues with education, and it's nice to come into communities and hear the concerns and issues with the LIF fund.

We're suffering the same things in Prince Rupert on the underfunded cost, the carbon tax, the distance ed. That was something I wasn't too aware of, the costs there. Again, there's the aboriginal learners and child poverty that teachers throughout the province are seeing in the classrooms, and especially the class composition in trying to meet the needs of students, and that continual struggle, along with everything else that's happening in your community.

You come down to, at this table, the question of how we can look at the budget we have and try to rearrange it or get more revenue. You have a section there talking about, I guess, a fair taxation process, and you talk about progressive versus regressive. Could you expand on that a bit so that we can hear your opinion?

T. Mooring: Yeah, I'd certainly be happy to. Basically, what we need is…. Rather than a personal income tax cut — for example, of 25 percent — which certainly was much more significant for wealthy Canadians than it was for middle- or lower-income families, if you look at the increased Hydro costs and other fees that were implemented after that cut, it was eaten up. If you're a middle- or lower-income earner, whatever you saved in that personal income tax was eaten up in other areas.

What we need to do is ensure that we are taxing based on salaries that people earn. It's not fair to on the one hand give the tax break and on the other hand charge
[ Page 2172 ]
the user fees, as I said. The whole system needs to be revamped, in my view, and we need to ensure that people are paying their fair share — not more than their fair share, but their fair share — and currently that's not happening. Any of the tax breaks that have occurred have been much more significant to the wealthy Canadians — and corporations, of course.

What we need to do is ensure that we have enough funds in the system. The middle-income earners cannot fund the entire system, and that's kind of what's happening right now.

M. Dalton: Thank you for your presentation. Just a couple of comments right here. One is on the learning improvement fund. You said it's for one year. It's good news for you. It's actually a three-year outlay. It was $60 million last year, $75 million this year, and another $75 million. There's all indication that it's going to be an ongoing thing for the learning improvement fund.

With regards to the distance learning, I would've thought that the changes would have actually been quite helpful for rural areas such as Quesnel. That's because it allows some of these schools to be more viable, to be able to offer courses where they don't have the numbers — for example, in physics or whatever — and they'd be able actually to connect with other schools and be able to have these programs. That's pretty important, I would think, for communities like Wells and elsewhere, and that's one of the reasons why there were the changes.

With regards to this disparity of salaries, just recently — well, not this contract but the previous contract — there was a reducing of the number of steps to actually bring consistency so that they received that equality throughout the province.

Lastly, as far as the taxation, I'm only hearing the request for increased taxes from the teachers. I'm a teacher myself, but I don't see too many people that say: "I'm paying not enough taxes." I mean, it's always: "There's not enough to share, but it's those people." It's always somebody else. I think it's human nature to say: "Well, other people, but not ourselves." We have a million people in British Columbia that are paying no taxes as far as income taxes. So those are just things to keep in mind. If you want to comment on any of those things, that'd be fine.

T. Mooring: I absolutely do, on a couple of things. In terms of the distance learning and the continuing education, the problem is that it's not protected. So while you may end up having to expend money for a certain number of students that you think are going to come in or be sustained, if they're not sustained and they don't stay in the program, then you don't get the funding.

The way that it has changed in terms of completion rates…. In other words, students have to complete a certain amount of the program before it's funded. You've invested the time in teachers and resources, so if these students don't complete a certain amount, you don't get funded, but you've already outlaid that money. That's part of the problem with that.

In terms of not paying taxes, I'm not suggesting people don't pay taxes. I'm suggesting people pay taxes on their income. Don't hide them in other areas, like user fees and other costs. People that don't pay income tax, I think you said, are the poor. That's why they don't pay. So what we need to do is ensure that people like me, middle-income earners, pay what we need to pay in order to make sure the whole system is funded. But not just me. Everyone. That's not happening right now.

When you give a flat 25 percent break in personal income tax, it doesn't benefit me as much as it does someone who's making a lot more money than I do. Those are some of the….

In terms of the LIF, I understand that outlay of three years, but there's nothing beyond that — that the school districts know of, anyway. If you're promising today that that's going to extend into the future and beyond, I'm thrilled with that. That would be fantastic.

D. Horne (Chair): We're way over our allotted time at this point. I thank you for your presentation.

I'm going to have to call the next witness now, which is the Amata Transition House Society, represented by Ellen Facey.

E. Facey: I want to first thank you very much for coming. It's great to have the opportunity to talk to you in person. I've got about six pages here, which I'm going to go through very quickly.

The Amata Transition House has been open continuously since 1979, which I think, like our women's resource centre's history, speaks to the passion and the support that we have in this community and the leadership that we have in our boards of directors — and our staff, certainly, speaking for both of those institutions.

What is Amata? I think we all know that. I've listed some of the multiple interrelated challenges, but I'm sure you're familiar with those. Our funding, at the bottom of page 2, comes from B.C. Housing. A budget of approximately $530,000 pays for our 13 beds. In practice we've housed as many as 18 women and children in five bedrooms. There is no other accommodation suitable for children between here and Prince George, I have to say.

Annually we house about 200 women and 60 children, including boys, up to the age of 17. Total bed stays, which is persons multiplied by how many nights they stay, per quarter — which is how we are currently reporting to B.C. Housing — can vary from about 600 bed stays in a quarter to almost 1,000. It does fluctuate throughout the year and from year to year.

We have a basic 30-day stay limit, which reflects our
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purpose as aiding in transition to safe living situations, rather than being providers of housing itself. On a daily basis, 24-7, 365 days a year, we do all of these things that are listed on page 3.

Things that we generally think of — the emergency housing for victims of violence — is only one piece, in fact. There is a lot of other work that I don't think people who aren't really familiar with how transition houses work generally have in their mind when they think about them — mothers who have to go to legal appointments, who have to go to legal aid, mental health, drug and alcohol, work with many other agencies in the community. We facilitate all of those.

We explain processes and help people understand. That's why I say we advocate for clients who require assistance. We have women with fetal alcohol syndrome and FAE, fetal alcohol effect, mental issues and so on and so forth. We help people move along with their lives in basically 30 days, unless there are extraordinary reasons for keeping them, which basically come down to either safety or they have children with them or for some other reason can't move on to another place, such as Seasons House, our emergency shelter.

We have also the Children Who Witness Abuse program, which was referred to earlier, funded by the Ministry of Justice, four days a week. It's about $69,000. The Phoenix program is internally run by our own staff at no additional expense, where women basically learn to place their own circumstances in a larger context. We help them learn about the domestic abuse cycle and how that will impact their children as well as themselves. We feel very much that in changing her outlook, she changes not only her own future but also that of her children.

Funding challenges — coming rapidly to that. The ultimate coal of Amata is to stop the cycle of violence against women and children through support and education, hence our motto "Love in action."

In fiscal terms this also means that, as research consistently shows — I'm a former academic, so I had to throw that in there — for every dollar spent in the social services sector, there are multiple dollars saved long term in health and justice and, I'm sure, other areas. Small investments in social services will lower costs in these other sectors several times over. But I might also add that that is not a short-term effect. It's generally a longer-term effect, which is harder for governments to come to grips with, we realize.

Some of the specific things. The Children Who Witness Abuse program is four days; we really need it to be five days. We're not giving service to all the children who need these services. We also could do a lot with our counsellor, and we have other people who are trained. Although we only have one counsellor, we do have other members of staff who are trained to provide this kind of education, so we could very easily expand into education in other areas — for example, schools and so on.

Right now we're being asked to serve a lot of women who we are not equipped to serve. We're housing seniors. I am shocked to see people over 65, over 80, that we were asked to house. They're certainly not within our mandate. It was not for violence, but we took them anyway because there was nowhere else for them, and in 30 days we tried to find them somewhere else to be that was safe and affordable where they would have any supports that they needed, as older people who might have medical issues.

We don't have medically trained staff. We don't have home care staff. We don't have staff-training dollars to deal with issues like dementia. For disability, we only have one room that's accessible. Our house is literally an old house that's on three storeys, so it's always up and down stairs. We have only one disability bed on the main floor.

We're also housing people who are on a six-to-12-months-long waiting list. Either they are clean, so they can come into our house…. Because we have children in there, we have much higher barriers, requirements, than other people do, like the emergency shelter. At one time when the shelter was not there we had to house all these people, and I can tell you it was very chaotic. At one point the Ministry of Children and Families refused to recommend that we take some of their clients and house those women with children because they found it unsafe.

We've turned that around, but we had to do it by putting more pressure on Seasons House turning people away. These are the people I'm talking about here who can't be helped in 30 days, who are on lists for 6-to-12-months-long waiting periods for support and recovery beds, of which there are a couple at Seasons House here but not nearly enough for the need that's there.

Under (d), the next one, we are also only permitted to keep people for 30 days, but housing is very hard to come by, housing that is both safe and affordable for women. It may well be that they're off and on income assistance. The older women are on fixed pensions. It's very difficult for us who are often being asked to keep people longer than the limit, and we have to make some very hard decisions and try to find alternate housing for people.

For our staff, that really is productive of vicarious trauma — to be helpless to help people accumulates on staff. It even has a name: vicarious trauma.

Violence is preventable is another program that we have run before. It's been run in partnership with the school district, and it's an essential piece in advancing public education to eliminate violence by addressing this with teens. As you may be aware, teen dating violence, or so-called date rape, is very, very common and increas-
[ Page 2174 ]
ingly so, and you have to address it at this age level. We would really like to be able to have funding to run that program.

Finally, staff recruitment and retention. Our members belong to HEU. They enter at $15.54, and they stay there for 2,000 hours, which I think is outrageous. Given the levels of stress, the patients, the different sets of knowledge and skills that are required to deal with situations that can be critical, the crises that they encounter, it's amazing what they are able to do. We have staff who have been there for 20 years, and they're the ones who keep the place going, even though they are really disgracefully underpaid.

Fiscal realities is the very last point I made here, which is that it's very difficult for us to keep up without increases on the basic increases of our costs that we cannot not pay — our heating, and so on.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We'll start our questions with the Deputy Chair, Mable.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Dr. Facey. I'm wondering if you have noticed, since your time at the transition house, a trend in terms of increasing numbers or what the situation is in terms of women and children coming into the transition house. Also, is there any second-stage housing or housing available in Quesnel or the area for women and families to go to after they are in the transition house for 30 days?

E. Facey: Second-stage housing is really a big lack. All of these things are really interrelated. There are not enough beds for detoxing in QUESST, our emergency mental health unit in the hospital. When we take people to emergency, sometimes they bounce back to us. We took them there for a reason, but they're not taken in. Honestly, talk about stress. What are we supposed to do with them when they are returned to us?

We can't really blame the hospital. I'm not trying to lay blame here, but because there is no detox centre and there is no treatment centre, all the pressure is coming on the women's resource centre, the Amata Transition House and Seasons House, which has only been here for about four years.

In terms of numbers, the numbers were going up dramatically. Every time there's an economic downturn, it certainly results immediately in more violence. Obviously, then, there are more women coming through our doors.

I think there are more women, too, because of a greater understanding. Our success is putting more pressure on us and educating people that you don't have to take it, that love does not mean getting hit, and all the rest of that.

I started last year. I've only been there under a year. At that time, we had huge numbers, really far exceeding the capacity of the house. With the agreement of the board I shut down some things that were happening, like visitors. It was a beautiful idea to have visitors in the place, but it was chaotic, and there was the possibility of introducing drugs and alcohol through visitors. Things went missing.

We shut that down completely. Now we are much more in line with most transition houses, which is kind of a loss of quality, if you will, but it also saves on our staff and makes for a quieter, more peaceful circumstance. To me, this is what a transition house should be. It should be a refuge.

In the same way, we have become very strict about people who are staying with us. They go out and they drink or use, and they are not allowed to come back for three nights. That may seem harsh, but we have to make sure that we are taking in the children and the women who most, most need to be housed. So we are housing all kinds of homeless people, and in many cases, if they're single, they're unfortunately going to have to go to the minimum-barrier shelter. I feel quite awful being the one who has to say: "No, I'm sorry. Your time's up, and you have to go." I guess you're used to saying that. But this is a lot worse.

J. Slater: Just in that vein, where do the majority of your clients go after the 30 days?

E. Facey: After the 30 days. Wow. The majority? It's very hard to answer that question. We sometimes move people on to other transition houses if they have safety issues. Sometimes they come to us from other locations because they're not safe where they are and they need to get out of town — literally.

If we are able to find a transition house closer to where they live or where they might have a better job at finding affordable housing, we try to move them on to another home, another transition house, or they might have access to E. Fry or some other places on the mainland that have a specialized clientele, like women who have just come out of prison or something. They may come to us, and then we can move them on for a longer period of time for them to reintegrate in the Lower Mainland, where they have some of those facilities that we don't have here.

Sometimes people are going home because they have sorted out what the issues were. Sometimes they're staying with us because they have medical needs and they simply cannot afford to stay in a motel. We'll house them if we have room. It's not in our mandate, but where else are they to go? Honestly, there really is not another good option, especially for women with children. They have to be housed.
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The majority are looking for apartments or subsidized housing. There they may be waiting for months as well. We're always told it's a 12-month waiting list. For us it's transition from us to perhaps a transitional situation in another apartment or a couple of ex-clients sharing — situations like that. Quite varied.

D. Horne (Chair): We're way over time, but I do actually have one last question for you, and that is on the rental assistance program and whether you've found that that has any benefit to those that are transitioning out, to be able to use that rental assistance and find, basically, an apartment where they want.

E. Facey: That certainly has been some help. I can't give you any stats on that off the top of my head.

E. Facey: Yeah. If you would like more, I'll certainly find it for you. I could mail that to you.

D. Horne (Chair): Sure, some more information about maybe some people that have used it would be great. Perfect. Thanks a lot.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation and being with us this evening.

I'll now call our next presenter, who is the child care resource and referral program and Pat Colbourne.

Pat, welcome to the committee. As you've heard several times now, you have ten minutes. Begin anytime.

P. Colbourne: I've come before you in support of quality child care and the child care resource and referral program. While I appreciate the difficulty that you are facing in assigning available moneys to all the various services that we as British Columbians find necessary, I think it's very easy to lose the big picture. That big picture is our future and the future generations. What we do now and how we distribute our moneys now will have a profound effect on them.

In line with quality health care and quality education is quality child care. More and more single parents and two-income families are now barely eking out an existence, mainly because of the increase in part-time, low-wage jobs versus the rising cost of living.

Even with subsidy assistance, many can not afford quality child care so either leave their children in potentially inappropriate situations or don't go to work at all. If people can afford quality care, they will go to work, they will pay into the tax base, and they will contribute to society. Their children will grow up with the benefits of good care, structured early learning and supports as they enter the school system.

B.C. has an amazing program called ECE, early childhood education. Qualified ECEs spend a year in school, more if they want to work with infants and toddlers or children with special needs. They must continue to upgrade their skills in order to requalify every five years.

We need these trained workers in our daycares, helping to raise our next generation of leaders. However, due to extremely poor wages, lack of benefits and no job security, we are losing qualified and experienced ECE personnel who opt to change careers to earn a living.

Many in our community, for example, have left the ECE field to become support workers in the school district, where there are better wages, benefits and some job security. That loss is extremely hard to replace in a small community.

We need to work to keep these trained professionals in place. How? By paying them a wage commensurate with their responsibilities. This can't be done under the present funding structure.

Also, since many ECEs have gotten where they are through student loans, we would like to see some forgiveness. As an example, we have a very high-quality child care provider in town who has worked for ten years at the same centre. She's still trying to pay off her student loans. After a couple of successful years in the field we'd like to see some percentage of the loan amount forgiven for each subsequent year worked.

There need to be financial incentives for providing extended-hour care or after-hours child care in small communities that have large shift worker populations. What we hear now from our care providers is that it's not worth it for family care providers to extend their hours. They're burnt out at the end of the day, and they have their own family responsibilities. Group centres would have a great deal of difficulty with extended hours due to having to pay staff and other expenses which were too much to be borne by the families.

In order to be able to provide these services, there needs to be some sort of subsidy incentive. Child care subsidy needs reform. At this point it pays so much per child per day, regardless of the amount of time they're in care, and only 20 working days out of the month.

There are several months during the year that have more than 20 working weekdays. The parents either have to stay home from work, risking losing their jobs or pay, or pay the full price out of their own pockets. This is an onerous burden for the working families and single parents.

Subsidy isn't working in the case of some single-income homes. Allow me to give you an example.

There is a single parent in town who came to us recently with quite a dilemma. Currently she makes about $1,500 a month to support herself and her child. She receives full subsidy to have her four-year-old in care while
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she's at work at her minimum-wage job. However, next September, when her child enters kindergarten and then into school-age care, she will be deemed, by subsidy, to make too much money and will have to pay her child care expenses out of pocket.

She knows that if she does this, she can't afford to fully pay her other living expenses — rent, utilities, food. She's in a high state of anxiety over all of them, and frankly, we're quite worried about her at our centre.

Changing employment is not an option for her. This is a woman who has had many, many barriers to employment and has worked very, very hard to overcome them. She wants to work. She wants to contribute. But she also wants to feed, clothe and house herself and her child.

For her to pay anywhere from $200 to $350 a month for care will hit her budget too hard, making basic survival very difficult. She will not be able to afford to go to work because of this and will revert to being a burden on the system instead of a contributor to it.

As well, subsidy has not seen an increase since October 1, 2005. In the past seven years the cost of living and the cost of doing business has risen considerably, but child care assistance has not. The grants that were available that allowed non-profit centres and, occasionally, family child care centres to replace worn or broken equipment or to make repairs to the centres have all but gone by the wayside.

Should subsidies be further reduced or the current child care operating fund be eliminated, our four large group centres, as well as many of our family centres, would have to shut their doors.

Now, for the CCRR itself, the child care resource and referral program, it's importance to the community is immeasurable. We support and encourage quality child care. For our care providers and other child service workers in the community, the CCRR provides approximately ten very valuable workshops per year related to child development as well as monthly networking nights for child care providers to come together to discuss issues — make-and-take nights in which care providers make a new resource to use at their centres.

We provide extensive resources, both paper resources and realia. We maintain approximately 50 theme boxes used by child care centres as well as a toy and equipment lending library open to the public.

We support parents looking for child care and assist with subsidy paperwork. We make health and safety visits to child care centres. We are a friendly and welcoming ear for a stressed out care provider. We provide play groups in which we encourage parents to play with their children, and we provide them a networking outlet. We provide our centres with arts and crafts and supplies at our cost.

It has been expressed to us by many care providers that they would not be able to offer the services they do if it weren't for us being there to support them.

The CCRR program must continue to have control over the programming relevant to each centre's community and the money to back it up. Toward this end, I really applaud the regional model to which we've moved. That allows us to better serve the needs of our community. However, we've been operating at exactly the same budget amount since 2007, despite the rising cost of supplies and services and the declining assistance from our struggling local business community.

I encourage you to assign the same priority to child care that you do for health care and education. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, and I thank you for listening.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We'll begin our questions with our Deputy Chair, Mable.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation, Pat. I think it really shows the broad and comprehensive role that CCRRs play, not only here in Quesnel but across the province — a really important part of the delivery of child care services.

I'd like to ask you your opinion in terms of what the most pressing concern is in the provision of child care spaces. Do you experience a shortage here in Quesnel and the area? Is it in infant-toddler or before five years old? I know you mentioned the need for after-school care, especially for shift workers.

P. Colbourne: That's where our biggest lack is right now. It's the person who goes to work at three o'clock in the afternoon and gets off at two in the morning.

We have had an increase, as of late, of single fathers in our community who are shift workers at the mills. Some of them are fortunate enough to have family in town or very good friends. Some are just on their own for whatever they can do. They find a teenager to come and spend the night with your kid, or whatever you can do.

Spaces for infants and toddlers are usually a problem as well. Although we do have one centre that just shut down its infant-toddler program, we have two that increased.

P. Colbourne: It depends on where you go. At our non-profit centres they charge what subsidy will pay. We have two non-profit centres here. The other two charge approximately $30 a day for a three- or four-year-old. It's considerably more…. I think it's $40 and $45 for an infant.

Subsidy comes close, but we also have a huge popula-
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tion here that works part-time. Many of them are working two part-time jobs, so for them to even pay $5 a day out of pocket is a huge, huge burden.

B. Routley: Thank you for your presentation. I do find it alarming that we've heard some employers talk about the skills shortages. For example, there was a program training women to drive trucks, and I've heard of programs being successful in allowing single moms to finish their education or even get a post-secondary education. So it seems to me that government, through not helping out in the funding of child care in some way, has created barriers to entry to employment.

You gave us an example of one case, but I wondered if you would comment about the looming shortage of skilled labour that we have in the province. Do you believe that additional funding focused on helping single moms would actually help improve the opportunity for these folks to move ahead or maybe even upskill their training if there was reliable daycare available at a reasonable cost?

P. Colbourne: I think that would be huge. You know, we do run into people who may be returning to work, but they had to take time off work because they couldn't afford the child care. They couldn't get the child care. That's going to stop people from going to work.

Another issue that's sort of related to that is that when you have a single working parent and the child is sick, the daycares don't want them. They don't want a sick child who's making every other child sick, so the parent ends up having to stay home to look after their child.

We have heard over and over again, especially from single mothers, that they're looking for another job right now because they had to stay home for two days and look after their kid who was sick. They lost their jobs over it, so that becomes part of that issue too.

If there was an alternative, something that they could afford, if there was a place, if they could hire somebody else to come to their home and look after the child…. But there's no assistance for anything like that.

D. Hayer: Pat, the child care resource and referral program is a very good program. Thank you for coming and presenting to us. What is the budget of your organization, the group you represent? Also, the training program for child care — how long is the course? You said the students have a student loan — right? On average, what types of student loans are they looking at?

P. Colbourne: The ECE program, to be a basic ECE, is approximately a one-year program. But it's up around $9,000 or $10,000. If you want to be certified to work with infants and toddlers, you go to school for another year, most of a year. Special needs, again, is another six months or so.

P. Colbourne: The average pay — disgraceful. We're looking at child care workers getting between $12 and $15 an hour for a very, very long day for a very, very important job.

L. Ruotsalainen: You'll be happy to know I won't take up all your time. We just found out about this. I'm going to go on what everybody else has already told you tonight, but I'm just going to give you a brief breakdown of what our society is.

We are a non-profit society in Quesnel. We provide affordable housing in Quesnel. We've been incorporated since 1986, so we've been around for a long time. Our funding comes from Aboriginal Housing Management Association. We currently own 63 units throughout Quesnel. Our clientele includes seniors, handicapped, single family and families.

Our society's mandate is to offer people with low to moderate income the opportunity to live in safe and affordable housing. Generally, for people who are eligible for our programs, they can't exceed…. Their income for their rent is over 30 percent, so we're able to help them if we have anything available.

The society is currently working on many things not only to help improve Quesnel but, more importantly, to try and offer more housing for people in Quesnel. The society is making sure that we do our part to make sure things progress for more housing in Quesnel. We realize we can no longer just rely on government funding — thinking that it's just going to happen that we're going to get a new building or we're going to get land given to us or that all these things are going to happen.

We're trying to think outside the box, realizing that we have to do more on our own part, which we are doing. What we're doing is diversifying so we can generate our own income and, in turn, reinvest that so we can get more housing in Quesnel. Otherwise, we don't feel it's going to happen. It hasn't happened in many years where a new project has been put in Quesnel. The last new project was 15 years ago, which was our building. That was the last time.

We currently have a waiting list of nine to ten years to get into one of our handicapped units and an eight- to ten-year waiting list for single people. We only have four
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units available for our single people. A two- to three-year waiting list to get into a home. Quesnel did do a needs assessment lately for what we do need in Quesnel, and we're short over 900 units for people that need homes that can't afford what we offer here in Quesnel.

It's very hard for us as our society to have to keep turning these people away every time they come in and apply. We have a waiting list. We have hundreds and hundreds of applications that we keep on file, never get rid of. We always keep them maintained and try and keep them updated. It's very hard to always say to them: "I'm sorry. I can't help you for at least two to three years." We always ask ourselves and want to ask you the same — if you've ever been in this position, where you have to beg: "Please, give me a home."

We can't. It's hard to turn those children away. You tell them to go to the ministry. You tell them there are other things, and there are not. We can't expect these people to go to the ministry or live on minimum wage and pay their rent, feed their children, pay their utilities and run a vehicle to try to get to work. We couldn't do it. It's not possible.

They need to be given that help to get back up on their feet. We're not expecting to give them a free handout and say: "This is the way it's going to be forever." We want them to improve. We want them to succeed.

In our housing we've been able to do that quite a few times with people that have been with us for a long period of time. In the end, with the support that we try and offer them — with our tenant counsellor and with budgeting and other needs that they have — we can show them that there is a way out of this. With a lot of people, we've had success, where they've been able to buy their own homes. We're very proud of that.

It's the ones that we have to keep turning away that are very heartbreaking. So what we're saying to you is…. We're not asking you for the moon. We're asking you for more homes. We need to get these people back into a place that they can be safe, can be happy and, again, get back on their feet.

There are matters that the government must have and must be told…. There is no money for subsidies. We are told that all the time. If you want housing, there are no subsidies, which we need.

We need to form partnerships, and that is exactly what we are dedicated to doing. We are going to form more partnerships with other people, so we know that we can succeed. If funding does come down someday, we can say, "We can do this," because we've proven ourselves.

We are meeting requirements that we've been asked to do. Now we're asking that you meet yours — that you help us, that you give us that helping hand that we're trying to give other people.

We put in proposals, and every time we do that, we're told: "You have no land. You can't have a project" or "You have no money. You can't have a project." Now we are leveraging our own assets so that we can have that land, so that we can try and put some money away. Any subsidies dollars that we have left at the end of the day we're not allow to keep. We have to give it back. We can't really have money in the bank.

We see a lot of our people walking around on the streets, sleeping on the sidewalks. In the bigger centres you see that a lot more, but we do have it here. People are sleeping in the bush and couch-surfing, sleeping behind buildings in their cars with their children, which leads to even bigger problems for our people.

The bottom line is, again, that what we're asking and what we need is funding from you to either build or to renovate an existing building for more housing in Quesnel.

D. Hayer: Thank you very much for your presentation. I know that in Surrey, if there is a family with children, they can rent any house, and if they pay more than 30 percent of the money they make into rent, they're given the refund. We have many constituents that we have helped many times, and they can find an apartment or a house, especially with the children.

Do you use the same type of program, where somebody who is working and if they have children so that they get that? How many people does that help? What do you think of that program?

L. Ruotsalainen: Yeah. I think it's an excellent program, and every time we can't help anybody, we help them fill out the paperwork so that they can get that subsidy, if they're working.

A lot of people are on the ministry, so that program doesn't help. If you have a family of two whose maximum budget for shelter is $575 per month and the rent around Quesnel for an apartment is $600 or $700 a month, they're now taking that out of their food money.

D. Hayer: So it's social assistance people, not those who are working outside. It's for the people who are on social assistance that you're talking about. You said that there are people who have a job but who can't afford to work, because they can't afford to pay rent — right?

G. Coons: Thank you, Luanne. It is pretty frustrating and emotional when you talk about waiting lists and so many people and short 900 units. I was wondering if you have some statistics about the number of families with children that are short of housing and are in a desperate situation.
[ Page 2179 ]

L. Ruotsalainen: For our housing right now, I have over 200 applications waiting for housing, for what we offer. The problem with our housing, too, is that a lot of our homes are a bit bigger. If we have a family with just one child, it's harder to place them, because some of our homes are three, four bedrooms. At the same time, if we deem it necessary, we will place them in a bigger home, because we want to help them, because they're in such dire needs.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Luanne, for your presentation. You mentioned some plans for looking at expanding the number of units. In terms of securing land, I know that in other municipalities, the municipalities have the opportunity to, I guess, donate land or to give land for those projects. Have those conversations been going on? What's the response?

L. Ruotsalainen: We've been having that conversation for over five years, and the response is: "We have no land."

L. Ruotsalainen: That makes it difficult. Whenever you put a proposal in, there are always the two mandates. Either you have to have a substantial amount of money, or you have to have a piece of property. We have neither.

M. Dalton: Thank you for your presentation. I'm wondering. As far as the city goes, with regards to basement suites for homes, are there a lot of restrictions in the community for that, or is it pretty open? I know that is a potential source of low-income housing that's possible, but not every community allows it.

L. Ruotsalainen: That's what the city is contemplating now — if they're going to allow secondary suites to see if that will help people. They don't know when that's going to happen. Again, I think that's been in talks for probably two years, at least.

D. Horne (Chair): Luanne, thank you so much for being with us here this evening.

That brings us to the end of our program, unless anyone would be interested in coming to the mike for a brief open mike.

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1) Quesnel Tillicum Society Native Friendship Centre	Sandy Brunton
2) Quesnel and District Hospice Palliative Care Association	Sally Service
	Carol Weremy
3) Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce	Graeme Armstrong
4) Quesnel Women's Resource Centre	Susan Scott
5) Quesnel District Teachers Association	Teri Mooring
6) Amata Transition House Society	Ellen Facey
7) New Focus Society	Pat Colbourne
8) Dakelh and Quesnel Community Housing Society	Luanne Ruotsalainen

Chair:	* Douglas Horne (Coquitlam–Burke Mountain BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Mable Elmore (Vancouver-Kensington NDP)
Members:	* Gary Coons (North Coast NDP)
	* Marc Dalton (Maple Ridge–Mission BC Liberal)
	* Dave S. Hayer (Surrey-Tynehead BC Liberal)
	John Les (Chilliwack BC Liberal)
	* Pat Pimm (Peace River North BC Liberal)
	* Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley NDP)
	* Bill Routley (Cowichan Valley NDP)
	* John Slater (Boundary-Similkameen BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Other MLAs:	Bob Simpson (Cariboo North Ind.)
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Jacqueline Quesnel (Administrative Coordinator)

Witnesses:	Graeme Armstrong (Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce)
	Sandy Brunton (Quesnel Tillicum Society Native Friendship Centre)
	Pat Colbourne (Executive Director, New Focus Society)
	Ellen Facey (Executive Director, Amata Transition House Society)
	Teri Mooring (President, Quesnel District Teachers Association)
	Luanne Ruotsalainen (Executive Director, Dakelh and Quesnel Community Housing Society)
	Susan Scott (Quesnel Women's Resource Centre)
	Sally Service (President, Quesnel and District Hospice Palliative Care Association)
	Carol Weremy (Quesnel and District Hospice Palliative Care Association)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES