Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 81 — Thursday, October 4, 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	2181
S. Lewis
R. Holden
A. Shaver
J. Brown
T. Rodie
S. Glen
S. Corbet
K. Briño
J. Sternig
M. Haaf
S. Stade
K. Pozzobon
D. Campbell
K. Hartley
J. Miller
S. Fleck
C. Gatey
A. McLellan
D. Robinson

D. Horne (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Douglas Horne. I'm the MLA for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services as well as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier of British Columbia.

This is an all-party parliamentary 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 the time to participate in this important process.

Every year, in preparation for next year's budget, the Minister of Finance releases a budget consultation paper. This paper presents the current fiscal and economic forecast and identifies key issues that need to 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. Once the paper is released, this committee holds public consultations throughout British Columbia. Following the consultation period, the committee releases a report containing a series of recommendations for the upcoming budget. The report must be presented to the Legislative Assembly no later than November 15.

There are several ways that British Columbians can participate. This year the committee is scheduled to hold 18 public hearings in communities throughout the province of British Columbia. We've already visited Surrey, Castlegar, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Vernon, Vancouver, Coquitlam, Abbotsford, Fort St. John and Quesnel. We've also done video conference hearings where we heard from Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson and Salmon Arm. After today's meeting we're scheduled to travel to 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 a written submission through our on-line form on our website. We also accept written submissions by e-mail, letter and fax, along with video or audio files. As well, on our website British Columbians can fill in a short on-line survey, which is located on our website at www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. There you can also find information on the consultation process, download a copy of the budget consultation paper and learn more about the work of this committee.

All of the public input we receive is carefully considered and does go into our final recommendations. The deadline for submissions is Thursday, October 18.

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

J. Slater: Hi. My name is John Slater. I'm the MLA for Boundary-Similkameen, and I live in Osoyoos.

P. Pimm: Good morning. I'm Pat Pimm. I'm the MLA for Peace River North and live in Fort St. John.

D. Hayer: Good morning. My name is Dave Hayer. I live in Surrey. My constituency is Surrey-Tynehead. That's where we have the new Port Mann Bridge, the widest bridge in the world.

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

G. Coons: Good morning. Gary Coons, MLA for the North Coast. I live in Prince Rupert.

D. Horne (Chair): Also joining us today from the parliamentary committees office is our Clerk, Susan Sourial, as well as Jacqueline Quesnel at the back registration table, as well as Michael Baer and Jean Medland, who are here on behalf of Hansard Services.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for up to ten minutes, with up to five additional minutes for questions from committee members. Time permitting, we also may have an open mike at the end of the session with five minutes allocated for each presenter. If you'd like to speak at that time, please see Jacqueline at the back of the room and register.

Today's meeting is a public hearing, which will be recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services. A copy of the 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 is also being posted on the committee's website.

I'll begin by calling our first presenter, the Phoenix Centre represented by Sian Lewis. As you've heard, you have ten minutes to present, and your time begins now.

S. Lewis: Good morning. Thank you for your time.
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My name is Sian Lewis. I'm the executive director for Kamloops Society for Alcohol and Drug Services. I have 18 years of professional experience in the area of addiction and mental health. Why I present to you today: hundreds of thousands of children, youth and adults are negatively affected by the harmful use of substances in B.C. every day. Countless communities are faced with negative impacts of harmful substance abuse.

Provincially and nationally, billions of dollars are spent addressing this issue. We need more flexible, upstream, cost-effective approaches for treatment for these hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who are struggling at this very moment.

Our society began in '73 with the Parents Alert Society. This is a group of concerned parents who noticed an increase in alcohol and drug use among the youth in Kamloops. They were concerned about these kids. Since then, our agency has grown to meet the need of the service, and in 1980 Phoenix Centre facility was built to provide in-patient withdrawal management, also known as detox.

We have a medically supported unit with 20 beds. These are used by both adults and youth. Patients stay up to seven days. They have medical assessment, prescribed medications, education, support and activities. Patients leave with a treatment plan that guides them in early recovery. We also provide several out-patient support programs targeted at youth and families who are challenged by substance use.

The entire community recognizes the work we do. After 30 years of service, we are considered the regional expert in withdrawal management. Four doctors, along with one psychiatrist, support our team. We hire registered nurses, registered psych nurses, registered social workers, clinical counsellors and certified detox workers.

We are funded by Interior Health Authority and the Ministry of Children and Family Development. We depend on this funding so that we can provide help to those who need it, not just those who can afford it.

Substance use affects a surprising number of individuals, families and communities. Some people use in moderation, but others use in excess. When I use the term "addict," often people think about the Downtown Eastside, but that is simply the tip of the iceberg.

It's estimated that 33,000 people in British Columbia are struggling with addiction to an illicit substance, what I like to term non-regulated substances. But as many as 344,000 — so ten times the amount — either are dependent on or have a high probability of being dependent on alcohol. And tobacco kills more people than all other psychoactive substances combined. We also see people who are highly addicted to prescribed pharmaceuticals given to them by their physician.

B.C.'s ten-year plan to address addiction and mental health estimates that one in five people in the province in any 12-month period are going to struggle with a significant mental health or substance use issue. A policy paper by the doctors in B.C., Stepping Forward: Improving Addiction Care in British Columbia, estimates that 400,000 British Columbians have some form of addiction or dependence problem today, and this doesn't even include tobacco. That's almost 9 percent of the province's population.

These stats only report on those who are considered addicted. It doesn't account for all the people who are using substances in a harmful way but aren't addicted yet, and I use youth and binge drinking as my example.

These numbers make clear that substance use is a widespread problem, yet we don't see very many at our facility. So what's happening to the rest of them? Well, they're trying to detox at home, in their communities, or they're still using. Some may go to a fee-for-service facility, but most of them are going to family doctors and complaining of symptoms, lining up at drop-in clinics, showing up at the emergency room, and some die.

So we need to get creative and find cost-effective alternatives which reach more of this population earlier on in their addiction process. Just a few examples of how we're currently spending our health care dollars. These references and resources are in my written submission.

As many as one in ten visits to Vancouver General Hospital emergency room in 2009 were for substance abuse. Each year B.C. uses enough hospital beds for substance abuse care alone to fill the Kelowna General Hospital every day for a year. That's over 48,000 hospital stays. The average cost of one day in hospital, for one night in hospital, is $1,000. The average stay is seven days.

In 2006 it was estimated the overall cost of substance in B.C. was over $6 billion. That's $1,500 per year for every British Columbian. The overall cost of substance abuse in Canada in 2002 was estimated at $39.8 billion, and 61 percent of that represents indirect costs resulting in loss of productivity, such as premature death, injury and illness. Clearly, substance abuse is not only pervasive; it's expensive.

Two important recommendations I would like to make today: take a health and wellness approach to the problem, treating people more effectively earlier on; and direct resources to community-based agencies already successfully and cost-effectively providing treatment services.

A wellness model embraces the most current research on substance use and recognizes that the issue always extends beyond the individual, affecting family, friends and community. We know people use substances and that up to 9 percent of the population is dependent or at risk of being dependent on harmful substances. Access to support for substance use needs to be more readily available and at the level of primary care.

Current examples of flexible upstream programming. An example that we have in operation today in our facility
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is a partnership with Interior Health. It's a pilot project that will come due in January 2013. It's called community detox and stabilization. This is an out-patient version of detox, so people actually remain at home with their families, in their jobs, pursuing education and contributing to community while they're addressing their illness. The program provides physician assessment and nursing support for up to three months.

The medical community in Kamloops, the doctors working in the program and the clients benefitting from this service recognize the value of this program. We know we can provide more support earlier on, for less money. The fact is that we're currently struggling to find the money to continue this pilot project. This service approach makes sense. We are regional experts, but we need the money to sustain the program.

Today Phoenix Centre provides in-patient seven-day stays for approximately 800 patients per year at roughly $1,800 per client. That is $250 per day. That's about a quarter of the cost of if they were in hospital.

Support from community detox and stabilization could serve up to 500 patients a year at a minimum and would cost approximately $350 per person, and that's for three months of care. If you combine the two, a seven-day stay in our facility plus three months with the community detox and stabilization, the cost per client is about the same cost as it would be to have that person in hospital for two days.

By redirecting dollars to more upstream services with community-based agencies, more people with substance use problems will be helped earlier, people who may otherwise continue to use and require more costly health services later on. If you think about the scope of the problem — the social cost to individuals, families and communities and the cost to our health care system — that comes from a lack of early support or from ignoring the problem, then it makes good fiscal sense to place more resources in the hands of agencies best equipped to deal with this issue.

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

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Hi, Sian. Thanks very much for your presentation. I think you really provided an overview of the reality of drug addiction and substance abuse in B.C. and also some recommendations to address that.

I'm interested in your first recommendation, to take a health and wellness approach. I understand that in terms of prevention, that would be education programs, and you have the pilot project for your out-patient community detox and stabilization. Are there other examples of the upstream programming that you're thinking about that are cost-effective?

S. Lewis: I'm really focusing on this pilot project, because it's already up and running. It's successful, and we have physicians. Well, it was physicians, actually, who spearheaded this. They're very committed to it.

I mean, basically, a health and wellness approach is identifying that people are going to run into health issues sometime during the course of their life. It's better to get in contact with these people as early as possible with education — and then if indeed there is a health issue, again, getting in touch with these people as early on in whatever it is that they're suffering from to avoid higher costs later on, where now the condition is chronic and they have to be hospitalized. They're going to be using more services, and it's going to cost the system more money.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): So I guess early intervention. The referrals for the community detox and stabilization come from the physicians?

S. Lewis: Yes, it does. But people can self-refer. So it's a very open referral process. Typically, people think that detox in-patient is the only option. A lot of people don't want to come in there. If they knew that they could do this at home with the support of their family doctor and our program…. We're already seeing people come forward that we have never seen before.

D. Hayer: Thank you much. We also have a Phoenix Centre in Surrey. It's called the Phoenix Alcohol and Drug Recovery and Education Society. Do you work with them? They do very similar types of programs. They're very successful. They raised about $10.9 million to build their own building, and they also partner with our universities and colleges and other societies. Do you do the same types of partnerships with other organizations?

S. Lewis: Absolutely. Phoenix Centre is the detox portion of a very long process of service that people with addictions usually find themselves involved in. They would come to us for the five to seven days to free themselves of that substance or opt for the out-patient version — the community detox and stabilization.

We partner throughout the region with all types of services, because once people leave our care, they are still continuing on with their treatment plan. That can involve going to a residential treatment facility. It can involve one-on-one counselling. It can involve self-help groups. We've got a network of services that we are aligned with to ensure that that person has a continuum of service and has a better chance of maintaining that recovery.

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. You're obviously speaking very positively of the community detox and stabilization program. I appreciate that it's not complete yet and a full evaluation would have to take place.
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I'm interested particularly in the cost savings, obviously, and I think that's something you've mentioned here. What's your sense at this stage of the development of this pilot project of, one, its efficacy, and two, the potential to deliver the service and save cost?

S. Lewis: Well, it will be one full year as of January 9, 2013. We have two psychiatrists and four general practitioners who are dedicated to the program, two of which were spearheading the initial program and prompted IH, the Interior Health Authority, to move it forward.

They are seeing up to two intakes three times a week. That's strictly because of their own lack of time. They're only given so many sessionals to support this pilot project, but it has the capacity to take up to three intakes every day.

The program is already up to full capacity with what we have available now in terms of physicians and nurses. It could operate full-time at approximately $175,000 a year. I don't have the numbers on the exact cost of physician assessment. We were trying to get that number, and it was a bit of a roundabout conversation with the doctors.

We do know from the cost that we would see with the nurses and supporting the patients that it's $175,000 a year. We could see anywhere from 500 upwards to 780, which probably isn't as realistic. But there is the capacity to see that many patients.

There is already acceptance by the medical community. They're very excited about this, because it's a hard conversation to have with a patient when you have only so many minutes in your doctor's office. People don't want to talk about this, and they certainly don't want to hear that they have to go to an in-patient detox facility.

They want to hear a normal conversation around: "Yeah, I'm drinking too much. What can I do about this?" "Hey, you can go for one appointment here at the community detox stabilization. Talk to the doctor there. They'll support you for a few months in your early recovery, and you can do something about this earlier on."

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. That may be something that our committee will want to discuss as a possible recommendation. I gather from what you're saying that this is unique in the province. This is the first one?

S. Lewis: Well, I don't know that it's the first one. I know in Vancouver they have what they call a daytox program. So again, people could opt to just detox at home with the support of the program.

They also have in-patient similar to ours. If somebody is medically unstable, we still might direct them to the in-patient prior to being involved in community detox and stabilization. But the beauty in that is that even for the in-patient stay, the community detox and stabilization is a three-month connection to doctors and nurses that just makes them that much more likely to be successful in that really vulnerable early recovery stage.

It's not that we're the only one in the province. We're certainly the only one in this region. We know by the numbers already that we need this program to be maintained, and we need it to expand if at all possible.

P. Pimm: What are some other ways they can refer, and what are the costs to the patient?

S. Lewis: No, it's under health care, similar to our in-patient facility. That's also covered by health care.

People can do a self-referral. They could actually drop in at the centre. They might not get an immediate appointment, but they could make that appointment in person. They can do it through other services in the community, through their doctor, through a family member. I mean, they would have to be in agreement, of course. This is not an involuntary service but, rather, a voluntary service.

S. Lewis: No. Seven days is simply the period of time that it takes for somebody who is medically…. What we would be concerned with is their medical stability. If they need to come in for seven days to the in-patient portion…. You're not talking about the detox and stabilization three months; you're talking about the in-patient portion. It's strictly to get them stable enough, well enough physically and clear enough mentally, that they can take the next steps. They always need next steps, and they need lots more support if they're going to be successful in a long-term recovery.

We'll now call our next presenter, Thompson Rivers University represented by Dr. Alan Shaver and Robert Holden.

Good morning, both. As you have heard, you have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions, and your time begins now.

R. Holden: On behalf of Thompson Rivers University board of governors, I welcome you to Kamloops and ex-
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tend my sincere appreciation of you taking the time for public discourse on the innovations and priorities that TRU has set for the province.

I'm Bob Holden. I'm a volunteer board member on the board of governors and chair of the finance committee at TRU. I have lived in Kamloops for the past 46 years and attended TRU 30 years ago when there were approximately 200 students in the university transfer program. TRU is a big part of the reason today that I live in Kamloops and made this a home for myself.

A. Shaver: My name is Alan Shaver. I'm the president of the university, and I came here two years ago. Prior to that, I worked at Dalhousie University and McGill University.

R. Holden: We've got in front of you a summary of what we're going to talk about today. We're not going to follow it exactly. We're going to try to shorten it up so maybe there's a little more room for questions.

In summary, Thompson Rivers University, TRU, is the centre of university teaching, research and community service in the region. TRU serves 13,914 learners on campus and another 11,000 on line, providing access to excellent education to a total of 24,000 students, making it the largest university outside of the Lower Mainland and one of the largest in B.C. Of this total, 1,530 are First Nations students and 2,718 are international students from 85 countries, both enriching our campus culturally and academically.

Today's economy demands a highly educated population. Our students and their parents know that post-secondary education at the university level is the best investment they can make in themselves and their community. TRU's goal is to provide a place for every qualified student, be they in the trades, careers, bachelor's or master's programs. We are enriching lives, building our province's knowledge and leadership base and actively working to close the skills gap and challenge the province — economic prosperity.

A. Shaver: We have a new academic plan that has four major themes: science, technology and applied skills in society; power, politics and social justice; health, well-being and leisure; and environmental, economic, social and cultural sustainability. I think those really illustrate our goal to be providing programs that are of importance to our students and to our communities.

We're also engaged in the creation of new knowledge and understanding for the benefit of people. This leads to scholarly and research programs that are carried out across the university. Some key areas: ecosystems, environmental resources, sustainable communities, agrifoods, bioproducts, quality control, bioremediation, product testing, healthy communities. I'll let you read the rest. The important thing here is that those areas are of importance to the communities in and around Kamloops.

R. Holden: TRU's newest facility of law is the first new law school in Canada in 33 years. We welcomed an inaugural class of 75 students in September 2011 to an academic program that pays particular attention to legal issues facing energy, natural resources and the environment and to socioeconomic challenges confronting Canada's First Nation aboriginal communities.

Limited access to legal education drives hundreds of our domestic students to attend programs in other countries. These are serious issues in B.C. and Canada. Our new law school will contribute to solving some of these problems, in addition to creating research, which will create new understanding of modern legal issues.

However, there are serious challenges facing B.C.'s universities. On the one hand, we see how, in a globalized world, creating and retaining opportunities for Canadians and improving our living standards will depend on our ability to learn and innovate. We see the growing gap between an increasing number of knowledge, skills and innovation-centred careers and the number of graduates to fill them, while at the same time we see young people clamouring for employment.

A. Shaver: The seats in universities have not been significantly increased in recent years. In fact, the funding for the trades programs at TRU has actually gone down. Now, this was written before yesterday's announcement by the Hon. John Yap of a $75 million reinvestment. That is very welcome news, and we're really pleased that we'll be able to advance our contributions to training people for employment in British Columbia.

One of the things we do is offer master's programs. This is a mandate that we have by the government. Originally, we were envisioned to offer 450. Right now we have a hundred FTEs in master's programs. Master's programs are important because that's where all of that research is being done. They are the students who do that advanced study, and they are the ones that have to take the advanced positions in a technical society.

Right now we don't receive any funding for those students in our university, nor do those master's students get any funding in the form of scholarships from the province. In other provinces — like Quebec, Ontario and Alberta — they have provincial scholarship programs for graduate students. As a result, B.C. graduates are really…. We're facing a lot of competition to retain our B.C. graduates in our graduate programs. They're going to Ontario and Alberta because of the support they can get there.

R. Holden: We believe that now is the time for British Columbia to reinvest in post-secondary education. By investing in education, invention and innovation, we will address the challenges and the opportunities in
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the present economy. TRU has not been granted capital funds for building new facilities or for students and research in four years. The post-secondary education budget envelope is being reduced to us.

We need to ensure that every undergraduate and graduate student that is qualified to enter our program has a funded place, that those students in need have financial support and funding to conduct meaningful research. As we continue TRU's tradition of finding innovative funding sources and finding internal efficiencies, we ask that the province ensure that the students and families of Kamloops have access to research and innovation training and programs.

We propose that all students qualified to attend TRU's trades, careers, bachelor and graduate programs should have a funded seat and that those in financial need should receive appropriate financial support. We ask the province to fund the graduate student seats at TRU and to introduce a program of graduate student assistance.

A. Shaver: Once the students — for example, master's students — are in their programs, they need support for the research that they're doing, so we also propose that B.C. create stable funding for the B.C. innovation fund so that we can take advantage of the kinds of research that we're doing and also match money that's coming in from the federal granting agencies.

We feel that we need, as a system of universities and colleges, a reinvestment in capital funding to support projects that will build the advanced facilities to enable modern learning and innovation. We struggle to keep our facilities up to date. This is a challenge in the trades because the equipment that the trades students need to use is very expensive.

B.C. industry contributes enormously to providing equipment for the university to use for our students. We need to be able to match that kind of philanthropy and support in a more systematic way.

We're renovating a very old building on campus. It's called the Old Main building. It's 40 years old. We're turning it into a modern building that will be able to support a modern law school. This project is being funded out of our own resources and donations, but we do need capital help from the government in order to complete this.

There are also other benefits, not just in the new law school. By creating that space, we'll be able to generate other space for things like internationalization and other programs that are expanding.

R. Holden: We need more housing for domestic and international students. TRU has been innovative in engaging in public-private partnerships to meet the needs of our students without depending on government funding. All of our student residences are P3 projects which cost the government nothing.

However, when the universities were folded into the government budget reporting entity, the new rules prevented TRU from borrowing the funds that we needed to engage with our private partners. This has eliminated an innovative route to building student housing. Capital projects such as the law school building and residences, in addition to serving our students, also create capital assets for future generations, and they stimulate the local economy.

We ask the government to reinvest the significant capital funding envelope for new facilities and to also create a way, on a case-by-case basis, to enable TRU to use P3s as an option for capital projects. This is the third time we've asked for help to restore the P3 projects as an option. Investing in our students improves their lives, strengthens our communities and industries, and improves the world we live in.

In summary, now is the time for B.C. to reinvest in post-secondary education. TRU's needs are as follows: a funded place for every qualified student — i.e., TRU master's programs; financial support for students in need — grants, loan reduction grants, grad student support; stable and increased funding for research; and fourthly, capital funding for equipment and buildings.

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

D. Hayer: Thank you very much. I have many constituents from Surrey actually attending TRU, Thompson Rivers University. This is a very good university. They like the instruction, the system you have in there.

My question is on your tuition fees. Are they comparable with other universities within British Columbia or in Canada? Are you running above capacity or to capacity? And how can we help change the accounting system?

A. Shaver: We're slightly over capacity. The fees, generally, in B.C. are amongst the lowest in the country. Our tuition fees are the third-lowest in a university, including the teaching universities. We do have higher ancillary fees as a result, so it puts us mid-pack. We're at about the middle of the pack in terms of overall mandatory fees — tuition and service fees.

D. Hayer: So you will be looking to us to make a recommendation so you can have P3s like they used to be able to have. It was stopped after we changed, brought you back into the government reporting entity. That will help you without costing any money to the taxpayers.

A. Shaver: Correct. These kinds of projects are funded by the income that comes from the residence fees.

B. Ralston: I take your point about master's students
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and the absence of any assistance program for graduate students. That's certainly something that's been recommended by the Universities Council, and we really lag other provinces in our ability, therefore, to attract high-quality master's students.

It may be self-evident, but could you just state the benefits of having master's students and give some sense of the programs that they're involved in? That's my first question.

The second one is just the issue about the result of putting the universities, the SUCH sector, in the reporting entity and your inability to borrow independently. This was addressed, I think, in the Speech from the Throne a couple of years ago. Frankly, I would have thought there would have been some progress on this file.

I recall your representations over the years. Do you see any movement there at all? What seems to be the problem, given that there has been a declaration in the Speech from the Throne that this problem would be dealt with, yet nothing has happened?

A. Shaver: I've handed out a description of the kinds of research that are going on in the university. When you look at that, you'll see people. You'll see the researchers and the faculty members, but the people also there are students. They're undergraduate and master's students. So they're the ones that are doing the research that is important to the community.

So that's why it's so important that, No. 1, we get our government grant to reflect the fact that we have master's students and that they are expensive to educate and, No. 2, that we have a graduate student support system so that these students can do this work here. The work can be done in B.C. The students can do it in B.C., and it can be translated into the community's well-being.

As for the P3 issue, I think part of the problem is that the accounting standards for the universities, with respect to that transfer and then another change in accounting standards, have not yet been completed. Perhaps you can address that, since you're a specialist on this.

I've been raising this since I came here, for two years, and you know this is the third year that we've presented at this table. I think that there is a will, but I think it's been very difficult to find a way. So I just keep asking, because there are many things on everybody's table, and I just want to make sure that this is up there.

We would definitely appreciate a recommendation that we find a way to be able to make these projects possible again. We actually need a way of ensuring that our partners can partner with us without fear that we're not going to be able to hold up our end.

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

I understand that Jason Brown is here, and I'm hoping that we may be able to move forward with the faculty association.

Thanks for coming forward. We'll hand out the handouts. You may or may not have heard, as you've just walked in — and I thank you for moving up — that you have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions. You can start anytime.

J. Brown: Thanks very much for allowing me to speak this morning. I was hoping to be able to review my notes before I started speaking. We do have a prepared statement, and I'm going to read from the prepared statement, just so that we can have it on the record. Then afterwards, hopefully, we'll have some more time to speak freely about a number of issues.

Good morning. Welcome to Kamloops. As noted in the introduction, my name is Jason Brown. I'm president of the Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association. We represent over 600 full- and part-time faculty who work and teach not only here in Kamloops but also in TRU's various satellite campuses. We appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of the priorities that need to be addressed in the February 2013 provincial budget.

This region of the province faces a number of challenges, both economic and social. Our members believe that institutions like ours can play an important role not only in helping our community make important transitions to more sustainable growth but can also be a catalyst for greater diversification within our region.

Just to set the context for my remarks this morning, it's important to highlight some of the innovative work that TRU is doing in this region. After that I want to summarize the major challenges we face as both educators and academics.

Thompson Rivers University has a student base of approximately 13,000 full- and part-time students. We also have — through the Open Learning university, which is housed at TRU — another 9,000 students who use on-line and remote-classroom learning to start, enhance or complete their post-secondary education.

When TRU was first launched in 2006, we were positioning ourselves to meet the post-secondary education needs of a significant region of the province, but unlike many of B.C.'s established universities, TRU did not abandon its commitment to being a comprehensive learning institution.

By comprehensive I mean providing a broad range of programs and courses that not only allow our students to complete a post-secondary degree, diploma, certificate or apprenticeable trade certificate but also allow adult learners the opportunity to upgrade their skills, even if that upgrade effort means completing their high school courses or graduation.

Providing the broad base of learning opportunities in this region is part of our commitment to this region. We
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strive to be relevant in the knowledge creation process and relevant to those who share an interest in learning, whether that interest is sparked by a desire to complete their high school education or a master's program in one of the several disciplines that TRU offers.

TRU also has put considerable effort into establishing Canada's newest law school. In fact, the school is the first to be launched in the past 30 years. The school also represents a unique partnership with the University of Calgary, a partnership that allows faculty from both universities to participate in program delivery as well as program design.

It also means that students here in the region have choices and options, other than travelling to the coast, to pursue a law degree. Studies show that students who have the opportunity to complete their post-secondary education in their home region are more likely to stay in that region, an outcome that contributes to stability and sustainable growth.

TRU has also become a significant post-secondary institution for international students. We currently have close to 1,700 international students drawn from 90 different countries studying on our campus. The international dimension has also worked its way into some of our existing programs.

For example, in our nursing program we have developed a section in which our nursing students do some of their practicum in the developing nations of the Asia-Pacific region. It not only provides assistance to the health care system in those countries; it also provides invaluable experience to our students — experience that will form and expand their understanding of the challenges in public health care.

Post-secondary education is becoming an increasingly important part of today's labour market. The B.C. Business Council has noted in a number of its reports that over 75 percent of all new jobs will require some form of post-secondary training, whether it's a degree, certificate, apprenticeship program or diploma. That's the economic face of post-secondary education.

But there's a social face as well. Post-secondary education opens the doors to knowledge creation, skill development and lifelong learning opportunities for our students. We build confidence in our students, a confidence that leads them to move their life in a new direction.

There's an obvious economic benefit that flows from building that kind of confidence. With improved skills and greater confidence to learn and adapt, the public investment that is made when we provide post-secondary education pays a positive return to the provincial treasury.

A number of studies have described that return as an education dividend which shows up in various forms. With higher skills, our students are on track for higher lifetime incomes, greater labour mobility and far lower levels of unemployment than would otherwise be the case. All these outcomes benefit the provincial treasury and form the dividend that I described earlier.

Funding is a major challenge for every post-secondary institution in the province. The provincial government's most direct investment in our institution, the provincial operating grant, is simply not keeping pace with either the growing demands or the basic cost pressures that arise from inflation.

We know at a provincial level that real per-student operating grants for public post-secondary institutions have fallen by about 9 percent since 2001. The seriousness of the funding crunch that post-secondary institutions face was highlighted after the February 2012 provincial budget, when the presidents of 25 colleges, universities and institutes released a letter that they had sent to then Minister of Advanced Ed, Naomi Yamamoto.

The president of TRU, Alan Shaver — who's here, I believe, behind me — was a signatory to that letter. In it the administrators pointed out that the steady deterioration of funding, both capital dollars and operating grants, was undermining their capacity to maintain current course and program offerings.

Since then little has changed. As a result, institutions are cutting back programs and services, wait-lists to get into key programs continue to grow, and faculty are told, yet again, to do more with less.

For our students, that means more large-lecture formats and fewer student services and support. For faculty, it means fewer opportunities to revise and improve curriculum. None of these outcomes are what we believe should characterize B.C.'s post-secondary education system. Quite the opposite.

We want our institutions to have that capacity to create the knowledge and skills that research suggests will be more than just a source of innovation. These skills and knowledge are becoming the starting line for what makes a modern economy successful.

I'm sure that this committee has also heard from students that funding isn't the only challenge we face, and if not, you will be shortly. Affordability is a major problem.

Over the last ten years students are paying an increasing share of the cost of their post-secondary education. In many of our public institutions tuition fees account for close to a third of the cost of operating the institution, up from 15 percent in the early 1980s. At TRU, since 1998, I believe, the exact figures have moved closer to 50 percent. Fifty percent of the operating budget comes from non-governmental sources of funding. It used to be closer to 80 percent, as of 1998.

B.C. needs to address the affordability problem. In previous reports this committee has recommended that the government look at mechanisms to lower the costs of student debt. Unfortunately, government has not made the necessary changes in those recommendations, but that shouldn't discourage the committee members from
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advancing those same recommendations again this year.

The committee should also recommend that from a funding perspective, it's time to make a serious and deliberate commitment to improving the operating grants that post-secondary institutions receive. A first step in that direction would be to recommend changes that would prevent the erosion of current per-student grants by the effects of inflation.

Another consideration would be to consult with post-secondary stakeholders on how best to revise the funding formula for post-secondary institutions. That formula doesn't always capture the true costs of operating programs, especially for institutions like ours that have a number of satellite programs in various communities.

In summary, TRU will continue to play a critical role in the economic and social success of this region. However, we will underachieve on those important goals without better funding support from the province and improved affordability measures for our students. The public support for those measures is strong, and we hope that this committee's report will provide leadership to make those changes a reality in the February 2013 budget.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Now I'm going to speak without using the paper.

You know, before coming to this meeting this morning, I was thinking about the message we're trying to get across to you. I was thinking about a chemistry 12 class I had back in high school. Our teacher had some liquid chemical there on the desk inside a container. He had a pipette, and he was dropping the drops into the clear liquid. Both of the liquids were clear. Suddenly — poof! — the clear liquid turned bright pink. I was told that this was a catalyst.

So when I think about the type of funding pressures that we're under when the funding from the government is decreased little by little by little, it may not become apparent — the amount of strain and stress that's being put on the system — right away. But if this continues, what we're going to see is a sudden, major problem such as the one I've just described.

You just can't predict these things, but there are serious issues at our institution right now. We have extremely high levels of stress, people being told to do more with less. We had eight student deaths on campus last year. If you look at Maclean's, the recent cover of their magazine, they talk about…. Across the country there are these types of stress and mental health issues with students.

It depends on what decisions you want to make, where you want to set your priorities. Do we want to invest in the education of our children for the future? What type of country and society do we want?

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

M. Dalton: Thank you, Jason, for your presentation — the things that are happening at TRU.

I know that as far as the government is concerned, student debt is really important. One of the biggest ways to address that is…. Their number one cost is not even tuition. It's actually residence and living costs. So the goal has been to bring education closer to the students so that they can stay at home.

I'm interested to know what percentage of the students are actually living here, and also what your numbers have grown from, say, ten years ago until now. Has there been growth in both the numbers and programs? I know you mentioned…. Obviously, it's a university now, so if you could just address those points.

J. Brown: I didn't bring those statistics with me, but there has been growth on campus. There's been, particularly, growth with international students. There's a new residence that was put up on campus, and within the community a lot of these students stay in the homestays and whatnot. So there's been some growth with domestic students, but it's relatively minor compared to the international growth.

M. Dalton: So are there a lot more students in Kamloops that are now going to school here, as opposed to having gone elsewhere before?

J. Brown: Again, sorry, I don't have those statistics to give you a real answer that I have proof of.

G. Coons: Thank you, Jason, for your presentation. We've heard from faculty associations and universities and colleges and students, as you've mentioned.

Thompson Rivers. Coming from Prince Rupert, a lot of students that I've taught and that I know have chosen Thompson Rivers over many of the other universities. It has a very good name up in the northwest.

You talk about the presidents' letter — the 25 colleges and universities, institutes, looking at, as you tell us, the crisis in the funding. I'm sure that as a committee, we've looked at that, and that will be part of our deliberations.

You also mentioned the affordability problem. Being on the front line, you've given a story or two of the concerns. When we look at the affordability issue, what do you think needs to be done — the top two or three things that need to be done to deal with affordability for students?

J. Brown: For example, make sure that the government's transfer payments keep up at least with inflation so that there isn't an erosion of the overall revenue coming in from the government, so that the universities have a little bit of leeway to at least maintain existing programs, instead of always trying to find a cut here, cut there, cut
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there until something breaks. That's the problem.

I would say that if you could try to at least keep up with inflation, it's going to be very beneficial for us. If we have new programs and prestigious programs such as a law program coming in and the government says, "Well, go ahead and do that, but we're not going to give you any money to fund that," this, as well, can be problematic. There are just two examples for you, Gary.

B. Routley: On the issue of student fees, I guess my question is about the number of students that…. I've heard from students about them being debt-averse and students actually dropping out. So if you could talk a little bit about that and also the number of students waiting on wait-lists for courses that they'd like to achieve.

I did want to mention that we all are aware on this committee that we've seen corporate tax drop from 16 percent down to 10 percent. At the same time, students are now paying more in tuition than corporations pay in tax to the province of British Columbia.

Even more outrageous, in my opinion, is that the richest banks in North America have escaped tax entirely. Well, it was wiped out in 2008-2009 — their capital tax, over $100 million that we could be using to help students achieve education. It seems like a failed policy when I'm hearing that presidents of 25 colleges and universities are so desperate that they're banding together to take action. That's very serious indeed.

Anyway, if you could comment a little bit about the situation with students. As well, it's really alarming to hear about student deaths on campus.

J. Brown: Well, Bill, thanks very much for your question. What we see with the rising cost of tuition and more and more of the burden of the cost of education being shifted to individual families is the tremendous pressure that students are under to, for example, take courses part-time and work in order to pay. They have to pay for their housing, their books, everything.

But what happens as well is that the government starts relying on a policy of bringing in an extra 50 percent more international students because they're considered to be revenue-generating and pay these exorbitant fees, and this is how they'll solve the problem. What happens is that the type of education is actually watered down in the class. You're sitting in there, and 25 percent of the people in your classroom are international students.

What you get is that the actual domestic students often feel as if they are tutoring the international students because their language skills are so low. The universities are trying to find ways to outsource the teaching of ESL as a way of saving money and generating revenue, so it's the magic bullet: let's bring in these international students; that will solve the problem. Actually, what it does is it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the system, waters down the standards, waters down what our students are learning.

What type of example are we trying to set for the future of our country when this is our approach to post-secondary education? Why is it that those people from foreign countries are smart enough to say: "Let's invest in our youth; let's invest in our future; let's give them a lot of money to have the best education they can, and we'll send them to prestigious universities around the world"? Why is it that we don't get that?

We're not investing in our post-secondary education. We're watering it down, lowering the standards and forcing our own students to work day and night to try and survive. It just doesn't make sense. It's up to you to think about what type of future we want in this country.

I'll now call our next witness. The next presenter will be Success By 6, represented by Trish and Sheila.

Welcome. You have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions, and you can begin any time.

T. Rodie: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Trish Rodie. I'm the regional coordinator of Success By 6 in the Thompson-Nicola-Cariboo and also the community coordinator in Merritt, B.C. Joining me is Sheila Glen. She is the coordinator in 100 Mile House, B.C. We're really pleased to have the opportunity to speak today, so thank you.

Success By 6 is an early childhood initiative that's jointly funded by the United Way, the credit unions in B.C. and by our provincial government right now. We provide funding for programs and services that support the healthy development of children, birth to six, and their families. We also provide education and support for special community events. We conduct community research on the needs and gaps in each community where it pertains to early childhood development.

Success By 6 coordinators work with communities to enhance the capacity of parents and caregivers and support quality recreational opportunities for families. We offer healthy nutrition and breakfast programs, playgroups and many programs that ensure optimal circumstances for each child to be successful in school and in life. I really can't say enough about Success By 6. It's just a fantastic program.

It's also unique in that it really is community-driven. Each community that Success By 6 is active in has a community table with members from government services, community service organizations, the health care agencies, the school district and preschools. Basically, any professional in the community that is involved with early childhood is invited to the table. It really enables us to create a very community-specific strategic plan to
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address the needs of each community.

In making our strategic plan, it's also informed by recent and applicable research, including data collected from the human early learning partnership at UBC's early development index, which is a big part of our research tools that we use. It measures vulnerability of children in five different areas: physical, social, emotional, language and communication. Right now provincewide in B.C. the average is that over 30 percent of children are considered vulnerable in one or more of these areas when they start kindergarten.

We feel pretty strongly that 30 percent is far too many, and we support the provincial government's commitment to lowering the levels of vulnerability to at least 15 percent by 2015. We think that this 15 by 15 policy is quite ambitious and that significant changes will need to be made to ensure children have access to necessary supports that will change the statistics. We need to invest more in children.

There are also lots of economic benefits to investing in our children. The recent 2011 report from the World Bank shows that, once again, the absolute best investment we can make is in early childhood development. Their research illustrates that investing in the early years enhances school readiness and all educational outcomes, improves physical and mental health — which reduces costs to the health care system — and also reduces the engagement in high-risk behaviours such as smoking, substance use, risky sexual behaviour and criminal involvement, which all reduce costs to the government.

We all know that there's a long, documented history of research on the extremely high cost-to-benefit ratio for every dollar spent on early childhood development. The World Bank's most recent analysis is a 7 to 16 percent annual return for every dollar spent on early childhood.

Success By 6 does even better than that. Having our early-years tables in each of the communities also has the huge benefit of being able to collaborate with each other and leverage funds from different organizations and services that are working together to meet a common goal anyway.

It really is amazing how far we stretch dollars. For instance, in Merritt we received approximately $35,000 for our strategic implementation funds. That is split between our mainstream funding and our aboriginal engagement funds. Working with the table and forming partnerships, securing in-kind donations and leveraging funds and services from other organizations resulted in over $115,000 in programs for children in Merritt — more than triple.

That's part of Success by 6's mandate — forming partnerships and collaborations between community organizations in order that we can do that. So in Merritt, the $35,000 investment had a rate of return of as much as 16 percent on $115,000.

It's very widely recognized how important the preschool years are — zero to six. Research has proven time and time again that this is the most rapid period of brain development. In fact, a child's brain has done 90 percent of its growth by the time they enter kindergarten. This is huge, and Success By 6 targets children at this time to ensure they receive the supportive and loving care they need.

It is when children feel safe and nurtured that most activity takes place in the development of the brain. Things like broken attachments, fear and hunger, among other things, can stop brain development from taking place and cause lasting delays for the child.

These are the very things that Success By 6 strives to eradicate in our communities. Unfortunately, Success By 6 is not sufficiently funded, and we are not able to be in many communities where we are desperately needed. Even the communities where we are active would benefit greatly from increased hours and implementation funds.

Each community has an average of only ten hours a week dedicated to Success By 6; some, even less. While we're very appreciative of the funding that we do receive from the government, it is really clear that everybody would benefit if funding to early childhood development programs and initiatives like Success By 6 were increased.

Now I'm going to pass you over to Sheila. She has some stories that illustrate just the impact that Success By 6 makes in communities.

S. Glen: Thank you, Trish. First of all, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the initiative, as well, before I give some testimonials from actual parents and staff in the community.

When Trish talks about 30 percent vulnerabilities in B.C., what does that mean? Thirty percent vulnerabilities means that when we look at our jail population and our homeless population, our population that is the costliest to our entire society is that exact same 30 percent. Those numbers aren't just the same coincidentally. It is the same population that hasn't received what they've needed in the first six years.

We know that the first six years set the foundation for life. If we have a rocky foundation, we're always going to have troubles throughout our whole life. If we have a solid foundation and everything has been as best as it can be, we produce resiliency. We produce confidence. We produce citizens that give back to the community instead of cost the community.

So what we're doing is…. The statement is that an ounce of prevention is actually equalling more than a pound of cure. It's pounds of cure, because we can't guesstimate how much return we're going to get when you give a person a healthy start. We know that they're going to give back. We know that these are going to be the people that are running the world and making decisions about our lives.

Some of the stories that are successes in our communities and that we'd like to do more of, I'm going to talk about right now. The first one is a little girl that was First Nations. She had been removed from her home situation and placed in the care of her grandfather. He began taking her to our child care centre. She was not quite three years old.

She was not understandable, communication-wise. It sounded very mumbly. She was very introverted. She had a flat affect, so there wasn't a lot of eye contact; there wasn't a lot of engaging. She cried when she was approached by caregivers and adults.

Within three months of being in the child care centre, she was speaking as fluently as all of the other children. This is a centre that has qualified ECE staff. On every floor, mostly, they have two staff that are qualified.

She was interacting with the other children. She was initiating. She was becoming a leader, so she was initiating play with the other girls in the class. She was showing empathy towards children that were getting hurt. These are all the skills that we're looking for in children in this age group, which she didn't come in with three months prior to that.

Her grandfather was told that his rent was going to be increased. He could afford the daycare because it was subsidized, but he could no longer afford the gas money to bring her to child care.

The supervisor came to me and said: "Oh, we can't see this little girl…. All this progression — we can't lose that. She's going to be school-ready. We've done a good job here." So we talked about it at the community development team, and we decided to put money aside for transportation for aboriginal families that are in need in the community so that they could access this transportation money, so they could still attend programs.

This is some of the work that we could be doing more of if we could invest more in the early years.

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

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. There's nothing like a vivid example to illustrate the point.

I'm familiar with the project at UBC, which has done the provincewide mapping. Are there areas of what are described as high vulnerability that you are not able to be in — regions or parts of this city, for example? And can you give a sense of what the dimension of that gap is?

S. Glen: As far as I know, there's no region that we can't reach, or no area of high risk, other than respecting the aboriginal engagement — their right to their own choices and the way they implement their own programs.

Some communities that are very isolated aren't participating in the EDI by their own choice. That's the mapping project. Those communities still have Success By 6, but we don't have a research base to program. We're basing it on community input, but we're not basing it on research as well, whereas when we have the EDI results, we have the luxury of using community input and research.

M. Dalton: Thank you very much for your work. I'm just wondering what your connection is with StrongStart — I know we have about 300 StrongStarts throughout the province over the past number of years — and how that's going.

I know that with regards to vulnerability, some of the measures are…. Some people question them — for example, tying your shoes before going to kindergarten. There are quite a few other ones where I wouldn't wonder how vulnerable a child is.

Also, the figures and the statistics show, actually, more vulnerability among the middle-income. So it's not really…. It's all over the map with that. The reliance on the EDI is somewhat questionable, in my mind.

T. Rodie: Like I say, each community is different, but generally, Success By 6 has a very strong connection with the school district in the community that it's working in. Most of them are quite involved with StrongStart, depending on what is needed in that community.

We have funded different cultural activities, nutrition. A lot of the nutrition programs were funded by Success By 6 for StrongStart.

S. Glen: I'm thinking along the same lines. I would say that generally, we do a lot of partnering within the early-years community, which is part of Success By 6. We've run parents-and-tots programs. They're based on some of the information that it's the middle-class families that are having some of the highest challenges.

You know, 82 percent of families are double income because they have to be, not because they choose to be. We're kind of hitting the crowd that's maybe fortunate enough to be attending StrongStart — so about 20 percent of the population.

T. Rodie: The other thing that we're quite active in is Ready, Set, Learn, which is sort of connected with StrongStart. We fund a lot of that and take part in that, hosting it a lot of the time for the schools.

G. Coons: Thank you so much for the work that you do. Contrary to my colleague's belief about the EDI and the mapping, Prince Rupert is the most vulnerable district in the province as far as that. We see that as our young kids enter kindergarten. Over the years I think the strength of the research done indicates that we do really
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have a lot of work to do with our children entering into the school system.

Success By 6 in Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii, the Bella Coola region and, especially, the aboriginal engagement strategy are key to the riding I represent. I've worked long and hard with the advocates. Thank you for the work that you do.

You talked about not being funded sufficiently. I notice in your brief here it says there have been total investments of about $18 million by MCFD — over about ten years, I assume. What is your current funding? Is there an issue or concern that it's going to be decreased or frozen?

T. Rodie: It has been decreased quite drastically in the last few years, along with everything else with the different budget cuts that had to be made. There's a lot less money now than there was, which we do try to make up for by making the dollars stretch, by making the different partnerships. But certainly, there are many, many things that can't be done in communities just for lack of funding.

There are communities that we can't reach. As Sheila was saying, there aren't communities that we wouldn't be able to get to if the funding was there to have a coordinator there to make it happen.

For many years it was a grant that was applied for every year. It is now part of the provincial budget. It's just that funding has been decreased in the last few years significantly.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. Unfortunately, we've reached the end of the allotted time, so I'll have to now call our next witness, Susie Corbet from the Kamloops-Thompson Teachers Association.

Susie, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes to present followed by five minutes of questions. Your time begins now.

S. Corbet: Thank you very much. It's really nice to be here, and it's really nice to be able to speak to you all.

I am a teacher in Kamloops school district. I teach intermediate classrooms, usually grades 6, 7, sometimes 4, 5. I want to talk to you a little bit about what to expect in the Kamloops school district. Then I want to talk to you about some of the things that we're passionate about as teachers and what we feel we really, really need for our students, and then answer some questions.

The Kamloops school district encompasses a vast area. It's about five hours across, from one end to the other. We have many smaller communities in our district, from Savona to the west to Westwold in the southeast and all the way up to Blue River in the north. It's both urban and rural in nature. We have a high aboriginal population, averaging about 15 percent. Our geography transgresses across many First Nation reservations.

Our district currently has 33 elementary schools, including a couple of one-room schools and some small multigrade schools as well. We have one middle school, ten secondary schools, two alternate education programs and one distance ed school.

We have schools of choice, which include an elementary, a senior school of the fine arts, a school of science and technology, an International Baccalaureate program that began this year, French immersion schools and, provided we have funding for it, there's an expected trades and technology school of excellence that we're hoping to open up in North Kamloops, actually just down the road.

Our school population is about 15,000 students, and there are about 2,000 individuals employed by school district 73. About 1,200 of those are teachers.

We're looking for stable and predictable funding to support our most vulnerable students. We feel this is paramount. The learning initiative fund that our school district received this year has been used to bring supernumerary teachers into schools to focus on supporting students who struggle with literacy, numeracy and behaviour. In our district the decision was made to focus the funds on our north shore student population, so this is the area that we're in now. It has a generally lower socioeconomic status, and it's more transient than the populations on the south shore, so the district felt that it was important to really nurture those schools and those students in those schools.

The funding is also helped by providing technological improvements in the classroom. For instance, there was, I think, a proposal for seven projectors to be put into one of the high schools. One might argue that that's maybe something that should be in there anyway, rather than just part of the learning initiative fund, which is supposed to kind of be in addition to the regular supports. It also has added additional learning resources. For instance, there have been literacy programs for primary students brought in and additional support worker time to help support our struggling and most vulnerable students.

With not every school accounted for, the total amount of money requested through this fund — the school administrators requested it — more than doubled what was available. That's not even including many of our schools. So as you can see, there's such a need out there to support our students.

This fund does nothing to address the needs and concerns raised about thousands of other students who learn in rural and urban classes around our district. Again, this funding is not guaranteed, and students receiving support now are not ensured the support next year or in the future.

While the LIF has been helpful, it doesn't go far enough to address the needs in the classrooms. Many of our classes have difficult compositions, with many classroom teachers trying to meet the needs of more than three ministry category students' individualized educa-
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tion plans. These IEPs go above and beyond the ever-increasing number of students who present challenging behaviours and learning difficulties that don't even qualify for support.

For instance, I had a student in one of my classes a couple of years ago who really struggled with learning how to read in grade 4 and had a lot of difficulties in the school academically as well as socially. But because they were so low across the board, not just in math or just in language arts, they didn't qualify for any funding. They were just considered low and slow. Do your best, and adapt the programs the best that you can. But it was a real struggle for the student, and I know that given more support, she would have been able to progress a lot further.

I'm sure that this committee continues to travel around the province, and you've probably been to a whole lot of these presentations and listened to a lot of people speak. You've probably heard a lot of teachers talk about what they need in their schools. So I'm not going to present you with a 20-page presentation on how those of us in teaching professions see the system as chronically underfunded. I think you've heard that.

But what I want to share are some stories with you — stories about why I feel it's important to take the time to be here presenting to you today; stories about real children, real educators and how the decisions you will make and the recommendations you will put forward will impact them for years to come.

I talked to an elementary learning assistance teacher recently and asked her how it was going, setting up her groups this year. She informed me that it was very difficult because she was having to basically triage students. She had so many students who needed support that although she had maximized her time, and all the school support workers were fully engaged, she was going to be unable to work with a large percentage of the students that desperately needed her help.

She told me that she was not able to find the time to provide math support for students this year as the choice had to be made between language arts and math. These kids in the school who were struggling with math were not getting any additional support in it. Both were requested and needed funding, but it would only allow for one program to be supported.

She talked about how she had to choose which students most needed her support in reading. It was a painful decision, but in one case it came down to her having to choose the student who was more consistent in their attendance. Although the student who was away a lot really needed her help with reading, she felt that she was not as likely to make as much progress with that student because they weren't there as much. So she had to make the decision to take the student that also needed the support that was there.

The one who was not only struggling in school and with attendance and all that wasn't receiving the support that they desperately needed. To me, that just seems wrong that we're leaving students out who are struggling because of their family situations or what have you.

In our society it seems absurd that any child who is obviously struggling isn't getting the support that they need. There are wait-lists for LART teachers, learning assistance teachers, to get students tested prior to receiving any support. At times these periods of running on the spot, waiting for a time to complete special testing, eats up months of the time that could be spent working with these students.

I've personally witnessed many students on the wait-list for months. As a parent of two students in the public school system, and as a taxpayer, I find this unacceptable. Our school trustees have been forced to make extremely difficult decisions over the course of the last four years. They've had to consolidate schools, close three schools and annex a number of others as a result of shortfalls in the operating budgets. They've cut as deep as one could go.

An example of another one of these difficult decisions currently plaguing our trustees is that they are looking at, in order to save money, starting to charge families that ride the public school bus a rider fee each month based on each student. A rural parent identified that he was going to have to pay possibly up to $500 per year to get his children to the closest school if the fee was only $10 a month per child, as suggested as an option in their report. This may not seem like a lot of money to some people. However, for those on a limited-income budget, $500 may be the better part of a monthly family income.

I feel that the shortfall in funding to adequately cover the cost of busing students further as a result of closing community schools, in part — students in our district go 5,000 kilometres a day by bus — discriminates and disadvantages our rural populations. If we saw a change in the funding formula — the districts were provided perhaps actual costs of funding to transport children, to maintain and staff our schools — our trustees in other districts wouldn't have to rob from Peter to pay Paul.

We hear that there is more funding going into education every year, that per student, there has been more funding put in every single year. But when we think about how much those costs have risen over the course of even five years, we think about how much the cost for gas has increased to transport those students from their homes to their schools and how much of that money is coming out of the district budget to fund that increase and to heat those schools, we recognize that there's actually a decrease in the actual money that is provided to support those students in those classes.

Talking about playgrounds and how parents are selling cookies and chocolates and hot lunches in order to build playgrounds, how that needs to be equitable and consistent in funding for playgrounds…. I want to talk about
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how textbooks and resources are not in classrooms, even though we hear they are. I surveyed two schools recently, and three of the teachers in those schools were missing math textbooks and science textbooks. They didn't have enough for even half of the students in their class. So they're putting in resources and time and energy and begging for supplies from PACs to support their students.

I'll actually start, for a change, with myself, perhaps. I have a question around the way that we spend money in our system. I wanted to get your opinion and advice on it. One of the comments you made and talked about was the assessment of students. Obviously, we spend a lot on assessing students, because that triggers additional funding.

I'm just wondering, with the amount we now spend on assessment, whether that money might be better spent in a classroom and a better way to sort of deal with that whole system. One of the other factors that may play into that…. This is where I'd like your advice.

I know a young guy who is close to our family. He's in elementary school right now. He's a fantastic hockey player. He's very good at sports. He plays every sport known to man. He has now been assessed, and I can tell you that from a conversation I had with him, it's stigmatized him to a certain extent. He now sees himself as a dummy, because he's been assessed, and he sees that.

I'm not certain, in the long run, that that assessment, even though there's more money and resources now attached to him, whether, for his overall future development, that extra money and those resources are actually going to be helpful to him. Or the fact that he has now sort of labeled himself as a dummy as well…. It's actually detrimental to him.

S. Corbet: I know that's been a discussion around how we ensure that children that need that special support, the extra support, get it. We're kind of in a catch-22, because if we don't go through the hoops and the process in order to acknowledge that a student needs some serious supports, there is no extra funding.

I had a student in my class a couple of years back that had autism and needed a lot of one-on-one support. I went to the learning assistance teacher. Although this child did have a little bit of support, I said: "We're dying here. I've got two children that are on the autistic spectrum. I have two that have fine motor skills, and they're needing technology to help them get their input out." This was grade 7. "I have a student who is reading at a grade 3 level in grade 7 and needs to have some technology to help read textbooks and such, who needs a lot of support."

I had a number of students with math, and I said: "You know what? I'm dying here. How can you help me out?" She goes: "I'm doing my best. I've given you 45 minutes a day of support worker time. Really, your student who has gone through all this testing and qualifies as a ministry-category student is only supposed to get four minutes a day."

In a perfect world, if I could make my wish list, I wouldn't label any student. I'd just ensure that they get the support they need. Right now we need to find out where those areas are where those students need support. Is it a big gap in their math? Is it a big gap in their ability to process and then output? That sort of testing does help us.

I would like every child in my class to be able to get the support without having to go through all the testing, just to be able to have that, but I see it as a double-edged sword.

D. Horne (Chair): I would say that it's a tough position. I thank you for the answer.

G. Coons: Thank you so much for your presentation and your visualization. Being a special ed teacher, I go over the years and look at…. Governments seem to want to reduce the red tape in lots of assessments whether it's environmental, etc., but in the education system it seems to be that the paperwork is so strenuous that you need more teachers just to do the paperwork, drawing away from the teachers in the classroom.

I think that has to be something that is highlighted in the system of how we do our evaluation assessments, especially for those students that need the extra support, whether it's for short-time support or long-time support. I'm assuming you see that also as a need.

S. Corbet: Absolutely. I know that my learning assistance teachers have a really difficult time even getting groups started before the end of September, beginning of October, because of all the paperwork that needs to happen. But again, if we don't have that paperwork in place, there's no funding. If we don't have that funding, we have a classroom full of students that are not meeting their potentials or having the opportunity to even come close to meeting their potentials. It's a zoo.

D. Horne (Chair): We'll end there. We'd actually, perhaps, like some more feedback on how we could make sure the money was there with a system of assessments that was less onerous and less costly but actually achieved the results that you're looking for. It's one of these things where it's a very difficult…. There's no silver bullet.

Obviously, you're in the classroom all the time. You're involved and your members are involved. Some advice to us on how to make that better might…. How you could
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release the dollars with less cost associated with the administration of that could be very helpful to us.

S. Corbet: I would be happy to provide you with some information on that. I'd also suggest, though, that there's just not enough money in the pool — period. End of story. Not only for special ed. It's resources. We know that smaller class sizes help students learn. When we have class sizes that are 30 in intermediate — and that's common — and we have students that have all those special needs, it's an impossible job to do what we need to do.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We've taken ourselves way over the allotted time, and I guess I did that myself. Thank you for your time.

We'll now call the next presenter, that being the Mining Association of British Columbia.

Good morning. As you've heard, you have ten minutes to present and five minutes for questions, and your time begins now.

K. Briño: Good morning. Thank you very much for your time today and for the opportunity for us to present. My name is Karina Briño, and I am the president and CEO of the Mining Association of British Columbia. You do have a deck from us, and the first few slides just give you a bit of information about our association.

We are the voice of the producers in British Columbia for over a hundred years, and we do represent coal, metal, industrial minerals and the two smelters that we have in B.C. Our job is to represent the interests of the industry not only with governments and the public but also with the mining suppliers, other associations, and also to try and position B.C. as a mining jurisdiction across Canada.

Just to give you a bit of information as to what the industry is doing today, according to 2011 statistics, our industry generated $10 billion in gross mining revenues, and that really came from a 25 percent increase in coal development and exports, primarily to China.

That was a 135 percent increase on capital investments, an increase in mineral exploration, an increase in the number of jobs that were created in the sector, average salaries, etc. So the real story for us is: how can the mining sector continue to be an economic driver and a contributor to the economy in the province?

Going forward, we do have an opportunity in B.C. to look at growing the sector in the industry in a responsible manner in a way that is timely and efficient. We have about 30 projects in the process right now. That translates into approximately $30 billion that could come into the provincial budget or the provincial economy over the next five to ten years.

Out of the 19 operating mines that we have, there are two or three mines that are seasonal mines, so they do open and close throughout the year. We are encouraged to know that we have two mines now under construction, with the opening of the new Afton mine just a couple of weeks ago here in Kamloops. Mount Milligan is the next one coming up in 2013, and Red Chris in 2014, if everything goes accordingly.

We do have a series of projects in the environmental assessment process or the permitting process. Regrettably, one of our projects did get rejected this week, so that's an opportunity for us to review that process and figure out how we make it better next time.

In terms of our specific recommendations to you as the committee that is going to be looking at the budget for next year, we're really not here to ask for money. We're interested in figuring out: how do we provide as much information as we can to the committee to ensure that the good decisions that government has made in terms of supporting public geoscience — investing in the permitting agencies within government to ensure that adequate resources are available…? How do we make sure that we continue on that good path?

One of the first things that we would like to draw to your attention is the need for continued investment in resourcing and capacity-creation within the natural resources agencies. We have seen progress in the development of some new approaches to mine permitting in terms of process, and we would like to see that continuing.

Again, the lift in the budget that the resource agencies received this last year…. It was only a two-year term. We would like to put forward to you the recommendation that that increase in the budget needs to continue, going forward.

Together with capacity-creation in the natural resources agencies, we are also very interested in continuing to work with the regulators and government in ensuring that we have an effective and timely permitting process in B.C. The duplication is not just with the federal government in terms of environmental assessments. There is also duplication and overlap within the provincial agencies across the natural resources. We have been working closely with staff in the various ministries, but there is always room for improvement in that area.

From capacity-creation inefficiencies, we also would like to see the continued implementation of the revenue-sharing policy and continued investment in First Nations training and skills development. We have seen how relationships can actually improve when there is an opportunity to share the benefits that the industry has to provide to the citizens of British Columbia.

In the last four years we've only seen three revenue-sharing agreements signed. There is definitely an opportunity to increase the number of those agreements, which really facilitates the ability of First Nations communities to participate in the sector.

The next two recommendations are really more around
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the transition from HST back to the PST. We have made presentations to the committee that was looking at tax reform, and we would just like reiterate that the benefits that the industry was able to enjoy as a result of the HST have facilitated and have allowed for continued investment to come to the province, in particular in those situations where projects are under development.

Every opportunity that we have to provide a bit of relief on the taxation front really translates into more investment in the province and, ultimately, into more jobs. On the electricity side, we do enjoy a very competitive rate. With the transition back to the PST, we will see an increase in costs on electricity purchases for the sector. That's one recommendation that we would want you to consider.

We will be providing you with a written submission, as requested in the letter, so you will have a more fulsome description of what that looks like in the next day or so.

I just want to leave you with the thought that we understand the fiscal environment that the province is in. We are definitely interested in being part of that solution, in figuring out how we become a more active player in the economy of British Columbia.

We are one of the number one job creators in the province right now. As I said, a 14 percent increase in job creation is not insignificant. With an average salary of $115,000 for the people that work in the sector, it's also….

K. Briño: I hope that's not a sign that somebody's boycotting me. But I am going to keep talking.

K. Briño: So as I said, I think we do have a significant role to play, and we look forward to continuing to work with you in figuring out how we overcome some of the challenges that we have.

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

D. Hayer: Thank you very much, Karina. Actually, I'm glad you are here, because I was just going to find out from your association what happened a few days ago when the province rejected a mine for gold and copper.

Did it take too long before you found out? Then, is there a way we can make the process faster? Or is there no way to make any changes? Are there any lessons to be learned? How will this affect the future of mining exploration for people who want to invest here? Those are some questions I had, so I'm happy to see you here, especially as you said that it's one of yours. You probably know more on it than somebody else, who might say: "I have no information on it."

K. Briño: We certainly appreciate the question. This is one of those situations where, if we look at that process, I think we all have something to learn from there.

That particular project has been collecting and gathering information since 2002. The decision, which is supposed to be in a time frame of 180 days for the review, took 700 days — more than what we would consider appropriate in terms of the amount of time that was allocated for it. Over $30 million was invested in just putting the project through the process. This is not money on the ground. This is just the administrative parts of the process.

There is definitely an opportunity for improved process, improved timelines and clarity around the scope of the review. The environmental assessment process is really intended to look at what the major impacts are that the project would have, the effects that the project would have, on the environment and what some of the mitigating measures are that can be adopted by the proponent to ensure that those risks are minimized.

It is an unfortunate decision, from the industry's perspective. Every time that we have an opportunity to continue to work on our projects to make sure that we do end up creating the jobs that we think are meaningful, especially in the Burns Lake area right now, it's regrettable that we have to go back to the drawing board.

D. Hayer: Projects like this can be resubmitted with some changes, learning from what the challenges were that the ministry had, so that in the long term there'd be more jobs created, where people win, the province wins, and the environment wins.

K. Briño: I understand that that is the wording in the letter, and I'm just going by the information that I have seen posted on the government website. There was a comment made at the end of the letter, inviting the company to review the process and resubmit.

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. I was interested in your comments on the permitting process, in the exchange that just took place now. We heard from the Government Employees Union that, in their estimation, there were still some 5,000 permits out of the 7,000 in the backlog, and that that's only funded to the end of this fiscal year. I take it that you're advocating that that program, in terms of hiring extra staff, be continued.

Then the second point would be just that one of the criticisms of the creation of the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations amalgamating with Mines, I think, was that it lost some of its special focus within the ministry that it had previously. We've heard that, for example, at the Oil and Gas Commission applications made there are effectively fast-tracked, whereas other resource per-
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mits are in a much longer queue.

So when you talk about reviewing regulatory processes for efficiencies, is that what you're referring to — to focus specialized personnel and, perhaps, a separate process, as was the case before everything was thrown into one heap in one ministry?

K. Briño: Thanks for the comment and the observation around our recommendation. The $24 million allocation of additional funding for the resource ministries last year does come to an end, I believe, in March of 2013. So our question, obviously, would be: what will happen with the existing staffing levels in those ministries that had that lift only for that two-year period? We are most definitely interested in seeing those staffing levels continue but also, where possible, to increase those numbers.

In relation to the government structure, the industry is interested in clarity around roles and responsibilities. There is definitely going to be an interest in more specialized staff in terms of capacity.

We do find that there is a lack of understanding of the industry and how mining works and what it does and what it doesn't do and what it takes to actually get a project through the process. This is no criticism of staff. These are just people that have never had to deal with these kinds of administrative processes in the past. So one of our recommendations and comments in the presentation is about an opportunity for industry to collaborate with government in creating that capacity.

The industry is also suffering from a shortage of skilled workers. We're losing people to Australia. You're losing them to us. So we're going around in circles in terms of: where do we get these skilled people from? Where do we get the knowledgable mining people to make decisions on mine permits? They're no longer coming as quickly to you. They're no longer coming as quickly to us either, because there is competition globally now for mining expertise. So we do have a problem, and I think we have an opportunity to look at that problem together and figure out how we create that capacity.

Going back to structure again. Whatever structure you decide to have, we will make it work. But we are definitely interested in specialized staffing levels, for mining in particular.

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

John, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions. You can begin at any time.

J. Sternig: Well, thank you for the opportunity to present, and thanks for coming to Kamloops. I first heard about this standing committee at 7:30 this morning, and I rushed here to be able to be in front of you today.

My concern about our direction in B.C. is striking the proper balance. What I see is that there's a major focus in the government on supporting corporate benefits. In doing so, I think that what we're doing is we're ultimately putting pressures on the common, everyday family.

Now, I want to address this in three parts of government programs. One starts with the natural gas royalty grant program. September 19, shortly after Minister Coleman and the Finance Minister announced that there were going to be royalty shortfalls, Minister Coleman went and announced that there's going to be another $120 million in grants given to natural gas facilities. These grants are basically 50 cents on the dollar for infrastructure and roads or pipelines or what have you, so it's a pretty generous program.

Ultimately, for the last number of years we've been informed that there's an abundance of natural gas in B.C. Not only is there an abundance of natural in B.C.; there's an abundance of natural gas in Alberta. Quebec is finding reserves, the eastern U.S. So it's not just here; it's popping up everywhere.

This program is based on supporting marginal gas wells — okay? These are not profitable, but these are marginal. When you read the Ministry of Energy and Mines' programs, basically 124 producers in 2010-11 were beneficiaries of the royalty program out of 140. Does that say that a 124 of these producers are considered marginal?

From a taxpayer's point of view, it just seems that it's a giveaway to natural gas producers when they're going to be producing these wells anyways. Aren't they going to come on stream anyways? Would they be delayed by a year or two if they didn't get provincial funding? Again, there was an announcement that we only received $59 million, I think it was, of royalty revenues this year.

When you break out the budget that was handed down this spring, the 2012-13 projections for natural gas royalty revenue is $398 million. Conversely, there are going to be grants given out. So $25 million in grants are going to be for summer drilling, $122 million in grants are going to be for deep drilling, and $188 million is going to be for road and pipeline infrastructure — $350 million. The net of those is $83 million. So when you're taking….

This used to be a large revenue producer, but there's a lot of money going towards infrastructure that probably the liquid natural gas or the natural gas companies would be buying anyways. There's a concern when this happens. When we heard the announcement of the shortfall, it was the unions that paid the price. It was programs that were going to be cut that paid the price in the announcement.

It wasn't just the price of the market value of natural gas that affected the industry and the shortfall of the revenues of the provincial government. It was some of these
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giveaways or benefits that have been awarded through a number of years. From 2003 to now basically a billion dollars of grants have been awarded under this program — pretty close; maybe $100 million short of that. That's a lot of money. Ultimately, there's a shift, and it does have a result on families.

The carbon tax is another example. I look at that, and the result of this is a problem for families. Page 68 of the provincial budget projects that $1.172 billion is going to be collected on the carbon tax. Past Minister Falcon has said: "Well, the carbon tax comes back. It's revenue-neutral. It comes back to the public." He announces that repeatedly. But the reality of it is that 61½ percent actually comes back to business or large corporations. Of that $1.172 billion, $721 million is business-related — okay?

The problem with that tax with business…. If it's a cost and business is able to pass it on, they most certainly will. If they get a refund on the back end, on the tax end of things, it's just a benefit to a foreign shareholder. So I don't think the premise of the carbon tax, unfortunately, works very well.

The problem, and it's been stated by Minister Lake, is that some of these businesses — again, gas, liquid natural gas businesses — vent a heck of a lot of methane — almost 10 percent of our greenhouse gas. They don't pay a dime for that venting, while the rest of us driving our cars are paying and families are paying. So there's an imbalance. Yet those same large industries are getting the benefit of a tax break, down to 10½ percent in corporate taxes. That's huge.

I guess, finally, when I make comparisons…. There are two strategies. Alberta has an emissions tax as well. The difference with their tax is that they do focus first on the major polluters.

When Alberta looked at this, instead of looking at every family driving to work or every individual — some families can't avoid driving to work because of where they live — they basically tax…. Their limit is anybody who produces over 100 kilotonnes of greenhouse gas gets a tax. If I remember correctly, it's $20 for every tonne, and I think it's soon to be $30. So instead of focusing on the small person, right now they focus on the large person. Then ultimately, I'm sure, in time they'll address the smaller producer.

Here we're not even focusing on the large producer as, again, gas companies and pipeline companies vent without any tax at all. To me, there's some imbalance there.

Finally, the Clean Energy Act. It forced us into a lot of uncomfortable positions. Part of it was trying to avoid purchasing energy from outside the province at very, very cheap rates, caused by shale gas. What it essentially does is when you take marketable energy out of the province — cheap energy — and you try and force expensive energy on B.C. Hydro, that expensive energy basically will come and bite the normal consumer in the back end.

Industry is going to be a large…. It's the largest growth factor in Canada, and ultimately, industry is getting the best price in energy — about 4½ cents. To provide industry with that energy, we need new sources. And where do we look? Right now instead of going outside of the province, we're looking at local independent power producers.

When industry and large power consumers are buying power at 4½ cents, B.C. Hydro is purchasing power at 12½ cents. When B.C. Hydro goes to the B.C. Utilities Commission, they basically apportion all of us together, and we all have to pay the excess evenly.

D. Horne (Chair): John, I forgot to give you a one-minute warning. You're actually over your time, but if you can finish up in a few seconds, that would be great.

J. Sternig: Okay. Anyway, the problem with this is that as we go forward, if you force the Clean Energy Act on smaller residential people, our greenhouse gases are eventually going to go up, not down, just simply because we're becoming more resource-based. Alberta produces 140 megatonnes; we produce 63. So as we become resource-based, unless there's a lot of carbon capture, which eventually will happen somewhat, I can't see that we can maintain the current limit. This forces a burden on families.

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

G. Coons: Thank you so much, John. I see you've got some notes. Maybe you could get them submitted, because you put a lot of food for thought there for all of us. There were a couple of things I was going to try to get on the questions for the Mining Association.

The Expert Panel on B.C.'s Business Tax Competitiveness came up with a couple of recommendations — that the government should consider increases in revenue raised from the mining and oil and gas sectors or reducing some of the incentives. Another one was to consider increasing the corporate income tax. So it sounds like you're advocating for that. Also, for us at the table, are you advocating for a fairer tax regime in British Columbia?

J. Sternig: Yes. I mean, a lot of people would consider the carbon tax as a consumer tax. Some companies can't pass it on, but a lot of companies can. Yet the companies are getting the benefit of it to the tune of 61½ percent. You can do something with the money that you're not refunding in the corporate tax by, again…. There have been a number of speakers here talking about education and student grants. There are pressures on all of those things.

It's time to recognize the families and make it easier for them. It seems to be a bit of a larger focus on corpora-
[ Page 2200 ]
tions than it is on individual families, and I think we have to go back to supporting our family base.

P. Pimm: Just a couple of quick comments. I guess, obviously, in the research you've done, you're aware that the natural gas industry over the years has participated very generously in the provincial budget, in some years as much as $4 billion worth of revenue. Comparing that to the forest industry, government gives the forest industry a stumpage relaxation to get started when they build infrastructure. Am I hearing you saying that we should not give industry any opportunity to enhance their opportunities?

J. Sternig: I guess my query is…. I mean, we were taking 124 industries out of 140. The question is: if you believe those industries aren't going to be there without government help, why do they need government help?

J. Sternig: Well, are they going to be there without government help? Now, some of the forest companies may not be there. You're talking about 88 percent of the natural gas industries that receive the royalty program — almost all of them. Do they all need government help to get where they're going to go?

P. Pimm: I just asked the same question, and I'm really curious to get the input. The same question would be asked of the forest industry because they all get 100 percent of their road infrastructure. All that infrastructure is paid for by the government. I'm just asking: should we not do that for them as well?

D. Horne (Chair): Thanks for your presentation. We're over 15 minutes, so unfortunately, we've reached the end of the allotted time period. I figured it wasn't going to be brief.

I'll now call our next witness, the Métis Commission for Children and Families of B.C. represented by Meredith Haaf.

Meredith, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes for a presentation, followed by five minutes of questions, and you're time begins now.

M. Haaf: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Meredith Haaf, and I'm the quality assurance and policy analyst with the Métis Commission for Children and Families of B.C. The Métis Commission is the legislated representative community for Métis children and families in B.C.

Our organization works to ensure that Métis children and families, particularly those involved with the Ministry of Children and Family Development, are availed of culturally appropriate child and family services. So far this fiscal year, 55 percent of children in care are First Nations, Métis and Inuit, while only 8 percent of the B.C. child population is aboriginal.

The Ministry of Children and Family Development estimates that Métis children in care represent over 7 percent of the child-in-care population despite comprising only a very small proportion of the overall B.C. child population. This number is much likely to be higher due to the misidentification of Métis children as being First Nations or non-aboriginal.

Culturally appropriate child and family services help to repair the intergenerational traumas that lead First Nations, Métis and Inuit families into contact with the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The pan-aboriginal funding structure that's currently in place fails to recognize the cultural distinctions between First Nations, Métis and Inuit children and families. It exacerbates the general misunderstanding that exists among policy-makers, practitioners and the general public regarding the unique identities and needs of Métis children and families.

This means that Métis children and families are often not able to receive the culturally appropriate child and family services that they need, and it impedes their ability to achieve healing. Ultimately, it contributes to the loss of Métis identity and culture.

As a result of this generic aboriginal funding structure, the Métis are left to fight for funding with First Nations agencies and organizations. Because the Métis are a much smaller population, they're less likely to receive this funding. These circumstances create an environment in which the needs specific to the Métis are not being heard or addressed.

In closing, what we're asking is that there be a dedication of more funding towards social services that support vulnerable children and families and, specifically, a new funding structure put in place that dedicates funds specifically to Métis children and families so that we can ensure equal opportunities to improve quality of life and stop the cycle of intergenerational trauma that continues to have disastrous implications for the Métis community.

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

M. Dalton: Meredith, thank you very much for your efforts. I'm Métis myself. I don't know if you were at the MNBC AGM a few days ago, but I was there.

M. Dalton: I know there are 60,000 Métis who are scattered throughout the province. I'm just wondering
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what the connection is with the friendship centres. Is there a close collaboration? Is that one of the key routes that we've been able to address some of these needs, or are there some other routes that we've been able to help Métis youth?

M. Haaf: Currently the Métis Commission is not aligned with the friendship centres. We do have a number of protocol agreement holders that are organizations, child and family service agencies that are not necessarily Métis specific but they do provide services to Métis children and families in their area. We have quite a number of those as well.

Funding them would also help Métis kids and families in various areas of the province where there might not be a Métis-specific service provider, but there are culturally appropriate child and family services available to Métis kids and families in those areas.

G. Coons: Thank you, Meredith. I was just wondering about the number of staff and your budget that you have with the commission.

M. Haaf: At the commission we currently have, I believe, six staff. I can't give you the specific budget information for our organization. We did lose a majority of our funding this fiscal year, so we're working on a much smaller budget this year, which has also meant that some of our projects that would benefit the Métis community have been put on hold.

D. Hayer: Meredith, thank you very much for your presentation. I have some constituents who talk to me; they are of Métis descent, but they say they don't get recognized for the benefit. Do you know what criteria are used so you can get services under the Métis program or what percentage you have to be of Métis descent in order to get the services up to a certain time? Do they say: "Okay, you are not Métis enough to get the services"? Do you know? If not, then can you provide us with that information?

M. Haaf: Well, there's no status card for Métis as there is for First Nations in Canada. At the Métis Commission, the way we operate is that if somebody goes to a service agency and they need services and say that they're Métis, that's all the criteria needed to receive those Métis child and family services.

D. Hayer: Yeah, we have Ken Fisher, who looks after Métis services in Surrey and is longtime involved with the Métis radio program. These other people — we sent them there, and then they said that apparently there were some criteria, and they were not recognized because you need to have some history.

If you can, maybe take a look at it from your organization. There must be something, because they were told they are not connected enough from the bloodline to qualify under the Métis program.

M. Haaf: Right. The current Métis political party is Métis Nation B.C. They do have a Métis status card. Some agencies, as far as I know, will ask to see that card as proof of Métis status.

D. Horne (Chair): I don't believe we have any further questions, so I want to thank you for your presentation. As our next presenter is not here, we'll take a brief recess until our next presenter arrives.

D. Horne (Chair): We'll call our next presenter, the board of education for school district No. 73, Kamloops-Thompson.

Presenters, welcome to the committee. I'll let you introduce yourselves, and you have ten minutes to present. Begin now.

S. Stade: My name is Sherry Stade, health-promoting school coordinator for Kamloops-Thompson school district 73. I'd also like to introduce my co-presenters: Dawn Campbell for the Boys and Girls Club; Kelsey Pozzobon, a teacher at Chase Secondary; and Kris Hartley, a third-year education student at TRU.

Our purpose today is to secure regular funding for youth and their families who would otherwise not have access to sports and arts programs in the after-school hours. I just want to give you a demographic of the population that I'm talking about. According to the early development instrument, the EDI results for 2009-10 and 2010-11, north Kamloops and northwest Kamloops children face unexpected difficulty in their school years, which results in long-term effects and negative social outcomes for the remainder of their lives.

Serious consideration needs to be given to provide a strategic plan that will provide the missing nurturing for adequate social development, emotional stability and positive social relationships as well as physical wellness. The EDI community survey mapping package data provides information in the areas of physical health and wellness, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, communication skills, as well as identifies those with vulnerability in one or more skills.

The north Kamloops and northwest Kamloops population has indexes in all of the skills that are significantly higher and more vulnerable than any other neighbour-
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hood in Kamloops, and you can see I've attached a community survey for school district 73 for 2010-2011. I wanted to talk about the school context for that population.

We have five vulnerable elementary schools that go from grades K to 6 and one middle school from grade 7 to grade 9. Given the data regarding the significant challenges a large percentage of North Kamloops and northwest Kamloops students face, schools in this region have worked hard on establishing effective behavioural and academic interventions and support to enhance learning environments.

These are some things that they work on: the development of positive behaviour intervention systems. They have a matrix in each school that is very obvious when you walk into the building. The development of effective academic intervention systems that identify students who are at risk of failing. Individual educational plans — students who vary greatly in ability and behaviour. Partnerships with support workers, district staff and aboriginal education workers to support and moderate severe-behaviour students.

Power start programs for students who experience challenges in getting to school on time. This program provides transportation to school, breakfast program, grooming and preparation for the school day. The development of structures, programs and supports before, during and after school to help promote positive opportunities for children. Girls group and boys groups for aboriginal students. Development of hot lunch programs for those in need.

Those are our demographics and the context for the schools that we're talking about.

For three years we have received an after-school sports grant. Year 1 was last year. We started in February, and we received $36,000 for funding. This year is year 2 of the three-year program. It starts October 15, and we have $55,000 in funds. The after-school sport initiative is funded through the 2010 sports legacy fund. The initiative receives $1 million each of the three years of the 2010 sports legacy fund.

This initiative is being run in selected school districts in 17 communities as a pilot program to test different models of delivering sports programs in the after-school hours. The primary focus is to provide sport participation opportunities in the after-school time period within the school environment to those students who are most likely to face barriers that would allow participation in sports programs.

The after-school sport initiative reduces the barriers these target populations face when trying to access a sports program and reverses negative trends in the physical, mental and social well-being these children face by providing engaging and high-quality after-school sports programs in the safety and convenience of their neighbourhood school. This year we are also applying for the sport and arts after-school programming, which is an additional $10,000. It's a combination of providing sports and arts.

The after-school sport initiative focuses on supporting children in kindergarten to grade 8 within the following categories: low socioeconomic families, new immigrants, First Nation aboriginal peoples and at-risk children. I've listed the program outlines on this sheet here: provide safe, fun and quality programming for underprivileged children and vulnerable children; increase children's fundamental movement and sports skills; competencies required to lead healthy lifestyle and make long-term positive change. You can go through the list there.

This program has worked very well in Kamloops in our first year. I have brought three program coordinators with me to tell you how it's gone. I would first like to introduce Kelsey Pozzobon.

K. Pozzobon: When I first heard about the program in Chase, B.C., designed to provide opportunities to children who face barriers to sport participation, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I grew up in the village of Chase and was very fortunate in the fact that I had opportunities to play sports and be involved in my community. I truly believe that these experiences have shaped the person I've become, and I'm proud of my community because of it. I absolutely love giving the children of Chase this opportunity to be a part of something great and share the same sentiment about their town.

The population of Chase is roughly 2,800. With it being such a small town, there are not that many sporting opportunities. Furthermore, there are several outlying areas from which the children bus to school.

One of the main barriers to sport participation is that these children have a hard time getting to the sports. It can also be very difficult for the parents to get their students to these things if they're not immediately after school. There are also many children who come from low-income families who struggle with the financial barriers of the sporting opportunities. Thus, this free after-school program is exactly what these children need.

I started the program with the intention of running it in two parts, basketball and volleyball. It was for children in grades 4 to 7. We had an overwhelming response. Our highest attendance was over 40 participants. Luckily, I also had six wonderful high school students who volunteer-coached.

Though we planned to stick to basketball and volleyball, we soon realized that it was too long to spend on one sport, so we switched to a multisport program. I did a lot more team-building and cooperative games, and the kids absolutely loved this. There were constant shrieks of laughter, and they were always exhausted by the end of the day.

I asked parents for feedback about the program. This
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is what one parent wrote:

"Our kids love the program, your ideas and you. They were very active by the looks of their red-hot little faces and sweaty gym strip, which was our main goal for having them join your program, while having a great time. They loved the variety of sports and games you offered, and I loved to see how you handled even the less motivated kids in a loving, structured and encouraging way. My husband and I hope the program will be offered again next year. We would apply to have our kids join again, right away."

There were also several indications that this program was successful. One of my favourite moments in the program was when I was working with a boy in grade 5. He was the type of kid that often goofed around. He was very self-centred. He was a nice kid, but just had no concept of team play.

One day we were playing a game called fukahara, which is essentially a volleyball game where you're rolling it under the net instead of playing over. He started being the stereotypical ball hog, where he was trying to tell everybody, "Oh, you're going to set it, and then I'm going to be one that hits it," every time it got served.

Then something clicked with him, and he just became a leader on the team. This was a little boy in grade 5, who was calling out a play every time the serve was coming over. He was setting up his teammates. He was encouraging them, giving them high fives, consoling them after a bad play. It was just such a cool feeling to see this transformation in him.

Another moment that stands out in my mind was when I was talking to a parent one day after a session. She commented that it was reassuring to see someone who came out of the Chase school system who was successful and down to earth. I was really surprised by this comment, because naturally, I know many people that have been very successful since graduating from Chase Secondary School. But this lady had immigrated from Poland and only saw Chase for its lack of opportunities.

I had a very long discussion with her after one session one day. We talked about the pros and cons of growing up in a small town. She walked away feeling really good about it, and she thanked me the next week.

This same parent also expressed to me how grateful she was because the program offered something to both her son and her daughter, who were complete opposites. Her daughter was a little socialite and made friends very easily, whereas she described her son as being quiet, slightly awkward with the other children. He had once even asked: "Mom, am I a nerd?" She was worried how he would be treated throughout school. She asked if it was okay if he joined the program. Sorry, he joined it a little bit later. I said: "Of course."

The next week you would never have known that he wasn't a part of the program the entire time. He fit in perfectly well with the kids. He had a blast, and he thanked me every day. "Oh, I just love this program. This is so wonderful." So that was really neat.

D. Horne (Chair): Kelsey, unfortunately, we're catching you at the end of the time. But I thought I'd give you another minute as a group.

S. Stade: I'll get Dawn to touch on…. Dawn worked with the Boys and Girls Club. If you could give some highlights of your program.

D. Campbell: Absolutely. Our program developed out of necessity for a change of schools planning. We moved to a middle school, as opposed to the higher-level school which is kitty-corner to our club.

The middle school kids are now four kilometres away from our club. I approached the principal and discussed options of getting these at-risk children to our club. They were old enough to be out on their own, 11-plus years old, but they didn't want to participate in licensed child care, and their parents didn't want to pay for licensed child care.

We arranged a bus, an arrangement together with the support of the fundamental movement program. That allowed us the funding to pick up these children after school and bring them to the club, provide them with healthy and safe alternatives where they can interact successfully with supportive, trained staff. They are vibrant, energetic and excited every day. Our bus is full, and this is not possible without your help.

K. Hartley: Real quickly. The main thing that I want to stress is that I was involved with the inner-city group — two neighbouring elementary schools that were highly vulnerable and at risk. We had an over 85 percent attendance rate for the whole period from February to May. Various things, obviously, popped up here and there, but for the most part, out of the 30 kids, we had over 24 of them attend every week consistently.

I guess the one really positive thing I should say that I've noticed is…. This past week I was back in those schools promoting this year's program, and as we were walking down the hallway right around lunch time, some of the kids that were in the program last year popped up — they happened to be in the hallway — and said: "Are you running the program this year?" They were really excited. Then just this morning I was in again, promoting the program to the kids in the classrooms. A lot of the kids were very positive in telling their friends, "Yeah, you've got to do this program" — stuff like that.

So for me personally, as a phys ed specialist in the TRU bachelor of elementary education program, with the child obesity and whatnot issues that are currently out there, it was very positive for myself. I'm glad to be a part of this program and, obviously, see the need for these programs to be run.

S. Stade: Can I just say some closing remarks? I just
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wanted to say that in our community this after-school program worked. It was successful. We have the numbers, and I have a table there to show how we ran it. It was very successful because of the people that were in the positions as coordinators. They were very caring adults, and they delivered a high-quality recreation program.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. I think one of the good things about the large group that's here is that it does give us a good sort of cross-section of a number of people. So it's great that you're here.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks, all of you, for your presentation. It sounds like a lot of fun. All the kids really enjoy it, so I really get a sense of the benefits of the program.

You've talked about wanting to focus on the categories of low socioeconomic, new immigrants, First Nations, aboriginal people and at-risk children. I was just wondering how you select kids or how they get involved in the programs. And then also, is there a specific request or recommendation that you have?

K. Hartley: I went into both of the neighbouring elementary schools and talked with both administrators, the principals and stuff like that. They've been very integral with regards to the selection process. I went in, gave the spiel to the classrooms, to the kids directly, on the benefits and a few of the different things that we will be encompassing in the program.

Then they return it to the school office — that type of thing — after a parent's signature and whatnot. Through the help of the administrators — because they know their children a lot better, with me not being in their schools — they were able to identify the ones that need these programs the most — from kids that have got serious social issues, maybe low self-esteem, or maybe they need the physical activity a bit more or the home life type of situation.

In my two schools where we did the program, for the inner city, we definitely had a demographic of a wide range of ethnicity. And boys and girls were pretty evenly split, fairly close to 50-50 in the group. So that was personally for the inner-city part of it.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Just the specific…. Are you just asking for continued support for the program?

S. Stade: Yes, we're working off grants, and it's a three-year grant. We're appealing to you to provide regular funding in these populations because the turnout and participation are so good. Our district and our community have done so much work to maintain the health in these areas.

The five elementary schools within Kamloops feed into the middle school. Those are the most vulnerable schools feeding into the middle school. That age range from 12 to 15 — we need to target some very healthy recreational activities for them, which the Boys and Girls Club has done a fantastic job with. Through the Boys and Girls Club administration and counsellors is how we've identified participation. We also acknowledge that we need to provide programs specifically for girls and specifically for boys in some instances.

D. Horne (Chair): When you say "grants," are those grants the gaming grant program, or which grant program is that?

S. Stade: It's only a three-year temporary situation, and we are off to a great start. What's really amazing is that the instructors that facilitated last year are very excited to come back, and they're being really creative with what they're offering. I think this is a very good thing.

D. Horne (Chair): Thanks so much. We'll now move to a very quick question from John, since we're considerably over time.

I was a coach for 20-plus years, both in the school system and the community system. It's very rewarding. I congratulate you guys on the work you're doing.

You're obviously recruiting volunteers and coaches to do this work. How do you get them out of the school, after you guys can't deal with them anymore, to the communities? There's a lot of opportunity for the kids to go play soccer or basketball or volleyball or baseball — never mind the hockey and figure skating, because of the price of that stuff.

How do you transfer out of the school? Once they say, "Okay, this isn't good enough" or "This isn't enough" — one game a week or something, where they can go and practise a couple of days and play a game on the weekends…. The teachers and staff don't really do that that much — right?

K. Hartley: If I could touch on, with our inner-city program, some of the activities that we did. Every week or two weeks we do a different activity and bring in some guest presenters. We had the Kamloops Rugby Club come in and volunteer their thing. We had a wrestling
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coach who had gone to SFU as a wrestler herself. You know, stuff like that — inexpensive activities that some of these kids can….

The curling club over on McArthur Island has done Rocks and Rings, curling in the gymnasium, and have provided an opportunity for the children to try curling at their club free of charge for a few weeks and stuff like that as well. So there are some opportunities there that were provided outside of this program that they could ladder into or that type thing.

S. Stade: The purpose is to introduce the sport and keep them in a safe environment in their neighbourhood, because transportation issues are obvious. The sporting centre becomes their school, and it is hoped that with having these after-school sports programs in the elementary schools, by the time they get to the middle school, they're going to be excited to participate, and maybe by the time they get to NorKam, they'll go on the teams.

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

We'll now call our next presenter, which is PacificSport Interior B.C. — Jack Miller.

Jack, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions. It's a good segue, I think, into your presentation from the last. Please begin now.

My name is Jack Miller. I'm a faculty member in the school of education at Thompson Rivers University, past president and current board member of PacificSport Centre for Interior B.C.

I'd also, first of all, before I start, like to recognize that we're on the traditional territory of the Tsilhqot'in people, and that is an integral part of our program.

There are three main points in my presentation that I'd like to address. The first one is the benefit of sport.

Sport is an effective and efficient health promotion and prevention program. We all know that research shows that individuals who are physically active have fewer preventable health issues such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

Research also shows that sport is one of the best forms of physical activity because of its unique community dynamic. Individuals who are members of organized sport have higher levels of daily activity than those who exercise on their own. Sport can be a part of the solution to the current child obesity crisis.

Sport helps prepare kids for life. Children who play sport are less likely to get involved in risky behaviour, have lower incidence of mental illness, lower absenteeism rates in school, and learn important life skills like teamwork, striving for excellence and goal-setting.

Sport is also an economic driver. Sport tourism continues to be the fastest-growing segment of the tourism industry. StatsCan reported that spending associated with sport tourism reached $3.6 billion in 2010, up 9 percent from 2008.

The sport sector provides an estimated 2 percent of all jobs in Canada. These paid positions leverage over 400,000 additional volunteers in British Columbia, who each contribute, on average, more than 140 hours per year to sport.

B.C. is home to companies that are developing technologies related to sport but applicable to other industries, including apparel, health, wellness and rehabilitation. Examples include Bionic Power, EA Sports Canada active games for Nintendo Wii, Coretection compression shorts, and SoundOfMotion turns Bluetooth phone into sport performance monitoring tools.

Sport also contributes to company health and productivity gains. Research here, again, shows that individuals who participate in sport have lower absentee rates.

The second area is the benefits of the 2010 sport legacy fund investment. Despite the global economic downturn in 2009, government announced a $30 million fund that has supported $10 million in annual programming that is making a difference to children, families and communities.

The current fiscal environment remains challenging, as we all know. We are not here to ask for more funding. We would like to seek status quo funding within the next three-year budget plan, because we think that the $10 million annual legacy fund is an effective and efficient investment in health, in education and in community development.

In our PacificSport Interior region, the legacy has provided an opportunity to expand our mandate to include sport development, where we have been able to hire a full-time staff person in Kamloops, a part-time coordinator in Merritt. This has had a major impact as we link stakeholders, solidify partnerships and offer additional programs and training to provide children opportunities to be physically active. Also, we are very proud to have leveraged the government's dollars on a matching basis from the municipalities.

We have a few examples to support this. First of all, KidSport, which helps over 5,000 children from low-income families participate in a season of sport. Every dollar invested leverages $2.60 from community donations. Sport on the move program — this reduces the cost to parents of their kids travelling to competition. So 180 schools, most of them outside of the Lower Mainland, receive funding to support their teams to travel to high school championships, and close to 3,500 families were helped.

After-school programs. As you heard from members
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from the school district in our community, PacificSport works with local sport organizations and the school district to offer XploreSportz programs for children to try a variety of new sports, which provides the opportunity to be active and be engaged in physical activity. As well, "See It! Try It! Do It!" programs in the elementary schools are happening on a regular basis for children.

The aboriginal sport strategy. Again, in our community in Kamloops we're part of the Interior region, and have benefited from the program by creating partnerships with specific sports centres; recreation departments; and universities linking the bands, the Métis organizations and friendship centres for coach certification and sport development opportunities.

Sport participation programming — 27,000 more British Columbians are members of organized sport, a 4.3 percent increase from 2009 because of the investment in provincial sport organizations and their programming.

High performance programming. B.C. has 13 percent of Canada's population, but B.C. athletes typically make up close to 25 percent of our Olympic and Paralympic teams. This is a good economic investment as well. It leverages close to $4 million in federal Own the Podium program funding as well as significant investment from national sport organizations who chose to locate their national training centres here in British Columbia.

In our community we're proud of the PacificSport network of regional centres. Olympians and Paralympians who hail from here include 2011 world champion and two-time Olympic mountain biker Catharine Pendrel, two-time Olympic shot put athlete Dylan Armstrong, Canadian alpine women's ski team member Elli Terwiel, and many other previously esteemed Olympians such as Nancy Greene-Raine, Olympic medalist for alpine skiing. These are local champions who inspire us all.

On average, sports sector organizations leverage government funding support. For each dollar that the provincial government contributes, sport organizations leverage almost five dollars.

The last area that I want to touch on very briefly is challenging times for government revenues. We know and understand that government revenues have softened and that there is a need to keep government spending under control. Since the budget cuts of 2009 the sports sector has worked hard to become more efficient and effective in the delivery of its programs and services. We have structured to eliminate duplication. We are implementing shared services across organizations to reduce administrative costs. We have introduced web-based reporting, programs and services to reduce travel and reporting costs. And more multisport programming has been created to expand the geographic reach of programming.

Finally, to reiterate, our request is not for more funding. Our request is simply that government's current investment in sport be protected by rolling the $10 million annual legacy fund into base ministry funding. Gaming funding and support to sport needs to continue and be centralized for allocation with one entity that can make more strategic decisions across the sport sector and better measure impact of funding support in communities across British Columbia. An investment in sport is an investment in healthy families and socially and economically strong communities.

That concludes my presentation. I'd like to thank all the panel members for their attention and the members of PacificSport Centre Interior B.C. — that is, the board members, the coaches, the athletes and the family members that support everyone. I wish you well in your deliberation, and we look forward to seeing your report to the provincial government.

G. Coons: It's really not a question. We've heard many presentations from many sports and from PacificSport so far, and I think we're all committed to looking at the proposal and understanding the importance and value of sports to communities, especially the thousands of volunteers that get drawn out to participate, and people like yourself, Jack. On that note, the consideration has been well-noted. Keep up the good work, and thank you.

D. Horne (Chair): I think that sentiment is shared by all of the committee members. Thank you for all the time you've put into the work and to the community.

We'll now call our next presenter, the Association of Consulting Engineers of British Columbia, represented by Steve Fleck, who I just saw walk in at the back, and Cameron Gatey.

S. Fleck: We have some prepared notes that we're going to speak from, and then, I guess, we'll see where that takes us.

S. Fleck: Good afternoon. My name is Steve Fleck. I'm this year's president of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of British Columbia. We are what used to be known as CEBC. We changed our name last year to align with the national organization. Joining me today is Cameron Gatey, who is our vice-president. Cameron is a principal with Urban Systems. I'm a vice-president with Stantech. Both of our companies have offices in several communities in B.C. — actually, throughout B.C. — including here in Kamloops where Cameron is based and where Stantech, interestingly, opened its first office over 50 years ago. So we're a business that's been here for some time.
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ACEC-BC is the provincial association of engineering consulting firms. We represent 90 of B.C.'s consulting engineering companies that provide engineering and other technology-based intellectual services to the public and private sector. Our firms employ over 8,000 people here in B.C., comprised of a workforce of engineers, geoscientists, technicians, technologists and other support staff.

The consulting engineering business contributes some $2.9 billion in annual revenue to the B.C. economy, much of it earned from clients outside of the province of British Columbia. These are revenues that would not find their way to the province if it weren't for the excellent reputation of the B.C. consulting engineering industry.

Consulting engineering is at the centre of B.C.'s knowledge economy. The knowledge economy is the source of high-value employment, supporting a broad array of business spinoff. A healthy B.C. consulting engineering industry is critical to building the future economic foundation of the province.

Canada ranks fourth in the world in terms of revenues derived from the export of engineering services. In British Columbia our consulting engineering firms have been at the forefront of this export market for many years, going, really, back to the '40s and '50s — perhaps not a well-known fact. The world export of services in engineering is growing at an increasing rate: 12 percent average growth rate from 2000 to 2006, and 18 percent in 2007, the last years that we have stats for.

I guess our point in all of this is that a healthy B.C. consulting engineering industry is critical to continue to grow high-value employment opportunities in the province.

I'd like to talk about a few issues but begin by saying thank you. Thank you on behalf of our industry for passing Bill 34, the Limitation Act, this past spring. Bill 34 improved streamlining the legislation governing the liability period for engineers and other professionals, setting a 15-year maximum time limit for filing claims.

This was a significant change that our industry's been requesting for several years, including before this committee last year, and you came through for us — so thank you. As a result of government's actions, the engineering profession in B.C. is now better able to compete with other jurisdictions in attracting and retaining skilled professionals needed in our province.

On behalf of B.C.'s consulting engineering companies, I would like to acknowledge the work that went into getting Bill 34 developed and introduced. Again, thank you, all, for supporting and passing this important piece of legislation.

In terms of the year ahead, we have three priority areas that we'd like to bring to your attention today.

First, we want to reinforce the need for consistent and predictable capital spending. The last ten years have seen a tremendous investment in building and improving the infrastructure of our province, and we were pleased to hear that the Premier continued that commitment last week at UBCM with a promise to continue addressing infrastructure needs in the coming years.

A consistent level of government investment is beneficial for a number of reasons. First, it allows us to plan and make long-term decisions and investments as an industry. Second, and this is really critical, it enables us to develop the critical mass of expertise here in B.C. that we can export as we compete for and win projects around the world.

On a personal note — I know that I'm not supposed to go off-script, but I will for a minute here — Stantec was just successful in winning a very large contract in New Orleans to build pump stations to help New Orleans stay dry in their next hurricane. That work will be done out of Surrey.

Finally, government gets better value for its investment when it's made consistently. It costs much more in the long run to fall behind on public infrastructure, a phenomenon that many other parts of the world are discovering and wishing they'd addressed sooner.

Our second point is to do with the way in which consulting services are procured in B.C. While we recognize that all levels of government need to strive to get the best possible value for taxpayers when it comes to procuring professional services, best value is not the same as lowest price. We are advocates of qualification-based selection, which is simply saying that engineering services are not a commodity and should be not simply procured on price.

When you hire a professional, you're hiring someone for their expertise, local knowledge, experience, track record and a variety of other reasons other than price. When governments make low price the primary factor in procurement decisions, it risks adding significantly greater costs down the road and puts the quality of the project at risk.

None of us would hire the cheapest possible lawyer to advocate on our behalf, nor the least-expensive doctor when we need life-saving surgery. Why do we hire the cheapest engineer to design the bridges that we drive over every day to and from work? Nor, we would argue, should governments be purchasing professional engineering services simply on the basis of price.

Another issue relating to procurement practices is our constant struggle for fair and balanced contract language. We continue to struggle with contract language from provincial and municipal governments that download risk levels to consultants that are disproportionate to our contract's scope and value.

Our desire would be to see a greater level of consistency across all government entities, which simplifies the process and places a reasonable and fair amount of responsibility on both parties to ensure that the project is successfully delivered.
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The last issue I'd like to mention is the new west partnership trade agreement, or NWPTA. We have talked to this committee in the past about our concerns including consulting engineers in this agreement. I'd just like to note here today that there are many other organizations in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan that are beginning to recognize that it was a mistake to include engineers in NWPTA.

The issue, in a nutshell, is that it produced the unintended consequence of once again reducing engineering services to a price-based commodity. Factors that used to be considered — specifically, local knowledge or expertise — are no longer significant considerations as compared to price. As mentioned earlier, it will not produce the best value or quality to government in the long run.

Our request would be for B.C. to coordinate with Alberta and Saskatchewan — and we understand there is some momentum in Alberta to make this change — on the removal of engineering from NWPTA, which we feel will lead to better procurement decisions from government and, ultimately, better value for taxpayers.

I would like to thank you once again for this opportunity to present. Cameron and I would be very pleased to take any questions that you may have.

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

M. Dalton: Thank you very much. I was just reading that there was an award for design and build for the Evergreen line — $1.4 billion — given today to SNC-Lavalin, I believe. I'm just wondering what the involvement of engineers within the association would be in a project like that. Or is that just from…? Is it based out of Quebec, the company?

On a large P3 project, we have a very important part to play, but we're not the lead. The lead will be the design-builder. The consulting engineers will be the design subcontract to the design-builder.

I don't know how SNC intends to procure their design. I expect that if it's similar to the Canada Line — and this is pure speculation — there will be a significant amount procured in British Columbia. But I can't really speak to how they're going to do it.

C. Gatey: If I could take this opportunity, also, to point out that although SNC is based in Quebec, it is a member of our firm. They have offices in British Columbia, and they are members of ACEC.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation. I recall that you also sponsored a breakfast and spoke about these issues, particularly highlighting that B.C. plays such a leading role in terms of the export of engineering services.

Also, the point with regards to your concern for not having engineering reduced to a commodity and being subjected to low-bid proposals. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more in terms of the status of having engineering services removed from the agreement that you mentioned and also other specific examples within British Columbia and with respect to procurement policies — how that would come into play.

S. Fleck: Sure, I can do both. The status in B.C., I think, is that it's…. At this point I don't believe it's an active issue. Let's put it that way. We continuously raise it.

We understand from our sister organization in Alberta that there is actually some momentum in the Alberta government to change this, including a letter, which I could forward on, from the former Premier, Ed Stelmach, who specifically acknowledges the mistake in including engineers within NWPTA.

One example that I'll use is a municipality that went out for a tender for some bridge inspection services. It was done through B.C. Bid and under NWPTA-compliant rules. I think they received something like 18 bids that ranged from $10,000 to $100,000.

Now, when engineers are providing consulting services, it's pretty clear that if you're providing $10,000 worth of services, it's a completely different level of effort than if you're providing $100,000 worth of services. I can't speak to what was appropriate because I wasn't involved with the tender directly, but we had member firms that assessed it at a lower value and member firms that assessed it at a higher value, which indicated to us that the scope of the work was really not all that well defined.

Choosing the lower bid doesn't necessarily get the municipality what they need or protect the public's interest in terms of bridge safety. That's a specific example from this past summer.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Are you planning to make a written submission to the committee in terms of your presentation?

S. Fleck: Yeah. This presentation, my notes that I've just read from, will be left with the committee.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Great, yeah. If you could also forward the letter from Ed Stelmach, that would be good.

C. Gatey: I wonder if I could just make one other comment related to that. One of the things we think is important is that there is talk about bringing Manitoba into the new west partnership agreement. We think that that's the opportunity to actually change this.

I'll also point out that in the original federal government's AIT — the agreement on internal trade, I believe it's called — engineering services were actually excluded. They became included when TILMA was originally developed.

I know Ralph Sultan, our minister, has worked hard representing your issues over the last 11½ years. I'm an MLA there. Good to see the success of what he lobbied for, for the liability issue.

Also in Surrey we have seen billions of dollars of investment, from the Port Mann Bridge to schools to universities to hospitals — right? — and to roads coming up and the widest bridge, the Port Mann Bridge there, that you guys worked on.

My question is: going forward, do you have enough staff to replace the people who will be getting close to retirement age? How are you looking at that skills shortage that you might have? Are you bringing people from overseas? Or do you have people coming from other parts of Canada or the States to fill some of the positions that over the next ten years or so you will have some people retiring from? Or is there any issue with that?

S. Fleck: Yeah, I'll start that, and then I'll let Cameron answer it. I think that that is an issue our industry is facing. Most of our companies have actively recruited overseas in the last few years.

I would also look at the last few years as sort of being the pig in the python. We've had a very high level of activity that we've had to deal with, and we've dealt with it successfully. I mean, surprise us. We'd love to see that level of activity carry on into the future, but our expectation is that we won't quite see that level of activity. Our view is that we easily have the capacity currently in place to be able to deal with what we see in the near-term future.

Interestingly, we do see an influx of engineers moving to B.C. right now to deal with some of the industrial opportunities in both the northeast and associated with the export of natural gas and some of the industrial activity in the northwest as well.

We've actually weathered quite an active time. We've come through that. We've done that with capacity, and we see our capacity in the industrial sector building through people coming into the province. That's not to say that we will not continue to look at recruiting efforts offshore to fill a void of, let's just say, intermediate to senior level that is challenging in our industry right now.

C. Gatey: I would say that one of the reasons why we have been able to do so well is because for ten years the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies has recognized that this challenge was going to be before them. They have been very, very actively recruiting internationally from all over the world, bringing in people from other places that they were interested in leaving. Some of the places that come to mind are South Africa, the U.K., Ireland. A lot of foreign-trained professionals have come to Canada to make it home and contribute to our economy and our industry.

B. Ralston: I've attended your awards dinner for a couple of years, and it gives a good sense of what some of your members do.

I just wanted to say that I agreed with your comment about the need for consistent and predictable capital spending into the future. I think you touched on this, but certainly during the downturn the Canada Works program, the federal infrastructure stimulus program…. I got the sense from you that that probably in a sense wasn't entirely predictable, but that program was well taken up and absorbed by the engineering and the construction industries. Is that a fair comment?

S. Fleck: I think so. I think we actually quite easily picked up and absorbed that. One of the issues for our industry, actually, was that a lot of that program was based on shovel-ready projects, so it probably benefited the construction industry more than our membership. A lot of the projects that were implemented already had designs that were complete and ready to go, and that was one of the key attributes that tended to get funding in place.

Nevertheless, our industry, certainly, was able to respond and uptake anything that came out of that.

We're moving now to our open-mike session. I understand that one of our presenters was held up earlier today, so we're going to give them an opportunity now, during the open-mike session, to present. That is the Thompson Rivers University Students Union.

A. McLellan: Thank you very much for this opportunity. I apologize. We weren't able to make our earlier appointment. As you are likely aware, we have our first day of job action on campus, so we've been pretty busy fielding students' concerns and questions. But we'll make a brief presentation.

The TRU Students Union is the membership organ-
[ Page 2210 ]
ization that represents about 10,000 students on campus at TRU in Kamloops. We're here to talk about why we think post-secondary education should be a budget priority and then, importantly, talk about some of the ways that we can make investments in post-secondary education achieve specific, targeted outcomes very efficiently and effectively.

No doubt all your discussions so far today have been focused on economic recovery and, of course, talking about the fiscal limitations that we have in our budget. At the same time, we want to address family affordability, job creation and economic investment. We think that there is no way we can complete these discussions without talking about the role of post-secondary education.

For families, of course, it's the central means for social mobility. It's the way that we can increase levels of income, standards of living and, of course, reduce reliance on other social services. We know it's also one of the most important ways to address our economic challenges directly. The stat that we hear often is that 78 percent of all job openings in the next decade will require post-secondary education, so investors will be looking not only for tax competitiveness but also for an educated labour pool to make their businesses viable.

Now, the other side of the coin, of course, is that families are struggling with job losses that we've had in the economy. Youth have had a particularly tough time with this, with an unemployment rate last summer of 16 percent, which of course makes it difficult for them to access post-secondary education because they don't have that income over the summer.

We can use the post-secondary system, actually, to leverage income and employment opportunities for students. Post-secondary education is also important for long-term economic strategy. We know that unemployment, for example, amongst graduates is consistently lower and more stable than the average. This is a testament to the versatility of their employable skills and their innovation and entrepreneurship, which will be necessary in a changing economy.

Absolutely, we think post-secondary education should be a budget priority. It's also important for us in terms of our fiscal challenges. We know that the improved economic performance of post-secondary education also provides an increased tax base and reduces reliance on other public services. For example, university graduates make up only 22 percent of the population right now, but they pay 41 percent of all of the income taxes paid, and they draw only 14 percent of government support.

The bottom line is that post-secondary education can put more into the public purse than it will require, so in the long term, it's a good fiscal strategy as well.

D. Robinson: Given the enormous benefits that post-secondary education has to offer, we want to share some recommendations that will generate the greatest possible outcomes in the most efficient way. In developing our recommendations we first identified tangible targets. We cannot assume that policies are or will produce the benefits of post-secondary education without measuring them. We must focus on all these measures of success, from access all the way through to completion and the transition from learning to earning.

We want to share these targets that we believe we must all meet. First, we target two goals for participation. Participation rates should meet labour market demand to ensure our future productivity. Participation rates should also be equitable across incomes. This is key to ensuring that education can deliver on social mobility.

Second, we target completion. We stress that attention to completion is equally important as access. A policy that gets students in the door but doesn't support completion is a wasteful and inefficient one. So persistence and completion rates should be targeted upwards of 90 percent. Further, for the sake of efficiency, completion times should be targeted to full-time, continuous study.

Third, we charted the transition from studies into the economy. Our goal is a 100 percent transition to relevant employment that occurs as quickly as possible. That means providing students with employment and career-building skills and experience.

We also set as a goal that graduates be free to make employment, career and service choices unhindered by excessive debt obligations. We can assure you that students are eager to make these contributions. It's not in the province's interest that ten years of debt payments limit those contributions and those offerings that students can make to our province.

Finally, we target the pursuit of excellence. British Columbia once had the distinction of providing the highest per-student funding in the country, but we have since slipped back to seventh. We should strive to move back into the top three best-funded systems in the country to provide the excellence of education and research our institutions are capable of.

B. Routley: Well, you said a lot, but one of the things we need for the record is your name.

D. Robinson: Totally. My name is Dylan Robinson, and I'm the vice-president, external, of the Thompson Rivers University Students Union.

B. Routley: You were obviously rushed today, so there was a lot of rapid-fire information. If you could go back over…. I heard some statistics. Something was 22 percent, something else was 41 percent, and something else was
[ Page 2211 ]
14 percent. Could you just slow the tape down a little bit for us and tell us what that was all about?

A. McLellan: Sure, absolutely. Essentially, 22 percent of the population currently holds a university credential. That population contributes 41 percent of all income taxes paid. They draw 14 percent of government transfers to individuals.

A. McLellan: That's a Statistics Canada stat. I could get the specific source as well.

M. Dalton: As far as — I mentioned this earlier too — addressing some of the student costs for education, probably the biggest portion of that is actually living costs and that was in accommodation. So that's one of the issues that we've helped to address in expanding the campuses throughout the province, including the university of Thompson Rivers.

That's important. I know that sometimes we look at those statistics as far as funding and think, "Oh, that's really going down," but in many ways, it's going up.

It's interesting. Just reflecting on your comment here about the taxes — 22 percent paying 41 percent of income taxes. That indicates to me that the wage potential — not just the potential but what actually happens — is much greater among those who've received upper education.

I'm just wondering: do you not think that it's reasonable that there is some expense — that some of the charges are paid by the students themselves? Yes, the country benefits, but the students will graduate, and they benefit, really. Your comment on that?

A. McLellan: Absolutely. I think maybe the issue is not who pays but how and when. For students, the issue is that they may not have the financial capacity upfront to make tuition fees, which have increased significantly over the last ten, 15 years, but they are able to make contributions to the system through the achievements of post-secondary education.

Not necessarily that they won't make that contribution, but what is the best way that will achieve outcomes of the system? If we have an opportunity for students to access post-secondary education, then it's more efficient for access, completion and successful transitioning to the economy if they're not burdened with debt or hindered in their access by fees. Then, at that point, they can make contributions to the system in terms of repaying that through increased tax base.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation. We've heard that students are under an increasing amount of stress with respect to rising tuition fees and cost of living and these kinds of things.

Can you comment? Have you heard from your membership on difficulties and challenges, particularly students not completing their course of study because of those difficult challenges?

I'm also interested to hear, from your perspective…. We heard from another presentation that there is a very high number, 1,700, of international students. Does that also draw more resources from the student union? Maybe you could comment on that.

A. McLellan: To get to the first point, one of the most astonishing statistics that we found was actually produced by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. What it finds is that as students take on more and more student loan debt each year, their completion rates go down significantly. The stat is that for between $1,000 to $10,000 per year for each student loan recipient, their completion rates of a program go from 58 percent to 8 percent.

That's one of the most important points that we want to get across in our submission — that student loans are a wasteful and inefficient student financial aid mechanism if they don't promote completion. Student loans can be used effectively in moderation to facilitate access, but when they're used in excess, they actually reduce completion rates. That has been statistically demonstrated.

It actually means that the institution's resources are brought to bear for a student who gains access, and then that doesn't produce a graduate. It wastes the institution's time and resources in that way.

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Then the international students — challenges with…?

A. McLellan: Absolutely. International students have actually brought many resources to the campus. Of course, there's always the challenge of language barriers, but we've been able to incorporate those students very successfully. We found that, on the whole, it's a very positive experience for us and for the rest of our members as well.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation today. That brings us to the end of our program here in Kamloops.

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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
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Jacqueline Quesnel (Administrative Coordinator)

Witnesses:	Karina Briño (President and CEO, Mining Association of B.C.)
	Jason Brown (President, Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association)
	Dawn Campbell (Boys and Girls Club)
	Susie Corbet (Kamloops Thompson Teachers Association)
	Steve Fleck (President, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies, B.C.)
	Cameron Gatey (Association of Consulting Engineering Companies, B.C.)
	Sheila Glen (Success By 6)
	Meredith Haaf (Métis Commission for Children and Families of B.C.)
	Kris Hartley
	Robert Holden (Thompson Rivers University)
	Sian Lewis (Executive Director, Kamloops Society for Alcohol and Drug Services)
	Alex McLellan (Thompson Rivers University Students Union)
	Jack Miller (PacificSport Interior B.C.)
	Kelsey Pozzobon (Chase Secondary School)
	Dylan Robinson (Thompson Rivers University Students Union)
	Trish Rodie (Success By 6)
	Dr. Alan Shaver (President, Thompson Rivers University)
	Sherry Stade (School District 73 — Kamloops-Thompson)
	John Sternig

1) Kamloops Society for Alcohol and Drug Services	Sian Lewis
2) Thompson Rivers University	Dr. Alan Shaver
	Robert Holden
3) Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association	Jason Brown
4) Success By 6	Trish Rodie
	Sheila Glen
5) Kamloops Thompson Teachers’ Association	Susie Corbet
6) Mining Association of British Columbia	Karina Briño
7) John Sternig
8) Métis Commission for Children and Families of BC	Meredith Haaf

9) Board of Education, School District No. 73 (Kamloops/Thompson)	Sherry Stade
	Dawn Campbell
	Kelsey Pozzobon
	Kris Hartley
10) PacificSport Interior BC	Jack Miller
11) Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of BC	Steve Fleck
	Cameron Gatey
12) Thompson Rivers University Students’ Union	Alex McLellan
	Dylan Robinson

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

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REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

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