Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 84 — Tuesday, October 16, 2012 (HTML)

Present: Douglas Horne, MLA (Chair); Mable Elmore, MLA (Deputy Chair); Gary Coons, MLA; Marc Dalton, MLA; Dave S. Hayer, MLA; John Les, MLA; Pat Pimm, MLA; Bruce Ralston, 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	2266
J. Davidson
A. Morgan
K. Bachman
W. Bergen
L. Doiron
K. Nyce
B. Giraud
M. Penninga
G. Stewart

D. Horne (Chair): Good morning, everyone. I'm Douglas Horne. I'm the MLA for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. This is an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia whose mandate includes conducting annual public consultations for the upcoming provincial budget.

Welcome, everyone in the audience, and thank you for taking time to participate in this important process.

Well, it's not part of the normal things that I say in the morning. I would like to add one thing that I think is an important milestone. In my riding there's a lady whose name is Gertrude Marshall. Gertrude is 110 years old today, so I'd like to send the committee's greetings and best wishes for her birthday. I think 110 years old is quite a milestone, and a wonderful lady indeed.

With that, I'll then go on to my normal text. Every year, in preparation of next year's budget, the Minister of Finance releases a budget consultation paper. This paper presents the current fiscal and economic forecast, and it identifies key issues that need to be addressed in the next provincial budget.

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

There are several ways for British Columbians to participate. This year the committee is scheduled to hold 18 public meetings in communities throughout the province. We have already visited Surrey, Castlegar, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Vernon, Vancouver, Coquitlam, Abbotsford, Fort St. John, Quesnel, Kamloops — and Prince Rupert and Kitimat yesterday.

We also held video conferencing hearings and heard from Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson and Salmon Arm. After today's meeting we are scheduled to travel to Prince George, Courtenay, Parksville and Victoria, and we'll conclude our meetings in Victoria on Thursday.

In addition to the public hearings, British Columbians can also share their ideas by sending a written submission through the on-line form on our website. We also accept written submissions by e-mail, letter and fax, along with video and audio files.

As well, British Columbians can also fill out a short on-line survey on our website, which is located at www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. There you can find further information on the consultation process, download a copy of the budget consultation paper and learn more about the work of this committee.

All of the public input we receive is carefully considered. As I say, the deadline for submissions, both written and verbal, is this Thursday, October 18.

I'd like to start this morning by having the members introduce themselves. I will start with Gary Coons.

G. Coons: Good morning. I'm Gary Coons. I'm the MLA for the north coast. I live in Prince Rupert.

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

D. Hayer: Good morning. I'm Dave Hayer, MLA for Surrey-Tynehead, which is home to the widest bridge in the world, the Port Mann Bridge.

M. Dalton: Good morning. I'm Marc Dalton. I'm the MLA for Maple Ridge–Mission. It's my first time in Smithers, and it's a beautiful community. There's snow on the mountain.

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

J. Slater: Good morning. I'm John Slater, the MLA for Boundary-Similkameen, and I live in Osoyoos.

D. Horne (Chair): As well, joining us today from the parliamentary committees office is our Clerk, Susan Sourial, as well as Stephanie Raymond, who's at the back of the room staffing the registration desk, as well as Jean and Steve from Hansard Services, who are here to record and transcribe today's meeting.

At today's meeting each presenter may have ten minutes to speak, followed by five additional minutes for questions from committee members. Time permitting, we may also have an open mike at the end of the session, which will allow for those interested in presenting an additional five minutes to speak to the committee. If you're interested in that, please register at the back desk.

Please come forward. Jim, as you've heard, you have ten minutes to speak, followed by questions. Whenever you're ready you're more than welcome to begin.
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J. Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Horne. It's my pleasure to be here this morning with you, as Chair, and members of this committee. I hate to start to regrets, but as a former mayor, I'd have liked to have seen council here. I honestly think that…. People may well not think that they can influence the financial process, and I think that is pretty much widespread, Mr. Horne — that you're blowing smoke if you think you can change the finances of B.C. from a chair in Smithers. But you are also government services. Every community, every part of the province has to be concerned about government services.

Now, that's not my main topic this morning, the main thing I want to talk to you about. You put in your information that the drop in price for natural gas is putting financial pressure on the province of British Columbia. I want to say this. I think the lack of attention to what has happened to our forests due to the pine beetle…. What we're talking about is uneconomic or not harvestable. Call it what you may; the fact is there's a lot of wood out there for which there is no market.

I know natural gas is an asset. I'll tell you — and I'm sure Mr. Coons knows this — that the northwest part of B.C. has put an immense amount of money into the treasury of B.C., but today there's no pulp mill in Prince Rupert. It's gone. No pulp mill in Kitimat. It's gone. There is almost nothing in the way of processing by-products of the forest industry. If you want to sell your chips, Prince George is the nearest spot, and that's truck hauling.

I think this is an area that you must…. And I mean the province of British Columbia, not just the Finance Committee. The province of British Columbia must concentrate on where your money really comes from. Committee, it comes from resources. Because our resources aren't being harvested, our tax revenues aren't there. Our resources….

Now, I know you're well aware when natural gas drops — immediate poke in the pocket, but almost no attention. Well, maybe that's not fair. John Rustad got worried about it. The mill burns in Burns Lake. Who gives a damn? I find that appalling. The pulp mills shut down across all the northwest. "Oh well, we've just got to haul the chips to Prince George. Who cares?" We can't use a lot of the residue in our forests, because we don't have a plan.

I'm going to say this because I was a part of it, and you can blame me. The beetle action committee. Gentlemen, in my opinion, you might as well save the money, and I know how much it is because I was there and negotiated it. We've got a million bucks going into that. Stop it, because nothing is happening. Take a look yourself. Go and examine this. Where's the plan for the beetle action? What are we really going to do — hold more meetings? Buy fly swatters? This is something we must take seriously. We have hectares out there of dead pine.

Where's your manufacturing facility? I know. "Oh well, no problem. It's okay. We can mill it yet. Not to worry, guys." That time is fast approaching when that is sheer waste. I would like to hear your committee, because that's who I've got to talk to, say: "Look, we have to wake up and pay attention to this." Gentlemen, that may be some income for the province right now, but I can tell you that in eight years' time, forget it. It's not an income. It's an expense, and a big expense, because we haven't reharvested it. We haven't dealt with it, and we just hope it isn't one hell of fire that costs us millions to put out.

I haven't got a lot more to say other than on services. We need services. We don't need every service, but the farther away from the centre you go, the more you need to have certain services. I'm not going to tell you what they are. That council should be sitting here telling you that. So I'm going to impose on your good will and tell you: on this trip, please take a look at the services we're offering and make sure that we as a province are spending our money where we need to.

Now, everybody is going to tell you "health," and that's true. But actually in this community right now a new committee is being formed to raise money and to help our health services. Yes, there is money spent there, but there always is a demand and another demand and something else — a new demand. We learn new things. I think that this is important.

One last shot because I'm a farmer. John knows this. Local farmers put some money together and built an abattoir. Yes, it's functioning. It's essential. Look at what's going on in the world now with the cattle industry. John, we do beef as well as….

Up here what you've got is a lot of grass and not a lot of money — a lot of grass and trees. That abattoir can handle itself, but the capital load is the thing. The income is there. It's essential. You know, without it, the chicken people would just quit. They wouldn't have any hope. The guys that raise chickens would just go away because they couldn't get their chickens to market at all.

We have inspection. You've heard the ruckus about inspection. Yes, we have inspection. Yes, we can do those things. And my little kick — the northern development. You know what I'm talking about. That big cache of money the government put up is sitting in Prince George. You know what I'm talking about — the northern development fund? John, you do. Probably, Pat, you're pretty much aware of it too.

Look. They wouldn't help, but they said okay to the credit union: "We'll back the loan." It's not huge, but it's there. Well, day-to-day expenses are good, but we're having trouble meeting the capital. What's happening is the credit union is backing the financing for that abattoir. I think they should get some help.

Now, the crazy thing about it is that the credit union is going to have to put it in bankruptcy to get northern de-
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velopment to put in any money. Is there any sense to that? Can you tell me why it should go into bankruptcy so the northern development is forced to put some money into it?

You know, members of the committee, these are some of the things that happen in our economy. I know it's probably not your jurisdiction. You've got to make the budget. I'm sneaking this in under services because it says "services." So I'm making an appeal to you that here's an area where things simply fall down.

I'm going to Pat. Pat, it's great being a long way from Victoria. There are really some advantages to that, but I'll tell you it's one huge disadvantage if you need help — a huge disadvantage. Gary, you know that too — don't you?

First, I'll sum up. We have a huge farm out there, ladies and gentlemen. It's called a forest, and up here in the northwest we are not looking after our asset. We simply are not. And because we're not looking after it, we're not deriving any income from that asset — no pulp mills, no logging, no road construction, no employment. The only thing that there's employment for is getting the best timber, picking it out and exporting it. Good news, eh?

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

P. Pimm: Thanks a lot, Jim. I want to go back and touch a bit on that abattoir situation. I'm not sure if you're familiar with how the NDI works. If you're not, you should get some input. Each region has their own RAC — regional advisory council. So I'm just going to leave it there for you, and you can….

J. Davidson: I have been chair of that RAC. As mayor of Smithers, I was chair. I know the ins and outs of it, and I know when it don't move, it don't move.

P. Pimm: Okay, I'll just leave that there. I want to really go back and touch on the abattoir more so, and I can talk to you on the other bit off line, if you want.

What are your feelings about the way that we don't have any farm-gate sales in the province? Is that an issue that we should be looking at to some degree, especially with the situation Alberta has just come up now with XL? I mean, I think maybe we have an opportunity to talk a little bit about that, and I want to get your thoughts on it.

J. Davidson: We are inspected at the abattoir, but as you well know, that doesn't do a thing for the guys down at Terrace or Kitwanga. It's like this. The abattoir basically serves the Bulkley Valley. Now, that's sad, but it's the fact of life — isn't it? You can understand that. Totally essential for the chicken people — absolutely essential. Not as essential for the beef people, because I'll tell you it's a lot easier for you and me to slaughter an animal out in the backyard, pull the hide off it and sell it.

It's hell for chicken people to try and market their birds that way. Honestly, for them it simply doesn't work, Pat. So we've got to look…. Oh, incidentally, the sheep people and the hog people are growing here in the area because of the abattoir. Now, have you ever had hogs?

J. Davidson: Ah. Well, if you ever do, you try to stick those suckers in hot water. You must have known some friends who went crazy trying to, in the end, cut the hide off of a hog because trying to take the bristles off of it was just incredible.

That abattoir is multi. It does everything. Why aren't I saying yes to you? I'm not saying yes to you because what's wrong with the abattoir is not the operation. It's the throughput. If we could just get the throughput up a little more — it's the day-to-day expenses — then, look, we cover that. It's carrying a debt. You know, the debt is what's the problem, not the day-to-day. We have enough stuff going through there to pay the costs of operation but not the overhead.

G. Coons: Thank you so much, Jim, for your thoughts and your presentation. I do want to comment that Mayor Bachrach is coming in later today, so I'm sure we'll get some of the issues that you've brought forward.

Again, I understand where you're coming from, coming from the north coast, when you talk about the immense amount of resources we in the north put into the treasury. We have to take that into account, and we've heard that long and hard.

You look at the services — you know, whether it's health care or whether it's addictions, maternity, wait-lists, appointments. On the TAP travel, the travel assistance plan, for somebody in Haida Gwaii it's an eight-hour trip, an overnight stay in Rupert, a 20-hour ferry ride to Port Hardy down to Nanaimo over to Victoria just for your appointment. And elsewhere in the province it might be: "I've got an appointment in an hour. I'd better leave." Whether it's legal aid, trades training….

One thing we did hear was that especially in the north where we're from, the northwest, a Fair Share concept. Do you have any comments on that? I'm sure as mayor for many years, you've had that pass through your files.

J. Davidson: Well, you must all be aware that getting a share of the gas tax was really, really important to municipalities. It was really important. There's no doubt about that. It gave us some extra cash. You have to do your budget. You're doing one for the province. If there's anywhere to add more money in, it's always a help, isn't it?

Why we think we need more help, or at least the consideration, is because of the fact that it's more expensive to do things here and we largely depend on residential taxes. You know? Bad news, isn't it? If any of you are on
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municipalities, you know that residential taxes are the ones that cause you the most concern because those are the people that line up at the door.

You'll hear the Canadian business foundation yapping at us about overtaxing business. We do not overtax business. If you had a chance to look at Smithers's taxes, our only industry is the sawmill, and they are not overtaxed. In fact, they get…. And the panel board mill. The forest industry mills are not overtaxed. But having said that, this is not a big source of revenue, Gary. Our revenue is the residential tax purse.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much, Mr. Davidson, for your presentation — Jim. Thanks for being with us today.

D. Horne (Chair): I'll now call our next presenter, who is Annette Morgan with the Dze L K'ant Friendship Centre.

As Annette comes forward, I'll also mention the fact that Doug Donaldson is in the audience. He was the former Deputy Chair of this committee and the local Member of the Legislative Assembly.

D. Horne (Chair): Annette, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions. Your time begins now.

A. Morgan: Good morning, everybody. My name is Annette Morgan. I'm the executive director of the Dze L K'ant Friendship Centre in Smithers. I've been employed there for 19 years this October. I'm Gitxsan and from the community of Gitanyow, and I've lived away from home all my life.

Today I'm here to talk to you about friendship centres. Currently, we have 25 friendship centres across this province. I'd like to talk to you about investing $3.1 million annually to develop capacity across the province. I recognize that $3.1 million is a lot of money, but for 25 friendship centres that means a little over $100,000 a year.

What that can do for our community, especially for a smaller community such as Smithers. We are relied upon for information on poverty, education and cultural issues throughout the community. So the work that we're doing…. Not only do we have to work with developing proposals on the need of the community, but we're also called upon from the schools, from education, from other working groups. So that means that we're stopping a lot of what we're doing on a day-to-day basis and working with other agencies.

The friendship centre works not only with families that are moving away from home. We also work with our current community. Not all friendship centres…. It's open to the community. So as you've heard, I'm sure, in the community of Smithers, places like the sawmill…. Three years ago when the sawmill shut down, a lot of people had not ever applied for EI. We provide those services. If you talk to the community, we have legal support workers, mental health workers, addiction workers. We're one of the very go-to people. Even if we won't be able to work with you right away, we can provide those resources within the community.

We also work with community members if a child is sick and has to go away for months on end to Vancouver, the women's centre. We, again, volunteer our time and raise money. In fact, in the past eight months we've raised over $14,000 for two families in this community — one woman who had two twins, the other one with a child at B.C. Children's Hospital.

We continue to do those works…. I'm not going to say on the side of our desk, but we do those things when needed. We make a dollar stretch. We can basically feed so many people with $150. Those are things that we continue to do on a day-to-day basis, making sure that all the needs are met within the community.

Other things. With a long-term annualization investment, friendship centres are able to respond better. For example, Christy Clark will be holding an anti-bullying forum in Vancouver. If we're living in northern B.C., to participate in that we have to be able to find workers to be able to attend. We have to stop what we're doing, and we have to find a flight to Vancouver or transportation.

So big initiatives like that, which have huge impacts on our community…. Being able to bring a voice to initiatives like that takes a lot of work and a lot of changing your budget right at the last minute. With that few extra dollars, we'd be able to continue to feel like we're a part of this province and feel like we can invest our time when needed and bring those voices and perspective to the table.

Aboriginal people are B.C.'s youngest and fastest-growing population. Friendship centres support and improve social and economic outcomes, which helps reduce barriers for participation in B.C.'s economy and labour market. We see that throughout this community and throughout the province of B.C.

With this investment…. I think that we've heard friendship centres come to this table many times. I'd seen it on last year's budget recommendation. It's really heartbreaking to see that we're coming back and asking for this
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again and really wanting to be participating to better the health of people in this province.

D. Horne (Chair): Great, Annette. Thank you so much for your presentation. As you say, we've had a number of friendship associations and societies before the committee to date. We've actually asked a couple of them that have come, and we haven't received yet a breakdown of the $3.1 million. So if you could push for that as well, that would be very helpful to the committee.

I've visited many friendship centres. I know the great work that you do. So it would be great and very helpful to us if we could get that breakdown as to where those funds would be used and how they'd be disbursed.

P. Pimm: Thanks a lot. Certainly, we've got a friendship centre in my area as well, and they do great work. I'm sure yours does great work in this area.

As Doug mentioned, the breakdown. But I heard you say something. I thought I heard you say that that money, that $3.1 million, was going to be disbursed among all the friendship centres and you'd get $100,000 here. Is that what I heard you say?

A. Morgan: Well, it's close to or a little over $100,000 — so 25 friendship centres across the province at $125,000. You know, things that we have been discussing are policy development, ensuring that….

P. Pimm: That's the first time I heard anybody say that, so I just wanted to confirm that.

P. Pimm: The other point that I want to make, and I think this is something that…. I don't know if you have any contact or not with your First Nations groups, but right now you're in a pretty interesting time in this region of the province. I think you've got nothing but positives coming on certain fronts here. I would like you to answer: have you had discussions with your First Nations groups? Is there any chance of getting to be part of those negotiations as they're negotiating for some of the revenue-sharing or whatever they're going to be doing? Have you tried that avenue?

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation, Annette. I'd just like to hear more about your programs and your experiences and the reality of young people in the community and what their experiences are and what kinds of programs you have for them.

A. Morgan: Currently our friendship centre…. We have an office in Houston, Smithers and Dease Lake, so we manage all three offices. So that's certainly different from other areas. Our other centres do different work and work with different areas.

In Houston we have an early childhood development program, an after-school program, a pregnancy program and a youth mental health program.

In Smithers we have a legal support program. We're the host agency for the community action program for children, alcohol and drug, mental health, FASD, HIV/AIDS.

The youth in the community have a youth centre. However, the federal funding has been frozen and still is. We've been negotiating a contract. We've lost contact, and we've seen that at our annual general meeting this year. When we have our youth centre open, our youth are there. But since then, since our youth funding has been frozen, the youth do not connect with the friendship centre.

We do work with our youth having representation on our board of directors. However, there are also other ways that they can participate. We also have a family gatherings project, which works with isolated families, and a connecting elders program to reduce the risk of apprehensions in the community — so connecting families with elders in the community and working that way.

M. Dalton: Thank you, Annette, for the good work that you're doing and the friendship centre in this area is doing. I know we have one also in Mission, where I live.

You mentioned that $125,000 is coming from the provincial government. I wonder what your overall budget is from grants, from other services — you know, all-encompassing — and also what type of coordination that you have with the First Peoples on the reserves, Métis. I'm Métis myself. What type of collaboration do you have with them?

A. Morgan: Sure. And the question from Pat earlier — that's just for our community, not for the others. So I don't know what the working relationship with the other parts of the province is. That was just for Smithers.

M. Dalton: What type of coordination do you have, say, with the First Peoples, people on the reserves — with services, with discussions, with working together not just there but with other peoples right here in the community, in Smithers — and also with the Métis?

A. Morgan: In Smithers we do work with FASD, collaboration on different programs and services, and a lot
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of committee work. We have representation with the aboriginal agencies on aboriginal education councils and FASD committees, so there are certainly a lot of different committees that we work collaboratively with that are represented in the community.

M. Dalton: Yeah. Well, your work is very important. I know that 75 percent of First Nations people live off reserve.

G. Coons: Thank you so much, Annette, for your presentation and the work that you do. The previous presenter, Jim Davidson, talked about services in communities, and I believe that the services that friendship centres give to communities are vital.

The ask that we've been hearing is long-term, annualized funding and the $3.1 million investment. I just wanted your comments on…. We had Farley Stewart present in Prince Rupert, and I believe Sandy Brunton from Quesnel presented and talked about the throne speech a year and a half ago. They talked about an off-reserve aboriginal action plan. I'm wondering what your thoughts on that were and how we need to move towards that. That was promised a year and a half ago.

A. Morgan: Certainly, it's a lot of work — the off-reserve aboriginal strategy plan. I think it would benefit all parts of our communities — education, mental health, addictions. The strategy would just be a guide in working with other funding agencies and recognizing the needs of aboriginal people and people living away from home.

D. Horne (Chair): Annette, thank you so much for your presentation this morning and being with us today. As I said at the beginning, if you could just get that confirmation, I think that would be fantastic for the committee. We only have a couple more days before we start our deliberations. That would be great.

I'll call our next witness now, who is Karin Bachman from the Bulkley Valley Teachers Union.

Karin, welcome to the committee. As I believe you have heard, you have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions. You can begin anytime.

K. Bachman: Thank you. I'm the president of the local Bulkley Valley Teachers Union.

In introduction, the Bulkley Valley's district schools are located in the communities of Smithers, Telkwa and Houston. Our communities are primarily resource-based, with an increasing diversity in household income levels.

Students in Bulkley Valley schools come from families with generally lower and middle income levels. Teachers, administrators and parents endeavour to work together to make our schools the best they can be, as schools are one of the key components to a healthy, vibrant community.

(1) Special needs students. Learner-support-teacher services to students have been gradually reduced in Bulkley Valley schools over the past decade. A small reduction is not noticed immediately, but over the years an accumulated decline in learner support becomes a greater concern, and the impact on students becomes evident.

Wait-lists for assessments of at-risk students by qualified personnel are an imminent concern for teachers. Frequent changes in category qualifications for identifying special needs students is difficult on many levels. Grey-area students, those with special needs but without official designation, miss out on their potential with reduced one-to-one and small-group instruction.

Reduced funding impacts the above-mentioned students. This is a serious concern for teachers.

(2) Counsellors in schools. Bulkley Valley schools have some school counsellors, but the need for increased counsellor services, especially at the elementary level, is of high importance. At the secondary school level, the breadth of counsellors' responsibilities has widened, and time to address students' needs in an effective counselling scenario is increasingly limited.

(3) Gifted program. Our school district was a leader in programs for gifted students in the past. Teachers in the Bulkley Valley schools are concerned that teachers' time designated for gifted students is no longer visibly apparent. Differentiated instruction tries to address the needs of gifted students, but small-group programs are not a priority as they were prior to funding cuts.

(4) Child poverty. We have students coming to Bulkley Valley schools without their basic needs met on an everyday basis. This impacts their ability to meet their academic and social potential. Many of the Bulkley Valley schools have breakfast and lunch programs that are not fully funded.

(5) Aboriginal learners. Aboriginal students' needs are varied and of foremost regard to teachers in the Bulkley Valley. Many students grapple with issues of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, safe housing needs and social-emotional needs. School activities and teacher involvement in aboriginal learners' lives are crucial to their academic and social growth in preparation for successful entry into adulthood. Aboriginal school completion rates remaining significantly lower than non-aboriginal students is of ongoing concern to educators.

(6) The B.C. education plan and personalized learning. Teachers in the Bulkley Valley have been and continue to be leaders in implementing best teaching practices that endeavour to personalize learning for students. The changes in curriculum and classroom practice, including the current dialogue on future graduation requirements, are initiatives that teachers want to play a key role in. But every increase in demand means something
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is missed somewhere else if there are not new resources to support them.

(7) This is a recommendation rather than an issue — taxation changes. In my opinion, government revenues should be increased through a decision by government to raise taxes by a reasonable, measured amount to provide public services moneys that sustain the quality of life British Columbians have supported for generations through tax contributions.

The past decade has seen a shift in taxation levels that results in upper-income earners paying a lower overall tax rate than middle- and especially lower-income earners. As reported in a research report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Seth Klein relates that compared to 12 years ago, taxation levels in sales, MSP premiums, carbon and property taxes now combined are a greater tax load on middle- and low-income families.

The following information is a quote from a summary by Klein and colleagues entitled A Decade of Eroding Tax Fairness in B.C., and I quote here.

"The net result is a profoundly regressive tax shift. For example, as of 2010 a household in the bottom 20 percent of the income spectrum pays total provincial taxes of about 14 to 15 percent of their income, a middle-income household pays a total tax rate of about 13 percent, and the wealthiest 20 percent pay a total provincial tax rate of about 11 percent.

"And while total taxes are down for all British Columbians, we have not all benefited equally. Tax cuts between 2000 and 2010 delivered an average of $9,000 per year to the richest 10 percent of B.C. households and a whopping $41,000 to the top 1 percent. In contrast, middle-income households received an average tax cut of about $1,200, and lower-income ones got about $200 per year — savings that are likely wiped out by increases in hydro and other fees."

B.C. taxes are very low compared to other provinces. Modestly increasing tax rates for upper-income British Columbians and those in the upper-middle income levels will give revenues to pay for public services like affordable housing, community care for seniors, education, public transit and affordable post-secondary education. We all need to contribute a little more of our income to fund strong public services.

Conclusion. Teachers in the Bulkley Valley believe our students, the future leaders in our Canadian society, deserve well-funded public schools that will be able to maintain and improve our strong, top-quality B.C. school system. We appeal wholeheartedly to you, the select standing committee, that you recommend increasing education funding in the next provincial budget.

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

M. Elmore (Deputy Chair): Hi, Karin. Thanks so much for your presentation. You've outlined the number of areas and impacts that teachers are facing in the area. Can you talk a little bit more about the gifted program and what programs are in place for gifted students? What is there now?

K. Bachman: I actually talked to one of the teachers last week about this, because I was preparing it. It's ten or 20 years ago that we had more than one teacher — one secondary and one elementary — who went and met with groups of children. There was funding for gifted programs.

I did not go to the school district, and we have a new superintendent. It's a long time ago, so unfortunately, I don't have any statistics from the past. I did speak with the teacher-librarian at Smithers Secondary, and she's not working with any kids right now and doesn't know of it. I can't give any facts, but that's a little bit of the history. It's a long time ago that we had that.

M. Dalton: Thank you, Karin, for your presentation. I'm just wondering if you can tell us if the school district here receives any extra money for special needs out of the $75 million pot that was given this year, next year, and also the $60 million, I think it was, last year. Did you see extra resources being given towards special needs students here? How is that playing out? That's my first question.

Secondly, I'm just wondering if you can tell me what the demographics are like among student populations over the past five or ten years. Are you holding? Has it declined? Where are things at?

K. Bachman: I'll speak to the first one first. I don't have the facts from the secretary-treasurer on the funding. We've been busy with lots of things, and I didn't want to go to them and say: "Can I have a lot of information before I go and present this?" The information is available on how that money was spent, but I don't have it right here and ready to share.

We did get the money. The way special ed and learner support…. It's kind of a school-based…. It moves and goes, and it's not real clear to me. Maybe I should have gone and asked for more specifics from the superintendent, but I haven't. We've had a really good working relationship, and our district has done their utmost to fund things properly. So the union is not in there going: "Why isn't this funded this way or that?"

We know that they've done the best they can with the money we have. With regard to even this lift funding that was in the last — Bill 22 money…. The superintendent was really good to share with me about where that money went. We don't feel like we have issues with how our district spends the money. They do it the best they can.

M. Dalton: Okay. It's definitely meant for special
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needs. I know for my school district it meant about $1.2 million more.

K. Bachman: Well, I'm sure they've used it appropriately. I don't question that they have.

K. Bachman: Okay. We have had a slight reduction in student numbers, but not nearly as much as some places. This year I know that Smithers Secondary has 50 less students, although some of it might be the numbers, the way it works….

I was at the board meeting last month, and they were saying that the funding level has changed a little bit. If kids are in grade 12 and are going to graduate in January or something, the FTE for them is counted in. It's not probably that we're really down 50. Some have gone to distributed learning. That's the on-line learning. So that affects the numbers.

Our elementary numbers have held pretty much the same this year. So it hasn't been as big of a crunch, I don't think, for the district with declining enrolment in Bulkley Valley.

We've heard a few presentations about the tax fairness concept. Actually, you have a typo, and I think it's sort of relevant: "a decade of eroding tax fairness is B.C." So I think it's quite appropriate….

K. Bachman: I'm going to fix it. I found two typos when I read this. When you read your own stuff, you don't see a thing.

G. Coons: No. I'm referring that I think it's quite appropriate — the eroding tax fairness in B.C.

K. Bachman: That wasn't intentional, I must admit. We did a little humour — right?

G. Coons: Anyway, I understand, coming from a rural district and teaching for many years, the issues with special needs students, aboriginal learners, the cuts in counselling and librarians and gifted programs and the issue of child poverty really impact rural districts to a higher degree.

What are your thoughts on the current funding formula that is used? I realize there are some geographic issues that are taken into the districts' funding that they get. But as front line in working with teachers, what's your idea of the funding formula and how it is relating to rural and northern districts?

K. Bachman: Well, I'm a primary teacher and have been in the union office…. This is just starting my third year. I'm one of those people that burn myself out every day for the kids. So the funding business — I'm just kind of learning it. That's why my report doesn't have a lot of facts about funding.

I do know that the small schools have a difficulty, because you've got lots of students…. I actually taught at Lake Kathlyn School for 20 years. It's our smallest school as far as student numbers right now.

The way the funding formula is set up isn't that great for small schools. I don't really know how to say how it should be changed, but I do think that it does need to be addressed by people that understand the economics better than I do. Not that I couldn't understand it. I've just devoted my time to teaching kids how to read and write and get along.

You're seeing not really a seasoned union president here but actually just recently a classroom teacher. Sorry I can't give more. I do know Lake Kathlyn is struggling with…. The superintendent said even to me: "It's harder to make the money work there." That's as much as I know.

D. Horne (Chair): We'll end with a very quick question, since we have less than a minute, with Dave Hayer.

D. Hayer: Thank you much — a very good presentation. I'm really happy to see you recognize that B.C. taxes are one of the lowest in Canada. Many people say that because we have low taxes, that's why the economy's still good in here, and we have created more jobs than anybody else in Canada. Then people say that if you increase more taxes, maybe some of the investment will go away, some of the jobs will go away, so you have less many for health care and education.

From 2001 what I've seen is the number of students going to schools in British Columbia has gone down by over 60,000, but the funding for education has gone up by more than 40 percent. In Surrey we have lots of new kids coming up. In many towns the kids' population is going down.

From your perspective, you said that we should increase funding to education. Do you have any idea how much money we should increase to education per year?

K. Bachman: No, I want to leave that to the experts and to you people that understand it. I don't have a number, no. But we have to get the money from somewhere — right? I think it can be figured out by the people that are better qualified than I am to say that.
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I'll now call our next presenter, who isn't actually on our list but we'll try to fit in quickly here, and that is Lorraine and Wally with the local public library. If you could come forward now, that would be great.

We'll do something a little bit different than we normally do. I'll give you five minutes now to present, and then we'll have a few questions afterward. Begin anytime.

W. Bergen: Thank you very much for the opportunity to make a presentation today.

We don't have anything formal other than the submission that we've passed in to the receptions person. The reason why we wanted to present to you is that we've heard that the budgeting for libraries throughout B.C. has been made into a line item as far as the Ministry of Education budget, and we as the Smithers Public Library are very concerned about that.

Our concern is that by not having libraries as a separate, identifiable budget item in the provincial budget, they'll be lost in a much broader organization, the Ministry of Education. We feel that libraries are one of the key services as far as education. We feel that even prior to the education system and children getting into the school system, libraries provide an invaluable service as far as literacy education, early education.

We have a tremendous number of young mothers who bring their children into the library at a very early age. We have taught reading programs for little kids, for intermediate children, all the way up to kids when they enter into kindergarten and grade school. We are the first contact for literacy and for reading skills that young people get. Our concern is that if it becomes buried as a line item somewhere in the Ministry of Education, gradually libraries will lose their importance as far as that key critical step to early training.

The other thing that we're very concerned about is that, as you're probably aware, in the northwestern part of the province and northern B.C. literacy rates are lower than they are in the rest of the province, and libraries are a very key service for a lot of people who have literacy difficulties. Either they are trying to improve themselves as far as their education and their ability to read or else they have difficulty sometimes understanding forms or other pieces of information, so they come into libraries and try and seek that information, which helps them as far as gaining their ability to understand what's happening in the world around them.

The other thing is that libraries are a very key place for people who don't have the luxury of affording to own a computer at home or are tied into the communications world. They come into the library, and they can use computers on a regular basis. It's very critical if they are trying to improve themselves or if they're seeking jobs or anything of that nature that they have the opportunity to go to a library and get that information.

We think we provide a really, really critical service that is very valuable to the community, and we are very concerned that if libraries become buried as a line item in the Ministry of Education, that importance will be lost to the budgeting process in the future. In a nutshell, we feel very strongly about it. We're very emotional about it.

Myself, I was born and raised in northwestern British Columbia. I live here now by choice, and I really think it's a great place to live. But at the same time, the people who live here deserve quality libraries so that they can try and improve themselves and integrate into the rest of the world.

The Premier of the province has stated that the resource sector is one of the key things. Northwestern British Columbia is rich in mineral resources, and if people here are to engage in that and become involved in that in meaningful ways, they need literacy. Children who are raised here need literacy. We are the first initial contact for children, and we are the contact for people trying to improve themselves.

L. Doiron: It is affordable recreation as well, and it's important to our community — hugely important to our community — that we have all the services available.

It's also an amenity migration item. Just in case you're retiring or thinking of it and you want to come here, we have a library, and it's a really good one. We are hoping to expand it. I thought I'd slip that in, if you're doing the budget.

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

B. Ralston: Thanks very much. We have heard presentations from the town of Prince Rupert, who made very similar points. In fact, in their budget they've really sacrificed, I think, to continue funding the library. I know I met recently with the chief librarian in my city of Surrey where she's advised me that library boards across the province are making this a priority.

I think what you mean is…. It is a line item now. The proposal is to move it into the Ministry of Education, and it will no longer be a line item. As the Chair of Public Accounts, I can tell you that it is difficult to track items if they're not line items in the budget. We rely on the ministers to respond to questions in what's called estimates debate, and quite often they don't answer those questions very directly.

I think that's a really important point you make, and I agree with all the other points, so thank you for coming forward to make this submission. We'll see what we
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can do in terms of getting the committee to agree on a recommendation.

W. Bergen: I apologize if we got confused in relation to line item and not line item, but I think the intent of what we were saying is definitely there.

M. Dalton: Thank you very much, Wally and Lorraine. I was a teacher-librarian for a number of years so know the importance of books and reading and the difference it makes in kids' lives as they grow up.

I'm just wondering, as far as the library here, what type of funding you have. How much is it from the municipality and from the provincial government? What type of staffing component do you have here locally?

W. Bergen: Well, we have a library director. We have two part-time staff, we have another part-time, part-time, and we have sort of a helper part-time. It's very fragmented. Also, we have some volunteers.

In round figure numbers, approximately $250,000 comes from the local municipality and approximately $53,000, if I remember correctly, comes from the provincial government, so it's very strongly supported by the community. The community has been very good at supporting the library. But at the same time, it's a small community. There are lots of other priorities, and seemingly, more and more things are downloaded from both the federal and the provincial level onto local communities. So the municipality here does the best it can in trying to support a municipal library.

M. Dalton: Now with that, distance learning is on the increase in the province. I'm wondering if you're seeing many students that are involved with distance learning come into the library and use the facilities.

W. Bergen: Definitely. Our library has a bank of computers. If you walk into our small little library here any day after school, there are anywhere from between 30 and 35 people. You think that doesn't seem very much if you come from Vancouver or Victoria. But for a place the size of Smithers…. It'll be chock full, 35 to 40 people, on a regular basis. If you go into the library any morning of the week, there's the children's reading program for little kids, all the way up. There will be anywhere from 30 to 40 little kids running around the place from 9:30 in the morning until 12 or one o'clock in the afternoon. It's continuously used. If we had the money, we could very readily have the library open many more hours, and it would be full on a regular basis.

Whenever we try and have various authors coming in or have various things that are of interest to the community, we just don't have the room to do it. I shouldn't say this too loudly, but sometimes I believe that our library exceeds the standards as far as occupancy, because there is just so much interest in the programs that we offer.

L. Doiron: Yeah, and we ended up putting wheels under some of our shelving so that we could push it out of the way so we had a bit more room. But it's full. In the evenings when the library is closed, it's used for things like Scrabble and a book club and other….

W. Bergen: There's always things happening. It's the living room of our community.

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation, and thank you so much for being here today. Take care.

I'll now call our next presenter, who is Karen Nyce from the Aboriginal Sports, Recreation and Physical Activity Partners Council.

Karen, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes to present followed by five minutes of questions. You could begin now.

K. Nyce: The Aboriginal Sports, Recreation and Physical Activity Partners Council — and I'll refer to them as the partners council after this — is presenting to the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to request that the province establish a long-term, annualized funding commitment to support the critical work of the partners council; and that the province of B.C. allocate $2.5 million of annual funding to support the implementation of B.C. aboriginal sports, recreation and physical activity strategy. I'll refer to that as the strategy from now on.

The partners council represents a historic partnership between the First Nations health authority, the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres and the Métis Nation B.C., who have established a unified approach to sport, recreation and physical activity.

The partners council has created a new, long-term provincial strategy, which was developed through a comprehensive, three-year provincewide consultation and consensus-building process. The strategy reflects community-based needs for increased equity to access to sports, recreation and physical activity programs among First Nations, Métis charter communities and urban aboriginal people.
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The partners council action-based programs and initiatives are designed to advance core priorities within the strategy's five pillars, which include active communities, leadership and capacity, excellence, system development and sustainability. It's the first and most comprehensive strategy of its kind in Canada.

The partners council has demonstrated success through the initial investment from the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development and Ministry of Health. Community engagement has been the defining feature of the partners council. Six regions have been established across the province with regional committees that are representative and inclusive of more than 200 volunteer community, sport, recreation and physical activity and health leaders.

Each regional committee develops an annual action plan that identifies their own community-based priorities for sport, recreation and physical activity. These committees provide oversight of the design and delivery of the programs and activities that support the entire community from children to elders.

Within one year of becoming fully operational, the partners council has launched 12 new program areas and delivered 297 separate events and activities that reach more than 10,500 aboriginal people across British Columbia. The partners council is quickly becoming recognized as the primary agency for on-the-ground actions that promote wellness through healthy, active lifestyles.

A long-term investment in the partners council and support for the implementation of its provincial strategy will result in a transformative change in the health and well-being of aboriginal people across B.C.

Aboriginal people are British Columbia's youngest and fastest-growing population. There continue to be significant health gaps and disproportionately high levels of incarceration, unemployment, suicide, violence, substance abuse and chronic disease experienced by aboriginal people in British Columbia in comparison to the general population.

The partners council draws on the benefit of sport, recreation and physical activity to increase the health and well-being of aboriginal youth, families and communities throughout the province. Our success is ensuring that aboriginal people regularly participate in physical activity and live active lives, which would lead to the reduction of chronic disease, decreases in obesity and smoking rates, increases in mental health, increased academic performance and improved peer and family relationships.

These are specific health outcomes addressed through the sport, recreation and physical activity strategy. It's an innovative upstream approach to community and social development, and its continued success requires governmentwide response through the support of multiple ministries in order to achieve these shared objectives.

Before we begin our questions, could you provide us with a breakdown of the $2.5 million request and also a geographic breakdown of which friendship centres it would be targeted at — use the proceeds, basically.

K. Nyce: The provincial government has invested $1.6 million over the last year, but we are having to continue to advocate for funding on an annual basis. What we're looking for is long-term commitment.

The Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development has invested $1 million and the Ministry of Health, $600,000. You know, we don't expect the ministry of sport and rec or Health to commit everything, but we look at it as many government ministries to work together because there are many ministries that are affected.

What this is about is preventative health and working together. There are six regions, and each of us works with all the friendship centres within our region. We have Vancouver Island, Fraser, northwest — this area — northeast, Vancouver Coastal, Interior. We work with all the friendship centres.

For instance, in my region I'm based out of the friendship centre here. We work with as many programs, youth programs, as we can. We work with the health authority. We work with as many Métis charter groups as possible. In my region, I have three friendship centres. We work with all of them.

In the Interior I believe there are anywhere from ten to 12. That guy that works there is Bernard Manuel. We make an effort to work with all of them and include them in all our programs — especially with the health committees.

D. Horne (Chair): So the $2.5 million would be evenly spread throughout the six regions?

D. Horne (Chair): Okay. And so the additional $900,000…. You said that it was $1.6 million last year. So the additional $900,000 — would that go to a specific program or just a general enhancement or…? That's what I'm looking for: a use of proceeds of what the $2.5 million per annum would be used for.

K. Nyce: As the regional coordinator, that would be up to the partners council to decide, which includes the aboriginal health authority, the association of friendship centres and the Métis B.C., along with the regional engagement process, which includes communities. When we have our regional engagement process, it includes communities from Atlin to Haida Gwaii to Houston to Kitimat to Hartley Bay. We bring them all together, and they kind of set some of their priority support.
[ Page 2276 ]

We are working together to address some of the health issues — suicide, obesity. In my capacity as the regional coordinator, in the short time that I've been here, what I've seen happen is working together with the different organizations and addressing these issues. It comes time and time again to where the challenges are a lack of access to or the opportunity to participate in sports, recreation — you know, health conferences and stuff like that.

What we've been doing is working with different sport organizations and bringing that into the more remote communities that have lack of facilities, lack of access, lack of equipment. I mean, we're talking even lack of runners.

D. Horne (Chair): I understand that part, and the friendship centres do incredible work. I've visited many, and I have been impressed by the work that they do for the community.

I guess what I'm asking is: $2.5 million is a very specific amount. Obviously, as you say, each of the regions may utilize that differently, but obviously $2.5 million — the number itself — was arrived at. It wasn't just pulled from the air. Basically, I'm just asking for how you came up with that number. A little bit of assistance there would be great.

K. Nyce: Okay. Well, I think that's a good question. The six regions cover quite a large area. For the cost of bringing somebody into a remote area…. You might be familiar with how much a flight costs to here, to the north. I think….

D. Horne (Chair): I understand, and I'm not saying it's the wrong number. I'm just saying a breakdown would be very helpful.

I'm just trying to clarify how the relationship is with the friendship centres and the partners council. Are you part of the same organization? Are you separate? That would be one thing.

Secondly, what type of funding do you receive? For example, yourself — are you a volunteer or are you on salary? Where does your salary come from, if you are staff?

K. Nyce: The partners council exists of a partnership between the three existing organizations that make up the Aboriginal Sports, Rec and Physical Activity Partners Council. The B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres is one of those partners. The other two are the aboriginal health authority and the Métis Nation B.C. Those are the three organizations that have come together to work together to form this Aboriginal Sports, Rec and Physical Activity Partners Council.

What we are looking to do is to be able to have our own identity, because it is confusing. People think we are the friendship centre or we are, you know, what we are not. It's a partnership of the three that has formed us.

All of us have either coached or presently coach and volunteer coaching. We actually do some of the training ourselves in some of the communities to save on costs.

I do get a salary, and it's the first time. Before that it was all volunteer. The whole, entire region has regional committees, somewhat like a board, if you will, and those are all volunteer.

G. Coons: Thank you so much, Karen. I think we all at this table understand the importance of sport and recreation. I was just in Kincolith at the opening of their new hall, and an issue in the Nass Valley is getting the kids off the iPads and the iPhones and somehow getting them into the halls and onto the fields. I think it's important.

Again, it's interesting. I just met with Northern Health. I did a bit of study into the First Nations Health Authority because I wasn't quite too sure what it was, and now I see it's involved with this. It gets into the on reserve, and the Friendship House is basically the off reserve in urban areas. Then you've got the Métis Nation that is sort of everywhere. So it's an interesting mix.

I guess if there was an off-reserve aboriginal action plan, this whole concept of the sport, recreation and physical activity would fall under that — if there was a plan that we were following. Anyway, my question is: how long have you had funding? And do you want long-term annualized funding, with an extra $900,000 added on? Is that correct?

K. Nyce: Personally, this is my first year with the organization. I believe they've been working for three years or more, and they did have some money from somewhere which was, you know, kind of waiting until the strategy…. It took about three years.

It started with the North American Indigenous Games in 2006, where the youth themselves came out and called upon their leaders to address the issues of teen suicide, obesity — you name it. They actually called on the leaders. The leaders came together. They declared that, yeah, we have to work together, not separately, on these issues. So we've arrived here today, and this is, I think, the second year of funding, my first year.

Just to address your issue about having organizations off reserve. I realize that there are a lot of existing sport organizations right now, but most of them are focused on non-aboriginal communities. What we're looking to do is to continue to create partnerships, build relationships and work together, and provide access and opportunity to those who don't have access and opportunity.

For instance, children out in Moricetown…. We have lots of sports going on here with the town of Smithers. Andrew and I work together as much as we can to provide access. I don't know if you've ever been out there,
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but even from one end of the reserve to the other you're going along Highway 16. If you don't have a vehicle, if you don't have somebody driving you, it's dangerous, and there is no access.

D. Horne (Chair): Karen, thank you so much for your presentation today. I think I speak on behalf of everyone. We definitely do support the great work that friendship centres do. Actually, as an indication of that support, we had planned on being here longer today in Smithers and having lunch. Our schedule is now going to allow for us to be complete by about 10:30, so we intend to donate the lunch we had for today to the local friendship centre, to the Dxe L K'ant Friendship Centre. I think we generally do support the work that's done, and it's wonderful work, so thanks so much.

K. Nyce: You're welcome. I just want to leave you with a story that's touched me in my work. It gives you an example of the impact that we have on the people whose lives we're trying to change. I was involved in a coaching course. What we provide is we bring in the coaching courses to the location — like, for instance, Moricetown. A lady came up to me about three or four times, and she could not thank me enough. She said that if we didn't have what we were offering them there was no way that she would ever be able to afford to take it, access it. I actually had to loan her my runners to participate. Those are the kinds of impacts we have. Now she's looking to be certified and coaching in her own community. And that's what we want.

D. Horne (Chair): I'll call our next presenter, who is Byng Giraud from Imperial Metals Corp.

B. Giraud: Good morning. I'm not usually in the Legion this early in the morning.

D. Horne (Chair): I don't think our committee members are, either. Thank you for joining us today. As you've heard, you have ten minutes to present, followed by five minutes of questions. Your time begins now.

B. Giraud: Thanks, Chairman. It's good to see many of you again. I've presented to this committee for a number of years and previously with the Mining Association and the Mineral Exploration Association. As a company, I like to present in the communities near where we operate. So while I'm based in Vancouver myself, historically we've presented either in Terrace or Smithers. I think last year we were in Cranbrook.

A quick overview of us and the presentation. We'll get through that quickly. The point I'd like to make in these first slides…. Obviously there's a forward-looking statement, as we are a publicly traded company. It's just who we are and where our projects are. I'll just jump through this.

I want to make the point that this is a real B.C. company. We're Vancouver-based, and all our senior management are British Columbians. We're majority Canadian-owned. Almost all our operations, with the exception of a small mine in Nevada, are in B.C. Our major development projects are here, and our future project stream. The next projects we'll do after the ones we're working on are here too.

So we really live and die by what goes on in this province. We rise and fall with the fortunes of this province. We sort of stylize ourselves as "B.C.'s mining company." There are bigger mining companies in B.C. There are other B.C. mining companies. But I don't think there's any company in the province that is so tied to the fortunes of this province.

Some of our projects, just quickly. We've got two operating mines, one by Williams Lake. I think it's Bob Simpson's riding. And then we've got Huckleberry, which is near here. About a hundred of our employees from Huckleberry probably live in this community. We've got a couple of advanced development projects, a small gold operation in Nevada, but our real big one you're probably most familiar with is Red Chris up in Iskut. It's about a half-billion-dollar project; we're at 25 percent construction right now. I've been building since the beginning of May. One-quarter of our construction is completed. We've got some advance exploration projects elsewhere.

This is a new slide we haven't presented before. I'm quite proud of this. We're reaching about a thousand employees as a company, so this is a B.C. company that had one mine — a small mine that's grown over the years. We're reaching a thousand British Columbian employees.

As you note at the bottom, a significant portion of those, because that's the growth element of our population or demographics, are First Nations. Huckleberry gave me some statistics the other day. We figure 14 to 18 percent of that mine is First Nations. We don't know which specific First Nations because we're not allowed to ask, but we estimate that number, and we know 26 percent of our new hires — 70 people we've hired this year — are First Nations people.

I've got three issues I want to talk about, things in the news these days that you're very familiar with. The regulatory process of permits. I know you've discussed that when Karina Briño of the Mining Association was in front of you. I really appreciate the work that the government has done to try and reduce this backlog, and I also appreciate the opposition's attention to the matter.

But I think we get caught in this thing of "Let's just add some more people or throw some more money at
[ Page 2278 ]
this, and this is really the answer." That's not always the answer. I had a good conversation with the assistant deputy minister for mining, David Morel, last night. He came in on a flight. He's speaking at a conference here today about the challenges of retaining quality people and people with really narrow skill sets and the flexibility he needs as an assistant deputy minister to retain people with unique skills.

The people in the government who are experts on acid rock drainage, for example, will not be as many as fingers on my hand. What happens if those people choose different jobs, come to work for us or go somewhere else in the government? We have a key-person issue on some of those things. I think when you're looking at attention to the dirt ministries, it's not just about more people. It's not just about more money for more people, because you can create a big funnel, but you've still got those pressure points of key people in the government, like Diana Howe or Kim Bellefontaine in the Ministry of Energy and Mines. Frankly, if they won the lottery tomorrow, we'd all be in a lot of trouble.

So we've got to figure out how to keep really key people in their places and how to recruit and retain those people so they don't either feel they have to come and work for us or feel they have to move inside of government. That requires flexibility being given to assistant deputy ministers and deputy ministers.

There's a lot of this talk about shortening notices of work and permits. I think there's a lot of attention to that, and that's good. But where we're losing some attention is on those guys who are moving into construction and development, the environmental assessment process, the pre-environmental permitting and the post–environmental assessment permitting — not individual notices of work that an operating mine might have or a junior exploration company might have.

We have a situation where we're on a fourth case officer from the EAO — the environmental assessment office. I spoke to somebody the other day. They're on their seventh on the same file. We need to give attention to the longer process, not simply making sure individual permits are dealt with.

Red Chris went into the EA in 2002 for a number of reasons — some our fault, some others' fault, some just because they were. It took us till May of this year to get it into construction — ten years. There was a recent project that was turned down. Regardless of the decision, the process they went through to get turned down was nine years. Those are just too long. We have to look at these broader processes. Some of that is culture and empowering civil servants to do the job that they need to do and also discouraging turnover.

I threw in this quote from Gavin, because it gives good context. This quote was in a Vancouver Sun article — Gavin Dirom of AMEBC — in September.

We all hear about how nothing ever gets turned down, but the reality is this is a high-risk business. So 42 mining projects since '72. Only 29 percent of them actually got their certificate, so you've got a two-thirds chance of getting your certificate. And then because of other factors — whether it's international finance, other regulatory issues, unable to raise money — only about 11 of those, less than a third, actually make it out the other end. Speaking to this long process.

That's that issue. The second is jobs and training. There's been a lot of discussion about that. I think we don't need to beat the bushes anymore about this looming…. I say labour here, but it's actually skills shortage. There's a difference between a labour shortage and a skills shortage. We've got lots of labour. We have a skills shortage.

There's been lots of work done, and frankly, I've heard the data left, right and centre. I don't think you need to hear it anymore, but the gaps exist. I've been in the sector for seven years, and the company that's in the news today about these foreign workers raised that issue five or six years ago. It would seem to me that one could have done something in that time. Now, it's partially our responsibility as industry, and we're working with the institutions. But we need to sort of put some of this stuff on the ground practically.

For example, Northwest Community College has a great early exploration program called WEST. I'm going to a graduation ceremony for some of those young people tomorrow. It's very inspiring. They have a challenge of block funding. These are people who get jobs. They have something like a 90 percent employment rate.

UNBC has got some great programs — outstanding university — but no geology or mining engineering program. I don't understand that. Vancouver Island University just got a geoscience program last year. I went to your degree authorization website to see what degrees have been authorized in the past decade. The only one related to this sector. There are other programs — cinema, those things. I'm not saying they're not important, but I can guarantee some jobs.

So I'd like to see us move beyond this data collection — which we seem to be caught up in, this loop of sort of pointing to the problem — and move to actually addressing this in terms of some of our funding to post-secondary education and creating some additional programs where they're going to be of use. UNBC, Northwest Community College and College of New Caledonia are classic places to drive those funds. I think you'd probably get some leverage from industry. I know we're working with Northwest Community College to actually help them do these programs.

The final thing is taxation, and I think I've beat this to death in these slides, so I don't want to go through it. But two things: I think the expert panel is very timely, but I think there's a clear misunderstanding of exploration versus operations in their conclusions. Before you
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start to tinker with the mineral exploration tax credits and flow-through, I think the government needs to look at all the academic work that's been done, particularly by other countries, like South Africa, on the value of these programs.

There are little companies that don't make money. They just spend money. They spend venture capital. So the idea that reducing their PST and covering their capital costs could be made up by getting rid of the mineral exploration tax
[ Page 2280 ]
credit is not a wash.

But for an operator it's a little different. We really need to keep the PST off our capital investments. You don't want to tax us on spending money on buying trucks that are going to put guys to work. But if there is a need to raise revenue, possibly this is a sector that could tolerate some taxation changes if we didn't have to pay for capital expenditure and, to my earlier point, we had shorter timelines. People are willing to pay for certainty and for time. Time is money, you know — the time value of money.

I think if we're really looking for some flexibility on budget in terms of the mining sector, there is perhaps some wiggle room, but it needs to be in the context of "I'm going to build a mine in three years, so maybe I'll tolerate those additional tax rates," versus "It's ten years from now, and I'm going to spend a lot of soft costs in ten years to get to that point."

My point on what we do suggest — just go right to the bottom there. You could make up your shortfall with three mines. This is my own slide that isn't in your thing. It's just to remind me.

It's a wrongheaded conversation. The solution to fiscal challenges or removing PST from capital expenditures and mining is not removing the incentives from exploration. If you aren't making any money anyway or increasing taxation on existing mines necessarily, the solution is approving permitting times and increasing the number of mines. A mere two to three mines of the right size would make up the shortfall, not including the added benefits of the hundreds of jobs.

Those are the three things I've got, and the rest are just pictures, because I like pictures. You can see our operations in action. That was quick and dirty, but thanks for your time.

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

P. Pimm: Thanks for your presentation, as always. I remember it from last year quite well.

A couple of things. A comment on the mine that did not get the approval through that process. I'd like to hear what you feel on that point.

The second point is: what do you think we need to do as far as…? Last year we injected a fairly substantial amount of revenue into the permitting process. What do we need to do on that front again? I do realize some of the shortfalls in that.

B. Giraud: Firstly, I don't want to get too much into somebody else's project, because it's not really fair. But as an external observer in the same sector, they went in, in 2003. It's been nine years. They didn't get into the EA. It took them six or seven years to get into the environmental assessment — so lots of pre-work done.

If you look at the documentation that was produced — tons of third parties. They went to third-party verifiers, so not government, not industry. Third-party verifiers did a lot of their work. It looks like they did a lot of due diligence. Frankly, if you read that recommendations report, it says: "Great, great, great, great, great, great." Then you get to the last two paragraphs, and it looks like somebody else wrote it. So from an industry observer that wasn't involved in the process, it's a little confusing. I know not everybody makes it out the other end, but it's a little confusing.

With regards to the money, I just want to make the point that you need to give your folks who administer your staff at the ADM or executive director level — I don't know how you do this, because I'm not in your shoes — the flexibility they need to retain key persons. If they are experts in their field and you have damn few of them, then they need to have the flexibility to give those people bonuses or flexibility — the things you need to retain your best people.

It's unfortunate that a permit writer in mines, frankly, is of incredible value and could be easily taken away, whereas somebody of the same stature in another ministry perhaps…. They're at the same level, and maybe they should be paid the same, but there's not as much competition for those people. So you need flexibility in the dirt ministries for those technical staff, and that needs to be given to ADMs to be able to retain those people.

B. Ralston: I just want to understand your tax proposition here, Byng. What you're saying is that given the referendum and the results of the PST and the implementation, the same revenue could be achieved by just shortening processing time on the government side — all processes, whether environmental assessment or permitting.

If that were telescoped, not to set aside any environmental standards or any of the scrutiny but just simply doing the same thing a bit faster and putting the key personnel in place, the revenue increase would easily offset that. Is that essentially the proposition you're putting forward?

B. Giraud: I believe that. Firstly, what I wanted to do was separate the notion of the mineral exploration tax credit. I don't know if Gavin and the AMEBC is going to appear before you, but I think they need to address that. That's a separate issue.

But in terms of industry, probably our taxation rates as a mining sector are not overwhelming to us. We like the tax rates. Hey, I don't want more taxes, but I think companies, if they knew that they could get through these processes in three to five years, would be a little more tolerant of the different level of taxation, particularly if the capital costs stayed off the books.

What is taxation besides a way to raise money? It's also a way to incent behaviour. We don't want to disincent. You want to tax me on my profit, not on me buying a truck — right? There's the first question about: how do you balance that money if there are no new mines? But the real question is….

There are two ways. When your household budget doesn't make ends meet, you can lower your costs, or you can make some more money. The advantage we have in the mining sector is that we could, if those processes were more timely. I'm not saying they need to green-light everything. There are lots of projects out there. Two or three of them would probably make up your shortfall.

D. Hayer: Thank you very much for your presentation. A very important sector. You said in there that the regulatory process and permitting is still too long. If a government could do maybe two or three things, what are things you think that we could do?

I've been listening to this for the last 11 years, and we thought that we were making headway. But when we come to real people, they always tell us we're still taking too long. If a government could really do maybe two or three or four things that you think will really make a difference so we can come back the next time and they'll say, "Oh actually, the process is much shorter now," what will those things be?

B. Giraud: Well, you know, money and process are important — no question. But having looked at this, it's really down to culture and people. We need to create a culture within those approving ministries of empowering civil servants to make decisions and not be second-guessed when they make those decisions, that they'll be backed up when they make those decisions — when they make tough decisions on whether consultation, for example, has been done or tough decisions on whether water quality is sufficient — when they're getting criticisms.

Nobody trusts experts anymore from an NGO or from a third party, saying: "You know what? We don't trust what you've done."

We hired these civil servants to do a job, and we have to trust them at a certain level. We have to empower them to be able to make the decisions. On top of that, you've got to make sure you've got flexible compensation measures, whether they're financial or holiday time or whatever it is, to keep those people in place.

There are lots of people who would love to work for government and lots of people in government who love to be in government and don't necessarily want to come work for me, don't want to come over to Vancouver and commute for an hour to get to work.

Those people can be retained if we think about the culture and their needs, but I think the big thing is that they need to feel comfortable that when they make a decision, you're behind them — when I say "you" I mean the ADM, the DM, the government — that you're not going to say: "Well, you know, that was some civil servant that made a mistake, and we're going to undercut them."

D. Horne (Chair): We're actually over time, but we'll allow two more quick questions with Gary and then John Les.

G. Coons: Very quickly. Thanks, Byng. I'm a bit disappointed that our picture isn't in there when we visited Red Chris Mine. You like pictures.

I notice we've been hearing lots from colleges about the issues of skill shortages in jobs and training. I won't get there either, but I notice that you look at advocating for more programs or program creation at Northwest Community College; College of New Caledonia; UNBC, which in my mind is where it should be. So you think, as a committee, that's where we should be putting some thought into.

B. Giraud: Again, I'm not an expert on post-secondary education, but I believe there's a critical mass of mining and all the peripheral elements of mining that…. We could work with government to create a world-class geology and mining engineering program at UNBC. This is a world-leading province in this sector. I mean, we are better than anybody else in the world, and our northern university doesn't have a geology program.

J. Les: Good morning, Byng. I'm proud to say I actually have a picture of myself at Red Chris in 2003.
[ Page 2281 ]

But it underlines the fact that that particular project, amongst others, has been an awfully long time coming. I just absolutely abhor the fact that it takes so long. Not only is that a long process, but it's a long uncertainty, and investment doesn't like to go where things are uncertain. I mean, ten years, my goodness. The Second World War was fought in five. It's amazing to think that a mine approval will take twice that long in the province of British Columbia today.

How do we deal with that? You've touched on the fact that we need to have the key decision-makers stay in place. I agree with that. I'm interested that some kind of incentives might be the way to do that.

The other thing, though. Is there something worthwhile exploring in terms of a decision guarantee? In other words, if somebody enters the environmental assessment process, is it realistic to say: "Okay, we'll ensure that process is complete inside of X amount of months"? Is that a template that could possibly work so that it would lend some urgency to the process right from the get-go?

B. Giraud: I agree, sir. I think that timelines are important. Now, obviously, there are always ways that you need to extend or pull somebody out of a timeline process. It happens all the time. But having that rigour in the first place provides something.

You're saying: "Okay, now how do I get through that?" You know, we're going to spend a lot of money over ten years to develop a mine. I'm the advocate. I'm the guy who wants to build my project. Maybe I've got to throw some resources at this. Maybe it is a bit of a user-pay model. The sector might not agree with me broadly, but I know that if we could get these down to three to five years — for yes, no or whatever, instead of the long maybe — then there would be incentive for people to throw more money at these things.

It's difficult to make decisions about "I want to do a third-party water quality study," when I'm not even sure I'm going to get down that path. Why would I want to spend the money when I'm headed in the wrong direction?

If you said, "Okay, these are five-year processes," which is still pretty long, we're going to get it done in five years. You throw a team of people at it, some civil servants, and you empower them to take you through that five years. You need third-party work done, or you need some additional work done. You go to the industry that will promote it and say: "You know what? You're going to have to pay to move this process along." I think we could all make this better, but we're not there yet.

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

I was about to actually recognize the fact that Dennis McKay was here in the audience, but he's just popped out the door. He actually popped out the door with our next presenter, so I'm hoping they'll both come back in the room fairly shortly.

There he is. Dennis, I was actually just making the point that I was just going to recognize the fact that you were in the room here with us, a former member of the Legislature.

J. Les: Let me assure the committee that Dennis is not dealing with any nostalgia issues. I had a glass of wine with Dennis last night, and he was telling me about a recent three-month tour of Canada he did in his RV together with his wife, Edith. No, he does not regret the fact that he retired from politics.

D. Horne (Chair): I think we need some decorum back, so I'll now call our next presenter, which is ARPA Canada represented by Mark Penninga. Mark, welcome to the committee. You have ten minutes to present followed by five minutes of questions. Your time begins now.

M. Penninga: Good morning, hon. members of the Legislature. By way of introduction, I'd like to read a poem that one of our members wrote for you. I know that sitting in committees can sometimes be a little bit dry, so I asked someone if they'd be willing to write a poem by way of introduction. I don't know if you have the handout with you, but it would be right on the first page. So who are we?

and honour him who made this very office you now hold so you may serve your role,

By way of introduction, the Association for Reformed Political Action is a non-profit, non-partisan group that seeks to equip grass-roots, everyday members of Canada's Reformed churches to political action. There are five ARPA chapters in B.C. I'm sure that some of you have gotten to know them in your constituencies.

You might wonder why a Christian organization is addressing this province's budget. Well, at its root the budget is a moral document, a testimony to British Columbia's values. All policy decisions are based on a world view that gives direction and guidance. You each have your own world view, be it secular humanist, atheist, Christian or something else. It's impossible to make decisions about where our finances go without a broader understanding of what the role of the state is — also, in relation to the other institutions that function in our society.

Our recommendations that will follow flow from a belief that the state, family and business, among others, are all distinct spheres within society, all of which are accountable ultimately to God. The budget has ballooned in large part because the state has taken over roles that really should be the jurisdiction of these other institutions.

Now, before diving into specific recommendations, we respectfully ask you to consider a number of questions. What, ultimately, should direct spending — the squeakiest wheel or what the state is obligated to provide? How far do you think the arm of the state should extend when it comes to looking after education, housing, social services? What's the long-term impact of making society more and more dependent on the state? Are we really helping, or are we following the course of states like Greece and Italy, which are making the headlines almost daily?

Enough pie in the sky stuff. I'd like to apply it to a few particular issues to show what I mean. First, early childhood education. Whose obligation is it to raise children — parents or the state? The B.C. government should not be taking away parental responsibility, even if there are misguided calls for that from the public. You see, over the past number of years the B.C. government has been expanding earlier learning education through the introduction of full-day kindergarten, and the government has made it clear numerous times that they would like to expand it to even three- and four-year-olds.

Regardless of the questionable educational benefits of institutional care for young children, the state should not be intruding into a realm that's really the responsibility of the family. There's a fundamental difference between assisting parents as they provide education for their children and taking it over completely.

Ages one through five are a pivotal time in human development. The state already interferes in almost every aspect of our adult lives. We would strongly encourage you to leave children to the care of families as much as possible and give them that time, especially ages one through five, to properly bond and build relationships with their parents.

Now some practical savings. This alone would save $144.5 million immediately, with an additional $365 million over the next three years — that's the cost of introducing full-day kindergarten — and then indirectly, of course, the hundreds of millions of dollars associated with expanding early learning to three- and four-year-olds.

Issue No. 2, health care. There remains an absurd contradiction in the B.C. health care system that few people have the guts to call out. This province discourages for-profit health care, but at the same time it gives full funding to private abortion clinics. You see, private abortion clinics are taking millions of taxpayer dollars. Would we do the same for any other private health services?

Even more absurd is the fact that close to 100 percent of abortions are not medically necessary, yet we pay for them anyway. Now, you are well aware of the fact that the federal government requires the provincial government to provide medical services that are deemed medically necessary. There's no way that terminating an unwanted pregnancy is medically necessary.

Pregnancy may be viewed as a problem by some, but it's almost never a medical problem. All sides of that particular issue would agree with that. On the contrary, it's a medical miracle, and many couples pay thousands of dollars to increase their possibility of becoming pregnant.

As an aside, just think of the benefit to the education system if more than 12,000 babies were born every year in this province. Isn't there something wrong when we're trying to push three- and four-year-olds into the education system to take the place of those who were never born?

Instead of funding abortion, our province should encourage adoption so that the huge waiting list of families who are waiting for adoptions can be decreased. The savings directly would be $9.6 million just from the immediate cost, but indirectly, think of the huge economic impact of eliminating one out of four pregnancies in B.C.

Issue 3, provincial debt. As a responsibility to our children, we should be working to pay off our $51 billion provincial debt. Six cents of every tax dollar we provide to Victoria is wasted on interest payments. Our debt is equivalent to stealing from our children so that we can enjoy our lavish living today. Just as citizens are required to pay off our personal debts with regular payments, the B.C. government should take the provincial debt seriously by making regular payments towards it.

Now, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation noted that Alberta, under Ralph Klein, passed a law ordering that 75
[ Page 2283 ]
percent of budgetary surpluses be "directed toward debt retirement — not election promises, politicians' pet projects or goodies for supportive ridings…. Twelve years later Alberta taxpayers went from paying $1.7 billion a year in debt interest to paying zero."

Interestingly, we're at $2.5 billion per year on interest. Like Alberta, our Legislature should be bound to pay off our debt. It has increased by close to $20 billion in the last five years alone, and we fear that it would increase even faster under an NDP government.

Issue 4, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. B.C.'s human rights tribunal has become a national and international embarrassment. Instead of protecting human rights, the tribunal has become a means to intimidate many citizens and to trample on free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of religion.

The case involving Mark Steyn in Maclean's magazine highlighted the fact that our tribunal wastes an incredible amount of public money investigating cases that it should never be dealing with. The vague B.C. human rights code has given the tribunal far-reaching authority because basic rules of law are thrown out of the window. Much more can be said about this, but this isn't the place.

For the purpose of the budget consultation, we urge you to phase out the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, as is being done in Saskatchewan, as Alberta is looking at right now as well. Let the regular courts carry out justice. The savings would be approximately $3 million.

Thank you very much for taking the time to hear these comments. We realize full well that these aren't popular, nor are they politically correct. But we urge you to stand up for what is right. May you be given much strength and wisdom as you work to represent British Columbia in our Legislature. Now, subject to any questions, those are our submissions.

D. Horne (Chair): Mark, thank you so much for your presentation. We'll begin our questions with John Les.

J. Les: Thanks, Mark, for your presentation this morning. You've certainly presented us with a different perspective than what we normally hear.

Just on the issue of provincial debt, your analogy is with the province of Alberta. While some years ago they were probably on a path that was financially supportable, more recently, however, I'm sure you would agree that their course is not one that is sustainable. If they didn't have the heritage fund, which is depleting rapidly, they probably would be showing a deficit of something like, I believe, $3 billion a year.

So my caution is: yeah, show us the Alberta example to a point. However, going forward, I'm not sure that Alberta is a great beacon for us in terms of budgetary management in the province of British Columbia.

Any other thoughts in terms of balancing the budget and generating surpluses that we in fact will need to do to pay down the debt? I think I would certainly appreciate that from you.

M. Penninga: Well, in Alberta it was only a matter of 12 years, and they brought it down from $1.7 billion interest to zero, so that shows…. That's a reasonably short amount of time. I understand that in B.C. when we switch from government to government, that makes it a lot more difficult — granted. It requires a perseverance that we often don't see in our legislatures.

But I think even looking federally, under the Liberal government of Paul Martin we saw something similar. The debt was reduced drastically over a stretch of approximately four years. Now we've gone away from that again, and there's been increased spending. But we are currently yielding the economic benefits from those years of cuts by Paul Martin.

I think, applying that to yourselves, you don't know which government will replace you or which members will replace your respective positions, but you are responsible for the place in which you are right now. So we highly encourage you to use the utmost fiscal restraint possible that you can right now. I think the long term will show that the dividends pay off.

G. Coons: Thank you, Mark, and thank you for your presentation. Although I may disagree with some of it, I thank you for your commitment to what you do.

I do want to make one comment. You mentioned something about an NDP government, and you had concerns about the incremental growth over the last five years of the debt. I think if you actually compared the increase in the debt under an NDP government, you would see that the incremental debt under the current government is quite a bit more stressful than you would think.

I do want to comment on your issues 1 and 2. It seems that you want to have your cake and eat it too. On one hand, you talk about the state not intruding on a realm that is the responsibility of a family, when you talk about childhood education and when you talk about abortion.

I also think, again, that the state should not be intruding in the realm that is the decision of a woman and the responsibility of a woman. I'm just wondering if you could expand on how you can connect those two into…. In my mind, a real disconnect.

As you know, whether a woman would be allowed to have an abortion wouldn't be under the provincial government's jurisdiction. That would be something decided federally by criminal law. So the question in B.C. would be strictly funding and also whether we're going to be consistent.

When we look at any other health service in B.C., we
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have very rigorous standards for whether it should be funded. When it comes to abortion, everything goes. Nobody dares raise a question. It's fully funded, even in private clinics.

Second of all — this is just an absolutely amazing thing — this is the only issue in B.C. where the public is not allowed to be given any statistics or freedom-of-information requests — again, an incredible double standard. We can't tell if women, for example, are going to a particular clinic and having repeatedly botched abortions, because it's not public.

I would argue, then, in response to your question, that it's very consistent. The standards that the B.C. government should have should apply equally to all issues, be it education or health, and then, within health, to all health services including abortion. Yeah, whether or not women can have an abortion is something directed by the Criminal Code, not by the B.C. government.

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

I'll now call our next witness. He is Gordon Stewart, who I believe just walked into the room.

Good morning, Gordon. You have ten minutes to present followed by five minutes of questions. You can begin anytime.

G. Stewart: I worked for the department of highways here years ago. The government, in its wisdom, privatized it. Now you've practically got to beg to get services. You go to a highways office two or three times. They talk to the contractor. Nothing happens. You go to the contractor, and he wants to talk to you outside. He won't even go inside. He practically calls you names and says you're the only one that phones and complains.

I'm a spokesman for ten of my neighbours because I worked for highways. I was a graderman. That's one part. The other part is that for almost ten years I was a corrections officer in Victoria for Wilkinson Road prison. When I joined up there, they had beautiful big greenhouses. They had cattle. They had pigs. They had gardens. Well, the NDP came in, and in their wisdom, they tore it all down, tore it all out. "Lock them up."

One summer they also had a fire suppression crew with forestry. I ran the crew because I used to be a volunteer fireman for Colwood fire department in Victoria. They ran that one summer. It worked great. That was it — no more.

I also worked at a Jordan River camp for inmates. We had 70 inmates out there in a trailer system. I worked for the Fisheries Department, which was a…. We had three crummies. The crummy I worked for had ten inmates. We did fish enhancement on the creeks and the rivers, cleaning them up for the fisheries so that the fish could come up and spawn, and the other crummy went out and did roadside brushing.

Well, a lot of those inmates with the chainsaw program that we ran got jobs with forestry, logging companies, tree spacing. Somebody in the government decided it was cheaper to lock them up and not run the program, not thinking about the end product. A lot of these people got steady jobs, families, back to work. I don't know.

Before the camp closed, they spent over $100,000 on a new water system, a new sewer system. They pulled all the trailers and stuff out and sold them to somebody up the coast who ran a fish camp — for $5,000. I just don't understand the method and madness in government's thinking. You know?

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you for your presentation. Are there any questions from any members?

G. Coons: Thank you so much, Gordon. I just want a bit more expansion of your concern with the department of highways. You talked about not getting the services. Could you just give us a bit more detail?

G. Stewart: Our road, Woodmere Road up our way, was just literally falling apart a week ago. That went on for a month — big ruts, base rocks sticking through, no grader work. We hadn't had a grading job done since spring. It was just ridiculous. And then when they do grade it, they've got no material because they won't go in the ditches and pull the material out that's there. The material is there.

When I worked for highways, we used to go in and pull it out and put it back on the road. But it seems to be that the contracting…. I find out that it says in their contract "grade to fill." It doesn't say "grade to cut." So they don't cut the potholes out. They fill them with a bunch of loose gravel and dirt. Today, coming in, the potholes were all starting to come back again because they don't cut them out. You can't just fill them. And that's because I found out from the government, from Fred Seychuk, that it's wrong in the contract. And they just gave them another five years. We're running up against the same wall again.

P. Pimm: Thanks a lot. I'm going to go after that same issue a little bit. We've actually had good luck with our privatization in my region, I have to say, and I'm going to say that on the record because it's been a very good process. But one thing I want to ask you is: have you taken your concerns to your MLA? I can tell you that when I get that kind of concern in my office, I go directly to the ministry and to the contractor, and we get the things looked after. So I just thought I'd put that out there.

G. Stewart: I've been there on several occasions, but he's never there. I don't live right in town, so it's hard for me to go and make an appointment. But I have been
[ Page 2285 ]
there and voiced my concerns. I know a friend of mine who works for Billabong, and he says he heard that the government is telling the highways department to leave the contractor alone to do what he's doing. We thought it was bad when we had Lakes District in here, but this outfit is way worse.

G. Stewart: Well, what do you expect — you know? They're trying to make a living. They're trying to save a dollar. They don't care about the public. We pay our taxes. We can't get our road fixed?

D. Horne (Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I thank you for taking the time today to be in front of the committee.

Unless Dennis would like to take the mike for five minutes, I think that ends our program for the morning.

I'll note — and I know Jim, who's still sitting in the audience, will think…. The mayor from Smithers unfortunately got tied up and had to cancel at the last minute, so he won't be with us today, but I think we've had a good morning here in Smithers.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
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Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.

1) Jim Davidson
2) Dze L K'ant Friendship Centre Society	Annette Morgan
3) Bulkley Valley Teachers' Union	Karin Bachman
4) Smithers Public Library Board of Trustees	Wally Bergen
	Lorraine Doiron
5) Aboriginal Sports, Recreation and Physical Activity Partners Council	Karen Nyce
6) Imperial Metals Corporation	Byng Giraud
7) Association for Reformed Political Action Canada	Mark Penninga
8) Gordon Stewart

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

Witnesses:	Karin Bachman (President, Bulkley Valley Teachers Union)
	Wally Bergen (Smithers Public Library Board of Trustees)
	Jim Davidson
	Lorraine Doiron (Smithers Public Library Board of Trustees)
	Byng Giraud (Imperial Metals Corp.)
	Annette Morgan (Executive Director, Dze L K'ant Friendship Centre Society)
	Karen Nyce (Aboriginal Sports, Recreation and Physical Activity Partners Council)
	Mark Penninga (Executive Director, Association for Reformed Political Action Canada)
	Gordon Stewart

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES