Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 5 — Tuesday, September 24, 2013 (HTML)

Present: Dan Ashton, MLA (Chair); Mike Farnworth, MLA (Deputy Chair); Mable Elmore, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Scott Hamilton, MLA; Gary Holman, MLA; Marvin Hunt, MLA; Lana Popham, MLA; Jackie Tegart, MLA

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

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

7. 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	143
D. Walker
M. Scott

C. Oliver
G. Davison

C. Priestner Allinger
D. Schick


L. Wolf
S. Corbeil
H. Permut
J. Woolsey
M. Wyant
M. Busch
D. Marsden
B. Le Clair
L. Gadsby
R. Santiago
N. Power



C. Wilson

D. Ashton (Chair): Good morning, everyone. We are the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. This is an all-party parliamentary committee of the Legislative Assembly whose mandate includes conducting annual public consultations on the upcoming provincial budget. We would like to welcome everyone in attendance today. Thank you very much for taking the time to attend. We really do appreciate you participating in this important process.

Every year the Minister of Finance releases a budget consultation paper. This paper contains fiscal and economic forecasts and key issues that need to be addressed in next year's budget.

Once a consultation paper has been released, this committee is required to hold provincewide consultations. All British Columbians are invited to provide input on the budget. Following the consultations, the committee releases a report of the consultations along with recommendations for the upcoming budget. This report is presented to the Legislative Assembly no later than November 15.

There are several ways for British Columbians to participate. This public hearing is one of 17 scheduled to take place in communities throughout the province. All British Columbians are invited to present to or attend the hearings. We also have scheduled video conference sessions for five additional communities.

British Columbians can also participate in the consultation by sending a written submission, video file, letter or fax. Information on the consultations, including instructions on how to make a submission, is available at our website, which is www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, October 16. All public input we receive is carefully considered.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for up to ten minutes. Up to five additional minutes is allotted for questions from committee members. Time permitting we have an open-mike session near the end of the hearing, and five minutes is allotted for each presentation. If you would like to register for the open mike, please check with staff at the information table.

Today's meeting is a public hearing and will be recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services. A copy of this transcript, along with the minutes, will be printed and made available at the committee's website. A live audio webcast is also broadcast through the website. The committee is also on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook you'll find us underneath the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, and on Twitter, we are at twitter.com/BCFinanceComm.

I would now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, and I'll start to my left.

D. Ashton (Chair): Good morning. My name is Dan Ashton. I'm from Penticton. I'll be chairing the proceedings and working very closely with the vice-Chair, Mike Farnworth, and all the committee representatives and staff to ensure that what is said today is forwarded to the government in proper consideration.

Also joining us today are the parliamentary committee officers. They are incredibly hard-working individuals and very dedicated individuals. We have Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond, who are staffing the registration desk. Michael Baer and Jean Medland are also here on behalf of Hansard Services.

To start, once again, welcome. Thank you very much for coming this morning. Darryl and Megan, the floor is yours, so I'll give you ten minutes — a two-minute warning — and then questions.

D. Walker: Okay, thank you very much. Again, Darryl Walker and Megan Scott from the British Columbia Government and Service Employees Union.

First of all, I'd like to congratulate each and every one of you on your recent election, or re-election. I want to thank you for all the work that you do on a regular basis for the people of British Columbia. It's very much appreciated. We also appreciate this opportunity to speak to your committee today.

The BCGEU represents more than 65,000 men and women who live in communities around this province. They provide important public services and work in many sectors of our economy. Our members have a deep understanding of how our province works, how governments, government agencies and ministries work. They also have concrete ideas on how to make things better.
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Our submission builds on the expertise and day-to-day experience of our members as they work with British Columbians. Our submission focuses on four areas.

First of all, resource ministries. I'd like to begin by talking about the important work of our resource ministries. We have raised concerns about permit backlogs in the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations in the past. This backlog came about because of staffing cuts and hiring delays. I realize government has begun to address this backlog, but we need to ensure that there is no permit backlogging whatsoever. Permit delays hinder economic growth and slow job creation.

B.C.'s resource industries are also responsible for managing our natural resources. They play an important role in supporting sustainable economic growth. Funding cuts have seriously eroded the ability of these ministries to provide credible public oversight in resource development. There are not enough front-line workers to do the critical work of monitoring and reporting on the activities of the industry on our land bases.

As a result, the province's reputation for high environmental standards is at risk. Failing to demonstrate responsible stewardship for our resources could have a serious implication on our economy.

In the 1990s international boycotts of B.C. forest products because of inadequate forest practices had significant impact on the forest industry at that time. We need to ensure that this does not happen again. Let's invest in these important ministries.

Natural resources have been an important part of our economy for generations. Responsible stewardship combined with compliance and enforcement would ensure that responsible resources provide jobs and government revenues for generations to come. Let's ensure that this critical piece of government infrastructure is there, adequately staffed and funded.

Secondly, funding for social programs. I would also call on the committee to ensure that social programs in our province are adequately funded. Our province is facing increasing demands on many public services because of demographic changes and economic uncertainty. Many of our public services are under-resourced and underfunded and have been this way for some time. There is a problem for people who rely on these services.

It also puts enormous strain on the men and women who deliver these services. For many workers in health and community social services, their day-to-day workload is untenable. The training is inadequate. Caseloads are excessive, and morale is low. This problem cannot be ignored.

I would also draw your attention to a resolution passed on Friday at the UBCM. Municipal leaders endorsed a call to reopen Riverview psychiatric institute to address the increasing number of homeless and those with mental health issues that we see on our streets. This should be considered. Riverview is just one example. Let's ensure that our social programs are funded adequately. This is an investment in every single community around our province.

Third, funding for collective agreements. Our third recommendation calls for funding for fair, negotiated collective agreements and a stable workforce in all sectors. I've already described the working conditions faced by many of our members who deliver important public services. Our members are committed to the productivity, innovation and delivery of quality public services. For many years now they have been told that they are going to have to do more with less. This has taken a toll.

Over the last decade our members have seen their wages fall behind inflation, resulting in real declines in spending power. Funding must be provided for fair and reasonable wage increases for the people who deliver services to British Columbians.

Fourth, new revenue options. It wouldn't be responsible for me to come here today asking for increased funding for public services and funds for public sector wages if we also didn't have some ideas on new and increased provincial revenues.

We should begin by expanding the responsibility of B.C. deputy sheriffs. Duties such as traffic and warrant delivery would save money, increase revenues and keep our roads safer. In Alberta similar programs generated $111 million in 2010. We believe that we can try this and that it will work in British Columbia.

Let's modernize and expand the provincial Liquor Distribution Branch. Let's open a few more stores in areas that are in demand. Let's open stores on Sunday. Perhaps expand hours and also offer refrigerated products. The public is overwhelmingly in favour of these changes at the LDB. We think it's time to implement them.

We are looking at an enormous expansion in the natural gas industry in British Columbia. Because our royalties are among the lowest in Canada, British Columbians are not benefiting as much from this sector as we could and should. Furthermore, natural gas producers' carbon tax exemptions is another lost revenue source and should be eliminated. Health and education is expected to pay. Why not natural gas?

I hope the Finance Committee will also consider changes to the stumpage rate for our forest sector, specifically eliminating the two-bit stumpage on timber harvests on Crown lands. This would increase government revenues, as prices are rebounding and are likely to climb even higher still.

In conclusion, we believe these are concrete ideas. They come from the experience and expertise of our members around the province. If they were implemented, we believe they could help to ensure a strong, sustainable economy and help fund quality public services.

There are many other ideas and recommendations in
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our brief which we've left with you. I hope you will give them full consideration. I truly thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

M. Elmore: Thanks for the presentation. I have a question with respect to your first recommendation that you mentioned, around resource ministries. Certainly, it's a priority ensuring that economic growth is successful. I know we heard that there were problems with backlogs of permits previously. Do you have anything further to add about that or updates in terms of permitting backlogs and other specific initiatives that you think would benefit the resource ministries?

D. Walker: To begin with, and with appreciation, we believe the government has moved on this. This was an issue we brought to the table almost two years ago in our last round of negotiations, when there were…. It was literally in the hundreds — I think probably beyond 1,500 backlogged permits. Those are permits that are not being functionally dealt with. From our perspective, that's revenue that's not going on. That's business that's not going on.

A lot of the problem came from the fact that the cuts during the early part of, I guess, 2003-2004 and so on were so deep that there simply were not enough people left in the forest ministries to be able to take that responsibility on.

Further to that, the creation of FLNRO, the large ministry itself, put us in a position where everybody in each of the ministries was expected to be responsible for permits. Not necessarily everybody understood. Mining didn't understand Forestry. Forestry didn't understand, and so forth. We believe it's happening now, but we still don't think that there are enough boots on the ground to be able to take care of the permits. While the number is coming down, we don't think it's coming down fast enough.

If we want to increase revenues, our sense is let's get those permits through. Let's get people on the ground out there doing the job they want to do, whether it's mining or natural gas or timber, and so on. It was a bit of an impediment, actually, to the economy running, from our perspective.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Darryl, for the presentation. Just one question on the sheriffs. How long has Alberta been doing that? Is it recent, or has it been in place for a number of years?

D. Walker: Our understanding is 2009-2010 was when they had a look at it. That's our numbers here — the 2010 numbers. Again, our understanding is that for the price of one, say, RCMP officer — we have a lot in common with Alberta, obviously — you could put two sheriffs on the highways. So you actually get more people on the ground doing the job. It's a little bit less expensive because of the costs there.

Also, they started bringing carnage on the road down. There were enough people out there that people realized that there were going to be folks out there with radar. It started to bring the accident levels down. It started to bring the carnage down, which again enhanced the health care system. There wasn't as much need for folks in emergency, and so on.

Again, we brought this to the last round of bargaining, and we think it's something we would like to work with the government on. We think it's doable. Even simply as a pilot project, it's something we think is possible.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. It's certainly one of the more detailed and well researched. Certainly, I think it has the most footnotes of any of the presentations so far.

I had two questions, I guess — one about the Liquor Distribution Branch and the proposal to open stores for longer hours on Sunday. If you're selling liquor through private stores, that's being taxed, generating government revenue. If a dollar, theoretically, goes from a private store to a public store, say on Sunday, is there a higher return to government for that expenditure versus going through a private store? That's one question.

The other question is: on an ongoing basis, does BCGEU talk to government about ideas? Do you have an ongoing kind of dialogue, or does that only happen during wage negotiations?

D. Walker: To answer the first one, first of all, private stores get, I think, a 16 percent break on any product that comes out of the liquor distribution warehouse. The same product that costs, say, a dollar to go to a public store costs 84 cents to go to a private store. So they've already made 16 cents, or 16 percent, on that. Then they sell it for whatever their rate is. The sense is if it comes out of a public store, that amount of money is going to be recouped right away. So that's part of it.

We don't expect to go head to head with the private stores. Quite frankly, they have their areas, and we're not looking for new stores right next to a private store. If a new mall opens up and there's an opportunity for…. If a Safeway goes in and there's an opportunity for a store, why would we not have a look at a public store? So that's
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the direction that we think we'd like to go on that one.

The expanded hours are something that were simply there before. Again, we used to have 11 o'clock stores that were cut to nine, and nine that were cut to six — again, in the early years, 2004-2005. We're simply trying to get back to where we were.

On the Sunday openings, we simply think that pretty much everything else is open on Sunday. You go to a mall, and you'll find the only store that's not open on Sunday is the public liquor store. So it just doesn't make sense to us. There are revenues there.

G. Holman: The ongoing dialogue with government around…. By the way, I do appreciate that you've looked at both the cost reduction side and the revenue-generating side. You're not just coming with expenditure ideas. But is there an ongoing discussion in relationship with government, talking about those kinds of things?

D. Walker: There are a number of processes that we go through. Each ministry has what is called a joint committee, and that's an article 29 committee. There's an opportunity there to talk with generally senior members of the bureaucracy. So it might be a deputy minister or an ADM.

We also on a regular basis, from my perspective, meet with what is called the partners. The Public Service Agency and our own organization meet on a regular basis to talk about ongoing opportunities. Frankly, I don't think it's as open as it ought to be. I would like to have more opportunities simply to speak directly with ministers about ideas that our members bring forward.

D. Ashton (Chair): Sorry, I apologize. We're on schedule, and we're going to stay on schedule.

E. Foster: Sir, I have to question your numbers. When you say that the private liquor stores buy liquor at 16 percent below what the public stores do…. They buy the liquor at 16 percent below retail, so their markup is 16 percent. I think you should, when you answer that question….

It's not 16 percent below what the liquor stores pay for it. It's 16 percent below what you pay for it when you go into a liquor store. So their margin, if they sell at liquor store prices, is 16 percent. It's not a 16 percent discount below what the liquor store pays. It's what you and I pay when we go into the liquor store. Let's get the numbers correct, please.

M. Scott: I think you're absolutely correct that the 16 percent discount from the LDB, in terms of the markup, in comparison…. The argument is that if a bottle of liquor is sold at a public store, then a larger amount of that revenue is coming into the government versus liquor that's sold at private stores.

E. Foster: I guess somebody is going to have to show me those numbers, where you can have a store that pays outstanding wages — good, family-supporting wages…. I'll never disagree with that.

But when you're paying those kinds of wages and you're in shopping malls, which is the highest rent in the country, there's more money going back to the government coffers out of a government liquor store…. Essentially, you're saying that that government liquor store is working at a 16 percent profit margin, and the numbers just don't add up.

M. Scott: Well, I think the benchmarking that the LDB has done shows that their operational costs to their net income are pretty good comparably. So you're right. In terms of labour costs, they're probably higher. That would be a good thing for us to look at more closely. I'll take a look and get back to you on that.

D. Ashton (Chair): Megan and Darryl, thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate it, as Gary said. Thank you for the thorough presentation. It gives us a bit of a chance for our reading after our hearing hours.

Second up to bat we have the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators. I have George Davison and Cindy Oliver. Is that correct?

D. Ashton (Chair): Good. Well, welcome. Again, ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and we have five minutes for questions. The floor is yours.

C. Oliver: Good morning to everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the priority setting that your committee is drafting for the 2014 provincial budget.

Our federation represents over 10,000 faculty and staff who work and teach in B.C.'s mostly public post-secondary institutions — we do have some in the private institutions — around the whole province. We believe
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very strongly that well-designed, adequately funded post-secondary education policies are a key to creating a modern, sustainable economy in B.C. The fact that your committee is gathering public input for the 2014 provincial budget is part of creating the design and template that will help us reach those objectives.

I want to talk about some of the challenges that our public institutions face. But before I do that, I would like to acknowledge an important development that the provincial government announced recently, and that has to do with the Industry Training Authority. The ITA plays a critical role at many of our institutions, because we have to remember it is B.C.'s public post-secondary institutions that deliver over 90 percent of the trades and apprenticeship programs in B.C. So how well ITA operates has a direct impact on our students and our institutions.

Unfortunately, ITA has been a major disappointment not just for our institutions but also for the provincial government. When it was launched in 2003, it was to be a new model for trades training in B.C. However, it failed to deliver on that promise. Despite more money into ITA — about 30 percent more than its predecessor, ITAC — its completion rates failed to match ITAC's track record.

I am very familiar with the problems of ITA because I'm a director of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum nationally. That is, in case you don't know, a national initiative that brings together employers, unions, federal government and trainers to identify best practices in trades training, and B.C.'s so-called new model was not on their list. So we were very heartened to hear in early September that the provincial government had appointed Jessica McDonald, a former deputy minister, to review the ITA.

What that review will accomplish is unknown at this point, but I'm optimistic that after a decade of underperforming on the trades-training front, B.C. will finally get a system in place that addresses the serious gaps we have in this area.

One of my reasons for optimism is that unions have been asked to participate in that review. For most of the last decade unions have been marginalized in the ITA process, a development that was shortsighted and may help explain why completion rates have not headed in the right direction.

I'd like to now shift my comments to the challenges facing our colleges, our universities and our institutes. There are several, but the most urgent is funding. At a provincial level, the core funding or the operating grants from the Ministry of Advanced Education are not keeping pace with enrolment demands or the unique cost pressures within the public post-secondary education system.

The budget and service plan tabled by the Minister of Advanced Education in 2013 included some disappointing measures. By 2015, for example, real per-student operating grants to colleges, universities and institutes in B.C. will have dropped by 20 percent since 2001.

Capital spending was also affected by the 2013 budget. The documents show that spending is slated to decline in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. For post-secondary students, the budget showed no relief for the affordability crunch they face. The budget documents forecast tuition fee revenues to climb by close to $100 million over the next three years.

Funding pressures in post-secondary education are having a direct impact on faculty as well as students. There is a trend to shift faculty positions to part-time or contingent teaching positions. Administrators may see that approach as solving an immediate cost pressure, but ultimately it undermines the institution's prospects when it comes to recruitment and retention. Students are not well served by that approach. Neither are the communities that our institutions have a mandate to serve.

Funding pressures also contort the publicness of our public institutions. As institutions face increasing pressure because core funding is not keeping pace with their needs, they turn to for-profit options within their institutions. The hazard of following this course of action is that our public institutions lose their independence. Rather than having the ability to choose programs and research that fit with the institution's public mandate, we move more and more towards a model in which we are responding to commercial priorities rather than student or institutional priorities.

Another frustration we have with funding is a direct result of a policy change made over a decade ago in which the government moved away from targeted funding to a system of block funding, a change that gave local administrators a lot more latitude to choose how to spend their operating grants. During the intervening decade we've seen the number of administrators in our institutions, and the associated budgets for these positions, increase far more than other areas within our institutions.

FPSE has commissioned an external auditing company to review the financial statements of all 25 public post-secondary institutions to confirm just how much of a problem this has become. But I can tell you that based on the human resource database information for at least three-quarters of the institutions, the increases in FTEs of exempted administrative staff ranges from 20 percent at the low end to 45 percent at the high end. These increases all happened at a time when real per-student operating grants were in steady decline.

We have long held that the move to block funding was misguided, and we would hope that as part of a larger review of funding for post-secondary education, the government reconsiders this policy.

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

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

There is an obvious economic benefit that flows from building that kind of confidence. With improved skills and greater confidence to learn and adapt, the public investment that is made when we provide post-secondary education pays a positive return to the provincial treasury. A number of studies have described that return as an education dividend which shows up in various forms.

With higher skills, our students are on a track for higher lifetime incomes, greater labour mobility and far lower levels of unemployment than would otherwise be the case. All of these outcomes benefit the provincial treasury and create the dividend that I described earlier.

The provincial government stated over a year ago its commitment to significantly increase the number of international students enrolled in B.C.'s post-secondary education system. Our institutions have a strong commitment to international students; however, our concern on this point is that increasing the number of international students is not just a numbers issue.

International students have diverse needs, needs that require more intensive teaching effort, more one-on-one time to help the student navigate not just a new institution but also a new language, a new community and a new culture. Unless the plan for international education includes additional funding to support that diversity, it runs the risk of never achieving the goal that had been set.

In conclusion, our federation would like to see the following priorities either addressed or strengthened in the 2014 provincial budget.

(1) Today's students face a significant affordability crunch. Tuition fees have more than doubled over the last decade. Student debts have moved higher in tandem with those tuition fee increases. That places an enormous burden on them, one that cannot be ignored. A meaningful step in the right direction would be reviewing the student grant program.

(2) New funding needs to be in place to provide post-secondary institutions with the capacity to restore student services that have been scaled back over the last ten years. These services are an effective way to help students succeed and ensure stronger completion rates in our system.

(3) Achieving the government's goal in the area of international education will require additional provincial support that needs to be articulated in the 2014 budget. As mentioned earlier, successful international ed programs require more intensive teaching effort that isn't fully reflected in current funding arrangements.

(4) Finally, the funding that post-secondary institutions receive needs to better respond to the cost pressures they face. The sensible approach, in our view, is to engage in a thorough review of the funding formula so that regional inequalities and core funding needs for the system as a whole are adequately addressed.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to present. I'd be happy to answer any questions, as would my colleague.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. Did you have a specific recommendation in terms of moving forward on the ITA or that we can take here in B.C.?

C. Oliver: Well, I think the biggest problem, frankly, with our trades training program right now is the completion rates. They've dropped to an abysmal rate. I mean, that's a multifold kind of problem to address, and you can address it on at least two different fronts.

One of them is to bring back some support services that were let go a long time ago when the ITA was scaled right back — in 2002, I believe, or '03 — and to bring counsellors back, to bring back people in the field — those who can track apprentices, help them get their hours, help them get what they need. Fortunate to admit it, but often young people are more focused on what they're doing in their job, and they're not really doing all the actual paperwork they need to do.

The second thing is to make sure that there's some system in place where business and industry would be — whether it's tax relief, tax credits or whatever — rewarded to take on apprentices. It's really important that industry steps up and takes on apprentices for the four years to help them get their Red Seal designation.

Other than that, you have a lot of people who have come through the system and trained and have nowhere to go after that and aren't able to get their interprovincial certification.

M. Elmore: There's a new initiative coming forward with regards to apprenticeships and the needs for that, certainly with development around LNG. Are you participating in that? I mean, these sound like very commonsense initiatives that can help the overall success for apprenticeships and the need.

C. Oliver: Yes. We need tradespeople from every corner, and we're well poised in B.C. to provide our own tradespeople without bringing in temporary foreign workers, employing our youth, employing those who
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are underrepresented in the trades — aboriginal, women, other underrepresented groups.

M. Elmore: Finally, with respect to the policy change from targeted to block funding, it's interesting that there's been an increase in terms of the administrative side in those budgets. Do you have documentation on that?

If I might, on the first question, I was encouraged to attend a meeting that the Premier called a couple of weeks ago with trades trainers in the province, with our members and BCGEU members delivering about 80, 90 percent of that training. Though the focus was on LNG, the same kinds of jobs that are needed for whatever construction goes on there are needed for every project in B.C. So that process to strike a task force and to look at improved methods of trades training and improved funding for trades training at our institutions is welcome.

G. Holman: I want to follow up on Mable's question about the increase in admin costs. There have been other presenters pointing out that trend. You do seem to see it in entities like B.C. Ferries, ICBC. There seems to be this phenomenon of administrative staffing, and it would be useful for the committee to have data on those costs and whether, say, there's some metric that you could use to compare admin costs in this jurisdiction versus other jurisdictions or other comparable entities. It would be useful to get a handle on the….

I guess I'm wondering what the dynamic is there. Is it because block funding, which allows administrators to kind of make those spending decisions — which, on the face of it, doesn't seem like necessarily a bad thing…? Is it just administrators tend to kind of hire more administrators? What's the dynamic at work there?

C. Oliver: Well, actually we are drilling down on that one to see where that all started. But we are noticing this huge bloat in the system, and I'll let my colleague answer that.

The other thing that block funding has done is it's given the institutions the ability…. Rather than target certain seats for, say, adult basic education or ESL or, often, those vulnerable students' programs that need to be fostered in every institution in every corner of this province…. Sometimes those programs aren't, you know, the glitzy ones. They'd rather just knock those aside and go on to something that's trendy or whatever. Unfortunately, there are lots of students in the communities, then, that don't get served. So that's one of the downfalls of block funding, but I'll let my….

Please, a submission would be greatly appreciated. That would help us out a lot, okay. I do apologize, but we have people stacked up behind.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Okay, welcome, Cathy. No doubt from watching, you know we have ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions. I'll give you a two-minute warning into the ten minutes, when you've got two minutes left. The floor is yours.

C. Priestner Allinger: All right. Well, thank you. I'm really excited to be here before you today. It's a great opportunity for us. As said, I'm here on behalf of ViaSport.

I'd like to begin by thanking government for the funding and support that sport has received over the previous years. It has been a great support for us. And as someone who has worn many different hats in my life and career, I have a passion for the transformative power of sport and its ability to make a difference to individuals and our communities that can be credited to my combined experience as an Olympian, a coach, an administrator, a volunteer, a broadcaster and, probably most importantly, a parent of three children who also grew up with sport playing a huge part in their lives.

There's no doubt that sport dominates the social space and time of our families, and after family, sport is one of the most powerful influencers on the social, physical and mental development of individuals. It's not just about fields, rinks, balls and bats. It's really an attitude that influences our lives at every stage.

I started myself skating at the age of 11 and with certainty can say that it was a decision that changed my life forever. Sport has connected me to the coaches and mentors who provided me with the confidence to achieve a podium performance at the Olympic Games. It also inspired me to always dream big, a feeling that I want every child in British Columbia to experience during their lifetime.

In my current role as CEO at ViaSport, I'm now focusing my energy to propel the B.C. sports sector and our partners towards a unified sector to create an active, healthy British Columbia. I want every child in our province to achieve their dreams, and I feel it's our responsibility to ensure that they're equipped to do so.

Through ViaSport, we want to fundamentally change the way British Columbians look at sport and the role it plays in their lives and lead the country as the healthiest,
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most active region. With your continued support, I know we can achieve this.

In recent years a number of identifiers, including health risks in children, youth and adults, have been brought to the forefront of health issue discussions. In 2012 the majority of British Columbians agreed that sport and healthy living are critical for the children and youth of our province.

Eighty-nine percent agree that daily physical activity for children is critical to developing lifelong health and fitness habits; 88 percent agree that schools should have physical activity daily; 87 percent agree that participating in sports and physical activity helps develop the skills like leadership, teamwork and self-esteem in our children and youth; and 75 percent agree that children no longer engage in spontaneous outdoor play like we did in our neighbourhoods, as they have in the past.

ViaSport has established a new vision for sport and healthy living and believes sport is a major contributor to healthier citizens and an improved quality of life. Historically, B.C.'s organized sports sector has been multifaceted, with a number of multisport agencies, organizations and diverse priorities and mandates. At the present time there are about 700,000 participants in organized sport, including coaches, officials and volunteers involved with PSOs. It's estimated there are another 700,000 in non-organized channels.

For the first time in our history, ViaSport is leading a unified vision for the B.C. sports sector, creating links and leveraging opportunities through health and education. Through ViaSport, our sector will have a greater capacity to get all ages and abilities out of the stands and onto the field; create a new synergy through partnerships with municipalities, school districts, the health system and the private sector; and identify and commission new evidence-based research and innovation initiatives demonstrating the positive return on investment with both economic and social measures.

We'll be able to take advantage of efficiencies and more effective delivery of programs and services through greater knowledge transfer, adoption of best practices and added value to all sport; independent and transparent funding decisions through an arm's-length relationship with government; stakeholder and public trust; a fair access to sport opportunities; new economies of scale and scope; and increased funding accountability, with meaningful outcome measures and performance assessment.

Over the last year ViaSport has been active in the consolidation of services for sport in B.C. to streamline delivery under centralized leadership. We've made significant progress in three critical areas.

As we continue to streamline administration, ViaSport has now successfully integrated provincial sports coaching services into day-to-day operations, following the dissolution of the Coaches Association of British Columbia in September. Coaching has been identified as a top priority for ViaSport. They're a group representative of the greatest leaders in our system and often some of the most influential leaders in our communities.

ViaSport has also assumed responsibility for an expanded roster of grant program administration, integrating several grants founded by Sport B.C. and ProMOTION Plus. Reinforcing the goal of developing integrated cross-sector partnerships, ViaSport has built an expanded board of directors and leadership structure with representation spanning business, government, coaching and others to govern and direct our vision.

We've also confirmed a sport leadership committee, equivalent to a peer review team, and two specialized advisory groups representing coaching and girls and women in sport, together serving to bring knowledge, advice and recommendations to the leadership table.

The team and technology behind ViaSport productions have also begun the development of B.C.'s first and only on-line amateur sport channel — something we're really excited about. Featuring content streamed on line from a virtual production studio, ViaSport productions produces live-streamed events, briefings, special events, special shows and webinars on a regular basis, all streamlined on line and available in every B.C. community. The innovative use of this new technology in programming is something that we think we can share with other sectors and jurisdictions once we get it up and completed.

Sport, recreation, education and health all contribute to and benefit from our shared vision for sport and healthy living. This is achieved through the alignment and integration of sports planning and delivery of programs and services.

Highlights of anticipated benefits for the sports sector in British Columbia include, as I said, increased strategic alignment; increased capacity and leveraged opportunities for provincial sport organizations to deliver quality programs and services; increased opportunities for coaches, athletes and volunteer training and leadership; improved skill development for children and youth; shared demographic information about sport participation at the community and regional levels to validate public and private investment; leveraged opportunities for directed research to validate sports' impact and benefit; increased lifelong participation in sport; and improved development of physical literacy and individual athleticism.

There's currently a substantial cost to our health care system with the decrease of physical activity and sedentary lifestyles in British Columbia. Chronic health issues are considerable — specifically diabetes, chronic hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. In fact, a study commissioned by the
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B.C. government found that inactive people cost us between $347 million and $647 million in health care and lost productivity annually. And direct health care costs alone are about $186 million.

Participation in sport is beneficial to physical and mental health, the development of interpersonal relationships, lifestyle satisfaction, academic achievement and career achievement. The government of B.C., through its investment in ViaSport, supports sport programs and initiatives that would decrease many of the social and health issues that are present in B.C.

Together we'll be able to increase participation and physical activity and get British Columbians off their couches, computers and video games and hopefully into our fields, rinks and courts across the province. During these difficult economic times, I'm not asking the government to increase funding for sport. I'm here to request the same amount of funding that the sport sector received last year. What we also require is a strategy that is supported by a multi-year commitment to funding, allowing the sport sector to make longer-term commitments to both its programs and its people.

M. Hunt: Yesterday Basketball B.C. was here, and it was interesting because in a lot of ways they are saying exactly the same thing as you're saying. In your second-last paragraph you said that what we require is a strategy. I'm wondering. Is there a strategy, or do we have a bunch of different groups overlapping, doing similar sorts of things? Possibly, we'll pick on Basketball B.C. since they're not here and say that they're doing it in an individual sport, whereas ViaSport might sound to me a little more like potentially an umbrella type of organization.

My question: is that where you're going to, or are we going to continue to have the proliferation of all the different groups doing the same stuff, only in my sport instead of every other sport?

C. Priestner Allinger: The sole purpose of ViaSport is to eliminate the individual entities, smaller organizations, reinventing the wheel, duplication of services and programs — often not enough resources to do what they need to do well. So ViaSport is the umbrella organization for the sector.

We're streamlining…. I mentioned in my speaking that we're merging and bringing organizations' functions into ViaSport, and the actual organizations, in many cases, are going away to make a much more simplified administration for the province. Then the Basketball B.C.s of the world would come through ViaSport to get a lot of what they need. So it's that sort of toolboxes and bringing everything under one roof.

Prior to ViaSport, it was completely segregated and segmented, everyone on their own, with over 100 organizations attempting to survive. So the goal, the strategy is to simplify this, is to bring it together and provide the tools and what's needed for sport to thrive.

G. Holman: Further to Marvin's question, that's the goal. I mean, it is a worthy one. Obviously, it's your purpose to do that, but how do the other hundred organizations feel about being streamlined? Like, who's kind of pushing that agenda, other than you making your case?

C. Priestner Allinger: Yeah. It's a great question. Prior to ViaSport becoming an entity, there was a review done of the sector. It was an independent review. The entire sector was engaged in it, invited to participate in a number of different ways, including a face-to-face all sector, the whole sector coming together to talk about what they want to see change for sport in B.C. There was unanimous consensus that what we're doing today is what the sector asked for.

It's unfair to say unanimous. There are a few naysayers, but it's a small, small minority of the 100 organizations. That's why ViaSport was created, based on their recommendations. It was sector-driven.

Just before Chevron comes up, I'd like to recognize Doug Horne, the member for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain. Doug, thank you for coming.

D. Schick: Good morning. Thanks very much for the opportunity to come speak to the committee.

Chevron Canada is the leading supplier of transportation fuels in British Columbia, and we need a thriving economy and a competitive regulatory and fiscal framework in order to be successful here. We've been committed to B.C. since 1935. We've had a refinery on Burrard Inlet since then. In the 1980s there were four refineries in the south coast of British Columbia. We're the last one that remains.

Our presentation today is regarding the inequitable application of the carbon tax on our refining relative to the people that also compete with us in this location. I'm going to talk a little bit about the specific challenges that we face in that regard.

B.C. has the highest carbon price in the world. That high cost is a relatively minor consideration relative to
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the fact of a unique characteristic of B.C. policy where there is no consideration made for energy-intensive or emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries to help ensure that you can compete on a level playing field with other folks that are supplying local markets.

What we're seeking is a fair and equitable treatment of carbon tax on refined fuels regardless of where they're produced. The reasons that we think this is important are that the Chevron refinery is being challenged in terms of its viability over the longer term, and it's a fundamental cornerstone of the provincial economy. We provide 25 percent of the fuel that's consumed in British Columbia. It goes to customers, to commercial and industrial facilities. It supplies many of the public services that you use every day, such as the bus fleet, the ferries, the municipal governments.

The fuel that's generally consumed in British Columbia — 70 percent of it is manufactured outside of British Columbia, primarily in Alberta but also in Washington State. This clearly constitutes what we would define as trade-exposed, where we have 25 percent of the market and 70 percent is coming from somewhere else.

We're amongst the ten largest companies in B.C. by sales. We sell almost everything that we make in British Columbia. We're very much a local company. I believe we're the largest manufacturer in the province as well.

What concerns me personally is that we could get into a situation of exporting crude oil to a different jurisdiction by ship, turning it into manufactured fuel and bringing it back into this market, rather than manufacturing it locally.

We have about 400 people that work at the refinery. They make a good living. They sustain families in the Lower Mainland throughout all of the communities on the south coast.

We're also a very significant contributor to the local economy in terms of what we spend, which is approximately $70 million a year on locally sourced supplies and services. And a refinery requires ongoing capital spend, which supplies work to contractors and supports the economy.

Since 2003 that sustaining capital has been in the order of $325 million. That money is spent to ensure that the facility is producing the best-quality fuels and is energy-efficient. We are continuing to improve the process of our business.

The North American refining sector is very competitive. Refinery performance is regularly benchmarked. You have to be able to compete against the other folks that are in the global market but also, in North America, in order to ensure that you're able to continue to get the capital that you need for the sustaining needs of the refinery, to keep it operating.

A consistent gap in structural costs, including uncompetitive structural tax disadvantages, puts our facility at risk of closure or terminal conversion, as we've seen in Nova Scotia recently as well as in Montreal over the last few years.

The reasons that refineries in North America…. Overall, petroleum consumption globally is changing. The increased mileage requirements of cars have reduced the amount of petroleum fuels that are required, coupled with the increase in biofuels — up to 10 or 15 percent in terms of gasoline with ethanol being put in the fuel. So it just reduces the market.

What's important to us is that when refineries are potentially closing, they're not refineries that are local to the British Columbia economy and supporting the economic infrastructure here.

In terms of scale, this is about 10 percent of our non-energy operating costs. It's about a $1 million a month disadvantage to us, which can be particularly troublesome in times of the economic cycle when the refinery always has ups and downs in terms of its profitability. Being smaller, we're forced to be efficient in every way that we can.

Washington State refineries would pay no cost similar to this currently, although they're evaluating those options. And if we were in Alberta, we'd pay less than $1 million, rather than $12 million annually.

We don't have an option to improve energy beyond what our competitors have. Those costs, therefore, can't be passed on in the marketplace. So we are disadvantaged by that amount of tax differential.

The refinery is foundational, we believe, to the economic infrastructure of the province. It's a safe, cost-effective and reliable source of fuel. Most reliable estimates would indicate that we'll see that 85 to 90 percent of our transportation fuel requirements in the future will be petroleum-based. That helps support all of the activities that are going on provincially.

In the 2013-14 budget Minister de Jong mentioned that they would work with the trade-exposed industries — of which there are very few, by the definition that we would apply. To help ensure that we can be competitive and work on a level playing field with the other people that supply this market, we're seeking renewed commitment to that effort.

I should mention specifically that we're not against the carbon tax at all. What we're seeking is a level playing field so that that tax would apply to others or that we'd be exempt from the tax to the level that our competitors are paying so that we can compete on a level playing field.

M. Hunt: Dave, you used the words "trade exposed." I think it was Mr. de Jong's words — "trade-exposed industries." Friday we had the cement manufacturers come and make a very similar appeal. My question is: are you working with them and other trade-exposed industries
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to try and come up with a proposed solution for this?

Frankly, by the way that we would define trade exposure, the cement guys and us are really the only players that have that type of burden being placed upon us. We're in communication with the individual companies in the cement business, because they are in the same boat we are, and also with the association.

M. Hunt: A question also. I think I know the answer, but I'm just forgetting. I know that you also sit on B.C. Used Oil Management. That used oil — does that get remanufactured in facilities like yours, or does that go to another type of facility for remanufacture?

D. Schick: Re-refining, typically. Rather than being burned in a facility, those products would typically be remanufactured into products that can be used in a similar fashion. We work to try to minimize…. In terms of the product stewardship role that we're involved in, we try to get the best use out of those products. Often that's not burning those products but, rather, converting them into something else.

M. Hunt: So having a refinery such as yours in the province of British Columbia also helps in that recycling process.

D. Schick: The refinery in British Columbia is a fuel refinery rather than a lubricant refinery. One of the fundamental roles, or a role, of the refinery here locally, though, is the ability to use the Kinder Morgan pipeline both for finished fuels and for crude oil, because we can manufacture what they call the buffer, the mixed products that are in between, to ensure that we're getting usable products in that regard.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): I want to follow up on what Marvin said on the Cement Association, the cement producers. Cement producers have outlined a way in which they can deal with the carbon tax that manages to avert any problems under international trade agreements. Has your industry had a similar type of solution, or is it slightly…? Is it more…?

D. Schick: It's different. We're competing with Alberta. That's where 66 percent of the fuel is coming from, approximately. Only 5 percent is from Washington State.

The international considerations are much less important in our case. What is a challenge, and we respect the tax department's issue in this regard, is that the taxes apply to the point of combustion. When you're refining in Alberta, B.C. obviously can't tax in Alberta, although I'm sure there would be some here that would like to do that. But we can't tax that way, so that's the challenge in the case of our requirements, because we're competing with Albertan products rather than international or U.S. products.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Do you have any concrete — no pun intended — solutions?

D. Schick: There's no simple solution to this. We respect the fiscal position the government is taking in terms of balancing the budget. It is revenue of $11 million to $12 million. There have been processes of exempting the greenhouse growers, for instance. It's not necessarily a good solution.

A simple solution that I put forward is that most of the fuel we're using, and what we're taxed on…. It's the disadvantages of fuel we use in the refining process. It's actually components of the crude oil. We're the only people that use it, and the Husky small refinery in Prince George. So the refinery gas component of the fuel oil could be exempted, because it's in the manufacturing process. It's not a third-party fuel. That would be another relatively simple way of managing the deficit that we're seeing.

M. Elmore: To follow up further so that I understand the exemption at the refineries…. That would probably be the easiest. Are there other options that are being looked at? I know they're complicated. The cement they're looking at, applying the tax to the…. There are basically four producers in British Columbia, so it applies specifically to them. I guess that's not the situation here, because it's quite diversified.

D. Schick: It's different. We're really the only ones. In terms of the cement guys, they were talking about applying the tax at retail. That could be something you could do as well, in our case, although that adds complexity to the structure of the carbon tax. But that would provide the level playing field that we're looking for. We pay it at point of combustion, and then when that product crosses in to the province, an equivalent tax could be applied on those products in order to ensure that we have the level playing field that we're seeking.

D. Schick: I would suggest that it would be applied at…. It could be either way, given the product. But again, the challenge in the structure of this is: how do you not change the fundamental premise of the carbon tax as well? We respect that.

We're stuck to the carbon tax today. The other thing that we're challenged by is the availability of crude oil. We don't have enough to run it at the levels that we want. That's another story. We are bringing in crude by rail, which can only be a supplement to the crude that we get by pipeline, and also by truck to help supplement what we need to keep the refinery running at a level which supports running the fixed costs and affecting the use of the amount of crude oil.

It's well known that the amount of product and pipeline capacity is highly in demand, and there's a shortage of that, from our perspective, in terms of supporting the refinery.

D. Ashton (Chair): And the ship is taking out refined product, then, is it? The ship pictured, the ship on the back — that's taking out refined product?

D. Schick: Well, there are a couple of things. We do bring in some product from California, as need brings in, and we also ship out blending components from a manufacturing facility in Alberta. So there are different elements of the refinery. We do not bring crude oil in by ship.

L. Popham: Getting back to the carbon tax, if a tax was applied after it came through the border, would that be a border equalization tax? The reason why I'm asking about that is because there have been studies done from the agriculture sector with the same situation, so greenhouse growers in Washington having to pay a border equalization tax. It seems to me in that instance there was some vulnerability within our trade agreements. Is that something that you've looked at?

D. Schick: When you're talking about Washington State, you're into the NAFTA discussion, which is a different set of rules. I'm not privy to what that would mean with Alberta. I would expect it would have its own complexities, but I don't know.

S. Hamilton: You could answer this one quickly. The 5 percent that you're talking about that comes from Washington State — is that essentially the jet A that you compete with from Cherry Point?

D. Schick: Yeah. A large degree of that are the Vancouver airport requirements, because they are about two-thirds of the product — the airport. We're about 40 percent of the product — the airports. Between the two of us, we're pretty much a large proportion of the fuel that comes into Vancouver airport.

S. Hamilton: Your capacity to provide the required amount to YVR, though, is limited, I assume, or would you be able to make up the difference that comes out of Washington State now?

D. Schick: No. The jet that we produce is really our maximum capacity of jet that supports the airport today. Because of its footprint, where it is on Burrard Inlet, we're not in a position to expand the refinery. We need to run that size of refinery efficiently. So we wouldn't be able to make significantly more jets for the airport.

S. Hamilton: Then I could suggest that the 5 percent you referred to out of Washington State is kind of a wash to the state.

D. Schick: It's really the Alberta competitiveness. It's a fundamental issue for us, yes.

D. Ashton (Chair): David, thank you very much for your presentation. Have a good day.

Next is the British Columbia Library Trustees Association — Lauren, is it? Welcome. We've allotted ten minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions. I'll give you a two-minute warning on the presentation, okay? Please proceed.

L. Wolf: Thank you. It's been very interesting hearing the range of submissions that you are exposed to.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to address this committee. My name is Lauren Wolf, and I'm the executive director of the British Columbia Library Trustees Association. The BCLTA represents over 700 library trustees who serve on the boards of British Columbia's 71 public library systems. B.C. library boards are responsible for the governance of their individual libraries, including the management of their finances, strategic planning, policy development and advocacy.

I'd like to point out that library board trustees are volunteers. They contribute their time and their professional expertise to libraries because they are community leaders.

I am here today to discuss the long-term financial health of public libraries in this province. Last year this committee recommended that the separate provincial library budget line item be reinstated instead of being folded into the overall education budget. This recommendation has not been implemented, yet the concerns stemming from its disappearance remain the same as they did last year.

We believe it is very important to remember that the mandate of library services in B.C. is far broader than support for K-to-12 students. In fact, libraries are a ma-
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jor contributor to community development across the province.

While libraries do indeed provide many programs and literacy opportunities for K-to-12 children, they also provide, for example, literacy programming to preschool children and their parents, research help to post-secondary students of all ages, technology programming to seniors, technology access to individuals of all ages, job search and resumé-building skills to adults, small business support in the form of research, language and social integration programming for new immigrants, free space for volunteer and community groups. They are also an impartial gathering place, removing the barriers associated with different levels of individual education, technology, culture, economics or physical disadvantage.

In fact, more and more, libraries are increasingly seen as community centres, which is important, especially in rural B.C. One only needs to recall the recent devastation of the library in Bella Bella — and the rallying of businesses, organizations and individuals across the province to help rebuild this important community resource — to understand the central role that libraries play in their communities.

Provincial funding for libraries is an indispensable element in maintaining equitable access to information, whether that's print, electronic or on line and for all ages, incomes and education levels. While provincial funding to libraries overall represents just 5 percent of library operating revenue, this ranges from a low of 2.5 percent in some large urban areas to a high of 58 percent in some small rural ones. Without stable provincial funding, some of these communities would not be able to support this vital element of community infrastructure at all.

In 2009 provincial library funding was cut by 22 percent. Since that time, libraries have seen a year-over-year reduction in funding, because even though the amount of funding has remained the same, there have been no consumer price index increases on the reduced amount. The disappearance of the line item and the lack of commitment to ongoing funding past 2014 have created uncertainty about future provincial library support, negatively affecting long-term planning and investment.

Therefore, we're asking three things in regard to acknowledging the partnership that libraries play in the development of communities across B.C.: first, to make a commitment to long-term funding, to add CPI increases to that long-term commitment and to implement a transparent accounting of that funding for the public.

We are more than cognizant of the government's need to balance budgets and to operate in a demanding fiscal environment. Libraries do that very well every day.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Lauren, for your presentation. I appreciate the work of librarians and the volunteers supporting literacy and just access to many programs in communities. I think I agree with you that they play a central role in that community infrastructure.

There was a recommendation by the Finance Committee last year that the library budget be returned as a separate line item. Currently it's folded into the Education Ministry.

L. Wolf: I'm relatively new to the sector myself, but my understanding is that it has for many years been associated with the Ministry of Education. Although in previous years it has moved into different portfolios, it was always with a distinct acknowledgment of the uniqueness and the wide range of services that libraries do provide.

M. Elmore: Right. So it was previously under the Ministry of Education but with a distinct line item. Now it's just folded in.

L. Wolf: Well, that hasn't happened. There may be other ways to provide that transparency.

L. Wolf: The concern in the community is that libraries disappear as a distinct entity and that recognition of the role that libraries play in community development outside the K-to-12 sector will not be apparent. And that also will cause vulnerability.

L. Popham: Great presentation. I really appreciate your website that you have. It's very informative.

L. Popham: There's one statistic that I had a question about, when it talks about the amount of visits to the libraries. There are the virtual visits. I completely understand why that has increased since 2007. But the amount of in-person visits has gone up 50 percent, almost, since 2007. Can you tell me why that is?

L. Wolf: It has. Thank you for helping my presentation. Yes, I think there are many reasons for that.
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History has shown that whenever the economy is not as good, libraries benefit, in a way, by more access. People who need jobs are looking for jobs. Immigrants who need assistance, also, in preparing resumés or looking for jobs or looking for appropriate education or the skills that they need, need assistance in finding those, whether that is on line or whether it is in a print resource. It's a matter of a support during a downturn in the economy.

D. Ashton (Chair): Lauren, just quickly, commit to long-term funding, CPI increases, and I missed the third one in your three recommendations. I'm sorry.

L. Wolf: Either a line item or a visible, distinct entity within it so that it is transparent to the public how libraries are funded.

Insurance Bureau of Canada — Serge, welcome. We have ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and five minutes for questions. The floor is yours.

S. Corbeil: Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee members. It's a pleasure for me to be able to contribute on behalf of our members to your committee's important work to inform Budget 2014-15.

A few words about the Insurance Bureau of Canada for those that might not be familiar with us. IBC is a national trade association representing Canada's private property-and-casualty insurance companies — companies that insure your home, businesses and, when allowed, your automobiles. We are a voluntary organization, and our members account for over 90 percent of the premium volume sold in Canada.

The P-and-C insurance industry is one of Canada's largest employers, providing over 119,000 jobs. In 2011, the last year for which we have data, P-and-C insurers paid over $7.5 billion in taxes to municipal, provincial and federal governments across Canada, of which $234 million was paid to the province of British Columbia.

Last year insurers paid about $2 billion in direct claims in B.C. for the replacement of stolen commercial goods, stolen household goods, personal property, repairs to damaged homes and businesses and benefits to people involved in traffic collisions.

Two of our organization's strategic priorities will resonate very clearly with British Columbians. One is to prepare Canada for an earthquake; the second one, to adapt to severe weather.

A very serious threat facing the industry and the province is the potential cost of responding to a major earthquake. Last year IBC conducted consumer awareness polling on earthquake issues. The survey revealed that a majority of British Columbians are ill-prepared for an earthquake, and the result speaks to the urgency of improving earthquake preparedness amongst B.C. residents.

The B.C. government, we know, is aware of the earthquake risk and has taken a leadership role on preparedness. It is supporting a number of initiatives, including the B.C. ShakeOut on October 17 — I invite you all to participate — which IBC is sponsoring for the fourth time.

We believe supporting the work of Emergency Management B.C. is paramount to ensure that British Columbians can count on the best possible outcomes in disaster readiness. For our part, we are proud of the solid working relationship that exists with EMBC for the greater benefit of all.

Once our research that we've just completed is revealed on October 29, we'd be happy to come back and brief the members on the impact study that we've just completed on the economic and insured losses of a major, magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of B.C., produced on our behalf by Air Worldwide. It's going to be released, as I said, on October 29.

I probably don't have to tell you that severe weather events have been on the rise in Canada. The changing climate is increasing the risk of weather-related losses across Canada. In fact, yesterday we released the first estimate of the insured losses from the Alberta floods. According to PCS-Canada — a service that tracks insured losses arising from catastrophic events — with more than 25,000 claims and $1.7 billion in insured losses, it is the costliest insured national disaster in Canadian history.

Add to this the Toronto storms of July 8, which caused insured losses of $850 million, and 2013 is going to be the most expensive year on record. In fact, we know that it will be the fifth year in a row with insured losses due to severe weather events at or above $1 billion.

It's important to note that PCS-Canada only reports for events where the insured losses are estimated to reach at least $25 million. We can add to this a number of smaller events like we've seen across the country, including in B.C.'s southeastern region in June or Penticton or Parksville more recently. It's easy to understand why
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we believe that adapting to severe weather needs to be a priority.

According to a report we commissioned entitled Telling the Weather Story, since the '50s coastal B.C. has experienced a 20 to 30 percent increase in rainfall. The result of this increase in precipitation is higher projected risk for flood-related losses and sewer backup claims.

These trends highlight the need to increase investments in severe weather adaptation and protection measures. For example, updating B.C. flood maps is critical to identifying areas at risk of flooding and to helping the government in land use planning.

The B.C. Real Estate Association's action plan to update floodplain maps in the province states that out of the 87 existing floodplain maps that are accessible through Ministry of Environment's website, 69 percent are 20 to 25 years old, and the remaining maps are 14 to 19 years old — despite the recommendation of experts that floodplain maps should be updated every ten years. Clearly, there is a leadership role for the government to take on this issue.

Another key area where investments are essential to prevent weather events from becoming disasters is the current infrastructure stock, which is often to blame for much of the damage and losses from severe weather, particularly older municipal storm and sanitary sewer infrastructure that cannot handle the increased precipitation levels hitting the province.

That's why we support the investments the federal, provincial and municipal governments have made over the past few years in upgrading the province's waste and stormwater infrastructure. The B.C. flood protection program, for example, announced in 2007, has allowed numerous initiatives to be funded over the past few years. That's why we are recommending that your reports stress the importance of investing in severe weather adaptation and protection measures and support for the climate action secretariat.

I'd like to turn now to a taxation issue that specifically affects consumers of insurance. I'm referring here to the insurance premium tax. As in other provinces, the B.C. P-and-C insurance industry is subjected to a range of fixed and variable taxes. One of those is the insurance premium tax, a 4.4 percent tax added to property and automobile policies.

B.C. has the highest in the country, and this tax is particularly unfair since there is a cascading, double-taxation effect associated with it, as it is applied on top of sales taxes on business inputs. It is a hidden tax that ultimately makes insurance products more expensive for B.C. consumers. It's one of very few product-specific taxes, along with tobacco, alcohol and gasoline taxes. This is why we're recommending that the government eliminate the insurance premium tax over time.

We'd also like to stress that, on the corporate income tax front, we support the federal government's initiative to achieve a 25 percent combined federal-provincial rate and welcome the B.C. government's leadership in helping achieve this objective.

The industry understands the fiscal consideration that led to last year's 1 percent corporate income tax rate increase. As the B.C. economy shows signs of improvement, the industry looks forward to the government reducing the corporate income tax rate back to 10 percent.

I know you would be disappointed if we didn't take a moment to talk about the automobile insurance regime in place in the province. We strongly believe that the foundation of a solid private sector economy must rely on a system that allows competition and choice for consumers. Another way to spur private sector creation and consumer choice is to move towards a more competitive auto insurance market.

ICBC continues to enjoy a legislated monopoly for mandatory auto insurance coverage and controls 90 percent of the optional coverage market. While basic insurance premiums, for which it enjoys a monopoly, continue to rise, premiums for the products where it faces competition are declining — proof that competition does benefit the consumers.

Of course, some will tell you that there is competition in the optional insurance market. It's true, but a caveat is needed. ICBC continues to dominate with a 90 percent market share, and there are reasons why this is so. It uses its monopoly to its advantage to suppress competition and push out private insurers.

For example, ICBC bundles a renewal of two insurance policies one might buy, basic and optional, into one document. This gives it a tremendous advantage in terms of convenience and ease of transaction. It also uses basic insurance dollars to promote its brand as a whole through so-called road safety initiatives.

We believe that levelling the playing field in the optional auto insurance market, one that pays to repair bumpers and replace windshields, should be a priority to spur the involvement of private sector companies in B.C. and benefit B.C. drivers. A first step would be to complete the reforms undertaken in 2003.

Next up we have the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Jim and Harriet, we're on a first name basis here, if you don't mind, with everybody. So welcome. A ten-minute presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and five minutes for questions. Please proceed.

H. Permut: I'm Harriet Permut, government relations
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manager for the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. With me is Jim Woolsey. He's the chair of our government relations committee at the board. Jim is a longtime realtor in Vancouver.

We're here today to talk to you about a few things: how much home sales benefit our communities; how the property transfer tax, better known as the PTT, makes home ownership less affordable; how this makes the housing sector more vulnerable; and how this affects our province's economic well-being.

We're also putting forward two recommendations which will lessen the burden that the PTT places on homebuyers.

First, I'll give you some background about the Real Estate Board. We represent more than 11,000 residential and commercial realtors in the greater Vancouver area. Our board boundaries extend from Pemberton in the north to Tsawwassen in the south, from the Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast in the west to Maple Ridge in the east.

We operate the Multiple Listing Service, and using MLS data, we produce statistical reports used by universities, economists, business, industry and government.

The board and its members care about the quality of life in our communities, and realtors are well known for their extensive charitable work. We're also known for placing the interests of homebuyers first and for speaking up on their behalf.

We're here today to talk about the need for the government to make tax policy changes to support the important role the real estate industry plays in the economy.

In 2012 the real estate and construction sectors together produced more than one-quarter, or fully 25.5 percent, of the province's GDP, according to the 2013 British Columbia Financial and Economic Review recently presented by the Finance Minister. Construction and real estate also produced 243,200 jobs, making it collectively one of the largest job creators in the B.C. economy.

In 2012 on the housing side alone in the greater Vancouver area just over 25,000 homes were sold on the MLS, generating $1.6 billion in spinoff economic activity and more than 12,000 related jobs. Yet even this reliable economic generator can be significantly influenced by the global economy. The decline in our housing market in 2008-09 demonstrated that even strong markets can be vulnerable and significant numbers of well-paying jobs can be put at risk.

You'll notice the two line graphs on the handout, the first page. These show that the drop in MLS sales in 2008 was followed by a corresponding drop in construction employment in the following year. We believe this drop in employment would have been significantly worse had it not been for the construction boom associated with the run-up to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and related infrastructure projects.

It's disconcerting that real estate and construction aren't mentioned anywhere as priority sectors in either the B.C. jobs plan or in the newly released 24-Month Progress Report, in spite of their substantial contribution to the economic output of the province.

We would like to see more support given to the real estate and construction sectors, recognizing the important role they play and continue to play in our economy. A good first step would be modernizing the property transfer tax, the PTT, which adds more than $10,000 to a home priced at $600,000 in greater Vancouver.

The PTT was introduced in 1987 as a short-term budget fix. It has grown to be a long-term problem, dampening home sales and what could be a more robust economy. The PTT is calculated at 1 percent on the first $200,000 of the purchase price of a home and 2 percent on the balance.

In 1987 when the tax was introduced, 95 percent of homes in greater Vancouver sold for less than $200,000, meaning that just 5 percent of all sales had the 2 percent portion of the PTT applied. Today approximately 96 percent of homes in greater Vancouver are sold for more than $200,000. If the 2 percent portion of the PTT were applied only to the top 5 percent of all homes sold today, as originally intended, the $200,000 threshold would have to be raised to more than $1.4 million in greater Vancouver, not $200,000.

If you look at the table on page 2 of the handout, you can see that we're not talking about higher-end west side Vancouver homes here. We're talking about modest, middle-class family homes in places like Coquitlam, Maple Ridge or Squamish.

In Coquitlam, for example, the PTT now adds over $12,000 to the price of a modest detached home which costs about $710,000. To purchase that home, the buyer must have an annual household income of just under $123,000.

If the buyer heads further out to Maple Ridge, that modest detached home will cost about $463,000. The PTT will still add a substantial $7,300. The homebuyer will be required to have an annual income of just under $80,000 to afford a typical mortgage.

If the buyer instead heads north to Squamish, that modest detached home will cost just under $500,000. The PTT will add about $8,000. The buyer will be required to have an annual income of just over $86,000 to service a typical mortgage on that home.

Our provincial association, the B.C. Real Estate Association, appeared before you last Friday in Vancouver. Our recommendations are similar to theirs, although we have framed them in the context of our own geographic area.

Our first recommendation proposes to index the PTT threshold. We're asking the government to index the 1 percent PTT threshold using either Statistics Canada's new-housing price index or the Canadian Real Estate
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Association's national MLS home price index — we call it the HPI — and to make adjustments annually. This will ensure that the PTT has the same effect on current and future homebuyers.

Although the PTT applies to both new and existing home sales, the new-housing price index provides a reasonable proxy for all home sales. The MLS home price index offers an alternative method of applying indexation. Information on the national HPI is available at homepriceindex.ca.

Our second recommendation proposes to increase the PTT threshold. We're asking the government to increase the 1 percent PTT threshold to $525,000 from $200,000, with the 2 percent applying on the balance of the fair market value of a home. The $200,000 threshold has been in place since 1987. This will modernize the PTT, better reflecting the current price of homes sold on the Multiple Listing Service in B.C. today.

In closing, I'd like to say there is no question that the PTT makes home ownership less affordable. This in turn makes the housing sector more vulnerable to economic shifts and our province's economic well-being less certain, given the prominent share of provincial GDP that is contributed by housing and construction.

The government has shown that it has the resources and the long-term commitment to invest in other economic sectors. It's time for the government to make the tax policy changes that we identify in our recommendations. We must build on the strengths of the housing market, its economic spinoffs and the high-paying jobs it creates that support our families.

M. Hunt: You know how it is. I'm looking down your wonderful chart, and I notice that it's lovely down in Maple Ridge and PoCo and Port Moody. I notice that Surrey isn't there. As a matter of fact, the South Fraser isn't even represented. So has the South Fraser been kicked out of the greater Vancouver area?

H. Permut: No. South Fraser isn't part of our board. That's part of the Fraser Valley board.

M. Hunt: I see. So you just eliminate us that way. But you did refer to Tsawwassen somehow.

H. Permut: I can find some numbers for you, if you like. Tsawwassen is in our board. We go up to Highway 91. North Delta is in the other board, the Fraser Valley board.

H. Permut: I can find some numbers for you, if you'd like, Marvin. I'll send them to you. It's easy to do.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. I was wondering if you'd done an analysis of the revenue impacts of your proposals regarding the PTT.

S. Hamilton: You've done your math quite well up to that point. That was exactly my question — what the impact on revenue would be. Beyond that, where do you see the stimulus?

You suggest that it's being an impediment to home purchasing. Home purchasing as an economic driver…. Where do you see the other side? Where do you see the tipping point, where the revenue that it costs government suddenly becomes revenue from some other source in terms of how the economy will then be stimulated?

J. Woolsey: There is no way of predicting accurately what the numbers would be. Where it impacts, especially, the first-time buyer is in putting together their down payment. Even a few thousand dollars can make a difference in someone being able to afford to get into the market for the first time. So it's really the first-time buyer that is helped most by this, because they're able to move up.

I think we feel that there would be an increase of sales because of it, but we just aren't able to put a finite number on that.

H. Permut: We did notice, when we had the HST in place and the government raised the thresholds under the HST temporarily, it did affect the market absolutely. It stimulated buying, especially at the low end of the market.

It made a difference to a lot of young homeowners. It helped them make better use of their down payments, because they got the first-time-homebuyers exemptions and extra money given to them by the two programs, actually — both the HST and that first-time-buyers bonus that the government had in place temporarily.

S. Hamilton: Thank you. If I may suggest, as you go through that exercise, that would probably be a good an-
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alogy to repeat. I wouldn't mind seeing those numbers.

Speaking as a father whose daughter just bought her first home in Kelowna, I could suggest that if it were me buying my first home back when I bought my…. It probably wouldn't even have applied in Kelowna at the price of housing that long ago. Nevertheless, yes, I'm abundantly aware of how it can affect first-time home buyers.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much, folks, for the presentation. Have a good day.

Next we have SHARE Family and Community Services. Welcome, Martin. Ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and five minutes for questions.

M. Wyant: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. This is my second time coming, and we've upgraded. We're in PoCo. I don't know if you had anything to do with that, Mike, but glad to be here in PoCo. When I moved to B.C., actually, I lived in this place for 2½ weeks while I was searching for somewhere to live, so I'm quite familiar with it.

Thank you for giving me some time this morning. Yes, I'm from SHARE Family and Community Services. You'll be happy to know I'm not here to ask you for any money, but I am asking you to consider a different approach to some of the budgetary thinking that's confronting all of us.

When I started thinking about this…. I'm really a community-focused person. I always have been, in the work that I do. That's what attracted me to come to SHARE in the first place, because SHARE is a community-based organization.

I'm also a political junkie of sorts. I follow politics pretty regularly. I have a problem that way. You obviously do too, or you wouldn't be doing what you're doing.

I recall a statement many years ago from Tip O'Neill, who made it famous. I don't know if it was him that came up with it, but he talked about all politics being local, and I do believe that. That influences my view of the work that we do.

You've obviously been successful in your campaigns, or you wouldn't be here. If you reflect back on all of the local people that helped you — whether it was arranging events, going to fundraisers, making calls on your behalf, going on door-knocking exercises, whatever it was…. I think you all recognize that if you were just to run a provincial campaign, you wouldn't achieve the kind of success that you would otherwise achieve with having local people involved.

That's kind of how we view our work. We see campaigns as a terrific example of the power of local. We also see organizations like ours, and there are others like SHARE in British Columbia as examples too. We've been around since 1972. We're well known, obviously, in the Tri-Cities for our food banks, and that's because we're always asking people for stuff.

They're not funded by governments. They're funded by the generosity of the communities that we support. We're constantly out with food drives, in grocery stores, asking people for money. People naturally form an opinion that that's who we are as an organization. It's an important part of our organization, but in a staff of 100 only five people are employed at our food banks. The rest are volunteers.

We do a lot of different programs and services — everything from addiction support to counselling, language support for newcomers, early childhood development, speech therapy, occupational therapy. You name it; we're very broad.

Our mandate is really vulnerable individuals and families. That's how we group our services together. Recently we've ventured more significantly into supporting seniors. That's been a new area of focus for SHARE. We're now the deliverer of something called Better at Home, which is a program to keep seniors who are able to stay at home in their homes longer.

I'm regularly out and about talking about the importance of community and building community in our work. I've sometimes heard, even from some of my colleagues that work in government, a comment that to me is disturbing. That is: "It doesn't matter who delivers a service as long as somebody gets the service."

I don't know if I'd license this yet, but I call it the blue-widget approach to service delivery, where any blue widget will do. It really doesn't matter who you are, as long as you get X. It looks like a blue widget here — that same blue widget you get in Kelowna, the same blue widget you get in Williams Lake, etc.

Proponents will sometimes argue this is more cost-effective and it's fair that everyone gets the same thing. The problem, as we see it as a community-based organization, is that the needs we have in the Tri-Cities, for example, might be very different in intensity and in scope than you might find in Victoria or elsewhere in British Columbia. That kind of approach of widgetizing service delivery, in our view, isn't an effective way forward.

We're here to offer an alternative approach and one that is focused on understanding and responding to local issues in our communities. We think organizations like ours are well positioned to do this. We really understand emerging trends. We know how to raise funds and other resources in communities and how to respond to urgent needs quickly.

I think if you look at our recent results, in 2012-13, you can get a sense of the power of community. We had 45,000-plus hours of volunteer service in the Tri-Cities through our organization. We raised a quarter-million pounds of food and almost $1 million. All of these things get injected back into the community that we serve.

The challenge for us is to try and create an indication
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of the value of our work beyond those kinds of numbers. I go to an ROI model that we're starting to advocate more in our sector. At least, I am.

We get about $3.8 million from the province to deliver services. We generate $6 million in revenue in a year. That's a 60 percent return on investment, so the province parks that money with a group like ours. It's a community-based place with a local board of governors and local head offices in the Tri-Cities. This is one of the examples that you see, one of the positive spinoffs that comes from that.

We know we're working in tough times. We know, and I'm sure many of you know, that the 3 percent increase that was negotiated in our sector is not being provided to us as agencies, so it amounts to a 3 percent cut that we're having to find. What we've been hearing from the province recently is an approach that says: "Everybody just go and find 3 percent and cut."

What we want to present is an alternative way forward, because we think that's a very blunt instrument. We don't think it's, in the long run, going to be an effective approach. What we're suggesting is that we take a more local approach.

I've listed a few things here that we'd like to explore. I'm certainly interested, in the Tri-Cities, in doing this.

Rather than saying, "Let's just cut 3 percent," if we had an understanding of the dollars that were invested in our communities to provide services and where those dollars landed, I think there's an opportunity for us to look at coming together, not just within one ministry but across ministries, to look at how we could better come together in communities to build and maintain our capacity and deliver these services within the funding envelope that already exists.

This isn't a new-money request. This is us at a community level saying that we think we can spend this money a lot better than what it's being spent for right now.

We acknowledge there's a lot of duplication of effort. There are some services that are duplicated. Some of those are between ministries; some of them are within ministries. SHARE as an organization has six contracts with the Ministry of Children and Family Development. We believe we should have one, maximum two.

There are lots of things we think we can be doing that don't cost us more. But we also are here to say that to go back, give us a 3 percent cut and say, "Go and find it somehow within your organizations; find new efficiencies…." In an environment where we've not been given additional funds for many years — funding has been flat — "Do that, and don't cut service" is not a realistic way forward for us.

We think there's a different approach. We brought that to a meeting of four deputy ministers and two assistant deputy ministers in July. We haven't heard a response back to our challenge, and I'm here to see if we can light a fire.

You know, we think we're part of the solution here. We're not here, certainly, to advocate, as I said, for more money. We're here to look at how we are spending the existing taxpayer funds that are in community in a way that's more effective in delivering services in our communities and how to ensure that we maintain our capacity that already exists.

In terms of helping us get there, we would like to get the basic information regarding government funding for services in our community — how much is spent, the number of contracts, who the contractors are. I'm in the service delivery game. I don't know the answers to those things, but government does, or should, and should be able to provide that for us.

Provide us with access to expertise to help develop shared services models. Don't just tell us: "Go and develop a shared services model." None of us have budgets or business planners or other resources that government would have at its disposal when it decides it wants to do shared services. We do this off the sides, corners of cluttered desks already. So whether government has expertise or allows us to use deferred revenues, for example, or other solutions, we'd love to see that.

Be willing to explore longer-term funding commitments to give us some stability.

Commit — this an interesting one — that any savings achieved through a process of coming together like this can be reinvested in ways that meet needs that are identified in community and to build capacity in our service delivery infrastructure. So if we go through these exercises — and we've done them before in our sector — if we find all these ways of working together to be more effective and if the government says, "Thanks, give us the cheque," then it's a process that's not going to meet with much success, I don't think.

Work with us to identify and address duplication of services and oversight that currently exists between provincial ministries. I think that's a really important one. There are issues between Health, Education, social services — Social Development — that we think we can help with.

In bid processes, value being local. So if you have a local organization that's bidding on work, I think there should be a value attached to that rather than not valuing it and providing more value to somebody that's going to outpost somebody in a community.

Finally, empower the key leaders within government to make the necessary changes. We've been working with MCFD on this latest round. I was the first one to put in a proposal on the 3 percent cut. That was in July. I still have no answer. I still don't have a way forward to even figure out from the ministry how to put together a proposal. That's not meant to be critical. It's meant to say we
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need people to be responsive.

M. Hunt: Thank you for the proposal and your presentation. In my previous discussions with Penny Priddy she had mentioned, in her time in provincial office, that the only place that had successfully done this was up in the Kootenays. I'm personally very pleased that you're looking at this, because I think there are solutions here. Thanks for doing that. I certainly hope to help take this forward for you.

L. Popham: I've taken a look at your website, and from what you've said, I'm thinking that the focus of your organization is on children and families. I'm wondering, as our demographic shifts and we have more people with Alzheimer's and dementia, if that's something that adds another weight or something you're interested in exploring. Or maybe you do now.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the drop-in centres that you have for the kids — a drop-in centre for Alzheimer's.

M. Wyant: That's interesting. In a past life I ran a YMCA, and we had actually built a new daycare space. We doubled it so that it would double as a seniors space. I think there are models out there to look at even how you set up tables and chairs.

As I said earlier, seniors services is an area that we're growing into. We believe there is an opportunity to do more in the Tri-Cities, and we're certainly interested in exploring how else we can be of service, for sure. It's going to be a growing need.

G. Holman: Thanks very much. This is a fairly remarkable, I think, proposal here. Government has a kind of a cooperative gains approach with respect to other…. You are essentially suggesting a very similar thing. I'm interested in Marvin's comment about this working in the Kootenays and perhaps might serve as a model.

I'm wondering about the sort of process for…. You've made a number of suggestions here to consider, which seem quite reasonable and should be pursued. What's the first step in initiating the process? Would you hire a consultant to review the sector? What would kind of get the ball rolling?

M. Wyant: I think, honestly, we need a stake in the ground from government to say: "Go do this, and we will support it. We'll dedicate somebody that can be that interministerial guide for us."

I know there is going to have to be a lot of backroom discussion on something like this. I know it's not easy either. I've done it on the economic development side in Ontario but not on the social services side.

There's a lot at stake. I'm not immune to that. But we need somebody in government to say: "Yes, we agree. Go try this. Try it in the Tri-Cities. Let's work out a plan together that says: 'Okay. Here's how you would bring knowledge and support to this.'"

I think it needs some leadership. I don't think we can self-organize as agencies, because you'd be asking other agencies, including us, to say: "Essentially, go and put yourself through a process with no commitment at the end of it that government will endorse it and get behind it." So we really want that part first.

J. Tegart: Just one comment. I, too, am very pleased to see this proposal, because certainly there has been lots of discussion in government about how we work across ministry. If this can be one of those lead projects, it looks like a very good document.

D. Ashton (Chair): Misty, welcome. It's a ten-minute process for the delivery of your presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes reserved for questions or comments from the committee. Please start at your convenience.

Good morning, committee members. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present today. Last year my colleague stood before you and told you of the many stories of British Columbians living with infertility. I was one of those stories.

My name is Misty Busch, and I have a medical condition which fundamentally rendered me infertile. When I was 24 years old, my husband and I did two fresh cycles of in vitro fertilization costing a mere $18,000. My husband and I chose to put back two embryos per pregnancy cycle in order to optimize our chances of achieving a pregnancy.

To our surprise, both embryos took. I had a very complicated high-risk pregnancy which resulted in twins delivering at 33 weeks. The twins were born at a low birth weight with feeding complications that required a 5½-
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week stay in the neonatal intensive care unit. Had I been living in Quebec where in vitro fertilization is publicly funded, there is a good chance that I would have had a healthier, less risky pregnancy.

I am now the regional manager for western Canada of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada, which was founded in 1990. We're otherwise known as IAAC. It is our mandate to increase awareness of reproductive health issues through support, education and advocacy.

Families are British Columbia's foundation. I think that we could all agree that strong families help build strong communities, a thriving economy and a more secure future for the next generations. This government has committed to making life as easy and as affordable as possible for B.C. families by placing a high priority and addressing the biggest challenges facing them today.

Today more than ever families are stressed to meet the growing list of demands. Between the high cost of living and economic circumstances, British Columbians are forced to make many lifestyle trade-offs in order to make their ends meet as they consider and start to build their families.

Couples facing infertility who want to start a family are doubly challenged. The current cost of reproductive services has forced many couples to use their savings on fertility treatments at the expense of other critical purchases, such as a family home for their future children and their early childhood development. Public funding of in vitro fertilization treatment gives all British Columbians, regardless of income or geography, the opportunity to access safe family-building treatments affordably in a way that responsibly utilizes our health care system and contributes to its sustainability.

Approximately one in six families suffers from infertility, which is a startlingly high figure. It is important to note that the causes of infertility can affect the male partner or the female, and sometimes both. In many cases, in vitro fertilization is the only effective treatment.

British Columbians build their families in many different ways. Many use assisted reproductive services, but there are barriers. Cost, lack of information, geography and stigma, among others, prevent many British Columbians from growing their families. Single-embryo transfer, otherwise known as SET, IVF is the safest, most effective treatment for infertility. By controlling the number of embryos that are transferred in this method of in vitro fertilization, it ensures that one healthy baby is delivered per a pregnancy cycle.

However, the cost of IVF treatment is very high, ranging from $5,800 to $8,000 without medication, which can add a variable of $2,000 to $6,000. What's more, British Columbians outside the Lower Mainland and Victoria have the added cost of travel and lodging and time off work — related stresses.

In particular, due to the cost of fertility treatments in many areas of the province, many families opt to transfer multiple embryos in hopes of increasing their chances of becoming pregnant. As a result, the multiple-birth rates from assisted reproduction is roughly around 31 percent in 2011, compared to rates of 5 to 10 percent in other jurisdictions which tie in public funding with the single-embryo transfer.

A high-order pregnancy — twins and triplets — is a high-risk pregnancy and, as such, is associated with an increase of medical complications in mom, such as gestational diabetes and hypertension. Studies of all twin and triplet pregnancies also show that these pregnancies come with higher risks to babies too. Neonatal mortality is sevenfold that of a singleton, and cerebral palsy risk is elevated fourfold.

As a result of its decision not to pay for comprehensive assisted reproductive services, British Columbia is now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year dealing with these consequences. Over the first five years the cumulative savings related to perinatal hospitalization costs and delivery of neonatal care, plus the lifetime disability costs if in vitro fertilization were publicly funded, would be $222 million.

I would like to highlight that public funding of in vitro fertilization is a very common practice around the world. Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and almost all members of the European Union publicly fund in vitro fertilization. This public funding has resulted in a significant decline to the multiple-birth rates through IVF in those countries — for example, Australia, 11 percent; Belgium, 7 percent; and Sweden, down to 5 percent — in a sharp comparison to B.C.'s multiple-birth rate, which is standing at approximately 30 percent.

In those jurisdictions where in vitro is publicly funded, its utilization is well over 1,000 per one million people — in Denmark and Iceland, for example — whereas in Canada merely 350 per one million people are utilizing IVF. Fertility clinics in British Columbia have a significant capacity to assist infertile couples and help build families.

Here in Canada, Quebec has taken the lead by publicly funding IVF treatment. Since 2010 the provincial government has been fully funding three IVF cycles, including all the related pharmaceuticals.

In 2011, after just one year of publicly funding IVF, the Quebec government has reported that the number of multiple births from assisted reproductive technologies has dropped from roughly 28 percent down to 5 percent.

Also, earlier this year the former Quebec Health Minister, who introduced the Quebec public policy, estimated the province was saving between $30 million and $60 million annually as a result of the reduction of multiple births. As a result, they're able to redirect funding into other policy and program areas, such as cancer research and treatment.
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Manitoba, as a good first step, in 2010 also began funding IVF treatment through the fertility tax credit. The credit provides a 40 percent refundable credit which covers expenses up to $20,000, including IVF treatment. The Manitoba government has also indicated that in the future, it would consider fully funding in vitro fertilization treatment.

Data from other jurisdictions around the world that fund IVF treatments show the real results in cost savings to the health care system. Australia, for example, has saved nearly $48 million per year in birth admissions alone. Quebec, as I mentioned, is saving nearly $30 million to $60 million per year. Research in other provinces indicates that Alberta could potentially save $30 million over a five-year span in hospital and postnatal costs and $115 million related to long-term disability costs.

Public funding of IVF is a sound investment for British Columbian families and would pay for health, social and fiscal dividends well into our future. The following British Columbian statistics have been formulated by Lindy Forte, a health economics analyst, and have revealed that over the first five years, funding of in vitro fertilization in British Columbia would result in 67 percent fewer twins, 88 percent fewer triplets, 598 percent fewer babies and an annual savings of approximately $12 million to $13 million in perinatal and hospitalization costs and an annual savings of $22 million to $27 million in long-term health costs and social services costs of dealing with children with permanent disabilities as a result of preterm birth.

The net savings that would be achieved by public funding of in vitro fertilization over the next five years would be $78 million. It is important to notice that this is a conservative estimate. It does not include health costs, because it does not include the parents' inability to take time off work to manage stress and depression, which can be significant with multiple births, and the added costs of starting up a family, such as high chairs, car seats and equipment that is necessary to raise a family.

There are many funding models that are proving successful around the world. Fully funding ART is prevalent in Quebec, France, Israel, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands. We are committed at IAAC to working with the B.C. government to find a funding model for assisted reproductive technologies that makes sense for this province.

I think that we all can agree. Our elected representatives are committed to making life better for B.C. families. We are asking the B.C. government to adopt and fund a policy that is more equitable to IVF and other reproductive services for British Columbians, regardless of their income.

Publicly funding these services will provide quality accessible care for British Columbians in all areas of the province. Today, because of in vitro fertilization costs, many British Columbians are making health care choices that are not good for their health, their children's health and the sustainability of our health care system.

British Columbia is home to Canada's first in vitro fertilization baby. Today we have the opportunity to be leaders once again by advancing our public policies related to IVF and to assist infertility sufferers to build healthy families for our future. Strong families build strong communities and a more prosperous British Columbia.

I would like to thank the committee for your time and now would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation, Misty. I think you make a very compelling case in terms of the benefits of supporting a single-embryo transfer for IVF — health benefits to the babies and mother and family and cost savings to our health care system. I had a question with respect to the increased risk, higher risk, of twin and triplet pregnancies. On page 4 it mentions neonatal mortality in twins is sevenfold.

M. Elmore: And the risk of cerebral palsy is elevated fourfold. What's the factor around the fourfold increase for cerebral palsy?

M. Busch: I don't currently have that information, but I would be more than happy to get back to you on that.

S. Hamilton: Thank you for the presentation. As well, I agree. It's very compelling.

I had the pleasure of actually meeting, by chance, a colleague of yours last week. We spent quite some time talking about the issue, so I was looking forward to hearing your presentation.

One of the things I did say to her is that when people come in front of this committee, as I was to learn…. We have so many people lined up with asks, asks, asks. I said that it's so important to come with information like you've provided here. Show us how we can move forward collectively, collaboratively, and say: "Not only are we going to have better health outcomes for the children that are born and better opportunities for the families to raise them, but in the long run, we're going to save money." You've shown us how to do that, so I'm very pleased with the presentation you've provided.

Thank you for answering that, because you probably put it more eloquently than I could. Thank you very much for your presentation.
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G. Holman: Just one quick question. The fundamental benefit of the approach that you're proposing is that you would significantly reduce the number of multiple births. That's happening because of the high cost, so parents are wanting to, given those high costs, maximize the probability of having a child, whereas in your system it would ensure just one embryo.

M. Busch: Looking at others — for example, Quebec, which has modelled this — I don't see that it has failed. I think they've done a fantastic job at cutting down….

M. Busch: Whether you transfer one or two embryos, I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference in pregnancy success rates. Doctors have been very successful, in a single-embryo transfer, at achieving still very high pregnancy rates through IVF, but making sure that mom is safe and that only one baby is born per that cycle.

M. Elmore: In Quebec and other jurisdictions they'll fund multiple single embryos.

M. Elmore: So if it doesn't get done the first time, you can talk about additional….

We have Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce — Dennis Marsden. Good morning. Presentation of ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and we've allotted five minutes for questioning. The floor is yours.

D. Marsden: Perfect. Thank you very much. My name is Dennis Marsden. I'm the co-chair of the public policy committee of the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce. I'd like to thank the committee for providing us the opportunity to come before you today and express the interests of the business community in the Tri-Cities.

Great to see some familiar faces around the table, as we did present to you last year, and, of course, the MLA for Port Coquitlam. Michael, nice to see you again.

First off, the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce represents the communities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody as well as the villages of Anmore and Belcarra. We're very proud of a long and diligent amount of work that we've done in the areas of public policy.

I want to first off thank the committee and the government for delivering on the Evergreen line. We're thrilled to see the shovels in the ground. We're thrilled to see the cement coming up out and all the progress that has been made there. We want to thank you for that.

As well, we want to thank you for the Port Mann/Highway 1 project. Transportation has long been and continues to be the number one priority in the Tri-Cities. The movement of goods and services, as well as people, has been critical to the economic development of this region. We would ask that this continue as we move forward, recognizing that there are a number of issues — budgetary, etc. — that face the government. We encourage the introduction of more transportation options as we look forward toward the Pattullo Bridge replacement, etc., and the impacts it could have on the Tri-Cities.

We applaud the recent efforts to return to balanced budgets and support initiatives that will enhance economic growth, create employment and fund the multitude of services needed within our communities.

An area that is getting more and more attention once again is the Riverview lands. Recently the UBCM called upon the reopening of the Riverview lands.

The Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce has had the opinion that we have yet to see the mental health experts weigh in to say that the institutionalization model under the Riverview lands is viable, and we moved away from it many, many years ago.

We recognize the interconnectivity of mental health, addiction and the impacts on our businesses and our communities. As such, we developed a position in 2005 that we wanted to see the Riverview lands utilized primarily for the delivery of health care, mental health and addiction services. We were open to the economic drivers that may be available on that site to help fund those initiatives.

The recent attention…. We have taken it away to our public policy committee to revisit our exact position. We look forward to providing you more detail in the months to come on where we may see that approach.

Some of the discussions we have had initially — again, primarily provision of health care and mental health…. We are open to discussions of economic drivers, and we're open to discussions with regards to 3Ps and the development of a business plan that would look and say: "How can these 244 acres best be utilized to serve our communities — address the addiction, mental health and wellness issues in our communities and deliver safe, healthy communities for our residents?" There's a small
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challenge for you, especially given the budgetary concerns.

The last item. In my day job I'm branch manager at a local credit union, very proud of a 25-year history in the credit union system. I would like to point out the importance of the credit unions in the economy of British Columbia.

Today there are 43 credit unions with 370 branches serving nearly 1.9 million people and employing nearly 10,000. Obviously, the economic downturns in 2008 have resulted in significant increased oversight with Basel III, OSFI and FICOM. While we recognize the need to mitigate risk, we are cautious of a one-size-fits-all approach, as our credit unions vary dramatically in size and serve communities that our big five banks choose not to open locations in.

We encourage an open dialogue with the leaders of the credit union system and the government and oversight committees to ensure the long-term success, employment and delivery of financial services to the residents of British Columbia.

M. Hunt: I just have to step in on the credit union piece, and it is simply that as long as you continue to deliver products that the big five refuse to do, you will continue to have tremendous success.

I go back to dealing with mortgages and the whole issue of, first of all, making them bimonthly payments, weekly payments, being able to increase your payment to be able to pay it off more quickly. That was something that the big five said could not be done. You did it. You got the business for it, and you dragged them along. As long as you continue that innovation, I don't think credit unions have a problem in B.C.

D. Marsden: Well, I do appreciate that and recognize that we have been quite innovative. It's an industry that becomes very much commoditized. It becomes a greater and greater challenge, and it's a matter of finding those opportunities to serve our members and to serve the communities. We're always open to that. I know that we're, in the case of my company, currently trying to find a new product person to help identify those niches that we can close and deliver service.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Regarding transportation infrastructure, there have been chambers and boards of trade that come to the committee and advocate for those kinds of investments. At least a couple of them have suggested they're open to funding mechanisms like user fees. Road pricing was suggested by one group, tolls of course, that kind of thing. What's the view of the chamber regarding those kinds of funding mechanisms for large infrastructure projects?

D. Marsden: We recognize the pressures that government is under to fund these, the challenge that presents. As a group, we're open to looking at the options that are available.

Obviously, locally with TransLink, there's been a great deal of chat with regards to the overall funding model. We are firm, in speaking to the Minister of Transportation recently, that the model is broken. We encourage it to be fixed and for the establishment of a funding model that is going to work long term.

What that might be and the various…. I don't believe it's a single-pronged approach. I think it would be multi-pronged, whether it be development of road-pricing strategies or tolls, as we do see right now. I believe all those are options that do have to be contemplated.

M. Elmore: Talking about credit unions, you mentioned there are 43 across British Columbia. Is there a provincial organization of credit unions? I'm interested in terms of the prospects for the sector.

D. Marsden: The overall credit union system is supported with Central 1, which was an amalgamation of B.C. Central Credit Union and the Ontario credit union. I believe there has been talk of taking that amalgamation further, streamlining the services.

Those 43 credit unions are down dramatically. We've seen a significant amount of amalgamation within the industry. Those 43 actually represent 370 locations, 370 branches. Westminster Savings, whom I'm proud to work for, has 12 locations serving the Lower Mainland, as just one example. I believe we're the fourth-largest in the province.

M. Elmore: Yeah, interesting — a very competitive sector. I can appreciate that.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much, Dennis — appreciate it. Have a good day.

D. Ashton (Chair): Good morning. Thank you very much for coming. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes for questions. So please start, Leona and Brenda.

B. Le Clair: Thank you so much for accepting our request to be here. We actually have been literacy-challenged today. We got thoroughly lost. Three grown adults couldn't figure out where they were going. Finally we got a taxi, so our problem-solving is not too bad.

Anyway, I'm the CEO of Decoda Literacy Solutions, and Leona and I are going to tag-team a little bit and just talk briefly, give you a little bit of background on Decoda Literacy Solutions and talk about the people that we serve, our work and the history of funding. I'm going to start, but you'll see there's a bit of a pattern here.

Decoda supports a coordinated literacy network throughout the whole province. There are 102 task groups, and those groups work to support 400 communities in the province, so just about every community is being supported by a task group.

The coordinators actually bring people together to talk about issues that are in the community, issues of literacy that impact people's lives. They look at the needs, they look at potential solutions, and they focus on addressing those needs and challenges.

L. Gadsby: In your handout we're on the page that's titled "The People We Serve." Those people are served by programs in communities across B.C., as Brenda said.

Many of the people that come to those programs are marginalized and don't get support in other ways. For example, in B.C. we know that there are over 300,000 people between the ages of 25 and 64 who haven't graduated from high school. You probably know that most businesses today require a high school education to work, and certainly, you would need that level of skill to be productive in any business.

In addition, in northern B.C., for example, almost 50 percent of 18-year-olds didn't graduate between 2008 and 2011. So we know from that indicator that there are many people who require upgrading and literacy assistance.

The work that communities are doing that we support reaches those people who have particular literacy issues that make it really hard for them to participate in upgrading, completing high school, participating in employment. The community groups are thinking about those adults who need another chance, youth who are out of school, children who aren't keeping up — how to help their parents help them keep up and how to help the school system with them.

We're doing a lot of work with seniors who need to be connected with technology but didn't grow up with computers and have a lot of trouble using them. I'm one of those seniors. We are also working with aboriginal people and immigrants to talk with them about what they require and what they need.

Literacy and learning programs give people the skills and confidence to reach their full potential and achieve their goals. Quite often, when people haven't done well in school, they really lack the confidence to go back and learn more. Literacy and learning improves their ability to lead healthier lives, make informed choices and gain or improve employment.

On the next page we're talking about our work. We want to emphasize that we provide a unique service to a segment of the population that's not served in any other way — that is, those people who need another chance or who are falling behind in some way, if they're younger.

We're not in competition with the formal education systems. Indeed, what we are doing is supporting those systems to work better. We're quite often picking up the people who fell out of those systems and moving them back in again — and helping those systems, as well, to work with those people.

Our work supports the goals of the various ministries that are improving skills and training, the job market and the economy. We know that that's an important issue for all of us in B.C. today. This work would not continue without the continued support of the B.C. government.

B. Le Clair: To give you a little bit of the 101 in recent funding, between 2008 and 2010 Decoda distributed $2.5 million to communities, to serve the 400 communities. For the past two years the budget that's been set aside through the Ministry of Education has been $1 million.

Last year that caused us to have to make some significant cuts that impacted half of the task groups and half of the 400 communities. This was a very difficult, painful process. At the end of the day, government came forward and added an additional $1 million so that we could maintain the work throughout the province.

We need $2.5 million. It's a minimum. People are not well paid. They have a few hours to do really important work. Last year we went to our limited resources, and we put in the additional half a million. We don't have that option this year. We are a lean, not-for-profit organization. What I know presently is that there is $1 million again in the budget.

We are such a low-cost solution to turning people's lives around, to giving them the opportunity to get skill-ready for things like training, further education, post-secondary. Just that human touch of being able to work alongside people and nurture them into a place that can bring them quality of life and an income and all those good things is a really critical piece of meeting the B.C. jobs plan.

L. Gadsby: Now we'll turn to the page called "Return on Investment." Last year, as Brenda said, we put $2 mil-
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lion from the Ministry of Education and half a million dollars from our own funds into the literacy network. On the ground, communities mobilized and leveraged that into $6.9 million for programs.

We have a database, and people from the communities fill in that database on an annual basis, so we know what kinds of programs they're running, how they're running, how many people. For example, over 18,000 adults participated in adult literacy programs in the community. Those adults are really needed to supply our growing labour market. We know how important it is for those adults to have access to those community programs so that they build toward further training and employment.

We were also able to bring together close to 2,000 community members who are working together in community task groups. Those task groups meet regularly and talk about what the literacy needs of the community are for the entire population — adults, seniors, children, youth. What are we going to do together? How do we build on programs we already have? What else do we need?

Together, we are making a difference in the lives of individuals, building stronger communities and positioning people to better participate in the B.C. jobs plan, now and in the future.

B. Le Clair: We are also very realistic. We are not asking for additional money in these difficult times. We trust there will be good times ahead. We need the support of the $2.5 million to maintain what has been government's investment over almost a decade. We're not asking for more than that.

We also would really appreciate for government to consider giving the funding over multiple years. The difficulty with giving it on a yearly basis is that people are always gearing up for the struggle. This is really complex work; it's deep work. The people who are doing it really need to have a window of time in which they know they can carry on.

There is currently only $1 million in the budget. We are truly hoping that the government will see fit to fund the $2.5 million that is needed to maintain this basic level of support.

Thank you very much for all your support and for providing us with an opportunity to talk to you.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. I was looking at the table at the back — very interesting and useful. I'm looking at the amount of implementation funding provided by Decoda. Can you explain that versus coordination? And the numbers for implementation, which is funding provided by the your organization, have gone down appreciably. Just explain what's going on there. Are you the only organization providing this kind of service in British Columbia?

We started developing the work further in communities. It's not that literacy community work hasn't been going on for some time, but it was ad hoc and here and there. Programs opened and closed.

In 2004 we received funding from the Ministry of Education to develop something that was more sustainable. We know that literacy affects employment, health, social services and a whole lot of things. So we invited communities to bring together people from all aspects of the community to talk about what needed to be done, and they make annual plans that go to the Ministry of Education, through boards of education, about what's happening and what they're planning for the next year.

As a result of that, we got funding to help them plan, and then we gave them funding to implement their plan, to actually be able to do the actions that they were talking about. One of the actions that they kept saying they needed was they needed to have a person who kept them talking and made sure that the actions happened — a coordinating person. That's why, in one of the years, the Ministry of Education provided funding that was specifically earmarked for the coordination of those groups.

For a while we had funding that could pay for the coordinating person and the implementation money that would help them act. The implementation money has run out. That's why you see it decreasing. We don't get that money anymore. It would be really helpful to get that money, but we know that economic times being what they are, it's really hard to fund everything. We, together with the communities, agree.

They have told us that it's most important to them to keep the coordinating role, because with that role, they're able to actually mobilize and leverage resources in the community. If they only get the implementation money, they've got nobody to help them use that money and figure out what to do.

G. Holman: When you say the implementation fund provided by Decoda, in fact, most of that was coming from the province.

B. Le Clair: That's right. That money originally came through the Ministry of Education.

D. Ashton (Chair): I've got Marvin and Mable, and we have about three minutes left. We have other people lined up here.

M. Hunt: Just a quick one. I'm not familiar with the name Decoda Literary Solutions, but I am familiar with,
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for example, the fact that in the city of Surrey we're working with the school board, the board of education. We're working with Surrey libraries and all that sort of stuff. Is that where you're…? Are you working with our Surrey libraries, then? How do you relate? Who are you?

L. Gadsby: Yes. We are the group that provides the funding so that the city, the library and others come together and work on literacy. We provide you with a literacy outreach coordinator. Surrey has two pieces. Your mayor, thankfully, is very interested in literacy, and she also has a city group, but they're very linked to the broader community group that meets.

B. Le Clair: And Decoda is an organization that was formed two years ago, and it brought together the work of 2010 Legacies Now, the Literacy Now work, along with Literacy B.C., which was the long-term provincial organization.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. I think, certainly, you won't find any dispute in terms of the importance of literacy, particularly now with its increasing role in our knowledge-based economy just to be successful. I think one of the values and benefits of the work that you do, the coordinating role, is your ability to leverage those community-based outreach groups.

I know that in my area of Vancouver-Kensington, there are many programs on the ground. I am particularly concerned. I have a very diverse, multicultural constituency. Supporting new immigrants and people with second languages to access and ensuring they have access to services — that's proven to be successful. Can you talk about that specifically?

L. Gadsby: There are lots of programs happening in communities and many sources of funding. Sometimes it's kind of confusing, what's going on.

At the task group table all those various organizations get to come together and talk about what they are doing, what they need to do more of, what they could do together that would make things work better. So if you do this and I do that, what if we pooled our resources a little better?

Without that, what was going on before we had the coordination piece was that people were off doing things. Often they didn't know each other. They didn't know what was going on. They didn't know where to refer people. So we have a more cohesive infrastructure for supporting people in communities.

D. Ashton (Chair): Ladies, thank you very much for coming today. Thanks for the presentation. I hope you can find your way out of here now. That'll be the question, eh?

L. Gadsby: Yeah, that'll be the tricky thing. Thank you very much. We appreciate how hard you're working. We see you're going all over the place. You've got lots of work to do.

We have Rod and Nadine, Abbotsford Community Services. Welcome. Ten minutes for a presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and five minutes for questions.

"My husband is drunk again. Will I take the brunt of his anger or leave it for the kids?" "Should I, an 18-year-old girl, move in with my 45-year-old boyfriend or stay in this makeshift tent another night?" "Should I eat supper tonight or give that stale food that's left in the cupboards to my littlest brother?"

These are some of the tough decisions faced by a sampling of our constituents at Abbotsford Community Services. We juxtapose these alongside the tough decisions that the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services will be making as you compile recommendations for the Finance Minister's budget consultation paper. We trust that your very difficult, very real macro decisions will be informed by the equally tough ground-level decisions that we deal with in our community.

This is Nadine Power, director of operations, and I'm Rod Santiago, executive director of Abbotsford Community Services, ACS. We speak as one amidst hundreds of community social service agencies throughout our province. Specifically, we present to you today on behalf of 37,000 clients that we serve every year, over 1,400 volunteers a year and about 350 staff that make up ACS.

We run over 80 programs all across our community that help people at every stage of life. From newborn babies to seniors, we help people of all ages. From women escaping violence to street-involved youth looking for that first permanent employment, we help people in every stage of life. From new Canadians to individuals with developmental disabilities, we help people to belong.

N. Power: At ACS we are people helping people. Like our counterparts throughout the province, we are the people who provide help when individuals and families are in need. We work with children and families in crisis, help people find jobs, counsel families dealing with addiction, work with moms and dads to be the best parents possible, and help seniors stay in their homes. We work with our neighbours to deal with life's tough problems. Wherever there is a need for help to learn English, to find out how to recycle, to master basic life skills, we're there building stronger families and stronger communities.
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ACS intervenes in people's lives before small problems become big ones. Yesterday an exasperated mother of four met with our legal advocate regarding some employment-related queries. But on her way out the door she mentioned in passing that her landlord gave strict instructions that her family was only permitted to shower once or twice a week and that he was raising the rent from $1,100 per month to $1,400 per month.

As a newcomer to Canada, she didn't know otherwise and was ready to comply with his demands. Our community legal advocate informed her of her rights and of her landlord's responsibilities. This ten-minute intervention averted the wrongful maltreatment of this family.

ACS convenes community partners to deliver wraparound services for those in need. Two weeks prior our city gave notice and proceeded to close down a homeless encampment site on the grounds of deteriorating health and safety standards. This highly publicized intervention resulted in people being moved 75 feet down the road. Homeless camp residents were displaced yet again. New neighbours were made upset. One man had returned to the recently vacated site by the end of the day.

Concurrently, ACS was also dealing with campers on our empty site. What we chose to do was to call together community partners — Salvation Army, 5 and 2 Ministries, MCC, Abbotsford police department and city bylaws — to work with our addictions counsellor and emergency shelter coordinator towards securing longer-term solutions for many of the men and women tenting on our site. Last week we together successfully secured an apartment for the last couple on the site, along with a job interview for the man.

In partnership with B.C. Housing, we are hoping that this very location will receive council approval for rezoning so that Abbotsford can benefit from its first-ever low-barrier supportive housing initiative for men.

R. Santiago: We thank the province of British Columbia for exercising leadership in supporting housing initiatives, protecting vulnerable women and children, providing job-finding opportunities, helping seniors stay in their homes and supporting our youth to graduate. Yet most of the infrastructure set in place to create our province's social safety net has been eroded year after year. Community social services are in the business of fostering community well-being and social justice through positive action and leadership. We're not in the business of deficit financing.

A case in point: over the past year Community Living B.C. has reneged on a written agreement to support the cost-of-living increases. They've retroactively dropped funding for administration from 10 percent to 9 percent, reduced the step-level wage rates for some employees and repeatedly asked our sector to redesign services as a cost-cutting measure, while simultaneously increasing CLBC staffing in the process.

It is progressively more difficult to sustain adequate services for individuals with developmental disabilities when we can't competitively hire and retain qualified staff and when the liability resulting from low staff-client ratios becomes unsustainable.

Our staff are paid at lower wages than their counterparts at Health and Education. The most recent round of collective bargaining further magnified this disparity. Our ability to recruit and retain a professional and impassioned workforce is being further limited. Who will there be to catch British Columbians when they fall, if the social safety net itself is on the brink of collapse?

Within another field, the provincial government returned a significant amount of unused employment funds to the federal government — when, at the ground level, every Work B.C. storefront — such as AbbotsfordWORKS, which we run — has been significantly limited in the amount of services that they can provide to job seekers. In light of the centrality of jobs and job creation to our provincial strategy, how will this oversight be thwarted during this current fiscal year?

We suggest that contracted agencies be allocated sufficient resources to secure gainful employment for British Columbians, permit us to spend less time immersed in administration, give us certainty of ongoing, reasonable funding and enable us to focus on helping individuals to secure jobs, while ensuring that employers are getting the most qualified candidates.

The economist Michael Porter identifies that successful businesses and corporations need a healthy society to be truly effective. At the same time, the social programs set in place to build a healthy society need companies to be successful. Porter speaks of striking a strategic balance, not based on tension between companies and social programs but rather on interdependence. We encourage the province to make a financial decision that fosters this interdependence.

N. Power: We urge the select standing committee to make the tough but right choice to increase funding to adequate levels for the community social services sector. Investing in the well-being of individuals and families now results in savings in hospitals, police, court systems, unemployment lines, detox and morgues down the road.

At the beginning of the presentation Rod identified tough decisions that some of our clients have to make. Here are some of our solutions to those tough decisions.

"My husband is drunk again. Will I take the brunt of his anger, or leave it for the kids?" Not only do we partner with police and the victim services and crime prevention division of the Ministry of Justice to provide safety and support to victims of violence; we also provide programs to help men address their issues of aggression and stop their abusive behaviour.

"Should I, an 18-year-old girl, move in with my
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45-year-old boyfriend or stay in this makeshift tent another night?" Our street outreach worker helps youth to understand their options and to make healthy, informed choices. She walks alongside each youth to provide encouragement and guidance.

"Should I eat supper tonight or give what stale food is left in the cupboards to my littlest brother?" For school children who are certain to go home to no food over the weekend, our food bank has partnered with schools, churches and other community donors to provide Blessings in a Backpack — a discreet bag filled with the basics for two breakfasts, two lunches and three dinners.

We urge you to commit additional funding to the social services sector. By doing so, you invest in individuals, in families and, ultimately, healthy communities.

G. Holman: I had a question about the statement regarding the return of federal funding. Could you describe that a little more — how many dollars were involved? That seems an odd thing to occur.

R. Santiago: I'm not certain as to the absolute certainty of the amount, but what we have heard is $70 million.

R. Santiago: There's been a shift in terms of the way that services are being provided: some limitations in terms of what we can and cannot provide; how many minutes we can spend with each client and which clients. As a result of that, not all of the funding that previously has been available was actually able to be spent across the province.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. Quite impressive — the scope of the programs. Also, I noted your number of volunteers. Quite a bit of participation, so congratulations for that.

My question is: do you deliver English language training, and are you impacted by the changing of the allocation from provincial funding to having to bid directly for the federal funding?

N. Power: Yes, we do offer English as a second language. I believe there are 22 classes that we offer, and we recently had to go back to bid on the federal funding.

M. Elmore: Do you have a specific…? I know you have a general recommendation in terms of increasing funding to the social services sector, but do you have any specific recommendations that you think would benefit?

N. Power: Certainly, the community living sector is in need of a lot of funding to catch up. But we could probably speak about any one of our 80 programs where we're trying to do more with less continually, year after year.

R. Santiago: There have been ongoing decreases with MCFD, so that would be another particular area where the wait-lists and the severity of the issues that we're dealing with continue to become more complicated. So that would be another area.

N. Power: Then probably the seniors area is another. We don't get a lot of funding. We have some funding from Fraser Health, for instance, to run a Meals on Wheels and a lunch program with seniors — average age 85 in our lunch program.

The same funding has been received for the past 15 years for a part-time coordinator. Most of our seniors services — we rely on volunteers to deliver them. Very difficult, though.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): A quick question. Do you receive funding from the city of Abbotsford or other local governments? If so, has that remained stable, has it been reduced, or have they been providing additional funds?

R. Santiago: Perhaps the largest amount of funding that we receive is a social enterprise that we run. We do all of the recycling for the city of Abbotsford and the district of Mission. Through that we are actually able, through the profits, to hire almost 50 individuals, many of whom have developmental disabilities. They can have full-time jobs, and they can have benefits, which is a huge difference. So that's one of the big contracts that we run with the city.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): A quick follow-up to that. Would you be impacted by the MMBC issue that's going on at the current time?

R. Santiago: We're following it incredibly closely to see what the impacts will be.

R. Santiago: We are applying for certain components
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of the proposal.

S. Hamilton: Thanks for the presentation. There have been a lot of issues that have been quite topical in the news with the city of Abbotsford and issues around homelessness. A few unfortunate circumstances occurred this past summer.

Specifically, the housing project that you're referring to — is that the one on Montview?

S. Hamilton: That's the one. Can I ask, as far as your zoning applications, where are you with the city and your relationship with the city in terms of moving that forward?

R. Santiago: We are speaking with the city and with the downtown business association, which has the greatest amount of displeasure with the process that's happening, to look at possible alternative sites. But also, the reality is that wherever we go, there's going to be somebody who says: "Great idea, wrong location." We need to get to the point — and B.C. Housing has been strong about this — of saying: "Let's do the right thing for our city as leaders, to make the right choice that way."

S. Hamilton: Thank you. Quickly, when do you anticipate that going forward? Hopefully, there are no land swaps, no new properties being considered, and you can move forward with that one.

R. Santiago: It was originally set for September. It was delayed until October or November. We don't know at this point.

L. Popham: My question is around the Blessings in a Backpack program. As far as I know, that program is run across North America. How, specifically, do you get your funding?

N. Power: Our food bank is run 100 percent on donations, so all programs that are run out of that are through donations, through partnerships with the community.

D. Ashton (Chair): Nadine, Rod, thank you very much for coming in. It's greatly appreciated. We appreciate the information you've forwarded. It'll form part of the package that's going forward to the government. Thanks for coming in. Travel safely on your way home.

D. Ashton (Chair): KidSport Tri-Cities and KidSport B.C. Welcome, Chris. Ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and five minutes for questions. Please start.

C. Wilson: Excellent. I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak and for working so hard to get such a broad range of views. Also, especially, I want to thank you for ensuring that the budget for sport last year was kept at the status quo.

I'd like to talk about community development and a healthy society through sport. I realize that in times like this, when there are huge demands on government for increases in all ministries, sport might seem a little frivolous, but I truly believe that sport is an essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to many of our larger issues.

I was very lucky as a child to have had the opportunity to play a variety of sports. They taught me about commitment, competition, teamwork, discipline. I learned how to set a goal and work with others to reach that goal. I met friends from outside my school through sport and had the benefit of regular physical activity.

As I got older, I started to specialize and focused more on the sport of wrestling. Through wrestling, I've had the opportunity to travel around the world, receive a university education and represent my community, our province and our country at the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games and the world championships.

Sport also gave me the opportunity to use my experience and the lessons I learned from it to make a difference in the community. For ten years I had the privilege of speaking to students in over 1,500 schools around the province about setting goals, having an active lifestyle and encouraging them to do whatever they could to be successful in the interests they had.

I also had the opportunity to start a program called the ESTEEM Team, which is a role model program made up of other athletes who do the same sort of thing. Most athletes want to be role models. They want to make a difference in their community. And I'm pleased to say that the ESTEEM Team is still going strong.

On the one hand, I've been extremely lucky to have had all these opportunities at the national and international levels. But on the other hand, I feel I've been just as lucky to be deeply involved in my community. It's this level of sport that I believe we forget about sometimes.

Community sport is all about community development. I've experienced this over and over, as I'm sure many of you have too. Because of the incredible volunteer involvement in community-level sport, it's also the area where government gets its greatest return on its investment.

Volunteers organize provincial sport organizations, leagues and local associations. More volunteers coach and manage teams. Parents get together and split the duties to run the team and get to know each other. New
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families to the area or the country are welcomed, and a sense of connectedness develops. People get engaged and start to car-pool and take turns bringing oranges or other treats for the players. Team get-togethers happen, and the communities become even closer.

This gets repeated thousands of times every weekend over the province, and a small investment of resources gets leveraged hundreds of times over. The result is a sense of belonging in the community. Families start to support each other. Their sense of community grows. All kinds of great things start to happen. Resources are shared. People do business together. Lifelong friendships are started.

Sport engages people with their community, and there are all kinds of studies that show that an engaged community is one of the essential requirements for a successful democracy and strong economic growth.

At the kids' level, they learn all the great things about sport. It teaches them. They feel a sense of belonging and get regular exercise. They learn and do their homework better. They often eat better, sleep better.

In terms of adult sport, the benefits are just as great for both physical activity and for the sense of community. I feel, at a time when activity levels are falling and health care costs are rising, this is more important than ever.

One of the challenges we have today, though, with community-level sport is increasing costs for kids to play and the difficulty many families have in covering those costs. This is where a program called KidSport comes in. KidSport raises money to subsidize the registration fees for low-income families so that all kids get a chance to play.

It's a true success story, as it was started in B.C. in 1993 and is now a national organization. I'm very proud to be involved with KidSport as one of their ambassadors and as the chair of the Tri-Cities chapter. I've seen firsthand not only how tough it is for families to afford to play but, more importantly, the incredible impact having an opportunity to play can have on a child.

I'm going to relate a story about one girl I've had the pleasure of coaching over the years through soccer and lacrosse. When I first met this girl she was about eight years old. She was very timid, shy, had no confidence and came from a single-parent home. Over the years she grew into the most amazing leader you could ever expect to see. She was the captain of our lacrosse team. She was a true leader in every sense of the word.

I know deep down in the bottom of my heart that this girl never would have had these opportunities had KidSport not been there to support her. Not only did it support her; it supported her family. As a result of that, her family became a lot more connected in the community, and the community was able to support this family at the same time.

When I got involved in the Coquitlam chapter in 2006 we were a small committee and were able to raise about $2,000 to give out 24 grants that year. We were extremely proud of this, but we realized there was a much larger demand in our community. This year we'll give out more than 650 grants, worth more than $130,000. This is just in the Tri-Cities area alone.

It's extremely sad and frustrating to me that there is this need in the community, but we're also extremely lucky to have a strong group of volunteers who care deeply about our community and want to make sure that kids get a chance to play. They're willing to work their butts off to make that happen.

We're also very lucky that we have a provincial government that believes in giving all kids the chance to play. Your annual contribution of $400,000 to KidSport B.C. is making a huge difference in communities. This investment leverages another $1.2 million in community donations throughout the province. In the Tri-Cities area it's closer to 15 to 1.

Sport is an essential part of the community, a driver for community and economic development and is a great source of wellness in our community. Investment in sport pays generous returns, especially in the long term. The sport community thanks you for your support and also recognizes that in today's fiscal environment, it's very challenging.

We're not here to ask for more funding. We understand that government revenues have softened dramatically, and there's a need to keep spending under control. What we're asking for is status quo funding within the next three-year budget plan. This kind of consistency makes the system work much more efficiently and is much more predictable.

Sport is an essential part of our community and culture. I know that its potential to make a difference in our community and our economy is even greater than what it shows right now. A recent nationwide study found that after family, Canadians rank sport as the most positive influence in the lives of young people.

Please help us continue to make our communities connected, engaged and healthy and to provide role models for our youth to look up to. Please maintain the funding levels at least where they currently are.

We had a presentation earlier from ViaSport, an organization that tries to kind of coordinate and acts as an umbrella group. Do you have a connection with them?
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Also, do you have a connection with First Nations communities around the programs, the funds, that you offer?

C. Wilson: KidSport B.C. is under the umbrella of ViaSport. There's KidSport Canada, and then each province has their own chapter, so KidSport B.C. Then we're a chapter of KidSport B.C., so there's that relationship.

In terms of First Nations involvement, we work with the local First Nations reserve in the Tri-Cities area. KidSport B.C. has also done a lot of work with First Nations communities around the province.

There's a bit of a very exciting success story. There were two girls from middle school in the Tri-Cities area that had a project for school. It was to collect sporting equipment for an Indian band on the Island that had no sporting equipment.

Through the work that they did — and we were able to support them — they were able to take a trailer full of sports equipment over to the Island. The First Nations band was just ecstatic, and it made a huge difference. We try to do as much as we can.

M. Hunt: Thank you for your presentation. I'm sort of slightly surprised by the angle that you've worked your presentation on. You haven't raised the issue of crime prevention and how sport and working with young people, in fact, help them to work as teams, although you eluded to esteem in here.

I know that within our community it's just been a tremendous tool for us to use in crime prevention as well. That is just another one of the many assets that comes from working with youth. So thank you for the great work that you do here in the Tri-Cities.

C. Wilson: Well, we have a saying: "You can join a team, or you can join a gang." There are a million things that I could have listed in terms of the positive aspects of community sport, in terms of the effect on individuals and communities. I appreciate your comment.

Speaking of travelling, we're about to travel, so at this point in time I'll adjourn the meeting.

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1) B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union	Darryl Walker
	Megan Scott
2) Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC	Cindy Oliver
	George Davison
3) ViaSport British Columbia	Cathy Priestner Allinger
4) Chevron Canada	David Schick
5) British Columbia Library Trustees Association	Lauren Wolf
6) Insurance Bureau of Canada	Serge Corbeil
7) Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver	Harriet Permut
	Jim Woolsey
8) SHARE Family and Community Services	Martin Wyant

11) Decoda Literacy Solutions	Brenda Le Clair
	Leona Gadsby
12) Abbotsford Community Services	Rod Santiago
	Nadine Power
13) KidSport Tri-Cities; KidSport BC	Chris Wilson

Chair:	* Dan Ashton (Penticton BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Mike Farnworth (Port Coquitlam NDP)
Members:	* Mable Elmore (Vancouver-Kensington NDP)
	* Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	* Scott Hamilton (Delta North BC Liberal)
	* Gary Holman (Saanich North and the Islands NDP)
	* Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Panorama BC Liberal)
	* Lana Popham (Saanich South NDP)
	* Jackie Tegart (Fraser-Nicola BC Liberal)
	John Yap (Richmond-Steveston BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Other MLAs:	Douglas Horne (Coquitlam–Burke Mountain BC Liberal)
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Stephanie Raymond (Administrative Assistant)

Witnesses:	Misty Busch (Infertility Awareness Association of Canada)
	Serge Corbeil (Insurance Bureau of Canada)
	George Davison (Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of B.C.)
	Leona Gadsby (Decoda Literacy Solutions)
	Brenda Le Clair (CEO, Decoda Literacy Solutions)
	Dennis Marsden (Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce)
	Cindy Oliver (President, Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of B.C.)
	Harriet Permut (Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver)
	Nadine Power (Abbotsford Community Services)
	Cathy Priestner Allinger (CEO, ViaSport British Columbia)
	Rod Santiago (Executive Director, Abbotsford Community Services)
	David Schick (Chevron Canada Ltd.)
	Megan Scott (B.C. Government and Service Employees Union)
	Darryl Walker (President, B.C. Government and Service Employees Union)
	Chris Wilson (KidSport Tri-Cities; KidSport British Columbia)
	Lauren Wolf (Executive Director, B.C. Library Trustees Association)
	Jim Woolsey (Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver)
	Martin Wyant (CEO, SHARE Family and Community Services)

9) Infertility Awareness Association of Canada	Misty Busch
10) Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce	Dennis Marsden

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