Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 7 — Wednesday, September 25, 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:

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	201
L. Douglass
A. McLellan
D. Haywood-Farmer
K. Boon
S. Stade
D. Tousignant
D. McBride
D. Ciriani
J. Johnston
P. Dagg
A. Shaver
F. Clare
B. Arner
S. Lewis
J. Brown
R. McColl
C. Boomer
N. Plett
K. Humphreys
R. Chambers
G. Campbell

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 everybody 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 a fiscal and economic forecast and key issues that need to be addressed in the next budget. Once the consultation paper has been released, this committee is required to hold provincewide public 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 must be 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 be present or attend the hearings. We have also scheduled video conference sessions for five additional communities. British Columbians can also participate in the consultations 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 the public input we receive will be carefully considered.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for up to ten minutes. Up to five additional minutes are allotted for questions from committee members. Time permitting, we may also have an open mike at the end of the hearing. Five minutes are allotted for each presentation. If you would like to register for the open mike, please check with the 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 will be 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 under 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. Gary, I'll start with yourself.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you. My name is Dan Ashton. I'm chairing the committee. We do have a couple of members that will be coming in very quickly. We didn't arrive until very late last night, so we'll give them a chance to get here.

Also joining us today from the parliamentary committees office are some incredibly hard-working individuals who are very, very dedicated — our Clerk, Susan Sourial, and Stephanie Raymond, who is staffing the registration desk at the back. Michael Baer and Jean Medland are also here on behalf of Hansard Services. Those are the nice individuals over on the side there that you see running around hooking up all the wires and let us broadcast live.

First of all, we have the Thompson Rivers University Students Union. We have Leif and Alex. Is that correct? Come on forward. As we said, ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, guys — okay? — and then five minutes for questions.

L. Douglass: Good morning. My name is Leif Douglass. I'm the vice-president external of the TRU Students Union, and this is Alex McLellan, our research coordinator. The Thompson Rivers University Students Union is the membership organization of about 10,000 students who study at Thompson Rivers University here in Kamloops.

First of all, we'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present on behalf of our members. You all have our written submission in front of you. What we'd like to do today is just go over some key points from that submission and identify two key goals.

Our first goal is looking at post-secondary education as a budget priority. It's increasingly being recognized
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that post-secondary education is vital to the future prosperity of our province, and this can be shown in a number of different ways economically, fiscally as well as socially.

In terms of the economy, it's really important for jobs. Businesses are going to need more and more highly skilled people moving forward. For example, 78 percent of job openings in 2020 are going to require some post-secondary education.

Fiscally, investments made in the post-secondary education system contribute to the bottom line of the province. For example, university graduates make up only 22 percent of our population yet pay 41 percent of income tax and receive only 14 percent of government transfers.

Socially, there's a whole list of benefits, including social mobility, community involvement, democratic engagement and some of the less tangible benefits that are provided from having a highly educated population.

We're actually fairly confident that post-secondary education is being recognized already as a budget priority. For example, in the consultation paper for this committee there's a discussion about the importance of job creation, a skilled workforce and the knowledge economy — all in reference to post-secondary education. For that reason, we're not going to spend very much of your time today talking about post-secondary education as a budget priority. We believe that importance is already generally recognized.

We're going to focus today on our second goal, which is targeting post-secondary education outcomes and recommending the most efficient and effective ways to achieve these outcomes.

Before I go into that, I think we have to recognize that the full social, economic and fiscal benefits of post-secondary education are not automatic. We can't assume that any or all spending on initiatives in post-secondary education will produce the intended benefits. We have to be very deliberate about the way we go about allocating resources in order to lead to particular outcomes.

We've identified four different outcomes that we're looking at, and we'll go through those now, the first being participation rates that meet labour market demands and are equitable across different income levels.

Second, completion rates that are timely, have a rate approaching 90 percent and are not financially determined but rather are determined by merit.

Third, successful transition from study into the workforce with a goal of 100 percent employment, no debt bias on career decisions, and social and economic participation that is not limited by student debt burden.

And fourth, excellence. We need to look at how we compare to other provinces in the resources that we make available to the post-secondary education system.

We'll be providing a series of recommendations today targeted to these outcomes and as they relate to fees, financial aid and funding.

A. McLellan: Our first recommendation is in relation to tuition and ancillary fees. Just as a background, tuition fees at Thompson Rivers University have increased 211 percent since 2003, so over the last ten years, and that has represented a rate of increase that's ten times the rate of inflation.

While students are certainly glad that there's a 2 percent cap on tuition fee increases in place now, that cap is best understood as compounding dramatic increases in the recent past, and it limits further unaffordability as opposed to maintaining any affordability that might have been in place a number of years ago.

This general unaffordability of tuition fees is a challenge for all British Columbians and their families as they look to post-secondary education, but it's also particularly troubling for those who are from lower-income brackets.

For example, between 1980 and 2004 tuition fees in British Columbia increased by 240 percent when you look at it as a proportion of the lowest-quintile incomes. So that has created affordability gaps across incomes as well. Before we get into the impacts that this has on the outcomes that we've identified, that this problem is growing is reflected in the public opinion on the issue.

We've actually just completed our annual public opinion polling of Kamloopsians in both the electoral districts here and found that 91 percent of those polled supported increased tax spending to either freeze or reduce tuition fees at Thompson Rivers University.

Why that's so important to people in Kamloops is evident in the effect that high tuition fees are having. Broad unaffordability and affordability gaps undermine both of our participation outcome goals, in terms of having sufficient participation and equitable participation. For those who do participate, tuition fees at these levels have negative downstream impacts on their ability to complete.

There's sufficient evidence that participation is undermined by high tuition fees from the youth in transition survey by Statistics Canada, which has identified financial barriers as the primary reason that students don't go on to post-secondary.

We also have statistical information about declining participation rate of 18- to 24-year-olds in B.C. over the last 20 years. In fact, that has a statistically significant negative correlation between tuition fee rates and participation rates.

We also have a number of natural policy experiments that we can refer to where changes in tuition fee policies have had an impact on participation rates — everything from the elimination of tuition fees for adult basic education here in B.C., which increased participation, to reductions in fees in Manitoba and in Newfoundland and Labrador. So we know that reducing tuition fees can have positive impacts on participation.

We also know that it impacts equitable participation because, as you know, tuition fees are essentially a flat
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tax. As any flat tax increases, it disproportionately affects those with lower incomes. This plays out in participation. For example, participation in colleges, where tuition fees tend to be lower, is equitable across incomes. Participation in universities, where fees tend to be higher, is less equitable across incomes.

It also has an impact on completion rates in the fact that there is a growing reliance of students on employment during studies, which is affecting their ability to concentrate on their studies and be successful. As much as 50 percent of full-time students were also working while taking classes in British Columbia by 2007-2008. That's a growing problem for us.

In recognition of all these effects on the outcomes and the effectiveness and efficiency of the system, we're recommending a legislated reduction in tuition fees as the most important upstream lever that government has in policy related to achieving post-secondary outcomes.

In terms of student financial aid, just in the way of background, financial aid in British Columbia is overwhelmingly provided in the form of student loans. It's 72 percent of the average recipient that gets their aid in the form of student loans. In other words, we're heavily reliant on access to debt, which defers costs at an interest premium as a way of providing access to post-secondary.

B.C. is also the only province in Canada without a system of provincial upfront student grants and, as a result, provides 70 percent less non-repayable upfront aid than the national average. It's not surprising that student loan borrowing in B.C. has been growing faster than any other province in Canada.

The impact this has on outcomes? It's actually one of the most challenging problems that we have because it limits participation due to debt aversion, it limits completion due to financial-based attrition, and it distorts and limits the transition from studies. We've provided a number of evidence of those effects in our full report that you can refer to as well.

We'd like to point out specifically the transition from studies. The average B.C. student loan repayment is $300 a month every month for ten years in British Columbia. That significantly limits consumer and entrepreneurial participation of graduates in our province. This also has a significant distortion effect on career choices, particularly for professions, which is a challenge for us with our new law school. For example, there are numerous studies showing that this discourages people from entering lower-compensating but highly socially valuable service, such as legal aid or family practice.

We're recommending a series of recommendations that are all targeted at reducing the average student loan borrowing to $3,000 per year from its current level of $7,400 per year.

L. Douglass: Our third and final one is around per-student funding, and I'll go through it quite quickly here.

To give you some background, between 1993 and 2008 per-student funding in B.C. has dropped by 17 percent, which brings B.C. from being the highest per-student-funded province in Canada to No. 7. Specifically, since TRU became a university in 2004, per-student funding dropped from almost $11,000 to about $8,000 last year, its lowest point ever and 35 percent below the Canadian average.

The effect on outcomes. Excellence is impossible without funding as a core revenue source. A high-fee, low-funding model has not worked to maintain excellence. TRU has nearly tripled its fees over a decade, but declining funding has led to a 1.2 percent decline in overall revenue per student.

Our recommendations are fairly simple. First, increase B.C. per-student funding to be within the top three in Canada. Second, increase TRU per-student funding to be within the Research Universities Council of B.C. average.

Thank you for listening to our recommendations and thanks again for your time. We'd be happy to answer any questions.

M. Hunt: Just a question to start on your last comment. Is Thompson Rivers University a research university, or is it a special purpose university?

A. McLellan: As you likely know, TRU in October of 2011 joined the Research Universities Council of British Columbia, which does not reflect necessarily the government's position on its status but is a lobby group. Certainly, the university has been taking a lot of efforts to expand its research capabilities and also its graduate studies programs.

That's where the biggest challenge comes in, in terms of funding, because TRU does not receive the same level of support for graduate studies. That's the biggest disparity for our per-student funding, and our graduate programs are significantly limited as a result of that.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. Just a couple of comments and then a quick question. This is one of the best-researched papers that this committee has received. Also, be assured that students across the province…. We've visited a number of communities. We're getting the message loud and clear around very similar recommendations.

I just had a quick question about the wage subsidy–based student summer employment program on page
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23 and your calculation of costs there. I'm just wondering what kind of…. You've got a range. What are the assumptions that result in that range? Like, what kind of participation rate by students are you assuming there?

A. McLellan: I'm going to answer in a little bit more detail about that. There is actually a proposal that we developed and have presented a number of times in the past, and we can certainly pass on our proposal to the committee for consideration as well.

Basically, where this came from was the recognition that unemployment for 18- to 24-year-olds is significantly higher than the general population. That's causing a lot of problems in terms of their post-secondary outcomes — affording post-secondary but also being able to transition, not having employment experience, to being successful graduates in the labour market.

We proposed a wage subsidy program that would be unique because it would be run and administered through career education departments at universities and colleges, so it would effectively integrate the learning outcomes of their programs and experience in the field.

The assumption that we made was a wage subsidy that would range between 50 percent for the for-profit employers that had a student employed through the program and 67 percent for non-profit or public employers. So there's a range there, depending on what the uptake would be in those two sectors. There's also a range of subsidy for what the wage would be, between minimum wage and $15 an hour. That's why there is some range, and it would basically depend on the take-up of the program if it was implemented.

G. Holman: Thanks. Just quickly, are the numbers B.C.-wide numbers or just for…?

A. McLellan: They would be B.C.-wide for 2,000 positions to be created through a program.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. Does Thompson Rivers University offer adult basic education courses?

M. Elmore: On your participation, the participation rate should be approximately equal across incomes. I'm also interested in that in terms of more detailed information. Have you conducted any studies on that?

A. McLellan: Yes. The data that we are able to pull is largely from the Almanac of Post-Secondary Education, which is put out by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. The source of their data — I'm not sure. I believe it's probably from Statistics Canada, but I could look into that and see if I can find it.

D. Ashton (Chair): Leif, Alex, thank you very much for coming — greatly appreciated. Thank you for your input and for the report. Have a good day.

Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you for coming this morning. Presentations are ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes for questions. Your convenience, to start.

D. Haywood-Farmer: I'm Dave Haywood-Farmer. I'm firstly a cattleman. I run a cattle operation about 40 kilometres west of Kamloops. Secondly, I'm the president of the B.C. Cattlemen's and have been for about a year and a half.

I'd just like to start…. On behalf of the British Columbia Cattlemen, I'd like to thank the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for the opportunity to present our needs for the British Columbia cattle industry. The cattle industry of B.C. plays a very important role to the economy, tourism and the environment.

I always like to throw tourism in there, because I think people take for granted what the cattle ranch is and what we do to the valley bottoms and retain those large sections of land where a lot of people always come to, to say B.C. is a big, wonderful place. Those places are big because ranching communities that have been in those areas for hundreds of years have maintained and held those lands together. That's what tourism comes to see — big B.C.

We also produce, and have produced for about 100 years on family operations, beef for an ever-growing society, and we will continue to do that.

In recent years the B.C. Cattlemen's has understood the pressures of our governments and the lack of dollars that they've had to work with. We've tried to work with policy, and we've focused on red-tape reduction and policies that would help us, the industry, and also not cost government a lot of money to get that job done.

While we've taken this approach, some of the changes we've suggested, we feel, maybe have been left not done. It would be great if we could follow those up. We understand that the government's mandate is to reduce spending, but without investing, progress cannot be achieved. B.C. Cattlemen's urges government to continue the red-tape reduction effort as well as refocusing the funds they have that are available into areas that would provide the most growth.

At this time, I'd like to list a few of those efforts we would like to see done to help our industry.
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The first is the mountain pine beetle mitigation. There's a strategy — the land-based investment strategy fund. The goal: the government would adopt a policy to allow tenure holders to remove dead timber within a one-tree length of range development, especially fences. It protects the capital investment previously made. It prevents further damage from falling mountain pine beetle hazard trees.

On that point, every time a tree comes down over one of our fences — we can't tell when the next windstorm comes — our cattle get through those fences. It creates a big job for the cattle industry, the ranchers, and it also doesn't allow us to manage the ranges the way we would like to manage them. Also, it protects the ranchers' safety while working in the woods.

This is not a new fund. This is just a reallocation of the fund that's already there. We're tenure holders on the land base and have been for years, and we would like to see a piece of the pie coming our way. The number we're suggesting is the investment in our sector of around $5 million over three to four years so we have just over $1 million of that pie coming consistently to work on some of the issues that we have to maintain our tenures.

Over the last few years we've had more pressure on our dam inspection fund. We all have…. Like, on our cattle ranch we have four reservoirs that we maintain to look after our croplands. It's a big pressure to keep those dams up to the standards that the provincial government wants them to be. We're wondering if there's any opportunity for some of the costs for professional engineering and that kind of thing to inspect these water storage dams to protect and ensure safety and proper functioning of the dams.

The benefits. We'll catch up on the backlog of safety reports and inspections that we're responsible for, ensure proper operation of licensed dams, prevent failures and any associated damage or loss of life, retain water storage infrastructures and protect communities and water supplies.

Also, it mitigates flooding in the lower lands. I always think of the Fraser River delta, and I think about what happened to Calgary in the last spring. The more dams we can have to control the freshet flow in the spring, the more control we have on the flows in those big rivers. It's very important that that's kept.

These dams create a lot of recreational activities, from fishing and hunting and those kinds of things, and are just aesthetically pleasing places to go. They generate a lot of dollars for the government, and it's a good thing to keep them going.

The emergency mitigation fund. The goal is to establish a fund that will address the immediate needs of tenured range holders during a catastrophic event such as a wildfire, floods, mudslides, etc.

The benefits. It provides immediate assistance to tenure holders whose business operations have been disrupted by a catastrophic event, assists with the cleanup efforts and supports B.C. small businesses that are experiencing unexpected losses.

We'd like to see an investment in a fund of around $200,000 a year. This is for issues like forest fires, where we lose fences or we have to move cattle or whatever we have to do — the kinds of events that are maybe smaller than the major-league ones where the federal government would come into play.

Range security tenures. We would like to see our grazing licences move from a ten-year licence to a 20-year licence. We'd like to see our grazing-lease program, which we have with government, extended from a 20- to a 29-year lease.

What it does is really harmonizes the length of our tenures with some of the other forest industries. Examples of that: forest licences are up to 25 years; TFLs are up to 25 years; community forest agreements are 25 to 99; the First Nations woodlot, 25 to 99; and woodlots are up to 25. Reduction in government tenure administration costs by doing that and added security for long-term range tenure holders, and it encourages investment for range tenure holders.

The cost of this would be nothing. It would be a legislative change, and it would give our members a lot more security and keep that food going to society.

K. Boon: I'll take over and quickly go through the last few items. I'm Kevin Boon. I'm general manager of B.C. Cattlemen's.

The one thing that we would like to see…. As we've come into the return to PST, we found that with a lot of our ranchers, there's a lot of confusion over how to keep the farm materials that we buy for ranches exempt and get that back. There are a lot of retailers that don't know what the list is, or it's very unclear. So we'd like that brought back in and simplified so that the process for getting the rebates and the exemptions is clear and transparent so that it will assist us greatly in that forum. Zero dollar investment. It's just an administration change that would really enhance our operations.

Under research and marketing, the Ranching Task Force has had four or five years of a fund that was put together by the provincial government with agriflex funding. That runs out as of March. It had been an extremely successful model for us, producing some very good projects — 30 in total.

We would like to see that fund carry on. It's a very good model. We would like to see where…. Basically, we're asking that some of the Growing Forward funds be allocated towards this. We're suggesting about $500,000 a year to keep research and marketing programs going forward.

The farmland interface stewardship program, FRISP, is a program we've been running for about eight years
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— extremely valuable for the environment. We work to mitigate the problems on streams, creek beds to help enhance the habitat for fish, etc.

This one is in jeopardy. We're going to lose it very quickly. We've had it on life support for about a year and a half. Our guy that runs it is probably heading to Alberta within the next two months. That expertise, we're going to lose. We would really like to see a top-up on this or an investment in it of about $100,000 a year. It is invaluable. You can check with any of your ministries. They will tell you how valuable it is to them.

Finally, just a really quick one on environmental implementation. With the changing acts of the Water Act modernization and the new ag waste laws, we know there are going to be upgrades needed and work done. We suggest that a little more funding go into the best management practices under the environmental farm plan in order to allow us to be able to adjust to these changes coming up.

Thank you for the opportunity to present these to you. We think we've presented some opportunities that aren't going to cost government a lot more money. It's more readjusting where it goes.

L. Popham: Nice to see you here today. I had a question about the dam inspection fund. Do you have any idea how many dams there are in B.C. that this would apply to?

K. Boon: Currently these would be for dams that are in the high- and extremely high-risk areas. There are currently a little over 300 dams in British Columbia that require inspection on a ten-year basis. We're getting them back into shape.

There are currently, I believe, about 60 that are out of date, that haven't been brought up. With most of these, the reason they haven't is that there are multiple licence holders. It's bringing them all together to share the costs. Sometimes some don't want to participate, and it makes an awful lot of hassle. If we had one engineer, or engineers, assigned to it and then that shared cost, it would be much simpler and a much more efficient model for ensuring their safety.

L. Popham: From my experience talking to some people in the Cariboo, there are, as you said, a number of landowners that share a common dam. Is it true that the cost of the inspection is in the tens of thousands of dollars?

K. Boon: Yeah. An average one will cost between $7,000 and $10,000 for just the inspection and to get the engineers in place. Many of our ranchers…. Some of these dams, they aren't currently using. They're holding them so that, down the road…. To them, that investment just isn't there, so they're in jeopardy of losing those.

Can't stress the importance, on those, either, of their value to the fisheries and controlling that flow during spawning seasons and whatnot.

This goes to the FRISP program as well. We've utilized Lee in several spots to mitigate with the ranchers and with the licence holders to make sure it's a formal and a smooth process to getting them done.

D. Ashton (Chair): We only have two minutes left. Go ahead if it's quick, but I have two other people.

K. Boon: Somewhat, in the fact that we do utilize FRISP for protection of riparian areas and the fencing there.

The big thing with the fencing, though, is more danger. We have areas right now where we have to do the fencing and the maintenance. That's all accepted for our tenure lease contracts, but WorkSafe is keeping us out of those areas because it's unsafe for our guys to go in.

That one tree length would do several things. Not only the safety, but it also creates a very good fireguard. It also creates more grazing lands for us. It's not going to take out a lot of lumber. It's not going to take out a lot of area, and it will all be utilized. As mountain pine beetle winds down and we're seeing less value and no value in what's there, it's just going to be left behind. It's just creating a real hazard for us out there.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Just a couple of quick questions. The PST — you're not asking for additional exemptions; you're just asking for greater clarity on existing exemptions.

K. Boon: Yes. The most part is getting that list, and if that list can be coordinated with GST, it also simplifies it. Most of it is, but a lot of the retailers and the people we deal with don't have that list, so they don't give the exemption. It's very hit-and-miss, depending where you buy.

D. Haywood-Farmer: The grazing licence is ten years, and we'd like it extended to 20. The grazing leases are 20. We'd like them extended to 29.
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D. Ashton (Chair): Gentlemen, thank you very much. Kevin, David, thank you again for being here for the presentation.

Folks, welcome. 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 the questions. Sherry, Devon and Deandra, welcome again.

S. Stade: Good morning, everyone. We are back again to advocate for after-school programming. Our purpose here is to secure regular funding for youth and their families who would otherwise not have access to sports and arts programs in the after-school hours.

For the past two years, including this year, we've received funds from the 2010 sport legacy fund. In year 1, 2011 and 2012, we had seven ten-week programs running, starting in February. In year 2, 2012-2013, we had 26 eight-week programs running. In year 3, which is coming up, we are planning on running 35 eight-week programs. So you can see that in a very short period of time, starting in 2011 to this year, we've built a strong community for after-school programming.

In our area we have programming running in Clearwater, which is an hour and a half away from here; Barriere, an hour; and Chase, 40 minutes away. We have five schools on the North Shore — at-risk youth programs in their schools.

The age group that we're working with here is grade 4 to grade 7. Canadian research shows that grade 4 is the time when confidence is lacking in sports for some youth, so we felt that was a good starting point. Our most vulnerable age group we deal with, at the boys and girls club, is the 12- to 16-year-olds.

What sets this program aside from others — and I don't want to downplay other programs — is definitely the guidelines and standards for implementing after-school programming. To generate quality programming, the leaders are trained in fundamental movement skills — RunJumpThrow. They have strategies for behaviour education, social-emotional learning.

We're really proud of the program that we've put together in Kamloops. It has definitely been a collaborative process. We have a very strong partnership with PacificSport Interior B.C. They've provided all the training for our leaders.

In terms of developing physical literacy, we've offered tennis, curling, golf, rugby, basketball, volleyball, badminton, dance, drama, wrestling, soccer, rock climbing, horseback riding. We're very excited, moving into the arts this year with guitar, drama, hip hop, jazz.

Not only do we have paid instructors that are highly trained, we've also had the community come forward with volunteers and assistants. Because of this grant, after-school programming is pretty exciting in Kamloops, and many people want to be on board.

Partnerships and collaborations. As we move from year to year, many people have come on board with instructors, product. For example, in Chase one of our group leaders is very good at barrel racing. She approached a person on a ranch that could bring horses into town. He was going to charge us a fee of $250 a time. When he came the first time, he said: "I'm going to offer this for free."

As we've moved through the program, our community in Kamloops has really come together. I'm really proud of that, because we are building a community. We're trying to foster resilience in these students, but you also have to have a resilient community.

I have two very important people that I've brought with me here today. They both facilitate students at the boys and girls club. They have both been transformational in doubling the enrolment at the boys and girls club because of the quality programming they've offered.

D. Tousignant: Good morning. My name is Deandra Tousignant, and I'm from the boys and girls club. Last year I filled the role of youth program supervisor.

Last year our fundamental movements program was a huge success. This program and the funding that we received…. We were able to not only increase the staffing at our program, but we were able to train our staff in quality training that improved our programming by huge amounts.

Through this, we saw a huge increase in enrolment throughout the year, in addition to an increase in social skills of the youth and physical competency. This was massive for us as a club, because we have been trying to reach these kids for a long time and increase our enrolment with our youth programming.

When we brought in trained staff, and enough staff so that we could provide both emotional support and quality programming, we saw our youth flourish. We saw their skills increase. We saw confidence increase.

We had both a physical program as well as the drama education program. By pairing these two together, we were able to reach all the youth. The kids that were good at sports were flourishing in that area, and the kids that needed to develop some social skills were able to flourish in drama.

We have kids at the boys and girls club that face various barriers, including mental illness, poverty, developmental disabilities. By providing them with a safe, comfortable space to develop their skills socially and physically, we are able to build their confidence in a way that they can't do in the school setting.
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A lot of these youth, as Sherry already mentioned, do not get the opportunity to do after-school programming or arts programming, so this has become very, very popular at the club. Even this year the numbers are increasing, and they're waiting for Devon to come and hang out with them.

I just want to really touch on the training that we've received. Having the quality training in RunJumpThrow fundamental movements and behavioural modifications and teaching with behavioural challenges, we've been able to reach a lot of our kids that have autism, that are dealing with cognitive disabilities, because we've been able to break down the fundamental sports skills for them. And that's huge — and also, of course, the arts and drama and giving them that space.

I just want to thank you for the funding that we've received. We're very, very grateful.

D. McBride: Good morning. My name is Devon McBride. I'm a teacher with school district 73, and I came on board last year to work with the boys and girls clubs doing drama. At first, I had this large eight-week plan of building characters, physicalization, vocalization. I got there, and I took my binder, put it back in my bag and knew that that plan had to be thrown out the window.

This was the toughest group of kids I've had to deal with before. That being said, when the rewards do happen…. There are not a lot, but when they do happen, probably I cherish them the most. I've taught for five years, and I've taught a lot of subjects. This is the hardest group, but it's also the most rewarding to see the benefits come through them.

They've put up a lot of barriers with their names. When you first meet them, they have that bubble that they don't know me, they don't trust me, so a lot of them were named Batman and Billy Bob and Billy Joe to start. So you have to get to know them. I got to know them last year. I do two 45-minute sessions, and then we do about a 20-minute break for a snack in between, and that's when you really get to know them.

All it took for me was asking this one boy, about six weeks in, about his skateboard, and he finally started talking to me, about his skateboard. But before then it was: "Nuh-uh, nuh-uh. I don't know you. I will maybe participate." He had a very strong trust issue with other people coming into his life, you know.

Now, I needed to make that a safe place to explore and create, so I made them take a vow, and I'll probably do it again: "When you're in this room with me, this is a safe place to explore and create and create characters. There is no judgment. I don't think any of you actually think Johnny Depp is an actual pirate. He is just an actor." I'll probably do that again this year.

Another way to help them is I'll introduce a lot of games that some of them maybe haven't seen before, and I'll showcase or perform for them first. I do a lot of performing on the side. I've done commercials here in Kamloops. I do improv shows, probably about five or six times a year with a company here. So I'm happy to get up there and show them sort of the ropes and how it's supposed to be played.

What really encouraged me, as not only a teacher, an actor and an educator, was watching these students' walls break down and having them participate only moments after refusing. A lot of the times they'd come into the boys and girls club, something might have happened at school or at home that day, and they'd be very upset or grumpy. You know, they'd sit on the couch, and they'd refuse, refuse. Then they'd watch some of their peers do it, and they'd see the opportunities they could have or the characters they could build, and only moments after refusing they'd put up their hand to participate. That was a big, big thing for me.

There are not a lot of males at the boys and girls club. So I think of myself as a male role model and a leader in some of their lives, hopefully more this year.

Some of the stuff we did in drama was improv, which is very spontaneous, very quick. You have to be quick, thinking on your feet. An example of a game I did play with the kids was called the King Game, where I would sit here, and I'm the king. You are all my servants, and you have to bring me things or offer me things or tell me a story.

If I like it, I will let you continue; if I don't, I clap, and you have to go back to your seat. You're welcome to try again, but if I did not like it…. It's almost like you're dying, but I don't call it that. One boy immediately got….

D. Ashton (Chair): Devon, sorry. I do apologize. We have a lot of delegations here today, and we have to keep it on time. I'm quite sure there will be some questions from it, so I'll just give you a second to wrap up.

D. McBride: We did readers theatre, which really gives the kids a chance to read and then act it out. We do lots of skits. All of this just goes towards eventually getting employed: teamwork, collaboration, thinking on your feet quickly. And the biggest thing for me — even for me, when I was a kid — is the self-confidence that this brings. This year I'd like to get into movies, because they have a big tech room there.

I'd just like to thank you for this opportunity, and a big thespian high five to Sherry Stade and Katy Bigsby for giving me this opportunity to share my passion with students.

D. Ashton (Chair): Boy, I can sure see the passion here, so thank you.
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I'm not clear where the current funding comes from. Is it through the sport legacy fund or through the Ministry of Education?

S. Stade: It's through the 2010 sports legacy fund. When we first got the funding, it was just for sports. Last year, for example, with the $65,000 that we got, $10,000 of it was designated to the arts. We chose drama as a confidence-building way of bringing the arts into the district. So it is the 2010 legacy funds.

G. Holman: All school districts may not take it up, but it's available provincewide?

S. Stade: Well, it's not available to everybody. You have to have a situation where you have at-risk youth that could take this program. Each area is unique in how they administer the program, but the guidelines, in my opinion, are what make it a quality program.

M. Elmore: Just a follow-up on that. What was your funding that you received last year? So your recommendation is to continue the funding, and it's the overall funding for the whole sports 2010….

S. Stade: Yes. It's a three-year pilot project. For us, it started in 2011. In other districts it may have gone earlier. So this is our last year, and I can't even imagine what it could be like without this funding.

In the schools that we've offered this on the North Shore, we have parents come that watch. Because I was new to this role last year, I was very hands-on. I wanted to have a clear understanding of what was going on everywhere, so I participated in it, and I instructed in it.

People are very grateful, and we are very thankful in Kamloops that this has been offered for three years. We would really like to advocate to continue this funding, because it is making a difference in our city. People are excited to be involved with it. Although we have paid positions, more partners are developing, and there's an excitement that we are doing something good. We're building self-confidence and acceptance in children.

S. Stade: I have received — it's right at the front here — $65,000 last year, and they've upped it to $12,000 for the arts, so we're $67,000 coming in.

S. Stade: Yes. This is our last year, and we're making it work here. We are very appreciative of your financial support towards this.

D. Ashton (Chair): Deandra, Devon, Sherry — thank you very much. Great presentation.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Next we've got the British Columbia Dental Association.

Welcome. As you've been sitting here, you know we have ten minutes for presentation and then five minutes for questions. Eight minutes in, I'll give you a two-minute warning sign. The floor is yours.

D. Ciriani: Thank you for giving the B.C. Dental Association a chance to address the committee today. I'd like to start by introducing our executive director, Jocelyn Johnston. I am Dr. David Ciriani, the president of the BCDA and a local dentist practising here in Kamloops.

As we do annually, I am here to report on dentistry's concerns on oral health and for the opportunities that we see to collaborate with the government.

The BCDA is the recognized voice of dentistry in British Columbia, representing over 3,200 general dentists and dental specialists. Dentistry contributes $2 billion a year to the B.C. economy and directly employs over 15,000 dental professionals.

I'd like to start out by thanking the government for its activities in the past year that we have collaborated with. First off, the Ministry of Health's grant for $700,000 for the complex prosthodontic program. These funds will reduce the wait-lists for patients coping with both hereditary and cancer-related facial disfigurement. Second, I'd also like to thank the government for extending admitting and discharge privileges to oral and maxillofacial surgeons. Finally, our thanks for the updated Limitation Act, especially the reduction of the ultimate limitation period from 30 to 15 years.

Now I'd like to turn our attention to the oral health concerns we have for the province, including seniors and children. The BCDA recognizes that good oral health is critical to a child's overall health, well-being and development. Despite advances in prevention, early childhood decay, a severe form of tooth decay, remains the most common childhood illness, and left untreated, children may end up requiring emergency medical attention as well as hospitalization.

In B.C. the severity of the situation continues to increase. B.C. Children's Hospital reports that emergency room cases for dental pediatric care have increased by 400 percent in the past seven years. In Canada dental
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care remains the most common day surgery procedure preschool children receive under general anaesthetic.

In October — this coming month, pretty quick — the Canadian Institute for Health Information will be releasing a report which we believe will show B.C.'s hospitalization rates for dental surgery to be among the highest in Canada.

We believe there are some solutions where we can work together on this. First off, a joint B.C. government–BCDA media campaign on preventing early childhood decay, similar to our joint project in 2009. Using the existing material from 2009, a television campaign would cost approximately $400,000.

A second area. The government could give further support to the community partners program by ensuring that it's properly funded to improve access to private general anaesthetic facilities across the province. Since its inception in 2003, funding has remained stagnant at $1 million. Originally, there were eight clinics in five cities across B.C. Now there are only four clinics, and they are all located in the Lower Mainland.

Also, the government could consider increasing fees for in-office IV sedation under the Healthy Kids program. The current fee is $50 an hour, which is too low to encourage dentists to offer this option when it is safe. The suggested fee is $148 for a 15-minute unit, which reflects the cost of the additional training, staff and armamentarium required to deliver the care safely. This funding would help reduce hospital pediatric wait-lists as well as reduce health care costs in general.

Along the same lines, the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation's dental fees have not increased since 2007, although inflation has increased 10 percent and dental fees have increased by 16 percent overall.

The ministry's fees are generally 58 percent of the BCDA suggested fee guide and are the second-lowest in Canada. At this level, the ministry's fees fail to cover the overhead costs of providing care. This forces dentists to either balance-bill clients or to limit the number of ministry clients they have in the practice. Both of these create an access-to-care issue. That being said, there are dentists who go to great lengths to treat these people, especially children and persons with disabilities. In fact, it is our understanding that 80 percent of dentists participate in the ministry's program despite the funding.

There are 17 not-for-profit volunteer clinics throughout the province which dentists have set up. These continue to provide care for all ministry clients as well as low-income individuals such as seniors. Ministry fees help offset the costs of running these clinics and allow them to provide care for those who have no coverage. An increase in fees can be viewed not only as an investment in the oral health of ministry clients but also in other vulnerable patients.

Another initiative we would like the government to consider is allowing dentists to access PharmaNet. Dentists are the largest drug prescribers in B.C., after physicians. Dentists treat pain, infection and other conditions and prescribe a range of medications, including antibiotics, analgesics, steroids and sedatives.

A patient's drug history is critical to a dentist's ability to diagnose, prescribe and treat. Currently dentists rely on patients and patients' physicians for their drug histories. This is less than ideal. Access to PharmaNet would address this issue and, secondly, would help deter drug-seeking behaviour in individuals who abuse prescription drugs. Now that the preliminary work required to allow a physician's office to directly access PharmaNet is completed, this would be an appropriate time to open discussions with the BCDA and the College of Dental Surgeons of B.C. to determine the necessary steps to proceed on this access.

The next area of concern is seniors. While the onus is on us as a society to care for our vulnerable children and for the disabled, it is also our duty to care for our seniors. The oral health of seniors is impacted by their increased frailty, limited mobility and medications. Long-term-care residents are at most risk for dental neglect, as these folks are reliant on others for their daily and professional care. The 2012 B.C. Ombudsperson report on long-term care listed as barriers the cost of dental care itself, the lack of accountability in maintaining standards for daily mouth care and limited access to regular professional dental care.

The BCDA recognizes the need for a low-income-seniors dental plan as a means to reduce these barriers. In our view, the need is similar to that which led to the creation of the Healthy Kids program, which provides basic dental care to low-income children.

The report also notes the administrative challenges of treating in long-term-care facilities. There are solutions. For example, in Prince George a dental coordinator position was created by Northern Health to take on the task of scheduling, coordinating and assisting the treating dentists in the facility. These tasks often frustrate and discourage dentists and other health care providers from treating in these facilities.

This model could be replicated across the province and be expanded to support care aides in providing daily care and triaging potential dental problems. The BCDA, in conjunction with the faculty of dentistry at UBC, is willing to work collaboratively with the government in this area.

Finally, B.C.'s population is changing, and with it comes its own set of complexities in delivering dental care. The aging baby boomers and an increasing number of immigrants to B.C. are two areas of concern.

Further, without understanding the population's oral health needs, many of the issues I discussed earlier could become larger problems, especially for the health care
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system. More information on oral health is required to better understand what is needed now and will be needed in the future.

This can be obtained through a more extensive oral health measures survey in B.C., for which the BCDA is prepared to contribute $200,000. The cost of the project we estimate at $600,000, but the national dental officer has committed $200,000 of in-kind services such as dental examiners and technical support. We are seeking $200,000 from the provincial government to finance the remaining portion of the survey.

As the first province to conduct such a survey, this would make B.C. a leader in oral care. We urge the government to join this project, particularly as such knowledge would ensure more efficient use of both the profession's and the government's limited resources.

In conclusion, the BCDA remains committed to the oral health of British Columbians and looks forward to working with the government to achieve this end.

E. Foster: I'm interested, Doctor, in your comments about PharmaNet. What's the issue there? Where's the roadblock? It seems to make perfect sense to me.

J. Johnston: I think part of the issue is getting the physicians. It's only, I believe, as of April 1 that they were able to extend PharmaNet access to physicians in their own private office. At this point, and probably also because dentistry isn't a major part of the health care system, there hasn't been a lot of focus on dentistry.

We've initiated discussions with the College of Pharmacists because they watch over PharmaNet. We're hoping, even, to get the number of prescriptions written and filled by dentists — to get an estimate of the number of how many are done each year — within a day or so.

We think that now the time has come. It will put us in the proper position for e-prescription. Eventually, within maybe five years, it will put us in the position. I know that there are efforts looking at midwives and looking at nurse practitioners, of which we can probably count the number on our hands, where there are 3,200 dentists who are probably writing several prescriptions a day. We just think it's time. I think it's just an administrative hurdle, and now the time is right.

D. Ashton (Chair): Jocelyn, Doctor, I apologize. I just had a quick interview to do. I will make sure that I have a look at the presentation and go through it and pick the notes up. Thank you.

Thompson Rivers University. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming forward. A presentation of ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes reserved for questions. At your convenience, and once again, welcome.

P. Dagg: Well, welcome to all of you to this community, and good morning. My name is Dr. Paul Dagg. I'm a psychiatrist here in Kamloops, and I'm vice-chair of the board of Thompson Rivers University. I'm going to open with just a few comments about my experience with Thompson Rivers University.

I've been eight years in this community. I came here from Ontario, where I was involved in several universities. I attended Queens University, University of Toronto and was on faculty for 14 years at the University of Ottawa. One of the things I discovered when I came here is that this community has one of the most innovative universities in the country and one of the leading universities in innovation, I think, in the world. We're going to talk about what some of our needs are, moving forward.

Thompson Rivers University has been around in some form or other for 40 years in this community and has met the needs of countless numbers of families. Eighty percent of the young people who go on to post-secondary education in Kamloops attend Thompson Rivers University, so it is vital that young people and families from this community have access to a full-service university, which Thompson Rivers University has become over the last several years.

It's an exciting place to be involved in. I started my involvement because of the innovations that this university represents. It's a leader in internationalization. It's a leader in meeting the needs of the community. It's a leader in providing a full spectrum of experience, from trades education to graduate-school education, and it's striving to do so in a novel way that endorses open learning, that endorses blended learning and that endorses international experiences.

The other day I met a young woman who received an entrance scholarship for our MBA program, and she really epitomizes what this university is about. She is First Nations, educated at various places around the province and educated in bits and pieces as her life only allowed her to do so. She's now starting an MBA. She's been working in northern Alberta recently with oil companies, working in liaison with First Nations, helping companies and First Nations groups come together and find their common interests and talk to each other.

She talked about starting an MBA program now where there are students from 14 different countries — from every continent except Australia — where you can explore issues of commonality, as she said, between somebody from a small town in Turkey and find ways to excite that passion that our students have.

We have fairly simple needs at this point in time. We need spots for students. We need funding for students. Many of our students come from non-traditional back-
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grounds for whom education is not part of their tradition. We need support for research.

A. Shaver: My name is Alan Shaver, and I joined TRU three years ago. People ask why I came here. I came here for the mission. Paul just described some aspects of that mission. It's very special.

One of the things we find is that there are some constraints in our development now. We understand that the government is constrained financially and that there are real challenges to balancing the budget. But I think we have a duty to explain and show what can be accomplished if we can plan ahead and start to reinvest in what I think is the best university system in Canada. In my travels I certainly am reinforced in that belief by the absolute clamour for people overseas to find out more about our universities and to actually come to them.

One of the challenges is the number of seats. The applications for trades went up 150 percent. People are getting the message. We're starting to see students voting with their feet in various programs, and we're constrained by not having enough resources in order to deal with all the students who want to come with us.

Then there's the next stage after undergraduate or trades programs. There are graduate programs. This is where the innovation happens. It also spills over into the undergraduate education. The challenges of tomorrow are not in today's textbooks. Students have to develop an ability to solve problems, and the best way, in my opinion, is to have a research-informed education. That involves research. It's another form of learning and very valuable to the students and valuable to the community.

Our master's students are not funded. Those seats that those master's students are in are expensive to run, and they're not funded by the government. Moreover, our master's students are not funded for graduate fellowships. There are such provincial programs back east. Universities back east are coming out here and recruiting our graduates to go to their graduate schools, and we can't do the same. That's a competitive disadvantage, whereas B.C. should be in a position to have a competitive advantage. So we need funding for our graduate students, and this is true right across the province.

Then we need funding for the research that they do, to pay for the equipment for the resources that are needed to actually conduct this kind of inquiry-based learning. So we need more investment in what is already a great system, but it is not competitive in the world. We can do that.

We also have challenges with respect to the capital investment in our universities, and I'm talking for all the universities. Thompson Rivers University was one of the leaders in this province in P3s. We've conducted two highly successful P3s. These are where the university engages in cooperation with a private developer. In our case, we built two residences. Those residences were built without any taxpayers' money.

We've also done other non-taxpayer-funded-debt projects. We've built an international building, and we've a built a campus activity centre. Those are four assets that will continue on for many, many years, and they're British Columbia assets. It also generates an income stream for the university. Of course, it benefits the students, because they get access to these facilities. Furthermore, it actually contributes to the local economy.

We're not able to do that right now because of the government reporting entity, which requires all of the bottom line of our budget to be folded into the government's bottom line. When that was done, I'm sure it was an unintended consequence, but that meant that we could not engage in that kind of non-taxpayer-funded debt.

This is something that the government could do today, and it wouldn't cost the government any money. I think it's a question of deciding that it needs to be done and then figuring out and instructing the ministries involved to figure out a way to allow this kind of exception, if you will, to the government reporting entity, an obviously oversighted exception. We'll work with whatever structure the government wants us to work with — case-by-case basis, oversight — but I think it's something that would really enable quite a lot of economic development as well as actually improving the experience.

The third item is the government business entity, which we're trying to do for our property trust, which is like the UBC and the SFU property trusts.

I guess, in a bottom line, we know that there are constraints. But when you're in retreat, it's a good idea to plan your counterattack. We think investment in the universities of B.C. will go a long way to furthering our needs as a province for our strong and diverse economy.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. I'm interested in your comments about P3 and capital investment. I believe other universities presenting to us have made a similar comment. I want to make sure I understand what you're proposing and what you see the obstacle being. The obstacle is that even with a P3, that liability is reported in the provincial government's bottom line, as you've said. It appears as a debt in the province's books.

I'm trying to understand why. What's the constraint there to proceeding? Concerns around P3s notwithstanding, I just want to understand what you're proposing there.

A. Shaver: My discipline is chemistry and not account-
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ing, so I'm going to be very careful about this. There are PSAB regulations, the Public Service Accounting Board. These rules permit certain kinds of…. They would control the entries in your balance book, where these things go. My understanding is that this is not allowed. For a university to engage in this kind of even non-taxpayer-funded debt is simply not allowed by the accounting procedures.

My feeling is that I think there has to be a decision made that we're going to find a way through this, and then whatever has to be done could be done. I'm not equipped, really, to explain how that might happen. I only know that we can't do it.

G. Holman: Perhaps it's something that the committee can do some research on. Can you explain the…? You made a comment about your property trust.

A. Shaver: This is another way, where a university sets up a separate entity called a trust, and it's at arm's length from the university. This is what UBC and SFU have done very successfully.

So it enhances the campus. We're trying to build a university village, and this will enhance the experience of our students, of our faculty and of our staff — and people visiting and living on campus. It's a way of also generating an income stream that we'd like to use to support various things like student support and supported research.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): I want to follow up again on these accounting standards.

I may be wrong, and I think it's probably worthwhile that there is some research done into the issue, but I think it may also relate to decisions by past Auditors General and disputes with Auditors General in this province as to how universities and post-secondary education finances were counted into the overall bottom line. I think the province didn't used to count it. Then the Auditor General came out and said: "No, no, no. You must count it." Governments of both political stripes were agreeing with each other that the Auditor General…. They didn't share that view.

Since that time, they have now adopted the Auditor General's view, which is that post-secondary must be counted with the overall provincial finances, and I think that that may well be where the issue lies. It's probably worth some more research.

A. Shaver: There's a similar situation in Ontario, and they were able to find an exemption.

S. Hamilton: Thank you for the presentation. I'd like you to speak a little bit more about the competitive disadvantage that you spoke about with regard to the recruitment of students across the country. How unlevel is that playing field, how prevalent is it, and what do you do to stop the bleed? I know it's money, but really, where is the disadvantage?

A. Shaver: I was a professor at McGill, and I had, obviously, a research program. We would recruit students who were graduating in B.C., and they were outstanding people. When they would come to McGill there were a variety of funding sources open to them. There are government grants, which we are also eligible for.

One of the things that was special was that Quebec had its own fellowship program. Outstanding students from B.C. or other places could get extra funding, and this was a way of having more resources support for accommodation, for eating, to support their lifestyle, which is pretty minimal when you're a graduate student.

Most graduate students have already gone through a trial just to get their bachelor's degree, and that's been self-funded, mostly. Many families will help, but they'll get loans. Then when they want to go into graduate school, it's really important that they be able to have access to a graduate stipend, a living stipend. That's something that we're not able to compete with, compared to Quebec and Ontario.

P. Dagg: If I may, I think that's a really important issue that Alan has spoken about. It's not only that we lose these people for a period of time — and this is often a period of time when they are most productive with their research, where they're most developing new evidence — but the later you are in training, the more likely you are to stay where you are at that point in time. You develop roots. It's the same in medicine.

So there's the loss of the work they're doing, but we risk losing these people forever, and it's some of our best and brightest.

Literacy in Kamloops. Welcome, Fiona. I saw some material that was being disseminated here, so thank you. Ten minutes for presentation. I'm going to give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes for questions.

F. Clare: Good morning. I apologize. I feel a little underdressed, but I have just come off the streets from hawking the Daily News special edition "Raise-a-Reader." So here I am.

I'm Fiona Clare, and I am the literacy outreach coordinator, or LOC, for Literacy in Kamloops, which we like to refer to as LinK. I am one of 102 LOCs working across B.C. and one of five LOCs working within our
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own school district.

Together, last year, we impacted the lives of 184,000 people in more than 400 communities through our literacy outreach work and our literacy programs. This is possible because we are part of a network of very hard-working and very passionate coordinators supported by Decoda Literacy Solutions, which is our provincial literacy organization.

We are the legacy, this network of LOCs, left behind after the 2010 Literacy Now initiative. For those who've been around for a while, you may remember Premier Gordon Campbell's promise to make B.C. the most literate jurisdiction in North America, possibly even the world.

We're on the right track. We're doing great work, but there is still much more to be done, which is why I'm here today.

We'd like to thank the B.C. government for the funding you provide to Decoda Literacy Solutions — which is quite a mouthful, so I'll just call them Decoda. Decoda is the portal for supporting the network of LOCs working across the province. The coordination funding that you provide allows us to continue to implement the community literacy plans that each community developed through very careful and thoughtful consultation and collaboration with numerous stakeholders.

It allows us to continue to bring together various organizations — businesses, post-secondary institutions, school districts and service agencies — to work together to identify needs in our community, identify priorities and take action. It allows us to initiate new programs when there is a need and to expand those that are working well, to build stronger communities.

We are grateful that the B.C. government has stayed the course on this community building literacy initiative, because it takes time to build trust. It takes time to build meaningful relationships. It takes time to create change, and it takes time to see the impact of the work that we are doing.

We know that accountability is important. It's very hard to measure the outcomes of the work we do. But the results of this coordinated and collaborative approach are documented annually in district literacy plans, which are presented to the Ministry of Education through boards of education. I have given each of you a copy of the latest update to our district literacy plan for our school district, which was submitted in July.

In addition, annual on-line reports are submitted to Decoda through an on-line database, and they collect information against a provincewide accountability framework. Through this effective tracking and recording, Decoda is able to accurately report the value-add of every dollar that the government invests and the impact that it has on communities through this literacy work.

We know literacy and learning starts long before the formal education system kicks in and continues long after, which is why community literacy and learning is not an alternative to what we already have in place and does not compete with the formal system that is already in place but rather supports what we already have and also gives those who need another chance more opportunities to improve their lives so that they're better able to participate in society.

Community-based literacy action builds on local strengths. This is why it's so powerful. It increases learning opportunities across a lifespan. In today's knowledge economy, continuous learning is necessary to keep up with our rapidly changing world.

Your funding enables us to reach out to all parts of the community: to families with young children so that they are able to prepare their children when they enter the formal system, to be ready for learning and be successful at school; to reach out to those at-risk youth, to try and keep them engaged in learning so that they will do better in life; to reach out to adults who have possibly left the resource industry and now need to upgrade their education in order to get jobs; to reach out to seniors who desperately need technology support so that they can stay connected with the world and with their families.

We are able to offer these unique programs. One such program I would like to tell you a little story about. This is Darrell's story. A strong argument can be made that Darrell's trouble with the law started with his inability to read. He struggled to get a job. When he did, it didn't last very long, because basically, Darrell could not read or write. Eventually he fell to stealing and drugs and landed up in jail several times. That's where he learned about the Storybook Project.

At the age of 28, Darrell started working with a volunteer tutor, learning how to read The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. He wasn't embarrassed about reading these books, because he was reading them with the purpose of reading them to his children. After a few months he was ready to record the stories, and his recordings and the books were mailed to his three young kids. Not only did Darrell improve his ability to read, but as a bonus, he was able to make a connection with his family.

Today, I'm happy to say that Darrell is out of jail, and he tries to read a little every day. He says it's getting easier. We believe that we have increased his chances of making a success of life on the outside.

More than 100 books have been read and recorded and mailed to the children and grandchildren of inmates at the Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre this past year.

And I just have to share with you another comment by one of the inmates — or, as the deputy warden refers to him, one of his clients: "This is by far the best program I have been involved with in any jail in B.C." We are very proud of that.
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That's just one of many stories of how we impact people's lives for the better. Fortunately, you are here today on Raise-a-Reader Day, which is very fortuitous for us. I've brought you each a copy of the special edition of the Kamloops Daily News so that you can read for yourselves some of the other stories of how we are impacting people's lives in our community through the community outreach work we do and through literacy programs.

In case you didn't get stopped by someone in an orange T-shirt this morning, if you would like to make a donation to literacy in Kamloops, I'd be happy to take your money.

That brings me to why I'm here today. We know that these are tough economic times. I'm not here to ask you for more money, although that would be nice. What we are here to ask you for is that you continue to provide the minimum amount of funding that is required to support this literacy network of outreach coordinators across our province. That amount of money is $2.5 million, which is what was originally budgeted and provided to us for the first three years of our work in this province, 2008 to 2010. Currently there is only $1 million set aside in the budget.

If you're not already convinced, let me tell you why this is such a great investment for our government. I love stories, but I'm sure that you all love math and numbers. That's why you're all on this committee, so let's talk numbers. Last year's investment of $2.5 million, through the hard work and innovation of the LOCs, was leveraged into $6.9 million. In anyone's terms, that is a good return on your investment.

In Kamloops the government's investment in literacy coordination through Decoda Literacy Solutions was $12,000 — not a princely sum by any standards, and that is partly because the funding is distributed by school district and we have five LOCs in our school district. My husband says I work for about $2.50 an hour — so a good thing I don't belong to a union. Through fundraising, hard work, application for grants and sponsorships, we were able, in Kamloops alone, to leverage that $12,000 into more than $70,000.

So I ask that not only do you maintain the funding — the $2.5 million that is necessary to support the literacy outreach coordinators working across the province — but that you commit to doing so for a few years. This way we are able to make commitments to our communities, to continue to plan effectively towards meeting the literacy needs of everyone. The positive impact to communities as a whole cannot be denied.

Investing in literacy pays dividends to every part of society — job creation, improved health and reduced crime. This funding makes a positive difference in people's lives and builds strong communities. We are a testament to that in Kamloops, and we're very proud of this.

Well, thank you very much for coming today. It's greatly appreciated. I had the opportunity a few minutes ago to talk to Tara from the News, and that was one of the things I explained: the opportunity for people like yourself to come forward, with the passion that you bring forward. And we've seen that so far along in all our stops on the tour, and I'm quite sure we'll continue to see it.

I just want to thank you for that passion for Raise-a-Reader. I know that many of us around the table here have participated in it, but unfortunately not today — in the sense of hawking the newspapers. That's what I meant to say.

Good morning, Brad. Thank you very much for coming today. A ten-minute presentation; I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then there may or may not be questions during the five minutes allotted.

B. Arner: Good. Yeah, I don't think I'll take your full ten minutes. Hopefully, we'll have lots of discussion.

B. Arner: Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Thank you for your time this morning. My name is Brad Arner. I'm the manager of provincial operations for Ducks Unlimited here in British Columbia.

I'm asking for your financial support to reinvigorate the B.C. conservation partnership, which we believe is a valuable support body to the B.C. jobs plan and other initiatives of the B.C. government.

As the province continues forward, implementing its Canada Starts Here, the jobs plan, the world is sitting up and taking notice of the skills, products and natural resources that B.C. has to offer. Along with that, the world and British Columbians are concerned for our environment and all we have to offer, as we are — and hope always to be — beautiful British Columbia.

Ducks Unlimited understands and appreciates that economic development is a vital necessity, but we also understand that we can help in conserving our ecosystem by working with industry and government partners. We believe we need to find a better way to integrate and showcase the new emerging energy future, such as liquefied natural gas, and developments such as pipelines, the many mines and port developments. We need to integrate that with conservation initiatives.

The B.C. conservation partnership provides an opportunity and a ready-made venue to not only promote
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environmentally sustainable land use, on-the-ground best management practices and enhanced conservation efforts but to show the world that government and non-government, public and private sectors, work together to a common goal and a stronger governance for B.C.

For example, we believe that as a partnership, we need to support and help promote and explain the new water sustainability act, which is currently under development and which will also modernize how we manage our precious water resource.

The B.C. conservation partnership is an existing partnership with all levels of government and leading non-government organizations who are involved in conserving, restoring and managing our land and water resources. This partnership has been in place for ten years and originally served as a venue for the partners to communicate and collaborate so we could leverage funding and address issues of common interest or concern.

For example, from 2005 to 2010 the B.C. conservation partnership, which was formerly called the B.C. lands forum, administered the Trust for Public Lands, an $8 million fund originally provided by the province for the securement, management and science of biodiversity, which is the cornerstone to environmental sustainability. This partnership was extremely successful and leveraged that $8 million into $32 million — an achievement that all the partners, including the province, shared in.

I'm leaving with you, as part of the package, a summary of the accomplishments of the Trust for Public Lands, which we think is a good model.

As a representative for the partnership, I'm asking the province to re-engage in the partnership by participating at the senior level to establish common goals and activities and kick-start a fund of $10 million over five years, which the partners can use to leverage additional funds from their own sources. For example, Ducks Unlimited has access to U.S. federal dollars, which, if matched with Canadian sources, could be brought into our province.

All the partners have their sources of revenue. It's an initial contribution that's always the problem, which is needed to leverage these other funding sources. We see something that could potentially be modelled after the Trust for Public Lands, which has a ready-made governance and administrative process in place.

This is not an ask for the province to directly fund our programs. This is an opportunity for the province to leverage its investment in the environment and help the activities of the partnership so that they are in line with government objectives.

With that, I ask the province and this committee to consider this opportunity. I invite the province to meet with our partnership and discuss how we can move this forward. That's the end of my formal discussion.

G. Holman: Yes, thanks for your presentation. Just a question about the types of lands that this fund would be directed at.

B. Arner: Right. As the model, the Trust for Public Lands, the lands that would be directed for securement and management would be ones that were identified through a prioritization process based on their importance, vulnerability threat and overall contribution to the provincial conservation objectives.

M. Hunt: Having served on the trust, I can certainly say that it was tremendously educational. I really enjoyed the opportunity.

My question is dealing with the private sector investment and different companies being involved. I'm wondering what kind of leverage there has been across those five years. Of course, I only served for one year on it.

B. Arner: Right. You're speaking with regard to the industry or contributions to that?

Each project was kind of a unique one on its own, so when a project came forward, the individual partners would approach industry. I can't tell you exactly, of that $32 million that was leveraged, what proportion would have come from industry, but it was significant, and we had very good uptake. We actually had a number of key industry associations that sat on the partnership as well.

M. Hunt: Now, I'm also trying to remember. Was not Ducks Unlimited — "steward" is not the right word, but — the one who maintained many of these properties or was part of the maintenance program for numbers of these properties?

B. Arner: The properties were managed by the individual conservation organization that would have acquired them. Ducks Unlimited — we certainly did acquire a number of properties in partnership with many others and were, therefore, responsible for the management of those, as were a number of other conservation organizations. I'm not sure….

M. Hunt: So, then, that was the model — whoever put forward that? For example, if there's a conservancy…. If they put it forward as one and it actually got to the top priority, they became the one that maintained it?

L. Popham: Great presentation. I'm a big fan of Ducks Unlimited. So it's national? This is Ducks Unlimited Canada. What other provinces are putting forward funding and partnering?
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B. Arner: With respect to what we're proposing here in the partnership, this would just be unique to British Columbia. This would be a B.C. partnership.

L. Popham: Are there any other partnerships happening? I'm just looking maybe for an average amount of support that provinces are doing across Canada, maybe not specifically to this proposal but to other proposals.

B. Arner: I'm not aware of anything that is similar to this in any other province. We were actually quite unique in B.C. with the trust with that initial $8 million. The federal government has been quite good at doing something similar to this, contributing at a national level, which, of course, becomes part of the leverage funding too. But as far as a model, I'm not sure about any other provinces.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): You've got ten minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions. I'll give you a warning at the two-minute mark. The floor is yours.

S. Lewis: Thank you for the opportunity to present some information to you today. I'm the executive director of Kamloops Society for Alcohol and Drug Services, also known as Phoenix Centre. I started in the area of addiction and mental health 18 years ago on the front line as an addiction counsellor. I have since worked for government, health authorities and non-profit environments. I have a master's degree in social work and a professional commitment to the people in my community.

Phoenix Centre began in 1973 with the Parents Alert Society, a group of concerned parents who noticed an increase of drug use and alcohol use among youth. More than 40 years later, Phoenix Centre is a regional resource providing services to more than 1,600 people a year — people struggling with problematic substance use — and youth continue to be a focus of our service.

We operate a medically supported detox unit with 20 beds that are used by both adults and youth. We also provide several outpatient support programs targeted at youth and families who are challenged by substance use. The entire community recognizes the work we do, and after decades of service we are considered the regional experts in this area.

Substance use affects a surprising number of individuals, families and community. A policy paper by B.C. physicians titled Stepping Forward and Improving Addiction Care in B.C. estimates that approximately 400,000 British Columbians have some form of addiction or dependence problem. This doesn't include tobacco. That's almost 9 percent of the population of the province. These stats only report on those who are considered addicted, not those people who are using substances in a damaging way but not yet addicted — for example, binge drinking among youth.

At Phoenix Centre our youth programs serve those who are considered at risk. This refers to youth who are experiencing a multitude of issues: fleeing family conflict; escaping a home where there are significant addiction problems; poverty; physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse; neglect; learning and developmental disabilities.

Some have substance use issues themselves, but many are substance-affected. That means that they are affected by somebody else's substance use — for example, a parent who is drinking heavily.

Without adequate and timely support, the difficulties these youth face will only worsen, resulting in increased problems, such as jail, youth detention, homelessness, school dropouts, gangs and mental health issues.

Borrowing from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, I would like to share some key recommendations made by Diana Guenther, who completed her master's of urban studies with a thesis on improving services for at-risk youth in B.C.

She voices concern about the rudimentary and limited professional community-based and preventative services available for children and youth in British Columbia and reminds us that investing in youth and family services is not only a hallmark of a caring and just society; it makes economic sense. We as a society either pay now to support at-risk youth in community — for example, with outreach programs and counselling programs — or pay later into much more costly services.

Ms. Guenther, who has more than 15 years' experience working with at-risk youth in three different countries, recommends that senior bureaucrats and politicians, who are currently removed from the problem itself, reconnect and work jointly with all stakeholders and be accountable back to communities.

She points out that the current model for service delivery initially developed by MCFD, Ministry of Children and Family Development…. Those bureaucrats have developed a system that's resulted in high staff turnover and constant changes in case workers for the youth, which in turn threaten and oftentimes destroy trusting and long-lasting relationships between vulnerable at-risk youth and their workers. This destabilizes youth even further, which exacerbates the significant problems that they're already dealing with.

Another important recommendation is to invest in community-based youth services. Currently resources are primarily tied up in crisis work, and not enough money is invested in prevention and support. Community-based youth services that offer services to all youth but focus some of the resources on vulnerable
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youth in order to stabilize them in their communities should be enhanced.

Phoenix Centre operates an adolescent outreach program that serves both Merritt and Kamloops, a youth counselling program and a full-time-attendance program for adjudicated youth. All these programs are used to full capacity, and all have a consistent reputation for improving the lives of the youth that they serve.

The staff who are employed in these programs are professionals. They are registered social workers and registered clinical counsellors with a minimum of a bachelor's degree. All are represented by the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union. They are fairly compensated for the very difficult work that they do every day, and we, as an employer, recognize the importance of an adequate wage and reasonable benefits.

We are funded by Interior Health Authority and the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and we depend on this funding so that we can continue to provide these much-needed services on behalf of government.

I would like to share a few numbers with you that will make evident the unsustainable financial situation we're currently in due to ongoing increases to wages and benefits that are governed by collective agreements. Without assistance from our current funders, we will no longer be able to sustain current programming levels.

In 2009 the adjudicated youth program wages and benefits were costing our organization approximately $201,000. In 2013 these costs are $239,000, an increase of more than $37,000. This is almost a 19 percent increase — an increase we have no control over.

In contrast, we have been able to reduce program and all other costs by 4.13 percent in an attempt to offset our growing deficit. Still, wages and benefits use up 73.6 percent of the entire program budget, which has not been increased by the funder since 2009. Due to the most recent increases in hours of work and pay in the latest union contract settlement, we're projecting an additional increase of wages and benefits of $9,378 for the year ended March 31, 2014, for this one program — bumping up costs of wages and benefits alone to 76.48 percent of the total budget.

The adolescent outreach program financial reality is much more alarming, with wages and benefits eating up almost 92 percent of program costs. This certainly does not leave room to find any more so-called efficiencies.

Due to the most recent union contract settlement for the year ending March 31, 2014, we are projecting a total cost of wages and benefits of $66,903. Our total funding for this program with MCFD is $68,860.

This means that over 97 percent of the total contract amount is paying for wages and benefits — again, a cost that is not within our control. I don't know of any professional human service program that can survive on only 3 percent operating costs.

The only two viable strategies are cuts to service or cuts to staffing. But we as the employer are not sanctioned by government or the collective agreements to do either.

Both these programs serve at-risk youth, and both these programs are underfunded by MCFD. I've been informed on more than one occasion that government is not providing additional funding to these existing service contracts to offset the most recent wage lifts and the increases to hours of work. Yet we're expected to maintain current service levels.

The fact is our total projected deficit for the year ending March 31, 2014, is $58,146. The MCFD-funded programs comprise $42,147 of that overall deficit. In other words, MCFD programs are creating 73 percent of our overall deficit. I for one cannot fathom how Phoenix Centre can continue to subsidize an ever-increasing deficit — one we have no control over — and continue to operate at the same levels of service with the same number of employees.

We know that community-based services such as Phoenix Centre provide exceptional service with great financial efficiency. We provide jobs and livelihood to those we employ and contribute to the economic balance in our community and region. But there is a limit to what we can do, given the current financial stalemate we find ourselves in.

We look forward to continued dialogue with government, with a focus on finding a solution that sustains vital services to youth and the organizations that provide them. I thank you for your time and consideration.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Your situation — is it unique to your organization? If it's not, then how does it compare to other organizations that provide similar services?

S. Lewis: We are a member of the Federation of Community Social Services, which is a provincial body representing over 100 non-profit…. Well, there might be some for-profit, but I believe it's all non-profit organizations that provide human services in the province of B.C.

We are not yet a member but have attended the B.C. CEO network, which is another provincial body that brings EDs and CEOs together. We're also a member of Board Voice, which is a similar membership but for boards across B.C.

We have been meeting over the past few months. There were over a hundred CEOs and EDs from all across the province. We met in Vancouver for a dialogue, and this is what it was about. Everybody who is holding MCFD contracts….

I know that with CLBC — we don't have any CLBC services ourselves, Community Living B.C. — they're making some headway, but those organizations that hold the MCFD contracts are all in the exact same pre-
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dicament. There have been no cost-of-living increases for many years. There has been minimal support around increases that typically are every three years, as per collective agreements. In B.C. many of the non-profits are unionized, so this is definitely a huge problem.

Locally I can name Interior Community Services. They employ over 100 people. We only have two MCFD contracts. I think they hold dozens and dozens. I don't want to say the number, but it's huge, and they're in great peril, as well, financially. So this is certainly something that's happening at a provincial level.

G. Holman: We had a presentation made by a group in Port Coquitlam, who mentioned the large number of contracts held by a particular organization and made a suggestion to us that somehow consolidating those would help in terms of cost efficiencies. Does that ring a bell with you?

S. Lewis: Yes, because that's something we discussed at the B.C. CEO network. I believe there are over 10,000 MCFD contracts among 6,000 different service providers. So when MCFD is asking us to find efficiencies, we do look to MCFD for them to find efficiencies within their own operations.

I think that, as a collective, the non-profit organizations in B.C. would be agreeable to figuring out how we can see some efficiencies within government, however that needs to happen. If it means how the current contracts are managed, who they're managed by and how many contracts are actually out there, I think that's a worthwhile discussion.

But at this point, there isn't any dialogue about that. It's just been stated that that's how it's currently being operated.

D. Ashton (Chair): Sian, thank you very much. I apologize for missing that. I will catch up with the notes. But the last comment that you heard — we've heard that loud and clear, actually, in two communities. Thank you very much for bringing that forward. I will read your notes today. Have a great day. Bye now.

Jason Brown, Thompson Rivers University. Sir, come on forward. Welcome, sir. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes allotted for questions. Start at your convenience.

J. Brown: You have my speaking notes there, so this should go fairly easily. I'm just going to read off the report anyway, because I want to have it on the record.

Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to present before you. My name is Jason Brown. I'm with the Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association. We represent about 600 full-time as well as part-time faculty members who work and teach here, not only in Kamloops but in our various satellite campuses.

Our university plays a critical role in this region, both economically and socially. TRU is a major employer in this area. It also has great potential in terms of learning, innovation and partnership, all critical elements of what this community expects their public services to provide.

If we have a concern going forward, it's that those potentials aren't always fully realized — an outcome that needs to be considered as this committee considers the fiscal priorities for B.C.'s next budget.

It's fair to say that our region faces a number of challenges, both economic and social. Our members believe that our university can play an important role not only by helping our community make important transitions to more sustainable growth but also by being a catalyst for greater diversification within our region.

Before I get into the details of our concerns about our institution and the 2014 provincial budget priorities, let me give you some brief background on TRU. The university has a student base of approximately 13,000 full- and part-time students. We also have, through the open learning university, another 9,000 students who use on-line and remote classroom learning to start, enhance or complete their post-secondary education.

When TRU was first launched in 2004, we were positioning ourselves to meet the post-secondary education needs of a significant region of the province. However, unlike many of B.C.'s established universities, TRU didn't abandon its commitment to being a comprehensive learning institution, something that's explicitly spelled out in the TRU Act.

By comprehensive, I mean providing a broad range of programs and courses not only to allow our students to complete a post-secondary degree — a master's degree or undergrad degree and also diplomas, certificates and apprenticeable trade certificates — but also to allow adult learners the opportunity to upgrade their skills even if that upgrade effort means completing their high school courses or graduations here at Thompson Rivers University.

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

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

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

TRU has also become a significant post-secondary institution for international students. We currently have close to 2,000 international students from over 90 countries studying at TRU.

That international dimension has also worked its way into some of our existing programs. For example, in our nursing program we've developed a section in which our nursing students do some of their practicum in the developing nations of the Asia-Pacific region. We also have a program for foreign nurses that's going to be starting in the Williams Lake region. It not only provides assistance to the health care system in those countries, but it also provides invaluable experience to our students — experience that will inform and expand their understanding of the challenges in public health care.

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

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

There's an obvious economic benefit that flows from building that kind of confidence. With improved skills and greater confidence to learn and adapt, the public investment that's 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 skill, our students are on track for higher lifetime incomes, greater labour mobility and far lower levels of unemployment than would otherwise be the case. All of these outcomes benefit the provincial treasury and form the dividend that I described earlier.

Funding is a major challenge, however, for post-secondary institutions in the province, including Thompson Rivers University. At a provincial level the core funding, our operating grant from the Ministry of Advanced Ed, is 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 Ed 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 2013-14 fiscal year, and for post-secondary students the budget showed no relief for the affordability crunch they face. The budget documents forecast tuition revenues to climb by close to $100 million over the next three years. I understand you heard some innovative solutions that the students put forward this morning, which was good to hear.

Funding pressures at TRU are having a direct impact on faculty as well as students. According to this year's financial statements released for last week's board of governors meeting, the budgeted government transfer payment had dropped by roughly $6 million — budgeted. As a result, there's a trend at TRU to download the burden of cost savings on faculty by shifting hiring away from tenure-track faculty positions to part-time or contingent teaching positions.

As an example, just three years ago 81 percent of all the business courses at TRU were delivered by full-time tenured faculty. The ratio has fallen to just 62 percent of courses in the three years, meaning that in that school, twice as many courses are being delivered by contingent faculty than just three years ago.

The trend is the same across the institution. Administrators may see this approach as solving an immediate cost pressure, but ultimately it undermines the university's prospects when it comes to recruitment and retention. Students are not well served by an approach that focuses on cutting back on wages and full-time positions of those who are the front-line educators of the future generations, those called on to inspire our youth.

Faculty at Thompson Rivers University have not had a general wage increase since April of 2009. According to documents from our own institutional planning and analysis, overall expenditures on faculty wages as a percentage of the budget have dropped from 44 percent to 36 percent in just three years — 8 percent decline in wages of faculty in three years.

These types of financial pressures have not gone unnoticed on campus. I'll give a very simplified visual image to get my point across. Picture a pack of wolves who haven't eaten for some time. Suddenly they manage to catch a rabbit for dinner, but there's not enough for everyone. Some go without. Obviously, that's a very simplified position. What's been happening at TRU over the past years is much more complicated, but the end result of declining real government per-student funding is that some of our programs are being starved out.

For example, TRU has had a long tradition of connecting to the community through our culinary arts,
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meat-cutting and horticultural programs. We have a restaurant on campus that's known very well across the province, and it's won some awards, even nationally, for the type of service and food that they put out. Yet faculty in these programs — despite losses of tenured colleagues through retirements, injuries and deaths due to illness — are being told to get the job done without tenured replacement or risk closure of the programs.

There are plenty of detailed examples I could provide, but what you need is the big picture, so I'll stick to the larger effects these cutbacks are having. Some of the big-picture effects include reports of extremely elevated stress levels amongst faculty leading in many cases to early retirements, long-term sick leaves and accusations of poisoned work environments. TRU has seen four deans leave in the past eight months, with none of them making it through their initial contract — something that's probably unprecedented in the province.

The working environment has become a real pressure cooker for all involved, which is clearly evident in the data I mentioned earlier about the sudden decline in ratio of courses delivered by tenured faculty. These types of pressures don't serve students well, nor does it benefit the community that our university has a mandate to serve.

I'm going to stop talking from the speech itself. I apologize if it was boring. You can look at a few of the graphics here. In your package you'll see an organizational chart from 2011 — the vice-president, administrative and finance, organizational chart. One of them has been photocopied because it's no longer on the TRU website. You see it's very thin. The following year you can see the huge administrative increase. This is the same office — chart 1, chart 2.

Then within that same business department that I mentioned earlier where there were huge faculty cutbacks, in 2011 we had four administrative positions. Somewhere in your package there's another chart showing, on the next page, a huge increase in the number of administrators in that business area. We have a chart here showing the overall increase in administrative costs in the 2011 year, increased by 17 percent, and in the 2010 year, 21 percent. We just received the most recent, so I don't have that in the chart.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you, Jason. We've heard that in other locales also. You're not the first person to bring that forward to us. I do appreciate you bringing it up.

L. Popham: Maybe just one quick question about the restaurant and the meat-cutting program. I believe the enrolment for that is increasing because there is such an interest in the local food movement. How is that program being affected specifically?

J. Brown: Well, let me give you an example — meat cutting. There's been an injury to a tenured faculty member. What they have been told in that area is: "Get the job done without replacing that faculty member. Bring in an instructional support person."

Of course, you can imagine an instructional support person who's far less paid, but they're not trained in the safety. This is a health issue. We have a store. We sell the meat after it's cut. The previous person was injured, so you have to be careful about health and safety.

Also, the president of the meat-cutters union is furious. They give TRU $50,000 a year to support the program because it's a well-known program and supplies meat cutters throughout the province who have a good reputation. They're threatening to cut that overall funding to TRU if they move ahead with these cuts. If they don't, they're willing to give even more money to the university.

I mean, it's a bit of a no-brainer, but these are the types of pressures we're facing every day at the university in terms of delivery of programs because there have been these cuts in the government transfer payment. The administration is saying that we've got to make do.

J. Brown: I tried. There was a board of governors meeting last Friday. I attended the meeting. I sent a six-page letter to all the faculty community about the cuts in these programs. There was a question period on the agenda, the last item. The way our board of governors runs the university now is that they meet in advance. There are some questions that are predetermined with the answers that seem to be very managed. I was told I was not allowed to make a question or a comment unless I submitted it two weeks in advance.

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay, just a final for myself. What do you do there at the university?

G. Holman: Just one quick question not necessarily directly related to the recommendations you're making. I'm just interested in the on-line and remote classroom numbers — 9,000. I assume that's grown quite significantly over time. Just your view of how effective that is, the quality of that education versus physically attending university.
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J. Brown: Okay. Just so everybody knows, we have two faculty unions — one representing the face-to-face and the other representing the on line. I'm not representing them. But my personal opinion on that — not a professional opinion — is that these students are more motivated when they come to the classes face to face. They seem to have a lot higher completion rate.

I was reading that TRU spends a very little amount of money on the administration of the TRUOLFA programs compared to someone like Télé-université in Quebec, which has much higher expenditures on the services provided to students.

In other words, what I'm saying is you can't run these on-line programs well unless you fund them properly. TRU is saving a lot of money. That's the way they're approaching this. It's a cost-saving thing.

G. Holman: Do you feel that the growth in the on-line and remote is, in part, related to funding constraints?

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much for coming and for your input today. It's greatly appreciated.

PacificSport Interior B.C. — Carolynn and Ron, welcome. Thank you very much for coming. We have ten minutes on the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questions. The floor is yours, and you can start. Welcome again.

R. McColl: Great, thank you very much. My name is Ron McColl. I'm the chair of PacificSport Interior B.C., and this is Carolynn Boomer. She's the general manager of PacificSport Interior B.C. We'd like to thank you for this opportunity and also thank the provincial government for their continued investment in sport throughout the province. It's very much appreciated, and we look after it very well for you.

PacificSport Interior B.C. is a registered society. Our board of directors is made up of members of our communities with a general interest in sport and also representatives from the city of Kamloops, the school district, Thompson Rivers University and the aboriginal partners council.

There are five regional centres throughout the province, and these regional centres are really a provincial success story. The centres started with a white paper from the provincial government and have grown there. That white paper came out in 1994, and the centres now continue to exist and provide for sport development throughout the province.

We are committed to developing sport at all levels: coaching and coach education and creating opportunities so more people can lead healthier, physically active lives. We achieve these goals mainly through partnerships with sport, municipalities, school districts, foundations and health.

Those are our general goals and our general concept. I'll pass it over to Carolynn to provide a little bit more detail.

C. Boomer: Government, with their funding, is being a catalyst for our partnerships that we've created. I'd like to provide some examples that I think you have in your package as well.

With hosting games, there are usually legacies that are established in government-owned games, such as the 2011 Western Canada Summer Games that were hosted in Kamloops. We were able to secure a legacy of $50,000 that went to coach certification and reimbursement of their coaching fee. I head the national coaching certification program, and today over 400 coaches have accessed that, reimbursing over $31,000. If you don't have a coach, you don't have a program. That's as simple as that. So we really believe in the coaching and the certification of those coaches so that all children and people have quality people in place.

Just a couple of other things. XploreSportZ camps for children. This is a program that we have in Kamloops and in our region — newly started as well in Revelstoke and Golden, in our region. With the funding that we've received from you, we've gone deeper into communities like Merritt — so small communities. We're in Barriere as well with our XploreSportZ camps. This is for exposing children to as many different sports outside of not just the traditional ones but speed skating, curling and wrestling and different sports like that with certified coaches.

I remember that Merritt just had their XploreSportZ program. A lot of times you ask kids what they want to be. They want to be a firefighter. Well, guess what. You've got to be physically active in order to do that career. So we married the two together. It was on Shaw TV, and if you YouTube it, it's an amazing little story in the little town of Merritt, which I know you're also going to.

This is the first time that this generation has a life expectancy that is less than their parents. I find that that just speaks to me at the gut level, and it's why we need to do the things we need to do. There's lots of scientific evidence on the Active for Life website that supports that and why sport and physical activity is so important. This adds to the overall quality of life experience in our communities, big or small, with the emphasis on partnerships, that everyone has a role to play.

That's where the provincial government…. You know, I applaud that recently the funding…. We received $30,000 last year for equipment acquisition. So what we've done is partner with the newly formed Kamloops Adapted Sports Association and provided $10,000 towards wheelchairs and also the hauling of a trailer so that that can be
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accessible to all citizens in Kamloops and outlying areas.

Paralympian Jessica Vliengenthart leads the charge in those new opportunities. It's quite exciting to see what they've done both with the able-bodied and people with a disability so that we all can play together.

Another example with government partnership, school district and PacificSport is our physical literacy mentor program. We don't have physical education specialists in elementary schools anymore. When I went to school, that's what happened. It's unfortunate, because children are not learning fundamental movement skills and sports skills. Just as important as the ABCs, the 123s and the do-re-mi's are the RunJumpThrows in order to provide the very foundation for physical literacy.

There is some information here. Science research and decades of experience indicate that students or children will get active, stay active and even reach the greatest height of sport achievement if they do the right things at the right times. They'll have better confidence and competence in their activity or sport. They'll develop physical literacy in a fun, stimulating environment by the time they are 12 years old to better ensure they will be active for life and increase their potential for better long-term health outcomes.

In your package there's also a quote from one of the principals in terms of the program that was established last year with government funding, in partnership with the school district and ourselves.

A new direction for sport in B.C. ViaSport is our lead organization in sport. We look forward to the growth in a more transparent way. That's in clearer granting processes, provincial communication strategies so that that filters down to our local communities and regions, and the data-tracking system.

Sport needs to do a better job in terms of the fact-finding information. I think we're getting there with the tracking systems that ViaSport will lead the charge on. We think it's a smart way for increased efficiencies and new entrepreneurial opportunities.

Government provides the sport policy, and ViaSport leads the sport strategy. PacificSport Centres, provincial sport organizations, local sport clubs and others will deliver in the communities.

It's important for multi-year sport funding, and this is where we'd really like to advocate. We're not asking for more money. We'd like to thank you and applaud you for the legacy fund that's been continued. That has just allowed us to go deeper in our communities, out in our regions small and big. The multi-year funding, of course, will provide sustainable building capacity, engaging the communities and leveraging other funding opportunities that we've already currently established, and strengthen the infrastructure for sport.

We also do the performance side, so we'd like to just acknowledge some of our Olympians that we have. They are local heroes in our communities, such as Dylan Armstrong; Kelly Olynyk, who recently is with the Boston Celtics, if you guys are any basketball fans; and Erin Gammelout in Barriere, who's a two-time Olympian as well.

That's where we're at. I leave the closing remarks to Ron. Thank you for your time.

R. McColl: Just a reminder from us that it takes a community to build a champion, and champions come from all levels of sport. We do this through partnerships, and it's through partnerships that we're able to leverage provincial government investment in sport. We believe the sport sector does this well, and given the opportunity, we can help provincial government achieve its objectives of a healthier community through sport.

I was wondering about the statement in here about the commitment for the $10 million legacy. Is that a lump sum? Is it ongoing? What's the nature of that commitment?

C. Boomer: That was from having the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games hosted in Vancouver. There was a commitment from government to have it, and it expired. It was to end.

Last year when we came to the Finance Committee for the budget process, it was our intent provincially to have that continued. So the legacy fund is a $10 million fund that went into the Community and Sport Ministry, with the intent for the expanded role in the province of B.C.

C. Boomer: Yes. It was called the sport legacy fund. I can't remember the exact title of it. It is $10 million. It was one of the recommendations from the Finance Committee to continue that. We're also hoping that that will continue, because we're seeing great things, as in the examples that I've provided.

G. Holman: Sorry for belabouring this, but this is what I'm trying to get at — whether it's a recommendation from the Finance Committee of last year to continue or in fact….

C. Boomer: Yes, it was. So we're giving examples to some of those things in terms of funding.

M. Hunt: I'm just trying to make sure I understand relationships. One, you're under the umbrella of
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ViaSport. You referred to that. Then you describe yourself, at least for the purposes of this presentation, as PacificSport Interior B.C. In your presentation you refer to PacificSport. Now, are there more specific sports under the umbrella of PacificSport, which is under the umbrella of ViaSport?

C. Boomer: We're a network of PacificSport Centres, all with a board of directors, hence the relationship and partnerships within the communities. We have ViaSport as the lead sport agency, as another not-for-profit organization, that filters the government funding through these agencies. Whether you're PacificSport Okanagan, PacificSport Interior B.C., PacificSport Fraser Valley, whether you are Squash B.C., the provincial sport organizations, it filters that one-window approach for government to send the funding through.

Then we've had a previous presentation today from people at the school board over the after-school program that I believe you're also involved with. Somehow, I'm going to assume, there's some funding from you for that. Or is it that you are simply training the trainers?

M. Hunt: Okay. So that's within your function. The training-the-trainer type of concept is your contribution to that after-school.

C. Boomer: Yes, correct. Some of our people that we have had trained will go in and do the after-school program for them, and we do have a school district representative on our board of directors. So it is largely…. I can't speak enough about the power of partnerships. It's all coming together for that common cause.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much your presentations. Thanks, folks. Enjoy your day.

C. Boomer: Thank you, guys. Okay. Enjoy yours. I know it'll be long. Is it Merritt tomorrow?

D. Ashton (Chair): Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. Kamloops Foundation — correct?

D. Ashton (Chair): We greatly appreciate it and actually appreciate you being a little bit early. It helps us move today, because we have to go Merritt and then come back to Kamloops tonight.

Thank you for coming. Ten-minute presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes for questions from the committee.

N. Plett: Thank you very much, and good morning. It's my pleasure to be here today representing the Kamloops Foundation. My name is Nancy Plett, and I'm the fund development officer with the foundation.

I recognize Marvin Hunt because I used to work with the city of Surrey when you were there, Marvin.

M. Hunt: That's right. Absolutely. I was sitting there, looking at the name, and I'm going: "Hold on a second. Is that her?" Awesome.

With me today is Kathy Humphreys, who is the general manager of the Kamloops Symphony; Russ Chambers, who is our past president and a retired teacher; and George Campbell, a former board member, as well, and an entrepreneur in the community.

There are four areas that we wish to highlight in our presentation today: who we are and what we do; show our gratitude and thanks for creating the renaissance fund; share an example of how other provinces are working with community foundations; and make some suggestions on how your budget committee can make a difference in B.C.

Who we are. Well, we're one of 51 foundations in the province, the largest being the Vancouver Foundation and the newest being the Clayoquot foundation. The Kamloops Foundation has been serving this region for close to 30 years. We serve a very large geographic area, which includes Ashcroft, Barriere, Cache Creek, Chase, Clearwater, Clinton, Lillooet, Logan Lake, Merritt and the Thompson-Nicola and South Cariboo regions.

The mandate of community foundations is to improve the quality of life for the people we serve by building communities' capacity and also increasing the vitality of the areas we serve. How we do this is simple. Donations that are received are invested, and the income from the investments is distributed to worthwhile charitable projects and programs through grants, scholarships and bursaries. These endowments build lasting legacies that support our communities forever.

In the past B.C. has had vision to work with foundations, specifically the Vancouver Foundation and the Victoria Foundation. In 2005 the government placed $25 million in the arts renaissance endowment program.
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This fund was managed by the Vancouver Foundation and was used to support endowments for arts and culture.

With the leadership of the Kamloops Foundation, three local arts organizations applied for the funding and today continue to benefit from its vision. Kathy will speak to this.

K. Humphreys: Just to clarify, I'm the general manager of the Kamloops Symphony. But I'm also a current director of the Kamloops Foundation, and I've been on the board for about five years or so. I don't remember exactly. It seems like yesterday.

In 2006 the Kamloops Symphony, Kamloops Art Gallery and Western Canada Theatre partnered to launch our Creating Tomorrow endowment fundraising campaign with assistance from the Kamloops Foundation. Our joint campaign was a direct result of the announcement of the B.C. arts renaissance fund, which provided endowment matching grants over a three-year period.

I have to say we were concerned that our community might not be able or willing to support a major campaign. We worried that endowment fundraising might negatively impact our essential annual donation campaigns, and we didn't want to compete with one another. Sometimes a little reluctantly and with a little fear, we joined together and launched a campaign to see what we could do.

I can tell you now that our campaign was a tremendous success and raised more than $500,000 for our three endowment funds. That's with the funds we raised and the matching funds from the renaissance fund. We have heard that our joint campaign was one of the few successful collaborations and the envy of some of the other communities in the province. We found that our annual donation campaigns were not significantly impacted, and some of the donors to the original campaign have continued to donate annually to the endowments ever since.

The B.C. arts renaissance fund was the catalyst we needed to grow our endowment funds for the benefit of our organizations now and forever. Matching grants provided a powerful incentive to donors to participate in creating a lasting legacy for tomorrow's artists, arts audiences and communities.

The financial rewards have been impressive, but the ongoing spirit of cooperation among our three organizations, the increased public profile of the arts in our community and additional projects that have come from the relationships forged during the process continue to benefit us today.

As a director of the Kamloops Foundation and general manager of the Kamloops Symphony, I wish to thank you on behalf of the arts organizations in Kamloops and the Kamloops Foundation for the leadership and vision demonstrated through the establishment of the B.C. arts renaissance fund. I urge you to consider building upon this successful initiative by committing additional funding to provide matching grant incentives for B.C.'s not-for-profit sector.

N. Plett: Another example of how governments can invest. In 2007 the Manitoba government decided to invest in education and began working with community foundations to enhance the opportunities for rural communities to have greater access to post-secondary education. The government offered $100,000 a year for five years in matching money to support foundations in building bursary funds that would assist rural students in their education.

This was a huge initiative for small foundations, and the matching money was oversubscribed. So $500,000 was raised, and the government matched the dollars to create a $1 million endowment fund that is now close to $1.5 million. This has built a legacy in their province that will provide post-secondary education for students for generations to come.

Russ is just going to speak to some of the ideas we have for how to establish building legacies for other areas.

R. Chambers: The ideas of one of our colleagues on the board who can't be here this morning — building legacies for seniors and heritage. The demographics of B.C. show that we're an aging population. It's also known that in the next few years there will be a huge transfer of wealth from the baby boomers to the current generation.

There are many senior organizations that want to support opportunities for the older generation and also wish to preserve their area's heritage. This generation actively supports museums, heritage projects and organizations for the less fortunate. The opportunity is there to build endowment to support the many and varied programs of this age group.

Another one is building legacies for environment and recreation. Global warming seems to be a reality, and recreation in our beautiful province is a field of interest that has great potential in British Columbia. Each of these areas gives opportunities that cross over with other fields of interest. Funds to support the environment can work with scholarships, bursaries and with environmental education and multipurpose land use.

Another one is building legacies for health and welfare. There are multiple organizations giving their time, effort and money to support a wide variety of programs and projects. All of these organizations struggle to keep providing their services, and all rely on government support. There's an opportunity to attract gifts from the donors to support these services as an incentive.

Building legacies for children and families. As with health and welfare, there are hundreds of organizations giving their time, effort and support serving mainly the less privileged and, in many instances, low-income families. There is always a need for support of these many
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programs and projects. Financial viability is often the key to success.

In summary, we recommend investing and supporting endowments and building legacies. We ask that the committee recommend to the government the matching funds in each of the next five years to support endowment legacy–building in British Columbia in the amount of $24 million to be used in support of youth and education, seniors and heritage, environment and recreation, health and welfare, children and families.

G. Campbell: In our boldness, we offer some suggestions on where the government funding could come from to build a lasting legacy.

With the changing in the economic field of British Columbia, one of the suggestions would be to make use of the carbon tax that is collected throughout B.C. The environment and recreation field of interest is a natural fit to ensure a lasting benefit to all of B.C. Legacy endowments will provide much-needed funds to a wide variety of groups and organizations.

Number 2. Gaming provides a pool of money to support charitable programs and projects in B.C. Use some portion of the gaming revenue to support long-term, sustaining legacies.

Use this money to attract private gifts through matching money incentives. Perhaps there could be mandatory conditions on gaming grants to charities so that they are expected to endow some portion of the grants, ensuring long-term sustainability.

Number 3. Take money from general revenues. The opportunity to double these revenues will be a long-term benefit for B.C. and gives communities the opportunity to build their capacity and vitality.

In closing, we want to thank you for the opportunity to make today's presentation. We would welcome any questions you may have at this time.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you, George and Nancy. Russ, thank you, and Kathryn, thank you very much.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation and the work that you do. Community foundations throughout British Columbia — they do such great work.

Just a question: why not $25 million instead of $24 million? It divides evenly by five.

R. Chambers: Yes. The colleague that presented this is mathematically challenged, and he can divide by two. And it's $2 million a month.

In terms of revenue sources, you forgot LNG, of course, as a possible revenue source. But the difference between this and the renaissance fund is that you're suggesting it be applied much more broadly.

Well, folks, thank you very much for coming forward. We greatly appreciate it. Thanks for being there early. You gave us a better kick at the cat today.

N. Plett: Good luck on your trip around the province, and thank you for allowing us to come today.

D. Ashton (Chair): Some great suggestions, thanks. Have a wonderful day. See you in a bit.

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

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
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Stephanie Raymond (Administrative Assistant)

Witnesses:	Brad Arner (Ducks Unlimited Canada)
	Carolynn Boomer (PacificSport Interior B.C.)
	Kevin Boon (B.C. Cattlemen's Association)
	Jason Brown (President, Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association)
	George Campbell (Kamloops Foundation)
	Russ Chambers (Kamloops Foundation)
	Dr. David Ciriani (President, British Columbia Dental Association)
	Fiona Clare (Literacy in Kamloops)
	Dr. Paul Dagg (Thompson Rivers University)
	Leif Douglass (Thompson Rivers University Students Union)
	David Haywood-Farmer (President, B.C. Cattlemen's Association)
	Kathy Humphreys (Kamloops Foundation)
	Jocelyn Johnston (British Columbia Dental Association)
	Sian Lewis (Executive Director, Phoenix Centre, Kamloops Society for Alcohol and Drug Services)
	Devon McBride (School District 73 – Kamloops-Thompson, After School Sports and Arts Initiative)
	Ron McColl (Chair, Board of Directors, PacificSport Interior B.C.)
	Alex McLellan (Thompson Rivers University Students Union)
	Nancy Plett (Kamloops Foundation)
	Dr. Alan Shaver (President and Vice-Chancellor, Thompson Rivers University)
	Sherry Stade (School District 73 – Kamloops-Thompson, After School Sports and Arts Initiative)
	Deandra Tousignant (School District 73 – Kamloops-Thompson, After School Sports and Arts Initiative)

1) Thompson Rivers University Students’ Union	Leif Douglass
	Alex McLellan
2) British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association	David Haywood-Farmer
	Kevin Boon
3) School District No. 73 (Kamloops/Thompson) – After School Sports and Arts Initiative	Sherry Stade
	Devon McBride
	Deandra Tousignant
4) British Columbia Dental Association	Dr. David Ciriani
	Jocelyn Johnston
5) Thompson Rivers University	Dr. Alan Shaver
	Dr. Paul Dagg
6) Literacy in Kamloops	Fiona Clare
7) Ducks Unlimited Canada	Brad Arner
8) Phoenix Centre – Kamloops Society for Alcohol and Drug Services	Sian Lewis
9) Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association	Jason Brown
10) PacificSport Interior BC	Carolynn Boomer
	Ron McColl

11) Kamloops Foundation	Nancy Plett
	Russ Chambers
	Kathy Humphreys
	George Campbell

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