Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 12 — Tuesday, October 1, 2013 (HTML)

Council Chambers, 2nd Floor, Penticton City Hall
171 Main Street, Penticton, B.C.

Present: Dan Ashton, MLA (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	335
J. Westcott
T. Styffe
J. Hamilton
R. McVeeters
H. Konanz
P. Ord
J. Grimes
J. Poole
C. Denesiuk
C. Petkau
L. Scott
G. Litke
J. Sentes
A. Martin
J. Cox
N. Reiter

D. Ashton (Chair): Good afternoon. We're live. Before I make some comments, there are two people I'd like to recognize in the audience. Dick Knorr is a gentleman that helps me a lot in the office. Dick, welcome. Thank you very much.

And Dick Cannings, nice to see you. Dick and I were head to head in the last election. It's always nice to see you here.

Good afternoon, 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. The 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 through the province. All British Columbians are invited to present or attend the hearings. We have also scheduled video conference sessions for five additional communities. British Columbians can also participate in the consultation by sending a written submission, video file, letter or fax.

Information on the consultations, including instructions on how to make a submission, is available at our website, which is www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, October 16. All the public input we receive is carefully considered.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for up to ten minutes. Up to five additional minutes is allotted for questions from the 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 also be available at the committee's website. A live audio webcast is also being broadcast through the website. The committee is also on Facebook and on Twitter. On Facebook you'll find us underneath the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. On Twitter we are at twitter.com/BCFinanceComm.

D. Ashton (Chair): Good afternoon. My name is Dan Ashton. I'm representing Penticton-Peachland. I'll be chairing these proceedings and working very closely with the vice-Chair, Mike Farnworth, who unfortunately could not be here today, and all committee representatives and staff to ensure that what is said today is forwarded to the government for proper consideration.

Also joining us today, from the parliamentary committees office, are some very hard-working and dedicated individuals: our Clerk, Susan Sourial, and Stephanie Raymond at the back, who is staffing the registration desk. Michael Baer and Alexandrea Hursey are also here on behalf of Hansard Services. So thank you all.

I have C.J. and Jan. Thank you very much for coming. I look forward to it. I'll give you a two-minute warning at eight minutes and then a wrap-up, and then there will probably be questions from the committee. Once again, welcome.

J. Westcott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Jan Westcott, and I'm the president and CEO of Spirits Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague C.J. Helie. We
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appreciate the opportunity to appear today and to help lift the shroud of mystery surrounding beverage alcohol taxation as well as the associated risks and opportunities to the provincial treasury moving forward.

If I may be permitted a small indulgence before I begin my formal comments, could I impose on committee members to take a minute and write down on a piece of paper what each of you believes is the current annual value of corporate welfare payments made to alcohol producers by the province of B.C. each year. Just jot down what you think the corporate welfare payments are to all beverage alcohol producers in British Columbia. If you don't know, pick a number out of the air. We'll come back to that in a little bit, so thank you.

Provincial treasuries in Canada raise the vast majority of their revenues, from the sale and distribution of alcohol, from the application of liquor board markups. These are markups on the products. This is true whether the retail sale actually occurs in a government liquor store or in a private sales outlet. In the case of British Columbia, these product markups generated a net return to the treasury last year of nearly $930 million — not an inconsiderable amount of money.

In plain-speak, the B.C. LDB product markups are essentially a provincial commodity tax, the principle of which is to raise public funds from the sale of alcohol. British Columbia is one of the provinces and territories that raises public funds on this basis.

In fact, the product markup rates imposed are set at a level designed to generate the requisite revenue demands of the government and are exponentially higher than markup rates that would be established by a private retailer in any kind of competitive market. I don't think that's a mystery. I think everybody understands that. That's pretty much prevailing policy in Canada.

The high rates are possible only due to the monopoly powers granted to the LDB, as they are to most other liquor boards. Where LDB product markups diverge from a true commodity tax is the lack of transparency and the process used to amend these over time.

Our first recommendation is that LDB product markups be made subject to the oversight and transparency demanded by sound tax policy and that any and all increases be subject to a vote in the Legislature, as are all other taxes.

Other key principles of generally recognized sound tax policy include the requirement that comparable tax rates be imposed on directly competing or substitutable products and that tax policies are uniformly applied. If you think of income tax, we don't differentiate people on a strange basis.

Members may be aware that the LDB product markups on beer, just as an example, were moved from an ad valorem or price basis to a flat volume basis in 2003. This was at the request of the beer industry. In British Columbia beer has a flat tax. Spirits are subjected to an ad valorem tax, which means the tax is based on the price.

At that time, and recognizing the unsustainability of continuing to apply ad valorem markups on some products — wine and spirits — while applying a flat tax volume markup on beer, the LDB indicated to all the stakeholders when they made this decision that the beer flat tax volume-based markup would be adjusted annually for inflation. So there would be a flat tax, but it would be adjusted annually for inflation.

We're here today to report that a decade later, not a single inflation adjustment has occurred, and this has deprived the provincial treasury of about $335 million in tax revenue in the intervening period and, in fact, over $60 million alone last year. When the decision was made, a commitment was annunciated to index the flat tax. That hasn't happened, and at great cost to the treasury.

One of the unintended effects of reneging on the commitment to adjust the flat tax over the period has been to interfere in the market and to shift the tax burden to other categories, including spirits. The net result is that last year, while only representing 6 percent of the total volume of beverage alcohol sold in the province and 26 percent of the sales value, spirits contributed 40 percent of the net return to the treasury.

Simply put, this imbalance is unsustainable and is severely impacting the market. It's contributing to the misallocation of financial resources and creating a disincentive to competition as well as to investment in British Columbia. Our second recommendation, therefore, is that the LDB be directed to apply its own written policy and adjust beer's flat tax volume-based markup for inflation.

Recently policy announcements have indicated that local spirits producers in British Columbia will be allowed direct delivery privileges to both private retailers and on-premise licensees. These direct deliveries will be exempt from all product markups, so no tax. Given the cost of over $65 million a year in forgone markup revenues from the direct delivery of wine in the province, we're surprised that the province would make the same mistake in the spirits sector.

In addition, unlike the derogations and exceptions that were negotiated by British Columbia from various trade non-discriminatory disciplines for wine, no such carve-outs are available for spirits. So when Canada negotiated the FTA and NAFTA agreements, when Canada settled various trade disputes with Europe around beverage alcohol, certain derogations were provided to practices in Canada involving wine. No such derogations were provided to spirits.

The end result of this is that spirits from outside the province will have to be granted the same routes to market, tax rates and competitive opportunities as those granted to British Columbia products.

Interestingly, you'll probably be aware that they pri-
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vatized the liquor system in Washington State about two years ago. We just went through a similar process in Washington State after their privatization initiative.

Originally when they privatized, U.S. spirits producers were allowed to ship either to licensed distributors in the state or directly to retailers, while Canadian spirits producers were restricted to shipping only through distributors. After intercessions by a whole series of America's trading partners, the Washington State Liquor Board was required to amend their policies to conform to their obligations under NAFTA and other trade agreements.

The result is that today an Alberta distiller, just as an example, can ship either to a Washington State liquor distributor or directly to a private retailer under the same terms and conditions as an American distiller. In British Columbia, under the new west partnership agreement, Alberta and Saskatchewan spirits producers, for example, will have to be treated as if they were based in British Columbia.

So our third recommendation is that the new-tied house and direct-delivery rules that prevail for spirits either be rescinded or be extended to all Canadian spirits producers, consistent with the benefits of free and open trade between the provinces.

In addition to markup exemptions for direct delivery, B.C. also provides various other direct financial assistance measures for local products, including supplier rebates for sales through the LDB or small brewery discounts. These programs, estimated at about $35 million a year, are generally categorized as tax expenditures — that is, revenues deliberately foregone for various policy objectives.

Our fourth recommendation is that the Ministry of Finance annually publish the cost of all financial assistance provided to alcohol producers so that policy-makers and taxpayers can objectively evaluate their benefit and value.

I asked you a little earlier about the question of the total value of corporate welfare payments made to local alcohol producers — producers whose principles in many cases are amongst the highest net worth individuals in the province. By our calculation, the total last year was in excess of $160 million a year — $60 million in inflation-deferred beer markups, $65 million in markup exemptions on direct producer deliveries, $35 million in direct financial assistance.

So $160 million goes a long way in a lot of things. That would buy about 100,000 MRI scans. It would hire 3,000 new teachers. We've put a series of graphs in the back of our presentation for your information and to underscore the points we're making.

We appreciate the time today and would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

M. Hunt: Glancing through your charts that you have at the end, I'm unfamiliar with the term "CIC wine."

J. Westcott: No, it's not. It's a confusing term. What it really means is that wineries import wine into Canada, in most cases blend it with a little bit of Canadian wine and then sell it as Canadian wine. In most provinces, predominantly, it's imported wine. It's cellared in Canada.

It's not grown…. It's not made from Canadian grapes. It's not processed here. It comes in, essentially, as finished wine — as distinct from VQA wines, which are 100 percent B.C. wines or Ontario wines, depending on the region.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. Just to be clear in terms of, I guess, your second recommendation — fundamentally, that's to raise taxes on beer. Basically, the argument is to keep pace with inflation, which those taxes haven't been adjusted for.

J. Westcott: Well, when the request to move the flat taxes was made and the government ceded to that request, it was recognized that if you have different streams…. We all compete in the beverage alcohol business. We compete for consumption occasion. The days of people only drinking one kind of beverage alcohol are gone.

It was recognized that if you held one stream to flat tax, what you're really doing is you're changing the balance of the fiscal burden on everybody, because one guy's taxes don't move and the other guy's taxes do move.

What's happened in the intervening period is that the brewers, to their credit, have persuaded consumers that they should pay about 25 percent more for the beer they're buying. In our case, spirits has persuaded our consumers to pay about 22 percent more over that same period.

The government of British Columbia participated in the value increase of the sales of spirits to B.C. consumers. It has not participated in the sale of beer. So what's happening is that we went from, I think, about 38 percent — there's a graph in the charts there — of the fiscal burden on beverage alcohol in British Columbia to 45 percent.

I don't know if there was a meeting that took place in the government, and then they said: "You know, we're going to stick it to those spirits guys and give the brewers a break." Ultimately, what happened is that you have significantly enhanced the margins of the beer industry, and other people are picking up the slack.

D. Ashton (Chair): Sorry, I have a couple more questions coming forward, and we have two minutes left. I cut everybody off at 15 minutes. So I have Scott and Gary, and I'll make sure that both of you have a chance.

S. Hamilton: I guess I can't let you out of here without you explaining the issue of corporate welfare and the number we were supposed to write down on this piece of paper. You obviously piqued my interest.

J. Westcott: Governments make decisions all the time to do different things for different benefits. Some of the decisions that get made would involve not charging people tax that would ordinarily be charged. In British Columbia and in some other provinces a decision was taken to allow wineries producing 100 percent product from British Columbia to deliver direct and not pay any tax to the government. Spirits don't have that opportunity.

That is a tax deferral. That's tax that the government could have collected and chose not to for a policy reason. When wine is sold to the LDB…. If I'm selling a bottle of wine to the LDB and it's $10 — that's the f.o.b. price — in addition to giving me my $10, the LDB pays me another $5 for that bottle. That doesn't happen anywhere else.

Those are payments that the government is making to the industry, perhaps for good and valid reasons. We don't think they've been reviewed for some time. They account for a tremendous amount of money. They do influence what's going on in the marketplace. They make B.C. a less attractive place to invest if you're a spirits company, and they put a lot of money at the disposal of the wine industry to do all the things that you normally do in business in a competitive market.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. There's certainly information here I wasn't aware of before, and I know the committee will carefully consider it.

I did have, I guess, a rhetorical question, in a sense. You suggested that the only reason for taxing spirits, wine and beer is for tax revenue purposes. I would suggest, and ask if you would agree: isn't there a broader social purpose as well? Consumption of alcohol also generates social costs.

G. Holman: Just to finish. I mean, there are some analysts who argue that from a social policy perspective, your taxes should be based on alcoholic content, because that's correlated to the social costs that are generated by consumption.

J. Westcott: I'll make the answer really short. I agree with you, and British Columbia is one of seven provinces that have and maintain minimum prices for beverage alcohol, which is a very progressive policy which we have supported.

The other thing is that if I had three drinks in front of me…. If I had a glass that was a mixed drink of Canadian whiskey, 1½ ounces at 40 percent; a glass of table wine, five ounces at 12 percent; or a bottle of beer, say a Molson Canadian, 5 percent beer, 12 ounces…. Those are standard drinks. Those are standard servings. Each one of those drinks, to the decimal place, has exactly the same amount of alcohol, and yet they all have different tax levels put on by the provincial and federal governments. So you're right.

D. Ashton (Chair): Sir, thank you very much for your presentation. Really appreciate it. Thanks, gentlemen.

Next up we have Okanagan College — Tom and Jim. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you for coming.

Welcome. Nice to see you. So ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and we'll go from there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present to you this afternoon. For many years now Okanagan College has been amongst those institutions and groups presenting to this committee. We appreciate the opportunity to provide input as the government contemplates the options to secure the future of this province. Okanagan College is B.C.'s second-largest trades-training facility — second only to BCIT, and we're working on that.

We have 20,000 people taking courses from us annually, 1,000-plus employees, an operating budget of $94 million. We make an economic impact in our region that exceeds half a billion dollars annually, and we represent the region from Osoyoos to Revelstoke. Naturally, we want to participate in the processes that will guide the province's future.

We recognize that the opportunities described to this committee are many and the resources limited. We also appreciate the complexity of the task you have before you. Our goal, of course, is to make it easier. We think that investment in B.C. colleges will do just that.

Worthy of note: of the 200,000 annual college graduates in B.C., 90 percent of them will find work in the first six months after graduation.

A way to illustrate the value of investment in B.C. colleges came to me last Friday at the celebration of Okanagan College's 50th anniversary. It was an occasion that MLA Foster and several of his colleagues, including the Premier, were able to attend.

Two individuals joined us on the platform that afternoon who I particularly want to point to, because I think
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their stories say a lot about what we want to communicate.

One of those people was Randy Enns, among our first welding graduates from the B.C. Vocational School, as Okanagan College was named back then. Randy and his fellow graduates contributed to many of the projects that moved British Columbia forward in the heady years of the last century.

Mining, pipelines, shipbuilding and megaprojects — Randy and his fellow tradespeople helped to build our province, not just with their skills and hard work but with the taxes they contributed along the way.

Also on the platform was Drew Vincent, a current fourth-year business student who is already carving a major role for himself in the well-being of this province. Drew is president of Enactus Okanagan College, a volunteer organization comprised of many students from throughout the region.

Enactus helps hundreds of people, entrepreneurs and organizations within the Okanagan and the Shuswap — from helping single moms on social assistance to helping budding business people connect with mentors and managing the largest student-run angel investment network in Canada.

These are our students, building the kind of British Columbia that all of us want to see. Randy and Drew represent the past and the future. Both are living proof of the very real need to keep investing in post-secondary education, particularly colleges. In between, there are 53,000 other people who have received credentials from Okanagan College and its predecessor institutions.

Now, I don't need to harp on the coming skills shortage. I will simply say that five decades after the doors swung open on the B.C. Vocational School in Kelowna, we've done our piece.

I know that my colleague Jim Reed of B.C. Colleges was on hand last week, telling you what B.C.'s 11 colleges can do for this province. He provided a prescription for investment in our schools that will produce 2,000 additional graduates a year and give us the tools we need to do the job. We endorse that plan and heartily recommend it for your consideration. I'll reiterate what I'm sure he said: it's the colleges' turn.

A delightful surprise for us on Friday was three nurses from the first practical nursing program who chose to show up for the celebration in their nursing uniforms and in the hats that they wore when they graduated. They have much more than the hats to show for the past 50 years. They have long and distinguished careers providing the health care that our province's citizens have needed.

Welders like Randy Enns, nurses such as Mona Trussel, Alice Hay, Linda Yandel, and business people such as Drew Vincent are the fuel that will fire B.C.'s economic engine as we emerge from the economic situation of the past few years. The people who come to invest in British Columbia's natural resources or other opportunities will be looking at the quality of our workforce as a prime determinant in their decision. We can't lose sight of this.

You know the facts of the looming skills challenge. Essentially, it boils down to more jobs than there are skilled people to fill them. One thing we can't afford to let happen is to allow B.C. to languish in an environment where we have jobs without people and people without jobs. We have to find ways to engage all our citizens in the economic and career opportunities that lie ahead.

Something Okanagan College is very proud of is the area of helping under-represented segments of our population find paths to education. In 2005-06 Okanagan College had just over 400 aboriginal students registered. This past year that number has grown to more than 1,500. We have the largest women-in-trades program in British Columbia, one that has drawn national attention for its success. We will continue to build the partnerships and programs that will see those numbers continue to increase.

What makes it work is the fact that we are close to home, near where people need the educational opportunities. When Randy Enns left his home in Penticton to come to school in Kelowna, it was because the opportunities were close to home. Randy told the crowd of 500 last week that if he had to travel to the Lower Mainland for his welding education, it wouldn't have happened. We're happy to say that today, if Randy were inclined to go back to renew his training, he could do it right here in Penticton or go to Salmon Arm or to Vernon.

We've increased the opportunity for access to training throughout the province. As a college sector, we have more than 60 campuses and learning centres in every region of the province.

Let's consider what Randy, Mona, Alice, Linda and the rest of that class of '64 have paid in taxes over the past five decades. Contrast that with the government's investment made in 1963 in their education. No one would argue the return on the investment that represents. That's what we're highlighting right now. In fact, the last economic impact study Okanagan College did showed that for every taxpayer dollar spent, the return on investment was $3.80.

We recognize that the deliberations of your committee and the government must focus on making the best possible use of limited resources while being prudent in the face of many competing claims. I know I'm biased, but I can't think of a better investment than in our own citizens, especially in the education and training provided by our colleges. It's close to home, of world-class quality and less expensive for students and taxpayers than other options.

Labour market experts are telling us that nearly half of all the jobs predicted by 2020 will require the skills provided by colleges. We need to be thinking today of how
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we will fill those jobs and how we will generate the tax income to answer the competing calls for public investment. Who will pay for the rising health care costs if not the college graduates over the next 50 years?

Another point I'd like to raise: one of the challenges facing colleges in recent years is a product of a provincially mandated change in how we can use our reserves. Until five years ago we could use our reserves to respond to unexpected decreases in revenue or unplanned expenses. We could also use our reserves to respond to new opportunities or to launch new programs.

These reserves were created through good financial management and served both as a buffer and as seed money. Now, however, those reserves are by and large frozen to us because of revised accounting principles and our being part of the government reporting entity.

Members who have served on this select standing committee in years past know that this is a perennial topic of discussion and that the committee has recommended to the Minister of Finance that means be found to correct the situation. We ask that you continue to put pressure on, on that front.

Finally, we would counsel that close attention be paid to the investment recommendation of B.C. Colleges. Put simply, finding ways to allocate a larger portion of the government pie to training and educating our citizens now will result in a larger pie to allocate in years ahead. B.C. colleges are the most cost-effective places to achieve it.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. We have heard from other colleges on our trip, which isn't over yet. They have made similar points. I wanted to clarify the data. When you referred to 200,000, those are college grads? They don't include universities.

J. Hamilton: Sorry. I'm missing the reference in Tom's presentation — the 200,000.

T. Styffe: It's referenced in the B.C. Colleges handout that was given to you. Essentially, it's 200,000 college graduates per year.

J. Hamilton: Two thousand more per year is maybe the figure you're referring to. The additional number of grads that B.C. Colleges has prepared….

G. Holman: Well, I was going to get to that because I wanted to understand the denominator, which is 200,000, and the addition is 2,000, which is a 1 percent increase in throughput — if that's the right word — that you're proposing.

J. Hamilton: But I think the point there really is that B.C. Colleges has come forward with a fairly conservative proposal compared to the overall need, which may be the point that you are raising. That is done in the full knowledge of the kind of financial pressure under which government finds itself. Could we do more? Yes, we could do a lot more. Unfortunately, at some point these things do cost money. The degree to which we can help close the skills gap is dependent upon the resources that are available to us.

M. Hunt: Tom, recognizing that all courses can be done…. Some can be done in different ways; some can't be. A number of 20,000 students is what I think I heard you say. What are your FTEs? And give me an approximation of how much of that would be on line versus face to face.

J. Hamilton: Full-time-equivalent students — we will have approximately 7,500 to 7,800. Of course, we can't estimate fully this year, because we're still only partway through. But that's approximately about where it will be.

Of how many those people are on line, we saw, actually, a 30-percent-plus increase in the on-line registrations this year. It's still a fairly small part of what we do, because our students tend to take advantage of the provincial open learning agencies as well. We've got about 353, I think, students registered on line. I could be off by one or two, or slightly more.

M. Hunt: Okay, but it's in the ballpark. We'll use the number 400 just for the sake of rounding it and make sure that we're on the…. So 400 out of 7,500. Thank you. Excellent.

Jim, Tom, Donna, Allan, thank you very much for coming forward — great to hear from you. See you.

Rosemary McVeeters. Good afternoon. We have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll interrupt you at about eight minutes — I don't want to interrupt you; I'll try and give you a two-minute notice — and then five minutes for questions. Nice to see you again.

R. McVeeters: Good afternoon. My name is Rosemary McVeeters. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I am here to dwell with hope, to dwell with possibilities and to do a short presentation on appropriate residential housing for younger adults with chronic mental illness.

My son has chronic and persistent mental illness, hav-
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ing suffered many seizures during his 28 years. He had been in tertiary care at the care centre in Kelowna and was recently moved to Country Squire in Osoyoos. He does require residential care and medication supervision as well as life skills support to manage his life.

The clients living at Country Squire are 55 to 80 years old. The building was built in the 1970s and is located among orchards. While it is a beautiful site, there is very little for a young adult to do in terms of activities in the town. The staff there are caring, kind, hopeful, insightful and a knowledgable group of professionals. They are dedicated to helping our son gain confidence and move forward in the community.

I believe that Interior Health needs more resources for appropriate housing specifically for younger adults from 26 to 40 years old. There needs to be a support for home care, mentorship, ongoing monitoring and peer support. This would assist younger people to live independently in the community.

My hope is that a group home, assisted-living apartments or a complex could be provided for younger clients in each community where the chronic mentally ill live. These places would provide medication support, meals or supported cooking skills, assessment, encouragement and assistance with errands like banking, shopping, appointments or activities in the community. I hope that the staff could also maintain and liaise with the clients' family caregivers.

The ideal situation would be environmentally pleasing and centrally located. It would help young adults become confident again while interacting with others of similar ages, knowing that there are professionals there to help them when the going gets rough.

My hope is that Interior Health will start to use the best practice for managing chronic and persistent mental illness and substance abuse. Concurrent diagnosis and treatment is used successfully in other health authorities, so it would be ideal to have a plan to formulate this type of treatment in the Okanagan. Ultimately, when we treat the mentally ill with dignity, respect and appropriate placements, positive results can be seen in all ages.

In the handout that I have given you, you will find three copies from a report that was published in 2010. I have the whole report here, which I downloaded. If you are interested, I've highlighted the web address where the full report is located. It can be viewed or downloaded.

Over the past several years, whenever I had discussions with in-patient mental health or tertiary care teams in Interior Health, they had no ideas or solutions for ongoing housing for my son, as he requires supports from mental health professionals as well as support in the community. I never understood why until I read the report from 2010 addressing the transfer of patients from Riverview. This transfer has affected more mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and family than anyone could ever have imagined in our province of British Columbia.

The agenda in 2002 was to move patients with persistent and chronic mental illnesses to tertiary care and then into the community. This was an enormous job, moving the patients to homelike settings, into tertiary care and providing the care that was needed. It also took a huge amount of training for mental health workers in each health authority to become adept, competent, knowledgable and to learn how to interact and care for these patients in a compassionate way.

This report is very long and involved, and I could never, ever attempt to discuss the many aspects of it right now. However, as I read the report, it became clear to me that even though many patients were successful in the transition, there was a portion of patients that did not move forward. The returning concern of this report was housing and social support for those who fail to move onward from tertiary care.

"While the opportunity for addressing social and structural determinants of mental health was not lost, there is still room to develop the regionalized mental health care system to more accurately reflect the ideals of the recovery model of care through more staff training…and through greater resource allocation towards the non-medical aspects of mental health, especially housing and employment."

Questions still remain after over ten years, and no plans seem to be forthcoming for those left behind. My 28-year-old son was given one option after tertiary care, and it was a residential care place where the age demographic is 55 to 80 years old.

My hope is that you, our members of the Legislature, will provide discussions and lead our province in providing appropriate housing for young adults my son's age. It may be assisted-living apartments, group homes or age-appropriate complexes in the communities, where the chronically mentally ill live.

I have asked many mental health professionals to think outside of the box over the years, but they are very limited in what they can do to help the patient move into housing that will help the patient thrive and become successful in the community.

I will focus my closing on the last sentence in the report, which says: "The question now is not whether the services are in place but how they will evolve from here on in and what effect the availability of mental health care closer to home will mean for the nature of care, the prospects of recovery, support for families and the communities themselves."

I'm asking you to help to complete the rest of this story, to finish this report on relocating mental health care in British Columbia. I ask you to help so that our most vulnerable, stigmatized and misunderstood younger citizens can have appropriate housing.

Please do not forget my son and others like him. We need to move forward with plans for appropriate housing for our younger mentally ill citizens in our community,
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as it will make all of us in British Columbia stronger and give each of us hope for a better tomorrow.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. In the situation that your son is in now, obviously there are dollar supports that go with him that fund, essentially, his room and board for these other facilities. Do I have that right?

R. McVeeters: Yes, he gets the disability moneys that are available, and he is left with $90 at the end of that. It's $900, and he's left with $90. So $900 pays for the facility.

G. Holman: I guess the point I'm trying to make, or I'm wondering is if those same supports go with the client, say, over the person, then….

The cost of delivery in, say, a community closer to home versus one that's not would presumably be approximately the same, is what I'm trying to get at. So does it cost…? Other than establishing the facility itself, the ongoing cost of running the facility…. Presumably, the cost would be similar, except the Lower Mainland, obviously, is going to have a higher cost than a more rural area. But within, say, a rural area, the costs are going to be similar, are they not, on an ongoing basis?

M. Hunt: I want to thank you for coming and making this presentation. My mother, who is in Alberta, is in a similar facility. It was quite shocking to me that they had this huge age gap, diversion, within the facility. It was quite surprising to me, because there is not that relational facility that's there.

So thank you for making this presentation. We will be working on it in some way, shape or form.

I'm going to take a quick, two-minute recess, just until we have the opportunity to get somebody else in.

D. Ashton (Chair): Welcome. We have the city of Penticton — Coun. Helena Konanz and Mayor Garry Litke, who's going to be up at the table twice today, correct?

D. Ashton (Chair): Helena, the lay of the land is a ten-minute presentation, I'll give you a two-minute warning at eight minutes, and then we've allotted five minutes for questions or comments. The floor is yours, and the clock is running.

H. Konanz: Okay. Thank you so much, MLA Dan Ashton, who actually has heard me make this presentation before. I want to welcome all of you to Penticton. I really appreciate you all coming here today.

In 2012 at the UBCM our council met with the Ministers of Education and Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology to discuss the expansion of local educational opportunities for skilled trades training in Penticton.

I'll give you a little background. Penticton has a vibrant industrial sector. As a council, we are doing everything we can to help it to expand. As you know, or as I hope you know, two weeks ago we won the Open for Business Award for being in the top seven most welcoming communities for small business. This was through economic incentive zones, a drastic reduction in building permit fees, improved business licence applications and processes.

Our manufacturing community includes industry leaders which are internationally known such as Structurlam, Slimline, Nor-Mar, McCoy Trailers. And Premier Christy Clark was just here on Friday to praise Britco for their new $100 million project, which translates into 250 new jobs.

Just south of us the remand centre will need a few hundred workers just to get it built, and then, of course, our hospital in the next few years. Skilled labour is needed and included in all these demands, and we can't offer tradespeople enough at this point for what we have right now and then with these projects coming up.

In 2012 when we met with those ministers, we spoke with them about the need for power line apprentices, welders, sheet metal workers and more. Discussions with Okanagan College, Penticton campus, indicate that their facilities and administration are interested in the delivery of these trades courses if sufficient students and placement in industry can be confirmed, and they also need the funding of the capital.

Discussion with the local school districts also indicate that they want to deliver these courses, but again, there's no funding available for the capital. They also realize that they need to start encouraging young people to participate and become interested, starting in elementary
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school, in trades training.

What's happening right now is that kids are leaving our secondary school, and they can't find high-paying jobs, so they have to leave. Or they're staying, and they're taking on our low-paying tourism jobs or customer service sector jobs. And right across town we have high-paying jobs that need to be filled. Of course, then we have our college that would like to train these young people — and older people, also — who need jobs. It's kind of trying to connect the dots, and it's stunting our economy.

The problem is also with…. There are the oil and gas sector trades. Many of the oil and gas sector workers do reside in Penticton and commute to the oil patch. We're encouraging them to live here. Studies show that the community they do their training in — they'll tend to stay in that community. We're really encouraging, because we're losing our young people.

Penticton would be an ideal location for long, permanent facilities due to its existing base of employers, the local college, our enthusiastic school district and the need for skilled trades. We've got everything needed to make this happen. In addition, the facility would provide an opportunity to build a core skills set in the community and within our public institutions to develop, support and attract international students.

After meeting with the ministers last year, a stakeholders meeting was held last spring which included major local manufacturers, representatives from the college, the school board, economic development officers, our local council and representatives from the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training. The most important thing we learned from this meeting was the extreme need from our local industry.

Again, two weeks ago we met with Minister Shirley Bond and Minister Amrik Virk at UBCM. Both of these ministers have committed to coming to Penticton this fall to attend a second stakeholders' meeting with the manufacturers, school board, college — all the stakeholders — to see what they can do to help connect the dots and make this happen for skills training. And of course, we really appreciate that they're coming. We can tell that this is a priority for the government.

Our ask is that Penticton become a pilot skilled trades training program for the province. In order to do this, we need some funding for capital. At a minimum we'd like to run at least one section of 16 welding students per year and have the funding to support this program along with all of our partners that would help, including the city.

What you have in Penticton is a buy-in from all the sectors. It's a win-win for everyone, and if Penticton wins with this project, the whole province wins.

D. Ashton (Chair): Helena, accept my apologies. I had to nip out and just talk to somebody about some presentations that weren't going to happen today. So thank you for the presentation.

E. Foster: Thank you very much for that. Have you discussed with Okanagan College their delivery of these programs at their other campuses?

H. Konanz: Yes, we have. I think that there's been an expansion of some trades programs in Kelowna, but what seems to happen is that those that do go up to Kelowna for those programs tend to stay or leave. We don't need as big of a program here in Penticton, but we're trying to set up some programs here so that these young people will stay in our community.

As I said, it doesn't have to be as large of a program as Okanagan College, Kelowna campus, has, but everything seems to be going to that campus and not here to Penticton.

E. Foster: But your intention would be that this program would be run through Okanagan College.

H. Konanz: It could be, yes, or it could be run through with Okanagan College and partner with the school district. The city is very, very focused on this to help our local manufacturing. We'd all win. I think that we could all be partners in this program.

When I was at UBCM there was a presentation about the same type of program that's going on, on the Island. I can't recall the exact name of that program at this point. There's also one in the north that's happening. They were using it as examples of what can happen.

I think that it needs to be sculpted for our community, and I know that, again, the manufacturers would also be a partner. I know that they would be willing to also kick in some funding for apprenticeship programs if we had a program locally.

Thank you very much for the presentation, Helena, Garry. Garry, we'll see you in a minute or so.

I'd also like to recognize Coun. Wes Hopkin in the back there. Good to see you, Wes.

Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. We have allotted ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes for questions.

P. Ord: Thank you, Mr. Ashton, and thank you to the standing committee for allowing us to come today to present to you.

My name is Peter Ord. I am the president of the B.C. Museums Association and also curator here in Penticton, at the Penticton Museum.
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To my right is John Grimes. He's our interim executive director. He is based in Kelowna. Our office, as you can see, is based in Victoria. It just so happens that we're both in the Okanagan, so this works out very well.

D. Ashton (Chair): Peter, we're on a first-name basis here to keep it friendly. Thank you, though.

P. Ord: The BCMA was founded in 1957. It is one of the longest-serving provincial cultural associations in B.C. and one of the oldest provincial museum associations in Canada. Incorporated as a non-profit society in 1966 and registered as a charitable organization in 1981, the BCMA serves a broad cross-section of organizations and individual professionals across the province's arts and cultural sector.

The BCMA's 400-plus members, mostly organizations, include large and small museums, art galleries, heritage properties, historic sites, First Peoples cultural centres, military museums, science centres, observatories, archives, artist-run centres and botanical gardens, as well as their trustees, professional staff, volunteers and affiliated independent professionals.

BCMA's mission is to be a provincial service organization that fosters the growth and development of its members and their communities by providing advocacy, professional development and communications services. For more than 50 years BCMA has assisted arts and heritage organizations and professionals across the province to better serve the citizens of B.C. by increasing access to the creative and cultural wealth that our province embodies.

BCMA builds broad-based public support for the importance of arts and culture in society and, therefore, the critical role that arts and cultural organizations play in preserving heritage, thus providing exhibitions, educational programs and other services that build cultural literacy, bring diverse communities together and enhance quality of life for B.C. citizens.

BCMA also seeks to be a resource to policy-makers in developing priorities and strategies that best preserve and make accessible our shared heritage throughout the province. It serves as a voice for the arts and cultural sector through informational press releases, publications and meetings that bring together policy-makers, professionals and the public.

The BCMA creates affordable training opportunities for museum and gallery professionals throughout the province. That helps improve the skills needed to fulfil their public missions and to ensure that our heritage is properly preserved and effectively presented to the public. It provides an essential role as a professional network for museums and gallery professionals, board members and volunteers in B.C., an especially important function for rural organizations that would otherwise be isolated from our peer support and expertise.

The BCMA has projected 2013-2014 revenues to be over $280,000. Currently almost half of BCMA's revenue is self-generated from membership dues, annual conference revenue, workshop registrations and advertising fees. The BCMA has received ongoing provincial support from the B.C. Arts Council for its operations and from community gaming grants in support of specific programs such as publications and regional workshops.

At the federal level we have received support from Canadian Heritage, including the current grant to design and deliver specialized collections management training. BCMA has also received modest levels of private support, primarily gifts from members, together with some corporate financial support and sponsorships that have helped support our operations, advance special projects and fund bursaries that help members lacking adequate means to attend meetings and training workshops.

J. Grimes: Today we'd like to highlight BCMA's role in advocacy and innovation leadership. BCMA believes that all of us in the sector — including policy-makers and funders, museums and galleries, arts and culture service organizations such as BCMA — have a profound responsibility to preserve and strengthen arts and culture in society.

As we approach the nation's 2017 sesquicentennial, there has never been a greater need to maximize the cultural and historical literacy of our increasingly diverse citizens. At the same time as the global economy accelerates the need for innovation and technical skills, there has never been a greater need to foster critical and creative thinking in our workforce and among the young people who will soon be part of it. Fostering cultural and historical literacy and fostering critical and creative thinking is what BCMA's member organizations do every day all across the province.

BCMA also understands that there is an important responsibility throughout government to carefully weigh public investments to ensure that public money is used in the most effective ways and that these investments result in significant and tangible benefits to the citizens of the province.

Within the museums and galleries sector, BCMA is uniquely situated to partner with policy-makers and funding agencies to help collaboratively design a prudent and effective portfolio of investments in this sector and to help formulate long-range policies that maximize the effectiveness of such investments, both to ensure responsible stewardship of our provincial heritage but also to maximize the benefits that the public receives.

BCMA believes that a new brand of advocacy is required in the museums and galleries sector and in the arts and culture sector generally. We believe that advocacy needs to move from a reactive and sometimes
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adversarial posture to a proactive and collaborative relationship between our organizations, policy-makers and funding agencies.

BCMA believes that this forward-looking and collaborative approach is essential for the ongoing sustainability of museums and galleries and for arts and culture generally in this province and across Canada.

In addition to engaging in collaborative advocacy, BCMA believes that innovation is an essential element of a sustainable arts and culture sector. Increasingly, not-for-profit organizations in Canada and elsewhere are developing social enterprises that use commercial strategies to generate earned support for their mission.

Encouraging the development of social enterprise as well as increasing capacity of private sector fundraising will decrease reliance on government funding. Developing innovative partnerships between the not-for-profit sector and for-profit sectors will also increase opportunities for more efficient use of shared resources.

New public-private partnerships, new social enterprise opportunities, new strengthened partnerships and increased private sector support will require changes in the way the organizations in our sector do business in their strategic planning, in their organizational governance and in their operating models. BCMA believes that by working together with policy-makers, funding agencies and organizations in our sector, we can make this transition, chart a new course for the future and achieve sustainability through greater self-sufficiency.

With these considerations in mind, the British Columbia Museums Association respectfully makes the following recommendations:

(1) Maintain current levels of funding to the B.C. Arts Council. We applaud the current level of funding to the council at $24 million, the highest in its history, and we are grateful for the provincial government's recognition of the importance of arts and culture to the quality of life of the citizens of British Columbia. The stability of this funding is essential to the many organizations in our sector that serve communities across the province.

(3)(a) Convene a task group comprised of the leadership from B.C.'s arts and culture service organizations as well as policy-makers from appropriate ministries and with funding agency staff to develop a long-range, collaborative vision of the future. This task group should be charged with developing a model for investments that will stimulate new and innovative approaches for sustainability through social entrepreneurship, partnerships and increased capacity for private sector fundraising.

(3)(b) Provide, through relevant ministries, a one-time direct grant of $50,000 to the B.C. Museums Association for the purpose of studying, among its provincewide member organizations, local opportunities for social entrepreneurship, partnerships and private sector fundraising, with the final report to be delivered to the aforementioned task group and to the museums and galleries sector.

G. Holman: Thanks very much your presentation. So the task force and the one-time funding — are they together?

And the Museum Association — you don't deal with heritage properties per se, or do you? Is that part of your…?

P. Ord: There's overlap there with Heritage B.C. Heritage B.C. actually does most of the looking after of advocacy and funding for heritage properties. But we do have heritage properties as members in our association, so they benefit from a lot of our communications and advocacy and, also, training and resources.

G. Holman: Would there be some applicability, in striking this task force and this funding, to heritage properties as well?

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. I appreciate…. It's interesting. We travel across the province and hear a number of different presentations. There's advocacy, certainly, for general literacy, physical literacy — different types of literacy. You're also talking about cultural and historical literacy. I think it's an important component in terms of just raising awareness along those lines, so thank you for the work you do. I'm also a supporter and appreciate our museums and the broad range that we have here in British Columbia.

My question is: in terms of the BCMA, is your funding administered from the B.C. Arts Council? Is that where it's allocated from?

P. Ord: We do get a one-time operational grant assistance from the B.C. Arts Council, and that's for the operation of the BCMA. But the members of the BCMA, all the 400-plus membership, apply to the B.C. Arts Council also for their operating grant.

M. Elmore: And then you supplement that with fundraising on different initiatives.

P. Ord: That's right. Then we have our conference, which happens every year. We raise about $23,000 from there. We do get particular grant money from Canadian Heritage for specific projects, and of course, our membership fees also fund up to 40 percent of our operations.

Gentlemen, thank you very much — appreciate it. Have a good day, and thank you for coming.

Judy Poole. Welcome, Judy. Nice to see you. Thank you for coming. What it is, is a ten-minute presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes allotted for questions or comments. The floor is yours.

J. Poole: I've thought long and hard for many days on how to convey the anguish that a family dealing with addiction goes through without losing sight of what I'm actually here for, and that's to essentially beg you to commit resources to the areas where you can really make a difference for a generation that has seen too many devastated by what is known to be a disease but is basically ignored until it hits the justice system.

My son was a student in the gifted program throughout his primary and elementary years, moving into French immersion in grade 5. At age 14 he approached the owners of Little Caesars Pizza in Penticton, while the restaurant was still in the building stage, talking them into hiring him and spending two years learning every position and earning the respect of the owner.

A little personal background. Although the timing is a bit of a blur for me, our family went through the trauma of a divorce. Jeremy felt the pain of being separated from his dad and seeing his mother become an emotional basket case.

Mentally bookmark this spot, if you will. I think Jeremy started self-medicating with drugs at this point in time. He was diagnosed with depression, saw a child psychiatrist for a short time, but the psychiatrist moved out of town, and treatment became strictly taking a pill.

We struggled through a number of years where his depression worsened, and there seemed nowhere to turn. If there were resources, I wasn't aware of them.

He completed most of a diploma of business administration, but a phone call at 5:30 a.m. one morning, when he disclosed that he'd been selling drugs, triggered his first trip to rehab.

Although his father and I have good jobs, our finances weren't in the best shape after a divorce, but we did what we had to do to pay for a month in a highly respected rehab on Vancouver Island. Although things weren't perfect when Jeremy came out, his use was restricted to pot smoking, and he set up a satellite installing business and was quite successful. A skiing injury forced him to change jobs, and although successful at work, either the knee pain or too much time on his hands started him down the slippery slope of opiate addiction.

There aren't enough hours for me to share with you the craziness that ensued over the next year to year and a half. At another time I hope to have a venue to share how the health system, education system and legal system have to work together to prevent tragedy.

I pulled together the funding for another trip to rehab, this time a longer stint at another private facility, this time on Bowen Island. He did so well until he didn't.

The trouble with our system is that the system doesn't allow for relapse. The solution is that you leave. Then you go to a recovery house until you relapse there, and then you leave there. You're starting to get the picture, I hope. Then you end up on the Downtown Eastside with a blood infection, in the hospital on IV antibiotics for two weeks. Another mental bookmark, please.

Mother paying for an apartment. Back into detox. Released onto the street, and then back into detox — and maybe, just maybe, because he's now at Onsite, finally some treatment.

If you go back to the mental bookmarks, maybe we can talk about how we can make an investment that's going to save money in our system. Interestingly, when I talked to Jeremy today and told him I was doing this, he said: "Mom, can you please tell them how much money they can save?"

Addiction has long been understood to be a disease, but our system does not begin to treat it that way. We need to start by educating our children and their parents and working on prevention. I'm not talking about Scared Straight programs like DARE. I'm talking about factual, leading-edge research and information that tells parents and kids alike that the adolescent brain is vulnerable and that any use of alcohol or drugs means a rolling of the dice. One in ten will end up addicted.

That leading-edge research tells us that we should not minimize the impact of alcohol or marijuana on the adolescent brain. It's not a harmless rite of passage to get drunk and stoned. Let's tell them and show them what addiction actually means, and let's teach parents that it's okay to say to their kids that no use is the acceptable level.

Let's have effective intervention at early signs of trouble. Let's have psychiatrists and counsellors available to help parents. I'm realistic here. I understand that we don't have huge dollars in the system. But one would be good.

Crises don't happen Monday to Friday, nine to four. A person trained to provide some kind of triage for our children in crisis would be invaluable. Let's face it: we are already spending the money in our emergency wards and our psych wards.
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Let's make our recovery programs accountable to somebody. There's one in Surrey that was a tough love program with no medical support or any kind of professionally trained staff. They still have $4,000 of my money, although my son only lasted somewhat less than two days in their facilities. The one that asked him to leave the day he relapsed has kept another $4,000 of my money.

We have innovative facilities on a small scale. Don't ever let them take our safe injection site away from us. Let's spend the large amounts of money that are being spent on the revolving door that is the recovery industry on effective, evidence-based treatment. Let's become leaders in the treatment of our youth that are suffering from the disease of addiction the same way we've been leaders in saving lives with Insite and Onsite.

These kids are dying. I live every day wondering if I will learn today about the devastation of losing a child. If my child had cancer, there would be resources, community support and medical treatment desperately trying to make him well. For him, there's stigma and shame, which do nothing to help him get well.

When I asked him about how he felt about me going public, about him losing his anonymity, he said: "Mom, if we can save one person from this…." So I'm here today asking you to spend money on prevention, early intervention and effective treatment for our kids who are struggling with addiction.

D. Ashton (Chair): Judy, thank you very much for the presentation — very much.

M. Hunt: Thank you for coming, and thank you for sharing your story. There are many of us that have worked with various drug and alcohol situations throughout our lives. It's always gut-wrenching, and it's always tragic. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Judy, for having the courage to come forward — also, your son for being willing to bring that into the open and to make that real, I think, in terms of the struggles, the suffering and the difficulty of dealing with, particularly, young people and addiction. It's clear, it's understood, that it's a medical condition. I think we're hearing the message about the need for supports for young people around prevention and also better improved services to ensure that they are able to overcome that situation and lead a healthy life.

There's been discussion of making changes in terms of allowing parents to have their under-age children put into facilities. Did you have any comment about that?

J. Poole: In our situation, there was always 100 percent cooperation from Jeremy. He's fought this thing from the get-go, and it seems to me like he fights it more every day.

I attached an article that's written by a guy named David Sheff, who is a journalist in New York City and whose son Nic was the subject of a book called My Beautiful Boy.

I believe that we have to do whatever to get treatment to these guys. If, initially, you have to force them into treatment, then so be it, because I know where the slippery slope leads. We're going to be forcing them into jail someday if we don't treat them. It's a question of now or later.

Really, I believe in early intervention. I think there's a way to get to these kids before it gets to that stage. They have to know that it's not cool to do drugs and drink. We all did it. We all drank. But did we know that we were rolling the dice? Did we know that one in ten was going to end up an addict? Not a chance.

I would say that a good percentage of the people, parents out there don't know that about their kids, and if they did, they'd probably have a lot more courage and a lot more backbone. I know I would have. I would have said no.

M. Elmore: Yeah, there are some good models, I think, in terms of professionals on the ground working in teams adequately, doing a better job. Certainly, you have my support on the issue, and hopefully, we can reach a recommendation to come forward and support kids in this circumstance.

D. Ashton (Chair): Judy, thanks for coming forward. We really appreciate it. See you later.

D. Ashton (Chair): Summerland Chamber of Economic Development and Tourism. I've got Christine and Connie.

C. Denesiuk: One of the benefits of coming early is having the ability to listen to the people who have gone before. I would think that that story plays out over and over again in our province. I appreciate the opportunity to have heard Judy earlier.

For now, first of all, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Connie Denesiuk, and I'm a director with the Summerland Chamber of Commerce. With me is our manager, Christine Petkau.

I know a number of you around the table, friendly faces. I'd like to thank you. Certainly, Mr. Chair, our own Dan Ashton, it's so great to have you here. Thank you for having us here and giving us the opportunity to present to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We know that your findings will help to shape policy and budgets to come in the province of British Columbia.
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Our chamber of commerce in Summerland consists of all 800 licensed businesses from Summerland, due to an agreement that we have with the municipality that is unique in the province. Our business community is comprised of small business owners. That's reflective of the situation across the province, where 98 percent of all businesses are considered small.

Our submission today reflects the findings of a membership survey as well as comment from our board of directors. Our presentation is fairly brief, but I think the points are fairly clearly laid out, and I'll present them now.

There are seven key recommendations that we would like you to consider to inform future provincial budgets. The first four focus on taxes, and the subsequent three revolve around recommendations for reducing red tape and redundancy in reporting, thereby increasing productivity. That comes under the umbrella of government services. I will begin with taxes.

We would recommend that work to retain low personal income rates in B.C. is important. While some responders felt that that wasn't necessarily specific to business, they did feel that it has a positive effect in terms of spending ability of residents, and it also helps us to attract a vibrant workforce to British Columbia.

Second, that provincial balanced budgets stay the course. Comments from our members indicated that passing the financial burden on to our children is not the sort of legacy we ought to be leaving. Provincial balanced budgets with lower taxes — our members felt that they were connected — will help due to lower servicing of the debt and higher credit ratings for the province.

Another comment that came forward several times was to revisit the HST. The paperwork involved in collecting, reporting and submitting GST and PST is cumbersome, and many businesses have taken a financial hit on the return to the two-tax system.

Fourth, reinstate the school tax credit for light manufacturing. School taxes are not collected and distributed to the local school boards. Therefore, to reinstate the school tax credit for light manufacturing would not directly affect or have an impact on local schools. The taxes are collected provincially, and they only form a portion of the K-to-12 actual education costs.

In Summerland we have 41 businesses that are affected by this change. One of the business owners commented that this change will likely take him out of the black and into the red this year. The question raised by another respondent was: why have a tax policy that affects only one part or one segment of our industry? This also raised a concern about loss of jobs due to higher overhead costs for this particular segment.

Five, and now we're into, really, more the regulation and red-tape recommendations, encourage liquor regulation reform. Summerland has a number of wineries and other businesses that indicated reform is needed. Reporting requirements for wineries are onerous, multiple layers of reporting which takes significant staff time to compile and complete, and they're often redundant. We would recommend simplifying and streamlining reporting requirements.

The question was raised: what will happen if the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch is abolished? I don't know if that's a question you want to tackle, but it was raised by one of our members. We heard from businesses who were not directly involved in the wine industry who felt, ultimately, that their businesses would be positively affected by regulation reforms.

Six, overly restrictive regulations — for example, farm gate, farmers market, festival vendors, workers compensation, etc. While business recognizes the importance of safety regulations in order to protect the public, high levels of control are not proving to be the most effective approach.

One respondent summed it up well: "Small business owners need to be able to spend time making money, not reporting to all the layers and layers of government — local, provincial and federal." They go on to say: "The more money we make, the more people we can employ and the more money we can spend in our community." From another we heard: "Restore farm-gate sales, making it easier for home-based farmers market vendors to provide goods to sell." The tragedies that we've heard recently involve much larger processing plants, not our local farmers.

The seventh is quite self-explanatory: simplify the process for B.C. farm assessment tax exemption.

We recognize that small business is an economic engine for our province, and we're very appreciative of the opportunity that you've given us to be able to provide a little bit of the feedback and input from the Summerland business community.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. I have two questions, one about the reinstatement of the tax credits for light manufacturing and the other, the comment about restoring farm-gate sales and the tragedies you mentioned around processing plants.

On the school tax credit, this was a tax credit that did exist and has been pulled away, and you're that saying if we reinstated it, it would not result in a loss of funding to local schools.

C. Denesiuk: No, there's not a direct link. It's not as though our local schools would have to…. It's the provincial coffers. All that money is collected, put into the larger….

G. Holman: Which, if more has to go to…. I think there would be a revenue impact.

C. Denesiuk: Well, we know that at one time — it wasn't that long ago — you could buy…. I'm going to use an example that a couple of farmers have given to me. That's that you could purchase livestock — you know, half a lamb or a lamb or something — from a local farmer. You can't do….

In Summerland they do have an abattoir, but it's in a situation where it's not available for use. Whereas on Vancouver Island I understand that because there's not an abattoir available, the rules are somewhat changed. That's one example that I've heard from a couple of our local farmers.

The tragedies that I referred to are obviously the large processing plants, where the E. coli has been found. That's what I'm talking about.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. I just have a follow-up question, as well, on the school tax credits. Do you know what the rate is that's being reinstated and just what area it's been in specifically?

Christine, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was at 50 percent. My understanding is that it was at 50 percent.

C. Petkau: That might have been a different one, a different aspect of it. The one that I recall from our director of finance said that the combined tax load was roughly around 18 percent. I know it represented just thousands of dollars to many of our small businesses in Summerland.

Ladies, thank you very much for coming. Great to see you again. See you shortly. Appreciate the input. It was succinct and to the point, and I like that. That's good.

Hi, Lisa. Nice to see you. Good afternoon. We have ten minutes for the presentation, Lisa. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we've got five minutes allotted for questions. Thanks for coming.

L. Scott: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today, Mr. Chairman and members of the select standing committee. I'm here today on behalf of the Okanagan and Similkameen Invasive Species Society, also know as OASISS. I'm here to talk to you about invasive species. I'm the coordinator of the society and have been so since its inception 17 years ago.

Our society's activities predominantly occur within the boundaries of the Okanagan-Similkameen regional district, an area of approximately 10,400 square kilometres. However, we do work closely with the Central and North Okanagan regional districts.

We recently initiated a valley-wide aquatic invaders program, in cooperation with all three regional districts. This expanded our coverage area to over 21,000 square kilometres and an estimated population of 325,000.

I understand that this is not the first presentation you've had on invasive species, and I'm also aware there are several more to come. There are many reasons for this.

Firstly, invasive species are a clear and present danger in this province. They impact B.C. economically, environmentally and socially. Invasive species threaten the health of our resources as well as the viability of the industries they support.

Secondly, it's probably very evident to this committee that there are many active groups throughout B.C. that are involved in invasive species programs. These programs help to educate the public as well as take on-the-ground action to prevent, control and contain invasive species. Partnerships are crucial, as we're all well aware that invasive species do not respect jurisdictional boundaries.

Thirdly, we as a province need to adequately invest in the prevention and management of these invasive species and support multi-stakeholder collaboration and communication.

Because my colleagues have already enlightened you on the current situation in the province as a whole, I'm going to focus on some specific examples in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys.

First, some background on our region. The Okanagan and Similkameen valleys have long been recognized as an area that combines a tremendous diversity of habitats with unique species, many of which are found nowhere else in the province or in Canada. Nearly two-thirds of our region is classified as having high or very high conservation ranking and supports 257 species at risk.

The Okanagan grasslands and open forests that support many of these species serve as a vital landscape cor-
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ridor between the shrub steppe habitats of the Columbia Basin in Washington and Oregon and the grasslands of the Thompson and Nicola valleys to the north and west. These grasslands and dry fir-pine forests are also the same habitats most threatened by the encroachment of invasive plants. Non-native plants have also been implicated in the decline of many species at risk.

In addition to the presence of species and ecosystems at risk, the Okanagan and Similkameen region supports approximately 190 species of breeding birds, and this is almost half of the Canadian total.

The region supports important ungulate winter range, including suitable habitat for several herds of blue-listed California bighorn sheep. Our region supports 90.7 percent of B.C.'s vineyards. Our region supports critical spring range necessary to support a healthy ranching industry, with an estimated 25,000 head of beef cattle in the south Okanagan and Similkameen, which would undoubtedly increase when you include the Central and North Okanagan.

Our region also supports about 350,000 visitors and an estimated $59 million annually in direct visitor expenditures. These economic, environmental and social values are all being impacted by invasive species. Now I'll introduce you to three of the culprits.

Number 1. For anyone living here, you would be aware of the plant called puncturevine. This mat-forming Mediterranean plant occurs in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys but is not known to occur anywhere else in Canada. It invades dry, gravelly or sandy soils and has spiny seed pods that in fact puncture and pop bicycle tires and embed in vehicle tires, shoes or an unwary paw or foot. It's impacted our region's tourism industry by invading beaches and many popular biking routes. More recently, it's having an economic impact on our agricultural industry as it moves into ground crops, orchards and vineyards.

The spiny seed pods are mildly toxic and very painful to our pets, livestock, wildlife and anyone who steps on them or punctures their fingers. As we celebrate the fall wine festival this week, literally thousands of cars will drive over the spiny seed pods of this invasive plant, unknowingly spreading the seeds throughout the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys.

My second example is spotted knapweed. This invader, very prevalent in our region, outcompetes more nutritious forage plants in our grasslands and forests. It can reduce grass production by up to 50 percent. Trail systems, which are prevalent in our region, used by locals as well as tourists, are of particular concern because invasive plants such as knapweed or even puncturevine are spread by trail users along the trail and then spread onto the adjacent lands.

In the southern Interior spotted knapweed infestations are spreading into adjacent pastures and hayfields. The resulting impact is on rangeland production, affecting our local ranchers in the pocketbook. It also negatively impacts wildlife dependent on the grasslands and dry forests.

More than 40,000 hectares of land in the province are infested with knapweed, and this could easily spread to over one million hectares. Agriculture is B.C.'s third-largest industry, and invasive species such as knapweed put farming at risk.

Knapweed introductions have also been implicated in increased surface water runoff and stream sedimentation. Without intervention, the economic damage caused by knapweed in B.C. was estimated at $18 million in 2008 and is predicted to increase to $23 million by 2020.

My third and final example is one that doesn't occur here yet, so prevention is key. That is zebra and quagga mussels. These particular invertebrates grow in big clusters and clog water intake pipes, pumps and boat motors. They are a freshwater species. They filter large amounts of water, competing for food with our native species and depleting food sources for fish. They produce toxins that have been implicated in the death of fish and birds.

Aquatic invasive species such as these mussels are almost always introduced by people moving equipment from infected lakes to clean lakes. Anything that's in contact with a contaminated body of water can be a vector.

Just so you know, they're really not that far away, even though they're not in British Columbia. They're in California, Utah, Nevada, so the closest infected lake would be about 600 kilometres away, as well as in the Great Lakes in Ontario, and in Quebec.

Tourist activity in our region, of course, is largely focused around the mainstem lakes in the summer months, and zebra mussels would have the potential to damage tourism in the region. Invasive mussels would cover beaches with a decaying layer of razor-sharp shells. Therefore, walking barefoot on the beaches would no longer be able to happen here.

If zebra and quagga mussels establish in B.C., their combined impact was recently estimated at over $20 million annually, with direct impact on recreational boaters and hydro facilities. I know you've heard that dollar value before. However, a local study was done through the Okanagan Basin Water Board that expands it to include losses to fisheries and declines in property values as well as impacts to tourism. If all of these losses are included, in the Okanagan Valley alone it's estimated the total damages would be in excess of $40 million annually.

If we want to protect B.C.'s natural resources, if we want to protect our economics and public safety, if we want to create long-term jobs, we need to invest in three key areas. We need to support invasive species prevention programs. We need to support increased treatment and management, and we need to support education and coordination programs.

We need to ensure that British Columbians take re-
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sponsibility and recognize that we are all part of the solution.

D. Ashton (Chair): Lisa, thank you. You're right. We've been having this reinforced as we tour around the province, so thanks.

M. Elmore: Hi, Lisa. Thanks for your presentation. In terms of the impact on agriculture and vineyards, ground crops and orchards, I would consider that's a high concern here in the valley. Puncturevine is listed here. Are there others as well that are a problem?

L. Scott: Yeah, there is a variety of species. This particular invasive plant just plays a really prominent role here because of the nature of how it's spread. My guess would be that there probably isn't a vineyard in the South Okanagan that doesn't have some level of infestation. It's the nature of how the spiny seed pods attach to vehicles and equipment so easily.

It is the one that I get the most phone calls about and provide the most input and advice on to our grape growers and other producers. Because of its prominent role, it was one example, but I could list several others.

M. Elmore: I know, from presentations from other invasive species societies, that there is also a good network in terms of people who are impacted working together. It sounds like you also have that here.

I had another point with regards to the aquatic invasive species, the zebra and quagga mussels. I know in some of the states they have implemented, basically, a tax or a fee on boat owners, and they've implemented checking stations as well. It helps in terms of raising revenue and also in terms of the regulation to ensure that the mussels aren't spread. Is that a model that you think might be able to be implemented here?

L. Scott: Yeah, excellent question. I think it's an ideal model to be implemented in British Columbia. We don't have to look far. We just look to Idaho, really, as the poster child that's been showing how effectively that can work. We need to pat them on the back, because they've intercepted several mussel-fouled boats each year that were headed to British Columbia. They've stopped them in their tracks and decontaminated them.

It is a self-funded program. If you want to launch a boat in Idaho waters, you need to go through one of their checkpoints, and you need to pay a fee for that. If you're from the state, it's a lower fee. If you're from out of the state, it's slightly higher. Then that fund is to the tune of about $850,000.

D. Ashton (Chair): Sorry, I have to stop you. I've got two minutes left. We have other presenters.

M. Hunt: Thanks for the pictures. Everybody doesn't always give us nice pictures, so at least we can see what it is. Puncturevine — new to me. Is that localized?

L. Scott: Yes. It's only known to occur…. It's from our border in Osoyoos, and then it's as far north as the North Okanagan. The bulk of the infestations are in the Oliver and Osoyoos area with little outbreaks throughout the Okanagan Valley and over to Keremeos.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Perhaps it has been presented by others before, and I missed it. What's the ballpark of the total that the province spends on these sorts of programs right now? Are you proposing a specific increase?

L. Scott: Probably the best person to answer that would be the representative from the Invasive Species Council of British Columbia, who will be presenting in Williams Lake. I don't have the total provincial spending at this time, just what we have locally.

G. Holman: If I could make the suggestion that perhaps you could pass on to them, it would be useful for us to understand kind of a ballpark number and what, if anything, you're proposing specifically in terms of a funding increase.

G. Holman: I assume that the strategies would be developed by the 17 groups that you're referring to here, or at least the province would be consulting with you on how to spend the money.

L. Scott: We're one of the partners; that's correct. There are many other partners in the process.

D. Ashton (Chair): Next, city of Penticton — Coun. Judy Sentes and Mayor Garry Litke. Welcome. Thanks for moving up. We appreciate it.

We're a little bit ahead. Wonderful. First-name basis, if you don't mind, Judy and Garry. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes for questions. So please, the floor is yours.

G. Litke: Thank you for allowing us to present to you this evening. We decided to go more macro than many of
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the presentations that you've been hearing, that I've been listening to this afternoon. A lot of them are quite micro. We want to talk about a larger scale of finance, and that has to do with municipal infrastructure.

Those of you who come from a municipal background know that our infrastructure is crumbling and that the eight cents on the dollar that municipalities get from taxes is not sufficient to cover the huge costs of replacing that municipal infrastructure.

Through the FCM, we estimate that somewhere between $50 billion and $70 billion is in deficit across Canada. Municipalities all across Canada are suffering from the same problem. The federal government has recognized that and has begun to pledge $5 billion annually to replace the crumbling infrastructure. That's still not enough, but it's a really great start.

What we're here to do tonight is to ask that the provincial government would institute a similar kind of long-range funding program, like a five- or a ten-year commitment to municipalities to assist them with replacing their infrastructure.

As you can see, some of our pipes in Penticton are 60 years old. I've given you a picture. There's a big hole in this one. When we dig up our infrastructure, we know that we're losing water, that our infrastructure is inefficient and is actually failing in some spots. We're attacking it as aggressively as we can. However, we're falling behind, and we do really need help.

Anything that you could do provincially to institute a long-range funding program for municipalities to assist them in the infrastructure replacement would be very much appreciated.

Secondly, we're very proud, in the city of Penticton, to brag about our fiscal accountability. We've had a core review here. We've reduced our middle management from 75 positions to 57 positions. We've had three years of zero percent tax increase. We think that we're running a fairly fiscally responsible organization here.

It's discouraging when we pick up the paper and we read headlines like "High on the Hog at Hydro," because there's only one taxpayer, and the half-million-dollar salaries and the 7 percent increases that are being given to Hydro executives take the money out of the taxpayer's pocket. That's money that cannot then be used for the infrastructure that we so sorely need.

We're asking if there is any possibility for the province to conduct a review of Crown corporations. There is only one taxpayer, and we find it very difficult to hold the line on our financial accountability when that kind of, in my view, inappropriate modelling is taking place at the provincial level.

I would ask that if you have any opportunity to ask those questions and to suggest that there be a review of Crown corporations, it would be very much appreciated, because we do need the money for infrastructure and for our ambulatory care hospital.

J. Sentes: In addition to being a councillor for the city of Penticton, I am the vice-chair of the Okanagan-Similkameen regional health district. I'm here to communicate our desire to continue to work together on hospital patient care for the South Okanagan and Similkameen.

We appreciate the support, to date, for the business plan development and the commitment to get shovels in the ground within the next few years. The citizens of our communities are committed to this project. They will directly contribute $20 million through the South Okanagan–Similkameen hospital foundation.

The regional district of the Okanagan-Similkameen has already banked $25 million and will have over $30 million by the end of the year, which is in addition to their pledge to raise a further $120 million, for a total contribution of $140 million — actually, in excess of $140 million. We are in this together.

As you know, the pressure on the existing facility is mounting. The challenge is now overwhelming, and our professionals are feeling worn down.

We recognize that you need to be certain that every dollar invested is used wisely. This hospital has a record of efficiently using resources and meeting targets. We're particularly pleased that in August of this year Minister Lake honoured us with a tour of our facility. He was quoted as saying: "PRH has an amazing group of people with really good outcomes, so they are to be commended." We appreciated that compliment of the Hon. Terry Lake, Minister of Health.

This project is consistent with provincial key goals. It creates a focus on prevention rather than acute care. This is the only way to ensure sustainability within the system. It will create jobs. Based on similar projects, such as the North Island hospitals project, this region could expect over 800 direct jobs, which addresses a key concern for the citizens of this area.

The patient care tower is the right solution for our needs: patient-centred, one-stop shopping. Services, specialists and tests are grouped around the patient. Patients come in, receive treatment and return home in a timely manner, which minimizes the risks for infection and improves the efficiency through less patient transport, supplies and storage.

Early in our printed presentation, which you have, we highlighted patient Terry Waudby, who has to walk for about half a day to get all of his tests done. Now they would be in one area, which truly, in itself, is a dramatic testimonial to the project.

The project is supported by area MLAs — yourself, Dan Ashton; Linda Larson; Jackie Tegart; and Premier Christy Clark, to name a few. We are here to let you know that we are and will continue to be partners and that we
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are continuing to work jointly towards the goal of shovels in the ground by 2015.

We have four requests: (1) stay the course, and help us expedite the business plan; (2) make a definitive statement during the throne speech; (3) make a line item for the project in the budget and fiscal plan; and (4) install a sign on site with the timelines promoting your government's commitment to the project.

D. Ashton (Chair): Next we have Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce — Andre and Jason.

Welcome, gentlemen. Thanks for moving up on the time. We were a little bit ahead of schedule. Ten minutes allotted for the presentation. I can give you a two-minute warning before, and then we have five minutes allowed for questions or comments from those around the table. The floor is yours.

A. Martin: We would like to thank the B.C. government Finance Committee for the opportunity to present today. We appreciate your recognition of the importance of the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce as the voice of business in our community.

The relationship between the business community and the province is a vital link with a long history. A government that listens to the voice of business creates better public policy for all. We are pleased to be invited to participate in this progressive initiative offering transparency and accountability to the budget planning process.

As a general rule, chambers of commerce believe in the principles of free enterprise and market-driven approaches in developing policy. In response to the request "What are your priorities for the next provincial budget?" we wish to present the following.

Deficit reduction and smaller government. A balanced budget should mean no deficit. The current estimate of the provincial deficit is pegged at $1.1 billion, contributing to debt figures of approximately $57 billion and growing. These numbers weaken our provincial economy and contribute to long-term negative growth. Decisions made today to reduce deficit spending and debt accumulation will have a prosperous impact on future generations.

A core service review should be undertaken with the objective of finding operational efficiencies in revenue-generating assets without the sale of the asset. Selling of government assets may lead to increased revenues in the short term but ultimately creates long-term shortfalls that often rely on taxation for mitigation. Efficiencies in revenue-generating assets should encourage development of government revenues that do not rely on taxation.

The core service review should also create efficiencies in service delivery that may allow for the reduction in the size of government. Categorically, we believe the scope of the review should be sweeping, covering every Crown corporation and ministry.

J. Cox: Further, the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce would like to see the provincial government focusing on a reduction in fuel taxes, generally. Although fuel taxes are often designed to be revenue-neutral for the government, it's proven to be far from revenue-neutral for B.C. citizens and visitors alike. Those who travel and live in rural areas or businesses that compete or trade with other jurisdictions where fuel taxes are lower have, without question, shouldered a greater burden.

In many cases, fuel taxes have threatened to or already have displaced industrial activity throughout the province. We must remember that the entire province operates as a whole in the economy, and the effect that it has on northern regions affects us here in the Okanagan as well. The chamber recommends a review of fuel taxes in order to help B.C. business become more competitive.

Over the past number of years Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce has been engaged in examining and making specific recommendations around particular areas of B.C. public policy. Two such policies we wish to highlight are as follows.

Changing B.C.'s sales tax model — moving beyond the PST. Those of you who are familiar with the B.C. chamber policy and positions manual may have seen this already. We passed this successfully last year, from Penticton.

Specifically, the chamber recommends the provincial government provide fully refundable investment tax credit claimed on business income returns equal to PST paid on all acquisitions of machinery and equipment, including computers and software but excluding buildings and structures with capital cost allowance of 5 percent or less.

Continue to work with the chamber of commerce and others to find ways to reduce the administrative burden of the PST and commit to a dialogue with British Columbians on the development of a made-in-B.C., value-added sales tax system to enhance B.C.'s competitiveness and productivity.

Our second resolution that is in this book, as well, is the southern B.C. transportation infrastructure — Highway 3. Specifically, the chamber recommends pla-
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cing a priority on the timely completion of the proposed economic impact study; continuing to aggressively invest in Highway 3 improvements to facilitate economic growth and to improve transportation safety in southern British Columbia; and to accept the Highway 3 Coalition's recommendations to improve Highway 3 safety and traffic flow and give priority to the implementation.

Furthermore, the Penticton Wine Country Chamber would like to echo the comments of the city of Penticton with regard to the commitment to the hospital. That completes our presentation.

G. Holman: Thanks for the presentation. Without wanting to create a huge debate here, which we don't have time to engage in, I do note the possible — at least, on the face of it — contradiction between your advocacy for lower taxes and lower debt and, at the same time, advocating for upgrades to Highway 3 or the regional hospital. The provincial share of that is about $150 million.

I mean, to me, on the face of it, they seem somewhat contradictory policy positions.

J. Cox: We understand that, and as always, the chamber looks to provide suggestions that offer both savings and spending, when we're proposing spending. In this case, we believe that the core services review, which the province is undertaking, will likely uncover a number of savings and efficiencies.

Additionally, certain initiatives that the government is already taking, like revising B.C. liquor law, will improve the economy. Not to mention that a reduction of fuel taxes, for example, will lead to increased economic productivity and spinoffs to the economy as well.

J. Cox: We mean fuel taxes in general, not carbon taxes specifically. But carbon tax is certainly included in that conversation.

M. Hunt: My question is: are you going to give that as a written submission later to be submitted, or can we have a copy of what you have there? You listed a whole bunch of stuff….

J. Cox: Yeah. I believe our general manager did submit this in writing in advance through the secretary.

A. Martin: Just one further comment to MLA Holman. The chamber also believes that investment and investing in the infrastructure within the province will, down the road, lead to more taxes for the government in the long run. Because we do generate more business, and when business is growing and succeeding, that also brings more taxes to the government. So it's not just about spending and doing it that way. It's spending on the right things as well.

E. Foster: I'll go to your comment on the value-added tax and the switch back to the PST. Needless to say, I would be very supportive of a value-added tax. The other chambers have mentioned the same thing.

I guess my question to you on this: how do we go there? We hear from the business community that going back to what we had isn't working very well. So other than just a "we need a value-added tax," if government was to move in that direction, we would certainly need strong advice from the business community and help on it. Just a comment.

J. Cox: Absolutely. And when we undertook this policy direction — to look at moving beyond PST — we certainly looked at that, and we're by no means advocating revisiting the HST question.

What we're saying is finding a made-in-B.C. solution — certainly, a long and thoughtful consultation process with all segments of the province to find out what would work and be palatable in the province as a value-added tax system. Simply going back to the PST…. I mean, the PST was not working great before we went to HST, so going back to it certainly doesn't help.

E. Foster: No, absolutely. You understand that that was done because that's what was asked for.

J. Cox: Sure, and I understand that. As a retailer myself, I can tell you that I didn't realize how much I appreciated the reduced red tape in only collecting and submitting one tax.

J. Cox: Those sorts of things do allow business to be more profitable, and in my case, business being more profitable means that instead of having three employees, maybe I can have four, right? So that's the reason to do it.
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E. Foster: If I could, just one more thing on that. When you talked about going to a value-added tax system or a system where a business would be able to recoup a tax — PST, for example — somewhere along the line the revenue to government has to come in. You can't just eliminate tax to one sector. It would be great if we could, but at the other end…. You talked also about keeping a balanced budget. You can't do that if you don't collect some money. So there's got to be a full balance on it and a lot of dialogue before the tax system is visited — not that I don't support what you're saying. I just….

J. Cox: No, absolutely. But again, GST and HST were input tax credit inclusive for us, which again leads to more investment in machines and in infrastructure, more buying that happens in the economy. It's not just small businesses like mine but mines and mills and larger industries that look to invest in this province — forestry — buying larger equipment. The tax would still be paid on that sale. It's just the portion that comes to the business that changes, so it's economic activity as well.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for the presentation. We've just come from Central and West Kootenays, and we heard loud and clear, also, about the Crowsnest Pass and the upgrades that are required to service that side of the province and the south-central portion, which we're included in. So thank you for bringing that up.

J. Cox: We certainly, you know, want to remember the Sunday Pass in Whipsaw area, all the way going the other…. It's going toward Vancouver as well.

D. Ashton (Chair): It's still number one, including…. That was noted by gentlemen — was it from Cranbrook? — that came and spoke. They acknowledged that those are the first upgrades that need to take place, which was presented to Highway 3 Coalition, and then moves continually to the east. So thank you for bringing it up. Have a great day. Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming down today. I appreciate your driving down from Kelowna. We're on our way up there after this. You are a little bit early, and that will help us out. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning if I think you're going to…. Then we have five minutes for questions. Please, the floor is yours.

N. Reiter: Good evening. My name is Nathan Reiter, and I’m here to advocate for the continued support for athletes and coaches. I'm a local track and field coach who works with athletes at the club and varsity level. In addition, I work as the athlete and coach services coordinator for PacificSport Okanagan. In my roles I have the privilege to work with many of our local athletes, coaches and sport organizations.

Before I begin, I'd like to say thank you and extend my appreciation for the support that has been provided by the B.C. government for sport. My purpose for being here is not to ask for additional funding, although that would be great. Instead, I would like to highlight the importance of the support provided by the B.C. government and also to address the need for ongoing multi-year funding commitments.

First, I would like to share some of my experiences which have led me to being here today. Sport has always been an important part of my life. I believe it has served multiple important functions for me. While sport is an effective vehicle for physical activity, I feel that it has elevated my personal health and well-being. Growing up, sport has always provided an engaging environment for me to be active. From swimming to soccer to basketball, badminton, track, volleyball, I love to play, participate and perform.

With increasing rates of obesity and declining physical activity, I feel that it is important for our community to have accessible opportunities to improve and maintain health. As a highly active youth to varsity athlete to now recreational adult, my own health and well-being has been nurtured and supported through our sport system.

Through sport, I feel I that I have learned many life lessons, such as overcoming adversity, working in a team setting and effective goal-setting, to name a few. Qualities that I have developed — such as leadership, commitment, perseverance, patience, integrity — have served me outside of the sport environment. I feel fortunate to have been shaped by my experiences.

Lastly, sport has provided me with a sense of belonging in our community. Being a relatively new face to the Okanagan, I have sport to thank for connecting me with people and opportunities. I have found sport has provided a positive way to relate with others.

Having said this, my experience would not have been such without the leadership and dedication delivered by my coaches. The job of a coach goes beyond the specifics of the game. Administrative duties, organizing practices and competitions, travelling, chaperoning and communicating with parents are all the responsibilities of the coach. Coaches are at the centre of our sport delivery.

Perhaps we underestimate the influence and impact that these people have on our lives. In addition to family
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and teachers, coaches spend a substantial amount of time with youth. Through sport they have the opportunities to shape the development of children in highly teachable moments. Win or lose, coaches are there to teach and support.

Personally, I've been impacted and remember those coaches that have supported me and taught me lessons over the years, even those that I thought I didn't need to know at the time. In my role working with various athletes and coaches in the community, I encounter and interact with those that would resonate a similar experience.

I would like to share a few words about one of our local coaches, coming from an athlete.

"My coach is an incredible person for more reasons than I can possibly list. He coached both my brothers, my sister and me for a number of years. His skill, expertise and support facilitated all of our progress to an elite level. He is willing to work with all athletes equally, ensuring they have an equal opportunity to learn and grow.

"His confidence in his athletes is contagious. He gave me the courage to try new skills and routines. All but three skills that I have today I learned while working with him. He has always been a huge advocate for his athletes, ensuring they have the best possible environment to succeed. He taught us to have a strong work ethic, teaching us the value of hard work and not to sell ourselves short by giving less than 100 percent.

"He created an environment that supported healthy athletic development, giving his athletes direction but autonomy to make our own choices. He gave his athletes the strength and confidence to face challenges and obstacles both in sport and in life. I've no doubt that without him, I would not be where I am today."

I feel that these comments exemplify the powerful role that coaches play. As important as the role of the coach, we also need athletes to have a purpose for the coach. Without them, sport will not exist.

Similar to coaches, athletes have a valuable role as role models, as a source of inspiration. However, I'd like to use the remainder of my time to advocate for the continued support of athletes pursuing sport at the high level.

In B.C. there are some significant initiatives that have helped to support the development and achievement of our local athletes. Programs such as the athlete assistance programs, grants and bursaries are all great examples of what is being done.

To connect my ideas and to address where I see opportunity for improvement is around the issue of funding commitments for sport.

Currently the practice is to fund sport on a year-by-year basis. Although I believe sport will continue to be supported, the specifics of funding are renewed and adjusted annually. My hope is that the committee will consider the possibility of extending a multi-year funding commitment for the following reasons.

First, a multi-year commitment would provide predictability and consistency for sport. This would help to enable and facilitate the development and execution of longer-term planning and strategy. For example, it is challenging for local sport organizations to set fundraising targets when receiving varying levels of support.

Another benefit would be the ability to use the investment to leverage with other funding opportunities. Again, predictability will help empower sport organizations to look beyond the day-to-day operations and to develop strategic partnerships.

Last, I believe that a longer timeline will help to provide stability and sustainability of sport programming. More predictable funding sources will help equip sport organizations to invest in one of our greatest assets — coaches. If we agree that athletes have a long-term development model, I think a similar approach should be considered for the health of our sport organizations.

In closing, I would like to again say thank you to the B.C. government for their investment in sport and, also, thank you for the opportunity to voice my opinions. I hope that we can continue to enable athletes and coaches to play, participate and perform.

D. Ashton (Chair): Nathan, thank you very much for bringing that forward, and thanks for driving all the way down from Kelowna. Greatly appreciated. We have heard from other athletes like yourself — just as recently as Trail this morning — regarding the issue that you brought up, so thank you. It is on the record.

J. Tegart: I, too, would like to say thank you. Certainly, the stories of what inspirations coaches are to young people are incredible. Knowing that we support sport and that you're recognizing that we have a very difficult financial situation…. Certainly, the message we're hearing is: "We're not asking for more; we're looking for consistency." So thank you for the work that you do, and thank you for bringing it forward to us. It's a message that we're hearing consistently.

G. Holman: Thanks, Nathan, for your presentation. I have a background in competitive sports too. I'm perhaps an example where perhaps the outcome wasn't as…. You know, I ended up being a politician. So it's not all good news.

The question I had…. I mean, your focus is primarily on competitive to elite. What about the 95 percent of people who we want to get more active? Does your group or do you personally have suggestions around that, around the school system or to sort of broaden activity?

N. Reiter: My experience in sport is that without that base, if we don't develop all people and give opportunities for all kids and youth to be active and to maybe have experience with sport, we're never going to have that next competitive level or elite performances.

I think a lot of it starts at the developmental level. We're broadening that base. We're helping kids to get
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healthy and active, maybe using sport as the vehicle for that. Of course, maybe only 5 percent or however we want to define that number will go down that competitive route. But without that start and access point, then it's never going to happen.

The other point I'd like to make there is that I always think that in sport, having those role models and those athletes who are examples of excellence helps to inspire and helps to influence those below them. I use the example of hockey as our national game — right? — where we see so many examples of excellence.

Many communities have strong hockey participation numbers due to the number of professional athletes that we have in that sport. I wonder if we'd have a similar type of — what's the word? — participation or similar type of result in other sports if we had other elite athletes in others sports being supported and being celebrated to the same extent.

E. Foster: I had an uncle who started out with a degree in physical education and ended up as a double PhD, as a moral philosopher, which I always thought was strange. I look here. You started with a bachelor of commerce degree and are now an elite athlete. How do you get from commerce to being a master's degree in bioethics and a track coach at university?

N. Reiter: It's funny. Actually, it's the path that I've taken. With my background in commerce…. I also did my bachelor of education, so as a teacher, kind of blending the two. Working in sport, obviously, there's some skill set still operating as a business in helping to operate in that realm, but also the teacher in me. I feel like in teaching and coaching, there are a lot of parallels and a lot of similar skills that you need to have in order to be successful in either environment. I see them paralleling each other.

For me, I don't know how I got to be here in front of you today and what has led me here. I think why I've stepped away from teaching and I work more in sport is because I'm so passionate about it. As you said, I drove down from Kelowna. I'm here working with other teams. It's because it's something I believe in. I think it's important. It's an area that I'm passionate about and an area I want to continue to work in.

Yeah, I think I can do a similar role whether teaching or coaching — achieving similar objectives working with youth and having impact.

D. Ashton (Chair): Nathan, thank you very much again for coming down, making the time commitment. Pretty loud and clear — thanks.

Before we go, I would like to extend thanks to the city of Penticton and especially those two hard-working staff members over there that I haven't seen for a while. It's great to see you again. Thanks for the great job and thank you for letting us use your facilities. It was really good, so thanks.

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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:	Jason Cox (Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce)
	Connie Denesiuk (Summerland Chamber of Economic Development and Tourism)
	John Grimes (Interim Executive Director, B.C. Museums Association)
	Jim Hamilton (President, Okanagan College)
	C.J. Helie (Executive Vice-President, Spirits Canada)
	Helena Konanz (Councillor, City of Penticton)
	Garry Litke (Mayor, City of Penticton)
	Andre Martin (President, Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce)
	Rosemary McVeeters
	Peter Ord (President, B.C. Museums Association)
	Christine Petkau (Summerland Chamber of Economic Development and Tourism)
	Judy Poole
	Nathan Reiter
	Lisa Scott (Okanagan and Similkameen Invasive Species Society)
	Judy Sentes (Councillor, City of Penticton)
	Tom Styffe (Chair, Board of Governors, Okanagan College)
	Jan Westcott (President and CEO, Spirits Canada)

7) Summerland Chamber of Economic Development and Tourism	Connie Denesiuk
	Christine Petkau

10) Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce	Andre Martin
	Jason Cox

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