Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 17 — Tuesday, October 8, 2013 (HTML)

Present: Dan Ashton, MLA (Chair); Mike Farnworth, MLA (Deputy Chair); Mable Elmore, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Scott Hamilton, MLA; Gary Holman, MLA; Marvin Hunt, MLA; Lana Popham, MLA; Jackie Tegart, MLA; John Yap, 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	482
A. George
H. Oland
M. Karjala
A. Yellowman
A. Pousette
J. Hopson
B. Kelly
G. Payne
A. Pousette
M. Arcand
D. Rourke
J. Mastromatteo
A. Eastham
G. Iwama
J. King
D. Roze
R. Murray
B. Kulmatycki
D. Dougherty
C. Ray
C. Pohl
H. Domshy
G. Dirom

D. Ashton (Chair): Good morning, everyone. We're 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'd 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 throughout the province. All British Columbians are invited to present or attend the hearings. We've 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.

I should also mention that the committee has agreed to accept submissions regarding the core review as part of our budget consultations. We have been advised by government that the committee will not be the only avenue for public input on the government's core review. 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. An additional five minutes is allotted for questions from committee members. Time permitting, we may also have an open-mike session 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 made available on the committee's website. A live audio webcast is also broadcast through the website. The committee is also on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook you'll find us under the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, and on Twitter we are at twitter.com/BCFinanceComm.

D. Ashton (Chair): The gentleman walking in the door is Eric Foster from the North Okanagan, and I'm Dan Ashton, the MLA for Penticton. I'll be chairing these proceedings and working very closely with the vice-Chair, Mike Farnworth, and all committee representatives and staff to ensure what is said today is forwarded to government for the proper consideration.

Also joining us today from the parliamentary committees office are some very hard-working individuals: Craig James, to my left here, and Stephanie Raymond, the nice young lady at the entrance who is staffing the registration desk. Jean Medland and Ian Battle are here on behalf of Hansard, and these are the fine folks over here.

Thank you very much for coming, again. We have Prince George Public Library. I have Janet, Wendy and Dr. Anne George. Is that correct?

Please come forward, folks. As I mentioned, ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Sorry, I try not to interrupt, but I'll just try and catch you between a pause there in the sentences. Then we have five minutes for questions. The floor is yours. Once again, good morning.

The Prince George Public Library is the largest library in northern B.C., and it's the 12th-largest library in the province. It's a municipal library but also serves people in the regional district of Fraser–Fort George and has a direct membership service area of more than 89,000 people, including 55,000 registered members of Prince George itself. It is also an active member of the North Central Library Federation, which includes several smaller libraries in many communities throughout north-central B.C.

The board of trustees of the Prince George Public Library wishes to express its ongoing concern about the long-term financial health of public libraries in this province. Foremost, our concern is that the responsibility and budget for libraries has been misplaced under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. It is the board's belief that libraries fit best under the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development or, as a second option, under the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens' Services.

The Ministry of Education has specific and limited responsibilities for people who attend school from kindergarten to grade 12. As you likely are well aware, libraries in B.C. provide numerous services to families and citizens of all ages, from infants to seniors. Library preschool programming is freely available to all children regardless of income, unlike many other preschool programs, and leads to successful outcomes in preparation of school learning.

Our resources for post–grade 12 citizens lead to literacy in the areas of health, technology, job preparation, employment readiness, voting, finances, taxation and much more. We do wish to emphasize that while public libraries do indeed provide many programs and literacy opportunities for students in K-to-12, our mandate is much broader than that.

At the very least, if the provincial government is unwilling to move the libraries' budget to a more appropriate ministry, we request that libraries be given a budget line item rather than being unidentified under the overall Education budget, as was done in 2012. We understand that last year the select standing committee recommended that the separate provincial library budget line item be reinstated, but this recommendation was not acted upon.

We thank you for this show of support, and we urge you to make this recommendation again. We believe it is inappropriate that the library budget is not a separate line item.

We would, of course, like to request that funding for public libraries be increased. However, we understand the fiscal realities that governments at every level are facing and the well-justified request for more funding that you will be receiving from other sectors and organizations in the province.

So at this time and until the economy improves, we are limiting our request to the following: (1) that responsibilities for funding libraries be placed under the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development or, as a second option, under the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens' Services; (2) that the separate line item for library funding be restored; and (3) that funding to libraries in this province remain stable.

According to the novelist E. Doctorow, the three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport and a library card. Thank you for this opportunity to provide input.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation and for the great work you do with the library. We've heard many submissions on the importance of literacy, many different aspects of literacy. Certainly, the library is at the centre of that.

My question is in response to your first recommendation. Certainly, we've heard that item for libraries to be a separate line item. This is an addition. What's your thinking in terms of moving it so it would be out of the Ministry of Education into one of these other ministries? Just what's your thinking behind that?

A. George: Well, the Ministry of Education's mandate is limited by age and, really, to those who are in the school system. We just continue to want to tell you that libraries are so important to the rest of the community.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. With regard to the request to maintain funding, do you know what your funding is for this fiscal year and for the next two, or is that part of the problem? Because you don't have a line on it, you're not…. Are you aware of what the proposal is in the current budget for your funding?

A. George: The majority of our funding comes through the municipal government. There's a very small amount that comes anymore from the province. We've had no indication that we'll be reduced in our budget from the municipality. As for the province, we don't know.
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E. Foster: Doctor, to that comment. Libraries are funded in different ways around the province. Just for clarification here, do you have a regional library function in this area, or is the library here funded predominantly through the municipality?

A. George: A small amount of our money comes from the region. It goes to the municipality, who gives the money to us.

E. Foster: I'm from the Okanagan. We have the Okanagan library association — everybody had it — and the city of Penticton, in the Okanagan, supports the library function throughout the whole area.

A. George: Yeah, we're a municipal library, but we have some responsibility for the — I'll get the name right — district of Fraser–Fort George, who contributes to our funding through the municipality.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Very quickly, which regional library authority are you with? Like in Port Coquitlam we're part of the Fraser Valley Regional Library.

A. George: Yeah. There are a few regional library systems in the province and many more municipal libraries. We're a municipal library, but the region of Fraser–Fort George contributes because they receive services through us.

D. Ashton (Chair): Ladies, I don't see any questions or comments, so thank you very much for appearing today. Have a good day.

Next up we have Initiatives Prince George — Heather Oland. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. It's a ten-minute presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. The floor is yours.

H. Oland: Thank you very much for having me here this morning. I appreciate the opportunity to provide our thoughts and our voice to the great work that you do.

My name is Heather Oland. I am the chief executive officer of Initiatives Prince George, which is the city of Prince George's economic development corporation. We're a little bit unique in the province in that we are an arm's-length organization, meaning that the city of Prince George is our sole shareholder and our customer. But I am governed by a private sector board of directors comprised of representatives of the major sectors of our economy.

The principal mission of Initiatives Prince George. Just to give you some background information, we have four main areas of focus. The first is to facilitate current business retention and growth, and we focus primarily in that area because the majority of economic development and economic growth comes from existing investment. It comes from the businesses that work hard every day and employ the people in our city.

A secondary function that we do is attract business to expand and diversify the economy, so we spend a lot of time on the business attraction component of economic development. We also focus on and advocate for increased workforce capacity because one of the primary limiting factors of economic growth in this city and in this region and, in fact, in the province as a whole is access to skilled employees that do the work, that grow the economy.

We spend a lot of time partnering and working with business. What we like to say is that it's my job — it's Initiatives Prince George's job — to market and promote why Prince George is a great place to live, and it's the businesses' job to market and promote why their companies are great places to work. We do that most effectively if we do it together.

Then marketing Prince George to facilitate the retention and attraction of both business and population is a large part of what we do. We are a marketing organization, and we're here to promote Prince George.

If you look at the third slide in your series, we call that "Growth, opportunity and investment." These are the key messages that we use when we talk about Prince George.

First, if you're new to Prince George and haven't had the opportunity to be here before, you are in the largest city in one of the fastest-growing regions in the province — fastest-growing regions, actually, in the country.

In fact, the Prince George economy grew at nearly double the rate of the B.C. economy since 2010. So Prince George's economy grew at a rate of 4.7 percent, compared to B.C.'s growth rate of 2.4 percent. We are a growing and diversified economy. Although we're a city of about 76,000 people, we service a region of 335,000 people.

Prince George is a very different place than it used to be 20 years ago. In fact, the work that's been done to grow and diversify the economy has created the resilience that we need to weather economic ups and downs.

We are the service and supply hub for the more than $70 billion worth of resource and resource-related projects in northern B.C. that are planned and underway over the next ten to 15 years. That is one of the main factors that is driving the regional and the city's economy. We have fabulous infrastructure that connects us to global markets — our international airport, the road infrastructure, the rail infrastructure and our connections to both the Port of Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert.

We are the education, health and cultural centre for
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northern B.C. I would put before you that there are very few other cities of about 80,000 in the country, and even the continent, that can boast an award-winning university, a full trades-training and good liberal arts college, the Cancer Agency for the North, the university teaching medical hospital, a full symphony orchestra, two live performing arts theatres, and fabulous shopping and restaurants.

We are not only thankful for the provincial investment that's been made in all of those institutions but also for our own tenacity. Prince George certainly has a good, strong voice in terms of lobbying for our position. We boast an affordable quality of life, which I'm going to talk about a little bit more, and many amenities that enable us to attract the new population that we seek.

Our current population, as I said, is a little over 76,000 people. The immediate region is 88,000 people. Interestingly, our demographic is in the ages of 15 to 44. Of course, the prime working-age population is 42 percent of our population. So in a situation where, primarily, cities are facing aging demographics, Prince George has a very young population in comparison.

The average household income in Prince George is over $76,000, whereas the average household income in B.C. is $73,000.

Our housing affordability. People in Prince George spend a little less than 32 percent of their income on housing. In Vancouver that number is 82 percent.

The fifth slide is a map of the province of British Columbia showing Prince George as the centre of the universe. That's, again, me marketing.

H. Oland: Yes, that's true, and I can say that because I grew up in downtown Toronto. So I can talk about being the centre of the universe.

What this map is meant to illustrate is that Prince George is that supply and service centre for the considerable amount of major projects that are underway and also our existing economic drivers.

So you see pellet mills; sawmills; pulp and paper mills; operating coal mines; operating metal mines; mines in development; proposed mines, so mines in some form of permitting; significant project mines; the existing Pacific Northern Gas pipeline right through Prince George; the same with Spectra; the likely routing of the proposed pipelines; and, of course, the development of the LNG and the importance of that to the provincial economy. Again, Prince George is the supply and service centre for that activity.

So we've been growing. We talked a little bit about that, but I just want to talk a little bit about some of the specific statistics about our economy. Our average population growth since 2007 has been 0.8. So that's good. That shows steady, sustainable growth, but it's not enough. We would like to be growing at a rate that is higher than that.

Our employment growth last year was 3.1 percent. You can see there how that is reflected in the different sectors. With forestry, mining, and oil and gas, the employment growth last year was 80 percent.

Our unemployment rate as of the end of August 2013 was 5.6. The B.C. unemployment rate was 6.6. And that's good. It's good if you're a job seeker, not necessarily good if you are an employer because, of course, of that attracting and recruitment of workers.

Our home prices last year were up 2.4. Our unit sales were up 2.2, and our housing starts were up 34½. We're building more houses. We're selling more houses, and they cost more. So when you bundle those indicators together, it's a good indication of true economic growth.

Our building permits were up 14.7 percent, whereas the value of building permits across the province was down by about 14 percent. Again, that shows the growth that's being experienced in Prince George and throughout the north. But the really interesting thing about that is 85 percent of the building permits issued by the city of Prince George last year were issued to the private sector. So that's the private sector doing its job to grow and diversify the economy.

Our commercial investment from 2011 — that's just commercial; it's not light industrial or residential — was valued at $20 million, and in 2012, valued at $35 million. As of August 2013 the value of the commercial building permits was $40 million. So you can see that steady growth.

In terms of our contribution to the provincial economy, 70 percent of the value of the provincial exports comes from the rural land base. We contribute significantly to the tax and royalty revenue to the province of British Columbia, which pays for education, health care, environmental protection. The provincial government has stated their commitment to sharing this revenue with local governments in their platform, which you can see there before you.

The province of B.C. has made significant investments in Prince George — health care, education, infrastructure. They've done that in recognition of Prince George's role as a service centre of northern B.C., one of the fastest-growing regions in Canada. Continued investment in the northern physical and human resources is essential to continue the growth and diversification of the B.C. economy.

From Initiatives Prince George's perspective, our top priority is a very good set of policies regarding natural resources revenue-sharing so that we're reinvesting in the communities that the province is depending on to grow and provide the royalties to the provincial government.

Continued infrastructure investment to support increased economic activity throughout the region is critical — the Cariboo connector, Pine Pass, Highway
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16, telecommunications — so there are no blockages to the free flow of trade in the province of B.C. as a result of infrastructure.

Investment in education capacity. Career education where the employment exists is essential. The northern medical program and the University of Northern B.C. have demonstrated that when you train in the north, you retain in the north.

Innovation, design, business development, professions, trades — that's what we need to be training. That's the economy that exists, as well as continued investment in community infrastructure in arts, in culture and recreation so that the city of Prince George and the communities of the north are places where people want and choose to live.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation, Heather. Where does your funding come from — from Initiatives B.C.?

H. Oland: Initiatives Prince George is primarily funded by our sole shareholder, which is the city of Prince George. But we take the a little over $1 million budget that we get from the city of Prince George, and we leverage that through private sector investment as well as other levels of government.

M. Elmore: In terms of your recommendation for natural resources revenue-sharing, is there currently a model in place, and do you have a recommended formula for that?

H. Oland: The city of Prince George has put in a white paper to the provincial government, and I understand that the rural secretariat is also working on policy development in that regard.

The promise of liquefied natural gas as the next great economic driver for the province is developing. I'm curious if you can share with us some of the projects that you're aware of or initiatives or investments that are happening in the Prince George area related to LNG.

H. Oland: Well, for example, two pipeline companies have opened their regional headquarters in Prince George, one being TransCanada and the other being Enbridge. So those are direct investments.

In addition, that role of the supply and service hub, so engineering companies, construction companies, anyone who maintains equipment — pipes, valves, hoses.... All of those dollars are spent in Prince George in terms of utilizing our supply-and-service chain. So we see the economic benefit in terms of the money that flows through the community.

Just to give you a sense…. It's not LNG. It's mining. But Thompson Creek Metals opened Mount Milligan mine, and they're under operation now. Last year Thompson Creek Metals spent $125 million directly in the region — $61 million in Prince George. That's one mine, and of course, there are a number of them proposed.

The amount of dollars that flow through…. That's not money on wages. That's directly in the supply chain. So that kind of investment is what's fuelling the growth in the Prince George economy.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. Just quickly, could you describe some of the infrastructure projects that you're…? The Cariboo connector, Pine Pass, Highway 16 west — just the nature and location and whether you're talking refurbishing or new.

H. Oland: For example, the Cariboo connector is the highway that runs north and south — right? — so south of Prince George. There are some bridges along the way that limit the capacity of heavy hauling that can be done. I know I actually have a meeting with the Ministry of Transportation just after this to talk about that.

So if you have…. Some of the pieces of mining equipment are massive, and there are some bridges that have weight limitations. So what companies need to do is go around through Valemount, the longer way, and that can often add $10,000 to $20,000 to $30,000 in cost in terms of hauling equipment.

Highway 16 west, for the most part, is a two-lane highway. So think about that LNG development, and think about how many trucks and vehicles need to be travelling between Prince Rupert and Prince George. For the most part, it's a two-lane highway.

The Pine Pass travels north to Fort St. John, and there is a lot of leakage from the B.C. economy to the Alberta economy because it's easier for those supply-and-service firms to travel back and forth between Fort St. John to Alberta as opposed to between Fort St. John and Prince George. That, to me, is a leakage that we should really fix, because there should be no barriers within B.C.'s infrastructure and highway system that limits trade.

G. Holman: Do you have bus service on Highway 16? You know the history out there with respect to missing women. Is there transit service?

H. Oland: There are Greyhound buses that go, certainly, along the highway for passenger traffic — absolutely.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much, Heather.
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Greatly appreciate it. Thank you for the presentation.

Melanie, thank you very much for coming. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. The floor is yours.

M. Karjala: All right. Well, thank you very much for coming to Prince George, and welcome. We're pleased to have this opportunity to provide input into this process.

Resources North Association is an enterprising non-profit organization with a member-driven mandate and a very unique and diverse representation. We've a broad cross-section of members from industry, communities, First Nations, practitioners and academia. We are based here in Prince George and have a northern B.C. focus.

I want to briefly highlight three key points about Resources North Association that will help inform my presentation today.

First of all, unlike most organizations, our membership, which includes provincial government, provides a direct conduit to multi-stakeholder groups who provide input and recommendations on natural resource management priorities that need to be addressed in northern B.C. And our mandate is to ensure that environmental, economic and social values remain healthy into the future.

Second, Resources North Association's members all support the implementation, evolution and advancement of integrated resource management, also known as IRM. We advocate IRM across all the natural resource sectors.

IRM is an approach that maintains balance between resource values over space and time to realize the many economic, social and environmental benefits from the landscape.

Finally, we are an apolitical, independent and neutral organization focused on embedding the principles and best practices of IRM across the natural resource sector through ground-up processes. This includes supporting, developing and promoting cross-sector approaches to resolving natural resource management challenges in the north.

By working on projects that relate to our IRM mandate, our goal is healthy communities, healthy environments and healthy economies. As a diverse organization, we look at solutions through three lenses: economic, environmental, and social and cultural.

Why do we need IRM, and why should this committee pay attention to it? It's because revenues that go to support critical public services such as health care and education are substantially funded by the economic activities generated from the natural resources sector. The key to ensuring that this continues is the social licence to operate by maintaining the right balance of resource activity, environmental health, and social and cultural benefits on the landscape.

As you have just heard from Heather Oland, we are facing unprecedented economic opportunities related to developing natural resources, particularly in northern and rural B.C. According to Initiatives Prince George, we are looking at $70 billion in proposals and investments in north-central British Columbia. The northeast has the lowest unemployment rate in the province, attributable largely to natural gas development. In the northwest there are incredible investments proposed related to liquefied natural gas, including the recently announced $36 billion by Petronas.

There are predictions that the forest sector is heading into a supercycle, which would see increases in lumber prices and keep the forest sector healthy over the near future.

Next to this, we've seen some pressures on the environment. Northern B.C. has been experiencing landscape-level resource development for about 100 years now and increasingly intensive use since the 1940s. Solutions addressing these pressures are increasingly being imposed through litigation — for example, the Peace–northern Caribou plan. These litigation processes are more expensive, in terms of dollars and social licence, than an approach that involves being proactive and collaborative about solutions that balance the environment with sustainable economic development.

We are also seeing issues around climate change adaptation and strategies that are needed. These are of concern to both communities and industry alike, and no one knows the impacts of that on our economy better than us with our recent issues around the mountain pine beetle.

Finally, we are seeing both opportunities and pressures on communities. At a recent workshop of the North Central Local Government Association communities indicated the incredible benefits of economic development: the investments in training, the investments in infrastructure and the investments in scientific study of the environment. But they are seeing incredible challenges as well.

They indicated they would like to see a slowing down of decision-making, a long-term vision and plan for the economy to avoid boom-and-bust cycles, ensuring environmental sustainability and social services that keep pace with development and, finally, maintaining the northern lifestyle that keeps people in our region.

What this picture tells us is that there are needs to manage cumulative effects. Put simply by Marvin Eng of the B.C. Forest Practices Board, cumulative effects are akin to a death by a thousand cuts. So it may not be any one individual resource extraction project — a mine, a cutblock, a pipeline — that overstresses the environment and communities. But as a collective, the projects need to be managed and balanced across the sectors, or we will start to reach some tipping points.

We already see signs of some prominent risks that come out of not managing cumulative effects. We see lots
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of social licence that allows government and industries to take advantage of the economic opportunities.

We see overlapping industrial footprints, particularly in certain regions, which lead to the duplication of infrastructure and which compound impacts on the environment. We see uncertainty on the land base that limits investment confidence because it is unknown where the goalposts will be in terms of regulation and public expectation.

Any gridlock resulting from these outcomes impair progress to a more streamlined approval process and better resource management that balances all values and ensures British Columbians realize benefits from the continued economic opportunities provided by our natural resources.

In principle, our members support the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and the Ministry of Environment in their efforts toward developing a solution for cumulative effects management. We understand that they have conducted three pilot projects and have completed two of three phases of a cumulative effects values framework, and that their efforts are ongoing to develop the internal and external processes and structures that are needed to ensure government is prepared to support the framework and that First Nations and stakeholders are adequately engaged.

Finally, to the committee: we recommend ongoing and sufficient resources that will allow government to complete the process of establishing a framework for cumulative effects management; to properly engage and respond to First Nations and all stakeholders, including communities, industries, and small-tenure and permit holders; and avoid growing the public service by harnessing the services of existing organizations, such as Resources North Association, to help with these solutions and discussions.

We can help by providing government with direct access to our broad membership, who are already working together on natural resource management solutions that align with government priorities.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. In a nutshell, what I take from your presentation is one of the areas you are concerned about, then, is the ability of government to do a lot of the groundwork, as it were, in terms of the land base, the inventory on the land base, the different interests that are involved in that, whether it's an inventory or whether it's permitting — you name it — all of those things.

If we're going to see development take place, we've got to know what's there, and we've got to build that social licence. That means government investing in those key areas to find out the information.

M. Karjala: Well, that is part of it. All the resource sectors that sit on our board — and that includes mining and mineral exploration, forestry, oil and gas — and all the other members agree that there is a lot going on, on the land base. Traditionally, our approach has been a project-by-project approach.

The government is the landlord, so the landlord needs to be able to look at the big picture and strategically coordinate all those activities to make sure that the industries aren't stepping on each other's toes and to make sure that we're not compromising the other values that we value.

So yes, at a very technical level, what you're talking about — industries — that is certainly part of it. But it also feeds up into a strategic level as well.

M. Elmore: In terms of the ability of government to coordinate all the industries: is that captured? Is that what you're envisioning in terms of the cumulative effects value framework?

M. Karjala: Well, this is what the ministry…. Our understanding is that the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations is leading the development of that framework. As far as we know, it's been an internal technical process. As they move forward, they will start to bring the different stakeholders into the conversation and into further developing that process.

M. Elmore: And the three pilot projects….? So I guess RNA is not participating in those pilot projects?

M. Karjala: Well, yeah. That's right. It's been an internal process within government so far — a technical process. We've been told that those pilot projects were completed in May — they were two-year projects — and that some of the summaries and outcomes from that experience are going to be published sometime this fall. So we're paying close attention.

Next up we have the College of New Caledonia
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Students Union — Arnold, Robert. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming. We have a ten-minute presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. After the ten, we've reserved five minutes for questions or comments from the board.

A. Yellowman: Good morning. My name is Arnold Norman Yellowman, and I'm an elected student representative of the College of New Caledonia Students Union. With me today is Robert Chavarie, our executive director. Thank you for this opportunity to share our concerns and constructive solutions with you today.

Before beginning today, we acknowledge that the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation was celebrated yesterday, and we are meeting today on the Lheidli T'enneh traditional territory, in which territory our student members also live, study and work.

Our student union represents approximately 4,500 students within British Columbia's northern Interior that spans from Burns Lake, Fort St. James, Mackenzie, Quesnel, Prince George and Vanderhoof, and the students' demographic consists of domestic and international students from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Not only do our members cover a large geographical area; we also have very diverse demographics, with an average student age of 27 years old and students ranging from high school students to retired seniors continuing lifelong learning.

Programs are made available to our community through CNC with courses in adult basic education, continuing education and skills training; apprenticeships; career and technical; college and career prep; employment skills; and university transfer.

We advocate for these students and provide the value-added services to make students' lives easier and to improve their overall student experience. Additionally, the core mandate of our students union is to advocate for a system of post-secondary education which is rationally planned, accessible and of high quality. That is part of why I am here today: to express the importance of this mandate.

More specifically, I would like to highlight five main recommendations: (1) reduce tuition fees; (2) establish an upfront, needs-based provincial student grant program; (3) eliminate interest rates charged on B.C. student loans; (4) maintain the government's commitment to keep adult basic education free; and (5) reorganize the Industry Training Authority.

The first recommendation that I would like to make is to reduce tuition fees. Out of all the recommendations we can give, this would be the most impactful, especially for the low- and middle-income earners who make up the majority of our students at the College of New Caledonia. This would reduce the largest barrier to these students in accessing the post-secondary system.

This now brings us to the beginning of the current government's mandate. This government has overseen a huge increase in student numbers and funding for colleges and universities in B.C. for which credit is definitely due. But like the other governments that came before, increases in funding have not nearly kept pace with the growth of costs for our students in our schools.

Reducing tuition fees must be part of a large strategy to ensure broad access to post-secondary education in British Columbia, a strategy that must also include provision of adequate institutional funding and student financial assistance. That is why we are today asking that your committee recommend that government restore operating funding to colleges and universities. In our work with other college and university student unions in British Columbia, we've identified the 2001 proportion as an initial benchmark.

The decline in government funding to colleges and universities continues to fuel pressure to increase tuition fees. Tuition fees in British Columbia increased from an average of $2,527 in 2001-2002 to an average of $5,029 this year. We're recommending that a reduction in tuition fees be part of a large strategy to ensure broad access to post-secondary education in British Columbia, combined with the provision of adequate institutional funding and student financial assistance.

There is ample evidence that the financial barriers are the most significant obstacle to many citizens achieving entry into colleges and universities. The Canadian Federation of Students–British Columbia has plenty of current data to support that fact. The data is clear, well researched and on record. For this reason, we urge this committee to recommend that tuition fees in British Columbia be progressively reduced to 2001 levels.

I would now like to turn to the issue of student debt. According to a recent study of the Bank of Montreal, average student debt in British Columbia is $37,000 upon completion of a four-year degree — over $10,000 above the national average of student debt, awarding British Columbia the prize of the highest student debt in the country. Therefore, consideration of student debt should be given to the adverse impacts ballooning student debt has on B.C.'s economy.

For the first time in history an entire generation will attempt to enter the workforce with unprecedented levels of debt and will undoubtedly delay purchasing a home, starting a family or making investments in starting their own businesses.

It is an important note that this figure only includes public student loan debt and that a number of students also incur private debt in their pursuit of higher education as a reality of increasing costs. Members should be aware that following graduation, student loan borrowers pay interest on their public student loans substantially above the government's cost of borrowing, being charged interest at prime plus 2.5 percent on their student loans,
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which is higher than anywhere else in the country.

Due to this, a student who can afford to pay their tuition pays up front pays no interest to government, but a low-income student who needs a loan will pay thousands of dollars in interest. This continues to contribute to inequality that exists in accessing our system.

Further to this, a system in which low- and middle-income students are expected to pay more for the same education as those who can afford to pay it up front is fundamentally inequitable. By keeping interest rates as high as they are, the government is penalizing those students and their families with the least amount of financial resources.

Meanwhile, in terms of the impact on the provincial treasury, the annual cost of even complete elimination of interest on student loans is well worth the investment. Accordingly, we ask that the committee recommend the government progressively eliminate interest charged on government student loans to ensure that those who can least afford an education no longer have to pay the most for it.

Not only is British Columbia's rate of interest higher than average; B.C. is the last among all provinces in the provision of non-repayable student financial aid and is providing less than 12 percent of our financial aid in the form of non-repayable grants. Provinces with comparable tuition fees to B.C., such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, all designate approximately one-third of their financial aid as non-repayable, when in B.C. this is not the case.

This combination of high and increasing tuition fees and lack of non-repayable financial aid contributes greatly to the barriers facing students who hope to access post-secondary education in our province. Given B.C.'s relative wealth as a province, it is not reasonable that we are lagging so far behind other provinces in provision of support for low- and middle-income students. Because B.C.'s families deserve no less than other families across Canada, we ask that the committee recommend the creation of a provincial system of non-repayable upfront grants.

The issues of institutional funding, overinflated tuition fees and skyrocketing student debt are presented here together because they are tied to each other. Cuts in funding create pressure to increase tuition fees, which in turn increases student debt. This means our colleges and universities are pushed into privatization and students are pushed into debt.

On a positive note, I want to commend the provincial government on the provision of tuition-free adult basic education and encourage the continued maintenance of this program. In many cases, adult basic education can be the only bridge to obtaining a higher education for British Columbians. Especially in the northern communities, adult basic education helps serve a mandate as the most accessible bridge to post-secondary education.

Reaffirming the government's commitment to free adult basic education in 2007 helped to reduce financial barriers. Sustaining a comprehensive system of adult basic education is key for opening pathways to education for some of our most marginalized demographics. We need to ensure that we maintain this program.

Finally, on behalf of our members in trades and apprenticeships vocational training, I would like to support a further look at the composition of the Industry Training Authority. In northern British Columbia trades training is important to industry. Workers, families and the general public understand the need for qualified tradespeople to serve further economic growth.

Nevertheless, our trades programs suffer from the same underfunding as other parts of our public institution with the added stress needed to cover the cost of equipment and specialized facilities. We want to commend the government on some of the new facilities the College of New Caledonia had received in the past years. We ask that continued support and adequate funding are provided so that we can continue to be leaders on trades training in the north.

We support the government's move to decide to review the current Industry Training Authority government structure based on feedback from our members and faculty staff. We have believed this could improve trades training in B.C. by increasing representation on the Industry Training Authority board to potentially include others such as students, trade union representatives and faculty staff in addition to other key players in the industry.

By also ensuring ongoing funding through the multi-year funding commitments to the ITA, we can strive to ensure quality of programs at our college and other institutions by working to provide the type of quality trades training our province needs.

In closing, the recommendations presented today to reduce tuition fees, to establish upfront needs-based provincial student grants, to eliminate student loan interest, to maintain free adult basic education and to reorganize the ITA, Industry Training Authority, are not final solutions to the issues facing our post-secondary system. They are the beginning of the process to reverse the long-term erosion of our public post-secondary.

By investing in the public post-secondary education system, this will improve B.C.'s diverse economic credentials and ensure that this province has a flexible, adaptable workforce, for these are a necessity to ensure that B.C. can expand in local and global economies.

On behalf of our 4,500 members at the College of New Caledonia, thank you for your time.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. Just wondering if you can fill me in and give me an idea of the types of students that access the adult basic education. You mentioned it's often a transition for marginalized students or different students. What's the experience at your college in terms of types of students who are accessing those programs?

A. Yellowman: The college is really great for having a lot of influential demographics to come into the city of Prince George. Also, within the actual local communities within the northern region, it's allowing a lot of other, pretty much marginalized demographics to come into the community, into the college and to get the adult basic education.

It provides a very great gateway, especially for a lot of northern First Nations communities that have community members actually transported into the cities. From that, they can still continue their education through either getting their Dogwood or continuing to go through prep within the college system. The system continues to have success stories that have allowed a lot of individuals coming from the adult basic education to prep, to diploma, to transfer to university at UNBC.

Robert and Arnold, thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you for coming today.

PacificSport Northern B.C. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming. We've allotted ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then we have up to five minutes for questions from the committee. Please go ahead.

A. Pousette: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We really appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you about physical activity and sport in northern British Columbia. My name is Dr. Anne Pousette. I'm the current president and chair of the board of directors of PacificSport Northern B.C., and I have with me John Hopson, our executive director.

So who are we? PacificSport Northern B.C is a non-profit organization that's been incorporated under the Society Act of B.C. It represents the people of northern British Columbia who are passionate about physical activity, recreation and sport. We have a mission to provide high-quality resources and assistance to communities and individuals in northern British Columbia.

I'm going to turn it over to John to explain specifically the kinds of things that we do.

J. Hopson: What we do. As part of the network of sport centres in the province, we provide services, resources, support, facilitation and education opportunities to people in communities in northern B.C. in a collaborative manner with multiple stakeholders. We service athletes, coaches, sports organizations, community leaders, teachers, students and communities.

We facilitate and deliver physical literacy education, coach education opportunities, leadership training, athlete education, sport development programs, professional development seminars and courses for teachers, after-school programs and summer and school break camps. We work with education, recreation, health and sports sectors.

Who do we serve? Our region that we serve is from 100 Mile House to the Yukon and from Haida Gwaii to the Alberta border.

A. Pousette: Basically, it's that northern two-thirds of the province that I'm sure you hear about from other folks as well. We have a small staff and a huge mandate, but because we work collaboratively with communities and volunteer organizations, we're actually able to accomplish quite a lot for folks here. Without the support of the province of British Columbia, we would not be able to do any of this.

The board and staff of PacificSport Northern B.C. are very appreciative of the financial support of the provincial government through the ViaSport core funding grants, gaming grants and the northern sport strategy grant. These funds enable the work that we do and the collaboration and partnerships that we leverage with communities and other stakeholders.

The ability to work with communities to support their specific needs is possible through that collaboration and results in a stronger network and sharing of knowledge and opportunities across northern British Columbia. The work is contributing to the health of individuals and communities.

One of our challenges in the north…. And I'm sure you've heard these before. Number one is geography. We have a very, very large area, communities spread far apart, and a very small staff trying to service all of those people. We also deal with weather and winter roads. So even when people choose to travel to try and access the kinds of services we're maybe able to provide, say, in Quesnel one time and Burns Lake another time, they're still travelling a long distance to get there, and at some risk on winter roads.

The other constant challenge we hear from people is that there is difficulty transferring knowledge around the region due to that geography. The communities often don't know what's going on between them and what they're offering. They miss out on that opportunity to share knowledge and collaborate, without some facilitation.

During June to August of 2013 we intentionally conducted an environmental scan of northern B.C. communities to find out what communities and organizations were in need of to be successful in delivering sport, re-
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creation and physical activities. A big mandate right now, with hosting of the games coming in 2015, is to try to leverage that opportunity, inspire communities to further develop what they have and to provide some extra resources.

J. Hopson: The highlights from our environmental scan: coach education availability in their communities or nearby; physical literacy training programs in schools and communities — we've attached a brief document with our presentation explaining a little bit more about physical literacy — and leadership assistance to establish new programs and sport opportunities in the communities.

One of our quotes from a coach and community leader in Valemount was: "Anything that can help parents and volunteers to learn physical activity and coaching skills. It is all about accessibility. We just want our children to have access to the same opportunities as those in bigger centres." That is a common theme that was stated by most of our communities. A lot of our communities have specific needs, so they're all a little bit different, but that's one of our main topics that came up.

Goals for PacificSport in northern B.C. are to fulfil it's mandate and meet the needs of northern B.C.; to ensure that there are facilitators and leaders for basic physical literacy programs throughout northern B.C.; to work with individual communities across northern B.C. to identify solutions to their barriers to access of sport, recreation and physical activity opportunities; to work across sectors to have the greatest impact on improving access to sport and physical activity.

Also, provide access to coaching education in all northern B.C. communities throughout innovation and collaboration; increase the level of physical activity in all age groups across northern B.C., not just our youth but for everybody in northern B.C.; and ensure that the citizens of northern B.C. have access to the full spectrum of the Canadian Sport for Life framework and pathways.

A. Pousette: So what do we need to fulfil that mandate across our geography, with the large number of communities who are separated from each other? We need the continued support for delivery of services at the regional level. The current model, I think, works really well, having a centre in the north that can reach out and understand what those needs are. So we just applaud the current mechanism of allowing there to be centres around the province to service those regions. It helps the north, and I'm sure it helps other regions of the province as well.

We really see the need for resources in order to get established a presence in the northwest. It's really hard for us to find the people to help them, even, in the northwest. One of the themes that came through on our scan was that we have no contact in Prince Rupert. The people that we approached, we just didn't get responses from. Then we had a comment from Terrace that they feel completely disconnected from the other communities. They'd like to work with them.

I think that having that person on the ground…. In Prince George we know who all the players are. In Fort St. John we've got some people on the ground there through collaboration with the city. We have had much better ability, then, to network with the communities around there.

So we really see a deficiency in the northwest, and we just don't have the resources. We have three people on staff. We can travel out there, but it's not the same as having a person on the ground out there.

Then the third thing is something that we're working towards, and we have some resources towards this. It's the development of a learning centre with IT capability so that when we have a coaching or an officials course, or a physical literacy seminar going on some place, we can webcast that. Communities that have access to the Internet can…. They have learning centres in places like Valemount, where people can go in and take a course like that that's offered.

If we can have a centre like that, based out of Prince George, at UNBC — we have the space there; we're working towards finding the dollars to put the IT capacity into it — then we could open up what we can do in northern British Columbia. We could really change the landscape for people in these communities. If there is a course happening in Fort St. John, the unit that actually does this can go to Fort St. John and still pipe that around the north.

We feel that our biggest solution to solving some of the challenges would be to increase our ability to get information out and to connect communities with one another.

So that actually completes our presentation. We'd be pleased to answer any questions at this time.

J. Tegart: Thank you very much for your presentation and for sharing some of the challenges of serving a huge rural and diverse community.

It's just interesting, to your third point, around the IT. Do your public schools not have connectability or through…? I certainly know that Community Futures does a lot of connecting. Is there not an agency that you can partner with that already has that?

A. Pousette: There are a number of agencies that have video conferencing. It's actually difficult and expensive to
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access those, and it's difficult to acquire your own video conferencing. We had actually tried to get one through the last round of grants through the WED, because if we had our own, it could be busy all the time doing these courses. It could literally be used constantly. We were not successful on that grant.

We're now looking at web-based, so it's on line and it's actually more accessible to more communities, because many of our remote First Nations communities have satellite Internet and connect that way. They certainly don't necessarily have video conferencing. While the health system does have it in many communities, it's too busy for us to access that. It's being used for other purposes.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. In terms of your recommendation to develop a learning centre at UNBC, what are the stages of that? Do you have an agreement with them? How is that progressing, and what are your plans?

A. Pousette: We have a relationship with UNBC. That is where we're housed. We have, actually, a sports school there that operates out of the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre, which was a legacy of the 2010 games — that facility. Within the space that we use there, this learning centre can be housed, so we're not looking for any infrastructure in terms of capital. We'd need a few minor renovations, which we already have secured some funding for through NDIT, and we have a small amount of money towards the IT component through our gaming application.

We're missing a few small pieces to actually put this together. It's very much a virtual learning centre. It does not need to have a bunch of infrastructure. In fact, the unit can literally move. If there's a course being offered in Terrace that everybody in northern B.C. would benefit from, our staff can pick that setup, go out there and webcast from there.

M. Elmore: What's your budget, just to get an idea around what you're looking at? Do you have a fundraising plan or other…?

A. Pousette: Well, we don't have a lot of people to do fundraising because we're a small staff doing all the service. Basically, the board has worked on grant applications, so we have secured a grant from northern development initiatives. We have set aside some money that was specified for equipment through gaming, and then there are some renovation costs there as well.

So we have around $70K at the moment. To put in the video conferencing as well would take us to $250K. That was what our federal application was for. Somewhere in the middle would get us something that could work.

Steph, University of British Columbia? Not at this point in time. Or Central Interior Logging? We don't have anybody, then.

D. Ashton (Chair): The University of British Columbia — Wellness in Northern B.C. Task Force. If you don't mind first names, please, because we are all on a first-name basis here — Geoff, Bert and Anne. Thank you very much. Anne, welcome again. It's nice to see you.

The lay of the presentation is ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questions. So, please.

B. Kelly: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving us an opportunity once again to speak to this committee. We're here today essentially because the physicians in Prince George and the medical school are committed to publicly funded health care, but we understand that its future is threatened by the incidence of chronic diseases and their management. We decided to do something about that in the northern region. We put together an organization which we call WINBC, which is Wellness in Northern British Columbia.

The vision and mission statement is short: one, to promote health and wellness and to reduce chronic disease through healthy living and physical activity in northern British Columbia; and two, to build capacity for wellness through education, research and community development.

If we exclude the communicable diseases, then we can say, without fear of being wrong, that physical inactivity ranks as the fourth cause of death across the world. So this has become extremely important.

G. Payne: Sure. Although the medical school is one of the partners, and I am the assistant dean for both education and research with the northern medical program, we are proud to be one of the collaborators on this. As Bert mentioned, in northern British Columbia we are facing a health crisis. We need to find the mechanism to alleviate that and turn the health and well-being of the individuals in northern B.C. around.

In order to do that, the WINBC platform that we've put together and that Bert has talked about already…. We need to create a centre of excellence. You have in your package this coloured outline here. This is a fluid sort
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of diagram, but it really hits the four pillars of what we need to do here in the north in order to get at and tackle that problem that we've already discussed. We need that through education, through changes in understanding physical literacy, understanding sport and management in order to put things in place, and then research.

What we really want to do with the centre of excellence is to basically have the opportunity to conduct evidence-based research to allow training opportunities to occur that will eventually allow implementation of research programs and changes in public policy throughout northern British Columbia that can improve the health and well-being of the individuals in northern B.C.

The other piece to that — being an academic, as well — is that although the focus is on turning around the health status of the people of northern B.C. because we are in a particularly…. I wouldn't say dire straits, but you know, the writing is on the wall that we need to make some significant changes now. What we also want is that we can, through this sort of mechanism, be a leader for other northern and rural communities to look at what we've achieved here and translate that into their communities as well. So although the first benefit is for northern B.C., other people will benefit as well.

I think that the partners, as Dr. Kelly has alluded to, are very committed to WINBC. I'll stop there and turn it back over to Dr. Kelly.

B. Kelly: The commitment is such that the WINBC committee meets on Saturday mornings at the university at eight o'clock. It's the only time we have for this work. Many, many people across the university, the medical community, the college and general citizens are highly committed to this endeavour.

We need to know, really, whether you are interested in our product. Today I would ask you to consider two requests. We're now at the point in our development where we have to start to train the staff to run this program. Now, in order to do that, the base requirement for that, we reckon, is a degree-granting kinesiology program for UNBC. That will provide the feedstock, if you will, for the physiotherapy program, which we've already got going, and for the occupational therapy and speech-language pathology programs, which are already approved.

It will also feed into things like phys ed teachers, which are scarce, recreation directors and all of the other people that are going to be required to make this project work. As well as education, of course, as Geoff says, there will be a research requirement. It will involve building a structure at the university to house all of this.

The second ask I have of you is encouraging investment in whole-of-school programs. Now, this is something that I took from the Toronto Charter for Physical Activity, February 2011. I can do no better than to read to you what they said. Whole-of-school programs means this:

"Schools can provide physical activity for the large majority of children and are an important setting for programs to help students develop the knowledge, skills and habits for lifelong healthy and active living.

"A 'whole-of-school' approach to physical activity involves prioritizing: regular, highly-active physical education classes; providing suitable physical environments and resources to support structured and unstructured physical activity throughout the day — for example, play and recreation before, during and after school; supporting walking- or cycling-to-school programs; and enabling all of these actions through supportive school policy and engaging staff, students, parents and the wider community."

That is what they defined as their whole-of-school programs, and we would ask for your help with that as well.

G. Payne: The other thing I will add to that is that I think the real benefit of this program is, as opposed to putting an investment in something and getting just an outcome, by investing in basically those school-based programs and healthy activity and healthy living and health status for the young people of northern British Columbia, that becomes the gift that keeps giving, in my opinion.

These people will then have opportunities, because they are healthy, to go to university, colleges. They'll get involved in education. They'll get involved in research. They will then, in turn, give back to their communities. So it's a feedback, cyclical sort thing — as I said, to coin a phrase, the gift that keeps giving.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you. Anything else? Any points? We have questions, so that's why I was asking.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Thank you. I really appreciate your presentation, because it's something that, I think, concerns a lot of people.

Actually, I'll just go to the second part of your ask, which is getting kids active. Do you have any thoughts on one of the areas — I think you touched on it briefly — which is around cycling and walking to school? Does what you envision look at breaking that cycle, as it were, of…?

Well, by my house is a high school, and every morning you see the backup of dozens of cars waiting to turn left to drop their kids off. It's insane that a 14-year-old kid or a 15-year-old kid is getting driven to school. I mean, as I've often said, I wouldn't even have dreamt of saying that to my parents when I was that age — "Drive me to school." They would've just…. I'd have been backhanded into next week.

That's how things have changed. Kids don't walk to school the way they used to, and that's a key part of it right there in terms of getting even moderate exercise. I'm just wondering if your program envisages trying to tackle a major shift like that.

A. Pousette: If you have a look at the…. I'll give you two documents that are truly worth reading when you
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have time. This is an international problem. It's worldwide. The experts have identified that as one of the most significant problems that needs be tackled — active transportation. The automobile is our biggest enemy, and the other is the screen, of course. These are things that have to be tackled through policy and across sector. There's no way that one particular initiative in any one sector will ever be successful.

It's really the wake-up call to all of us that we've got to change the way we're living our lives in this world, and it's not just in Canada or northern British Columbia. I totally agree with you. Active transportation has to be a piece of this.

Whenever you have a round table where you bring communities together, it's got to be on the agenda every time, because it's different people that can solve that one than, say, a curriculum piece around what kids have opportunity and access to through their school.

E. Foster: Further to Mike's comments, I taught in high school for 15 years and coached golf and helped with a few other things. You talked about the phys ed programs and the activity. Parents fought constantly to keep their kids out of those programs. They wanted them in the computer labs. They wanted them…. Just a steady decline. They would find a doctor somewhere to give them an excuse for why they didn't have to run around the track twice.

I guess it's a request more than a question. People will listen to you; they don't listen to us. They will listen to the medical profession, and my request to you is really to push this thing. I totally support and agree with what you're saying. The message needs to come from the medical people, because people respect you for good reason. I think if we can team up on this we maybe can get people walking to school, as Mike said, taking part in some of the extra activities, because it is the parents that are pulling the kids out of these things.

G. Payne: I would agree wholeheartedly. We have to show them the value-add of why they should do this. It's not just, you know, to become more active and to be more fit. It's the downstream ripple effects, the positive ripple effects: healthy bodies or healthy minds. Then they can get involved and then we can do research to show them this is the evidence that shows why that's important. Then they get excited about that.

So just by walking to school, hopefully, it will translate into thinking about better ways to improve their health status. They might get involved in educational programs, research, and that train the trainer and that feedback loop.

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay, folks. Thank you very much. We're out of time. Thank you for your presentation.

Up next we have Central Interior Logging Association. MaryAnne, welcome. I saw you just walk in the room. So we have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and the floor is yours.

M. Arcand: Well, I'm not going to need ten minutes. Quite a few of you know me, and I just go straight to the point.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. I'm going to just address four points, actually, that are of concern to our members. Our association represents several hundred logging and trucking contractors, silviculture contractors. We're the guys that work on the land base in the forestry sector.

We sometimes get frustrated because we'll hear from government, "Well, we spoke to industry," which means you talked to Canfor, Tolko or West Fraser. We employ more people, we contribute more to the local economies, we take all the risk, and our guys have way more, actually, capital investment out there on the ground than the mills do. However, it's a synergistic relationship. Obviously, if we didn't have sawmills, we wouldn't need loggers, and vice versa.

Interestingly enough, our members are playing an increasingly higher profile role in the development of the economy in B.C., particularly the northern development. Whether it's a pipeline or a Site C or an IPP, somebody has to log that first. So our guys are finding themselves diversified, which is awesome. It has helped relieve some of the issues around economic cycling and downturn and whatnot.

But out of those last few years there have been a few changes in government policy and direction which we're not necessarily objecting to but are just concerned about in terms of what that means on the economic side at the end of the day.

So the first one is that we are concerned about staff reductions in the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. Part of that is we know that Minister Bennett is doing his core review. We're looking at: what is government doing that it should do? What is government doing that it should not do? And possibly, what is government doing that the private sector could do cheaper or better? All of which we're in 100 percent agreement with. We're all small business entrepreneurs.

But we are concerned that budget cuts or restrictions would further reduce the staff available to do the things that on-the-ground contractors need, such as permit processing.

As we look at larger changes…. Minister Thomson is talking about area-based tenure. That has a lot of implications for us. Because of the shortage of people and time constraints and budget restraints, we're understanding that the consultation processes are being shortened from what they may have been previously.
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So we're just concerned that as you look at your budgets…. We stand behind the Premier with wanting balanced budgets, wanting to see B.C.'s economy be accountable and efficient. It's more where those cuts come that concerns us.

The Ministry of Forests is pretty skinny already. Permitting time is taking longer, and so we just want to let you know that our members' feeling is that if there are cuts that have to come and economies that need to be taken, we need those people in those positions in order to do our work efficiently.

If you get held up waiting for a permit to operate, six, eight, ten weeks, that costs us millions of dollars. So that's sort of the trade-off warning.

The second point I wanted to make is that a number of years ago — I think in 2002 or '03 — we went to results-based performance in forestry. The idea was that it was not going to be prescriptive, but it was going to allow industry — whether it's the mills or our guys on the ground — to generate innovation and best practices. We like that. It has been moderately successful, and we're certainly seeing innovation on the technology side and on a number of fronts, including on the ground.

Again, that takes ministry horsepower. What happens now, we're finding, is that if we go to the government with a new or innovative idea — something out of the box — it's going to require more resources to get it pushed forward. The easier way is just for the staff to say: "We don't have the people to do that." You stay in the tick boxes, and we're concerned that's going to curb innovation and curb opportunities to become more efficient and more productive and certainly more competitive on the world scale.

Again, it goes back to making sure we don't pull the rug out from under the ability of that ministry to do its job and further enhance the ability in the forest industry to be innovative, to be profitable and certainly to be competitive on the world market.

Our third point is that in a number of areas, government appears to be downloading responsibility and costs to the on-the-ground companies. With that one, I'm referring specifically — again with FLNRO — to a movement inside the ministry to move to qualified persons. That would mean that things our loggers have done on the ground for decades, safely and in good stewardship….

We have the Forest Practices Board to monitor that stewardship. They are suddenly going to require another layer of somebody — a consultant, not within the ministry — to sign off on stuff that the ministry used to be able to do. That's going to cost us a fortune.

When we actually approached the person inside the ministry who had been charged with this initiative a couple of years ago, she was astonished that we thought it would have an impact to contractors on the ground. I'm going: "What?" If I have to call an engineer because we need to move a culvert five feet because the rain has diverted a creek, it's going to cost us a fortune. There are not enough engineers around, and productivity will have to come to a halt while we wait for this to happen. It's just not viable and feasible.

I guess our message in those three points is: as you consider what you need to do for your budget and your financing, please also remember that the work of your people — and it's good work — keeps the economy moving but keeps businesses going, keeps the opportunities for innovation and productivity increases and better efficiencies moving. We don't want to see decisions happen that would actually slow down the pace of being able to do business on the ground.

My last point is kudos to government. There has been a significant reduction in red tape over the last few years. Personally, I sit on the Small Business Roundtable with Minister Yamamoto, so I'm more aware than the average person, I guess, of what that is.

But we are still frustrated at many, many levels around permitting and the lag time to getting information. Whether it's on the forestry side or the trucking side, it still takes too long. Those delays cost a lot of money to the people on the ground, who would otherwise be doing that business and paying taxes back into the provincial coffers.

Delays cost money, and any kind of staffing cuts, because there are already so many shortages, would make it worse. That also applies to the commercial vehicle safety enforcement, which is a branch of Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. We're seeing less and less of the scales being open. My truck drivers would tell you that's a good thing. I don't agree.

There is a public fiduciary responsibility on the part of government to be monitoring the trucks to ensure that there is safety. That's what that's for. When that scale is closed more often than it's open, especially given the investments we made in technology, particularly at the Red Rock scale here south of Prince George, that scares me.

I know that CVSE is 83 officers short, so for trucks that should be getting inspected two or three times a year, it's maybe once every couple of years. My concern is from a public safety point of view. With all due respect, it would be the government that wears this if we end up with more interface crashes where members of the public are killed in crashes with trucks.

Statistically, 86 percent of the time that a truck is engaged in a crash with a private vehicle, it's the private vehicle's fault. Mostly, they cross the centre line. People don't take the right precautions driving around those big trucks. But as the northern economy — well, B.C.'s resource economy — grows, we're going to see an increasing amount of not only the truck traffic we know but these larger trucks that are hauling all these extraordinary goods to the mines and stuff.
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For instance, in Prince George and the Fort George highways district, two years ago they issued 14 extraordinary load permits. Last year it was over 1,500. Those are bigger, wider, longer than normal. People don't drive well around them, and we see these horrendous crashes.

Our message to you is very plain. Do what you need to do. We do want to see a balanced budget. We want to see a thriving economy in B.C. We want to be competitive and productive, and we certainly want to be able to meet or beat anybody on the world scale. But we're recommending that you don't do that at the cost of people on the ground within government who provide the services so badly needed to get that business done.

M. Elmore: Thanks, MaryAnne, for your presentation. What was the change? You mentioned a change in terms of the additional responsibilities for contractors to consult.

M. Arcand: They're still developing it and working on it, so we've been talking to the ministry at length. When initiated, it was more around the idea of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations — sort of the megaministry over the land base, if you will — working towards streamlining between oil and gas, mining and forestry, because we're all on the ground together. That part, in principle, we appreciate.

But adding another layer of requirements or a prescription around it — you have to have a so-called qualified professional to do certain things — is going to cost us a lot of money. There is a shortage of those people around. I mean, there's a shortage of hydrologists, agrologists, engineers, all of those. So you'd have to sit and wait for a guy to come and tell you that you could move that culvert five feet, when we've done it for a hundred years. It makes no sense.

M. Elmore: And you're currently still experiencing permitting and processing delays around…?

E. Foster: This has nothing to do with your presentation, but I saw your name on the list today, so I didn't bother calling you ahead of time. Have you had any issues with the exemptions on the ABS brakes?

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation, MaryAnne. A question: have you given any thought, or do you have any figures on what it would take to get on the…? How many staff do you think would be required to be able to address some of the permitting issues that you're facing? What kind of resources would be needed to be able to deal with the backlog?

M. Arcand: Frankly, no. Part of it is because it may not necessarily be a staffing issue. It may be a process issue. That's where I'm hoping some of Minister Bennett's reviews would look at some of those processes to say that it doesn't have to be as unwieldy as it is. Some of it is just redundancy, to be frank. But it's not about those people. When something has to go from that person's desk to that person's desk to that person's desk for sign-off and then back, you know, some of it is process.

People-wise, I know that CVSE is very short, and the Ministry of Forests is short as well. I couldn't tell you what that number is. I mean, with attrition and aging and all the rest of it that we all face, in our own industry we're very short of people. We understand that part, but we don't want to see further prescriptive restrictions placed on it around replacing people.

Up next we have the Faculty Association of the College of New Caledonia. We have David and Jan. Is that correct?

Good morning, folks. Thank you very much for coming. We have ten minutes for the presentation, and I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then we have time reserved for the questions. The floor is yours.

D. Rourke: Good morning, and welcome to Prince
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George. I appreciate this opportunity to provide your committee with some suggested priorities for the 2014 budget. I'm here representing the views of the Faculty Association of the College of New Caledonia.

Our overriding concern in this region is the funding and support of post-secondary education in general and, more specifically, the challenges facing our institution. Let me start with a brief overview of our college.

The College of New Caledonia is the oldest public post-secondary institution in Prince George. We have an enrolment base of close to 4,000 students. Our faculty association speaks on behalf of 380 full- and part-time faculty who work and teach at CNC's five campuses here in the central Interior.

CNC provides an important and increasingly unique post-secondary service to this region. CNC, along with other community colleges throughout the province, provides a critical path for thousands of adult learners who are not necessarily part of the direct-entry stream of students who move from high school to post-secondary institutions. CNC is committed to bridging the gap that exists between the high-skill demands of employers in this region and how those demands can be filled by students living here.

It's important to note that the learning that happens at our college is more than just a list of credentials and prerequisites. Learning is about students expanding their understanding of their community and maturing their sense of how they see themselves in that community. That community can be measured by a postal code or seen as something more global.

Either way, post-secondary education helps transform students. That transformation is something that every one of our faculty sees every day in their students. It may be cliché to talk about inquiring minds, but at its core that's much of what post-secondary education is all about — getting students to look and think critically at the world around them and, through that process, become more confident as learners, more capable of becoming lifelong learners and more adaptive to the process of acquiring new skills.

As faculty, our members see that transformation as their students gain confidence and insights and become more involved in their community. They see adult learners make sometimes difficult but rewarding transitions to new careers and new skills. All those transformations make a difference to the individual student and to our province as a whole, a point that is particularly important here in the central Interior where post-secondary education attainment rates are slightly below the provincial average.

I know from talking to colleagues in other regions that the committee has heard that post-secondary funding is under pressure. At the provincial level the core funding, our operating grants from the Ministry of Advanced Ed, is not keeping pace with the enrolment demands or the unique cost pressures within the public post-secondary education system.

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

Capital spending was also affected by the 2013 budget. The documents show that spending is slated to decline in the 2013-14 year. For post-secondary students, the budget showed no relief for the affordability crunch they face. The budget documents forecast tuition fee revenues will decline by close to $100 million over the next three years.

For a college like ours, these funding pressures are particularly tough because our mandate is to provide access throughout the geographically dispersed area. Unlike colleges in large metropolitan areas, for example, we often face a challenge recruiting students to fill programs in many of our satellite campuses.

The first reaction when cost pressures increase is to simply cut back those programs and course offerings. But in doing so, we are also turning our back on students in outlying areas, making access for them more of a challenge and ultimately more expensive.

Let me give you a very current typical example of this. This year two of our welding instructors were given layoff notices, one in Burns Lake and the other here in Prince George. If we step back and think about that for a moment, here in the central Interior employers are faced with a major skills shortage — shortages that are making some employers recruit from across Canada to fill those gaps.

There should be a major focus on building up local skills in this region, but at CNC we are handing out layoff notices to much-needed welding instructors. Inadequate funding is the root of the problem, and if the 2014 budget doesn't address that issue, it will only get worse.

The B.C. Business Council has made the point on several occasions that 75 percent of all new jobs will require some form of post-secondary education and training. If B.C. fails to improve access and affordability of post-secondary education, we put at risk our capacity to match skills with future job prospects.

Funding pressures at CNC are having a direct impact on faculty as well as students. There is a trend to shift faculty positions to part-time and contingent teaching positions. Administrators may see that approach as solving immediate cost pressures, but ultimately it undermines the college's prospects when it comes to recruitment and retention. Students are not well served by that approach, and neither is the local community that our college has a mandate to serve.

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

One other frustration we have with funding is a direct result of a policy change made over a decade ago in which the government moved away from targeted funding to a system of block funding, a change that gave local administrators a lot more latitude to choose how to spend their operating grants.

During the intervening decade we've seen the number of administrative positions and the associated budget increase in a lot more other areas within the institution. For example, between 2001 and 2012 — the last year we had full information — the number of administrative staff increased by over 16 percent. During that same period, the number of teaching faculty increased by less than 2 percent.

All of this happened in a time when real per-student operating grants were in steady decline. We have long held that the move to block funding was misguided, and we would hope that as part of the larger review of funding for post-secondary education, the government reconsiders this policy.

The provincial government stated over a year ago its commitment to significantly increase the number of international students enrolled in B.C.'s post-secondary education system. Our college, like most other colleges in the province, has a commitment to international students. However, our concern on this point is that increasing the number of international students is not just a numbers issue.

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

In conclusion, our faculty association would like to see the following priorities either addressed or strengthened in the 2014 provincial budget. Today's students have faced a significant affordability crunch. Tuition fees have more than doubled over the last decade. Tuition debts have moved higher in tandem with those tuition fee increases. That places an enormous burden on them, one that cannot be ignored.

A meaningful step in the right direction would be reviving the student grant program. New funding needs to be in place to provide post-secondary institutions with the capacity to restore student services that have been scaled back over the last ten years. These services are an effective way to help students succeed and ensure stronger completion rates in our system.

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

Finally, the funding that colleges receive needs to better respond to cost pressures that smaller institutions face. The sensible approach, in our view, is to engage in a thorough review of the funding formula so that regional inequities and core funding needs for the system as a whole are adequately addressed.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation. I'm particularly fascinated by one aspect of your presentation that you talked about. Let me make sure I get this right.

We're going to build, or we would like to see built in this province, an LNG pipeline to take advantage of our LNG resources. Last time I checked, unless there's been some giant change in technology, pipelines are built by welders, if I'm not mistaken. So we need welders to build a pipeline in this part of the province, yet we're laying off welding instructors. That doesn't make sense to me, and I'm kind of wondering who makes the decision to lay off welding instructors when we should be training welding instructors.

The other question relates, then, to the funding formula. A targeted funding formula that says, "Look, this is clearly a priority for the province. It's clearly a priority for this region. It's clearly a priority for the educational institute that we actually have welding instructors to train welders who could actually build a pipeline," in my mind, I guess, would address that particular issue.

Then the final thing I'm just wondering: how much would you save by laying off a welding instructor?

D. Ashton (Chair): We have about four minutes and another question, so point form would be greatly appreciated, please, because I'm sure there will be other questions.

J. Mastromatteo: Thank you for your question. Yes, we're quite disturbed by the loss of welding faculty this year. One in Prince George and one in Burns Lake, as David mentioned, and that ends welding training in that region. So it's not just the potential pipelines; it's also the infrastructure around Burns Lake.

I think the problem stems from ITA, among other problems that the Industry Training Authority has.
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From what we've been told, it has determined that welding training is not as necessary as some of the other trades-training areas. This may or may not be the case in the Lower Mainland, but it's certainly not the case here where we have more than enough students to fill up seats in welding. So it's a real loss to our community to lose welding.

I don't know what's saved by laying off faculty. All I can say is we've lost 113 full-time faculty since 2001, when the Liberal government took power. We've lost significant numbers of programs. We have no industrial technologies except a forestry program, our natural resources program. We fought hard to keep that one, and we're seeing this downturn in trades.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. We have been hearing similar presentations throughout British Columbia, certainly around smaller colleges and the funding inequities they feel they have. I have two questions.

Also, student associations speaking to the sharp increase in tuition fees and the issues that…. They make a whole number of recommendations across the board, including on tuition fee increases. But I noticed that you mentioned, in particular, student grants — which, it seems to me, kind of target assistance at students, say, with incomes who might not otherwise be able to attend college.

I just wanted you to speak to that, because there were a whole number of other proposals made by student groups. I'm not wanting you to critique their proposal but just wondering about your rationale for that.

Then secondly, in terms of…. We heard from Initiatives Prince George around the proposal for resource-revenue-sharing, which the provincial government has apparently committed to doing, and Prince George has a white paper on that. I'm just wondering if, in those discussions or in that white paper, post-secondary education institutions are at all mentioned in the context of discussions about resource-revenue-sharing.

D. Ashton (Chair): We have about a minute and a half, and there's another question.

D. Rourke: The second question…. We haven't seen the white paper, and we're not privy to any information that was in that, so I can't address that one.

G. Holman: In terms of assisting. You know, in terms of the problem around tuition fees.

G. Holman: You've homed in on grants as opposed to making recommendations about reducing fees in general. I just wanted you to comment on that — your rationale.

J. Mastromatteo: Well, I think our position has been the same for some time. What we had before the Liberal government were grants where students accessed the grants up front before they started, rather than incurring or increasing debt throughout the tenure of their education and then getting some reduction in their loans payback. For us, and I think for students, it only makes sense to have some reprieve at the beginning of their education.

D. Ashton (Chair): Jan, just to close, does the government set your course priorities, or do you as administration and staff set them?

D. Ashton (Chair): Well, does administration set the course priorities for the university, or does the government?

J. Mastromatteo: Well, I think, certainly, the colleges and universities are autonomous in setting their programming each year, but ultimately, that is a response to the funding — the block funding in particular.

Up next we have Northwest Invasive Plant Council. Good morning. Thank you very much. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then there'll be questions.

A. Eastham: Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee this morning. This isn't the first time that I've addressed this committee, so I'm not quite as nervous as the first time. I'm much more comfortable addressing a room full of scientists, not generally politicians.

My name is Andrea Eastham. I'm a professional agrologist, and I've been blessed with a 40-year career so far, all to do about plants. I've either grown them or killed them, and the killing of plants is usually referred to as vegetation management. I've worked in all sorts of industries but always in the plant area.

I've been the coordinator of the Northwest Invasive Plant Council since 2007. I know that you've heard from some of the other regional committees during your tour, so I hope I'm not repeating a lot of the same things that they said. My handout is a little different than some of the others.

Just to give you little flavour for invasive plant manage-
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ment in the northwest, we still are a plant council, not a species council, but we do deal with both terrestrial and aquatic invasive alien plants. We're one of the oldest committees in the province, having our inaugural meeting in 1992, and we're also the largest.

Our area covers just under 40 million hectares. We go from the Alberta border at the Mount Robson–Jasper Park border out to the coast and include Haida Gwaii. We go up to the Yukon border and down to just south of Hixon at the Cariboo regional district boundary, so we have a really big area and not very many people. It is a different challenge, managing invasives when you have a large, sparsely populated area, so how we operate is a little different than some of the other committees. Everyone has their regional flavour to deal with their challenges and situations.

We have a fully integrated program that includes awareness and education. We train weed spotters. My goal is to have every pair of eyes in the northwest able to recognize at least four of the worst invasive plants. We have a reporting system, and that's how we implement our early detection rapid response.

We do the traditional inventory treatment and monitoring of infestations. We do this on about $700,000 annually. Our funding comes in from partners with a responsibility under the Weed Act to manage invasive plants on their jurisdiction. That's provincial government, local governments at all levels, private industry. It's not enough money. We have had successes in eradicating small sites. Our number of reports goes up, and the number of new sites goes up every year. But we can't stop the introduction and spread from outside our borders.

I'm not here today to ask for more money for regional committees. I'm hoping that in the future, regional committees' role in invasive species management won't be the seek-and-destroy as we get better legislation and the ability to enforce that legislation, policies and laws that prevent the introduction of these species from outside our borders.

Prevention, as in many areas…. You know the old adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We all know that prevention, both in our own health and other areas, rings true.

Provincial prevention programs may seem like an increase in costs, but it will save us in the long run. It will not only save money in the long run, but it will create full-time employment rather than seasonal workers running after weeds. It will decrease the need for treatment, which includes the use of herbicides, and it will protect our environment rather than allowing ecosystems to be degraded by invasive species and then trying to rehabilitate them, which can be a huge cost or even impossible.

I know you're all familiar with the harm caused by invasive alien species. It's in the media. You've maybe had your own personal experience, issues in your own riding, presentations and handouts during your tour this year as part of this committee. We know that there are negative impacts to many industries that are important to British Columbia — agriculture, forestry, etc. — negative impacts on the environment; negative impacts on human health and safety, infrastructure. This is a global issue, and it will increase with the increase in global trade and travel. A lot comes in to our west coast.

Besides the federal program run through the CFIA that restricts the import of certain things and also checking of packing, etc., from foreign ships and cargo, there really is nothing stopping anyone from bringing anything into British Columbia.

Without provincial policies and programs to stop the unabated influx of invasive plants, regional committees like the NWIPC will be forced to continue our seek-and-destroy approach forever. From what I have experienced so far — and we're not as weedy up in the northwest as it is in the south — I don't think we'll win that battle.

A couple of years ago the board of directors of the NWIPC brainstormed all the possible vectors for invasive plants to get into the northwest: mining; exploration; oil and gas; pipeline expansion; forestry; transportation, which includes roads, ferries, air and rail; recreation; horticulture industry; aquarium industry; contaminated products, such as seed, feed, straw, soil, gravel, etc. They discussed each, and then they made decisions on what vectors to focus on with the money that we had.

We piloted a weed-free forage and straw certification program, based on a North American program, to demonstrate to the province that it was doable, and we were successful in that. It's been slow going, having it become a provincial program. It is limited what a small, non-profit, regional weed committee can do at the provincial level, but we keep trying.

The reason we targeted weed-free forage and straw is that's how weeds are getting into the northwest. The straw is used by reclamation, through mining, oil and gas, forestry, transportation. Right now they purchase it away, so it comes from the States or from Alberta, where they've had certification programs for a number of years now. I think that product could be produced in British Columbia and wouldn't have to travel as far.

The forage part was because a big industry for the northwest is the guide-outfitting industry. We're always finding invasive plants where they corral the horses.

Then I started thinking that the people who certify forage and straw could certify all kinds of products. They could be provincial inspectors and go where they are needed, inspecting whatever products and checking garden centre shelves, seed, soil, feed — whatever. They could be at protection check stations, where they check things like boats, vehicles, equipment — that sort of thing.

There's a lot of language in contracts for this exploration — oil and gas, forestry, transportation — that for
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new projects, which is disturbance, equipment and vehicles that come from away must come clean. Pretty well all of them have that language in their contracts now, but we don't have the ability to actually monitor that that's happening. Again, that's where we see the weeds getting in.

Prevention could include fees and fines, which are used elsewhere. There are lots of examples of successful programs, like the Idaho boat sticker program. If you're caught without a sticker, then you get a fine. Those fund…. It would be sort of a user-pay.

I think the other piece of prevention is school programs. I think B.C. needs a catchy three Rs for how we try to minimize garbage to the landfill to stop people from unintentionally introducing and spreading invasive plants.

I do hope that I don't spend the rest of my career trying to kill invasive plants — find them first and then kill them — but will participate in provincial programs that will prevent their introduction.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I fully understand what you're trying to do, and I fully support what you're trying to do. I'd like to make a suggestion, given the fact that we're dealing with limited resources.

This is a great brochure — lots of nice pictures. I look at it, and I go: "Okay." One of the things you're talking about is educating the public. And to educate particular industries, the public…. There are only one or two on here that actually tell me why it's bad. I think that's a key part of increasing public understanding.

When I see "toxic," "poisonous," I get that, but when I see others that say: "Leaves are fernlike…." Chamomile — I think of tea. There's nothing, really, that tells me why it's bad.

It's just a suggestion. In information brochures like that, if you tell people exactly why it's bad — it's poisonous to livestock; it's poisonous to pets — that you get and understand, as opposed to that it's invasive. People look and go: "Oh, it's a nice-looking flower. Why?"

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): You see? But that's the point I'm making. That's all.

There are some impacts on that brochure, but that would be good to have with each plant — sort of what the issue is around that individual one. They're all pretty, though, because 80 percent are garden escapes. It's a hard sell.

E. Foster: Andrea, thank you for your presentation. I've asked this question before of others of the people who've presented on invasive species.

A huge issue — cosmetic herbicides aside, out of the conversation. We've got huge pressure at all levels of government in the country to eliminate the use of chemical herbicides — period. I think it's important that people like yourself — professionals and organizations — become part of that conversation.

Science is developing all kinds of alternatives, but right now that's the one that works the best. I think that needs to be out front so people hear that from professionals.

A. Eastham: I totally agree. We've been involved in the conversations here with the city of Prince George. Terrace is also in my area. We have been to a number of the council meetings at the local government end. That seems to be where the activity has been.

I'm also involved in pretty well every plant group there is, which keeps me fairly busy but tied in and connected with all of them.

Because we're not as weedy in the northwest, we use very little chemical. About 40 percent of our work is chemical; the rest is digging, pulling. We have a lot of places, like Haida Gwaii, where there is a moratorium on the use of herbicides in our program. So we do a lot of manual, and we come up with a lot of novel treatments, as well.

M. Hunt: I think your list of invasives here is most instructive, because it shows the tremendous area that you cover. I have always considered chamomile to be a weed, and it's always been funny that people actually drink the stuff.

M. Hunt: But you know what it is? It's one of those ones that…. To me, chamomile all looks the same.

But also, for example, dealing with thistles. You're not dealing with Scotch thistle. You're dealing with your Canada and your broom. I think one of the challenges for invasive species is the fact that invasive species are so very localized. It's very local to what are the challenges you're facing.

Certainly, something that produces 26,000 seeds per plant is amazing, but how do we deal with that? It's one thing to deal with the concept of invasives; it's another to deal with it localized because every community has different invasives that we're dealing with.

A. Eastham: That's right. What we've done with the northwest…. What kicked it off in 1992 was each ministry and industry that was responsible was running around with their own crews, killing whatever. But you
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know, the weeds don't know we have all these lines on the ground. So if there was an infestation of Canada thistle — and I worked for forestry, and I was out doing my part, but you worked for Transportation, and you weren't doing thistle; you were killing scentless chamomile — we just weren't getting anywhere.

I think the secret to the success for the northwest has been the common strategy. Though it's difficult to apply over such a large area, that's what we do.

D. Ashton (Chair): Andrea, thank you very much. I have to cut it off at that point. Thank you for coming.

Next up we have the University of Northern British Columbia — Jessie and George, if you don't mind first names, since we're all first names here. Welcome. Thank you for coming.

So ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have time reserved for questions. As you can see, there are usually quite a few questions.

G. Iwama: Thank you for this opportunity. As every year, we are very pleased to come before and tell you about the best university in Canada.

UNBC will celebrate 25 years in 2015. It was founded by 16,000 northerners that paid $5 and signed a petition to Victoria to say: "We want a university. We need a university in the north, for the north. We're losing our young people to the south, who don't come back. Industries need the support."

I'll circle back to that point at the end of my comments, but I'm pleased to be here with Jessie King, a graduate student of our university, who will give her perspective.

This university now ranks in the Maclean's ratings No. 2 in Canada among small universities. I proudly say, with my three other colleagues of research universities — Simon Fraser and UVic, who rank No. 1 and 2 in their category of middle-sized universities; and UBC that ranks second in the country, as well — that British Columbia, as a destination for post-secondary education, is second to none.

We've got the best credit-transfer articulation system in the country by far. In the north we have a Northern Post-Secondary Council. I've just returned from Houston with the three other college presidents in the north. We meet monthly, and we discuss issues surrounding having our bright northern students succeed in the north.

We have summits on a regular basis where our vice-presidents work out transfer issues and block-transfer opportunities.

I say to people — I'm going to the national meeting of the presidents of universities next week — very proudly that British Columbia really is a jewel in the country in terms of post-secondary education.

We are research active. UNBC, with 4,200 students, is the baby of the four, with UBC the big sister. But we are very research active. We have 20 percent of our students as graduate students. We do about $17 million to $20 million of research a year, which is small by measure of the other universities. But we pride ourselves in being not only respective but responsive and relevant to our communities — staying true to the vision of the founders that we remain here a university very sensitive to the needs of society. We always see ourselves as being in that intersection, and so long as we are, we don't think we can go wrong.

UNBC is a university that has the breadth of programming, from the liberal arts to science and technology. We have the northern medical program as well as social work, engineering and nursing. We also this year are looking for engineering professors as we start our new master's of engineering and wood innovation and applied science in the same field.

It was the wisdom of this committee for the past two years to recommend engineering in the north at our university, and slowly, we're making progress. We still don't have the undergraduate program. Again, sensitive to the needs of our industries that are booming in the north now, we need that programming.

We need that programming to support directly the kinds of work that's going on in forestry, mining and oil and gas. But our university also supports an ecosystem of support to our communities. The head of New Gold was on our campus recently and made this point: "As directly as we do need the engineers, the project planners, the accountants and lawyers from university training, we need the doctors for the families we bring on site. We need education for the children that come with those families." In that regard, I think UNBC is central to the economic prosperity of not only the north but also of the province.

As we look forward, we are engaged with companies and industries moving forward. So it's an unusual university in that way. The university is the kind of place where they assigned offices by lottery in the beginning so that all the disciplines would be mixed up and it would be a really integrated place.

Today we have three leading institutes: one in health research; one in environmental studies — natural resources and environmental studies research institute; and a third one in community development. Through these three institutes, people emerge from their respective and traditional departments and gather around compelling themes and opportunities for research and teaching. It is that kind of place.

Our graduates are found to be…. Two-thirds of them are staying and living in the north. It really is the success and the vision and hope of our founders — that our
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graduates would be making a difference in the north. And while the numbers are not large, a recent grad from Fort Nelson said: "I'm a grad. I went to college here. I got to university, and now I'm the First Nations addictions counsellor in my area." That's one person. But without that one person taking full advantage of our system, there wouldn't be an addictions counsellor for the First Nations communities in that area.

I want to leave that image with you. We are a young university. We're growing. It's a nimble university. It's the kind of place where we're experimenting with formats of teaching. We all went to university perhaps doing Monday, Wednesday, Fridays at 9:30, history.

We are experimenting with block teaching, where teaching occurs in three-week blocks — five of them from September to Christmas. But by doing so, the great immersion experience, the relationship-building among peers and with your professor is proving to be a wonderful mode of learning.

The professors, when they finish their three weeks — albeit exhausted — get the next three weeks to do their research completely. And it's that balance of research and teaching that we want to strike. And like many eastern universities, we've started a foundations program, as well, integrating different disciplines around a cohort of students coming into first year.

As we look forward to 2015, we celebrate the centenary of the city and the Canada Winter Games here but also look forward to a great celebration of 25 years for UNBC, and we've invited Prince George to the party.

J. King: Thank you to the select standing committee for allowing me to be here today and for Dr. Iwama's gracious invitation. It's very indicative that I'm here today, of what UNBC stands for. It stands for capacity-building for its students and mentoring them into positions beyond their education.

Dr. Iwama asked me a couple of weeks ago why I chose UNBC. I basically gave him my full-run history: that I went to Sweden for a year — I went to school in Västerås, Mälardalens Högskola — and I came home, and I knew that I wanted to go and continue my education, but I didn't want to go to a larger institution down south.

I'd visited UBC and UVic and noticed that my friends that I'd gone to high school with didn't quite have the direction that they'd had. They didn't feel like they were being mentored as they wanted to be. They felt like they were a number in the hallway. So I chose UNBC because I knew about the small class sizes. As a bonus, our university looks like a ski chalet, so it doesn't look like a university. It really fosters that personal growth. It makes you feel comfortable.

I've experienced many opportunities at UNBC. Recently I was the graduate student society president for a year, so I had the opportunity to work with our graduate students at UNBC and find out what their needs were and to also work with the other research universities — UBC, SFU and UVic. We created an informal group called the BCGSS, and we were hoping to find more graduate student scholarships for our students who are struggling to do their research. That was a wonderful opportunity for me.

Also, I've experienced an increasing visibility of UNBC in my recent years. I did my bachelor's degree in psychology and philosophy, and I went straight into my master's of First Nations studies, a master of arts. A day after I defended my thesis, I was accepted into the new PhD health sciences program at UNBC as well, so I'm one of the first cohort in PhD health sciences, which is a truly interdisciplinary program that I'm so thankful for.

Up until that point, all my training, I wasn't quite sure where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to be in health, and UNBC was able to develop a program that fitted my needs, and I didn't have to go to another institution. That being said, I spend a lot of my summers going to summer institutes and different mental health workshops across the country.

I've had the chance to go to McGill in Montreal and University of Western Ontario in London. The first thing I hear from people is: "Oh, you're the green university. You're such a small university. You're way out there." Over the years that visibility has increased, and people know about UNBC across the country now, and I can say truly that I'm proud to be a UNBC student. That's why I chose to stay since 2005, and hopefully, to finish in 2015, knock on wood.

Hopefully, I would like to continue teaching at UNBC. I've already taught two courses. Last year I taught my first course in First Nations studies — 97 students in First Nations 100. The neat thing about that was I was teaching in the same room that I went to my first class in when I came to UNBC in 2005. It was a nice circular progress that I had made, going back into that room but as the professor. This year I'm teaching another course, second-year 217 in First Nations studies, contemporary issues.

Without those opportunities, I wouldn't be able to be where I am right now. I wouldn't have the success that I have right now in my graduate studies and a career path that I would like to have. It's because of mentors and the small university class sizes that I've been able to capitalize on those benefits of UNBC and be where I am.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you, both of you, for the presentations. We're out of time, so there probably are questions.

J. Yap: Thank you, George. Good to see you. Thanks for your presentation — and Jessie as well.
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One of the goals of our government is to see international students, as a sector across the province, increase. I know that you have international students at UNBC. How is that going for you?

Our international student numbers are on the rise. We have both in international and First Nations about 12 percent each of our campus.

We have a great partner in Japan — this is one example: Gakushuin Women's College. As you know, the northern medical program is based on high-definition video conferencing. We ended up opening a high-definition video classroom in Tokyo on their campus, and we're streaming UNBC curriculum over there. For the first time in their history at that women's college we had a gender and women's studies course, and they're teaching us Japanese and culture.

So international in regards to the traditional bodies coming to our campus is going well, albeit not in the double-digit growth that we see down south, but in a digital way we are also extending that way into Asia. It's gone so well that now there are six or five other countries that want to join that network, from Australia to Korea, and we have plans now to use that means of elaborating that system further. Thank you for the question.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. And Jessie, a very interesting story. What's the status of the support for graduate students? That's what we've heard as well. I'm very interested and concerned. I think it's an important priority to ensure that we're able to attract and, particularly for UNBC, offer those opportunities for students in the north. What's the status of support for graduate students?

J. King: Well, through the office of graduate programs, we have small supports. We have conference and research supports. There are many TA- and RA-ship opportunities — teaching assistant and research assistant opportunities. But there's definitely a need for more.

As graduate student society president, I heard of many issues that graduate students are facing. A lot of these are finding employment outside of the university, finding scholarships that they are eligible for. A lot of scholarships have some restrictions on them that restrict international students especially. That was an issue I came across during my grad student society presidency.

Also, living in the north, sometimes rent can be a little bit high. Sometimes our research takes us to places that cost a little bit more money to complete.

Those are some of the issues that graduate students are facing: being able to find scholarships and funding to do their own research at the level that some eastern universities get. Eastern universities get quite a bit funding for their graduate students, whereas B.C. is still quite low.

M. Hunt: My question is: what percentage of your courses would be available on line, versus face to face?

G. Iwama: What percentage? I don't know the exact number. It would probably be in the 20s in terms of percentage. You see, it's a little difficult to answer, because we use the on-line technology to distribute our courses even within northern British Columbia. Not just the medical program but the three campuses — in Terrace, Quesnel and Fort St. John — are linked by video conferencing. Sometimes we'll put a cohort together with two students here, six there and 12 here as a class. We have the technology to do that.

Technically, it's not an on-line correspondence, distance education, classical mode, but we utilize that technology to the fullest. Many, if not most, courses are able to be distributed that way. If you look at our continuing studies, our distance education catalogue, you'll see certain courses dedicated to that by those means. Most, if not all, courses are available to be distributed in that manner. It's a bit of a messy answer to that question.

Up next we have the Child Development Centre of Prince George and District. Darrell, welcome. Thank you. I understand there might be one more coming. Is that correct?

D. Roze: No. I thought I was supposed to present at 10:50. He wasn't expecting to be out here until a little bit from now. That's okay. I can provide the presentation for you.

D. Roze: The Child Development Centre has been in operation for over 46 years. We provide services to Prince George, Mackenzie, McBride and Valemount. The main focus of our operations is to assist children with special needs. One of the critical roles we play is that we bridge services between the time a child is released or discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit and when they enter kindergarten.

One of our most important goals is to prepare children for improved success within the school system and beyond. Within all of our lives, we have a critical early developmental period, and that is something that we try and utilize to the benefit of the children that need our services. That's based on the fact that within the first few
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years of life we develop our base skills that stay with us for the rest of our lives, such as our gross motor skills — walking, crawling; our communication skills; our habitual ways to react to the world around us; our fine motor skills, like holding crayons and scissors.

One of the big problems that we have faced is there has been basically a complete disconnect between the resources that we've been receiving and the huge increase in demand that we've faced over the last 15 years. Over the last 15 years we've easily faced a 100 percent demand increase, but we have less therapists on the ground than we had 15 years ago. It has become very, very problematic.

This should be of great concern to all of you. It's a great concern to me, because the money that we save by inadequately funding these programs…. It'll cost dramatically more in the future — if you look at health care costs, for instance. I believe about 45 percent of our budget, provincially, is spent on health care. Inadequately funding these programs will lead to higher health care costs in the future. It'll also lead to higher education costs, higher social service costs. There are a number of areas that it impacts.

After many years of inadequate funding, we've been hit with an incredibly problematic issue this year. The province thus far has refused to pay for the most recent wage increase that our staff received. This was after years of frozen funding that we've had, and it was the first wage increase that our staff has experienced in years.

This will cost our centre $66,000 in additional costs for this year. And $66,000 is definitely a substantial amount to us, after we had a number of years of frozen funding, when our expenses were continuing to grow in all other areas, like the cost for our facilities, administrative costs. All those things have been increasing, and we've been having to deal with those costs. Every time we have a frozen budget, it actually results in a small decrease in our overall resources.

The province has also indicated that we are required to absorb these costs with no reduction in services. After so many years of inadequate funding, that's simply not going to happen. There's no way for us to undertake to find those savings.

The negotiations that came to the increase in funding for us were undertaken under the cooperative gains mandate. Within that mandate there were supposed to be corresponding savings within the negotiations that would cover off all of the cost increases. The savings that we have received are just pennies on the dollar — basically, no savings.

Agencies such as ours also basically had no say on whether the collective agreements were ratified. We were simply too small. The health authorities were the major players. They were the ones that had the say in what was negotiated. They had a say in the final agreement, and they were also the only agencies that received any savings from the other changes in the collective agreement.

That brings me to my first recommendation, and that is to increase funding of the Child Development Centre of Prince George and District by $66,000 to cover the increased costs associated with the wage and benefit costs.

A second area of concern is our major program that deals with children with special needs. The major one that provides the high-level service is our early intervention therapy program. This program deals with children from birth till school entry. As I mentioned earlier, we've had at least a 100 percent increase in demand for this program over the last 15 years, with no additional therapists to facilitate that program.

In the past we were able to provide a lot of one-on-one services. Basically, what we're able to do now is a little bit of one-on-one and a lot of consulting with parents and hoping that the parents fill in what we're unable to provide between their visits to the centre.

For recommendation 2, we'd like to have an additional $255,000 per year to facilitate hiring three new early intervention therapists. This would have a huge impact on our ability to help children in the region.

Our last program to discuss today is our BEST program. We were able to pilot this program — the behavioural, emotional, social teaching program — in the spring of 2012. We were able to provide this with a number of private donations and in-kind services provided by other agencies in Prince George.

One of the major increases in demand that we are seeing is children that have substantial behavior management issues in the first few years of life. Also, we're getting an instance, which I would have thought would have been unthinkable in the recent past, where children are actually being kicked out of kindergarten because they're a danger to themselves and a danger to others.

These were the types of children that we ran this pilot project on. An eight-week pilot project and of the children that participated, seven of eight of those children didn't miss a single day in kindergarten due to behavioural management issues. It's just an unbelievable success rate. We definitely expected most of those children to have issues where they would have been out of the school system to deal with those issues.

As I mentioned before, we have those first few years of life where we can have a substantial change in the way children view the world, the way they react to the world. This is the type of early intervention that we see here and having a profound impact throughout the lives of these children.

For our recommendation 3, this is providing $225,000 in ongoing annual funding to allow the centre to continue with this important programming.

I have some supporting documentation for the rest. That's the end of my presentation.
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G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. I'm just curious about your statement that Prince George, unlike other jurisdictions, lacks a dedicated program to support preschool kids with early mental health problems.

Other than what appears to be an inequity, what's the reason for this? Does the funding come through health authorities and they feel that there are other priorities, other than this kind of programming?

D. Roze: Well, the major provider of mental health services in Prince George is Intersect Youth and Family Services, I believe is their name. When they were initially set up, my understanding is that there was going to be a piece of what they did that was going to support children in their early years. They're another agency that has had very, very difficult times providing services with the funding they've received. And if you don't have enough services, you default to the critical cases.

The children that could be helped immensely in the first few years of life, they're not getting seen, largely. So the resources are flowing to when those children reach 17, 18 when they implode and are a massive danger to themselves.

The time to treat those children most effectively is early on, but there just aren't the resources in the system.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Darrell, for your presentation. You mentioned that the number of children…. I guess it coincides with recommendation No. 2, to hire three new early intervention therapists, that you've seen an increase in the number of children who need services. Is that attributed towards just a growth in the population? What are some of the contributing factors?

D. Roze: This is a problem that you will see provincewide. It's definitely not a growth in the population. It's a growth in that specific population. There are many, many reasons that you'll be seeing this.

I'm probably not the person to ask. There are things like, within the hospitals, we're able to save premature babies, save them being more premature. Most of those children will have some sort of special need as they grow up.

When you were growing up, you probably would go to the playground and see lots of kids in the playground. Today you just don't seem to see that. That is where you develop your kind of core socialization skills, your gross motor skills, your fine motor skills.

Also, a lot of parents today babysit children by parking them in front of a TV — an absolutely terrible, terrible way to allow your child to develop. They don't connect to the television. People also think that the exposure to different chemicals, like in our foods and such, have a negative impact. It's not a proven area.

We know that the demand is growing tremendously. I was very happy to see that in this year specifically, it was the first year quite possibly in our history that demand to our therapy program actually levelled out. I'm hoping that that continues on. But the issues that we're facing today are the increases that we received for the last 40 years.

M. Elmore: In your presentation, you referenced the early intervention. I'm familiar with that program being specifically targeted for children with autism or other developmental issues. You also referenced mental health, children with mental health concerns. So you are really covering that continuum.

M. Elmore: In terms of your BEST program, what are the…? In your pilot, generally the kids there had mental health issues. Or was it also a variety of issues?

D. Roze: At the very least, they had substantial behavioural management issues. A lot of those behavioural management issues are kind of dealing with their social intelligence. They're unable to socialize correctly with their peers. They just had an abnormal mental development that could be corrected.

With the BEST program, we had it broken out into two pieces. We had some group work with the children, and then we also worked with the parents to give them the capacity to help their own children. That really worked out well for the program.

D. Roze: It's specific. We developed it, but it was modelled somewhat on the Pace program out of Vancouver.

Up next we have the College of New Caledonia — Bryn and Bob. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. We appreciate it. We have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then there
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are questions, as you can see.

R. Murray: Thanks, Dan. Good morning. My name is Bob Murray. I am currently the chair of the board of governors for CNC, College of New Caledonia, and with me is Dr. Bryn Kulmatycki, interim president for CNC.

To begin with, I want to thank the committee for coming to Prince George. We appreciate the opportunity to share with you our thoughts regarding the 2014-15 provincial budget and the government policy and funding for the post-secondary education system. I will present some information about our college and, in doing so, will be addressing three major points.

First, we will comment on the important roles that our college plays in the economic and community development across the north and central Interior region.

Second, we will identify the priority budget and policy issues that are of concern to CNC as well as our ten sister colleges.

Finally, we will describe how seriously our college is being disadvantaged because of the provincial tuition differential.

I will conclude by suggesting some recommendations to consider in the development of the 2014-15 provincial budget. We will keep our prepared remarks brief in order to leave time for you and questions regarding the points we will raise.

The College of New Caledonia serves the north-central British Columbia. B.C.'s colleges play an important role in the economic and social and cultural life of British Columbia and offer a most accessible and affordable pathway to post-secondary education in the province.

The College of New Caledonia is one of ten regional colleges providing post-secondary education and training to help fulfil the provincial government's post-secondary legislative mandates. We provide education and training for the workforce and collaborate with the provincial government in order to implement their strategic labour directions issued through the B.C. jobs plan.

Today the presentation is from our college's unique regional perspective. In it we will share with you (a) examples on how we prepare our students to meet the challenges and opportunities facing our region; (b) how our college contributes to our region's prosperity by providing access and opportunity for all learners; and finally (c) how we use innovative delivery models, including on-line learning technology, to give our students a competitive edge.

The CNC campus encompasses six communities: Prince George, Quesnel, Mackenzie, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James and Burns Lake. We support and strengthen these communities, providing affordable-access higher education and skills training close to home. Our college currently provides 50 different programs leading to certificates, diplomas or degrees. CNC is the largest of the six rural colleges in B.C. In 2012-13 the enrolment was 3,375 FTE students — approximately 14,000 individual learners, including continuing education.

At our institution we are justifiably proud of our progress over the past several years, increasing the enrolment and participation of aboriginal learners by 33 percent in regular credit programs since 2005 and by 80 percent in all programs and service areas by developing and implementing new delivery models at the local level to be responsive to aboriginal learners.

We're working collaboratively with the school district to improve trades programs that students in high school can access. We're improving health-related training with state-of-the-art facilities that are now providing expanded registered nurse, practical nurse, health care assistants training in addition to traditional health programs we have always delivered.

We're increasing collaboration with the University of Northern British Columbia to facilitate more seamless transitions in programs in order to support increasing numbers of students who are now studying at both institutions at the same time, in programs such as business. We're collaborating with other post-secondary institutions throughout the Northern Post-Secondary Council to improve education for all northern students of British Columbia.

Our college is working closely with industry, First Nations and educational institutions to address the labour market requirements in the central Interior and across the north. Two of the many collaborative partnerships and initiatives we are leading currently include the introduction of the northern civil engineering technology program in collaboration with Camosun College, Northern Lights College, Northwest Community College and UNBC — which urgently, by the way, requires funding — and the introduction of the heavy-haul program at Mackenzie in collaboration with the College of the Rockies in order to facilitate the needs of the mining industry.

Time does not permit for us to go into details. However, we feel it's important that this committee and government recognize the extensive collaboration and partnerships that exist among colleges and other educational institutions, as well as our business and community organizations. That interactive level of engagement is extensive.

I'm going to hand it over to Bryn to continue with the major policy points here.

B. Kulmatycki: We have five items that we want to just kind of briefly review with you. The first one is somewhat self-evident, about the skills gap in British Columbia — the outpouring of issues related to the expansion of all of the industry that's looming out there, the numbers of proposed projects and providing employment opportunities for people to service all of those needs.
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The College of New Caledonia is in a position where we are now engaged with many of those industries to support that. Unfortunately, the demand for services sometimes outstrips what we can actually provide, so we cope with that as best we can.

Aboriginal education is quite a significant aspect of our college. That is because a significant portion of our service delivery area is within aboriginal communities. We serve 22 communities. Within those communities we are a leader in the province in providing on-site educational opportunities and training to aboriginal learners right close to home. We find that they have a great deal of difficulty leaving their communities and seeking post-secondary, so we go to them.

There is a substantial amount of work that has happened over the last five to ten years in that area. I like to say, use the words, "We are light years ahead of many other colleges" — in fact, all of them.

Every one of our communities has an aboriginal community advisory committee. That advisory committee feeds into a central, college-wide advisory committee — the Yinka Dene council. That input is fed directly into our decision-making process so we can serve the needs of aboriginal learners directly by listening to what they need and servicing that, as opposed to advising them what we think they should be doing.

That particular stride we're very proud of. Some of our campuses…. Burns Lake, for instance, has approximately 75 percent of the service to the college as aboriginal. That's a significant aspect for us.

The provincial tuition gap is an important feature for us. The tuition is frozen. It causes quite incredible problems for the College of New Caledonia because it has been frozen at levels that are very, very low. Our tuition, when it was frozen, compared to the rest of the province, does not measure up. Our research shows that for some particular programs, we would have to increase our tuition by over 80 percent just to reach the same tuition that is being charged in the Lower Mainland. That gap is very, very serious. The longer the tuition freeze continues, the wider that gap gets.

We are concerned about the capital allowance, the expansion that's required to provide programs. We're going to need facilities to do that. One issue that's facing us is the number of staff members that we have to have that are totally dedicated to providing reporting to the ministry. We are unclear as to what all that data is being used for, but regardless, it's required.

I'm going to call on Bob to just conclude, because we have a one-minute warning.

R. Murray: I'm just going to whip through the recommendations here. The College of New Caledonia and our sister college recognize the difficult financial circumstances facing the province and significant challenges the government will face over the next few years.

However, growing investment in the provincial colleges of 2012-13 will be beyond critical for the province to have a highly skilled workforce to meet the current and future economic and labour markets. Colleges will play a vital role in providing the advanced skills and education for the B.C. knowledge-based economy.

Therefore, we urge this committee to do several bullet points. Conduct re-examination of the tuition structure of British Columbia. Continue to preserve and enhance the operating funding provided to the B.C. college system's 2013-14 budget. Explore the amount of reporting back to various ministries that is taking place within the lens of finding out what's necessary and what is not.

Address administrative accounting policies and issues that may negatively impact post-secondary education institutions' ability to provide education programs and services required for students. Restore capital allowances, the ACA, back to 2009 levels. And make a renewed funding commitment to support increased educational access and success to aboriginal people.

We believe the post-secondary education opportunities of British Columbia are a solid investment in the future of our economic and social growth. Such investment will improve the standard of living, reduce social costs, ensure the source of labour, supply industry needs and will help create a vibrant, healthy community.

D. Ashton (Chair): No, it's okay. I had to watch. We've got a couple of questions here.

We've heard from probably every student union group in the province as we've travelled around. They all want the tuition fees reduced back to what they were in 2001, so you might have a little issue with them if you lift your freeze.

The question you just touched on there was the amount of resource time being used in reporting and not knowing where the reports go or, essentially, what they're for. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Obviously, I don't know a whole lot about it. But it just seems to me to be a spot where we could maybe….

B. Kulmatycki: Some of this is legitimate and is being legitimately driven through the Auditor General's department. The need for accountability is very important, and we're not diminishing that. However, we are re-
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quired to send, I believe the number is now, 56 individual reports for accounting back to the ministries, and these are all ministries. This is not just Advanced Education. All of them that we interact with require reporting back.

Some of it is duplicated. We are unclear, in the reporting…. The questions are, sort of: "We're not really sure why they need that, but okay, here it is." Some of the information that is requested occasionally is already available to them through other agencies that they have, and yet we need to comply with the regulations. So we do actually have entire staff members that do nothing but reporting, because it's required. It's mandated. The number of reports is significant, and it's multiple over the year. Some departments require quarterly, some semi-annually and some annually. It varies.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Two quick questions. One is: for First Nations, are you requesting additional dollars there or just renewing an existing commitment, and is that commitment currently earmarked for First Nations? That was one, and I had one other question.

B. Kulmatycki: Yes, the funding is earmarked for First Nations. The problem is that not all colleges are accessing the funds. They do not have programs in place for aboriginal learners, so it's a fixed amount of money that's distributed amongst the colleges that are accessing and providing the services. We provide so many services that if that money gets redistributed, and there is a request to redistribute that money to all of them equally, we will have to do something. I don't know what we would do, but it would substantially reduce all of the initiatives that have taken place over the many years.

Not everybody's doing the same thing. Not everybody has accessed the resources. And, yes, we are asking for at least the continuation of what we're getting, but other colleges are now saying: "You're getting too much. We want a little piece of it, even though we're doing nothing." So we need to grapple with that.

G. Holman: Very quickly, we have heard about the accounting policies and surplus funds building up that can't be accessed. I think it would help the committee if you could give us a little more detail on what those policies are and sort of what the rationale is and how we could deal with it. I think it would help us in considering that request. But I guess the more fundamental question is…. I'm not understanding why, particularly given your funding constraints, you're having surpluses in the first place.

B. Kulmatycki: To answer the first initial question, the reasons that the surpluses exist are historical. Those have been built up over many, many years and had to do with the way funding was attributed before the funding formula was changed. When those funds were frozen…. At the College of New Caledonia our number is in excess of $4 million. The money sits there and cannot be used for any of the initiatives that we need, and we are continually struggling to try and just pull this off.

The money's been frozen, and it has to do with the way the administration and the various ministries are using that tactic to balance the books for the province. We understand that process. But it just seems…. It's very difficult to explain to the public and to the community why you have all this money that you can't access. But the reason has to do with the way the fiscal setup is in the province. It's a ministry-driven initiative.

D. Ashton (Chair): I've got Marvin and John. Just short and sweet, please, because we're pushing it.

Two questions. One is…. I notice you have a lot of your courses online. What sort of percentage is on line versus face to face? The second question is on your comment concerning reporting back. What is necessary? What is not? Is that a red-tape, paperwork kind of issue?

B. Kulmatycki: It's a red-tape, paperwork kind of issue. Very much like my colleague from UNBC, I don't really have the stats on on-line courses. We have the same issue that they have.

On-line courses don't really work so much for us because we deliver programs regionally to aboriginal communities, so we use more video conferencing, which is not really on line. But I'm going to say somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 percent, 20 percent.

J. Yap: Speaking of accounting, have you crunched the numbers and looked at what range of adjustment upwards of the tuition fees would be needed so that you can at least make up for what you say was the very low base that you started at when you were frozen back in '05? Do you have a number or range in mind?

B. Kulmatycki: To bring our tuitions up for CNC would take somewhere in the neighbourhood of about a 32 or 33 percent average tuition increase. If we could increase the tuitions at CNC to what the rest of the province has, average — just take all of theirs, and that's available, and we've done it — we would annually get $1.5 million in additional revenue. Now, this is money that other colleges are already receiving, and we don't receive it because we are unable to do anything about that.

D. Ashton (Chair): Gentlemen, thank you very much. Bryn and Bob, thank you for the presentation today.
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Sorry to keep you…. But I have to keep everybody in line.

There was a question from Gary, though. If we could have some additional information, it would be greatly appreciated if you could send it to us.

Up next we have the Prince George Chamber of Commerce. I have Derek, Cindi and Christie. Is that correct?

Welcome. Thank you very much for coming. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then we have five minutes for questions. You can see there are usually lots of questions, so I will be a little bit sharp with the time.

D. Dougherty: Perfect. My name is Derek. This is Christie Ray to my left; Cindi Pohl to my right. Christie is going to provide you with a short introduction.

C. Ray: I won't take too long for the intro. I was just going to introduce myself. I'm the new CEO with the chamber of commerce — second day on the job. The Prince George Chamber of Commerce is the fifth-largest chamber in B.C. I'm here as part of a chamber team.

Derek Dougherty, the president of the board, is here to present you with six principles that we've put together that, hopefully, will help guide you in your budgeting efforts. First, Cindi Pohl, who is vice-president on our board, would like to just say a few words.

C. Pohl: Basically, I'm here to thank you for the wonderful successes that we've seen in the past year with investments. Ones that affect us specifically — the UNBC graduate engineering program, $1.6 million for LiveSmart B.C. small business program, the liquefied natural gas exports and the municipal auditor general. As well, improved foreign credential recognition, tourism growth and competitiveness and IECBC funding to attract and integrate skilled immigrants.

D. Dougherty: Skilled immigrants and a labour shortage are always an issue that faces the north. Most people like to relocate to the central Interior — a little more south, a little warmer. That's a very, very important one for us.

We would like to say that past investments and successes are noted. The current global circumstances require cautious allocation of the fiscal resources of the province. As we transition back to a balanced budget, it is critical that cuts to expenditures avoid crippling future growth. Equally important are strategic new investments where they can maintain momentum toward a sustainable, knowledge-based resource economy connected to the world.

The Prince George Chamber of Commerce believes that investments in the future of the region and the province are best guided by core principles rather than a wish list of expenditures. The business community in Prince George sees a complementary connection between the economic bottom line and the social and environmental bottom lines.

In the context of the above two observations, the Prince George Chamber of Commerce offers you the following principles and examples in no particular order in its advice to guide the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Principle 1 would be to balance your budget before undertaking new expenditures.

Principle 2: community sustainability and business stability require economic diversification around areas of strength. We have predominantly in the past been a forestry-based economy here in the north. We are starting to see a shift into mining and LNG, and we applaud these efforts. They need to continue.

Principle 3: support business through effective infrastructure and workforce, both locally and regionally.

Principle 4: education and skills development in Prince George and our region are key foundations, something not to be forgotten.

Principle 6: efficient settlement of land claims in a fair and just manner. A lot of the business community requires certainty over what exactly is happening in these territories and areas where they're trying to conduct business. Settling these claims is something that the chamber definitely sees as a necessity in order to move the ball forward.

The Prince George Chamber of Commerce looks to the future of our northern region with pride and optimism, recognizing that the government is attempting to use the available resources in ways which reflect the priorities of the people of the province.

The Prince George Chamber of Commerce has attempted to communicate to the committee not a list of spending priorities but a modest list of principles against which we ask the government to weigh its spending decisions. We applaud the time that you've put into this consultative process and ask that you consider these six basic principles that we've outlined today as you move forward in developing the budget for 2014.

Welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. A ten-minute presentation has been allotted. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then there can be questions from the committee. The floor is yours.

H. Domshy: Good morning, Mr. Ashton and members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Thank you for coming to Prince George.

My name is Helen Domshy, and I'm the literacy outreach coordinator for the city of Prince George. We are in our sixth year of operation.

We'd like to thank the B.C. government for the funding you provide to Decoda Literacy Solutions for the coordination of literacy work across the province. This funding allows us to run literacy and learning programs in Prince George, unique programs that support people not served in other ways.

I would like to share the more inclusive nature of literacy as it is understood by literacy practitioners, because as the world becomes more complex, so does the definition of literacy. It is evolving from a narrow definition to a broader view.

Where once literacy was thought of as encompassing only basic reading and writing, sometimes at a particular grade level, we now accept a more complex and dynamic view of literacy as enabling participation in family, work and community life. It is made up of essential and transferable social, cultural and academic practices and understandings involving not only the communication skills of reading, writing and mathematics but also problem-solving, decision-making, technology and social skills.

Literacy enables us to listen, view, communicate, represent and evaluate knowledge in many ways. The more literate we become, the greater our understanding of our world.

Consider this definition given by Lorraine Fox at a First Nations literacy gathering in 1997. She said: "Literacy is the ability to fully participate in one's own life — to be able to listen, to understand, to express oneself verbally and in writing in order to be able to belong, to not feel excluded from the group." I think the term, when she said "not to be excluded," is your key term right there.

Although there are many types of literacy — such as technological, emotional or civic literacies — the range of needs crosses into many areas of our lives. The positive impact to communities as a whole cannot be denied, because it affects everything from health care to employment to the economy. For example, increased literacy rates improve a community's ability to participate in today's B.C. jobs plan.

Statistics tell us that 68 percent of the people incarcerated in federal penitentiaries have limited literacy skills. Our work to address this problem here in Prince George includes programs for both federal parolees and inmates of Prince George Regional Correctional Centre.

Programs range from one-to-one tutoring to having parolees read and record a book for their children. This book and the CD are then sent to the child, usually in another community.

Among adults aged 16 to 65, about nine million, or 42 percent, scored below the desired threshold for coping with the increase in skill demands in a knowledge-based society. People say to me: "Helen, these numbers are not for Canada. This is for a Third World country." These are stats for Canada. I'm not quoting anybody else's stats.

In response to this identified need, we support tutoring programs and present workshops on topics requested by the community, such as nutrition literacy. Outreach programs such as the Street Humanities program — a partnership between agencies such as the Northern John Howard Society, the Association Advocating for Women and Children and the College of New Caledonia — are proving successful for marginalized adults.

We have problems with our CALP, or community adult literacy program, funding at the moment. We only have one CALP program delivering one-to-one tutoring, and it is experiencing a reduction in funding, resulting in severe difficulties and a negative impact on the program. This program is delivered at the Prince George Native Friendship Centre, and it's open to everybody.

We are concerned that 20 percent of four- and five-year-olds do not have the language background for kindergarten success. Programs such as Mother Goose; Ready, Set, Learn; StrongStart; as well as many other groups and programs are being offered very successfully. In particular, Elizabeth Fry, the YMCA and the PG Public Library run excellent family literacy programs.

Our kitchen table learning program has been developed in Prince George. This workshop is designed for parents, grandparents and other caregivers to be given skills to support their children as they learn to read. This program has had success with parent groups, social service agencies and multicultural groups.

The aboriginal literacy and parenting skills series — as well as the Make the Connection program, delivered by the aboriginal infant and family development program — have been identified as positive programs for aboriginal children and family literacy.

We support children with learning difficulties by sponsoring needy parents to access the appropriate learning tools. An emerging diagnostic tool for the detection and treatment of vision problems that affect reading is also being successfully delivered in our community.

By 2041, 23 percent of all Canadians will be seniors. I'm there now. Eighty percent of seniors are working
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with low levels of literacy, and the increasing demands of everyday life put older Canadians at a disadvantage. Well-informed seniors are healthier, more active, more involved, and they can live in their homes longer.

There are many successful programs running for seniors. The newest one is the Story Café. This club has a reader, and the group enjoys being read to. It's more inclusive than a book club, because if a senior has vision problems, lower literacy levels or just enjoys the luxury of being read to, it expands the range of participants. It also has the added benefit for seniors of being an event out in the week, and it's an opportunity to meet new friends. Believe me, the discussions are lively.

Canadians of any age with poor literacy skills tend to be less healthy. This has serious implications for their quality of life. And because these individuals put greater demands on our health care system, low health literacy levels should be a concern for all levels of society as well.

Low literacy, poverty, exclusion and health problems are related. Research — and our research here in Prince George backs it up — indicates that barriers to participation in literacy programs include job or money problems, lack of child care, reduced access to programs, reasons ranging from the lack of transportation to inclement weather to hours of programs being too rigid, and hunger. Poor health and poverty are barriers to learning and literacy for children and adults.

President Clinton said on International Literacy Day in 1994: "Literacy is not a luxury. It is a right and a responsibility. If our world is to meet the challenges of the 21st century, we must harness the energy and creativity of all our citizens."

We want all levels of government to support literacy in your social and sustainable planning to recognize the connection between literacy levels and economic development.

We're not here to ask for more money in these difficult times. We are here to ask that you continue to provide the minimum amount of funding required for the coordination of literacy work. That's $2.5 million in this province.

This provides coordination funding for 102 task groups and 400 communities. In addition, this funding allows Decoda to provide support and training to their literacy outreach coordinators.

Currently there is only $1 million in this year's budget. We're not asking for an increase to the cost of the coordinated network, which is $2.5 million. We are asking for this amount to be reinstated and for a commitment to this level of funding over multiple years.

This funding makes a difference in people's lives, and it builds stronger communities. Our community is a testament. Since literacy is about all of us, the challenge for Prince George and for Canada is to truly become a culture of lifelong learning. Literacy is life — our life.

M. Elmore: Helen, thanks for your presentation. I like your holistic definition and approach around literacy. I think it's certainly keeping with the times and with so many changes we're seeing in our society.

My question is: from your experience, what areas have you identified in terms of the most need, either in terms of emerging areas or those you think need the highest priority?

H. Domshy: When we started this program, we did a survey in the city to try to address the question: was it children, family, adults or seniors that required more services, that had a gap? You know, everybody else…. Well, the children have these programs. School district 57 has these programs. So we identified that it was for adults, and we focused on adults for quite a few years.

I think the thing that's emerging now is the essential skills training that's starting to come through CNC, and it's also tied up with their JET program, which is an employment program. We have a lot of people who have to be upgraded so that they can move on into a different career or move up in their existing career.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Just a quick comment. Just to congratulate you on the work that you do. We've been hearing this message consistently throughout British Columbia. The number of partners, the grass-roots level that you work on — just thanks for the work you do.

D. Ashton (Chair): I'd echo that also. We've heard loud and clear from your sister organizations throughout the province on our tour, so thank you again.

Up next we have the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia — Gavin. Sir, welcome. Thank you very much for coming. We've allotted ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questions.

G. Dirom: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. My name is Gavin C. Dirom, president and CEO of the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia. I'm pleased to provide this presentation to this committee with recommendations for Budget 2014 that in our opinion will attract investment, create jobs, and build on B.C.'s great history and future of mineral exploration and development.
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For those that may not know AME BC, it is a lead association based here in British Columbia, representing the explorers and developers. It was established in 1912. We represent, advocate for, and protect and promote the interests of close to 4,500 members who are engaged in mineral exploration and development in B.C. and throughout the world.

B.C., in fact, is renowned as a global centre for mineral exploration and development expertise. We have the largest concentration of geoscientists in the world, and B.C. is home to hundreds of companies exploring and developing mineral resources not just here in B.C. and Canada but in over 100 countries around the globe.

In fact, over 60 percent of the venture capital in Canada is raised by B.C.-based companies. Despite a market downturn, mineral exploration expenditures in this province are not expected to fall dramatically from the record $680 million recorded in 2012, which was up 47 percent from the previous record of $463 million in 2011.

The province continues to attract significant investment from intermediate and major international companies, and more recently it has seen growing interest from private companies. Today B.C. is increasingly seen as a globally competitive destination for mineral exploration and development investment, projected this year to attract an estimated 20 percent of all exploration spending in Canada, which is up 11 percent from 2009.

The increase in B.C.'s percentage of Canadian expenditures can largely be attributed to the development of an open-for-business culture in B.C. that includes a competitive tax regime and improvements in permitting.

In fact, there are hundreds of exploration projects in B.C. Of the major mine projects from the past decade, we have Copper Mountain, New Afton and Mount Milligan commencing production, and Red Chris is due to begin production in June 2014. There's a potential for as many as 30 projects to be developed, representing $30 billion in capital investment.

Even under baseline conditions — which is effectively, essentially, what we're seeing today — the Mining Industry Human Resources Council predicts that the mineral exploration and development sector is expected to require approximately 4,000 highly skilled, technically trained workers between 2012 and 2022 due to a large number of pending retirements.

Although B.C. is seen as the world's centre for mineral exploration development expertise and has a great potential, the sector's long-term success is dependent on the provincial government's maintenance and enhancements of an open-for-business culture, policy and budget. As such, the following are AME BC's recommendations for Budget 2014.

The first issue I'd like to discuss is taxation. Specifically, B.C. has an excellent mining exploration tax credit, known as the METC. It provides a 20 percent refundable tax credit for resource companies through to January 1, 2017, and an enhanced rate of 30 percent in the mountain pine beetle area.

The estimate from the B.C. Ministry of Finance is that the B.C. tax expenditure for the METC was $49 million in 2012. We thank the government for implementing such a long-term tax incentive.

The return on investment is approximately 14 to 1, based on total expenditures of $680 million in 2012. Many AME BC members, however, are unduly incurring the increasing costs of consultation with First Nations during all phases of exploration, even though, in fact, it's the duty of the Crown to consult with First Nations.

In a recent sample study by Ernst and Young we found that the weighted average of consultation costs borne by companies as a percentage of their total exploration expenditures was estimated at approximately 21 percent. This increasing cost of consultation is not currently defined as a qualifying expense under the METC, as are expenses incurred in the course of prospecting, carrying out geological surveys, trenching, digging, etc.

As such, our first recommendation is that the B.C. government change the definition of qualifying expenses eligible under the mining exploration tax credit to include expenses incurred as consultation expenses.

Moving now to the B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit, which allows investors to claim for flow-through shares a non-refundable tax credit equal to 20 percent of their flow-through money expenditures. The B.C. Ministry of Finance estimated the B.C. tax expenditure for the mining flow-through share program was $10 million in 2012. This incentive currently provides an estimated ROI of approximately 3 to 1, but the expiry date is in fact this December 2013.

The second recommendation is that the B.C. government extend the B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit to December 31, 2016, and consider making it permanent to encourage companies to explore for more in British Columbia.

The second main issue I want to raise with you today is about land use and access. B.C. is underexplored and vast. I provide a lot of statistics here, which are mind-boggling when you think about it.

B.C. is the size of France and Germany combined. We do have a two-zone land use system, in a policy enacted in 2002. However, based on, in our opinion, inconsistent government land use decisions over the last few years, access to the mineral resources in large areas of the mineral zone is eroding, contrary to earlier policy pronouncements by government.

Today mineral exploration is prohibited from approximately 20 percent of the provincial land base, and activity on a further 25 percent of the land base is estimated to be severely constrained. Of course, we require access to large tracts of land in order to discover that very rare and special mineral deposit.
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Furthermore, a lack of final agreements with the province's First Nations, despite the enormous resources poured into the treaty-making process, continues to add to the uncertainty regarding land access and use, which is a further drag on investment.

Given this reality, AME BC recommends that the B.C. government reaffirm with the federal government the commitment to reach final agreements with First Nations; reaffirm and communicate the two-zone land use and access policy and the security of the tenure that is required in B.C.

Monitor, track and publicly report out the statistics regarding B.C.'s actual land use and access, including mineral exploration and mining. Assess the mineral potential and socioeconomic impacts of any proposed land use changes before sterilizing metal-, coal- and mineral-rich lands. And adopt a no-net-loss of mineral lands policy and apply the principle of fair market valuation to compensate claim, tenure and leaseholders if in fact metal-, coal- or mineral-rich lands become closed to exploration development.

The third issue to discuss today is the permitting and regulatory system. In a competitive investment world, the efficiency of the permitting system is a significant indicator for global investors. In our opinion, the province needs to continue to work on being transparent and to approve successful mineral exploration development permitting.

As such, AME BC recommends that the B.C. government continue to reduce the permit backlog and work to achieve a 60-day turnaround for notice-of-work permit applications. I'm aware that it's closer to 63 days, and that's a tremendous improvement from where it came from, but there's still further work to be done.

On top of that, AME BC recommends that the B.C. government provide the responsible permitting ministries and environmental assessment agencies with the resources they need to address aboriginal consultation requirements in a timely manner.

The fourth issue that I'd like to raise today is about building aboriginal capacity. One very good example of a successful education and job-training initiative is the B.C. Aboriginal Mine Training Association, first developed with $4.4 million from the federal government.

As you see in the paper before you, there are excellent achievements. Over 2,000 candidates are registered, and 600 now gainfully employed. As such, AME BC recommends that the B.C. government continue to support aboriginal capacity-building through a $1 million commitment to the B.C. Aboriginal Mine Training Association.

The last issue that I want to raise with you is about public geoscience. AME BC certainly appreciates the contribution towards Geoscience B.C. and their announcement of $12 million that was made in 2011. In a complementary fashion, the B.C. geological survey plays a leading role for the public and industry regarding the geological field and mapping surveys. We believe that public geoscience provides an estimated ROI through exploration development of approximately 5 to 1.

Finally, AME BC recommends that the B.C. government increase the base funding for the B.C. geological survey to 2008 levels and provide stable funding for Geoscience B.C. in 2014 so that it can continue its successful industry-led program of applied geoscience.

This concludes our recommendations for Budget 2014. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

S. Hamilton: Thanks for your presentation. A few things enlightened me. I didn't realize…. Well, obviously, the underlying tone of the presentation deals with First Nations consultation. Although we know the process can at times be cumbersome, I think you've come along and said that the process can often, I assume, be protracted and that it can be very expensive.

Are you in a position to suggest any opportunities for streamlining that process and essentially, by doing so, bringing down the cost to your association and your members?

G. Dirom: Well, I'd suggest that the notice-of-work process has been streamlined and continues to be streamlined. The days to acquire a permit previously were about 110 days a couple of years ago. Now we're down to 63, and we're driving for 60 or less.

I think the issue here today to be raised is that the cost of that consultation and that permitting effort is really being borne by the companies. Therefore, there's an opportunity here to relieve some of that burden on the companies.

S. Hamilton: Okay. So you really see — if I could just follow up — no opportunity to compress that time and exploit whatever advantage you can by doing so?

G. Dirom: Well, I wouldn't say that. I could go on at length, but I think there's tremendous opportunity to be closer to the 30-day limit, in fact. It's about harmonization between the First Nation governments and the provincial government.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. With respect to — just to follow up on that point — your first recommendation to expand the definition of the eligibility under the METC, what's an estimation in terms of what that number comes in around — in terms of the costs that are borne with respect to consultation expenses? Do you have a ballpark?
[ Page 515 ]

G. Dirom: The estimate right now — and I'll be following up to government on the Ernst and Young paper, in fact, on this — is the government would incur another $7 million to $10 million on top of the current $49 million, approximately.

M. Elmore: That's significant. And that would reimburse 100 percent of the consultation fees?

G. Dirom: I couldn't tell you exactly if it's 100 percent, but a significant portion of the consultation fees.

In terms of the permitting backlog, on your No. 8, did you mention what the current turnaround is?

M. Hunt: When we're talking actual land use, my question is…. You know, you can actually have…. Your shaft head, for example, is a very small footprint and a massive labyrinth underground. When you're talking land use, which are you talking about? Are you talking about the surface, or are you talking about the total?

G. Dirom: Well, I'm in fact talking about the total — but the on-the-surface expression of that, though. So underground would not be included in that discussion. In our case, it's access to the surface for prospectors and explorers to perhaps make that discovery that turns out to possibly be an underground mine with subsurface extent but very minimal surface expression.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. You make the comment on page 3, under "Land use and access," that 20 percent of the land base is prohibited from exploration, which is a higher number than the amount of British Columbia that's in protected areas. So there's something else going on there.

Then you also say that it's severely constrained on a further 25 percent of the land base. So just a little more clarity on what you're talking about there.

G. Dirom: Yes, thank you. Our figures…. We'll be presenting to government here in mid-fall. When you add up all the parks and conservancies and then you add in, of course, the towns and cities and so forth, you're pushing the 20 percent figure in terms of no access, clearly.

G. Holman: But, sir, by conservancies — like the Nature Conservancy of Canada or areas like that?

G. Dirom: Yes, any conservancy like that or federal or provincial parks, municipal parks — everything that's completely closed to exploration. The additional 25 percent, however, is a layer of increasing burden. That may be caribou restrictions, Species at Risk Act limitations and so forth. So the access to the land is very, very limited.

We have no one registered for the five-minute question period, so I'll call adjournment at this point in time.

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1) Prince George Public Library	Dr. Anne George
	Janet Marren
	Wendy De Marsh
2) Initiatives Prince George	Heather Oland
3) Resources North Association	Melanie Karjala
4) College of New Caledonia Students' Union	Robert Chavarie
	Arnold Yellowman
5) PacificSport Northern BC	Dr. Anne Pousette
	John Hopson

6) Wellness in Northern BC Task Force	Dr. Bert Kelly
	Dr. Anne Pousette
	Dr. Geoff Payne
7) Central Interior Logging Association	MaryAnne Arcand
8) Faculty Association of the College of New Caledonia	David Rourke
	Jan Mastromatteo
9) Northwest Invasive Plant Council	Andrea Eastham
10) University of Northern British Columbia	Dr. George Iwama
	Jessie King
11) Child Development Centre of Prince George and District	Darrell Roze
12) College of New Caledonia	Dr. Bryn Kulmatycki
	Bob Murray
13) Prince George Chamber of Commerce	Derek Dougherty
	Cindi Pohl
	Christie Ray
14) Prince George Literacy Outreach Coordinator	Helen Domshy
15) Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia	Gavin Dirom

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
Clerks:	Craig James
	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Stephanie Raymond (Administrative Assistant)

Witnesses:	MaryAnne Arcand (Executive Director, Central Interior Logging Association)
	Robert Chavarie (Executive Director, College of New Caledonia Students Union)
	Wendy De Marsh (Prince George Public Library)
	Gavin Dirom (President and CEO, Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia)
	Helen Domshy (Prince George Literacy Outreach Coordinator)
	Derek Dougherty (President, Prince George Chamber of Commerce)
	Andrea Eastham (Northwest Invasive Plant Council)
	Dr. Anne George (Chair, Board of Directors, Prince George Public Library)
	John Hopson (Executive Director, PacificSport Northern B.C.)
	Dr. George Iwama (President, University of Northern British Columbia)
	Melanie Karjala (Resources North Association)
	Dr. Bert Kelly (Wellness in Northern B.C. Task Force)
	Jessie King (University of Northern British Columbia)
	Dr. Bryn Kulmatycki (Interim President, College of New Caledonia)
	Janet Marren (Prince George Public Library)
	Jan Mastromatteo (Faculty Association of the College of New Caledonia)
	Bob Murray (Chair, Board of Governors, College of New Caledonia)
	Heather Oland (CEO, Initiatives Prince George)
	Dr. Geoff Payne (Wellness in Northern B.C. Task Force)
	Cindi Pohl (Vice-President, Prince George Chamber of Commerce)
	Dr. Anne Pousette (President and Chair, Board of Directors, PacificSport Northern B.C.; Wellness in Northern B.C. Task Force)
	Christie Ray (CEO, Prince George Chamber of Commerce)
	David Rourke (President, Faculty Association of the College of New Caledonia)
	Darrell Roze (Executive Director, Child Development Centre of Prince George and District)
	Arnold Norman Yellowman (College of New Caledonia Students Union)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES