Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 19 — Wednesday, October 9, 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:

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

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES


CONTENTS
Page
Presentations	539
M. Penninga
J. Nugent
R. Taylor
M. Monkman
D. Hibbard
J. Wier
G. Brown
R. Overstall
N. Nowak

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 would like to welcome everybody in attendance today. Thank you very much for taking the time to attend. We really do appreciate you participating in this important process.

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

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

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

British Columbians can also participate in the consultation by sending a written submission, video file, letter or fax. Information on the consultations, including instructions on how to make a submission, is available at our website, which is www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations.

I would also like to mention the committee has agreed to accept submissions regarding the core review as part of our consultations. We have been advised by the government that the committee will not be the only avenue for input on the government's core review.

The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, October 16. All public input we receive is carefully considered.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for up to ten minutes. An additional five minutes is allotted for questions from committee members. Time permitting, we may also have an open-mike session near 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 Stephanie there at the 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 underneath the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. On Twitter we are at twitter.com/BCFinanceComm.

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

Also joining us today from the parliamentary committees office are some very hard-working and dedicated individuals — our Clerk, Susan Sourial, next to me, and Stephanie Raymond at the table over there. Jean Medland and Ian Battle are here on behalf of Hansard Services.

Up first we have the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada. Mark, welcome, sir. Thank you for coming. Ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then if there are questions, we'll go from there, I'm quite sure. The floor is yours.

M. Penninga: Thank you. Welcome to Smithers, everyone. I know it's a long way out of your way. Many of you are coming from the Lower Mainland, so we really appreciate seeing your faces up in northern B.C.
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The Association for Reformed Political Action — we're a non-profit group, non-partisan. We seek to equip members of the Reformed church community in Canada to be involved in public life. There are five groups in B.C. I'm hoping that you've met some of them. If not, hopefully they will introduce themselves to you in your communities this year.

On behalf of these groups, we would like to express our deep appreciation that you take on a role like this. I know that serving in public office is not fun always. It's not easy, and it takes a lot of sacrifice. We really appreciate what you're giving.

My presentation is going to be a little bit different. I've presented before the Finance Committee before a number of times, with specific recommendations and such.

I know that you hear from all sorts of people, and I figured that this time I'm going to do something a little more philosophical. I know it's not very wise to start an early morning getting philosophical, but I figure it's worth the time.

I would like to argue, like to present that at root the budget is actually a moral document. It's a testimony to what British Columbia values. All policy decisions are going to be based on a world view. In order to function, we need to know where we're coming from, where we're going. We need to know what our purpose is, how we relate to each other.

Each of you has your own world view, just as I do. It could be secular humanist. It could be Sikh. It could be atheist. It could be Christian. It could be some mix. The point is, though, that it's impossible to make decisions about where our finances go without a broader understanding of what the role of the state is, also in relation to the other institutions that function in society. In other words, it's impossible for the state or the budget to be neutral. Your recommendations for the budget are actually recommendations for the direction of British Columbia's society, which is profound.

I want to introduce you to a concept that I found very helpful in helping to distinguish the difference spheres, the different roles in B.C., in the state. I call it sphere sovereignty. It's been around for a number of centuries in political philosophy as well.

You'll see there are a couple of charts on this handout that I gave you. As I speak, I'll kind of be referring to these two charts, to just give you a good sense of where I'm going when I talk about sphere sovereignty.

I think all of us will recognize that the state and family, market, charity, academy, church are all different spheres within society, but the question is: how do they relate to each other? Who are they accountable to?

Now, for much of western society, including British Columbia's history, there was a recognition that the state was just another sphere alongside the others. That's kind of along the lines of the first chart over there. You'll see all the different spheres. Each of them had their own separate authority structures, and you know, each of them was also sovereign in its own right, so that was a very healthy thing. The church, for example, did not intrude into the role of the state. Each one understood its parameters.

At the same time, we also needed an authority to help ensure that each of these spheres would get along. Again, throughout much of western history that authority has always been God. For example, if you look at the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — 1988, so we're talking not that long ago — what does it say at the very top of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? It says all of these rights flow from "the supremacy of God and the rule of law," because they have no basis if it was not for that. That's why you'll notice on that chart here, the first one, that all of them…. The bigger bubble was considered to be the supremacy of God.

Now, of course, this is very different than what we have in B.C. today. In fact, we're worlds apart from that. I would argue that a huge reason for why B.C.'s budget is as large as it is, is because that place where the supremacy of God was — that big sphere — has being replaced by the state. You can see here that the big sphere is no longer supremacy of God. It's become the state.

Now, all the other spheres have to fit within that sphere. A big reason why it's the state is, first of all, the state has the means, so it has the power. It has the finances. We have generally been happy to abdicate our responsibility to the state. The state, in many respects, has become that all-knowing power above all other spheres, but also more and more it's become, essentially, even our saviour. If we've got a problem, we go to the state for answers.

The budget has ballooned, in a large part because the state has taken over roles that should be the jurisdiction of these other spheres. It has removed God from the picture and put itself where God was. As a result, all other spheres are expected to look to the state to determine who has authority. And even if they have authority, what are they actually allowed to do in their sphere?

I've got a number of examples to show how this applies on the actual issues you're wrestling with. I'm going to look first at early childhood education, so No. 1 there, just to help bring this out.

Whose obligation is it to raise children? Is it parents, or is it the state? Fundamentally, what sphere do these children belong in? Over past few years the B.C. government has been pushing full-day kindergarten and then expanding early learning programs to four-year-olds, and the plan was originally three-year-olds as well.

Regardless of the questionable outcomes of early learning education — we've studied that as well — the state should not be intruding into the realm of what is actually the role of the family. You see, there's a fundamental difference between assisting families in education — much of what was understood to be the public education sys-
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tem from years past — and taking it over completely.

Ages one through five are a pivotal time in human development. I think we can all agree that the state already interferes in almost every other part of our lives throughout life, so we would argue to please leave the children to the care of their families and give them that proper time to bond with parents, if possible. Especially considering that the motto of this government is "Families first," the province shouldn't be taking over that which is the responsibility of families.

Now, in savings, this would be $144.5 million plus $365 million over three years just if we're looking at the full-day kindergarten plan, and hundreds more millions if we're also going to apply that to some of the other examples of early learning that have been proposed.

I'm going to skip the section I have on provincial debt, but it speaks specifically to how we could save billions of dollars if we treated debt the way that all other spheres have to treat debt, so if the state had the same obligation to pay it off just like we as families or as businesses have to. There's an incredible double standard there. We spent $2.5 billion on interest payments on debt alone this past year.

Health care. I'm going to bring up another example, just because I know this is not the kind of issue that you're likely going to be exposed to from other presentations. There is this incredible double standard, a contradiction, in B.C.'s health care in terms of what we fund.

The province discourages for-profit health care, yet at the same time we give full funding to private, for-profit abortion clinics. Private abortion clinics take millions of dollars from taxpayers. Would we do the same for any other health care service?

When it comes to abortion, the reality seems to be, in B.C., that anything goes. We don't ask any questions, we pay for everything, and then the B.C. government goes so far as to censor any information about it at all — period. For example, we don't even have reporting. We don't even allow for reporting on how many of these occur in B.C. It's incredible. For any other health care procedure, this would never be tolerated.

Another factor is that the federal government does not ask you to pay for them. In fact, it's very clear if you look at the regulations. Only medically necessary procedures must be covered. Yet in light of this, the reality, of course, is that abortion is not medically necessary. Pregnancy is a natural reality. It might be a problem for some, but it's never a medical problem — or almost never.

I would like you to think about that, but at the same time, just think about the bigger implications. This isn't about the cost of abortion. Think a bit more big-picture. What about the cost of the demographic decline we're seeing? One out of four children is not being born because of abortion.

I would encourage you to just look across the ocean. Look to Russia right now. Russia has blazed this secular trail well ahead of Canada, and they've been making some huge changes in the last number of years. One of these is in regard to demographics. They've put huge restrictions on abortion, not because they're a Christian nation — far from it — but because they see what it has done to their country, the fact that their population has aged so quickly and that there are no children to replace them.

I'm not going to dwell more on health care, but I do welcome your questions on it.

A couple of other recommendations. We encourage the B.C. government to look into replacing our current education system funding with a voucher system in which parents can direct an equal amount to the school of their choice or to home education. We recommend the state pulls its hands out of B.C. Lotteries, which is harming untold thousands of families and individuals through problem gambling. We're convinced that the over $2 billion we spend on social development shouldn't be the mandate of the state to begin with at all.

Thank you for taking the time to hear these comments. I know they're not maybe the kinds of comments you want to hear early in the morning. But I really appreciate that you're willing to wrestle with these things, and I welcome your questions.

Smithers Community Services Association — Jo-Anne. Welcome. Thank you for coming this morning. We have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning.

J. Nugent: My name is Jo-Anne Nugent. I'm here representing Smithers Community Services Association. In particular, I work at Smithers Community Services in the community literacy program, called community learning services. I also am the literacy outreach coordinator there.

I'd like to thank the government for providing the
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opportunity to speak here today and also for providing much of the funding that we use for supporting our literacy work. Community adult literacy programs, which is what my program is concerned with, is working with adults, families and, in many cases, youth transitioning out of high school. So they are sort of bridging the gap between being a teenager and an adult, whatever that looks like.

Our programming often provides for people who don't typically have programs in our community. There are colleges and stuff here, but for many people that I serve, marginalized groups, attending the college would not necessarily be something that they would look to. They may have had previous past experience with education systems that weren't positive, so the college is not typically where they would go to. I do work in collaboration with the college, though, so all of my work is geared towards helping people make that leap between community adult literacy work to formal literacy work.

I just wanted to tell you about one of the programs I run. It's one of my small group programs. It's called the Ground 2 Griddle Neighbourhood Kitchen. It's actually been featured in the provincial literacy organization's website and their magazine and stuff. It's considered a very successful literacy program.

It's a unique literacy program, and it serves approximately 20 to 30 families in our community. It delivers hard literacy skills, such as fundamental math and reading. These are embedded in our weekly cooking and planning sessions. Anybody who cooks knows that there's inherent literacy just in being able to cook something.

One of the most important literacy benefits of our kitchen is how it provides opportunity for marginalized groups of people to find a place within our community. Strong self-esteem is considered a key foundation necessary for individuals to pursue further literacy skill development.

The kitchen works to build self-esteem in our participants by providing a space within which to build relationships with other community members by encouraging participants to share their own skills and the opportunity to learn alongside others.

For many at the kitchen, this program is the only community-based activity in which they engage. Our kitchen participants range in age from toddler to 81, and the kitchen offers an early learning program for the children of our participants. This provides skill development and preparation for elementary school. Many of these children would not have access to any other early learning opportunity other than that which is provided right within their family home.

The Ground 2 Griddle Kitchen is only one of many literacy programs across the province that benefits through the work of literacy outreach coordinators. Currently the province has $1 million set aside in the 2013-14 budget to fund the coordination of this literacy work. That's provincewide. This is a reduced amount from a former funding amount of $2.5 million. The $2.5 million was considered to be the minimum amount within which to do this work across the province.

On behalf of literacy and literacy work in the province, I'm asking that the government reinstate the $2.5 million and make a commitment to literacy work in the province by providing the guaranteed minimum funding amount consistently over multiple years.

When funding money is allocated on a yearly basis only, it makes it extremely difficult to engage in long-term planning for your community learning programs, and a lot of time is spent reapplying for money or waiting to hear about money rather than actually doing the literacy work. It would be a much better investment to provide guaranteed funding over multiple years instead of on a yearly basis. It's also extremely difficult to hire for positions when people are looking at a job that may or may not be there the following year.

Literacy shouldn't be at the whims of the political party of the time. It's a fundamental right, and it should always be a priority within any government in our province.

I just attended the Canadian Congress on Criminal Justice in Vancouver, and I've seen three days' worth of evidence-based research that demonstrates the economic impact of providing early interventions and literacy skill development to families in our province. Literacy work has been determined to be a key preventative in helping reduce crime rates, improve health and build stronger communities. By making an investment in literacy work now, the province stands to benefit by reduced expense in our health care, criminal justice and other social service systems.

M. Elmore: Jo-Anne, thanks for your presentation and for your work on literacy. I find it really interesting, certainly, that we've heard from many literacy groups, and it's always interesting how it's adapted in each community.

So that's one particular…. Are there other literacy programs that you're doing?

J. Nugent: Yes, there are several. I do the Ground 2 Griddle Kitchen. There's an adult one-on-one literacy program where adult learners work with volunteer tutors within the community. I do an early learning program that is a parent-tot program, so families come to it in Telkwa. That's called the Mother Moose program — kind of like Mother Goose but northern-focused.

We provide the Step Up summer tutoring program for school-aged children — kids who have been identified
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by their parents or the schools and who maybe need sort of ongoing tutoring throughout the summer to maintain their literacy skills for the following fall attend that program. It has been very successful, and it's partly funded through the school district.

The other programs we run are basically just…. We do another early learning program in Moricetown, and we participate in a lot of community literacy events. We host them, like a family literacy play day and Books for Breakfast. We have book bins throughout the community that are free, in a lot of government agency buildings and at the airport and stuff. So we do that every year. We also provide about 800 books yearly to the Christmas hamper program for kids in our community.

J. Nugent: From Moricetown to Telkwa is my primary base. That's 30 kilometres west and 15 kilometres east, I think.

Something new that's in my program is the media literacy program. I've collaborated with the school district to work with at-risk youth. Youth who attend that program learn how to create digital stories, operate computer application programs, learn how to do sound editing.

Depending on the amount of hours they spend within that program, they get to use that as credit towards tech education, grade 11, at the high school. This year we had three youth that fully completed, and they received four credits, which is a lot of credits. One of them graduated, and the other two are still in grade 11.

Jo-Anne, thank you very much for your presentation. Thanks for coming in. Now, do you have a hard copy for us or not?

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay, just of the presentation — thank you. Just pass it over.

D. Ashton (Chair): It will be transcribed, but sometimes it's nice for us just to have the copy.

Rod Taylor. Mr. Taylor, thank you very much for coming. You may have heard — ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questioning. The floor is yours.

R. Taylor: Certainly. I want to thank every member of the committee, the Hansard Services and the support staff that are with you. It's great that you do come to the north, and I appreciate the opportunity to address these concerns.

Just yesterday morning, basically, I got confirmation that I would be speaking today. It was short notice for me, so I haven't covered all the topics that could be covered. I have not even touched on education. But I have a few points that I would like to make to you.

I am the interim leader of the Christian Heritage Party of British Columbia. That's the capacity in which I'm speaking. I am also serving as the deputy leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.

The purpose of any budgetary process must be to design a balanced and workable budget. Over the past four years B.C.'s provincial debt has ballooned from $26 billion to $39 billion. Based on current projections, B.C.'s debt could reach $69 billion by March of 2016, putting every man, woman and child in B.C. in debt to the tune of $15,000 per person. That's approaching the same level we are at federally. It should be a concern to all of us, and it certainly will be an issue that our children and grandchildren will have to deal with.

Debt-servicing costs will top $2.5 billion this year, a budgetary cost only exceeded by the Ministries of Health and Education. We all know that that $2.5 billion could be put to much better use providing needed services for British Columbians.

To break this cycle of government debt and deficit, government must reduce costs, live within its means and within the means of the taxpayer and must make concerted and disciplined efforts to pay down the debt.

To this end, the B.C. government, in my opinion, should reduce the cost of government by trimming departments, where possible, and lowering thresholds for salaries and benefits for all MLAs, government staff, management of Crown corporations and all B.C. civil servants to bring them into line with those of the average British Columbian.

A recent poll of British Columbians conducted by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation found that 80 percent of residents believe that government wages and benefits should be brought into line with those in the private sector.

Corporations such as B.C. Ferries and B.C. Hydro work for the taxpayer, not the other way around. Executive compensation should be trimmed significantly, and any perks or bonuses should be performance-related. Rising costs for Hydro customers and ferry passengers is not the kind of performance that deserves a raise.

B.C. could reduce health care costs by removing abortion, which cures no diseases and creates additional health care problems, from the list of procedures covered by B.C. med. Abortion has been given the sacred cow status by successive B.C. governments to the point where B.C. citizens cannot find out, even through freedom-of-information requests, the numbers and types of abortion
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procedures conducted in the province, nor the actual cost of such procedures, nor the medical complications resulting from them.

While private clinics providing real health care are discouraged by Canada's health care system, private clinics where babies are killed operate in British Columbia at taxpayer expense with little or no requirement for reporting or oversight.

Based on numbers from the abortion industry itself and government figures from previous years, we believe that about 15,000 surgical abortions take place in B.C. each year at an estimated cost of $20 million. The real numbers may be much higher. Follow-up appointments to repair surgical damage and the very real social cost to mothers and society in general, of course, are not included in those figures.

Fifteen thousand missing children each year means a loss of 500 classrooms and 500 teacher positions every year. It means 15,000 fewer employees and taxpaying citizens entering the workforce. Certainly, it's both a moral and a fiscal problem for British Columbia.

We believe B.C. should remove gender reassignment surgery and all elective surgeries from taxpayer-funded procedures. We're all familiar with crowded hospitals and waiting lines for essential health care procedures. It does not make sense for British Columbians to be paying for a procedure which is politically motivated, questionable in its results and sometimes harmful.

The B.C. government should reduce or eliminate its dependence on lotteries as a source of revenues. Lotteries and casinos have a proven negative impact on families in British Columbia, and their harm far outweighs the tempting benefits of so-called free money. No item of value whatsoever is produced by gambling. Existing pools of resources that might have been used for the benefit of families are reduced, and unrealistic expectations of gain are heightened. For the government to promote and benefit from gambling at the expense of the poor is unconscionable.

We also should eliminate carbon taxes, as this unnecessary burden on B.C. citizens does not solve the environmental challenges faced by British Columbia but adds additional red tape and costs to our already complicated lives. Again, it is an approach designed to appease those who are truly concerned about the environment but has itself created additional costly bureaucracy without appreciably reducing human impact.

Now I come to the good part. I would like to commend the B.C. government for its ongoing work in improving B.C. highways. Making it easier and safer for British Columbians and visitors to travel within our province is a benefit to families, to our provincial economy and for our ability to attract both business and tourism.

If I have any complaint about B.C.'s highways, it is that sometimes in the north here a delayed response to winter storms allows the buildup of snow and ice, especially on the weekends. Such conditions do create additional safety hazards on northern roads, occasionally contributing to fatal or crippling accidents.

When road conditions deteriorate following a heavy snow, the application of salt and large-diameter gravel then produces dangerous slush and frequent damage to windshields. An early and continuous response by snowplows and graders could reduce slush, ice buildup and the need for heavy applications of salt and large gravel.

Since weather conditions vary from one year to the next, it is not possible to set absolute budgets for winter road maintenance. Public safety must be the prime consideration. In terms of cost savings, the daily tasks of winter road maintenance may be contracted out, but the actual responsibility for public safety cannot be privatized. It rests with the ministry of highways and with the government.

Thank you very much for hearing these concerns. It's not a complete list but some items that are of prime concern to us. We do wish you God's wisdom and guidance as you make the difficult decisions you make, budgetary and otherwise, on behalf of all British Columbians.

Next up we have Matthew Monkman. Anita's not speaking, so we have Matthew Monkman. Sir, welcome. Ten minutes for the presentation, and I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then we have reserved up to five minutes for questions. The floor is yours.

M. Monkman: Good morning, and welcome to the Bulkley Valley. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of sport. Thank you to the committee for the funding of sport in our province.

I'm going to tell you a bit of a personal story this morning and then hopefully interject with a few things that will help give you an idea of where I'm coming from with regard to sport.

I'm a teacher. I've taught in the Bulkley Valley now…. This is my 26th year working up here. I'm currently holding the position of district principal of technology services. I've been an administrator in the school district for a time now. I'm married to the teacher-librarian at the high school, and I have two children, ages 15 and 16.

My personal connection to sport started late in life. I didn't do much with regard to sport when I was younger. I grew up in Alberta and moved to this province for university at UVic in 1981. I'd played a bit of the odd sport but nothing very focused, nothing very structured.

My formalized focus on sport came when I met my wife, after I turned 30. She had grown up in this community. She and her friend Anita, who's sitting behind me, had played organized volleyball from an early age.
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There was a gentleman at that time living in this community who had taken it upon himself to invest a lot of time and energy in developing a program, so those girls at that time started to build this focus and interest in the sport of volleyball.

They played a club team. They played at the provincial level. They had huge success coming out of this very small community. Three of the girls on that team went on to play at UBC — my wife and Anita were two of them — and they have continued with that to this day.

Last year they and some of their past teammates from UBC went down to the U.S. national volleyball in Salt Lake City and placed third. It has impacted their lives to this day, and I continue to see that.

For me, coming into that relationship from a past where…. My time in high school was largely spent in the smoke pit and hanging out — not a big focus in my community on sport — despite the fact that I was class president, and that sort of thing. The health and fitness aspect wasn't big. What I saw in my relationship with my wife, though, was the positive impact that sport had had for her and for her friends throughout their lives.

To me, that reflection gave me a sense of: "Wow, what can sport do." When we had our children, then I started to invest my time, saying: "My kids are going to have a different aspect growing up than I did." So I started to learn whenever I could. I went to grass-roots coaching training for soccer. I started up on the ski hill doing the jackrabbit skiing. The huge number of opportunities there are in our small community for children to be involved in sport is truly amazing for a community of this size.

To me, it comes down to the volunteers in this community and the supports that we get from outside and continued funding from the provincial level for all of the organizations here. Yes, we have lots of volunteers in the community. But those volunteers also make sure that they engage with organizations at the provincial level, which then can send up expert coaches and provide that sort of real training for our local coaches so that they can then go on to pass that on to the young people.

Some of the key positives that I see coming out of people being able to be involved in sport — and this is again from the personal level — is that the kids that are involved in sport here in our community get outside. They travel. They go and see other areas. They go and engage with other people in other communities, whether just provincially, nationally — we've got a number of international-level athletes out of Smithers going competing — getting them to open their horizons and see other things outside.

It's allowed them to travel. It's also allowed them to make lots of other connections outside of the local community.

"Sport touches many aspects of Canadians' lives: their health and well-being, their social networks, their sense of social connectedness. Organized sport can help children grow, giving them a sense of achievement while building teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, decision-making and communication skills.

"Sport also enables children to challenge their energy, competitiveness and aggression in socially beneficial ways. Improving health through sport and other forms of physical activity may reduce future health care costs and build lasting habits of physical fitness while combatting the growing problem of childhood obesity."

Now, I said that I'm the principal of technology services in our school district. I've been working in a technology-related role since 1995. I was a computer-helping teacher at that time. So I'm very up on technology and the use of technology. We are living in a very technology-rich time. We are so connected and engaged.

For me, something that I keep stressing when I speak to educators, to parents and to all the young people I come in contact with is balance. Balance in your life is so important. Sport, in my mind, provides a very, very healthy balance. Continuing to support it, continuing to support that health benefit is something we want to continue to do.

The other aspect that I want to touch on here is what I observe. Beyond my family and my impact and work with my children, their growth…. On a personal note, my daughter — again, coming out of this small community — made Team B.C. volleyball this year. My son played on a provincial basketball team. So we can continue to invest our time in these young people and get it out.

We are a family that has means, so we're able to provide these opportunities for our kids and invest in them. There are lots of other children, though, who I see through my school and through my coaching in the community, where I see very positive impacts on them through the sport.

I see a lot of kids where if they can engage with a coach who's passionate about their sport and their area, they can become hooked and engage with that, and it can pull them away from making some very negative decisions about their lives. Again, providing those opportunities to all children in our communities and our province is very worthwhile.

A little anecdote. I was talking to a boy last week in the high school. He used to play a bit of soccer on the soccer teams I coached. I've been trying to draw him into basketball and things, but he's found his passion in rugby. We've got a real growing rugby community here in the town. A lot of South Africans are moving into town, and they've got a passion for the sport.

Well, he related to me: "You know, Mr. Monkman, it's really interesting. Coach says there's no spitting on the field. So if you happen to spit on the sidelines, he'll pull you off. You're off that field right now." This is a kid who's a little rough around the edges. But the impact that that coach is having on him not just for his health and well-being but for his overall dealings in the community, and how you can demonstrate positive aspects of personal
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character, is very important as well. So something else that comes through sport.

What I would like to say to the committee is that continued investment in sport, in my mind, is something that will be hugely beneficial for the long term in the future. I see the volunteer aspect in our communities as being huge, but we still need to continue to invest in our infrastructure and supports, such as sending high-level coaches out into the community so that those coaches can help the volunteers in building that passion, engaging with the young people and making sure that we build those habits that will last a lifetime so that we have healthier people down the road.

I can assure you that I no longer smoke. I am out there playing sports weekly with young people, with older people, and I can assure you it has invested in me a huge energy and also a huge connection with my community. Prior to that time I didn't get it. I didn't get the whole aspect of coaching, of giving back to the community. Boy, I get it now.

My kids will be out of my house in three years, but I'm going to continue to invest in that, continue to invest my time in those young people. We just need, as a province, to continue to invest in it so that we can have this positive aspect of sport in the years to come.

E. Foster: Well, two things. There are probably some of the younger people here who don't know what a smoke pit is. You're dating yourself.

E. Foster: Oh, you would know. Then you obviously don't. KidSport is an organization that helps kids from families that don't have the resources to play organized sports — a great organization. They're a provincially…. Well, they're a national organization, actually. If you've got numbers of people, families here that can't afford to have their kids get involved in organized sport, you might want to look up KidSport, and they would be happy to touch base with you.

The province helps them quite a bit. It's a good organization to have in your community to get kids involved where their families might not necessarily come forward and ask. But they're a big help.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation, Matthew. I'm wondering what specific sport organizations are you involved in here in the Bulkley Valley.

M. Monkman: I sit on the committee for our local soccer association, so that's the Bulkley Valley soccer association. That's my formal allegiance, but I also coach for the local Steve Nash basketball league. I'm coaching in the school. We're actually coaching the volleyball team right now, and when basketball season comes, we'll coach that too.

Well, Matthew, thank you very much for coming. And your back support, Anita in the back, thank you for coming.

D. Ashton (Chair): Dana, welcome. Please come forward. Thank you very much for coming this morning. We've allowed ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we'll have up to five minutes for questions after. Thanks for your patience while we had a bit of a break there.

D. Hibbard: No problem. Thanks for having me today. I don't want to sit on this cold chair for ten minutes, so I'll be quite brief.

My name is Dana Hibbard, and I live in the Kispiox Valley, which is a beautiful valley just outside of Hazelton about 60 kilometres west of here. You'll be travelling just past Hazelton as you head west later this morning.

It's hard to consider the B.C. budget without hearing three little letters. Those letters are LNG, which stands for liquefied natural gas, as I'm sure you're all aware. This association is not only being made in my mind but is really quite interlaced with everything we've been hearing about the budget, as the B.C. government really seems to be putting all its eggs in this LNG basket.

Back in the spring, during the last provincial election, LNG was on the radar for many of us for the first time, as the government made big claims that this one industry could erase the entire province's $62 billion worth of debt in 15 years. I might need to relook at that $62 billion figure, because I believe we might be well past that now.

This time of year in Smithers, Hazelton, the Kispiox Valley and, really, beyond that, it's not hard to see evidence of an existing, thriving economy. The pillar of that economy is wild salmon.

The wild salmon economy brings $110 million to this region every year and another $28 million from guide-outfitting just in the upper Skeena. This is an economy that has seen our communities through times of boom
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and bust.

It's quite alarming to see the government putting so much pressure behind an industry that, first of all, has not gone through an environmental assessment. Most of the projects have not yet had their EA. Secondly, it's an industry that could have very negative impacts on our wild salmon economy.

We're seeing two terminals being proposed for the Skeena estuary, one on Lelu Island and one on Ridley Island. The Skeena estuary and Flora Bank are the most critical habitat for juvenile Skeena salmon and steelhead, and almost every Skeena salmon will swim past these two LNG terminals, should they be built.

Another issue that's coming out with this LNG development that is so linked to the budget is air quality concerns. The B.C. government just announced a $650,000 study that will be completed in six months on the air quality in Kitimat. I believe that this is too little and too late.

The community of Kitimat has already seen a twofold increase in its SO₂ emissions from the expansion of the aluminum smelter. With as many as five to ten liquefication terminals being proposed for the coast, we could be seeing increases in emissions beyond just SO₂.

Because B.C. doesn't currently have enough power to supply these liquefication terminals with renewable energy, these projects are proposing to burn natural gas to liquefy natural gas, which is a very dirty process and could have really profound impacts on our air quality in the region.

To see $650,000 just for looking at the air quality in Kitimat alone is really not enough to allay my concerns as a resident of the northwest about the emissions we could be seeing from these projects. Indeed, this should be concerning to every member of B.C., because these projects will mean that B.C. will not meet its commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

I belong to the regional district of Kitimat-Stikine, and I recently spoke with my representative from the regional district. She shared with me concerns about our infrastructure in this area of the province and the impacts and the strain being placed on this infrastructure from the current economic development we're already seeing.

Here in the northwest we already feel like we're in a boom. The amount of trucks on the highway and parked outside of hotels are showing us there's already economic development happening in this region.

While Christy Clark currently announced $150,000 to study the effects of this boom, we're not seeing very much money coming to our regional districts to support them with infrastructure like hospitals and roads that are already under strain and will continue to be put under further strain as we see our communities expanding quite rapidly.

It's hard to take any jobs plan or skills-training budgets seriously when pipeline companies such as Spectra are proposing to build a natural gas pipeline right through the Kispiox Valley just a few kilometres from where I live. Spectra has said openly in meetings with community members that there will be no jobs for the community of Hazelton.

You have to wonder if any of this skills training will arrive in time to benefit members of my community. And who will be getting the jobs from this LNG industry? We're hearing very real stories from camps in places like Kitimat, where the Kitimat modernization project is going on, and also camps up Highway 37, about the numbers of people in those camps who don't live in B.C.

We currently have more jobs than we can meet the demand for in this region. People who have the skills are already employed, so you have to wonder if this industry will bring any real benefits to the people in my community who don't currently have a job or the skills to work in this industry.

We're also seeing $116 million in royalty credits for natural gas development. This money is coming directly out of B.C. taxpayers' pockets. When we're looking at another deficit this year, it's hard to fathom that the provincial government thinks that the natural gas industry deserves a handout.

We're seeing another $8 billion proposed for the Site C dam. B.C. currently only produces 40 percent of its food, and we could be approaching a food crisis in the years to come. Why would the government consider flooding thousands of acres of prime farmland for this dam?

B.C. currently doesn't need the electricity that this dam would supply. This dam would be supplying power for liquefication terminals. I'm seeing estimates of 900 to 1,110 million watts of electricity, which is only enough to power one LNG terminal.

Finally, I'd like to make reference to the B.C. government's claims that this LNG industry will be the cleanest in the world. Well, we're seeing little to no strategies in the current budget that will keep us on track to meet this goal.

A recent report released by Clean Energy Canada, which is part of Tides Canada, says that the current plan being put forward by the LNG industry would emit three times more carbon than other world-leading operations in countries such as Australia and Norway.

That's all I have for you today. I think that we have a real obligation to consider the impacts what we're looking at for industrial development in the northwest would have on the community members here and the economic benefits it might bring. Really, our wild salmon economy, which we all depend on, is kind of being thrown under the bus for this other development that might not bring any real benefits to this region.

G. Holman: Dana, thanks for your presentation — a constructive critique, in my view.

For all the concerns that you have around LNG projects, do you oppose the project outright? Or would you propose that there be a number of ways to mitigate those concerns, mitigate those impacts?

D. Hibbard: I think there are definitely ways that can mitigate the impacts, but unfortunately, there hasn't been a consultation with people who live in the northwest about these projects to begin with. I'm not seeing any real indication from the provincial government that it's being smart about how this is being done.

In the Kispiox Valley we're seeing trees already being cut down for pipeline rights-of-way for companies that don't hold the appropriate permits. We're not seeing oversight, and corners are being cut. Places that we've already committed to protecting from industrial development, such as the Khutzeymateen grizzly bear sanctuary, are now being looked at as possible pipeline corridors.

So this attempt to mitigate any concerns is not happening on the ground at the moment, and they're not being put in place yet. We're having this Wild West approach to how these projects are taking place.

G. Holman: Just one last question, Dana. You're not representing an organization here today. Are you involved with a local organization at all?

D. Hibbard: I work for Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, but I'm here today just as a member of the general public.

D. Ashton (Chair): Josette Wier. Good morning. Thank you for coming. We have allotted ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questions or comments. Please begin when you wish.

J. Wier: Thank you. I am following in the steps of the previous speakers, because I think we need, today, a realistic view about the relationship between the economy and the environment. The provincial budget is key to shaping this relationship.

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, puts it very well. "At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it," which is what we're doing here. "We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other, exploitation." We're consuming our asset base. We are really, really doing that at a scale unprecedented.

The present economy is a huge Ponzi scheme consuming our asset base as an investment fund, which can only last as long as the flow of new investment is sufficient to sustain the high rates of return paid out to previous investors.

This can't last, because our assets are not renewable, our resources. I heard yesterday Rich Coleman say: "Natural gas reserves are growing." I mean, this was a very, very bizarre statement on CBC. It's partly growing in his head.

As most assets used in the B.C. economy are non-renewable natural resources — like the several LNG projects and large mining proposals, which the Liberal and Conservative governments love so much and subsidize — I contend we're heading for very hard times to come, particularly the future generations. I'm a grandparent's age, and I'm really, really concerned for the grandchildren.

We're ignoring the cost. This is all money. The environmental costs don't enter the equation. In addition to consuming our asset base, we have devised some clever techniques for leaving costs off the books, much like Enron. That's basically what we're doing — no better than Enron, a disgraced and bankrupt company.

When Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, released his groundbreaking 2006 study on the future cost of climate change, he talked about a massive market failure, which is what I'm seeing us heading for. He was referring to the failure of the market to incorporate the cost of climate change in the price of fossil fuel. According to Stern, the costs are measured in trillions of dollars. This is so serious.

The difference between the market prices for fossil fuels and an honest price that also incorporates their environmental cost to society is huge, and it's completely ignored. This is summed up by the saying "privatization profits and socializing costs." How does the B.C. government do that? They do it very well.

To be precise, the British Columbia government funnels money to the oil and gas industry in two main ways. One, by granting infrastructure credits that are applied to the cost of building things like roads, and so on. Normally, a company has to pay for those. We pay for it.

In February 2013 Premier Christy Clark announced that the province of British Columbia is providing up to $120 million in royalty credits to industry. The details of the 2013 infrastructure royalty credit program were revealed to an international audience at the Fuelling the Future: Global Opportunities for LNG in B.C. The program provides industry with deductions that can be used to recover a portion of royalties owed to government.

Our government is granting $327 million of subsidies
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this year to the oil and gas industry because it thinks the public interest is benefited more by revenue than it is damaged by the consequent contribution to climate change and local ecosystem degradation. I strongly oppose subsidies to the oil and gas industry as well as any subsidies to the corporations which are ruling the world these days — forestry and mining sectors.

Why? Because while revenues don't last long, we're stuck with the damage. We're the ones with the stumps, if you've driven here or flown over. We're the ones with our Equity mine here, acid rock drainage forever, eternal. We have impaired air quality, and all our fish-bearing rivers are threatened by those projects. I mean, I was an intervener for Enbridge. They don't miss any. They're going to go along all our fish-bearing rivers.

While damages stay local, benefits are centralized. I used to live on the Queen Charlotte Islands when they were called such, and I apologize for Haida Gwaii. I'm from France originally, and I've lived here 36 years. I started in what was called the Queen Charlotte Islands at the time.

It was just so striking coming from France to see those huge barges, millions and millions of dollars of timber leaving the islands, and we had to do fundraising to get a fire truck. We had to do fundraising dances for a child care centre. We had very little from the wealth, and that encapsulates, for me, the reality of what's taking place and what is preparing to take place with the LNG and Enbridge and all those projects.

Another reason is if the market can't afford to develop the resource and they need federal and provincial help — even spies, like we've seen in Brazil — then the resource should be left alone. As the Oxford Energy Group put it:

"It is absolutely true that producers need to decide whether the price they will receive for producing and exporting their commodity will result in a profit which they believe reflects the value of their resource. What is not true is that producers should be guaranteed a return" — which is what we're doing, taxpayers — "on their investment. In a market nobody is guaranteed a profit on their investment. They need to make judgments and take risks" — not on our back.

Taxpayers already face approximately $600 million in liabilities for abandoned resources that they left us. The province has chosen the gas industry for economic future. Given the economic circumstances, should the province subsidize this industry or grant them special tax breaks? B.C. LNG development is taking place in a rapidly changing global natural gas industry, where the market may well collapse before we can get to it. The financial risks are enormous.

I was going to talk about all the manipulation to subsidize the gas industry, like…. The provincial government is supporting CAPP, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, to change the status of liquefied natural gas plants from transmission plants to manufacturer plants. I don't know if you were aware of that.

That changed the capital cost allowance from 16 percent, I think it was. They can get 30 percent on their capital cost allowance, rather than 8 percent if they were manufacturing. So there are all those manipulations that are done on our back.

I was going to talk about the flow-through shares, which is another manipulation to have taxpayers bear the brunt of the risk of all those things. Those are things that the budget…. That is what is shaping the economy.

I realize that I'm planting a seed and that this is not going to be listened to and acted upon. But many of us, and the speaker before me…. I hope many of us are going to say that this natural gas choice for our economy — that it hasn't been proven that it is going to get us anywhere.

There is $36 billion being waved in front of us, like we're all panting for it. But there's nothing sure and secure, and there's a lot of cost. There hasn't been a proper consultation with people who live here.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Josette, for your comments. I'm wondering. Do you work with any organizations around raising concerns?

D. Ashton (Chair): Welcome. Just before we get started, I would like to introduce Shelley Worthington, the constituency assistant for Doug Donaldson, the MLA for Stikine. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming today.

Greg, welcome. The presentations are allotted ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questions. If a break is needed, no problem whatsoever — just in case.

G. Brown: Thank you, Chairperson and committee. It's a pleasure to be here and an honour to be a part of this process. I personally think the budget is one of the most important documents that comes out of a govern-
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ment on an annual basis. It's a pleasure to be here.

I'm going to be making the case and advocating for continual leadership on climate change from the province and, in particular, asking for a strengthening of the carbon tax.

I know it's a bold move. It was a bold move. I remember the day when Gordon Campbell announced it. It kind of turned my world upside down, because I didn't expect leadership of that significance at the provincial level.

My background is that I grew up in Kitimat, son of a pulp and paper worker. I went and studied engineering. Studying geosciences as a geological engineer, I appreciated our earth systems and the facts we're facing.

I was working for B.C. Hydro at the time, and I decided to leave there to pursue more aggressive efforts to find solutions for climate change. That was the year 2000. I have been wandering around ever since, organizing side events at UN conferences to advocate for renewable energy as a solution to climate change. I worked as a community energy planner in the city of Whitehorse, advocating for sustainable transportation. It was part of a big showcase program there that the city did.

I worked on renewable energy, was trained as an EnerGuide-for-housing evaluator and have been advocating, also, to keep fossil fuels in the ground, because we only have so much of a carbon budget.

I think the carbon tax is a very smart, effective and, most importantly, an efficient way to administer a solution on climate change. The reason why the carbon tax is so efficient is because it dovetailed on existing mechanisms. You were charging gas tax already, and you just add a carbon tax to it. It just made sense [inaudible recording] bureaucracy.

I'm a fan of proper taxation, and the appropriate amount of taxation is important. I think taxing the bad, like pollution and forms of pollution, is a smart move. Reducing the pressure on individuals and corporations and businesses by lowering their taxes, is a smart move.

So incentivize the things we want, which is entrepreneurialism and hard work, and penalize bad stuff. That's the frame which I come from.

I think, in terms of the international context…. We do not have international agreement on climate change, yet we shall not delay as individuals, as families, as cities and as provinces to take significant action.

As the handout has shown you, when Gordon Campbell brought into law those two targets — 33 percent reduction from 2007 levels by 2020 and then 80 percent reduction from 2007 levels by 2050 — it was significant. I appreciate the challenges of reworking our economy and reworking our society to continue to prosper as well as reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This is bold, and we need bold, bold leadership to continue.

The project has just begun. It's only been — what? — five years since the carbon tax came in. I would say anecdotal evidence — pretty good evidence, but it's not rock solid — is that it's working.

There was a piece this summer in the Economist magazine claiming it's working. The New York Times has covered it, the National Post. They have said that the carbon tax in B.C. has not had a material impact on the economy. Our economy has actually done better than the rest of Canada, on average. As well, we've seen a material decrease in the fossil fuels that have been taxed as well as the direct relationship to emissions going down.

Maybe economists have different opinions about whether or not there's going to be an effect on our competitiveness against other jurisdictions. That's something you all should consider — what it's going to do to our competitiveness.

I would argue that the most important thing we have in B.C…. Well, first of all, it's the people in place — people who decide to live here, either born or moved here, and decide to make it happen and make it work — small business, corporations, individuals making it work. So invest in the people.

I'm of a generation for which climate change matters deeply. I am very proud to come from B.C. and to live here and work within a provincial government that has taken climate change seriously. Therefore, I'm willing to invest. I'm not willing to move to other places, even if I have had a job offer. I would say: "No, I want to make this work." This place has made it a priority to deal with climate change. I'm going to stay here. It's with my values. There's a whole generation of people that agree with me.

I say: "What next?" I think you continue on with ratcheting up the carbon tax. Economists have said that if you're going to reach your 2020 goals, the carbon tax needs to be, as they say, $100 a tonne, up to $200 a tonne. I'd say to please continue with the path that has been started.

I think you need to develop a long-term schedule outlining how the tax is going to be increased. You need to give businesses and individuals…. If you're building a house, you're going to have to make decisions. How are you going to heat that house? If you're a proper house owner — like if you're a young family planning to be in a house for 20 years — you'd look at the cost of maintaining that house over 20 to 30 years. Is it natural gas you're going to heat it with? Is it electricity?

That brings up a side note. What's happening to our electricity rates? That's another issue.

As a homeowner, you'd be looking around and going: "Is it R20 in the walls, or is it R60 in the walls?" These are material questions that matter to individuals over the long term. You need to be bold and to show leadership and say, "This is where we're going," so people can allocate their funds years from now — five years from now, two years from now, ten years from now — to make the investments.

I'd say avoid exemptions. There was an exemption, I
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believe, to the greenhouse gas industry. It was a mistake. That's a slippery slope. Do not give exemptions.

If an industry is having a hard time being competitive, get in there and facilitate a conversation. Don't impose a solution on them, but get in there and get the experts together to find solutions. If you need pilot projects to figure out the solution, do that. If you need other incentives…. But do not give exemptions for carbon tax.

I say renew the existing programs. The LiveSmart program, an effective program for energy efficiency in our homes across Canada — it's an internationally recognized program. B.C. has supported it through the LiveSmart funding. I'd say to continue with that.

I say create new incentives where we're not, where we're falling down. This is in rental housing. The incentive is not there for a landlord when the renters are paying the utility bills. So there's a role for government to facilitate a conversation.

Find the leverage with landlords. Is it property taxes? What is it? How do you find the leverage with landlords to improve the dwelling so that the utility costs go down, it doesn't hurt the renters and they reduce their carbon emissions?

I say broaden the coverage of the carbon tax. Currently it's at 75, 77 percent. I say include the industries that make sense. As well, I think that this idea of revenue-neutral…. I would advocate that you take a percentage of that revenue-neutral and ratchet it up to incentives and infrastructure investments and service investments that make sense.

So in the north, I'm going to…. The Highway of Tears you must have heard of — missing women. It's an issue of access to reliable transportation. There's a call, and a loud call, from a wide group of people to invest in a transportation solution for women across Highway 16. I mean, it may not make economic sense, but it makes human sense to invest in those people.

The last thing is LNG. I've heard that the case for LNG is that we're going to help the Asian economies get off of coal. I don't think British Columbians should pay for that decision. If the Asian economies want to get off coal and go to natural gas and if we want to supply that natural gas, then natural gas companies should pay the carbon tax on all the emissions, from getting it out of the ground, shipping it across the province and loading it onto tankers, because we all know that it takes a lot of energy.

So get active. Promote renewables. Deal with the emissions — the flaring and all those things. This is not new. I'm not the only one that agrees with this. There was a poll done, and it was released this morning. It said that about 90 percent of British Columbians believe in this commitment that the British Columbian government has made about the cleanest LNG. And in my mind, the cleanest LNG includes carbon emissions.

So do not — do not — make an exemption for LNG when you're doing the carbon tax. This would really affect the hopes and dreams of the next generation. We need to solve this problem. B.C. is a leader, and you have a chance to continue to lead on the international stage with the carbon tax.

D. Ashton (Chair): Actually, a very good presentation. Thank you, sir, for doing that.

G. Holman: Well, Greg, I just want to thank you for coming today and speaking to the issue. We heard from Pembina Institute earlier in our travels, making a very similar case. Thank you for your advocacy.

E. Foster: Greg, I appreciate your comments. As you can well imagine, many of the presentations we've had over the last three weeks as we've travelled around were: "Hold the line on the carbon tax. Eliminate the carbon tax. Exempt industries." Believe me; you're outnumbered on this one.

Having said that, it was a great presentation. You make good points and a lot of sense. I think we need to, or you need to or your organization needs to, kind of ramp up. I know you have a lot of support. I know you're not an individual on your own in this. I would suggest that you ramp it up a little bit so that more of us, more than just the group here at the table, hear your message.

G. Brown: On that point, Eric, I am, as you probably guessed, a stay-at-home dad these days. I have a few small contracts, but generally just a stay-at-home dad, and my partner is running a café in town. I invite you to go there for lunch or for dinner. They close at 4:30 — Two Sisters Café.

On the point of you hearing a lot voices, I totally understand. This is the difficulty. Climate change hits us all equally, yet to get action and to define an action, it's hard to get people to stand up in some support because it's in the future. The carbon tax affects quarterly and even daily economic decisions.

I agree with you that this is a massive challenge, and we need to continue up with the support for it. For those people who don't like it, it affects them immediately. And for the people who do support it, they're looking at the long term. The dynamic is very different.

As leaders, you are challenged to be able to find solutions and messaging to do that. It's a very difficult job, what you're trying to do.

D. Ashton (Chair): That's fine. For the presentation, it is ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning on it, and then we have up to five minutes for questions.

R. Overstall: We're here on behalf of Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research, which is a small Smithers-based group that does research into natural resource issues in northwestern B.C. and makes the results of that research available to the public in order to inform decision-making on natural resource issues.

My name is Richard Overstall. I am a director of the Northwest Institute. With me is Nadia Nowak, who works with the institute on a contract.

We're here to talk about the budget implications of liquefied natural gas. I will be talking about the need for what we're calling a strategic environmental assessment. Ms. Nowak will be talking about air quality, infrastructure and climate change.

I notice in the handout for this hearing that you mentioned LNG twice. Obviously, in terms of your work, this is an important issue to be considered.

Right now, as this chart shows, there are some 11 LNG projects at various stages of assessment of proposals for northwest B.C. In fact, it's a gold rush situation. Each company is acting as if none of the other proposals exist. They're not talking to one another. They're being assessed by the environmental assessment office individually as if none of the other proposals exist.

This has led to a situation where the cumulative impact of the proposals is not being adequately assessed. As you know, the provincial government — quite rightly, in our assessment — has taken on cumulative impact of resource developments as an important issue. The northwest transmission line is an example where government officials are looking at the cumulative impact of that power transmission line.

Unfortunately, the cumulative impact policy does not seem to be applied to the LNG. You have a situation where each LNG facility — that is, the terminal at tidewater — has an EA process, an environmental assessment process, and each pipeline has an environmental assessment process.

In other words, you've got some 20 environmental assessment processes or potential environmental assessment processes going on, each one pretending that none of the others exist. This is virtually impossible for the public to keep up with. In this town we see, almost weekly, open houses and notices from the environmental assessment office.

This chart that we have produced — in fact, although it's to the best of our ability, we know there are inaccuracies. We know that it's incomplete. We're working hard on it. The average member of the public, maybe even yourselves, can't keep up with this.

What we propose is what we call a strategic environmental assessment. We've given you the first six pages of a letter to both the federal and provincial Ministers of Environment proposing that the federal and provincial governments carry on a strategic environmental assessment of the LNG projects in northwest B.C. This, in our opinion, is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, the provincial and the federal governments are going to be facing enormous costs.

In the full letter, which goes for something like 63 pages and which I've left with your secretary, there's an interesting account, on page 13, of the Australian experience. Three LNG plants were built on a site in Western Australia by three separate companies. In the end, everybody admitted after they were built that probably only one or at the most two were necessary.

Given that an LNG plant and associated pipeline in northern British Columbia are roughly $20 billion in private investment…. Clearly, this is a huge waste of money.

What we're suggesting in terms of the budget is that this committee talk to Environment Minister Polak — we sent this letter on August 1; the minister hasn't responded yet — and ask the minister to look at this seriously.

N. Nowak: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your time. I'll be speaking mostly about air quality in the Kitimat and Terrace airsheds, increased demand on infrastructure, other social impacts such as a migrant workforce, and greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

There's a recognition that this industry could bring significant economic development to the region, but measures need to be taken to ensure that this does not negatively impact local communities and the province over the long term. These measures will come with costs that must be accounted for in the budget.

I will begin with air quality. The Kitimat and Terrace airshed is rated by the World Health Organization as in the top ten for cleanest air in the world. It also has one of the most confined airsheds as a result of its topography. With three LNG facilities planned and proposed in Kitimat, this raises considerable concern for pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, sulphur oxides, nitrous oxides and fine particulates. All have human health concerns, such as respiratory disease, and also can cause acid rain affecting agricultural crops and other plant life.

Adjusting air quality concerns will require resources in the budget. The provincial government should calculate the costs of using the most stringent air quality standards and should mandate that LNG facilities adhere
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to this. We must understand the cumulative impacts of all major industrial projects proposed for Kitimat so as not to saturate the airshed and pass safe emissions levels.

We are happy to see that the B.C. government will be conducting an air quality study. That being said, this study is late, because Alcan has already been approved to increase their sulphur dioxide emissions from 27 tonnes to 42.

We believe that an air quality management plan is also needed. Proper monitoring, use of mitigation technologies and the use of renewable energy to liquefy the gas — these are all measures that must be taken to ensure the Kitimat and Terrace airshed remains clean.

The costs of poor air quality from a health perspective are unacceptable, both to the people affected and to the health care system that supports them.

Next I'll talk about increased demand on infrastructure. Communities in the northwest are already seeing increased demands on their infrastructure just with the crews that are out surveying and clearing land for LNG projects.

If there is a large increase in population due to the jobs associated with this industry, measures will need to be taken to ensure that hospitals have enough capacity and that access to recreation facilities, social programs and affordable housing is maintained or improved for local residents. To meet these needs, revenue-sharing agreements should be made with local communities.

In terms of a migrant workforce, the majority of the jobs associated with LNG will be temporary construction jobs. Based on the project descriptions for some of these proposals, a facility could provide 50 to 100 jobs, and a pipeline 15 to 60. Those are the permanent jobs. These means a large migrant workforce will be coming to the region, which we've seen in other communities can cause increased crime rates, sexually transmitted diseases and other social disruptions.

The B.C. government must work with local communities to manage the impacts of this. This may include increased social services and policing, all of which come with costs that need to be addressed now rather than us trying to deal with it later down the road when it's already happening.

Okay, on to climate change. B.C. is known to be a leader on climate change due to our carbon tax, carbon-neutral mandate and GHG targets. As climate change becomes more urgent, it's critical that we uphold and strengthen our leadership role rather than backing away from it.

Despite the claim that B.C. LNG will be the cleanest in the world, meaning that it will have lower life-cycle GHG emissions than LNG from other locations, the B.C. government's liquefied natural gas strategy currently does not even match up with its own targets set forth in the climate action plan.

There are measures that could be taken to help rectify this difference. Among them are to structure the LNG tax to encourage GHG reductions such as applying a royalty tax to fugitive emissions in the upstream processes, thus encouraging carbon capture and storage on vented emissions, and using renewable electricity instead of natural gas to liquefy the gas.

In conclusion, the provincial government has a strong focus on the LNG industry becoming a key economic driver. If we are to pursue this industry, we must do it wisely to ensure communities, particularly in the northeast and northwest regions of the province, are not left with the short end of the "bargain" in terms of their natural environment health and the social fabric of their communities.

The province looks to be making a considerable amount of money off of this industry. To make money we must spend money on infrastructure, adequate assessments, dealing with climate change and dealing with air quality now rather than dealing with this in the aftermath once this industry might be up and running.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation. I'm really interested in the chart with the 11 projects and the work you've done on that.

When you're talking about the need for a strategic environmental assessment, would that then be…? In the context of saying that all right, we have this resource and we have this interest in it, would you be looking at what the environmental impacts are and what, realistically, the environment and northwestern B.C. can support in terms of the number of plants, whether it's one, two, three or whatever? And once you determined that number, then saying: "Okay, rather than each one having its own individual pipeline, what we're saying is that look, we can support three. We want to ensure that the infrastructure is there for three, and that's the way that government should proceed." Is that the general gist of what I'm getting?

R. Overstall: That's the idea. For example, a strategic environmental assessment could look at a common energy corridor for all energy — electricity transmission, natural gas, oil, if that's what's happening, whatever. It can look at the cumulative impacts. Ms. Nowak talked about the Kitimat airshed.

Rather than look at the existing air pollution situation and the addition of the particular LNG project, you would look at all three. You would look at the northern gateway pipeline possibility — the possibility of a refinery, I think. You would look at all of those things, because otherwise it's going to be on a first-come, first-served, and that may not be the most rational way to develop
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this resource and protect the environment and communities of the region.

L. Popham: I love the chart that you've created. I imagine it has taken you a lot of time, but I love tools like this. I'm wondering. What is it that would be holding you back, mostly, from developing it further? Is it because of the time? Is there a fiscal situation that you can't meet? Or is there information that's being blocked from you?

N. Nowak: It's mostly just tracking the information, constantly checking the EAO and CEAA websites to see if there are any updates on any of the projects as well as tracking media releases from companies to see if there are new projects being announced. It's mostly the tracking side of it, and it's a lot of work to keep up with that on a daily basis. I wouldn't say information is necessarily being withheld. I would appreciate if the provincial government was doing more of this work to help inform communities about what's going on.

R. Overstall: Just to add to that, the example we were just talking about. The Oil and Gas Commission had an open house here recently and had a map of all the pipelines. They were asked, "Could we get a copy of the map? This is really important public information," and we were told: "No, you can't have a copy of the map." So it's really, really hard. I mean, Ms. Nowak has worked very hard to produce this chart so far, and we know it's not accurate. We know there are things missing.

N. Nowak: He just said that it wasn't publicly available, despite it being produced by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. He let me know that a user-friendly map was being produced by the provincial government and that I could access that when it's prepared. But I'm interested in the detailed map that has all the stream and river crossings.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. Two questions. Well, I guess a comment first. The point you're making about consolidation is such an important one. The thing is that it obviously would benefit industry as well because it's going to reduce the cost of delivering natural gas to the port and processing and then sending to Asia. So if it's more viable for industry, it means they're making more profit. It means, also, that government can get a share of that, right? It makes sense also from an environmental…. I mean, from so many perspectives, it makes sense.

I'd really be surprised if industry is not looking at this behind the scenes, but to require it to happen, it seems to me it makes sense from a whole number of different perspectives.

Just one quick question, though. The letter that you…. It's from the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria. I just want to clarify. The request came from that organization?

R. Overstall: No. The Environmental Law Centre did the research on behalf of the Northwest Institute. They sent it on behalf of the Northwest Institute, and then the Northwest Institute has been attempting to follow up with the ministers.

J. Tegart: Very interesting information. For a number of years I worked for healthy communities for the province and talked about how we prepare communities for large changes. I was very interested to hear your comments in regards to the impact on community and how we prepare a community for that. Do you have any further information on the kind of conversation that's happening in communities?

N. Nowak: I can provide you with just a couple of examples from Terrace. Terrace is seeing a significant increase in activity in that community. One example is that a friend of mine used to — two years ago — rent out his basement suite. He could barely rent it for $400 a month, and now he's renting it for over $1,000. What that means is…. What does that mean for young people trying to get a start in these communities and having access to affordable housing?

Terrace is seeing its first traffic jams, and the hotels are booked up a lot of the time with workers. That means that people from other communities who might be travelling to Terrace to go to the hospital and whatnot can't access places to stay.

Those are some of the examples that are happening currently, and we can see an increase as an increase in the migrant workforce comes to the region.

E. Foster: I just want to comment on that. I appreciate your comments about the social impact, and so on. I was in Terrace three years ago. You could shoot a cannon down the street there and not hit anybody. Half the stores were closed. The hotel that I stayed in — they only were running half of it. So I'm sure that the businesses and the people in Terrace were more than happy to see the influx of money into their community, notwithstanding the fact that there are a lot of social issues that have to be dealt with. I totally agree with that.

To think it's a negative impact on the community, totally a negative impact…. I'd think you'd find that people that are paying taxes there feel differently.

N. Nowak: I think you're correct in saying that a lot
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of the businesses are benefiting from the boom that's coming to Terrace right now. But it's a matter of ensuring that there aren't people who are left behind as that boom is taking place.

D. Ashton (Chair): Very good comments. Nadia, Richard, thank you very much for your presentation today.

The chamber of commerce is half an hour late, so we'll just scratch them off the list. They can put a submission in, however.

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1) Association for Reformed Political Action Canada	Mark Penninga
2) Smithers Community Services Association	Jo-Anne Nugent
3) Christian Heritage Party of British Columbia	Rod Taylor
4) Matthew Monkman

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

Witnesses:	Greg Brown
	Dana Hibbard
	Anita Marshall
	Matthew Monkman
	Nadia Nowak (Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research)
	Jo-Anne Nugent (Smithers Community Services Association)
	Richard Overstall (Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research)
	Mark Penninga (Executive Director, Association for Reformed Political Action Canada)
	Rod Taylor (Interim Leader, Christian Heritage Party of B.C.)
	Chris Timms
	George Whitehead (President, Smithers District Chamber of Commerce)
	Josette Wier

7) Greg Brown
8) Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research	Nadia Nowak
	Richard Overstall

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