Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 20 — Wednesday, October 9, 2013 (HTML)

Metlakatla Room, Highliner Plaza Hotel
815 - 1st Avenue West, Prince Rupert, B.C.

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:

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	558
J. Fraser
D. Nobels
E. Wilson
D. Henning
K. Veldman
C. Bomben
M. Jensen
P. Davenport

D. Ashton (Chair): Good afternoon, 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 everyone in attendance today. Thank you very much for taking the time to attend, and we really do appreciate you participating in this important process.

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

Once a 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 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 the 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 and greatly appreciated.

At today's meeting each presenter may speak for ten minutes. Up to an additional five minutes is allotted for questions from the 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 the staff at the information table, which is by the door.

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

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

Also joining us today from the parliamentary committees office are some very hard-working and dedicated individuals. We have our Clerk, Susan Sourial, and Stephanie Raymond, who is staffing the registration desk. Jean Medland and Ian Battle are here on behalf of Hansard Services.

I'd also like to introduce Jennifer Rice, the MLA for North Coast. Welcome. Thank you very much for being here.

Our first presenter is Judy Fraser. Welcome, Judy. Thank you very much for coming.
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J. Fraser: Welcome, and thanks for visiting Prince Rupert and giving the people of the north coast the opportunity to speak with you.

I have lived in Prince Rupert most of my life and love the north coast and its beauty. I was raised on fishing and forestry, but unfortunately, these industries no longer drive the economy and life on the north coast. While they are still important, new industry, new infrastructure and new investments are the future for our families and communities.

There is new hope on the north coast — LNG. I appreciate the government being open to all responsible economic opportunities. We can't just say no to everything. We have to keep an open mind and work with companies seeking investment in our province. The opportunity with LNG is time sensitive, and if we drag our feet on this, we may lose the amazing opportunity this province has.

New investment will create tens of thousands of jobs and make life more affordable for families and will provide richer support for those who need it. I appreciate that the current government is intent on growing B.C.'s economy, not growing the size of government. Balancing the budget and maintaining a triple-A credit rating are critical to creating confidence in B.C. as a safe harbour for investment.

As a grandmother, I also appreciate the B.C. training and education grant. My son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter live in Vancouver. My son and daughter-in-law are both firefighters, but besides his full-time job, my son has two part-time jobs so that they can afford a home in the city. It is nice to see that their hard work is rewarded. The $1,200 grant that their daughter will receive from the province will enable them to kick-start that college fund.

I appreciate the government's path forward, one that will continue to strengthen our economy and that doesn't burden our children with debt, one where British Columbians have jobs in their community and where every British Columbian can prosper. I ask that they continue on this path.

Next up we have the Skeena–Queen Charlotte regional district, electoral area A. Come on forward, Des. Thanks for coming, welcome. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute notice, and we'll take it from there.

D. Nobels: Thank you very much. My name is Des Nobels. I'm the director for area A, Skeena–Queen Charlotte regional district. I'm here today on behalf of my constituents to present some of the concerns and issues that they believe could be addressed through the budgetary process.

First of all, I'd like to just acknowledge the Tsimshian Nation on whose traditional territory we sit and meet today.

I have five issues that I'd like to address briefly with you. First off, as Judy has pointed out, we are on the cusp of significant growth within the area here. That growth, while it does bring benefits, also brings a significant amount of issues and problems that need to be dealt with. This area here has been economically depressed for essentially the last two decades. As such, much of our infrastructure is already at crisis stage, and it's not in a situation where we could actually begin to take on some of the proposed planning and projects for this region.

That being said, the scope and scale of the projects that are being proposed for this area, as well, have raised significant concerns within the region in terms of how that's going to affect us environmentally and socially. First of all, I would like to put forward for your consideration that the province undertake, within its budgetary discussions, the ability to move forward with a strategic environmental assessment of the proposed projects in the north coast area.

As it stands right now, each one of these projects is either involved in a separate EA or is undergoing a review of its own, but there is no overall review of the projects and the scope of the work that's being proposed for the region. The strategic environmental assessment would allow for cumulative impacts and socioeconomic impacts as well, so we would like that considered within the budgetary constraints.

Second of all, we'd like to raise the issue of revenue-sharing. We'd like to make that a focus. For many years this area has provided significant income to the province as an area. We have seen minimal benefits from that over time. Over the last 15 years or so we've seen very little benefit of any of the growth that has taken place in our region. We're looking at billions of dollars' worth of materials and resources entering and leaving our port here, yet we benefit very minimally from that. We receive a grant-in-lieu for the most part, and for the rest, taxation is nonexistent. So we definitely need some help there.

In regard to the revenue-sharing itself, there are a number of models out there. I know the northeast of the province has a Fair Share agreement program going. We've looked at that, and we think that's a place from which we would like to perhaps start. But it doesn't yet go the distance with what we would like to achieve in this area. We have a number of areas that need to be addressed here in terms of education, health and just overall social structures.

Next I'd like to talk about bridge funding. The prov-
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ince has been kind enough to consider a payment to the region over time, based on the scale and scope of the development that goes on here. We're looking forward to that dividend, but that dividend, in our minds, is a decade in the future. That is not in the near term. In the near term we require bridge funding to avail ourselves of services that we require to provide for the development that's coming to our region here.

As I said, we're looking for some bridge funding from the province to allow us to at least bring our infrastructure up to a point where we can actually begin to entertain some of the proposed projects that are coming into our region. Our roads, our sewers, our water systems are all in dire need of repair. It's very simple.

In terms of B.C. Hydro, a number of my constituents have come to me — actually, a significant number of constituents have come to me — with concern over the 26 percent increase that we're looking at over the next five to six years from B.C. Hydro. Many of our constituents are already at the point where they can barely afford to pay for the hydro they presently have.

In many cases, some are going without because they cannot make the month-to-month needs. We have a population here that has, like I said, been depressed for the last two decades. Many of them are struggling. Part of the problem that will continue to evolve here is the disparity that will increase as we see our economy burgeon or flower in some fashion here.

Many of the people that are presently here are already experiencing issues in terms of housing rental issues. We have tenants that are being evicted while places are being renovated. Rents are being hiked, and we expect to see that increase over the next couple of years here.

So the disparity that presently exists will only get greater. Those people that are left behind, we feel, do require some assistance and warrant the attention.

Lastly, to that point, I would like to request that the province entertain raising the social assistance rates that we presently have in the province. What is presently out there is not sufficient to meet the needs of the people who are presently in this area and the province as a whole. As a disparity grows in this area, that need will increase, unfortunately. It does not decrease.

If I could just go back to the B.C. Hydro increases as well, the whole issue around smart meters has been raised with me. A number of things have come forward. The $35 a month that B.C. Hydro is proposing to penalize individuals who do not take on the smart meters is extremely onerous. In my case alone that represents half of my monthly hydro bill — that extra $35. We believe that's a little tight-fisted on the part of B.C. Hydro.

For those that are not interested in taking on the smart meters, several proposals have been put forward. B.C. Hydro presently undertakes an averaging program that they institute that allows you to average your monthly payment for hydro over the course of the year. Then at the end of the year that's reconciled with B.C. Hydro. Many are of the belief that if you don't take your smart meter, why could they not carry on in that fashion provided that they pay their monthly averaged fee. At the end of the year, either they can have their meter checked and reconcile it then, or they can be called and the numbers can be provided directly over the phone. There wouldn't be an added cost in having to deliver someone in the communities to read those meters.

We think this is a fairly simple solution that shouldn't cost any significant amount and actually would probably reduce the cost, and it would be save B.C. Hydro a lot of animosity. That's an issue that I think could be easily addressed and wouldn't cost anything within the terms of the budget constraints.

There's one other thing that I'd like to discuss as well, in terms of what the province has just recently announced. So $150,000 is being provided by the province to the communities of this region to prepare themselves for what is coming down the road towards us here. As much as we appreciate that and find that will be of assistance to us, that works out to basically $25,000 a community. You can't hire a consultant for that, let alone actually do any of the work that's required.

The province is presently offering $116 million in tax incentives and bonuses to industry to prepare itself. Why are we any different? It's our money that you're providing to them. Why can we not see some of that money back ourselves so that we can be prepared and can deal with this in a way that we feel is necessary?

M. Hunt: Just a real simple one, Des. I'm not totally familiar with the electoral area. Where is electoral area A?

D. Nobels: Electoral area A encompasses the whole mainland coast here. It starts halfway down the Skeena River, runs to the Alaskan border, runs out roughly 12 miles west of Stevens Island in the middle of Hecate Strait and about 50 miles up the Skeena River. So that's area A.

D. Nobels: Yes, and then there are a number of municipalities within that structure as well.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Des, for your presentation. With respect to your first recommendation, strategic environmental assessment of the region in terms of looking at all the different projects that are going forward, is the district involved in discussions with the ministry around that?

D. Nobels: We have been in the past around some of these issues. At present the communities in the region here have been coming together under the community-to-community forum structure, which was initiated out of the UBCM. As a matter of fact, we finished off a meeting today. We hold these annually, and we get together to discuss issues of commonality within the region.

This is one that springs forward time and time again, in terms of the scope and the scale of what's being presented to us. We're concerned. The Skeena River, which is the second-largest salmon producer in British Columbia — and Canada, for that matter — is an extremely important resource. It's one that will provide for this area for generations to come, and as such, the industrialization of that particular area raises great concern within all of our communities.

Right now the Port of Prince Rupert has been ceded land that is directly within that Skeena estuary structure, and the Petronas proposal that's coming forward right now will have serious implications for how that estuary functions over generations to come. As such, we feel this is something that should be required in terms of any development that takes place here.

M. Elmore: We had a presentation in Prince George from the Resources North Association, talking about the cumulative effects values framework, a pilot project underway. I don't know if you've been participating in that.

M. Elmore: Right. I can follow up with that. Do you have a dollar amount with your request on a need for infrastructure projects?

D. Nobels: Well, to be perfectly honest, we haven't done an assessment. We're scared to do an assessment, for fear of just how grand that is. Suffice it to say that between the various municipalities within the region and the areas themselves, we're probably looking at close to $100 million in terms of replacement costs.

Now, I'm sure none of us is expecting to see any kind of money of that sort. Nonetheless, it's significant, and it's already under crisis. For us to now take on the possibility of several camps, ranging anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 people in the region, and having to deal with all of the issues that come from that, it's going to be quite significant.

D. Ashton (Chair): Next up we have North Coast Literacy Now — Elizabeth Wilson.

D. Ashton (Chair): Yes, you are. We'll take you as people come in. Is that okay? Do you have somebody else coming?

E. Wilson: Well, we do, but that's all right. I'd just as soon go now, as long as I'm up here.

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay, perfect. So ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning on it, and then we have five minutes reserved for the questions. The floor is yours.

E. Wilson: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Elizabeth Wilson, and I represent the task force and steering committee of North Coast Literacy Now. I will also be including information about the Nisga'a district community task force in the Nass Valley.

North Coast Literacy Now is part of the provincial network of community literacy programs established, funded and supported through the leadership of Decoda Literacy Solutions. Our area of the north coast includes six communities: Prince Rupert, Port Edward and the villages of Hartley Bay, Kitkatla, Lax Kw'alaams and Metlakatla.

We would like to acknowledge with sincere gratitude the $2 million that the B.C. government provided last year to Decoda Literacy Solutions to support community literacy programs across the province. We would also like to thank the government for investing $2.5 million each year, in previous years, for the coordination of literacy work.

The funding the B.C. government invests in literacy through Decoda Literacy Solutions supports literacy programs in over 400 communities across B.C. through a network of 102 task groups and steering committees. From this amount, we receive $30,000 each year. This
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money funds our literacy coordinator and contributes to the community literacy programs we support.

We have come here today to request that the B.C. government continue to invest $2.5 million each year in community literacy programs through Decoda Literacy Solutions.

In our experience, community literacy programs have benefited and continue to benefit all members of our communities in three major ways. The first of these benefits is that community literacy programs provide culturally, educationally and socially relevant literacy programs for many people, from babies through to elders.

Our communities reside on Tsimshian territory and are rich in the heritage of the Tsimshian people. Drawing from this long history, our literacy work is grounded in the theme of connecting generations.

We also acknowledge the importance of our diverse population. We are very proud that our steering committee and the work we do encompasses three languages and cultures: Sm'algyax, the language of the Tsimshiam; English; and French.

With the funding we receive from the B.C. government through Decoda Literacy Solutions, we have been able to fund programs that bring elders, adults, children and youth together as learners, teachers and mentors.

For example, in the village of Lax Kw'alaams we supported an intergenerational talking and reading circle with elders and young children. This program brings the wisdom of elders together with the excitement of young children learning the joys of reading.

In the village of Metlakatla we funded summer programs that linked elders and youth, with the elders acting as teachers and mentors. These programs helped youth gain a stronger sense of their identities as Tsimshian youth who are able to make lasting contributions to their communities.

We have also provided a Mother Goose program that involved three generations in the pleasure of learning. The Mother Goose program involves parents and their babies and young children. Parents and babies learn songs, movements and rhythms together. Through the truly enjoyable activities, babies are developing the language that is so important to later learning.

Our Mother Goose program takes place at the local residential care facility. The babies, their parents and the elderly residents of Acropolis Manor are all involved in the songs and rhythms. All are enhanced by the three generations learning together. Most of the programs funded through North Coast Literacy Now have the primary focus of connecting generations so that people learn from each other. Together these programs improve the health, well-being and literacy levels of our communities. The effects of these programs ripple across sectors and over time.

The second benefit is that funding provided by the B.C. government is leveraged and enhanced through community partnerships. In the Nass Valley community literacy funding was augmented by funding from the school district and through grant applications. This funding was used to start and maintain a Nisga'a community newspaper.

The Nass Valley News produced 1,200 copies per month, provided one full-time and one part-time job, and involved the community in writing about important educational and community issues. This year they hope the paper will continue with funding from other sources. They plan to involve students from the alternate school in job training in the areas of writing, journalism, photography and community research.

Funding we receive from the B.C. government through Decoda Literacy Solutions is also leveraged through in-kind contributions. North Coast Literacy Now receives in-kind funding of over $42,000 each year from our literacy partners so that we can maintain coordination and programs within the $30,000 budget we receive. The school district in the Nass Valley has contributed both funding and in-kind contributions so that the majority of the funds they receive through Decoda Literacy Solutions can go directly to programs.

Regardless of the economic challenges they have faced, the communities of the north coast remain generous with their time and resources. The members of the North Coast Literacy Now steering committee continue to work to support the well-being and health of young children, school-aged children and youth, adults and elders through their organizations and through the partnerships and relationships they build.

The third benefit is that strong community partnerships and relationships enable everyone to expand the human and material resources they have available within small, remote rural areas. The north coast has, for the past 15 years, faced significant economic challenges and declining population. Our population numbers, our levels of literacy and our economy are closely intertwined. During a long period of decreasing opportunities, many traditional supports within the community — resources, services and employment — also declined.

Budgets have been reduced, and cuts in major programs have affected everyone. Through challenging times and through potentially prosperous times, it is vital that organizations in communities like ours work together to support people in their quest for a good life.

Over time North Coast Literacy Now has established and expanded relationships that link us to local aboriginal communities, the aboriginal education council, the business sector, Welcome B.C., the Prince Rupert Port Authority, Success By 6, the school district, Northwest Community College, Association of Francophones and Francophiles Northwest, adult literacy and training programs, programs for people in poverty, Northern Health, the public library and other agencies focusing on literacy,
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learning and healthy communities.

In the light of vast economic, social and educational changes taking place in the northwest, these partnerships will enable organizations to learn from each other how best to contribute to the educational, training, employment and literacy needs of our communities and the province.

When we began our community literacy steering committee in 2005, we developed a vision for our work, which continues to guide us. Here is our vision.

We recognize that our diverse communities are located on traditional Tsimshian territory, and therefore, we envision the respectful development and integration of community resources ranging from individual, organizational and cultural to local, provincial and federal partnerships. This will be undertaken in an effort to broaden the potential of people in the region, through implementation of community-based programs that reduce barriers to the lifelong acquisition of knowledge and literacy.

We are proud that we have remained to true to this vision. Each year we celebrate the health and vitality of our communities as many organizations come together for a community celebration of literacy. This event attracts hundreds of people of all ages who are able to take part in activities and learn about the rich opportunities for learning available to them in our communities.

Again, we thank you for the funding that has been invested in community literacy over the past years. Each year, the $30,000 we receive through Decoda Literacy Solutions enables us to support and provide relevant programs, to leverage funds and resources and to build partnerships and relationships within our communities. Without the funding we receive from the B.C. government, we would not be able to continue.

We believe strongly that the work of community literacy groups across B.C. adds significant value to the province in exchange for the investment you make. We are not asking for an increase in the funding that has been invested in literacy through Decoda Literacy Solutions. We are asking that the $2.5 million that has been invested in past years be sustained for the coming year and for the following two to four years.

With ongoing funding, Decoda Literacy Solutions will be able to plan for and continue to provide leadership and support. With ongoing funding, community literacy task groups will be able to strengthen their ability to provide programs, leverage funding and build strong community partnerships. With assured funding over the coming crucial years, we are confident that literacy work throughout the province will continue to contribute to the ability of B.C. to meet current and future challenges of expanded training, education, employment and growth.

D. Ashton (Chair): Wow, perfect timing. Ten right on the nose, absolutely right to the second. Thank you.

G. Holman: Yes, you're a very good reader, Elizabeth. Well done. You get three stars from the committee.

I was particularly interested in the partnerships that you described. I mean, it's a good thing. You're adding value, and you're not overlapping, particularly the work in the Nass Valley. In a former life I worked with the Nisga'a on the fisheries component of their treaty.

I was interested. In terms of your work with First Nations, are you working on First Nations language with them, as well, when you involve the elders?

E. Wilson: Yes, all of our programs in the villages are obviously heavily steeped in culture. Through the funds that we've received, we have funded adult Sm'algyax programs for the Sm'algyax language, and we've also funded programs between elders and youth around passing on cultural knowledge.

G. Holman: I'm not sure if you're aware that there is some research being done at the University of Victoria about the relationship between literacy of First Nations in their own language and suicide rates. Suicide rates are much lower in communities where more than 50 percent have at least a conversational understanding of their language. So literacy has benefits well beyond just the reading and writing.

The Mother Goose program — apparently in Smithers they call it the Mother Moose program. So that's something to think about.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Elizabeth, for your presentation. I think all the community-based literacy groups have done a great job mobilizing. We've heard about the very interesting and diverse programs that operate right across the province. I commend you for your efforts — not easy in terms of the many diverse communities, so thanks for that.

My question is with respect…. We've heard from different literacy groups that certainly there is the focus on the hard literacy skills — reading and math. You mentioned an interesting project you have around cultural literacy. Do you prioritize other aspects of literacy? What's your experience?

E. Wilson: We actually focus on a very broad sense of literacy. Our definition around literacy is the ability to comprehend and understand one's environment through any number of different ways.

That obviously includes the traditional literacies of reading and writing and speaking and listening. It also includes literacies around citizenship, around culture,
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around technology and presumably even around artistic expression, if that were the case.

We have not yet had to turn away anybody who has asked us to support them or to partner with them around a program. We frequently are funding programs that fall outside of the formal education system, but we also work very, very closely with the formal education systems. The college, which you mentioned, is here and has been an excellent partner, as has the school district and the aboriginal education council.

Yes, we have a very broad sense of literacy, and we believe that it is basically the basis of being able to be both a good citizen and a good individual and a good family member, because as you are able to understand your world, you are much, much better able to take part in it.

M. Elmore: Yeah, I think it's a good message — literacy contributing to lifelong learning.

Have you seen people come through your programs better able to transition either to complete their high school or accessing post-secondary courses? Have you heard stories of that?

E. Wilson: The way our group works is that we have a plan and an annual report that basically talks about all of the key areas of literacy in our community that are enhanced through the community partnerships that are built.

We haven't run a particular program that has followed a person through that. But because of the partnerships that have built in our community — and we are part of that; we're not the sole part of it by any means — there have been huge opportunities for people to now move through the high school, working with the college and working through the port authority.

There's a huge amount of interaction around the preparing of people for the future in Prince Rupert, which as you know, is both very exciting but also is going to require a lot of working together.

Next up we have the Northwest Community College — Deborah Stava and Dr. Denise Henning.

D. Henning: Well, we had the wind behind us, so it was pushing us along from Terrace.

Mike is going to take over just at the start. I have to step out and take a quick call. Then I'll be right back.

D. Henning: First, as is our tradition, I would like to honour the traditional territory of the Allied Tribe, the Tsimshian people. That's the way we try to start everything that we do at Northwest Community College. Those are the homelands on which we're meeting today.

Northwest Community College is poised to move forward in meaningful ways. We call it the magic moment. All the stars are aligned in our region. Not only are we fiscally sustainable, but we're also moving in a direction of transformation and change that moves us to a proactive institution.

We're fully focused on what we call futurizing Northwest Community College as the thread that ties together our many diverse communities socially, economically and educationally.

We only have two things that we would like to just chat with you about today. The first thing is that we want to address some of the issues regarding formula funding and some changes that might be more appropriate in setting Northwest Community College up to be successfully meeting the needs of the learners.

As you heard from our literacy partner earlier, our learners here in the northwest region are the people who suffer from having the lowest numeracy and literacy rates. Therefore, there are multibarriered students that come forward.

We have some information in the packets that are given to you today on ways in which formula funding can be altered to look at more appropriate ways to set us up to successfully meet the needs of those learners.

Secondly, we want to talk about our claim to fame. One of our claims to fame is that we have the poorest buildings in the province. Our buildings, especially in our Terrace campus, are literally deteriorating into the ground. We have completed a proposal that will give us the ability to have the room for the infrastructure to teach and give us the ability to install and utilize new technologies currently being used in the fields that we're training for. Our facilities will target on trades, health services, and technology education and training.
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So those are really the two things that I wanted to bring forward, and just to thank you so much for the opportunity to see…. Some of you I've seen a few times, and it's nice to see you again. But really, I want to address any questions that you may have.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): Just a question on the funding formula. Are you looking for a change from sort of the block funding formula that we have right now to a more targeted funding formula, or a combination of both that recognizes some of the challenges that you face, for example, in barriered students or their ability to access post-secondary training and education?

D. Henning: That's a wonderful question, and thank you for asking it. Nicola Valley Institute, which is another partner institution that we work with extensively in meeting the needs of our First Nations communities, are funded specifically because of the high needs of the indigenous peoples which they serve.

Fifty percent of our student population is also First Nations, and as a result of that, our formula funding does not address the services that we need to provide to meet the needs of students who don't have a driver's licence, that come to us off reserve, that don't have the kind of support to set them up for success that they would have in their home communities. For example, the lack of child care, daycare, the lack of family housing.

Now, as we see our economic boom occurring before our eyes, occupancy and rental properties and safe and affordable rental properties for our learners is becoming a dire need. We see a lot of students that are sofa-surfing, and we're hearing about those every day.

That's one aspect. If we were funded for our aboriginal students as Nicola Valley Institute is funded, that would go a long way to help us to provide the needs.

Secondly, I'll give you two examples. We have a Houston Learning Centre in Houston, which was a campus that was at risk of closing when we had a layoff situation three years ago. As a result, we decided instead of closing it to do a pilot project for a learners centre.

In our learning centre at this branch, we have 3,200 members in the community in and around Houston. We have had such high success that we are scrambling to try to see how we can fix some of the issues that are good problems to have — for example, some of the students that were in alternative schools lost their site, so we opened up our other building at our Houston campus for a learning alternative school.

We have 28 students that are back in the system that formerly were not. We're partnering with the friendship centre to provide child daycare so that the single moms can have someone to watch their children. We have had over 1,000 students — 600 to 1,000 people individually — come through that learning centre. When it comes to FTEs, the FTE count is probably about 52.

However, we have also UBC students coming that are utilizing our services. They're taxpayers. They own that building, as far as I'm concerned. We have UBC students, we have UNBC students, we have Athabasca students, we have students that are coming to learn how to use the technology they just purchased, and we have partnerships with Finning and partnerships with Monster Industries to deliver trades training there. Much of that does not translate into FTEs. They don't count. That does not constitute success in the books as far as bums in seats.

For us, it constitutes great success from a rural and remote reality, and that's what we have to live with.

M. Hunt: In that context, I note in your presentation that you say staff in fact do provide assistance for taking on-line and self-directed studies no matter what institution they're registered in. My question is: for you at the Northwest College, what percentage of your courses are either on line or done by video?

D. Henning: I would say that probably about 14 percent would be done through technology approaches, so video conferencing. However, we have what we call distributed learning. This is where we deliver directly into our communities. For example, Seabridge Gold donated $100,000, which gave us a mobile seven-trades ability to go into the community, on the back of a pickup, into Metlakatla or Kitkatla and deliver a trade there directly in the community.

Because most of the electricity for those communities, as well as Haida Gwaii, is delivered through diesel, we don't have the capacity or the technology ability to deliver on line and to deliver through video conferencing. We suffer packet loss. As a result of that, we have to not only look at distributed learning from the perspective of technology but from the ability of delivering right in the community where people live so that they have daycare and they have housing.

The other things that we do are…. For example, we send our instructors into the community, and they live in the community for however many weeks they need to do so in order to deliver a program. We have field schools that take everything outside of the classroom, so the students are going into Dease Lake and Telegraph Creek, Haida Gwaii, down into the reality of the environment in which they live.

When you ask the question about technology delivery, the capacity in the northwest region, as in the northeast as well, is very limited, so we are very creative at throwing away the box.

M. Hunt: Okay, then, let's rephrase the question. You've given me a number for on line in that technology
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ability. Give me the distributed learning side, then.

M. Elmore: Thanks for your presentation. To follow up with your recommendation of a funding formula change, we've heard from a number of rural colleges the need to reflect that challenge of operating multiple campuses across a wide geographic area. That's one component. But the specific recommendation to fund for the high proportion of aboriginal students — this is the first time that I'm familiar with that. Is that a new recommendation, or is it in the context of the overall college recommendations coming forward?

D. Henning: That's a good question too. You guys are just great with good questions.

This is something that we had a discussion with the ministry on two years ago, and we demonstrated through that how the decision to fund Nicola Valley Institute and the multibarriered students was based on a factor of accessibility. So this is not a new thing for our ministry, but it is a new thing that we've brought forward to the committee.

I do want to emphasize in the formula funding that we have ASP dollars and other mechanisms where we get one-time or temporary funding, but it doesn't give us the ability to plan, and it doesn't give us the ability to project three to five years down the road.

Why is that important? It's important because LNG projects…. All of these industries are signing agreements with our First Nations partners right here in my region. They have to follow through on that, and Northwest Community College has the people that are really the experts at helping to deliver in this region. We want to be able to help everybody meet their goal regardless of whether it's industry, business, entrepreneurship, our First Nations partners, literacy. Our goal is to help knock down barriers so that they can be successful.

J. Yap: Yeah, last time we met I understand that Northwest Community College was starting the beginnings of an international student program. You had, I believe, two or three students from overseas, and there was some hope that you could grow that. I'm curious how that's going for the college.

D. Henning: Thank you for asking that. We have an increase again in our international students. In comparison to our partners in the south, we're quite small.

However, what I want to focus on is what we have found as a niche that we're working with IECBC on. It's working on partnering with our industries in order to have the ability to assess the skills of immigrant workers that are already here. We want to do that. We feel we have the ability to create an inclusive environment that can help find solutions for the workforce that's needed here in the northwest.

I think that's going to be a great strategic niche. I would never, ever allow in Northwest Community College to see international students as a cash cow. For me, it has to make a difference, and I think that is a niche that will definitely make a difference. It's a win-win situation for everyone. For us, a partnership is one plus one equals three. I'm a math and science person.

G. Holman: Just a quick one. Thank you for your presentation. No one has asked you about your capital portion of your proposal to the committee. Could you just quickly describe that?

I wanted to kind of make a connection with Des Nobels's point about the revenue-sharing. Traditionally, it's been fairly narrowly defined in terms of, say, sharing with local governments and not necessarily sharing with sectors beyond that. I wondered if you have been making that connection and if you've been talking to either governments or the LNG proponents about revenue-sharing for educational facilities.

D. Henning: We have, and thank you for saying that. We are not only partnering with our municipal governments and our municipal on the ground, but we're also working directly with our school district, with recreation, with the library and with the health services. The facility is going to be one where we currently are replacing our current space. We're not asking for anything more; we're just asking to replace what we have. It exceeded its live capacity 12 years ago, and it would cost more to bring it up to code than its value would be.

We want to propose to partner with multiple entities to have a medical facility, a trades facility and technology. We have medical and trades now working side by side in a dilapidated building that also has child daycare, so we need to replace this. It has to be replaced. It's not an option. It's deteriorating into the ground.

We are working side by side with our partners, and we find that we can do so much more when we work together and it meets all our needs.

D. Ashton (Chair): If you don't mind a first-name basis, Debbie and Dr. Denise, thank you very much for coming.

D. Henning: Just Denise is good. I'm only "Doctor" to
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people I don't like. I'm just teasing. That's a joke.

D. Ashton (Chair): We have the Prince Rupert Port Authority here. Ken, welcome. Please come forward. That would be great.

Sir, 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 or comments from the committee.

K. Veldman: Welcome, to the committee. Thank you for the opportunity. I know some of you have been here to the port before and to the community before. For those that haven't, a typical Prince Rupert day for you — a little bit of everything, to say the least. We're really pleased to have the entire committee here today.

I'm going to quickly run through a background on the port and then get more specifically into some of the challenges we see moving forward and their applicability to the provincial government.

The port authority is a bit of a weird animal. It's the exact same structure in every port authority across the country. They were, I guess, creatures of federal legislation that were created in the late '90s. Our mission is to develop and grow the port — in this case, the Port of Prince Rupert — in an aggressive, economical, safe and environmentally sound manner.

We have four primary terminals — our lines of business, so to speak. In energy, we have a coal terminal that also ships petroleum coke. Agrifood, through Prince Rupert Grain and the terminal there, primarily dealing with wheat, canola and barley. Biofuels — some of you may have noticed the construction that's happening just outside the windows here up the inner harbour. Pinnacle Renewable Energy is building a wood pellet terminal that should be in operation within the month, actually. We ship a lot of forestry goods, primarily in a containerized fashion, through Fairview. That is primarily dimensional lumber and pulp, largely out of B.C.'s interior.

A number of other containerized exports have an origin that ranges from as far away as the U.S. Gulf Coast and the southeast of our neighbours to the south all the way out to our own east coast.

On the import side, through intermodal we import a lot of different consumer and manufactured goods, obviously primarily from Asian origins, into destinations that, again, range as far as Toronto and Montreal to the east in Canada and to the south as far as Chicago and Memphis and a number of points in between.

Our success really is B.C.'s success. In 2012 we shipped over 22 million tonnes of cargo. Importantly, that represents over $5 billion in Canadian exports that flow through here. Our economic impact studies that we've analyzed…. There are about 2,200 direct jobs that are created from shipping those products through this province and through the Port of Prince Rupert. More specifically, that's about $290 million created in GDP and over $11 million in related tax revenues that flow to the provincial government from that activity.

To give you a brief background on the business environment, there are some real key strategic advantages, regardless of the line of business, why shippers use this port. First and foremost, it is the closest marine distance to Asia on the coast of North America. That speed element and the cost implications have always been core to our strategic advantage.

On the land side, we have really a superior uncongested rail connection into North America. The CN network gives us access to 95 percent of the Canadian population and over 75 percent of the U.S. population. The quality of that connection is just as important as the marine side.

We have one of the deepest natural harbours in North America, so the ability to bring in the ever-increasing size of ships in the Pacific theatre, as well as manage the growth associated with that, is well within our means. We have a very safe, sheltered, short access to open ocean. Two hours of piloted waters bring you into Prince Rupert. Any approaching commercial ship needs to make one turn before it makes terminal.

Last but certainly not least in terms of our real core strategic advantages, we've got exceptional community and labour support and alignment within this community for port development and port operations.

We've seen a really strong growth rate since 2007. In 2009 we were at ten million tonnes. We'll be well over 22 million tonnes by the end of this year and approaching 25 million. That rate of growth is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

The growth has been a function of, really, three factors here: being recognized as a North American gateway and making a transition from what was traditionally a resource port, closest port to tidewater largely dealing with B.C.-based exports, and growing that market out to becoming a true North American gateway.

Obviously, the rise of China and the growing economic strength in Asia have been a large function of that demand for natural resources. It has really grown west coast exports across the board, but there's been a real lack of North American bulk capacity on the west coast. What we can provide here in Prince Rupert in terms of the land available for development and combining that with our strategic advantages for shipping have done us really well.

In the short term our existing capacity has really enabled rapid response. I know you all know the story very well of the transition that B.C.'s forest industry has made into Chinese markets. One of the key reasons that transition was able to be handled so quickly is because we had existing capacity here within our container terminal. That access to Asia was key in the time frame of being able to achieve that.

In the medium term we're seeing expansion projects at the coal terminal, RTI, and the Fairview Container Terminal. And in the longer term, and by longer term I mean into the two- to three-year area, we're starting to see new terminal solutions move forward — potash, biofuel, LNG and other Canadian resources as well.

That workforce that I referred to drives the port and the corridor's success. Of those 2,200 jobs, it's important to know where they come from. Those are direct jobs. In Prince Rupert that means marine jobs, out on the water. It means terminal jobs, longshoring jobs.

That extends along the corridor as well. Of those 2,200 jobs, you'll probably find about a third of them here in Prince Rupert, about a third of them in Prince George, relating to logistics and railroading, and then another third that are really spread along the communities of the corridor, in transportation and logistics work.

I hope I've painted a picture of prosperity here, because that's certainly what we're seeing at the port and, I think, what the community is sharing in as well. Continuing to increase seaport capacity on the west coast is really critical to trade. It's a critical economic issue here in B.C. It's a critical employment issue. The port offers a competitive alternative that has realized a timely response to Asian demand.

Our capacity for growth, our land for development and the community support for industry provide the ingredients for a long-term, market-based, market-financed solution. Its ability to achieve this promises prosperity for communities across B.C.

The port authority is going to make the following recommendation to the government of B.C., and there's a document that the PRPA has submitted to the provincial government along these lines.

Number one is maintaining a strategic focus on trade corridors. You know, that focus has been there for several years and has really been a key to B.C.'s success as a gateway. Coordination of multiple partners in ports along the supply chain with rail, with trucking has really been able to lever a lot of private sector dollars into common infrastructure. The provincial government needs to continue to show leadership in future gateway development through timely policy and strategic investment in critical infrastructure that enhances the competitiveness of gateways, and the Prince Rupert gateway in particular.

More specifically, this leadership needs to include continued participation in new, common-user infrastructure similar to the province's recent investment in the road-rail utility corridor at Ridley Island; moving forward on expanding highway capacity for cargo needs, both on a project-cargo basis and a heavy-lift basis; and the integration of provincial Crown lands that are adjacent to the port into gateway planning.

Similarly, the importance of collaboration on that land use planning is critical to unlocking the development potential of the port and the export industries in B.C. that rely on it. We've got a real opportunity here to bring scarce land to market that's dedicated to gateway-related development, and we can design and maintain that gateway with an eye to mitigating future conflicts.

Successful planning around land in this area will ensure that no individual project impairs the performance of existing or future operations, impairs the interface with communities or impairs the effectiveness and integration of the gateway as a whole.

What I mean by that is you look up and down the coast. You've seen ports established and big urban areas grow around them, and they've almost been a victim of their own success, right? You see land use conflicts playing out. You've seen the efficiency and effectiveness of those corridors essentially choking themselves off. And significant investment has been required to try and improve the effectiveness of those gateways.

What we have here is the potential to really use a blank canvas and paint a gateway that promises to mitigate a lot of those issues we've seen, make sure we don't repeat some of those same errors and ensure that what we're doing now in the short term doesn't impact or impair what we're doing in the long term. That's about planning on the front end.

Two final points. One is recognizing the challenge that many northern communities face as they deal with growth issues. A lot of northern communities are on the cusp of significant growth, including here in Prince Rupert and Port Edward, and they're going to be grappling to deal with a lot of aspects of rapid change, including economic, social and infrastructure issues.

That poor economic decade makes them particularly ill-equipped to deal with them. The port believes a commitment to our communities needs to be shared by all of our public and private sector partners. Strategic investment in public health, safety, education, training, congestion, municipal government efficiency, quality of life are going to be critical to positive transitions, continuing that supportive community aspect we have and, ultimately, successful projects.

Last but not least, our growth to date has largely been within existing capacity, and now we're seeing new projects being developed. Facilitating private sector investment requires the certainty of a major project review process. Any lack of certainty around standards and timeline infuses risk into that investment equation. It impairs the probability of a final investment decision.
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It impairs the ability for all of us to plan for that as well.

I want to be clear. We're not advocating for anything less than world-class standards for environmental, health and safety concerns. A clear, relevant, evidence-based review process that offers a reasonable level of predictability is critical, and resource dedicated to integrating, refining, supporting those processes should be viewed as an investment with a significant promise of return, not just an expense.

D. Ashton (Chair): Sir, thank you very much. You had a bit of an overrun, but we've got enough time for a few questions.

S. Hamilton: Thank you for your presentation. I live in and represent a community that has a significantly large port — a very large port, Deltaport. You talked about the partnerships going forward. You spoke about the contributions that a port can make. In Delta the port has a significant impact on my community and the communities around me, of course, particularly with regard to the trucking and rail components.

What contributions do you make here in Prince Rupert with respect to infrastructure around you and the way you impact the community as a whole? I could speak at length about the contributions that Deltaport makes. Can you tell me some of the things that you're doing here to help make the lives better of the people who live in the community?

K. Veldman: Absolutely. It runs well beyond the argument of employment or economic benefit. I use this example for us: we've established a community investment fund here where we take a portion of our net income on an annual basis, and we put it into this fund that's dedicated towards assisting capital projects that improve the quality of life here in Prince Rupert and the region.

Over the last three years we've donated over $1.2 million into that. That's gone towards projects that vary as widely as new soccer fields, improvements to the performing arts centre here, medical equipment, equipment for the Shames Mountain ski hill and a large variety of projects along that basis.

On a continual basis, whether it be in that kind of investment, whether it be through donations in support of local community groups or whether it be integration with the local education system, developing school curriculum — things along those lines — we believe it's absolutely part of our job. It maintains that connection with the community — that economic development isn't just about a job. It's about ensuring that when you look around you, your quality of life is improving.

M. Hunt: You raise the issue of capacity a number of times in your presentation. Can you tell me where you are in capacity at the port today?

K. Veldman: For most of our terminals we're starting to approach our capacity limits. It varies from terminal to terminal and cargo to cargo.

That being said, what you're seeing right now is Ridley Terminals Inc., one of our partners, expanding its capacity from 12 million to 24 million tonnes because they're essentially operating at full capacity.

If you take a look at the Fairview Container Terminal, we're operating around 70 to 75 percent capacity right now. We are, with our partners, implementing a number of incremental improvements to improve that capacity. But on a much larger basis, we're advancing a project to expand that terminal from approximately 750,000 TEU capacity right now. That would get it up to 1.2 million. So you're seeing a number of existing terminals expand that capacity.

Just as importantly on the rail side, CN has a lot of room to grow as well. It's, I dare say, in the neighbourhood of 25 to 30 percent capacity right now with a lot of room to grow, and they continually make investments across northern B.C. to improve that capacity in rail.

Just before we go to a recess I'd like to recognize Gary Coons, a former MLA. Sir, thank you. A pleasure. Good to see you.

D. Ashton (Chair): Welcome, city of Prince Rupert. Corinne, thank you very much for coming. It's ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning if I think it's going to be a little bit longer. We have up to five minutes for questions or comments from the committee. The floor is yours.

C. Bomben: As mentioned before, my name is Corinne Bomben. I am the chief financial officer with the city of Prince Rupert. I'm here today to talk about our municipal infrastructure. That is our main need. Our municipal infrastructure provides the foundation for our community and our economy.

We are currently in an area where there is much interest for the expansion of the resource-based transportation industry. These industries will require quality roads and bridges and community services, as well as reliable water and sewer services. All of these foundations are extremely aged, and given the economy in Prince Rupert
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over the past 15 years, have been principally patched or replaced on an emergency basis. Because of our past practice of only being in the financial position to be reactionary, we now find ourselves in a position where much of our infrastructure is buckling under the stress.

Our city has identified three categories that require urgent attention. Our water system needs upgrading. We have a 100-year-old dam and raw water supply line. This line and dam are located off-island. Access to the dam is by foot at a distance of 1.5 kilometres through the bush. Any emergency response to ruptures is hampered by our inability to access the water line or the dam quickly. Since there is no road bringing in heavy machinery to replace damaged sections, as happened I think approximately four years ago, the logistical challenges and costs are extreme.

Some of our redundancy pumps in the event of waterline damage are so old that the original manufacturers told us to call a museum if we need parts. Since our water supply comes from off-island, we have two submarine lines that come from Kaien Island to service the city. They are susceptible to anchor drag, with the oldest line being over 50 years old.

We have identified that to replace the components of the water system, upgrade the dam and put in an access road will cost taxpayers approximately $12 million. In addition to the main system, approximately 25 percent of our main trunk water systems in the city are pre-1925 lines.

Transportation is another main one for us. We have three wooden trestle bridges that are over 70 years old. We have boasted to the Premier that we are the world authority on keeping them going. These are to be replaced at a cost of approximately $2 million each. We expect the load limits for these bridges will be downgraded in the interest of public safety. Two of these bridges connect two of our major subdivisions.

Liquid waste regulations are requiring our community to do secondary treatment of our liquid waste. We currently don't even have primary treatment. We have 12 direct outflows into the harbour. The treatment facilities that will be required and the separation of the storm and sewer lines are estimated at approximately $130 million. The deterioration of our existing infrastructure, the pending industrial developments and related work and job creation create an immediate and continuing need for public infrastructure.

Our city is made up of approximately 14,000 people. Our people can't do this alone. With industrial developments years from adding to our community's tax base, Prince Rupert lacks the revenue to invest in the infrastructure that will enable the economic development to support the unprecedented interest for industrial development in the northwest.

D. Ashton (Chair): Corinne, thanks. So 12 direct outflows. Is there no treatment whatsoever?

D. Ashton (Chair): So there's no screening in the community whatsoever. It's just straight discharge.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Corinne. We've heard presentations from the regional district — electoral district A, from the Queen Charlottes — and also similar narrative, I think, from the port authority in terms of the need for infrastructure investment to support the rapid growth. Thanks for the detailed breakdown here.

Are any of your three priorities…? Have you successfully been able to negotiate plans around implementing any of these? What's the status of these?

C. Bomben: Well, we're doing what we can with regards to the water line, of course, because having water available to the community is number one for us. Obviously, without having the water, then we can't actually successfully do the liquid waste management plan. We are in the process of doing the liquid waste management plan. I believe it needs to be submitted by the end of this year. We just need to get to the financial piece and plan that one out.

The water line is first and foremost. With the deadlines that are due for the liquid waste treatment, that is probably going to be the next one.

We do expect that we need to actually replace the bridges. We're doing what we can to maintain them, but a replacement will be forthcoming. That might be third, for complete replacement, on the list.

M. Elmore: In terms of the financial, the budget side, have you secured the funds for that? What's the status? You're negotiating with the province and federal….

C. Bomben: No, we haven't even gone towards a loan or anything. What we've done is that recently, at the UBCM, we came down just to mention that this was urgent need. With 14,000 people, we certainly couldn't afford it ourselves. Even going to a loan for $130 million is going to be incredibly, for lack of a better word, taxing on the citizens and on all the businesses.
[ Page 570 ]

Northwest Community College. Welcome, and thank you for coming today. Presentations are up to ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questions of the committee.

M. Jensen: First, I'd like to recognize that we're here on Tsimshian territory. I'm representing the Northwest Community College Students Union, so not the college but the students union.

My name is Mikael Jensen, as it says on this lovely card here. I'm the organizer for the students union in this region. Our members make up Local 66 of the Canadian Federation of Students. We represent members right here in Rupert, Terrace, Hazelton, Smithers and Houston. We also represent and work for students on the Kitimat campus. However, since some significant budget cuts over the last couple of years, there are no longer regular programs running in Kitimat.

The regular programming I'm speaking of specifically was the career and college prep program — Northwest Community College adult basic education. It's called CCP or career and college prep. I'm going to be focusing on that a little bit later on in the presentation here.

Obviously, you guys have probably heard, from going around the province, that funding is key to improving both access to and quality of post-secondary education. For many years now per-student funding has been reduced, with much of the difference being made up by increases to tuition fees. We recognize that cuts to funding and increases to tuition fees are related. Our college is, obviously, equally strapped for cash and has not seen an increase to core funding that's been equal to inflation since the year 2002.

Our members have identified several priorities. I'm going to list those out for you guys and talk about them a little bit more as we go on.

One would be a reduction of tuition fees to 2001 levels, and that would be adjusted to inflation; as well, the establishment of an upfront, needs-based provincial grants program and with that, the elimination of interest rates on B.C. student loans and the restoration of operating funding to 2001 levels, which is kind of key to all of these changes. That accounts for inflation too. Also, we're looking at encouraging you guys to maintain and expand a commitment to keep adult basic education tuition fee–free.

We've been calling for awhile now for a reorganization of the Industry Training Authority governance structure, and we're glad to hear that that's happening. But the one thing that we want to see go along with that is an increase of funding from the ITA for trades programs.

This is a short history on tuition fees. In 1990 the average in B.C. was just over $1,700, and it has passed the $5,000 mark this year. That's about a 300 percent increase in one generation. In fact, students today are paying more for post-secondary than ever before and a much higher percentage of the costs than ever before. So fees are a barrier, and most new jobs, as we know, require some form of post-secondary education.

For those who can still access post-secondary, high fees have caused debt to hit record levels. I would say that before tuition fees began to skyrocket to where they are today, students had already paid back the full cost of their degrees to the government, and we did so through the progressive taxation system. We recognize that we already pay for the full cost of our education through the taxes that we pay post-graduation, and we do pay tax for going to school as well.

That's how government financed post-secondary education for most of you. For students today, what we're asking for is equal access, as the last generations have had. There are tax credits and things like that, but the point is that you can't pay for your tuition fees with a tax credit. So we're looking for support that's up front — increased funding to our institutions, reduced tuition fees, a needs-based grant system and the elimination of interest on student loans.

B.C. now has the prestigious place of having the highest debt in the country. It averages $37,000 upon completion of a four-year degree. That's about $10,000 above the national average. We feel that this debt has an adverse effect on the province's economy. Students are now entering the workforce with a debt level that's unprecedented. We're suggesting it's going to delay people buying a home or starting a family or investing in a business venture or anything like that.

The high student debt also impacts academic achievement and program completion. There's a researcher out of UBC named Lori McElroy. She did some studying and found that completion rates for students with debt under $1,000 was 71 percent, whereas if students had debts of over $10,000, that percentage dropped to 34 percent completion.

In B.C., students also pay the highest amount of interest on their student loans in the country. It's prime plus 2½ percent. This actually means that students who can afford to pay for their tuition fees up front pay no interest to government, but a low-income student who needs a student loan will actually pay thousands of dollars in interest. And that revenue is around $30 million for the province.

Again, we believe that increased per-student funding is the key to solving these problems that I've been out-
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lining today, the student debt problem in particular. We have seen an erosion in per-student funding at our college, and this has led to some pretty significant program cuts over the last couple of years.

It's funny. At most institutions budget cuts usually protect direct classroom learning options, and they often opt to make cuts to academic and support services. But actually, over the last few years at our institution NWCC has been doing the opposite of that.

Just a couple of things to note. Our business administration program — the electives for that have been cut in half. We lost 30 percent of the university credit courses over the last year.

I think the worst thing yet is that we lost 55 percent of our adult basic education faculty. At the same time that the adult basic education faculty was cut by 55 percent, all of the ABE courses have switched from being instructor-led to being at your own pace. Our members are suffering from these cuts. We'd rather see instructor-led courses than at your own pace.

Adult basic education is the key for many of our members, and the success of that program is actually crucial for the success of all programs at NWCC. As you probably know, ABE is the gateway into post-secondary education and trades programs.

We obviously have a skilled worker shortage in this area, and increased investment into this most basic program is what's needed. This will ensure that the number of students required to run the other programs are prepared and ready to enter those programs. This is the program people get — grade 10 prerequisites and that type of thing — to enter trades.

M. Jensen: Students in ABE are most often students who either dropped out of high school or just need certain courses to start a business, university credit or trades programs. There are no tuition fees for ABE, but ancillary fees are still applied.

These fees do vary quite greatly across the province. An example: if you do an ABE at VIU, you're paying $7. That's for a year. At NWCC that'll cost you $169. Obviously, that doesn't sound like a lot of money, but you need to consider that a lot of these folks are currently living under the poverty line and also have families to support.

As you know, 36 percent of adults in B.C. are illiterate, and this number is higher in our area. Adult basic education is an integral part of B.C.'s education system. It increases literacy, improves high school completion rates and increases post-secondary participation rates among B.C.'s aboriginal population.

Across B.C. 59 percent of ABE students are women, 29 percent support a family, and 71 percent of students in the system live below the poverty line. Half of these students are employed full-time while they're taking classes.

In conclusion here, the major cuts at our college came down at the same time as the government launched the recent jobs plan. So in the same year we saw massive cuts to core programming and newer programs being funded on our campus. These new short-term, skills-focused programs may fill very short-lived needs, but they don't provide the necessary training with which to start and found a career.

They also fail to counteract the long-term shortage of qualified, skilled workers in B.C. We feel that in order to build a skilled workforce in B.C., government needs to provide educational opportunities from the most basic all the way to Red Seal trades.

We suggest that rather than lowering the entry bar into trades programs, government should increase and dedicate funding for students to get to the necessary level to actually start a career in the trades. This will require some improved ABE programming and increased funding from the ITA for Red Seal trades programs.

I'll probably leave it at that and just say thank you for your time. I'm open to any questions you guys may have, and we're going to forward along a written statement.

D. Ashton (Chair): Perfect. October 16 — make sure we get it before that, please. That's the cutoff on it.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Mikael, for your presentation. We've heard that message from a number of other colleges and universities around the importance of ABE, adult basic education. I think your presentation was the most detailed and comprehensive, so I appreciate that. Excellent presentation.

My question. I don't know if it's too detailed. We heard from a number of faculty associations the recommendation to go back to targeted versus general funding. Is that within the scope of what you're looking at in terms of improving ABE funding?

M. Jensen: Yeah. I think the decisions that are made by the administration…. It would be nice if there was some kind of targeted funds or rules for what those funds can be used for when they do come to the institution. That's something our members would be in favour of, if it was
[ Page 572 ]
to guarantee a certain amount of seats for adult basic education — specifically instructor-led rather than at your own pace.

M. Elmore: You mentioned to improve adult basic education programming. Did you have some specific ideas around that?

M. Jensen: Yeah. The main thing, really, is how the programs are taught. The way it works right now at our institution is that there'll be a math section with anywhere from grade 8 level to the grade 11 or 12 level in the same classroom, all vying for the attention of the instructor. Trying to teach multiple levels is obviously difficult. We've seen that in split classes and whatnot.

That's the specific recommendation — that we have instructor-led rather than self-paced.

D. Ashton (Chair): Mikael, great presentation. Just a question. What are you taking yourself?

M. Jensen: Thanks. I actually work for the students union. I graduated from Vancouver Island University, from the bachelor of natural resource protection program.

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay. Good. Well, thank you again. It was a good presentation. Just make sure you make that cutoff date, okay?

The presentation time is ten minutes. I'll give you an eight-minute warning if I think you're going to be close, if I can see. Then we have up to five minutes for questions. So please start when you can.

P. Davenport: Okay. I was here about this time last year. I don't know how many of you were here last year, and I only learned yesterday that you were going to be here today. I thought: "Oh my god, what can I say that's different? Everything is the same." Not even the same. Many things are worse. So what I did was change the date on my paper, and you're going to receive the same one again.

But I appreciated, when I looked at the report from last year, that there were some things that you got — that Prince Rupert "cited high demands for their services and the need for additional resources for detox beds, treatment centres and transition services."

Great. I'm glad you got that. But what you didn't was the point of this paper. This is the B.C. Medical Association policy paper entitled Stepping Forward: Improving Addiction Care in British Columbia. I don't expect you to read it now, just to know it's there. It's very readable. It's very relevant and informative.

I'm a retired nurse. I came to Prince Rupert to work in 1975, and I worked in one way or another as a nurse and counsellor in the hospital and the community until the end of 2004. In 2005, I started doing volunteer work for the RCMP-based victim services as a grief counsellor. On a volunteer basis, I continue to do grief support groups.

Now I do my support groups in the Salvation Army area, because people need to be free to drop in to a group. The issues around grief in this community are so huge, and almost everything is related in one way or another to addictions.

This is a social problem. It's a huge problem up here. But it's also a huge problem for us all socially, and we're going to have to pay attention to it.

I was asked about statistics last year, and I thought: "Oh my god, where do I start?" Since I only had since last night and this morning to look around, I appreciated how impossible that is.

Almost all suicides that we have are related to addictions in one way or another. I checked with victim services, because they're my people, and I can talk to them. This year, just going through victim services, there have been five suicide attempts and two completed suicides. Winter hasn't come yet.

These are just people who are referred through the RCMP, who are victims of crime, directly or indirectly. The people who are not referred, who are not presenting themselves as problems, don't come to us. They come to us later, very often.

What happens in the villages when people kill themselves…. They're a federal problem. I go to the hospital. The hospital emergency room doesn't keep stats like that. Medical records only keep stats around people who are admitted to the hospital, so if they come in dead already, they don't go to medical records. So it's not a suicide stat.

So where do we get our information? What we know is that it's a huge problem. For sure, it's wonderful to have these great programs where you address the issue upstream, before people become addicted. But when you consider that upstream is age 13, where do you start? The thing that is wonderful and so encouraging about the BCMA policy document is that it identifies addictions as a biological, treatable, chronic, generally progressive disease.

When I first read this paper — it came out in 2008 — I was really excited, and I started talking to people about it. I went to address the Friendship House, to the group of seniors there. Some of them said: "Well, we know that. We know it's an illness. Why did it take this long for them to recognize it?"

We have to pay attention to addictions. What happens
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is that the effect of the drug — drugs, whatever — affects the brain, and the brain pathways eventually are changed so that the pleasure pathways become dependent on the drug to achieve a feeling of well-being. Because we have so many problems, people are so vulnerable when they are so full of pain. They can't handle it. This stuff is all over the place. It's like a contagious disease.

The earlier the substance or substances used are started, so the younger the person is, and the choice of the drug and the method of taking the drug — whether it is by IV injection or whether it's snorting it or whether it's ingesting it by mouth — will make a difference as to how quickly they become addicted. We have to pay attention. This is physical. Once they become physically addicted and the brain is affected, this is no longer a psychosocial problem.

Someone can't come to the emergency room and say, "Doc, I need help," and then the doctor says, "We're full. We don't have beds right now. What you have to do is go home and pull up your socks. Here's a couple of Ativan. Stop drinking. Go to an AA meeting," or another kind of support meeting.

The point is that we have to pay attention. We have what we call harm reduction. The original intent of harm reduction was so that the people who were helping the addict — whoever the caregivers are within the system — become engaged with the addict, so as the addict stops using the needles…. They get their clean needles. They return the old needles. The system is engaged, develops a trusting relationship and helps them find help so that eventually, as they're ready to change, they have the help.

Here all they do is give needles to anybody who wants them. They're talking about giving free crack pipes because you might get a mouth infection or something. Give us a break. We have to pay attention. This is physical.

This is a good document. We need to take it as seriously as we do diabetes and heart disease. That's my point.

D. Ashton (Chair): Peggy, thanks. You reinforced something that we heard in another community that we were in, where a mother brought forward a passionate plea not only for her son that was failing because of addictions but also for a lot of other people that need to be represented and helped in the health care system. You've just given me another insight into it, so thank you for that presentation you've done.

We get presentations at the Legislature from different groups all the time. Both sides of the House do. One of the things that has come up…. The medical profession, in general, seems to want to treat addiction with drugs and doesn't seem to be as supportive of abstinence programs as some other parts of the community that are trying to help.

P. Davenport: We need to be supportive of people who want to abstain. There is a social need to change our outlook about addictions. Instead of thinking of addictions as a character defect, as a personality defect, we have to think about it as a total picture. The trouble is it's a part of our whole social makeup.

The doctors are only able to do what they have control over. When a doctor says, "This person needs treatment in a treatment centre," I will provide the medication to help them along. But they need more than that. They need to be in a hospital. They need to be in a detox centre. They need a treatment centre — whatever. Then they have other people to work with.

But if the only thing they have to help people with is a prescription pad, that's what they do.

M. Elmore: Thanks, Peggy, for your presentation. Do you have here in Prince Rupert and the area any beds allocated for detoxification or addiction?

P. Davenport: We have none. If someone is presenting to the emergency room and their life is in danger — they're going to die for reasons of severe withdrawal symptoms — they'll be admitted to the hospital. But we don't have any detox here.

Our detox is in Prince George. If someone can make it on the bus to Prince George all the way, shaking and sweating, that's a good thing. But then they have to be sure there's a bed waiting for them, because they're limited too.

M. Elmore: Yeah, here in the report it says — this is a good stat; it brings home that point: "Each year B.C. uses enough hospital beds for substance abuse care to fill Kelowna General Hospital every day for a year." I think it makes that point.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.

1) Judy Fraser
2) Skeena–Queen Charlotte Regional District (Electoral Area 'A')	Des Nobels
3) North Coast Literacy Now	Elizabeth Wilson
4) Northwest Community College	Debbie Stava
	Dr. Denise Henning

6) City of Prince Rupert	Corinne Bomen
7) Northwest Community College Students' Union	Mikael Jensen
8) Peggy Davenport

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

Witnesses:	Corinne Bomben (City of Prince Rupert)
	Peggy Davenport
	Judy Fraser
	Dr. Denise Henning (President and CEO, Northwest Community College)
	Mikael Jensen (Northwest Community College Students Union)
	Des Nobels (Skeena–Queen Charlotte Regional District)
	Debbie Stava (Northwest Community College)
	Ken Veldman (Prince Rupert Port Authority)
	Elizabeth Wilson (North Coast Literacy Now)

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