Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 32 — Monday, September 15, 2014 (HTML)

Present: Dan Ashton, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Eric Foster, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Gary Holman, MLA; Mike Morris, MLA; Jane Jae Kyung Shin, MLA; John Yap, MLA

2. Resolved, that Carole James, MLA, be elected Deputy Chair of Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. (George Heyman, MLA)

4. The Minister of Finance, Hon. Michael de Jong, Q.C. appeared before the Committee, presented the Budget 2015 Consultation Paper and answered questions.

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

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES


CONTENTS
Page
Election of Deputy Chair	695
Presentation by Minister of Finance	696
Hon. M. de Jong
Presentations	701
D. Jarvis
H. Lindsay
D. Ainsley
C. Grad
N. Bottles
C. Powell
J. Sterk
C. Welch
P. Lockie
B. Le Clair
J. Taylor
M. Kehler
B. Carter
S. Philp
P. Weyer
T. Parkinson
R. Wright
S. Corbeil
E. Stensholt
L. Neel
R. Bettauer
B. Danskin
J. Powell
M. Brisdon
R. Grant
S. Stovel
V. Tregillus
T. Bokor
G. Bell

D. Ashton (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for coming today, and welcome back after a wonderful summer in British Columbia. I would just like to, first of all, welcome all committee members, but a special welcome to the new MLAs that are sitting here today: MLAs Jane Shin, Carole James and George Heyman. Also, MLAs Mike Morris and Simon Gibson have joined the committee, so welcome and thank you very much. I'm looking forward to working with each and every one.

Today is a logistics day, unfortunately. There have been some issues for the minister to get back from the Mainland to here. And just a heads-up for everybody: we have a logistics issue trying to get into our next port of call, Prince Rupert, tonight because of fog. Susan is working diligently trying to ensure that we do have transportation to get into Prince Rupert at some point this evening, but it may be a bit of a side detour.

What I would like to say is that the minister is coming a.s.a.p. There are a few things that we have to do, first of all, to get through to start the meeting.

I would also like to welcome those in the gallery. Thank you for coming, and thank you for being early today.

D. Ashton (Chair): What I will do is turn this over to Susan regarding the election of the vice-Chair. I'll do it? Okay. I got the signal.

First on the agenda is to elect the Deputy Chair for the committee, and I would look to MLA Heyman. Sir?

G. Heyman: I'd like to nominate Carole James, the MLA for Victoria–Beacon Hill.

Are there any other nominations for Deputy Chair? I'll call once. Are there any other nominations for Deputy Chair? Twice. For the third and final time: any other nominations for Deputy Chair?

Seeing none, congratulations. I'm looking forward to working with you. Thank you very much.

D. Ashton (Chair): First of all, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dan Ashton. I'm the MLA for Penticton and the Chair of this committee, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We're an all-party parliamentary committee of the Legislative Assembly with a mandate to hold provincewide public consultations on the next provincial budget. The consultations are based on the budget consultation paper that is released by the Minister of Finance, and following the consultations, the committee will release a report with recommendations for Budget 2015 no later than November 15, 2014.

This year we are holding 17 public hearings in communities across the province. A video conference session has also been scheduled for October 8 to hear from three additional communities, which are Dawson Creek, Quesnel and Smithers. This week we are holding public hearings in Victoria today; Prince Rupert and Terrace; Fort St. John; Prince George; and Vancouver, which is on Thursday.

In addition to the hearings, the committee is accepting written, audio and video submissions and responses to a short on-line survey. You can make a submission or learn more by visiting our webpage at www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. You can also follow us on Facebook and on Twitter. We invite all British Columbians to take the time to make a submission and to participate in this very important process. All public input is carefully considered as part of the committee's final report to the Legislative Assembly. The deadline, once again, for submissions is Friday, October 17, 2014.

Today's meeting will consist of presentations from registered witnesses. Each presenter will have ten minutes to speak, followed by five minutes for questions from the committee. I would just point out that I'm pretty punctual, and I'll give everybody a two-minute warning into the ten-minute presentation. I'll try and catch your eye. I won't interrupt you. Then we'll have questions from the committee, and then we'll carry on with the other presenters.

Time permitting, we'll also have an open-mike period at the end of the meeting. Five minutes is allotted for each presenter, and if you wish to speak, please register at the information table. That's being handled there in the back.

At this point in time I will just turn to the members of the committee — I'll start with MLA Shin — if you would like to introduce yourself to those in the gallery.

J. Shin: Hi, my name is Jane Shin. I'm the MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed, and my files are trade, multiculturalism and immigration.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Carole James. I'm the MLA for Victoria–Beacon Hill, and I'm spokesperson for finance for the opposition.

G. Heyman: George Heyman, MLA for Vancouver-Fairview, and I'm the spokesperson for TransLink, technology and the green economy.

G. Holman: Morning everyone. Gary Holman, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, spokesperson for democratic reform.
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D. Ashton (Chair): Also, today assisting the committee are Susan Sourial and Sarah Griffiths from the parliamentary committees office. Hansard Services is also here recording the proceedings. Those are the fine folks right behind us, and that's Mike Baer and Jean Medland. If you wave at them, they can see you through there.

I would like to again thank everybody. And without further ado, it gives me great pleasure and a great honour to introduce the Finance Minister of British Columbia.

Minister, thank you very much. Boy, what a day today you've had so far. Welcome.

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks, Mr. Chair. To the members of the committee, I apologize. I think I am responsible for asking you to come early, and then I'm the one that didn't, so I apologize. I know you've got other things on your agenda, so I appreciate your willingness to accommodate me.

I haven't had a chance in person to congratulate MLA Carole. Congratulate, commiserate — one is never sure what the appropriate salutation is.

Hon. M. de Jong: If it pleases the committee, what I thought I might do as you embark upon your deliberations and travels and consultations is, as I did with the media just last week, go through a snapshot of where we are today. This is an update on the budget for fiscal year '14-15.

As I think all of you know, we post revenue forecasts, expenditure forecasts and, on the strength of data that we collect during the first quarter of that, update them and are able to add in some other items. The biggest example you're going to see today is the fire season and what the implications of that were in terms of the budget.

If we carry on, that's, with your permission, what I'd like to do: just update some of the numbers as they relate to the budget and some of the forecasts. Actually, the next steps are your part of it — your deliberations, your report, the Economic Forecast Council. It all culminates with the budget next February that we are beginning to work on in earnest.

Let's start, then, with the numbers. Along the top is what the budget…. If you go back to the budget documents that were tabled earlier this year, in February, and if we just deal with '14-15, we were anticipating a surplus of $184 million. Rightly or wrongly, or wisely or unwisely, I am of the view that anything below $200 million on a $44 billion or $45 billion budget is cause for concern.

On a budget the size that we are dealing with in the Legislative Assembly of B.C., it sure doesn't take much to see swings in excess of $200 million. So that's where we were, slightly below what I have come to become comfortable with. Nonetheless, that's where we were at.

Now, you'll see — and we'll go through this in a little more detail — we're updating numbers. Taxation revenues, we believe, are going to be above what we thought when we tabled the budget — both personal and corporate. Natural resource revenues — we can talk a little about particularly what's happening there. Commercial Crown corporation income….

I didn't mean to jump over federal transfers. They're down a little bit from what we thought they would be. Commercial Crown corps. That is mostly, $111 million of it…. ICBC's investment portfolio is performing better than we projected in the budget.

Statutory spending, which goes the other way — largely, two things there: the forest fire season that, we believe, now is going to come in at $350 million, as opposed to the roughly $80 million that we plugged into the budget document, and there is a pension accrual that relates to the pension for B.C. public school teachers. It's a liability that we share, the joint trusteeship model, which has worked pretty well in British Columbia. That, I think, is a $66 million accrual adjustment, but it relates to our obligations vis-à-vis the teachers pension.

You can see the numbers…. When you add all that up, you'll see that the anticipated or forecast surplus for the fiscal year we're in, instead of being $184 million, is now $266 million — so an $80 million adjustment. Someone asked me about that. I'd rather we were adjusting for $80 million more than $80 million less, but there it is.

You'll see that that same adjustment, though, does not necessarily carry on through the out-years. I acknowledge that the further out you go, the harder it is to forecast with certainty. But you'll see that although they adjust upwards, it is about $22 million upwards for '15-16 and even less than that for '16-17.

I'm going to show you a slide in a moment that deals with debt. Well, why don't I show it to you now.

The top line on this graph shows what our debt trajectory, debt as a percentage of GDP, was anticipated to be in the budget. We expected to top out at 18.5 percent and then start to bring it down to 17.8 in '16-17. We've actually done better than that. We get to the same place in
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'16-17, but our debt is $700-million-plus less for the fiscal year we're in than we originally anticipated. That's good news in terms of preserving our triple-A credit rating.

Bond-rating agencies watch this very, very carefully, and they certainly want to see you hit your targets. If you exceed your targets, so much the better. They can these days be pretty unforgiving in terms of missing your targets and going beyond where you've said you'd be in terms of debt. So the debt story continues to track in the right direction. It requires constant vigilance.

It's not something that, I think, the average British Columbian would dwell on in the morning when they're sitting around the table, but I can tell you this. As we have entered new markets through the borrowing program in terms of presenting our bonds into places like China and the offshore revenue market, the triple-A credit rating is just a fantastic calling card and really does derive for British Columbia more than just reputational savings but tangible dollar savings, reduced debt-servicing costs that we are able to devote and redirect into programming. If we had those higher borrowing costs, of course, those dollars wouldn't be available for programming in health care, education or other social services. That's the debt story.

This is kind of a different way of demonstrating what we just went through in terms of the first slide. If you start over on the left, $184 million, and you look at the changes, the lighter colour being additional revenues and the darker colour being additional expenses…. Taxation revenues, as I've pointed out — both personal and income — are doing better than we anticipated. Some other revenue improvements….

Natural resources. I'll come back in a moment to the breakdown in some of the natural resource revenues. I've talked about statutory spending, the bulk of that being fire, and then the amount for the teachers pension accrual and some other expense items.

We haven't drawn down on the $200 million forecast allowance yet, so it continues to be available for unanticipated circumstances through the remaining three-quarters of the year. We'll do the second-quarter report. It's the end of November that we do it. There you see where we get, again, from $184 million to $266 million in terms of the surplus.

Then changes on both the revenue and expense side. Again, on the income tax side, I can tell you that $337 million of that was personal income tax — this largely the result of 213 tax assessments done by the federal government. So we've got to be a little cautious here — one-time money from a one-time adjustment, which is why you don't see these amounts carry through into the out-years. And $119 million on the corporate income tax side — again, the result of the 2013 taxation-year assessments by the federal government.

Going in the other direction on the taxation front are consumption taxes — provincial sales tax down from where we thought it would be. I'll show you in a moment a little bit of an anomaly around that, which I can't fully explain for you at the moment, but it relates to retail sales. We'll come to that in a moment.

Property transfer tax is actually up about $50 million from where we thought it would be, so there seems to be continued — I'm not sure "robust"; maybe that's too strong a term — healthy activity on the real estate side.

Natural resources — really, a tale of two resources mostly on the energy front. Natural gas is ahead of where we thought we would be when we tabled the budget — slightly better prices.

I'm pretty cautious about this. You may recall a year and a half now…. We brought in an expert in these matters, Dr. Tim O'Neill, who came in and actually, on the eve of presenting the budget then in 2013, said: "I think your methodology…."

I'll back up. The finance department has a remarkably good track record for forecasting and predicting. I would excuse 2008-2009 as something that everyone had difficulty with. With that notable exception, I think it's been a pretty good track record — well, with one other notable exception — until recently. Not a great record for the government — both the ministries of Natural Resources and Finance — on predicting natural gas prices both on the way up and on the way down.

So O'Neill told us, "I think your methodology is flawed," and we adjusted it. It's a pretty conservative methodology now, but it has served us in good stead. Even employing that more conservative methodology, it would seem that revenue from natural gas this year is going to be ahead of where we thought it was when we tabled the budget.

Forestry, as well, looks to be performing well from the perspective of revenue to Crown, and we think it'll be slightly better than at the time of the budget. By the way, I'll give you the same package so you get these numbers as well and you have the breakdown on this stuff.

On the negative side, coal prices are down fairly significantly, so that is having a negative effect on natural resources. But the positive thus far is outweighing the negative by the amount that you see referred to there.

I talked about commercial Crown incomes — the $111 million attributable to ICBC. Again, we gotta be cautious. They're doing well in the market this year, but it is not an automatic carryover into subsequent years.

That's on the revenue side. On the expense side, again without belabouring the point, fires…. It might be an interesting question at some point for the committee to consider. We plug a number…. Sounds a little less elegant than I meant it to. We put a number in the budget for direct fire costs, and it takes into account trends and averages.

It might be more art than science because the bottom line is that there's a statutory entitlement and ability to spend what needs to be spent, so it's not a question of having to get it right in order to have the authority to
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spend. It's an area of the budget where the Crown is entitled to spend what is necessary for protection.

Some people would look at a year like this and be critical and say: "Well, you estimated way low. You were below $100 million. You're spending $350 million. Next year you should estimate a lot higher."

The challenge, of course, is that you then freeze those funds. If you experience a year, as we have in the past, of direct fire costs in the range of $60 million or $70 million, you've frozen a big chunk of money that's not available for other public services. So it's kind of a balancing act that you have to deal with in the context of knowing that you always do have the….

Two things. You have the authority to spend what is necessary to provide fire protection services in the myriad of ways that we do it, and boy, they earned their money this year — the women and men that were out there.

You also have to be cognizant of the fact that ultimately, the money comes from somewhere. In this case, contingencies were assisted by, happily, some increased revenues. But the money does have to come from somewhere, and that's why maintaining an available supply of contingency funding for unanticipated costs like this is important.

You'll see that on the expense side we go from $44.4 billion to roughly $44.85 billion, so expenses are going up as well, in large measure due to the fire situation.

Members probably know this, but my characterization of direct fire as a statutory expenditure is also significant from the point of view of the privilege of the Legislative Assembly. Otherwise, it is the Legislative Assembly that determines the maximum amount that can be spent under votes. The fact that it's a statutory expenditure means the executive branch is not obliged to come back and ask for permission or ask for a special warrant. But there are a very limited number of things that fall within that category. This is one of them.

I should also say that flood control and flood measures contributed to the cost. I kept talking about fire, but we had some challenges on the flood front, as I think members of the committee know, as well.

Okay, let's carry on to the economic outlook. I think people on the committee are aware of how we do this. We have a private sector body called the Economic Forecast Council that's got 12 or 13 leading economists. They provide us with their assessment, and they do so at various times in the year. The next opportunity to do that will be in November or December, and that will be instrumental for the purposes of finalizing the budget.

We get an update from them, actually, in January. December 5 is the Economic Forecast Council, and for the last couple of years I've made that a public event. It used to happen at a private dinner or private gathering. I'm quite happy for people to see the advice we get from the private sector forecasters, and there's quite a report. Any member of the committee that wants to attend…. Carole, in the past, I think your predecessors came once or twice. You don't have to come for the whole day, but it's generally a four- or five-hour affair. As I say, it's interesting to see what the private sector forecasters are saying about the economy.

For 2014 both they and we have reduced the forecast by 0.1. In the budget we were projecting growth at 2.0, the private sector at 2.3. The other thing you'll see there is we tend always to be a little more conservative than the private sector and the forecast council. That stood us in good stead last year in particular, where I think the final number came in closer to ours than theirs. That made for better planning on our part.

You can see in 2015 what the growth numbers are, 2.7 and 2.3 — steady growth. Hard to characterize it as spectacular, but through '15-16, we're getting back to being at or near the top nationally in terms of growth numbers.

They can change, and they have — another reason to be cautious and give yourself some room, as we do, between what we budget on the basis of and what the private sector experts are predicting in terms of growth.

I picked a couple of these just as indicators. They contribute to the analysis. On the employment front you can see the trend remains in the right direction. Candidly, it's not going there at the pace that we would like to see, although it does continue to show significant job growth, and the trend lines are moving in the right direction. But we're predicting 0.5 percent job growth through 2014. Our objective is to see the economy do better than that, but there is the number on that front.

Employment drives everything from, well, Crown revenue to purchasing to real estate. Obviously, people with a job are far more active in the economy than people without, and their family circumstances are a lot better. The unemployment rate remains…. I think we're at 6.1 right now. As I say, the prediction for next year, from both the forecast council and the treasury officials, is for more robust growth in employment. That's good, because that's the objective.

The next one I alluded to earlier. Candidly, I think this one's got a few people a bit confused. We were predicting retail sales growth in the 3.2, 3.3 percent growth rate for this year, which is not too bad. It's up at 5.6 percent right now. As a function of demonstrating consumer confidence, I suppose that's a good thing. It's not quite as positive if people are absorbing unsustainable debt loads to do so.

The consensus seems to be that we won't see growth in B.C. retail sales continue at the levels we are presently seeing, 5.6 percent, so the prediction that we're sticking with is 3.2 percent. That's within…. The private sector's forecast has been between 2.8 and 4.8 percent. We're at 5.6 percent right now, so no one seems to think that that is going to continue. But it's a pretty interesting phenomenon right now and commentary on retail sales and people being active on the purchasing side in the market.
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The other one I look at all the time, because I think it speaks volumes about how people feel and overall economic indicators, is the housing market. You can see where, if you look back over…. I think that's a ten-year average, and we're just about right on average. In the months, couple of years leading up to September 2008 we were seeing housing starts at a level that very few people thought would be sustainable. As it turned out, it wasn't, and of course, the big dip after September 2008. We kind of clawed back by 2010, and it just sort of carries on at historic average numbers.

I don't know about the rest of you on the committee, but when I travel — you may get this — there is this fascination, particularly south of the border, with the Canadian housing market. When Americans talk about the Canadian housing market, they're talking about Toronto and Vancouver and there is this sort of morbid fascination, preoccupation with the bubble that is due to burst at any moment. When I talk to them, I say: "Well, look, of all the things that you lie awake at night worrying about, that's, at the moment, just not one of them." The indicators that you would expect to see just aren't present in terms of…. That remains the case.

I think for the moment that narrative has died down a little bit. Candidly, I think a little of it is driven by "it happened to us; it must be on the verge of happening to you" because it happened in the U.S. We're just not seeing any signs of that. I won't purport to speak for the Toronto market, but we certainly aren't seeing any signs of that at the moment in British Columbia and in the Lower Mainland.

On the export front, steady growth. I think we're predicting 9.9 percent. So much of our economy now, and to the extent that we've seen positive economic news, is attributable to our strong presence in the export markets, the diversification of our trade portfolio, our entry into Asia. We're actually…. I think for the first-quarter report we've adjusted the number just down ever so slightly, taking into account what we see in China and the U.S., but it's hovering around 10 percent growth in terms of B.C. exports. That has served us as a province very, very well — the steps we've taken on the trade front in partnership with industry.

Finally, what should we be alive to in terms of perhaps contributing to some of these numbers not materializing? It's still predicting what's going to happen in the U.S. — positive signs, then negative signs, then positive signs. It's a fragile state of affairs down there, and they are still a big part of the equation, both for Canada and for British Columbia.

Eurozone for British Columbia — a little less of a direct linkage. But when you consider that the eurozone is China's biggest customer…. If they stop buying consumer goods, China's going to stop buying stuff from us. That is the overly simplified linkage that exists there. There you see the reference to China and Asia. The reports that I've gotten, which you've all probably seen, have for the year ahead China languishing at 7.1 percent GDP growth. I guess for an economy that has been trucking along at 8 and 9 percent, one shouldn't dismiss the significance of that adjustment downward. That plays a role as well.

Then finally, in terms of what the next steps are in the budget process, today you are kicking off the important consultative work that you are doing as part of that exercise. I'll be looking forward to getting your report on your findings, doing the second-quarter report a couple of weeks thereafter, the Economic Forecast Council on the 5th and the budget on February 17. Of course, in the midst of all that, October 6, the House will be sitting through October and November. I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to have discussions in that forum, as well, about various fiscal and economic matters.

Mr. Chair, I apologize for the length of time I've taken. That's the basis upon which we are analyzing and making decisions right now. The only thing I would finally say is that the essence of our democratic process is the debate that exists around the choices that one makes. I hope there is a measure of acceptance at this point, based on the track record, of the validity of the numbers and the fact that the numbers at the moment are provided to me as Finance Minister from professional public servants.

I've never tried to alter them, manipulate them. These are the numbers. These are the forecasts. I won't pretend that sometimes I don't hope they were better or that they'll be better. But the numbers are the numbers, and I have once again tried to present them faithfully and accurately to the members of the committee.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Minister, just a couple of quick questions. I know we've got other presenters who are waving, on time. Last year you did a teleconference town hall on the budget. For the committee, since the committee's out doing that work, I just wondered whether that was going to occur again this year.

Hon. M. de Jong: I haven't made a final decision. What do you think? I find it, actually, a logistically positive way to at least invite people. You start, and you've got 8,000 people on the line. By the time you've done, I've chased 7,000 of them away, right? I find it at least a helpful way to extend an invitation to people. I don't know if you have any thoughts on whether it's a useful…. I tended to find it kind of useful.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I just wondered how much duplication there was compared to people who submit written submissions or show up — whether we're getting
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the same people presenting at both. So whether you're getting a different view, really, or whether you're getting the same view that the committee's getting through presentations — that would be my question, I think, in analyzing whether it's worth doing or not. It's to take a look at whether those are the same presentations that are coming in.

My last question, very quickly, is just around…. You mentioned the one-time savings that are coming in around income tax from federal government issues. There are a few other one-time savings. I'm just wondering….

Hon. M. de Jong: On the income tax it's actual revenue. It's actually money coming in.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I just wondered about things like land sales and how that accounting has occurred.

Then, the final question is just what the core review savings are, to be found in the budget for next year. Just a reminder for folks — because it was a multi-year — so people are aware of that as well.

Hon. M. de Jong: So the two remaining questions. On the surplus asset side we are not just on track but ahead. This is the final year for which there was a targeted amount. I'll confirm the number. I think it was $200 million, but I'll confirm that for you. We are certainly on track in that respect.

That doesn't mean, by the way — and I know you understand this — that in subsequent years there won't be asset or property dispositions. It's just that we haven't broken out a specific line amount target for that amount.

On the core review side, I'd best check for you what the breakdown was between the present fiscal year and the next fiscal year, so you have an accurate…. I don't say this to in any way minimize the challenge. It was as much intended to be an exercise in testing and examining the activities and processes that governments are engaged in as it is meant to be a dramatic cost saving. We are looking for some savings, to be sure, but the amount in the global sense is fairly modest. I'll get you a breakdown.

G. Holman: Thanks, Mr. Minister, for the report. Wondering why debt is going down in, I take it, absolute terms. I think you said $700 million. I may have got that wrong.

Hon. M. de Jong: Actually, it is inaccurate to say debt is going down in absolute terms. We hope to get to that point. But the increase in the amount of debt is significantly less than we thought it would be.

The essence of your question is: why is that so? It is largely a function of the debt management program. I'll try to summarize that for you, and then we can get you some more information.

A few years ago the Auditor General came to government and said — forgive me for paraphrasing: "You guys've got a lot of cash lying around and not just within government but the SUCH sector — health authorities, school boards. Everyone's got pockets of cash that, in my view as an auditor general, you should be accessing before you rush out to borrow."

We took that advice to heart and started to work with those agencies and said: "Look, we're not critical of you for finding efficiencies and finding savings but…." I'll just use an example, and I don't mean this to be meddlesome, given the other items that we're dealing with in the public domain right now.

In the case of a school, for example, if you've got a school board with moneys in unrestricted capital, it's their money. It's a result of their savings, but it's there for these types of projects. Before we rush out to borrow $15 million for a $15 million school, if it's a joint priority for the province and the school board, maybe we should be accessing some of that cash as well. That's one example, and the health authorities and others.

So that's what we've been working towards right across government: to access the cash we have before rushing out to borrow additional amounts. That has led to some significant savings across the board.

I mean, the other point that I suppose I should emphasize is that the first prerequisite to paying down debt in absolute terms — which the province did, actually, back in the halcyon days of '04, '05, '06 — is you've got to have a balanced budget. You've got to stop borrowing to pay for your operations, to pay for the groceries. We've accomplished that, and now we've got to move on to the next step.

G. Heyman: Minister, you raised the issue of the unpredictability of budgeting for forest fire protection. I understand that it's a bit like guessing what your single-year self-insurance cost is going to be.

I'm wondering if you've given any thought to alternative ways of budgeting that would mesh with generally accepted accounting practice and therefore pass the scrutiny of the Auditor General. For instance, is it possible to contribute annually to a forest fire suppression contingency fund that would act like a smoothing account, or are there other alternatives you've thought of?

Hon. M. de Jong: I think there're two questions contained within that. One is the methodology by which we calculate the need. We sort of rely on the protection branch to base their….
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I'll tell you candidly that for a number of years I thought it was a pure average. It's not. After a few $300-million-plus seasons the average would be so high we'd be locking away vast sums of money — probably unnecessarily, in many years.

In terms of the methodology for calculating what the need will be, we tend to rely upon the protection branch to assess snowpacks, moisture levels, weather trends and that sort of thing.

I did ask whether, in a situation where we had underestimated to the degree that we did, there might be a better way of doing that. That's where, I think, on the secondary front we — meaning the bean counters, if you will — probably overlay an additional calculation, because we're loath to lock up vast sums of money.

Now, your idea is an interesting one in terms of payment into a fund, but you still have to project an expenditure. In the budget you have to put a number, and one of the things I've learned on this job is that there's a big difference between cash and a vote appropriation. You can have all kinds of cash on hand, but what you need is a vote appropriation to authorize accessing it, unless it's a statutory matter.

Well, I'll ask you. In a circumstance where we have statutory spending authority, I'm interested to know: do you think a fund would provide greater certainty?

G. Heyman: I don't know that it would provide greater certainty, but basing a projection on snowpack, given when you'd actually know about snowpack versus when you prepare the budget, doesn't seem like the best form of projection on an annual basis. I'm not sure my answer is even consistent with accounting practices that are acceptable, but it allows a longer-term averaging period.

Hon. M. de Jong: Your point, George, about…. I stand to be corrected, but in all the areas of the budget where I'm aware that the Auditor General or past Auditors General have expressed concerns, I don't know that this is an area. I think they look at efficiencies as it relates to the process of fighting fires.

The one report I did see at one point, though, highlighted this fact. It's not about how much land is burning; it's where it is. That smaller fire next to a major population centre is going to consume millions and millions of dollars, versus that 200,000-hectare blaze in a very isolated part of the province, which can be managed with far less resources. I think that's where that element of unpredictability tends to arise — fewer fires, smaller fires but located in areas where there's a lot of property and a lot of people.

Minister, thank you very much for coming today — greatly appreciated. I know it was a bit of an arduous journey to get here, but we sure appreciate your tenacity.

Hon. M. de Jong: Good luck and, again, thanks for accommodating me on a busy day for you.

D. Ashton (Chair): First up on the list is the Professional Arts Alliance of Greater Victoria. We have Heather Lindsay and Doug Jarvis.

To yourselves and to others in the gallery, again, please accept our apologies for having to start a little bit late today, but it was unforeseen. We will get through this as quickly as we can. For those that are waiting, a bit of patience, please. It'll be greatly appreciated.

Good afternoon. Once again, thank you very much for coming today. The presentation is for ten minutes; five minutes for questions from the committee. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and we'll go from there. Thank you for the literature.

D. Jarvis: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you very much, everyone. We really appreciate the opportunity to be here and to present to you, representing the ProArt Alliance of Greater Victoria. We represent 20 arts groups in the region. There's a good list of the organizations that we represent on the front of your documents. You'll see that there's good logo representation inside our brochure.

I'm here today with my colleague and the president of ProArt, Heather Lindsay. You will see that we are presenting three documents. The main document is the written brief, which is basically a reiteration of what we've presented over the last few years, and it includes the Greater Victoria Arts and Culture Sector Economic Activity Study. We're using this information to kind of help illustrate the activity and the growth that's going on, at least in our region, and our region is just one of many.

This report conducted by Dr. Brock Smith from the University of Victoria and put together this past year, in 2013, funded by the Victoria Foundation, the CRD — the capital regional district — and supported by ProArt, shows that in 2012 the total economic activity generated by the greater Victoria arts and cultural sector — so comprising many of our organizations — was $177 million in net income activity, supporting the equivalent of more than 4,347 person-years of employment and almost $17,000 in property tax revenue. That gives you a pretty good example of the activity going on in this region.

We're basically giving this report to you, again, for the new members to the committee and just for reference. But our recommendations — which, again, are the same as '14-15 — for 2015-16:

(1) To increase the budget of B.C. Arts Council to $32
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million with a plan to increase the council's legislated appropriated investment to $40 million over the following two-year period.

(2) We propose increasing gaming community grants to organizations from $130 million in 2011-12 to $156 million for 2015-16, with a goal of increasing gaming grants steadily in the long term in accordance with the Skip Triplett report.

(3) To provide stable, predictable funding for the arts sector, we are recommending that the government implement a multi-year funding model similar to what the Canada Council for the Arts does and to apply that to the B.C. Arts Council and to reinstate the multi-year funding pilot introduced for the community gaming grant program as a permanent option for organizations.

(4) That government should develop a capital program to help arts organizations purchase and maintain presentation venues for art and culture.

Now, as you see, our recommendations are very similar to last year. This is because the arts sector continues to grow at a steady pace. We request that the provincial government respond by meeting the needs and demands of a thriving arts sector.

As we are providing all of this kind of information, Heather and I are here today to give a bit more of a personal take and some stories about what's going on in our region and what ProArt members are coming up with.

I direct you to the brochure that we've provided. This is kind of helping our regional initiative, working with the CRD. But what we've done is survey many of our member organizations for stories, information, anecdotes — information and data that can help us — which we can pass along back to the different municipal councillors to show that the money they are investing in the arts is having an effect in their municipality.

I'd just invite you to read through that to get a better sense. This was directed at a meeting that we presented with the Esquimalt municipal council. So it will give you an idea of what's going on just between ProArt members in that municipality.

On that note, I'd like to say that what we're going to provide over the next couple of minutes is in this spirit. It's providing information to show — and represents arts organization from Victoria — that stories we present to you today do reflect the entire arts community. They reflect the needs of arts organizations and artists in the communities large and small within B.C.

My name is Heather Lindsay, and I am the president of ProArt. Also, I am the general manager of Intrepid Theatre, a mid-size independent theatre and festival-producing company — a company that is in its 28th year and is a staple of Victoria's professional and emerging arts community.

Currently Intrepid Theatre will still be unsure of our B.C. government funding levels for our 2015-16 season until approximately late spring or early summer of 2015. At this time we will have already completed two festivals and will be heading strong into our third and largest independent theatre festival.

To be uncertain of your confirmed revenues until almost halfway through your season shows uncertainty instead of strength. Government funding is, of course, a portion of our revenues. But without the stability of multi-year funding, other funders, such as private foundations, will not fund an unconfirmed budget. We've worked very hard to build our audience, community and funders, and the possibility of having to make changes to our festivals due to these unconfirmed funds provides uncertainty for everyone.

In order for a professional arts organization to excel within their season of work, it has to have the time to plan. This is something that keeps me up at night. This is something that I strongly recommend be focused on.

My second story is about an emerging artist who received their first professional arts grant. Impulse Theatre, an emerging arts-dance theatre company here in Victoria, received its first B.C. Arts Council project grant in 2013. This was a monumental moment for Andrew Barrett, the artistic director. The B.C. Arts Council recognized him and invested in him, giving his efforts and vision more life and his art and drive more confidence.

In the two years I've known Andrew, this was the project that he has grown the most in. He had support. He was able to find studio space instead of working out of his living room or in a park. He was able to hire a professional director, who aided bringing him to a more mature level.

The grant was, in a large company's perspective, less than 1 percent of their budget. But for a young company, this was enough of a foundation to stand on and one that could be built upon.

Having spent the last 15 years working in the B.C. performing arts sector as an emerging artist, then established theatre and dance artist, a collaborative writer, production manager, producer and now general manager, I know the important impact that long-term, sustainable funding has as a creative social structure. From being like Andrew, an emerging artist who receives their first grant, to working with well-established companies that use their operating funds to engage with their community in ever-breathing and expanding seasons, I see the important necessity to invest in the new artists and companies while still growing the established.

The requirement of continued growth of arts funding is directly responding to the growing arts community in the province of B.C. It is what is expected when you have a vibrant arts community.
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To support new levels of practice in addition to see continued growth to the B.C. Arts Council budget. The basis of this recommendation to increase the B.C. Arts Council budget is because it is a clearly growing sector in our province. Growth reflects economic impact. There is always a net return in the culture it provides to the communities. There is always an artistic event happening in every city.

Our requests are reasonable and are reflected in the growth of the arts sector in our province. We are asking you to support the growth that is already there.

D. Jarvis: Just in the remaining couple of minutes…. I work at Open Space as a program coordinator and guest curator. Open Space has been around for 40 years, owns its own building in downtown Victoria and supports a very experimental kind of intriguing area of artistic practice.

I was working there this year on a program called the Indigenous Youth Artist Showcase, and one of the mentors who we invited is an artist named Lindsay Delaronde, a visual artist of Mohawk heritage living in Victoria. She, at the time, received a B.C. Arts Council individual artist grant. Just to say that the effect that has on her career and the confidence it gives her as an artist is immeasurable.

As Lindsay has indicated, this kind of recognition from your peers — as the funding provides that opportunity for a jury of your peers to give you that recognition — and that support to work on your practice helps her to create it but also helps her to do the other things she needs to do in her life. She's a single mother working many different jobs. But just the idea that this kind of support and what that provides for a young aboriginal woman working in Victoria in this day and age is immeasurable.

My last quick example is MediaNet, which is a media arts presentation centre. This has to do with the gaming cuts and the idea that they were in two years of a three-year gaming grant. When they received their cut, which was equal to $20,000, they had to do quite a few drastic things. They had to move from their downtown location, which disrupted the organization and took them out of the core of the arts sector. They had to reduce pay to their staff by 20 percent.

More importantly, they had to cut a contract project — somebody who was doing a lot of distribution work, submitting to over 100 festivals for media artists in Victoria. So 100 festivals to get their work out there and around the country — real promotion to help reflect the growth that's going on. This all had to be cut back.

Just to kind of show that when the money is taken away…. Peter talked about having to make up or having to then work with a deficit. Yes, the gaming money is being restored, but there's still that having to make up the loss. Just to say that increasing the B.C. arts funding and giving the three-year models to allow for organizations to plan will really help meet the growing demands of the arts and culture in British Columbia.

D. Ashton (Chair): Doug, thank you very much. Heather and Doug, again, we do apologize for being a little bit late getting started, but the presentation was great.

Questions from the committee for the presenters? Carole — again, if everybody doesn't mind, we're on a first-name basis — please.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for coming, and thank you for speaking strongly about the region's amazing arts programs that we have.

Just a couple of questions. The presentation seemed to focus on a couple of different things: one, the resources and making sure there were resources for arts, but also the process and the process and timing of the information coming.

I also want to mention the capital program. I'm curious. I hear a lot in the community about the challenges of groups who are told that they have to get three-part funding — that they have to get provincial, federal and their own funding, or municipal funding, to be able to have a program go. Without having a provincial program for the arts for capital programs, there isn't the opportunity there. I'm curious whether you've heard any specifics.

H. Lindsay: Yes, those are one-time project grants. At an emerging level you also do not have a long-term forecast to try and have a three-year season for your emerging. Until you're up to established and fighting for operating stance, you are always in a yearly cycle of applying for your grants.

I will speak to the capital issue. Our theatre in Victoria, Metro Theatre — actually, two years ago when I started…. It has taken us two years with the partnership of Canadian Heritage and the partnership of our landlords, the Victoria Conservatory of Music. The only way we could actually not have, in our beautiful city, the only mid-size theatre in Victoria be closed permanently was to go through this capital project to rezone it. It was on an optimistic level. We had been successful.

But for Canadian Heritage to be the only funder that was possible for us to go through and down that road…. We did receive B.C. Creative Spaces, which was such a low percentage of what we needed. But Canadian Heritage also does not fund you until you have confirmed 50 percent of that expense.
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For us to not only be almost losing our theatre, which is not even a building we own, but to work with our landlord to band together to try and raise these funds…. We have actually just accomplished this. It's taken us two years. The city was wonderful to us to let us keep operating while we were going. That would be the only way. But this is something that should have been taken care of within six months, if the resources were there.

As the only mid-sized theatre in Victoria that is used consistently for independent theatre companies and professional companies bringing in international artists, the love and the struggle and support that we had to go down quite quickly…. It proved necessary, but I can honestly tell you that it was probably the hardest thing I have done yet in my career.

Thank you very much for coming forward, and again, accept our apologies for being tardy on that.

Next up, we have Camosun College Faculty Association — Mr. Ainsley. Is that correct?

D. Ashton (Chair): Welcome, sir. Thank you very much for coming today. We'll start off. We have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and we've allotted five minutes for questioning from the committee.

Once again, please excuse us for being tardy in the start, but there were transportation delays earlier.

Good afternoon, committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I want to cover a few issues in the time I have with you. All of them relate to funding and policy choices in post-secondary education that I am sure this committee is thinking about. They are issues that deserve budget support in 2015.

Before I get to those points, I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about the organization I represent and the institution where we work. I'm the president of the Camosun College Faculty Association. We represent over 600 faculty who work and teach at the college. Our members cover a wide range of disciplines — everything from English-language training and adult basic education to arts and sciences, business, health and technology. Many of those areas include university transfer programs as well.

Camosun has two major campuses here in the greater Victoria area. We also operate a number of satellite campuses as well as several partnership programs located in the community. With an enrolment base of about 18,000 students, Camosun has a strong connection to citizens on southern Vancouver Island. That connection takes many forms.

We are particularly proud of the work and partnerships we have in place with First Nations communities. A few examples of that partnership include initiatives like the Songhees Employment Learning Centre and the Victoria Native Friendship Centre, both of which provide important access points for aboriginal students. We currently have close to 1,000 aboriginal students enrolled at Camosun, a number that would be much lower, I suspect, if it were not for the outreach initiatives and supports we have put in place.

Our community outreach efforts also put a major emphasis on supporting adult learners to re-enter post-secondary education and improve their skills and employment prospects in the process. Initiatives like Bridges for Women, Our Place Society and the Victoria literacy society are a few examples of how we are opening the door just a little bit wider for learners.

Unfortunately, all of those efforts, as well as our core function as a post-secondary institution, are under constant threat, because the largest single investment made by the provincial government in our institution is not keeping pace with the needs of students. That investment comes in the form of a provincial operating grant.

Every public post-secondary institution receives one, and the amount they receive is tied to the ministry's estimate of student enrolments, course offerings and a range of other factors specific to the characteristics of the institution. The reality here at Camosun, like so many other public post-secondary institutions across B.C., is that operating grants are not keeping pace with either the demands of enrolment or the underlying cost pressures that all post-secondary institutions face.

When measured on a per-student basis and adjusted for the impact of inflation, real per-student operating grants to public post-secondary institutions have been in steady decline over the last decade and a half. The February 2014 provincial budget and three-year service plan for the Ministry of Advanced Education showed that by 2015-16 real per-student operating grants will have dropped by 20 percent since 2001. The inflation-adjusted, per-student operating grant was approximately $10,756 in 2001, but by 2015-16 it will be closer to $8,566 per student.

When a funding squeeze plays out over the course of a decade and a half, other parts of the system get drawn into the funding plight. The first and most significant impact has been on tuition fees. In a word, they have skyrocketed. That impact can be seen on two fronts.

Student debt levels are now approaching $30,000, according to the Canadian Federation of Students, a direct result of tuition hikes. Just as troubling is the fact that institutional budgets now rely more heavily on revenue sources other than the provincial operating grant.

Here at Camosun we are fast approaching the point where tuition fees and other non–provincial grant revenues will account for more than 50 percent of our total
[ Page 705 ]
revenue. Just to give you a snapshot of how that figure is changing, in 2010 the provincial operating grant accounted for a little more than 60 percent of total revenues at Camosun. This year the number will drop to just under 52 percent.

Those kinds of shifts — rising tuition fees and the increasing reliance on other revenue sources — raise serious questions about access to post-secondary education. Is it becoming something that is affordable to fewer and fewer British Columbians? The shifts also raise serious questions about the publicness of our institutions.

Both questions have enormous implications for today's students, but just as significant, they have implications for how successful we will be as a province managing the transition to a more knowledge-intensive society and economy.

If we continue on the track of making post-secondary education more difficult to access because of underfunding, we put ourselves more at risk of not creating the skills, knowledge and learning opportunities we need to succeed economically. We are following this policy path at a time when B.C. is facing serious problems in terms of a growing skills gap. Rather than making post-secondary education harder to access and more expensive, we need to change course and find ways to make it more affordable and accessible.

As a legislative committee, it's time for you to take a serious look at the province's fiscal strategy, a strategy that rests heavily on assumptions that simply have not delivered on the promise that justified them in the first place, in our view. For example, successive rounds of tax cuts starting in 2001 have simply shifted costs onto citizens, and in the case of post-secondary education, these citizens are students, who are now more in debt, have fewer support services and are taking longer to complete their post-secondary education.

Over the last 12 months the funding crunch at Camosun has created major problems for our English-as-a-second-language students. In the fall of 2013 we were told that the ministry was cutting $2.5 million in provincially funded ESL at Camosun. After much protest, transitional funding was found, but that will run out in March 2015, leaving our ESL programs in the lurch and their students along with them.

Let me give you a very specific example: our health care assistant program's ESL program. That program helps students learn English while also training as health care assistants. B.C. needs these skills, but the cut in funding means these students won't graduate. As a public policy choice, it simply doesn't make sense.

To restore full provincially funded ESL programs across B.C. would cost about $22 million, a number that is well within reach for a ministry with a budget of $2 billion. That's one of the priorities we want to see addressed in the 2015 budget.

Before detailing other recommendations for the committee to consider, I want to focus on the government's announced plans to "re-engineer" post-secondary education. The announcement was made several months ago, and few details have emerged since then.

The announcement has some worrisome concepts. The first is that government wants to redirect up to 25 percent of the provincial operating grant from post-secondary institutions to fund high-demand career programs. Given the current deficiencies in the provincial operating grant, the 25 percent figure will likely have negative impacts.

A second concern is what gets counted in terms of a high-demand career. Engineers, geologists, actuaries, accountants and health care technicians would all fall into the category of high-demand careers, but how students arrive at that credential varies widely.

Will the ministry fund undergraduate liberal arts programs, adult basic education and ESL programs that a student may take en route to one of these credentials? The answer at this point is unclear. So too is the pedagogy or, more accurately, the lack of sound pedagogy underlying the government's proposed re-engineering proposal.

Critical thinking skills are not something that can be simply pulled off a shelf, yet the government's approach to meeting high-demand careers drives quickly past the whole process of building those critical thinking skills. It may be popular in some quarters to criticize liberal arts programs as superfluous, but the reality is that strong communication skills and critical thinking are deeply embedded in a liberal arts program and highly in demand in the workplace.

The re-engineering proposal raises far more questions than it answers, but it remains a mainstay of the government's job plan. At best, the proposal deserves more careful consideration and input from stakeholders. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet.

In terms of specific priorities, the 2015 provincial budget needs to include the following: (1) a direct and ongoing commitment of at least $22 million to support provincially funded ESL programs delivered by post-secondary institutions in the province; (2) a revitalization of the student grant program, which would help financially stressed students better cope with rising tuition fees and heavier debt loads; (3) student support services have suffered as a result of underfunding. The 2015 budget needs to provide funding support for those services as part of a broader effort by government to ensure that students are able to complete programs and degrees in a timely way.

Finally, the funding that post-secondary institutions receive needs to better respond to the cost pressures they face. Any proposal that reduces already low levels of provincial funding needs to be reconsidered. A more sensible approach, in our view, is to engage in a thorough review of the funding formula so that regional inequities and core funding needs of the system as a whole are adequately addressed.
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J. Shin: Thank you for a presentation on such a compelling case. My dad, actually, received language training before being able to pursue his health care education, so this is very close at heart.

Would you be able to please quantify for us the number of students that will be immediately affected by the ESL transition funding when it runs out?

D. Ainsley: Yes, I certainly can. Current figures, fall 2003, recent ones…. We have both international and domestic students, and it's important to recognize that this funding crunch is particularly affecting our domestic students, those who are citizens. We have 433 international students. At risk are the 211 — that's the current figure — domestic students, who would not have funding if it's withdrawn after March 2015.

G. Heyman: Are you aware of any or do you have any studies from Camosun or provincially that correlate increased tuition fees to impacts on either enrolment or drop-out rates?

My second question is: are you aware of any vocations that have positions for which to hire but can't find the talent locally because there are not enough training spots for those vocations?

D. Ainsley: Two separate questions. I am sure the Canadian Federation of Students has done those studies on the effect of tuition fees. I can tell you anecdotally my own experience.

A number of students…. The most common experience is for them to slow down. They can't take as many courses. They have to work concurrently, which, as a learning skills instructor, someone who supports student learning, I can tell you is a problem for their learning. They don't have continuity. It's much more expensive. They emerge in higher debt.

Some give up entirely, but the more common trend these days is for students to take much longer than, if I can say, people of our generation did.

Regarding the shortage, my colleague to the back, who, coincidentally, is making a presentation — the acting president of Camosun College — might be able to answer that more thoroughly. The consistent shortages that we know of in our community, broadly, are trades and nursing, health care — that area. We're unable to fill that.

Sir, thank you very much for coming today. We greatly appreciate it, and again, we apologize for being tardy.

Mr. Grad, welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. A ten-minute presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning before, and then we have five minutes reserved for questioning from the committee. Once again, the floor is yours.

C. Grad: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I do know some of the folks around the table — Carole, Simon, John. I look forward to getting to know others of you as well. There is a package that's been circulated. I'm trying to provide a high-level overview of that, and it will be well within the ten minutes.

What we're really trying to do is just get you familiar with the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority. We come here today, actually, as a potential partner for the province to tackle a lot of the challenges that you may have, both on the budget side and the building of infrastructure. That's really what our core businesses is: marine infrastructure.

Probably unlike a lot of the other presenters today, there is no ask of government. There are no dollars that we're requesting. It's simply to let you know that we're here to be a potential solution in tackling some of the real challenges around infrastructure.

I'd like to start with who the GVHA is. My presentation will really be a series of questions which I'm asking and then answering on your behalf.

The Greater Victoria Harbour Authority is a not-for-profit corporation. It was registered under the Society Act of B.C. in 2002. It was really designed to facilitate the federal harbour divestiture, very similar to the airport divestitures that happened ten years prior.

GVHA was created by its member agencies, again as a not-for-profit organization. That includes the city of Victoria, the township of Esquimalt and the capital regional district. The Provincial Capital Commission, until it was recently dissolved, had representation on the board as well. But also, very uniquely and very importantly, the Esquimalt Nation and the Songhees Nation are both founding members of the Harbour Authority and are active participants on our board.

And then, finally, a number of community organizations in and around the business side: the Victoria-Esquimalt Harbour Society, which is essentially the industry; the Victoria Chamber, who you'll be hearing from later today; and Tourism Victoria. So again, a very broad stakeholder group guiding our policy and governance.

I'm also very pleased and proud to say that on December 16 of 2013 the Esquimalt Nation, the Songhees Nation and the harbour authority incorporated a federal not-for-profit company, and the name of this company in
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the Coast Salish language is Skwin'ang'eth Se'las, which means helping hand.

The purpose of this new company was to build employment skills and incubate business opportunities within the local nations and, ultimately, to bring a more broad and meaningful engagement of the local nations in the harbour economy. That's actually embedded in the constitution of the harbour authority. It was one of the 13 principles that it was created to undertake.

Essentially, what is the raison d'être, or the reason for being, of the harbour authority? Put simply, it is a social enterprise that serves to protect and develop Victoria's working harbour. That definition of "working harbour" has evolved over the years from a much more industrial to a more commercial base and, ultimately, to be an economic and social benefit to the region, its residents, the marine industry and the broader business industry as well.

What are the core objectives under that mandate? Summarizing from the 13 constitutional purposes: promoting and developing the harbour in the public interest; operating harbour functions on a self-sustaining basis — I'll touch on that a little bit later — with equitable treatment for all users, essentially creating a level playing field for industry to come in, invest, compete and operate; ultimately assembling harbour properties over time by ownership or lease; and gaining efficiencies and stimulating regional economic growth.

I talked a little bit earlier about the First Nations and this First Nations facilitation of the involvement in the harbour — again, fundamental to the founding of the harbour authority and, also, ultimately promoting environmental sustainability.

What properties does the GVHA have stewardship of today? Transport Canada transferred four key properties back in 2002. They include Ogden Point, the deep-sea terminal, which includes cruise; Fisherman's Wharf; the causeway; and Johnson Street and Wharf Street marinas. The seabed and the water airport remain undivested. It's essentially unfinished business from that divestiture, and the feds will be looking at that, probably in their new mandate.

GVHA has also secured over the years a number of leases, including Mermaid Wharf; Raymur Point, where we reinvested last summer in a customs facility that the federal government wasn't in a position, strangely enough, to invest in, but we stepped up to do that; and recently and relevant to the province, we became the long-term tenants of the steamship terminal and the Undersea Gardens water lot.

We facilitated the final rehabilitation and heritage restoration and tenanting of the steamship terminal to the order of about $2½ million — again with our own resources, not asking for government contribution — and facilitated the assumption of that Undersea Gardens lease and the removal of that facility from the inner harbour.

Is GVHA self-sustainable financially? Well, I think the experience has been very positive, and it's been very encouraging, very similar to the airport models of the previous decade. Its operations are funded entirely from its own revenues. It does not rely on tax dollars, and it's essentially working off the commercial revenues of its operations and its property portfolio.

GVHA currently operates with about $10 million revenue per year. It started out very modestly at $2 million. It's able to reinvest about 20 percent of its gross revenue back into the property as a not-for-profit. It can't be distributed to shareholders. It can't be distributed to member agencies. It must stay within and reinvest into the facilities that it owns.

So it's a self-sustaining model. Ultimately, what that has produced over the last 12 years of its existence is the capital fund being funded by both its surpluses and government grants, primarily federal grants in the past. We've invested $23.5 million since inception, averaging about $2 million per year.

Finally, what is the economic impact of the harbour authority and the working harbour? The regional impact of the harbour, more broadly, if you just look at cruise and ferry traffic alone, is about $300 million to the economy annually, and it supports about 2,000 jobs. Cruise itself — you're looking at over 500,000 passengers visiting Victoria annually, and about 60 to 70 percent of those folks come back to visit and have a longer stay in the region.

Again, I mentioned that there's no specific ask of government but simply to say we are a potential partner for you as you're tackling challenges. The number one priority for this community and for the harbour authority is the revitalization of the Belleville terminal.

We see a number of different ways in which that could be accomplished, from a very traditional government procurement and investment model to a much more creative public-private partnership and probably somewhere in between, where I would actually call it a PNP model, a public–non-profit–private partnership.

The not-for-profit has the ability to be the best of both worlds. It behaves like a commercial business in terms of running it like a business but has that social accountability back to its constituency.

Ultimately, Belleville is the number one priority for us. In the long term, we see that as being a first step in terms of creating a unified harbour with strategic investment and inclusiveness in terms of how that facility is developed and improved over time.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Curtis, for the
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presentation. Although you said you weren't coming with any requests, I'm glad you talked about the priority because I think it's important. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about the challenges right now in the harbour and the reason that that's a priority for the harbour authority, because I think it's important just to talk a little bit about the revenue that comes in from there as well.

C. Grad: There's a map, which I didn't speak to because it's a little hard talking to a map that you're not looking at. But there's a map in there that we call the "Coat of many colours." The fractured ownership of property within the harbour, due mostly to the partial divestiture of the harbour by the federal government in 2002, means there is no cohesive plan, and you need a plan in order to invest.

The challenge around…. We've been investing in our own properties, but getting a cohesiveness around what the plan is for the long term…. It starts to reflect in some of the bigger facilities as well, and Belleville has been a bit of an orphan for the last 20 years. Those temporary facilities were temporary 25 years ago. It's about getting the right plan, getting the right resourcing and, ultimately, getting some consistency.

It's not unlike the conversations earlier from the Minister of Finance today around firefighting. If you've got a long-term plan and a stable funding model, you can make intelligent investment decisions. Right now it's a year-to-year thing. And 25 years later, we're in a fractured and sort of substandard environment.

G. Holman: Thanks for the presentation. A question about the status and the relative priority of proposals to provide onshore power for cruise ships and, also, transportation for passengers from the terminal to Victoria — just a quick kind of state of play of those issues.

C. Grad: When it comes specifically to shore power, we studied that extensively. We had applied for federal grant money in the order of 50 percent. To serve one of three berths at Ogden Point was going to cost close to $10 million, of which the federal government would possibly step up and fund $4½ million. Our average spend is $2 million a year, so that's over two years' worth of our own capital investment, and it was very difficult to find other partners to it. That itself was a challenge.

Then we looked at what's happening with the industry. The solution to emissions could be shore power, but it works better for home ports, where the ships are in for 12 or 15 hours at a time. At Ogden Point they're only here from six to seven hours.

The actual better solution is on-board scrubber technology, and the ship lines themselves are investing heavily in on-board scrubbers that clean the stack as the emissions are going through it. We felt that that was a much more effective way.

Back to that polluter-pay principle, the cruise lines are investing in their own infrastructure to address the problem — not to have the onshore facilities only working when they're hooked up and when they're at berth. It doesn't help when they're coming in and when they're going out. All those things together — it just became a logical decision not to proceed. It's hard to say no to $4½ million, but if it's not the right investment, we decided it wasn't the best use of anybody's money, let alone taxpayer money to put up that $4½ million, let alone the $9 million.

C. Grad: The ground transportation is a much more, I think, long-term important investment to make. The ground transportation experiments, for lack of a better word, or pilots that we've been doing over the last couple of years really helped us in terms of identifying the opportunities. It also identified difficulties in terms of jurisdictions, and I'll get to that in a minute.

We worked with B.C. Transit to get access to their idle fleet of double-decker buses during the summer. Down on the Gorge, during the summer when all the students are back home and a lot of the other institutions are spooling down, the buses are sitting at Gorge Road underutilized. We leased those buses for the summer. So we're using a public asset for which a public agency is getting income, and we're actually using a better technology to get people from Ogden Point to downtown. They're not coach buses; they're transit buses for high-density urban environments. That was one experiment that's worked very well.

The other one we did this summer was the water shuttle from Ogden Point to downtown, and we're tweaking the model between a commercial and a service base. Again, finding different creative ways of tackling the problem and not being afraid to experiment and sometimes even have a few little difficulties that have to be resolved.

G. Holman: It might be interesting — and if you've already been doing this, sorry — to monitor whether or not providing those transportation alternatives for passengers actually increases spending in Victoria.

C. Grad: The one thing we've been tracking quite closely…. There is a chart in there that shows a number of metrics around cruise, but one of them is average spend. It's about $65 a passenger. We're going to be able to benchmark that going forward now. Making it easier and more quickly delivering people downtown will allow them to have a greater experience and spend more dollars in our community.
[ Page 709 ]

Also, that statistic that's been brought to bear by our new head of Tourism Victoria…. The research they've done back in Ottawa at his former employers — 60 to 70 percent of people that sample a destination come back within two years. That was a real eye-opener, and that is the driver of future longer visitation to the region.

Good afternoon, Nicole and Christine. Thank you very much for coming. I'm sorry we're tardy today. We had some logistic issues this morning, so thank you for waiting patiently.

The presentation is ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then we've allotted five minutes for questioning. The floor is yours. Please go ahead.

N. Bottles: Thank you very much. My name is Nicole. I'm 21, and I live in Saanich. I'm here with my mother and caregiver, Chris Powell. My story mirrors that of many other Lyme disease patients in British Columbia whose quest for a diagnosis follows a similar path: a mysterious illness, multiple specialist visits, negative test results. It culminates possibly years later with misdiagnosis or no answers at all. The tragedy is that the longer you leave the infection unchecked, the more dire the consequences and the greater the financial burden. I'm here today to ask if together we can change the outcome.

My symptoms began in 2006 with migraines, respiratory problems and fatigue, and expanded in 2007 to include migraine joint pain, dizziness, nausea and weakness. A few months later I developed intense pain, swollen joints, severe short-term memory impairment and cognitive impairment as well. Despite eagerly planning my future in grade 10, several months into this prolonged illness I had to put my teenage life on hold when I realized I could no longer have the strength to get out of bed.

Within a few short months my life changed forever. I could not walk, create new memories, go to school or live a normal life. The culprit, we would later discover, was a tick the size of a poppy seed.

In early 2008 my mom learned about a bacterial infection which could wreak havoc with every body system and cause severe neurological problems. My seemingly unconnected symptoms matched those of Lyme disease, which I'd yet to be tested for. We didn't know about the controversy but learned quickly when we brought a checklist of my Lyme disease symptoms to specialists appointments. We weren't prepared for the unusual response that inquiries into Lyme disease elicited. We were told that Lyme disease is very rare, by multiple specialists, and our concerns were disregarded. One specialist at B.C.'s Children's Hospital suggested I start living with my disability and essentially get on with my life.

In 2008 the standard ELISA test came back negative, which doctors incorrectly assumed ruled out Lyme disease. We weren't aware of the 2005 NIH study at Johns Hopkins University which showed the test to be less than 50 percent accurate. The Canadian Adverse Reaction Newsletter stated that serological test results are supplemental to the clinical diagnosis of Lyme disease and should not be the primary basis for making diagnostic or treatment decisions. Additionally, the article stated that Lyme disease test kits are not designed to screen patients or to establish a clinical diagnosis.

The disconnect between what health authorities maintain and what is actually happening in a doctor's office causes great harm. In reality, your family pet has a much better chance of being diagnosed with Lyme disease than your human family.

Without any hope or diagnosis in Canada, my health was rapidly deteriorating, and we made the difficult decision to travel to Lyme-literate experts in the U.S., where four leading experts clinically diagnosed me with Lyme and two co-infections. We lived in Connecticut for ten months of intensive treatment. This decision saved my life and marks the beginning of my journey back to health. I no longer experience seizures, blackouts, paranoia or hallucinations. My pain and overall cognitive ability have improved somewhat, but I still have severe short-term memory loss.

In spite of my illness, I graduated from high school in 2010, completing 11 courses in nine months. I love teaching knitting at local libraries. I practise yoga and sing in a choir and advocate for Lyme disease awareness. I've come a long way, but I still have challenges ahead. We leave for the States once again this Thursday for continued treatment.

Since 2009 I've been seen by three infectious disease doctors in British Columbia. Each stated categorically that I do not have Lyme disease, based on the flawed negative ELISA test. One of the doctors admitted they'd never seen a case of Lyme disease in their ten years of practice.

In 2007 Dr. Bonnie Henry of the BCCDC surveyed doctors in British Columbia about their knowledge of Lyme disease, revealing that 63 percent of physicians did not know that the characteristic bull's-eye rash was diagnostic for Lyme disease. The gulf between the medical literature and the patients' experience in their doctor's office has a far-reaching impact on both health and our finances.

One hundred dollars of antibiotics can easily cure Lyme disease in its early stages. Instead, like so many in British Columbia, I've spent the last six years battling this illness while my family accumulated well over $100,000 in U.S. medical debt.

Our family home was sold, bank accounts and life savings drained. My father, at 67, is unable to retire due to
[ Page 710 ]
the financial burden. My mother left her job in 2008 to become my full-time caregiver. We have a bottle drive on UsedVictoria, and I'm on government disability instead of pursuing my dream of becoming a doctor.

A 2006 study by Zhang et al. found that the annual burden of disease, the BOD, when Lyme was treated early in the course of infection was under $1,500 for only one year. If the illness was left untreated, developing into a chronic infection like what I have, the burden of disease jumps to $16,000 a year — per year, every year. The cost of being misdiagnosed is astronomical for our health care system. The cost to patients could be their livelihoods, their futures and even their lives.

The Schmidt report, commissioned in 2011 by PHSA, investigated the challenges faced by B.C. Lyme disease patients and outlined an action plan which is yet to be implemented. The recommendations could serve as a blueprint, and with government funding, we could create the constructive changes we so desperately need.

The complex chronic diseases program, the CCDP, was initiated by the provincial government to help Lyme disease patients, but instead of offering treatment to combat this bacteriological infection, they're prescribing cognitive behavioural therapy, diet changes and pacing. The underfunded program has delayed and failed to deliver treatment to the wait-list of more than 1,500 patients. We urgently need funding to allow the clinic's doctors to fulfil its original mandate and treat patients for Lyme disease appropriately.

According to the U.S. CDC press release from August 2013, the number of Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year is around 300,000. This is ten times higher than previously reported.

I guess ticks need a passport to cross the border, because there were only 315 reported cases in Canada in 2012. Based on Canada's population, the estimated number of cases in Canada should be roughly 10 percent of the U.S. ones, 30,000. Climate change and the encroachment on wildlife habitat will contribute to a major growth in tick population and Lyme-endemic regions in the coming years, so it is of paramount importance that we address this issue now.

Estimates indicate that by 2020 the economic burden of Lyme disease cases diagnosed early in Canada could reach $8 million in medical costs annually. The Public Health Agency estimates that late diagnoses could raise the cost to over $338 million per annum. It is clear that prompt diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease is not only critical for the health of British Columbians but also to our province's fiscal health.

To maximize the efficiency of our health care system, focus needs to be directed towards research, improved testing and tick surveillance, physician education and helping the CCDP to truly serve patients. I'm hopeful that our province can lead the way in changing the current Lyme disease paradigm for the benefit of all British Columbians.

J. Shin: I thank you so much for your presentation. I'm very curious to find out about your advocacy work so far and the kind of campaign you've led to date so that the committee has a better understanding of the kinds of dialogues that you've had with the ministry, perhaps, or other bodies of government.

N. Bottles: I actually have a lot of short-term memory problems, so if I could direct this question to my mother, Chris Powell, that would be wonderful.

C. Powell: Hi. We spent the last three years working with Elizabeth May in Ottawa to develop the national strategy, a bill. We've been to Ottawa several times, lobbied politicians there — 90 politicians over a two-week period. Nicole was going nine to five every day, making a presentation, telling people what was going on. We met a lot of MPs who had constituents with Lyme disease, and I know people here in the room have constituents that have Lyme disease. Delta, Saanich — it's endemic to British Columbia.

Nicole has also participated. She's been at the Legislature talking to an informal group of MLAs in 2009, attended many rallies, spoken at various events. We've tried to approach a lot of community organizations like Lions clubs and Rotary clubs. We intend to do a lot more of that, because we feel that unless patients do it, nobody else seems to be really teaching people in the general public about what Lyme disease is. I know there is literature out there, but we need to do a lot more about physician education and also about awareness out in the communities.

J. Shin: With all that incredible work that you've been doing, is there any progress that you're happy about, or any sort of frustration at lack of progress, perhaps?

C. Powell: Elizabeth May's bill passed second reading unanimously. It's in the Senate. We have really strong support in the Senate, and I don't see anything slowing that down. The next step would be to actually create the strategy, and we'll hopefully be at the table to try to do that and to make sure they stay on track.

N. Bottles: My frustration currently would be with the
[ Page 711 ]
chronic disease clinic in Vancouver, which was designed to address Lyme disease but just simply isn't following through with their mandate.

C. Powell: Nicole's on the wait-list. She's been on the wait-list since March 2013.

I don't see any hope of her being seen there. There's no infectious disease doctor that has ever worked at the clinic.

I'm not sure how that's ever going to happen, how people are ever going to get help if they don't have the right people in place. We need to bring experts from the States. It's quite clear.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. You mentioned the Schmidt report serving as a possible blueprint for an action plan provincially. That report, the recommendations made — where does that sit with the provincial government?

C. Powell: It died. Nobody speaks about it. There's no discussion about it. There were eight fantastic recommendations that were made. It's as if the report fell under a bus. Never heard a word about it after it was initiated.

G. Holman: Sorry, so who would you recommend pursuing that? Would that be the Minister of Health?

G. Heyman: Thank you for the presentation. I've had a bit of a crash course on Lyme disease over the last two or three years, both from friends reading articles and, more recently, from constituents coming to speak to me in my office about many of the same issues which you've raised.

I think it's hopeful that there's all-party support in the House of Commons. I think it should drive us all a little bit crazy when there's a far greater long-term cost of the failure to invest in prevention up front that ends up in significant human cost as well.

I don't really have a question. I just want to thank you for the presentation and commend you and others who are doing a very effective job of both informing and lobbying MLAs.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation, Nicole. Like George, I think many of us have had the opportunity to talk to people in our community offices in our own constituencies.

You mentioned the chronic disease clinic. I've read a fair bit about the challenges with that clinic and the doctor quitting and hours being cut back. There are some huge challenges.

I just wondered whether the premise of putting together the clinic made sense, never mind the challenges that have happened since. Was there hope and optimism that perhaps this might be an opportunity to have some of the issues addressed if it had gone forward and if it hadn't had the kinds of challenges that we've seen?

N. Bottles: Absolutely. It had…. It still has so much potential. It's a very complex infection, and having a more broad look at treatment would be amazing for patients. Right now a lot of patients feel left behind by the medical system.

C. Powell: I think one of the problems that were never addressed at the clinic was actually having the expertise there in the first place. Me, personally — I didn't feel like it was appropriately funded in the first place. There was, I believe, $780,000 that was spent on a study. Only 13 Lyme patients actually participated in that study because of our skepticism about what that study would…. Actually, that study has been released and sort of downplays Lyme disease.

When Dr. Bested came on board, I don't believe she was aware that that money had already been spent, and they didn't have funding at the clinic to have a receptionist answer the phone. You can imagine, with all those people on the waiting list, all the questions that needed to be answered. They did not have the funds to hire a receptionist to answer the phone. That's pretty bleak.

And the expertise. If you don't an infectious disease doctor on board…. I mean, the other doctors — Dr. Zubek, Dr. Bested — had the best interests of the patients at heart, but someone shackled them from doing what the original mandate was.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. It's a difficult one to deal with, but we have lots of notes on this and the submission. Thank you again for that today. Please excuse our tardiness, once again.

N. Bottles: I've got a little something for you. I love origami, and I made you all a lime-green butterfly, which to me symbolizes hope. I wanted to give one to each of you.

C. Powell: We have, also, some lime-green candies, since we know you're going to be on the road for a while.

N. Bottles: We didn't want to put ticks inside here, but there are couple of poppy seeds inside. This is how small they are. So if you can find them, good luck.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you for your gifts. Again, ladies, thank you very much for coming today.

Next up we have Cowichan Women Against Violence Society. We have Jane Sterk — that's what I have in — and…
[ Page 712 ]

For your presentation, we've allotted ten minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions. I'll give you a two-minute warning before the end of ten minutes. Please, the floor is yours.

J. Sterk: Thank you very much. We appreciate this opportunity to speak to the committee, the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

I'm Jane Sterk. I'm executive director of Cowichan Women Against Violence. I've seen many of you on the campaign trail in my previous life. Cathy Welch is supervisor of our community-based and counselling programs.

Cowichan Women Against Violence — or CWAV Society, as you'll see a lot in the report — is an organization that provides services to women and children whose families are affected by domestic violence or intimate-partner abuse. We also service women who have had sexual assaults or who have had sexual abuse in their early history. We're often dealing with women who are dealing with issues that are related to childhood abuse.

The area that we service is from the top of the Malahat to Ladysmith on the south and north, and from Lake Cowichan and Shawnigan Lake to Chemainus, Penelakut, Crofton and Cowichan Bay on the east.

C. Welch: I'm just going to talk a little bit about what our services are and the programs we have. We have a number of programs that receive direct or indirect provincial funding.

We have Somenos Transition House, which is a first-stage transition house with ten beds for temporary housing for women who are fleeing violence — generally, up to about a 30-day stay at the house.

We also have a community-based victim service program which serves victims of violence — both men and women who are victims of violence, primarily women — and we help these folks navigate the provincial court as well as help provide safety planning and short-term crisis work. Not all of the folks who come through the victim service program are going through the courts, but particularly at some point in time, they probably do.

We also have a Stopping the Violence counselling program, which is for women who are needing longer-term crisis support and therapeutic support. Many of these women experienced some kind of childhood abuse, which also ends up being violence in current relationships as adults.

We also have the Children Who Witness Abuse counselling, which is for children from violent homes. These counselling programs help kids to understand the impacts of what they have witnessed. It's trying to impact their sense of themselves and any behavioural problems that may come out of witnessing abuse.

We also hold a horizons pre-employment program for women, which is a specialized employment program for women whose issues of trauma and violence get in the way of them being able to hold down employment. Usually there is a multitude of barriers that these women experience, of which trauma and the experiences of violence are one of the major impacts. What we help to do is work with them to provide skills and enhance their self-esteem so that they actually can gain employment.

We also provide a number of preventative programs through a series of group work that we do, support groups with women. One that we do is called holding your own, which is a support group for women experiencing violence in relationships. We run parenting programs that are specific for parents of kids who have experienced violence — two different programs — and we also run programming for parents and kids to talk about the issues that the children are experiencing.

As well, we also run a healthy relationship program within local high schools for grade 10 students in their CAPP programs. This particular program is funded through a foundation.

As well, one of our programs is the safer futures program, which provides community-based research and development. Currently those programs are not funded through provincial government funding. We have some federal government funding as well as foundation funding.

We really want to use this opportunity to bring to your consideration the issue of needed resources to reduce the costs of violence against women. We know that you will probably receive presentations from other organizations like ours and also from the Ending Violence Association of British Columbia, which is an umbrella organization for our community-based and counselling programs as well as from, perhaps, the B.C. Society of Transition Houses.

We recognize that our estimate of financial need represents one of many such requests you will receive and that together, those requests can add up to quite a significant increase to the provincial budget — just so that you know we are aware of that. We believe, however, that the total increase that is being asked of our sector is relatively small, given the amount and the impact that domestic violence costs our communities, individuals and families.

We challenge this committee to consider these needs as equivalent in importance to education and health care, which are both more expensive because of too little funding for the services needed to respond to domestic violence. We have provided you with a brief listing of some of the impacts that domestic violence has on our economy and some associated costs. All those are estimates. The numbers come from around the world. Because the costs are hidden, it is easy for government to ignore the reality of interpersonal violence and longer-term prevention requirements with additional government funding.

I think over the years Cowichan Women Against Violence Society has been…. We've been operating for about 33 years in the Cowichan Valley. We've demonstrated that we are
[ Page 713 ]
adaptable. Our transition house has moved from a ministry of the government to B.C. Housing corporation. We have adjusted and worked well with a new and changed mandate, including accepting women with higher needs into our transition house.

Our community-based and counselling programs have shifted from ministry to ministry and currently reside within the Ministry of Justice. We have responded positively to the changes and continue to provide dedicated service and good results.

Our pre-employment program currently functions as a specialized subcontractor to a private sector prime contractor that provides a multitude of government employment services in the Cowichan Valley.

J. Sterk: It's difficult to quantify the value that you get for the investment you make in our kinds of services, because sometimes they're a negative value. For instance, we don't know how many women or children have not been killed because they've had access to our services.

We know that since the beginning of January, in British Columbia, 14 women and one child have been killed by their partners, and those women did not have access to services like ours. So we can make some guesses that our services prevent women and children from being killed.

We also don't know how many of the women achieve independence, are able to be better parents to their children and so reduce the amount of government services that they require. But those are all things that are results of the programs that we offer. So it's difficult to quantify what you get for your investment, but we know that you get good value for what we do.

What we're asking for — and I'm going to keep this short because we're close to the end of our time — is what we estimate we need to do the job in the Cowichan Valley, to serve the people that we need to serve. All of the costs that you'll see on the list are ones that are related to the full-time-equivalents that are part of the contracts that have been adopted by the unions and the government that have provided funding for this sector.

We believe that we need…. We currently have about 17 hours of Children Who Witness Abuse counselling. We believe we need, actually, two full-time-equivalents. That's an increase in funding of $105,000. We have one full-time-equivalent Stopping the Violence counsellor, and we believe that in order to do the job — we have a wait-list of nine to 12 months — we need another full-time-equivalent, $75,000.

In our community-based victim services workers, we have the equivalent of one full-time-equivalent, and we need two. That's another $60,000.

In our transition house we believe we need 1.3 additional full-time-equivalents so that we can reduce the number of single-staffed hours. With the reduced mandate, we have a greater risk for both the people in the house and our staff, and many of our hours are single-staffed. You could have two or three women with addictions or mental health problems, and you could have a number of moms with kids. The total for that is $318,000.

Additional positions that we think would allow us to do a better job include an outreach worker, about $60,000 annually. And there has been identification of men's programming for abusers. We think we could start a pilot project for about $25,000 a year, and that would be, ultimately, a $60,000-a-year position.

There weren't any additional resources put in by government for their domestic violence strategy this year. They say there are going to be resources coming next year. I wonder if you've had any indication about any resources to do with either children who witness abuse or violence prevention or any of the kinds of programs that you provide — whether there's any indication of resources coming or whether there's been any contact or any work with your association.

J. Sterk: There has been no indication that there will be additional funding. We've had similar funding for ten years, so we're truly not hopeful that there will be a lot of new funding.

The provincial office of domestic violence has readjusted or redeployed funding, and there is no new funding. Their strategic plan includes men's programming, but there are no moneys attached to that. And the umbrella associations that lobby on our behalf — EVA and the BCSTH — have no indication that there will be additional funding.

The ask from the Cowichan Valley group — is that an example of core funding? Or is the core funding required provincially, which the provincial advocacy groups will presumably be talking to us about, different than the funding that you're referring to today?

J. Sterk: It's different than what you'll hear from EVA. EVA is really focused on victim services funding, and we want more core funding for the actual services that we offer in the Cowichan Valley. We do think there should be more victim services money available, but it's a very small ask.

If you were to take, for example, the $315,000 that we're asking for and multiply that by the 100 transition societies
[ Page 714 ]
that are likely in British Columbia, you have a much bigger number, much closer to $300 million. EVA is asking for $25 million to $30 million.

C. Welch: I think, additionally, that for both the Stopping the Violence counselling and Children Who Witness Abuse counselling — not only in the Cowichan Valley but across the province — what we definitely notice is that those programs have been running with wait-lists since their inception in 1992.

J. Shin: I was trying to look for this info in your handout. Would you be able to comment on what the percentage of your annual operation cost coming from the provincial government is and if that percentage has changed over the last several years?

J. Sterk: I think it's close to about 80 or 85 percent. We do get federal government funding for some of our programs — it's a very small amount — and some foundation funding. We know we are overly dependent on provincial government funding, and we have a pretty aggressive fundraising campaign to increase our overall revenue so that the percentage of government-funded programming is reduced.

We did bring five of our annual reports for those of you that might be interested. We have a little more detail about the society, and you can see our financial performance, which is consistently very good.

D. Ashton (Chair): Will you leave those at the back desk for us, please, and we'll distribute them? Thank you very much for coming, Cathy and Jane.

Sir, welcome. Thank you very much for coming, sitting patiently there in the gallery. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and we have reserved up to five minutes for questions from the committee. The floor is yours.

P. Lockie: Great. Thank you very much. Thank you all for the opportunity to participate in today's consultation. I'm Peter Lockie, interim president at Camosun College. We do recognize and are sensitive to the fiscal challenges facing the province. We're committed to playing our part in building B.C. for the future.

Today my presentation is going to focus on several key areas of interest to the college and the future of the province. I'll provide a snapshot of our college and our current budget situation.

As more people turn to our college for advanced skills and education for employment, we face both financial and physical capacity issues that, if not addressed, will limit our future ability to serve our community's needs. The current level of demand is placing unprecedented pressure on capacity at our college. We're currently managing wait-lists of as much as two years in many programs. Some examples in the health area include nursing, medical radiography, health care assistant and college prep.

In last year's fiscal year up to March 31, 2014, we achieved high enrolment numbers and achieved 101 percent of our ministry and ITA goal. We expect to do similarly in this current year.

Just a very quick snapshot of Camosun. We serve over 18,500 learners in the southern Vancouver Island and southern Gulf Island region annually, 94 percent of whom say they're happy with their educational experience here, according to our most recent student outcome surveys. We offer over 160 different programs: arts and science, business, engineering technologies, trades, health, human services, sport and exercise, access and indigenous education from our two campuses.

We're one of the region's top ten employers. We have over 900 full-time-equivalent employees, and this year's budget is $114 million. We're the province's largest provider of trades training after BCIT, and we're Vancouver Island's largest business school.

In addition to having an annual economic impact of a billion in the provincial economy, a recent study showed that 87 percent of our graduates stay in this region to live and work after graduation and 97 percent stay in the province.

The province's skills-for-jobs blueprint identifies significant labour market challenges going forward, and Camosun can be a key player in helping to address that. Forty-two percent of the one million job openings forecast by 2022 will require a college education. Together with our fellow colleges, we offer programming and graduates to fill almost 70 percent of the top 50 general occupations that have been identified and the top 11 health occupations.

We are already aligned with the three overarching objectives identified by the province in its blueprint. Hands-on learning in our schools is the first. Our South Island Partnership with five local school districts and industry leaders models and delivers best practice in the design and delivery of dual credit in trades, academic programs, and health and human, and courses in technologies and sciences. Our dual-credit activity has doubled in each of the last four years, shifting education to better match jobs that are seen to be in demand.

Over 50 percent of our current FTE delivery is already focused on areas that will significantly impact projected labour demand, specifically in trades, technologies, health, human services and business.

Stronger partnerships with industry and labour. An example of this: our applied research and innovation centre has been growing over the last few years, and their faculty and staff have successfully obtained federal and provincial funding, working with industry and sport technology, sciences and engineering.
[ Page 715 ]

Camosun has always placed very high importance on access to education, specifically targeting under-represented groups. We have strong demand and deliver results far in excess of the regional population rate for aboriginal training programs. We have just over 1,000 of our students of aboriginal descent.

We're committed to help students with disabilities to gain full and productive employment, and the number of these students is also significantly higher than the provincial average in other post-secondary institutions.

The federal government's changes to the funding of English as a second language risks having adverse effects on a key group within our student population. We're very appreciative of the province's one-time funding this year, and we'd like to have further dialogue with the province going forward on future support and funding options that might allow us to maintain this important programming.

As a result of scarce capital funding, some of the students are learning with outdated equipment and technology, and that makes providing advanced skills and education for employment a challenge. The province has given us some much-needed additional one-time funding for health education and trades training in the last few years, and that's been very welcome, but any additional funding for equipment and the like would be very beneficial.

To be more efficient operating the college, we need to modernize our facilities and upgrade our systems. We have an aspiration to build a centre for health and wellness. It's long been a priority for Camosun, and our vision is that that will become a new state-of-the-art teaching and learning facility that will help us meet our community needs.

We are very appreciative of the province's 2012 investment of $29.2 million into our planned centre for trades education and innovation, which will go some way to help us meet the emerging employment needs of the region and align our plans even more closely with the skills-for-jobs blueprint.

Look at our campus building infrastructure. The province conducted a survey a couple of years ago showing deferred maintenance in excess of $100 million at our two campuses over the next five years, so our ability to continue to maintain and operate these facilities at an acceptable level for students and faculty is increasingly challenged.

How have we responded to the budget challenges of the last five to ten years? We've had flat funding, and now we've got reduced funding. We've got a tuition cap policy in place. There's been a reduction in the investment in campus infrastructure maintenance funding. So we've had to undertake some fairly extraordinary measures to try to maintain the range and quality of programs and services that our students are demanding.

For the last seven years, as a result of this funding framework, we've gone through annual budget cost-reduction exercises and made educational cuts and administrative cuts, saving in excess of $12 million on an annual basis.

As a corollary to that, we've strategically grown our non-government revenues. We've had significant growth in international students on campus. We have almost 1,200, up from under 500 three years ago. That's a significant rate of growth.

We continue to operate in a balanced-budget framework, and we're committed to do so. The reality is that in 2011 we reached the point where there was nothing left to cut without moving into program reductions and service cuts. Since then, each year has included some of each of these. So without appropriate funding, we expect this regrettable trend to continue.

One, we require appropriate, sustainable operating-grant funding. Faced with the threat of again having to make cuts that will inevitably reduce or compromise programs and service quality when there's high demand, we request that our ministry review its funding allocation model to ensure that it aligns with institutional performance.

Our capacity is reducing as the result of budget challenges, yet student demand continues to be very high. Multi-year funding would also help us in terms of planning, since educational changes take time to implement.

Two, as a result of the federal government's changes to ESL funding, we request that our ministry work with the institutions to develop a long-term, sustainable strategy for the delivery of ESL that mitigates the impact on students. Given that one-time funding expires in March 2015, about six months from now, this is a most time-sensitive issue requiring provincial direction.

Three, the tuition limit policy, the cap which took place in 2005, has been in place for nine years. We think it's time to review this again, because there have been some unintended effects of its implementation.

Four, we believe government needs to increase its investment in campus infrastructure to address growing deferred maintenance needs. We understand money is challenging, but I think when money becomes available, that's an issue.

Lastly, five, government needs to look to the future and plan for major capital needs. Again, our top priority is the construction of a centre for health and wellness.

In conclusion, we are a top-performing college in B.C. We're the primary provider of advanced skills in employment in this region. The provincial funding framework is not providing us with enough to enable us to continue to manage and maintain this performance. Investing in our college is vital to the region's future economic health, and the province's, and we're a great investment. For every dollar invested in us, we return $5 to the provincial economy.

We remain committed to working with our commun-
[ Page 716 ]
ity to further the economic health of B.C. by providing the programs and services that result in advanced skills and education for employment. We're leaders across the province in applied research. We are and will continue to be key drivers in the region's economic development.

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

J. Yap: In your closing you talked about a $5-to-$1 return to the provincial economy. Is there a study that you can point us to or an analysis you that could share with us?

P. Lockie: There is one. I don't have it in front of me, obviously. What I can do is provide it to the staff when I send in a copy of this presentation.

J. Shin: Hi. Thank you for your presentation. You may not have this figure, but I was curious to find out if you can quantify for us what the overall funding shortfall was — on a yearly basis, maybe — over the last few years that, in effect, had to be downloaded to the students and the community in terms of tuition increase or increased fundraising efforts.

P. Lockie: Basically, standing still, just repeating activity year over year costs around $1½ million to $2 million more. What has made it worse in the last couple of years has been reductions in the flat grant. It was reduced as well as kept flat. Although there was a bit of download, we also are trying to be efficient with reducing where we can and trying to grow the international and other revenue sources just so that it doesn't all flow onto students.

Of course, with the cap on tuition, we don't actually have the ability to charge more than 2 percent, effectively, to students anyway, so what's happening is less capacity. We're reducing what we offer.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I think one of the great strengths in British Columbia is the connection we have in our college and university system — the laddering, the ability for people to go back and forth. Certainly, I know from the last stats I saw a couple of years ago, a number of people are going and getting a university degree and then coming back to college and looking at other opportunities. I think that is something that people might not have thought of.

I just wonder, because I've heard very little. Have you had much discussion in the college system or Camosun itself with the government around their blueprint for education, blueprint for skills training? We've heard a lot about the universities and the shifting of funds that's going to happen at the universities. I just wondered what conversations are happening at the college and whether there's been any discussion around funding coming through that route.

We've been focusing on the data that was provided in terms of jobs and skills that are required, so we've begun that discussion. We've been looking at our own programs. As I said, this is aiming at 25 percent in the loop, and Camosun is very focused vocationally. We're already over 50, so we've kind of been doing what that is identifying all along.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. Just a quick question about your debt level. I should know this, but does Camosun carry debt, as an entity?

P. Lockie: We're only allowed to incur debt with the approval of the minister and the Minister of Finance, and we've never asked for that. So we essentially run on the basis of not having debt.

G. Holman: Just quickly, I'm interested in your capital improvement needs. Have you…? It seems to me that if you're investing in newer facilities or upgrading the facilities, there would be a potential for cost savings there, as well, in terms of, for example, energy efficiency. Have you done those kinds of calculations, discussed that kind of thing?

P. Lockie: We have. The new trades building essentially will be LEED gold. Sometimes it's more costly up front to invest, but downstream we're anticipating that the operating costs can be mitigated. You're absolutely right.

We made significant gains in energy costs by investment that we got from the climate action activities about two or three years ago. We got some significant refitting of some of the trades buildings — air intakes and heating systems and the like — and have made remarkable savings in greenhouse gas, and dollars really. Sometimes you do have to invest up front, though, to get the benefits downstream.

Peter, thank you very much — appreciate it. And thank you again for your patience.
[ Page 717 ]

Good afternoon, ladies. Thank you very much for coming. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. We've allotted five minutes for the questions. It's nice to see you folks again, so please….

B. Le Clair: Thank you very much. First of all, I want to thank you for continuing to meet with people all across the province and hearing what's on their minds. We've had the pleasure of being here before.

I also thank you for the unanimous recommendation that the select standing committee made last year to provide ongoing $2.5 million in funding, which is just a baseline. We've never asked for more than we need. We really appreciate that unanimous recommendation.

We represent more than 400 communities across the province that are working with children and seniors and adults in the informal system and really making a difference in people's lives. We did receive at the end of last fiscal, '13-14 — in fact, last week — $2 million from government, and we are grateful for that. It does not let us continue to exist, but we are grateful that the government has spent, has made a commitment, in difficult times.

As far as we are aware, there is no funding in the '14-15 budget or beyond for community-based literacy. That means that the community-based work remains unstable. We lose brilliant people to other jobs in communities because of the ongoing instability of the work that they're doing.

Why is this important? Well, community literacy works with the people who are often most marginalized. For many people, there are really no other options for them to take advantage of. These are people who were maybe not successful in the formal systems and require a special kind of support and treatment to get them back to work, to get them healthier, more productive and more confident and to help them pass literacy on to their families.

Our labour market situation demands that absolutely everyone who is employable be employed and to their fullest potential.

This is the latest research from B.C. Sixteen percent of British Columbians aged 16 to 64 have only very basic or low reading skills. That's half a million people. When we say lowest on the scale, we're talking about no literacy up to about the end of grade 3 reading. That's a lot of people who need to be working on their literacy skills. Actually, the numeracy skills are worse, because that's 22 percent of British Columbians who have only very basic abilities to compute.

In the north of B.C., where most of the investment will go in terms of industry, there are a little more than 140,000 people who don't have a high school diploma. For most positions, that's the very basic entry level to even be considered.

What's happening in community literacy? Well, last year 200,000 people — children and adults — went to community-based programming. That is phenomenal. It's an amazing thing that's happening, with a very, very small amount of money.

I'm going to pass this over to Jacquie. Jacquie's on the board of Decoda Literacy Solutions.

J. Taylor: Thank you, Brenda. I devote my time to Decoda Literacy Solutions because it's the best bang, I think, for my energy and resources. I'm a retired educator. I have spent 40 years in being a teacher, principal, superintendent of schools and have worked for the Ministry of Education for the last couple of years as I finished off my career.

I want to clarify how community literacy positions itself with regard to our regular K-12 system and our post-secondary system. There's a possibility that people believe that our learning needs are taken care of by our two main learning systems — K-12 and post-secondary.

Although we have excellent schools — elementary schools, secondary schools — and we have excellent universities and colleges, it's simply not enough. It's not enough for our society and for our citizens to be able to carry out the life that they want to lead and be able to reach their goals. Our community literacy associations provide a very low-cost but high-need opportunity for people to reach their dreams and goals.

For a relatively small financial infusion of money, we have many, many — 200, 400…?

B. Le Clair: We work with thousands and thousands of groups and in every single community in the province.

J. Taylor: And those folks work passionately with the people right in their community, using facilities that are part of our provincial inventory of buildings. They're in schools. They're in college campuses. They're in church basements. So the infrastructure is not a high cost. The cost is the local person that reaches out, finds the people, coordinates the programs, matches programs with people and the kinds of services that they need. It is amazing work, and I think that Maureen will tell us of some of the stories.

I encourage you, as a board member, to please maintain funding for Decoda Literacy and that infrastructure around community literacy, because I really do believe that our society can't live without it.

M. Kehler: Hi, I'm Maureen. I'm a program manager at Decoda. I have hundreds of stories, but I want to tell you three.

Hornby Island. In the community they have a literacy task group. The economic development group came to
[ Page 718 ]
them and said: "We need to do something. We have a shortage of housing. We have a shortage of skilled labourers to actually do construction." You always have to hire somebody off-island to come and build for you. So what they did is they partnered with the college and the literacy group and this economic development committee. The college is bringing trades right to Hornby Island.

What the literacy coordinator did is she collected the people who were interested. She did assessments. She helped them with upgrading so that they were ready for the trades program. That trades program is happening on Hornby Island. There are nine full-time students getting their construction trade. Their first project was fixing a building that was under-code. They are building it so that this building is now going to be used by the community.

Another example: Abbotsford recognized the need for an aboriginal library. They have over 3,000 titles there now, and now they are doing programming within that building.

I just want to leave you with William, who came to a program. He was mandated to come to a program in Hope, and he had anger management issues. He had been in trouble with the law. After working with him, we realized that his anger management had to do with his low literacy. What we did is we connected him with a tutor. He said: "I want to be able to read to my kids."

Six months, two days a week, he worked on his literacy with us. End of six months he went away. I didn't know where he went. He came back a month or two later and said to me…. And he had a change in appearance. His hair was combed. His teeth were fixed. He said: "I got a job." He was working in our community, being present and contributing in his own life.

Of course, my last word is funding for the future. We hope that you'll make that recommendation again and that your colleagues will honour that recommendation. We're not asking for…. We know these are difficult times. We're asking for absolutely the minimum amount that we need to keep things operating. We look forward to better times when we can actually make an investment.

I guess maybe the last thing is that community literacy is not a charity. It's probably the most strategic investment that you can make in people's lives. It drives down health care costs, social supports and so many other things.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. I was on the committee last year. I was very pleased and proud that our committee made that recommendation. Looking over them again, I think it was the only area in which we actually recommended a number. Most that we recommended tended to be qualitative in nature. I'm very proud of our committee, what we did last year. It didn't quite translate into the outcome that we, that you hoped for, but hope springs eternal. I just wanted to thank you.

I'm assuming that your group is going to be approaching us throughout British Columbia. It was effective. It did work, and thanks for the work you do.

I'm an economist by background, and I believe that this kind of investment is really one of the highest rates of return that you can get. Just looking at the numbers you were citing there, half a million people in British Columbia have very basic or lower reading skills. Your throughput is about 200,000.

There does appear to be a need for your kind of service. Even with the $2½ million, I suspect you're not going to be meeting that need entirely, but thanks for the work you do.

I was just curious how, in B.C., we compare to other provincial jurisdictions as far as the literacy problem is concerned.

B. Le Clair: I think it depends which assessment you're looking at. Certainly across Canada, northern Canada performs less well than other parts of the country. Some provinces are more challenged than others. But I would say that when you look at the international statistics, Canada is doing poorer and poorer each time there's a national assessment. So you see whole other countries moving to the top of the scale, and places like Canada and the U.S. are definitely dropping behind.

S. Hamilton: Thank you for your presentation. I'll look forward, as Gary was alluding to, to listening to more dissertations by the other Decoda groups and the local organizations throughout B.C.

I'll echo something else that Gary said. Reliable, consistent funding is very important to organizations like yourselves, and I'm was glad we were able to at least put that recommendation forward last year. But I don't think there's another organization like yourselves anywhere in the province that leverages the money you do get the way you do. Your local community literacy organizations run on a pretty lean dime. Again, you do leverage the money that you get exceptionally effectively.

I'm going to carry that same message through again this year. Again, it was a common theme last year, in terms of consistent funding. And you're not the only group, obviously. You like to plan ahead. You have visions of two- and five-year plans, and you need to know that the money is there. I'll take that message forward again for you.
[ Page 719 ]

D. Ashton (Chair): Ladies, I want to thank you again for coming, and we look forward to seeing your peers around the province. Again, I apologize for the delay today.

Good afternoon, folks. Thank you for coming. The presentation, ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning. I'll just try and catch your eye without interrupting you. Then we've reserved five minutes for questioning. The floor is yours, so welcome.

B. Carter: Mr. Chair, thank you, committee members. I appreciate the opportunity. I'd like to recognize the work that Janet Crocker has done in doing the heavy lifting on what is a very broad-ranging presentation.

The Chamber of Commerce continues to advocate for balanced budgets and continued fiscal prudence. We commend the provincial government's commitment to fiscal discipline in achieving balanced budgets. The Chamber's pleased to see this was achieved through spending restraint rather than significant tax increases, further keeping B.C. competitive amongst other jurisdictions. We recognize the need to balance priorities like strategic investments while maintaining provincial competitiveness.

We encourage the provincial government to keep tax increases and spending within our means while building our quality of life and saving for our future. However, we ask you that you resist the temptation to spend the money that you've got, given the modest surplus in the most recent fiscal quarterly report. Further, we believe that the provincial government should work actively towards delivering services in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.

We appreciate the opportunity to present the priorities for our community and encourage the continued communication, engagement and participation with the provincial government.

B.C. Ferries. B.C. Ferries is critical to our coastal communities. Ferry service to greater Victoria is the very lifeblood of the community. As a gateway to all of Vancouver Island, it functions as a major corridor that facilitates commerce both on and off the Island. The Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen route that serves Vancouver Island is one of the few profitable routes in the system. We realize the price of fares has already surpassed the tipping point and cannot be increased further without having significant negative impacts on ridership.

The $79 million three-year funding from the provincial government will be exhausted prior to the next performance term. This funding has been essential in maintaining core service, and similar funding is required in the foreseeable future.

Recent discussions have focused on the importance and economic impact of the northern routes. These routes are important, but in order to make true financial gains, the major routes must be taken into account. The Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen route represents 36 percent of all revenues for B.C. Ferries. Indeed, the four major routes represent 83 percent of the revenues, or 62 percent of the total traffic. Ferry capacity utilization is highest on the Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen route, of all the routes, at 72.4 percent. It is essential this route be maintained and that traffic on the major routes be increased in order to sustain the other routes in the system.

We are concerned about ferry rates and believe that we've passed the tipping point and that current rates are discouraging travel. Limiting future rate increases to the rate of inflation will go a long way to alleviating this pressure. I'd like to sit before you and say that if we reduce ferry fares, ridership will increase significantly. However, I believe the key to increasing ferry ridership lies in increased economic activity in our Island communities.

The coastal forest industry has declined significantly, and tourism is only starting to see a recovery after many difficult years. We need to develop our local economies, attract resource businesses and build our economy in order to grow ridership. We need to have jobs at the end of every ferry route. The creation of an economic development strategy and associated funding will help increase ferry ridership.

The current system at B.C. Ferries functions well, and a return of ferries to the department of highways would only create bureaucratic expenses and not address core issues. The ferry system needs to continue with its infrastructure renewal while addressing terminal rationalization, alternate transportation means and adoption of new technologies, such as LNG, to meet our future provincial requirements.

The Belleville terminal. I know you've heard about that once already today. It's a key priority for our chamber, and we've worked closely with the regional stakeholders to develop it. The Inner Harbour is one of the province's greatest assets, and Belleville terminal is a key international gateway.

As a gateway to not only our province but our country, Belleville terminal's revitalization is of strategic importance. We support the direction of both the harbour authority and Tourism Victoria in identifying the revitalization project as a priority for the capital region. We recommend the province allocate the necessary capital to ensure Belleville terminal continues operation and grows in its economic impact.

Sewage treatment. Thanks for your money. We hope we're going to make all the deadlines. Please continue the commitment, and we'll sort out our end.

Labour supply. Labour supply and retention continue to be important issues for many businesses in our region as well as around the province.

The B.C. Trade Occupations Outlook published in
[ Page 720 ]
2011 notes that labour shortages in the trades sectors as a whole are expected by 2016. Indeed, we're seeing that now. Let's be clear. A 54 percent completion rate for apprenticeships is deplorable, and we need to address that. That's really a key issue. This rate hasn't changed much since the 1990s. Increasing completion rates is imperative to filling our skills gap in the trades.

It also has a positive effect on workers' income. Statistics Canada states that apprentices who complete their training and obtain certification earn wages that are 25 percent higher than those that don't complete the apprenticeship programs. This benefits not only the individuals but also the entire provincewide economy. We recommend the provincial government invest funds as appropriate in trade skills training, with the particular objective of increasing apprenticeship completions.

Workforce housing. Housing plays a critical role in our regional economy and is an important part of attracting a skilled workforce. We need workforce housing, and that need is becoming greater, particularly in areas like the capital region, where the cost of living is exorbitantly high. We recommend that the provincial government allocate appropriate resources to work with appropriate agencies and stakeholders to identify and implement strategies to address workforce housing.

Labour settlements. The chamber has adopted the pillars of good governance, which we advocate that all levels adhere to. One of our pillars is keeping tax increases and spending within our means, which we feel is an important guideline to use when negotiating public sector labour settlements. We recommend that the province negotiate labour settlements that are not only affordable but are also consistent with private sector wage increases, which reflect the ability of the taxpayer to pay.

Infrastructure investments. An efficient transportation system is key to building economic prosperity. It is also essential for building the Island economy. It's how consumers and goods reach and are distributed throughout our area. In greater Victoria we have growing regional transportation concerns that really need to be addressed. We need to achieve long-term, efficient transportation that includes investments into major regional infrastructure in order to improve movement of goods and people throughout the region.

Priority areas continue to include a regional overpass at the Mackenzie interchange, while other intersections are also on the minds of drivers, pedestrians and decision-makers. No other intersection in the region has as much impact on the efficient flow of people and products as the Mackenzie interchange at Highway 1.

Other priorities include better transportation and connections to the West Shore. The West Shore has had tremendous growth in the last five years, and our transportation infrastructure has not kept pace. We support efficient multimodal transportations that are integrated to increase connectivity.

Improved transit is a high priority. We worked closely with B.C. Transit to create peak-hour bus-only lanes on the major Douglas Street corridor. The continuation of these bus lanes to the West Shore is a key strategy to the increase of ridership. We ask the department of highways — or the department of transportation — to include funding for the development of these lanes in the next budget. We urge the provincial government to make the much-needed infrastructure investments to ensure the economic prosperity of the region.

In summary, what we've asked for today. Increase core funding for B.C. Ferries, flexibility in the B.C. Ferries delivery model. Maintain B.C. Ferries in its current structure. The creation of a coastal economic development strategy. Funding to develop the Belleville ferry terminal. Commitment to supporting sewage treatment — or ongoing commitment to do so. Funding programs to improve apprenticeship completion. Develop a workforce housing strategy. Keep wage settlements consistent with compensation in the private sector. Investment in priority lanes on Highway 1 and investment in improvements to the Mackenzie–Highway 1 intersection.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I hope your optimism comes through on sewage treatment, and that's all I'm going to say on that issue as well.

Just a couple of quick questions, Bruce. You mentioned the Ferries issue and the issue of fares. You said you don't want to look at lower fares, but are you proposing, then, that the funding increase to be able to maintain fares where they are so that we don't see further increases? That's my first question.

The second question would be workforce housing — whether the chamber has explored any ideas around workforce housing, whether there are any specific solutions or proposals that you have put forward or that you'd like to be looked at in that particular area.

B. Carter: To your first question, we'd love to see no ferry increases for the next 30 years. That would be great. I don't think that's really possible. I think if we could keep fare increases close to those of inflation, that would be reasonable. Without those core funding increases to B.C. Ferries, that's not possible.

Workforce housing has been a real bear for us. There's a reason you haven't seen a specific recommendation. It's because we've had trouble identifying one. We're certainly finding that there may be a bit of a conflict between local governments that need to approve and zone and do all of those things — even tax strategies at the provincial
[ Page 721 ]
level around how that works. I don't have the magic key. I'd like to find it.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation, which I find, for a chamber of commerce, actually quite enlightened. That's just a little joke. No, really. I do appreciate especially the recommendations around B.C. Ferries.

You probably will have looked at the UBCM study recently that provided estimates of the contribution of B.C. Ferries to the British Columbia economy. The assumption that they made in there as a kind of a baseline, an appropriate baseline, was an increase in fares along with the rate of inflation. They took that as a kind of an acceptable baseline, and it looked at the implications of increases over that and the impact on the economy. I very much appreciate your comments there, although I do come from an area where the minor routes are crucial.

Now that Ferries has moved back to an integrated model — you know, they haven't separated out the system — I think your point about ensuring the health of the major routes can help with the minor routes as well. I think that's implicit in your recommendation.

In any case, I wanted to ask you specifically about transit. The greater Victoria transit commission has proposed a two-cent-per-litre fuel tax surcharge. That's gone to the CRD board, which has supported that in principle. The minister has to approve that before that could be implemented. What is the chamber's view about that specific proposal?

B. Carter: I'm going to try and answer your first two questions first, actually. The UBCM study that indicated there was $2.3 billion in lost revenue due to fares…. It's a tough row to hoe when there was an economic downturn in the middle of that. Do I think that fares have affected B.C. Ferries? Absolutely. To that level? I'm not so sure I can draw that parallel.

As far as B.C. Transit goes, you know what? We were supportive of both the development of the current bus lanes and the allocation of that. As part of that, we wanted to make sure that operational spending remained within control. They agreed to do that. We agreed to support two cents a litre in fuel tax to be allocated strictly for capital.

Janet and Bruce, thank you very much. Greatly appreciated. Thank you for coming today.

Next up we have the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia — Simon Philp.

Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. Thank you for your patience. Ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and five minutes for questions. The floor is yours, sir.

S. Philp: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and thank you for the time to present. My name is Simon Philp. I'm the chair of the Certified Management Accountants Society of B.C. and co-chair of the transitional steering committee for the Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C., or CPABC. We have a package that will be provided to committee members later, along with a hard copy of our CPABC in Focus 2014 report.

I'm here today on behalf of CPABC, which represents more than 28,000 professional accountants and 7,000 legacy students and new CPA candidates. As you may know, B.C.'s CAs, CMAs and CGAs are working to unite under the CPA designation. Legislative amendments were passed this spring that allowed our members to proudly add CPA to their business cards, and we are working with the Minister of Advanced Education to enact CPA legislation and legally merge and establish CPABC. We are hopeful to see CPA legislation introduced in the upcoming fall session.

On behalf of all three organizations, I would like to take this opportunity to thank both the government and opposition for indicating support for us in moving toward CPA. It really is the right move and a good move for the people of B.C. and Canada.

Professional accountants are on the front lines of business in this province. We hear firsthand what issues are affecting investment and the economy. To that end, I would like to provide an economic snapshot that includes highlights from our annual B.C. Check-Up report and CPA business outlook survey.

In 2013 B.C.'s real GDP growth rate remained at 1.5 percent for the second year in a row. There are several contributing factors behind the low growth rate, including lower commodity prices, a contraction in the labour market and a delay in the approval of several major proposed projects.

Although these factors hindered economic growth overall, B.C.'s exports of goods and services increased last year. An improved U.S. economy and demand from Asia drove solid wood product exports, which increased by 25½ percent. In addition, exports of B.C.'s natural gas and metallic minerals also rose last year.

Overall, the value of exports increased by 5.9 percent, to reach $33.3 billion, and continued export growth through 2014 should stimulate job creation in the resource sector and make up for the 4,400 jobs that were lost in 2013.

B.C.'s average compensation per employee increased by 4.2 percent in 2013, likely due to an improvement in labour productivity. However, average consumer debt per capita rose by 4.6 percent and was the highest level in Canada. Unsurprisingly, high debt levels are largely due to the high cost of buying a home, an issue I'll address shortly.
[ Page 722 ]

In our recently completed CPA business outlook survey, 89 percent of our members felt that B.C.'s economy was either fair or good, and 8 or 9 percent thought it should stay the same or improve over the next two years.

Based on our members' input and our economic analysis, this year our recommendations will focus on four major areas: the impact of foreign speculation on B.C. housing prices, municipal transparency and accountability, business input tax credits and supporting the provincial venture capital investment. I'll address housing prices first.

The high cost of housing is an issue that our members have flagged as a challenge to business for a number of years. In this year's CPA business outlook survey 81 percent of respondents saw housing prices as a moderate or major challenge for business success. In a report by Demographia, Vancouver was second to Hong Kong as having the most unaffordable housing market across 360 major housing markets in the world. According to CMHC, B.C. has the highest average housing prices in the country, due largely to Vancouver's property values.

One of the factors driving up housing prices is foreign speculation, and 55 percent of our CPA members see foreign ownership of properties as a moderate or major business challenge. In a survey conducted by Sotheby's, foreign buyers account for approximately 40 percent of Vancouver's market for luxury single-family homes, with China remaining the top market influencer as buyers of secondary or investment properties.

The city of Vancouver has recently approved the establishment of the Affordable Housing Agency, which will collect data on issues such as vacant homes and will provide information on ways to limit investor speculation and unnecessary vacancies in Vancouver's housing market. The province should monitor this initiative and consider implementing it provincewide. Having provincially relevant data would help policy-makers look at ways to potentially mitigate some of the negative impacts of foreign speculation and bring housing prices in line with provincial economic conditions.

One mitigation strategy being implemented by Hong Kong is the stamp tax, which was introduced for foreign buyers purchasing property that is not their primary residence. This is still a relatively new program, so B.C. should see if there is a positive correlation between this policy and a lowering of housing prices within Hong Kong's domestic market. If there is a positive correlation, we would recommend that B.C. introduce a similar policy.

I would now like to focus on municipal affairs. Local governments face the same issues as their larger provincial and national counterparts: they must deliver high-quality but affordable services and do so with limited funding options. But 66 percent of our members felt that municipal governments were only doing either a poor or a fair job of creating a good climate for business and investment in B.C.

In addition, half our members felt that municipal business taxation posed a moderate or major challenge to business success. However, municipal governments, which have a significant direct impact on the province's business climate, have traditionally faced the least amount of scrutiny. Given the importance of municipal accountability, CPABC applauds the provincial government for setting up the country's first Auditor General for Local Government, an important step forward in ensuring transparency at the municipal government level. Creating a uniform municipal reporting framework for the AGLG to work within should also be a priority, as it would ensure that municipalities are assessed, compared and benchmarked using standardized indicators for service delivery.

Performance measurement indicators are crucial to ensuring financial transparency and have been put in place in Ontario, which introduced the municipal performance measurement program. All municipalities are required to report annually against 14 core, standardized service areas, and it assesses best practices, efficiency and effectiveness of services and compares municipal results year over year and municipalities of similar sizes. Data gleaned from these results has been used to develop an electronic library of municipal best practices. Municipalities also provide information regarding their results to the general public, providing transparency and accountability to taxpayers.

CPABC recommends that the provincial government consider establishing key performance indicators for municipal governments. In order to do so collaboratively, the Auditor General for Local Government's office should work with municipalities to establish the core indicators and should be tasked with running the program in conjunction with its select performance audits. We know that the adoption of performance indicators is also supported by the B.C. Chamber of Commerce.

Good tax policy at every level of government helps create a strong, competitive economy. That is why in previous submissions we have advocated for a simpler and more competitive sales tax. When looking at the B.C. PST, the biggest issue at stake for business is the loss of input tax credits. We would again ask that the government consider reinstating input tax credits for business that were lost when the HST was repealed. Given the lower-than-forecasted growth that B.C. has experienced over the last two years, this policy decision has likely had an impact and been a contributing factor to B.C.'s mediocre GDP growth results.

This position is supported by almost every business association in the province. Recent research done by the Business Council of B.C. shows that B.C.'s marginal effective tax rate, or METR, went from 17.8 percent in 2012 to 27.5 percent in 2013, when the PST was
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reinstated. This compares to a national average of 18.6 percent. The METR looks at the upfront costs of making an investment, including financing, taxes on materials and services, equipment purchases and inputs, and is an important indicator of a jurisdiction's competitiveness. Economist Jack Mintz noted that the reintroduction of B.C.'s PST was a contributing factor in Canada's slipping down the ranking in tax competitiveness within the OECD in 2013.

Our own members consider restoration of input tax credits one of the most important things government can do to improve our province's competitiveness, and 69 percent consider the current PST a moderate or major challenge to business success in the province.

We recommend that the B.C. government commence planning for the return of an HST-like system that will restore input tax credits, and should one of the myriad LNG or other resource projects come on line, the restoration of input tax credits should be made a top priority.

Lastly, I would like to comment on one of B.C.'s burgeoning sectors and what the government can do to support it. Our B.C. Check-Up found that in 2013 venture capital investment in B.C. more than doubled to $478 million. This was the largest increase of any Canadian region in 2013, giving B.C. a 24 percent market share.

The increase in venture capital investments in B.C. implies that technology and knowledge-based industries are continuing to grow and mature. Increased venture capital investments are also one of the factors that drive the need for highly skilled labour.

While B.C.'s investment capital branch manages and issues tax credits pertaining to the Small Business Venture Capital Act, which has encouraged the investment of equity capital in the province, there is still room for increases in public subsidization, particularly from the federal government.

Public subsidization of venture capital investment can encourage economic development and innovation. For example, the Ontario Venture Capital Fund was established as a joint initiative between the government of Ontario and leading institutional investors. Since its launch, it has attracted $872 million in private sector capital to Ontario while creating and retaining 1,500 jobs.

Recognizing the potential, in 2013 the federal government announced the $400 million venture capital action plan. However, B.C. has not benefited from the federal government's funding. Given B.C.'s growing high-tech sector and burgeoning venture capital market, we recommend the provincial government aggressively encourage the federal government to shift significant venture capital investment support to B.C. under the venture capital action plan.

That concludes my remarks today. I would like to thank members of the committee for their time and commitment to listening and collecting the views of this province. We will submit a final submission and copies of the B.C. Check-Up by the October 17 deadline. I'd be pleased to respond to questions and hear your comments.

Just in terms of a concern about municipal business taxation, what's your view of the oft-repeated complaint of local governments about the infrastructure deficit: the fact that they have only 8 percent of tax revenues available to them but very significant responsibilities for upgrading and maintaining infrastructure?

In my view — my personal view — I think that that may be at least one of the roots of the problems with respect to municipal taxations. I'm not convinced that their ability to raise revenues matches their responsibilities.

S. Philp: It would certainly be difficult to disagree with an assessment about what some of the causes may be. I think, really, all I could say to it is: our members indicate the areas of concern. They don't necessarily indicate all of the areas of solution or what the specific factors or thoughts are behind those different issues.

The complexity of taxation and the disincentive it provides to investment and to job creation and business development is the key issue. If you had a question you want me to take back to the membership with a bit more detail, then we could try and probe a little deeper.

G. Holman: I guess, very simply: what is your organization's view of the so-called infrastructure deficit faced by local governments? Not that you have to answer it today.

G. Heyman: Thank you. I'm interested in your view, if the government was to provide an input tax credit — given that it's highly unlikely that anybody would suggest that it's acceptable to the citizens of British Columbia to actually return to the HST — of how you see that tax hole in government revenues being filled.

S. Philp: It's a good question. Probably best to take back, if you'll give us a…. I don't know to what extent it results in a full reduction versus that it's a disincentive to the initial investment.

You're talking about…. We can get you some data on sort of a more quantified answer.

G. Heyman: Thank you. I look forward to that, particularly if you have data that sees the tax drop actually
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not happening because of a change in economic activity from other jurisdictions.

G. Holman: Your recommendation around trying to curtail or look at foreign speculation in housing is quite interesting. Could you just quickly explain to the committee what the measures are in Hong Kong that have been implemented? What, basically, have they done there?

S. Philp: I'm only familiar with them at a high level, but basically, there's an additional tax on any secondary properties in the Hong Kong market — I presume similar to the way homeowner grants work in B.C. now. But it would be an expansion of a program — either an alternate program or an expansion of a similar program.

Just before we go to the next presenters, I have a transportation issue that I have to discuss with the committee really quickly. Would you mind just giving us two minutes or a maximum of five minutes, quickly? If you don't mind, if I could just ask you to step outside for half a sec. Thank you.

D. Ashton (Chair): Welcome. You probably heard me. The presentations are ten minutes — I'll give you a two-minute warning — five minutes for questions. The floor is yours.

P. Weyer: Good afternoon. My name is Paul Weyer. Both my wife, Tara, and I will be speaking today. We each have recommendations at the end of each of our talks.

I had heard about Lyme disease, but I didn't know it was here in B.C. I was bitten by a poppy seed–sized tick on February 4, 2012. It was on me for less than 18 hours. I had a bull's-eye rash six days later and went on doxycycline for a month. The walk-in-clinic doctor said that I was the second walk-in patient that week with this rash. The rash didn't clear up by the end of the month, and as the doctors do not have any training, the antibiotics were stopped.

Unfortunately for me, the one month of antibiotics did not work. In a couple of months I got sick periodically until the symptoms and bad days overwhelmed my life. I became sicker over 2012 until bedridden, late in the year, with over 60 symptoms. My wife, Tara, was caring for me more and more through the year. After speaking with local people that had been sick and eventually got better, we accepted that we would have to pay for treatment as they had done. This is hard for Canadians — paying for tests, diagnosis and treatment instead of it being provided.

We saw a tick-borne-disease specialist in Seattle, and the extensive tests showed that I was positive with four tick-borne diseases: babesia, Lyme, ehrlichia and anaplasma. I got these from a tick bite around my house in the Highlands.

The tick doctor thinks that given my health history, I had Lyme from one of the earliest of my five tick bites. As at least two of the ticks infected me with diseases, this would mean at least a 40 percent tick disease infection rate. The four tick-borne diseases made the untreated Lyme infection into a complex, interwoven chronic disease mess.

I started getting treated in January 2013 by the Seattle doctor. I would have died without the treatment or without my wife. I've been on multiple high-dose antibiotics, supplements and a changed diet for the last year and a half.

This has been financially devastating. I have been off work since November 2012. I was heavily into my line of credit, so I had to sell my business to pay for it all. I am left without my employment, the company that I built for ten years, and my retirement plan. As of right now I've spent more than $93,000 for treatment so far, all while not working during the prime earning years of my life.

We cannot see anyone without paying for treatment, as there is no one who diagnoses or treats tick-borne diseases in our free medical system. As the doctors were not trained, instead of treating when acute, the diseases became chronic and established and much more difficult and expensive to eradicate.

We do urge the B.C. government to consider recommending to municipalities to support a deer cull in high-deer-density, tick-endemic areas, and to also partially finance these deer culls. Ticks are endemic to the wooded areas around the CRD due to the mild climate, lack of predators and large number of feral animals, including the overpopulation of deer.

The ticks that carry diseases here are also called deer ticks, as they breed on deer. Studies prove that when the deer population is lowered, tick and Lyme rates are lowered. There should be an attachment showing that on my second page.

We used to live on an acreage in the high-deer-density community of the Highlands. We had about a one in two
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chance of getting a tick on us when we went for a trail walk. Our dogs had several ticks on them each month, just from being around the yard and road. Our U.S. doctor told me that we had to move, as another infected tick bite would kill me. We moved to Fairfield in September 2013. Deer culls in the high-deer-density areas will ultimately save money and prevent infections.

Recommendation two. The 2010 B.C. Schmidt report had several recommendations, including one for the establishment of the complex chronic diseases program. All of the report's recommendations should be implemented effectively and as soon as possible so that others do not get sick and continue to be employed and generating tax income.

Recommendation three. We urge B.C. to refocus the province's $2 million investment in the chronic diseases program. The complex chronic diseases program in Vancouver was supposed to treat people like me. It has been a waste of money. Patients do not get antibiotics but instead get told to breathe deeply, meditate and eat well. Several doctors have quit, as they are unable to make patients well through the allowed treatment protocol. Patients have to go to the U.S. for treatment and cover the costs themselves.

People need and deserve a program with proven, practical benefits that include long-term antibiotics so that they can be healed and get back to work. Please ensure that your program investment is working for the government of B.C. and the patients.

T. Parkinson: Good afternoon. My name is Tara Parkinson. Lyme disease has completely changed my life. If I and my husband, Paul, had known about Lyme disease or co-infections, we would have been more aware of ticks and tried to get treated quicker. Unfortunately, we had to handle this part ourselves as there is basically no assistance, testing, diagnosis or treatment for people in B.C. with tick-borne diseases, even though primary health care is a provincial responsibility.

In 2012 Paul was getting progressively sicker until he was bedridden, and it was all-consuming to look after him. In 2012 my own symptoms were fatigue, memory loss, facial tics like Parkinson's and a large goitre on my thyroid. I had been to see my medical doctor and a specialist about my goitre. They were about to remove my thyroid, as it had gone gelatinous. The surgeon said that thyroids sometimes do that and that I would be on thyroid medication for the rest of my life. The surgeon and doctor did not know why this happened.

At Paul's first visit to the tick-borne-disease specialist in Seattle, the doctor took one look at me and told me that I had Lyme, from a visual assessment of my goitre and facial tics. I was not a patient of hers yet, so I filled out the forms and also went for tests. It was confirmed that I had Lyme. I changed my diet and started treatment. My goitre went away in a few months and, with the long-term treatment, so did my other symptoms.

Our tick-borne-disease specialist thinks I got Lyme from my husband. The Lyme spirochete bacteria is a close cousin to syphilis. Unfortunately, I was a regular blood donor until I learned that I had Lyme. The blood system does not test for any tick-borne diseases, so I likely passed on Lyme to others. This will ultimately cost the province a lot of money as people get infected through blood donations. No organs are tested for tick-borne diseases either, nor are patients or family members asked if the person donating had ever been bitten by a tick.

The U.S. CDC estimates that there are 300,000 new cases alone of Lyme each year in the U.S., making it the largest vector-borne disease in the U.S. This does not include the co-infection rate. Before becoming infected ourselves, we did not know Lyme was on Vancouver Island. I now know that infection rates are increasing, but I hope that awareness is too.

While gathering signatures for Elizabeth May's petition for a national Lyme disease strategy, I met hundreds of people here locally who have Lyme or know someone that had Lyme. Vets know about Lyme disease and other co-infections, and there is a vaccine for pets. Dogs seem to get better Lyme disease treatment in B.C. than people do, even though they don't pay taxes.

Our two-step testing protocol for Lyme disease in B.C. is only about 50 percent accurate. It does not seem reasonable that B.C. continues to pay for such an ineffective testing protocol, one that does more harm than good. Ultimately, it is much more expensive to treat chronic conditions than acute conditions. We need to prevent the infections and treat them early and effectively. As such, we urge this committee to support the following three recommendations.

One, we need to support our doctors by getting tick-borne-disease training as part of the medical school curriculum. B.C. doctors do not receive any training on tick-borne diseases, and without the training, they cannot properly diagnose, order tests and treat these highly treatable diseases.

Two, we need to implement a doctor protection act so that doctors are not sanctioned, as has happened to one practising B.C. medical doctor who treated tick-borne diseases with long-term antibiotics — Dr. Murakami in Hope. Doctors are apprehensive to do long-term treatment of chronic cases as, officially, they are only supposed to treat for one month. Syphilis is treated until symptoms go away, sometimes years, and it is a spirochete bacteria as well.

Three, we should implement the Lyme disease framework recommendations that will come from the federal government by way of Elizabeth May's recent federal bill, C-442.

With these aforementioned recommendations for B.C., people like Paul would not needlessly get chronically sick
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and would continue being contributing taxpayers. As a B.C. taxpayer, I welcome a proactive approach to health care spending and hope to mitigate what might become a very expensive epidemic here in B.C. Thank you for your consideration.

G. Heyman: One quick one. Thank you for your presentation. I notice there are several today. We've had one previously, and we've had visits in our offices, as well, from constituents — a number of us.

P. Weyer: There used to be one for humans years ago. It did cause some Lyme, so they pulled it from market. It was about lawsuits, so the company pulled it from market.

I just want to thank you for coming forward. I greatly appreciate your input and our challenges these days, so thank you, and thank you again for waiting.

D. Ashton (Chair): Hi. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then five minutes for questions, if required, after. Again, thank you for coming forward.

R. Wright: Thank you for letting me be here. My name is Romola Wright. I have a Bachelor's degree in biology, an MA in special education and an MA in educational leadership.

I'm told I'm a dedicated, devoted teacher who is passionate about teaching students with special needs, which is what I've done for the past 14 years. I've taught students here and in the Yukon. I care deeply for our children, and I love what I do. Each of us learns in different ways, and I love the puzzle of finding out the best way for each student to learn.

Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head for wanting an education as a girl in a place where education was denied to girls. Here in B.C. we have an inclusive education practice, where everyone has a right to an education. Let us not deny that right due to lack of funding.

Schools are a microcosm of society. We have all sorts of children, and they need all sorts of support. Right now we are lacking adequate, consistent support and resources for our children with special needs, for our children with mental health conditions and for our children who live in poverty. I care deeply that all our children get the education they deserve in a safe environment with enough nutrition to feed their growing minds and bodies.

Increasingly, overcrowded classrooms filled with students with diverse and complex needs have stretched my capabilities as an integration support teacher and have placed me and my colleagues under unbelievable stress. It is part of my job to anticipate and rectify situations which are unsafe emotionally and physically for our students, while attending to their educational needs. This is becoming increasingly difficult as workloads increase, staffing levels decrease and funding becomes scarce.

Programs in art, music and library time, as well as a shared-resource lending library, have been cut back or eliminated. I worry that the very things that keep my students happy and engaged in school are being eliminated. I worry that a lack of resources or staff could lead to safety issues for any of our students.

While my primary work is with our students, I also work closely with the parents of students with special needs. Supporting our students with special needs means supporting their parents as well. These parents are themselves under extreme stress, as they often don't have enough sleep or time and are often short on money as well. This means that our children sometimes come to school with inadequate food, school supplies and clothing, and the cost of transportation can be a barrier as well. This continuing long-term stress increases the odds of divorce in these families, which adds another layer of isolation and distress.

Jim Flaherty was a beacon of light for these parents when he became an advocate for people with disabilities. He has made a real difference in the lives of the disabled, providing a funding plan for monetary savings, among other actions. We can all choose to be advocates for the disabled within our individual roles in society.

In many ways, B.C. has a first-class education system, at least according to our test score results. We have also led the way with integrating our students with special needs into the regular classroom.

I'm proud to be a teacher in B.C. and proud to be a Canadian because of the shared values of taking care of our young and vulnerable. However, as an educator, I know that we have a long way to go. When I started teaching in 2000, the students with special needs were segregated in special programs. The shift to full inclusion has been a contentious one, but at least it was funded.

Over time, funds have been cut out for supporting students with special needs, starting with students with
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learning disabilities. These are the students who have averaged above-average IQ scores but who have difficulties learning in specific ways.

With support, often won in the courts, these students have fought and won their way into private schools, universities and even law schools. Without support, many of these students will drop out of school. I'm grateful that the Saanich school district has provided support for these students through teachers like me in spite of relentless cuts, but it has come to the point that I can only provide minimal support for these students.

Students with attention deficit disorder and mental health issues are not recognized as students with special needs in British Columbia unless their behaviour has become a large enough concern. Students with autism, Tourette's, Down syndrome and other identified high needs have had to become my priority.

These students used to be funded one to one with an educational assistant. That funding has been cut, so now not all students with these conditions have an assistant. Even the ones that do, share that educational assistant with others in the classroom, because we try to group our students to get the most out of each educational assistant.

If the educational assistant happens to be sick, there is not always a replacement that is available. Even when a replacement is available, they are often not trained to deal with the particular student who needs support. Part of my daily job is shuffling schedules and people so a highly vulnerable child is not left with a stranger. The result is an inconsistent routine for everyone — the child, the educational assistant, the support teacher and the classroom teacher. This creates an unsafe environment.

Our students with special needs do not cope well with change and can react emotionally and physically. Teachers coping with this child are often supposed to take care of the needs of four or more identified special needs students with individual educational plans and teach the rest of the class. They are required to monitor the academic progress as well as the emotional and physical safety of all students.

Our teachers are very good at this when they are not overloaded with excessive numbers of needs. When growing numbers of students with behaviour concerns, suicide concerns and complex special needs converge with adolescence, the task can be overwhelming.

Last year my workload was to give support to students with special needs and any other child needing extra support in seven classrooms across three grade levels with a variety of conflicting schedules. Given that there are 20 classes in a week, I could theoretically divide my time so that I would be in each class for three blocks a week, which is inadequate for many of the students I work with.

However, I must also take at least two classes a week for preparing materials; testing students; meeting with parents, teachers, educational assistants; communicating with therapists, doctors, social workers; and filling out the required paperwork to document educational plans. In addition, I give up two to three lunches a week to teach social skills, guide a peer reading group or set up a friendship circle for an isolated child, for example.

I also run a homework club after school for students who do not get the academic support from parents at home. However, if a child is going through a behavioural crisis, I must abandon all scheduled support and attend to that child immediately, leaving everyone else in the lurch.

Cultural differences must also be taken into account. Many of our students with special needs come from overseas and are learning English while they adjust to their new lives in Canada. We are also lucky to be able to work with the children of the Coast Salish people who live on the reserves on the Saanich Peninsula. Canada's historical shame for the residential schools has left a legacy which is still being lived with today. A short drive to the Saanich Peninsula shows the continued Third World poverty that many of our students struggle with on a daily basis.

The secret of special education is that it is not really special at all but based upon good teaching practice. What we do for our students with special needs is good practice for all students. On this day, the day after the Terry Fox Run, I ask that we fund students with special needs fully, as this reflects our basic values and the kind of society we all want in this beautiful province of British Columbia.

I have some suggestions for how to spend that funding, but that's off the top of my head as an individual teacher — it's in writing for you — so if you had any questions from my own individual perspective.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation, and most importantly, thank you for your work. Your passion came across clearly, I think, for all of us, so I want to express my appreciation.

One of the issues that I hear often in the education system is that the acuity, the challenges that children are coming to school with now are much greater than they previously were — more complex, more needs. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and whether that's a reality that you're seeing as well.

R. Wright: It is a reality. For example, I had to take over the case management of a student who had strangled his previous case manager and was pulled off by the vice-principal, who happened to be in the room at that moment. Nobody else would take on this child, so I took on this child. We did, because of this behaviour, get a one-on-one EA for this child. This child would bring knives into school and had mental health issues, had been traumatized, had been physically abused, was not living at home, etc.

Yes, these cases are much more complex. We used to
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have other institutions, other classrooms where these children were kept separate. Now they are next to your grandchild or child in the school. I'm not allowed to tell you that we're checking that that child hasn't brought a knife to school every day in their backpack, which we do for safety's sake. But the level of risk has gone way up for your average child because of the high needs.

Another child I'm working with got angry at his teacher and threw seven or eight desks in her general direction. He doesn't blow up regularly, only five times this year — the best he's had, ever. We're the only school who hasn't thrown him out and the only school where his classmates' parents haven't ganged up to have him thrown out.

I commend the public and the children for putting up with this behaviour while we get it turned around.

We also have a race in time to teach literacy — I heard your presenters before; I teach in the middle-school level, so we have grades 6, 7 and 8 — in order to teach literacy to children who come in still not able to read. But I'm not really allowed to work one on one with a child anymore, because our numbers are such that it's hard to justify.

G. Heyman: Thank you for your presentation. My presumption, although I could be wrong, is that over time you observe the progress and learning outcomes of students, both those with special needs and others. I'm wondering if you can describe any observations you have about the quality of the learning progress and outcomes, as there has been a shift away from as many resources as used to be present for special needs education.

R. Wright: Yes. For example, I worked with a child. I'll call him Harry. He couldn't read, and I worked with him every day one on one. It took two years for me to see the slightest progress whatsoever, but at the end of the two years we made progress. Now, at the end of the term, the end of the eighth grade, he was reading, perhaps only to a grade 3 level. But that was not happening…. I cannot spend that time anymore with children like him.

J. Shin: Thank you for sharing that. I was an instructor as well, and one of the things that I noticed at the post-secondary level is that the students often come with issues that you would expect to be traditionally addressed at home by their parents, for example.

Over the last 20 years — with a number of younger families, especially, pulling in double income and mother and father not being available to instil some of those moral values for their kids — I was surprised to see how many of those challenges I had to face as an instructor myself beyond delivering the curriculum objectives, right?

Did you see in your experience in the K-to-12 system that the teachers are also finding pressure, beyond just delivering their curriculum objectives, to also almost provide that parental guidance that they should be getting at home?

R. Wright: There is no "almost" about it. Both mothers and fathers, by and large, are working. Oftentimes the attitude towards educators, and towards the children themselves, is not one of respect, so one has to teach the basic moral codes of how to behave towards each other, how to respect each other, how to set a tone in a school.

Our teachers are very good at this. We do a good job of this. But the role seems to be expanding more and more, and particularly in the area of special needs, where our parents are more overloaded. We wash clothes for children. We feed children. We toilet children. We provide feeding tubes if that's what's necessary — not us personally but the trained aide who is with them. The level of care is astounding.

Then if you go to the regular classroom…. I want to talk about one classroom. I worked with this….

D. Ashton (Chair): Romola, I'm running out of time. I'm sorry. I have about a minute left, and there's one more question. I do apologize. Just be brief.

R. Wright: Sorry. Okay, yes. One more sentence. In the classroom where we had only four identified students, there were six that I would call normal, rambunctious boys, and that alone is difficult.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation and the work you do. I really appreciated your comments about First Nations on the peninsula. That's my constituency.

My quick question is: do you work with the literacy groups at all? Do they work with you, with some of your students?

R. Wright: I have from time to time. Sometimes I'm on the literacy committee, and sometimes I'm not. More recently I've just completed my second master's, so I wasn't taking on committee work.

D. Ashton (Chair): Romola, thank you very much. A very interesting and very good presentation. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get everybody with the time, so thanks.

Folks, we just need a ten-minute break. Okay? I apologize, but we'll just take ten minutes. We'll recess. I can't see the clock, so we'll come back at five to four.

Thank you, folks, for coming. It's Ellen and Serge. Is that correct?
[ Page 729 ]

D. Ashton (Chair): You've probably heard that the presentations are ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have reserved five minutes for questions from the committee. The floor is yours.

S. Corbeil: Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to offer you the recommendations of the Canadian Diabetes Association as part of your important work to inform the provincial 2015-16 budget.

My name is Serge Corbeil, and I'm the director of government relations and advocacy for the CDA. With me today is a volunteer member of our provincial advocacy committee, Ellen Stensholt.

I will start with a brief overview of the CDA and the impact of diabetes on the health care budget. Ellen will then speak to our recommendations. I think that in the package there you will see our recommendations and some information about the CDA.

The CDA is a registered charitable organization, formed in 1953. Our mission is both simple and ambitious. It is to lead the fight against diabetes by (1) helping those affected by diabetes to live healthy lives, preventing the onset and consequences of diabetes and (3) discovering a cure.

Our staff and more than 20,000 volunteers provide education and services to help people fight against the disease, advocate on behalf of people with diabetes for the opportunity to achieve their highest quality of life and break ground towards a cure.

Here in B.C. we do this through four regional offices offering programs and initiatives in the community. The association believes that British Columbians with diabetes have the right to be treated with dignity and respect and to have equitable access to high-quality diabetes care and supports. Such are the guiding principles within the association's diabetes charter for Canada. Our vision, through the charter, is a country where all people with diabetes can live to their full potential. You have a copy of the charter in your package.

Diabetes is a condition that usually becomes worse over time and cannot be reversed. Apart from the significant personal toll to people living with the illness, the financial burden to the government is staggering, reaching into the billions of dollars. If we collectively don't address the rising tide of diabetes, it has the potential to drive the health care budget over the financial cliff in the coming years.

Consider the following. Today an estimated 420,000 British Columbians have been diagnosed with diabetes, representing 8.6 percent of the population. An additional 733,000 people live with prediabetes. Ten years from now it is estimated that 213,000 more people will be diagnosed with diabetes, bringing the total to 634,000 people. That's a 50 percent increase in prevalence.

In Canada overall there are more than nine million persons living with prediabetes and diabetes, and it has a real impact on the health care budget. The estimated cost of diabetes in B.C. today is $1.6 billion a year. We estimate that it will climb to $2.1 billion ten years from now. Most of it derives from the complications from diabetes. Poorly managed diabetes can lead to serious and potentially life-threatening complications, such as heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, lower limb amputation and depression. It's actually the leading cause of blindness, end-stage renal disease and non-traumatic amputation in Canadian adults.

One of ten deaths in Canada was attributable to diabetes in 2008-09, the last year for which we have statistics. Compared to the general population, people with diabetes are also over three times more likely to be hospitalized with cardiovascular disease, 12 times more likely to be hospitalized with end-stage renal disease and over 20 times more likely to be hospitalized for a non-traumatic lower limb amputation — real consequences for the provincial budget.

E. Stensholt: Thank you, Serge, members of the committee. My name, as you know, is Ellen Stensholt, and I volunteer with the Canadian Diabetes Association. The reason is very personal: my daughter lives with type 1 diabetes. She was diagnosed when she was 21. She's 43 now.

Very briefly on the complications: the day she was diagnosed she was in Edinburgh. The doctor at the Royal Edinburgh clinic said, "Let me look at your feet," so she took off her shoes. He said: "Right now your feet are healthy, but you need to know that diabetes is the leading cause of amputation of the foot in the United Kingdom." At that point she's 21 and a marathon runner. Diabetes is tough to live with.

Our recommendations were crafted with people living with diabetes in mind but also, as Serge mentioned, with how diabetes is having a significant impact on the provincial budget. As highlighted in the consultation paper, the province of British Columbia is a leader in Canada in health outcomes, such as mortality due to heart disease. It is important to build on this track record by improving supports for people with diabetes so that they can better self-manage their disease and delay or avoid serious complications. Your foot does not have to be amputated. You can manage your diabetes. My daughter still runs marathons.

Our first recommendation is in regard to the coverage for insulin pumps. All people living with type 1 diabetes need insulin to survive. Many choose to deliver insulin by manually injecting it several times a day, while others
[ Page 730 ]
use an insulin pump to deliver the appropriate amount of insulin when required throughout the day.

There is compelling evidence of the medical benefits of insulin pumps versus multiple daily injections of insulin. Switching from daily injections to an insulin pump can offer better blood glucose control, reducing the likelihood of developing complications. The greatest impact as a result of the switch is on end-stage renal disease. However, there are really high out-of-pocket expenses associated with the use of a pump, which is a barrier to effective management of diabetes.

Insulin pumps cost between $6,000 and $7,000, on average, and they need to be replaced approximately every five years. In addition, annual pump supplies can cost up to $4,000 per person. The government of British Columbia has recognized these benefits and currently funds the purchase of insulin pumps and supplies for eligible persons with type 1 diabetes who are aged 25 or younger. In fact, we were delighted. We applauded the government just in February when they increased the age and expanded the program from 19 to 25.

This is a step, very definitely, in the right direction. However, the reality remains. Currently an estimated 19,300 people in British Columbia are living with type 1 diabetes, including approximately 12,500 people over 26, who are currently not eligible for insulin pump coverage. The seriousness of the condition and the dire consequences to individuals when insulin is not readily injected when needed…. No matter what their age is, insulin pumps are the best way of preventing complications. The control of blood glucose is better.

Our second recommendation — I'm just going to flip right to the two — concerns therapeutic substitution. We're very concerned that there's recently been a decision made here to substitute DPP-4. It's a policy regarding DPP-4, and there are consequences. Essentially, our position boils down to this: there are unintended consequences.

When the B.C. government in the past did a therapeutic substitution based on cost alone, no medical reason for this…. There's no medical reason to substitute this DPP-4 for another drug. This was done here in B.C. in 2003. Instead of saving $42 million as had been predicted — this was with respect to GERD — it ended up costing $43.5 million. When you make a medical decision based solely on cost, it can turn out differently than you anticipated.

Our last recommendation is something we think probably everybody can agree with: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We want to prevent the onset of type 2. Type 1 diabetes — it's an autoimmune disease. You get it. Type 2 diabetes is a matter of education. To some extent, it's a lifestyle disease. We need to work on healthy eating, healthy exercise. The B.C. government has spent money on this, and we urge you to continue to do this. We would like to see you increase that funding to 6 percent of the health care budget.

D. Ashton (Chair): Ellen, thank you for the presentation. I look around here, and I'm kind of going like this as I'm stuffing a chocolate in my mouth to get through the day.

G. Holman: My mom was diabetic, so I feel pretty close to the issue. What's your current estimate of the proportion of the health budget that's allocated for preventive?

M. Morris: I appreciate your presentation. I sat as a member of the Drug Benefit Council for a few years. The decisions on what medications to use and what not to use — it's not solely based on finance. There are a whole bunch of factors that come into play. We participated in a therapeutic review of diabetes here, I think, about five years ago, perhaps, on that and came out with a lot of recommendations.

A lot of work needs to be done. The Canadian Diabetes Association is doing some great work in conjunction with the B.C. Medical folks on diabetes. We've got a whole bunch more work to do.

You know, when we have our deliberations and whatnot I certainly will be keeping this in mind, so thank you very much.

S. Gibson: In your concluding remarks you mentioned some of the points about the fact that diabetes can be, if not prevented, certainly attenuated. A buddy of mine almost knew he was going to get diabetes because of the lifestyle he had and his weight and that kind of thing.

I guess it's a provocative question, but based on your knowledge and understanding, for what percentage do you think of people that contract diabetes could it be prevented or at least significantly attenuated? That's really, to me, an important question.

E. Stensholt: The only way I could try to answer that is to say that some 80 percent of type 2 diabetics are obese, if that's of any help in giving you an idea. So reducing weight and increasing exercise is an effective way of reducing your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
[ Page 731 ]

S. Gibson: Just as a supplementary, my friend's a big boy. I guess somebody told him: "If you don't lose the weight, you're going to be more likely to have diabetes in your life."

E. Stensholt: Oh, yes. It's absolutely true. Abdominal fat, in particular, is a real indicator of potential risk of type 2 diabetes.

S. Corbeil: What's concerning from my ad is that you're starting to see a move on the age pyramid where we're told that children in high school are now being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which is quite concerning for the future.

G. Holman: Just a quick question. My understanding is that diabetes is a growing epidemic among First Nations. Does your group work with First Nations? Or can you just briefly describe if there are particular programs aimed at First Nations of British Columbia?

S. Corbeil: We don't have specific programs for First Nations. They have a program funded by the federal government called the First Nations diabetes strategy. We do, however, offer — and it's funded by the Ministry of Health — a program called Food Skills for Families. We're offering it in 111 communities in B.C. right now. Some of those are actually First Nations communities.

J. Shin: I'm not sure if you can answer this question. It's just out of personal curiosity, actually. Does the association have any ongoing dialogue or communication with the food industry, for example? I understand that, to some extent, there can be policies or legislations that limit the amount of sugar content in stuff like this, for example, and I'm just wondering if that's on the association's priority as far as trying to taper that level down.

S. Corbeil: Actually, we just participated. We just submitted to Health Canada our brief on the new labelling that they want to introduce when it comes to food. So we are having some discussion in that regard.

S. Corbeil: It's limited to the labelling, and we're having an internal discussion in terms of the whole idea of sugar content and sugar tax. That's something that we're, as a group, in terms of policy, looking over right now.

D. Ashton (Chair): Ellen and Serge, thank you very much for your presentation today, and thank you for waiting.

Lou-ann, thank you very much coming. May I ask the pronunciation of the last name?

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay, thank you. Thank you very much for coming today. Thank you for waiting. The presentation is ten minutes. I'll give you a two-minute warning at eight minutes, and then we've reserved five minutes for questions by the committee. Please, the floor is yours.

L. Neel: [The Kwak'wala language was spoken.] I've just spoken in my language of Kwak'wala, which is from the northern tip of Vancouver Island. My English name is Lou-ann Neel. I'm from the Mamalilikulla and the Kwagiulth people, which are two of the 15 tribes of the Kwakwaka'wakw.

I was saying in my language that I acknowledge the Lekwungen-, Sencoten- and Hul'qumi'num-speaking people for always making us feel so welcome in their territory.

I'm here actually wearing two hats today: CARFAC B.C. and Authentic Indigenous Arts. CARFAC, as you see from your notes…. I'm not going to read all of my notes. I'm just going to glance at them a little bit. I just joined CARFAC this summer as a result of several things happening around the Authentic Indigenous Arts world. Maybe what I'll do is just talk a little bit about Authentic Indigenous Arts first and show how the relationship between the two groups has come together.

Authentic Indigenous Arts is a new initiative of Aboriginal Tourism B.C. It's actually driven by artists — myself as one of them. I'm a jewelry and button blanket maker. Myself, along with about five other artists, came together over the last couple of years to talk about what we could do about the gap that has been happening for many, many years, since my grandmother's time, in the way indigenous arts products are sold and produced in British Columbia and elsewhere.

The biggest problem we have is, of course, that many of the aboriginal-themed gift items, including those purchased by the province through all of its ministries in the protocol and recognition programs, are actually created by companies that have no aboriginal employees, anybody involved. In fact, the money that is made from these pieces does not trickle back to our communities at all, and artists are not actually paid for those. There are no royalties. There is no initial fee.

We're really concerned about that, and we started Authentic Indigenous Arts as a way to address that, but rather than approach it in a negative way, we decided to focus on clarifying for the consumer what authentic is. We developed a program. I'm sorry that I only had a couple of our rack cards, because, again, we're underfunded. Some of you will have a copy of our rack card.
[ Page 732 ]

We started up a website where artists can come and be recognized for who they are, where they come from originally — what tribe — and the style of work they're doing. Consumers will be able to ultimately go into pretty much any store, such as those up here on Government Street, and scan with a QR code to find out if the work they are purchasing is indeed authentic and that the artist is being paid fairly for those works.

I'll just switch hats to CARFAC now. This is one of the primary mandates of CARFAC. CARFAC is a national organization. I'm currently vice-president for the B.C. chapter. CARFAC has done a lot of work to set up an artist fee schedule or guideline that is used by galleries and organizations across Canada. Its main intent is to ensure that artists are being paid fairly.

Because CARFAC has this wonderful history, an over 40-year history of doing this in Canada — in B.C. we'll be turning 25 next year, CARFAC B.C. — it seemed like a really good time for the Authentic Indigenous and CARFAC to come together. What CARFAC offers is exactly what indigenous artists need. We didn't want to reinvent any circles. We didn't want to start from scratch. We took a really good look and had many conversations with CARFAC.

It was a partnership that we thought was a long time coming, and so we are now partnered and working together with other arts organizations, including the Alliance for Arts in Vancouver, to bring indigenous artists into existing arts organizations, access the kinds of services and programs that are available there and hopefully put together a stronger voice for what our intentions are.

I didn't bring a whole bunch of statistics or numbers for you. I think our colleagues at the Alliance for Arts will be presenting some pretty convincing information in a couple of weeks, probably in Surrey, but the one statistic I really wanted to bring to your attention I wrote on the second page of my notes. We did a preliminary study just in Vancouver, because it is quite a hotbed of activity for aboriginal-themed gift items, and 80 percent of the items that were sold had nothing to do with indigenous people at all.

It doesn't take very long to put the dots together to realize that when you look at our communities — the high unemployment rates, the low rates of success in small business and entrepreneurship despite the programs that are available — inevitably even when artists or people who are supporting arts-support services get out into the business world, even though those programs are available, the longstanding nature of those programs isn't there. They're one-off usually, so we don't have a really good infrastructure.

What we're hoping to do between CARFAC and Authentic Indigenous is bring all of those concerns together and start to develop something new to deliver it in a different way, very much based on our traditions. We hope that that's going to work. We are aware that we've tried everything already, so it couldn't hurt to try something entirely new.

I'll stop there. I think that was the main thing I wanted to cover. Our recommendation to the committee is that when the proposals come forward from the Alliance for Arts, the committee really take a close look at what the alliance is proposing. We'll be spending the next couple of weeks ensuring that whatever data we can get about indigenous artists are available to their submission. There isn't a lot of data because, as you know, there's been no funding.

The final thing I'll say is that the last time B.C. had support for indigenous artists was 30 years ago. That was in the mid-1980s. The group was called the B.C. Indian Arts and Crafts Society. It folded 30 years ago. It ran for about 20 years, was very successful. Funding got cut, and there's never been support since. We have no local, regional or provincial indigenous arts organizations at this time except for what we've just started.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much. So you said that when we're in Surrey, you'll be doing another presentation that will fill in some of what you were speaking of — is that correct?

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. It's a pretty striking statistic — the 80 percent — around First Nations and aboriginal artists. I wonder whether you have…. You mentioned earlier government buying gifts.

I wonder whether any conversations have happened. It's an interesting idea to approach government about following your guidelines so that at least the resources — that's not even additional money; those are existing resources being used — will go directly to products and services that support indigenous artists.

L. Neel: Yes, I'm glad you asked that. We actually met with two ministries recently — the people who are in charge of purchasing. I don't have their names handy. I used to work for the province, so I get all the names mixed up.

L. Neel: I know. I'm still thinking old acronyms. It's the minister responsible for Tourism; the minister responsible
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for Training, I believe; and the protocol and recognition program. We talked with all three of them a few weeks ago. They all were already working closely with colleagues in-house to ensure that they were buying authentic, but they weren't always able to do that.

We've invited the two ministers from Tourism and Training to come to our launch. I actually would like to extend an invitation to each of you for October 8, which is a Wednesday, 9 a.m. Over at the Royal B.C. Museum in the Totem Gallery we are going to officially launch our initiative, and that will be the point where we'll be really seeking a lot more corporate support and private support as well. The province has assured us that they will continue to look at ways they can make sure they're buying authentic.

D. Ashton (Chair): Excellent. Wednesdays are a good day around here, so could you make sure that something does come forward for all of us? That'd be great.

S. Gibson: I was interested in the statistic here about 80 percent. I guess you should be flattered, actually. It's a compliment. I know I'm being a little frivolous, but if somebody impersonates something that somebody is doing, or copies it successfully, it's really a credit to the work that your artists are doing. But of course, the money is not going in your direction.

My question really relates to the art itself. You know, art morphs. You'll see artists in various communities. It'll start out a certain style, and it'll morph into a certain style. I guess my question is…. It's hard to define what aboriginal art is sometimes, because before we arrived here, probably art was quite different.

Are you trying to emulate the original art before Canada was colonized? Do you know what I mean? Are you trying to go back to sort of the original art that was pure in its essence and use all local art tools and paint and that kind of thing? I guess that's my question.

L. Neel: I'm really glad you asked that. That would be impossible. We actually took a look at all of the similar initiatives around the planet. We looked at New Zealand, Australia, the United States — theirs have been the worst record for their legislation — at Northwest Territories, Arctic Co-op. We're not after going back to try to define exactly what is authentic and who is allowed to do it, mainly because there's been so much intermarriage and cross-marriages across tribes that that would be impossible.

What we're really focused on is making sure that the artist is at the centre of all transactions and is the one who benefits ultimately from the transaction. Our three-tier system that we've set up enables the artist…. As long as they design the work, produce the work and distribute the work, they're considered tier 1. If they design and produce the work but somebody else distributes it for them, that would be a tier 2. In the third tier the artist designs but a producer creates it and distributes it, which is a large part of what you see on Government Street — the ones that no royalty is paid. We're trying to draw that back in and say to the producers: "We want you to negotiate a royalty."

The question around, "Who gets to define what?" is so complex, with B.C. being so diverse with so many cultural groups. I'm at Emily Carr right now, so I've started work leading into my master's to work with communities to prepare their own statements.

Each tribe is so different that their boundaries and standards and how they define what art is and who should be doing it are so unique that even from here in Victoria amongst the Coast Salish to the Nuu-chah-nulth on the west coast to the Kwagiulth up at the north end, we have completely different rules around those traditionally.

I'll be doing some workshops with artists in all of our communities, probably via the Internet over the winter, to just get the conversation started. It's going to be a long process. There's a lot of undoing and redoing that has to take place.

D. Ashton (Chair): Lou-ann, thank you very much. Greatly appreciated, and we look forward to that invitation coming out.

D. Ashton (Chair): Next up, PISE, Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence. Thank you very much for coming. We tried to track you down a minute ago, but you got out of here, and I don't blame you. I apologize for being late. We had to start late today.

R. Bettauer: No worries. I flew in from Halifax this morning, so I needed some fresh air anyways.

Robert, thank you very much. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. We've allotted five minutes for questions.
[ Page 734 ]

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. My name is Robert Bettauer, and I am the CEO of PISE, the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence.

With a major capital contribution of $24.5 million from the B.C. government, PISE opened in 2008 as the first summer sport institute in Canada. It is an independent not-for-profit organization located next to Camosun College at the Interurban campus in Victoria, B.C. In collaboration with its partners, the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific and Camosun College, PISE serves the community, students, Canadian international high-performance athletes and coaches from across the region, province and country.

Within the state-of-the-art facility we provide excellence in community sport and active healthy-living development, sport and exercise education, sport technology research and world-class athlete performance services. The return on investment for B.C. has been tremendous, as we have become a model of operational financial self-sufficiency while levering, along with our partners, resources from federal, municipal and private sources, as well as the sports that locate their training programs in our region because of the services that we provide.

I want to thank the B.C. government for the substantial investment that has been made into the sport system in this province for many years. The ongoing support has paid multiple dividends in helping support our top athletes achieve their performance goals, bringing pride to our communities and serving as excellent role models for youth in our province while also promoting a healthy lifestyle.

That investment is now starting to reach a much larger segment of the population through our broader mandate of providing support to sport and physical activity to our communities. Working with partners like ViaSport and the Victoria Foundation, PISE has been directly delivering to a wide range of community physical activity programs, with a particular focus on physical literacy to youth.

We delivered programs to approximately 3,500 children this past year, providing them with the essential stepping stones to a healthy life. Physical literacy introduces the fundamental movement skills to children, helping them to learn how to run, jump, throw and use their bodies effectively so that when they try a sport or a physical activity, they have some success, enjoy the experience and start down a path of lifelong healthy activities.

The need within the community is great. Many of our programs are provided to children at risk who often do not have the opportunity to engage in these types of healthy activities. In the 2014 school year we delivered to over 2,600 children through in-school, after-school and recreation programs. Over 400 of the children we reached are First Nations.

Our strategy also includes educating the educators and training the trainers so that these programs continue beyond our actual delivery and can be sustained in those locations. The feedback from institutions like the Craigflower Elementary is powerful, where educators confirm that the engagement the students have in regular physical activity not only improves health but also results in better attention, enthusiasm and learning in the classroom.

The most encouraging element of our approach to community programming has been our ability to connect with the health, education and recreation sectors and partner in the delivery of programs to schools, rec centres and health organizations. Through our common goal of creating healthy, active communities and by sharing information and skills, we are levering our collective resources to a much greater benefit.

This is a particular breakthrough for the sport system — connecting sport to physical activity as part of the larger Canadian Sport for Life framework model that provides accessible opportunities to engage people of all ages, skills and levels of development.

This emerging multisector collaboration may be the largest return on leveraged investment, as we are starting to see the tremendous benefits of working together. We are part of a growing network of regional centres that the government supports, connected to ViaSport, that is building and levering these multisector partnerships across the province. A proposed increase in the initial investment in regional centres will be levered multiple times through these broad-sector alliances, benefiting communities throughout B.C.

Some examples of how PISE is able to lever investments. We became the beneficiary organization of the Commonwealth legacy funds in Victoria seven years ago, utilizing $500,000 annually that we lever with multiple partners, including sports, Own the Podium, private sponsors and community sources, for a combined annual high-performance support of close to $1.5 million in this region.

We now receive approximately $100,000 annually from ViaSport that we combine with donors from the Victoria Foundation, community grants, private sponsors and program revenue to invest over $300,000 annually in our physical literacy programs.

We are a major supporter of SportHost Victoria, helping bring in numerous sport events that help generate millions in sport tourism dollars annually to the businesses in the local economy. We invest over $100,000 annually in marketing communications, which we triple in value through direct and in-kind media sponsorship, profiling and promoting sport, physical activity and healthy living.

PISE continues to grow. We just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games
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to recognize the tremendous contribution made by the Victoria community 20 years and to showcase the resulting ongoing legacies, including PISE.

Our next facility step is to build a much-needed world-class training track at PISE. That will not only benefit the athletes and students at PISE but will also be fully available and accessible to all members of the community. The price tag for this much-needed track is approximately $1 million, of which we have already raised close to 50 percent, and we are very grateful for the $100,000 that the B.C. government initially provided to help stimulate our fundraising activities. Athletics Canada has confirmed that a new track at PISE will be instrumental in locating their new western national training hub in B.C.

Longer term, to maintain a world-class facility and to meet the growing needs of this successful model and the community, PISE needs to build out to its originally intended size. We have estimated the order-of-magnitude costs for the expansion will be about $15 million.

Going forward, we will be requesting contributions from the B.C. government towards these projects to further lever our expertise and partnerships to help us collectively realize our goals for sport, physical activity and health in the province.

I want to thank you for your time today, and we ask that the B.C. government consider not only maintaining but increasing its contribution to sport and physical activity, realizing a substantial return in investment to community health across the province.

Just a quick one. You flew out this morning, so you fly back tomorrow, I'm assuming?

R. Bettauer: No. As you know, a few years ago I was in Penticton, and I've been the CEO of PISE now for four years.

R. Bettauer: I am. For those of you who follow tennis, I was covering the Davis Cup tennis match between Canada and Columbia in Halifax. I moonlight as a tennis analyst when not running PISE. I'm guilty.

J. Shin: Just a very quick question. I don't think I remember seeing…. Would you be able to give us the demographic of the people that are accessing the services and programs in the institute? Are they largely from Vancouver Island? It does say across B.C.

R. Bettauer: Well, the community users for our programs are all from the greater Victoria region, from the community centres and the schools and health organizations in this area. The athletes come from all over the country.

We have several of our Olympic and Paralympic national training programs here in Victoria. We have the largest per capita number of high-performance athletes training here because of the combination of climate, support from the community and the quality of our facilities and programs here.

J. Shin: Would it be safe to assume that if we have a budding athlete, say, in Kamloops, B.C., they'll be seeking the services and help from…?

R. Bettauer: Depending on the sport, yes. Not every summer sport locates in Victoria, but a large number of them do.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I think it's interesting timing coming in after the diabetes folks, who were talking about the importance of exercise and the importance of investing in the prevention end, which I think is a large part of this.

The presentation was terrific, and I think one of the big challenges that PISE has is that a lot of people know about the elite athlete, the big programs, and not many people even in our own community — speaking as a Victorian — are aware of the other programs and services and supports you provide for people who want to perhaps start their fitness program or for kids at risk, etc.

I think part of the challenge that is on your plate is making sure that people see that it's more than simply the elite athlete. That's a great and important part to be able to contribute, but I think people need to see the broader base of the organization.

R. Bettauer: Thank you for those comments. I just need to add one thing. I've been a high-performance guy all my life. I played Wimbledon, French Open, Davis Cup for Canada. I was an Olympic coach. But as my friends like to say, I've seen the light and come over from the dark side. And I'm kidding, of course. I believe that the community physical activity and health programs that we run are the real gem of what PISE does.

I think we're becoming a best-practice model of sport organizations, going forward, that combine sport and physical activity and really have the ability to connect to the community, because we're not just about performance. Sport is a subset of Canadian Sport for Life in physical activity. It's an organized subset of it, but
[ Page 736 ]
physical activity is the much larger arena that we all participate in, and we understand that.

We are committed, with all our resources and our expertise, to reach out to the community — and with health and education and recreation. We understand that we all have the same common goals: healthy, active communities. We all benefit from that.

D. Ashton (Chair): Absolutely. Thank you very much for your presentation, and thanks for waiting today.

Beth, Jackie, thank you very much for coming. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning before the ten, and then we've reserved five minutes for questions. The floor is yours.

B. Danskin: First of all, thank you to each and every one of you for being part of this committee and giving people like Jackie and I a face-to-face voice. Thank you for your time.

My name is Beth Danskin, and this is Jackie Powell, and we belong to a group called Moms Like Us. We are parents of adult children with mental health challenges, and we have rallied together to establish an accredited international clubhouse in greater Victoria for those with severe and persistent mental illnesses. We speak not only for our own children but also for those moms and dads like us who are not able or have lost the will to advocate for their children.

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association as well as the World Health Organization, one in four people deal with a mental illness.

Our families have become very frustrated in trying to navigate the mental health service system. We struggle to understand the various programs and resources available through community, government agencies and health authorities. Services are fragmented, there are gaps in the system for youth, and we have to go from one place to another to find the various resources. We spend much of our time informing each other about resources we discover, the eligibility policies and other restrictions that might apply.

There are multiple phone calls, long wait-lists, extensive application forms and interviews to deal with, and you can imagine the challenge that that is for someone who deals with anxiety, depression and a general lack of confidence.

What Moms Like Us has discovered is the accredited Clubhouse International. This is a holistic approach to recovery for people 18 years and older with severe and persistent mental illness and is based on 36 standards. This model also addresses the gap we see for mental health services for youth. There's employment. There's housing, education. Supported access to community programs and other services are all available under one roof. There is a simple application form, and the only criteria are that the member has a mental illness and that they are not a danger to themselves or to others.

One of the best aspects of clubhouse is the work-ordered day. People with mental illness are no different from you and I in their need to have meaningful work and to be productive. It has been said that employment for those with severe mental health challenges isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing. The number one dream of people with mental illness in terms of breaking free from the bonds of their illness, the poverty associated with it and the embarrassment and stigma of it is to be able to go work.

The clubhouse is purposely understaffed so its members, who work with staff, run the clubhouse. They keep it clean. They run the restaurant that provides nutritious meals for all the members, which they can afford. They do clerical work as well as gardening, reception and various other aspects of running a clubhouse. The members' help is essential, and all the while they're learning skills, building relationships and gaining self-esteem and respect for themselves.

This can then lead to a desire to get out and work in the community. In a sense, the clubhouse system is very similar to the B.C. graduated driver's licence. It is gradual, supported and allows for choice and individual readiness.

One particularly effective clubhouse employment program is a transitional employment program. The very nature of mental illness is that it can come back, and when it does, the mentally ill are unable to do their job duties. This disruption is not workable with most employers. With transitional employment, the clubhouse arranges with an employer to train a clubhouse staff member in a job. The staff member then trains the clubhouse member. So if the member becomes ill, it is the staff member that goes and does the work with the employer on the job.

These are part-time positions lasting six to eight months, and a resumé or an interview is not necessary. It is all arranged by the clubhouse. What a wonderful way to ease someone who's been out of work for many years back into employment. The next level is supported employment and then independent employment, all based on the member's choice and level of readiness.

At the clubhouse the staff work alongside members, and there's no hierarchical system. The staff believes in the members because they see them at work. They see their skills, and they have to depend on them. They believe in recovery, and they build on their strengths.

Many people with mental illness have given up on themselves. They are in their parents' basements, isolated and dependent, or on our streets. A clubhouse is a place to go to get out of this pattern.

If you get ill or are absent, you get a phone call from a member, through the outreach program, making sure that you're okay and that you are missed. If you're in the hospital, you will get a visit from a member.

[ Page 737 ]
As a society, we have had our heads in the sand, failing to acknowledge that mental illness, and untreated mental illness in particular, has reached a public health crisis that rivals physical diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The financial drain on health authorities, businesses through employee absenteeism, and the criminal justice system is escalating.

The police are crying out for help in dealing with the mental health–related calls that they are inundated with. In Victoria alone, it has increased 356 percent in the last five years — the number of mentally ill–related calls that are going to the police. Moms Like Us has met with three police chiefs — Victoria, Saanich and Oak Bay — and they all support us and the need for more services for the mentally ill.

There are 322 accredited International Clubhouses all over the world. Canada has 18. Three of them are on Prince Edward Island. B.C. has one: Richmond Pathways Clubhouse. Moms Like Us has visited five clubhouses, including the original Fountain House in New York City, which, by the way, just received the highest humanitarian award given in the world for people working with the mentally ill.

If you'd like to see firsthand what a clubhouse can do, visit the Pathways Clubhouse in Richmond. Right from the welcome that you get when you walk into the clubhouse to the workday unit meetings, you will be encouraged and impressed at what you see.

We feel every person should have the opportunity to choose to be a clubhouse member, and yet it's a challenge to convince those with the purse strings to believe in something other than the medical model and traditional programs that have existed for many years.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada tells us there are 7 million Canadians that live with mental illness. Although that's 20 percent of Canada's population, those with mental health challenges continue to face widespread discrimination and stigma. So families struggle silently in order to protect their adult child from any negative labels that might lead to a lack of opportunities and progress. It's hard work, and for many parents who refuse to give up, it's lifelong and with no respite. The clubhouse will ease this burden for many families.

Mental illness is 15 percent of all diseases, and yet it receives only 2 percent of the resources. More resources must be allotted to mental illness and psychosocial rehabilitation. It is critical that funds be allocated to proven, supported interventions that are evidence-based, such as the clubhouse model. A recent study done on the Pathways Clubhouse found that for every dollar spent, the SROI was $14. This is evident in fewer and shorter hospitalization stays as well as less incarceration, to name just a few of the benefits.

Moms Like Us asks you to give strong consideration to joining us to ensure that enough resources are available so that every B.C. person with a mental illness has the opportunity to choose to be a member of an accredited clubhouse. Let's start with Victoria and get people working.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation. Can you just briefly describe the status of the proposal for greater Victoria? Do you have some funding organized? Are you looking at a new facility or buying an existing structure? What kind of…? What's the state of play there?

B. Danskin: Well, we went to the development training in Indiana, Jackie and myself and another person, and we were told that we need to get Island Health on board. Island Health is the main funder, so we've been meeting with them once a month. That's now been moved up to twice a month to try to work towards getting funding from Island Health.

Once we get funding from Island Health, we're hoping that we can then go forward. We do have a case statement, and we are prepared to make presentations to funders, but first of all we need to get Island Health on board.

G. Holman: Just quickly, on the operating side, does the Richmond facility cover its operating costs, or do you need ongoing support?

B. Danskin: Yes. It needs to be annualized. I think Jackie can speak to the budget.

J. Powell: I just spoke with Dave MacDonald this morning to get my facts straight. They receive $1.3 million from Coastal Health. I think the total budget is about $2.6 million. The remaining they get through various funders and fundraising. They're having a big fundraising dinner on October 1.

G. Heyman: Thank you very much for your work and your presentation. I just have a quick question. The figure that you gave of a 14-to-1 standard return on investment — is that figure disputed by anyone? Are there competing numbers? Could you perhaps provide the Clerk to the Committee with a link to any studies that validate it, for our information?

J. Yap: A great presentation. I want to acknowledge your comments about the Pathways Clubhouse in Richmond. I've visited it a number of times over the years, and I'm glad to hear that you're working with Dave MacDonald.

It sounds like you're on track to develop a similar facility here on the Island, perhaps in greater Victoria. What is your sense of your timeline to develop a business plan with the support of the health authority?
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J. Powell: Well, we started this project in April of this year. It would be wonderful to have it rolled up and completed within a year, but as Beth mentioned, we're still meeting with Island Health, and there are a lot of other organizations at the table with us. There's Cool Aid and other groups.

J. Yap: Would you also work through the Canadian Mental Health Association? There's no need to reinvent the wheel — right? You can support that.

B. Danskin: We have met with Bev Gutray, who is the B.C. director of Canadian Mental Health. We've met with her twice, and Jackie's going over again this week to meet with her again. There is a Canadian Mental Health person on the working committee with Island Health as well. Definitely, Canadian Mental Health. We hope to partner with them, the same way as Pathways.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for your persistence on this issue. I think it's a wonderful proposal.

I wonder whether there have been any discussions yet — perhaps it's too early until we get Island Health on board — with the Ministry of Social Development. I think in some ways Clubhouse is an odd name for this support, because people think of drop-in centres, and in fact it isn't. It's an employment program. It's the social aspect. It's all of those together.

I wonder whether there's been any discussion with the Ministry of Social Development, which looks at employment training, including employment training for people with disabilities, and the opportunity to get them pulled in, in a program like this. It certainly fits their mandate as well.

J. Powell: Actually, that is the plan. I have a plan in place, and we're hoping to meet with both the Minister of Health and the Minister of Social Development.

S. Gibson: A super-quick question. I have a bit of an HR background, teaching HR, and I've been brought in to do workshops over the years for folks who are chronically unemployed. For the most part, they have mental issues. They have a situation like that. I'm not trying to be overly realistic here, but I noticed that a lot of the folks were in for a while, but then they were out. In other words, it wasn't something long term. That's not a criticism — just an observation.

How do you address that lament? Yeah, we're helping people, and I'm sure it's helping them with their employment skills, etc., with the workshops that they brought me in to do. But they floundered later. It was a short-term thing. How do you address that concern?

B. Danskin: I believe the reason why it was a short-term thing is because their mental illness returned, and then they just couldn't face it. When you know that you've let somebody down, you don't want to go back. So you stop going, and then it's hard to re-engage again.

The neat thing about the clubhouse is that until they're ready, they're working within the clubhouse. If they can't do a lot of work one day, that's okay. Somebody else fills in for them. Then in the transitional employment, a staff member will cover for them if they can't make it. So it stops being a pattern, because they know they have support.

Often with mentally ill people, if they know they have a back door, then they can rally themselves. It's just when they feel that there's no option that they withdraw, and then it becomes short term, as you say.

S. Gibson: Well, I saw my role as giving them confidence so that they feel good about themselves.

D. Ashton (Chair): Beth, Jackie, thank you very much for the presentation, and thanks for waiting.

D. Ashton (Chair): Perfect. Well, thank you very much for coming today. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes allotted for questions. The floor is yours.

M. Brisdon: Okay. Thank you very much for listening to so many of us today who have Lyme disease.

I facilitate a support group of about 250 people on Vancouver Island who have Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases. I also have Lyme disease.

I got a bull's-eye rash on my back in the mid-'80s when I was living in Gibsons. My doctor said that he thought it was a fungal rash, but I started to develop a lot of really odd symptoms that were unusual for someone who was 30 years old — especially chronic, migrating inflammation in my knees and feet. I developed thyroid problems, chest pain, rib soreness, heart palpitations, severe pain on the soles of my feet, tingling, numbness, floaters in my eyes, recurrent pleurisy, small sores on my scalp and mood swings. I was diagnosed with "some kind of arthritis" for 25 years. I was told to take Advil, apply ice, see a podiatrist and lose some weight.

Now, looking back, I see that every one of the symptoms that I had at that time, as a young woman bringing up my children, is very common to people with Lyme disease, but people didn't know that we had it here. My
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doctors didn't know, and I wasn't aware at all.

Three years ago I got two more tick bites when I was vacationing in Germany, and I had two bull's-eye rashes on my ankle. I tested positive here with a CDC ELISA test but negative on their western blot. My family doctor could offer no more than the Infectious Diseases Society of America's recommended treatment for four weeks.

I was told to wait and hope that it would be okay, but a few months later, new symptoms began to appear: severe fatigue; insomnia; pain in my left leg; jaw pain; stiff neck; night sweats; swollen glands; muscle pain; burning and stabbing sensations; cognitive difficulties, including confusion, inability to multi-task, limited vocabulary, deterioration of my handwriting, poor memory recall and an inability to concentrate. In summary, the treatment was too little, and it was too late and too short.

My doctor couldn't help me. His hands were tied by the guidelines of the IDSA. He offered to send me to a fibromyalgia specialist, but I didn't go because I couldn't see the point.

I became really depressed at that time. On line I discovered that there was no treatment for chronic Lyme disease in Canada and that chronic Lyme is extremely difficult to eradicate and can take years of treatment. I watched a documentary, Under Our Skin, and learned that the IDSA guidelines were set to protect insurance companies and the big pharmaceutical companies.

My health got progressively worse, and I couldn't afford to go to the U.S., so I went untreated. After about a year I discovered the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation on line and gave them a call. They suggested that I see a B.C. naturopath who is specializing in tick-borne diseases. He tested me through a lab in California, and I was positive. I was diagnosed with Lyme Bartonella and Mycoplasma. I started on antibiotics and immediately began to improve.

I was thrilled, but I was afraid, because I knew the costs for my appointments, the testing, antibiotics, travel to the Mainland, the many supplements would be substantial. But I was getting better. It's been over two years now that I've been on treatment, and I'm now fairly functional — but only if I stay on antibiotics.

Because I have had chronic Lyme for so many years, it's possible I may never fully recover. I've spent $10,000 a year on my treatment and am into my third year. The costs have meant cutting back on things like clothing, haircuts, travel, meals out, movies and more.

We sold our house and are using some of the proceeds to help cover treatment costs. My husband turned 60 this month and could retire from his job as a vice-principal with a full pension, but we couldn't afford to live on it and pay $800 to $1,000 a month for my treatment, so he's continuing to work.

I joined the Victoria Lyme Disease Support Group, and I became the facilitator two years ago. I've discovered that almost all the members had been undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for years; had been told that there's no Lyme disease in B.C.; had been treated with contempt by their family doctors, specialists and ER physicians; and were told that it was all in their heads. If they received a positive diagnosis from the CDC tests, they were told it was a false positive.

If they were lucky enough to get antibiotics, they were sometimes given only a single dose, while some received up to four weeks and were then cut off even though their symptoms had not disappeared. It's not uncommon for family physicians and specialists to drop their Lyme patients, so they end up relying on walk-in clinics and emergency rooms.

Financially, everyone in our group is struggling. Some can't afford any treatment. Others self-medicate with herbal antibiotics. Some go to Lyme clinics or Lyme-literate physicians ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 a year. They sell their homes, their businesses. They can't work, or reduce their hours, and apply for CPP disability. Some resort to fundraising on line, pinning their hopes on the generosity of others.

Emotionally, there is a lot of depression, stress, anxiety, frustration, anger and even suicidal cases. I've had to call the police or the crisis team to assist in serious cases. Two years ago a woman with Lyme sold her home and spent everything she had on treatment in the U.S., but she was still unable to work and chronically ill. She could see no way out, so she committed suicide. She left heartbreaking letters for some of her friends.

Every month I add an average of five new cases of Lyme to our group. But there are many more, misdiagnosed and undiagnosed. I know of five families where there are four family members all with Lyme disease. With the cost of treatment, can you imagine the stress that they feel? Four of them — I mean, you're looking at $40,000 to $100,000 a year for treatment. It's just unbelievable.

There's a family in Victoria. The husband and wife have Lyme. They have 2½-year-old twins. They're all extremely ill. The mother is seriously suicidal. They can't really afford much treatment. They've been sort of self-treating.

There's an 84-year-old woman in Saanich. She's covered in sores, she's nearly blind and can barely walk from Lyme, and she can't afford any treatment. She has no family physician.

An 11-year-old boy from Victoria went camping near Nanaimo last summer, and he got a dozen tick bites. All of them turned into the bull's-eye rash indicating Lyme disease. He wasn't able to go to school for a very long time.

A woman got Lyme disease from a tick bite while sitting on the lawn at the B.C. legislative building.

Children with Lyme are too sick to attend school, unable to even home-school, missing social activities with their friends and living a horrific life of pain.
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Triplets in Kamloops were all affected while camping in the Shuswap, and are all currently at a clinic in Florida which costs $5,000 a week each. They've been there for several months.

I'm including in my submission a letter from another group member for your information and a compelling letter from Dr. Ted Cormode. He's a pediatrician whose daughter has Lyme.

In the booklet that I've given you, I've included in my submission a history of the complex chronic diseases program.

In 2010 Dr. Brian Schmidt was commissioned to do a report on the state of Lyme disease in B.C. His report findings weren't made public, and in 2011 an FOI request brought the report to light and to the media's attention.

The very next day the CCDP was miraculously announced by the Ministry of Health to research, diagnose and treat Lyme disease patients. It's been a complete failure and a waste of $2 million of taxpayers' money. Not a single Lyme patient has ever received any effective treatment there. Patients are taught meditation and cognitive therapy.

The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation withdrew its support from the CCDP. Three doctors resigned, including the director, because their hands were tied by the authorities controlling the program. Dr. Liz Zubek went public with her reasons for quitting. Her letter is in the booklet. They weren't allowed to use antibiotics, and they were understaffed. They can't use reliable testing.

Recently an FOI from Gwen Barlee for documents about the CCDP was denied. She was told she would she would have to pay $2,100 for the requested documents. Can you imagine how I felt, hearing that the government was making such a big deal about $2,100, when people like me are trying to come up with $10,000 every year? I couldn't understand it. I took $100 out of the proceeds of the sale of our house and donated it to raise the $2,100.

As a group, we are frustrated with the lack of treatment available, the misleading information, the lies and cover-ups and are very disappointed in our government. I wholeheartedly agree with the findings of the Schmidt report and would especially like to see funding for a Lyme disease public awareness program. There's more on that, but you can read it later.

Funding for physician training is essential. Patients are being misdiagnosed and routinely undiagnosed. Increase funding for the CCDP so that they have sufficient and appropriately trained staff to deal with the lengthy wait-list.

M. Brisdon: Freedom for physicians to treat tick-borne diseases as they see fit, including long-term antibiotics if deemed necessary. Funding to improve inadequate diagnostic methods and allow physicians to use more reliable specialized labs.

Most importantly for those of us with Lyme disease, we would really like to see some funding to assist Lyme patients. Until B.C. physicians are able and willing to effectively treat Lyme, which right now they're not, they will not touch us. They drop us. Lyme patients' appointments at private Lyme clinics or with naturopaths who treat Lyme should be covered by MSP, and there should be coverage for the cost of travel, testing, medications, other treatments, supplements and essential probiotics.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you. I have a couple minutes left for questions. I let it run into the time frame. Are there any questions or comments regarding this?

We have had numerous presentations today, and I see we have one more coming forward.

D. Ashton (Chair): No, we want to appreciate it. It's drawing our attention to it, so that's very good. If there are no questions or comments, thank you for coming forward today.

Next is Camosun College Student Society. Good afternoon. Thank you for coming forward. I appreciate it. We've allotted ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and then five minutes for the questions. The floor is yours. We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

R. Grant: Hello. My name is Rachael Grant, and I'm the external executive of the Camosun College Student Society. I'm here today representing over 9,000 credit students at Camosun College here in Victoria. The Camosun College Student Society, Local 75 of the Canadian Federation of Students, is a non-partisan organization that represents the interests of Camosun students. I thank you for having me here today.

We want to raise issues of institutional funding and fees, particularly tuition, as well as ESL funding, with your time today. I come to you with no political agenda other than the needs of the members I represent, and I assure you their needs are substantial. I come from a college that is in crisis, and that should, and needs, to transcend politics.

Having been a Camosun student for several years now and having spoken extensively with other students and employees, there is no doubt in my mind that we are at a crucial point, and access to integral services is threatened to an extent that it has never been before. Students are now left wondering if the class they need will be offered next
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term or if that class's tuition will increase by 40 percent. As professors get laid off and programs are being cancelled, we as students now live with an uncertainty as to whether or not we can access what we need to, to effectively pursue our education.

Ultimately, the core issue at Camosun College is funding, particularly government grants. We are currently operating within the sixth year of frozen funding, and last year there was even a cut to the money allocated to the college. Flat funding has resulted in a budget reduction of millions of dollars just due to inflationary pressures alone.

When tuition has increased and B.C.'s fiscal contribution has decreased, a funding gap is created, and it becomes impossible for the college to offer services effectively. Government is decreasing funding faster than tuition can rise to compensate, and students are borrowing more heavily than ever just to keep the system running, essentially.

Every year each of our college departments has gone through a painful and demoralizing process of cutting 2.5 percent or more. After six years there is absolutely no fat left to cut. There are literally no options in what to cut that does not negatively impact the students of Camosun. As a result, the college has been forced to cut classes, trim programs and play fast and loose with tuition fee guidelines just to try and balance their budget.

We are told that more cuts are scheduled to occur in the coming year, and I'm here to urge you to recommend that funding is not only restored but stabilized, as the college is at a point where it can no longer focus on providing accessible and high-quality education and now must divert substantial energy into surviving financially as an institution. For example, the government's decision to increase MSP premiums has left the college with a contractual obligation to its employees and no way to fulfil this obligation without cutting into core programming at the college, which can only harm the integrity of their services and negatively impact our students.

Officially, tuition goes up by 2 percent a year at Camosun. However, the truth is far more complicated. Camosun's original tuition-based model had nine different tuition-based bands, fees for co-op terms and no exceptions. Our current tuition model has 13 non-program-specific bands and dozens of exceptions that take many pages to list. This chaos would not be a reality if funding was stabilized and increased. The college is being forced to create complicated systems to get as much funding as possible from their students, and this is diverting energy from giving quality post-secondary education to people who truly need it to advance in their lives.

Since grants have been frozen, the main purpose of the education council at Camosun has shifted to assist administration in cancelling, replacing and tweaking courses enough to claim that they are in fact new programming so that tuition can be increased above ministry guidelines.

There is now a financial disincentive at Camosun to keeping course curriculum current. Changes are now being made to courses and programs for the purpose of doubling or tripling existing tuition. There was a time at Camosun when students took English 150. It has since been replaced by English 151 and has considerably higher tuition. Has basic English really changed since the freeze in provincial funding? There is no meaningful change to this course other than the number and the tuition fee attached to it.

Essentially, chronic underfunding has led the college to make bad choices that do not consider the needs of students. These practices are not unique to Camosun College, and we largely believe them to be results of a funding crisis institutions find themselves in. The practice is unfair to students, their parents and the residents of B.C. It is a mockery of the concept of inflation-based tuition in B.C. and is practised by Camosun as a means of survival.

Students are not only being gouged in terms of outrageous tuition. In fact, there are some activity and lab fees that are more costly than the tuition itself. The college is so desperate for money that Camosun students pay more for parking than UBC Vancouver students. Even food costs have risen on campus.

Camosun College has been forced to squeeze every drop of revenue from its students and disregard the concept of affordable student services. At Camosun students are now funding 51 percent of its operations, and this is not acceptable.

Last year, while Camosun was undergoing a painful budget-cutting process, the college received news that the federal government had cut ESL funding provided to the province and delivered through B.C. post-secondary institutions. Camosun's share of this funding was determined to be $2.5 million. In reality, Camosun delivers ESL to domestic students at the cost of $1.3 million. The province decided to provide transitional funding for one year but intends to cut $2.5 million from Camosun's grant for the next fiscal year and terminate our domestic ESL programming permanently.

This cut is unfair in many ways. First, the institutions never received the federal funds in the first place. In the late 1990s, when the federal program started, the province already funded ESL and provided no new money to B.C. institutions as a result of the federal infusion of cash.

Secondly, these students are among the most marginalized and disadvantaged, and being able to receive ESL leads to the opportunity for many of these students to take academic programming that improves their ability to make a living.

To Camosun, domestic ESL feeds into other programs and ultimately makes a real difference in the lives of these students. A key component of the B.C. jobs plan is about helping people get the skills they need to become
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productive members of society. The new federal ESL program does not provide academic English training. Without ESL at colleges, how can the training and skills many students need to get jobs that can support families and stimulate the economy…?

As the province starts to post surpluses, we hope it will remember Camosun, the only college between Victoria and Courtenay, and that colleges are a vulnerable and essential part of the education infrastructure, and that the institutions, the students and their families need support from the province, not further funding reductions. I doubt that anyone on this panel has contributed a fraction of the resources that my members have invested in their education.

You have a moral obligation to ensure the quality of post-secondary education in this province. If these cuts continue, you will fail generations of B.C. residents and compromise the future of our province.

D. Ashton (Chair): Rachael, thank you for the presentation. Any questions or comments of this young lady?

S. Gibson: Some of us had a reception with the senior folks at Camosun — really impressed, I think, by the quality of education by your senior staff.

Let me throw out something controversial just for you to maybe think about. I have found that almost paradoxically…. I'll give you a personal example. My dad had kind of an average job and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. I don't think I'm particularly brilliant, but I did two and a half degrees in four and a half years working almost full-time. Admittedly, that was a while ago, and tuition was much cheaper, but the principle was the same.

One of the paradoxes I find is that the students that have the toughest financial time…. Myself, it wasn't really pleasant for me, working almost full-time. I finished, because it was on my nickel to some extent, but the students that were heavily financed by parents and others — many of them didn't finish. I don't think it was intellectual ability. I don't consider myself to be that brilliant, particularly.

How would you respond to that? I know it's a controversial comment, but I've noticed that the paradox is that the students that have the most financial need often do the best, and those that just get bankrolled by somebody end up dropping out.

This is anecdotal, I must confess, but it was my observation. I'd be interested in your comments.

R. Grant: The climate of post-secondary has changed rather dramatically over the years. Tuition currently does not reflect inflation at all.

It is a very common reality nowadays for students to be working one, maybe two jobs as well as taking full-time courses. Our services are being compromised at Camosun, particularly, because they're currently in the process of squeezing every penny to just function as an institution.

The energy that's being spent finding these dollars is not going towards ensuring quality education either. So things have definitely changed over the years. It's such a common thing when I go to my current classmates, for example, that they usually are working a job — or two — and doing full-time studies and really struggling to make ends meet.

S. Gibson: I have some empathy for what you said. I just wanted to share that remark.

Up next we have the Inter-Divisional Strategic Council; Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative — Valerie and Susan. Ladies, thank you very much for coming today. I apologize for being tardy. We got off late this morning because of some logistics issues.

It's ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. If you're looking up, I'll go like this. I'm not saying "peace"; I'm saying "two minutes." Five minutes have been allotted for questions from the panel. So please, the floor is yours.

S. Stovel: My name is Susan Stovel, and I'm here as a daughter, sister, grandmother and mother of family members with mental illness.

V. Tregillus: Good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity. I am Val Tregillus, and I am the co-leader of the Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative that has operated across the Interior for the past year very successfully with eight local action teams and is about to spread, through a congress being held in Kelowna in September, with participation from all the rest of the regions. Eight local action teams will be coming on from Vancouver Island in September, so we're very pleased with the spread.

The problem that the collaborative is tackling is that of access to care for child and youth mental health and substance use. I would ask you to imagine eight children and youth standing here today in front of us and for us, collectively, to ask five of them to leave the room because there's no care for them. Then we would ask those three left…. We would provide care for those three.

The five that we would ask to leave represent 60,000 children and youth who have no access to care currently. We understand that the price tag for solving the gap, the really gigantic gap in care and services, is about $100 million. We understand fully that in this economic climate that's a ridiculous ask, and we wouldn't come here with that ask. What we have found is that with local action teams, smaller
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amounts of money directly provided to local action teams will make a tremendous difference — from protective factors for children and youth and parents, to intensive case management. Local action teams can take on that whole range of prevention and care.

So the ask today for this committee — we've already heard some compelling asks, and we don't envy you your job, I can tell you — is for $20.25 million. We believe this money directly sent to local action teams will make a difference. The principle we have offered for this funding is that the money goes directly to local action teams — very accountable, with local infrastructure, of course, regional infrastructure and provincewide infrastructure.

That $250,000 would be used to measure outcomes. We know that there are outcome tools now, like MyOutcomes, that are used extensively in the States and that can ascertain by youth, families and providers whether something's effective in four weeks.

Four treatments, four sessions in a program. We do not have to run something for two or three years to see if it's effective. Children, youth and families know pretty quickly if symptoms have diminished and whether they're functioning in their families, their schools and their communities.

Let's introduce those kinds of measurements on a continuous basis, and let's stop doing things that do not work and only have effective treatments. Local actions teams can monitor that very effectively in their communities.

The last amount of money is for the least desirable piece. It's not innovative. It's not exciting, but it's for system barriers. The local action teams that have been operating in the province have identified nine very serious system barriers, like the barriers to information-sharing and less than optimal care in ERs. Protocols have been developed. They now need to be tested and implemented across the province.

Those are the three areas we would like to invest money in, and that's the request in front of you.

S. Stovel: I'm here today as someone who, as I said, has family members with mental illness. In all cases — and now I'm watching our granddaughter — the symptoms are there. There is a lack of access to care. If there is care, if something is tried and it doesn't necessarily work, then it's: "Well, that's it. You've had your try, and now there are too many other people that we should be seeing."

If this model, which has the family members involved so that they can say: "It is or it is not working, and we have to do better…." It's not for things to be perfect, but it's for things to be as good as they can be so that children can function, can get through school. These children are fully able to do everything if you treat their depression or treat their other mental illness that they have.

It is an illness. It is treatable, and we keep running into a denial of that or just the fact that people don't know enough. It's very hard for lots of people in the health care field to accept that little children — once you've tried cognitive behavioural and all these different methods — some of them, will need treatment for their depression.

In our family there's a huge genetic thing that runs right through it, so that's there. The more knowledge that's shared and the more that the family is involved — that's why this whole model that they have tested in the Interior has done so well. It's all that information-sharing and all the people involved, all working for the same goal: to treat all eight of the children.

V. Tregillus: In the collaborative we started with the model of family-focused care, family-focused approaches. And you know, it's not enough. It's not enough to say that families are in the centre. Really, that's rhetoric. We really weren't putting them in the centre. We were confronted over and over again to, say, have a different model.

So we put youth and family members as leaders at all levels. They're on the action team. They're on the steering committees. They're on the clinical faculty. They're throughout, leading the collaborative. Youth are moderating the sessions at the congress at the end of September. This is what has made the difference.

We have one example in Kootenay-Boundary where the youth was hospitalized in an adult section of the hospital, because there isn't a bed for youth or children in our hospitals for mental illness, and he explained to the local action team what his experience was, which was very traumatizing to him. The psychiatrist got up from the local action team, went up to the hospital, and they changed the way the hospital handled youth in that moment. That's the power of local action teams.

If we, in Victoria — I've worked in the Ministry of Health — want to make a change, by the time it gets down to the local action, a year or two has passed, and it's not as powerful. It's the local action that will make the difference, with youth and parents guiding that action.

G. Heyman: Thank you. You refer to a 17-to-one return on investment as reported by CBC's Doc Zone. Do you have the actual study that's based on or a link to it?

V. Tregillus: I don't have that material. I'm sorry. I watched the Doc Zone, and I didn't have time to look at the evidence behind it. I apologize for citing it that way, because it's not evidence. But what was intriguing about it was that Doc Zone was profiling the fact that banks in the U.S. are now getting interested in investing in children because it's a return investment of 17 to one.

We have a few weeks. I can provide that information
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to the committee.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Just two quick pieces. First off, you may know that the other standing committee, the Children and Youth Committee is still gathering information and submissions on youth mental health. I just wanted to double-check to make sure — I think that deadline is Friday — that you put a submission in to that committee as well.

But I guess my second piece is…. I think it's very helpful as well — thank you — for a parent and someone who has been through the experience with their family coming along. Sometimes talking about collaboratives and community teams can sound like process, rather than providing support, direct support for people with mental health issues.

I appreciate you outlining a couple of specific examples of where it made a difference, because I think that's one of the biggest challenges — that it can come across like it's simply process that we're talking about here and not support directly for youth and children with mental health issues.

S. Gibson: My question is: what's causing this increase? Diagnosing the problem, I guess, is good. We all know young people in our communities who would match this model. What's causing the problem? We know what the symptoms are, but what is the genesis of them? That's my question.

V. Tregillus: Are you talking about the determinants of the mental health disorders? I think they're multi-factorial. Sue has talked about the genetic factors, which have been consistent over time. I think some of the changes that we're seeing…. We are facing a tsunami, I think.

One of the things…. When I talk to doctors and parents and families, they talk about social isolation because of the IT — that people are looking at their iPhones far more than being connected into social groups and so forth. That's one factor. We can't lay all the blame there. But if you look at….

My daughters would do their research by phone. They would come back from school, and then they would phone 20 people for about an hour to research how they were in the day, what their perception of the day was like and then check it out with other people.

Today it's on Facebook, there's tweeting, and it's going viral very quickly. So perhaps 200 people are making negative responses to you. I think that's one indicator of why we're seeing a difference.

There's no question that the amount of information children are exposed to now is more — I don't know how many hundredfold — than when I was a child or my children were children. It's just overload, the stimulation. I think that's one of the causes too. It's multi-factorial.

S. Gibson: It's your assertion, then, that the dominant cause of these symptoms is from the advance of technology and the advance of information. Is that…?

V. Tregillus: No, sorry. It's one factor. We're trying to see what is different in this decade because of the explosion of people needing help, of families needing help. We're looking at what has changed, and the IT explosion is one factor. I think there are many others.

V. Tregillus: No. Well, I mean, there are many main ones. I think part of it is that as more people talk about it — and, certainly, there are a lot more people talking about anxiety or depression than there were — then people will come forward, and they will realize that there's help. When I was the daughter and the sister, you kept things very quiet. It was something you didn't talk about.

The fact is, also, that the funding has not increased with the needs that are there. As more people are aware, especially through these processes, more kids will be helped. Then maybe they can get through school. Maybe they can succeed in life, rather than ending up falling by the wayside, which is what happens when mental illness is not treated.

Valerie and Susan, thank you very much for coming forward. One man's opinion is, as you know…. When you ask for $20.25 million…. One of your comments was that it's not working. Some of the systems that we have in place aren't working right now. With us, throwing money at the wall and hoping that it's going to stick doesn't work. Any input that you can put…. Carole mentioned the committee for children and youth. Your input will be imperative in there. It may help redirect some of this money that could help out.

V. Tregillus: We certainly aren't asking for anything in a vague way. We are absolutely clear about where the money would make a difference. I can certainly articulate that through….

D. Ashton (Chair): Yeah, please. I wasn't saying that. I was just saying it's input from people like yourselves into these committees that can make the difference, so please take advantage of her committee and get that input in, because it may make that difference that you're looking for.
[ Page 745 ]

Welcome. Thank you for being here. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Love to hear what you have to say, and we've reserved five minutes for questions or comments from the committee.

T. Bokor: Thank you. My name is Tanner Bokor, and I am the president of the Alma Mater Society of UBC Vancouver. On behalf of the AMS, we wish to thank you for providing us with the opportunity to present to the all-party Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services regarding British Columbia's 2015-2016 budget.

The AMS is a non-profit society incorporated under the B.C. Society Act, and it strives to improve the lives of the nearly 50,000 persons studying at UBC's Vancouver campus. The society's activities are overseen by an elected team of student executives and councillors and are entirely funded by membership fees, investment returns and business revenues. In return, the society provides various services, organizes several social events and promotes high-quality academic activities for UBC Vancouver students.

In addition, we advocate to all levels of government for the interests of our members and are a founding member of the Alliance of British Columbia Students, B.C.'s largest post-secondary lobbying organization, representing over 185,000 students across the province and, by extension, post-secondary students in the rest of B.C.

Studies demonstrate that post-secondary institutions are essential to the local, provincial and national economy in a variety of ways. First of all, universities contribute to the economic growth by providing thousands of jobs to faculty, staff and students. In this regard, I should point out that UBC is the third-largest employer in the Lower Mainland and also generates $10.055 billion in economic activity to the province each year.

Universities also provide major infrastructure investments through the province by building state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities. The activities of B.C.'s universities also contribute a great deal to the development of new inventions, new processes and patents, more generally, and play a key role in establishing and nurturing an innovative and dynamic economy.

Aside from improving workplace training, post-secondary education allows people to lead productive, healthy and socially active lives. They not only enjoy higher incomes than the rest of the population but are less likely to be unemployed, find jobs more quickly if they're laid off, even during economic downturns, and are less likely to engage in criminal behaviour.

Canada's most recent census, conducted in 2011, confirms these earlier findings with respect to income. In British Columbia the employment rate for those without a certificate, diploma or degree only reaches 56.1 percent, whereas it is 79.2 percent for those with a university certificate, diploma or degree. For people who have completed high school, the figure is 70.7 percent, whereas those with an apprenticeship or trades certificate or diploma have an employment rate of 76.8 percent.

The individual economic benefits described above are of special interest to lower- and middle-income families, but the rising cost of living in general in British Columbia, and especially in Metro Vancouver, makes it increasingly difficult for many students in these income brackets to attend a post-secondary institution, even when they are willing to take on high levels of debt.

Although experts might be divided on the role played by high tuition fees on overall university attendance levels, studies have shown clearly that increasing tuition fees discourages participation in post-secondary education by certain groups that are at greater risk. In other words, the group of students that benefits most from a university education are being priced out of the system.

The B.C. government plays a crucial role in making university education more affordable for students in the lower-income brackets, thereby giving them a better chance to become productive members of society and earn more than their parents.

Increasing accessibility to post-secondary education is not only a question of equity. It is, in fact, essential to B.C.'s continued economic and social prosperity. The need is especially urgent, since the province may soon face important labour shortages lasting into the next decade.

The trades will certainly play an especially important role in this regard, as indicated in the provincial government's skills and training plan. However, post-secondary institutions and academic disciplines — including the arts, humanities and social sciences — have an equally essential role to support the province's overall economic health. In fact, having a sufficient number of graduates in these fields is the only way to create a workforce nimble enough to face a challenging economic landscape.

As Prof. Arvind Gupta, UBC's new president and vice-chancellor, indicated at his installation ceremony last Friday: "50 percent of today's jobs will likely not exist in 30 years. But…what never goes out of style is the ability to consider information critically, to assimilate facts into bigger narratives, and to generate new ideas." Employers will always need these skills to survive in a competitive economic environment.

As Professor Gupta went on to say, the creative class powers the post-industrial economy. The class' skills are "rooted in a complex interplay among art, science, design and utility. Universities are at the heart of this
[ Page 746 ]
transformation. Every globally significant city, every city considered among the most liveable, boasts a leading research university. In these communities, town and gown work together to underpin a creative economy."

Given this new reality, we strongly urge the government to provide improved, targeted and sustained investments to all fundamental research-driven academic disciplines, because the graduates they produce will sustain the province's economy and improve our society.

In order to increase access to and maintain the quality of post-secondary education, we believe that government should do everything possible to decrease the cost of going to university by continuing to cap tuition at the rate of inflation or lower for all programs and degrees, including professional programs; regulating international tuition rates through a similar inflation cap as domestic students; implementing needs-based, upfront student grants; reducing student loan interest and increasing student aid allocations to reflect the cost of living; and increasing or, at the very least, indexing core funding for all disciplines in B.C.'s post-secondary institutions, including the arts, humanities and social sciences.

We are aware that both of these recommendations will require some additional financial commitments from government. We are of the view, however, that government has the capacity to develop innovative and sustainable ways to fund these proposals.

Such investments should also lead fairly quickly to important dividends for the province in the form of lower indebtedness of young people entering the workforce, improved training for workers in all sectors of the economy and greater support for the knowledge economy.

On the issue of public transit, the AMS believes that public transit plays an essential role in supporting British Columbia's future population and economic growth. Robust investments by government and other authorities in public transit operations and infrastructure are one of the most effective and least punitive ways to remove cars from the roads, leading to shorter commutes for transit riders, not to mention reduced traffic congestion and pollution.

Metro Vancouver plays a crucial role in the B.C. government's job plan, not least because of the fact that it is the province's major gateway to Asia's booming economy.

Aside from boosting the construction industry by creating new infrastructure projects, public transit can lead to improved productivity across all economic sectors. It will reduce the time and stress involved in commuting every day to work. It will also greatly increase the fluidity of all commercial- and business-related traffic, including the shipment of goods by reducing the number of private vehicles on the road, especially those containing only one occupant.

Not surprisingly, our members are deeply interested in seeing improved public transit service levels in Metro Vancouver, especially along the Broadway corridor leading to UBC's Point Grey campus.

In this specific instance, the AMS remains convinced that a true rapid transit solution is the only way that we see a long-term solution. A below-grade rail system is likely the only way to reliably increase capacity and reduce trip time, while at the same time maintaining the essential characteristics of the corridor's neighbourhoods.

But we also acknowledge that since any long-term transit solution would probably take more than a decade to be fully operational, significant improvements to the current bus lines must also be implemented in very short order.

The upcoming Metro Vancouver transit referendum certainly provides an interesting means to secure new funding to improve service levels, but this can only happen if all stakeholders, including the AMS and provincial government, use their influence and resources to raise public awareness of the importance of issues included in the referendum.

Moreover, even if regional public transit authorities get access to more resources, the provincial government will have to provide significant levels of funding for any new public transit infrastructure projects.

Given these considerations, the AMS believes that government should invest resources to ensure that the upcoming referendum leads to increased funding for public transit in Metro Vancouver and that government should support short-term fixes for the Broadway line by changing the appropriate provincial regulations to reduce bus travel time and providing some funding as required.

We also believe that the government must provide the leadership to approve and fund a long-term, robust and reliable rapid transit solution on the Broadway corridor, which must extend all the way to UBC's Point Grey campus.

I'm convinced that post-secondary education contributes to the development of a vibrant, innovative society and is a key driver of British Columbia's economy. I also believe that the B.C. government plays a key role in maintaining and improving access to higher education.

To summarize, the AMS would like to see the government make the following commitments to post-secondary students and institutions.

We request that the government consider to cap or reduce the overall cost of getting an education in British Columbia, ensure that the funding provided to post-secondary institutions will allow them to continue playing an important role in the health of our economy and society, and improve physical access to post-secondary institutions by supporting the upcoming regional transit referendum and providing the resources required to support the development of new rapid transit projects and infrastructure.

At this time I'd like to thank the committee members for their attention.
[ Page 747 ]

G. Heyman: Thanks, Tanner. I'm just wondering if you can be more specific about some of the changes to appropriate provincial regulations regarding speeding up current bus travel. I'm assuming your point is to speed up the trip. Are you also suggesting that more capacity in the short term on the bus lines be added? If you are, how could that be accomplished, given that there are a lot of pass-ups but also a lot of buses on that line right now?

T. Bokor: Yeah. For context, at last research there were about 2,000 pass-ups per day on the Broadway corridor. Now, the challenge is not the convenience factor. The time that it takes to commute between Commercial Drive and UBC is irrelevant. It's about capacity. Right now a bus solution — and it's not even a bus rapid transit solution; it's a bus solution — is not doing the job.

TransLink has stated this in their rapid transit study over the years and has made a recommendation for a rapid transit line, but the holdup has been the consideration that government would like to hold a public transit referendum.

When it comes to our view on the referendum itself, we're agnostic. We ultimately will have to follow through with whatever government does decide, but in terms of short-term solutions, it should be looked at to create a BRT system in the short term. We should be looking at at-grade boarding. We should be looking at priority signals. We should be looking at removing parking. We should be looking at tri-articulated buses, per a motion that the city of Vancouver had taken in 2011.

But until we settle the issue of funding, none of those projects can even move forward.

M. Morris: A good presentation. I guess I just want to comment a little bit on the underutilized institutions that we have throughout the province — UNBC, for an example, and some of the other universities that we have. Instead of the provincial government pouring millions and billions of dollars into capacity for UBC so that more students can go to UBC, I think maybe a cheaper solution would be to make sure that our institutions throughout the province are fully utilized first.

T. Bokor: I think that is fair comment. However, as we saw with the core review process, obviously, there's much work to be done with the institutions. But they do have minimum service levels that they have to provide. For UBC, our future does actually rely on our growth — as, I'm sure, many other institutions across the province also are in the same situation.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Really, a lot of good information here. If you were a policy-maker and had to make a choice, just hypothetically, between reducing tuition fees and implementing a needs-based grants system, do you have a view on that — on that kind of choice if you were forced to make that kind of choice?

T. Bokor: If I were a policy-maker, and knowing my society's position, I would have to argue the latter, around needs-based grants.

Tuition levels are essential. We do recognize that tuition is necessary to ensure that there is diverse revenue to institutions. We're not arguing that tuition should be abolished. But for those categories of students who are unable to afford their education, we shouldn't be putting up barriers. We should be enabling them to go ahead and receive the education to improve our economy. I'd have to argue that grants would probably be the most fiscally appropriate.

J. Shin: Thanks. I just want to share a quick comment. I really appreciate the advocacy work that you do. We had a presentation by Camosun. We were expecting to meet with VCC and a few other colleges. But I certainly hope…. I share the same sentiment with you in the sense that, as a society, I hope that we are not going to be heading where only those of us born with the capability, the ability, the availability to take on multiple jobs, to be able to qualify for scholarships, earn a shot at post-secondary education. Thank you again for your presentation.

Last but not least tonight we have Gregory Bell. Thanks for coming, Gregory. This is regarding Lyme disease. Is that correct?

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay, thank you. Ten-minute presentation. I'll catch you at eight minutes — just catch your eye — and we've allotted five minutes for questions. The floor is yours, sir.

G. Bell: Greetings, and thank you for providing me with the opportunity to address the committee today on a subject that is very important and personal to me — Lyme disease.

My name is Gregory Bell, and I am currently treating Lyme disease without much assistance or acknowledgment from the B.C. medical system.

Approximately four years ago I started experiencing
[ Page 748 ]
numerous unexplained medical symptoms. My first symptoms started with pain in my right eye. Off and on my eyeball would throb and feel quite swollen. After numerous visits with doctors, optometrists and ophthalmologists, there was no real explanation for the cause of the pain. This pain would eventually include my left eye, and pain and discomfort would carry on for a number of years.

Shortly following this initial symptom, I began to experience random cases of extreme fatigue and weakness. The fatigue would hit me out of nowhere. The best comparison of the sensation is similar to standing up too quickly, where the blood rushes from your head. However, this symptom would last for multiple hours.

After discussing this with my doctor, he suggested that it might be related to sleep apnea. I was issued a sleep apnea test. However, the results of the test showed that I did not have problems with sleep apnea.

In the winter of 2012 I experienced three weeks of severe vertigo. Then in the spring of 2012 a myriad of symptoms flooded to the surface with a vengeance.

On one particular day at a family barbeque I experienced another extreme case of extreme weakness and fatigue — however, this time, much more intense. I felt incredibly light-headed, and it was extremely difficult to concentrate or focus. It was like everything was in slow motion. I felt like I was drugged. My wife took me home so I could lie down, and I recall that my heart was beating very, very heavily.

The next day, I was still dealing with these same symptoms. My body felt like it was floating and detached from reality. I immediately went to visit my GP to report my conditions. He sent me to get some blood work at a local LifeLabs clinic and suggested to simply go home and take it easy. When the blood work came back, there was nothing conclusive to show what could have caused these symptoms.

As time progressed, more and more symptoms would bubble to the surface. A severe case of tinnitus formed; problems with balance; numbness in the head; feeling like my body was extremely heavy or a force pushing you to the ground; increased anxiety; feeling like I was on amphetamines — not that I've ever tried it, but I can guess that's what it's like. Vision was affected. The best way I can describe it is watching an old, 1970s Super 8 home film, all flickery and bizarre. Feeling like there was a low-voltage electrical shock going through my body. Sharp pains in my chest, back and sides. A constant feeling like I'm about to faint. But of all these symptoms the worst would be this constant fog I felt in my mind. It was incredibly hard to concentrate. I really felt I had brain damage.

With no real understanding to the cause of all these symptoms, I was sent to a number of specialists, and I had numerous tests. I've had both MRIs and CT scans done on my head. I've had various heart tests, echocardiograms, heart stress tests, 24-hour blood pressure monitor tests, tests for lupus and MS; visits to ear, nose and throat specialists, neurologists and cardiologists. All these visits to different specialists and tests that were performed resulted in no conclusive diagnosis to my ailments.

I had a follow-up with my GP to go over the results. Since all the results were not conclusive, he asked me if this is something that I can "live with".

Not happy with that answer, I began to do some research on my own, which led me to Lyme disease. I discovered that many, if not all, of my symptoms can be caused by Lyme. I immediately asked for a Lyme disease test from my GP. However, once again, the result proved to be negative.

However, through my research I also learned that Lyme testing in Canada is notoriously unreliable. I discovered many reports and documents informing that the typical Lyme tests often report false negatives.

A Canadian Adverse Reaction Newsletter — and I have a copy you can read — issued by Health Canada clearly reports that even when a conventional two-tier testing approach is used, the sensitivity and specificity of the combined test results can be less than optimal. Many factors contribute to false negative or false positive serology test results for Lyme disease.

I learned of a facility in California, a company called IGeneX, that offers a much more accurate Lyme blood test. With the help of a local naturopath, a blood test was sent to this facility and the end result was positive for Lyme. I felt a sense of relief as I finally had a proper diagnosis for all these symptoms. I assumed that this would be the start of a treatment with my doctor, only to find out that this diagnosis would only alienate me from the B.C. medical system.

I showed my diagnosis to countless doctors, including an infectious disease specialist; none would recognize the prognosis either from my IGeneX test results or simply clinically. Furthermore, I found even mentioning the word Lyme to doctors to be a contentious topic. The responses and feedback from medical professions were across the map. Some examples are: "You can't contract Lyme disease in Victoria." "Were you hiking in the woods?" "B.C.'s Lyme disease testing is 100 percent accurate." "This is all in your head. Could I refer you to a psychiatrist?"

Because of all this ignorance toward Lyme disease by the B.C. medical community, my only option for treatment by a medical doctor is through a naturopath. The typical treatment for Lyme disease is long-term antibiotics. Luckily, naturopathic doctors in British Columbia have the ability to prescribe medication.

Since August of 2013, with the assistance of a local naturopath, I have been treating Lyme disease with antibiotics. While I am far from being symptom-free, many of the symptoms I have endured have either disappeared
[ Page 749 ]
completely or are less severe. I continue to deal with fatigue, malaise, muscle and nerve pain, tinnitus and a foggy mind. I continue to work with a naturopath at my own expense and hope a day comes that I will be completely symptom-free.

My overall experience managing Lyme disease has left me with a lack of confidence in our medical system. I have met countless individuals in Victoria with symptoms that mirror my own, all with a positive Lyme result from IGeneX and all with similar accounts of the same negative experiences in dealing with our B.C. medical system. I can only imagine that this problem will continue to rise exponentially, as it is a rather simple disease to contract.

Lyme disease is contracted by the bite of a tick infected with the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. These ticks are not necessarily only found in the woods. The infected ticks can be carried by deer, mice, squirrels, raccoons, birds — virtually any animal that can walk on the ground. This is a disease that you can catch in your backyard, in the playground at your local school and in your local park.

Additionally, as in my case, many people will not even know that they have been bitten by a tick. The ticks in their nymph stage are about the size of a poppy seed. Many attribute the bite to a spider or a mosquito or may not even notice the bite at all. It is also documented that the telltale bull's-eye rash that occurs after an infected tick bite occurs in less than 50 percent of bite victims.

To make matters worse, the spread of Lyme-infected ticks is on the rise. The U.S. Center for Disease Control — CDC — reported 460,682 total Lyme cases. The U.S. states just south of our own border — Washington, Oregon and California — account for 3,496 of these reported cases.

Oddly, if you refer to the Canadian government's own list of reported cases between 2009 and 2013, the approximate total for the whole country is only 1,333 cases. This is a clear indication that Canada overall simply does not have an accurate method to properly detect Lyme disease. It would be ignorant for us to think that infected ticks simply do not cross the Canada-U.S. border.

In closing, I feel that our B.C. government should be proactive in addressing Lyme disease, in research, testing and treatment. Research is required for effective testing and for treatment, and, until B.C. is a leader in treating Lyme disease, support should be available for the victims who have been forced to finance their treatment out of their own pocket. Additionally, B.C. doctors need to be better educated. This is a disease that needs to be diagnosed as early as possible. The longer you wait, the harder it is to resolve.

Currently, there is so much money being wasted on improper testing. Had I been diagnosed when my symptoms first appeared, a few weeks of antibiotics could potentially have saved me years of grief and saved our own government the cost of numerous medical visits and tests.

Countless more British Columbians will contract this terrible disease, either right here in B.C. or when travelling to other areas. Again, it is a disease that is very easy to contract. Many people are simply not aware that this disease even exists, which I find surprising, as Lyme disease is estimated to be six times more prevalent than HIV and AIDS.

Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to address you on such an important issue. I urge you to make research, diagnostic testing and treatment of Lyme disease a priority and fund it accordingly. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.

G. Holman: Thanks, Gregory. Just two quick questions. Is the testing in the U.S. a generally accepted test? If so, I'm curious why it wouldn't be accepted in Canada. I'm sure your group has raised that.

The second question is: you're now getting antibiotics prescribed through a naturopath, but it's still not covered by MSP, even though it was prescribed by a naturopath?

G. Bell: In my case, I'm somewhat lucky in terms of the actual prescriptions because I have extended medical through my employer. So I am lucky in the sense that my actual medication is covered.

G. Bell: In terms of IGeneX, it is recognized globally. Even people in the U.K. contracting Lyme disease send their test results to the same facility. They're globally known for being the most accurate test. I think it's just that doctors aren't aware and just need to be better educated.

G. Holman: And sorry, this test that you're saying is globally recognized is used throughout the United States?

C. James (Deputy Chair): Hi, Gregory. There were a few people who presented on the issue of Lyme disease who talked about the chronic disease clinic and the challenges with that clinic. I wondered whether you had had any experience or whether you had looked at any option for that clinic.

G. Bell: I had one doctor that mentioned the clinic, and he was going to look into it. Then the second visit he
[ Page 750 ]
basically completely changed his tone. It was completely bizarre. He essentially said…. He was the one that said I should see a psychiatrist. I don't know what happened between the first visit, where he said, "Let's look into the disease centre you speak of," to: "Let's see a psychologist." It's just completely bizarre how doctors are handling this case.

Gregory, thank you for coming forward tonight. Greatly appreciate it. Like I said, we've had other presentations, and it gives us something to think about during this tour, so thank you. And thank you for being patient and waiting tonight.

Folks, I don't need a motion to adjourn. I can just adjourn. But we have a couple of things. We have box dinners in Room 224, which is next door. Can we pick them up before we go, for all of us that are going on the bus? Somebody isn't, and I'm blocking the way right now. Also, the pickup is in the members parking lot, which is just right back over here.

S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): I think it's called the members south parking lot — the other side of the bunker.

D. Ashton (Chair): We'd like you there at 6:15 if you could, or as close to. We're leaving at 6:30, but there are some people who want to change and that, so the quicker, the better. Then we can get there.

Thank you for your attendance and everything. I'll adjourn and see everybody out in the parking lot.

Access to on-line versions of the report of proceedings (Hansard)
and webcasts of committee proceedings is available on the Internet.

1) Professional Arts Alliance of Greater Victoria	Doug Jarvis
	Heather Lindsay
2) Camosun College Faculty Association	Darryl Ainsley
3) Greater Victoria Harbour Authority	Curtis Grad
4) Nicole Bottles
Christine Powell
5) Cowichan Women Against Violence Society	Jane Sterk
	Cathy Welch
6) Camosun College	Peter Lockie
7) Decoda Literacy Solutions	Brenda Le Clair
	Jacquie Taylor
8) Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce	Janet Crocker
	Bruce Carter
9) Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C.	Simon Philp

12) Canadian Diabetes Association	Serge Corbeil
	Ellen Stensholt
13) CARFAC British Columbia; Authentic Indigenous Arts Resurgence Campaign	Lou-ann Ika'wega Neel
14) PISE (Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence)	Robert Bettauer
15) Moms Like Us	Beth Danskin
	Jackie Powell
16) Victoria Lyme Disease Awareness and Support Group	Merina Brisdon
17) Camosun College Student Society	Rachael Grant
18) Inter-Divisional Strategic Council; Child and Youth	Valerie Tregillus
Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative	Susan Stovel
19) Alma Mater Society of UBC Vancouver	Tanner Bokor
20) Gregory Bell

Chair:	* Dan Ashton (Penticton BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
Members:	* Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	* Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	* Wm. Scott Hamilton (Delta North BC Liberal)
	* George Heyman (Vancouver-Fairview NDP)
	* Gary Holman (Saanich North and the Islands NDP)
	* Mike Morris (Prince George–Mackenzie BC Liberal)
	* Jane Jae Kyung Shin (Burnaby-Lougheed NDP)
	* John Yap (Richmond-Steveston BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Aaron Ellingsen (Committee Researcher)
	Sarah Griffiths (Committees Assistant)

Witnesses:	Darryl Ainsley (President, Camosun College Faculty Association)
	Gregory Bell
	Robert Bettauer (CEO, Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence)
	Tanner Bokor (President, Alma Mater Society of UBC)
	Nicole Bottles
	Merina Brisdon (Victoria Lyme Disease Awareness and Support Group)
	Bruce Carter (CEO, Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce)
	Serge Corbeil (Canadian Diabetes Association)
	Janet Crocker (Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce)
	Beth Danskin (Moms Like Us)
	Hon. Michael de Jong, QC (Minister of Finance)
	Curtis Grad (CEO, Greater Victoria Harbour Authority)
	Rachael Grant (Camosun College Student Society)
	Doug Jarvis (Professional Arts Alliance of Greater Victoria)
	Maureen Kehler (Decoda Literacy Solutions)
	Brenda Le Clair (CEO, Decoda Literacy Solutions)
	Heather Lindsay (President, Professional Arts Alliance of Greater Victoria)
	Peter Lockie (Interim President, Camosun College)
	Lou-ann Ika'wega Neel (Vice-President, Canadian Artists' Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens British Columbia; Authentic Indigenous Arts Resurgence Campaign)
	Tara Parkinson
	Simon Philp (Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C.)
	Christine Powell
	Jackie Powell (Moms Like Us)
	Ellen Stensholt (Canadian Diabetes Association)
	Jane Sterk (Executive Director, Cowichan Women Against Violence Society)
	Susan Stovel ((Inter-Divisional Strategic Council; Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative)
	Jacquie Taylor (Director, Decoda Literacy Solutions)
	Valerie Tregillus (Inter-Divisional Strategic Council; Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative)
	Cathy Welch (Cowichan Women Against Violence Society)
	Paul Weyer
	Romola Wright

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES